Alms for Oblivion (26 page)

“Master Revill, Master Revill!”

Topcourt’s worried face hung over me, elongated in the flickering light.

“You must go now,” he said.

“What?”

“It is time for you to leave.”

I sat up on my pallet. Was this part of some continuing dream?

“What are you talking about?”

“I have a paper.”

Stooping down, he waved something white in front of my eyes. I took it from him. With his other hand he held the candle so close to the sheet that the paper almost scorched.

“Be careful!” I said.

Topcourt withdrew the candle to a safe distance. I screwed up my eyes and tried to make out the writing. There was an imposing signature at the bottom together with a red seal. After a moment I
dropped the paper in exasperation. Why was he bothering to show me this? Had he woken me just so that I could share in his good fortune?

“You’re a lucky man,” I said, hardly striving to keep the irritation out of my voice.

“A lucky man?” said Topcourt, as if amazed anyone might see him in that perspective. He squatted down beside me on his long haunches. “Oh, I see, you mean because my name is
... ”

“Yes, because your name is on this paper. Or, to put it another way, this is a ticket of leave with your name entered on it.”

For an instant I wondered whether he could read but I knew already from his voice and demeanour – long-faced and donkey-nosed as he was – that he was a gentleman. Therefore he could
read.

“It’s your passport out of this place, man,” I said. “It gives you your liberty, liberty under licence. So you’d better keep it away from the candle
flame.”

“But
you
are to take it. Those are the instructions.”

“
Instructions?
Master Topcourt, if I’m to understand you you’ll have to talk slow and take things in order.”

For some reason this was the style that one fell into when talking to the bigamous – maybe the trigamous – Topcourt. A weary and slightly patronizing style. Maybe this was the tone
which his wives had adopted when they made him marry them.

“I shall do my best to explain, Master Revill. This – this ticket of leave I have had for a few days. But this note has just been given to me.”

From somewhere within the folds of his voluminous coat Topcourt extracted a second sheet of paper with writing on it. He made to hand it to me but I brushed it aside.

“Just tell me in your own words.”

“I – I am given – in short – my freedom has been bought.”

“Yes, I know. Bought by your, ah, friends. I am happy for you,” I said.

“But I don’t want that freedom out there. I am more free in here. I prefer the freedom of prison.”

What had Jack Wilson said about Topcourt?
Perhaps he’d rather stay here in the Counter than face the wives outside
. Remembering the way I’d seen him being berated and struck
by one of them, and of the similar attentions he’d received from the children, this probably wasn’t so far from the truth. In this topsy-turvy world it seemed as though most of the
occupants of the Counter prison had actually sought their incarceration or, once inside, preferred to stay here.

“Well,” I said, “
de gustibus non est disputandum
.”

“No indeed,” said Topcourt, “you cannot argue with a man over – over his tastes and preferences.”

And, whereas before I’d thought of this individual as a gentleman and an ass, I now saw him in a new light as a scholar and a gentleman – but still a bit of an ass.

“How can you be more free in a prison, Master Topcourt?” I said, to lead him on.

“Master Revill, it will not have escaped you that – my relations with women are – not of the happiest.”

“An inkling, I had an inkling,” I said.

“I am afraid that if I left this place, I would be compelled to face the wrath of – of various individuals.”

His long face took on an even longer cast in the candle’s uncertain gleam. He spoke with resignation.

“And I have another fear. Once outside these walls I fear that I will be made to marry again.”

“Made to marry?”

“Some demon urges me to put my head in the yoke of matrimony – again and again.”

“I know that you are already married.”

“Yes. Triply so.” He sighed. “That is why I am here.”

You can’t help but admire a man with three wives even though you may at the same time doubt his sanity. I spoke with a new respect.

“Just think, though, sir. If you were free of the Counter prison you would have a choice of three bolt-holes to rest your, er, head in.”

“I cannot house with my wives. I am not friends with them. They are wild horses.”

He seemed to shiver.

“You could have refused your wives in the past,” I said, interested despite myself. “Refused all but one of them anyway, and saved yourself some trouble. Just as you could
refuse all future offers.”

“But they are all so persuasive beforehand. So winning.

And my demon is always urging me to bow my head beneath the yoke of matrimony once more.”

