The Newgate Jig (21 page)

Around a corner,
and there it is, the Aquarium, with the familiar banners flapping upon the
walls and a gang of sharp- faced boys crouched around the door. Every day they
call to my dogs and I wait whilst they pat and stroke them and call them
'reg'lar spankers', just as their fathers would. Not today, though.

Ignoring their
cries of 'What's the row, Sam?', I hurry inside. The hall is cool and dark and
quiet. Conn is manning Pikemartin's box, is rocking to and fro, and I hurry
past him. But he sees me and calls and I stop at the bottom of the stairs, but
don't turn around.

'Bob, Bob, she's
done for me,' he wails, and arches his spine with a grimace. 'My back is
breaking out again. The wounds are opening up. Blood everywhere.'

I take the
stairs three at a time. He calls after me. 'Bob! For the sake of the Holy
Child, show some pity to a broken man!'

I hurry to the
salon but, putting my head around the door, I see it is crowded with people.
Some are in front of my stand, waiting, looking at the clock, gazing about
them. A man peers behind the screen and shakes his head and says something
which makes everyone laugh. He resumes his place and waits.

All I want is a
moment's silence. Just to think. To consider what I should do. To force the
child's cries out of my head.

I close the door
quietly and go up to the menagerie, passing a gaggle of young women on their
way down who nudge each other and say 'aah!' when they see Brutus and Nero and whisper
behind their hands when they see me. The door is half open and I step inside,
leaving my boys on the threshold. There is a pleasant animal smell of straw and
warm bodies.

Bella comes to the
front of the cage, and the cubs mew. She bares her teeth. The room is crowded,
but I go in anyway and walk about like a customer, stopping in front of the
birds and squirrels, the badger, the snakes coiled in their glass box, trying
to feel calm, like the average man.

But, no. The everyday
world continues out of my grasp. I am looking through a window at it, can see
it, but cannot be a part of it. For I have heard a child killed and I don't
know what to do about it.

I start down the stairs
again, and meet Mr Abrahams, coming from his little office at the back of the
third-floor landing. He is surprised and doesn't realize it's me at first, and
then calls out. 'Bob Chapman! My dear friend! How are you! When will our
customers see you again? And your fine animals?'

I don't ignore him, but
I am already at the first floor, where the board stands showing times of
performances. It is a large slate upon an easel, and on it Mr Abrahams
announces the special exhibitions and their times:

11.00
Moses Dann, the Skeleton Man. Before the grave consumes, Dann will amuse. Bones
visible. Skin like paper.

12.00
The Prussian Giant, Herr Swann, will speak on various subjects and sing songs
from his native region of Warmia.

1.00
Princess Tiny, the Smallest Woman in the World, will sing and entertain.
(Entrance 3d)

1.30
Moses Dann performs again.

2.00
The Prussian Giant - songs of Warmia.

2.30
Princess Tiny. The Aquarium's resident fairy.

And so on, until
the exhibitions end at half past ten in the evening. At the bottom of the
board, in pink chalk, is the legend:

The East London Aquarium is sorry to announce that

Mr Bob Chapman and his Clever Dogs, Brutus and

Nero, are indisposed for the duration.

Indisposed.

I want to laugh
but, turning the corner of the stairs, I am caught in the ribs by the elbow of a
stout lumper, sending a raft of pain through my side and down my arm. He looks
at me curiously and enters the salon, still eying me over his shoulder. Mrs
Gifford pushes past me with a smartly dressed gentleman at her elbow. She is
nodding and talking to him, but I know she has seen me. The stairs are crowded,
and the jostling is a trial. It's mid-afternoon and early workers, who have
already finished their day's labours and bought their ticket, chatter in the
hall and look at the coloured floor-plan on the wall and wonder what they shall
see first. In every room, on every landing, there is something remarkable -
swords and helmets, phials of fairy-tears and elven-breath, cabinets of wax
anatomy - hands and noses and ears - drums from African and shrunken heads from
the South American Amazon. I have not seen half of it, Mr Abrahams once assured
me. It rivalled the British Museum for its antiquities and curiosities.

