The Clay Dreaming (12 page)

They passed beneath the granite mass of Rennie’s London Bridge. From the Tower onwards, London best resembled a seaport. Wharves and warehouses in a continuous line concealed the enormous dockyards beyond. The shipping lanes either side were thoroughly overcrowded; with coasters, dredgers, galleys and lightermen; freighters, tramps, clippers and brigs. River traffic had tripled inside of a century.

Lulling vapours curled from off the surface of the Thames. Beneath a roiling oilskin, scorning all light, the polluted river ran deep and dark. Making repeated attempts to break through, a sickly orange sun performed feats of alchemy, suffusing impure airborne particles with gilt.

Into this daze the
Nymph
went gliding, everyone on board in a shallow trance.

In his dark time Dreaming King Cole has walked beneath the waves. Never would he have thought to dare ride the Serpent's back.

Hand holding fast to the iron railing, Cole gazes long time long into the dark shadows beneath their boat. Fireflies float through the belly of the beast, far below. Greens, blues, vibrant pinks and purples; the bizarre costumes they wear are coral-bright – quite unlike the pale phantoms of his recent adventure under these waters.

A gentle nudge from the Guardian, and King Cole rights himself. All the blood gone to his head makes it spin a moment. Spots throb before his eyes.

Thara's mellow voice is there to soothe and guide him.

‘Did you hear me?' Sarah said. ‘We have arrived.'

The
Nymph
slowly drifted with the tide. Preparatory to docking, their boat was turning in the great river bend of Greenwich Reach, a sweeping curve that swallowed the tongue of land known as the Isle of Dogs, behind. The manoeuvre gave them ample time in which to consider their prospects.

Elevated on a riverside terrace close to a thousand feet in length, framed by parkland, stood the most beautiful palace. Instead of presenting a broad front to the river, it was split into two horns, or wings, of equal size – mirrored images, only slightly asymmetrical: nearly 300 feet apart, they divided either side of a broad green lawn. At their nether reaches, a little way inland, two further piles arranged themselves in elegant alignment with the first, buildings if anything even more stirring in their design. Stacked pediments led the eye irresistibly upwards, to twin clock-towers topped with golden weather-vanes, the drum of each cupola reminiscent of the dome of St Paul's, doubled and expressed in miniature. Unlike the sullied cathedral, however, here the Portland Stone shell remained brilliant and white.

A court fit for a king – Sarah Larkin looked across to observe her Aboriginal companion. He blinked against the bright blaze, uncertain. Greenwich was once a principal Crown residence, the first and last port of call for visiting ambassadors. She could well imagine him an emissary of sorts, a foreign dignitary, if not an actual king. It seemed only appropriate that they pay a visit here.

The entire complex flanked a breach boldly cut through its centre. Perpendicular to the river a spacious avenue ran inland, adorned either side with Doric colonnades. As it hove into view Sarah pointed up the hill beyond, assuming this was where her fellow traveller intended for them to go.

‘The Royal Observatory,' she said.

King Cole grinned broadly.

Vessel docked at the Steamboat Pier, they gladly disembarked. Alongside lay waiting-rooms: mindful of her eventual return, Sarah consulted the schedule on a painted board there.

It could not be later than two, two-thirty at the most.

To the south, in sunshine, stretched the green hills of Greenwich Park. With every mile's distance from the smoky city, visibility had improved: the air hereabouts was relatively clear.

Sarah looked towards the eminence of Blackheath. A branch of the Larkin family resided there, enjoying considerable wealth. Her father disapproved the means by which they had amassed their fortune, Sarah even more so. They were slavers. She resolved, there and then, that she would never go to them for support, no matter how lean their finances.

King Cole in turn studied the palace before them, the long fence separating it from the main thoroughfare, and a trim lawn beyond. Trees in full leaf nestled against the outer margins.

‘That building,' said Sarah, ‘is a hospital. A hospital for sailors.'

Faint hope of appreciating anything for what it was, simply by looking at it: in the minds of the majority Greenwich was associated with nothing more ambitious than a fish dinner.

Standing to one side, her arm extended, she invited that Cole take responsibility for their next move. The Aborigine strode inland, face grim with foreboding. He followed the line of the ornamental railings that enclosed the Hospital complex, his narrow palm trailing, testing their substance. Sarah straightened her skirts and followed on.

