The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (78 page)

In the afternoon he reached Pinchgut, where he stopped to buy a bottle of proof rum. Then he kept walking till he couldn’t go no further – till he reached the sea.

The hooting of the coastal steamer brings him back to himself, and he looks round blearily, but he can’t see nothing. Sodding trees in the way. Somehow he’s wandered behind the beach and fetched up at the edge of the Morass.

He’s standing by a lagoon in a thicket of mangroves. An ugly, stinking midden of a place. Long black spider-roots streaming down into water as foul and brown as a sewer. ‘Welcome to Jamaica,’ he mutters. He gives a snort of laughter.

Behind him, beyond the mangroves, he can just see the tops of the coconut palms fringing the beach. That’s this country all over. Fifty yards away and you’re on the prettiest little beach you ever saw. But slip a few paces behind it, and it’s like scraping the paint off an old tart’s cheeks. Everything ugly and rotten underneath.

Welcome to Jamaica.

Well, you can shove it.

First thing tomorrow, he’ll be down at the quay – beg pardon, the old
Monroe
quay – and get the first job going: on a banana boat or whatever it sodding takes to get out of here.

A shiver runs through him. He’s lost his hat, and the sun’s sickeningly hot, but the odd thing is, he can’t stop shivering. It’s been hours since he watched Sophie ride away, but he still can’t get warm. And he’s got this pain in his chest. Worse than his cracked ribs. Deeper than any bruise.

He’s had it before, years ago when Kate died, and then again when Robbie went. It feels like someone’s taken a chopper to his breastbone and split him down the middle.

But how can he be feeling that now, when he swore then that he’d never feel it again?

‘Because, you sodding idiot,’ he mutters, as he squats down on his haunches and sneers at his reflection in the foul brown water, ‘you let it happen. Didn’t you? You went and let her in.’

What a fool he’s been. Yapping to her like that.
I got it all worked out. We can go to Panama or America. We can be together.
Shameful. Shameful. Why on earth would she want to be with him?

He takes another pull at the bottle, and the overproof burns all the way to his guts.

Forget about it, Ben Kelly. Slam down the lid on the whole rotten, stinking mess. Slam it down hard.

Then a thought occurs to him. Scowling, he fumbles in his pocket and yanks out Sophie’s handkerchief that she gave him at Romilly. It’s filthy with dried blood, but he can still make out the neat little ‘S’ embroidered in the corner. Why has he kept it? It’s poisoned: a poisoned handkerchief. When he used it to clean that cut, something of her got inside of him like a putrid fever.

‘Well not for long,’ he snarls. He stands up, cracking his head on a mangrove branch and swearing viciously.

A new cut opens up on his temple. Pain flares. But it feels good. It’s clean and harsh, and on the
out
side: not like the pain in his chest.

He stumbles over to the tree and puts his hands on the rough black trunk, and positions himself like a boxer. Then bashes his head against it. Again pain flares. Blood pours into his eyes. Another cut opens up on his cheek. Yes. Better now.

Hot stickiness streams down his face, clogging his mouth and turning the sun red. And as the throbbing in his head flares, that other pain in his chest sinks down deeper, and slowly goes under, like a stone disappearing into a mangrove swamp.

He pushes himself away from the tree and stumbles back to the edge of the water. Across the lagoon a big blue heron twists its graceful neck to regard him. ‘
Fuck off!
’ he yells at it.

The heron spreads its wings and lifts into the sky.

He jams Sophie’s handkerchief down the neck of the bottle, then swings back his arm and lobs it as hard as he can at the bird. ‘Get out of here!’ he yells. ‘Get out of here and never come back!’ And the blood runs into his eyes, and the hot tears cauterize the cut on his cheek.

The bottle splashes harmlessly into the swamp. The heron turns inland and rows serenely across the evening sky.

Part Two

London 1910

Chapter Eighteen

A cold, wet afternoon in early April.

Rain rattled the windows of the dingy little office. In the street, a pair of sodden dray-horses hauled a wagon piled with coal from Lambeth Pier. The rumble of Waterloo Station grew to a roar as a train thundered across the bridge at the end of Centaur Street.

