by Erica Brown
He didn’t look back to see Nelson’s reaction. If he had he would have seen a mix of malice and outright jealousy on his face.
* * *
Blanche could hardly believe she was keeping her promise to visit Edith’s mother. And all because she wasn’t going to Barbados.
Edith did most of the talking all the way into the city, her chatter directed at Tom.
‘My father used to climb up the masts, swing from the crow’s nest and do things with the rigging…’ She went on and on.
So Edith’s father was now a seaman. Blanche smiled down into her lap.
In a rare gap where he could get a word in, Tom leaned towards Blanche and said, ‘I have to see Mr Heinkel on a matter of some urgency. If you want me, you know where I am.’
The wind was rattling the rigging of the baroques and brigantines moored at the quay when Tom dropped Blanche and Edith at St Augustine’s Bridge.
‘He seemed quieter than usual,’ Blanche remarked, as they ran up through St James Barton, where a fair had been held since medieval times around the parish church. Today it was empty and shepherd’s purse flickered among the grass like lightly fallen snow.
‘He was very quiet,’ said Edith.
‘Perhaps he’s worrying about the Reverend Strong,’ said Blanche.
‘P’raps he’s in love,’ said Edith, whispering the remark against her ear, though there was no one around to hear it.
‘I wonder who with,’ said Blanche, and smiled when she saw the hopeful blush seeping over Edith’s face.
They laughed more as the breeze caught their clothes, Edith’s skirt expanding like a balloon and exposing her knee-length pantalets, and Blanche’s old-fashioned muslin clinging to her limbs beneath a second dress of lightweight wool. Shivering, she tugged her cloak around her. Wearing two dresses was not enough to be fashionable or to keep out the cold. She’d have to make some dresses.
Edith giggled. ‘Can’t imagine not wearing pantalets, not nowadays. Course, when I was younger I didn’t wear ’em, but it ain’t so important when you’re just a nipper, is it?’
Blanche envied Edith her pantalets. ‘I’m going to make some from my dresses,’ she said decidedly. ‘Then I’m going to buy some new material to make new dresses, or I would if I had the money. I’ve got a little aside from my voyage money, perhaps enough for one dress.’
Edith gripped her arm and nudged her warmly. ‘Don’t you worry. I can help out. You can pay me back when you’ve made up your mind about Barbados.’
Blanche smiled her thanks and wondered how Edith could possibly have money to lend when she earned less than Blanche.
The streets leading into the Pithay were narrow and the ancient cobbles were uneven causing Blanche and Edith to stumble and hold on to each other for safety. Black shadows, thrown by the jutting storeys of timber-framed houses, made the streets even darker. Blanche felt sorry for the people living there. She saw some of them, pale-faced and staring out from lop-sided doorways, the interiors behind them blacker than night. She smiled at them. ‘Good day.’
She almost yelped when Edith nudged her in the ribs.
‘Don’t do that.’ Edith spoke through the side of her mouth. ‘They’ll wonder what you’re after – or what you’re selling.’
They passed a pub called the Blue Bowl where three men leaned against a window beneath its crumbling façade. Blanche felt their eyes burning into her back and couldn’t resist turning round.
Edith pinched her arm. ‘Don’t look!’
One of the men stepped forward, lifted his bowler and smiled. ‘Ladies! Can I offer you a drink?’
Edith put her arm through Blanche’s and gripped it tightly against her side. ‘Say nothing! That’s Stoke. If you dare smile, he’ll think you’re a dolly mop, or worse still a doxy, and he’ll have you passed around like a parcel in no time.’
A shadow fell over them as they entered a place called Leonard Lane. It was far narrower than the centuries-old alleys they had left behind, where rats ran openly across the road pursued by throngs of stone-throwing children.
Following a swift glance over her shoulder, Edith sucked in her breath. ‘Stoke’s following us. Quick,’ she said, tugging Blanche into yet another dark alley where the houses were even smaller, older and more tightly pressed together. Damp, musty smells rose from crumbling cellars where pale faces looked up through barred windows. A rotting door swung open from a stinking midden. Nearby a natural spring ran out of a wall and into a trough that overflowed into a muddy puddle and from there into a culvert. No wonder the river smelled as it did. Blanche was just about to wrinkle her nose and remark what a terrible place it was, when Edith said, ‘This is where I live.’
