The Great Stink

by Clare Clark

  Straightways the gentlemen's eyes turned rounder than ever and they leaned forward, impatient for more.

  'Well, well, well,' the Captain said, baring his teeth. 'I'll wager there's all kinds of evil doings down there. Murder and worse.'

  Tom shrugged.

  'You gets some strange happenings right enough,' he acknowledged.

  'Tell us,' the Captain instructed, the two words equal parts cajolery and threat.

  'You don't want to know,' Tom said.

  'Oh, but we do,' the Captain insisted. He glanced at the lascivious faces of his associates and his hand thoughtfully jingled the coins in his pocket. 'We really do.'

  And so it began, Tom's trade in tales of the tosh. All of a sudden the man who'd never wasted a word in all his life found himself working through them as free and careless as any street huckster. Stories of corruption and cruelty, that was what was called for, stories that made the gentlemen's eyes sparkle and their breath come in quick slabs from their wide-open mouths. And the grislier the story the more they panted and the more the money slid out their pockets like it was greased with dripping. Tom was happy to oblige. He saw no reason to stay fixed to the actual truth, not if the gentlemen were satisfied. There was stories of what was and then there were stories of what could have been, if details were added in and imaginings let loose a little. Tom told tales of men taken with their hands and feet tied together to be thrown into the sewers at Newgate where fierce armies of rats would strip the flesh from their live bodies until nothing remained but their skeletons and two chewed-up loops of rope. He talked of a public house but a few hundred feet from the room where they sat, where men who had betrayed their friends to the law were murdered in the cellar and thrown through a trapdoor in the floor into the sewer below, never to be heard of again. He told of the stretch at old Grinacre in Southwark where the waters were thick with the unwanted limbs of cadavers cast into the open sewers by medical students done cutting them up, and to this almost-truth he added details of the murderers who, trying to cover up their crime, sliced up their own victims and cast them into the same stretch of shore so as to muddle up all the parts together.

  'And the murderers, the perpetrators of these — these ghastly acts, surely they are caught when the bodies are discovered?' gasped one gentleman, licking his lips.

  'Most of 'em ain't never found,' Tom replied carelessly. 'There's a thousand hiding places in the tunnels, sir, if you knows where to look. Places a man can stow a body and never get caught. You ever go down there you'll see the brickwork's bristling with bones and whatnot what got stuck in the holes and never worked their ways out.'

  'Good God,' the gentleman said. 'And all right beneath our feet. It's worse than the horrors of Hell.'

  He gave a shiver of satisfied revulsion and slipped a coin into Tom's outstretched palm. Tom nodded. He didn't see fit to mention that on the rare occasion that he or Red Joe found a dead body in the tunnels they passed it straight on to the dredgermen who in turn would land it at Rotherhithe where the inquest money was the best in the city. Somehow Tom didn't reckon the gentlemen'd like that too much.

  At last, when Tom had exhausted his grim imaginings and the drink had begun to slow the men's tongues and their tips, he took himself off, the coins jingling a little tune in his pocket. It always gave him a stab of pleasure to open the door to his lodgings and see her there, sprawled on the blanket. As for Lady, she wasn't half so sure she was pleased to see Tom. Her eyes were so pink and she'd have such a drooping look about her shoulders you could almost believe she'd been weeping, and oftentimes she slunk away from him, pressing herself into the rotting floorboards so as to dodge his touch. Even when he took her in his arms she would hold her head up away from him, her nose stuck into the air like a goose, so as he would know for certain she was well affronted with him and wanted him to know it too.

  And then, all of a sudden, she would give up being cross and she would rest her chin on his shoulder so that her whiskers tickled his ear, and the chewed rope of her tail would thump against his leg and he would hold her tight against his chest until the thumpings of their heartbeats caught each other's rhythm and became one.

