Elijah’s Mermaid (6 page)

But these days it seems to have little effect, even though I strive to make the pretence, whispering my sleepy goodnight, yawning and fluttering my eyes – and the moment Mrs Hibbert has gone I reach underneath my pillows and pull out
As Every Day Goes By
– which is now my favourite magazine with its stories serialised each week; with all those eerie real-life tales that appear beneath the banner that asks, ‘
Is it Possible?
’

Cook gives me all her old copies. Mrs Hibbert would tut if she knew. She prefers me to read things like
Woman’s World
with advice on fashion and etiquette, all the latest musical arrangements to play on the parlour piano or harp, with pictures of devoted wives who pose as angels of the hearth alongside their perfect children, inside their perfect homes. But Cook says we are all fallen angels here, and better not to dream of lives that have no bearing on our own – which is why I like
As Every Day
. And those pages
are
educational. The things I have learned. You would be amazed! Did you know there are hogs living wild in the sewers, breeding as fast as rats, and rats that grow to the size of dogs that would tear out your throat and
drain your blood if you so much as dared to cross their paths? And tonight I was reading of Spring Heeled Jack – a supernatural being who once caused a spate of hysteria among half the women of London town, tormenting them with his blazing red eyes and his fingers like claws and a mouth that could vomit blue tongues of fire. Imagine being confronted by that! The ugliest of customers!
A Murderer. A demon from Hell!
Well, that’s what all the headlines said. But never once was that devil caught because of the springs that were fixed to his boots, that gave him the power to fly over walls, after nobbling his victims half out of their wits – and some of them really did go mad, thereafter committed as lunatics.

The stories are stashed back under my pillow. But I am awake. I cannot sleep. What is that creaking outside the door? I hold my breath when it opens up. A golden light comes trickling in. Watery circles lap over the ceiling. Watery shadows creep over the walls. I freeze at a jingle-jangling sound, a faint scratching patter across the boards, then the sudden weight on the end of the bed which causes the mattress to dip right down. For a moment there I almost scream. I am thinking –
Jack has come for me!

Oh, this is no supernatural beast, whatever the aura of menace that seeps from his every pore. I know that dial all too well and I know that low and mellifluous voice when he spouts his soft enquiry, ‘Are you sleeping, or are you pretending again? Won’t you wake for the present Tip’s brought tonight?’

He’s always coming in at night bringing me his midnight gifts, posies of flowers, old books of verse, a wooden box full of Turkish Delight: sweet fragrance of honey, lemon and rose seeping out through the tissue paper’s folds. Those jellies melt upon your tongue like something sent from Paradise. But I only eat them when he’s gone. Only then do I stop pretending sleep, squinting through the narrowed slits of my eyes to make out his silhouette on the bed as he sighs and lowers his head in his hands, getting corned from the gin in his pocket flask before
leaving his tributes for me to find, nestled like eggs in the folds of the quilt, the dipping little womb of silk that proves Tip Thomas was really there, not some goblin conjured from laudanum dreams.

I know when I am dreaming, all of those tumbling, dancing forms. I know I am awake, not dreaming now, while holding the sheets up tight to my throat, peering through the murky gloom and answering with as much hard brass as that in my metal bedstead, ‘Get out of my room! You’ve no right to be here!’

‘Oh, Pearl,’ he groans in mock despair, ‘we are an impertinent little minx. Why would you speak to your saviour so, the one who found you as a babe? Don’t you think it’s time to offer Tip some token of your gratitude . . . to warm the cockles of his heart?’

His hands are fumbling on the stand – hands with long nails – nails like knives – eventually finding the tinder box, striking it, lighting the candle stump. And, through the sudden flaring flame, I see what is perched on the bedstead’s end, the glisten of red in two brown eyes, eyes like a child’s, curious, round, but set in the face of a wrinkled old man. A thick-lipped, grinning, rubbery mouth. A head that is covered in tufts of grey where two pink ears are sticking out. It puts me in mind of an incubus, one of those little imps from Hell that sit on a sleeping maiden’s breast until every breath in her lungs is spent.

