by Cameron Nunn
“Maybe you could talk to Dad about . . .” Will began.
Joy snorted. “I think we all know where that’d lead.” She lit the cigarette and breathed in deeply, blowing the smoke towards the ceiling. Her tongue curled up and rested on her upper lip. “There are some people . . . there are some men . . .” Joy began. “Your father is one of those men. But I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”
Joy left them to go to work, with instructions not to touch anything. They were allowed to watch television. She worked in an animal shelter, and Will had a feeling that her job must have been to put down animals who weren’t collected by their owners. Will could imagine her with a syringe and that blood-red pursed smile, telling the animals how inconvenient it was for them not to have been collected.
Rosie was content to watch TV until she got hungry.
“I don’t know what we’re allowed to eat,” Will said. “If we eat something we’re not supposed to, Joy will get the shits.”
Rosie gasped.
“You know what I mean, Rosie.”
Will only had a few dollars in his pocket. He hadn’t thought about taking any money when Joy came to collect them. He looked at the coins in his hand. It wasn’t much but it’d get them a packet of chips. But when he went to the door he found that Joy had deadlocked it. Damn it. He wondered whether it was just a habit or whether she was worried that she’d return and find they’d run away. They were trapped.
In the end, he took a packet of biscuits that he hoped Joy wouldn’t miss. If she got angry, he’d take the blame and say it was his idea, not Rosie’s.
The hours dragged. Will wanted to ring the hospital but hesitated as his finger hovered over his phone. What if they wouldn’t give him any information or they told him that his mum was dead? The smell of stale smoke lingered. He wasn’t even sure which hospital they’d taken her to anyway.
He decided to text Marty and Jeff. Will tried to work out what to say. He couldn’t bring himself to say that his mum had tried to kill herself, so he just typed, Mum’s really sick. Got rushed to hospital last night. Don’t know if she’ll be okay.
Will wasn’t sure what he wanted them to say or do. He just wanted someone to care enough about what was happening. A few minutes later, Marty replied: Sucks about your mum. Did you tell your dad you’re coming to the party tonight?
Will stared at the screen for what felt like ages. A voice screamed in his head, I don’t give a shit about the party. I don’t give a shit about my dad. Don’t you get it? I’m stuck in this hole of a flat and I don’t even know if my mum is alive or not. Why would I want to go to your frigging party? He could feel the anger surging inside and he squeezed his face tight to hold it in. Tears stung his eyes.
Rosie was watching him with a worried face. With an enormous effort, he pushed it back down.
“Why don’t you play a game on my phone?” he said, throwing it onto the couch. “It’s about all it’s good for.” He wanted to smash something. He wanted to smash everything.
When Joy returned that evening she brought Chinese. Will could sense Rosie about to say that they didn’t eat Chinese take-away but he shot her a look so severe that she said nothing. They ate in silence.
Joy picked at a solitary spring roll. “What did you do today?” she finally asked.
Will shrugged. There was nothing to say.
“I watched TV,” Rosie said.
“I’m sure it wasn’t much fun. I’m sure you’d rather be . . . with someone else. Of course you’re most welcome here.” Joy’s phone rang and she smiled blood-red.
“So, you finally decided to return my call . . . Well, you’re not the only one who’s worried . . . The children are very happy here . . . Well, who do you think is going to look after them? . . . You should have thought about that . . . Well, whose fault do you think that is? . . . Have you looked in a mirror lately? . . . and what if I think the children should stay with me? . . . I know the children would prefer to be here, in fact I’ve just told them they’re welcome to stay, and they were jumping up and down with excitement . . .”
Without warning Joy began a slow, deep chuckle. Will wasn’t sure what his father had said but the laugh got the response Joy clearly wanted. He could hear his father shouting down the other end of the phone. Joy held it out for Will and Rosie to hear. She smiled and then did the same thing again. She held the phone away from her ear to enjoy the response she was getting. Then she hung up and switched off her phone.
