Birdcage Walk (14 page)

When George abandoned Charlotte in the street, he strode north as fast as he could. He had never had any intention of letting anyone from the house see him, whatever she thought. The drizzle had given way to large, fat drops of rain and he was now soaked to the skin. Apart from his feet, which squelched inside boots that hadn’t stood up to the deepening puddles, he didn’t mind the downpour. He felt invigorated by it, like a greased engine running smoothly, his skin pleasantly cool but his insides warm.

He completed the journey faster than he had previously managed, the remnants of temper hastening his pace. He’d pictured the bench he would sit on all the way, but it didn’t feel quite right in reality. He felt foolish as the surface of the wooden seat saturated his trousers and looked around him, checking no one had seen. He wandered over to the entrance of Aberdeen Park, still wary of approaching steps in case a policeman was doing his rounds and wanted to know what he was up to. It was pin-drop quiet in the street but the lamps were too widely spaced to cast much light. If anything, each bright pool made the surrounding darkness blacker.

As his eyes failed to adjust, a footfall caused him to wheel round and frighten half out of his wits a man who hadn’t noticed George. Giving him a look that was as suspicious as it was contemptuous, the man hurried on, straightening his back in case the poorer working man was watching him.

George began to wish he hadn’t come at all. He’d wanted to escape Charlotte and the fusty atmosphere of the pub, but it was a daft notion to have come up here in the pouring rain. He should have gone straight home and put himself to bed. After all, he was due here in a couple of days anyway. After a last, fruitless glance down Aberdeen Park, he deliberately struck off down an unfamiliar road. Though heading in the approximate direction of south, he took the narrowest, darkest streets. He took a strange pleasure in choosing to go left or right as he pleased, and with no heed to his inner compass.

In keeping with the fortunes of the night so far, he was soon hopelessly lost. As if it knew, the rain began to fall faster, coming down in great, soaking gouts. He was too tired to walk so quickly now, the skin on his toes rubbing from his wet socks, and he was growing cold. He allowed himself a minute’s rest under a shallow ledge, unaware that a pair of eyes were on him. He jumped as the man before had done when she made herself known, gliding out of the shadows like an apparition.

“Lost, are you?” she asked, her voice high and light like Charlotte’s. She smiled and it looked ghoulish in the dim light. Her slightness and the roundness of her eyes told George she was young, but the skin of her face looked withered even in the low light, the shadows under her eyes like smudges of soot. George suddenly wondered if she was real and felt his scalp prickle and tighten at the notion. But then she caught hold of his sleeve and he wondered whether he’d taken leave of his senses that night.

“You’re a quiet one, aren’t you?” She moved her child’s hand down to his waistband and tugged at it gently.

George felt the heat rise in his cheeks as he realised what she was. Not a ghost but a prostitute. His embarrassment made him slow to react as she stood on tiptoes to kiss his mouth. Her breath was bad and he turned his face away. Up so close her eyes looked black, the pupils and irises as one. As he uncurled her fingers from his trousers her eyes remained dull, betraying neither humiliation nor anger at the rejection.

“Please yourself, then,” she said. “Plenty of others’ll be along.”

As he left her standing there, alone in the sodden lane, he wondered about the kind of men who would venture down a street like this, and felt bad for not giving her a coin.

He was glad to turn a corner and know that she couldn’t follow him with her eyes any longer. A warm light ahead gave him some hope, and indeed it was a pub. It wasn’t one he knew, despite the fact that he was by now probably less than half a mile from familiar streets. What with the rain, and a lingering queasiness after the episode with the girl, it looked welcoming enough to George, its peeling paint and cracked panes going unnoticed in his relief.

The instant he stepped through the door, he knew it was not the sort of establishment he needed for a solitary drink. It was oddly quiet inside, with none of the jovial drunkenness George might have got lost in. Here, it would be impossible to find a corner without two dozen eyes on him, wondering who he thought he was to take up this or that chair. The only woman in the establishment stood behind the bar, her bosom swelling above a thick waist, the pale skin of her bare arms and face doughy. When he approached the bar with trepidation he could see the sheen of sweat on her upper lip. He asked for a pint and inwardly cursed the tremor in his voice. While she took her time finding and filling a glass, sniffing disapprovingly, George glanced upwards to avoid looking at the other patrons. The hour was almost ten according to the clock hanging above the bar, the time having rushed on faster than George would have guessed.

