Death and Mr. Pickwick (80 page)

A turnkey sitting reading a newspaper snorted a laugh.

‘Here – you're good with words,' the warder said to a shabby, long-haired prisoner who loitered in the lobby, smirking, and sucking on his own hair. The warder turned back to Clarke: ‘He's one of our literary guests, sir.' He addressed the literary guest again. ‘Go on, tell him what Bartholomew Fair is like. Help him make his mind up.'

‘Bartholomew Fair? I would think of it in this way. There is a filthy staircase leading straight down and the bottom step is degradation. One more step and you have reached the level of Bartholomew Fair.'

‘Now that's a bit much,' said the warder. ‘It is true though, sir, that it is the basement. It gets its light from windows where the sills are level with the prison yard. Not the best place for a gentleman like yourself. I would pay the one and thruppence and get a nice room.'

When the warder had taken the coins, and not before, he said to Clarke: ‘Now you
would
have the right to a single room, sir, but the Fleet's a crowded place and has its seasons, and shortly after the quarter-days we welcome so many new guests, and four people go in a room for one. Good thing guests tend to get a bit slim sometimes, eh? So there's chumming. We will take you along to a room, a nice room though, which has a guest already. You'll be his chum. But if he decides that he wants to be on his own, with his thoughts, then he can buy you out.'

‘He will pay me
to keep away from him
?'

‘That's his right. Some men pay a very fine price to be alone in a room with a good view of the yard.'

In a small notebook, the warder wrote Clarke's name, and then, consulting a register, he wrote down a corridor and room number. He set to work with a pair of squeaking scissors and handed the result to Clarke. ‘Your chum ticket,' he said.

‘But what if he
does
buy me out?'

‘There are benches in the taproom. If he gives you five shillings a week, you'll entertain yourself very nicely. Well, come along, sir, and I'll take you on the grand tour.' He took Clarke down a corridor. As they walked along, certain prisoners, slouching against walls, started humming a sprightly tune.

‘Why are they doing that?' said Clarke.

‘An old tradition to greet a new prisoner. Some of the inmates keep it up. There used to be words that went: “Welcome – welcome, brother debtor, to this poor but happy place.”'

‘How can anyone call this a happy place?'

‘It is if you've lived in fear of the bailiff's knock. And mark me – you'll find it easier to make friends here than at any time in your life. All the responsibilities you have outside – gone! You'll see how light you feel, and how you'll laugh, idling the time away.'

‘I may seem idle, but I swear that in here I will never be at rest.'

But as they passed through the prison, there was ample proof to confirm the warder's assertions. Clarke noticed many a swaggerer in the corridors, usually with a battered hat and an assured smile. Others quaffed at the corners of tables, and guffawed at some jest. Happiest were the men who occupied the three racquets courts at the rear, either as players or enthusiastic spectators. Clarke and the warder stood watching for a few minutes, and during this time Clarke noticed that almost every grin he saw exhibited missing teeth. An ill judgement of a ball's rebound was the explanation – an example of which happened while they watched, and Clarke saw the player spit out a bloody tooth and hold it up, to a cheer from the spectators.

‘Some men stretch out their sentences for years,' said the warder, ‘just because of the pleasure of the game. If you want to take it up, I can always hire you a racquet.'

‘No, thank you,' said Clarke. ‘May I see my room now?'

So the pair walked away, and the warder provided a commentary on the inmates they passed. ‘Now
he
grew up in a wealthy family … Him over there, only known poverty all his life … Oh that one's a rogue, make no mistake, the prison walls are the best defence he has, and if he was ever outside, he'd have his throat cut in a day … Now
he
used to be a sailor. Sailors love it here. Doesn't bother 'em at all.'

At last, the warder said: ‘Well, the room is just along this corridor, at the end. Don't worry, sir – you'll get used to everything over the next few days.'

‘Aren't you going to introduce me to my … to my
chum
?'

‘Your ticket is your introduction, sir.' As though fearing some unpleasantness could result, the warder touched his hat, and walked away.

*   *   *

‘Let's see your ticket.' A bald and blotchy man, who lay upon a mattress of stains, cast an eye at the piece of paper held out by Clarke. ‘You'd think the dubbers'd let me have some peace. I can't pay you, so the mattress over there is yours.'

