Perry Scrimshaw's Rite of Passage (35 page)

He jumped back with fright,
dropping the candle, spilling wax over the floor. He waited a
moment to check he hadn’t been heard, and relit the candle. What
was this place? He took the light along the row of jars more
carefully this time; seeing a lizard in one, what looked to be a
pig’s ear, something stringy that looked like jellyfish tentacles
in another and then a whole jar full of frogspawn, he peered more
closely, no…they were eyeballs. What was all this? A man who could
invent something as evil as The Sick and collect… he didn’t know
what to call this collection of pickled horrors. Someone like this,
he reasoned, wouldn’t think twice about kidnapping a boy and
exiling him to South America.

A sound stirred him from his
thoughts. Someone was coming. He put the candle back on the desk
and dashed behind the study door. Someone was humming a jolly tune.
Fairbanks shuffled into the room, chewing as he hummed, a cup of
tea in his hand. He looked just as Perry remembered – his white
hair curling past his ears. Fairbanks placed the tea on his desk
and the moment he slid into his seat, Perry made his move.

He approached from behind and
placed the tip of the blade against the old man’s neck. The humming
stopped.

‘
Make another
sound and I’ll skewer you,’ Perry whispered.

Fairbanks gave the faintest of
nods, accompanied by the patter of liquid hitting the carpet.

‘
Jesus,’ Perry
was hit by the smell, but he kept the knife tight to his
skin.

‘
Are you
done?’

Fairbanks gave another faint
nod.

‘
Snuff those
candles.’ Perry commanded, and Fairbanks did. ‘Now get up, no funny
business, you’re going to close the study door.’

Fairbanks raised his palms like
he was being held at gunpoint.

‘
Don’t turn
around.’

The pair shuffled awkwardly to
the door in the dark.

‘
Look,’
whispered Fairbanks, ‘you can take whatever you want.’

‘
I will.’ The
door clicked shut. ‘Now, back to your chair.’

Fairbanks sunk into it.

‘
Here’s what’s
going to happen,’ Perry said softly, ‘I’ve got some questions. Tell
the truth and you’ll leave here in one piece. Lie and I’ll cut off
a finger each time. You make a sound and I’ll have your tongue.
That clear?’

The doctor gasped for words,
bobbed his head up and down.

‘
I’m trying to
trace someone,’ Perry kept his voice low, growling, ‘think you knew
the feller, name of Perry Scrimshaw.’

‘
I know him,’
gasped the doctor.

‘
How did you
know him?’

‘
Little toerag
blackmailed me.’

‘
Why?’

‘
Experiments!’
he wailed, ‘I ran experiments only one went wrong, I created
something I couldn’t control. He found out somehow that I was
responsible, threatened to tell the newspapers.’

Fairbanks was scared shitless
and the truth was pouring out of him.

‘
Put your hand
on the armrest, yes, that’s it,’ Perry rested his blade on
Fairbank’s little finger.

‘
But I’m
telling you the truth!’

‘
Shhh,’ Perry
hushed, ‘I know you are. So far. I’m just getting the blade ready
just in case, just so you know I mean business.’

‘
Christ save
me! I know you mean business.’

‘
So tell me
then, this little shit blackmails you. You don’t stand for it
right? Don’t let him get away with it?’

Fairbanks
didn’t move. ‘He
did
get away with it, I gave him the money and that was that! He
told me he was going to run away and I’ve not seen him
since.’

‘
But you had
no guarantee he wouldn’t blab anyway?’

‘
Yes I did,’
Fairbanks said quietly.

‘
What?’

Fairbanks gulped. ‘His father
was in prison and I worked there - conducted some of my experiments
there. I could have killed him.’

Perry’s hand quavered, ready to
drive through the finger. ‘And did you? Kill his father?’

Fairbanks shook his head, ‘No.
He died, but not at my hand. It was months ago.’

Perry bit his lip to stifle the
tears. He lifted the knife from Fairbank’s finger for a beat or
two. ‘Did he suffer?’

