Songs From Spider Street (4 page)

In his old, tilting clockwork house at the edge of the town, Framehr
lived with his daughter and four cats.

His
daughter was so graceful, yet so fickle, and his cats so attentive, with such
kindly faces, that he often thought he had four daughters and one cat.

But it was
just an old man’s imagination getting very much the better of him.

When
Framehr’s house was new it made hardly any sound, just the murmur of
swift-running water over pebbles. Now it was old and badly in need of repair,
it made all the fuss and tumult of water streaming into a bowl after a long
journey.

The man
who had built Framehr’s house – a Belgian engineer and architect of worldwide
renown – had proclaimed it a marvel and went on to state that everyone would
one day live in such well-oiled, self-winding machines.

Sadly, the
man was now long dead and no-one knew enough about the house to restore it to
full working order.

Many
monographs and books about the architect spoke of the wonderful house in an
historical context, lamenting that we hadn’t followed the path laid out by the
Belgian visionary. These same publications always failed to mention the current
poor state of the house or its present owner’s urgent need of a man talented
enough to restore it to its original condition.

Even if
Framehr could find an individual with such talents, he would be unable to pay
for the repairs that were needed.

Not even
Framehr’s daughter (or did he have four? … ah, well) knew exactly how old her
father was, but she did know he’d lived a long and profligate life.

She knew
he had, in turn, been a thief, a television performer, a gambler, a doctor and
a chef (he had, in fact, cooked greasy meals for greasy dock workers in a grey
refinery port for just four months, but Framehr felt the title ‘chef’ conferred
upon him an otherwise unobtainable air of creativity).

She also
knew he had made, or swindled people out of, a great deal of money but it had
all been spent on buying and attempting to maintain the marvellous house.

Anyone who
knew about money and what to do with it would have airily dismissed the house
as ‘a bad investment’. But Framehr felt it was the one time in his life that he
had ever used money wisely, apart from the smaller sum spent wooing his late
wife, Julia.

A faded
colour photograph showing three people wearing clothes some decades out of
fashion hung in the house, forming the fourth side of a square completed by
three clocks.

The three
people – Framehr, Julia and the brilliant Belgian – are standing in front of
the miraculous house, which is purring softly away in the background, biding
its time.

The
architect would have disapproved of what Framehr and Julia had done to ‘his’
house, stuffing its perfectly proportioned insides with dusty brown and green
furnishings, cluttering its spaces and breaking up its lines. The built-in
furniture ought to be enough for even the most demanding tenant, he would have
declared, if asked.

But he
never re-visited the house and Julia considered it most demanding of its
tenants.

She strove
to make it comfortable with Framehr’s help. Then their daughter came along and
they were all very happy there … until Julia died.

Paterson saw the house from some way off, standing up against the
skyline. He sailed past the shingle spit that started almost at the door of the
house and tied up at a dilapidated jetty some few hundred yards inland.

After he’d
stoked down the boiler and the boat was secure, he hefted his heavy leather bag
up onto the jetty and climbed out.

He stood
looking towards the house for a few moments before lifting his bag up onto his
shoulder and setting off towards it. The sprawl of the town ended just a few
fields shy of the house. Even from this distance the structure was impressive;
four storey’s of elegance and engineering perfection, with just a hint of something
out of kilter with the three upper floors. If his information was right, as he
knew it was, things weren’t as perfect as they seemed at first. And that was
what he was counting on.

As he drew
nearer to the house along the grassed-over path that ran along the shore, he
could hear the structure groaning and wheezing to itself. It clearly wasn’t
happy.

Finding the
door of the house open, Paterson went in.

He crossed
the living room, patting one of the metallic servants on the head as he passed.
The servant made no response, staying where it was, clicking softly and feebly
waving its arm at chest level. Once there had been many servants softly humming
through the house on thin metal rails which were barely visible, cleaning every
room at all hours. Now only a few were in evidence, stopped in their tracks.
The others were trapped inside the walls, oblivious to their entombment.

