Touched by Angels (2 page)

“Is your mother there?” His voice was deceptively soft, kind even.

“Might be.”

King smiled over the starch of his winged collar. “May I see her, young man?”

“Dunno. I’ll ask her.”

“Yes, that’s all right,” she said.

Lil stood up, holding the money they so desperately needed themselves. She neatened her skirt as she passed the moth-eaten curtains and skilfully avoided a tiny mouse as it disappeared through a hole in the skirting board.

“Please give this money to Mr King, Robert. There’s a good boy.”

Seething, he took the two one pound notes. King was taking the rent book and opening it. He took a fountain pen from its spine and, after taking the money and putting it in his already bulging purse, he unscrewed the top and made a neat tick.

After he had gone, with a “Good day to you, Madam,” whilst tugging the front of his bowler hat, Robert looked at her and snarled, “Two quid my arse! He’s stitchin’ us up like flamin’ kippers! Never repairs a fing. Why don’t we go an’ live somewhere else?”

Lil laughed as she sat and resumed her darning.

“This is all we can afford.”

“I’ll get a job then. Anyfing, so we don’t have to live in this shit!”

“You’re far too young. Anyway, you must keep on learning. Then you’ll have better prospects for when you
do
get a job.”

Then she added caustically, “You can start by moderating your language.
I’ve
heard you.”

The needle went back and forth pointedly.

“What does moderatin’ mean?”

“It means learning not to swear, for one thing. Profanity is the language of the ignorant.”

“Prof…?” He frowned.

“Look it up!” she said, reaching under the table for the heavy, dog-eared dictionary she was always referring to. She thrust it at him and he tottered backwards as he took it.

“When
I
don’t know a word, I look it up. Important as the Good Book. That’s why I read the newspapers too.
And
you learn what’s going on in the world. No one taught
me
to read and write. I learned myself, and I don’t drop my aitches and tees, like all the others.”

She prodded the air with her darning needle, in the general direction of the street.

“Can Dad read?” Robert asked.

“You know very well he can’t.”

“Is that why he gets pissed?”

She glared at him. “Your father is a good man. Don’t forget that. He just gets frustrated, that’s all. We’ve all got our shortcomings, including you.”

She watched him frowning and nodding, as he tried to avoid looking at the fading bruise she could still feel around her left eye.

Two

The factory steam whistles were rending the air, above which slate-coloured clouds were gathering. The thump, thump, thump of the factories slowly petered out for the night, as Bob Smith stood, in hob-nailed boots and filthy braces, over the little Irishman he had knocked to the booze-stained floor of the Dog and Duck with a single punch. His bowler hat lay behind and blood was fanned across both cheeks.

Bob was proud to be known from Bow to Whitechapel as
Fighting Bob
. He looked around, grinning through dense smoke, as a cheer went up.

The man he’d just knocked out was Benny, the youngest and simplest of the O’Driscoll brothers, a family with an indeterminate number of members, who lived next door to the O’Briens. They protected him like a newborn baby, though Bob didn’t know this, or he’d never have laid a finger on him.

Bob burped and flexed his shoulders as he turned, feeling like the King of England. His shirt buttons strained against his gut. The other men started egging him on, which wasn’t hard, and while one of them started bashing tunelessly away at the upright, the landlord called from the bar, “All right, Bob, that’ll do. You’ve been ’ere ’arf the day. You’ve enough on board. Time to…”

Bob’s grin vanished.

“This piece o’ shit’s gonna get wasss comin’ to ’im.”

He kicked Benny in the ribs, hawked up a lump of phlegm and spat it in his face.

He was too drunk to hear the landlord call to somebody, “Go and fetch a constable!”

Benny spat out a tooth as he wiped his face with his sleeve as a meaty arm grabbed Bob’s shoulder. He spun round to lash out, but was no match for Sergeant Sharp of the Met.

A truncheon was jabbed hard in Bob’s side, and as he collapsed onto his knees, gasping in agony, Benny was dragged from under him. The moment Benny had been lifted to his feet, somebody handed him his bowler, he hobbled quickly to the door and disappeared.

