Dodger (11 page)

Dodger felt the man still watching him, and sure enough,
Mister
Mayhew said, ‘So if you don’t mind . . . where were you born, Mister Dodger?’

He had to wait until Dodger had finished the plateful of food and licked the knife on both sides. Then Dodger said, ‘Bow, sir, though don’t know for sure.’

‘Would you mind telling me about your upbringing . . . how you came to be a tosher?’

Dodger shrugged. ‘Was a mudlark for a while first, ’cos, well, that’s the kind of stuff you like as a kid – it sort of comes natural, if you know what I mean, mucking about in the river mud picking up bits of coal and suchlike. Not bad in the summer, bloody awful in the winter, but if you are smart you can find a place to sleep and earn yourself a meal. I done a bit of time as a chimney sweep’s lad, like I told Charlie, but then one day I began toshing, and never looked back, sir. Took to it like a pig to a muck heap, which is pretty much the same. Never found a tosheroon yet, but I hope to do so before I die.’

He laughed and decided to give the very serious-looking man something to think about, and so he added, ‘Of course I found practically everything else, sir – everything what folk throw away, or lose, or don’t care about. It’s amazing what you can find down there, especially under the teaching hospitals, oh my word yes! I can walk from one side of London to another underground, come up anywhere I like, and I’ll tell you, sir, you won’t believe me sometimes, sir, beautiful so it is! It’s like walking through old houses sometimes, the slopes of the stairs and stuff growing on the walls – the Grotto, Windy Corner, the Queen’s Bedroom, the Chamber of Whispers and all the other places we toshers know like the backs of our hands, sir, once we’ve washed them, of course. When the evening light strikes and comes off the river, it
looks
like a paradise, sir. I can’t expect you to believe it, but so it does.’

Dodger paused and considered what he had just said, common sense meaning that he wouldn’t tell a man with a poised pencil about stealing things and being a snakesman and a thief; that sort of revelation was fine for someone like Charlie, but for the likes of Mister Mayhew it seemed more sensible to put a shine on things.

‘One time I even found an old bedstead down there. And it’s amazing how the light finds a way in,’ he finished, and smiled at Mister Mayhew, who was looking at him with an expression halfway between shock and puzzlement, with perhaps a tiny bit of admiration.

Now the man said, ‘One last thing, Mister Dodger. Would you mind telling me how much you glean from your labours as a tosher?’

Dodger had pretty much expected something like this. He instinctively halved the amount of his earnings, saying, ‘Well, there’s good days and there’s bad days, sir, but I reckon I might earn as much as a chimney sweep, with every now and again a little windfall.’

‘And are you happy in your occupation?’

‘Oh yes, sir. I go where I please, I ain’t answerable to anybody, and every day is a sort of adventure, sir, if you get my meaning.’ And in order to boost his bona fides as an upstanding young gentleman he added, ‘Of course, sometimes I find something down there that someone has lost, and it does my heart good to give it back to them.’ Well, it was technically true, he thought to himself, even if a few shillings did come into the picture.

After a while the man cleared his throat and said, ‘Mister
Dodger
, thank you for that insight. I see that you have finished your breakfast to the extent that the plate positively shines, and now perhaps it is time to let you meet our guest again. Have you ever had such a thing as a bath? I must say that, considering your calling, you look reasonably clean.’

Dodger smirked at this. ‘That’s because of Solomon, sir, the cove what I live with. He is a devil for dirt, sir, on account of being one of the chosen people. And yes, there is a bath in the back room, sir – one of those little ones you stand in, kind of like washing yourself down with a rag, sir, and soap too, my oath, yes. I heard someone say cleanliness is next to godliness, but I reckon Sol reckons that cleanliness gives godliness a run for its money.’

Mister Mayhew was staring at Dodger like a man who has found a sixpence in a handful of farthings. Now he said, ‘You amaze me, Mister Dodger; you appear to be a brand plucking himself from the burning. Please do follow me.’

A minute later Dodger was ushered into the rather dark maids’ room upstairs. The golden-haired girl was sitting upright on one of the beds, like somebody who has just got up; and the room was suddenly bright from the girl’s smile, at least in the depths of Dodger, whose heart, somewhat corroded, was beating fast.

