Dodger (19 page)

The night was moist and foggy and I could not see below me to where the Thames ended and the bank began. From this height I could not even make out if a boat was moored below or if I would jump into the black river. Before I had crawled outside I had been thinking how easy it would be to plunge in and then swim to one of the nearby boats, row it to a causeway and climb the stone steps back up to the bank. I now saw the foolishness of this scheme as I was sure to freeze and be swept under by the
current. However, to the left of the veranda was a long flagpole what waved the Union Jack above the roof and I looked down to see to where it led. Underneath our veranda was another wider one what led out from where the dancing and music was coming from and I would be able to climb down this flagpole and on to that. I leaned over and saw the many flickering lights shining out from the three tall windows underneath that lit up most of the veranda. But the outside areas in between the windows and at the far sides was cast in deep shade and would be easy to hide in. The pole led straight down into one dark corner and so I grabbed hold of it, threw my legs over the side of the balcony and began shimmying my way down.

It was a fair distance down to the lower floor but I have always been a nimble boy, and with vicious winds whipping me downwards, I soon lowered myself on to the platform below. But, just as my feet touched the floor, I noticed something I had not seen from the balcony above. There was two people already on this veranda before me, both hidden in the dark far corner and trying to be as quiet as I. It was a young man and woman and they was having at each other with much vigour. Neither of them noticed me drop down on to the other side, so consumed was they by each other's passions, and I could tell by the silent murmurs and secret gropes that these was not our innocent newlyweds. The man, a gentleman it seemed, had his hands already under the lady's dress and his own breeches was down by his ankles which, considering how cold it was, made me want to salute the determined cove. It was clear that they had sneaked outside so that he could be the ruin of her and they had been most helpful and left the glass door nice and ajar. I peered inside to where the merriment was carrying on and saw that this was some sort of large dance hall where many happy couples was bouncing around, clapping
and spilling glasses of wine about as they did so. Drunken ladies was slipping over on to their backs and gentleman was roaring with laughter as they locked arms with one dancing partner, spun her around, released her and grabbed another. They was all dizzy and distracted and so I slipped straight in, stepped past a fiddler and made my way over to the door.

‘Not so fast, young gentleman,' called a female voice most severe and I turned to see a plump woman in an orange dress approach and grab me by the arm. Then she pulled me on to the dance-floor, cried, ‘Here's another one trying to go abed!' and spun me about as all the other revellers clapped and cheered. Then she let me go, to lock arms with another man, and I found myself dancing with a second even plumper lady. Nobody seemed to question who I was or where I had sprung from but almost every lady in the place seemed most insistent that I take my turn on the floor with her. I made matters worse by being as good at dancing as I am at everything else and so was unable to get away as fast as I wanted to. But after having hopped and spun with every girl, and some of the gents, I reached the door and bid them all goodnight.

Out in the darkened corridor I saw two staircases, one leading up to where Warrigal lay and one leading downwards to the bar. I raced down this and stepped through the empty tavern where a few drunken wedding guests was chatting and drinking. There was a coat-rack close to the door and as I passed it I picked off the thickest one I could find and a matching green hat from off a peg. I dashed outside on to the cobbled streets, not even looking behind me to see if the owner of the coat or an angry aborigine was about to come charging after. I just began hopping off fast down the lane barefoot, away from my sleeping assassin. I was not even out of the tavern's tall shadow before my bare feet was aching and I cursed myself for not daring to take those boots before I left.

It took me over an hour but I at last found the vagrant I had been looking for. He was lain out in an alley stinking of vermin somewhere near Deptford, asleep in a doorway, his boots the only things of him what could be spied from the road. As my own sore feet tiptoed towards him I peered into the dark for any other unseen coves what might alert him to my approach but saw only a black cat peering at me from the shadows. I had passed this particular beggar a couple of times and had tried to look as inconspicuous as a man with no shoes ever can when hopping his way down an unpaved alley. Beside him lay an empty bottle of gin what seemed to have sent him into a deep slumber. He did not stir, even in spite of the heavy dripping from the ledge above, and I felt very certain that he would not waken as I began to untie his laces. Once the first boot was unlaced enough I pulled it off as gentle his mother may have many years before, careful not to disturb his sleeping.

