Chapter 17
Mullins stood at the door of the smithy, waiting. He had just finished a job for a customer, and he was awaiting a delivery of some odds and ends that some gentleman was looking to have spruced up and straightened out. As he waited, he took in the cool air away from the furnace heat inside. His eyes fell on a young potato seller; he knew that he had seen her before. There was something about her that was different now, something that drew his eye. As he looked, he saw that she was limping badly, and he could just make out the scars that adorned her face now. She was the young girl who had been attacked and had survived it. He felt sorry for her; he remembered once buying two potatoes from her and how nice she had seemed to him then. She was only a child; how could anyone do anything like that to her?
As he watched her sell, he noticed another woman come up behind her. This was an older girl, and there was something altogether more womanly about the way she held herself as she waited for the seller to complete her transaction. She was brown haired and had beautiful eyes; he knew he had seen her before too, and he remembered now where. She was a streetwalker, and he was used to seeing her under the cover of darkness. He might pass her in the street or see her through the window of a tavern as he looked outside.
Seeing her in daylight seemed to change everything about her. Instead of seeing her as a profession, he saw her as a woman, the same as any other he might see in the course of trading hours. She glanced at him quickly before starting to talk to the girl. They were laughing about something, and they seemed to be friends.
A boy arrived with the things from the gentleman: a lot of old rubbish at first glance. As Mullins brought it in, he allowed himself one more glance at the woman before setting about his work. He found his glance replied to, and there was a look in her eyes, as though she were saying something to him, but he had no experience of the looks of women, and he would never be able to fathom it. She left to go about her business, and he set to work now with an odd sense of melancholy sitting over him.
Some more work came in, and by the time he finished that evening, it was long dark outside. His shoulders ached, and he was sweating from the work and the heat all day. He could smell the stale odour from his own body; it mixed with the damp leather of his apron and was very strong.
The air outside was welcome at first, but even as he locked up the shop, he began to feel the chill rip through his skin and get into his very bones. He would have to get home or into a crowded tavern as soon as possible if he wanted to avoid catching a chill. Either way, he could go in the same direction, and he started walking, deciding to choose his destination on his way. There were still many people about the streets, coming and going, and some of the other traders were still open. He looked into millineries, tobacco shops, and cloth shops as he made his way home. As he passed the Chocolate House, the only one he knew of, the smell was so intoxicating he was tempted to go in and have one, but nice smell or no, he knew that it was massively expensive and not something he could afford to waste any money on.
When he was almost at Bridge Street, he came face to face with the woman from earlier. He stepped out of her way and smiled in an awkward way that he felt sure would be seen by her as a strange grimace. She smiled at him and stopped instead of passing.
“Hello,” she said.
“Good evening,” he said in return. She looked him over and stood there still, with a brazen face on her. He didn’t know what to say to her. Was she touting him? He hadn’t used a prostitute before and hadn’t a clue how to go about it.
“Are you married?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Who’d have a mug like this?” he managed, attempting a joke.
“There’s much more to a good man than his face.” She smirked. He shuffled from foot to foot, and at that moment he was aware again of how he smelled.
“You look cold. You better get home and warm yourself,” she said.
He felt relief that this ordeal was almost over, and yet he longed for it to go on, for them to talk some. “Working in the heat all day can make the cold seem worse than it really is when you first come out of the smithy.” He smiled (grimaced?).
“Get yourself in front of a fire. Good-bye for now,” she said cheerily and went off as he said good-bye himself. He watched her as she walked away.
That night, he found he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He lit a fire and changed his clothes and made some hot soup, all in an effort to heat himself, but all the while, he was thinking about getting back out that night and the possibility of running into her again. He didn’t even know her name, and he had no idea how he would ever approach her. He saw her eyes in his mind, and then he saw them drop into sadness. That was all she would be if she were to ever be with him—sad. What did he have to offer? A small home and a generally steady income; that was a lot more than a lot of people could say. His face was a mess of bumps, and his cheek was badly scarred, but he was honest and hardworking. Did those things count for anything with women?
He couldn’t help but think of them as a family in this small home with a child or two; the image popped in there as though it had always been in his mind to settle down with this woman. Had he always wanted a family? His own parents hadn’t been much to base life on. Could he marry someone who did what she did for a living? Would he ever get past that? Would she ever get past that?
And then he knew that the fact that it was an issue at all, which he hadn’t realised up to this very moment, meant that he would never get past it. How could he be with a woman when almost any man they met in the street might have shared a bed with her? He couldn’t, and it was bound to happen. Someone he knew right now could have already been with her—could be with her right now! He was getting angry now, and he felt rage towards her for tempting him at all—if that was what she was doing. But then, maybe she was just looking for a new customer, and he fit the bill nicely with his job and a nice quiet place to have her in. That must have been it. She just wanted to use him for what he had. Had she not heard that his neighbours thought he was the Dolocher?
The family drifted from his imaginings like paper tossed into the fire, and it floated momentarily before blackening and falling apart to be sucked up into the chimney.