The Clay Dreaming (25 page)

There.

Sarah glanced up. Brippoki had been rocking back and forth, as if in contemplation of the prayers; he did not especially react to the different name.

She persevered.

Sarah stopped to deliver what she hoped was a significant look.

‘Amen,’ Brippoki said again.

‘Amen, indeed!’ Sarah snapped. ‘Don’t you hear what has happened?’

She stared into his patient face, before casting her head down a moment to cool off.

‘Forgive me,’ she murmured. Without her intending it, Sarah’s voice had been raised with all of the fervent preaching, and with it her temper. She looked up, and carefully measured her words.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘to his name. George, George Bruce. In her prayers his mother is calling him
Joseph
!’

Stumbling across the discrepancy in the library that afternoon, she had at first been unsure who spoke: who, and about what to whom. But then came the second and third repetition of the same name.

‘Joseph, Joseph, Joseph,’ she said. ‘Three times, in his mother’s prayer.’

It had never occurred to her that he might have changed his name, but of course, in light of his criminal record, it made every sense that he should.

‘You don’t think it odd?’ she said.

Brippoki appeared to think about it, yet still said nothing.

Sarah tried and failed to mask her disappointment: this was not the reaction she had hoped for.

‘I find it odd,’ she declared. She shuffled her papers. Did she want for his attention? She had made a deliberate effort to cut the most repetitive ‘
pritching
’, without losing entirely its delirious aspect. Had it been too heavy going, even so?

‘You believe in God,’ she said.

Brippoki considered. Patiently she waited him out.

‘The Truth,’ he said at last, ‘is the Way. It is life.’

As good a way of putting it as any she had heard – but not enough.

‘You speak of truth, when I asked you about God,’ she said. ‘The Christian God.’

Brippoki took up the challenge. ‘Me believe…’ he said. ‘Me believe in the land of your God. Here, God hold the most power.’

The gift, certainly, was not refused, but was not necessarily  accepted.

‘And you pray…’ she said.

‘Lawrence often say this to us. “Boys,” him say, “we must pray to God to forgive us.” We must pray to God to forgive us all them wicked things and mischief that we done.’

‘Lawrence?’

‘Our captain.’

She recalled him. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘All day…’ continued Brippoki, ‘all day I try to think about good things. We must not do those things that are wicked. They are wicked. We must pray to the Almighty Father, try to please ’im.’

Sarah approved.

‘Almighty God, if it please him,’ Brippoki said, ‘then he will be good to me.’ Raising his hand a moment, he corrected his previous remark. ‘Whatever him do to me, it must be good.’

Sarah found no fault in him at all.

‘I shall continue,’ she said. ‘Bruce returns to his story…’

Brippoki stirred in his seat, excited by mention of man-tigers. Sarah settled back.

Brippoki whimpered quietly to himself.

Sarah closed her notebook.

‘“Mine eyes have seen the glory!”’ she exclaimed, a trifle ironic. ‘Who would have thought.’

She drained her cup, and then looked at Brippoki.

‘Revelation,’ she said, ‘upon revelation.’

He did not respond. Sarah elected to be more explicit.

‘George Bruce is, in all probability, an alias,’ she said. ‘Not his real name.’

Who, then, was he really? Joseph…? Joseph who?

Sarah found it hard to credit: that Brippoki could appear so blithe and accepting of this latest turn of events.

He should be dying to know.

Brippoki, who was
Bripumyarrimin
, who was King Cole.

Sarah parted the curtains. Another warm and bright start to the day; sunlight filled the room. The sudden contrast was too much. She tugged on the drapes, closing the breach a little.

‘I heard you,’ croaked Lambert, ‘in the night. Saying your prayers?’

Sarah took a moment to find her answer.

‘Father,’ she said, ‘you know I always say my prayers.’

Rather than depart immediately for the Reading-room, she had decided to spend her morning at home, with Lambert. She had neglected him overmuch the last few days, and companionship must form a certain portion of his care.

