DEFOE
Interruptions! Constant interruptions!
April 1724
‘Mary,’ Defoe whispers. ‘You’re not breathing. Onto your side.’
His wife murmurs and rolls towards him, her hairnet coming down over one eye. He adjusts it and she swats his hand.
‘Stop waking me,’ she grumbles.
‘Go back to sleep,’ he whispers, stroking her shoulder.
‘Shut it,’ she replies, then her mouth goes crooked and she is asleep again.
The first cock crows, a low muffled trumpet from the yard. The bed is so warm and so soft, but now is the opportunity; no creditor at his door, no wife lambasting his uselessness, no children at him with a million questions; absolute silence, save the crowing of one cock.
He removes himself carefully from the bed, placing his greatcoat over his sleepshirt. In the hall he steps with full weight upon the sharp point of an abandoned toy. He drops to the ground, cursing and grabbing his foot. The wooden turret, with little glued cannons. That fucking wooden turret! He is too old to have toys littered about his hall! He picks up the wooden turret and tries to snap it in two. Mary murmurs from the bedroom. The turret is too thick to snap. The pain subsides, and he slides on his slippers, still clutching the toy.
He steps upstairs to the attic, takes his tinderbox and strikes at the flint. His fingers are cold, the skin over his knuckles painfully tight. After a few minutes he has turned the few blue sparks into a flame, which he sets to the wick of a tallow candle. It is a wasted exercise, with daylight only a half-hour away, but he refuses to place emphasis on thrift. Resources are to be used, not preserved; it is one of the few principles by which he abides.
He exhales over the candle; the steam is momentarily illuminated. He uncorks the jar of ink, setting it before him at the desk, taking up his blunted quill and inspecting the stained, worn-down nib. From the desk drawer he takes a clean sheet of paper, fingering its texture and setting it before him. Since clearing his desk, the space has acquired a nuance of potential; the empty sheet of paper before him is a blank, open expanse. He places the wooden turret next to the page.
As it always is with the first words of the day, Defoe hesitates, now eyeing the accounts ledger at the corner of his desk. Mr Sheffield is a compromising man, and two guineas should be sufficient for the meantime, which he is expecting from Lord Harley any day. Of greater imperative is the impending return of Captain Godbehere, due home from Brazil, who will demand repayment for the seventy rolls of tobacco that Defoe purchased after hearing rumours at Stern’s Coffeehouse of a locust plague. But now with the price of tobacco unmoved, he has not the funds to pay for the principal, let alone interest. And what was he thinking paying seventeen guineas for a second stairway? One stairway was perfectly fine. And those portraits! Fifteen for those shit portraits!
He dips his quill in the inkpot, taps it and hovers his hand over the page, trying to clear his mind. But those portraits! The shadows looked like badger droppings! No, he will not part with a single farthing for those. He places his head on the edge of his desk, listening to the whisper and flicker of the candle at his ear.
The sound of footsteps echoes up the stairway.
‘Dad?’
‘No,’ he says to himself.
‘Dad?’
‘Working.’
‘Dad?’
The stairway creaks.
‘Dad? Where is the milkman?’
Defoe closes his eyes.
‘Dad, are you in your study?’ William calls from behind the doorway.
‘Working, I said.’
‘May I enter?’
‘What’s it about?’
‘I want to speak with you.’
‘Obviously.’
‘I want to speak with you,’ he says again.
Defoe groans. He has wasted his morning again.
‘Fine, come in.’
William, with his brown curls and large eyes, appears in his nightshirt, shivering.
‘You’re cold,’ Defoe says to him. ‘You’ll catch your death.’
‘I’m not cold.’
‘Put your coat on.’
‘Yes, Father,’ his son replies, not moving.
‘He says, standing like a tree. Is that putting your coat on?’
The boy stares blankly.
‘Come here,’ Defoe finally says, unable to scold him. His wife and his father both consider him weak with the children. Defoe lifts the boy onto his lap, holding him against his chest. ‘Did you dream of many things?’
William nods, his eyes searching over his father’s shoulder. ‘Is it true, Father, what they say about The Lad?’
‘Who?’
‘Jack Sheppard.’
‘You can’t believe all that you hear at school.’
‘I also heard it from a crier.’
‘My son, what comes out of a crier’s mouth –’
‘I heard that he broke out of prison. Using only a hairpin. They say he is seven feet tall and stronger than any man. That he is the Robin Hood of London, that he steals from rich merchants and gives –’
‘William, I must work now.’
‘Where have all your papers gone?’ the boy asks.
‘I tidied my desk.’
‘Why hasn’t the milkman come?’
‘What time of the clock is it?’
‘I don’t know how to read the clock.’
‘Well, you must learn. Then you shall know if it is time for the milkman.’
‘I’m thirsty.’
‘Then take some water. You needn’t drink milk when you’re thirsty.’
‘I want milk.’
‘If I spoke that way to my father,’ Defoe says. ‘Now go fetch yourself some water. And put on a coat.’
William obeys, walking on the sides of his bare feet over the boards. Before leaving, he turns around, uncertain of his words.
