The Rescue Man

by Anthony Quinn

  ‘You’re sweet to say so,’ she said, with a blushing smile.

  They were just finishing their coffee when, seemingly out of nowhere, a figure loomed over their table.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Adrian Wallace, looking archly from one to the other, ‘if it isn’t love’s young dream.’ He was looking at Bella, though the remark seemed to be intended for both of them. Wallace was wielding an ivory cigarette-holder, a dandyish prop to go with his pinkie ring and florid bow tie, and he had not lost his habit of standing too closely. The aggressive scent of his cologne perfumed the air.

  ‘Hullo, Adrian,’ said Bella, with notable composure. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, tolerably well, in the circs.’ A smirk began to form on his fleshy lips. ‘I had an intuition I might run across you one of these days.’

  ‘Well, I suppose this would be the place. Wasn’t this your lunching venue with Noël Coward?’

  ‘Yes – though I gather Noël has run off to America. Not very patriotic. Must introduce you to him – if he returns. He might like to put you in one of his plays.’ He flicked his hair back and waited to see if this little sally had made its mark, but Bella refused to be ruffled.

  ‘And how is it at the Echo?’

  ‘Oh,’ sighed Wallace, with a theatrical roll of his eyes, ‘dying, Egypt, dying. We were recently affrighted by a dread visitation from on high –’

  ‘You mean the bomb that fell through your roof?’ said Baines, deadpan, and Bella giggled.

  ‘What I’d like to know, Adrian, is how you can afford to eat here the whole time.’

  Wallace shrugged in seigneurial fashion, as though the opulence of the surroundings had not even occurred to him. ‘A journalist and his expenses are seldom parted – and after dining here you can’t really go back to the Kardomah.’

  ‘But I like the Kardomah,’ said Bella, with a twinkle in her eye that caused Baines to smile. Wallace then noticed the empty champagne bottle lolling in its bucket.

  ‘Celebrating, I see. Now let me guess what that might be …’ His eyes were glittering malevolently.

  ‘It’s my birthday, actually,’ said Bella, before he had a chance to say anything else. ‘My husband’s busy this afternoon, so he asked Tom to look after me.’

  Wallace nodded slowly, as though he understood more about this arrangement than he was being told. He prattled on for a while, then glanced at his watch.

  ‘My felicitations to you,’ he said, bowing his head slightly. ‘I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of your – afternoon together. Cheer-o.’ And he strolled off, leaving behind him an air thoroughly poisoned with insinuation.

  ‘Oh God, what a weasel that man is. All that smirking and hinting and eyebrow-raising – you know, I’d rather he’d just come out with it and call me a – I don’t know – a Jezebel.’

  Baines chuckled. ‘Yes, that’s exactly the word he would have used.’

  They had left the Lisbon and walked down to the Pier Head. The pavements glistened from the showers they had missed at lunch, and the sky was the familiar Mersey shade of watered-down milk. A train on the overhead railway chuntered in the distance, and the dockside traffic stoically worked its way around the scattered bomb debris. They leaned against a rail overlooking the ferry landing stage. The wind gusted off the river, bearing the whiff of tidal salt water, with a bouquet of mudflats and old seaweed in its tow.

  ‘I do like this waterfront,’ said Bella. ‘It must have been amazing in its heyday.’

  ‘It was. I rode down here once when I was a kid.’

  ‘You mean, on a bicycle?’

  ‘No, on a horse. George, my uncle, used to run a stable.’

  ‘Gosh, you’re full of surprises. A horseman!’

  Baines turned about to the Royal Liver Building behind them. ‘I remember when they unveiled this building – before it got so grimy – and I saw the Liver birds for the first time.’

  ‘What are they exactly?’

  ‘Well, they reckon a medieval draughtsman tried to draw a cormorant for the coat of arms, and it gradually metamorphosed into that.’

