Elijah’s Mermaid (29 page)

That man, that stranger, acknowledged the maid by slowly lifting one of his hands, seeming to motion for her to step nearer, and as she ascended the basement steps he drew his muffler from his face and appeared to murmur some words in her ear, though nothing that I could comprehend, despite my own being held to the glass, the cold like a prickling burn on my cheek. But I did see the tusks of a pale moustache and some cheeks angled sharply in whippet-thin features, all curtained by strands of long pale hair that fell from beneath the brim of his hat. The sight of that face unnerved me, the strangest sensation of déjà vu, before recalling Elijah’s words and the man he had met at the music hall.

I was glad when the maid retraced her steps and disappeared into the house, a thud vibrating up through the building when the basement door was closed again, at which that man walked across the street, his heels splish-splashing through puddled slick cobbles – until pausing midway, where he turned to look back, scanning the frontage of Freddie’s house and his gaze very readily meeting my own – the window from which I then looked out, which caused me to gasp and my heart to race, though, in retrospect, it could not have been so very hard for anyone to spy me there with the glow of the candle I’d lit behind luring his eye like a moth to a flame.

While swiftly withdrawing back into the room, hiding behind the curtain’s folds, I saw him raise one arm to wave, after which he made a little bow, tipping forward the brim of his hat before resuming his mincing gait towards the other side of the street. From there I heard a low whistle. I saw someone else creeping out from the shadows, another man dressed in a tall top hat and what seemed to be a dinner suit – but a tiny man, as small as the dwarf that Elijah and I once saw in Cremorne. He clung on to the hems of his friend’s fur coat, scuttling behind on short bowed legs – like a bridesmaid who carried a veil; a veil just as soon dropped down to the ground to
drag through the slime of the gutters – the same filth I imagined swirling up, passing through my window glass, tainting my nostrils, filling my throat.

Oh, what a horrible fancy that was. It took some moments to be released, to come to my senses and wonder why someone had called at that time of night to converse with one of Freddie’s maids – the very same maid who now knocked on my door, who still had her blanket clutched around when she muttered in nervy stuttering tones, ‘Miss, I’ve been sent up to say that a gentleman has some news . . . something pertaining to Elijah Lamb. A gentleman . . . wanting to speak with you now . . . waiting in the street outside.’

‘Where is my uncle? Does he know?’

‘He’s sleeping, miss. I was told not to wake him . . . only you.’

In hope, in fear, I rushed back to the window, looking down to catch another brief glimpse of that peculiar couple again, by then almost come to the end of the street. I had to follow – I had to go. A moment more and they might be lost, though I wasn’t thinking clearly at all, not even looking for my hat, only pushing some fallen hair from eyes when I snatched up my shawl from the floor and rushed down the three flights of stairs to the hall – my breaths coming fast as I drew back the bolts and then placed my hand upon the latch, swallowing my fear when I opened the door, my skirt hems hoisted high in my hands, my vision obscured by freezing breaths, soon having no clue as to where I was – only vaguely aware that those grander streets, the residences with gleaming front steps and doors that mirrored Freddie’s home were now replaced by narrower lanes and the iron grilles of shut-up shops where, above the shuddering pant of my breaths, came distant shrieks and breaking glass. Some sheets of newsprint fluttered past, circling around me like paper ghosts, and somewhere far off, a voice cried out, ‘Falcon . . . Falcon.
Come on, you early birds . . . come and buy yer
Falcon ’ere.’ Somehow I managed to trip and fall. An elbow struck hard against the kerb, and while I was winded and wincing with pain
a black monster was looming high above – a horse’s front legs rearing over my head, great metal hooves stamping down in the street, with me but inches from being crushed – and again by the wheels of the night-soil cart that came skidding behind as I cowered and crouched into a ball, as the driver was bellowing, ‘Silly cow . . . why you wanna go and scare me ’orse? Wanna go and get yerself killed, or what?’

Struggling to roll away, to avoid the river of steaming piss that now gushed from the horse’s bladder, I lifted my eyes to realise that the driver was standing at my side, helping to pull me up again while I managed to gabble some grateful words. ‘Thank you . . . I’m sorry. But please, can’t you help me . . . I’m looking . . . I’m looking for a man.’

‘Gawd alive, you come out of Bedlam, or what? Most folk in this city are wimmin or men!’

‘This one was wearing a long fur coat . . . a little man with him . . . in evening dress.’

