Coram Boy

Meshak pulled the flaps tightly shut to keep out the damp cold. The brats all looked at him with long, doleful glances as he snuggled up to Jester for warmth. He shut his eyes so as not to witness their despair. He felt hungry. They felt hungry. They were starving, probably hadn’t eaten since dawn. He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to think about it. He had an apple in his pocket. He took it out with his eyes still closed and began to munch. He knew they were staring at him, their eyes huge with longing. He ate it as quickly as he could and fed the core to Jester. There was a shudder of repressed envy from the brats. They would have fallen eagerly on it and eaten every scrap if they could. Jester swallowed the core in a gulp.

It was dark now. The rain still beat down on the canvas covering and, for a while, they were mesmerised by the rhythmic swish and sway of the wagon and the hollow slurpy plod of the animals’ hooves. There was a stir of surprise and a quiver of anxiety among the children when the creaking of the wheels stopped and they came to a halt. Apart from the sound of the rain and the snorting of mules, blowing away the rain from their nostrils, there was no other sound.

They were not yet within earshot of the city. Meshak sat up, his arms still clasped round Jester. The brats’ eyes gleamed in the darkness. They seemed not to have moved a muscle since he had climbed inside to get out of the rain half an hour ago. He heard Otis jump down. The light of his lantern swung a yellow shaft across the canvas. Then the flap opened and his dark drenched face looked in. Rain was spangled through his thick, straggly hair, reflecting in the light like so many diamonds. He nodded curtly to Meshak. ‘Get the spade. There’s a good ditch just here. We’ll dig them in,’ he jerked his head in the direction of the panniers strapped to the train of mules. ‘I don’t want to take them into Gloucester.’ Meshak jumped out and had to tie the flap to keep Jester in, so he then set up a continuous barking. Meshak knew from many, many times before that they couldn’t have Jester digging anything up.

It was a hurried affair in all that wind and rain and darkness and the swinging light from the storm lantern, which Otis hung on a branch directly over the ditch. Otis plunged in his spade. Nothing too deep or careful. There was a lot of water. Just dig a hole deep enough to submerge the bundles. Foxes would do the rest. He wouldn’t have bothered burying them had he not taken money for them and given undertakings. Otis dug and Meshak went from mule to mule, extricating one bundle after another from the panniers to hand to his father, who dropped them like seeds into the ditch. Meshak stared wonderingly as they sank into the mud and vanished even before his father had shovelled a few spadefuls of earth over them. What was it like to be dead? Meshak tried to imagine. What did they see under the mud? Would they find angels there; angels like the ones he saw in church windows?

They came to the last one – the one the lady had given them on the other side. Meshak hesitated. ‘Come on, lad – drop it in!’ rasped Otis.

‘Moving. Still alive,’ stammered Meshak. Usually, if they weren’t dead, they at least tried to sell them off first.

‘Not worth it. Drop it in, I say.’

Meshak let go the feebly moving bundle. He heard it splosh into the ditch. He backed away whimpering. He never did like burying the live ones. He felt the apple he had just eaten rise with the bile up his gullet. He vomited against a tree, leaning his head into the bark so that it left its imprint on his brow.

‘Don’t go lily-livered on me,’ snarled Otis, grabbing his coat and herding his son back to the wagon. Jester was still barking. ‘Go on, get in. Mrs Peebles is expecting us tonight at the Black Dog.’ Jester stopped barking.

Meshak didn’t need eyes to know they had entered Gloucester. Despite the constant thud of rain on to the canvas covering, he heard the swell of sound. It came towards them like a distant wave and then crashed over them; an overwhelming cacophony of babble, all the stuff of humans and their animals and their livelihoods. He had been dozing, lying with his face still partly buried in Jester’s fur, relishing the sounds of the city while not yet ready to face it. He didn’t even open the flap when he heard the wagon and the mules’ hooves clattering over cobblestones; nor when he smelt the stench of open sewers and foraging pigs, and the manure of horses and mules, and wet straw intermingled with women’s perfume and polished leather and charcoal fires and grilled fish. He knew without looking, by the heavy smell of beer and the raucous sounds of fiddling and singing, that they had entered the courtyard of the Black Dog inn.

No good getting too excited yet. There were jobs to be done: the wagon unhitched, the mules unloaded, water pumped, hay gathered, stable space negotiated . . .

