He stabbed at another potato with his fork, but it crumbled into floury chunks around the prongs. He tried again.
‘Too many machines,’ he grumbled. ‘Machination equals fem-in-i-cation, but that’s not to say it adds up. I’ve promised I’ll go to the Society tomorrow to lend a hand.’
And one more failed stab led him to drop his fork, and as he struggled to pick it up again I saw him wince, and then he gave up entirely, rubbed his joints, and stumbled into an awkward silence, and the real reason behind his rage.
For his fingers were now fatter than the cigars he used to smoke at the end of a day’s work before he took up the pipe. With his sleeves rolled up I could see the engorgement of his wrists and arms too; I could scarcely make out the joints between them. The urge crept over me to pierce him with a needle from my work-basket, not out of malice, but with just one prick, it seemed, the gallons of water trapped in his tissues would come pouring out and relieve him of his suffering.
It had rained constantly from January to November. Any other bookbinder would have rejoiced, as damp keeps leather moist and pliable. Peter certainly bemoaned the summer before, along with the rest of his trade, when I had to bring in damp towels every hour to drape over the books. It was unusually hot then, but despite the Great Stink it was a joy for us, as Peter’s joints were for once at ease. But this year, we had had the wettest summer – and were about to face the coldest winter – we could remember. Peter’s rheumatism had always been troublesome and fitted him ill for his chosen trade, but in this relentlessly damp city he had become a human sponge, and the pain was such, I knew, that he wished at times to be washed away in the daily torrents of grey sludge, down the sewers and into the sea, for a kinder end to his life.
I brought him his pipe, and lit it for him, as he drew sharply on it, and then settled myself down with my work-basket on the chair by the fire, and started to darn some stockings. Peter continued to sit at the table, puffing his pipe, and for a while we listened to the soot-saturated rain hammering the roof tiles, and the carriage wheels sluicing over the cobblestones. I pictured the men sloshing outside, heading towards the taverns to find a place around the fire where they could sit and steam, alongside other silent, steaming men, before limping back to lodgings where there was no wife – or an insufficient one – to look after them, no one to ensure they did not tumble in wet clothes into a damp bed. I often thanked my lucky stars not to have married a drinker or a philanderer, but Peter would tell me it was not luck, it was his modern values, and my reasonable house-keeping.
Then he groaned, put his pipe down and rubbed his hands. ‘Dora.’ He sighed, and I looked up. ‘It perturbs me to mention the affairs of men’s business within these four walls, and with my wife, but I fear I can keep it from you no longer.’ When he spoke, he talked through his nose, as if it were swollen inside too. I put down my needle, and he nodded appreciatively. ‘You are a good wife, and you have been of no small help to us in the workshop.’ He picked his pipe up again, and winced. ‘But we are in trouble.’ His eyes searched my face to see how I was receiving him, then dropped to his swollen hands.
I had not expected him to look so downcast. The unkempt grey strands around his crown wisped out in all directions. I decided to let him speak further, then I would go to him and smooth his hair, and kiss his brow if he would let me. For all his aspirations, Peter never looked polished.
‘I – I – I . . .’ The sounds of wet London grew around us, as if trying to drown out the hideous impropriety of a man about to cry. ‘I cannot work any more.’ He pulled his chest upwards, and sucked the tears back on a sharp inhalation. His lips were red, wet and full like a baby’s, puckering and pouting incongruously amidst his grey whiskers as if he were searching for something that lay just before his face. ‘My hands hurt.’ He sounded like Lucinda when she had fallen over, only graver.
‘Shall I call for Dr Grimshaw?’ I proffered. ‘Perhaps it is time for you to be bled again, or for your bowels to be opened with a black draught.’
But I did not want to summon Dr Grimshaw with his black bag, his knives and his leeches. I could stare straight into his evil eyes and act as unruffled as a duchess, but inside I would be having palpitations in case Lucinda were to have one of her turns in his presence. Besides, we did not have the money for a night call. Even by daylight it would be two-and-six.
‘This is not about my blood or my bowels,’ Peter spat angrily. ‘I can no longer work. These – these hands – will not let me. I cannot work. I cannot bind books.’