Sacred Hunger

by Barry Unsworth

  “You will know what you have awaked, sir, if you persist in your insolent freedoms with these ladies.” Erasmus, who had not understood the reference to Daphnis, felt his rage begin to rise again. “I will make you know it,” he said.

  For the first time Adams looked directly into the younger man’s face, something that disdain had hitherto prevented. His own face had whitened, but his voice was firm enough. ‘It is not the ladies you are concerned for,” he said after a moment. “It is the pretty one, Wolpert’s sister. Did she ask you to speak on her behalf? No, I thought not. Are you affianced? No again. Well, sir, in that case it is for the lady herself to make her wishes plain. She has not protested to me.” Adams made the mistake now of permitting himself a certain kind of smile. “Quite the contrary,” he said.

  Erasmus took a pace forward and his hand went to the hilt of his sword. “You beastly popinjay and sponger,” he said. “If you touch her again, I will kill you.” His throat was dry and his voice sounded remote and strange to him.

  Adams stepped hastily back, the rouge on his cheeks standing out in irregular patches against the pale skin. “Do you offer to murder me?”’ he said.

  “For the sake of touches in a rehearsal, where such things mean nothing at all, things I have hardly noticed and can scarcely remember and she no doubt even less? You are mad. Stand away from me. I am not wearing a sword.”

  “You will have one in the house. I will wait for you here.”

  “Fight without witnesses and risk a capital charge? You are out of your senses. Stand out of my way, I wish to pass.”

  “I will wait to hear from you,” Erasmus said, and stood aside at last to let the other pass.

  He watched the thin-legged, agitated figure of the director recede, disappear finally. The tumult of his heart quietened slowly, but this brought him no peace. Adams had not behaved as expected. It was not so much that he had shown no smallest trace of guilt or defensiveness; in such a reprobate this was hardly surprising. But he had been taken aback, he had been astonished as well as indignant. Of course, the fellow was an actor…

  At the moment that the son was threatening a fellow-being’s life on grounds that to anyone else might have seemed flimsy, a report on the father’s financial affairs, provided by the indefatigible Partridge, was being digested by old Wolpert in his place of business on the waterfront.

  ‘Time and money, sir,” the scrawny, sharp-eyed lawyer had said, in the course of collecting the balance of his fee. “It generally comes down to that. The right relations between ‘em is as important for the man of business as winds and tides for the mariner. And of the two it is the time that matters most. A man is rich so long as his creditors are patient.”

  It was surprising what Partridge, by means of innumerable small and grubby enquiries, had been able to find out. Much of it came as no surprise.

  Kemp, in company with others that Wolpert knew of in the cotton trade, had suffered heavy losses in the disruption occasioned by the recent wars with France. On the ceasing of hostilities he had, again like others, imported quantities of raw cotton on credit in anticipation of a boom in prices which had yet to materialize. Some of this he had sold at a loss to meet short-term bills; much of it clotted his warehouses still. The Manchester dealers with whom he had been accustomed to do a large part of his business relied on resale to the manufacturers within a few days of purchase; their profit margins were too low for them to buy at prices over the market. In this pass, Kemp had turned to printed cottons, entering into partnership with the textile firm of Barfield Brothers. For a while, according to Partridge’s informants in Lancaster, they had done well; but printed cottons of Indian manufacture, transported in bulk in the huge East Indiamen, were daily increasing their share of the African and South American trade.

  “Unfair foreign competition, sir, as any true patriot would agree,” Partridge said. “These confounded Indian cottons are not only superior in the quality of their dyes but they come cheaper on the market.”

  It seemed that Kemp had also laid out money to finance a dyeworks in Warrington, in an attempt to find faster dyes. It was Partridge’s general view, expressed in spidery writing and with all his customary discretion of phrase, that Kemp’s resources were stretched, perhaps dangerously, but that he might have private means (outside the scope of the present enquiry though open to investigation at a renewed fee if required), which might be enough to carry him through to the upturn in the cotton trade confidently expected on all sides.

