The Best of Sisters (3 page)

‘Sorry, I never meant to. I was waiting for you.’

She took a deep breath, struggling to control her erratic heartbeats. She had thought for an instant that it was the police, who had been lying in wait to trap her into telling them where Bart had gone. ‘How did you know I’d come out this way?’

‘I knew you’d have to get some grub and the old skinflint wouldn’t be asking you round to dine at his place.’

Even in the darkness, Eliza sensed that Davy was grinning and suddenly her own mood lifted. ‘I got tuppence,’ she said, jingling the coins in her pocket. ‘Let’s go to the pie shop.’

‘I wouldn’t say no to a plate of pie and mash. The old man’s drunk his wages again this week. We’re on bread and scrape until Pete brings his wages home from the brewery.’

‘Come on then,’ Eliza said, breaking into a trot. ‘I’ll race you to the pie shop.’

Later, having enjoyed a plate of steak pie, mash and gravy washed down with mugs of sweet tea, Eliza and Davy walked down Old Gravel Lane to Execution Dock, where pirates had once been hanged and left in cages to rot, as a warning to those who might consider following their bloodthirsty profession. Despite its grim history, or maybe because of it, Eliza and Davy often walked this way; deliberately ignoring Bart’s stern warning never to venture there, especially at night. Drunken sailors of all nationalities were weaving their way back to their ships, some with equally intoxicated women hanging on their arms, singing, laughing and taking swigs of jigger gin from crusty bottles. Eliza cast a pitying glance at an old woman bent double, skimming the pavements for dog faeces, which she would sell as pure to be used in the tanneries. Turning her head away, Eliza held her nose. ‘I don’t know how she can do that.’

‘I don’t expect she’s got much choice,’ Davy said, guiding Eliza away from a particularly
putrid pile of turds. ‘Hey, lady, there’s a tuppenny-worth of pure here.’

The old woman raised her head. ‘Ta, ducks.’ Shuffling up behind them she scooped the revolting mess into her bucket.

Eliza walked quickly on. ‘Poor soul! I don’t suppose she was always like that.’

Davy fell into step beside her. ‘It’s easy to fall on hard times.’

Coming to a halt on the edge of the quay wall, Eliza stared down at the oily black water slithering out to sea on the high tide. The reflections of the gaslights shimmered in fractured pools on the surface. ‘It looks like dead people holding flaming torches beneath the water,’ Eliza said, shuddering.

Davy looked over her shoulder. ‘It’s just your imagination, Liza. It looks like reflections of the street lights to me.’

She gave him a sideways glance, unsure whether or not he was laughing at her; he wasn’t. ‘That bloke died in the river; the one that Bart pushed off the quay wall. He never meant to kill him.’

‘Did he drown then?’

‘He was dead when they fished him out. Bart thought his neck was broke.’

Davy hooked his thumbs into his belt with a careless shrug. ‘There’s plenty of corpses dragged from the river every night. The dead
houses is stacked high with suicides and them what’s met a sticky end. Me dad says that poor sods chuck themselves off bloody bridge in New Gravel Lane, sometimes two or three a night. They ends up floating in the East London Dock or else they gets carried out through the basin into the river. He drags them out all bloated and swollen – that’s when he’s sober enough to know what he’s about.’

Eliza had seen the odd dead cow or dog floating downstream but never a human body; she quickly put the image out of her mind. ‘Don’t let’s talk about it.’

A noise from across the street put a stop to the conversation as two drunken men lurched out of a pub, falling into the gutter. Punching and kicking, they rolled over and over on the thick carpet of straw, mud and horse dung. Men and women staggered out of the pub door, forming a small crowd and egging them on. Then the fight seemed to escalate as minor scraps broke out, and soon there was a tangle of flailing limbs, shouting, swearing and grunts of pain.

‘Come on,’ David said, grabbing Eliza by the hand. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ They ran along the quay wall in the direction of home. Davy slowed down a little as they reached the workhouse at the end of Old Gravel Lane. They were out of range of the brawling drunks now, but he would
not allow Eliza to rest until they reached the alley behind the chandlery.

Breathless, and with a stitch in her side, Eliza leaned against the gate. ‘You’d best get home, Davy; it’s late and you got to get up early.’

‘Will you be all right on your own, Liza?’

‘Of course I will.’ She tossed her head, but inside she was quaking at the thought of going back inside the empty building.

‘I’ll see you in the morning then. Ta-ta.’ Davy loped off in the direction of Farmer Street, where his large family dwelt in a damp, overcrowded cellar.

