The shrieking of gulls above the Gallows, the clatter and clammer of industry, were our alarm call the next day, and after breakfast we set off for the docks again. There were several large docks, rectangular in shape with high stone walls and a sloping wall at one end. People everywhere, fetching and flitting. We weaved through the crowd and walked past the King’s Dock, Salthouse Dock, George’s Dock, up Chapel Street. There were goods sheds, tobacco warehouses, spirit vaults, breweries, inns and taverns. The air was rich with sharp and strong aromas. The stench of things baking, boiling and burning. Mashing, malting and milling. Sweet yeast and bitter hop. We took a walk around the town to familiarise ourselves with its layout. The Exchange Building was the first thing to grab my attention. It was very grand with a domed tower and a spire that reached up to the heavens. There were many stone pillars and archways and a fine bell tower. There was a notice attached to the wall:
To be sold by auction at George’s Coffee-House, betwixt the hours of six and eight o’clock, a very fine negro girl about eight years of age, very healthy and has been some time from the coast. Also, one stout young negro fellow, about twenty years of age.
Human flesh being sold openly in the street, among market stalls and butchers’ shops. Another chattel being flogged for bunce. We walked up Paradise Street and watched the whores on the corner. Some approached us and asked for business. Then along Bold Street, past the almshouse. We wandered down Brownlow Hill Lane, past the poorhouse and the house of correction. Rivulets of piss and heaps of shit. The crowds thinned, and their voices dimmed. Gulls and pigeons gathered on the ledges of tall buildings. They shuffled and huddled. We walked past the bowling green and the Methodist meeting house. There were cooperages, block-and-spar-makers’ shops, waterworks, drinking fountains that we made use of, sheds and boat-building yards. But above all there were burial grounds.
‘When I see a grave I see a wage,’ I said.
‘Eh?’
‘We need to get to work.’
We walked up Renshaw Street and Berry Street, along Great George’s Street, until we came to St James’s church. We examined the graveyard. It was vast, a tall stone wall enclosing it with lush ivy growing up one side. The church cast some of it in shadow, but further out the graves were clean and ordered and glistened in the sun. There were many fine ornate tombstones, with elaborate carvings and fanciful headstones. A Cupid plucking a bow and an angel clasping its hands. Its wings proud. A sculpture of a man and woman embracing. Seraphim and cherubim. A stone carved Jesus. A marble Madonna and a piping girl. It was clear that the dead buried here had been of moneyed stock.
We studied the names on the graves. From one stone slab I took Jeremiah, and from another, Nelson. I saw Emily do the same and we agreed on our monikers.
We waited under some trees for our first customer. We experienced further disappointment as we had in Manchester, and the same accusations, suspicions and indifference. The first looked disdainfully at our tattered apparel and refused to converse, the second was a pious man who accused us of witchcraft. The third listened to our tale but refused us, saying he’d rather not meddle in demonology. The fourth just shook her head and said not even the dead could console her.
Many hours passed before our first success. A young man, in a fancy yellow frock coat and a brown tricorne. The silver buckles on his shoes shone brightly in the sun as he approached a grave and stood close by. We waited for the right moment, then I initiated conversation. It was his mother who had died and I told him that mine had just passed over too. I shared his grief. He explained that his mother had perished giving birth to his half-sister. She had married a second time when his father had died of consumption.
‘There was hardly anything left of him towards the end,’ the young man said. ‘The strangest thing was his fingers. Like drumsticks. His nails were as shiny as polished pearl, with thick ridges running down them. I remember my mother taking his hands in hers, examining them as though they were another man’s. Then kissing them before weeping silently so as not to excite him. She mourned him for three years before my stepfather came into her life. A horologist from Hartlepool. My mother was from Abergavenny. They were both so happy when she became round with child. She gave birth to my half-sister on St David’s Day. They were attending church that morning when her waters broke. She died clutching the red dragon on the flag my stepfather had laid out over her bed. For one to die so young on the festival of one who died so old . . . He was a hundred years old when he died, St David.’
‘A cruel irony,’ I said, ‘but that was just how our mother died. In bed with her loved ones around her.’
We got talking and with some skill I was able to turn the conversation around so that when Emily appeared he was glad to make her acquaintance.
‘My name is Jeremiah Nelson,’ I said. ‘And this is my half-sister, Constance Nelson.’
He introduced himself as Emmerson Pitt and we talked more of our respective deceased. It turned out that we had a great deal in common. I watched Emmerson as he was drawn into our net and judged when the time was ripe to reel him in.
Emily found it difficult at first to summon his mother’s spirit but Emmerson was patient. Eventually, where blackbirds and throstles sang, the grave fell silent, and I saw once more the dead take possession of her body.