  Wolpert mused on this awhile. He saw in it no great cause for alarm, certainly no grounds for suspicion. If Kemp could wait, he might do very well. Legislation was under way to impose tariffs on Indian cottons and protect the home industry. The bill might be delayed—there were powerful interests opposed to it; but it would go through.

  Newcastle was for it and he would play the patriotic card in the House. With Indian competition choked off, there would be big profits for local dealers.

  Kemp might be short of ready money. He had built and outfitted the Liverpool Merchant on notes of hand at eighteen months’ date, through merchant houses in Warrington and Preston—a total of some twelve thousand pounds by Partridge’s computation. But this was common practice, especially in slaving enterprises; even banks were ready to offer credit to slavers these days, for the sake of the high interest.

  It was a kind of investment that made no appeal to the cautious Wolpert. He sometimes made use of ships returning from the West Indies to carry his freight, but trading in slaves was too risky.

  Rewards were high, of course, on a prosperous voyage; Kemp stood to recover his twelve thousand and make as much again in net profit—and that within the year.

  It came to him now that he knew very little about Kemp, though they had been acquainted for more than twenty years. A good man in company, fond of a glass, shrewd enough to all appearance, though too flamboyant and hasty for some, with those flushed good looks and that habit of eager gesture. Something extreme in him, a tendency to excess. In the son it was more pronounced, almost fanatical. The merchant still remembered the young man’s statement of love and intention comhe had thought it enough to make his wishes plain—and the blaze of his eyes on being rebuffed. Too much pride there, not enough sense of other people. But that would be supplied by commercial dealing, the best school there was for a study of human nature, so Wolpert thought. Erasmus would not make such a bad son-in-law, if it came to it. He had energy and determination, more of both than his own son. Charles had a good manner and a proper sense of occasion, but he showed small aptitude for decision. He was obstinate though, which was something different. Wolpert sighed. The boy could not be budged on the matter of this actor fellow who was badgering the maids, drinking his way through the wine-cellar and wearying his host each supper-time with chatter about the theatre. I would give something to be rid of that fellow, Wolpert thought. He couldn’t himself say much because he had discovered that the whole thing was in honour of his sixtieth birthday, due the following month…

  22.

  The Liverpool Merchant had crossed the latitude of Capo Blanco and was making steady way south-westward towards the Cape Verde Islands. As the air grew more languid, preparations for accommodating the negroes grew the more brisk. Men were set to work splicing the hawsers for a long anchorage and serving the ropes of the longboat; the hold was rummaged to make space between decks; the open woodwork of cross-battens and ledges that formed the covers of the hatchways had to be raised so as to give more light and air to the lower decks. The carpenter’s name was Barber and he had picked out Blair and Sullivan to help him with the gratings; it was customary now to employ these two together.

  “Well,” Sullivan said, squatting to raise the framework on the starboard side, “a good deed lights a candle, as me sainted mother used to say, an” God will spy it sh’.”

  “I thowt you’d given God his last chance the day they pressed you on to this here ship,” Billy Blair said. “Lift yor bleddy end a
bit, will you? I never seen anyone like you for husbandin” his strength. What good deed are you talkin’ aboot?”’

  ‘By raisin” up these hatches we are deliverin’ parcels of light an’ air to the heathen below an’ sweetenin’ their passage. Some of thim fellers, a certain proportion of thim black fellers, will live to cut the sugar because of what we are after doin’ now. Isn’t that right, Mr Barber?”’

  The carpenter, a morose, squat, long-armed man, said, ‘If talkin” was rated high, you would be Admiral of the Fleet by this time, Sullivan, instead of a ordinary seaman. We’ll have to take this right off altogether, so I can put a trim on it.”

  ‘allyou are wrong anyway,” Billy said. “As bleddy usual. We are just doin” what we was told to do. If they had said to lower the gratin’s an’ leave the beggars in the dark, we would ha’ done it just the same.”

