Rose

by Martin Cruz Smith

  Whatever the psalm was, the entries for the following days were code and in such an agitated tangle of lines as to be illegible, more the scribblings of a conspirator than a diarist. When Blair turned the page, he was back where he had started, the last week Maypole was seen in Wigan, starting on January 15.

  Mon. The Song of Solomon has never been more apt:

  “I am black but comely,

  O ye daughters of Jerusalem,

  as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

  Look not upon me, because I am black,

  because the sun hath looked upon me.”

  The Queen of Sheba came to test Solomon, and he answered all her questions and she gave him gold, spices and precious stones. She was African and Solomon had, of course, black concubines.

  Tue. “There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor,” says Solomon. What of the hellfire that Rev. Chubb blows in the face of any miner who slakes his thirst with beer?

  At one time I was like Chubb. I admired scholarship and single-minded preparation for the world to come. Wigan has taught me differently. Now I would say that foremost are the warmth of family, friendship and the light at the end of the tunnel. All else is vanity!

  We have two worlds here. A daylight world of houses with servants and carriages, shopping for kid gloves and fashionable hats, annuities, and rides across the countryside. And another world led by a tribe that labors underground or in pit yards so obscured by steam and soot that every hour seems like dusk. In circumstances of mortal danger and with the sweat of great physical effort, the second world wins wealth and ease for the first. Yet for the inhabitants of the first world, the second world is literally invisible except for the daily parade of black and exhausted men and women returning through Wigan to the alleys of Scholes. (Here the writing again became almost impossible to read.) How to enter that second world? This is the key.

  The puffed-up barrister may have his house and parlor. But the miner, in the words of the psalm, “was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.” The lady begs the praise of her maid. Instead, the pit girl lifts her eyes to the Lord and sings, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!” It is a wonderful, secret, most favorite psalm.

  Wed: Call on Mary Jaxon, widow. Home for Women. The duties of a curate suddenly seem small and safe. I feel as though I am setting off from a world of comfortable verities and traveling to another, realer land. Tomorrow is the great adventure!

  The remaining pages were blank. Inside the back cover Blair found a photograph the size of a playing card. The picture was of a young woman, a flannel shawl angled Gypsy fashion to reveal only half her theatrically smudged face. She wore a man’s rough work shirt and pants. A skirt was rolled and sewn at her waist, and both hands rested on a shovel. Behind her was a crudely painted landscape of hills, shepherds and sheep. Printed on the other side was “Hotham’s Photographic Studio, Millgate, Wigan.”

  The photographer’s magnesium flash caught the boldness of the subject’s eye. In fact, the misshapen clothes accentuated the litheness of her body, the heavy shawl only framed the bright curve of her brow, and although she was half hidden and there was no identification of the subject either by the photographer or Maypole, Blair recognized no Queen of Sheba but Rose Molyneux returning the camera’s gaze.

  Rose and her friend Flo were leaving the house; though they hadn’t cleaned the coal dust from their faces, they had exchanged their shawls for velveteen hats. Even as Flo hulked in the door to block Blair’s way, her eyes shifted impatiently over his shoulder to the brassy salute of a candy vendor’s bugle on the street outside.

  Rose said, “It’s the African explorer.”

  “Ah thought he was a photographer last night,” Flo said.

  Blair asked, “May I go with you? Buy you a round?”

  The women traded looks, and then as coolly as a queen making plans, Rose said, “Flo, you go on. I’ll talk t’Mr. Blair here for a minute and then I’ll find you.”

  “Tha sure?”

  “Go on.” Rose gave her a push.

  “Don’t be long.” Flo balanced to polish a clog against the back of a trouser; she had switched to fancy ones with brass nails. A gay bouquet of silk geraniums festooned her hat. Blair made way for her, and as she hauled herself out into the street he thought of a brightly dressed hippo hitting the water.

  Rose let Blair in and quickly closed the door. The front room was dark, and the coals in the grate were dim bars of orange.

