A scream sounded from the pillories. The woman was being released. A man was fussing round her head. I hoped that he was trying to extract the nail rather than taking the quick way. I turned and walked away. I wanted to run, back to East Street and back to my mother. I wanted to feel her apron against my cheek and her fingers in my hair. But I wouldn’t run, I would walk. Griffin needed to understand – we were strong.
THE PEARL EARRING
February was passing. Sunrise came earlier and sunset later. I had more time to search the town. I grew to know every crossroads and corner as well as I had done in Southwark. My favourite place was the Watergate. I’d sit on the steps watching the sailors preparing for high tide. Sometimes I’d imagine my mother breaking the surface of the water with a gold chain around her neck. She’d hand me a rope tied to a sack of gold that I’d help her lift out of the water. One day as I sat dreaming, I saw a face as brown as mine. My heart beat so hard, it nearly made the waves move. I started to rise, then I saw clearly that it was a sailor, a younger man with long hair and the start of a beard. Our eyes met, we smiled at each other and then he went about his business. Sometimes I’d walk round by the East Gate, though I was always more careful there. The houses were patched together, leaning against the wall. A strong storm would easily blow them away. Cows and pigs wandered between the homes, and it seemed to me that those creatures weren’t the only ones leaving their waste along the pathways.
I was just coming from Biddles Gate when I spotted him. I had been watching the crane load chests on to a ship. The men working the treadmill had been singing a song I recognized from Bankside. The man I spotted was walking along the quay, hugging close to the wall. I would have missed him if he hadn’t glanced up. Gun ports ran across the top of the ramparts and Widow Primmer had told me that once an explosion there had killed a man and left several injured. Everybody looked up at the guns when they walked by. As his face tipped up, I was looking down and I knew straight away that it was him – the man from the inn. He was wearing the same high-crowned cap, and I wasn’t sure, but I thought I spotted a small, cream pearl earring. He saw me, his eyes widened and then he looked away. He spun round and strode off.
No! He couldn’t disappear again! I jumped up and stumbled down the slippery stairs on to the quay. He had disappeared. A group of fishermen were scraping pitch over their boats by the shore.
I stopped in front of them. “Excuse me, sirs!”
They looked up.
“The man—” I pointed to the empty space where he had been. “Do you know him?”
“I see no man,” one of them laughed. He was young, not too many years older than me and trying to grow a beard. “Are you looking for a ghost?”
“He walked past here a moment ago,” I said. “He has dark skin, like mine.”
“I’ve seen him about.” This was from an older fisherman. He scratched his ear. “I think he’s waiting for cargo.”
“Do you know where he lives?” I asked him.
The fisherman frowned. “Why does that interest a child?” Then he laughed. “Of course, I see it! The family resemblance!” He nudged the younger one. “Don’t you see it?”
Family resemblance? Oh, they thought he was my father! We looked nothing alike, but…
“I need to find him.” I bowed my head and tried to look meek. “My mother sent me from Southwark to fetch him back.”
“He used to lodge with Nicholas Balcombe,” the older fisherman said. “At the apothecary shop on French Street. I’ve heard old man Balcombe isn’t coming back from London, but you could try there.”
They turned back to their work, joking about my “abandoned” mother. French Street was back near the Watergate. I had to be quick if I was to catch him.
He was standing in the street by the closed door of the apothecary shop, scraping mud from his boot. I waited behind him, hoping he would turn around. I’m surprised my thumping heart didn’t alert him. He carried on scraping his boots though they seemed clean to me.
“Sir,” I said.
Scrape, scrape.
“Please hear me, sir.”
He turned around. I thought there would be anger on his face, but it was just weariness. “Are you following me?”
“No, sir.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Is it just coincidence that I saw you in the inn and then on the rampart? And now you appear outside my lodgings?”
What could I say? Did I tell him that I thought he could lead us to treasure? Did I lie? Mama had said trust no one, because everybody lied. Perhaps he was tired of lies too.
I said, “My mother can dive deep. She learned it in the country where she was born, before she was brought here.”
Scrape, scrape. “Why should this interest me?”
“I thought perhaps you were Master Jacques Francis, the diver.”
He surveyed me without blinking. It made me look away and stop talking.
“My name is Anthony,” he said. He inserted his key into the door, pushed it open and banged it shut in my face.
I stood there for a moment, my nose touching the wood. Suddenly, my anger was so bright I could almost see it. It was like the fireworks that sometimes glitter in the sky on the other side of the Thames. We would see an explosion of light then a big bang. My fury was like that, bursting behind my eyes then thundering through my head. Mama and I, we did not have easy lives. People like us died in the streets from the cold or from hunger or
