‘You both just accept it. This sawdust. These unripe apricots.’ I picked up one for demonstration.
‘We are all God’s servants,’ my mother said. ‘And you are a cunt.’
‘Says my own mother,’ replied I.
She threw an apricot at me. It struck me on the leg and bounced to the floor. I picked it up and threw it back at her, hitting her square in the chest.
‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’ said I. ‘Because they’re unripe.’
‘Out of here!’ wailed my forebear, pretending to cry. ‘Your father, he will beat you to death for it.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said I, shouldering my satchel once again.
Before leaving, I slipped into my father’s workshop and reached into the pile of sawdust beneath the bench. I found what I was searching for, opened the tin and removed King Richard. The pearl eyes looked at me, more alive than any eyes I had encountered that day: my dead son’s or my hard-hearted wife’s, my fatigued mother’s or drunkard father’s. All of them, all my family – both the family I had created and the family that had created me – all of them were now dead to me.
DEFOE
To some useful research
April 1724
Owing to useless ruminations, he has taken the Cornhill Road and finds himself, regrettably, at the stocks market. Defoe pulls his hat down, flicks the sides of his wig close to his jaw, and looks only at the ground, praying to the Good Lord that he go unnoticed. Alas, in the corner of his eye, he sees Benjamin Arnott, a school contemporary he hasn’t seen for many years. Arnott, who is an importer of homewares, is running his thumb over a miniature face engraved onto a bronze doorknocker. A gentleman and his young wife listen to some well-rehearsed gab about an unparalleled artisan. After decades, Arnott still has the same arrogant privilege in his voice. Defoe tries to slip past his stall.
‘Is that you? Daniel Defoe?’
Defoe pretends he hasn’t heard, and continues on.
‘Daniel!’
He feels a hand on his shoulder and is forced to stop. ‘What – you don’t recognise me?’ Arnott says with too much enthusiasm, laughing at his own comment. ‘Have I aged so?’
Defoe acts confused. ‘Ahh, Arnott, what a surprise.’
‘I heard around these parts that you traded; I’m glad to finally see you!’
‘And you,’ replies Defoe.
‘This is Mr Daniel Defoe,’ Arnott says, for the benefit of the couple. ‘A great writer. And a trader too.’
They exchange pleasantries. The man owns yet another fire insurance company.
‘So is it true,’ Arnott directs to Defoe, ‘that you’re now in the business of tobacco, and a great many other imports?’
‘Not proper. An occasional deal. Really, I’m not –’
‘Impressive, though, very impressive. To be a writer and an importer.’
‘Oh no, no. Just something on the side.’
‘It would be grand, Daniel, just grand to sit together, take some victuals or coffee. Even an ale.’
‘Well … I …’
‘If I call next week, might we arrange it?’
The gentleman and his wife watch the exchange.
‘Yes, yes. You must excuse me,’ Defoe says, breaking away. He walks through the crowd as fast as possible. Why do I despise him? Defoe asks himself as he walks off. An agreeable, friendly man.
It is a relief to reach the poultry farm. To be among decent men, men who at least perform a useful trade, not this ridiculous retailing of doorknobs. But the smell of geese and pheasant shit is overwhelming. He wants to hold his nose, but his hands are clammy from the toe-curling conversation with Benjamin Arnott, and the moisture in his pads will mark the powder on his nose. What, Defoe thinks, am I so vain! He pinches his nose even though the smell no longer bothers him.
‘There,’ he says to himself. ‘Pinching your nose to spite your face.’
He steps on, towards Newgate.
‘Speak your piece, and plainly so,’ says the gaoler. ‘You’re speaking with a simple man.’
‘Lord Harley’s secretary, he has spoken with you?’ Defoe asks.
‘Aye, what of it?’
‘He informed you of my purpose?’
‘Nothing is free. Not ’round here. Newgate isn’t some shitty debtors’ prison.’
‘Your reputation precedes you.’
Harrison Henry is a wide short man; looks to have been compacted from the top down, his ears and shoulders unintentional protuberances. His muttons are thick and unkempt, his clothes are threadbare, and his white scalp is mapped with colonies of psoriasis. Either he is a miser or he wishes to conceal his wealth, for Defoe knows his prison contract would make him a very rich man.