Mister Mayhew said, ‘Here is the young lady, whom I’m glad to say is making progress.’ He gestured to the other person in the room. ‘This, of course, is my wife Jane, whom I believe you met earlier but have not been introduced to as yet. My dear, this is Mister Dodger, the saviour of damsels in distress, as I believe you know.’

Dodger wasn’t sometimes certain that he understood what Mister Mayhew was saying, but he thought it would be sensible to point out, just in case there would be trouble later, ‘There was
only
one damsel in distress, sir – if the damsel means a lady, of course. But just one, sir.’

Mrs Mayhew – who had been sitting beside the girl, a soup bowl and spoon in her hand – stood up and held out her hand. ‘One damsel in distress, indeed, Mister Dodger. How foolish of my husband to believe that there might be more than one.’ She smiled, and so did her husband, and Dodger wondered if he had missed some kind of joke, but Mrs Mayhew hadn’t finished yet.

Dodger knew about families, and husbands and wives; often, wives helped their menfolk who sold stuff on the streets like baked potatoes and sandwiches – although baked potatoes were always a treat – and whole families worked at the game. Dodger, who had the eye for this sort of thing, watched the families and watched their faces and watched how they spoke to one another, and sometimes it seemed to him that although the man was the master, which was of course only right and proper, if you watched and listened you would see that their marriage was like a barge on the river, with the wife being the wind that told the captain which way the barge would sail. Mrs Mayhew, if not being the wind, certainly knew when to apply the right puff.

The couple smiled at one another, and Mrs Mayhew said sadly, ‘I’m afraid that the dreadful beating this young lady had – and I suspect had not endured for the first time – has in some way tangled her wits, so unfortunately I cannot introduce you properly. “Simplicity” will suffice for a name, a good Christian name, until we know more. And the name belonged to an old friend of mine, and so I am fond of it. She is quite young and one must hope that she will heal rapidly. At the moment, however, I keep the curtains mostly closed to keep out as much as possible of the noise of carriages in the streets – they appear to make
Simplicity
fearful. However, I’m glad to see that her physical faculties seem to be coming back slowly and the bruises are fading. Unfortunately I am led to believe that her life in recent times has not been . . . pleasant, although there are signs that at one time it may have been rather more . . . agreeable. After all, surely somebody must have cared for her to give her that wonderful ring she wears.’

Dodger didn’t need to know the precise code that passed between Mister Mayhew and his wife, but he could see that much of it consisted of meaningful looks from one to the other, and one of the messages was: Better not to talk about a valuable ring in front of this lad.

He said, ‘She gets worried when she hears carriages, does she? What about other street noises, like horses or honey wagons
¹
– they tend to rumble a lot?’

Mrs Mayhew said, ‘You are a very astute young man.’

Dodger blushed, and said, ‘I’m sorry, missus, but my best trousers are in the wash.’

Without any change of expression, Mrs Mayhew said, ‘No, Mister Dodger, I meant that you are very quick to understand things, and you are a man of the world, or should I say London, which is practically the same thing. I know that Mister Dickens is optimistic that you may be able to help us solve this little mystery.’ She exchanged another glance with her husband and said, ‘I assume you know that there was another most unpleasant aspect to this whole Satanic business.’ She hesitated, as if trying to move unpleasant thoughts in her mind, then said, ‘I believe you are aware that the young lady was . . . she was . . . she lost . . .’ Mrs
Mayhew
rushed out in embarrassed confusion, leaving the room suddenly silent.

Dodger glanced at Simplicity, and then said to Mister Mayhew, ‘Sir, if you do not object, I would very much like to talk to Simplicity alone. Possibly I can also help her eat her soup. I have a feeling she might be capable of talking a little to me again.’

‘Well, it would be unseemly to leave a young lady alone in a bedroom in your company.’

‘Yes, sir, and it’s unseemly to beat a lady half to death and try to drown her, but that wasn’t me, sir. So I think, sir, in the privacy of this house, you might allow the rule to be a little more . . . human?’