‘I don’t like it. Take it away.’ Hard to conceal the fear in my voice as my eyes are dragged from that monkey to Tip where, above the pale tusks of his moustache – Piccadilly Weepers, they are called – the sharply angled bones of his face are sheened with the faintest glisten of sweat, stuck with some strands of fine fair hair. Cook says that he gets her to help with its washing, scrubbing in ashes and yellow flowers, trying to lighten it up yet more. She says that where Tip and his hair are concerned he is as vain as any girl. She swears that he’s got all his minerals; that Tip’s lithe frame and elegant limbs might be perfumed and clad in velvet and lace, but his muscles are wiry
and strong as an ox. She said she once saw him strike a whore who had dared to call him a nancy boy, who had laughed at the way he pinked his cheeks. She said that girl’s cheeks were soon blushing redder, dripping with blood from the scratches Tip made, which never really healed again, an infection set in with scarring welts. And, soon after that, she disappeared.

I am thinking of that caution now, of how only a fool would rile Tip, when he suddenly tears the sheets from my grasp, whipping them back so very fast that I am unable to struggle or shout, my mouth still open wide in shock when Tip murmurs, as if he is thinking aloud, every hushed word of his questioning given the gravest consideration, ‘Hmm . . . so she doesn’t like her gift! What it is to have a thankless child . . . sharper than any serpent’s tooth! These creatures don’t come cheap, you know. I had it stolen specially . . . one of Senor Rosci’s Educated Monkeys. It’ll jiggle its pizzle on demand. It’ll do it right now . . . would she like to see?’

Tip is grinning, his head cocked to one side. ‘Oh dear, have I gone and upset my Pearl? Why, she has turned as white as death. Still, some gentlemen like the consumptive type, the morbidly delicious girls. Or perhaps we could tie some wings on your back and have you play the cherub child, flitting around with a tray of cigars. In the New Jerusalem Company of Learning, Love and Liberty they have a girl who does just that . . . and a nice way to get yourself broken in, used to all the establishment’s ways.’

As if such threats are not bad enough, I nearly jump out of my skin with fright when something is dropped from Tip Thomas’s hand to rattle loudly on the boards – the chain attached to the monkey’s neck – though Tip doesn’t seem to notice the fact that his little ape has broken free. His eyes are intent on me instead, leering, yellow as a wolf’s when caught in the glim of the candle’s flame. Hook hands then lower to cradle my foot, to stroke the webbed flesh between the toes – that caress going on for a very long time, during which I hold my breath again and stare at the grime beneath ridged nails. The
sight of them is vile, but compulsive. I almost swoon with the sheer relief when he lowers my foot to the mattress again, as gently as if it is made of glass, after which he reaches for one of my hands and asks, oh so tenderly, ‘Well . . . my sweet, it’s almost time. Tell me, does she have you prepared?’

‘Does who have me prepared? Prepared for what?’

‘Mrs H. Has she told of our plans to sell?’

‘Mrs Hibbert will
never
do that to me!’ I try to be brave, but inside I am quaking. ‘She says I am precious . . . as loved as a daughter.’

‘Oh, my naive little ladybird. None are so deaf as they will not hear. You know if the price is high enough Mrs Hibbert would sell her mortal soul. She would certainly sell a daughter!’

He drops my hand with a sneering grin and a horrible chill runs through my veins, but oddly enough that gives me the courage to ask what no one has ever told, ‘Am I Mrs Hibbert’s daughter?’

‘What’s this, are we growing curious? Has Pearl been trying to work it out . . . whose womb
she
might have sprung from . . . whose tit once gave her suck?’

Did someone give me suck? I’d never considered such a thing. If it was Mrs Hibbert, if
she
was my mother, then surely I’d know – surely I would remember.

My breathless brave response was made. ‘I know it’s all flam and fabrication . . . everything written up in the Book of Events.’

Tip chuckles softly when he says, ‘The sorry tale of a mermaid dead. And Mrs Hibbert might really be French. I might be the Queen of Sheba. It’s all to whip up the trade, ma chère.’ And then, somewhat more thoughtfully, still staring through pale and glittering eyes, ‘If Madame H is to capitalise then she must act without delay, leading you into her temple and laying you down on her altar of love, sacrificing your virgin blood to the devils she worships so fervently . . . Monsieur Mammon and Madame Amour.’

‘A sacrifice?’

‘Mais oui, ma chère! A little death . . . a little blood. Do you bleed already, Pearl?’

I am spooked. My heart thuds as fast as a drum. Through trembling breaths I manage to say, ‘Get out! Take your horrible monkey too. Get out, or I’ll scream. I’ll call Mrs Hibbert. I’ll . . .’

