‘Father wants his bloody geese,’ he mutters as he places a snuffbox in his jacket pocket. ‘Harley owes me, too. Applebee. Everyone owes me. Everyone.’
Using his best silk handkerchiefs, Defoe wraps Mary’s grandmother’s ivory comb and tucks it into his trousers. He grabs a small blanket and places it over his shoulders.
As he creeps down the service stairs, he hears the muttering of Godbehere. A coach harness rattles in the driveway. In the kitchen he takes a lump of cheese, a quarter loaf of bread and one bottle of wine.
‘DEFOE!’ shouts Captain Godbehere. ‘I can hear you. You’ll not be running faster than our coach.’
‘I have no intention to run,’ says Defoe, speaking to the kitchen door.
‘Defoe?’
‘Captain Godbehere, this is no way to –’
‘Where are you hiding, Master Writer?’
The door swings open to Godbehere’s enormous chest, two men standing nervously behind, red-eyed and reluctant. One of them is a Stoke Newingtoner who works at plumbing, but Defoe cannot remember his name.
‘Now, now, Master Defoe. Let’s not make this more difficult than needs be.’
‘Daddy?’ he hears from behind the men.
Seven-year-old Anne is standing on the last step, frowning, both hands resting upon the banister.
‘To your room, I said!’ Melissa calls from the landing.
‘Daddy, what is happening?’
‘Sweetness, up to your room. These men are …’
The three men remove their hats.
‘These men work in the King’s service. I’ve urgent business at Whitehall.’
‘Where are your liveries?’ Anne asks the men. ‘And why are you carrying a blanket and cheese, Daddy?’
‘We’re in disguise, see,’ says the plumber, flashing some missing teeth. ‘Secret business.’
‘Are you disguised as beggars?’
‘Ho ho, you’re a clever little girl,’ the plumber replies.
There is a knock at the door. Benjamin Arnott stands holding his hat. He is dressed and made up for a night out.
‘Am I interrupting?’
‘Oh,’ says Defoe, shaking his head. ‘Mr Arnott. I’m sorry. This is rather … I hadn’t realised it was tonight.’
‘What happened to your head?’
Defoe touches the lump. ‘I’m sorry, tonight won’t work. Something has –’
‘You don’t look like a beggar,’ offers Anne. ‘Are you a spy too?’
‘Anne –’
‘Are you also going to Whitehall?’
‘Anne! Back up the stairs!’
‘Yes, Daddy.’
She dashes up, pausing at the landing for one last look.
‘Defoe?’ asks Arnott.
‘I will write,’ he offers. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’
Arnott frowns at the lump of cheese, the blanket over his shoulders.
‘The writer is coming with us,’ says the captain, taking Defoe by the arm. ‘Are you owed money too?’
‘Owed money?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Defoe says, avoiding Arnott’s gaze. ‘Accept my apologies.’
As the coach pulls away from the house, Defoe turns to see Arnott standing in the doorway, clutching his hat.
‘I have no assets,’ says Defoe, as the coach wobbles along the road.
‘We shall find that out,’ replies Godbehere. ‘That is for certain.’
His two offsiders keep their eyes upon their knees.
‘I have a scheme to repay you. If you extend but another week –’
‘Enough of your schemes. It is now in the hands of the bailiff.’ Godbehere folds his arms and looks out; bored, mildly pleased.
The coach moves along High Street, Stoke Newington, parting gravel with a steady crunch. Defoe is thankfully concealed by the boards of the cabin. Through the window he sees the cooper, Mr Tucker, winding a length of iron into an enormous vice. Mr Archcrean, the butcher, to whom he owes thirteen guineas, is leaning over the lip of his window display, belly protruding into apron, garnishing cuts of beef.
Then there is the unmistakable figure of Mary, his wife, as she steps onto the road, a basket on her forearm. The late afternoon sun elongates her shadow. Their eldest daughter, Margaret, strays a half-stride behind. Mary’s eyes are fixed ahead and Margaret is looking about dreamily. They have always agreed that she has inherited each parent’s best attributes. From her father, imagination; from her mother, kindness. Mary pauses her step, and looks over her shoulder for Margaret, her eyes briefly in the direction of Defoe’s coach. He sinks and covers his face with both hands, like a two-year-old, disappearing himself.
