The Intuition: Part 4, Tom
A Horror Story
Every woman in London’s East End was a working woman. Mum had worked the slop trade, sewing cheap clothing for the prisons and madhouses. She had labored by candlelight, the stink of the tallow filling the cramped, airless room she shared with Big Hal. The work, fourteen hours of it a day, brought little prosperity. Her failing eyesight slowed her. Will contributed what he could.
From a young age, he and Tom employed much of their time as street-grubbers and mudlarks along the Thames, turning their dubious treasure over to the rag and bone man for a few pence each day. Will saw his first dead man rolling in the slow lap of the Thames’s filthy current, bloated as a three-day gone alley dog. The rats had torn and nibbled the man’s face. His remaining eye, a milky bulb that protruded from its socket as though in horror of his situation, fixed on Will with baleful challenge. The boys recoiled from the corpse in shock, but pragmatism soon reasserted itself, and they waded in and stripped the stinking carcass of everything of value.
When Will was eight years old, Mum gave up her sewing and took another job. This occurred at the suggestion of Big Hal, whose patience had been sorely tried by his family’s paltry incomes and constant need to be fed. Will, hiding in a cupboard with a candle stub and a penny dreadful Tom had pinched, exercised his skill as an eavesdropper.
“Ye’ll do as I say, woman,” Big Hal bellowed, causing Will to drop the lurid tale of highwayman Dick Turpin and snuff his candle. The tread of his father’s boots shook the thin walls. “We got to have money, or it’s the gutter for all of us. D’ye want me to lose me butcher’s stall?”
“We’d be in no danger of it if you didn’t drink it all away.” Will had never heard Mum address Big Hal with such spirit, and he sucked in his breath and put his hands over his face in the dark. “And now you come to me with this. Have you no shame?”
An ominous silence reigned. Hal broke it with uncharacteristic sweetness. “Come, Mary, how can you care? Ye’re no shivering girl, what doesn’t know a man’s ways. And look, here’s a pretty gown I’ve brought you. Ye’re still a fine-looking woman. Think o’ the boy.”
They moved away, their voices reduced to murmurs, and Will waited long, breathless minutes. His caution paid off, for Big Hal drew near again, close enough for Will to smell the slaughterhouse shit on his boots through the crack under the cupboard door. “That’s my girl,” Hal purred, his deep voice surprisingly smooth and melodious when he wasn’t shouting. “A beauty, that’s what you are. You come with me to the fights tonight, and ye’ll have more trade and better than any ‘o these sows what marches their feet bloody. I’ll take good care of ye.”
When Will, perplexed, told Tom of it the next day, Tom brayed like a donkey and pumped his hips in a motion doubly vulgar in a ten-year old. “Your ma’s a whore now, Billy. Don’t you know nothing?”
Will, already a careful student of Big Hal’s fists, had broken Tom’s nose.
Tom’s boarding house leaned over the street, its balcony hung with stiffening laundry. The smell of the gutter, overflowing onto the rough cobbles, choked the alley like a fog, undisturbed by any breeze. Only the slender fingers of moonlight that pierced the chasm of crowded houses offered any light for night travelers. The steep lane permitted no carriage passage along its narrow artery, so Will walked, careful to avoid the blacker puddles. Late as it was, he saw no other soul, although he kept a sharp watch upon the neighboring houses—an ingrained habit that had saved his neck more than once.
No lock bound the boarding house door, and he slipped inside and made his way to Tom’s room. A candle stub burned on the battered table, and Tom’s clothes hung willy-nilly over the back of the single chair. Tom snored in the corner, all but swallowed whole by the flaccid feather bed, the thin blanket pulled to his chin. Will shook his head as he sorted out his friend’s suit, smoothing and hanging the jacket, and pinching a sharp crease along the length of the trousers before draping them with care across the seat of the chair. Tom’s shirt was missing. Will surmised it hung with its fellows among the laundered on the balcony. At least the man had spent that much care on the expensive apparel. He would never teach Tom to make a fine appearance.
An upended crate beside the bed served as a night table. Will moved the candle to it, taking care to keep the flame from the reach of the greasy curtains hanging at the window that served as the room’s access to the communal balcony. He undressed in the candle’s feeble glow, then sat at the edge of the bed, his mind still in that stark room at Mrs. Kinsky’s where candlelight was all the illumination to be had.
