Dodger (30 page)

The dinner was almost over when Dodger got back to his seat, and a few minutes later Angela tapped a wineglass with a spoon, very gently, and announced, ‘My friends, custom and practice these days is that ladies withdraw to the withdrawing room while all the gentlemen stay behind, and as you know I find this rather irksome because I’d quite like to talk to some gentlemen, and I’m sure some gentlemen might like to talk to
some
ladies. After all, these are modern times and we are all people of the world; I daresay none of us in this eminent company require a chaperone. I shall go to the drawing room and await all comers!’

To Dodger’s surprise one of the richest women in the world then grasped his arm. ‘Now, Mister Dodger,’ she said, ‘I would like to talk to you about
reading
. Solomon tells me that you seldom make any attempt at reading and can barely cipher something approximating your name. This is not good enough, young man! A person of your calibre has no business being illiterate. Normally I would suggest that you should get enrolled in one of my ragged schools, but I fancy you would consider yourself too old for that, so instead, and so that I may begin to instil in you a love of words and the way they can be used, you will promise me that tomorrow night you will come with me and young Simplicity to the theatre to see the new production of William Shakespeare’s
Julius Caesar
.’

She straightened up and added, ‘Mister Cohen may accompany us too if he would be so kind. You must raise your play, Mister Dodger, because no man should waste his life tramping through sewers when he could be sailing through literature and the theatre. Raise your play, Mister Dodger, raise your play! You already have the gingerbread, time to get the gilt!’ She paused and looked at Dodger’s expression. ‘You are looking at me with your mouth open,’ she added. ‘Is there anything that I have just said that you might not have understood?’

Dodger hesitated, but not for long. ‘Yes, miss. I am rather busy but I would like to go and see the play, and I have seen gingerbread with gilt on it in some baker’s shop, but for the life of me I don’t know what that has to do with anything.’

‘One day, Dodger, you should ask Solomon what a metaphor is.’

‘There’s another thing I want to ask please, miss,’ said Dodger. ‘That is, how can you be sure that nothing bad could happen to Miss Simplicity in the theatre; they are big places with lots of people in them.’

Angela smiled. ‘Sometimes the best place to hide something is exactly where no one would think to look. But if they do, then surely, Mister Dodger, we will be one step closer to reaching a happy conclusion to this affair? Simplicity will be in no danger – I have the ways and means to see that all of us will be able to enjoy the evening unmolested, you can be sure of that. My footmen have – you might say – hidden talents. But we may gain more than an evening’s entertainment from the excursion.’

She very carefully steered him then into yet another very well-appointed room in which comfy chairs were in abundance and so, on the whole, was everything else. Up in the attic Solomon had nothing that was not practical. The old man had his work table and a very narrow bed, and behind his curtain Dodger had a bedroll and a number of blankets, and if it was a cold winter sometimes Onan as well; the smell could get bad, but Onan was polite enough not to acknowledge it. But this room was full of . . . well, things! Things that as far as Dodger could see were there just to be seen, or perhaps things that were designed to have other things put on top of them, or inside them. It also had enormous displays of flowers in great big vases, and the place looked like Covent Garden. He wondered why people needed all these things, when he himself could carry everything he owned in quite a small bag, not counting the bedroll. It seemed to be something that happened when you were rich,
like
in the Mayhews’ house but with more knobs on.

But he pushed that aside in his mind to make way for his plan. It was a good plan, a shiny one, and it had come together finally because Mister Disraeli had tried to make fun of him. All evening long he had been piecing it together, trying to figure out which parts were likely to be straightforward – such as the breeches – and which parts there were where you would just have to trust to your luck; and the Lady, of course.

Tomorrow was going to be a very busy day.

He was looking around for Solomon when somebody else tapped him on the shoulder and said very politely, ‘I’m very sorry to intervene, but I hear that you habitually frequent the sewerage system.’

