Birdcage Walk

Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008
New York, New York 10016

www.DiversionBooks.com

Copyright © 2012 by Kate Riordan

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For more information, email [email protected].

First Diversion Books edition November 2012.

ISBN: 978-1-938120-67-1 (eBook)

Christmas Day, 1901

A forbidding place on the softest of summer days, in the bleached bone light of a mid-winter morning, the marshes of Tottenham were desolate. In a signal box on the marshes’ edge, a man on duty for the Great Eastern Railway looked up from the previous day’s newspaper and glanced out the window at the approaching 9.18. A fast goods train from Spitalfields, it travelled north every day and Christmas was no exception. Not two hundred yards away, a woman was hidden in one of the hollows that pitted this strange land. She would certainly have felt the engine’s vibrations, a blurring shudder and hum, if she hadn’t already been nine hours dead.

The train hadn’t long passed when two short figures, made bulky by the volume of patched clothes they wore in layers, appeared out of the lingering mist. Between them a paunchy leather football rolled from boy to boy as they took turns in kicking it. High above the pair, oblivious as they squabbled companionably below, a flight of starlings wheeled around in unison to fly south, towards London.

Reaching a place where the mud had frozen hard and dry, the ground as level as it would get, the two stopped. The larger boy, Jack, pulled off a pair of old mittens and laid them out in an approximation of goal posts.

“Right, Harry, I’ll have first kick, then you,” he said as he straightened up and rubbed his bare hands together, the flesh turning pink in the pin-sharp air.

The other boy grimaced. “Do I have to? You always make me go in goal first and I never get such a long turn. It’s my ball. I only got it this morning.”

“Just get yourself between them gloves,” said Jack.

He steadied the ball with his foot and then trotted away to prepare for the run-up. Harry kicked a stone away in mute frustration and, safely turned away from his larger companion, made a series of gurning faces. Jack was by now a good way off and had grown insubstantial in the shrouded air. The run-up was a long one and when the ball came it whistled past Harry’s head like a bullet. While Jack yelped in delight, Harry swore quietly to himself, testing out words he wasn’t sure he’d heard right, and turned to chase the ball.

It skittered fast over the icy ground and then suddenly disappeared from view. He swore anew at this: the new ball would now be a sodden lump in a muddy marsh ditch and would hurt twice as much if it socked him. But when he reached the cleft of the small bank he gasped, not in frustration but in shock. The ball’s descent into the ditch had been arrested by a person, a woman whom Harry knew in an instant was dead.

Without deciding to, he sat down heavily and took a shaky breath. When his Grandma had passed on he hadn’t been sad, just afraid he would laugh and get clouted for it. This time it was different, but he still didn’t feel sorry. All he felt were the twin contractions of fear and excitement that had fluttered in his belly when he played Joseph in the church nativity play. He felt that he wouldn’t want to relinquish this experience to Jack, or a stranger, but that he’d rather be thinking about it when it was safely in the past. Then he could pick over the details at leisure, eyes wide open in the dark safety of the bed he shared with his little brother.

Returning to the present, he saw that the football had rolled until it had come to rest at her green velvet-clad elbow. The other arm lay thrown across her chest. She still clutched an umbrella, its furl of material a mud-stained black. The handle was incongruously exotic in the scene, its lustrous wood engraved with a dozen tiny birds that peeped out between dense foliage. More appropriate was the woman’s crumpled and stained hat, its tall feather snapped. It had been torn off and apparently replaced so it covered most of her face.

Harry had been, on first glance, grateful not to see her eyes, which he imagined in death to be bulging and white and possibly able to follow his movements. And yet some dreadful urge deep within now made him rise and tiptoe gingerly towards her, his body taut as a whip in case she wasn’t dead after all and one of her hands, with its torn and bloody nails, reached out and curled its fingers around his ankle. Trying to dispel this awful image, he extended his leg slowly towards her face until the tip of his boot touched the brim of her hat. Then, as though he could no longer bear the proximity, he flicked his foot up and knocked the hat back and out of the way.

As he took in what he had exposed, his blood seemed to surge up his gullet to thrum in his ears. Mud, crosshatched with lacerations, had congealed over a portion of the face, leaving the skin blanched and almost blue where it remained clean. The nose was bloody and cut to the bone, shards of which gleamed through the gore, unnaturally white. Worse still was that one eye had been gouged almost completely out of its socket, the eyeball larger than Harry could have guessed but the socket unexpectedly smaller, so that he didn’t know how the eye had ever fitted that tight dark hole.

Harry’s hands had gone to his own face without him realising it when he heard a noise that made him start and almost cry out. It was Jack, shouting through the shrouded air, asking what was taking so long. Harry found that he couldn’t reply. As he heard the thud of Jack’s approach, he managed to wrench his gaze sideways from the awful, displaced eye to look instead at the point where the skin of her cheek whorled delicately into an ear. It was then that he noticed another point of ruined symmetry. While the far ear lobe was still pierced by a jet-beaded earring, the right lobe was missing entirely, as though it had been bitten clean off.

