'Pump harder!'
'I'm doing all I can, Jim.'
'Just a few more strokes and – ah!'
With a loud whump the naphtha caught and a ball of orange flame expanded from underneath the Ridgeworth Steamer's boiler, missing me but singeing Jim's eyebrows spectacularly. Carrie stormed out of the kitchen and stood in the doorway, hands on hips. 'You silly sods! You'll kill yourselves! Peter, you should know better!'
'Sorry, Carrie.'
'Never mind sorry. What are you two up to?'
'We're firing the Ridgeworth. Look!'
Carrie looked. We all looked. In the middle of the garden stood the car that Jim and I were restoring. I say, the car, but you'd have been hard put to recognise it as such. Let's see; imagine an old bedstead that someone's thrown out as being too old and disgusting to sleep on any more. That was what the framework, or chassis, of the car looked like. I'll come on to the bodywork in a minute. On each corner of the chassis was a wheel. Normally, car wheels are covered with inflatable or solid tyres made of caotchuc; which is the sap of the rubber tree, heated with sulphur to make it more durable and moulded in a steam press. The process is called luciferisation, I believe. The original tyres had worn, or rotted, away years ago, so Jim's pride and joy stood on four hard cast-iron rims. If we ever got the car going – and that looked like a long shot at the moment – the ride would be extremely bumpy, to say the least, not to mention skiddy.
At the front of this bedstead-like construction was mounted the engine, which was a Jones-Ridgeworth 500, according to the brass plate fixed next to the flywheel. It had two opposing cylinders, a brass governor, a triple superheater, a patent condenser, a boiler and a firebox which could accept coal or, preferably, a naphtha burner. It was a nice piece of work, well-made and compact. There's a simple rule when it comes to steam engines, Jim tells me. It's this: the smaller the engine, the faster it goes. Oh, and the higher the steam pressure, the tighter the bearing and cylinder engineering tolerances too. In other words, this little motor was going to be a swine to get going.
I must say, I admired its engineering. Because of its small size, the engine's components were made with a precision and finish which made me think of my own work at James and James. Ridgeworths had been expensive cars in their day – the best you could get. Their owners expected the highest standards of manufacture and workmanship throughout, and got it. I just hoped that the original owner of this vehicle couldn't see it now. He'd have had a fit.
The flames had died down and were now burning blue rather than the yellow colour they'd been to start with. I must have over-pumped the burner, creating too much fuel pressure. No doubt if we'd read the owner's handbook we would have been warned about that. Live and learn, don't make the same mistake twice, as Master James used to say. And we had no owner's handbook.
Jim and I stood at a safe distance from the car, watching the heat rise around it and waiting for the first wisps of steam to come hissing from the safety-valve.
'It's taking its time, isn't it?' Jim said.
'Shouldn't be long now.' We carried on watching.
'It should be doing something by now' I said after another five minutes had passed and there was still no sign of any steam coming from the boiler. 'How much water did you put in it, anyway? Fifty gallons?'
'I didn't put any water in it,' Jim replied. 'You were going to full it up, weren't you?'
'No I wasn't. That was your job.' Jim and I looked at each other. Viola and Tattycoram looked at each other.
'Oh hell!'
'Quick!'
I lunged forward, but it was too late. There was a bang, and in a shower of solder droplets the fusible safety plug fell out of the bottom of the boiler.
'Bugger!' I reached for the fuel tap. I should have known better than that. 'Holy effing Magde…' With a hoarse cry I withdrew my hand, which I had burned on the tap. I jumped backwards and fell over with my hand in my mouth. Jim picked up a piece of sacking, wrapped it around his hand and shut off the fuel supply. The flames from the burner died down and went out. Now we both could see that the underside of the copper boiler was glowing a dull red. An ominous crackling noise proceeded from the engine block.
'I'll get some water…'
'No you won't! You'll destroy the whole thing if you pour cold water on it now. It'll blow up! Leave it to cool down slowly.'
'Oh blast. What have we done?'
Carrie came over. She had seen the whole debâcle from the kitchen window. 'Peter! Your poor hand. Come in and hold it under the tap.' I followed her into the kitchen and did as I was told. Viola limped after me, her right fore-paw hurting, I knew, in sympathy with my burnt hand.
I had a clean handkerchief in my pocket, and Carrie bound my hand carefully with it after rubbing goose grease on to my red and blistered fingers. 'That'll be all right in the morning. You're lucky I got to it straightaway else it'd been a lot worse. As for you, Jim…'
'Mon amour?'
'I've a good mind to have Steptoe's round tomorrow to take that nasty dangerous thing away.'
'But, chérie! You remember my promise to you. One day soon, I'll drive you to The Rose tea-room in a genuine Ridgeworth.'