‘I hear it costs two sterling to have your ankles freed,’ Defoe adds.
‘And so it should. If one is confined here, ’tis for good reason. By the by, the powder on your nose is smudged.’
They are standing outside the stained prison walls on Newgate Street. An occasional hand sticks through the bars to touch the air.
‘I wanted an inventory, of all your inmates.’
Henry wheezes out a laugh. ‘An inventory. Ha. I presumed you wanted The Lad. But tell me of what variety you seek. Murderer, molly, thief, whore. You name it.’
‘Well, I do appreciate your offer of … filtration, but it’s not how I like to work. I prefer to find –’
‘It’s how I work. I haven’t time for “inventories”. Hurry up, then.’
‘Who is the lad you speak of?’
‘Sheppard.’
‘The Jack Sheppard?’
‘Aye.’
‘I didn’t realise he’d been captured since his escape from St Clement’s.’
‘’Twas a matter of time, only.’
‘Excellent. I’ll start with him. Quite some story, if it is as has been described, which it most certainly isn’t, if my suspicions –’
‘Three quid.’
‘Huh?’
‘You heard me,’ Henry spits. ‘Three quid for Sheppard.’
‘Well, just one moment –’
‘Anyone else is one. Sheppard’s thrice the price. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it, thrice the price.’
‘My Lord Harley will be –’
‘That’s the cost. If you’re not interested then I must be –’
‘Fine, fine. Three quid. I’ll write you a promissory note.’
‘I accept coin only.’
‘Surely, as an emissary of the Earl Mortimer –’
‘No exceptions. Coin only.’ Henry folds his arms, watching Defoe pat at his pockets.
He can’t be more than eighteen or nineteen years of age. He leans back on a timber pallet with his legs crossed. Moving his eyes between them, he tilts his head in pleasant enquiry.
‘Kee-kee-kee-per He-Henry,’ the young man says. ‘A we-we-welcome su-su-surp-p-p-prise.’
‘This is Mr Defoe, a writer.’
‘A writer?’ Sheppard repeats. ‘I durst wo-wo-wond-d-d-er what he wants from a-a-a cutp-p-p-p-purse like m-m-me?’
‘You’ll answer the questions that he asks,’ Henry says. ‘And you’ll answer them truthfully. Or you’ll know my wrath.’
‘I’m here to understand your miraculous escape,’ Defoe says after a pause. ‘From St Clement’s Roundhouse.’
The grin does not leave the young thief’s face. For one so deeply disabled of speech, his expression is that of a confident and vigorous man; handsome angles to his jaw and clear blue eyes.
‘Be-be-be-before you leave m-m-me to be unfairly chroni-ni-nicled,’ he says to Henry, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘Any chance of a ch-ch-ch-chamber p-p-p-pot? I’m bu-bu-busting. Unsightly. For th-th-the wr-r-r-riter.’
He gestures to the open sewer that runs through the room. For all Harrison Henry’s cruelty, he at least waits for Sheppard to form his broken words.
‘Mr Defoe will survive.’
Henry pulls the door closed, and Defoe listens to the bolt
falling through the hoop. A shaft of cool afternoon light illuminates the opposite wall. Sheppard shifts in his place and his youthful, hairless face cuts into the stream of it. His white shirt is torn at the left breast and his breeches are stained in multiple places. He is without shoes, and his stockings are holed at the toes. Despite this, Defoe sees he has gone to the effort of meticulously folding and plumping his crimson cravat.
‘I see you’re being treated fairly,’ Defoe says. ‘By comparison.’
Sheppard holds up a finger to indicate a moment’s pause, then, turning away from Defoe, presses his face into the stone wall behind him. It looks to be that Sheppard is either smelling the mortar or looking through a small fissure in the wall. He cannot understand what the youth is doing.
‘Harrison’s just afraid is all,’ says Sheppard, his lips pressed into the wall. His voice is muffled but his words are now without impediment. ‘He even took my boots. Will make my escape more painful to the feet.’
