Dan Vyleta - Smoke

“Don’t ever touch me!” she shouts, her Smoke still oozing out of her in stark betrayal.

Then she runs down the street and out of sight.

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Thomas searches for her, afraid he will find her, afraid he will not. The streets all seem to smell of her, peaches and Smoke; he sees her face in every girl who rushes past on her business. At dusk he returns to the church steps. Livia is already there, sitting on the topmost step, her arms wrapped around her knees, exhaustion, shame marking her wan features. She scrubbed them raw to rid them of his Soot. Spasms of Smoke keep darting out of her mouth, sudden retchings of black, each abrupt and violent, shaking her frame from head to toe. He climbs past her and sits upwind, his skin bumpy with fresh squalls of fever. A cold drizzle is falling, taunting them with the kind of proximity they resorted to during the night, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. They ignore it and sit yards apart. Even so he is conscious of her Smoke; feels it reach across the gap and tug at his very bones. It is as though he were built to drink her sin.

London is a place where people touch.

Before, he had not understood the implications of this simple truth.

They sit and wait. Thomas’s fever has returned, makes a home within his joints; knuckles and knees tender with its ache. Down on the square, the market vendors are slowly packing up their wares, all but a dentist who remains at his stall, bent low over a lock-jawed patient, his tools a bucket and pliers scabby with old rust and paint. The tooth finally gives amongst an eruption of black savoured by both dentist and patient. Then blood is spat into the bucket and the dentist paid; the tooth thrown to a pack of passing dogs who fight over it with bristling furs.

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Half an hour later, Charlie’s angel reappears. It is very nearly dark. The man acts on Thomas like a magnet, drawing his anger, his confusion, his hope. He enters from the far side and walks the length of the market square. The last of the light catches him from the front and right, his shadow thrown behind and tilted at the top, where his chin dips to his shoulder. The longer Thomas watches him, the less he is certain that there is anything special about the man. He is as dirt- and Soot-stained as any other; more downtrodden than most. No halo illuminates his bluff and common features. Only: once again the man avoids all groups and conflagrations, walks solitary, never swayed by any cluster of people nor any cloud of drifting Smoke.

As the man draws nearer, Thomas makes a point of turning away, watching him only from the corner of his eyes. Livia, four steps to his side, has slumped into exhaustion; is listing sideways and forward, her head drooping to mirror the angel’s. At the bottom of the stairs, the man swerves and disappears into the alleyway by the side of the church. For a fraction of a moment Thomas hesitates, unwilling to rouse Livia, struck by the blankness of her resting features, the thinness of her sloping neck. Then he jumps over and taps her awake with a flick of his shoe.

“The angel’s back. Let’s follow him.”

She makes to rise then drops back onto the step. “You go. Someone has to be here. For Charlie.”

It strikes Thomas that Livia fears him more than she fears being left defenceless and alone.

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There is a second entrance to the church. Halfway down the alley a narrow staircase of some four or five steep steps climbs the church wall. At its top is a door so small one has to duck through. Thomas does not actually see the stranger go in. All he sees is the door close, four feet above the ground. A moment later he himself is pulling the crude handle. Inside, a deep gloom reigns, taking little heed of the cluster of candles that burns at one end of the nave. The church is in a dismal state. Its pews are gone, robbed for their wood perhaps, and the stone floor littered with mud and rubbish. A great wooden cross rises above the altar, plain unadorned lumber, painted white.

A figure is sitting on a little stool in a side chapel. The folding table next to him holds a candle, a jug, and a cup of wine. Thomas has stepped over to him before realising the figure is not the one he followed. The priest is a smaller man, weasel-faced, his hair a patch of stubble. He looks up at Thomas and fills a second cup. Thomas ignores the gesture that invites him to sit.

“I’m looking for the man who just came in here.”

It comes out gruff, commanding. He has no patience left, no interest in this stranger. The stranger, for his part, is looking closely at Thomas, as if measuring his intent. A pale face, his; Soot-rouged at the cheeks. Broken veins thread the nose.

“Is that so?”

“Where did he go? I want to talk to him.”

“Talk to me instead. That’s what I am here for.”

Thomas frowns at this, looks about himself, suspicious of the man’s collar, his jug of wine, the long smock of his office.

“Your church is a mess,” he says at length.

The priest shrugs. “What use does the Lord have for pretty windows?”

“And you are drunk.”

“It is a failing. But I am a kindly drunk, and it does not interfere with my faith.” He smiles. “How is it that it’s always laymen who are the biggest puritans? But sit, please, I beg you. Looking up at you is like talking to the bishop, when he’s in a mood.”

Thomas reluctantly lowers himself onto a stool.

“So you really are a priest?”

“Yes, my son.”

“And this church, it’s. . open? I mean, people come here?”

“Oh yes. Do they fill the pews on Sunday? No. No pews, for one thing. Do I celebrate mass in shining vestments? No. They were stolen, actually, some months ago. But they come. Largely for that.” He points to the wine jar, then a few steps beyond it, to the plain cupboard of the confessional. “Are you that way inclined?”

Thomas shakes his head. “No, I only came in to. . But I must go now, someone’s waiting outside.” He rises, keen now to get away from this priest. “I only came because I saw a man go in. An unusual man. He has a crick in his neck.”

“And what do you want with him, this unusual man?”

“Nothing. A friend saw him. Weeks ago. He saw him and decided he was an angel.” Thomas’s voice wavers between resentment and hope. “I suppose I just wanted to make sure that he was wrong.”

“An angel? What an odd idea. Wherever did he get it from?”

“The man does not smoke.”

“Ah! He’s a gentleman.”

“No. What my friend meant: the man does not smoke at all. It’s a trick, I think.”

“A trick?”

Thomas snorts, sudden anger in his breast. “You’re a churchman. I have been told you get issued sweets. A monthly ration, so you can lie to your congregation and pretend you are a decent man.”

The man smiles. It sits surprisingly well on his narrow, weasely face.

“Ah, sweets! Yes, the church sends me two every Christmas. Two! I don’t know by what method they assess the needs of every parish. I sell them for drink. A sin, though I have never smoked during the sale. Your angel is a fraud then, and you want to unmask him.”

“I don’t know what I want. He might be a spy. Someone pretending to be an ordinary citizen.”

It sounds stupid the moment it leaves his lips. The priest takes no heed.

“Yes, a fraud,” he mutters. “Or else, a miracle. You know what most people do with miracles? Shit on them. Burn them at the stake.” He looks up at Thomas again, a sober look, the narrow face dirty and shrewd. “Are you like that, my lad?”

Thomas shudders, light-headed with fever. Talking to this man feels dangerous and liberating all at once. It is the first time in months he has spoken to a stranger — an adult — and not immediately felt judged.