Jude woke the next morning and had a few blissful moments before she remembered everything that had happened the day before.
Are you there? she immediately said inside her head to Ivory, trying to work out if she could feel her.
Still here, Ivory replied. She sounded half-asleep, as if she too had only just woken up. She even yawned as she added, You’ll not be rid of me that easily.
Jude sat up and rubbed her eyes, wondering how long she’d slept. There was sunlight streaming in through the windows, warm and pleasant on her skin.
What happens to you when I fall sleep? she asked, wondering.
I’m not really sure, the cajou queen said. But I think your sleep drags me into sleep too. And when you wake up, your thoughts duly wake me.
She didn’t sound all too happy about it, but added, It makes sense, I suppose. As the host, you take priority.
Jude was relieved to hear it. She hated to think of the cajou queen being aware and awake inside her mind while Jude herself was oblivious.
Before she could say anything further to Ivory, there was a knock at her door.
“You can come in,” she called.
Sharkey entered, carrying a wooden tray with a cup of coffee and a plate of warm beignets on it.
“Morning,” he said cheerfully. “How’s the hand?”
Jude looked down at her bandaged finger. It ached a little but nowhere near as much as she would have expected. Carefully, she unwound the bandages. Beneath them, her finger was still bloodstained but there was no longer any bone sticking out. The skin looked black and blue, swollen and bruised, but it wasn’t ripped. And her finger hurt but it wasn’t broken.
“He’s healed it,” she said, staring at her hand.
“Who?” Sharkey asked, startled.
“Beau. He was here last night. Where’s he got to?”
She threw back the bed sheets and, sure enough, there he was. It only occurred to Jude in retrospect that it might have been wise to give Sharkey some warning about the twelve-foot-long albino cajou python. Her friend swore and the breakfast tray fell from his hands with a crash. Beignets rolled off under the bed and coffee spread out across the floorboards. Seconds later, Mops burst into the room with her shotgun.
“It’s OK!” Jude said, leaning down to pick up the snake and hold him to her protectively. “It’s all right. This is Beau. The snake I told you about last night. He’s not dangerous. Look, he healed my finger.”
She held up her hand for them to see. To her relief, Mops lowered the shotgun. Jude lifted the snake on to her shoulders, comforted by the solid weight of him there.
“Thank you, Beau,” she said. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to draw his neck over to her face and plant a kiss on top of his flat head.
Sharkey gave a shudder. “Gives me the creeps, that thing,” he said. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“I’m not really sure of anything,” Jude replied with a sigh. “But I don’t think Beau means any harm to anyone.”
They cleared up the coffee and retrieved the beignets from the floor. Jude attacked her breakfast with gusto. She found she was ravenously hungry, but as she gobbled down her food she thought of her pa, at home on his own, and immediately felt guilty.
“Thanks for everything, Sharkey, but I better go see what’s happening with my pa,” she said.
“Then what?” Sharkey asked. “Back to Moonfleet, is it?”
She sighed. “I suppose so. There’s something Ivory wants the Phantom to do.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Sharkey,” Jude began. “I’m not sure that—”
“Ain’t gonna do a bit of good arguing with me about it,” he cut her off with his lazy drawl. “I know where the old cursed mansion is. If you don’t come and get me, I’ll just wander over there on my lonesome and start banging on doors and hollering for folks.”
Jude tried not to smile. “All right.” Secretly, she couldn’t help being a little pleased. It would be a relief to have an ally there. “But look, I don’t know how the Phantom will take it. He might not want to let you in. I’ll meet you there, but just give me an hour or so to check on Pa first, OK?”
Sharkey nodded. “Sure thing. See you at Moonfleet in a couple of hours.”
Jude said goodbye to Sharkey and his grandmother, then went down to her boat, gunned the engine and headed for home. When she reached the pier, Beau immediately slithered off towards the drainpipe, making his way to the balcony. Jude trudged up the steps to her front door and smelled smoke. She threw open the door to the sight of her pa wrestling with a frying pan that was on fire.
She hurried across the room and pushed him out of the way before grabbing the pan, dumping it in the sink and turning on the faucet. The pan hissed and spat out a few droplets of burning oil that scalded Jude’s arm.
“Are you all right?” she demanded, looking at her pa who was slumped back against the kitchen counter.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Goddamn thing caught alight.”
Jude glanced at the blackened pan. She felt guilty, yes, but she was also sick of having to be here all the time. Sick of being anchored to a grim situation that only ever seemed to get worse and worse.
“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll fix you some breakfast.”
Her pa was staring at her hand. She didn’t think her finger was broken any more but it was still swollen and bruised enough to draw attention.
