Arachnodactyl (11 page)

A
s promised
, Rob helped carry the tanks out to a horse-drawn cart. Once they secured all five tanks, Ikey and Cross climbed in back and rode along.

Ikey sat with his back against the wall, forearms resting on his knees. He stared at splinters of straw lodged between boards in the cart’s bed. The burnt up adrenaline left Ikey wrung out, washed up, hands and head throbbing. What could he possibly offer Rose as an incentive to run away with him? He could get work fixing things, provided he could hold his tools and manipulate them. Where would they stay? He had no money for lodging. Or food. Did she need food? And what if she needed to be repaired? The complexity of Cross’s music box left Ikey reeling. What hope did he have of deciphering Rose’s machinations?

He glanced at Cross through a veil of his sweat-soaked bangs. Cross watched the women in the street. A slight smile curled his lips. It was not a lecherous stare, not one full of want or possession, but one of mild amusement; a half-minded distraction.

Ikey returned his focus to the cart bed. He’d need to secure some means. It appeared that Cross wouldn’t cut him the least amount of slack, so he’d have to depend upon his own ingenuity. If the machinations of the music boxes could be sussed out, he could manufacture them on his own. Or what if he quietly sold a few of the ones about the house? There were so many that Cross could not possibly notice the absence of two or three.

A slight smile curled Ikey’s own lips. He would not be outsmarted.

Rob drove the cart around to the alley behind Cross’s house. Cross leapt out and unlocked a door set in the garden wall. He passed another key to Ikey and told him to let himself in, leave the key by the door, and wash up while he and Rob took care of the tanks.

As Rob and Cross slid the tanks toward the foot of the cart, Ikey slipped through the garden door and found himself in a narrow alley between the workshop and the garden wall. His legs and knees ached. His hands burned as if they might emit a warm, red glow and light his path once he stepped inside the house. He crossed the yard, eager to see Rose, to hear her voice and feel the comfort of her presence.

Ikey let himself in as directed, dropped the key where indicated, and hesitated at the thought of striking a match and lighting the lantern by the backdoor. Instead, he closed the door behind himself and counted his steps toward the sink. He reached out and found a dish of soap. Beside it, the faucet handles. He twisted them until water ran cold and murmuring into the hollow belly of the sink. Ikey washed his hands and gritted his teeth at the pain until the burning consumed itself and was reduced to a dull sizzling sensation. He splashed water over his face and wiped with the towel hanging from the peg beside the sink.

He stood straight. His back wailed with the effort. The air sat in his mouth full and ripe, filled with soap and water and the pungent loam of his sweat. The bitter, sulfurous grit of coal smoke peppered it. And it was the world. The thick jelly of odors and the chuckling of water splashing into the basin. The sink beneath his hands, cold and metallic, and between the sink and his hands were gloves of pain that simmered and sizzled.

This was the world.

Ikey twisted the faucet back to off. Water dripped and pinged the bottom of the sink. Its cadence grew longer and more settled with each moment. And nowhere in his head floated an image of the drops, or the sink, or of anything other than a vista of blank—his eyesight becoming a thing he could step out of, remove like a pair of trousers.

Ikey took a deep breath. He stepped away from the sink and into the dining room as the back door swung open. A long shadow filled the doorway.

“Could you not find the lantern?” Cross asked from behind.

“I don’t need it,” Ikey said. He moved around the dining table and took his place. He settled his hands into his lap, palms up.

Cross struck a match. It flared and lit the long edges of his face. He placed the match to the wick, then flicked the match outside before settling the lamp back into place with one hand and closing the door with the other. The brilliant, pale light of the outside was choked off again. Cross stepped toward the sink. The water ran. The stairs creaked as Rose ascended. The water shut off, and few seconds later, Cross picked up the lantern and set it in the middle of the dining room table. He stepped back and placed his hands on his hips. A wry smile creased his face.

“Well, if you don’t mind, I still need this lantern. I can’t see your pretty little face without it.”

Ikey glared.

Cross chuckled under his breath as he moved to his seat.

After a few minutes, Rose served Cross a plate of beef, carrots and onions, and a slice of buttered bread. He tore into his meal as Rose served the same to Ikey. She then took her place at the table with nothing more on her plate than a few slices of carrots and one small piece of beef.