Heading up King William-street, he led them to a large, cast-iron double gate. A monumental ball of stone, easily six feet in diameter, surmounted
each sturdy gate pier. The globe to their left displayed 24 meridians – tropics, circles, equinoxial, and ecliptic – indicative of a celestial sphere. To their right a terrestrial sphere, similarly copper-inlaid, bore a different cross-weave – the parallels of latitude.

‘
Bugaragara
.'

King Cole mumbled something Sarah did not catch. Gripping the iron bars, he looked from the gateway towards a building south of where they stood; then, eastward of their present position, towards the far end of the same block; back again; and, finally, up at the gates.

He seemed perplexed, as if the barrier was unexpected, or perhaps not where he expected it to be.

‘You…you want to go in?' Sarah asked.

His eyes in reply were more than eloquent.

She approached one of the smaller wicket gates intended for pedestrian traffic. A gatekeeper dressed in a plain sort of guard's uniform appeared.

‘Can we go in, is it possible? Into the Hospital?' she enquired. Vaguely, she indicated the grounds.

Just then the main gates swung wide, to permit exit of a shabby horse and cart. From the window of the lodge-house opposite, a second guardsman waved it through.

‘Only persons of decent appearance and the carriages of gentlemen permitted to pass,' announced the gatekeeper. ‘No dogs, and no beggars, vagrants, piddlers or other idle disorderly persons…of either sex… OY, PUT THAT AHHT!'

Sarah jumped at his sudden shout. A man passing through the opposite gate obligingly extinguished his cigarette. The gatekeeper tugged the peak of his cap.

‘Just a bit o' fun, ma'am, don't mind me,' he said. ‘Visiting?'

‘Errrm, yes.'

As the guard stood to one side to let her through, he caught sight of Cole, lingering at the far side of the gate pier.

‘Away from there, Uncle Tom!' he said.

‘He's with me,' said Sarah.

‘Ma'am?'

She had spoken too softly. Sarah cleared her throat. ‘He's with me.'

The guard eyed her curiously before conceding. ‘Begging your pardon.'

Sarah and Cole strolled a few yards into the Hospital grounds, and then, as if by prior arrangement, both picked up their pace. Sarah was convinced they would be called back at any second. King Cole subtly assumed the lead. They continued past a quadrangular building of stuccoed brick, further enclosed by its own set of railings and identified as the Infirmary. Cole eyed it with suspicion.
Turning right at its northeastern corner, he led the way up the far side until they were out of sight of the West Gate.

Up ahead, a couple, well-dressed, wandered arm-in-arm. A small man dressed in a business suit took his lunch, seated on the lawn. Other than that, the neat grounds were deserted. Amid such wide open spaces, the monumental scale of neoclassical architecture combined to eerie effect: they walked into a scene whose perfection evoked, for Sarah at least, an unsettling preview of the afterlife.

Where they walked, they went alone. Sarah's feet began to drag. She had no idea where she was being taken, and by a man she knew next to nothing about. All at once it occurred to her: no one knew she had come to Greenwich; were she disappeared, nothing would ever be heard of her again.

Passing behind the Infirmary, they approached a second lodge. This one looked broken-down, fallen into obvious disuse. A caution formulating on her lips, Sarah cast a quick glance behind them. Turning back, her heart froze. They had walked into the middle of a graveyard, overgrown and in ruins.

‘God's acre,' she heard her own voice whisper, ‘forsaken.'

The burial ground was quite large, closer to two and a half acres. The vast majority of monumental stones lay broken. King Cole scampered ahead, scanning the earth for a sign of some kind.

Sarah struggled for breath. Graveyards made her nervous.

‘Forsake me not,' she prayed.

Cole crouched low and pointed ahead towards a certain spot. His other hand urged her forward: she should go to it. Tall trees creaked and groaned overhead, the breeze prowling their leaves picking up speed. She looked back, uncertain. He shooed her more to the left – there. The trees sighed and the wind died. She faced an old grave, one among many. Little better than a hole in the dirt, it lacked a headstone.

Sarah swayed a moment, examining the plot. King Cole drew up silently alongside. She leant precariously across to part the grass at one end, revealing a short wooden stake driven deep into the earth. There was no name on it, just a number, barely legible. With her fingertip she traced the faint impressions.

‘One… Four… Two… Nine.'

The ground was intact except at the eastern corner, where an animal of some kind had recently been scratching at the soil. Strange that, after the lapse of what must have been many years, so little grass yet grew atop the grave.

Sarah closed her eyes a moment. Opened again, she caught sight of something –

‘AAAAAAARGHHH!'

