The Parentations

by Kate Mayfield

  In the months that have worn on, each time Mr Moonlight passed his cell Jonesy’s heart quickened. At first he was concerned that his master could in some way sense that his body became alert to Mr Moonlight’s particularly light footfall. Or, did Master notice how quickly he surged to the gate when Mr Moonlight was on rounds, hoping to catch the smell of him.

  Their work is carving, and the evidence of it spills out onto the floor in dusty piles. They shape the wooden handles for the prison’s hairbrushes into monotonous squares. The privilege of working with a knife is great and they are constantly reminded how fortunate they are by the chief warden who frequently inspects their work. Jonesy is so accomplished and quick at it that he is promised more intricate work in the months to come.

  Jonesy’s days run together like a long dragon divorced from his auspicious powers, constantly searching to regain his strength, searching for the flaming pearl of spiritual energy and immortality. Jonesy learned of the dragons from the only honourable person in his family, his grandmother. She was a toothless old woman with a crooked back that prevented her from walking in a straight line. The smell of fish emanated from her pores as she regaled him with stories of the Eight Immortals.

  She plaited his hair with her gnarled fingers while her peasant voice spun images of Lan Caihe.

  ‘She, or he,’ his grandmother said coyly. ‘Some say a man; some say a woman. Eh.’ She shrugged. ‘Many say both. Lan Caihe don’t care which one. His, or her, age is not known. Lan Caihe is wandering eccentric. She, or he, walks with one shoe on, one shoe off, in long blue gown. Lan carries basket of flowers of the divine. Life or death, they make no change for him, or her. Lan Caihe is least important of the Eight Immortals, but is most content.’

  ‘To be peaceful within oneself, Yun, she called him by the name his no-good mother gave him, is the flaming pearl.’ She poked him. ‘Yes? You understand?’

  He had been only four at the time and no, he did not understand the contradictions of Lan Caihe. He understood noodles and broth, fried chicken-feet and rice.

  Jonesy stacks the brushes into the baskets to ready them for collection. To be at peace within oneself. Never was he at more odds with the world. Never more at war within himself than in this moment.

  At six o’clock the gas flame has burned for two hours on this winter evening. The cell is chilly, and damp seeps through the whitewashed walls. Prisoners are becoming ill with diseases of the wet, but not him, not his mistress and master, and Willa is in perfect health, too. Though perhaps, he thinks, not in her mind.

  Jonesy is lost in his musings, bending over the stacks of brushes and does not notice the pale warder standing at his cell door.

  ‘1091.’

  ‘Sir.’ Jonesy bolts upright and turns to face Mr Moonlight.

  ‘Fetch one of those baskets and come with me.’

  Jonesy lifts the heaving basket filled with brushes and follows Mr Moonlight down the corridor.

  Finn is occupied with sweeping and clearing away the day’s mess. He pauses for a moment, places his hand to his throat and lightly massages the ring where the noose strangled him. He pushes the broom over to the door and peers down the dim hallway. The gas jets spit flames that swallow Jonesy’s shadow.

  Mr Moonlight strides slowly to a cell at the centre of the ward that has been converted to a storeroom to accommodate extra space for the infirmary’s necessaries. He turns and motions for Jonesy to follow him into the cell.

  ‘Place the basket here, 1091,’ he says rather loudly, as if he wishes all to hear.

  Jonesy does as he is told.

  ‘Now to fetch another.’

  The warder conducts a pattern of fetch, carry and deliver. He says or does nothing untoward, yet he never takes his eyes off Jonesy. This would be normal behaviour of any warder, Jonesy thinks, if not for the particular way the warder’s gaze follows him. They do not speak or vary the ritual.

  The warder also asks Finn to carry the baskets occasionally and so establishes such normality along the corridor that no one notices anything unusual when Mr Moonlight and Jonesy are occupied in the storeroom for a few minutes longer than usual.

  It is the night before Christmas Eve. Jonesy follows the warder to the storeroom as he normally does and places the basket in the corner, to be collected in the morning. As he turns to go, Mr Moonlight grabs Jonesy’s wrist, holding him back. He places his finger to his lips, signalling Jonesy to be silent. Then he closes the cell door leaving it unlocked.

