Dodger (16 page)

With some misgivings, he sat down in the chair and Sweeney swirled a white sheet over him in a way which would have been called theatrical if, indeed, Sweeney had really known how to do it first time. At this point, Dodger became aware of a dull, persistent smell coming from somewhere. It had the flavour of decay and it mingled with the smells of soap and jars of various lotions. He thought, Well, this isn’t a butcher’s shop, so I just bet his landlord has gone and knocked a way from the privy to the sewers – I really wish they didn’t do that sort of thing.

A lot of the sheet ended up round Dodger’s neck, to be whisked aside by the luckless Sweeney with lots of apologies and assurances that it wouldn’t happen again. It did. Twice. Next time it fell around Dodger in a way that both of them could live with, and the sweating Sweeney turned his attention to the job in hand. At some time, somebody must have told Mister Todd that a barber, in addition to tonsorial prowess, should have memorized
practically
a library of jokes, anecdotes and miscellaneous rib-ticklers, occasionally including – should the gentleman in the chair be of the right age or nature – ones that might include some daring remarks about young ladies. However, the person that had given him this advice had simply not calculated on Sweeney’s terrible lack of anything that could be called bonhomie, cheerfulness, ribaldry or even a simple sense of humour.

Nevertheless, Dodger noticed he did try. Oh my, how he tried, stropping his razor while messing up punch lines and, horror of horrors, laughing at the joke which he himself had so clumsily executed. But at last the razor was sharp enough for Sweeney and then there was the matter of the shaving foam, which the man attended to just as soon as he had laid the razor down so that its gleaming edge faced north, all the better to maintain its sharpness.

Dodger, helpless in the chair, watched in something like awe, his mind springing to and fro from the spectacle of the barber’s preparations to a pleasing image of the admiration he hoped would appear on Simplicity’s face once she saw him scrubbed up so well, oh my, a proper young gent. Now he could see that the man’s hands had scars on every finger, although this slight problem barely showed up because Sweeney was briskly whisking up the shaving foam with all the manic enthusiasm of a circus clown. The stuff was falling out all over the place, and here and there, because it had been so suffused with air as to make it practically dirigible; it was floating away on the breeze as if it wanted to get out of there as much as Dodger did right now – especially since he was aware of that smell, that heavy and unpleasant smell, gradually permeating the shop.

‘Are you feeling all right, Mister Todd?’ he said. And, ‘Your hands are shaking a little bit, Mister Todd.’

The barber’s face looked like steel, if steel could sweat, and he was swaying back and forth with his eyes like two holes in the snow, looking far away but at something else, somewhere else. Dodger began stealthily to extricate himself from the cloth, whilst keeping a sharp eye on the man. And, oh dear, and now Mister Todd started to mumble, the words blurred as they tried to get out one after the other, some of them so urgent to get away from the swaying man that they overtook themselves.

Then Sweeney was between Dodger and the door to the street, waving the gleaming razor like a bride just after her wedding, straining to see who is going to catch the bouquet . . .

Dodger, hoping that his heartbeat could not be heard, said calmly, ‘Tell me what you see, Mister Todd; it sounds terrible. Can I help you?’

Bang bang
went his heart, but Dodger ignored it. Unfortunately, so did Sweeney Todd, whose mutterings began to take on something vaguely if erratically understandable. Moving gently, so very gently, Dodger slowly eased himself out of the chair and to his feet and he thought, Opium, maybe? He sniffed, wished he hadn’t – no alcohol on the man’s breath either. He said in as kind a voice as he could muster, ‘What is it you are looking at, Mister Todd?’

‘They . . . they keep coming back. Yes, yes, coming back, trying to take me away with them . . . I remember them . . . Do you know what a cannonball can do, sir? Sometimes they bounce, very funny, ha, and then they are running along the ground, and then some lad . . . yes, some lad fresh from the farm in Dorset or Ireland, with his head full of lies about combat, and in his pocket a badly drawn picture of his girlfriend, who might have let him
tickle
her fancy because he was the brave warrior off to fight Boney . . . This young warrior sees that dreadful cannonball rolling along on the turf like it’s a game of skittles, and so like a bloody idiot he calls out to his mates, such as have survived, and he decides to give it a big kick, not knowing how much force there is still left in the ball. Which is quite enough to take off his leg, and not just his leg. Barber-surgeon, that’s me, the surgeon bit on the battlefield being somewhat akin to butchery, but slightly better paid . . . And I see them now . . . the broken men, the handiwork of God twisted into terrible shapes, terrible . . . and here they come . . . here they come, just as they always come, our glorious heroes, some seeing for those with no eyes, some carrying those with no legs, some screaming for them with no voice . . .’

