The Lights of London (6 page)

Teezer turned to him and shook his head contemptuously. ‘Do you know how tired I am, Buggy? How downright completely, totally rinsed through and wrung out I am? Anyway, I think Milly’s doing all right. In an amusing sort of a way.’

Teezer was one of the few customers who did and by the time they’d got on to the old girl in the spangly frock, who played the musical saw while whistling a completely different tune – a neat trick but terrible punishment on the ears – Jack Fisher, from his seat by the Chairman’s table, watched in despair as most of the other punters, along with his profits, left.

He threw down his hat and ran his fingers through his hair.

Even the chirrupers – the yobs who demanded money before shows in payment for keeping quiet – were no longer bothering to come round with their demands. First of all there was too much noise going on for them to make any difference, then there was complete bloody silence.

Jack Fisher was ready to tear the hair out of his aching ginger head.

The few people who were still there were more interested in playing a game of pitch and toss than in watching the stage.

Then, just as Fisher thought it could get no worse, a stem, bare-armed woman come bowling in. She took hold of one of the few remaining men by the ear and hollered angrily, ‘I wouldn’t mind if you was spending good money enjoying yourself. But on
this
old shit? I’ve seen livelier turns in the graveyard.’

Jack stared at the woman. So that was it.

It was the turns.

He’d been too stupid, too inexperienced to know any
better. How could he go about getting better ones? He had no idea. This lot had all approached him when they’d heard on the grapevine that he was opening up. Now he knew why. They probably couldn’t get work anywhere else.

What was he going to do?

He’d been a fool thinking he could ever pull this off, but it was too late now, he’d spent everything he had on the place, he couldn’t give up. He
wouldn’t
give up. Not until he’d used up the last breath in his body.

Jack Fisher knocked back his glass of rum, pulled out a bottle from under the table and poured himself another. He’d never been much of a drinker, had actually drunk even less since he’d seen the behaviour of some of his customers, but he’d treated himself to this half-bottle tonight, which he’d kidded himself he would be drinking in celebration. He’d been sure that this bill was the best he had ever put on. There were songs, musicians, novelty acts and even comedy recitations. They’d laughed all right, but now he realised, for all the wrong reasons. He had really thought that the talking dog had amused them.

He reached down and scratched the ears of Rex, his own elderly mongrel. Maybe he should teach Rex to whistle. It was about as likely as this place being a success.

The Old Black Dog? It was more like the dead duck.

If he didn’t do something very soon he’d be out of business. They’d all be off, spending their money elsewhere, in other people’s pubs and halls. Maybe he should forget the turns, just concentrate on the pub. But now that their curiosity about the place had been satisfied they would be looking for something more than just another alehouse. That was something the area definitely wasn’t short of.

He’d have to figure it out or he’d wind up like his old dad, God rest his soul, grafting for a governor who thought more about dumb animals than he did about his workers.

When the explosion had happened that had killed his father the owner had rushed to the pit-head. His first question, and his only apparent concern, was whether he’d have to buy new horses. Sod the poor buggers who’d been buried alive.

Jack would never put up with that, he’d die rather than live that way. He’d rather kill.

He’d gone down that place, just once, two days after his twelfth birthday nearly fifteen years ago now. His mother had said no at first, but they’d needed the money. Just as he did now. It was like descending into hell itself. He didn’t know how the men managed to breathe, let alone work. To describe the stuff as dust, that you took down your lungs, was as wrong as calling a dripping tap a rain storm. He’d thought he would choke to death.

And the heat.

When he’d come back into the light he had sworn he would never go down there again, and had done anything and everything which came up to earn money so that one day he could escape.

He’d worked on farms and in mills, he’d broken rocks and served behind bars, he’d chopped logs and hauled sacks. Saving every penny, apart from the few shillings he gave his mother for his keep, so that one day he could get out of that place and go to London, the glittering place where he would make his fortune.

That’s what had attracted him: the lights of London.

What a joke that was.

He tipped more rum into his glass, drank it and poured another. What did it matter if he drank away the
last of the profits? He was as good as wrecked anyway. Just as he’d wrecked Tess’s life by running out on her.