It was not what Blanche had expected. She had had a vision of a small, poor but happy house, not this darkness, this smell.
The upper floor jutted out over the ground floor. Blanche looked up at the windows, small casements set in a crumbling gable beneath sloping clay tiles. Anyone with long arms could almost shake hands with someone leaning out of the window in the house opposite.
They passed an uphill alley called Cock and Bottle Lane, no more than the width of a man’s shoulders. Wooden handrails were set into the patchwork of old mortar. Water had worn gullies between the slimy mix of cobblestones and moss. The door of the house just beyond the alley was open. Blanche flinched. The smell of it was bad enough, but it sounded as if the circus had come to town.
Dogs were barking. At first Blanche thought there must be dogs in the adjoining houses. Surely they couldn’t all be in the same building?
She felt Edith’s hand circle her wrist, and her worried face looked up into hers. ‘We’re not all that posh, mind you.’
Blanche didn’t get chance to say that it didn’t matter. At that moment a spotted dog came dashing out, wearing a very fine leather collar with brass studs and dragging a young man with corn-coloured hair that stood up from his head like the quills of a hedgehog.
‘Edie!’
‘Spike!’
‘Can’t stop,’ said Spike. ‘I’ll be seeing you, Edie. Reckon you diddled me.’
‘My brother,’ said Edith, blushing. ‘Take no notice.’
Dog and man bounded off down the street, though in all honesty, it was the dog doing the bounding and Spike, Edith’s brother, being dragged along on the end of the lead as fast as his legs could carry him.
The sound of barking still resounded from within, bouncing off the walls of the small, squat houses that formed the lane.
Edith grabbed her arm. ‘Come on. We ain’t got all day.’ She pulled Blanche through the door, the top of which barely skimmed her head.
The interior smelled of mildew and damp dogs. Once Blanche’s eyes were accustomed to the gloom, she noticed the yellowing walls, the flaking plaster and the grass growing in untrodden corners. A broad-shouldered woman, her hair the same colour as that of Spike, but longer, laced with grey and tied back with string, was bending over three dogs, who were tied to stout nails in the wall. The dogs looked well bred but were filthy and straining at their collars. One was a type of hunting spaniel, and the other two the sort that ladies held in their laps or carried under their arms.
‘Hello then, Mother,’ said Edith. ‘Busy, are ya?’
Without stopping what she was doing, Edith’s mother said, ‘Busy making a living. Not like you, our Edith, fed and watered in a grand house with gentlefolk. Some of us have to work.’
Blanche saw she was feeding meat to the dogs – it looked raw. ‘Poor soul,’ she said to one, ‘only the tail end left for you, Muttie. Never mind. I’ll catch you another one. A real big juicy one, I promise you.’
The dog yelped with pleasure as Edith’s mother held the last piece of meat in front of its nose. If Blanche had not been made of sterner stuff, she would have fainted when she realized what it was. Dull yellow fat clung to the rear quarters of a rat, complete with tail.
Once just the tip of the tail was hanging from the little dog’s mouth, Edith’s mot
her looked up and wiped her hands on the sack that skirted her waist and served as an apron.
‘Well, who’s yer fine friend then, Edie?’
Blanche resisted the urge to suck in her breath at the sight of her face. At some time in her life, Mrs Clements had contracted smallpox. Her blue eyes narrowed above cheeks swollen red with blemished skin.
Edith leaned close to her and shouted against her left ear, ‘This is my friend Blanche. She’s from Barbados. Ain’t she pretty?’
Edith’s mother tutted through blackened teeth. ‘Pretty is as pretty does.’ Turning to her daughter, she asked in a quieter voice, ‘Does she speak English?’
‘Of course I do!’
Edith gave Blanche a nudge. ‘Say it louder,’ she whispered. ‘She’s a bit deaf.’
‘I speak perfect English,’ she shouted.
Edith’s mother winced. ‘No need to shout. I ain’t deaf. Do you want something to eat?’
Blanche answered first. ‘No, thank you. I ate before I came out.’
