‘’Tis my lady,’ Giles told him. ‘She never leaves me side, and yet she’s broken the hearts of many a man.’ His roaring laughter resounded through the courtyard and was amplified by that of his brother.
Another lashing found him later that same day when Sissy caught him practising his stabbing skills, slashing at a poor cabbage on the kitchen table with a blunt kitchen knife. The birch broke in two, and an infuriated Sissy grabbed a nearby pudding stick to finish the job. Later that night, her fury made place for tenderness as she gently massaged some camphor oil into his welted buttocks until he fell asleep in her bed.
Tristan sat on a straw cushion the next morning when he had his breakfast. The fruit-filled pastry covered in sugar syrup helped him to forget his sullen state and the punishment that he had suffered the night before. By mid-morning, when Sissy stood on the back porch and watched him play away amidst a daydream, all was forgotten for he was a happy child and that was all that mattered to her, his mother.
By the time Tristan turned six, he had become a well-known addition to La Boutique. He manned the gates with Giles and Miles, and sometimes the front door, taking hats, coats and canes from gentlemen who visited La Boutique. He preferred his duty as hall boy because satisfied customers generally bestowed a reward, usually in the form of coin, especially when their belongings got safely returned to them by a very gallant young boy. He still got in trouble with Madam from time to time, but he was starting to earn his keep by doing something useful, and it did not go unnoticed by her eagle eye.
During spring that same year, after much deliberation with Madam, Sissy moved him into a storage room between her bedroom and the kitchen. The tiny room had a small hinged window that could not close properly, and he learned very quickly to plug the opening with rolled-up linen whenever a cold night loomed. They moved the dresser to his new room and once more, La Boutique’s ladies came to his aid for at the end of the first week he had a bed, table and chair, and barely any room to move.
It took him a couple of nights to adjust to the silence. He missed the presence of another person next to him, especially Sissy’s gentle snoring which usually soothed him back to sleep if he woke in the middle of the night.
Nevertheless, it was his room, and he enjoyed the freedom that came with it. Everything he owned was now in the room, except for his most prized possession. So, one night, when everyone was asleep, he snuck out to the shed. He did not dare use a light in fear of getting caught, so proceeded to fumble around in the dark until he found the leather pouch that he was looking for hidden underneath a workbench, the clinking sound giving it away.
The pouch that belonged to Sissy’s late husband contained all of his money which he had earned from his duty as a doorkeeper. He had found a loose floorboard in the corner of his room and decided to move his stash of coins there, closer to where he was. With a firm grip on the bag, he took his time sneaking back into the house. Once it was safely stowed away and the bed moved back into the corner, it was a very content little boy who finally laid down his head to sleep.
Tristan did not go to any of the grammar schools. Lucy taught him some basic reading and writing, and from Sissy, he learned some arithmetic. General geography came from all the girls, based on stories that they had heard from patrons, and he hung on their lips as they shared with him second-hand information about the riches and splendours of faraway mystical countries. At night, he would visit these countries in his dreams, as a captain of his own ship, always feeling saddened when Sissy awakened him in the morning, plucking him out of his dream world. Everything else that he needed to know, including manners and respect, he learned in and around the brothel, as life taught him lessons like it did almost everyone else.
Until his sixth birthday, he had very seldom ventured outside the La Boutique grounds but he constantly battered Sissy with questions about the world outside the gates, sometimes driving her to the brink of insanity, that place where only a vociferated profanity or proper scolding could silence him for a day or two, if she were fortunate enough. It was partly her fault for Sissy was very protective of him. She knew death could come at an instant once beyond the protection of the walls, but she also knew that she had to introduce him to the wider world sooner rather than later, or his inquisitive nature would bring strife onto both of them.
She decided to let him accompany her and one of the twins, usually Miles, to Borough Market on a Wednesday or Friday morning. There they would buy food for the brothel, usually meat, fish, flour, vegetables and fruit, and sometimes particular items for Madam, like smoked French sausages and salted anchovies. He loved every minute of these outings and would pace back and forth at the front gate like a loyal dog, waiting for them to get ready, so excited that they could barely keep up with him once they started down the road.
To avoid most of the traffic, they usually left early morning, and they always followed the same route. From Worcester Street, they headed east on Castle Street, then cut through a few alleyways until they reached Borough High Street. The main artery, a busy road that connected the south to the north via London Bridge, took them all the way to the market. The route back to La Boutique was a different one though, mainly because Sissy bought fish from a small fish market on the bank of the Thames, closer to home. ‘This was to ensure its freshness,’ she taught Tristan.
Travelling towards the market, Borough High Street, lined on both sides with its many inns, was the most mundane part of the trip for Tristan. It was when they got closer to the market that his interest usually peaked. By then, the city had woken, the streets were getting busier, and the market was buzzing.
