The Clay Dreaming

by Ed Hillyer

  And as for the ‘blessed elect’ themselves, her father was a rare bird among them. Although ministers of God who lived by His Word, many obeyed nary a syllable of it. They held no qualification, to pass judgement on the behaviour of others. Prideful thought though it might be, Sarah recognised in herself, by true nature – in her spirit or soul – what they were only by profession.

  Her upbringing, then, had made her perfectly faithful, a cynic and a sceptic resistant to any and all indoctrination. She knew her own mind, and in her own mind she trusted. The dutiful daughter, compliant and obedient, was no sheep to follow blindly in her father’s footsteps, without question.

  Thus far, at least, Sarah hoped that Lambert could be proud of her.

  Brippoki gulps air, careful not to take in too deep a draught of an atmosphere still noxious and repellent. He filters each small mouthful, before swallowing it down. Unsure how far, or for how long, he has sprinted and shouted, he has at last outrun the awful corruption. It clings fast to his hair, and to what remains of his garments.

  Come to rest a little way west of the London Hospital, he sits at the foot of a curious-looking hillock. Whitechapel Mount is a dust-heap, a truly enormous accumulation of every sort of household refuse. Hogs snuffle and root at the base. Children delight on its artificial slopes. They run up and slide down, joyously rolling in the muck below. Elsewhere about the sides, solemn and solitary, clamber the adults. Each carries a sack, collecting from the discarded materials that form the mound: horse-dung, cinders, and scraps of cloth. Scavengers, they never raise their eyes from the ground.

  Brippoki runs at the heap and in short order gains the summit. From the top he can see, further north, the mesh of railway lines, and enormous factory chimneys smoking. Turning, he faces the imposing hospital building and its grounds. Everywhere else, as far as the eye can see, street after street after street, are the endless piles of brick, carelessly and randomly deposited.

  The sky hangs low. Buffeted by the strong winds, Brippoki begins his descent. Near to the mid-point his way is barred. The dirt itself stirs and rears in front of him. A grubbing toiler, rags greased with marrowfat, caked in dust and birdlime, totes its bag of slime. Brippoki recoils. A claw-like hand extends to lift a long, dirt-yellow shaft. Bone-pointer! In a blind panic he swerves. Losing his footing, he tumbles head over heels the rest of the way down.

  Landing in a thrash of limbs at the bottom, Brippoki leaps to his feet and immediately runs. Hitting a busy street, one of the widest he has seen, he flings himself across both lines of roaring traffic.

  He runs a good thousand yards before daring to even think of slowing down, and never once looks back.

  Little distinguishes a Sunday morning in London. Fewer omnibuses operate and there are no ‘cabs’, so the roads are quieter, yet by no means quiet. The pavements remain as crowded as ever. Bodies spill over into the street at less risk of being run over, that is all.

  The markets from the previous night continue, and Brippoki loses himself, gladly, in the crowd.

  ‘Awright, guvnor?’ A Whitechapel man tips his hat and gives a wiggle of his moustaches. Whether he is polite or poking fun, Brippoki has no way of knowing. Unaccustomed to the least acknowledgement of his presence, he merely smiles and walks on. Compared to the intricate web of taboo that governs the British Islanders and their drawing room rituals – which Hayman and Lawrence have thoroughly schooled them in – there appears to be no etiquette for the street.

  Along Brick-lane, the crush of bodies becomes intense. For minutes on end no one is able to move in any direction, neither forward, nor back. A whiskery man on his right-hand side, thin and shabby, reeks of alcohol, others of mildew, old sweat, and indigestive breath. Brippoki tries ducking forward, to no avail.

  As they draw level with Thrawl-street the bottleneck begins to ease. From the back, a gang of young boys squeezes through the crowd, the smallest of them seeming to wriggle out from beneath Brippoki’s arm. His upturned face whines for spare change.

  ‘Gerahtavit!’ shouts a stern voice.

  Another grinds out a warning. ‘’Ang onter yer purses, ladeez and gents!’