‘Tip Thomas and his monkey friend.’ He answered with no hesitation, pointing back the way he had come, towards more narrow twisting streets. ‘I sin ’im all right. Covent Garden way, along with the rest of the fruits. All there ’til the light sends ’em scurrying off. But, if I were you, miss, I’d keep well away from the likes of ’im. If I were you I’d get back ’ome to yer family, to whatever . . .’

Whatever further warning that driver intended to make, I didn’t stop to listen. Having had that chance to recapture my breath, I was ducking and diving through the lanes where doors exuded hazy lights through which, now and then, some women spilled, parading themselves on pavement and steps, talking in accents I did not know – and all of them must have been chilled to the bone, dressed even less suitably than me, some in no more than corsets and shifts! My heart went out to one old man who made me think about Papa, who emerged through a narrow creaking gate, his jowly cheeks a lardy white, drenched in a running greasy sweat. He pushed a rattling trolley piled high with a jumble of household possessions: a worn Persian
rug, a cat in a cage. I assumed he was going to sell them. I assumed they were everything he owned.

A great many vendors were round about hawking eels and potatoes, sausage and chops. What a cacophony it was between all the towering pillars of stone, as fine a temple to Mammon as anything you could imagine, all teeming with wagons and donkey carts, all loaded with fruits and vegetables. More shouting and singing and laughter too in that echoing riotous rabble of sound in which I felt frightened and lost, and—

There he was, standing straight ahead, that midget last viewed in Burlington Row. Only he
was
a monkey after all, with a chain attached around his neck, and that chain now wound at the base of a pillar below which the creature was happily sitting, its nimble pink fingers dipping into a bag, picking out what looked to be raisins and nuts.

And there was the man I had seen from my window. He would have been difficult to miss, as flamboyant as any gypsy king. But he had not yet noticed my presence there, engaged as he was with the pestering of a girl in front of a flower stall – a girl with eyes like beads of jet within the swollen flesh around, below which three crusted raking lines had been scratched very deeply across one cheek.

Still standing five or six feet away, I was near enough to see when one of his hands was nimbly thrust between the folds of her apron skirts, from which he must have withdrawn some coins, for she pleaded in a desperate voice, ‘Just leave us enough for me bed. It’s cold. There’s bin barely any trade tonight. I’ll do better tomorrow. I swear on me life . . .’

‘One more night . . . or . . .’

‘Or what?’ Her ruined features were filled with dread.

‘Or you’ll take a trip down to the Limehouse gaff. Oh, my sweet, where will you find work again, except for a halfpenny a throw?’

His expression was one of derision as he plunged all but two of those glinting coins into the pocket of his coat, and the few sorry coppers he deigned to spare were dropped to the slabs at
the flower girl’s feet, where, with all too little dignity, she fell to her knees to save them, her eyes meeting mine when she rose again, her complaint coming hoarse and bitter. ‘I trusted you with me life, but you well and truly fucked me, you did.’

‘You’re nothing more than a bunter. I’d say you were fucked in your quim and your wits long before you ever came my way.’ His voice was thick and tense with threat, and I think all along he knew me there, perhaps having seen my reflection in the teary glaze of that poor girl’s eyes, for so suddenly did he spin around, and so suddenly did his monkey drop its little paper bag of treats, grabbing at my hems instead, its jabbering screech rising high above the jingling snap of the metal chain, which, luckily, restrained the beast as it lurched at me with teeth all bared.

Only then did I truly comprehend the folly of my enterprise, to be out alone in that hostile place. But there I was, and I must ask what this villain might know of Elijah – though the question stuck like a stone in my throat, only able to gape like some idiot country bumpkin when he smiled and greeted me with, ‘Well, well, look what the cat’s dragged in.’

I tried to step back, but the monkey’s grip on my skirts was firm, leaving me trapped in its master’s eyes, around which white skin was heavily dusted with streaking layers of powder and paint, and within pale whiskers his rouged red smile was as thin and as sharp as a razor slash. He doffed his hat and made a bow, afterwards lifting a finger and thumb to stroke down one side of a silky moustache – during which act I could not help but see how long were his fingernails, the ends being filed to jagged tips, and I thought of the scars on the flower girl’s face, and trembling, sick with fear by then, I managed to speak to this sinister man. ‘I’m looking for Elijah Lamb. I know you’ve met him once before. I know you went to Wilton’s hall!’

