Fire (16 page)

‘Captain,' she said, and reached for his hand.

‘William,' he reminded, giving it.

Of course. She had called him by his old rank when first they knew each other. It had been a way of keeping him at a distance. But there was no need for that now. Now that they were married.

‘Here,' she said and placed his hand on her belly.

His grey eyes went wide. His rare smile came. ‘The baby,' he said. ‘It lives.'

‘
He
lives,' she assured him.

Eyes narrowed. Delight fled them. ‘Do anything,' he said, ‘to survive.'

‘Never doubt it.' She squeezed his hand hard. ‘And you do the same. Come back to us.'

He faded then, the grip of his hand, the look in his eyes. He was gone, but as Sarah woke she knew three things.

That William Coke still lived.

That she would obey him, as she had vowed at their wedding.

That today was the day she turned whore.

It was the first of August, the date she'd marked weeks ago, thinking it so far off, believing that something must happen before it arrived, praying that it would. But no saviour had come.
He
had not come, except in dreams. He was so welcome there; for she knew when she saw him, knew beyond any doubt, that he was innocent of the foul accusations made against him. It had been the one light in the darkness of her prison, that certainty. That, and the babe even now kicking within his own cell of flesh.

Though dawn's light now poured through the high, barred window, it was still quiet on the women's side of the Poultry Compter, a rare thing. Early enough so that no babe cried, no child moaned his hunger, no inmate silenced them with a hiss or a blow. Beyond the bars, she could hear the first signs of a city stirring, the first citizens going about their business. Iron-rimmed wheels ground over the cobbles of the alley beside the prison as deliverymen went about their work. This one was carrying bread, fresh from the baker's three doors down. The savour flooded her mouth with saliva. She swallowed it back; but the sharp hunger it provoked only made her more certain. This day I will have fresh bread. This day I will survive.

Her bed companion giggled. Sarah raised herself onto an elbow and peered over the bare shoulder next to her. Jenny Johnson still slept, caught in some happy dream. Pulled tight to her, her three-year-old daughter Mary stirred but did not open her eyes.

The bed was narrow. Sarah's arm had been pressed to the top of Jenny's back, skin to skin above their shifts. It came away with a wet sucking. August followed on from July in heat. No breeze
relieved them from the high, narrow window. No rain for three months.

She inhaled again. But the cart had moved off and only the ward's and her own rankness filled her nostrils now. She would have to wash. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it well. Years as an actress had taught her: gentlemen pay more for a better performance. Though many of her colleagues in the playhouse had happily straddled the border between player and prostitute, she never had. But she had observed who earned better and how. Who fucked the dukes rather than the draymen. Over on the men's side, the Knight's as it was called, there were several gentlemen. There was even a baronet. All debtors too, but still able to afford the extra shillings for a room, for better food. If either was lying around she would take it, silver or bread or both. Thievery and whoredom went hand in glove.

Another shifting came, this time within her. She laid a hand on her belly, felt the welcome kick, kick, kick. ‘You are why I do this,' she crooned softly. ‘You and William Coke.'

‘ 'Allo, luv,' Jenny said, smiling up at Sarah. ‘Been awake long?'

‘A while. Thinking.'

‘Dangerous.'

‘Maybe.' Sarah took a deep breath. ‘Today's the day.'

‘Yes? Well, 'bout time.' Jenny slid up the bed now, to rest her back against the stone wall, Mary rising with her. She was fastened as ever to Jenny's breast, even though there was no milk. ‘I've told ya. There's nothin' to it.'

‘Nothing?'

‘Well –' Jenny shrugged. ‘Not much. They're all so drunk over there it's over in moments and you walk away with a shilling. Or
more.' She smiled again. ‘And look what sometimes 'appens. You get a lovely little thing like my Mary 'ere. Who would wish that away?'

She bent down to kiss the top of her daughter's head, hair as red as the mother's. Sarah shook her head. ‘That's not my plan.'

‘Nah, you'll have to clear your oven before you stick in another load of buns.' Jenny cackled loud. Immediately a voice came from a nearby bed. ‘Will you two poxed whores cease your blabbing? Some of us are trying to sleep.'

‘Pot calling the kettle black, Jane Warren!' Jenny retorted. She lowered her voice, not much. ‘Sixpence she charges. Lowers the price for all of us, the cheap trull. Lucky everyone knows she's got the Covent Garden gout, so not even the turnkeys'll touch 'er.'

‘Oi!' Jane screamed, and that woke the whole cell. There was an immediate Babel of competing voices – yelling mothers, crying children, single women complaining.

‘Come on,' said Jenny, popping Mary off her breast and pulling up her shift. ‘Let's see if we can get to the pump before the rush. I stinks even to meself.'

Their door had been unlocked at first light. It gave directly onto the yard, as did the others on either side. Some of these were already open, some women and children about, some ahead at the pump. Sarah looked to the main gate which opened onto the narrow lane that led down to Poultry and the city beyond, watching the first few debtors slip out, some to work, some to beg, some to whore. Every man and woman was allowed to leave to earn money by whatever means to repay their debt – though few earned more than the wherewithal to survive. The ‘garnish',
as it was called, charged by the gaolers – for a roof and a bunk, by the bailiffs for clothes and sundries, by the attorney-at-law who would offer hope of freedom with legal quibbles that went nowhere – sucked away everything.