  XI

  It was three days before the Strowbridge contract was due to be signed and submitted to the Board for final approval, and only nine days before Christmas, that William was summoned urgently to see Lovick. It was a little after ten o'clock in the morning. Outside it was snowing, the dirty flakes peeling away from the fog like old paint. For a moment William stared at the flimsy wooden wall of his carrel, unable to move. Some weeks before he had pinned there an article from The Builder, underlining the concluding sentence in dark ink. For good or evil, the metropolis has entered upon a work of no common magnitude. Every day, when he settled himself at his desk and he saw those words again, a quiet pride prickled the soles of his feet. Now the words blurred. Slowly he rose, his knees unsteady, and made his way through the familiar warren of rooms to Lovick's large office. He kept his hands thrust in his pockets. Despite the fires that burned in the grates the narrow chambers were cold and the air seemed thin, like the air on a high mountain, so that his breathing was shallow and laboured. William looked about him at the chaos of paper, the bowed heads, the flurry of clerks and messengers, and his heart ached. He would never step inside these rooms again.

  When William was finally shown in, Lovick was not alone. With him was a short stout gentleman with a round pink face and a shiny pink pate fringed with soft down. Set upon so child-like a face his wire-rimmed spectacles looked as though they had been begged from an obliging uncle.

  Ah, May.' Lovick coughed. He was clearly ill at ease. 'Sit down, sit down.'

  William sat and stared at his knees. Now that he was here he longed only for the interview to be got over as quickly as possible. Disgrace glinted above his bent neck like the blade of a guillotine.

  'May,' Lovick said again. 'First of all, I would like to thank you for all the fine work you have done on behalf of the Commission. I would not wish what is to follow in any way to imply any disappointment in your work on either my or Mr Bazalgette's behalf.'

  William nodded, his hands clenched at his sides. Let it be done, he pleaded silently. Let it be over.

  'May, as you know, you came to us with the warm recommendation of Mr Rawlinson, a gentleman I hold in the highest esteem. I have seen nothing in your work that would contradict his opinion of you. However —'

  This was it. The breath died in William's chest.

  'However, we are concerned that the — that the strains of the job may have exhausted you. This is Dr Feather.' Lovick gestured towards the gentleman in the window, who nodded, setting off a ripple that travelled through his plump shoulders and down across his belly. 'I have asked him here to examine you. I would appreciate it if you could assist him in any way he asks. Dr Feather? I believe matters have been arranged as you requested. Should you require assistance you have only to call.'

  With that Lovick stood and left the room. Dumbly William looked up at the doctor. His was an unlikely face for an executioner, round and flushed pink with good living and so given to smiling that his cheeks were permanently dimpled. Their cheeriness mocked William and all the miserable squalor of his disgrace. There was nothing to hope for behind those glinting spectacles, nothing but the drawing-out of pain. In the employ of the Commission the doctor would find what he had been asked to find. In the flourish of a pen Hawke's threats would become official papers. Hawke had said he knew about the cutting. William wrapped his hands reflexively around his forearms, pressing the fabric of his sleeves against the damaged flesh. Once the doctor saw the scars his diagnosis would require no further substantiation.

  But the doctor did not ask to look at his arms. Instead he perched himself on the corner of Lovick's desk, one portly leg swinging awkwardly off the ground, and proceeded to ask William a series of questions. In the questions themselves William could discern no obvious pattern. They ranged from demands for a detail
ed description of his daily routine to the names of European capital cities, from a brief history of his personal circumstances to his conclusions upon the mutiny in India and the chronology of the books of the Old Testament. After each question there followed a long silence during which the doctor, his forehead creased into fat folds, pondered William's responses before making jabbing notes in a small leather book. Each answer received equal consideration and was noted with equal care. William held the fabric of his coat close to his arms and endeavoured to keep his voice steady as all the while he waited for the pencil to be jabbed at his forearms with an instruction to raise his sleeves.

  It never came. The doctor's question about William's outdoor pursuits led to a happy digression in which the doctor confessed to a particular affection for Orchis hircina, the lizard orchid, which had flourished along the sand dunes that fringed the garden of his boyhood home in Sussex.

