DEFOE
Oblivion calls
May 1724
He quills the following on a small calling card.
Darling Mary,
Business requires me late in the City. I shall retire with my old friend Arnott or at an inn at Islington (I forget its name). I hope you haven’t prepared anything elaborate. I know we bicker. I know I’m impossible. But you’re all that keeps me. Your thick hair, I imagine it now, gathered inside your cap like a great story waiting to be told. James by your side, sucking the muslin wide-eyed. Without you I’m hopeless. I love you my darli
He has used both sides of the card. The messenger, a boy of ten or eleven years, waits listlessly.
‘Do you have another card?’ Defoe asks the boy, who shakes his head.
‘No, sir.’
‘You deliver this to Mary Tuffley at Stoke Newington. You tell her that I ran out of card and I will return for supper tomorrow.’
‘I will, sir.’
The boy takes the card, and slides it inside a satchel already stuffed with envelopes.
‘How many other deliveries do you have?’ Defoe asks.
‘Only ten sir, but ’tis a good route, see. I run mighty fast.’
Defoe turns to the boy’s master, Duncan Babbage, who is busy drawing a route for another courier.
‘I can have him go directly to Stoke Newington,’ Babbage offers. ‘But there’ll be an accompanying fee.’
‘How much more?’
‘Two shillings more.’
‘That’s more than three times the price!’
‘And the boy will be four times as efficient. The advantage will be yours.’
‘You pay him in bread, it hardly costs you more.’
‘I’ll do it for a shilling and an ’alf.’
The boy, his two eyes bright behind his begrimed face, scratches at his ear.
‘No, no,’ Defoe says. ‘As it was.’
He pulls a farthing from his purse and hands it to the boy, winking. Defoe notes the flimsiness of his purse. Once a heavy thing, the coins now tinkle with infrequent collision. Reluctantly, he peers into the majority of leather.
It begins rising, deliciously unbidden. It has been at least a year since last time, he thinks, as his feet set into motion. Gin is faster and cheaper than ale, mixed with the apothecary’s tincture. The setting is important. Removed from the wealth of Bury Street but away from the sluttery of St Giles. No conversation, no explanation, no history. Spitalfields, by the manufactories, that is where I’ll do it, Defoe thinks.
The first apothecary he sees is on Trentham. A poorly stocked, dusty basement down steep stairs. Defoe has only to mutter a few words about pain and sleeplessness before the old man nods and turns to his shelves. He crushes a white rock into a solution, then stirs it with a long metal spoon, peering eye-level with the mixture.
‘Make it nice and strong,’ says Defoe. ‘I’m no small man.’
‘You won’t be lacking effect.’
Defoe nods, watching.
‘How long, do you think, to Spitalfields?’
‘By foot?’
‘Aye.’
‘Spitalfields,’ the man says, momentarily pausing at his mixing to watch as the high grimy window is brushed by the filigree lace of a woman’s dress. ‘I would suppose an hour. Or more.’ The man picks up a large pestle, begins grinding a dried leaf, takes a pinch and then sprinkles it into the mixture. ‘Extra half-shilling for the vessel.’
‘Have you change?’ Defoe asks, pulling out his final sovereign. The apothecary sighs and rummages through his apron-front.
‘Give it a good shake,’ he says, handing over the brown liquid. ‘Like so.’
Defoe nods.
‘There’s enough there to last you a week. No more than this much per day.’ He holds a blue fingertip to the tube.
Defoe nods, slips it into his pocket and climbs the stone stairs, the sounds of the wet street loudening with every step.
When he reaches Threadneedle, he enters the first ginhouse he can find. A moustachioed bartender numbs him with choices and combinations: juniper, saffron, gooseberry, citrus, lavender. He lifts up different bottles, dismembered bits of fruit and seeds bobbing about inside them as he discusses merits and processes.
‘I’ll leave it in your expert hands,’ says Defoe. ‘A triple portion, and diluted a little.’
‘I beg you not dilute,’ says the bartender. ‘You’ll mask the flavour. Our process here favours –’
‘Good Heavens,’ Defoe exclaims. ‘I have enough of decisions outside. Here, I just want a gin!’
