The Butcher's Hook

by Janet Ellis

  ‘No answer, then?’ he persists. I examine him. His torn jacket flaps open, his shirt is flecked with soot. He has no knapsack. Dr Edwards peers through the window, waving. Margaret perches on the kitchen table, taking care her dress doesn’t spoil. The boy stands in the sink, ready to jump down. They are waiting to see what I will do.

  A crevasse opens between the two of us. It gets wider and deeper. I feel the ground tremble. Fub seems small and foolish on the other side, asking ‘What, Annie?’ and ‘How?’, though the earth gapes before him. I taste his mouth on mine. If I had known it was a farewell kiss, I’d have sucked harder. If he pushed me to the ground with my skirts up, would I let him poke? If he guided my fingers to his person, would I stroke him? I cannot remember why I ever thought that was a good idea.

  ‘Why are you smiling, Anne?’ says Fub. I did not know I was, of course. ‘Do you feel any sorrow for what has happened? Have you ever known grief?’

  How dare he ask me that? Oh, when I mourned my brother a great sadness hung about me, but it was like a garment that didn’t suit any season, it made me either too hot or too cold. I shrugged it off. I do not want such covering any more, I am happy in my bare skin. On the high shelf above Fub’s head stands a row of jars filled with red fruit. Jane has labelled them in her big, looped hand. He could not read them if his life depended on it. I cannot love him to save him, either.

  Fub looks at me with sudden malice. ‘I have taught you some tricks, at least. I have been useful to you, haven’t I? But I cannot say what you have taught me, except to be wary.’ He shrinks as he speaks – he will have to leave by a mousehole soon. He turns to leave, picking his sorry hat from the floor where it fell.

  ‘Wait,’ I say. I delve into my pocket, then show him what I’ve found. ‘The little button you gave me. Your mother’s precious gift.’ I hold it out to him. ‘You can give it to your next girl.’

  He snorts. ‘I shall be keeping away from female company. You filled me up, then you emptied me. I’m useless now.’ I say nothing. ‘You don’t want a keepsake, Anne? A reminder of me?’ he says, though he takes it.

  He scattered them too widely. They are devalued. I remember Margaret with her pinned token. I open my mouth to tell him I took it from her, but he seems reduced enough.

  We have become acquaintances who must go about our business. If I wore a hat myself I would tip it to him. I hold out my hand. He laughs and takes it, then turns my palm up. ‘No ash clings, at least,’ he says. ‘I should bid you take care, but it is others who must mind out.’ His fingers are calloused. There is a wart coming near his nose. He is both the sweetest and the worst thing I ever saw.

  ‘Anne?’ My mother calls. He lets go of my hand and in the time that it takes me to turn to answer her, he is gone. The fallen leaves eddy in small circles where he walked, then settle in light heaps.

  ‘Anne,’ she stands in the hall. ‘You were a long time at the door.’

  ‘ Levener, the butcher, has lost his place in a fire. He sent his boy to say.’

  She raises her eyebrows. ‘Unfortunate for him. But I shall leave Jane to appoint a successor. One butcher seems much like another to me.’

  ‘As long as there’s meat on the table,’ I say, imagining a row of Fubs, all identical as soldiers.

  ‘Onions comes tomorrow,’ my mother says, moving an ornament on the mantel to no great effect. She turns to me. ‘Shall you be here to receive him?’

  ‘Is it my decision?’ I reply, wondering why she asks.

  She strokes her neck with her long fingers. ‘I will be here,’ she says, ‘but then, I have no choice.’ She steps close to me, her breath smells of almonds. ‘Will you be here?’ she says again. Her eyes are amber. She holds my arms, leaning towards me, studying me intently, then takes a strand of my hair and winds it gently round her fingers. We might both be girls of twenty together, confidantes in a boudoir. ‘You have a choice. Go to your room,’ she says and I see tears in her eyes. Was this what Jane had meant when she compared us?

  ‘Do not cry,’ I tell her, for I am not sure why she weeps.

  ‘Take this,’ she says and gives me her shawl, warm as a puppy from her wearing it.

