The Butcher's Hook

by Janet Ellis

  ‘Did he say anything?’ Careful now. I must not appear too inquisitive. ‘What was his farewell?’

  ‘He only said that it was a good day for a meeting.’ The boy jumps from one ridge to another. He is only a child, playing. ‘Oof!’ he shouts, as he lands hard. ‘Then I told him that he looked sparky.’

  ‘Sparky?’ How long did they converse, this spit of a boy and the victim. Did the boy go with him some of the way while Dr Edwards babbled about books and lessons? About me?

  ‘He was sprightly and in good humour, that’s all.’ The boy stops, staring at me, that mess of hair at the back of his head caught upright by the chill wind. He looks petulant. ‘I am telling all the same answers to you that I told to the law. It seems to me that it doesn’t matter much whether he skipped or limped, he went to his death all the same.’

  ‘Quite the little philosopher.’ We’re at the lodging house now. Two men stand outside it. They talk to each other and seem uninterested in who comes and goes. Nevertheless, I hesitate, not wanting to be questioned.

  ‘Family friend.’ The boy throws his thumb over his shoulder, indicating me. The men stand aside. I don’t meet their eyes, but put my hand to my face like a shield.

  ‘Who are those men?’ I puff up the stairs behind him; he is taking them two at a time.

  ‘Bailiffs,’ he growls. ‘Better get through this quick before they follow.’

  The room is in disarray. Whether Dr Edwards unsettled everything before he left, or if someone has searched for clues, I cannot tell, but there is not a single tidy spot. A huge swathe of different cloths lies in an untidy heap. I pull some of them apart between finger and thumb with distaste – they certainly do not smell of the laundry. They are items of bedding and clothing all jumbled together. His books and papers are similarly strewn over every surface. I pick up an illustrated page where it lies face up on the table. It is one of the papers he came armed with, that day he sat beside me and took my childish hand to him. It shows a couple playing cards, the lady holding hers to her chest while her suitor spreads his hand out in a fan. If we had just played cards together, Dr Edwards, then you might be coming back to your room soon. And the first thing I’d advise you to do is tidy it.

  ‘Did he do this?’ I ask.

  The boy shrugs, the corners of his mouth turning down in disapproval. ‘He started it. And when the others came to look, they saw how it was and so they did not take much care how they went.’ He picks up and drops several items in quick succession.

  ‘Leave them!’ He jumps at my harsh tone. ‘He may not come back for them, but we should still be careful.’

  ‘Bit late for that.’ The boy moves a book on the floor with his foot. ‘The Memoirs of a Lady of Pleasure by John Cleland,’ he reads aloud awkwardly, giving the ‘h’ of John a jolt like a cart in a rut and sounding each word so slowly that it’s hard to hear the sense of it. He catches my eye and blushes. ‘My reading isn’t too clever yet.’ He is embarrassed about his skill, not the book’s content. ‘I am – I was – still learning.’

  ‘Who was teaching you?’ But as I ask, I know the answer.

  ‘Your man Edwards,’ he says and suddenly he looks stricken. ‘Oh, that’s brought it home. Oh, that’s really brought it

  home.’ He clears a little space on the floor and sits there. ‘You have a look,’ he says magnanimously, opening his arms to the room.

  ‘I have no need of that book; we have a copy at home.’ I begin to ferret amongst Dr Edwards’ possessions. How sad they are without their owner to make sense of their existence. Jotted on a little scrap of paper, in his thick, cramped hand – so dense the ‘o’s are filled in like full moons – is a list of people he’ll never see again. Is this man, ‘Jonah’, a friend or a scholar? Does ‘Evan’ know he has died? I am about to pocket it when I realise I should take nothing that might link me to this room and that man. Whatever I remove, should I see anything worth having, must be an object without connection. I touch the things near to me lightly in turn, as if I’m blessing them.

  The boy puts a broad-brimmed hat on his head and shrinks his chin to his shoulders, then sways from side to side in an impression of Dr Edwards’ rolling gait. ‘Where am I?’ he says. ‘Now I am gone?’

  I round on him. ‘Did you hear me, boy? I told you that you should not mock the dead.’