  Jonesy feels his knees weakening in a terrifying moment of uncertainty. The two are surrounded by rows of sheets, towels, pieces of soap and the finished wooden brushes that Jonesy has carved. The warder leans against a shelf of bath bricks, grabs Jonesy’s wrist and pulls him closer. Jonesy is alarmed. What if he is contagious? If the sleeping sickness should pass on to the warder?

  Mr Moonlight’s finger is neither soft nor rough as it traces Jonesy’s lips, which are parted and full of the warm breath of expectancy. His grandmother once told him that his mouth is shaped like a large plum, so ripe and swollen that it would one day fill a person with a great desire to bite it.

  Jonesy wants to touch the man’s face in return and reaches to stroke his pale skin, but Mr Moonlight’s arm swiftly swats his hand away. ‘No,’ he says forcefully, with a silent frown. Just as quickly, he unbuttons his uniform trousers and guides Jonesy’s hand down to his erection.

  Mr Moonlight keeps his eyes trained on the door; the danger is both exciting and terrifying. They not only break the rules – they break the law.

  He holds Jonesy’s head with both of his hands and pushes him down to his knees. He sticks two fingers in Jonesy’s mouth and when they’re wet, he traces Jonesy’s lips again with his own spit before he prises Jonesy’s mouth open.

  A different blond man, the sailor from Limehouse, taught Jonesy how to suck and play, and he is only getting started when the warder thrusts, thrusts once more, and is spent.

  They are in the corridor again. Only a few minutes have passed.

  The following week, with the baskets of handles sitting in the corner, and his mouth achingly open, he pleasures Mr Moonlight in silence. The week after is the same, and from then on, once a week, on randomly chosen days, Jonesy can expect to be at the service of a callous young man whose capacity for excitement is thankfully short.

  Today, Jonesy sands the wooden brush handles to the rhythm of his master’s regrets, which Finn constantly proclaims. While his master speaks on and on, Jonesy considers the differences between whoredom and freedom. He knows enough about the former through his father’s pitiful rendition of a brothel. So in his limited experience he concludes that Mr Moonlight most definitely treats him like a whore; not once has the man offered anything in return. This, his grandmother would say, is dog treatment. Jonesy concludes, too, that he will surely lose more than his freedom if he is caught. Punishment sees him dead at the end of a rope.

  Jonesy stops carving, his knife suspended mid-air. On my ancestors. I forgot. I cannot die, he thinks. He glances at the marks on his master’s neck. London will forget one miracle, but not two. Another man dangling from a rope, a sod at that, an invert … There. I’ve said it. Even if only to myself. The weight of being found out is more frightening than death itself.

  That night in the storeroom, once a retreat of intrigue where he had hoped that Mr Moonlight would touch his face and kiss his mouth, the shelves and crude necessities of prison life oppress him. Before he places the basket in the corner, Mr Moonlight’s buttons are already unfastened and the bulge in his flannel throbs warm when Jonesy’s hand is forced. He takes his hand away and shakes his head. The warder looks confused for a moment, then he angrily tries to force Jonesy down to his knees. When Jonesy plants his feet and resists, Mr Moonight strikes him. He uses the back of his hand, the way Jonesy’s father used to do. The pain to the side of his face is not as frightening as the look of disgust in the warder’s eyes.

  It is time they leave, or their ab
sence will be noticed.

  ‘Jonesy. What the hell?’ Finn’s blood boils when he sees the imprint of the warder’s hand on his face.

  ‘Please. I beg you. Say nothing.’

  Five more times Jonesy is subjected to Mr Moonlight’s violent hand, until the day the warder disappears. It is said that he took a position at another prison, but the liars of Millbank do love to circulate rumours. He was quietly banned from prison work.

  The governor is everywhere.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘Your visitor has arrived. Follow me.’

  Clovis moistens and bites her lips, the only act of vanity she allows the matron to witness. Her dress, her own blue dress is being brushed at present, which leaves her only the prison dress she first wore two years ago.

