The Parentations

by Kate Mayfield

  Now in the last hours, a certain constable has made a remarkable recovery and has gone to great lengths to swear an oath that on the evening of the arrest, Clovis Fowler did indeed strike out in selfdefence. A reprieve. What is to be done with her will be made known in the morning.

  ‘You have friends in high places.’ The gaoler shakes his head as he removes her shackles.

  After the gaoler secures the gate and makes his way back to his warm bed, Clovis reaches for the wall for support. Once steady, she lies on the plank and searches for the ceiling that remains hidden in the unlit cell. Her ankles and wrists ache. Her resolve to hold her nerve had wavered for a few moments. It returns now, ever stronger. Events unfold as she had predicted.

  One more hurdle. She closes her eyes and while she rests, the crows that perch on the portable gallows below her barred window flutter past Debtors’ Door.

  The gaol’s restless prisoners are not yet finished with this night. There is trouble in another cell. Willa cannot stop heaving. The vomiting began almost immediately after she ingested the poison. A fire rages in her belly and it wants out. She cannot be sure that she is not spitting flames. Jonesy had not warned her of this.

  The other women call out for help. A few are concerned for the girl, but most are frightened of contagion. None of them have seen such fierce retching.

  In the men’s hold they are not so kind. Jonesy is pushed and kicked into a corner as he spews vomit on inmates. The prisoners are easily riled the night before a hanging, and their disturbed sleep foments unrest and violence.

  A bell hangs in the cellar over the High Hall stairs. A single ringing calls the turnkey; for an alarm it is rung twice. The gaoler is gruff and in bad humour with this second intrusion of the night. He will demand more for his coffers.

  ‘Can you walk?’ he barks. Then he orders one of the prisoners to lift Jonesy to his feet.

  ‘You dare not puke on me. I’ll kill you.’

  The cellmate drags Jonesy behind the gaoler, through the gates and over to the Common side, where Clovis is still held in the condemned ward.

  He throws Jonesy into the cell with Clovis.

  ‘Here,’ he says. ‘If he’s going to cat all night, let it be in your cell.’

  Five minutes later he is back with the same prisoner who now half carries Willa.

  ‘You need to pay the swabbers to clean up their mess. There’s two cells full of their sick. I will not have a fuckin’ epidemic on my hands.’

  If he expects Clovis to flinch, he will be disappointed.

  ‘Sir. I would like wine. The watered down variety that is so famous here.’

  ‘Why you …’ Then he laughs. ‘It will cost you.’

  ‘Need you even say it?’

  He points at her before he leaves. ‘I will miss you, woman. By God, I will.’

  In less than half an hour Jonesy and Willa appear completely recovered.

  ‘So. You live.’ Clovis splashes watery wine into crude metal cups. Black smoke rises from the candles that accompanied the wine.

  ‘What? What is it?’ she asks them. ‘These flames cast shadows on your faces that tell me you are not pleased.’

  Jonesy opens his mouth to speak but cannot find the words.

  Clovis looks from him to Willa.

  ‘Stop it,’ Clovis commands her. ‘Stop it right there. Do not drop one tear. What is going on here? I warn you. I am in no mood for anything other than the truth – and be quick about it.’

  ‘We should be dead,’ Jonesy says.

  Willa nods, while Clovis is impatient.

  ‘We should all be hanging by our necks tomorrow,’ Clovis says. ‘And if not for me you would be. Speak plainly for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘What Jonesy means is … we took a powder. A poisonous powder. We do not want to be transported, mistress. We would rather die,’ Willa says.

  ‘This poison … very strong.’ Jonesy adds.

  ‘Obviously not strong enough, you fools.’

  ‘No, mistress,’ Jonesy says. ‘This powder … it is right one. We take twice amount, to be sure of quick death. Something not right.’

  ‘Do you have more of it?’ Clovis asks.

  ‘No, mistress. Willa and me, we take all of it.’

  ‘Well then. If you have taken the right powder and you have had enough of it, you would be dead.’

  ‘Yes, mistress,’ he says.

