Sacred Hunger

by Barry Unsworth

  “It is only my mates call me Billy.”

  Not very far away, in Mount Street, Daniel Calley came in from the rain. He had been working since first light, carrying sheep carcasses and crates of fish up from the quayside to the top of the market in Stone Street. He had ninepence in his pocket and he was wet through and hungry. Also, in an obscure way, he was distressed. As usual the bargeman and stallkeepers between them had cheated him and as usual he had not been able to understand how. The shift to symbolic modes of reasoning, the essential transfer from concrete to abstract normally occurring in the course of childhood, had never occurred at all in Calley’s case. He could not work out what was due to him. He puzzled at it as he toiled back and forth but the figures would not lodge in his head. Sometimes he was driven to ask, but he could not understand the glib explanations. He would clench his big fists in misery—not so much at thoughts of the money but at being derided and treated unkindly. A simple sort of joking was the best way with him then; the men who cheated him knew that. Like a child he could be confused and softened by jokes; but a wrong word to Calley when he was excited or disturbed could have dangerous consequences.

  He entered the pothouse where he usually ate when he had money and often slept—they let him sleep in the yard in a little covered space behind the chicken coop. He took off leather harness and back-pads and fish-slimed apron and shook the rain out of his hair. He was squat and very muscular, broader in the nape than the skull, so that his head was tapering and blunt like a seal’s—a resemblance that the rain, by sleeking down his brown silky hair, had made more obvious. In the close, low-raftered room he gave off a steam of wet clothing and sheep’s blood and fish oil, enriching the effluvia of boiled mutton and stale beer already resident there.

  He asked the serving girl, whose name was Kate and who was fourteen and had one leg shorter than the other, to bring him mutton broth—all the place offered.

  While it was coming he thought about his entertainment for the rest of the evening. He knew the cost of certain basic things and on his fingers he could balance accounts. He knew he could have his mutton broth and then some treacle tart from the pastry-cook’s on the corner —he was fond of sweet things—and that Kate would come out into the yard with him for two of his pennies and that he would still have enough for a pancake next morning…

  These thoughts were producing a simultaneous salivation and erection, when a man came and sat at his table, a tallish, wiry, sharp-featured man in a blue pea-jacket and wide-bottomed trousers and with his hair in a pigtail.

  “Clammy night,” this newcomer said.

  “Keeps on ra”, don’t it?”’

  Calley smiled but said nothing—he was always shy with strangers. The saliva of his anticipations made little, stretching webs at the corners of his mouth. His eyes held an unchanging radiance, as at some remote delight whose source was long forgotten. He had a complexion a woman might have envied, clear and pale, without the smallest blemish. “I got wet,” he said.

  “Aye, did you so?”’ The stranger cast a brisk eye over the harness and the thick leather pads against the wall. “Been porterin”?”’

  The broth arrived and Calley launched a noisy assault on it. “I been workin” in the market,” he said between mouthfuls.

  ‘I see it has give you a happytite. You must of got two shillin” at least for a heavy day like that.”

  Calley looked up defensively. Some of his earlier feelings of frustration and distress had returned, but it did not occur to him to lie. ‘I got nincpence,” he said.

  “What? You have been labourin” all the livelong day with a saddle on you like a horse an’ you gets ninepence for it? I can scarce believe my ears.”

  ‘I ain’t a horse,” Calley said.

  “That is a utterly pernacious state of affairs, it is scandalous.” The stranger was looking round the room and shaking his head in amazement.

  He had a peering, sniffing way of seeming to interrogate his surroundings. “It is enough to freeze the marrer in a man’s bones,” he said.

  Calley rested his spoon in his broth. “You sayin” I am a horse?”’

  ‘allyou’re a man an” a fine strong one an’ good-lookin’—I’ll wager the ladies is after you, ain’t they? Linin’ up for it, ain’t they?”’

  ‘Kate likes me.”

  “I dare say she does, an’ who would not? I have took to you myself. Here, try this.” The stranger drew a bottle from the capacious side-pocket of his jacket. ‘Take a swig of this, then tell me if you have tasted a better brandy.”