“I might take tomorrow off. We could go to the movies. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”
“How’s Mum doing?”
“Gail?” Joy looked like she’d just remembered her. “She’s doing as well as you might expect. All things considered. I can’t say that I’m surprised. I mean, I could hardly blame her.”
“For what?” Rosie asked.
Joy looked at her strangely for a moment, as if she’d only just realised she was there. “Never mind. Your father thinks it’d be a good idea if you spent some time with your grandparents. Of course, you’re more than welcome to stay here and I told your father that, but among his many faults, well . . . I can’t imagine how Gail puts up with it.” She paused and then added, “Your father is being ridiculous.” She stood abruptly and cleared the plates. “He’ll be over tomorrow afternoon to pick you up. I’m not sure when we’ll get back from the cinemas, so he might just have to wait a while. But that’s what happens when you expect other people to dance to your tune.”
“If he has to wait, he’ll get cross,” Rosie said. “He hates waiting.”
“That’s his problem, not mine.”
There is no greater stink than the stench of Newgate Gaol. It licks your face and eats into your skin. If ever I were to think of what hell might look like, it’d be Newgate. Those to come to trial are held together – the murderers, the fences and common prigs. It’s one shivering mass of sin. The clinking of fetters makes a choir of metal, like the souls of the damned. Those what can afford to pay the gaoler the ‘garnish’, can have the easement of irons, as they call it. In summer, the walls sweat a black ooze what then freezes in winter and turns men’s bones to ice. Were it not for Amos, I might’ve starved.
By whatever means, Amos heard that I’d been taken that night, and after being carried to the cells in Great Marlborough Street, went before a magistrate the next day. There it were decided I’d go to Newgate to stand trial in the Old Bailey. It were Amos who paid the garnish and made sure I’d a blanket and food. Each day he’d come to the yard to pay fees and offer hope. Amos had found out on good authority I’d be charged with larceny rather than housebreaking. That were good, he encouraged me. I were to go before a jury rather than just a magistrate and might be found not guilty, if there were cause enough to doubt. That were also good. Even if they found me guilty, it were likely I might only be sent to Clerkenwell or Tothill Fields for a few months.
All men in Newgate either cling to some faint hope or slide into despair. They tell themselves there’ll be a mistake in the indictment what’ll set them free, or that the prosecutor or witnesses won’t appear at the trial. They swagger round the yard, pretending as though the whole stink is naught more ’n a village fair. They buy gin and they gamble at all sorts of games. There are them what says they care not, even if they are sentenced to death, for they’re sure it won’t be carried out. But in everyman’s heart, he fears the hangman like he fears the Devil. Everyone prays not to be dispatched by prison ship or hangman’s noose. ’Tis only the fool and the madman who fear neither.
Bran weren’t to be found, Amos told me. He’d searched for him on the waterfront, where he’d work at times when he were sober. Although I wished him dead, I told Amos he were more likely dead drunk in a gin house or a brothel. My mother were convinced he were gone and she blamed me. The one time she came to see me at Newgate afore the trial, she spent the whole time weeping at what were to become of her and my brother. Even through the stench of the gaol I
could smell the sour stink of gin about her. Her body were a broken mess of lumpy bruised flesh and rags. Her teeth were rotted and the decay were slowly working from her head down. I just wished her gone. In truth, I knew Bran would only be gone as long as it’d take for the trial to finish. He’d be afraid that I might name him to save myself. Sooner or later he’d return like a bad penny.
It were more ’n a month before I were told that I were to come before the magistrates and have my case heard. I were brought in with seven others that morning. I were the seventh. Heavy irons were fitted to both hands and feet, and we were brought up from the prison to the court through a passageway what joined the two buildings. Inside were like I imagined a cathedral must be. We stood in the dock, facing the witness box. There were six magistrates, all set high. They wore black robes. The jury sat to the left and the right. A man sitting in front of the magistrates read the charges of highway robbery against the first four men. All were condemned to death but recommended mercy. Another man about Bran’s age were charged with stealing boots. He told them how he were poor and only took the boots to help his family. Unluckily for him, the magistrate knew him for an old lag what he’d sentenced twice before and sent him down as a lifer. Only the woman before me were set free and that were on account of her accuser not being found.
