Legendary

by Amelia Kibbie

  “Our journey,” said Arthur in his rumbling baritone. “I suppose that means you’re coming with us.”

  “Well, of course.” A stream of smoke swirled from her nostrils as she hefted the bag again. “You’re only boys, aren’t you? Who will feed you, sew your buttons back on and such?”

  “I work for a tailor.” James raised a dry eyebrow as he lifted his suitcase from the worn grass.

  “You need guidance.” She raised her fingers to her lips and withdrew the cigarette momentarily, perhaps to prove her point. “Consider me your north star.”

  “Well, come on if you’re coming, Miss Polaris.” Lance shouldered his small bag and took the provisions from Mrs. Wylit’s shaking hands. “We have a train to catch.”

  The party was in high spirits. It was a short ride to Rochester, then on to King’s Cross, where they’d change trains and ride up to Grantham. Lance kept them entertained with stories the entire way about his apparently abysmal athletic talent. Arthur, who rarely laughed for long periods of time, had to borrow James' handkerchief at least three times to mop his streaming eyes. He thought Mrs. Wylit might die, the way she giggled and then coughed and wheezed. “Some medicine for my throat.” She opened her purse to fish out the surprisingly ladylike round flask, the one with the knifed-out engraving.

  The cosy train cabin, with the curtains to the hallway pulled shut, and the gentle, womb-like rocking of the coach was nothing short of heaven. Arthur reflected on being there; being there with James, just being who they were. And it was safe.

  There was a delay at the Rochester station. Mrs. Wylit, exhausted from uncharastically enjoying life decided to put her feet up for a kip. The boys left the train to stretch their legs. Arthur and Lance strolled along the front of the yellow brick building while James went to a nearby phone box to call his mother and Mr. Conner.

  A swaggering group of young men, three of five wearing Teddy Boy suits, strutted up the street toward the station. They smoked and swore, and periodically fished combs from their jacket pockets to slick back their hair. Their laughter was edged, fraught with an insatiable hunger for position. Arthur thought it sounded like animals snapping at each other’s heels.

  Lance lit a cigarette, still talking, but Arthur slowed to a stop and watched as the Teddy Boys approached the station. The gang drew up by the red glass-paneled phone box where James spoke. His gestures were animated, exasperated; he must be talking to his mother, Arthur thought. One of the youths, his hair curled into what seemed like an impossibly perfect v-shaped pompadour, slowed as he passed the phone box. He pointed with his cigarette at James inside, and the group of them howled with laughter. Their guffaws increased to a cacophony as their leader mimed James' movements for his friend’s enjoyment. Then, making a fist, he banged on the side of the callbox. James jumped, and perhaps yelped in surprise. This sent the Teddy Boys into fits. James shrunk to the far side of the call box, the phone still cradled in his ear, his face turned away.

  Arthur had stomped several long strides forward before Lance caught up to him and grabbed his arm. “Never mind those cretins. The world’s full of ‘em. We can’t have you end up in gaol, mate. Lord, you’d knock their teeth out their arseholes. Have mercy.”

  Arthur let Lance’s words lower his hackles, but he still made for the callbox and James. As they passed the Teddy Boys at the station doors, one of them sniggered, “Right old harry hoofter, eh boys?” Rage threaded through his veins. Arthur’s meaty fists clenched, but he went to the callbox instead of ramming his right hook into the bully’s smug face. As he neared, James stepped out of the box and closed the door.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” James replied, but there was no mistaking the drawn lines on his face as he frowned, rosy cheeks now soured and pale. “Mr. Conner says I can take as much time as I need. His daughter can help until I get back.”

  “And how’s your mum?” Lance eagerly changed the subject as they returned to the train.

  “Well. She’s quite well, actually.” They settled back into their cabin. Mrs. Wylit snored against the window. “She’s been getting these strange hang-up calls from some pervert. On the daily. But yesterday and today she hasn’t had one, so she’s quite cheerful.”

  “We used to get those in the village all the time.” Lance rummaged about in Mrs. Wylit’s grocery sack for a box of biscuits. “Someone calling and breathing like that. It turned out to be my Sunday school teacher. Well, they got rid of him after that. His wife turned him in.”