  Sullivan glanced up at the bright sky as if for patience. His hair had grown again after that drastic cropping. It stood up from his head in a thick, black, softly bristling mat. His long-jawed face had darkened with the sun, making the eyes seem more bemused than ever, straying after some vision just lost.

  ‘In that case,” he said, “since it would be a wilful act an” contrary to practice an’ with no grounds in reason or law, it would be a dastardly bad deed an’ ould Nick would make a note of it.”

  At this flagrant illogicality Billy felt the onset of a familiar baffled fury. ‘I dunno how it is,” he said, doing his best to disguise this while at the same time holding up his end of the grating, “but any attempt at conversin” with you gets a man in a deadlock in no time.”

  ‘It is you, Billy,” Sullivan said mildly. “I niver arrive in deadlocks with nobody else.”

  “Listen to me, for Christ’s sake.” Billy shifted on his haunches and spat over the rail.

  “If it is a good deed to raise the gratin’s on these hatches,” he began slowly and laboriously, “what are we doin” puttin’ the quashees down there in the first place? Them fellers gets light an’ air enough in the forests where they are.”

  ‘This is commerce we are talkin” of now,”

  Sullivan said. ‘It comes under a different headin” intirely.”

  Billy felt the heat rise to his head. ‘now just a bleddy minute -“

  “You are both of you iggerant beggars,” the carpenter said. “You ain’t been on a slaver before, have you?”’

  Sullivan assumed a smile of patent falseness. “No, Mr Barber, we have not,” he said. “But we are dyin” to learn, ain’t we, Billy? I was just sayin’ the other day, I think it was to Dan’l Calley, who you see pickin’ yarn down there this very minute; he might seem slow, Dan’l, but he has an enquiring mind, an’ he was askin’ me somethin’ to do with the trade an’ I says to him, you better ask one of the officers, you better ask Jack Barber, I says, someone who knows the slavin’ business inside an’ out.”

  The carpenter looked at him darkly for some moments, then he said, ‘allyou were both talking as if it is the men that will lie below here, but this grating is the one over the women’s room, not the men’s. We alius puts the men in the forward room, the boys in the middle and the women in the after part.”

  “Now that is somethin” we niver had the slightest inklin’ of,” Sullivan said.

  Billy Blair sat back on his heels and pushed the red cotton kerchief up over his heated forehead. He looked towards the waist where Calley and McGann were working together. Calley was sitting up against the gangway ladder, pulling out yarns, his big hands picking at the strands with surprising nimbleness, his blunt, seal-like head lowered in absolute concentration. He was naked to the waist, his powerful torso a smooth red-brown. The skinny McGann was working the hand winch to twist the yarns into rope. The doctor was beyond him, taking his walk on the weather side of the deck. Thurso and Barton stood talking together on the quarterdeck. The dry rattle of McGann’s spindle resounded through the ship—all the sound there was. Billy thought of the women and felt the rage of argument recede. ‘It hadna” come into my mind they would be separated,” he said. ‘The wimmin are below here, then?”’

  “Aye, that’s right. You can get up to a hundred in there, if you stow ‘era spoon-fashion, arse by tit.”

  “Bigob, a hundred black fannies,”

  Billy said.

  The weasel-faced Tapley, passing with a bucket of hot pitch, heard this and paused, grinning. “He thinks he’s goin” ter creep down when no one is lookin’ an’ shag hisself silly,” he said.

  ‘allyou shag off yourself with that bucket,” Barber said severely, jerking his thumb. He did not like anyone much, but Tapley less than most. “Nah,” he said to Billy, “you have to get them on their own if you want anything. On the deck maybe, or get one down in the room while they are exercising up here.

  No good going below, ‘cept with a whip. They get into states, they get shrieking wild sometimes, specially when the weather is bad. They would have you down and chew your bollocks off.”

  “Persuasion is best in any case,”

  Sullivan said. “I know women, they are sensitive. A little bit of kindness goes a long way with women.”