Turning to where he lay in the bed, Sarah squinted. A streak of sunlight fell across the pages of a book, open on his bedside table; dazzled, she frowned, and closed it up.

She made him a present of
The Illustrated London News
, ‘hot off the press’.

‘Is it Saturday?’ he said. ‘I had thought it would never come!’

Lambert struggled to sit higher on the bank of pillows. These Sarah rearranged and freshened until he arrived at a more comfortable posture.

He did not take up the newspaper.

He said, ‘Would you read to me, my darling? The print has become too small for these ancient eyes of mine.’

‘It is the same size as it ever was,’ she said. ‘You wear out your eyes by reading through the middle of the night!’

‘My mind must be occupied somehow,’ sulked Lambert. ‘My sleep is often disturbed. I am too restless.’ Sudden antagonism made him raise his voice, distorting it unduly. ‘I lie in this damned bed all day long!’ he gargled. ‘Is it any wonder that I cannot sleep at night?’

‘Hush,’ said Sarah. ‘Let us not argue. I will read to you. There was never any doubt that I would.’

She hoped her voice, more well used this last week than it had ever been, would hold out.

‘The National Sports if you please,’ said Lambert. ‘The noblest of all pursuits.’

He meant the cricket.

‘If
you
please,’ said Sarah. ‘…I have it.’

‘Well, then!’

She chose a report on the Australian Eleven.

‘“Mullagh”,’ she read, ‘“seems to be the ‘all round’ strength of the Aboriginal cricket team, as Cuzens, the bowler, did not take a wicket in the first innings with the gentlemen of Kent. None of them seem to like the Surrey slows; but, with the exception of a little lack of dash, Mullagh is a rare batsman. ‘They catch,’ so an able critic observes, ‘a ball at long field by a snatch as it passes them, throw in and long stop well, and keep wicket by making one man into very near short slip and wicket-keeper as well.’”

‘Hm,’ she joked, ‘how’s that?’

Despite the many hours Lambert had spent impressing on her the finer points of the gentlemanly game, it was all Greek. All the same, Sarah felt gratified to learn something of the progress of Brippoki’s team. She pondered the logistics of his recent appearances, and their frequent matches; surely even a man of his talents couldn’t be in two places at once.

Lambert sucked at his teeth. ‘This weekend’s match is at Deer Park, versus Richmond, is it not?’ he said. ‘I dare say their quality will be decided.’

The morning light, combined with his enthusing, smoothed the creases from his habitually stormy features. He looked almost a boy again; that same boy clasping bat and ball alongside his sisters Emily and Fanny in their formal portrait, sketched so long ago – sepia over charcoal, with red chalk on their faces.

Sarah suddenly wished to divulge her secret.

Her great fear, however, was for Lambert to decree that she should never see Brippoki again. Awareness of his expressed views regarding Abyssinians and such overtook her inchoate impetuousness; the same black contempt would surely be extendable to an Aboriginal native, or anyone who chose to associate with them.

‘…Grace…’

A stirring from Lambert saved her nausea from curdling.

‘You said “grace”?’ she asked. Was he still thinking of the cricket?

‘Those,’ he said, ‘blessed with a natural gift must use it well.’

‘By that you mean…?’

Lambert turned his head to stare at her, owl-like.

‘By that I mean the Black Cricketers, yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

He gave the concept some further thought.

‘But not exclusively,’ he said. ‘As grace is Nature’s gift, so is a natural gift a Grace…God-given.’

The milky veil previously cloaking his gaze had been abruptly yanked aside. He regarded her, unblinking, with alarming clarity.

‘I speak of physical Grace,’ he said. ‘There is but one true Temple in the World, and that is the Body of Man.’

Lambert gathered his energies, raising himself higher in the bed.

