Foe Read online

  ‘Thinking these thoughts, spinning round, my eyes closed, a smile on my lips, I fell, I believe, into a kind of trance; for when next I knew, I was standing still, breathing heavily, with somewhere at my mind’s edge an intimation that I had been far away, that I had seen wondrous sights. Where am I? I asked myself, and crouched down and stroked the floor; and when it came back to me that I was in Berkshire, a great pang wrenched my heart; for what I had seen in my trance, whatever it had been – I could summon back nothing distinct, yet felt a glow of after-memory, if you can understand that – had been a message (but from whom?) to tell me there were other lives open to me than this one in which I trudged with Friday across the English countryside, a life of which I was already heartily sick. And in that same instant I understood why Friday had danced all day in your house: it was to remove himself, or his spirit, from Newington and England, and from me too. For was it to be wondered at that Friday found life with me as burdensome as I found life with him? As long as we two are cast in each other’s company, I thought, perhaps it is best that we dance and spin and transport ourselves. “It is your turn to dance, Friday,” I called into the darkness, and climbed into my crib and piled hay upon myself and fell asleep.

  ‘At first light I awoke, glowing with warmth, calm and refreshed. I discovered Friday asleep on a hurdle behind the door and shook him, surprised to find him so sluggish, for I had thought savages slept with one eye open. But likely he had lost his savage habits on the island, where he and Cruso had no enemies.’

  * *

  ‘I do not wish to make our journey to Bristol seem more full of incident than it has truly been. But I must tell you of the dead babe.

  ‘Some miles outside Marlborough, as we were walking steadily enough down an empty road, my eye fell on a parcel lying in the ditch. I sent Friday to fetch it, thinking I know not what, perhaps that it was a bundle of clothes fallen from a carriage; or perhaps I was simply curious. But when I began to unwind the wrapping-cloth I found it to be bloody, and was afraid to go on. Yet where there is blood there is fascination. So I went on and unwrapped the body, stillborn or perhaps stifled, all bloody with the afterbirth, of a little girl, perfectly formed, her hands clenched up by her ears, her features peaceful, barely an hour or two in the world. Whose child was she? The fields around us were empty. Half a mile away stood a cluster of cottages; but how welcome would we be if, like accusers, we returned to their doorstep that which they had cast out? Or what if they took the child to be mine and laid hands on me and haled me before the magistrates? So I wrapped the babe again in its bloody winding-cloth and laid it in the bottom of the ditch and guiltily led Friday away from that place. Try though I might, I could not put from my thoughts the little sleeper who would never awake, the pinched eyes that would never see the sky, the curled fingers that would never open. Who was the child but I, in another life? Friday and I slept among a grove of trees that night (it was the night I tried to eat acorns, I was so hungry). I had slept but a minute when I awoke with a start thinking I must go back to where the child was hid before the crows got to her, the crows and the rats; and, before I gathered my wits, had even stumbled to my feet. I lay down again with my coat pulled over my ears and tears coursing down my cheeks. My thoughts ran to Friday, I could not stop them, it was an effect of the hunger. Had I not been there to restrain him, would he in his hunger have eaten the babe? I told myself I did him wrong to think of him as a cannibal or worse, a devourer of the dead. But Cruso had planted the seed in my mind, and now I could not look on Friday’s lips without calling to mind what meat must once have passed them.

  ‘I grant without reserve that in such thinking lie the seeds of madness. We cannot shrink in disgust from our neighbour’s touch because his hands, that are clean now, were once dirty. We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable. If Friday forswore human flesh during his fifteen years on the island, why should I not believe he had forsworn it forever? And if in his heart of hearts he remained a cannibal, would a warm living woman not make a better meal than the cold stiff corpse of a child? The blood hammered in my ears; the creak of a branch, or a cloud passing across the moon, made me think Friday was upon me; though part of me knew he was the same dull blackfellow as ever, another part, over which I had no mastery, insisted on his bloodlust. So I slept not a wink, till the light paled and I saw Friday dead asleep a few paces away, his horny feet that seemed never to feel the cold sticking out from under his robe.’