On the outskirts of Borough Market, they would sometimes slow down to a snail’s pace as they elbowed their way through the congestion. Streets were teeming with Londoners, immigrants from Spain, France, Portugal and Italy, and visitors from as far as the Ottoman Empire and Africa. Farmers herding cattle or transporting grain fought for the right of way with itinerant pedlars who swerved through the crowds with contraptions in which they carried their wares. Adding to the traffic woes were hawkers who pulled small carts behind them from where they sold everything and anything. Tristan was captivated by their theatre-like performances as they tried, and mostly succeeded, in hoodwinking people out of their money. He drank in the abundance and variety of exotic flavours and sounds as they wound their way through the masses to get to the market, stopping only now and then so that Sissy could inspect or purchase something.
The market and the surrounding shops made for one bustling place and overwhelmed the young one’s senses. Amidst the chaos there were bakers, butchers, chandlers, grocers, perfumers, cobblers, coopers, dressmakers, milliners, blacksmiths, dyers, fullers, wig-makers, clothiers, tanners, jewellers, barbers, drapers, stationers and all sorts of other vendors who tried to sell their wares, catering for the everyday needs of city dwellers.
Traders would be up in people’s faces, doing and saying anything to get buyers into their stalls. Chants from costermongers rang out over the market as the colourful salesmen strolled around with their bright-green-and-yellow or red-and-blue silk neckerchiefs, peddling fish, fresh fruit and vegetables.
‘Oranges! Two for a penny! Any fresher and they would still be growing on the tree! Sweet juicy oranges!’ they would cry out.
Beggars threw themselves at travellers’ feet and told them how difficult life had been. Tristan enjoyed listening to their tragic tales of misery, much to Sissy’s disgust and a quick yank of his ear usually ended a story very abruptly. Fortune tellers, healers and performers, including street musicians, added to the hubbub of a market that was bursting at the seams. It was colourful chaos, and he loved every minute of it.
It was during these market visits that Tristan learned from Sissy the art of bargaining, watching closely as she got more than her money’s worth, without fail. She taught him how to spot a rogue trader and how a clever buyer never bought the first item that got shoved in his face. She showed him how to unpack a cr
ate of turnips, removing the healthy-looking top layer to reveal any rotten ones underneath. She did the same with apples and other fruit like cherries, where good produce was mixed with those of inferior quality unbeknownst to the prospective buyer. She taught him what fruit, vegetables and fish were in season. He learned how to haggle, compare prices between traders, how and when to bring previous weeks’ prices into a conversation, and when and when not to insult the intelligence of a merchant. He learned how to check meat and fish for freshness and most importantly, he learned how to say no and walk away. Sissy showed him how to hide money so that the many pickpockets, who constantly bumped into them would not be able to steal it. She taught him how to keep his eyes on an item they were about to purchase at all times, just in case it got swopped for an inferior product.
‘You don’t want to buy an expensive slice of beef only to end up with a wrapped piece of rotten pig’s liver at home,’ she explained to him.
As Tristan grew more accustomed to the market and its pitfalls, Sissy started giving him several items to purchase and a certain amount of money to do so. God forbade if he turned up with no money and not all of the items. The flipside of that was that he could keep any money if he achieved the opposite, and by George, did he love those sweet jumballs and lukewarm curd cakes, but only if there were a few coins to spare for his secret stash at home.
Tristan quickly worked out where he could get the best deals and also how to get the different items in the quickest amount of time, carefully planning his route, which left him with more time to explore. They bought food for a big household, and he learned how to use that to his advantage too, sometimes skipping the street sellers in favour of wholesalers at the main market where he would often buy a flitch of bacon or a slab of sirloin. Under Sissy’s watchful eye he thrived as a little man of business, and he soon realised that by not spending any money on sweets at the market, he could save it, and afford bigger and better things.
Tristan applied everything he learned at the market to his doorkeeper duties. He would greet patrons with a courteous smile and ask them how their day had been. He would brush their coats and hats, and polish their canes with great attention to detail, leaving them in tip-top condition. Departing customers soon started seeing the quality of his work, and before long, his services expanded to the polishing of shoes and the removal of unwanted stains. He never charged anyone, relying solely on their gratitude for a job well done. And the coins kept on coming.
At first, Madam did not mind but that all changed one Sunday morning when she saw him counting the coins that he had received from a lavish party that she had hosted the night before. Right there and then she started demanding a percentage of his earnings as his business did take place under her roof after all. Instead of handing the money straight to him, customers were asked to deposit it in a small lockbox with a slot. At the end of each week, they would open the lockbox and divide up the earnings. First, it was fifty percent each, but soon Madam’s share increased to sixty and then seventy. There was not much he could do about it, but when she increased her take to seventy-five percent, he had to have his revenge as only a seven-year-old could.
The next day early in the afternoon, when Madam was entertaining three businessmen from across the bridge, Tristan snuck into her room. It was not his first time. During his many explorations as a younger child, her room had always been like a magnet, a forbidden treasure. Fascinated by the gilded furniture and the colourful bedding, curtains and paintings, he used to pretend that he was in one of the many foreign countries that Sissy and the other ladies always told him about. He knew very well that Madam only locked her door when she ventured outside La Boutique and when he heard the roaring laughter from downstairs, he took his chance.
Once inside, he immediately walked to where a birdcage hung from a floor stand. He pulled two brass chairs across the room, placed them underneath the cage and stepped onto the one closest to him. Using all of the strength in his small arms, he unhooked the cage and put it on the second chair. Inside the cage, one of Madam’s most prized possessions, a yellow canary called Luc, fluttered around and made one hell of a racket.
