Now when he goes swaggering home, the eel boy and his friends are waiting. ‘Oy,’ they call. ‘Oy, Put-an-edge-on-it.’
They call him that because Walter grinds knives. They sing when they see him:
‘I lay ten year in Newgate
Methought I lay too long:
My whoreson fetters hurt me sore,
My fetters were too strong.’
They call out, ‘You Irish bastard, that go in a bald dogskin!’
Is Walter Irish? He denies it, but you wouldn’t put it past him.
They shout, ‘You killed your mother when you were born. She couldn’t stand to look at you, out you slid and she cut her throat.’
His sister Kat says, ‘Don’t listen to them. That’s not what occurred.’
He calls back, ‘You devil’s turd, eel boy, are you tired of life?’
Eel boy calls, ‘I’ll dint you, craphead.’
‘When?’ he says.
‘Saturday night?’
‘I’ll skin and salt you, and fry you in a pan.’
So then he has to do it.
Saturday night you chased him uphill. By then you had created a deep fear in his heart, by messages transmitted through acquaintances of yours. If eel boy thinks (and he has had days to think) he will recall that he has lost every bout he has fought with you. He can’t fight history, so he runs, because what else can he do? He could stand on the high road, and offer his hand: but then, Thomas Craphead would slice his fingers off.
If he runs to his uncle’s warehouse, eel boy believes, he’ll escape you. He’ll go charging past the watchman at the gate, who will bustle up and strong-arm you, ‘Crummel, what do you here?’
But there is no watchman tonight, as you well know. When you issued out, Walter and his mates were an hour into strong ale. He’s a beast of a brewer, but he keeps back the best for his crew. And it’s Wilkin the Watch who sticks his face out of the room: ‘Drink with us, Thomas?’
He says, ‘I’m going to church.’
Wilkin retreats, withdraws his slack glistening face. From behind the door, rollicking song: By Cock, ye make me spill my ale …
You walk, under the waning moon. Only when you sight eel boy do you break into a trot, an easy pace that will take you unwinded to your destination. When you enter the yard he is not in sight. But there is no one to stop you following him into the darkness, into the undercroft, where under deep vaulting, behind chests and boxes stamped with the devices of alien cities and their trading guilds, eel boy has burrowed in.
You think of the home you left. You wonder where Walter and his mates have got to with their song. With its refrains and variations they can draw it out an hour or more. Walter likes to take the lass’s part, squealing as she is backed against the walclass="underline" Let go I say …
Then the men chorus: Abide awhile! Why have ye haste? and mime pulling their breeches down.
Luckily, when they sing this song, there is never an actual woman in the room.
Down in the cellars your eyes have adjusted to the gloom. You want to laugh. You can hear the rasp of the boy’s breath. You move towards him, and you let him know that you know exactly where he is. ‘You might as well wave a flag,’ you call.
You halt. If you stand longer (and you have the patience) he will begin to cry. Beg.
Let go I say …
And if you stand longer still, he might die of fright: which would save a mess on the floor. You take the knife out. Can he see you? The only light is from a high barred window, and it is not so much light as an alleviation of the murk. Not much point his uncle barring the window, is there, if Wilkin rolls out and leaves the door unlocked? You remark on this. ‘Go on,’ you call, ‘agree with me.’ His breath now sounds like three cats in a sack.
Eel boy was only ever brave with his cousins and brothers about him. ‘Now you shit yourself,’ you tell him: his calm instructor, his guide.
When you move the crate (you are strong, as the Williamses say) you see his face, blank and white as a sheet stretched on a hedge. It must provide its own pallid light, because you look straight into his eyes. You are surprised by his expression. ‘You look glad to see me,’ you say. He steps forward, as if in greeting, and in one smooth unhesitating action, offering his soft belly, he impales himself on the blade.
It’s the sudden heat that shocks you, the contaminating swill across the stone. You bend and pull out the knife. Something comes with it: a loop of his tripes. Your first thought is for the blade. You wipe it on your own jerkin, an efficient action, one-two. You don’t look down: but you feel him at your feet, a lumpen mess. At once you offer a prayer.
You bend down stiffly, like an old man. Perhaps you accede too readily to the idea that he is dead, but you close his eyes, reaching down into the pool of darkness. You do it delicately, as a virgin might finger fruit. If the pool of gore appears modest, it is because his bulk is hiding it. But when you shift him, flopping him over, you see the neatness with which he is pierced.
You cannot guess later what makes you decide to move him. Perhaps you thought he was not dead but pretending. Though what quality of pretence does it take, to let your eyelids be pressed shut?
Later you comprehend nothing of your choices that night. Thomas Craphead was in charge, his arms and legs working independently of his soul. So you dragged eel boy, his red head bumping along, sedate. Your pace is necessarily slow: Abide awhile, why have ye haste? Outside, it is warmer than in the cellar. The street is empty, till you see the watchman, heading home. His walk is the purposeful sway of a man in drink, still hoping to pass as an upright citizen: ask him, and he’ll say he’s swaying like that just for fun. ‘Straight as a …’ the old sot shouts. He has baffled himself; he can’t think what is straight. ‘Put-an-edge-on-it! You’re out late.’
He’s forgotten he saw you earlier. That he invited you to a bench at his song school.
Wilkin blinks: ‘Who’s yon?’
‘Eel boy,’ you say. No point pretending.
‘By Cock, he’s had a skinful! Taking him home? Good lad. Got to look out for your friends. Want a hand?’
Wilkin heaves, and vomits at his own feet. ‘Clean that up,’ you say. ‘Go on, Wilkin, or I’ll rub your head in it.’
Suddenly you are outraged: as if the only thing that matters is to keep the streets clean.
‘Shog off,’ Wilkin says. Glassy-eyed, he lurches away. You watch him go. He is heading in the direction, vaguely, of his place of work. You can’t resist it: you shout after him, ‘Don’t forget to lock up.’
You could, if you had a friend to help you, put the boy in the water. If dead he will sink, if alive he will … sink. It is a still night, there is no sound from the river, and you feel he would slip down the bank, frictionless, unresisting as if oiled, and go into the Thames with a whisper. You can see it: how the surface simply slides away from him, like a bored glance.
But you can’t do that. It’s not compunction. It’s that strength has flowed out of you. You take out your knife from its sheaf. You give it another wipe on your sleeve. Truly, you would not know it had seen action. You put it back. You feel a powerful impulse to lie down beside eel boy and sleep.
When you get back, Walter and his boys are still bellowing. You are astonished. You thought it was three in the morning. You expected dowsed lights, shutters, padlocks. But there they are, still roaring away: Come kiss me! Nay! By God ye shall …
The door opens. ‘Thomas? Where been?’
You don’t answer.
Walter sounds as outraged as you were, when Wilkin fouled the highway. ‘Don’t you turn your back on me!’
‘Christ, no,’ you say. ‘He’d be a fool and short-lived, that did that.’