His Last Fire Read online

  Thirty-two delegates sat at the table in the Charlotte’s state cabin. None was more than forty, some looked much older. John, the youngest at twenty, gleamed with rare freshness. Able seamen, midshipmen, petty officers, a handful of Irish. Between them enough sense to let nothing slip, enough schooling to write letters and petitions to impress narrow-minded superiors. William had legal knowledge, John a neat hand.

  All turned to Valentine Joyce. Small, non-descript, Quartermaster’s Mate, he quivered with energy, listened with intensity, impatience. Bit his nails till the finger-stumps bled.

  ‘We have no hope of success unless our behaviour is impeccable,’ he said.

  Strict rules and punishments: ropes hung from every yard-arm as a warning. No liquor on board, no drunkenness, leave or letters. Women who came not allowed off. All should swear an oath ‘by his Maker that the cause we have undertaken be persevered in till accomplished.’

  ‘And if the French appear?’

  ‘We sail, of course!’

  William grunted behind his hand at this patriotism.

  Absolute authority of men over men exhilarated John, but hung like a weight. He was honoured, apalled. William had no time for such scruples. Though they ribbed John for his youth the crew approved of him. He’d known little emotion in his childhood. He and Margaret made no declarations before he went to sea. Some months ago, he’d heard his adoptive father had died: it barely touched him. The cheer of hardened tars sustained him.

  The Admiralty, habit-blinkered, could not conceive of rationality in the ranks. Saw only indiscipline, offered small increases in pay, ignored the other requests. Promised forgiveness for immediate return to duty.

  ‘Why trust them?’ William challenged Joyce. ‘They’ll promise us pardon and hang us.’

  They argued through the night. Timorous, bold, embittered; midshipmen wary of men and superiors alike; quartermasters, gunners, iron yet loyal, lashed by the revolutionary tongue of William and his Irish cronies. Motley, united by nothing except grievance they were moulded into order and consensus by Joyce, exuding certainty to make all opposition crumble.

  ‘Only the King’s pardon will do. No return.’

  On his ship Royal Sovereign Admiral Gardner, incensed, grey eyes staring, colour rising, faced the assembled crew.

  ‘Damned mutinous blackguards! They know the French are nearby at sea but are afraid of meeting them. Skulking fellows!’ He seized a delegate, shook him violently, threatened to shoot him and every fifth man.

  Uproar. Hissing riot of men surrounded the blue and gold uniforms, hustled them, sweating, off the ship. Captains throughout the fleet were confined in their cabins.

  ‘We must conduct ourselves wisely,’ Joyce warned. ‘Only an Act of Parliament will make sure of our demands.’

  Once more a missive of remarkable restraint and precision was composed, while feelings round the table broke.

  ‘Would I dearly thrust a dish of burgoo in their faces!’

  ‘Let them crack their teeth on salt horse!’ Years old, shrunken, wood-hard.

  ‘Pick out the red worms from cheese!’

  ‘We must be prudent, decent. The people are with us, remember. Look how they line the quays and beach.’

  ‘They should hear what we endure,’ cried the Glory’s delegate.

  John knew of the sufferings, of men who’d rather hurl themselves overboard than die from flogging with a knotted rope’s end. The captain who cried: ‘I’ll see the man’s backbone, by God!’ He’d read the desperate letter from the Amphitrite begging for removal of their first lieutenant, a most Cruel and Barberous man, Beating some at times untill they are not able to stand, and not allowing them the satisfaction to cry out.

  His heart expanded. And all the while William fed him radical honey, tempted him with Liberty and Equality.

  St George’s day announced the King’s pardon, increase of pay and provisions. Celebrations in Portsmouth. Celebrations on board. Yet the government was in no hurry; soon rumour said the Seamen’s Bill would be thrown out.

  ‘They mean to lull us into a supposed state of security.’

  ‘If once they divide us …’

  Finally, bloodshed: a foolhardy officer, a determined admiral, eight hundred enraged men. Brief exchange of fire, men wounded, killed, defeat for the admiral. Red flags flying. Yet the men’s revenge for their dead was stillborn, held back by the extraordinary power of Joyce. By respect for hierarchy entangled in their bones like weed.

