Birdcage Walk

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘I have been there with my mother. I was ten or eleven, I think.’

  ‘Strange choice of promenade.’

  ‘No one molested us. I used to think that her cloak was magical, and when it spread around us both nothing could hurt us.’

  ‘I should like to have such a cloak. She must have been a very remarkable woman.’

  ‘That is what everyone says.’

  ‘But you don’t agree?’

  ‘No. It sets her apart. She never thought herself remarkable.’

  ‘She was too modest, perhaps.’

  ‘She could not have lived in any other way.’

  ‘You must miss her very much.’

  Another shiver of rain crossed the vastness of the gorge. I stared outwards so as not to look at him. ‘I am not yet sure that I can live without her,’ I said, and as I had hoped and trusted, he made no reply.

  Darkness was thickening in the abyss beneath me, grain by grain. I blinked and could no longer see the hills of Wales. He was right: it was more beautiful than summer, or at least, it suited my mood better. The tints suppressed …

  ‘Would you write about such a scene in your poems?’ I asked.

  ‘Perhaps. Does anyone live in that forest?’

  ‘I believe not. Men work the stone quarries, but they go home at night.’

  ‘I would not want to sleep there. God knows what comes out of those trees, after dark.’

  ‘I must go home,’ I said. Diner had had me followed once and an old shawl would not throw him off if he decided to track me again. ‘You should go back, too. Even in that coat, it is better for you not to be out. Why have you not already left for the Highlands?’

  ‘My ship has gone to Oporto instead, with a cargo of fifteen thousand empty bottles. They are promiscuous in their favours, these sea captains. He was to have taken me to Glasgow. Meanwhile Augustus believes I should stay where I am. I shall lie low enough, you may be sure of it. I would not risk his safety and Hannah’s. You are soaked through, Mrs Tredevant. You should go home and scrub a floor to warm yourself.’

  ‘You may call me Lizzie. You may also turn your hand to housework yourself, if you like. Hannah is old and rheumatic. She will do everything for you, because for her a poet who may be taken up for sedition is like Charles Edward to the Scots. But you must not let her exhaust herself.’

  ‘Aha! I am ahead of you there. I swept out the kitchen this morning and laid the fire. I am an early riser. I write for two hours, lay the fire, eat my plate of porridge and it is still only seven o’clock. I am a passable cook, too, although so far I have not managed to persuade Hannah to let me cook the dinner. If she likes she may sit with her feet up like Queen Charlotte and I shall do everything. Although it must be admitted that Queen Charlotte had fifteen good reasons to sit on a sofa.’

  ‘You are very unlike most of Augustus’s friends.’

  ‘I see that you have the wrong idea about poets. We are makers, you know. We do not sit about admiring words. We must seize hold of them and chisel at them until they do what we want. Or what the poem wants, perhaps – but that is another question. I am so glad to have met you, Miss Lizzie. I have been lonely.’

  His eyes shone at me through the dusk and I did not believe a word of it. Such a man would never be alone, unless he chose.

  17

  Diner was home before me. I did not know it at first, because the house was dark and still. I left my boots to dry, hung up Philo’s shawl, and then climbed the stairs to the attic. I paused outside the door and heard them: Philo’s voice running up and down like a singer trying her scales, and Thomas’s fat, convulsive laughter. They’d be lolling on the bed together, babbling nonsense, entirely happy. My eyes stung and I leaned against the wall. I would not disturb them. I went downstairs again, through the house that seemed tonight like a sketch of itself and not the real thing, as if at any moment the walls might dissolve away and leave us all to wake on a bare hillside.

  He was in the drawing room, sitting by the unlit fire, immobile. One candle burned on the hearth. It was a kitchen candle in a rough holder that did not belong here. Much of the furniture had gone now, vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, as if it was no longer worthwhile to keep up appearances. There were no more buyers to impress. The sofa remained. It was our own: it had been a poor battered thing when Diner had picked it up, but I had stuffed its cavities with wool and stitched a cover out of a pair of old red curtains from Mrs Clumber’s shop. I sat down.

