Only Ever Always

by Penni Russon

  I stand back, trying to see what’s what, scoping another way in.

  Someone grabs my hair before I can reach the door. ‘’Allo, girlie.’

  I can’t pull free. I twist. It aint no screw. I just manage to gander a boy – no, a man, all scrawn, and no hair, only skin on his tight head.

  ‘Whatchoo lookin’ for?’

  ‘Groom,’ I snap. ‘He’s a friend of mine.’

  ‘Groom, eh?’ His grip loosens, but he don’t let go. ‘Well now, I wouldn’t want to bruise no fruit of Groom’s.’

  ‘I aint no fruit.’

  ‘Is that right, girlie? Well, Groom, see . . . I happen to know he’s busy. He’s real busy. Best you let old Pip here look after ya, until Groom gets back. I’ll treat ya real nice, see? Not a mark. Though maybe,’ he reaches out and plucks out a hair, ‘maybe I’ll take a hair or two. Just a little memento, see?’

  ‘Let me go.’

  He plucks another and sniffs it. ‘You need washin’. I got soap. Let Pip do for ya.’

  I twist, searching out Groom. ‘Why’s everyone got themselves lathered about soap all of a sudden?’

  ‘Who else wants to wash ya?’ Pip groans, pressing his cheek against mine, his fingers tangling tighter in my hair. ‘We’s could wash you together. I’m a sharin’ man, Pip.’

  My stomach rises. He’s foul. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t know him. He aint so into sharing. His name’s Doctor. Only I call him Horace. It’s him what sent me here to find Groom. Business.’

  Pip drops my hair like it’s snakes. ‘Doctor? I thought . . . You gotta forget the name Pip. Or on second thoughts, maybe I should forget for ya. Little snip on ya head should do it.’ I hear the flick of a knife. ‘Carve it right out.’ I spin round, fists raised, ready to fight.

  There’s a low growl. I look down and it’s the dog.

  ‘You got a dog?’ Pip tells. ‘What are ya, a Raider?’ That’s when he sees the mark on my forehead and staggers back, looking round over his shoulders. He looks feared now. ‘You are! You aint gonna get her onto me?’ he whines. ‘I was nice, right? I only took a hair.’

  ‘You took two,’ I spit, rubbing my scalp. Dog advances.

  ‘But I didn’t hurt ya none.’ He backs away. ‘I didn’t hurt ya.’

  ‘Where’s Groom?’ I say.

  Pip gestures towards the drumming. ‘In there.’ He leers again, and his face makes me sick in my guts.

  Dog barks and Pip turns and runs into the black, tripping over a group of pipe-blowers and almost falling into their fire.

  ‘Hello, dog. Where you come from? Didn’t I tell you to git?’ Dog presses its body against my legs. It’s warm. Its wagging tail beats against me. I smooth down the fur on its head. ‘Let’s find Groom.’

  At the tent door I’m stopped. ‘Can’t go in without a ticket,’ screw tells. ‘Anyway, it aint fer you. I got daughters and I wouldn’t let them in there neither. You wanna keep safe elsewhere, my love. You trust Ole John.’

  ‘I need to see Groom.’

  ‘You don’t wanna see him now, girlie,’ tells another screw, with a nasty grin. ‘He’s busy.’

  The drumming climaxes again and a roar rises out of the tent.

  ‘Burstin’ time,’ Ole John tells to the screw with the nasty grin. ‘Go in and get young Groom, Juzzy.’

  ‘What for?’ Juzzy spits. ‘We do for what kiddies tell us now? We aint got enough bosses?’

  ‘She got a boss’s mark. Look at her forehead.’

  Still grumbling, Juzzy goes inside.

  Takes him a long time. Afore he comes back there’s a wooden cage carried inside. I crane my neck, but Ole John pulls me away. Dog growls faint and low. ‘This aint no kiddie circus,’ Ole John warns. ‘It aint nice.’ He nods at the dog. ‘Good chap you got there. Reminds me of a shep I had when I was a boy, used to come from miles away when I whistled. But that was before. You wouldn’t remember that, would you? Too young. Even Juzzy in there were jus’ a spring lamb. This aint no world to be bringing up kiddies, that’s fer blinking sure.’

