Dan Vyleta - Smoke

“That man drowns kittens for sport,” Charlie says.

“Not for sport. Only when he’s told. But then he drowns them by the sackload.”

Thomas means to say it lightly, but his voice catches and a shiver runs the length of his damp back.

He calls me to his rooms late that night. Key-sar. That’s what they call him at school. Emperor-to-be. Julius Paul. Jules to his mother, after the manner of the French. To me he has always been Mr. Spencer, even when he was knee-high to a goose. I have known him half his life. I am father and mother to him, and also: his son. I see at once that he is angry. A riding crop is in his hand.

Go on, I say. Beat me if you must.

He does, works me over wordlessly, hitting my shoulders, back, and thighs, while I shield my face and eyes. We smoke together, he from anger, I from pain; breathe each other in. Far from estranging us, it affirms our bond. It’s what family is: the sharing of one another’s Smoke. Everything else is like a handshake: cold, formal, keeping a step apart. Isolation. Man is not born for such a thing.

Afterwards, still breathing heavily with the exertion, he explains it to me. That they sneaked into his room that afternoon and stole his cigarettes; that they broke one and lay it topmost, in order to let him know. He is pale with his anger. A handsome boy, always was. I run a bath for him, so he can scrub off the Soot. While he sits and soaks, I tidy the room. The cigarette case stands open. I close it and lock it away.

He does not share his cigarettes with me. Each of these, he often says to me (he likes to handle them, point with them, stab one at your face: a scarecrow’s finger, stuffed and bent, bleeding tobacco from its tip), each of these is worth two years of your salary. For five your own mother would sell you to the hangman.

I object.

I have no mother, I say.

It never fails to make us laugh.

What will you do? I ask him when I tuck him into bed. How will you punish the thieves?

Discipline, he says. A gentleman does not punish.

I wait until he falls asleep. After some time his features smooth and you can see the boy in him, one hand tucked under his cheek.

Late that night, I burn the clothes. There’s a disused kiln behind the house that’s perfect for the purpose. Mr. Spencer never wears soiled clothing. The lye, he says, makes the fabric coarse. The fire attracts birds. Rooks. My kinsmen. Cawing, they walk the perimeter of light, warming their feathers. I fall into step. They scatter when I approach, then reclaim the space as soon as I turn. It’s almost like a dance.

On the morrow, after a late breakfast, Mr. Spencer sends me to find the butler. Thorpe. Thorpe has his eyes everywhere, Mr. Spencer says. The house is his kingdom and he rules it with spies. Thorpe will know where those boys are spending their time.

Thorpe does. He tells me the boys are taking their exercise in the gym. Main house, ground floor, east wing. He is speaking for Mr. Spencer’s benefit, not mine: his eyes see through me, as through a window, to the man I represent.

I do not like Thorpe. Here’s a man who has never smoked in the company of others. A man without family or tribe.

A lonely man.

The stable hands have it different. They say he’s a man that’s buried children.

It’s an odd thing but they never say: his own.

Julius enters the gym while they are still warming up. He is wearing knickerbockers and a blue jersey, and soft boots that are laced above the ankle. A little towel is thrown over one shoulder.

Before they even have time to respond to his entrance, he disappears again and runs across to the billiard room. A minute later he is back, an hourglass in his hand, beaming.

“I knew it was somewhere. It’ll help us keep time.”

Wordlessly, both Charlie and Thomas turn away from him and start climbing out of the ring.

“Mr. Price was right, then. He said you were too much of a pair of sissies to step in the ring with me.”

Charlie watches Thomas’s back stiffen at this and speaks at once. “I’ll give you a few rounds.”

Julius smiles. “Mr. Cooper! Excellent. Queensberry rules, I suppose. Though I do wonder at times what it was like in the bare-knuckle days.”

He turns his back without waiting for a response, opens the wardrobe, searches it for a pair of gloves. The pair he settles on are worn across the knuckles. A mosaic of cracks marks the old leather. He punches the gloves together and watches a cloud of dust disperse.

“Shall we say one round, for starters? Just to warm up.” Julius lifts one stool over the ropes into the ring and places the hourglass on top. “There we go. Ready?”

He turns the hourglass, watches the first few grains of sand slide through its waist, then climbs in the ring and starts circling its empty centre with rhythmic, light-footed steps. Ignoring Thomas’s warning look, Charlie nods and climbs in after the head boy.

They spar in silence. The sand shifts slowly in its glass. It is clear from the start that Julius has had training and is, in fact, a very accomplished boxer. Thankfully he seems content to prance around, blocking or dodging Charlie’s punches and landing a few soft jabs on Charlie’s forehead and shoulders. As time runs down, Charlie finds himself enjoying the exercise. It is not so very different from yesterday’s bout with Thomas.

When the sand is all but gone and Thomas is about to announce the end of the round, Julius steps into Charlie. It isn’t a very complicated movement: he simply moves his leg inside Charlie’s, drops a few inches at the knees, then pushes off from the toes and pours the weight of his body into an uppercut to the short of Charlie’s rib. Three quick body hooks follow, all hitting the same spot. As Julius dances away, Charlie crumples to the ground. It is not that he cannot get air. But each breath is agony, a sharp and stabbing pain as though bone has rent the tissue of his lung.

When he collects himself, he finds Thomas by his side, quietly raging. Julius is sitting on the stool inside the ring. He is cool and composed, not showing a thread of Smoke.

“How about three rounds, Mr. Argyle? You look like you need to blow off steam. Just give me a second to catch my breath.”

Julius grins, takes off his gloves for a moment, reaches into his pocket, and withdraws a cigarette and matches.

“Some say they are bad for your health. But I find they help me focus.”

He lights it with a flourish. The smell is unmistakable. Charlie waits for some sign of the cigarette’s effect but Julius’s face remains a picture of calm, his skin clean. It seems impossible.

There must be some sort of trick.

The motion of his jaw gives it away, the way he turns his tongue inside his cheek. A sweet. No, many sweets, tucked away at the side of his gums. Charlie wants to warn Thomas but it’s obvious from Thomas’s face that his friend has already seen it. More than that. It confirms a theory long adopted.

“It binds the cigarette Smoke the very moment it is produced,” Thomas says, quietly, but not so quietly Julius cannot hear. “He likes it there, on the knife edge of control. Vicious, but not quite barking mad. And, of course, clean as a whistle.”

Julius smiles at that, steps to the centre, raising his fists and bouncing on his toes.

“Ready whenever you are, Mr. Argyle. When you are done talking, that is.”

In his mouth his tongue is turning, redistributing sweets.

ф

Julius boxes with cool viciousness. He hits Thomas almost at will, largely with jabs, at distance. When his opponent swings at him, he slips the punch and counters, all with the same aloof air of control. Thomas, by contrast, is distracted by his own rage. He charges widely, stands flat-footed, off-balance, always a beat behind the dance. Already his breath is showing dark in front of his mouth and an inch-long line has formed between his shoulder blades like the swollen body of a leech.