  ‘I am disappointed that you do not trust me. You will not be transported. I am weary of repeating it. Wait and see. We will all be at Limehouse by this time tomorrow.’

  Jonesy is not persuaded. He waits until he hears their slow and steady sleeping breaths and then he takes off his sandal. His fingers dig deeper inside the hidden compartment of the sole, past where the packet was, to almost the edge. Hidden there is a sliver of a blade. It is the tip of a knife, short, thin, but sharp.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he whispers.

  He runs the point of the knife across his wrist. Drops of blood fall on his tunic. He recalls the old whore past her use who showed him this way to cut. Then he thinks of his mother. She wears a pink silk robe with cherry blossoms in bloom across her body. He wants to sleep now. The warm trickle slows its course. No! This is not right. His head is heavy when he moves it to look down at his wrist. The blood stops. No more blood.

  Jonesy crawls across the filthy floor to the window. He feels the cold bars against his bloodied wrist. His lips move soundlessly as he summons the spirit of his grandmother to fly to him and help him understand why he cannot die.

  Met with silence, he cannot breathe for the fear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Hundreds are gathered at four o’clock this Monday morning. The pavements are cleanest at this hour. The crowd is calm, the weather mild. Spectators mark their places as near to the gallows as possible. Two young men will also swing today, but the crowd is here for the Fowler man and his wife; they wait oblivious to her fortunate news. In ignorant bliss they mingle at the place where the scaffold will stand.

  Finn is brought the breakfast of the condemned. Tea, coffee and a little bread and butter are his fare. The Ordinary stays planted at his side, still trying his best to coax a confession between prayers. Finn has had none of the breakfast, and refuses the Ordinary.

  Now the scaffold is wheeled from the Sessions House to Debtors’ Door where it juts out a bit, like a crowning babe not quite ready to make its long-awaited appearance. Three cheers go up when the crowd catches sight of it.

  At six o’clock the mass grows denser and people who have rented spaces begin to appear in shop windows and on the roofs of the surrounding streets.

  The crowd swells ever greater, and grows more festive. Jokes are wending through the clusters of friends, and laughter follows. All is deliciously merry, as if an opera is expected.

  The baker, Carson, arrives. Shouts of, ‘Witness coming through!’ afford him and his wife a better view, closer to the scaffold. Other tradesmen are here with their wives. The Mocketts are not among them. Their desire is to be unnoticed today, weighted as they are with relief that they were not implicated in the crimes.

  It is seven o’clock – three hours have passed. Numbers grow greater with each minute until thousands fill every space. Now the Sheriffs’ carriages arrive; their procession arranges itself with great show and they wave to their peers.

  St Sepulchre’s clock strikes the half hour. Five more minutes pass and the crowd settles down, eager, but quiet. They wonder what the condemned are doing in their last half hour on this earth.

  The bell tolls the quarter hour.

  The scaffold stands before the throng, the black chain hanging down from the beam, ready for the day’s work. It is eight minutes to the hour of execution. The crowd is feverish. The morning has passed so swiftly and yet now it creeps along to hanging time. The wall of people extends as far as the eye can see when the bell begins its toll of eight. The spectators settle into a quiet awe as they await the procession.

  No one
comes.

  Necks strain, then a murmur is let loose. The message spreads through the masses like a breeze carrying smoke: the murdering boy has hung himself in his cell. They will be denied his young face.

  Some in the crowd fold their arms and nod their heads.

  ‘Always a possibility.’

  ‘Did not think he had the fortitude, frankly.’

  Still no one comes from the door.

  ‘Wait, wait. There is more news.’ The tattle spreads.

  ‘The sodomite. He has been murdered in his cell.’

  The crowd sends out an approving roar. The last minutes before execution are always pregnant with a turn of fortunes. Reprieves, suicides, even murders – they are part and parcel of their expectations.

  The attention turns back to the scaffold. Just then a shockingly white head of hair appears out of the black door. The mane is long, and tied back with a trailing black ribbon that lies against the man’s black suit-jacket.

