Perry Scrimshaw's Rite of Passage (37 page)

‘
Keep
following,’ Perry said when they reached town. The cab stopped on
Briton street and Perry’s charge followed suit. He overpaid the
driver and hopped down, concealing himself with the flank of the
mare. He patted the side of the beast, peered over her long neck
and watched Joel and Eva walk down the street, arms
linked.

He raced after them, picking a
route through some pedestrians and saw them further up ahead; Joel
was opening the door to a house. Perry fell in behind a couple of
maids ambling up the road with a basket full of bread. Joel held
the door open for Eva, glanced up and down the street and then went
inside.

So here it
was.
Their house.
Complete with a blue-paint-chipped front door and brass
knocker, two-storeys on a reasonable street. He still couldn’t get
his head round it. The place was so much better than Ma’s, even if
they were just renting a room he had no idea how they could afford
it. It was odd, he’d almost wanted to find Eva in some hovel, a
place he could rescue her from…but this place was more than he
could hope to provide even with his modest means. He paced around
unsure what to do. He could knock but he didn’t want to face them
both together. He waited, finding a vantage point a little further
down the street.

The air grew chill and evening
snuck in. It was shortly after the clocks struck seven that Joel
left the house. He looked older, grown over the year maybe, or
perhaps it was the long black Inverness coat and bowler hat that
afforded him a more adult appearance. When Joel was up the street
some, Perry approached the house and thumped the brass knocker
down.

He heard the click of the latch
and the door opened.

‘
What did you
forget Joely?’

Perry bit his lip, suddenly
lost for words. On seeing him, Eva’s mouth rounded into an ‘o’ and
she stilled and trembled as if someone had thrown a pail of cold
water on her.

‘
Perry,’ she
gasped.

‘
Aren’t you
going to ask me in?’

‘
Of course,’
Eva took a step back and shepherded him through the hallway and
through to a sitting room. It was nice, wooden floorboards, a fancy
rug with a glowing fire already underway in the
fireplace.

She stared at him a moment and
fanned her face with her hands. ‘I can’t believe you’re here. You
look different, very handsome. Not that you didn’t before I mean,’
she garbled, looking embarrassed. ‘How did you find us?’

Us.
Perry clenched his fists together and headed
straight to the warmth of the fire.

‘
This whole
place yours?’

‘
Sort of,’ Eva
folded herself into a chaise longue by the window, ‘Joely gets it
with work from his guvnor. You just missed him actually, he’s
headed out.’

‘
Work? What’s
he doing then?’

‘
Same as
before,’ Eva picked up a glass from the floor, ‘there’s sherry on
the table Perry, top me up would you? It’s good for settling nerves
and the like. And help yourself. Lovely stuff.’

He did, wondering if he was
making her nervous, probably a good thing, he thought. He poured
out a generous measure for himself, letting it swirl around the
glass carousel and took a sniff. It stung the nostrils, he doubted
he’d like it but took a small sip anyway.

‘
Ugh. Can’t
believe you like that.’

‘
Helps pass the
time.’

‘
So. He’s still
doing the same before as in what? Delivering notes from the
prison?’ It was supposed to be a joke but Eva didn’t smile, she
seemed uncomfortable.

‘
He’s doing
what he did at Ma’s but around Castle Square, for a higher sort of
customer if you know what I mean.’

Perry, sensing her discomfort
deepen suddenly had a terrible thought. ‘You’re not… he’s not, you
know,’ he scratched his neck, not quite able to say it, ‘bringing
them to you?’

‘
God no! Jesus
Perry what do you think I am?’

‘
Sorry,’ he
flushed red with embarrassment, ‘it’s just this house…the sherry. I
don’t know.’

‘
It’s been a
while.’

