It was a mark of Vague Henri’s maturity and the strength of his moral fibre that he was able to find a sufficiently strong chamber in his heart to lock away for ever his incandescent fury that all the credit for the success of that most crucial night went to Cale. Mostly, at any rate.
‘I won the battle of Crispin’s Tarn.’
‘If you say so,’ replied Cale whenever Vague Henri brought it up in private, which was quite often. ‘I can’t remember much about it.’
‘You said that not even you could have kept the Redeemers out.’
‘Really? Doesn’t sound like me.’
Of the real attack Cale had launched against the Redeemers he could only recall the odd fleeting image. For some time afterwards, all that remained of his heroic attack on the non-existent Redeemers in the tarn itself was the occasional strange dream. But soon even that faded. Vague Henri had his revenge for being robbed of the credit in a manner that would have been applauded by all fifteen-year-olds at all times and in all places. So impressed and grateful were the people of Spanish Leeds that a public subscription was filled ten times over to provide a fitting reminder of the heroic victory at Crispin’s Tarn. At the site of the battle a stone statue was erected, in which an eight-foot Cale stood on the bodies of dead Redeemers while those about to be hideously slaughtered cowered before his unearthly mightiness. Vague Henri had bribed the stonemason to alter the inscription at the foot of the statue by one letter so that it now read:
In eternal memory of the heroic deeds of Thomas Cake
33
In the two weeks after the battle of the tarn Cale felt horrible and slept on and off almost continuously. When he was awake he either had a vicious headache or felt he was about to throw up and often did. One of the ways he found to take his mind off his misery was to lie in a dark room and remember all the wonderful meals he’d eaten with IdrisPukke: sweet and sour pork, angel’s hair noodles with seven meats, blackberry crumble with the berries just picked and served with double-thick cream. Then, a double-edged pleasure, he’d think about the two naked girls and what it was like to touch them and be inside them (still a notion that astonished him whenever he thought about it – what an idea!). As long as he could avoid the hatred he felt for Arbell and the guilt – and such a complicated guilt – over Artemisia, then it seemed to help him vanish to a place where pain was dulled, including those. Often he would remember specific days and nights and fall asleep while thinking about them. After two weeks he woke up one morning and felt much better. This happened from time to time, the sudden arrival of several days of feeling almost normal – as long as he didn’t do much. A few hours into this oasis he began to feel very strange; an intense desire would not leave him alone. It was so strong that he felt it was impossible to resist. Probably, he thought, it was caused by nearly dying at Crispin’s Tarn. Whatever the reason it was driving him mad and it was not going to be resisted.
‘Do you have hanging gimbals?’
‘No.’
‘Any history of thrads?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have a history of the drizzles?’
‘No.’
‘Would you like a pigeon? That would be extra, of course.’
‘No.’
‘A Huguenot?’
‘No.’
‘A gob lolly?’
Like all obnoxious boys of his age, Cale was wary of being made a fool of.
‘Are you making this up?’
The sex-barker was indignant.
‘We are celebrated, sir, for our gob lollies.’
‘I just want …’ Cale paused, irritated and awkward, ‘… the usual.’
‘Ah,’ said the sex-barker, ‘at Ruby’s House of Comforts we supply the unusual. We are notable for the unconventional most of all.’
‘Well, I don’t want it.’
‘I understand,’ said the disdainful barker. ‘Sir requires the mode ordinaire.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Would sir want to avail himself of our kissing service?’
‘What?’
‘Kissing is an extra.’
‘Why?’ Cale was more bemused than indignant.
‘The fille de joie at Ruby’s are women of quality and hold kissing to be of all acts the most intimate. They are therefore obliged to ask for extra.’
‘How much?’
‘Forty dollars, sir.’
‘For a kiss? No thanks.’
In a sex-barker’s working life awkward customers were the rule but the pale young man with the dark circles around his eyes (though pale and dark didn’t do his unhealthy colours justice) was now really and truly getting on his nerves.
‘All that remains is for the young sir to provide proof of age.’
‘What?’
‘At Ruby’s House of Comforts we are strict on such matters. It’s the law.’
‘Is this a joke?’
‘Indeed not, sir. There can be no exceptions.’
‘How am I supposed to prove how old I am?’
‘A passport would be acceptable.’
‘I forgot to bring it with me.’
‘Then I’m afraid my hands are tied, sir.’
‘Is that extra too?’
‘Very droll, sir. Now piss off!’
There was laughter at this from the waiting customers and the tarts arriving to take them away for their rented ecstasy. Cale was used to being denounced, he was used to being beaten, but he was not used to being laughed at. Nobody smirked at the Angel of Death, the incarnation of God’s wrath. But now he was just a sick little boy and how he burned for his former power as they sniggered. If he had not been so weak it’s hard to see how he could have controlled himself under such provocation – they would have seen the terrors of the earth to shut their gobs. But watching him from the other side of the room was a very large man with a hard look in his eyes. Despite the scorn-acid eating into his soul he was obliged to walk away, already working out a plan to do something hideous to spite Ruby’s House of Comforts in due course. So it was lucky for Ruby herself that, hearing the raised voice of her barker, she had come down to see what was up. She was even luckier that she recognized Thomas Cale.
‘Please!’ she called out, as Cale went to open the door. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry. My person here,’ she signalled towards the barker as if he were something that had waited too long to be thrown into the bins, ‘is an idiot. His stupidity will cost him a week’s wages. I’m most dreadfully sorry.’ Cale turned around, enjoying the look of aggrieved injustice on the barker’s face.
‘Two weeks’ wages,’ said Cale.
‘Let’s agree on three,’ said Ruby, smiling. ‘Please come through to the privatorium. Only our most honoured guests are taken there. And everything tonight, of course, comes with our compliments.’
‘Even the kissing?’
She laughed. The boy, it seemed, was willing to be smarmed.
‘We’ll find places you didn’t even realize could be kissed.’
Although the barker was no wiser as to the identity of the boy, he’d never seen Ruby treat anyone with such deference. But it was more than deference, she was afraid. At any rate, he realized three weeks’ wages were the least of his troubles.
In the privatorium was a sight to bulge the eyes of any boy, no matter how wicked. There were women everywhere, cocooned on banquettes of goya kidskin, on sofas of yellow velvet and day-beds covered in bittersweet vicuna from the Amerigos. Tall women, short women, tiny women, large women – brown and white and yellow and black women, one of them covered from head to foot except for one breast with the nipple painted poppy red. Another dressed like the innocent daughter of a Puritan was modestly clothed in white linen and a black dress – except that she wept tears of sorrow and held up a sign: I have been kidnapped. Help me, please! Others were naked and seemed to sleep. One young girl, her feet and hands bound inside a wooden frame, was being tormented by a woman tickling between her outstretched legs with a swan’s feather.