The Lights of London (28 page)

Kitty and Jack, after having made sure that the child was all right, had joined the others at the crowded windows, although Jack had had to remind some of the more eager spectators that it
was
his pub and he was entitled to a view. As strangers to the area, he and Kitty watched with amazement as the scene unfolded below.

‘Here they come again!’ went up the cry as a gaggle of boys, who looked barely twelve or thirteen years of age, surged around the corner.

‘Look at ’em,’ Bert said solemnly. ‘Not even as old as young Harry here.’

‘He’s right,’ agreed Jack, ‘they’re only kids, some of them.’

‘They might only be kids,’ Teezer said, ‘but, believe me, we’re used to their sort around here. You watch, and don’t be surprised if all their sodding families don’t turn up to join in. Women included. So, youngsters or not, belive me, they’re to be taken seriously.’

Kitty craned her neck. ‘Look at that lot coming along now. They’re in some sort of uniform.’

Buggy sucked his teeth. ‘You was right about taking it serious, Teeze. It’s the Brigade from over Poplar way. This has gotta mean trouble.’

‘Why?’ Kitty asked, staring down at the strangely dressed young men in their button-sided, bell-bottom
trousers, held up with heavy-buckled belts, and their white stocks tied at their throats. Each was wearing a plaid cap, which he had perched at an angle on the back of his head, showing off his peculiar, unflattering haircut, with its shaved sides and dead-straight fringe that had been oiled and combed flat over his forehead.

Not fancying one of Buggy’s monologues Teezer, still staring out of the window, took up the explanation. ‘Because they, darling, are the Plaid-cap Brigade and they hate the Highway Larrikins, who are the gang of Herberts what reckon they run this manor. And you see those belts?’

Kitty murmured in confirmation.

‘They double as weapons. And those daft-looking trousers? Well, they’re hiding knives in their socks under them. And I wouldn’t advise laughing at them donkey-fringe haircuts, neither. Getting that done means they’ve been accepted as part of the gang. One of the real hooligans, as they like to call them in the newspaper. It’s like a badge, see, means you’ve got up to some nasty bit of nonsense and have been allowed to join with the other little bleeders.’

This time Kitty could only stare down at what was no longer a crowd of garishly dressed children, but an army of threatening, lawless brutes.

‘And see them stocks they’ve got round their necks?’ Buggy said with awe in his voice. ‘You know what they use them for?’

‘I do,’ breathed Harry. ‘They use them to garrotte their victims.’

‘And their girls,’ added Buggy. ‘They’re as bad. They’ll gouge your eyes out as soon as look at you.’

‘Can’t the police do anything?’ Kitty asked, looking over to Tibs for some sort of sane answer in all this madness.

Tibs, having emptied the bottle of lemonade and finished up most of the sugar, was now stoking up the little watercress seller with the doorstep-sized cheese sandwich that Archie had planned on having for his tea before the show and a foaming glass of cloudy brown ginger beer. She shook her head and smiled fondly at her country-bred friend. ‘The law ain’t exactly popular round here, Kit, and if previous experience is anything to go by they’ll be doing everything they can to keep well out of it. In fact, I’ll lay odds they won’t get no nearer than Dock Street, up by the Tower.’

Teezer turned round to say something to Tibs, but then, instead, said to Kitty, ‘Here, did anyone ever drag you out of the Thames?’

Kitty shook her head and blinked wildly. She looked at Tibs and back at Teezer. ‘Why would you say that?’ she asked nervously.

Just at that moment another group appeared. With much roaring and bellowing, they poured out of side alleys and clambered over walls.

‘Look, Teeze!’ roared Buggy. ‘It’s the Highway Larrikins! They’ve set up an ambush!’

Teezer forgot all about Kitty and, despite his earlier warnings about the horrors of the gangs, he cheered in triumphant glee at the sight of his ‘home team’ arriving. ‘They’ll skin the arses off them fairies from Poplar!’

With the unexpected entrance made by their enemies, the Plaid-cap lads began running about in wild disorder, their agitated rabble spilling haphazardly towards Tower Bridge.

‘Look at that one!’ Teezer pointed excitedly at an unmistakably unconscious youth. ‘He’s tripped over and hit his head on the tramline. Look at all that blood.’