When the pint was poured, almost a third of it foam, the landlady banged it down on the bar and held out her hand. As George fumbled for a few coins he asked, more to break the silence than anything else, if the clock was correct.

“Course it’s right. What’s the point of having a clock up there if it don’t work?”

She looked at him disgustedly and took his money without fetching the change that was due. George had thought he would stand at the bar, drink up quickly and get on home, but the idea of standing in such close proximity to the landlady put him off. He hardly dared look up but felt her stare nevertheless. He would find a seat near the door and face the window, leaving the old harridan with nothing to look at but the back of his head.

One large table, reassuringly close to the door, was occupied by an old man. He looked to be on his own and was fast asleep. Not wishing to wake him, George carefully pulled out the chair furthest from him and made to sit down. Immediately the old man’s head snapped up and he glared at the interloper with rheumy eyes.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” George asked politely, hovering awkwardly between sitting and standing.

The man gestured angrily, which seemed to give permission albeit unwillingly. George thanked him and sat down, mindful not to scrape the chair legs on the chipped floorboards. He’d already gulped down a good third of his drink, eager to get on, when a voice spoke out over the general hum and grumble in the room.

“That’s Pete’s table you’re sat at.”

It took George a moment to realise the voice was directed at him. He looked up to find most of the pub’s patrons looking at him, including the old man who was evidently Pete. The man who had called out was not a tall man, but that didn’t worry George any less. He was strongly built, with a chest that seemed too broad for the length of his legs. He had the look of a pit pony, with none of its gentleness. He was also drunk and swayed as he got to his feet.

“I’ll move then,” said George. “I didn’t think the seat was taken, or I wouldn’t have sat there.” He looked at Pete, hoping he would acknowledge their brief conversation, but the old man looked impassively back, more intent on picking between his teeth with a dirty fingernail.

“What’s your name, then? Ain’t seen you round here before.” The man came closer and George could smell the alcohol rising off his body in the close atmosphere of the room.

“Woolfe’s my name.” George wished instantly that he had lied. “I live a mile or so south.”

“Woolfe, is it? You don’t look like much of a wolf, I must say. Do you fight like one?”

The men he’d been sitting with laughed appreciatively. George was surprised at how quickly it had got to this point, the scenario he had feared as soon as he’d observed the crowd. He glanced up at the door, wondering if he had time to stand and run. His stocky adversary saw the look and stepped nearer still. George held out his hands in a gesture of peace.

“Listen, I don’t want any trouble. I just took a wrong turn on my way home. I’ll go now, alright?”

With some vestige of pride he stood and drained his glass, aware that his arm was shaking. Setting the empty glass down, he pushed his chair neatly under the table.

“Why don’t you take your empty to the bar?” the man said. “Would save Martha’s legs a trip to fetch it.”

As George picked up the glass and turned to walk to the bar he couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Even as he did it, his stomach lurched, knowing he wouldn’t escape now.

The first punch came from the side and caught him not on the jaw, as intended, but squarely on his ear. The pain paralysed him for a few seconds. His ear felt as though it was aflame, and the high-pitched ringing that started up inside it nearly unbalanced him. As he reeled, the stranger got in another hit, this time glancing George’s cheekbone. Barely thinking about it, George brought his right arm up in a hook, forgetting that he was still holding the glass. For such a cheap establishment, it was a heavy glass, and the force of its blow knocked the man down. The glass shattered in the man’s face and he screamed, as much from fright as pain. Before he ran, George looked down at the man’s face, his nose smashed and half a dozen cuts already bleeding. He couldn’t help it, he was glad.

The rain had almost stopped when he reached the street. He broke into a sprint and didn’t stop or slow, even when he was sure no one was taking up the chase. Heading slightly downhill in the direction of the river, he felt a thrill at his own speed and wished he could keep running over the black roads all night. Quite suddenly, though, he found himself coming out onto the New North Road, his bearings abruptly aligned again.