Tess.

He’d been such a bastard. When she’d let him have his way with her he’d as good as promised her they’d be wed one day. He’d have to write to her and try to explain. If only he could find the courage.

He shook his head and moaned pathetically to himself.

Suddenly a loud clattering of tambourines and off-key comets came blasting up from the street below. That bloody lot from the mission again.

As if he didn’t have enough on his plate, now he had the bible bashers to worry about as well. They’d taken to hanging about the front door, trying to put off the punters with their talk of brimstone and damnation. And it wasn’t just the one group either, there were dozens of the buggers springing up all over the place. All going on about the new century, and the new Jerusalem, and judgement day, and who knew what else. What was it about a change of calender that seemed to bring all these lunatics out of the woodwork? Why couldn’t everyone just mind their own business and leave him alone to mind his?

Archie came over to the table, a frown creasing his usually fresh-faced good looks. ‘You all right, boss?’

Without even glancing up, Jack said absently, ‘Makes me sick.’ His northern accent was thick from the unaccustomed drinking. ‘They say the halls
encourage immorality.
Immorality? The halls are nothing compared to the penny gaffs. They’re the real blood tubs. It’s them they want to look at. But will they? No, they’d rather bother a respectable businessman like me. They think I’m coining it. Making money hand over fist.’

Archie sat down, now even more concerned for the
man who’d become such a good friend to him.

‘I’ve sunk everything I’ve ever earned into this place. Gone without food and clothes; worked every hour God sent, doing anything that came along. Never spent a farthing on myself. Even sold my old dad’s watch and my grandma’s wedding ring – all they’d left me – because I wanted a different life. Denied myself the comfort of having a wife and family; condemned myself to loneliness. All so I could wind up here.’

He poured the last drop of rum into his glass. ‘Why should I be surprised when things go wrong, eh, Archie? Success wasn’t meant for the likes of me, Jack Fisher, the son of a poor pitman.’

‘I think if you could just find some different turns, boss.

Jack spun round. ‘That’s what I thought. But what sort of turns? And where do I get them?’

‘Anywhere except where you got this mob, boss.’ Archie winced as he looked up at the stage where the Amazing Aerial Adventurer had just failed, for the fourth time, to launch himself across the remaining punters’ heads on a rope suspended from the wings. ‘Because, in my humble opinion, this lot stink.’

Of the handful of people left in the room the only one who seemed to be enjoying himself was Teezer. He was beside himself with laughter. It hadn’t turned out to be such a bad night after all.

Kitty’s night, however, had taken a distinctly sharp turn for the worse.

‘I know it’s not much.’ Tibs smiled as she led Kitty under the dripping railway arch, past huddled piles of stinking rags, ‘but this little spot in the Minories is one of the few that ain’t crowded out by this time of night.’

Tibs squatted down on the ground and held out her
hand to Kitty, indicating that she should do the same.

With a resigned, shuddering sigh, she joined her. The pile of rags next to her suddenly shifted and Kitty gasped with alarm.

‘You must have woke her up,’ said Tibs, craning her neck to get a look at the human ragheap, then winking encouragingly at Kitty. ‘Could be worse, eh, girl, we could be in the workhouse.’ And, Tibs thought to herself, we could be alone out there in the dark, where girls like me get murdered and no one gives a shit.

Kitty woke with a start as an icy drip of water found its way down her collar.

‘You all right, sweetheart?’ asked Tibs with a shudder – she wasn’t only freezing, she’d been thinking again about that poor murdered girl and how, in a few days, when some other tragedy had happened or a bit of scandal had hit the streets, she’d be no more than a vague memory. That’s what it was like being a tart. You counted for very little.

Kitty shook herself, then shrugged uncertainly. She’d been right to be wary about bedding down under the railway arches: it was every bit as bad as she’d feared. She couldn’t imagine how she’d managed to fall asleep. She just wished she hadn’t woken up. The cold was slicing right through her and her nostrils were filled with the stench of the unwashed, rag-clad humanity that surrounded her.

