The Dolocher

by Caroline Barry

  ‘You’ve a heart of gold, Gloria.’

  Solomon kissed her soft, spongy cheek and gave one of her breasts a quick squeeze, making Gloria whelp and roar laughing at the same time.

  ‘Cheeky bugger,’ she howled, watching Solomon dive into the crowd and give a quick wave back. He cut out the back entrance to the market and turned down Saint John’s Lane, gazing at the familiar Four Courts where he had gone to lectures and taken up the habit of card playing ten years ago. He brushed off his once promising past and sauntered down Winetavern Street and out onto Essex Quay.

  Here we are. He spotted the brass plaque with the words Dublin City – Commissioners of Hawkers, Pedlars and Petty Chapmen engraved in black. He patted his right breast, feeling the bulge of ten shillings in his top pocket, then ran up the steps two at a time and pushed open the large black door.

  The reception desk was empty. Two women wearing their Sunday best were sitting on a low bench. Each had a covered basket.

  ‘He’ll be back in a minute,’ one piped up. ‘Have a seat, love.’

  Solomon sat down.

  ‘Terrible about Olocher,’ the woman with the hairy mole said, grabbing Solomon’s attention. ‘They say the Keeper beat him to death.’

  Her friend nodded.

  ‘Should be sacked, taking justice into his own hands,’ the first woman continued.

  ‘I knew Jo-Jo,’ the woman with the red bonnet announced.

  ‘Did you?’ asked Solomon. Turning to the two women, he got to work, pulled out his little notebook and began jotting some notes.

  *

  In the distance the bells of Christ Church Cathedral rang twelve times. The door to Merriment’s shop opened and her customers came in dribs and drabs, looking for powders and prescriptions. By four o’clock she had taken three shillings, along with Lord Rochford’s four and six and Solomon Fish’s deposit. It hadn’t been a bad day. She looked at Janey Mack, who sat propped on a high stool, her bandaged arm resting on the counter. How much would she have to offer Hoppy John to buy out Janey Mack’s apprenticeship? She thought about the last of her savings. What if he asked for three pounds? She couldn’t afford to purchase the little girl, not if she wanted to eat for the month. Merriment took a deep breath, smoothing her hand over her brow. She opened the pill cabinet and took three silver boxes from the top shelf.

  ‘Where are ye going?’ Janey Mack asked her.

  ‘I’ll be two minutes,’ Merriment said, slipping the boxes into her breeches pocket. ‘You mind the shop.’

  ‘But what if we’re robbed?’

  ‘Two minutes.’

  Merriment slipped out the door and quickly dashed round the corner past the school for higher mathematics and the tailor with the gold brocade coat hanging in the window. She squeezed past a group of men grumbling about the price of cranage and pushed open the door to William’s pawnshop.

  She was given one pound for the silver boxes, three times less than their value. She folded the huge wrinkled note and slipped it into the deep pocket sewn inside her waistcoat.

  Better than nothing, she thought. Her conscience disagreed. Now you’re selling your stock for well under its market value and for what? To hand it over to a one-legged man so you can take his helper away and complicate your own life.

  On her way back, small specks of rain began to fall. A horse whinnied and skidded on the cobbles as the child who had startled it raced down Werburgh Street shouting profanities at the rider. A gust of wind picked up Merriment’s hair, blowing back her fringe. For a moment she longed to be on the deck of the Inscrutable, looking at the white sails unfurling, billowing fat and full as they caught the wind, watching the clouds gather over the grey-blue ocean and the distant horizon gleam silver at the edge of the sky. She missed the uncomplicated routine of being a ship’s surgeon. Dry land tied her down with a ferocity she hadn’t expected. Suddenly she was looking at property rents, the cost of stock, the new regime of having to shop for food, having to cook it. No galley with meals prepared by the ship’s cook, no fuel stores with ready chopped wood, no hammock, no king’s pay, just a long line of bills and tasks tying her in knots with a devilish kind of trickery she was beginning to think she could not outwit. Life on land was not what she remembered.

  She burst into the shop to find Janey Mack talking to the short girl who had been in this morning smelling perfume with Stella.

  ‘Here she is,’ Janey Mack grinned.

