Spiders like black knots in corners. Bugs crawling on her arms, invisible. Dirt under her nails. Get it out. The sun, hot on her neck. Spring must have come while she wasn’t looking. But everything grey, still grey. Choking on the smell of lilac.
A summer-house. The stink of musty cushions. Shaking too much to do up her buttons. The bedroom again, thick with heat, the slick of male sweat on her face. The bedroom, the study, dead summer silence and the suck of wet flesh on hers. The bedroom. Autumn. Blurring now. Grey flickers of her bedroom, over and over, the edges dulled. Winter.
The old man. The old man. The old man.
I gasped for breath. The air hit my lungs like acid. The study danced in front of my eyes, wavering and doubling as though I was drunk. But I was here, I was present again, and the nightmare was …
Real. It was still real. But now I was outside of it.
She was opposite me. Her eyes were closed. I shut my own to block her out, but in the darkness behind my eyelids I could see her memories – already fading, distant, unmistakably now someone else’s, but still close enough to make me shiver. The old man. Darnay. In her mind she’d refused to give him a name, clinging to the old man as if it was the only bit of power she had over him. But it was Darnay. That benevolent glint in his eye, the warmth, the smooth unscrupulous enjoyment … My skin crawled. I’d liked him. She’d liked him. Before …
I tried to breathe deeply and coughed. It hurt to be back here, in my body. But the pain was good, the pain meant I existed, that she and I were separate.
‘Sir?’
‘What?’ I looked up, blinking until my vision steadied.
She was half standing, half sitting, hovering between the chair and the table as if she didn’t know where she was. ‘Did you want something? I’m sorry, I – must have dropped off – it’s so warm in here.’
‘What? No. You didn’t – I—’
‘Are you unwell, sir? Shall I call someone?’
‘No. No. Thank you. I just need – some time.’ I sounded hoarse, as if I hadn’t spoken for days. ‘Nell …’
‘Yes, sir?’
I looked down. My reflection in the ebony table was like a blurred moon against a dark sky. Shadows swirled in the depths, dancing away as soon as I looked at them directly. I jolted upright, suddenly afraid that I would be sucked under. Nell was twisting the hem of her pinafore, staring at me as if I was at death’s door.
‘Please go and rest,’ I said. ‘You’re tired. Mr Darnay—’ I stuttered on the name, but she didn’t even blink. ‘Mr Darnay said you could. Someone else will make sure your work is done.’
‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘Thank you, sir.’ She turned, paused for a moment mid-step, and then walked out, brushing her pinafore off as if she had only swept the hearth.
The door shut. The sound seemed to echo in my ears, growing into a hum and then a roar, drowning out everything else; then, at last, it faded, and I heard the murmur of the fire and the gaslights, and the faint thumps and voices of the people in the rooms beyond. The clock chimed a quarter, winding up scratchily to a peal that gathered momentum as it went. I took a long breath, testing my body for the old familiar sickness. The darkness bloomed for a second in the corners of my eyes, but as I exhaled I felt the illness pass, leaving nothing behind but exhaustion.
I got up to ring the bell for the maid, so she could call Lucian Darnay; but I paused with my hand outstretched, grimacing at the bitter taste in my mouth. The hearth, the reflection of the gaslights in the glass cabinet doors, the grandfather clock with its smug-faced rolling moon, the rich Persian rug on the floor … I met the stare of the china spaniels on the mantelpiece, blank over their curled whiskers. I had dusted those, and ached to smash one against the wall, and I had been too frightened to do it. I had polished the grate, desperate to finish it before the old man came in and found me; I could feel the grit of the blacking under my fingernails, the smears I found on my thighs afterwards … Everything was tainted with Nell’s memories.
I picked up my bag. Next to it on the table was a book-block: a neat pile of unsewn pages, covered with dense lines of writing. I caught my breath. I’d done that. I didn’t remember, but I must have done, it was my own handwriting. I blinked, suddenly feeling the burn in my wrist. Of course it had been me; who else could it have been? It took me a long moment to master myself enough to reach out and pick up the pile of pages. I pushed them into the bag and slung it over my shoulder.
