Bryce Courtenay - The Potato Factory

'You again! Well I never 'eard o' such a cheek! Think I was born under a cabbage leaf, does ya? Give ya a penny and 'ave ya all go out an' get a tightener or a mug o' gin and yours truly never sees 'ide nor 'air of any of ya brats again. Think I'm bleedin' barmy or summink?' Hannah looked down scornfully at the hungry, eager faces looking up at her. 'Righto, you lot! Tuppence and ya all gets the 'ole apple thrown in, that's the deal! Now scarper, before I changes me bleedin' mind!'

With the immediate details taken care of Hannah returned to the parlour to think, though moments later she was called to the front door by the arrival of the wet nurse to feed and care for baby Mark.

Hannah stood at the door and made the woman bare her breasts and squeeze them with both hands so that she might see her lactate. She wasn't paying for a wet nurse who was short of milk. Then she made the woman open her mouth and she smelt her breath to see if it carried the fumes of brandy or gin. The woman's teeth were rotten and her breath was foul, further burdened with the sour smell of the ale she'd had for breakfast, though nothing else. She allowed her to enter.

The children hadn't risen yet, though she knew the nurse would tend to them when they did. She instructed the woman not to disturb her or allow the children to do so and returned to the parlour, asking only that the woman bring her a cup of tea before she fed the baby.

The wet nurse was one of two selected for their milk. One stayed with the children at night while Hannah was at work and the other took care of the baby during the day and also tended to the house. This one, as well as breast feeding Mark, was employed for the rough work. Both women, Hannah knew, ate her out of house and home, but short of catching them stealing food for their own young 'uns, she didn't mind. The food they consumed, she told herself, went into making milk for baby Mark.

Hannah, only slightly comforted by the fact that no warrant existed for Ikey's arrest, was nevertheless fearful of what the future might hold and she knew she would need to make plans. She had endured one six-year period with almost no means when Ikey had been imprisoned. Now they were rich and they should think about going to live in America or, if Ikey should escape the forgery charge, Sydney Town, though she was realistic enough to know that this was unlikely.

On the rare occasions Hannah had discussed the consequences of crime with Ikey, he had pointed out to her that the crime of forgery carried the hangman's noose, the death penalty. Hannah dared not think further on that matter.

However, she was not above thinking that the ideal situation was to see Ikey transported for life to Botany Bay, leaving her to settle in America with their total assets in her sole possession, though she could think of no way to bring this about. If Ikey avoided being indicted for forgery but was arrested as a fence and proved unable to fee the arresting officers, then she too could be implicated and would receive a similar sentence of transportation. In the unlikely event that she was able to prove her innocence, Ikey knew she could easily live off the proceeds of her six bawdy houses and, while the hope of completing his sentence existed, would never agree to giving her control of their combined resources.

Even if she should contemplate divorce, by definition of law the wealth they'd accumulated together remained the property of the husband. Hannah was quite unable to contemplate such an outcome. In the event of a separation, she would be rendered virtually penniless. Yet in Hannah's mind, all the money rightfully belonged to her. Ikey was no more than a retriever is to a hunter, the dog that brings in the bird and who has no subsequent rights to the spoils from the day's shooting.

In this Ikey seemed to support Hannah's expectations, for he had no apparent need for money. He spent none on himself – even his watch and chain were of very little value lest he be robbed for it. He had only one small personal indulgence, this being the sport of ratting. He kept three of the best rat-killing terriers in England, cared for by a trainer, a butcher in the village of Guildford. But even in the ratting pit he would bet modestly.

Ratting was a sport which involved every grade of society, the ordinary poor, criminals, shop assistants, servants, toffs and even occasionally some of the nobility on the slum, each gambling according to his own means. Or, as Ikey hoped, beyond his means. Ikey saw the rat-pit as another opportunity to make money. There were very few seasoned gamblers at the rat-pits on Great St Andrews Street who, at some time or another, were not in debt to him.

With little taste for the sport of gambling itself, but with a fondness for the game little terriers, ratting was the closest Ikey ever came to being of a charitable nature, for should a client owe him a considerable sum of money, he would extend him a further loan against the odds given on one of his own terriers. This was considered most generous in the circles of ratting, for should his terrier win the bout then Ikey accepted the winnings as part or full payment of the loan.

However, if Ikey's terrier lost, then the money loaned would be added to the gambler's outstanding debt. Ikey's charity was limited to a single attempt to wipe out a gambling debt and, as often happened, if the debt was a large one and the gambler, being as gamblers are, bet sufficient on one of Ikey's terriers to eliminate the money owed, and the terrier lost, then the debt naturally doubled. When this happened it was generally agreed that the offender should forfeit goods or services to cover the outstanding money. Many a toff or member of the moneyed classes lost an item of value from his household in this manner, the convenience and advantage that Ikey was a fence and the article could be handed straight over to pay the debt without first being converted to cash.

Common criminals who had given their marker to Ikey undertook many a burglary and handed the contents of their night's work over to him, whereupon their marker was returned so they would remain in good standing for a future loan.

It was generally conceded in ratting circles that Ikey's terriers, which came from the Forest of Dean on the Welsh border, were exceedingly well bred and highly trained for courage and of the very best disposition for the rat-pit. The little black and brown terriers, usually the smallest dogs brought to the rat-pits, more often than not took the prize from bigger and more naturally brutal animals. Ikey's sparing use of his terriers to regain money lost by his clients was well regarded in the sport, and it was the only endeavour in Ikey's life where those about him did not look upon him as a rapacious and vile member of the Christ-killing race.

However, Ikey's reluctance to let his little terriers into the pit too often had nothing whatsoever to do with his desire to be well regarded, but was in a great part due to a sentimental consideration for them. Sewer rats give dogs canker, which is eventually the death of them. After each killing in the rat-pit Ikey would rinse the pretty pink mouths of his tiny terriers with peppermint and water and return them to their trainer with instructions to carefully tend the rat bites they had sustained. It was a tenderness he had never shown his children or any other living person, not even Mary, whom he would have been quite unable to stroke or touch as he did the little dogs he owned.

Ikey, like every other dog owner in England, dreamed of one day owning another Lord Nelson, a legendary ratter. Lord Nelson was so small he used to wear a lady's jewelled bracelet as a collar, weighed but five pounds and a half and had once killed two hundred rats in a single evening. It was said that, at times, some of the sewer rats pitted against him were his equal in size. But there was never a one or even a dozen together in the rat-pit who could bring the little terrier to a halt or bail him up. Ikey dreamed of owning a dog such as Lord Nelson though, for once, not for the money it could wring from the rat-pit. It was because he was so small, the smallest ratter ever to win in the pits, yet this miniature terrier, like Lord Nelson himself, who stood at only four feet and ten inches, contained a courage greater per pound of weight than any dog that had ever lived to kill a rat.