Birdcage Walk (13 page)

Once George had disappeared from view, Charlotte hurried back the way she had come, fearful that if she stayed a moment longer she would allow herself to sink back against the bricks and slide down them, coming to rest on the filthy wet ground. She couldn’t go home yet, Annie’s well-meaning questions an unbearable prospect.

Reaching the Rosemary Branch, the seep of the pub’s warm light made her suddenly desperate for another drink. She wanted to feel the burn of spirits down her throat, searing through the pain that bloomed like a creeping frost in her chest. Going back inside the Rosemary Branch was unthinkable, though. She had only just run out of there, everyone turning to stare, glad for a bit of gossip on a slow night. Even worse, Ted might have taken up his usual spot by now. She continued on to the Southgate instead, darker and more private than its neighbour, and ordered herself a large brandy at the dimly lit bar.

The figure behind the heavy wood and its brass rail was an unfamiliar one and Charlotte doubted he would let her have the drink on tick. She checked the little purse tied to her skirts already knowing that it was empty again. Having poured the brandy, a deep amber in the bulbous glass, the barman stood impassively in front of her as she pretended to dig around for the right coins, her cheeks burning anew. Suddenly, just as she had tensed, ready to turn on her heel and flee back to Annie after all, a large hand pushed the money across the polished surface of the bar towards her. The taciturn barman swept them up and went to serve a group of men. Charlotte’s head snapped up to see who had been so kind. Her stomach lurched as she recognised the bulky figure that now retreated back into the shadows.

“This isn’t your usual spot, Ted,” said Charlotte, inwardly cursing the quaver in her voice. “Who’s keeping your stool warm in the Rosemary Branch tonight, then?”

“Fancied a change, didn’t I?” His voice was steady, but Charlotte could see his eyes shining through the gloom. “I could ask you the same thing. Why are you here on your own without that sweetheart of yours?”

He picked between his teeth with a fingernail and then drank down the rest of his pint, nodding at the barman to pour him another.

“We don’t live in each other’s pockets, me and George. I don’t know where he is tonight and that’s fine by me.”

Ted laughed quietly into his glass.

“Yeah, it sounds like it.”

They sat in an apparently companionable silence as Charlotte sipped her brandy, misery diminishing her customary awkwardness around her brother-in-law. She could feel his eyes on her, though, looking away only to receive his fresh glass of beer. After a time, he broke the quiet.

“So come on then, tell Ted all about it. You wouldn’t be in here drinking brandy on your own if you hadn’t had a filthy row with someone. It could be Annie, she was moaning the other day about you not helping her much in the house, but I know her and she can’t stay cross with either of us for long. Something I often have cause to be thankful for. So if it’s not Annie, then I’ll bet a crown it’s Georgie boy. What’s he done to upset you?”

“You’ve got it wrong, Ted. I just fancied a drink, something to warm me through. The weather’s bitter this week and I can’t get warm.”

Ted covered her small hand with his and squeezed it until she flinched and tried to pull it away.

“You are cold, aren’t you, poor little mite. Not enough meat on them bones of yours, not like my Annie. She never feels the chill. Here, our Lottie’s not thinking George has grown tired of her, is she? That he’s got his mind on another? That’s not what’s got you all flighty, is it girly?”

He patted her hand gently and then moved it back to his glass, her face turning pale even as he watched.

“What’s he said to you?” she said. “If he’s said something, you should tell me. I’m family to you, not him.”

“Hold your horses, he’s said nothing to speak of. George is courting you, isn’t he? I’m sure you’re getting yourself in a state over nothing. Just because he’s been spending a bit of time up Highbury way, don’t mean there’s any funny business going on.”

Charlotte gripped his jacket sleeve so tightly that her knucklebones gleamed white through the skin.

“Highbury? What do you know about him and Highbury?”

“Well, you sound like you know something of it already. I don’t know much more than I’ve just told you. I seen him heading home the other day and we got talking. He mentioned something about Highbury in passing. Wouldn’t say nothing else and went striding off before I could ask any more. Didn’t even say goodbye, now that I think of it.”

“How did he look when you saw him? When was it?” asked Charlotte, her fingers still clutching at Ted’s sleeve.

“Oh, I can’t remember when it were. You know what I’m like with dates. Annie’s there to remind me when to go to work and when to stop at home. As for how he looked, well, he looked like George.”

Charlotte banged down her glass in frustration. Ted was enjoying this, she knew he was. Apparently after some thought, he continued.

“Let me put it this way. You know how he can seem like his mind’s elsewhere? He was like that but . . . sort of agitated, is the only way I say it. Perhaps that would be putting it too strongly, though. I can hardly remember, love. Shall I buy you another brandy? You’ve gone ever so green around the gills, Lottie.”

“Did you say something to him? Tell me the truth now, will you?”

“What you talking about? What would I have said to him that would upset him?”

“You know what I mean, Ted.”