Without the running to distract him, the pain in his ear came back, the ringing having dropped to a dull, rhythmic thud. He put his good hand up to feel around the cheekbone that had also been hit and knew a proper shiner was already forming and spreading in the flesh there. As for the other hand, the one that had come swinging round with the glass, it was limp, still feeling the tremors of the impact. Miraculously he had sustained only a couple of cuts from the broken glass. They were brimming with bright red blood but they were clean and shallow enough. Fatigue hit him as he reached the bottom of the stairs to the tenement house and it was so sudden and overpowering that he had to pull himself up the stairs.

It was only as he got to the landing and saw the thin bar of light under the door that he remembered what had happened with Charlotte earlier, and the reason he had been so reckless in the first place. In the same moment, it also came to him that he was due at the Highbury house in only a few days’ time. Thanks to Charlotte sending him off in a temper, thanks to her carelessness with him, getting letters from that soldier who’d given her presents he couldn’t afford, he’d have a black eye for his next visit to Highbury and Mrs. Drew would think less of him. Perhaps he would write Charlotte a letter for a change, see how she liked that.

Saturday wasn’t long in arriving. His injuries had hardly been remarked on at the print—a relief after the inevitable fuss Cissy had made. Only Alf Jones, always after a laugh, had made a single weak joke about George brawling. That first morning after the fight, he’d woken up to a terrible headache and a tenderness in his cheek that made chewing on that side impossible. Thankfully the thudding in his ear had stopped by Friday, though it was still a vivid red and hot to the touch. He was surprised he hadn’t gone deaf, so hard had the blow been. All that was left, by the time the print’s huge clock stood at one on Saturday, was the bruise under his eye. It had turned from pink to violet and green and would fade into a jaundiced yellow by next week. Whatever shade of the rainbow, what mattered to George was that before it had completely healed he would have to face Mrs. Drew and Clemmie—and the disapproving maid.

He had dismissed out of hand the idea of simply not turning up. Not only did he not want to go back on his word, but this was likely to be the last occasion he would visit the house before Captain Drew returned in time for Christmas. He was going to help put up the tree this time, set it sturdily on its stand and decorate the higher branches. Mrs. Drew would not lower herself to clambering up ladders and she was too fearful for Clemmie’s safety to let her daughter.

“I couldn’t possibly allow Clemmie up so high,” she had said to George the last time he’d been there. “Whenever I even think of it, I see a dreadful vision of her lying prone on the carpet, her little neck broken like a bird’s.” At this, she had pressed a lace handkerchief to her eyes and George had stood awkwardly in the lull, accustomed to having Mrs. Drew fill every moment with her chatter.

Now, as he made the walk north, he couldn’t keep from feeling the customary blend of excitement and trepidation he always did. He wondered if he’d always feel this way on these streets, so associated were they with the Drews. When he reached Highbury Fields, he saw the usual band of well-fed children and their nurses. As he strode past them, deliberately keeping his chin high, he couldn’t help adjusting his cap so that its shadow was cast over the bad eye.

He knew Milly wouldn’t be able to resist commenting on his appearance and, sure enough, she snorted loudly as she pulled back the door.

“Now his true colours are coming out,” she sneered and George had to admire her quickness. “Wait here while I go and find out if she wants you still.”

George peered at himself in the mirror over the umbrella stand. At least the swelling had almost disappeared. His eyes were almost symmetrical again. Just as he was removing his hat and grimacing at how much more visible the bruise was without the peak’s shadow, Mrs. Drew came rushing forward. She stopped dead at the sight of him and George realised Milly had decided her mistress should discover the scandal for herself.

“Gracious, George. Whatever has happened to your face?” Mrs. Drew had raised her hands to her own face.

Just at that moment, Clemmie ran down the stairs, eager to see what the commotion was about. Instead of stopping like her mother, she came right up to George and looked at him in wonder.

“I hope you’re alright, George. Did you have an accident?”

Though Clemmie had made it easy for him, it didn’t occur to him not to tell the truth.

“There was a fight. I got hit,” he said. “It’s not too bad though, and it don’t hurt much now. I hadn’t done nothing to deserve it, Mrs. Drew, I’d just been minding my own business over a drink. But I couldn’t have that, it being unprovoked, so I got him back right enough.”

Clemmie was clearly thrilled by the idea but Mrs. Drew looked stern.

