Sweet Thames

by Matthew Kneale

  ‘Any way you like, mister.’

  ‘Just five shillings.’

  I was surprised to see so many at such an early hour; usually they gathered only as the light faded, taking their places in doorways as the abusive children seeped away. Perhaps they hoped that, this being a holiday, they might win extra trade.

  ‘Katie’ll give you a good one, like you’ve never had.’ This last was quite pretty in a blank, drink-dazed way. Seeing me glance at her, she stepped out. ‘Just six bob to you. Yer won’t never regret it. Time of your life, you’ll have.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Come and find out, why don’t you, eh?’ She took my hand and guided it nearer. The material of her dress was coarse, oily to touch, but the breast within was warm and soft.

  It was hardly the moment. Unless, perhaps… ‘You have some place near here?’

  ‘’Course. Katie ’as ’er own room, she does. Just six bob. Five and six if you’ll get us a brandy first.’

  I looked at her hard. ‘You’ll be wasting your time if you try any cheating.’ In the past I had suffered several attempts to rifle my pockets, while once, in a vile den in Borough that I should never have visited, a ruffian burst in and tried to steal my trousers. ‘I am not one to be taken in.’

  ‘Who said anything ’bout that? You’s safe enough with Katie.’

  The poor creature was desperate for drink and so, warning her of my hurry, I took her to a nearby gin palace; a loud, gaudy place, all mirrors on the walls and gaslight thrown here and back in quivering reflection. She drank the spirit in quick swigs, and we moved on to her lodging room. Naked of her cheap clothes she was much improved, her body a little skinny perhaps, and hair lank and in need of a wash, but her face pleasing. I lay down beside her on the bed, touched her between the thighs and felt a greeting warm moistness. The brandy seemed to have had a beneficial effect and she displayed a liveliness rare in her profession.

  ‘Just you lie back,’ she urged. ‘Katie’ll give this gent sich a time as ’e’s never ’ad.’

  But in my enthusiasm I toppled her on to her back, eliciting a shriek of laughter.

  You must understand that the drainage of the metropolis was not a mere question of work, of professional advancement. It was as a mission to me. A passion.

  I had long been concerned with the question of sanitary reform. The middle and later ’forties were years when all the nation was growing outraged at the state of its cities, and great public organizations were springing into being; including the Society for the Cleansing of the Poor and, larger still, the Association for the Promotion of Health in Cities. In the company of so many other angry Londoners I joined this last, attending its public assemblies – as busy as Ladbroke Grove race meetings – signing petitions, witnessing discussions and cheering the speeches of its leaders, instilled with the enthusiasm all about me.

  It was not long before the Association’s pressure bore fruit. A reluctant Parliament was goaded into action, and a new authority created: the Metropolitan Committee for Sewers. Its ranks abounded with fine names – even two lords – and men well versed in the great problems to be tackled, including, as leader, none other than Edwin Sleak-Cunningham, hero of the sanitary movement. A new public body to fill us all with hope. London, greatest city of the planet, vaster than Paris, even than far-away Pekin, to be wondrously free of effluent.

  It was after the Committee had been established – about the time of my own marriage – that my views began their alteration. Until then I had, like most other members of the Association, been little more than a concerned spectator, shouting for the cause he favours. Then, gradually – and for reasons I was not certain of myself – I found the issue had become something altogether closer to me; an open wound.

  Thus, when I walked through London streets I found myself fiercely aware of the vile smells rising up from gulley holes, of evil deposits piled up in the gutters. Not that these were new phenomena, far from it. Rather it was that I had grown more sensitive to such horrors, until they were a constant affront. I found myself glancing up to the sky with concern, watching for the miasma; the cloud of effluvia gases hanging above the buildings of London, disgorging sickness. I began to discern it quite clearly, and see its shifting evil.

  The new Committee produced its first public announcement: it called for rival schemes for the drainage of the metropolis to be drawn up, by an engineer or other member of the public interested. Projects would have to be submitted within five months, after which they would be judged by the Committee members, that one could be chosen and made into reality.

