The Dolocher

by Caroline Barry

  He stood up abruptly and took to pacing the room. He would do anything to get out of his own mind and away from the memory of that awful day when he hauled Eliza May out of the river.

  ‘Damn this.’ He grabbed his jacket and, looking at the blank paper on his desk, told himself, I’ll write about Ester Murphy later.

  He emptied out his box, leaving two pound notes behind. He hurried down the stairs and slammed the shop door behind him, leaving Corker, Janey Mack and Merriment staring at each other.

  ‘He’s hightailed it,’ Corker said. ‘I better go too.’

  He left the sketch of the Judge on the table and shrugged.

  ‘Safe home, Corker,’ Janey Mack whispered, as she stood at the shop door waving him off. ‘Hurry in out of the dark. Don’t let the Dolocher catch ye.’

  She watched him run up towards the cathedral, his pale, crooked legs vanishing behind a passing curricle as he sped home, keen to be off Dublin’s haunted city streets.

  *

  The Cock and Hen was full to capacity, the atmosphere thick with blue smoke and rank with the putrid stink from the tanners, who despite scrubbing couldn’t get rid of the stench of their profession from their pores. In one corner there were fiddlers and melodeon players; before them a knot of drunken women did gigs and reels, egged on by a rowdy group of plasterers who’d come over from Italy to carry out the stucco work on the ceilings and walls of the city’s mansions. Jenny winked at Solomon from behind the counter and waved him over.

  ‘The usual, Sol?’

  He nodded and was sifting through the crowd looking for Harry and Badger when a tall man with granite features and a mean expression approached him. His gruff demeanour incongruously counterbalanced his refined attire. The man was wearing a crisp white shirt, a blue nipped jacket trimmed with gold braid, a sage-coloured waistcoat with brass buttons and pristine silk stockings tied with lime-coloured ribbon.

  ‘Y’er doing well at the market,’ he began as he blocked Solomon’s way, his head tilting malevolently to one side, his eyes sparking with a flinty hardness, his voice so low it sounded like it was emerging from a deep cistern. Solomon tried to grin his way past, but the bully stopped his progress, spanning his large palm across Solomon’s sternum.

  ‘Ye’ve an invitation.’ The bully grinned, exposing surprisingly good teeth and a single dimple that depressed his rugged cheek. Solomon had begun to shake his head, declining whatever the man in front of him was offering, when the bully cast his eyes over to a table deep in the corner away from the music and the dancing women.

  ‘Ye’ve earned enough to get you into a real game,’ the bully sniffed. ‘The invitation is from Knox and, sure’ – he ran his index finger under his nose – ‘ye might win.’

  Solomon’s heart sank. Across the room he could feel the glint of Billy Knox’s glacial eyes staring at him. He knew he wasn’t getting away and, determined to pretend he had less money with him, he followed the bully to the card table and promised himself he was never ever coming back to the Cock and Hen again.

  *

  Some time after Corker had left, Janey Mack turned to Merriment and said, ‘Solomon’s in a bit of a mood. I bet he’s gone out to drink. Do you like him? Would you shoot him if he annoyed ya?’

  Merriment smirked. ‘I wouldn’t shoot anyone.’

  ‘Wouldn’t ya?’ Janey Mack looked at her injured hand. Merriment had taken the bandage off to let the air at it; it was definitely improving.

  ‘I’d shoot loads of people just to shut them up,’ Janey Mack said, gazing into the fire. ‘Imagine, he’s from the back of beyond,’ she started up again. ‘He’s a country lad, you’d never think it to look at him, with his city coat and buckled shoes. He’s kind of bookish, isn’t he? But you’d like that. I think there’s a rake in him. Hard to fasten that lad down. He likes to laugh, I think; even though he’s sad, he laughs a lot.’

  ‘He was sombre the other night,’ Merriment said, wiping her hands and coming to sit by the fire.

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘Said he regretted something.’

  ‘Playing cards and losing money no doubt.’ Janey Mack clicked her tongue.

  ‘No. It was more than gambler’s remorse.’ Merriment shook her head a little.

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘’Cause I know,’ Merriment grinned.

  ‘Did ye see it in his eyes?’ Janey Mack tilted her head slightly, her tone fluttering nervously.

