The Sweet Smell of Decay Read Online Free PDF

new man told her she was lazy. She was ashamed. I had to tell her not to pay no heed, but she’s afeared to go back. Meantime she has to sell meats or else starve. If she’s not been home, then likely she’s lying on her face in a gutter somewhere. She’s too ill to be out working.’
    ‘Where does she sell?’
    ‘She won’t be far away, doesn’t like to wander. Shy of strangers too.’ His eyes were suspicious. ‘Why do you want to know?’
    ‘We want to make sure she’s safe,’ I replied. The man shook his head and emitted a sorrowful cackle before closing the window. Dowling tutted sorrowfully, sighed and walked off.
    ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I asked the back of his head.
    He turned to regard me solemnly. ‘The notion that a man wearing your fine clothes is likely to have an interest in the fate of one such as Mary Bedford is not to be believed.’ One of his big dirty hands landed on one of my finely clothed shoulders. He was right, of course. I tried not to look too disappointed, hopeful that he would relieve me of his filthy great paw.
    The next house to yield an answer was dark and unlit. All the windows were closed and there was a smell like liniment, sharp and acidic, with perhaps a hint of alcohol and fruit. The man that lived there was no less unattractive than the one we had just left, though he did have two eyes. His pupils were locked up tight like pinholes and the whites were covered with scabrous yellow patches. His nose was red and his eyes flowed. He twisted a piece of cloth between his fingers, which was clearly what he used to clean his nose. Poisonous green gases seeped from twixt his lips. He also knew ‘Old Mary’, but less intimately.
    ‘There’s some say she’s a witch,’ he told us through weeping eyes, in between sneezes. ‘She suckles the Devil, so it is said.’
    ‘Who says so?’ Dowling asked gently.
    ‘Folks,’ was the only reply we got, and nothing else of any use.
    By seven o’clock that night we were practically in Whitefriars. Some people spoke to us but we learnt nothing new. Confirmation of her poor circumstances, more loose speculation as to whether or not she might be a witch. This was nothing very interesting, since all old women living by themselves elicited images of witchery in many folk’s minds. As darkness fell we made our final house call. A woman pushed open the top half of a door and stood there simpering. Her face, body and limbs were shrunken and wrinkled like an old, dry apricot. She smiled sweetly and broadly and hereyes shone bright. We’d spoken to a few like this, this endless afternoon.
    ‘Ye-es?’ The old lady smiled so broadly that her eyes threatened to pop right out. It was a frightening sight. A tiny spittle of saliva trickled down her chin that she did not seem to notice. Dowling started to describe Mary Bedford using information that we had gleaned from others that day.
    ‘Ye-es. Mary.’ Smiling and staring into Dowling’s eyes she nodded slowly. He didn’t seem to mind. Probably used to it, being a Scot.
    ‘Tell me about her.’
    ‘Mary is my frie-nd.’ She continued to smile and waved her head from side to side like a snake, paying us scant attention. She seemed more interested in the darkening sky above our heads. Then she suddenly announced, ‘She is a witch!’ She said it quietly, melodically, as if she was talking about the weather, as if she did not understand the import of her words, which I suppose she didn’t. At that Dowling relaxed, as if he had seen it coming all along. When I quizzed him afterwards he told me that in his unfortunate experience living in the country, witches were always accused in pairs, never alone. Whilst I had never heard it said before, it explained Dowling’s persistence that afternoon, and his excitement in finding this woman, for she was, he told me, ‘the sort’.
    What followed then was deeply disturbing. She told us tales of the two of them suckling children with their old dry