WITH THOSE WORDS, all the happiness was let out of the room. The clocks were the only sound. Timothy’s face went dull. He led his publisher to his office and closed the door. Elwyn followed and pressed his ear to it.
‘I’m sorry, Timothy. It’s been decided,’ the man said.’ Due to recent events, we’ve decided times are too contentious for this sort of work. If our university wants donor support—’
‘But surely you saw the efficacy of my methods.’
‘Efficacy has nothing to do with it. People are afraid, Timothy. They’re hearing stories about a mob dressed in red invading their square. A Forester with a sling, a wild man with a gun. No one wants to financially support a university that puts out a book detailing how to bring these people into society.’
‘It’s just a flash in the pan. It will all pass by the time we get this book polished and ready for distribution,’ Timothy said.
‘There is no “we”. There is no collaboration here. No partnership.’
‘But after all we’ve been through, Jared.’
‘That was a long time ago, Timothy. A long time ago. I came only as a friend. Only to let you know before you waste too much of your time on this little project.’
Elwyn winced at the word ‘little’. He waited for his uncle to defend himself and his work, but Timothy was silent. The silence tugged at Elwyn. He hated hearing his uncle so helpless. So weak. He couldn’t leave him like that. Elwyn opened the door.
‘Hello.’ He extended his hand to the publisher. ‘I’m Elwyn Bramble. We met a few minutes ago at the door.’ The man looked confused and hesitated a moment before shaking Elwyn’s hand. ‘And I want you to know that this isn’t just a little project. It’s groundbreaking, and really important at a time like this. Isn’t that right, Uncle Blackwell?’
Timothy stood silent, red.
‘I can recite the first few lines of Virgil’s Georgics for you. In Latin. I don’t really understand it yet, but I’m getting better—’ Elwyn continued.
‘That’s enough, Elwyn,’ Timothy interjected.
‘Or Seneca, maybe. My uncle just had me start memorising De Constantia Sapientis.’
‘I’m going to go now, Timothy,’ the man said, returning his hat to his head and moving towards the door.
‘Wait!’ Elwyn stepped between the man and the door. ‘You’re missing a great opportunity. An opportunity to be on the right side of history,’ he said, parroting his uncle.
‘Elwyn, I said that’s enough!’ Timothy shouted, spit flying from his pink face. Elwyn was surprised into silence. The publisher stepped gingerly around him, keeping plenty of space between their two bodies.
‘I’ll let myself out, Timothy. Send the boy back to the fields. Let him be with his own people. Where he belongs.’
The door shut, and Timothy grabbed Elwyn by the scruff of his shirt. Timothy wasn’t strong, but anger filled him, his eyes wild with rage. At first Elwyn was sure his uncle was going to hurt him, pull something off the wall and send it crashing over his head. But instead, Timothy dragged Elwyn to his room, pushed him in, and locked it from the outside. Elwyn was too shocked to resist.
‘You will learn not to open doors you have not been invited to open.’ There was a lack of restraint in Timothy’s voice, and, for the first time, a raw, untethered emotion. His vanishing footsteps were as rapid and heavy as Elwyn’s heartbeat.
Elwyn could hardly believe what had happened. He kept waiting for his uncle to come back and unlock the door. The light outside Elwyn’s window lost its harshness. Time ticked on. It was nearly sunset when Timothy returned. He spoke through the locked door.
‘I don’t see any reason for us to carry on with the project. Your time here has come to an end,’ Timothy said, the heavy wood muffling his voice, but not enough that Elwyn couldn’t hear the current of anger still running through it.
Elwyn had been sitting on his bed, channelling his frustration into a piece of string and a series of complicated knots Allun had once tried to teach him. He had been handling the injustice of the last couple weeks with what he thought was patience, even grace. But this was too much. He walked to the door to be sure he was heard.
‘You don’t see any reason to go on?’ Elwyn challenged.
‘I will make arrangements for you to return on tomorrow’s train.’
‘I’ve done everything right. Everything you’ve said, I’ve done. I followed all your rules. I read all the books you told me to. Did the exercises. And do you think I wanted to? No. But I did it anyway. I did it because you’re my uncle, and you helped me when I asked for help.’
‘You disobeyed me. You should have been at home working, not at the protest,’ Timothy said, getting pinker.
‘That gun was aimed at you. I saved you.’
‘You opened us up to scrutiny!’ Timothy’s voice boomed with a strength Elwyn didn’t know his uncle was capable of. He could feel the wood vibrate. Then hush came over the room, punctuated only by the ticking clocks. Elwyn thought for a moment that his uncle had gone. ‘You’ll leave tomorrow. That is final,’ Timothy said quietly, before his footsteps once again echoed down the hall.
