Merriment shook her head, certain that Mister Shelbourne’s visit had culled her customers. ‘I don’t think . . .’
But Janey Mack was ready for a busy day. ‘I know what the widow Byrne has, and I know where ye keep the stuff for Stella’s dad, and Misses Lennon’s husband’s tonic is bottled and ready, ye did that yerself. And I know what the lad with the spotty face takes, and ye’ve lots of the calming powder crushed and ready to go in the brown envelopes. And I’ll not give anything out to anyone new on account of ye not examinin’ them. It’ll be just regular customers only.’
Merriment glanced over at the dying fire. She thought of all the potions she had administered with a slight dilution of ingredients: all given out under the guise of sensitive care were recipes designed to quell feverish temperaments. They were a list of subtle tinctures and powders all infused with two certain qualities – to lift depression of the spirits and to stem violent outbursts. Was she truly being punished for her work? She thought of Lord Rochford and Peggy Leeson. Was it that she treated prostitutes and did not judge licentiousness? Something at the centre of her nature reeled at the moralising possibilities that resonated beneath the existence of a demon. She sighed and forced a smile onto her face. Now that she and the very fabric of society had been rent apart by the emergence of Olocher’s black spirit, would she be singled out? She thought of Mister Shelbourne’s fanatical religious zeal: You are an aberration of femininity, a deviation from all that is encased in the very term woman, with your breeches and your pistol. A blight on the face of God’s will, an abhorrent distortion of true nature. A hermaphrodite suckling on the teat of a devil. She wound her fingers together and thought of packing up.
Her thoughts drifted to Solomon. Would he come with her? she wondered.
‘I don’t mind working,’ Janey Mack was saying. ‘I’ve to earn me keep, same as yerself, and ye’ve been so kind, it’s the least I could do.’ She cocked her head. ‘And here’s Sol now coming up the stairs.’ She brushed her skirts down and tapped the cross around her neck.
‘There you are.’ Solomon beamed at Janey Mack as he passed by carrying a tray. ‘And how’s the patient this morning?’
‘She shot the Dolocher and he ate the gun.’
‘He what?’ Solomon frowned at Merriment.
‘Don’t forget the shillin’,’ Janey Mack reminded him before she bounded down the stairs. Solomon stood blinking by the door, the hot food wafting tendrils of fine steam up around his face.
‘You shot him?’ He frowned, placing the tray carefully across Merriment’s knees.
‘He winced.’ Merriment looked meaningfully at Solomon. While he poured her tea she asked him, ‘Did you pick up my pistol?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think I’d have even seen it, Merri. The only thing I saw was you. There was a chest, I think; the contents were everywhere.’
‘Rosie’s.’ Merriment nodded, accepting the cup of tea. Then taking a sip, she gazed over the brim of her cup, her eyes filling with a dark light. ‘Makes you reconsider Pyrrho of Elis’ second question.’
Solomon sank onto the bed beside her, examining her face, her mood, her state of mind. Merriment stared at the food on her plate, unable to bear the idea of eating.
‘What is the Dolocher made of?’
Solomon took a breath, worried that perhaps she would need more medical attention. He wondered if another apothecary could prescribe something to quell the nervous anxiety obvious in the glittering motion of Merriment’s eyes.
‘He’s made of Olocher’s dead bones and a hellish swine,’ he said.
‘But he groaned.’ Merriment floundered, examining the detail over and back, trying to recollect that moment.
‘I presume he felt the impact,’ Solomon ventured. ‘There may be some life in the nerve channels, some feeling.’
Merriment frowned and shrugged.
‘What if . . .’ she sighed, the steam from her tea fanning over the cup and saucer. ‘What if we could kill him?’
Solomon nodded, trying to keep his face expressionless. He pointed gently at the plate. ‘You should try and eat.’
Merriment looked out at the glistening snow. The sky was thickening with clouds. She could feel her heart sliding away from her ribs, her mind running hot and anxious.
‘Only the very good can slay the very bad,’ she said softly. ‘And I am not very good.’ She paused, her mouth hovering above the cup as she recalled the Dolocher’s gruesome pointed teeth.
‘None of us are.’ Solomon tapped her leg reassuringly.
