Death on the Rocks by Deryn Lake Page B

Apothecary nodded. There was no answer to be made to a remark like that and he and Irish Tom watched as the slave drove off along the quayside, then turned as they heard a cheerful voice calling John by name. It was Samuel Foote, sauntering along, sprightly as you please, in a suit of striped strawberry corded silk with spangled buttons. He was accompanied by a fellow thespian dressed in a less spectacular fashion.
    John swept off his hat and bowed and Irish Tom took a respectful step backwards. Mr Foote made a spectacular bow and said, ‘Damme, but if it isn’t young Rawlings. Just left your father, who allowed himself to be dipped in the healing waters. Allow me to introduce to you Sir John Hill, he’s down here to take the waters and has obliged us with an appearance at the theatre.’
    This time John bowed to the ground. Sir John was the kind of man that he admired more than any. Botanist, playwright, actor, novelist, journalist and, above all, apothecary, with his own line in herbal cures. Furthermore, he had been granted a medical degree at Edinburgh. All this and it was rumoured that he had had an affair with Peg Woffington. John’s hat was literally and metaphorically off.
    ‘Good day to you, Sir,’ he said. ‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance. I can truly say that I am an admirer of all your works.’
    Hill smiled at him with bright eyes, their colour somewhat dimmed by the passing of the years and the amount of work they had had to endure.
    ‘How d’you do?’ he said.
    ‘Mr Rawlings is a fellow apothecary,’ said Foote, and laughed as if he had made some great joke.
    ‘Well,’ Hill replied, ‘that makes two of us, does it not?’
    They both laughed and John felt that he was surely missing something funny.
    ‘Excuse me, gentlemen, but I fail to see the humour of the situation.’
    Hill regarded him in a scholarly fashion. ‘It was the mention of two of us, d’you see? Mr Foote and I once exchanged some acrimonious correspondence, but we made it up with a visit to the King’s Arms in Covent Garden – just the two of us.’
    John laughed dutifully, though in fact he failed to see anything amusing at all.
    ‘Well, now, we are off to take a little liquid refreshment at The Rummer. Would you care to join us? You may bring your friend along, should you so wish.’
    Irish Tom spoke up. ‘Begging your pardon, gents, but I’ll make meself scarce if you don’t mind. I’m only a coachman and I doubt I could keep up with your conversation.’
    Samuel Foote said with dignity, ‘Your station in life means little to me, my friend. In my profession I mix with gamblers, whores and even Irishmen. I would be pleased to spend some time in your company and listen to your melodious voice, which I will then proceed to imitate.’
    And he did just that, taking off Tom’s way of speaking to within an inch. The four men burst out laughing and John felt how marvellous it was to be alive, to have made friends with a man like Foote, to have met someone as celebrated as Sir John Hill, and to have a servant as rich in life and experience as Irish Tom.
    ‘Well, now, I doubt me mother would have known the difference,’ said the coachman, applying a red spotted handkerchief to his watering eyes.
    ‘Oh, sure and she would not,’ said Foote, and his art of mimicry was so accurate that John laughed all over again and let out a great whoop of joy. At which Foote burst into an impromptu jig, somewhat hampered by the fact he only had one leg.
    Later, when the three men were seated in The Rummer – Irish Tom having excused himself to go and check on the coach – they fell to talking. The first thing they discussed was the fact that the inn was packed with the dockside riff raff and intelligentsia. Sailors, dockers, great mountainous fellows with hands like hams and arms like bellows thronged the bar, and dotted among them were earnest-looking men in sombre suits, heads together, talking about the price of rum, or