  He stops his swaying but he doesn’t take off the hat. Instead he peeps at me from underneath it as if it’s a lady’s bonnet. ‘Fond of the old fellow, weren’t you?’ His eyes are in shadow, but I feel his sharp gaze.

  ‘I knew him a little, that’s all,’ I say sourly. ‘I want nothing here. I will leave now.’

  ‘Penny for my trouble?’ He holds his hand out. The lines on his palm are stained dark black. If you were to tell him his fortune from reading them, you’d have an easy task. I can tell without looking that his life-line is very short.

  ‘Penny for what trouble? For bringing me to this ragbag room?’

  ‘He said he was meeting you.’ The room chills. He has thrown this over me like cold water and I shiver. ‘I asked where he was going, with all his books ready, and he said: “I am reunited, Adam dear” (that’s how he spoke to me), “I am reunited with a pupil that I thought most highly of. But I have not had the pleasure of teaching Miss Jaccob for some time”.’

  ‘You remember very clearly.’ I speak as evenly as I can, though my mind races. ‘That is very . . . impressive. Dr Edwards must have been delighted to have you as a pupil, too.’ His mouth twists into a small smile. ‘Did you . . .’ I am almost on tiptoe in anticipation of his answer ‘ . . . tell anyone? Dr Edwards and I were most keen to keep our lessons secret.’

  The hat lifts. His small eyes gleam. ‘Why should they be a secret?’

  ‘We were rehearsing . . . oh!’ I pause and dab at my dry eyes, as if tears fall, ‘a recitation for my father’s birthday. I knew my father loved a particular poem and I knew, too, that Dr Edwards – he more than anyone else – could teach me to perform it. But of course we should not tell anyone, in case my father heard of it and his surprise was spoiled. Oh, he shall not hear it now! And I will never be able to read it again without . . . sorrow.’ My words trail away, brushing the boy like feathers.

  He turns all this over in his head, his little brow furrowing with effort. It is quite possible that some folk might skulk around not to do wrong but rather to learn verses, but he’s puzzled as to why. ‘Queer,’ he announces. ‘Worth a few pence not to inform those gentlemen, though. They might want to hear this tale from you, mightn’t they?’

  He has caught my panic; my insouciance has not fooled him.

  ‘You are a most resourceful boy. A most promising boy, too. I hate to think of all Dr Edwards’s teaching coming to naught. He spoke so highly of you. He indicated he might raise you, if not exactly as his son, then as a protégé.’ He wriggles uncomfortably, not knowing if that would have been a good thing or a bad one, but not liking to be considered for the role anyhow. ‘Perhaps you and I should continue?’ I step towards him, holding out my hand.

  ‘I have had enough of all that. I can read sufficient.’ He gets to his feet. I want to cling to his knees so that he may not leave. Or get ahead of him and lock him in. But he is a wily snip and knows he has something precious to me. Our paths might not cross again if I do not snare him now.

  ‘I have no money,’ I say, not taking my eyes from his face. ‘But I should like to reward you, as you suggest. I know where some is kept. A great deal of it, just there for the taking.’

  The boy stops as if his path were snagged by brambles. ‘Why should you tell me that?’ he frowns, ‘I am not a common thief that I need to know about hidden coin.’

  ‘It is not fair that Dr Edwards, who might have lived to be your benefactor, should be taken without the opportunity to provide for you.’ I step towards him, putting my hands on his shoulders. They are so small my fin
gers almost meet at his neck.

  Again, he wriggles. ‘That’s heavy,’ he protests, ducking out from under my grasp. His cornflower-blue eyes are perfect, almost lidless half circles. In the corner of each there is a dot of yellow crust. No mother wipes his sleep from him, then.

  ‘I am only suggesting that the parish might take care of you.’

  ‘The parish?’ he says, suspiciously, as if it were another word for gaol. ‘I don’t need taking care of. I get pretty far on my own.’

  ‘Of course,’ I soothe. It is tricky to find the way in to him, but I will. ‘And all I will do is point you to where the money is – it is honest money, given by the folk hereabouts to aid those in need – and you can consider how you might proceed.’