When it were my turn, the man read the indictment that I were charged with larceny for stealing a quarter weight of lead from the house of Mr Green of 14 Henrietta Street, Marylebone. Like each of the others I pleaded not guilty. I’d practised saying it with such confidence that one of the magistrates looked up for the first time.
First, it were Mr Green who stood in the box and laid his charges. He were a gentleman in a blue jacket and brown pants. It were his servant who heard the commotion on the roof and alerted the household. They’d come outside, so they said, to see the prisoner slipping down the roof. It were only the next day that a tradesman who were fixing the roof noticed the lead flashing had been removed.
One of the beaks asked all the questions. “Did you see the prisoner with the lead?”
“No.”
“Did you see anyone, say an accomplice, take the lead?”
“No.”
“So it’s possible that the missing lead and the boy you saw on the roof could be unrelated.”
Mr Green paused for a moment. “It is possible but I think it unlikely.”
After Mr Green, there were more witnesses who had seen me on the roof or who’d taken me when I fell.
I’d been told to remain silent until I were to give evidence. “Sir,” I said when I were permitted to speak, “I were walking along Oxford Street when a man come to me and said he were a tradesman and he’d left a hammer up on the roof when he were working. He said, ‘I will give you sixpence if you will climb onto the roof and retrieve it for me.’ I climbed up onto the roof but slipped and fell.” It were a terrible story but try as I might I couldn’t give any better account for being on the roof.
“And the lead. What did you do with the lead?”
“I know naught about no lead, Sir.”
“And this man who asked you to go onto the roof, this accomplice, does he have a name?”
“I don’t know about no accomplice, Sir. I were just getting his hammer.”
“This man with the missing hammer,” he paused for effect. “This man, why didn’t he just wait until the next day and retrieve it himself?”
“I don’t know,” I said. It were a hollow lie, but it were the best I had.
It only took the jury around a minute to agree that I were guilty but to recommend mercy because of my age.
The magistrate leaned forward and pinned me with his eyes. “That you, and others not here, stole the lead is beyond any doubt. There are far too many boys who roam the city each night committing all sorts of depredations. Had you not fallen, I am certain there would have been many other houses that would have been missing lead by morning. The jury have asked for me to exercise mercy. I therefore intend to do the most merciful thing that I can, and that is to transport you for seven years to such a place as to be determined and thereby save you from the gallows. My hope is that by cutting your career in crime short, you will be a lesson to other boys, and in time be a blessing both to yourself and London.”
He banged his hammer down and all seven of us were dragged back down towards Newgate – one to be set free, and the others to go wherever His Majesty might decide.
After weeks of waiting, everything were now a whirlwind. We were stripped and our heads shaved. They took my clothes and gave me grey prison slops to wear. They took my name and entered a number in their doomsday book.
“Where do we go now?” I asked the wardsman. “If I’m to be sent away, I have to speak to some people before I go.”
“No need to fret yerself.” He spoke so quickly that it weren’t easy to understand everything he said.
I picked up that it’d be weeks or months before I’d be sent. In the meantime the boot thief and I would be taken to the north side of Newgate to await removal to the hulks at Chatham. The remaining four were to be taken to the condemned cells to await either mercy or the drop. None of them either spoke or wept as their heads were shaved. It were as though someone had already taken their souls. I’ve never seen such broken men, wretched beyond despair.
Will’s father had been waiting nearly an hour by the time Joy brought them back from the cinemas. Will was nearly sick with worrying about how his father would react. Rosie must have sensed it also because Will found her taking hold of his hand. Joy chattered the whole time they were in the car. She’d enjoyed herself, so she kept saying.