  Chapter 28

  There is a little purse on the bed; it is from my mother’s trousseau and embroidered with her initials. Even before I pick it up, I can see it bulges with coins. I will go in the clothes I wear now and leave everything else behind. I take down Donne’s verses from the shelf. The cover still smells of smoke. That will be a useful aide-mémoire of my achievements, then. Perhaps I should leave something for my mother? When Keziah emptied my careful curation I did not set about replacing the artefacts. I contented myself with storing an invisible hoard of my thoughts and plans. There is only one precious thing of mine that she might treasure, too. I push my hand into the drawer of my closet and feel for what I know is there, keeping my eyes closed as if I am blindfolded. My fingers find the lock of my brother’s hair – it has already begun to coarsen and is dry to the touch. Even after so short a time since I tied it, the ribbon frays.

  She hardly needs a reminder of such a loss and even if she sends me away herself, I am soon gone altogether from her, too. This tiny emblem represents only a double sadness. Placing it on my lap, I untie the knot and the gathered hair falls apart into separate strands. Slowly at first, then with more speed, I brush and flick and sweep them away from my skirt, though some stubbornly resist and cling.

  As if I am seeing it for the first time, and because it will be the last, I take careful stock of the room. Honour thy father and thy mother, the sampler still instructs. At least I am half successful in the execution of that motto. Just as Fub shrank before me, so now I grow too large for the place; the small bed is doll-sized and only a fairy could store clothes in the dresser. I’d have to crouch to make use of the mirror, so I shall leave unseen. I saw myself reflected well in my mother’s eyes, that should suffice.

  I will smell her marzipan scent on the shawl till I am many miles hence. Tucking the purse into my pocket, I put my finger to my lips. ‘Keep my secrets,’ I whisper, closing the door.

  Jane is crossing the hallway below, one hand to her apron, twisting its bow to the back, the other holding a jug. I wait till she has bustled away. I have told enough lies for a while and Jane would die of the truth. I don’t want her death on my conscience. None of the others are, after all.

  To the east lies the butcher’s ruin. Fub slouches westwards. The Jacobites claim the northlands, but here is the south for my fresh path. I have to resist the temptation to break into a run – I want to be hurling down the streets with my arms spread wide. Instead, I walk slowly and carefully, casting my eyes down with appropriate modesty.

  ‘Unne.’ I recognise the flattened vowel. No one else says my name as ‘Unne’. But I hardly recognise him. The little Scotsman’s face is vastly swollen, his jaw so disfigured that one side hangs down, exposing teeth. Above his bruised cheeks, his eyes are screwed up, as if he views the world against a bright light. ‘Now, girl,’ he says when he sees me blanch, ‘the other fellows look worse than I do.’ He tries to smile, but only one side of his mouth lifts. ‘Walk alongside me.’ He says, taking my arm. I am stiff with horror, but he propels me gently till I soften.

  ‘I thought I might go home, till I was set upon.’ He limps, too, and drags my elbow down at each alternate step. We will not get very far together. He could not take me to Meek Street now.

  ‘Are there worse injuries I cannot see?’ I ask.

  He snorts. ‘I think my outward appearance is a fair reflection of the chaos underneath. Ribs broken. My ankle is snapped. I cannot eat for my stomach recoils and my throat closes.’ He points to each place as he lists them, and I notice that his finger is bent, too. ‘I think they left me to die. But that’s taking longer than expected.’ We walk a few weary steps more.

  ‘Do you want me to take you to a doctor?’r />
  He snorts again in answer. ‘It is too late for that. I can’t be patched up now .You can give them my corpse for their practising. What remains, anyway.’ His voice trembles but not with self-pity, only effort. ‘So, Mistress Anne, how flows the river for you? Do you sink or swim?’

  I smile. ‘I am dry,’ I say.

  ‘Not even a little flask of love?’

  ‘Not even that. I spat out the last of it.’

  ‘Have you had your fill?’

  ‘I have. I was drunk with it, but I am sober now.’ I remember Fub, sitting on his hard bed and holding out his arms to me. Let him clap them together over empty air. ‘We cannot walk much farther together. Where shall I leave you?’

