Dodger of the Dials (33 page)

‘Don’t he know?’ she said to Sessina. ‘I thought he knew.’

‘So did I,’ Sessina replied, and kept her eyes on me. Then the big woman piped up.

‘He don’t know,’ she tittered and some other women began giggling too. ‘No one’s told him.’ A shriek of laughter then. ‘No one’s told him who he is!’ Sessina told this woman to be quiet and approached the bench where I was sitting.

‘You’re Jack Dawkins, yeah?’ she said as if she thought I had lost all memory during the ordeal of the chimney. ‘From Seven Dials?’

‘That’s me,’ I replied. ‘The Artful Dodger. What of it?’

‘Thank gawd for that,’ breathed out Meg. ‘I thought we’d pulled up the wrong boy.’

Sessina’s eyes didn’t leave mine. ‘Well then,’ she said, as if that settled it. ‘You’re special then, aren’t you? To the Rum Mort, I mean.’

I looked again at every face in this lamplit room and nodded. ‘I see,’ I said at last. ‘He’s heard of me. Respects me. Is that it?’

An explosion of laughter then from all around the cell. The fat woman, in particular, was beside herself with mirth. ‘Sessina!’ She kept chuckling as she gripped the arm of the smaller woman what had sat beside her and pinched hard. ‘
He really don’t know!
’ The smaller woman was biting her lip with excitement and her short legs had begun kicking out over the side of the bed like an infant’s. Even Sessina, who until now had seemed the most serious, was trying not to laugh.

‘Do you know what Rum Mort means, Dawkins?’ she asked. ‘It’s old Newgate cant,’ she explained, ‘for great lady. The Rum Mort is a woman.’ There was another amused snort from the opposite bench. ‘And she’s about to step through that there door so you might want to make yourself look presentable.’

‘They’re here!’ said Meg, who had moved over to the door to keep watch. ‘Hurry up with those sheets, Bertha,’ she said to the fat one. There was a flurry of activity from all about as footsteps
was heard approaching the cell and Sessina stood to receive the Rum Mort.

Three women then entered the room. The first was Eliza holding a candlestick and she made way for the second. This was young Alice Burgess, the murderess from the condemned pew who was set to hang beside me tomorrow. From the dust and soot what she was covered in, along with the dumbstruck expression fixed upon her face, I guessed that she too had only heard of this escape plan tonight. She then made way for the third woman who stepped in and shut the door behind her. She looked me up and down and shook her head in disgust at my ripped clothing and blackened skin.

‘Well, well. You could have made an effort for your dear old mum, Jacky,’ said Kat Dawkins with a tut, as I stared back at her in amazement. ‘You could use a bloody good wash. Now come over here and give me a nice big kiss, eh?’

I was more shocked by this appearance than by anything else in my entire life which, considering some of the dramas I’ve lived through, is saying something. It took me several moments before I could make sense of the vision. One of the many ghosts of Newgate had just manifested herself before me and was spitting into the palms of her hands.

‘Not gonna say thank you, then?’ she said as she crossed over to me rubbing them together, and a mean smile appeared. She then started trying to wash the soot away from my cheeks. ‘Thin gratitude, that’s what it is,’ she said as I resisted her attempts to scrub my skin clean. ‘But that’s boys for you, I s’pose. They never appreciate all we mothers do, eh?’ She then placed her hands on my shoulders and gave me a kiss on the forehead. ‘I shoulda had girls,’ she added. ‘Girls got gratitude.’

I could still summon no response. I had spent the last two
years thinking that this woman was dead but now here she was, standing right in front of me with her old expression of deep disdain stuck upon her face. Her curly hair now had white streaks running through it and she appeared a bit taller on account of these big boots she was wearing. I wondered if this here was a ghost or a doppelganger the like of which you read about in the gothic novels. But when I looked into her eyes I noticed they was still odd-coloured. One blue, one green. It was my mother all right, and there was no use denying it further.

‘I was told you was dead,’ I spoke in a voice what may have had more outrage in it than I had intended. ‘Hanged by the neck I was told.’

‘And I was told you was in Australia,’ she replied flat. ‘Yet here we both stand.’

