‘It wasn’t my fault,’ said the doctor. ‘London is in need of some repair.’
The girl taking the tincture did not look in the least bit surprised by the doctor’s appearance. She had not seen the old Dr Swift with his polished boots and cufflinks. Having come with no great expectation other than hope, she thought on the whole things could have been worse.
‘Don’t breathe a word,’ the girl whispered to Jane, ‘but the man was married, and I’m still seeing the handsome scoundrel, on and off.’
Jane appeared understanding, but she had other things on her mind, like those small hand-shaped shadows that came waving in her dreams every night, or the noise of babies crying, or the muted whoops of a schoolyard that hung in the air at midnight. She had thrown the doll’s eye into the back of a moving ash cart, where it had sent a little puff of grey into the air, and in her dreams she saw it sitting in the dust, hatching like an egg into other, smaller eyes.
Leaving the doctor to sleep it off in one of the empty bedrooms, Jane went into the kitchen where Nell made them tea.
‘Look at this,’ said Nell, holding out a sheet of paper and smoothing it straight on her skirt. ‘It came yesterday.’
It was a very brief note from Miss Silverwood, now living in the Clifton area of Bristol. ‘Nell,’ said the note. ‘Watch the doctor. He is getting to be a danger. Write to me AT ONCE if you are worried.’
‘And are you worried?’ asked Jane.
‘Yes,’ said Nell, reaching for the teapot, ‘but not enough to lose my livelihood for it.’
Walking home, Jane found the doctor something of an embarrassment. The way he constantly tripped over himself, dropping his bag, dithering outside a pie shop, staring at the menu board, licking his lips so lasciviously the pie-man came out and made him move along.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ said Jane.
‘Just a little thirsty,’ he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the fraying end of his coat sleeve. ‘We’ll stop off at the Cock and I’ll treat you to a glass of their finest lemonade.’
The public house was quiet. Most of its regular drinkers were out in the yard, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, throwing dice and taking bets on the outcome. Ned’s preacher was sitting in a booth scratching at his sermon.
Jane sat near the empty fireplace as the doctor slid his way towards the barman. She felt nervous. The smell of stale beer made her think of the other public houses she had visited, looking for her parents. She had waited with Agnes on the back steps of the Pilot for hours. The landlady had taken pity on them. She had brought them a bite to eat, a slice of pie and a sweet juicy pickle, knowing the girls would starve at home, where the cupboards often held nothing but a few empty gin bottles and a tin of Zebra grate polish.
The doctor appeared with a large glass of brandy, a mug of ale, and Jane’s lemonade. ‘Is someone else coming, sir?’ she asked, looking at the door.
‘No one.’ The doctor slid the glass towards her. ‘I told you I was thirsty. I’ll take the ale to slake the thirst, and then I’ll drink the brandy for the taste.’
Jane sipped her lemonade as the doctor wiped his foamy mouth across his coat sleeve. She frowned. What had happened to the man who had been most particular about his appearance? The man who wore cord and silk cufflinks and sandalwood cologne? Who sometimes pushed a flower into his buttonhole, a gesture that had always delighted the girls, because who would have thought that kind of doctor would appear so smart and gentrified?
‘Have you caught anything recently, sir?’ said Jane.
‘Have I what?’ He looked puzzled for a moment, but then he shook his head. ‘No, it has been a very poor summer season.’
Jane turned to look at the sky through the window, then she yawned very loudly. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she reddened.
‘It’s the heat,’ he said, now yawning himself. ‘And as you can see, yawning is highly contagious.’
‘I am very tired, sir,’ she admitted. ‘I can’t sleep at all for having the most terrible dreams and notions.’
‘What notions?’
‘Like someone might be watching me.’
The doctor glanced behind him. ‘Who?’ he said. ‘Are you being followed?’
‘Oh no, sir, not followed. It is more like an imagining, sir. More … like a ghost.’
‘A ghost?’ The doctor looked thoughtful. ‘Would you like some sound advice?’ he said. ‘Tell your ghost to go away. Whoever they are, and whatever they are doing, you must tell them to leave you well alone.’
