The rowing boat came back in the afternoon, when I was standing on the chair and daring to think that another day’s work with the spoon might produce a hole just large enough for me to squeeze through. Up until then, I hadn’t thought seriously about the problem of getting through the hole, or what I’d do when I got outside, because the sheer labour of making it was more than enough. Now there was so much light coming through that it sometimes threw my shadow on the wall of the hold as I scraped away. I’d already had to tear off a larger piece of blanket to plug the hole when I wasn’t working on it. I was afraid Minerva would notice, but so far the rhythm of meals and chamber pot had gone on as usual. I think the boy may have noticed, but he ate the food I left and kept his eyes on the floor. The first I heard of the rowing boat was the creaking and splash of oars, much closer than any other vessels came. Then, before I could even scramble off the chair, I felt the small thump of the boat against our side. I managed to get down, pick up the piece of blanket, scramble up again and plug the hole. Footsteps came across the deck – the poet coming to let down the ladder for whoever was in the boat. I was afraid he might see the hole in the hold cover through the torn canvas, but his attention must have been on the new arrival. Just one man again, though there may have been another left in the rowing boat. Two sets of male steps crossed the deck only a few yards away from where I was standing and went below. I carried the chair back where it should be, collected the fragments of wood from the floor and stowed them in the corner, then used my hands to brush woodchips from my hair, stays and petticoats. Was it to be another letter? Would it help if I tried to hold out against all they could do to me and refuse to write? It was the same male voice as last time. I went close to the partition and crouched down with my ear up against it. I think he must have been standing close, because I heard quite clearly.
‘… Can’t trust him. He’s drinking, and when he drinks, he talks. He may have said too much already.’
Then Minerva’s voice, less distinct but sounding both angry and apprehensive, asking how long they’d have to wait. The man spoke again, but I missed part of it because he must have turned his head.
‘… Tomorrow afternoon, just after the tide turns. Somebody will be coming on board an hour before to help you.’
‘So who, if it’s not Jonah?’ The question came from Minerva.
‘You’ll recognize him.’
‘Do you want her to write another letter first?’
‘No. The last one she wrote hasn’t been delivered yet. We’ve had what we want from her.’
I started sweating. The finality of the voice rather than the words themselves told the story. Tomorrow afternoon, the boat would sail and I shouldn’t be going with it. Not alive, at any rate. The poet was saying something. He was further away and I couldn’t hear him because my heart was beating so hard. In any case, the other man didn’t stay long after that. The two sets of steps came back across the deck, and one pair went on down the ladder. The rowing boat banged against the side then drew away, oars creaking in the rowlocks, then there was silence, apart from the lapping of the water. I heard the sounds from where I was kneeling on the floor. I thought, as far as I was capable of thinking anything, that this would be the last thing I’d feel – the grit on the hard floor. I’d never see the light again, only this near darkness, then total darkness. I couldn’t even think of Robert or of Helena and Harry, because it would be more pain than I could deal with, worse than anything they’d do to me. Every slap of water against the side of the boat sounded to me like their footsteps coming for me. But they didn’t come. What there was of light round the sides of the porthole changed to the orangey glow of evening. Two hours of daylight were perhaps left. Would they do it by candlelight? When they didn’t come, I decided that they were waiting for the other man. Until tomorrow, then, near the turn of the tide. One more day and the hole might have been big enough. Slowly, it came to me that I might have something like that single day.
They didn’t bring in the beef stew that evening. I didn’t expect them to. Why feed somebody you’re going to kill? I got the chair back in position and worked until the light went, splinters in my wrist and blood running down my arm, but no matter. At first light, I was up and working at it again. Every sound from outside, every boat going past, made my heart beat harder, thinking it was the man arriving. I heard movement from the other side of the partition but nobody came. The light coming through the hole I’d made turned from pale to bright, the sun coming up. It was enough, possibly. It would have to be. I climbed down and considered. Getting through the hole was likely to be a more difficult business than I’d imagined while I was making it. I’d have to stand on the table, grab the edges of the hole, take all my weight on my arms and somehow hoist myself up. I’d have only one chance because, if I fell back on the table, the clatter would bring Minerva and the poet running. At least my body was a good deal lighter from my days in captivity, but my arms were already as stiff as billets of wood. And then, suppose I did manage to scramble through it on to the hatch cover? The only place to go was the water – the sea or the river. My father had been greatly influenced by the teaching theories of Rousseau and had brought up my brother and me according to his principles as what he called ‘educated savages’ – at home in pools, fields and woods, but with a very unsavage insistence on Latin, French and trigonometry. I could swim, but what water would I be swimming in? I still had it in mind that we might be near Edinburgh in the Firth of Forth, or possibly Dublin Bay. No use worrying about that. If I were to do it at all, it must be kept simple – climb through the hole, dive into the sea or river and swim for the shore. What I’d do there, in chemise and petticoats with no money, was a question so complicated I daren’t even think about it. The only plan was to get away, but my body didn’t want to do it. It wanted to curl up on the floor, sleep and give up trying to save itself. It seemed the sweetest thing in the world to stay where I was for just a few minutes longer, but I knew that if I didn’t force myself to get up, I’d never do it.
