I arrived, my nerves as taut as harpstrings, to find him blackened from the waist up like something those chapel priests warned awaited us in the afterlife as he wiped his face laboriously with a towel. The workshop was a plainly-panelled chamber without even a fireplace to lend it some warmth. Simply a workbench, a posing stand, a lush scarlet curtain and a peculiar hollow plinth in some yellow metal – surely not gold?
When he noticed that I had arrived, his demeanour was surprisingly unruffled, whatever his appearance suggested. “It’s my own silly fault, I should have told you to bring it up in person. What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I caught my reflection in a mirror; I was as pallid as marble.
Mr Whybrow gave that knowing nod which I was coming to understand. “But then, you have, haven’t you?”
I couldn’t speak; less through shock at what I’d seen, than from terror at the prospect of losing such a situation through indiscretion.
Again, Mr Whybrow saw the truth in my face; his ability to read me like a book was becoming decidedly unsettling. He nodded, and sweeping a few tiny slivers of gold out of the way, sat on the edge of his desk and towelled the rest of the crud from his face. “I knew you’d look in on Uncle Arthur. I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t.”
He removed a cigar from his shirt pocket, sniffed it, and deciding that it had survived the coffee inundation, lit it from a nearby lamp. “My Uncle Arthur removed me from the Foundling Hospital when they were about to turn me out into the streets anyway. I’d planned on joining the army; it was the only realistic alternative to starvation. Many of your inmates would have been in the same position. Anyway, Arthur taught me to build. He was imaginative enough to catch the eye of the world; unfortunately, he was a quiet and bookish man in private – yes, like myself, I suppose, and overestimated the world’s demand for the sort of things his imagination provided.”
Now, that caught my attention, after having seen his tomb. Had Uncle Arthur been a mad inventor?
Mr Whybrow went on. “At the same time, you must understand that there are those who’ll see a man who stands out, and want him for that reason alone – sometimes, not even for the reason he stands out. He could recognise a parasite at fifty paces, but these can be cunning. Inveigling. Some, he fended off, but one managed to ensnare him. She abandoned him at the altar, and set to cover her guilt by harrying him out of the community. He was still fending off the fireworks when I came onto the scene, and I hadn’t been around long when he had to leave anyway, for totally separate reasons. I was left everything in his will. Some of it was highly impressive, but it wouldn’t have sold. I’ll show you, sometime.”
Of course. Organist, artist and toiletbuilder. A lesser mind would have called him insane, but I sensed that apart from his one lapse with womanhood, Uncle Arthur had known exactly what he was doing. He just hadn’t cared what the world thought.
Mr Whybrow appeared oblivious to the dawn breaking on my face. “I was wondering what to do with all his stuff when I noticed the local ladies bewailing the lack of authentic costume jewellery and at the same time, that most builders hated working with tiny components, whereas I actually enjoyed it. It required no great leap of inspiration to marry deficiency with ability and thus, my business was born. At the time, I was living in Caledon Sound, so I even had a name ready and waiting for the new establishment.”
Mr Whybrow fixed his gaze on mine; his bore no threat, only a ruthless insistence on understanding, but with gentleness as his guide. I knew that whatever I learned here, would not have to be beaten into me. He told me, “You’ll come to notice that I don’t socialise. Now you’ll understand why that is. I succeeded where Uncle Arthur had not, and that’s made me a bigger target. However, whilst I might get away with looking after myself in the domestic environment, a man in my position needs his wares modelled – not only for customers, but also to go on his merchandise vendors. It’s common for one’s “companions” to serve, but those have invariably proved unreliable. They even come, I’ve found, with motivations of their own. Some want the business to make them stand out, some want the man himself as a trophy, some want him just for his land. The one common factor is that they use a pretence of love to get what they want.”
So much that had been lurking at the back of my mind became clear. I had observed that there was no sign of a Mrs Whybrow, nor had he even hinted at one. But Mr Whybrow had a further surprise for me.
He took a puff of his cigar and grimaced, clearly having discovered a spot of coffee which his visual examination had missed. Forcing a grin, he continued. “It follows that such a man would put Venus resolutely in the oubliette, where she belongs, and take on a woman who’s dedicated to learning the trade as her only alternative to bashing laundry, yet who’s been through enough herself, to want to keep her dealings with her employer strictly professional. NOT a vulture who’d use him for her own gains. Her position alone would be gains enough.”
I had to bite my lip to stifle a smirk. I’d thought an oubliette was a society word for toilet, and the idea of locking Venus in one…….
“I did meet such a girl once; helped her out with a job of building. You’ll see a lot of her in the shop; the fulsome brunette lady. Unfortunately, she’s just run off with a customer who’d commissioned a gold toilet.” He gave a non-condemnatory shrug. “If she thinks she’ll be better off as a lady’s companion, good luck to her.”
