Potato Factory

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Very well, sir, at once, show her the warehouse is it, Mr Goldstein? I shall attend to Miss Aba. . .Abacus?’ He paused. ‘For what purpose may I ask? A visit is it?’

  Mr Goldstein looked up. ‘Clerk, she is new clerk!’ he said impatiently and then returned his attention to the ledger.

  ‘The position? A woman? New clerk?’ Mr Baskin was clearly confused as though the three bits of information couldn’t somehow be joined together in his mind.

  ‘Ja, of course, Dummkopf! Next veek she is maybe havink your job!’

  Mr Baskin stiffened to attention as the three bits of previously disparate information, with an almost audible clang, shunted into place in his mind.

  Once outside the office and well clear she turned to the unfortunate Mr Baskin. ‘Me name ain’t Abacus, sir, it’s Klerk, spelt with a “K”, it’s a Dutchie name, me father was a Dutchman.’

  Mr Baskin looked directly at her for the first time. ‘If Mr Goldstein says its Abacus, then that’s what it be!’ Mr Baskin sniffed. ‘No arguments will be entered into and the contract is legal and binding.’

  He paused and seemed to be thinking and, indeed, his expression suddenly brightened. ‘Unless. . .’ he began looking directly down at Mary again.

  ‘What?’ Mary asked suspiciously.

  ‘You don’t turn up for work tomorrow!’ Mr Baskin’s expression took on a most beseeching look and his voice carried a whining tone. ‘It would be a most honourable and decent thing to do, Miss. . .Miss?’

  ‘Klerk!’

  ‘Ah!’ Mr Baskin said pleased. ‘Ah, yes, well that’s it, then isn’t it? That is precisely the situation! We have no position here for a Miss Klerk! No such person is known to us here! Mr Goldstein knows of no such person! I know of no such person! No such person exists, I’m very much afraid to say you’re a missing person! You will not be commencing tomorrow, we shall not be expecting a Miss Klerk!’

  Mr Baskin announced this as though Mary were some impostor whom, just in the nick of time, he had cleverly exposed and quickly undone.

  Mary bristled. ‘Why, sir, you can call me Miss Spotted Chamber Pot if you like, but this billet is the most important thing to ‘appen to me in me ‘ole bleedin’ life! If I ‘as to crawl over broken glass all the way from Whitechapel, you may be sure, sir, I’ll be standin’ ‘ere large as life tomorrow an’ all!’

  Her change of name was not of great concern to Mary, for she had never been christened and her own surname had not served her particularly well in the past. Her new one, compliments of the little bottle-shaped man in the glass office, at the very least identified her with an object she loved. She decided she would happily become Mary Abacus.

  ‘Mr Goldstein said as you should show me the ware’ouse, sir, Mr Baskin,’ Mary now declared timorously.

  Despite the sour reception she’d received from Mr Baskin, it was quite the happiest day of Mary’s life. The large warehouse was stacked to the ceiling with goods of every description intended for America and the colonies and the chief clerk, despite his foul mood, seemed to take some pride in pointing out the extent of Mr Goldstein’s venture into commerce and shipping.

  Upon their leaving Mr Goldstein’s office Mr Baskin had sent word to Sergeant Lawrence to disperse the waiting men and to announce that the very first candidate had been found suitable by the redoubtable Mr Goldstein.

  At the end of the tour, Mr Baskin turned to Mary with a sniff. ‘Right then. Half-past seven tomorrow and if you’re so much as a minute late you’ll not be starting here, miss!’ Then he escorted Mary to the door, merely grunting as she bid him a polite and, in her heart, a most ecstatic farewell. All the chief clerks in the world couldn’t have dampened Mary’s elation - she’d turned the Klerk into a Clerk and fulfilled the dearest wish of her dead father. ‘Learn it well, my dearest child, for the beads, the beautiful Chinee beads, will set you free!’

  To her surprise the sergeant seemed pleased to see her.

  ‘Well then, miss, you could have blow’d me down with a fevva! Wonders will never cease, what a day an’ age, eh?’ He pointed to the abacus under Mary’s arm. ‘I mean ‘is ‘ebrew ‘ighness takin’ to your Chinee countin’ machine contraption.’ He seemed to know precisely what had taken place in the office with Mr Goldstein, though Mary couldn’t imagine how this could possibly be.

