Mr. Timothy: A Novel (22 page)

I am more struck, though, by what lies under his cage: a large green-leather volume, with a cracked binding and a front cover so nearly detached that I must pull it open with the greatest care, in millimetre increments. And once I see what the book is, I read with even greater care. I read it front to back, standing there by the cellar door, with the squawks of the departing guests and the final strains of "The Mistletoe Bough" trailing down the hallway, and just this silent parrot for company.

George hooks his hand round my elbow as I make to climb the stairs. --Well, now, Mr. Timothy. Where've you been closeting yourself all evening?

--Just exchanging small talk with a lonely bird, George. Nothing that need concern you.

--Oh, well, you should know by now. Everything concerns me.

--What a great vexation that must be for you.

--Vexations are made to be dealt with, Mr. Timothy.

At night, the door to Mrs. Sharpe's inner chambers feels infinitely larger and denser to the touch. I wouldn't have guessed it, but then, I have never been here at night.

--Mrs. Sharpe?

I rap a little more forcefully, but there's no response, and I have just about given up when I hear a wobbling voice.

--Is that you, my pet?

She looks amazingly slight now, stripped of her crinoline fortification and sitting bolt upright on her daybed. I couldn't imagine sleeping a minute in such a vertical position, but with all the pillows and cushions and shams and coverlets that surround her--and with the columns of rag dolls rising on either side of her--lying down might well be even more difficult. And having additional company would be impossible.

--Mr. Timo...

The last syllable is lost in the daub of cotton wool she presses to her lips. A nip of brandy, I'm thinking, to take the edge off a toothache. But then I see the brown half-ounce bottle, with the word POISON written across it...I inhale the sickly opiate tang...and it takes me straight back to Mother, to those last few weeks when she was downing laudanum like shandy. Of course, she was dying at the time, wasn't she, so no one said anything. Mrs. Sharpe, by contrast, has enough vigor to outlive all of us, and for all that, she is spending the aftermath of her social triumph drugging herself half blind.

--Very sorry to bother you, I say.--I know it's late.

--Scrumptious, wasn't it?

--The party, you mean.

--De-lect
til
-ious.

--Yes, it was.

--My remarks.

--Yes. --Next time a poem, Mr. Timothy.

--I won't fail.

--No, you won't. My pet. My pretty pet.

Hard to say how long she's been going at it. An hour or so, judging from the hard, white, reflective surfaces that have replaced her eyes. She brushes something from her flannel gown, waves off a band of invisible mist. She says:

--You're still there.

--Yes.

--Well, all right, then.

It's so quiet in the room that the voice inside me sounds almost deranged in its force. It is shouting at me to stop. Stop.

For I have other cares to attend to. I have Philomela, stowed away at Gully's--how safely? for how long? I have an emissary of Scotland Yard on our trail. I have a member of the British peerage whipping him on. I have a retinue of ghosts dogging my every footstep.

And don't forget, Tim, the blank slate of your own future, bearing down with new force each passing day.

Oh, you're already rich in worry. Why get greedy?

--Mrs. Sharpe. If you would, please, reflect on the initial terms of our arrangement--I mean, the official capacity in which you first engaged me, which was, you may recall, as your bookkeeper.

--Did I do that?

--Yes, you did. Now, I understand this was intended only to cloak the true nature of our arrangement, but owing to your kindnesses and your...well, owing to all that, I do feel some kind of obligation to look into your, your financial affairs when the occasion presents itself.

--Awf 'lly nice of you.

--And tonight, the occasion has presented itself.

A slight crack in the opaque surface of her eyes.

--Yes?

She unties, then reties the drawstring of her gown.

--The news will not be welcome to you, Mrs. Sharpe. We may discuss it tonight, or we may discuss it tomorrow. But it can no longer be ignored.

--Why? Why why? --Because I have reason to believe your friend George has taken advantage of, of your educational deficits. And now that those deficits have been overcome, I beg you to take matters into your own hands.

I draw the green volume from behind my back, set it on the edge of her bed.

--If you read carefully, you will see that over the past year, more than a few business transactions have taken place without your knowledge. The precise nature of these transactions has been left deliberately vague. What is manifestly obvious is that significant sums of your money are being diverted to a man named Frig.

--Frig.

It takes hearing the name on her own tongue, it takes seeing the wriggle of amusement in her lips to understand the joke of it. A trap for the unwary, perhaps. George's idea of a trip wire.

But the humour soon vanishes from Mrs. Sharpe's face. She cocks her head and stares at the accounts book as though it were a green python crawling towards her toe.

--Well. I suppose it's...d'you think serious? A bit?

--Men have been imprisoned for less than George has done, Mrs. Sharpe. But this is not an orthodox business, and that judgement is not mine to make. I leave it in your hands, that is all.

Neither of us moves for quite some time.
Her
reluctance I can well comprehend, but what is mine? Am I waiting to be dismissed? Or is it something else I'm after? Some tiny morsel of gratitude, perhaps?

Well done, my boy. I always knew you weren't a total waste of breath.

But when at last she breaks the silence, Mrs. Sharpe sounds only like someone speaking to herself. And she speaks in someone else's voice. The voice of that old woman in Peter's photography shop.

--I was just on the edge of the most marvellous dream.

Chapter 14

NEXT MORNING, I COME DOWN to a surprising sight: the breakfast table, generally empty, has been occupied. Sadie, spurning her normal practice of sleeping till noon, has risen with the sun (or close thereto), wrapped a plain cotton blanket round her tiny frame, and bowed her head over a rum-and-water tankard nearly as large as she. Worked through the night, that's my first thought. But when I search her face for the usual dissolute glaze, I find instead a pair of shrewd blue eyes, grown even shrewder in the morning light.

