CHAPTER 19
Fire devastated The Liberty Theatre on Templar Street, Leeds, on Thursday evening. The blaze, while contained mostly to the main gallery, burned for two hours and resulted in five known casualties. The Duke of Wellington was escorted safely from the building, and escaped uninjured.
Parker’s house wasn’t as large as I had expected. I had imagined it all bright colours and space and light, so as to accommodate his exuberance and bulk. However, while still a relatively large dwelling on Albion Street, the rooms were cluttered into dimness, with stacks of paper, old pieces of furniture, and piles and piles of scripts absorbing the light. I liked it that way, although I would have preferred to be somewhere which didn’t remind me of home so much. There had always been a profusion of clutter.
Annie sat with me. She had never lived with Parker – that would have been to officially acknowledge her as his child, something he never did before she was of age. She had instead been brought up with me, at the theatre. Still, she seemed quite at home among the piles of things, and seemed to know where everything was.
They had wrapped me in a cocoon of blankets, which all prickled against me with needle-fine points whenever I moved. I had been bathed, my hair had been washed and my clothes had been changed, all by Annie. I don’t really remember it.
I wished we had swapped. If Parker had been my father, then my Father wouldn’t be missing. My father would be bumbling around humming with concern and sweating his apprehension. We could have swapped. It would have been so easy.
Annie told me, her soft, sweet voice soothing my nerves, that nobody had seen Father since that morning, when he had locked himself in his studio, demanding that he be left alone, undisturbed, to finish his work.
Then she paused, and didn’t look at me for a moment. I knew, then. For certain. The world stopped.
‘They found another body in the gallery,’ she said, taking my hand and looking at that instead.
‘Father?’ I asked.
‘It was badly burned, just parts of the skeleton were left, but it looks like it was your father.’
‘You mean there’s a chance it might not be?’ For a brief moment, a glimmer of light.
Annie squeezed my hand.
‘His watch was by the body.’
‘Oh.’
She took a deep breath, and I wondered if she was going to cry.
‘There’s something else.’
I didn’t say anything, just waited. Michael, I thought, it must have been Michael. He was dead, or he had started the fire, something like that.
‘It’s Liberty. Nobody has seen her since the play.’
‘Oh.’
‘They haven’t found her body, and since she was last seen at the other side of the building, they’re saying she’s missing.’
‘Oh.’
Annie held my hand for a while, I don’t know how long. I couldn’t think of anything. There was nothing in me that knew how to deal with the loss of my father. Nothing that made it bearable and nothing that I could relate it to. With no idea what to do, my brain just stopped. Some time later, Annie climbed over me and held me in her arms. It was only then that I started to cry.
They took turns sitting with me, all day. Annie held me like we had when we shared a bed when we were little and it was cold. It was nice. It was comforting. Andrew held my hand and talked to me. He told me jokes and read to me. They were all silly stories, fables about animals who could speak, that sort of thing, and I wasn’t really listening but it was nice to have his voice there.
Jackie was the best. He was so large that when his turn came he scooped me up into his lap and held me there, surrounded by his arms. It was nice in there. I felt small and sheltered, like I was a kitten he was holding gently. Nothing could hurt me when I was safe in Jackie’s arms, because I wasn’t an adult who had to do anything. I was a kitten, and that was the best thing of all.
At night I started to think again. They’d left me with laudanum, but I didn’t want it. My throat was still dry and scratchy and that was quite nice, because it hurt and even though it made me cry when I coughed, it was good to feel something again. I longed for my brain to start working so I could begin to sort out in my mind exactly what it was that had happened. The numbness of grief was holding me back, and beneath it all I knew that once I could function properly again, I would want revenge.
After two days, Parker was allowed back into the theatre. I insisted on coming with him.
From the street, you could almost pretend that nothing had happened. There was a little smoke damage streaked down the front, but that could hardly be seen in the dim light of evening. If you didn’t look at the blackened hole left in the second floor, it barely looked any different. Disregarding, of course, the large notice pinned to the front door forbidding entry.
Inside, the hallway was covered with a light layer of ash, which coloured all the new paint and the formerly pristine floor with a light grey tinge and made it look as though it had been untouched for a hundred years.
