by S. I. Martin
William gazed at the trick, mesmerized.
‘Oh. Buckram,’ said Georgie. ‘I often wondered why he used to laugh so much. He was just too wild, though. Too wild. Like that night he jumped Bannie and gave him a beating in the middle of Russell Street!’
William laughed, recalling the look of pure terror on the face of Banastre Tarleton, their old commanding officer. They had spotted the hard-faced, effeminate man leaving Chapman’s Coffee-house in Bow Street; parting company with a raucous, overdressed fop and an even louder painted lady.
‘That’s the Prince of Wales he’s with,’ said Georgie, ‘and that’s his mistress, the actress Mary Robinson.’
William asked how he knew this and Georgie nonchalantly informed him that they were both good friends of his. They trailed Tarleton to the Piazza. Buckram had called out to him, ‘Hey, Bannie-lad, looking for cunny? Step over here! I’ve got something for you.’
Finding himself surrounded by four blacks, Tarleton drew his sword. William and Georgie carried razors. Henry Prince wielded a short, heavy meat cleaver and Buckram was levelling his sword-pistol at Sir Banastre’s genitals.
‘It’s loaded,’ he said. ‘So drop your sword, then your purse, and begone, murderer.’
Sir Banastre obeyed the first part of the order but then Buckram barred his way.
‘We’re not finished with you yet. Some of us were with you for that massacre at Waxhaws. You remember the children in the schoolhouse, don’t you? Don’t you!?!’
He kicked him in the thigh.
‘Well, some of us worked with the gang on burial duty.’
None of them, William, Neville or Buckram, would ever forget what they were asked to dispose of that day: cupboards full of decapitated heads, corpses halved and corpses quartered, and that still-dying, disembowelled woman clawing feebly at the air. On the barn walls above her written in blood were the words ‘Thou shalt never give birth to a rebel’.
‘I remember you now,’ Tarleton lied. ‘You were all good boys back then. Stout fellows. Well done.’
‘Stop your foolishness!’
Buckram slapped him in the chest with the flat of his sword, pushed him over and stamped all over his body seventy-four times.
‘Thanking you for the wages, sirrah. Better late than never.’
Buckram pocketed the purse. When they opened it, round the corner in Brydges Street, they counted close on thirty pounds. They trooped into the Soup Shop Ale House to begin a week-long session of drinking and whoring.
‘Yes,’ said Georgie. ‘Something bad was always on the cards for him, sooner or later. How d’you think he’s doing?’
‘Who can say? I went over to the Stingo today and found him waiting with all the beggars, just like you said he’d be. He’s living with Neville by the church. I don’t know what’ll become of him now. I gave him some money and a few clothes and sent him round to Jack the Jamaican in Ivy Street for a bit of barbering. Can’t believe what’s happened to him.’
‘He told you I’d offered him work?’
‘Work? You think Buckie’ll want to throw in with you again, after the first time? You’re mad!’
‘Depends how desperate he gets … Times are getting tougher for beggars and sadblacks. They say the Charlies are hunting them down now, rounding them up.’
‘Nonsense. That’s impossible. There’ll always be blacks begging in London. That’s how it was long before us and that’s how it’ll be long after we’re gone.’
‘Well, I’m only telling you what I hear. But you don’t work the streets any more. You wouldn’t know how it is. You spend too much time alone in that nice room of yours. A woman’s touch is what you need.’
William looked at him sharply. ‘I’ve got a woman. And a family!’
‘Oh yes, of course. Mary and the boys. It can’t be easy. You must think of them often.’
‘Not much.’ William scratched his nose. ‘Every day.’
‘Oh, by the way,’ said Georgie, reaching into his pocket, ‘I picked up a little something for your dear lady. What d’you think?’ He handed William a tiny, ornate, silver box. William lifted the lid. A barely audible air from ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ tinkled from its interior. On the lid was an engraved inscription: ‘To Mary, Thy auburn locks are more lovely in my sight than golden beams of orient light. Your loving William.’
‘It’s lovely,’ gasped William, pondering the reference to ‘auburn locks’. ‘Where’d you get it from?’