It
will not do.

None
of this humbug, these gew-gaws.

Someone
shouts.

'Hoi!
Hoi! Bob Chapman!'

It's
Trim.

'I wondered if
you might be here,' he says breathlessly, coming after me. 'How are you? I've
just sold a marching song to your friend the Giant for five shillings! And what
do you think it's called?' He threw his head back and laughed! '"The Dutchman's
leetle dog." It's a comic song. Your Giant's not a Dutchman, of course,
but that don't signify!' He roars again, and even slaps his thigh with delight.
'What an excellent fellow he is! And what do you think of your old friend
Trimmer turned librettist now? It's talent, Bob, nothing more or less. How are
you?' he says again. 'Not working, I see from the board. Not going home,
though? Out for a walk? Taking the air? It's good for you.'

He is
bright-eyed and agitated, excited. He can hardly keep still.

'Not going
home?' he asks again, and before I can respond, 'I have an urgent appointment
in - you'll never guess, Bob! - Albemarle-street! Yes, Mr Murray! Well, perhaps
not Mr Murray himself - but, then, you never know!'

He is so happy,
so animated and full of optimism! I should have been able to shake him by the
hand and clap him on the shoulder. Instead, it is Trim who takes my hand and
pumps it hard and lifts his hat to Conn, who still hands out tickets, and
hurries across the hall and out of the door.

The
world has turned upon itself.

I am pushed
about again, this time by Mrs Gifford, who shoulders past me a second time and
cannot resist a jibe, 'If you're not well enough to work, Mr Chapman, you're
not well enough to be loafing about here, watching them as must.'

She
adjusts her hat and pulls on her gloves and makes a show of the little reticule
on her wrist. She wants the world to see her and take notice of her. Brutus and
Nero have placed themselves, like bookends, on either side of me, and they regard
her with unfriendly eyes. But she's done with me; I'm beneath her notice.

'Is Pikemartin
not here yet?' She addresses Conn. 'What's keeping him? If anyone asks for me—'
She looks about her, 'I am gone upon an errand. That's all. Do you hear me?'

'I hear you,
ma'am,' says Conn, with a curl of his lip, and curses her beneath his breath.

She
leaves behind her a trail of stale sweat and indignation.

Everyone is
busy. The Aquarium is bursting with people and noise, not at all the still and quiet
place I hoped it might be this afternoon.

Conn beckons me
over. He has taken a mouthful from a bottle in his pocket and his breath is
thick with gin.

'If you see Alf,
give him a nudge, won't you?
She's
on his tail. Tattling to the
Boss about him. She'll lose him his job. And this job's his life, Bob. His very
life. Like it is mine. Though Bella would have my blood first.'

I cannot bear to
hear him talk so, and I escape into the street and turn my face to Fish-lane
once again. For I have resolved. I must make sure.

I walk swiftly
and with a purpose, and I'm at the gaff within half an hour, have paid my penny
and been nodded through. I ignore the exhibition where the languid youth is
still describing Mrs Vowles and her sorry end, have pushed through the boys
trying to go round twice, and I'm fetched up in the yard again. A handful of
tumblers and mummers stand around a smouldering fire, smoking pipes and passing
a stone jug from hand to hand. They glance at me but make no move, which is
fortunate for I haven't considered what I shall do if anyone challenges me.

I have only one
thought, and it has plagued me since I ran away: that I must see inside the
place with my own eyes.

And it is as if
I had made an appointment. The lean mummer comes out of the gaff and rounds up
his troupe to do battle with the tragedy of King Richard once more. The stone
jar is left on the wall. The door to the gaff is banged shut. The yard is
quiet.

