Captured Shadows (15 page)

"He loved her very much," I said, clumsy and faltering over the words and the sudden lump I felt rising painfully in my throat. "I did too, you know. I never had a sister, but—"

Then Mrs Wilkes interrupted me gently, barely more than a murmur and looking not at me but at the back of her husband's head as she moved her fingers up to stroke though the dark curls of his hair, the way one might comfort a weeping child: "Oh, Jim. Don't you know you're our family too?"

I left them then as the burn of oncoming tears filled my nose, slipping out of the door as noiselessly as possible while Mr Wilkes reached blindly for his wife and pulled her down to sit on his lap with his face pressed to her neck and his arms twined so closely around her that it must have hurt. I had never been upstairs in their house before and I stepped carefully on the steep staircase with my hand trailing on the wall and the other gripping the balustrade tightly, frightened suddenly of tumbling down like Annie. There was just one room, the size of the living-room and kitchen below but cramped at each side by the slope of the roof. Curtains were hung on strings nailed to the walls and the beams overhead, dividing the space into, I supposed, three rooms for the girls, the boys, and Mr and Mrs Wilkes. As I ascended the steps I could see the blankets thrown down towards the foot of one bed, and tangled in their folds was Annie's rag doll. It struck me then that she was gone, strangely even more so than seeing her before, and I hurried to wipe my eyes on my cuffs in the hope of being able to give Archie the kind of quiet, steady fortitude that his mother was providing for his father downstairs.

Before my head was very far above the level of the upstairs floor I stopped, still clutching the balustrade and the wall, startled to find that Archie wasn't alone. He was sitting in a wooden chair by a narrow
truckle
bed, talking quietly to the person beneath the blankets. It was Sally.

"Your mother must think me despicable," she was saying. I saw her hand move hesitantly from where it lay on top of the blankets, then stop in mid-air as though she were unsure of herself, then move again to curl gently around Archie's wrist. "Now more than ever. The girls all say it ain't even a real baby while it's still inside so's to make it easier when you need to do something about it, I know it ain't the same as someone dying who's actually been alive and been loved, but... I still feel like the worst bitch in the world. And your mother and father's been so kind to me. I'm sure your mother knows the truth and she's still so kind."

"They're kind to everyone," Archie said, wearing that same ghostly, exhausted smile that Mrs Wilkes had given me downstairs. He moved his arm carefully, as though thinking about pulling it away from the gentle grasp of Sally's fingers, but instead he turned his palm over in hers and held her hand. "She ain't the first child they've lost. Joseph died before I was born, William died when I was eight." He stopped for a while, breath wavering through the long exhale of a sigh, and glanced over to the girls' messy bed before twisting his mouth up as though he had stubbed his toe in the dark and quickly looking away again. "It's just, we all had so much
hope
for her. They was only infants but she was so sick for so long and it seemed like she was getting better lately and we used to talk, all of us. About the future. And plans and things." He started to weep in earnest then, bent over with his forehead resting on his fist and his elbow on his knees, hair hanging in his eyes, and the broken sound of it ached through me like a fever. "She wanted to be a photographer like me and Jim – not
exactly
like me and Jim," he added quickly, almost laughing through his tears, and I saw Sally smile and squeeze his hand. "She wanted to go places that weren't all fogged up and stinking and raining like London. She had this atlas book that used to be mine at school, she used to paint over all the countries she wanted to go in Hattie's watercolours. She kept saying one day when she was grown up she'd get on a train to India and take pictures of elephants and tigers and gods with blue skin and send them back home as postcards so we wouldn't miss her so much, but—"

"Jim," Sally said suddenly, seeing me for the first time, and Archie half-stood out of his chair in surprise.

"Is it done, then?"

"It's done." I climbed the rest of the stairs and went to sit on the edge of Sally's bed. "I didn't know you were here."

"Mr Everett said he'd pay a cabbie to take her home from the hospital," Archie said, helping himself to the handkerchief in my pocket and blowing his streaming nose, "and he didn't ever want to see her again after. So I took his money and said I'd arrange it but I got him to drive here instead."

I remembered his face on that dreadful day when Sally almost bled to death in my arms, simmering anger and jealousy and disgust, and my mouth blurted, "Why?" before my brain could intercede.

Archie gave me that familiar look of exasperation, then relented somewhat and shrugged his shoulders. "Where else is she meant to go? She ain't getting money off Mr Everett no more and can't get it off the streets while she's getting better, you'd rather she starves or freezes?"