I didn’t stop to think about what would happen when they found me gone, or what de Havilland would say when he heard I’d bolted. I slipped out into the hallway, my heart pounding as if I was a thief. Through the archway at the end of the passage was the hall, tiled with black and white, with a bank of ferns at one side and a figure behind them who stopped, appalled at the sight of me. I realised it was a mirror. The staircase curled above, hung with portraits, but I didn’t pause to look up as I hurried to the front door. I bent to undo the first bolt, and fumbled with the next. My elbow caught a porcelain umbrella-stand and the base scraped loudly on the marble floor.
‘Where are you off to?’
A cool, curious voice, one that made my hand slip on the handle of the latch. I spun round. It was Darnay; but the young Darnay, not the old. That was something.
‘Going,’ I said.
‘Going where? We’re having dinner in an hour. De Havilland always stays.’
‘No.’
‘You can’t go yet,’ he said. ‘Even if you’re not hungry, my father will want to see you before you leave.’
I shook my head.
‘Are you ill?’
I opened my mouth to answer, but there was no point. Instead I turned to the door and wrenched the bolt as hard as I could. After a second’s resistance it gave way. I reached for the third one.
‘For goodness’ sake, let the maid bring you some dinner. Then my father will come and pay you and then you can leave.’
The bolt slid to the side with a sudden rattle. His shadow fell across me, and I felt his touch on my shoulder. I whirled round, swinging out blindly, and my fist thumped into his ribs. He staggered and grabbed at me.
‘Just – calm down – I’m only—’ His breath was sweet with alcohol fumes. For a second I fought him, breathless. His face in front of me blurred, flickering with Nell’s overlaid memories: he had never paid attention to her, never offered her help …
He dragged at the strap of my bag, and it broke. I tripped and landed on my knees. The bag fell, throwing its contents across the floor. Nell’s pages flew everywhere, a storm of white wings, and drifted slowly to the floor. In the silence, a door slammed somewhere in another part of the house.
He was the first to move. He glanced around, a quick furtive look, as though he was afraid someone had heard; then he pushed himself to his feet and started gathering the paper in handfuls, not quite carefully. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘help me, will you?’ But by the time I rose from my knees he was picking the last few off the side-table and pushing them into the bag with the rest. When he had finished I thought he was going to hand it to me: but he turned away.
‘You can wait in the study. Come on.’ He went back the way I’d come without looking over his shoulder, and I walked helplessly behind him. He was sweating; the dampness made his hair clump together where it touched his neck, and his collar was greasy and translucent along the top edge.
I followed him into the study. He put my bag down on the table. A few white corners peeked out of the top, creased and dog-eared. He glanced at the clock and silently offered me another glass of sherry. I hesitated, but I took it. He watched me sip, and then poured himself more brandy.
‘Did it – go well?’
I didn’t answer.
He finished his brandy and stood watching me, idly stroking the neck of the decanter. ‘You binders,’ he said, in a new, almost friendly voice, as if he were a host and I were his guest. ‘You give me the chills. What’s it like, when you’re inside someone’s mind? When the
y’re naked, and helpless, and you’re so close you can taste them? It must be rather like fucking to order. Is it?’ But he didn’t expect me to answer. ‘And then you come grovelling to men like my father, for more.’
Silence. The fire scratched and muttered in the hearth.
‘There’s a growing trade in fakes, you know. Does that concern you?’ He paused, but he didn’t seem surprised not to get an answer. ‘I’ve never seen one – well, as far as I know – but I’m curious. Could one really tell the difference? Novels, they call them. They must be much cheaper to produce. You can copy them, you see. Use the same story over and over, and as long as you’re careful how you sell them you can get away with it. It makes one wonder who would write them. People who enjoy imagining misery, I suppose. People who have no scruples about dishonesty. People who can spend days writing a long sad lie without going insane.’ He flicked one fingernail against the decanter, punctuating what he’d said with a tiny clink. ‘My father, of course, is a connoisseur. He claims that he would know instantly if he saw a novel. He says that a real, authentic book breathes an unmistakable scent of … well, he calls it “truth”, or “life”. I think maybe he means “despair”.’