In response, he raised his hands and shrugged ostentatiously.

“You’ll have to give me a bit more of a clue than that, Lottie. I’m no mind reader.”

“Joe. Did you say anything about Joe and that letter he sent? George was angry with me tonight and wouldn’t tell me straight why. Something’s happened and he’s been avoiding me for near enough two weeks now.”

Ted didn’t speak at first, and Charlotte forced herself to wait and encourage him to fill the silence. Not easily made uncomfortable, he took his time.

“I told you, love, I’ve got a memory like a sieve. I couldn’t rightly say whether I mentioned that letter or not. If I did, it weren’t to do any harm. It would just have been making conversation. Don’t matter either way, does it? Not if you’d told him about Joe.”

He took a long drink and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You had told him about Joe, hadn’t you?”

Charlotte had heard enough. She would bet her life that Ted had deliberately told everything he knew, and more besides, and not for the sake of any conversation. A crystalline image of George fleeing round the corner a few nights before came back to her in a rush. It was then, it must have been. He’d just found out and got the wrong idea about her and Joe. Knowing Ted, he’d probably managed to get in that Joe would be back in time for Christmas. She hadn’t noticed Ted out of the window but he must have been there too, close to the front door out of sight. She thought back carefully. Yes, he’d just come in when she went downstairs a few minutes later, too distracted to notice the coincidence of his return.

For an instant she was tempted to remain at the bar and keep drinking away Ted’s money, get drunk enough to not remember getting into bed or going off to sleep. She was afraid that George’s face would float in front of her in the dark of the tiny room she shared with Annie’s eldest but she couldn’t stand to be watched for another moment. Ted called after her, saying another brandy would calm her nerves, but she was already on her feet and crossing the pub, the door slamming back on its hinges as she fled.

“That’s gratitude for you, after buying her that drink,” said the barman, as he scooped up Charlotte’s empty glass.

“Ah, it was worth it for the entertainment,” replied Ted.

As Charlotte sped away from Ted and the pub, a sudden impulse drove her down Wiltshire Row, passing the turn for Avebury Street without a second glance. She stopped at George’s door, breathing hard, the vapour in the cold air as thick as cigarette smoke. Her knock echoed through the tenement house more loudly than she had intended and, though the hour was late, the door was almost immediately pulled back by a tiny urchin, his feet bare and black with soot and grime. He stared at her quizzically as she debated whether to run but just as she turned to go she saw Cissy descending the stairs.

“Come on, Billy, back to your ma you go now.” She pushed the child gently towards a door before looking up at Charlotte anxiously.

“You alright, Lottie? I thought you were with George. You know, you’re quite as washed out as you were on Saturday. Come upstairs, then. We can pull the curtain across and have a seat on the bed so my dad won’t hear us.”

Charlotte climbed the stairs after Cissy soundlessly, holding herself carefully so she didn’t shatter into pieces. In her mind’s eye she followed George northwards to wherever it was he was really going. She had never been to Highbury but she knew there was plenty of wealth that way, wide roads, and with each house sitting proud on its own tidy plot of land, marked off from the next by iron railings and brick posts. It was close enough to still smell of the countryside up there when the wind blew right, she’d heard.

Cissy made some weak tea, apologising for the lack of milk, and the two girls sat together on Cissy’s narrow bed, the creaking of old springs the only sound in the heavy silence between them. After a time, Cissy rose to shut the window above George’s bed. He didn’t feel the cold much and had left it wide as usual, the air stealing through it making the breath of the two girls as visible as Charlotte’s had been outside. The sash came down with a bang which made Charlotte, still in her reverie, jump. Cissy perched on George’s bed, opposite the silent girl.

“It’s about them drawings, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve come.”

“I don’t really know why I’ve come, Cissy. I couldn’t go home to Annie yet.” She felt tears build—she had never cried so much in her life as lately—and stopped speaking to keep them dammed. Cissy sipped her tea and waited. After a time, she spoke so quietly that Cissy had to lean towards her to catch the words.

“I had a row with George earlier. In the street. We were down the pub but then he just upped and went off, leaving me on my own in there. People were looking at me, god knows what they thought. Anyway, I followed him and he were heading up New North Road, going north. He told me some rubbish about looking at books but I know he’s going to see that girl from the drawings. He’s angry with me too. He’s heard something that isn’t true and I don’t know what I feel worse about. Him thinking what he’s thinking about me, or him lying about why he’s gone up there.”

She paused, and looked pleadingly at Cissy.

“Cissy, you’ve got to tell me if he’s seeing someone else. I can’t bear not knowing, especially when other people know things about him that I don’t, even Ted. It makes me feel like a fool and I can’t stand that.”

Cissy stood up in her anxiety, picking at the raw skin around her fingernails as she did so, her eyes wide as saucers.

“Honest, Charlotte, I don’t know nothing about it. I’ve never seen that girl in the picture until we found it in the book.”

