Nathan Yocum - Automatic Woman

“This is your place?”

She took my hand and nodded.

“That was your pimp?”

She nodded again.

“Sorry to intrude.”

I walked her back inside. The living room kitchenette contained a hotplate, pantry, and sink. I proceeded to make a kettle of Earl Grey. I presented my tea selection to Mary, and she nodded in consent, still frazzled by the encounter.

“Look, dear. I don’t want to cause you any trouble, but if that man comes back I’d very much like to hit him.”

Mary giggled and nodded her head. I’ve never felt the better man in my life than in that moment.

I made her a cup of tea, and one for myself. We sat and drank and listened to the Gaelic songs of old from her melodious neighbor. I reached out and grasped her hand. Words were lost to the occasion. We just sat and sipped and let the world around us do whatever it is it does. She eventually broke the silence.

“I got your things.”

“Did you?”

“Your clothes. Your lockbox. Some toiletries, they’re all in the room.” She reached her hand behind her ear. A move of idle, embarrassed hands. I was at a loss.

“Thanks, love.”

I returned to the room. In the closet were two new shirts, a pair of trousers, undergarments and wool socks. Everything in my size.

“Couldn’t salvage my clown shirt?” I asked.

She smiled at that. I dressed in solid respectable colors. Cream silk for the shirt, gray for the trousers, and a brown belt. A man’s outfit. She’d even found a replacement for my long coat. I went through my lockbox. Scotch, Boschon cards; my savings were down to about eighty pounds. I gave Mary a scrutinizing look.

“I had debts to pay. I earned that,” she said.

I couldn’t argue with her, but still, funds were running short, as were my days.

“How long have I been here?”

“Four days. The porter you sent out never came back. People at the Piece started getting nervous and I figured you were better somewhere else. Dr. Doyle helped me get you here.”

She sipped her tea. I watched her little fingers encircle that blue porcelain China and bring the cup to her red painted lips. Her lip coloring did not match her skin tone well. The morning sun showed her age, but I didn’t care. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever beheld, this tiny protective creature. Forget everything I ever said about the beauty of the Swan Princess or Nouveau’s machine, the real thing will always claim superiority.

“Thanks. I owe you and the doctor a debt.”

She smiled her little smile and I felt that everything was fine. That the world was not pressing me. That I wasn’t an animal, cornered and desperate.

“I bought you a present,” she said and got up. She went to what I assume was her room, the room in which I’d been slipping in and out of consciousness for the last four days. She returned with two enormous leather belts, really more a harness. On closer inspection, I found that the harness was two linked holster belts, the shoulder strap set for the Engholm and the waist strap set for the Colt Army. It was some mad contraption meant for heroes in American dime novels. It looked bloody mean.

“I know a leather specialist,” she smiled and blushed. “Try it on.”

Mary helped me into the contraption. I must admit, with guns bristling from chest and hip I felt like Michael the Archangel. I felt like a warrior, a tough as nails enforcer, a man with three cocks and no curfew.

“Thanks, love.” I took hold of her neck and kissed it twice. My face was hurting a lot less than in days past.

I pocketed the rest of my currency and threw the new long coat over my gun gear. It covered the pistols just enough.

“What’s your pimp’s name?”

“Saucy Jack.”

“Is he the type to come back?”

“Yes.”

I gave her a five pound note.

“Go find yourself a day worth having. Lunch, clothes, whatever. I’ll be back here before evening, best you’re gone while I’m gone.”

Mary nodded. I kissed her again for good measure, just to be sure that the things I felt were the things she felt. I kissed her and walked out the front door. Things needed to get done and time was a pressing issue.

My thoughts turned again to Owens. Dumb luck Owens. The duffer with two bullets in his chest. I imagined there was a wake at the Bow Street Firm. All fallen comrades were given the respect of a good drunken wake. A celebration of life. I wondered what the excuse was for his death. Surely Lord Barnes didn’t list his demise as shot down due to a bloody stupid animal mask.

Old newspapers in Mary’s apartment mentioned the fire at Saxon’s but neither Owens nor myself were mentioned. No stranger than usual, I guess.

I waved a hansom down and gave the driver the address of Mr. C. Darwin, 12 Upper Gower Street. Saxon’s envelope had burned with my old jacket. By good fortune, Mary’s rubbings of the cogs had been in my trouser pockets, and she’d had the good sense to bring them with me to her little sanctuary.

Quickly enough the hansom took me to a nondescript cottage in a middle-class neighborhood. I knocked on the door and puffed out my chest, just in case. The door was answered by a small man with a large mustache. To say the mustache was large actually does it no justice. The hair on his lip dominated his mouth. I literally couldn’t tell you if his lips were red or pink or blue. He must have been Italian, though Hungarian would be a good second guess.

“Mr. Darwin?” I asked.

The man might have smirked. He had a smirk in his eyes, but I couldn’t tell if it reached his mouth beneath that godforsaken mustache.

“No,” he said.

“Is Mr. Darwin here?”

“You want to know if Charles Darwin is here?”

Shite! Charles Darwin! How many blokes named C. Darwin could there be in London? I cursed myself for not seeing the obvious. Charles Darwin was the most well-known, if not the most controversial scientist in all of England. Maybe the world. Of course some fringe genius like Saxon would have correspondence with the great naturalist, the destroyer of small minds and large institutions.

“Sorry, mate. I had it that he lived here.”

“Thirty years ago,” Mustache told me.

“Fair enough.” I gave mustache a nod and stepped lively back to the road. I didn’t need to ask where Charles Darwin currently resided, I already knew. Everyone who read the society papers knew. Charles Darwin was currently at the University of Oxford where he was in his fifth year of a permanent fellowship. He’d reached a level of academic notoriety in which no one expected him to produce anything, his presence simply added to reputations. Time for me to catch a train to Oxford.

The train ride was lovely except for the gawks and stares I received from regular folk. Not just children mind you, grown men and women looked at me seated and whispered to each other. It reminded me of my public school days before I’d hit my growth spurt. The stares bothered me, the normality of the ladies and gents bothered me. All flush and fancy. Do regular people know what they look like? Do they know how they look when they gawk, when their dumb mouths hang open and their small minds work toward some bland conclusion? I finally turned to the couple sitting across from me.

“What, never seen a leper before?” I asked.

That shut them up but good. The man seated next to me rose and exited the car. Everyone seated within ten feet of me followed. Privacy works for me. I stretched my arms and legs and looked out the window at the scenery. Black Park, Stoke Poges, the Church Wood. Rolling hills and greenery pocked by country villages. It never failed to take my breath.