Stokers Shadow by Paul Butler Read Free Book Online Page A

father’s work as a triviality.
    â€œFor goodness’ sake, don’t tell my mother that!”
    â€œShe doesn’t know I’m reading it. But I do like it,” she adds quickly.
    â€œWhat do you normally read?”
    â€œI’ve just finished reading Dickens’s Great Expectations, and before that Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster. Do you remember your father writing Dracula?”
    â€œNot really,” replies William. “He was very secretive and very busy. I just knew he was working on something big.” William’s mind scans over the dark years of boyhood. An imaginary splash of sea water drips down his face, an echo from last night’s dream. Just for an instant, he remembers the shipwreck of his childhood – the event mimicked in his nightmare. He can feel again the dragging motion of the lifeboat beneath him; he sees hands like pig’s trotters, pink and swollen, disappear into the black sea beyond the stabbing oar; faces red with mandarin grimaces submerge and rise and submerge again. He remembers his words called through the storm to his unhearing mother: “If Father was here he would save us all!” And then, as though linked by an invisible strand, the fragrance of wood polish and other vaguer perfumes of the theatre whoosh him into a rare childhood moment of privilege and triumph; he has been allowed backstage with his fatherwhose voice booms like a sea captain through the dark auditorium checking his men are at their posts.
    â€œMr. Seward!”
    â€œSir!”
    â€œMr. Harker!”
    â€œSir!”
    â€œMr. Renfield.”
    â€œSir.”
    Young William loves the pre-performance ritual. It confirms that his father is a god.
    William walks along happily beside Mary, realizing he is not thinking of Dracula, or even of his own cynical late boyhood years, the era in which it was written.
    â€œHow long did it take?” Mary asks further.
    â€œSix or seven years I think.”
    â€œSix or seven years!”
    William feels stung. He wonders what the girl’s amazement might mean considering her judgment of a moment ago. Does she think it’s the sort of novel that could have been whipped off in a week?
    â€œThat wasn’t his main career, you know,” he replies. “He was Henry Irving’s business manager as well.”
    â€œSir Henry Irving! Yes, I know. He must have been a great man to know. Maybe that’s where your father got his inspiration!”
    Mary looks down as though meditating on greatness.
    William sighs, watching her face for a second, feeling a weight of inevitability on his shoulders. He feels like one of the conspirators in Julius Caesar, boiling with acid cynicism,fuming at the praise unjustly heaped upon one who is celebrated, yet impotent to move even with his white-hot malice against a man who is already dead.
    â€œAnd you must have known him too?” she adds looking up with an open and trusting expression.
    Caught in mid-frown, William tries to relax his face. “Oh yes. I knew him.”
    Mary has slowed down as they are reaching the post box. William tips his hat and smiles. “Well, we must talk about this again, Mary.”
    Mary’s face breaks into a broad smile, dispelling the pride in William’s chest. It isn’t her fault, he says to himself, feeling affection for the girl, for her optimism and innocence. The same warmth oozes through William’s memories.
    He walks on alone with the afternoon fog descending around his shoulders. He is back in last night’s dream – the rocking carriage in vast, crystal night. He replays the vision of his father through the bedroom window. It’s curious how little this disturbs him, he reflects, considering how very much awake and sensible he felt at the time.
    And as he progresses slowly towards the damp-blurred lights of the main road, a memory comes to the forefront of his mind. He is in the Lyceum