Only Ever Always Read online

  Salvador edges on his toes, delicate despite his size. He finds a spot in the rubble under the hole in the floor. He looks up at me. I look down on him.

  ‘Oi,’ he tells. ‘What’s going on? You didn’t tell me she’s got the Raiders’ mark. I can’t do her no harm.’

  ‘I aint asked you to harm her. I asked you to catch her. It’s the opposite of harm, innit?’

  ‘’Allo, girlie,’ he tells up to me. ‘Can you fly?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Can you fall?’

  I think about it. ‘Yeah. I can fall.’ I tuck the pills into my sleeve for safety.

  Salvador catches me. My jaw crunches against my chest, but nothing breaks. Salvador staggers under my weight.

  ‘Put her down,’ Dolores tells. Salvador is bigger’n stronger’n Dolores, but he’s feared of her, cause he does just what she tells. She puts a scrap in his paw and he clenches it. ‘You’re paid up. Off you go. This is secret women’s business here, aint it Clara, my darlin’?’

  At her bidding the giant Salvador scuttles up the shadowy street like a cockroach and I’m sorry to see him go. I aint sure why Dolores is here. Was I s’posed to bring something back for her as well? Was that our bargain? Would she send me back, through the door? And how, without Salvador there to throw me to the second storey? Or was she come to take me away, to make me do some trick for her, like poor old Salvador?

  ‘Did you get them?’ Dolores asks. Her eyes glitter.

  ‘I got ’em.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  What’s she up to? ‘No.’

  ‘I gotta check ’em. See if they’re the right ones.’

  ‘They were the only ones there.’

  ‘Aint gonna do your boyfriend no good if you’re giving him aspirin now, is it? He aint got toothache.’

  I look at her. She’s waiting. She’s patient. She’d wait all night. And how do I know what I got? I aint even sure what aspirin is. I hand ’em over.

  She looks. ‘That’s the ones. Well, aint you just the ticket? Didn’t you turn out just right, like well-done beef? I knew it. Wobblins and tremblins. Knew you’d bring home the bacon for Miss Dolly. Mum knew too. Didn’t she?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s got our name on it. See?’ She points at a word on the bottle. ‘It’s got our name. Jay-hay-are-vee-eye-ess. This aint for your boy. This is for Mother. Don’t know what we’d do without our Mother.’

  She puts it deep into her cleavage. I spit. I punch at her eye. I punch for the medicine I need and also for the rage of the music box, found and lost all in one day, left behind at the door to fairyland, beyond my reach now that I’m down on the ground. I’m raged with everything Dolores has given and taken, with everything that’s slipped through my fingers this night. With one hand I grab the hairs that poke out from under her brown hat and I plunge my other hand down after them pills. My fingertips close on the lid.

  She laughs at me. To her I’m a flea, to be bitten away. She grabs my wrist and squeezes. I yank harder on her hair. ‘Now, now,’ she tells. ‘You don’t think Salvador was the only one I brought with me tonight?’

  Juzzy the screw steps out.

  ‘You’d be surprised the people who owe me. Business is booming.’

  Juzzy takes my shoulders gently, but his fingers are firm, to let me know he’s strong. I let go of her hair. She tosses her head and extracts my hand from her bosom. The pills slip away.

  ‘You can’t take ’em,’ I say. ‘I need ’em. Please. The music box. You can . . .’ I hesitate, clenching my eyes shut. ‘You can have it,’ I spit. ‘I brought the Other back with me, whole and good. It must be worth something to someone, all pretty and fine. Bring back Salvador, he can throw me up there, just like he fetched me down.’

  Dolores laughs. ‘You daft child, what would I want a thing like that for? That’s your treasure, not mine. Not no one else’s neither. What’s it worth, whole or broke, to one who can’t use it?’

  I spit at her.

  ‘You got what you want, market hag,’ Juzzy tells. ‘I got work to get back to.’

  Dolores makes a great show of rearranging her hat, tucking in all those hairs.

  ‘Who was the girl?’ I ask. ‘Where you sent me? Who was she? Why did she look . . . like me?’

  ‘You should ask: who was she dreaming?’

