Authors: Dilly Court
‘I’m sure Mrs Angel can cope with Billy for one evening. Anyway, you promised.’
‘No, I never. I told you I had to find Pa, and I did.’
‘So what happened?’
‘The cops think he’s mixed up with the Sykes gang.’
‘That’s bad.’
‘He ain’t one of them, you know that very well.’
‘No, no, of course not,’ Arthur said hastily. ‘I didn’t mean to say he was. It’s bad that the police think he might be.’
Irene quickened her pace. ‘I really must get home.’
‘All right, but I’m coming with you.’
It was unnaturally quiet when they entered the shop. ‘Wait here, Artie.’ Irene ran upstairs and opened the door to the living room, but it was a peaceful enough scene that met her anxious gaze. Ma was sitting in a chair by the fire, and Pa was lying on the bed still fully dressed and snoring loudly.
‘Are you all right, Renie?’ Clara asked anxiously. ‘You look flushed, ducks. Have you been running?’
‘I was worried that Pa might have gone out again, but I see now that it weren’t necessary.’
‘Yes, he’s sleeping like a baby,’ Clara said, smiling serenely. ‘I daresay he’ll have a sore head when he wakes up.’
‘Serve him right,’ Irene said with feeling, but seeing her mother’s face fall, she repented. ‘What about you, Ma? Can I get you something? I don’t suppose you’ve had anything to eat since breakfast.’
‘I’m not hungry, love. I had some bread and
jam
for me dinner and I don’t think that your dad will feel much like eating when he wakes up. He can’t take the drink like he used to.’
Irene went over to the bed to take a look at her father. His face was flushed and his jaw slack, but he was in a deep sleep and unlikely to awaken for hours. The thought of a good supper was too tempting to brush aside and Arthur was waiting for her downstairs. ‘Do you mind if I go out with Artie, Ma? Just for a bite to eat.’
‘You go, ducks. You deserve a nice night out with your young man.’
‘He’s not my young man. He’s just a friend.’
‘You go out with your friend and have a good time. Change your clothes and brush your hair, Renie. You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’
‘Yes, Ma.’ Irene smiled to herself. That was more like the old Ma. Irene could still remember a time when her mother had been a handsome woman of spirit, but that was before ill-health and worry had taken their toll.
Irene stepped out of her soiled garments and slipped on her one good frock; a hand-me-down from Emmie. She peered into the shard of fly-spotted mirror over the mantelshelf and tidied her hair into the snood at the nape of her neck. Even so, curly tendrils managed to
escape
around her forehead and no amount of brushing could persuade them to behave.
‘There,’ Irene said, straightening the white collar on her plain grey bodice. She held out her skirts, mimicking the fullness of a crinoline. ‘How do I look?’
‘Beautiful,’ Clara said, misty-eyed and smiling. ‘I’m a lucky woman to have two such pretty daughters.’
‘Not forgetting your handsome son, Ma.’
Clara looked away, biting her lip. ‘We don’t speak about him. You know that, Irene.’
‘I can’t forget Jim. He’s me brother.’
‘Well, he’s forgotten us.’ Clara’s voice hitched on a sob. ‘Running away to sea when he was little more than a boy. Ten years he’s been gone and no word from him. He might be dead for all I know, and I can’t forgive him for the misery he caused your pa and me.’
‘You don’t mean that, Ma.’
Clara tossed her head. ‘I do. That boy broke me heart when he run off. I won’t never mention his name again.’
‘But you keep his clothes in that old wooden chest,’ Irene said gently. ‘Just in case he does come home.’
‘I should have taken them to the pop shop years ago.’
Irene stifled a sigh. She had tried in vain to make Ma talk about Jim, but her negative
response
was always the same. One day, Irene was certain that her big brother would come home. He would walk through the door, tall and handsome, having made his fortune in some foreign country. Why couldn’t Ma see it that way?
Down below in the shop, Irene could hear Arthur shuffling about and calling her name in a hoarse stage whisper. She patted her mother’s hand. ‘I’ve got to go, Ma. But you’re wrong about Jim. I know he’s alive and he would have contacted us if he was able. He’ll come home one day, you’ll see.’