‘Y’know,’ said Georgie. He held out his palms. ‘These things come my way now and again. It’s the sort of thing a young lady would appreciate, don’t you think?’
‘Why, yes. Surely. Thanks, Georgie.’
He felt as cold and grey, as vague and as restless as the ocean that separated him from his kin. He steadied himself with more drink and read, for maybe the hundredth time, a printed Act of Parliament nailed to the tavern wall which advised against drinking, swearing and all manner of profanities. He took another gulp of wine and snapped down the lid on the box.
‘A question,’ said Georgie. ‘Tell me, what would you do if you had two thousand pounds? Where would you go with that sort of money? As a black man, I mean.’
William didn’t have to think. ‘I’d fulfil my promise to my family. We’d be together again as free people. We’d start a new life.’
‘But where?’
‘We’d go to Nova Scotia and start a farm. Like I should have done in the first place.’
Georgie shook his head. ‘You? On a farm in Canada? No. That’s an even colder, whiter country than this. And you’re no backwoodsman. Look at you. Living the life of a gentleman,’ he snorted. ‘Happy as a pig in shit. Fancy friends, fancy food, fancy wine. If you were given the chance, wouldn’t you bring your family out here? You do seem to love it so.’
William found he could not answer, so he read the Act one more time, opened the musical box and sang the words to the tune under his breath.
London, 20 June 1786
Buckram walked up and down Drury Lane till he saw a number that matched the one Georgie had written out for him: 66.
He paused to brush dust from the clean set of clothes he’d borrowed from William: the brown, double-breasted waistcoat with the square-cut hem and a yellow standing collar, the hard-wearing, blue workshirt, the long, gun-metal breeches with ornamental ribbon garters and small, square knee buckles, the white cotton stockings stuffed with calf-pads and the wooden-soled patten shoes. He straightened the rosette on his bicorne hat and braced his shoulders.
He walked through a narrow door and down a short flight of stairs to a wide, low-ceilinged workshop full of large printing presses, dirty oak cabinets and cluttered bookshelves. A tall, shaggy-haired old man wearing lunettes approached him. His neck and shoulders were bent from long stooping.
‘Peacock’s, the printers?’ Buckram inquired.
‘The very same.’ The man wiped his hands on his apron. ‘A good morning to you, sir. How may I be of assistance?’
‘My name is Buckram. I’ve come to collect the order for Mr Prince of Exeter Street.’
‘Ah-hah, an emissary from the Black Prince. The Ethiopian literature, I take it?’
‘The books with the black whores in, yes, them.’
‘Right you are, sir. One moment, if you please.’
He sloped away to unlock a little cabinet.
‘And how many will sir be requiring?’
‘Twenty, or so, for now. I’ll come back this afternoon if I need more.’
The old man handed Buckram a loose bundle of the sealed papers.
‘An excellent collection, if you don’t mind me saying, sir. Quite the fashion, these days, those young blacks.’
Buckram wondered why he replied, ‘Thank you.’
He got to the Piazza just as the morning market was at its height. The ground was littered with squashed oranges, broken walnut shells and liquefying cabbage leaves. Local women washed clothes and children at the pump by t
he column while exchanging insults with costermongers and porters.
Across the Piazza, in the south-east corner, were the Turkish baths – the Hummums – where Neville had taken him for his first wash after his release. He’d spent nearly four shillings of his friend’s money luxuriating for almost an entire night in the steam rooms and having his skin scraped by a giant with a camel-hair rag. Strumpets were also available as part of the house service, but he refused the offer, seeing as he was there at Neville’s behest. He didn’t need a woman like that anyway. There’d been women aplenty in gaol.
But that was another story.
He manoeuvred through fruit and flower stalls to stand by the wall of St Paul’s Church where caged larks and linnets were on sale.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t the first idea how to sell books. As usual, Georgie had told him nothing and was nowhere to be found. How would the King of the Beggars handle this situation?
