The Clay Dreaming (21 page)
Authors: Ed Hillyer
It was going to be a long day.
The Isle of Dogs is a truly terrifying place, where impossibly tall chimneys vomit clouds of thick, black smoke. Circulating among the swirling crowds of workers are bluecoat constables: burly men with thick necks, dressed in dark uniforms. They brandish staves, and snarling dogs restrained on short leashes. Gatekeepers and watchmen patrol the high walls, or check the rolling carts, in and out. Each of the dock-gates and various entrances is heavily guarded.
None of it presents too much of a problem for Brippoki. When he doesn’t wish to be seen, he is quite invisible.
The air rings with the constant din of a smithy. The clangour of the hammer shapes iron across anvil, and mandril, and quare. Wind and water turn to steam. Wooden vessels become ironclads.
Turned in a gradual circle, Brippoki makes his way back towards the docks at the top of the island. Outside the main gates an enormous crowd gathers, blown in, as surely as the ships, on the westerly wind. Inquisitive, he joins on at the fringes. With every passing second more bodies arrive, amassing behind. Desperately, they press themselves forward against the chain barriers. Before he knows it, the swollen crush pens Brippoki in.
Skin of one beast, within its enclosure the crowd snarls and strains. When the calling foremen appear, a primal thrill ripples through the throng. Then they take to nearby platforms at the front of the crush: there is a rush and a push, a sudden great step forward. The scuffling begins, and the scrambling, the stretching forth of countless hands. For a moment Brippoki’s feet no longer touch the ground. Instinctively, he lets his body go limp. Should he be knocked to the ground, he knows, it would be the end of him.
Strict and ceremonial, the foremen begin to select their work gangs, calling out from a register of names. Men in the crowd volunteer their own names. Others, if they know them, call out the family names of the foremen, and some their Christian names. Faces twist into masks of anxiety. For many this is a struggle fought twice daily, with each and every turn of the tide.
Everyone begins shouting at once and the noise is fearsome. Unable to move, Brippoki’s head soaks with perspiration. He gives off a low, animal stink.
‘Harry!
HARRY
!’ a man beside him calls. ‘For the love of God…’
Hapless thousands stand ready. Jobs await only a fraction. As each selection is made, every man’s chance of a payday dwindles. The competition becomes more severe. Frantic, the castaways begin to leap up and down, waving their arms
and kicking out with their legs, pushing and tugging frantically to get nearer the front. There is savage jostling for position. Fights break out all around. Some men jump onto the backs of others, the stronger ones literally grinding those weaker under foot. The crowd as a whole begins to pitch and roll, circulating furiously. A whirlpool forms. Brippoki too has to thrash in constant motion, just to keep his head above the undertow. Carried away, quite literally, he also feels compelled to cry out his name.
‘Bripumyarrimin!’ he shouts, gasping for air. ‘
Bripumyarrimin
!’
Raised aloft opposite the last of the foremen, and turned bodily in the air, he is confronted by a maddening sight. Men fight tooth and nail, but they are drowning, all of them, death etched on a thousand screaming faces.
‘
BRIPUMYARRIMIN
!’
He is overwhelmed.
Before she knew it the time had come for Sarah to return the book.
The admonition, printed on the reverse side of every Reader’s Book-ticket, was quite clear.
READERS ARE PARTICULARLY REQUESTED:
Before leaving the Room, to return each book, or set of books,
to an attendant, and to obtain the corresponding ticket,
the READER BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BOOKS
SO LONG AS THE TICKET REMAINS UNCANCELLED.
Seeing Sarah approach, book in hand, Benjamin J. Jeffery’s face gently glowed.
‘I would like to keep the book out for a few more days, if I may,’ she said, polite but firm. ‘Do you think that would be possible?’
The young man fingered one of the Reader’s Manuscript-tickets. Since no green ticket had been filled in the first place, there was none to cancel. Nor could one be filled
ad hoc
without either Press Mark or individual catalogue entry number, both of which the vital manuscript lacked.
The junior assistant visibly wrestled with the problem.
‘I would very much like it,’ Sarah quietly insisted.
Loath to be parted from it, she gripped the book tightly. She did not wish the manuscript misplaced, not even temporarily.
