For half an hour we ducked in and out of dark alleys, dodging all hints of authority, humanity, shadows and rats. We lurked across side roads and in virtually uninhabited neighborhoods. She tossed the shooter into some bushes. There was no way to hide a giant fuck-all scattergun and we needed more stealth than fight. She turned to me with a look on her face that I’d never seen, not through the days of caresses or fleeting paid-for moments of ecstasy. Her grin was wolfish and lopsided. It made her eyes sparkle and even though her make-up had long ago worn away in the Bow Street non-storage, I’d never seen her more beautiful. My hearing was returning, but there would always be a ring, on quiet nights and quiet places the high pitch ring would be my companion from now into the hereafter.
“That was fucking brilliant!” she said and grabbed my right hand in both of hers.
She kissed the knife wound on my forearm, and my busted knuckles. She licked a spot of blood off her lips. Honestly, that was going a bit too far, but I didn’t say anything for fear of ruining the mood.
I looked around. We were near the desolate neighborhood of the Piece Work, near the home of the porter’s mum. I led Mary down the darker paths of the declining neighborhoods. I knocked on Mum’s door and buttoned my jacket so as to look less like a bloody hooligan. The old woman answered despite the hour and location. A trusting soul, or an insane one.
“Hello, Mum,” I said. She was wearing a colorful new coat over her layers of rags. Purple crushed velvet. Good call, Mum. She smiled her angelic smile.
“Mr. Government Agent! What brings you back?”
“Good news, Mum. I always come bearing joyous tidings.”
Mum ushered us into her home. As I mentioned, her living quarters consisted of a single room. The interior was lit by an oil lamp on a raw wood table. The light glowed soft and gold and did nothing to illuminate the dark corners of Mum’s hovel. The walls were adorned with separate layers of peeling contact paper. The top layer was white followed by gray, then yellow, then patches of brick where the paper had completely come away.
A couch sat behind the raw wood table. A vertical gas pipe and radiator dominated the wall opposite the couch. A gas ring extended from the pipe. A battered kettle perched itself precariously on the ring. Mum’s home was the very definition of shabby.
Mum stroked Mary’s arm with old, thin fingers. She looked into Mary’s eyes and took a sudden deep breath.
“You are so lovely, deary!” Mum squeaked. She let her twig fingers brush Mary’s face, her hair, her dress.
Mary gave Mum a shy smile. Her bare feet were black with mud and street grime. Her hair was a tangled nest; her hair dye had grown a half inch over the roots, now showing bits blonde and gray under auburn. Her dress was torn and filthy from days of confinement.
Mum was a saint.
“Can I get you a cup of tea, deary?” Mum asked
“Tea would be fine,” Mary replied.
I grabbed Mary’s hand. Mine was still shaking from the last dregs of Dr. Doyle’s seven percent solution. Mum lit her gas ring with a match the length of her forearm.
“Mum, I’ve been talking with important men, officials. You and your son should have a better place to live. We have acquired a place for you on B Street.”
I took my apartment key out of my pocket and pressed it into her hand. It wasn’t like I was ever going back. As far I as I was concerned, London and I were finished.
“It’s paid up to the end of next month. There’s no furniture except for a bed, which you can keep. Anyway, it’s a flat bigger than this place. Are you interested?”
Mum laughed and hooted and grasped me in a hug stronger than I would have given her credit for.
“Gather your things, then,” I said.
Mum bobbed around her room putting odds and ends into a canvas shopping sack. Picture frames, a broken statuette, a half-full ash tray, tins of potted meat. She filled her bag with a nonsensical collection dictated by whatever cracked portion of her mind judged important from unimportant. Her little feet swished and swept the rubbish on her floor; leaves, and bits of wrapping, and cigar ends.
I took her bag and her arm and walked her out of her shite apartment and shite neighborhood. It took four blocks of wandering to find a hansom cab that would stop to my raised hand.
I paid the driver a hefty tip, gave him directions, and instructed him to walk Mum to my front door. And off they went.
Over the buildings and homes, miles from where I stood, the London skyline burned fierce. The Bow Street Firm, its neighbor buildings, and probably the entire city block were consumed in a hungry conflagration. My history, my work, and the last seven years of my life in the belly of that beast were all gone to wind, to ashes, and to memories.
I returned to Mum’s flat. Mary stood among the rubbish sipping a cup of Earl Grey.
“Was that cup clean?” I asked.
“Probably not.” She regarded the cup for a moment, then dropped it to the floor and was on me like a jungle cat. She stripped off my coat and threw it against the wall. Then she ripped my shirt down the center, sending popped buttons to join the decaying garbage of Mum’s floor. I leaned in to kiss her but she slapped me hard across the face and pushed me onto the couch. I pulled her onto my lap; she straddled my body and locked her legs behind my back, like the Swan Princess of my nightmares.
I lifted her and myself from the couch, fighting as much as loving. Our lips finally locked and our tongues took on the fight our hands were too busy to engage in. My hands found their way under her dress, caressing her small breasts, her tiny arse, every bit of her legs and back, all taut muscles like bow strings. Her hands tangled into my hair which she twisted like a bronco rider. We collapsed to the floor as hot blooded beasts, rutting and cursing well into the morning hours.
Eleven
I woke in the late morning with Mary still in my arms. We roused ourselves and gathered discarded bits of clothing. She brushed the rubbish from Mum’s floor off my back; I did the same for her. We were like grooming chimpanzees picking away bits of paper and tea leaves and cigar butts. The morning sun seemed a strange beast. I was positively hung-over from the violence of the night before.
We gathered our meager effects. Mary nicked a pair of sandals from under Mum’s couch, and we were on our way. The evening’s careful planning had given way to improvising. I knew that leaving London was the first priority. Things had gotten too hot, as the saying goes. I stopped in a general store for biscuits, a paper, and a coat for Mary to throw over her torn dress. We looked and smelled like gutter snipes. I retrieved my firearms from the tube station. We booked passage on an eleven o’clock southbound train to Portsmouth with all stops in-between.