Solomon bobbed his head. ‘A fair charge for such a fine establishment. A fair charge.’
He gave Molly the money. When she left, Solomon swayed to his feet. ‘Come on, girls, I can take on the two of you, let’s go.’
The blonde hauled him back down.
‘It’ll be three shillings each.’ She kept her blue eyes steady. The powder on her face looked white and ghastly in the yellow candlelight. Her rouged cheeks hid craterous pox marks, yet despite the make-up and the scars she was still pretty. Her face had a natural symmetry; her features had genuinely pleasing proportions.
‘If you hadn’t been riddled, you’d be prettier than Helen of Troy.’
The dark-haired girl slid her stocking foot up along his thigh.
‘You pay us half up front and half when ye’ve finished. Go and get the key off Molly, get the room number and we’ll follow ye up.’
Solomon was drunk, but not that drunk. He got the key, sent the blonde ahead and sneaked the dark-haired girl and the last of the gin into his room, triumphantly throwing his arms open and flinging himself on the bed.
‘Let us lose ourselves in the arms of Venus.’
While Merriment kept a vigil over Maggie Fines’ corpse, Solomon bounced and laughed with two prostitutes on a hard and un-giving bed. He pleasured one and lost interest in them both the minute he had come. The satisfying of his carnal desires had been swift and short and curiously sobering. He rolled off the dark-haired girl and looked away when the blonde presented herself. The room was filthy, covered in dust. The bed sheets were soiled and the stench of boiled cabbage seemed to issue from the walls.
‘Three shillings,’ he said flatly, rummaging in his bag for his wallet. He handed the dark-haired girl the money and pulled on his trousers. ‘You both better go.’ He dragged his hand through his hair and went to sit by the window seat.
‘God, don’t the shine wear off him sudden?’ the blonde girl smirked at her friend, then laughed and shrugged. ‘Ye finished him off too quick, Marie. Saves me the work.’
They left with coin rattling in their pockets and went downstairs to spend it on gin. Solomon looked at the rain streaming down the glass, gazing at the watery runnels bursting and sliding to the mullions, unable to stop his mind drawing comparisons.
Turns out, he thought wryly, that a conversation about Pyrrho can produce more heat than taking two women to bed.
He hated that he was thinking of Merriment. Hated that he wondered what her mouth on his would be like, hated that he imagined kissing her, dragging her to him, making her yield. He knew she would push him away, disgusted by his whoring, disgusted by his spinelessness, by his weak character, by the fact that he was always running, leaving a trail of misfortune in his wake. He envied and loathed her steadiness: attracted to the quality of fortitude she possessed, repelled by the fact that she represented such a stark contrast to his own changeable soul. He was weak, she was strong, and being near her only magnified his appalling flaws. Depressed, he dragged on his boots, buttoned up his shirt, washed his face and toyed with the idea of hurrying back to his lodgings to see her.
When he got downstairs the Brazen Head was filling up, the snugs thickening with labourers and sailors. A troupe of players were toasting some actor wearing a red ermine cloak and a fake crown. The two bawds he’d taken to his room were over at the bar supping on gin and guffawing loudly while down in a well-lit corner a group of dandies were shuffling a deck of cards. Solomon’s eyes snapped to the table, reading quickly the quality of the players. They were wealthy enough to pander to the latest fashions, flighty enough to carry rapiers but not crass enough to know all the dirty tricks a good card player could use to improve his takings. Solomon was thinking of joining them in the hope of winning money to fob Knox off for now at least when he spotted a small man with an angular face. He instantly recognised the pronounced forehead, the red scar running to the edge of his mouth, the empty eyes. Hawkins, the Keeper of the Black Dog, was slipping onto a bench and opposite him was a man with an immaculate row of teeth, finely dressed and sporting a blue nipped jacket. What was Pearly doing with Hawkins? There was a peculiar exchange that Solomon couldn’t completely read. Pearly handed Hawkins a well-wrapped parcel which he quickly disposed of, slipping it inside his jacket pocket. The two men conferred quietly, hunched over the table with Pearly looking curiously subject to Hawkins, whose manner was slightly more dominant. It was odd to see Pearly’s brow creased, his eyes downcast like he was at one and the same time brooding and smarting. Hawkins was shaking his head and snarling while Pearly occasionally muttered a cowed response. It was Hawkins who left the table first, leering down over Pearly, growling some kind of parting shot, perhaps an instruction. Either way Solomon didn’t wait to see. Keen to get away before he was spotted, he scurried out the door and hurried into the darkness.
