Sacred Hunger (10 page)

“Tonight?”’

“Aye, tonight,” Thurso said irritably.

“Are you afraid you will melt in the rain? The sailing has been posted for three weeks now but we still have only twenty-two men signed. Homeward bound, with the blacks discharged, it will not matter if we are light. But we cannot set out with less than twenty-five. Take Haines along with you, he looks a handy fellow. See what you can find along the waterfront.”

“Can I take a third man, in case of things turnin” out unreasonable? Libby, say, him with the eye-patch? He is friendly with Haines, I see them talkin’ together.”

‘Mr Barton, I am surprised at you. Set an ordinary seaman on a slaveship to press men on to the same ship? There would be blood all over the deck before we were out of the Formby Channel. From the officers they will take it, not from one of themselves. No, if you and Haines need help you will have to pay some scum there to help you. You can split up if you like, when you get ashore. Get back here about nine. I will leave Simmonds in charge and we will go over together to see what the posters have done for us. You had better stir yourself. You and Haines stay sober, or it is on your head, you being the senior. We need more crew, Mr Barton, and it is a matter of indifference to me how we come by them.”

Half a mile away and half an hour later a seaman in a medium state of drunkenness named William Blair was entering an obscure ale-house in a narrow lane close to the docks.

He had been paid off two hours previously after eight months at sea. In those two hours he had travelled some three hundred yards from the edge of the water. He was in his best shore clothes, still had most of his money and was poised precariously between jollity and truculence.

As he swaggered up between the tables he tripped over feet that hadn’t been there before and stumbled slightly. “Stow them trotters, bonny lad,” he said, more for the sake of dignity than anything else. Blair was always careful of his dignity, which led him sometimes into quarrels. He was short of stature but very quick. And he was fearless.

The man thus addressed made no answer but he kept his feet where they were. Looking down, Blair saw bright dark eyes set close together and a bitter mouth. Most of the man’s face was shadowed by his hat, which was high in the crown, varnished and polished in sailor’s fashion.

“Well,” Blair said, coming up to the counter, brushing the rain from the front of his buff nankeen jacket, “still gans on spittin”, I wish to God it would rain and be done.”

The landlord was bald and corpulent, with a greasy apron and an impassive face and dull brown eyes. ‘allyes,” he said, “that is looking at it one way, but a drizzle is good for trade, brings ‘em in.”

“Anythin” is good for this trade. All weathers. You canna gan wrong, man. Gie us a gill o’ best Jamaican, an’ let us see you fill it up.”

‘Hey, Scotch!”

The voice, rudely peremptory, came from behind him as he was taking out his purse to pay. He knew without needing to look that it was the man whose feet he had tripped over. He noticed another man, in a long, ragged cloak, go out through a door behind the counter, but thought nothing of it, being again concerned with dignity, which did not allow him to glance round. It did not permit him, either, to put away his purse other than very slowly. Tggerant,” he said regretfully to the landlord, loud enough for the other man to hear. ‘The majority o” persons learn to tell the difference between their arse an’ their elber, but there will alius be them as cannot. There is a class o’ lad that will still gan on tryin’ to shit through his elber joints.”

He listened for the scrape of a chair, some sound of movement behind him, but heard nothing. He drank deeply, felt the heat of the rum in his throat and chest, knew he was on the way to getting good and drunk. ‘I’m fra Sunderland,” he said loudly.

“Gie us another, if you please, landlord. A exact copy.”

The landlord nodded. His eyes had been on the purse and its contents and on the pocket to which it had been returned. “Just off a ship, are you?”’

“Docked this afternoon. Seventy-five days from Caracas. The Brig Albion, Captain Josiah Rigby. I am bleddy glad to be off her, the first mate was a cannibal in human form.”

Blair fixed the landlord with a belligerent stare.

“If we meet ashore I will spill him out,” he said.

The ragged man reappeared and a few moments later two young women came in laughing together, hair wet from the rain. They came directly up to the counter.

“Goin” to buy us a drink, my chuck?”’

“I will buy you a drink,” Blair said handsomely. “Billy Blair is not a man to say no to the ladies. But don’t get up yor hopes, as he is not purposin” to gan on wi’ it all bleddy night long.”