"No," I said, chastened. I leaned down to kiss her forehead and then, after an awkward hesitation, touched my fingers to Archie's knee to make him look at me instead of his hands. "I'm sorry."

The apology was wider than regretting my thoughtlessness; I was sorry for everything, and found I was unable to express myself in words more complicated than that.
Sorry about Sally, sorry about Annie, sorry about Percival and you and me and all of it, every bit
. Archie must have understood; I felt his fingers twine with mine, and looked up to watch him press a kiss to the back of my hand.

"Don't mind me," Sally said then, smirking and closing her eyes although I was sure I could still see the glint of her pupils between her lashes. "Pretend I ain't even here."

"We probably ought to tell him the happy news," Archie said gloomily, and Sally's eyes flew open again.

"Now don't be angry, Jimmy..."

"Why should I be angry?" I asked warily, looking between the two of them and wondering why they were suddenly avoiding my gaze.

"I couldn't explain to my mum and dad how me and Sally really know each other, could I?" Archie said, fidgeting and avoiding my eyes. "And couldn't really explain how she got, you know, in trouble. I had to tell them we're sweethearts."

"And my family wouldn't let me stay no more when they found out, and the shock of it made the baby come too early and hurt me inside." Her voice was low, heavy with shame at the lie, but Archie let my hand go and twisted a bit of her hair around his fingers instead, smiling sadly at her until she smiled back. "You should've heard the row, Jim, when Mrs Wilkes found out. Chased him round the house with a wooden spoon and called him stupid boy, I never seen a man look so scared of his mother in my whole life. Then all of a sudden she dropped it on the table and come over to kiss me and say sorry it'll be a bit of a squeeze dear but you're very welcome to stay here—"

"'Until
after the wedding
'," Archie mimicked, looking so stricken that I couldn't help but laugh, even with everything that had happened that night.

"Good Lord. I don't suppose we could have ruined our lives any more if we'd tried, any of us." I recoiled when Sally slapped my arm, rubbing at the sore spot and pulling a face back at her when she tried to give me a severe look.

"Be nice. We ain't getting married, of course. We'll pretend we're courting for a bit then call it off, it ain't as though we got a nine-month problem no more. Mr Wilkes says I can help in the shop when I'm better. Perhaps he'll let me stay even if I don't end up marrying his son." She shrugged lightly, a masquerade of indifference that I saw through in an instant. "And if he don't, well, I'll find work somewhere else. The kind of work you're allowed to wear your clothes for, if I'm lucky."

"I want that too," Archie said in a voice so low I could barely hear it. He was staring hard at the floorboards and the threadbare green rug beneath his boots, although his hand still held mine tightly as though he thought I might leave now that my business had been completed. "I keep thinking how much good I could do if I kept on and on doing Whitlock's pictures 'til the old bastard died, but after the way Mr Everett treated Sally, and now without Annie around – is that awful? Knowing I
could
send the little ones to better schools and buy them anything they need and make it so my father don't have to work himself half-dead, then not doing it?"

I couldn't think of a reply to that, feeling foolish and unqualified to talk about family duty since I had none of my own, and eventually it was Sally who took a breath and broke our silence. "I reckon your family's better off than most, you know. Even if you ain't got much. Even without Annie. Jim ain't got no parents at all, nor brothers and sisters. Mine all pretend I'm dead since someone snitched about me working on the street. Your father don't begrudge you nothing, he works himself ragged cos he loves you. He wouldn't want you fretting, and neither would your mother. You know they'd rather have a happy family that gets by alright than one rolling in money you hate making."

"Maybe I will marry you after all," Archie said with a tired sideways smile that made Sally laugh, but his hand was warm in mine, and when at last she began to snore lightly he came to sit on the bed beside me and dropped his head to my shoulder until I feared we might begin to doze as well and his mother or father would find us there, the strangest sleeping trio in London.

Dawn came soon and Archie said he'd walk me home. In fact he told his parents we were going to work, so as not to let Mr Everett down and so we might develop and print Annie's last portrait, but really we had no intention of going to the studio. Sally's words still lingered, and although Archie never said so outright I knew they had moved him deeply, as they had moved me. It was as though Annie's death had become a linchpin on which our futures turned, or an ugly and unexpected fork in the road: left to continue with what we knew, right to take a treacherous and narrow new path of uncertainty.

