by BK Duncan
She could still hear Vi’s full-throated laughter at the top of the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Three
That night was the warmest of the year so far and May was sweltering in her pea-jacket. A glance in the mirror before she’d left had told her that in her tat shop finds she’d pass as a sailor, albeit a slight one, recently arrived after a long stint at sea. She had on canvas shoes, dirty baggy cotton trousers, and a coarse tunic top. Her hair was tucked under a wide-brimmed bowler hat, the black felt turning green with age. With her face stained with tea and grimed with soot she looked like a Lascar.
She’d been stalking the end of the street for over an hour. Jack couldn’t have left already could he? A group of Saturday night revellers on their way to the bus stop competed with each other to throw colourful insults her way. May pretended not to understand them or to smile at the thoroughness of her disguise. A figure emerged from Mrs Loader’s front door. He stood on the step for a moment before taking off his glasses and tucking them into his pocket. For someone new to the docks, Jack hadn’t done a bad job at all. He was dressed as if he worked in the boiler-room of one of the large steamers. Not a stoker or fireman - he didn’t have the muscles for that - but in his filthy overalls and bandanna tied over his forehead he did a fair imitation of an oily-rag engineer.
May waited until he was halfway down the road and then caught up with him.
‘Going my way, sailor?’
His aghast double-take was worthy of a stage comedian.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, May. You had me going there. What the hell do you think you’re doing in that get-up?’
‘A little undercover spying I think we agreed to call it.’
He stopped. ‘No... no. You’re not coming. There’s nothing can persuade me. I work better alone.’
‘What happened to all that partner nonsense of yours?’
May was enjoying herself. Jack looked as though he wanted to run back indoors and hide. But she hadn’t gone to all this trouble to stand here teasing him.
‘Jack, let’s get this straight: it may have been your brainwave, but it’s my investigation. And although you’re probably not used to someone being this honest, I don’t altogether trust you. Getting a lead for your precious gambling story is the only reason you’re doing this and I can’t be sure that won’t involve you doing or saying something that might prejudice the inquest. I could issue a warrant and make it a court order.’ May was only half-joking.
Jack moved his hands towards her shoulders as if he wanted to shake her, but then shrugged.
‘Not a word. Not one single bloody word from you when we’re in there. Play the dumb foreigner out for a bit of diversion and I suppose we might just get away with it; they discover you’re a woman and God knows what they’ll do to you.’
‘Don’t be stupid, that’ll be nothing compared with them finding out you’re a newspaperman. Come on, hadn’t we better get going? We’ve a long walk ahead.’
She fell in step beside him. They trudged the streets in silence.
***
Shoulder of Mutton Alley was off the street fronting the riverside wharves. True to its name it started off as a head-height arched tunnel then kicked off left into a tiny square of dilapidated houses. May had seen privies in better condition - but the stench was the same. Thin threads of light seeped from shuttered windows. She stumbled once or twice into Jack’s back. He must have got his information from a reliable source because he made straight for a door half-hanging off its hinges. He creaked it open. Behind was a thick curtain. When pulled to one side it revealed a narrow staircase. The smell of rotting wood made May not want to trust it. But Jack was going first and she’d attempt to watch where he put his feet so as not to end up with a splintered shinbone.
Someone above must’ve heard their entrance because an oil lamp’s dim light appeared at the top. May began to shiver with the damp; if she didn’t know any better she’d think they were at the water’s edge. The woman who met them was no more than a girl really. White and Chinese blood had given her face high flat cheekbones but rounded eyes and a square jaw. She led them along a passageway. The house had to be connected to its neighbour in some way because they seemed to walk further than the frontage. The girl opened a door for them, then retreated. A smell - a combination like treacle, the glue factory, and singed hair - snatched at the back of May’s throat. A wizened man in a Chinese cap and blue robe with long sleeves over his hands was squatting behind a low table. Behind him, the room was furnished with some raised platforms covered in matting and a line of bunks against one wall. A miserly fire burned in a small grate, a jug and battered iron pot beside it.
‘I am Ling.’ The man’s voice was oddly beautiful. ‘You are wise to come to me. Here you will find the best yen-shi, straight from China; my cousin brings it on the ships.’
Jack reached into his pocket and placed some money on the table. The old man sucked it up his sleeve.
‘Take the place of your choosing. You will not have long to wait.’
May let Jack lead her over to one of the low plinths. He selected the corner bunk. She could see why; it was close to another tight stairway and out of the circle of light from the oil lamp so he’d easily be able to disappear to explore what secrets the house contained. She waited for whatever would happen next. The old man rang a tinkly bell and a trapdoor opened in the floor to the right of the fireplace. A birdlike woman dressed in faded threadbare silk and bowed with age emerged. She was carrying a tray. Her movements were delicate and purposeful as she laid the tray on the floor in order to pour some water from the jug into the pot and settle it in the embers. Then she squatted and began shredding a lump of what looked like coal into a small strainer. This she hung in the heating water. May thought the whole process was like making tea - apart from the sickly smell. The woman stirred and prodded at the mixture with a wooden spoon.