The man lay back and covered his eyes with a crumpled hat, while Clarke unloaded a bag with clothes and possessions, although as he had not hired a chest or cupboard, the only place to put them was beside his mattress.

‘Seen all the other floors yet?' said the man from under the hat.

‘Not yet,' said Clarke.

‘Climb enough stairs, and you'll get to the Lord Chancellor's office.'

‘The Lord Chancellor – he doesn't work here – does he?'

The man laughed so hard that the hat moved up and down. ‘Yes, and he keeps the Great Seal under his cushion!'

As he began laughing himself into a coughing fit, the man was forced to remove his hat. He took a good look at Clarke. ‘Ah you've got some smart clothes,' he said. ‘You care about your appearance.'

‘As best as I can.'

‘Soon you won't bother. You won't care if you get up in the morning. Soon prison will be just nice and comfortable, and be all you want, and all you are fit for.'

‘Never.'

The man propped himself up on an elbow. ‘You're the sort who'll start to think, “I'm boxed for a reason. The wheels of life would stop if men couldn't be locked up for their debts.” Then you'll think the prices they charge for a paltry room here are entirely just – a bedchamber which outside would not fetch a rent of half the money! You'll even think the Lord Chancellor and everyone else involved deserves every last cheese-paring and candle-end they can screw out of us.'

‘
Never
!'

‘Soon you won't bother washing your face in the morning, you'll always be black-a-vised even if you have no tan. And you'll start to be happy here. You'll be making friends with all the dubbers and applauding when someone makes a good shot on the skittles ground or on the racquets court, and though you may
say
you want to leave, you will be scared to your marrow at the thought of it.'

‘Never, I tell you never! I will get free!'

The man put the hat back on his eyes. The hat moved up and down, for once again he was laughing underneath.

*   *   *

There were four storeys in the Fleet Prison. Each was low-ceilinged, stretching from the small window at one end to the small window at the other end. Along these stretches, Thomas Clarke wandered among the detritus: old bones, pieces of rag, broken glass, broken plates, discarded pipestems and hawked spittle. Along both sides were doors, the majority open, and each revealing several occupants. The overwhelming smells were tobacco, stale beer, fresh ordure, and roasted fatty cuts.

As Thomas Clarke wandered from floor to floor, he saw so many men laughing heartily, their cheeks red with alcoholic flush, the rest of their skin pallid from lack of light and insufficiency of good food. How could men sit laughing in these dirty cells? he asked himself. As though insanity had descended, and they actually loved imprisonment! Through one open door, he saw a man eating lustily, holding a bowl of stew up to his chest. The man saluted Clarke with his spoon. ‘Stone walls make a man damn hungry!' he said, grinning, and he fished out a piece of yellow-marbled beef.

Some prisoners, Clarke saw, even practised a trade inside and suggested, in the way they smiled, the ease of prosperity. He saw a cook carrying a tray of aromatic muffins which was sold in minutes; also craftsmen, cobblers, carvers, all at work in their cells. As he passed another door, he saw a shabby prisoner scrutinising documents with a magnifying lens.

‘May I help you, sir?' said the prisoner.

‘I don't know,' said Clarke. ‘What do you do?'

‘I'm a lawyer.'

Even Clarke had to emit a laugh. ‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘Yes – very possibly you may help me. I shall return when I have finished looking round.'

‘Any time that is convenient. I am always in my office.' The lawyer smiled, and as he raised the magnifying glass again it momentarily made his smile larger.

*   *   *

Clarke descended to Bartholomew Fair. He ventured past the numbered doors of a long, dark and vaulted corridor, dirtier even than the floors above. Down here were the wretched men, prisoners who drifted without purpose. He saw the same despairing expression on face after face. Yet even here he did see two men share a laugh. The disgusted look on his face was noticed by the men, one of whom said: ‘Vot's the matter vith you?'

‘How can you laugh? God keep me from laughing at my condition.'

They responded with laughter.

He retreated to the wall at the end, and leant his head against the bricks. Would life not change here, from day to day, so that entire weeks, months, even years of existence could be summarised in a single line of a journal?