  How could I not rise to meet such a challenge? Setting my engineer’s training to work, I pondered and planned, then finally devised the notion of Effluent Transformational Depositories; a system quite original and, I confidently believed, utterly answering the needs of the matter. Indeed, I saw it as little less than a double salvation for the metropolis. Not only would the streets be cleansed – the wound healed – but the sale of the effluent to farmers would bring in a substantial income, reducing the burden upon ratepayers, and so adding to the wealth of the citizenry.

  Then followed disappointment. My father-in-law and also employer, Augustus Moynihan, refused to take up my scheme for his engineering company, claiming drainage was too much of a departure from his earlier projects, which were most of them railways. Other companies then also proved reluctant, no doubt influenced by the thought that Moynihan – my own relative – had chosen to reject the idea. A great setback. Still I remained undaunted. I had faith in the scheme and determined, if necessary, to work quite alone. I would carry out my own researches in what little free time I could secure for myself, hiring servants such as Hayle from my father-in-law’s company, while, for my livelihood, I would continue also to work there. A hard regime, perhaps, but one well justified.

  The honourable profession of engineer. That was my vocation, my training, and still it is. If my writing seems sometimes simple I make no apologies. Never was I taught the art of words in the way others show such clever skill; to devise sentences that meander back and forth in interwoven clauses until, without a halt, they have occupied a page and a half and, along the road, twisted meanings beyond recognition.

  Nor would I wish it so. Why embellish events when they require no such doctoring? I seek only to set them down truthfully, to call them into life, that they may exhibit their own natural strangeness. I will not cosify that hot summer; if my own character and actions are not always pleasing, so be it. Only by setting down the harshest of details may I hope to comprehend them better. And perhaps exorcize them from my soul.

  And what is my story? Most of all it is of the search for my wife. And where I eventually found her.

  My first sight upon waking was Katie lying on the bed, watching me with dim curiosity. She was aligned exactly towards me, so that, as I raised my head, her buttocks seemed almost to emerge from the lank curls of her hair, while her feet – kicking the air with vague restlessness – stretched up behind them in the shape of a Vee, toes probing the air.

  ‘How long have I been asleep?’ I did not wait for an answer, but reached for my watch: It was past one o’clock. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

  ‘Seemed a shame when you looked so peaceful.’ She rolled upon her side, as a cat exposing its belly, amused by my panic. ‘An’ there was nobody waitin’ his turn outside.’

  It was hardly her fault. I tugged at my trousers, angry at my own weakness. To have fallen asleep at such a time.

  She rested her hand on her chin. ‘What’s yer hurry? Why don’t you stay a bit.’ Eyes watching me, she slipped her hand behind her back until her fingers reemerged through the crack between her thighs, where they waved in a kind of greeting. ‘Might be nice.’

  ‘No, I must go.’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, come visit Katie again, won’t yer? It’s nice to see a gent for a change. Don’t get many gents round here, yer don’t.’

  I dropped the coins on the bed.r />
  ‘What’s yer name, anyway?’

  My patience was leaving me. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Only asked, didn’t I.’ She drew her knees up to her chin, encircling them with her arms, as if to reclaim her parts. ‘I told you mine happy enough.’

  I picked up my hat. ‘Henry Aldwych.’

  She seemed pleased with the false name, unlikely sounding though it was, and released her legs, stretching them out before her. ‘’Enry,’ she repeated to herself. ‘Come again soon then, will yer, ’Enry?’ She let out a laugh at her own remark which pealed behind me as I left. ‘Come again.’

  I hurried down the stairs, pushing loose flaps of shirt into the band of my trousers as I went. If I could find a cab on the Charing Cross Road I might not be so late. And I would be able to tidy myself up a touch on the way. If I could find one…

  ‘Want a good time, mister?’

  ‘Just six bob to yer.’

