by Carol Birch
‘Hello, Cobbe,’ I said.
He grunted and walked away.
Something in the yard was changed but I couldn’t work out what it was. Jamrach’s fat Japanese pig was eating cabbage down the far end. Mr Jamrach saw me through the window and came out to greet me. He’d thickened and widened and reddened since I last saw him. ‘At last!’ he cried, beaming from ear to ear. ‘Jaffy boy! Feeling better?’
‘Very much better,’ I replied, feeling nothing of the sort. I had no idea why I was out of my bed and couldn’t wait to get back to it.
He clapped me on the shoulder, man to man. ‘This business, Jaf,’ he said, looking me in the eye, ‘a terrible thing.’
‘Yes.’
‘Terrible.’
I nodded.
‘Come into the office.’
There was a new boy in an alcove all of his own, scrabbling about with a pile of paperwork and whistling cheerfully. Not as messy as the old days when Bulter lolled about behind the desk. Charlie the toucan was still going strong, but the old parrot Flo had fallen prey to tuberculosis and departed this life. Mr Jamrach sent the boy away and poured coffee from a pot on the stove. It was cold outside and cosy in here, smoky as ever. Charlie sat in my arms and nibbled my ear.
I asked how things were going.
‘Not bad, not bad,’ he said, putting back his head and blowing smoke towards the ceiling. Then he told me he’d got his son Albert in with him now and was training him up to run the business. Only Albert was at home today with a bad cold.
‘Shame,’ I said.
Mr Jamrach offered me a pipe, relit his own and sat back.
It was an awkward meeting. For a while we sat and smoked, saying nothing.
‘Coffee all right?’ he asked. ‘Not too strong?’
‘No, just right.’
‘That’s the ticket.’
‘You know, Jaf,’ he said, leaning forward, his sad old eyes blinking, ‘I can’t begin to find the words—’
‘It’s all right, Mr Jamrach.’ I disengaged Charlie’s claws from my jacket. ‘I know it’s awkward.’
‘No, I mean to say …’ He gestured with one hand. ‘I mean to say … what you suffered is beyond my imagination. I want you to know that …’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘… anything at all that I can do …’
‘Of course.’
‘You know Dan’s retired?’
‘I know. He told me in Valparaiso.’
Such a curious feeling. As if Tim was standing in the room with us.
‘You’re still very young, Jaf,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t let this blight your life.’
‘I know.’
‘There’s not a spot of blame on you.’
‘I know.’
‘People understand.’
‘I know.’
I could have sworn I’d see him if I looked around.
‘Of course, no one expects you to do anything yet, but you know there’s always a job here if you …’
‘I know.’
But he and I both knew there was no hurry. Mr Fledge had proved generous to me and Dan. Anyway, I don’t know where he thought he could fit me in. Clearly I could no longer be a yard boy, and a desk job would never do for me. I had no idea what I was going to do, to tell the truth. Still had a swirling sea in my head.
‘I really don’t suppose I’ll come back here,’ I said.
‘No.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I can see why.’
‘Anyway,’ I said, looking around, ‘it’s nice to see the old place again.’
‘Not so much changed, eh?’
‘A little.’
‘It’s a bit neater the way it’s laid out now. That’s Albert,’ he said.
We sat for a while longer, then he said, ‘Well, when you decide what it is you want to do with yourself, come to me, won’t you, Jaf? Because whatever it is, you know that …’
‘Thank you very much, sir,’ I said.
I had to go. We stood up. Charlie flew onto Jamrach’s shoulder. The lobby was full of finches waiting to be moved into one of the bird rooms. Newly come from the docks, the birds hunched neckless in their tiny boxes, sullen with the change. A wave of nausea weakened me but I don’t think he saw it.
‘You take care of yourself, Jaf,’ he said, ‘and come straight to me, you know, if there’s anything you want. Promise?’
Suffocation was on the air. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
‘Sure,’ I said.
He shook me firmly by the hand, looking at me hard with pained, watery eyes.
‘You want to get yourself an aviary, Mr Jamrach,’ I said.
He smiled, looking sadly at the birds for a long moment. ‘It’s not ideal,’ he agreed, ‘but, there you are, there isn’t the space.’