  ‘Is that you, Lizzie?’ he asked, without turning his head.

  ‘Of course. Shall I light the fire?’

  ‘I’m not cold.’

  It was damp and dreary enough outside, but I too was still warm from the walk home. He raised his head and I forced myself to hold his gaze steadily. I felt as if my conversation with Will was printed across my brow.

  ‘Where have you been, Lizzie?’

  ‘To market, and then to Mr Orchard’s.’

  ‘I have told you before that you must not be out in the dark unaccompanied.’

  ‘It gets dark so early now.’

  ‘All the more reason,’ he said. ‘But you do not listen, do you, Lizzie? You think that you know best. I tell you that your wanderings will get you into trouble. Are you listening to me now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come here.’

  I stepped to him reluctantly. He took both my hands and pulled me towards him. The light from the kitchen candle fell on me and left him in shadow.

  ‘This is your house, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘I built it for you. And yet you are restless, as if you were still living in lodgings. What will it take to make you content?’ He shook my wrists, not hard but so that I could feel the strength in his hands.

  ‘I am content,’ I said.

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘Indeed, I am.’

  He was still gazing at me, but I could not see into his eyes. I looked straight ahead, letting the light of the candle dazzle me. At last, his fingers relaxed.

  ‘Did I ever tell you, Lizzie, about the first house I built?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It was at Horace Row. The building was complete and the cottages tenanted, but there was a scrap of land left. A poor piece. A triangle. They had miscalculated and could not complete the row, or so they thought. I looked at it closely and thought otherwise. You know where it is, down by the docks?’

  ‘I think I do.’

  ‘A row of cottages built for dock-workers. But better than many, even so. I did not have the money to purchase the land. I walked past it again and again and I calculated how it could be done.’

  ‘A triangular house, you mean?’

  ‘Almost. From the front it would look much the same as the others in the row, although it would be narrower. I would set the windows a little closer, and one of them would not be a window at all, but a painted sham, made to match. I saw how I could fit the design to the shape of the land and deceive the eye so that the row would look complete.’

  He was relaxing now. He looked away to the side of him, as if he could still see that triangular house, the first he had made.

  ‘So how did you get the land?’ I asked. I would draw him on to safer ground, and keep him there.

  ‘I went to the landlord with a proposition. By then I knew to a penny the rents he was getting from the row. I calculated exactly. If he would come in with me, I would bear the cost of building. He would not part with capital, and I had not expected it. We came to an agreement that I would have an interest in the completed building and the rent would be divided between us. He did not understand how much better off he would have been if he had paid me a fixed sum.’

  ‘But how did you raise the money for the building?’

  ‘I borrowed it, Lizzie, against the signed agreement for future rents. Two families live in each of those cottages. I called in favours – I had been in the trade for some years by then – and I built the best part of that house myself. When it was all done a
nd the first tenants had moved in, the landlord tried to cheat me. My share of the rent was late on the first quarter day, and later the second. He told me that the tenants had not paid. It did not take me long to dissuade him from that course. When a man tries to hook your bread out of your mouth, you must close your teeth upon him. I had no further trouble. There you have it, Lizzie: the story of how your husband became a man of property. I borrowed again, and built again. My stock grew until the time that I could buy my own piece of land to build upon, and make my own profit. The rent from that cottage still comes to me on the nail.’

  He spoke quietly, as if all this had happened long ago, and to another man.

  ‘You are only thirty-six,’ I said.

  ‘I am no longer that young man who walked up and down Horace Row, making his calculations. I could not do it again. A man can do such things only once in his life, Lizzie. He can work until he convinces himself that he does not need sleep or food like other men. He cannot do them twice.’

  ‘You will not have to.’

  We were at ease now and my fear had ebbed away entirely. I lifted the candle to the mantelpiece so that I could see his face. What I noticed was the shabbiness of his shirt. It even had a tear in the sleeve. Now I looked closely, he was dishevelled all over. His hair not groomed, his face unshaven.