On the wall next to the window there was a dark landscape in an elaborate frame: mountains, a foaming cataract, a half-ruined bridge overgrown with ivy. I focused on it. I wanted to be there, standing on the cracked stone parapet, where the noise of water would drown out Lucian’s soft voice.
‘Then again,’ he said, ‘it makes me wonder about you. The binders. What is it like to steal a soul? To take misery and make it … innocuous? To heal a wound so that it can be inflicted again, for the first time?’
‘That’s not—’
‘You tell people that you’re helping. Taking away pain, making the bad things go away … So respectable. Visiting the grief-stricken widows, the neurotic spinsters, smoothing over excesses of emotion …’ He shook his head. ‘You make it all bearable when nothing else can. Is that right?’
‘I—’
He laughed, and then stopped so suddenly the silence hung like an echo. ‘No,’ he said, at last. ‘That’s what you hide behind. If that was all you did …’ He inhaled through his teeth. ‘De Havilland sees the same servants, over and over. My father has whole shelves of books.’ He pointed at the air with a sharp finger. ‘Mary, for five years. Marianne for three. Abigail, Abigail, Abigail … I can’t remember how many times, because she was one of his favourites. Sarah, twice. Now Nell. And it’ll be Nell over and over, until she’s too old. And you’ll come back for her, every year, and every year it’ll be the same story, and you’ll take it away for my father to gloat over – it’s a double pleasure for him, to read the story from inside her head and then do it all again as if he’s never touched her before.’
‘No.’
‘Yes, Farmer.’ His voice was like a scalpel: so sharp it took whole seconds before I felt the pain. ‘Why do you think he pays you so much? It’s his vice, his clever evil little vice. And when they leave they’re sucked dry, bound for the last time so they don’t remember anything, they’ll deny he ever touched them, they’ll tell everyone he’s a lovely man, delightful, and if ever anyone tries to do something to stop him … He laughs. You understand? He laughs, because he’s safe. When I found out he sent me away and told me I was lucky it wasn’t to the madhouse. And it’s you – you, Farmer, and the rest of you, de Havilland and his friends – that let him do it. That’s why he’s safe. Because you come and do his dirty work.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘no, it isn’t always, it isn’t meant to be like that.’
‘You make me sick. I wish you were all dead. I wish I had the guts to kill you now.’
I met his eyes. Now I recognised him: he had the same face that had looked at me in Seredith’s workshop, hating and hating as if it was the only thing he could do. For a moment I saw the high windows behind him, the wide light of the marshes, and caught my breath.
I might have told him then. I wanted to. I wanted Seredith’s ghost to haunt him. She had helped him, and now she was dead and he was glad; I wanted to see his expression change from disdain to fear, I wanted him to be ashamed. I opened my mouth. He deserved to know. But abruptly, unwillingly, I saw Seredith – just before she died, her hand clutching on the key that hung round her neck, refusing to give it up – and I couldn’t say the words. No matter how much I wanted to throw it in his face, I couldn’t. I turned away.
‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘I’d kill you, if I wasn’t too much of a coward.’
An ember subsided in the grate with a soft rustle. One of the gas lamps flared, and for a moment the room was a different version of itself, full of uncanny light. When the jet steadied again nothing seemed real, not even Darnay standing there glaring at me. Suddenly I was very tired. ‘Yes, I expect you would,’ I said. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. I picked up my bag from the table where he’d left it.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m going.’
‘You can’t. You have to see my father.’ He held out one arm as if he could bar my way. He was swaying, and his undone cuff flapped like a grimy wing.
I looked down at the glass he was holding, tilted now so that the last dregs gathered on the rim, and then into his face. Darkness shimmered over my vision. ‘Tell him I was taken ill, if you want.’
‘He’ll be angry—’ He cut himself off. ‘Look. You have to obey me. You’re being paid to be here. You’re a servant.’
