by David Waine
CHAPTER 15
Thursday, November 8th, 1888
The day dawned and Joseph left for work as usual. Mary Jane watched him go, peeping through the slit in the curtains as he disappeared down Brick Lane in the direction of Billingsgate, then settling into what had become her daily routine. A routine is all very well, she told herself, as long as there is enough to fill your time, but in her case there wasn't. She swept out the three rooms as usual, but waited for the landlady's daughter to pass, trading innocent pleasantries through the closed bedroom door and listening hard until the girl left. Only then did she venture out on tiptoe to the apartment door. Here she waited with her ear pressed to the wood. She could hear the girl speak with other residents as she passed along the landing and finally recognised the telltale clatter of her feet descending the stairs to her own rooms on the ground floor. By this time she was desperate to answer a call of nature, so she slipped quickly downstairs, her shawl over her head, and outside to the privy. The landlady and her daughter heard her pass and nodded to one another knowingly.
“She's up to no good, that one,” muttered the mother, shaking her head.
“Oh, I don't know,” replied her daughter. “She's no bother really.”
“No bother!” retorted her mother hotly. “You don't believe all that tripe about her being a disfigured cousin from up country do you? She's a harlot, that's what she is and she'll bring disrepute on my house, she will!”
“Oh, she's a harlot all right,” acknowledged the girl, busying herself with a little light dusting, “but she keeps herself to herself and doesn't go out corrupting the other lodgers. And Mr. Barnet pays for two, remember, so we can't really complain.”
“Well,” shrugged her mother grudgingly, “at least they're quiet.” Unwelcome memories of previous residents who had been anything but quiet, especially when in a state of heightened sexual excitement, raised their ugly heads. “I'm prepared to put up with her a little while, but she'll have to go soon or our Mr. Barnet will be required to find new lodgings.”
Mary Jane heard none of this as she tiptoed back from the privy and up to Joseph's rooms. Once there, she locked the door behind her and crossed to the window that gave out onto Brick Lane. As usual, it was teeming with life, mostly tradesmen and sellers, male and female, conducting their business as they did every day. She stood to the side of the window, hidden by the curtain, examining every face as it approached up the road until it vanished beyond her field of vision. Sometimes she fancied one looked up at her window as he passed and she shrank back into the shadows.
Meanwhile events were taking a turn for the worse at Billingsgate Fish Market. The dingy oak-panelled office of R. M. Turlough, Purveyor of Fine Fish seemed to have acquired an additional layer of frost to that which still blanketed the streets all about.
Mr. Turlough, a reedy man in his mid-fifties, clad in a dark suit with deep blue cravat, adjusted his pince-nez spectacles on his nose and looked sharply at the young man standing before him, wringing his cap in his hands.
“Although I have no reason to be dissatisfied with you personally, Mr. Barnet, I am afraid this situation cannot be tolerated. I have my reputation to consider.”
Joseph's eyes grew wide in alarm. He spread his hands in supplication. “Mr. Turlough, please,” he gasped, “I've done nothing wrong. She's my cousin from up north. She's not well and she's come to stay with me for a while till she gets better.”
His employer looked up from the ledger he was busy compiling and squinted at Joseph through the lenses. “That is the story you have been putting about, Barnet,” he replied stiffly, “but we both know that it is not the truth. Word spreads in London. You ought to know that. I simply cannot risk my customers hearing that I employ a man who accommodates women of ill-repute.”
“There's plenty work on this market who employ 'em for what they do, Mr. Turlough,” answered Joseph fiercely, leaning over his employer's desk on his knuckles, “we both know that! And you would throw me out for trying to help one of them make a proper life for herself?”
