The Clay Dreaming

by Ed Hillyer

  A fulsome curse for a mother’s lips; Sarah had already made note of it. The effect on Brippoki, however, she could not have predicted. Clasping his head in both hands, he cowered and wailed in abject distress. His upset was so severe, it took several minutes and a second cup of tea to soothe and quiet him again.

  It was, perhaps, Sarah’s own fault. Her delivery inherited a little too much fire and brimstone from the Reverend Lambert Larkin.

  Calm restored, and with half a mind to the ever-present risk of disturbing her father, she suggested they take a short break. George Bruce’s fortunes did not improve in the pages ahead, and his fate only worsened. Brippoki, however, preferred for them to continue.

  Shortly after, I should have murdered my poor father with a brass candlestick, which I threw at him, but he, putting his hand, prevented it. I was put into the workhouse, wherefrom hence I was bound apprentice to Joseph Frogety at Barking. I went several voyages to Holland with my master dealing in fish. My master treated me with every kindness. But alas, this happiness was but for a short time, for one day at Limehouse where my master lived, my mistress made me put my clothes with my fellow apprentices.

  When taking them on board, I found them covered with vermin. This curse surely was sent by God on me for my wicked deeds. I ran from my master. My young master brought me back the following night…

  Distracted, Sarah paused. The literal transcript was ‘Foulling Night’, the unwitting poetry of which she had rather liked.

  …and I was put down in the cabin in the charge of an old man. He told me that my master would flog me for running away. That same night, when the old man was asleep, I went to the companion…

  ‘…the window at the top,’ explained Sarah. Brippoki was nodding, almost mechanically.

  Then, putting my head to the top part, I forced it open and set off for London, where I resided for a few weeks.

  ‘London,’ Brippoki repeated.

  The incident with the ‘vammont’ – the varmint, or vermin – sounded closer to genuine misfortune than offence. Bruce’s only real crime had been the fear of consequences. Added to an already lengthy list of misdemeanours, however, his running away must have reflected badly: in the minds of his accusers it would have only confirmed his guilt. Warranted or not, the threat of flogging had driven him to flee a second time.

  Setting off for London, from Limehouse – Bruce made the city sound so far off! In those days, Sarah supposed, it was. She returned to the text.

  One day, my mother met me on Tower Hill, and compelled me to go with her to the North Country Pinks, Limehouse, where I was left with Master Wheatley, who was in partnership with my master. I was treated with the most tenderest usage that ever a child was dealt with. My employ was to go out with beer. One night I went to a widow’s house to carry beer, when I saw on her table lay a silver watch. I had in my company one of Master Wheatley’s sons with me, so that I could not accomplish my wicked thought I had in my head at that time. But soon after we both arrived at his father’s house I left him, and made my way for the poor widow’s house with that wicked intent that I had the first moment I see the watch laying on her table. At my return to the widow’s house, she was at that minute going out. She locked the door and shoved to the window-shutter. As soon as she was gone some distance from the house, I pulled the window-shutter open, and jumping in the window I ran to table, where I caught up the watch and put it in my bosom. Then jumping out of the window with my booty, I ran to Master Wheatley’s house. The watch was going and I was frightened that some person would hear it tick.

  I immediately went out of the house and hid the watch in among some logs where it remained till the next morning. I was very restless during the night for fear that the widow should come to my master and enquire for the watch. The next morning when I went downstairs, to my great surprise I see through the window some men moving the logs where the watch was hid. I then took in my hand two stones and began to play with them till I throw one of them on the spot where the watch lay. I took up my booty and went to London where I met with one of my old companions. ‘This, presumably, must be one of that “notorious gang” of yore,’ Sarah commented.

  ‘This, presumably, must be one of that “notorious gang” of yore,’ Sarah commented.

  ‘Not mine,’ said Brippoki quickly, vigorously shaking his curls.

  ‘No,’ Sarah said, ‘I meant…’ She smiled, letting the breath out. She read on.

  He conducted me to his father, to whom I gave the watch. He received it and told me I was a good boy, asking me at the same time to come and live with him. I told him Yes.

