In four separate corners of Newgate the members of the Fowler household are for the first time separately housed.
Jonesy sits on his portion of the floor with a straight back, his crossed legs form a lap upon which lays his sandal, and this he opens, removing the packet. He closes his eyes and conjures the image of the flaxen-headed sailor, who did not come to his trial. Jonesy wonders if the favour he performed for the under-sheriff in exchange for the delivery of a letter was for nothing. He feels hopelessly stained by all he had learned in his father’s house of whores.
The powdery poison tastes bitter and feels like dust in his dry mouth. He has had no food or drink today; the emptier his stomach, the quicker and more violent the reaction. All over soon.
The female holding cell for transports is overcrowded tonight. They swarm around Willa seeking stories of Mistress Fowler. She begins to rock and her fingers count on both hands. The candles sputter to darkness one by one until she can no longer make out the women but for their figures walking past her like ghosts. Her hands search along her hem until they fall upon the packet.
She thinks of her former home and Matron’s haunting words arrive now. What was a little groping compared to a life? Could she have born the violations more readily than the pit of despair and submission she was sure to suffer from her gaolers in New South Wales? The women speak of it for hours on end inside these walls.
Willa holds the packet as if it is precious gold. She must not spill a grain. Her fingers find her mouth in the dark and she opens wide.
Clovis stands in her cell alone and waiting, anticipating the arrival of a notice. The hard melody of metal announces the gaoler’s path to the female Condemned Hold. He grows fatter with midnight messages. She hears the heavy footsteps near the ward’s passage, and yes, they stop at her cell. He turns the key in the gate.
Now in the last hours, a certain constable has made a remarkable recovery and has gone to great lengths to swear an oath that on the evening of the arrest, Clovis Fowler did indeed strike out in selfdefence. A reprieve. What is to be done with her will be made known in the morning.
‘You have friends in high places.’ The gaoler shakes his head as he removes her shackles.
After the gaoler secures the gate and makes his way back to his warm bed, Clovis reaches for the wall for support. Once steady, she lies on the plank and searches for the ceiling that remains hidden in the unlit cell. Her ankles and wrists ache. Her resolve to hold her nerve had wavered for a few moments. It returns now, ever stronger. Events unfold as she had predicted.
One more hurdle. She closes her eyes and while she rests, the crows that perch on the portable gallows below her barred window flutter past Debtors’ Door.
The gaol’s restless prisoners are not yet finished with this night. There is trouble in another cell. Willa cannot stop heaving. The vomiting began almost immediately after she ingested the poison. A fire rages in her belly and it wants out. She cannot be sure that she is not spitting flames. Jonesy had not warned her of this.
The other women call out for help. A few are concerned for the girl, but most are frightened of contagion. None of them have seen such fierce retching.
In the men’s hold they are not so kind. Jonesy is pushed and kicked into a corner as he spews vomit on inmates. The prisoners are easily riled the night before a hanging, and their disturbed sleep foments unrest and violence.
A bell hangs in the cellar over the High Hall stairs. A single ringing calls the turnkey; for an alarm it is rung twice. The gaoler is gruff and in bad humour with this second intrusion of the night. He will demand more for his coffers.
‘Can you walk?’ he barks. Then he orders one of the prisoners to lift Jonesy to his feet.
‘You dare not puke on me. I’ll kill you.’
The cellmate drags Jonesy behind the gaoler, through the gates and over to the Common side, where Clovis is still held in the condemned ward.
He throws Jonesy into the cell with Clovis.
‘Here,’ he says. ‘If he’s going to cat all night, let it be in your cell.’
Five minutes later he is back with the same prisoner who now half carries Willa.
‘You need to pay the swabbers to clean up their mess. There’s two cells full of their sick. I will not have a fuckin’ epidemic on my hands.’
If he expects Clovis to flinch, he will be disappointed.
‘Sir. I would like wine. The watered down variety that is so famous here.’
‘Why you …’ Then he laughs. ‘It will cost you.’
‘Need you even say it?’
He points at her before he leaves. ‘I will miss you, woman. By God, I will.’
In less than half an hour Jonesy and Willa appear completely recovered.
‘So. You live.’ Clovis splashes watery wine into crude metal cups. Black smoke rises from the candles that accompanied the wine.
‘What? What is it?’ she asks them. ‘These flames cast shadows on your faces that tell me you are not pleased.’
Jonesy opens his mouth to speak but cannot find the words.
Clovis looks from him to Willa.
‘Stop it,’ Clovis commands her. ‘Stop it right there. Do not drop one tear. What is going on here? I warn you. I am in no mood for anything other than the truth – and be quick about it.’
‘We should be dead,’ Jonesy says.
Willa nods, while Clovis is impatient.
‘We should all be hanging by our necks tomorrow,’ Clovis says. ‘And if not for me you would be. Speak plainly for Christ’s sake.’
‘What Jonesy means is … we took a powder. A poisonous powder. We do not want to be transported, mistress. We would rather die,’ Willa says.
‘This poison … very strong.’ Jonesy adds.
‘Obviously not strong enough, you fools.’
‘No, mistress,’ Jonesy says. ‘This powder … it is right one. We take twice amount, to be sure of quick death. Something not right.’
‘Do you have more of it?’ Clovis asks.
‘No, mistress. Willa and me, we take all of it.’
‘Well then. If you have taken the right powder and you have had enough of it, you would be dead.’
‘Yes, mistress,’ he says.
‘I am disappointed that you do not trust me. You will not be transported. I am weary of repeating it. Wait and see. We will all be at Limehouse by this time tomorrow.’
Jonesy is not persuaded. He waits until he hears their slow and steady sleeping breaths and then he takes off his sandal. His fingers dig deeper inside the hidden compartment of the sole, past where the packet was, to almost the edge. Hidden there is a sliver of a blade. It is the tip of a knife, short, thin, but sharp.
‘Goodbye,’ he whispers.
He runs the point of the knife across his wrist. Drops of blood fall on his tunic. He recalls the old whore past her use who showed him this way to cut. Then he thinks of his mother. She wears a pink silk robe with cherry blossoms in bloom across her body. He wants to sleep now. The warm trickle slows its course. No! This is not right. His head is heavy when he moves it to look down at his wrist. The blood stops. No more blood.
Jonesy crawls across the filthy floor to the window. He feels the cold bars against his bloodied wrist. His lips move soundlessly as he summons the spirit of his grandmother to fly to him and help him understand why he cannot die.
Met with silence, he cannot breathe for the fear.