Ill Will

by Michael Stewart

  Many hours passed before our first success. A young man, in a fancy yellow frock coat and a brown tricorne. The silver buckles on his shoes shone brightly in the sun as he approached a grave and stood close by. We waited for the right moment, then I initiated conversation. It was his mother who had died and I told him that mine had just passed over too. I shared his grief. He explained that his mother had perished giving birth to his half-sister. She had married a second time when his father had died of consumption.

  ‘There was hardly anything left of him towards the end,’ the young man said. ‘The strangest thing was his fingers. Like drumsticks. His nails were as shiny as polished pearl, with thick ridges running down them. I remember my mother taking his hands in hers, examining them as though they were another man’s. Then kissing them before weeping silently so as not to excite him. She mourned him for three years before my stepfather came into her life. A horologist from Hartlepool. My mother was from Abergavenny. They were both so happy when she became round with child. She gave birth to my half-sister on St David’s Day. They were attending church that morning when her waters broke. She died clutching the red dragon on the flag my stepfather had laid out over her bed. For one to die so young on the festival of one who died so old . . . He was a hundred years old when he died, St David.’

  ‘A cruel irony,’ I said, ‘but that was just how our mother died. In bed with her loved ones around her.’

  We got talking and with some skill I was able to turn the conversation around so that when Emily appeared he was glad to make her acquaintance.

  ‘My name is Jeremiah Nelson,’ I said. ‘And this is my half-sister, Constance Nelson.’

  He introduced himself as Emmerson Pitt and we talked more of our respective deceased. It turned out that we had a great deal in common. I watched Emmerson as he was drawn into our net and judged when the time was ripe to reel him in.

  Emily found it difficult at first to summon his mother’s spirit but Emmerson was patient. Eventually, where blackbirds and throstles sang, the grave fell silent, and I saw once more the dead take possession of her body.

  We left the graveyard, with ten new shillings still hot from the man’s pocket. It seemed that they paid well, these Liverpool people. We walked around Toxteth Park and along Parliament Street. There were so many fine houses of great dimensions. And like Manchester town, there was wealth and poverty cheek by jowl. To an even greater extent, in fact. For every fancy man in a top hat and a silk coat, there was a barefoot beggar in a doorway asking for change. For every silver-tipped stick there was a crooked crutch. There were black faces everywhere – some of them too begged on the street. I gave the first some money, but turned the rest down. I may have been like them at one time, but I had no intention of ever going back there. The tower was on our right-hand side; its castellated turrets and loopholes were an impressive sight. Directly in front was St Nicholas’s church, and another opportunity to make some money.

  The building was opulent, with complicated tracery of flowers decorating the east and west windows. The gable was decorated with two ogee-headed niches. There was a fearsome dragon and a beast with a lion’s head and a goat’s body. There was a stone cross at the apex. Above the doorway was a carved text: Laudate Dominum.

  This time our customer was an older man, whose son had travelled with the Royal Navy and had been assistant to the ship’s surgeon when it was attacked by a Spanish fleet.

  ‘He was fettered on the poop,’ the old man explained. ‘Exposed to the enemy’s shot. The doctor accused him of being a spy. He was going his rounds among the sick when he was taken prisoner. Carried to the poop by the master-at-arms, then loaded with irons and stapled to the deck. He was accused of conspiring against the captain’s life. My lad. How ridiculous. He was exposed to the worst conditions. The scorching heat of the sun and the unwholesome damp of the night. But they never brought him to trial. My lad. He owed his misfortune entirely to the hatred of the doctor. And there he stayed till the ship engaged with a frigate, a man-of-war with a hundred and twenty guns. Dashed to pieces by the enemy’s fire. He received a great shot in his belly, which tore out his entrails. My lad. The truth came out at his funeral. The doctor was tried and sentenced. But that didn’t bring my boy back, did it?’

  I consoled the man. I told him about my brother, who by coincidence had also had an untimely death in the cruel Atlantic Sea. The victim of French privateers.

  I paused to recollect the tombstones we had taken our new names from.

  ‘I’m Nathaniel Newton,’ I said. ‘And this is my cousin, Florence Mackshane.’