Back in my room I set the fire and we undressed enough to be comfortable, shedding collars and coats until we sat in the ancient armchair in our shirtsleeves, sharing the space uncomfortably with Archie on my lap even though he was much too big and kept hurting me every time he shifted position; he must have realised it eventually, although I had no intention of telling him, and then he slipped down to sit on the carpet at my feet with his head resting back against my knees. As soon as we were behind the locked door he had taken hold of my hand again, and seemed not to want to let it go. Soon my arm became heavy with pins and needles, and still I said nothing. Comforting a grieving friend was so entirely new to me that I dared not do a thing in the fear of doing the wrong thing, and yet this itself seemed to be what Archie needed of me. He didn't sleep or speak or even move, once he had settled on the floor in front of me, and he didn't cry as he had done the night before; he only held my hand and sat there quietly.

When at last a knock came on the door we had both become so accustomed to the hush that it startled us dreadfully, and I made an accidental noise of astonishment that at any other time would have amused Archie to the point of uncontrollable laughter. Instead he just looked up at me, blinking slowly as though he had forgotten where he was, and I wanted so terribly to ignore the knock and stay safe and still with him in our private little haven for a while longer; but the knock sounded again and again until I was irritated enough to get up and answer it.

I had thought it might be Mrs Bamber asking whether I needed anything, but I suppose I ought to have expected Mr Everett. I stood aside to let him in, and as he passed he put a warm hand on my shoulder as though the harsh words between us on the Friday before had never happened.

He had not visited me at my home very much, but he said the same now as on every visit before: "Jim, won't you let me help you? You could be in a house of your own by next week, instead of a match-box."

Like a ritual I replied, as always, "Thank you, sir, but I want to make my own way," and he sighed and nodded as though that made a distasteful sort of sense.

Archie was still slumped on the floor, but he stood to let Mr Everett sit in the armchair, and Mr Everett muttered, "Yes, I might have known I'd find you here too," and held
out
his hat for Archie to take.

The air between us seemed to grow denser the longer that nobody spoke. We all looked at one other, waiting in stifling silence and none of us wanting to be the first to surrender. It
w
as Mr Everett in the end, as I thought it would be; he was never the most patient man in the world at the best of times, never mind when he clearly had something to say.

"I thought I might double your wages. How does that take you, eh?"

Archie looked at me then, uncertain what sort of game was being played, and I stared at Mr Everett, feeling a rising anger and little urge to keep it tamped down. "We've no interest in working for you any longer, not even for a thousand pounds a week."

That made a falsely bright guffaw burst from his mouth, and he even slapped his knee like a character in a pantomime. "Would that I had the means!"

"Mr Everett," I said as coldly as I could manage, although it was difficult; I had known and respected and loved him my entire life, and even in situations such as this one his manner was so easy to like. "We'll come to the studio to collect our things and our wages, but we won't work for you."

"Well," he said, after a moment of looking between the two of us as though to judge who was weaker and more likely to be swayed by his words, "you see, boys, this causes us all a great deal of trouble."

I wanted to tell him to leave, but I found it impossible not to respond to the maddening conspiratorial tone he always used; I folded my arms and asked him, "Why?"

I remember thinking halfway through his story:
haven't we had enough? Who in the world is having such a wonderful, perfect, blissful few days that this has to happen to us to balance it?

Mr Whitlock hadn't been at all happy that his photographs were delayed.

Mr Whitlock had decided he wanted Archie to be in photographs with Percival exclusively from now on.

Mr Whitlock had gone into great detail about his intent to expose Mr Everett's disreputable business in the newspapers if he didn't get his way.

Throughout the speech Archie stood where he was by the side of the fireplace, still holding Mr Everett's hat, and stared at him in disbelief. I could see the fury in his eyes, the sense of unfairness that this would happen only hours after resolving to live differently, but also the weary resignation, as though he had always known those parts of our lives were far too tangled and barbed to be left behind so easily.

"If he wants to blackmail me then still make me put Percival's prick in my mouth he's only got himself to blame when it ends in blood loss," Archie snarled, and threw Mr Everett's hat hard against the corner of my bookcase so the brim became dented and Mr Everett gave him a thunderous scowl.

"Dear boy, he's blackmailing
me
. It's my business he threatens to drag through the mud."

"Yes, but if your name gets in the papers how long 'til my family knows where I got all that money from? Five seconds I reckon and that's generous. We're all fucking ruined now."

"Only if you don't come back," Mr Everett said carefully, leaning forward and fixing his gimlet eyes on Archie as though I didn't exist at all, and Archie swore viciously and slammed the door of my bedroom so hard behind himself that I feared the wood might splinter.