The Dolocher

by Caroline Barry

  ‘And where the room for rent is?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And do you eat up there, miss?’

  ‘Not usually.’ Merriment couldn’t afford to light the fire in her room so she usually ate in the anteroom, watching her potions and reading by the fire.

  ‘But, I could do if I wanted,’ she added, thinking that maybe tonight she might set a fire to console herself. Somehow the day had got away from her, somehow she felt confused, like she’d delivered a great hurt and needed a modicum of comfort to make her feel better.

  What if Hoppy John wouldn’t part with Janey?

  3

  The Lodger

  The shop bell tinkled with a flurry of sweet notes, startling Merriment out of her ruminations on Janey Mack and whether Hoppy John would part with her. The door behind her opened and when she turned around she saw a grave man somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties. He had dusty blond hair tied back in a short ponytail, a longish face with high cheekbones, pale lips and flinty eyes. Despite the fact that at first glance he seemed dashing, his green nipped jacket was threadbare, worn at the cuffs and elbows and missing a button. His silk shirt was spotted with traces of ink and his buckled shoes were scuffed at the toes. Something in his expression was truculent but when he smiled his whole face shifted and the sun seemed to originate in his eyes. He nodded at Merriment and Janey Mack and placed the large leather bag he was carrying on the counter.

  ‘Morning, ladies,’ he chirruped, and Merriment saw in an instance that the man used his winning smile as a currency to make the world bend to his will. He was a charmer.

  ‘Hello.’ Merriment emptied the tray and went behind the counter. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

  She resisted the mischievous gleam from his blue eyes, but felt a curious magnetic draw as he gazed along the shelves, scanning the bottles. There was a hint of intelligence in his brow and while he examined the shelves behind her, Merriment caught herself looking at his lips.

  ‘I need shellac, roman black preferably.’

  Merriment wanted to kick herself: she didn’t have any. ‘I’ll have to make it up,’ she said, certain the man would turn around and leave. ‘It’ll take a few minutes.’

  ‘No worries. Have you nibs as well?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I’ll take five.’

  ‘Right so.’ Merriment pulled open a drawer and with a neat carved trowel began loading dried insects into a mortar, crushing their dark glistening shells with a heavy pestle.

  The man looked down at Janey Mack, his eyes flashing with quick curiosity.

  ‘What happened to your hand?’

  Janey Mack leaned forward and candidly told him, ‘I was involved with a difference of opinion. The maggots are eating it away now.’

  ‘I see.’ The man moved to look at something that caught his eye in one of the glass cabinets.

  ‘Are you a law man?’ Janey Mack asked, stepping into the clean glare of the lemon sunlight. She looked more filthy and feral; the layers of grime stood out against her pale skin.

  ‘I was a student of the law.’ The man straightened up. ‘But that’s a while back now.’

  ‘What’s yer name?’

  The man didn’t seem to mind the young girl’s bald questions.

  ‘Solomon,’ he said. ‘Solomon Fish. My mother had high hopes for me when she christened me. Thought I’d be rich and wise as Solomon.’

  ‘And are ye?’ Janey Mack asked, making Merriment chuckle.

  ‘God no. Far from it.’ Solomon snorted, there was a brief pause, a flicker of resentment. His mother had set him up for a fall; the Bible had set him up for a fall. He had fallen. He looked out at the traffic passing the window. A fine bray was pulling a newly painted cart carrying a plump country girl and an old man. Across the road two hawkers shouted at the people walking by, one was selling Bullrudderie cakes, the other hot pease pudding from the lidded wooden tub she was carrying.

  Solomon walked to the window and craned his neck to one side.

  ‘This is a fine part of the city,’ he said. ‘Very lively.’

  He looked over the cobbled street, past the music shop and the printers, past the lines and lines of fishmongers stalls to the top of the road where the thick buttresses and grey steeple of Christ Church Cathedral pierced the blue sky.

  ‘Great view of the cathedral,’ he said, watching the throngs file under the heavy gateway to the side of the cathedral into the Christchurch market.

  ‘The market is thriving,’ he said.

  ‘That’s Hell, sir,’ Janey Mack told him.

  ‘Metaphorically speaking?’ Solomon asked.

  Janey Mack frowned; she spun round to look up at Merriment. ‘What does he mean, miss?’