We left the graveyard, with ten new shillings still hot from the man’s pocket. It seemed that they paid well, these Liverpool people. We walked around Toxteth Park and along Parliament Street. There were so many fine houses of great dimensions. And like Manchester town, there was wealth and poverty cheek by jowl. To an even greater extent, in fact. For every fancy man in a top hat and a silk coat, there was a barefoot beggar in a doorway asking for change. For every silver-tipped stick there was a crooked crutch. There were black faces everywhere – some of them too begged on the street. I gave the first some money, but turned the rest down. I may have been like them at one time, but I had no intention of ever going back there. The tower was on our right-hand side; its castellated turrets and loopholes were an impressive sight. Directly in front was St Nicholas’s church, and another opportunity to make some money.
The building was opulent, with complicated tracery of flowers decorating the east and west windows. The gable was decorated with two ogee-headed niches. There was a fearsome dragon and a beast with a lion’s head and a goat’s body. There was a stone cross at the apex. Above the doorway was a carved text: Laudate Dominum.
This time our customer was an older man, whose son had travelled with the Royal Navy and had been assistant to the ship’s surgeon when it was attacked by a Spanish fleet.
‘He was fettered on the poop,’ the old man explained. ‘Exposed to the enemy’s shot. The doctor accused him of being a spy. He was going his rounds among the sick when he was taken prisoner. Carried to the poop by the master-at-arms, then loaded with irons and stapled to the deck. He was accused of conspiring against the captain’s life. My lad. How ridiculous. He was exposed to the worst conditions. The scorching heat of the sun and the unwholesome damp of the night. But they never brought him to trial. My lad. He owed his misfortune entirely to the hatred of the doctor. And there he stayed till the ship engaged with a frigate, a man-of-war with a hundred and twenty guns. Dashed to pieces by the enemy’s fire. He received a great shot in his belly, which tore out his entrails. My lad. The truth came out at his funeral. The doctor was tried and sentenced. But that didn’t bring my boy back, did it?’
I consoled the man. I told him about my brother, who by coincidence had also had an untimely death in the cruel Atlantic Sea. The victim of French privateers.
I paused to recollect the tombstones we had taken our new names from.
‘I’m Nathaniel Newton,’ I said. ‘And this is my cousin, Florence Mackshane.’
The spiritual possession of Emily’s body was a particularly fervid process on this occasion. And the man shrieked when she shook so violently. I had to hold him steady when his son’s eyes shone from Emily’s sockets. Afterwards, Emily was deeply fatigued. We sat down for a while to allow her to recover.
My pockets now were heavy with gold, silver and copper. We walked back out to the gates of the church. A crowd had gathered and we jostled our way to the front to get a better view. We saw a bear chained to a post by its neck and four or five large, fearsome dogs attacking it. One grabbed the bear by its throat. The bear fought back, lashing out. It managed to claw the dog’s head, tearing the skin and exposing the skull beneath. The dog ran back to its owner and was replaced by another, even bigger and more savage. There was biting and clawing, the baring of teeth, growling and roaring. One dog was tossed into the air by the huge fist of the beast and it tumbled into the crowd, before recovering, getting back onto its feet, then showing its teeth again and running at the bear once more. The bear was now cut in several places and bleeding. There was blood and slaver everywhere. There was a large riotous crowd and much money changing hands. I had no interest in watching the suffering of this beast. My entertainment was watching the suffering of those who deserved it. I didn’t believe, as Joseph had tried to teach, that killing was a sin. Only the unjust deaths of the innocent offended God. The guilty had it coming. Unjust suffering was a divine crime. But to kill those who needed to be killed, God looked down with approving eyes. For hadn’t God given Samson the strength to slay an entire army with only the jawbone of a donkey? And wasn’t it better in God’s eyes to slay that army than to slay the innocent donkey? And wasn’t Saul rejected by God when he killed all the men, women and children, as instructed, but not the king?
We walked past the town hall and the spire of St George’s church rising above the Goree Warehouses. I gave Emily a look.
‘Have you regained your strength sufficiently?’
She nodded.
‘We can rest some more if you like?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘This connection you make, between the material and the spiritual, is it harmful?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Can the dead take over? Is there a danger that your own spirit will be cast out?’
‘I’ve heard that happen. To some. But it’s not like that with me. Although I can’t hear them, I can feel them moving around in my body and I can push them out if I like with the force of my will.’
We had to wait over an hour for our next target, with two more rejections and yet more accusations of evil-doing, but it proved to be worth our patience. Another rich young man with a tragic tale to tell. This one had travelled many miles to Liverpool town, to seek his fortune. As I had also, it turned out. He had fallen in love here with a merchant’s daughter, as had I. He’d got married but lost his newlywed on the moor.
‘It was the Bowland Fells. Our honeymoon. We stayed at the Three Fishes. We set off the next morning with a picnic packed, just the two of us. We had scones and clotted cream and strawberries. We walked along the Hodder over Cromwell’s Bridge. We found a lovely sheltered spot just below Ward’s Stone. I laid a blanket out and we put out cuts of cold meat and bread. There was cheese and apples and a bottle of brandy the ostler of the inn had sold us. We got talking about the future. I wanted to purchase a lurcher but she was afraid of dogs. She’d been bitten by a Bedlington terrier when she was an infant. It was a silly quarrel. She got up to stretch her legs. I stayed where I was, refusing to budge, cogitating over our heated words. The wind picked up. Black clouds descended. I rose from my stupor and called out her name, but the wind stole my words. I wandered about the moors looking for her, searching every clough and crag. When I eventually came across her, it was her body in a ditch. She had fallen from the top of a rock and smashed her skull on the stones below.’
