Sary's Gold

by Sharon Shipley

  The images beckoned, nigh irresistible.

  Jude seemed far away and insubstantial as a daguerreotype, flat or shiny as one tipped it to the light.

  Today Jude’s image was dull and therefore unreal.

  The drab knocked and brought whiskey and clean rags. Sary gulped as much as she poured on her shoulder.

  “What happened to yuh?” The drab asked her. Sary wondered why. Solicitousness? No. That was answered by her lack of aid. She slugged from the bottle. Knowledge sometimes meant rewards. She must leave.

  Vigor and a muzzy sense of well-being forged brave old roads. She regarded the bottle fondly and carefully peeled the bandage off, ripping the last bit. “Owww-waw!” With a fruit knife, brought to her next to a wizened orange, she slit her shoulder and daubed at the pus. There wasn’t so much of it now. Her pins were still wobbly, but by hanging onto first the wall and then a chair, she made it to the washstand and bathed all over with the stale water, a scrap of soap, and the thin towel.

  ****

  Ratchet purchased oranges, complaining of the cost, and bit through rind and all as he roved his hungry eyes everywhere.

  ****

  Sary sat up ten times, lifted a chair, and paced end to end of the room. She stretched from a door. Ripped a scab. Re-bandaged. Earlier the drab had dropped paper bundles on her bed, curious but unmoved. Sary waved her out, diving into greasy fried cod and cold boiled potatoes and an apple.

  She faced the remaining bundles, tediously lacing a cheap corset tight over both ribs and bandages. She suspected the corset was second hand—or even the drab’s own, and the girl had pocketed the change.

  The arm Sary had thought merely stiff seemed permanently hooked and slightly withered. Sary grabbed her wrist and pressed, but try as she might she could not force it straight.

  A wheeling gull snared her eye, and so Sary didn’t catch Ratchet turning a far corner, showing her portrait to landladies down a row of tenements across the way. They nodded, hitched a shoulder, or flirted.

  Then, the drab pointed her way.

  Sary glanced out again, studying the street she must navigate. I should be already gone from this room. Only then did she notice the approaching man, flashy-dressed like an Eastern dandy—and she backed onto the bed after the man, showing a paper to a woman wielding a broom, metamorphosed into Ratchet.

  The woman waved her broom across and up.

  Sary ducked, landing on her bottom, and snatched the sprigged dress, now rinsed out. It seemed alien, this act of fitting on a garment. Her arm wouldn’t bend into its sleeve! She ripped it, shoving through. Never mind buttons…Never mind anything.

  She threw objects into her precious bag, hoping she didn’t miss anything of import, dug her boots from under the bed, and flung open the door, bolting into the hall, shoeless, pelting down the back way, the endless narrow winding stairs made to hinder at every hairpin turn.

  Half the way down the landlady emerged, protesting, from what seemed to be a kitchen, judging from the fish and cabbage smells. Sary, hopping, struggling with boots, shoved at her and reached the back door. The landlady held her back, shouting, “Pay me!”

  “I’ll send it to you,” Sary snarled, trying for a smile and elbowing the landlady in her ample stomach.

  Behind her, a distant cracking and splintering somewhere in the house. Then the thump of the hefty landlady being thrust into a wall behind her and more protests.

  Sary yanked at the balky door and risked a look back—Ratchet, stumbling over the landlady, tangling with the dumpy woman’s feet, shoving her face. She fell and screeched as Sary groped a skeleton key and flipped it around with fumbling hands. It turned rustily and then gave with a loud clack, and Sary fell out, slamming the door. Ratchet yanked a cleaver from the scullery and crashed after Sary, while the landlady fell back, her eyes huge. Limping as fast as she could across the narrow yard and through laundry, tangling in a wet sheet, Sary was suddenly free, beyond the outer line, bursting out into an alley.

  Ratchet was wound in the same damp, flapping barrier as Sary squeaked through a half-hinged gate and then heard another squawk of hinges fast behind her as she limped on, bootless, down the alley. Ratchet tore the gate off, fell over a burner barrel, cursing, and was followed by the clatter of disturbed garbage cans.

  Sary went as fast as she could, any which way, ducking finally around a corner to where, in the foggy distance, a steel wall of steamship blocked her horizon. Whistles sounded, and gulls screamed. Passengers called and were given excited farewells. Just a glimpse, then all was lost in another maze of dead-end alleys.