  ‘A new hangman.’ Ripples run through the spectators.

  They were expecting a short, stout frame with beefy arms. This long reed of a man that stands before them is somehow more sinister-looking in his slimness. The sharp lines of his body move like an ebony blade.

  A man follows the executioner with his arms tied in front of him. He too wears a black suit, a new one, with a bright, white shirt. Supported by a turnkey, he mounts the scaffold. There is an awful silence. Finn Fowler is not the swashbuckler the crowd expects. Even if he tried, he cannot stand the hero. His supporter makes an effort to prop him up before the Newgate drop, but Finn trembles so, his strength has left him. There is call for a chair. The white-haired executioner lifts a skeletal arm.

  ‘Halt! No chair. Stand on your feet, Finn Fowler.’ His razor-like voice cuts through the air.

  The Ordinary helps hold this felon who is entirely stripped of courage. Finn has refused the attentions of the Ordinary until now. If he could speak, he would give the man his story and then he would beg for his life. He would tell him that his only education as a child was the art of thievery, foisted on him by his parents. A beating, or a loaf of bread, these were his options when he was but four years of age. He stole the first loaf from the elder Carson, the baker, whose son witnessed Finn’s first act of thievery and stands glowering before him now.

  Finn shakes his head to empty it of the memory until his hair falls loose.

  ‘How handsome you are, Finn Fowler!’ A nosegay lands at his feet.

  ‘Farewell, Finn!’

  The crowd waits for her to appear. This Fowler woman, by God, they have imagined her over and over again and are now impatient to gaze upon her in the flesh. They anticipate her flowing, red hair, and her beauty, which is rumoured to be outrageous and envied, even by those in the Palace. There is a flush of pleasure in the excitement while they wait for their fantasies to be played out. Some admit to being sexually aroused.

  She does not appear.

  Caterwauls and whistles begin to voice the unrest in the audience. The feeling of being cheated is rising and spreading throughout. Those in charge are aware of the danger of an unruly mob and serve the announcement of Clovis Fowler’s reprieve in haste. Not one cheer goes up in her favour. Hissing and spitting rains down in nasty wet globs. The burden now rests on Finn and they have no faith that his will be a spectacular death. The draw was always the married couple. There are only eight hanging days a year at Newgate, and in this one they are short-changed.

  The executioner removes a thin, white cotton cloth from his pocket. Finn stares at it dazed. Here is his last opportunity to speak and he will be given ample time as a pitiful offering to appease the crowd.

  The executioner turns Finn’s body to afford the onlookers a better view. Finn recalls Clovis whispering in his ear, instructing him to make his speech a long one; he remembers this vividly, as though she were next to him at this moment. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes. Warm urine runs down his leg.

  He looks to the crowd, for what, he does not know, but his eyes find Carson the baker. Finn’s expression turns quizzical. He is confused with the image of Carson the young boy – even while he looks into the face of the older version before him. Carson returns his gaze with a cold and lifted brow.

  ‘He does not die game!’ Carson shouts to reach those farthest away.

  Laughter peels from those close to the scaffold.

  ‘Will you not speak?’ The Ordinary pleads.

  Then Finn remembers what he is searching for. At the last hour he lost all hope for a reprieve, but he renews his hopes for it now. Clovis promised him it would come, but first he must draw out a speech to buy more time. He cannot.

  In one swift motion the covering is placed over his head. The crowd yells its approval. His bowels loosen. The head-covering does little to erase this day; he can still see through the lightweight cotton.

  ‘ Hats off!’ Thousands of hats swish off to allow a clearer view.

  From the front of the gallows the hush of the crowd concertinas to those farthest back.

  Finn catches the scent of the rope and his mind flees to Limehouse, where he breathed the work of the ropemakers. When the rope goes around his neck a scream escapes him. The women jump back, as if his unexpected voice pushes them away.

  The executioner pulls the bolt and the drop falls. Finn will not go so easily. Astonishingly, he draws himself up, and his feet find purchase on the side of the drop. The executioner pushes him off. Finn lodges his feet on the side again. The crowd emits a collective, ‘Ah!’