I could not suppress a gape. That peculiar gold plinth that had caught my eye – I began to appreciate how much Uncle Arthur might have taught him.
“That’s right, Miss Bluebird. I use it still, as the position is ideal for modelling rings and bracelets. You’d never have thought, from looking at my vendor pictures, that the girl in them is sitting on one of those articles, but that’s one thing that makes the trade so fascinating. What the customer does not know.” Then a mischievous twinkle flashed in his eye. “And this is where you come into the story, Miss Bluebird. I do read the newspapers, and I’d noticed the workhouse losing two superintendents to unusual accidents in a short space of time. When you announced yourself in such a spectacular manner, I knew I’d found the cause of those gentlemen’s demise. A girl who would allow nobody to mislead or misuse her in any way. And someone who’d trust Venus like she’d trust a rattlesnake in her corset.”
Only then did I realise that he was obviously not going to sack me. If I had not known before that Mr Whybrow would go to any lengths to retain me, I knew it now. That, along with his verbal compliments, elevated me, forcing a blush. This was so utterly foreign to my experience. Yet his perception warned me to treat him with respect. This man would deal with me fairly, yet I would never be able to hide anything from him. “I’ll wash your shirt, of course, sir,” I said, as the only thing I could think of to say.
Mr Whybrow nodded. “Of course.” That, on its own, would be a punishment. Along with scrubbing the towel clean of its bitumenous coating. Mr Whybrow hung it over the back of his chair, where he would no doubt forget about it and sit on it later. “As for Uncle Arthur’s ghost – he’s been reported in the chapel before, but he’s quite harmless. One thing I would mention is that he’s only ever been seen by those he’d want me to trust.” Mr Whybrow transfixed me with that insistent kindly glare again. “He might be dead, but his mind’s as alive as yours or mine. He’ll have learned more from you than you did from him. If he’s appeared to you, then I’d take it as a great compliment.”
Then, businesslike once more, he rummaged in his desk drawer. “If you’ll just give me a moment – “
Mr Whybrow pulled out a clean shirt; I presume he was used to accidents in the workshop. As casually as blowing his nose, he slipped out of his old shirt and into the clean one, as though I had not even been there. I turned away, pretending to study the wall panelling. All right, I was tempted to peep, but he no doubt prided himself on knowing what was on my mind, and on this occasion, I was determined that he would be wrong. However, his indifference warned me that some of society’s notions of modesty needed to be unlearned, as being incompatible with this business. It would take some getting used to. I tried to guage when he was decent once more by following the fumbling noises as he tucked his shirt in.
Then he cut through my embarrassment with a bark like a Sergeant grabbing his platoon’s attention. “Now then! It’s fortunate you’re here; there’s something you can help me with. Sparkle of Sound deliver to all points of the compass and it so happens that I have just the thing to help you deliver. It just needs to be tested for weight and balance.” Motioning me to follow, he led me out to an expanse of grass which held just one thing. A peculiar three-wheeled contrivance, shaped roughly like a stretched bicycle with a tiny wicker carriage on the side. As it had wheels and a saddle of sorts, clearly it was meant to move. But I couldn’t fathom the tangle of metal under what looked like a tank to hold some sort of liquid. I recalled someone having seen a motorised bicycle travelling past the workhouse gates, but this was far more complicated.
“Built it myself,” he proudly informed me. “I call it the ‘Dreadnought' - but then in this day and age we have a Dreadnought everything; even a Dreadnought toilet.” [TRUE FACT – yes, really!] Straddling the contraption, he explained. “It’s driven by an internal combustion engine. You had a steam engine in the workhouse?”
“Yes, sir; we had to stoke it as a punishment.”
“Well, this is not dissimilar, just more efficient. Instead of heating steam in a separate boiler and squirting it into the cylinders, the cylinders suck in a flammable liquid and explode it inside the cylinder, using a timed electrical spark. Now, get in and pay attention to what I do.”
Gingerly, I settled myself into the sidecar. It was surprisingly comfortable, although how long it would remain so once in motion, I could hardly guess. I certainly didn’t trust this thing.
Mr Whybrow wiggled a lever on the tank, and dived a hand between his legs; I thought he was dealing with a sudden intimate itch. Then, like that same Sergeant running through rifle drill – “Make sure the lever’s in this position; it puts the gears in neutral, isolating the engine. Fuel – ON – “
I could barely keep up with his percussive commands, but I was certain that he’d never trust me to ride that thing until he knew I was confident with the controls. I was also curious as to how on earth I was supposed to ride it while wearing a skirt.
