Sweet Thames

by Matthew Kneale

  Strike the fellow down, there and then? It was tempting. Or quietly listen to what he had to say. After some consideration, curiosity won. ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘Not for montss.’ He took a large, unhappy sip from the bottle, then, abruptly – the character of his drunkenness seemed very much one of instant changes of mood – grew reflective. ‘She’s so lovely, Izobella, wreally she is.’ At once moved by a new idea, he took my arm that he might lead me across the room. ‘Here, I wann show you somesing, somesing spechou. That no-one’s seen.’ Rummaging – in a lurching fashion through some canvases leaning against the wall, he plucked out a smaller one among them. ‘I had t’keep it hid from F’lisha. If she’d found this…’ He shook his head grimly at the thought. ‘The crying out of an artis’ soul, tha’s what it iss,’ he explained. ‘My own artis’ soul.’

  The painting, in common with his other works, had biblical roots, depicting the Virgin Mary holding the baby Christ. Indeed, I recalled having seen another attempt at this same subject, in which the young saviour had resembled a punctured football. This effort was more skilful, though not greatly so. Most striking to my eye, however, was the fact that the Madonna was a portrait of Isobella. The rendering was a poor one – her face displayed a look of blank stupidity that could hardly have been less like her – but she was recognizable, nevertheless. Nor was this all; as my glance passed across the rest of the picture, and reached the infant Jesus, I realized – with some surprise – that he was none other than a youthful Gideon, grinning cheerfully.

  ‘I wanned to be close to her,’ he explained, morose. ‘If I couln’t in wreal life, then I would in a pitcher.’ He sighed, fearfully. ‘That’s what bein’ an’ artis’s all about. Taking the horrid thingss ’round you an’ making them into somethin’ you like. See?’

  I had had no idea the man was such a philosopher.

  Replacing the canvas, he grew changed again, now frowning. ‘But she’s so cruel, Isobella.’ This mood done with, he next glanced at me – for the first time – with something like awareness. ‘You’s not angry with me, are you Josher?’

  I was too drawn to have him stop now. ‘Tell me what happened between you both?’

  He needed little enough encouragement; indeed – pausing only occasionally to drink from the bottle of whisky – he embarked on quite a history of the matter. With some revulsion I listened as he recounted – wonderfully untroubled by the thought that he was telling this to the very man his efforts had been attempting to cuckold – how he had observed and admired my wife during her visits to the church, and, later, to Felicia’s bible study meetings. It was some time before he had been able to catch her alone – the occasion seemed to have been a morning when she was early for one of the bible meetings – and tell her of his feelings. In response, she had, I had been well pleased to hear, coldly rebuked him. Yet she continued to visit their house, and even sought him out, that she might rebuke him further. Perhaps not unreasonably, Gideon had considered this a kind of disguised encouragement.

  ‘Still I couldn’t even get so much as a lil’ kissie out’er her.’ He regarded me sorrowfully, as if I, her husband, would understand. Nor, for once, was he so wrong. ‘Until that night she came throwin’ pebbers at my window.’

  ‘Pebbers?’

  ‘Yes. Lil’ stone pebbers. To wake me up. It was like a miracu.’

  A thought occurred to me. ‘When was this?’

  He had no difficulty answering; the event seemed so firmly established in his memory that – despite his drunkenness – the date rang out with clarity. ‘Monday night, seven’y six days ago.’

  The night of the dinner, it had to be. The night she had disappeared.

  ‘I let her in, took her up to my room, happy as could be,’ he went on. ‘But when I just tried to give her a lil’ kissie she was horrid. Wreally horrid. Tol’ me I was disgustin’ and she would’n have me touch her.’ He stared morosely at the table. ‘She tol’ me I had to sleep on the floor.’ The thought brought to his features a wounded look. ‘Why’d she do that? Why’d she throw pebbers at my window and then do that?’

  Why indeed. It was astonishing. Splendid. For the first time in so many months I felt something like a glow of satisfaction. I had not been the only one.

