The Lights of London (30 page)

‘I dunno, puss,’ she said as she thumbed the cubes of horse meat off the stick for the now ecstatic creature, ‘you’re happy for a farthing. Wish it was as easy for me.’

‘Wish what was as easy, Tibs?’ It was Archie, peering over the fence from the pub yard next door. He was bottling up, getting ready for the inevitable crowds, who would be keen to make up for the drinking time and
the shows they had missed the day before and, just as important, to brag and compete shamelessly with implausibly brave stories of their part in the riots.

Archie tried again. ‘Anything I can help with?’

‘Take no notice of me, Arch, I’m just feeling a bit sorry for meself today, that’s all.’ She snapped the skewer in half and stared at the splintered ends, then looked up at him. He had such a kind face. ‘I never told you properly yesterday, Arch, but it was right good of you taking that little one home. Right brave and all.’ She dipped her chin. ‘I was worried about you, you know. You was gone for ever such a long time.’

Archie shrugged. ‘It wasn’t nothing. I just made sure we went round the long way so’s we wouldn’t bump into none of them blockheads beating hell out of one another.’

‘Still …’

‘And I was glad to do it. I love kids, don’t I. Wouldn’t see ’em hurt for the world.’ He tapped his crippled arm as though it didn’t belong to him. ‘If it wasn’t for this I’d have liked to have had some of me own one day.’

Tibs stepped towards the fence. ‘And what makes you think you won’t?’

‘Who’d want me?’

‘Archie …’

‘It’s all right, Tibs. Now it’s just me feeling sorry for meself.’

Tibs tried a smile, but it didn’t happen. ‘We’ll have to join one of them unions they all go on about in the bar. They reckon they sort everything out for you.’

‘Yeah, having your life sorted out, that’d be good, wouldn’t it.’

They stood there for a moment, looking everywhere but at one another, both wanting to speak, but neither sure what to say.

It was Archie who eventually broke the silence. ‘You should have seen where that little girl lived, Tibs. It was one of them courts they’ve been saying they’re gonna knock down.’

‘Which ones d’you mean? One-eyed Sal reckons they’re always saying they’re gonna knock ’em all down.’

‘You know, the well-known ones that all the toffs got worked up about. When the Ripper did in all them brides.’

‘Surely you don’t mean them ones opposite the London Hospital?’

‘Yeah. Them bug-holes. And I’m telling you, she’d be better off living on the streets. And I mean that. A bloody sight better. The stink of that place.’ He shuddered. ‘I ain’t no shrinking violet, Tibs, but they’re unbelievable. Especially in this heat. D’you know they’ve got open cesspits in the basements?’

‘Wonder they ain’t all got the fever.’ Tibs shook her head. ‘You’re right, Arch. The streets are better than that.’

‘And there’s up to eight to a room. You can imagine what goes on. And with the kids there and all.’

‘Christ, Arch, you see some bad enough things around here – I know, I’ve done some of ’em meself – but that’s like something you hear about the old days. It’s nearly bloody 1900, not 1800.’

Archie laughed without pleasure. ‘I never thought I’d reckon Rosemary Lane was posh.’

‘And fancy that little dot coming all the way from Whitechapel every day. I thought her mum just did the business round there, but lived over here somewhere.’

Archie shook his head. ‘No, they live there all right. I asked Flora about it. She said her mum sends her over this way ’cos of the trade from the docks and the City
types. Still, at least she’s with her mum, eh? That’s something. Even if she is living over an open sewer and her mother’s a boozy old crow who looks like she could go twenty rounds in a boxing booth, she’s still kept the little mite with her. When you think how some kids just get dumped.’

Tibs swallowed hard. ‘Yeah. When you think.’

Archie gripped the top of the fence. ‘You sure nothing’s up, Tibs? You’re looking right peaky.’

She nodded silently, unable to speak.

‘I don’t wanna speak out of turn, Tibs, but Jack said something about someone bothering you and I want you to know that I’d kill anyone who ever hurt you. You’ve just gotta say.’

She lifted her chin and smiled through her tears. ‘There’s a long list, Arch. But if you like, you can do me a favour and start with that ugly mare, Lily Perkins.’

Archie stiffened. ‘What, Lily Perkins who used to work the streets around here, you mean?’