‘What is it?’ Defoe asks.
‘Is that my turret?’
‘What have I said about leaving toys in the hall?’
‘Will you keep it forever?’
‘Go put your coat on.’
‘Dad?’
‘What?’
‘Your head. It is all red. Are you hurt?’
Defoe touches the marks where his head had been pressed against the desk.
‘Because the plague, what if they are boils?’
‘It is not plague. I don’t have plague. Leave me to work.’
‘Yes, Father. Did you know that Jack Sheppard –’
‘William!’ Defoe shouts, banging his hand on the desk. ‘Leave me!’
The boy breaks into a run.
Defoe returns his eyes to the clean desk. A craving now sets itself upon him, for food, for tobacco, for anything that might get him away from the task. As always, the craving leads to his groin, a fizzle in his organ much more engaging than the true life history of some or other petty criminal. He shakes away the urge, blows out the candle and opens the shutters. A glorious Stoke Newington day; blue set above the treetops and sun distant enough to stare right into, burning two temporary circles into his lids that he sees upon closing them. A film of frost twinkles on the hill.
In the afternoon, following a short snooze, he takes up the quill again and dips it into the jar, tapping it three times as is his habit.
My Esteemed Lord Harley,
With great chagrin I write you with the sorry function of ensuring your promised payment of five guineas is on the way, it being four days since I expected the money. I only ask as I am indebted to a sea captain who is not nearly as merciful as My Lord, nor understanding of the strange timetable which writers are subject to; the muse being mighty elusive and this sea captain the sort of man who will either turn me to the roundhouse for my debt or take justice into his own hands, so to speak. (I figured the price of tobacco to skyrocket, with the locust plague in Brazil, but it’s sadly turned the opposite.)
I thank you again for facilitating introduction to the k
eeper at Newgate. Rest assured that our agreement to include well-disguised approbation of the incumbent will feature in these Life Histories, that are sure to sell prodigiously well.
I humbly await your reply and remain, as always
Your obliging servant,
Daniel Defoe
April 1724
His mind now set somewhat in motion by this letter, Defoe lays out a fresh page and places the nib against the top left corner. He watches ink leak into a navy puddle.
‘Come on!’ he shouts to himself. He writes When will you bake an edible bread? and then throws down the quill.
He leans back into his chair, staring at the page. He groans, as though bothered with an opinion he’s heard several times, then opens his breeches. He battles with a button that has snagged on a loose thread, and then yanks down his stockings and pulls out his indifferent penis. Within a few moments it is standing to attention, and he works at it urgently. The matter is over in less than a minute. There. Defoe leans back, panting, moving his eyes between the two puddles, one of semen, one of ink. The wooden turret sits there, too.
There are three knocks at his door.
‘No!’ he shouts, fumbling at his breeches. ‘No, no.’
He has no time to button his fly, so grabs a copy of the nearest volume – Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica – and opens the book over his lap.
‘Daniel?’
It is Mary, his wife, standing at the doorway.
‘Yes?’
‘What’s wrong with you? Dinner is on the table.’
‘Nothing. There is nothing wrong.’
‘Your face is all red.’
She moves towards him.
‘Stay right there. Don’t. Don’t enter. I won’t countenance such interruptions!’
‘What is going on?’
‘Nothing. Nothing. I’m just on a roll, please. Please leave me a moment.’
She eyes him suspiciously. ‘What is going on here? Since when are you trying to improve your Latin?’ She points at the book.
‘My Latin doesn’t need improving.’ He sees that she is dressed in her finest skirts and bonnet, and has applied powder and rouge. Her walking pumps are so polished they reflect the room. ‘Why are you dressed like that?’
‘Dressed like what? Can a woman not take pride in her appearance?’
Defoe sighs. ‘Of course, yes, yes.’
She pauses a moment, thinks on it, then speaks resolutely. ‘I’ve been to Mr Shepley’s.’
‘Who?’
‘Mr Shepley. The haberdasher.’
‘What do we need of haberdashery?’
‘Items for the house, particularly ribbons. And you can’t expect me to continue on in this taffeta when every woman with half a P goes about in moire.’
‘Hang on, not this month, I beg of you. Our finances –’
‘He supplied us credit.’
‘Look …’ Defoe goes to stand but then remembers his open trousers.
‘I’m the one who brought all the money to this marriage,’ Mary says. ‘And if I want to journey to Mr Shepley’s then I will.’
Defoe moans, his hands still holding Newton in place. (He understood nothing of the book.) ‘Shepley … he’s not that young fop with the long wig, is he?’
‘Do you have to insult everyone?!’
‘Haha, Shepley, with that great vagina he calls a wig.’
Mary slams the door and it bounces back open, swinging in a wide arc. He listens to her pumps down the stairway – the new one, for which he owes seventeen guineas – and readjusts his trousers. He lays a page over the sullied one and steps downstairs.
Seven sets of eyes watch him take his place at the table’s head. He nods, flicks out his coat and sits.
‘Will you honour us with Grace?’ he asks his third daughter, Tracey.
