Paul does well in Coventry. He’s not on the podium on the Friday, but he’s in with an overall chance if he places within the first five on the Saturday. He is used to riding every day, not just once or twice a week for a race like some of the others, so he’s quietly confident about his overall chances. That’s about the only advantage his job has.
In the evening of the Friday he wants to stay in the room. Rest, drink water, sleep. He knows full well the pain he will have to endure in the morning. The initial one before his creaking joints have gotten used to moving again, then the other kind of pain once he starts racing, and then the same, but worse, the morning after that. That’s part of his life. The cyclist who can endure the most pain over the longest period of time, is a sure winner.
But one look at her, in a new dress, with her hair piled high, appraising him as he gets out of the quick bath he’s earned after the race, tells him otherwise. She comes close to him. Kisses him and tells him the salty taste on his lips is gone. They kiss some more, just to make sure the salt has been washed off completely.
Once he’s dressed they stand on the little French balcony together. Their room overlooks nothing more spectacular than the rail yard, something she has almost forgiven him for.
In the dark, with the lights of the city reflecting on the tracks, the long silvery strands leading into the eternity of the English countryside, even the most trivial of industrial scenes has become a pretty postcard.
He has apologised profusely for getting a room at the station hotel despite her explicit wishes. It was a matter of money, there’s still some left of the Christmas bonus from Silas, but it wouldn’t stretch very far, and he thought that a place with a lot of people passing through would be better for them – an unmarried couple, a pair that shouldn’t be seen together, an athlete and a night moth.
They are both unused to moments of stillness and the quiet acceptance that only a town smaller than London, and a hotel room, their kingdom while in Coventry, can bring.
Downstairs they find a porter in the vestibule and he tells them that if he had a fiancée or wife, he would take her to the Alma. It’s not far. Especially not on an evening like this. Paul winces as he walks down the stairs in front of the hotel, but smiles and she smiles with him.
They stroll down Broadgate, her arm linked through his. Occasionally stepping out of the way when trams pass by. Most of them are returning to the terminus. Slow, elephantine in the night. Legions of men are pulling in awnings displaying shop names. Ones that have protected wares from the sun all day. Women leaning on brooms or carrying pails of water talk about the day which has passed and the night to come. What they have sold, what they will eat. Who they served, what they will drink, and with whom.
Once at the restaurant Paul orders one, and then another, pint of oatmeal stout. A dark mass of alcohol. They are both for her, but she wouldn’t be sold them. The Alma is both traditional and foreign to them. He has steak, unusual for him as he seldom eats much after a race. Either because he’s not hungry, because he’s had so much to drink that he doesn’t think he’s hungry, or because he’s nervous about the following day’s race. And because of the foreign substances slowly leaving his bloodstream.
She has plaice. Unremarkable. And, after, they both have jelly.
The meal passes almost in silence. A comfortable suspension of dialogue, punctuated by ‘Pass me the salt please’, by ‘How’s the fish?’ Not deep, not soaring, not dangerous, not words that have to be guarded or pored over. Not things you have to worry about being overheard. Just the things you say. He drinks two jugs of iced water and she finishes the beer. They both have coffee, but it’s so weak it doesn’t do them any good. He holds her hand, not under the table, but in plain sight.
Leaving the restaurant they leave a huge tip, not because the patron was very nice to them, but because their waitress looked the other way when it was clear that it was Miriam who was drinking the beer. Also the meal was so cheap compared to the London prices they’ve gotten used to. Happily they meander back the way they came. One of her hands dwarfed in his, fingers laced like the congregation in This is the church, and this is the steeple. Her other hand twirling a parasol. Both full. Him on beef, her on hop and malt.
When Paul checked into the hotel he paid a little extra to bring the bike up to the room, and gave an additional two banknotes to the man behind the counter. This made the man ask, ‘Mr and Mrs MacAllister then I presume?’ to which Paul nodded.
Paul and Miriam ride the elevator in silence, inspecting each other’s contorted faces in the polished brass work. Paul’s holding the key to the room, and she’s already unpinning her hair with one hand, her other hand looking for his.
They kiss all the way from the lift to the door. He struggles with the lock and then they struggle with each other’s clothes while tripping to the bed.
Afterwards he asks her, ‘Who is Mr Morton?’ He’s been up to get a drink, the race still in his legs and torso. She’s putting on a nightgown and lighting two candles.
‘Please don’t bring that man into the room,’ she says, suddenly subdued.
She walks over to the window and pulls the curtains shut, as if to hide, as if to shut out the world. ‘Look Miriam, I know he’s not a nice man. I’m just saying that maybe once I start winning a few more of these races like the one today, it can lead to who knows, races on the continent, maybe even America. You can come with me, not always be in London.’
‘It’s a nice dream to have,’ she says shaking her head.