“Oooh,” said
the young woman as she rounded a corner and nearly bumped into Paterson. Her
gaze quickly took in his expensive-looking but crumpled grey clothes and tired
manner. “Who are you?”

If Paterson
had been wearing a hat he would have taken it off. He smiled at her dark hair,
pale cheeks and pretty green eyes. “I’m Paterson. The door was open so I just
came in. And what is your name?”

“Eve,” she
said uncertainly, “… and the door’s always open. We can’t close it.”

Paterson
nodded slightly. “In that case, I’ve come to see your father. I think I can
help him … or perhaps both of you.” A small black and white cat rubbed itself
against Paterson’s legs.

Eve smiled,
coolly. “Hmmm. Let’s go and find him, then.” Paterson spent the time they were
searching admiring Eve. Her precise, swift walk and the curve of her back where
it met her buttocks made him imagine how she must move during lovemaking. It
was certainly a distraction, but a pleasant one.

They finally
found the old man in his study. He was seated behind his desk, shuffling
through papers and absent-mindedly stroking a cat in his lap. Now and then, he
ran his fingers through the wispy white hair that clung to the sides of his
head.

“Father. This
gentleman has come to see you.”

Framehr
lifted his gaze and peered at Paterson. “Hmmm. Hello. What is it you want? I’m
not
buying
anything, if that’s what it is.”

Paterson
stepped around Eve and extended his hand; it was ignored. “I’m not selling
anything, sir. My name is Paterson and I understand from your daughter that you
need some help with the house. I’d be very interested in helping you.” He was
aware of appearing over-eager.

The old man
looked at him oddly. “You
want
to help with the problems we’ve been
having with this house?”

Paterson
nodded. “I believe I can help, yes. I’m an engineer.”

Picking the
cat up from his lap and placing it on the floor, Framehr took a step towards
the younger man. He nodded. “Well, why don’t you stay for dinner? We can talk
about it then.”

Over dinner, after essaying the basic problems facing the house, it was
clear that Framehr wished to discuss ‘terms’.

He leaned
forward. “So are you a successful engineer, Mr Paterson?”

Paterson
finished chewing another mouthful of the frugal meal. “Well, I’m an engineering
student. But I’m in the Honours class and I’m about to graduate. I’m a huge
admirer of Van Epps’ work, you see.”

The old man
smiled. “Yes, yes. You said.” Framehr looked at his daughter and she gazed back
at him, almost as if they were speaking to each other without words.

Framehr
sighed and spread his hands in front of him, as if indicating to his visitor
that he had nothing to hide. “I have no money to pay for any repairs, Mr
Paterson. I spent most of what little wealth I had commissioning Van Epps to
design and build this house. Now there is nothing left.”

Paterson
smiled at him. “I’m not asking to be paid, sir. All I ask is that you let me
take some photographs of the repair process in order that I may write a book
about it. It would be a prestigious project for me. And the payment from any
publisher for such a book would more than meet my costs.”

Nodding and
smiling, Framehr lifted his glass and tipped it slightly in Paterson’s
direction. “With pleasure,” he murmured and then drained it dry. From across
the table, Eve parted her thin red lips and smiled at them both.

The next morning, Framehr showed Paterson what he grandly referred to as
his library. The small room had a built-in table and chair with a few
bookshelves recessed in the walls.

Paterson
spent some hours perusing three yellow-covered volumes written in Van Epps’
distinctive handwriting. He then unfolded the mechanical diagrams that
described how the house worked. But none of it revealed what Paterson was
really interested in and what he had come here to find.

An initial
inspection of the house proved unsatisfactory, too. He knew from the books that
the main structure of the house was cast iron; he wasn’t expecting it to have
been applied in such elaborate and imaginative ways, but that couldn’t be the
whole story.