  The spiritual possession of Emily’s body was a particularly fervid process on this occasion. And the man shrieked when she shook so violently. I had to hold him steady when his son’s eyes shone from Emily’s sockets. Afterwards, Emily was deeply fatigued. We sat down for a while to allow her to recover.

  My pockets now were heavy with gold, silver and copper. We walked back out to the gates of the church. A crowd had gathered and we jostled our way to the front to get a better view. We saw a bear chained to a post by its neck and four or five large, fearsome dogs attacking it. One grabbed the bear by its throat. The bear fought back, lashing out. It managed to claw the dog’s head, tearing the skin and exposing the skull beneath. The dog ran back to its owner and was replaced by another, even bigger and more savage. There was biting and clawing, the baring of teeth, growling and roaring. One dog was tossed into the air by the huge fist of the beast and it tumbled into the crowd, before recovering, getting back onto its feet, then showing its teeth again and running at the bear once more. The bear was now cut in several places and bleeding. There was blood and slaver everywhere. There was a large riotous crowd and much money changing hands. I had no interest in watching the suffering of this beast. My entertainment was watching the suffering of those who deserved it. I didn’t believe, as Joseph had tried to teach, that killing was a sin. Only the unjust deaths of the innocent offended God. The guilty had it coming. Unjust suffering was a divine crime. But to kill those who needed to be killed, God looked down with approving eyes. For hadn’t God given Samson the strength to slay an entire army with only the jawbone of a donkey? And wasn’t it better in God’s eyes to slay that army than to slay the innocent donkey? And wasn’t Saul rejected by God when he killed all the men, women and children, as instructed, but not the king?

  We walked past the town hall and the spire of St George’s church rising above the Goree Warehouses. I gave Emily a look.

  ‘Have you regained your strength sufficiently?’

  She nodded.

  ‘We can rest some more if you like?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘This connection you make, between the material and the spiritual, is it harmful?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Can the dead take over? Is there a danger that your own spirit will be cast out?’

  ‘I’ve heard that happen. To some. But it’s not like that with me. Although I can’t hear them, I can feel them moving around in my body and I can push them out if I like with the force of my will.’

  We had to wait over an hour for our next target, with two more rejections and yet more accusations of evil-doing, but it proved to be worth our patience. Another rich young man with a tragic tale to tell. This one had travelled many miles to Liverpool town, to seek his fortune. As I had also, it turned out. He had fallen in love here with a merchant’s daughter, as had I. He’d got married but lost his newlywed on the moor.

  ‘It was the Bowland Fells. Our honeymoon. We stayed at the Three Fishes. We set off the next morning with a picnic packed, just the two of us. We had scones and clotted cream and strawberries. We walked along the Hodder over Cromwell’s Bridge. We found a lovely sheltered spot just below Ward’s Stone. I laid a blanket out and we put out cuts of cold meat and bread. There was cheese and apples and a bottle of brandy the ostler of the inn had sold us. We got talking about the future. I wanted to purchase a lurcher but sh
e was afraid of dogs. She’d been bitten by a Bedlington terrier when she was an infant. It was a silly quarrel. She got up to stretch her legs. I stayed where I was, refusing to budge, cogitating over our heated words. The wind picked up. Black clouds descended. I rose from my stupor and called out her name, but the wind stole my words. I wandered about the moors looking for her, searching every clough and crag. When I eventually came across her, it was her body in a ditch. She had fallen from the top of a rock and smashed her skull on the stones below.’

  Heavier still with our riches, I suggested we find somewhere to eat and drink. It was now past midday and I didn’t want to push Emily any further. We passed the fish market on James Street, but the stench enticed neither me nor the girl. We walked up High Street, past a shoe warehouse.

  ‘Come with me,’ I said.

