Sweet Thames

by Matthew Kneale

  It was a distressing account. The Times, it seemed, had taken it upon itself to launch one of its famous thundering assaults upon authorities it deemed inept; in this case an attack – and, as I saw it, a most unfair one – upon Edwin Sleak-Cunningham and his Committee for Sewers. Thus its editorials had thundered at him for failing in any way to modernize the drainage system of London – which he had hardly had time to do – accusing him of wasting weeks merely frightening landlords. It had thundered that his flushing policy had done nothing to overcome the Cholera, merely causing a vicious stench. And, lastly and most effectively, it had thundered against Sleak-Cunningham himself, accusing him of being secretive and lusting for power; a manipulator of committees.

  Hove shook his head darkly. ‘We were made scapegoat. Scapegoat for the whole Cholera. All so that The Times might sell more copies of its rag.’

  I was hardly less shocked than he. Sleak-Cunningham gone. For good, too, by the sound of it. The Committee in confusion, perhaps tottering also. I struggled to take in the changed view of things, as a man who has sleep-walked and woken in some strange place. It was nothing less than a catastrophe. After all the hard work – the years of work – of the Association for the Promotion of Health in Cities; the meetings, the lobbying of members of Parliament. The great hopes we had had. And also… One question rang out in my thoughts above the din of all others.

  ‘What of the drainage scheme competition?’

  Hove showed some annoyance. ‘What of it? What does such a thing matter now?’

  His words enhanced my alarm. ‘It won’t take place?’

  ‘What purpose would it serve?’

  It may perhaps seem strange, but far more important to me even than the Committee, or Hove, or Sleak-Cunningham’s career, was the thought of my plan; so significant, not only for myself, but – as I saw it – for the whole metropolis. I would not have it abandoned on some shelf to rot, or to be stolen by talentless rivals. ‘Then I must have my proposal returned to me.’

  Hove waved his hand dismissively. ‘This is no time for such trivia.’

  My voice, if quietened, must have shown the determination I felt. Perhaps it even conveyed some hint of threat. ‘I will have my plan back. And this moment, too.’

  Hove watched me with wariness. ‘For goodness sake…’ He puckered disdainfully, but with less sureness. ‘If you’re going to make such a ridiculous fuss—’

  I was.

  Up the grand stairway I followed, and into parts of the building I had never before seen. A mighty grand sight it was too; little less than a palace. We passed clerks at their desks, in that state of nervous talkativeness typical of unfortunates unable to play any part in a crisis that surrounds them. On through a splendid office – Sleak-Cunningham’s, I assumed – with a giant double window looking down upon the street outside, cabs and citizenry dwarfed from such a height. Then finally into a dusty closet of a room, walls covered to the ceiling with shelves of documents.

  Hove was evidently familiar with these, as he hardly hesitated before reaching up and plucking one among the many hundred files. Into my hands he placed the familiar binding of my original copy of the drainage plan.

  ‘Satisfied?’ Having complied with my demand, he became all at once huffily angry, thoroughly offended. ‘I hope you are. There must be a thousand matters more pressing than this.’ He tapped the binding I held. ‘As if your notions were of any value.’

  It was the first time anybody had criticized my drainage plan in such a way. Though I had no wish to step into an argument, I was not prepared to quietly stand back and let the man slur my scheme. ‘And how would you know?’

  ‘How d’you think?’ He spoke with heat; it seemed I had tapped a well of anger filled by the day’s bitter events. ‘I was given the task of going through all the entries to ensure they were complete. Yours I regarded as the least satisfactory.’ He directed a sneering look to the document. ‘The excrement of all London to be sold at profit? It’s nothing less than ludicrous. Demand is barely enough to take the little that the nightsoil carters collect from the streets.’

  As if a convinced governmentalist such as Hove would say anything else. Still his claim annoyed me. ‘You know nothing of profit,’ I told him. ‘Your mind is closed to such things. You want only to squeeze the ratepayers, regardless of the hardship you may cause them.’

