by Jude Thomas
‘Flick? Pennies? Steal? Gracious me, my Lord above, you shall not be part of that game, Billie Frost! The conversation is closed.’
But Billie’s steam is now up, and during the next two weeks – carefully so as not to arouse suspicion – she slips into the curve of Rattray Street of an afternoon to watch these transactions with growing anticipation. Carriage boys they call themselves, not really urchins, mostly lads out for a chance – some toadying, others more deferential, all trying to outdo the other as boys do.
Strategy, cunning and ambition combine in a pantomime so quick that sometimes their customers are unsure of the transaction. In and out of alleys, shooed off by shopkeepers, frowned at or ignored by shoppers and passers-by, and tolerated by their hapless customers. The objective is to secure a buggy turning off Princes Street into the wide arc of Rattray Street, where smart buildings accommodate professionals in their chambers on the upper storey and merchants on the ground floor. The tactic is to appear after a shrill whistle from the corner boy and to monitor the buggy’s progress until it stops and the boy who works his allocated square yards moves in: ‘Greetings, sir, madam, allow me to assist you down … take your valise … open the door … ’ or similar lively words. And in reverse as the individual reappears from chambers, rooms or shops.
There is nothing wrong, nor is there anything right about the service; it is just another entrepreneurial scheme that does not request a fee but hopes for one anyway. For surely the act is more of a gentleman’s manservant or a lady’s maid, to ease their way? And if the act receives a gratuity, all to the good.
It is in witnessing this performance that Billie decides it certainly must be her mission.
‘Mother Meg, you are working so hard and our Alf is mostly agreeable, and I know I must do more than go to school and come home again. You can set me more tasks here, I’m sure, but how I wish to earn some money. They say it is to be had like gold in Rattray Street where the people coming by carriage or walking to their work are helped by the boys, opening doors and such. Oh, Mother Meg, I would so love to be a door boy!’
‘Hush at once, child, you shall not be a door boy. Or any boy. You are a girl, and with your lovely long hair to prove it. Be done! The subject is closed!’
The subject may be instructed by Meg to be closed, but Billie searches for an idea to convince her without incurring a ban on its development. She shall walk down to Rattray Street to consider the activities more closely. Tomorrow.
She heads up into Clarke Street the next morning as usual. But then she runs down High Street, scoots through Farley’s Arcade and crosses into Rattray Street. The thoroughfare is buzzing with merchants, businessmen and ladies. She walks casually along its length and back, stops to glance into shop windows as a customer would. The boys are not overt. There are a few playing marbles which is a challenge on the sloping, rutted street, or shove-ha’penny on an improvised board, and it is not until there is a hint of business that more appear from out of nowhere and action begins.
From her casual station in a doorway further up the road Billie watches, notes and calculates. She senses herself rising above the activities, hovering and looking down upon it, the same feeling she has often experienced since the fire, and it is from this position she can analyse more easily. She finds she can keep this snapshot in her mind well after she has left the scene, which gives her the opportunity of reviewing her thoughts.
But although watching lays the foundation of how the activities take place, Billie knows it would be better to talk to a boy face-to-face. Not an easy proposition, for what rough lad would wish to talk with a girl when he has other more challenging things to do? She has assessed their personalities, at least from a surface perspective, and makes her move on a lad whose part-native face and subtle methods attract her.
She is not wrong. The boy touches his cap and answers, ‘Yes, miss?’ when she calls to him.
‘I say, did you make some change today? I’ve been watching for a little while, and it looks a clever game.’
‘You’ve been here for more than a little while, ae? Why are you hanging around?
‘Hanging! No, I – yes, perhaps I have been here for a little time, haven’t I? I believe the time passed quickly. But I was – I might as well say it, I was wondering how I could join you and make some coin.’
‘Join us! But you are a girl and no doubt are cutting school, ae. I can see that your boots and coat aren’t meant for hard graft. No girls allowed, miss,’ concludes the lad and makes to move away. ‘Though it is a game for most of us and better than school, ae!’