  ‘You must have a better shirt than that. Wait.’ I went out with the candle. It was quite dark now and shadows bulged and shrank on the walls as I went up to our bedroom. We still had the deal press where I kept our clean linen, and there was my sewing. I picked up one of his new shirts. I smoothed it over my arm, took the candle again and went downstairs to where Diner was sitting in the dark.

  ‘We must have more light than this,’ I said briskly. ‘But first, please try on your new shirt.’

  He looked up at me in surprise. ‘What’s this, Lizzie?’

  ‘You know I was sewing new shirts for you, and here is one of them.’ I did not say that they should have all been finished months ago, but I’d had so much sewing to do for Thomas. ‘Take off that old thing, it is only fit for rags.’ I would sell it to Mrs Clumber. It might be worn but the linen was good.

  He stood up obediently, unbuttoned the neck of his shirt, pulled it over his head and handed it to me. His hair was wild now. He looked quite unlike the Diner who was so measured, dark and stern, who walked with purpose and spoke because he had something to say. He was lost tonight. I folded his old shirt carefully. He did not like anything to be treated carelessly: we were alike in that. The new shirt had been laid away in paper and was uncreased. I shook it out and held it against him.

  ‘I think it will be a good fit.’

  He put it on, and I buttoned the small buttons at the chest and cuffs.

  ‘Lift your arms,’ I said, and watched how the shape held. ‘How does it feel?’

  He straightened his back and moved his shoulders. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Very good.’

  ‘You will have half a dozen.’

  ‘Very good, Lizzie.’

  I saw that he was moved, and I said, ‘You have given me so much.’

  He gave an odd bark of laughter. ‘So much! My poor Lizzie, you have no idea of our situation.’

  ‘I think I have.’

  ‘They will take the clothes from our backs, I warn you.’

  ‘You mean, your creditors?’

  ‘But I will fox them yet. I will not sit quiet and let them strip me of everything I have worked for all these years.’

  ‘I know you will not.’

  There was a tap at the door. It could only be Philo and I would have to answer her. I went over to the door quickly and opened it a little so that she would not see Diner standing there in his new shirt.

  ‘What is it, Philo?’

  She leaned against the door-jamb, clutching Thomas, who was wide awake and staring. A candlestick wobbled in her other hand. ‘I got the bellyache so bad, I got to lie down.’ Her face was covered with a sheen of sweat. She looked awful.

  ‘Give Thomas to me. Come along, Philo, I’m taking you upstairs.’

  The smell in the attic was terrible where she had voided her guts in the chamber pot. ‘I’ll clear this,’ I said. ‘Get into bed.’

  I did not dare put Thomas down because I knew he would scream. I tucked him under one arm, took the chamber pot in my other hand and made my way down to the kitchen. We ought to have more light. We ought to have sconces on the walls. It was not safe, feeling my way in all this darkness. At the drawing-room door I made up my mind, set down the pot and opened the door. Diner was sitting by the cold fire again.

  ‘You must hold Thomas,’ I said to him. ‘Philo is taken ill. I must take care of her, but I shan’t be long. If he cries, walk him up and down.’

  I settled the baby on to him. Diner did not speak and Thomas stared up unblinkingly at the new face as I hurried from the room before he could cry.

  The kitchen fire still glowed. I went out by the back door, threw the filth into the privy and cast a shovelful of ash after it. I swilled the pot with water from the pump and went back upstairs to Philo.

  She lay on the bed holding her stomach and moaning.

  ‘But you were all right when I came in,’ I said to her. ‘You were laughing with Thomas. When did this start?’

  ‘I got to use the pot,’ she said. I helped her out of bed and held her skirt clear while she voided herself again. ‘I et pig cheek,’ she muttered when she was lying flat again. ‘Leave the pot.’