With his face still in the wall, he lifts up his feet to twiddle his toes. His ankles are manacled to a nine-inch-thick beam. Defoe now understands; he can talk without an audience.
‘So you plan to escape?’
‘I will escape here. Yes.’
‘Not a single man has escaped Newgate.’
‘And not a single man had escaped St Clement’s. Nor had one defeated Goliath. Should David have cowered on account of that?’
‘Is God with you, as he was with David?’
Sheppard titters. ‘If I relied on Him,’ he says, pointing upwards, ‘I’d have died long ago.’
Defoe watches as Sheppard tries to move the manacles about his wrist. There are rings of red, seeping flesh where the iron presses into his skin.
‘It wasn’t necessary to tighten them so,’ Sheppard mutters.
‘Better chained to a post here,’ Defoe says, already accustomed to a conversation with the back of Sheppard’s head, ‘than out there in the halls. There was barely space to move. A woman dead on the floor. The stench unbearable.’
‘Not quite,’ Sheppard replies. ‘I’m a people person, as the saying goes.’
‘If you don’t mind,’ Defoe says, pulling out a roll of paper, his quill case and ink phial.
Sheppard briefly turns to eye the equipment. ‘Well, act-t-tually …’
‘You will be remembered on account of this,’ Defoe says, waving the paper. ‘It’s an honour not often afforded the common thief. You will be made famous.’
Sheppard turns back to nestle the wall. ‘I’m not illiterate,’ he states. ‘I know how a pamphlet is likely to portray me. Betray is more the word.’
Defoe leans his back against the wall, then sighs heavily, sliding down. He sets aside his writing equipment and rubs his face.
Sheppard laughs. ‘What, are you the one chained and sentenced to hang?’
‘It’s been a lousy day.’
‘Surely less so than mine?’
‘I’ve spent my time in prison,’ Defoe says, hearing a distant wail. ‘Not for theft or gaolbreaking. For sedition.’
‘Congrats!’
‘The older I grow,’ says Defoe, ignoring the taunt, ‘the less certain I am that liberty is freedom. Not in this city. Out or in, we are all prisoners.’
‘God help me. A depressed writer. All I need.’
‘I’m not depressed.’
‘Has your muse run off?’ The young man makes bunny ears in the air, laughing into the wall.
‘I have my problems.’
‘Shall I call for a violin? You can set a ballad to it.’
Sheppard starts humming and tapping the wall.
‘Muse, oh sweet muse.
Why isn’t it me that you use?
I’ve got to write, some awful tripe,
Then race to the shop and read the reviews.’
Defoe laughs. ‘You’re awfully cheerful for a man in fetters.’
Sheppard shrugs. ‘I’ve no love to lament, no sins to regret, no hopes to be dashed. My days are simple. It is only a pot with good friends that I long for.’
‘Hang on. No sins, you say. You’ve taken what’s not rightfully yours.’
‘What, a roll of fustian, a tweezers case, a cart of bread? Yours, mine, theirs … peh, what pointless words! To my mind, we are all much too concerned with who possesses what.’
‘So tell me then,’ Defoe says, dipping his quill in the phial, and resting the paper on his knee. ‘What should we be concerned with? Tell me from the beginning.’
‘Rather than the beginning,’ Sheppard replies, nodding to himself, ‘let’s start with the present, then work backwards. According to God it’s already happened, anyway. Time is a human invention. A way to forget our pain. To make sense of all those effects that lack a corresponding cause.’
‘A young philosopher,’ Defoe remarks. ‘Very well. Work backwards. It’s not how stories are told, but I’ll abide it. Start with Newgate. In fact, start wherever you please.’
Sheppard’s head shakes from side to side and he punches the wall. Defoe can see by his ears that he is grimacing.
‘Wild. I’d like to start with him. Jonathan Wild.’
THE LAD
I begin my story
1724
I intend to set it out plainly, the two-and-one score years of my life and each of its circumstances on display for you to judge accordingly; much like the costardmonger’s cart, you look at each of the costards, examine the skin, the odour, give the flesh a little squeeze and then, only then, will you make your decision; and in this way I oblige you to consider the whole of the circumstances and surroundings in which I was placed before aspersing judgement which regardless has been made; the noose drawn soon enough, whatever you think of me.