He opened the door. Charlie had slid down onto his chest and nestled there like a newborn deer, casting up his round ridiculous eye.
Out in the street I stood for a while breathing the ripe air and considering. Had to go see Tim’s ma. I walked along slowly, dreading, thinking I’d just go home instead. Have to get it over with, though. Ishbel might be there. The thought of it made me hollow. Tell me, just what do you say? Look at it this way, Mrs Linver. At least I came back.
Come on, let’s get it over with.
Not yet.
I slipped into the seamen’s bethel. Nothing changed. Jephtha and his daughter still there. Old Job and his boils. What a homecoming! I went into a kind of dream in there. I had money in my pocket so I just about wiped them out of candles. Now! Here’s fun! Trying not to forget anyone. I decided to start with Ishbel’s brothers, remembering that day when she and I came in here – that day – where had we been? Was it the day she fell out with Tim after we’d been on the swingboats? Anyway, one each for those brothers, tall, upstanding, side by side, for ever faceless. Next, count: Joe Harper making the cage on deck, his sliding toolbox. One and two: Mr Rainey with his sneer. Three: the captain, of course, more like a big schoolboy than the captain of a whale ship. Four: ah now, Martin Hannah, pudding. Abel Roper. And are you? Are you that, Mr Roper? Ha ha ha! That’s five. Six. Each one a light coming into being, quivering, standing tall and straight in the quiet chapel. Gabriel. My friend. Yan holding my sick bucket. Billy Stock, outraged. Where am I? Let’s see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight? Nine: oh, Mr Comeragh, he was a nice man. Poor Mr Comeragh got bitten by the dragon. What a wild, ancient thing that was. Did he get back to his island? Is he walking with weird rounded steps along his sandy beach, flick-a-tongue, low swaying of the head? Nine: Wilson Pride, flat-footed, bloodshot eyes. Ten: Henry Cash, head like a seal, going under. Eleven: Felix Duggan, mouthy, nuisance. Twelve: Simon, of course, playing his fiddle. We never found out what became of the captain and Simon. And Sam, thirteen. Sam Proffit, whose voice was a silver thread. Dag. Dag Aarnasson, who hunted the dragon with me. Fourteen. Fifteen …
I went blank. There was, of course, we last four, me and Dan and Tim and Skip, which still left two more. It was horrible, not remembering. As if by losing them in my mind I was consigning them to outer darkness for all time.
John Copper! How could I forget?
I’ve missed someone. Or have I miscounted? Start again. One, two three, four …
In the end I got it. I wouldn’t have left there if anyone was missing. I looked back from the door. My twenty candles burned steadily.
It was Saturday. Mrs Linver lived in Fournier Street now, so I wandered in that direction, hands in pockets, collar up. I passed by Watney Street and walked past our old house and looked out for a sign of Mr Reuben or Mrs Regan or anyone else, but the door was closed and there was no one sitting on the step. Three times I bumped into people I knew and had to stop and talk, stand and get clapped once more on the shoulder, my face searched nervously, congratulated on my survival. I pushed on through the Saturday Highway of whores and drunken sailors, mulish laughter, shrieking hilarity, screeching fiddles beyond doors. The pot man, a
short dirty man smoking a short dirty pipe, leaned in the doorway of Spoony’s. He wasn’t there in my time. I thought about going in and having a drink, in fact getting filthy drunk and falling asleep on the floor till some woman came and hauled me off somewhere soft to sleep it off. But this cloud, hovering: go see Tim’s ma. Got to be done. Ishbel might be there. I hear she’s gone into service but still, she might be there. Her face like his. There’s no forgetting Tim. The taste of a raspberry puff. Push on, Jaf, push through. Go down to the docks and get on the first ship that’ll have you.
Till I ended up on Fournier Street, searching for her door. Sadly unnumbered some of these houses were. She had a black door at the side of a cooper’s yard, with three steps up to it and a poster in the downstairs window for tonight’s show at the Gunboat. Ishbel opened the door. Dressed in black, bright brown eyes, pale face, fair hair pinned back behind her ears. A glance and then I couldn’t meet her eyes any more and looked slightly to one side.
‘I wondered when you’d come,’ she said.