  Juzzy leads Groom out. When Groom sees me he looks down, small and shamed. His cheeks are coloured and his eyes dart away like black mice in a room, sliding from one shadow to another, not fixing on me. A tall thin silver girl’s arm is wrapped round his neck, she’s whispering in his ear, her hand creeping down to his privates. My stomach twists. Groom shrugs her away. She don’t seem to care much. She pouts and moves on to Ole John, trying to wind her arms round him, but he pats her kindly on the back and pushes her towards the opening. I notice Ole John don’t check her ticket, maybe she’s part of the show.

  ‘Clara! What are you doin here? What happened to you?’ Groom grabs my arm and drags me away. I glance back at the tent to remember my manners, but Ole John and Juzzy is busy taking tickets, and seeing others out. It seems one show’s ended and another’s about to begin.

  ‘What’s in there?’ I ask. ‘What’s bursting time?’

  ‘Why you here, Clara? If I’d known you were comin, I’d a looked after you. Did you get beat up? Night markets isn’t for wanderin alone.’

  ‘I don’t need looking after,’ I snap. He looks wounded. ‘I need medicine.’

  ‘You sick?’ He looks at dog in disgust. ‘What’s that? You keepin dogs now, Clara?’

  ‘I didn’t feed it or nothing. Just keeps showing up when it’s needed. Unlike some.’

  ‘That aint fair.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I wobble on my feet.

  ‘Clara? You are sick!’ Groom pulls me down to sit on the hard ground under a lantern hanging in a tree. He wraps an arm round me and squeezes me. It’s nice. I like it. I want to stay like this, to rest against his chest. But I think of the silver girl wrapped round his neck and I pull away.

  ‘No, I aint sick. Just tired.’

  ‘Come with me. I’ll take you to the Zone and you can sleep a while. I’ll make up a bed for you, warm as a nest and bring you honey on a spoon.’

  ‘Can’t sleep. Need medicine. Andrew’s sick.’

  ‘Andrew! He sent you out in the dark?’

  ‘He didn’t even know it were dark. He’s dying, aint he? He sent me to Doctor.’

  ‘You went to Doctor’s house? Clara, are you cracked?’

  ‘He wouldn’t give it to me.’

  ‘I coulda told you he wouldn’t and saved you a trip!’

  ‘He would have. Andrew’s his favourite. But he was entertaining.’

  ‘You cut his party? You are cracked. Did he kill you?’

  ‘I kicked his nose. And spit in his eye.’

  Groom leaps up and paces. The dog watches him, back and forth, back and forth. ‘Clara, Clara,’ he groans. ‘What are you doin to me?’

  ‘I aint doing nothing to you. This is about Andrew. I gotta get him well.’

  ‘What’s he need? What sort of medicine?’

  ‘Antibiotics.’

  Groom shakes his head. ‘You won’t get ’em here. I’m sorry, Clara.’

  ‘What? You can’t know that! You gotta check first. Ask round. Someone’s got ’em.’

  ‘This is my market. Trust me, I know. There’s no line for that sort of medicine here. It don’t have the effect the punters want, know what I’m sayin? You saw ’em. The sniffers and the blowers. They aint lookin to get well. They’re lookin to get high.’

  ‘What about people in the Zone?’

  ‘People in the Zone get sick they stay sick. Unless they got an in with Doctor.’

  ‘But the lady said . . .’

  ‘What lady?’

  ‘The Velvet Lady. She said . . .’

  ‘Velvet?’

  ‘She wore a . . .’ I brush my shoulders.

  ‘Cloak?’

  I nod. ‘She painted this on my forehead.’


  Groom kneels down beside me, his eyes blazing as he tilts my head into the light. ‘You met Boedica?’

  ‘She didn’t tell her name.’

  ‘The Velvet Lady!’ Groom shakes his head. ‘Clara, you know who she is?’

  I close my eyes. Darkness swims. I need sleep. The dog presses itself against me again and I put a hand on its back to steady myself. I shake my head no.

  ‘She’s a Raider!’

  ‘She weren’t no Raider. She were nice, I think. She talked posh, like Andrew.’

  ‘She’s a Raider. She’s the Raider. She’s Boss. She’s bigger Boss than Doctor even, some would say. That’s probably why you weren’t killed for breakin Doctor’s nose.’

  ‘She told me to mind my manners.’

  Groom laughs. ‘Trust you to get Boedica’s mark. But listen, Clara. She aint nice. Don’t let her fool you into thinkin that. She’s given you somethin, she’s gonna want somethin in return.’

