The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [5]
Came near and nearer still.
– William Wordsworth, "Lucy"
They walked together along the embankment. At their back the Rose was wreathed in flames. Orphan had a cut on his shoulder, bandaged with a strip of cloth. Lucy's heavy coat was covered in plaster and dust that wouldn't come off. Both were shaken.
A police automaton passed them by on its way to the scene of the explosion, a blue light flashing over its head. "Clear the area!" it shrieked at them. "Clear the area! Unsafe! Unsafe!"
"Yes," Lucy murmured, "I noticed. The big explosion was a definite clue."
They both laughed, and Orphan felt some of his tension ease. The automaton, borne fast on its hidden wheels, disappeared behind them.
"Who do you think was behind it?" Lucy said.
"You mean, who hired the Bookman?"
"Yes," Lucy said. "I guess that is what I mean."
The fog swirled about them, muting the glow of the fire from behind. Without consciously realising it, they drew closer; Orphan felt Lucy's warmth even through the heavy coat and it made him feel better. It made him feel alive.
"I don't know," he said. "I expect we'll read about it in the papers tomorrow. Could have been anyone with a grudge against Irving. He didn't exactly make himself popular with the Ancient Mariner production."
"Like the Persons from Porlock?" She threaded her arm in his and smiled. "Tell me, Master Orphan, did you dress as a clown last night and quote limericks at Mr. Wilde?"
"I…" Orphan began to say, but Lucy reached to him and put her finger against his lips, sealing them. Orphan closed his eyes and let his senses flood him: Lucy's taste was a mixture of flavour and scent, of spice and river water.
"We all have our secrets," she said in a soft voice. She removed her finger, and Orphan opened his eyes, found himself standing face to face with her. She was his height, and her dark eyes looked directly into his, her mouth smiled, a crescent moon. She had white, uneven teeth, with slightly extended canines.
They kissed. Whether she kissed him first, or he kissed her, it was immaterial. It was a mutual coming together, the two opposing poles of a magnet meeting. Her lips were cold, then hot; her eyes consumed him. He thought without words, without poetry.
When they came away both were somewhat breathless, and Lucy was grinning.
"Come on!" she said. She took Orphan's hand and he followed her: she ran down the embankment and he ran with her, the cold air whipping their faces, and the fog parted in their passing. Orphan, flushed, still breathless from the kiss, felt a rare kind of happiness take hold of him; he threw his head back and laughed, and the clouds parted. For a moment he could see the moon, shining yellow, its face misshapen. Then the clouds closed again overhead and he ran on, following Lucy, running towards the growing whale song emanating from underneath Westminster Bridge.
Nearby, on the other side of the river, Big Ben began, majestically, to count the midnight strokes.
What does Orphan remember of that night? It is a cacophony of the senses, a bazaar through which he can amble, picking and discarding sensation like curios or used books. Here a stand of sounds, and he pauses and lifts again the noise of the explosion, compares it with the rising whale-song into which Lucy led him, as they approached the south side of Westminster Bridge and the pod welcomed them with a symphony that somehow wove inside itself the distant light of stars and the warning flashes of the mail-ships in the air, the dying fire down-river and the salty taste of a kiss. He pauses beside a canopy and sorts through touch, experiencing again the heat of an embrace, the wet, slippery feel against his hand of a whale rising silently from the Thames, a plume of water interacting with the moon to form a rainbow, making laughter rise inside him like bubbles.
They visited the pod that night, and the whales, who rose one by one to the surface, were dark, beautiful shapes like sleek submarines, acknowledging them.
"Come on!" Lucy had