‘Used to? The rotten cow still does, as far as I know. She’s just been keeping her head down ’cos she knows I realised it was her what robbed me, the no-good bleeder.’ Tibs sniffed loudly and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘Although One-eyed Sal reckons it’s because she got herself a good hiding off of someone and her face is all busted up.’

‘Tibs …’

‘Yeah?’

‘The drayman just told me, when he was doing the deliveries like.’

Tibs frowned, not understanding what Lily Perkins had to do with some bloke from the brewery. ‘What’re you going on about, Arch?’

‘They found her last night. After the riot.’

‘They what?’

Archie wished he knew how to say things better. ‘She’s dead, Tibs.’

‘Lily Perkins?’

He nodded. ‘You might as well hear it from me. The talk is …’ He paused. ‘She was murdered. Brutal and all, apparently. Throat cut and all carved up.’

Archie vaulted over the fence to help her, as she folded up like a paper fan and dropped to the ground in a heap. He wasn’t quick enough to catch her before her legs gave way, but before she passed out cold he heard her say, faintly but quite clearly, that Albert Symes had gone too far this time.

Albert Symes – the man Jack had said was after Tibs – was a murderer?

Bartholomew Tressing pushed past his sour-faced butler, threw his topcoat on to the mahogany hall chair and strode purposefully across the black-and-white tiled floor towards the grand staircase which rose from the centre of the sumptuously furnished entrance hall. ‘A wounded drunk,’ he snapped, without looking round at his servant. ‘Grabbed hold of me at the hospital last night. If that blood won’t come off, bum it.’

‘Listen, Marie,’ Jack said, buttoning his shirt, ‘I don’t want you getting the wrong idea, lass, I let you stay the extra night because of all the trouble out there. But it was just business. All right?’

Marie threw back the bedclothes and began picking up her clothes. ‘All right.’ Her voice was low, unsteady.

‘You knew all along …’

‘I said it was all right.’ She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. She’d known it was going to be like this again. ‘I was about to get going anyway I’ve got things to do. Lots of things. Always busy, me.’

Jack almost handed her a sovereign, but changed his mind and put it on the pillow instead, then he went over to the window, keeping his back to her while she got dressed.

All he could think of was the way Kitty had looked at him yesterday, when he had put his arms around her to protect her …

He heard the sound of someone coming out from next door. Throwing up the sash, he leaned out. It was Kitty. She and Tibs were going somewhere. ‘Morning, girls,’ he called down to them. ‘Bit more peaceful than last night, eh?’

Kitty smiled up at him. ‘Morning, Jack.’

‘Going out?’ he asked. ‘Anywhere interesting?’

Tibs, who had been fiddling distractedly with the door, looked up at him in alarm. ‘No. Just out.’ She turned to Kitty and said something he couldn’t hear.

Kitty replied, turned to give him a little wave and then, without another glance in his direction, she hurried off arm-in-arm with Tibs.

Jack, his face now solemn, lowered the window.

‘I’ll be going then, Jack,’ said Marie.

He twisted round to face her. She was a picture of misery.

What was the matter with him? Couldn’t he get anything right as far as women were concerned? He wanted to say something to Marie, something to make it all right, but he couldn’t help himself, he had to turn round and catch a final glimpse of Kitty before she and Tibs disappeared round the corner.

Dear God, this was driving him mad.

He didn’t even notice Marie as she picked up the money, slipped out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her.

As the girls walked along, neither of them said much, Tibs because she was so concerned with making sure they doubled back on themselves every five minutes so they couldn’t be followed and Kitty because she didn’t have a clue what she
could
say.

She had tried asking Tibs a couple of questions about Lily Perkins and what the police would be doing about it, but when Tibs had snapped at her not to be so stupid and why would the police be worried about finding out who murdered a whore, Kitty thought it best to keep quiet.

She was soon distracted anyway, by the gaudily dressed women who seemed to be lining just about every one of the unfamiliar streets.

Kitty might no longer have been as naive as she had once been – she’d have had to have been blind not to notice the brides who swarmed around Rosemary Lane every night and Tibs had never made any pretence about her own past – but this place, this had her wide-eyed with amazement. There were just so many of them. These women were everywhere.

And then there was Frederick Street, a narrow turning lined with squalid-looking terraced houses, with an underlying stench that had their nostrils twitching and their eyes prickling.

Tibs stopped outside a particularly mean-looking hovel. ‘Before you say anything, I know it’s a dump.’