  * *

  ‘Though we walk in silence, there is a buzz of words in my head, all addressed to you. In the dark days of Newington I believed you were dead: you had starved in your lodgings and been given a pauper’s burial; you had been hunted down and committed to the Fleet, to perish of misery and neglect. But now a stronger certainty has come over me, which I cannot explain. You are alive and well, and as we march down the Bristol road I talk to you as if you were beside me, my familiar ghost, my companion. Cruso too. There are times when Cruso comes back to me, morose as ever he was in the old days (which I can bear).’

  * *

  ‘Arriving in Marlborough, I found a stationer’s and for half a guinea sold him Pakenham’s Travels in Abyssinia, in quarto, from your library. Though glad to be relieved of so heavy a book, I was sorry too, for I had no time to read in it and learn more of Africa, and so be of greater assistance to Friday in regaining his homeland. Friday is not from Abyssinia, I know. But on the road to Abyssinia the traveller must pass through many kingdoms: why should Friday’s kingdom not be one of these?

  ‘The weather remaining fine, Friday and I sleep under hedgerows. For prudence sake we lie low, for we make an irregular couple. “Are you his mistress?” asked an old man of us, as we sat on the church steps yesterday eating our bread. Was it a saucy question? The fellow seemed in earnest. “He is a slave whose master set him free on his deathbed,” I replied – “I accompany him to Bristol, where he will take ship for Africa and his native land.” “So you are returning to Africa,” said the old man, turning to Friday. “He has no speech,” I put in – “He lost his tongue as a child, now he speaks only in gestures. In gestures and actions.” “You will have many stories to tell them in Africa, will you not?” said the old fellow, speaking louder, as we do to deaf people. Friday regarded him emptily, but he would not be deterred. “You have seen many sights, I am sure,” he continued – “great cities, ships as big as castles. You will not be believed when you relate all you have seen.” “He has lost his tongue, there is no language in which he can speak, not even his own,” said I, hoping the fellow would go away. But perhaps he too was deaf. “Are you gipsies then?” said he – “Are you gipsies, you and he?” For a moment I was lost for words. “He has been a slave, now he is returning to Africa,” I repeated. “Aye,” he said, “but we call them gipsies when they roam about with their dirty faces, men and women all higgledy-piggledy together, looking for mischief.” And he got to his feet and faced me, propped on his stick, as though daring me to gainsay him. “Come, Friday,” I murmured, and we left the square.

  ‘I am amused now to think of this skirmish, but then I was shaken. Living like a mole in your house has quite taken away my nut-brown island hue; but it is true, on the road I have barely washed, feeling none the worse for it. I remember a shipload of gipsies, dark and mistrustful folk, cast out of Galicia in Spain, stepping ashore in Bahia on to a strange continent. Twice have Friday and I been called gipsies. What is a gipsy? What is a highwayman? Words seem to have new meanings here in the west country. Am I become a gipsy unknown to myself?’

  * *

  ‘Yesterday we arrived in Bristol and made directly for the docks, which Friday showed every sign of recognizing. There I stopped every seaman who passed, asking whether he knew of a ship sailing for Africa or the East. At last we were directed toward an Indiaman standing out on the road, due to sail for Trincomalee and the spice islands. By great good fortune a lighter just then berthed that ha
d been conveying stores to it, and the first mate stepped ashore. Asking his pardon for our travel-stained appearance, assuring him we were not gipsies, I presented Friday as a former slave from the Americas, happily now free, who wished to make his way home to Africa. Regrettably, I went on, Friday was master of neither English nor any other language, having lost his tongue to the slave-catchers. But he was diligent and obedient and asked for no more than to work his passage to Africa as a deck-hand.

  ‘At this the mate smiled. “Africa is a great place, madam, greater than I can tell you,” he said. “Does your man know where he wishes to be set down? He may be put ashore in Africa and still be farther from his home than from here to Muscovy.”

