Mr. Timothy: A Novel (40 page)

With his foot, he taps Philomela on the flank.

--Actually, she
was
awake, but I bored her straight back to insensibility.

--Best thing you could've done. She were right tuckered, I expect.

--And what of you?

--What, me sleep? With a grand old bloody Ad-ven-ture still a-rollin' on? Fuck off.

The bread, it turns out, is just about right for ducks--no taste to speak of but a fairly pleasing texture, a bit like dry toast left too long on the hob. It contracts the moment my teeth touch it, then dissolves and slides down my throat so quickly I lose all memory of it.

Colin chews his portion in a slow, ruminative fashion, as though he had days to devote to each crumb.

--Mr. Timothy.

--Yes?

--What d'you reckon's to happen? Once all this is done with?

--How do you mean?

--Well, Filly, for an instance. What's to become of her?

--That's a good...yes, that's a good...

--Not that it matters, but we'd hate to think of her...

--What?

--Well, in some workhouse or other. That ain't no life, you ask me. --No, it's not.

--Now nobody'd call me a hexpert, Mr. Timothy. God forbid, I ain't no hexpert. But it seems to me she'd be better off--so far as she'd be willin' and all--better off with someone who's taken a real interest, like, in her welfare. Some nosy bugger who's gone and mucked about in her business without so much as a by-your-leave. That's the fellow for her. 'Course what do I know, eh?

He stretches out his legs, wipes his lips free of crumbs.

--And what if this someone, Colin, were barely old enough to take care of himself? And possessed of a deeply melancholy disposition, let us say. And a questionable set of acquaintances. And not a penny to call his own.

--Well, it ain't like the civil service, is it? A sod don't need any qua-li-fications. You think
my
dad had qua-li-fi-cations? Just a prick is all he had.

I have not laughed in some time. How strange it feels.

--And what of you, Colin?

--Me?

--What happens to you?

--Why, nothin', that's what. I go back to what I was a-doin'. And I mean to tell you, Mr. Timothy, after my blazin' triumph at the whorehouse, the sky is the bleedin' limit. I mean to say, the career of Colin the Melodious has just
begun
, Mr. Timothy.

--And you don't sometimes...

--What?

--Nothing.

--What?

--Never mind.

A flock of seagulls, grounded, has colonised the nearest expanse of grass. Two blacknecklaced swans sail down the moat, and there, on the hill just above, a duck works its way down to us with a pinched, peeved expression--annoyed, very like, at having its breakfast pinched. Its implacably officious walk brings to my mind the ravening strut of last night's peacocks, and I shiver and turn instinctively for Colin, but he is staring quite peaceably at Philomela's propped-up form.

--Mr. Timothy.

--Yes?

--How come she run like that? --Like what? When?

--When you was takin' her home the other day. There she was, a-lookin' the place over like she were the bloody Queen. Next minute, it were like some ghost come along and pinched her up the hoozummy.

--Yes, I know.

--And that look she gave you, Mr. Timothy! Evillest eye I ever saw.

--I don't...I can't explain any of it.

It gives me a twinge of shame to admit it, for I have had three days now to consider the matter, and I am no closer to having an answer.

Why, Philomela? Why did you run?

Miss Binny was there, yes, but you had already contended with Miss Binny. Griffyn and Rebbeck were waiting round the corner, but you didn't know that, else you wouldn't have run straight into their waiting arms.

It was someone else--some
thing
else--driving you down the same trajectory of flight on which I first beheld you. Perhaps only a memory, and yet how can a memory hold terror without having at its nexus an event? Or a person?

Here is where I fall back on the feeling that has been tasking me for the past twelve hours. The feeling--it's too slight to be termed an intuition--that some human connection lies between us and Lord Griffyn.

I felt it first, oddly enough, in the presence of Griffyn himself. All during our brief interview, I had the tantalizing impression that someone had done more than simply warn him about me. Someone had actually gossiped in his ear.

Why else that absurd taunt?
I'm not sure girls are quite to your taste
. Baseless and, at the same time, eerily familiar--a chord of insult.

--Colin?

--Mm.

At first I don't know how to frame the inquiry.
I say, do you recall anyone impugning my manhood of late
? But then the answer comes to me without my even needing to form the question. It comes not as a word or a name but as a pair of connected sense-memories.

An excruciating viselike pressure on my scrotum. A breath in my ear.

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

And now I am seeing George once again, not as he was then but as he'd looked days before that, on the front stoop of Mrs. Sharpe's establishment. In that frozen late-afternoon moment when Philomela had just broken free of us, and Colin had disappeared after her, and I was taking up the chase, and
there
, coming out the front door, was
George
, with his collar open and his sleeves rolled up and that air of middle-class entitlement. A man on an outing.

And here is the curious part. That memory of him has become indivisible, in my mind, from the bells of St. James, tolling now, the half hour and still tolling, days later, in the campanile of my memory.

Ding dong
ping
dong...Ding dong
ping
dong
....

That's what it takes, finally: hearing the bells. That's when I know. I know why she ran. I know everything.

And now
I
am the one running. Straight to Philomela. Grabbing her by the shoulders, rattling her back into consciousness.

And as her eyes straggle into focus, I lower my face to hers, and I say:

--The bells.

She gives me a vexed shake of the head.

--The
church
bells, Philomela.

She sits up now, and as the import of my words seeps through, she begins very slowly to slide away from me. I follow, as unappeasable as an inquisitor.