Edith’s jaw dropped, and Blanche felt guilty. They’d had a bowl of salted porridge each, which Cook had delighted in telling them was made solely from water. ‘Milk’s all gone,’ she’d said and pushed two slices of bread in their direction. Edith had eaten hers before realizing that Blanche had been served with stale bread, mould growing around the thick crust.
‘You need to eat something,’ said Edith.
Blanche shook her head. ‘No.’ Thankfully Edith’s mother couldn’t hear her rumbling stomach. She couldn’t face eating something prepared by a woman who had just handled dead rats.
‘We’re having some grub now, Blanche. It won’t be long,’ shouted Mrs Clements, as if Blanche had not quite understood.
‘Well, I…’
Her apology was drowned in a swell of barking as a figure ducked in through the doorway, then straightened and took off his silk topper that had a split from crown to band and part of its brim missing.
He slung something wrapped up in newspaper on to the table. The barking turned to whimpers and licking of lips. Whatever was in the parcel smelled good, and made Blanche’s stomach rumble.
‘Well, this is nice. Our Edie’s brought company,’ exclaimed the new arrival.
‘My cousin, Fen,’ Edith explained. She smiled at him with admiration and affection. He was in his thirties, thin-faced, long-nosed and too tall for the low ceiling. He appeared to be wearing three frock coats, sensible under the circumstances. The right sleeve of the top one compensated for the lack of sleeve in the one beneath that, and the third coat compensated for the lack of tails on the other two.
He raised his hat and bowed to her as if he were a gentleman and not wearing rags, and she were a lady of fashion, not one wearing a style that went out over twenty years ago.
‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure. Fenwick Clements the name. Sorry I weren’t ’ere to extend the common courtesies of our family, but I ’ad to go out and about on an errand.’
Blanche guessed the ‘errand’ was finding food in someone else’s pantry and bringing it home.
Mrs Clements placed her hands on her hips, leaned over the table and breathed in the appetizing smell coming from the parcel. ‘What you got then?’
Fen trumpeted a fanfare. ‘Tra, la, la, la!’ With great aplomb, he unwrapped his prize and revealed a cooked ham, its skin brown and smoked and succulent juices trickling from the pink meat.
‘Plates, our Edie!’ shouted her mother, wiping her grimy hands over her apron.
Plates were found. Edith dusted each one off against her hip and her mother brandished a carving knife and a toasting fork, its prongs black with soot.
‘Lovely,’ said Edith to Blanche, the fatty juices running down her chin as she pushed a sliver of ham into her mouth.
Her hunger got the better of her and Blanche helped herself to a couple of lean slices.
Once all the meat was sliced off, Fen eyed Blanche as he chewed on the bone. ‘You’re pretty,’ he said. ‘Reckon you could marry a rich man given the chance.’
The food had been welcome, but the smell of the place, the stink of the dogs, dirt and drainage, was too intense to ignore. So was the look in Fen’s pale, wandering eyes.
Blanche looked out to the alley through the open door. A thin shaft of sunlight, brave enough to pierce the gloom, had got thinner. ‘We should be going,’ she said to Edith.
Edith nodded and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. Her mother was chopping up the bits of leftover fat and skin. The whole lot was being consigned to a copper pot in which sat a brown broth of dubious content. Blanche was glad not to be staying.
‘You walking back?’ asked Fen, about to offer his bone to one of the dogs, which licked it appreciatively.
‘Don’t waste that on a bloody dog!’ Mrs Clements snatched the bone from Fen’s hand. ‘Give me that. It’ll help flavour this broth for the nippers.’ The bone slid into the thick broth.
Blanche forced herself to think of something else. Her eyes settled on the newspaper in which the ham had been wrapped. ‘Do you read the news?’ she said in an attempt at conversation.
Mrs Clements looked surprised. ‘Got no time for reading.’
‘I can read,’ Fen said defensively, rubbing his greasy hands beneath his armpits. ‘One of them Frys taught me when I was in clink. Quakers they are and believes that poor folk, in fact, all folk,’ he added, lacing his thumbs through multi-matched lapels, ‘should know ’ow to read.’
‘Fen!’ Edith threw her cousin a warning glance. Blanche was now party to the fact that he had been in prison.