  ‘ ’Ow did you know?’ Mary asked happily, her eyes showing her surprise. ‘The door was shut an’ all!’

  The old soldier patted her on the arm and then touched his forefinger to his nose.

  ‘Never you mind that, miss! We ‘ave ways an’ means, ways an’ means, there ain’t much what escapes us!’ He drew himself up to his full height. ‘Mind, I can’t say the gentlemen waitin’ in line was too pleased, you getting the billet and being a woman an’ all.’

  He spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t suppose you can blame ‘em, but it were curious, very curious, they ‘ung about when I told ‘em to scarper, then they done this chant, see, summink about a monkey. It were all very strange if you ask me, very queer indeed!’

  Mary was only half listening, still feeling dizzy at her good fortune. ‘I’m one now! Blimey! Fancy that, I’m a clerk!’ Mary decided that she had never been quite as happy in her life.

  And then the gatekeeper’s words sunk in. . .then they done this most curious chant. . .summink about a monkey. . .The fog had cleared a little, though it was still not possible to see beyond a few feet. The chill returned to Mary’s bones and she felt terrified to leave the gateman’s side and enter the ghostly gloom of the docks.

  She was about to ask if she could remain in the sergeant’s hut until the fog lifted when he said cheerily, ‘Go on, then, orf you go, miss. See you tomorrow! Mind your step now, men workin’, lots of rope lyin’ about.’

  Mary had hardly walked for more than a minute when she felt the presence of people about her, fleeting shadows darting in front and to the side of her, boots scuffing on the wooden surface of the dockside. In the distance she heard the deep bray of a steamer groping its way up the Thames and the rattle and screech of cranes and winches and chains as they lowered cargo into and brought it out of invisible hatches. She was afraid to call out, thinking that the shadows about her might be dock workers. No noise other than fog-muffled footsteps came from the darting shapes around her, each of which seemed to be consumed by the mist before she could properly focus upon it. Somewhere a whistle blew three short peep-peeps, its shrill sound fattened by the thick air. A suffocating fear rose up within her and she felt the need to flee, though the fog was much too thick for her to attempt to do so. Then, so low that she thought at first she might have imagined it, she heard the hum of male voices and as suddenly the dark shapes looming formed a circle about her and the hum rose and rose and the monkey chant began:

  Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary

  Who does her sums on bead and rack

  Go away, you’re too contrary

  You’re the monkey, bloody monkey

  You’re the monkey on our back!

  Mary froze, her throat constricted by terror. From within the thick fog strong hands grabbed at her and she was thrown to the ground.

  She heard the clatter of her abacus as it landed somewhere near by. A scream rose within her, but a rough hand clamped down on her mouth. She felt a boot sink into her side, then another and immediately thereafter hands were everywhere as they tore at her bodice and skirt and grabbed at her legs, wrenching them apart. An excited, panting voice said into her ear, ‘Scream and you die, Bloody Mary!’ Then the hand was removed from her mouth and the weight of the first man thrusting between her legs pressed down upon her.

  As each male completed and withdrew from her supine body he gave her a vicious kick or slapped her across the face with the back of his hand. Some loosened the phlegm in their throats and spat into her face.

  Mary lay helpless, whimpering like a small wounded beast, her eyes wide open, though seeing nothing, the vile spittle running down her fac
e and neck. She felt nothing, but the weight of the men pummelling her and the rasp of their foul breath was lost in the whirling confusion of shock. Even when they struck or kicked her, though she felt her body jar, no feeling followed.

  She lay completely still while a dozen or more men mounted her. Then, with the chant continuing, they seemed to stop and her arms were torn roughly from where she held them stiffly to her sides. Strong hands stretched her arms out as though in a crucifixion, with the palms pressed flat against the wooden surface of the dockside. Two dark shapes pushed down on her, each with his knee pinning a shoulder and hand pressed down upon her wrists.