The plumber is jangled out of sleep as the coach rattles over the newly bridged canal on Southgate.
‘I’m not paying the toll,’ says Defoe. ‘You could have taken the Kingsland Road and paid nothing.’
Godbehere looks up through his eyebrows, says nothing. After a long pause, he pulls out his purse and reaches a few coins to the driver.
‘When is your next voyage?’ Defoe asks him.
Godbehere, who is facing Defoe at the rear, grunts and turns his eyes to the accumulating vista.
‘There are many opportunities,’ he says finally. ‘Most important is which you don’t take. A lesson learned from you, Mr Defoe.’
‘I was robbed two nights past,’ offers Defoe. ‘In Spitalfields, of all places.’
‘Eh.’
Defoe adjusts the blanket on his lap. Not long now.
Winner takes all, Defoe thinks as he trades three silk handkerchiefs for the releasing of his cuffs. But the inverse of the aphorism is equally true: loser loses all. The loser embodies all our shattered hopes. The same hopes that were originally inspired by the winner. And round it goes. And what about those in between, those that are neither winners nor losers? They are the ones who pat domesticated dogs beneath the table, who remember names and not faces, who are cheerful and distracted, who remove kernels stuck between back teeth, who on Lord’s Day drop what they can into the woody alms box.
‘Loser,’ mutters Defoe, as he continues his bartering.
For the loaf of bread he gets a straw pillow and for his prized gold snuffbox the finest position in the Wood Street Compter – The King’s Pisspot, the gaoler calls it – which includes a raised timber pallet and receipt of the one and only sunbeam in the entire prison. The elevation will preserve his clothes, keep him warm and protected from the piss of incontinent drunkards ejected from gambling dens and whorehouses.
Defoe grips his remaining belongings and takes his place. Half the men are manacled ankle to wrist. Those that can afford to be released pace the room or lie with their fingers interlocked behind their head. A third of the prisoners are women, some with children. Defoe settles into his timber throne, pats his pillow and spreads out his blanket. This isn’t half bad. His cellmates stare at the enviable position.
‘Mr Gentry,’ a woman calls. Defoe ignores her, keeping his eyes on the tips of his boots.
‘Mr Gentry!’ she calls again.
Defoe closes his eyes, focusing on the pale warmth generated by an oblong of sun on his right shoulder.
One or two days until Mary visits, two or three days until his father learns of it. Four days until Harley and Applebee receive his supplications. Six days until a bailiff tallies all his debtors and creditors. Eight days until Captain Godbehere understands the uselessness of the imprisonment. Ten days until a more reasonable settlement is agreed; a shilling on every pound, he should think. Twelve days until his father receives the jade geese from Hell-and-Fury. And even if that fails, Mary will surely be able to raise what’s required.
In fact, thinks Defoe, with the bailiff’s settlement, this will serve as a fresh start. There is the story of the mistress. Sheppard’s confessions will sell acceptably. That’s enough to feed his family for four months, at least. He can revisit the boat business. There’ll be an investor keen, there always is. So what’s that – one or two
sennights, perhaps? Defoe can take that, twelve to fourteen days. Twelve to fourteen days.
In the world – loser; in Wood Street Compter – winner!
WILD
I carry out my schemes
December 1705
With renewed industry I emerged from the cupboard and facsimiled my letters ten times over, sending them to every Grub Street pamphleteer and crier in the recipient’s parish. My jaw was now acceptably joined to my head – I could form words clean and enunciable – and my arm, while askew and tender, could move in the directions I willed it.
Within but a few moments of standing outside and breathing a full two lungs’ worth of a London morning (like smoke from a burning arsehole hair) did I see my time in those crude lodgings in Dirty Lane not as punishment but the genesis of a diamond, only growing according to the pressure applied. I had not a penny to my name, but felt richer than any merchant in the stocks market, with a correspondence from none other than the Queen Herself!
To Jonathan Wild,
Your correspondence is important to us. It has been placed in a queue and will be answered by the first available officer.