‘I might have to go somewhere else, another country.’ Merriment’s eyes suddenly beaded up. For the first time Fishamble Street felt like home. She blinked back the tears, not wanting to go back to sea, not wanting to have to sail away, but afraid to stay in a city where a demon roamed.
Solomon felt the proposal like a blow to the chest. His breath stopped, his mouth hung open. Merriment didn’t look at him as she continued, ‘Take Janey Mack, bring her with me. I lived in a place in Spain for a year. A quiet little town.’
‘Don’t.’ Solomon shook his head and looked away, standing up to go. ‘Please,’ he whispered, but he knew looking down at Merriment that it was too much to ask.
Merriment seemed fragile and defeated and something compressed in his chest. She sighed, desperate to forget the savage attack, but all she could see was the Dolocher.
‘His cheeks were puckered.’
Solomon stood and listened gazing down at the street below, his eyes drifting to the horns of the statue of Lucifer in Christchurch Yard.
Merriment slowly listed all she could remember. ‘He had deep, deep sockets, I could see the white glint of bone around the cavities where his flesh had decayed. He had no eyelids, and blue eyes. They were bloodshot, and his gaze, not one I will ever forget.’
‘I . . .’ Solomon interjected. ‘I never saw his eyes. Just empty sockets. Black.’
‘I’ve seen his eyes twice, Sol: once outside the back door, and last night . . . They have an unmistakable quality.’
She shuddered and slid upright, looking at Solomon as he turned and came to sit down beside her.
‘I saw a crocodile once, when we sailed to north Africa,’ she told him. ‘You look in a crocodile’s eyes, you see something: a glinting otherness, there’s no making a pet of it. Its being is wrought from dark river currents and its sole purpose in life is to bask and eat. And when it eats, its huge jaws snap open, crunching bones and muscles and ripping flesh, sending blood spurting into the water. There’s no communicating with that kind of remoteness,’ she said hoarsely. ‘There’s nothing to reach. The crocodile expends all its vigour and strength on the vicious pleasure of self-satisfaction.’ Merriment took a breath, looking down at her hands a moment. ‘That is what the Dolocher is: something archaic and unfettered, an abnormality from the sewers of Olocher’s fetid imagination. He took great pleasure in beating me. But . . .’
She paused, her mind extracting the details, separating her thoughts from her feelings.
‘What I mean is,’ Merriment continued, ‘I was thinking of Pyrrho of Elis’ questions. You know, what is the Dolocher made of? There was peculiar . . . A crocodile is a creature without wit, its calculations are callous and perfunctory. The Dolocher, on the other hand . . . there was a quality to his eyes, an element of . . . I don’t know. His nature is atavistic, but there was an intelligence there, something almost human.’
Solomon smothered a disbelieving laugh. ‘A remnant of who he used to be,’ he countered. ‘Think of it, the Dolocher is a malignancy constructed from the corpse of a man and somehow fused with the cadaver of a black pig. The last shreds of who he used to be as a man are somehow trapped in this monstrous reincarnation.’
‘But he groaned.’ Merriment floundered, examining the detail over and back, trying to recollect that moment. ‘Why would a demon feel? Why would dead flesh still feel? Is it not beyond pain?’
‘I presume,’ Solomon ventured, �
�there may be some life in the nerve channels, some sensations.’
Merriment frowned and shrugged. ‘Then logically, if there is some kind of life in the nerve channels, as you put it, you have to ask . . . can we take it away? What if . . .’ She frowned, the steam from her tea fanning over the cup and saucer. ‘What if we could kill him?’
‘How?’ Solomon’s brows shot up incredulously. ‘How do you kill the dead?’
Merriment pinched her lips between her teeth, thinking a moment, holding her breath. Then, sinking back into the pillows again, she sighed and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s like trying to unpick oakum. I keep trying to pull apart the threads. I don’t want this to be true.’ She swallowed back her pain. ‘I don’t want there to be demons.’
‘I know,’ Solomon said, rubbing at the creases of his brow. ‘But if we take the facts . . .’
‘Yes, the facts.’ Merriment’s face darkened, her eyes filling with an innate, keen intelligence. ‘Pyrrho would carefully enquire, he would discern what the Dolocher is. How are we related? What’s our attitude towards him?’
