The Potato Factory (7 page)

Mary had still not learned to hold her tongue. When she was intoxicated she had even more difficulty concealing her bitterness and controlling her temper. And so she moved ever lower down the whore's ladder, until six years later only the dockside brothels and opium dens were left open to her. She had formed an addiction for opium from the physic she had obtained from the hospital while her hands were mending and now she craved the dreams and oblivion the pipe would bring.

She caught the pox and the brothel mistress, a vile, toothless hag, sent her to a pox doctor who treated her successfully, though at some considerable expense. The money was advanced directly to him by the old woman who, in turn, advanced the debt to Mary at the rate of interest of fifty percent on the principal amount per week.

Mary knew herself to be enslaved for it was a debt she could never hope to pay. She was on her back eighteen hours a day, and in what time was left to her she sought the comfort of the dreams the opium pipe brought. She knew that should she attempt to escape, she would be cut. The 'Slasher' would be sent after her with his cut-throat razor and sulphuric acid, and her face would be disfigured forever.

Nevertheless, as might be expected, Mary reached a point where she could no longer tolerate the old hag's greed. One evening, having shared a pint of gin with a customer and having been continually chastised by the old hag to get back on her back, Mary finally lost her temper. In the furious battle which ensued, for the old woman was well bred to fighting, Mary lashed out blindly and her sharpened talons raked across the old crone's cheek. Her hands went up to cover her face and in a moment Mary could see blood running through her fingers. Mary took up her abacus and fled from the brothel, running wildly into the dockland night.

The acid slasher found her two days later in a dark alley in Spitalfields, led to her by two street urchins. Mary had collapsed from hunger, fatigue and the vicious cramps resulting from the withdrawal of opium and she lay propped against a wall, her chin resting upon her chest. After examining her by slapping her face several times with the knuckles of his hand and discovering that this did not have the desired effect of reviving her, the slasher hesitated, fearing that cutting her in such a state might lead to her bleeding to death. The earnings from a simple slashing with a drop of acid added did not warrant the risk of a murder charge being brought against him.

The police would make a light search for the culprit of a prostitute knifing, but the law required a full and exhaustive enquiry into a murder victim. Murder was a crime of an altogether more serious nature, even when done to a poxed up prostitute. Furthermore, the slasher knew himself to have been seen and heard enquiring after Mary in several public houses and netherkens and in all of the central London rookeries.

Paying the older of the two street urchins a farthing to watch over Mary in case she should revive and attempt to move, the slasher left and soon returned with a small toke and a quarter pint of rough brandy. He lifted Mary's inert body to a seated position and poured a measure of brandy down her throat. Handing what remained of the brandy to the older of the urchins to hold, the slasher slapped her hard several times until Mary, taken in a coughing fit from the sudden burning of the brandy on her empty stomach, returned to consciousness. Then he fed her small pieces of bread soaked in brandy until she had the strength to sit up on her own.

He handed a second farthing to the younger of the two urchins, though he knew the bigger boy would soon enough take the coin from him.

'She's me wife and ya saw nuffink, see? If you speak o' this to any geezer what may be interested, I'll come after ya and cut yer bloody throats, ear to bleedin' ear!'

The folded razor with its white ivory handle suddenly appeared as though by magic in his hands and the slasher slowly opened its bright blade. 'Now scat!' the slasher commanded and the two boys took flight and disappeared down the darkened alleyway.

The slasher now turned back to Mary, ready to complete his original purpose.

Mary, by now sufficiently out of her daze to understand what was about to happen, stared mesmerised by the razor in the man's hand. She was too weak to fight, too exhausted even to resist, yet the spirit within was not yet willing to die. 'Fuck me, kind sir,' she said, her voice hardly above a whisper.

The slasher leaned closer to her, carefully inspecting her face as if deciding where to make the slash. 'Ya can make it easy on y'self, lovey, jus' close yer eyes and think of summink beautiful.'

Mary fought back her fear and smiled in a coquettish manner, her hands concealed behind her back.

'I'm clean, I'm not with the pox, you have my Gawd's honour!' Her smile widened and her green eyes looked steadily at him, 'G'warn, just one more time with an 'andsome gentleman so I dies 'appy, please, sir.'

