What Am I?

By Xanpet

HISTORICAL NOTES: The first portable fountain pen was not invented until 1884. I therefore have no idea what Spike was writing with in this episode but I have him using a pencil. I would really hate to be the spouse or child of any of the writers or production team on the show, as they don't seem to be able to tell time or get a date right for toffee. In the shooting script the caption for the Yorkshire scene reads 1888 but the caption that went out on air in the UK and the one on the published video says 1880. This is the one I am using. There's not a lot else, enjoy and, please, tell me what you think!!!


Chapter Four: I Am a Vampire.

Well that was a nice. See, I told you I could cook. I'll leave you the recipe. No, I don't know anything about wine, well at least not according to Angelus. That's a whole 'nother story. Now come here and kiss me. Ye gods, that's good. You really want to? But you know how it ends. I don't really want to spoil a perfect evening. It gets rough. Yes, more rough. Okay, let's snuggle and I'll tell you.

Well, I got out alive but not really intact. I couldn't work for over a week, and the boss was really angry that I'd got beaten up, and wouldn't let me go back. He sent two other lads what wound up dead and dumped on the brand new Albert Memorial, so he stopped. Then, I'm coming out of the offices, one evening and I'm grabbed from behind and dragged round the back. It was a stinking alley at the rear of some kitchens. There was a fancy dinner party going on inside the hotel next door, and I could smell the roast meat and vegetables, and then the iron in my own blood as my nose hit the wall. A soft Irish voice hissed in my ear, "Been avoiding me boy, not wise."

"Nah, just busy, got other clients you know, lad got to work."

"Not anymore."

And then he was biting me and I thought I was going to die, but it wasn't a killing bite, it was a claim. Where? Here, see, just above my left shoulder. He ripped my trousers right up the seam so's he could enter. Gently though, no real violence and when he finished he kissed his mark, still fresh and bleeding, and whispered, "Remember, you're mine."

"How will I find you?" I asked, but he had gone.

I resigned the following day and went back to my lodgings. He came to me every night for a month. I invited him in without thinking or caring. Sometimes he was brutal, sometimes so considerate. I had never known such love. Yeah, love, that's what it was, or the vampire version of the same.

But eventually loving the vampire took its toll. - Be warned Sweetmeat, this is not safe. - I was in constant pain, tired and anaemic, and had acquired a hacking cough. I had bites on my bites and they would all scar. You should see me naked. No, I suppose they fade, but look closely, it's not good. Sally and Mary next door would no longer rabbit with me. My appearance actually scared them. I also wasn't earning so eventually I lost my digs. Destitute, sick and at the mercy of the vampire - and before you start I've never done that to anyone, alive or dead. - This was an Angelus special, this was.

It had to end one way or another. Early one morning, I made my decision. We had been in a cooper's workshop near Whitechapel not far from the Bell Foundry and the London Hospital. He'd fallen asleep after our bout and the sun had come up. He was trapped. I slid myself carefully from under him and put on my trousers and boots. I looked for my shirt but it was underneath him. As I bent down to slide it out, he grabbed me. "And just where do you think you're going?"

"Thought I'd half inch meself some breakfast."

"Liar." He yelled and belted me so hard I actually flew across the shed.

"Look, I need to eat."

"You're a liar boy."

"No honesty I do! Or I die."

"Well that can be arranged."

I didn't know what to do. I turned my baby blue peepers on him and wheedled, "I'll be back lover, trust me."

"Never!"

"Well don't then. See if I care?!"

"You'll care." He grabbed me and shook me until my teeth rattled in me head. "I'll knock you silly if you double-cross me Whelp, spoil those good looks of yours forever. No one will want you, dirty, cheap, used, guttersnipe if you are ugly as well. Filth that's what you are. Nothing and don't you forget it. I could turn you tomorrow and you'd still be filth, worthless body and soul."

I picked up my shirt and pulled it over my head. "I said you're going nowhere!" That clump had me stumbling into one of the supporting timbers. I hit the back of my head and started to see stars.

"Okay, look, there's no hurry. See, I'll blow you good before I go and I'll be right quick. Then we'll have the rest of the day. You know I'd never leave you, Angelus. I love you. We're only round the corner from the lane. Three minutes max."

Well we were more than three minutes from Brick Lane and he knew it, but what he hadn't noticed was, that I'd stopped picking up my clothing and was picking up his, item by item, and dropping them into a barrel. "I'll light a fire then we can have cooked bacon!"

"No!" He roared, but it was too late, I'd dropped the match in on top. Now if I'd been smart, I'd have kicked the darn thing over and saved us all some grief but as it was, I took my chances and bolted. He caught me of course, vampire speed and all that. But I was out into the lightwell streaming through the door, so he shoved me and I went flying, hit the door frame and was out into the sunlight.

That's the last I saw of him for a while. I left him there, trapped and nude, with a fire burning in a wooden barrel, in a timber building. You could have heard the roar from Greenwich to Cheapside.

