The Lion's Courtship: An Anna Kronberg Mystery (9 page)

Her chest heaves as she rubs her brow. ‘Does she know where the girl is?’

‘No. But she said the girl calls herself Poppy. Last name might be Briggs, or Higgs. Her mother sold her to the madam a few days ago. Poppy never spoke about her home. She works on the streets now.’

‘The madam threw her out?’
 

He nods. She turns to the window and presses her forehead against the glass.
 

He sees the trembling of her shoulders. Unsure how to make her feel better, he stands and walks up to her.

‘I didn’t what to scare you so.’ His hand softly settles on her shoulder.

‘Thank you for helping me, Garret.’ Her voice is fighting for control. ‘Good night.’ she says when she leaves for the door.

‘Good night,’ Garret answers when she’s long gone.

Anna

S
he stumbles over the doorsteps; her heart is beating wildly and her chest is clenching painfully. She doesn’t understand her reaction to Garret. She doesn’t understand why old memories still have so much power. Why did they come with such force tonight, but had not bothered her at all this morning? Where was the logic in her being comfortable with his arm around her waist, and only hours later, a similar gesture makes her feel as though he had thrown himself upon her?

She begins to run. Her boots slam through the dirt and stink and piss of St Giles. Her heart doesn’t stop aching. She runs until she reaches Bow Street. The door to the cobbler’s is shut, so she tries the back, runs up the stairs and down the corridor. She unlocks the small room at the very end, steps in and locks it, fumbles for the matches, then lights two oils lamps and yanks off her dress.

She hates being scared and being fragile, being at the weaker end of humanity’s sexual reproduction scheme, of education, employment, and basic rights. If a scream could make things better, she’d scream until her throat turned numb.

Instead, she sheds her dress, and undergarments, and opens the wardrobe where she keeps her disguise. Only ten minutes later, she’s her professional and controlled self: Dr Anton Kronberg of Guy’s Hospital.
 

Calmness settles on her shoulders. She picks at a lock of hair that sticks out from behind her left ear, then adds a bit more Macassar oil until she’s satisfied. She places a top hat onto her sleek hair and picks up the ebony walking stick, its silver knob reflecting the dim light.

When she closes the door to her secret dressing chamber and sets out for a late work night in her laboratory, she’s glad to leave her female self behind.

Sally

B
arry squats at his usual spot, more or less at the usual time. It doesn’t take long for Anna to emerge from her house.

‘Hello, Barry,’ she says.

‘Hello, Anna,’ he squeaks and tugs at her skirt. Her tired expression makes space for a smile. ‘Can you see my mom?’

‘Something serious?’

‘Umm…don’t know. She might be hurting a bit.’

She takes his hand and they make their way down Endell Street, turn into Castle Street and up into Barry’s house. There’s no door to keep unwanted guests out. But then, only a few would want to enter a place as decrepit as this.

The stairs yield even under the boy’s weight. Murmur crawls down along the moist walls when they reach the second floor. Then, they turn right to climb through a gap that once used to be a functional door.

Anna lights her lamp and the boy sends a greeting into the dark room. ‘Mom?’

‘I told you, it’s nothing,’ rasps the hunched figure in front of a barricaded window. A child is coughing nearby.

‘Hello, Sally,’ says Anna and squats down next to the woman. ‘Your boy is a bit worried. Are you alright?’

The answer is a throaty laugh. ‘Alright,’ she mutters. ‘What does that mean? What does that boy know, anyways?’

She continues a tirade about useless men who impregnated her with that useless boy, and about White Velvet being her only friend. Why anyone would call the cheapest gin White Velvet, Anna couldn’t fathom.
 

Barry stands there, examining the tips of his tattered boots.

‘Sally, if you simply tell me what ails you, I can stop bothering you.’

The woman clears her throat and spits on the floor. ‘The chemist sold me the wrong bottle.’ She waves towards a small bucket that has a narrow hose attached to it.

Anna picks up the bottle from inside the bucket and reads the list of ingredients in the dim lamp light. ‘How much of this did you use?’

‘Used it only once. Almost ate my quim, blasted stuff that.’

‘You used it straight from the bottle? You didn’t dilute it?’

‘Didn’t say anything about that, did he now? Gave me the bottle. Charged a shilling. A shilling!’

Anna turns to Barry and hands him a coin. ‘Barry, go fetch vinegar, salt, and fresh water. Water from the pump, not the river. Take this bucket.’ She points to another, larger one. ‘But rinse it before you fill it.’

She slips the bottle — filled with a mix of chlorine solution and other caustic ingredients — into her doctor’s bag and sighs. ‘Can you sit at all?’

Muttering to herself, the woman shakes her head. ‘Can’t work like this. Can’t even take them in my bum. Burns like I’d been fucked by a bottlebrush.’

Anna rummages through her bag. She rubs her brow when she realises she’s out of ointment. ‘I’ll take a look at the child with the cough while we wait for your son to return.’

A low grunt indicates agreement of some sort.

The coughing sounds low and wet, and Anna’s mind registers symptoms and analyses potential risks and treatments as she approaches. The child is wrapped in rags, but sits upright and tries to get the mucous out of her airways.
 