  Inside there were shelves of every type of shoe and boot. I’d decided that we both needed a more respectable appearance in order to continue to extract money from the rich. The cobbler led us to the back of the shop, where there was a seated area. I let Emily go first. The cobbler measured her foot and then brought three pairs for her to try before she was satisfied. I paid for a fine pair of brown leather boots with laces. I looked at my own footwear. The stitching had come away at the toe, and the sole and the upper had parted company. I purchased a new pair to replace them. The cobbler, eyeing the gold sovereigns, said he could make them from scratch, made to measure. Fit like a glove. But I didn’t want to splash out that much just yet. I promised myself that one day I would have boots specially made to my requirements, but for now we would make do with what we had bought.

  We stopped outside a butcher’s shop. In the window was a pig’s head and a hock of oxen hanging from a hook, as well as rows of sausages and cuts of other meats. Rib, rump and chop. Next to these were some sumptuous-looking pies.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’ll have two.’

  I bought us two pies each and we sat on a bench and ate them. There was a coaching office across the street with a notice outside its window: ‘Liverpool to London in three days’ was its boast.

  ‘Why don’t we go there?’ Emily said. ‘There’ll be tons of graves.’

  ‘This number we’re working, it’s not something we can do indefinitely,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s something that people get wise to.’

  ‘It’s not a trick, you know.’

  ‘I know it’s not. But all the same.’

  She shook her head and bit into the second pie.

  ‘What I mean is, Emily, word gets round. You’ve seen the reaction we’ve got from most people. They think we are in league with the devil. People in London will have the same hostility. Me and you, we’re too conspicuous. We can do a few more, no doubt, but at some point soon we’ll need to get proper work.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ Emily said, stuffing her face with piecrust. ‘I like things just as they are, thank you very much.’

  An old man in rags was holding his ass by a rope rein. It was loaded with red pots of various sizes and types. He tried to sell them to those who passed him without success. He approached us but Emily told him to do one.

  ‘Do you want to end up like him?’ she asked.

  There were men in felt hats with gold braid and women in bell-shaped bonnets. Carriages, coaches, carts loaded up with barrels. After we had eaten we made our way back to the docks. We went past the Custom House by the Old Dock, between Cooper’s Row and Hanover Street. There we met some dockers, loading up a ship with sacks and crates. I got talking to one of the older blokes, a blackamoor with a thick neck and hair as black and wild as my own.

  ‘I’ll tell you how it is, right. Edward Cubbitt’s already set sail. Went a few days back. I loaded up the boat with crates of gin and bales of cotton and this and that.’

  ‘Where was he heading?’

  ‘He was heading for the west coast of Africa.’

  ‘When’s he due back then?’

  ‘Not for weeks yet, pal. I’ll tell you how it is, could be months. What’s to get back for? Hassle from the wife and this and that.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Enoch’s the name, Enoch Cotton.’

  I recalled a crypt and a Celtic cross.

  ‘My name’s Robert Dyer. Folk call me Bobby. Do you need any spare hands?’

  He stopped what he was doing and sized me up.

  ‘You’re a big, strapping lad. Could probably find some work for you hereabouts. Why don’t you come back tomorrow when I’ve had a word with the gaffer?’

  There was nothing much to do with our day. We were still full from the pies and we’d walked around the town enough to get familiar. We hung out around the docks, watching the men load up and load off. Hogsheads of tobacco, hogsheads of sugar, puncheons of rum. Loading up, loading off. We watched the cranes and ropes. I learned much from just sitting and watching and listening to the men as they worked. I reckoned I could take to this work. It wasn’t that far from farm work: physically demanding but not difficult to learn.

  Pipes of old Madeira, bags of pimento, bags of ginger, tanned hides, casks of tortoiseshells, casks of indigo. I tried to imagine all the places the cargo had come from. Had some of it come from the land where I was born? I wondered. The bank sloped down to the river, where there were several large sailing ships and, around these, smaller vessels. A large schooner laden with tobacco, another with spermaceti and candles. A third piled with coffee and molasses. Clothing and bedding being loaded onto a frigate. A shallop laden with ivory. A brig loaded with chests of soap, fruit, wine, tar, hemp, iron and oil. There was a rhythm to the work that I found hypnotic. The workers were always accompanied by the gulls, as bold as brass, waiting for their chance to pilfer food. Occasionally, they would get so close to a docker that he would shoo it away, or kick it with the toe of his boot, but on the whole, the men were remarkably tolerant of these scavengers, the way a horse is with an errant fly. I even saw some of the men encourage the birds, by tossing crust and crumbs in their direction.