Sarah slid in the burial mud. She stumbled, almost losing her footing as she tried to turn, scrabbling for purchase, for balance, her every instinct screaming.

Arms wide, his hands spread, Cole cut off her only route of escape. Eyes big as saucers, he pursed his lips. His palms bobbed up and down, a calming gesture.

Sarah stood, awkward, all fingers and thumbs, clutching first at one elbow then touching a hand to her face, unsure where to look. She flinched a little.

Atop the old grave lay crumbled shards of clay, a fine dusting of off-white powder, and something else – something dried and dark, seeped in deep and crimson.

‘It all right,' said King Cole. ‘It all right. Him my blood.'

His voice was gentle.

‘My blood,' he said. He touched the earth, brought up his fingers to show her, stained scarlet.

‘Same colour you.'

Who was buried in plot 1429? Sarah Larkin wanted to know.

‘Chockie-man.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘What?’

‘Deadman,’ said the Aborigine. His body jerked as if connected to a galvanic battery. He expressed a hissing sound.

‘Yes, but who is…who was he?’ Sarah repeated. ‘What was his name?’

King Cole looked a little abashed. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘You don’t know?’

‘I forget.’

‘You’ve forgotten. So you did know it?’

His looks no longer askance, Cole appeared to resent the questioning. His voice, however, sounded convinced. ‘He had none.’

His habitual evasions had exhausted Sarah’s patience. ‘We’ll see about that,’ she said.

The desolate graveyard stretched between Romney-road and King-street. A broken down sign near to the entrance identified it as the ‘Royal Hospital Burial Ground’. The site belonged, as Sarah had rather suspected it might, to the adjacent white stone complex.

King Cole flatly refused to approach the Infirmary building. They were obliged to return to the gatekeepers’ lodge.

‘That’s Goddard’s Garden, that is,’ said the guard, sitting at the open window. ‘No bodies been put in the ground there in years. They all go up the Pleasaunce nowadays, a ways east of here.’

‘You should have a word with Matron, ma’am.’ The first keeper they had spoken to, at the gate, appeared in the adjacent doorway. ‘Mrs Georgiana Riddle,’ he said. ‘You can find her through there, in the starboard wards.’

He advanced sufficiently to point out a single-storey building Sarah had not noticed before, partially obscured by a stretch of brick wall, and abutting the Infirmary’s west end. The guard indicated a small doorway set within the wall.

The other man leapt to his feet. ‘Fred, no…’ he said, and moved to block the path suggested. ‘You don’t want to go that way, ma’am. Through there’s the Helpless Ward.’

He looked at his colleague, filled with reproach – but not without the shade of a grin, also. ‘There are sights beyond that wall,’ he said, returned to Sarah, ‘sights a lady such as yourself don’t wish to see. Some of the Helpless, they’re allowed out of doors into a little garden there. For the benefit of the air, like.’ His voice fell to a whisper. ‘The most miserable and shocking objects on God’s earth.’

Despite herself Sarah shivered a little. She looked at King Cole. His eyes stayed fixed on the ground at his feet.

‘Where else might I direct our enquiries?’ she said.

The portlier of the two gatekeepers, the one who had already attempted some fun at their expense, took Sarah by the arm, a touch impertinent. He began to escort the pair of them a little way further down the main drive.

‘Mister Dilkes!’ he said. ‘Mister Dilkes, he’ll know what to do with you. Oh, yes. One of our longest-serving members, he is.’ The uncouth fellow rolled the words around his tongue. ‘Long on the staff is old Mister Dilkes. Eh, Eddie, lad?’

Comments directed back to his colleague, the gatekeeper tipped him a wink.

‘Started out clerk in the Out-pensions, so he did, and well before my time! There’s precious little Mister Dilkes don’t know about this place…and don’t he relish every opportunity he gets to spread it around!’

He stopped and pointed clear of the Infirmary, over towards the southeast. Not much more than a garden gnome at this distance, a figure sat on the grass lawn next to one of two small dolphin fountains – the same little fellow in the business suit Sarah had noticed earlier.

The gatekeeper made his way back to their lodge, chuckling as he went. ‘Dear old Dilkesey. He’ll like you.’ He shouted ahead. ‘Won’t he, Eddie?’

Crosswise paths divided the fountain lawn. Nothing else for it, Sarah set a course over to the little man, King Cole trailing behind. Gales of laughter broke from the lodge at their backs.

