A picture of the cottage with its bare white walls floated into her mind. She saw herself as a young bride, eager and frightened in equal parts. She remembered herself and Joseph in that old rickety bed, loving each other. They had both been so young, so strong, back then. Where had those years gone? The loneliness of the years since he had died, a broken man with coal dust clogging his lungs, swept over her.
‘I just remember that cottage,’ Ellen said, cutting into her memories. ‘Me and Joe used to chase the chickens in the yard.’
‘That you did, and we would have had more eggs had you not,’ Bridget replied.
‘I remember how the roof slanted at one end and the rain would come under the door if the wind was in the East. Pappy would shout at the wind to turn around. I remember one day it did and I was afraid that God would punish him for ordering his wind about. And how I swung on the gate waiting for Pappy to come home after market day and he always asked, ‘Where’s my smiley angel’ although I was right in front of him.’
Both women sat silently with their thoughts for a few moments, then Bridget placed her empty cup down.
‘You look a bit of a smiley angel today, Ellie.’
‘Do I?’ Ellen gazed at her fingers.
‘What’s he like?’
Ellen stood up and started to collect their cups together. ‘Who?’
‘The man who’s put the sun in your smile.’
Ellen gave a forced laugh. ‘Man? What man?’
‘That’s what I asked you.’
‘I’m just...’ She shrugged and raised her hands palms up on either side of her. ‘I’m full of the joys of spring. That’s all.’
‘Oh, that must be what’s making you sing, skip around the room and be talking about “noticing hands”.’
Ellen’s hand went to her hair. She pulled out a couple of pins and held them in her mouth, then, twisting her hair around, she jabbed the pins back. She glanced at the window and snatched up the basket from the table.
‘It’s past midday, I’d better get the washing in and ironed.’
A smile spread across Bridget’s face. She hauled herself out of the chair, took up the other basket and followed her daughter. As she reached the back door the grinding pain returned to her left arm.
Four
Danny tapped the open book in his hand and shook his head slowly. Black Mike, his giant right-hand man with fists the size of hams, standing behind him, did the same. Both of them looked at Peter Petersen, the chandler. Stood on the shelves were tins of various shapes and sizes, sealed at their rims with wax and sporting nautical scenes. Behind the chandler, coils of rope hung from hooks from the rafters. Danny fixed Petersen with a steely stare.
‘My book here,’ Danny jabbed at the pages, ‘says you have been short of coin for me for three weeks now.’
Petersen pulled out a crumpled handkerchief and mopped his broad brow. He shoved it back in his inside pocket and smiled apologetically.
‘Times is very hard, yar, Mr Donovan,’ said Petersen, his oiled hair shining in the light from the lamp above.
‘That they are,’ Danny agreed, his face a picture of concern. After a second his expression changed to a perplexed one. He pulled a fragile-looking chair over, turned it around and sat on it, legs astride. ‘But, as I take me morning stroll by the docks, the ships are fighting each other to get a berth.’
Petersen ran his finger around his collar and stretched his neck out. ‘That they are. But, Mr Donovan, sir, the prices are low. Why, only yesterday I heard that some ships’ masters are carrying tea and sugar as ballast, so low is the price vot they get in port.’ Beads of sweat sprang up on the fair bristles of his upper lip.
‘Is that so?’ Danny asked.
‘Yar, yar.’ Petersen shrugged expressively at Danny and Mike. ‘They are practically giving away their goods.’ He gave a forced laugh. ‘Only dis morning I was saying to my good Hilda, that as things go, I have barely enough to put food in my children’s mouths.’
Danny shook his head again. ‘Do you hear that, Mike?’
‘I do, guv’nor,’ Mike said, casting his gaze around the overcrowded interior of the ship’s chandler’s.
Danny’s eyes rested on a stack of coal shovels leaning in the corner, their unused blades gleaming in the light from the window. His gaze moved on to a dozen or so pristine cork floats then came back to the chandler.
He rose from the chair and circled around the counter. ‘Now, I’m just a simple man. Made my way in this old world, did me and Mike, without the benefit of much schooling, so put me straight if I am astray. If these poor seamen are out of pocket after sailing to the corners of the earth, why would you be stocking up with all manner of seafaring goods?’
Danny placed a heavy hand on Petersen’s narrow shoulders and looked him squarely in the eye. He was so close he could smell Petersen’s fear.