Heavier still with our riches, I suggested we find somewhere to eat and drink. It was now past midday and I didn’t want to push Emily any further. We passed the fish market on James Street, but the stench enticed neither me nor the girl. We walked up High Street, past a shoe warehouse.
‘Come with me,’ I said.
Inside there were shelves of every type of shoe and boot. I’d decided that we both needed a more respectable appearance in order to continue to extract money from the rich. The cobbler led us to the back of the shop, where there was a seated area. I let Emily go first. The cobbler measured her foot and then brought three pairs for her to try before she was satisfied. I paid for a fine pair of brown leather boots with laces. I looked at my own footwear. The stitching had come away at the toe, and the sole and the upper had parted company. I purchased a new pair to replace them. The cobbler, eyeing the gold sovereigns, said he could make them from scratch, made to measure. Fit like a glove. But I didn’t want to splash out that much just yet. I promised myself that one day I would have boots specially made to my requirements, but for now we would make do with what we had bought.
We stopped outside a butcher’s shop. In the window was a pig’s head and a hock of oxen hanging from a hook, as well as rows of sausages and cuts of other meats. Rib, rump and chop. Next to these were some sumptuous-looking pies.
‘What do you think?’
‘I’ll have two.’
I bought us two pies each and we sat on a bench and ate them. There was a coaching office across the street with a notice outside its window: ‘Liverpool to London in three days’ was its boast.
‘Why don’t we go there?’ Emily said. ‘There’ll be tons of graves.’
‘This number we’re working, it’s not something we can do indefinitely,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s something that people get wise to.’
‘It’s not a trick, you know.’
‘I know it’s not. But all the same.’
She shook her head and bit into the second pie.
‘What I mean is, Emily, word gets round. You’ve seen the reaction we’ve got from most people. They think we are in league with the devil. People in London will have the same hostility. Me and you, we’re too conspicuous. We can do a few more, no doubt, but at some point soon we’ll need to get proper work.’
‘Fuck that,’ Emily said, stuffing her face with piecrust. ‘I like things just as they are, thank you very much.’
An old man in rags was holding his ass by a rope rein. It was loaded with red pots of various sizes and types. He tried to sell them to those who passed him without success. He approached us but Emily told him to do one.
‘Do you want to end up like him?’ she asked.
There were men in felt hats with gold braid and women in bell-shaped bonnets. Carriages, coaches, carts loaded up with barrels. After we had eaten we made our way back to the docks. We went past the Custom House by the Old Dock, between Cooper’s Row and Hanover Street. There we met some dockers, loading up a ship with sacks and crates. I got talking to one of the older blokes, a blackamoor with a thick neck and hair as black and wild as my own.
‘I’ll tell you how it is, right. Edward Cubbitt’s already set sail. Went a few days back. I loaded up the boat with crates of gin and bales of cotton and this and that.’
‘Where was he heading?’
‘He was heading for the west coast of Africa.’
‘When’s he due back then?’
‘Not for weeks yet, pal. I’ll tell you how it is, could be months. What’s to get back for? Hassle from the wife and this and that.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Enoch’s the name, Enoch Cotton.’
I recalled a crypt and a Celtic cross.
‘My name’s Robert Dyer. Folk call me Bobby. Do you need any spare hands?’
He stopped what he was doing and sized me up.
‘You’re a big, strapping lad. Could probably find some work for you hereabouts. Why don’t you come back tomorrow when I’ve had a word with the gaffer?’
There was nothing much to do with our day. We were still full from the pies and we’d walked around the town enough to get familiar. We hung out around the docks, watching the men load up and load off. Hogsheads of tobacco, hogsheads of sugar, puncheons of rum. Loading up, loading off. We watched the cranes and ropes. I learned much from just sitting and watching and listening to the men as they worked. I reckoned I could take to this work. It wasn’t that far from farm work: physically demanding but not difficult to learn.
Pipes of old Madeira, bags of pimento, bags of ginger, tanned hides, casks of tortoiseshells, casks of indigo. I tried to imagine all the places the cargo had come from. Had some of it come from the land where I was born? I wondered. The bank sloped down to the river, where there were several large sailing ships and, around these, smaller vessels. A large schooner laden with tobacco, another with spermaceti and candles. A third piled with coffee and molasses. Clothing and bedding being loaded onto a frigate. A shallop laden with ivory. A brig loaded with chests of soap, fruit, wine, tar, hemp, iron and oil. There was a rhythm to the work that I found hypnotic. The workers were always accompanied by the gulls, as bold as brass, waiting for their chance to pilfer food. Occasionally, they would get so close to a docker that he would shoo it away, or kick it with the toe of his boot, but on the whole, the men were remarkably tolerant of these scavengers, the way a horse is with an errant fly. I even saw some of the men encourage the birds, by tossing crust and crumbs in their direction.