  ‘The area around Christ Church Cathedral is called Hell,’ Merriment told Solomon as she added water to the crushed insect shells.

  ‘Did you not see the big statue of Lucifer standing looking down on everyone?’ Janey Mack asked.

  ‘A statue of the devil?’ Solomon leaned against the window frame, the shutter rattling a little behind his back.

  ‘He’s seven foot tall.’ Janey Mack stood on her tippy-toes, her right fingertips reaching for the ceiling. ‘You want your eyes testing.’

  Merriment interjected, ‘I think Mister Fish is new to the city, Janey. My guess is that he hasn’t been over to the market yet to see the statue.’

  ‘Oh.’ That satisfied the little girl. ‘Are you new here?’

  ‘I am, kind of. It’s been ten years. Dublin has turned into a fine metropolis, heaving at the seams.’

  ‘It’s busy all right.’ And without missing a beat Janey Mack asked, ‘What brings you back to Dublin?’

  ‘Adventure. A fresh start. A whole new market.’ Solomon’s face was luminous now, but beneath his roughish smile there was a hint of desperation. Janey Mack caught his off note.

  ‘Do you owe someone money?

  Solomon flinched.

  ‘Janey.’ Merriment swooped in. ‘That is inappropriate.’

  ‘Is it, miss? I’m very sorry. It’s habit.’

  That made Solomon laugh, a short unexpected burst that ended quickly.

  ‘You’re habitually inappropriate?’ he said, walking towards the little girl, interested in her chatter.

  ‘If you mean do I poke about, upturn things over and back, it’s me training. Best way to scavenge is to take a good look. Leave nothing to chance. What’s yer profession, Mister Fish?’

  Solomon and Merriment exchanged an amused glance. She liked Solomon’s willingness to answer all of Janey Mack’s questions. He didn’t dismiss the child and that marked him as an unusual man. Merriment liked his good humour and the way that he moved with a kind of ease that curiously exuded self-confidence and mild disinterest at the same time. She guessed from his relaxed gestures and the cocky way that he grinned and talked that Solomon Fish was the kind of man to take things in his stride and do his utmost to turn events to his advantage. His instinct for survival had manifested as easy good humour and there was no denying his manner, as well as his face, was very attractive.

  Probably used to everything going his way, Merriment thought, smiling at Solomon as he arched his left brow and cleared his throat to answer Janey Mack.

  ‘I’m a writer,’ he said boldly, his fingers vanishing into his pockets again.

  ‘Janey Mack, is that so? A writer of volumes and books?’

  Solomon’s proud stance shifted, his tone lowered. He had been found out. ‘Broadsheets,’ he confessed, checking to see if Merriment’s face had altered with disapproval. Merriment was still smiling. She stayed mixing, but Janey Mack’s voice rang out like she’d seen a kite for the first time.

  ‘Penny broadsheets?’ she said.

  ‘The very thing.’

  ‘Isn’t that marvellous.’

  Janey Mack’s infectious enthusiasm made him smile and the sun burst through his eyes again.

  ‘That’s Merriment O�
��Grady, she’s a broadsheet written about her and all. Well, a song. A penny broadsheet.’

  ‘Yes.’ Merriment stopped stirring. ‘Mister Fish doesn’t need to know my life story.’

  ‘But yours is interesting, miss.’ Without stopping to draw breath the little girl turned to Solomon, her huge eyes gleaming intensely. ‘She murdered a lad.’

  Merriment gasped, half laughing, half horrified. Solomon’s brows crinkled but his eyes glittered with interest as he stood grinning before her, his hands in his pockets. The last thing she wanted was this stranger thinking she was a murderess.

  ‘I did not.’ She moved out from behind the counter to clear the situation up. Solomon’s eyes never left her face to look down at her buttercup breeches. Instead he stared at her face, his brows faintly raised, his expression a cross between mock disapproval and goading glee.

  Merriment stammered, ‘Janey, we’ve established that the song is full of inaccuracies. I murdered no one, otherwise I’d be in jail instead of here making ink for Mister Fish.’

  ‘Suppose.’ Janey Mack shrugged, instantly convinced. She looked back up at Solomon to interrogate him some more. ‘Are ye here to write about the execution? I’d say there’s a great crowd up in Stephen’s Green?’