‘I want to piss,’ whimpered a child.

Oh yes, and the brats seen to. He would have to rope them all together so they wouldn’t run away, and lead them out of the far gate to relieve themselves in all that rain and mud, and then go to the kitchen and get them some gruel. It reminded him of how hungry he was.

It was still raining. Girls in bonnets and shawls slopped across the yard to and from the kitchen, fetching and carrying water for the cook, or chickens for the slaughter, and buckets of swill and scrapings for the animals. Young lads, eager to make a few pennies, rushed forward to grab the bridles and lead the mules to the barns, clamouring to offer their services. Otis selected three of them, yelled out orders, and then made for the door of the inn. ‘See to things. I’ll be inside,’ he yelled, leaving Meshak squelching about in the yard, ankle-deep in mud and manure.

Meshak ‘saw to things’ as he always did, but began to feel his stomach tightening with hunger, especially with a smell of roast beef coming from the kitchen. He was almost tempted to eat the gruel dolloped out from the kitchen for the brats, though just looking at it made him want to puke. He was sure even the pigs wouldn’t eat it. But the brats fell upon it. He took the wagon and children into a barn to stay for the night. As he closed the huge wooden doors, one of the brats called out plaintively, ‘Can’t we have a light, mister?’ Meshak didn’t bother to answer and, pulling the doors to, dropped the great latch and locked them into the pitch, rat-scuttling darkness.

He went to look for Otis and pushed his way into the dark inn with Jester at his heels. The atmosphere was choking with smoke and stuffiness. In a corner by the roaring fire, red-faced musicians and sailors, entwined with young women, jigged and sang, glad to be on dry land after months at sea. Others played cards and, in a further room, serious gambling was going on.

Meshak squinted through the haze and at last discovered his father deep in conversation with a naval man. These days, Otis made more from selling boys on to the ships than anything else. They would sell the three older boys he had just brought in.

Meshak managed to squeeze himself on to the bench next to Otis, who grabbed a passing barmaid. ‘Hey, darling!’ He pulled her down on his knee, causing ale to splash out of the four tankards she was carrying, two in each hand.

‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ she giggled. As it was Otis, she wasn’t cross. ‘Good to see you, Otis,’ she purred.

He burrowed into her neck and then murmured, ‘Is Mrs Peebles in her parlour?’

The barmaid tut-tutted with exaggerated disappointment and wriggled off his knee. ‘Why is it you always fancy her more than me?’ she pouted.

‘ ’Cos she’s prettier!’ He slapped her bottom and they both laughed.

‘She’s back there. Shall I tell her you’re here?’

‘Do that, my sweet, and while you’re about it bring me and the boy some ale and meat.’

‘Hello, Meshak,’ she purred, tweaking his chin before weaving her way through the crowd and disappearing into the kitchen.

It was an hour later, after Meshak and Otis had drunk several pints of ale and consumed a full plate of meat and potatoes and dumplings, when the barmaid came and said Mrs Peebles could see him. Otis got to his feet and, like shadows, Meshak and Jester followed him through the dense crowd and out of a far door which led into a dark narrow passageway at the back. It was instantly chillier and Meshak shivered. He knew Mrs Peebles’ parlour. Whenever they passed through Gloucester, Otis always called in.

Otis reached her door and was about to knock when it opened. A woman holding a flickering taper stood in the doorway taking her leave. Meshak gawped up at her. She was not young and the bright colours of her clothes, her body squeezed in at the waist and bodice, her flounced-up hair and rouged face, were all part of an effort to knock a decade off her age. ‘Ah yes . . . Lady Philomena,’ she spoke in a heavy confidential way, ‘now that young woman is one to watch, Mrs Peebles, you mark my words. There’s powerful talk of goings on up at the house with the tutor. A German, you know and-’ The woman stopped abruptly. ‘What you staring at, you insolent pup?’ she said sharply, pushing Meshak away, but then she saw Otis standing there, a slight smile on his face. She held her taper up as if to see him better. The shadows wavered around them, encircling the flame. ‘Oh! It’s you,’ she simpered. ‘The boy’s got bigger. I didn’t recognise him. I think you have a visitor, Mrs Peebles,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Good to see you, Otis. I hope you’re keeping in good health. Will you be coming up to Ashbrook this time? We could do with our knives sharpening and a few new pots, perhaps?’ The woman in the doorway tipped her head flirtatiously.

