With one hand steadying her laced hat, she uses the other to carefully excise a hatpin, which she lays menacingly on the table between them. After a further pause, she carefully removes her hat and sits it on her knees. Her eyes are a light shale brown. Her beauty is unsettling. Men turn to eye her.
‘I do not know what Jack told you. But if you’re one of Applebee’s hacks, then I shall carefully guard every word I say.’
‘I wouldn’t expect less,’ he answers. ‘If you are as he described.’ She smiles coldly.
‘… And now going. Going. And sold! To Mr Cheesewright. Sold. Nineteen guineas four shillings.’
‘Jack was as you depict him,’ she says. ‘Unique.’
‘To his last moment. It was barbaric what was done. Brutalised almost to death. I’m here because he couldn’t even write you, with all his fingers maimed.’
She lifts her coffee. Her hands are trembling.
‘Even with such violence, he kept his humour to the end. He wanted you to know …’ Defoe pauses. ‘That your deception is forgiven. That he loved you.’
She fights to keep her posture erect. Her eyes build with tears. ‘He refused to leave London,’ she says softly, then dabs at her eyes with the corner of a handkerchief.
‘I know that to be true,’ Defoe replies. ‘I begged the same.’
She leans forward and presses both hands into her eyes. Her hat falls to the ground. She ignores it. Her ash-blonde hair is held tremulously in a loose whorl on her crown.
‘He understood your position was a compromised one,’ Defoe offers.
She looks out the window, fingering the pattern on her knee.
‘Did he say anything more?’ she asks.
‘To you, he only wanted to impart his forgiveness. And his love.’
‘Will you be chronicling Jack too, Mr Defoe?’
‘I will, yes.’
‘And is this account to include me?’ Her restraint is now returned. She sniffs.
‘I see no way to exclude you entirely, Miss Lyon.’
‘Mrs Wild.’
‘Mrs Wild.’
‘This pamphleteering, it is a commercial enterprise, is it not? Surely we can make an agreement on the nature of my inclusion?’
‘I am a commercial man, Mrs Wild, true. But on the matter of Jack Sheppard, I am committed to a truthful rendering.’
‘And of my late husband?’
‘My interviews with him were not productive. He drugged himself into a stupor and made little sense, except to say nobody would believe the story I proposed to tell.’
‘Which is?’
Defoe looks into his coffee. ‘Of a scared little boy. Who snuck too many candies from the jar.’
She considers this, baffled, her eyes searching the corner of the room. ‘I’m not sure I understand. If you would be so kind as to elaborate?’
‘How the world will come to know Jonathan Wild may not align with the Thief-Taker’s self-image.’
‘Speak plainly. What do you intend to say?’
‘Jonathan Wild, contrary to opinion, was barely five feet tall. As a child, he was beaten and teased. For this reason, he had little faith in God. And those pistols, they were really just there for show …’
Defoe pauses, watching Elizabeth Lyon frown.
‘Who has told you such jabber? You may not have met him, but I assure you he was the biggest man in the room. If there was anyone doing the beating, it was him. As for church, he attended almost every day. And what’s this about –’
‘You misunderstand me. I’m not claiming any of it to be true. I am in the business of stories.’
‘But … but nobody would believe that such a person – small and cowardly – could achieve the things Wild did.’
‘Miss Lyon, you would be astonished at the lengths we go. To believe.’
‘He was not a fictional character. He was real.’
‘He was real, aye. And he sent too many similarly real to the gallows. For once, albeit in death, he shall know what it’s like to be in the palm of another’s hand.’
‘Then you’re no better than any criminal. Making profit from lies and deceit.’
‘To that charge I am guilty. Though, my motive isn’t profit. I do it for Jack. And a little for my own satisfaction.’
‘What you’re describing is … is perverse. And now I am only the more concerned for my depiction.’
‘I have no gripe with you, Miss Lyon. On the contrary.’
She stands, places her hat on her head, then drives the hatpin through. The veil once again conceals her expression. ‘Thank you for the coffee.’
‘One last question.’
She pauses, then speaks grimly. ‘I will decline answering any further questions. I believe you have taken enough, Mr Defoe. From us all. Good day.’
He watches her climb into a Felton & Hatchett coach, that trots into a line of traffic, and is soon gone. Defoe downs the remainder of his coffee and steps into the street, walking slowly to his room at Billingsgate.
Acknowledgements
For sage editorial assistance, I thank the following people: Ariela Bard, Sammy Harkham, Kramer, Linton Besser, Mary Simmonds, Meredith Curnow, Genevieve Buzo. And to many others for their varied support to complete this work: Rachel, Debbie, Mum and Dad, for love and presence. Sammy, for encouraging and giving. David Berger, for kindness and partnership. Bryan Sulaiman, for flag-flying. Linton, for listening to the self-replicating fractal-detail of my doubts. Bakers, for repeated Nashuan retreats. Lily, Leo and Jacob, who had too little of their father. Ariela, most of all, for being exquisite (to our children, to me, to the world) through it all.
About the author
Nathan Besser lives in Sydney with his wife and three children. His short stories have three times appeared in Best Australian Stories and have been broadcast nationally on the ABC. His debut novel, Man in the Corner, was released in 2016.
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First published by Vintage Australia 2019
Copyright © Nathan Besser 2019
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Cover and internal illustrations: ‘Beer Street and Gin Lane, Georgian illustrations by William Hogarth’ via retroimages/iStock
Cover design by Alex Ross © Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
ISBN 9781925324006
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