The Dream Thief

by Catherine Webb

  ‘I’m the chief inspector, Board of Health, Marylebone district. Do you mind if I ask you some questions about certain financial irregularities that have come to our attention?’

  ‘I . . . um . . . no, I don’t . . . I mean, I . . .’

  ‘Most kind of you to cooperate, Miss Chaste. Perhaps if you will just step this way.’

  ‘But the children, I can’t leave the—’

  ‘The children are sleeping peacefully, Miss Chaste. I’m sure you can leave them for just a little while.’

  And here are the sleeping children.

  Not dead, not alive, just . . . peaceful. Utter bland peaceful nothings, lying still beneath their crisp white sheets in the ward in Marylebone. They do not dream bright and wonderful dreams, they do not run from crawling spider-legged nightmares. They do not dream at all, not any more.

  Except, perhaps . . .

  Once upon a time . . .

  . . . there was a child . . .

  . . . who ran away to the circus . . .

  But why would they run away to the circus?

  . . . all alone so ran away to the circus . . .

  . . . Mama and Papa will protect you, children, they’ll keep you safe, so long as you don’t run away to the circus . . .

  . . . once upon a time . . .

  . . . once upon a time . . .

  And they stir in their sleep, the peaceful empty children and, for a moment, as the trains rattle by from Marylebone Station and the chimneys belch and the bells clang and the carts rattle and the donkeys bray and the horses stamp and the boats creek and the city rumbles and the people gossip and the lights flicker and the wind blows, just for a moment, they dream of. . .

  . . . running away from the circus . . .

  . . . a child called . . .

  . . . a great big running away, running from, running to, a great big empty infinity just waiting to be filled . . .

  . . . once upon a time . . .

  . . . there was a child called Sissy Smith, who ran away from the circus . . .

  Sissy Smith pulls the sheets higher above her shoulders and lets out a little sigh in her sleep. She can’t help the feeling that she’s still missing something, some gnawing little detail that is crawling round at the back of her mind, but for now, the dreams whisper on, slithering across silent sleep, and she dreams. . .

  Once upon a time . . .

  . . . there was a child called Sissy Smith . . .

  . . . who ran away from the circus . . .

  . . . and slept for a hundred years, never getting old until the prince could wake her with a kiss . . .

  . . . and they all lived happily ever after . . .

  . . . once upon a time . . . Two figures stand at the end of the bed.

  They’re having an argument.

  One says, ‘It’s never a good idea to know what goes into the medicine, dearest.’

  ‘Ma, I am quite old enough to know what goes into an organic compound of this nature.’

  ‘You used to moan terribly when we gave you your medicine.’

  ‘That’s because you’d always begin by saying “It may taste like a spoonful of dog doings, Horatio, but that just means it’s extra good for you,” Ma—’

  ‘May I remind you, dear, that I made the cure in the first place.’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘And saved your life.’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘After you were so careless as to endanger it recklessly!’

  A sigh of infinite patience. ‘Yes, Ma. Sorry, Ma.’

  ‘Excellent! Now, let me give the children the medicine and you can look on admiringly as a son should in the face of the work of his good old mother.’

  A deflation, a giving up of breath and arguments. ‘Yes, Ma. Sorry, Ma. Thank you, Ma, for making a cure and all. You should use it on the children, seeing as how you made it, when I just went and got myself mortally endangered and beaten up and poisoned and chased and punched and all that for the sake of this moment,’ intoned Lyle wearily. ‘You just go ahead.’

  The sound of liquid sloshing in a spoon.

  The tinkle of glass.

  A hand moves round the back of Sissy Smith’s head.

  A teaspoon is pressed to her lips.

  All things considered, it could have tasted much, much worse.

  Time passes.

  Thomas Edward Elwick sits in the smaller parlour by the fading light of the setting sun, and reads.

  The title of the book is Mr Edgehill-Peart’s Investigations Into and Conclusions on the Relationships Between Density, Pressure, Mass and Thermodynamics. It is a weighty tome covering several weighty topics, and, though Thomas is trying, the tedium of the text is beginning to drag his eyelids down.

  There is a sound at the parlour door, and looking up, he sees his father, who, finding his son reading, immediately clears his throat and says, ‘Oh, excuse me, I will find another room.’

  ‘You can sit here, sir,’ says Thomas quickly.

  ‘No, no, I wouldn’t want to distract you from your studies.’

  ‘Really, Father, I would . . . I mean, sir, it would . . . I’ve nearly finished.’

  Lord Elwick stands uncomfortably in the doorway, scratching at his thinning grey whiskers. ‘Well, I suppose,’ he finally mumbles, ‘if it ’s . . . if you’re . . . you know . . . boy . . .’ The ‘boy’ is added as an after-thought, a reminder as much to Lord Elwick as to his son who is still, theoretically, running this relationship.

