manniness | Chapter Five: The Wonder

Under normal circumstances, Alice would have been quite happy to be entrusted with the care of one of Tarrant Hightopp’s much sought-after hats. Under normal circumstances, she would have been undeniably happy to be standing next to him, her hand rubbing his back. Under normal circumstances, she would have been absolutely happy to be spending day after day in his company.

These, however, are not normal circumstances.

For the fourth day in a row, Tarrant is violently ill over the side of the ship.

“This is,” he wheezes, “not a very—” Groan. “—auspicious start to—” Hiccup. “—our voyage, Alice.”

“No, no it isn’t,” she finds herself agreeing. She looks out over the calm sea and winces. Oh, blasted giant Jubjub birds, however is Tarrant going to manage when they encounter their first storm or a three-day-long patch of rough sea?

“This will pass,” she assures him.

“Yes—” he gasps, gulping sea air. “Yes, Time—despite—our previous—animosity—is most—regular Here.”

It is. Sometimes time passes. And sometimes, they pass it. On several such occasions, it’s with the aid of the chessboard in the captain’s office.

“Chessur would grin madly to see us playing a game he’d undoubtedly believe was named for himself,” Alice declares one sunny afternoon to a wan-looking Hatter. He hasn’t been ill yet today, but that could change; lunch has yet to be announced and Alice has to admit, the fare is not... inspiring.

The Hatter summons a smile despite the queasiness that seems to loiter most inconsiderately in his presence. “No doubt he would.”

“Do you miss it? Everyone? I mean, home? Do you miss it?”

He stares at her for a moment. Alice studies him openly as he does so. She’s grown to know him quite a bit better over the recent weeks and so she easily sees the misdirecting white lie forming on his tired face. Alice interrupts him before he can find the will to speak it.

“I do, too.”

“Do you?” he asks, looking startled.

“Of course. Every day.”

“But you’ve done so well here. I’d thought...”

“Yes?”

“Well, aren’t you enjoying the rewards of your success?”

She smiles. “At the moment? Yes, I am. Checkmate.”

There are bouts of backgammon and bridge. Clashes across chess and checkerboards. Sunset strolls along the starboard railing. Sometimes they see and speak to one of the other consultants Lord Ascot had enlisted for the voyage. Sometimes they’re alone. Sometimes they are accompanied by silence. Sometimes Alice retrieves their revolvers and directs an empty barrel tied to a length of rope be thrown overboard and they waste bullets.

“Alice,” Tarrant asks, three weeks into their voyage, “have you ever used a revolver? In your own defense?”

Her hands, which had been correcting the positioning of his arms... again, pause.

“Yes,” she answers.

He waits for her to continue. She doesn’t. It is not a moment she likes to think of. “Alice?”

She can feel his worried stare. “I missed my target,” she replies. She considers picking up her own revolver and shooting at the splintered barrel bobbing on the waves. She considers it but doesn’t do it. Instead, she unloads the gun and disassembles it.

“Were you... injured?” he lisps.

Alice shakes her head and places the weapon back into its box. “We’ll be docking in Lagos soon. Perhaps the day after tomorrow.” One corner of her mouth lifts. “There’s business I have to take care of so we’ll be in dock for nearly a week. You could rent a room, sleep in a real bed...” She doesn’t list all the necessities he’s been denied since boarding the ship. He knows.

“As delightful as that sounds, I wouldn’t know the first direction in which go in search of comfortable accommodation.”

“The captain will take us,” she assures him. Tarrant sets his own weapon aside and reaches for the waterlogged line to which the abused barrel had been tethered. Alice doesn’t insist that he should continue without her. He never has before. It’s almost as if he has no preference whatsoever in whatever it is they do, so long as they perform that activity in each other’s company.

That night at dinner, the captain announces that they will reach Lagos by lunchtime the following day. Alice thinks fondly of fresh food and a soft bed that doesn’t move and a room that doesn’t smell of sweat and sea water and boredom...

“Alice?”

In the midst of opening her cabin door, she pauses. She looks up at Tarrant, who had escorted her to her door yet again, as he has whenever his nausea has permitted it of him.