Bales of muslin and white bafts, tons of saltpetre, bags of sago, billets of ebony, ankers of cochineal, bales of chocolate, chests of vanello. In the distance, almost on the horizon, an impressive twenty-eight-gun ship, her topsails set. She flew a red ensign at the stern and a long pennant from her main mast. There was a female figurehead at the bow. Next to her a three-mast ship with yellow ensign and blue pennant, beneath them a rowing boat with eight men aboard. We watched a shrimper with his net and basket, a dog and small boy by the water’s edge.
‘There’s a lot of stuff about,’ Emily said.
‘Indeed there is.’
‘I’ve never seen so many items.’
‘Me neither.’
‘I don’t know what half of it is. What’s cochineal for?’
‘I don’t know – isn’t it for dying clothes?’
‘What about vanello?’
I shrugged.
‘Why don’t we nick some of it?’
‘What for?’
‘It must be worth a fortune.’
‘And if we get caught?’
‘We won’t get caught.’
‘It’s not worth it.’
As tempting as it was, it would have been madness to have stolen any of the goods. There were too many people about and I didn’t want to attract the wrong attention. We had plenty of money, a place to stay. We just had to act the part we were playing until we could find out some more information. I couldn’t wait for this Edward Cubbitt to come back from his voyage. I went over to where Enoch was smoking his pipe between loads.
‘What’s there to do round here when you’re done with grafting?’
He sucked on his pipe and blew out a plume of smoke.
‘There’s bull-baiting, cock-fighting, dog-fighting, drinking, carding, whoring, a bit of pugilism. This and that. Whatever takes your fancy, pal.’
‘I’m thinking of my sister here.’
‘Why don’t you take her round the market?’
‘What’s there for a girl?’
‘There’s jugglers, magicians, ballad singers, Punch and Judy. There used to be bathers on the beach up there. That was popular for a time.’
‘No, they don’t come any more.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Afraid of the press gangs.’
We wandered around the market and up the main shopping street. Emily stopped outside a dress shop. In the window was a dress like the one we’d seen on the girl in Manchester, pale blue with white frills around the collar. I opened the door and we went inside. I explained to the shopkeeper that my sister wanted the dress in the window. Emily tried it on. It was too big for her. Would she try another? No, she wanted this one. The man tutted but made some alterations until it fitted her perfectly. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror and beamed all over.
‘It’s the finest thing I’ve ever seen,’ she said.
It gave her an innocence that fitted with her age but not her temperament. She tried one on in green striped dimity too. I told the man that we’d take both of them and I paid him. Further up the street we found a tailor’s and I bought a whole new outfit: new coat, new shirt, waistcoat and breeches. I examined myself in the looking glass. How easy to pass for a gentleman, I thought. What would you think of me, Cathy, as good as Edgar now? Not too degrading for you?
In the square we sat down while Emily watched a Punch and Judy show. I thought she was a bit old for kids’ stuff but I didn’t say anything. When Punch beat his wife over the head repeatedly with a massive stick, Emily fell about laughing. A girl was walking around with a hat and I threw in some money.
Another girl was standing by the entrance of a striped tent, shouting: ‘Ha’penny for the next show, maggot man the human maggot, cowface and the screaming freak.’ Emily tugged at my sleeve and we paid ha’penny each to gain entrance. Inside the tent, our eyes adjusted to the dark. There was a small crowd standing around a raised stage. On a broad plinth was a man with no arms or legs, wriggling up and down. The skin on his stomach and chest was hard and calloused, like the skin on the heel of a foot. We walked over to another stage to see cowface, a man with no nose, just a big hole in the middle, which joined with his mouth. He didn’t much look like a cow. There was a woman in a cage with an elongated head like a batten. Her tongue was so long that it hung from her mouth like a neckerchief. A man in a brightly coloured waistcoat poked her with a stick and she screamed.
Back at the Gallows, I bought us both pewter tankards and we found a free table close to where three men were playing cards. The ale was sour but it was a refreshment of sorts. I was getting used to its bitter brew, but only as a means of quenching my thirst. A man was standing by the fireplace, his head on the mantel. He was insensible with beer. I watched him roll his temple on the stone ledge and groan. I saw him drool onto the floor. How I despised him. How I despised people. They were weak. They were fools.
As I raised my tankard to my lips I noticed that it had a glass bottom.
‘Weird,’ I said, holding mine up so the light shone through it.
‘It’s so you can see if you’ve been conscripted. If there’s a shilling in it you can refuse the drink,’ Emily said. ‘That’s what my dad said, anyway, but I never really believed him. I mean, why would they bother? If the navy want to conscript, they can do it by force.’
She had a point.