All the time the razor danced and weaved, hypnotically, back and forth, while Dodger slid slowly towards the sweating man.

‘Not enough bandages, not enough medicines, not enough . . . life . . .’ Sweeney Todd mumbled. ‘I
tried
. I never pointed the weapon at another man, I just tried to help, when the best help you can give is the gentle knife, and yet still they come . . . they come here now, all the time . . . looking for me . . . And they say they aren’t dead, but I know they are. Dead, but still walking. Oh! The pity of it, the pity . . .’

Now Dodger’s hand, which had been following the twisting flight of the erratic blade, gently gripped the hand that held it, and it seemed to Dodger that he could see those soldiers himself, so hypnotic was the sway of the razor, and he could feel himself being dragged towards some terrible outcome until the inner Dodger, the bit that wanted to survive, woke up, saluted, took control over Dodger’s arm and neatly and carefully lifted the razor out of Sweeney Todd’s hand.

The swaying man didn’t even notice it go. Still staring into a place where Dodger did not want to see, he simply let it go and slumped down over the chair, foam settling around him softly.

Only then did Dodger realize that they weren’t alone, because while he had been half in the dream world of Sweeney Todd, there in the doorway – and being remarkably quiet for their kind – were two peelers, sweating and staring at him and poor Mister Todd. One of the peelers said, ‘Holy Mary, mother of God!’ and both men jumped back as Dodger folded up the razor and shoved it into his pocket out of harm’s way. Then he turned back, smiled cheerfully at the peelers, and said, ‘Can I help you gentlemen?’

After that, the world went mad, or at least more mad than it had been before. Dodger was surrounded by people, and the little shop was lousy with peelers, brushing past him to the back of the shop, and then he could hear the rattle of a lock, the thud of a boot and, in the distance, some terrible swearing. A gust of corruption of graveyard proportions swept through the shop to cries from the crowd, leaving Dodger suddenly feeling rather queasy and, for some reason, a bit annoyed that he hadn’t had his haircut.

There was the sound of police whistles outside and more peelers flooded into the shop, two of them then grasping the recumbent and possibly insensible Mister Sweeney Todd, who had tears running down his face. He was rushed out again, leaving Dodger on a chair in the epicentre of a hubbub that was loud enough to be considered a hubbub with at least an extra hub, not to mention bub. Faces watched him from every direction, and there was a gasp every time he moved, and in his rather troubled state he dimly heard the voice of one of the peelers who had just emerged from the cellar saying, ‘He just stood there. I mean, he
just
stood there, eyeball to eyeball with the man, not blinking at all, just waiting for a moment to grab the wretched weapon! We didn’t dare say a word, ’cos we saw the malefactor was in some kind of dream, a dream in the mind of a man flourishing a dreadful weapon! What can I say? I beg you, ladies and gentlemen, do not go down into the cellar. Oh no, ’cos if you do, you might see something that you really would not like to see. Stop them, Fred! Calling it dreadful carnage would not do justice to the crimes. You must trust me on this – I was a soldier once. I was at Talavera and that was bad enough. When I went down there I threw up, so I did, all over the place. I mean, well, the stink! No wonder the neighbours had been complaining! Yes, sir, you sir, can I help you?’

Blearily, Dodger saw Charles Dickens arrive on the heels of the peelers. Charlie said, ‘My name is Dickens, and I know young Dodger here to be a most excellent and trustworthy individual; he is also the hero who saved the staff of the
Morning Chronicle
just the other evening, and I’m sure you have all heard of that.’

