14
‘WE CAN GO BACK,’ I said. ‘It must have fallen off as we were leaving.’
‘You don’t understand, Leo. It’s—’
‘The Blood Flower. I know.’
She was turning in small circles, groping at her own throat as though the stone would magically reappear if she wished for it hard enough. ‘I had it when we were sitting down. Thomas was talking with Mr Edgar, and I remember it was there. You were staring.’
I was about to protest, but of course, she was right.
‘It was probably kicked under something,’ I said. ‘A chair or a table. I’ll go back and talk to the police. I’ll say we’re looking for clues.’
She took my face between her hands. ‘Leo, the Blood Flower is a ruby. Do you understand? It’s worth more than this street, probably more than the whole city. When he finds out I’ve lost it, he’ll kill me. We can’t go back. Not now.’
‘Mr Quinton will be in jail.’
She gave my face a squeeze. ‘You are silly. Thomas will be having a nice chat with the superintendent soon, and he’ll be tucked up in bed with his fat wife before midnight.’
We walked on, passing the obelisk, and turned north towards her street. As we approached her door, I detached my arm from hers.
‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll go back to the club in the morning. Stephan will let me in. I’ll tell him I lost a purse or something.’
She forced a smile and opened out her arms. ‘Then you’ll find me on the beach tomorrow night with my throat cut.’
‘I can help you.’
‘How? Do you mean I should run away? With you? Tut, tut, Mr Stanhope. You’re a married man.’
‘No, I wasn’t thinking—’
‘I’m only playing with you, Leo. It’s a bad habit I have. Would you like to come in?’
She unlocked her door and went through, leaving it open. I was alone in the street.
Oh, but who are you, at this moment? Are you the man who doffs his hat and strolls away, back to his wife and family, remembering that moment when you were tempted, but resisted? Or are you another kind of man altogether, one who removes his hat and goes inside? And afterwards, do you carry an icy shard in your heart for ever, the shame of that night, the secret you keep? You can never be certain until you’re given the choice.
I stood on the threshold for a full minute before removing my hat and going inside.
Alice put her finger to her lips. ‘Quietly,’ she whispered. ‘Mother’s upstairs.’
She took my coat and bade me sit in one of the armchairs facing the unlit fire, remaining standing herself.
‘Where does your mother think you go every evening?’ I asked.
‘She knows full well where I go. Thomas pays the rent here. I think she loves him more than she loves me, or his money anyway.’ She fluttered her eyelids, acting the innocent. ‘But as long as nothing happens under her roof, she can tell herself I’m still a maiden and one day some fine gentleman will come along and marry me. But I’m twenty-nine now, and any man who shows an interest gets his fingers broken.’
She said this with no apparent concern for my fingers.
‘I shouldn’t be here,’ I said.
‘But you are here, and I shall probably be dead tomorrow.’
She removed her coat and gloves and unpinned her bonnet from her hair. I felt a tightening from my chest directly to my groin.
‘What are we to do?’ she asked.
I kept my eyes on the grate. A spider was building a cobweb between two brushes, diligently spinning his silk.
‘If you can’t find the stone tomorrow, you should come to Mr Black’s lodging, where you had the portrait done. You can hide with us there.’
She brushed my cheek with her fingertips, sending explosive charges through my body. ‘I meant right now.’
I thought she’d take the other armchair, but instead, she slid her arms around my neck and coiled herself on to my lap.
Briefly, Rosie’s face came into my mind – the children, our rooms at home, the outside of the shop. The feeling of coming home at the end of the day. Rosie didn’t smile much, but I always knew she was glad to see me. Other thoughts pushed them aside: my narrow bed, my cold feet at night, the single hook on the back of my door.
Alice put her head on my shoulder. ‘I’ve been with women before.’
‘I’m not a woman.’
‘I know. I meant something else.’ She nuzzled into my neck. ‘Men and women, but never anyone quite like you. You’re special.’
‘I’ve always thought I was rather ordinary.’
‘Not ordinary,’ she whispered, touching my cheek where my skin was burnished to a leathery hardness.
I closed my eyes and felt her warm lips on mine.
The ceiling above us squeaked, the sound of feet on floorboard. Alice froze, her eyes darting towards the doorway. Truly, she seemed more afraid of her mother than she had been of the police.