He touched his lips where Elke had pressed hers before he left, drinking from him the promise to bring Dr. Falke to her. He had not known then how difficult a task he’d set himself, but it would not have mattered. Only the girl mattered, an unprecedented occurrence in his experience, and he pondered how to make Tom understand why they would not travel alone to Romania.
“What time is it?” Tom’s sleepy croak rose from the dark behind him.
“Late. Or early. Go back to sleep; we’ve a busy day ahead of us.”
The room, chill and smelling of damp, gave Will a shiver. He snuffed the candle and rolled beneath the blanket, hugging himself for warmth. He summoned the memory of the luxury of the Imperial Hotel and set it against the current misery of the boarding house, where his breath hung on the air. As always, the contrast between comfort and deprivation left him unmoved. He existed outside such considerations, a force like that of the wind or rain. It mattered not where he laid his head. He closed his eyes and soon stood at the boundary of dream.
Tom rolled against him, jarring him to wakefulness. “Billy? You sleeping? You’re cold as a corpse.”
Tom’s hand crept over Will’s belly, hot and furtive, and Will shivered again. He cringed away from the touch. “Don’t, Tom. I want to sleep.”
He knew he would not sleep now, his body gone rigid and watchful, yet a deep fatigue washed over him. Tom pressed a bit closer, his hand drifting lower, his lips near enough to stir the fine hairs on Will’s neck when he spoke.
“Ah, Billy. It’s just a bit ‘o fun. You know I don’t mean nothing by it.” Tom chuckled. “Remember when we was kids, all piled together to keep warm? Hidin’ from Big Hal, when he was like to kill you soon as look at you? Who took care of you then?”
“You did, Tom,” Will whispered.
“Aye, that’s right, I did. And who took care of you after that trouble you got yerself into in London? Who’s always took care of you, Billy?”
“You did, you bastard. You remind me of it often enough.”
Will gasped as Tom’s hand closed around him, so hot against his cold skin.
“You wouldn’t deny old Tom his bit ‘o fun then, would you, Billy? I asks for so little.”
Will ground his teeth. Not for the first time, he wondered at the ties that bound him to Tom Cooper, as mysterious in their way as those that now bound him to Elke. “Some night, Tom, I’ll kill you while you sleep,” he snarled.
“Shh, close your eyes now, boyo. Tomorrow, Tom’s your good dog again, like always.”
Will closed his eyes, surrendering to the bewilderment of what he supposed was love.
The dawn spread over the rooftops like a spill of blood on a grey sheet. Thunder growled, but the temperature threatened snow more than rain. Will stared through the evil yellow curtains at the sliver of sky observable from the bed and wished for wine. He’d be lucky to find clean water in this rat trap. Tom slept, arm and leg draped across him, and Will flung him off with weary revulsion before lurching to his feet and dragging on his clothes. Tom grumbled, burrowing into the musty pillows. Will stood over him, his mind a murderous wasteland where his arm rose and fell in crimson arcs and his hand was a cold, unfeeling blade.
“You feelin’ all right, Billy?” Tom had cracked open an eye, regarding Will with sharp, animal knowing.
“Just fine, Tom. It’s good you’re awake. We have a job to do before we take train tonight. Let’s find some breakfast and get to it. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”
Will left the room, the weight of Tom’s stare pinned to his shoulder blades. Clever as a fox is Tom Cooper, with the Devil’s own luck. He hummed a soft waltz as he descended the creaking stair and burst from the bottled swamp of the house into the fresher stench of the street. Fond camaraderie danced its own waltz with black hatred in his heart. He found it not incongruous; he had long felt that love must be a shackle and a scourge, if it existed at all. I’ll be free of you one day, my fine fox, to your sorrow. An old man pulling a barrow of scrap up the hill glanced at Will’s face and crossed to the opposite side of the street. His look of alarm made Will laugh, and the sound of his mirth rang along the dismal cavern like a tolling bell.
Tom bowled over the doorstep, buttoning his coat, a scowl on his face. “What the deuce are you howling about?”
Will put his arm around his friend’s shoulders and steered him down the steep street toward a cheap café just setting out its cane chairs and tiny tables. A mouthwatering scent of pastry and cinnamon puffed from its foggy door. “It’s a glorious morning, Tom. Can’t you feel it? I think we’ll have snow before the day is done.” He clapped Tom on the back, earning another bemused glower. “Coffee and strudel, eh?”
“Yeah, well, I could use some filler, I guess. You must’ve got on aces at old Kinsky’s last night. Didn’t get up to no more ruckus, did you, Billy?”