The man leaning his head on the mantle groaned again. I turned to the players’ table and watched the men sport. It was a game I wasn’t familiar with. I asked one of them what the game was and he said it was called gleek. I studied it closely. The men exchanged cards, with a view to gaining a flush. This was the ‘gleek’ the game got its name from, and consisted of three of a kind or mournival, which was four of a kind. This was followed by a round of trick-play. Different cards were attributed different points, so that an ace was worth fifteen but a king only three. The cards were given names, such as tib, tom and tumbler. There were four parts to the game: the draw, where players bid for the right to draw card replacements in the hope of improving their hand; vying the ruff, where the players vie as to who has the best ruff; gleeks and mournivals; and finally tricks. There were twelve different tricks played.
Lots of money changed hands as the men played and I became fascinated by it. I watched game after game until I felt as though I was beginning to understand it.
‘See, Emily,’ I said, ‘the dealer deals twelve cards each face down, in three batches of four.’
‘I know how to play it,’ she said. ‘I used to play it all the time with my father. If the turn-up is a tiddy the dealer receives fourpence from each player. He gets fivepence for a towser and sixpence for a tumbler. That’s where he went wrong.’ She pointed to the loser, when he lost sixpence. ‘He shouldn’t have vied the ruff.’
The man who seemed to be doing most of the winning came over to our table.
‘You both seem keen,’ he said. ‘Do you want a game?’
‘Not just now,’ I said. ‘But thanks – another time, I’m sure.’
When the men had finished and returned the deck to the innkeeper I requested it for our use. I played Emily several games, she coming out the winner in each instance. It hurt my pride to lose to so young a player, but it was a necessary pain. It was made worse by her continual gloating every time she won. Still, we carried on playing. I was determined to improve my luck. When Emily pocketed the deck at the end of our game, this time I turned a blind eye.
The next day we found a cemetery on the east side of town. Despite our improved attire we still suffered the usual rejections, but we did manage to persuade a dapper fellow by the name of Mr Jeffrey.
I cast my mind back to a crumbling headstone in Manchester, its markings weathered by a century of age, and introduced myself as Abel Adams. Emily was my adopted sister, Mabel.
‘Abel and Mabel Adams. Your parents clearly had a sense of humour.’ The man smiled.
‘Indeed they did, sir.’
He allowed Emily to summon his loved one, his dear wife who had passed away not two months since. But here our luck was to run out.
‘It’s me, my love. How I’ve missed you.’
‘Do my ears deceive me?’ He staggered backwards, almost falling over. I rescued him from falling.
‘It is she,’ I said. ‘My sister is no longer here.’
‘Remarkable. I have thought of nothing else and no one, since you departed,’ he said.
‘Oh, my sweetness. How I love you still.’
‘I have prayed to God to look after you.’
‘God is protecting me here. Do not fear. But it gets lonely without you.’
‘I can’t sleep in our bed by myself. The bed feels too big without your warmth.’
‘Oh, Jeffrey, my one sweet love.’
‘What did she say?’ he said, turning to me. ‘My name is Thomas, not Jeffrey. Jeffrey is my family name. My wife never called me Jeffrey in her life. What cheap trick is this?’
‘I’m sorry, sir, sometimes the dead are changed in death. It can be terrible hard to confront a loved one in such a changed state. Such a shock to the system.’
‘Nonsense. You are both nothing but confidence tricksters. I don’t believe a word. I’ll have you arrested. I’ll report you to the beadle. Exploiting people in this manner. It’s a disgrace!’
I tried to calm the man down, but he just became more agitated. He started shouting at the top of his voice. ‘Police! Over here! Police!’
I grabbed hold of Emily and we ran down the path and out of the walled garden. We sprinted up the street, making our way across the town. We ducked into a doorway to catch our breath.
‘It’s a trick, isn’t it? You lying bitch!’
‘It doesn’t work every time,’ Emily said, holding her sides.
‘You must think I’m stupid.’
‘It’s you. It’s your fault. Putting me under pressure.’
I’d been well and truly duped, Cathy, by this wily infant.
‘Well, that’s the end of that,’ I said. ‘And we’ll have to keep our heads down.’
We looked about us. The coast seemed to be clear. We carried on our way. Protected by the crowd. As we walked I reflected. Inwardly I was deeply agitated. I clung onto the possibility that in fact Emily had been possessed by my mother – that she had been honest in saying it didn’t work every time. But the more I thought it through, the more I was convinced of the falseness of her spiritual possession.
‘Tell the truth,’ I said. ‘It’s a trick, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose.’
‘I knew it!’
‘No, you didn’t. I had you hook, line and sinker.’
‘You little devil. It’s a bloody good trick though.’
I laughed bitterly. Inside my mind was a muddle.
‘You did have me fooled. You’re right.’
I shook my head.
‘Anyway, what are we going to do now? That was our only means of income.’
‘It’s not the end of the world,’ Emily said. ‘We’ve plenty of money still.’
I tried to rationalise my emotions. It was time to find some work on the docks, in any case. And I put this proposition to Emily.
‘What for?’
‘It’s the perfect place to snoop about. If Edward Cubbitt is nowhere to be found, no matter, there are plenty of other people in this town.’