Elwyn was alone in the quiet. The room wasn’t as big as it had seemed when he first arrived. The stacks of books on his desk, the papers and pencils that had seemed to keep him captive now looked innocent, such a small price to pay for the life he wanted. Why hadn’t he kept his head down, done the work he was asked to do? Why did he compulsively stick his neck out and try for something more? Why couldn’t he just be content with what he was given, like everybody else?
Elwyn lay on his bed and looked at the ceiling as the sun grew dim and twilight neared. He felt drained of energy, drained of himself. But then just a spark of that old fire flashed in his chest. He rose to his feet, moved a chair to stand on, and began to work at the skylight frame with the letter opener from his desk. He prised at the glass and wood until it finally loosened, and Elwyn lifted the window and pushed it aside, then crawled onto the grass.
The evening was starless and heavy with clouds and heat. Fireflies still flourished in the fields. Gas lamps in the town were being lit, twinkling in their glass cages, and at the front doors of inns and houses. Elwyn turned away from the centre of town, towards the river and the hill to the north, where the Rhoad house perched like a giant lantern, its many windows alight against the blue-purple sky.
He knocked on the door, but no one answered. When he knocked again, the door opened, but this time it wasn’t the old woman. It was Rhoad himself, weight on his left foot, a crutch under his arm.
‘Oh. It’s you,’ he said, looking past Elwyn for a moment, as though he was expecting someone else, someone who might appear through the half-light behind him.
Elwyn was surprised to see Rhoad. He had thought the maid would come, would make fun of him and let the dogs out. This stroke of luck bolstered his confidence. ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Here to ask for another job?’ Rhoad’s clear, authoritative voice sounded harsh in the stillness of the night.
‘I have a proposition for you.’
‘Is this going to end in my foot getting shot again?’ Rhoad said, the soft light casting deep shadows on his handsome face.
‘It’s about your campaign. I’ve heard it’s in trouble.’
‘You acted courageously. I see that. If it weren’t for your actions, a man may be dead, and the situation I find my campaign in could be even worse. Thank you. Now, go home.’
‘I think you should hear what I have to say.’
‘I understand things aren’t pleasant for you. You acted boldly and instead of being rewarded, all people see is a Forester with a sling in his pocket. That is just the way these thing go sometimes. It is not fair, but it is human nature. I have myself and my own affairs to think of. This protest has voters terrified. They’re flocking to Garreth. I don’t have time for your problems, I’m busy enough with mine.’
‘That’s why I’m here. I have an idea for how I can help.’
‘And I’m sure this is purely for my benefit. No self-serving motives.’ Rhoad’s sarcasm was as dry and hard as the stone steps where Elwyn stood.
‘Of course I have self-serving motives. That’s what business is about anyway, isn’t it? It’s an exchange that works out for both people. Otherwise it’s not business, it’s swindling.’ Rhoad didn’t invite Elwyn inside. He studied him, and Elwyn looked directly back. ‘I understand your situation,’ Elwyn began. ‘I read about you in books, how you got to where you are. You took risks. You never balked. You and I have that in common. I also believe in being bold when things get hard,’ Elwyn said. ‘Doubling down. Not sitting around complaining about a bad foot, hoping things get better.’
That was when it began to rain, a fast, heavy rain that poured out of the sky all at once and turned into warm gold where it was touched by the gaslight. The water drenched him, but Elwyn didn’t move, and Rhoad still didn’t invite him in. The two of them stared at each other.
‘I want to be your campaign assistant,’ Elwyn said, raising his voice to be heard over the downpour. ‘Everyone will expect you to put as much distance as possible between yourself and folks like me, but you’ll never be able to play into people’s fear the way Garreth does. You aren’t about self-protection. I’ve read your speeches. You said we have to “let go of old baggage to free our hands for the building a new future”. So why are you running a campaign the same way everyone does?’ Rhoad’s face did not change as he listened to Elwyn.
‘Taking me on as an assistant, taking me on publicly, would surprise everyone. It would get people talking. Maybe they wouldn’t all be saying great things, but at least you would be directing the conversation, not the other way round. It would be the turning point in your campaign. The moment you stopped talking about a new Collective and started living it.’
Rhoad studied Elwyn a bit longer. ‘Well. Come inside,’ he said.
Elwyn stepped out of the rain and into the brilliance of the Rhoad house. He wasn’t wrapped in a blanket or even given a towel to dry off with, but that didn’t matter. Elwyn was bathed in the light of hundreds of flames reflecting off hundreds of glass crystals and mirrors. And he knew instinctively that he had punched through the ceiling. That he was on his way up.