Finally, after priming this, advancing that, and with a final tweak of something I couldn’t see, he dismounted and gripped the handlebars in a strangler’s hold. “One day I’ll work out a way of starting this from the saddle. As it is – what you’re about to see is called a Bump Start.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that.
Gazing at the horizon with grim determination, Mr Whybrow bunched his muscles. “Clutch – OUT – throttle – fully closed – “
With that, he launched into a laborious run, propelling us at a fast walking pace.
“Throttle – quarter turn – clutch – IN – “
The sinister pile at my elbow coughed, belched and farted obscenely; I grabbed at the sidecar as the monster tried to throw me out. A great lurch shook me as Mr Whybrow jumped into the saddle and the machine tried to leap from under us. It farted twice more and gave a great healthy bellow before surging on ahead.
“She’s caught! First time, and cold……….”
He had been so intent on his mechanical triumph that he appeared not to have noticed one small detail – which I had. The edge of his skyplatform was nearing at an alarming rate.
“Sir – how do you stop it?”
“Oh, front brake on right handlebar and rear ………oh, Gawdstruth……..”
He seized, knitting his teeth as he threw every ounce of strength into the brakes. But it was too late. The bike sailed merrily over the edge of his skyplat, and gravity took over from there. With the wind rushing through our hair at thirty-two feet per second squared, Mr Whybrow turned to me, grinning sheepishly as though he’d done no more than burst a tyre. “Ah – awfully sorry about this, Miss.”
I couldn’t reply. My lower half was still waiting for my innards to catch up, while my upper half was watching SouthEnd approach relentlessly, like that trick you can do with binoculars when you twiddle the lenses. Mr Whybrow didn’t bother saying any more; nothing he could have said would have made any difference.
I began to wonder where we’d land. We’d been four thousand metres up, so it wouldn’t really have mattered what we hit. The end result would have been the same. Foolishly, I remarked that the wicker sidecar was on a metal frame, and that the front wheel would hit the ground first…….
Oh, what the hell. I just closed my eyes and asked Mummy to prepare a place in heaven for me …..
Suddenly, an impact came that tried to ram my head through my ribs and hips but maybe not in that order. I heard, strangely distant, a splintering of planking. Then silence.
When I dared open my eyes, Mr Whybrow, at my side, was grinning. He looked as though he’d run over a troublesome pigeon. “That was lucky. We hit Old Stumpy.”
“Lucky?” I burbled, sounding half comatose.
“Mmm. We could have gone through a neighbour’s roof. Picture the claims for damage.”
The claims for – I was speechless. But only for a moment.
“Is something wrong, Miss Bluebird?”
That was as close as I’d come to buying my ticket. What I told Mr Whybrow, and how I told him, is not suitable for these pages although I will say that it was 100% workhouse vocabulary and it included him needing something done to him with a saltpetre male attachment.
He seemed quite understanding at my rhapsody, and simply nodded every few words. I think he was privately relieved that I wasn’t going to stomp back to the workhouse. Anyway, I was probably right about one thing. His parents weren’t married.
When I finally ran out of steam, he gave a cadential nod and then cleared his throat. “Ah – if you wouldn’t mind separating your skirts from the sidecar and decking, Miss? I should be able to get this thing down the gangplank.”
He seemed happy to heave the bike out of its crater unaided. While he did so, a passing reflection advised that I was lucky not to have been returned to the workhouse over what I’d just said to him. But then, even in the workhouse, some had been brutal, some domineering, while just a few took care to be fair. Those, would allow you some leeway. While I stood by glowering at him, something coalesced out of all my experiences since coming to his employ. He was taking for granted that I wanted to stay. He wanted me to, even to the extent of letting me tear him off a strip if he deserved it. Could it even be that he wanted to be treated as an equal, within certain bounds?
He’d manhandled the bike onto the quayside and appeared to be having some trouble getting it to start. I approached him, inwardly cautious but outwardly as one adult to another. “Is there a problem, Sir?”
He straightened up, his face terse. “I think the distributor’s copped it. Watch.” Gripping the handlebars, he ran the bike forwards and the engine responded with only an impotent, mocking raspberry. Suddenly, I felt a flare of anger rise in me towards the inert executioner between his legs. You damn nearly killed me just now –
The engine caught and ran smoothly. Mr Whybrow looked in astonishment at it, then to me. He couldn’t hide his amazement, although he made a good try. “I did say I built things to last,” he said, lamely.
I wasn’t fooled. Although he had an indelible sense of realism, that had told him what had revived the bike. My dirty look. I was astonished as he was, as he nodded to the sidecar.
“Come on, Miss. It’s clearly all right now. Let’s show you around a little. What would you like to see?”
Mr Whybrow gave me a showman's beam, extending an arm to the horizon.
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