  Merriment smiled craftily and pitched her brows, reiterating that somehow, after years of training, she had a magical ability to uncover the secrets of the mind that lay hidden in the body and emerged as ailments with specific symptoms.

  Janey Mack’s face darkened. She stared for a moment into the fire, the fingers of her right hand rubbing her right thumb, mulling something over. She looked up at Merriment and sat upright on the three-legged stool.

  ‘Can you see if someone has done something bad, miss?’

  ‘Well,’ Merriment nodded, ‘signs do pop up in the body.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Oh, yes. For example if a person lies, a black line develops down the middle of the tongue. Let me see your tongue.’

  Dutifully, Janey Mack poked her tongue out and Merriment craned over to inspect it.

  ‘Very good, no lie has tripped off that tongue.’

  ‘What else, miss, shows up in the body?’

  ‘Let’s see, a person who does a crime with their hands, little scarlet spots burst up on the palms.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Janey Mack hissed. She quickly inspected her hands and Merriment’s eyebrows rose quizzically.

  ‘Is there something you need to tell me, Janey?’

  ‘God no.’ Janey Mack blinked. ‘Are they big spots, miss?’

  ‘On the hands? No. Very small. You need a professional’s eye to see them, but they’re there.’

  ‘Janey Mack.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll train you up. By the time you’re qualified, you’ll be able to read a person like a book.’

  Janey Mack nodded. She threw another log onto the fire and watched as sparks flew up the chimney.

  ‘What do you see in Solomon, miss?’

  Merriment folded her hands across her lap and thought for a moment.

  ‘I think Solomon has a secret.’

  ‘Do ya? Do you think he murdered anyone?’

  ‘No,’ Merriment laughed. ‘No.’ She shook her head doubtfully. ‘Janey, all this business with Olocher has inflamed your imagination. Solomon is, well . . .’ She paused, contemplating just what she thought of Solomon Fish. ‘Something depreciated his worth, reduced his character, put him to the life of a vagabond writer.’

  ‘We’ve all had knocks.’ Janey Mack shrugged. ‘I think it was his looks that spoiled him.’

  Merriment stared at the little girl poking the log in the fire and nodded approvingly. Janey Mack was bright as a button and somehow that made Merriment proud.

  ‘Go on,’ she said encouragingly.

  ‘That’s it. He was a pretty baby and got what he wanted, a pretty boy and got what he wanted, and then one day he was all grown up and didn’t get what he wanted. And in a fit of disappointment he had a tantrum and took to the road and has been slidin’ downhill ever since.’

  *

  Solomon looked bleakly at the pile of notes and coins that had only hours earlier been carefully stashed in a battered tin box in the floor in his bedroom and were now being counted out by Billy Knox’s bookkeeper. Billy himself looked barely amused, his penetrating eyes glimmering with a cruel, detached light. He ordered brandy and muttered something to the man next to him while Solomon glared dismally at his losses.

  ‘And of course there’s the tariff,’ the bully in the fine clothes informed Solomon. His nickname was ‘Pearly’ on account of his teeth and fondness for fashion. ‘Seven pounds, I reckon.’

  Solomon bristled. ‘I wrote no promissory notes.’

  Pearly showed his gleaming smile. ‘Ah now
, when ye play with the big boys, ye follie their rules. It was seven pounds to sit in the game.’

  ‘You never said.’ Solomon’s eyes danced frantically over the table. ‘You never mentioned a game fee.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ Pearly feigned a concerned frown, tutting at himself sardonically. ‘Shame on me.’

  ‘But—’ Solomon panicked.

  ‘Don’t be blusterin’ now.’ Pearly wagged an enormous finger and, pulling out a notebook and pencil, astounded Solomon by writing. ‘Yer address?’ Pearly enquired.

  ‘I owe nothing,’ Solomon protested.

  Pearly nodded sympathetically and very pointedly said, ‘I’ll put down the apothecary shop, will I?’

  Sickened that Knox’s gang already had tabs on him, Solomon stood up from the table, desperate to get away, but Pearly grabbed his arm.

  ‘See, how it works’ – Pearly’s voice rumbled as he hauled Solomon down beside him – ‘is ye pay what ye owe or ye find a friend who might loan ye the money and assist ye.’