  ‘So the city’s symbol is …’

  ‘Entirely bogus. Or mythical, if you prefer. And talking of birds …’

  He related the story of the parrot, and was rewarded when she threw her head back in a paroxysm of mirth. How wonderful it was, he thought, to see a woman laugh, really laugh – the sort where she forgets herself and opens her mouth so wide you can see the ribbed pink cavern and the horseshoe curve of teeth at the back. They continued to gaze out at the river, past the funnels and derricks, past stricken battleships that had sought refuge from the Atlantic conflict. Seagulls screeched ignorantly overhead. Clouds were shouldering their way across the horizon – there would be rain again. He suddenly saw the pair of them as two explorers standing at a summit, looking out on the wide unreadable expanse of their future, with a decision to be made: press on, or turn back. When he offered her a cigarette she didn’t respond, for she was still lost in abstraction. Eventually she broke in on her own train of thought.

  ‘I suppose that’s why it’s always felt so sad …’

  ‘What – Liverpool?’ asked Baines, trying to pick up the connection.

  ‘Mm … because people have always been leaving it behind. This was the last of England they saw, before sailing for the New World.’

  He thought he heard a wistful note in her voice. ‘You sound as though you’d like to be among them,’ he said, with an uneasy laugh.

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Honestly – no. I don’t think I could survive anywhere else. It’d be like a polar bear leaving his ice cap.’

  She smiled, but didn’t say anything for a while. Then: ‘I envy you, really. I’ve never felt rooted to a place. For the first ten years of my life we moved – all over. Then after my parents died Nancy and I were sent to an awful convent school in St Leonard’s. In the holidays we stayed with our aunt in Wimbledon.’

  ‘So London became your home.’

  ‘Only by default. I never felt especially happy there, either.’

  Baines sensed a distance opening up between them, and wanted to close it quickly. Trying to keep his tone as nonchalant as he could, he said, ‘If you ever go looking for a place where you might feel at home … wherever it is, would you – take me with you?’

  ‘You mean, you’d leave here? What about the polar bear in the Arctic?’

  ‘I’d try to adapt.’

  She looked at him appraisingly, then leaned in and kissed his cheek. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose I could make some room in my luggage for you.’ There was a smile in her voice as she spoke, but he found no comfort in what she said.

  * * *

  He had left the party early, too nervous of being in the same room as Richard and Bella, and now had the final stretch of Eames’s journals in front of him. The architect’s handwriting was more cramped than of old, and the last twenty pages or so featured more drawings than actual entries: traceries, ornaments, arches, pediments, mouldings and a certain style of capital to which Eames returned obsessively. There were drawings of foliage, and what seemed to be the Nine Muses of mythology. These gradually gave way to sketches of a cormorant – or was it a Liver bird? he wondered. But the final pictures were the most interesting, for they were all of a single figure, a man in an armchair reading a book, with the foot of his crossed leg resting at an angle, just so. He counted around twelve variations of this figure, each subtly different from the last. He turned back to his place in the journal and began to read.

  March [1868]

  I have lately found myself returning to the earliest entries of this journal – only seven years stand between then & now, yet what changes have they wrought upon me. I wonder at the lightness of spirit, the gaiety, that sports through those first pages, & seem hardly to recognise myself. In that time I have gained a wife, two children, a house, & a reputation of sorts. I have lost, alas, a beloved brother, whether through my own neglig
ence or else some fatal weakness in his character I cannot say – only that the sorrow of it sits heavily on my soul.

  Tuesday, Seventh April 1868

  Searching through a drawer of my desk I came upon the pawn tickets which I found in that last dismal room of Frank’s. I had hidden the things away, but now felt able to recover whatever it was he had staked in those final weeks. The pawnbroker’s was a narrow slice of a shop on Parliament-street, wherein the dingy odour of all the clothes & sticks of furniture still awaiting reclamation polluted the air – the very miasma of poverty. I paid the clerk the pitiful interest & received across his counter a box of half-forgotten sundries – some Herdman sketches I had once loaned to Frank, his own topcoat & riding boots, candlesticks taken in the burglary at Abercromby-sq. – & a pair of old silver nutcrackers, which I now recalled from a time when Ma and Pa allowed us two, as very small boys, to come down to dinner and crack walnuts for our guests. I replaced them in the box, tied a knot upon it & carried them out. But I had walked no more than ten yards along the street before I had to stop, & leaning my head against the wall I wept – wept tears of hopeless misery.