'Tut, tut, yer too pretty to die, lovey, it's just a little scratch and a bit of a burn. A bit o' punishment, a permanent reminder, 'cause you've been a naughty girl then, 'asn't ya?'

Mary kept her voice light, though inwardly her bowels twisted with fright.

'You'll fuck me to be remembered by and I promise you, kind sir, you too will not quickly forget me lovin' ways!'

'No fanks, lovey, I don't mix business wif pleasure, know what I mean?' A slow grin spread upon his face, an evil grin but with some of the harm gone out of it. 'Yer game, I say that for ya, game as a good ratter and still a nice looker!'

'Game if you are?' Mary replied cheekily, knowing her life might depend on the next few moments. Though she had long since abandoned any faith in God she now made a silent prayer that, if she should survive, she would never again let strong drink or opium pass her lips.

'Tell ya what I can do,' the slasher said suddenly. 'I can give ya a bit of a kiss, ain't no harm in that is there?' He threw back his head and laughed. 'I'll not spoil yer gob, just a little slash, add a bit of character. It won't be the last time a man wants to kiss ya!'

For a fraction of a second Mary could not believe what she had seen. The slasher's laughter revealed that he was missing his two front teeth but to either side of the gap he sported gold incisors. Her heart leapt and started to beat furiously.

'If it ain't Bob Marley, last observed fleein' from the laundry of a certain Chelsea 'ouse, by means o' the garden wall with 'is breeches 'alf on and 'is boots carried, quick as a ferret down a rat 'ole you were, over the wall with your bum showin' where you 'adn't got your breeches fully up!'

Mary, though weakened by the effort this outburst required, held her smile. She had a good head for names and faces, though in the ensuing years both of them had changed greatly and for the worse.

' 'Ow d'ya know me name, then?' Marley demanded.

'The laundry maid? Remember? We met in Shepherd Market? Me buying fish, nigh eight year back! You 'ad a gold watch what had a brass chain. You was ever so posh! I took you back to me master's 'ouse. Remember, we done it on the linen pile. Well, not done it
really.
You see, before you'd 'ad your wicked way with me the bloody cook come in on us and you 'ad to scarper! Surely you must remember that, Bob Marley?' Mary, exhausted, lay back panting.

Bob Marley grinned broadly as he suddenly recalled the incident and the details of it flooded back to him. 'Blimey! That was you? You was the dollymop?'

He shook his head in wonderment. 'Well ain't that a turn up for the bleedin' books! I remember it now, I stubbed me big toe 'cause o' not 'avin' me boots on, all black an' blue it were, took bleedin' forever to come good so I could walk proper again. I've told that self same story a 'undred times or more. Oh, deary me, what a laugh, eh?'

Marley had closed the razor in his hand and now he slipped it into the pocket of his jacket.

They sat together in the alley and finished the brandy, talking of the things that had happened to them. Marley asked Mary about the abacus which lay beside her and she explained its use to him in accounting and numbers.

'Pity ya wasn't a man, lovey. I knows a gentleman, matter of fact I used to be 'is snakesman when I was a nipper, before I grow'd, I'd climb in an' out of 'ouses like a rat up a bleedin' drainpipe, thievin' stuff for 'im. This self same gentleman's got word out, very discreet mind, that 'e needs a clerk what 'e can
trust.
Someone wif a bit of form, if ya knows what I mean?'

Ikey Solomon, Marley explained, trusted no one and was loath to make such an appointment, but stolen goods were piling up unledgered and unaccounted for.

Bob Marley pointed to the abacus. 'Don't suppose 'e'd en'ertain a contraption like that,' he remarked gloomily, 'even if ya was a man. I think 'e's got more yer normal quill and blackin' pot in mind, some old lag what is a clerk and can be trusted never to talk to the filth and what can be suitably blackmailed into keepin' 'is gob shut.'

Mary explained to him that she could use a quill, ink and paper for clerking and that she knew how to write up a ledger. Bob Marley scratched his head, pushing his top hat further back in order to do so.

