Back in Town

A mass of mud stopped in front of me and blocked my vision of the street, like a wall with hooves. I started around the front of it, more impatient than ever to find woodsmoke and whiskey, now that I was back in town. 1

The coach clattered forward before I was across the street, and a horse walked into me, bumped me out of the way amiably with its full weight - my jacket button caught in the harness. I pulled it off with a bit of a struggle, and slammed directly into the trench coat that had just dismounted from the cab. She - although looking more like a brown pup than a man or woman - gasped and pulled a top hat down more tightly over her hair. But it was too late, and her hands clapped violently over her face in despair.2

Oh, unpleasant meetings. So direct. So unlucky. In all of London - how was the last person I wanted to see, the first one I'd met?!3

It was obvious the feeling was mutual. I faced her slowly, rigidly - but compared to her, I looked like I was dancing. Compared to her outlook, I was bloody crying with laughter. 4

The trench coat flapped about her legs mysteriously. 5

"Some'ing bad about your knees, Jenny?" I asked, so softly I barely heard myself. (I speak quietly. A man like me wants an elegant posture and a the voice of a country gentleman. It was bad enough when my Cockney was sharp and young. But now it's got a rasp, from smoking and city fumes, and it makes me sound like a London rat. Dripping, in this case, with unmistakable surprise like sewer water: I was as shocked as Jenny Diver was.)6

She hit me, her hand humped and fingernails out to claw - but they were chewed and useless. My beard slid under her knuckles. She contemplated this. "Something bad about your chin?" she returned. 7

"Wrinkles," said I. 8

"From worrying. But not about me."9

"Not from worrying. From living. From cheating death." I wanted to change the topic. "You look different." Her hair, once gorgeous and morbid-colored, was now a sad brown, shagging, splaying thinly over her ears. I had not changed at all. A caricature of a highwayman. Coat too black. Spurs too shiny, like webs of a spider that hadn't caught anything in a while.10

"Do I?"11

"Um..." This was tough. I shrugged grandly, arms open in case she wanted to jump in. "Anyway, I'm glad you're alive and well." 12

"Am I? That's a mistake."13

"You're standing here." What a sad thing to say. "You've survived. I guess I'm proud of you."14

"I was too afraid to die," she told me. "But I died a thousand times." Her voice went shriller, her words flipped themselves carelessly around me like dead fish. "My body just hasn't quite taken the hint yet." Her mouth opened in a miserable square crack. I felt her rage rush up into both our bodies.15

"I'm going to go," she said.16

"To where?"17

"Nowhere, if I'm lucky." She waited for me to ask her back to me. She waited for me to say that I was desperate for her body. She waited for somebody to value her. "Don't worry about me." She winked like a girl. "And don't worry about getting inside me. Your chances are all gone, Mack." The coy toss of the head. Her curls tried to bounce valiantly. "Don't worry about getting between my legs."18

"Those skinny things? You're right; I hope I don't." I looked down at the ground and worried about what would happen to the poor cracked ground if I dropped the cigarette just then. So dry. The plants were brown between cobblestones, crumbling like ginger roots. So sad. I couldn't bring myself to shake off the embers onto them. "No," I reflected.19

And she howled. Her shoulders quavered like a stream trying to go backwards. But she can't. No one can go backwards. 20

She looked at me; I saw ice in her eyes. Not natural ice. Ice gathered from wasted rage, nailed in a hurry to her expression with carpentry so shoddy I could see the nail heads sticking out in her pupils. She had to put on a show for me. I knew the feeling. 21

Always yelling, or whispering, or putting on a show. We'd felt safe in our rituals, half a year ago, when we lived together. I'd grinned with her on my knees; she'd screamed with me on her nerves. Her scream was like a thin string holding a terrier back. And I was glad for that string. See, I would have bargained - I would have offered anything for her to stay away from me, because she made me feel her vivid emotions and my own overwhelming guilt. I had hurt her so much. Just stay away, I begged silently. But I didn't have to worry. She was already walking in the other direction.22

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