Soul

The carriage pulled up suddenly, the road blocked by a herd of cows, stamping and defecating in startled panic. Four herdsmen, their boots and breeches stained with mud and manure, swished willow sticks above their heads, whistling and shouting into the sleepy silence as they moved their animals toward the slaughterhouse, indifferent to the coachman’s frustration.

Lavinia opened the carriage window. Immediately, the stench of the street flooded in—the odour of fear radiating from the cows, the acrid smell of coal smoke, the stink of a nearby gutter running thick with sewage. Floating over the top of it all was the incongruous musk of joss sticks, trailing smoke from a smouldering bouquet strapped to the side of a Chinese pedlar’s cart.

One of the cowhands whistled, wondering what an ill-dressed lad was doing driving in a coach and not on top with the coachman. ‘Cheeky stable boy, you got there!’ he yelled to the coachman. ‘Thinks he’s king of the muck heap!’

Aloysius pulled at the reins, steadying the horses, which were infected by the cattle’s nervousness.

‘Just move your animals, we’ve a gentleman to collect!’ he called down.

‘Some gentleman to be around here this time of the morning!’ the cowhand yelled back, much to the amusement of his companions. In a minute, they and the swaying cattle were swallowed by the fog.

The coach halted beside a coffee house. Its sign—Garraway’s Coffee-house. Established 1645, for the pleasure of gentlemen— swung above a door painted in gold and scarlet. Next door was an antique shop displaying all kinds of exotic objects in the window: Chinese rugs, porcelain vases, small statues of Chinese deities, jewellery and other antiquities. The words Feng’s Oriental Palladium were painted across the glass window. In the centre of the display stood an opium pipe mounted on a small red velvet cushion, a sign below reading: For the sophisticated gentleman of leisure.

Stepping out of the coach, Lavinia pressed her face against the glass window. Through the smoked pane she could just discern some tables and chairs. The shop appeared empty except for a single candle burning deep in its recesses.

‘Madam, it is dangerous to dally,’ Aloysius took her arm. ‘Come.’

‘But where?’ Lavinia looked around; there was no sign of any establishment that appeared open for business. Apart from the stalls, which were now piled with wares, the street was silent.

In lieu of an answer, Aloysius led her to a door where he knocked four times, a distinctive tattoo. After a minute or so, an extremely rotund youth of Oriental appearance opened the door, his face a series of voluptuous curves that converged at his nose—evidently split in two by a knifing. A long scar ran from his cheek to beneath his rippled chin. Squeezed into breeches with a silk tunic over the top, he had long plaited hair that fell behind him to below his waist, and a woven silk hat on his head. His body was bent in an attitude of deep suspicion, and his hand slipped down to his hip pocket, where Lavinia was convinced a blade was concealed. He nodded at Aloysius then peered mistrustfully at Lavinia.

‘Who’s this? Your boy?’ He spoke in a broken English heavily tainted with an East End accent.

‘Yes, and he is loyal and discreet,’ Aloysius replied, placing a hand on Lavinia’s shoulder.

Lavinia, fearing her countenance would betray her, looked down at her shoes only to realise that she was still wearing her pumps. Hoping the Chinaman might dismiss this as an eccentric English custom, she attempted to conceal one foot with the other.

Finally satisfied, the Oriental turned to the coachman. ‘You early, he want you?’

Aloysius, acutely aware that he was risking his position, hesitated for a moment. Then he said firmly. ‘This was the time my master arranged.’

Coughing violently, the Oriental spat a scarlet thread into the gutter. Then, after glancing up and down the street for the peeler who often patrolled the borough, he opened the door wide.

The faint aroma of coffee drifted lazily through the air and, once her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Lavinia noticed that the tables were still piled high with dirty plates from the night before, and used clay pipes flung like broken fingers into bowls of ash.

Beyond the tables was a counter covered with brass cups and glass jars packed with herbs and curios. Behind the counter stood an iron stove, for brewing; above it, shelves of jars of coffee, their brand and nationality painted on the side. A curious silk tapestry hung beneath the shelves.

The Chinaman led them to the hanging, then lifted the fabric to reveal a door. He tapped gently and a peephole appeared, the shiny orb of someone’s eye behind it.

‘Ni an quan ma? (You are safe?)’

‘An quan. Wo he peng you yi qi lai de. (Yes. I come with friends.)’

The heavy wooden door was pushed open; beyond lay a parlour. The walls were hung with silks and in the corner an old Chinese man plucked at a xianzi, the wooden drum of the stringed instrument clasped between his naked feet, the mournful notes hanging in the air like thin silver threads. Against the walls were low sofas upon which the customers lay or lounged in various states of torpor. They were a motley group—English, Chinese, Indian, men from all walks of life.

In one corner lay a turbanned merchant, an obese man in his sixties whose naked stomach rolled over his pantaloons. Next to him was a woman of about thirty wearing a stained day dress of lilac silk, its sleeves dirty and torn. She scratched madly at her arms, which were covered in scabs.

Crouching beside each customer was a Chinese boy who meticulously cleaned the stem of the opium pipe with a bamboo reed, then, after rolling the black resin into a soft ball, packed the bowl swiftly—an execution that ensured the customer was continuously smoking.

A long moan of elation or pain—Lavinia found it hard to distinguish—came from the shadows near her feet. Propped up against the wall was a young English girl, her eyelids drooped, her face a waxen mask, dried vomit down her torn dress. Her hand scrabbled at the thin cotton.

‘Where is he?’ Lavinia whispered, wondering if the lounging addicts were even aware of their presence. Aloysius indicated the far corner of the room.

The two men lay together on a low divan, a smoking candle barely illuminating them. Huntington, naked under a loose silk shirt, hi

s beard grown and unkempt, was almost unrecognisable. Campbell, his arms and legs curled around the older man, mumbled to himself, smiling inanely. Lifting a heavy hand, the Colonel reached for the pipe his boy offered. Resting his elbows on the small child’s shoulders, he inhaled, the embers of the drug glowing as he sucked greedily. Hamish, lolling drunkenly, continued to cling to him.

Carefully picking her way through the supine smokers, Lavinia reached her husband and knocked the smoking apparatus out of his hand. Completely ignoring her, he scrambled around on his knees desperately looking for the smouldering pipe that had fallen between the cushions.