Will’s dad was sitting in his car as they pulled into the parking space outside the unit.
“Have you been waiting long?”
“About an hour.” His voice was flat.
“Terribly sorry about that. I couldn’t quite remember what time you said. You were shouting so much that it was hard to think. I could’ve taken the children home if that was more convenient. You know me. Always happy to help.”
Will waited for his father to explode. Instead he saw him crumple in on himself a little more. “I’ve been at the hospital,” his dad said.
“And?”
“They won’t know for some time if there’s been any permanent damage.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Joy, it means what it means. They don’t know . . . I don’t know why . . .” He paused, which was all Joy needed.
“Perhaps I could offer some suggestions there.”
Again Will waited for his father’s anger but instead his voice continued in the same lost tone. “I’m not going to argue, Joy. Not now. Not tonight. See her tomorrow, if you want. She’ll be allowed more visitors tomorrow. I’m going to take the kids home now.”
Will’s father mechanically ushered them towards his car. Rosie was still holding Will’s hand as they reached the door.
“No need to say thank you for looking after the children,” Joy called, in one last attempt.
For a moment his father stopped but then Will felt a hand take his upper arm, pushing him on. It wasn’t an angry push, just a firm determination to get them into the car.
“Is Mum going to be alright?” Rosie blurted as soon as they were inside.
“Yes. Yes, I think so.”
“When is she coming home?”
“I don’t know. The doctors will need to run more tests and then . . .” His voice trailed off.
They drove home in silence.
Will had never noticed it before, but the house smelled like their mother. Not like on the night when they found her, but warm and happy and sad at the same time. She was everywhere; in the furniture and cupboards, in the half-painted wall that she’d been so excited about and then had lost interest in. She whispered through the bright colours and the empty spaces.
“Joy said we were going to stay at Gran and Pa’s place,” Will said.
He knew them only
as names. Gran had been to Sydney a few times when Will was little, but he couldn’t remember what she looked like. He remembered asking his mum why Pa never visited and her telling him that perhaps Pa was happy staying on the farm. It’d been years since he’d seen Gran, and apart from a card and money each birthday they were strangers to him.
“I just need time, Will. Please don’t argue.” His voice was tight.
“I wasn’t arguing. I just wanted to know.”
“Just don’t give me any grief, please. It’s just one thing I ask. Please don’t make a major thing out of it, alright? It’s only for a few weeks, or maybe a month. I can’t go into it now. For once in your life I just need you not to argue.”
Will stood there helplessly. He could feel his head throbbing. This was how all the fights started with his mum. His dad would argue against shadows of his own making, until his mum started crying and locked herself in her room. Will knew there was nothing he could say; nothing that his father would hear, so he turned and walked into the kitchen to get away. Rosie followed him in. He heard his parents’ bedroom door close and he knew he wouldn’t hear from his father again that night.
“He’s not angry,” Will said before Rosie could say anything. “He’s just worried about Mum and the shop.”
Rosie nodded. “Where do Gran and Pa live?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“On a farm somewhere. Near Bathurst or Orange or something. Don’t worry.” He tried to sound reassuring but his voice was empty. “It’ll only be a few weeks.” He put his arms around Rosie and held her against him like Mum used to do. But he wasn’t Mum and the whole world was being sucked out into the ocean of salty tears. “You need to go to bed,” he said.
The kitchen was the same as it had been on that night. The beans were still in the microwave. Will mechanically scraped them into the bin. He tried to think about what he’d need to pack, but the picture of his mum, lying on the floor, ambulance men hunched over her, pushing on her chest, wouldn’t leave him. He felt their force on his own chest, as if he’d been lying there. She’d wanted to leave them. The thought slapped Will so hard that he staggered backwards. She’d wanted to leave them, and if Rosie hadn’t gone in, she would have.