  In the event it seemed the matter of the beds had been little more than academic, as shortly after Felicia had arrived upon the scene, having overheard their chatter. She having – as Isobella had herself recounted – long been suspicious of some liaison between the two, and opposing any such thing with determination little short of obsession, a verbal battle had broken out, with all manner of stinging insults flung. Indeed, it seemed the two women had sometimes broken off from attacks upon each other, and joined in browbeating Gideon himself; recollection of the event appeared painful to the fellow, and the whisky had diminished appreciably by the time he reached its conclusion.

  He shook his head gloomily. ‘Then she left me. Can you ’magine? Walked out int’se morning – it’us light by then – and was gone. I went after’rer, even though F’lisher was screaming at me to come back. An’ you know what she said? Your wife. She said “Gijin, I despise you. Gijin, you’re nothing better than a flea.” A flea! T’say I, Gijin Lewis, was a flea. And aafer all she did before, too.’

  My head was singing with one thought. ‘But where did she go to?’

  He showed some faint signs of emerging from his selfpity. ‘I asked her that. Asked her if she ’us going back to her house, and if she’ud see me again.’ He frowned, ‘She was strange then – quiet, an’ sort of angry at herself…’

  To my surprise I found myself recalling the words of the dog seller. ‘… like she wanted someone to clout her one...’ ‘And?’

  ‘She said she’d never see me again. She said she wasn’t going back, she’d never go back, because all of that had been spoiled. Spoiled long ago.’

  ‘What did she mean?’

  Gideon’s energy was running low; he leaned unsteadily against the wall. ‘I dunno. I jes dunno.’ Eyes half closed, he seemed to be talking as much to himself as to me. ‘She looked so miserable. But when I tried to cuddle her, she rouldn’t let me. She wen off.’

  A last question occurred to me. ‘Which direction did she take?’ He struggled for a moment with the matter. ‘North, I s’pose.’ It was towards the Haymarket.

  An anonymous graveyard somewhere on the fringes of Westminster; thus did I find myself, peering through the iron railings at the scene beyond: drizzle was again falling, giving the metal the look of something sweating.

  On the further side of the yard a small group was gathered, lit by flickering lights; the parson holding his lamp high that he might see to read his piece, mourners directing theirs upon the coffin as it was lowered slowly into the ground. A second group stood behind, loitering about a hearse, waiting their tum. A sad sight it was, with mounds of earth thrown up here and there, as if some gargantuan mole had been at work. In one corner paupers’ coffins were stacked upon one another, doubtless awaiting the moment when their numbers would be sufficient to warrant the digging of a new grave. From St Giles, I wondered. Altogether the place had the churned-about look of some battlefield, where armies had been fighting too long over the same dismal spot. Nor was it only in the look; a sickly scent hung in the air, as a stifling veil.

  At least the place held some usefulness to me. I followed the railings, reaching nearer to the burial group, until I was at a point where their lights shone some proper brightness upon me – just enough to read – then took from my frockcoat pocket the ragged pieces of paper. The hardships and cleansings that the garment had endured had done little to improve them, and the writing upon them was much of it watery and spoiled. Still, enough remained to be studied.

  WHY CAN HE NOT LEAVE ME ALONE?

  It did resemble her hand, and closely too. Less well formed than was usual of her, certainly; more hurried. But might that not…

  It was then that I wondered – for the fir
st time, but by no means the last – if I had understood my wife any better than I had the Asiatic Cholera.

  Chapter Nine

  The remarkable elasticity of time. A month empty of event can pass so quiet in a man’s life that – looking back across such changelessness – it may seem hardly a day has passed. Earlier upheavals remain in his imagination still freshly recent, as, through the misleading clarity of frozen winter air, the snow mountains about Turin can appear no more than hills, reachable by a short walk. A whole year can thus resemble an interlude; a thing wasted, or stolen.

  Inversely time can grow concentrated – a juice boiled to thickness – causing one day to be as filled as two or three. This is an effect often to be experienced during long travellings, and I observed it myself during my extended fleeing from English shores, across France and Switzerland; each section of that wondrous journey across forests and mountains seeming almost as an epoch of itself. Perhaps it is the savage within us that brings such distortion; the need to remain alert in unfamiliar territory, to set to memory the passing road, so that, if attacked by other savages, a route of escape can be found. Certainly the return journey often possesses the illusion of being far shorter than the outward.