'If it were up to meself I'd give ya a go. "What's I got to lose?" I'd say. Nice lookin' tart like you, well worth a try, eh?' Marley mused for a moment. 'But then I got a kind 'eart and 'e ain't, 'e's an old bastard!' He looked up and smiled. 'I can give ya 'is address, confidential like, mind.'

He scowled suddenly. 'But if ya tells 'im who give it to ya, I won't take it kindly, know what I mean?'

Mary shook her head. 'Gawd's 'onour, Bob, I won't tell no one who it was what told me. I'm exceedin' obliged to you.'

Mary's hopes soared. Bob Marley was not going to kill her, or even mark her.

'It's Bell Alley, ya know, ring-a-ding-ding, bell, got it? Islington. I dunno the number, but it's got a green door wif a brass lion wif a loop through its nose, as a knocker, like. There's a lamp post in Winfield Street where ya turn into the alley, only light in the 'ole bleedin' street, but it don't work. Best time to catch 'im is dawn when 'e's coming 'ome. It's not 'is real 'ome, it's where 'e keeps 'is stuff and does 'is accounting like. Wait for 'im at the entrance o' the alley; 'e can't come no other way.'

Their conversation waned and then came to a complete silence. Bob Marley had shown no signs of producing the razor again, but the tension so overwhelmed Mary that she could not put the prospect of the razor aside and idle chatter between them became impossible for her.

'You ain't gunna cut me, then?' she asked finally, smiling disarmingly at the man squatting in front of her.

Marley coughed politely into his fist and looked up at Mary so that their eyes met again for the first time in a long while.

'I'm sorry, love, but I 'ave to.' He smiled in a sympathetic way, and his gold teeth flashed. 'I don't like doin' it in yer case, I sincerely don't!' Bob Marley shrugged and turned away.

Mary was flushed with the brandy, but with only a few mouthfuls of stale bread inside her stomach she felt it turn and she was sure she was going to be sick.

'Please don't cut me, Bob Marley,' she begged.

'I won't cut ya bad, lovey, just a straight slash what will 'eal quick, a slash and a little dab of acid to keep the scar permanent like and as witness that I done me job. Yer still a corker to look at an' all, I don't wanna spoil that, it don't say in the contract I gotta mutilate ya, I can make up me own mind 'bout that! Cut 'n acid, a slash 'n dab, that's all I gotta do accordin' to me code of efficks.'

Mary, attempting to hold back the bile rising in her throat, concentrated on looking into Bob Marley's eyes. She didn't see the razor come out of his pocket and she barely saw the flash of its blade when she felt the sharp, sudden sting of it across her cheek.

'I'm truly sorry, lovey,' she heard Bob Marley whisper. 'If ya move now I'll splash the acid, stay still, very still, so I don't 'arm yer pretty mug too much.'

Mary wanted to scream and vomit at the same time but she clenched her teeth and held on and then there was a second blinding, unbearable sting as Bob Marley pushed back her head and poured acid into the cut. She could no longer keep her hands behind her back and now she clasped them to her face.

'Jesus Christ! What 'appened to yer 'ands?' Bob Marley exclaimed, then he rose quickly and was gone before the scream was fully out of Mary's mouth.

Mary could scarcely remember how she survived the next three weeks. Despite her pain and misery she had determined she would somehow fulfil her promise never to drink again. Denying herself gin and the opium pipe to which she'd become accustomed sent her into fearful spasms and cramps. She sweated profusely so that her clothes were soaked and she was only dimly aware of her surroundings.

By the time she had set out to meet Ikey Solomon, though still shaky, she was over the worst of her tremors. The scar on her cheek, though not entirely healed, was free of scab. Bob Marley had done his job skilfully and her face, despite the scar, was not in the least misshapen, the parts of it remaining as is normal on a woman's countenance, nose, lips and eyes where they ought to be and perfectly intact.

Mary waylaid Ikey at dawn, just as Bob Marley had suggested. Standing in the shadows several feet into Bell Alley, she had seen him enter from Winfield Street and let him almost pass her before she stood suddenly in his path.

Ikey stiffened and gasped in fright, bringing his arms up to his face as Mary stepped out of the shadows, but then seeing it was a woman he lowered his hands, dug his chin deeper into his overcoat and proceeded on his way.