“How was your first day, Ikey?” Rose asked.

Ikey picked up his fork. It felt huge and clumsy in his hand. He speared a piece of carrot and held it before him. A response alluded him. He didn’t want to hand Cross the satisfaction of saying what he truly thought, but he didn’t want to lie to Rose, or blow off her question.

“You’ll have to forgive him,” Cross said around a mouthful of beef. “He’s had a perfectly rotten day. Poor guy spent it listening to Sharp’s incessant babble in the boiler room. On top of that, he’s blistered his hands to the point he can’t even toss off proper tonight.”

Fire flooded Ikey’s cheeks. His dad’s fists had limits. His rage burned itself out like a bonfire, and in the cool ashes that followed, a terse peace would last for a day or more. Conversely, Cross’s sharp tongue knew not exhaustion or weariness. If Cross raised a fist against him, at least the man would shut up under the exertion.

“Topping it off,” Rose said, “he has you to contend with at all hours. How dreadful.”

Cross speared a forkful of vegetables. “No one has to contend with me. It’s my house, and he’s free to leave.”

“You know perfectly well it’s not that simple,” Rose said.

“I don’t give a bloody deuce how simple it is,” Cross said. He shoved the fork into his mouth. “What is simple is the idea that if you want something in this world, you have to work for it. Ain’t nobody going to hold your pecker for you. And ain’t nobody going to coddle you after a day’s labor. At the end of the day,” Cross said as he pointed his fork at Ikey, “the simple fact of it is that you got what you worked for. And if all you got is a handful of blisters and a bruised sense of entitlement, then that’s more than you had at the beginning of the day, when you started with soft paws and an inflated sense of your own importance.”

“I believe that’s enough,” Rose said.

Cross leaned toward Ikey. The lantern light glinted in his wet eyes. “Ain’t no one in this world gives a warm shit about you. About any of us.” Cross brandished his fork and swept it across the breadth of the room. “You work your fingers down to the bloody bones, and all it guarantees you is—that if you worked hard enough—you get another chance to do it again. And that’s your chance. Over and over and over again until there’s nothing left of you but a pile of whittled bones bound with cold drool.”

Cross set his fork on the table and pointed a finger at Ikey. “And if you’re lucky. If you work hard, and you’re real lucky…” Cross glanced at Rose before returning his gaze to Ikey, “you find a brief moment of comfort to crawl into. Because it never stops, Ikey.” Cross shook his head. “It never stops. Until you’re dead. Dead dead dead.”

Cross looked down at his plate. Nothing remained but swirls of grease peppered in bread crumbs. “Is this it?” he asked of Rose. “That’s all you got?”

“I’m not the one who controls the purse strings.”

“See what I mean?” Cross asked, a hand rolled in Rose’s direction. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find some supper.”

Cross pushed himself away from the table and stomped toward the stairwell. He halted mid-step, turned around, and snatched the lantern from the table. “If you won’t be needing this…” He carried the lantern down the stairs.

Darkness filled the room like water.

Ikey let out a long, pent-up breath.

“I’m quite sorry,” Rose said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately. Dinner is rarely such theater.”

“Why do you stay?” Ikey asked.

The front door slammed. The music boxes flared, then sung themselves down into a quiet anticipation.

“Why do you ask?” Rose responded.

Ikey reached out to the plate before him. His fingertips traced the round, smooth edge, then dipped down to the center. He touched a piece of beef and pinched it between thumb and forefinger.

“My dad beat on my mum all the time. He used to…” Ikey trailed off. What he wanted to say didn’t fit in the bits of flesh and bone that made up his mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” Rose said. The satin of her dress whispered. Her fingers materialized on his forearm.

“She never left because she had nowhere to go. She had my sister and my brothers and me to look after. Her family was back in Ireland. We never had any money.”

“It must have been hard. Living like that.”

“Why do you stay?” Ikey repeated.

“Why would I leave?” Rose asked.

Ikey picked up the morsel of beef and passed it between his lips. The juice of it flowed into his mouth as he chewed, his teeth clamping down on the flesh.

Ikey swallowed. “Cross…”

“Cross has his ways,” Rose said, “and his peculiarities. But he is hardly the brute your father appears to be. He has never raised a hand against me.”