Dodger began feeling rather better now, especially as there was tremendous applause, and he brightened up still further when he heard somebody in the crowd shout, ‘I propose we make up a subscription for this young man of such exceptional valour! I pledge five crowns!’

He tried to get to his feet at this point, but Charlie Dickens, who was bending over him, pushed him gently back down into the chair, bent down until his lips were very close to Dodger’s ear and whispered, ‘It would be in order to groan a little in response to your terrible encounter, my friend. Trust me as a journalist; you are a hero of the hour, again, and it would be a pity if an unguarded comment at this juncture spoiled things.’ He leaned an
inch
closer and whispered, ‘Listen to them shouting out how much they will pledge to the hero, and so I will carefully get you to your feet and take you to the magnificent offices of the
Chronicle
, where I will pen an article the like of which has never been written before, since possibly the time of Caesar.’

Charlie smiled. Rather like a fox, Dodger thought, in the spinning, roaring, suddenly baffling world. Then he inched closer, and said, ‘Incidentally, my intrepid friend, it would interest you to know that I have been told just now that Mister Sweeney Todd used his razor to slit the throats of six gentlemen who came to him earlier this week for a haircut and a close shave. But for your almost magical response you would have been the seventh of them. And these were my best trousers!’ These words were shouted, or more accurately screamed, because Dodger had thrown up his breakfast all over Charlie.

Sometime after, Dodger was seated at the long table in the editor’s office of the
Chronicle
, wishing he could be on his way to see Simplicity. Opposite him was Charlie, who was somewhat less angry now since, being a man of means, he had acquired another pair of trousers and sent the other ones to be cleaned. The inner wall of the office was one of those half-height affairs so that people passing by in the newsroom could see what was happening, and now, how they
did
pass by. And linger too, with every writer, journalist and printer finding an excuse to see the young man who, according to the magical telegraph of the streets, had wrestled to the ground the terrible Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Dodger was getting rather annoyed about this. ‘I hardly touched ’im! I just pushed ’im gently down and took the wretched razor off ’im, that’s all! Honest! It was as if he had been taking opium or something, ’cos he was seeing dead soldiers – dead men
coming
towards him, I swear it, and he was talking to them, like he was ashamed that he couldn’t save them. God’s truth, Mister Charlie, I swear I was seeing them too, come the finish! Men blown all to pieces! And worse, like men half blown to pieces and screaming! He wasn’t a demon, mister, although I reckon he may have seen Hell, and I ain’t a hero, sir, I really ain’t. He wasn’t bad, he was mad, and sad, and lost in his ’ead. That’s all of it, sir, the up and the down of it, sir. An’ that’s the truth you should write down. I mean, I ain’t no hero, ’cos I don’t think he was a villain, sir, if you get my drift.’

Then there was silence, somehow filled by Charlie’s gaze, in this polished little room. A clock ticked and, without looking, Dodger could feel the employees still taking every opportunity to look at him, the unassuming and reluctant hero of the hour. Charlie was staring at him, occasionally playing with his pen, and at last the man said, with a sigh, ‘Dear Mister Dodger, the truth, rather than being a simple thing, is constructed, you need to know, rather like Heaven itself. We journalists, as mere wielders of the pen, have to distil out of it such truths that mankind, not being god-like, can understand. In that sense, all men are writers, journalists scribbling within their skulls the narrative of what they see and hear, notwithstanding that a man sitting opposite them might very well brew an entirely different view as to the nature of the occurrence. That is the salvation and the demon of journalism, the knowledge that there is almost always a different perspective from which to see the conundrum.’

Charlie played with his pen some more, looking uncomfortable, and went on, ‘After all, my young Dodger, what exactly are you? A stalwart young man, plucky and brave and apparently without fear? Or possibly, I suggest, a street urchin with a surfeit
of
animal cunning and the luck of Beelzebub himself. I put it to you, my friend, that you are both of these, and every shade in between. And Mister Todd? Is he truly a demon – those six men in the cellar would say so! If they could but speak, of course. Or is he the victim, as you would like to think of him? What is the truth? you might ask, if I was giving you a chance to speak, which at the moment I am not. My answer to you would be that the truth is a fog, in which one man sees the heavenly host and the other one sees a flying elephant.’