I felt a smile crack across my face then and it might have been one of pride. I had never enjoyed a close relationship with my mother – indeed the complete opposite was true – but finding her here alive in Newgate Prison, and controlling all what went on around her, did something very powerful to me. I had to fight an urge to embrace her which I knew she would hate for me to do.

‘Got back two years ago,’ I said instead, overcome by a terrible need to impress her. ‘I was given a full pardon by the Governor of New South Wales, see. I made a fortune as a sheep farmer, the pardon said, and did all right for myself.’

‘That right?’ An ironic sniff. ‘Well, Jacky, I’m glad to see you’ve stayed out of trouble since.’

More laughter then from the other women but my mother broke away from me to flash them a hard look and the cackling stopped dead. ‘I hope you’ve finished tying them sheets, you fat old wart,’ she sneered before spitting onto the ground. ‘Or I’ll shove you over
the wall without the benefit of one. And that’d be a fast plummet indeed.’

Bertha was all contrition. ‘Sorry, Rum,’ she said and went straight on with her work as my mother turned back to me and winked.

‘My first night back in England,’ I said, now that my thoughts had been given a chance to straighten themselves, ‘I met the man what arrested you. Inspector Bracken. He told me you was dead.’

‘That’s your excuse for never coming to visit me, is it?’

‘Well, why would he say that? Why let me go on thinking it?’

‘How should I know?’ she scowled as if she had in a moment lost all in interest in the topic, ‘I ain’t his wife. You can ask him yourself if it bothers you so much. Now stop bothering me with your questions when there’s work wants doing. We need to chuck a sack over your head.’

She spun around and started giving out orders to the other women. I stood on my spot and watched her just like I had done when a kinchin, feeling as scorched by her turned back as I had then. Maternal affection was never something I could read in her, Fagin turned out to be more of a loving presence than she ever was. But tonight she had just fished me out of my death dungeon before my hanging and told these others I was special. So my emotions now was all of a confusion. Sessina Ballard came over and placed a hand on my shoulder. In her other hand was what looked to be a thick potato sack of the same sort they throw over the condemned heads on hanging day.

‘Put this on,’ she said. ‘To cover your ugly phiz.’

‘You ain’t putting that over my head,’ I said and batted the thing away. ‘Where we going anyway?’

‘Towards the debtors’ quarters,’ said Sessina, and she tried again to place the brown bag over me.

‘That’s where the gallows is!’ I protested, grabbing it from her in defiance. ‘Forget it. I ain’t going near the rope with that rotten thing over me.’

‘What do you think we’re going to do, you stupid boy,’ Kat called over from where she was wiping Alice’s face. ‘Hang you early? Do as you’re told.’

But I tossed the hood aside and told her no. Then my mother, who had been addressing Alice in a far softer manner, snapped her head around to face me.

‘Very well,’ she jeered. ‘You can crawl back down into your hole if you’re going to be like that. And tomorrow morning, when they force another bag over you, don’t pretend your mother never tried to help.’

‘Why’ve I got to wear it?’ I returned, feeling most petulant.

‘Because I’ve got influence, Jacky, as you can see,’ she stepped back towards me. ‘I’ve helped women convicts out of here before – over the walls and, in some cases, straight through the gates. But they was ones what nobody would miss, their names just scratched out of the Newgate register and never again spoken of. You and her,’ she thumbed towards Alice, ‘are a good deal hotter. The whole of London will notice when you two ain’t on the scaffold tomorrow and that they won’t like one bit. This needs more care.’

‘The turnkeys won’t be happy,’ Sessina confirmed. ‘Even Max is keen to see you swing and he’s the most corruptible. When he discovered that you and the Rum was related – after that time when I first saw you in that courtyard – he made a big show of getting you locked away so you wouldn’t use the connection yourself. But the Rum’s done a good job since of showing them that she don’t care if you live or die.’ My mother raised her chin at this and kept on staring. ‘So this’ll all come as a great surprise when they open
your cell tomorrow. Put the hood on,’ Sessina handed me the sacking again, ‘to hide who you are.’

My mother, meanwhile, had already turned back to the trembling Alice and was placing a sack over her head too. ‘Shh, shh,’ I heard her say, ‘all will be well soon. I’ve even brought my son, Jack, along to take care of you. That’s why he’s here.’

‘All right then,’ I said and picked up the sack again. ‘Whatever you want, Rum.’ It felt less ridiculous calling her that then it would be to call her mother.