  To pass the time earlier Merriment had washed the little girl’s face again, cleaning it thoroughly and without brushing her hair had tied it back with a length of pink ribbon. Janey Mack kept saying over and over again it was the loveliest piece of ribbon she’d ever seen and was Merriment sure she could spare it? Spoiled by milk and bread and pink ribbon, Janey Mack would have walked over hot coals to oblige Merriment in anything she asked.

  ‘This is Anne,’ Janey Mack announced. ‘She’s looking to buy a present for her friend.’

  Merriment nodded. Anne removed one of the worn grey gloves she minded with great care and pointed to the perfume stand on the narrow shelf beneath the lines of soap.

  ‘The expensive one, the bud of Jericho perfume. It’s for Stella.’

  ‘Right.’ Merriment was about to fetch the bottle when Anne stopped her. She flushed a little, her pale eyes darting quickly to Janey Mack.

  ‘She wants to set up a savings account,’ Janey Mack explained. ‘Can’t pay up front in total.’

  ‘I see.’ Merriment slid behind the counter, pulling a red ledger from the cubbyhole under the cash drawer.

  ‘How much would you like to pay off a week?’

  ‘Told ya.’ Janey Mack patted Anne’s hand. Anne relaxed. When she smiled, two dimples popped in her heart-shaped face. The girl was no more than sixteen and worked full-time for the widow Byrne living on Hanbury Lane.

  ‘I can spare four pennies a week,’ she said, chuffed to watch Merriment write her name in the account book. ‘It’s Anne MacCarrick. I mean, some weeks it might be less, might be more.’

  ‘Whatever you can afford,’ Merriment told her.

  ‘See?’ Janey Mack nodded, pointed at Merriment and said to Anne, ‘They got it wrong about her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Merriment stopped writing.

  ‘It’s the shop,’ Anne said turning, showing her long brown curls almost down to her waist. ‘It’s put-offish.’

  ‘Is it?’ Merriment looked at the neat shining stacks of shelves and gleaming cabinets.

  ‘I mean, it’s lovely and clean and you’ve got great soap, but it’s very hoity-toity and this end of town’s not used to such things.’

  Merriment thought of the gold brocade coat being flaunted in the tailor’s window round the corner. Crowds gathered to ogle it. The tailor’s was always busy. But then she remembered most of his stock was linen and wool with only one or two silk pieces.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong.’ Anne’s hand waved, the grey glove loosely flapping. ‘It’s intimidating is all.’

  ‘Plus, people don’t know what to make of yer breeches,’ Janey Mack said earnestly. ‘Ye’ll have to start wearing a skirt.’

  Merriment laughed, a short derisory burst. ‘I am not putting on stays to improve business.’ Then realising she sounded shrill, she added by way of apology, ‘They pinch.’

  ‘She’s adamant,’ Janey Mack told Anne. ‘But you tell yer friends there’s a slate and not to be put off by the quietness and the shining glass and sure Merriment will give you a bit off the perfume for bringing in business.’

  Merriment caught her breath, taken a little off guard.

  ‘Yes,’ she smiled, recovering, then adding to Janey Mack’s selling spiel, she told Anne, ‘I have all cures, powders for the vapours, lemon drops for a sore throat, silica for abscesses, Urtica . . . I mean, stinging nettle for chilblains.’

  ‘Chilblains?’ Anne was interested. ‘How much for the cure?’

  ‘Three pennies.’ Seeing her eyes cloud a little, Merriment altere
d the deal. ‘But I can give you half a jar of salve for one and a half.’

  ‘Can you?’ That was it. Anne nodded and stood up straight. ‘The widow Byrne is crucified with chilblains, they’re always cracking open and bleeding on her. This will sweeten the ol’ lady.’

  Merriment fetched an empty tin box, took the green waxy cure from its storage jar and began spooning it out.

  ‘And tell anyone ye meet’ – Janey Mack was working hard for her new pink ribbon – ‘that she never shot no one. The song got it wrong.’

  ‘It’s a great song. I can play it on the whistle,’ Anne said.

  ‘Can ye?’ Janey Mack almost sprang off the stool. Everything seemed to amaze the little girl.

  ‘I can.’ Anne put on her glove and tugged her shawl tighter around her, glancing at the soft raindrops sliding down the glass. She passed over one and ha’penny to Merriment and took the tiny box, then three pennies for the perfume deposit.