Sergeant Sharp, who stood six feet four, with medals won for gallantry during the Boer War, slammed Bob hard against the wall. He grabbed the scruff of his neck, and shoved him up ’til his eyes were watering.

“Not so ’igh an’ mighty now,
are
you, Smiff?”

Bob said nothing as fear replaced bravado. He was cowering, sobering up quickly.

“You ain’t gonna pick on someone who can fight back, are you, my lad? Wanna try it wiv me?”

Bob flinched, as he muttered, “Just a grubby lil’ Mick. A wanker. Beggin’ for it.” Sharp raised his truncheon, and Bob was shrinking down like a whipped pup, shielding his face and head.

Sharp made a show of sniffing the air before saying, “Smell pretty ripe yerself. You wanna get that missus o’ yours to fill the tub. A bar o’ Sunlight wouldn’t go amiss niever,
if
you can spare a shillin’ from the ale, that is.”

Then he grated, grin disappearing, “You gotta wife and kid to support. Get on wiv it!”

He kicked him hard up the backside and Bob made his way blearily out, rubbing his side and rear, cussing under his breath. As curtains parted here and there, some revealing grinning faces, others urgent gestures to come and have a look, his humiliation and anger increased with every stride.

Three

As Bob was kicking open his front door, less than a mile away another, much larger one, was being knocked upon; that of the nemesis of all in Rice Lane.

The workhouse at Marylebone.

A little round man, with pink jolly cheeks and white hair, looked up at the damp, ivy strewn bricks, the barred windows and the three huge chimneys staggering the roof like accusing fingers. He sighed and knocked.

A stooped and wizened man answered the door, a small Bible clutched to his breast. A dewdrop dangled from his nose, while spectacles were perched precariously on the end.

“Yes, Sir?” His voice was an asthmatic wheeze.

“My name is William Fishwick. I’ve come about the position of children’s overseer.” The man beamed as he removed his hat, knowing his late wife, a devoted Methodist, would be proud of him for aiding the vulnerable and the poor.

“Come this way, Sir.” The doorkeeper turned and shuffled off, his feet hardly leaving the floor. He muttered continuously as Fishwick followed him through a gloomy reception area. Fishwick couldn’t tell whether he was talking to
him
, or himself, though it seemed his name was Pocket, and that he ‘did things’.

They came to a high double door, which Pocket opened before limping off, still muttering to himself.

Fishwick entered into a small hall, to be confronted by five men sitting atop a high wooden plinth behind a long table. If he was meant to feel intimidated and humble as he looked up at them, it had worked, he thought as he stood there, feeling as though he was on trial. As they regarded him, from their perch, their expressions ranged from distain to haughtiness.

“Your name?” the middle one asked. He was bigger than the others; black hair, monocle, gold fob watch, and a crisp white rounded collar below a double chin.

“William Fishwick, Sir. I’m here in response to your advertisement in the
Telegraph
newspaper, for the position of children’s canteen overseer.” He smiled warmly.

The man grunted as he briefly scanned Fishwick’s correspondence. “Yes, we have your letter of application here. I am Sir Rupert King,” he said, looking up. “Master of this institution.”

He introduced the others, two of whom were his brothers. Alistair was slim, foppish, with hair so ginger, it looked like spun copper. The other, Horace, the smaller version for Sir Rupert, was the man who had knocked on Lil’s door, demanding the rent.

The other two, at the extreme ends of the table, were the Medical Officer, Mr Parsons, and the chaplain, Reverend Crockford.

“This site was established,” Sir Rupert continued, “in 1833, as a haven for the paupers of London. We are funded out of the public purse, and here they work unpaid for their keep and lodgings, though their medical care is free. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now then, have you references?”

“I have indeed.” Fishwick fumbled inside his coat, pulling out an envelope.

Sir Rupert beckoned him forward and Fishwick passed it up. The knight let his monocle drop as he read the two sheets of paper quietly.

At last, he said, “Your references are impeccable in most respects, Mr Fishwick.” He reinserted his eyeglass.

“Thank you,” answered Fishwick.

“As a school teacher, you commanded respect, both in and out of the classroom.”

“Thank…”

“Was this with, or without, the application of the rod?”