Billie has another ace up her sleeve. ‘What’s your name, please? And how would a boy join up anyhow? Because, you see, I know my brother wants to, and I said I’d ask about if I was passing by.’
‘The name’s Tama. “Passing by,” you say?’ and he grins with the confidence of his nine years to Billie’s six. ‘Well, all a boy would do is arrive on the street. Then he’d get provoked to see how he’d take it. We’d send him on errands, like to get a bucket of elbow grease or some striped paint, or josh him to see how he takes it. I’d bet your brother wouldn’t be up to it, no disrespect, ae?’ And the boy speeds off to assist another customer.
Billie has spent more than two hours watching and absorbing Rattray Street’s busy activities. She has been here before with Mama, but even though it is very close to the Maclaggan Street gully, its fine buildings and clientele are a world away from her own. Yet there is something about this fine part of town that she is innately drawn to. She will try another day.
She skirts along into Canongate, up and up until the cottages became sparse, and cuts through into upper High Street and arrives at the schoolhouse. She pulls on her pinafore and explains to Miss Kerr that she was obliged to be of service to her guardian. In response, the bitter teacher cracks her across the shoulders with the ever-active cane, then sends her to a corner to stand for the rest of the morning. Billie hears the woman droning and chiding, and rapping at the blackboard, but no matter.
Her mind is on Rattray Street, and the way that money works.
Chapter Seventeen
Billie determines that her only obstacle is how to look like a boy. For two weeks she scrutinises the Abbeyleix’s young guests; getting into conversation with lads is not difficult when she can offer a marble for swaps. But no lad is prepared to incur his mother’s wrath by handing over his shirt and trousers. Most are new arrivals with one set on their body and the rest – if any – in trunks ready for the onward journey.
She is flummoxed for longer than she expects, though she thinks long and hard. ‘Thinking it through is eighty percent of the success,’ she recalls Alf saying when preparing for a session of bartering with Benjamin Solomon. Yes, Mr Solomon! She must go to Mr Solomon’s shop, and see what comes of it.
Jewellery is displayed in the window case, interesting items inside the door, and towards the rear are the more unremarkable objects where she might find just the thing. But how does she pay for the transaction once she finds her goods? That, she decides, must be decided ‘in due course’, as Mama says – used to say. And in due course she does find worn gabardine trousers that would hold up with twine when cut off at her boots, and a flannel shirt that would tuck in well. Alf will surely have an old cap that will take her tucked-up hair and she shall weave a story for Meg so that she will cobble everything up to fit.
She weaves her tale for the pawnbroker: she is helping a poor boy who lives on her street. Ben Solomon smiles but is impervious. He only requires payment. Billie has eleven pence; the cost is three shillings.
‘Three shillings? Oh, I can never get three shillings, Mr Solomon, but I can let you have –’ she calculates ‘– let you have one half-shilling a week if you will allow me to take them now.’
‘One shilling a week makes three weeks and they are yours then and not before, my dear,’ replies the proprietor, used to hard-luck stories. He has a business to run, even if his friend Alf has done much trade ov
er the years, with Billie at his side.
‘One shilling a week for some poxy old clothes! No, that’s far too much, but I could – maybe – pay you two shillings soon, and you will be rid of the smelly things.’
‘Three shillings it is, my dear.’
‘Two shillings and – and a currant loaf.’
Ben Solomon is nonplussed: the girl bargaining like an old pro, and with a look that could melt your resolve if you let it. ‘A currant loaf, a currant loaf? You are a one! Well, my dear, I can’t resist a currant loaf. But it will be two shillings and sixpence and a currant loaf. Do we have a deal?’
‘Two shillings and a currant loaf and – ’ Billie wills a solution into her mind ‘ – and I’ll teach you how to play Old Maid.’
‘Old Maid, you say? I can’t resist the opportunity to learn to play Old Maid! So here is my final offer, my dear: two shillings and a currant loaf and a game of Old Maid. Are we agreed?’
‘Agreed, Mr Solomon. Here is eleven pence down and I shall take the things now, wrapped up properly if you please, and it’s a pleasure doing business with you.’ She remembers how Alf concludes a deal.