  Calley drank and the liquor coursed through him, bringing with it the knowledge that this man wished him well. “Good brandy,” he said.

  The stranger drank and smacked his lips.

  “Nectar of the gods,” he said. “Here, have some more, that’s right. What’s your name?”’

  “Dan’l,” Calley said shyly.

  “Tell me, Dan’l, what is a man like you doin”, slavin’ up hill an’ down dale, for a few pennies? You are not a horse, but they are saddlin’ you up like a horse, they are workin’ you like a horse, see what I mean?”’

  ‘Kate comes out in the yard with me,” Calley said. He did not want this new friend to think that his portering was the only thing about him.

  “An” well she might. I expect you show her a good length, don’t you?”’

  A moment of inspiration came to Calley.

  ‘Like a horse,” he said. He saw with delight that the other was laughing at this and he began laughing too.

  “That’s a good ‘un. Listen, I have took to you, an” I want to do you a favour. I am mate on a fine new ship that is bound for Africa an’ I have got the idea that I can obtain you a berth on her by exertin’ my influence with the captain. I wouldn’t do it for everyone, but we are mates, ain’t we?”’

  Calley smiled. His mouth shone innocently with mutton fat. ‘That’s right,” he said.

  The mate pushed the bottle over. “Have another swaller,” he said. “Africa, there’s a place for you. Sunshine, golden beaches, as much palm wine as you can drink, trees loaded with fruit, thick with it; all you have to do is reach up an” take it. I tell you, it is a earthly paradise. An’ the wimmen! Bigob, they are hot.” He kissed his fingers with an extravagant gesture and a smacking sound very fascinating to Calley. ‘Sable Venus,” the mate said. “They will do anythin” you want.

  Hot—they are always on fire. It is the diet, all them peppers, it is the climate, it is their nature.”

  ‘Sable Venus,” Calley repeated softly.

  Neither of these words meant anything to him, but pronounced together they had a deeply suggestive sibilance that fell on his ear like music. He drank some more from the bottle. “What will they do?”’ he said.

  “I am goin’ to tell you somethin’ now that I have varrified from personal experience. They have got these highly developed muscles in their cunnies, they can fuck you just by squeezin’. They are trained up to it from earliest infancy.” He paused for a moment, observing the effects of the brandy. Then he said, ‘allyou can try them wimmen if you want, Dan’l. Why don’t you come along with me? You gets twenty-five shillin” a month an’ your vittles. You can leave that harness standin’ there agin the wall an’ come along with me. You will stand up like a man, you will not go creepin’ about with a saddle on your back.”

  ‘not like a horse.” Eagerly Calley waited for his friend to laugh again at the joke. “I got two legs, not four,” he said.

  The mate got to his feet. “Let’s be goin” then,” he said. ‘allyou needn’t fetch an” carry for them bastids any more.”

  Calley got up too, caught in a wave of enthusiasm. ‘Them bastids,” he said. “They can carry their own sacks o” turnips.”

  ‘no more sheep guts for you,” the mate said.

  “They can get someone else to do it.”

  “Someone else can do it,” Calley said. He was still laughing but rather uncertainly now.

  “Y
ou come along with me, I will see you all right.”

  But the mirth had left Calley’s face, to be replaced by a look of anxiety. “No,” he said, “I can’t come now.” He felt unhappy to be disappointing his friend but he had thought suddenly of Kate and the treacle tart.

  Barton was a sensitive man in his way and he had noted the change of expression. He put an arm round Calley’s shoulders. ‘I’ll tell you what,” he said. “We are only out in the stream.

  You come along with me now an” look the ship over.

  If you don’t like what you see, you can be back again within the hour.”

  The knowledge that Deakin was worth money had been in Jane Britto’s mind for some time, but she did not know that she intended to sell him until he spoke of leaving.

  She had been waiting in the cellar where they lived for her husband and Deakin to get back, standing half stupefied in the steam of washing, with the gasping cries of the baby in her ears and no drink and no money to send out for any. But it was only when she heard them that she felt the clutch of rage at her throat.