  William despaired.

  ‘The English haven’t the blood and guts for revolution.’ The Irish delegates murmured agreement. ‘There’s no hope but America.’

  In the end the victory was the men’s. Admiral Lord Howe, loved by the Fleet as Black Dick, was dragged from retirement to placate and calm. Weary with age and gout he was rowed from ship to ship, lifted in and out, off and onto ladders to explain and persuade in language that rambled, bored. More pay, better rations, leave and grievances attended to. No one punished for mutiny. The country was contented and the seamen nearly burst their sides with loyalty.

  William refused to attend the delegates’ celebration dinner. John went, enjoyed himself, knew William was right. In time he was mustered to the Ardent in Admiral Duncan’s North Sea fleet. Without the mutiny he became a mere sailor, passive, mindless. Avoided death by chance not choice.

  And now, as he enters St Paul’s behind the savaged flag of the Dutch fleet, he is lost in colossal space, somehow more vast than open sky, oppressed by the banks of grandeur around him.

  ‘What do they know?’ he thinks, touching vol. II of Tom Paine that William had thrust in his pocket before he left for London.

  ‘It’s their victory, not ours,’ William had said. ‘The French have failed, corrupted. The only hope is to start afresh on the other side of the Atlantic.’

  The ceremony over, John strides away through the city. The militia have dispersed. Shops are closed, crowds spread about the streets in raucous merriment.

  In the shadows of Red Lion Street he sees a pedlar peer up into each face that passes. For a moment he imagines buying a keepsake, perhaps a painted seashell, for a red-cheeked, smiling mother who’s cared for him all his life.

  ‘I bought this for you in London after the celebration.’ She’ll keep it on a little table next to her chair by the window, where she looks out to sea with searching eyes.

  ‘My son was at Camperdown,’ she’ll say and be proud.

  He walks on. Into the light of Holborn. No, not America. He’ll return to the sweet bleakness of the East coast; make a home with Margaret.

  EELS

  He called for eels.

  She came immediately. ‘How do you want them?’

  ‘Pie, with currants. Or pitch-cock. Stewing takes too long.’

  ‘Nutmeg, Jamaica pepper.’

  ‘Just how I like it, Elizabeth. Ah – she is alone the Arabian bird.’

  ‘Cruel! To remind me of my one night as Imogen.’

  ‘… the gods made you

  Unlike all others, chaffless!’

  She banged the door on his croak of a laugh, the famous hoarse voice. Yet he loved her as well as needed her. He’d always needed women, loved the ones he had. Two wives and now the girl. Richard Yates, comic actor, unequalled as Shakespeare’s clowns. 1796, his ninetieth year, loved a girl of twenty-seven. And why not?

  He thought with greed about eels. Stewed needed good gravy: claret, anchovy, lemon-peel; collared was for big conger, fennel. She could broil them with butter and oyster pickle but best would be pie, snuggling in hot butter paste. He’d remind her of the cockney in Lear putting eels in the pie alive: ‘she knapped ‘em o’ the coxcombs with a stick, and cried ‘Down, wantons, down!’ She wouldn’t laugh.

  He picked his long handsome nose. Though short he was lean, remarkably fit, Cruickshank said. Stil
l some teeth; hair thin beneath the wig. But he knew she longed for a young body fresh as a daisy. Not that she was unkind. She feigned.

  He had been good to her. Took her in after the fire at the opera house in her rough linen practice jacket; flattered her shallow talent; arranged her one appearance in Cymbeline; paid her well as housekeeper. Willed her the house, joking of his ‘manacle of love’. It was only right he should ask for a little pleasure. That she dance with him when he was lively, felt a Harlequin coming on, he’d say. He could still step, if not so fine, so fast. That she warm his bed. King Yates. Down, wanton, down. Her hands like hot butter paste.

  He dozed. Dreamed he was Fielding’s miser Lovegold. How they’d applauded!

  ‘In short, Lappet, I must touch, touch, touch something real.’ He’d fondled the word ‘touch’, raising its temperature to an unexpected explosion of feeling. How they’d roared!

