Authors: Peter Sirr
Black Wreath (5 page)
Purcell made to leave the square. ‘There’s fighting to be done,’ he said. ‘Don’t linger here.’
The butchers looked simultaneously relieved and disappointed – relieved that Purcell had gone, disappointed that they couldn’t accomplish whatever they had originally intended. Thin Face wasn’t finished yet, though. He picked up a stick and brought it down viciously on the dangling student and then, in a movement of equal deliberation, on James. James and the student both screamed with the pain and gasped for breath. The butchers laughed. Then Thin Face picked up his knife again and brought it up to their faces.
‘It would an easy thing now to cut you open,’ he said. He paused to relish the prospect, letting the blade graze their cheeks.
James forced himself not to flinch. He turned his eyes from
the blade and in that second felt the full force of another blow as the flat of the cleaver hit him on the side of his head. Everything went dark then, and when he came to his whole body ached. He looked down and saw the face of Purcell below him. The market was otherwise empty.
Purcell pulled a table close to them until their feet could rest on the top, and then he cut the ropes that bound them to the hooks. ‘You’re fortunate not to be carved in pieces. You wouldn’t be the first Liberty Boys to suffer that fate. Now get out of here, and if you have any sense you won’t go fighting the Ormond Boys again.’ He pushed them down from the table, though his roughness seemed more feigned than real.
James wanted to thank him, but the butcher was already on his way out of the square. James and the student moved as quickly as they could, but their bodies were slow to respond, and it was with great sluggishness and pain that they left the square and moved eastward away from the cries of the battle, which was still continuing. They made their way to the ferry. As they walked, the student revealed himself as Jeremy McAllister of Trinity College. The college students often took the side of their fellow Protestant Liberty Boys against the Catholic butchers, though the conflict had long ceased to be about religion. No one knew the cause of the feud any more; it was just an established part of the city’s life, and McAllister had gone out with a group of students more out of curiosity and mischief than from any particular conviction.
Once they were on the ferry, McAllister questioned James closely about his own life, and gave a soft whistle when he
heard the tale. He was thoughtful for a moment.
‘Why don’t you come and work for me? I need a servant in college,’ he said eventually. Seeing James hesitate, he added, ‘I know, the pay wouldn’t be much, but you’d have a roof over your head, and enough to eat.’
James was wary. He didn’t have much trust left, and part of him had enjoyed the independence of his homeless life. But as the ferry docked, his stomach growled loudly, reminding him that he hadn’t yet eaten that day. His spirit might lean towards unhindered freedom, but his body had its own ideas, and before he thought any more about it, he heard himself agreeing to the young man’s proposal.
I’
m not a boy, James thought as he looked out of McAllister’s small window onto the courtyard below. I’ve seen too much for that. What does that make me? Not a man yet, that’s certain. A lord, a thief, a servant, a ghost …
Behind him, still abed, McAllister snored. He and his friend, Vandeleur, had been up all night drinking, and now was the snoring time. He’d miss this morning’s lectures as he’d missed yesterday’s. James felt a twinge of unease. He could sense the faintest whisper of danger on the air, the tiniest trembling of the wood beneath his feet with its suggestion that this world could also collapse, however solid it seemed now. Sometimes James felt as if he himself might collapse, as if he were nothing more than a bundle of flesh and bones thrown together with no particular design.
A lone pigeon pecked at the cobbles below. Who cared if that pigeon lived or died? Who cared whether it found a few
meagre crumbs or flew home hungry? And who cared what happened to James Lovett in this grey city?
A bell summoned the students to their lectures; footsteps hurried across Library Square. Any minute now McAllister would wake and send him for a jug of milk and then for a basin of warm water. But for a few minutes more James could enjoy the spectacle of the college going about its morning business.
From a door in the other side of the square emerged the strange shape of Professor Jolin. His head looked as if it had been borrowed from the body of a man three times his size, and his wild white hair looked as if he had woken in the middle of the night and seen the most terrible ghost. It was said he never changed his linen, and certainly he was the smelliest man in the college. As he moved now, he held his hands in front of him, gesticulating enthusiastically and pausing occasionally in the middle of the square. He had begun his lecture just as he did every morning, whether or not he had reached the lecture theatre. Once the appointed hour came, even if he was still in bed, he would begin. And because he was often late his students would scratch their heads as they tried to catch his drift.
