Mendacious

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If you are a dreamer, come in,

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Lucy Parvenu sat quite still, her eyes closed. She was holding a book, running her thumb up its spine. Embossed paper, smooth as candle wax. Ribbons of letters wormed across the cover. She trailed a finger over them, exploring the ridges and frowns of the title.

The smell of cigarette smoke rose from the pages and – on the edge of sound, almost beyond her senses – the sonorous melancholy of a violin crept up and down, raising the hairs on the nape of her neck. A Study in Scarlet.

She could hear the desultory chi-chunk, chi-chunk of the train. She opened her eyes, and looked about. The carriage was lit only by electricity; no dawn had yet breached it. The seats were worn, scattering eruptions of dust when anyone sat on them, and across the carriage, one passenger had not yet drawn back the curtains. He had his face turned towards their dark wings, apparently asleep. A book lay open in his lap and his hand rested on the page, almost in mimicry of hers.

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If you are a dreamer,

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She turned her gaze to her surroundings. An abandoned newspaper lay beside her. An article on haemoglobin, stained by something brown, faced the luggage racks, which rattled with the oscillations of the train. Lucy Parvenu took a slow breath. The air was dry, piquant, like vodka.

Opposite her sat a dozing gentleman, a brown-haired, bearded creature. He had a ragged sort of face, worn ‘thin as a lath and brown as a nut.’ Lucy Parvenu reached down and fumbled in her rucksack for a notebook.

Suspect: she wrote. Her free hand curled around the spine of A Study in Scarlet, as if it was an extension of her own body. Beneath his seat, the gentleman had placed a portmanteau, and she could make out Prof. M. J., but he had draped his overcoat in such a way that she could see no more.

Suspicious obscuration of surname, she wrote. Attire: black coat, single button, felted. Grey clothes, fitting close to his person, but peculiar lack of hat. Case: brown leather, approx. four years old, of Irish make. Abnormally voluminous nostrils lend a curiously puerile appearance.

She licked the tip of her pencil and looked at her writing, then up at the gentleman on the opposite seat. The train jolted again, sending luggage handles swinging. The gentleman woke and coughed sleepily as he sat up.

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a wisher, a liar,

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When he was fully awake, she fixed her gaze upon him. It took some moments for him to become aware of her, and a few further seconds for him to acknowledge her attention and meet her eyes. Finally, he cleared his throat. ‘Is there something that I might help you with, Miss?’

‘You’re from London, I perceive.’

He stared at her.

‘From central London; the City of Westminster, if I am not much mistaken.’ She leaned forwards, exhilaration smouldering through her blood.

‘I’m sorry, Miss...?’

‘Cavanew. Inspector Cassandra Cavanew.’ She produced an I.D. from the back of her notebook and pushed it across the table to him.

Cassandra Cavanew, P.I., 221B, Notton Avenue, Fayke Park, London, England.

‘May I enquire your name, Sir?’

‘Mark Matthews.’ He gaped at her, opening and closing his mouth as a fish would, but she refrained from entering that into her notebook, choosing instead to expel an eraser shaving. Matthews, she added to her notes.

‘What –’

‘Please, Mr. Matthews. I make a point of being the one to ask questions in an interrogation.’ She recovered her I.D. and picked up her pen again. Bumptious, petulant, crisp accent, she scrawled.

‘Interrogation?’

‘Quite so. What else might this be?’

‘But I don’t –’

‘Of course you do. You are in full possession of –’

‘I haven’t the faintest –’

‘Mr. Matthews,’ she said calmly. ‘I am following a case and it is absolutely imperative that you assist me; please allow me to speak.’

He fell silent, astonished. She felt another thrill of delight. Cassandra Cavanew: London’s most renowned P.I. ‘Now. Let us continue.’

– Bing bing bong –

Lucy Parvenu looked up as the three notes fell, fracturing the skein of words she had woven, and filling the carriage with something artificial. The words scattered and fled, vanishing into the blue and orange seats and pale condensation on the windows.

‘This train will shortly be arriving at Milton Keynes Central. Change here for Wolverton and Fenny Stratford.’

Lucy Parvenu watched the duskiness fade away, leaving the windows looking cleaner and expelling the reassuring illusion of cigarette smoke. Mr. Matthews was gathering his belongings and standing up.