‘That would never have happened if it wasn’t for these trams,’ said young Harry smugly. ‘They’re not
natural, see, what’s the matter with horses and carts, that’s what I want to know. I mean, if you take my brother’s trade, that’s a decent sort of a way to earn a living, but he reckons that when the new century comes all they’ll allow on the roads are these motor cars. Everywhere, they’ll be. And there’s gonna be so many fumes, none of us’ll be able to breathe. But if we all keep to horses, like in his business …’

‘That’s enough about your brother’s business, thank you, Harry,’ said Bert, pushing himself away from the crowded window.

He took a deep breath and wiped his kerchief round his sweat-drenched face and neck. ‘We’ve got business of our own to worry about. Now come on, there’s bound to be quite an audience for this little lot down by the bridge. If we slip out the back and make our way to the river we can row right out to the middle, away from all the fighting, and sell as much purl as we can make. The crews on the boats are bound to be thirsty with all this going on.’

Harry looked dubious.

‘We’ll have a good view of all the fun,’ Bert encouraged him.

‘And be just in line for all the half-bricks they’re gonna be throwing,’ added Teezer grumpily.

‘Just think of all that lovely money,’ said Bert, rubbing his hands. ‘See you later.’

‘Teeze?’ said Buggy slowly, as he watched Harry trotting off after his governor.

‘Yeah?’

‘D’you know what Harry said, about all the trouble there’s gonna be when this new century comes? Us not being able to breathe and all that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, d’you reckon it’s true?’

‘If you don’t shut up, Buggy, and let me finish this drink before we get ourselves down to the sodding boat and start working you’ll soon find out about not breathing. And it won’t be nothing to do with no motor cars.’

The main trouble-makers might have moved down towards the riverside, but there were still hordes of youths, admittedly not as organised as the gangs, but just as intimidating to anyone who came within missile-throwing distance of them. They cluttered up the street in noisy huddles, threatening and shoving and swearing at passers-by. Making sure that everyone could see that they were hard enough to be out there and that they were just as capable of causing damage as any tartan-hatted hooligan.

They were still there when the evening light began to fade and the lamplighter turned up. They laughed and jeered as he cursed to find that he had no work to do, as all the gas lamps had been broken, smashed with stones or well-aimed coins.

He shook his head with a weary sigh. Bugger. He’d not only earn nothing that night, but worse, he had to decide whether it was too dangerous to stay out on the streets or go home to the wife and all the bloody boot mending she’d have him doing.

Some bloody choice.

Archie was also faced with a dilemma. He was pouring the little girl yet another glass of ginger beer and trying to think what to say to Tibs. When she had leaned against him like that, holding on to him and asking him not to leave her, he had thought he was going to explode with pleasure. But, thrilled as he had been, he shouldn’t kid himself that she did it for any other reason than that she was scared out of her wits.

But say he was wrong? Say he missed the opportunity of showing her how he felt about her? But then, say he went and said something out of place? Something that really put her off him, maybe even more than his dodgy arm must do. But he still felt that he had to take his chance.

He took a deep breath. ‘Don’t worry, Tibs, it’ll be all right. It was the same on the streets last year, if you remember. The hot weather came along, people got all worked up about not having jobs, the kids got bored and then, by the time the water shortages had carried on for a few weeks, it all went off like an anarchist’s bomb. But by midnight it’ll all be forgotten, you wait and see.’ He smiled warmly, hoping against hope that he wasn’t going too far. ‘If they don’t all get too thirsty beforehand and clear off to find an alehouse that’ll serve them.’ He pointedly avoided looking at her as he added, ‘You don’t have to be scared, Tibs. Not with me here to look out for you.’

‘Thanks, Arch, you’re a kind man.’

With those few words, Tibs had Archie’s heart racing.

He was trying to stop himself from grinning like a fool, and wondering what on earth he should say next, when Jack came over to join them at the bar to fetch himself a drink. Kitty was trailing behind him, unable to get that man asking her about the river out of her mind. As if the riot weren’t frightening enough. ‘Are you planning on opening tonight?’ she asked Jack, her voice unsteady.

‘I suppose we’ll have to see how it goes,’ he answered.

Kitty could feel herself trembling. ‘I see,’ she said, and turned round and went back to see what was going on in the street.

Jack opened his mouth to call after her, but Archie
tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Mind if I have a word, boss? Private like.’

‘All right.’