  I remained with this man for a few weeks. My employment: with his son, day and night, in thieving all we could catch. His father and mother received all the stolen property.

  One morning, passing a cookshop, I went in and found on the counter a very large plum pudding, which took my attention. But the suspicious barking of a little dog, who was in charge of the shop, prevented me for some time. Finding no assistance to the little dog, I jumped on the counter, then, dragging a very large dish of chitlings to the edge of the counter, threw some of them to the little dog. This stopped his noise, and was his death, for as soon as he came to the edge of the counter to fill his belly, that moment I turned the dish upon the poor little dog, which completely smothered him. Finding everything quiet, I got down off the counter and carrying with me the plum pudding on my head, I went into St George’s Fields, where in a little time I had so many companions that I did not know what to do. The pudding was soon devoured, and I returned to the poor old sinner who encouraged me to thieving with his own son.

  My ruin was but for a short time, for soon after, my eldest brother met me in the street, picking pockets on the Sabbath night. I then stopped with my brother for some time. I was soon overtaken by justice. Many times I was caught thieving, but I was so small that the Ladies and Gentlemen all pitied me, and let me go. But at last I was caught in the fact, and cast for death at the age of twelve years. It was for breaking a window and taking out two pieces of handkerchief.

  I remained in Newgate for some time, and from thence to the hulks at Woolwich, where I remained till the year ninety-one.

  Captured in these simple lines was the delicious moral mix of turpitude and innocence that must be the experience of every young thief. The lost Memoirs quite forgot, they had been catapulted back into the earliest days of Bruce’s misadventures.

  Sarah looked over at Brippoki: expression rapt, utterly transported. Did he know any Dickens? Here was young Oliver Twist, encouraged by a corrupt Fagin into thievery. Along trotted Bill Sykes’s unfortunate dog, Bullseye. Or perhaps Bruce was rather an Artless Dodger. The essential difference being, this tale was first-hand – banal, untutored, and utterly authentic.

  Just so long as poverty and deprivation maintained their distance, not simply in years, Sarah took a perverse sort of pleasure in peeping at such a world, ‘for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth’.

  Sarah settled back into her seat, and closed the notebook.

  ‘Hopefully,’ she said, ‘Bruce’s manuscript found, we may make better progress tomorrow.’

  Brippoki’s face looked plaintive, his brow creased. ‘He is in…Wool Itch?’ he asked.

  ‘In one of the prison ships at Woolwich, yes,’ she said, slightly hoarse. ‘They are still there, as far as I know.’

  ‘He is imprison?’

  Brippoki’s black pupils rapidly darted around the room. In his dismay he seemed to look at everything and nothing. She found it impossible to read his thoughts.

  ‘Is…’ she said ‘…is this…?’ She searched for some way not to ask it as a direct question. ‘It has been in some way helpful to you?’

  He did not answer. His habitual silence was unnerving.

  In place of the manuscript itself, Sarah brandished her notebook. ‘We’ve found the book!’ she said. ‘Bruce’s book. Aren’t you pleased?’

  ‘Oh, yes, miss!’ he
said.

  Brippoki’s utmost sincerity disarmed her.

  ‘His early life…’ she said. ‘He records everything in such detail, I wasn’t sure you would want to hear it all.’

  ‘I want to know all things,’ said Brippoki.

  In the wake of so firm a declaration, Sarah proposed her earlier excellent idea. ‘Come with me to the Museum,’ she said. ‘As a member of the ordinary public you may attend, on certain days in the week. We’d have to obtain for you a viewing pass, of course, but then…you could see…for yourself?’

  Brippoki looked aghast, and violently shook his head. Fidgeting, he stood and paced about the room.

  Sarah was nonplussed.

  The clock in the hall began to chime. The hour was more greatly advanced than she might have guessed; it would not do for Brippoki to remain so very late into the evening. Sarah leapt to her feet. As she struggled to summon the correct phrases, her hands motioned him outside.

  ‘Until tomorrow, then.’ She blurted the words. ‘We’ll have to continue tomorrow.’