--You're up early, Sadie.

--Oh, as if anyone could sleep, with such a rumpus going on. --What rumpus?

She hesitates, more for formality's sake than anything else.

--The madam and Mr. George.

--What about them?

--Why, they've been having at it in her office upwards of an hour. The madam's positively livid. I'm sure I've never heard her go on so long.

Just then, the kitchen door swings open to reveal the harassed form of Mary Catherine, bearing down on us with a tray of devilled grill and kidneys. Her face, as she sets the tray in front of us, is a study in reproach.

--I don't believe it's any of our business, Miss Sadie.

--But you must have heard them. You'd have to be deaf as a stone not to.

--It may be there was some voices raised in the general vicinity, but what them voices was asaying and who was a-saying what to who, I'm sure I don't know. Having better things to do than stand about busy-bodyin'.

Sadie laughs.

--You mean the kitchen's too far away to hear. Well, I was standing just outside the madam's door, which, as you know, is normally too thick for eavesdropping, but I could almost swear on oath I heard the words
swindler
and
pig
being used. Oh, and your name came up as well, Mr. Timothy.

And with that, Mary Catherine abandons any show of detachment.

--Oh, now,
that
I heard. There was Mr. George screaming your name like it was Judgement Day. If I was you, Mr. Timothy, I'd make myself scarce. You never know what--

Her mouth freezes in place. Her eyes freeze, too.

George is standing in the doorway.

In his usual costume--white shirt and waistcoat, collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up--his face wreathed in an ecclesiastical smile. He takes two paces into the room, gives us a courtly nod.

--Good morning. Would you two ladies do me the favour of leaving Mr. Timothy and me to ourselves? For just a few moments?

Not a murmur of dissent from either of them. Mary Catherine slinks back to the kitchen, and Sadie makes a straight line for the stairs, as stiff in the shoulders as a schoolgirl on her way to the headmistress.

George pulls out the chair opposite mine. Brushes specks of soot from the table, rearranges a bowl of golden chrysanthemums. Then speaks.
--My leaving the books lying about, that was careless. You
reading
the books...now, that was worse than careless.

--Embezzling funds, George. What would you call that?

The look in his eyes isn't something I would have expected. From someone else, I might call it pity.

--Oh, me, he says softly.--I'd be embarrassed if I knew as much nothing as you know.

Rising to his feet, he begins a leisurely circuit of the table, studying his watch the whole way. His eyes never once leave it, and mine never leave his--at least until he passes behind my chair, where he pauses for a tantalising moment before reemerging on the other side, still locked in his slow orbit, still studying the watch.

--I'm staggered, Mr. Timothy. Did you truly think you could hand me my walking papers? You?

--It never crossed my mind.

--Or maybe you were just hankering to take my place, was that it? Worm your way into the old gal's confidence?

--You needn't worry, George. I leave the whore trade to you.

He almost laughs then.

--Listen to him. The trade's done all right by you now, hasn't it?

--I haven't bit the hand that feeds me.

--You don't even know whose hand's feeding you. I should enlighten you sometime.

--Tell the police, I'm not interested.

--Oh, the police.

His voice, his eyes, the very tips of his fingers are flooded with a rich tributary of irony, and it's impossible, at this moment, not to recall the three policemen who caroused last night around Mrs. Sharpe's negus bowl. On George's payroll, for all I know. On anyone's payroll.

--Yes, indeed, George says.--We must certainly take it up with the police.

He's standing directly behind me now. His hands, suddenly liberated of the watch, are running the length of my shoulders, taking their measure as a tailor might, except their touch is more caressing.

--Really, Mr. Timothy. You make me almost regret it was me who first sent you here. I remember thinking at the time you looked quite harmless. You
are
quite harmless, aren't you, Mr. Timothy?
If I didn't know better, I would assume it was a woman's touch. Slow and cool and lingering, passing from the shoulders to the clavicle and then to my waistcoat, pausing on the way down to toy with each button. A soft, sliding motion, impossible to reconcile with the row of raw knuckles sliding down my abdomen, stopping now just above the wasitband of my trousers and then, after a brief consideration, plunging into my crotch.

I start backwards, but George leans his weight into the chair, pins me against the table, and his hand bears down with a geological force, tightening and contracting round the mound in my trousers, even as his voice eases into a whisper.

--You can't even put it in a woman. You think you've got enough to take
me
on?

Unspeakable, this pain. No longer localised but radiating down every neural corridor. The only response I can make is to deny it, and even so, my body betrays me. The shoulders twitch. The eyeballs quiver. Tongues of sweat run down my cheeks.

And George, seeing it all, speaks in a loving lilt.

--Repeat after me, if you please. No one hands George his walking papers.

Another squeeze. A new infusion of pain, rising up through my ribs, pounding at the walls of my chest.

I close my eyes, but the voice keeps purring in my ear.

--George leaves when he's bloody well ready.

A gentle, reasoning tone, as though he were addressing a child. Why should I be surprised, then, to hear a child's voice answering?

--Maybe you'd like a kick in the balls yourself.

I recognise Colin's voice before I recognise him. Over the last twelve hours, he's unravelled into a creased and dangling shirt, a matted tangle of curls, pillow-mashed eyes...he must have spent the night on Mrs. Sharpe's divan. And there's still a bit of sleep clinging to him now as he wavers in the doorway, straining for the right note of truculence.

George relaxes, then releases his grip on me, and, with an affable smile, turns his attention to Colin,
advances
on him, eyes appraising, right arm raised as if for a blow. Only when he sees the telltale flinch on Colin's face does he lower his arm to his side, and even then he darts it out one more time for a brief tousle of the boy's hair. The reaction this produces is so entertaining he repeats it. Then, grinning broadly, he returns back to me.