I had problems of my own. It was taters outside and I was freezing. I had no hat, no scarf, no gloves, no coat, no socks, and no underwear. I was concussed and blood was running into my eye from the cut to my brow. Yes, here, see it's the shape of the doorframe. What are you doing? Kissing it better. I think I'm falling in love with you, you know that? You see, if you'd thought about it, it had to have happened when I was human, 'cos vampires don't scar. It's just another little gift from our Peaches.

I had no idea where I was going to go, but I staggered across the Whitechapel Road, over Cambridge Heath and on down, heading east all the time. The Whitechapel Road became the Mile End Road, became the Bow Road. I crossed the Channelsea at Bow Bridge and on into Stratford. What? Shakespeare? Uh uh, this is in East London, as far east as it gets, actually. Can't hear the bells see, not passed Stratford.

Still I kept going. Now I turned north and headed along the Romford Road. The blood had dried and the nausea was less, plus I wanted to put as much distance between him and me as possible. Eventually I came to the Roding. It was well past midday and the sun had melted the ice on the creek. I couldn't go no further so I sat down and stared at the water. Nowadays it's probably full of shopping trolleys and old bicycle tyres, but then it was fast flowing and crystal clear. There would have been cress beds further up and good fishing further down. Well, until they opened the sewage works anyway. The sunlight seemed to hypnotise. Into the river, if I tipped a little further I could just drop in and that would carry me back to the Thames. See, same end, just delayed that's all. Rivershit. - Yes I am! He was! Whatever!

I sort of noticed I wasn't alone. I looked up to see a bloke. Middle aged, broad faced, dressed kinda good. "Is it really that bad?" He asked.

"What the fuck would you know?"

"I see it is. Well we could fix that eye and find you a jacket, eh?"

"No, piss off, don't need none of your help. Don't need no one."

I was getting more and more airyated. I just wanted to die. How could I tell anyone about me? Unwanted rivershit that had been thrown away by his own mother; a runaway, a workhouse child, abandoned; a prostitute, a rent boy who serviced vampires and was nearly killed by one today. I felt so dirty and small and cheap and used. And my head hurt and I was hungry and cold, and I realised I had said that last bit and out loud, and that if I thought about it anymore I was going to cry, and I would never do that. Not for the last eleven years and not now.

"So let me help you." Now, how he didn't know I wasn't going to fuck him over I really don't know. But I had no fight left in me, so I allowed him to raise me and put me in his dray.

He took me to St John's, which was a hospital in Greater Ilford, just the other side of the Roding. It was good to be cleaned and tended. I had to be washed with iodine; I was so dirty and covered in mites. They treated all the infestations and wounds. Never commented on the state of my arsehole. I was in hospital for six weeks while the eye healed. Never could see well out of it after that, though. Still can't. Now there's a revelation isn't it? Spike has a blind spot on his left side. Ye gods, it's all coming out tonight. I have to wear specs to read, one of the reasons Dalton did most of the bookwork. Vanity thy name be William.

This geezer, Mr Burkett he was called, paid for all my treatment. Then he had a proposition for me. I could come to live with him in his boozer; he was the landlord see of the Cauliflower, a huge coaching inn and gin palace at Seven Kings, on the road to Romford.

How did he know I wouldn't steal from them, kill them all in their beds, rape his wife and daughters? Well he didn't. And that's the sort of trust, flower, that you don't betray. Anyway, I loved it. He let me be potboy. - I can't remember what you lot call it. - You know, clearing tables, collecting glasses. Bussing, yeah that's it. Then he found out I could cook, so he had me doing the food. Eventually he allowed me to keep his books. Showed me how to do ledgers, accounting, the works.

I would sit in my room at night and count my blessings. I could hope again, live again. I would read and write poetry. Trying to improve myself all the time. I would practise a nicer accent and dream. I could finally have hopes and dreams, and one of them was Cicely Addams.

Once a month I would have to go to town on business and take the books to the accountant. I was always back well before nightfall. Earnest Burkett thought I was just being good. I was just being careful.

One time, I was waiting outside the accountants, and this girl walked by. She was stunning. I like brunettes and she smiled at me. Then she whispered something to the chap what was with her. Next thing, he was asking me my name, "William J Hayter." I said, posh as you like. Every time I went to town after that I'd look for them. He was another clerk and she was his sister. I thought she was dreamy, clear skinned, fresh-faced, not a hint of paint or rouge. I wrote odes and sonnets to her. I'd learnt some off by heart from a school copybook I'd bought. - Okay, pinched - and I thought I could do better, meself.

I would talk to those in her company regularly, imitating their accents, trying to ingratiate myself into her society. It worked. I started to be invited to functions, but I was scorned when I didn't know which knife or which glass, I couldn't talk about politics or high art or the latest fashions. Forget the fact that I could speak and read four languages, two of them dead, that I could quote anyone from Chaucer to Dickens and understood the finer points of Greek science and Roman engineering. One time I fair lost me rag with one of her haughty taughty friends and nearly put him through a fucking window. William was rough and no good.

I asked Mrs Burkett to show me things, but she just laughed too, in a 'mumsy' sort of way, and ruffled my hair. "Don't be soft Wil', you're wonderful just as you are. You'll get a nice girl one day." By which she probably meant one of her daughters. But I didn't want a nice girl I wanted Cicely. So I bought newspapers and learnt them all by heart and wrote more poetry.