Jane looked surprised. The doctor hadn’t laughed at her. ‘Do you think it will work, sir?’ she asked.
‘Most definitely. I have read about such things.’
‘Then I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Now, this would help you sleep,’ he said, rattling around in his pocket for more brandy money. ‘And it would help ease the aching in your bones.’
‘No thank you, sir,’ she said. ‘I don’t care for alcohol, though I have drunk wine, and I’ve tasted a drop of champagne.’
‘Champagne?’ he smiled. ‘And how?’
‘My father was working at Epsom, and when one of the horses won a big race, the owner bought champagne, and Pa went and swiped it.’
‘Is he in prison?’
‘No sir, Kent.’
As the doctor polished off another glass of brandy, the preacher came to life, rattling his papers. From the window, Jane could see a girl with Ned’s sign around her shoulders. What was she doing? For a moment, she thought about asking the preacher, though when she saw his sorry state – his rolling eyes, his thick red beard stained with tobacco and hanging into his beer pot – she thought better of it. The sign looked too heavy for the girl’s narrow shoulders. When Jane stepped outside she could see the girl was small, perhaps ten years old, though in a certain light her face looked drawn and ancient. Her mud-coloured hair had been tied into plaits with string. She had a stain on her dress like a handprint.
‘Where’s Ned?’ asked Jane.
The girl looked startled, but then her face began to change. ‘Are you the cripple Jane? I’m Susannah, Ned’s sister. He’s ill,’ she said. ‘Is that your doctor?’ She pointed at Dr Swift, now holding onto the doorframe as he placed one boot very carefully onto the next step down. ‘Could he come and see Ned?’
‘He’s not that sort of doctor.’
‘But we’re desperate. We’ll see any doctor, as long as they’re charitable.’
‘He only sees women,’ Jane told her.
‘Well, apart from the obvious aren’t we all the same? Ned can hardly breathe. Lungs are something we both have, aren’t they? Even dogs have lungs.’
As the doctor picked his way towards them, holding tightly onto his bag, Susannah looked hopeful. ‘What have we here?’ he said. ‘“Believe in the Lord”? Well, we all need reminding now and then.’
‘My brother’s very sick, sir.’
‘And does he believe in the Lord?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, I am sure it must help.’
Susannah touched his coat sleeve. ‘Won’t you come and look at him, sir? We don’t live very far. We could be there in ten minutes.’
The doctor stepped backwards. ‘Impossible. Even if I had ten minutes. Jane will explain.’
‘That you only see women, sir?’
‘That’s right. I’m a very busy man. I’ve more girls to see this afternoon.’
‘I’ll do anything,’ she told him.
‘I’m sure you would, but between you and me, I’d be no more use than the rat-catcher.’
As the doctor stumbled towards home, Jane apologised, saying perhaps another doctor might be found, and she had heard some hospitals these days didn’t charge a penny.
‘Oh, we’ve tried to get a doctor, but it seems they’re all run off their feet, what with this heat bringing all sorts of nasty things off the river. A quack called Parker promised he would call yesterday. He never turned
up.’
‘Is Ned bad?’
‘He’s getting worse than bad,’ she said.
That night, Jane waited for the ghosts. She had steeled herself. Taking the doctor’s advice she would tell these bothersome spectres to leave her well alone. At first she sat with her arms folded. She practised looking meaningful and surly. When a girl appeared in the corner, Jane crumpled. The iridescent girl was dressed like a miniature nun. Jane tried to speak. Nothing came out; her folded arms were locked across her chest. When she looked across the room, the girl in the corner was pulling beads from her mouth, like a music-hall act, like the girl who pulled pennies from her throat. Eventually, Jane found a desperate inner strength. She moved her arms and pointed. ‘Go!’ she said. ‘Go away from this place. Leave me alone. All of you! Vanish!’ The girl looked at her. She held her gaze for a few seconds longer. Then she let the beads fall, and when the rosary hit the floor, bouncing and breaking, the girl disappeared. Jane lay back on the bed exhausted as the room warmed and settled.
The apothecary smiled.