  ‘You won’t let on to Stella,’ she said. ‘It’s a surprise for Christmas for her. Poor love has had a hard year. Lost her mammy three months back and her father’s a pig dressed in oilcloth breeches. Gives Stella an awful time.’

  ‘Poor Stella,’ Janey Mack sympathised. ‘She should drug him.’

  Merriment’s jaw swung open as two sets of eyes looked hopefully at her.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Merriment.

  Anne glanced away, pinching her mouth, her eyes skipping over the cabinets, but Janey Mack didn’t give up.

  ‘Has he a shockin’ awful temper?’ she asked.

  Anne nodded.

  ‘And what colour is his skin?’

  Merriment smothered a smile; this was Janey Mack’s first diagnostic attempt.

  ‘Mottled,’ Anne shrugged.

  ‘And what about his piddle?’ Janey Mack’s little eyes bulged, as she earnestly tried to interest Merriment in acquiring a new client.

  ‘How would I know?’ Anne made a face.

  ‘Colour of his piddle is important,’ Janey Mack said. ‘Ye have to check the chamber pot, if it’s brownish . . .’

  ‘All right,’ Merriment interjected. Janey Mack sucked in a breath.

  ‘Have you thought of something to cure him?’ Janey Mack whispered.

  Merriment didn’t speak, and for a moment the room filled with an anticipatory silence. At last she asked, ‘Is he prone to ulcers?’ and the question pricked the atmosphere, releasing the tension.

  ‘Ulcers? God, I think so,’ Anne answered.

  Merriment rattled off a list of questions. Is he always cold? Is his urine and other bodily secretions pungent? Does he have a tendency to have warts? Is he selfish, self-centred? Hold long grudges? Does he feel that everyone is against him? Does he fly into rages and take offence easily?

  At last she said, ‘There is a pacifying herb.’

  ‘There.’ Janey Mack tapped behind her head to feel her new pink ribbon. ‘She’s a cure for everything.’

  Anne was intrigued. ‘Could she slip it to him, in a sup of ale or something?’

  ‘Or sprinkle it over his dinner. Depends on what I prescribe.’

  Anne’s forehead crinkled as she concentrated.

  ‘Don’t know what colour his piddle or sweat is, but the man flies into rages and barely lets Stella out. The girl is allowed only to go to the shops and back, that’s the only time I get to see her. No wonder she has digestive complaints. She can’t stomach her life.’

  Anne put the chilblain salve into her pocket and told Merriment she would drag Stella in tomorrow.

  ‘Don’t care what it costs. If you can pacify that man, it’d be worth all the gold in China.’

  When Anne left, Merriment looked across at Janey Mack.

  ‘You hungry?’ she asked.

  Janey Mack looked confused. She was full from the bread and milk this morning, but if she could get more food she would take it.

  ‘Come on.’ Merriment went into the back room and cut more bread. This time she lifted a fancy platter lid and exposed a delicious lump of hard crumbling cheese. She fixed two plates and was about to heap pickled onions onto Janey Mack’s plate when the little girl squeaked.

  ‘Sorry, miss, not for me.’

  Merriment dragged two chairs over to the fire, helped Janey Mack sit up and placed her onion-less plate on her lap.

  ‘Now,’ Merriment began, sitting down, ‘tell me more about Hoppy John.’

  *

  By seven o’clock it was lashing rain, and the light was a curious greeny-grey colour. Merriment shut up the shop and put one of her jackets around Janey Mack’s scrawny shoulders. The little girl had her burnt hand washed, covered in pink ointment and freshly bandaged. She pinched the jacket closed with her bandaged hand and slipped her free hand into Merriment’s palm. The simple gesture made Merriment turn her face into the rain, trying to push back the horrible worry that Hoppy John would be hard to convince. Who would let such a little girl go at any price?

  They walked through the Christchurch market as the hawkers packed up their stalls. Lumps of sodden straw, vegetables turning past their best, stray cabbage leaves and dropped crusts littered the cobbles. The curious smell of manure mixed with the tart odour of curds and whey hung about the air. Janey Mack looked up at the statue of Lucifer, her little feet hurrying to pass him. She squeezed Merriment’s hand tight and whispered, ‘He’s terrible imposing, miss, isn’t he?’

  Merriment smiled. ‘It’s only a statue.’

  ‘But the devil is real,’ Janey Mack said suddenly, whipping her hand out of Merriment’s and making a quick sign of the cross to protect herself.

