The Beating of His Wings

  ‘He’ll live.’

  ‘I’m not sure you’re right about that.’

  ‘Who’s your skinny friend?’ Lugavoy asked.

  ‘This young lady is a most deadly person. I’d show her more respect.’

  ‘You look familiar, sonny.’

  ‘Keep going, mister,’ said Deidre, ‘and you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face.’

  ‘My apologies, but she’s very young and doesn’t know any better.’

  ‘Don’t be apologizing for me,’ said Deidre.

  Cadbury raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘What can you do?’

  ‘As I see it, Trevor, you’re not going to make it to wherever you were planning to go so the question of your intentions coming into conflict with Kitty the Hare’s interests doesn’t apply for the foreseeable future. If you want your partner to live, I don’t really see what the problem is.’

  ‘What’s to stop you killing us as we sleep?’

  ‘You shouldn’t judge others by your own low standards.’

  Trevor laughed. ‘Point taken. But still I worry.’

  ‘What can I say? Except that it’s not in Kitty the Hare’s mind to do so.’

  ‘And what is in his mind?’

  ‘Why don’t you come back to Spanish Leeds and ask him?’

  ‘So he doesn’t trust you enough to tell you?’

  ‘Are you trying to hurt my feelings? I’m touched. The thing is that while Kitty the Hare has considerable respect for you both, it so happens you’re on a path that brings your interests into conflict with his. He prefers his own interests.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘I’m glad that you think so. Are we agreed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We have kaolin. That should make him feel better.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Cadbury gestured to Deidre Plunkett. She brought out a small flask from her saddlebag and, getting down, walked over to Kovtun.

  ‘Take an eighth,’ she said. Cadbury put two fingers in his mouth and let out a whistle so shrill it made Lugavoy flinch. In response the dozen men waiting over the hill emerged in three staggered sets of four and spread out wide.

  ‘Nasty-looking bunch,’ said Lugavoy. ‘But someone knows what they’re doing.’

  The skilled approach-work he so admired was being directed by Kleist; the villainous-looking types he was controlling were Klephts, and so rather less dangerous than they appeared. Cadbury had hired them in a hurry because so many of his usual thugs had been struck down with the squits, in fact the same typhoid from which Trevor Kovtun was suffering and from the same source in a water pump in the centre of Spanish Leeds. The rise in the number of people taking refuge there on the rumours of a war with the Redeemers was already exacting a price. It was all very unsatisfactory but the Klephts did look the part and they had clearly fought against the Redeemers and were still alive – no mean recommendation. About Kleist he knew nothing – he was not a Klepht but he seemed always to have the ear of the Klepht gangmaster who, for some reason, was called Dog-End. In fact, Kleist was mostly in charge but it was thought best not to have a boy seen to be their leader.

  On their way back they had to pass by Kevin Meatyard.

  ‘Can we take him with us?’ said Lugavoy.

  ‘Not enough horses. Besides, I don’t like the look of him.’ Cadbury signalled to Kleist, who was nearest. ‘What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Kleist.’

  ‘Give him some food – enough for four days not more.’ Kevin had already hidden the rations given him by the Two Trevors.

  Kleist approached Kevin slowly: he didn’t like the look of him either.

  ‘All right?’ he said to Kevin, as he got down and started rifling the ration saddlebag to see what was least palatable and so best for giving away – the staler bread, the harder pieces of cheese.

  ‘Got a smoke?’ said Meatyard.

  ‘No.’

  Kleist set out what could only be described as an ungenerous interpretation of four days’ worth of edibles onto a square of cloth.

  ‘Where you from?’ asked Kleist.

  ‘None of your fucking business.’

  Kleist’s expression did not change. He stood up, looked at Meatyard and then kicked sand all over the food he’d just laid out. Neither of them said anything. Kleist got on his horse and left to catch up with the others.

  6

  Life is like a pond into which an idle child drops a pebble and from that act the ripples spread outwards. Wrong. Life is a stream and not a stream in spate, just an ordinary piddling sort of stream with its routine eddies, whirls and no-account vortices. But the vortex and the ripple uncover a root, and then another, and then they undermine the bank and the tree by the stream falls down across the stream and diverts the water and villagers come to find out what has happened to their supply and find the coal unearthed by the falling tree and miners come, and whores to serve the miners and men to manage the whores and a town of tents and mud becomes a place of wood and mud, then bricks and mud, then cobbles to pave the street, then the law arrives to walk the cobbles that pave the streets, then the coal gives out but the town lives on or it dies away. And all because of a piddling stream and its piddling whirls and vortices. And so it is with the life of men, driven by the many-fingered hand of the invisible.

  The visit that would have brought death to Thomas Cale at the hand of the Two Trevors was stalled by a drink of water from a tainted well, its messengers herded back to where they came from by a long-time friend who couldn’t really care less whether he lived or died, back to a city where the wife of the long-time careless friend was wandering the streets with her newborn girl, thinking her husband dead who was now returning towards her and who, in a few days, would pass no more than thirty yards from her in the great crowds that now crushed inside the walls of Spanish Leeds. Over and again their paths would nearly cross but for the little whirls and vortices pulling them a fraction this way and then a fraction that.

  Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish, sometimes lionish, sometimes very like a whale, but all the most cheerful philosophers agree that even the blackest cloud has a silver lining. And during the days and nights of wretchedness when Kevin Meatyard ruled, Cale discovered that the old ways he had of dealing with suffering came back to him. In the Sanctuary he had learned to withdraw inside his head, vanish to other places in his mind, places of warmth and food and marvellous things – angels with wings who did whatever you said, talking dogs, adventures without pain, even death without tears and sudden blissful resurrections, peace and quiet and no one anywhere near. Now for a couple of hours a day he could do the same when the retching and the madness gave him some elbow room. Daydreams came to his defence; for minutes at a time he found himself back among the lakes at Treetops, swimming in the cool waters, picking signal crabs out of the streams, thinking about the word he’d found one day for the sound of water on small stones as he pulled the crabs apart and ate them raw with the tops of wild garlic, just the way IdrisPukke had shown him. And then at night, as the long-winged bugs in the wood made their wonderful pulsating racket, they would talk and talk and he’d lap it up, sitting on one of the chairs that were almost like beds as IdrisPukke poured him a light ale and handed out the accumulated wisdom of half a century, insight, as he frequently pointed out, you couldn’t buy at any price.

  ‘People treat the present moment as if it is just a stopping point on the way to some great goal that will happen in the future, and then they are surprised that the long day closes; they look back on their life and see that the things they let go by so unregarded, the small pleasures they dismissed so easily were in fact the true significance of their lives – all the time these things were the great and wonderful successes and purpose of their existence.’

  Then he would pour Cale another quarter pint, not too much.

  ‘All utopias are the work of cretins and the well-intentioned people who work towards the foundation of a better future ar
e half-wits. Imagine the heaven-on-earth where turkeys fly around ready-roasted and perfect lovers find perfect love with only a little satisfactory delay and live happily ever after. In such a place, men and women would die of boredom or hang themselves in despair, well-tempered men would fight and kill to be relieved of the horrors of contentment. Pretty soon this utopia would contain more suffering than nature inflicts on us as it is.’

  ‘You sound like Bosco.’

  ‘Not so. He wants to wipe cats from the face of the earth because they like to eat fish and catch birds. You might as well wish for a time when the lion will lie down with the lamb. But you’re half right, in a way. I agree with Bosco up to a point – it’s true that this world is hell. But while I, too, am appalled by humanity as a gross caricature I also feel sorry for it: in this hideous existence so full of suffering, we are at one and the same time the tormented souls in hell and the devils doing the tormenting. We are fellow sufferers, so the most necessary qualities to possess are tolerance, patience, forbearance and charity. We all need forgiveness and so we all owe it. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. These are virtues, young man, in which, and I mean this kindly, you are sorely lacking.’

  At this last offering, Cale pretended to be asleep, accompanied by exaggerated snores.

  But drifting into the past was a place full of traps. He wanted to remember the first time he had seen Arbell naked – bliss it was to be alive that night. But the pleasure and pain, love and anger, lived too much cheek by jowl for this to take him into another world. Better to stick to wonderful meals, to memories of teasing Vague Henri about the enormous size of his head, of listening to IdrisPukke and getting the last word with everyone. But also he would think and argue with himself and try to work out what he really knew: that the world was like a stream full of gyrations, twirls and weedy entanglements, and that wherever you went the water always leaked through your fingers.

  The room they had now given him was simple enough: a reasonably comfortable bed, a chair and a table, a window that looked out over a pleasant garden full of slender elm trees. It had two luxuries: he slept on his own and he had a key to lock himself in and everyone else out. They’d been unwilling to provide one at first but he had insisted with a degree of vague menace and, having asked the Director of the Priory, they had warily given him what he wanted.

  There was a light tap on the door. He looked through a small hole he had drilled through the thinnest part of the door and, satisfied, he unlocked it with a quick twist and stood well back. After all, you never knew.

  Suspicious, the Priory servant stayed where he was.

  ‘There seems,’ he said, ‘to be a hole in the door.’

  ‘It was like that when I got here.’

  ‘Sister Wray has asked to see you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I believe she has been asked by the Director to investigate your case. She is very highly respected.’

  Cale wanted to ask more questions but as is often the case with awkward people he did not like to appear ignorant to someone who clearly disliked him – and for good reason, as this servant was the very person Cale had menaced about having the key. ‘People with charm,’ IdrisPukke had once said to him, ‘can get others to say yes without even asking the question. Having a real talent for charm is most corrupting. But don’t worry,’ he added, ‘that’s not something you’ll ever have to worry about.’

  ‘I’ll take you to her now,’ said the servant. ‘Then I’ll see about the hole in the door.’

  ‘Don’t bother. It creates a nice breeze.’

  He put on his shoes and they left. The servant was surprised to see, given all the fuss he had made, that the obnoxious young man did not bother to lock the door behind him. But as long as he was not in there Cale couldn’t care less who else was.

