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Authors: Martin Cruz Smith
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foreheads together. Even while the bartender tied them loosely together at the neck with Jaxon’s scarf they started pushing and angling for position. At close quarters a shorter, more experienced man had the advantage. The Irishman’s threat was a veteran’s trick, Blair thought. Let Jaxon try to protect his manhood and he’d be fighting on one leg. More likely he would go down with a shattered leg than a ruptured testicle.
The bartender held another scarf high. Waiting for it to drop, the two fighters leaned forward, heads touching. Flo and her friends put their hands together in prayer.
The bartender snapped the scarf down.
Ballet, Blair thought, as danced in Wigan. The first kicks were so swift that he couldn’t follow them. Both men were bleeding from the knees down. With each hit a violent red blush spread on their skin. The Irishman tried to cave in Bill Jaxon’s knee from the side. As Jaxon slipped the Irishman slashed his clog up, slicing Jaxon from knee to groin.
Jaxon leaned away and hammered his forehead down on the other man, whose shaved head split like a porcelain bowl of blood. Jaxon sidestepped a blind, retaliatory butt and swung his own leg from the outside, scooping the smaller man into the air. The scarf shot up into the air. As the Irishman hit the ground Jaxon swung his foot with his full weight. Clog and ribs met with a crack. A moan rose from the men below the banner of the harp.
The Irishman rolled and coughed black phlegm onto the dirt. As he hopped to his feet he struck back, stripping skin from Jaxon’s flank. Jaxon’s next blow caught the Irishman in the stomach and lifted him into the air again. The Irishman bounced from the ground to his knees and swayed. A bright effusion of blood flowed from his mouth. In that moment the fight was already over, except that it wasn’t.
Jaxon announced, “The man who bothered Rose, he’s put me in a mood,” and his kick swung forward like the blur of a wing.
The Cannel Room was the strangest formal dining room Blair had ever seen.
Bishop Hannay sat at the head of the table. Around it were his sister-in-law, Lady Rowland; Reverend Chubb; a union man named Fellowes; Lady Rowland’s daughter, Lydia; Earnshaw, the member of Parliament from the train; Leveret; Blair; and at the foot of the table an empty chair.
The Cannel Room’s ceiling, walls and wainscoting were paneled in polished black stone. Table and Queen Anne chairs were hand-turned work of the same material. Chandelier and candelabras seemed carved of ebony. Yet the walls showed no marble veins. The weight of the chairs was wrong. The temperature was wrong; marble always felt cooler than the air around it, but when Blair laid his hand on the table it was almost warm. Properly so, since cannel was jet, a form of clean, exceedingly fine coal. He had seen sculptures in black cannel. The Cannel Room was the only room made entirely of coal, and it was famous. Its effect was heightened by contrasts: the luminous shimmer of silver and crystal on the black table, the deep purple of Lady Rowland’s gown, the camellia-white of Miss Rowland’s dress.
The men—except for Blair, of course—were alldressed for dinner in black, Hannay and Chubb in cassocks. The butler was assisted by four footmen in black satin livery. The floor was carpeted in black felt to silence the sound of their feet. The effect was as if they were dining in an elegant hall far below the surface of the earth. Blair ran his hand over the table and looked at his palm. Clean: not a speck of carbon dust, not an atom, not a mote.
“Mr. Blair, exactly what is it that you do?” Lady Rowland asked.
Blair felt Leveret watching anxiously. He also felt contending waves of gin on one side of his brain and fever on the other. He wished the room were a little less hallucinatory. The only reassuring note of reality was a pail of sand by each footman in case of fire.
“The Hannay interests own different kinds of mines in different
The bartender held another scarf high. Waiting for it to drop, the two fighters leaned forward, heads touching. Flo and her friends put their hands together in prayer.
The bartender snapped the scarf down.
Ballet, Blair thought, as danced in Wigan. The first kicks were so swift that he couldn’t follow them. Both men were bleeding from the knees down. With each hit a violent red blush spread on their skin. The Irishman tried to cave in Bill Jaxon’s knee from the side. As Jaxon slipped the Irishman slashed his clog up, slicing Jaxon from knee to groin.
Jaxon leaned away and hammered his forehead down on the other man, whose shaved head split like a porcelain bowl of blood. Jaxon sidestepped a blind, retaliatory butt and swung his own leg from the outside, scooping the smaller man into the air. The scarf shot up into the air. As the Irishman hit the ground Jaxon swung his foot with his full weight. Clog and ribs met with a crack. A moan rose from the men below the banner of the harp.
The Irishman rolled and coughed black phlegm onto the dirt. As he hopped to his feet he struck back, stripping skin from Jaxon’s flank. Jaxon’s next blow caught the Irishman in the stomach and lifted him into the air again. The Irishman bounced from the ground to his knees and swayed. A bright effusion of blood flowed from his mouth. In that moment the fight was already over, except that it wasn’t.
Jaxon announced, “The man who bothered Rose, he’s put me in a mood,” and his kick swung forward like the blur of a wing.
The Cannel Room was the strangest formal dining room Blair had ever seen.
Bishop Hannay sat at the head of the table. Around it were his sister-in-law, Lady Rowland; Reverend Chubb; a union man named Fellowes; Lady Rowland’s daughter, Lydia; Earnshaw, the member of Parliament from the train; Leveret; Blair; and at the foot of the table an empty chair.
The Cannel Room’s ceiling, walls and wainscoting were paneled in polished black stone. Table and Queen Anne chairs were hand-turned work of the same material. Chandelier and candelabras seemed carved of ebony. Yet the walls showed no marble veins. The weight of the chairs was wrong. The temperature was wrong; marble always felt cooler than the air around it, but when Blair laid his hand on the table it was almost warm. Properly so, since cannel was jet, a form of clean, exceedingly fine coal. He had seen sculptures in black cannel. The Cannel Room was the only room made entirely of coal, and it was famous. Its effect was heightened by contrasts: the luminous shimmer of silver and crystal on the black table, the deep purple of Lady Rowland’s gown, the camellia-white of Miss Rowland’s dress.
The men—except for Blair, of course—were alldressed for dinner in black, Hannay and Chubb in cassocks. The butler was assisted by four footmen in black satin livery. The floor was carpeted in black felt to silence the sound of their feet. The effect was as if they were dining in an elegant hall far below the surface of the earth. Blair ran his hand over the table and looked at his palm. Clean: not a speck of carbon dust, not an atom, not a mote.
“Mr. Blair, exactly what is it that you do?” Lady Rowland asked.
Blair felt Leveret watching anxiously. He also felt contending waves of gin on one side of his brain and fever on the other. He wished the room were a little less hallucinatory. The only reassuring note of reality was a pail of sand by each footman in case of fire.
“The Hannay interests own different kinds of mines in different
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