'And they'll all think I'm a lady, not a waitress. I know. But,' she grinned, 'I want to turn up in a car, not a hearse!'
We sat in a row outside the back door, like kids, drinking tea and eating stale rock-cakes. The sun shone fitfully on us and the Ridgeworth Steamer as it slowly returned to a safe temperature. If there had been any bodywork it would all have gone up in flames, so it was a good thing there wasn't any. 'I'll have another look at it later,' Jim said. 'Can you bring your brazing kit over next week and solder that plug back in? We can have another go; with water in it this time!'
'I'm not happy.'
'Don't worry, Carrie.'
'I do worry. You could have been killed, both of you. Burned alive.'
I fell silent. Burned alive. Like Mistress James' baby, Charlie. Like Miss Morley, in Lyra's rooms, or in the flaming ruins of the Boreal offices in Cropredy. Like Lyra herself; and Maggie and Arthur, in the terrible dreams my gyptian friend had suffered.
Like me. Burned alive, and dead. Cut to pieces by the incandescent beam of Miss Morley's terrible gun in Jordan College, nearly seven years ago. Dead, buried and, maybe, mourned.
'No,' said Viola and licked my cheek with her silky-rough tongue. 'We're alive. I know it. I feel it.'
'Thank you.'
'Penny for your thoughts,' said Jim.
'Peter, love, are you all right?' said Carrie.
We sat on the bed in Jim and Carrie's room. Rather, they sat on the bed, arms entwined and fingers interlinked and I sat in the one and only armchair, trying not to loosen any more of the braiding that hung in loops from its seat. The Sony was playing softly; a collection of Cole Porter songs:
Night and day, you are the one,
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.
Whether near to me or far,
It's no matter, darling, where you are,
I think of you,
Night and day.
Day and night, why is it so,
That this longing for you follows wherever I go?
In the roaring traffic's boom,
In the silence of my lonely room,
I think of you,
Night and day.
Night and day, under the hide of me,
There's an, oh, such a hungry yearning, burning inside of me.
And its torment won't be through,
'Til you let me spend my life making love to you,
Day and night,
Night and day.
A hungry yearning. Burning. Yes.
'It's like this,' I said.
'Yes?'
'No. About Elias… He's definitely up to something. I found more things moved.'
'In my old room?'
'Yes, Carrie. I'm sure it's not Emily doing it.'
'Did you get a padlock, like I said?'
'Not yet, Jim. It's embarrassing, locking my things up. What would Mistress think? Or Emily?'
'Never mind what they think. It's you that matters. Are you and Mistress James still…'
'Don't be disgusting!' cried Carrie and thumped Jim hard on the shoulder. Tattycoram squealed and fell onto the bed. A thump from Carrie was not something to be taken lightly. Her terrier-daemon Adrian coughed.
'No,' I said firmly. Truth to tell, I was not sure how the relationship between Mistress James and myself was going to settle down. After her revelations to me she had withdrawn slightly and had visited my bedroom only once in the last month. I simply didn't understand what was happening between us. I never had.
'You're going to have to start keeping closer tabs on our Mister Cholmondley. He's most definitely up to something.'
'Yes, you're right. I don't know how I'm going to do that, though. I can't follow him out of the shop, can I? I'll be too busy in the workshop. He'd see me and suspect something.'
'You'd find out where he lives!'
That had always been a mystery. Nobody knew where Elias Cholmondley lived. Nobody I knew had ever found out, and you can be sure that I, and the other apprentices in Shoe Lane, had tried. He always seemed to fade out of sight, somewhere around St Giles, and disappear from view. 'Who cares?' we all said to one another, and 'You do,' said Viola to me, but we never discovered the answer to the question.
'Well, maybe.' The Sony played on:
Strange, dear, but true, dear,
When I'm close to you dear,
The stars fill the sky,
So in love with you am I.
'Peter,' said Carrie.
'Yes?'
'That's not what's worrying you, is it?'
I sighed. 'No, it's not.'
'Go on, then. What's up? Tell Carrie. Push off, Jim.'
I sat next to Carrie on the bed. Jim took my place in the armchair. 'Come on, now. You're not dreaming again, are you? Not those awful dreams you had?'
'No, not exactly. It's… It's the ghosts.'
'The ghosts?'
'The time-ghosts. You know. Like seeing you when you were still at Shoe Lane.'
'In the altogether!' Carrie giggled. I blushed.
'Well, yes. Do you know why I call them time-ghosts, instead of just ordinary ghosts?'
'No. I never thought about it.'
'And you call yourself a writer, Jim? You're supposed to be thinking about everything you see and hear!'
'Oh, get on with it.'
'All right. It's this. You know I see ghost-people, just as if they were there. I can hear them, too, but I can't speak to them and I don't think they can see or hear me. Did you ever see me in your room, Carrie?'