‘But what’s stopping us? What’s stopping you?’
She turns to him, eyes wet. ‘I’m stuck. You might not be, but he owns me,’ she says.
‘What are you talking about? You work for him, but that’s not the same. Surely you can just tell him you’re leaving?’
‘Paul, you’re a darling,’ she says smiling. A smile which doesn’t reach her eyes.
‘Don’t treat me like a child,’ he says and drinks deeply from a bottle of cordial on the bedside table. His muscles screaming in protest as he moves around the room.
Miriam walks away from the window. Doesn’t look at him. Fingers a lampshade, picks up a cushion from the floor and places it back on the bed. Then she walks over to a little table with a mirror. Still not looking at him she sits on a chair and combs her hair, slowly. Counting. Once she’s reached a hundred she looks at him in the mirror.
‘Oh, Paul.’ Her eyes wet. Her eyebrows angry.
‘We can do something about this Miriam. But you need to tell me what’s going on.’
She starts to say something. Then she waves him to her side, puts an arm around his waist and looks at him in the mirror. He puts a hand on her hair. It’s as smooth as water. ‘When I came to live in London, Mr Morton took me in,’ she begins. ‘Trained me, treated me like I was a niece, as one of his little family. I came here with nothing. I don’t know why but he gave me a home, an education of sorts, and a job. He has always been eccentric, and I knew that some of what he did was on the wrong side of the law. But to my mind he was a harmless, likeable buffoon, even a good Catholic. Because that’s what he let me see.’
‘And you didn’t mind that he was running a criminal gang?’ he asks.
‘At first I liked it. I had money for the first time in my life. And I was known, respected.’ She looks down into her lap. Tears falling, staining her nightgown.
‘Soon after I was initiated into the family I was making a living out of debt collecting and other bits and pieces. It was a quick rise in ranks people told me. Then one day I saw the sinister side of him emerge. And it was too late to get out.’
‘What happened?’
‘He told me he’d been checking up on my background. That he knew where I came from. Who my parents were. The whole sordid story. My new beginning started to crumble before my eyes. Mr Morton told me he knew all about my father, and what I had done to him. He told me he had proof and a witness, and he told me the name of my old friend, and that she was willing to denounce me, so I knew it wasn’t a hoax. Paul, the information he has at his fingertips is more than enough to see me hang.’
Paul’s hand has stopped moving on her head.
‘If I ever lie to him, or leave him, that’s what awaits me. As he never tires of reminding me. That’s why my loyalty to him is so unquestioning.’
Paul feels stuck in an icy chokehold, as Miriam continues, ‘Every morning I pray to a God I no longer believe in that someone somewhere hates Mr Morton more than they fear him and decides to kill him.’
‘That might take years, decades,’ Paul says, shaking his head.
‘Worst case there’s always the pearl-handled revenge in my handbag. First him. Then myself. I’d be a double murderer, but at least my death would be on my own terms.’ Then she stares at her own reflection in the mirror. Dangerously composed. Only a small streak of mascara giving away any emotion.
Paul can’t breathe. He tries to get her to stand, so that he can hold her, but she slips out of his grasp. Hides her face in her hands. She collapses in the seat and it’s only much later that she allows him to carry her to bed. To tuck her in. He turns off the light and tries to sleep. He can’t. Not for hours. Instead he lies and listens to the sound of a clock ticking in the room.
In the early hours of Saturday he reaches out for her. He thinks she is sleeping but when she turns his way he can see she’s wide awake.
‘Not been able to sleep either?’ he asks.
‘No.’
‘You should have told me.’
‘And you?’ she says.
‘Not really. I’ve been thinking too much.’
Outside, dawn arrives with its cries of birds and men shouting at horses. The hotel room is warm from the heater he has been keeping half an eye on through the night.
He says, ‘You are risking death by being here aren’t you? In Coventry? In this room with me?’
She nods, ‘Now do you understand how much you mean to me? How special you are?’
‘But why? I mean, you hardly even know me. What have I got to offer that’s worth risking your life for?’
‘Paul, you don’t understand. Throughout my life, men have been the enemy. Even from before I was born my father was the enemy. Mr Morton is the enemy. Every man who has ever tried to charm me has done so for their own selfish reasons. I can spot it at a hundred yards. And in the same way, I saw you coming and knew straight away that you were different. You’re incapable of lying or hiding anything. You are the first man who’s ever been genuinely nice to me, without wanting anything in return. I feel safe with you. I feel free with you. For the first time.’
He moves closer to her. Puts an arm behind her head. Side by side, on their backs they look at the ceiling. ‘Miriam,’ he says, ‘I’m sorry all those things happened to you. It makes me so angry. I just want to protect you.’
‘Oh Paul,’ Miriam laughs, her eyes lighting up briefly for the first time since the conversation began, ‘if only it was that simple. But you’re too kind, too gentle to take on Mr Morton.’