  The beggar boy, whip-smart, sinks from view. He pops up again a few yards further forward, rags fluttering. Minutes later, at the kerb, Brippoki sees him again. He stands proud among his peers, childish chest puffed out. An older youth taps his shoulder and again he sidles into the crowd. Brippoki follows the sightline of those remaining. They observe the opposite side of the street, where an old gin runs a fruit stall, a red-spotted handkerchief tied around her scrawny neck. A hand shoots out from the crowd, grabbing at her apples. The gang shout, betraying their agent. The stallholder turns, and, with a speed surprising for her age, lashes out with both her stick and her tongue. The small boy repays her foulest curse twofold and, unashamed, pitches a rosy pippin directly at her temple. The old woman falls, more from shock than from the force of the blow.

  The crowd churns, and, though many hands grasp for the thief, none is able to catch him before he slides away. Sympathetic supporters gather up the victim of the assault. Grey hair in disarray, her dark eyes curdle to mud.

  ‘I’m an old woman!’ she shouts, indignant. She wipes at the dirt on her cheeks as if to dry an imagined tear, and wails pitiably

  ‘Where’s old Bandy Shanks?’ someone demands to know.

  ‘Niver around when yer needs ’im,’ comes the reply.

  Brippoki has to admire the gang’s cunning ploy. In all the excitement, no one misses the red-spotted handkerchief.

  A teenaged coster, seeking to escort his gal in some semblance of fine style, delivers a sudden sharp dig to his ribs. A moment later the lad happens to shove the wrong person. With a butcher’s shop smack of flesh on flesh, he is sent rolling into the gutter. He rises up swinging. Evil on their minds and in their hearts, the ugly mob gathers around. Broken-veined and wild-eyed, they howl for blood. Brippoki knows the signs of drunkenness all too well.

  A stocky middle-aged man in a dark blue uniform intervenes. Finger stabbing, he cautions the complainants. Brippoki especially marks his pointed headgear. The majority he meets on the streets resemble to some extent those spirits that populate his Dreaming, but not this one.

  Seeing there is to be no bloodshed, an old man next to him turns away. ‘Jest in time to prewent it,’ he scowls, ‘the warmint.’

  Grumbling and sour, the crowds move on. Brippoki no longer struggles, but goes with the flow. An accumulating lethargy has crept into his bones. Something deep inside him gives up.

  The wailing ting-ting of a thin bell wheedles and cajoles from a small gospel hall, hidden down a nearby side street. In the opposite direction, and then from a few blocks north, the summons is reinforced. The hour of eleven has arrived, and with it the chorus of church bells begins in earnest. Brippoki winces with each successive crack and clang.

  ‘Move along,’ orders the policeman. ‘Move along now.’

  Two dark-blue-suited colleagues wearing bright white gloves join him, to shoo the market away. The shopping crowds are swiftly dispersed. The traders wheel away their barrows, and retire to count their blessings. Within minutes the streets are emptied. Only Brippoki remains, rotting fruit at his feet, a scrap of waste paper, caught in the breeze, jerking before him like a fish on a line.

  A new group slopes out of a side doorway. Young men, they wear their caps so far forward on their heads that their eyes are no longer visible. Eager yet wary, they creep about on the dead lurk, sizing up which of the surrounding shops or houses might be emptied during church services.

  Brippoki wanders onto a patch of open ground, stretches himself out on the threadbare grass, and leaves them to it.

  Eyes closed, he tries his best to envisage George Bruce. An English seaman, his weather-beaten face is the same colour as the brick. His actual features are a haze, impossible to resolve, soon dissipating, lost to the city.

  Brippoki sits up. A bank of cloud has stolen away the sun, and in the chil
ly gloom he realises he is no longer alone.

  The disused graveyard is bounded by the long side wall of a public house, and also the back end of a ramshackle terrace. A gravel path stretches down the centre. In amongst threadbare trees scattered either side drift maudlin figures. Anonymous bundles of rag, they eventually come to rest against the marginal walls, faces turned, obscured in shadow. In fear of the bone-pointer smuggled among them, Brippoki stays rooted to the spot.

  From the west, out from beneath the terrible spire of Christ Church, a general hubbub arises. The congregation, outpouring, begins to filter onto the gravel path. As they draw near, the scrap piles animate. They drag themselves closer to where the worshippers file past, pious and hopefully charitable.