  Lord Elwick eases himself down onto the couch opposite Thomas, waits a few moments and then blurts out, ‘So what are you reading, young man?’

  ‘A study into dynamic mass relationships,’ replies Thomas meekly.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It’s entitled Mr Edgehill-Peart’s Investigations Into and Conclusions on the Relationships Between Density, Pressure—’

  ‘Sounds like a load of balderdash to me. Boring stiff scientists, what?’

  Thomas hesitates, feeling the urge to defend scientists and all their wonders rise up as it had so many times before from the pit of his soul. He looks down at the page in his lap, wrinkled with crabbed notes and crawling, unintelligible waffle and feels the pit shudder inside him.

  He closes the book. He smiles. He straightens up, looks his father in the eye for the first time since . . . since . . . looks his father in the eye and says, ‘Yes, sir. It is very dull, sir.’

  Lord Elwick grunts his disapproval.

  ‘You should read proper stories, lad. Read them while you’re young, eh? When you’re a little bit older you’ll have to read that dreadful tedious Gaskell woman that your mother is always on about - the tedium! It will be your duty to attend plays in town which that wretched Bowdler man has gone out of his way to make dull! Read a good swashbuckling novel, that’s the thing for a young man, none of this science stuff!’

  Thomas hesitates, then says, ‘Father?’

  ‘Yes, boy?’

  ‘When you were in the army, did you ever have to fight?’

  ‘Fight! Of course I had to fight! I was in the damn army, what do you think, boy?’

  ‘You never talk about it.’

  ‘Well, no. Neither you nor your mother have ever seemed to be interested. Things that were important at the time are just stories now. Not really important in the grand scheme of things. Not important at all.’

  Thomas leans a little closer. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘What?’ barks the old man.

  ‘Tell me . . . tell me . . .’ Thomas’s eyes glowed. ‘Tell me a story.’

  Time passes.

  On the island of Holyrood, the sound of evening prayers mingles with the swish of the sea and the constant, unending baaing of the thick-furred sheep nipping at the thin green grass. The sun is setting, and soon the tide shall turn its course and rush out, cutting off the island from the land once again as the sandy causeway between one and the other vanishes beneath the sea.

  On this not particularly special night, at
an unremarkably unremarkable cottage there is a knock at the door.

  A woman answers it.

  She is old, stooped, with pinned-back stiff grey hair and a tight black dress wrapped modestly around her bent old frame. But her eyes are bright and green - emerald green.

  Two people stand at the door. One has dark almond skin, straight black hair, bright green eyes and a smile that suggests it was made for laughing. One hand is resting on the arm of her companion. He is old, so old he cannot move without help, every part of him is bent like a gnarled old tree, his thin grey hair falling from his skull, his thick grey eyebrows overgrown above his sunken green eyes. He moves his lips in the little, toothless silent old sounds that the ancients make when they speak a language only they can understand, and keeps his eyes to the ground.

  The woman on the cottage step says, ‘Good evening. My name is Lin Zi. I think you were told we were coming?’

  The lady inside the cottage nods. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Miss Lin. Will you come inside?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ the other replies. ‘I have to get back, and the tide is coming in. Is everything prepared?’

  ‘A nice room upstairs. Do you have any luggage?’

  She is addressing the old man, who, at the sound of the voice, half raises his head, turns it on one side like a curious bird and giggles, drool running down his bottom lip. He sticks a thumb into his mouth and mumbles, ‘Wanna play.’

  Lin pushes him gently inside. ‘He’s very old now,’ she murmurs to the woman inside the cottage. ‘Very frail. He shouldn’t give you any trouble.’

  ‘I understand. Does he have a name?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Lin, ‘his name is Greybags.’

  Time passes.

  A dozen new trains are launched onto a dozen new railway lines, spreading out across the countryside to make here closer to there. People gather and cheer politely, break a bottle of very cheap champagne against the side of each proud green engine, eat the free nibbles provided, and then, their jobs done, slink away. A once unusual event, is getting regular and old, and the trains chuga-chug away into the evening mist.

  Time passes.

  The tide sloshes the sewage of London out to sea, and on the turning carries the ships of the sea into London to off-load sailors and their prizes: tea from the colonies, silk and raw cotton threads, drugs and spices, precious metals and ores, news of rebellions risen and uprisings suppressed, tales of this war in such and such a place, and the glorious victory of the redcoat army. Whispers of foreign gods and Christian deeds, of an infinite world of possibility, secrets washed into the port of London.

  In Lyle’s house in Blackfriars, Tess was interested and pleased to discover that the prospect of imminent death barely averted had produced in Lyle a temporary caring streak that she rapidly learnt to exploit. This exploitation featured no less than three breakfasts in bed over three days, five mugs of hot milk provided over a similar time and, at occasionally ridiculous hours, a whole stack of penny dreadfuls to read, one new pair of shoes, two new sets of lockpicks of different calibres for different jobs, one trip to a new fangled thing that called itself a restaurant and seemed to serve some sort of foreign French food, as if any self-respecting Englishman would choose to eat foreign muck! Two trips to the music hall, three trips to the local bakery and its sausage roll shelf, and a grand total of no baths.