  Their conversation woke Mrs. Wylit. She was grumpy at first, but then sat back, as contented as a woman watching her own children play in the yard at dusk. They got on the subject of films and began doing their best impressions of different silver screen stars. It was a lovely way to pass the time, until, out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw movement in a crack of the curtains, followed by a commotion in the hallway. Through the gap in the fabric, he saw the leering eyes of the leader of the Teddy Boys from the Rochester station. His face twisted into a roar of cruel laughter.

  “James.” Arthur’s voice snapped them all to attention.

  James, responding to Arthur’s conspicuous irritation and rising temper, turned and saw the gang of young men peering through the crack in the cabin curtain. Yapping like hyenas, they dashed off down the hall, presumably to another car.

  Their sanctuary broken, they rode in gloomy silence to King’s Cross.

  As they disembarked onto the crowded platform, Arthur handed James his suitcase, and turned to Lance. “Are you with me?”

  Lance nodded, and passed off his bag to Mrs. Wylit, who sagged beneath the weight of her luggage and his.

  “Don’t,” James advised to their backs as they turned to walk away. “It’s not worth it.”

  “Meet us at the next platform,” Arthur called over his shoulder.

  They found the Teddy Boys strutting off the platform and into the station, making rude comments about a woman’s blouse as she hurried along with her baggage away from them.

  “Oy!” Arthur thundered. “Over here.”

  The gang turned, and grinned when they saw who it was. “Where’s your pet fairy?” The leader flicked his cigarette at Lance’s feet. Others on the platform, sensing danger, gave them a wide berth.

  “If you’ve g-g-got s-something to s-say, t-then...” Arthur’s rage brought back his long-buried stutter from childhood, and his throat choked itself off. He swallowed. It felt like hot gravel in the back of his mouth.

  “Then say it to us,” Lance finished for him.

  “Piss off, twats,” the pompadour-crowned one snarled. He stepped forward to shove Arthur, but he might as well have pushed a tree trunk. As he stumbled back, Lance stuck out his foot and tripped him.

  The ensuing brawl was short. Lance and Arthur fought together as if they’d trained side by side; even as the punches were flying, Arthur thought to himself how uncanny it was. They seemed to know the other’s moves as they were happening instead of reacting to them. Even though they outnumbered their opponents, the Teddy Boys fled after a fraction of a minute.

  Lance and Arthur appeared on the platform to catch their train to Grantham with minutes to spare, with bloody noses and grinning mouths. When they were secured in their cabin, the curtains closed and clipped shut with Mrs. Wylit’s hairpins, James wrapped his arms around Arthur and would not let go for a long, long time.

  Mrs. Wylit fussed over Lance’s nose, and he at last accepted a swig from her flask. “There are few things that are truly satisfying in this world.” Lance passed back her liquor. She took a mouthful of liquid fire, swallowed, and said, “That was one of them.”

  Chapter 8

  James flinched away as an old brass key attached to a small block of wood came flying at his face. Arthur reached out and snagged it from the air.

  “There we are.” Mrs. Wylit stumbled over the heel of her shoe, a bumbling gesture at odds with the noble medieval facade of the Angel and Royal inn that rose behi
nd her, the gilded face of a placid seraphim hovering overhead.

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just lob that at my face.” James heaved a tired sigh that seemed to rack his whole body. The train from King’s Cross was delayed, and the afternoon was unbearably muggy. They’d arrived in Grantham in the evening — too late to take the bus to Welby.

  “Too bad my mother isn’t here.” Lance ground out his cigarette on the walk. He’d smoked more on the journey, James noticed. Out of boredom while they were waiting, surely, but also as a response to kind of underlying irritation. Well, this was his first time dealing with Mrs. Wylit. James half wished he smoked if it would make wrangling her easier.

  Lance went on, “She loves these old carriage inns.” He gestured through the archway to the courtyard within, where, long ago, carriages had come to unload their rich passengers and stable the horses for the night.

