Anonymous - Dara

Florrie's soothing words did little to still my agitation. Trapped behind the bar I watched the dwarf climb onto the table with a helping hand from Tom Biggs. Looking directly at me with an obscene grin he put a hand between his legs and cunt-thumbed me once again.

'Now yer up there, yer little bugger, sing us a song,' Adam cried out.

In a voice as thick as treacle, the dwarf began to sing:

'All you that in your beds do lie,

Turn to your wives and occupy;

And when you have done your best

Turn arse to arse, and take your rest.'

This lewd little ditty was greeted with loud laughter and applause, giving him the encouragement to sing another song but my attention, being drawn elsewhere, I didn't hear the words. There was a respectably dressed woman, about forty, sitting near the door with a small glass of gin before her. I had seen her many times before, sitting alone staring into space, but what caught my interest this time was her exposed breasts and something wrapped in a white baby shawl which she cuddled close to her chest.

My curiosity got the better of me. Moving away from the bar as far as the door I got a closer look. Inside the shawl was a rag doll with a white bonnet on its head. There were two bright, wide-open, blue eyes painted on patches of kid leather sewn into the doll's face, and lower down one could see soft leather red lips in an open smile.

The woman looked up at me and smiled. 'Do you want to see my baby?' she asked.

After my latest encounter with the dwarf I was wary, suspecting another trick to humiliate me but nodded dumbly, keeping an eye on the dwarf who was now dancing an Irish jig on the table top.

Opening the shawl so that I could get a better view of a broderie anglaise gown she said, 'It's my first,' and then with a face glowing with motherly pride, 'Isn't he lovely?'

Taking a firm hold on one of her breasts she pushed the brown nipple between the doll's red lips and softly hummed a lullaby.

Looking around the tavern to see if anyone was observing what was going on, I became aware of Florrie beckoning me back to the bar.

'Who is she?' I asked Florrie. 'I've seen her before but didn't know she was deranged.'

'She's been like that for about two weeks now. I think her mother's death turned her head. You see, apart from when she was with her husband, Maggie has lived alone with her mother all her life. Twenty years ago her husband fell to his death when he was replacing some roof tiles. Three weeks after, Maggie gave birth to a baby who only lived for a few hours.'

'How awful,' I exclaimed.

'The way I see it,' Florrie said, shaking her head, 'Maggie can't stand being on her own in that big house where she lives so she has made another baby to keep her company through the long lonely days and nights. The first time she opened her blouse and put the breast to the doll's mouth there were a few coarse remarks from the men here but I soon put a stop to that. After all, she is not doing any harm so leave her to get on with it, that's what I say.'

I think it was about the end of February or the beginning of March when they hung Mrs. Lucy Flowers outside Newgate Prison. We left The Half Moon' tavern just after midnight to join the streams of people converging on the prison. When we got there Adam pushed me into the jostling crowd already assembled around the gallows. As more and more people came to witness the dawn hanging, I was so squeezed by the swaying dense multitude that it was a wonder some of my ribs did not get broken. From the way almost everybody was behaving you wouldn't think we were waiting to see someone meet with a sudden death. Brutish ruffians, boozed up to the eyeballs, were shouting obscenities as they fought with bottles of beer; tipsy whores with arms linked sang the most disgusting bawdy songs; young bloods, the sons of the aristocracy, dangerously drunk, lashed out with their sticks at the slightest provocation, and slippery villains picked pockets as they slipped through the crowd.

When Lucy Flowers appeared on the platform of the gallows she was greeted by a deafening roar from the crowd. She was a stoutish woman of middle years who had been condemned to death for poisoning a relative to get her money. It was a wicked thing to do but I couldn't help feeling sorry for her, shrinking back before the onslaught of fearsome oaths and filthy language directed at her as the hangman slipped the noose around her neck. It was a gruesome spectacle. I couldn't bear to look and had to close my eyes just before she dropped through the open boards. Adam said that because she was a heavy, well-built woman 'she fell beautiful.'

The night after the hanging we were in 'The Half Moon' tavern. I was talking to Florrie when Adam came to tell me that he and Tom Biggs had some business to see to and they would be back at the tavern within the hour. He had done this often enough before, returning full of cheer and good humour. I had no reason to be concerned but I became agitated with worry when an hour passed and they were still absent.

It didn't help to stand in the doorway of the tavern peering anxiously into the darkness of the street so, after a time, I came back to our table to have another drink. I had hardly got seated when Tom Biggs rushed in all of a sweat and breathless with excitement. He helped himself to my drink, took a deep breath, looked across the room vacantly, and in a low voice said, out of the side of his mouth, 'They got 'im!'

Adam?' I queried.

'Yus. The police collared 'im wiv the swag. It was lucky they didn't see me, 'cos I 'ad stopped to tie up me boot lace when they nabbed 'im.'

'You were out thieving?' I asked in shocked surprise.

'Gaw blimey! Didn't yer know?' he exclaimed. 'I fought you were in on it. Gawd, luv a duck, where did yer fink all the money was comin' from?' Shaking his head in wonder, he exclaimed with admiration, ''E put up an 'ell of a fight, kickin' an' buttin' 'em. They 'ad ter knock 'im aht wiv their truncheons before they could get the grapplin' irons on 'is wrists.'

I sat deflated in stunned silence, unable to take it all in. 'Can I go and see him?'

'Nah, yer'll 'ave to wait 'til after the trial,' he answered gruffly. “E'll be at least a year on the treadmill if yer ask me. Poor bugger, it'll bleedin' break Mm-you'll see.'

I tried to see Adam after he had been sentenced to two years' hard labour on the treadmill but was brusquely turned away by an officer at the prison gates. Two weeks later, a sovereign discreetly passed into the 'turnkey's' hand opened doors for a brief visit. With a heavy bunch of keys clanking by his side he led me through long passages to a room divided by an iron grille.

Adam looked at me through the bars. 'Yer shouldn't 'ave come,' he said in a low, lifeless voice. 'I told 'em I didn't want no visitors but they forced me to come an' meet yer.'

He was a pale shadow of his former self, a hollow thing with all the stuffing knocked out of him. I could have wept but held the tears back and tried to put on a bright smile.

With head hung down he muttered in a whisper of bitterness, 'I'm not stayin' 'ere. You'll see. I'll break aht of 'ere some'ow.'

There was a long pause with neither of us knowing what to say next. Moving away from the iron bars, he looked at me with an expressionless face. 'Get aht. I don't want yer to see me like this and, for Gawd's sake, don't come again.'

With a heart heavy with sorrow I watched him shuffle to the guard who took him through a stout oak door at the back of the room, and out of my life for ever.

Now that I was left to my own resources the problem of earning a living was uppermost in my mind. Selling some of my clothes and other personal items brought in sufficient money to stock the barrow with an assortment of fruit and vegetables. Pushing the loaded vehicle from Covent Garden to Mart Street just about exhausted me and I had little energy left to shout for trade. All around me were costermongers much more experienced than I. We were in fierce competition to attract people to our stalls. As the day wore on I learnt that owing to my inexperience I had bought at too high a price and, if I was to clear what remained on the barrow, I would have to sell at a loss. By nightfall there was less money in my pocket than I had started with.