  'It has no perfume to speak of, of course, indeed I have always found it somewhat foul in odour. But when it comes to nature as theatre —'

  When William admitted that, as a boy, he too had lain in wait for the enchanting moment when, one after another, the orchid released its long ribboned lips from the bud, the doctor nodded happily. And when William took his botanical journal from the pocket of his coat to show him the sketches he had made of Spiranthes spiralis, Polly's favourite because of its English name, autumn lady's-tresses, the doctor paused only briefly before scribbling a final note in his book.

  "Very good, Mr May. Very good,' the doctor beamed, snapping the book shut. 'How pleasant to meet a fellow enthusiast. I believe that covers everything.' He went over to the door and opened it, a smile still pressing up against his plump cheeks. 'Do come back in, Mr Lovick.'

  There was a murmur of voices from outside before Lovick entered the room.

  'You have all you need?' Lovick enquired with a glance towards William.

  'I most certainly do,' the doctor assured him, nodding happily.

  'Good.' Lovick smiled. 'In that case I believe we need detain you no longer, Mr May.'

  William stared from the doctor to Lovick and back.

  'That is all?'

  'That is all. Unless Dr Feather has anything further he wishes to add —?'

  The doctor shook his head, steadying his belly between his hands.

  'Then we are quite finished. Now back to your work, if you please,' Lovick chided gently. 'These days we can ill afford to lose a minute.'

  Nothing more was said. Shortly before noon Lovick came to ask William for some papers. No mention was made of his interview with the doctor but, as William rummaged for them in his portfolio, Lovick's hand rested briefly upon his shoulder. Then he was gone. William was left alone.

  It was over. Hawke could not touch him now. This dark December day that would have brought about his ruin had instead delivered his restoration. He had been examined by a doctor, an expert in the study of nervous disorders, of — to put it bluntly — madness, and pronounced sane. There had been no question of it. The diagnosis would be confirmed, documented, signed, filed. Somewhere — and always — there would be a piece of paper that would state it impartially, categorically. William May was sane. He was sane and he was safe. His family was safe. The nightmare that had begun on a blind November morning in Turkey more than four years before was over. He was sane.

  Somewhere, locked inside himself, there was relief, he was sure of it, even joy, but in the thin grey light of a snow-tamped afternoon he felt only dazzled and exhausted. The ceaseless flood and ebb of clerks and papers ran in and out of his cubicle, sucking impatiently at him, turning him over and over like a pebble. He longed to get out. He longed for the tunnels, for the safe embrace of the darkness, but if he left Greek-street now he would be missed. There was too much work that needed to be done. And besides, he told himself, his impulse to view the tunnels as a kind of sanctuary was no more than habit, an inappropriate and injudicious habit it would behove him to break. He no longer had any need for sanctuary. He was sane, was he not? He was sane. The measurements he required for his calculations would not be needed for a few days. He would wait. It would be more prudent to wait. The afternoon darkened and still the tide of ledgers washed through his stall, tugging their clerks behind them by the leather-covered chains strung from their belts. From time to time William reached into his coat pocket to stroke the leather binding of his journal with his fingertips. It was as warm and soft as a cheek. A little after six a boy brought soup in an enamel basin. William lifted the plate that covered it and sniffed. It smelled good, rich and meaty. The saliva rushed into William's mouth. He had eaten nothing all day.

  'Mr Lovick sent me for it, sir,' the boy said brightly, producing a hunk of bread and cheese wrapped in paper from his pocket. 'On account you was workin' late an' all.'

  William ate it gratefully, carefully wiping his fingers on his handkerchief so as not to leave greasy prints on his papers. When he finally extinguished his light it was nearly eight. In Greek-street a vicious wind sliced at his face and whipped the cuffs of his trousers. Although it had stopped snowing, the streets, rutted and softened during the day by the bustle of feet, had begun to freeze once more and the going was treacherous. William picked his way carefully along Princes-street. He felt dizzy with exhaustion. Carriages loomed abruptly out of the yellowed darkness, the clatter of their wheels muffled by the carpet of snow, and the pale spheres of the gas-lights trembled on their iron stalks like dandelion clocks. The streets were empty and the few people William passed huddled into their coats, their heads lowered. William longed to be home. As he cut through a narrow courtyard towards the river he stumbled on the icy mud and would have fallen if a man had not caught him by the arm and hauled him to his feet.