  Thursday, Thirtieth April [1868]

  Urquhart rushes into my office this afternoon in a state of high excitement. The new building about to begin on Paradise-st. has run into trouble & the architects (I know not which) have been dismissed. Now Urquhart has it on good authority that the developers, in search of a replacement, want ‘the fellow who made the glass house’. This, it would seem, is myself. I know that I ought to embrace it as a good omen, for opportunities seldom come my way, and the emolument from such an enterprise might be tremendous. Yet I have little relish for it. Those speculators may offer a good premium, but I have a certainty they will not be satisfied with merely contracting their architect – they will demand to know the cost of this or that, & whether a certain material cannot be substituted for a cheaper one. They will not ask the important, necessary questions: Is this a well-made building? Is it graceful & pleasing to the eye? Is it speaking the truth about itself? But Urquhart, the good fellow, seemed so enthused by the prospect of work that I had not the heart to make objection.

  May [1868]

  Rumour is, of all pests, the swiftest. A report in today’s Mercury avers that the Paradise-st. consortium has entrusted its new building works to the care of Mr Eames of Tithebarn-st. As I remark to Urquhart, this is a revelation both to them & to me.

  8th May [1868]

  On my desk lies a letter requesting my services as architect on the Paradise-st. enterprise. A decision is required by the end of next week.

  11th May [1868]

  This morning arrived a hastily scribbled note from my old employer, Sandham, whom I have encountered from time to time at guild dinners & suchlike. He begged my pardon for the short notice, but would I oblige him by coming to dinner at his house this evening? – for he had just received notice that he would be entertaining a ‘renowned personage’ whom he felt certain I should ‘particularly’ like to meet. I was intrigued & replied in the affirmative, then passed the rest of the day idly wondering who this personage might be.

  I duly presented myself at Rodney-street, & was led into a drawing-room thronged with august-looking gentlemen, many with beards as thick as rooks’ nests & all talking at immoderate volume. Some few ladies present. There was, I should say, a palpable excitement in the air, yet I could not ascertain its source. Sandham came over & expressed his delight at my attendance, but any expectation that he would reveal the mystery of his honoured guest was dashed, for almost immediately he broke off to welcome some others. I supposed it characteristic of the old dodderer to have forgotten altogether his reason for inviting me. I circled the room, nodding at acquaintances here & there, until I saw standing at the fireplace another fellow I believed I recognised, but could not place – slowly it dawned upon me that I knew him only from portraits. Perhaps I had been staring, for the man had now turned his penetrating gaze directly upon me; it seemed at first a rebarbative countenance, there was something fierce around his bushy eyebrows, but a gentle smile suddenly altered his aspect & invited me to approach. I knew before we had even shaken hands that I stood in the presence of John Ruskin. Let me describe him: rather tall, with a thin face & prominent nose, a slight hang to his bottom lip. His large side-whiskers flecked with grey. He wore a smart greatcoat with a brown velvet collar, & at his throat a blue neck-cloth – the effect at once formal & quite raffish.

  As if in a dream we began to talk, & I heard myself answering his enquiries about my work. (I told him truthfully that the iron frame of Janus House was indebted to his inspiration.) There was about him such a kindliness & humility that I felt most oddly at ease, though I sensed withal an effort in his manner – there was no true gregariousness in him. He told me that he had been visiting a favourite school of his in Cheshire, & that he would sail the following day for Dublin, where he was to deliver a lecture. He added, confidingly, that he also had hopes of seeing a ‘young friend’, very dear to him, who was resident in Kildare. He smiled again as he said this. I was flattered to have been a recipient of this little disclosure, & hoped he might say more. (The scandal of his broken marriage is still whispered about.)

