Bleak Expectations (18 page)

Oh, cruel Poseidon, controller of watery things!

Oh, harsh Neptune, his Roman equivalent!

Oh, vicious Pariacaca, Incan god of water and rainstorms!

It was definitely their fault and only a tiny bit mine.

‘Ha, ha, ha!!!’ Now there came mocking laughter from across the river: Mr Benevolent. ‘I wonder how you’ll fare without her help. Cold, wet, hungry and lost. Good luck, Pip Bin. By which I mean bad luck, obviously. Now I shall take your mother to London and my evil and cunning plan will yet be fulfilled.
Adios, non-amigo!
’

With this bizarrely Spanish valediction, he left, pausing only where my mother lay pretending to be a tablecloth, laden with place-settings. He bent down, grabbed her ankles and, with a violent, quick tug, pulled her out from under the cutlery and crockery and, though the candelabrum wobbled slightly, everything stayed exactly where it was. It was an impressive trick and, despite myself, I applauded, eliciting a small bow from Mr Benevolent, and then he was gone.

Now I turned my attention to my remaining companions. Pippa was comforting a shivering Poppy, cold from her rivery adventure; and a short distance off sat Harry, who was staring miserably at the ground.

‘Where’s Aunt Lily?’ asked Pippa, as she saw me.

‘Um . . . the river took her. I fear it was partly my fault.’

‘Poor dear brother, you mustn’t blame yourself.’

‘Mustn’t I? That’s good.’ Thus absolved, the small amount of guilt I had been feeling evaporated, like a puddle on a hot day or some milk in a sauna. ‘Harry, how are you?’

‘I’m jolly well, Pip Bin,’ Harry replied jauntily, and then he burst into tears.

‘Why, Harry, whatever is the matter?’ I asked, hoping it was something simple and masculine, like his foot hurting, and not something tricky, like emotions.

‘The river . . . Your aunt . . . It reminded me of my own poor mother.’

Oh, cripes, it was emotions. I decided to step round them as if they were an angry bear or some putrid dog sick. ‘Sorry to hear that, now we’d better get—’

My sister Pippa now interrupted, however, firmly shoving us all into the path of the ursine dog vomit. ‘Why, Harry Biscuit?’

‘After my father died, she went insane and took her own life.’

‘How?’

‘She became convinced that she was literally a biscuit, not just one in name. She believed she was a chocolate wafer called Susan.’

‘What was her real name?’

‘Susan. That much remained sane. But . . . do you remember an incident when the people of Shrewsbury made the river Severn into tea?’ Remember it? Why, I wrote of it not twenty-five pages past, or maybe more depending on how this book is typeset. ‘Well, my mother heard of it and travelled to Shrewsbury. Once there, she threw herself into the river.’ Here he sniffed as a tear ran down his cheek, the sniff inhaling the tear into his nose and making him cough a little before he continued. ‘She dragged herself out of the river, then threw herself in again, dragged herself out, threw herself in and did it again and again and again until she appeared no more.’

‘Drowned?’

‘Dunked. She dunked herself to death. Then I was sent to St Bastard’s and the family fortune was snapped up my father’s greatest rivals, Lord and Lady Flapjack.’

‘A tragic story but—’ I tried to stop him, to no avail.

‘And it makes me sad!’ Now Harry cried, with yelps of pain and squeaks of woe, and I didn’t know where to look. He might have been my best friend, but there were limits. Quite strictly defined limits, which included no crying. Fortunately Pippa was weaker and softer than me and she pulled Harry’s head to her shoulder and stroked his hair until he calmed and then leaped up shouting, ‘Better now!’
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Harry might have been better, but immediately one of our number was worse. For poor Poppy now emitted a small whimper of distress. ‘Cold . . . I’m so cold.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Harry. ‘I find you quite a friendly sort.’

‘No, physically cold, so physically cold.’

‘Yes, that makes more sense. What with the shivering. And the having gone blue.’

Harry was right. Poppy had indeed turned a blue colour, indicating terrible cold. Unless the river had been full of blue dye and therefore stained her skin while she was in it, but as her teeth chattered and her body trembled with great frigid spasms, I knew that that was not the correct answer and that the river had chilled her to illness, or chillness.

‘We must get her warm,’ Pippa said.

