The Corn

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Early the next morning, I walked to Eden Gaol with a basket over my wrist, and my almost empty purse clutched very tight. The forged paper of official appointment was folded in the same firm clasp. I knew exactly when I was coming closer for I could smell it.

  The prison loomed mostly within the stench of the shadows. Bryte had told me during one of his civic-minded lectures how it had been extended some years back, intending to give a fresher air and greater space to the impossible squash of semi-humanity living there in the interminable darkness. But Symon had told me more, for once he’d said that the compassionate extensions had only given space for more inmates to pile in, breathing each other’s sweat and excrement, while the deaths from starvation and suffocation now outnumbered those from typhus. And now Symon was there himself.

  I showed my forged permission. A disheartened gaoler unlocked the first gate and searched my basket for what might be considered improper or illegal. Knives, I supposed, or anything that might be used as a cudgel. He found only wrapped wedges of spiced veal, half a cold pigeon pie and a flask of ale. He nodded, and I was passed on to the second gate. The corridors divided, leading to smaller cells for inmates of more respectable standing, those who could pay for special treatment, and others whose crimes were minor. Then there was a stone passage leading down, with condensation weeping from the walls in streams like the ribbons of a maypole. At the black end was another iron gate. The second gaoler had come down with me, leading the way with a small lantern. He unlocked the last gate with a grinding of rust and stood at the top of the steps, pointing downwards. “Far across there, mistress,” he said. “Against the north wall, and his dog with him. Once you get close, call the name. They all know Symon and will make way for you.”

  The guard left, and the pitch-black closed in again. I stood teetering, looking into an abyss of nothingness. Then my eyes adapted. Once I could see a little, it appeared worse than when I could not.

  It was a dungeon, though not far below ground level. Inset into the walls and at the height of two men, were narrow open windows, slits in the massive filthy stone. There was light, after all, and air, of sorts. A haze of slovenly grey entered through the windows and slunk desultorily into the pit below. Faces emerged from the gloom, grasping hands stretched out to me. Then as I stared, the lumps became people. Their skins were calloused and raised in bites, boils and welts. The noise, an undercurrent like the moaning of an underground stream, bubbled continuously beneath the surface. Then there was the incessant coughing. Suddenly shouting – but the angry sound shrank back as if ashamed. The murmuring misery closed over the space. Some were sobbing in pain, all prisoners in dark and hopeless degradation and dejection.

  I thought myself accustomed to misery. But this was new. I stood for some moments, trying to regain courage. Then I stumbled down the last steps and stood shaking at the edge of the marsh of bodies.

  A hand grabbed my ankle. I looked down, frightened, but saw only humped shoulders and a toothless gape. I shook the fingers off, bent down and said loudly, “Symon. I’m here to see Symon. Where is he?”

  The man flinched and immediately let me go. My ankle felt damp and dirty where he’d clasped. He hoisted himself up, yelling, “She’s ‘ere fer Symon, Let the girl through.” I pushed my way in the direction the man had pointed.

  Above the seething anger and interminable groaning, fingers were pointed, and bodies moved aside. Few of the inmates seemed fully dressed. Their clothes were ragged and torn. Children scrambled naked.

  As I scrambled towards the far wall, I saw continuous listless fighting, the apathetic brutality of boredom, the endless squabble for food and the vicious tyranny of the struggle for position within some self-imposed hierarchy. Bullying for power amongst the powerless. It seemed some lay sick, dying uncared and unwatched, pus-eyed on straw moving with lice. Men shared space with a variety of their animals. A small pig wheezed in a fat man’s embrace. Love – or bacon. There were dogs and hens, a goat was bleating in pain from some abuse, a burrowing of rats ever busy, a pigeon dead of a broken neck, its eyes already infested with cockroaches.

  There was a central gully running through the entire width as far as was possible to see, and here men pissed, shit and vomited, rats and beetles swam, and other filth floated. When I came to this, I looked down, then along its stinking length. Two men were pissing, their shirts tucked up. I looked away, although they seemed unconcerned. It was an effort to keep a hundred hands from my basket and my feet from falling, but when I called for Symon, they let me pass, even as my voice disappeared into the hoard.