As we walked down Chapel Street I reflected more on Emily’s trick. So, my mother hadn’t spoken through Emily. She hadn’t died on a ship after all. But perhaps she had died in some other way. Maybe she was here in Liverpool. She could even be working on the docks for all I knew. My mind raced with the possibility. There was a chance, albeit a slim one, that I would be united with her again. I wouldn’t give up. I was more determined than ever to find the truth, regardless of the cost.
We found Enoch Cotton by the largest of the three cranes, hauling a barrel with the windlass.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘any luck with the gaffer?’
‘My word, you’ve smartened yourselves up,’ he said, looking us over. ‘As it happens, there are a couple of vacancies. We need a dock hand. What’s your name again?’
‘Bobby.’
‘And your sister?’
‘April.’
‘Well, I tell you how it is, right, you see that office up them steps?’
I nodded.
‘That’s the gaffer’s headquarters. His name is Pierce Hardwar. You go up to his office and say I sent you.’
The office was at the top of the stairs. I took Emily with me. The door was closed so I knocked twice. I heard a voice from inside beckon us in. I explained that Enoch had sent us.
‘Brother and sister, eh? You don’t look much like blood.’
‘I’m adopted,’ I said. ‘April’s parents took me in.’
‘A sooty, eh. Well, I don’t mind that. Got lots of sooties on my books. Lascars, niggers, Turks. Good workers. Plenty of strength and stamina.’
‘What about my sister – do you have work for her?’
He turned to Emily. ‘I dare say we can find something for a pretty little girl to do.’
He smiled a crooked smile and peered over his spectacles, the way a crow eyes a caterpillar.
‘What sort of labour are you used to then?’ He leered at Emily.
‘I’ve done all sorts in my time,’ she said. ‘Farm work, mine work, and the like.’
‘You can work for me,’ he said. ‘I’ve spare.’
We were taken on that morning and set to work. My job was as a dock hand, loading and unloading cargo mainly. Shifting and lugging. Emily’s work was less defined. Gofer and sweeper-upper. The wages were poor, Emily’s not being enough to even feed herself; the object, however, was not to become rich, but to gain knowledge. I wanted to find out more about dock life, to discover who, if anyone, knew Mr Earnshaw. My plan was to find out who I was. I worked alongside Enoch, soon becoming tired of his conversation.
‘I’ll tell you how it is – my wife, she’s not too good. She’s taken to her bed. Can’t get out. Doctors don’t know what it is. She’s a mystery to every physician in the land. Lucky my two daughters are old enough to look after themselves. I’m not kiddin’, I don’t know what I’d do without them. They cook the evening meal, do all the cleaning and the laundry, this and that.’
We were unloading a medium-sized dragoon by the name of Lord Rochester.
‘That’s how it is. I come home from here and there’s generally a hot meal waiting for me. Been married to the wife now fourteen year. Oldest girl is fifteen, youngest is thirteen. They’re young women, you know what I mean. Got boys sniffing round them like dogs round a bitch in heat. I’ll tell you how it is. I’m not kiddin’, if I find out they’ve done something, I’ll knock ’em into next week.’
Most of the time I was able to ignore what he was saying. It wasn’t conversation. He didn’t ask me any questions. All I had to do was nod from time to time. I got the impression that whether I had been there or not, he would have nattered on regardless. He would have talked to a gull or even a barrel.
‘Don’t say much, do you? I like that. I’m not one for idle chit-chat either. Some folk don’t know when to shut up, I’m not kiddin’.’
I helped him hook a box of indigo to the rope of the crane.
‘How well do you know Edward Cubbitt?’
‘As well as any do round here. Worked these docks over eight year now. Edward’s one of the oldest workers. Must be in his fifties. Thought he’d given up his sea legs. Plenty of life in the old dog yet, eh. What did you say you wanted him for, any road?’
‘I want to talk to him.’
‘Be careful with that,’ he said as I dropped the rope and the block swung towards him, nearly missing the side of his head. ‘Crack someone’s skull, one of these,’ he said, taking hold of the block so that it stopped swinging. ‘What do you want to talk to him about, any road?’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘You won’t have. He came here nine years ago. He found me on the street. Brought me to his home. Brought me up as one of his own. He died a few years ago.’
‘Well, there’s plenty of other blokes go back that far. You could start with the gaffer, old Mr Hardwar, goes back at least twenty year. There’s Jack Lancaster too, works in the Customs House, goes back twenty year an’ all. I’ll tell you how it is, there’s no shortage of old-timers here. As for strange men and orphan boys, there’s plenty of them too.’
After the shift had finished, I waited for Emily to return from an errand, delivering a note to someone at George’s Dock, then we walked over to the Customs House. Enoch had given me a good description of Jack Lancaster. Tall man with a stoop and a mop of curly blond hair. In his forties. We went over to the Harbour Board offices and to the Customs House. The office door was open. I peered in and saw a man by the description Enoch had provided sitting behind a table. We waited by the harbour for him to finish work. Near to these buildings was a big slate with the names of ships coming into the docks: the St Inez, the Carnatic, the Fortune, the Lottery, the Enterprise; next to these, the time of the tide, what time they were coming in, and what dock the ship was going to.
