Slammerkin (18 page)

These towns were handsome enough, Mary supposed, but they were only specks in a wilderness of heath and marsh and waste, ruled over by the occasional tar body hung up in its iron gibbet. Her problem was, she didn't believe in anywhere but London. Even having to name the city she'd left behind was new to her. When she'd lived there, it was simply where the world was, where life took place. London was the page on which she'd been written from the start; she didn't know who she was if she wasn't there. Not that she bore any sentimental attachment to the city, any more than she might have expressed a fondness for the mud on her boots, the air she breathed—or, rather, used to breathe. She didn't know what she was breathing these days, and she didn't know how she was to live on it.

Late one January afternoon Mary's lashes lifted, blinked away the cold dust. The coach had slowed to a standstill. She rested her temple against the icy glass to see what the matter was. Yet another top-heavy cart of grain, pulled by a pair of oxen, and, in front of the tangle of vehicles, rounding the curve of the narrow road, another cattle drove on its way to the fattening fields round London. It might take an hour for the hundreds of skinny cows to thrust past. She shut her eyes again, preferring not to meet their hungry gaze. The smell of fresh dung strengthened around the wagon; at least there was something that was the same as home, thought Mary, with a shadow of a smile. The animals were all around them now, bumping into the sides of the coach. The drovers made hoarse, incomprehensible bird calls. All the world seemed to be taking the slow road, but in the other direction, pushing down this stinking track towards the green pastures of the south. Mary couldn't shake off the feeling that she was going the wrong way, perversely pushing north-westwards against the tide.

Night was closing in now. She hadn't seen a street lamp since the
Strand. The smell of that singed oil was fading from her memory already. Out here, in what Mary was beginning to realise was the real world, the greater part of this godforsaken country, the day came to an end as soon as the sun fell behind the flat horizon. All you could do was find shelter before the day's lamp was snuffed out and the walls of the sky slid together. All you could do was keep close to those around you, for fear of the wild things outside whose names you didn't know. Even the snoring farmer's wife, who in sleep let her elbow sink into Mary's side, and occasionally drooled onto the shoulder of Mary's good blue gown, had come to seem almost like a friend.

Darkness thickened. Mary tried to remember what she was doing here, wherever here was. There was no name that she knew of for this particular wasteland, almost a day's ride from the lights of the last inn. Mary could no longer believe that she was on a journey between two cities; she was simply journeying. And for what? A memory not even her own, but stolen from the woman who used to be her mother. The faintest possibility of shelter. Perhaps Mary had lost her wits, like that Covent Garden Miss who'd got taken bad after lying-in one time and had run away across the Heath. The baby had failed for want of milk, but no one ever heard what became of the girl. No, Mary wasn't that far gone yet. But what on earth had possessed her, to take a wagon this far beyond nowhere?

When the cattle passed and the coach finally moved on, it was through dung knee-high; the wheels squeezed and clogged. Mary wanted to sleep and sleep and wake up out of this.

'Fourteen shilling you owe so far, Miss Saunders,' mentioned John Niblett as she climbed into the coach that morning.

Surely it couldn't be that much? Mary gave him a stiff smile to cover her fright. 'That's right,' she said lightly. 'I'm going all the way to Monmouth; that's where you'll be paid.'

He shrugged equably. 'Most folks clear account at the end of each day, that's all.'

She did a little roll of the eyes. 'What a waste of time, all that making change!'

'Aye,' admitted Niblett, 'it's not entirely convenient. But I once had a low rogue leg it at Gloucester and leave me eighteen shilling the worser!' He let out a hoarse laugh.

Was he giving her a warning? She shook her head as if she could hardly credit there was such wickedness in the world.

In the back of the coach she slid her hand into her bag and checked the coins in her rolled-up stocking purse by feel alone: they amounted to half a crown and an odd penny. Silently she damned herself. What was the use of her having spent half her savings on a sober costume if she couldn't pay her bills? The blue holland was grubby at the hem by now; her kerchief was set in jagged creases. Oh, very respectable she was going to look when she was thrown into the debtor's cell in Monmouth Gaol!

