The Streets Read online

  When they were out of earshot, Roma said wryly, ‘I’da thought it was polite to arsk whether we wanted his blessing or not.’

  ‘Perhaps we should mention that to him next time,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and fetch us something to drink.’ As I crossed the field I noticed the disreputable pair of Gaffy and Tig deep in talk with one of the charity stewards, and hoped that the latter wasn’t carrying any valuables on his person. Weaving through the crowds, I reached a trestle where drinks were being served and collected three glasses of ginger beer. On returning to our spot I found Roma sitting alone; Jo, typically restless, had gone off to look for his coster pals.

  I folded myself down onto the blanket and handed her a glass, and we sat there for a few moments in silence, gazing over the fields. I couldn’t exactly tell what had changed – perhaps it was only the effect of the day’s pleasant warmth – but Roma had softened to the point where I appeared to have become an object of interest to her.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ I asked.

  She smiled and shook her head. She was not one to look embarrassed at being caught staring. ‘I’m a little surprised.’

  ‘Oh . . . by what?’

  ‘By you. It bothers you, doesn’t it? When we first met I ’ad you down as another of ’em who comes from up west to walk round the ’ouses and stare at the poor. Or the sort that’s always handin’ out tracts and callin’ it charity.’

  ‘So . . . you thought I just went slumming?’ I could not hide the hurt in my voice.

  ‘Maybe. But – from the way you talked to his holiness before, it’s like – I dunno, like you care too much.’

  ‘How can anyone care too much?’ I said.

  She shrugged. ‘You’re different, that’s all. Most as come to Somers Town just ’spect it to be a den of thieves.’

  I was about to savour this morsel of approbation when my eye was distracted by an extraordinary flash of colour. Poised, quivering on the edge of our blanket, was a butterfly, glossily flushed; the sight of its deep maroon wings, bordered with cream and a hem of light blue spots, caused me a little intake of breath. It was a matter of inches from where Roma sat.

  ‘Don’t move,’ I said to her. She followed my gaze to where the dainty creature had composed itself. Holding my breath, I got up on my haunches and shifted forward, crab-like; just as I reached a hand to the butterfly it stirred its wings and rose, fluttering upwards like a miniature kite, and fled into the trees. ‘Quickly,’ I said to Roma. She rose willingly enough, though her expression frowned bemusement.

  ‘What’s your hurry?’ she asked. We were now striding amongst the trees.

  ‘I think I have just seen . . . a most uncommon thing!’ Twigs cracked drily beneath our feet as we stalked further into the wood, with light from the sun sparkling through the interstices of the branches. The secretive woodland scent of moss and leaves rose to our nostrils. We waded through bracken, and a frantic rustling in the undergrowth caused Roma to jump in fright.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s only a rabbit. Or a pheasant.’ I took her hand; I had forgotten how the country and its underlife might alarm her. We walked on, looking to the left and right of us, and I found myself praying – to whom, to what? – that I would get a second chance with my quarry.

  ‘So it’s . . . rare?’

  ‘Intensely rare,’ I replied. ‘Some years a small number of them reach England, generally from Scandinavia. I have only ever seen it before under a glass – ah . . .’ At that moment I had caught sight of it again. It was nearly camouflaged against the trunk of a willow, but its yellowish-cream trim gave it away; I stepped closer, hardly daring to breathe, and scooped it up in the cage of my hands. I felt its velvety wings beat madly, and then stop. I took another peek, and knew its identity for certain.

  ‘Come, look,’ I said to Roma, who stepped up close and peered into my cupped palms. She gave a little gasp of admiration.

  ‘That it?’

  I nodded. ‘The Camberwell Beauty. Also known as the mourning cloak – you see the cream border, like a lady’s petticoat drooping beneath its dark velvet cloak?’

  ‘Yes!’ she cried, and her delighted expression touched me.

  ‘Here, cup your palms against mine,’ I said. She looked doubtful, but at my encouragement she did so, and I carefully released the butterfly into her hands. We stood there, silent, fascinated, whilst it flitted and bumped its infinitely light body against Roma’s cool, pale hands. Eventually she looked up at me and said, ‘To think it’s from Camberwell . . .’