‘Do excuse me,’ he said coldly. ‘But I am afraid this is my stop. If you have questions, “Inspector Cavanew,” I suggest that you look up my information and contact me in a manner more appropriate to your “profession.”’ He cast her I.D. card a sarcastic look and picked up his case.

Lucy Parvenu saw him on the platform, which was lit by one fizzling bulb, and jotted down suspect limps, but carries no cane. She shut A Study in Scarlet, kissed it farewell, and returned it to her bag. The dark-haired man across the carriage shifted.

-

A hope-er, a pray-er,

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Lucy Parvenu felt about in her rucksack, which was brimming with books. Her fingers stumbled against different covers, each cradling an entire world, waiting to be chosen. She could feel youth and age, hardback and paper, smooth newness and creaking wisdom. The one she pulled out was thin. While she waited for the train to move, she fanned out the feathery pages, feeling the brush of evening gowns and scenting the tang of whisky. The Great Gatsby. The carriage grew cleaner, brighter, like a breakfast room laid out, anticipating the morning guests. She could smell coffee.

People were clambering aboard, all in gauzy rainbow and fresh cotton. They swept past the dark-haired man and blossomed out into the carriage. He had turned back to the window, sunk into shadows again, and now their lightness and carelessness breezed through the air.

The tut-tut-tut of the waiting train grew. Outside, the night was breathing into violet, and she could see a green signal up ahead, blinking, beckoning. Lucy Parvenu trailed her fingers over the book cover, gazing at the light; it seemed somehow, inextricably, impossibly linked with the train, as though a ladder had been set between them, and the rest of the world had peeled away.

She felt she could climb it, follow the light into somewhere wonderful, somewhere crisp, full of pale orchids and fountains of blue leaves. And then the whistle blew and the train began to tut-tut-tut away from the station. She stared out of the window as rain glittered against it, and watched the green light approach and fall away, lost behind them. ‘His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.’

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a magic bean buyer...

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A woman sat down opposite her, talking on the phone. Lucy Parvenu listened, captivated by the way her voice rose and fell like water pouring into a glass.

‘It will be such a hot day, so if you really wouldn’t mind...’ She paused. ‘Oh darling, you are a rose. An absolute rose. And you’ll come tonight? Do say “yes;” the Jordans are coming over, and the Pinkwells. You will be there? Oh, I should be devastated if not. Thank you! Goodbye, precious,’ she crooned.

Lucy Parvenu waited, watched her put the phone away, and let the air clear from the throb of her voice. It had made her arms prickle with delicious cold.

At the back of The Great Gatsby, she could feel a slither of card, and she slid out the invitation. Robin egg blue, with a golden border, and at the bottom was her signature, a gushing Merelle Beru. Merelle Beru, who threw parties every Saturday, who drew the fashionable people like moths to fan about in her twilight gardens, sip champagne, and dance the night into nothing.

Lucy Parvenu leaned forwards; made her voice low. ‘I say,’ she said. ‘I say, dear old thing, what do you think of coming to a party?’

‘I’m sorry?’ The woman looked up. She had daisy clips fastened in her hair.

‘A party. On Saturday. Just a little affair, you know, my dear.’

‘Oh, I’m really not sure that...’

‘Beautiful people will be there. Beautiful people, you know. The cars roll up and the people just glide out and spill across the lawn.’

The woman looked at her. ‘When is it?’

‘Saturday, any Saturday.’ Lucy Parvenu smiled.

‘I’m really not sure that I could...’

‘You’d love it, my dear, just love it.’ She held out the invitation. It quivered in the air between them, its corner so close to the woman’s hand, so close to being accepted.

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If you’re a pretender,

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‘Do –’

– Bing bing bong –

Lucy Parvenu looked up as the three notes chimed, and then died away for the announcement. ‘This train will shortly be arriving at Watford Junction. Change here for Northwood and Edgware.’

‘No. I can’t. Really.’ The warm voice became remote, the face shuttered.

‘It would be terribly –’

‘I’m afraid not. Excuse me.’ She stood and left the carriage. The dark-haired man looked up; his eyes followed her for a moment, and then turned in Lucy Parvenu’s direction. Lucy Parvenu gazed at the abandoned outline of perfume where her Daisy had been, and dropped the invitation onto the table.