  They took the back entrance into Saint John’s Lane, which was practically empty. The city was winding down for the night. Only a few workhorses pulling bags of fuel or empty milk barrels clopped down the narrow twisting streets. Farmers brought their cows back to graze on the common ground over in Oxmanstown and shopkeepers locked their premises, pulling their collars up and their hats down against the rain.

  ‘There’s a cess on everything, isn’t there, miss?’ Janey Mack chattered, her bare feet splashing in the muddy runnels running along the broken pavement. ‘You can’t fart but they’ll tax ya for it. Hoppy John is always going on about it. Said if I get any taller I’d have to pay him a cess, in accordance with the fact that my height is blocking his light. Sometimes he can be funny, but I think the war did things to his head.’

  ‘Do you mind if you have to leave Hoppy John?’

  ‘It’s not going to happen,’ Janey Mack suddenly blurted.

  ‘Why not?’

  Janey Mack stopped dead and looked at the dark glistening ground. She didn’t know how to tell Merriment that there was no such thing as a perfect day. So she just shrugged, used to experiencing the inevitable disappointment that life dished out. She looked bleakly ahead, wishing the world would just melt and she could melt with it, walking hand in hand with a lovely lady.

  ‘I can handle Hoppy John,’ Merriment reassured her.

  Janey Mack nodded miserably.

  ‘I’ll explain everything.’

  ‘It won’t improve his temper, miss, ’splaining nothin’. “Scavengin’ has to be done, ’splaining or no ’splaining,” that’s what he’ll say.’

  Janey Mack could feel her fairy-tale day coming to a close. She wanted to slow down, not rush to the quayside and back into a whole lot of trouble.

  ‘We will come to some sort of an agreement.’ Merriment clutched at straws.

  ‘He’ll agree to yer face, miss, but the minute your back is turned, he’ll wallop me and redden my ears.’

  ‘We can’t have that.’ Merriment squeezed Janey Mack’s fingers.

  ‘What ye can’t have and what turns out to be are two different things, miss, and Hoppy John has a fearsome temper.’

  The little girl was crestfallen. Her eyes became faintly wild, glittering with a fearful anticipation as she considered the angry reception she was going to get from Hoppy John. They turned onto Essex
Quay. The Liffey was cluttered with low barges and small boats. Stacked along the quayside wall and sloping in haphazard arrangements were shacks of all sorts and descriptions, each constructed from stray boards and scrap picked from rubbish dumps. There were shacks with porthole windows and cabin doors, shacks with leaning roofs and others roofed with upturned boats to provide shelter from the rain. In the greeny twilight the grey constructions shone gloomily. The rain stopped and when Merriment glanced behind she saw the sun sinking, pale and yellow over Essex Bridge. Janey Mack was silent now. She waved at a sad-looking young boy poking a stick into a lump of silt. He stared back, numb and cold, barely interested. Merriment saw an old sailor stooped in his doorway picking at a herring, his shoulders hunched by years of hard labour and grotesque poverty. She threw him a nod and walked on, oblivious to the runnels of excrement and foul water seeping towards the river. Janey Mack’s hand slid from hers. The little girl stopped, her bare feet resting on a cracked brown slab. She took the ribbon from her hair and solemnly handed it to Merriment.

  ‘Ye’ve been very kind,’ she said. ‘And I’ve had the best day I ever had.’

  ‘It’s not over yet.’

  ‘I was purchased for to help Hoppy John. He gave two shillings for me and took me from the orphanage. If I break me contract I’ll have to go straight back there and you’ll be flung into jail on account of tamperin’ with the law.’

  Merriment tugged on her waistcoat and shook her head.

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ she said. ‘And why can’t you keep your ribbon?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be right,’ Janey Mack said, swinging the jacket from her shoulders. ‘Here’s yer coat.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be right?’ Merriment was fascinated by the little girl’s innate sense of fairness.

  ‘Some things just aren’t right.’ Janey Mack walked on. Merriment shook her head. The strand of pink ribbon rose and fell like it was a living thing between her fingers. She watched Janey Mack make her way towards an old man bent crooked over a barrow flinging bits of a broken chair into a pile of rubbish. His hips were lopsided, his thick blue coat smeared with grey streaks. His right leg was balanced peculiarly. When he spun round Merriment understood why. There was a carved stump where his shin should have been.