  ‘Camberwell used to be a village, middle of the last century. They spotted it first in a place called Cool Arbour Lane.’

  ‘How d’you know all this?’

  ‘Oh. My father was – is – a keen aurelian – that is, he collects butterflies and studies them. He showed me the Camberwell Beauty in a cabinet. He had never seen a live one himself.’

  ‘What would he have done with this?’

  ‘I dare say he would have put it in his specimen jar.’

  ‘You mean – killed it?’

  I nodded. ‘Put it under his microscope, drawn it, then framed it on his wall. They are his passion.’

  Her expression became considering. ‘You arsk me,’ she said presently, ‘it’s too beautiful to keep.’ I took a long look at the vibrating insect. What my father would have given to see it. I picked up the butterfly between my thumb and finger – that fragile thorax! – and set it on my open hand. It paused there for a moment, unknowing of its freedom, before it lifted, almost floated upwards, wheeling and toppling through the soft air. I felt a sudden piercing sadness, for I knew in all likelihood I would reach the end of my days without seeing another.

  We ambled on deeper into the wood. There was a silence between us, but not like the awkward silence of our earliest meetings. The excitement of the butterfly had somehow bound us together; we had just experienced a vision of Nature at its most transient and delicate. We crossed a little brook by means of stepping stones, walked through a glade, then climbed a winding path that skirted the farthest edge of the wood. A half-hour or more may have passed before Roma spoke.

  ‘I’ve not heard you mention your father before. Why’s that?’

  I sighed, and paused. ‘We are estranged. I’ve been . . . a disappointment to him, and to my mother.’

  ‘That why you left Norfolk?’

  ‘Yes. It was thought – my continuing there – it became clear . . .’ I had stuttered my way to a halt. Then: ‘It was best for all concerned that I left.’

  Roma possibly heard in those broken phrases a reluctance to elaborate, and I was grateful that she did not persist in her questioning. We had emerged on the other side of the woods, and stopped on seeing, in the distance, a site of construction – three or four houses were halfway to being built. There was no movement around them; the builders would not have worked on a Sunday. The very idea of a house – of a building – in such a remote place seemed incongruous, and vaguely offensive. Who would dare violate such a charming scene?

  The sun had dropped low in the sky. I consulted my watch, and was surprised to see that it was gone four o’clock. The hours had melted away since we had pursued our butterfly into the wood. Roma looked about her, wonderingly.

  ‘The quiet of the place . . .’

  ‘I know. After the city it seems uncanny. So tell me, now that you’ve seen it, where should you choose to live – London, or the country?’

  She gave a shrugging look. ‘Well, it is beautiful . . . but London is all I’ve ever known. Maybe I’d miss the noise!’ she said, squinting into the distance. ‘I s’pose I shouldn’t mind where my home was, s’long as it were shared with someone who loved me.’ I may have imagined it (perhaps the exertion of our walk was to blame) but as I stole a glance at her face I thought I saw the very faintest trace of a blush.

  It was agreed that we should return, for the train back to St Pancras was scheduled to depart at five o’clock. I chose what seemed to be a more direct path to
the Fields, and, on reaching a tall stile, Roma allowed herself to be lifted down by me. It was the first time I had touched any part of her but her hand, and as I felt the narrow anchor of her hips through her thin dress I was ambushed by a sharp spasm of longing. On the walk back, with Roma at my side in an unusually voluble mood, I fell to hoping that the pink I had seen on her cheek might have some material connection to me.

  In retrospect the day must have been too perfect to last. The novelty of the outing, the fine weather, the sighting of the Camberwell beauty and the long walk through the wood with Roma had, by the time of our departure, assumed the magical enchantment of a spell. With the last stragglers having boarded the train and the Bindon guard’s whistle blown, we were being agreeably rocked along in a carriage back to London. Roma and I again sat opposite one another, whilst Jo, his face sunburnt from a day in the open, was merrily joshing away with a couple of friends, a gangly cove named Jed and a sweet-faced girl named Liddy. They had just started up a favourite canting song –

  Oh! where will be the culls of the bing

  A hundred stretches hence?