‘The Soul –
ungh
– placed in the Body,’ he said, ‘is like a black diamond…the edges need sharpening in order to shine. It is the duty of every good Christian to make best use of the faculties, both mental and physical, that God has given him. Put them…to good purpose, and improve on them, if he can.
Spiritus Sanctus, corpus Christi
, mind and body in perfect harmony. Good health…to the greater glory of God.’

‘Amen,’ said Sarah.

She didn’t entirely agree, but found agreement generally easiest.

‘Men glorify God with their body, as in their spirit,’ he continued, ‘for matter and spirit are one…natural reflections of each other. This is as clear to me…as to one who gazes into a rock-pool, and sees the heavens, opened.’

His wonderful voice had begun to break apart. Lambert inclined his head a little, and looked away.

‘Or is it,’ he said, sounding bitter, ‘that your soul makes the body, as the snail its shell?’

Before she could protest he started shouting. The preacher’s voice, raised, filled the modest chamber to the very corners.

‘“What?”’ he said. ‘“Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost
which
is
in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price…therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”’

Sarah watched as his rock-face shimmered and dissolved into a mess of creases. His distresses were unbearable to her, most especially when she could not divine the cause. She wanted to fly to him, but could not will her trembling body to move.

‘All,’ he said, ‘all is held accountable to God! And yet look at me…! Little strength in my legs…my trembling hands, my vision so cloudy at times, I can’t even read any more…and my lungs! My lungs rattle. Do you hear them? What
good
am I?’ Lambert wailed. ‘Of what use? A bishop-bird! Well housed, better fed, and higher-priced, that utters no note to speak of to redeem his keep. Jamrach himself could not sell me now!’

Even in the midst of his abject misery he could force her to smile –

‘“But they’re the fashion, sir,” says he, knowing full well how every fashion shall pass away!’

– and kill that same joy in an instant.

With an offhand gesture Lambert cast aside these mortal thoughts.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘My mind is weak and slow.’

She took up his hand: it was hot. ‘Every word disproves it,’ she said.

His hand grasped hers back firmly, and gave it a shake.

Sarah watched, fascinated, his great cable veins at work. He had a strangler’s hands. She admired them a little, even as she feared them, and then felt sorry either way. Their skin was puckered, blotched and discoloured, and in places the flesh gathered in tight folds. All of the force they had once contained was gradually shrinking away.

Lambert’s first love was for cricket. Often throughout his life it had provided a refuge, in some sense, from reality. After a protracted illness – his health, in old age, shattered beyond recovery – there was no longer any escaping the inevitability of death: not even here.

‘Sarah,’ he said, ‘my darling…all things must pass…’

He spoke of her mother, of course. She knew that.

‘Hush,’ she said, ‘do not speak of it.’ She would dearly love to hear him talk about her, but not at such a cost to himself.

Lambert rewarded his daughter’s bravery with a bravery of his own. He insisted. ‘All things,’ he said, ‘must pass.’

‘If…if it is God’s will,’ she tremored.

Lambert’s other hand closed around theirs both. ‘It is God’s
plan
,’ he said.

No charcoal and no chalk; the innocent radiance earlier transforming her father’s face had been wiped out.

She searched through the newspaper for something else to read out – almost anything would be suitable – but on hearing the rustling pages Lambert raised an imploring hand. He was too morose even to speak. Sarah glanced up, and saw that his eyes were closed. She understood.

‘It’s all right,’ she quavered. ‘I have business at the library.’

Sarah waited for a counter-command that never came. Putting down the newspaper, she made ready to leave.

‘Are you sure there is nothing I can get you?’ she said.

He nodded, faintly.

She could not leave him. She must leave him.

‘Mary…’

His eyes flicked immediately open: Lambert was many things, but he was no fool. ‘You have this month’s rent money for the good Dr Epps?’ he asked. ‘It is due Monday.’

‘We do.’

‘Well, then…’

His eyelids closed again. He no more wanted the subject of their financial straits raised than she did. Sarah allowed herself a gasp of relief – but only once his bedroom door was shut, and she stood alone at the top of the landing.

