Beresford turned his sharp pale eye to inspect Solomon’s face. Chesterfield coughed. ‘May I present Mister Solomon Fish, future news editor with Pue’s Occurrences.’
‘I’m not working for your paper,’ Solomon snapped. Then, turning to Lord Beresford, he sharply enquired, ‘Have you any comment you’d like to make on the matter? A direct quote that I can use in my pamphlet.’
‘A pamphleteer.’ Beresford laughed heartily, Solomon’s sudden threat vanishing with the revelation that he was nothing more than a street hawker. ‘Dear God, Chesterfield, things so bad that you’re canvassing pamphleteers to come run your business?’
Solomon bowed curtly. ‘I’m off,’ he announced. ‘Mister Grierson, Lord Beresford.’
As he left, Chesterfield turned to Beresford and whispered, ‘I’d sack the Keeper in the Black Dog, if I were you. That man has a way with words.’
*
The bells of Christ Church Cathedral rang out four times. Rain clouds were gathering over the rooftops, piling up over the slender chimneys. The streets were bustling, horses and carriages rattled by, while livestock were driven back out of the city, bothered by stray dogs and children throwing stones. Solomon was exhausted, his heart churned up by the seething confusion of the last few weeks. Skinner’s Row was busy. A cart had upturned and an old man was cursing and beating the broken wheel that had let him down; the turnips he was carrying rolled over the road and were hastily grabbed by ragged children who seemed to appear from nowhere. Solomon collected his buckled shoes. As he watched the cobbler wrap them in brown paper and tie them with string he heard a male customer grumbling.
‘That new apothecary on Fishamble Street is concocting potions for the women to poison their husbands with. She should be charged for malpractice, reported and shut down.’
Solomon paid for the repair and turned to the customer, a tiny man with a lopsided face, and defended Merriment.
‘That apothecary has a wonderful reputation,’ he said firmly.
The shrunken man pointed a gnarled finger.
‘She’s drugging the men so that they are sitting drooling in the corner, fit for nothing. She wears breeches. She’s contrary to nature, so she is; contrary to nature.’
Solomon laughed and walked away.
It began to rain as he passed under the gateway to Christchurch market. Most of the market was empty, the detritus of the day’s trading littered the flagstones, one or two horses were tethered to the railings, but the crowds had cleared. All the stalls were folded up except for Solomon’s. Instantly he knew there was something wrong. Corker and a bevy of filthy-looking children were massed behind his stall, while Gloria and one or two other traders were standing alongside them, all shouting and protesting at one man.
‘What’s going on?’ Solomon ran to them.
Jody Maguire rounded on him and grinned broadly.
‘Speak of a queer and he will appear.’
Corker was livid. He rushed to Solomon’s side, blurting out the gross injustice of the market manager’s thinking.
‘This fat lump of useless lard wants me to pay him one whole pound on account of I am not the official licence holder of this stall.’
‘He’s my assistant,’ Solomon asserted.
‘That’s right,’ Gloria and the other traders agreed.
Jody Maguire chewed a wodge of tobacco and spit a long, dirty streak onto the ground before declaring, ‘His name is not on the trading licence. It’s a point of law and ye can fume and bluster all yez want, but the law’s the law and unless ye pay me the fees due, ye can give up yer prime spot and buy a licence for Spittlefield.’
Jody Maguire smacked his walking stick down hard on the wooden stall, sending the last few copies of Gertie Baker’s story floating onto the wind. Solomon gritted his teeth; this always happened, events always conspired to fleece him and reduce him and diminish his chances. There was always some bastard ready to rob him and bring him down. He took the carpet bag that Corker was guarding with his life and counted out one pound.
‘Don’t,’ Gloria whispered. ‘Solomon, ye can’t.’
Solomon looked at Corker. The boy’s huge brown eyes blinked; he was aghast, stung by the unfairness of the situation and confounded that Solomon would part with such an astronomical amount of money.
‘You’re right.’
Solomon turned to face the market manager, who was tugging on the strap of his satchel, scratching his enormous belly. Solomon leaned towards him, whispering loud enough for everyone to hear.