‘Best you ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.’

‘What sort of an answer is that?’

‘What sort would you care to hear? Little country bee . . . come buzzing around my honeypots, flying in places that you
should not . . . though,’ he paused and snatched up some blooms from the stall, holding them out as if offered to me while continuing with his menacing, ‘you might find your answer by solving this riddle. Will it be violets like these . . . violets for your chastity, or pansies for unrequited love? Or poppies . . . sweet poppies that stand for death?’

I felt the hairs prickle up on my neck as the flowers’ sweet odour filled my nose, as I heard the flower girl’s crying whine, a high shrill sound like tearing cloth. ‘Give me back them posies. Cost us a pretty penny in winter, having to queue in the flower hall and beg for the dregs that’s not bin sold. What larks! What fun and games I ’ave, and now you chuck it all away . . . wooing this milky dolly mop.’

Fired by my own frustration and anger, I shouted at our mutual tormentor, ‘What do you know? You must tell me . . . now!’

Somewhere near by, a beggar jingled some coins in a cup. The growl of a dog. The cracking of knuckles. And a pair of blue eyes grown wider, and a barely restrained note of threat in his voice when this demon said, ‘Tut tut . . . but she is a fiery one. She’ll hear more when I’m good and ready to speak, but for now I think she should buzz off before
my
temper is truly riled, before we decide on another game, and one she might not want to play . . . one with a sting, with a bit more bite. Why, my Nebuchadnezzar’s growing chill . . . might fancy the warmth of nice new muff.’

Whatever his Nebuchadnezzar was I really didn’t want to know. Trembling – from the cold – from terror too – I could hardly believe it to be true when that girl spat out a great gobbet of mucus that fell hot and gluey on my cheek. And, while wiping that off with the back of my hand, trying my hardest not to retch, I saw that the flowers that ‘gentleman’ proffered had now been dropped to the ground at his feet, stamped to a pulp by his boots’ high heels, during which act he was shaking his head and pursing his lips in a whistle – at which order the
monkey released its grasp, which I took as the sign to make my escape, to flee, without a backward glance.

Goodness knows how I ever found Burlington Row, weeping and wretched, wandering lost, but eventually, guided by kinder souls than those I’d met in that marketplace, I retraced my steps to Freddie’s door, which was just as I left it, still ajar, welcoming any thieves right in. But too tired by then to think or care of any other present threat, it was all I could do to close it, to drag my bones back up the stairs and enter the room where the candle still burned, where, not even attempting to get undressed, I threw myself down on the mattress where pillows were perfumed, white and clean, no matter how filthy I’d become, how rank with the odours of the street. As my rasping breaths and heartbeat slowed, I stared a long time at the gaudy walls which were bathed in the candle’s sombre gleam, at the flowery chintz on the furnishings, and the ornately carved rococo frame of the mirror that cast my reflection back – in which I appeared to be wavering, too fluid and insubstantial, and within that moving picture I saw Elijah’s diary and clothes, still piled in a heap at the end of the bed.

The last thing I did before going to sleep was to sit up and stretch my arms forward, taking those papers in my hands and stuffing them under the mattress edge. And when that task had been achieved I reached forward again and lifted a jacket of brown velveteen, arranged as a blanket to keep me warm. I lay there and thought about Kingsland House and how when we first went to live with Papa I used to share my brother’s bed. I used to breathe my brother’s scent, and . . . my eye caught a glinting, mercurial light on the glass behind which my mother’s eyes looked out from her little portrait. But how strange her image seemed just then, more like a half-exposed photograph, and how peculiar it was that I did not feel the least bit afraid to hear my mother’s picture speak, to see the new grey threaded through the dark hair, and the tracings of lines etched into the brow that, before, had been entirely smooth. And in the way that some dreams have of reweaving the form of our daily lives
and embroidering patterns quite different, it seemed the most logical thing in the world for me to believe that somewhere, somehow, my mother still lived and cared for me, for what spirit wraith could ever respond in so lucid and natural a way as when my mother’s image said, ‘How uncanny it is. You remind me so much of my father. You are so like . . .’ She paused as if on the brink of tears, struggling to contain her emotions as she swallowed hard and looked away, muttering, as if to herself, ‘Could it be possible?’ And then, turning back, her eyes fixed with mine, ‘Tell me,’ she asked, ‘do you have a twin?’