I must have been about twenty-two or twenty-three when I persuaded her brother to invite me to an evening do at Lincoln's Inn. I don't know why, it was a proper function and I had no proper function attire. See dress code was very important in them days. One should have worn formal dinner dress and all I had was my town suit. It wasn't even black. I'd shown myself up before I'd even entered the door. I'd also brought my poetry. Yeah, I know, soft as an old man's do dah.

It was one of those affairs that went on and on. I was out of my depth. I just sat and scribbled. The waiter came over to me and offered me hors-d'oeuvres. Fuck me, you should 'ave 'eard the accent I turned on 'im. "What's another word for illuminate? It's perfectly perfect as many words go but the bother is that nothing rhymes, you see?" Vowels so clipped I sounded like one of you Yanks trying to put it on!

I thought I'd better join the party. They were talking about a rash of disappearances. Animal attacks. Did I pay attention? Did I fuck! "I prefer not to think of such dark, ugly business at all." I don't know who I was trying to fool with the naive act. Suddenly, this big wanker of a toff, all moustache and tails, - not on him, on his coat, sigh, - snatches my papers. "Please," I said panicking, feeling a public humiliation in the offing, "Please, it's not finished." You know what the cunt did? Sorry but I have no time for slang with this fuckwit, he read it out loud, in front of the whole assembly. Something written for the ears of the one I loved. I snatched it from him and fled to the next room where Cicely had gone, obviously humiliated. Well it wasn't good!

I tried to talk to her, but she just said, "Leave me alone."

"They're vulgarians." I tried to comfort her, but that wasn't why she was there. Were my words about her, she wanted to know. I could not believe my luck. Remember me and luck? Her face said this was not the conversation I had dreamed of.

"Please," I said. I think I could have pleaded with these people forever. "Please - if they're no good they're only words. But the feeling behind them…I love you, Cicely." Well, I should never 'ave called her by her first name, so I guess maybe I asked for what came next.

"You're nothing to me, William, you're beneath me." When I think about it now, I obviously wasn't the only fan of the penny papers, regular Estella Havisham we had here. She could have played the role in theatres the length and breadth of the country. Bitch!

She left me there, sitting alone with my words and hers. How many more people in my life were going to tell me I was nothing? How many more could walk out on me before I broke, crumbling under the weight of my own self-loathing?

I left. I had to get out of there. I stormed out into the night, tearing up my hopes, my dreams, my life, as I went. This is what happens when you open your soul. - You know what? - I 'm fucking glad it's gone. I could hear those people laughing. I blundered out into the night, pushing down the rage and hurt. I didn't even see them. Banged right into him and didn't even notice.

Dru did though. She followed me down into an alley. "And here I wonder, what possible catastrophe came crashing down from heaven, and brought this dashing stranger to tears?"

She was more poetic in her raving than I had ever been in my most sane moments. I recognised her then. I thought I might fool her with the accent, "Nothing. I wish to be alone." She said I'd been alone too long. I'd been alone for twenty-three years.

"I see you - a man surrounded by fools who can't see his strengths, his vision, his glory. That and burning baby fish swimming all 'round your head." Well we are talking Drucilla after all.

"That's quite close enough," I said, "I've heard tales of bloody pickpockets." Oops that profanity just slipped out. "Christ Wil'," I thought, "Can't you keep it together for five minutes while you save your life?"

"You walk in worlds the others can't begin to imagine." She was enthralling me. Just like she had, five maybe six years before.

"Mother's expecting me." I know, what a liar! Although, I had begun to think of the Burketts as family and Edith Burkett would miss me. I had reached the end, however. Dru had me now.

She pulled my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams, even my very words, right out of my head. All my efforts to live since arriving at the Cauliflower, she could see 'ere in me loaf, and she was going to kill them.

What started as a kiss quickly became a bite. It hurt more than I thought and I cried out. I felt myself slipping away. It's a strange feeling, dying but not a painful one, not if you want it. My last thought, as her blood touched my lips, was of Jack. We sunk to the cobbles, there, entwined like the lovers we
became.

Becoming a vampire was a profound and powerful experience. I felt this new strength coursing through me. Being killed made me feel alive for the first time in a long time. I was through playing by societies rules. Uckfay emay, Victorian London was a cesspit of hypocrisy, abuse, deceit, betrayal, sexual repression and guilt. These were the real diseases of the city. Typhoid, cholera, gonorrhoea and TB were in reality the cures. It was over for me. I was free.

And yeah, that's right - Dru, Drucilla made me. It don't matter though, see she was his childe and he had already claimed me years before, 'sides Drucilla was mad, couldn't sire a kitten and I know, I watched her try. It took about two weeks for her to lose control on her fledge. I was so off the rails and into the spikes. Get it? I was putting the others in danger. He had to take charge. Spike is Angelus' childe make no mistake about that, China.

Well there you are. - What? - No. Never went back. - Just like the rest. Just like Billy and Carrie-Ann and Jack, I never saw the Burketts again. Now I have done with the bunny. - I want to fuck. - You of course, come on Alexander, let's go to bed.

~Fin~