  ‘I shrugged off his question. “When the time comes I am convinced he will know,” I said – “Our feeling for home is never lost. Will you take him or no?” “Has he ever sailed before?” asked the mate. “He has sailed and been shipwrecked too,” I replied – “He is a mariner of long standing.”

  ‘So the mate consented to take us to the master of the Indiaman. We followed him to a coffee-house, where the master sat huddled with two merchants. After a long wait we were presented to him. Again I related the story of Friday and his desire to return to Africa. “Have you been to Africa, madam?” asked the captain. “No, sir, I have not,” I replied, “but that is neither here nor there.” “And you will not be accompanying your man?” “I will not.” “Then let me tell you,” said he: “One half of Africa is desert and the rest a stinking fever-ridden forest. Your blackfellow would be better off in England. Nevertheless, if he is set on it, I will take him.” At which my heart leapt. “Have you his papers of manumission?” he asked. I motioned to Friday (who had stood like a stick through these exchanges, understanding nothing) that I wished to open the bag about his neck, and showed the captain the paper signed in Cruso’s name, which seemed to please him. “Very well,” said he, pocketing the paper, “we will put your man ashore wherever in Africa he instructs us. But now you must say your farewells: we sail in the morning.”

  ‘Whether it was the captain’s manner or whether the glance I caught passing between him and the mate I cannot say, but suddenly I knew all was not as it seemed to be. “The paper is Friday’s,” I said, holding out my hand to receive it – “It is his only proof that he is a free man.” And when the captain had returned the paper to me, I added: “Friday cannot come aboard now, for he has belongings to fetch from our rooms in the city.” By which they guessed I had seen through their scheme (which was to sell Friday into slavery a second time): the captain shrugged his shoulders and turned his back to me, and that was the end of that.

  ‘So the castle I had built in the air, namely that Friday should sail for Africa and I return to London my own mistress at last, came tumbling about my ears. Where a ship’s-master was honest, I discovered, he would not accept so unpromising a deck-hand as Friday. Only the more unscrupulous – of whom I met a host in the days that followed – pretended to welcome us, seeing me, no doubt, as an easy dupe and Friday as their God-sent prey. One of these claimed to be sailing for Calicut, making port at the Cape of Good Hope on the way, where he promised to set Friday ashore; while his true destination, as I learned from the wharfmaster, was Jamaica.

  ‘Was I too suspicious? All I know is, I would not sleep easy tonight if Friday were on the high seas destined a second time, all unwittingly, for the plantations. A woman may bear a child she does not want, and rear it without loving it, yet be ready to defend it with her life. Thus it has become, in a manner of speaking, between Friday and myself. I do not love him, but he is mine. That is why he remains in England. That is why he is here.’

  III

  The staircase was dark and mean. My knock echoed as if on emptiness. But I knocked a second time, and heard a shuffling, and from behind the door a voice, his voice, low and cautious. ‘It is I, Susan Barton,’ I announced – ‘I am alone, with Friday.’ Whereupon the door opened and he stood before me, the same Foe I had first set eyes on in Kensington Row, but leaner and quicker, as though vigilance and a spare diet agreed with him.

  ‘May we come in?’ I said.

  He made way and we entered his refuge. The room was lit by a single window, through which poured the afternoon sun. The view was to the north, over the roofs of Whitechapel. For furniture there was a table and chair, and a bed, slovenly made; one corner of the room was curtained off.

  ‘It is not as I imagined it,’ I said. ‘I expected dust thick on the floor, and gloom. But life is never as we expect it to be. I recall an author reflecting that after death we may find ourselves not among choirs of angels but in some quite ordinary place, as for instance a bath-house on a hot afternoon, with spiders dozing in the corners; at the time it will seem like any Sunday in the country; only later will it come home to us that we are in eternity.’

  ‘It is an author I have not read.’

  ‘The idea has remained with me from my childhood. But I have come to ask about another story. The history of ourselves and the island – how does it progress? Is it written?’