After he had
finished poring over the books and touring the house, he fetched his lamp from
his leather bag and descended to the basement. It was a large room with the
usual discarded suitcases and household clutter lying around. After moving some
boxes, he found the steel access plate to the heart of the house – the machine
pit.

Once he’d got
the plate off, Paterson put his head through the opening and held his lamp over
the open space below. A cursory glance around the machine pit told him that his
pretence of fixing the house’s mechanisms would have to be just that; the
corrosion and wear were considerable. There was a ladder fixed to the wall just
inside the opening but he didn’t feel like descending into that rust-flaked
sinkhole just yet. The most he could hope to do was to replace one or two minor
parts and grease some of the more accessible gears. It should be enough to
convince the old man that he knew what he was about.

Yet he was
puzzled. Parts of the house rotated to follow the sun, while there was a
complex system of vents and ducts to regulate the temperature inside. But there
was no evidence in the machine pit of the advanced hydraulics that would be
necessary to power these systems. And he doubted if questioning Framehr would
bring him any answers. He would have to search harder, pry deeper.

Over the coming days Paterson made sure he appeared before Framehr or Eve
from time to time with his shirt sleeves rolled, holding a spanner or some
other useful-looking tool, and with an appropriate amount of rust or grease
smeared over his face and arms.

This,
together with statements like “Well, Van Epps might have been a genius but he
counted without the corrosive properties of this salt air”, were a necessary
sleight of hand. It served to head off any awkward questions about his ‘progress’
in repairing the house.

In his last
few interviews Van Epps had referred to his greatest creation being
within
the house. He’d used tantalisingly unclear phrases like ‘my greatest creation’
and ‘the promise of a new beginning’. Yet nothing Paterson had seen so far came
anywhere close to the hyperbole of the architect’s words.

Some
innovations were impressive – like the furniture that rotated into the walls
for storage, or the ‘stored sunlight’ lamps used in the bedrooms – but he was
certain they weren’t what his employers were paying him to find. The cabal of
wealthy collectors and eager museum curators had been unable to tell Paterson
exactly what he was looking for but, based on Van Epps’ comments, he was sure
it was sufficiently impressive that he’d know when he found it.

The more he saw of Eve over the following weeks, the more he realised
that he didn’t wish to rush his task. He found her precise movements alluring,
yet she was only ever pleasant but cool towards him. This added to his
fascination with her.

She always
wore simple dresses that showed off her body without being exactly inviting. He
sometimes waited around corners simply in order to watch her walk towards him
or away from him, admiring her curves as she passed near him.

Soon his
sleeping hours were filled with lustful dreams of Eve. He was sure she was a
virgin; locked up here with her father, she never seemed to go further than the
garden.

He wanted her
and knew he might have to resort to some sort of subterfuge in the first
instance.

Paterson
thought first of hiding in her room in order to surprise her, but the clockwork
locks on the bedroom doors were fiercely difficult to work out and resisted his
best efforts to pick them. They could only be opened by the room’s occupant, it
seemed. But he wasn’t going to give up, convinced that once he was within Eve’s
hideaway she would accept him as her master, if only for one night.

One afternoon Paterson was examining the door to Eve’s room, searching
for any weakness in the design, when, before he knew anything, she was at his
elbow.

“Mr Paterson?”

He felt his
heart stick in his throat. “Oh, Eve. Hello.” He forced the words out past the
obstruction.

She seemed
completely unconcerned at his presence outside her bedroom door. “I’ve been
looking for you. I want to show you something. Out in the garden.”

Paterson was
sure he was blushing. “Oh, right. Yes.”

They
descended the broad curved staircase side by side and Eve led Paterson through
the large doors at the back of the house.

Though he
desired her, he hated her mystery; the atmosphere of the arcane she tried so
hard to weave around herself. The act of the unattainable virgin, the unstained
waif devoted to her arts and to her ageing father, made him sigh audibly as he
followed her.