  What a day. Stepping into the corridor outside, the lightness of head I had earlier observed came upon me again, and I leant for a moment against the wall. With the journalists gone the building was deathly quiet, as if shocked into silence. Passing the clerks, subdued at their desks, it was only as I approached the top of the stairway that I heard sounds of life. From below echoed up footsteps – several sets of them – although they were so light of tread, and so slow and cautious, that they might have been the servants of the establishment, attempting escape.

  A dozen or so they proved to be; a strange-looking collection, glancing about the hall as if lost, or nervous that trapdoors might be concealed beneath the boot-marked marble floor, ready to swallow them up. I observed how their garments, though so cheap they were only one better than rags, had been invested with a desperate attempt at neatness; boots bursting with holes but polished black, hats and coats frayed but quite clean. They might have passed for members of an assemblage of model reformed beggars. Except for their expressions: these were anxious, impatient. Even angry.

  Puzzling sight though they were, I would probably have stepped by them without further ado had not one – a wizened, stringy fellow – called out, ‘Sir, d’you know your way about this place?’ He explained they were a deputation from – of all places – Jacob’s Island. ‘We’ve none of us been here before, see. And it’s most urgent. We’re looking for a Mr Sleak-Cunningham.’

  What dealings could such people have had with that unlucky man? Were they witnesses to some drainage crime? But only one of them would have been called, surely. And why did they seem so hurried?

  Whatever their purpose, their question was now a sad one. ‘You’ll not find him here,’ I answered. ‘He resigned from the Committee just this morning.’

  My words had no small effect upon the group, passing over them like a frozen breeze, lengthening the fellows’ faces, causing them to frown and glance at one another in shared emotion. Their leader was the first to recover himself. ‘Well who’s taken his place?’

  ‘Nobody. The man only went this morning. The Committee’s still in some confusion.’

  My answer caused the fellow to regard me with suspicion, as if I were deliberately contriving to keep him in the dark. ‘We’ve no time to waste standing in empty corridors. We must see somebody without delay. People are being poisoned.’

  So that was it. Cholera hysteria. Probably half of London was rife with it by now. And The Times had pointed the finger of blame at Sleak-Cunningham’s Committee.

  Having started, the fellow could not stop himself. ‘People down our end’s got nothin’ to drink except Thames. Or worse. An’ now, with all the flushing of the sewers by this lot here, the river’s bin filled up to the brim with poisin. Pure Cholera poisin. Pouring it into the water like they want us to die.’

  Others added their voices. ‘Half Jacob’s Island’s sick or dead.’

  ‘They’ll be none left if they don’t put an end to it.’

  Despite their threatening I could not feel sorry for the poor souls. Had they been calmer I would certainly have explained how their alarms were quite mistaken, and their enemy was not in water but in the air. As it was, however, I deemed it wise only to extricate myself. ‘I’m most sorry to hear of this. There are still one or two fellows upstairs who may know more then I.’

  Deflected rather than soothed, they grunted acknowledgement and began trooping away up the staircase. Hove would have the pleasure of answering their questions.

  Raspberries and apple, with sugar too; the former fruit was dominant of colour, giving the contents of the glass a dull resemblance to blood.
I saw the drink long before it had reached my table; indeed, when it was barely emerged through the doors of the establishment’s kitchen. The sight of it evoked in me a child-like longing for its taste and powers of restoration; a simple longing, unconscious but intense.

  I had picked the first of the Haymarket cafes I reached. A smaller one than its neighbours, it seemed to have something of a horse-racing tradition, containing several sharp types, lounging behind their pink racing papers, while the walls, I observed, were decorated with portraits of the animals, forelegs daintily raised. The waiter had regarded me doubtfully, his glance lingering upon my sagging frock-coat, then scanning the other tables; still scarce of customers at so early an hour.

  ‘All right. But first let’s see your money.’

  Raspberries and apple. The thick sharpness of the drink caused, with each gulp, wonderful relief, and a faint dizziness. I breathed deeply, as one just emerged from a long spell beneath water. The contents of the glass I had done with so fast that the waiter was still within easy calling distance.

