He stood then, the chair scraping backwards, and walked to the candlelit table. It took Damien a moment to realize he was meant to follow, until Mr Jane turned and beckoned him impatiently.
‘Damien,’ he said. ‘Meet Mrs Jane. Mrs Jane, meet Damien.’
Damien looked down at the picture, at the woman’s face. The photographer had managed to catch her midway between smiling and laughing – her eyes were half scrunched up, her hand a blur as it came up as though to cover her mouth, her smile stretching from cheek to cheek.
‘I didn’t know there was a Mrs Jane,’ said Damien.
Mr Jane snorted. ‘You thought “Jane” was a common surname for sailors, did you?’
‘I thought it might be a nickname.’
Mr Jane tilted his head to one side. ‘When we married, I didn’t want her to take my name, but she insisted. And I said she could, so long as everyone called us by her name instead. “What, Jane?” she’d said, and then laughed, and then it just … stuck, I suppose.’
Damien smiled. ‘She was beautiful,’ he said.
‘Never could stand still,’ said Mr Jane, a gruffness to his voice now Damien hadn’t heard before. ‘Right before this was taken I’d told her she had an expression on her likeshe’d sucked on sour lemons, and she told me tomind my business, mister.’ He swallowed hard, the muscle in his jaw bunching. ‘She wanted to look serious. A serious picture. I told her I’d rather it looked like her. And I think this …’ He ran a finger down the frame. ‘I think it came out perfectly.’
‘You didn’t want to get one together?’ Damien asked. ‘The two of you?’
‘Oh, we did,’ said Mr Jane, though his eyebrows furrowed a little now. ‘But I prefer looking at this one. Don’t need to see all this—’ He gestured to his face, to the webbed scar that ran from the crest of his skull, down to his jawline. ‘When I could look at someone as beautiful as her instead.’ His gaze lingered on the photo for a moment longer, before flicking back to Damien. ‘Do you remember that boy I was telling you about, the first time you were here? The one who thought he wasn’t anything?’
Damien nodded. ‘I think you were making a not-so-subtle comparison,’ he said. ‘Trying to get me to stay and drink your horrible ginger tea.’
‘Because I looked at you, and I saw myself,’ said Mr Jane. ‘Plucked you from the very same alleyway Mrs Jane plucked me from, in fact.’
Damien’s brow furrowed. ‘You were sick, too?’
‘Drunk,’ Mr Jane corrected. ‘Dishonourably discharged at twenty-eight because I tried to earn some extra coin boxing and ended up killing a man with a misplaced punch.’ His expression twisted. ‘Michael Sanders was his name. He was two years younger than me.’
‘But it was an accident?’
‘It was an accident,’ Mr Jane agreed, a roughness to his voice now. ‘But that doesn’t make a jot of difference to the guilt you feel. So, I buried myself. Spent all the coin I had to my name on booze, or opium, or placing losing bets. Until one day – I met Jane.’
He reached to stroke a finger down the frame.
‘I was asleep in the alleyway that runs down the back of the shop, and she kicked my boot. Told me if I was going to lodge there, then I needed to work for it. Carrying things when she needed it. Replacing the oil in the lamps. Fetching the coal from the cellar.’ A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. ‘I’d never met a woman so beautiful. So forthright, and so …unafraidof me. It was like she didn’t even see my scar. And I was twenty-eight, you see, and struck dumb by the sight of her, probably gawping like a guppy. But she just crossed her arms over her chest and said: “Come on, now. You get up and you help, or you find somewhere else to sleep.”’
‘And so you helped?’
‘I helped,’ Mr Jane said, nodding. ‘Every day. On Fridays she would make me supper – fish cakes – and on Sundays, I’d accompany her to church. And we fell into a rhythm. As we worked, she’d ask me questions, about my family. About my time in the navy. I told her everything – the good, the bad, the ugly. Because she trusted me, and I wanted to repay it. I wanted to trust her, too.’
Damien frowned. ‘And she didn’t mind about what you’d done?’ he said. ‘She didn’t care?’
‘She didn’t judge me,’ said Mr Jane. ‘And that was enough to give me the courage to face up to it. To make amends to that man’s family. To his wife. She was kind to me. Too kind, considering—’ He shook his head, looking away. ‘But that’s how we could have that life together. Our second life. Because I could put my past to rest.’
Damien’s gaze flitted back to the image, to the smiling woman. ‘I don’t think it’s quite so easy for me,’ he said. ‘I don’t think they’ll just forgive the things I’ve done.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Mr Jane conceded. ‘But is running to America really the answer? What about Miss Adams?’
Damien pursed his lips into a line. Because that was the thought that had chased each pounding footstep, each jagged breath.
What about Ava?
He had to tell her.
He had to tell her he was leaving.
‘Do you think …’ he asked. ‘Do you think you could do one more thing for me, Mr Jane?’