The Great Gatsby lay mute in her lap and she traced a line on the open page. ‘He must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.’ A peculiar sense of homesickness settled upon her, as the rustle of pressed cotton and the chink of afternoon teas sank back into letters on a page. She realised that the impenetrable eyes from across the carriage were lingering on her, and she turned away from the man, hunching her shoulders.

The carriage window had lost some of its brightness; the smart rubber seal now looked worn, edged with grime. She folded her hands and looked out.

The last of the rain was lashing across the window, shattering the image outside; she could see grass and corn, and solemn cattle. For a moment, a burst of vitality broke the landscape as a bird flew up from a field, dwindling skywards, and then faded in the clouds.

She looked down, kissed farewell to Gatsby and plunged him back into her bag.

-

come sit by my fire

-

Her hand met a new book. No clues, just a rough, rasping surface, and a creakiness that she could feel rather than hear. She let her fingers explore, pulled it out, and ran the pad of her thumb over its spine.

Lucy Parvenu opened her eyes to see black binding, the flash of teeth and wings, and then turned the book over. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect you.’

She looked up at the gentleman across from her seat, wondering how she had failed to realise before. He was courtly, attired in close-fitted black. She looked down at the book again, unsure, but then rose and walked across the carriage to the dark-haired gentleman’s side.

‘Sir,’ she said, because she knew no other way to address a man born of noble blood, who had walked the world for generations. ‘Might I take this seat?’

He looked up at her and a touch of amusement chased across his face. ‘Of your own free will, Lucy Parvenu.’

She sat down and looked at the book he was holding, the letters concealed in shadow. His hand curled over the pages, and she could not help but notice its coarseness, the squat fingers and sharp nails. Dust motes drifted down on her left, and on her right sat the Count.

‘It pleases me that you have at last decided to join me. I have been aware of you for some time.’

She looked at him. The air felt dry and smelled of earth; she could imagine that beyond the curtains peasants were digging up the fields, turning nature inside out and cutting open the belly of the ground.

‘You seemed to be asleep when we began our journey. I didn’t like to disturb you.’

‘Not me. Surely you remember me, Lucy Parvenu – I sleep only on a bed of earth.’

She gripped her book. His eyes dropped to it and he smiled again; little more than a twitch of the lip, exposing his canines.

‘You should have been careful, Lucy Parvenu. You’ve been playing a game which should have excited your caution as much as your ardour.’

‘I don’t know what –’

‘You have full comprehension of my meaning. The fictional world is a heavenly but dangerous one.’

The darkness of the curtains and the electricity of the train cast him in a diorama of light and shadow, bleached of all colour save around his mouth. The air seemed to grow dryer, thinner.

‘We will be in London soon,’ he remarked.

‘We can’t be yet.’

‘The dead travel fast, Lucy Parvenu. Look across the carriage, out of the window, and you will see that it is so. See what time has passed while you were lost in your worlds of detectives and lovers.’

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For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

-

Lucy Parvenu felt a start as she looked; outside was bright sun, saffron behind the clouds, and she could see the haze of buildings. They were nearing the tunnel to the station; they would plunge down, headlong away from the sun.

‘Lucy.’

She turned her head, met his basilisk eyes, and felt cold. He was still smiling. He reached over and shut Dracula.

‘See how much time has been swallowed by fantasy? Can you even say now, for sure, where you are?’

‘The train to London.’

‘But when?’

She looked about her, chest tightening.

‘You no longer know.’

– Bing bing bong –

She heard the notes faintly, as if from the next carriage, and waited for the world to dissipate, for Dracula’s ears to grow round and his teeth to shrink. They didn't. The blackness of his eyes intensified.

‘This train will shortly be arriving at London Euston. This train terminates here.’

The daylight vanished as they hit the tunnel. There was only one light in the carriage now, a dim lamp, burning at the far end. The chi-chunk, chi-chunk of the train had grown louder, and the windows rattled. She grasped her pack, her heart racing. The smell of earth was stronger than ever; dead, mouldering. Dracula looked at her, seeming to grow with the shadows, sucking in the darkness, until she could feel the chill that crept from him.

‘Are you lost, Lucy Parvenu?' he asked softly. 'Has this world failed you so eminently that you can no longer find your way but through the words of others? Have you fallen into the pages and left yourself behind?’ Lower still, his words became almost lost in the gushing air of the tunnel. 'It might be a mistake, you know.'