Mr. Turlough held his peace for a moment, avoiding Joseph's gaze. Then he closed his ledger and sat back, tapping his fingers together under his chin. “As I have already indicated, Mr. Barnet, I have no reason to be dissatisfied with you personally, and if you really are doing as you claim, I applaud that. However I have a business to run and I rely on the trust and respect of long-established clients who will not be impressed when they hear of your activities. Above all, I must protect my own good name and that of this company. I cannot afford to have it tainted, even by association. This is not a moral judgement on my part; it is simply a matter of business. I did not make this decision lightly and regret to dismiss you in the light of your previous excellent record. I have no choice, however. You may collect your week's wages from the clerk on your way out. Good day to you.”
Back in Brick Lane, Mary Jane pulled her latest burnt offering from the oven and inspected it with an ominous mixture of dread and loathing. There was no sign of Joseph. A small flutter of panic rose in her stomach. She knew that if she left it, it would go cold and become even less edible, but if she put it back in the oven to keep warm, it would burn even more. Not for the first time, she did not know what to do. Eventually she decided on a compromise. She left it out for the time being, reasoning that she could always warm it up later when he finally returned.
She returned to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. Although there was a small supply of gin in the apartment, she had deliberately refrained from plundering it as part of her effort to make herself respectable, so tea it was by day.
The old clock above the fireplace softly chimed seven. He should have been back an hour since.
“Come on, Joseph. Come back. What’s keeping you?” Spending most of her time alone had resulted in her talking to herself. It had been happening for weeks. “You should be back by now. Don’t keep me waiting. I’m worried. It’s dark. I’m frightened.”
She settled herself on the sofa in front of the fire, after first banking it up for the evening's warmth. She cradled her generous mug of tea in her hand and had taken three tentative sips from it when she heard the street door bang on the floor below and the scraping of heavy feet on the staircase.
She rose, alarm pounding in her breast. The footsteps were making straight for their door.
The knob turned and the door opened. Joseph stood in the doorway, leaning against the lintel in a most uncharacteristic manner. A beer bottle hung from his free hand. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes had a glazed look, which she recognised only too well. She had seen it on a thousand faces before.
“I'll… I'll get your dinner,” she stammered.
“Don't bother,” he grunted, coming into the room unsteadily and setting the bottle on the table.
She hesitated by the kitchen door. “Joseph, what’s the matter? Where’ve you been?”
Pulling a dining chair out from beneath the table, he seated himself on it and buried his face in his hands. “To the pub,” he replied miserably. “To a lot of pubs actually, saying farewell to the future. We’re done for, Mary.”
She sat down opposite him and took his bleary face in her hands. “What are you talking about?”
“What I say,” he replied frankly. “You’d better pack your bags. Oh no, you haven’t got any, have you? Make a bundle then.”
“What do you mean?” The sense of alarm was threatening to overwhelm her.
He took a noisy slurp from his bottle and set it back on the table with a loud thump. “I’m talking about my big boast. How I could look after you and we could build a new life together. I tried, Mary Jane. I did try.” She could sense the telltale sparkle of tears at the back of his eyes. “You know that. But you were right. It’s a dream, just a dream. There’s nothing real there. And now we’re both down the river.”
True horror now gripped her. “What’s happened, Joseph?”
Raising his eyes to meet hers at last,
he took her hands from his face and laid them gently on the table, placing his own palms on top of them. “I’ve been to work. Thought I'd earn enough money so we could get out of London. Maybe go somewhere quiet and start again. Somewhere where people don’t care about where you’ve been and what you’ve done. Somewhere we could live and be happy. In the country maybe. Perhaps I could work on a farm.”
“Yes?” The suggestion sounded absurdly attractive, but her wavering heart knew that more was to come.
“So the old man calls me into his office and tells me, outright, that he’d heard I’d been keeping company with a ‘woman of ill-repute’ and asked me if I could confirm that.”
“And did you?”
He shook his head. “Not at first. I stuck to the story about you being my sick cousin and looking after you.”
“Did he believe you?” She knew the answer before he gave it.