I didn’t want to see that gallery, for all that Parker had assured me that the bodies had been removed. I wanted a few things from my office – my notebooks, my pen, a select few of my favourite plays. Then there were the mementos I wanted from my room; the bracelet my Father had given me when I turned eighteen, my bottle of rose water and a bag of clothes. And the handkerchief Michael had lent me. But before that, I had to do the hardest thing, but the thing which needed to be done most of all. I wanted, no, I needed to go to Father’s studio.
I paused by the door, my hand over the handle. Now I was there, it seemed less like something I should do. I could walk away, pack my bags and leave, and become a new person. The Evelyn of the future would leave all her cares behind here and be happy somewhere else, pretending that she had left as I had planned to, running away after the play. I would probably never have seen my family again then, so this would be no different.
The door was locked, but Parker had given me his spare key. The room was just as it had always been. Parker’s fish tanks were still by the window, still casting murky shadows over the room. The fish had survived untouched by the fire, for the most part. I could only see one dark coloured body floating on the surface of the water.
That pile of books was still spread across the floor, and Father’s big chair was exactly as it had always been, although the blanket which covered the ripped backrest had slipped slightly. I crossed the room and stood before that chair, not sure if I wanted to sit in it or not. I decided not.
The easel was empty. It hadn’t been empty for as long as I could remember. There was always something new to be painted, and Father had never been without a spare canvas. There was nothing now, and the wall where the other two canvases had been stacked was now bare, with only the crumpled sheet which had covered the secret commission remaining.
Brendan Fitzroy must have been to collect his commission, although I couldn’t think when that would have been. Nobody had mentioned Father having had any visitors that day, only that he had locked himself away in the morning. He must have visited, I thought, perhaps when Annie and I were talking. It need only have been a quick visit, after all, that wasn’t so strange. But there was something, something that nagged at my mind, and didn’t feel right. Then I remembered: Lady Hamlet was missing.
I searched the studio, behind chairs and bookcases, for anywhere Father might have put it, but I found nothing. Nothing except that sketchbook, which had become bundled up in one of the piles of fabric, swathes which Mother had draped herself in when being painted in the Grecian style. It had been there all along. I looked back to the tanks, and the lifeless, eyeless body which floated there.
I sent Michael a note. Written on Parker’s notepaper and in my finest handwriting. I had been forced, by having no idea where he lived, to send it care of The Advocate, whose office address was handily printed in every copy of the newspaper.
In tasks so bold, can little men engage, And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage.
Sol thro’ black curtains shoots no timorous ray, nine strikes find me at the scene of our play.
I folded the note twice, so none of the black ink could be seen, even when held to the light, and sealed it with a plain wafer. I addressed the note for the attention of M Bailey, and sent it with Parker’s man. There would be no reply, I advised, and if asked who the note was from he would remain silent. In return I paid him a silver sixpence, and had him promise that he’d not breathe a word regarding the errand to anybody.
I hoped Michael would understand my bastardisation of Pope, and the instructions it contained. I wasn’t even sure that he would be at the offices that day, or if he would wish to meet me. Other than waiting, all that remained for me to do was convince Parker that as he only lived at the bottom of the street, I didn’t mind being left alone in the shell of my former home as the shadows lengthened. That I would rather be alone among my memories, and that I would make my own way when I had finished packing. He offered to send Annie, or Andrew and Jackie down to stay with me, but with tears in my eyes, I finally convinced him that all I wanted was to be alone with my past. After squeezing my hand for a long moment and looking at me with great fatherly affection, Parker finally left the theatre. The clock struck once. It was quarter to nine.
I made my way to the auditorium in the semi-darkness. The ash-covered surfaces seemed to glow a little in the shadows, and there was no sound other than my footsteps, muffled to low thuds by the dust. The chairs in the auditorium were slightly scattered from their straight rows, pushed away in the panic which had ensued only nights earlier. Otherwise, the room was untouched, and as I climbed the steps to the stage, I saw that all the props and scenery were still as I had last seen them.
I lit two candles, and waited.
At five past nine, the door at the back of the auditorium opened, and in stepped Michael. He paused in the doorway for a moment, barely visible in the gloom. I waited, saying nothing, not even moving, as he walked forward and stopped, a few metres before the stage.
‘Are you angry with me?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Should I be?’
‘Your note sounded angry.’
‘It was. But not necessarily with you.’
‘Oh.’ He blinked twice. ‘Then why do you want me here?’