‘I know it ain’t exactly home, Kit, but like I said, it’s better than going in the spike for the night. You don’t even wanna know what goes on in that casual ward down the workhouse. And look, the rain started a little while ago and it’s cleared all the fog away.’

Kitty held out her hands, trying to catch some heat from the dying embers of their fire.

When she and Tibs had arrived there had been fires dotted all around, but it seemed that few had managed to keep them going as long as Tibs had hers. She had kept it burning brightly until Kitty’s hair – if not much else – was
almost dry. But now her small blaze too had faded to little more than a heap of grey ashes. But at least it was something to look at; far better than having to make eye contact with the pitiful creatures lining the wall on either side of her.

Kitty knew about such people, of course, she had seen them in the countryside. They slept in ditches and outbuildings, and there were always a few eggs or vegetables to be had and fresh water to be drawn from a stream or a village pump. But here, in London, the streets seemed to teem with people who not only had nowhere else to go, but who had no chance of finding anything to fill their bellies other than the rotten discarded rubbish left at the end of the day under the market stalls.

And as for the children, Kitty
really
couldn’t bear to look at them.

When she had arrived in London – was it really only a few days ago? – she had considered herself to be badly off. Then she had seen the first of the poor little barefoot mites draped in their filthy shreds, raking the streets with no expression in their eyes other than fear.

And now, here she was, just another one of the desperate, anonymous creatures, slumped in a line along one side of a dark, narrow roadway that curved under the vaulted roof of a railway bridge, so near to the wealth and comfort of the City, but so far away from any chance of ever sharing in its fortune and prosperity.

Kitty wondered if they crowded on the one side of the road like that so they could keep warm. But it didn’t seem very likely. Bony bodies wrapped in rags didn’t give out much heat, even if they were huddled together like piglets in a sty.

The bells of a nearby church chimed ten and Kitty realised she had been asleep for less than an hour; she
also discovered why the other side of the street was left clear.

Glimmering through the slanting rain came the dull yellow light of a bull’s-eye lantern, the sort carried by constables on the beat; it was accompanied by the firm, confident footsteps of a heavy, well-fed man.

The policeman himself appeared out of the gloom, his drooping black moustache and dark, bulky cape sparkling with droplets of water.

He slowed down, then stopped, adjusted the wick of his lamp and swung it slowly back and forth, illuminating the hollow eyes and scared faces of the scraps of humanity lined up along the roadway.

‘I told you last night and I told you the night before,’ he droned, ‘you’re not going to get away with using this public highway as a dosshouse. Now pick up your things – if you’ve got any other than lice and fleas – and clear off out of it.’

‘We ain’t hurting you,’ Tibs snapped at him. ‘And we’ve left the other side clear so’s people can get past. So what’s the harm?’

‘The harm,
young lady
, is that they –
you
– are an eyesore and a public nuisance and, as an officer of the law …’

‘As a wicked old fart, you mean.’ Tibs scrambled to her feet and jabbed her finger at him. ‘You can see how we’re all suffering, you miserable great rabbit-pie shifter. Just look at you, too fat and lazy, and too much of a coward to have a go at that lot of ruffians up in the graveyard. Women and kids, that’s your mark. Why don’t you just piss off out of it and leave us alone, you mean old bastard?’

The policeman, his eyes bulging and his face flushing as scarlet as his fat, strawberry nose, enquired in a low, menacing voice, ‘What did you call me?’

Usually, Tibs would have carried on with her disrespectful attack, on the principle that she could wear down the best of them with the sharpness of her tongue, or, if it came to the worst, could outrun them if they seemed to be winning the argument, but she had this half-barmy country bumpkin to think about.

She jerked her head at Kitty and said in a much softer tone, ‘Don’t be mean, officer. You can’t expect her to carry the banner all night, can you? Look at her, she’s wringing wet.’ Slowly, Tibs dipped her chin, lowered her lashes and smiled shyly up at him. ‘You wouldn’t upset two young girls like her and me, now would you, sir? Have pity on us.’