Lost Among the Living Read online

  There was no way for Casparov to find out that his typist had been deflowered by his own client, of course—unless there was a baby. We had done nothing to prevent it. If there was a baby, I calculated, I had four months—five if I was lucky—before I was dismissed. I could pretend to simply get fat up to that point, but no further. I toyed with the idea of getting rid of the baby, if there was one—there were ways—but dismissed it. My mother had not gotten rid of her unwanted child, and neither would I. A baby would be a disaster, but at least it would love me, and that was something.

  I listened to Helen, typing away next to me, and I stole a glance at her round, impassive face, her shoulders in their well-worn blouse squared obediently as she hit the keys. I had always understood her, but today I had a new appreciation for her, and a creeping sense of fear. I could be you, I thought. Even now, I could be you.

  But it would take some planning. I pulled a finished page from my typewriter and scrolled in a new one, thinking as fast as I could and trying not to panic. The main problem was money. After paying Mother’s fees and my rent, I didn’t have much left from Casparov’s pay for savings, and once I was dismissed for being a loose woman I would have no income at all. I would have several months of nothing until the baby was born, when I could pretend once again to be an untouched girl worthy of employment.

  If I made it that far without dying of starvation, I would have both a child and Mother to support. I could not marry, not only because no man would marry an unwed woman with a child, but because no married woman could work in an office. Any woman lucky enough to have a job in the first place was let go on the day of her wedding. It was enough to make a woman fantasize about such silly, far-off notions as voting and being the captain of one’s own life.

  Still, I would find some way to keep fighting. I could not count on Alex to support me, and I certainly could not count on him to marry me. My own birth, and Mother’s example, had taught me that men, while wonderful, were completely unreliable, especially when it came to serious things like babies. By his own admission, Alex was aimless, a layabout, a man who already had everything he wanted. I did not want to think about how I felt about Alex. I did not want to think of the look that might come on his face when I told him, of how things would cool, how he would quietly fade from my life and become the faint memory of a wild incident. Men, no matter how honorable their intentions at first, could walk away from such difficult complications, and women could not; to expect anything else was foolish.

  I do respectfully address your inquiry. However, with regard to the person or persons mentioned, such issues would be comprehensively addressed in the matter under contract, and heretofore referred to under subsection B . . .

  I took only a brief luncheon, perusing Casparov’s newspapers unseeing. Perhaps I was lucky, and there was no child. I would not know for weeks. In the meantime, I could make preparations just in case. I ran the numbers through my mind as my eyes traveled the words blurred in newsprint over and over again. I had a small sum put away. I could move to a smaller room in my boardinghouse, save the train fare if I cut every second visit to Mother, skip two meals per week, and just perhaps . . .

  At five o’clock I covered my typewriter and put on my coat and hat. I had walked out onto the street and was pulling up my collar futilely against the wet wind when I saw Alex leaning against a lamppost, waiting for me.

  He had changed his clothes. I had not spoken to him when I left his flat that morning; I had left him still sleeping. Now he wore a knee-length black wool coat and black leather gloves, as well as a fedora of deep charcoal that matched his trousers. He was clean-shaven and well rested; he had not been working a job, under a crushing burden of worry, as I had. I saw him instantly—I would have seen him from a mile distant, even though he looked just like every other Londoner heading home in the faltering April light.

  Thinking of Casparov, who might follow behind me through the door at any moment, I pulled my collar yet tighter and walked away, moving briskly in the direction of the bus that would take me to my boardinghouse. “Go away, Alex,” I said.

  I heard him follow me, could picture how his body moved beneath the cover of the wool coat. “I’m worried about you,” he said.

  “Go away,” I told him again. “If he sees us, I’ll lose my job.” A squeeze of panic jolted through my veins. If I lost my job now, before I had a chance to save any more money . . .

  “Are you all right?” Alex asked, his voice coming from just behind my shoulder. “Where are you going?”

  “Home, of course.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “You needn’t.”

  He must have read something in my tone, because he said, “Very well, Jo. I’m sorry I approached you like that. It was rather stupid after yesterday’s subterfuge. But that doesn’t mean I can’t accompany you home.”

  “I’m taking a bus,” I said.

  Now his voice was just a little amused. “I think perhaps I can manage that. I’ve done it before.”

  I reached the stop—there were a handful of other people waiting, men and women on their way home from work—and whirled to face him. In my panic it crossed my mind that he was looking for a repeat of the night before, as if I would be foolish enough to risk everything, to lay myself bare before him, every night of the week at his pleasure. But when I met his gaze, I could not sustain the idea. From beneath the brim of his hat, those unmistakable eyes were looking at me with concern—true, sincere concern. There was no trace of lust in his gaze. Or none that I could see, perhaps. It struck me as possible that I wasn’t as good a judge of men as I’d thought.

  “Go home, Alex,” I tried again.

  “No,” he replied.

  So we took the bus, he and I, crowded in with the other London workers, as rain began to pelt the glass. He said nothing, merely sat next to me, his shoulder brushing mine, as if we did this every day. I thought for certain he’d be noticed, not only as of a higher class but also—to my mind—the best-looking man who had ever existed, but in his ordinary coat and hat no one gave him a second glance, not even the women. It seemed that when he wanted to, Alex could fade into the city background, invisible to everyone but me.

