Dodger (3 page)

‘Hear that, my friend; this lady has you bang to rights, and if you emulate Genghis Khan in this household and I hear of it, then I will set some people I know onto your tail. Understand? And I will wield a weapon that Genghis himself never dreamed of and aim it straight at you, my friend. Now I must leave the stricken young lady in the care of yourself, and the care of you to Mrs Sharples, upon whose word your life depends.’ Charlie smiled and went on, ‘“Author of the storm”, indeed; I must make a note of that.’ To the surprise of Dodger, and presumably to the surprise of Mrs Sharples, Charlie took out a very small notebook and a very short pencil and quickly wrote something down.

The housekeeper’s eyes gleamed with a cheerful malignance as she regarded Dodger. ‘You can trust me, sir, indeed you can. If this
young
clamp gets up to any tricks, I shall have him out of here and in front of the magistrates in very short order, indeed I will.’ Then she screamed and pointed. ‘He has stolen something of hers already, sir; see!’

Dodger froze, his hand halfway to the floor. There was a very anxious moment.

‘Ah, Mrs Sharples, you indeed have the eyes of – how can I say . . . Argos Panoptes,’ Charlie said smoothly. ‘I happened to notice what the young man was picking up and it has been by the bed for some time – the girl had been clutching them in her hand. No doubt Mister Dodger was concerned that it should not be overlooked. So, Dodger, hand it over, if you please?’

Wishing earnestly for a piss, Dodger handed over his find. It was a very cheap pack of cards, but there had been no time to look at it with Charlie’s eyes on him.

Charlie got on Dodger’s nerves, but now the man said, ‘A children’s card game, Mrs Sharples; rather damp and rather juvenile, I would consider, for a young lady of her age. “Happy Families” – I have heard of it.’ He turned the pack over and over in his fingers and said at last, ‘This is a mystery, my dear Mrs Sharples, and I shall put it back into the hands of someone who will move heaven and earth to take that mystery by its tail and drag it into the light of day; to wit, Mister Dodger here.’ With that, he handed the cards back to the astonished Dodger, saying cheerfully, ‘Do not cross me, Dodger, for I know every inch of you, I will take my oath on it. Now, I really must go. Business awaits!’

And Dodger was certain that Charlie winked at him as he went out of the door.

The night passed fairly quickly because so much of it had already slid away into yesterday. Dodger sat on the floor, listening
to
the slow breathing of the girl and the snoring of Mrs Sharples, who managed to sleep with one eye open and fixed on Dodger like a compass needle that steadily points north. Why had he done this? Why was he freezing on this floor when he could have been snug and curled up by Solomon’s stove (a marvellous contraption, which could also be a furnace if there was a lot of gold to melt)?

But the girl was beautiful under her injuries, and he watched her as he turned the damp pack of stupid grubby cards over and over in his hands, staring at the girl whose face was a mass of bruises. The swines had really done her up good and proper, using her like a punchbag. He had given them some handy smacks with his crowbar, but that was not enough – by God, it was not enough! He would find them, he surely would, and see the bastards in lavender . . .

Dodger woke up on the floor in a semi-gloom illuminated by just one flickering candle, totally disorientated until he recognized his surroundings, which included Mrs Sharples in her chair, still snoring like a man trying to saw a pig in half. But more importantly there was the sound of a very small and trembling voice, saying, ‘May I have some water, if you please?’

This caused in Dodger a near panic, but there was a jug of water on the basin and he filled a glass. The girl took it from him very carefully, and motioned for a refill. Dodger glanced at Mrs Sharples, refilled the glass, handed it to her and whispered, ‘Please tell me your name.’

The girl croaked, rather than spoke, but it was a ladylike croak, such as might be made by a frog princess, and she said, ‘I must not tell anybody my name, but you are most kind, sir.’

Dodger was aflame. ‘Why were those coves beating you up, miss? Can you tell me
their
names?’