  The bene morts who sweetly sing,

  A hundred stretches hence?

  – when our carriage door flew open and Kitty burst in, her eyes wild with distress. I had barely risen to my feet before she threw her arms about me and hid her face on my shoulder. The song had died in Jo’s throat as we listened to her pitiful sobbing.

  ‘What on earth is it?’ For some moments there came no reply, but then she at last lifted her face, and said, between heaving breaths, ‘My ring – a diamond – is gone. Stolen.’

  Now why, on that last word, my eyes should have found Roma’s I cannot rightly say. Perhaps it was because she had noticed the ring earlier – called it ‘handsome’, indeed – that I sought a complicit understanding of the gravity of this theft. But that meeting of gazes was unfortunately timed. To have followed the word ‘stolen’ with an instant glance towards her must have given Roma the impression that I had already fixed upon a suspect. Too late I saw my mistake, and coloured deeply, which in itself only damned me further.

  This all lasted but a moment. My immediate responsibility was with Kitty, whose expression conveyed an inconsolable misery. (It transpired that the diamond had once belonged to her mother.) No, she had not removed it at any time during the day. She was certain that it was on her hand when she boarded the train. I tried to sound reassuring as I proposed that we repair to her carriage and start our investigation from there: it may simply have slipped from her finger unnoticed, or else might have been picked up from the floor by a passenger. Of course I did not believe any of these mollifications for an instant, but I felt so pained on Kitty’s behalf that I clutched at straws. Jo, who had been looking on anxiously, offered his services as co-investigator, and disappeared with Jed to search the other carriages. Before I too left with Kitty I looked over at Roma, but she pointedly refused to meet my eye. For the remainder of the journey to London we scoured every compartment, inventing scenarios as to where Kitty might have mislaid the precious object. But my foreboding that it would not be recovered was confirmed by the time the train pulled into St Pancras.

  10

  The hereditary taint

  A FEW NIGHTS after the Bindon Fields outing I dreamed of my father. I suppose talking to Roma about him and the butterflies must have set it off. I had not seen either of my parents in more than a year, and aside from two letters from my father the previous November concerning my prospective employment through the good offices of Sir Martin, I had had no communication with him. Shame had hitherto stopped my hand from writing (I saw no profit at all in appealing to my mother) but now the apparition of his kindly features during my hours of unconsciousness had stirred me to break the silence. I kept the letter brief, and used the episode of the Camberwell Beauty as my pretext. To a devoted aurelian the report of its sighting would seem a small miracle.

  His reply, which followed promptly, was in tone more gracious than I had anticipated, considering what had passed between us. He enquired as to my well-being, and expressed a sincere interest in my progress under Marchmont. And I could almost believe he was touched by the account I had presented of the Camberwell beauty: ‘I rejoiced to read of your sighting, as I did in your felicitous description of its markings. Its Latin name, which you do not recall, is Nymphalis antiopa . . .’ His beautifully even cursive on the page was, I felt, an unspoken rebuke to my own blotchy scrawl. What I had dreaded to read – the history of our estrangement – was delicately swathed in qualifications, like bandages applied to a cut: ‘Let us not rehearse the events of a time that cannot be too soon forgotten. What was done will not be undone. You must allow me, however, to challenge one particular offence you have laid, albeit implicitly, to my charge. I have never considered you beyond the reach of forgiveness – nor would I ever. If by the severity of my first response to your wrongdoing I conveyed a determination to “disown” you, I am heartily sorry for it. It was not my intention. My heart was stricken – I confess it – but much more with sorrow than with anger. I hope that this long silence has afforded us both a period of reflection, and perhaps fostered an equal willingness to discover our better selves . . .’

  He added in a postscript that a certain academic conference to be held in Bloomsbury a few weeks hence might compel him to come up to town. If so, he hoped that we might be able to meet during whatever brief moments of leisure this professional obligation might spare him. Knowing of his reluctance to visit London – both he and my mother had a horror of the place – I reasoned that either this conference really was unavoidable or else he might be dissembling an actual wish to see me.