‘Ay-yay-yay!’ The trader has never let an item go before it is paid up in full value. He turns and dives behind the inner door to silently release the dam of laughter that has been building up during this most peculiar transaction. He’d believed he had seen it all before, but this is one out of the box! But, he reflects as his convulsions subside, remembering the times Alf brought his small charge into his shop, Isuppose I could see it coming; a right little madam. He shall say only one thing more to his customer.
‘That poor boy must be very special to have such a kind bargain made on his behalf.’ His dark eyes twinkle as he hands over the goods.
Billie casts hers down; she learns it is not always necessary to embroider the truth. She lifts her chin and smiles in return. ‘Mr Solomon, it is you who are most kind.’
She has made thirteen pence by brushing footwear at the bottom of High Street. At one farthing for a pair, Billie has had plenty of custom and is amazed at the ease in obtaining it. She only need ask and the customers will give, but of course shoe-cleaning is a continuous requirement in this dust-or-muck town – ‘Mud-Edin’ as it is often known. She wonders if it would be easier than Rattray Street, but then again, sitting on an old box and buffing boots would not be nearly as much of a challenge.
It is three weeks since Billie negotiated her deal and brought the items home to be altered. She has paid Mr Solomon in full and waits with restraint for Mother Meg to finish cutting down the trousers and the shirt, and taking a tuck in one of Alf’s old caps for ‘a boy about my size who has none’.
Meg’s weary body sleeps soundly after her long day’s skivvying and she usually does not waken until 5 o’clock when it is time to get up and make her way to the kitchen. But this night something makes her wake and sit up in bed. A thief? A sleepwalker? With the ever-present memory of fire and how quickly that monster can rage through wooden dwellings consuming everything in its way, she casts her eye on the sleeping Alf and groans herself out of bed. She warily opens the bedroom door into the upper hallway. Everything appears normal; snores emanate from the bedrooms but otherwise nothing extraordinary touches her senses.
Until she sees a flicker of light under the cramped room that is Billie’s, who sleeps there alone unless the establishment is packed to the rafters and another child needs a cot. Fire! Oh, no! Please, my Lord, not again! Save us in our hour of need! Horrified, Meg hurls herself at the door and wrenches it open.
Billie is standing beside her bed with her candle flickering from its jar on the floor. Mercy me, mercy me, all is well – only a candle flame! But what in Heaven’s name is she doing standing there with a pair of dressmaking shears up to her head and a chunk lopped off?
‘What the blue blazes?! Ye gods and little fishes – what are you doing? You mad, wicked girl!’ Meg lets forth a torrent of oaths and grabs the shears. She clutches Billie close and then shakes her and cries with relief and anger all at the same time.
‘My hair needs to be short,’ is all Billie will say, after Meg has shooed away an anxious guest and all is again calm.
‘Short? Hair? In the middle of the night? I think you must be sleepwalking. There-there, oh, mercy me, you are not wicked at all, it’s just a dream, there-there,’ and she lays Billie down and smooths her tresses. ‘Beautiful, lovely hair. To think that you were going to cut it all off! Now go to sleep, my little love and tomorrow shall be another day.’ Meg returns to her bed but cannot sleep any more that night.
Billie scrunches up her mouth in review of the drama and before falling asleep herself, decides she must not distress Meg again, and shall revert to the notion of pulling her awkward mane up to fit tightly under the cap. Because tomorrow after school she shall go down to see the carriage boys.
She sets out and slips into the stables at rear of the hotel where her boy-clothes are stored; the transformation is remarkable when the roughly adjusted cap clamps up her hair. She runs down to the Rattray Street corner. From that point she walks purposefully up to a group of three boys and states, ‘I would like to join you in assisting people from their carriages.’
The boys blink at her, at each other, then throw back their scrawny heads and roar with laughter. ‘You do, do you? Assisting people from their carriages, ha ha. Well, sonny, you can hop it, because this here street is ours. Get away with you!’
‘I should like to join,’ insists Billie, ‘if you show me the rules.’
‘Show you the rules?’ sneers one.