Ling had now joined the woman at the fireplace. She handed him the rest of the things on her tray; two pipes, a long needle like a sail maker’s bodkin, and a small brass lamp. Each time the old man received an item he walked slowly across the room and placed it on his low table. The woman was poking about in the pot with her spoon as Ling lit the brass lamp. When she pulled the spoon out there was a gob of dark syrup coating the bowl. She shuffled across the room and offered it to Ling. He stuck the needle in and twirled the shaft between his fingers until he had a lump the size of a pea. Somehow May couldn’t stop watching the slow movements even though her eyelids were getting heavy. She followed the progress of the needle as Ling slid the end towards the brass lamp. The opium frazzled in the flame. The smell of carnations grew suffocating. May had the sensation of being wrapped in a blanket so tightly that she could no longer feel her limbs. Across the distance of a lifetime she could see Ling offering a pipe to Jack. He would come over and make her take one. She could hear him as his sleeves flapped the air and slapped against his sides like water on a ship’s hull.
***
May didn’t think she’d been asleep very long. Everything was the same. But then there was a scream and the thump of feet on the floor over her head. Moments later, Jack came flying down the stairs. He broke stride long enough to grab her hand and wrench her upright, then dragged her out of the room. They burst out into the night. From the doorways on either side streamed a handful of Chinamen. Her arm felt pulled out of its socket as Jack bolted for the alley. She briefly thought that it’d be a miracle if they got to the end without either of them smashing their brains out on the walls then saved her energy for running as fast as she could.
***
May grasped her side as she got a stitch. Her throat felt as though she had been swallowing molten metal. She had to stop. Doubled over and gasping like a stranded fish, she waited for Jack to notice she was no longer beside him. She had her breath back and had wiped her streaming eyes before she r
ealised he wasn’t going to. She limped up to where he was standing - as serene as you like - by the churchyard wall.
‘What if I’d have twisted my knee or something?’
‘Well you haven’t, have you?’
Jack was wide-eyed and smiling. May watched as he traced the outlines of the moss-covered bricks with his fingertips.
‘Can we stop now d’you think? We must have left them behind miles ago. Anyway, I don’t think I could run any further in these stupid canvas shoes. They’re biting at my ankles.’
‘Take them off then. Feel the ground beneath your feet: Here we will moor our lonely ship, and wander ever with woven hands; murmuring softly lip to lip, along the grass, along the sands; murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands.’
‘What are you on about?’
‘William Butler Yeats, my lovely girl. The greatest Irishman that ever lived.’
‘You smoked some, didn’t you? The opium.’
‘Don’t tell me you didn’t have a little puff yourself...’
‘Of course not. I’m not that stupid.’
‘Well that’s where we differ. Not in the denseness of our comprehension - I wouldn’t want to have a competition with you on that front - but in our desire to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into the thing that must be done.’ He held his hand up, palm out, as if taking an oath. ‘To perfect the air of verisimilitude alone is the reason I did it, your honour.’
May wasn’t so sure. She was beginning to believe that he was a man wedded to trying new sensations and excitements for their own sakes. He had a satisfaction about him that spoke of enjoying the whole escapade - even the chase.
‘So. Did you find anything out?’
‘You could be Chinese, you know, with a name like May. A pink may blossom hanging tantalisingly out of reach on a high branch. Or would that be Japanese? Either way, I thought you looked quite at home sitting cross-legged on your little pallet.’
‘Jack. I’m being serious; what was upstairs? Who screamed? It frightened the life out of me.’
‘Worried they’d stabbed me with one of their hot needles? How sweet.’ He grabbed her hand. ‘All that Yeats has given me a thirst to smell water. Come on, there must be some close by.’
May planted her feet and refused to be dragged along. Jack let her go but continued on.
‘When I was a boy, I used to stroll on the banks of the River Liffey with my father. You could taste the salt on the tide. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we’d find a piece of driftwood and he’d spin me a tale about how it had come all the way from America because it wanted more than anything to be thrown on our fire to warm my little Irish heart.’
He turned around and stretched his arm out to her.
‘Won’t you come with me, Blossom of May, and see what delights your river holds in its watery grip?’
She shuddered. In his state, a slippery quayside and a plunge to the bottom were the only things waiting for him. As they had been for her father.
‘You’re going the wrong way. Regent’s Canal is over there.’ She pointed beyond the church. ‘If that’s water enough for you.’
‘I don’t mind what shape it comes in, so long as it smells of the dreams of nations.’
May snorted. ‘The varnish works, more like. Let’s get this over with then we can both go home to our beds.’
But she had to admit that she needed something to calm her racing senses; perhaps his poet’s soul knew a thing or two after all.
