The Map of Time. Felix J. Palma

Kelly’s description, but none did.

      By his third beer, he had begun to despair, and wondered what on earth he was doing there, chasing an illusion. He was about to leave when she pushed her way through the pub door. He recognised her at once. There was no doubt about it: she was the girl in the portrait, but more beautiful still for being endowed with movement. Her face looked drained, yet she moved with the energy Andrew had imagined from seeing her on canvas. Most of the other customers remained oblivious to her. How was it possible for anyone not to react to the small miracle that had just taken place in front of them? Their complete indifference made him feel he was a privileged witness to the phenomenon.

      He recalled when, as a child, he had seen the wind take a leaf between invisible fingers and balance its tip on the surface of a puddle, spinning it like a top until a carriage wheel had put an end to its dance. To Andrew, it had seemed Mother Nature had engineered that magic trick for his eyes alone. From then on he was convinced that the universe dazzled mankind with volcanic eruptions, but had its own secret way of communicating with the select few, people like himself, who looked at reality as though it were a strip of wallpaper covering something else. Taken aback, he watched Marie Kelly walk towards him as if she knew him. His heart started to pound. He calmed a little when she propped her elbow on the bar and ordered half a pint of beer without glancing at him.

      ‘Having a good night, Marie?’

      ‘Can’t grumble, Mrs Ringer.’

      Andrew was on the verge of blacking out. She was standing next to him! He could scarcely believe it, yet it was true. He had heard her voice. A tired, rather husky voice, but lovely in any case. And if he really tried, ignoring the stench of tobacco smoke and sausages, he could probably smell her, too. Smell Marie Kelly. Mesmerised, Andrew gazed at her, rediscovering in her every gesture what he already knew. In the same way that a shell holds the roar of the sea so this fragile body seemed to contain within it a force of nature.

      When the landlady placed the beer on the counter, Andrew realised this was an opportunity he must not waste. He rummaged swiftly in his pockets and paid before she could. Allow me, miss.’

      The gesture, as unexpected as it was chivalrous, earned him an openly approving look from Marie Kelly. He was paralysed. As the painting had already shown, the girl’s eyes were beautiful, yet they seemed buried beneath a layer of resentment. He could not help comparing her to a poppy field where someone had decided to dump refuse. And yet he was completely, hopelessly enthralled by her, and he tried to make the instant at which their eyes met as meaningful to her as it was to him, but – my apologies to any romantic souls reading these lines – some things cannot be expressed in a look.

      How could Andrew make her share in the almost mystical feeling overwhelming him? How could he convey, with nothing more than his eyes, the sudden knowledge that he had been searching for her all his life without knowing it? If in addition we consider that Marie Kelly’s existence up to that point had done little to increase her understanding of life’s subtleties, it should come as no surprise that this initial attempt at spiritual communion (for want of a better way of putting it) was doomed to failure. Andrew did his best, obviously, but the girl understood his passionate gaze just as she interpreted that of the other men who accosted her every evening.

      ‘Thanks, mister,’ she replied, with a lewd smile, no doubt from force of habit.

      Andrew nodded, dismissing the significance of a gesture he considered an all-important part of his strategy, then realised with horror that his careful plan had not taken into account how he was to strike up a conversation with the girl once he found her. What did he have to say to her? Or, more precisely, what did he have to say to a whore? A Whitechapel whore, at that. He had never bothered speaking much to the Chelsea prostitutes, only enough to discuss positions or the lighting in the room, and with the charming Keller sisters, or his other female acquaintances -young ladies whom it would not do to worry with talk of politics or Darwin’s theories – he only discussed trivia: Paris fashions, botany and, more recently, spiritualism, the latest craze. But none of these subjects seemed suitable to embark on with this woman, who was unlikely to want to summon some spirit to tell her which of her many suitors she would marry. So he simply stared at her, enraptured.

      Luckily, Marie Kelly knew a better way of breaking the ice. ‘I know what you want, mister, although you’re too shy to ask,’ she said, her grin broadening as she gave his hand a fugitive caress. It brought him out in goose pimples. ‘Thruppence, and I can make your dreams come true. Tonight, at any rate.’

      Andrew was shaken: she did not know how right she was. She had been his only dream the past few nights, his deepest longing, his most urgent desire, and now, although he was still scarcely able to believe it, he could have her. His whole body tingled with excitement at the mere thought of touching her, of caressing the slender body silhouetted beneath the shabby dress, of bringing forth moans from her lips as he was set alight by her eyes, those of a wild animal, a tormented, indomitable creature. That tremor of joy rapidly gave way to a profound sadness when he considered the unjust plight of the fallen angel, the ease with which any man could grope her, defile her in a filthy back alley, without anyone in the world uttering a cry of protest. Was that what such a unique creature had been created for?

      He had no choice but to accept her invitation, a lump in his throat, distressed at being compelled to take her in the same way as her other clients, as if his intentions were no different from theirs.

      Once he had accepted, Marie Kelly smiled with what looked to Andrew like forced enthusiasm, and tilted her head for them to leave the pub.

      Andrew felt odd following the whore, walking behind her with bird-like steps as though Marie Kelly were leading him to the gallows instead of to plunge between her thighs. But could their meeting have been any different? From the moment he had come across his cousin’s painting he had been penetrating deeper into unknown territory, where he could not get his bearings because nothing around him was familiar. Everything was new and, to judge from the deserted streets they were going through, quite possibly dangerous. Was he blithely walking into a trap laid by the whore’s pimp? He wondered whether Harold would hear his shouts and, if so, if he would bother coming to his aid, or use the opportunity to avenge himself for the offhand treatment he had received from his master all these years.

      After guiding him along Hanbury Street, a muddy alley dimly lit by a single oil-lamp sputtering on a corner, Marie Kelly beckoned him down a narrow passageway leading into pitch darkness. Andrew followed her, convinced he would meet his death, or at least be beaten to within an inch of his life by a couple of ruffians much bigger than him who, having stolen everything including his socks, would spit contemptuously on his bloody remains. That was how they did things here, and his idiotic adventure richly deserved such an ending. But before fear had time to take hold, they came out into a filthy, water-logged backyard where, to his surprise, no one was waiting for him.

      Andrew glanced warily about him. Yes: strange as it might seem, they were alone in that evil-smelling place. The world they had left behind was reduced to a muffled rumble in which a distant church bell’s chimes rang out. At his feet the moon, reflected in a puddle, looked like a crumpled letter some unhappy lover had tossed on the ground.

      ‘We won’t be disturbed here, mister,’ Marie Kelly reassured him, leaning back against the wall and drawing him to her.

      Before he knew it, she had unbuttoned his trousers and pulled out his manhood. She did so with startling ease, without any of the provocative foreplay to which the Chelsea prostitutes had accustomed him. The matter-of-fact way in which she manoeuvred his sex beneath her hiked-up skirts made it clear to Andrew that what to him was another magical moment was to her no more than routine.

      ‘It’s in,’ she assured him.

      In? Andrew had enough experience to know the whore was lying. She was simply gripping him between her thighs. He assumed it was common practice among them, a trick to avoid penetration, which, if they were lucky and the client failed to notice or was too drunk, reduced the number of hasty intrusions they were forced to undergo each day, and with them the unwanted pregnancies that such might bring about. With this in mind, he began to thrust energetically, prepared to go along with the charade.