  Meanwhile I felt the burden of a more recent estrangement. I still winced to recall the look I had directed at Roma on Kitty’s tearful report of her stolen ring. Was it more accusing than I had first imagined? The necessity of searching through the train had separated us for the remainder of the journey, but on arriving at St Pancras I had hurried back to our carriage in the hope of intercepting Roma and resolving the misapprehension that I had read in her eyes. Alas, she had gone, and Jo with her. That I had affronted her, however unwittingly, was put beyond any doubt on my turning up – cap in hand, so to speak – at the Polygon the following evening. I had never seen Jo look so embarrassed as he came out to greet me on the doorstep.

  ‘She’s really got the hump,’ he said with a doleful grimace. ‘I dunno what you said to her, but she ain’t comin’ down.’

  I glanced up to the top-floor window, and saw that there was a light in her room. ‘Jo, I didn’t say anything to her, I swear. She must have thought I gave her, I don’t know, a look . . .’

  ‘A look? Whatja mean?’

  I sighed and shook my head, and Jo, who had his own delicacy of feeling, didn’t press me for an answer. We stood there brooding for a few moments. Eventually he said, ‘Yor friend’s diamond. You didn’t find it?’

  ‘Kitty said she remembered a scuff around her as she was boarding the train. One or two fellers shook hands with her – she thought it was by way of a thank-you.’

  Jo gave a little snort. ‘Yeah – “thanks for slippin’ us yor sparkler”. We should’ve warned her . . . Gaffy’d be quick as a snake to spy that.’

  ‘You think it was him?’

  ‘I’ll lay yer twenty shiners on it.’

  ‘Poor Kitty. It was her mother’s, you know.’

  Jo gave a cautious squint, then said, ‘There’s ways of gettin’ it back.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, there’s a Jew fence I knows – an h’acquaintance, like – runs a dolly shop not far from ’ere. But you’ll ’ave to pay some.’

  He agreed to take me to this fence, then sheepishly said goodnight without asking me inside. As close as Jo was to his sister, he had an acute sense of when not to cross her. I sometimes wondered if he were a little afraid of her. I wouldn’t have blamed him. Walking away through Clarendon Square I glanced up at the top window
and thought I saw a face there. But it may have been my own fancy, deceived by the shadows.

  A few days later I found myself on Barclay Street, and felt a needling of my conscience in having avoided Mrs Nicholls for a while. It was not so much the way her plaintive manner dragged on my spirits; it was more to do with comprehending her plight and being at a loss to help. I could give her money (I had given her money, in defiance of Marchmont’s principles) but it had almost no effect in alleviating her situation. She and her two children continued to subsist on the parish, but deprived of her late husband’s regular income there was no likelihood of her getting clear of poverty’s quicksand. When she answered the door to me today, however, she seemed more sanguine than usual, and I wondered at first if the alcohol on her breath might explain it. The same forlorn air of dilapidation hung over the first-floor room, and the ticking upon the filthy mattress in the corner was alive with fleas. Yet Mrs Nicholls had had another visitor to her home that week, one whom she seemed to regard as a rescuer-in-waiting.

  ‘A priest, you say?’ I was baffled for a moment.

  ‘Yes, I forget his name, Irish – fine figure he ’ad . . .’

  ‘Not – Father Kay?’

  ‘That’s ’im! I been askin’ what we was supposed to do now all the ’ouses roundabouts are bein’ cleared. An’ he told me not to fret cos his church, see, will help them as can’t manage the rent.’

  ‘Is that so? And what does he propose to do?’

  She paused at this, and her thin face clouded over with worry. ‘Oh, I’m not s’posed to say. ’E said it’s not built yet.’

  ‘What’s not built?’

  She looked uncertain, wary of confiding to me. I could not imagine what kind of pledge Kay had made, but I hoped for her sake it proved to have some foundation in truth. Evidently it was serious enough to compel her silence. I asked her again, more gently, but she shook her head, and seemed quite sorry not to have been more obliging.