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

Although the considerate man took his time and let his fingers gently explore the soft curves of her body and whispered to her throughout, she was unable to prevent her mind from collapsing under the stress of memory. She found herself back on the ship with the captain stirring himself to quick, frenzied spasms, after which she was confined to her corner, where she prayed that he might now leave her alone. A civil frigidity entered the captain's voice as he commanded her not to submit to sulkiness, and then one morning the exasperated man ushered her to the foot of a steep staircase and then to the upper level, where she experienced a change of air. He pressed a guinea into her palm and, the ship having docked in the night, he pointed to the great port that lay spread out before them and turned her loose to find an occupation and seek shelter. It was some while before she moved off from the docks, being unsure if she was at liberty to walk abroad, and after a few hours of edging her uncertain way along bustling streets, a forthright workingwoman, with a fine white cloud of hair, came to her aid and made it her objective to help this lost soul reclaim her grit and establish a new home in this clamorous town of ships and sailors.

It was later, after she had accommodated her gentleman's devotion on a half-dozen separate occasions, that she discovered herself with child and, thereafter, her circumstances declined. (We've no work in this place for a woman with child.) She felt bereft of mettle in her increasingly tattered clothes, and shame began to regularly flicker across her face. (No, miss, we've no work for you.) No longer a bewitching presence, her reduced self aged a year with each dismissive glance, and she wept bitterly at the thought that she would most likely never reestablish herself in employment. Occasionally he still came to her with tender warmth and a charitable heart, and he appeared to look upon the child with genuine regard, but she could see it in his eyes that despite her attempt to maintain some grace to her natural movements, his zeal for her had been extinguished. Mother and child were now little more than a burdensome secret, and although her benefactor continued to press money upon her, it was manifest that he was growing progressively detached. And then meetings with the gentleman ceased, and other assignations commenced as the curse of destitution began to pollute her life. (No, please, no! No!) These scowling men revelled in improper conduct and were prepared to pay to have brisk knowledge, and once their joyless noises were at an end they dropped a coin on the way out as they stepped over the pile of tatters that was her child. Her poor son, who lay with his body curled tightly and his desperate hands clasped over his ears. (My child what have I done to you in this place? Will you ever forgive me?)

At dawn he appears before her and can see she is enduring a resurgence of distress. He looks across at her sleeping child but knows that there is little to be gained by waking the boy. The stench of decay torments the room, but it is illness and misfortune, not idleness, that has enabled this malodorous atmosphere to flourish. Her cheeks radiate heat like tiny twin furnaces, and blood leaks steadily from her nose. He sees the yellow tarnish to her defeated eyes and listens to her breathing in low, labored gasps. It is clear that the conflict will soon be at an end, so he will not reenter her delicate body. The woman is powerless to rise and meet the day, and it is time for her to pass safely over the threshold and be on her way. The woman opens her eyes and looks lovingly in the direction of her peaceful child. She taught the boy how to walk, and now she must walk away from him. She must go. A skeleton hung with rags. Another journey, another crossing.

Copyright © 2015 by Caryl Phillips.