Petersen shot an anxious glance at his newly purchased goods. ‘Na, those are old—’
Danny put one arm around the shopkeeper like a old friend and walked him around to the middle of the shop. The curtain to the back of the shop moved again and Danny saw the face of Petersen’s wife through the crack.
He continued toward the bowed window, casually knocking over boxes of ship’s biscuits as he crossed the floor. With his free hand Danny tapped the dimpled window pane. The ping of his garnet signet ring on the glass echoed around the small space.
‘Do you know why you pay me safety money?’ he asked. Petersen’s mouth started to move but no sound came out. ‘Let me remind you. See this?’ He tapped the glass a little harder.
A fine glaze of sweat had appeared on Petersen’s forehead.
‘If this lot gets stoved in,’ Danny said, and punched the glass. There was a snap, and a crack snaked its way across the rectangular pane.
‘Or if this’ - he let Petersen go and lifted the lamp illuminating the shop’s interior from its ceiling peg - ‘caught onto the sawdust and oil you keep here, you wouldn’t have to put food in their mouths because they’ll all be in the workhouse.’
He tossed the burning lamp upwards and Petersen jumped forward. He let out a cry as he caught the hot metal bowl of the lamp just before it crashed onto a barrel of turpentine.
Danny rubbed his hands against each other and set his lapels straight. ‘Get me my money by tomorrow or you’d better get you and your scurvy brats back to Swedeland,’ he told Petersen as he set the lamp back where it belonged.
There was a whoosh as the curtains to the living quarters were thrown back. A small woman, her almost white blonde hair scraped back from her face, and her figure swathed in a long shawl, bustled into the shop. She thrust a small leather pouch into Danny’s face.
‘There you are, Mr Donovan, now let my Peter up. Please.’
Danny studied the drawn face of Hilda Petersen. She was tall for a woman and he guessed she must have had a pretty face at some point. Just for a split second her pale green eyes caught his attention. They took him back to a time he could barely remember, to a mother whose image he had almost forgotten. He hesitated.
‘It’s all dere,’ she said in a strong Scandinavian accent, thrusting the pouch at him again. The memory evaporated. He let Petersen go and took the proffered money in the same movement.
‘Doesn’t it take a woman to see the resolving of a situation?’ Danny asked, his face taking on its usual jovial expression. ‘What would we do without the fair sex to guide us?’
‘The blessed Almighty knew what he was about when he created Eve,’ Mike agreed as he opened the door for his boss.
‘Good day, to you, Petersen, Mrs Petersen,’ Danny said, sliding the pouch into his pocket. ‘A pleasure doing business with you.’ He jabbed a finger at Petersen and looked at him hard. ‘When my boy visits next week, be sure to listen to the little woman.’
The bell above the door jingled as Danny and Mike strode back into the street.
Two boys ran past them chasing each other. As they did the smaller of the two, a lad of about nine or ten, tripped up on the uneven pavement and collided with Danny’s leg.
Quick as lightning Danny’s hand shot out and grabbed the unfortunate boy, hauling him up into the air by the scruff of his neck.
‘Watch where you’re going, you little bastard,’ Danny shouted at the boy, who now dangled in the air.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Donovan, sir,’ the boy choked out. Danny shook him vigorously and set him on his feet, but held him still.
‘Sorry, are you?’ he said scowling at the lad hanging from his grip.
‘Please, Mister, Charlie didn’t mean no ’arm,’ the captured boy’s playmate pleaded.
Danny’s scowl deepened. ‘Were you after the contents of me pocket?’
Charlie and his friend denied the accusation in unison.
‘No, mister. I ain’t no thief, honest. Tell him, Sammy,’ the boy assured him as he twisted back and forth.
Sammy added his voice to his friend’s plea. ‘We’re not pickpockets.’
Danny stood unmoved, Mike beside him. ‘What’s to be done with them, Mike?’ he asked, still eyeing the boys menacingly.
‘Give them to the magistrate,’ Mike suggested.
Charlie and Sammy looked terrified. A trip to the magistrate was a guaranteed trip to Newgate or the Fleet prison and from there transportation to Botany Bay.