  Bales of muslin and white bafts, tons of saltpetre, bags of sago, billets of ebony, ankers of cochineal, bales of chocolate, chests of vanello. In the distance, almost on the horizon, an impressive twenty-eight-gun ship, her topsails set. She flew a red ensign at the stern and a long pennant from her main mast. There was a female figurehead at the bow. Next to her a three-mast ship with yellow ensign and blue pennant, beneath them a rowing boat with eight men aboard. We watched a shrimper with his net and basket, a dog and small boy by the water’s edge.

  ‘There’s a lot of stuff about,’ Emily said.

  ‘Indeed there is.’

  ‘I’ve never seen so many items.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘I don’t know what half of it is. What’s cochineal for?’

  ‘I don’t know – isn’t it for dying clothes?’

  ‘What about vanello?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Why don’t we nick some of it?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘It must be worth a fortune.’

  ‘And if we get caught?’

  ‘We won’t get caught.’

  ‘It’s not worth it.’

  As tempting as it was, it would have been madness to have stolen any of the goods. There were too many people about and I didn’t want to attract the wrong attention. We had plenty of money, a place to stay. We just had to act the part we were playing until we could find out some more information. I couldn’t wait for this Edward Cubbitt to come back from his voyage. I went over to where Enoch was smoking his pipe between loads.

  ‘What’s there to do round here when you’re done with grafting?’

  He sucked on his pipe and blew out a plume of smoke.

  ‘There’s bull-baiting, cock-fighting, dog-fighting, drinking, carding, whoring, a bit of pugilism. This and that. Whatever takes your fancy, pal.’

  ‘I’m thinking of my sister here.’
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  ‘Why don’t you take her round the market?’

  ‘What’s there for a girl?’

  ‘There’s jugglers, magicians, ballad singers, Punch and Judy. There used to be bathers on the beach up there. That was popular for a time.’

  ‘But not now?’

  ‘No, they don’t come any more.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Afraid of the press gangs.’

  We wandered around the market and up the main shopping street. Emily stopped outside a dress shop. In the window was a dress like the one we’d seen on the girl in Manchester, pale blue with white frills around the collar. I opened the door and we went inside. I explained to the shopkeeper that my sister wanted the dress in the window. Emily tried it on. It was too big for her. Would she try another? No, she wanted this one. The man tutted but made some alterations until it fitted her perfectly. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror and beamed all over.

  ‘It’s the finest thing I’ve ever seen,’ she said.

  It gave her an innocence that fitted with her age but not her temperament. She tried one on in green striped dimity too. I told the man that we’d take both of them and I paid him. Further up the street we found a tailor’s and I bought a whole new outfit: new coat, new shirt, waistcoat and breeches. I examined myself in the looking glass. How easy to pass for a gentleman, I thought. What would you think of me, Cathy, as good as Edgar now? Not too degrading for you?

  In the square we sat down while Emily watched a Punch and Judy show. I thought she was a bit old for kids’ stuff but I didn’t say anything. When Punch beat his wife over the head repeatedly with a massive stick, Emily fell about laughing. A girl was walking around with a hat and I threw in some money.

  Another girl was standing by the entrance of a striped tent, shouting: ‘Ha’penny for the next show, maggot man the human maggot, cowface and the screaming freak.’ Emily tugged at my sleeve and we paid ha’penny each to gain entrance. Inside the tent, our eyes adjusted to the dark. There was a small crowd standing around a raised stage. On a broad plinth was a man with no arms or legs, wriggling up and down. The skin on his stomach and chest was hard and calloused, like the skin on the heel of a foot. We walked over to another stage to see cowface, a man with no nose, just a big hole in the middle, which joined with his mouth. He didn’t much look like a cow. There was a woman in a cage with an elongated head like a batten. Her tongue was so long that it hung from her mouth like a neckerchief. A man in a brightly coloured waistcoat poked her with a stick and she screamed.