The Sweet Smell of Decay by Paul Lawrence Read Free Book Online Page B

drunk more than I intended, but was not senseless. The moon was brighter now and the streets emptier. I walked carefully past St Mary’s, onto Poultry and stopped at the Great Conduit to douse my face in its cold water. The King’s Head and the Mermaid were both still full. The night air was freezing, the filth was hard and frozen into lumps, the sewers were thick and ran slowly. This was night air, which would kill you by asphyxiation if you stayed out too long.Drink took the edge off the prickly cold but I hurried anyway, knowing that frost’s fingers would quickly find a way through my defences. Banging on my door with my fist I stomped my feet impatiently. Jane would be sitting up waiting for me in her own little bed, knees drawn up to her chin. As I stood waiting for her to come downstairs and open up, I looked back down the street. I fancied I saw a man hanging about under the eaves of a house fifty yards or so away, but the figure quickly turned and disappeared into the Mermaid. Lost or drunk, sucked into the warmth like iron filings to a magnet. I banged my fist on the door again, then looked at my knuckles. They were wet. There was paint on the door – I could just make it out – gleaming wet. I dabbed at the markings with my finger. It was paint all right, red paint. Why would someone paint my door? I stepped back to see if mine was the only door painted.
    ‘What hour do you call this?’
    I jumped, not having noticed the door open. Jane stood there in the doorway hissing at me, standing bent in a thick white nightgown with a shapeless white hat pulled down to the top of her eyes. Her feet were bare, her ankles too, long legs and fleshy hips. Then I heard something, or thought I did, and swung around, again catching a glimpse of movement at the end of the street. A light danced from side to side. It was a Charley and his dog walking slowly. The Charley rang his bell and called out in a thin, reedy voice, ‘Past one o’clock, and a cold, frosty, winter’s night.’ There were shivers in the man’s voice.
    ‘I call it one,’ I answered her. ‘Some knave has painted a red cross on my door!’ Looking up and down the street again, I checked. Sure enough mine was the only door painted. ‘Was it you?’
    Jane looked at the door and dabbed at the paint with her finger. ‘Fie to you! What a foolish question.’ She knelt down. ‘There are words too.’
    Crouching next to her I had a closer look. ‘
To the pest-house
,’ I read. Very strange. It was what they used to write on the doors of those infected during the days of the plagues. ‘You haven’t got the plague have you?’
    ‘No, of course I haven’t got the plague.’
    ‘Well it must be the wrong door, then. What about next door? Do they have the plague?’
    ‘There hasn’t been a plague in London for forty years, and there isn’t a plague tonight. If there were, then I would know it, even if you didn’t.’ She seized me by the lapel of my poor fine jacket and manhandled me over the threshold. My hand brushed against her breast. It was warm and soft.
    ‘Someone’s idea of a jest, then.’
    ‘All the children are in bed well before one o’clock at night and this paint is still wet. Strange foolery for a grown man to play.’ She bundled me into the kitchen and sat me down at the table upon which stood a plate of cold meats and a cup of hypocras.
    My stomach now declared itself to be very hungry. I smiled blearily.
    ‘I have enquired of my colleagues about the town. They tell me that they allow themselves to be merry with their servants and their servants do not object. They may run their hands where their hands do please.’ I had been thinking on it a while.
    ‘These colleagues of yours are gentlemen, I suppose?’ Jane snorted before turning on her heel and disappearing, only to reappear a minute later with a bucket and scrubbing brush, face taut and pale.
    ‘Is your rhubarb up, old woman?’ I felt myself stiffening.
    ‘My