Dodger (21 page)

‘Capital. I would be most happy to meet him. I believe I have heard of him. As for you, Charlie, you know you are invited anyway, and I would like to have a quiet word with you after Mister Dodger has left.’

The word ‘left’ had an air of finality, but Dodger found that he had raised his hand, and since it was up there, he said, ‘Excuse me, miss, would you allow me to see where Miss Simplicity is going to sleep?’

‘Why, pray?’

‘Well, miss, I reckon I can get through most windows in this city, and if I can, then so can someone more nasty than me, if you see what I mean.’

He was expecting a reproof, but what he got was a broad smile from Angela. ‘You acknowledge no master, do you, Mister Dodger?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, miss, but I want to know that Simplicity is safe, you see.’

‘Well done, Mister Dodger. I will get Geoffrey to show you the room and the bars on the window. I too do not like intruders, and even now I’m wondering whether I shouldn’t employ you or some of your contemporaries to find a hitherto undiscovered way in. We might talk about this on the morrow. But now I must speak at length to Charlie.’

CHAPTER 10

Dodger uses his head

DODGER RAN TOWARDS
home feeling in some way buoyed up by the meeting, especially since Charlie had whispered to him as he left that Angela had more money than anyone who wasn’t a king or queen. A nobby party sounded like a difficult crib to crack, though. He sped at a steady pace until he reached the first drain cover: an entrance to his world. A moment later, despite his smart attire, there was a distinct absence of Dodger and the sound of a drain cover falling back into place.

He got his bearings by feel, by echoes and, of course, by smell – every single sewer in the city had a smell that was all its own; he could taste them like a connoisseur of fine wines, and so he plotted the way home, changing direction only once when his two-note tosher whistle was answered by another already working that particular tunnel. It was still light, which helped when you
passed
the occasional grid or grating, and the walking was easy – not so much as a trickle today – and he almost absentmindedly explored as he passed a secret niche. He found sixpence, a sign that somebody or something was watching over him.

Overhead in the complicated world was the noise of hooves, the echo of footsteps and occasionally a carriage or a coach, and out of nowhere a sound that made him freeze: there was an eerie metallic squeal of metal in extreme distress, as if something was wrong, or maybe something had got stuck in a wheel, causing it to drag noisily over the stones with a sound that seared the soul and, once heard, could never be forgotten.

The coach! If he could see where it went, he might find the men who had battered Simplicity. He clenched his fists in anticipation – wait until they were on the receiving end of a set of brass knuckles . . .

The coach was running along the street above him, and he cursed the fact that the next drain cover in that direction was some way away, luckily in a usually moderately clean sewer which he told himself would save wear and tear on the shonky suit. He ran along the sewer, not stopping at all, not even for a shilling, and didn’t halt until he saw the gratings of the drain cover above him. He got out his crowbar, but just as he was about to fling the cover away there was a sound of heavy hoofbeats and the jingle of harness. Something huge covered that little circle of light that had been salvation with a great and glorious smell of dung, as a brewer’s cart pulled up on top of the drain and settled down like an old man finding a privy at last after a long wait. The likeness was assisted by the fact that the great steaming shire horses that had been pulling the cart decided, as one, very hygienically to empty their bladders. They were large animals and it had been a
long
afternoon, and so the shower was not over in the space of a moment, but rather an elegant duet to the goddess of relief. Regrettably, since the only way was down, there was simply no time for Dodger to dodge out of the way, not now.

In the distance, gradually merging with all the rattle and clamour of the streets, the screaming wheel could barely now be heard. In any case, the beefy men who worked for the brewers were unloading the heavy casks down wooden ramps, and the rumble of the great barrels drowned out every other sound that was left.

Dodger knew the routine of these men; once they had shifted all the empty barrels from the pub and replaced them with full ones, they would as sure as sunset drink a pint of beer. They would be joined in this cheerful enterprise by the landlord himself, the ostensible reason for this being that they would all agree on the quality of the nectar concerned, although in truth the likely reason was that, after heaving great loads around for any length of time, well, a man deserves a beer, doesn’t he? It was a ritual that was probably as old as beer itself. Occasionally, the brewery men and the landlords would have another beer, so great was their determination to make sure that the beer was in the best possible condition. In fact, Dodger could smell it, even above the scent of the horses, and even with a certain essence of horse to contend with, it still made him thirsty.

He had always loved the smell you got in the sewers by the breweries. A geezer called Blinky, who was a rat-catcher by profession, had once told him that the rats in the sewers underneath the breweries were always the biggest and fattest anywhere, adding that the rat-catching fancy would pay extra for brewery rats because they had a lot of fight in them.

Whatever he did now, though, Dodger knew he wasn’t going to catch up with that damned coach. The men above him were being very assiduous in deciding on the quality of the beer, and while he could, of course, run along to the next grating, his quarry by then would have got lost in the street noise of London, as sure as Heaven. All he could do was seethe at an opportunity lost.

He trudged on anyway, mostly because the large shire horses also did other things than piss – that’s why some of the street urchins used to follow them with a bucket. You often heard them shouting their wares among the nobbier houses, where people had gardens, with the refrain ‘One penny a bucket, missus, well stamped down!’

The only thing to do now was hurry along to the next drain cover and get out there. And so, after a day of dodging, he traipsed through the maze of streets, tired, hungry and well aware that there was indeed
not one mark
on the shonky suit; it was now, in fact,
made up
of marks. Jacob and his sons were pretty good at cleaning things up, but they would have their work cut out on this. No hope for it, though; he would have to take his lumps.

