There is a Grain of Sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find
Nor can his Watch Fiends find it: ‘tis translucent & has many
Angles
But in Blake’s days, at Hercules-place, Lambeth was still blessed; for him it was the place of the Lamb. But for me, it was
as hard as it was for Satan to find that grain of sand in Lambeth, and Ivy-street, and the protection of Mrs Eeles from the
more sordid types, seemed to be the best we could hope for.
Peter still said nothing. Unthinkingly, but as if I were already recognising the need for further frugality, I rose and went
over to lower the lamp. The room dimmed, and felt smaller as the flickering shadows from the fire increased. I looked at my
husband, who was not looking at me, through the gloom. We spent the rest of the evening listening to the endless patter of
rain on cobbles; whoever the gas was lit for that evening on the streets of Lambeth, it was not for us.
What’s in the cupboard?
Says Mr Hubbard.
A knuckle of veal,
Says Mr Beal.
Is that all?
Says Mr Ball.
And enough too,
Says Mr Glue;
And away they all flew.
N
either Sven nor Jack appeared for work the following morning, and Peter went out soon after they were due to arrive. I had
hoped he had gone to see that Diprose fellow he had mentioned, the medical books man, but he didn’t show up again, not even
that night. Truth be told, I was quite grateful, for our food supplies had dwindled, and he was the main consumer. I spent
the day increasing my already vigorous household thrift: the paper that I usually kept for twisting into spills, I sold instead
to the rag-and-bone man, along with any old bones and scraps of cloth I did not need for dusting. I combined the contents
of three biscuit boxes and two jam-bottles and sold them to him too, along with two pewter tankards. I would even have sold
our left-over food to his friend the washman for pigswill, but we were eating every last morsel we had. I rushed to the door
when I heard the bell ringing and the cry of ‘Old clothes!’; it was the Jew with twenty hats piled on his head like the Tower
of Pisa. I sold him Peter’s summer hat, two of my three bonnets, a blanket and a petticoat, and a pint of dripping. And I
scrubbed the house as best I could, and put the cleanest white cloth I could muster on the table that night. It was important
to me that when Peter returned he could still have faith in his own fireside. In all the distress and unpredictability of
his commercial life, it was here, amongst the household gods, where he would find peace and calm. For this want of work, I
knew, would tax us sore, and would test the mettle of a worn man.
I trusted that tomorrow he would return with good news, and that I would not need to trouble him with women’s worries, such
as the price of groceries, or the state of my pans, or that Mrs Eeles had paid yet another visit just after the rag-and-bone
man had left. Besides, I had long struggled to cultivate the air of resourcefulness and industry, cheerfulness and forbearance
– I had even taken to serving Peter’s bread cold and not quite fresh, to make the butter go further – and I did not want him
ever to wonder if his poverty was due to my poor husbandry.
But when he did not return the next day, or night either, I started to think. I traced my hands over everything in the two
bedrooms to see what we could lose – we kept the inferior stuff up here, as Peter wanted our social rooms to present our best
face to the world. I collected a jug from the washstand in Lucinda’s room, a soap-dish from our room, and one of the two toilet
cans. We could not spare the chamber-pots, or the tin hip-bath, but I scanned the medical provisions with which we had tried
and failed to keep Peter’s rheumatism at bay – bandages, flannels, bloodletting ribbon, scissors, lint, spoons – and tucked
the empty apothecary’s bottles into the jug to give to the rag-and-bone man. But the rooms were bare enough already; there
were no pictures to remove from the walls, no rugs of any worth. I knew, as I went downstairs with my haul, that I was choosing
to ignore my parents’ suitcase that hid in the box-room. I could scarcely remember what it contained, but, apart from the
bracelet made of my mother’s hair that I kept round my wrist, it was all I had left of them.
But sentiment did not entirely override practicality; I came upstairs again and went to the ottoman at the foot of our bed,
and took out the yards of black crêpe. It was the veil that I had worn every day for the six months after my parents died,
and it had since lain there for nearly five years. It had gone stiff, coarse and crackly, as if it had rusted all over, as
crêpe is wont to do. I took it downstairs, and Lucinda helped me spread it out and inch it slowly over the steam coming off
the kettle, and then we sprinkled it all over with alcohol, rolled it up in
The Illustrated London News
, and laid it by the hearth to dry. The next morning, when still there was no Peter, we unrolled it, aired it by the fire,
and carried it out into the street.
We knocked on Mrs Eeles’s door. She opened it cautiously, as if to check we weren’t foxes coming to raid her hen house. ‘You’ve
just caught me. Come in, dearies.’
