On these occasions when Clovis is present, Rafe closes his eyes. She tries to impress upon him the importance of what they do here, but he ignores her. Clovis and Mockett turn their discussion to cosmetic ventures.
The needle pricks again. Rafe recalls when once she had the audacity to mention love. The word was unnatural when she voiced it.
‘One day you will fall in love,’ she had said. ‘You should have the option. You’ll need a replica to keep her alive, if, as you claim, you have no more fevers.’
‘That’s rich,’ he’d replied. ‘You pretend to do this for me? If you really want to do something for me, you will give us what belongs to each of us. Give us back our phials.’
‘I can’t. It is for your safety, for everyone’s safety, that I keep them.’
While Mockett gently clips his nails, Rafe thinks of the men from Copenhagen who search for him. Why him? he’d asked when he was young and still growing, still ageing. The fever, he was told, he is a carrier, the only carrier. And on that sobering day when he discovered a partial truth about himself, he decided to hide his fevers from Clovis. How many he had secretly suffered in his room in that first house in Bermondsey, he could not count. Now, when it arrives with its blistering heat, he retreats to his studio, locks the doors, and sweats it out alone.
From the moment she first appeared, tainting the doorway of Lawless House, he couldn’t bear to be near Clovis Fowler. Those first years, she did not often touch him, but sometimes she placed her hand on his shoulder, or held him down until he understood what was required of him – the needles, and the lancet, and the scissors – and then he almost fainted from nausea. Her touch was worse than any bloodletting.
She often asks if he ever suffers from the fever to which he always replies that he does not, so convincingly that she only nods and then reminds him to let her know if that should change. He would never tell her the truth, because darkness rises in everything she does.
‘Rafe. It’s time to go. And we need to hurry, I think my long sleep is coming.’
Mockett and Rafe both supress the urge to acknowledge her remark. They have waited months for her next sleep to arrive. They have all waited.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
On a balmy evening two weeks later, both Finn and Clovis approach the end of their long sleep.
‘That wasn’t supposed to happen,’ Jonesy says. ‘Both of them at the same time. Now what are we going to do?’
‘Before he fell asleep Finn insisted we continue as planned. That’s what we’ll do,’ Rafe tells him.
‘But he’ll be in danger,’ Willa adds.
Owen Mockett arrives to make their group complete.
‘Have you locked her in?’ Mockett asks.
‘Yes, and she was completely unaware,’ Rafe says.
The day after she fell asleep, Jonesy and Rafe moved Clovis from her bedroom into the anteroom, the small room sandwiched between the annex and the kitchen. They locked the door to the annex, and then locked the door to the kitchen. The room is bare but for a few boxes of books; there is nowhere in the space where the phials may be hidden. Willa searched Clovis for her chatelaine and a phial but nothing was concealed in her dressing gown.
‘This would be an excellent moment for a whisky,’ Mockett says.
‘If anyone needs a drink, that’ll be me.’ Finn joins them.
‘Finn!’ Rafe says. ‘Maybe we should call this off until her next sleep, when you don’t need the drops, too.’
‘No. I want to do it,’ he addresses them all. ‘I’m at peace with this.’
Mockett opens his physician’s bag and begins to lay out a stethoscope, a blood-pressure cuff, a leather headband with a mirror, and a tongue depressor.
‘Good Christ, Owen,’ Finn says.
Mockett throws his hands up. ‘I don’t know what to expect.’
A quick rapping on the kitchen door restrains them.
‘Finn? Open the door, Finn.’
‘We want the phials, Clovis.’
‘Open the door.’
‘Not until you tell us where the phials are.’
She doesn’t respond. Clovis hears breathing on the other side of the door, and the creaks in the floor as they adjust their weight. Now food is being prepared; they speak in low tones. Is that Mockett? Yes. He’s there as well. She’s ravenous. Bacon sizzles, there is toasting bread, a kettle is on. The intensity of hunger after the long sleep gnaws at her. How purposeful they are.
‘Finn, I want to speak to you alone.’ She raps on the door again.
He nods to the others to give them privacy.
‘They can’t hear you. What is it?’
‘I can’t give them the phials. It’s too dangerous.’
‘How so?’
‘Think about it. Willa, out there in the world not bothering to disguise herself. One day someone will become too curious. And Jonesy. God, Jonesy. He will choose the wrong man, the wrong place, and they will lock him up and then what will happen? Don’t you see the danger?’
‘I see that you’re frightened everyone will leave you. Give them to us, Clovis.’
‘No.’
The pains begin an hour later. Finn doubles over as if he’s been punched. Clovis tries to stifle a moan but it escapes. A harrowing, haunting sound that shocks them.
Mockett wants to check his heart, but Finn waves him away.
‘Water,’ he whispers.
Willa, who fetches it, shakes at the sight of Finn in such agony and spills the water all over herself.
A scream pierces through the anteroom door and lands on all of them. Willa weakens.
‘Isn’t there another way?’ She paces, her fingers counting and tapping.
‘No,’ Finn says. Then he puts his hand to his mouth. His tongue has thickened. His fingers curl up so that he cannot use them. They watch, stunned, as his hand turns to something claw-like covering his mouth.
Rafe goes to the door. ‘Clovis, tell us where the phials are. You don’t have much time left.’
Silence.
‘Is she dead?’ Jonesy asks.
‘Rafe, unlock the door. She’s your mother for God’s sake,’