All day in the coach she plotted. Running away was out of the question; Monmouth was her only hope of refuge. If she could get off this foul wagon long enough to find a buyer for some of the finery in her bag—

But when they stopped at the inn in Cheltenham, it was pitch dark already. The merchant left the party there; he was taking the waters for his dropsy. Mary lay awake on stale sheets, her mind racing. What if she rushed out first thing the next morning and found a market with a clothes stall?

But by the time she'd gulped down her cup of tea and emerged into the yard, John Niblett was already hitching up the weary horses. 'We'll make good time today,' he remarked, flashing her a grin.

'God willing,' said Mary, her stomach plummeting.

At Gloucester there was no sign of the thaw yet; frost made the cathedral windows wink and dazzle. A Welshman got on; he smelled like a publican. His eyebrows were tufted like an eagle's and his wig was a little askew; his eyes watered in the sunlight. When he
felt the weight of Mary's gaze on him he stood a little taller. What did he see when he peered into her corner of the wagon, she wondered? A lady's maid, maybe, very respectable except for her wide mouth, which needed no paint to redden it. She could tell he wasn't a moneyed man, but under the weight of her eyes he tossed John Niblett a shilling for the first stage and waved away the change.

Fish on the hook,
as Doll used to murmur, catching a cully's eye.

Mary hadn't eaten all day; she couldn't bear to see her last few coins trickle away until she knew how she was going to replace them. She'd pretended to be ill, but she suspected Niblett could see right through her. In the old days, she and Doll could have gone half a week on a few pints of wine and a dozen Essex oysters, but the Magdalen had softened Mary. She'd forgotten how to get by without food. And now she'd forgotten something else: her recent resolution of giving up the trade.

At midnight Mary was sitting on the creaking edge of a bed in the Swan Inn at Coleford. Twelfth Night echoed through the building: drums and bells and dirty laughter. She was taller than the Welshman, now his wig was off. He had to look up at her. Not a married man, she could tell; brown streaks all over his shirt tail. Mary shivered; the room was so damp that she hardly had to fake it. Her small breasts shook in the hollow where her white handkerchief was uncurling from her stays. Her eyes traced the dirty cracks in the floorboards. Her hair was beginning to fall out of its scarlet ribbon.

How she whimpered, how she swore that nothing but the last pitch of desperation would have made her approach a gentleman with whom she was so utterly unacquainted. 'If only I hadn't lost my mistress's purse or had it lifted maybe—if only Mr. Niblett weren't too mean to give me credit—if only you'd consider lending me the fare, sir, I'll give you my word to repay it as soon as ever I get home, may the devil fetch me if I don't...'

So easy; too easy. Mary stared into the Welshman's hot wet eyes under his tufted brows. She almost wanted to hit him when his
hand floated around her, hovering on the stained counterpane behind her skirt. How could a grown man be so easily gulled? It must have seemed to him that all his ships had come in at once. This girl of such a tender age, alone and unprotected. In the tightening loop of his arms she sat so warm, so safe, she might not even protest...

But Mary knew how good girls behaved. At the first touch of his thick fingers on her stays she inhaled as if to let out a screech. The Welshman was obliged to press his hand over her mouth. She let her breath scorch his fingers. He wouldn't have meant to push on so far, but now the girl's handkerchief had come quite undone and her breasts leaped like frightened rabbits. He planted his shiny head between them, just for a minute.

It was clear to Mary that the man hadn't done this in years. She'd have to be careful not to kill him. In the barrel of his ribs his aging heart was butting like a fish. Her skirts heaved in protest; her petticoats frothed in his lap. 'But sir!' she hissed through his fingers. 'But sir!'

It took him three puffs to blow out the candle.

The Welshman weighed on her like a sack of coal, but Mary let him sleep awhile. She'd have liked to check his purse—to know how much to demand—but she couldn't reach it. Two floors below, she heard the refrain of a song about what the Three Kings kept in their saddlebags, and a crash, and whoops of laughter. Last year she and Doll had spent this evening at the Theatre, then went on to the festivities at the Exchange, stopping for a Twelfth-cake at every stall. But she wouldn't think about Doll now; she wouldn't let herself begin to shake at the thought of leaving her friend unburied in the alley behind Rat's Castle. Instead she'd think about the breakfast she was going to order this morning.

As dawn lightened the grimy window, Mary's stomach let out such a growl that the Welshman half-woke. He twitched and
burrowed like a dog. Mary started to weep. The sobs were dry, at first, but she widened her eyes till they watered, and thought of Doll, and now she was crying up a storm.