He pushed into the rain, flicking up his jacket collar, his blond curls blowing loose in the wind and sticking to his skull the more wet they became. He passed a couple heading down to the tavern and wished he had a lantern to help him make his way. The night was pitch black. There was one streetlight burning at the top of New Row, and even though he couldn’t see one foot in front of the other, he made for the distant flickering blotch at the corner of Corn Market House.
He strode as quickly as he could, aware of his own breath, of the wind whistling through the railings surrounding a disused house. The city seemed empty. Somewhere behind him he heard the distant clop of hooves and a horse whickering, but mostly all he could hear was his own footfall echoing off the high walls of the empty buildings on either side of him. He gripped his bag tight, suddenly wishing he carried a stick, something like the weapon Jody Maguire carried, or a pistol. Merriment carried a pistol. He was thinking of Merriment again.
He hurried, taking a left turn down Cutpurse Row to High Street. Two of the cottages at the end of the narrow alley had candles burning in the window. An insipid, dim glow reflected off the distant cobbles and blindly Solomon pushed forward, half running, keen to get out of the darkness and away from the sensation that something lurked in the shadows. He was rounding the back of Newgate, cursing himself for choosing to walk in the most deserted spot in the city, when he paused a moment, examining the slab of darkness stretching out before him. He saw the barest suggestion of grey. Outlines that slithered, vanished and reappeared as his eyes tried to organise them into recognisable shapes. Was that a doorway, a gate, a person? The darkness seemed to move with an oily viscous quality, the air was thick and shifting, black sliding over black.
He felt interred.
The clear awful image of Gertie lying dead in the gutter suddenly flashed in his mind. He recalled Boxty grotesquely crawling along the filthy floor of the Black Dog, his spine undulating, his face warped, his mouth a dark uneven gap. A primal, paralysing fear gripped Solomon, unable to repress the sudden conviction that at any moment the Dolocher could burst through the membrane of night, its swinish head glowing eerily, its hands thrashing wildly, lunging and ripping and biting and tearing.
Solomon started to run, one hand held up before him, the other gripping his bag and clutching it to his heart. His chest tightened, squeezing his lungs, crushing his breath. He staggered to a halt, gasping down air, blinking, trying to refocus.
There was something there. He peered deeply, scrutinising the shadows, his skin prickling. The hairs on his arms standing on end. Halfway up a high wall the blackness moved, folding over and back. There was a dragging sound, a low thump. Something landing. Descending? Solomon gulped and swayed, teetering back on his heels. To his horror a buttery yellow streak emerged from the brickwork. There on a ledge, crouched and malformed and staring down at him, was the enormous bristling skull of a black pig set on hunched shoulders. The Dolocher’s fierce head moved. A swell of dark prickly flesh poured in folds from his neck. His dull tusks and snout suddenly vanished. The source of light disappeared, sucking the Dolocher away with it.
Solomon bolted forw
ard, his ears pulsing with the horrible rush of blood to his head. He ran pushing his chest forward, his lungs rasping, his breath squeezing tight, hurting his ribs, his legs pounding, taking long blind strides. Could he outrun the devil? A low sound emanated from his throat, a desperate cry. Was the Dolocher flying through the air after him? He kept running, instinctively turning corners, heading straight, looking for light, frantic to get to a thoroughfare, to people, to be inside, to be safe.
The Dolocher was real: he’d seen it with his own eyes, emerging from walls. Would it burst up from the ground, defying time and space? Solomon wanted to retch. He would be pulled asunder by a hellish fiend, ripped limb from limb for all the ways he had transgressed. He glared wildly behind him, searching the impenetrable night. Stumbling forward, patting a wall, he fell through a doorless aperture and landed with a noisy thud on the floor. He pulled down a stack of planks, sending the wood crashing. The ear-splitting clatter echoed loudly through the empty building. Solomon doubled up and sucked in air, desperate to fill his lungs and stop the pain in his side, while all he could think as he fell was, It’s too late. This is how I’m going to die.