  Of course, no good thing could last for ever, and on the fourth day of this indulgence, Lyle sat by Tess’s bed as he had sat for many nights before to wish her good night and make sure she really was tucked up properly and not about to sneak out and commit larceny, when he declared, ‘You know, Teresa, it occurs to me that I might have been indulging you a little bit—’

  ‘Indulgin’ me, Mister Lyle?’ Tess endeavoured to flutter her eyelashes, which immediately roused Lyle’s suspicions.

  ‘Indulgin’ - indulging, yes!’ he proclaimed. ‘Mrs Bontoft’s Practical Advice says that an indulged or spoilt child is a useless child, an unproductive child, a child who—’

  ‘Why do you read that book, Mister Lyle?’ asked Tess, as sweet as sugar on a rotten tooth. ‘It seems a bit rubbish an’ all. Seein’ as how it’s for parents.’

  ‘Well, I - you know - I’m the patriarch of this household and it’s my duty to . . . to . . . you know . . .’ Lyle flapped uselessly.

  Tess yawned.

  ‘Ah-ha! Time to go to sleep!’

  ‘I ain’t sleepy!’

  ‘You just yawned!’

  ‘Only to make you feel stupid!’

  ‘Don’t give me that, that was a proper yawn. What do you mean make me feel stupid? Mrs Bontoft says that respect for the parent is—’

  ‘Will you tell me a story, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘What?’ he asked, face freezing.

  ‘A story? To send me to sleep.’

  ‘Erm . . . what about?’

  ‘Dunno. Pirates? Sieges? Ohohohoh, do you know anythin’ ’bout that Napoleon bloke? With all the really bloody bits an’ all the stuff ’bout legs being cut off an’ bodies an’ everythin’. Urrrrgghhh!’ Tess stuck her tongue out and bounced happily between the sheets in obvious glee at this prospect.

  ‘Teresa! Polite young ladies neither go “Urrgggghhh!” nor do they take gleeful joy in stories of violent military campaigns!’

  Tess thought about this, face wrinkled in concentration. Then she said, ‘You know, Mister Lyle, I been thinkin’ ’bout this an’ all, an’ I think that perhaps I ain’t a polite young lady after all.’

  Lyle sighed, patted Tess absently on the head. ‘No, you may be right there.’

  The two sat together in silence a little while, not looking at each other, shadows stretched thin across their faces in the light of the dying fire. Then Lyle straightened up and said, ‘Have I ever told you the story of Sir Isaac Newton’s investigations into gravity and calculus?’

  ‘Borin’!’

  ‘No, really, it’s got good bits.’

  ‘Borin’!’

  Lyle bit his lip, and brightened at a sudden thought. ‘It’s got Black Death in it.’

  Tess’s eyes lit up. ‘Really? Is that a really horrid death?’

  ‘Your armpits swell and turn black and little pustules appear on your skin in a rose-shaped pattern, and it’s spread by the rats!’

  ‘Really?! That’s disgustin’!’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘Go on, Mister Lyle! Tell tell tell!’

  So Horatio Lyle cleared his throat and, as Tess edged a little closer to the end of the bed to hear it, he licked his lips, stretched his neck and began.

  ‘Once upon a time . . .’

  But as Lyle would have pointed out, any story with Black Death, even when it’s responsible for world-shattering insights into advanced geometry, mathematics and a re-assessment of mankind’s role in the universe (as well as a vague explanation of why, if the world really is round, all the convicts in Australia don’t fall off ), is hardly a happy ending.

  So it was, that as London slept - or at least that part which didn’t value crowbars in its work - Horatio Lyle stood alone on Westminster Bridge, and listened to the sucking of the river against the new walls of the embankment, the bumping of the little wooden hulls of the ships, the distant jangling of bells caught in the wind, the slow smelly hiss of the gas lanterns, the rattle of a carriage lost somewhere to the night . . .

  . . . not quite alone.

  Not quite.

  Lin said, ‘Hello, Mister Lyle.’

  ‘Hello, Miss Lin.’

  ‘You know,’ she said, leaning over the edge of the bridge to look down at the hint of dark river passing somewhere through the sickly green fog, ‘In my native land, young men are still in the admirable habit of composing epic odes to sacred rivers in a classical vein.’

  Lyle, not sure if this was a statement he was meant to react positively to, settled for a muted, ‘Oh.’

  Lin smiled sideways at him. ‘It’s very pompous.’

  ‘Oh.’

/>   ‘You should see the hats.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And you’d be amazed what they can do with a snake’s heart in Guangzhou.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Mister Lyle?’