Sophie put the box file on her desk in a puff of dust, and looked about her with satisfaction. This was the sort of work she liked: peaceful, predictable and solitary. The Reverend Agate was upstairs in his study working on his History, and the rain was keeping the applicants away, so she had the office of St Cuthbert’s Charitable Society to herself.

Nothing to do but sort through old records and shovel most of them into the waste-paper basket. And absolutely no need to deal with that other matter, the unposted letter in her bag.

Pushing the thought away, she opened the box file and gave the contents a cursory glance. Twenty-year-old receipts from the Poor Law Guardians; reports from the Charity Organisation Society. Oh, good: another volume of the daily Register of the Reverend Agate’s predecessor, the Reverend Chamberlaine. She was developing a strange fascination for his granite cynicism.

‘January 3rd, 1888,’ he had written in his tiny backward-sloping hand.
Mrs Eliza Green, aged 27, 10 Old Paradise Street. She may be ‘Green’ by name, but looks anything but verdant, & her complexion is unappealingly yellow. Works as a scrubber at St Thomas’s. Has borne 10 children, 4 living. Husband in the Madhouse – and yet she has the temerity to seek a Maternity Certificate to finance her next confinement! Told her that if she chooses to indulge in impropriety, she must face the consequences alone. Application refused
.

Widow Jane Bailey, aged 45, 8 Orient Street. Exceedingly plain physiognomy. A machinist for 30 yrs, but now arthritic & out of a situation. Seeks a loan for food & firing. Appears decently ashamed of being a burden on the parish. Informed her that we never lend money. Referred her to the COS
.

‘Still on the same box?’ said the Reverend Agate, making her jump.

He was standing in the doorway, rubbing his red hands together and forcing his lipless mouth into an uneasy smile. ‘You do remember that it’s only the important items we wish to retain? No need to trouble yourself with old Chamberlaine’s Registers.’

Serenely she returned the smile. ‘Yes, of course.’

His eyes went to the Register before her, but he was too much of a coward to mention it. ‘Capital. Capital. Any applicants while I was upstairs?’

‘Only two. I gave one a certificate for the infirmary, and the other some oil of turpentine.’

His mouth tightened. ‘You know, you must feel free to summon me if—’

‘You’re most kind. But I didn’t think it necessary to trouble you. It was only an abscess and a case of croup.’

‘Ah. To be sure.’

They both knew that if he’d been there, there would have been no certificate and no free medicine. It was a little game they played. Sophie would let through as many applications as she could, while he did his best to prevent her.

It wasn’t that he was ill-natured; just ferociously mean. And he could conjure up almost as many reasons for refusing an applicant as the Reverend Chamberlaine. The unemployed were lazy; unmarried women were no better than they should be; blacks, orientals, Jews and Catholics were all liars. Sometimes Sophie envied him his narrow certainties.

‘Capital!’ he said again, rubbing his hands. ‘Well, well. I shall be upstairs at my desk, should you need me.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, and turned back to the Register before he was out of the room.

But to her irritation, she could no longer concentrate. The Reverend Agate had broken the spell of peaceful tedium, and let in the outside world. The rain was showing no signs of easing off, and she’d forgotten her umbrella, so she was going to get soaked going home. And she remembered that she had to be back by four, as she’d rashly promised Sibella that they’d go for a cup of chocolate at Charbonnel’s. And of course she must decide what to do about the letter.

For the past fortnight she’d been carrying it around in her bag. It had accompanied her on her daily Tube journey from Baker Street to Lambeth North, on her lunchtime walks to the street market in The Cut, and during her solitary evenings in Mrs Vaughan-Pargeter’s drawing-room in New Cavendish Street. It was becoming ridiculous. After all, she had only to stick on a stamp and post it, and then the thing would be done. The following morning her attorney would receive her instructions, and within a day she would be free. So why couldn’t she do it?

The answer was simple. She’d forgotten how to make decisions. She had so constructed her life that she didn’t need to. She’d freed herself from doubt, and – apart from Madeleine’s stilted little bi-monthly letters – she’d freed herself from the past.

But
was
she doing the right thing? What would Madeleine think? And Cameron? And Clemency?

If only I could be sure, she thought. If only I could have some indication that I’m right.

The bell above the door tinkled, and a man entered, hunched under a streaming umbrella, and letting in a blast of cold air.