He places a hand on the door frame, barring her entrance. She knows she could duck under it but she refrains. Whatever he wants to say must be important, otherwise he would not go to such extremes. And whatever it is that’s on his mind must be upsetting; he’s anticipating her refusal to answer, her inclination to run.

She thinks she knows what he’s going to ask.

“What happened? When you fired the revolver in your defense?”

Alice closes her eyes, turns her face away. “Nothing happened. I missed the cursed piece of sea scum I’d been trying to hit. And the... the... girl he’d... She ran –” Stumbled, staggered, scrambled! “– off. Probably to be a victim to another one of those...” She opens her eyes and glances up at his face. His expression tells her enough. She’s said too much.

“An’ th’... man?” His eyes are intense, yellow, his jaw locked. She notes his hesitation over the classification of the... creature Alice had aimed her revolver at so many months ago.

“Decided not to argue with a woman with a firearm.”

Tarrant’s eyes close. A breath of relief tinged with failure escapes him. She knows that breath. He’d been an unknighted champion once upon a time to the banished White Queen. Alice had been a champion herself. Yes, they both know those battles – the ones that are lost even as they’re won.

“And yet, I still can’t stop myself from looking closely into every dark alley I pass by,” she continues. And turning toward him fully, reminds him, “You asked me how I enjoy my success...”

“Alice...” He shakes his head.

“It’s such a grand adventure. All of it,” she admits. “But, the bottom line... at the end of the day... I’m just a ghost. Nothing I do... matters. It’s nothing anyone else couldn’t do in my stead. I’m replaceable here, in ways I never was... in Underland.” The last is said on a whisper.

Tarrant shifts. His gloved hands frame her face. “Wha’ ye did... in tha’ alley... though it frightens me to contemplate it... mattered,” he insists. And then he corrects himself: “Matters.”

He conducts a study of her eyes and whatever he sees in them. “I think... there are few who would have done the same in your stead. Only you, Alice, your muchness, your goodness... You.”

And then she finds herself in his arms, her head pillowed on his shoulder. His arms are warm and strong and solid, just as she’d sensed they would be the night of the gala, and the only thing that could make her happier would be to have her forehead pressed against his jaw, her lips brushing his neck...

“Ye matter, Champion. Ye matter. No matter where ye are.”

Yet, at the moment, Alice doesn’t really care about any of those other places. Places she’s been, seen... At the moment, it’s this place that demands her utmost attention. Here in the dingy corridor of a trading vessel in Tarrant Hightopp’s arms.

To her extreme mortification, she feels tears burn her eyes. She lifts her hands from his arms and wraps them around his torso, pressing her palms against his back.

“Alice,” he whispers, and she wishes she could feel it stir her hair, but he keeps his face turned away. “Have you any idea what I would give to heal you of that memory?”

Her smile is sad and knowing. She can imagine but she is not tempted to accept; this man has given far too much already. And what he gives her now is certainly not insignificant... or unappreciated. She sighs into his jacket sleeve, relaxes against him.

“You’ve made a good start of it,” she murmurs and feels his arms tighten.

She wonders how long they can stand here like this, uninterrupted. Wonders if perhaps now is the time to ask him why he will not permit her to touch him, will not permit himself to touch her...

On the deck above, voices and footsteps echo down the stairwell to them and Tarrant reluctantly pulls back.

Alice studies his expression – so concerned! – and chastises herself. “I’ve gone and ruined this voyage for you. I’m sorry. I should have...”

“No. You shouldn’t have withheld the truth from me.” He regards her features until a soft smile pulls at his lips. “Wondrous things are not always pleasant. In fact, often times, they are not,” he observes. “We sail on a very aptly named vessel, do we not?”

The Wonder... Yes, she supposes it is a fitting name. Still...

“When I realized you would be sailing with me... us...”

He gently presses a gloved finger to her lips, correcting her, objecting to her self-censorship. For a long moment, they stand thusly in the dark corridor of the ship, a single scrap of cotton between their skin, listening to the voices and footsteps that do not descend the steps from the deck above, merely threaten to. Reluctantly, he withdraws his hand, but not his gaze.