  Millbank is a labyrinth of passages and corridors so complex that the warders and matrons loathe admitting they frequently take a wrong turn and are easily lost. The staircases are steep and unlit. When Clovis met Mockett in the small square visitors’ house in one of the pentagons a year ago, she memorized the turns and counted the steps in the dizzying circular shafts of cells.

  It was a harsh moment, facing him behind two sets of bars and wire mesh netting. A matron and an officer sat with them, which made for stilted, but enlightening conversation. She discovered that Nora Mockett is unchanged, and that Benedikt supplies Mockett’s phials.

  On that day, Clovis knew that whatever condition they have, curse or blessing, was born the night of the baby’s fever. This thought presses upon her mind today as she is led into the visiting house.

  There are two doors, one on each side of the room. Clovis enters on one side and waits for her visitor to walk through the opposite door. A principal warder takes his seat between the two iron gratings.

  The room is bare and so completely unadorned that she is at the end of her patience when the heavy door creaks open. The warder and prisoner 1089 rise when Constance Fitzgerald enters the visiting house.

  She is taller than Clovis remembers. Or it may be the hat – the grace of a beautiful hat has long been absent from her cloistered view. Its pale, blue silk looks almost obscene in this place, like furs and diamonds in a rookery. Clovis notes the fashion has changed; the waist is lower. All the comforts she forfeits come rushing at her now in a single rustle of the woman’s exquisitely made dress. The sound of Mrs Fitzgerald’s skirts as they settle in the visitor’s chair drive her into a brief moment of madness. Clovis rises taller in her chair and raises her chin a touch higher.

  Mrs Fowler, Constance surmises, appears amazingly well, considering. She had expected someone paler, more emaciated, to sit before her, but here she finds only a different version of Clovis Fowler, as if the woman were an actress now playing the role of a peasant. But now, she must focus on her task. She has been instructed to lie, to lie like a woman pleading for her life when she knows she is guilty and faces the gallows. Her lies must be cast in scents of truth to appease Mrs Fowler. She draws a deep breath from the less than fresh air.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Fowler.’

  ‘Good of you to come, Mrs Fitzgerald. I had hoped that you would have my son with you. I have longed to see him.’

  ‘I feel sure you will understand that this is no place for a young boy who has a touch of a cold.’

  ‘Oh? I am sorry to hear it. Does he have a fever, Mrs Fitzgerald?’

  There it is.

  ‘No. No fever, just a slight cough.’

  ‘Has he ever had a fever?’

  There it is again.

  ‘No, no, he has not. He enjoys very good health. We are near the fresh air of the Regent’s Park now, as you know.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Mockett informed me of your relocation. I was disappointed. I thought that I would have heard from you first.’

  ‘And I thought I would have heard news of your freedom. The last we spoke, two years ago, you were in the midst of a misunderstanding, as you put it, not a conviction.’

  Clovis hesitates, then she leans forward in her chair the way she does when she whispers to Willa and commands her to sleep. Lowering her voice and softening her gaze, she speaks slowly through the wirework.

  ‘Tell me, Mrs Fitzgerald, does my son sleep well?’

  ‘Very well, indeed.’ Constance answers with an exact tone and in perfect tempo.

  Clovis brings her chair a little closer with a glance at the warder.

  ‘And you and your sister?’ She lowers her voice a notch further. ‘Do you both sleep well?’

  ‘We sleep well, Mrs Fowler.’

  ‘No irregularities then?’

  ‘None.’

  Her usual hypnotic voice having no effect, Clovis finds irritation rising in a flush on her neck. She tries a different approach, quietly forceful.

  ‘Mrs Fitzgerald, I expect to see my son next year when you visit again.’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Fowler, if he is willing.’

  ‘A three-year-old does not know his own will.’

  ‘Oh I disagree, Mrs Fowler. Rafe knows his own will even now.’

  ‘He is my son, Mrs Fitzgerald.’

  ‘Indeed. And my sister and I look after him very well. You’ve no need to worry. Is there anything else?’

  Clovis glances at the warder. He nods. There are a few minutes remaining.

  ‘Would you be kind enough to write to me of any changes in his sleeping patterns? Or if he should suddenly be ill with a fever?’

  ‘As you wish. Would you like to be informed if he is ill with anything other than a fever?’