  A third time he saves himself.

  When he is pushed again, the rope breaks.

  A yell bursts out from the viewers and echoes back through the swell of people. They laugh a strange, uncomfortable laugh. This man, this Finn Fowler, he fights to live and they are with him, by God.

  Another rope is placed around his neck. The hangman is gruff this time, showing no mercy. The Ordinary shouts a prayer, only to be met with disapproving and mocking hisses. The knot in the rope slips around to the back of Finn’s neck. It will be a slow death.

  The executioner turns him this way and that to disorient him. Finn’s feet cannot find the edge this time and he drops. He kicks at the Ordinary and the hangman. The head-covering falls off. His lips and nostrils ooze a frothy, bloody mucous. His face balloons. His eyes bulge and his lips and ears begin to swell. Signs of distress settle on the faces in the crowd. As if to mirror their turmoil, dark clouds dirty the sky.

  Finn is clearly still sensible and knows he is hanging. His feet search for the platform. The executioner pushes him again. The people roar. Finn visibly soils his britches.

  Just as is a pillow pressed on the face, hanging is suffocation. The longer Finn hangs, the more uncomfortable the crowd becomes and they direct their jeering to the hangman now.

  Finn is completely unaware that his penis has become erect and an involuntary ejaculation further dampens his britches. There are a few who gesture, but none find it amusing. The people are turning.

  At nine o’clock no movement is detected. A group of women have come forward. They have paid a large sum to test the miracles of the gallows. One woman bares her breasts. The hand of a hanged man is believed to cure tumours. She mounts the scaffold. She has no fear, no hesitation, as she takes Finn’s hand in hers. Just as she raises it to her breast, his head rolls and his eyes open and meet hers. The woman faints clean away.

  His struggle to take air is too much for the onlookers and they begin to cry out.

  ‘Cut him down! Cut him down!’

  The hangman who until now has been a model of control yells, ‘God almighty!’ and steps back from the gallows.

  The Ordinary clasps his prayer book to his chest and recites a prayer, his eyes tightly shut.

  Finn’s distorted features have played upon the people until they are wholly changed and awed by his agony. Their eyes flash back their tears. A different sort of passion overtakes them and leaves them soured.

  Then
the words Finn thought he would never hear are repeated over and over again.

  ‘Reprieve!’ The word creates a soothing blanket over the crowd. ‘Reprieve!’

  The executioner is given a blade to cut him down.

  When the rope is loosened the pain is so great that Finn wishes he were indeed dead. His ears ring with the explosive sound of people cheering. He scarcely knows where or who he is.

  He should not be alive. Finn knows it, the hangman and the Ordinary are sure of it, and the onlookers will speak of nothing else for months.

  Clovis Fowler leans against the wall of the cell in which she had bought the three of them a view of her husband’s execution. Willa and Jonesy have locked hands throughout the horrible, unfolding scene. Through the double row of bars, Clovis looks down upon the gaping faces of the crowd, people who still cannot believe what they have witnessed. As time passed and the reprieve did not come Finn did indeed appear as dead as a man could be. She had felt her own jaw clench, a knot of panic sticking in her throat, as he’d dangled like a blackened piece of fruit. Near the end of the hour when his lifeless body began to move again, Willa and Jonesy let out screams louder than any of the free people below. The blood drained from their faces, replaced by the haunted sheen of death masks.

  ‘It cannot be,’ Jonesy says to Willa.

  It would seem I have three miracles on my hands, is Clovis’s first thought. But she does not believe in miracles. Surely Jonesy made a mistake and did not actually ingest poison, but some other substance. And as for Finn, cruel as it may be, hangings have been reported to last an hour or more. The difference here is that eventually the result is always the same – whether it be minutes or an hour, death is met at the end of the rope. Remarkably, there was no death today. A queer and freakish idea forms; its nature is persistent.

  Clovis turns her attention from the extraordinary scene below and grasps Jonesy’s chin, turning his face to meet hers.