‘
A year,’ he
said. ‘You know that day, I did come to the docks but-’

‘
Perry, don’t.
I was really angry with you that day, but I’ve put it behind me now
and things have worked out pretty well. I bear no ill feeling at
all and would rather not talk about it,’ she said it all rather
hurriedly, liked she’d rehearsed it and then fumbled her lines when
the moment came. She raised her glass, ‘Cheers.’

Perry didn’t raise his. ‘But
you don’t understand Eva, that day I was-’

‘
No!’ she
almost shouted it. ‘I don’t want to hear about that
day.’

This wasn’t what he’d expected.
If he could only explain, then she’d understand.

‘
But Eva-’ he
tried again but was waved away with a palm.

‘
It’s
history.’

Perry ran his finger round the
rim of his glass. ‘I’ve thought about you every day I’ve been away
Eva.’

She chewed her
lip, he wanted her to stay,
me
too.

‘
And
where
have
you
been anyway?’

‘
Buenos
Aires.’

‘
Spain?’

‘
Argentina.
It’s in South
America.’

‘
What on earth
were you doing there?’

Perry sat down
at the toe end of her chaise lounge. ‘I wish there were a quick
answer to that question. There’ll be time for that. I’m back now,
that’s what really matters. Look, I know that you and Joel
are
together
now
and everything.’

‘
And?’ There
was defiance in her voice.

‘
And it’s
fine,’ he lied, ‘I get that you stuck together. Grew close,’ he
hated saying it, ‘but I can’t help who I am Eva. I’m a different
man now to the boy who left. Do you remember that kiss,
before…
that day?
’

Eva’s face didn’t move, it was
neither yes nor no.

‘
I hoped you
might just-’

‘
Just what?’
Eva hunched herself up, hugging her knees into her body.

He prised her hands off and
held them in his. ‘Come away with me Eva.’

‘
What?’

‘
We tried a
year ago, but this time we can do it, we can make it work! I know
we can.’

‘
But where
would we go? What would we do for money?’

Joy filled him, she hadn’t said
no. She hadn’t said that she loved Joel and not him. It was the
practicalities. That was all.

‘
I’ve got the
money,‘ he said excitedly, ‘enough to buy us tickets to New York.
First ship out of here if you like.’

‘
New
York?’

‘
Yes, New York,
I hear it’s amazing and there’s a man who’s offered me work there,
Mr Roebuck. You’ll really like him and his wife, well maybe not his
wife so much but-’

‘
Perry. I’m not
coming to New York with you.’

‘
Why? Why not?’
he demanded, sensing the impending puncture.

‘
I can’t leave
him.’

And there it was, all his hopes
rushing to escape through the fissure. He had to plug it.

‘
But we were
going to once weren’t we? Why not again?’

She shook her head, beating
tears from her eyes and got up from the chair and walked over to
the fire.

‘
Things are
different now. And I won’t let you make a fool of me again and risk
losing all this.’

Perry got up and stood behind
her, placing a hand on her shoulder and caught a whiff of her hair.
Clementine and cinnamon. He squeezed her shoulder gently.

‘
Eva…please. We
can make a life someplace else. We could live in a place just as
nice, better even. Look, I l-’

‘
-No. Don’t say
it. I can’t bear to hear you say it!’

Her words crushed him, his hand
slipped off her shoulder.

‘
You don’t love
me back,’ he stated it quietly, as fact.

She shook her head at the fire.
‘Joel and I…’ she broke off.

‘
What?’ Perry
urged. ‘You and Joel what?’

‘
We’re
promised,’ she faced him anew; her chin lifted defiantly, her
cheeks flushed and wet.

It was like hearing the news of
his father’s death again. He couldn’t look her in the eye. ‘You
never gave a stuff about me did you? You planned to be with him all
along!’

‘
That’s not
true,’ she said, ‘I adored you Perry! I waited for you at the
docks! But Joel came instead, brought me back and I realised how
awful a thing it was that we were scheming to do – to leave him
here on his own, with nobody. We said we’d go together remember?
The three of us?’