‘Hello, Ish.’
She stepped forward and embraced me formally, her silky cheek one moment against my new stubble. Dear God, let me not be a fool. She used to be taller than me. We’ve evened out. When she steps back I see that I am actually three inches or so above her and she’s wearing heeled boots. She’s changed. Is it the simple black making her more stately than before? What is she to me now? I have no idea.
‘Well, look at you,’ she said, ‘you’ve grown up.’
‘So’ve you.’
She led me along a dark hall and into a room at the side.
‘I hear you’re in service.’
‘That’s true.’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘Mr Jamrach found me a position in Clerkenwell.’
‘Do you like it?’
She shrugged, opening a door.
It was grander than the old place, high-ceilinged and bow-fronted, with a large fuchsia plant in a white pot in the bay, a fine black range covering one wall, and polished brasses about the fireplace. Mrs Linver sat in a rocking chair with her slippered feet up on the fender.
‘Look who’s come to see us,’ Ishbel said cheerfully.
Mrs Linver jumped to her feet and stared. A tortured ball of handkerchief fell to the floor. ‘How dare you come back without him!’ she cried.
‘Don’t be stupid, Mother,’ Ishbel said, ‘it’s not Jaffy’s fault.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Linver,’ I whispered. I couldn’t stand this. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
‘Sit down, Jaffy.’ Ishbel pushed me into a chair. ‘I’ll make some tea,’ and she was gone.
Her mother took a few frantic steps towards me with her hands clenched hard down by her sides. Raddled, she looked. Dark hollows in her face. She stopped, shaking, a foot or so from me, then fell to one knee in front of me, the better to look in my face. It was a terrible thing to look in her eyes. ‘I know it’s not your fault, Jaffy,’ she said urgently. ‘I know it really, but it’s just a very very hard thing.’
My eyes burned.
‘It’s a very hard thing,’ she repeated, staring.
I felt as if my head would burst, tried to speak, but found my throat blocked.
‘There, that’ll be ready soon,’ said Ishbel, coming in and drawing up a small table, pulling her mother to her feet, thrusting her back into her chair and handing her the dropped handkerchief, all, it seemed, in one continuous movement. Every inch of her, every movement was familiar yet profoundly different, the reality of her more dreamlike than her memory.
‘It’s been very hard for our Ishbel,’ Mrs Linver said, still looking at me. ‘She’s had to take her father’s place, you know, really. What with her brother gone. We’re so grateful to Mr Jamrach for finding her such a good position.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Ishbel drew up her own chair and perched there very stiff and straight like a lady, with her hands in her lap. A woman’s bosom had replaced the two small lemon-shaped breasts I remembered. Her hands were as bad as ever, and I watched fascinated as they picked at and played with each other. ‘Strangely enough,’ she said, ‘we’re not doing too bad. How’s your ma, Jaf?’
‘She’s well,’ I said. ‘Have to say though, I got a bit of a shock when I saw this sprog sitting there.’
‘Oh yes.’ She smiled. ‘We thought about that. Little David. Sweet, isn’t he? He reminds me of you.’
I chanced a look, but she was watching her mother.
‘So tell us then, Jaffy,’ Mrs Linver said, sitting forward, ‘tell us what you have to tell us.’
‘Mother, leave him,’ she said in a strained voice. ‘Let him have his tea at least.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘I don’t mind telling you anything, only it’s hard for me to talk about. You must understand.’
‘Of course,’ said Ishbel.
‘I just want to know,’ his mother said, ‘that he didn’t have too terrible a time, and I want to know if it was quickly over. You know. At the end. That’s all I want to know. And I want you to tell me the truth.’
‘He went before the worst,’ I said. ‘I’d be lying if I said there was no suffering; there was, for all, but he went before the worst.’
There was a long and painful silence. I couldn’t look at them.
‘They said it was his idea to draw lots,’ his mother said.
‘It was. But we all agreed.’
I raised my eyes. Both of them were staring at me and the blood sang in my ears.
‘He kept going, you know, Tim,’ I said. ‘I never saw him lose his spirits.’
His mother’s eyes grew huge.
‘He told me to tell you both he was all right. I know it sounds funny, but it’s what he said. Tell them I’m all right.’