The Previous September, 1901

Only in the dankest corners of the tenement street, where the sun never quite penetrated, did the silt of muck, canal slop and coal-rake shine wetly between the uneven cobbles. Elsewhere, all was as dry as dust, baked by a late summer sun that shone as relentlessly in late September as it had on Midsummer’s Day.

Periodically removing his hat to press a damp handkerchief to his brow, a silver-bearded gentleman made his way slowly up Avebury Street, occasionally stopping to consult the policeman who accompanied him. Replacing the handkerchief in his top pocket, he retrieved a small, leather-bound notebook and a slender pencil from the same pocket. The constable, who had been unwittingly stooping towards the older, shorter man in his attentiveness, now pointed at a grimy window on the neglected street.

“That there, sir, was home to a notorious criminal in the area. Until we put him away, that is. He’s now doing five years hard labour for committing armed robbery up Hampstead way.”

“A highwayman at the Spaniard’s Inn, eh?” asked the gentleman, chuckling to himself as he wrote in his book. “What was the name of this rogue?”

“Tom Swain. He was known to us before, though on previous occasions he had evaded capture,” replied Constable Ryeland, enunciating the last two words with care, and no small amount of pride. “He was always up to something, some knavery or other. One of his tricks was to sell canaries up Hoxton Street Market, except they weren’t canaries,” he paused dramatically. “They was chaffinches, painted yellow to look like ‘em! He’d sold dozens before someone reported it, saying the paint had come off on her hand.”

“Quite an enterprising chap, then?” asked Booth.

“You might say that, sir, but these parts have gone down in the last ten years. Since I joined the force twenty years ago after working on the GWR, the well-off that was here have left, the poor are still poor and a new, rougher class has come in.” Booth looked up from his notes.

“And what do you think are the reasons for this deterioration?’

“I wish I could tell you, sir. I’ve puzzled over it for many hours. The baker over the way thinks he’s a bit of a wag, and he likes to call it ‘the overflow of the Nile’ – you know, folks moving north from the Nile Street area where it’s got overcrowded. Others blame the schools. In my opinion, education makes good people better even if it makes the bad ones more cunning. Now, my two boys was taught at the technical school in Shoreditch and learnt their trade as cabinetmakers. They won £8 worth of prizes between them in their time there. Now they’re earning a bit they come home and says to me, ‘dad, what shall we invest our savings in?’ I told them they’re best off buying a couple of small free holdings down Essex. No good buying round here while things are going down.”

As Ryeland talked, the men continued down the unprepossessing street, its west side dominated by an umbrella and stick factory, from which could be heard the whine and thwack of machinery. Towards the end of the destitute row of houses on the opposite side, one door stood open. Leaning against the jamb, a hazel-eyed woman eyed them lazily, one long fingernail picking at the peeling paint.

“Charlotte, isn’t it?” called Ryeland. “Sister of Annie Matthews?”

“Charlotte Cheeseman,” the young woman replied in a clear voice. “Matthews is Annie’s husband’s name, Ted Matthews.” She looked away and resumed her paint stripping.

“Not in work today then, miss?” persisted Ryeland.

“I had a job at Lipton’s but they don’t need me no more. Annie says I’ve got to go down the tobacco factory later and see if they’ve got any places. They want my keep money, so I suppose I’d better, eh?” She laughed at that, and then her smile vanished as abruptly as it had arrived as she disappeared into the house. Ryeland and Booth had moved off again before Ryeland spoke.

“Not criminal,” he said conspiratorially. “In fact, Ted Matthews works on the railways as an engineer. That Charlotte’s his sister-in-law, moved in when her and Annie’s mother died. Annie’s a good woman, very neat and tidy, but Charlotte . . . Well, I’ll just say this, she’s been seen at the Rosemary Branch public house a few more times than is good for a girl’s reputation. I don’t touch the stuff myself, Mr. Booth, I believe that way lies plenty of grief.”

Booth sighed. He was a good man, Ryeland, with his heart in the right place, but, as he’d noted during the previous week’s tours around east Shoreditch, he was rather on the righteous side. Seeing they had reached the end of Avebury Street, Booth took the opportunity to move the conversation on.

“Ah, now we’re almost at the canal,” he said. “There’s the bridge and the packing factory. What street is this?”

“Wiltshire Row, sir, and the Regent’s Canal runs right behind it, parallel-like.”

“Well, it looks no better than Avebury Street and it smells slightly worse, I should say.”

“That’ll be the canal, sir. It’s been smelling something dreadful down here on these hot days and I’m sure it makes folk more likely to misbehave. When the factories let out at the moment, there’s fights breaking out all over. At least in winter they can’t muster the enthusiasm for brawling.”

Booth looked up at the tenement block that backed onto the canal, its façade at this time of the morning draped in a welcome fall of shade. The signs of chronic, though not desperate, want were here: rags at best for curtains, children badly shod or barefoot, and enough of them to hint at a family to every room or two. At one end of the street the buildings had been abandoned altogether, and sagged as if they knew it.

He sighed and wrote,
North into Wiltshire Row. West end all closed, has been condemned. Poor, rather rough, but does not look worse than Avebury Street. Perhaps 18-20 shillings a week for a moderate family.