After a pause, we heard the metallic ring of a stream of urine hitting an empty chamber pot. Neither of us moved a muscle. The noise seemed to continue for ever, eventually reducing in tone and volume as the pressure waned to mere dribs and drabs. And then the squeak again and the sound of someone climbing into bed.
Alice giggled quietly, sighed once and kissed me again. Her lips were soft and wet, and I felt her tongue probe gently into my mouth.
One of my hands was around her shoulder and the other was hovering in the air. It didn’t know where to go. She took it in hers and lowered it down to her waist, shifting her weight, pulling up her knees and curling on me, round me, pressing up against me.
I pulled back. ‘Please, can we stop.’
She pouted and brushed her fingers through my hair. ‘Why should we? These could be my last hours alive. I want to enjoy them.’
She ran her finger down my forehead to my nose and lips, and onwards to my chin and my collar. She undid my top button, and I didn’t stop her. She undid another button and a third, slipping her hand inside my shirt. She closed her eyes, and I could smell the sweetness of whisky on her breath. Her fingers met my binding and she pushed underneath, nails scratching against my flesh.
‘It’s all right,’ she whispered. ‘Truly, it is. I know what to do.’
She released the rest of my shirt buttons, one at a time. Down, down, down her fingers went, fluttering gently against my belly, until they were pulling at the belt of my trousers.
I gasped.
When I was six years old, I found a dead badger in the park.
It was the twins’ birthday. Oliver always chose for both of them, and he wanted a picnic, so we walked down from our house and sat away from everyone else on our yellow blanket. Mummy spread out the sandwiches and cakes, while Father showed Oliver how to use his birthday present: a bow and ten arrows with red feathers.
Not long after that, the trouble started. Oliver had promised me I could have a go if I ran around and picked up all the arrows he’d loosed, but my turn never seemed to come. When I got cross and took a swing at him, he jumped out of the way, laughing, holding out the bow towards me and snatching it away at the last second. He was four years older and there was nothing I could do but scream with frustration and run away into a copse full of jackdaws. That’s where I found the badger.
At first, I didn’t know what it was. I’d seen badgers before, lumbering along on their stumpy legs in the woods at the bottom of our road, but those were whole and cuddly, not bags of offal that could be ripped open and emptied out, strewn across the grass as if someone had been in a hurry to find something inside. I crouched down and touched the top of his head with my fingers, tracing the coarse fur around his ears.
‘Why are you dead?’
The jackdaws were lining up in the branches above my head, fretting and waiting for me to leave, but I didn’t think they could kill a badger. More likely foxes, or one of the dogs tearing up and down on the grass, off their leashes. Father always said that an untrained dog was like a wolf.
I still had one of Oliver’s arrows, and I prodded it under a flap of skin, leaning down to peer inside. A fly flew out and landed again, sucking at a cream-rimmed eye. Another was investigating the badger’s lips, crawling along its oily tongue and into its throat. I touched my teeth with my tongue, and my tummy felt funny.
I was wiping the arrow on the grass when I heard a voice. ‘Don’t touch it, will you?’ I looked round and there was Jane, with Oliver behind her. ‘Dead things give you diseases. And we have to go now anyway. Mummy sent us to find you.’
I sneaked a glance at my arm. A white hair was sticking to my sleeve. It didn’t seem diseased, but I brushed it off anyway and shoved my hand into the pocket of my apron dress.
Oliver took the arrow from me and pushed it under the badger’s body, tipping him over on to his other side and revealing flat, wet grass where he’d lain.
He grinned up at Jane. ‘Still hungry?’
‘Don’t be disgusting.’
‘He’s only little,’ I said, looking around the copse. ‘I wonder where his mummy is.’
Oliver shrugged. ‘Maybe she’s dead too.’
He didn’t seem very upset. But he’d cried himself to sleep when Pilgrim died, and that was of old age. This was much sadder.
‘We have to go back,’ said Jane. ‘Both of you. Or I’ll tell Father you wouldn’t.’
‘You go.’ Oliver stood up and took the bow off his back. ‘I’m going to hunt some more badgers. I’ll hang their heads on the wall as trophies.’
The thought of it terrified me. This one might have younger brothers and sisters who wouldn’t know to run away. I could picture their trusting faces as he took aim.
‘No, you mustn’t,’ I shouted, but neither of them cared.
Jane stamped her foot. ‘You have to come now.’
Oliver shrugged. ‘I’ll be home later.’