Charles Lawrence strode into the Richmond clubhouse in full gear.

‘We’re almost ready for the off!’ he called – only to face William South Norton, alone. ‘Is he here?’ said Lawrence bluntly.

South Norton pointed to the opposite doorway. ‘The king,’ he said, ‘is in the counting house.’

The look engendered on the team captain’s face was priceless. William South Norton realised his mistake.

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘You thought I meant old Cole-face, didn’t you? I’m afraid not.’ South Norton made the sound of gathering spit, and mimed the anointing of his thumb. This he applied to his trouser front, at the groin. ‘Him, we made a freeman of.’

Overgrown public schoolboy! Lawrence pushed past him. He made his way to where Bill Hayman sat at a desk in the outer office. ‘We are ready,’ he announced.

‘Hi yo, Charley,’ said Hayman, not looking up. ‘Coping?’

‘We’ll be glad of the rest, tomorrow.’

Hayman hummed. ‘Just going over the ledger for Graham,’ he said, marking up a column.

Lawrence cleared his throat, ready to speak. ‘I’m not happy about – ’

‘You realise,’ Hayman interrupted, turning the foolscap file around, ‘we’re well on our way to making our first thousand?’

‘What?’ said Lawrence.

‘Receipts are already there,’ Bill Hayman said, ‘just about. But look at our surplus!’

Lawrence looked. The Oval had brought them over 600 pounds, outlay accounting for around half of it. Maidstone had made just 35, again halved by their not inconsiderable expenses. Still, 300 pounds for a week’s work was not to be sniffed at.

‘And this week,’ said Hayman, ‘the odds have improved! Less than half off nearly 200 from Gravesend, even with the bedding fiasco. And we look to do as well here!’ He patted the lid of their moneybox with a broad smile. ‘Whisper it… over 500 pounds!’ gloated Hayman. ‘The future of our tour seems assured.’

He laid a friendly hand on Lawrence’s shoulder.

‘Perhaps ours,’ he said, ‘is the only little corner of Empire wisely governed just now.’

On her way to the library, Sarah stopped at the Post Office opposite to enquire after the receipt of any mail; but there was none.

She recovered the manuscript from the previous evening’s place of concealment, tucked inside
Our Friends in Hell, or Fellowship Among the Lost
. A member of the library staff sprang to intercept her.

‘Oh!’ said Sarah. ‘You made me jump!’

She felt hugely relieved to see that it was her co-conspirator in the affair, the junior assistant, Benjamin J. Jeffery.

‘Miss,’ he stammered, ‘Miss Larkin, I take it you have seen the notice of closure.’

She had not. With a sweep of his arm, he indicated the nearest example; she could clearly see that copies had been liberally posted around and about the shelf units. He summarised the essential details, chancing once or twice to let his eyes alight on the offending article, clutched in her hands.

Within earshot of the superintendent, they were obliged to communicate in a sort of code.

Sarah’s heart fluttered in a slight panic. She had been vaguely aware that May’s scheduled closure had not occurred. Postponed by Museum authorities, it was rescheduled for the week beginning the 22nd of June, a fortnight hence.

Playing Lionheart to his Blondel, she spoke softly.

‘I understand,’ she said. She laid one slender palm across the top of Bruce’s manuscript. Her voice shrank further, to barely above a whisper. ‘I hope to be done with it sooner. I just need a few more days.’

This, evidently, was not the answer he had hoped for. Mr Jeffery’s eyes
conveyed
all that he wished to say, eloquently enough. His life was in her hands.

He spoke through gritted teeth.

‘Just so long,’ he said, ‘as you know.’

A lady-like cough from somewhere behind her, and he walked on abruptly, without another word. Sarah lingered a moment before turning.

A lady stood by the far exit doors, as helplessly as a cow at a gate. Instead of her raising her hand to the door, manners decreed that a gentleman must perform the operation, even had he a hundred-yard walk to do so.

Sarah took up her station for the day.