Clara made no response to this, but sat rigidly staring into the glowing embers of the fire. Irene left the room and made her way slowly downstairs with a deep feeling of sadness. She had been eight years old when Jim had left home after a fierce row with their father, who had threatened to beat him black and blue for stealing food from old Noddy, the pie man. Jim wasn’t a bad boy, he had simply been hungry. If Pa had not lost everything on a certainty at the race track, they might have had vittles in the house and Jim wouldn’t have been tempted to steal to fill his belly. It made Irene shudder even now when she recalled the scene. Jim had been her idol and she had cried for a week after he had gone. One of Billy’s mates on the docks told them
that
Jim had sailed as cabin boy on a ship bound for Australia, and that was the last they had heard of him. Irene liked to imagine that he had survived the rigours of life at sea, and had prospered on the other side of the world, but sometimes when she awakened in the middle of the night during a bad dream, she feared that he was dead from drowning or disease. The uncertainty was the worst thing.
‘What’s up?’ Arthur demanded. ‘You look like you lost a tanner and found a farthing.’
‘It’s nothing. I’m hungry, that’s all.’
‘Well then, lady. We can soon put that right.’ Arthur reached for her bonnet and shawl which she had discarded carelessly on the chair. ‘Haven’t you got anything warmer, Renie? It’s cold outside.’
She snatched the shawl from him, wrapping the flimsy, much-darned material around her shoulders. ‘I save me ermine-trimmed cloak for best, silly,’ she retorted, jamming her bonnet on her head. Her cold fingers fumbled with the ribbons, but Arthur took them from her and tied a bow beneath her chin with such expertise that it made her chuckle. ‘You’re turning into quite a lady’s man, Artie.’
‘Not at all. I just like to see things done proper. It’s the artist in me.’ His eyes twinkled mischievously as he looked her up and down. ‘Very pretty. You’ll do.’
‘Ta very much. I’m glad that you ain’t ashamed to be seen out with a girl in her one and only decent set of clothes.’
He fingered a wisp of hair which had escaped her attention. ‘You’d look lovely even if you was wearing an old flour sack.’
This made Irene laugh outright. ‘Now I know you’re teasing me.’
‘No indeed. Cross me heart and hope to die, you’re the prettiest girl in Cheapside, although that grey dress don’t do you justice. You should wear green or blue to bring out the colour of your eyes.’
‘Oh, come now, Artie. You’re having me on. Do I look as though I come down in the last shower of rain? Me eyes are neither green nor blue but some strange colour in between and me hair is plain brown like a sparrow’s wing. As me old granny used to say afore she died and went to heaven or the other place, “Irene, you was behind the door when good looks was handed out. God give ’em all to that flighty sister of yours.” She was right too; the only trouble is that Emmie knows it.’ Irene opened the door and shivered as the cold night air hit her. ‘You weren’t lying, Artie. It’s blooming chilly. Let’s get to the pub as quick as we can. I’m starving.’
Arm in arm they set off for Fleet Street and found it buzzing with activity as the gentlemen
of
the press set about their work of producing the next day’s newspapers. Light blazed in the office windows and there was a continuous flow of hansom cabs dropping off reporters with notebooks clutched in their hands as they raced into the brightly lit buildings. The scent of burning charcoal in a brazier and the tempting aroma of hot chestnuts made Irene even hungrier, and her mouth was watering at the thought of the famous steak pudding served at the Old Cheshire Cheese.
By the time they reached Wine Office Court she had worked up quite an appetite. She did justice to a plateful of steak and kidney pudding, washed down with a glass of red wine and followed by apple pie swimming in a pool of thick yellow custard. Arthur ate well too and kept her entertained with anecdotes about the people he met in his work, and grumbles about the strictness of his father who, in his opinion, expected impossibly high standards from his own son and was far more lenient with the other apprentices.
‘He says I spend too much time carousing and gambling,’ Arthur said, wiping custard from his chin with a table napkin. ‘But I say a fellow has to let off steam somehow. What d’you think, Renie?’
‘Hmm,’ Irene murmured, leaning back against the wooden settle. She was so full that her
stomach
hurt, but it was a good feeling and not one that happened very often. Their diet at home was frugal at the best of times, and quite often the family were reduced to eating bread and scrape for weeks on end. The taproom was filled with tobacco smoke and the smell of sap oozing from the burning logs, which made pleasant snapping and crackling sounds, adding to the general hubbub of conversation and occasional guffaws of laughter from men drinking at the bar. She was pleasantly sleepy and filled with a sense of well-being, and had not really paid much attention to Arthur’s question.
‘Don’t you agree?’
‘Agree to what, Artie?’