  Juzzy holds me. I can feel the warmth of his body. He won’t hurt me, not with Boedica’s mark still on me. But he aint gonna help neither. They’re all feared of Dolores, those big men. She owns their names. Dolores tucks her last hairs away, back into her hat. ‘What happened to yer four-legged friend?’ she asks.

  I stare at her.

  ‘Wandered off, did he? That’d be right. Oh well, duck. It’ll find its way home. They always do, turning up like a bad smell.’ She dislodges a small piece of paper from her sleeve, and drops it at my feet. ‘There we are, darlin’. Debt paid. In full. You can tell Juzzy how it feels. He’s a long way off yet, aren’t you? Poor pet.’ Finally she steps out onto the street. ‘Cheerio, little ones. It’s been a pleasure doing business.’

  ‘Who was she?’ I shout. ‘Who was the girl?’

  But Dolores sticks up one hand, and keeps tottering towards the shadows.

  ‘Who was she dreaming?’ I whimper, but Dolores can no longer hear.

  I don’t fight Juzzy. I let him hold me till she’s gone. And then, when he does let go, I fall. I lie where he leaves me, for a while.

  Everything’s gone. At the doorway I sway, trying to see what I am seeing.

  There’s nothing of Andrew but his empty pile, rags fit for burning.

  One thing and another, everything’s falling apart, slipping away.

  This is what happens when you sign your name away, Andrew in my head tells me.

  Look who’s talking, I tell him back. I feel round in my pocket. I realise I aint got his paper no more. I musta dropped it somewhere in the fairy place.

  If there’s no Andrew, it don’t matter that I aint got medicine. I can sleep and this night will be over, this long and crowded, empty night. But there is an Andrew, aint there? So that means I have to go and drag my feet and find him and bring him home to live or die. And there’s only one person ’sides me what cares where Andrew is, day or night. I gotta go back there. I gotta go back to Doctor’s.

  Now Groom’s in my head, telling: Aint he better off there?

  I ignore him. I gotta keep moving. Moving keeps me awake. I feel the dried paint of Boedica’s mark on my forehead. It won’t last forever, that protection, but it might take me a bit further tonight.

  Groom won’t shut up: Doctor’s got all the medicine Andrew needs. Doctor wants what you want; he can look after Andrew. Come to me, and I will make you a nest, all feathered and soft and you can hushabye, and I’ll feed you honey and sweet in the morn. I’ll take care after you. I’ll take care after you for only ever always.

  But Doctor don’t want what I want, I know. Well, he does, he wants exact same thing as me, with his own twisting. Doctor wants to keep Andrew, and build his self a life round having him. If it’s Doctor makes him well, he won’t never let him go. Andrew will owe him and owe him and owe him, black and blue.

  And that’s why I’m in the street again, treading the same path, this night that takes me looping round and round.

  It’s the last time of the night when everything sleeps, Raiders and dogs and nightwings and all, the last time afore day. The end of night is greasy and quiet, except for my imaginings. It seems to me of a sudden that the territory of the river is growing and the city is in retreat. The river is spreading towards me, and if it takes me I’ll lose myself, forget my name, forget Andrew too. It will rush over me with its wildness, it will pull me into itself. I gotta keep moving. I run and suddenly I’m sure there’s dog
s behind me and if I stop running they’ll tear me, skin and tongue and bone.

  When I get to Doctor’s house, my knees give way. I crawl to the windows. There’s a light in there, flickering. The party’s been cleared away, there aint a body left. I can’t see no Doctor, but I know he’s got rooms in the back, places to keep himself and the things he wants hidden.

  I slither inside and crouch, panting against the wall like the possum-rat he thinks I am.

  How you gonna find him? Groom asks. How you gonna take him home?

  I’m for Doctor now, Andrew tells. Save yourself, Clara.

  Light crowds the corners of my eyes. Shadows enter the room and whisper. I crawl into the middle of space. I’m for Andrew and Andrew’s for me. Which means if Andrew’s for Doctor then I’m for Doctor, too. So I don’t have to find no one, I crow to Groom. It’s them that’s gotta find me.

  No! tells Andrew.

