13

Laceration

IN THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED William’s confession, Helen kept a weather eye on him, conniving excuses to be nearby while he worked and going with him to his prayer meetings at night, although she was hard-pressed to keep from dozing as they yawed on.

In the daytime, William seemed much as he ever had been, an upstanding, sober man who worked hard and maintained a cheerful demeanour at all times. He had taken up his cobbling again, tying on his apron and tool belt with seeming pleasure, and he sang to his customers as he mended their shoes in the close or out on the street, the Castle looming above them, earning himself a few pence more for a verse of ‘The Minstrel Boy’ or ‘Whisky in the Jar’. He had given Helen all the money he had from the corpses, so he would have the knowledge, he said, that all his own coin was honestly earned. Helen wore it in a cotton pocket tied round her waist under her skirts, thinking to keep it until such time as she could get them out of Tanner’s Close and into rooms of their own.

At night, though, it seemed that William’s misdeeds returned to torment him. He would say his prayers in the usual way and fall into sleep, but then it seemed almost as though something pricked him awake, so he started up with a cry of pain. He couldn’t bear the dark then, and so they had taken to sleeping with a tuppenny candle lit beside the bed. The only thing that could get him back over into sleep was a draught of whisky, else he would lie awake the rest of the night whispering to himself and shivering so Helen was driven near distracted, passing days and days in a stupor of tiredness that William never seemed to feel; he was driven by a sort of nervous energy that never seemed sapped by the long nights of wakefulness.

That was how Helen finally let him escape from her sight. It was a night near the start of April, and in the wee hours of the morning, William had started out of his sleep with the usual sounds of distress. Helen had turned to soothe him with a hand on his back, trying not to wake fully from her own sleep so she might have a hope of proper rest. She heard him uncork a bottle and pour out a tot of spirit, the smell of it tickling her own nostrils. Then it seemed to her that he was quiet again, the whisky must have done its job, and she slipped back into a deep sleep.

When next Helen woke, the candle was guttering, and William was gone.

Wearily, Helen climbed out of bed and began to dress, cursing the woollen stockings that seemed to tangle round her legs as she fumbled to get them on, and the laces on her corset that defied her cold fingers as she fought to tie them. She still had her pocket – she slept with it on, always, not that she didn’t trust William around money, mind, but the Hares and the other lodgers were always on the prowl. Looking in the drawer of the dresser, she found William’s Bible, but not his cobbling money. That likely meant he had gone to a tavern.

Helen lit a lantern and set out into the dark. Early as it was, there were plenty of folk about, setting up stalls and toiling over cooking fires, rolling barrels up closes and lugging hides into the tanneries. The taverns were open and doing a good business, it seemed, between the early birds and the stragglers from the night before.

First Helen tried the places nearest home, in the West Port and the Grassmarket, but no one had seen William, or if they had, they weren’t admitting it. She puffed up the hill then to a place she knew he liked on the High Street, but they said he hadn’t been there that night. There were some folk in that Helen knew, and she decided to lighten her foul mood by sitting a while to crack over a cup of ale and a breakfast of pie.

Once Helen was fed and rested and in a better humour, she bade her companions farewell and set off again in search of William. She tried a couple of howffs in the darker closes to no avail, and another two taverns on the High Street, and then she reached Swanston’s place in the Canongate. There was no sign of Swanston this early in the day, and the lad he had working there said he wouldn’t know Burke the cobbler from Adam himself. Helen described him, and the lad said there had been an Irishman of about that height in early that morning, but he didn’t think that was William, this man had been a pensioner. Helen asked how he came to know that, and the lad explained that the Irishman had been sat with two young lasses, a rough pair they were, that had been arrested for some wildness the night before and had come here straight from the police station when they were let go. They all had several rounds of rum and bitters bought by the man, and then he invited the lassies to break their fast in his lodging house and share two bottles of whisky he had bought to take with him. That was how the lad had come to know he was a pensioner; one of the lasses had come away with some cheek about going nowhere with an Irishman, and he had said she might do as she pleased, but it was a shame as his pension was enough to keep them all handsomely for life. The one who had resisted went happily enough when she heard that, he said, and his mouth twisted in disgust, as if he would spit.

Helen was stuck then, not knowing if the man had been William or not, though her blood steamed at the thought it might be, and she so daft as to think him hers, and faithful forby. She ordered herself a rum and bitters, to see what it tasted of, this treat the Irishman had bought for the girls. It was good, and she ordered another and another and another, dipping into the coins in her pocket to pay the barman. At last she got up and made for the door, a trifle unsteady on her feet and not entirely sure of her next move.

