The Love of Stones

by Tobias Hill

  He measured himself against what he saw. The men, their jewels, and the lives they had made. The windows were full of rabbits’ feet and monkey paws, Irish bog-oak carved into shamrocks. Gimcracks, Salman thought. Tricks made with skill at best but little talent. The men were dressed in English clothes and hats, or else they leaned in doorways with their heads bare, smoking pipes. The wives with baskets of prayer wine and kosher meat. Nothing else Jewish in them but the cut of their features.

  ‘Wonderful Worm Lozenges.’ He murmured it, enunciating each word. Above him the lamp sighed like a woman turning in her sleep. He could hear Daniel breathing. They lay on their beds with their shoes off. Talking sometimes, then quiet for hours.

  ‘I thought you were in love with stones.’

  ‘Everything is for sale here. Worms and jewels. There are nightmen who make livings from human excrement. There is something wonderful in that.’

  ‘I’d prefer stones, if it’s all the same to you.’ The sound of an argument filtered down from the room above. A man shouting, a woman’s voice rising to meet it. ‘What shall we do with the jewels?’

  ‘Hire them to the King.’

  ‘Ha. Nevertheless, we can’t carry them for ever. Walking down Piccadilly every day like a pair of chandeliers.’

  ‘I have already talked to the hotel owner. He knows a shop to rent. Good, small, cheap.’

  ‘Where?’

  Salman didn’t answer. Under his breath he began to sing a muezzin’s cry. In the London room it sounded out of place, comically lost. His voice faded away and he lay staring at the stained ceiling as if amazed to find it there, or himself under it.

  ‘Tigris? Where is it?’

  ‘Commercial Road. Good for the dock trade and the city. I said I’d see it tomorrow. Will you come? I could use your English.’

  Daniel nodded. ‘If you like. You know what you are looking for?’

  ‘Aye. A fortune.’

  ‘We already have that.’ Daniel watched his brother turn away. Above them the shouting stopped abruptly. In the silence Salman could hear snow outside, wind funnelling it against the glass.

  ‘Only one.’

  ‘One is enough.’ Daniel lay back and closed his eyes. He fell asleep quickly, the light twitching across his face. And Salman said nothing, not out loud. Above him, the lamp hissed and choked on its own gas. He reached up into its glare and turned it out.

  They left early. Sheep were still milling in the Strand. A cart had overturned by Fleet Street, and the brothers picked their ways between hoof-smashed cabbages and upside-down crates of hysterical poultry.

  It was a handsome road, the Commercial, a little self-important for its public of sailors and dockers and its smell of river mud. The buildings were new, shops and houses intermixed. Near the mid-point of each terrace was a plaque with the name of its developer or the name he had chosen over his own: Honduras, Union, Colet. Street children followed them, laughing or begging, keeping their distance.

  There were eighteen buildings in Hardwick Place and the vacant shop was the last. Its curved display window was boarded up. Above the shop were two more storeys, the servants’ floor narrower and less decorated than those below it, as if its builders had run out of room in the grey London sky.

  ‘Wait here.’ Salman trudged round to the back of the house. Daniel watched him go, London beyond him. Even here he felt lost in it, as if its influence spread out over the intervening piggeries and frozen marshland. Little rose above the warrens of houses except the stabbing primacy of steeples. In the distance loomed the dome of St Paul’s.

  When he looked back there was a girl beside him, her feet wrapped in rabbit skins. Her face was anxious, as if she had something to say and there was no time to say it. The street children had not peeled away as the brothers left the city. The Stepney slums were not far eastwards. Across the road two older boys leaned under a shop sign for Lawrence’s Sea Water Baths.

  He smiled, and the girl’s face went slack with fear. Daniel watched her decide whether to run. An omnibus went past behind her and she stepped forwards into the gutter and its piles of shit-encrusted snow. She was whispering almost inaudibly; without seeing her face he wouldn’t have realised she was making any sound at all. Her voice was reed-thin, accented in a way Daniel would take years to recognise. All he could make out was the intonation of a question. He bent towards her.

  ‘Are you Joseph and Mary?’

  Across the road the boys wriggled with laughter. The girl’s head dropped. She didn’t cry. Daniel saw that one of her feet was bleeding. From somewhere came a woman’s hard voice.