McAllister would sometimes let James sneak in to the lectures because it amused him to see his unusual servant further his patchy education. He had bought James a new suit of clothes and this, together with James’s natural good looks, gave him the appearance of a student, although a very young one.
On cold days, after McAllister had spent all his generous
allowance on drinking and gambling, he would sent James out for a supply of books.
‘A yard of books,’ he’d say. ‘The older and cheaper the better.’
So James would set out for the bookshops off Dame Street and come back with a heavy burden of tattered and unwanted books. These McAllister would consign to the fire, and they would sit in his room until they were well warmed by the flaming print.
All in all, James thought, McAllister wasn’t a bad master. The duties were not too irksome; he was warm, dry and decently fed. McAllister was highly thought of in the college; it seemed great things were expected of him, and his easy-going nature made him popular with the students and professors. Yet, James worried about that same relaxed nature. McAllister had recently begun to show less enthusiasm for his studies, and to spend more and more time with Vandeleur. McAllister was the kind of person who, though without any badness himself, was very easily led into mischief by others. It was enough for Vandeleur to swagger into the room and announce some foolish plan for McAllister to drop whatever he was doing and place himself at his friend’s command.
James didn’t like Vandeleur much. He had seen many like him in his father’s house, all bright clothes and mincing manners, men of title and money, with not a care in the world except what pleasure they might gain from it. Each time James saw him he was dressed more gaudily – the canary yellow waistcoat swapped for a green silken one, a purple topcoat for one in scarlet, or new boots, and if McAllister raised an
eyebrow he always got the same reply. ‘These are dressy times, McAllister. You won’t amount to anything in this city unless you put your best foot forward.’
Vandeleur didn’t care for James, regarding him as an interloper whose presence he put down to his friend’s overly whimsical generosity. ‘A filthy street boy, McAllister,’ James had heard him say. ‘What use can he possibly serve? You should have left him where you found him.’
James couldn’t understand why these two were so inseparable, and put it down to his master’s easy-going nature. Yet McAllister never revealed James’s true identity to Vandeleur – this one thing he kept back from his friend, and James was grateful for it. Sometimes McAllister would talk to James about his father, suggesting that he should seek Lord Dunmain out privately and let his father acknowledge his son, even if only in secret. The bond between a father and son is not so easily broken, he tried to assure James, talking fondly about his own father and the many happy days they had spent together.
James would have none of it. ‘It’s too late now,’ he said, over and over. ‘It’s too late for that.’
But McAllister’s encouragement did at least keep alive a flicker of hope that one day James might be reconciled with his father, that he might wake up in his old bed and all of his life since he left his father’s house would be swept away like so much dust. One morning when he came back to the room with a jug of milk, McAllister looked at him strangely.
‘Have you heard anything?’ he asked. ‘I mean, about your father?’
James knew immediately something was not right. ‘No. Why?’
McAllister looked uneasy. ‘I was in the town. I heard talk. They say your father’s dead.’
James stared at him, uncomprehending. ‘What?’
‘I’m sorry. There was an argument, I think, with someone who had lent him money. Hard words were spoken, and your father challenged him to a duel …’
James heard the words, but they didn’t penetrate; they hung somewhere in the air outside him. He remembered his father’s duelling pistols, their shine and heft. ‘Feel the weight of that, boy. You won’t be fit for society until you’ve blazed.’ His father had blazed often – he was easily slighted – and he had always survived. He had strong opinions about duelling, as about everything else. The nature of the insult, the rules of engagement, the best places to fight. The challenged chooses his ground; the challenger chooses his distance; the seconds fix the time and terms of firing. James had heard it often enough.
‘It seems his pistol misfired …’
James could hear no more. He ran from McAllister’s room and right through the college until he emerged in College Green. He ran until he came to Harry’s pitch near the Custom House. Harry was the only source of news he could trust without question. Nothing happened in the city that Harry didn’t hear about. His friend was perched on his stool near the archway to the quayside, finishing off a merchant’s boot. Harry nodded at James and when he had finished, he rushed up to his friend.
‘You’ve heard, then,’ he said. He could see how upset James was.
‘So it’s true.’ James’s whole body sagged. Now that the truth had been established there was no more hope, and all the life seemed to drain from him. He sat down on Harry’s stool and slumped forward with his head in his hands. Harry put his hand on his shoulder.
‘I’m sorry, Jim.’