Outside, Helen breathed in gulps of air and looked around her. It was full light now, had been for some time, and the place was alive with trade and traffic. As she looked up and down the road, contemplating her next move, who should her eyes light on but William himself, a little way ahead of her and walking alongside a woman. They turned down Gibb’s Close and Helen realised they were making for the apartment where William’s brother Constantine lived with his wife and bairnies. She felt winded, for a second, but then her blood rose and she lifted her skirts to run after them.

Constantine Burke’s place was in a dirty tenement, up a narrow wooden stair and along a dark passageway. As she rushed along in her fury, Helen heard the sounds of merriment – William’s voice raised in a story and women laughing. She lifted the latch of the door and stormed inside.

William started at this intrusion and half-rose, his mouth hanging open so he looked like a fish on a market stall. ‘Nelly!’ he said. ‘Is it you?’

Helen looked around. The place was a midden, as ever, with the shutters half open, rubbish strewn about, and great rents and tears in the curtains on the bed. There was no sign of Constantine, but his slatternly wife Peggy was sitting at the table with William and two girls. One of these was a small, dark-haired lass Helen had never seen before but one she knew well enough – Mary Patterson. She was from out near Helen’s home-place and Helen had met her a time or two in Edinburgh, where she’d got in trouble and spent time with the Magdalenes. Now Mary was asleep in a spindle-back chair, her head lolling back and curling papers in her long red hair.

‘Come away in and sit down, Nelly,’ said Peggy, as though there was nothing at all odd about the gathering she was presiding over. She brandished a spoon. ‘There’s plenty breakfast left. Will you take some haddock?’

‘Or an egg?’ the dark-haired lass suggested.

‘No, I will not have an egg,’ said Helen, almost choking on her fury, and she turned and raised her hand to slap the lass across the face. ‘I will not sit and take an egg with a tuppenny hoor who would make a play for my husband.’

‘Hoy!’ the girl shouted, grabbing Helen’s hand and struggling to hold it. ‘I’m no a hoor and I never made a play for anyone! And even if I had, how was I to ken this was your man? It’s him you should be skelping, no me!’ Helen tried to slap her with the other hand and the lass grabbed that as well.

‘It’s true, Nelly,’ William said. ‘This is Janet, we met in Swanston’s, she’s just breaking her fast with us, that’s all.’

‘I’ll break your face,’ Helen said, feeling the rage flame through her blood. All these weeks of worry that he might be discovered and taken up, all the nights of calming him and soothing him, and this was to be her thanks! She picked up a dish with the remains of a haddock on it and threw it at him, followed immediately by a dish of butter.

‘Mind my dishes!’ Peggy said, as a bowl smashed against the wall, leaving a dent in the damp plaster.

Helen threw another plate and then, moved to anger at last, William threw a glass back at her. It struck her hard on the forehead, stupefying her for a moment. Blood poured down into her eye and she put up a hand to staunch it.

‘Jesus God,’ Peggy shouted, and she grabbed her shawl and ran out of the house. William got to his feet and grabbed hold of Helen, dragging her to the door while she thumped his back and head, leaving bloody marks all over his jacket. She tried to knee him between the legs for good measure, but he was too strong for her and, at last, she found herself locked outside in the dark passageway. She turned and hammered on the door, shouting that William was dirt, a whoreson and a meater, and demanding that he open the door and face her.

In a few minutes, Peggy returned with a man – not Constantine, as Helen had expected, but William Hare. Behind him came Margaret, her eyes glistening like a rat’s at the thought of trouble.

‘What’s to do, Nelly?’ Hare demanded. ‘What’s the reason for all this shouting and bawling?’

Helen opened her mouth to tell him he had ruined William, made him into a drunkard and a sinner, but before she could get the words out, a great heaving sob escaped her chest, and then she was blind with tears and blood.

William Hare shook his head, but Margaret stepped forward with a sigh.

‘Come on, Helen,’ she said. ‘You’ve had a bit much to drink. Let’s get you away home and clean you up. You need some food in you as well.’

Helen allowed the woman to lead her away. As she turned to climb down the narrow stairs, she saw Peggy let William Hare into the apartment.

Back at Tanner’s Close, Margaret cleaned Helen’s wound with whisky while Helen sobbed out the whole story, and then she helped her out of her clothes and put her to bed. It was barely gone midday, but Helen fell immediately into a deep sleep, or perhaps it was a stupor. The last thing she heard was Margaret closing the door behind her.

