THE FINAL WEEKS ABOUT THE IRON HAD THE FEELING OF A carnival.
The pounding of metal against metal and the creaking of the wood and rope, the striking of the hammers, and the wrenching of the ratchets around the rivets had the aspect of some absurd musical instruments that had been set out of tune. Edgar was still up in the thick of it, shouting out along with his fellows: “In all His words most wonderful, Most sure in all His ways!”
And as he sang he smiled at the words. It was all true: his hammer struck sure upon the iron. The men flying through the air beside him were singing out his praises, and the iron was singing it back to him. And below them the Professor strode across the courtyard, swiping through the air with his cane, as if he was conducting an orchestra.
But when the Professor was not in attendance the choruses would change, and there would be songs about pegs, nails, and holes that flew around Edgar. He could not grasp the sense of them, but from the men’s laughter he knew that there was a meaning beyond a ballad of construction. He joined in the chorus, “Bang, bang, bang!” up at the apex, his high-whistling voice echoing down the iron, making the men laugh all the more.
It was in this spirit that Fisher approached Edgar.
“The men are proposing a race across the roof,” he said. “We could give them a fine bit of sport, could we not, you and I?”
Edgar looked up at the great expanse of iron and grinned. “I will need a long rope.”
“Then a long rope you will have, Master Jones. A long rope and a pocket full of gold, if we play this thing right.”
So it was two days later that the men gathered in the courtyard. It was sunrise, long before the working bell was to be struck. Edgar was hauled up to the eaves at the north side of the gallery. The roof blossomed red gold around him. Above him swung the last piece of the open air: a gap where the final panel of the roof was to be fixed. Below the men were huddled in groups, heads bent.
Fisher held the speaking tube to his mouth.
“The challenge is set,” he quacked. “Master Jones will swing from the north to the south end of the museum, touching upon each and every pillar. The touch will be witnessed by the striking of the iron, thus.”
Edgar hit against the bottom of the arch with his wrench. The roof rang like a bell.
“Master Jones assures me that this is a thing that can be completed in five minutes. And as his anchorman, I set my money to his claim. Am I correct in thinking that no other man will stand beside me?”
The courtyard below erupted in a chorus of jeers and whistles.
“Very well. I have your estimations registered.” Fisher waved a piece of paper in the air and the men cheered again. “If Master Jones’s boast is proved false, then the winnings will go to the man who is nearest to the resulting time.” Fisher tilted his beak to the roof. “Master Jones, strike upon the iron if you are ready!”
Edgar brought the wrench down and the rooftop rang.
Edgar pushed off and the roof rushed toward him. On the long sway of his rope he swung wide. He leant out of the harness, tipping into the air, and swiped a tulip-clustered pillar. The ratchet caught the petals and the iron sounded. Edgar pitched himself around the post and his rope caught, thrumming through the air. His harness lurched and he flew on. The metal forest tipped and tilted around him, and Edgar’s heart beat faster. It was as if the iron had life within it, and was trying to shake Edgar from his perch. Clang! Clang! Clang! Edgar beat at the bracing points as if he were hammering the roof into the sky. The iron was his iron and he would master it.
Unknown to all, there was another member of the audience. It was the Professor’s predilection to come to the museum at dawn. He would stand beneath the roof and watch as the steely bones of it emerged out of the night and were cast fiery by the rising sun. In these silent early hours the Professor could fancy that the museum was every day being made anew by God’s hand. Molten metal being poured down from the heaven in great golden ribs and finding its form upon the earth.
The Professor was watching from a window of the east gallery. It was quite a thing to come to see Edgar Jones swinging up in the heights, like a dark little monkey thundering his way across the canopy of his kingdom, so lithe and fearless. So utterly unlike his father.
Four! Edgar was nearly at the south face where the wooden door swayed across the brickwork, to and fro, to and fro, as Edgar flew toward it. There were three pillars set between him and his victory. But the rope was stretched to pure tension and Edgar felt as if he was dragging the weight of the whole rooftop behind him as he flew. He stretched out to strike the iron and his harness pulled against him. Edgar fell forward. The iron echoed with the cries of the men, “Master Jones! Master Jones!” Edgar caught the harness between his knees and pivoted: his feet were in the clouds and his face tipped to the floor, and the sea of men swung beneath him. All that had been upward was now downward, and for a moment Edgar saw the roof as he had first seen it: a bow-legged, tangle-hearted creature. But now the skeleton carried muscle and sinew: the lines of his rope threaded through it. Edgar pushed forward. Three, two, one, the pillars were struck, and Edgar was victorious.
The crowd erupted into a great cheer.
Bravo! Master Jones, bravo! cried the iron.
Fisher cracked the tail of the rope like a whip, and with the blood thrumming in his ears Edgar laughed and laughed. He was the hero of the skies and the men loved him for it. But at that moment the door swung open, and standing there was Mr. S.
He walked across to Fisher and took the trumpet from his hand. He grabbed the rope and loosened the knot, and Edgar came hurtling down, coming to a stop an inch above the floor, his hair dangling in the dust. Mr. S pulled at the harness and Edgar tumbled, rolled over the bracing, and landed with his face in the dirt.
“What is the meaning of this, Master Jones?” barked Mr. S.
Edgar spat the earth from his mouth. “It was just sport,” he muttered. “There was no harm in it.”
“No harm? Does this seem to you a thing without harm in it?”
Mr. S held out the harness. There, beyond the first knot, the rope was worn thread thin. Mr. S twisted it in his fist and snapped it. “I’ll warrant, from the great crowd gathered, that this was a thing that you were persuaded into, were you not?”