  Emptied of passion as I was, the women’s harsh, grimly routine voices awoke in me a shame. To have allowed myself to be led by base urges, no better than an animal. And in such a place; a threatening slum. The troubles I had brought upon my own head seemed only too just. I should even consider myself lucky not to have brought some greater catastrophe upon myself; robbery and permanent injury, perhaps, with the further shame of having to be rescued from such a den, and explain. Not for the first time I determined never again to fall to such lowness.

  A smell of effluent hung in the air, rising up from some badly built drain, seemingly stronger since my unintended arrival in the district. I sensed the odours as in some way feeding the criminality above, acting as a fertilizer of evil, luring me to misadventure. I held my handkerchief to my nose.

  ‘Got a cold, ’ave yer love? I’ll warm yer up.’

  It was then, of all moments, that I remembered my dream.

  The man had been greyly anonymous, a mere enemy form. My wife, by contrast, had been clearly detailed, clothed – puzzlingly – in her finest Sunday dress. Her face I could not see as it was buried against his chest; she entwined him as a creeper about a tree, absorbing the very flesh.

  The touch of the knife in my fingers.

  ‘Only six bob to you.’ The woman had misread my hesitation as interest and stepped forward towards me. ‘Time of yer life, I’ll give yer.’ When I walked on she clutched at my coat-tails until I shooed her away.

  Of course I knew the inspiration for the nightmare clear enough. The letter I had been sent.

  *

  Our rented home was in Lark Road, a street close by the new district of Pimlico, that giant construction yard of fine tall buildings still in their making. Lark Road, by contrast, was neither modern in design nor grand in proportion, but a survival from the age of Queen Anne, the houses it contained most dull and old-fashioned – sad to say we could afford no better – with rooms that were modest to the point of pokiness.

  Our home was, at least, wonderfully clean. My wife kept it so, with fireplaces swept, tables polished, and windows freshly wiped; free of all but the most lately arrived film of soot. It was her fancy to do so. In fact more; it was her passion. She had evidently been working particularly hard in preparation for the luncheon party, and as I walked into the parlour the room seemed to gleam.

  ‘Joshua, at last. We were beginning to wonder if you’d fallen down one of those awful drains.’ Though she uttered the words lightly enough, her eyes showed her relief, as well as something like anger at the distress I had caused her. She hated my being late, as it would never fail to make her fear some accident had befallen me.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I quite lost track of time. You shouldn’t have waited.’

  The two guests, Gideon and Felicia Lewis – brother and sister – watched me with vague curiosity.

  ‘We didn’t wait.’ Though she smiled, my wife spoke with sharpness, still angry. ‘The dinner’s not yet ready.’

  Isobella Jeavons, turning with a smile to attend to her guests, a sight to behold before me, elegant hostess of a London luncheon party – formal occasions seemed to call forth all her grace and composure – filling me with pride, and a sense of my own clumsiness. Also something like trepidation. It was a rarity to see her so animated, and always I wondered how long it would last, before dissolving into something more brittle.

  That day, of course, I had also other concerns. I hung back from kissing her for fear that, were I to venture so near, she might detect through the fabric of my clothes the odours of my recent lust.

  The mere thought of it...

  ‘I hope you’ll excuse me if I change from my work clothes.’

  Passing through the hallway I caught a glimpse through the kitchen doorway of the bulky form of Miss Symes, our servant, wrestling with a joint of lamb. Grasping it with one padded hand, she was endeavouring to poke the thing with a long knife, testily, as if to be fully sure it was dead. The meat was pale, and looked still only half-cooked. A relief as it reduced my embarrassment at being late. The bathroom afforded me further encouragement; the mirror revealed my efforts to tidy myself in the cab had been more successful than I had feared. Who knew, perhaps I might, after all, survive the day without suffering disaster.

  What my wife saw in the Lewises I could not comprehend. They were a plain pair. Gideon seemed to be lacking in weightiness, troublingly so, his head forever bobbing about, as if he might at any moment quite float adrift from the ground, in the manner of some escaped hot-air balloon. Felicia was more firmly anchored; fiercely correct – so covered up with clothes that scarcely a speck of hand or throat showed – with something of the manner of a trap, ready to spring shut upon the unwary. And yet my wife attended Felicia’s bible gatherings with regularity, and invited her and Gideon to our home, in determined preference to other, far less odious acquaintances. When I once asked about the matter, she grew annoyed.