She finishes her thought: “I wanted to show you the magic this world has to offer...”

“Alice,” he whispers, his gaze roving over the contours of her face. “You already have.” And then his mouth curves into the smile he’d given her just as she’d disappeared from the battlefield in Underland; the smile she’s carried with her wherever she’d gone since that moment. The smile she has reminded herself again and again to earn.

He tells her, “And I could not be more impressed.”

The ship rocks and she leans toward him. His hand reaches out, steadies her. “That sounds like a challenge,” she muses through her own smile.

“Do you still believe in six impossible things before breakfast?” he inquires, a light dancing in his imperfectly beautiful eyes.

“Yes, I do,” she admits. She deliberately allows her gaze to drop, to take in the sight of him. And even though his clothes are as rumpled and wrinkled and too-infrequently washed as her own, she cannot recall ever seeing a more appealing sight.

When she meets his gaze – oddly anxious, as if he fears she will not like what she sees – the smile she gives him is not innocent.

She whispers, “And the list grows longer every day.”

This time, when the ship rocks, he leans toward her. She reaches out, steadies him, subtly pulls him closer. Again, his focus upon her is nearly a kiss. Nearly...

“I must ask for your assistance, Alice,” he rasps. “We’ve many weeks left to endure... enjoy... before we arrive. And we mustn’t...”

She licks her bottom lip. It’s a nervous gesture, nothing more. Yet it captivates him and a breathy groan escapes him. “Please...” he begs, his gaze on her mouth. “Behave, Alice.”

Although it pains her to do so, she does.

“Good night, Tarrant.”

“Good night, Alice” she hears a moment after she closes the door to her room. Squeezing her eyes shut, she lets her forehead fall forward until it connects with the wooden portal. Someday, their good-byes are not going to be so dissatisfying. Someday, they will not be necessary at all...

A life without the need for good-byes. Despite the dissatisfyingly noisy energy zipping through her mind and humming through her veins, she recognizes an impossible thing when she encounters it. And greedily catalogs it for her List.

The following afternoon, she adds yet another one to it.

As they follow the captain’s lead through the throng on the busy street, vendors shouting in strange languages and strange scents overwhelming them, Tarrant turns to her, places his ever-gloved hand over her own, which is tucked into his elbow and declares, “You know, I imagine Paris would be just like this.”

For a moment, she doesn’t understand. Hasn’t he already been to Paris? Doesn’t he already have a very successful shop there? Why would he feel the need to imagine a place he’s already been?

But then, as he glances at her out of the corner of his eye and she feels his regard envelop her, she sees precisely what he means: Yes, Paris might be exactly like this: thrilling and new and foreign and wondrously frightening and mad and brilliant and beautiful and... more – so much more! – with him by her side and her by his.

Yes, Paris could be exactly like this.

“One day,” she agrees and is rewarded with his beaming smile.

*~*~*~*

The time spent in Lagos is too short. She sighs sadly as they pull away. Cargo had been exchanged and fresh water and provisions stowed – a successful stop, all told – still... she’s always sad when sailing away from this particular port. It had been her first stop on her first voyage – her first Magical Place in this world – and as such it will always hold a special place in her memory. The sigh is inevitable. And the first of many.

Tarrant notices – but of course he does! – and invites her to see what he’d bought in the marketplace. He brings his purchases to the captain’s office and lays them out on the table that has become theirs. And as their most recent port of call slips further and further beneath the horizon, Alice does not wish herself back in Lagos, for the city holds no appeal beside her present company.

She watches his hands flutter and his eyebrows arch. His energy, renewed from the brief stay on land, charms hers. She watches his hands – still gloved – and it bothers her that she can’t recall what they had looked like when she’d last seen them. His thumb had been bandaged, hadn’t it? And his knuckles stained orange, his fingernails a frightful color and thick yet brittle. Although some fingertips had been capped with thimbles, hadn’t they? It bothers her that she can’t properly remember and suddenly she’s frightened that she really is forgetting him (just as he’d predicted she would) even though he’s right here in front of her and—!