  Touch, touch. Real. Eels. Woke at her arrival.

  ‘No eels, Richard. None. I’ve bought you a flounder.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’d none left.’

  ‘No eels? What could be easier this time of year? The river’s stuffed with ‘em from Hammersmith to Kew. I’ve not asked for sea-fish.’ He pulled her sleeve, gripped her wrist.

  ‘Sit on my knee, you fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta.’

  ‘I’m not hot, Richard, and I’m wearing blue as you can well see. There were no eels. You needs must eat flounder or else cold beef for dinner.’

  ‘Cold wench in blue silk. I’ll have eels!’

  ‘He said the catch was small; they sold instantly.’

  ‘Whoreson caterpillar! Bacon-fed knave! Reasons as plenty as blackberries.’

  ‘Calm yourself. Your face is turning red. I met Thomas. Your nephew, Lieutenant Thomas Yates. Waiting outside the house again. He always tells me of his five children, the baby on the way. He disturbs me, Richard.’

  ‘A poor tale.’

  ‘Your brother’s son. Great nephews, nieces.’

  ‘I won’t have brats running about the house.’

  ‘He’s hard-pressed.’

  ‘So he tells you. An officer in the royal navy is paid, you know. I played my patriotic part in ’61. Wrote plays, Elizabeth. The British Tar’s Triumph over M. Soupe-Maigre. Here’s the manuscript. What a title! Comedy of course. You weren’t even born. Besides, our Thomas sells paintings, daubings of ships in Gibraltar Bay. Or firing off in the estuary.’

  ‘He says their rooms are cramped.’

  ‘Do you want me to leave him this house? Fools. Fishmongers. My wastrel brother. Mother always preferred me; couldn’t abide his whining ways. Thomas, his mincing offspring, a starveling, cat-skin, dried neat’s tongue, bull’s pizzle, stock-fish! Oh for breath to utter.’

  ‘Richard, your age! This cannot do you good.’

  ‘What more? It’s all here. I have not forgot a word. Would that I could say it to his face: you tailor’s yard, you sheath, you bow case, you vile standing-tuck!’

  ‘You’ll fit yourself to death!’

  ‘’Tis not due yet, my girl. Go again. Go further. Don’t return without them. Or else bring the lawyer. I’ll write a new will.’

  She shook her hair, banged out again, her peachy skin flushed.

  The first one had blushed like that. He’s not thought of her in forty years, that strange soft down. Can recall only her roundness of face, the feel of her skin. She left him rich.

  He’d cast around, lost without a woman. Not that it was hard. Women throng to a widower. Anna Maria was twenty-two years younger; she needed his standing with Garrick. It was his pinnacle – Drury Lane. Fame aflame in a thousand tapers. Crowds shoving to get in. She envied him his comic ways. To hold the audience between finger and thumb, feed them gestures, jests, antics till they wept with laughter.

  But stately, majestic she had to be tragic. He coached, encouraged, married, loved her. And she supped from him, supped, supped until she grew to her own height. The great roles became hers: Desdemona, Cordelia, Imogen, Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Gertrude, Isabella, Medea. She could only impress; could not unbend to comedy. Except in bed where, freed from her costume’s drama, hair piled high to terrify, Electra became Birmingham lass.

  She was loyal: dismissed flatterers, adulterers. She was no Mrs Robinson. Secretly he admired her acting less than did the public. Too much violence in her rage, ice in her disdain, stature in her revenge. She stalked about the stage; worse, tottered, flumped. He knew how she should do it, but she would no longer be taught.

  He who’d once longed to play Hamlet, was forever cast as clown. Emaciated miser, padded Falstaff, Pantaloon. Demand grew for her, fell away from him. The grander she became the weaker he, till it was she who commanded, he who obeyed. Her fine voice pealed through their house, an auditorium; she seemed to grow taller. She was the grande dame at all times, he her fool.

  Widower again, along comes Elizabeth Jones, quite the opposite, obedient to his old man’s whims for which he loves her. Pretty, occasionally petulant, of scant understanding. He’ll keep her till his death, which he doesn’t intend for a while. There’s spirit in him yet, wit of which she comprehends little: only his friends recognise the sources of his speech. Keep her with good pay, flattery, the promised house.