The doctor took a breath. ‘A
little. I was with him towards the end, gave him painkillers to
help.’

Perry’s hands started to shake,
he couldn’t bear the thought of his Pa dying in prison,
suffering.

‘
It’s
you…isn’t it boy?’

Perry took a step back, his lip
quivering in the dark, Fairbanks span around. His face was dark and
shadowy.

‘
Perry? Dear
lord boy what has driven you to do this?’

‘
I thought you
did it.’

‘
Did what?
Kill your father? I’ve done plenty of bad t-’

‘
Not just
that…I was attacked, day after you gave me the money.’

‘
Attacked? Not
by me,’ Fairbanks said, ‘I swear it.’

Perry flipped the blade shut
and pocketed it. He was muddled and didn’t know what to think
now.

‘
It’s the
truth. I’m sorry about your father.’

‘
No you’re
not.’

A silence hung between them a
few seconds. Then the doctor spoke: ‘You should know. It was your
father who cured The Sick in the end.’

‘
Cured
it?’

‘
Well, his
antibodies anyway, I found a way of cultivating them to develop a
cure.’

He knew the doctor was saying
anything he could to appease him, making his father out to be some
hero. Perhaps he was in some small way.

‘
All those
that died were your fault,’ Perry said flatly.

‘
I made
amends.’

‘
God will be
the judge of that. Your life’s in his hands now, not
mine.’

Perry turned and walked to the
study door,

‘
Is that it
then? Between us?’ Fairbanks asked.

Perry swung the door open. ‘You
should change your trousers before dinner.’

40

When he returned to the lodging
house, there was an envelope on the floor in his room. Nobody knew
he was here, did they? Stranger still, his name was on the front.
Out of some miracle, Eva had found him! He ripped the envelope and
in seconds gutted the letter for the important parts. Perry’s mouth
fell open in surprise; it wasn’t from Eva but from solicitors, the
same who had provided him the details of Samuel Scrimshaw’s resting
place. The letter regarded the execution of Samuel Scrimshaw’s Will
– the fact one even existed was a surprise in itself but second,
the amount; five and a half guineas. No fortune for sure, but for
him, plenty. With everything that was going on, removing the worry
of running out of money was a welcome bunk up the wall. Perhaps it
was even a sign from beyond the grave that his father approved of
what he was trying to do.

Fairbanks was convincing, but
he couldn’t be completely sure. Perhaps it was that Fairbanks had
directly threatened to kill his father, so exiling a boy didn’t
seem much of a leap from there. But now he thought on it, Fairbanks
was too old and weak to have knocked him out. Perry remembered
Maxwell, the leader of the striking dockers, looking Perry in the
eye and slicing his finger across his own throat. Maxwell, all
crooked hat and bulbous nose. His big meaty hands could have easily
beaten Perry and put him in a sack. Squishing an ant came to mind.
Maxwell, it had to be Maxwell.

The following
morning brought the sun, Perry’s first glimpse of it since his
return to Southampton. Still buoyed by the news of the Will, he
paid up for another week at the inn and so as not to jinx this
unexpected improvement in fortunes, he visited a stonemason on
Foundry Lane and arranged for a proper headstone to be made for
Samuel Scrimshaw. He couldn’t think of a good epitaph, but he was
determined that the yard or two of England sheltering the remains
of his Pa be a small patch of pride. He would think on it some
more, of his father at his best. The Samuel Scrimshaw who taught
him a little of the countryside and how to guddle trout, now that
was the man he wanted to remember. He shook it away, there was time
left for all this later, but for now there was the question of
Maxwell. He paid a deposit for the stonework and went to Mrs Drew’s
café for a late breakfast – the sort of breakfast Mrs Donnegan
would’ve approved of - porridge, cream and a good heap of brown
sugar. He could almost hear her voice in his head.
If porridge is right enough for Scots to hurl
lumber over their heads it’ll be the making of you scrawny
lot!
Whether it gave you any strength or
not he didn’t know, but something told him if he was going to
confront Maxwell today he might need to call upon every ounce of
strength within his grasp.