A light sheen of sweat beading his forehead, Benjamin J. Jeffery drew closer. He phrased his words carefully. ‘You may want to leave it out. For today,’ he said. ‘Among the catalogues, perhaps.’
Sarah turned and considered. The catalogue shelves seemed awfully close to the attendants – under their very noses.
‘I could place it in an unfrequented part of the open shelves,’ she suggested.
His eyes glazed over, and she saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down. ‘Whatever,’ he gulped, ‘you think best.’
Hidden in plain sight, the risk of discovery appeared minimal. Were the misplaced manuscript found, nothing connected her to it. The worst that could happen – and most certainly, it would be terrible – would be for it to disappear, returned to an anonymous pile.
Done, and done.
She passed him by.
‘Thank you, Mr Jeffery,’ she said, most sincerely.
Sarah strode out of the Reading-room, an unusual spring in her step. She rather relished their collusion – her own small act of rebellion.
Wednesday the 3rd of June, 1868
‘Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy…’
~ William Wordsworth,
‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality’
‘How are you feeling, father? How was your day?’
Lambert Larkin let out a long, grey moan.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Sarah. Her lips formed a
moue
. Laying a chill palm to his forehead, she winced. His bedchamber long since filled with that peculiar sickbed smell, her father had lately developed quite appalling bad breath.
Neither warm nor cold beneath its blanket of low cloud, the day was moderate: opening the window a while presented no great risk.
‘I have been to the library,’ she said.
Thank you for asking
.
‘No great news, I know.’
There, fresh air. Well, air anyway
.
He flapped a hand towards the remains of a bread roll from his largely uneaten breakfast, and she knew what to do. Ever since boyhood her father had always loved to watch the birds, and was a careful observer of their habits.
Family tradition held that he acquired his lifelong interest in birds and animals from Sir John Downman, the illustrious portrait artist and Royal Academician. Between 1804 and 1806 or so, the painter had briefly made his home at Went House, Town Malling, leaving behind a number of his pictures still on the walls there. Lambert would have been seven to nine years old, his deep and abiding love of nature encouraged, in childhood’s formative years, by the quiet and solemn old artist, who would have then been approaching 60 years of age.
Ordained as a curate a decade later, Lambert had planted his vicarage gardens with red cedars, limes, Turkey oaks, and Tulip trees: by all accounts, they yet flourished. On the 20th of July, 1831, he married Frances Twytten,
Sarah’s mother, dear departed. Sarah herself was born another ten years on, almost to the day.
She stood, staring down into her empty hands. Broken bread lay scattered all across the windowsill.
Lambert, who was anyway not in the best of moods, squirmed in the bed, obviously irked by her lingering. ‘Where is your mind, child?’ he said.
Sarah battled an overwhelming temptation to confide in her father concerning Brippoki. And yet, from experience, she knew it could rebound in a fashion most unpleasant. Following her trip to the Oval the week before, she hadn’t known what to say – whether to admit to her mistake in missing the cricket, or not mention the day at all. In the end she had told him almost everything. Having witnessed the astonishing flights of the boomerang, how could she not? He had deemed her colourful tales regarding the Aboriginal Sports far too frivolous…so, to reveal her subsequent association with one of the cricketers themselves…? The thought of them meeting provoked and terrified her in equal measure.
It was not that she ached to tell her father, specifically; more, she craved to share her news with at least someone. And who else was there?
When Brippoki showed up at their front door he looked wan and dejected, something even the proverbial cat would discard, slumped on the step. His red-rimmed eyes were once again bloodshot. He smelt strong and strange.
A woman of lesser character might not have invited him inside so readily.
Sarah offered him a hot drink, for which he appeared grateful, and a portion of their evening meal. She had been considerate enough to make extra. This he refused, but she kept the covered plate to hand in case he should change his mind.
News regarding Bruce’s book inspired Brippoki’s almost immediate recovery. His spirits revived, he appeared very keen to hear the dead man’s tale.
Sarah’s reading of the text was slow going but, out loud and in company, much more effective than when she had tackled it alone. Having Brippoki for an audience brought the story to life. The relation of the infant’s year-long sleep, in particular, held him enthralled. Then, when he heard of the loss of ten out of the family’s thirteen children, he became so wretched with sadness that heavy tears rolled through the dust on his cheeks.