‘
Wait. Did you
say Joel came and picked you up from the docks that
day?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
How long had
you been waiting?’

‘
What does it
matter?’

‘
It matters!
How long?’

‘
I was there
all of ten minutes before Joel turned up. But I would have waited
longer.’

Perry pulled his hair so hard
it hurt. ‘Jesus almighty Christ,’ he gasped, ‘if he was there so
soon. He must have known where you’d be,’ the realisation hit him
like a punch in the gut, ‘and he knew we were fixing to leave
without him.’

Eva looked flushed. ‘No he
never. How could he? I would have known.’

‘
It was him!’
Perry grabbed her by her wrists. ‘Don’t you see? He attacked me and
stole you for himself!’

Eva wrenched her hands free.
‘He’s been kind to me Perry, he’d never do that!, how can you say
that? And I’m no object to be traded and stolen, decided upon by
the likes of you, I make my own choices.’

‘
But
Eva-’

‘
-No!’ she cut
him off, ‘you were always scheming, smart mouthing your way to get
what you want, sod anyone who gets in your way. Not this time. Joel
and I are doing fine and I won’t have you ruin that,’ the anger in
her voice trailed off, she looked at him, a look of pity that
sickened him to his core.

He couldn’t believe what he was
hearing. ‘He’s brainwashed you,’ he paced around drumming his hands
on his head. ‘You’re blind to it.’

‘
Leave,’ she
said softly and pointed towards the door. Tears welled in her eyes
and rolled down her cheeks.

All he wanted was to dry them
with a brush of his hand and take her in his arms. But she was lost
to him. Whatever spell Joel had cast on her was binding and he
didn’t know how to break it.

‘
Fine,’ he said
at last. He saw things clearly. This was not her fault, any of it.
It was Joel.

As if reading the shadow on his
face, Eva stepped forward and poked him in the chest with her index
finger. ‘And you leave Joel alone.’

‘
Now that,’ he
withdrew to the door, ‘is something I will not promise.’

Before she could respond he
stalked outside. The cold bit at his face, sharp and clear, feeding
his anger. The night around him was black and he broke into a
run.

42

The streetlamps on Castle
Square glowed the amber of blown glass. A couple walked arm in arm
down the street dressed in fine eveningwear. They strolled past a
line of carriages chatting, their breath foggy in the chill eve.
They arrived at the foot of the steps of the Dolphin Hotel, their
appearance taken in by a young man in a black Inverness coat and
bowler hat. He leant with his back against the building wall, a
cocktail stick drooping casually from his mouth.

‘
Evening,’ Joel
said to the couple.

The couple nodded politely and
entered the hotel. Pacing down the street towards the hotel was a
grey-haired man, walking alone and wearing a smart dinner jacket.
Joel pushed himself up from the wall and cleared his throat.

‘
Evening sir,
need a lady to accompany you to the dance this evening?’

‘
Most certainly
not!’ The man barely looked at Joel and disappeared inside. Joel
sank back against the wall and immediately had his hat whipped from
off his head.

‘
Oi!’

A skinny street urchin was
sprinting down the street away from him, the bowler hat bobbing up
and down with his pumping arms. Joel took off after him. The kid
took a hard left at the building society, skidding round the
corner.

Perry stood ready, gratefully
took the hat from the urchin and dropped a coin in his hand.

‘
Scram.’ The
kid didn’t need to be told twice and ran towards a dark alleyway by
the castle walls.

‘
Wait! Stop
him!’ Joel rounded the corner, running fast.

‘
I’ve got your
hat here.’

Joel slowed and came to a stop,
hands resting on his knees, breathing hard.

‘
Little scamp,
I’d have cut him up.’

Perry held out the hat. ‘No
need for that Joel.’

On hearing his name, Joel stood
up straight and appraised Perry, the look of confusion giving way
to a broad grin.

‘
It can’t be,
Perry Scrimshaw! Is that you?’

Perry stepped out of the
gloom.