‘Hear that, sweet one?’ she said in a soothing tone to Alice. ‘He’s a good boy really. When he’s not running off to live with strange Jewish men.’ She threw me a stinking look and I was reminded of how long the woman could hold a grudge. Alice began to calm herself then and the rest of the women gathered up the various tools what they had been using into a workman’s bag and made to leave.

‘It’s time,’ my mother said once the last candlestick but one was extinguished. ‘We must away.’ The big woman led the way out carrying a dark lantern like what we burglars use to light the paths at our feet. ‘We’ll lock this door afterwards so they don’t see the damage until morning. It’ll be too late by then and if they still have to hang something they can find a dog or a tramp.’

Sessina picked up a cleft stick with the remaining lit candle in it and said she would follow last as the rest of us left the room. The corridor of the female quarters was as dark and daunting as those what I had run through just nights before, with a series of dim lamps hanging along the medieval walls. Meg took Alice by the hand as Sessina locked the door after us.

‘Hood!’ my mother hissed at me then. ‘How many times you need telling, Jacky?’ I decided then that I would wear the headwear of the condemned after all, and so placed it over my head as bid.

‘Ain’t you cut out any eyeholes into this?’ I complained as I adjusted the sacking. One of the women was helping me to get comfortable within it and her hand took mine. I was surprised when I heard my mother speak to me and realised that it would be she what would be guiding my steps through Newgate.

‘I’ll be your eyes,’ she whispered as she began to lead me through the passages like a kinchin. ‘And try not to trip, eh, dear?’

Newgate had many different corners and I guessed that the Rum Mort had more power over some parts of this prison than she did over others. It seemed as though the guards in the female quarters had been paid to look the other way but once we had travelled beyond that vicinity the women became much more careful. The only time when I could remove the sack was whenever we reached another spiral staircase and either went up or down it.

‘If a guard stops us,’ my mother whispered to Meg as we edged our way down one such staircase, ‘you have the knife.’

‘Yes, Rum,’ Meg replied, and I saw the sharp blade in her hand before we reached the bottom and the rough material was placed over my head again.

We turned down several passages, pausing whenever we seemed to come to a doorway. The sounds of muffled filing and chain-rattling was then heard as the women broke through whatever barred our way. Then, just as one such obstruction had been removed, I felt the sudden grip of my mother’s hand dig into mine and I was pushed against a wall as another hand raised up to my mouth to silence me. I saw through the potato sack material that the few lights we was carrying was being put out fast and all went black. Our entire party shuffled back and then, from somewhere deeper in the prison, I heard the sounds of footsteps coming closer.

It was hard to tell what was occurring but I imagined that the approaching guard was on the other side of this door. My mother – in
a very faint voice – spoke one word as the footsteps drew near. ‘Meg,’ she said to the knife-holder. But her tone was saying
be ready
.

I heard the footsteps come to a halt and I stopped breathing under that hood. None of the others made a sound either and I just waited to hear what would happen. But, to everyone’s relief, the footsteps continued onwards and our hiding place was not revealed. Once all was silent again, I was pulled through that doorway and we kept moving.

Getting across the prison continued to be a proper confusion. The journey was stumbling and awkward but we was soon going down more steps than up. I kept in line and watched my footing while all the time experiencing a distinct unease about these shameful turn of events. I was glad to be out of my cell – there was no doubting that – and I was buzzing to find that the chance of freedom was with me once more. However, none of this was how I had envisioned my glorious escape. Ever since I had been cast into this Newgate I had imagined that my eventual breaking out would be a direct result of my own cunning and agency so there was a spoilt, ungrateful part of me what was somehow embarrassed about all this. The attempts what I myself had made to free myself from captivity had proven disastrous and now I was undergoing the humiliation of having my mother come back from the dead just so she could lead me to safety. It was an undignified exit from Newgate for a criminal of my standing and I imagined that the ghost of Jack Sheppard was peering at me from the shadows and chuckling over it. His own legendary escapes had not required any maternal intervention, that was for sure.

‘This is the door we’re after,’ the Rum Mort whispered as we all bumped to a halt and she released my hand. ‘The locks is heavy so
wait while we bust it open. Take them sacks off, if you’re all of a sweat.’