  Then I heard him. “By some almighty god’s almighty shithole,” vibrated a deep voice from the far shadows. “What the fuck is you doing here, mistress?” The shadows assimilated and a face leaned from them, all broken nose and widening grin. “Begging pardon that is, for the fucking language. I tends to forget me manners in here, y’ see. I picks up pissing bad habits.”

  I struggled forwards. Feet, legs and bodies instantly moved for me. Suddenly, instead of trying to steal my basket, hands helped me forwards. “Hello Symon,” I said with enormous relief.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Not that it ain’t a proper grand pleasure to see you, mistress,” frowned Symon, patting a place on the disgusting straw beside him as if welcoming me to a couch of feathers and velvets, “but you shouldn’t never have come, leastways, not alone.”

  “There was no one to bring,” I told him sadly. “I couldn’t bring Feep, I thought they wouldn’t have let him in. And I have such a lot to tell you. I’ve brought some food, though not much I’m afraid. But if there is something special that you need, I promise to get it for you.”

  Symon was looking at me very hard. I supposed his eyes had become used to the permanent torpid lightlessness and could see better than I could. Then Symon said, “There be sommit wrong, mistress. You’s not been well, I reckon.”

  I felt like hugging him, but sat still, hunched and dismal, and looked down at the fleas jumping in the straw at my feet. I mumbled, “It’s very kind of you to be concerned for me, considering what you must have been through yourself. But it’s true things have – not been so good lately.” I handed him the basket, thrusting it onto his lap and kept my eyes down. I couldn’t say any more for a moment, and I knew the tears were brimming at the back of my eyes.

  Then Symon did the least likely thing in the world. He put both his great big arms right around me and pulled me tight to the breadth of his chest. “There, there, little one,” he said. “Tell all about it, and Symon will put it right.” And I burst into tears.

  He patted my back, which felt like blacksmith’s hammers, and held me until my sobs faded into sniffs and I managed to reach in my purse for a kerchief. “I really didn’t mean to do that,” I said in a very small voice

  “I reckons you’s free to do wotever you likes, mistress,” smiled Symon, finally releasing me. I must have wobbled slightly but I sat up and blew my nose. “Tis a bugger of a place, and has a right nasty effect on some folks,” he continued cheerfully. “P’raps not the brightest o’ spots, I reckon, and I doubt you was expectin anyfing quite like it. The wrong end of the cesspit, as it were.”

  “I brought food and ale,” I explained. “They told me to. I suppose they don’t feed you much?”

  “Oh, I does all right,” Symon assured me. “Some doesn’t. There be a carrier brings water. And beer for them as has some coin. Same wiv the fodder. Them as can’t buy, gets black bread throwed in. One bun per soul, but o’course most gets stole by the biggest bugger in the heap. Tis me – the biggest bugger – but I doesn’t steal, and I don’t eat no black bread neither. I buys me own supplies.”

  There was a snuffle at Symon’s heels. A warm wet tongue found one of my fingers and gave it a sympathetic suck. “I suppose you can afford enough for Toby too,” I said. “I’m glad you have him safe.”

  “My Toby eats as I eats, nor wouldn’t ‘ave come without him,” he said, as if he had entered on
a voluntary basis. “But he’s not hisself in here, poor little bastard. This air’s proper rancid. Toby has the wheezes. But thanks very much for the grub. Looks good, it does, and if you shares it wiv me, I reckons it be dinner time right now.”

  He didn’t look starved and it wasn’t food his breath smelled of. “I think you’re slightly drunk,” I smiled, remembering the hug.

  “’Course I is,” said Symon. “Be fucking stupid if I weren’t.” He hiccupped and paused for thought. “Beggin’ pardon, that is,” he added. “Fer bad lang’ige. But tis wot I calls a permanency in here, for them as can manage it. Ale, that is, not the lang’ige.” He took the flask of ale from the basket and offered it first to me. I shook my head. I needed my wits clear.

  The hum of continuous misery, hopeless argument and hunger was a low hanging curtain, a dark cloud perhaps, all around me. I knew that anyone weak, sick, or old could never last long in such a place. And as my ears became attuned to the buzz of melancholy speech, so I heard that indeed every lost soul spoke almost to themselves, cursing and swearing, as if these were the only words they knew. Certainly, a vocabulary would quickly diminish in such a place of overcrowded lassitude and relentless nothing.

