Dan Vyleta - Smoke

For all that it is a relief to step into the little courtyard behind the house’s burnt front and ascend the narrow staircase to the top floor. Livia looks tense when she knocks on the door. Perhaps she regrets her eagerness to volunteer a hideaway. Neither she nor Thomas have mentioned Grendel’s condition. If he is found out — well, what then? Thomas still has not decided whether he pities the man or admires him. Grendel is an ox in a world of irate bulls: a kind creature, given to melancholy, and fond of his food. If Lady Naylor’s future is to be a world of Grendels, Thomas can think of worse.

It is their host himself who opens the door. He sees Livia first, gets excited, flaps his hands, almost extinguishing the stub of candle he is holding.

“You are back! Come quick. You will never believe—”

Then he spies Sebastian and Lady Naylor in the dim of the stairwell.

“Friends of yours?” A step backward as he says it. Behind Grendel, someone else is rushing to the door.

“My mother,” Livia replies. “I’m afraid we will have to impose.”

Grendel nods, distracted, not moving. His eyes are on Sebastian and the bundle he is holding, wriggling now, waking up. At Grendel’s side a new face pushes itself into the sparse glow of the candle. It takes Thomas a heartbeat to recognise him. It’s not just that Charlie is thin. Something has happened to him, a loss weightier than pounds. Still he is smiling. Then the smile freezes on his lips. It might be the sight of Lady Naylor that saps his joy. But Charlie’s eyes are on Livia and Thomas, not on the threesome they have brought.

We are not even touching , Thomas thinks. It must show then, like Smoke.

A moment later Thomas has pushed past Grendel and wrapped Charlie in a hug. His friend hangs limp in his arms, a sack of bones.

They pick me up at four twenty-five, ship time. Perhaps it is chance that determines the hour, but if they want to scare a man, find him at his most vulnerable, his weakest, they could hardly have picked a better moment. The crew has not returned yet and there is no one to warn me before the hammering on the door. They refuse to let me dress. A man in his nightshirt marched down the gangplank to a coach; his bare legs flashing in the wind: what more ridiculous spectacle can there be?

The stranger in the coach is kindly and stupendously fat. We sit on the same side, and he makes such a depression in the seat cushion that I am forever tumbling towards him. The last I see of my ship is a squadron of men, swarming over its decks. Not one of them wears a uniform. Whatever they are, they wish to appear other. Gentlemen. A gentleman would have allowed me to pull on my drawers. I shiver and fret and feel ashamed for the pools of Soot that glue my nightshirt to my belly and thighs.

I rage at my captor, of course: tell him that I am a subject of Her Majesty, the Queen of the Netherlands; that this is an outrage, an outrage; that I demand to be released at once. But the fat man merely pats my shoulder and never answers, as though agreeing with me that these words need to be said, that they are part of the form of things, and that it is best to get them all out at once. The only time he interrupts me is when my protestations take on the pitch of a shout. Then he lays a finger across his lips. He is wearing gloves. It quiets me down, precisely this part, his wearing gloves. Of course it is cold, and no gentleman is fully dressed without. Still, it brings something home. The potential for violence. It is easy to picture these gloves bunched into fists. And all the time he is cheerfully silent.

When we have travelled some half hour, the man reaches into the darkness at his feet, retrieves a hood, and pulls it over my head. He might be putting blinders on a horse. I could struggle, but his touch is so deft, so simple, neither rough nor gentle, that I don’t have the heart.

At first I find I do not mind the hood. It absolves me in a way. I no longer need to shout and protest, or pay attention to the road we are taking; need not muster courage for resistance or escape. It is only when we alight and I am ushered into a building that the blindness begins to transform into fear, then abject panic. There are sounds around me, you see, sounds I cannot place. Typewriters, I think, and once a shrill little peal. Men talking at a distance in a serious manner, never laughing, nor raising their voices. A place of business. Large, it seems to me, subterranean. We keep descending stairs. A scream, not far from us, like a cat with its tail caught in a slamming door. But this is no place for cats. I am weak in the legs when they push me down upon a stool and pull off the hood.

An office. A carpet, a bookshelf, a desk at the centre, the fat man behind. No windows. A smell to the place like boiled dish towels. A coiled beast of a radiator dispensing too much heat. There are no guards in the room. My captor offers me a glass of water that he decants from a large pewter jug.

For the longest time he does not ask any question but simply sits there, reading various letters arranged on his desk. The stool I am sitting on turns out to be very uncomfortable. It is an inch or two shorter than a regular stool, and my knees jut up awkwardly when I plant my soles. I consider re-rehearsing my protestations, or at least requesting a different chair, but despite the glass of water my throat is very dry.

At long last a younger man enters the office without knocking. He is impeccably dressed, rounds the desk without looking at me, bends down to the fat man, and whispers something in his ear. Then he passes over a folder full of papers, before retracing his steps and leaving the room. His boots were muddy and he has left prints on the floorboards (he avoided stepping on the carpet). I keep looking at these prints whilst my captor studies his papers. From my vantage point, lower than his, he appears cut in half: the top half leaning forward on his elbows, the lower, beneath the desk, impassive. He has crossed his legs. Oxford shoes. Unlike his clerk’s boots they are unsullied by dirt.

When he has read and turned over the last of the papers, he closes the folder, takes a fountain pen out of his jacket pocket, makes a note in a booklet lying on his desk. For a moment he looks like a teacher. No, a headmaster. Disciplining a delinquent. I shift my weight on the stool.

Then he finally speaks.

“Here we are, Captain van Huysmans. Only, you must be wondering where ‘here’ is. What criminal enterprise is this, operating in the heart of London? What sort of robbers are these that have taken hold of you? What can you do to set yourself free?

“And then, you heard the typewriters, as we passed them in the corridor. I saw your head tilt. Typewriters, in England! Even on the Continent, I understand, only a small number of bureaucracies have adopted them wholesale. Always, always, there is resistance to innovation — even without any embargo. I find this reassuring. Human nature at its best. Afraid of the new. And yet, I approve of our typewriters. Our reports, see, they become easier to read, and by putting special paper between the pages, we can create copies even as we type the original. It is miraculous, really.

“So who are these men, who can abduct you with impunity, who have access to foreign technology, and who have use for records and reports? I will let you in on a secret, a terrible secret. England has a police force. Not officially, mind. Three times the issue has been debated in Parliament and three times it has been rejected. A police force is something for the French, the Germans! For godless countries in which the government spies on its citizens. For what is a police force if not an army of spies and meddlers? People invading the privacy of our homes! Our gentry are partial to their homes, you see. They like to be able to lock the door.