  No! begs Groom.

  But it’s too late. I’m here, right where I want to be, and I’m found.

  They carry me into a room and put me down on a table, two of Doctor’s men and Doctor himself. Doctor’s nose bulges black and blue where I kicked him, his eyes inside all that injury are black pits.

  ‘What do you want us to do with her?’ they tell.

  Groom is wild in my head, howling with grief. Andrew’s gone quiet. Andrew’s gone still.

  Doctor’s voice is cold, like the river. ‘Give her a taste. I don’t have time for her now.’

  Something pricks my arm. ‘I aint feared of beestings,’ I tell them. But suddenly I am feared. It hurts. It kills. Panic floods through me and I knock the needle to the floor. I look down and see what’s leaking out: silver, like the music-box music. Silver and poison like the bubbles. It’s in me. I struggle to get up from the table, but they’re holding me down. I force my eyes open. I fight to stay awake. My eyes meet Doctor’s. He holds my gaze.

  He wants to punish me.

  ‘Give her another taste.’

  When the blinding white clears, when the dazzle is gone, when my blood runs from silver to red again, it aint night no more. Through the gaps in the boarded window is a sallow yellow sky.

  There’s a boy watching me. He’s littler than a scrap, sitting on a low stool in front of the door.

  ‘I’m Ketch,’ he tells. ‘I gotta watch you. Doctor give it me for my job.’

  I reach up to touch the paint on my forehead.

  ‘It’s gone,’ Ketch tells. ‘Doctor made us rub it away. She don’t hold sway here. Under his roof under his rules, you are.’

  ‘And what are his rules?’

  ‘First things first.’ Ketch points to a bucket of water in the corner, and a pile of cloths, and on top of that, a squared off lump of soap. ‘He wants you clean.’

  Ketch don’t want to watch me in the rawbones, I can see that right enough. But he is too feared of Doctor to look away, even when I ask in my most polite milktongue, like Boedica taught me. ‘You might eat soap and die,’ he tells me. ‘You might drown in the water tub.’ As if he’d quite like to nibble the soap or drown.

  ‘I didn’t come here to drown,’ I say. ‘I came here for Andrew. Where is he?’

  ‘I like Andrew. He always looked after me.’

  ‘Will you take me to him?’ I ask. ‘Will you help us?’

  Ketch shakes his head. ‘I aint brave. That’s why Doctor likes me. I always do the things what I’m told.’

  ‘What if I tell you to do it? Then will you?’

  Ketch thinks about it. He shakes his head. ‘The things what Doctor tells me to do overcounts you.’

  ‘Well I aint washing unless you watch the wall not me. And if I don’t wash, I’ll be for it and I don’t care. But you’ll be for it too. Didn’t he tell you I had to be clean?’

  Ketch turns his back and watches the wall, and I see I have some sway after all, he just needs stern talk, not politeness. I strip off and stick my head in the bucket. I clean myself all over, with soap and all. For now, I think, better to follow Doctor’s rules if I want to see Andrew and if I want Doctor to keep me too, at least till Andrew’s better and we can run away together. There’s a nice-sized rag for drying myself on and clean pants and a coloured shirt with buttons. The top is tight under my arms and the pants are too short, but other than that they fit okay.

  When I’m finished I go back to the table. I sit down to wait. It’s a long time waiting and the torn piece of sky that I can glimpse through the window boards goes from dog-tooth yellow to dirty white. There’s noises outside, metal clanking on metal, doors opening and closing, and sometimes voices, but I can’t hear what they’re telling. I feel slithering soap in the dips between my fingers.

  ‘He’s forgotten us,’ I say. Ketch is drifting in and out on his hard stool.

  ‘He may have forgotten me,’ Ketch tells. He makes a rusty sound that I realise is a laugh. He aint a well thing, that boy, for all that he lives with a Doctor. ‘That ’appens more times than not. But he aint forgotten you.’

  ‘As long as he’s making Andrew well.’ After a bit I add, ‘Can’t you breathe quieter?’

  Ketch tries to obey, but all he manages is long pauses between noisy, ragged breath.

  ‘Ketch, I can’t sit no more. Isn’t there some way of making him come?’

