Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [132]
But her mouth was sealed shut now, after that one stupid phrase: 'I don't know.' Mr. Jones swung his crutches and moved closer to her. His face was shifting; she watched suspicion fill up the lines. She couldn't think of a word to say. Disaster was about to fall on the two of them.
Heavy steps: Sukie's cully at last. Like an ill-timed actor he shambled round the corner, steadying himself with a hand on the sooty bricks. His bearded face was lit with anticipation. Mary stared at the sky. Surely, seeing a man and a woman in conversation, this fellow would simply piss against the wall and go back to the inn.
'Where be the whore then?' he called.
Mary squeezed her eyes shut.
'I beg your pardon?' Mr. Jones was hoarse with surprise.
'Landlord said there'd be a young trull above the stables that'd do it for two shilling.' The man peered into the shadows, where Mary was standing. 'I'll bide my turn,' he told Mr. Jones amiably, 'but I can't stop long.'
Mary tried to summon up a shocked expression. All she managed was a grimace, guilt written on her skin.
Mr. Jones took in a noisy breath. 'Go about your business, fellow.'
'My shillings be as good as yourn, an't they?'
'Be off or I'll fetch the constable,' barked Mr. Jones with a cold wheeze of breath, hoisting his crutch and waving it at the fellow.
Mary watched the cully's mud-marked breeches lumber round the side of the building. There she stood beside her master, all her muscles locked. Eventually he lowered his crutch. If he'd been going to beat her with it, she thought, he'd have started by now.
Like a pair of genteel strangers, each of them waited for the other to speak. Mary tried to think of a convincing explanation, but her mind was moving like treacle. Her body thought faster. She fell on her knees before Mr. Jones and felt a sharp pebble enter her shin. Flinging her arms around her master's hips, she pressed her head against him. Sudden tears soaked into the thinned velvet of his breeches. The mannish smell of him filled her nostrils.
Mary didn't know it before, but she was in fact sorry. Strangely sorry for all she was and ever would be, for all she'd done and left undone and never would do. For the way she'd been given a second chance at ordinary life and had crushed it underfoot. What was it she needed from this man? Punishment or forgiveness, hard words or a soft hand on her cap? Complicity, above all.
He didn't say a word.
Her hot face nuzzled into Mr. Jones's buttoned flap. Any sign of life in the basement? as Doll used to chuckle. Heavy hands landed on her shoulders and tried to push her back, but she clung on. Far above her she heard the clearing of his throat. She lifted her chin and pressed harder against the velvet with her eyes, her nose, her wet cheeks.
Ah. Ahah! All wasn't lost. She mouthed encouragement into the stirring cloth. Her master attempted to back away, and almost lost his balance, but Mary moved with him and held him fast, gripping his nervous buttocks through the brocade of his coat. She could feel where his left leg ended, the neat fold buttoned up behind. He staggered, almost toppled, but she clung on.
'If you please, sir,' she whispered without looking up, as a sort of incantation. Words were a risk; they might win her a crack across the eyes with a crutch, and lose her the only place she had in the world. 'Please, sir, I'm good, sir,' Mary repeated like a child. She hardly knew what she was saying. 'Please, sir, for free, whatever you like, if you please, sir.'
The creature curled up in her master's breeches heard that, woke fully and stretched. Mary's lips reached for it through the hot fabric. All she heard from above was a guttural kind of sound. Her knees were starting to ache so badly she could think of little else. If she let go, Mr. Jones might still back away, yet if she stayed on her