‘Shhh, Luc,’ he whispered. ‘Shhh, or you’ll get us in trouble.’
Tristan knew he had to work fast before someone heard the commotion and came to inspect. He jumped off the chair and started pushing the one with the cage over to the window. The window was slightly ajar, so he opened it further and turned the cage so its little door faced towards the outside. The latch on the door opened with ease, and he stepped back, waiting for the bird to fly away.
High expectations quickly turned to dismay when the bird stayed put. Wasting no time Tristan banged his fist on the side of the cage, and the canary fled through the open cage door onto the windowsill. The frightened bird twitched its head from side to side, its eyes bewildered as it took in the wide-open space outside. A clap of Tristan’s hands made it fly away. Au revoir, Luc, he grinned.
Tristan wasted no time putting everything back to where it was, even picking up empty seed husks and small feathers that had gotten strewn around with the bird’s wild flapping. He closed the door behind him, and with a smile on his face and a pounding heart, he was on his way.
Late afternoon all hell broke loose at La Boutique. No one escaped Madam’s wrath and every single person, including Sissy and the maids who had been busy preparing supper, were made to look for the missing bird.
‘Mon Dieu! He couldn’t have disappeared just like that! Luc?! Merde!’ echoed through La Boutique’s corridors as Madam gave the house a new respect for the French language.
Some of the ladies turned the brothel inside out while others looked on the grounds outside. Tristan took shelter behind the shed with Miles, who decided that he was not going to look for a stupid bird. Together they listened and laughed at the array of bird calls, confusing wails and whoops that rang out around the place.
Giles was searching the surrounding streets and rooftops when he noticed quite a number of people stopping and listening to the tumult behind La Boutique’s fence. The more curious ones even walked up to the gate to try and peek through the small gaps between the wooden planks. It did sound like an asylum for the insane, some of the sounds not dissimilar to a woman reaching the pinnacle of pleasure. On the morrow tongues would be wagging again, Giles thought, pulled his hat lower over his eyes and walked off, hands in his pockets while whistling a tune as if he had no association with the place whatsoever. It was late in the evening when the search was finally called off.
That night, while lying in his bed, Tristan could hear the canary’s chirp from a rooftop nearby. And then it broke out in the most beautiful song…a melody of freedom. He knew he was not the only one hearing it and that itself brought him even more happiness and comfort for the pang of guilt. Sissy had asked him about the bird and for the first time ever he had lied to her. He promised himself never to do it again.
As the peaceful birdsong soothed him to sleep, the beast in his belly, fuelled by the hunger for revenge and justice, settled down too. Little did he know that the insatiable beast would linger inside of him. It would haunt him like a shadow, rearing its head throughout his life, and if left unheeded, that it might consume him one day.
It was the last night that he heard the bird sing.
Chapter 3
Though the ladies at La Boutique treated him like a little brother and spoilt him rotten at times, there was one void in his life neither they nor even Giles or Miles could fill – that of a coeval friend. None of the other La Boutique ladies had children, and since most of them were orphans themselves, there were no younger brothers or sisters who came to visit. Though there were plenty of children in the surrounding streets that he could play with, Sissy limited his time with them. ‘Misfits and vagabonds,’ she called them, and as much as she was worried that their bad behaviour and ailments could rub off on the little gentleman she was trying to raise, she was more concerned that they might stray onto the pr
operty and create a heap of trouble for all of them.
One day, on their way back from the market, Sissy decided to visit the fishmonger at the bottom of Pepper Alley Street, right by the river. The Smoking Cod belonged to Eoghan Sullivan, an Irish immigrant who had settled in Southwark a few months earlier. He had set up the shop by himself but had recently sent for his wife and children who were making the long journey from Dublin up north, across St George’s Channel, all the way to London. It was by chance that Sissy had heard another housekeeper speak highly of the man and since she had had her fair share of disagreements with the honey-tongued mongers at the fish market, she had to find out for herself and so far she had not been disappointed with the Irishman’s wares, whether it be eel, crab or oyster.
It was a hot spring day, and Sissy felt the full force of the sun beaming down on her, causing beads of sweat to roll down her cleavage and the back of her neck. By her side, Miles was puffing while he dragged the handcart through the sandy side street. Behind them, Tristan struggled under the heavy load of a large pumpkin. His two scrawny arms balanced the huge vegetable on his head so that his neck bore most of the weight. It was a trick that he had picked up from his days spent at the market. When Sissy had bought the overly big pumpkin at one of their last stops, Miles was quick to point out to her that the handcart he was pulling was already overloaded with produce from the market.
When they came to a halt outside the fishmonger’s shop, Miles could not put the heavy-laden cart down fast enough. A group of noisy travellers, who had just disembarked from a wherry nearby, were coming up the watermen’s stairs and headed for the alehouse across the street. Miles wiped the sweat off his brow and pointed to the same alehouse. ‘One,’ he said, and fell in behind the group of merry folk.
The Fire Within Page 3