‘
I’ll call Mrs Hibbert
.’ He mimics. He taunts, ‘My, my . . . what a spitfire we’ve bred. I have to say I admire your pluck, but then I’ve heard it all before. And there’s really no point. You know she won’t hear . . . too busy holding court downstairs . . . an evening of literature with her friends. A chapter or two of
The Birchen Bouquet
. . . or is it
The Romance of Chastisement
tonight?’

I have seen those books upon her shelves. The ones
she
reads to the gentlemen. She does not let me look inside but they are all exquisitely bound, and the lovely gilt letters, and the covers so worn they are furred, soft as velvet – unlike Tip’s nails, which graze my wrist when he grabs so hard that I wince and struggle to pull away, while he hisses, ‘She’s down there. I’m up here with you and I’ll only go when I’m good and done . . . when we’ve had us a bit of beano.’

His loosens his grip but I can’t relax. I see through the dipping dancing light how Tip’s angry features are suddenly ugly, his breaths coming much too heavy and fast when one of his hands slips beneath my shift, sharp fingers caressing my inner thighs, scratching and needling the flesh.

‘No!’ I am determined to scream, but his free hand is pressed against my mouth, his wispy moustache tickling soft on my cheek when he lowers his lips very close to my ear, his tone become softer, despite its threat. Yes! You are mine as much as hers. A mutual investment you were, a long speculation that risk we took. Now the risk has paid off, and the market is prime and . . .’ A momentary wave of concern is washing across his features at a dull, repetitive thudding sound from somewhere low down beside the door, whether inside or out it is hard to tell.

Has someone come to save me?

No, my heart sinks. It is only that monkey, squatting down on its haunches in velvety shadows, one hand tugging fast on the lollipop that is standing proud as the mast of a ship. I know this performance is something obscene, that innate suspicion only confirmed by Tip’s smirk when observing his pet at play. How I wish that would keep him entertained, but too soon his face leers back at me and so close there is barely an inch in between us, and those fingers still held between my thighs begin to crawl yet higher. I gasp. I think of a spider there, its black legs raking in small teasing circles until I hardly dare to imagine where they might try to venture next, when Tip whispers wetly in my ear, ‘I should indoctrinate you now . . . give you a taste of the Venus arts.’ His nails dig deeper, a pain so intense that I struggle and twist to free my head, at which point the fingers below are extracted and Tip is trying to gag me again, this time with both hands pressed over my face so that I am unable to breathe or speak, still forced to listen to his threats. ‘You won’t lose any value, you know . . . even if I do choose to fuck you tonight. I’ll have the quack come and stitch you back up . . . then sell your virtue all over again. Goes on all the time in me Limehouse gaff . . . which is where you’ll end up if you don’t comply, sold on to the syphilitic old goats who think they’ll be cured by a virgin fuck. Why, I’ve been somewhat oozy meself of late. We could try out the cure, right here, right now. No?’ He raises a questioning brow. ‘Pearl’s not in the mood for a tickle?’

I think he teases. I hope he teases. But what he says next is too horrible – ‘And when your cunt’s all coopered out, there’s always the lascars and dockers around, the opium addicts too addled to care as to where they dip their filthy quills. In the end, you’ll wish I’d let you drown. You’ll probably finish the job yourself.’

When that revolting speech is done, his hands are lifted away from my mouth and all I can do is gasp for breath. The bile is rising in my throat. I have to struggle to swallow it down. And
what a pathetic show of bravado when I beat my fists against his chest, when he laughs and turns his back on my hatred, his footsteps springy and silent as they pad towards the bedroom door, only glancing back again when he hears the crash upon the boards – the mirror framed in seashells that I snatch from my nightstand and fling his way. A hundred broken pieces of glass. A hundred twinkling shards of light. A hundred daggers to pierce his heart, if only I had the pluck to try. And Tip has an answer, he always does. ‘Merde! What has she gone and done? That’s seven years bad luck for Pearl.’

He clicks his tongue for the monkey to follow. A rattle as chains drag through the glass, as the beast leaps into its master’s arms, and there it is cradled like a babe while Tip Thomas makes his soft farewell. ‘Shall we call that Pearl’s first lesson in love . . . a little taster for us both . . . a warning that she should never forget exactly where her loyalties lie? And not a word to Madam H. Least said is soonest mended.’