  Clovis searches for the truth behind her visitor’s question. Is this woman playing some sort of a game with her? Their eyes lock as she considers her reply. It is hard to discern if Mrs Fitzgerald has aged these past two years. Being so well cosseted all her life she looks fresher than most women her age. Mrs Fitzgerald’s face is full and remarkably unlined, her hair shines and her eyes are clear and lively. It could be that her new home situated far from industry and the river brings her robust health. Today, Mrs Fitzgerald reveals nothing of miracles or strange occurrences. She’s a hard one, she is. This visit is wasted and I am quickly falling into a foul mood, thinks Clovis, but she replies with cool politeness.

  ‘Yes, of course. I would be grateful to receive your letters and visits, and any news of my son is always appreciated.’

  Constance rises, nods to Clovis, and prepares to depart the ghastly place.

  ‘Mrs Fitzgerald.’

  Constance pauses.

  ‘I hope you and your sister continue to sleep well.’

  ‘And you, Mrs Fowler.’

  Constance leaves through the door designated for visitors and breathes a huge sigh once it is closed and the prisoner is behind her. She is led through the inner gate by an assistant warder, then to the gravelled outer yard, and finally to her great relief, to the carriage that awaits her.

  ‘I have never been happier to see you, Verity.’

  ‘Was it awful? Were you convincing?’

  ‘I do not know. I believe so. But, sister, she has been in that place of hell for two years and has not changed. Not at all.’

  ‘Saints preserve us.’

  As soon as Constance Fitzgerald is out of her sight Clovis kicks the iron bars.

  ‘Calm down there, 1089,’ the warder warns her.

  She throws him a fuming glance. He leads her to the waiting matron who is in no mood herself for privileged prisoners and hurriedly escorts her back to her cell.

  ‘There you are, mistress. How was your visit, then?’ Willa looks up from her sewing.

  Clovis waits until the fat matron has waddled away before she turns on Willa.

  ‘Shut up. Do not say another word to me today.’ She picks up her hairbrush and throws it at Willa. The handle cracks on the girl’s skull and she cries out.

  ‘Be quiet, or that onion-breath matron will have you for dinner.’ Clovis retrieves the brush from the floor and places it back on the shelving, recovering calm. ‘I should not have
thrown it. It was wrong of me. It is this place.’

  Willa chooses a long strand from a cord of threads that hangs around her neck. Squinting, she ties a knot, then changes the thread in her needle.

  ‘Perhaps you could speak to the governor again, mistress? You are much calmer after you receive his good advice.’

  ‘Why, Willa. You are a very clever, girl. The governor’s wisdom is exactly what I need tonight.’

  Clovis fits the red-tipped end of the wooden wand through the inspection hole, signalling that she would like to speak to the matron. It is not the heavy-footed woman who comes, but the older spinster matron who prefers night duty.

  The governor comes right away.

  ‘Ah. Prisoner 1089. What troubles you that you would take me from my visits on the other wards?’

  ‘Sir. I apologize for my impudence. I … I seem to be on the edge of some great awakening, a stirring, if you will, sir, that I would like to discuss with you.’

  Willa is quite in awe of her mistress, that as bold as she has known her to be, she would speak to the governor so freely.

  ‘Indeed? Then you must come to me at once, 1089. Matron, bring this prisoner to my room in one half hour.’

  It had begun over a year ago. Clovis chose her moment to approach him when he could not conceal that he suffered from a violent pain in his head. She made some pretence to see him privately when he attended their cell on one of his regular visits.

  The curtain in the governor’s room was drawn that day, a clear sign that he was ill. His writing desk was strewn with papers, the General Order Book was left open to a page, figures scrawled in the margins, and a cup and saucer thick with brown stains teetered on the edge of a pile of journals.

  Clovis stood on a worn spot on a small, but expensive carpet. The governor did not bother with the rope of separation. His eyes followed the lines of her body from the tips of her prison boots to her neck until he reached her face.

  He was distracted by the curves that refused to be hidden under her drab skirts and homely apron. Two urges coursed through him; a desire to point a revolver to the pain that pierced his head, and to relieve his untameable lust.