  “We could have easily stayed at the guest house we passed near the station.” James hefted his suitcase in his limp, tired arm.

  “Not so.” Mrs. Wylit pulled out a cigarette and raised an eyebrow at Lance. He leaned over and lit it for her, careful to avoid igniting the wisps of hair that escaped her pins. “Something like seven kings and queens have bedded down in this old place through the years. Let me see.” She counted them off on her yellowed fingers. “King John, Edward III, Charles I, George IV, Edward VIII... I can’t remember them all. But history is about to be made again.” She leered at them with a sly little smile. “King Arthur is going to add his name to the royal registry tonight.”

  Arthur could not contain a guffaw of laughter. James sighed, entirely exasperated with Mrs. Wylit’s tiresome antics.

  “Anyway, I could only afford one room.” Smoke shrouded her face as she exhaled. “So we’re all together. I told ‘em you’re all my nephews, so if anyone asks...” She shrugged. “All right. Come along, I’m knackered.”

  The room was small, with only a double bed, but it was theirs — a private washroom even. Lush red carpet matched the bedspread and the heavy drapes, accented with gold and creamy white.

  Arthur fell face-forward on the bed with a mighty thump and a satisfied sigh. Lance jumped on as well and shoved his elbow into Arthur’s ribs. “Shove over, you hog.” Arthur responded by putting him in the kind of good-natured headlock that male friends often share.

  “Lance, you’re on the floor.” Mrs. Wylit tossed him the cushions from a nearby armchair. “Let James and Arthur...” she wiggled her finger indistinctly at the bed, “you know.”

  “And you, Vi?” James asked, his cheeks red at her implication.

  “Be a dear and throw a blanket over me where I fall.” She lit another cigarette. With a groan of dismay, Lance leaned over and cranked open the window.

  After a hasty fish-and-chips and a pint (several for Mrs. Wylit) they collapsed to sleep. Arthur waited until he could hear Mrs. Wylit’s snores, and no noise from the floor next to the window where Lance lay. Then he pulled James into his huge embrace, and promptly began to snore.

  The street through the open window was quiet. James lay in the dark for some time. Why can’t I sleep? He suppressed a moan of aggravation. At last, he was back in Arthur’s arms. It felt like ages since they’d been free to really touch each other. Shouldn’t his boyfriend’s embrace lull him to blissful sleep? James was exhausted from travelling and his restless night in Lance’s bed.

  Lance. The name made his stomach flip into a knot. He ignored it, pretended it was too much vinegar on his fish and chips. James peeled himself out of Arthur’s arms and wiggled down to the end of the bed to go to the loo. When he climbed back onto the bed the same way he’d left, he turned to carefully fold himself in to Arthur’s arms again. Something through the window snagged his attention. He squinted. Across the street from the Angel and Royal was a corner building with a mortgage broker’s office. Standing in front of it, beneath a streetlight, was the figure of a man wearing a warped fedora hat that shaded his face into blackness. A long brown coat in an old-fashioned cut hung from his thin silhouetted shoulders.

  James' throat eked out an audible choking sound. He kept his eyes fixed on the man beneath the streetlight, and slid off the bed toward the window.

  He stumbled and fell back on the mattress as his foot sank onto something soft. Lance grunted and sat up with a book in one hand and a small extinguished torch in the other. His eyes travelled from James' astonished face to the window. “What is it?” Lance reached up to clasp James' wrist. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s him,” James hissed. Arthur and Mrs. Wylit continued to snored as he threw his black suit jacket over his pajamas and slammed his feet into his shoes.

  Lance watched the man under the streetlight shuffle his feet, and rub his arms as if he were cold. “James, who is that?”

  “No time — please come with me!” James yanked open the door to the room and dashed out into the dim hallway.

  Lance burst out after him, shirtless, his shoes in one hand, a bathrobe slung over his shoulders. As they ran, he managed to hop on each foot long enough to shove them on. James led him to the end of the red-carpeted hall, to the stairwell, and eventually through the lobby where the desk clerk glanced up sleepily to utter a muffled question.