Harry stood silently by his friend for a few moments.
‘By the way, Jim, do you know your uncle?’
‘Uncle? My father had a brother, I think. I never met him. I think he went to England.’
‘He’s back. He has assumed the title. A hard fellow by all accounts.’
James barely took the information in. Right now, he didn’t care about any uncles, good or bad. He wanted to take his leave of his father before they put him in the ground.
J
ames crept into Christchurch cathedral and slid into a bench at the back, beside a group of townspeople who seemed to be there more out of curiosity than grief. At the front he could see the chief mourners: Miss Deakin – James would never call her anything else – arrayed in black like a rook, and beside her the man who must be his uncle. There was something strangely familiar about him; the dark cruel mouth, the straggly black hair, the way he stood, even here, as if he owned the cathedral and everything in it. Suddenly James felt his stomach lurching and his blood run cold. He recognised him: it was the man whose boots he had cleaned in Essex Street, who had cuffed him and abused him and thrown the coin to the ground as he marched off. This brute was his uncle? The knowledge sank into James’s bones so that he felt exhausted. Every so often the man turned his head around to scan the congregation, coolly assessing the mourners at his brother’s
funeral. James ducked down into the pew when he saw the head move. He did not want to be seen by this strange new figure whose every gesture seemed calculated to arouse fear. He noticed Miss Deakin seemed very friendly with him, glancing and smiling in his direction at every opportunity.
At the side of the cathedral, some distance away from the proceedings, James saw a strange group of men. They were tall and loose-limbed and quite brutal in appearance, with rough, pocked faces and squashed noses that might have been broken several times. James half expected to see blood on their knuckles or a tear in the lapels of their coats, but if they had been engaged in fisticuffs lately there was no sign of it other than a flicker of malevolence in their eyes and the curl of their lips as they whispered and joked among themselves. No great respect for the dead had brought them here, that was sure. And why should they have respected my father? James thought. He was a cruel, careless man who lived for himself. And yet he was my father, and now he is dead. James felt a strange emptiness in the pit of his stomach. Part of him, part of his life, was gone forever. In spite of what his father had done, he felt grief tear at him. Who knows, maybe they would have been reconciled in the end, maybe they could one day have had a life together. As he looked at the coffin, he realised that now he was truly alone, now he truly belonged everywhere and nowhere.
His thoughts were disturbed by the whisperings beside him.
‘Who are those men?’ James nudged his neighbour.
‘You wouldn’t want to meet them on a dark night’ came
the reply. ‘Them’s Richard Lovett’s “Uglies”, here to keep the creditors away now he’s the lord, I wouldn’t be surprised.’
Harry had been right: his uncle was a dangerous man with forces of violence at his command. He would have to be careful. Had his father spoken to Richard before he died? Did he explain that his son was not in fact dead but running around the city? James felt a sudden wave of anger sweep over him. He wanted to stand up in the aisle and call out his own name; he wanted to assert his rights, and one of his rights was to grieve for his father openly instead of crouching like an outcast in the shadows. James could feel his body move of its own accord, his hands on the rail of the pew, his knees beginning to rise from the kneeler. He was aware of the sudden interest of the people beside him, their glances curious and keen.
And then, as quickly as it had welled up, the impulse subsided and he sank down again. What was the point? He would only present an easy target for his uncle and his brutes, and the trouble would all be over. No one would mourn him. Had he not already been mourned in any case? He would be another homeless and entirely surplus boy to be heaped in the common pit.
He looked hard at his uncle as he shouldered his father’s coffin down the aisle with the other pallbearers, burning the image into his brain so that he would be able to recall it at any time in the future. As the coffin passed his pew he averted his eyes, not wanting the least flicker of himself to be visible to his uncle. The coffin passed by, and he felt a sharp pang of grief. The end of the procession from the
cathedral was brought up by the Uglies, whose slovenly gait barely allowed the minimum of respect, and they glared at those in the aisles as if to challenge any man or woman who might think their attitude unsuitable for the occasion. James paled at the sight of them.
When the procession left the church James crept out as quietly as he had entered and made his way back to the college. There at least he would be safe for a while.
‘I’m sorry for you, James,’ McAllister said. ‘We don’t get to choose our fathers, but we only get one, no matter how bad they might be. Can you remember any good times with him at all?’