‘Yes, Father.’ She pauses. ‘Dad, did you notice the –’
‘Enough questions!’ he shouts. ‘I asked for trace! Grace. Tracey. You know what I mean!’
His daughter giggles, along with the rest of his family.
When will you bake an edible bread? he thinks.
WILD
I make designs for our courtship
1699
It bespeaks of my habit towards artifice, so singly focused did I become on manufacturing a situation to be alone with Millicent and her monobrow (growing out of her forehead, that was so white and tightly skinned it looked like bare skull). The hurdle wasn’t a token one, for there were no fewer than ten Dampiers to vacate from the house, of which nine Master Dampier held in buckle-vice grip. Nothing short of disaster could empty the entire house, but what sort of disaster could I engineer to my advantage I did not know; so created the only disaster I could think.
‘Bring one ewe for burnt-offering,’ said Master Dampier during Grace one afternoon. ‘But no blemished heifer shall be … what is that smell?’
All nine heads raised to Master Dampier, whose long hollow nostrils inflated. ‘What sort of vile meat have you prepared, woman?’
‘It is leftovers,’ replied his wife. ‘What you smell is not our dinner.’
Master Dampier opened the workshop door to a wall of smoke. ‘Fire!’ shouted he.
‘Lord save us!’ bellowed his wife. She threw a bowl of soup into the workshop.
‘I will run for a fire engine,’ announced I, winking to Millicent.
‘And I too,’ said Millicent with her usual poise.
As we ran I explained that her home would be safe, that I had moistened the smouldering bills to create a disproportionate quantity of smoke. We interrupted the plump crier Mr Ashbury’s announcements regarding a new parking regulation to alert him to the fire. His large earlobes wobbled at the news.
‘Fire?’ he confirmed.
We nodded.
‘Boys!’ he shouted to his idle twin sons, who gawped silently from beneath the post office awning. ‘The new engine! ’Tis to be used today!’
They hitched the engine and together with their father drove apace to the Dampier home, with Millicent and me in tow, and some townsfolk with leather buckets. Smoke still billowed from the workshop window and a foul smell permeated the surrounding yard.
‘The fire is out,’ Master Dampier announced, as the Ashbury boys set to pumping the machine.
‘We have come to extinguish this fire,’ announced Mr Ashbury. ‘And extinguish it we will!’
‘Stop your work,’ repeated Master Dampier, flailing his arms. ‘’Tis only smoke.’
But Mr Ashbury, who appeared to be in a trance of intention, was clearly resolute about using the instrument at his disposal. He took the nozzle, twisted a lever, and a jet of water like nothing I’d ever seen shot in a powerful arc towards the open window. Master Dampier ran in circles like a chased chicken.
‘Cease it!’ shouted he. ‘You’ll be the ruin of me!’
Master Dampier then sacrificed himself to the jet of water, standing directly before it so it bounced off his chest in all directions like he was a fountain.
‘Out of the way, you fool!’ shouted Mr Ashbury.
‘You’re the fool!’ replied Master Dampier. ‘Destroying my goods. I will have you brought before the Justice!’
Mr Ashbury finally desisted, turning a valve and demanding access to satisfy himself that the fire was indeed extinguished.
‘It is my charge to put out the fire lest it spreads to the rest of town,’ announced he, with the importance of the King himself.
As you might envision, there was considerable hubbub, with more and more townsfolk arriving to mutter blame upon Master Dampier, so I seized the opportunity to lead Millicent by the bony hand, which was clammy, like clay not quite set, and conceal ourselves behind the trees. She immediately pulled my head towards her bosom, my height being such that it was the natural place for it to settle. Her breasts were not large but I felt them sure enough, aye, there was an enticing flesh there and a marching heart beneath. Her lips nibbled at my ear. I squeezed once at
each of her buttocks. Then there was a prodigiously thick silence. I knew it was time to speak and wondered which insightful thing to say.
‘My father has a velvet pheasant,’ said I, finally. ‘He calls it King Richard.’
Millicent frowned, not comprehending my meaning.
‘I can sell it, we can marry.’
‘We needn’t worry ourselves with marriage yet,’ said Millicent. ‘What happens between you and I will remain as such. I couldn’t wait that long, besides.’
‘Wait for what?’
Her hand went at my breeches and I evaded her, being afraid I might explode in the way I did when lying upon the cabbage.
‘You think me a hussy,’ said she.
‘I think you are the most handsome girl in all the Kingdom.’
‘Then why do you evade me? You know we cannot marry at this age unless …’
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless I am to become with child.’ Her black eyes moved over my face and then to the fray beyond. Her cheeks were ruddy with what I presumed to be desire.
‘I am not sure how such a thing is done,’ said I.
‘You have to be drunk, I believe,’ said she.
‘Your house,’ said I, remembering. ‘Your father.’
‘’Tis not of concern to me.’
She bent down and we kissed in a fashion that I didn’t understand or anticipate but to which I nonetheless responded; my body or the devil directing my tongue into a parley with hers. After a few seconds we paused to consider each other once again.
‘It’s been quite a day,’ said I, wiping the corner of my mouth.
‘The grandest of my life,’ replied she, looking all around.
Wild Page 2