  As they burst out the front doors, James uttered a bark of frustration. “Where’d he go?”

  The street was empty as far as they could see. James took off across the street to investigate the mortgage broker’s and the streetlight. There was no alley, and no sign of where the man could have gone. “Damn.” James pounded his fist against the light pole. “I can’t believe this. He’s gone.”

  “Easy, mate.” Lance put his arm around James' agitated shoulders and led him back across the street. “What’s going on?”

  “That man, the man in the coat—” James sputtered, the words bursting out in unintelligible spurts.

  Lance pulled the door to the lobby open and ushered James inside. “Sit down, sit down,” He eased James down into one of two red plush armchairs positioned near the dead fireplace.

  “What’s the matter?” The clerk put a sleepy chin in his hand. “Need to call the bobbies?”

  “No, thank you,” James said immediately. That was the last thing they needed.

  “Right, then.” The clerk sat back in his chair and put his legs up on the counter. By the time Lance returned from the room where he’d tiptoed in to fetch James a glass of water, snores floated through the air from behind the front desk.

  “He’s louder than Mrs. Wylit. I didn’t think that was humanly possible.” Lance handed James the water and shrugged on the bathrobe that he’d slung over his shoulder. This deprived the lobby of his shirtless spectacle and curly reddish-gold chest hair.

  James smiled, but it felt weak. He swirled the water in the glass after taking a sip, staring at the tiny whirlpool he’d created.

  Lance settled into the chair opposite James’, and waited a respectful moment before posing his question. “Do you want to tell me what happened, mate?”

  James spat out a self-pitying little laugh. “You won’t believe me. It’s total rubbish. I know it is. I can’t explain why I’m so paranoid. And now I’ve dragged you into the little spy novel I’ve created in my head.”

  “Spy novel?”

  He nodded. “It sounds daft when I say it aloud.”

  Lance slid free of the red plush chair and onto one knee. “James Wilde,” he proclaimed, one hand over the part of the bathrobe that covered his heart, “I swear on my good name that I will not laugh at whatever it is you have to tell me.” He regained his seat. “All right, seriously,” he went on, “please tell me what’s going on.”

  “I woke up for a wee, and I looked out the window. I saw a man standing under the streetlight in front of the mortgage broker’s.”

  “I saw the man you saw,” Lance validated. “Who do you think he is?”

  James sighed impatiently and tapped his fists on his knees. “Let me start ove
r. All right, now, my mum — she’s been getting these strange phone calls. Someone rings and then breathes into the phone.”

  “Right. And?”

  “She told me about the calls, and that must have shaken my nerves. I can’t explain it — but after we heard about Mr. Marlin and were planning our trip to the funeral, I saw a man loitering about not far from where Arthur and I live with Mrs. Wylit. He was wearing an old brown coat, from before the war I should think, and there was... something about him.” James studied Lance’s face a moment, the downturned mouth and concerned brows. “You think I’m nutters.”

  “No, no, not at all. Please, keep going.”

  “Well, I saw him again.” James took a sip of water. “I saw him get on the train that Arthur and I took to Meopham. That’s when I told Arthur about it. And then he went through all the cars and looked, but he didn’t see an old brown coat like I’d described.”

  Lance rubbed his lip with his thumb. “I’m not sure of how seriously to take most of what Mrs. Wylit says,” he said, “but she mentioned something to me while you and Arthur were buying the tickets at the station. Something about Arthur chasing a man dressed for winter into a bookshop.”

  James' eyes popped into green saucers rimmed in white. “What? Arthur never said anything to me. When did this happen? While they were at the shops?”

  Lance’s straight shoulders lifted in a little rueful shrug beneath the blue terry cloth. “I’m not sure, mate. You’d have to ask him.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me?” James leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and clasped his fingers into a worried ball. “It’s not like him to keep a secret.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to worry you.” Lance squeezed James' shoulder with his warm hand.

  “I suppose...” James rubbed his face. “I’m still going to ask him.”

  They sat for a minute, listening to the clerk’s oddly syncopated snoring. Then, “Do you two really tell each other everything?”