Joseph shook his head. “No. He believed the gossip because that's what his customers would believe. So I came clean. I told him what I was really doing. I told him that I was trying to help you to start again in life, which is only God's pure truth, isn't it?” He hung his head again.
Mary Jane waited a heart-pounding moment before asking her next question. “What did he say to that?”
“He accepted it,” replied Joseph softly. “But he also said that he had his reputation to consider. If word got out that he employed someone who consorted with ladies of the night, it would reflect badly on him. He respected my motives, but although he said he had no reason to be dissatisfied with me personally, he ‘regretted’ to dismiss me before trade suffered through no fault of his own.”
The whole world collapsed on Mary Jane's shoulders. “He sacked you!”
“There and then.”
“Because of me!” Her hand crept to her mouth in anguish. “Oh, God!” She dissolved into tears.
Her reaction jerked him out of his own misery and he took her hand. “Cut that out. I can’t handle the waterworks. Mary Jane, we’ve got to look to the future.”
“What future?” she cried, tearing her hand from his and turning away. “We don’t have one. I never had one and I’ve just destroyed yours. I told you this would happen. I begged you to let me go!”
An hour later they lay side by side in his bed, their shared misery having temporarily expiated itself in the only recourse either of them could take. It was but a brief respite, however, for their mutual gloom returned as soon as their passion subsided.
“We’ve got to think,” he said quietly, his hand fumbling for hers under the sheet.
Her reply carried an ominously fatalistic tone. “What can we do, Joseph? Like you said, we’re both down the river. What is there left for us?”
“That’s the drink talking,” he said with a small grunt. “I’m beginning to sober up now. I can see things a little clearer. We’ve got to get out of here, Mary.”
She knew he was clutching at straws, but she loved him all the more for it. At least he was making some attempt, whereas she could only see her own horrifying doom. “Where? How?”
“Anywhere,” he replied with an artificial lightness in his tone. “It doesn’t matter where. Anywhere that’s away from him.” He turned his head to face her. “As for how, we could start by walking.”
“We’ll walk straight into the workhouse,” she told him, her common sense woman's head seeing with greater clarity than his dreaming man's one. “There’s no escape for the likes of you and me.” Her finger traced a gentle line from his chest to his navel. “I’ve spent time in a workhouse. Have you?”
“No.”
“We’ll be separated,” she told him. “Never see each other again. It's meant to stop us having nippers together. It’s like a bleedin’ prison. The windows are so high you can't see out, and even if you could, you'd only see a high wall. They think it’s a crime to be poor, them overseers, and they see you’re well punished for it. Is that what you want?”
“No.” He shook his head miserably.
Now her finger dug him in the ribs, jerking him into full wakefulness again. “Well, it's what's going to happen if we don't do nothing about it.”
“Don’t talk like that, Mary.” He was becoming drowsy, the effects of the alcohol re-establishing themselves.
“It’s true!” she cried, digging him hard and forcing his eyes open. “If we’re to escape from here, we need money.”
His voice betrayed the exasperation, bitterness and helplessness that he still felt. “Well, we haven’t got any!”
“So let’s get some. Now,” she urged him, “before it's too late!”
He turned and looked at her, bewildered. “I’m not a thief, Mary.”
Her eyes bored into his. “But I am a whore, Joseph.”
Realisation dawned. A look of pathetic distress crossed his face. He tried to raise objections, but his heart wasn't fully in it, for he understood the logic of her words. “No! Not that. You’ve left that behind you. Don’t go back.”
Her stare increased. “What choice have I got? I’ve done it before. It won’t be any different. I survived that and I’ll survive this. Or have you got thousands stashed away under your bed?”
In a vain attempt to deflect her from her proposed course of action, he cupped her breast in his hand and began to fondle it. “I’ve got a bit put by.”
She brushed his hand away. “How much?”
“A little.”
“And how much of it went down your throat, Joseph, while you were feeling sorry for yourself?”