“So he hasn’t told you nothing about her, then? Or these books he goes and reads in this big house.”

“No, he hasn’t said anything.” She suddenly brightened, “But there was a drawing of a house in the book too, don’t you remember? It was on the page before the . . . that other picture. Perhaps he’s telling you the truth after all. He’s never been a good liar, George.”

Charlotte eyes shone. The book she knew lay hidden under the mattress became a kernel of hope that George was still her own. She’d convince him she was true to him, explain that Joe and her was a different thing altogether.

“No, Charlotte, we shouldn’t look through George’s things again. He’d kill me if he knew I’d been nosing around and shown you too. You never said nothing, did you?”

“Of course I didn’t, but you’ve got to let me look properly now, haven’t you? I can’t rest for thinking about it. I don’t know what to do with myself, Cissy. I haven’t slept a wink for worrying about it. Look at the state of me.” She grasped hold of Cissy’s hands.

“Alright, then. We’ll have one more look. But that’s it after that, right?” She lifted the thin mattress and reached underneath. Charlotte felt a jolt of surprise when Cissy immediately brought the little book out. A part of her had expected it to have gone, as if it had never been there and she might have preferred that. Cissy went to open it and then catching sight of Charlotte’s face simply handed the volume over instead. She fell upon it and started flicking through the sketches, biting her bottom lip as she glimpsed her own image again, the sketch as rough and unfinished as before. As she pushed through the pages, trying not smudge the lead marks as she did, a scrap of paper, much folded and rather stained, fell to the floor. Charlotte snatched it up and unfolded it.

“It’s an address, Aberdeen Park. I’ve never heard of it. Does it mean something to you?”

Cissy’s face cleared.

“Now hang on a minute. That rings a bell, give it here.” She took the paper and spoke immediately.

“Yes, that’s it, I’d recognise that writing anywhere. It’s the address Mr. Booth left for George to deliver the birdcage. I wonder why he’s kept it.”

“What birdcage? George never said.”

“Didn’t he? Oh, well, this gentleman Charles Booth come round with PC Ryeland and bought a birdcage. George were out at work, but it was arranged that he’d deliver the cage after, up to Highbury. That must have been where he saw this house and took a fancy to it, thought he’d draw it afterwards.”

Charlotte started and gripped the book tighter.

“I think I saw Ryeland with an old gent, ages ago when it was still warm. And Highbury is where George said he was going tonight,” she said.

“What, at this time of night?”

“That’s what I said to him. He said he does odd jobs for them and in return he’s allowed to look at their books.”

“Not at this hour he ain’t looking at no books,” said Cissy. “I remember he told me when he come back from taking the cage that there was some rare book or other he’d like to copy but I told him to forget it, someone like him in a nice house like that. I told him forget it or he’d be disappointed. He’s never mentioned it since. That was weeks back now. Something don’t make sense in all this.”

Charlotte sat heavily back on the bed and leaned against the wall, her booted feet dangling in the air. She felt torn, relieved that these precious books existed in Highbury but newly unconvinced that George had gone there tonight unless . . . She heard his words again, saying he’d found someone better. It must be. When he delivered the birdcage, a maid would have answered the door in a big elegant house like the one George had drawn. He wasn’t looking at any books—he was meeting the housemaid, getting her to sneak out and meet him whenever he managed to shake off his used goods back in Hoxton.

“Have you got a bit of paper, Cissy?”

Cissy stood, her eyes narrow with suspicion.

“Why, what do you want paper for?”

“What do you think? That I’m going to write a poem? No, I’m going to copy this address down and see for myself if he goes there at all, and if he does go there, what he’s up to. See if these books aren’t a cover for something else. Someone else.”

“You can’t, Charlotte,’ Cissy gripped her hand, ‘they’ll be very proper people, you can’t just go marching up there. What would you do, knock on the door and ask them straight out if George is there?”

“No, I can bide my time. I’ll go up there when I know he’s gone out for the night, and see if he’s telling the truth, wait for him to come out. Then I’ll see what he’s really up to. None of them will ever know I’m there, unless I want them to.”

“I don’t know, Lottie, it sounds like a bad idea to me. You don’t know how George can get if he loses his temper. He’s different to my dad like that, you know dad’ll never say boo to a goose. But George, well, I’m afraid of him when he’s really angry. It don’t happen much but when it does . . . “

Charlotte thought of the hand that had slammed into the sodden bricks by her shoulder but stood up defiantly, her head a few inches taller than Cissy’s.

“Well, I’m not afraid of him and he’ll answer for it if he’s seeing someone else behind my back. I won’t have it, I won’t be made a fool of. Whatever he might think of me, I wouldn’t ever do that to him. Never mind the paper, I’ll take this. If he misses it, you tell him to come to me. It might get him talking to me again.”

She tucked the dog-eared scrap into her bodice and strode out before Cissy could protest, nodding a terse goodbye to Mr. Woolfe as she headed for the stairs.