Eliza crept into the yard. In the distance she could still hear the blasts of police whistles and men shouting. A pair of eyes glowing in the dark made her stifle a scream, but it was only a cat out hunting: she could have cried with relief when it leapt on top of the wall with an angry miaow.

Having locked and bolted the gate, Eliza was fumbling for the key to the back door when someone grabbed her from behind and a hand clamped over her mouth.

‘It’s me, Liza. I’m taking me hand away. For God’s sake don’t scream.’

‘Bart!’ Sobbing with relief, Eliza turned, flinging her arms around his neck. ‘Bart, you’ve come home.’

‘I can’t stay, poppet. I just come to make sure you was all right.’ Cocking his head on one side, Bart was silent for a moment, listening. He laid his finger on Eliza’s lips. ‘I can hear the cops’ whistles. Was you followed?’

‘No, there’s a fight going on outside the Blue Anchor.’

‘What was you doing on Execution Dock?’ Bart gave her a shake, and then he hugged her in a grip that almost robbed her of breath. ‘I told you never to go there.’

Eliza pushed him away, half laughing, half crying at the relief of seeing him when she thought he had left her for good. ‘Don’t scold me, Bart. I’m so happy to see you.’

‘I ain’t stopping. Let’s get inside.’ Bart stood back while Eliza unlocked the door. Once inside, he leaned against the wall, closing his eyes. ‘I
don’t never want to live through another twenty-four hours like the last.’

Eliza felt along the shelf for the vestas and lit the candle. Holding it high, she could see that Bart was both dirty and dishevelled, with dark stubble sprouting from his chin. ‘Where’ve you been all this time, Bartie? Why didn’t you go on the ship to Australia like you said?’

‘Missed the boat, didn’t I? But I went round the docks until I found a ship bound for New Zealand. I’ve heard stories about goldfields where you can pick up nuggets the size of a baby’s head and get rich overnight. That’s where I’m bound, Liza. I’ll come home a rich man or not at all.’

‘Don’t say that, you’re scaring me.’

He patted her cheek. ‘You mustn’t worry about me, love. I’m as tough as the next man, and I’ve got the will to succeed. I’ll not let you down, little sister.’

‘Oh, Bartie!’ Eliza wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. ‘I wish I could come with you. It’s horrible here without you.’

‘Has he been cruel to you?’ Bart’s voice cracked with concern.

‘No.’ She did not dare look him in the face. He would know for sure that she was lying. ‘Not particularly.’

‘What do you mean, not particularly? What’s the old bastard done since I left?’

‘Ted Peck complained because I’d left food on the table and the rats had made a mess of things. Uncle Enoch said I can’t sleep up there no more.’

‘What?’

‘It don’t matter, honest. I don’t mind sleeping under the counter.’

‘That’s it!’ Bart’s voice rose to a roar. ‘I’ll not have me sister treated like a common counter-jumper. We’re Braggs, you and me, Liza, and the old man’s got to take heed of that once and for all.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘We’re going round to his house in Bird Street, and I’m having it out with him.’

‘But the police?’

‘Damn the cops, I say, damn them all. I ain’t leaving London until I’m sure you’re fixed up proper.’

Storm clouds had blotted out the moon and a steady drizzle was falling as Bart dragged Eliza along Green Bank to Bird Street. Uncle Enoch’s tall, narrow house was wedged between a tobacco warehouse and a seamen’s mission. Although it was close on eleven o’clock at night, and in spite of the rain, the street was teeming with people. Ragged children stood in the gutter, soaked to the skin and ankle-deep in filth, begging for money from passers-by. Prostitutes solicited from gloomy doorways and drunks
lurched out of the many public houses and gambling dens. Pickpockets, petermen, stevedores, lightermen and sailors crowded the street and, after the heat of the day, steam rose from the pavements. The damp night air was filled with the stench of unwashed bodies, tobacco and the fumes of alcohol. In the midst of all this hustle and bustle, Bart and Eliza were able to mingle unnoticed and they made their way to Enoch’s house.

Bart hammered on the door knocker and, eventually, Enoch stuck his head out of an upstairs window, his nightcap askew and his face contorted with rage. ‘Who’s that there, pounding on my door at this time of night?’

‘Let us in, old man.’

‘Get away from here, you bastard. I don’t want to know you.’

‘If you don’t open the door, I’ll kick it in.’

