Automatic Woman (17 page)

For half an hour we ducked in and out of dark alleys, dodging all hints of authority, humanity, shadows and rats. We lurked across side roads and in virtually uninhabited neighborhoods. She tossed the shooter into some bushes. There was no way to hide a giant fuck-all scattergun and we needed more stealth than fight. She turned to me with a look on her face that I’d never seen, not through the days of caresses or fleeting paid-for moments of ecstasy. Her grin was wolfish and lopsided. It made her eyes sparkle and even though her make-up had long ago worn away in the Bow Street non-storage, I’d never seen her more beautiful. My hearing was returning, but there would always be a ring, on quiet nights and quiet places the high pitch ring would be my companion from now into the hereafter.

“That was fucking brilliant!” she said and grabbed my right hand in both of hers.

She kissed the knife wound on my forearm, and my busted knuckles. She licked a spot of blood off her lips. Honestly, that was going a bit too far, but I didn’t say anything for fear of ruining the mood.

I looked around. We were near the desolate neighborhood of the Piece Work, near the home of the porter’s mum. I led Mary down the darker paths of the declining neighborhoods. I knocked on Mum’s door and buttoned my jacket so as to look less like a bloody hooligan. The old woman answered despite the hour and location. A trusting soul, or an insane one.

“Hello, Mum,” I said. She was wearing a colorful new coat over her layers of rags. Purple crushed velvet. Good call, Mum. She smiled her angelic smile.

“Mr. Government Agent! What brings you back?”

“Good news, Mum. I always come bearing joyous tidings.”

Mum ushered us into her home. As I mentioned, her living quarters consisted of a single room. The interior was lit by an oil lamp on a raw wood table. The light glowed soft and gold and did nothing to illuminate the dark corners of Mum’s hovel. The walls were adorned with separate layers of peeling contact paper. The top layer was white followed by gray, then yellow, then patches of brick where the paper had completely come away.

A couch sat behind the raw wood table. A vertical gas pipe and radiator dominated the wall opposite the couch. A gas ring extended from the pipe. A battered kettle perched itself precariously on the ring. Mum’s home was the very definition of shabby.

Mum stroked Mary’s arm with old, thin fingers. She looked into Mary’s eyes and took a sudden deep breath.

“You are so lovely, deary!” Mum squeaked. She let her twig fingers brush Mary’s face, her hair, her dress.

Mary gave Mum a shy smile. Her bare feet were black with mud and street grime. Her hair was a tangled nest; her hair dye had grown a half inch over the roots, now showing bits blonde and gray under auburn. Her dress was torn and filthy from days of confinement.

Mum was a saint.

“Can I get you a cup of tea, deary?” Mum asked

“Tea would be fine,” Mary replied.

I grabbed Mary’s hand. Mine was still shaking from the last dregs of Dr. Doyle’s seven percent solution. Mum lit her gas ring with a match the length of her forearm.

“Mum, I’ve been talking with important men, officials. You and your son should have a better place to live. We have acquired a place for you on B Street.”

I took my apartment key out of my pocket and pressed it into her hand. It wasn’t like I was ever going back. As far I as I was concerned, London and I were finished.

“It’s paid up to the end of next month. There’s no furniture except for a bed, which you can keep. Anyway, it’s a flat bigger than this place. Are you interested?”

Mum laughed and hooted and grasped me in a hug stronger than I would have given her credit for.

“Gather your things, then,” I said.

Mum bobbed around her room putting odds and ends into a canvas shopping sack. Picture frames, a broken statuette, a half-full ash tray, tins of potted meat. She filled her bag with a nonsensical collection dictated by whatever cracked portion of her mind judged important from unimportant. Her little feet swished and swept the rubbish on her floor; leaves, and bits of wrapping, and cigar ends.

I took her bag and her arm and walked her out of her shite apartment and shite neighborhood. It took four blocks of wandering to find a hansom cab that would stop to my raised hand.

I paid the driver a hefty tip, gave him directions, and instructed him to walk Mum to my front door. And off they went.