  Dinner was served, & I found myself seated at the other end of the table from my recent interlocutor. I confess I was poor company to the lady on my right, for it was all I could do not to keep spying on the great man as we ate our pork & applesauce, & wondering whether, behind that benign but clouded phiz, he actually listened to old Sandham’s ceaseless prattle. I had resigned myself to passing the remainder of the evening at such a distance, but when the ladies withdrew & the port was passed around I found – mirabile dictu – that Mr Ruskin had occupied the vacant seat next to mine, & we resumed our talk as if we were friends of old. He asked me whether I enjoyed the port (his late father, he said, was a wine merchant) & laughed when I said I would prefer a pint of champagne. Talk turned again to architecture, & emboldened by his show of interest I told him about the speculative building on Paradise-st., & confessed how little enthusiasm I had for the thing. He looked at me very earnestly, & said, ‘You ought only to build that in which your heart can rejoice.’ I replied that the emolument would be substantial, but he shook his head. ‘You cannot set an emolument against your instinct – money will not buy life. Work should be done with a will, or with a delight; otherwise it were better that it were not done at all.’ By now I sensed others crowding in, awaiting their turn with the sage; I rose & thanked him, & he bowed his head graciously. I wished him a safe crossing to Ireland, & bade him good-night.

  As I sit writing by this lamp, I wonder at my composure during this interview. To have met the man, an idol to me for years, is a landmark in my life – I trust this will be useful to my biographer!

  12th May 1868

  I poured all of this out to Urquhart at the office – ‘Ruskin? – John Ruskin?’ he asked, with a look of wonderment he could not have outdone had I reported a colloquy with the shade of Socrates. He was much less impressed, however, upon learning that I had declined the Paradise-st. speculation this morning. I quoted a wise man’s words to him: Work should be done with a will, or with delight – or else not done at all.

  3rd June [1868]

  A curious thing happened today. I was at Abercromby-sq. talking to my mother when of a sudden she smiled – the first I had witnessed since our sorrows of last year – & hurried off to fetch something. She returned with a sheaf of papers, which on inspection were revealed to be drawings & sketches which she had preserved from my youth. Most of them poor untutored stuff, & I laughed to see them; but one, which I had quite forgot, gave me pause. It was a pencil portrait I had done of Frank, at about one-&-twenty, seated & profoundly absorbed in a book, one leg crossed & his head resting on his hand. I stared long at this sketch, only now recalling my brother’s youthful habit of hiding himself away to read. I thought then of those travel-worn books I had found in his room at Chesterfield-st.
I asked Ma to loan the thing to me, & it sits propped on my desk as I write these words. An idea has taken root –

  8th June 1868

  I break off at this midnight hour – I have barely slept these last three days – to record the precipitous heights of fancy I have been scaling. Having taken to heart Mr Ruskin’s precepts I fell to imagining what building I should most like to design, if there were only my will to consult. The pencil sketch of Frank had begun to haunt me, & I conceived of a building that might be raised to his memory. What else but a library? – designed not for the entertainment of the exclusive leisured few but for that indigent mass to whom it might provide a refuge from care & a solace to the soul. It would be, moreover, a building infused with the spirit of the people, a means of reflecting all that is good & noble in them.

  The despondent torpor of the last twelvemonth fell away, & a vision rose before me – if a library should express a kind of human sympathy it would necessarily require the counterpoint of light & shade. For as a great poem cannot hold us if it propounds only a lyric jauntiness, but must be sometimes serious, & grave, to strike at the truth of this sad world of ours; so there must be in a great building some equivalent expression for the sorrow & mystery of life – & this can only be achieved by the subtleties of shadow and the nuances of gloom upon its surface. Thus my plan: a library situated in that part of the town that stands most in need of a light in the darkness, a spur to hope, & a source of beauty.

  20th June [1868]

  Notes on a proposed library.

  The façade to be iron-framed, tripartite, symmetrical, the centre a portal with trumeau; a pair of oriels, recessed, set above reading-room window. Left & right two bay blocks ending in octagons. Along the sides two-storey tiers of oriels.