‘As you wish,’ sulks the bartender.
Defoe takes the mug to a booth in the corner, the table shadowed by its high, darkly panelled partitions. He ventures a small gulp of the liquor, wincing. Hunching over his table so none will see, he takes the phial from his pocket, shakes it thrice to disperse the dirty meniscus, then measures out a double dose. His stomach revolts as the cool tin of the mug touches his lips.
If he dies, it would at least be a complete solution. His father would surely support Mary and the children to a tolerable standard. Defoe imagines himself sinking in the Thames, the downward drift of his body, arms and legs slightly raised, eyes open and lifeless. He’ll hit the riverbed, torso convex from a mossy boulder beneath his back. There he’ll lie, looking up at the bellies of passing boats (private wherries, warmed ale, motherfuckers!). But he will live on! Defoe’s posthumous glory won’t be his letters, but his many and various debts.
Defoe takes out his inkpot, quill and a scrap of paper, and begins drawing the outline of a tombstone. Giggling to himself, he draws little tufts of grass where the stone enters the earth, then writes an inscription:
Herein lies:
Master Daniel Defoe
Writer, Trader, Unclefucker
Born: 1660
Died: Not soon enough
Owing as follows:
15 on shit portraits
17 for useless stairway
30 for dead civet cats
He scrunches the page and leans back, looking at the candelabra, waiting. The low ceiling is burnt black in six places. Nothing yet, Defoe thinks. Impatient, he unstops the phial again, emptying the entire contents into his mug. This will hurt.
‘Indeed it will,’ Defoe says. ‘But welcome all the same.’
He wakes in Spitalfields to a cold sunlight. His two pumps point upwards. It takes Defoe a moment to register that the buckles have been ripped off. He is leaning against a workshop wall. On the other side of the road, through a high-clearance driveway, children are rubbing at marble fireplaces and columns, a foreman circling. None of the workers is older than fourteen. In the manufactory next door, two men in gas masks and leather aprons overturn a barrel of sludge onto the road. Rivers of thick black slime surge forward like snakes. His head begins thumping with alarming pressure, followed by a lurch of nausea.
‘Water,’ he says to no one, unmoving.
Surveying his dress, he sees that the pearled buttons of his coat have similarly been ripped off, and his pantaloons are caked in clumps of mud that have stiffened in the sun. His beloved cane is of course nowhere to be seen, and his pockets, likewise, are empty, save the quotation from the Thief-Taker General, Jonathan Wild. His quill and portable inkpot are gone.
Defoe stands up, swaying on the spot, then groans and leans against the wall. The children’s polishing is paused as they turn and watch the beast emerge from its hibernation. His arse and general groin area are wet, and it’s impossible to know if this is a result of incontinence or last night’s rain.
He stumbles to a well, with a vague memory of approaching it last night. The bucket is thankfully abrim with fresh rainwater. There is no ladle, so he leans over and drinks thirstily from his hands. Momentarily he examines a single droplet hanging from the bucket, through which he sees a distorted world, that soon falls away.
He staggers along Commercial Street, then turns into traffic on Carthusian, sliding
past a wagon of oinking pigs imprisoned behind greyed boards. As a horse waits, seemingly to pass the time, it shits a steaming pile. The sight turns his stomach, and he stops to lean against the wall of a lodging house. Three men exchange comments in a cloud of pipe smoke. First comes the growl of Defoe’s stomach, a few involuntary spits, then he spreads his legs and vomits. All the water that was drunk at the well is expunged, and when there is nothing left, his stomach continues to convulse without result. He doesn’t look up to survey the audience, but steps onward, wiping his mouth.
‘Shameful,’ someone mutters behind him.
WILD
I go to a knocking shop AKA whorehouse to assert myself sane, and watch of puppetry at Covent Garden
1705
’Twas a blustery evening and My Lord Uxbridge was due to return to Middlesex for a season of banquets with Lady Uxbridge née Windshuttle. The panes of My Lord’s privy rattled in their frames as we discussed the business that I was to attend to in his absence. He was entrusting me with more than I could believe viz. settlement of a recently bought brewery, rent collection from various estates, and management of his export accounts.