  ‘Martha? Get here!’ The boys twisted with laughter again. One of them began to shout as the girl stumbled away.

  ‘Where’s your donkey? Where’s your donkey? Ahaha!’

  The voices carried to Salman as he walked. Beside the house was a rise of waste ground scattered with oystershells, a horse trough, sycamore trees. At the back were fenced dirt yards and allotments stretching down to the river. The gate of the last house hung on a tarred rope. Salman opened it and crossed to the back-door steps.

  He had almost reached them when he heard the noise behind him. It sounded like a small bell being shaken. He turned round and stopped moving.

  There was a dog in the far corner of the yard. Its yellow head was raised, watching, and now it stood up, not barking. Salman didn’t recognise the breed, only the attitude of a fighting animal, the readiness to attack without warning. It was the size of a goat, thin-legged, all its muscle concentrated in the neck and jaws. As it moved forward its chain went belling through the ring until it fell in the dust by its feet.

  There was the sound of a tongue clicked against teeth. They both looked up, him and the dog. In the open gateway stood a woman. Her hair was bare and black. Her eyes were the colour of her hair, but soft. In one hand she held a packet of meat. On one cheek was a dab of blood.

  “That’s enough, Fellow.’ The dog turned quietly away to its corner. Only when the woman looked back at Salman and smiled did he realise that she was beautiful. He wanted her immediately, without depth, from the blood on her face to the small, neat swell of her lips.

  ‘You must be here about the shop.’ Her voice was kind and uncomplicated. Salman nodded. The woman smiled again, wiped her hand on her skirts and held it out. ‘I’m Mrs Limpus.’

  ‘Salman. Levy. I am pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Which comes first? Which name?’

  ‘Salman.’ Her fingers felt damp with water from the street pump. She pulled them out of his. Nodded towards the house.

  ‘There’s two rooms, the shop at the front and another at the back. It’s twenty-two pounds a year for them both, eight shillings and fourpence-halfpenny a week. There’s sea coal in the cellar, you can help yourself to a fire of an evening. Any more is extra. You won’t find cheaper.’ She waited, as if expecting him to disagree. When he didn’t she went over to the dog. Unwrapped the offal from its stained brown paper. ‘You’ll want to look inside.’

  ‘I’ll take it.’

  She looked up. Appraising him. ‘Leastways you’ll want to look.’

  ‘All right.’ He nodded. His brother waiting, already forgotten. Together they watched the dog begin to eat, delicately pulling its lips back from the yellow teeth. Before it was done Jane Limpus came back to him, took the keys from her skirts, and led him inside.

  Epiphany, 1834. The sign was yellow on black. It cost Salman three shillings, the first twenty letters free, from a painter in Limehouse.

  LEVY BROS, JEWELLERS,

  GOLDSMITHS & DIAMOND WORKERS, EST 1834.

  Prop. Salman & Daniel Levy

  Goldsmiths. For the Jews of London it was practically a racial profession. They moved into the house on Commercial Road as if they were coming home. At an auction in Whitechapel, Salman bought the repossessed stock of a bankrupt lapidary. A crucible, tripod, oil burner, and the work table blackened with their char. A wheel with its leather gone. Congealed in the
cold, a tin of olive oil and diamond dust. A dish of jeweller’s rouge and a polishing cloth worn through with it. Two bottles of medicinal wine. A child’s sampler in a broken frame. A lost-wax mould of the King’s head that revealed – when Daniel opened it – a pair of hibernating wasps, snug in the aural cavities.

  The jewels from the jar Salman hid in a roll of turban under the floor by the side of the hearth. With the last of the Babylonian gold he entered his business in the London Trade Directory of 1834: S. Levy, Jeweller. Only his own name. The jewels, after all, were his. For the first time in four months he slept as if sleep belonged to him.

  Daniel lay awake beside him. The streets kept him sharp. The Commercial Road was never wholly quiet. Birds sang all night in the fields, exhausting themselves in the wait for spring. Their songs were new to Daniel, unintelligible as the accents of street children. The voices of city drunks faded west, the dockers eastwards.