  ‘Olocher’s execution?’

  Merriment went back to her work, checking Solomon’s face. His eyes followed her as she stooped over the pestle and mortar.

  ‘Yes, Olocher’s execution,’ Janey Mack said. ‘Makes my skin crawl.’

  Solomon looked from left to right even though the shop was empty.

  ‘Didn’t you hear?’ he asked seriously.

  Janey Mack’s scalp fizzled. She scratched her head, shaking it ‘no’, blinking furiously with breathless expectation.

  ‘Did he escape?’

  ‘That’s what some people are calling it.’ Solomon Fish nodded gravely. He paused long enough for Janey Mack to hold her breath, her complexion turning pink with anticipation.

  ‘Killed himself.’

  The air shot out of Janey Mack’s mouth; her voice squeaked.

  ‘Did he? Oh my, that is shockin’, so it is.’

  Solomon flicked his thumb outward. ‘There’s murder up on the Green, they’ve set the gallows on fire, the crowd is furious. They can’t believe Olocher took matters into his own hands. They’re calling for the keeper of the Black Dog Prison to be given fifty lashes for disgracing the justice system. They blame him for allowing Olocher to slice open his own throat instead of making sure he stayed alive to be killed by the rope. They’re baying for blood, so they are.’

  ‘Janey Mack. I’m glad I didn’t go up now. There’ll be a riot.’

  ‘You did right to stay home and rest with Mammy.’

  ‘She’s not my daughter,’ Merriment interjected. She looked down at the sting evident in Janey Mack’s face and added, ‘She’s my assistant.’

  ‘Very good.’

  Solomon leaned onto the countertop watching Merriment work, paying close attention to her hands. Used to scrutiny, Merriment kept stirring, adding drops of water every few turns, but there was something about Solomon’s gaze that made her spine tingle, something about the casual, confident way he moved that made her want to look at him. She resisted the temptation to smile and instead asked a question.

  ‘How did this Olocher fellow get the opportunity to kill himself? Wasn’t he guarded?’

  ‘That man,’ Janey Mack piped up, cutting across Solomon’s answer, ‘could draw an opportunity for murder out of thin air, miss. He was in cahoots, plain and simple, whispering to the devil, so he was, miss, whispering to the devil.’

  Solomon stood upright, his interest piqued by the little girl’s answer.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘It’s well known about him.’

  ‘Oh.’ Solomon relaxed.

  ‘I seen him, once,’ Janey Mack told him. ‘He had peculiar hands. Ladies’ fingers, all soft and pale. Horrible to think what those hands did.’

  ‘What else do you remember about him?’ Solomon tugged a tiny notebook and pencil from his coat pocket and began scribbling. Janey Mack shrugged.

  ‘He was ordinary. Nothing much to look at. You wouldn’t pick him out in a crowd. A short, stocky little man with piggy eyes.’

  ‘Piggy eyes?’

  ‘Little shiny eyes that glistened, and when he looked at you your heart would stop in your chest.’

  Solomon’s mouth clamped shut, his eyebrows squeezed towards an unasked question.

  ‘She saw him going on trial,’ Merriment explained. ‘It upset her.’

  ‘I see.’ Solomon paused. ‘That’s what I keep hearing.’

  ‘That he upset people?’ Merriment asked.

  ‘That he was ordinary, soft spoken, quiet, but . . .’ Looking down at Janey Mack’s face, Solomon added, ‘Out of the mouths of babes. Strange to think what those hands did.’

  He shut his notebook on the words ‘ladies’ fingers’ and gazed a moment deep in thought.

  ‘Still,’ he said, shaking himself, ‘It is a fit ending for the man.’

  ‘There’s a crowd up on Stephen’s Green think he got off light,’ Merriment said.

  Solomon smiled knowingly. ‘They haven’t seen what I’ve seen.’

  ‘What did you see?’ Janey Mack wanted to know. Merriment wanted to know.

  ‘I saw a group of medical students over in the College of Surgeons hack out Olocher’s liver with a penknife.’

  ‘Janey Mack!’

  ‘An autopsy?’ Merriment was revolted and intrigued. She wished she could have witnessed seeing the exposed organs arranged in the cavity of the human torso, if uncertain whether violating a body after it died was cutting into the ancient ideal that ‘all was sacred and worthy of respect’. ‘An autopsy,’ she repeated.