To Jack’s surprise, Archie ushered him to one side, out of Tibs’s earshot and said quietly, ‘I might be talking out of turn, boss, but you’re a stranger round here. I don’t think you realise what that lot down there can be like. When they’re all worked up like that they’re capable of anything and I reckon opening up tonight would be too dangerous for the girls.’

Jack raised his eyebrows and considered for a moment. ‘Maybe we’ll open later.’

‘Please, boss, think about it carefully, eh? I really don’t reckon it’s such a good idea, you know.’

Now Jack was flabbergasted, it just wasn’t like Archie to be so determined to get his own way. ‘All right. I’ll think about it carefully.’ With that he went back to the window and stood by Kitty. He wanted to talk to her, but she was staring down at the street, her eyes wide with fear. Archie was probably right and Jack certainly didn’t want to do anything that would put the girls in danger. Especially Kitty.

While Jack watched Kitty, thinking how lovely she looked standing there next to him, Archie was observing Tibs trying to pacify the child who was now sobbing miserably into her grubby little hands. ‘Don’t upset yourself, Flora,’ she said gently. ‘The nasty men’ll all be gone soon.’

‘I ain’t crying ’cos of them,’ the child sniffled.

‘What’s up then, sweetheart?’ Archie asked her. ‘You can tell me.’

‘Me mother says I have to be home by nine. And I just heard the church bells go.’

‘I’ll bet she worries about you,’ Tibs said, thinking
how anxious she was about her own child’s well-being. ‘I know I’d be right fretful if I had a pretty little girl like you and didn’t know where she was.’

Flora dropped her hands into her lap and looked up at Tibs through her knotted, greasy fringe as though she had taken leave of her senses. ‘She ain’t worried about where I am. She’s waiting for me to bring home the money I’ve earnt. She has to have her grub and a drink, see, before she goes down Whitechapel to work the queues outside the penny gaffs.’ She began weeping even more pitifully. ‘But now I ain’t gonna get home in time and I ain’t earnt no money. She’s gonna muller me.’

Tibs and Archie exchanged glances. Whitechapel. So her mother was a bride, working one of the toughest areas of the East End. Far worse even than Rosemary Lane. They both knew how far a woman would have to sink to work that sort of rough trade – and how she might react if she couldn’t get her hands on the money to buy whatever sort of Dutch courage she needed to fortify herself for her night’s work.

‘Don’t worry, little ’un,’ said Tibs. ‘I’ll give you some money. And I’ll get you home. We’ll be there in no time at all, and …’

‘No,’ Archie said firmly. ‘I’ll take her.’

If Archie hadn’t chosen to carry the little girl through the comparative safety of the back streets he might well have seen an incongruously well-dressed group of three men stepping down from a hansom, as their driver, following the warnings of two policemen in nearby Leman Street, refused to take his cab any closer to the rioting. Although it had to be said there was only one of the men who actually thought that it was anything like a good idea to be in this area and heading for the Old Black Dog.

‘Look, Tressing,’ began his colleague, Cameron Hunton, making sure that he kept a firm hold on the cab door, ‘much as I’d like to have the pleasure of seeing those charming young ladies going through their paces again, I think I’ll leave it for another night if you don’t mind.’

Tressing raised a greying eyebrow. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, I won’t come any further. It’s all beginning to feel rather too dangerous, if you know what I mean.’ He stroked his moustaches and laughed with false bravery. ‘I do believe those police officers were right.’

‘A few hooligans make you fear for your life, do they, Hunton?’

‘No. No,’ he blustered. ‘It’s just that situations such as this, well, they make a fellow aware of the terrible things that go on in these neighbourhoods.’ He looked about him at the tall, grim buildings. ‘And how these people live.’

‘You weren’t so concerned before, Hunton.’

‘I know, but you see, well, it’s like this, I feel I might as well be in darkest Africa.’

Lucian Mayerton, Tressing’s other companion, didn’t exactly feel comfortable himself, but he grinned at Hunton’s unease. ‘You spent time out in Africa, didn’t you?’

Hunton nodded nervously. ‘In the army. And I’ll tell you this for nothing, I know as much about the lives of the ignorant cockney creatures who live hereabouts as I do about the natives in the wilds of the Sudan. And I can’t say I care to learn much about either.’ He was growing increasingly agitated. ‘I think I might just tell the cabman here to take me back to the club.’