His first port
of call was the
Bell &
Mast
. It was barely open and already a
scattering of red-cheeked reprobates were slumped at right angles
against its outer wall. Inside it was much the same. It smelt of
stale ale and wood, a couple of thuggish looking men leant on the
bar having a drawled conversation. Perry felt good, strong and
wasn’t afraid of this sort anymore.

‘
Hey,’ he
tapped the nearest one on the shoulder, the man slowly turned to
face him, and Perry saw he had a glass eye. Not one to mess with
then.

‘
Sorry to
disturb. I’m looking for Maxwell, do you know him?’

The man sneered. ‘Everyone
knows him.’

‘
He don’t come
in here no more lad, too good for us lot now,’ said his
companion.

‘
Why too
good?’ Perry asked.

‘
Well he’s off
politicking now in’t he? Off with that Carten feller and that
Gayton.’

Perry had never heard of these
men.

‘
Doing good
work he is too!’ the barman chipped in, Perry hadn’t realised he
was listening. ‘Best to have someone on our side, helping the
poor.’

‘
Pah!’
Glass-eye said, batting the barman’s support away with his
hand.

‘
Where might I
find him then?’

‘
What’s it
worth?’ Glass-eye said.

Perry considered the two men
and weighed up what an appropriate offer might be.

‘
Some pork
scratchings?’

Glass-eye threw his hands up in
disgust. ‘You playing me for a fool boy?’

The barman however, had an
amused expression on his chubby face, ‘I hear Maxwell has an office
somewhere by the Watergate, close to the wharf.’

Glass-eye grabbed a bar towel
and hurled it at the barman. ‘What you go telling him that for? He
would’ve paid!’

Perry placed a ha’penny on the
bar. ‘Much obliged, get yourself some scratchings on me
barkeep.’

‘
Bloody pig
don’t eat his own kind,’ muttered Glass-eye.

The barman raised a sausage
finger and pointed across the bar. ‘Keep that lip up and you can
get your drink elsewhere!’

Glass-eye’s companion belched
back at him.

Perry withdrew from the
argument, glad to get out of the tavern with the information
cheaply acquired. It appeared Maxwell’s fortunes had perked up
considerably since leading the dockers’ strike. He couldn’t imagine
the thuggish Maxwell with his crooked hat and nose campaigning for
the poor.

Still a good
hour until lunch, Perry did the ten-minute walk from the
Bell & Mast
to the
wharves; seagulls chirruped overhead, soaring still as if stitches
in the sky. Once in the area he asked in a few shops if they knew
where Maxwell was based. It turned out he was renting an office
above a wax merchant on the same road, a good view of the wharf and
Southampton Water, certainly not the cheapest part of town. Perhaps
what the drunks in the tavern said was true.

Outside the wax merchant, two
trolleys stuffed with packs of candles infused the air with their
sweet soapy scent. A door displayed a poster asking people to
attend a public speech by someone called Bicker-Carten, though the
date was six months past. Hadn’t the tavern louts mentioned
something about a man called Carten?

The door was open and Perry
made his way up the wooden staircase. The landing was sparse, just
a single chair with stuffing spewing from the gaps in its tattered
fabric. Down the corridor there were a few doors, all ajar bar one-
he picked up the low murmur of voices inside. Perry pressed his ear
to the door, three people at least he guessed, but he couldn’t grip
onto any of the words. He wasn’t about to go bursting in there.

Perry rested his back on the
wall. He didn’t like it; the narrow corridor, the other voices he
heard in the office. Perhaps he should go. He lifted his back from
the wall and the door opened. A well-appointed man, in top hat and
splendid suit blinked at him.

‘
There appears
to be a young man out here.’

A second face, equally well
turned out, peered from behind the first.

‘
So there
is.’

‘
I’m here to
see Maxwell, is he here?’ Perry said.

‘
Well you’re
in the right place and if I’m not mistaken the right time. The
councillor and I have just finished our meeting with
him.’

‘
A boy?’ he
recognised Maxwell’s growling voice from deep within the
room.