Once again there was the sorry voice. ‘I should not.’

‘Then may I hold your hand, miss, on this chilly night?’ It was, he thought, a Christian thing to do – or so he had heard. Slightly to his amazement, the girl did indeed reach out and take his hand. He clasped it and very carefully looked at the ring on her finger, and thought: a lot of gold here, and a crest; oh my word, a boy can get into trouble with a crest. A crest with eagles on it and foreign lingo. A ring that meant something, Charlie had said; a ring that somebody most certainly wouldn’t want to lose. And somehow those eagles looked rather vicious.

She noticed his interest. ‘He said he loved me . . . my husband. Then he let them beat me. But my mother always said that if anyone got to England, they would be free. Do not let them take me back, sir – I do not want to go.’

He leaned over and whispered, ‘Miss, I ain’t no sir, I’m Dodger.’

Sleepily, the girl said in what Dodger figured was a German accent, ‘Dodger? One who dodges, which is to say, moves about a lot? Thank you, Dodger. You are kind, and I am tired.’

Dodger just managed to catch the glass as she slumped back into the pillows.

1
Contrary to what he had said to Charlie, Dodger could read, having had some tuition from Solomon the watchmaker, his landlord, and the
Jewish Chronicle
– but it was never in anyone’s interest to tell anybody anything that they didn’t need to know.

CHAPTER 2

In which Dodger meets a dying man and a dying man meets his Lady; and Dodger becomes king of the toshers

AS THE BELLS
tolled five o’clock, Mrs Sharples woke up, making a noise that could best be expressed as
Blort!
Her eyes filled with venom when they alighted on Dodger and subsequently scoured the room for indications of malfeasance.

‘All right, you young castle, you have had your nice warm sleep in a Christian bedroom, as promised – and, as I suspect, for the first time. Now just you get out of here, and mind! I shall be watching you like a fork until you’re out of the back door, you mark my words.’

Nasty and ungrateful oh those words were, and she was as good as them, marching him down the grubby back stairs and into the kitchen, where she flung open the door with such force that it
bounced
on its hinges and slammed itself shut again, much to the amusement of the cook, who had been watching the pantomime.

As the door hung there reproachfully, Dodger said, ‘You heard Mister Charlie, missus, he is a very important man, and he gave me a mission, and I have a mission so I reckon, and a missionary gets a bite of breakfast before he is slung out into the cold. And I don’t think Mister Charlie would be too happy if I told him about the lack of hospitality you’ve shown to me, Mrs Sharp Balls.’

He had mangled her name offensively without a thought, and was rather pleased, even though she appeared not to have noticed. The cook, however, had, and the laugh she laughed had a sneer in it. Dodger had never read a book, but if he had ever done so he would have read the cook just like it – and it was amazing how much you could glean from a look, or a snort, or even a fart if it was dropped into the conversation at just the right place. There was language, and there was the language of inflections, glances, tiny movements in the face – little bits of habit that the owner was not aware of. People who thought that their face was entirely blank did not realize how they were broadcasting their innermost thoughts to anyone with the gumption to pick up the signs, and the sign right now, floating in the air as if held by an angel, said that the cook did not like the housekeeper, and the dislike was sufficient enough that she would make fun of her even though Dodger was standing there.

So he carefully made himself look a little more tired and a little more frightened and a little more pleading than usual. Instantly the cook motioned him towards her, saying in a low voice, but not so low that the housekeeper couldn’t hear it, ‘OK, lad, I’ve got some porridge on the boil – you can have some of that, and a
piece
of mutton that’s only slightly on the nose, and I dare say you’ve eaten worse. Will that do you?’

Dodger burst into tears; they were good tears, full of soul and fat – there was a certain amount of body to them – and then he fell on his knees, clasped his hands together and said, with deep sincerity, ‘God bless you, missus, God bless you!’