Surveying the eastern stretch of gloomy, smoke-stained brick once again, his eye alighted on a solitary item of adornment in one window halfway along. It was a birdcage, hung high so it might be noticed. Unusually in these streets, the window next to it was not only intact but open, though not to project any birdsong; the cage stood empty, its wire door wide open.

“Perhaps it escaped,” Booth muttered to himself. “One could hardly blame it.”

“What was that, sir?” asked the eager constable.

“I was just wondering about the birdcage up there. Another of your chaffinch painters, do you think?”

“Oh no, sir. That’s Mr. Woolfe’s room up there and he’s a decent sort. Quiet, and since his wife died last winter you hardly see him about. He’s no criminal. Them birdcages is his trade—he makes them and sells them on when he can. But, like I say, he don’t get out much, and his boy works at the printers, so he can only sell what his daughter Cissy can take for him. I know them because there was a baby farmer and her feller living below them for a while. Godless people, them, sir—she’s in Pentonville now—but the Woolfes are a decent family. Never given me any trouble. Sarah’s his youngest, though everyone knows her by Cissy. She must be fifteen now and she makes lampshades as her trade. Nothing special, really, but Woolfe’s birdcages are a cut above. He’s known for ‘em, I should say.” Booth looked thoughtfully up at the window.

“Well, perhaps one might do for my goddaughter. It’s her birthday in a few weeks and I’m sure she doesn’t need another hat. Let us go in and see if I can buy one from your Mr. Woolfe.” Constable Ryeland furrowed his brow and shook his head.

“I don’t think it’s wise for you to go in, Mr. Booth, sir, it’ll probably, well, it’s shocking how some of them live, quite filthy it can be.”

“I’m quite aware from my work during the last years what deplorable conditions these people must endure. Move aside please, Constable, and let’s see if I can’t make a purchase.”

With that, Booth rapped smartly on the door, the constable puffing out his cheeks in disapproval behind him. After some moments with no answer, the policeman reluctantly took out his truncheon and banged on the door three times before hollering in the direction of the open window.

“Mr.Woolfe! Cissy! It’s Constable Ryeland here. Open up!” A pattering of feet could soon be heard on a creaky staircase and the door was tentatively opened to reveal a thin girl with large brown eyes already filling with tears.

“Is it my brother, sir? Has something happened to him?” she asked in a quavering voice.

“Don’t be silly, girl. Nothing’s happened to no one. This gentleman here is Mr. Charles Booth, who is writing a great series of books about London. I am showing him around my patch.” He smoothed his moustache, half bowed to his guest and continued. “Now, he might want to buy one of your father’s birdcages like he’s seen hanging up. Is he in?”

“Oh, yes sir, he is. Thank you, sir. Please do come up.” Flustered, the girl bobbed an awkward curtsey before scuttling up the stairs ahead of the men and into the Woolfes’ mean lodgings.

“Dad,” she hissed in an urgent whisper. “It’s Constable Ryeland and a gentleman who wants to buy your cage in the window.” She pushed some dirty plates into a pile, clattered them down next to the small range and threw a cloth, spotted with grease, over the table just as the two men entered.

Mr. Woolfe got to his feet at this, nodded at his visitors, and made a failed attempt at an audible greeting. Ryeland made to speak but Mr. Booth got there first.

“I apologise for intruding like this, Mr. Woolfe, but I saw a birdcage at your window and thought I might buy something like it for my goddaughter Clemency, who turns sixteen next month. Might I take a closer look at it?”

After an awkward moment, when Mr. Woolfe seemed not to have heard or at least digested what had been said, he finally roused himself and moved off towards the window with the careful shuffle of a man far older than himself. Gently, as though it were wrought from glass, he lifted down the cage. Though unpainted, it was delicately crafted, with fine tendrils of metal wound into the likeness of roses at its tapering top and ivy leaves threaded around the base. It was the grandest cage he had ever made and it had been his late wife’s idea, to serve as an advertisement in the window. Of course, not much custom passed on Wiltshire Row, and certainly not of the calibre to appreciate this more intricate work, so it had never sold and, though he had never let on, he had been secretly glad.

“It’s fine work” said Booth after a careful inspection. “How much are you asking for it?” When her father didn’t speak, Cissy spoke out in a shaky voice.

“It’s fifteen shillings, sir. There’s a lot of work gone into that cage. It was made very special, see.”

“I do,” replied the gentleman, “and I think it a fair price. I won’t take it now as we are on foot and I have my notes to make. Perhaps it could be delivered? Mr. Ryeland here said you have a son, Mr. Woolfe. I will write down my goddaughter’s address, where the birthday party will take place. If he could deliver it there on the 25th of next month—I believe it’s a Thursday—at 6 o’clock, it will be a fine surprise for her. I will give him another couple of shillings for prompt delivery—will that do?”

He tore out a page with the address scrawled on it and then fished in his inside pocket to bring out a battered wallet. Finding the correct money, he gave it to Mr. Woolfe and shook his hand, smiling amiably. Then, assuming the arrangement was agreed, Booth strode out to the dingy stairwell, closely pursued by the constable.