‘No need for that.’ Enoch disappeared into the room, slamming the sash so that the glass windowpanes rattled. Seconds later he opened the door. ‘Come inside before someone recognises you.’

The entrance hall was little more than a narrow passage. Enoch led the way to the kitchen at the back of the house. Eliza had been in the dingy room just once before, five years ago, on the day that her father had been buried beside her mother in St George’s churchyard. She saw now
that nothing had changed, from the rusting range to the unwashed flagstone floor and the grimy, small-paned window that looked out onto the back yard.

‘I ought to turn you over to the police,’ Enoch said, scowling at Bart. ‘What are you doing here, you villain?’

‘I may be a villain in the eyes of the law, but I wouldn’t treat a dog like you treated me little sister. I won’t have it no longer, old man.’ Bart took a threatening step towards Enoch, who backed away seizing a wooden chair and holding it in front of him.

‘Lay a finger on me and I’ll see you hanged. You’ll end up in Newgate, Bartholomew Bragg. You see if you don’t.’

Despite his harsh words, Eliza could see by the way his eyes rolled, exposing the whites, and his mouth worked constantly, even when he was not speaking, that Uncle Enoch was terrified.

‘That’s right,’ Bart said, snatching the chair from Enoch and hurling it across the room. ‘I’ll probably end up on the gallows, so I’ve got nothing to lose, and wringing your skinny old neck ain’t going to make a scrap of difference.’

‘Leave me be.’ Enoch sank to his knees, clasping his hands in front of him and closing his eyes, as if he were in church, praying.

‘You leave Eliza be.’ Grabbing Enoch by the throat, Bart dragged him to his feet. ‘I’m dead
serious. I’ll be gone by daybreak, far away from England and far from you, old man. But I got to be certain that my Eliza is being looked after.’

‘She will be, I promise.’ Enoch’s face had turned grey-white, matching the colour of his nightshirt.

‘She’s to be fed and housed decent. She’s to be clothed and shod like a young lady and I don’t want her treated like a skivvy. Do you understand me?’

‘I – I do.’

‘I want you to swear on the Bible that you’re so fond of thrusting down our throats. Come on, old man, where is it? You must have one.’

‘Over there.’ Enoch pointed to a wooden shelf in the alcove at the side of the chimneybreast.

‘Fetch it, Liza, and put it in his hand.’

Eliza did as she was told, eyeing her uncle warily, half expecting him to leap up and throttle Bart, but seemingly he was genuinely fearful, and he clutched the Bible to his chest.

‘Swear on it. Swear that you’ll care for Eliza just as though she was your own daughter. Promise me you’ll let her live here, in your house, and that you’ll make the place decent.’

‘I – I swear it.’

‘Bart.’ Eliza tugged at his sleeve. ‘Don’t make me live here with him.’

Enoch scrambled to his feet, still clutching the Bible. ‘No, she wouldn’t be comfortable here.
This isn’t a good place for a little girl to live.’

‘You’d best see to it then. Find her some lodgings with a respectable family. If you don’t, I swear I’ll come back and cut out your black heart and feed it to the crows.’ Bart held his hand out to Eliza. ‘Come on, Liza, we’re going back to the shop just for tonight. Tomorrow you’ll be housed like a young lady. Ain’t that right, Uncle?’

‘That’s right,’ Enoch mumbled through chattering teeth. ‘That’s right. Now get out of here and don’t let anyone see you leave.’

Bart left before daybreak. Eliza managed to see him off with a smile and only broke down into floods of tears when he had disappeared from sight. She had never felt so lost and alone and, if it were possible for a twelve-year-old heart to break, then she was certain hers had shattered into smithereens. As the first grey shards of dawn filtered through the skylight, she set about tidying the sail loft before Ted and the apprentices arrived. Bart had refused to sleep in the shop and had laid the palliasses side by side, just as they had always been. In spite of this, Eliza knew that he had not slept much at all; she had awakened several times to hear him pacing the floor, but each time she had drifted back into a sleep of sheer exhaustion. Having left the sail loft clean and without a trace of having been
used, Eliza set about cleaning the shop floor, dusting and tidying the counter ready for opening.

Enoch arrived on the stroke of seven and, as she let him into the shop, Eliza glanced up at him nervously, wondering what sort of mood he was in this morning. As he strode past her, his face was pale and tight with anger. At first he did not speak and she found his silence more frightening than a tirade of words. She stood, shifting from one foot to the other, while he went behind the counter and took down the stock book.