I then to Mister…
‘Ballmeany?’ said Sarah. ‘Bellamy, possibly…’
Mister Bellamy’s rope ground, to turn the wheel for a woman who was spinning twine.
She read to Brippoki those very same words Bruce himself must have spoken, half a century before.
Here I was classically educated with all sorts of infamy.
‘Really,
ahem
, I’m guessing,’ she said. ‘If you could see a sample of the handwriting I have to unravel!’
Reflexively, Sarah held out her old notebook. Brippoki flinched.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s the spelling presents the greater obstacle…’
Her voice trailed away. Sarah looked her guest over brightly, in a trice, before bending her head to resume with the reading. She’d had an excellent idea, but it could wait.
In short, I soon became acquainted with the most notorious gang of thieves and murderers that ever existed on the face of the Earth!
Sarah felt gratified to hear Brippoki gasp. And this was but one, early indication of George Bruce’s colourful way with words. He turned quite a phrase for an illiterate sailor.
She continued.
Here the serpent took a hold of my heart…
Brippoki sprung forward, nearly falling off the edge of his seat.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘He means Satan… You know who Satan is, don’t you?’
‘
Uah
,’ said Brippoki. ‘Debbil-man!’
‘Yes, the devil.’
‘The black man!’ Brippoki shouted, excitedly.
The… Why should he say that?
Here the serpent took hold of my heart, charring me up in every wickedness.
‘He means, I think, that he was…blackened by fire. By hellfire, as it were.’ She thought the coincidence odd.
So I went on for two years. My poor broken-hearted father and mother by this time became acquainted with my horrid life and strove their utmost power to stop me, but it was in vain.
‘Horrid life!’ Brippoki intoned. ‘“Horrid and dreadful life”!’
‘Why, yes, his fate,’ remembered Sarah. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’ According to Bruce’s own mother, his long sleep in infancy ramified either his fate or his fortune: Brippoki had requested, nay, insisted, that she repeat this part over and again. She read on.
Many a time I cursed my dearest mother to her face. One day, when she was chastising me for my wickedness, she pronounced on me a few words as follows:
– You wicked wretch, for your disobedience to God you will wander in the wilderness like a pilgrim seeking for refuge, and will find none!
A fulsome curse for a mother’s lips; Sarah had already made note of it. The effect on Brippoki, however, she could not have predicted. Clasping his head in both hands, he cowered and wailed in abject distress. His upset was so severe, it took several minutes and a second cup of tea to soothe and quiet him again.
It was, perhaps, Sarah’s own fault. Her delivery inherited a little too much fire and brimstone from the Reverend Lambert Larkin.
Calm restored, and with half a mind to the ever-present risk of disturbing her father, she suggested they take a short break. George Bruce’s fortunes did not improve in the pages ahead, and his fate only worsened. Brippoki, however, preferred for them to continue.
Shortly after, I should have murdered my poor father with a brass candlestick, which I threw at him, but he, putting his hand, prevented it. I was put into the workhouse, wherefrom hence I was bound apprentice to Joseph Frogety at Barking. I went several voyages to Holland with my master dealing in fish. My master treated me with every kindness. But alas, this happiness was but for a short time, for one day at Limehouse where my master lived, my mistress made me put my clothes with my fellow apprentices.
When taking them on board, I found them covered with vermin. This curse surely was sent by God on me for my wicked deeds. I ran from my master. My young master brought me back the following night…
Distracted, Sarah paused. The literal transcript was ‘
Foulling Night
’, the unwitting poetry of which she had rather liked.
…and I was put down in the cabin in the charge of an old man. He told me that my master would flog me for running away. That same night, when the old man was asleep, I went to the companion…
‘…the window at the top,’ explained Sarah. Brippoki was nodding, almost mechanically.
Then, putting my head to the top part, I forced it open and set off for London, where I resided for a few weeks.
‘London,’ Brippoki repeated.
The incident with the ‘
vammont
’ – the varmint, or vermin – sounded closer to genuine misfortune than offence. Bruce’s only real crime had been the fear of consequences. Added to an already lengthy list of misdemeanours, however, his running away must have reflected badly: in the minds of his accusers it would have only confirmed his guilt. Warranted or not, the threat of flogging had driven him to flee a second time.