Yours Faithfully,
The Queen
While I waited for the Queen to invite me to tea and my other scattershot schemes to flow through the pipeline, I took it upon myself to engage further with Elizabeth Lyon, not as wife and lover, but as associate and accomplice in the handling of her curmudgeonly landlady, Mrs Mary Cockshot, who was behaving more like a cockshit, and demanding my immediate removal from her premises. According to Miss Lyon, the more she pleaded with her landlady, the more fat was thrown into Cockshot’s stubborn fire.
‘I’ll handle this one,’ said I, buttoning my green coat and stepping downstairs.
Mrs Cockshot’s rooms, which served as both personal residence and an anteroom for whore selection, were festooned with cheap statuary, plum-coloured cushions and tasselled mustard-coloured drapery. The plushness of the room served Cockshot well in her negotiations; the Johns presuming the bordello deservingly priced (oh, how a whorehouse slaps you like a fed-up mother).
‘Enter to discover thy pleasure,’ crooned she, from behind the closed door. ‘My dear, enter, I say.’
The madam sat behind her tea table like a fortune-gypsy, her head wrapped in a sequined scarf. Presently she used her fat thumbs to split a pomegranate.
‘You,’ said she. ‘Ugh.’
‘Prithee,’ began I.
‘Ugh,’ repeated she.
‘Might there be a better time for us to parley?’
Her meal also included a joint of veal with quince. ‘There is naught for us to parley on.’
‘Well, actually, might I –’
‘Need an ear horn, boy? Naught.’
She scowled with effort, finally cracking the fruit in half, burgundy juice running up the cracks of her cuticles. With a strange instrument that appeared to be a quadruple-tined fork, she carefully picked at the seeds of the half-pomegranate so they fell upon her marbled veal.
‘You’re a shrewd woman, Mrs Cockshot. A woman of commerce.’
Her eyes briefly flitted from fruit to me.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ I went on. ‘What profit does my continued presence bring? But I urge you to think of the goldmine that takes time and faith to produce its associated profit. You must dig.’
‘A sage analogy,’ said Cockshot, splitting a seed between front teeth. ‘I’m eating.’
I reached into my coat pocket, and took out the letter from the Queen, along with my share certificates for the Perpetual Motion Machine.
‘Mrs Cockshot, these papers,’ said I, flashing the Queen’s seal along with the curlicue scrawl of the share certificate, ‘allot me a fortune greater than many landed men. For the very day I was beaten in Miss Lyon’s rooms, I was awarded shares in a new technology. The value of the enterprise runs well into the thousands, Mrs Cockshot. Thousands. However, the time required –’
‘Those papers don’t look like thousands to me.’
‘Do you not see the Queen’s seal, right here? Her Majesty is part funding the –’
‘Let me see the letter.’
‘Ah, Mrs Cockshot, these are state secrets of a most confidential manner.’
‘Four shillings per week,’ grunted Mrs Cockshot.
‘Prithee, let me finish –’
‘You will hide in the cupboard when Miss Lyon is plying her trade. Four shillings. Paid in advance.’
‘I was going to propose that we share in my –’
‘The only thing we share, Mr Wild, together with much of London, is a gratitude for Miss Lyon’s pussy.’
I glared, but her haggard and heavily caked visage was indifferent.
‘Very well. You shall regret not hearing of the offer I had planned to –’
‘In advance. Yes? I shall expect the coins by the morrow.’
Upon this final word, Cockshot slapped her table, sending the fruit flies that had descended upon her pomegranate into a hazy uproar.
On the afternoon of my eviction, I stood outside Mrs Cockshot’s terrace, leaning into the chilly bricks. Doubt and dread sat barking on each shoulder like hungry dogs. My own stomach was screaming too. An empty valise sat at my feet and I chewed upon my dank, tobaccoless pipe. Idly, I watched a chaise rattle through the wet street and pause at the entrance to Cockshot’s terrace. A moment later, the coachman rasped ‘Huzzah’ and it lurched forward, the candled lanterns swinging. At some distance further, the chaise stopped again, only this time a gentleman stepped out.