  I looked out the window, wondered if I could walk to work instead and save the bus fare, and for the first time felt like weeping.

  Still my shadow, he followed me off at my stop and from there to my boardinghouse. I roomed in a house that was cheap, horrid, and female-only, the landlady a termagant about her rules. “You cannot come in,” I told Alex. “Men are not allowed.”

  “I’ll explain,” he said.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, my thin gloves cold against my skin. Now I would lose my home as well as my employment. Perhaps I could find somewhere cheaper. I’d be turned out if I was pregnant, anyway. In defeat, I turned my back on him and came through the front door, taking the stairs to my flat.

  The landlady, who lived in the ground-floor room and watched everything from her front window, came immediately into the front hall, protesting, when Alex followed me. I kept walking and let her words wash over me, followed by Alex’s soothing tone. He told her something; I knew not what. I did not listen. I took the second set of stairs and put my key in the door to my rooms.

  I left the door open behind me—that Alex would succeed with the landlady was never really in question—and walked immediately to the bedroom, dropping my coat, my hat, and my gloves as I went. “There,” I said when I heard him come in. “You’ve accompanied me home. Well done, Sir Galahad.”

  I heard him close the door and settle on the single chair in my sitting room, and I imagined him looking around my flat. Taking in its mere two rooms—the kitchen was downstairs and the bathroom was down the hall—and their dim corners, the smell of cabbage cooking from downstairs. I began to unbutton my lavender wool dress, not caring that the door to the bedroom stood half open.r />
  “What is this?” Alex asked. I glanced through the doorway to see him holding a framed photo, one of the few mementos I kept in the flat.

  “That is me,” I replied, ducking back into the bedroom and continuing to undress. “Mother had work for a time as an artist’s model, and she convinced the studio to hire me as well. I didn’t last.” I had been unable to sit still, or still enough. I had wanted to sketch instead.

  He was silent for a moment. The photo showed me in nothing but a simple Greek toga, cut to midthigh, sitting chin in hand on a stool with leaves woven into my hair, the fabric of the toga falling artfully off my shoulder almost to the level of my small breast. “How old were you?” he asked.

  “Thirteen.” I folded the lavender dress carefully and put it away.

  I heard a click as he put down the sketch in its small frame. “Dear God, Jo.”

  “We had to make a living,” I snapped, pulling the pins from my hair.

  “I know what you’re worried about,” Alex said. “I’m not a fool, you know. I’m worried about the same thing.”

  “It’s none of your concern.”

  “I disagree.”

  Here we were, then, two people who had had a night of passion, facing each other in the light of day. It was sordid and sad, and it made me angry. I came out of the bedroom, wearing only my chemise, and stood before him. He had removed his hat and gloves, but he still wore the black coat, and he was slouched a little in my uncomfortable chair, his hands in his lap. I ignored the wince of unhappiness on his face.

  “Money doesn’t make you better than me,” I said. “Money doesn’t make anyone better than anyone.”

  He looked at me, and there was nothing predatory in it. His gaze did not travel my chemise, my bare arms, my hair tumbling over my shoulders. But his features smoothed as he looked at my face, the unhappiness draining away, for all the world as if he were looking at something he liked. I admitted to myself in that moment that I was horribly, hopelessly in love with him, and that the pain of it would be something that could be overcome but would never entirely go away.

  “I know it,” he replied, and he stood and shrugged off his coat.

  I took a step back as I watched him remove his charcoal suit jacket as well, leaving him in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He did not reply but strode to my bedroom, and for a moment I wondered if I had read him wrong, if he expected something of me after all. But he only reemerged a moment later, my bathrobe in his hands. “Here,” he said, sliding it over my shoulders.

  I put my arms in the sleeves and pulled the robe tight, still watching him. He stood close to me now, and I could smell the scent of his skin that I had come to know so well. I could not speak.

  “Where is the bathroom?” he asked.

  I pointed vaguely. “Down the hall.”

  He nodded and took my hand in his. He pulled me gently toward the door.

  I resisted. “What are you doing?” I asked again.

  He did not let go of my hand. “You are exhausted,” he explained. “And you are worried. A hot bath will help. Let’s go.”

  “We can’t,” I protested, thinking of my neighbor down the hall, a middle-aged lady with a pimply neck and pouchy eyes, who watched everything I did with sour disapproval. “I already can’t have a man here. We can’t go—the both of us—everyone will know.”

  He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it, for the first time giving me a flirtatious look that melted my knees. “I promise not to get in with you,” he said solemnly. “Come with me.”

  He led me down the hall, and when my neighbor popped out of her doorway to stare at us, as she inevitably did, he only nodded politely at her and bade her good evening.

  “She cannot have a man here!” the woman shouted at our retreating backs.

  Alex only ushered me into the bathroom and turned back to address her briefly. “My good lady, she already does.” Then he closed the door with a soft click.