“I can see it might be safer for you to stay in prison. Or safer for the women of London. But there are females here in the Counter too.”

“I know,” he sighed. “Temptation is everywhere.”

“Show me that note,” I said, realizing that we would get no further in this direction.

I read the note and then read it again. Matters became a little clearer, or rather became less obscure. I was jolted, though, by the initials on the bottom.

“Did this individual – ” I indicated the initials – “give you this in person?”

“Through an intermediary,” said Topcourt. “A friend of yours. They are both waiting.”

“Waiting where?”

“Near this place.”

“Aren’t you afraid of what might happen to you if you stay, Master Topcourt?”

With my hand I mimed a rope tightening round my neck.

Topcourt looked baffled and then said, “No. But anything would be better than – than to face the wrath of my wives or to run my head into the noose of marriage again.”

“You don’t mean it,” I said. “Anyway I can’t let you do it.”

“They’ll discover their mistake soon enough,” he said.

I wasn’t sure who was going to discover their mistake. His wives? Our gaolers? But I allowed it to pass.

“I can’t let you do it,” I said again.

I could let him do it, of course. I was simply testing the waters, seeing how far he would go. And it seemed somehow improper to take advantage of a madman. For Topcourt must be mad. A man who
is three times married, a man who talks of being compelled to marry again by his inner demon, a man who prefers to stay in gaol. If he hadn’t already been in a prison, he ought to have been
locked up in a madhouse.

And there was no guarantee that the substitution scheme would work. Every chance it wouldn’t work, in fact. But what alternative was there . . .?

“Very well,” I said. “Give me your coat.”

Topcourt hesitated a moment then, standing up, shrugged himself out of his woollen coat. I took off my doublet and gave it to him in exchange. We were about the same size or, if anything, he was
slightly taller than me. The coat, more of a cloak, enveloped me. I hunched up my shoulders and pulled it about my ears. I probably looked truly villainous now, like one of the conspirators in
WS’s
Julius Caesar
.

Topcourt stooped and ran his hand over the floor of my cell, smearing it with grime. Then he rubbed his bony fingers over my cheeks and forehead. I flinched at first but soon realized his
purpose.

“I have been here longer than you, Master Revill – ”

“Nicholas, please, seeing as we are so familiar.”

“ – and I wear a prison-smudge.”

Topcourt spoke of this as though it was a kind of mark or badge to be proud of. He stood back to admire his handiwork. My face felt as though it had been painted for a performance on stage.

“Wagman is no fool, he will not be fooled,” I said.

“It is night. The turnkey should be elsewhere.”

“So I’m just to walk out of here – with this?”

I held up the ticket of leave. The seal looked like a blotch of fresh blood.

Topcourt nodded, stroking his long face.

“It is simple, Master – Nicholas. You want to go while I want to stay. We can both be satisfied.”

“And your wives?”

“Keep away from them.”

That wasn’t what I meant but I didn’t pursue the matter. That vision of a hanging which I’d had earlier – the gibbet and the hungry noose against the blue sky, the
dazzling light – flashed before my inward eye. It was worth going out of one’s way to avoid such a fate. As for Topcourt’s fate . . .? Well, what harm could come to Topcourt that
he wouldn’t welcome in preference to his trio of wives? I had a quick tussle with my conscience and won easily.

I grasped him by the hand and walked out of my cell. I decided to get as far as I could before I was stopped or before Topcourt returned to his senses. It was late evening and the main passage
of the prison, the ‘aisle’ where the inmates wandered during the day, was empty, as far as I was able to tell in the dimness. From down below, from the subterranean Hole, came nocturnal
moans and wails.

I walked steadily down the aisle and towards the first of the various lobbies and chambers which lay between Revill (or rather Topcourt) and the outside world. I knew that these rooms would be
guarded, for however lax and corrupt the gaolers, two or three of those gentlemen were always in attendance looking for the chance to levy some payment. I had in my hand the ‘ticket of
leave’ signed and sealed by a magistrate and purchased by the wives of another man. It gave formal permission to a prisoner by the name of William Topcourt to depart from the precincts of the
Counter prison in the Liberty of Southwark. It granted him freedom under licence.