‘Yes,’ James said, after thinking about it a while. ‘Many years ago. I don’t know if I dreamed it or if it really happened. It was in Wexford, in Dunmain. I can see the garden, the sun pouring through the trees. And my father, laughing, throwing me up in the air and catching me. And I can hear myself squealing and laughing.’
‘Hold onto that, James,’ McAllister said. ‘Whenever you think of him, think of that.’
James settled with relief into the routines of college life. He fetched and carried and ate and slept and sometimes heard a lecture, hidden at the back of the hall. He learned a little Latin, a little French, a little Hebrew. It sometimes seemed to him that he would always be someone who got a little of everything: a little warmth, a little sustenance, a little life. One day, he told himself, there would be more than a little, and that was the day he must live for.
McAllister’s easy ways got easier with every day. He now did very little work and rarely attended lectures. Vandeleur was around constantly, sitting in McAllister’s rooms with his boots on the table, admiring their sheen. He would sometimes ask James to polish them and James felt like telling him to walk into town and get himself a shoeblack. If McAllister was present he would wave Vandeleur away. ‘Leave the boy alone, he has enough to do.’
Once or twice, Vandeleur called when McAllister was still abed or had gone out somewhere, and then he presented his boots to James like a goad, and James was left with no choice. He performed the job as inexpertly as he could, ignoring all the knowledge of the art he had learned from Harry, until Vandeleur tired of his game. ‘You really are a useless article, aren’t you?’ he sneered, before turning his attention to something else.
He and McAllister spent more and more of their time in the taverns and gaming houses and often came home drunk. Although the college authorities had forbidden it, Vandeleur usually went out with his sword, the end of whose scabbard he’d removed, just the way the Pinkindindies did it, hoping that he might be provoked into drawing a little blood.
McAllister had no interest in swords, but one evening when Vandeleur arrived in his friend’s room he came bearing a gift. It was a sword, just like his own, in a scabbard with the end removed.
‘Really, Vandeleur, you know I’m not going to go around with that thing.’
‘Oh just this once, be a man for one night, and we’ll speak no more of it.’
McAllister strapped on the sword, turning to James as he did so. ‘It’s possible that we might overdo things tonight …’
Vandeleur snorted. ‘Possible! It is entirely likely. We shall be gloriously drunk.’
‘Could you come to the Bull’s Head around midnight to escort us home? Do you know it?’
James nodded.
Vandeleur snorted again in obvious distaste. ‘We don’t need
him
,’ he said. ‘We’re not mewling infants who need a nursemaid to come and fetch us home. Isn’t that right, Nursey?’
James ignored him and spoke directly to McAllister. ‘Of course I’ll come,’ he said.
With Vandeleur still muttering discontentedly, the two left the grounds of the college. As things were to turn out, James wished he hadn’t been given this task. The two companions spent their evening in various taverns and finally ended up in the Bull’s Head in Fishamble Street, where they drank to their companionship, and with pocket knives carved their names on the table; beside their names they carved, as a final flourish,
quis separabit,
who will separate us? There was an answer to that question, but they didn’t know that yet.
By the time James got to the Bull’s Head McAllister and Vandeleur were the worse for wear.
‘Why James,’ McAllister said, ‘what brings you here?’ He had evidently forgotten his request.
‘Why don’t you toddle off home?’ Vandeleur said. ‘You’re not needed here.’
James was forced to wait until the two had exhausted their capacity for drink and talk. Finally they left the Bull’s Head, with James attempting not very successfully to direct them. As they staggered up the hill, they managed to get into an argument with a man who had been in the tavern earlier. Maybe he had heard something he’d objected to, or maybe Vandeleur or McAllister had said something provocative. James wasn’t sure what the cause was, and he could make no sense of the shouts from McAllister and Vandeleur.
‘Come away,’ he said, ‘it’s time to go home.’
Vandeleur pushed him roughly and James fell. As he got up, he saw that the argument had grown more heated. Angry words were tossed back and forth, and before James could make another attempt to get them to keep the peace, the man rushed at Vandeleur, who grabbed his sword so that the exposed end was pointing at the man’s chest. Possibly Vandeleur just meant to frighten him, but however it happened the man, in his eagerness to hit Vandeleur, seemed to trip on the cobbles and his full weight fell on the student’s blade. It all happened so quickly, James could hardly tell one part of the action from the other. All he knew was that at the end of it all, the man lay dead in the street.