This shameless pantomime earned him a very large bowl of porridge with a very acceptable amount of sugar in it. The mutton wasn’t yet at the stage when it was about to start walking around all by itself, and so he took it thankfully; it would at least make the basis of a decent stew. It was wrapped in newspaper and he shoved it in his pocket very quickly for fear that it might evaporate. As for the porridge, he pushed the spoon around until there was not one drop left, to the obvious approval of the cook, a lady, it might be said, who wobbled everywhere one could wobble when she moved, including the chin.

He had written her down as an ally, at least against the housekeeper, who was still glaring at him balefully, but then she grabbed him sharply by the hand and shouted, much louder than necessary, ‘Just you come down here into the scullery and we’ll see how much you have stolen, my lad, shall we?’

Dodger tried to pull out of her grip, but she was, as aforesaid, a well-built woman – as cooks tend to be – and as she was dragging him she leaned towards him and hissed, ‘Don’t struggle. What are you, a bloody fool? Keep mum and do as I say!’ She opened a door and dragged him down some stone steps, into a place that smelled of pickles. After slamming the door behind them, she relaxed a little and said, ‘That old baggage of a housekeeper will swear blind that you must have picked up a lot of trinkets when you were here last night, and you may be sure that the picker-up of said trifles
will
be that lady herself. Therefore it would be very likely that any friendships you have made here will vanish like the morning dew. The family are decent sorts, always a soft touch for a hard luck story from a broken-down artisan or fallen woman who would like to get up again, and I’ve seen them come and go. Quite a lot of them are genuine, let me tell you; I know.’

As politely as possible, Dodger tried to remove her hands from his person. She seemed to be patting him down rather more than was warranted and with a certain enthusiasm and a gleam in her eye.

She saw his expression and said, ‘I ain’t always been this old fat baggage; I fell once and bounced back up again. That’s the way to think about it, lad. Anyone can rise if they have enough yeast. I was not always like this; oh my word, you would be amazed and probably quite amused – and I might say in one or two cases embarrassed.’

‘Yes, missus,’ said Dodger. ‘And would you please stop patting.’

She laughed, causing an oscillation of chins, and then, rather more solemnly, said, ‘The kitchen maid told me that the talk is that you helped save some sweet girl from ruffians last night and I know, I just
know
you will get blamed for something unless I show you the lay of the land. So, little fellow, you just give Aunty Quickly here anything you is thinking of running away with, and I will see it gets put back where it belongs. I like this family and I won’t have them robbed, even by a lively lad such as yourself. So if you own up now all sins will be forgiven and you will walk out of here without a stain on your character, although I wish I could say the same about the stains on the rest of you.’ Her nose wrinkled as she took in the state of his trousers.

Smirking, Dodger handed her one silver spoon, saying, ‘One
spoon
, and only because I was still holding it when you dragged me down here!’ Then he pulled out the pack of cards. ‘And this, missus, was handed to me by Mister Dickens.’

Nevertheless, but with a grin, the cook patted him down again right there and then, finding his knife, his brass knuckles and his short crowbar; she pointedly ignored them, but also made him take his shoes off for inspection, whereupon she winced at the smell, with a hand theatrically over her nose, and made it clear that she wanted him to put them on again as quickly as possible. She said cheerfully, ‘Not got nothing up your jacksie, yes? Wouldn’t be the first to have tried. No, I ain’t going to look; you’ve got more meat on your ribs than most of your type, which means you are rather innocent, or very clever; I trust that it is the latter, and would be most surprised if it is the former. Now what we’ll do next is that I’ll drag you upstairs, shouting at you like the scum you are, so that the old baggage can hear. What I shall shout is that I’ve searched you thoroughly at risk to my own health and am throwing you out absolutely empty-handed. After that I will kick you out the door on the toe of my boot for the look of the thing, and then I’ll get on with my work, which will be all the more enjoyable when I think of the nasty old boot seething like a cauldron of bees.’ She gave Dodger a long look as if sizing him up and said, ‘You’re on the tosh, ain’t you?’