He was aware of a quiet, but definite, hiss. He pressed his ear against the wall. He could hear – or believed he could hear – the sound of the River Fleet, flowing. A river completely bricked up and forgotten. He could not stand Bartholomew Fair any more. He needed fresh air.

*   *   *

At half-past nine that night, Clarke wandered in the forecourt. Every few minutes, a turnkey with a lantern called: ‘Who goes out?' At ten o'clock the bell of St Paul's chimed. The turnkey approached the gate, pushed it shut, and locked.

The door had closed on Thomas Clarke.

 

*

‘YOU CAN'T STOP THERE!' I
said to Mr Inbelicate. ‘What happens to Thomas Clarke?'

‘I shall wait a while before telling you,' he said. ‘I think I shall torture you for a whole month, Scripty. Let us return to Seymour.'

 

*

HE WALKED OVER THE BRIDGE
at Putney. Carriages overtook him, and with each one, the bridge's timbers shook. It was a bright and pleasant enough morning, though a little cold. He entered the graveyard of All Saints on the Fulham side of the river, where he took up position. The exposed near shore of the Thames was blue-grey, and here stood a lonely gull. There were some reeds. On the opposite bank, a waterman passed by with an oar on his shoulder and a dog by his side. Seymour began to sketch St Mary's Church, with its blue-faced clock, sundial and weathervane and, to the left, the wooden bridge he had just traversed. Seymour knew from his reading that Gibbon had lived somewhere here too, but the house was long gone. He sketched in his own version of a house beside the church. Now that there was a letterpress writer he needed the finished drawing of Mr Pickwick in the role of the Putney puntite, which would appear on the publication's wrapper, and this view of the Thames would form the background.

When satisfied with his sketch, he went to the Star and Garter public house. He had drunk in a house of the same name in Richmond, but a more substantial coincidence manifested itself in the customers standing around the bar – in the form of the ageing bagman, with the fox's head ring, whom he recognised from his journey to the village of Pickwick. Moreover, to add to the coincidence, the bagman was talking of a man called Holmes, apparently a blacksmith, a surname that could not fail to attract Seymour's attention.

‘He is
terrified
about the railways, is Holmes,' said the bagman. ‘Well trust me to find these things out – but it's always worth knowing whether a customer can pay you in the future. Though I didn't need to be told in this case. Every blacksmith is going to suffer. So I said to him, “Henry Holmes, you need a new profession.” Well this was in the bar of the Bull in Streatley and he said he wouldn't mind running a public house, perhaps the Bull itself if it ever became available.'

Seymour ceased listening. He took out his pencil and sketchbook and was soon at work again on the wrapper, incorporating his previous ideas and sketches.

At the top, he drew an incompetent sportsman shooting at a bird in a tree – Seymour indicated, by means of a few lines, the explosion of powder in the gun's pan, but the bird did not die. At the bottom, in a separate scene, he drew Mr Pickwick sitting asleep in a punt, moored in the reeds on the stretch of river opposite St Mary's, after a lunch of pie, washed down with a bottle of ale. Two birds sat on the rim of the gigantic pie dish, helping themselves to its contents. One looked straight at the slumbering Mr Pickwick, its beak horizontal, obviously in complete contempt of the human. The other bird buried its beak in the pie. When taken together with the top picture, a diptych was formed with birds as the link. The top picture might be regarded as an unsuccessful attack on birdkind by humans, perhaps with the intention of baking the birds into a pie; in revenge the birds ate the pie in the picture below. Alternatively, the lower picture could be regarded as a scene of birds pilfering, and in revenge the humans sought to shoot them, but failed. Regardless of whether the top or the bottom picture came first, the birds were always superior to those silly fellows, men. Meanwhile, Mr Pickwick's fishing rod bent from the strain of a fish. Undoubtedly the line would break before Mr Pickwick even opened his eyes.

The diptych was framed on either side by guns, fishing rods, landing nets, bows and arrows. Fishing lines dangled in loops from the rods, in an odd arrangement of curlicues created by the interplay of gravity and the wind – and by means of these lines, Seymour suggested a lazy ‘R' on the left and a sprightlier ‘S' on the right.