“The rod? Oh, you mean the cane.” He laughed. “Oh, good heavens, no! Well, at least very rarely. I firmly believe, as I expect you, gentlemen, do, that respect may be fostered more effectively, not by the application of intimidation and fear, but by mutual understanding, kindness, and concern.”

Horace and Alistair exchanged glances.

“Your considerations are of course most laudable,” Sir Rupert said, “but the children you taught were not, as they are here, the litter of the forsaken, were they?”

“Litter? Oh no! Well appointed families for the most part.”

“What then is your attitude towards
workhouse
children?”

Fishwick looked confused. “Well, the same, of course, except that… well,
greater
consideration and kindness, I suppose, should be…”

“Let me remind you, Sir, that these are not the offspring of decent hardworking families, but of the slothful, the deceitful, and the ungodly. They are the spawn of failures.”

“Yes,” his brother Alistair added, “the dwegs, don’t you know? Weal scum. They should be in Borstal, some of them.” Horace nodded in agreement.

“God has bestowed his mercy upon them,” the chaplain reminded him in a wheeze.

“Discipline is what is required,” King resumed, “if necessary at the end of your stick, and if you are hired, you must not spare it, or we will have anarchy!”

“But surely, Sir, the Good Book teaches us that kindness and compassion foster harmony, and…”

King picked up a little brass bell and tinkled it.

“We will let you know by return of post, Mr Fishwick. Good day to you.”

He started writing something on the sheet. The double doors opened. Pocket reappeared and Fishwick was led away, dazed and white-faced.

As the doors closed, the doctor said wearily, “Philanthropists by the score! Well meaning I suppose, but…” He shook his head.

There were further sighs as the door opened once more and another man walked in, removing his wet top hat, before standing before the plinth.

He was tall and slender, bald except for a grey fuzz that surrounded his crown, which he had tried to brush forward, with lamb chop whiskers and washed out blue eyes that never seemed to blink. Far from a natty dresser, he wore a tatty frock coat, the buttons rubbed nearly bare with age, but there was a bearing about him, and the set of his face, that appealed to the five sets of eyes that scrutinised him.

Sir Rupert examined his references, and nodded several times, before asking, “What is
your
attitude, Mr Flint, towards the spawn of the poor house?”

“I believe, Sir, simply in the good Lord, discipline and the rod. All other considerations are secondary.”

Sir Rupert and the others exchanged approving glances. At last.

Four

Fighting Bob had such a sudden headache as he slammed the door behind him that any feelings of resentment towards his wife and child, for being set above him yet again, were shelved for the time being.

To make matters worse, having been in the pub since noon, he had nearly run his pockets dry, and had no idea how tomorrow’s session was going to be funded.

Half an hour later, as he sat at the dinner table, bored with Lil’s twittering on about the same old things, he looked at the crystal ball she used for fortune telling and wondered once more where she hid all the pennies she got for looking into it.

He felt sick as he regarded the hunk of high smelling boiled beef, and the bowl of watery cabbage and chopped carrots next to it.

“Let’s put our hands together and thank the Lord before we start,” said Lil.

If the Lord was so damned good
, he always reasoned,
why didn’t he send better fare?

“Wass this?”

A burp and a loud, wet fart sent the reek of stale beer across the table.

“Your dinner. The same as me and the lad.”

Bob grunted as he poked at it several times with his fork. Then he lifted a spoonful of veg and dropped it back. The spoon clattered against the bowl.

“I wouldn’t feed this shit to a pig.”

“Well, that’s all there is. We’ve no money for anything else. You’ve drunk the rest.”

A tense silence fell around the table.

Bob looked at her and said, with dangerous calm, “Don’t start tellin’
me
what to spend me readies on. It ain’t got nuffing to do wiv you.”

“It is when our bellies are pinched, and there are backs to be clothed.”

Bob snatched up his fork and threw it across the room.

“I
said
don’t start tellin’ me what do wiv…”

“I only just managed to scrape enough together to pay the rent man today, and as for next month…”

Bob stood suddenly and bawled, red faced, inches from hers, “Well, stick it up yer arse then, you fuckin’ ’oare!”