Elijah’s Mermaid by Essie Fox Read Free Book Online Page B

striking it, lighting the candle stump. And, through the sudden flaring flame, I see what is perched on the bedstead’s end, the glisten of red in two brown eyes, eyes like a child’s, curious, round, but set in the face of a wrinkled old man. A thick-lipped, grinning, rubbery mouth. A head that is covered in tufts of grey where two pink ears are sticking out. It puts me in mind of an incubus, one of those little imps from Hell that sit on a sleeping maiden’s breast until every breath in her lungs is spent.
    ‘I don’t like it. Take it away.’ Hard to conceal the fear in my voice as my eyes are dragged from that monkey to Tip where, above the pale tusks of his moustache – Piccadilly Weepers, they are called – the sharply angled bones of his face are sheened with the faintest glisten of sweat, stuck with some strands of fine fair hair. Cook says that he gets her to help with its washing, scrubbing in ashes and yellow flowers, trying to lighten it up yet more. She says that where Tip and his hair are concerned he is as vain as any girl. She swears that he’s got all his minerals; that Tip’s lithe frame and elegant limbs might be perfumed and clad in velvet and lace, but his muscles are wiryand strong as an ox. She said she once saw him strike a whore who had dared to call him a nancy boy, who had laughed at the way he pinked his cheeks. She said that girl’s cheeks were soon blushing redder, dripping with blood from the scratches Tip made, which never really healed again, an infection set in with scarring welts. And, soon after that, she disappeared.
    I am thinking of that caution now, of how only a fool would rile Tip, when he suddenly tears the sheets from my grasp, whipping them back so very fast that I am unable to struggle or shout, my mouth still open wide in shock when Tip murmurs, as if he is thinking aloud, every hushed word of his questioning given the gravest consideration, ‘Hmm . . . so she doesn’t like her gift! What it is to have a thankless child . . . sharper than any serpent’s tooth! These creatures don’t come cheap, you know. I had it stolen specially . . . one of Senor Rosci’s Educated Monkeys. It’ll jiggle its pizzle on demand. It’ll do it right now . . . would she like to see?’
    Tip is grinning, his head cocked to one side. ‘Oh dear, have I gone and upset my Pearl? Why, she has turned as white as death. Still, some gentlemen like the consumptive type, the morbidly delicious girls. Or perhaps we could tie some wings on your back and have you play the cherub child, flitting around with a tray of cigars. In the New Jerusalem Company of Learning, Love and Liberty they have a girl who does just that . . . and a nice way to get yourself broken in, used to all the establishment’s ways.’
    As if such threats are not bad enough, I nearly jump out of my skin with fright when something is dropped from Tip Thomas’s hand to rattle loudly on the boards – the chain attached to the monkey’s neck – though Tip doesn’t seem to notice the fact that his little ape has broken free. His eyes are intent on me instead, leering, yellow as a wolf’s when caught in the glim of the candle’s flame. Hook hands then lower to cradle my foot, to stroke the webbed flesh between the toes – that caress going on for a very long time, during which I hold my breath again and stare at the grime beneath ridged nails. Thesight of them is vile, but compulsive. I almost swoon with the sheer relief when he lowers my foot to the mattress again, as gently as if it is made of glass, after which he reaches for one of my hands and asks, oh so tenderly, ‘Well . . . my sweet, it’s almost time. Tell me, does she have you prepared?’
    ‘Does who have me prepared? Prepared for what?’
    ‘Mrs H. Has she told of our plans to sell?’
    ‘Mrs Hibbert will
never
do that to me!’ I try to be brave, but inside I am quaking. ‘She says I am precious . . . as loved as a daughter.’
    ‘Oh, my naive little