There was the sound of Mrs Mayhew hovering on the landing and Henry Mayhew, suddenly bewildered, stirred and said, ‘I will leave the door open, sir. If Miss Simplicity agrees.’

His words were instantly followed from the bed with the unmistakable tones of Simplicity, saying, ‘Please, sir, I would very much like to have a Christian word with my saviour.’

True to his word, Mister Mayhew did leave the door slightly ajar and so, awkwardly for once, Dodger sat down on the chair that Henry Mayhew’s wife had vacated and smiled nervously at Simplicity, who returned it with considerable interest. Then he picked up the soup spoon and handed it to her, saying, ‘What is it that you would like to happen next?’

Her smile broadening, Simplicity very gently took the spoon, put it to her mouth and drank the soup. Speaking quietly, she said, ‘I would like to say that I want to go home, but I have no home now. And I have to know who I can trust. Can I trust you, Dodger? I think I might be able to trust a man who has fought valiantly for a woman he doesn’t even know.’

Dodger tried to look as though this was all in a day’s work. ‘You know, I’m quite sure you can trust Mister and Mrs Mayhew,’ he said.

But much to his surprise, she said, ‘No, I’m not sure. Mister Mayhew would prefer that you and I were not talking, Dodger. He seems to think that you would take some kind of advantage of me and I believe the word for that is’ – she hesitated for a moment – ‘is incongruous! You saved me, you fought for me, and now you are going to do me harm? They are good people, no doubt, but good people, for example, might think that they should deliver me to the agents of my husband because I am his wife. People can be very exact about that sort of thing. And no doubt a man would turn up with something very official and signed with a very impressive seal, and they would obey the law. A law which would see me taken away from the country where my mother was born and back to a husband who is embarrassed by me and does not dare defy his father.’

Her voice grew stronger and stronger as she spoke but, Dodger suddenly realized, she was also sounding more and more like a street girl – someone who knew how to play a game. The slight Germanic accent had gone and the vowels of England were in her tone, and she was doing what every smart person did, which was to never tell anybody anything that they didn’t need to know.

But he could not place her accent. He knew about other languages, but as a decent Londoner he vaguely disapproved of them, knowing full well that anyone who wasn’t English was obviously an enemy sooner or later. You couldn’t hang around the docks without picking up, if not the languages, at least the sounds the languages made, and so if you listened carefully a Dutchman spoke differently from a German, and you could always tell a
Swede
, of course, and the Finns yawned at you when they were speaking to you. He was pin-sharp on telling one language from another, but had never bothered to learn any of them – though by the time he was twelve he knew the words that meant ‘Where are the naughty ladies to be found?’ in a variety of languages, including Chinese and several African ones. Every wharf rat knew those; and the naughty ladies might give you a farthing for setting a gentleman’s footsteps in the right direction. As he grew older he realized that some people would say that was, in fact, the
wrong
direction; there were two ways of looking at the world, but only one when you are starving.

There were sounds of stirring on the landing and he immediately stood up, spry as a guardsman and practically saluted a very surprised Mister Mayhew and his wife.

‘Well, sir, madam, I’ve had a nice little chat with the girl. As you say, she seems frightened by the sound of coaches. Perhaps if I could take her out for some air, she could see that the coaches which pass your house are just ordinary coaches . . .? And so, if you don’t mind, could I take her out for a walk?’

This caused such a silence that he realized this was probably not a sensible idea. As he thought this, he suddenly also thought, I’m talking to this gent like I’m his equal! It’s amazing how a shonky suit and a plate of bacon and eggs can make a man feel set up! But I’m still the lad who got up this morning as a tosher, and they’re still the gent and his missus who got up in this big house, so I need to be careful, else they’ll suddenly decide I’m a tosher again and chuck me out. He added to himself, though, in a voice that seemed quite daring, ‘I don’t have no master, nobody can give me orders, I ain’t wanted by the peelers and I ain’t never done nothing to be ashamed of. I ain’t got as much as them,
oh
my, not by a long chalk, but I am no worse than they are.’