  ‘Another. Just the same.’

  The second I drank more slowly, observing the taste of the fruit themselves; apple and raspberries made a fine combination; the right balance of sharpness and something cooler. The sugar soon caused in me a raising of spirits. Sleak-Cunningham gone; it was a disappointment, of course – I could not help but feel resentment towards the man, though illogical, for tumbling from grace thus – but it should not be the end of all my hopes. I must not allow it to be so.

  Though the governmentalists might be broken asunder there was still, was there not, the world of private finance. After all was not the beauty of the scheme that it would be highly profitable? What need had I of the Committee for Sewers? I would consult Harold Sweet – the man would hardly be mourning Sleak-Cunningham’s fall – that I might learn whom to approach. Someone in that financial whirl of the city, perhaps. He would know. Indeed, he himself might be interested.

  I was still in such a state of keen pondering – though my fifth raspberry and apple drink was causing me to feel a touch sick – when I discovered myself to be in shadow; that of a fellow stood close over my table. At first I assumed it to be the waiter, come for payment. Nor was I far wrong, in either detail; only in his identity was I mistaken. Glancing up, I found before me the waiter from the Cafe Castelnau, just a few doors down. He looked much annoyed.

  ‘Why in hell d’you have to bring yourself here?’

  I misunderstood his words. ‘I’ll take my custom wherever I choose.’

  ‘No…’ He leant forward on to the table, impatient. ‘You have the money?’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘The two sovereigns.’

  My heart grew swift as I grasped his meaning. ‘You’ve seen them?’

  ‘Him. Of course I have. Spotted him almost an hour ago. I’ve been half killing myself hoping you’d turn up.’ He gave a weary gasp. ‘Then, when I see you out the window, marching down the very street, you have to come in here. Took every dodge I know to get out without the boss catching me.’

  At last. After all this time of waiting… ‘He’s not gone?’

  ‘Not so far as I know.’

  I dropped coins on to the table. ‘He’s in the Castelnau?’

  ‘No, but near enough.’

  I hurried out with the fellow, into the din of the street, glancing at the elegant types drifting past. After all these months… ‘Where?’

  The waiter frowned knowingly. ‘Dosh first.’

  ‘It’s not easy to get at.’ To extract the coins from the frockcoat hem, impatient as I was, I had to resort to ripping at the cloth with my teeth, much to the interest and amusement of the nearby tramps. Until they fell free into my hand, both together.

  ‘Over there,’ he murmured, calmer now that his profit was seen. ‘In the sea-serpent show he went. I’d best show you.’

  I hurried to pay our sixpences, stepping beneath the hoarding that proclaimed, in large letters:

  LIVING SEA SERPENT.

  FIFTEEN FEET IN LENGTH.

  SHOWN HOURLY.

  Though it was poorly lit within, there was light enough just to discern, in faint detail, the backs of the heads of the audience. We kept to the rear of the place, paying little heed to the goings-on upon the stage – a fellow with too many teeth, stood before a block-shaped object covered with a blanket, boasting of the ferocity of the creature hidden – but studied the rows before us. The waiter murmured a faint grunt of recognition.

  ‘Five towards the right. D’you see? The two next to the woman in the hat with birds. They came in together. He’s the shorter one. On the left.’

  I studied the slim neck, the fashionably cut hair. A strange moment. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Certain.’

  I handed him the sovereigns but he lingered. ‘There’s another looking for her, you know. Pale bloke. Almost like an albino.’

  Again. He seemed my most determined adversary. ‘D’you know who he is?’

  The waiter shook his head. ‘Couldn’t say.’ Already he seemed less sure as to whether his informing me had been wise; perhaps he had been taking the fellow’s money. ‘Just thought I’d tell you.’ With a kind of smile he was gone.

