Chapter 19 #2
“He sent me away. It’s been . . . difficult.” Thomas sighed, trying to speak pragmatically, but unable to banish either the fear or the pain, or the burning remorse that had lately begun to consume him. He knotted his hands together. “Sheba, I think I torture him.”
“It’s not you. It’s the laudanum.”
“I truly had no notion of its power.”
Her eyes held his steadily, reflecting a depth of understanding that chilled him. “Opium is a jealous master.”
“He will hate me for what I’ve done to him.”
“He’s doing it for you.”
Thomas put down the cup and then buried his head in his hands, his body shuddering in helpless sympathy for another’s remembered torments. “For me? I would not wish this on any man, let alone the one I love.”
“But he wished it.” He heard the rustle of her skirts as she leaned towards him, her voice low and urgent. “He chose it.”
“I don’t know anymore, I don’t know, I simply don’t know.” He dragged his head up, cutting himself off abruptly. “And I should not have spoken of this. I must have shocked you.”
The faintest of smiles curled across her lips.
“You forget the life I have lived. Very little shocks me.” Like a pale ghost, she slipped across the space between them.
“I know well the effects of opium, and I know that there are women who prefer the company of women, and men who prefer the company of men.”
He flinched, on some old, still-unforgotten instinct, to hear such things from the lips of a woman.
“And now,” she said, with a wry look, “I am the one to have shocked you.”
“I think, perhaps, I shock myself.” He had not expected to speak of this with anyone but Micha, and he lacked the words. “The reality of the sins I have committed.”
“It’s simply an act of the body.” She shrugged, and it was one of the few careless movements he had ever seen her make. “There are many such acts.”
Thomas shook his head. “It is more than an act of the body. Far more.” He paused and then plunged on. “I . . . it . . . that is . . . I’ve told him we’ll leave. When we’re ready. Find somewhere we can have a life together.”
“I see.” Sheba sank slowly back onto the sofa, her shoulders slumping. “Actually, no. I don’t see. Why?”
“I cannot lie with Micha and call myself a priest.”
Her voice cracked like glass. “Why not? No one would know.”
“I would know. God would know.”
There was a long silence.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I cling too tightly to you. It’s just, you’re the only friend I’ve ever possessed.”
Thomas reached out a hand and caught hers. She was still and cold, like a woman carved of ice. “I truly wish I didn’t have to leave.” He faltered. “Leave you.”
“Don’t think of it. You deserve your happiness. You deserve every happiness.”
“Come with us.” The words came in an impulsive tangle.
She blinked, opened her mouth, and then closed it again. And then laughed, though it was not quite mirthful. “An unattached woman with a child, travelling with two gentlemen not her relations? Even in the darkest recesses of Europe that would be a scandal.”
“Would it matter?”
“Perhaps not for me.” She looked thoughtful. “But it is not the life I wish for Hope. And”—a twist of a smile—“I cannot imagine Micha would thank you for the invitation.”
Thomas blushed. He had spoken entirely from the heart, heedless of anything else. “You do seem to trouble him,” he admitted.
“I care little for him, but he is a far greater enemy to himself than I could ever be.”
“He is better than he believes.”
“Since he’s the man you want, I hope for your sake that he is.”
There was another silence. Sheba’s fingers stirred restlessly beneath Thomas’s. Then she whispered, “Stay.”
It was what some part of him had been desperate to hear.
But could he? Could it work? It would seem odd, not to marry.
Yet no one would suspect his relationship with Micha anything more than the natural affection of two gentlemen friends.
Could they live that way? Always pretending?
Always hiding. Always hypocrites. Always sinners. “I cannot.”
They gazed at each other, equally torn, equally decided.
Sheba nodded sadly. “I think Hope and I could have a life here. She wants adventures, of course, but if I can give her stability now, she might someday find her own.”
“I would have loved to be part of that life. To make things less precarious for both of you.”
“You’ve done more than enough. Enough to have earned that cup of tea, at least.”
He tried to smile.
“I have somewhere to live. I have a job.”
“You’re a servant.”
“Yes, but a respectable one. It does not pay so well as harlotry, but the hours suit me better.” Another of her wicked smiles to ease the harshness of the words. “And perhaps one day I will rise again to housekeeper, through merit this time. I may even have a home of my own.”
“If only I could give you that home. If it lay within my power, I would give you the world, so you might give it to Hope.”
“You’ve given us kindness. And now you must think of your own life. Your own future.”
Thomas cast his anxious gaze at the ceiling. “I should go to him.”
Sheba gave his hand a brief squeeze and then rose, shaking out her skirts. “If I may, I will come again tomorrow.”
“I . . . yes, would you?” He shifted self-consciously. “I don’t know what I would have done if you had not been here tonight.”
“How many days has it been?”
Thomas stared at her blankly. It had all become such a blur he had lost track. “Six or seven, perhaps.”
“It will turn, I promise. It will become easier.”
Thomas nodded and tried to believe her. And, when she had gone, he climbed the stairs to Micha’s room and went inside.