  ‘I do not much mind. Just somewhere where discovering my dead body will not frighten anyone unduly.’ I would take him home and leave him to sleep towards his ugly death in my bed, if I were not so set on my course. ‘You walk with purpose, Anne,’ he says, as if in answer to my thoughts. ‘Where do you go?’

  I would tell if I knew. Any secret is safe with him now: he will take it to his grave very soon. This confessor would not offer me forgiveness or redemption, for the world affords him neither.

  ‘South.’ That is the whole truth anyway.

  ‘Ah, South. To sunshine and warm nights, eh?’

  ‘Away from here.’ Fub is very small now, I could easily swill him down a drain. ‘Love is not like water. I think it was a splinter lodged inside me. A rich pus built up around it and expelled it.’

  He laughs, a great guttural hack that forms sputum. He spits. ‘I fear I have not the strength to debate that. You think love a sharp thing. Do you want to get pricked again?’

  My little claws twitch. I think that I could easily play with love like a cat with a mouse, but I would rather fight an equal adversary. ‘Only if I choose to.’

  ‘If you have to choose, then you won’t feel love. It is not a thing to be picked up and put down at will.’ We have come to an alley; at the far end is an archway with a glimpse of trees beyond. It seems a decent enough place to be his last. ‘Leave me here,’ he says, without discussion.

  I settle him against a doorway. ‘How much is a burial?’ I ask.

  ‘Ten shillings or so,’ he says. He sees me frown. ’More if you feed the mourners,’ he adds. We smile at each other. There will be no one at the service except the vicar, so that’s a saving. I am loath to part with so much but I cannot condemn him to a pauper’s grave. I count the money out, then look him over to see a possible hiding place for it.

  ‘Where can it go so that only the undertaker will find it?’

  ‘I am tempted to give an answer unsuited to your lady’s ears,’ he laughs, but then winces as even this hurts him. ‘It can go into my boot.’ I make for his crippled foot and he cries out: ‘No!’ with a force that shocks us both.

  I pull at the other leg as carefully as I can, not least because the boot itself is so flimsy that it threatens to fall apart in my hands before the task is done. It comes off to reveal more hole than stocking, so I push the money as far into the toe as I can and wrangle it back on to him. He cannot help; he has no strength to push against my hands. I am reminded of Dr Edwards’ limp form when I arranged him – at least I can make this man look decent for his discovery.

  I settle his beret on his head and straighten his felted coat. He closes his eyes for longer and longer intervals. I recognise death pushing against an easily opened door to claim him. Here’s another one for you, Sir, I think, and this one comes of his own accord. What useful notes Death and I could exchange about our methods: I am in thrall to his efficiency and he must envy me my invention. We will be companions again before too long.

  ‘God speed,’ the man hisses. Saliva bubbles at his gaping jaw. Artists lie about our last moments, painting them decorous and noble. The daintily speared leak only drops of blood and the elderly drift into a peaceful sleep. It is no wonder that they depict it thus, the truth is so much uglier. From what I’ve seen, Death come with suppuration, protestation and no grace. It makes a great deal of noise, too, and this man’s last breaths are loud, spluttering coughs and squeaks. There is a strange odour coming off him: he is already rotting.

  It would be hypocritical to bless him, but unkind not to speak. ‘Go to your mother,’ I say.

  In a heartbeat – mine alone, for he has none now – I take back the coins from his boot.

  If you saw me from above, you might almost be able to see little fleshy wings sprouting on my back, so quickly do I move. My feet hardly touch the ground and I do not bother to watch where I walk, for I fear no obstacles in my path. Behind me, everything is caught up, as if in a fisherman’s net. And just as bright fish dart amongst the unwanted oily cloths and driftwood of a catch, so things that I cared for gleam and flash for a moment. Then they are lost to view with the flotsam and jetsam in the fast-moving tide.

  I face the sun, feeling my heavy money in my pocket and my light heart empty.