Tarrant’s lecture on the dye process that had been used in one particularly lovely bolt of fabric is cut short when Alice’s hands grasp both of his. She stares at their gloved hands – white on white – and the sudden silence in the office, an office which is empty except for the two of them and Tarrant’s Lagos purchases, bears witness to the moment.

“I...” Alice whispers and the sound of her own voice seems much louder than normal. “I’ll beg your pardon,” she murmurs. “But in a moment.”

Alice collects his right hand in both of hers. Lifts it. Just a step and a half away, he is completely still. She wonders if he’s even breathing...

She glances up and his eyes... She swallows back the sudden clamoring inside her that claws and scrapes and thrashes up from her stomach, her chest. She’s seen his eyes like this before: in the foyer of her mother’s house after he’d given her that hat – his hat! – when he’d seemed so very willing to kiss her and yet he hadn’t.

“A moment, please,” she rasps as her fingers reach beneath his cuff and curl under the edge of his glove.

He does nothing, says nothing, as she peels it from his hand. Although she had reached for him, is undressing his hand in order to see what she cannot clearly recall, she cannot look away from his expression. Want is there, she believes. She is not an expert nor does she have much practical experience, but that look is something she knows by instinct alone.

The glove slides off, inside out. It catches on his fingertips and with a bit more insistent pressure his hand is freed completely.

He shivers.

Alice looks down.

There are still mercury stains in his pale skin, yes. She can see them and she will probably still be seeing them twenty years from now. His nails are not as startlingly unhealthy as she vaguely recalls. There are no bandages or thimbles in sight, no cuts or scrapes. She passes her gloved thumbs over the back of his hand, testing the resiliency of his skin, the tautness of the tendons, the firmness of the muscles.

His other hand turns, grasps the edge of the table. He shivers again.

“I just realized,” she attempts to explain, turning his hand over in hers to examine the fine lines that cross his palm, “that I had nearly forgotten...”

Both she and the silence wait, breath held, for his response to this.

Unsteadily, he says, “I... d’nae wan’...” He pauses, draws a deliberate breath. “I d’nae wan’ ye teh f’rget mae.”

Those first three words tumble over in her mind: I don’t want... So very similar to I don’t know and I don’t think... How can she not remark on them?

“Are you one of the Cynics now?” she teases gently, gazing up into his luminous eyes. “Will you chose to live in a bathing tub on the streets like Diogenes?” She’s not sure if Tarrant understands the reference to one of Ancient Greece’s more eccentric philosophers. She knows his story only because his doctrines are often quoted in the books for Young Ladies her mother had bade her read when she’d been younger. Such selflessness had been admirable (if unappealing and nearly impossible to maintain for any significant length of time) and Alice had been driven to look up more on the man amongst her father’s collection of books. (Even then, impossible things had fascinated her. And, certainly those doctrines had qualified as such!) And what she had found – a man who renounces all material possessions, who desires not wealth or power or fame or glory or even a good name, who lives on the streets and gladly endures the scorn of his fellow citizens, who is called foolish and mad and a plethora of other derogatory terms – had shed new light on the things she had been reading under her mother’s direction.

“Alice,” he whispers. “Perhaps we are not in a bathing tub on a street, per se, but you must admit, a boat on the ocean current is near enough.”

That is true... and ironic that she has given up the material comforts of her life in London – is called mad and her mother left to endure endless whispering disapproval – so that those very Londoners may have More.

But she is not the only one to do this. Has Tarrant not also given up his material comforts in order to join this venture? Although not for the sake of spoilt and demanding Londoners but to be with her? Is there anyone in the world less selfish than this man? “You’re right,” she admits, lowering her gaze. “You do not want.”

He tenses and a creak resounds from where his other hand clutches the table’s edge. “But I do... Alice.”

Is it one sentence or two? Had her name been intended as a direct address or a clarification – a quantification – of his desires? She cradles his hand in hers, trails her cloth-covered fingertips over the lines in his stained skin.

Does she want him to want her? Does she want him? She wants to touch him, yes, but what does that mean? Is she thinking of him as a kinsman... or a courting beau?