  Looking at the folk coming out from the church, it is obvious that few are any the better off, yet many drop a penny where they can. One beggar, a blind man, has trained his dog to grip the begging bowl. The novelty secures extra success.

  Gathered not far from where Brippoki stands, the same four thieves seen previously sing a saintly psalm; feet and heads now bared, a couple hold their jackets apart to assure that they possess no underclothing. The passing crowd loudly dismisses them; in comparatively rude health, they are branded ‘shallow coves’. Black looks aplenty are thrown in their direction, but no coin.

  Once the last among the stragglers have quit the scene, the barefoot young men stride over to Brippoki, shoving him to the ground by way of an introduction.

  ‘Dog on it!’ says the bravest. ‘Yew ain’t no anvilhead nor Abr’am-man, any more’n we are!’

  ‘There’s nowt for you here, Tom,’ snarls another. ‘Beat it!’

  One of the group slyly coming up behind, Brippoki is struck a sharp blow on the back of the neck. They close in around his prone form, teeth bared, balling their fists.

  ‘Yer in the ’Ditch nah, mate, entcha,’ one snaps. ‘In it up t’yer neck!’

  ‘This is our patch!’ The last one to speak delivers a swift kick to Brippoki’s belly, for emphasis. ‘Right queered our pitch today, you did!’ he says. ‘Filthy cunt!’

  Before Brippoki can catch his breath or reach for the waddy tucked in his belt, they bear down as one to redouble their assault, punching and stamping him into submission. His feeble moans and outstretched hand only spur them to greater ferocity. With every impact, bright starbursts of light fill his vision, until there is only blackness.

  When he comes to, the first thing Brippoki registers is surprise that he still lives. He dares not open his eyes, but waits for the pulsating cycle of colours to slow. His conscious mind explores his various aches and pains. Checking bodily extremities, he assesses the damage. His breathing is fine, if a little ragged. He has probably suffered bad bruising, but nothing seems broken – at the most, perhaps, a cracked rib. Lucky.

  Brippoki’s eyelids flicker open. A ladybird walks the length of a stem of grass. That same green grass covers over half a world, turned on its side. He can hear the scratch of ants, busy below. With an effort he sits up.

  Bone scrapes along bone.

  The shadows have lengthened considerably, and the day is almost done. He can feel the tautness of congealed blood around his nostrils, dried along his top lip. From a nearby bush, he carefully selects a couple of broad leaves. He wipes his face clean, cracking and applying the moisture from another plant as a salve.

  Backlit by the setting sun, the black tower of Christ Church darkens the rectory garden. Brippoki quails beneath the sharp shadow thrown down. He crosses into quiet Church-street, a dark vale, also largely consumed, and makes for the far corner. At the tip, he has to stop and hold his aching sides.

  Best to take things slow at first.

  He looks up. A flare of orange light illuminates the front of another church building. The dramatic sideways slant of a dying sun’s rays illuminates each pit or protruding part of the brick and plasterwork. Brippoki feels glad to have survived, to be alive. He senses himself suspended, between the states of life and death, on the verge of some grand discovery.

  Brow creased, he studies the stone relief of a sundial within the chapel’s elongated pediment, set high overhead. The hours are clearly marked with roman numerals. He knows enough to understand the walypela look to these letterforms as a means to quantify time. A pair of sticks, somewhat like a water-diviner, protrudes from the upper centre. The shadow it casts points off the dial, directing his attention towards more characters that cap the design: four digits, like those on the grave marker, only different.

  Carved beneath is a brief inscription, ‘Umbra sumus’: mysterious words that he cannot understand.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  Monday the 8th of June, 1868

  THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS

  ‘So it’s roll up your blankets, and let’s make a push,

  I’ll take you up the country and show you the bush,

  I’ll be bound you won’t get such a chance another day,

  So come and take possession of the old bullock dray.’

  ~ ‘The Old Bullock Dray’, traditional

  Turning to greet his tenant, John Epps raised his hat, a faint medicinal whiff for his cologne.

  ‘Miss Larkin!’ he said.

  ‘Dr Epps,’ said Sarah. ‘I was about to leave this for you.’

  She presented him with a plain brown envelope.