  ‘She said marketeers. This is where Doctor gets his medicine.’

  ‘I know where Doctor gets his medicine,’ Groom tells. ‘Or some of it anyways. Clara, they aint gonna be found unless they wanna be found. And they don’t wanna be found. Besides, they deal in money. Where you gonna get money?’

  ‘You telling me it’s impossible?’

  ‘Well, with my contacts,’ Groom puffs himself up, ‘maybe in a week or two . . .’

  ‘A week or two! He’ll be dead by then.’ I stare at Groom. ‘You just don’t want to help cause it’s Andrew. You want him to die.’

  ‘You know that aint right.’

  ‘You just want to keep me. You’re as bad as Pip.’

  ‘Pip?’

  ‘He said I was your fruit.’

  ‘Fruit? What are you gabblin, Clara? You’re all tangled.’

  I stand. I aint wasting no more time. ‘I gotta go.’

  ‘Stay until mornin. It aint safe.’

  ‘I got dog. It looks after me. And I got this mark.’

  ‘You got Andrew. You got the dog.’ Groom’s voice strains against the dark. ‘You got Boedica’s mark. You don’t need me.’

  ‘I did need you. Didn’t I? I asked. But you won’t help.’

  ‘Not won’t. Can’t.’

  ‘I gotta go. If I can’t . . . if I can’t get medicine, then I gotta at least . . . go home.’

  Groom grabs my hand. ‘If it were me who were sick, would you look after me? Would you get medicine?’

  ‘You got the silver girl for that,’ I say, black-hearted. ‘I’m for Andrew and he’s for me. He never asked nothing from me afore, he’s only ever always looked after me, like he were a brother or a father. Andrew’s what’s mine.’

  ‘I’m yours too, you just gotta say. I’m more yours than any brother. Will you have me, Clara?’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Clara! Please. You know I’d get antibiotics if I could. But I aint the all-powerful you think I am. If that Velvet Lady can’t get ’em to you, aint no one who can.’

  I feel dog’s breath on my ankles, as I stride away from Groom’s light, into the dark. And I feel, pressing against my eyes, the burning salt of tears. Aint no mark to protect me from what I feel, but I wish there were all the same.

  ‘She’s lookin’ in all the wrong places. Isn’t that right, Mum?’ Dolores’s voice floats out of the darkness. I’ve passed her table, but I stop. Dog’s fur bristles. ‘You’re not gonna get them pills you want from here. You gotta go back there.’

  ‘Back to Doctor? He won’t never give ’em to me. Not after I kicked him.’

  ‘You kicked Horace?’ She rasps a laugh. ‘Hear that, Mum?’

  ‘Expect bold showing,’ the tent-voice behind her creaks.

  ‘So you said, Mum, so you said. In the money, you reckon?’

  ‘Shows strong stable.’

  ‘You heard her. Straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.’ Dolores chuckles, wheezily. ‘No, no. Not Doctor’s. Take it from me,’ she lulls, ‘you want to go back there. Didn’t old Dolores give you the key, just this morning?’

  ‘To fairyland?’

  ‘Fairyland?’ Dolores wheezes again. ‘That’s right, that’s right. You turned the key, didn’t you? You opened the door?’

  ‘There was no door,’ I mutter. ‘There was bubbles. Leaky bubbles.’

  ‘You didn’t do it right, did you? She didn’t do it right, hey Mum?’

  ‘Chance with suitable conditions. Needs more ground.’

  ‘There you go. Can’t get clearer than that.’

  I can barely see Dolores. Her lantern is out, there’s only the light from the tent and her mother’s dark shape. The night presses in, there aint no moon no more. I peer into the darkness. Is she unsprung?

  ‘But how am I s’posed to get back there? How am I s’posed to stay long enough to find medicine? I was in and out, soon as the music stopped.’

  ‘You gotta walk through the door. But you need the key. You always need the key.’ She strikes a fizzing match and lights her lantern again. ‘You go along now, girl. I’ll get Mum hunkered down then I’ll follow along behind. You’ll be gone and back in a blink of an eye and then we can settle up. Now, mind me. You know what happens to little girls who don’t pay what they owe, don’t you?’

  I don’t know. But the voice in the tent creaks like an old bird, ‘Scratched. Scratched. Scratched.’