Defeated, he turned away from her. “Don’t press me, Mary Jane! I’m at my wit’s end. I can’t take it.”
“No, and do you think I can?” she asked roughly, pulling him back to face her.
“I’ll think of something,” he said pathetically.
“Like what?”
“I’ll get another job.”
She relaxed her stare a little. At least she had coaxed something out of him, even if it came to nothing as it almost certainly would. She could not let him relax altogether though. “Oh, yes. They grow on trees in Whitechapel, don’t they?”
“The old man will give me a reference,” he ventured, without resolution.
She laughed bitterly out loud. “Well, that’s so noble of him! And when the new fellow asks why you left his employ, he’ll say he sacked you for hanging about with a tart. Then where will your reference be?”
“Then I’ll get a job without a reference,” he replied stubbornly.
This time she really did laugh and rolled onto her back. “I’ve already tried that,” she said finally. “That’s why I became a tart, Joseph, remember? I needed a change from all the honest work lying about.”
“I said I’ll find one,” he retorted grumpily. “I'll take anything. I'm not choosy.”
“How? What'll you find?” She was pressing him again, but the effects of the drink were returning.
“I don’t know. It might take some time. Let me sleep on it.”
She lay along the length of his body, kissing him softly. Her voice murmured in his ear. “Tired are you? Talk to me about tired, Joseph. I’ve been to the far end of tired and back again these past weeks. You rest yourself. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be sleeping sound soon enough.”
His eyes jerked open. “What do you mean?”
She shook her head, a sad smile in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what I mean. You gave me hope, and I’ll always be grateful for that. Don’t you ever forget it.”
His eyes opened wide again. “You're talking morbid.”
She shook her head softly. “No, I'm not.” Her hand began an exploration that produced an immediate reaction in his loins. Although his mind was dulled with drink, his body had not fully followed suit. “Make love to me, Joseph,” she whispered, “one more time, and we'll see what the morning brings.”
He was unable to resist. “Oh, Lord, I can’t argue no more. Nothing makes sense. The drink's
pulling me down, Mary. It’ll look better in the morning. You’ll see.”
Full night had fallen. Joseph Barnet lay flat on his back, fast asleep. Mary Jane Kelly lay beside him, her finger gently stroking his cheek, watching his peaceful sleeping face dully illuminated by the firelight coming through the open doorway from the parlour.
Trying not to disturb him, she eased herself gently out of the bed and washed her crotch at the hand basin, readying herself for further assignations that night. Their respective garments lay in a tangled trail from the parlour to the bed where they dropped them having stripped them off each other as their desire mounted. She retraced the path, donning her own clothes and piling his neatly on a chair. When she came to his coat, temptation overcame her. Rifling through his pockets, she discovered just how little he had left.
“Little indeed,” she muttered, returning the coins to the pocket. In spite of her peril, she could not bring herself to rob him as she had so many other punters. “There isn’t enough to feed us tomorrow, let alone get us out of here and somewhere safe. We might have made it, you and me, if you hadn’t gone and drowned your sorrows, you selfish idiot!” Tears immediately sparkled in her eyes and she touched his cheek lightly. “Oh, I’m sorry, Joseph,” she whimpered, “I didn't mean that. It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I told you I was bad for you. You should have left me in the gutter where you found me. It’s where I belong. Now you’ve lost your job and your hopes, and it’s all down to me.” As she rose, she kissed him lightly. Pausing at the doorway, she looked back at his sleeping form. “I’ll make it up to you, Joseph,” she promised. “Trust me. I’ll be back in the morning with some money. Maybe we can still get away and start again. I don’t need a job. There’s hundreds of girls on the streets. He can’t rip us all. Anyway, nothing’s happened for weeks now. Maybe he's stopped. Maybe he’s dead. I’ll be all right.” She knew that her words lacked resolution. “Nothing I haven’t done before. I love you, my Joseph. You gave me hope.”