  Sary wavered at a crossroads, then tore off in the general direction of the sounds of the departing ship. Sary could still hear the passenger’s farewells as she hobbled up another street. Turned a corner—three dogs watched her, curious. Edged past them. There—so close—a wall of ship cut the alley off, and she skidded short. The alley actually T’d at a tall wood fence. Scraps of rusty metal rose beyond the two-block barrier of a junkyard. The sound was fainter.

  Oh, Lord, her side hitched where a bone was knitting crooked. The unaccustomed activity had winded her, and her shoulder throbbed with each jolt, eased somewhat if she tucked her arm close. For want of a direction, she veered into a trashy, serpentine alleyway.

  She lost the gray horizon of ship and halted, gasping, at sight of a small boy still sailing his boat in a gutter—she was going circles. Then Ratchet’s boots pounded somewhere behind her, with the crash of cans and crack of crates.

  She craned her neck for a glimpse of the ships and tall masts between two tenements—farther away now! She turned, helpless, checking the maze of alleys. How do I get there? She heard Ratchet snarl at the boy with the boat, a cold wind on her neck. She imagined the swish of the knife cutting the air. Her neck prickled as she ducked into a yard, breathless, clutching her ribs as she knelt to lace her boots and, through a split in the old fence, watched him plunge past.

  ****

  Her energy had dissolved like mist by the time she thrust out into the open, vulnerable. Plunging into crocodiles of children, she veered round another corner. Right there. Ratchet was looking the other way. Yet, at the opposite end of the block, there was a sailor and his girl and more wheeling gulls.

  Ducking, Sary headed that way and was soon lost in the crowd, weaving through meaner sections, slowing in bewilderment as she burst into Chinatown—a colorful confection, apparently part traveling circus, part market, and—to Sary’s delight—deliciously foreign. Smoke, dried fungus, ginger, pungent teas, hot oils, fish—the incenses perfumed her nose. Her mouth watered.

  “Where you diggin’, China…?” She heard Delacorte’s words in her mind and realized what an odd sight she must be, with her wild light hair, taller than the sleek-eyed, licorice-haired denizens bustling around her in their lush black and bright silks and chattering a liquid singsong as seabirds whooped and screed about her head. The target for the birds was a white dough ball like those sold in stacks, but this one now lay on the dirty cobbles.

  She bolted it, tasteless and gluey, and filched a sliver of dried fish, then wished she hadn’t. Now thirsty, Sary was nevertheless heartened by a flotilla of gulls marking the waterways.

  Another glimpse of brown, slapping water—at last! She sucked in the fetid tang like rare perfume, but a frieze of bright flags, hung like laundry and crisscrossing the massed streets, maddeningly obscured the wharves.

  With a glance over her shoulder, she glimpsed Ratchet crashing into a clot of carts and sliding on bricks slimy with old vegetables and fish scales.

  He grabbed at two oranges rolling past, ignoring an irate Chinese vendor, and ripped into one as he looked wildly about.

  Sary crouched below the shorter people, slipping between racks of lovely silks. Ohhh, wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel them, to wind myself in such colorful…

  The sound of splintering wood intruded on her thought. Things crashed in waves. Incensed shouts arose. She risked a look.
<
br />   Ratchet had literally disappeared beneath an irate mob of flying pigtails like tarred rope, padded coats, and venders’ straw hats.

  She smiled—the first time in months—pelting to a stop, sniffing water again, scanning only more bars, one-night hostels, doss houses…

  If I could only board a ship—any ship!

  Another glimpse of Ratchet’s rangy figure above the melee.

  How did he find me? I must change appearance—one of these colorful silks, maybe, and wind it about my head… With that thought, she swerved into another passage, hating to leave the sea front.

  Gulls wheeled more distantly, and the scent was more refuse than salt.

  She was near dropping—yet here was another opening—clutching her side, as she burst out onto a wide street. Passersby swiveled to look after the limping, hitching, gasping, wild-haired, half-dressed Sary.

  Ratchet skidded along, scrutinizing, shoving, pushing against the tide, and spotted calico sprigged with daisies…

  “Got you!” he snarled.

