Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [117]
“What’s this?” she asked.
Bruises on my upper right arm. They had not faded.
“Nothing.”
“That’s enough,” she said, “calm yourself down now. Here’s a nice deal: you give me one more guinea and I promise not to rob you.”
“Done,” I said.
No more did she. She chucked me out when my time was up and I walked along the river way to the bridge in the light, silvery, sifting rain, passing where we used to live in Bermondsey all those years ago. It was no better. Still stank to high heaven. The foreshore by the bridge was filthy as ever. I sat on the steps for ages, looking across to the other side. To Ratcliffe Highway. She let me off, that woman, I thought. But then I think she knew me for a native.
I put off going home, roamed very slowly across Tower Bridge eventually, the day nearing noon, stood for half an hour watching them landing the sugar. As yet I’d seen no one I knew, which suited me. The news had flown before. Long before we docked they’d all have known our story. It would be in their eyes when they looked at me, their knowledge of what had passed. Maybe we should have lied, but we didn’t. God knows how I’d face Ishbel and her ma. Impossible. Part of me thought I should have never come back, should have buried myself away in some lost, forgotten corner of the world, but it wouldn’t have been fair on Ma. So I dawdled and fooled about, and it was two before I reached Ma’s. She’d been expecting me since yesterday afternoon and was out on the corner looking up the street. Same old Ma, just a bit greyer. I saw her before she saw me. Her face could have been taken for hard, but I knew she was just worried. When she saw me she relaxed, mouth flexing into a twisted line of grim joy. She took a couple of steps towards me and gave me a quick, hard hug.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I kissed her on the cheek. “You’ve not been standing there all day, have you?”
“Course not, you silly creature,” she said. “I’ve been in and out.”
We stood back. I was grinning rather foolishly, I thought. Her eyes were pained.
“Are you all right?” she asked again, looking closely at me.
“I’m not so bad.”
“I never thought I’d see you again.”
“Well, there you go.” I laughed, a pointless snigger.
“Come on.” She took my arm and led me into a court with a long, flagged drain down the middle and a blacksmith’s shop at the far end. The sound of metal hammering rang from the eaves, and a tall black horse stood tethered at the gate, head in its nosebag. Their house was on the left, a half door, a bucket of suds, a deep windowsill on which shells were distributed, a large scallop and a few scotch bonnets. It was bigger and cleaner than their old place, and smelled of laundry and fish and Ma’s old broth that I used to dream about on the boat. Charley Grant stood straddle-legged with his back to a blazing fire, above which a kettle on a hook vibrated and hummed quietly. His face was pink as a ham and he’d fattened up since I last saw him.
“Jaf,” he said, coming forward and gripping my shoulder warmly but awkwardly, “very, very good to see you home.”
“It’s good to be home.”
A lad of about eighteen months sat in a high chair at the table, a wooden spoon clasped in one porridgy fist.
“Looks nice, don’t he, Charl?” Ma said proudly, prodding me into a chair opposite the child.
“That he does.”
“Who do you think this is, eh Jaf?”
The child had a snub, broad face and a surprisingly luxuriant growth of brown curls right on top of his head. He looked at me appraisingly, and I winked at him.
“That’s your little brother, Jaf,” Ma said briskly. “His name’s David.”
“What!”
“There’s a surprise for you! David! Say hello to your big brother Jaffy.”
David and I regarded each other with interested suspicion.
Of course, it wasn’t that surprising. She wasn’t so old. Looked it though. Ma had aged. Not yet forty, I supposed. She was young when she had me. Strange it was, all this. I felt very far away. After all my time at sea, this steamy room, the child, the smiling