Excerpt from The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

How many years have I? She unseals her eyes and sees the boy trying once more to pull her upright, and she smiles. It is true, there is no dignity in lying slumped among a sea of masts. But look, vessels at anchor! Still, like her, and she feels grateful that her child is helping her. Now she is startled by the warm water between her legs, but she welcomes the sudden flush of heat. She knows this pleasant feeling will soon pass and only the stench and irritation will remain. (I'm sorry, my child, but tribulation is upon me, and I must sleep some more before standing. Please sit with me and keep me company for one hour more, this is all I ask. Just one hour, and then we two shall leave together.) She deeply resents the fact that these people look pitifully upon her son, whom she has ruined by the example of her own indolent misery. Their foolish tongues used to ask: Can the boy speak English? Can he dress hair? Is he sober? Is he fit to wait upon a gentleman? But no, no, no. She has seen the other boys, ornately attired in silks, with silver collars and satin turbans, walking behind fair ladies so they might attend to their mistresses' trains, or quickly administer smelling salts, or take charge of their fans. But other boys, not her child. Her son will never walk behind a fair lady. He looks down at her, his wide eyes brimming with a concern that threatens to spill over into tears. She can, however, detect that a strong and tenacious heart beats in his tiny body. This being the case, all is not lost.

*   *   *

As the pale sun sinks beneath the watery horizon, filth-encrusted sailors, ready to roister anew under the cover of darkness, appear from all directions. She never evokes any compassion from these men, who lurch confidently past her, their aura of superiority fed by excessive familiarity with rum and other strong liquors. The boy helps her to her feet, for they must leave before the quarter descends into violence. They stagger off, her feet clad in mismatched shoes that skid through fetid puddles of waste. (The sailors don't see me; they never see me.) Suddenly, the shoes are temporarily held captive in the unforgiving mud of an unpaved road, but she nevertheless struggles to remain womanly in her deportment. They press on and twist and turn through a tangled nest of cobbled streets, avoiding yawning doorways where slops may unexpectedly be thrown out, climbing laboriously up worn stone steps, ducking under low-hanging tavern signs, and averting their senses from the narrow entrances to cellars. The people who have buried themselves in these hovels will venture out only after nightfall to sit around a bonfire and drink and sing before retreating to their damp and crowded burrows, where body heat alone, surreptitiously stolen from a stranger, feeds the pulse of life.

Having reached their destination, she lies down on a handful of straw in a tiny room under the low roof. The broken windows are stuffed with brown paper and scraps of besmirched fabric, but the cacophony of noise still penetrates. She receives the drunken tidings of night, and she understands that the doglike howling and yelping from the Flying Horse Inn, which at all hours teems with degraded humanity, will persist until dawn. But what can she do? The wooden stairs that lead to this bleak attic room begin to creak, but she is not expecting anyone. (Is someone there?) Her son lifts a small finger to his lips and encourages her to be quiet. The dank wall is made visible by candlelight, and extended across its full breadth she can see the shadowy image of the boy's furtive gestures, but the intermittent rubbing of her irritated eyes now results in her closing them tight.

It hasn't always been this way. Before, having pushed back her wooden chair and swathed herself in a moth-eaten shawl, each evening she would set forth and leave behind the rattling and clacking of the looms. And each evening she would assume that this must be the day on which the lonely man has had to return to his inconvenient wife and children, but for almost a week her suitor has confounded her expectations and waited patiently by the gates with a small bunch of freshly picked flowers, which he presents to her with more extravagance than is necessary in the hope of gaining her approval. He walks with her and talks, and he understands that she is not blessed with pretty features, and he suspects that she would most likely freely admit this, but he knows that she possesses elegance, although undoubtedly some men see only a harlot as common as the dirt under their feet, a lamentable object they might use for either commerce or humour. He has seen these men, the desire for entertainment gleaming in their faces as they greedily watch the commotion of her dress against her hips. She steps back out of range as a large carriage with heavy wheels carves its way through the busy street and awakens clouds of dust, and then she walks, and he walks with her, and again he tries to solicit conversation, and finally, after a five-day campaign, she reluctantly agrees to accompany him to the back room of the Queen's Head tavern for supper.

Copyright © 2015 by Caryl Phillips.