Footfalls of Fournier
It didn’t seem to matter how thick the crowds were as they milled about on the street. The sound of her footfalls on the cobblestones echoed far and wide as though nobody else were around for miles. A clip-clop, clip-clop ricocheted off the mildewy walls surrounding each turn of every alley, the ugly outsides of what she imagined were far prettier buildings inside. Then again, that may have been generous of her. This was, after all, London’s infamous East End, a place not known for anything “pretty” on any level. The buildings were possibly the least disturbing things at which one could look in this neighbourhood.
She heard a horse neigh in the distance, and for a moment the distant rumble of a carriage on the stones of Fournier Street drowned out her own eerie footsteps. In the deepening dark of the evening, she wasn’t sure which she preferred.
Cheerful chatter filled the narrow pathways, countless accents, some discernible, many not. She stayed out of the conversations, opting to keep her head down and remain a spectator. That was, after all, what she’d come for. It was what brought a lot of people to that are of the city: watching the local wildlife, as it were, and experiencing life by proxy. Safer that way, she thought as she rounded a tight corner and nearly bumped into an oncoming group of well-dressed, intoxicated men, each of whom managed to slur some kind of hoot or holler at her as their paths crossed with merciful speed. It was unnerving, really. Considering the plentiful selection of that kind of woman around here – women who were very obviously flaunting their wares, trying to pull in a quid or two for the night so they’d have someplace safer to stay, offering men like the ones she’d just managed to dodge anything they wanted for a pittance – the fact that she, in her conservative-by-any-yardstick clothing and her concentration on keeping her posture and facial expressions as unengaging and uninviting as possible, made her all that much more fearful for her safety.
She never should have come. That much was becoming clear.
An especially enthusiastic and, she hoped, sober-sounding lot of people were just ahead of her, the pack pulling away ever so slightly. She needed to pick up her pace. Clip-cop, clip-clop. They had the advantage of feeling free to look about, unconcerned with whether or not their classist remarks could be heard by the working girls in the long, deep shadows cast by the gas lamps placed too few and far between, or by the men who patronized them. These folks were tourists in every sense, not from London at all, doubtfully even from Britain, if her ears didn’t deceive her. They had the luxury of leaving this entire experience behind, quite literally. While she knew she could remove herself from this block, this neighbourhood, perhaps even the city if she was lucky, she also knew there were things – unavoidable ties, ones that nothing could cut – that would pull her back here at some point. That made this whole trek feel so much more dangerous for her than it was for any number of the revellers stumbling in and out of the local pubs every which way she looked. The odds of her running into someone more than once here was too great, which meant that any measure she could take to avoid standing out, being recognized, making herself memorable at all, was a measure worthy of taking.
“The Ten Bells!” she heard what sounded like a northerner call out jubilantly at the front of the pack. She’d been trying to catch up, to assimilate, without tripping over the stones or looking up from beneath her protective fall of blond hair, and it looked like she’d almost gotten there. It surprised her, though, to realize they’d come to this spot already. This bloody pub was a dive, at best, no matter how owner after owner tried to dress it up. Just like the rest of the dilapidated structures around here, The Ten Bells stank of mould and tobacco and sex and liquor, even from the outside. Mouldy and depressing, as grey as the London skies at their angriest, and it was that much worse at this time of night. How had she wended her way through the labyrinthine alleys and closes without picking up on that familiar scent blocks ago? She really needed to pay closer attention. Those drunkards had distracted her. This was not a place in which anyone, least of all a young woman, could afford to be distracted, even for a moment.
Briefly she fished around in her pocket, gaining her usual odd – and entirely unrealistic – sense of comfort at the confirmation that her small spiral notepad and pen were still just where they always were on these jaunts.
Back to it, then, she resolved, and finally lifted her gaze enough to see that the man who’d called out so giddily at what he must’ve felt was the novel discovery of this terrible old gin joint had taken to holding the door open for the rest of the happy wanderers in his group. Much as she hated the idea of going into The Ten Bells, she knew it was a wiser decision than staying out here by herself. Besides, wasn’t this just as much part of the whole walking tour as any of the other stops they’d made? Surely some thought it was the highlight.
Swallowing a gag at the stench of the pub’s excesses, and the staggering heaviness of curry hanging in the air, emanating from the countless curry-filled restaurants that now clogged the East End, she sped up. She realized she had done too good a job at staying invisible from the rest of the Ripper Tourists, however, when the man who’d been holding the door let it close just as she approached. He’d probably never even noticed her among the jolly clan of morbid folk that had made up the 9:00 p.m. cycle.
If only she’d simply walked forth with purpose and opened the door for herself, slipping in to join the others in ordering overpriced drinks with “Jack” in their titles, stale hors d’oeurves bearing the tasteless “Surgeon’s Special” label on the sticky plastic menus.
Instead, the moment of hesitation caused by seeing that door swing creakily shut in front of her was all he needed. She knew it even before the dread and realization settled over her. Before she felt a hand grip her forearm with excruciating force as she was tugged backwards into the same impossibly deep shadows that had been consuming women in Whitechapel for a century.
Before she had a chance to scream.
[Inspired by a trip to London years ago, and by Carla, who persuaded me to try writing anything using 750words.com, which I now heartily endorse.]
Heather V. Swanson 