‘That a fellow should be allowed to have a bit of fun at the end of a hard day.’
‘I’d have to say yes to that, but it all depends on what type of fun you’re talking about,’ Irene said, suddenly alert and cautious.
‘Let’s have a laugh or two. I know a place where we can go to round the evening off. You’ll love it.’ Arthur rose to his feet, holding out his hand. ‘Come on, Renie. I’ll take you somewhere exciting.’
Unaccustomed to wine, Irene allowed her better judgement to be overruled, but she was still questioning Arthur’s intentions as they crossed Fleet Street and made their way towards
the
river. She was excited but also a little nervous, and she clutched Arthur’s arm more tightly as they walked the cobbled streets between tall buildings that seemed to bend and bow to each other above their heads in Hanging Sword Alley. The night-time sounds of the waterside were softened into an eerie background music of muffled hoots from steam whistles, the rhythmic flapping of sails and the splash of water as it lapped the stone steps. There was a pervading smell of cess and rotting vegetable matter and she covered her mouth and nose with her hand. They had come to the end of the alley and the small court was momentarily illuminated by the moon as it struggled out from behind a thick bank of clouds. Irene was aware of shuttered windows and an almost deathly hush, which was shattered when a door opened and a man staggered outside much the worse for drink. The sound of loud music and laughter flooded out in his wake, accompanied by a gust of stale air smelling strongly of tobacco smoke, ale and raw spirits.
‘This is it,’ Arthur said, taking her by the elbow and thrusting her into the narrow, dimly lit passageway.
‘Artie, if this is a gambling club I won’t stay,’ Irene said anxiously.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not taking you into the gaming room.’ Closing the door behind them,
Arthur
led her down the corridor and knocked three times on a door at the far end.
‘I don’t like this,’ Irene protested. ‘I want to go home now.’
Even as she spoke, the door opened and she found herself in a large room lit by dozens of candles in wall sconces and candlesticks placed on long trestle tables. Women sat on benches chatting, drinking tumblers of what smelt like gin, and smoking clay pipes and cigarillos.
‘Good evening, ladies.’ Arthur doffed his hat with a flourish.
A few heads turned, although most of the women were seemingly too immersed in conversation to bother about the newcomers. Irene gasped as the heat and tobacco smoke hit the back of her throat, but as she looked round the room she recognised a couple of familiar faces. That flaming mop of curls and the gaudily painted visage could only belong to Fiery Nan, a prostitute who had a liking for pickled cucumbers and frequented the shop in Wood Street. Sitting next to her was her friend Gentle Annie, who had been known to break a punter’s arm if he reneged on his promise to pay for her services.
Arthur gave her hand a squeeze. ‘So, are you happy to stay with the ladies while I play a game or two at the tables?’
‘You shouldn’t have brought me here,’ Irene
said
in a low voice. ‘You know what I think about this sort of place and you promised you’d stop gambling.’
‘This will be my last time – my final fling before I take my exams and become a respectable citizen.’ He backed towards the doorway and Irene could tell by the glint in his eyes that the gaming fever was already upon him, and nothing would prevent him from climbing that staircase.
She went to follow him, intending to leave the den of iniquity, but she was stopped by a hand clamping on her shoulder. She turned her head and found herself looking into the raddled face of Fiery Nan.
‘Hello, Irene. What are you doing here, girl? Your dad would have something to say if he knew you was keeping such company.’
‘I should go,’ Irene murmured. ‘It was a mistake.’
Fiery Nan glanced at Arthur’s retreating back and she pursed her lips. ‘Brought you here, did he? I’ll have a few words to say to that young man.’
‘I must get home,’ Irene insisted.
Nan shook her head. ‘No, ducks. It ain’t safe this late at night. You stay here with Gentle Annie and me. We’ll look after you until your fellah’s taken a drubbing at the tables, which won’t be long if I’m any judge of character.’
She
took Irene by the shoulders and guided her through the packed room to a table where Annie sat with a clay pipe clenched between her teeth.
‘Make room for a little ’un,’ Nan said, nudging Annie in the ribs.
Gentle Annie turned her head and grinned, causing her thick makeup to crack at the corners of her blue eyes and making tiny lines radiate from her carmine lips. She gave the girl who was seated next to her a shove that sent her tumbling off the end of the form onto the floor. ‘Well, if it ain’t young Renie from the pickle shop. Come and sit here, ducks. Get her a glass of Hollands, Nan.’