  She made for the door, only to turn and see Brippoki heading for the window. It gaped only slightly, in order to air the room, but, grasping the rim forcefully, he rammed it open wide. The drapes guttered in the sudden breeze.

  ‘Oh!’ she gasped.

  Gathered in the interstice, Brippoki turned and nodded a goodbye.

  He was gone.

  Standing within the frame of the open window, the strands of her hair trailing, Sarah took some moments to gather her wits. She heard the strangulated yowl of an alley-cat, a short distance away.

  The woodsy smell of her gentleman caller imbued the air. She dared breathe not a word to her father concerning Brippoki’s nightly visitations. Let him remain her very own secret: to savour, even when stinking; to reveal – or not – as and when she saw fit.

  Lamps extinguished, heading upstairs, Sarah put her ear to the crack of Lambert’s bedroom door. His loud snores for once reassured: he remained fast asleep.

  Her face broke into a wide and self-satisfied smile.

  The dove of deliverance had brought her an olive leaf, pluckt off.

  At long last, she held on to something exclusive; that precious something never before experienced – a life of her own.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  Thursday the 4th of June, 1868

  ‘HORED AND DREDFULL’

  ‘At Newgate I was tried and cast,

  My Guilt was plain and clear,

  Sentence of death on me was pass’d

  But Mercy my life did spare

  For fourteen years to New South Wales

  I was straightway to go,

  Thus Justice did at last prevail

  And brought me very low.’

  ~ ‘At Newgate I was Tried and Cast’, traditional

  The players confined to lodgings, their custodians in the main lounge, the Aboriginal Australian Eleven made ready to quit the Bat and Ball Inn, Gravesend.

  ‘Our third match, and already two men down,’ railed their captain, Charles Lawrence. ‘If it ain’t one thing, it’s another. We haven’t played at full strength since we got here!’

  William South Norton raised one eyebrow: not having forgiven Lawrence his slights the previous Sunday, he implied a sore loser.

  ‘Two?’ he queried. ‘Who else is it has gone missing?’

  Lawrence turned away, lest he be tempted to smack South Norton’s smarmy face for a six.

  ‘Not missing,’ Bill Hayman clarified, pouring oil on the waters. ‘But may as well be, for all the use he is.’

  South Norton gawped, clueless.

  ‘Sundown, lad,’ said Hayman. ‘Laid low by some mystery illness. It’s all we can do to turn him in his bunk.’

  South Norton began to chortle.

  ‘What’s so funny,’ growled Lawrence.

  ‘Sundown,’ he said, ‘tied to his bunk. Very thoughtful, considering how much you’ve to pay for the things.’

  Thomas Elt, proprietor of the Bat and Ball, proposed to charge £40 for their accommodation, a small fortune well above the average. Further, he had applied to the local Board of Guardians to supply beds and bedding – the hotel’s existing linen too good for the black cricketers.

  Lawrence balled a fist and stepped forward. Bill Hayman intervened. He motioned for his brother-in-law to back off. William South Norton was, for the moment, wise enough to hold his peace.

  Charles Lawrence seethed. He had altogether too much on his mind of late, not least this most recent unpleasantness. King Cole was still missing. He struggled to recall the last occasion on which he had seen him. Despite interrogation, neither Sundown nor any of the others would admit to anything. His corps had closed ranks: if they knew where Cole had gone to, they weren’t saying. At times like this Lawrence resented their otherworldliness, the secrecy inherent in their faith, their complicated code of brotherhood.

  ‘They said the blasted idiot’s gone “Walkabout”!’ he ranted. ‘For no damn good reason.’

  Bill Hayman paused in the packing of his bags. ‘They said that?’ he asked.

  ‘For no good reason that I know of,’ said Lawrence. ‘You know what it’s like, blood from a stone…’

  So they might take off for days, weeks, months on end, and who knew why? In order to join up with their kinfolk, somewhere out in the Bush. For the sake of some unholy communion, or whatever else constituted the rhyme and reason of their ritual life.

  ‘Don’t he realise he has prior obligations?’

  ‘If he could spell it,’ said South Norton, ‘he might realise it.’