  Sary slip-slided on fish heads and rainwater, ripping down a passage so constricted it was more of a gap between shops—her elbows and bags scraped the sides. It narrowed further, as if the buildings were tired, and she was trapped like a mouse in a box.

  Ratchet crossed one end of the passage, blotting out the light—a mere blip, a Morse code for danger. Sary stumbled over bricks lying in a heap and pressed into the cavity they had left, while Ratchet retraced steps and scowled down the slot, shading his eyes.

  Sary kept on, stumbling through the door she’d found, into a snug of coal fire, old ale, and the thick odor of damp clothing.

  The imbibers in residence didn’t spare a glance at the filthy female dragging a bag. One finally looked her up and down.

  “Can see why you no come in tha front way, darlin’, ta be waylaid by one a these randy mates! A little beauty such as yerself!”

  She heard someone snigger. “Scag…” And wicked laughter followed. She drew in a breath, adjusting her eyes.

  The room was noisy with diverse chatter—Irish and other dialects more guttural, as sailors, women, and laborers drank and wolfed down greasy fish, bread, and stew. Her stomach rumbled.

  If I stay small, by the fire, where it is mostly quiet, with little nosegays of laughter, except for a noisy group postulating and gesturing in a far corner, no one will notice. I’ll stay away from them, too.

  She edged over. At least her flight had summoned unsuspected energies, and she hugged the knowledge tight.

  Perhaps there is a tomorrow, free from pain, free from—what?

  She was rich, but her wealth lay in moldering saddlebags in a vault. Beyond a few nuggets and bits of cash rapidly dwindling in this expensive city, and not easily accessible except by written note, or cheque as they were called, that was all she had.

  She’d lost Jonathan, never to be replaced. And the brother, not that she had much of one, but he was kin. She’d mislaid a child—he too was beyond reach. Gone were her youth, her looks—well, she’d never really considered looks. Jonathan had loved her… She was presentable.

  Then, there was the arm. Fancy feathers and a few laces wouldn’t fix that.

  What was left? She wouldn’t think on it now. For the first time, drying her hair by the fire, spreading her skirts to dry, sagging against the warm brick, she felt the lightening wings of hope lifting her spirits.

  Her eyes drooped. Warm…nice…but perhaps one side uncomfortably hot… Her dress steamed. A door banged open with a wind that blasted her skirts in welcome gust of chill air. Sary peeked through tangled hair and sucked a breath. The rangy, wolflike man, hunched to spring, scoured the room with his gaze. Ratchet’s feral eyes raked the crowd, jerking from face to face with crazed intensity, and then another group burst in, thrusting him forward.

  Ratchet hadn’t spied her yet.

  Easing away, Sary neared the knot of noisy folk at the back of the room.

  ****

  A hand holding a grease pencil snagged her.

  “Let go!” she hissed, making for the door she’d fallen through earlier as Ratchet’s craggy head showed above the crowd, zeroing in on the boisterous group with eyes the color of lead. But the hand with the grease pencil, yanked her with a surprising grip into the midst of a sweaty band. Sary caught a blur of laces, bosoms, and veils, all ages, with bright-crayoned faces. The scents of tallow, onion, unwashed clothes, and old grease, with underlying whiffs of cloying jasmine, enveloped her like a warm, smelly cloak.

  And then she saw Malcolm the Midget shine a mirrored lantern at Ratchet. “Oops, sorry, mate.” He bobbed humbly.

  Ratchet squinted under a crook of his elbow, snarling. “Shine it up your bung hole, hunchback!”

  A voice still hissed annoyingly in Sary’s ear, “Do something! It’s Midsummer Night’s Dream!” The troupe pressed close, and someone tossed a veil over her head.

  Ratchet beheld Puck and the fairies’ prancing action for a moment, with a look of dazed unreality, before he spun and knocked taverners aside in his rush out.

  ****

  The actor winked, darkening his other brow.

  Sary squinted.

  Hamlet?

  Sary took in the man who was a boy. Lines divided his forehead, now, that weren’t there in her memory. More lines bracketed the still beautiful mouth and straight nose she had recalled in troublesome, fevered moments before sleep finally swept her away.

  The actor, Tommy, was shaggier than she remembered him, with more rips and stains on a velvet tunic skinned bare at the elbows, no longer a romantic dream, tho appealing—but then, neither was she.