‘You must draw up your own bills for the powder factory,’ said he, handing me a swathe of papers. ‘And compare them to Roger Carroll’s. He is stealing. Everyone is stealing.’
‘I’ve been told the corn harvest is low-yielding,’ said I, maybe too quickly.
‘You must ignore these lying tenants …’ began Uxbridge. But then his eyes went weak. ‘Little chick,’ he implored. ‘We mustn’t only speak of business. I’m to be gone more than a month.’ He took my hand and brought it to his lips, nibbling at the knuckles.
‘Quite windy,’ said I, taking my hand back.
‘Let us keep each other warm.’
‘I’ll turn up the fire.’
I tried standing but Uxbridge pulled me down. He desperately searched my eyes. I suppose it was a reverse Eureka – we were both in the bath and I’d stood up, leaving him shivering in half the quantity.
‘Little chick, you evade me.’
‘No, no, My Lord, ’tis only …’ I searched the bowels of my scheming mind for an acceptable diversion. ‘I’m sorry to mention it …’
‘Be at liberty with me, Jonathan.’
‘I’m hesitant to arouse your passions. I’m rather injured from our last.’
‘Little chick!’ he whimpered.
As improbable as I once considered it, the gates into this most obdurate magnate had been flung open, or maybe broken clean off. I suppose it’s the same with all men: their hearts are like cow shit left in the sun – seemingly hard, but with some pressure of the boot, the nature will ooze right out.
He was kissing at my neck. His whiskers scratched my earlobe and the powder from his wig drifted up my nose. Like a parent playing games, he walked his narrow fingers towards my breeches. He clearly longed to find something solid there, but my plonker was limp as wet washing.
‘You must excuse it,’ said I.
‘It was the same yesterday,’ moaned he.
‘My Lord, not all harbour as voracious an appetite as you,’ pleaded I. ‘We must find a boy for your use when I’m not able.’
‘I’ve never allowed my true nature, Jonathan. Not until now. It’s no longer debauchery I seek. It’s you.’
I cradled the snivelling man in my arms, trying to keep his lips away from my face, but he wriggled and gyrated towards me.
‘Selflessness is the true expression of love,’ he whispered into my ear.
I knew what he was hinting at, a consolation of sorts. A hand, an open mouth. I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t.
‘Wild,’ said Uxbridge, composing himself and folding his arms. ‘Been meaning to ask you. What do you think of Shearsby?’
‘Shearsby?’
‘The estate near Leicester.’
‘I … I only know of the picture in your study.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said softly, venturing a flirtatious glance to my breeches. ‘’Tis the perfect estate for a young man to learn the ways of landowning.’
I said nothing, recalling the painting by John Wyck, titled Shearsby Afternoon. A tall lone tree by the banks of a babbling brook. Cleared fields. Yellow light shooting through drifting cloud. Feeding cattle, and a shepherd roving his flock. Or was I confusing it with Wyck’s hunting scene at Wootton? Was there a building in the picture? A castle perched upon a hill perhaps? If there was no building, where would I sleep? Who cares, I thought. With the 500 pounds in annual income I could build a castle just as I liked.
Hark body, I meditated, clenching my eyes. Show Uxbridge your gratitude, think of all it might yield. But the body is a stubborn twin to the soul, quick to die yet impossible to heel. No matter how I beckoned it, my snake just wouldn’t swell. So there was but one option remaining.
‘When you spoke of selflessness,’ I said, closing my eyes, pushing him back as I went to my knees, ‘is this the type to which you were referring?’
‘Do it. Do it with love, my little chick.’
‘You shall know of my love,’ I said, staring into the fuzzy tumour of blue lint that had accumulated in his belly button.