  Solomon’s stomach lurched, his whole body flooding with regret. Why had he come out? Why hadn’t he stayed safe inside Merriment’s lodgings? Why hadn’t he just written about Ester Murphy’s witness statement?

  Pearly licked his lower lip, his purple tongue glistening as it emerged from his mouth. ‘A lady businessman might give ye an advance,’ he proposed, his thick dark brows rising towards his hairline, his eyes staring meaningfully into Solomon’s face.

  The full force of Pearly’s suggestion hit Solomon like a cannonball to the chest. They knew about Merriment . . . They intended to extort . . . In a casual moment he was now embroiled . . . up to his neck . . . and now Merriment was dragged in. She had been targeted. He began to panic.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Solomon snapped. ‘Absolutely not.’ Then, desperate to get away, scrambling to mask his dread, to hide his terror, he launched to his feet and growled down at Pearly, his words slowly punching the air, ‘You will get your money and then you will fuck off.’

  Solomon stormed away to howls of laughter.

  What was he going to do? He felt sick, claustrophobic, hemmed in. The room seemed to spin about him, the crush of bodies, the shoving and shouting, the noise and grubbiness. His thoughts burned and boiled, torturing him. He owed money. It was London all over again, only now Merriment . . . He felt sick. What the hell had he done? He swayed on his feet, stumbling, pushing past a knot of thieves pulling candlesticks from a sack and asking Judy the Fence to take a look. Solomon couldn’t squeeze by them. He was going to throw up. He needed air. Space. Seeing the trapdoor to the cellar open, he took his chances and dived down the steps, gulping in mouthfuls of the cold, rank atmosphere. Jenny was there. He grabbed her and kissed her, forcing his tongue between her teeth, his arms dragging her close, pulling her behind the casks into the shadows, hungrily disrobing her, opening her blouse.

  He was damned.

  Jenny succumbed, letting Solomon lift her skirts and take her. The cellar was damp, a candle threw a pallid light over the blackening barrels, and as Jenny heaved and squirmed beneath him, Solomon thrust deep, only stopping when she pushed him back and asked him what was wrong.

  ‘What ye crying for?’

  Solomon sank against the wall, grimly holding his breeches, looking bleakly into the shadows. He winced at the grubby surroundings, at Jenny’s confused face, at the stink of mould and stale beer. And he couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear that he was a dissolute, lascivious gambler, a whoremonger, tipping a barmaid in a vault, dragging Merriment into his nefarious dealings, contaminating her good world with his polluted compulsions. He blinked, confounded by his own tears.

  ‘I’m not drunk enough,’ he muttered, quickly fastening his buttons.

  ‘Is that so?’ Jenny hissed sharply. ‘Well, fuck you and yer attitude. Ye ponce. Ye weeping Mary, get yerself up the stairs and out the door, ye lobcock, and don’t dare step in here again.’

  Jenny smoothed her skirts and grabbed the pitcher of ale she’d come down to the cellar for, leaving Solomon resting against the wall, shaking his head miserably.

  When he appeared in the bar, Jenny was standing over a card game, laughing raucously.

  ‘Weeping like a toddler he was,’ she bawled loudly.

  There were loud guffaws; someone banged the table with their fist and elbowed Jenny.

  ‘Sure, I’d bet ye’d bring tears to anyone’s eyes with your tricks and japes and expectations.’

  Solomon slinked out into the night, closing the door to the Cock and Hen quietly behind him.

  It was a cold night. He welcomed the chill wind; it naturally cooled his overheated mind as he walked along the quays watching the boats bob on the tide. The lights in the galleys reflected on the dark water and on the quayside people sat in clusters inside their lean-to shacks, the dull flame of their home fires casting a crimson glow in the tiny windows. He walked and wondered what he should do. He knew how Knox’s gang worked. It was the same with the London gangs, the fee he owed would never be paid. Billy Knox would squeeze every last drop from him, keep ratcheting up the expense of the game, adding percentages. He had two pounds under the floorboard and for a moment he wondered about asking Merriment for the balance.