  But now he can’t have eels for dinner! Old parts caper in and out of his head like demonic clowns goading him with mots justes. ‘I am provoked into a fermentation, as my Lady Froth says, “Was ever the like read of in Story!”’ No eels! His life is a comedy.

  The great parts could have been his. He’d had it in him to sit upon the ground like Richard, weep like Othello, howl like Lear. But they’ve lived in his head, on his shelves, breathed only as longings beneath the comic habit. Anna Maria drank his power. Died of dropsy. All that’s left for him is to keep hold of Elizabeth, write his will five times, order dinner.

  No eels! Can he believe her? Young thing, empty head under those black Welsh locks. Purchased because he couldn’t live without a woman. She’ll out to the starveling Thomas on the corner, he thinks, who’ll perceive her glowing skin with his painter’s eye. Her features delightfully tense with temper. His wife expecting their sixth. Irresistible. Where? Where? His blood heats. His eyes start. She’ll bring him into the kitchen of course. Cook up eels together. They’ll to it. The youthful body she wants. While I sit here. He fights a surge of sleep. His heart tightens, bites. Head beats its blood-knell. They’ll to it while I nod. While I snore off-stage, a comic vieillard.

  She returns later, tired, tetchy, her basket heavy with young eels, silver like those his mother cooked. Finds him still in his chair, his head on his arms on the table, the handwritten manuscript of M. Soupe-Maigre within reach. He is dead. In her fright the basket spills its contents round him, an ironic, fishy aura.

  She scoops them up and tearful, sends the boy for Dr Cruickshank.

  ‘Mr Yates has had an apoplexy.’

  ‘I heard him rant and rave,’ the boy says.

  She darts about the room, unsure what to do.

  ‘Poor old man,’ she thinks and immediately feels relief. No more running to his call, dodging his grasp, finding excuses to avoid his bed. Fumbling, tumbling.

  The house is hers. He’s shown her the will. Stafford Row, Pimlico! A fine address. She paces around, pleased, then nervous, as if pieces might each vanish at her look. Turns to see if Richard has woken up.

  She’ll have soirées, music, dancing. Invite whom she wants. She will be desired.

  She thinks of Thomas Yates. He finds her attractive. But he desires the house more. Five, soon six children, weary wife. Richard had always scorned him; mocked her worries. Suddenly she understands that in willing her the house he’s willed her Thomas Yates and family. She spins round to remonstrate, gasps, startled at the body. Sobs for a while.

  Four months later a g
un fires accidentally in the hands of John Sellers, one of two men she’s hired to protect her from Yates’s persistence. Thomas dies of his wounds. At the Old Bailey, Sellers gets six months and a fine of one shilling for manslaughter. Elizabeth Jones is acquitted of murder.

  Richard would surely laugh at this comic turn for the worse. The chaffless Elizabeth will not be able to keep six children and their poor widowed mother from her door.

  But that’s to come. Now, before Cruickshank arrives, she wipes away the slime from where the fish fell. Eels! She takes them to the kitchen to use for funeral baked meats.

  LAPLAND

  The occasion was magnificent. A gala to celebrate the King’s recovery from madness. Attended by court, nobility, persons of distinction, women dazzling in white and garter blue, the oldest bearing purple trains.

  Long tables laid in silver, the royal in gold, lit by forty two-branched candlesticks. Like reindeer antlers, thought Edward Gage, accompanying his father, a baronet close to the King. Two pages supported the old man when he stood. Otherwise, gouty, apoplectic, he sat peering irritably at figures shifting across filmed vision.

  Supper was sumptuous, exceeding anything seen before in the kingdom. Twenty tureens of soup preceded all kinds of fowl: ducks, cygnets, green geese, young turkey, rails, chicken; with asparagus, peas, beans. These also came cold, boned, swimming or standing on dishes of jelly supported by paste pillars no thicker than a knitting needle. Crayfish pies, ham and brawn in masquerade, four foot high temples housing stories of sweetmeats, hothouse fruits fresh, dried, in syrup.