The man's face was grey with worry. Mary wrenched herself out from under him and got to the edge of the bed. No, she wouldn't stay a moment longer; she wouldn't tell him her name, even. Watching him through her fingers as he buttoned up the flap of his breeches, she scorned his first offer of half a crown. 'I'm ruined, I tell you!'

'Hush. Hush now.'

'How dare you try and buy me off?' she screamed in a whisper. Then, slipping into tragic mode, 'See what you've reduced me to! And all because I trusted in a Welshman's honour.'

That hit home. As he was fumbling for his purse, Mary spotted a reddish stain on the sheet. It had to be wine, because she hadn't had her courses since Ma Slattery's. But this fool mightn't know the difference. She pointed one trembling finger and burst into fresh tears. He'd give ten shillings for a virgin, whether he meant to or not.

The man seized her wrists. 'I swear I'll make it up to you, if you'll only be quiet.'

Mary writhed in his grip. 'And what if there should be a child?' The word came out like a whip.

His white eyebrows almost met.

Mary left the room with a pound, and a giggle in her throat.

All day in the coach she played red-eyed. The Welshman sat cramped in between two dusty masons, staring at his boots. His scratch wig was on crooked, and stubble covered his cheeks.

Today the roads were as rough as fields. They passed a pothole so deep that the farmer insisted on getting down to look at it. Climbing back in with wet boots he reported that there was a donkey drowned in its hollow. 'What an ass,' he said to Mary, working for a laugh. She pretended not to have heard him. She had money in her pocket and a bag full of clothes; she glowed all over.

John Niblett's face appeared upside down in the window. 'Only an hour to Monmouth, now,' he called cheerfully.

But this didn't look to Mary like the sort of landscape a city could emerge from. She'd always thought of the world as flat, but this countryside rose and fell, rumpled and wrinkled, as if a restless giant were sleeping under a blanket of frost. Apart from the track of other wheels under their own, there was no human mark on this hill they were skirting. What troubled her most was the crows. Mary could hardly believe there were so many of them in the world. The outskirts of a city should have been speckled with sparrows, should have echoed with the shriek of gulls, but for the past hour Mary had seen and heard nothing but the choking cries of crows.

As the wagon lurched past a field of stones, before the light quite faded, she let out a painful sniff and asked to borrow the Welshman's writing things. He handed over his box of quills, ink, and paper at once. Was he surprised she knew how to write? As Mary began her laborious task, leaning on her knees which heaved when the wagon did, she was aware of the Welshman's uneasy eyes.
My deer old frend,
she wrote. Let him sweat. Let him chew his fingers over the possibility that she was going to swear a rape against him. He'd been hot enough and no questions asked last night; let him do his fretting now.

The road was more like a ditch, really. Niblett got off to lead the horses down a woody hill; the coach leaned over to one side, and Mary feared it might break through the trees like a hunted animal. She clung to the pen.
My deer old frend Jane, I rite you this leter on what may be my death bed.
Mary could spell pretty well, but she doubted Susan Digot could, and it was as her mother, her imaginary, dying mother, that she wrote now. She felt queasy from the motion and lifted her head. A skinny doggish sheep was nosing at a stream that ran across their path; the water was brown.

She returned to her letter.
The favor I ask of you for the sake of frendship is not small.
As they edged down the valley past a number of furnaces, the smell of hot metal thickened. They overtook a
shepherd, huddled in his sheepskin cloak; man and beast clearly wore the same cover in this part of the world. The wagon jerked towards a solid bridge of stone arches over a rushing river; this was the Wye, the farmer told Mary. It was almost twilight now, that bare hour before darkness when the last brightness was sucked out of the sky. On the far side of the bridge she could just make out a cluster of houses, seamed with whitened wood. This had to be the very edge of the city.

She squinted at the paper in the gloom. The ink had better dry fast; she'd no sand for blotting. As the coach lurched from side to side she gripped the quill like a knife and tried to think what a mother would write on her deathbed.
My dimise I fear will leave my onlie girl alone in a cruel world and quite frendless.
The words blurred as Mary scribbled. For a moment, she almost believed her own story. She thought of a mother who'd never see her only girl again.