  ‘Christ.’ He bit his teeth together, pushing away the vision of her face. What the hell had he done? He ran through the list of people he could ask. Gloria? The printer? He sucked on the inside of his cheek cursing and damning himself, cursing and damning the situation. He was in hell, locked in a cycle of constantly owing money, of escaping debt, evading criminals, disappointing women, disappointing himself. How had his life come to this? Again! He groaned, miserable and tormented.

  Maybe Maggie, he wondered. Then, revolted that he could even consider calling out to Saggart to fleece poor Maggie of her earnings so he could extricate himself from the tangle created by his own bad character, his own lack of inner resolve, he balled his fist and dragged his knuckles off a low wall until they bled. He was furious and frustrated. Hadn’t he promised himself on the voyage over that he was done with cards? Done with women? Wasn’t Dublin a whole new start? Seething with self-loathing he walked blindly through the narrow streets, full of shame and regret and torn by a longing to be with Merriment, to say something to her, to hear her voice.

  She would despise you, he thought, rolling his eyes towards the cloudy sky, the last remnants of his pride shredded by the unassailable truth that he was a creature of destructive habits, destined to ruin any prospect of hope for himself and those near him. He had undone in one evening all that he had successfully achieved in a month.

  He was at the top of Winetavern Street when a pale hump by a step near the back door to one of the guilds groaned and reached out a bloody hand.

  ‘Help me,’ the voice whimpered, ‘help me.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Solomon jolted, recognising something in the tone, something familiar about the corner of the shawl, a ruby-coloured shawl. He ran towards the woman.

  ‘Maggie! My God, Maggie, what happened?’

  The left side of Maggie’s head was dripping, blood streaked along her face and curled into her mouth, staining her teeth. Her clothes were torn, her bodice half ripped open, her skirts loose and one of her shoes was missing. She pawed at the air, trying to haul herself upright. She rolled over and vomited, splattering Solomon’s shoes.

  ‘Help me,’ she sobbed, not recognising Solomon.

  ‘It’s me, Maggie, Solomon Fish, remember? I’ll help you. I’ll help you.’

  Solomon swept an arm under her shoulder. He saw his breath coming in a white puff. He could hear his own voice echo off the walls and in the distance was aware of the sound of approaching hooves.

  ‘Try and sit up, good woman.’

  He looked frantically about. Behind him the blazing streetlight hissed and sizzled, the flames dancing from the pitch.

  ‘Hey,’ he bellowed at the top of his lungs. ‘Someone help me, there’s a woman here.’ He balanced Maggie Fines on th
e step and ran to the top of Skinner’s Row, shouting at the top of his lungs for help.

  *

  It took three men to carry Maggie Fines to Merriment’s shop.

  ‘Open up,’ Solomon hollered, hammering on the door.

  Janey Mack sprang from Merriment’s lap, disorientated and teetering.

  ‘What is it? It’s murder, miss, don’t open the door. Who could it be?’

  ‘It’s me, Merriment,’ Solomon hollered. ‘It’s urgent, let us in.’

  Merriment had her pistol in her hand as she unbolted the door, aware of the voices of a crowd gathering outside. Solomon burst in, his face gaunt, his white flesh eerily contrasting against the dark circles surrounding his eyes. Two men followed him, bringing in a faint and blood-smeared Maggie.

  ‘She’s been attacked.’ Solomon barged past. Janey Mack stood shivering, holding a candle.

  ‘Did the Dolocher get her?’ she gulped.

  ‘Will you look at her?’ Solomon swept his hand over his brow as Merriment passed.

  ‘Put her in the chair,’ she said, grabbing a basin, spirits, clean cloths and fresh bandages.

  The anteroom filled up. Maggie was lowered into a chair and given brandy to help revive her. Merriment set about wiping her face and inspecting her body for other wounds, while all around her an anxious crowd pressed close, waiting to hear what the injured woman had to say.

  ‘She’s been hit badly on the head. Something sharp.’ Merriment lifted a piece of scalp the size of a fried egg and gently mopped away the blood. Maggie hissed and flinched; her hands shook.

  ‘Sshh. Maggie, it’s me. Remember?’ Solomon knelt down beside her. ‘Remember me?’

  A confused expression shifted across Maggie’s battered face. Merriment patted down the torn scalp and gently rubbed a soothing ointment along the frayed edges, pausing for Solomon to feed the woman more brandy.