  Amid the morning bustle of Great Russell-street, they met outside the front door to No.89. The landlord was diminutive, a well-groomed man of middle age. They stood almost eye-to-eye, he on the front step and she the pavement. In taking up the envelope he glanced across her right shoulder. She had approached from the direction of Mills and Wellman, Ironmongers, Post Office and Savings Bank.

  Rent money in hand, he squinted up at the low sky. ‘It seems almost unfair,’ he said, ‘given the preternatural warmth of recent weeks, that today should start out so uncommonly cold.’ He gave a genial little shiver, before addressing her more directly. ‘Uncommonly cold… I trust you are wrapped up warm against the elements?’

  Sarah smiled weakly. He saw lines of anxiety on her face, and that she clutched a second, much larger envelope. ‘If you’ll excuse me…’ she said.

  ‘Certainly.’ He stood aside and she rushed in through the open door. ‘And, thank you!’ he called after.

  Sarah Larkin’s slender, retreating figure had already disappeared around the stairwell. Dr Epps retrieved his key, still dangling from the lock. He turned to face the queue of patients for morning surgery.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Who’s first?’

  ~

  Without pausing to remove her bonnet or outside garments, Sarah tore at the seal of the large envelope. The correspondence came direct from the Admiralty, from the office of the clerk Dilkes Loveless.

  ‘Dear Miss Larkin,’ it read. ‘Thank you kindly for your recent letter. I count myself delighted to have this further opportunity to assist you in your endeavours. To whit, please find enclosed a Navy-Office list of those ships on which George Bruce is recorded as having served.’

  Sifting through the appended papers, she found a table of sorts, copied out in the clerk’s elegant hand. This she gave a cursory examination before returning to his cover letter.

  ‘Further references to this same individual,’ he went on, ‘are found among articles of gubernatorial correspondence held at the Admiralty. He writes to the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, presenting his Memorial.

  ‘Records returned by Lachlan Macquarie, governor of the colony at New South Wales at that time, detail his response concerning George Bruce, “who went by the name of Dreuse in this Country”.’

  George Bruce had once gone by an entirely different name. Only now was she in possession of both halves – ‘Joseph’, according to a slip in the relation of his own Life, and ‘Dreuse’. Joseph Dreuse.

  Sarah penned an immediate and hasty reply. Making sure to thank the clerk profusely for going out of his way to assist her, she then requested – if
he would be so kind – the full text of the correspondence. Bruce’s ‘Memorial’ must, she felt, bear relation to Bruce’s Memoirs.

  Sarah valued complete information in a way that only a clerk might appreciate, and said as much. And then, since it nominated vessels additional to the Admiralty List, she traded in her own tally of those ships on which Bruce said he had served, as recorded from the manuscript thus far.

  She referred herself to the additional comments Dilkes’s transcript had included: written against the first ship listed, the Lady Nelson: ‘No books’; and later: ‘Vol. Sydney, deserter from Lady Nelson’.

  ‘Deserter’…this one word went so entirely against what she understood from Bruce’s earlier Memoirs that she very much wished to know more. She would have to see what accounting was yet to be given in the more honest-seeming Life.

  Finally, thinking that it could do no harm, but might indeed be arousing of the clerk’s curiosity, she made declaration of her suspicions: that ‘George Bruce’ was a false identity, latterly adopted by man whose real name was almost certainly Joseph Dreuse, or else something very similar.

  Sarah quit the house again. She posted the new letter, and then, making her way down Duke-street, continued south. No time to retrieve the manuscript from where she had last left it – she would not be reading it today. The author’s very identity being in question, she meant to trace Bruce back to his literal source, his birthplace. Her intent was to proceed directly to St Paul’s, the parish church of Shadwell.

  Catching an omnibus from New Oxford-street, Sarah sensibly sought travel advice from the conductor. She remained on board accordingly, until the start of Whitechapel.

  Alighting there, she cut down Leman-street on foot. Once before, while her mother was still alive, they had ventured here as far as the Garrick Theatre.

  Hard alongside, at times overhead, the steam trains rattled past constantly; London and Blackwall Railway passenger locomotives serving Fenchurch-street station; goods transports to and from Wapping’s wool and wine warehouses.