  Here’s to the maiden of bashful fifteen;

  Now to the widow of fifty;

  Here’s to the flaunting ex-tra-va-gant quean,

  And here’s to the housewife that’s thrifty.

  Let the toast pass. Drink to the lass,

  I’ll warrant she’ll prove an excuse for a glass.

  When he did sleep it was a shallow state, without nourishment. He dreamed badly, of Rachel and betrayal. Wakeful, he thought of Jane Limpus. The composure of her voice, its amusement and intelligence, and under all of these things a vacancy. A mind that spoke without pleasure, only for business.

  Here’s to the charmer whose dimples we prize,

  Now to the damsel with none, Sir;

  Here’s to the girl with a pair of blue eyes,

  And now to the nymph with but one, Sir.

  Let the toast pass. Drink to the lass …

  He lay still, his brother warm beside him. Not realising he had fallen asleep for good until the sound of church bells woke him at dawn, a ring of three from Stepney, twelve from St Paul’s, and in hearing them Daniel felt the absence of the muezzin for the first time. Like a deafness.

  Lent, St Swithin’s, Hallowmass Eve. They purchased graniteware from Edinburgh, cut steel brooches from Manchester. Bought low and sold high. Salman worked his own jewellery at nights, the air sour with dust and acid, and in the days Daniel sold or hired whatever his brother made. His silence out of place behind the shop counter. They didn’t make great jewels, not yet, only what they could sell. For three years, they took the work that came. The wives of new convicts would stand in the narrow shop while Salman carved them Newgate Tokens, prison poetry etched on silver sixpences: Once these hearts in love was joined. Now one is free, the other confined.

  But now the story is moving ahead of itself. Its time works in complex ways. It folds back on itself and repeats, or years contract to a scale that seems barely human. Less animal than mineral. As if it were the stones that were important, and the lives of their carriers insignificant. Not the other way round. As if the brothers never lived.

  They lived at 18 Hardwick Place, in the house of Jane Limpus. She was sweet-natured with them. The sweetness was there to hide a bitter heart, but the Levys were not to know that yet. They had chosen London for their jewels, and London was the place their lives were settled. It was the stink of oystershells. Rain and light. Halls of smog.

  A mass of pigeons. Hoardings over waste ground. The steam of raw macadam.

  Women in whalebone. Wind in the lime trees. Train dust, rolling like ebonised pollen across the shop displays.

  And the sound of the river. The bellow-rush of wind through trees. An alienation carried with them, always, familial as the lines of cheekbones.

  * * *

  In Camden Town the street vendors are selling matching his ‘n’ hers magnetic tongue studs. It’s not what I’d call jewellery, but then I have old-fashioned tastes. The Tube exit is congested with stalls, a picket-line of pizza slices and fried onions. I walk in the gutter to avoid the crowds. Three blocks north of here is my old apartment. I have belongings there. Mail sometimes. It’s a year since I was here to pick it up. As far as it goes, this constitutes my home.

  Children run past, monstas in parkas. By Inverness Street I stop and put on my cotton jacket. September in London feels cold after Diyarbak’r, although the pollution here catches the light. Even now, at seven in the evening, there is a bright haze over the railway bridges and terraces.

  There is a sense of dual atmospheres for me here. If I look at the crowded streets in a certain way, at a certain angle, they shift around me. It feels physical, in the way memories can seem physical. Even the quality of light seems to change. The present becomes occluded. I am two people here, separated by years. One of them is lost, the junctions leading off to nowhere she knows. The other one is me. My life is better than it has been. If I blink right, the years between us disappear.

  On Castlehaven Road I stop by a row of shops. Above the first display window is an illuminated sign for FishWorld Aquaria & Vivaria. On the window itself is a photograph of the owner, Mr Yogalingam, looking unpleasantly surprised to find himself smiling. Behind him is a long tank of creatures that look like Christmas tree lights. Superimposed on the glass is a diagram:

  I go inside. The aquarium shop is a long rectangle walled with tanks. Their cubes of illumination compensate for the dim flutter of striplights. At the front there are goldfish on sale at fifty pence a pair. Further back the occupants become more exotic. Ghost koi and lionfish, geckos walking across glass ceilings. I always felt there was something vaguely illicit about these animals’ presence here, in London. As if they should have been confiscated at customs, like drugs or knives or leopardskin shoes.