‘You can take your stall and shove it where only the Dolocher would look.’
Gloria laughed.
‘That’s right,’ she howled, ‘you tell him, Solomon.’
Solomon pocketed his money and stormed away, followed by Corker and a multitude of ragged children, including two infants barely able to walk.
‘You’ll regret it,’ Jody Maguire barked, utterly confused. ‘Ye hear me, ya ponce, ye had a prime spot here.’
Corker swooped a little girl with the filthiest face up into his arms and trotted beside Solomon. The rain spattered onto his tattered jacket, leaving huge blotches the colour of dark pennies.
‘What’ll we do now, Sol?’
‘Corker, you have to go home.’ He handed Corker two shillings and the parcel he was carrying.
‘What’s this?’ Corker asked.
‘A gift.’
One of the children, a girl with huge sorrowful eyes and a threadbare shift, shivered miserably. She looked hungry. They all looked hungry.
‘Will I see ya tomorrow?’ Corker asked.
‘Where’s your mother?’ Solomon wanted to get away. He didn’t want to see hungry children, he didn’t want to see a young boy looking anxiously up into his face, he couldn’t bear the awful desperation in Corker’s eyes.
‘Don’t come tomorrow,’ Solomon snapped.
‘But, Sol . . .’
‘Go home, Corker. Go home.’
Solomon turned and left, his whole being squirming. How could he have travelled to Dublin and in the space of one month used the city up? He thought of Jenny laughing at him, of Eliza May pleading with him, of Sally Loftus crying in his arms, of Gertie dead under his jacket, of Maggie Fines lying sick in his bed. He thought of Billy Knox and Pearly and he started to run, through the rain, down Wood Quay. He ran until he could run no more. And on a side street somewhere near the river, he slipped into a tavern called the Brazen Head.
13
The Confession
Merriment and Janey washed and prepared Maggie Fines’ body. They hid Maggie’s swollen scalp under a crisp white bonnet and dressed her in a clean nightdress, fastened the ribbon at her throat and entwined her rosary beads around her interlocked fingers. Merriment placed two old pennies on either eyelid, forcing Maggie’s corpse to keep its eyes closed. She clasped the shutters and lit a candle, leaving it on the little table by Maggie’s bed. She was about to usher Janey Mack out of the room when the little girl whispered, ‘We shouldn’t leave her alone.’
‘She’ll be all right,’ Merriment insisted.
‘No, miss. The dead get lonely. I stayed three days with Mammy.’
Merriment caught her breath.
‘Did you?’
‘Told her stories to keep her company and kissed her face.’
Merriment turned away, concealing the pain she felt for the poor little girl. She’d never thought to ask Janey Mack about her family. She had assumed she was a foundling baby, abandoned at the orphanage by a destitute woman.
Janey Mack looked into the clean hearth.
‘We should light a fire, make the room cosy. We could have a sup of milk up here, Maggie would like that. She said she was afraid of the worms squeezing their way in.’
‘Janey, I think we should wait downstairs.’
The little girl shook her head and wrung her right hand, blinking miserably at Maggie Fines’ waxing corpse.
‘I’d want somebody to sit with me, miss.’
&n
bsp; Torn between pity and care, Merriment gave in to Janey Mack’s request and went to her room to fetch two more candles, to brighten the atmosphere. She wished to God that Solomon would hurry home. He was late. She lit a fire and sent Janey Mack to bring up some bread and cheese and two cups of milk.
‘Will you manage them on a tray?’
‘Yes, miss.’
The rain pattered against the window, the flames from the fire danced on the opposite wall, and Maggie Fines’ still corpse glowed like white marble in the gloom. Janey Mack stuck her tongue out as she tapped the door open, concentrating on keeping the milk from sloshing and spilling.
They sat before the fire, Janey Mack on the trunk and Merriment in the chair.
‘Night’s a lonely time, miss,’ Janey Mack said, glancing over at Maggie. ‘And it’s raining out.’
‘Solomon will be home soon.’ Merriment felt it was a bad idea holding a vigil at Maggie’s bedside, but she couldn’t think of a way of convince Janey Mack to go downstairs.
