The Newgate Jig (26 page)

I should have
waited, I should have made them understand what I know.

But
alone, I could not.

I would find
Will and Trim, and together we would go to the magistrate where he would learn
of the Nasty Man. I would point out the shed at the back of Tipney's-gaff, I
would show them the carpet and the hole in the floor where the body of the
child was stuffed. I would take them to every place I have ever seen the Nasty
Man and, with the resources of the police and their agents, they would track
him down. Barney need not fear him any more. Nor poor, pretty children.

I hurried from
the yard, glad of the company of my two dogs and hating my own fear and
cowardice more than I have ever hated the world for its careless cruelty. I
hardly noticed when I shouldered someone and I didn't hear the abuse they
roared at me. For I was locked in my silent world, with only the beat of my own
footsteps in my head and as I walked, head down, unwilling to meet the eye of
anyone, I was once again a child. But for good fortune, my dead body could have
lain upon a table in a tavern yard whilst well-meaning but indifferent
strangers gazed upon me and wondered who I was and if anyone cared for me. For
if my mother had felt love or concern, she never spoke it and rarely showed it.
She was a gypsy woman who never mastered anything but the rudiments of the
English tongue, and spent all her days trailing after my father and waiting for
him outside taverns and shops, club rooms and dens. Even keeping watch whilst
he worked at tending the kilns, keeping them stoked and the fire alive. Whilst
he followed the flames and made them roar or simmer, she followed him, making
sure that she got some of the money he pocketed before he drank it away, and I
followed her. Our only connection, it seemed, was her shadow. As a child, I was
always in someone's shadow. My mother's. My father's. Never in the sunlight
myself, seeing an open road and wondering where it might take me. But always in
the wake of my mother's ragged skirts or my father's clumsy boots. Always with
my head down, waiting for that skirt or those boots to stop. And always ready
to retreat when those boots turned upon me.

Then one day, my
mother didn't get up. Every night for the best part of a week we had lain down
to sleep against the low wall of a brickworks. The kilns were close by, and the
earth and the walls were warmed by the constant heat. It was a comfortable
spot, though the ground was hard. I was a little chap, no more than six years
old, but I think I looked much younger. When I woke, I nudged my mother, but
she didn't stir, and I thought it must be too early to rise, so I curled up
next to her, like a little grub, and waited. And watched the sun climb higher.
It was very quiet, only church bells ringing. And when I couldn't wait any
longer, when I was bursting to piddle and my stomach was aching with hunger,
and my mother was still, as I thought, fast asleep, I got up and walked about a
little. It felt strange, for I was used, as I have said, to following, and now
the world seemed great and grand and wide. I explored the street and a little
patch of rough ground, keeping my mother always in my eye. Finally, I was
adventurous and climbed into gardens and peered into windows, and watched
birds bathing in a puddle. I had never before felt the luxury of simply
watching.

But when I was
caught peeping through a window to watch a family eat their dinner, and chased
over a fence with the cries of'Piker!' in my ears, I was driven, shaking and
terrified, back to the wall and the still form of my mother. And there I
stayed, and she grew stiff and cold. I passed one night there until hunger
forced me to go out early to find food and drink and when I returned, saw a
crowd had gathered around her. I hid and watched her wrapped in a blanket and
taken away. I wanted to cry out, but thought better of it and instead trailed,
again, in the wake of the party, to a little public house. She was put in the
stable, I think.

I was sure my
father would know what to do, but I couldn't find him. I knew we had been
waiting for him in that warm place because he was at work within the furnaces,
and so I went back to the wall and sat, day and night, and once even peered
through the gate, but he never came. A week passed. My mother was buried, and I
followed at a distance, and hid behind a gravestone to see her, wrapped in
cloth, lowered into the ground, along with five others. A pauper's grave, and
nothing wrong in that. Going to eternity in company.

Every night,
after my wanderings, I returned to the furnaces, always hopeful that my father
would be there, and I became a familiar sight to those who lived around and
worked in the brickyard, for there were no more cries of 'Piker!' and one day a
blanket was left upon the wall. I didn't take it straight away, in case it
belonged to someone. But after a few days, I realized that it was meant for me.
Little packets of food also appeared and were placed on the wall, and one day a
pair of boots. I never discovered who left them, but I am always grateful to
those kind people, and hope that life has dealt fairly with them, as they did
with me.

One morning,
returning to my makeshift home, there was a change. The gate to the brickyard
stood open and the yard was full of people, all clustered about one of the
kilns. I was curious and someone, turning round, saw me and nudged his
neighbour. They strolled over and, being always wary of strangers, I was ready
to run.

'Now then, young
'un,' said one, 'where's yer pa, d'ye think?'

I remember he
was an old man, with no teeth and a very red mouth.

'At work,' I
said, and wondered at the sound of my own voice, which I hadn't heard for a long
time. 'In the kiln.'

They looked at
each other, the old man and his neighbour, a smart journeyman, with a round hat
and a blue kerchief.

'In the kiln, ye
say? And when did you see him go in there?'

'I didn't see
him, but that is where he works. His name's Mr Frederick Chapman, if you want
to know.'