  “Are you afraid of Bill Jaxon seeing you with me?” he asked.

  She said, “You’re the one who should be afraid, not me.”

  The rhythm of her words was Lancashire, but it was obvious that she could leave out dialect when she wanted to; otherwise she would be speaking in ancient “ah’s” and “tha’s.” So she had some education. Most workers’ homes had only a Bible. She had books on the parlor shelves that actually looked read. The coals produced a soft ringing. In spite of them, he shivered.

  “You look pot,” Rose said.

  Blair said, “It’s been a full day.”

  She hung her hat on the rack. Released, her hair was a full Celtic mane. Coal dust gave her face a faint sheen and, like extravagant makeup, made her eyes look even larger. Without a word she turned and went into the kitchen, the same kitchen he had found her in two nights before.

  “Should I follow you?” he called.

  “Parlor’s for company,” she called back.

  He hesitated at the kitchen threshold. A kettle was on the stove; in miners’ homes there was always a kettle of steeping tea on a hot stove. Rose lit an oil lamp and turned the flame low.

  “And what am I?” he asked.

  “That’s a good question. Peeping Tom? Police? Reverend Maypole’s American cousin? The man at the newspaper says he recognized you for an African explorer.” She poured tea and gin into a cup and set it on the table. “So, Mr. Blair, what are you?”

  Rose kept the light so low that the air was smoked glass, and a scent of carbon lingered on her. Her eyes stayed on him as if to read his mind; likely she could predict the thoughts of most of the denizens of her small world. Probably she was the most seductive creature in it, and that was disconcerting, too, because it gave her confidence.

  Blair supplemented the cup with quinine powder. “Medicine. I’m not contagious. It’s just a reminder to us all not to sleep in tropical swamps.”

  “George Battie says you’re a miner. Or maybe from the Mines Inspectors Office.”

  Blair drained the cup; the fever made him feel as if he had a slight charge of electricity. The last thing he was going to do was let Rose ask the questions. “You told me that Reverend Maypole talked to all the pit girls.”

  Rose shrugged; her shirt was flannel, as stiff with soot as a snail shell. “Reverend Maypole was very evangelical,” she said. “A regular threat t’break into preaching anytime. He was always about the pit yard. Men didn’t want to come up for fear of an earful about the sanctity of labor. They’d stay down. Not just Hannay pit, but at all the mines.”

  “I meant pit girls, not men.”

  “He preached t’pit girls, mill girls, barmaids, shopgirls. Fanatical. But you knew your cousin, right? I mean, you rushed here from Africa out of concern.”

  “I’m from the California branch of the family.”

  “People say you were born in Wigan. You must be going ’round t’all your childhood haunts, knocking up relatives.”

  “Not yet.”

  “What was your mother’s name?”

  “I think we’re getting off the point here.”

  “You had a point?”

  “When I started. Rose, you’re a bit like a crosscurrent, aren’t you? There’s no straight sailing with you.”

  “Why should there be?”

  Blair realized it wasn’t going to be quite as simple as he had thought.r />
  Rose said, “Now you’re back, does Wigan seem smaller than you remembered? Or has it become a Garden of Eden?”

  “I don’t remember. Rose, Wigan is like Pittsburgh plunged into eternal darkness, does that satisfy you? It is not the Garden of Eden; it is either a city sinking into a volcanic pit or the rising outskirts of Hell. Does that satisfy you?”

  “You’re blunt.”

  “You asked.”

  “Actually, Liverpool is the outskirts of Hell,” she said.

  Blair shook his head. “Rose. Rose Molyneux.” He could see her in Hell, laughing, wearing a garland. “Let me get back to Maypole.”

  “You have preachers in California?”

  “Oh, yes. Bible thumpers pour over the Sierras. Every fanatic in America ends up in California. You said that Maypole wanted to preach at the mine.”

  “Maypole would preach at rugby games, at pigeon races, at pantomimes. You like rugby?”

  “From what I understand, it’s like watching men run around in the mud chasing a pig, except there’s no pig. Is that all Maypole wanted, just to preach to you?”