‘No, I’ve a punishment more fitting for these whippersnappers. ’
Danny reached into his inside pocket. Both boys went white with fear. They watched his hand wide-eyed as he drew it out again and twisted a silver threepenny piece between his finger and thumb. Two sets of eyes focused on the shining object. Danny tossed it in the air. It arched upwards and then fell on the floor. He let go of his captive who fell on the coin.
‘Off with you both, and get yourself a pie. You’ve got legs like starved pigeons, both of you,’ Danny said, as the boys dusted themselves down.
‘Thank you, Mr Donovan, sir,’ Charlie said beaming at Danny and Mike.
Danny tipped his head to one side and studied the boy who had collided with him. ‘You’re ’Arry Tugman’s boy, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir, Mr Donovan,’ Charlie replied.
‘Give your pa me best and tell him I’ll see him in the Prospect. Now be off with you,’ Danny told them. ‘And if you’ve got nothing better to do, follow the wagons along Whitechapel High Street. They often have the odd apple or pear on the back of the cart that the driver won’t miss. You might even lift something to sell up town.’
The boys touched their foreheads and shot off down the street.
‘That’s what I like to see,’ Danny said as they disappeared from sight. ‘Respect.’
Black Mike’s face took on a mellow expression as his eyes followed Charlie and Sammy disappearing into the crowd.
‘Put me in mind of you and me at that age, Danno,’ he said.
Danny slapped him sharply on the shoulder. ‘We weren’t as fortunate as those two. At their age we were grubbing our food in the dirt around St Katharine with all the other poor Paddy bastards fresh off the boat.’
Images came to him of he and Mike as boys, huddled in a cold loft gnawing at stale bread, chilled to the bone and wet through. If they didn’t swipe something to sell they starved, and they risked the rope every time they picked a pocket or lifted some goods from a barrow. Danny pushed the memories aside. He wasn’t partial to getting maudlin over the past. It made a man soft, and if a man wanted to survive in this world he couldn’t afford to be that.
He thrust his hand inside his breast pocket, drew out the leather-bound ledger again and flicked through the pages. He had money to collect.
‘Mahaffy, Mead, Meadows, Malley, Mungo,’ Danny said, running his finger down the page. ‘There we are, Mike, Mungo. The bastard owes me three shillings for parish safety.’ He grinned at Black Mike. ‘That is, Mungo had better give me three shillings if he wants to live safely in the parish.’
He noticed that Mike was looking over his shoulder and down the street. Turning slowly, a grin spread across his face.
‘Well, Mike, this is turning into a rare morning.’
Ellen turned into Cable Street and heartily wished that she hadn’t. On the corner of Mercer Row was Danny Donovan, flanked by Black Mike.
Before she had time to retrace her steps, Danny spotted her.
Holding her head high and adjusting the bundle of washing on her left hip, Ellen walked towards him across the muddy street.
Danny stepped out before her, blocking her way. ‘Look who it is, Mike, our very own linnet, Ellie.’
She sidestepped and Danny did the same. His face took on an ingenuous expression.
‘You seem to be in a mighty hurry this morning, me darling. Can you not see it as a kindness to me, and to Mike here, to spare us a couple of moments to light up our day?’ He took hold of her arm and ran his hand up and down it.
Ellen suppressed a shudder. ‘Even if you’ve time to idle away, I have things to do,’ she said, pulling her arm away and readjusting the bundle on her hip.
‘Now, you didn’t seem too busy to spend the time of day with young Doctor Munroe on Friday, did you?’
Ellen’s heart thumped in her chest, but she managed to look puzzled.
She knew, of course, that hardly an apple fell from a barrow without Danny having knowledge of it, but even so ... Who would have thought it worthwhile to tell him of her stroll with Doctor Munroe? Unless it wasn’t her they were watching but Doctor Munroe.
‘Doctor who?’ She pulled her brows together then let them relax. ‘Oh, Doctor Munroe. The doctor with Mr Chafford in the Angel last week.’
Danny’s eyes narrowed. ‘The poor man would be heartbroken if he knew that he had slipped your mind so easily.’ His gaze ran boldly over her, lingering on her breasts. He took hold of her arm again, his fingers pressing painfully into her flesh.
Ellen met his eye. ‘We happened to meet by chance and he accompanied me along the road.’
Danny leant towards her and a waft of stale sweat rose up. ‘Did the fine doctor accompanying you along the road sweet-talk you, eh, Ellen? Told you that he would look after you, did he?’