Anna Smaill - The Chimes

Yet something keeps me pressed against the brick for longer. A thought like a note off-key. In the greying light I see in my mind the path the intruder would have followed. Along the towpath, then up Liver Street steps, then through the alley between the bank and the old dockland museum. As soon as I have the path in my head, I see fretlines of fine cord running across the turning alley and the flights of steps. Nothing that would do you harm, just enough for a nasty trip, a face full of gravel.

Snares and triplines invisible on the grey concrete. The morning spent putting them into bodymemory: running, bending, lifting feet and jumping. It had been a game, Clare the best at it and quickest, like a fox.

No stranger would have had a chance making it down the narrowest part of the steps without being tripped or snagged. Definitely not one this sick. When this thought comes to me, I understand that the person spitting on the race is not a stranger at all. I push myself quick from against the storehouse wall and move toward Lucien.

He’s pale, even paler than usual, his back stiff and flexing and his face in a sweat and grimace when I reach him. He’s in a hunch gone sideways, and his knees are half drawn up under, and I feel sick myself in my stomach and don’t know what to do. First thing is wrap the jacket over his back, as he’s wearing no shirt and his skin is wet and cold as if he’s just come up from the river. I wipe vomit off his pale cheek. I try to put his arms into the jacket sleeves, but he is too stiff and he says through teeth rigidly together, ‘Leave it.’

So I just drape the jacket and lean over him and lie my arms over his arms so that there’s some warmth between us. And wait. My heart beats flatly onto his back and I have a shifting feeling of dread, as I know there are many things I should be doing, but I can’t think of any of them. It’s him who decides and says what will happen with people, not me.

I wait in the night, holding him. Above us, the stars swing past lento. A long time goes and only stops when Lucien tips his head to one side and shakes it sharp, like he’s clearing water out of his ears. It’s a rough movement, but it takes control of muscles and bones and how they move together. I lean out enough to see his face. Afraid of looking. I have been here before, and if I have to go back, it won’t be in the same way. I see in my mind a person getting ready to enter dark water, drawing up all of the breath, taking everything from the world outside that he can fit within himself, sealing it tight against the plunge.

Lucien is very still now, but his eyes are moving smoothly. He’s looking up and down and to the sides in a way that seems like he’s testing them. He blinks: lento, lento, then presto. Then he shakes himself and shakes my arm off his shoulders. He rolls and rises enough on his knees to look at me, and his eyes hold their gaze without fixing. He smiles.

My own face is locked with cold and not moving, and I shuffle myself backwards, my palms on the rough concrete, looking at him, and sit there.

Now that I’ve had fear and dread and sickness, what comes is anger. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ I say to him, as if it is his fault. ‘You’re sick.’

But I stop as I do not want to speak like this with my voice raised. I lift my shoulders in a useless sort of shrug that signals, ‘I’ll be silent.’ I’m tired. The feeling of dread still rising up under my ribs, under my throat.

‘You have to help me. I can’t walk right.’ He gestures to his legs. His forehead is pale and wet; the words cost him some thin sweat. ‘I can’t go back to the storehouse. There’s space in there.’ He points to the building outside of which I’d waited.

He’s taller than me, but he’s light, and even with his legs dragging, we’re across the race quickly. In the shadow of the building, I let him slump down again, and I push the boards back as he instructs and get him through.

Inside the empty storehouse, the lower floor is much smaller than ours. Divided in two, and the stairway is intact, though there are gaps in the ceiling. It’s near black, but there’s just enough light to see. Lucien points to the corner without saying anything. In it is a long, low wooden box. I lift the lid and feel there’s a mess of paper inside. By touch I learn also of three new candles and a box of lights.

Once I’ve lit one, I see that the chest further contains a folded wool blanket, a clean shirt, a small cloth bag and a half-loaf of black bread wrapped in clear stickwrap. I take another of the candles, the bread, the shirt and the blanket, and bring this back to the wall where Lucien is still slumped inside the draped jacket. His eyes are closed, and the sweat stands on his face, but his muscles seem to have stopped their dance. I light the other candle from the first.

This time when I bend his arms to get them inside the clean shirt and then into the jacket sleeves, he lets me, and just smiles with his familiar look of mild amusement. His eyes flutter up a bit, and when he speaks, it is his usual voice, clear and mocking.

‘You know, I often wonder what’s going on in your mind. Even tonight, I can’t find the answer to it.’

He reaches out and grabs his outflung right leg at the calf and pulls it in. I watch carefully. He has some muscle control in his legs. I rip a hunk off the crumbly loaf and hand it to him, but he places it aside on the floor.

‘Simon’s someone who is always watching and waiting. I know that. But why does he see what the others don’t? Why is he always in the right place to see these things?’

There is in his eyes, if I’m not wrong, a kind of apology. I’m not meant to answer any of these questions. They are like his careful movements, a kind of testing, finding the place where he and I fit again. So I just wait, which as he’s noted, I’m good at doing. I eat some of the bread.

‘I went to your quarters…’ I say, finally. I can tell he is listening though his eyes are closed and he doesn’t move, ‘because you didn’t come as you usually do.’ This makes him open his eyes.

‘Where did we get to last night?’ he asks.

I stand up. It is not the time for him to ask questions.

‘What did you take from the Wandle runner? What were they doing on our run?’

Lucien looks up. ‘I didn’t know you saw that.’

‘Yes. You took something from round his neck. What was it?’

Lucien looks away. ‘They must have known Abel was Five Rover. Though none of us sing the comeallye when we’re running.’

‘What do you mean?’ But in my head I hear a fragment of the threat left by the member at Bow and I know already what he is going to say.

‘Wandle weren’t pushing into our territory. They weren’t after the Pale. A single piece of Lady wasn’t worth the risk. They were looking for me.’

Lucien puts his hands into his pocket and draws out a piece of paper.

In the candlelight, it is hard to see clear, but on the thick surface is a hasty sketch done in ink with a steady hand and a good eye. A young man with curled hair that peels back from a high forehead. A long, thin nose. It’s a good likeness.

Next to the drawing in a different hand is written the symbol for two hundred tokens, more money than we could take in a month of trades.

‘I need to know, Lucien. You need to tell me now. Why does the Order want you?’

When Lucien shakes his head, I forge on. ‘Where did you go? When I came to your quarters, I thought you had left us.’ The other question is unspoken. I can’t ask it of him. I couldn’t ask it of my parents. What is the sickness? How long … ?

I had meant to stay calm. Calm like he could pass out of existence as they did and I would forget him. But my voice does not obey. It shakes. I close my eyes and curse it.