Walking in Pimlico (33 page)

It was his regular duty to visit the chemist’s shop on behalf of his adored mistress to collect her ‘medicine’ but, having once or twice made an error in describing the prescription, Lucy had taken to writing a note in which she indicated the strength and quantity of what she required. I had Prithy come to me after he had received his orders from Lucy and, to make his errand less complicated, copied Lucy’s instruction on to a note with mine (a simple
preparation to relieve nausea). But I made sure that, in transferring Lucy’s orders, the strength was much increased, a simple alteration which I calculated would not be queried. And indeed it was not. A few coins in Prithy Taverner’s grubby hand and the business was concluded.

No, not entirely concluded, for I needed to see for myself the wild-haired creature who had confronted Yates in the Constellation yard now tamed, and indeed Sage’s description of Lucy’s present condition was so surprising that I could not be satisfied with his account. Feeling much stronger than I appeared to the world, I once again relished contemplation of my handiwork and, with the aid of James Yates, it would prove a simple enough exercise. It necessitated, of course, the return to Halls’s lodging house to recover Yates’s clothes, which were still (I hoped) in my trunk. I was, in truth, quite excited at the prospect – not merely the opportunity to put on those breeches and boots and to take the streets, instead of borrowing them as a woman does. No, it was not just the pleasure of the putting on, but also the danger involved. I was hungry for Yates’s excitement. It was a long time since the smell of sandalwood and lime oil had not just been stale odours on his shirt and collar, but pungent and real on my hair and skin.

However, I hadn’t anticipated having to keep company with the odious Mr Halls, who I had glimpsed skulking about the circus precincts and who had surprised me as I stepped into the street. He had been anxiously looking out for me for some days, he said, and cupped his hand under my elbow the better to firmly propel me along. I offered no resistance, although more than once I wondered if I should cry for help (for effect as well as entertainment) but, anxious to secure James Yates’s belongings and my own plans, I was compliant and allowed him to steer me to Paradise-court and his gloomy back sitting room. He closed the door and supported it with a chair (because it was liable to swing open he said), and produced
a bottle and two cups, though he filled only one. He came to the point quickly after enjoying half a cupful and refilling it.

‘Your babby, miss. I have heard a whisper about it,’ he said confidentially. ‘I have an interest in it – and you. So I have approached an acquaintance, a man in the exhibition line, and he is also interested in it. I will introduce you to him I will cut you in at a shilling a day. You’ll have your room here, all found. I’ll see to it, don’t you worry.’

He coughed horribly, and spat a ball of thick mucus into the grate, where it bounced and sizzled. And then – it was comical to observe – he suddenly realised that the ‘asset’ about which he was so concerned was absent. He consulted the floor and my lap, and it was all I could do not to smile.

‘Where is it, the babby? Sick? Not dead?’

‘No, not dead, Mr Halls. Taking the air with a friend.’ (It was in fact in the capable hands of Blind Sally from the workhouse, whose baby had died but whose milk was still plentiful.)

‘Well, I want to see it before I part with a copper,’ he growled, and then realized what he had said. ‘Not that I don’t trust you, miss.’

‘What makes you think that I haven’t already made arrangements, Mr Halls? In fact, I am perfectly satisfied, being well provided for and quite comfortable in Mr Chittick’s company,’ I returned, though it was a lie.

‘Ah, now you might
think
that you have an arrangement with Chittick, miss,’ he said, with an air of knowledge and confidence, ‘but there I do have the advantage of you, for I know better. Chittick don’t figure. Don’t come into it. Not for a moment.’

He licked his lips in a most unpleasant fashion, and drank gin from the chipped cup, all the while regarding me with proprietorial fixity. The clock ticked and the poor coal on the fire spat and crackled as we sat for some moments in silence.

‘Ah, miss,’ he whined eventually, ‘I am sure that we can accommodate each other. We are, don’t you know, of similar dispositions? Both trying to make our way in the world what is agin us? This is the way I see it, miss, and you will correct me if I am wide of the mark. You have an infant what is remarkable. I am interested in said infant. You might want to reconsider my offer – one shilling a day. All found.’

Picking up the poker, I nudged the coals and watched the flames lick and tremble into life.

Mr Halls sighed at my silence. And scratched his head, watching me carefully as I continued to stir the fire.

‘Of course,’ he said, with a hint of irritation in his voice, ‘I might make it easy on myself. I might just take the child. I know where it is. Who would stop me? You? Chittick? Nah! I have friends. You won’t get in my way.’

He had played a poor hand, resorting to threats, and from that moment he was no adversary, no opponent at all. Just another greedy little man with one foot in the gutter. He takes another cup of gin. I see that his hand shakes.

‘So, let’s get back to our business.’

‘No, Mr Halls,’ I say, and he starts, ‘let us not. I have made my position clear. There are no considerations. There will be no cutting in.’

He frowns, and the cup which is halfway to his lips freezes there momentarily, whilst he considers – and he lets me know how seriously he considers – by squinting his eyes and pursing his lips.

I continue. ‘I shall be removing my belongings from your establishment imminently. I have no further need of your services, Mr Halls.’ I put two shillings on the table, and keep my fingers upon them. ‘This, I think, will clear any misunderstandings.’

He looks at me. He looks at the coins. He raises his eyebrows, and a hiss struggles from between his lips.

‘I hardly think so, miss,’ says he in a whisper, ‘I hardly think so,
since I’ve been so put out on your behalf. Perhaps we should have a little talk about that.’

I wait. I want to hear what he thinks he knows.

‘You see, I thought you wasn’t coming back, miss.’ He is almost intimate. ‘I heard that you was awful sick with your kid, and since there was no hide or hair of you, I thought you was dead, miss. But, what about her family? thought I. What about her dear sister? Won’t she want to know where her dear loving girl is?’