  Acknowledgements

  Huge thanks to the following people who have helped and supported me in all sorts of ways. They include my friends Fanny Blake and Melanie Cantor; my early champions Sarah Hall and Paul Burston; my agent Gordon Wise; my publisher and editor Lisa Highton; my early anonymous readers and my copy editor Sara Kinsella; the lovely team at Two Roads: Rosie Gailer, Ben Gutcher, Ross Fraser, Kate Brunt, Alasdair Oliver, Amanda Jones, Federico Andornino and Ilse Scheepers; Timorous Beasties for the jacket art; Mark ‘Vole’ Samuelson; The Worshipful Company of Butchers; Erin Kelly and Anna Davis; my CB Class of ‘14.

  And my love and gratitude to my darlings – my children Sophie, Jackson and Martha and my husband, John (who will smile because, in the nicest possible way, he always knew this was coming).

  I am also indebted to the multitudes, past and present, whose behaviour, sayings and lives give me an amazing and constant insight into human behaviour: that’s why I was staring.

  Author’s Notes

  When I was a little girl, at school, I loved history. Which is to say: I loved hearing about the Olden Days and the funny people, frozen in time and odd clothes in the pages of my text books, who lurched from war to probably another war with some religious or civil uprisings in between. I loved it because it was also about stories and who doesn’t love them? I remember hearing about the awful conditions in Days of Yore – child labour and repression and high rates of infant mortality, that sort of thing – and thinking, they must have felt different from us. Something must have protected them, in their hearts and minds, from the privations and grief people suffered routinely on their way to central heating and the NHS.

  Then I read Mary Shelley’s account of the death of her infant daughter. It was, of course, as harrowing and vivid as any mother’s account would be: Mary Shelley had not grown a carapace of stoicism to protect her from life’s sorrows, her generation had not somehow mutated and adapted to grief. She might as well have been any contemporary mother, coping with tragedy. She might have been me. In other words, history is us.

  I have always been drawn to personal ephemera and documents. It probably stems, in part, from daily diary keeping from the age of ten to my mid-teens. I grew up in the sixties and seventies, decades when the world was experiencing seismic changes and major events. I was, too, it’s just that mine were things like the eleven plus exam and boyfriends. History was happening alongside my important, busy life and I barely nodded in its direction. I love reading letters and diaries from past times that describe little triumphs and forgotten upsets, moments of humour or food consumed, knowing that big stuff was happening but not necessarily alluded to. Without social history, it’s all just Acts and Tracts.

  When Anne Jaccob, my heroine, arrived in my head ( apologies for a pseud’s corner ‘writerly’ phrase, but that’s what it felt like), there were a number of reasons why I wanted her London to look, feel, sound and smell different fr
om mine. I was fascinated by the idea that, three hundred years ago, an undereducated young woman with a smart mind and febrile imagination would have very little to go on when it came to making sense of, and dealing with, her world. She’d have hardly any conversation with anyone, there’d be precious little communication with her peer group and the impositions of her rank and gender meant that she’d have to find a way of coping with what happened to her . . . and that way turned out to be highly unusual and idiosyncratic.

  I love the look and what I imagine to be the atmosphere of Georgian London. Pleasingly, in most areas, you don’t have to look very hard to catch glimpses of it today and I thoroughly enjoyed finding my way around Anne’s city. But I have to admit I chose 1763 specifically because nothing much happened. Of course, if you were a horticulturalist, the arrival of the rhododendron was quite something. The Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Year/French and Indian War (and France ceded Canada to Great Britain) which probably affected a few lives. But, on the whole, it was a peaceable time. No big skirmishes, no religious difficulties of note and everyone seemed to like their new, young King George Third. Although my adolescent ability to prioritise my doings over World Events amuses me, I can see that if I’d written about Anne’s activities in another year and had ignored a sizeable chunk of important history, it would have taken some explaining.

  Boswell met Dr Johnson, though, in that year. That’s big news.

  London, December 2015

  About the Author

  Janet Ellis trained as an actress at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She is best known for presenting Blue Peter and contributes to numerous radio and TV programmes.

  She recently graduated from the Curtis Brown creative writing school. The Butcher’s Hook is her first novel.