‘First of all, I want you to tell me that you had nothing to do with the fire.’
He stepped forward towards me, but held himself back.
‘No, I didn’t. I was afraid you might think - but no, I was in the auditorium, watching. I had to be, for the review. Not that I wrote it, in the end.’
‘Do you promise me?’
‘Yes. Parker saw me, I’m sure of it. I caught his eye while he was onstage. You should ask him.’
‘ Perhaps I shall. It was nice of you to come, even though you thought I might be angry with you.’
I picked up the candles and made my way down the steps to where he stood, still waiting uncertainly.
He shrugged, and took one of the candles from me.
‘It was the least I could do. I wish - if I could have done something, if I hadn’t stayed to watch the play then perhaps-’
‘I think, though, that you probably also wanted to come back to the theatre,’ I said. ‘But we can talk about that later. For now, though, I need you to make love to me.’
He looked at me very carefully, then.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, meeting his eyes boldly. ‘It would hardly be the first time we’ve done it. And besides, you promised me that you’d finish what you started two days ago.’
‘As you wish it, then. Where?’ He crooked his arm and I rested my hand on his forearm.
‘My bedroom, I think. I got rid of Parker, but I don’t trust him to leave me alone.’
‘As you wish it, then.’
We made our way through the doors off the side of the stage and out into the hall, retracing the steps we had made that evening two nights previously. We passed by my study and continued on to my room. Once there I dropped his hand and placed both our candles on the bedside table while he locked the door.
‘You’re sure?’ he asked again.
There was distance between us – two feet, perhaps. It seemed like a lot. I stepped forward, reaching for his hand and lifting it from the door handle.
‘Yes,’ I said, lifting his hand to my lips and kissing it. ‘I want you to make love to me.’
I want to feel something.
He touched me then, reaching up and cupping the back of my head, pulling me closer for a kiss so delicate that I could scarcely feel it. I deepened the kiss, leaning forward and pressing my hands into his back so he couldn’t move away. After a few moments he gave a deep, guttural sigh, and I knew I had him, even when he drew back shortly after.
Moving behind me, he laid a feather-light kiss on the nape of my neck, and began the painfully slow process of undoing the lacing at the back of my dress. A shabby affair, it was the only lightweight black dress we had been able to find for such short-notice mourning. Michael didn’t seem to notice, though, and he didn’t say anything, only slipped the dress from my shoulders, kissing my neck as he did so. He stroked my exposed skin with gentle fingers, making me shiver.
‘I saw you come into the gallery,’ he whispered gruffly, caressing me all the while. ‘I heard you screaming, and I pulled you out.’
My breath was shallow as the stroking continued, softly, beneath the shoulder straps of my chemise, down towards my chest. I reached up and put my fingers in his soft hair, arching my neck as I pulled him closer.
‘There was a while where I couldn’t find you,’ he whispered again, ‘even though I could hear you crying I couldn’t see you. And it was hell.’
He turned me and held my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. His eyes gleamed as though he might cry, and I felt a lump grow in my throat.
‘Don’t – don’t, please.’ I whispered, my voice catching in my still sore throat. He would not make me cry to make himself feel better. He felt guilty for his part in it all, I was sure. For not saving my father.
‘I want you to know that it was hell,’ he said. ‘That’s all. And nothing. I just want you to know.’
He could go to hell before I comforted him.
I nodded, and he pulled me roughly into the circle of his arms and kissed me deeply, holding me so tightly I could barely move. He lifted me then, and carried me over to the bed, placing me gently back against the pillows. It wasn’t like when Jackie lifted me. I didn’t feel like a kitten or a child.
‘Take your hair down,’ Michael said quietly. ‘Please.’
He watched as I reached up and began to pull the pins out, setting them down on the bedside table one by one. His eyes never left mine as he shrugged out of his jacket, and pulled off his boots. Once all my pins were removed and the heavy coil of hair unwound itself down my back, I sat still and watched as he continued to undress. I had never seen him naked. Never seen his entire body, beyond his manhood and the hair-speckled bareness on his chest. How strange that we could have done something so intimate with so little intimacy. I felt a prickle of unease, that I shouldn’t be doing this, and that I couldn’t deal with this in the way I would wish to. But his shoulders were broad and the candlelight highlighted the dips in the shape of his muscle, and all I could do was stare, while he pulled off his trousers and stood before me.