  The shapes now stood in a dark circle, hovering over her, the yellow fog swirling about their heads. Two men stepped forward from the circle and stood to either side of her and as the chant rose, ‘Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary. . .’ they stamped down hard, crushing both her hands under the heels of their boots. The terrible pain cut through Mary’s half-delirious state and a scream rose in her throat which was again cut short by the free hand of one of the men squatting to the side of her head. One after another the chanting men broke from the circle and stamped down upon her hands. Long before the last of the men had stamped and ground his heel into the broken and bloody flesh and bone, she had mercifully lost consciousness.

  Despite her terror and revulsion, Mary would eventually overcome the physical invasion of her body. What broke her spirit was the wanton destruction of her beautiful hands. When the bones eventually knit she was left with blackened claws which more closely resembled those of an aged monkey.

  For the remainder of her life, whenever Mary looked down upon her scarred and crooked hands, she would hear the monkey chant and see the dark shape of hate in the swirling, sulphur-coloured fog around her, on a day which had promised, upon leaving fat Mr Goldstein with his perambulating, merry-go-round chair, to be the happiest of her twenty-one years.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Towards noon the fog had cleared sufficiently for two dock workers to discover Mary hunched in a dark corner, moaning. At first they thought her some drunken slut, her swollen face and broken lips the result of some gin brawl in the nearby and notorious public house, The Ship Aground, and so passed her by as they pushed their loaded barrow from a ship’s hold to a nearby warehouse. Finally her continued and pitiful moans caused them to stop and examine her dark corner more closely. It was then that they observed that her skirt was wet with blood and saw her broken fingers pushed through the beads and bars of her abacus.

  ‘Goldstein!’ Mary groaned. ‘Goldstein.’ The two men lifted her as gently as they could onto the barrow and wheeled her to Mr Goldstein’s warehouse where they accosted the gatekeeper. ‘She keeps callin’ name o’ Goldstein, ain’t that yer gov, sergeant?’ Sergeant Lawrence nodded, then bending over Mary’s body took in at once the nature of her injuries. ‘Jesus Christ! The sharks, the bloody sharks got her!’ He helped them lift Mary from the barrow and laid her down outside his hut.

  Mary, who had long since given up any thought of God, would later in her life ponder on whether it had been divine guidance which had taken her to Mr Goldstein’s gatekeeper. For at the great Battle of Waterloo he had been seconded as sergeant to a platoon of stretcher bearers.

  The veteran soldier sent the yard boy to the warehouse and the lad soon returned with a large bottle of oil of tar and a length of used canvas. Whereupon the sergeant tore strips from an old canvas sail and soaked them in a solution of oil of tar. He bound Mary’s hands in the Waterloo manner, as was done when a cannoneer had burnt or lost his hands from a breech explosion, binding the hands together in a single parcel of coarse cloth.

  ‘She needs a bone-setter or ‘er ‘ands ain’t gunna be no good no more,’ the gatekeeper said to those gathered around, then he lifted his chin and pointed to the twisted abacus beside Mary, ‘no more Chinee counting contraption for the likes of ‘er, ain’t a bone what’s left straight in them fingers, nor one what ain’t broke!’

  ‘Bone-setter? Ja, zis is gut!’

  Mr Goldstein in his coat and top hat suddenly stood bottle-shaped beside the gatekeeper. He opened his dumby and from it withdrew a five pound note. ‘You must be fixink!’ he said to the gateman. ‘You get better this younk lady.’

  Mr Goldstein bowed stiffly to where Mary lay whimpering on the dockside.

  ‘Such a pity, so schnell for vorkink sums! Accht! Maybe she can be vun day chief clerk, now finish, ticht, ticht.’ He bowed formally again. ‘Aufwiedersehen, Miss Abacus.’ Then turning on a precise little heel he allowed the coachman to hand him up into the waiting carriage.

  Mr Goldstein’s five pound note paid for the bone-setter and ten days in hospital plus several bottles of physic of opium to kill the pain of her mutilated hands. This left Mary a pound over which would allow her to live for two months in one of the foul netherkens in Rosemary Lane, existing on a single tuppeny meal each day. Though the tar oil had prevented infection, for some reason Mary’s hands remained a peculiar blackened colour. They had been too badly damaged for the bone-setter to repair properly and when some movement eventually returned to her fingers, they were twisted and bent, like the tines of a tin fork, and hideous in appearance.