Gloomily he walked on, paying attention all the time for heads that dropped out of sight as soon as they knew that they had been made, or people who very swiftly disappeared into alleyways. This was what a geezer did; a geezer knew that most of the hurrying, scurrying crowd would be simply minding their own business, although with the option of minding somebody else’s business as well if the opportunity arose. What Dodger was looking out for was the interrogating eye, the eye of purpose, the watchful eye, the eye that read the street.

And right now the street seemed clear, in so far as any street could, and at least Simplicity was safe for tonight, he consoled
himself
. Although not safe if she went out. It was dreadful the things that could happen on the street, in full view.

Not so long ago, he remembered he had dressed up as a little flower girl; he was young enough to pull it off with his auburn hair sticking out fetchingly from a scarf, and it wasn’t even his hair because he had borrowed it from Mary-Go-Round, who had pretty good blonde hair. Mary’s hair grew like a mushroom and looked like it too. But she made good money every few months or so by selling it to the wig-makers.

The reason he had been doing this favour was that the flower girls, some of whom were as young as four years old, had been having a certain amount of . . . harassment from a particular kind of gentleman. The girls, who mostly sold violets and daffodils in season, were a decent bunch, and Dodger quite liked them and cared for them. Of course, they had to make a living as they grew older, just like everyone else, and it might be said that in certain circumstances a little bit of hanky-panky might just be acceptable to the older ones, provided that they were in control of the hanky, not to mention the panky. However, they were furiously protective of their younger sisters, at which point Dodger had been persuaded to don his first dress.

And so when the sharp-suited gentlemen who liked to go down among the poor flower girls to see if there were any new blossoms they could pluck came to ply them with strong liquor until they could have their wicked way with them, they would actually be subtly directed to the shrinking and simpering violet who was, in fact, Dodger.

Actually, he had to admit that he had been incredibly good at it, because to be a geezer was to be an actor and so Dodger was better at being a shrinking violet than any of the other flower
girls
who had, how could you put it, better qualifications. He had already sold quite a lot of his violets because his voice hadn’t broken then and he could make himself a real little virgin when he wanted to. After a few hours of this, the girls tipped him off to the whereabouts of a particularly nasty dandy who always hung around the smaller girls, and who was heading towards him with his nice coat and his cane, jingling the money in his pockets. And the street applauded when a suddenly rather athletic little flower girl grabbed the smarmy bastard, punched him, dragged him into an alley and made certain that he would not be able to jingle anything in his pockets for some time to come.

That had been one of Dodger’s very good days because, well, firstly he had done a good deed for the flower girls, earning from one or two of them the likelihood of an occasional kiss and cuddle, as between friends. Secondly, since he had left a gentleman groaning in the alley without even his unmentionables, he had harvested one gold watch, one guinea, a couple of sovereigns, some small change, an ebony walking cane set with silver trimmings, and one pair of the said unmentionables.
¹
And the bonus in the whole affair was that the man was never, ever likely to get in touch with the peelers. Also, he had forgotten this: there had been the gold tooth which the man had spat at him after the best punch that Dodger had ever laid on anybody. He had actually caught it in the air, much to the applause of the flower girls, making him feel for a while the cock of the heap. He had taken the older flower girls for an oyster supper and it had been the best day a young man could ever have. It was always worth doing a good deed, though that had been before he had rescued
Solomon
, who wouldn’t have approved of some aspects of the enterprise.

Since Dodger was now practically on his home patch, blackened by smoke though it was, he let his guard down and a hand landed on his shoulder with a grip that was surprising, given that its owner mostly used his strength to push a pen.

‘Well, Mister Dodger! You will be amazed how much I had to spend on the growler to get here so quickly. And, may I say, your sewers have made short work of your suit. Any chance of there being a coffee house around here, do you think?’

Dodger thought not, but did volunteer that one of the nearby meat pie houses might have some of it on the go, adding, ‘Not certain what it will taste like. A bit like, probably very much like, the meat pies, really; I mean, you have to be really hungry, if you see what I mean.’

In the end, he led Charlie to a pub where they could talk without being overheard, and where it was least likely somebody would try to pick Charlie’s pocket. When Dodger went in, he was Dodger in spades. No, come to think about it, not just in spades, but also in clubs, hearts and diamonds as well – a diamond geezer, the friend of everyone in the rookeries. He glad-handed Quince, the landlord, and a few of the other hangers-on of dubious repute with enough fire to send the word to those who had the eyes to see that this mark belonged to Dodger, and nobody else.

On the whole, Charlie was putting a good face on it, but nevertheless, here he was in the rookeries, where even the peelers trod carefully and never, ever went singly. Here was Charlie, as out of place as Dodger had felt himself at first in Parliament. Two different worlds.

London wasn’t all that big when you thought about it: a square mile of mazes, surrounded by even more streets and people and . . . opportunities . . . and outside that a load of suburbs who thought they were London, but they weren’t at all, not really, at least not to Dodger. Oh, sometimes he went outside the square mile – oh, as far as two miles away! – and he took great care to cloak himself with the full cocksureness of geezerdom. Then he could be all friendly with all those people it paid to be friendly with, and geezer would call unto geezer; the geezers of the Outer Wastes, as Dodger called those streets, weren’t exactly friends but you respected their patch in the hope and sureness that they would respect yours. You reached an understanding with looks, assumptions and the occasional exchange of gestures which hardly needed words. But it was all a show, a game . . . and when he was not Dodger, he sometimes wondered who he really was. Dodger, he thought, was a lot stronger than he was.