Over the buildings and homes, miles from where I stood, the London skyline burned fierce. The Bow Street Firm, its neighbor buildings, and probably the entire city block were consumed in a hungry conflagration. My history, my work, and the last seven years of my life in the belly of that beast were all gone to wind, to ashes, and to memories.

I returned to Mum’s flat. Mary stood among the rubbish sipping a cup of Earl Grey.

“Was that cup clean?” I asked.

“Probably not.” She regarded the cup for a moment, then dropped it to the floor and was on me like a jungle cat. She stripped off my coat and threw it against the wall. Then she ripped my shirt down the center, sending popped buttons to join the decaying garbage of Mum’s floor. I leaned in to kiss her but she slapped me hard across the face and pushed me onto the couch. I pulled her onto my lap; she straddled my body and locked her legs behind my back, like the Swan Princess of my nightmares.

I lifted her and myself from the couch, fighting as much as loving. Our lips finally locked and our tongues took on the fight our hands were too busy to engage in. My hands found their way under her dress, caressing her small breasts, her tiny arse, every bit of her legs and back, all taut muscles like bow strings. Her hands tangled into my hair which she twisted like a bronco rider. We collapsed to the floor as hot blooded beasts, rutting and cursing well into the morning hours.

Jolly and Mary’s Escape from London

I woke in the late morning with Mary still in my arms. We roused ourselves and gathered discarded bits of clothing. She brushed the rubbish from Mum’s floor off my back; I did the same for her. We were like grooming chimpanzees picking away bits of paper and tea leaves and cigar butts. The morning sun seemed a strange beast. I was positively hung-over from the violence of the night before.

We gathered our meager effects. Mary nicked a pair of sandals from under Mum’s couch, and we were on our way. The evening’s careful planning had given way to improvising. I knew that leaving London was the first priority. Things had gotten too hot, as the saying goes. I stopped in a general store for biscuits, a paper, and a coat for Mary to throw over her torn dress. We looked and smelled like gutter snipes. I retrieved my firearms from the tube station. We booked passage on an eleven o’clock southbound train to Portsmouth with all stops in-between.

We took advantage of a layover in Basingstoke. I rented us two copper tubs at a tavern under the pretense of being a married couple on holiday. We took short but heavenly baths. The hot water peeled away days of grime and dead skin and dried blood. I could have spent a lifetime basking in that water, getting clean, getting renewed. I rose from that copper tub reborn. The water I left behind was thick and black and stank despite the soaps and perfumes mixed in. Mary’s tub was not so dramatic, but she looked like a different person as well. We appeared less like street urchins and more like the newlywed widower and late marriage maid that I’d composed as our cover story.

We returned to the train and shared a quiet lunch of cold meats in the dining car. Afterward we found our seats and she rested her head against my arm. Mary slept while I watched the green earth roll past. Clouds blotted the sun and made everything gray and cool. The train stopped again in Winchester, but I made no movement for fear of waking Mary. She rubbed her face and grumbled and continued dreaming Lord knows what.

We detrained at Portsmouth. I booked passage for us on an eight p.m. ferry to Le Havre. We rented another room, this time for the purpose of changing appearances. Mary shaved off all of my hair and mutton chops, or at least those hairs that hadn’t been burned off in Bow Street. I matched my new hairstyle with a cheap shirt, wool trousers, suspenders, and cap. All in all I looked like a dock worker lost from port. Mary dyed her hair henna red and gave it a short bob, as was trendy among working class wives.

We shared another quiet meal, this one of Shepherd’s Pie and whiskey waters. I purchased three evening editions and scanned for my name or anything that could relate me to last evening’s activities.