  ‘That’s right. The man’s corpse has been sliced open and pulled asunder, unceremoniously diced and profanely dissected while the room clapped.’ Solomon seemed certain that the right thing had happened and for a moment Merriment envied his confidence. ‘Now that, I think, is a fit ending,’ he grinned.

  ‘Janey . . . Was inside him black? Did something slither from him?’

  Solomon laughed, perplexed and intrigued at the same time.

  ‘Slither from him?’

  ‘Like a snake,’ the little girl suggested.

  ‘No.’ Solomon shook his head, the loose curls over his temple sliding softly with the motion. ‘He lay down on the table and didn’t move. But he had got ladies’ fingers, pretty soft hands, just like you said. I’ll put that detail in my broadsheet.’

  Janey Mack’s tiny chest puffed up. She was to be quoted. She was having an excellent day.

  ‘Here you are. That’ll be three pennies.’ Merriment passed a cubed bottle across the counter and a folded sheaf of brown paper containing five nibs.

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Solomon rooted out his purse and drew out three pennies. ‘Am I near the Petty Chapmen’s office here?’

  Janey Mack looked up at him.

  ‘What for?’

  Merriment shook her head.

  ‘Janey.’

  ‘I need to get a hawking licence,’ Solomon said.

  ‘For the Christchurch market?’

  Solomon didn’t remotely mind Janey Mack’s constant stream of questions.

  ‘That’s right,’ he smiled good humouredly. ‘A hawking licence for Hell. Seems poetically apt somehow.’

  There was something in his tone that told Merriment he was ashamed.

  ‘You don’t rate your work then?’ she asked.

  Solomon grinned, masking his abhorrence.

  ‘It’s grubby work, but someone’s got to do it.’

  Janey Mack pointed with her good hand.

  ‘It’s down by the river, the Chapmen’s office. If you go down Winetavern Street . . .’

  Solomon peered in the direction of Janey Mack’s index finger.

  ‘Near Cooke Street?’ he asked.

 
; ‘Past it.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Solomon Fish slipped a penny into Janey Mack’s hand. ‘I can kill two birds with one stone, get a licence and interview one of the guards at the Black Dog, find out what really happened.’

  ‘What’s this for?’ Janey Mack asked, showing him the dirty coin.

  ‘For your excellent conversation and precise directions.’

  Janey Mack looked at Merriment. She wanted to keep the coin but somehow, under the rules of the day, standing in the apothecary shop, she thought that perhaps she should give the coin back.

  ‘I’m an assistant,’ she announced, solemnly waiting for Merriment to dive in and tell her to give the coin back like a good girl.

  ‘And I think your mistress there has an excellent student in you. Now put that away and don’t spend it in one go.’

  Merriment didn’t interrupt and Janey Mack wasn’t sure what to do next. Quickly she bargained on the best of both worlds and shoved the coin into her bandage since her pocket had a hole in it and without blinking asked Solomon Fish about his private life.

  ‘Do you have a sweetheart?’

  Now Merriment did dive in.

  ‘Janey!’

  ‘Several.’ Solomon Fish winked.

  ‘Well, they won’t be allowed back,’ Janey Mack said firmly.

  Solomon’s eyes flicked to Merriment. He frowned, a little confused.

  ‘Sorry?’ he said.

  Merriment could feel her heart beating in her throat. Janey Mack rattled on.

  ‘Here. They won’t be allowed back here. Them’s the rules, aren’t they, miss?’

  Merriment was too slow.

  ‘No women back and curfew at eleven. But you’ll get your supper, and have a nice fire set, I’ll do that, and you’ll have a lovely view overlooking Hell, which’ll please you.’

  ‘Janey.’ Merriment understood the muddle too late. ‘Remember how we discussed about being previous and galloping over the hill into the next county? I think you think Mister Fish asked you about lodgings and in your head you had a conversation that didn’t happen.’

  ‘You have to strike when the iron’s hot, miss.’ Janey Mack wasn’t put off. ‘Sure, it’s obvious: if he’s new to the vicinity and about to set up stall across the way, makes sense that he should lodge nearby in an excellent establishment for a reasonable rent.’