--Foolish of me not to see it. You'd only ever been to Mrs. Sharpe's at
night
, hadn't you? It was still daylight when I brought you there, and you couldn't be sure, not completely sure. That's why you were studying the house so intently. The gate, the alleyway...even the lamplighter...I thought you were just being particular, but in fact, you were on the verge of
recognising
the place, weren't you? And then you heard the bells. And you knew for certain.

Ding dong
ping
dong...Ding dong
ping
dong
....

--Such a distinctive chime, isn't it, Philomela? One could never mistake it for any other. As soon as you heard it, you knew precisely where you were. The very place you'd been trying to escape all along.

She stops moving now, bows her head over a patch of leaves. So buffeted, so still: in the act of contemplating her, I hear my own voice sink into a dry, leafy rustle.

--And
I
was the one who led you back there. Delivered you right to them, didn't I? Lord Griffyn and all the rest. Couldn't have done it better if I'd been in league with them. And of course, that's why you looked at me the way you did. You believed I
was
in league with them.

Her eyes flick towards mine, then glance away. It is all the confirmation I need. And with that, the rest of the puzzle slips quickly, neatly, irrevocably into place, like the shells of a Russian doll.

First George. Then George's account book. Then the name inscribed therein.

Mr. Frig.

Oh, Lord, have mercy.

Invert the first four letters of Griffyn's name...transpose the
i
and
r
...and meet therein the mysterious receptacle of Mrs. Sharpe's profits.

From somewhere on the near horizon, I have the dim sense of Colin circling us, discreetly skimming his feet over the tops of the leaves. Commendable tact. I would congratulate him, were I not diverting all my remaining powers to this girl. To this moment.

--What happened in that house, Philomela?

More silence.

--Why can't you tell me?

She never once lifts her eyes from the ground, and yet there is a quickening about her, a mounting urgency. It infects me to such an extent that I find myself staring
through
her...through time...to my first glimpse of her, floating through the courtyard beneath that white tarpaulin....

Through the courtyard.

And now it is no longer an image that claims my attention but a chain of sounds, the blithe word-stream of Chief Magistrate Squidgy.

Always puts out the best vintages for the guests. Don't know where she keeps them all, the cellar, perhaps....

I pass a hand across my face.

--It's the cellar, isn't it?

Perhaps the word is unfamiliar. Perhaps her own recollection of it is already dissolving. But when at last she raises her head, she imparts only fresh mystery. Her features ripple, her lips part and close again. She looks to be translating, in fits and starts, from the language of another planet.

--Philomela.

She shakes her head, four times in rapid succession. Then at last she speaks:

--More.

The same word she used in Lord Griffyn's chamber. Chilling in its brevity.

--More
girls
, you mean?

A quick nod.

--In danger, Philomela? --I am not...it may be. Yes.

--Where are they? In that house? The one I was taking you to?

Another nod.

--Then...then we must go back there, mustn't we, Philomela?

And for the first time since I roused her, she actually finds my eye and holds it. She says:

--Yes. We go.

It is, as I expected, an acute disappointment to Colin not to be accompanying us. But as I explain to him,
someone
has to go to Scotland Yard, and who better than he? Who more experienced? Who more accomplished?

No amount of flattery will win him over.

--It ain't right, Mr. Timothy. You're a-goin' to have some more Ad-venture, and she'll get my piece of it.

--If all goes well, there won't be any more adventure to speak of.

--But why don't we
all
go and fetch the police?

--Colin, if others are in danger, we can't waste another minute.

--Well, fuck, whyn't she say somethink afore, then?

--I don't know. I suppose...I suppose she
couldn't
before.

A bitter guffaw escapes from his lips.

--So she goes and gets herself a conscience, and
you
go and get yourself kilt.

--Colin, if anyone can remain safe in such a godforsaken place, it is I. Do remember, I
live
there.

But he is not persuaded. Nor is he mollified.

--S'pose this Surtees mug ain't in his office?

--Then wait for him.

--It's Christmas Eve! What if he's on holiday, like?

--Then come straight back to us. You know the way. And so this is the result: we hail
two
cabs just south of the New Road, in Baker Street. Colin, without a backwards look at us, hops into the first carriage and slams the doors shut after him. I offer him a coin for the fare, but he crosses his arms and slouches out of sight.

--Keep your damned money.

The second cab is rather elegantly turned out: a blood horse with polished brass fittings on its harness; a dandyish cabman, ablaze with a red ascot; two small looking-glasses inside, and a tray for cigar ash, and a box of lucifer matches. And in the blind on the side window, a silk narcissus, a perfect replica of the flower woven into the horse's mane. I can't help thinking of Adolphus's sad little equipage, collapsed on its side...Adolphus himself, dispossessed on the curb, with no way to get home....

I'll see to him. When it's all over, I'll see to him.

On the corner of Jermyn and Regent, a small, ragged brass band is playing "The Coventry Carol" over a blind busker's accordion. An old man is selling Christmas punch for tuppence a pint, and the air is quick with pea soup and cloves and hard sauce and burnt dung, and a woman with a shit-smeared baby tugs at the hem of my trousers. But I pay heed only to the figure of Philomela, still wrapped in Father's comforter and hurtling down Jermyn Street as quickly as she once fled it. Part of me, I confess, expects her to keep running, but when she reaches the house in question--the house that has haunted her into silence--she stops by the gate and waits for me with ill-disguised impatience. Her way of acknowledging, perhaps, that she can no longer run.

--Ready, Philomela?

--I am ready.

Less than twenty-four hours have elapsed since last I crossed Mrs. Sharpe's threshold; it might be three years, so alien does the place look to me now. The cramped vestibule and the tiny looking-glass and the small wine table with its cracked porcelain pitcher. Everything wreathed with cut ferns.