  ‘Joshua, I’m most fond of the Lewises. You mustn’t criticize them so. It’s not fair of you.’

  And yet… I watched as, the meal having been so delayed, she embarked on passing round a bowl of burnt almonds. First to Felicia, then – more surprisingly – to myself. Finally she took one with her own delicate fingers, and placed the remainder on the side table. Gideon, abandoned, made a poor attempt to smile.

  ‘Those do look delicious.’

  Isobella’s cry of dismay was almost too rich. ‘Oh Mr Lewis, how could I?’ Had I not known of her devotion to them both, I might have imagined she had deliberately contrived to make the fellow look foolish.

  She sat back in her chair, feet gathered up from the ground, pressing tight against one another, in a way that made her, all at once, look youthful, even childlike. Why not indeed, when she had barely reached her nineteenth birthday; fully seven years younger than myself. At times she could possess an innocence that quite stole my breath from me; that made me feel as much a parent to her as a husband.

  What kind of person could send such a letter, filled with poison towards a soul of such simple purity? The writing had been quite unfamiliar, formed in a style resembling printed script, no doubt to better disguise the hand.

  SOME HUSBANDS SHOULD KEEP A

  CLOSE WATCH ON THEIR WIVES

  Someone from work, jealous of my having married the daughter of Augustus Moynihan, owner of the company? It was the most likely possibility, and yet no candidate sprang to mind; among the faces were none I could imagine desiring to carry out an act of such malice.

  Several times I had intended discussing the matter with Isobella, but then had found myself unable. How could I? It would be like teaching brothel slang to a saint.

  Brothel slang to a saint. After this interlude of years, I wonder if there was not, perhaps, also a second reason. One protective not of her but myself; a motive barely glimpsed. Fear of what I might discover.

  ‘It’s certainly a most colourful room.’ Felicia uttered the words in a tone of disapproval, correcting her brother’s earlier enthusiasm. The conversation had hobbled and stumbled
as a one-legged man on stony ground, until plucked up by Gideon – a touch desperately – and deposited on the subject of ‘things on the mantelpiece’, which he endeavoured to praise. His sister’s puritanical nature evidently saw little that was worthy of congratulation.

  ‘A most bright arrangement,’ she continued, in the manner of one who has stumbled upon a minor colliery disaster.

  Gideon glanced awkwardly at the carpet.

  ‘We like it so,’ I answered with firmness, looking Felicia straight in the eye with a smile. How dare she. I was most proud of our parlour – our display to the world – though we rarely ventured thither except when we had guests. I glanced about at the furnishings, regarding them with a sense of rediscovery.

  It was a finely modern sight. The dark green wallpaper and fiercely scarlet French stool were sufficiently strong of colour as to be little affected by accretions of soot from the air and fireplace, while our most valued possessions – the majority wedding gifts, as we had never been in the position to go purchasing pretty things – were cunningly protected against the ravages of dust. Thus the tiny stuffed tropical birds of all colours of the rainbow – nestling on branches with astonishing realism, as if each had set down from flight just that instant for a short rest – were encased in a smooth dome of glass. Likewise encapsulated in two smaller and matching domes were our busts of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort Albert, executed with suitable dignity of expression, and lodged proudly on the piano.

  Probably Felicia was offended that the legs of the chairs and tables were not modestly concealed behind hangings. Certainly she appeared annoyed by something; from the first she had been in a mood of unusual sourness – even by her own severe standards – darting withering glances at her brother, and also at Isobella. How could my wife endure such people?

  My ruminations were interrupted by the arrival of Miss Symes, without knocking, as was her way. ‘About that ham, missus, that you thought of havin’ on the side. There’s only the two slices left, see.’