Without her mourning cloak she was formidable: she was wearing a shabby old black lace ball-dress, with sizeable frayed ribbons
that picked her hems up in dramatic loops, under which splayed out sections of black gauze petticoats. On her nose were pince-nez
eye-glasses, and on her fingers a selection of jet rings.
‘Oh my, oh my, what is that you are carrying? Is that really? Could it be? May I have a look?’
We laid the veil out on the faded flowers of her couch. The room was surprisingly colourful for one preoccupied with mortality:
the antimacassars were white, with a lavender lace edging; the rug had a deep blue pile, and every surface was covered in
knick-knacks and figurines: two prancing china ponies; a trio of crystal owls; a miniature violin; a collection of thimbles;
a selection of old silver tea-spoons with bone handles; a stack of prayer-books. There was also a chessboard, laid out ready
for battle, which, along with a large number of framed photographs, was the only source of black in the room.
‘What have you brought me, dearie?’ Mrs Eeles asked.
‘Finest crêpe, and I bought it new, too. Only wore it for six months. I was hoping – I was wondering – if this would be of
interest to you.’
‘Only one mourning?’
‘Two actually. Overlapping.’ I paused. I had presumed that the less wear the better; it had not occurred to me that successive
grievings might have a cumulative effect, that sensations might linger and, indeed, one day, provide some sort of thrill.
‘My parents, you know,’ I added.
‘Oh, you poor little darling. Bless your sweet orphan soul.’
‘Would you – would you – consider taking this in lieu of rent?’ I asked.
She fingered the crêpe thoughtfully, then bent her head down to it, and sniffed it noisily. ‘Two months, I’ll give you for
it.’
I was so stunned it did not even occur to me to negotiate. ‘Oh, thank you! Two months, yes, why, thank you, Mrs Eeles!’
I was still reeling when I heard Lucinda say sweetly, ‘Oh, look, Mama, she’s sleeping!’ The photographs on a round side-table
on the other side of the room had caught Lucinda’s attention, but I was distracted, as I was wondering if it were too late
to insist on three months. I twiddled my mother’s hair-bracelet by way of an apology to her: I could never trade this, but
would that Mrs Eeles were a pawn-shop, for I might even have got half a crown for it, and the prospect of redeeming it later.
‘And this one, look, he’s sleeping too!’
‘Aye, sleeping cherubs, all of ‘em. Look lovely, don’t they? Especially seeing as they’re gorn! Ye’d never know, would ye?’
‘Gone?’ Lucinda asked.
‘Dead!’ Mrs Eeles replied. ‘Well, have they done your portrait yet?’
Lucinda shook her head.
‘Of course not. Your mammy won’t go to that expense until you’re twelve or so, stands to reason. But if you passed over before
then, she would want a record of you, you’d hope, wouldn’t she?’
‘Mrs Eeles!’
‘Are they your children?’ Lucinda continued.
‘Lucinda!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s quite enough!’ But, truth be told, it was Mrs Eeles I wanted to scold.
‘No, dearie. Never had the luck. They’re from my poor dear sister, and some cousins, and some more distant relatives, and
a few tenants. All of them my acquaintance, mind. I knew of all of them, by letter or by conversation, otherwise it wouldn’t
be quite proper, would it now? Look at this one. Blew up on a steamship while her mother was waving him off with a spotted
hankie. You should never use a spotted one, brings bad luck.’
‘We really will be off now, Mrs Eeles. Thank you, indeed, thank you. Come along now, Lucinda.’ I pulled open her front door,
and from the top of her doorstep, I noticed she had a fine view directly on to the platform of the Necropolitan Railway, and
into the waiting room for the Anglicans, though not the inferior one reserved for Non-Conformists.
‘Right-ho, dearies. Thanks for popping by. You’re welcome any time, you know. Lovely veil; what a treasure you are. I always
knew you were sound, you Damages.’
And so we returned home, and still Peter did not return, and I troubled and feared for his safety. That evening I was starting
to know the torture of a mother who cannot feed her own child, as I presented a plate of stale bread and cheese-rinds to Lucinda,
who ate them as quickly as if they were apple fritters and custard, and I could only watch her in my emptiness, having peeled
the crust off the loaf for myself sixteen hours before. I pretended to her that I was not hungry, that I had an ache in my
gut, and that I had a few halfpennies to buy us something better in the morning.
As I put her to bed that night, a distant train left Waterloo station.
‘Mama,’ she said, in that same ponderous tone of voice that heralded the inscrutable question.
‘What is it, darling?’