Riot in Whitechapel

Fire Sweeps Central London

Anarchists Bloody Revolt

On and on went tales of lurid violence and the heroic efforts of police officers and firefighters. Eleven dead, dozens injured. No mention of the Bow Street Firm or Lord Barnes or Charles Darwin or automatic statues that fight like men. Someone had whitewashed these stories and taken out the mystery, the true meaning. Two of the papers cited the cause as a drunken brawl that got out of hand, something started over choleric words at the St. George & Dragon. The Pall Mall Gazette, yellowest of the three papers, blamed the riot on an anarchist conspiracy to undermine our sovereign unity. They want to destroy our way of life because they hated freedom and happiness and blah, blah, blah. Someone had spent good currency or brandished incredible favors to alter the news. The effect was disorienting. Had I made up the conspiracies in my mind? Were the papers right? Was I mad?

I looked at Mary, dipping her fork into mash and sweeping it around. The things that happened last night, last week, the war of the geniuses, the statues that came to life, if all of that wasn’t real, then what was she doing with me?

“Mary?”

“Hmm.”

“Am I mad?”

“Hmm?”

“Am I crazy?”

Her brown eyes looked up as she solemnly chewed her food. She gave the impression of deep contemplation. She swallowed and gave me that lopsided grin.

“Maybe.”

“Why are you with me?”

“You scared off my pimp.”

“No, really. I’m in serious trouble. You can jump clear of this if you leave me. Why are you staying?”

She stroked the back of my hand with her finger.

“Jolly, I literally have nowhere else to go. Jack paid my rent. I’m not a woman of means; I’m an army widow. Less than that, actually. My husband, God rest his soul, was shot and killed in Egypt during Orabi’s Uprising. I was sad, I was hurt, but deep inside I was relieved. I married when I was young and pretty and stupid and didn’t know the ways of worldly men. My husband was older and dashing and strong and quick with his temper and fists. He also loved drink and cards. I imagine he loved drink and cards more than me given that he always had money for one and not the other. ‘Fine,’ I thought, ‘he’s dead and I’ll get my pension and the live the quiet widow’s life. Or perhaps I’ll go to a vocational school, take up the caring of children or typesetting.’ The government letter came and took what hope I had and burned it to ash. ‘Your husband was discharged from service prior to his death,’ they say. ‘Conduct not befitting a soldier in the Queen’s Army,’ they say. ‘Murdered in a common tavern brawl,’ they say. No heroics, no honor, no pension. That’s when Saucy Jack started coming around. Devon, my husband, owed money to several disreputable lenders. All gambling debts. Jack purchased the debts and presented me with two options: pay my husband’s outstanding balance or receive my husband’s punishment. No one sets out to be a whore, Jolly. But after five years, I know that’s all I’ll ever be. A whore.”

“I like you,” I said. I wanted to say something more substantial but found myself at a loss. I make no claim to being suave around the fairer sex, even one that I’ve already had the carnal knowledge of. To be sure, Mary gave me an inscrutable look.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Even if I’m a whore.”

“You’re not a whore today. You won’t be a whore tomorrow. You’re not a whore to me.”

“I’ve been a whore to you.”

“Those days are over.”

“All right, then. I like you, too. But I know that good days are to be lived in the moment and bad days are always on their way. I’m having fun now. I’m enjoying your company now. Where do you have us going from here?”

“We’ll land in Le Havre and take a train East. As far East as we can manage on our resources.”

She gave my hand another squeeze.

“The men chasing you, are they going to find us?”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty lucky.”

“You’re lucky my former husband cured me of handsome and charming men.”

I laughed at that.

“Lucky me,” I said.

The last of my money got us one way tickets to Budapest, with stops and changeovers in Cambrai, Brussels, Stuttgart, Munich and Graz. I’d come this way as a young man sent to war. I’d taken the opposite path home as an older, more cynical man. When I’d first ventured south, I’d been fleeing the life of a cobbler, fleeing the life of a man who never left the grit and horseshit of the city streets. I was fleeing my father and his life. When we’re young, often we don’t know the value of what we have. I loved my father despite hating his life. I joined the service to see the greater empire and claim adventure. My father died in the five years I spent adrift. He died and no one in my family knew how to reach me. I came back to a city lessened by his absence and stayed because my military service taught me that there is no such thing as the better place. All the places we live in our lives are tainted by the pettiness of human interest and the only happiness is that which we make for ourselves, independent of location.