  As soon as she could stand the pain Mary began once again to practise on the abacus. She would work on it for six years before she would once again regain her old skills, although the beauty of her movements was gone forever.

  The six years which passed were not good ones. It was not long before Mary was standing on a street corner as a lady of the night. But other prostitutes ganged up on her, chasing her away. Mary moved on to meaner and meaner streets until there was no pavement or doorway left on which she could safely ply her trade. Eventually she was forced into a brothel.

  Mary had still not learned to hold her tongue. When she was intoxicated she had even more difficulty concealing her bitterness and controlling her temper. And so she moved ever lower down the whore’s ladder, until six years later only the dockside brothels and opium dens were left open to her. She had formed an addiction for opium from the physic she had obtained from the hospital while her hands were mending and now she craved the dreams and oblivion the pipe would bring.

  She caught the pox and the brothel mistress, a vile, toothless hag, sent her to a pox doctor who treated her successfully, though at some considerable expense. The money was advanced directly to him by the old woman who, in turn, advanced the debt to Mary at the rate of interest of fifty percent on the principal amount per week.

  Mary knew herself to be enslaved for it was a debt she could never hope to pay. She was on her back eighteen hours a day, and in what time was left to her she sought the comfort of the dreams the opium pipe brought. She knew that should she attempt to escape, she would be cut. The ‘Slasher’ would be sent after her with his cut-throat razor and sulphuric acid, and her face would be disfigured forever.

  Nevertheless, as might be expected, Mary reached a point where she could no longer tolerate the old hag’s greed. One evening, having shared a pint of gin with a customer and having been continually chastised by the old hag to get back on her back, Mary finally lost her temper. In the furious battle which ensued, for the old woman was well bred to fighting, Mary lashed out blindly and her sharpened talons raked across the old crone’s cheek. Her hands went up to cover her face and in a moment Mary could see blood running through her fingers. Mary took up her abacus and fled from the brothel, running wildly into the dockland night.

  The acid slasher found her two days later in a dark alley in Spitalfields, led to her by two street urchins. Mary had collapsed from hunger, fatigue and the vicious cramps resulting from the withdrawal of opium and she lay propped against a wall, her chin resting upon her chest. After examining her by slapping her face several times with the knuckles of his hand and discovering that this did not have the desired effect of reviving her, the slasher hesitated, fearing that cutting her in such a state might lead to her bleeding to death. The earnings from a simple s
lashing with a drop of acid added did not warrant the risk of a murder charge being brought against him.

  The police would make a light search for the culprit of a prostitute knifing, but the law required a full and exhaustive enquiry into a murder victim. Murder was a crime of an altogether more serious nature, even when done to a poxed up prostitute. Furthermore, the slasher knew himself to have been seen and heard enquiring after Mary in several public houses and netherkens and in all of the central London rookeries.

  Paying the older of the two street urchins a farthing to watch over Mary in case she should revive and attempt to move, the slasher left and soon returned with a small toke and a quarter pint of rough brandy. He lifted Mary’s inert body to a seated position and poured a measure of brandy down her throat. Handing what remained of the brandy to the older of the urchins to hold, the slasher slapped her hard several times until Mary, taken in a coughing fit from the sudden burning of the brandy on her empty stomach, returned to consciousness. Then he fed her small pieces of bread soaked in brandy until she had the strength to sit up on her own.

  He handed a second farthing to the younger of the two urchins, though he knew the bigger boy would soon enough take the coin from him.

  ‘She’s me wife and ya saw nuffink, see? If you speak o’ this to any geezer what may be interested, I’ll come after ya and cut yer bloody throats, ear to bleedin’ ear!’

  The folded razor with its white ivory handle suddenly appeared as though by magic in his hands and the slasher slowly opened its bright blade. ‘Now scat!’ the slasher commanded and the two boys took flight and disappeared down the darkened alleyway.

  The slasher now turned back to Mary, ready to complete his original purpose.