Lanterns And Shades - Part 8: The Ghost Of Cavanaugh Close

"Through early morning fog, I see visions of the things to be, the pains that are withheld for me."

Morning barely reaches Abbot Street. It is after ten when I reluctantly leave JD’s arms and open the curtains to find a world that looks listless and dull. The day has been postponed until further notice, and the sun will not be crossing the picket line of thick grey cloud that blots out the sky. The Daylight World is still and quiet, windows and doors closed and locked, trees undisturbed by all but the faintest of breezes.

“What time is it?” JD murmurs.

“You don’t have to get up for work,” I reply.

“No…” she says.

“I know. Everything feels different”

I turn to see her struggling up from the blankets. She is pale and tired in this colourless light, her lips an angry red, her eyes a startling green flecked with slivers of brown. She rubs the sleep out of her face, then catches me looking at her breasts and pulls the covers up to her chin with a shy smile I’ve never seen before. For the first time, I find myself thinking of the line we’ve crossed and what it means.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah. Still a little stiff.”

“You look terrible. Come back to bed.”

“There’s a lot to do today.”

“You’re not doing anything until I get the explanations you owe me.”

It hurts the side of my face to laugh, but she looks so stern that I can’t help myself. A more calculating person might decide that there really isn’t time for the kind of talk I know will be punctuated with kisses and maybe more, but then a more calculating person probably wouldn’t have a naked girl pouting theatrically at him from a warm bed. I go to her, and we waste some precious time reminding ourselves of how our mouths fit together and how we taste.

“They don’t see you because you were Shaded,” she says, a little while later. I am lying flat on my back with her head on my chest and one leg draped across mine.

“Right. Like the papers used to say it was a disease. I have it. I mean, it’s in me.”

“But you’re not sick and you’re not crazy,” she says, tickling my stomach with her nails. “Not as crazy as some, anyway.”

“I know. But then, how many people do you know that have been Shaded and lived to tell the tale? Maybe a handful, and most of them went a little loopy afterward.”

“From the disease, you think?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I felt…different after I got Shaded. I looked at the world a different way. I guess it stays with you.”

“But you didn’t lose your mind.”

“No. I don’t think that part is sickness. I think that’s just being afraid.”

“Understatement.”

“But you know what I mean.”

She nods. “So what now? You have a plan?”

“I have ideas, but I’m not sure about a lot of things. I’m going to talk to Cartwright today.”

“Can I come with you?”

“There’s something else I want you to do for me. It involves going back to the bar.”

JD looks at me. “What’s on your mind?” she asks.

“Something I want you to check out. You’ll need help, though, so you’re gonna have to wake up Dennis. That works because you need to talk to him anyway.”

“You guys went to the Dead Quarters before.”

“Yeah. I think he can tell you the rest, maybe help you understand why I’m going to see Cartwright.”

A pause, and then: “Are we going now?”

“The bed’ll still be here later, JD.”

She smirks and then kisses me hard on the mouth, sliding on top of me just the way she had last night. For a moment, we’re both getting carried away, and then I remember all that I need to remember and hold her face away from mine. She pouts and wriggles a little, laughing at my reaction. Finally, her face becomes serious.

“Listening?”

“I’m listening.”

“Good. Here’s what I need you to do…”

On Abbot Street, I check my watch and see that there are perhaps seven hours before dusk. The grey stillness I observed from my bedroom window is everything. In fact, the only member of our community out at all is Mr. Cartwright, who is propping his ladder against the side of JD’s house and preparing to climb to the Lantern. He is too absorbed in his work to register my presence, and I decide that there is time to keep another promise. I want to talk to Cartwright at home, not out here. I walk on in silence.

Witches Path yet again, but it barely registers. My mind is on my destination, and on the bulky weight in my back pocket. Where a right turn would take me to the Curfew Bar, a left leads along an old and disused road where weeds force their way between the paving stones and Lanterns are nowhere to be found. This represents something of a no-man’s land between the two Quarters of Oakfield that are still inhabited, and a route few people walk, even on the sunniest of days. The solitude doesn’t bother me. Quite the opposite. I’m tired of the Daylight World and I’m tired of bearing witness to the quiet desperation of my neighbours. I can talk to JD, and after the last couple of days, maybe I can talk to my father. The rest seem faceless. I’m almost glad for this grey day and this lonely street. Abbot Street and Quarter B seem like a fantasy or some strange dream.