‘Maybe you can train me up to be more like you,’ says Paul with a wry smile, continuing, ‘I thought you looked fantastic that day on the tram when I had the accident, and you sort of took me in.’
She props herself up on one elbow and looks down on him. ‘And you don’t think I look fantastic now?’
‘You look even better now.’
‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’
‘It got me here.’
‘True.’ She smiles and eases out of the bed to open the curtains slightly. A low light comes in through the window. It’s December and the sun won’t be up properly for a few more hours. Paul looks at her and smiles. Puts her pillow behind his head and says, ‘What I mean is that I never thought that a beautiful London woman would ever lay her eyes on me.’
‘There’s something I have to tell you about that day,’ she says from the other side of the room.
Paul motions for her to come back to bed, but she’s looking for a glass to have a drink of water. ‘Did you put something in my tea to make me like you more?’ he says.
‘If I remember correctly you never finished your tea, you ungrateful creature.’
‘Sorry.’
She comes over and sits on the bed next to him. Tucks her legs in underneath, smooths her nightgown, erasing nonexistent creases, looks straight at him.
‘Paul. Look at me.’ He smiles and tries to pull her closer. But she frowns and shakes him off. ‘Paul, it wasn’t a coincidence that I met you.’
‘How do you mean?’ He sits up in bed.
‘Well, Mr Morton knew that Silas was up to something, that he was bringing someone new in.’ She looks down, then up at Paul again, his mouth wide open. Then she continues, ‘Mr Morton keeps a keen eye on all his employees. And I’m his most trusted set of eyes.’
Paul thinks for a second, then he says, ‘So you followed me? For how long?’
‘Not every day, but I checked in on you every now and then. And if it wasn’t me, it was one of the boys.’
His face darkens and he clenches his fists, then he says, ‘And you watched me nearly crippling myself on Southwark Bridge?’
Miriam now moves closer to him, but he’s sitting absolutely still. She says, putting both hands on his chest, ‘Paul, it wasn’t like that. You were a mark. Mr Morton doesn’t like new faces. He’s terrified of infiltrators, says the whole operation is too sensitive.’
‘It sounds like you’re defending him,’ he says in a monotone.
‘And I hate it,’ she says vehemently, drying her eyes on a corner of a pillowcase. ‘I didn’t know you were going to fall. I didn’t know you were going to be so nice. I didn’t know I would like you. Love you in fact. There, I have said it.’
Paul frowns.
‘Remember that in all of this, from when I took you in and bandaged your leg, up until now, right now sitting here in this bed, I am risking my life.’
‘So what other marks, what other men did you have, or do you have in your life? Is this how you keep an eye on us all? Up close?’
‘Don’t be crude,’ she says, her voice hard, her eyes soft.
Paul takes a deep breath. Tries to look composed. Then says, ‘It’s a straightforward question.’
‘And I’ll give you an adult answer,’ Miriam says. ‘You are not the first. I have had other men. But believe me when I say this, you’re the only one I have chosen entirely for myself. You are the one I want to spend all my time with. It’s just that I can’t.’
‘I don’t know what to think,’ he says.
‘Look at me,’ she says, steel in her voice.
‘I am,’ he says turning to her.
‘Not like that. Look properly. What do you see?’
‘I see you. I see Miriam. I see someone I thought I knew.’
‘You do know me Paul,’ she says, ‘You do know me.’
‘I don’t,’ he says and shakes his head. Breaks eye contact.
She takes his head in her hands, turns him to her, and says, ‘You don’t know everything about my past, or some parts of my present. That’s because I want to protect you, and because I don’t enjoy talking about my past, or my present. I want you before, beside, and after all that.’
He looks past her. Bites his lips. He looks at her and it’s too much. He wants to be angry with her. He wants to make her feel wretched. He wants to walk away and find a timid girl from the countryside. But not really. Not at all. He nods and says, ‘I slept terribly, if at all. I’m here to work. I have a race in a couple of hours. I think it’s best if we continue this some other time.’
‘Paul, look at me. It’s still me. Remember? Miriam. Your Miriam. Can I still be your Miriam?’
‘I think so.’
She kisses him on the cheek, doesn’t ask for a kiss in return, and they go back to sleep. Soon she is breathing deeply next to him.
***
Later on, racing, he feels absolutely rotten, and it’s only by sheer force of will he manages to come third, which coupled with yesterday’s result means he places second overall.
Back at the hotel he has a long bath and she sits on a stool next to the tub, writing in her book. They don’t talk about that morning’s revelations. Late in the evening they go and see a play, and despite the fact that she has to wake him up three or four times, both due to the exhaustion from the race and the tedious nature of the play itself, he tells her he’d like to go again sometime. They behave like a normal couple. Smile and kiss, walk like they’re just anyone.