Lucy gripped her pack more tightly, her heart racing. His eyes were like inkwells, deep, dark hollows to drown in. Where were the lights? Where was she?

‘I don’t know.’

‘I do.’ He took the book from her lap, folded it shut, and laid his hand on hers. She could feel the sinews and bulging veins, the coldness of life that had died centuries ago. ‘You no longer know if you are heading to your London, or mine. The lights you looked for are but a lamp, like the lamp on my carriage when I drove to fetch Jonathan Harker. You are lost without question. When you step down from the train, you will be mine.’

Lucy Parvenu jerked away, thrusting her hand into her bag. A nest of covers – her fingers fastened around one, clutched it, and pulled it out. The cover was very smooth, silky even, and it was a thin stem of a book, insubstantial in her hands. She looked at the simple watercolours: yellow and blue and green. Le Petit Prince.

‘No. I’m not lost. I’m living.’

‘Do you think books can keep you safe? Guard you from the world of metal and gears? But you forget that dark things dwell in many an author's imagination. They only need a little belief to become strong. Strong and real as you. Books have power, and they will not protect you.’

They had come to a halt, waiting for a platform to clear, and she felt the strangeness of it, hanging between worlds in a tube of darkness. She felt as though she had been flying, touching down on planet after planet, burning through the atmospheres as she tried to form an understanding for the people who lived there.

‘I’m not sure it was ever about safety.’

‘You use books as a shield from the world, hiding in the pages of fiction.’

‘I use them as a lens.’ She looked down at the illustration of the prince, tracing her thumb across his face. ‘It’s not about escape. It's about taking the time to understand.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘What is there to understand?’

‘Everything. The concerns of kings and roses, of every mighty emperor and every blade of grass. Of an adult with a busy, stressful day ahead, and a little boy who only wants to draw pictures and have the grown-ups pause long enough to look. It's about taking a few moments to sketch a sheep, even when you have an aeroplane engine that must urgently be fixed.

She looked up at him. 'Books are full of single flowers which mean more than an entire universe to people. They are oceans of grief and plains of happiness. Everyday romances immortalised in glittering poetry, sunsets turned scarlet with admiration. They are brimming with little deeds and small meanings, all made brilliant by the medium.’

His lips curled. ‘Small meanings certainly, if flowers are their main concern.’

Lucy Parvenu gazed down at Le Petit Prince. ‘They are borne of the everyday, of people watching the world and seeking a language which will let others see what they see. Books are the threads that connect us, like putting on the glasses of another person. Coloured filters, like sweet wrappers, a magnified perspective you cannot get by any other means. Fall into a book, and you will step out irrevocably changed. You, me, everyone - every word reimagines us. It hurts sometimes, but...’ She trailed off, running a hand across her throat, where she felt the sting of teeth even though he sat a foot away from her. She felt as though she was teetering, tipping, ready to fall.

'But when the venom has finished burning and you have walked a lifetime in somebody else's shoes, words can take us home. Back to the rose, with a new sense of why that rose - just an ordinary rose - matters so very much.'

They were pulling into the station. Light from the platform filtered in, giving the Count an oddly flat appearance, black and white like ink on paper. He might be any grown-up on a train, wearing a smart suit, and travelling each day to his important job numbering the stars or counting the pigeons.

Behind him, on the platform, she could see a blonde boy, just glimpsed through the throng on the platform. She got to her feet.

‘Thank you, Count. Your story is full of darkness, of that which makes the blood quick and cold, which makes you afraid to breathe at night for fear of being heard. It's a reminder to walk this line with care, to sip cautiously when drinking from the cups filled by other minds... to hold tightly to oneself when you plunge into somebody else's world. But I have to go now. My friend is waiting.’

She walked away from him, looking about at the carriage. It seemed queer, full of things which nobody truly needed. Her little suitcase, which she took from a rack of identical suitcases, might be full of paperwork, travel documents, or clothes. It didn’t really matter. She pushed the button for the doors and watched a few people get off the train. They each stepped down, shoes landing squarely on the tarmac, lifted their cases, and marched towards the escalators.

Lucy Parvenu pulled her rucksack closer and hopped off. A hand touched her arm.

‘If you please – draw me a sheep!’

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Come in!

Come in!

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