Helen slept right through that day, and the night, waking at dawn with the wound on her forehead pounding in time with the thumping of her heart. She had a raging thirst on her, a terrible sourness in her mouth, and her teeth seemed to be coated with something strange and metallic, but those were the least of her worries. William had not returned, and when she thought of the events of the previous day, great red waves of shame crashed over her. Had she really smashed Peggy Burke’s dishes in her fury? Had she called William a cheat and a meater and a whoreson? What if he left her? Surely it would be no worse than she deserved, abusing him in front of all those folk, when now she could see that it might be that he had done nothing worse than she had, many’s the night, sitting in drink with pleasant company. The lasses were rough types, right enough, but Helen herself was none too fancy, and they had often kept company with worse.

Save for a trip to the pot, Helen managed to stay abed until it was full light outside, and then she crawled out from under the blankets and got herself washed and dressed. She thought about eating, but her stomach was queasy and she knew she would puke if she tried. She pulled her shawl about her and took herself out, meaning to go directly to Constantine’s, find William and throw herself on her knees before him.

Helen had got no further than locking the door when she heard Margaret’s step behind her. She closed her eyes and took a breath – did the craitur never sleep at all?

‘I was coming to see if you needed anything,’ Margaret said. ‘You were so upset last night, I was worried about you, so I was.’

Helen cursed her luck; she could bear Margaret in one of her ‘good’ humours even less than she could bear the woman in a temper or in her cups. She was like a sugared plum made with rotten fruit, the sugar so sweet it set your teeth to aching, but still not sweet enough to hide the taint of foulness behind it. Still, she had looked after Helen the day before, and so she gritted her teeth and turned, with her own attempt at a smile.

‘I’m feeling a bit foolish this morning,’ she said. ‘I shouldna have said the things I said yesterday morning. In truth, I had taken too much in drink, looking for William in the taverns on an empty stomach, and I shouldn’t have gone to Constantine’s, let alone carried on like that. I owe William an apology, Margaret, and Peggy, and you and William.’

But Margaret snorted. ‘No need to apologise to me,’ she said. ‘I thought you spoke the truth. They were hoors, the pair of them.’

Helen found herself wrong-footed, she had expected Margaret to glory in her misfortune. But she felt it was only fair to admit her own mistake.

‘They’re not hoors,’ she said. ‘I’ve kent Mary since she was a wee lass, on and off. She came to the town to work as a maid, but one of the lads in the house got her in the family way. She got a place in the Magdalene Asylum, after that, to learn a trade.’

‘A trade!’ Margaret snorted again. ‘Aye, she’s learnt a trade, right enough. Don’t be a simpleton, Helen. You saw rightly yesterday how it was, and I understand why you were so angry. Now come into my room with me,’ she went on. ‘William left at the crack of dawn to attend to some business, and I’m all alone. I have tea, do you like it? It’ll set you right in an instant.’

Helen shook her head. ‘I’m on my way to Constantine’s,’ she said, ‘to find my William.’

‘Sure, they’re away together to get some breakfast,’ Margaret said. ‘They came back just an hour or two behind us yesterday to fetch the horse and cart, and off they went on some business or other. Your William slept here in the kitchen, last night. You must have put the frighteners on him, Helen! I’d say he took too much himself and he’s feeling the worse for it now. So they’re getting themselves set up with a good feed, and we can stay here and have a good crack.’

Helen felt light-headed with relief – William hadn’t left her! He had come home, and he would come home again. She would tell him she was sorry, and he might storm and bluster and sulk, but in the end he would forgive her. Numbly, she allowed Margaret to bustle her into her room, where Margaret took a key from about her neck and unlocked a wooden box she had on a dresser. She took out a scoop of dried leaves and put them in a pot. Then she took herself off to the kitchen to boil a kettle of water, and Helen had a few minutes to look about her.

The room was no finer than Helen and William’s, really, with the same small window and mean furnishings, and it was even more crowded than their own with baskets and bundles of clothes. That surprised Helen – she and William had piles of clothes and gear because it was their trade, but Margaret had no trade in such things and seemed to own twice as much. Helen stirred through a few of the baskets with a curious finger to see what there was – if it was the right sort of stuff, she might offer to hawk it on Margaret’s behalf for a share of the profits. Surely the woman had no need of all this?

