Jamila Gavin - Coram Boy

One of the inn dogs started to bark frantically. It set off the other dogs, including Jester. His fur bristled all along his spine. ‘Hush, boy, hush!’ Meshak clamped a hand over his muzzle. Wide awake now. Keeping his hand over the dog’s mouth, Meshak staggered to his feet. He should check the mules and the wagon. He peered out into the yard. The wind buffeted a lantern hanging from a hook, causing shadows to swing like a ship tossing at sea. Then from an upstairs window he saw another light, a steady flame which lit up the pale face of Mrs Lynch peering out into the night. Meshak thought she would close her window and return to bed, but she didn’t. She seemed to be observing something going on in the lane, which only she could see from upstairs. Curious, Meshak wandered across the yard with Jester padding silently beside him.

He pushed open a door in the wall and stepped into a side lane. In the clouded moonlight, he dimly perceived a small carriage harnessed to a single white horse. He glanced up and saw that Mrs Lynch was watching it too.

The cathedral clock had just tolled four. Someone moved out of the shadows carrying a low light; it was the cloaked figure of a woman. Could it be Mrs Peebles? He edged closer. Certainly it was roughly her height. The carriage door opened and the woman went forward. Meshak couldn’t see who was inside. All he saw by the light of the lantern was a basket being passed out. The hands that gave the basket stayed outstretched – the empty fingers seeming unsure – then, abruptly, they were withdrawn and the carriage door was slammed shut, and Meshak glimpsed the coat of arms of a leaping deer entwined in letters he couldn’t read. The figure turned away with the basket as the carriage moved off swiftly. Meshak pressed himself hard up against the wall, hugging Jester into silence as Mrs Peebles hurried past him. Then the tavern dogs stopped barking and the lane was empty again. The transaction lasted a minute.

Meshak looked up again at the window but it was closed. He tapped his thigh softly, ‘Come on, Jester,’ and went back to finish the night in the stables.

Meshak had been dead asleep when he was woken by a fierce kick.

‘Get up, damn you,’ snarled Otis. He looked red eyed and short of sleep himself. ‘We’ve got to get rid of these brats before we take on any more. Get ’em up.’

Meshak got the children up, snivelling and sniffing with anxiety, afraid of what was going to happen to them. He took them into the yard. Otis had already got the mule harnessed up to the wagon. ‘Get ’em inside,’ he snarled.

Meshak bundled them in and Jester too, then went over to the pump to drink and splash his face. As he did, Mrs Peebles and Mrs Lynch passed each other in the yard.

‘What the deuce was all that about in the lane last night? It was you, wasn’t it?’ he heard Mrs Lynch say. ‘Out there in the lane last night?’

Mrs Peebles stopped short, looked hard at Mrs Lynch, paused for a split second and said without batting an eyelid: ‘Not me, dearie. I was tucked up and dead to the world all night.’

Meshak saw that brief pause and thought, She’s lying, I wonder why?

Mrs Lynch saw it too, but decided she would bide her time. If there was anything important to learn, she would find it out.

‘Come on!’ roared Otis, and flicked his whip across Meshak’s back to hurry him up. Meshak clambered into the wagon and they rumbled out into the street, heading for the dockside.

Down at the docks, Otis found a press gang and, for a fee, handed the three older boys over to the navy. What a palaver that was. One of the little ones – a younger sister – had screamed and clung to her brother, and would not be prised off until Otis struck her such a blow, she had fallen unconscious. As Meshak carried her away, he could hear the boys hollering and fighting and kicking, and they had to be carted off and tossed down a ship’s hold to cool off. They would be well down river now, heading out to sea and then North Africa.

Otis came back, grumbling and snarling. Meshak knew to stay well out of arm’s length when his father was in this mood. If it weren’t for the fact that there was money to be earned in this area, Otis wouldn’t have touched snivelling brats with a barge pole. But there was money – much money – especially if he could tap into those wealthy families who would pay any amount to protect their respectability. Having dealt with the older boys, there were the little ones to see to. Once more the wagon rolled on, this time into the city. Mrs Peebles had told him of a weaver and a milliner both requiring small children to work for them.

Later, Meshak wandered away from the docks among the pedlars and traders, often pausing wide-eyed to gawp at a street entertainer, a dancing bear or a tinker juggling with a dozen plates while yelling out his prices. He headed for the cathedral and at last arrived at the south door. He picked his way through the hordes of homeless children who congregated at evening, like the starlings, to look for the most sheltered niche into which they could huddle for the night.

It was a late rehearsal after evensong. Boys’ voices drifted through the deep shadows among the massive stone pillars and pinnacles which lined the nave. The sound lapped round the walls, translucent and as cool as water. The cathedral was dark, except for the soft fall of candlelight gleaming in the alcoves.

He stepped inside. ‘Look, Jester.’ He knelt down to be level with his dog and gazed up at the huge stained-glass windows, awesome in the dark night, their brilliant colours almost absorbed into black. The faces of saints and martyrs bent down to him in their suffering and ecstasy; they reached to clasp his outstretched hands. They drew him through their windows into the throng of all the spirits of the dead, who rose up from beneath the stones and stepped out from their entombment within the walls. But it was the angels he loved, with their huge curving wings and gentle smiles. They were his friends. Sometimes, they leapt out of their lead-encased glass windows and swooped round him, enveloping him in feathers and gentle hands and caressing fingers, and they would fly with him up into the stars above the towers and steeples of the city. ‘Why can’t I stay with you for ever?’ he would cry.

There was one angel in particular, with blue eyes, auburn hair and a face of the utmost beauty, who, whenever he stood before her, seemed to look directly into his eyes. Often, he would talk to her in whispers. ‘You are my angel. I would die for you,’ and he would lie down on the hard cold flagstones of the aisle so he could see her better and think himself dead. He was always doing that, ever since his mother died, though Meshak wasn’t always sure about the difference between being alive and being dead; wasn’t sure which was best.

He often looked at dead people – old people, poor people, babies and abandoned children. He sometimes saw them huddled in ditches or crouched in the forest trying to find shelter. They had died from cold or illness, or such strength-sapping poverty that they had lost the will to try to live. And then he would think about his mother and wonder whether she liked being dead. When he was awake, he couldn’t always remember her face, though he had an impression that it had been sad. But in his dreams, she would sometimes come, stroking his head, showering him with kisses, and her face would be smiling. She seemed so happy that he would wake up crying, ‘If being dead makes you so happy, should I not be dead too?’

When Meshak had ‘dead’ days he would lie for hours, stiff as a board, with open eyes but not seeing anything in this world. Otis gave him such a beating for his ‘stupidity’, but nothing would rouse him, even when his father kicked him and tried to beat him into activity. Gradually, even Otis had to accept that Meshak had dead days and leave him to it, especially when Mrs Peebles told him his boy had fits and that he should leave well alone. What no one knew was that Meshak stepped out of his body and into a paradise where he would meet his Gloucester angel. She would lead him through beautiful gardens of lawns and flowers and playing fountains, and sometimes show him his mother. Somehow, he was never able to touch her or talk to her, but he would see her from a distance, smiling and being happy. Once she waved at him with such sweetness, and he called out, ‘Why can’t I be with you?’ and she said, ‘Because you’re not dead.’ He would have tried to be dead then and there, but the Gloucester angel would lead him away and say, ‘Not yet, Meshak.’