Eventually the gentleman who fitted the description of Jack Lancaster left the building and locked the door behind him. The rest of the workers had already gone home, or gone to one of the many alehouses thereabouts. He walked slowly and we were careful to keep our distance as we followed him up the lane. We saw, on the corner of Dexter Street and St James Place, a number of small children huddled together on the step of a public house. They were barefooted and had scarcely enough clothing to cover their nakedness. They were weeping. None of the passers-by took notice. We watched as this Jack Lancaster approached the children. He dug deep into his pockets and poured pennies into their hands. So grateful were they that they commenced weeping again, but this time tears of joy. So this Jack Lancaster was a bit of a soft touch. Good.
We carried on up the street with the silhouette of Jack Lancaster in the distance. We speeded up, closing the gap but careful to retain enough space between us so as not to arouse suspicion. Eventually we saw him enter a tavern. A few moments later we were outside ourselves.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘let’s each play our parts. Leave all the talking to me.’
Inside it was dark, there being only one small window at the far side of the bar. There was a billiard table that had two gentlemen around it, playing a game. I saw Jack Lancaster at the bar counter ordering a drink. He sat down in the corner with his tankard. We got served and walked over to his table.
‘Mind if we join you?’
‘Do I know you?’
‘I’m Robert Dyer, and this is my sister, April. We work in the Old Dock. Just started today, as it happens. I recognised your face just now. You work thereabouts too, don’t you?’
We sat down at his table. He looked perturbed.
‘I’m waiting for a friend,’ he said. ‘I’m not being rude but that seat is taken.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Emily said, ‘we’re not stopping.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘should your friend arrive, we’ll gladly exchange seats. Anyway, like I was saying, I wouldn’t bother you, it’s just you looked familiar and with us just starting work . . . We’re new to the area.’
‘We don’t know anyone,’ Emily said.
‘I do work near the Old Dock, as a matter of fact. The Customs House,’ he said.
‘Oh, right, yes. That must be where I’ve seen you. Seems like a good place to work.’
‘It’s not bad. Not as good as it used to be, back in the day.’
He took out a tin of snuff and pinched some onto the back of his hand. He snorted two lines, one up each nostril.
‘Do either of you partake?’
‘Not for me, thanks. Nor my sister. You worked there a long time then?’
‘Twenty year.’
‘Perhaps you can help us,’ I said.
‘In what way?’
‘We’re trying to trace someone. Our father. He’s gone missing. He came here nine years ago and we wondered if he’d been seen since.’
Jack Lancaster laughed. ‘Nine year, you must be joking. I can’t remember what I did last week, let alone a man from nine year back.’
‘He was called Mr Earnshaw.’
‘Nope, name doesn’t ring a bell.’
He shook his head vigorously. He looked furtively around the room. I described his appearance.
‘I can think of half a dozen chaps look like that,’ he said.
He scratched the end of his nose.
‘He was from Yorkshire. Near a place called Keighley.’
‘People from all four corners of the world come to Liverpool. There’s nothing remarkable about that.’
He scanned the room again and fiddled with his collar.
‘I miss my dad,’ Emily said. ‘If I could just see him one more time.’
She looked at the man with doleful eyes.
‘I’m sorry. I can’t help. Lots of men come and go. Then there’s men like me that stick around. I sometimes think I should have moved on when I had the chance. It’s too late for me now.’
‘Please help us,’ Emily whispered. She looked up at Jack mournfully.
‘I’ve told you. I don’t know your father.’
Emily’s bottom lip trembled. Her eyes welled up. She held onto Jack’s sleeve. Jack looked around awkwardly. The clock on the wall ticked. Emily tightened her grip and tears rolled down her cheeks.
‘Please, sir,’ she pleaded.
Jack looked around the room cautiously, then, shuffling up closer, he said in a low voice, ‘Listen, there was a man by the name of Mr Earnshaw back in the day.’
‘Where was he from?’
‘I suppose he could have been from Yorkshire. He had some business arrangement with Jonas Bold.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Who’s Jonas Bold?!’ The man looked scared for a moment. He glanced around the room again. ‘A very powerful man. Even got a bloody street named after him. Owns half the town. And then some. Owns an iron foundry, a sugar refinery, two distilleries. Lots of fingers in lots of pies. Bit of a do-gooder these days. He set up a dispensary a few years ago to provide free medicines for the poor. Never stops nattering on about it. Gets on your nerves. There’s them that do good and them that like to be seen to be doing good.’
‘And where might we find him?’
‘Search me. He doesn’t live in the town these days. He’s got a big estate in the country. I see him from time to time in his coach, pulled by four white thoroughbreds, bloody show-off. He has a lot of business interests abroad, and down south. He’s here, there and everywhere.’
‘What does he look like?’