We tried making a fire, but any wood we found was too damp following the recent air-bath and would not light. We wrapped her in as many items of clothing as we could, but it did no good, and we cuddled and hugged her tightly to warm her with a mixture of love and our own bodily heat, but still she shivered and remained cold-blue.

Night was falling, and up the river in the distance I could see an orange glow that was not natural and therefore must be a conurbation of some size – and I remembered the old adage ‘All roads lead to Rome and all rivers lead to London.’

Surely once in the capital we would find shelter and warmth for poor Poppy.

Taking it in turns to carry her, we began to trudge towards the towny glow ahead. For long hours we walked, seemingly getting no closer, and all the way Poppy kept whispering, ‘Cold, so cold,’ not seeming to warm one iota, or even an omicron,
²
which is smaller yet.

Then, suddenly, an aroma assailed my nostrils, the strong scent of gin, horse manure and unwashed proletarian. This had to be London, and a shouting man nearby confirmed that fact: ‘London! You’re in London! Get your London here!’

It was one of the famous town criers, men paid to vocally advertise the vicinity, now sadly replaced by that most modern of inventions, the sign. I had never been to London before, and as I looked around me my first reaction was one of fear. The buildings soared two, sometimes three storeys high; everywhere you looked there were people, most of them living, some of them dead; and all was coated in a grim griminess of soot and filth.

‘Gosh, London is so big and busy,’ I marvelled.

‘Sorry to bang on a bit, but I am cold, so cold,’ Poppy whimpered.

‘Dear Poppy, of course. We shall find you shelter.’

We quickly approached the nearest house, a dismal, dingy-looking place but a house no less, and knocked on the door.

The whole house fell down.

This was evidently not the most salubrious part of town.

The next house we knocked at did not fall down.

Though I did, after the owner opened the door and, before I said a word, punched me in the face.

I sent Harry to knock at the next door, and he was sent packing with a series of strange Cockney insults ringing in his ears, most of which I do not remember, though some definitely ended in ‘off’ and another seemed to be the word ‘muppet’, whatever that might mean.

Desperate for aid for poor, freezing Poppy, we ignored the houses and their unfriendly inhabitants and simply approached anyone we passed and asked them for help.

But there was no help to be had.

In some ways, I did not blame these blighted people, clearly dirt poor themselves and with nothing to spare for others, but on the other hand . . .

Bastards.

‘Please help us,’ Pippa begged. ‘We need warmth and shelter, or money to buy those things. Please, anything you can spare.’

Again and again she was ignored or shoved rudely aside, with muttered swearings to boot. But then at last, after yet another such failed plea, we heard a deep, authoritative voice, tinged with mercy and fringed with tassels of tenderness.

‘Did I just hear you children asking for food, shelter and money?’

Finally a true Christian soul to aid us! By the guttering light of the oily streetlamps I could not see the face that belonged to this voice, but surely now help was at hand.

‘You did. Please, can you spare some?’

‘Then you stand condemned by your own mouth!’ The mercy and tenderness were now gone from the voice and all was stern and condemnatory. ‘To ask for things is to beg, and by all that is holy – which in God’s fine world is an awful lot – begging is sinful, anti-Christian behaviour!’

Perhaps help was not to be forthcoming after all.

‘As a soldier in God’s own Salvation Army, it is my duty to cleanse such heathen acts from the world. Therefore you are to be delivered to the workhouse. Take them away!’

He had several colleagues with him and, as these were the days before the disarmament of the Salvation Army,
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we were driven at bayonet point to the workhouse a short distance away. As we went, the people who had so recently refused us help lined the streets cheering and jeering maliciously and my opinion of them sank yet further; but at least within the workhouse we might find the shelter and warmth Poppy so desperately needed.

As we entered that ghastly establishment, however, the man who had taken us up stepped beneath a lit lantern and, with horror, I saw his face properly for the first time.

‘My name is Beadle Ezekiel Hardthrasher and I rule this workhouse with a rod of iron, a jane of cold steel and a freddy of discipline.’

The Hardthrashers were not just twins, but triplets! And we had fallen into the hands of the third of them, who seemed, on first meeting, to be just as fierce as the others.

‘Now, I am full of Christian goodness, whereas you are full of the hideous disease of poverty. And why are you povertous? Because you lack the Christian virtues of hard work, discipline and lots of money. But by God’s will we will inculcate those values in you, even if we have to hold you down and force them into you like some sort of human moral sausage!’