  Paris, turning at the end of his twenty paces, had observed Tapley’s brief pause with the bucket and his unpleasing smile. A distasteful fellow, Tapley. What was it? He seemed to have no nature of his own. In moral terms a rudimentary worm indeed, eyeless in the dark. Many of the men on board he had felt to be stricken in some way, made brutal or heedless by the circumstances of their lives; he had sensed some loss, something visited on them, feelings cauterized. But Tapley was without this emanation of a hurt or dispossessed creature: he writhed complete, his evils effortless. Or so, Paris thought, it seems to me. And what, after all, gives me the right to judge? And if indeed I have the right, what persuades me I can see the truth of another human being, and one with whom I have exchanged almost no words? Nothing persuades me in reason, and yet I know. Once again he was swept, desolated almost, by the lonely certainty of his perceptions.

  He paused at the rail, looking eastward towards the invisible coast of Africa. Sight of land, when it came, would reduce them, set them once again on the margin of existence. Here, ringed round with the ocean horizons, one felt at the centre of the world.

  The land, so much longed for, signifying the end of exile, would make them mere loiterers again. It came to him now that this paradox lay at the heart of all desire, as true for himself, standing perplexed at the rail, as for every other man on board, whatever Africa represented to him.

  Not that all points of the horizon appeared equally far away, even to the casual and naked eye. He knew, he had seen in this succession of days, how there is always a point more distant in seeming than all others. Depending on the position of the sun and the distribution of light in the sky and the bulk and drift of cloud, one part of the rim will always be notched with remoteness.

  Is this a notion of infinity? Paris wondered rather wildly, glancing round for it now, holding to the rail, feeling his body move with the sway of the ship.

  Can such a notion derive from sense impression merely? So Locke would have it, with his denial of innate ideas. But the consolations of philosophy were limited, he found, aboard this ship. Locke defined pleasure as the reward of the just. What then should one call the emotion that lightened Libby’s face or brought a glint to the eyes of Haines, the boatswain?

  He could hear the rattle of the winch from amidships.

  A smell of hot pitch lay over the ship.

  Simmonds was shouting orders for the fairweather sails to be hoisted. Paris found his remoter point and fixed his eyes upon it. The sun, concealed in cloud and low in the sky, made shafts and corridors and vaults to give infinity a baroque ornamentation, but it was there; random impurities swam in the depths and were dissolved.

  Next day the slave rooms were marked off and work was begun on the forward bulkhead. The stateroom had already been stocked with an assortment of goods from the hold; now a new m
ain topgallant sail was bent and the old one primed as soon as taken down with resin and oil, so as to make an awning for the quarterdeck, where the shipboard dealing would be conducted. Johnson, the gunner, began making cartridges for the swivel guns. Two hogsheads of spirits were drawn off, to sweeten the native dealers.

  “Them fellers has got holler legs for the stuff,” Barton said to Paris, with the peering relish characteristic of him. “All the marrer has been lickified out of their bones, I do believe. An” there will be work to keep our lads off it, once it has been broached. A flogging won’t keep “em off drink, when the smell of it is about, any more than it will keep them off the women, Mr Paris. That is only human nature.”

  And still Thurso did not know precisely where he was. He had seen no land since sighting the highlands of Tenerife. There was no means known to navigation, in that summer of 1752, which could have helped him to determine his longitude. The water continued a deep-sea colour, giving him hope he was not too much out in his reckoning. According to this he should have been at least fifty leagues north-west of Cape Still Ann. All the same, he was anxious. The banks lying off the cape were the dread of all Guinea traders. Thurso had encountered powerful indraughts there on previous voyages and he knew cases of ships drawn into the shallows, sported with by fickle breezes for days or weeks or grounded in the shoals. He took soundings in thirty fathoms and the lead showed coarse red sand and fragments of shell, indicating they were further eastward than he had expected, nearer the coast.

  To make matters worse, the weather was thickening to the west. He gave immediate orders for the ship to be put about.

  Hughes the climber, on lookout in the crow’s nest, heard the shouted orders and felt the ship quiver through her length as she was brought closer to the wind. A mackerel sky was building to westward, with dark banks of stormbreeders low on the horizon.