Anticipating another applicant, Sophie raised her head, and found herself looking at a well-dressed black man standing politely on the doormat with his hat in his hand. He was in his mid-thirties, stockily built and very dark, and his bony, appealing face reminded her powerfully of Daniel Tulloch.

It gave her such a jolt that for a moment she could only stare at him, and wonder what a younger version of Cornelius Traherne’s head groom was doing in Lambeth.

‘I’m sorry, am I disturbing you?’ he said in a pleasant, uneducated voice.

A Cockney accent; not a Jamaican one. She was shaken by the depth of her disappointment. ‘Um – not at all,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to intrude.’

‘You’re not.’

They exchanged slight, awkward smiles.

She wished she could shrug off the feeling that his arrival was not mere chance. But his resemblance to Danny Tulloch had knocked her off balance.

She watched him carefully shaking out his umbrella so that no droplets scattered in her direction. ‘It’s just that I was in London for a bit,’ he said, ‘looking up my old stamping-grounds. Didn’t this use to be the COS?’

‘They moved,’ she told him. ‘New premises, round the corner.’

‘Ah. But St Cuthbert’s is still going strong?’

She nodded. ‘As you can see.’

‘And you’re running it?’

‘Oh no, I’m just a volunteer.’

He glanced at the little shelf of patent medicines behind her. ‘A medical lady?’

She glanced down and rearranged the papers on her desk. ‘Not a doctor or a nurse or anything. I just dispense a few simple medicines, and give referrals to the Poor Law Infirmary.’

From anyone else she would have resented the questions, but he was so courteous and unassuming that she didn’t mind. And yet it annoyed her to be defining herself in negatives.
Not running it. Not a doctor or a nurse. Or anything.
Why stop there? Not married. Not engaged – although if Alexander remained in London, perhaps that might change. No friends, unless one counted Sibella. No real occupation. Just a twenty-six-year-old lady volunteer who shared a house with old Mrs Pitcaithley’s widowed sister.

It was unpleasant to be reminded of how her life had shrunk. A pile of books from Mudie’s library, and the odd lecture at the British Museum. Sunday lunch with Mrs Vaughan-Pargeter, because on Sundays there wasn’t any whist.

The black man was perceptive. He caught her altered expression, thanked her politely, and turned to go.

She felt compelled to make amends. ‘You mentioned that you were looking up old haunts. Did you used to live around here?’

He turned. ‘Number nine, Wynyard Terrace.’

Wynyard Terrace was one of the poorer streets, and had as yet escaped the attentions of those in charge of the slum clearances.

Again he caught the current of her thoughts, and gave a slight smile. ‘My ma was too proud to be a burden on the parish, so Pa use to send us instead. We weren’t sposed to tell her.’ He paused. ‘The name’s Walker. Isaac Walker.’

‘Sophie Monroe.’ She stood up and held out her hand, and after a moment’s hesitation he took it. ‘I’m going through old records,’ she said, indicating the Register. ‘I’ll look out for your name.’

‘I don’t think you’ll find it,’ he said gently.

She knew what he meant. To the Reverend Chamberlaine, the young Isaac Walker would have been an
‘application dismissed’
before he’d even got in the door.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll be off. Thanks for sparing the time.’

‘Come again,’ she said, and surprised herself by meaning it.

‘Thanks. Maybe I will.’

The day had turned sour.

She stood in the packed, damp-smelling compartment as the Tube rattled through the darkness, and struggled to regain her peace of mind. She told herself severely that Isaac Walker was simply a polite and pleasant Cockney who had made good. All right, a
black
Cockney who’d made good, which was rather more unusual. But still, it was merely a coincidence that he’d arrived just when she was hoping for some sort of sign. A coincidence that he reminded her of someone she’d known in Jamaica.

She was angry with herself. Was this all it took to disturb her hard-won peace? Was this all it took to make her homesick?

Emerging from Baker Street station, she went to the first slot-machine she could find, and bought a penny stamp with a defiant flourish. She didn’t need coincidences to help her make up her mind. She could take charge of her own destiny.

But when she had found a pillar box, she still couldn’t bring herself to post the letter. You are weak, she told herself in disgust. Weak, weak,
weak
.