‘Big fat fucker in a powdered wig. I mean, who wears wigs these days?’
We thanked the man and made to leave.
‘Listen,’ he said, in an even lower voice than before, ‘don’t you ever mention my name alongside the name of Jonas Bold or Mr Earnshaw. Is that clear?’
I nodded. We made our way back to the other side of town.
‘Well, that’s something,’ I said.
‘Something’s better than nothing, that’s what my dad used to say, except when it’s trouble. Then nothing’s better than something.’
I thought about this Jonas Bold. What hold did he have on this town for men like Lancaster to be so circumspect? And what business had he with Mr Earnshaw that had to be kept so silent?
It was still light and there were plenty of people about town.
‘Let’s have a wander,’ Emily said. ‘My father always had a walk before and after supper. He said the walk before was to work up an appetite, and the walk after was to walk the meal off. I never understood that. You’d think working the roads all day would give you an appetite.’
‘Maybe he just liked walking.’
‘He preferred drinking and carding. And whoring.’
We strolled past St James’s church, where the stones were carved with grotesque gargoyles and where there were men congregated, talking away, children running around and people sitting on the doorstep. There was a quarry close to the church between Parliament Street and Duke Street from which stone was obtained, I presumed, for the public buildings that were all around us. There were faced blocks piled high at one end, but the workers had finished and their tools had been tidied away. I thought about our own quarry, Cathy, near Penistone Crag, where Joseph and I had spent many a day breaking stone while you were convalescing at the Lintons’, growing accustomed to all the trappings of wealth. I broke stone until my hands throbbed and I couldn’t make a fist. All the time wishing that I could break the heads of Hindley and Edgar. A task I would never tire of. As you were softening with privilege and pamper, I was turning blisters into burrs. I wondered what you were doing now. Were you with him drinking wine? Were you in his arms? Perhaps by now you were married. Maybe even fecund with his child. I shuddered at the thought of such a grotesque spectacle.
Opposite the quarry was an artificial hill called St James’s Mount. There was a sizeable garden and a walk called Mount Zion, where the wealthiest residents promenaded.
‘Let’s sit down for a minute,’ Emily said.
We sat and watched the display. Emily smirked at the sight of these fops. There were old men wearing elaborate embroidered frock coats, decorated silk fabrics, lilac with silver and diamond-stitched patterns, buttons of silver, green and white spangles. The young men wore coats cut at the back to resemble a swallow’s tail. Pink, light blue, lavender suits, ruffles of lace, spots, stripes and chevrons, braided seams.
‘Look at this one,’ Emily said, nudging me.
Walking towards us was a man in his early twenties wearing a coat and vest imitating the stripes of a zebra.
‘He looks a cunt,’ Emily said.
There was another, about the same age, with a coat decorated with the spots of a leopard. We sat and watched as they paraded along the garden walk. Short waistcoats and tight-fitting breeches. Round hats with wide uncocked brims. Gold-banded and tasselled. Shoes with decorative chains, hung with enamel plaques and cameos, so that they jangled as they walked. Two watch chains either side of their waists, curls plastered to their foreheads.
The women were just as preposterously attired. The older wore boned stays and hooped petticoats. The younger, softer-lined bustles, making them resemble downy pigeons. Robings and petticoats covered in flowers. Puffed pleats. Chintz and printed cotton. Neckerchiefs fluffed up so high that their noses were scarce visible and their nosegays like large shrubs. Their hairstyles were just as ridiculous, so high on their heads that they exceeded the length of the face, covered with feathers of all colours, or else a frizz of curls and loose ringlets. Enormous hats covered with ribbons, tulle and roses. Was this how ridiculous you had become, Cathy, in your new vain world?
Emily and I watched with some amusement. She pointed and sniggered at such vanity and pomp. I pictured you, Cathy, all trussed up in these latest fashions. I could just see you and Edgar arm in arm, looking like a peacock and a puffed-up pigeon, wandering around the garden. But in truth, this ostentatious display eclipsed even Edgar’s pomposity. I envied the rich their wealth and power, but not their diversions, which seemed beyond frivolous to me. I vowed that no matter how rich I became, I would not succumb to such narcissism and self-regard.
‘Why do they want to look like cunts?’ Emily said.
As we sat there watching these primped-up prats, I thought over my plans. I was resolved to stay in Liverpool town till I discovered something of Mr Earnshaw’s business. No matter how long it took. I was determined to learn what I could of my origins. Whether my mother was alive or dead. I had to know the truth.
‘My dad liked his clobber but he didn’t overdo it. He said there was a fine line between looking stylish and looking like a cunt. This lot remind me of some of the people we robbed. You don’t feel so bad about it when they look like that,’ she said, pointing to a woman dressed in a gown with silver buttons, her hair stuck on top of her head like a loaf of bread, red ribbons dangling down.
‘They sort of deserve it, really. They are asking for a bullet dressed in that garb. My dad said that when folk have more money than sense, it’s for those with more sense than money. Called it the fair distribution of wealth and wick.’