  ‘That mark on your forehead won’t protect you from everything. Boedica don’t frighten me none. I got powers of my own. Now, off you go, quicksmart.’ She leans down to dog, holding up her lantern. ‘Dog’ll snuffle them out for you, all right, won’t you, Devil? You’ve got the scent, don’t you? ’Andsome fellow, that you are.’ Dog raises a lip and growls at her. Dolores raises a lip and growls back. ‘Now listen, girlie. You get this one little thing and that’s all. You can’t go snatching willy-nilly this and that or everything will be turvy-topsy, all fall down. Just take a little at a time, just the skim of a skerrick, a bit o’ nothing out of all that plenty and no one will be noticing, but go hauling and carting . . . well. There are rules for thieving. This aint no lawful quarry, in empty hearths. You is taking something, just a little something and no harm done, but taking all the same.’

  I nod. I aint altogether comfortable with thieving, cause Andrew always insisted not if we can live at being honest, but what use is goodliness in this case? No harm done, like Dolores tells. Just a little something from plenty, what won’t be missed, and I will have Andrew back, to tell me how it’s wrong.

  Dog and I leave the territories of market. We walk back through the dark and we’re left untroubled. Raiders is quiet tonight, and I got the mark. The night is long. Morning aint nowhere near even though I feel like I’ve lived two long nights already. Night of Doctor and the Velvet Lady, one. Night of Pip and the screws, Dolores and market and Groom, two. And now another’s starting.

  I’m puzzling over what Dolores tells. The key and the door. I guess the key is the wind-up on the music box. I aint worried about the key, ’cept I’ll have to budge it again. But where’s the door? And how much more will I owe? If I use the music box to save Andrew’s life, will Dolores’s price go up? I don’t even know what she wants in return, but I reckon I’m getting pulled further and further in to her darkness.

  When I get home I tell dog to wait while I get the key. I lean down and ruffle its fur, one way smooth, one way rough, like the lady Boedica’s cloak.

  Andrew’s yellow and breathing. He wakes when I come in, leastways his eyes open, but he don’t see nothing, or maybe it aint Andrew looking out no more. I step over him to get the music box, but he grabs my ankle.

  ‘There’s someone upstairs,’ he tells. ‘I can hear them walking around.’

  I shake him off. ‘There aint no one there,
it’s just being sick makes you hear things. Go back to sleep.’

  ‘Shuffle shuffle. Sad steps. Like she’s wearing slippers. Remember slippers? And a warm dressing gown that’s been hanging near the heater while you have your bath? Milk and raisins and stories before bed?’

  ‘No.’

  He listens. ‘She’s looking for you, but she can never find you.’

  ‘She aint looking for me. Aint no one looking for me.’ I grab the music box. ‘Listen. I gotta go out. Your Doctor didn’t want to help you none, and the Raiders and Groom weren’t no help neither. So I gotta try somethin’ else.’

  Andrew tries to sit up. ‘I can hear music. Can you hear it, Clara? It’s sweet. It hurts.’

  ‘No. I can’t. Did you hear me? I gotta go.’

  ‘It’s coming from upstairs.’ He makes a humming sound and I recognise the tune. I look up at the ceiling. Music? A key and a door. The locked room upstairs – is that what Dolores was telling?

  The music makes Andrew whimper. Then he falls quiet.

  I kneel down and wipe the slick from his forehead. He blinks. ‘Clara?’ he asks foggily. ‘Is that you? Are you home?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I tell. ‘Soon.’

  Andrew closes his eyes and goes back to proper sleep. I take the music box, some candles and my little box of tools and parts I use for the crumbles. I shut the door behind me.

  ‘Well, dog. We gotta go up. You know what up is?’

  If dog does, then it don’t know any better’n me how to get to that room. Dolores’s old mother was right about something, anyways. I need more ground.

  I find a sheltered part in the front of the house and light a candle.

  ‘First things first. Door aint no use if I aint got no key,’ I say.

  I unscrew the wooden base of the box and find the mechanism inside, cogs and a little metal pipe with pins sticking out and a little sliver of metal that spins to turn the cogs. There’s a metal casing and this unscrews too. It’s tricky work by candlelight and I gotta be real careful about where I put the little tiny screws, tipping ’em into the scooped bowl of the wooden base. I see the problem, there’s a piece of ribbon, metal and fine, flapping, when it should be coiled like a spring. I carefully loop it back. The last trick is to catch the little eye on the end through the hook in the casing to hold the spring in place. Then I screw it all back together.