‘Speaks pleasant, don’t he?”’ the same woman said. She had an Irish accent, hair the colour of pale carrot and a pretty, anaemic face, darkly bruised on the right side, over the cheekbone. “I like a good-spoken man,” she said.

“Yer can keep these foul-mouth gits. Gin please, Captain. How about you, Bessie? This here is Bessie. I’m Eve.”

“Gin,” Bessie said.

“Gin for the ladies, rum for me,” Blair said. “By God,” he added to no one in particular and passed a hand over his face.

“It goes down on the slate,” the landlord said.

“No need to pay every time round. In this type of occupation you gets to be a judge of human nature, you gets to know who you can trust.”

“Sure, it is not often you find a open-handed feller in these parts,” Eve said.

“What about these parts?”’ Blair leered and pointed down at himself.

Eve uttered some high mirthless laughter.

“Well, I don’t know, do I?”’ she said.

“What parts you hail from, Billy boy?”’

“He’s a wee cockalorum from Scotland.”

Blair turned to meet the dark, close-set eyes and thin smile. The man was still sitting sprawled there. He had taken off his hat, revealing a mop of black ringlets glistening with oil. He was strong-looking, with broad shoulders and thick legs.

“You again,” Blair said. His hand strayed a little towards his right hip. “Been curlin” yor hair, haven’t you?”’ he said. ‘. y scut-head.”

“Take no notice, darlin” Billy,”

Eve said, pressing close against him.

“I will mince him up,” Blair said with extreme ferocity. “I told him once I an’t a Scotchman.”

“Have another drink,” the landlord said. “I will stand it. It is not often I take to a man. We got meat pies in the kitchen. Prime beef. You,” he said to the seated man, ‘y hold your gab or you will go out on your arse.”

The place was more crowded now. The woman called Bessie had gone off to join some others round the table. Billy allowed himself to be pacified. He had more rum and a plateful of pies. He was having some difficulty now in seeing clear across the room and was tending increasingly to reduce the range of his focus. Standing up close against him, Eve gave him a gentle squeeze of his balls.

“Full o” grape-shot, them,” Billy said boastfully, through a mouthful of meat pie.

‘England’s finest.” He had taken a definite fancy to Eve, with her blue eyes and delicate pallor of underfeeding. “Some bastid been cloutin” you?”’ he said, looking at the disfiguring bruise on her cheek.

She laughed on the same high, careless note.

‘I was runnin” round in circles an’ I bumped into meself.”

‘Have you somewhere we can gan together, just the two of us?”’

“I have got a love-nest all me own, darlin” Billy. But let’s have a dance first, let’s have a bit of fun for God’s sake, we might all be dead tomorrer, Jemmy, mightn’t we?”’

This had been addressed to the landlord who agreed with every appearance of fervour. ‘Where the devil is the fiddler?”’ he said. “Where is Sullivan?”’

The cry was taken up by others—several people wanted to dance, it seemed. The fiddler was found in a dark corner, sleeping with his head on the table.

Roused, he came shambling out into the centre of the room, clutching fiddle and bow, a tall, ragged figure with glinting stubble on his cheeks, a dark shock of hair and dazed green eyes that seemed lately to have looked on wonders and to be glancing after them still.

“Give us a reel!” somebody shouted.

Til not play without a drink,” Sullivan said. ‘niver a note.”

“Give him a drink.”

“I seen you before,” Billy said. He steadied himself against the counter, took a careful pace forward and looked closely at the long face and beautiful, bemused eyes of the fiddler. “We was on shipboard together somewhere,” he said. “Michael Sullivan.

Always arguin”.” He paused for a moment, swaying slightly. Then he had it: ‘The Sarah, Captain McTavish, ‘bout five, six years ago, cargo of hides fra Montevideo. Am I right or am I wrong?”’

Sullivan paused a long moment as though gathering his wits. “I was on that ship,” he said at last.

“I will not say that I wasn’t. It was you done all the arguin”, not me. McTavish was for iver blasphemin’.”

‘Dead now. He overdone it on the bottle.”

Feet planted for balance, Billy looked proudly about him. “By God,” he said, “there canna be many that has a memory like Billy Blair. Drunk or sober, Blair is razor sharp. You remember me? Come now, you canna have forgot Billy Blair?”’

“I do an” I don’t,” the fiddler said.

Some change had come over his face. ‘Listen, Billy,” he said, “you don’t want to be dancin”, “tis a idle pursuit an” the Pope has frequently spoke out agin it as leadin’ to all manner of sins.”