  He puts the toe of one shabby boot over the over and stands, twisted and wobbling. ‘You talk fancy, like he did. I hope you know what you’re saying, I’m not sure I follow.’ He extends his arms to keep his balance, catching his lower lip in his teeth in concentration. I copy him, crossing my legs as he does and when he sees me he bridles, then laughs when I stumble and fail to keep upright.

  ‘You are better than I at this game,’ I say.

  ‘Try this!’ he stands on one leg. I do. ‘And this!’ He leaps on to the other. I oblige. But I cannot hop about all day, for when I have sorted this child, I must see Fub.

  Fub! He has been unaccountably out of my thoughts. Now he is returned as swiftly and deeply as darkness at the day’s close. Margaret takes shape, too, at first shadowy but becoming more substantial by the moment. I try to shrug her off, but she resists. Her phantom person is, if anything, more awful than her corporeal form. She clings to him like a creeper and douses us both in her sweet sticky sap. With a thrill of fear, sharp as if I stood barefoot on a flint, I realise I cannot see Fub’s face clearly. His brown hair, his mismatched eyes and his wide mouth are all separate, like cut-outs for a collage, and I am unable to assemble the whole.

  ‘Mistress?’ the boy pokes my side. ‘Have you stopped playing?’

  ‘We should not be merry here, it is a shrine of sorts. We must leave.’ I push him by the shoulder and he goes to the door: he is angry that we don’t play more but he’s enough of a child to obey orders. ‘Meet me at the side of the house,’ I instruct. The men keeping guard outside should not see us leave together. ‘Is there a door at the back?’ He nods. ‘Then go out from there. Let us race to be quickest!’

  He leaps to the challenge, but I remain alone for a moment, regarding Dr Edwards’ sorry possessions. I should like to take a book, for I am starved of them, but there is a pervading dampness in the air and it occurs to me that they will all begin to rot soon, like their owner, and that any I took would soon be pulp.

  ‘You walk so slowly! You are a snail!’ Triumphant, the boy waits. I should have bet him a penny I would win, to keep him sweet.

  I smile at him. ‘You are quick in every way,’ I tell him. He smiles back. He hopes that he’ll get a better reward than my words before too long. I let him walk a little behind me, anxious that no one thinks us close companions. Several times, I have to wait as he is easily distracted: he kicks stones or watches laden carriages, challenges himself to hop some of the way or pretends to hide. I want to grab him roughly, inflicting pain and urging him to keep up with me, but when I look at his head, the tousled hair and his small ears pink with cold, I think that my brother might well have grown to be such a child and so I should be kind to this one, for his last moments.

  I do not know when my plan formed, but perhaps after all my long hours calculating how to dispatch Dr Edwards, these things are coming more easily to me. The words of the vicar: ‘a high tower, a glassless window,’ suggest themselves, as if they are the pages of a book that falls open at a marked spot.

  ‘A church!’ the boy looks disappointed at our destination. ‘There’s no money in ’em.’

  ‘Oh, but there is,’ I put my finger to my lips in a pantomime of demanding silence. ‘Wait here. I must see if the way is clear.’

  He picks up a stone and, taking aim, lobs it at a grave. ‘Bullseye!’ he cries, delighted, as it hits the target. Poor Amy Croft lying underneath. I hope she’s not too disturbed. I leave him to his game.

  As ever, no one walks through the churchyard. There is no one about inside either and when I push open his study door – ready with a question about the christening, should I need it – the vicar is not there. A plate of biscuits waits for his return. The empty rows of pews gape and the aisles and arches have an expectancy about them, as if they would all quickly cope with being occupied. Only the altar is calm, the surrounding statues sightless and unquestioning. There are several doors behind, but two are locked. The third leads straight to a winding spiral of steps.

  The boy insists on throwing several more stones at the hapless memorials before he deigns to follow me. The tower echoes with our footsteps as we begin climbing the many stairs. The air very quickly feels thin. We walk in silence; there is nothing to discuss.

  ‘Where is the treasure hid?’ he says at one point, but my powers of invention are muffled by my exertions so I pretend not to hear him. ‘It’s too high!’ the boy protests, panting, his little chest rising and falling in his exertion.