  The many-toothed chatterer – after warning the audience of the perilous creature they were facing, and recounting whom it had lately eaten – whipped away the blanket. The glass-sided tank beneath contained what seemed only a large eel, looking none too healthy and disappointingly short of fifteen foot; the sight of him caused some booing from the audience, then counter-shouts from those more impressed. Though the introducer continued to tell of its exploits, I observed my quarry and his companion get up from their seats to leave.

  Outside, pretending to read a theatre poster, I kept watch as they stopped, that they might discuss where they should go next.

  ‘... as dull and dead as Henry’s dinners…’

  ‘... a Mr Danby lecture…’

  From such fragments of their conversation – uttered in yawnlike, bantering voices – I gathered they were university undergraduates, down from Oxford or Cambridge for the summer vacation, and at something of a loss as to what to do with themselves on this warm afternoon. There seemed to be no great closeness between them – indeed they addressed one another almost with antipathy – so I suspected they had joined company not out of enthusiasm, but from a mutual failure to have made any better arrangement for the day.

  My quarry seemed keen to visit some cafe – the Castelnau, I wondered, or had he found himself some new haunt – that they might ‘… watch the gals go by and such’.

  His companion – a thinner and altogether more nervous-seeming soul – favoured, instead, a gallery. ‘… that new one, Herbert, off Piccadilly, that has Roxborough’s angel paintings.’

  Herbert – I now knew his name – was unmoved. ‘I’d rather see the real thing.’

  He was quite a man of fashion, dressed up in an outfit of some elegance; his waistcoat was of colour and floweriness fit to line a baby’s crib. A precious sort, and, by the look of him, wealthier even than I had anticipated; Isobella seemed to be moving in high social circles indeed. Had she known such people long previously, without my ever suspecting? Flitting away, perhaps, when I was busy at work, to rendezvous with some magnate’s son?

  This one was so young. A mere puppy. Yet he had, in all likelihood, tasted what I, her lawful husband, had been laboriously denied. His perfumed fingers touching what I had never known.

  Though the Sea Serpent had hardly been a success, their wishes proved so contradictory that in the end they found agreement only on a further novelty show. Indeed, as the afternoon dwindled they embarked on quite a tour of such places.

  My main concern as I pursued them was, naturally, that I should not be observed; a matter by no means easily achieved as the two scurried half across the West End of London and back, from one den of entertainment to another. That I was not seen was probably due less to my artfulness t
han their lack of suspicion. Neither was expecting to be watched.

  Thus I found myself following them into, variously, ‘Banvard’s Grand Moving Cyclorama view of the Mississippi River’ (described on the hoarding outside as ‘The Longest Painting in the World at no less than Three Miles’), then ‘Admiral Van Tromp the Dutch Dwarf’ (‘Surpassing any Dwarf yet in Stature, Activity and Manner’), Madame Tussaud’s exhibition of wax-work likenesses of the famous, and, finally, Cantello’s famous Egg-Hatching Machine in Leicester Square (‘Chickens seen bursting from their Shells in the presence of visitors, including Royalty’).

  The Egg-Hatching Machine proved something of a watershed; loitering outside, on the fringes of a crowd drawn by a fellow selling hair restorer, I heard each word of the debate. While his companion appeared to have been delighted by the sight of the creatures emerging from their shells, Herbert was unimpressed.

  ‘What a bore. A lot of chicklings pecking through their nasty shells.’ He blew his nose into his handkerchief with some disdain. ‘I say it’s time we try something in an altogether spicier line.’

  The other disagreed. ‘I liked the chicks. Anyway, we’ve still to see Wizard Jacobs on Oxford Street.’

  ‘To hell with the damn wizard.’ Herbert gave the other a look. ‘Jeremy, don’t you think it’s time you jacked playing nursery?’

  Jeremy found this last remark offensive, and, after some further wrangling, in which neither would give way, marched himself off in a huff. Herbert was left alone. He stood for a while in front of Cantello’s place, kicking absently at a piece of loose paving. Then abruptly turned and strode away towards one of the small alleys that lead to Trafalgar Square.

  What better chance could I expect? The way was a quiet one, and long enough that I might catch him up without need of running, and so risk of causing him to bolt.