Cavanaugh Close is only just inside Quarter A, far enough from its heart to have more in common with the wilderness I have just left than the more populous streets beyond. It has the look of a private estate, though any cameras or gates that may have once adorned its walls are long since gone. There is only one Lantern, and I know without closer scrutiny that the bungalow it guards is the residence of Henry Nicholls. Nobody lives in a home with no Lanterns.

It is a long time before he answers my knock, long enough for me to have taken his daughter’s shoe from my pocket and pushed my hand into it, wriggling my fingers to give shape back to its flattened form. I remember the graveyard of discarded clothing, and something of the enormous grief that filled me that morning finds its way up into my throat, making me squeeze my eyes closed on the threat of tears. When I open them, I see a vague shape moving beyond the frosted glass.

“Can I help you?” Henry Nicholls asks. He has opened the door only a fraction, and he peers through the gap like a frightened child. His face is small and white, and the semi-circles of bruised skin beneath his eyes indicate a stressed and sleepless man.

I can’t find the words. I take the shoe in both hands and hold it up between us like an offering.

“You…where did you find that?” he asks. He lets the door fall open and stands before me in a dressing gown that hangs loosely from his tall, skinny frame. His eyes are fixed on the shoe, yet he makes no move to take it from me.

“On Witches Path. It’s…Judy’s?”

He nods. Finally, he lifts the shoe from my hands.

“My girl,” he says. His voice is hollow. “Now we’ve all been Touched.”

“I’m sorry. I found it a few days ago. A lot’s been going on and this is the first chance I’ve had…”

“No…it’s…it’s okay. How did you find me?” He’s crying and I don’t think he even realises it. The tears simply spill from his eyes and down the sides of his face.

“My father is John Trent. I think you might know him. Or at least, you might have known him five or six years ago. I looked in the old phonebook to get your address.”

“Kennedy, isn’t it?” he asks the shoe.

“Ken,” I reply. “Just Ken.”

“Thank you, Ken,” he says. “I think…I think I’m going to go back inside now.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Nicholls.”

“Yes. We’re all sorry, I think. Thank you,” he says, and closes the door without once looking up at me.

Deep in thought, I walk back up Cavanaugh Close and along the disused road to Witches Path. We cannot go on like this. I have a plan, but right now it feels as frail and fragile as the look on Henry’s face when he’d taken his daughter’s shoe from my hand. There is no way of stopping the Shades, of destroying them the way I’d like to. I think I can make a difference, but nothing I have is even close to the weapon these people need. If I could stand before them, show them something huge and powerful and awe-inspiring, then maybe they’d believe, and maybe then they’d stop walking around like they’re already dead. As things stand, I have nothing but theories, and the only one I think truly believes in those theories is JD.

I cut into the woods without really thinking about what I’m doing until I find myself standing before the pile of damp, discoloured clothing once more. This is the one mystery I cannot seem to solve, the one contrary piece of evidence in my carefully constructed theory of the Shades. Why would they do this? What does it mean? It just doesn’t fit with everything else I’ve learned and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s somehow important.

“Ken?”

I jump and spin around, my lungs squeezed empty by shock, my heart accelerating to a staccato rhythm. Cartwright stands a few feet behind me. He’s holding a large wrench in his hand.

“You scared the shit out of me,” I say, and my voice is loud and unsteady.

“You look like hell, Ken. I thought you were hurt…Touched. What are you doing out here?” he asks. He is looking around me, at the graveyard.

“I might ask you the same question.”

“Mining the old Lanterns. No-one’s going to be using this path anymore and they barely work anyway. Some parts degrade faster than others.” He shrugs. “What’s that you’re looking at?”

“Clothes. I think the Shades left them here.”

“The Shades,” he says, and that’s all.

We stand in silence for a few moments and I find myself sizing him up, gauging my youth and size against his labourer’s strength and the fact that he’s holding the wrench. I have known Mr. Cartwright all my life, yet he is a Lanterman, and in my mind, that word is more loaded with possibility than it used to be. I think I could take him, if only because he wouldn’t be expecting it and because he doesn’t strike me as the fighting type. He is not yet as old as Dennis, but he has several years on my father, and he is losing what was probably once an impressive physique. If I moved first, I’m pretty sure I’d come out on top.