‘Hello,’ Anna says when she sits down on the pallet. ‘You know, I lost my mouse. It’s a really nice one, with white fur and long whiskers. It likes to hide in armpits and behind ears. Would you help me find it?’

Big-eyed attention flares up. Snots glistens in the lamp light. The child nods and wipes her nose on her sleeve.

Anna sends soft hands across the girl’s forehead, she presses on sinuses, pulls eyelids down, and probes lymph nodes. ‘She doesn’t seem to be here. Are you sure you didn’t swallow her?’

Frantic nodding, followed by a coughing attack.
 

‘Could you look into mine? To make sure?’ Anna opens her own mouth wide.

The girl looks with one eye, then the other. ‘I don’t see it. What about mine?’ she says and opens up her mouth. Anna lifts her lamp. A rugged landscape of swollen and disfigured tonsils gleams at her. Yellow pus oozes from fissures.

‘No mouse there, either. Perhaps she ran back home. Hmm… How old are you?’ she asks and gets a shrug in return. ‘Where is your mother?’

Another shrug.
 

Anna guesses the girl to be four — too young to know the difference between gargling and swallowing, and she’d certainly not swallow anything bitter. So camomile tea it will be instead of iodine solution or sage infusion. And ribwort in honey to get rid of the mucous. But she’d have to make a deal.

‘Can you wait for a moment while I see to the lady over there?’

Anna’s eyes meet Barry’s, who seems oddly shaken. She nods at him. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers in his ear and takes the bucket from his hand. ‘I propose a gentlemen’s agreement.’

‘Another one?’ he asks.

‘Indeed. Full of honour and glory. But no spitting!’ The boy, who had just expelled a load of saliva onto his palm, now wipes it on his trousers and reaches out. ‘You don’t want to hear what I have to propose?’

‘Oh.’ He pulls his hand away.

‘I’ll make ointment for your mother, and you see that this girl gets her medicine five times a day.’

They shake hands, Barry pressing as hard as he can. ‘Ouch,’ says Anna and he grins. They have been at this game for weeks now.

‘Sally, I’ll mix you a new douche so you can wash the chlorine…the stuff that burns out of you. But the tube has to go all the way in. I’m sorry.’
 

Sally glares at the small bucket with its attached hose while Anna mixes water and salt to a solution somewhat resembling 0.75 percent sodium chloride. Then she adds a good dash of vinegar to make it slightly acidic. ‘I hold it, you insert it,’ she suggests.

Sally fetches her chamber pot, squats down, and hikes up her skirts. With a lot of hissing and grunting, she inserts the tube, then washes the caustic solution from her vagina.

‘It will take a while to heal,’ Anna says, knowing that this is of no consequence. Sally must make money, and if one orifice hurts more than the others, she’ll have to improvise. ‘I’ll send Barry with ointment. You can take it as needed.’

Sally stands up, drops the hems of her skirts, wipes herself dry, and gifts Anna a decisive nod. She wraps a scarf around her neck and head, then leaves the room without a word.

Anna realises that the woman’s other problem is her reputation. A conspicuous itch on the pricks of her customers would result in her being branded a wasp — a prostitute infected with venereal disease. There is little that can be worse for business.

‘Would you help me make the ointment?’ she asks Barry, knowing the boy is only too eager to leave.

Ointments

S
he holds out the bucket to Barry, who grabs it and dashes out of her room. When he returns, she has already stoked the fire and arranged a variety of items: a small pot, jars and bottles, and a polished oak stick are waiting on the kitchen counter.

The boy pours the water into the washbowl, rolls up his sleeves as far as they’ll go, and offers Anna the soap. She scrubs her hands and forearms, then it’s Barry’s turn. He’s so dirty that the water turns a dark grey, as does the towel he uses to dry himself off.

Silently, he watches and waits for her instructions.
 

Anna pours almond oil into the pot, sprinkles two tablespoons of dried calendula petals into it, and places it onto the stove. She turns the handle to Barry. ‘It needs to be warm, but mustn’t get hot.’

‘How warm?’ the boy asks.

‘Warmer than your hand, but you should be able to touch it without burning yourself.’

The boy nods, wraps a towel around the pot handle, and gently swirls the oil, holding it a bit higher above the flames.

Anna breaks small bits off the compressed honeycomb she keeps in a jar on her kitchen cupboard, then adds them to the oil. ‘Once the wax dissolves, you can take the pot off the fire.’

They watch the petals release their yellow pigments into the potion while the honeycombs begin to shrink. Barry is all focus and removes the pot when he believes it’s time. He sticks his cleanest finger into the liquid, frowns, and walks to the washbowl to lower the pot into the tepid water. A soft hiss and the cast iron loses its heat.

After a minute of swirling and sticking-in fingers, he’s satisfied and places the pot on the counter.

Anna observes the boy, his silence, his avoiding of her gaze. She knows his mind craves the distraction, while his heart is ashamed. It isn’t logical to feel ashamed for a mother; one cannot choose one’s family. But as usual, the heart doesn’t care much for logic. Besides, the boy knows enough about tradition and inheritance to be afraid of ending up like all the other wretches.