  First came the scrape of their boots in the alley above, then the clatter down the cellar steps. The two of them came through the door, filling the low room with their voices and bodies. Perhaps the rage sprang from this, the intrusion, though there was little here she could have wanted to defend, in this dank place with the mangle and tub against the wall, smells of rank bacon and tallow fat, the sick baby, the two children squabbling together on a mattress in the corner. But there is no world so wretched that it cannot be violated and Jane felt her body stiffen as she looked at the two men. They were wet and smelled of drink and Britto was jovial and Deakin, as usual, serious comth much she took in.

  ‘What have you got for us to eat?”’ Britto said, almost as soon as he was inside the door. “Me and Jim in famishin”, ain’t we, mate?”’ He was a stocky, dogged man with bad teeth and steady eyes and too much suffusion of blood in his face. The abruptness of his speech she knew for a sign of failure—they had been looking for casual work on the docks.

  ‘Me and Jim is famishin”,” she repeated, with a sudden strident mimicry that astonished them.

  ‘Me and Jim is a pair o” pisspots.”

  She would have liked to go on longer in this oblique, ironical vein, but rage got the better of her.

  Her voice rose and shrilled. ‘Proud on yerselves, are you? Think you are men? Where is the rest of it?”’

  The smile left Britto’s face. He looked uncertain for a moment, then angry. “Where is what?”’ he said. “What are you talking about?”’

  “The money what you have kept back for yer fambly. The penny-worth o” juniper-juice what you have brought home for yer wife.”

  ‘We didn’t find nothin”,” Britto said sullenly. He glanced at the silent man beside him but found no support there, in the tanned face, the serious, reckless eyes.

  ‘no good looking at him. You’d do better to look at them.” She motioned violently towards the mattress in the corner, and at once, frightened by the gesture or by the prospect of blows to follow, the white-faced little boy and girl began gasping and crying.

  “You trollop, stow your noise. I ain’t got nothin” to give you.” Anger at being obliged to state the fact thickened his voice. He took two steps towards her. ‘allyou loud bitch,” he said. “You better mum your dubber.”

  “My arse.” She felt rage and fear together.

  He was not less likely to strike her with the other man there. “Where’d you get the drink then? Think I can’t smell it on you?”’

  “We went up town,” Deakin said, in his light, dispassionate voice. “We were holding horses” heads for some gentry. They gave us threepence between us an’ we drank it.” He paused briefly, then in the same tone said, ‘I’ll be leaving tomorrow comearly morning.”

  He was taken by surprise himself at the announcement—he had intervened only to avert a row. But the main decisions of his life had been like this, recognitions of some truth, something self-evident, that had to be acted on.

  “Devon,” he said. “That’s where I am going.”

  “Well, there’s a piece o” news,”

  Jane said. ‘More’n two weeks you been here, takin” up space.” Once in that time, when she had been drinking alone, Deakin had come back in the afternoon and they had lain together on Deakin’s pallet and coupled without tenderness and she had clutched at his hard body and felt the welts of old floggings on his narrow back. ‘Then you go waltzing off,” she said, “without so much as a kiss my bum.” Her rage was rising again, directed now at Deakin’s uncluttered life. Casually, just like that, he could walk away, disappear—and the money with him, she thought suddenly: within half a minute of his leaving the price on him would be lost to them for ever…

  “You leave him alone,” Britto said. “He has got the right to go when he likes.”

  But she could tell that Britto hadn’t known either.

  “Don’t you talk about rights,” she said. “What is it to me that you was shipmates? Very fine, ain’t it?

  He’s run from a navy ship, you tell him he can stay here. You does the favour, I gets the extra work.” The idea expanded steadily in her mind while she was talking. It might be as much as three pounds that Deakin was worth. For twopence a day and keep she could get a girl to mind the little ones. She could buy a grinder, get scraps from the butcher, make sausages and sell them in the street. There was profit in sausages. Perhaps they could save the baby …

  “Little place called Sheepwash,” Deakin said. “That’s where I am going.”