Solomon shook his head. ‘We’ve done this, Merri. The Dolocher’s a demon. We’re his prey and our attitude towards him is one of fear.’
‘But . . .’ Merriment grasped at her half-formed thoughts. ‘But he has weight, structure, bones, flesh, can feel pain.’
‘So?’ Solomon upturned his palms, perplexed.
Merriment sat forward, her hands literally trying to hold on to what she was instinctively beginning to feel in her gut. ‘There has to be a rational, a reasonable . . .’
Solomon grinned at her and shook his head. ‘Despite everything . . . You meet the devil and still you gravitate towards some secular.’
‘Scientific,’ Merriment corrected.
‘Merriment O’Grady.’ Solomon caught her fingers and kissed the tips. ‘You are a force of nature.’
‘You can’t divert me with your good humour and kisses.’ Merriment smiled squeezing his hand and letting it go. ‘There’s something not right here.’
‘Well, I’ve been reading Pyrrho of Elis,’ Solomon teased, ‘and you neglected to tell me a few things.’
Merriment frowned, tilting her head to one side. Solomon obliged her with an answer.
‘Didn’t Pyrrho conclude that humanity cannot know the essence of things?’
Merriment squeezed her lips together, half pleased that Solomon was inspired to explore philosophy, half disappointed because she knew what Pyrrho had postulated.
Solomon walked to the window and took in a long breath. ‘Didn’t he say that we humans can only know how things “appear” to be?’
Merriment nodded and, feeling faintly resigned, she added, ‘That it is impossible to know anything.’
Solomon looked down on the busy shambles. The fishwives clustered in groups furtively glanced up at him while they gossiped, obviously telling each other of the latest Dolocher attack.
‘So by Pyrrho’s reckoning,’ he continued, ‘we cannot know if the Dolocher is a demon or not.’ Solomon turned and, exhaling, smiled gently. ‘However, it is always best to err on the side of caution, don’t you think?’
Merriment didn’t respond. She lay looking out the window past him, her mind not fully satisfied.
Solomon came towards her and took the tray, his blond curls falling loose over his brow. His shirt was splattered with flecks of lard from cooking the uneaten breakfast.
‘You should sleep,’ he said softly. ‘Someone from the Sheriff’s office will be over later to take a statement. Stella is still below and I’m sure Anne will drop by. I have to . . .’ Solomon trailed. What did he have to do now that he was leaving? ‘Go to work,’ he finished acidly. The idea of Merriment leaving cut him to the quick.
‘Thank you,’ Merriment whispered, and Solomon nodded, masking his upset with a mournful smile.
22
The Schoolhouse
The snow crunched beneath Solomon’s feet as he fastened his jacket and hauled his cloak closed, bracing himself against the sharp wintry air. Corker walked beside him, his teeth chattering.
‘Where to now, Sol? Skinner’s Row or over to the beadles?’
‘Neither.’ Solomon shook his head; he couldn’t face the office. ‘To Purcell’s Court.’
‘Right-o.’
Traffic moved slowly; very few coaches had ventured out onto the icy roads. Hawkers picked their way towards the marketplace, carefully treading so as not to capsize the wares they were carrying. Everyone was late and as the Christ Church bells rang out over the snow-covered city word spread quickly that the Dolocher had attacked two more victims, this time after curfew. Corker was quizzing Solomon about Merriment.
‘Janey said the Dolocher had cloven feet.’
Solomon didn’t answer.
‘That Merriment saw a bit of hell down through a crack in the ground and that it was sweltering hot and full of screaming victims. Janey thinks Merriment might be a bit touched.’ Corker looked anxiously up at Solomon’s face. ‘I know ye like her and all, Sol, but she’s met the devil and she may never be right.’
‘She’s fine,’ Solomon snapped. Then, softening a little, he frowned, recalling their conversation over the uneaten breakfast. ‘She was a lot better this morning.’
Skirting the market, they passed a cow that had slipped and broken its leg. The milkmaid who had led it into town was weeping and passers-by were trying to console her while someone ran to fetch a butcher to poleaxe the poor animal and put it out of its misery.
‘Jaysus, the poor cow,’ Corker sniffed as they passed.