  At the back, by the snakes, sits a boy in a scuffed office chair. He swivels, nodding into a mobile phone. Watching me as he talks.

  ‘Yeah.’ He is Asian, handsome. Hard in a way that marks him as born English. ‘Yeah, like maggots. They’re Chinese, ain’t they. ‘Cos they look like fucking rice.’ His box-fresh trainers are up on the counter. He wears a Mao-collared leather jacket. I can smell it over the odour of reptiles.

  He leans away from me. ‘Japanese then. They’re both tight anyway, acting like their pussy’s white as cherry blossom. Listen, we got to talk about this later. I’ll ring you. I’ll ring you. Later.’ He switches off the phone and talks to me without looking up. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m looking for Mister Yogalingam.’

  ‘He’s away.’

  ‘He’s been storing some things of mine.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Clothes. Mail.’

  ‘No. There’s nothing like that here.’ The boy’s attention drifts towards the vivaria. I put my bag down on the counter beside his trophy shoes. His eyes swivel back to me with a slow, adolescent hostility. As if he’s done everything he could possibly have done for me. He can hardly believe I’m still here, taking up his airtime.

  ‘I used to rent the room upstairs. My things are in the garage. They’ve been there for five years.’

  ‘That stuff. That’s yours?’ I nod. Wearily, he kicks his feet off the counter. ‘Prove it.’

  I don’t smile. He doesn’t smile back, although he’s flirting now. Sleek, slick. ‘My name’s on the mail. Katharine Sterne.’

  He sorts out the keys, watching me, and goes to look for himself. It’s some time before he comes back. I wonder if he’s going through my belongings and if I care. My neck aches from the long haul across Europe, I knead the pain as I wait. Behind me, something knocks against its glass like a visitor. I keep my eyes on the sign above the counter:

  48 HOUR GOLDFISH GUARANTEE.

  FOR REPLACEMENT THE FOLLOWING ARE

  NECESSARY 1. RECEIPT, 2. WATER SAMPLE,

  3. DEAD FISH.

  The boy comes back in, sits down, dangles the keys onto the counter. ‘I brought the bags into the backroom. For your convenience.’

  ‘Thanks. You didn’t need to do that.’

  ‘Don’t flatt
er yourself.’ As I go past him he is already turning back to the vivaria. He watches them with the aimless fascination of a TV addict surfing channels.

  The backroom is decorated in flock wallpaper. Dark spaces mark the tenancies of old furniture. Now there is nothing but an imitation mahogany wardrobe and my possessions in a pile beside it. The wardrobe door leans open. My own ghost hanging in its mirror.

  I go through it all methodically, taking what I need, exchanging what I don’t. Adjusting to climates. A leather coat and a black cashmere roll-neck, coal wool trousers and a Harvie & Hudson fitted shirt the colour of absinthe. Clothes from a time when I had money but nothing else. No Brethren in my life; no life, almost. In a tube bag is a pair of black ankle boots, new but scuffed at the toes. They look to me like the shoes of someone who doesn’t watch where they’re going. I can tell myself that I have changed.

  From upstairs comes the slow beat of a trip-hop bass-line. I sit down to my mail. The envelopes are seamed with age and damp, as if they have been steamed open. There is less to read than the last time I was here. Even the junk offers have begun to diminish. My life has become like those rare days when no one knows where you are, or when they think you are somewhere you are not. My whole life is like that. There are worse choices to make for oneself.

  In an envelope with last year’s postmark there is a letter from Anne. I fold it into my pocket to read later and open the bin-bags of books. The texts are almost all academic, from the time when I still did something: when people could ask me what I did and I could give them an answer that made sense to them. In with the linguistic theses is a slew of CDs and two photograph albums. I don’t open them. I know what I have here. This is not what I am looking for.

  I pull out a London A to Z with the covers missing. On the title page is my mother’s clear signature. I run my finger along its old indentations. I still know her street atlas better than London itself. It is marked with old pencillings, routes and searches in another time and place. Cheam fell out years ago, but I’ve never been there and I don’t intend to start now. The index is intact. I look up Slipper Street. There is only one, ten minutes’ walk towards Whitechapel from Aldgate East Underground.