Foe Page 5

  ‘(April 25th)

  ‘You asked how it was that Cruso did not save a single musket from the wreck; why a man so fearful of cannibals should have neglected to arm himself.

  ‘Cruso never showed me where the wreck lay, but it is my conviction that it lay, and lies still, in the deep water below the cliffs in the north of the island. At the height of the storm Cruso leapt overboard with the youthful Friday at his side, and other shipmates too, it may be; but they two alone were saved, by a great wave that caught them up and bore them ashore. Now I ask: Who can keep powder dry in the belly of a wave? Furthermore: Why should a man endeavour to save a musket when he barely hopes to save his own life? As for cannibals, I am not persuaded, despite Cruso’s fears, that there are cannibals in those oceans. You may with right reply that, as we do not expect to see sharks dancing in the waves, so we should not expect to see cannibals dancing on the strand; that cannibals belong to the night as sharks belong to the depths. All I say is: What I saw, I wrote. I saw no cannibals; and if they came after nightfall and fled before the dawn, they left no footprint behind.

  ‘I dreamed last night of Cruso’s death, and woke with tears coursing down my cheeks. So I lay a long while, the grief not lifting from my heart. Then I went downstairs to our little courtyard off Clock Lane. It was not yet light; the sky was clear. Under these same tranquil stars, I thought, floats the island where we lived; and on that island is a hut, and in that hut a bed of soft grass which perhaps still bears the imprint, fainter every day, of my body. Day by day the wind picks at the roof and the weeds creep across the terraces. In a year, in ten years, there will be nothing left standing but a circle of sticks to mark the place where the hut stood, and of the terraces only the walls. And of the walls they will say, These are cannibal walls, the ruins of a cannibal city, from the golden age of the cannibals. For who will believe they were built by one man and a slave, in the hope that one day a seafarer would come with a sack of corn for them to sow?

  ‘You remarked it would have been better had Cruso rescued not only musket and powder and ball, but a carpenter’s chest as well, and built himself a boat. I do not wish to be captious, but we lived on an island so buffeted by the wind that there was not a tree did not grow twisted and bent. We might have built a raft, a crooked kind of raft, but never a boat.

  ‘You asked also after Cruso’s apeskin clothes. Alas, these were taken from our cabin and tossed overboard by ignorant sailors. If you so desire, I will make sketches of us as we were on the island, wearing the clothes we wore.

  ‘The sailor’s blouse and pantaloons I wore on board ship I have given to Friday. Moreover he has his jerkin and his watch-coat. His cellar gives on to the yard, so he is free to wander as he pleases. But he rarely goes abroad, being too fearful. How he fills his time I do not know, for the cellar is bare save for his cot and the coal-bin and some broken sticks of furniture.

  ‘Yet the story that there is a cannibal in Clock Lane has plainly got about, for yesterday I found three boys at the cellar door peering in on Friday. I chased them off, after which they took up their stand at the end of the lane, chanting the words: “Cannibal Friday, have you ate your mam today?”

  ‘Friday grows old before his time, like a dog locked up all its life. I too, from living with an old man and sleeping in his bed, have grown old. There are times when I think of myself as a widow. If there was a wife left behind in Brazil, she and I would be sisters now, of a kind.

  ‘I have the use of the scullery two mornings of the week, and am turning Friday into a laundryman; for otherwise idleness will destroy him. I set him before the sink dressed in his sailor clothes, his feet bare as ever on the cold floor (he will not wear shoes). “Watch me, Friday!” I say, and begin to soap a petticoat (soap must be introduced to him, there was no soap in his life before, on the island we used ash or sand), and rub it on the washing-board. “Now do, Friday!” I say, and stand aside. Watch and Do: those are my two principal words for Friday, and with them I accomplish much. It is a terrible fall, I know, from the freedom of the island where he could roam all day, and hunt birds’ eggs, and spear fish, when the terraces did not call. But surely it is better to learn useful tasks than to lie alone in a cellar all day, thinking I know not what thoughts?