‘He didn’t come back with Corker.’ Janey Mack sipped on her milk. Then, taking a big bite of bread, she said, ‘He has a hidey-hole, miss.’
Merriment frowned.
‘Who has?’
‘Solomon, look.’
Janey Mack put her bread and milk carefully down and deftly prised up the loose floorboard where Solomon had stashed his money.
‘Janey.’ Merriment stood up, appalled that the little girl had pried into Solomon’s private life. ‘Put that back.’
‘There’s twenty-four pounds here, miss. That’s a fortune. Maybe he’s saving to get married.’
She shook the box but there was no sound. She looked confused, then opened it.
‘It’s gone, just two pounds left,’ she exclaimed, shooting a meaningful glance Merriment’s way. ‘What do you suppose he’s done with it? Bought a horse? We’d have no place to keep a horse.’
‘Just leave it back.’ Merriment pointed to the gap in the boards.
‘There’s books here too.’ Janey Mack produced a large volume from the cobwebbed darkness. ‘Is this the Bible, miss?’
Merriment saw the word Tort embossed in gold on a red leather spine.
‘It’s a law book.’
‘Then this one’s the Bible.’ Janey Mack drew up a small dark book and Merriment nodded.
‘Janey, put everything back this minute. You have no right to go through Solomon’s things.’
‘He’s a rope here, miss.’
Merriment drew back, surprised. Janey Mack held up the wheat-coloured coil.
‘What’s he a rope for?’ Janey Mack whispered. ‘Do you think he ties people up, miss?’
Merriment shifted uncomfortably, her left hand pressed down on the knuckles of her right hand.
‘Janey, put everything back,’ she said sternly.
‘But maybe this is his secret, miss.’
Merriment took the rope and flung it on top of the tin box.
‘You’ve got to respect people’s privacy, Janey. Now arrange everything as it was and put the floorboard back.’
Janey Mack did as she was told. She brushed down her dress, took her cup and stood at the end of the bed drinking her milk and checking on Maggie, who lay motionless with two huge penny pieces flattening her dead eyes closed.
‘Did you have a baby, miss?’
‘What?’
Janey Mack pointed to the chimney breast, reminding Merriment of the hiding well downstairs. ‘The little bonnet and the booties in the fireplace, miss. Did you have a baby?’
Merriment’s mouth hung open, ready to lie. She looked at the corpse in the bed, at the candle on the table, at the flames quivering in the fire.
‘It was long ago,’ she said quietly, astounded to be speaking about something buried so far in the past.
Janey Mack didn’t mind. She licked the butter off her bread before eating the crust.
‘Did it die, miss?’
Merriment took a long, deep breath.
‘She died of croup.’
Janey Mack sat back down. She’d finished her supper. For a while she looked at her hands, inspecting them front and back. Her burns were healing nicely.
‘I found a baby once.’
Merriment’s eyebrows rose; she hadn’t expected to hear that. She looked at the little girl sitting with her legs tucked under her on the trunk. Janey Mack nodded as she spoke, turning the hem of her dress over and back, fidgeting nervously.
‘On a rubbish pile,’ she said. ‘A scrawny little thing. Bald as an egg. Whimpering, so it was. I wrapped it in a scarf and carried it all day. Fed it pease pudding. It got sick all over me. It was a little boy, with a wrinkly face.’
Merriment held her breath, listening, wondering what kind of world would leave a child on a rubbish heap. The land was more merciless than the sea.
‘What happened to him?’
Janey Mack shrugged and averted her eyes.
‘Lost him, miss, down by the river.’
She hopped down off the trunk and checked on Maggie, patting the woman’s dead hands to let her know she was not alone. She adjusted the ribbon on Maggie’s nightdress and told Merriment, ‘She’s freezing.’
Janey Mack was checking under the pennies to see if Maggie’s eyes would stay closed, when she asked, ‘Did your fella know you had a baby, miss?’
‘No.’ Merriment shook her head, faintly confused that for the first time in twenty years she was speaking about her daughter, and to an eight-year-old child.
‘Did you never tell him, miss?’ Janey Mack replaced the penny.