Clothes were the first thing. I took off my stockings – they were full of holes by now and smelt foul – and left them with my garters on the floor. Then my stays had to go because they’d be too stiff for getting through the hole. I felt oddly vulnerable without them in just my chemise and petticoats, bare feet grating on the stone dust on the floor. Then, after some consideration, I unhooked my upper petticoat. I was in two minds about that because I’d once heard a story of a lady who fell in a river and was buoyed up and saved by the air under her petticoats, but its bulk might have stuck in the hole. In nothing but my chemise and under petticoat, I was shivering, which couldn’t be tolerated, so I got the table in position and climbed on it, the wood harsh and knotty underfoot. I tore away the blanket and the early morning sun streamed in, so bright that for a while I stood there, blinded and blinking. Then I curled my fingers over the opposite edges of the hole, reached up on tiptoe for a firmer grip and swung myself up with one foot on either side of it. At least, that was what I’d intended to do, but I must have swung unevenly. My right foot braced itself alongside my hand, but my left foot was treading thin air then falling, threatening to drag me down. I still don’t know how it was possible but I heaved up my foot and pushed my head and shoulders through the hole. I was stuck like a cork in a bottle. It was only just big enough, and my upper arms were pinioned against the sides of the hole, hands still underneath. I dragged them up, first right then left, feeling whole areas of skin being scraped off, and planted them on top of the canvas of the hatch cover. By now, my whole body was trembling, and I knew there were no more than a few seconds of usefulness in it, if that. I braced my hands flat and pushed, brought my right knee through, catching my toe in the under petticoat, then scraped my foot and ankle out to join the hands. After that, the left leg followed as easily as a chick coming out of an eggshell. A chick, though, that was not far off being dead. I just had the strength to crawl clear of the hole but then lay there curled up on the hatch cover, shivering, crying and only half-conscious. If Minerva and the poet had come for me then I couldn’t have done anything about it. In fact, I more than half expected them to come, sure that I’d made enough noise to bring them running. When I felt someone looking at me, I was sure that it was Minerva, and uncurled enough to put out an arm in a useless attempt to protect myself. Nothing happened. I opened my eyes and there was the boy. He was just standing there on the deck beside the hatch cover, staring at me. I pushed myself to my knees and stared back. There was no hostility in his eyes, not even curiosity. This was just one of the things that happened in a world beyond anything he could understand. I put a finger to my lips. He just went on staring. I was sure that, however confused, he’d shout out at any moment and raise the alarm, so I pushed myself to my feet. There was blood on my chemise and my under petticoat, and it felt as if it could be coming from anywhere in my body. I half walked and half fell off the hatch cover on to the narrow strip of deck beside it, only a few feet from the boy. I was so intently focused on him that at first I didn’t look anywhere else. Only when I was leaning against the rail on the outside of the deck – a low and tarnished rail – I looked up to catch a lungful of air more than anything and gasped at what I was seeing. It was a river wide and crowded, the tide going out, the water brown and surging along. I’d never seen anywhere with so much shipping – steamships, barges, rowing boats and long vessels with copper-coloured sails rushing out with the tide. Almost opposite was a grim, modern fortress of brick, oddly shaped. There was an area just downriver that seemed to be a magnet for the barges and sailing ships, with dozens of them clustered round. High forests of scaffolding stood up out of the river. Further along, a great tower shone in the rays of the morning sun. It wasn’t completely finished – a jagged crown of more scaffolding sat around the top. Looking just beyond it, a fine stone bridge of many arches spanned the river. It was a great, busy city, and one I knew almost as well as I did my own hands. The fortress was Millbank prison, and the ants’ nest building site was the Palace of Westminster. I’d stood, several times, on that great grey stone bridge with Wordsworth’s lines in my head: Earth hath not anything to show more fair … Whether it was fair or not at that time didn’t bother me. What took my breath away, so that I had to struggle to make my lungs work, was the shock of familiarity. Not Dublin. Not Edinburgh. London. What was more shocking, it was a London I knew well and only a hop, skip and a jump from my last memories before I was kidnapped. We were moored on the north side of the Thames off Millbank, practically within sight of the house where we’d gone to dinner. Downriver, I could even see the towers of St John’s Church. Before I could take in the shock of this, my attention was pulled back to the boy. He was still watching me but he was listening to something and his eyes were scared. I listened too, and heard the shuffle of feet somewhere below decks. Minerva’s, I thought, making for the hold. The boy’s mouth opened. He didn’t say anything, or perhaps he couldn’t, but his eyes went to the low rail round the deck. It wasn’t a case of thinking any more because there was only one thing to do. I went over to the rail, grabbed the middle bar of it in my cold hands and swung myself under and out. I spent a moment in the bright air, then the water closed over me. The shock of the cold meant that for a few moments I didn’t even think of swimming, then instinct took over and I struck out, away from the boat, then turning – I hoped – towards the north bank, feeling the pull of the tide. At that point, I had no plan at all, only the wish to get away and the fear of hearing Minerva’s voice shouting after me.