Ishbel shrieked, ‘Oh! Idiot!’ and threw her hands up to her face.
‘Said he’s all right and you’re not to worry.’
She was laughing. We all did, for a second.
‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘Ain’t that just like him?’
So there we were, the three of us with tears streaming down our faces.
‘He was steady,’ I said. ‘He really was. Don’t think I could’ve been so steady. He was …’ My voice gave out.
Mrs Linver blew her nose.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Linver,’ I said, and there was nothing I could ever do to make it better. I was here and he was gone, and between us all for ever the shared horror of what had become of him, what I had done. It came back to me still, the pressure of my finger on the trigger.
Ishbel wiped her cheeks with the palms of both hands. ‘I’ll get the tea,’ she said, bobbing up and dashing out. I sat in agony, wanting to run, stiff like a bug in amber.
‘Really,’ I said, ‘he was very, very brave.’
Silly words.
Mrs Linver nodded, knitting her brows into jags and turning her face away to look into the fire. The coals shifted. The sounds of people passing in the street came as if from dreamland, echoing like sounds in a shell. For a moment I believed I might faint.
‘That’s a nice plant,’ I said desperately. ‘Does it flower in the summer?’
‘Oh yes, very beautiful,’ Mrs Linver said sadly, ‘lovely pink flowers.’
Ishbel came in with the tea tray, walking backwards as she pushed the door open. I jumped up and took the tray from her. Her face was flushed.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘just put it down there, Jaffy. Thank you.’
Did they expect more of me? All the things I could tell, the things I have tried so hard not to dwell upon. Could I soon go?
‘Mind you,’ Mrs Linver continued thoughtfully, ‘it’s getting leggy.’
‘What is?’ Ishbel sat down.
‘That plant.’
‘Oh yes, I must give it a trim.’ Ishbel smiled at me brightly as if this was just an ordinary visit. ‘Thanks for coming, Jaffy.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘I can’t imagine how terrible it was for you.’
‘At least he’s here,’ her mother said.
‘Well, thank God for that.’
Ishbel poured the tea. ‘Did I tell you I was engaged to be married?’ she said, not looking at me. ‘Me? Can you believe it?’ Of course.
‘Really?’
She handed me a cup.
‘He’s a lighterman,’ she said, ‘works on the Surrey Dock.’
‘Oh! Congratulations!’
‘Thank you.’ She gave her mother a cup and saucer. ‘He’s a good sort, is Frank,’ she said, sitting back down and stirring her tea. I felt like a stone. ‘So what about you, Jaffy? What will you do now?’
‘Me? I haven’t decided yet.’
‘Oh well, no rush.’
There was a long silence while we sipped our tea. I had to get out.
‘What’s it like where you are?’ I asked, and my voice came out harsh.
‘Oh, it’ll do.’ She set her cup down. ‘That’s too hot.’ She frowned.
‘Hard work?’ I asked.
‘I don’t mind hard work.’ She glanced sideways at me, half smiling. I looked away. ‘Trouble is, it gets very tedious.’
‘Things do.’
The fire hissed.
‘I’m not sure I can see myself keeping onshore,’ I said, surprising myself.
‘Are you mad?’ She laughed.
‘Possibly.’
‘I suppose you’ve every right to be.’ She picked up her tea again and blew on it. ‘Oh, it’s not so bad where I am, but I’ll go off my head if I stay too long.’
‘Don’t you dare leave there!’ her mother exploded. ‘How would that look? After Mr Jamrach spoke for you!’
‘Oh, Mr Jamrach knows me,’ Ishbel said airily and turned to me. ‘Do you know, I had a regular slot at the Empire?’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
For a moment our eyes met. There was puzzlement in hers. As for me, I don’t know what she saw.
‘We’ve been ever so well taken care of,’ Mrs Linver told me, nodding gratefully, nursing her cup under her chin.
Fledge’s money.
‘Yes, we have.’ Ishbel smiled prettily. ‘Isn’t it funny?’ Then her face broke up, just like it used to when she tripped up and scraped her knees years ago. She put her cup down so clumsily hard that it cracked the saucer. ‘Oh shite!’ she hissed.