  Hamlet/Tommy grinned, showing his amazingly strong white teeth and tossing a greasy lock of hair. “Now. Where were we?”

  “I didn’t…exactly make it to the nunnery,” she managed.

  “What a wicked, wicked—and might I add filthy—nun you’d make.”

  A mature actress swatted him.

  “Have a care! The poor, half drowned—” Sary was aware of the others then: “Lovely to see you again, love…” And, “You all right, dearie?” And, “How’s about a cuppa?” She heard their muddle of voices.

  “I wouldn’t mind.” Sary snatched the mug of hot tea, bobbing her thanks.

  ****

  It was the boisterous troupe she had met so long before: Caine, Tommy, Luigi, the King Lear type, Malcolm the Midget. The older woman with hair varying in hue from boiled beet to iodine was new. Together they relished their meal and discreetly eyed Sary.

  “Part of our bounteous remuneration,” Tommy slurred through bread dredged in “stew”—pulled gristle—and signaled for more.

  Sary gnawed bread, veering from the redhead whose over-zealous attention was apparently an assessment: How is this wet feline going to shift me—what roles will she usurp? was writ plain on the face like melting pink tallow.

  Sary shrank, assessing them in turn. Malcolm: slick fingered, impudent, how much of that cheekiness is fake? She eyed Tommy. Seedier Tommy. On the cliff edge of destitute. So different from Big Bear’s charming roué. Lear is assuredly leering.

  They could even sell me. I’ve heard of such tales. Perhaps they think the law chased me here. They could use the money. Better keep myself to myself…And then? A day—two at the most, surely—until Ratchet moves on. Make my way to the docks and…then…

  All Europe…!

  Suddenly aware Tommy studied her from the corner of his eye, his gaze roving over the scar in her hair and the one where the noose had dug in. She casually brushed her hand across her neck, hiding it, giving a stiff smile.

  “Unrequited passion? Or do you always affect men in such a mettlesome manner?”

  “It would seem so,” Sary grated.

  “On the dodge? The fiddle? Come on, me darlin’. You can tell your old mates.” That from Malcolm the Midget.

  Redhead swatted him. “We take care of our own and our business, ya nosey ha’-penny.”

  Tommy s
hook a cigarillo from an ornate case, clamping Malcolm’s wrist as he reached. Malcolm mugged cheekily and stage-whispered, “Our Tommy dast not besmirch the one token of his solamente conquest. The broke-down Marquesa with the mole. Where was it? The mole, I mean.”

  Redhead bellowed. “Marquesa! Hah! Baroness, if ever was one! Then wrong side of the sheets!”

  King Lear intoned: “Knowing our Thomas, the wench assuredly had a wrong’un herself, nine months gone!”

  Their laughter turned ribald and loud. Then Caine burbled, “If one put a bag over her ’ead!” Followed by pounding.

  Sary made a face. Even the rest of the tavern watches them. “Really shouldn’t stay. So kind. I’m very—”

  “Oh, terribly good! Most horribly kind. In-dub-itably caring!” Tommy sneered, trapping her hand. “Wager you’re not exactly spoiled for choice. Sit. Queenie!”

  Malcolm waggled brows. Sary plunked down hard.

  “Still out there, you know. Ahhhh, Sary, was it?” Tommy mocked.

  Sary jerked a yes.

  “Safe with us. We won’t sell you to the gypsies.”

  Sary flushed.

  “All California and you!” Tommy heckled.

  Oh, Lord, I want to sleep. To lie on something soft and dry.

  “Cor, Sary!” he nagged. “Open roads! The heat! Rain! Dust! Sour wine, greasy bacon sarnies…”

  And wagons stuck in muddy wallows, breaking down in gully washers, raucous sweaty shows. More starving. Why did it seem so alluring a thousand years ago? Sary yearned to say it.

  Tommy still prattled, oblivious. “Ruddy stinking costumes after another rousing, yet frightfully nuanced performance given in some goat-encrusted hovel of a town—”

  “Honoring us with eggs and chickens, not to mention the odd overripe tomato,” Lear interjected.

  “Gawd! Can’t wait!” This from Redhead.

  Malcolm piped up. “Me? I likes the odd overripe egg…”

  Tommy plucked his tunic. “Cor! Costumes so weighted with salt-sweat one could float the bloody Thames.”