  ‘Cruso would not teach him because, he said, Friday had no need of words. But Cruso erred. Life on the island, before my coming, would have been less tedious had he taught Friday to understand his meanings, and devised ways by which Friday could express his own meanings, as for example by gesturing with his hands or by setting out pebbles in shapes standing for words. Then Cruso might have spoken to Friday after his manner, and Friday responded after his, and many an empty hour been whiled away. For I cannot believe that the life Friday led before he fell into Cruso’s hands was bereft of interest, though he was but a child. I would give much to hear the truth of how he was captured by the slave-traders and lost his tongue.

  ‘He is become a great lover of oatmeal, gobbling down as much porridge in a day as would feed a dozen Scotsmen. From eating too much and lying abed he is growing stupid. Seeing him with his belly tight as a drum and his thin shanks and his listless air, you would not believe he was the same man who brief months ago stood poised on the rocks, the seaspray dancing about him, the sunlight glancing on his limbs, his spear raised, ready in an instant to strike a fish.

  ‘While he works I teach him the names of things. I hold up a spoon and say “Spoon, Friday!” and give the spoon into his hand. Then I say “Spoon!” and hold out my hand to receive the spoon; hoping thus that in time the word Spoon will echo in his mind willy-nilly whenever his eye falls on a spoon.

  ‘What I fear most is that after years of speechlessness the very notion of speech may be lost to him. When I take the spoon from his hand (but is it truly a spoon to him, or a mere thing? – I do not know), and say Spoon, how can I be sure he does not think I am chattering to myself as a magpie or an ape does, for the pleasure of hearing the noise I make, and feeling the play of my tongue, as he himself used to find pleasure in playing his flute? And whereas one may take a dull child and twist his arm or pinch his ear till at last he repeats after us, Spoon, what can I do with Friday? “Spoon, Friday!” I say; “Fork! Knife!” I think of the root of his tongue closed behind those heavy lips like a toad in eternal winter, and I shiver. “Broom, Friday!” I say, and make motions of sweeping, and press the broom into his hand.

  ‘Or I bring a book to the scullery. “This is a book, Friday,” I say. “In it is a story written by the renowned Mr Foe. You do not know the gentleman, but at this very moment he is engaged in writing another story, which is your story, and your master’s, and mine. Mr Foe has not met you, but he knows of you, from what I have told him, using words. That is part of the magic of words. Through the medium of words I have given Mr Foe the particulars of you and Mr Cruso and of my year on the island and the years you and Mr Cruso spent there alone, as far as I can supply them; and all these particulars Mr Foe is weaving into a story which will make us famous throughout the land, and rich too. There will be no more need for you to live in a cellar. You will have money with which to buy your way to Africa or Brazil, as the desire moves you, bearing fine gifts, and be reunited with your parents, if they remember you, and marry at last and have children, sons and daughters. And I will give you your own copy of our book, bound in leather, to take with you. I will show you how to trace your name in it, page after page, so that your children may see that their father is known in all parts of the world where books are read. Is writing not a fine thing, Friday? Are you not filled with joy to know that you will live forever, after a manner?”

  ‘Having introduced you thus, I open your book and read from it to Friday. “This is the story of Mrs Veal, another humble person whom Mr Foe has made famous in the course of his writing,” I say. “Alas, we shall never meet Mrs Veal, for she has passed away; and as to her friend Mrs Barfield, she lives in Canterbury, a city some distance to the south of us on this island
where we find ourselves, named Britain; I doubt we shall ever go there.”

  ‘Through all my chatter Friday labours away at the washing-board. I expect no sign that he has understood. It is enough to hope that if I make the air around him thick with words, memories will be reborn in him which died under Cruso’s rule, and with them the recognition that to live in silence is to live like the whales, great castles of flesh floating leagues apart one from another, or like the spiders, sitting each alone at the heart of his web, which to him is the entire world. Friday may have lost his tongue but he has not lost his ears – that is what I say to myself. Through his ears Friday may yet take in the wealth stored in stories and so learn that the world is not, as the island seemed to teach him, a barren and a silent place (is that the secret meaning of the word story, do you think: a storing-place of memories?).