  “It must be – horrible,” I mumbled, already running out of words myself.

  “Not proper like I reckons you thinks,” Symon told me. “There always be sommint to get ready fer, like who’s gonna fight fer the bread next time, and which bugger’s gonna be top dog fer tomorrow. Some silly bastard’s gonna slip into the gulley, and we all laughs, then there’s gonna be anovver fight. Tis them little things as keeps you alive, mistress. Ain’t naught else. But waiting. Waiting ain’t a healthy pastime.”

  No, it wouldn’t be. I’d spent a lot of my own life just waiting. It was something I hated and avoided. Then I told him, without more than necessary detail, what had been happening in my world.

  I told him about the pale man, and I told him my story of the poison and my father’s death. I didn’t bother talking about Bryte as he seemed an irrelevance, but I described in detail the problem with Squimber. After I had told him the story of my troubles, I felt better, just a little, as if sharing the news lightened the weight of it. “I know you can’t help me,” I mumbled, still keeping my eyes, teary and blurred, on my lap. “Not now, Not from in here. But if you have any advice – I’d be grateful. I owe you help with the Molly House now poor Betsy’s gone, but I can’t fight some gang leader, and nor can the boys. And I’m still frightened of the pale man.”

  The story seemed to have sobered him. He said, “I got money, lass.” His voice sounded strangely gruff, and I hoped he wasn’t annoyed. “Get more I will too, for anyfing you needs.”

  I was touched, but said, “Money,” I confessed, “isn’t my problem. It’s safety for Feep and me, and for the other boys too. And I suppose I came because I haven’t got any other friends and I had to talk to someone.” Now I was trying very hard not to cry again, so I clasped my hands tight and went on, “Though it seems your problems are worse than mine, and I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

  Then I looked up. A huge glistening tear was sliding down Symon’s face, leaving a track through the dirt like the snail’s shining passage, finally ending in the thick stubble across his upper lip. Another, matching, slipped down the other side of his face. His eyes were filled with tears. He sniffed loudly, wiped his nose on the back of his hand, which smeared more snail-silver across his face, and looked earnestly at me. “You, sorry, mistress? T’ain’t fer you to be sorry.” Then he broke down completely and began to weep. I reached out and patted his huge hand. I didn’t know what else to do. It was a strangely dignified weep, and he made no attempt to disguise it. After a few moments, he said, “Poor little boys. They ain’t got no life worth livin, I reckons. I helps a bit, but not wot I ortta, cos I’s so stooped to get meself in the clink. As fer you, mistress, you’s a proper little angel, and it ain’t good fer you to watch yer Pa a’dying. As fer bein’ scared o’ that white-haired bugger, tis my fault. Kallivan, the bastard’s called, and he come to me fer stabbing two fellows he wanted dead. I says yes, and sent two o’ my cheaper men, but luckily they done no stabbing nor killing, being stooped. This pale fellow, he comes back to me to complain, but I says bugger orff. You see, lass, t’was your Jak he wanted done in, and the father too. Now I knows tis not your Jak you wants done, so I tells Kallivan no way. That be why I’s in here, cos he made up some sneaky story and gets me arrested. The bugger, lies and schemes, and now I ain’t at home to look after them poor little brats nor Betsy herself.”

  That was just too much and I also burst into tears. We both sat there, staring into the gloom, both sobbing but trying to comfort each other. Finally I managed to say, “I’m so sorry to add to your cares, Master Symon.”

  He shook all those tangled black curls, the bald top of his head like one of the Corn islands in a storm when the river turned rough. “Tis my fault, mistress, that it is.”

  “You think the pale man wanted to kill Jak. But why?”

  But Symon shook his head again. “I doesn’t ask the why, mistress. I asks the wot. Them whys ain’t fer me to know. Now ‘tis me that bugger’s after – not you, mistress. But you’s my friends – you and little Feep. Tis a responsibility, that it is, to watch out fer friends. And them little lads wot lives downstairs o’ my place. Tis my guilt, failing to protect, an’ I shall do sommit about it when I’s out. I gotta get meself outta here bloody quick mistress, and don’t worrit ‘bout nuffing.”

  “But, Master Symon,” I pointed out, blowing my nose again, “However will you manage to get out? How long do they want to keep you here?”