Setting off for London, from Limehouse – Bruce made the city sound so far off! In those days, Sarah supposed, it was. She returned to the text.
One day, my mother met me on Tower Hill, and compelled me to go with her to the North Country Pinks, Limehouse, where I was left with Master Wheatley, who was in partnership with my master. I was treated with the most tenderest usage that ever a child was dealt with. My employ was to go out with beer. One night I went to a widow’s house to carry beer, when I saw on her table lay a silver watch. I had in my company one of Master Wheatley’s sons with me, so that I could not accomplish my wicked thought I had in my head at that time. But soon after we both arrived at his father’s house I left him, and made my way for the poor widow’s house with that wicked intent that I had the first moment I see the watch laying on her table. At my return to the widow’s house, she was at that minute going out. She locked the door and shoved to the window-shutter. As soon as she was gone some distance from the house, I pulled the window-shutter open, and jumping in the window I ran to table, where I caught up the watch and put it in my bosom. Then jumping out of the window with my booty, I ran to Master Wheatley’s house. The watch was going and I was frightened that some person would hear it tick.
I immediately went out of the house and hid the watch in among some logs where it remained till the next morning. I was very restless during the night for fear that the widow should come to my master and enquire for the watch. The next morning when I went downstairs, to my great surprise I see through the window some men moving the logs where the watch was hid. I then took in my hand two stones and began to play with them till I throw one of them on the spot where the watch lay. I took up my booty and went to London where I met with one of my old companions. ‘This, presumably, must be one of that “notorious gang” of yore,’ Sarah commented.
‘This, presumably, must be one of that “notorious gang” of yore,’ Sarah commented.
‘Not mine,’ said Brippoki quickly, vigorously shaking his curls.
‘No,’ Sarah said, ‘I meant…’ She smiled, letting the breath out. She read on.
He conducted me to his father, to whom I gave the watch. He received it and told me I was a good boy, asking me at the same time to come and live with him. I told him Yes.
I remained with this man for a few weeks. My employment: with his son, day and night, in thieving all we could catch. His father and mother received all the stolen property.
One morning, passing a cookshop, I went in and found on the counter a very large plum pudding, which took my attention. But the suspicious barking of a little dog, who was in charge of the shop, prevented me for some time. Finding no assistance to the little dog, I jumped on the counter, then, dragging a very large dish of chitlings to the edge of the counter, threw some of them to the little dog. This stopped his noise, and was his death, for as soon as he
came to the edge of the counter to fill his belly, that moment I turned the dish upon the poor little dog, which completely smothered him. Finding everything quiet, I got down off the counter and carrying with me the plum pudding on my head, I went into St George’s Fields, where in a little time I had so many companions that I did not know what to do. The pudding was soon devoured, and I returned to the poor old sinner who encouraged me to thieving with his own son.
My ruin was but for a short time, for soon after, my eldest brother met me in the street, picking pockets on the Sabbath night. I then stopped with my brother for some time. I was soon overtaken by justice. Many times I was caught thieving, but I was so small that the Ladies and Gentlemen all pitied me, and let me go. But at last I was caught in the fact, and cast for death at the age of twelve years. It was for breaking a window and taking out two pieces of handkerchief.
I remained in Newgate for some time, and from thence to the hulks at Woolwich, where I remained till the year ninety-one.
Captured in these simple lines was the delicious moral mix of turpitude and innocence that must be the experience of every young thief. The lost
Memoirs
quite forgot, they had been catapulted back into the earliest days of Bruce’s misadventures.
Sarah looked over at Brippoki: expression rapt, utterly transported. Did he know any Dickens? Here was young Oliver Twist, encouraged by a corrupt Fagin into thievery. Along trotted Bill Sykes’s unfortunate dog, Bullseye. Or perhaps Bruce was rather an Artless Dodger. The essential difference being, this tale was first-hand – banal, untutored, and utterly authentic.
Just so long as poverty and deprivation maintained their distance, not simply in years, Sarah took a perverse sort of pleasure in peeping at such a world, ‘for the imagination of man’s heart
is
evil from his youth’.
Sarah settled back into her seat, and closed the notebook.
‘Hopefully,’ she said, ‘Bruce’s manuscript found, we may make better progress tomorrow.’