Jane hesitated. ‘I have a friend who’s very sick,’ she said, looking not at the apothecary’s face, but at the counter. ‘It’s his breathing. The only thing is, sir, they haven’t any money. I wondered if you could give me some advice.’
‘There are many kinds of breathing problems,’ he said. ‘Sit down, Miss Stretch, and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘You’ll help, sir? Really?’
Reaching into a drawer, the apothecary pulled out a chart showing a picture of the lungs and all the complicated tubing. ‘Is he coughing?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
Running his finger down the pale pink windpipe, the Frenchman told Jane there were a dozen different coughs, some caused by irritations, such as coal dust, or a blockage. Or some were part of a threatening disease. ‘We will have to take a chance,’ he said, pulling out a beaker. ‘We will do what we can.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
He pursed his lips and shrugged. ‘Really,’ he said, ‘it’s nothing.’
Susannah was waiting for Jane at the Cock. Mr Beam’s Iris was sitting in the sunshine with a glass of milk stout. ‘I’ll look after your sign,’ she told them. ‘It might give my poor battered soul some nourishment.’
‘I can’t believe that Frenchie gave you something for nothing,’ said Susannah, as they walked into the depths of Seven Dials. ‘I mean, whoever would have thought it of a foreigner?’
The house they stopped at looked decrepit. ‘Home sweet home,’ said Susannah, stepping into a room so dark Jane had to squint to see anything.
‘I’ve brought medicine,’ Susannah told a moving heap of blankets which turned into her mother. ‘And he didn’t charge a penny for it.’
‘Give it here,’ the woman grunted, grabbing at the bottle. ‘Let me smell it. It might be arsenic for all we know.’
‘It came from a very good chemist.’
‘Did it now?’ The woman unplugged the bottle, sniffing long and hard. ‘Well it smells like medicine all right, but so did those drops we bought from the street doctor, and they made him worse.’
‘We’ll have to try it,’ said Susannah, pulling Jane by the arm. ‘Come upstairs with me. If he opens his eyes he might be glad to see you.’
Ned was lying on an assortment of old clothes and blankets. Jane could see an old sailor’s coat and a torn patchwork quilt. ‘You have a visitor,’ said Susannah. ‘And medicine from a real doctor’s chemist.’
‘Is the doctor here?’ he said. ‘Did he come?’
‘No, but he sent you this bottle, and you must take it now, because it’s a very good mixture and will help you.’
Ned began to cough. When the rattling subsided, Susannah put the bottle to his lips.
‘Tastes terrible.’
‘It’s supposed to.’
‘Who’s here?’
‘Jane.’
‘Jane?’ He looked surprised. ‘How you doing, cripple?’
‘Better than you,’ she said.
He laughed then started coughing. Susannah handed him a cup of water. ‘Jane got you the medicine,’ she said.
‘I might have known. It’s foul.’
‘Don’t be ungrateful.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It’s delicious. Like drinking sweet honey, it is.’
As she left, Jane told herself the medicine would have to make him better. The apothecary was clever. He was almost as good as a doctor. He knew about illness. He had rows of framed certificates. She pictured Ned when he was better. He would tap out tunes with his fingernails. His favourite comic song was about a girl stepping out with a monkey.
‘Have you heard it?’ he’d said. ‘There’s a part where the girl takes the monkey to the barber’s for a shave – it kills me every time.’
‘Does the monkey speak?’ she’d said. ‘Does the monkey know what the girl is saying?’
‘Jane, Jane, Jane!’ he’d laughed, shaking his head and clapping her on the shoulder. ‘It’s a song. It’s just a funny song. I mean, what girl on earth would step out with a monkey?’
Of course Jane had laughed with him. But then she thought about herself. She wondered if even a monkey would refuse to hold her miniature hand. London was a city full of cripples. They were everywhere. She had once counted more than twenty-five on Drury Lane alone. And though she usually turned her head when she saw another poor specimen trying to make their way down the street, occasionally she studied them. She looked at their hair. Their clothes. Were they laughing? Happy? Did they wear a wedding ring?