‘We're on,' Jenny said, jolting Sarah from her stare. Jenny stepped up and pumped the water. It took a while, for the pressure was low for the lack of rain. She filled and tipped a bucket over herself, a second over Sarah and then, to her squeals, a third over Mary. ‘I've this,' she said, producing a nub of soap which she began to wash her daughter and herself before passing the little that remained across. Sarah scrubbed all over under her shift until the block dissolved. As she passed across her distended belly she felt a hardness pressing out. Elbow or heel she wondered, rubbing at it. One pail between them sluiced them down.

There was a rectangle of sunlight at the western end of the yard. They went and sat in it, enjoying the warmth on their cooled skin, knowing they would be sweating again all too soon. ‘You sure about this?' asked Jenny, pulling Mary tight to her.

Sarah sighed. ‘Were you sure the first time?'

‘What, back in the reign of Good Queen Bess?' She laughed. ‘First time? Well, my ma was in the trade so –' She squinted. ‘Nah, didn't like it. I remember that. But you get used to what you must, eh? And that was “first time” first time. Won't be yours,' she gestured down, ‘unless that's the result of you coupling with the 'oly spirit.' She cackled again, crossing herself at the same time. Jenny was a Catholic and on her knees each night before she climbed into their cot.

‘Nay, indeed.' A brief vision of William came, as he'd been in the dream. Survive, he'd said. Survive, she would.

Jenny reached out and touched her arm. More gently now she said, ‘I was born to it, but you was not. Is there no other way? Your cousins in St Giles?'

‘They spared me all they could, which was not much, for they are near as hungry in those tenements as we are here.'

‘Try the playhouse one more time.'

Sarah shook her head. They would not let her act any more. Indeed, Betterton disliked her so, for always refusing his advances, that he would not even let her sew the dresses. Others had helped, sparing what they could from the little an actor earned. But, like the pump soon would in the Compter's yard, that course had run dry.

‘No one else?'

There'd been one other source that had sustained her until now. Bettina Pitman had been a weekly visitor, always bringing something – from her table, or her stove, for she was a marvellous creator of cordials and elixirs. But at the last visit a week before, she'd wept at the little she could offer. ‘Since the pestilence departed, few buy my plague water,' she'd said. ‘And Pitman's pittance of a constable's salary is putting little food on our platters.' She'd dabbed her eyes, tried a smile. ‘But his leg's set, and he's up on two feet again, though moving slowly, the great cabbage. Perhaps he'll be agile enough to take us a thief ere long and all our problems will be solved.'

Sarah looked back at Jenny. ‘I can rely on no one else.'

Her friend took her hand. ‘You can rely on me, love. I'll see you through it.' Without letting go, she rose. ‘Come, let's beautify.'

They borrowed a brush, pulled it through each other's hair, shaking off lice at every pass. Sarah's had lost all the blonde dye
she'd used as an actress; it was auburn again now, though she knew well enough that silver wound through it too. They mixed charcoal from the long-dead fires with spit, making a paste that would substitute for kohl and highlighted their eyes and eyebrows. They even giggled as they did each other's, though Sarah fell silent when she remembered that these preparations were not leading to the stage. She stayed silent as she pulled on first her other, better shift, then her second dress, the one she had worn only when calling on friends to beg for money. She'd had to let it out, of course, and had done that enough so that her pregnancy was not immediately obvious. There was no mirror to look at herself in, for which she was grateful. She felt like a foaling mare.

Jenny seemed more pleased with herself, in her Sunday best. She twirled and said, ‘Shall we go pay a call?'

‘At this hour?' Sarah raised a hand to the sound of the bell in St Olave Old Jewry only just then sounding nine.

‘The best time to catch them. The sots will have drunk the night through and those who are still awake will be lusty – lusty and largely incapable.' Jenny giggled. ‘Doesn't matter, s'long as they pay us ahead.' She moved to the door. ‘We'll go see the baronet. He's got a lovely room.'

They crossed the narrow yard to the Knight's side. On the ground level, either side of an archway, one on each side, were cramped cells just like the women's; from which, if possible, an even greater stench emerged. Men crowded the windows, leaning there with mouths wide to catch some fresher air. One called out, ‘Avast! A fine pair of frigates hoving to!' and a few others then thrust their faces to the bars, whistling and blowing kisses. Just
inside the main doorway, a gaoler had a key in the lock, about to turn it. Sarah knew that the men were only locked in to prevent them wandering at night, causing a disturbance in the streets and getting up to various villainies. By day, like the women, they could leave in search of the means to pay back their debts. Like the women, they all returned at night. For if they absconded, and were likely caught again, they would be Newgate-bound, that prison an even lower level of hell.

‘Now there's a pair of fishmonger's daughters if ever I saw 'em,' said the gaoler, straightening up. ‘Who're you off to jilt?'

‘We're jilting no one but playing upon the square. The baronet sent for us.'

‘Did he? Wonder how he managed that since he was snoring not five minutes past. I look after his door so –' He scratched at his unshaven chin. ‘Wha's in it for me to let you up?'

Jenny glided close to him, grabbing him through his breeches. ‘Somethin' on account, Mr Jenkins?' she purred.