‘Now you,’ he said, waiting.
‘You don’t look like a journalist,’ I said, trying to clear the atmosphere, which felt so heavy and oppressive. He didn’t reply, just waited.
Raising myself to my knees, I pulled my chemise over my head, and so was left clad in only my stockings. Not pale silk, how I wished they would be, but good, sensible, black cotton, secured at the top, just above my knee, with a black ribbon. Michael moved and knelt before me and held my foot in one hand while he ran the other up the length of my leg, stopping at the top of the stocking. His eyes met mine as he slowly pulled one of the ends of the ribbon, before rolling my stocking down my leg.
‘It’s a shame, really,’ he said as he reached for the other ribbon, his fingers trailing across my thighs. ‘I’d like to make love to you while you wear them. I’ve always had a weakness for black stockings.’
My breath caught in my throat, and I couldn’t take my eyes from his fingers as he rolled my other stocking down, then stroked back up my legs, towards my thighs, precisely where I longed for him to be. Pausing at the top of my legs, Michael stood and leaned over to kiss me, nudging my legs further apart with his knee as he climbed on the bed. No other part of his body was touching me, only his knee and his mouth, although I had reached for him and was trying to pull him closer.
He laughed, a little, and then lightly rubbed his fingers over my nipples, only touching the tip. My hips rolled and I tried to press myself against his leg, his knee, anything for more contact, but he was too far away. More firmly, then, he rolled them between his fingers, still refusing all contact with any other part of his body. I arched my back and pulled on his arms but he was too strong. He gently tortured me for what seemed like an age, while I spread my legs wider and tried to pull him down onto me.
‘Please,’ I whispered, hardly able to bear anymore. ‘Please, Michael. Please.’
He stopped, then, and I hoped for sweet relief as he drew away, but it was to kiss my breasts as he ran his fingers down my body, closer to the very core of me. His fingers skirted the hair at the top of my legs, and I spread them as wide as I could, trying desperately to force some contact. I couldn’t touch myself. It had to be him.
‘Please,’ I begged once more. ‘Please.’
I watched through half-closed eyes as he drew back completely, and looked at me. Then he was on me, kissing me hard and supporting himself with one hand while with the other, he found my entrance. As soon as he touched me I began to unravel, and once he had entered me I was unable to control my breathing any longer. I clawed at his back, scratching and squeezing his buttocks as I pulled him deep into my core. It wasn’t long before his moans matched my own, and my mind spiralled and leapt into the sky, into a blackness where nothing existed beyond that feeling and blessed relief.
I had to come to my senses first. His weight on me became uncomfortable, but I allowed him to remain there for a little longer while I debated precisely what I needed to say. In his current state of satiation, I imagined he would be more suggestible, his mind too clouded for convincing dishonesty.
‘I need you to tell me everything,’ I said.
He groaned, and I heaved him off me, so he rolled onto his back. I reached into the drawer in my bedside table for a handkerchief and raised myself up onto my knees, so I could talk to him from a position of height and without making a mess on the bed.
‘Michael,’ I snapped. ‘Why did you cover the exhibition for the paper?’
He blinked at me.
‘Oh, Christ. I might have known you’d have an ulterior motive.’
I scowled at him.
‘Don’t avoid the question.’
He raised himself up onto his elbows and looked at me through half-closed eyes.
‘Fine, I will tell you all, but I just want to know one thing.’
‘What?’
‘This thing that just happened. Did you do this because you wanted to seduce me into telling you the truth?’
I wanted to say yes, to shout it, but I couldn’t.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, eventually. It was probably for the best.
He continued to look at me in silence for a long few seconds.
‘That’s better than nothing,’ he said. ‘I’ll take that.’
‘Yes, well, anyway. Tell me.’
Michael sat up and leaned over to the floor where he had thrown his shirt.
‘I think I’d rather we did this with clothes on, for what it’s worth.’
We dressed in silence, and as he bent over to put his trousers on, I had to stop myself from looking at him. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit. But there were much more important things to concentrate on now, and any foolish feelings of lust would certainly fade once the real business was dealt with. It was because I was grieving, of course.
‘My name is Michael Bailey, that much is true,’ Michael said once we had dressed and, at his insistence, moved to the gallery. I had suggested my study, but he had refused. I stood awkwardly by the door while he wandered around the blackened shell of the room, and continued. ‘And I am a journalist. I have worked for The Yorkshire Advocate for three years, and I have always covered stories of a more… tragic nature.’