‘This way,’ said Solomon, resolutely. He pointed up the narrow road and strode on, his mind a-swirling as he tried to figure out what to do. Dublin would be easy to leave, his time here had been mixed. Sure, he had a job and prospects but it did not pay enough to secure a comfortable life. Yet in the back of his mind he had begun to write a new future for himself. Him as editor of Pue’s Occurrences living with Merriment O’Grady the apothecary. Their joint existence supported by each other’s wages. Their life a comfortable tangle of routine and adventure. He had been altered from the haphazard insecure ways of a gambler and for the first time wanted to put down roots. To stay with a beautiful woman in a warm house, drinking fine wine, lost in conversation, lost in love. He bit down on his lips and glared at the white hard snow, the sting of disappointment wounding him bitterly. He gazed despondently before him, his footsteps crunching, his mind preoccupied, his heart sore in his chest. He should have been over in the office writing up about the new Dolocher attack. Merriment’s stabbing. Rosie’s dead baby. It was all so grim and suddenly pointless. If Merriment were to leave there was no reason for him to stay. And the shimmering promise of a bright, loving future was savagely cut off by a dead man’s malignant spirit. Despite the grey-pink light, Solomon felt like something vital had been sucked from the world. He was to be denied a cherished hope and his very core blistered at the idea that his new life writing and living with Merriment O’Grady was to vanish and he was once more cast into uncertainty with little or no prospects.
A small white flake fluttered gently before him, tumbling right and left, see-sawing to the ground as more flakes began to fall. The snow shower was light and curiously hypnotic.
‘What’s up here?’ Corker looked along the narrow laneway; the cobbles were completely covered in snow, only the barest kerb of the pavement could be seen and the red-brick buildings either side of them were laced with flakes. ‘Is this where Merriment was stabbed?’
‘Not far from here,’ Solomon replied, already plotting his own departure.
What would he do about Corker? He rolled his eyes away, infuriated that the young lad would be devastated by his leaving. He wondered about having a chat with Chesterfield Grierson about giving him some sort of employment. Corker licked his lower lip, swinging his eyes from side to side, keeping a sharp look out, his heart suddenly racing.
‘Doesn’t come out in the day,’ C
orker mumbled, more to reassure himself than to start a conversation. ‘They say the daylight scalds demons.’
Solomon didn’t respond. Ahead he saw the painted sign for the Boar’s Den tavern swinging from its wrought-iron holder. Down from the tavern was the walled schoolhouse protected by two large gates. Solomon stopped before them and tugged at the lock.
‘Right,’ he said, his face perplexed. The gate had been open last night.
‘What do ye want to go in there for?’ Corker shuddered, gazing through the bars at the deserted building.
‘I . . .’ Solomon wasn’t sure why. Something dropped into the conversation by Fred, a cryptic remark about the ‘blackguards smuggling in the Black Dog will soon be going back to school, for there was a new master in town’. Jessop had kicked Fred under the table, but Fred’s erratic nature bubbled and frothed unchecked. ‘What?’ he protested accusatorily. ‘I’m only saying they’ll have to learn their lessons,’ and this too, for some reason, made him laugh uproariously. It was later, after Jessop had thrown up and Fred had danced off, shadow-boxing and kicking the air about him, that Solomon had seen Fred again, swinging from the schoolhouse railings, grunting like a monkey and pointing, before disappearing through the gate and vanishing into the snowy black.
Earlier on in the night, over a game of cards Solomon had managed to flush from the two men that the Black Dog was a centre of vice.
‘I met the Keeper,’ Solomon winced as Fred smacked down a card and laughed so hard his false teeth popped forward.
‘Did he fleece ya?’ Fred elbowed Jessop, knowing the answer to that question full well.
‘And disagreed with where my nose had been placed on my face,’ Solomon grinned. ‘Nearly knocked my expression permanently to the back of my head.’
Jessop’s huge shoulders jigged up and down but his chuckle was silent.
‘I’d keep away from him.’ Fred wagged a wiry finger. ‘He’s like a boulder rolling down a hill, once he lands on ye he’ll crush ye.’ He smacked three cards down on the table and rubbed his hands together. ‘I think ye lost that one.’
The Dolocher Page 37