I was itching to hit him; and yet, at the same time, I wanted to fasten his cuff for him, as if he was a child. ‘Complain to de Havilland,’ I said. I stepped round him, towards the door.
‘Wait. Wait. Come back right now.’
I paused at the door. He reached for my shoulder, but now I was expecting it and I twisted sharply to break his grip. He stumbled and drops of brandy spattered the wallpaper.
‘Please,’ he said. His eyes were bright and feverish, steadier than I would have expected.
‘I’m going now. I’m sorry, Lucian.’
He blinked. ‘What?’
‘I just said – never mind. Goodbye.’ I started to open the door; but Lucian reached past me and slammed it shut with a bang. I hadn’t realised he could move so quickly.
‘I said wait,’ he snapped. His cheeks blazed red and he stank of brandy; but his voice was suddenly precise, and his eyes narrowed. ‘Did you just call me Lucian? Who do you think you are? My friend?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘I should hope not. You need to remember your place. You’re my father’s pander, remember? You’re nothing.’ He drew himself up to his full height. ‘How dare you speak to me like that? When I tell de Havilland—’
‘Tell him. I don’t care.’
‘You will be out on the streets. My father will make sure of that. You condescending – you impertinent—’ He stopped, breathing hard. ‘A man – a boy like you …’
I said, as quietly as I could, ‘It’s your name, isn’t it? It’s just a name.’
‘We are not equals, Farmer. Or should I call you …’ He faltered, as if for a second he was surprised not to know my first name.
‘You can call me Emmett if you want,’ I said. ‘I don’t care a damn what you call me. And no, we’re not equals. You think you’re so much better than me, but if you knew—’ I stopped. Something strange had happened to his expression.
‘Emmett …’ he said. ‘Emmett Farmer.’ He frowned, without taking his eyes off my face, as if he was trying to remember.
My heart stuttered.
He turned back to the chest of books on the table. He bent over it, picking up one, then another, putting them to one side. His movements were slow now, almost graceful, as though he had all the time in the world. At last he picked up the one he’d stared at before, a full leather binding, creamy white, with dark spatters of inlay edged with red-gold, as though falling ash had burnt its way through. It looked … damaged. I could almos
t feel Lucian’s fingers on the calfskin.
‘Emmett Farmer,’ he said, in a cool, wondering voice. ‘I knew I’d seen your name somewhere.’ He turned it over, sliding his hands over the pale skin. Then he turned the spine towards me.
I didn’t move. His eyes stayed steady, daring me to react.
EMMETT FARMER.
Some part of me had known. The part of me that had ached with emptiness and misery, that had tried to find the book – my book – the night before de Havilland arrived. I hadn’t been looking for Lucian. I’d been looking for myself.
Binder’s fever. The nightmares, the sickness. De Havilland had called it the binderbound fever. In a flash the name made sense. I’d got ill because I was a binder myself. When Seredith bound me it hadn’t worked, not completely, that was why I’d gone half-mad. And that was why I still felt like this, why Lucian’s fingers on the head of the book made me shudder.
‘Give it to me.’ I still couldn’t catch my breath.
‘I think you’ll find that it belongs to my father now. He has an arrangement with de Havilland.’
‘No!’ I lunged for it. My fingers caught the edge, and my nerves sang as if I’d burnt myself. He’d jerked away just in time, and now he backed towards the hearth, laughing. He was holding the book behind his back, out of sight, but I could feel it there as clearly as if it was my own flesh.
‘A game,’ he said. ‘How amusing.’
I threw myself at him, again. This time he was prepared for it; but so was I. The study spun around us – a punch knocked the breath out of me – but I was winning, driving him back towards the fireplace, so furious I didn’t care how hard he hit me. Then my arms were round him, my knee drove into his groin, and he bent over and retched, his arms suddenly loose. I dived for the hand that held the book and plucked it out of his grasp. I fumbled and it flapped open, but the pages were blurred, unreadable, as if I was seeing them through smoke. I squinted, trying to make them out – any word, anything – but my eyes wouldn’t focus.
The Binding Page 15
