Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [170]
Bile filled Mary's mouth. Her drunkenness was wearing off. She jabbed her nail into the soft crook of her elbow, as a test; the pain came through sharp and clear. It occurred to her that this was no story, but the last hour of her real life. And now she started to shake.
It would have been better, she thought frantically, if the neighbours had struck her down at once, as soon as they'd caught her. Cadwaladyr's thick hands had certainly closed round her neck, when he'd caught up with her that night on the bridge, and it had taken five men to pull him off. Yes, it would have been better if Cadwaladyr had dragged her back to Inch Lane and pushed her face into a basin of Mrs. Jones's cooling blood and drowned her there and then on the kitchen floor. Then frenzy would have been paid with frenzy, instead of this cold retribution. It made her nauseous, to think of all the stately preparations for this event. Why, she wondered, had the authorities fed and housed her all winter, if they longed to see her thrash in the air today? Why did the men of law pretend to be so much loftier than other murderers?
Killing was killing, when you came down to it. Punishment had no rhyme nor reason; it fell like hail.
Mary glanced again at the pile of wood in the corner of the square. She gripped one twitching wrist in the other hand and told herself not to waste time being afraid. She wouldn't be alive to feel the scorch of her feet, would she? It was the people of Monmouth who'd have to recognise that smell. It was men like Daffy Cadwaladyr who'd have to remember it always.
A lanky boy climbed onto the cart for a moment. Mary stared back at him, waiting for the insult. But he blew a loud kiss, and thrust a paper into her lap. Before the breeze could lift it, she gripped it in her bound hands. The inky words were still wet. The Confession and last Dying-Words of Mary Saunders.
Confusion seized her. Who was this guilty namesake? Then she understood, and almost laughed out loud. It was her, a heroine in print. This was her free copy. Some scribbling hack had made it all up, every word of it.
Mary's father, it seemed from the Confession and last Dying-Words, was a Herefordshire labourer who'd earned his living by the sweat of his brow, until he died of grief upon hearing of her arrest. She also had a sister near Bristol to whom she'd recently written, Alas! honest Poverty is better than Riches iniquitously obtained. I now bid you adieu for ever in this world! The fictional Mary Saunders rode in true sorrow to answer for her sins before God wearing a light camlet gown, a silk handkerchief, and a black bonnet.
Mary shut her eyes for a moment and saw this other self, pristine and penitent, riding into the noonday sun. What was it she'd told Daffy, that day on the Kymin? Books are full of lies.
The paper shook in the breeze. Mary looked about her on the cart for somewhere to put it, and only then remembered that she wouldn't have a chance to read it—or indeed anything—again. She opened her hands and let it flutter away. It brushed the red cheek of a small boy sitting on his father's hip, and then it was lost to view.
What did it matter what was written or not written on some smeared broadsheet, she told herself, when soon enough everyone would forget the details? Strangers might remember a trip to Monmouth to see a girl hang, but who would spare a thought, in time to come, for the whos and hows and whys? Children might remember the taste of the oranges, and the greedy breathings in and out of the crowd, but nothing else. Not her name.
The thought made Mary bite her lip with distress. Namelessness. Oblivion. Unless her obscure and brutal story survived in some form, what proof was there that she had ever lived at all?
Mr. Jones was standing not three lengths from her, like a spider glued to his web. She flinched. His hands held tight to his