‘Oh. By the way, Edie, sorry I let the cat out of the bag with our Spike. I read out that the reward for that dog was two sovereigns.
‘How was I to know you was only giving ’im one and keeping the rest fer yerself?’
Ah, thought Blanche. So that’s why Edith could afford to lend her money for dress material.
Fen offered to accompany them as far as Corn Street. ‘Don’t want that Stoke getting you embroiled in his nasty ways,’ he said, winking at Blanche.
He cut a tall figure, striding beside them, doffing his hat to supposed gentry as if his clothes were still in good repair and his toes didn’t peep through the end of his boots.
He left them in Penn Street. ‘Goodbye, ladies,’ he said, courteously lifting his battered hat like the gentleman he so wanted to be.
By the time they got to the sugar refinery on the Counterslip, the breeze had dropped and a light drizzle was falling.
‘Big place, ain’t it?’ said an awestruck Edith, as they tilted their heads back and looked up at the towering building.
Six storeys high, it formed a large L shape, the main entrance being at the confluence of the straight lines. Three chimneys – two close to the road and one adjacent to the entrance – towered above Baroque pediments and arched windows. Barrels, sacks and square wooden chests were stacked high and ready for Monday morning, yet even though it was Sunday, the chimneys belched plumes of white smoke over the roofs of the city.
‘Look at that,’ said Edith. ‘Seems we ain’t the only ones to work on Sundays.’
‘Just like us, they work for the Strongs. Besides, the fires can’t be allowed to go cold. Someone has to tend them,’ Blanche murmured.
Blanche remembered the sugar mills at home, the cane arriving in wagon loads straight from the fields to be fed incessantly into the mill before its liquid gold was drank by the sun.
In amongst the stacked sugar, charcoal and lime stood Tom’s gig. The horse was standing on three legs, dozing into his oat bag, which was fastened to his harness. A cloud of flies buzzed around his head and his tail. Tom was not around.
Edith hung back. ‘Shouldn’t we wait out here for him?’
Without answering, Blanche pushed open one of the refinery’s double doors, and was almost drowned by the sweet smell of raw muscavado.
Edith rushed in behind her. ‘Wait for me!’
The heat hit them
like a wave of dry sand. There were furnaces, bulb-shaped flasks the size of a house, and mountains of coal before each furnace. Channels ran almost at roof level. Blanche guessed they contained the raw muscavado on its way to becoming refined sugar. Although they were not burning at their fiercest, the sound of the furnaces rumbled through the air.
Edith grabbed Blanche’s arm. ‘I don’t like it in here. Let’s wait outside.’
Blanche pretended not to hear.
Edith clung to her arm so tightly it hurt. ‘This is what hell must be like. Old Nick’s going to appear at any minute,’ she said, her voice trembling.
Blanche patted the hand that rested on her arm. ‘It’s just a sugar refinery,’ she said reassuringly. Her gaze wandered over the dark interior, the chain hoists hanging from overhead beams, the metal-bound wooden ewers fixed to small trolleys; it was a world away from the green cane fields and the bright sky of Barbados. Men toiled in fields and factories just to add sweetness to life.
Suddenly a voice boomed, ‘You women, what are you doing here?’
His shadow got to them before he did. He was huge, broad-shouldered and dressed in black. Blanche recognized him as Conrad Heinkel. He was carrying what looked like a Bible beneath his arm.
‘Old Nick!’ Edith exclaimed in a loud whisper.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Blanche whispered back. To Conrad she said, ‘We’re waiting for Tom Strong.’
He looked them up and down. In the gloom, Blanche presumed he hadn’t recognized her. She took a few steps closer into the light so that he could see her better. ‘We met the other day, Mr Heinkel. I was with Tom then.’
He blinked and his expression brightened. ‘Ah yes. The lady who mends kites.’
‘That’s right. And did your children manage to mend theirs?’
‘Thanks to you, I have a house full of kites. You like children?’
She nodded. ‘I do.’
‘That is good,’ he said. ‘That is very good.’
Blanche wondered at his thoughtful expression and returned his smile.
‘Conrad!’ Tom appeared, a worried frown disappearing on seeing them there. ‘Ladies. I hadn’t expected you yet.’