  ‘I watch his toes curl on the floorboards or the cobblestones and know that he craves the softness of earth under his feet. How I wish there were a garden I could take him to! Could he and I not visit your garden in Stoke Newington? We should be as quiet as ghosts. “Spade, Friday!” I should whisper, offering the spade to his hand; and then: “Dig!” – which is a word his master taught him – “Turn over the soil, pile up the weeds for burning. Feel the spade. Is it not a fine, sharp tool? It is an English spade, made in an English smithy.”

  ‘So, watching his hand grip the spade, watching his eyes, I seek the first sign that he comprehends what I am attempting: not to have the beds cleared (I am sure you have your own gardener), not even to save him from idleness, or for the sake of his health to bring him out of the dankness of his cellar, but to build a bridge of words over which, when one day it is grown sturdy enough, he may cross to the time before Cruso, the time before he lost his tongue, when he lived immersed in the prattle of words as unthinking as a fish in water; from where he may by steps return, as far as he is able, to the world of words in which you, Mr Foe, and I, and other people live.

  ‘Or I bring out your shears and show him their use. “Here in England,” I say, “it is our custom to grow hedges to mark the limits of our property. Doubtless that would not be possible in the forests of Africa. But here we grow hedges, and then cut them straight, so that our gardens shall be neatly marked out.” I lop at the hedge till it becomes clear to Friday what I am doing: not cutting a passage through your hedge, not cutting down your hedge, but cutting one side of it straight. “Now, Friday, take the shears,” I say: “Cut!”; and Friday takes the shears and cuts in a clean line, as I know he is capable of doing, for his digging is impeccable.

  ‘I tell myself I talk to Friday to educate him out of darkness and silence. But is that the truth? There are times when benevolence deserts me and I use words only as the shortest way to subject him to my will. At such times I understand why Cruso preferred not to disturb his muteness. I understand, that is to say, why a man will choose to be a slaveowner. Do you think less of me for this confession?’

  ‘(April 28th)

  ‘My letter of the 25th is returned unopened. I pray there has been some simple mistake. I enclose the same herewith.’

  ‘(May 1st)

  ‘I have visited Stoke Newington and found the bailiffs in occupation of your house. It is a cruel thing to say, but I almost laughed to learn this was the reason for your silence, you had not lost interest and turned your back on us. Yet now I must ask myself: Where shall I send my letters? Will you continue to write our story while you are in hiding? Will you still contribute to our keep? Are Friday and I the only personages you have settled in lodgings while you write their story, or are there many more of us dispersed about London – old campaigners from the wars in Italy, cast-off mistresses, penitent highwaymen, prosperous thieves? How will you live while you are in hiding? Have you a woman to cook your meals and wash your linen? Can your neighbours be trusted? Remember: the bailiffs have their spies everywhere. Be wary of public houses. If you are harried, come to Clock Lane.’

  ‘(May 8th)

  ‘I must disclose I have twice been to your house in the past week in the hope of hearing tidings. Do not be annoyed. I have not revealed to Mrs Thrush who I am. I say only that I have messages for you, messages of the utmost importance. On my first visit Mrs Thrush plainly gave to know she did not believe me. But my earnestness has now won her over. She has accepted my letters, promising to keep them safe, which I take to be a manner of saying she will send them to you. Am I right? Do they reach you? She confides that she frets for your welfare and longs for the departure of the bailiffs.

  ‘The bailiffs have quartered themselves in your library. One sleeps on the couch, the other, it seems, in two armchairs drawn together. They send out to the King’s Arms for their meals. They are prepared to wait a month, two months, a year, they say, to serve their warrant. A month I can believe, but not a year – they do not know how long a year can be. It was one of them, an odious fellow named Wilkes, who opened the door to me the second time. He fancies I carry messages between you and Mrs Thrush. He pinned me in the passageway before I left and told me of the Fleet, of how men have spent their lives there abandoned by their families, castaways in the very heart of the city. Who will save you, Mr Foe, if you are arrested and consigned to the Fleet? I thought you had a wife, but Mrs Thrush says you are widowed many years.