Solomon lay gasping, staring at the point he had fallen through, waiting to see the snorting visage of the Dolocher’s barbed skull plunging through the doorway with wide dripping jaws snarling open, ready to tear him apart. He couldn’t move. He was frozen in a distorted curl, his spine arched upwards, his fingers rounded like talons, his lips pulled back, his eyes wide. He didn’t flinch, just stared.
A noise erupted above him – his whole body riveted, thrashing as a jolting shock pulsed through him, bouncing him from the floor to his feet. A sharp pain cut through his ribs; he tried to sprint away, but his body was rigid. Thuds pounded from the ceiling.
The Dolocher was upstairs.
All Solomon needed was air, but his heart was spinning in his chest, slicing at his flesh, shredding his lungs. A pinprick of light appeared from somewhere high up, sending a slender pale shaft through the ornate staves of a banister. And Solomon cried out, his voice a hoarse, broken shriek.
‘Who’s there?’ a man gruffly bellowed.
A lump of nausea gorged up Solomon’s throat.
‘I have a weapon, ye blackguard. Now, who’s there?’ the gruff voice threatened.
A woman pleaded, ‘Come back, Lar, come back,’ and Solomon clambered towards the bottom of the stairs almost sick with relief.
‘Help me.’ He stumbled up a few steps, weak and shaken.
On an upper landing a huge shadow crept along the wall and a tall man dressed in filthy garments, his eyes wide, rounded the corner and stood glaring down at Solomon.
‘You don’t live here,’ he barked, taking in Solomon’s jacket and new boots.
‘I saw the Dolocher . . .’ Solomon faltered and the man froze, checking Solomon’s pale face for veracity.
‘Did ye?’ he snarled, ‘or are ye addled with drink?’
The tall man sheltered the candle from the wind, throwing a spectral light up onto his own lopsided face in the process. The eerie light made him look ghostly, a grisly phantasm cruelly drawn by the anaemic candle flame, but Solomon was never more pleased to see another human being in his whole life.
‘I swear to you, as I live and breathe.’ Solomon clung to the banisters, his chest heaving. ‘It was up a wall, looking down.’ Solomon’s knees buckled; he locked them to prevent himself from collapsing. ‘Jesus Christ.’ His face was bloodless. His body began convulsing as the adrenaline washed out of his tissues, throwing his muscles into spasm.
‘He’s real. The Dolocher is real.’
The tall man took three steps down and quickly assessed him. ‘Ye look shook enough to have seen something,’ he said. ‘Come on.’
He waved a large hand and, seeing that Solomon couldn’t move, assisted him up two flights of stairs. The stairwell was dark and crumbling; the smell of damp and urine hung in the air. As they climbed, the lone flame flickered casting distorted shadows onto the peeling walls. A gust of icy wind channelled down from the upper landing almost snuffing out the candle.
‘Blast,’ the man grumbled, saving the flame and flicking back a tattered sheet that served as a door into his living quarters. ‘Come in.’
He held the sheet upright and Solomon stepped into a forlorn room furnished with four sickly children and a pregnant woman.
‘Ye all right, Lar?’ The woman looked petrified. The children were settled in a straw crate, all of them in a row, peeping like frightened mice from under a burlap sack that served as a quilt.
‘This lad’s had . . .’ Lar said, suddenly cutting off. ‘Go back to sleep.’ He pulled a battered screen out, somehow convinced that the thin partition would serve to block out the adult conversation.
‘He seen the Dolocher,’ Lar whispered to his wife and the woman sank back into the wall, gripping her chest with horror.
Lar drew over the stub end of a barrel and sat down, signalling to Solomon to come and settle by the fire. Solomon sat on an upturned box, relieved to be in company, glad of the heat. He paused for a moment, his hands fanned before the flames, his body slowly undoing the severe shock he had experienced. He glanced at the pregnant woman. She looked sick, her skin had a polished hue, her eyes were deep-set and dark rings circled the sockets, her hair was stringy, she looked old, even though she was no more than twenty-five.
‘It’s awful.’ Lar’s wife patted his shoulder. ‘Get him a bit of ale, Lar.’
‘There’s none left.’