The unwanted enquirer was a young man some ten years older than himself with the beginnings of a very curly moustache in the current fashion, and the way the question was asked made Dodger suspect that the man might be something of an enthusiast when it came to drains. He was a gentleman who wanted to talk about drains and he – that is to say, Dodger – had to be polite, and so there was nothing for it but to smile nicely and say, ‘I’m no expert, sir, but since you ask, I am a tosher and I reckon I’ve been down every drain anybody can get down in the Square Mile, and then some. And you, sir, are . . .?’ He smiled so as not to give offence.

‘Oh dear, how remiss of me. Bazalgette, Joseph Bazalgette; here is my card, sir. May I say that if you are thinking of a journey into the sewers I would be most pleased if I could come with you. Indeed, I would be honoured!’

Dodger turned the card over and over in his fingers, gave in and said, ‘I was planning an . . . expedition with Mister Disraeli
and
Mister Dickens. The day after tomorrow, I believe. Perhaps one more . . .?’ After all, he thought, it could fit in very well with his plans, especially if one of the aforesaid gentlemen should change their minds, or find themselves ‘otherwise engaged’, as he believed it was described.

Mister Bazalgette was beaming with delight. Yes, he was an enthusiast for sure. A man who liked numbers and wheels and machinery, and quite possibly sewers. Mister Bazalgette, Dodger thought, might just be a gift from the Lady. ‘You must surely know,’ Bazalgette burbled, as if reading his mind, ‘although perhaps you don’t, that the first people to undertake the work of building these sewers were the Romans. Indeed they believed in a goddess of the sewers, whom I believe is commonly known as “the Lady” and gave her a name – Cloacina. You may be interested to learn that not so long ago a gentleman here in England called Matthews wrote a poem to her, following the example of the Romans, imploring her to help him with – how can I put it? – a way to make smoother his bodily functions, which the poem suggests were something of a morning trial to him.’

From what Dodger had heard, the Romans were sharp coves and had built other things besides sewers, like roads. But now, without any warning, it turned out that they had also worshipped the Lady. Those Romans, according to Solomon, were tough and rough and merciless if you went up against them . . . and they had believed in the Lady. Well now, Dodger had prayed to the Lady to be sure, but he was never, well, definite when he did – sort of only half believing. Now it turned out that all those big warriors were once upon a time in this city kneeling down to her to make their richards a bit more squishy. There could be no better
endorsement
. Now more than ever, Dodger – admittedly via a roundabout route – was a believer.

Mister Bazalgette was coughing. ‘Are you all right, Mister Dodger?’ he queried. ‘You looked a bit far away for a while.’

Dodger hustled back to reality, smiled at the man and said, ‘Everything is fine, sir.’

Then a hand dropped on his shoulder, and gleefully Charlie said, ‘Excuse me, Mister Bazalgette, I thought I must remind our friend about that trip into the sewers. Benjamin too, because those of us who are his friends would love to see what the dapper chappie will make of the subterranean experience, especially if he slips over in it, and of course I sincerely hope that does not happen. I wonder what shoes he will wear?’ Charlie was smiling, in Dodger’s opinion with a certain touch of cheerful malice – not the nasty sort as such, but maybe the sort you use to tell one of your chums that he is getting too big for his boots. Dodger wouldn’t mind betting that Charlie’s mind was suggesting that the sewer excursion could just possibly be very entertaining as well as instructive.

As people milled around him saying their goodbyes to one another, Dodger said to Charlie, ‘I expect you gentlemen are all very busy, so for this trip let us meet at The Lion in Seven Dials. It won’t be a difficult walk from there to where we start and you could keep the growler there. The day after tomorrow, wasn’t it? Maybe seven o’clock? The sunlight will be low and you will be amazed how far it reaches into the sewers, like it was trying to fill them up.’ Then he added, ‘No offence to you, gentlemen, but if I take you down there and something nasty happens to any of you, I will be very upset and so will you. So I’ll do a little walk around there early in the day to make sure there ain’t going to be any
problems
because you never know. So, if it ain’t on, I’ll make shift to let you know so that it’s postponed.’