“Fighting again.” He glared at her. “I was worried sick when you didn’t come home. You’re going to ruin your life, you know. The only one of us to get out unscathed and you’re just going to throw it all away, like it’s nothing.”
Jude looked up at him sharply. “Is that why you hate me?” she asked. “Because you think I got out unscathed?” She could feel the sudden danger of tears and furiously willed them to stay locked away inside where they belonged as she hissed, “Did it ever occur to you that being the survivor who has to pick up the pieces is its own nightmare? That I have a special kind of hell all of my own?”
She was breathing too hard, going down a road she didn’t have time for. With an effort, she drew herself back. “Look, let’s not … let’s not get into this right now. Things are the way they are. Talking won’t change that. Sit down and I’ll make breakfast.”
Some part of her longed for him to protest. To take her arm and insist that they talked. To at least try to make things right between them. But perhaps it had all been broken for too long, and there was no saving it now. Not unless Jude carried out her end of the bargain and Ivory then did as she’d promised and healed him. There might be some hope for them then.
Her pa grunted, pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He didn’t say another word until Jude put a plate of food in front of him.
“Toast is burnt,” he said.
They ate in silence. Once they’d finished, Jude followed her pa to the bathroom to go through their usual routine. He had his back to her as she entered the room, but she caught sight of his face in the mirror on the opposite wall and his expression took her breath away. There was such an agony of raw despair there that Jude could feel her chance of saving him slipping away, despite everything she was trying so hard to do and all the hundreds of tiny ways she endeavoured to help him. It wasn’t working, and suddenly she could feel Baron Lukah’s shadow so strongly in the room that she almost expected to see the legba there in the corner with his pipe, his smoked glasses turned impassively in her direction.
It made a great sob want to rise up in her throat but she thrust it back down again and reached for her father’s one remaining arm, her fingers curling around the worn fabric of his sleeve.
“You can talk to me,” she blurted out. “Really. Look, I know things are bad. Really bad. I know you’re suffering and I know life seems hopeless to you sometimes. I know you’ve gone to dark places I can’t even imagine. And I want to help, but I don’t know how. I just…” She floundered, trying to find the right words, the ones that might somehow make a difference. “I just want you to know that I’m here and I love you and I’ll listen. If you want to talk then I’ll listen.” Her hand tightened slightly round his arm. “Please, Pa,” she said. “I’m right here.”
Her pa looked at her and it seemed to her as if maybe she had broken through. He seemed to really see her rather than simply gazing through her, and for those seconds it was like he was finally back in the room.
But then his focus shifted and he said, “Nothing left to say, Jude. Let’s just get this over with.”
He shook off her hand and stomped towards the sink. Jude took a deep breath to steady herself, but still felt shaken up as they went through their usual routine. She helped him to wash and dress and all the while she could sense that he resented her. She knew he must feel humiliated that she had to help him clean himself, that she had to see him naked, even help him on the toilet sometimes if it was a really bad day. And he turned that humiliation around on her, as if she was to blame, as if she had caused this situation somehow. It was a thankless task that she seemed doomed to repeat over and over again. If she hadn’t had music as an escape, she thought she might have gone mad herself by now.
She prayed with all her soul that the cajou queen would make good on her promise.
You do your bit, Ivory whispered, clearly hearing her thoughts. And I’ll do mine.
Even though the cajou queen was speaking the words Jude wanted to hear, she didn’t particularly appreciate the intrusion or the reminder that Ivory was there, listening to all her most personal, private thoughts. It was an intolerable situation to not even be able to retreat to the quiet privacy of your own mind. Jude determined that she must help Ivory as quickly as possible so she could go back to just being herself once again.
Finally her pa was washed, dressed, fed and installed in his chair. He hadn’t spoken another word to her all morning.
“I’ll see you later,” Jude said.
His right hand trembled where it lay on the armrest but he didn’t say anything and eventually Jude left. She could only help him by helping the cajou queen.
Her swamp boots clattered noisily on the steps as she made her way down to the street, where she paused for a moment to collect herself, to straighten her shoulders and get back into fighting mode.
Jude Lomax does not give up, she thought fiercely to herself.
And despite all the fear and unpleasantness of the last few days, this was a new morning. The sun was warm on her face and she was glad to be back in her familiar dungarees, with the smell of gumbo from the store below their apartment filling the humid air. She breathed it in deep, tilted her face towards the sun for a moment and strained her ears for the sound of a jazz band playing somewhere. It was faint and muffled, but there as always.
She straightened up, squared her shoulders and set off in the direction of Moonfleet Manor.