‘Is she very angry?’ he asks.
Rafe looks at Finn who keeps his eyes on the road.
‘Finn?’ Jonesy persists.
‘She’s quiet. Relax.’
‘That’s not reassuring,’ he says, before he passes out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Clovis sits at the glass armonica, her tight, pencil skirt hugging her hips. When she hears the car pull up, her feet search for the high heels she’d kicked off by a table leg. She closes the top of the armonica and waits.
Finn and Rafe bring Jonesy into the house with his arms draped around their necks. Pausing at the door of the lounge, they wait for Clovis to acknowledge him. As she walks towards them, Jonesy lifts his pounding head an inch. Clovis closes the door, shutting him out, shutting them all out.
Willa stands at the kitchen door with her hand over her mouth, silencing a cry when Jonesy raises his head again.
‘Take him up. I’ll be there shortly,’ she whispers.
Rafe tries to make Jonesy as comfortable as a beaten man can be, then sits beside the bed. After a few moments of silence, Jonesy reaches for Rafe’s hand. His fingers lightly touch the bruise on the back of it.
‘You’ve been to Mockett’s again. Blood?’ Jonesy asks, his speech as swollen as his face.
Rafe nods.
‘Give me your other hand.’
He does.
‘You painted today. Good. Red. Gold. Yellow. The same?’
‘Don’t try to talk. Yes, the same.’
Rafe adjusts Jonesy’s pillow.
‘Here’s Willa. She’s going to see to you.’
Willa cleans Jonesy’s face with a gentle hand.
‘You both think I’m foolish.’
‘No. Not at all,’ they say.
‘But you are a hell of a magnet for the bad ones,’ Rafe says. ‘That has to change.’
‘He’s only been trying to change that for the last one hundred and twenty-five years,’ Willa says.
Rafe and Willa share a soft trickle of irony-laced laughter, but their attempt to lighten the atmosphere leaves Jonesy quiet.
‘Rest now,’ she orders.
She turns the radiator up a notch before they close the door.
David invades his thoughts and keeps sleep away. Jonesy’s body will heal from the welts, but the sickness that nests in his gut from such a cruel abandonment … He’s not certain of a recovery.
Perched side by side on shelving, his puppets stare at him and tonight seem grotesque. Astonishingly to him, they’re collectables, coveted by the rich. As their creator, Jonesy remains anonymous, which makes them even more desirable and valuable.
His most prized creation and the puppet he will never sell is Marshal Yin, the God of Time, with its three heads of flaming red hair. It sits next to The Cruel Female, dressed in black robes and with a menacing painted brow that arches over one eye. He has carved angry creases into her forehead. She’s a bestseller.
The door cracks and he is pulled out of his fevered musing by the leathery scent of her brutal perfume. Her presence vexes him. He shifts. Clovis sits, crosses her legs, and as always he is struck by her beauty, as stunning and youthful as it was the first day he was tossed into her life.
‘I’d give anything for morphine right now,’ he whispers.
‘You know you can’t have any drugs. They make us sick.’
‘I know.’ He pauses. ‘I’d just like a little relief. Just for a while.’
‘I think the kind of relief you want is not from physical pain.’
He turns quiet.
‘Because it’s always going to be this way. Isn’t it, Jonesy? Always placing us in danger. Bringing law enforcement, the vice squad, ever nearer to our door.’
She lets that sink in.
‘What you are – I don’t have any problem with it. I don’t care who you fuck. But the law does – and that won’t change. Ever.’
He turns his head away from her and stares at the wall.
‘Your love for Rafe and Willa … and Finn. Is it so frail that you are careless enough to take risks in broad daylight?’
Her voice remains as soft as the fur on the street cat she reminds him of, the black one with white feet. He waits for her to show her claws.
‘I don’t know, maybe you like the thrill of risk-taking.’
‘No.’
‘Well, Jonesy, your words tell me one thing and your actions another. Every time you walk out of the door, you leave behind people who worry until you come home safely. We despair that you’ll leave a trail for the police. Little crumbs from your love nests to our home. You are the only one amongst us who consistently throws caution to the wind.’
‘I am careful. I’m not like many who … I’m looking to settle down.’
‘Listen to yourself.’ She points her words like tiny arrows. ‘No one wants to settle down with you. It hasn’t happened yet, has it? And you’ve prowled the streets for how many years?’
He’s offended by ‘prowled’.
‘And what would you do if your prince did come along? Watch him grow older each year? Tell him that you are Dorian Gray come to life?’
He hasn’t noticed that her hand has been loosely clenched in a fist.
‘Dorian Gray? Is he one of us?’
‘Christ. No. I only wish he were real, then he could be your companion.’
There’s a knock on the door.
‘What is it?’ Clovis is sharp.
‘Is Jonesy hungry? I have broth.’
‘No, he’s not. He’s going to rest,’ she answers.
She waits to hear the footsteps fade.
‘How many more times will Finn be called to a police station? What will happen to you in prison? It won’t be like Millbank, with all the privileges I worked so hard for there. Do you remember when you were arrested in ’23? When you almost fell into the long sleep before we got you out? They will not be so gullible now.’
Clovis opens her palm. She holds a phial full of the green liquid. She stands, moves the chair closer to his bed, and places the phial on the seat within his reach.
He winces when he turns his head to face the phial and its damnable fluorescent sheen. Though his vision of her is hampered, there is no mistaking what sails between them.
‘Good night, Jonesy.’
She
