Ikey crouched on a stool, clutching a glass of ale in both hands. He gasped as Mary entered, and his hands jerked upwards in alarm sending half the contents of the glass into his lap.
'Oh, Jesus! Oh, oh!' he exclaimed, looking down at the wet patch on his dirty coat and the mess at his feet. He wiped his hands on either side of the threadbare coat.
'Ikey? Ikey Solomon? It's you all right, Gawd help us!' Mary laughed, the spilt beer overcoming her nervousness. 'You always were a most nervous old bugger!'
Ikey grinned, which was not a pretty sight. Mary had forgotten how tiny he was, and he appeared to have lost several teeth and looked a great deal older than his fifty-two years. Jessamy was right, he stank to high heaven, even by the high standard of stink set by much of the local population.
'Nice to make your acquaintance again, my dear, news o' your remarkable success grows far and wide,' Ikey cackled. He looked around at the barrels of beer, and the racks of bottled ale stacked to the ceiling, as though weighing and valuing the contents to the last liquid ounce.
'Nonsense! News o' my remarkable success goes all the way down Liverpool Street and into Wapping, and not much further.'
'I is most proud of you, proud and honoured and most remarkably touched, my dear, and oh…' Ikey dug into the pocket of his coat and produced a pound. 'This be what's left o' the money you sent in your most kind letter, after the boat ticket and vittles eaten and five shillings paid for a week's board and lodging 'ere in town. That is, only until I can get back into my own 'ouse.'
'Change? You giving me change?' Mary looked incredulous. 'My goodness, we has reformed, hasn't we, then? Whatever could have come over you, Ikey Solomon?'
Ikey gave a phlegmy laugh and shook his head slowly. 'I admits, honesty ain't a habit what's come easy, Mary, my dear.' Mary saw that his back had become more hunched, though now he pulled himself as straight as he was able, wincing at a stab of rheumatism in his hip. Then he jerked at the ragged lapels of his coat and grinned, pushing his chin into the air.
'What you sees here, my dear, is a reformed man, honest as the day be long, reliable to the point o' stupidity and a ledger clerk what's to be praised for neatness, accuracy and the most amazing sagacity, experienced in all the ways o' gettin' what's owed to one quickly paid, and what one owes to others most tedious slow to be proceeded with!' He bowed slightly to Mary, bringing his broken shoes together. 'Isaac Solomon at your 'umble service, madam!'
'You'll need to sign the pledge and agree to take a bath once a month,' Mary said, unimpressed.
Ikey clutched at his chest. 'You knows I don't drink, least only most modest and circumspect, my dear! Bathe? Once a month?' His eyebrows shot up in alarm. 'Does you mean naked? No clothes? But, but… that be like Port Arthur again! That be ridiculous and most onerous and unfair, and 'as nothing to do with clerking nor keeping ledgers fair and square!'
'Once a month, Ikey Solomon!' Mary repeated. Ikey could see from the tightness at the corners of her mouth that she meant it.
Ikey smiled unctuously. 'Tell you what I can do for you, my dear. I could wash me 'ands!' He held his hands up and spread his fingers wide. Mary observed them to be a far cry from clean. 'Not once a month, mind, but every time I works on the ledgers, once a day, even more, if you wishes! 'Ow about that, my dear?'
Mary shook her head and then folded her arms. 'Bathe once a month and take the pledge. I smoked you, Ikey, and I be most reliably informed that you has grown fond 'o the fiery grape!'
'Reliably informed, is it? That be most malicious gossip and not to be trusted at all and in the least! A little brandy now and again to calm me nerves in the most unpleasant times experienced in New Norfolk, that were all it was, I swear it, my dear!'
'Well, then you will have no qualms about signing the pledge,' Mary replied calmly. 'You can drink beer here, and if you works well your nerves won't need no calming with the likes of us, Ikey Solomon.'