If there’s anyone to whom I should lay the blame for my misfortune, it is to one man and one man only, being Jonathan Wild, the great Thief-Taker of London. I will own readily, yes I will, that I do not walk the streets without faults and follies of my own, the punishments for which I will face soon enough, but it was this man, Jonathan Wild, that brought about my ruin and I do not speak of his capturing of me, for that is, how shall I say, a mechanical act, one that could have been performed by any man with the means and will to do so. Nay, when I speak of my ruin I’m speaking of the decay done my soul during my time served as his foot soldier in the battle of his self-enrichment.
There is also the matter of Elizabeth Lyon as the authorities know her, Edgeworth Bess to her friends, and Bessie to me, my dear beloved to whom I owe my imprisonment, but I do not lay blame at her feet, but again at the feet (buckled in pure gold, the bastard) of Jonathan Wild.
This great metropolis of London will not know the truth about the Thief-Taker General and the business of thief-taking, most of us considering it an upright service for a city overrun with crime. But I will now depart you of this falsity, Mr Defoe, and I do hope and pray that as corollary you will impart this on to the wider population using the skills of pen and paper at your disposal. But be warned that this truth is a complex one, that is much like a reverse-river with many tributaries, these offshoots flowing up not down, to Lords and Ladies and the very highest reaches of our society. I know you won’t be readily accepting of accusations. Why would one be inclined to believe the likes of me – a stammering thief and gaolbird from Stepney – though I swear that every word I speak is the truth and the truth only, for what have I got to lose, my liberty gone and my soul to be exchanged for forty pound sterling?
Having been born in 1702 or thereabouts to a hardworking and upright father, Mr William Sheppard the Carpenter, and his wife, Lucy Sheppard née Kettelby, I was set to the world with the best of intentions and standards to go about life just as my father did, earning a living by means fair and honest and then to raising a family of my own. Alas, my good father was taken by ague in 1715 when I was thirteen year of age and laid to rest in Bonehill Fields. It was a long way to follow the mule that pulled his body from our parish at Stepney, but it was the che
apest available burial space, and money was a thing we were now in great need of.
As I followed the sexton’s cart I could see my father’s body under the sheet; the knob of his nose, the two tents of his big toes, and the bulge of his manhood, all of them wobbling together as we went through heavy traffic. You’d think people might slow their daily occupations for a sexton carrying the dead, but in this city there is no time to pause, nay, not for the dead nor living alike.
We could not afford a mason’s headstone so a simple timber cross was erected in the place of his interment, and as the sexton hammered the cross into the earth – the mallet echoing out a sound hollow and doleful – a large crow, perfectly formed with a plume black and sheeny, and piercing yellow eyes, landed on the next cross along. I know not why I remember it, but my father’s neighbour for eternity had the name Pepe Strongarm Bagshot. The unusual name and the portentous crow and my crying mother were all auguries that my future was now a mighty uncertain one without a father such as Mr William Sheppard.
My inability to speak smooth and clear struck me the following morning, when Mother, may I please take of my milk became M-m-m-m-mother ma-ma-may I-I-I- and so on. Oddly – or sensibly, whichever way you choose to opine – when I practised of my speech alone I was able to speak normally, but as soon as someone’s eyes were on me, I found myself unable to speak a full sentence without falling over my own words like they were hurdles too high to jump. We sought the advice of a physician who blamed a dinner of tomatoes, and a prelate who prescribed thirty-six Hail Marys with three days’ fasting, and finally a barber who cut a section of my tongue that bled so freely I almost died.
After several weeks of these unsuccessful and costly treatments my mother presumed it could only be but a matter of grief that with time would surely pass, but month after month went painfully by with no improvement. So, there it was, I was no longer able to speak like a normal boy, thus rendering my previous gift at letters useless and the path intended for me – to become a vicar in some wealthy parish or if luck mayhap even a rector – was no longer a possibility, as one impaired of speech could not counsel a parishioner nor sermonise to a number of them. Mother ordered that I leave my place at Mr Garrett’s school in Bishopsgate, the fees no longer worth the investment in a boy such as me.
Wild Page 5