  The breath-holding has worn him out. He’s gone to sleep folded over on himself. I go to the door and try the handle. It won’t turn. I rattle the door. I press my ear on the wood. I can’t hear nothing now. No clanking. No voices rumbling. Not a whisper. Not a squeak.

  I lie down on the table. I stare at the ceiling. I wait.

  I open my eyes. Ketch is gone. I stand and pad to the door. This time the handle turns. I peer out the room. Aint no one there waiting for me. I walk as fast as I can, but I don’t bother hiding. I find another door and then another. I look in each one.

  In the last room laid out on a table is Andrew. There’s a jar on a stand above his head, and what looks like blood inside. There’s a thin bit of clear piping travelling down from the jar and into Andrew.

  That’s not me, Andrew in my head tells.

  Oh you’re back, are you?

  But he’s right. That aint Andrew. It’s something Doctor made, like he took himself a dead thing and tried to make it live.

  This is your chance, Clara, Andrew tells. Run.

  I gotta stay here, I tell Andrew. If I go, I’ve lost you.

  You’ve already lost me. That thing of bone and skin is ragging its last breaths. Life is already gone. The body needs to catch up, that’s all.

  I clench my teeth. Then if you’re gone, I may as well be here as anywhere.

  Oh Clara, Andrew tells, don’t say that. And it is so exactly his voice that I can’t bear it. I go back to my prison, pull the door closed, and wait.

  Next time I open my eyes Ketch is back, sitting on his stool, but this time pulled up close to the table. He don’t look so ill now. ‘Things is different,’ he tells.

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘There’s new rules,’ is all he will say.

  ‘What rules?’

  He won’t tell. ‘We gotta wait,’ he tells. ‘We gotta wait and see.’

  ‘Is there anything to eat?’ I ask. ‘I’m starving.’

  He gives me something from his pocket which feels hard as stone, but I discover when I scrape my teeth along it that it’s bread. I work away at it for a time.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’

  Ketch don’t answer. Instead he whispers, ‘He knows how to hurt a body. He knows how to hurt you so you stay hurt. You shoulda scarpered when you had the chance.’

  So it was Ketch who left the door cracked open. ‘Why do you stay?’ I ask.

  Ketch looks surprised. ‘Where else would I go? Where woul
d I find another what loves me and looks after me like he does?’

  ‘Them that love you don’t hurt you.’

  Ketch thinks about that. ‘I aint never been hurt by someone I didn’t love.’

  That’s all we have to say to each other. We go back to waiting.

  I’m blurring in and out of being awake again when the door crashes open. I sit up gasping. So does Ketch.

  I slither off the table and stand to face him. Doctor reaches me in two steps and puts a hand at my throat. He aint used to doing his own violence, I can tell. He’d usually get his men to do it. He acts his violence on a body once it’s already laid down. But he catches me surprised and up against the wall I go, twitching like a bug. He’s fat more’n muscle, but he lifts me all the same, and I know it’s his feelings what are powerful, not his beef.

  We’re face to face. We’re eye to eye. His face is swollen, still blue and black where I kicked him. I can’t breathe, but it don’t matter up here, does it? I’m looking in his eye and he’s looking in mine until he’s sure I know what he knows.

  Andrew is dead. That body, that thing laid up. Is dead.

  Then he drops me on the floor to cower. I don’t want to give him no satisfaction, but I can’t raise my head. I’m ready for the silver, for another taste. I’m ready for him to fill me so full of it I go where Andrew’s gone, cause what’s the point of anything without him? Why drag this cruel world into my lungs, this bitter scent? Why breathe a day in and a day out, when all them days are lined up, row upon row, all empty of him?

  ‘Get up, market scum,’ Doctor tells.

  I get up. Ketch is cradling his head. He won’t look. He won’t even look. Coward.

  I want Doctor to hurt me so it don’t stop. I want to be hurt. I’m no coward. I won’t flinch. And he rages at me, I can see it under his skin, the violence brewing – he wants to tear me, bone from bone. But instead two men come in and afore I can see what’s going on, there’s some kind of sacking on my head. It smells vegetable.