Truly, this was a brand of Christianity so muscular that if it did one of those poses that body-builders are wont to do, it would be in danger of ripping its shirt. We were taken to a small, damp, straw-strewn cell and bundled inside. It was already crammed with sorry-looking folk, and the best that could be said was that it was comfortingly familiar; alas, that familiarity was because it reminded me of nowhere so much as the dormitory at St Bastard’s, with all its concomitant misery and anguish, so I’ve used the word ‘comfortingly’ completely incorrectly.

‘This is where you will sleep. And on the morrow, you shall work and we shall begin scouring your souls free of poverty. Now, do you have anything to say for yourselves?’

‘I’m cold, so cold . . .’

‘What’s that, girl?’

‘Cold, so cold,’ repeated Poppy.

‘We fear she is extremely unwell,’ said Pippa.

‘What is wrong with her?’

‘We think it might be a cold,’ said Harry.

‘It is as if the icy waters of the river have entered my soul and I shall never be warm again.’

‘Please, help our sister. She is freezing to death,’ I begged, brutally aware that time was short for dear Poppy.

‘Help her? Why should I help her?’ asked the beadle.

‘Because it is the Christian thing to do!’ There was desperation in my voice, as I had begun to fear the very worst.

‘Nonsense. If she is near to death then she is near to the kingdom of Heaven. What Christian could begrudge a fellow human such a glorious event?’

‘But see how she shivers with cold . . .’ I protested.

‘No, she does not shiver with cold, but with excited anticipation at her imminent meeting with the Lord Himself.’

‘Please, help me . . .’ Now Poppy’s voice shook desperately.

‘You will be warm soon, young lady, warm in the Lord’s embrace.’

‘I’d rather be warm here . . .’

‘No, you go to God. Frankly, I envy you.’

‘Please, do something to help her!’

This I yelled at the beadle, and he now wheeled on me, pushing me up against the wall viciously. ‘To stand in the way of God’s will is blasphemy, boy. Do you blaspheme? Do you?’

I did not answer. I could not. For a fury was growing in me so great that mere words could not express it, only acts of incredible physical violence to this dreadful man whose religious beliefs were set to kill my sister.

‘I can’t feel my legs . . .’ The fear in Poppy’s voice replaced my anger with gentler emotion, and I knelt beside her with Pippa and Harry. ‘Or my arms. My head is numb. All sensation is gone from my chest. I can only feel a small bit of my bottom.’

‘And how does that feel, dear sister?’

‘Cold.’

‘Might have guessed . . .’

‘Oh!’ There was an abrupt spike of energy to Poppy’s exclamation: was this a hopeful sign? ‘There are angels all around me!’ No, it was not a hopeful sign: visions of angels are rarely a precursor to wellness, happiness and staying-aliveness. ‘Oh! And now I can see Jesus!’

The beadle twitched at this. ‘You lucky dying cow.’

‘He is offering me a coat. Thank you, Jesus. And now some soup, lovely warming soup. And what’s that, Jesus? Some mulled wine? Ooh, thank you.’

Poppy was slipping away, and there was nothing we could do. Pippa and I clung to her chilled flesh, desperately hoping to warm her back to us.

‘A toasted muffin? Yes, please. Oh, and you’ve lit the fire for me. What a nice man you are, Jesus. Mmm, that’s good. The flames are so soothing, so hypnotic, so warm.’

She was gazing into some imagined distance, but momentarily slipped back into reality as she looked at Pippa and me in turn.

‘Dear sister, dear brother, goodbye . . . I have to go now.’ Tears filled my eyes, then flooded over the edges and down my face. ‘I fear I am as a lot sold at auction, for I am going . . . going . . . gone.’

She smiled, then closed her eyes and, as she had said, was gone. Though her flesh had been river-cold before, now it was death-cold, the immersion heater of her soul removed. Pippa and I held her for a few seconds more, our sobs filling the grim cell, then laid her down and instead held each other.

‘At least she is in a better place now.’ Pippa could hardly speak through her tears, but her words were of comfort indeed.

‘Hah.’ The beadle emitted a contemptuous bark like that most scathing of dogs, the cock-a-snook-er spaniel.

‘Do you disagree, sir?’ My fists clenched, I raised myself from my knees.