  He let the bathtub fill as I stood frozen in place, unable to move. The bathroom was not large, and he seemed to fill the space, even in his shirtsleeves. He tested the water, then untied the bathrobe and slid it from my shoulders, rearranging my long hair. “You will not be evicted,” he said softly. “I promise.”

  I said nothing. I had no words left; I had nothing to say. I stood like a tailor’s mannequin as he raised the hem of my chemise and drew it up my body. I lifted my arms as he pulled it over my head. I had nothing to say even as I stood naked before him. All of my anger had drained away, and all of my worry, and all of my terror, and I was left an empty shell. Alex took my shoulders, turned me, and helped me into the bathtub.

  The water was hot, and something of a shock, and I drew in a deep intake of breath. As the heat worked through my limbs, I took another and another. Alex pulled up the bathroom’s small stool behind me without a word and sat. He found a sponge and washed my back, gently, winding my hair out of the way. His hands were adept, his touch sure. I hugged my knees, staring down at the water. He lifted my hair from the back of my neck and ran the sponge there, too, the sensation filling me with warmth. The silence stretched out, settled like an even blanket, free of awkwardness. We seemed to need no words.

  He did not try to touch me beyond that. I felt my mind stop spinning, stop scheming. I made a sound, and I realized I was crying, my tears falling into the water.

  Alex put the sponge down and slid his arm around me, across the top of my chest, drawing me gently backward. I could feel him behind me, the silk of his waistcoat against my bare shoulder blades. He had not rolled back his sleeves, and his arm, still clad in its white shirtsleeve, dragged in the water, soaked through.

  He pressed his lips to the side of my neck in a single passionate kiss, and I felt his breath against me. “Jo,” he said.

  And suddenly I stopped fighting. I looked down at his arm, soaked so heedlessly in the water yet still holding me, and something about it cracked me open. The old Jo was gone, and someone new and unknown took her place. Someone who wanted to love Alex Manders more than anything. I lowered my defenses, put down my weapons, and let everything go.

  Two weeks later, I married him.

  There was no baby; not then and not later. It never mattered. We had each other.

  And then he went to war, and he died. And he left me alone to start fighting again.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  That night at Wych Elm House, I dreamed.

  I was in the front hall, standing next to the familiar umbrella stand, listening to the clock tick in the sitting room past the glass doors. The air was close, hot; I could not breathe, and I could not turn around. Instead, with the inexorable motion of dreams, I walked forward on silent footsteps.

  There was something wrong with the light. It was glaring and harsh, burning like late-summer sunlight, and I blinked hard, trying to see. The corridor had somehow become the corridor at Mother’s hospital, the two places overlapping, and I felt my bare feet walking over cool tile instead of warm wood.

  I turned a corner to find Mother sitting on a sofa, just as I’d seen her in the hospital visiting room. Her large brown eyes implored me silently from her porcelain face. She wore a shawl that drooped past her bare shoulders, and on the skin of her neck and her collarbones I could trace long lines of scratches, like claw marks, some of them welling with blood. Standing over her, wearing the white coat of a doctor, was David Wilde.

  Something flickered past, lost in the glare of light. I raised my hand, trying to shade my eyes, trying to stare into the pitiless white. Stop, I wanted to shout at Wilde. Leave her alone. Behind me, I heard the snick of a door opening.

  Forget, Mother said to me as blood trickled down her neck.

  Then I was once again in the corridor of Wych Elm House. At the end of the hall I saw the front door hanging open to the steps an
d the cobblestoned drive beyond. Someone had come in.

  Wet footprints were pressed into the floor, coming through the door. In the bright light, they gleamed like fresh paint—feet crowned with toes, leading into the corridor beyond. With rising horror, I realized the prints were made in blood, as if someone had waded barefoot through a bloody puddle.

  It’s Frances, I thought, unable to stop myself. The prints led around a corner and through a doorway where I could not see. She got up from the cobblestones outside. She hadn’t stayed where she’d fallen; she’d gotten up and come inside, broken and bloody, and if I followed the trail through the doorway I would see—

  I gasped awake, jerking in my sweaty bed, a half-formed sound in my throat. In the darkness I put my hands to my neck, pressing my palms to it as I took one breath, then another.

  It was the middle of the night, with nothing but darkness coming through my window, yet my bedroom was suffused with faint, eerie light, grayish white and creeping. I inhaled a breath of cold dampness before I realized it was mist.

  The dream fell away. There could not be mist in my room; my window was closed. But I could feel it against my face, and it carried a strange smell, sweet and almost cloying. I threw back my covers and sat up, kneeling on the bed and gripping the sash of my bedroom window. It was stuck; I pushed harder, jamming the heels of my hands against it, as drops of water collected on the ends of my hair. I made a low sobbing sound as my fingers slipped over the damp wood of the sash, and then the smell disappeared and the mist vanished.

  I turned and stared into the blackness of the room, my breath rasping loudly in the still air. It was full dark again now, the mist gone as if it had never been. The blood pounded in my temples. I am not mad, I thought wildly, thinking about footprints in blood. I touched a finger to a lock of hair that lay plastered to my cheek and curled it around my knuckle, watching the drop of water forming at the end. I did not imagine it. I am not mad.