‘Nothing would keep me away, Mrs Lynch.’

‘Goodnight, Mrs Peebles,’ Mrs Lynch called out, without taking her eyes off Otis. ‘See you in the morning.’ As she sidled past, Meshak shrank back in case he received another blow and watched her go, looping her skirts over her free arm as she climbed the narrow winding stairs to the bedrooms above the inn.

‘Sleep well, Mrs Lynch,’ answered Mrs Peebles from within.

‘Mrs Peebles!’ Otis greeted her from the doorway, leaning nonchalantly, one arm up against the lintel as if he held it up.

Meshak peered beneath his father’s arm into the parlour beyond, where a lady draped in a veil sat at a round table. No one crossed Mrs Peebles. She had been born nothing but a bargee’s daughter; no education, no position. But she had such intelligence, such a snake-like ability to target a person’s weaknesses, such an ear for gossip, scandal and innuendo, that people feared her. It was said she had been employed as a spy in her youth – when she was beautiful, and able to mix with any company, especially the foreigners who came through the city – and was clever enough to entrap or compromise anyone targeted by her paymasters. Now she wasn’t beautiful; although she was old enough to be Meshak’s grandmother, it wasn’t age which had spoilt her looks, but smallpox. He sensed his father wince and drop his eyes as she pulled her veil across her ravaged, pitted face.

Pushing Meshak into a corner to sit and wait, Otis strode towards her, smiling that restrained half-smile which usually did more to soften the hearts of women than the effusive lace-handkerchief-sweeping charm of so many men trying too hard to please. He knew she despised them anyway, for if it’s one thing a woman with such a disability can cut through with a knife, it’s cant and false flattery.

He kissed her hand. She waved him to sit down opposite her. The double candlestick with its broad flapping flame favoured him, while leaving her in a kinder shadow from which she could scrutinise her visitor without effort.

Meshak settled on the floor with his arms clasped round Jester. The ale had made him sleepy.

‘What about him?’ Mrs Peebles indicated Meshak.

‘No need to trouble yourself. His body’s got bigger, but his brain is still soft as it always was. He won’t say nothing.’

Meshak knew that his father and Mrs Peebles had been doing business together since before he was born. Otis had just been a lad when she spotted him. He was born a wheeler-dealer, already knowing how to make himself useful, dependable and indispensable. She took him on as a boy and liked to think she turned him into a man – the kind of man she could use and control. She liked to gather young men around her – those she felt she could groom and manipulate and trust to get involved in her various enterprises.

‘I hear they’ve given you a new name,’ she said, pouring out some gin from a large earthenware jug.

‘Pots man, charity man – even Mrs P’s man – so? What’s in a name?’ He shrugged.

‘They are calling you a Coram man. What’s that?’

Meshak looked up. How did she know? He himself had only heard it for the first time today by the river.

Otis shrugged.

‘Come on, Otis, don’t play coy with me. What does it mean?’ demanded Mrs Peebles. Her eyes gleamed at him with intense curiosity. ‘What have you been up to that I don’t know about?’

‘Nothing that you don’t know about, Mrs P.’ Otis leant back, still smiling. ‘It’s the same old business: brats. Just another angle. Haven’t you heard of Coram?’

‘I know of a Thomas Coram, the sea captain. I thought he was in America. Came this way sometimes. Didn’t have anything on him though. Clean as a whistle. Do you mean him?’

‘Look, Mrs P,’ said Otis, leaning forward conspiratorially. ‘I think I may have hit on something good, something which can benefit us both, if we cooperate.’

‘You have always cooperated with me in the past,’ muttered Mrs Peebles. ‘Are you asking me to cooperate with you?’ She cackled scornfully.

‘Suit yourself. Yes, it is Captain Coram. He’s in London now. Given up seafaring and turned to good works. He’s something of a benefactor!’ There was derision in his tone as Otis said, ‘Wants to save the poor children of England. He’s set up a hospital, an institution for foundlings. But I tell you something, it’s not just the poor children he’s saving but the brats of the rich. Word has spread about the thousands of pounds being poured into his enterprise to feed, clothe and educate bastards – thousands, Mrs P. Money coming from the wealthy to salve their consciences and purchase their respectability. I saw it for myself. I was in London last year. I saw the rich carriages, the fine weeping ladies hiding their faces behind Spanish lace veils, leaving their illegitimate babies in satin-lined baskets with a pouch of gold coins tucked under their pillows. “Otis,” I said to myself, “if there’s not something to be gained in all this for me, I’ll eat my hat.”’