‘What’s wrong wi” you?”’ Billy screwed up his eyes in order to see the fiddler’s face better. ‘Why you switchin” yor lamps about?”’

‘Stir yourself, Sullivan, give us a reel,” the landlord said. “What do you mean by talking?”’

“He needs another drink,” Billy said.

“Once a shipmate always a shipmate, wi”

Billy Blair. Gie us yor hand, man. Have you follered the sea since?”’

‘I follered the divil. Listen -“

But then Eve was standing close again and there were two men between Billy and Sullivan, one of them he of the ragged cloak. “Stow your gab,” this man said roughly to the fiddler.

“Come on, Sullivan darlin”, give us a reel,” Eve said.

After that events became confused in Billy’s mind. Sullivan made no further attempt at conversation. He played ‘I’ll Away No More” at a brisk pace and followed it with “Sweet William”. There was dancing; the small space was crowded with people jostling together. Eve laughed a lot and touched him intimately. The drink and the dancing had brought colour to her face. After a while she excused herself with a tender smile. “I’ll just be away for a piss, darlin”,” she said. ‘I’ll be with you again before you can shake yer peg.”

But she did not come back; and this defection changed the quality of everything in a strange and sudden way.

The fiddle fell silent. There were fewer people in the room and these only men. The landlord’s looks grew sullen and disdainful. Billy was sweating and asked for ale but this came slowly and when it came was sour and thin.

These various factors combined to turn his mood ugly. Such sudden lowerings are difficult to take with equanimity, even for milder temperaments than Billy’s. It is one thing to know that pleasure is fleeting, youth ephemeral and the grave just round the corner; it is quite another to have it brought home to you all in the space of five minutes. “What taplash piss is this?”’ he said. “You have served me wi” the washings o’ the casks.” And he splashed the rest of his beer down on to the stone floor.

‘now that was the act of a out-and-out swine,” the landlord said. “I see I was mistaken in you. You can pay up your score and get out. There is three shillings and four pence on the slate.”

“That is robbery, you fat bouger,” Billy said. “If I come round that bleddy counter you’ll be right sorry. Where is Sullivan? Shipmate, let’s you an” me cast off from here. I have got money, I will stand treat.”

But it was precisely at this lordly moment that Billy found he had no money, none at all: the purse was gone from his pocket. And when in the shock of this discovery he looked at the landlord’s face and saw the ugly complacency on it, he knew with that power of divination that descends on the cheated, instant and terrible, like a dark afflatus, that from the moment of walking into this ale-house he had been among actors. ‘My purse,” he said. “That Irish crack has stole my purse. We could catch her yet, before she gets it to her scully.” He made a movement away from the counter.

“No you don’t,” the landlord said. “Cover the door. What purse? I never saw no purse.

Anyone here see a purse? Catch a hold of him, lads.”

He had started round the counter. Two men moved on Billy, one from either side. He put a hand to his hip pocket but the knife was gone too.

Drink and shock had slowed him but he had time to throw his tankard into the first man’s face and hear it strike against the teeth, time to take two steps and land a hard kick on the landlord’s kneecap. He was staggered by a wide-angled blow to the side of the head, evaded another by some instinctive cunning of the body, struck back and missed, slipped on the wet flags, recovered. A body fell against him and he struck at it, only to realize it was on its way floorwards anyway, and not by his doing. He took another jolting blow to the face. Someone caught at his arms from behind.

“Well, my mannikin, how goes it now?”’

Billy could feel blood running into his mouth.

Someone was groaning behind him. There was a man lying on the floor. Through a bitter film of moisture he saw the smiling face of the man who had baited him. He had a gold band in one ear and smelled of coconut oil. “Scut-head,” Billy said. He made a violent effort to free his right arm so as to strike at the face before him. Without ceasing to smile the man gave him a blow in the stomach which cut off his wind completely.

“All right,” he said, when he could speak.

“I’m done. Let me sit down.”

“Scut-head, is it?”’ the other said softly.

His eyes were shining. With the outer edge of his hand he gave Billy a light, almost casual blow across the bridge of the nose, blinding him with tears. When these cleared he saw that the man on the floor was Sullivan; there was blood in his hair. “Give the fiddler a sousing,” someone said.