Who at this time of day would be looking for ‘Aethiopian Cyprians’? Almost any rich, white man newly arrived in town, he decided. There were precious few of those to be found in the market itself, so he made his way over to the Piazza Hotel on the corner of Russell Street. It was a bawdy house-cum-hotel frequented, almost exclusively, by country squires. He positioned himself by an arch in front of the entrance and waited.
Five minutes elapsed before the first resident came through the door. An overly short, middle-aged man with yellow-white hair, badly cut in the fashionable hedgehog style, exited onto the Piazza, looking left and right, as if hoping not to be recognized. Precisely the sort of gentleman for whom attracting female company was as much a problem as an urgency. Buckram sidled up to the prospect, brandishing his texts like an oversized deck of cards.
‘Good day, sir!’ he exclaimed, trying to drown his disgust with a flush of mock enthusiasm. ‘New in town? Seeking fresh delights?’
The man examined him with mounting, quizzical rage. When he harrumphed Buckram realized just how big a mistake he had made. The noise the mark had produced was one that no Englishman could have emitted. No European either, for that matter. To ascertain his fears, Buckram asked another question, ‘Would it be business or pleasure that brings you to this fair city, sir?’
‘That,’ the man replied, ‘that is not something I am prepared to discuss with one of your hue. Distance yourself, nigger, lest I have you flogged for insolence.’
White American.
Voice dark and slurred like thin molasses. Eyes, heavy and grey as a Boston shower. Someone who could deflower black virgins at will. Someone who could once have owned him.
Buckram held the planter’s gaze, feeling confident and comfortable with the anger building inside him.
‘I don’t think you heard me, boy. Stand aside, I say.’
But Buckram stood akimbo, blocking his path.
‘Where do you hail from, slave-owner?’
The American drew back his arm. Before the fist could fly Buckram had reached and grasped it with his own. The soft, rich man’s rage had all the momentum and menace of a mechanical toy. Buckram twisted his wrist and slammed him against a pillar.
A gaggle of onlookers was gathering, so Buckram raised his voice and spoke London English for all to hear.
‘I asked where you came from, rebel. Answer me!’
The man’s nostrils flared. He looked to the crowd for support, but they were all passing fops and St Giles’s toughs, non-partisan wastrels, eager for a fight to staunch their boredom.
‘Are you going to let this nigger defy me? Will you allow him to besmirch the honour of the white …!’
Buckram cuffed him across the mouth; his knuckles felt teeth loosen in the gums.
‘Dob ’im one on, blackie! Dob ’im one on for the lads!’ came a plaintive voice from the crowd.
Buckram’s ruse had worked. The crowd was siding with him. The American, realizing this, squealed like a Smithfield pig and sagged to his knees, cupping his bloody mouth with his hands.
‘Where’s home, rebel? Where’s home?’
‘Camden, Carolina.’
‘Ah, Camden,’ Buckram declared. ‘Know it well. Spent a good time there during your war against our king.’
The market-folk warmed to this mention of shared sovereignty.
‘Camden. Fine little town. Swived many a young lass there. Me and my fellow blacks. Mayhap your wife or daughter was of their number.’
‘Oooooooooh!?!’ smarmed the Londoners.
The American gathered up the vestiges of his dignity and spat blood in the ex-slave’s face.
Buckram grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and presented him to the crowd.
‘You see these colonials. See them? This is the gratitude we get for trying to save their filthy hides from the folly of independence. This is how they repay us. Take that!’
He punched the planter in the stomach.
‘That’s for Boston!’
‘Woooaaargh!’ went the audience.
He clapped the man’s left ear as hard as he could. He felt the impact resound through his tightened muscles. ‘That’s for Philadelphia!’
‘We’re with you, darkie!’
‘That’s for Savannah!’ He held him up and hiked his knee into his crotch.
Three more cities on the Atlantic seaboard were mentioned before it dawned on Buckram that this was the least satisfying beating he had ever dealt. He dropped his crumpled enemy on the ground and stamped off through a gauntlet of laughing cheers.
A drunkard wearing belted plaid clutched at his sleeve and began to make declarations of undying friendship. Buckram shrugged him off and made his way out of the Piazza.