‘A train has just gone past!’
‘I know.’
‘Mama?’
‘Yes?’
‘Is it a dead train?’
‘Darling, go to sleep.’
‘Is it a
dead
train, mama?’
I sighed. ‘No, darling. The dead trains don’t go at night.’
‘But Mama, what if it was a special one, just for tonight?’
‘I don’t think that would happen.’
‘It might do if lots of people died at the same time.’
‘Well, yes, it might, but that hasn’t happened today.’
‘But what if it was a train without a ghost in it?’
‘None of the trains have ghosts in them.’
‘Just dead people.’
‘Yes, and some living ones too. Now you be quiet and . . .’
‘But Mama, what if the dead train left the station with the dead body in it, and all the living ones, and the death men, but
the spirit got left on the platform?’
‘Lucinda love, don’t you be worrying yourself about scary things like that.’
‘But Mama, what if that
happened
?’
I placed my hand on her chest. ‘Hmm, well, now, that would be a tricky one. Let’s think. Why would a spirit want to be left
behind? Wouldn’t it prefer to stay with its body until it got buried, and then it could go to heaven?’
‘But Mama, maybe it doesn’t like trains. Maybe it thinks trains go too fast.’
‘But why would it be worried about that?’ It would already be dead, I wanted to add, so it wouldn’t fear dying, but I thought
that might be an explanation too far.
‘Mama, do ghosts have to get tickets, or just their bodies?’
‘I think just their bodies, but the living people have to buy their tickets for them.’
‘So, what if the ghost couldn’t get its ticket? It wouldn’t be allowed on the train!’
‘No. But I don’t think . . .’
‘And Mama, what if the spirit couldn’t get on the train, and it didn’t know where the train was going, so it couldn’t follow
it, and what if it came into my room through my window?’
‘Now why would it want to do that?’
‘Because it’s nice in here and it might want cheering up, if it’s just died and lost its family and that.’
‘But I don’t think that’s going to happen.’
‘But it
might
. And what if it does? Mama, will you come in here at once and show it the way out?’
‘At once. I will ask it which wall it came in through, and I will send it back that way, with a map to the cemetery at the
end of the line. And now, my love, you must sleep.’ I kissed her again, and heard her whisper, ‘Good night, Mama,’ and I tiptoed
out of her room.
The following morning, when there was still no sign of Peter, Lucinda and I went out again. The toes of our boots went in
and out of our skirts like pistons, as we scuttled across the wet cobblestones, hunched and downcast against the rain. First
we took stuff to Huggitty the hawker to sell. He was the type of dealer who supplied whatever he could get his hands on, and
I had bought the piano from him a few pennies at a time. In our courting days, Peter would surprise me with the latest sheet-music,
which he had bound up especially for me, and he would say that only lower-class parlours did not have a piano. Out of concern
for his dignity, and for Lucinda’s pleasure, I endeavoured to keep it. Instead we took to Huggitty the spoils from the bedroom,
a
découpaged
umbrella stand, the embroidered antimacassars, the black marble mantel clock, and one of my two nice dresses. I even presented
him with a description of the contents of the bookbinding workshop, but although Huggitty was cruel and unscrupulous, and
told me I was ‘a proper jewel’, even if I were to have found a hawker with more scruples, I knew that the antiquated frames,
tools and presses were worth nothing, not since booksellers expected one to have guillotines and sewing machines and whatnot
nowadays.
We left Huggity’s and steeled ourselves against the smells coming from the bakery next door, with the consolation that we
knew he cut his flour worse than any of the bakers in Lambeth. And then through the drizzle to our next port of call – toes
going in and out under our hems – which was the butcher’s, Sam Battye. He let me put a sign in his window, advertising my
services as a piano teacher, as I could not afford the rates of the
Lambeth Local Gazette
.
In and out, in and out, and I would watch our toes as if they were the only things I could depend on in life, although occasionally
I would lift my head, and flick my eyes around for signs of Peter amongst the crowds, down the alley-ways, or slumped in door-ways.
In and out in and out, a regular beat to counteract the gnawing of our stomachs and the fretting of the endless rain. I tried
to distract myself by wondering what it must feel like to have one of those crinolines holding my skirts out, so nothing would
be brushing past my legs. I shouldn’t like that, I remember thinking, for my legs would have been colder than they already
were. I’ll keep my horsehair petticoat, I thought. Then I realised that I
could
indeed keep my horsehair petticoat, even if I had one of those crinolines, and wear it underneath to keep me warm, and it
would have soaked up the splashes from the puddles, and no one would ever have known.