Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [56]
It is true.
It won't do.
It is true.
It won't do.
She couldn't be a Miss anymore, Mary suddenly decided, not without her friend to turn it into a lark. Not after sleeping two months on clean sheets. There had to be something better. This was no life at all, without Doll.
She crept along by the river, keeping out of sight of anyone who might know her, and might feel like earning sixpence by telling Caesar where she was. In her bag she found a muslin scarf to pull over her head and face. The water slid along like ale down a giant throat. The cold bent her knees; one false step and she might topple into the freezing waters. Every Londoner who'd seen the boatmen hook a corpse bobbing arse-upwards and draw it in—laughing, as you had to laugh when you hooked that fish, or you'd howl—every Londoner knew that life need last no longer than you could bear it. But Mary wasn't sure it would work today, the water being so thick with ice. If she jumped in she might be held up, snagged like litter, borne slowly away.
'Excuse me, but they say you go to the city of Monmouth.' The near horse threw up its tail and released a dollop of shit. Mary pulled back her skirts just in time. This blue holland—that she'd bought from a stall and changed into down a narrow alley—was the only sober gown she'd got; everything depended on keeping it clean.
The driver withdrew a pipe from his blackened mouth. 'What if I do?' He pushed his crumpled hat out of his eyes and looked her up and down.
Mary stood very straight. Did he know what she was? How could he spot her for a Miss, when she'd got a broad handkerchief tucked into her stays, and a clean white cap under a brand new straw hat? Her face was scrubbed like a child's, without a trace of paint, not even a rub of ribbon red. But was there some sort of brand on her, even now she had left it all behind?
'Where is Monmouth, exactly?' she countered after a moment in her deepest voice, nerves making her sound angry.
He grinned back at her. No, he had no idea that she was anything other than what she seemed. That's the one thing the Magdalen had done for Mary, it occurred to her now; where else would she have learned to play this part?
'France,' said the driver at last.
Mary's forehead contracted. France was over the sea. Surely her mother would have said if she'd ever crossed the sea? 'That's not in England,' she said warily.
He let out a great laugh as if it'd been stuck in his throat for some time. 'Naw,' he said, 'it's in India.'
She turned away.
'No more jesting, sweetheart.'
She glared over her shoulder. 'I doubt you could find Dover in a storm.'
'Monmouth,' he said equably, 'is in the Marches.'
'The Marches,' she repeated, as if she knew what that meant and didn't believe him.
'The Borders. Wales, nearly.'
Mary felt a little sick. Her mother wasn't Welsh, surely? She should have listened more closely to Susan Digot's stories. Myself and my friend Jane, they began, or Back in Monmouth, or When I was the age that you are now ...'Wales is not in England, is it?' she hazarded.
'Naw, my dear,' said the driver. 'Wales is where England runs out.'
Soon she was shivering in a corner of the wagon. She should have spent her money on a blanket instead of a dress. The driver called this thing a coach, but Mary wouldn't dignify it with the name. She'd never been in a coach except for trade—'Twice round the park, fellow, and mind the potholes'—but she knew exactly how it should be. Velvet was essential; seats should be sprung and padded; bevelled glass should catch the flare of the street lamps. This thing Mary found herself in now was nothing but a great box on wheels, with eight sluggish horses waiting to haul it. A crack in the frame to her left let in a whistling wind, and the windows held feather-fans of mud.
The driver's name was John Niblett; she hadn't told him hers. This coach was the only one for a fortnight. 'Your luck's in, ain't it,' he remarked, 'to find anything going your way on New Year's Day.'
But Mary thought this