The clerk had been monitoring their back-and-forth progress for some time, and with a keen interest. Seeing the odd couple directed his way, he hastily thrust the last of his sandwich crusts into his mouth and stood, ready to attend them.

Drawing near, Sarah could see he was small indeed, barely five foot tall. Balding, rotund, very pink and with doughy flesh – late middle-age had put him
on the slide back towards infancy. She marked the eagerness of his poise. The man balanced almost on the balls of his feet. He stooped a moment to brush the crumbs and creases from his suit, adjusted his
pince-nez
, and ran a hand through thinning strands of hair.

‘Got a couple of strangers,
have
we?’ he said.

His tone, bright and jocular, was thoroughly welcoming.

‘
Anyone
not Navy is a “stranger” around here!’

‘Mr Dilkes?’ said Sarah.

‘Loveless.’ He nodded. ‘Dilkes Loveless. Clerk attached to the Admiralty, faithful servant of this Hospital, and at
your
service. How might I be of assistance, madam?’

No ice to break, Sarah felt degrees of both heat and moisture in his handshake. Promptly she introduced herself and ‘Mr Cole’, explaining their situation – insofar as she understood it herself.

‘Plot number 1429, you say? Hmm,’ said the clerk. ‘A Greenwich Pensioner, almost certainly. He would have been a Royal Navy man. And what is your
connection
to the deceased, may I ask?’

‘None at all.’ Sarah answered perhaps a little too frankly. ‘On…on my part,’ she added, and wavered a moment before indicating King Cole. ‘That is to say, we hope to discover it. The plot was otherwise unmarked, but… as to the identity…’ Her voice rose an octave, without directly framing the question.

‘You will need to consult the Burial Register,’ said the clerk. ‘Held, under
normal
circumstances, by the Hospital Secretary. And, really, you should apply to the Governor for permission. In
writing
. Only, he is absent at present.’

Oblivious towards her attendant, Dilkes Loveless eyed Sarah through the thick lenses of his glasses.

‘It is not something we generally allow, you see,’ he continued. ‘Not without following
correct
procedures…’

More than used to these ingratiating tactics from staff at the British Museum, Sarah patiently waited out the clerk.

‘In the Governor’s absence,’ said Dilkes, ‘
I
, however, am empowered to decide issues of access. I think therefore I might be able to look it up
for
you.’

‘Good,’ she said.

There was a slight hesitation on his part. Sarah stood firm.

With a grandiose gesture Dilkes Loveless directed that she follow him across the grass towards the main buildings. He body-swerved the gurgling fountain, a spring to his step.

‘You were lucky to
catch
me today,’ said the clerk. ‘The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have abolished the separate “Military” and “Civil”
Departments. Nowadays, we
all
muck in together! I myself am designated for duty at Somerset House. It’s not often I’m to be found here any more…’

Rustling and bustling, the breathless clerk threw back a look inviting of sympathy.

‘In short, we no longer
have
a Secretary. But I can take you to his former office, and there we shall see what there
is
to see!’

Sarah Larkin had trouble keeping up; heaven only knew what King Cole made of it all. They were about to enter into one of the grand colonnades, starting at the rear of the nearest main block.

‘Here is the Court of King William,’ said the clerk. ‘King William the third, for whom
this
block is named, and
there
, his queen, Mary.’ Dilkes indicated the next building along. ‘It is, I must emphasise, a
Royal
Naval Hospital, the land granted by Warrant in
1694
!’

He pronounced the date
most
emphatically, as if the lapse of years alone made it impressive.

They passed beneath the eaves of the nearest colonnade.

‘A hospital in the sense of an
alms
house. The Pensioners who are the objects of this noble institution must be seamen or mariners disabled by age, or those
maimed
in the King’s…or
Queen
’
s
service…those veterans of the main who on our widest Empire bleed.’

This last said leeringly, Dilkes rolled his eyes for melodramatic effect.

Sarah saw once more the door, the door in the wall that enclosed the secret garden of the Helpless Ward.

She checked again for Cole’s reactions, hoping for the slightest clue as to what they might be doing there. He placidly examined stone-carvings directly above their heads, floral designs set into the portico ceiling: oak; daisy; sunflower or buttercup? Thistle…

Sarah yelped. A massive carriage lamp seemed to swing too low overhead as she passed beneath. It was bigger in the body than she was. As they turned the corner, great oak doors on their immediate left towered more than twice her height.