“Don’t worry. I squared my account with Madame Kinsky, and then some.”
They had arrived at the café and Tom froze in the act of pulling out a chair. “And then some? What’s that mean, then?” He fixed his gimlet eyes on Will, who sat and pulled his muffler snug about his throat. “Billy? What’s it you’ve got us hooked for? Summat to do with this job you been on about?”
When Will ignored the question and gestured for the waiter, Tom slumped in his own chair, running a hand through his chestnut hair. “Jesus. Us, workin’ for that slack, old cunny? If that don’t take the biscuit.”
Will ordered coffee and fresh pastries, then turned to Tom as the waiter hurried away. “If I wanted something very badly, Tom, you would help me acquire it, wouldn’t you?”
“You got to ask, then? You know I would.”
“Greta Kinsky has something I want. I’ve paid her handsomely for this … item, but it is no simple matter to transport it to the train. For that, we need an expert, of sorts. A man named Henrik Falke, a doctor. He’ll accompany us to Romania.”
Tom goggled at him. “What is it, this item?”
Their breakfast arrived. Will shoveled an immense bite of strudel into his mouth and chewed, watching Tom over the rim of his coffee cup. Tom did not touch his coffee or his pastry, but sat rigid and owlish, his face a mask of suspicion. Will set his cup on its saucer with precision and dabbed the sugar from his lips. “It’s a girl. Her name is Elke.”
Tom’s held breath exploded on a curse. “I don’t care what her bloody name is. We ain’t taking no whore with us. What’re you thinking, Billy?” His eyes narrowed and he shook his head with emphatic denial. “The trouble ain’t come on you again? Because I don’t want to see no more of that. No, Sir William Dovedale, my pretty lad, though I pledge me heart to you.” He snatched up his cup and gulped, sputtering, at the steaming brew.
Will’s face was stone. “Calm yourself. I have purchased the girl from Mrs. Kinsky. She requires medical attention. That is where Dr. Falke comes in. We must convince him to travel with us as her physician, a role that is, indeed, already his.” He caught Tom’s wild gaze with his. “I need your help, Tom.”
“Convince some toff to hop a train to Romaney with the likes of us? So’s he can nursemaid a whore what’s probably got the syph, at that.” Tom huffed in disgust, his quick fingers drumming the tabletop. “I hope you ain’t dabbed it up with her, Billy.”
Will leaned across the table and laid his hand over Tom’s, stilling it. “Tom, I can’t explain this to you, for I don’t understand it myself. This girl, Elke … she spoke to me in my mother’s voice. She’s queer in the head, perhaps, but she knew that about me that I thought was locked in a grave in Brookwood. Her illness, it isn’t what you think. I need to know more, and only this Dr. Falke can persuade the girl to speak. There isn’t time to dally here; we must be on that train tonight. I can see only one solution, and that is to take the girl and the doctor with us. Falke may prove useful on the expedition, at least.”
Tom’s face softened. “Ah, Billy. Your mum’s been dead near twenty years. She ain’t talking to you through some bit ‘o tail’s mouth. That’s a bogey story, see? You was always an easy tumble for them. You’ve had a shake, what with that Adele piece pegging out, that’s all. Scratching up bad memories, like.”
Will restrained the urge to choke Tom. His voice shook with suppressed rage. “You don’t know how it was, when my mother died. You weren’t there when it happened, to see what he made me do, that filth. The score can never be settled, not for me or for Mum. He’s to blame for what happened two years ago; for what happened to Adele, too.” Will sat back in his chair and lifted his cup to his lips with a steady hand. “A bogey story, you say. You have no idea, Tom. If you did, even you would abandon me.”
“I know more than you think, Billy. More than you think. You’re enough to scare the Devil sometimes. I can see you ain’t going to let it go.” Tom sighed. “I’m your man, bugger me for a fool. But just how shall we convince the doctor to sign on?”
Will smiled. “Dr. Falke is in need of aid himself at present, the kind we are uniquely equipped to provide. Furthermore, his interest in Elke is as great as my own. He won’t easily loosen his grasp on her.”
“She must be channeling the bloody Queen of Sheba.”
Will stood, appraising Tom with cool detachment. “Let us be on our way. We shall need some blacking for your hair.”
Ok now you really have me hooked❤️
Just gets better and better, Liz. Really enjoying The Intuition. - Jim