He took disgusted pause at how deeply his boots had sunk and pulled out a pocket watch, reflexively flipping it open and closed, before slipping it back inside his belly pocket. Then, with the caution of a cornered hen, he began nervously stepping into Dirty Lane, his head darting hither and thither as he poked his legs forward. He didn’t appear a wealthy merchant, not that I could tell, anyway, but more of what the girls called gentry-coves, those who live off an inheritance or a dowry. He was fleshy as a twig, his face pallid, with deep-set moist eyes, and lips rosy and wet like a lispy clerk. He eyed me nervously, crossed the street, then, astonishingly, crossed back again once he’d put some distance from me. Evidently, he was afraid. Afraid of me. Me!
I watched him enter Cockshot’s terrace. With the other girls occupied, it would be Miss Lyon this gentry-cove would see. In an instant, my fate was sealed. There was no subtle suggestion in how the world directed me – no hints, no intimations – I was a cart set downhill on a rocky path.
I doubled back to Miss Lyon’s room via the rear stairs.
‘Miss Lyon,’ said I, stepping into her wardrobe. ‘Don’t mind me.’
‘Who is chasing you this time?’ asked Miss Lyon.
‘I will be the chaser, soon enough,’ replied I, closing myself into a familiar darkness.
‘Tell me, Wild, what have you done?’
‘Ply your trade, Miss Lyon, I am but a fly on the wall. Of your wardrobe.’
‘I can think of other insects more apt.’
‘You shall understand. And benefit too.’
Through the keyhole I watched Miss Lyon work her wonder, quickly eliciting his finale with slaps to his saggy bottom. She spoke his name upon each strike, Lord Blee, in a tone of dual surprise and reprimand. Once dressed and on his way, I took a breath and flung the cupboard door open. Gripping the fire poke and waving to Miss Lyon, I took the back stairs three at a time.
I tell you, violence hadn’t once figured in my schemes. It was Mrs Cockshot and her demands for four shillings in advance that sent the globular handle-end of the fire-iron down upon Lord Blee’s noodle, the sound low and dull as his skull welcomed the instrument like a cupped hand.
I was upon two milk crates in an alley when I made the strike, the height of a tall man I suppose, as I watched his body spin a half-revolution and fall stiff and slow like a felled tree. A full moon came out from behind a sidling cloud, illuminating a twinkling watch chain
that snaked into the wet mud. My shaking, white-knuckled hand went for it, and then through each and every of his pockets, taking as follows:
A pocketbook with loopy, feminine scribblings
Eight shillings in coin
A horse-themed snuffbox
Two cufflinks
A monogrammed silk handkerchief
One pocket watch.
With a blithe whistle I stepped back to Dirty Lane, the fire-iron hidden in my coat. The terrace windows were candled a shimmering and dirty yellow. Returning a single glance over my shoulder, I saw the figure murmur and roll in the mud. Strange how contrition – if that’s what it was – presents with irrelevant conundrums of the mind: were my pockets stuffed with his possessions, or his pockets stuffed with my emptiness?
The losing of one’s criminal virginity is as unforgettable as the wet sort, I assure you, with many likenesses between the two, principally:
Nagging concern that it was performed wrongly
Deep and detailed reminiscence of each and every detail
The tormenting refrain: Did I just get lucky?
Almost as unforgettable as the felony itself was the abominable and heartbreaking sum Mr Winterbottom paid me for the watch and snuffbox, which, when totalled, was barely enough for a month’s board at Cockshot’s and Miss Lyon for a spare hour.
Into Mrs Cockshot’s wrinkly palms I poured the shillings, which she counted and concealed without a hint of gratitude, then proceeded to denounce the introduction of window taxes that would, unfortunately, necessitate a ten per cent increase in rent.
‘There is but one window in the whole building,’ said I. ‘With a single pane.’
She shrugged, sucking at her teeth, silent.
‘Miss Lyon will not be pleased to hear of this injustice.’
‘You and the bestseller can both be gone,’ cackled she. ‘You think she’s the only pretty punk in London?’
I climbed slowly back up the stairs. Lying next to Miss Lyon (whose compunction over Blee’s assault was but a single slow blink), I lamented the pointlessness of every conceivable trade.
Wild Page 18