  ‘Poor Philo.’ The slops were half liquid and the smell made me gag. I fetched her another pot from our room and emptied the filth again. There was no sound from the drawing room. A third time Philo clambered out of bed, trembling all over, and voided herself. Afterwards she lay flat, exhausted, while I sponged her face. I fetched her clean water and she sipped a little then said: ‘Thomas.’

  ‘He’s with Diner.’

  ‘God alive.’

  I sat beside her for a while. I thought she was asleep until she began to writhe and moan again, clutching her stomach. This time she vomited. Again I carried it away; again I listened at the drawing-room door and there was still no sound from Thomas.

  ‘It’s all out now,’ said Philo, without opening her eyes, when I came back with the clean pot. I picked up her hand. It was clammy and it flopped back on the blanket when I released it. She lay still, no longer moaning. I sponged her face and hands again, and then thought of the lavender water in my room. There was a little left. I ran down for it.

  ‘This will make you feel better,’ I said. I bent over Philo and dabbed her temples with the lavender water, then her wrists. Philo’s nostrils dilated. She loved any scent: she always sniffed when I had rubbed rosewater into my hair.

  ‘No one ever done that for me,’ she muttered, and then she was asleep. I waited for a while, but she was right. It was all out of her now, whether it was the pig’s cheek she’d eaten that had made her ill, or something else. The pot was by her bed and she had water. I could leave her.

  ‘He cried,’ said Diner when I came back into the drawing room. ‘I walked up and down with him.’

  Thomas was fast asleep, sprawled face down across Diner’s lap with his shawl spread over him. Diner did not know how to gather him close, as a woman would, but nevertheless he had soothed him.

  ‘I’m afraid he has rumpled the shirt you made me,’ he said.

  ‘No matter, I can iron it. Philo is asleep now. We must have the cradle in our room tonight, Diner.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘Do you think I am going to put the child out in the rain?’

  ‘Of course not! You got him to sleep as well as I could have done.’

  ‘He twitches like a puppy. I suppose he dreams.’

  ‘He dreams of food,’ I said, and smiled because I was so glad that for once Thomas did not have to be hidden away in the attic like a secret. But I had gone too far.

  ‘I did not want him here, Lizzie,’ said Diner, without anger but with a seriousness that I
could not ignore. ‘He must go back to Augustus.’

  ‘But not now,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’ I lifted the baby to me. He shuddered at the change, but did not wake. Diner was looking straight at me.

  ‘It is you I want for my wife, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘Not a creature broken down by childbearing.’ He spoke as if he could see that woman in front of him, and I wondered who she was. It seemed as if anything could be said or thought, with Thomas in my lap, the cold hearth and the light of one candle burning down. I knew that his parents had died of the putrid fever before he was ten, and that he had travelled from the north of England to Cornwall, to be taken in by an uncle.

  ‘Had you brothers and sisters?’ I asked.

  ‘There were eight of us.’

  ‘Where did they all go?’

  ‘Three died with my parents. The others went to relations. We were scattered and I have not seen any of them since I left Lancashire. They will have taken other names, as I took my uncle’s.’

  ‘But you could find them.’

  ‘They would no longer be my brothers and sisters, even if I found them. They would be strangers now.’

  He spoke so definitely that I did not like to pursue it, in spite of my curiosity. It occurred to me that we were now having the conversations we should have had long ago, before we married. My mother had not pressed him for information. It was a point of honour with her: that I was independent and should make my own decisions on my own grounds. I suppose she wanted to do the opposite of what her own parents had done, but it struck me now that there might have been a compromise. Diner had seen his parents die, and three of his siblings. He had left his home and all that he knew. We had been ignorant of this, because we were too scrupulous to ask.

  ‘Do you know, Lizzie,’ he said, ‘I cannot remember their names. Only Bessie. And I can see her outline, but not her face. It is the same with all of them.’

  ‘It is natural, I suppose, after so long,’ I said carefully, although my heart was squeezed in my breast. I did not like to ask him if Bessie had been one of the three who died.

  ‘I used to wonder, when I was working in my uncle’s yard, why I had lived and they had not. But there is no reason in any of it.’