The Sweet Far Thing

Page 220

“A splendid display of courage, old boy,” one of the gentlemen says.
Tom stands blinking in the light, rather like an old dog without the sense to come in from the rain.
“Don’t you remember, Thomas? Oh, dear. I fear that blow to your head was more severe than we thought. We should take you straight home to bed and call for Dr. Hamilton.”
“Dr. Hamilton is already here,” Dr. Hamilton says. He steps out, a brandy snifter in his hand and a cigar clenched between his teeth.
“Single-handedly?” the white-haired man asks.
Another gentleman, with thick spectacles, claps Tom on the back. “There’s a good man.”
A younger man takes Tom’s other arm. “A warm brandy is all you need to get you back on your feet.”
“Indeed. I should like that very much, thank you,” Tom says, managing to look both sheepish and proud at the same time.
“You must tell us exactly how it happened, chap,” Dr. Hamilton says, ushering Tom into the small but cozy club.
“Well,” Tom begins, “in our haste this evening, my driver foolishly took a shortcut near the docks and was lost. Suddenly, I heard cries of ‘Help! Help! Oh, please help!’”
“You don’t say!” the gentlemen gasp.
“I counted three—a half dozen men of dubious character, brigands with eyes devoid of all conscience….”
I see I am not the only one gifted with imagination. But tonight, I shall allow Tom his glory, however much it vexes me. A kindly gentleman offers assurances to me that my “heroic brother” will be well looked after, and I’m quite sure that after tonight’s tale, his place in that society is assured.
“Tom,” I call after him. “Mr. Fowlson will carry me on to Spence, then?”
“Hmmm? Yes, of course. To Spence with you.” He waves me away with his hand. “Oh, Gemma?”
I turn back.
“Thank you.” He grins, bloodying his lip once again. “Ow!”
Fowlson gets the carriage under way. Kartik sits beside me. London rolls past us in all its grit and glory: the chimney sweeps soldiering home with sooty faces at the end of a hard day, their brooms balancing on their shoulders; the solicitors in their finely brushed hats; the women in their ruffles and lace. And on the banks of the Thames, the mud larks sift through the filth and the muck, searching for what treasures may hide there—a coin, a fine watch, a lost comb, some bit of glittering luck to change their fate.
“Beware the birth of May, beware the birth of May,” I intone. “How could it have been about Circe? She didn’t know I would come to her then,” I say aloud. I repeat the phrase a few more times, turning it over in my mind, and something new comes to me. “A birthday. The warning could be for a birth date. When was Amar’s birthday?”
“July,” Kartik says. “And yours is June twenty-first.”
“Nice of you to remember,” I say.
“First day we met.”
“When is yours?” I ask, realizing I don’t know, have never asked.
“November tenth,” he says.
“Leaves you out, doesn’t it?” I say, rubbing my temples.
I hear the boats in the distance getting closer. We’re near the docks. There is something familiar about this place. I felt it when Kartik and I came to meet with Toby.
“‘Upon the wharves of sorrow,’” I say, repeating a line of the Yeats poem I found in Wilhelmina’s book. The illustration opposite it: the painting of the boats on the wall. What if that wasn’t a painting but a window?
“Fowlson!” I shout. “Slow the carriage!”
“You don’ wanna do that. Not ’ere,” he calls down.
“Why not?”
“It’s as rough a place as you could ’ope to find. The Key’s full o’ prostitutes, criminals, murderers, addicts, and the like. I should know. It’s where I’m from.”
My stomach flutters. “What did you call it?”
He states it emphatically, as if I were a foolish child. “The Key. And you’re mad if you fink I’m stoppin’ this fine carriage ’ere.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
“DON’T LIKE THIS,” FOWLSON MUTTERS, TURNING UP HIS collar to the sticky damp as we make our way down slick cobblestones in the dark. He keeps his switchblade palmed like a talisman. A fetid smell blows off the river.
“You’re sure this place is called the Key?” I ask. The houses—if they could be called such—are narrow and as crooked as a poor woman’s teeth.