“Well, George, I’m very sorry to hear you’ve been in trouble. Perhaps you would be wise not to drink if this is what happens when you do. Now, let’s hear no more about it. We’ve got plenty to keep us busy this afternoon.”

The afternoon went on easily enough after that initial embarrassment. Milly was disgruntled to see that George’s black eye had not got him banished from the house as a bad influence and reluctantly left to go about her errands at the shops. George saw her go and felt liberated at the sight of her little hat bobbing away into the distance.

The tree had already been bought. It reached up to brush the high ceiling, some twelve feet up. It took George almost an hour to manhandle it into a corner away from the huge bay windows. Even once it was perfectly vertical Mrs. Drew fussed and deliberated for some time, getting George to turn it this way and that until she nodded, sat herself down and poured out a small glass of sherry. Clemmie began to decorate the lower branches from a large box overflowing with all manner of baubles and trinkets.

“Very good, George,” said Mrs. Drew. “It will look just wonderful once it’s decorated. The captain will adore it; he is a great advocate of the Christmas holiday.”

A great many boughs of holly, some of which had been pruned from the garden, had been brought in. Using a ladder, George was instructed to garland each and every picture with a sprig, the leaves dark against the gilt of the frames.

“There’ll be snow this Christmas,” he said to Clemmie, as she stood back to survey her work on the tree.

“How do you know that? I was hoping there would be.”

“There’s berries on the branches. You only get them in the years it’s going to snow.”

“Is that so?” asked Mrs. Drew, overhearing their conversation. “You’re full of interesting facts, aren’t you?”

At the top of the ladder George blushed at her words.

“Now George,” she continued as he positioned the final spray of holly at the top of the mantle mirror. “I must tell you again how helpful you have been these past weeks. No, not helpful,” she paused dramatically. “Indispensable! I don’t know how we should have coped without you to lift, fetch and carry for us. Our maid Milly is admirably strong for so small a girl, but she could never have shifted those trunks in the attic an inch, nor helped sort through them without neglecting her daily tasks. It was a stroke of pure luck that our dear Mr. Booth discovered the Woolfes of Hoxton on his tours of the city.

“Now the house, the attic especially, is in perfect array for the arrival of Captain Drew. Once Milly has polished the door furniture in the morning, and lit a fire in the library, we will be able to meet his train at Paddington with perfect ease of conscience, knowing that we have done our duty for the returning hero.”

Mrs. Drew finished her second tot of sherry and placed the narrow glass down rather too firmly on a side table. Clemmie turned back to the tree so George wouldn’t see her smile. George felt slightly dizzy trying to meet Mrs. Drew’s eye from his elevated position, but she hadn’t finished yet.

“George, I will be quite frank with you. The privileged surroundings you see here are not what I came to expect for myself when I was Clemmie’s age. My father was a humble clerk and I never dreamed that I would come to live out my days in such comfort. This is why I see it as my duty to remember the times when I was not so fortunate, though I am obliged to say that there was a great abundance of affection in the home of my childhood. Therefore George, I hope that you will continue to act as our ‘man-of-occasional-work,’ as I think I might term you. We would be most sorry to lose not only your skills, but your acquaintance now, when it has been so very pleasant. I have mentioned the assistance you have been providing in my letters to my husband and he has expressed a desire to meet you, once he has got his ‘land legs’ back, as he always says. Would you like that, George?”

Still clutching a couple of loose holly leaves, though not feeling their thorns, George nodded eagerly, glad that his distance at the top of the ladder, the warm light of the fire, and Mrs. Drew’s fondness for sherry would allow the redness of his face to go unnoticed.

“Yes, Mrs. Drew,” he said quietly. “I would be very glad to meet Captain Drew. It would be, well, it would be an honour.”

“That’s settled then,” Mrs. Drew clapped her hands together, pleased. “I’m sure plenty of small tasks will arise in the new year. After all, this lovely tree will eventually have to be taken down.”

“Oh, please mama,” cried Clemmie. “Don’t say that even as we’re still decorating it. ‘Each year, Christmas seems to be over and done with even quicker than the previous year, so please don’t wish it away already.”

