John Hawkes - The Lime Twig

“Ah, Dora, I can’t keep awake all day.”

SIDNEY SLYTER SAYS

Mystery Horse’s Odds Rise Suddenly …

Rock Castle’s Trainer Suffers Gangman’s Death …

Marlowe’s Pippet: The Youngster Can Scoot …

… my great pleasure in announcing that I have sent five pounds, as promised, to one Mr. Harry Bailey, Poor Petitioners, Cock & Crown, East End. Mr. Bailey, carter by trade, suggests that, in his own words, “The horse will win. Ain’t it the obvious fact which the old woman and her old groom are hidin’? My poor lame sister dreamt it now three nights in a row, that the horse will win. And all respects, Mr. Slyter, I’m of the opinion she’s exactly right.” There’s a tip to make Sidney Slyter quake, there’s one for your pals! Dead, alive, uncertain of age, uncertain of origin, suspected ownership — victory these things say to our reader in East End! Perhaps you’ve put your finger on it, Mr. Bailey — the simple conviction of your phrasing chills my heart, Mr. Bailey, with the suffering which our ancients knew — but we must not blaspheme the outcome of the Golden Bowl with such ideas of certainty. What have the rest of you to say? Anyhow, congratulations to Mr. Bailey, cheers to Mr. Bailey’s sister. And five pounds to the next lucky person writing in. … But it’s Sidney Slyter here, and my assistant Eddie has been put on the job of checking our files. Eddie will be checking them now and, any moment now, will be calling me direct from Russell Square. Eddie’s just the boy for checking files. … And this is a new development: officials here have made it known that T. Cowles, of undesirable character and listed as trainer of Rock Castle, has been stabbed to death by members of a gang to which the victim Cowles himself belonged. And Sidney Slyter says queer company for Mr. Banks? Queer and dangerous? Fellow who operates the lift said Mrs. Laval was not available tonight; stepped out for dancing and bitters with a friend, he said. So Sidney can sit in the pub with the constable, or go throw dirty dice in the lane. But cheer up, cheer up, Eddie will be through to your Sidney Slyter soon. …

Michael Banks and Cowles and the jockey in his colors walked past the Booter’s, past the barn and millinery shops until they reached the Baths, where they found the constable’s two-wheeler leaning against the marble wall with water dripping from one of the iron pipes down to its greasy seat. A few bees were circling the klaxon and the water made a rusty summer’s pool on the leather.

“Look out,” said Cowles, “the old constable’s after his cleanliness again.”

“He’s been drinking,” the jockey said. “He wants to sweat away the beer. That’s all.”

The entrance to the Baths was on an alley. The building was of whitewashed stone and marble, and once, years before, the entire alley side had served as a sign. Now on the dirty white the paint was faded, but most of the letters in gold and brown could still be read: across the top of the wall and in a scroll “Steam Bathing” and under that the words “Good for Gentlemen,” and then another slogan, “Steam Cleans and Cures.” On either side of the door was painted the greater-than-life-size figure of a naked man, one view seen from the front, the other from the rear, both flexing their arms and both losing the deep red flesh of their paint to the sun and weather of harsh seasons.

Banks smiled once when he walked naked from the dressing room into the steam. He was immediately hot, wet in an instant, and felt his way through the whiteness that was solid and rolling and solid again all at once. Now and then four or five square feet would clear completely, and in one of these sudden evaporations he saw Cowles standing quite still and stretching, while the jockey was taking blind tentative steps, covering his face and mouth with the fingers and thumbs. But he heard the hissing, the sightlessness returned; they were groping in the same direction. Then: “Here, Mr. Banks,” it was Cowles, obliterated but close to him in the steam, “lie here. There’s room for three of us right here.”

There were tables — three now pushed together — tables and shelves to lie upon, slippery and warm, and a collection of live red iron pipes upon which the Steam Baths operator and his two young boys threw buckets of icy water: and the steam smelled first of flame, cold mountain streams, and of the bare feet and ankles of the man and boys at work. And then it smelled of wood, stone floors, of white lime sprinkled between the slats on the stone; and of the bathers then, the molecules of hair oil and sweat from the skin. He breathed — and tasted, smelled the vapors filling the lung, the eye, the ear. So many clouds of it, so thick that the tin-sheeted walls were gone and only a lower world of turning and crawling and groaning men remained.

The shelving, wide enough for a man, was built about the room in tiers that reached nearly to the ceiling, all this space cut by braces, planks, verticals. Between the tiers were the tables with hands, feet, at the edges. It was a crowded ventless chamber and filled with noise, a confused and fearful roaring. But these men were prone and here activity was nothing more than a turning over or a writhing. Every few minutes the smallest of the two boys would fling a pail of ice water not on the pipes but across the flesh of a prostrate bather and the man would scream: no place here for undervests or socks, tie clasp or an address written out on paper.

“… Lie next to me, Mr. Banks,” and Cowles helped him up to the boards while the jockey climbed as best he could. Then the three of them were stretched out together and he felt that he himself was smiling. There was slime on the wood and steam was dripping down the braces, down the legs of soaking pine. By habit he started on his back and kept his hands at his sides, restraining his hands even when he felt the eyelids turning soft and his lips loosening, taking the seepage in. He heard the splashing of ice water but it was aisles away, and the steam was heaped up all about him, his lungs were hot. Then, later, he listened to Cowles succumbing, the flesh — a hand or foot — beating against the wood and growing still, the moans filled with resistance, helplessness, and finally relief as if confessing under the blows of a truncheon.

“… Makes you feel … like … you’ll never walk again … eh, Mr. Banks?” Now a whisper only and the head buried down under the fatty arms, one huge leg fallen over the edge, never to be retrieved.

Banks rolled over, making the effort to throw off the pinion and move despite the nervelessness of muscles, despite paralysis. “Excuse me, Needles,” he said, but the jockey had his own discomfort and did not reply.

He always saved the stomach. It was best on the stomach and he waited until just that moment before he might not be able to roll at all, then tried it, and the exertion, the slickness of wood passing beneath his skin, the trembling of the propped arm — when these were gone there came the pleasure of shoulders sagging, of being face down in the Baths. Now he opened his eyes a little and his lips parted around the tongue. He thought of water to drink. Or lemonade. Or gin. He knew the torpor now, the thirst, with all the fluids of his body come to the surface and the hair sticking closely to his skull.

And then — not able to raise his head, drifting back from numbness and feeling the rivulets sliding down his flesh — he heard the sounds, the voices, that had no business in the Baths: not the steam’s hissing nor the groans of bathers, but the swift hard sounds of voices just off the street.

“… Gander at that far comer, if you please, Sparrow. And you, Thick, shadow the walls.”