Edgar shook his head.
“It will be better for you if you speak the truth of the matter. Was it Master Fisher who created this spectacle?”
“No, sir, only me, sir.”
“Then you leave me no choice,” said Mr. S. “Edgar Jones, for unlawful use of the apparatus, you are dismissed.”
The Professor leant over the lintel of the window and tapped his cane upon the stone. “I have born witness to the entirety,” he called. “Send the boy across to me.”
THE PROFESSOR TOOK Edgar by the arm and led him away out into the center of the lawn. Behind them the museum crouched, expectant.
“Tell me, Edgar Jones, do you have any understanding of the science of chemistry?”
“No, sir.”
“The principle theory is simple. The world is made from basic building blocks of elements. They combine to create the varied matter that we see around us.” The Professor swept his cane across the open space before them, the muddied lawn, the trees, the fences. “And some of these combinations prove more volatile than others. They can prove most explosive when mixed. I fear it is thus with you and Mr. S.”
“Am I to be dismissed, sir?”
The Professor waved his hand as if to swipe away the question. “Many great things are achieved through the calculated use of explosion. Why, to set the railways across the land, vast mountains had to be blasted through. Such is the nature of Progress.”
“But am I dismissed?”
The Professor set his hand upon Edgar’s shoulder. “In a fashion, yes. But you must not take it to heart.”
“But you said, sir, that the museum was my home. You said that I was your best boy.”
“Did I?” The Professor chuckled. “Well, Edgar Jones, you must learn not to take things quite so literally, otherwise the world will be full of disappointment.”
“And may I ever come back?”
The Professor smiled and shook his head. “I think not. I have overruled Mr. S many times in your favor. Now I must let him have his way.”
Edgar kicked at the ground, churning up the mud. This was not how it should be. Mr. S, the man who had set the broken roof, was favored over himself: he who had undone the mistake and put the thing back together again.
“It is unjust.”
“In truth, Edgar Jones, it is not. It is a punishment in appearance only. You were apprenticed for the completion of the ironwork and nothing more. Roof-swinging or no, you would have been out of the museum within the month.”
Out of the museum. Edgar looked over the Professor’s shoulder, back at the broad walls and the tall door shut against him. And now it seemed there was only one place left for him. “So you will send me back to the forge?” It was unthinkable. Days upon days crouched upon the floor with the fire roaring at his back and the clang clang clang of Jacob’s hammer marking out his hours.
“On the contrary, I have recommended that you are apprenticed to an altogether more adaptable man.”
“Another master?”
“Indeed. I have secured you a place with a manufacturer of scientific instruments. It is quite a leap of status from the forge.”
Edgar thought of his father’s telescope in his father’s parlor, and the way that it could bring the moon and the clouds and the angels of Oxford to a hair’s-breadth away. It was not the same as flying up in the sky in a machine of his own invention.
“I am better suited to roof work.”
“Do you think that Oxford is your empire? A place where you pick your station as you please?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, then, accept your new position with grace and thanks, and let us have no further argument about it.”
The Professor pulled out a sheaf of papers and thrust them into Edgar’s hands. Illuminated letters crawled across the top of the page, red and black. The Professor held out his hand, and Edgar shook it. That strong grip again. The hand that had hauled him out of the great golden boiling pot, back in another life.
Back inside the museum, Edgar gathered his satchel from the gallery floor.
There, sitting inside it, was a twist of paper.
Edgar undid it and a stack of sovereigns tumbled into his lap. The bet was won, but at too great a cost. Edgar turned his gaze to the roof. His rope had been cut away, his victory already forgotten. He watched as the men aligned themselves around the final panel, harness upon harness swinging from the spurs. It was more unjust than he could bear. Had he not proved, time and time again, that he was the champion of the iron? He should be up there, at the final rivets. He sneaked into the shadows at the back of the eastern gallery, and watched as the hole in the sky was shuttered up like a trap being sprung. The iron against the iron was a steely applause ringing through the gallery.
Then he heard his name being called out of the stone.
“Edgar Jones?” said the bricks. “An instrument maker?” They laughed. “Well, I pity the man foolish enough to take him on.” The bricks laughed again. Edgar squinted down the corridor. At the far end stood the Professor and Mr. S. The high walls were acting like the brass-beaked shouting tube, carrying everything back to Edgar.
“I doubt he will stick at it,” said the Professor. “His own father confessed that our Master Jones did not even have the patience to learn his letters.”
“And yet you still recommended him for the work?”
“He was an amusing addition to our company, but Edgar Jones has served our purpose. It will do us no favors to have a boy like him loitering around the museum. Let another man work out what to do with him.”
“That’s your trouble, Professor. You are a collector of oddities through and through, and one day it will be your undoing.”
Edgar’s anger stewed through his blood. This was how it was then! He was a curiosity, a thing that had amused the Professor for a moment but now was to be cast out with never a backward glance. Cast out, with the door locked against him, so that he and his father could never walk through the courtyard, side by side, gazing up at the wonder of the ironwork. His father would never see and never understand, and Edgar would be a disappointment and a liar forever.
Very well. If the Professor would banish Edgar, then Edgar would have his revenge. Edgar went through the window and ran across the lawn and back into Oxford. He vaulted the fences of Christ Church Meadow, then walked along the line of the river, throwing great lumps of rock into the water, slicing through the undergrowth with a long stick. He sat himself down upon the riverbank and waited for the sky to grow dark.