  ‘Very!’ I agree.

  ‘Oh, I cannot go on. I die!’ He leans heavily against the wall, clutching himself in mock anguish.

  ‘You need not climb any further, then,’ I say, turning as if to go back down. ‘That is a shame, for I had tuppence ready for you if you could.’

  ‘I can! I can!’ he wheels about and starts to run up the stairs. White plaster lifts from the walls as we pass and once a bee flies at us. No other living thing makes its home here. There are no webs or droppings. In the turret, the wind blows cross ways and cuts the room with cold. Above us, the heavy bells hang silent, their thick, striped ropes secured by hooks on the wall. I am tall enough to see out of the glassless windows, but the boy cannot. He looks about him, more in perturbation than anger.

  ‘Why have you made me come here?’ The room is bare, he begins to be suspicious. ‘There is nothing hid. There is nothing at all.’ He is almost crying.

  ‘I will show you where the money is kept when we descend. I thought you might be interested in the view.’ I turn away and look out. Far below, the people are small as insects and wind their way between the buildings and around each other without ever looking up. ‘You can see St Paul’s,’ I say, but I know that won’t get him to the window.

  ‘I can see St Paul’s on the ground any day,’ he says. He seems smaller in here than he did in the streets.

  I look out of the window again, then turn back to him, clapping my hand to my mouth. ‘Oh!’ I say. ‘Mercy!’

  ‘What is it?’ He perks up, bobbing and jumping to try and see. I look out again and giggle. ‘My! In the street!’

  ‘What? What?’ He is at my waist, attempting to use me as a ladder.

  ‘There is a man and a woman . . . no, you should not see that!’

  ‘See what?’ he comes nearer, his anger and upset are both completely forgotten. ‘What do they do?’

  ‘They do in broad daylight what they should be doing in their bed.’

  He grins. This is the prize for his mountaineering. ‘I know what that means. I want to see it.’

  I stand away from the window and wave my hand to him, pointing the way with a florid curl of my hand, like a courtier to a princeling. ‘You can try,’ I say.

  ‘I cannot reach!’ On his tiptoes, he springs as high as he can. ‘Lift me up! Lift me up!’

  Of course, I do. I put my hands under his little feet and raise him against the sill. His boots are more holes than leather. His clothes smell of musk and beer.

  He scrabbles at the wall frantically to get higher. He is waist level to the opening now, halfway to the drop. ‘I do not see them. Which way should I look?’

 
‘In front of you.’ I lift him higher.

  He begins to struggle, seeing the ground below more clearly and more nearly than he wants to. His legs kick where I hold him and his hands flail to get back in, but he is no match for me. His short, hard life has left him ill fed and weak. He is saying something, but as I have no intention of replying, I make no effort to decipher it. Straightening my arms, I thrust him up and through the gap in the bricks. He falls away.

  There is a pleasing symmetry in that he leaves the world head first, just as he came in to it. He had little time to cry, but someone on the ground shrieks loudly for him. There might be a commotion beginning afterwards, but it mingles indistinctly with all the other street noises. I would like to see what is happening but I dare not – even if they have never noticed it before, everyone will be looking up at this tower now.

  My arms feel newly light without their burden but my hands are black with holding his boots. I spit on them and rub with the underside of my dress, doing my best to get them clean.

  I descend the steps – so many of them! – with uncomfortable haste, tripping several times and cursing. Two broken necks in the vicinity would be very unfortunate. Going endlessly round and round in the confined space makes me queasy. There is only one pair of feet coming back down where he and I strode up together and my shoes scuff the stone with a soft shush. Eventually, I fling myself into one of the pews, sinking to my knees and clasping my grubby hands in prayer. My heart thumps; the effort of climbing and shoving has taxed me greatly. I am really quite envious of poisoners, who only have to lift a little vial to get their work done.

  ‘Do not let Fub love that girl,’ I say to my plaster companions, those several saints. ‘How can she be to him what I am? Her button mouth would not open wide and take in his bone to suck at it for the marrow. She would not let his finger go inside her or his tongue either. She would be as solid and smooth below as china.’