  'Mr May.'

  The voice was low and hoarse. Startled, William twisted round to look at the stranger's face. He wore a fur hat pulled low over his ears and breath veiled his whiskers in vapour.

  'Mr England?'

  'There has been a mistake. A misunderstanding. The contract —'

  William shook his head. In a darkened doorway something scraped. William set his hands cautiously over the pockets containing his purse and handkerchief. This area was notorious for thieves.

  'Mr England, there is no mistake. I have made my position quite clear. The matter is closed.'

  With such briskness as the icy path allowed William began to walk away but England caught him by the wrist. His grip was tight enough to be painful.

  'Oh, but it is not, Mr May. It is not.'

  'This conversation can serve you no purpose, Mr England. The Board will not consider your tender. Nothing you can say or do can change that.'

  'No?'

  'Let go of my arm,' William said coldly. 'Or I shall call for the police.'

  'Here?' England wrenched William's arm up behind his back. 'They say sewers are deathly places. From what I hear the tide can turn quite unexpected. Down there in the darkness a man wouldn't know what had hit him. Tide would batter him against the wall so brutally that by the time it was done with him even the bastard's mother wouldn't recognize him. So they say.'

  'You do not frighten me, Mr England.'

  'Then you are even more of a fool than you appear. You've got a little one, haven't you, May? A boy, that right? Terrible if anything happened to the little one.'

  'Take your hands off me!'

  'Still, you can't watch them every hour of the day, can you? And London's a shocking place for accidents.'

  It was then that the glassy numbness in William's head smashed, flooding his head with blackness. With all the force he could muster he flung his head backwards into England's face. There was a dull crunch. England moaned and staggered, letting go of William's arm to clutch his face. Blood leaked between his fingers and spattered across the dirty snow. His eyes were round with shock. He cast around him, as though looking for someone in the shadows. William wheeled round, the blackness flooding his chest. England lunged at him but William was
too quick. The blackness roared through his arms, his legs. He slammed his fist hard into the bloodied mess of England's nose so that the brickyard owner reeled backwards, striking his head against the brick wall. As he slid down the wall William kicked him in the stomach.

  'Where are you?' England moaned. 'Help me, for God's sake!'

  'You come anywhere near my family and I'll kill you,' William spat. The blackness crowded his nostrils, his throat, his ears. It pounded in his temples and filled his mouth with cold black saliva. It squeezed against his eyes, compressing the courtyard into no more than a narrow ribbon of faint light. 'I mean it. I'll kill you.'

  A match scraped and flared orange in the shadowed doorway. William wheeled round. He sensed him then more than seeing him, the man who watched them, the smoke from his cigarette curling around the brim of his hat and upwards towards the dark sky. A Turk then? The man didn't move. You weren't supposed to, not until the next watch drew close enough for you to be certain of them. The orders were clear on that. There were words you were meant to say. William felt a flicker of panic. He could not remember the words. He scrabbled frantically through the blackness in his head but he could not remember the words.

  'For pity's sake, man,' England moaned again, one hand straining towards the shadows. 'Get the bastard!'

  William ran. He ran, stumbling in the snow, his legs jarred and twisted by the frozen ruts of mud, through alleys and courtyards, in and out of the light. There was nothing but the ache of the cold air in his chest, the laboured constrictions of his heart, the weight of his legs — and the blackness. He was compressed into blackness, thick and opaque but without shape, like the darkness of the night is without shape. Everywhere he ran he felt the eyes upon him, hot as coals. Relentlessly they followed him but also blindly, unable to make sense of what they saw. William knew it, so at the same time he was trapped and perfectly free. As long as he kept running. And so he ran.