Eight
Before
Impressions
THE DAY THE Stretches moved above the locksmith’s, Arthur was in an optimistic mood. He had been asked by the landlord of the Kestrel to sing at his mother’s birthday party. ‘She’s from Cork,’ Arthur told the girls, who were amazed to find he’d hired a cart for the removal. ‘She wants to hear plenty of Irish ballads.’
‘From an Englishman?’ said Agnes.
The locksmith’s was a large corner establishment. When the cart pulled up, the locksmith’s wife, with two small boys in tow, came out to welcome the family. Ivy disliked her on sight. ‘What was that woman wearing?’ she said later. ‘A flag?’
Arthur soon left the unpacking. He was going to a poker game.
‘Well, remember where you live,’ Ivy warned him. ‘Perhaps I should tie your new address around your neck. Or perhaps I should let you get lost.’
‘I’m not a parcel,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I won’t be drinking. I’ll need all my wits for the game.’
Ivy was trying to find her saucepans when the locksmith’s wife came knocking on their door. She wondered if they’d like to step downstairs for a nice cup of tea.
‘My husband is out,’ said Ivy. ‘He has business to attend to.’
‘Then you and the girls must come. I’ve made a jam tart.’
Agnes sprang up. ‘We like jam tart,’ she said.
They were led into the shop. Jane was enthralled. Above their heads keys of all shapes and sizes hung in fat metal bunches. Shelves were filled with locks, tools and yet more keys. Some were minuscule. One was the size of Jane’s arm.
‘Hello, Ma.’ A boy in a thick blue apron stood behind a counter. He stared at Jane with more than a little curiosity, his mouth gaping, until his mother shot him a look and his jaw snapped shut.
They passed through a narrow curtained doorway and found themselves in a backroom. A fire was blazing. The locksmith was holding court with some unsavoury-looking characters.
‘Meet our new lodgers,’ said the locksmith’s wife. ‘This is my husband, Mr Baylis.’
Mr Baylis, wearing a leather apron and a squashed black hat, nodded, as did his friends. ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,’ said Ivy, with a sour expression.
In the kitchen, Mrs Baylis busied herself with the tea, while the family sat at the table and eyed up the raspberry jam tart. Jane looked around. The kitchen was large. She li
ked the jelly moulds, clinging onto the wall like crustaceans. Jars of rice and tapioca stood between jugs of yet more keys. Some of them looked rusty.
‘You do have a lot of keys,’ said Jane.
Mrs Baylis laughed. ‘Oh, I’m used to them now,’ she said, reaching for the tea caddy. ‘My father-in-law was a street locksmith, so there’s always been keys in the house. And they don’t just open things. Keys have all sorts of different uses.’
‘Like what?’ said Ivy, narrowing her eyes.
Cutting the tart into four oozing slices, Mrs Baylis told them that keys came in handy when babies were teething, or for curing the hiccoughs. She had used them as weights in her curtains and inside the hems of her dresses. ‘Though you do tend to rattle now and then.’ Her boys had spent hours tracing their shapes and colouring them in. ‘A strange but lovely man called Walsh buys them by the dozen. He’s an artist and he uses them in his pictures.’
‘Well, now I’ve heard it all!’ said Ivy, helping herself to the largest slice of tart.
Mrs Baylis asked them about their previous abode, and Ivy told her the truth. Their landlord had come into some money. He no longer wanted lodgers cluttering up his house. ‘It was a poky place,’ she sniffed. ‘We shan’t miss it for a minute.’
As they ate the tart and drank their tea, the boys reappeared, their eyes widening when they saw the empty plate. Jane wiped the crumbs from her chin. A few bitter seeds had stuck like bits of chaff between her teeth.
‘Here are my boys,’ said Mrs Baylis, ruffling the nearest one’s hair. ‘Oswald and Frankie. I also have Dicky, but he’s working in the shop. Dicky’s the eldest, he’s ten.’
‘Please can I have sixpence?’ asked Oswald, looking very put out.
‘And why do you need a sixpence?’ asked his mother.
‘Because I’m very hungry, and that’s the price of a tart.’
Ivy belched. Jane could feel herself blushing and Agnes started picking at her fingernails.
Little Bones Page 13
