A CONVERSATION:
‘Born? I was born in Wapping, sir. A place by the river. The Black Boy.’
‘In a public house?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘A curious place.’
‘It were my mother’s doing, sir. She was drinking there.’
‘I see. What is your mother’s name?’
‘Agnes, sir.’
‘Agnes White, is it not?’
‘You know her?’
‘I have met her. Tell me, what does your mother do?’
‘I don’t like to say.’
‘Come, speak up. You may be frank with me.’
‘Well, she’s always been a sloop, sir.’
‘What? Ah, that is the river slang, is it not? Sloop of War?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And your father?’
‘He was most likely sailing on an East Indiaman that was moored at St. Kats. That’s what my ma reckoned. I only know that much, sir, nothing more.’
‘A sailor? I see. And have you any brothers or sisters?’
‘Only one that lived more than a twelvemonth. Lizzie.’
‘A sister? And she is still alive? How old is she?’
‘Fourteen now.’
‘And your mother raised both of you, relying on her own devices?’
‘And my gran’ma – she had a big house by the river, near Wapping Stairs. Gravehunger Court. She took in lodgers, and we stayed with her, on and off.’
‘And tell me, Clara, do you like this life that you have now? Do you take to it?’
‘No, sir. I don’t like it much.’
‘And would you change, if you had the opportunity?’
‘I would change, sir, quick as you liked, if there was something better for me. But there ain’t.’
‘You are a good girl. It is a good thing I chanced upon meeting you, my dear. A very good thing for you, rest assured. Now, my name is Harris.’
Alice Meynell tiptoes into the Doughty Street attic bedroom, and sees her room-mate slumped by the window, an exhausted candle sitting upon the bedside table. She puts down her own light and she gently persuades Clara’s semi-conscious form to lie properly upon the bed, teasing out the blankets from beneath her, so that she can then cover her body and get in beside her. She herself then unties her boots, removes her own dress, corset and petticoat, and, in her chemise, climbs into the bed, which they are obliged to share.
In the darkness, she looks for a moment at Clara’s face, and wonders what she might be dreaming about.
The questioner has melted away and, as often happens in the unconscious hours after midnight, she finds herself standing outside a house by the river, upon the first floor, her grandmother’s house in Wapping. It is an old dilapidated place. Once it was the home of some prosperous merchant. No more. Now it is ‘dry lodgings’.
It changes again.
She looks through the window. Outside, in the courtyard where she stood, the river water has risen to ankle-deep. The water is rich in silted London mud, the primitive sludge of the river-bed, intermingled with the refuse of the residents of the surrounding buildings, and much worse besides.
How did this happen? she thinks to herself. Ah, yes. Grandmother refused to leave. Mother is shouting at her. ‘Now we’ll all be drowned and damned together.’
She watches the water. It comes in earnest, but not in raging torrents. It seeps in, steady and stealthy, drooling between cracks in the brick-work, up the old landings and steps. Gradually, it becomes so deep that the current flows steadily between buildings, and, piece by piece, washes the detritus of daily life out along the Thames. Chairs, tables, pots, pans. A skirt, a dress, a copy of the Daily News. Everything flows away.
But it is an awkward cleansing. She knows there is never cause for celebration when the tide subsides. How long does it take? She is not sure. None the less, in every house, and in all the warehouses and store-rooms that line the quays, the ousted inhabitants return to find that the river has left an indelible mark, signifying the limits of water’s ambition. And everywhere Clara herself looks there is mud, a grimy syrup that adheres to the walls, inside and out, a filthy black sludge that must be thanklessly scraped and scrubbed away.
It stinks of dirt and decay, and Clara’s mother cries. She does not often cry.
Outside, she can hear her little sister screaming.
‘Lizzie?’
‘What? Clara, wake up.’
‘Lizzie?’
‘Clara, wake up, you’re dreaming.’
Clara White turns over, looking at the sloping ceiling of the attic, recalling the room and the voice of Alice the kitchen-maid, who lies beside her in the bed.
‘You were dreaming about your sister, weren’t you?’
‘I’m sorry. Did I say something?’
‘You were calling her name.’
Clara pauses, as if trying to recall her thoughts. ‘She came yesterday, and saw my mother.’
‘You said. What’s wrong with that?’
‘I thought she’d fallen out with her.’
‘What for?’
‘It don’t matter. She ran off with someone, a man what we used to know, and we haven’t heard anything of her, not for a twelvemonth.’
‘Who was he then, this someone?’
‘Tom Hunt.’
‘That it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What was he? Butcher? Baker? Good-looking? Thin? Fat?’
‘Tom? He’s no good to anyone. Lord knows how she’s fixed, or what she’s doing.’
On the rise of Saffron Hill, Lizzie Hunt stands, glum-faced and bare-headed in the clammy night air, clapping her arms to her sides to keep warm, peering through the fog. A figure approaches her, indistinct at first, then becoming more visible, walking with a hesitant gait; he is a rough-looking man, with bushy unkempt whiskers and the familiar hint of gin on his breath.
‘Can we go somewhere? Will two bob do it? I ain’t got no more.’
She nods. ‘I know a good little place, if you like. It’s not far.’
She takes hold of his arm, and leads him away, turning towards Victoria Street.