He stops dramatically, and a thin smile tightens his lips.

‘I thought, I must open her trunk,’ says he, leaning towards me, and laying the tips of his fingers across mine, ‘and take a look inside. It is my public duty, for I want to find your relatives. A letter perhaps, with an address to which I can write and communicate the sad news. And I found one. I found many. Interesting reading, miss. Kept me awake at nights, they did. So I’ve a letter prepared for Miss – what’s-’er-name? – Shovelton, I do believe. Ah, dearest, sweetest,
ripest
Helen! Like the feel of soft flesh, do you, miss? Fancy them soft golden curls and them sweet lips? And other parts. Very h-eloquent, miss. Touching. Gets a man hot round the edges, if you take my meaning. And I take it you like dressing the part too, miss? All yer fine breeches and so on.’

So he had been through James Yates’s belongings! I feel a familiar surge of anger.

‘But, miss,’ he continues, warming to his theme, ‘explain to me, for I am an ignorant man, how you got this kid of yours? Not by playing with the girls, did you? With Miss Helen. But perhaps you lost your appetite. Well, I’m not particular,’ he says, and his face is so close to mine that I am breathing his breath. ‘A man like me doesn’t get much for free.’

That breath, the only thing I can hear, is whistling in my face now, and the mucus rattles and crackles in his throat.

‘And afterwards,’ he says, ‘we can talk about your kid. And Helen.’

He has turned away to drain the cup and refill it. The poker, with its hot and knotty head, is still in my hand. As he turns towards me again, I swing it back, then forward and it meets the side of Halls’s head with a soft thud. He looks at me with opened-mouthed amazement, and I swing the poker again, finding his shoulder. He cries out, staggering, and lurches at me, hands flailing in an attempt to grasp the weapon. I retreat a few steps, but only to find room to swing the poker with more vigour, and once again his head meets the iron shaft with a dull crack. He reels with exaggerated movements and sinks into the chair as I catch him again across his cheek and then the brow. He is blinded by blood and pain and whimpers and, I think, begs me to stop. But I am taken up by the hearty rhythm, and the straining of muscle and sinew as I swing again and again are regular and satisfying. I ignore the spits of blood and shards of bone which now erupt from the soft mass of his head and face, though the sight of a single tooth, yellow and bloody, lying upon the floor, strikes me as comical and I laugh aloud. Halls is pinned in his chair, unable to escape but still trying, and I simply continue until my arms ache and burn and his body slips to the floor and out of reach.

Breathing hard, I contemplate the no-face before me, a pulpy residue in a shining pool of pink and red and white. For some minutes the fingers futilely twitch and grasp the air, and the mucus bubbles and crackles in the scrawny throat. In the scullery, I wash the stickiness from my hands, and dab the same from my skirt. There are patterns of blood upon the wall and the tiles of the fireplace, and the floor is so dappled with dark droplets that it is impossible to avoid them. The hem of my skirt drags them into smears and the soles of my feet quickly become sticky with the residue.

Who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him? I have heard that somewhere.

Upstairs, on the first landing, my room was as I had left it. The bed unslept in, the trunk still packed, standing in the middle of the floor. Still packed, but not undisturbed, for the straps were undone and the locks broken. There was no care, no subterfuge here. Either Halls had been telling the truth when he claimed that he was searching for information about my relatives or, more likely, he was desperate to find something, anything, of value. He was probably surprised, for there was little enough for him to take. A watch. Yates’s leather boots. Some fine linen. But they were still there, if hurriedly and untidily jammed in. Helen’s letters had gone, though. Their hiding place under the lining of the lid had been ripped apart. I was angry but reconciled, for Halls was dead – or on his way to that other place, for I had not waited until the end – and the letters, wherever he had secreted them, could do me no harm now.

How can I describe the pleasure, then, the intense pleasure of pulling on breeches and shirt, boots and gloves! The feeling of linen upon my skin, the smell of leather, even the crisp rustle of damask and silk as I buttoned the waistcoat snugly across my chest, were sensual delights. Unpinning the pieces and smoothing my own cropped hair was the final stage of preparation. I favoured macassar oil with its heady scent, and only the best, but it stained anything with which it came into contact, particularly the collars of my shirts, and so I reserved it for special occasions. I poured a small pale amber pool of it into my palms, carefully running it through and over my hair, and finishing with brush and comb so that it lay thick and shining. A dark cap of shining jet.

I stood before the mirror, and even though it was cracked and mildewed, James Yates stared out at me, proud and elegant. The childbed fever had left me thin and wasted and my chest and waist did not fill the clothes as they had done previously. Even my face was more angular, the line of my jaw and cheekbone more pronounced. But, I thought, as I considered the reflection, for the first
time youthfulness had deserted me, I had grown and what looked out at me was a man, one who had seen the world, rather than hidden from it. From all angles I regarded myself, Yates. It was like being reacquainted with an old friend who had been away, out of the country perhaps, and though I had enjoyed the exciting sensation of putting on his skin, as it were, this contemplation was all the more exquisite for its pause. I was in no hurry and I took my time, savouring each tiny moment of pleasure, like a lover.

I stood outside Halls’s Lodging House, Paradise-court. The sun was warm and there was a drowsy hum of flies flocking to the heaps of horse dung and rubbish that lay in the street. It was the only sound, and the only activity. So when I stepped on to the cobbles and strode briskly along, hands in pockets, a nonchalant air of a young man out upon business, I was playing to an empty house. A brief rehearsal for the real performance commencing shortly when I struck High-street, and then – for this was no jaunt, I knew exactly where I was headed – Lower Marlpool-street and Duchess-court.