It is greasy and
paved with mossy stones. Remnants of scenery - a badly painted woodland scene,
a withered tree- stump with a hole bashed into it - and heaps of bricks and
timber clutter it from end to end. I pick my way through the debris and skirt
the stable once again. I can see the trampled brambles and dead grass where,
only hours ago, Nero and I stood, listening to a child being raped and
murdered.

I put my ear to
the stable door and, when I am certain there is no one inside (it is a risk I
don't consider for long), I pull it open a little way to peer in: it is empty.
If it hadn't been, and the Nasty Man or some other had been silently waiting
for me to betray myself, I don't know what I would have done. Except that I
felt a different man since this morning, and that the rules about everything I
ever knew had changed. Brutus and Nero stand behind me, sniffing the air. I
think they might have protected me. But I don't know.

I
step inside.

It is a small,
mean place in which to die. Rotten from roof to floor, underfoot the wormy
timbers sink and, though at some time it has been patched, the drapery pinned
to the walls does little to stem the thin draughts of cold wind. There is a
grey light from the half-open roof shutters falling on a few rough pieces of
carpet, a three-legged table, but the chaise I had spied through the gap in the
wall is not there, and though I go about lifting the curtains and peering
behind them, I only disturb colonies of spiders and rattle a nest of mice. It
might have been simply another wretched building, falling down through damp,
neglect and the undermining of the diggings nearby. There is nothing here to
show that a child had died.

I wonder why I
bothered to come here. I wonder what I thought I would find.

My dogs sniff
about curiously, and while Brutus (who quickly loses interest) lays down upon
one of the carpets to take a nap, Nero has his nose pressed to the floor and is
scratching, then sniffing, then scratching again. Lifting the carpet, I see
that it covers a hole where the floorboards have rotted through and that
underneath is a void and probably rats' nests. Nero is very excited, though,
and will not come away, and I have some difficulty in holding him back from
scrabbling the rotten wood. He is determined to discover the source of the
scent he's picked up, I suppose, and he would, I am sure, have investigated
further if there hadn't been steps on the yard and the door suddenly tugged
open. I hurriedly throw the carpet back and drag Nero away, ready to run or
defend myself, for it is certain there is nowhere to hide.

Barney Kevill
must be surprised to see me and my dogs in this place, but he is not about to
let me know. A startled look is enough.

'You back again,
Mr Chapman? You after me?' and then, without waiting for an answer, 'By rights,
this should be my gaff. Kevill's Photographic Studio and Emporium. I thought my
Pa might have left something for me,' he says. 'Hid it. But I've looked top and
bottom and there's no chink.'

He
frowns.

He produces some
cabinet cards from his pocket and thrusts them at me.

'Found these
behind the wall. They've got my Pa's name and everything printed on them.'

They are regular
cabinet photographs and some trade calling cards. The sitters are decent
tradesmen photographed with the emblems of their trade: an undertaker posed
with a shiny coffin, a haberdasher with some bales of cloth surmounted by
cards of buttons and lace, a butcher with a leg of lamb on a plate. As calling
cards, they were unusual, a novelty. George Kevill could have made a good
living from them, but perhaps he chose another route.

'Nasty Man's had
a clear-out,' Barney says matter-of-factly, poking the curtain again. 'There
was
an old chaise in here, but I saw someone burning it out in the yard. 'Spect it
was full of mice. And a nice bit o' carpet too. That's gone.'

Barney
casts about again, and kicks up the carpets.

'Holes in the
floor. Look where they've been pulled up and put back. There's a regular cavern
down there. I'm going to get a lantern and have a proper look, see if my Pa
left any coin underneath. And will I let the Nasty Man have it? Not I.'

He
lay on the filthy floor and peered into the hole.

'There might be
something down here, you know,' he says, shoving his hand through one of the
gaps. 'If I could just pull up the boards. Yes. I can feel something. Like a roll
of carpet.' He shuffled and stretched, turning on his side to get the better
reach. 'Ner, can't get it. Have to come back.'