‘A royal palace,’ Dilkes was saying, ‘provided
solely
for the solace and repose of those Pensioners…’

More than a palace, Sarah thought, they intruded on a colossal temple, fit for the gods of ancient myth and constructed on their scale.

‘As a gesture of munificence, it is unsurpassed!’ cried the impassioned clerk. ‘The very
conscience
of civilisation!’

Looking at the place, at its very generous extent, Sarah decided that it must be a guilty conscience.

Just across the way, to the east, loomed Queen Mary Court, a matching double of the building they skirted. In viewing the colonnade opposite, Sarah
could better appraise the details of their own: Doric columns standing 20 feet tall were paired in a long row – gigantic open cloisters, equally, breathtakingly beautiful. She looked across into a mirror in which they themselves did not appear.

King Cole, at her side, began to act most peculiarly. Twitching and jumpy, his dark eyes darting about, he appeared seized with convulsions. Faced with the Aborigine’s eel-like contortions, Sarah felt almost relieved to have the Hospital clerk for company.

‘What on earth…?’ stuttered Dilkes. ‘Does he suffer fits?’

It seemed prudent to confront the issue.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said to Cole. ‘Are you all right?’

‘One dark ago,’ said the Aborigine, ‘manypella this place. Many many. Sickpella, sailorpella, around, around, around, around.’

King Cole turned the four points of the compass and threw out his hands at each one.

Dilkes Loveless stared at these curious antics, the even curiouser language. This was by far the strangest stranger he had ever been obliged to escort.

‘Arm gone pella, leg gone pella, all drinkin’ pellas,’ said King Cole.

Pausing first to roll up one trouser leg, he enacted a crazed mime-show of amputation and deformity. One sketch, highly convincing, featured a drunken sailor; a balancing act in search of equilibrium, elastic limbs all at sea.

Startled, Sarah’s breath caught, before exploding in a burst of laughter. Its immediate loud echo silenced her just as swiftly.

Dilkes Loveless clutched at his jacket buttons. His mind boggled.

King Cole fixed the pair of them with his large black eyes, genuinely spooked, his whisper barely audible. ‘Everypella gone.’

He leant in close to confide, darkly. ‘Manypella,’ he said, ‘manypella him pinis in dem ’ouse.’

A great many men had died there.

With admirable aplomb, Dilkes Loveless confirmed his story. ‘He’s quite right,’ said the clerk. ‘At one time, you would have felt these ambits intolerably crowded. The Hospital in former days housed many more patients than it does now. A great
deal
more. I say, how do you know that?’

Receiving no answer, Dilkes carried on regardless.

‘The old Pensioners would idle out their days, sitting about the place, smoking and chatting amongst themselves…’

Unexpectedly, Cole took up the thread of yarn the clerk was about to spin. ‘Manypella old and sad,’ he said. ‘Very tired. Him like a lizard on a rock, lying on him back and him belly…’

He moved towards one of the alcove seats, spread his limbs slightly, and directed himself towards the sun, as if to soak up some of its heat and energy.
His body again folded in on itself. He motioned further along the deserted colonnade.

‘An’ him, slither up an’ down all same. Him got head in a sling, and him got head in him hands.’

He pointed in specific directions, as if the figures described were arranged in a sort of tableau in front of them.

‘All sad,’ he said. ‘All tired. Is one big cage for them, this pretty place.’

Sarah stared at him in both alarm and wonder. The empathy in his soft voice she found moving; the slight sibilance that made ‘thad’ of ‘sad’, endearing.

Cole overtook the lead, just as he had when she became lost amongst the side streets of the Fleet: until this moment, it had not occurred to her how odd that should be.

Who was the stranger here, who the guide?

Cole continued to bob back and forth, interacting with the various persons that, for him perhaps, still populated these stone corridors. His descriptions were so vivid, his disturbed imagination so infectious, she could almost see for herself the figments he narrated.

Sarah looked again to the colonnade opposite, at an empty spot exactly the same as where they were standing. She knew then, for certain, that the Aborigine perceived the world in ways she could not understand. If only she could see the world through his eyes.

‘They…uh…yes,’ said Dilkes Loveless, clearing his throat. ‘They would gather here in scores and loll upon these benches, the old sailors, smoking the while, and entertaining the strangers,
visitors
such as yourselves, with their
fanciful
stories…’

Dilkes eyed the other man warily.

‘The only occasion they bestirred themselves for would be mealtimes,’ he continued, soon recovering his stride. ‘
Or
when going over the details of some long-ago engagement led to disagreement, and they fought their old sea-battles over again…’