‘I saw that. When they said they were sending you, I looked at your work. I couldn’t understand why you’d choose to report on the exhibition.’
‘And you didn’t buy my “right place, right time” excuse?’
‘Not for a moment.’
‘I knew you’d be trouble,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Nonetheless, I did put myself forward for this story, not because I was tired of my role as it was, but because I knew that it was likely that something would be happening at the exhibition. I knew that somebody would try and steal or destroy Augustine’s work, because he warned me that it would happen. I must say, I didn’t believe him at first, but I took the job at his insistence.’
‘Why you? Why not hire somebody to look after the painting or something?’
Michael paused at the spot directly in front of where Augustine’s work had hung. He stared at the blackened hole on the wall, at the small sections of the frame which remained, and the ashes beneath that had once been the canvas. In spite of the damage, you could still see a flash of bright yellow in the top corner, where the paint had melted and stuck the canvas to the frame.
‘I’m his son,’ Michael said. ‘Augustine is – was – my father.’
‘Oh.’ I thought about that for a moment. ‘So when we, in the study, you were-‘
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I was grieving.’
‘Oh. I understand.’
He nodded.
‘He knew, as we do, I think, that Brendan Fitzroy is behind this, but the thing of it is that I haven’t a clue why, or how your father was involved.’
‘And my mother,’ I said quietly. I crossed the floor and stood beside him, resting my head on his shoulder. I needed some support then. ‘Haven’t you heard? She disappeared. And I think – I’m not sure, but she’s taken one of Father’s paintings with her.’
‘You think she had something to do with the fire?’
Michael didn’t sound convinced, and I knew he was remembering the drink-addled flirt he had met all those weeks earlier.
‘She was having an affair with Fitzroy,’ I said shortly. ‘They had one years ago, but it had started up again.’
Michael swore.
‘I’m so sorry, Evey.’ He put his arm around me and held me closer.
I didn’t want to dwell on my mother’s deception, so swiftly changed the subject.
‘Did Augustine not tell you what he was painting? Or why Fitzroy might be after it?’
‘No,’ Michael’s response was curt. ‘We were not close. I took this assignment to humour him, so I didn’t really ask him much about it. He didn’t want to say what was in the painting, and I didn’t press it. I just wanted to leave, and get on with it so I could get back to some proper work.’
‘I see.’ We stared at where the painting had been, in silence.
‘It’s such a shame we couldn’t get a look at it,’ he said.
‘I did try, but I suppose I could have tried harder. I didn’t realise it was so important.’
Michael squeezed my arm.
‘I should have told you, instead of suspecting you as I did.’
‘Instead of blackmailing me.’
‘I’m not proud of that.’ Michael shifted on his feet awkwardly. Good, I wanted him to feel guilty.
‘Hmm. At least we know it was a bit yellow,’ I said.
Michael leaned forward, peering at the smudge on the frame.
‘Oh my god, Evelyn.’
He pulled me closer to the wall, until we were both stood in the pile of ash.
‘It’s still out there, somewhere.’
‘What do you mean?’ All I could see was the yellow smudge but I didn’t know how that told us anything.
‘See this corner, where it’s not quite been burned? Can you see those threads there?’
And I could see, a row of little stubbly threads, all neatly sliced, with another, yellow piece of canvas beneath them.
‘It’s been cut out of the frame.’
Michael reached up and carefully lifted the fragile remains of the frame down from the wall. Turning them over, we were able to see a strip of canvas glued to the inside of the frame.
‘It’s been stolen, then replaced before it was burned.’
‘Father’s commission – it was yellow, and it was about the same size as this one was. Both canvases were, actually. He doesn’t usually do that, he says it’s better to fit the canvas to the picture than the picture to the canvas.’
‘Fitzroy hired your father to create a forgery, then stole the original?’
He kissed me hard on the lips.
‘Then it’s out there somewhere, probably in his damned house. We can find out what it was and why my father was killed.’
‘And mine,’ I added. I wasn’t willing to forget that, although I felt a little more kind to Michael now I knew his motivations. Only a little.
‘I don’t want to be here anymore,’ I said. ‘I’m going to go back to Parker’s.’