Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [98]
'Oh, the greatest part of them don't have masters,' said Mary. 'London's full of runaways. The East End is crawling with free negroes. Some of them have English wives, even.'
'But free women, too?'
'Indeed. I knew an Indian girl whose master left her behind, to save the price of her passage to Holland. Oh, and there's a club where all the girls are black.'
'Club?' Abi pictured the little gathering of tradesmen upstairs at the King's Arms.
'You know,' said Mary impatiently, 'a place where girls dance.'
Abi pictured it. 'For white men?'
'Well, yes, mostly. For whoever pays to see them,' said Mary, a little awkward. 'But they're not like you, these girls,' she added. 'They get wages, don't you know.'
Abi shut her heavy eyes and tried to imagine such an extraordinary place. What were they wearing, these girls so like her yet not like her at all? How did they dance? Like back in Africa, or the slave dances of Barbados? Or did they skip in complicated patterns like the English? She spoke at last. 'How much wages?'
'Oh, don't ask me,' said Mary. 'But the thing is, they're free to come and go.'
Abi thought of it: the coming and going. 'Do whites spit?'
A heave, as the girl went up on one elbow. 'Do they what?'
'Sometime,' Abi said neutrally, 'when I go on message, folks spit.'
'Country boors,' said Mary scornfully after a few seconds. 'What can you expect of Marchermen? They're just frighted at the sight of you. Give them a year or two and they'll get used to your face.'
'Eight,' said Abi, very softly.
'What's that?' Mary leaned a little closer.
'I been here more than eight years already.'
There was a pause. The girl seemed to have nothing to say to that. She lay down with a thump, making the bed shake.
'Tell me more,' whispered Abi in the darkness.
'About London?'
She nodded, forgetting Mary couldn't see her.
The girl let out an enormous yawn. 'Well, I don't remember much spitting at blacks, there. Londoners save their spit for Frenchies! The blacks keep to themselves and give no one any trouble. They all seem to know each other,' she added. 'If one is thrown in gaol, you may count on it the others will come and visit him, with food and blankets and such. Once I even heard of a supper party, a sort of ball,' she added with another yawn, 'and only blacks were allowed in.'
The older woman didn't ask any more questions. Her head was too full already; it clinked like a jar full of pebbles. She lay by Mary's side until the girl's breaths lengthened into sleep.
Oh, child, what kind of foolishness is this?
Mary Saunders had slid into routine like slipping into deep water; she'd tasted the dull sweetness of knowing what to do at every hour of every day; of being sure there would be breakfast, for instance, and what that breakfast would be.
The moment she liked best was teatime, if there were no patrons visiting. Then she and the mistress could put down their work for a quarter of an hour and take tea together in the shop. At first the brew was hot enough to scald Mary's whole body from the inside, but it cooled rapidly in the saucer. She took small sips to make it last, holding the porcelain rim between her teeth. It would break so easily if she bit down. She was still plagued with occasional thoughts like that, images of destruction. Surely someday, by a word or a sign, she wouldn't be able to hide who she was—or at least used to be.
'Another drop, Mary?'
'Yes please, madam.'
One day Mrs. Jones leaned across the teacups as if she had a secret to impart. 'You know—,' she began, then broke off. 'That is, my husband was quite right about the principle of the thing.'
Mary waited.
'I mean to say, that you should call me madam, whenever we have company and such. But when we're on our own, you know,' she stumbled on, 'then it's not so necessary.'
The girl smiled into her tea. Victory, sweet as pineapple.
Why hadn't she been born to Jane Jones instead of Susan Saunders, it occurred to her now? She didn't want to have her mother's hands. She didn't want to be her mother's