  In silence they walked through the Priory. Some of it was built recently, other parts were older, other parts older still. There were tall and grim-looking buildings with gargoyles grimacing from the walls, then a sudden change to the elegant and well-proportioned, mellow stone structures with large windows of irregular glass that in one piece reflected the sky and in another the grass, so various and changeable that the building seemed to be alive inside. Eventually, through passages in great walls, the silent pair emerged into a courtyard more pleasing in its scale and engaging simplicity than anything Cale had seen even in Memphis. The servant led him through an arch and up two flights of stairs. Each landing had a door in thick black oak to either side of the staircase. He stopped outside one on the top floor and knocked.

  PART TWO

  Lest we should see where we are,

  Lost in a haunted wood,

  Children afraid of the night

  Who have never been happy or good.

  W. H. Auden, ‘September 1, 1939’

  7

  ‘Come in.’ It was a soft and attractive welcome. The servant opened the door and stood back, ushering Cale forward. ‘I’ll be back in an hour exactly,’ he said and pulled the door shut.

  There were two large windows to Cale’s right, which flooded the room with light, and at the far side, sitting by the fire in a high backed chair that looked comfortable enough to live in, was a tall woman. Even sitting down Cale could see she was more than six foot tall, somewhat taller than Cale himself. Sister Wray was covered from head to foot in what looked like black cotton. Even her eyes were covered with a thin strip of material in which there were numerous small holes to allow her to see. Strange as all this was, there was something much stranger: in her right hand and resting on her lap was some sort of doll. Had one of the children in Memphis been holding it he would not have noticed – the Materazzi girls often had dolls that were spectacularly splendid to behold, with madly expensive costumes for every kind of occasion from a marriage to tea with the Duke. This doll was rather larger, with clothes of grey and white and a simply drawn face without any expression at all.

  ‘Come and sit down.’ Again the pleasant voice, warm and good-humoured. ‘Can I call you Thomas?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a slight nod, but who could know of what kind? The head of the doll, however, moved slowly to look in his direction.

  ‘Please sit.’ But the voice was still all warmth and friendliness as it completely discounted his appalling rudeness. He sat down, the doll still watching and – though how, he thought, could it be so? – taking a pretty dim view of what she was looking at.

  ‘I’m Sister Wray. And this,’ she said, moving her covered head slightly to look at the puppet on her lap, ‘is Poll.’

  Cale stared balefully at Poll and Poll stared balefully back. ‘What shall we call you?’

  ‘Everybody calls me “sir”.’

  ‘That seems a little formal. Can we agree on Cale?’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  ‘What a horrible little boy.’

  It was not especially difficult to surprise Cale, no more than most people, but it was no easy thing to make him show it. It was not the sentiment that widened his eyes – he had, after all, been called a lot worse – but the fact it was the puppet who said it. The mouth didn’t move because it wasn’t made to, but the voice most definitely came from the puppet and not Sister Wray.

  ‘Be quiet, Poll,’ she said, and turned slightly to face Cale. ‘You mustn’t pay any attention to her. I’m afraid I’ve indulged her and like many spoilt children she has rather too much to say for herself.’

  ‘What am I here for?’

  ‘You’ve been very ill. I read the report prepared by the assessor when you arrived.’

  ‘The moron that got me locked up with all the head-bangers?’

  ‘She does seem to have got the wrong end of the stick.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure she’s been punished. No? What a surprise.’

  ‘We all make mistakes.’

  ‘Where I come from, when you make a mistake something bad happens – usually involving a lot of screaming.’
/>
  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What’s there for you to be sorry about? Were you responsible?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, what are you going to do to make me all right again?’

  ‘Talk.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘No. We’ll talk and then I’ll be better able to decide what medicines to prescribe, if that seems called for.’

  ‘Can’t we drop the talk and just get to the medicine?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Talk first, medicine after. How are you today?’

  He held up his hand with the missing finger. ‘It’s acting up.’

  ‘Often?’

  ‘Once a week, perhaps.’

  She looked at her notes. ‘And your head and shoulder?’

  ‘They do their best to fill in when my hand isn’t hurting.’

  ‘You should have had a surgeon look at you. There was a request but it seems to have gone missing. I’ll sort out something for the pain.’

  For half an hour she asked questions about his past, from time to time interrupted by Poll. When Cale, with some relish, told her he had been bought for sixpence Poll had called out, ‘Too much.’ But mostly the questions were simple and the answers grim, though Sister Wray didn’t dwell on any of them, and soon they were discussing the events of the night Gromek was killed and Kevin Meatyard escaped. When he’d finished she wrote for some time on the several small sheets of paper resting on her left knee as Poll leant over them and tried to read, and was pushed back repeatedly out of the way like a naughty but much loved dog.

  ‘Why,’ asked Cale, as Sister Wray took a couple of silent minutes to finish writing and Poll took to staring at him malevolently, although he also knew this could not be so, ‘why don’t you treat the nutters in the ward? Not enough money?’

  Sister Wray’s head moved upright away from her work. ‘The people in that ward are there because their madness is of a particular kind. People are sick in the head in as many ways as they’re sick in the body. You wouldn’t try to talk a broken leg into healing and some breaks in the mind are almost the same. I can’t do anything for them.’