If he’d had a knife he’d have turned back and cut out the man’s heart. The crowd would have welcomed that, he knew. Covent Garden was that kind of place, but he felt disgusted with his performance and quick-marched up James Street, trying to out-distance his shame.
Outside the Nag’s Head a young black beggar, still a child and obviously a runaway, skipped up to him with hands outstretched. The boy danced around him, moaning and barking. Collar marks had bruised his neck, his lips had been cut off, and when he opened his mouth Buckram saw that he was tongueless. He had no money to give the child and gestured as much. The beggar bowed and curtsied before spiralling away to his haunt at the tavern’s dog porch.
Buckram sighed with exasperation and leaned against the corner of Hart Street. He removed his hat and wiped the sweatband with his forefinger.
He was staring glumly at the ludicrous booklets in his hands and wondering what on earth could have re-possessed him to buck up with Georgie, when he caught a whiff of a familiar fragrance. It was a smell like a handful of warm raisins, a close, clean, damp scent that he hadn’t inhaled in a long time. An unperfumed black woman had passed by, and he was in her wake.
He saw her hurrying down Hart Street. She wore a deep-bodiced, closed sable gown with plain, short-cuffed, elbow-length sleeves. Unwigged hair was covered with a large mob cap and her skirt was draped up towards the back to reveal a neatly blanched underpetticoat.
An unescorted woman of quality.
She was bidding shopkeepers good afternoon and ignoring the coarse calls of barrow boys.
He trailed her to the gates of the Adelphi School. She stopped to rifle through the contents of her shoulderbag and he stopped too, five yards behind. Buckram felt and heard his heartbeat pounding from somewhere near his throat as he diminished the space between them – and came up to her side.
She flicked him a glance then jumped back a full step. She had a sepia-coloured, full vixen face and swift-swallow eyes. Buckram gazed, stunned, mystified.
‘Ma’am,’ he croaked, at a loss for what to say. How to make the moment continuous.
He doffed his hat – William’s hat – and held it by his chest like a shield. Ease with women had long abandoned him. He straightened his spine and summoned what he could recall of gravities.
‘You seemed lost, sister. Perhaps you are
unfamiliar with this area. I go by the name of Buckram, a resident here of long standing. With your permission, I’d be only too pleased to …’
She laughed in his face. A dolphin laugh k-k-k-k-k-k-k. And that laugh seemed to embody all the self-assurance he couldn’t muster.
‘My brother,’ (she’d replied, brother – good sign), ‘clearly you do not know of me.’ Her voice carried the strident, over-confident sonority of a freeborn Black person.
‘My name is Charlotte Tell, and I am a teacher of mathematics and Latin at this venerable establishment.’ She gestured casually to the Free School’s dowdy gates.
‘I am very well known throughout this parish, and I fear it is you, rather than me, who is the stranger here.’
She laughed again then dipped her gorgeous eyes back to her bag.
Buckram held his space, petrified, at her side, watching her pull quills and notes from her indispensable, watching her replace them. From time to time she looked back at him. Her eyes said, ‘Well?’
His said, ‘Well what?’
A bell rang shrilly over the tiny concession of cobbles that served as a schoolyard.
‘Mr Buckram.’ She smiled at him, as if humouring an infant. ‘I must go now. My class awaits within.’
She did not move. Her eyes flashed up and down his body and she half-smiled.
‘You are born of this land, are you not?’ asked Buckram.
‘As much as you are of yours. We are all black, wherever we are from, whatever we do. You’re from the colonies, I can tell. A soldier.’
Buckram hunched his shoulders, then let them fall. ‘I have no more fights,’ he muttered. ‘I just live in this world as best I can, ma’am.’
She pointed to the manuscripts under his arm. ‘So, you’re a writer, a diarist, a published scribe.’
‘…!’
‘Have you read Phillis Wheatley? I took it that reading and writing were forbidden to our people in America.’
The bell rang again.
‘Errrm, that is true, tho’ many of us can cipher as well as any white man. I carry here the work of a friend. Sights of London. Its wonders and dangers.’