I had boasted to John Froggat just the night before this that I never stole from those what was poorer than myself. I still prided myself that this was a truth, even though here I was removing the boots off a beggar and with no thought of paying him even a brass farthing in exchange. But it could be argued that this here beggar
was indeed a richer man than I, with his thick-soled boots and his bellyful of liquor, so I chose not to question myself on it. In making the hard decision to slip out of a window and distance myself from a murderer I had also given up all the trappings of wealth what Evershed had supplied me with and now had no home, no money and nothing in the way of practical footwear. So the sight of this mendicant poking his old dirty farmer's boots out into my path struck me as a vulgar display of his own affluence and one which I could not let pass.

The second boot came off as quiet as the first and I dashed off quick before the cold night air informed the holes in his socks about the loss. Once I had run to the end of a flagstone path, and was certain that I could not be grabbed for the crime, I crouched down and put them on. They was made for a man with feet twice the size of mine and, with the large pea-green coat swiped from the tavern and the matching hat too big for my own head, I felt quite the clown. But the undersides of my feet had begun bleeding from small cuts caused by all the jagged, bottle-smashed lanes I had been walking down and the night was so cold that I did not find myself fretting too much about these concerns of fashion. Instead I carried on travelling further into London because, as has often been the way with me, I could not imagine in what other direction I should be headed.

Even with these much-needed boots on it was still a long and sorry night. I found myself drawn towards a great fire down by the riverside where many other homeless, miserable wretches was warming themselves while people from the City Mission served out soup and read from scriptures. One such missionary handed me a hot bowl and talked to me about Christ the Saviour as I slurped from it. Then, after I had licked the bowl clean, he asked if I could read and, on hearing that I could, he offered me a way
of making some money. He wanted me to go among the large crowd of men and women reading aloud from a religious tract he gave me what was full of all the Bible's best bits. This I did, and spent the next two hours spreading the good word of the Lord among the lowliest creatures in the capital. I found that I was a natural preacher and was soon beginning to wonder if I could make a go of it as a clergyman if only such a comfortable position would present itself. For certain these vagrants seemed to be most captivated by my talk of the Lord's forgiveness and of redemption, salvation and the like. I soon amassed a tidy group of followers what was just as keen to hear my readings as those convicts was in Australia when I had read them extracts from Shatillion's books.

There was a young girl present at this dreary scene with whom I fell into a long conversation. She was younger than me but it was clear that her flower had already faded and it saddened me to think how poverty and vice had got hold of her like a disease. She had grown up among the fishermen of Great Yarmouth but had found herself seduced by some handsome rake who had then discarded her like a rag doll. Too ashamed to return home to the honest fisherman she had abandoned for a life of sin, she now haunted the streets and brothels of London cursing the very name of the man who had ruined her. If only she had given her heart more wisely, she said, to someone good such as myself, then she never would have ended up in this dreadful place. I told her that Christ forgave her and headed back to the missionary to claim the shillings I was owed.

These earnings was enough to pay for a ride to Whitechapel, and as the missionary counted out the coins I asked if he knew of a cab office what would be open at this early hour. He pointed me in the direction of a nearby dockyard and wished me luck in
my journey. Before I left he asked if I myself had been moved by any of the scriptures I had been reading from. ‘Oh yeah,' I said to keep him happy. ‘I'm a changed man.' He smiled then and I went to leave him but, before I had taken even three steps, I felt a sudden need to turn back and tell him something.

‘Look here,' I said as I checked both ways to make sure no one could overhear me. ‘I've been hearing about some old soul lying drunk in an alley off the Creek Road. He's got no shoes on, the poor sod, because some little horror stole them from him while he slept.'