She poked me in the ribs. 'No, of course not. I'd have had the constables round in a jiffy.'
'Would you?'
'You'll never know.'
'That's a relief. Look, seriously now. It's the people I see that bother me, in a way.'
'Why? Who do you see?'
'I see you, Carrie. And you, Jim, in the street.'
'Do I look real?'
'Pretty real. I have to be careful not to speak to you although, to be honest, it's easier with you because I know you're not living in Shoe Lane any more. Same goes for you, Carrie.'
'Right, I get it. Who else do you see?'
'Lots of people. Sometimes I don't know them, and I step aside to avoid bumping into them, and they're not there after all. I must look really stupid; walking down the road and swaying from side to side to avoid crashing into people who aren't there! I'm the only one who can see them.'
'I hadn't noticed you swaying around.'
'You probably thought I'd had three pints too many.'
'It's been known to happen.'
'And is that what's bothering you, love? People thinking you're pissed?'
'No, not really. Anyway, I can often tell when they're ghosts and walk straight through them. I'm usually right. It's a bit awkward when I'm not.'
'So what's upsetting you?' Carrie gave me a squeeze. 'Go on, tell me. Is it the people you see?' Don't you like them?
'Oh, I like them well enough. But no, I was telling a lie just now. It's not the people I see that worry me. It's the people I don't see.'
'How do you mean?'
'There are some people I see a lot, like you or Emily or Mistress James, and some people I only see occasionally, like Jim, or Fred from the old days. But there are some other people I never see at all.'
'Who?'
I drew a deep breath. 'Lyra. Miss Morley. Master James.'
'You never see the Professor?'
'No. Never. Nowhere.'
'Nor your old master?'
'I thought I would. I thought I'd see him all the time in the workshop. It was his favourite place. Mine too.'
'And you never see him?'
'No. Now do you see why I call them time-ghosts, not ordinary ghosts? I only see people who still exist in now-time. I only see people who are alive. I see them at different times in their lives, but they've got to be alive right now, else I don't see them. If they're dead, like Lyra or Master James…'
'Or that awful Morley woman.'
'Then, nothing.'
'That's weird,' Jim said. 'Usually it's the other way round. Mostly you only see a ghost if the person whose shade it is has died. For you, it's different. Hey, that's great! Can I put it in my novel?'
'No!' I shouted.
Carrie hugged me. 'What is it, Peter?'
I looked at her broad, friendly, concerned face. 'I don't see me! I never see me!' I turned to Jim. 'Don't you get it? I should be seeing Peter Joyce's ghost all over the place. I used to be everywhere in Oxford; going to Jordan to visit Lyra, running errands for my master, buying sheet metal stock from Cousins', sneaking into the Talbot Inn, but I never, never, ever see me!'
Jim's face was uncomprehending. 'Why should you see yourself? Why should you see your own ghost?'
'Why shouldn't I? I'm living now, and working now in all the places where I should see myself. If there's anyone to see at all, it should be me. I've looked – under the counter at night, in my old corner of the workshop in the day, but I'm never there.'
'Peter…'
'You get it, don't you, Carrie? I only see the ghosts of people who are alive. I don't see dead people. I don't see me, because I'm not alive.
'I should have died in Lyra's rooms, seven years ago. When I woke up, after Miss Morley shot me with her gun, and the men in the mirror armour reflected the beam back to her and killed her, Lyra didn't understand what I was saying to her. She hadn't seen any of the things that I had seen; not Miss Morley, not her gun, nor any men in armour. She thought – no, she knew – that Miss Morley had died a week earlier, in a fire in Cropredy. I worried a lot about it at the time, and I wrote it all down…'
'I read it. I didn't understand it, though.'
'Neither did I. But I do know this: Ever since then, I've felt out of place. Not settled. Especially since Lyra died. I was glad to get away to Moore's in Brum, but I should have known better. In the end I had to come back here. I think I'd have come back even if Master James hadn't died.'
I stood up, walked slowly over to the window and looked out onto the street. I didn't want Jim and Carrie to see my face.
'I'm dead. I must be. If I were alive, I'd be able see myself. I should have died then, but something prevented it, and I've been carrying on as if I were alive, but I'm not really. I'm dead'
'You've got Viola. How could she be here with you now if you were dead?'
'She must be dead too. I'm like Charlie James, born without a soul. I was supposed to be burned, like he was, but something went wrong and I'm still alive, only I'm not. Not properly. No wonder Jane left me. She must have known.'
I did not hear Jim and Carrie leave the room, nor would I have been able to see them through my bleared vision. It was not Viola's fault that she could not reassure me, for who can comfort the dead?
Cole Porter's Night and Day and So in Love are both quoted without permission.