Ikey hung his head and sucked at his teeth, and seemed to be considering Mary's proposition. Finally, as though coming to a most regrettable decision, he shook his head slowly and in a forlorn voice said, 'Hot water, mind? In a room what's locked and no soap! Soap makes me skin itch somethin' awful!'
'Soap, but not prison soap,' Mary said, remembering well the harsh carbolic soap issued once a fortnight in the Female Factory which caused the skin to burn and itch for hours afterwards.
Ikey, of course, did not fit in well. He was not the sort to be put on a high stool with a green eyeshade to labour at ledgers while the sun shone brightly. Sunshine was a most abhorrent spectre for Ikey and had been one of the more difficult aspects of his imprisonment. Daylight was a time when Ikey's internal clock ran down, and Mary soon realised this.
After Ikey had bathed and signed the pledge, she had taken him to Thos Hopkins the tailor. Now everyone, even the most ignorant, knows that 'Thos' stands for Thomas at his christening, so that he was forced to spend his whole life explaining that his name was not Tom or Thomas but Thos. He was small and plump, somewhat irritable and a dreadful snob, but a very good bespoke tailor, and quite the most expensive in Hobart Town. He used only the best imported worsteds and demanded three fittings at the very least.
Thos Hopkins had recently signed the pledge and become a most enthusiastic user of Mary's Temperance Ale, to the point of half a dozen bottles taken most evenings. But he soon revealed that behind his snobbish facade lay an impecunious state of affairs, and he owed Mary nearly five pounds in credit. Were it not for the mounting debt he would not have permitted Ikey to enter his establishment.
Mary replaced Ikey's clothes, and had the bootmaker make him a pair of pigskin boots with long, narrow toes which served as yellow snouts in exactly the same manner as the pair he'd owned in England. The coat was made to Ikey's precise instructions. Half a hundred pockets appeared in the most peculiar places, so that the redoubtable Mr Hopkins eventually cried out at the very sight of Ikey entering his establishment. 'Bah! More pockets, I will not tolerate more pockets!'
Eventually the coat was completed and after seven years Ikey was back to something like his old self, which included a return to his nocturnal ways. He would appear at six of the evening at the Potato Factory, just as the other workers were departing, and work until midnight. At the stroke of twelve he would creep away, heading for Wapping and the docks to spend the night in the public houses, sly grog dens and brothels inhabited by sailors, whalers, drunks, thieves and the general riff-raff of Hobart Town.
Though Ikey was no longer in the crime business he could still be persuaded to pay out on a watch temporarily loaned and returned for a small commission added. This was merely the business of being an itinerant pawnbroker conveniently on the spot when a drunk or a sailor found himself without funds in the early hours of the morning. More importantly, Ikey now carried a large basket over his arm filled with various types, sizes, packets and prices of snuff, cigars and pipe baccy, and he moved from place to place selling his wares. If there was only a small profit to be made from this trade it did not overly concern Ikey because it gave him an excuse to spend the hours of the night at perambulation. Once again he was a creature of the dark hours.
This suited Mary perfectly, as in daylight hours Ikey proved a difficult proposition. He would argue with the men at the slightest provocation, and had an opinion about everything. What's more, he was a tiger when it came to debt.
A great many of Mary's customers came from the dock-side area of Wapping, the place in Hobart Town where the poor and the broken lived. Customers who required a drop of credit were a frequent and normal part of Mary's life. But Ikey, who had spent his life among the congregation of the unfortunate, had a very low opinion of the credit rating of the poor, and constantly grumbled and groused at the idea of giving them grog on the slate. Sometimes, when they came to the Potato Factory to beg a bottle or two for the night in advance of their weekly wages, he would soundly dress them down. A penny owed to Mary would irritate him until it was paid. While Mary found it difficult to argue with Ikey's diligence on her behalf, she knew how hard it was for many of her customers to stay on the pledge and not drink the raw spirit made by the sly grog merchants which would rot their stomachs, send them blind or even kill them.