For some minutes, I was so scared my legs went wobbly, but then I began to relax. Had the papers painted the streets as wilder than they really were? The best thing about London, I reminded myself, was that everyone was so preoccupied with their own narcissistic pursuits that they rarely noticed much about anyone else.
I felt a tug at my sleeve. A doe-eyed, dark-haired girl, short and pretty, had sidled up to me and was now attempting to hang off the arm of my coat.
‘Go away,’ I said, and wrenched my arm free. I was careful to keep my voice a whisper, so I might make it sound a little lower.
The big-eyed girl wouldn’t budge, only gazed up at me and tried to take hold of my fingers, cooing at me in her thin little voice. ‘Come with me! Come!’ she said, and she pulled me towards a dark alleyway down the side of the tavern. ‘Come! Have me.’
‘I don’t want to,’ I told her. ‘I don’t have any money.’
‘That don’t matter,’ she said and began to rub herself against my left leg.
I didn’t know what to do. ‘No! Leave me alone! Please.’ I pushed her off and she took a step back but wouldn’t go.
‘What a fine young man you are, to turn it down. I can give you pleasure. If anyone can, I can.’
She made to rub herself against me again and her hands were everywhere. It was ridiculous. The girl was worse than my husband had been. I didn’t know whether to break out laughing at the absurdity of it or scream for her to leave me alone. I repelled her again and fumbled in the pockets of Thomas’s coat. By chance I found a shilling and threw it at her. It landed on the pavement and as she bent to pick it up, I studied her. She was young, fourteen or fifteen perhaps, a sickly-looking creature with dirty clothes.
When she stood up, she stared at me with a funny expression. ‘You ain’t no boy,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘Look at your skin, soft as a baby’s arse.’ She rubbed a dirty hand against my cheek. I slapped it away. ‘Well, takes all types of fancy I s’pose. Why wait outside a mollies’ den? You’s lost, I reckon.’ Then she burst out laughing, exposing her teeth, which were yellow and black, like the keys on an old piano.
‘Why are you on the game?’ I asked her. ‘You should be at home with your mother.’ Susannah the prig hadn’t disappeared quite yet.
‘I ain’t no whore. My mother keeps me. I look after the others all day, and at night I do what I want. I do it for the coins – I spend ’em all on meat pies. I do it for the pies!’ She burst out laughing again, cackling like an old woman.
‘What do you mean, a mollies’ den?’ I asked.
She rolled her eyes, laughed some more and ran her tongue over her piano-key teeth. ‘Is your man in there? I say let him – a girl can always do it one way or the other, can’t she? No need to be lonely.’
She moved to touch my face again, but I caught her wrist. I felt her other hand rifle through the other pocket of Thomas’s coat.
‘There’s nothing in there, you little trollop,’ I said, shoving her hand away and wrapping Thomas’s coat tight around me. I pushed past her and walked to the main doors of the pub.
‘You will come back, won’t you?’ she said. She seemed genuinely disappointed as I disappeared into the Duke of Wellington.
I shouldered my way through the press of drinkers, just as I imagined a man would. I was glad for my experience of the Ten Bells, though it hardly made me an expert. The place stank to high heaven of smoke and I worried about Mrs Wiggs smelling the tobacco on Thomas’s clothes. The stale beer on the floor stuck to my boots and I dragged dirty straw along with me. I tried not to gag as the stench of sweaty men hit the back of my throat.
I looked for Thomas at the bar, but he wasn’t there any more. I searched for him and caught what I thought was the back of his head as he disappeared through a door in the far corner. I squeezed through the crowds and followed him. I had come too far to go home without seeing for myself what he’d been getting up to all this time. My heart pounded and my knees shook, but by now I was too involved to turn back. Going through that door was my one chance to garner the leverage that might win me my freedom.
On the other side was a long corridor, very dimly lit with just one or two flickering wall lamps that threatened to snuff themselves out at any moment. I let my eyes adjust for a minute. The muffled voices from the bar had quietened. There was no sign of Thomas, though I was certain he’d gone that way, and nor was there anyone else around.
I put my hands on the naked brick walls to either side to work my way along. All I could hear was my own rapid breathing and the sound of water running or dripping somewhere. The walls were damp, covered in slime.
The corridor ended in another door that opened onto a room so light and bright, all oranges and yellows, that it was blinding after the gloom. It smelled of bitter flowers and I could taste the white smoke of opium, acrid and fragrant. The room was busy with men and women standing around, talking. I assumed it was another bar, but everyone was facing the same direction, watching something in the corner. I tried