They nodded
gravely and strolled back again, and went up to a man in a dark coat, who
turned to look at me, and then at the kiln. I wondered if my father was in
trouble. My mother had always 'got him out of bother' (one of her few phrases),
and that generally meant that he had fallen down drunk and was a danger to
himself. Or had been brawling. Now, since my mother was gone, it fell to me to
'get him out of bother'. So, when no one was looking, I crouched low, I
followed the wall round -1 was clever at following! - and turned up behind the
kilns. A scramble, a bruised knee and I was over the wall and scuttling, like a
dusty crab, in the baked earth alongside it. There were four kilns, but I knew
the one my father had been minding, for he had pointed it out to me. It was
small and, because of that, not often used. He told me it had been especially
built to make a batch of fine tiles - for the Queen's bathroom in one of her
great palaces, my father said - and was known as the 'Royal Oven' and now it
was only used for special jobs. Throughout his life, he had bragged that he was
well-connected, and perhaps he
was
in the end, crawling in to lie
amongst the Queen's tiles, and not discovered until a week later when the kiln
was cooled and opened. That was the story I learned many years later. But as a
child all I learned was what I saw.

A side flue
stood open, letting out the final draught of warm air, so I scrambled in easily
and, on knees and elbows, pulled myself into the chamber. It had been almost
emptied of tiles, otherwise I could not have got so far, and only a bed of
broken pieces remained and, in the dim, foggy light of the open door, a sack,
left I supposed, to put them in. I looked about me and saw burnished brick and
floating motes of brick dust, and breathed in the thick, hot air and wondered
where my father was and what he could have done, for I was sure now that he
must be 'in bother'. But there was nowhere in here he could be hiding, though
to make sure, I inspected the shallow alcoves of the kiln and finally put my
foot under the sack of broken pieces. Then I realized that it wasn't a sack at
all, but a man for, now I was closer, I could see a coat and hair. It was
someone lying asleep, and when I cast my eyes over him I saw that the man was
wearing my father's boots! I was in no doubt that they were his, for I was very
familiar with them and knew them, if not as old friends, certainly as close
acquaintances. They were drawn up, one on top of the other, just like my
father's boots when he was asleep. And I knew then that it was my father, lying
fast asleep. The kiln had been carefully searched, and yet they had mistaken my
sleeping father for an old sack, just as I had done. How fortunate it was, I
thought, that I recognised him and could wake him up, for no doubt he would be
in bother over it. I put my hand on his shoulder and shook it gently.

'Pa?' I said,
quietly, for although I didn't want those outside to hear, neither did I want
to wake him up suddenly and be clouted for my trouble. 'Wake up, Pa.'

There
was still no sound.

I shook him
again, a little harder, and, though I feared his wrath and terrible boots, I
rocked him by the shoulder.

He turned over,
light as a cinder. His skin was drawn and brown, stretched tight over his nose
and cheeks. His eyes were tight shut, but his mouth was wide open, black as a
tunnel, and shouting - or screaming - silently.

I
was paralyzed with terror.

I screamed. But although
my mouth was open, not a sound came out. I screamed and screamed, and the noise
in my head was deafening, though in the thick air of the kiln there was only
the hum of voices drifting in from outside.

I was terrified
that the doors would be shut and bolted and that I'd be unable to get out, so I
backed away and posted myself down one of the flues. The last thing I saw was
that black mouth, screaming, as the sides of the flue closed in upon me.
Feeling their closeness, like arms tightly enfolding me, I wanted to turn
round, but I couldn't. The flue was too narrow. Forwards took me back into the
place of terror and, scrabbling backwards, I was almost insensible with panic.

Surely
the flue was never this long?

Suppose I was
stuck, and could go forwards or back and could not - ah, the horror of it
chokes me even now! - could not turn round.

A sudden yell -
'You! Donkey's arse!' - hurtled me back to the present. I was pummelled by a man
with a handcart. His potatoes and cabbages have been knocked to the ground. It
was my fault. Couldn't I see him coming? He wasn't invisible, was he? I picked
up the potatoes, the cabbages. I put them on the cart, carefully placing each
one as if they might break. Finally, the man lost patience and, with another
thump upon my arm, pushed me out of the way, declaring that the city would fill
its mouth with empty spoons whilst he waited for me, and threw the remaining
vegetables on the cart himself. His parting gesture was to hurl two potatoes at
Brutus and Nero, at which they yelped, and one at me, which caught me hard on
the side of the head.

'Donkey's
arse!' he cried again. 'Tom o' Bedlam! Yah!'

I
cannot answer him.

I have never
uttered a sound since that day when my father's black and terrible mouth turned
silently upon me. It is not that I do not want to talk, but that I cannot. The
sounds do not spring to my lips. My throat is barren, though I have words
waiting to be tried, many words which sound in my head but never come to my
lips.

Words of love.
If I could, I would be bold and declare to Em Pikemartin that I love her above
and beyond all women. I would shake Will Lovegrove by the hand and say, 'Will, you
are the best of fellows! Come to Garraway's and let us feast!'

But before any
other sound passed my lips, I would say the names of my two boys, my Brutus and
Nero, for they have never heard my voice. I would call them to me by name, and
tell them they are good dogs, and teach them the words to 'Heel!' and 'Fetch!'

Only in my
dreams do I have a voice, and then, why, I can bawl Will Lovegrove twice off
the stage! Often, I wake with my mouth open and have the impression that words
will leap to my lips. I wait and listen, but no sound comes. I wonder what my
voice would be like now, for I have never heard it, a man's voice, except as an
echo in my head. The last words I ever uttered, which no one heard, were to my
father, who was already dead.