Mrs. Drew blew her daughter a kiss. “I’m sorry, my dear, I know it’s your favourite time, especially when your father can join us. We have slightly over a week yet and, before that, we have our Christmas Eve celebrations to look forward to. Our mutual friend Mr. Booth will be attending, George. We must think of a way you can assist us with the preparations, it will be a wonderful evening.”

For the next half an hour, George moved his ladder so it could reach the higher branches of the tree. Clemmie handed up each decoration in turn and instructed George exactly where she wanted it. Finally it was done.

“There,” said Clemmie, standing back and almost bouncing on the spot with excitement. “It’s the best we’ve ever had. Well done, George.”

It did look beautiful. The glass baubles were the colour of wine and they hung heavily from the branches on golden twine. Right at the pinnacle of the tree, George had affixed a star, which now winked in the gas light. The tall white candles would remain unlit until Christmas Eve. As the three of them admired it, the carriage clock on the mantle began to strike six. As the tinging sound of the last stroke rang out, Mrs. Drew bustled out into the hall to find Milly—whose return had gone unnoticed—and ask her to bring the tray. George followed her, remembering he ought to wash his hands.

“It’s a late tea for you, George,” said Mrs. Drew when it had been laid out. “I hope you don’t feel too starved. We only eat a proper dinner when my husband is home. Clemmie and I make do with some cold meat and cake most evenings. I find it’s better for my figure.”

“It’s not too late for me, thank you,” said George, though his stomach had been rumbling; he had forgotten in his anticipation to buy a pie on the way to Highbury as he had intended.

It was so warm in the room, the fire spitting and blazing, that George had quite forgotten to think about his own body. The cold that usually forced him into stiffness, braced against the temperature, had gone and his limbs felt loose and soft. He perched on a sofa, comfortable but careful not to lean back and stretch out as he might have done if he’d been alone. Next to him sat Clemmie, who ate her cold beef sandwiches with delicate bites after first stripping off the crusts, until her mother scolded her for it. Mrs. Drew sat opposite, almost lost in an enormous wing chair.

The half hour had just struck when a sharp noise from outside made George’s head snap up.

“Did you hear something?” Mrs. Drew asked. “Go and check, George, will you? My nerves are not so good when the captain’s away.”

As George got to his feet he thought he saw a flash of white at the window. Walking quickly over, he stared out into the dark but the luxuriant light from the room reflected back at him and left him blind. Nothing outside was visible except the gas lamps, which were reduced to hazy pools of light suspended in the air, yielding nothing.

“There’s nobody out there,” he said as reassuringly as he could. “It was probably a cat knocking something over.”

The conversation didn’t quite recover after the disturbance and George reluctantly made his excuses after a few minutes. The tree was erected, the room decorated; he had fulfilled his task and it was time he was getting back.

Both ladies saw him to the door, Milly somewhere at the back of the house, no doubt feigning deafness so she didn’t have to show George out like a guest.

“Remember what I said about introducing you to my husband when he returns,” Mrs. Drew said. “He must meet our indispensable helper. You won’t forget now, will you, George?”

George had to check himself so he didn’t laugh at such an absurd suggestion. “I certainly won’t forget, Mrs. Drew, and thank you again for thinking of it, of me.”

“Good, that’s settled. We will see you again on Christmas Eve, then. Mr. Booth will be coming, of course, and I’m sure he would be pleased to see you again.”

George made his way home quickly, his feet feeling lighter after their spell next to the fire in Highbury. Miniscule abrasions from the holly, a few of them producing a bead of blood as bright as the berries themselves, made his hands sting in the brittle air. Berries on the holly might forecast snow, but it felt too cold for it tonight. Christmas was but a week away, perhaps the snow would make its entrance then.

As he passed by a deserted Highbury Fields, its grass already stiffening with frost, a slight figure up ahead reminded him of Charlotte. He was still angry with her, but he was glad he hadn’t given her the note he wrote the night of the fight. It had done him good to commit some of his fury to paper but he had been shocked at his own callousness when he read it back the next morning. Perhaps he would call on her this week, they would talk things through and everything would be made right again. He looked again for the figure so like hers but it had disappeared into the gloom. Perhaps it had only been his conscience playing tricks on him. He walked on, his warm feet swift and his mind filling once again with images of the tree and its jewel-coloured fruit.