  “He preached t’all the girls. I was just one more dirty face t’him.”

  “No, Rose. He had a special interest in you.” He laid the photograph on the table. “This was in John Maypole’s room.”

  Rose was so visibly surprised that he wondered whether she would tilt to outrage or confession. Instead, she laughed. “That stupid picture? Have you ever tried t’pose with a shovel? That card is for sale everywhere in England.”

  “Men are strange,” Blair admitted. “Some men like pictures of undressed women, some men like pictures of women in pants. The Reverend had only one picture, though, and it’s of you.”

  “I can’t stop someone from having a picture of me. Flo saw a book about you. It called you Nigger Blair. Why do they call you Nigger Blair?”

  “The penny-dreadful writer is a low form of life. I can’t stop them and there’s no controlling them.”

  “All the same, they don’t come into your house and ask all about your personal life like they’re the police when they’re not. What are you? I’m still not clear on that. Why should I talk to you?”

  “I’m just doing a job for the Bishop.”

  “That won’t do.”

  Blair found himself at a loss. So far he’d learned nothing and this girl, this pit girl, was in control.

  “I’m not police, not Maypole’s cousin, not a mines inspector. I’m a mining engineer and I’ve been to Africa, that’s all.”

  “Not good enough.” Rose stood. “Bill and Flo are waiting for me.”

  “What do you want to hear?”

  “Considering your first visit, you know more about me than I do about you.”

  Blair remembered opening his eyes to the sight of her bathing. He conceded the point. “Such as?” he asked.

  “Any reason t’talk.”

  “A reason? Maypole may be dead—”

  When Rose stood and started toward the parlor, Blair grabbed for her arm. She was too quick and he only caught her fingertips, which were rough and black from sorting coal, though her hand was slender. He let go. “I have to get back to Africa.”

  “Why?”

  “I have a daughter there.”

  Rose smiled, triumphant. “That’s better,” she said. “Is the mother white? Or is that why they call you Nigger Blair?”

  “In the Gold Coast, it’s women who pan for gold. They use pans painted black and swirl water around. Usually in riverbeds, the same as anywhere in the world except that they don’t have quicksilver to draw the gold. Still, they get an amazing amount. My job was to map the rivers, determine how navigable they were and find out where the gold was washing down from. The trouble is that the Ashanti don’t trust the English because they aren’t fools. Is this boring you?”

  Rose topped his tea with gin and sipped some from her cup; her lips turned red from the hot drink. “Not yet,” she said.

  “The Ashanti capital is Kumasi. Orange-earth country, ferrous soil. Outcroppings of rose quartz. Very pleasant. Huts and guava trees and banana. The king’s palace is the one big building. I stayed with Arabs because they’re traders. Gold, palm oil, slaves.”

  “Slaves for America?” Rose asked.

  “Slaves for Africa. That’s how anything is harvested, how anything is carried. By slaves. This Arab traded gold and slaves. He had a fifteen-year-old girl who had been captured in the north. She had unusually fine features. They thought she’d bring a good price in Kumasi. Obviously she wasn’t being sold to carry bananas. But she cried. She cried all the time. Usually Africans accept their fate. They beat her, but not too much because that would damage the goods. She went on crying, and finally the Arab told me he was giving up and was going to sell her back to the raiders, who could make her their entertainment on the way south. That didn’t sound very nice, so I bought her. You’re sure this isn’t boring you? Maybe you’ve heard this kind of story before.”

  “Not in Wigan,” Rose said.

  “I set her free. But how was she going to get home? How was she going to live? Unless I took care of her she’d have to sell herself back into slavery. I hired her as a cook—tried to teach her how to cook, how to clean. There was nothing she could do and I was afraid to leave her on her own in Kumasi, so I married her.”

  “Did she ever stop crying?”

  “At about that point, yes. I don’t know how legal the marriage was. A mixture of Islam, Methodist, Fetish.”

  “Was the Arab there? The trader?”