Lar pulled a wooden bowl from the mantelpiece and spooned a greenish liquid from the cauldron simmering on the fire.
‘Bit of cabbage broth.’ He handed the bowl to Solomon. ‘Warm ye.’
Lar lit a clay pipe and folded his arms over his expansive chest, looking intently at his ill wife, waiting for Solomon to give his testimony. Solomon sipped the warm, soothing broth, feeling his innards melting, his bones reviving.
‘Thank you,’ he said at last, slowly coming to his senses. The room was practically bare; there was a heap of straw in one corner, strewn with a grey blanket, a rickety table, two chamber pots, a bucket for ash and that was it. The broken windows were shuttered but the wind whistled through the cracks, sending cold streams into the room and rattling the shutters nosily.
‘Landlord took the doors.’ Lar grinned miserably, noticing Solomon looking about. ‘Told us it would cost three and six to get them back.’
Solomon nodded like he understood, but he didn’t. Lar’s wife shifted uncomfortably and, drawing a strand of lank hair away from her face, asked gently, ‘Ye ready to tell us?’
Solomon flapped his mouth open and closed; he didn’t know where to start. He wiped his brow. His forehead was wet and clammy.
‘I felt him. Before I saw him. I felt he was there. He was on a ledge, halfway up a wall.’
The fire crackled, spitting out a hail of crimson sparks.
‘His skull.’ Solomon struggled to recall the details, the apparition had disappeared so quickly. He closed his eyes desperate to fully recollect all that he had seen. The black eye sockets, the bristling line of dark spines covering the depressed, hollow cheeks, the dull glow of the curling tusks, the suggestive outline of a snout, the silvery glint of fine black hairs sprouting from the pointing ears.
‘He has a black pig’s face with tusks and a row of teeth. There was a light, faint, far away. I don’t know. He was only there a split second. He emerged from the brickwork, came out of the wall, peered down at me and vanished. I thought he was coming to get me. I was sure I dead.’
Solomon licked his lower lip and turned away, his eyes stung with a film of tears. He didn’t want to cry. He blinked, shaking his head.
‘Can I stay here till morning?’
Lar nodded. ‘Course ye can.’
Then looking at his wife, he gave a little smile.
‘Now, Ruth, ye’ve nothin’ to worry about. Ye’ve been good as gold all yer life.’
‘What ab
out that little girl found in the gutter?’ Ruth squeezed her skirts. ‘She did nothin’, Lar. It’s dreadful when the good lord himself is lettin’ the devil out. I don’t want to bring another child into this world.’
Lar tried to smile. His whole face seemed to flow away from his eyebrows, his features dripping like melted wax. He was a large, ugly man with kind eyes.
‘There’s no devil will get past me, love.’ He held up his two arms proudly. ‘I’ll mind ye.’
‘I’ll not sleep, Lar. Not a wink.’ Then, turning to Solomon, she asked, ‘What’s your name, stranger?’
‘Solomon. Solomon Fish.’
‘I have to ask’ – Ruth kept her troubled eyes fixed on Solomon’s face – ‘do ye think he followed ye?’
Solomon shook his head, but he didn’t know.
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘No. I got away.’
*
Lar and Ruth did sleep: they lay wrapped in each other’s arms while Solomon sat by the fire, staring over at the doorway, watching the pale sheet billow like a living thing nourished by swells of passing air. The night crawled by, the only light coming from the wood snapping in the fire, the minutes creeping painfully forward, giving Solomon enough time to relive all his failures.
Why had he ever told Eliza May he loved her? Why had he taken his mother for granted? Why had he left Sally Loftus? Why was he cruel and feckless and incapable of taking on responsibility? Why was the devil after him?
He remembered that first night at the age of eighteen when he sat down at the card table in the Law Club and lost his week’s rent. The night he drank himself into a stupor and missed his third law exam. The morning he decided to walk out of Garbelly’s lecture to never return. The day he buried his mother. The lazy afternoon he ran into Betty Everton and charmed her blouse off her. He winced, reliving Eliza May’s accusations. ‘Betty said ye kissed her.’ ‘I never,’ Solomon remembered lying. And the lies blackened and expanded and drove him further into unreachable depths and now the devil was after him.
The Dolocher Page 24