It turned out to be a right gallimaufry – one basket was all men’s things, poor and worn, and another women’s, clarty but serviceable enough, but too wide and too short for Margaret, who was as thin as a rake for all she was almost as tall as a man. There were piles and piles of bairnies’ bits – shawls and wee dresses and napkins and bonnets. Nothing was fine, but most of it seemed to have been made with care – folk tried their best for their bairnies, after all. Helen couldn’t see why Margaret had it, she had no children of her own, and the wee ones she cared for came with their own things and left with them – at least, Helen had always assumed they took their belongings with them, when they went back to their mothers or onwards to new homes. But now she understood that Margaret must keep them, meaning to sell them on, perhaps, and wring a drop more profit out of the poor wee souls and their families. Or perhaps more of them died than Helen had realised. She shuddered at the thought of that – Margaret seemed to have laid off on the baby care trade for the moment, and Helen wasn’t in any way sorry.

When Margaret came back in with the hot water, Helen asked her about the clothes.

‘Left behind,’ Margaret said, as she poured the water on the tea and stirred it. ‘By lodgers when they move on. Some of them skip out on us, you know, Helen, do a moonlight flit and leave owing us rent. An auld man died back in November owing us four pounds – can you credit that? He said he was due an army pension, but then he died before we saw a penny.’

Helen did know about that old man, who had turned a profit for William Hare and her own William in the end, as others had done after, but she said nothing of that. She had no idea if Margaret knew. She probably did, the woman was shameless, but Helen thought it best to play dumb.

‘Funny you should be asking me about the clothes,’ Margaret said. ‘I’ve been keeping a few bits aside for you, Helen. You’re a bit bigger than me round the middle, and I’ve a fine skirt here I think would suit you.’ She raked in a sack lying on the floor by the bed and pulled out a plaid skirt made of good, thick stuff.

‘It’s bonnie,’ Helen said, ‘but are you sure, Margaret? That’s a fine piece of wool.’ She stroked it between thumb and forefinger, frowning. She had seen the pattern before, but she couldn’t place it.

Margaret was grinning now. ‘Christ, you were in your cups yesterday!’ she said. ‘Do you not know it? That hoor was wearing it, the one with the red hair!’

It came back to Helen in a flash then, the scene at Constantine’s the previous day. She felt her face grow red, remembering it all again, but then her wits caught up with her.

‘What . . . how do you come to have it?’ she asked.

Margaret crowed with laughter. ‘When William and Peggy went in, they found the redhead clambering onto your William’s knee,’ she said. ‘My William threw her out of the house in her shift, what do you think of that?’

‘In her shift?’ Helen was horrified. ‘Mary?’

‘Ach, don’t waste a moment thinking of her,’ Margaret said. ‘Her kind always fall on their feet. She said she would sleep at her friend’s place and get a finer dress there. She was bound for Glasgow, that’s what she said, she has some idea of making her fortune there. I heard tell she poses for artists in the nip.’

While Helen struggled to imagine that, Margaret poured them two bowls of steaming liquid. Helen cupped her hands round hers, grateful for the warmth, and sipped. Margaret was right, it did help, her stomach felt more settled already.

‘What about the other one?’ she asked. ‘The other lass who was at Constantine’s. Janet, I think William said her name was.’

‘I don’t know anything about her,’ Margaret said. ‘William said she walked out the minute he came in. Maybe she meant to rob them, Helen, do you think? That would explain why she left so fast when William arrived.’

Helen shuddered, but then she shook her head and took the skirt, thanking Margaret for the gift.

‘Do you have anything else you don’t need?’ Helen asked. ‘I could sell it for you and pass you the money.’

Margaret’s eye glittered. ‘What cut would you take?’ she asked.

‘A third,’ said Helen. ‘Half if anything needed mended.’

‘I’ll think on it,’ said Margaret, and then she turned at a sound in the close outside. ‘That’s your man back, I think, Helen,’ she said. ‘On you go and see him. Take your cup and bring it back to me later.’

Helen couldn’t face William out in the close, where so many windows looked on, and so she hurried along the corridor to her own room, feeling her belly gripe with nerves. She waited behind the door, full ready to throw herself on her knees before him, but when the door opened all that was forgotten – William’s arms were laden with boxes and parcels so he could barely move, let alone get inside, and she grabbed at a box as it fell from his grasp.

When at last all was safely lain down, and William inside, he opened his arms to her. ‘Oh Nelly!’ he said, ‘can you forgive me?’

Nelly’s mouth fell open. ‘Forgive you?’ she said. ‘Surely it’s me who needs to ask forgiveness for the things I said. And for breaking Peggy’s plates.’ She tasted bile in her mouth again. ‘What she must think of me,’ she said. ‘The shame I’ve brought on you, William!’