She thinks of the top hat sitting safely in her cabin. The offer – Tarrant’s offer – remains. He is still waiting for her reply.

Alice opens her mouth, but nothing emerges. No replies whatsoever come to her. Still, that’s no reason not to repay him in some way for the gift. She should acknowledge the specialness of the trust he had shown her when he’d given her his hat.

“I should very much like to make a hat for you,” she tells him, glancing up again. “To rest in the place of the one you gave me.”

Because she is watching him so very closely, she sees the tension in him break, shatter, and fall away. “... oh. I see. Yes,” he continues and Alice is witness to a painfully bright, painfully cheerful smile. “Yes, I quite understand. And I appreciate it very much. Will appreciate it. Your offer, I mean. I... Yes, I shall make good use of any hat you would make for me.”

He renews his smile – curved with falseness and... perhaps, pain? – and gently pulls his hand from her grasp.

She retakes it and this time it will require far more effort for him to break her grip. “What is it? What have I said?”

He pauses. The smile disappears and his gaze searches hers. She thinks she sees the smallest flicker of hope in the twitching of his no-longer-so-meticulously groomed brows. “You replied. To my offer,” he tells her with careful neutrality.

“No,” she corrects him. “I merely thought to assure you that I hadn’t forgotten or dismissed it and I...” She opens her grasp so that his hand is once more resting gently in both of hers. He could remove it at any time. Now, even.

And yet it remains.

She admits, “I wouldn’t know how to answer your offer properly. I am not versed in the customs or ways and I...” She sighs through gritted teeth. “I have no idea of what I’m doing!” Taking a deep breath, she looks up and declares, “When I offered you a hat in exchange was that... I was giving you an answer, wasn’t I? That I preferred kinship over...”

He gives her a visibly reluctant nod. “Aye.”

“And... in the case of the other... what would be given?” her curiosity prompts her to query.

Leaving his right hand in the loose cradle of her hands, Tarrant lifts his left. His throat works and Alice imagines he’s juggling words again. He pauses, his left hand just inches from her hair, which spills over her shoulders in her usual below-deck style.

He swallows once more, clenches his jaw for a moment, and then wrangles his words. “Something,” he muses roughly, “that is meant to be kept safe and precious, not used or used up or ever thrown away.”

His fingers, still encased in his glove, twitch toward her, give Alice her answer to the riddle, and then he pulls his hand back.

Alice is too preoccupied with the racing of her own heart for her to notice when he softly removes his right hand from her grasp. By the time she realizes that fact, he has finished turning his abandoned glove right-side out and is slipping it on.

He gives her a shy smile. “I do want, Alice,” he reminds her. “I want to see you happy.”

It’s on the tip of her tongue to request that he leave those damned gloves off in that case, but she doesn’t. What sort of touch would she be sharing with him if he acquiesced to her request? Perhaps this is why he keeps a layer of cloth between them at all times. Perhaps he wants her to be sure what manner of touch it would be before he consents to it.

And, Alice must admit, he deserves that much; she owes him an answer. She also, she realizes much later, owes him an apology; she’d promised to beg his pardon for her forward behavior, but it had slipped her mind completely and Tarrant had, apparently, not felt it necessary to remind her.

The gloves remain firmly in place, on both his hands and hers throughout the remainder of the voyage. They stop in port after port; Alice barters away cargo and arranges for more to be taken on; Tarrant investigates the markets, dines with her whenever she is free, and escorts her wherever she needs to go.

There is one port Alice does not enjoy and Tarrant, sensing this, stays close. Yes, she still carries the gun, but she’s comforted by his presence nonetheless. She still finds herself glancing – and sometimes glaring – into shadowy alleys as she passes them, but Tarrant bumps her shoulder gently with his (it’s an easy gesture to accomplish what with the sorry state of the roads here) and she releases the breath she’d been holding.

And then her work is finished and the captain turns the ship toward the next stop, heading northeast once more, toward their eventual and final destination, the destination Alice is most anticipating, the destination that has never been possible for them to even consider visiting before now:

The port of Nagasaki, Japan.

Follow this link for Chapter 6.