  “No one is askin” where yer goin’.”

  ‘allyou aren’t asking but I am telling you,” he said mildly. “I was born there, see, an’ I’ve not been back since I ran away when I was twelve.”

  ‘allyou done some runnin” in yer time,” she said bitterly. She paused, looking at Deakin’s composed, fair-browed face, the remote blue eyes that always seemed to look beyond people. The intention to sell him had come to her like sudden hope and blossomed with her rage.

  Without rage to keep it fresh she was afraid it would wither. ‘never bring a penny in!” she shouted.

  “Catch a few bloody fish in the river. I’m killin” myself at this mangle. They are callin’ me a whore in the court because I have got two men in here. An’ you spent it all, didn’t you? Call yerselves men?”’

  Britto moved towards her. The voice of the little girl on the bed rose in remonstrance or fear. The woman moved back sharply, felt round behind her for the long-handled pan on the stove. ‘Keep off,” she said.

  “The bebby’s sick,” she said. “It can’t hardly cry any more.” A storm of weeping shook her suddenly, even while she felt for a weapon.

  “I dunno,” she said. “I dunno. You could of brought a drop o” gin back.”

  Britto went to the crib in the corner, looked down at the bloodless, crumpled face, with its inflamed lids, the glaze of vomit on its chin.

  The baby looked up at him with an impersonal solemnity, its hands curled against its breast like tiny, shell-less crabs. After a moment Britto turned away, raising his own hands in a clumsy gesture of helplessness, and he was again the man she knew, dogged and ashamed.

  She felt something like pity for him then: he had tried for work all day and come back to this. ‘It has got somethin” wrong with its stomick,” she said.

  ‘It can’t keep anythin” down.” She could not tell him what she was going to do. Not then, because she knew he would prevent her; and perhaps never—not only because of the thrashing, but because such a hurt to his pride would make him unpredictable and she was afraid he might leave her. She could conceal the money, she could say it came from somewhere else, she would think of something. ‘allyou goin” out again?”’ she said, looking at both men.

  ‘not me,” Deakin said. “I’ll get my gear together. I want to get an early start. Not that I have got much,” he added with a faint smile.

  “The
re is cockfightin” over behind the Pickerel,” Britto said. “I had a hand in tra” two of them. The owner might put somethin’ on for me.”

  She knew this indirectness meant he wanted to go but would stay if she liked—the look of the baby had softened him. ‘When’s that then?”’

  “Ten o’clock. They’re fightin” our birds first.”

  ‘allyou go,” she said. “You might win somethin”.”

  Britto grinned, relieved at her change of tone. ‘That would make a change.”

  “I’m goin” out to see about some washin’. There is a bit of bacon an’ some “taters in the stove. You could hot ‘em up.”

  She put on bonnet and shawl and went out quickly without looking any more at Deakin. The Bell was the inn named on the poster. It was a mile off but the rain had stopped now and the moon rose clear in the sky.

  At the inn she was directed upstairs, where she found two men at a table.

  “You the ones takin” on crew for a slaver?”’

  ‘That’s right, my pretty. Hunnerd per cent.” The man who answered her was sharp-faced and smiling and had an alert, peering sort of way with his eyes. “Liverpool Merchant,“‘1 he said, “a spanking new ship that anyone would be proud to sail with, only we ain’t takin” any ladies on, not this partikkler voyage.”

  ‘Mr Barton, you go too fast,” the other said in a hoarse monotone. He was in a grey wig and a stiff blue coat with brass buttons and his cocked hat lay on the table before him.

  “You the skipper?”’ she said. “I know where there is a man for you. I can tell you where you can find him.

  Once you get a hold of him, he can’t choose but go. He’s run from the navy.”

  ‘Has he so? Been treating you badly, has he? You tell us where he has put into, my dear, we will take him off your hands.”

  “I can take you,” she said. “I can show you the place. If we was to go now we would find him on his own. How much will you give me for him?”’

  ‘Able seaman, is he? Fore the mast? Sound in wind and limb, is he? How old is he?”’