Chapter Twenty-Four
They sat on the swing-arm of the lock gates, their shoulders touching. The water was still and dark, the sky tinged with the yellow glow of the lights in the streets beyond the bridge. It wasn’t a lyrical Dublin night, but they had this little corner of the world to themselves.
‘Are you feeling better now?’
‘Not feeling anything at all, if truth be told. Interesting stuff, this opium. It sort of takes you inside yourself and holds you there. After a few glasses of the Black Stuff I find myself wanting to be friends with everybody, words and music spilling out of my mouth as if they can hold back time. But now I’m perfectly content to be here with you. Just be.’
May watched the head of a water rat break the surface.
‘Tell me, Blossom of May, can you pinpoint the most important moment in your life: the one where everything changed forever?’
Of course she could. Albert and Henry’s deaths. Before that she’d been an ordinary girl working in the tobacco factory and going to night school; afterwards she was driving ambulances full of mortally wounded soldiers in France. And now she was someone who needed the close proximity of death to feel anything like alive. However she didn’t feel inclined to open herself up to a drug-doped man by saying so.
‘I can. Easter Monday 1916. I take it that date means something to you?’
‘I’m not totally ignorant of the world outside Poplar. The start of the Irish Rebellion.’
‘Easter Rising we prefer to call it. Our bid to throw off the yoke of the British oppressors. My father was one of those involved in the planning. Took an active part, too.’
‘He was a Sinn Féiner?’
‘And a Freedom Fighter. They held out for six days until they were finally machine-gunned and bombed into submission. Unfair odds, wouldn’t you say? He was climbing over a roof in Abbey Street when he was picked off by a British bullet. He is a hero back home. You might not agree with his politics and methods but he lived and died for what he believed in. It’s impossible to ask any more of someone, don’t you think? And ever since then I’ve tried to honour his example. Not with guns and violence, but with words. Words that may one day change what people think. Provoke action to right wrongs and challenge injustice. It’s a weight I barely feel on my shoulders and one I’m happy to carry to my grave. There are those who light the way for others to follow, Blossom of May, and I hope that my name is one day numbered amongst them as my father’s is now.’
She was sure she should feel something like shock at his revelation but instead it was envy cloaking her thoughts. Her father had left her a destiny, too, but it was one that dragged her down until sometimes she felt as if she were drowning along with him.
‘You can’t choose your family, can you?’ Each syllable felt heavy enough to plop into the water.
‘What is it, Blossom of May? You can tell me. There are no secrets between co-conspirators.’
May picked at a cotton slub on her trousers. She had never said this to anyone but if she didn’t release it now then she knew she never would; it would continue to eat at her until there was nothing left inside but bitterness and fear.
‘My father was a suicide. I was stationed in Etaples so have no idea what drove him to it; everyone I’ve spoken to has a different story of his mood at the time. But don’t you think losing your only son would be enough to plunge anyone into a black melancholy that would seem impossible to climb out of? Daughters not being nearly enough to live for.’ She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘I’ve attended enough inquests to know that a tendency to despair can run in families and I’m scared for Alice’s future. I’ve noticed how she lives on extremes of excitement and I think it might be because she knows she’s walking a tightrope stretched over a yawning chasm. What if, as an actress, she plays one too many tragedies and loses her footing only to find nothing at the bottom but a conviction that life is merely a longer version of the same play?’
Jack took her hand.
‘She’s met a new friend - Vi came to tea and seems very nice. I hope she’ll be a steadying influence but she’s not going to be around for long whereas Alice’s memories of the night our father walked out and never came back will be with her forever. So even if she isn’t tainted by melancholy, she still has the burden of feeling second rate. Losing out on love to a dead brother.’
May rested her chin on her chest so Jack wouldn’t see the tears. She knew Alice felt this. She knew it because the legacy was shared equally.
‘You forget...’
He lifted her fingers and kissed the tips.
‘...Alice has your influence, too. You are strong and independent, and the most determined woman I’ve ever met. And you love her very much or you wouldn’t be so distressed. Because I’ve smoked the black pearl the emotions I’ve been indulging in this evening are partly illusory but yours are as deep and real as the canal. Start believing that your guidance and wisdom are much more important to your sister than any quirk of fate, and she’ll be fine. Come on, I can feel your bones begin to chill. Let’s leave our shadow-selves to be sucked away on the tide and go home.’
They stood and, hand in hand like old friends, turned their backs on the brooding water.
***
Jack’s lodgings were closest so they headed there first. The corner of Upper North Road by the guano factory was unusually lively. Groups of people - women with babes in arms and rags in their hair, men with un-tucked shirts and hanging braces - were huddled in cloaks of excitement. There was an unfamiliar taste in the air. Smoke. They crossed the road and turned into his street. Police. A fire engine. An ambulance waiting for the worst.
‘You can’t come down here.’
PC Collier.
‘Miss Keaps, I nearly didn’t twig it was you. Been to an Easter fancy dress party at the social? Didn’t know one was on myself. Bit of an unexpected do here tonight as well.’