‘Ach, never mind that,’ said William, indicating his parcels, ‘sure, haven’t I bought Peggy a fine new set of crocks? She’ll be glad to be rid of that old hotchpotch she had. Now if we’re talking of shame, it’s Peggy that should have been embarrassed to serve anyone their victuals on those chipped and cracked articles! And look, Nelly’ – he pulled out his pocketknife and began to cut through the string tying a box – ‘I bought a set for us too. Not so many pieces, for we don’t have any babbies, or at least not living here with us.’

He began to unpack the box, lifting out blue and white plates, cups, bowls and, lastly, a big-bellied tureen with its own lid and ladle. ‘What do you think of that, now, Nelly?’ he asked. ‘Won’t you be proud to carry that in your basket to fetch home a few ladles of stew or soup?’

‘I couldn’t take that out to the street, William,’ Helen said. ‘It’s too fine.’ It was true, the things were finer than any gear she’d ever had, or even seen.

William chuckled in delight. ‘We’ll go to Peggy’s tomorrow,’ he said. ‘But for now, let’s hansel that soup pot and fetch ourselves some stew. I’ve a fair hankering for some meat.’ He crooked his arm, and after a moment’s hesitation, Helen took it.

It seemed any and all unpleasantness between them was forgotten, and they passed a pleasant afternoon and evening together playing cards and chasing off their sore heads with some cups of ale. Peggy was in a fine humour too when they visited her the next day. As well as the tableware, William gave her some money – for the breakfast, he said, although it looked to be a large sum for some eggs and haddock – and he brought her a bottle of whisky too. Peggy insisted they all drink it together, and by the time they left it was as though there had never been any ill-feeling between them. Helen tried to apologise a time or two, but Peggy brushed her off, saying it was nothing, sure hadn’t she and Constantine had their fallings-out too, over the years?

Helen and William returned to Tanner’s Close in good spirits, and the next morning William left early for a prayer meeting. Helen lay in bed a while longer, and then took her time in dressing and packing her wares. The gash on her head looked to be healing, from what she could see in the small mirror they had, although the skin was bruised purple and yellow all around, so she pulled her frilled cap lower to cover it before she tied on her bonnet.

As she stepped out the door to the close, Helen near about fell over a figure on the doorstep. When she had righted herself, she saw it was the lass from Peggy’s, the one called Janet.

‘I don’t want any trouble,’ the lass said quickly. ‘I’m just looking for Mary, that’s all.’

‘Mary?’ Helen said. ‘Why would I ken where Mary is? She’s your pal, is she no?’

‘Aye,’ said Janet, ‘we lodge thegether. With Mrs Worthington, and before that with Mrs Laurie. When I left Mary at yon Mrs Burke’s house, I went to Mrs Laurie’s, for she’s a kind old wife and I was shaken by . . .’ – she stopped, apparently choosing her next words – ‘by the things that happened. Mrs Laurie sent her servant mannie back with me, but at first we couldna find the place. We asked in the tavern, in the end, and auld Swanston told us where to go. But when we got there, Mary was gone. They said she was with Wi—with your man, out fetching whisky. So we sat and waited a while with Mrs Burke and yon other man, but they never came, and then Mrs Laurie’s serving-man said we had to go, he had to get back to his work. I went back again that night and chapped the door, but Mrs Burke said they never came back. And Mary has never come home since.’

‘I heard that she had gone to Glasgow,’ said Helen. She was still sore at the thought of Mary climbing onto William’s knee, or trying to.

‘What would she do in Glasgow?’ Janet asked. ‘She has no folk there.’

‘How should I know?’ said Helen.

Just then, Janet’s eyes lighted on Helen’s skirt. ‘That’s Mary’s!’ she said, grabbing at the fabric. ‘How have you got it?’

Helen stepped back. ‘She left it behind,’ she said. ‘After she stripped it off and climbed on my man’s knee.’

‘She wouldna do a thing like that,’ Janet said. ‘No if she kent he was a married man.’

‘She kent fine he was a married man,’ Helen said. ‘She’s kent me for some time.’

‘What?’ Janet looked confused. ‘But when we met Will . . . I mean, your man, in the tavern, she never let on she kent him.’

‘Well, it seems she’s maybe had us all on,’ said Helen. ‘I’m sorry, Janet, it must be sore to think she’s done a flit on you. Does she owe money? For her rent?’

Janet looked miserable. ‘A wee bit,’ she said. ‘No a lot.’

‘Here.’ Helen reached into her pocket and pulled out a few shillings. ‘Put that against it. I’ve aye liked Mary and I’d no see her shamed as a debtor. Or you.’

Janet looked like she was about to start crying. She nodded her head, turned on her heel, and ran out of the close. Helen let out a breath, shouldered her basket, and prepared herself for her day of trade.