The moment Uxbridge left for Middlesex, I bounded to Covent Garden to find myself a knocking shop. This would be a temporary sanity, a way to water my Shearsby horse mid-journey, so to speak. I’m not one to impart lessons, as each man must learn his own ways about the world, but one thing you can be assured of as sound advice is to purchase your whore in the daylight, for by moonlight you might mistake a seeping sore for a beauty spot or a wooden leg for a long lithe one, like I did in the first instance, ending up in a stinking terrace and disinterested, as if it’d been my own father I was fucking. But as I’ve referenced, once my resolve is set upon something it takes a great deal to hold me back, so I was returned the next day, paying a halfpenny for a seat at the pleasure garden, where I might make out my selection in a less hasty fashion.
As I sat, espying all and sundry, there was the report of a show rifle, and then the sound of whipping as a whole tree full of pigeons alighted, the entire square suddenly darkened by at least a hundred or more of the creatures taking flight. The movement of the garden was collectively paused as we all looked up, but not I; in that moment the corner of my eye had spotted a mighty fine young woman with not quite blonde hair, but not quite brown neither, the colour of crushed seashells, perhaps. She stood in a cluster of three other girls, gaggling behind their hands and their pretty faces shaded by complicated hats.
Her dress was a canary colour, very frilly too, with white lace about her twin bosoms that were soft and slightly goosepimpled. Her hand presently rested upon it, as though she were keeping something from jumping out. When she turned I could see the dress was tied with a great bow above her buttocks and her stockings were a calico grey and her shoes well-kept and clean. I thought about how much she’d likely cost, but I wasn’t too worried; one look upon the Thomas Wedgwood plate in my pocket and she, presumed I, would be readily mine.
A puppeteer arrived with a series of suitcases and trunks, assembling various timbers and props until there was a miniature stage erected in the garden, with crimson curtains, a thumb-sized lectern and a series of stacked horns sticking over the top like organ pipes. I was of course not much interested in theatrics, but the four ladies that I had fixed myself upon now gathered around to watch the show. From behind the stage curtains came the sound of the puppeteer clearing his throat. He sung thus:
‘Behold the true tale of Roderick Bellamy,
Upon this road we go, too wee, too wee
To lands far and unknown, dee doo dee doo
Music is our law, too wee, too wee,
And we carry it so, dee doo dee doo.’
A series of toots and honks knelled from the horns with no discernible melody before the curtains sidled apart, revealing a diorama of a battlefield. Puppet strings clouded the air above two opposing hills, one stabbed with the Scott
ish aqua and white, and the other our bright St George’s red. There were bodies of bloody soldiers littered about the set, their velvet bellies opened and faces embroidered into grimaces. ’Twas not common to begin theatrics upon so sombre a note, but together with the small audience, I was at once mesmerised at the skill and detail of the show. The stentorian voice of the puppeteer, who was invisible by all manner of cloak and concealment, told the story of Roderick Bellamy, a Scot slowly brought to ruin by forces of the Kingdom.
When the horns sounded their final note and the curtains were drawn I looked about to an equally flabbergasted audience. The sky was warm and windless. The beautiful whore and her three friends were likewise affected, their cheeks wet with tears as they dropped pennies to the puppeteer’s box. I was so moved by the performance that I took the plate I had intended to bestow upon the whore, and placed it carefully in the box. From behind a curtain the puppeteer appeared, a short man with an unkempt beard and piercing eyes. He was without wig and had a messy collection of thinning hair.
‘Who has given me this plate?’ asked he, his voice now normal as any man.
I bowed. ‘Your performance was unparalleled.’
He inspected the plate, flipping it over to read the inscription.
‘Made by none other than Thomas Wedgwood of Burslem,’ added I.
‘My thanks.’
‘Where did you hear this story? Of Roderick Bellamy?’
Several of the audience crowded for the answer. The puppeteer grew nervous, bent to gather up his coins.
‘’Tis always the same question,’ responded he, miffed. ‘And it bears no relevance.’ He grunted and without another word set off, the wooden wheels of his cart rattling over the stones and his head cocked as he scratched ear with shoulder.
With my giving away a Wedgwood plate, the four girls presumed me rich and flocked about.
‘I liked of his puppetry, not of his person,’ said one.
‘There was no cause for his rudeness,’ said another.
‘I suppose the young gentleman now wishes his plate returned,’ said the first, trying to blush at me. ‘After such impoliteness.’
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