  ‘It progresses, but progresses slowly, Susan. It is a slow story, a slow history. How did you find your way to me?’

  ‘By good fortune entirely. I met your old housekeeper Mrs Thrush in Covent Garden after Friday and I came back from Bristol (I wrote you letters on the Bristol road, I have them with me, I will give them to you). Mrs Thrush directed us to the boy who runs errands for you, with a token that we were to be trusted, and he led us to this house.’

  ‘It is excellent that you have come, for there is more I must know about Bahia, that only you can tell me.’

  ‘Bahia is not part of my story,’ I replied, ‘but let me tell you whatever I can. Bahia is a city built on hills. To convey cargoes from the harbour to their warehouses, the merchants have therefore spanned a great cable, with pulleys and windlasses. From the streets you see bales of cargo sail overhead on the cable all day. The streets are a-bustle with people going about their business, slave and free, Portuguese and Negro and Indian and half-breed. But the Portuguese women are seldom to be seen abroad. For the Portuguese are a very jealous race. They have a saying: In her life a woman has but three occasions to leave the house – for her baptism, her wedding, and her burial. A woman who goes abroad freely is thought a whore. I was thought a whore. But there are so many whores there, or, as I prefer to call them, free women, that I was not daunted. In the cool of the evening the free women of Bahia don their finest clothes, put hoops of gold about their necks and golden bracelets on their arms and ornaments of gold in their hair, and walk the streets; for gold is cheap there. The most handsome are the women of colour, or mulatas as they are called. The Crown has failed to halt the private traffic in gold, which is mined in the interior and sold by the miners to the goldsmiths. Alas, I have nothing to show you of the craft of these excellent smiths, not even a pin. All I had was taken from me by the mutineers. I came ashore on the island with nothing but the clothes I wore, red as a beetroot from the sun, my hands raw and blistered. It is no wonder I failed to charm Cruso.’

  ‘And Friday?’

  ‘Friday?’

  ‘Did Friday ever grow enamoured of you?’

  ‘How are we ever to know what goes on in the heart of Friday? But I think not.’ I turned to Friday, who had been squatting all the while by the door with his head on his knees. ‘Do you love me, Friday?’ I called softly. Friday did not so much as raise his head. ‘We have lived too close for love, Mr Foe. Friday has grown to be my shadow. Do our shadows love us, for all that they are never parted from us?’

  Foe smiled. ‘Tell me more of Bahia,’ he said.

  ‘There is much to be said of Bahia. Bahia is a world in itself. But why? Bahia is not the island. Bahia was but a stepping stone on my way.’

  ‘That may not be so,’ replied Foe cautiously. ‘Rehearse your story and you will see. The story begins in London. Your daughter is abducted or elopes, I do not know which, it does not matter. In
quest of her you sail to Bahia, for you have intelligence that she is there. In Bahia you spend no less than two years, two fruitless years. How do you live all this time? How do you clothe yourself? Where do you sleep? How do you pass the days? Who are your friends? These are questions that are asked, which we must answer. And what has been the fate of your daughter? Even in the great spaces of Brazil a daughter does not vanish like smoke. Is it possible that while you are seeking her she is seeking you? But enough of questions. At last you despair. You abandon your quest and depart. Shortly thereafter your daughter arrives in Bahia, from the backlands, in search of you. She hears talk of a tall Englishwoman who has taken ship for Lisbon, and follows. She haunts the docks of Lisbon and Oporto. Rough sailors think her a blessed simpleton and treat her with kindness. But no one has heard of a tall Englishwoman off a ship from Bahia. Are you on the Azores, gazing out to sea, mourning, like Ariadne? We do not know. Time passes. Your daughter despairs. Then chance brings to her ears the story of a woman rescued from an island where she has been marooned with an old man and his black slave. Is this woman by some chance her mother? She follows a trail of rumour from Bristol to London, to the house where the woman had briefly taken service (this is the house on Kensington Row). There she learns the woman’s name. It is the same as hers.