‘So? And have you turned this to your advantage?’ enquired Mrs Peebles softly. ‘Blackmail?’

‘That – and other sidelines.’ He took another swig of gin straight from the jug. ‘You know things develop for themselves if you let them. I’ve been developing my sidelines.’

Mrs Peebles leant forward into the light. ‘Tell me more.’

Meshak’s head lolled as he drifted into sleep. He thought about Captain Thomas Coram, a charity man like his father. Loves little children. His brain filled with images; dreams overwhelmed him. He saw angels and children soaring among the stars, but he was drowning and, as he drowned, he called out, ‘Save me, save me!’ But no one heard him.

Then there came a great galleon with billowing sails, tossed in an ocean of sky and clouds. Meshak could see the outline of a captain at its helm. ‘Save me, save me!’ he yelled, but his voice was lost in a chorus of singing angels and children, their voices mingling with the gulls as he sank down, down beneath the waves.

He awoke suddenly, just when he thought he had drowned. Jester had jumped to his feet, his body taut, his fur raised, his ears pricked, and he whined softly between bared teeth. Meshak looked around. The room was empty, the candle almost out. His father and Mrs Peebles had gone. In the predawn darkness, when most of the city was finally silent, even the people of the night were subdued. The gambling had ceased, the drunkards were asleep, the servants, lackeys, labourers and traders had all surrendered their limbs and brains to the secret world of the unconscious. Only sailors watching for the dawn tide were up, and the nightwatchmen, huddled near fires in between doing their rounds. They could be heard whistling at regular intervals all over the city or calling out the time on the hour to reassure their employers that they were still alert and that all was well.

One of the inn dogs started to bark frantically. It set off the other dogs, including Jester. His fur bristled all along his spine. ‘Hush, boy, hush!’ Meshak clamped a hand over his muzzle. Wide awake now. Keeping his hand over the dog’s mouth, Meshak staggered to his feet. He should check the mules and the wagon. He peered out into the yard. The wind buffeted a lantern hanging from a hook, causing shadows to swing like a ship tossing at sea. Then from an upstairs window he saw another light, a steady flame which lit up the pale face of Mrs Lynch peering out into the night. Meshak thought she would close her window and return to bed, but she didn’t. She seemed to be observing something going on in the lane, which only she could see from upstairs. Curious, Meshak wandered across the yard with Jester padding silently beside him.

He pushed open a door in the wall and stepped into a side lane. In the clouded moonlight, he dimly perceived a small carriage harnessed to a single white horse. He glanced up and saw that Mrs Lynch was watching it too.

The cathedral clock had just tolled four. Someone moved out of the shadows carrying a low light; it was the cloaked figure of a woman. Could it be Mrs Peebles? He edged closer. Certainly it was roughly her height. The carriage door opened and the woman went forward. Meshak couldn’t see who was inside. All he saw by the light of the lantern was a basket being passed out. The hands that gave the basket stayed outstretched – the empty fingers seeming unsure – then, abruptly, they were withdrawn and the carriage door was slammed shut, and Meshak glimpsed the coat of arms of a leaping deer entwined in letters he couldn’t read. The figure turned away with the basket as the carriage moved off swiftly. Meshak pressed himself hard up against the wall, hugging Jester into silence as Mrs Peebles hurried past him. Then the tavern dogs stopped barking and the lane was empty again. The transaction lasted a minute.

Meshak looked up again at the window but it was closed. He tapped his thigh softly, ‘Come on, Jester,’ and went back to finish the night in the stables.

Meshak had been dead asleep when he was woken by a fierce kick.

‘Get up, damn you,’ snarled Otis. He looked red eyed and short of sleep himself. ‘We’ve got to get rid of these brats before we take on any more. Get ’em up.’

Meshak got the children up, snivelling and sniffing with anxiety, afraid of what was going to happen to them. He took them into the yard. Otis had already got the mule harnessed up to the wagon. ‘Get ’em inside,’ he snarled.