The missionary looked good and shocked by this. ‘Are there no depths,' he asked me, ‘to which the wicked will not sink?'

‘Well, that's what I thought,' I said, ‘so if any of you City Mission lot are heading in that direction then perhaps you can keep an eye out for him.'

The missionary promised that he would and so I shook his hand and walked off towards the cab office. The few hours that I had spent resting in that place had been good for my cut feet, which was already starting to hurt less.

*

It was the small hours of the morning by the time I got to the tangle of streets in Bethnal Green what I remembered Bill occupying like a dirty great spider. Ruby lived here now with Jem White and I came here tonight because Warrigal would have no clue to the address. The sleet was battering down as I worked my way into the centre of this run-down vicinity, trying to remember the quickest cut to his old crib. The first time I had ever met Bill Sikes was when Fagin had led me down this very maze back when I was small. He had presented me to the burglar as ‘the perfect boy for an outing', meaning that I was small enough to crawl through any hole he had cut into the side of a house and also
smart enough to know what to do once through it. Bill took me on many night-time expeditions and he often had me climbing up guttering to squeeze into an attic window or would force me through a removed door panel before knowing if there was any dogs on patrol inside. Even after I had grown too big for such tasks I would still be sent to this address to deliver secret messages or to fetch the booty whenever the Jew wanted to keep his own head down.

I found the dark, single-lamped street down which the two ill-fated lovers once dwelt and I hurt at the memory of how Nancy was no more. She had been a kind woman and I could not help but link Nancy and Ruby together in my mind now as I walked down the old lane to their dwelling. As much as I was keen to be reunited with my old pal Jem again, it was with little thought of him that I had travelled all the way here from Greenwich.

However, once I had arrived at Ruby's front door I became shy about knocking upon it with my fight-grazed fist. Just yesterday she had seen me in all my proud affluent glory, tailored and spangled like a gentleman with my very own servant and a hat what was firm and upright. She was sure to have told Jem all about how prosperous I had become and it was a sweet cream to imagine how this must have sickened my dear old pal. But, less than a day later, here I was appearing on their doorstep, drooping, beaten and weather-battered, with a sharp red cut-mark circling my neck. I now had all the grace and gentility of something a cat would deliver. Shame fell upon me with the raindrops but I banged hard upon the door nonetheless. I wanted to see her.

The wooden door was thicker than any of the others in that street but in its centre was a tiny peephole what someone had bored through. I pressed my eye against it to see if anyone in there was approaching but it was covered on the other side and all was
blackness. I knocked again, my eye still against the peephole, and at last I heard footsteps from inside hurrying down wooden steps. A woman's voice called out that she was coming, the cover over the peephole slid back and an eyelash blinked back at me.

‘That you, my sugar-mouse?' said a voice of soft concern. ‘Lost your key again?' I pulled back from the peephole so she could see better who was calling. Jem, I imagined, was her sugar-mouse and it seemed he was out. Good.

‘It's me, Rube.' I brushed my hair over with my fingers. ‘Jack Dawkins. I've had a horrible night. Let us in, will you?'

The eye vanished, I heard the turning of keys and the unchaining of locks. Then the door opened and there she was. Ruby, looking lovely in her nightdress, the pale skin of her uncovered neck lit up by the candle she held low in a cleft stick, the features of her face still obscured by the shadows. ‘You're soaking!' she said. ‘Come inside quick.'

I stepped into the warmth and moved to hold her. ‘Thanks, girl,' I said as I kissed her on the forehead. ‘You've done me a bloody good turn.' I gave her a quick embrace and her body felt all warm against mine but she stiffened as I held her for too long. She pulled away and said, ‘Shut the door after yourself, Jack. Or we'll both catch our deaths.' I did so and once I had finished chaining and barring it behind myself I turned back to face her. She was holding the tallow candle higher now and so I got a better look at her face. And there I saw something what shook me.