Shown into a small room, where short stacks of goods neatly line the walls, a bed is hastily made on the floor with fresh linen and a pile of some sort of packing cloth on which to lay his head. Jonesy slowly lies on his side – he never sleeps on his back – and extinguishes the tallow, closing the light on the stolen goods that he will soon learn to move around Limehouse and beyond with the speed of a flying dragon.
At the top of the house Willa tosses and turns in her bed. Change unsettles her. She finally puts her bare feet on the floor and from under the bed she retrieves her box, swinging it out and up between her legs and onto her lap. From it she scoops up a handkerchief, heavy with her calming charms, and selects the most precious of all, the small, velvet bag that holds a lock of her mother’s hair. She chews on the brown, matted hair until she is comforted and falls into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning while Willa completes her morning chores, her attic room is in the process of transformation. It sounds like hell is entering it. There is scraping and banging and cursing and all this because the new boy is moving in on her territory, a space that has become sacred to her. When she has the courage to climb the steps to the eaves of the house a wave of anger passes through her. A heavy damask curtain hangs from a wire suspended across the room. In an uncharacteristic flash of temper, she casts it aside with a strong jerk. Pushed up against the wall is another bed. The middle of it sinks with the weight of a wooden box similar to hers, though slightly larger. Drawn to the strange script engraved on the top of it, she hesitates, and before she is aware of what moves her to do so, she tries to open it. Locked.
‘I help?’
He stands in the doorframe, an angular silhouette. Willa is so astonished at the sight of him that she forgets to be embarrassed by her investigation.
‘I … I did not hear you.’
This morning he had wrapped his queue around the top of his head so that he appears to be wearing a hat made of hair. She gawks outright. The front of his head is shaved, presenting a dichotomous image that confuses her, though it is his clothes that intrigue her most: a loose blue collarless jacket falls just below his knees. Long wide-legged trousers trail down to a pair of black, cotton slippers with platform soles made of cotton cording, perhaps with leather as well, she cannot tell. He looks monkish, a porcelain version. Though she is slowly becoming accustomed to the world’s people who float in and out of Limehouse, this is a rare one.
Jonesy approaches his bed and Willa jumps back, startling them both when they crash into each other.
‘The door,’ he says, when he recovers. ‘I will tap?’
She adjusts her cap and straightens her apron. The door opens into her side of the room; a further loss of her cherished privacy.
‘Well. Mr – I do not know your name.’
‘Jonesy.’
She pauses. Such a ridiculous name.
‘Well, Mr Jonesy.’
‘Jonesy Ling.’
Even more ridiculous, she thinks.
Her moving fingers distract him. She smells of grease and fire. He has seen another like her; madness is next if she is not careful. He sits down beside his box and opens it with the key he retrieves from his deep trouser pocket.
‘Well, Mr Jonesy Ling, I been here a short time, but I’m much adjusted to my own company, in my own room. I am from a place that were crowded, where I slept in a room with many girls. But this, what we have here is different.’ She bites the tip of her tongue to curb her chattering but it does not help.
‘’Tis too bad for me then that the door opens into my side of the room. So, no. I dunno know how you plan to spend your evenings, but I retire early. Do not wake me by tappin’ on the door. And if you have any decency about you at all, when you open the door, focus your entire self on this curtain. And then close it tight. And be quiet about it, if you please.’
He didn’t understand much of what she said, but feels he needs to offer her something.
‘Move? I sleep there?’ He points to her bed.
She cannot move her things. She has her rituals, everything is in its place, and she has access to the window. She shakes her head and her fingers commence their tapping again. Her breathing is shallow.
She is so visibly disturbed that he assures her. ‘No! No move, no move.’
Jonesy opens his wooden box and rattles around in it until he produces a bright green silk pouch. He unties the black string and empties its contents into his palm.
‘Cicada.’ How can he explain it to her?
‘Oh what a beautiful piece, Jonesy Ling.’ Her defences fall, she is suddenly transfixed.
Then she squints at him as if he has done something very bad.
‘Where did you get such a thing?’
‘I carve. White jade. Cicada.’
‘You carve? It looks cool, like ice. And smooth as cream.’
‘For you.’
‘Oh no, Jonesy Ling.’ She drops it on the bed. ‘It were wrong. I do not take gifts.’ She recalls many occasions upon which Matron tried to tempt her with gifts. A gift is never without conditions.
‘Friends.’ He offers again.
‘No, I cannot.’ She’s hesitant, but moved, and weakening because she has never received a genuine gift.
‘Please.’
Well, she thinks, it is very beautiful. And she cannot