‘No.’
‘Pity.’ She left Maggie and coming back to the end of the bed, she leaned against the post and tilted her head to one side.
‘Did ye ever find yer man in the frame downstairs, like the song says, miss?’
Merriment gave a little smile, and nodded.
‘I did.’
Janey Mack launched forward, her eyes wide, her right thumb excitedly rubbing along the fingers of her right hand.
‘Did ya?’
‘We met when he was eighteen years old and his name was Johnny Barden and I loved him with all my heart.’
‘I knew it, miss. I knew ye were romantic.’
Merriment recollected who she used to be when she was eighteen years old. She was light-hearted and free. She gazed at her hands. All those years ago, she thought, recollecting the disintegration of her heart. It took a full eight years at sea, searching every port they stopped in, asking endless questions, looking and putting out word. Eight years of hanging on to hope by a thread and during that time Merriment had altered. Her bright philosophical spirit that loved to dance withered and hardened into a scientific shell. Facts and figures nourished her waning soul, treatises on medicine and logic and mathematics held her together and made her strong, until one day she was strong enough to stand on deck and look out to sea and give up on the girl she used to be. She let go of her longing to find Johnny Barden. Let go of the idea of their love and put away her old romantic thinking.
Merriment glanced at Janey Mack, who was waiting with bated breath and sparkling eyes, waiting to hear the story of how Merriment O’Grady found Johnny Barden and killed him for betraying her. The eagerness of the little girl’s expression sent a wave of love through Merriment’s heart. How could such a little girl have become so important to her in such a short space of time? Her chest stung with an unfamiliar, remote feeling, stirring the memory of the love she used to feel for her father. My God, if anything should happen to you.
Janey Mack crept closer. ‘Go on,’ she said encouragingly. ‘Tell us what happened when ye found him.’ Her face was bright with expectation, delighted to be hearing the true story, direct from the horse’s mouth. Merriment crossed her legs and looking into the cup of milk she held on her lap, she recalled those days when she was eighteen years old and believed the world was a golden place filled with possibilities and endless pleasure.
‘Johnny was press-gange
d and taken to sea and I was inconsolable.’ She sipped at the milk, amazed that the pain she had thought she could never recover from no longer undid her.
‘Course you were inconsolable.’ Janey Mack arched forward, her hands reaching out theatrically. ‘That’d be you, miss, on the shore with yer long hair and yer cloak, and you weeping and wailing and crying out to the ocean – Come back, Johnny, come back. But he couldn’t hear you on account of the wind on the waves and the far distance between yez.’
Merriment smiled at Janey Mack reliving what had happened so long ago.
‘I cut my hair,’ Merriment said.
‘And dressed yerself up like a sailor and tarred yer face and took to wearin’ breeches and swearin’ and spittin’ like the men.’
‘And I enlisted aboard the Unflappable, a frigate heading for China.’
‘Janey Mack, were you scared, miss?’ The little girl held her breath.
‘Initially, but no one found me out.’
Merriment put the cup down on the fender and leaned a moment looking into the fire.
‘I learned to scale the rigging and hide my face and blend in with the crew.’
‘Until one day your blouse flew open and out popped yer breast.’
‘No.’ Merriment laughed suddenly.
‘But that’s what the song says. After a skirmish, the silver button flew off yer jacket and there appeared yer snow-white breast.’
‘Nothing like that happened.’ Merriment looked over at Maggie. The corpse’s huge penny eyes gazed back.
‘I discovered I was pregnant and once we docked in Spain, I sneaked away and took up lodgings in a tavern. There I had my baby. Joanne.’
Janey Mack nodded and waited. When Merriment didn’t speak, the little girl reminded her.
‘Who died.’
Merriment lifted her head and licked her lips, surprised to think that Joanne would be twenty years old now, if she had lived.
‘I kept her boots and bonnet and cried for a whole year.’
‘Did ye, miss? That’s shockin’ lonely.’ Janey Mack sat on the edge of the trunk. ‘And then did ye come back home?’
‘I signed back up, this time on a bigger ship.’
The Dolocher Page 22