  “Oh, yes. Best man. Anyway, she took being a wife very seriously and insisted on my taking it seriously: otherwise she said she’d be ashamed. Other people would know, and that would make her no better than a slave. So she got pregnant.”

  “Was it yours?”

  “Oh, without a doubt. A brown girl with green eyes? The Wesleyans said I had stained the white man’s reputation. They closed down their mission. Maybe if they’d had women they’d still be in Kumasi.”

  “You chased the Wesleyans out?”

  “In a way.”

  “You’re better than the Devil.”

  How much of this did Rose understand? Blair wondered. Did she know where the Gold Coast was, let alone what an Ashanti looked like? Or seen a nugget of gold in her life? He had started talking about Kumasi only because she was about to go and he didn’t know what else to say. Now that he’d started on this disastrous course, on his disastrous life, it was hard to stop.

  “I was never an explorer in the Gold Coast. There are Ashanti roads, caravans, toll collectors, unless you insist on cutting your way through the bush. There are lions, but the real dangers are worms, mosquitoes and flies. I was three years with the Ashanti. They were curious and suspicious because they couldn’t quite figure out why a man wanted to look at rocks. The Ashanti think you find gold where there are giant baboons or smoke or a particular fern. I was looking for quartz reefs and diorite. Making maps and delivering them to the coast and the mail boat so they could be brought to Liverpool and then to here. But there was a war last year. Also dysentery. In Africa every disease hits like the plague. My wife died. The girl survived.”

  “Did you love her, your wife?”

  Blair couldn’t tell if Rose was serious or not. He did see despite the low light that while each feature of her face was individually perhaps too bold, as a composition they had balance and her eyes were as bright as two candles.

  “No,” he said. “But she became a fact through perseverance.”

  “So why did you leave?”

  “I had to go to the coast because I had run out of medicine and money. However, the funds that were supposed to be waiting for me at the district commissioner’s office had been diverted to help celebrate the arrival of a distinguished visitor from London who had helped incite the war. I especially needed the money because I had squandered the Bible Fund on my porters, the men who carry my gear. They walked as far as I did, and carrying
ninety extra pounds. Anyway, I was found out, which made me worse than a criminal in the Gold Coast.”

  “A black sheep?”

  “Exactly. So I am here to rescue my fortunes, to please my patron, to carry out this small mission and be reinstated.”

  “Where is the little girl?”

  “With the Arab.”

  “You could have stayed.”

  Blair contemplated his cup; at this point, it was less tea than gin. “When a white man slides in Africa, he slides fast.”

  Rose said, “You were finding gold. You must’ve been rich. What happened t’that?”

  “That went to paying for the girl. The Arab does nothing for free, but he’s a relatively honest businessman.” He raised his eyes to hers. “Now tell me about John Maypole.”

  “Th’Reverend didn’t know when t’quit. He was at us when we walked t’work and at us when we walked back. T’share our burden, so he said. But he grew into an irritation. Then after work he was at the door.”

  “Your door especially,” Blair said.

  “I told him I was pairing with Bill Jaxon and it was best for him t’stay away. Bill didn’t understand at first, but they got on. Maypole was a boy. That was why he was so moral; he didn’t know any better.”

  “You saw a lot of him?”

  “No. I’m Catholic. I don’t attend his church or his do-good clubs.”

  “But he sought you out. The last time anyone saw him, the day before the fire, he met you at Scholes Bridge. How far did you walk with him?”

  “I was walking home and he followed me.”

  “You were talking, too. What about?”

  “I might have teased him. He was easy to tease.”

  “As he was talking to you he pulled off his priest’s collar. Do you remember why?”

  “I don’t remember him doing that at all. Ask me about the blast, I remember that. The earth jumping. The smoke. Maybe it blew Mr. Maypole out of my head.”

  “But the last time you saw him, you just went home?”

  “I was seeing Bill.”

  “Have you ever seen Bill fight? Pretty bloody.”

  “Isn’t he fooking glorious?”