“He’s mean.”

“The world is mean. And he brings it in with him. Trails it like you’re trailing the odor of coal smoke.”

“You don’t have to put up with it. I’d never be mean to you.”

“I don’t ‘put up with it,’ as you say. It’s not personal.”

Ikey ran his fingers around his plate again. They encountered a carrot. He plucked it up and stuck it into his mouth. He closed his eyes and the world remained the same. The carrot held a sweetness. And for that moment, Ikey wanted to find the world as perfect as a well-done carrot bathed in the juices of beef and caramelized onion. But his hands burned. His back ached. His chest felt lined in felt. And his conversation with Rose felt like trying to grasp a greased eel.

“Are you his servant?” Ikey asked.

The fingers disappeared from his forearm. “I’m no one’s servant.”

“He introduced you as his wife. But you don’t wear a ring. Neither does he.”

Silence stomped through the room. Ikey expected the force of it to set the music boxes to singing.

“Are you finished eating?” Rose asked.

Ikey looked in her direction. He saw nothing there, of course.

“Aren’t you going to answer my question?”

“What question was that?”

Ikey swallowed. Which question indeed. “Do you love Cross?”

“I don’t recall you asking that.”

“Answer it.”

The chair scraped across the floor. Rose’s skirts whispered about her movements.

“I don’t have the answer you’re looking for.”

“What?” Ikey asked. He sat back in his chair. The pressure against his spine relieved a modicum of the pain. “What does that mean?”

Rose sighed. Ikey imagined the veil shifting before her face, fluttering as if in a breeze.

“Life is complicated, Ikey.” She moved around the table and set her plate on top of Cross’s. “It’s not as simple as yes or no, or will I or won’t I. Are you done?”

“I’m sorry…” Ikey began.

“With your dinner,” Rose said.

“Yes.”

The rustle of her skirts and the click of her boots told of where she was. If Ikey reached out, she’d be there to touch, next to him. He jumped as she dropped the plates onto his and they clattered with an unexpected volume.

“If you’re going to pressure me say it,” Rose said, “then I’ll go ahead and say it, because of everything that is said about me, I want the true statement to be the claim that I am brave. And the truth is, who would have me, right? I’m the ghost of a woman. A woman’s shadow. Good for cleaning a house and preparing a meal, but little else. And so…”

The plates rattled as Rose scooped them up.

“I don’t need your sympathy, Ikey. I don’t need it at all.”

Rose stomped away and the music boxes chanted with each step. She dumped the plates into the sink, then returned to the dining room. Ikey remained seated. He slumped into his chair and tried to work out what had happened. It was as if he had mixed flour and salt and the resulting mixture had exploded in his face.

“Can I help?” Ikey asked.

“I don’t need your help. I’m quite capable.” Rose’s footsteps clicked away from the sideboard.

Ikey stood. He placed his fingertips on the table and traced the edges, as well as the outlines of chairs as he made his way around. Water ran in the scullery. Rose returned to the sideboard and picked up another set of dishes, then returned to the sink. Ikey followed her trail of noise until the water was suddenly louder, clearer as it ran into the tub.

He stopped. Everything in his head felt stupid. Too daft to share or do anything more with than hide. Bury it inside himself. But Rose’s scorn burned worse than anything he had felt during the day.

“Please don’t be mad at me,” Ikey said.

Dishes clattered. “I’m not mad at you. You can’t help being who you are.”

“You make me feel daft.”

The water splashed, then changed, and then Ikey realized he was hearing Rose’s laughter braided with the filling tub.

“Daft? I make you feel daft. Like I need… Oh, bother.”

“You move around in the dark like there’s nothing there. Like it’s nothing. And when I try…” Ikey took a deep breath. “I kick things. I bark my shins. And when you tried to teach me to knit…” He began to run a hand through his hair, but stopped at the first stinging reports from his fingers. “I couldn’t believe how hard it was. And you just do it. And you cook and you clean and you serve us meals and I can’t believe how you do it. It’s like I’m blind. Like you can see in a way that I can’t. There is this whole world that I knew nothing about until I met you, and I can’t figure it out. It doesn’t fit in my head.”