Micha was curled up into a shaking, gasping ball. His face was wet with sweat and tears, but he half-raised his head to look at Thomas, and his bruise-dark eyes were almost clear.
“F-fuck,” he said. “F-fucking kill me, Thomas. I want to f-fucking die.”
It was the most coherent thing he had said for days, and he sounded almost like himself.
Thomas flew across the room, dropped to his knees, and drew Micha gently into his arms. The other man groaned weakly.
“I s-said kill me, not f-fucking hug me.”
Micha smelled, frankly, appalling, sickly-sweet and sour at the same time, fetid and human. Thomas covered his face with kisses. “Micha, I’ve missed you so much.”
“Ow, ow, ow, stop it. It h-hurts. Everything f-fucking hurts.”
The next day, he was considerably worse, delirious again, restless and self-destructive, but it was still a turning point.
Gradually, though not consistently, less-bad days began to creep amongst the bad days, and then, at last, came good days.
Micha’s body began to right itself, the pain lessened, and he was able to keep down some sustenance.
Thomas was once again able to take up the mantle of his neglected duties about the parish, but he knew he performed them ill.
His mind never left Micha. Micha, who was still so weak he could hardly stand, who could not sleep and could barely eat, and who was, in many ways, little more than the shattered remains of a man.
But Thomas could see him, day by day, moment by moment, putting himself back together.
Sometimes it was nothing more than the faintest tug of his mouth, half-smiling, half-sneering, or the glitter of his eyes, but Micha was still there, still fighting and coming back to Thomas, piece by piece.
Nights were the worst. Thomas spent them at Micha’s side, holding him close, whispering love words, and telling him stories, but Micha was disordered through lack of sleep and terrified of the nightmares that still haunted him.
He wouldn’t tell Thomas what he dreamed, only that he hated it, and that was all that mattered.
In time, however, they began to fade, and, even if he did not sleep, Micha was able to pass some hours untroubled within the circle of Thomas’s arms.
“Fuck,” he said, one night, his voice cutting harshly through the darkness. “I’m a fucking wreck.”
Thomas kissed the back of his neck, offering lightly, “Much less than you were.”
“Oh, that’s fine then.” Micha twisted his body around. “Am I some sort of fucking charity case to you now?”
Thomas winced. “You never were.”
“Ah, yes, because you wanted to fuck me.”
“Micha.”
“Sorry.” His head dipped into the curve of Thomas’s shoulder. “Sorry. I just . . . I think I’ve spent our entire acquaintance being repulsively ill.”
Thomas slipped his fingers into Micha’s messy curls. “I seem to recall a brief space in the middle where you did and said many wonderful things.”
But Micha was clearly not of a mood to be teased or comforted into better humour.
Although he did not pull away, his body was tense against Thomas’s.
“Every time I think I can’t fall any lower, I do, and it’s always in front of you.
” He sighed, his breath hot and slightly stale against Thomas’s skin. “How can you possibly still want me?”
“For better or for worse, in sickness and in health.”
“Yes,” snarled Micha, with something of his old ferocity, “but it’s always fucking worse, isn’t it?”
Thomas tugged lightly on his hair until Micha lifted his head, and then he kissed his scowling mouth. “You put yourself through hell to be with me, when you could easily have made another choice. How can you say that’s the worst of you?”
Micha was silent a moment. “I love you. I want you to look at me and feel pride, not pity. And,” he added despairingly, “I’ve just spent the best part of a month lying on your floor, weeping and babbling, covered in my own shit and vomit.”
“It was the bravest thing I think I’ve ever seen anyone do.”
“I don’t feel brave, I feel . . . bestial. Less than human.”
Thomas caught Micha’s thin, ravaged face between his hands. “Don’t talk like that. I love you. I want you. I’m proud of you. I’m proud for everything you’ve suffered and everything you’ve done, and that you want to be with me.”
Micha drew in a shuddering breath. “I feel too fucking much. Everything hurts.”
“The pain is back?”
“N-no. I mean . . . being alive. I’m nothing but new skin. I’m happy and angry and ashamed and frightened and so in love with you I don’t know how I’m supposed to stand it without opium.”
“Is it so dreadful?”
Micha made an odd noise. Not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. “Yes. And no. I suppose I can learn.”
“I’ll be with you, every step of the way.”
Slowly Micha relaxed, the lines of his body yielding, his hand gliding over Thomas’s hip, slightly protective, slightly possessive. But, when he spoke, his voice was bleak. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ll ever truly be done with it. I think I’ll always carry this weakness.”
“This weakness,” whispered Thomas, “and this strength.”
“You’re my strength. I think I could do anything for you. Anything.” But before Thomas could say anything, he went on, sleepily, “Now tell me again just how terribly fucking brave I am.”
Thomas smiled, even though he knew Micha would not be able to see it. “Like a knight of old.”
“I did slay a dragon.”
“And you rescued me, Micha, from a prison so cunningly wrought I could not even see the bars.”
But Micha did not answer. He had slipped effortlessly into sleep.