  Lawrence ignored the remark. ‘From now on,’ he said, ‘they’ll have to return to their sleeping quarters each night, and we’ll have to make double sure of it.’

  ‘Or there’ll be Elt to pay!’

  Lawrence went for William South Norton, stabbing finger-first. ‘Mention that blackguard again,’ he shouted, ‘and…I’m warning you!’

  Bill Hayman, steadfast between them, spoke sotto voce to his kin. ‘And I warned you,’ he said.

  Turning, he took hold of Lawrence by the shoulders and spun him halfway about. ‘More to the point, old chum,’ he said, ‘what are we going to do about it?’

  All Lawrence’s air went out of him. When he spoke again, his voice seemed pathetic and small. ‘What can we do?’ he said. ‘Inform the press?’

  ‘And tell them what, exactly?’ Hayman, sounding very take-charge, had obviously been thinking things through. ‘Cole’s only been missing a day or two, at most. And he may come wandering back at any moment. Then how would it look? No, publicity-wise it would be a disaster, and that’s something we don’t need. I’d go to almost any lengths to avoid it, in fact.’

  Hayman raised his right shoulder and, stretching one arm out behind, tried to iron out a kink in his back. ‘Best,’ he advised, ‘to say nothing, just yet.’

  William South Norton nodded curtly.

  Lawrence pursed his lips, reflecting.

  ‘Outside of ourselves,’ said Hayman, ‘who would even notice if Cole doesn’t appear on the pitch?’

  ‘Instead of “not out”,’ South Norton quipped, ‘we may say “never in”!’

  Hayman offered up the most practical solution, since it seemed entirely down to him. ‘We’ll keep their caps swapped around,’ he said. ‘Nothing the Abs themselves haven’t done before now…’

  Lawrence walked to the window, attempting to cool off.

  ‘What on earth does he think he’s playing at?’ he said, mostly to himself.

  Charles Lawrence looked out over Gravesend, not even seeing it.

  The booming notes sound, deep and low. They resonate throughout Brippoki’s body. Trembling, he has to clutch at the walls for support. In the aftermath, the air yet vibrates.

  Craning his neck, he marvels at the Piebald Giant.

  Buried to His chest, He is yet massive above. Aside from the gunmetal blue of His bald head, the skin is either very black, or very white. The mar
kings fall in uneven patches, half a bone here, the swell of muscle there. Wreathed in smoke, stacked like a thunderhead, He is the stone-silent master of all He surveys.

  Brippoki feels daunted, but in the same moment reassured by the sight of an old friend.

  Even here, Truth is. Spirit Ancestors walk the land, as they have since the dawn of Creation.

  That a land where Ancestor Spirits walk could be created any less than perfect is unthinkable. And yet, from everywhere around there comes the noise of busy digging, digging, digging. Brippoki looks back in the direction he has come. Droves of labourers teem over great mounds of displaced earth. Others, high overhead, clamber across a wickerwork of scaffold. He emerges only gradually from his daydream. The scene is one of very great destruction.

  Brippoki’s face twists and falls.

  He moves closer to the precincts beneath the cathedral. To every side throngs an army of darkness, entire suited regiments on the march. At each road junction the dense clusters amass and disperse, a mirror to the flight of crows, crying overhead.

  Crushed in the midst of such impersonal mass, Brippoki lets events flow over him.

  Without the Spirit Ancestors’ enduring presence, he would be lost in this false London.

  ~

  Sarah Larkin checked in on her father, made the breakfast, cleaned up a little from the night before, and then set out for the Museum. A short queue of patients coughed outside the front door, waiting on the late arrival of Dr Epps.

  The dense cloud cover of the last few days persisted, sky almost settled on the rooftops. Sarah’s blouse stuck to her flesh from the unusual humidity. She let none of it dampen her mood. She breezed into the Reading-room, eager to set off on her travels.

  Bruce’s manuscript remained where she had carefully chosen to leave it, in between A Dissertation on the Properties of Pus and Essai sur le Dyssenterie Putride, a spot surely little frequented. Sarah caught sight of Benjamin J. Jeffery, watching. Jaw set, she blinked a subtle acknowledgement. He shied away.