‘It’s not that …’

‘I can see from your face what you think. And I know every other gaff round here is a case house. But before we go inside, I don’t want you to think too badly of me. I’ve had no choice, Kit.’

‘I don’t think badly of you, Tibs.’

‘Course you do. I think bad enough of myself. Believe me, I’ve hated only being able to afford this for her, but
I just don’t know what else to do. It was this or having her with me on the streets, where anything could have happened to her when I was working. Or letting them take her into the workhouse and I wasn’t having that. But even if I could have afforded the best in the world, that bastard Albert would still have been hanging over me like a bad debt.’

Kitty squeezed her arm. ‘I know you’ve done your best, Tibs. Just like my dad tried to do the best for me. Sometimes people can’t …’

Before Kitty could finish trying to pacify her friend, the door was thrown open. ‘What d’you want?’ growled a ferocious-looking woman from out of a fug of stale, tobacco-tainted air. Her hair was a mess of grey corkscrews, matted in wild frizzes all over her great round head so that she looked just like an elderly, pipe-smoking Medusa.

‘Aw, it’s you is it?’ She narrowed her bloodshot eyes and cleared the phlegm from her throat with an unpleasant rasping sort of sound. ‘I thought you might be them interfering old trouts from the Relief trying to get their noses in again.’

‘I’ve come to see Polly, Mrs Bowdall.’

‘Not to pay me?’

‘That and all.’

She considered for a moment. She was happy enough to take the little whore’s money, but she wasn’t too keen on having her routine disturbed by visitors – especially unexpected ones. ‘Who’s she?’ she asked, stabbing her pipe stem at Kitty, stalling for time to think.

‘This is me cousin, Minnie.’

Mrs Bowdall scratched at her sagging belly and stared up at the dark-haired bean-pole of a girl who towered over the little blonde. ‘I can’t see much family resemblance.’

‘On me mother’s side,’ answered Tibs flatly and took a step towards the doorway.

The wide form of Mrs Bowdall filled the frame. ‘It’s not exactly convenient at the minute.’

Tibs frowned. ‘Well, it is for me. Come on, Kit.’

‘I thought you said her name was Minnie.’

‘It is,’ Tibs snapped, jerking Kitty over the doorstep. ‘We call her Kit for a laugh.’

‘She’s out the back,’ Mrs Bowdall called after them. ‘Helping me with the laundry. She loves doing that, bless her.’

Kitty tried to hold her breath as she followed Tibs along the rancid passageway and through to the scullery at the back of the house.

‘Hello, Polly, my little angel.’

The small girl, who was struggling to turn the enormous cast-iron handle of a massive wooden-rollered wringer, jumped at the sound of her voice.

When she saw Tibs, kneeling down on the dripping-wet flagstones holding out her arms to her, the child threw herself at her mother.

Tibs pressed the child’s red, chapped fingers gently to her lips and touched her dull, knotted hair. ‘You been helping Mrs Bowdall with the laundry, have you, darling?’ she whispered, determined not to cry in front of her baby. ‘Ain’t you a clever, big girl.’

As they turned the corner out of Frederick Street, Tibs suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
‘You’ll have to go now
,’ she snarled. ‘Who the hell does that old witch think she is, telling
me
to go?’

‘She said it was upsetting the other children, Polly having her mum there.’

‘Bollocks,’ spat Tibs.

Kitty didn’t know how to reply.

‘I’m sorry, Kit, I ain’t having a go at you, but you know as well as I do that bastard couldn’t wait to get rid of us so she could get them poor little sods all working again.’

‘Tibs …’

‘Leeches like her know they’ve got girls like me over a barrel. They do what they like and charge what they like. And always just that bit more than we can really afford.’ She dragged her fingers down her cheeks. ‘I can’t stand the thought of Polly having to stay in that place no longer, Kit. I’ve got to find a better life for her. And I can’t bear seeing her scratch like that. I know we all get cooties, but did you see her little head? It was raw. She should have rag ringlets with pretty bows, not scabs and bloody sores all over her.’

Kitty took a deep breath. ‘Tibs. Let’s go back. Let’s go back and get her. Take her home with us. You can wash her hair, like you did mine. And we’ll get some Miranda Paste for her hands. It’s only a shilling a box. I’ve seen it in the chemist’s shop window, and …’