Trim shook his head in sympathy. ‘You are bearing up remarkably well, under the circumstances. Admirable. But here, I have something that may help.’ He poured some wine into a small pan and placed it on the stove, then stepped over to a set of shelves filled with glass bottles and stone pots. He ran his fingers over the jars then began tipping ingredients into a pestle and mortar. ‘What bad luck you’ve had,’ he commiserated over his shoulder.
‘It was my own fault. I should have been more careful.’
He added the ground-up powder into the pan. A warm, spiced aroma filled the room. ‘You shouldn’t blame yourself. You weren’t to know the boy would trick you.’
‘Perhaps God is punishing me,’ I muttered, surprising myself. Those were my father’s words falling from my lips.
‘Punishing you…?’ Trim ladled the wine into a wooden bowl and handed it to me with a frown. ‘What on earth for?’
I breathed in the steam, caught the soothing scent of cloves and cinnamon. I smiled. ‘For having too much fun.’
‘Hah!’ He eyed me appraisingly. ‘I can imagine.’
Whatever Trim had mixed into the wine it did me good, as he’d promised, and I was soon relaxed enough to bear the touch of his razor against my skin without flinching. Once I was shaved he trimmed my hair close to my scalp to keep away the lice and then he washed and dressed the worst of my cuts and bruises, applying a soothing balm of his own recipe. For all this he wouldn’t take a farthing. No wonder he was in a debtors’ gaol.
Trim was busy sweeping the floor when a porter arrived with his supper carried over from Titty Doll’s, the chophouse above the Oak. Trim asked me to join him and I accepted gratefully, mouth watering as the porter slapped down dishes of dressed mackerel with gooseberries, boiled beef and artichokes and cold ham with salad. The meat did not look in its prime but I hadn’t eaten all day – and it had been a very long day.
While we were eating I asked Trim about some of the people I’d met in the gaol. After all, who knows more about a man’s true character than a barber? Who sees a man at his most vulnerable and yet his most relaxed? This is the way stories are spilt – drowsily, in a scented room.
Perhaps because they were his customers, Trim was more charitable in his observations than I might have been. The Reverend Andrew Woodburn was a good man who did his best for the Common Side. A little weak? Oh… (a tilt of the head, a gentle prodding of the mackerel)
