‘No, no. I’ve money enough now to retire, and grow old surrounded by my children.’
‘I do not see them here now,’ says Mr Hancock. ‘Come,’ he adds, knowing indeed how little his friend enjoys staying still: the desire to go forth again is in Captain Jones, he is sure of it. It is merely a matter of steering him towards this discovery. ‘I’ve come by a fine little ship, the Unicorn, all rigged and seaworthy, all set for a new adventure, and who will captain her if you do not?’
‘There are other men.’ Captain Jones picks up his step, and walks fast along the pavement: he is almost tempted. Mr Hancock changes tack.
‘Do you not want to enjoy your final voyage? Your last run was most irregular; you did not even have the parting gift of sailing your own ship back into port. What farewell is that, to your life’s employ?’
His friend grins and turns up his collar against the cold. ‘My wife has designs for our future. We shall buy some land in the countryside, and build a house there to our own liking. A cow or two in the back field, and raspberry canes for the children. And I will take a part in the little ones’ upbringing, and be well acquainted with their characters: a child ought to look upon his father’s face every day, not at several years’ interval.’
But Mr Hancock is not to be dissuaded. ‘There is time for all that once my mermaid is got.’
‘No, no. I cannot do it. I promised I would not go to Macao again. Another two years away, Jonah, surely you appreciate—’
‘Perhaps you need not travel so far abroad,’ Mr Hancock says.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It strikes me that you need not go to Macao for a mermaid when there is an abundance of evidence to support their inhabiting our own waters.’
They repair to the edge of the dock and ease themselves down, neither as young as he once was, to dangle their legs over the water as they pack their pipes. Captain Jones twirls the bone-white stem between finger and thumb. ‘So what would you have me do?’ he asks slowly. ‘Gather a crew, and have us sail up and down the coast of England in search of one?’ He snorts at the folly of it, but Mr Hancock does not join him.
‘Not only England; Scotland and Ireland too. As far as Greenland if it pleased you.’ He pauses to assess his friend’s countenance, and continues placatingly, ‘Come, ’tis not so mad a notion. I have after some study compiled a list of all the villages in our isles where mermaids have lately been sighted; all it leaves you to do is travel from one to the next.’ He produces his notes: ‘You see, I have indicated those where mermaids are very regularly said to visit, and even come ashore. I have made it easy for you.’
Captain Jones is shaking his head. ‘No, no. I’ve not travelled those waters since I was a boy.’
‘So find men who are accustomed to them. Greaves has crews who traverse west, and know the North Sea and even the Atlantic, were you forced to go so distant.’ He looks about himself. ‘Walk into any public house in these parts and you will find ten experienced sailors eager for work. Whalers, too. ’
‘So ask one of them.’
Mr Hancock draws deeply on his pipe and the smoke billows about his face. ‘I want you in charge, Tysoe. I know that my request is not usual; I do not trust any other man to do right by me. You know what you are about; you have found me one mermaid, so find me another.’
‘It ain’t so easy as that. You think my head is all full of dreams, but I know when a scheme is worth pursuing, and surely this one is not.’
‘How do you know its worth? I can pay. Three thousand pounds, I could vouch towards this venture.’
‘The Devil and his good wife! Three thousand! What has got into you?’
‘I need it,’ he says stubbornly, and feels a schoolboy scowl touch the muscles of his foolish face.
‘Have you lost your wits?’ says the sea-captain. ‘Does your life so lack meaning – can you find no other way to spend your fortune but on impossible curiosities? I have heard of this before – this is a thing gentlemen do, collectors, who find satisfaction in making perfect wonders their own possessions, and hoarding them away in dusty cabinets. Is this your intention, my friend? Is this how you wear your wealth, in having other men run about the world hunting down your whims?’
‘No!’ Mr Hancock is stung. ‘No, no; I have only practical uses for my money, which is after all what it is made for. I am speculating. I shall be landlord of half of Mary-le-Bone.’
‘Then it is some other sort of madness.’ Captain Jones rubs his jaw. He scrutinises Mr Hancock’s face for a good long time. ‘Well, it cannot be a woman.’
No answer.
‘A woman?’ asks Captain Jones, and his eyes as round as billiard balls. He lands Mr Hancock a clout about the shoulder blade which almost tips him into the water below. ‘Well! I never thought such a thing would pass. And who is this lady? Some comely widow, I am certain; rich on her own account. An exacting woman, for you to go to such lengths, and clever to put you to them. Am I correct?’
‘Exacting.’ Mr Hancock tips his chin into his collar; he does not know what to say. He thinks, I am a rich man. I have a right to rare things.
‘Good man! And what do you get in return, should you acquire the thing she wants?’
Mr Hancock shakes his head. In fact he wants nothing particularly of Mrs Neal, except to have her attention. This neuter life he leads! A man who has no effect on the world, no body to depend on him, waited on by servants and relatives, can he be blamed (he asks himself) if he desires the natural attention of a woman? All across the city, other men sit comfortably in chairs with their pipes, and their ladies at their elbow. Partnership he cannot imagine; to be yoked so equally to a prudent widow or a hard-working old maid does not excite him of late. Mrs Neal is neither prudent nor hard-working; she is something apart.
‘Three thousand pounds towards this venture?’
‘Aye.’
‘That is a great deal of money.’ Captain Jones sighs deeper. ‘But to leave my family, and travel waters I am unfamiliar with … a great hardship for the sake of another man’s whim. And the dangers involved, when I have said I am unwilling to go.’
‘But think of it!’ Mr Hancock is warming to this new scheme. ‘You will never be more than two weeks from home.’
‘Three, more likely. Four, even …’
‘… you will have no responsibilities of trade, no cargo to fret over, no victuals to eke out over months.’ He gestures broadly with his pipe. ‘Think of it as a quest. A novelty. An undertaking never before attempted: to seek out and capture a mermaid!’
Captain Jones looks sideways at his friend. He stretches his boots out over the water, and studies his toes. He draws again on his pipe. ‘I would expect adequate return,’ he says.
‘Name it, name it.’
Behind his eyes, the sea-captain’s thoughts click rapid as a counting-frame. ‘Is this what you want?’ he asks.
‘Truly.’
‘A thousand, then. A thousand and you’ll never afterwards call upon me to sail again.’ Mr Hancock offers him his hand, and Captain Jones seizes it, his grip firm, his palm coarse and cool as raw leather. They shake hands. Then they sit for some long time, staring into the water beneath their hanging feet, which is gelid and glinting. Captain Jones draws on his pipe, and smiles. ‘Here’s a safer wager for you. That the river will freeze again this winter. It runs more sluggish than ever.’ He chuckles. ‘You remember the last time? When we strolled all the way to London Bridge, as if the river were our own road?’
‘We were young men then.’
‘Such strange magic as is in this world,’ he says. ‘Mermaids out yonder and horses and carriages trundling up and down this very river.’ He shakes his head. ‘Aye, me, what sights I’ve seen.’
We are the lost.
We dart minnow-quick.