“Actually,” I say, “I’m glad I bumped into you. I was on my way to your house. There were some things I wanted to ask you.”

“I’m pretty busy. I need to get these parts and then get on up to the Curfew Bar. Maybe you could pop round later.”

I’m almost sure that JD and Dennis will have been and gone by now. Almost sure.

“Important things,” I say, and my voice contains a cool insistence I didn’t know I was capable of. It’s a voice that suspects it might be being fucked with and doesn’t like the idea one little bit.

Cartwright frowns and scratches his head with his free hand. Maybe he sees my eyes flicker to the wrench, because he relaxes his grip and lets it hang limply from his fingers.

“What’s going on here, Ken?”

“I hear you guys are forming a union.”

“A union?” He laughs a little. “Maybe a social club.”

“I also hear the words ‘Lantern Tax’ pretty often.”

“That’s just gossip. There’s…”

“Like the gossip in the Dead Quarters before the lights went out?”

“Now hold on just a minute. That’s specu…”

“No, you hold on just a minute.” My voice has risen again, but this time it is firm and clear. “Some of the gossip around here is so much bullshit, I know that. But I also know that pretty much everybody in C and D got Shaded except for maybe a few lucky Lanternmen. You want to talk about speculation? Fine, let’s speculate. Let’s speculate that there were rumours of a Lantern Tax in C and D, and that maybe those rumours were getting close to a reality. Let’s speculate that some bright spark had the idea of throwing a scare into the citizens by maybe turning out the lights for a few minutes. While we’re at it, let’s also speculate that they underestimated the Shades in the same way that have and things got a little out of control. That’s a lot of dead people, Cartwright, and I have to say that the thought of similar ideas being tossed around the Quarter I live in doesn’t exactly fill me with joy. Are you beginning to see where I’m coming from?”

“I would never…” he says, and then trails off. His face has gone white. “I mean, we’ve been talking about getting paid for what we do, but that’s only fair. It’s a hard job, and not too many can do it.”

“No-one’s going to go for that idea, and you know it. People around here are beginning to wonder when the next lot of bills are coming, and after a while they’re going to start getting used to the idea that maybe they’re not. I’ve been getting paid cash in hand since June, and I know my dad hasn’t paid for electricity or gas since around about the same time…”

“Neither has anyone else around here, Ken. The reality is that the council has broken up and the government doesn’t seem to be keeping an eye on things anymore.”

“Backed into a corner,” I say. “A country and then cities and then towns and then Quarters and then streets. And nobody really notices and nobody really cares. The old ways are going out of style, Cartwright, and nobody’s going to be too pleased if you start trying to bring them back. Sure, we need the Lanterns. But then what happens when we need electricity and water and gas, too?”

“People will supply them. And those people will need to be paid. That’s how it works.”

“And the Shades?”

“What about them?”

“Like I said, we’re backed into a corner. There are thousands of them, man, maybe millions. Don’t you think that might be just a little more important than getting paid?”

“No-one’s going to switch off the Lanterns,” he says, but his eyes slide away from mine, and for the first time, he looks unsure. “A and B won’t be Dead Quarters.”

“Your profession has blood on its hands,” I say.

He looks startled. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

“You’re wrong, Ken,” he says. “You’re wrong.”

And then he turns and strides away up the path, stooping to pick up his toolkit from beneath one of the old council Lanterns. I watch his retreat, knowing for the first time that there’s something in the story Old Dennis told me, something that Cartwright knows. I scared him, I think, but not with my arguments or my hints at physical threat. He’s either a very good actor or a man only just realising what’s going on around him. Cartwright, I think, isn’t one of the bad guys. But if he’s in some sort of union, and if he’s familiar with the idea of turning out the Lanterns, then he’s the key to finding the Lanternmen from the Dead Quarters. I’ll be talking to him again, but it seems wise to let him think about it first.

For the good guys, for me and JD and my father and Old Dennis and whomever else, there is now a certain clarity to the questions of both Shades and Lanternmen. I think I have something of an answer to the former, but the latter requires the community. I cannot go against a ghost of an idea by myself. Their influence touches all of us.

“We’ve all been Touched,” I murmur. Henry Nicholls’s words. He was referring to his family; to Judy and Judy’s mother. To himself. Henry Nicholls has been Touched.

“Touched,” I say, into the silence of Witches Path. “Like me.”

Instead of going home, I turn and head back towards Cavanaugh Close.