‘Well, we’re going back anyway. Come on, Lottie. My goodness, look at your knees! After everything Mummy told you.’
‘I don’t care about my knees,’ I protested. ‘I want to go with Oliver.’
I was desperate to protect those other little badgers. I’d forgotten that my brother’s arrows weren’t nearly sharp enough to kill anything. He’d already shot me twice that morning and Father had told him off severely, but I wasn’t dead.
‘You’ll care when Mummy sees that dress.’
‘Anyway, you can’t.’ Oliver was looking up at the trees, shielding his eyes from the sun. ‘Ladies don’t hunt.’
‘I’m not a lady.’
‘You will be.’
Jane set her mouth and tugged on the cuffs of her coat. ‘Come on, Lottie.’
‘I don’t want to,’ I screamed, but she grabbed my wrist and pulled me away.
The last I saw of the badger, Oliver was stepping over him, notching an arrow into his bow, ducking under a branch and disappearing into the copse. The jackdaws were already dropping down on to the body.
It’s not fair, I thought. Why can’t I go with Oliver? I’m never, ever going to be a lady.
And that was when I knew.
Alice’s fingers were pushing underneath my trouser belt.
‘No,’ I said, my voice sounding thin and distant.
She stopped kissing me, but her lips still brushed mine as she spoke. ‘You’ll enjoy it, I promise. Trust me.’
My red raw sense: my sore tooth, my hangnail, the splinter in my palm that always catches. How I wished I didn’t possess it. It heard what she said, and it knew what she meant.
I put my hand on hers.
‘I’m not a woman, Alice.’
She pushed down further. ‘Well, you are. I mean, you are really. Corporeally speaking.’
‘But I’m more than just corporeal. I’m also … ’
Also what, I thought? A man’s soul? A man’s desires? It had been four years since a woman truly wanted me for who and what I was. And even then, Maria had played so many parts, how could I be certain?
Alice nuzzled my cheek. ‘Just relax and let it happen.’
‘No. Please. I have to go.’
She tipped her head back to see me clearly, doubting I was serious. When she saw that I was, she uncoiled herself and went to sit on the other armchair. Her lips – her slightly sore-looking lips – were pushed into a pout. ‘You can’t help what you are, Leo. None of us can.’
I was doing up my shirt, my fingers shaking so hard I could scarcely push the button through the hole. Why had I come here? I should never have stepped inside this house.
I found my coat and hat and was almost at the door when I stopped. In my haste, in my lust, I’d forgotten the danger she was in.
‘Don’t go back to Papaver tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Don’t take the risk. Pack your bag and take the train. Or a ship. Go far away. Be anywhere but here.’
She looked around the wing of the armchair. ‘If I did that, he’d punish Mother. That’s how he works. He insisted I should wear it, even though I told him.’
‘Told him what?’
She gave me a melancholy smile. ‘I told him it thought I was unworthy.’
I frowned, my critical faculties returning from wherever they’d been. ‘“It” thought you weren’t worthy of wearing it? You mean, the stone itself thought that? It may be a ruby, Alice, but it’s still just a stone.’
She turned away from me, now completely hidden, so I was talking to the back of the armchair. ‘The Blood Flower was made in the midst of war, Leo, and it can do things no normal jewel can do. Pull things towards itself and push them away. It broke the chain that held it.’
Of course, that was nonsense. And hardly the point.
‘Don’t be here tomorrow, Alice.’
But she didn’t reply.
I opened the front door, stepped out in the street and breathed deeply. How could it still be dark? I felt as if I’d been out all night.
My footsteps echoed in the narrow street. I pulled my coat closely around myself and fixed my bowler on my head. I was exactly like any other gentleman who’d stayed out too late and was yearning for home.
We had only kissed, I told myself. Nothing more. We’d been carried away by the drama of the moment: the police raid, the lost ruby, Alice’s fears. No one could blame us.
In which case, said a small voice at the back of my head, you won’t mind telling Rosie about it, will you? Surely, she couldn’t expect real fidelity to a sham marriage.
But, I asked myself, how would I feel if our positions were reversed? If one day Rosie told me candidly that she’d been tempted by another man and had almost indulged that temptation, then … well, in truth, I couldn’t imagine it happening. But if it did happen, against every trait in her character, I would feel utterly untethered. But that was because she had told me the sham was what she wanted, and she had no interest in anything more.
I’d never said I had no interest in anything more.