Meshak bundled them in and Jester too, then went over to the pump to drink and splash his face. As he did, Mrs Peebles and Mrs Lynch passed each other in the yard.

‘What the deuce was all that about in the lane last night? It was you, wasn’t it?’ he heard Mrs Lynch say. ‘Out there in the lane last night?’

Mrs Peebles stopped short, looked hard at Mrs Lynch, paused for a split second and said without batting an eyelid: ‘Not me, dearie. I was tucked up and dead to the world all night.’

Meshak saw that brief pause and thought, She’s lying, I wonder why?

Mrs Lynch saw it too, but decided she would bide her time. If there was anything important to learn, she would find it out.

Chapter Three

Meshak’s Angel

‘Come on!’ roared Otis, and flicked his whip across Meshak’s back to hurry him up. Meshak clambered into the wagon and they rumbled out into the street, heading for the dockside.

Down at the docks, Otis found a press gang and, for a fee, handed the three older boys over to the navy. What a palaver that was. One of the little ones – a younger sister – had screamed and clung to her brother, and would not be prised off until Otis struck her such a blow, she had fallen unconscious. As Meshak carried her away, he could hear the boys hollering and fighting and kicking, and they had to be carted off and tossed down a ship’s hold to cool off. They would be well down river now, heading out to sea and then North Africa.

Otis came back, grumbling and snarling. Meshak knew to stay well out of arm’s length when his father was in this mood. If it weren’t for the fact that there was money to be earned in this area, Otis wouldn’t have touched snivelling brats with a barge pole. But there was money – much money – especially if he could tap into those wealthy families who would pay any amount to protect their respectability. Having dealt with the older boys, there were the little ones to see to. Once more the wagon rolled on, this time into the city. Mrs Peebles had told him of a weaver and a milliner both requiring small children to work for them.

Later, Meshak wandered away from the docks among the pedlars and traders, often pausing wide-eyed to gawp at a street entertainer, a dancing bear or a tinker juggling with a dozen plates while yelling out his prices. He headed for the cathedral and at last arrived at the south door. He picked his way through the hordes of homeless children who congregated at evening, like the starlings, to look for the most sheltered niche into which they could huddle for the night.

It was a late rehearsal after evensong. Boys’ voices drifted through the deep shadows among the massive stone pillars and pinnacles which lined the nave. The sound lapped round the walls, translucent and as cool as water. The cathedral was dark, except for the soft fall of candlelight gleaming in the alcoves.

He stepped inside. ‘Look, Jester.’ He knelt down to be level with his dog and gazed up at the huge stained-glass windows, awesome in the dark night, their brilliant colours almost absorbed into black. The faces of saints and martyrs bent down to him in their suffering and ecstasy; they reached to clasp his outstretched hands. They drew him through their windows into the throng of all the spirits of the dead, who rose up from beneath the stones and stepped out from their entombment within the walls. But it was the angels he loved, with their huge curving wings and gentle smiles. They were his friends. Sometimes, they leapt out of their lead-encased glass windows and swooped round him, enveloping him in feathers and gentle hands and caressing fingers, and they would fly with him up into the stars above the towers and steeples of the city. ‘Why can’t I stay with you for ever?’ he would cry.

There was one angel in particular, with blue eyes, auburn hair and a face of the utmost beauty, who, whenever he stood before her, seemed to look directly into his eyes. Often, he would talk to her in whispers. ‘You are my angel. I would die for you,’ and he would lie down on the hard cold flagstones of the aisle so he could see her better and think himself dead. He was always doing that, ever since his mother died, though Meshak wasn’t always sure about the difference between being alive and being dead; wasn’t sure which was best.

He often looked at dead people – old people, poor people, babies and abandoned children. He sometimes saw them huddled in ditches or crouched in the forest trying to find shelter. They had died from cold or illness, or such strength-sapping poverty that they had lost the will to try to live. And then he would think about his mother and wonder whether she liked being dead. When he was awake, he couldn’t always remember her face, though he had an impression that it had been sad. But in his dreams, she would sometimes come, stroking his head, showering him with kisses, and her face would be smiling. She seemed so happy that he would wake up crying, ‘If being dead makes you so happy, should I not be dead too?’