I put to one side all the problems which lay in the future, even though that future might be only a few minutes away – problems such as what would happen once I was outside the walls of the
Counter (but I very much doubted I’d get so far), or what would happen to Topcourt or to me if I was stopped, unmasked and returned to my cell. Instead I concentrated entirely on the present
moment. My mind raced. A dozen thoughts passed through it in half a dozen seconds.

I was walking out of the Counter in the guise of William Topcourt, a man three times married. It was all quite simple, wasn’t it? Where was the obstacle? All I had to do was present the
ticket, signed and sealed, to the gaoler or gaolers and wait for them to wave me through. If challenged, what should I do? What would Topcourt do? He would withstand indignity in a dignified way,
be wearily patient. I imagined myself as Topcourt, poor harassed Topcourt. Although he carried something of a hang-dog look which caused him to stoop, he was taller than me. So possibly the two
factors cancelled each other out. He had a bigger, longer nose. I tugged mine in the hope of making it larger. His face was thinner. I sucked in my cheeks. I needed a gesture, and found it
straightaway in Topcourt’s reflective habit of stroking his face.

But none of this mattered a great deal. I didn’t really look like William Topcourt, I’m glad to say. (It’s funny how tough vanity is. It will survive almost anywhere.) In the
first guardroom, which I was approaching at a steady, stealthy pace, there shouldn’t be much light. Candles aren’t cheap. My collar was pulled well up. I was wearing the smudge of
prison. On the playhouse stage, it’s not only the sceptre or the crown which marks out the king, any more than the distracted lover is signified by disordered clothes and folded arms. These
props and gestures do signify but they’re not enough by themselves. Rather, it is
attitude
. The player is a king because he looks like a king, and he looks like a king because he knows
he
is
a king, at least for one afternoon in his life. And the player is a lover because he looks like a lover . . . & cetera.

Not just playing the part of William Topcourt therefore, but
as
William Topcourt, I quietly opened the inner door of the first guardroom. This was the chamber where the chief turnkey was
accustomed to sit during the day behind his fine gilt table, toying with his quill pens and balancing his books. I paused on the threshold and breathed deep. The table and the throne-like chair
were unoccupied. I’d been dreading the possibility that Wagman might still be here. I wouldn’t have got past his sharp eyes, not unless they’d been blinded with gold scales. On my
induction into this place, only four days earlier, the two gaolers whom I’d christened Gog and Magog had also been in attendance. Now there was only one guard, a fellow I didn’t think
I’d seen before. I heard him before I spotted him. He was noisily asleep on a bench in the corner. A candle guttered by his feet. It gave off just enough light to catch the pewter rim of a
pint pot lying on its side nearby. The room reeked of small ale. The gaoler’s snores ruffled the gloom. Obviously he had not dared to make himself more comfortable on the chief turnkey’s
throne – or had simply fallen asleep where he sprawled on the bench.

This individual could have sat, or slumped, for a proverbial picture entitled
The Price of Indolence
or
The Perils of Inebriation
or similar. In the said picture an escaping
captive (me) would have been sneaking past him. Such is the odd working of the human mind that I almost resented his neglect of duty. Such is the even odder working of my mind that I considered
waking him up to show him my ticket of leave. After all I was William Topcourt, the thrice married man, fully entitled to quit this place. Had not my wives paid good money so as to get their hands on
me? But common sense prevailed. There were still two more chambers to pass through after this one. I tiptoed across the room, alert for any change in the sound of snoring. None came, although my
friend did blend a rippling fart together with the noise coming from his nose-horn as if he were trying out different bass notes at once.

I paused at the second door. This was the entrance to the middle lobby, where sat the guard who’d been so mightily impressed by Constable Doggett’s recitation of my crimes that, for
an instant, he had ceased scraping the dirt from under his fingernails. I made to ease open the door. It didn’t move. Gently at first, then with increasing desperation, I pushed and pulled at
the handle. The door, which was a solid one, stayed shut. I tried to remember whether the door had been locked when I’d been escorted this way a few days ago. I thought of knocking on it and
waiting for someone to open it up from the other side. I thought of waking the snoring guard and demanding that he release me. I thought of creeping up on him and detaching the key from the ring
which he wore on his belt – true, I couldn’t see a key or a ring or a belt but I was sure that he wearing them. After all, he was a gaoler. A gaoler on the playhouse stage would have
been equipped with a very large set of keys to jangle and flourish.