Charlie grinned with glee. ‘Now that’s a sensible precaution, Dodger. What a shame Henry is unable to join us! But I for one cannot wait to join this little odyssey. How about you, Mister Bazalgette?’

The engineer’s eyes sparkled. He said, ‘I will bring along my theodolite, my most waterproof boots, my most expendable trousers and, knowing something about sewers, good stout leather breeches will be your friend. Thank you so much for this, young man. I very much look forward to seeing you the day after tomorrow. And if possible to meeting your Lady.’

As Mister Bazalgette headed off to find his coach, Charlie turned to Dodger and asked, his face a mask, ‘What lady might that be?’

Dodger hurriedly explained. ‘I was talking about
the Lady
, our Lady of the Sewers, sir, and if you reach for your notebook now I think I would just about pull your fingers off, sir, ’cos this is stuff that should not be known, sir.’

Charlie said, ‘Are you telling me, Dodger, that you truly believe that there is some kind of a goddess in the sewers?’

‘No, sir, not a goddess, not for the likes of us,’ Dodger continued. ‘Gods and goddesses are for the likes of people who go to church, sir. They laugh at people like us, but
she
doesn’t. There is no salvation, sir, not with her, because there is nothing to be saved from, sir. But, like I say, if you get on well with her then one day she might show you something of great worth. Everybody has got to believe in something; that’s all it takes. That’s why, because of this, I decided to rescue Simplicity, you see. I mean, how could I have heard all the screaming above the noise of the storm? But I
heard
it right enough. And so I have to think that I have been guided on a journey and I don’t know where all the steps are, and I know the people who are my betters would like to see Simplicity shut away in some bleak house somewhere, so as she would cause no trouble. I won’t stand for it, sir, whoever they are.
I said I didn’t want you to write things down!
’

This came out fast and Charlie’s pencil fell away from his notebook and, flustered, he said, ‘My apologies, Mister Dodger. My attempt at jotting a thought down had nothing to do with Miss Simplicity, I can assure you.’

Dodger jumped as Angela appeared at their side and said, ‘Changing times, Mister Dodger. A young queen on the throne and a new world of possibilities. Your world, should you choose to make it so.’ She leaned closer and whispered, ‘I know that Sir Robert has spoken to you, and I know why. There are wheels within wheels. Make certain now that you’re not crushed between them. I admire men of resource who are prepared to make some difference in the world, and on occasion, as you know, I like to help them up. And, Mister Dodger, like you I cannot abide bullies. I do not like men who trample on others.’ She paused and handed him a slip of paper. ‘Something my dear friend Sir Robert just said to me makes me feel that you could find this place very interesting.’

Dodger glanced at the piece of paper, feeling embarrassed. ‘Excuse me, miss,’ he said. ‘Is this the way to one of your ragged schools?’

He saw her eyebrows narrow until she looked quite fierce. ‘Not exactly, Mister Dodger; it is where I think you might like to teach someone a lesson. But do please feel free to call on me at need.’

And now Solomon loomed like a revelation, a pink one and
slightly
fatter than Dodger remembered. ‘Have you said all your goodbyes and thank yous? Say goodbye to Miss Simplicity, and then you and myself must be going, Onan will be pining.’

Dodger turned round, and there was Simplicity, who simply said, ‘How very nice to see you again, my hero, and I look forward to going to the theatre with you tomorrow, I really do.’

As he and Solomon were leaving, Simplicity, standing next to her new hostess in the doorway, blew him a kiss and Dodger was suddenly floating on air.

1
Frankly, most of the time, Dodger ate using his fingers unless Sol told him off.

2
Solomon had said, ‘Don’t bother about the fish slice; nobody bothers with the fish slice, it is there as an ornament, just to show people that you have a fish slice.’