Diana Norman - Taking Liberties

‘But she came back, didn’t she?’

A nod. ‘She come back. Liddle while later, that was. Girnin’ fit to bust.’

‘Crying,’ translated Beasley. ‘She was crying.’

‘Wouldn’t let her over the bridge, see. Hadn’t got a ha’penny, see.’ Satisfaction bared teeth like lichened tombstones. ‘Right and proper, too. Comin’ over here, usin’ our bridges for free when a honest man as served his country has to pay.’

‘She couldn’t pay the halfpenny toll,’ Beasley said. ‘She was trapped in Dock. She couldn’t get in to Plymouth proper. She’s here somewhere, don’t you see?’

She was seeing it. Philippa. No Susan, just Philippa. Who was the black man? Someone who’d been kind to her, perhaps, now being taken away from her. She was running along this very quay, desperate not to lose, among terrifying officialdom, one person who’d shown her humanity.

‘What did she do then? Where did she go? Have you seen her since?’ begged Makepeace.

Faded little crocodile eyes looked at her briefly but the answer was made to Beasley. ‘Didn’t see her after that day.’

She fell on her knees to the old man. ‘Where would you look? If you were me, where’d you look for her?’

‘Been near two month,’ he said. Again it was Beasley whom Packer addressed. Makepeace realized that he thought he was talking to a fellow war veteran. If it had been her sitting on the bollard, she’d still be in ignorance. ‘If so be she were a maid then, she bain’t now.’

She wanted to kill him. Mind your own business, you old devil . But if he minded his business, she wouldn’t find Philippa. She got out her purse and extracted a guinea from it, waving it like a titbit to a dog.

He took off his cap and laid it casually across his knees. She dropped the guinea into it. ‘Please.’

‘You come back yere four bells this evening,’ he told Beasley, ‘you might …’ He paused, searching for the phrase, and found it triumphantly. ‘… might see something as is to your advantage.’

‘If you know something, tell us,’ Makepeace pleaded. ‘I’ll pay whatever you want.’

‘Pay us at four bells.’ Further than that, he refused to budge. Here was drama to enliven his old age, better than gold; they were to return, the second act must be played out.

Beasley reverted to his accustomed gloom, as if ashamed that he’d shown excitement. Hopping back over the bridge, he said: ‘Four bells?’

‘Six o’clock,’ Makepeace said. ‘Second dog watch.’ She hadn’t run an inn on the edge of the Atlantic for nothing.

Back at the inn, Makepeace forced herself to eat – a matter of fuelling for whatever lay ahead. Beasley urged her to get some sleep and she tried that, too, but kept getting up. She ordered a basket of food in case Philippa should be hungry when they found her.

She knew they wouldn’t find her, the old man was playing games with them for the excitement. Then she added a cloak to the basket because Philippa’s own clothes would be rags by now.

She buried her child again – what possible advantage could the old bugger on the bollard promise her? Then she put her medicine case into the basket … She was worn out by the time they crossed the Halfpenny Bridge again.

The clang for four bells sounding on the anchored ships skipped across the Hamoaze like uncoordinated bouncing pebbles, none quite simultaneous with the others, summoning new watches and releasing the old. The flurry on the river increased as off-duty officers were rowed ashore, hailing their replacements in passing.

It was nearly as hot as it had been at noon; the setts of the quay threw back the heat they had absorbed all day. John Beasley, lowering himself gratefully onto his bollard, rose again sharply as its iron threatened to scorch his backside.

Able Seaman Packer was still on his. Fused to it, Makepeace thought feverishly, like a desiccated mushroom. ‘Well?’ she demanded.

‘Missed ’em,’ he said. ‘Should’ve been here earlier.’

‘Missed who?’

‘The whores.’ He nodded to a flotilla of rowing boats with wakes that were diverging outwards as they approached the fleet anchored in the middle of the river. At this distance, they seemed full of gaudy flowers.

‘Don’t hit him!’ John Beasley caught Makepeace’s arm before it connected with the old man’s head in a haymaker that would have toppled him onto the quay. Balancing awkwardly, he pushed her behind him. ‘Tell us, will you, or I’ll let her at you. Is our girl on one of those boats?’

‘Ain’t sayin’ now.’ Packer’s lower lip protruded in a sulk that lasted until Makepeace, still wanting to punch him, was forced to move away.

She watched Beasley pour more of her money into Packer’s cap and the old man’s need to stay the centre of attention gradually reassert itself.

Beasley hopped over to her. ‘She’s not in those boats. He says her friend is.’

‘What friend?’

‘A woman who talked to her the day she landed.’

‘He didn’t tell us that. He said he hadn’t seen her since.’

‘No more I haven’t,’ the old man called; Makepeace’s wail had carried.

‘He’s eking out what he knows, he don’t get much of interest,’ Beasley said. ‘He’s lonely. His daughter doesn’t let him back in her house until night.’

‘I wouldn’t let him back in at all.’

‘Apologize to him, for Christ’s sake, or we won’t get anything either.’

Makepeace took a few steps forward and grated out: ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Should be an’ all. I fought for my country.’

‘Very noble. Who’s this friend?’

‘Whore.’ The word gave him satisfaction.’ Whaw-wer. That’s what her’s a-doin’ out there along o’ the others, whorin’. Spreadin’ her legs for sailors.’

‘And where’s my daughter?’

Packer shrugged his shoulders. ‘Dunno, do I? She knows …’ A nod towards the ships, a huge and vicious grin. ‘Have to wait here for ’un to come back, won’t ee?’ A pause. ‘That’s if I decides to tell ee which one she be.’

She couldn’t stay near him; it was like being in the power of a beetle, a petty, insignificant thing that, ordinarily, she could have stamped on with all the force of her wealth. And I will, you old bastard, you wait and see. She strode up and down the quay, letting Beasley try to tease out of the man what information was left in him.

It was the time of evening for gathering in taverns before going on to entertainment elsewhere. The inn that faced the quay was full; young officers and midshipmen overflowed its doors, drinking and talking, occasionally commenting on the red-haired woman who passed and repassed them without coquetry. ‘A drink, madam?’ one of them asked.

She didn’t hear.

Beasley pantomimed a request for ale and two tankards were brought out to him and Packer.

Eventually, he hopped over to her. ‘There was just this woman. She saw Philippa crying, they talked and went off together. He ain’t seen Philippa since but the woman’s one of them that goes out to the ships every night. Comes back in the early hours, he says.’

‘How’ll we know which one?’

‘He says we’ll know her when we see her.’ He added abruptly, because he didn’t want to say it: ‘He calls her Pocky.’

‘The pox,’ Makepeace said, dully. ‘She’s got the pox.’

Beasley shrugged and went off to see if they could hire a room overlooking the quay in which to wait. There wasn’t one; Dock was as crowded as Plymouth. ‘But he’s got a settle on the landing upstairs,’ he said, coming back. ‘We can wait there for a couple of shillings.’

She put out her hand. ‘What’d I do without you?’

He became surly. ‘It’s my bloody knee I’m thinking about. Rubbed raw.’