  Nor can only travelling effect this. Tumults in one’s life, great changes of understanding: these too can cause a day to appear as lengthy as several, vanishing its predecessor behind a fog of distance.

  Thus it was that long evening – an evening that, though I did not know it, was to prove my last in the great metropolis of London – as I wearily trudged my way back towards St Giles. The latest hours seemed possessed of their own history, almost remote from my own past. Indeed, the days previous to my struggle with the Cholera were as the life of another, distantly told.

  And now? Sleep; this was my great ambition of the instant.

  But the evening was not over yet. Far from it.

  I had reached quite close to my old rented room when I observed – collected before a beerhouse – the gathering of revellers. There were quite a number, and more arriving – a surprising sight at so late an hour – and thus, though they showed no unruliness, I deemed it prudent to cross to the other side of the road, and keep my glance before me. I had almost passed by them when Jem’s voice called out.

  ‘Drain man, come on you old killjoy. Come an’ have yerself a drink, an’ celebrate.’

  ‘Celebrate what?’

  ‘What d’yer think? Good riddance to ol’ King Cholera, of course.’

  Thus I learned the news. The attack that had struck the district so viciously – and myself, too – was finally over.

  Hobbes, present too, and even supping from a glass of ale, though he looked as tired as death, gave me the details. ‘Not a new case since this morning. There are still many sick with it, of course. But since the disease first came there’s never been a pause so long as this.’ His dour face managed a wary smile. ‘We can hope it’s done with.’

  A relief indeed.

  ‘See here. This is the one broke the pump and stopped the Cholera.’ Jem announced the fact proudly, to any would listen, taken with all the enthusiasm of a candidate’s canvasser on election day. Indeed, he showed much the same pleasure in showing me off to the crowd as he had in revealing the splendour of the wardrobe large enough to hold four men stood side by side. Faces turned to watch, and, a little to my embarrassment, I found myself the focus of curiosity.

  ‘He’s the one done it. Me mate the Drain Man.’ Despite his tender years, the boy seemed well steeped in drink – indeed, he exhibited his drunkenness with quite a swagger, as one well accustomed to such things – while Sal, lodged wobblingly upon his arm, was little better. ‘An’ it was me saved him. It was me fished him out from the pisser when he was a pewkin’ hisself to death.’

  ‘You broke the pump, did yer?’ Some present had evidently heard of the matter, and regarded me with interest. Thus it was I found myself subject of a kind of drunken congregation.

  ‘Well, here’s to you, mister.’

  ‘Your health, matey.’

  Hobbes was less convinced of my role as saviour. ‘It seems rather sudden. Besides, the cases stopped breaking out before the pump was broke.’

  I was inclined to agree; events did seem to overlap. But it was still possible my intervention had assisted in the disease’s decline.

  ‘Well done, mister whoever you is.’ A huge fellow with tattoos upon his arms gave me a slap upon the back that all but sent me reeling.

  ‘Yeah, good on you.’

  Jem did not leave the matter there, but called out, ‘Three cheers for the Drain Man.’

  Joshua Jeavons honoured with three ragged hurrahs. Joshua Jeavons, nodded to, toasted in beer, and backslapped some more. I suppose it was my great moment of glory. Though, to be honest, it little felt so at the time. I was pleased, of course, by the approbation of these grinning and ragged strangers. But mostly I just wanted to sleep.

  The scene proved a short-lived one; after only a few moments the attention of Jem’s audience grew distracted by the arrival of a noisy, straggling group of fellows, intent on attracting notice by seeming as fierce and noisy as they might.

  ‘Where’s our free beer?’

  ‘Out of the way, you all. Yer might as well go home now – there’ll be none left by the time we’re finished.’

  For a moment it looked as if a scuffle might break out, but, after only a few scowls and murmurings, the arrivals then filed into the beerhouse, quiet enough.

  I glanced at Hobbes. ‘Free beer?’ He nodded. ‘That’s what’s brought them here. All of them.’