‘I’ll show you the rules!’ mocks another. ‘This is rule number one – ’ he pokes her in the chest ‘ – and this is rule number two.’ He pokes her again. ‘Now get off our street!’
‘Your street? I think not,’ replies a startled Billie who, with all her bright ideas, has not thought about rejection.
‘Did ya hear that? “I think not, I think not”? Oh, la-de-da I must say!’ jeers a third.
‘But please tell me how I may join you. I really do want to earn coin as a carriage boy and I shall only come in the afternoons to learn the trade.’
‘Learn the trade? Carriage boy – what do you think of that, lads? Pipsqueak here wants to learn the trade! Ha ha ha! Now get off before I thump ya.’
In a slippery moment, more boys close in. They have all gone through their initiation and know the format.
‘But I would like to join you and I shall come only in the afternoons, maybe not every afternoon.’
‘Hark at it – “shall come only in the afternoons” – and what about the rest of the day, eh, eh?’ Another poke confronts Billie’s chest.
‘Look at yer, half a jar of piss gone flat!’
‘Sweetie likkle fing, betcha still suckin’ on mama’s titty.’
‘Sooo precious! Let’s see ya dance and say pretty please!’
‘Go home to your stupid mama!’
Billie’s senses jolt. These boys know nothing of her Mama – how dare they speak so? She will not back away now. She can hear her Mama saying, ‘I daresay you shall get your way, my dear, for you don’t whine and beg; you just stay fast.’
‘If you will not allow me to join you and learn, then please tell me why?’ she persists.
‘Vis is why!’ comes a roar from a larger lad who has lumbered into the fray and his hand flies at her face, intending to push but succeeding in knocking her to the ground. She lies dazed for a moment, a scarlet stream running down her pale face, while others tackle the offender and there is a buzz of dissension against him.
Slowly she stands back up, eyes clouding over like a storm coming up the bay, held-back tears producing a strange shine. Those eyes, so queerly topaz and yet so strangely flint, are on a level of the boy’s chest, but they tip back fearlessly, unwavering. Tiger eyes.
‘You’re just a great big bully.’
‘Vat’s what I’m called: Bully Barnes. So if you don’t ’op it – ’
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‘A bully – with no testicular fortitude!’
‘You what?! You what?! You – ah, er – ’
The full impact of Billie’s glare forces a disconcerted Bully Barnes to lower his own. Before his slow brain can react another boy moves to the fore. Although he is small and wiry, it is apparent by his stance and demeanour that he is not the youngest. He is clearly the leader, a posture of a young fellow.
His black hair is slicked and his eyes are like blue apothecary glass; Irish eyes. With a twisted grin he says, ‘What have we here? Sure, ’tis a chancer who stands up to Bully! A turn-up for da books. What’s yer name, boyo?’
‘Billie.’
‘Billy, you say? And how old are ye?’
‘Seven. Well, seven very soon.’
‘Ye’ve bollocks and no mistake. But come back when ye’re seven and I’d say we might give ye a go. What do you say, lads? Da usual trial when he’s seven?’
All boys shout the affirmative. In any case, what Tinks Toomey says is what Tinks Toomey gets.
‘Actually, I’m seven – tomorrow,’ Billie improvises, knowing her birthday is months away, but quickly convincing herself that this advance is only a white lie, and is for the greater good.
‘Well, “ac-tu-ally” ye’re a chancer, I must say, but da first t’ing you should know is, if you’re after bein’ seven tomorra, you orta said so! We don’t want no babies around here, do we, lads?’
Tinks allows himself a haughty smile to the chorus of his minions. He then moves very close to Billie. His eyes drill down into her pale face. For the first time in her life Billie feels undone. Feels strange – not afraid – yet uneasy; daunted.
But she stands firm and her gaze doesn’t waver, until he finally says, ‘Bold, is it? Sure, wit’ a face like yours who would argue? Let’s see whacha made of, so. Report to me tomorra for me instru-chens. No, Bully – ’ he extends an arm to his minder ‘ – I’ll deal with dis recruit meself. Dis one will need partic-ilar attention.’