  ‘Your library reeks of pipesmoke. The door of the larger cabinet is broken and the glass not so much as swept up. Mrs Thrush says that Wilkes and his friend had a woman with them last night.

  ‘I came home to Clock Lane in low spirits. There are times when I feel my strength to be limitless, when I can bear you and your troubles on my back, and the bailiffs as well if need be, and Friday and Cruso and the island. But there are other times when a pall of weariness falls over me and I long to be borne away to a new life in a far-off city where I will never hear your name or Cruso’s again. Can you not press on with your writing, Mr Foe, so that Friday can speedily be returned to Africa and I liberated from this drab existence I lead? Hiding from the bailiffs is surely tedious, and writing a better way than most of passing the time. The memoir I wrote for you I wrote sitting on my bed with the paper on a tray on my knees, my heart fearful all the while that Friday would decamp from the cellar to which he had been consigned, or take a stroll and be lost in the mazes and warrens of Covent Garden. Yet I completed that memoir in three days. More is at stake in the history you write, I will admit, for it must not only tell the truth about us but please its readers too. Will you not bear it in mind, however, that my life is drearily suspended till your writing is done?’

  ‘(May 19th)

  ‘The days pass and I have no word from you. A patch of dandelions – all we have for flowers in Clock Lane – is pushing up against the wall beneath my window. By noon the room is hot. I will stifle if summer comes and I am still confined. I long for the ease of walking abroad in my shift, as I did on the island.

  ‘The three guineas you sent are spent. Clothes for Friday were a heavy expense. The rent for this week is owed. I am ashamed to come downstairs and cook our poor supper of peas and salt.

  ‘To whom am I writing? I blot the pages and toss them out of the window. Let who will read them.’

  * *

  ‘The house in Newington is closed up, Mrs Thrush and the servants are departed. When I pronounce your name the neighbours grow tight-lipped. What has happened? Have the bailiffs tracked you down? Will you be able to proceed with your writing in prison?’

  ‘(May 29th)

  ‘We have taken up residence in your house, from which I now write. Are you surprised to hear this? There were spider-webs over the windows already, which we have swept away. We will disturb nothing. When you return we will vanish like ghosts, without complaint.

  ‘I have your table to sit at, your window to gaze through. I write with your pen on your paper, and when the sheets are completed they go into your chest. So your life continues to be lived, though you are gone.

  ‘All I lack is light. There is
not a candle left in the house. But perhaps that is a blessing. Since we must keep the curtains drawn, we will grow used to living in gloom by day, in darkness by night.

  ‘It is not wholly as I imagined it would be. What I thought would be your writing-table is not a table but a bureau. The window overlooks not woods and pastures but your garden. There is no ripple in the glass. The chest is not a true chest but a dispatch box. Nevertheless, it is all close enough. Does it surprise you as much as it does me, this correspondence between things as they are and the pictures we have of them in our minds?’

  * *

  ‘We have explored your garden, Friday and I. The flower-beds are sadly overgrown, but the carrots and beans are prospering. I will set Friday to work weeding.

  ‘We live here like the humblest of poor relations. Your best linen is put away; we eat off the servants’ plate. Think of me as the niece of a second cousin come down in the world, to whom you owe but the barest of duties.

  ‘I pray you have not taken the step of embarking for the colonies. My darkest fear is that an Atlantic storm will drive your ship on to uncharted rocks and spill you up on a barren isle.

  ‘There was a time in Clock Lane, I will confess, when I felt great bitterness against you. He has turned his mind from us, I told myself, as easily as if we were two of his grenadiers in Flanders, forgetting that while his grenadiers fall into an enchanted sleep whenever he absents himself, Friday and I continue to eat and drink and fret. There seemed no course open to me but to take to the streets and beg, or steal, or worse. But now that we are in your house, peace has returned. Why it should be so I do not know, but toward this house – which till last month I had never clapped eyes on – I feel as we feel toward the home we were born in. All the nooks and crannies, all the odd hidden corners of the garden, have an air of familiarity, as if in a forgotten childhood I here played games of hide and seek.’