  “They ain’t said,” he admitted. “Reckon they’ll wait a couple o’years afore some stooped trial.”

  He had stopped crying, but now I started all over again. “Oh – Symon,” I wailed. “Not two years. That sounds like forever.” I knew he was a little drunk, but now I felt as though it was me under the influence of alcohol. I hated this dungeon so very much, and my pity extended to all the other people trapped here and guessed a good half might be innocent. Once I started crying, I couldn’t stop.

  “Proper brave, that you is, mistress.” He sat looking at me intently. “Now Symon will make it all better, that he will.” It was about now that I discovered he was holding my hand. His own was so much larger and very rough, that my fingers were growing numb. “You come ‘cos you’s a right clever little soul and you knows your Symon can help, wevver he’s stuck in the Screamer’s Camp, or no, and you ain’t guessed wrong as it happens, ‘cos I can. I gonna make amends.”

  “I – I –,” I had run out of words but was wriggling my fingers to get the blood flowing again.

  “You takes my word for it. And don’t you go worriting ‘bout that there divine justice neither,” said Symon. “Folks does wot gets them by and most doesn’t have no choices. Some does, and some don’t, and getting punished wiv devils and hellfire for sommit as you has to do, well it don’t make no sense at all.”

  I sniffed. I’d never yet decided what to think about such things. I said, “I’ll speak to the judges. I’ll try and get you released.”

  “I ain’t claiming no innocence,” Symon assured me, lowering his voice. “Besides, when someone does wot someone has surely bin paid to do, I shall be out, quick as spit.”

  “You’ve already bribed your way out?” I smiled and it felt like the first smile for a ten-day.

  “Depends who’s askin’,” said Symon, grinning suddenly and tapping the side of his nose. “But while I’s waiting, some fings I reckons I can still do. You’ll get your coin, mistress, sure as there’s pricks in stewes.”

  I gulped, “Not coin, I really have enough,” I said. “But you say you’ve already paid your way out – yet they’re keeping you waiting. What if they don’t let you out at all?” I tried to smile again. “I’d hate to spend the next few years visiting this place.”

  Symon chuckled. “I ‘as to keep up me rep
utation, mistress,” he said. “You never survives in the Cheap once they gets to know you gives up pissing easy. Them as turns t’other cheek down here, well they gets a bloody big meat hook straight through it. Then yous dead meat yerself, sure as slugs lives in shit. Your friend Symon knows how to look after hisself, he does. Your pale man, as you calls him, well he’s big shit and has the power o’ the ‘sir.’ But me, I’s big shit too, in my own way. Out soon, I’ll be, and will find the bugger wot informed on me, that I will.” He paused, looking me over. Then he said, “But you mustn’t come here no more. Tis no proper place for decent females. I’ll arrange to have coin sent, mayhaps wiv Pimping Tom, a good bugger, he is, and I trusts ‘im. And don’t you go sniffling no more. Uncle Symon be your friend, mistress, and that be all you needs to remember.”

  “I will wait,” I said, almost faint with gratitude, “and I hope you come soon, and in the meantime, please keep well.” I had staggered up, ready to leave, when I thought of one more thing. “This is surely a silly question,” I continued, “but there’s a man who keeps coming around and telling me he wants to be my friend. It’s courting, of course, but I don’t want him. He’s nice, or at least I think he is, but I’m in love with Jak, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. Besides, Feep doesn’t like this man, and he must have a reason. And I’m just not going to go courting with a virtual stranger.”

  “I reckon Feep’s got his reasons,” Symon frowned. “Who is this bugger?”

  “His name’s Bryte,’ I answered. “No one special. Says he’s a ‘Finder’.”

  Symon reached out and grabbed my arm, which startled me, and I sat down next to him again in a hurry. “Bryte the Finder?” Symon said in half a growl. “You chuck the bastard in the Corn, lass. He ain’t a good fellow, no way. A Finder finds the best one wiv a knife when you wants someone dead. And he finds poison, weapons, and them that uses them. He’ll find a good thief to go steal wot you wants, and he’ll find a whore wot does them yucky backwards stuff or mucky things. So you don’t even say good morning to this fellow, mistress. You shuts yer door in his face.”