  I had assumed the ending of the Cholera had been the cause of the late night assembly. In fact it was only a focus for the chatter and toastings of the gathering; the reason lay rather in the superstitious character of the landlord of the beerhouse just behind. It seemed the unlucky fellow had been himself struck by the disease and – in a rash moment, upon his sickbed – had promised that, were he to recover, he would liberally entertain the whole district. I caught a glimpse of the man through the open door of his enterprise; a paunched sort, still pale of face after his illness, and looking decidedly nervous.

  Well he might. It appeared he had announced his intention to fulfil his vow only a short time earlier, doubtless in the hope that – at so late an hour – few would make use of it. Such scheming showed a misplaced knowledge of the swiftness of travel of the cry, ‘Free Beer’. Aside from the gang of noisy fellows, a steady trickle of other thirsty souls had, even as I watched, been making their way to the beerhouse door, and, inside, quite a crush was developing about the bar. The numbers brought their own consequences and a sudden outburst of shouting, only a few yards from us, warned of a likely fight soon to start.

  ‘Don’t you shove me.’

  ‘Get yourself away. If you so much as touch me…’

  Hobbes regarded the scene wearily, and finished the last of his drink. ‘I think it’s time I was away.’

  I felt a wave of tiredness. ‘I, too.’

  ‘What d’you wanna go off fer, when we’ve not told the ’alf of it?’ Jem was eager to enjoy further boasting of my – and his own – role in overcoming the disease. ‘It’s a lark ’ere. Free as well. An’ you’ve not even had yourself a beer.’ He glanced round to the crowd. ‘Tell the Drain Man he gotta stay, eh? Tell him he can’t just go off.’ Nobody much answered – all were too intent on the budding fight – but Jem swaggered as much as if he had caused a mighty cheer. ‘There you are, Drain Man. Get yerself a drink instead o’ being such a killjoy.’

  Sal nodded sleepily.

  It seemed ungrateful indeed to desert them, after all they had done for me. Besides, as the mood of the crowd grew uglier I was not a little concerned for their safety; they were so conspicuous in their smart clothes. Of course both were well versed in looking after themselves, but one never knew…

  ‘I’ll stay,’ I agreed, and waved goodbye to Hobbes.

  Jem grinned. ‘That’s our Dr
ain Man.’

  A beer. I soon regretted trying to get myself one, free though it was. Within, it was little less than a battle; a hot, animal scene, of swearings and sweat and near fights. I recognized some of the others in the crush. Thus there was the fellow who had had the room above my own, his vicious dogs at his feet; barking loudly, and winning him two beers swiftly served. Also, closer beside me, the mad-eyed fellow, who had – only that morning – accused me of poisoning the wells, and put into my thoughts the true nature of the disease. Now he seemed acquainted with my improved status.

  ‘Famis, now, in’t you?’ he observed, warningly. ‘But where’d you be without me?’

  Foolishly I imagined there might be some logic to his utterances. ‘I thank you again.’

  ‘So you should.’ He scratched deep into his windblown looking hair, with the air of one fearfully slighted. ‘Where’d you be if I’d not calmed that vicious mob, that wanted to string you up? Eh? Answer me that.’ There was no need, fortunately, as he answered himself. ‘You’d be dead, that’s where. Dead as a dead hog.’

  There, too, was the mother of the Irish family, who had thought me some kind of dangerous magician; she seemed – by some cunning means – to have obtained a drink for every one of her countless offspring, and they filed out of the room behind her, resembling a parade of virtuous pupils from some school of beer-drinking.

  I was even fairly sure I caught a brief glimpse, in the distance, of my friends the three shore workers – now clad in clothes of a kind of wild smartness and fashion, and each possessed upon his arm of a chirping female – though they disappeared too quickly into the throng for me to catch their attention with a greeting.

  At last I won the glance of one of the flustered and redfaced fellows serving, and gained myself a glass of beer, together with two more, for Jem and Sal.

  Stepping, with relief, from the confinement of the beerhouse into cooler air, I observed that a fight had finally begun. It was a strange manner of battle, fought not between the ones I had observed earlier, but another pair; two tiny, shrimp-like fellows, grey-haired and wizened, and altogether seeming beyond the age for such violence, though they swore with liveliness, for the most part accusing one another – with nothing less than accuracy – of being old.