A Glimpse at Happiness

by Jean Fullerton

  But two pounds, fifteen and six . . .

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, studying the sharp line of the shoulders.

  The supervisor’s encouraging expression faded a little.

  A smile spread across Brian’s freckled face. ‘I’ll tell you what, Pat, it won’t only be the local girls who’ll be giving you the glad eye.’ He winked. ‘I bet when a certain young lady catches sight of you looking like the dog’s naggers, she’ll wish she’d come back from America sooner.’

  Patrick slipped the jacket off and handed it to the assistant. ‘I’ll take it.’

  Patrick and Iggy Bonny stood on the stone quayside and surveyed Roy MacManus’s barge, the Mary Ann, lying half submerged in the ebbing tide. Inside its hull, Roy stood up to his knees in slurry, desperately packing cork into the damaged timber.

  Patrick had strolled down to the Mermaid’s mooring before sunrise and had arrived just before Iggy about half an hour ago.

  Ignatius Cassius Bonny, to give him his full name, had joined Patrick on the Sea Horse in Kingston ten years before. Sailing around the Cape in the teeth of icy winds and mountainous waves had soon cemented a friendship between this unlikely pair. Although Iggy was as dark as any other native African, his light green eyes and aquiline nose betrayed the other races that were part of his ancestry. When Patrick returned to London, Iggy declared himself finished with the roving life and had crewed the Mermaid with him ever since.

  He’d met and married Colly, a fair-skinned, red-haired Irish lass, and settled down in Tait Street, around the corner from the Nolans. Colly sold sweets in twists of newspaper to the local children from her front parlour window and presented Iggy annually with an infant - brown-skinned and red-haired, or with a buttermilk complexion and curly black hair, or some other exotic combination. Usually it was Iggy who was early, waiting on the dockside, but since Josie’s visit a few days ago, Patrick found himself awake well before dawn with a vision of her imprinted in his mind’s eye.

  Although the sun was barely up, the waterfront was already alive with dock labourers working under the direction of their masters, the men who oversaw the loading and unloading of the ships. Red-eyed night watchmen slowly made their way home, hunched with fatigue after a night on duty on ships and in warehouses. The slippery jetties were stacked high with crates and barrels awaiting the army of porters to take them into the warehouses standing tall along the docks.

  ‘Don’t you worry, chum, we’ll soon have her bobbing along good as new,’ one of the lightermen shouted down as he started unbuttoning his jacket.

  ‘This can’t go on,’ Patrick said, to rumbles of agreement on either side of him. ‘We all know that Roy told Ma Tugman to sling her hook and this is the result.’

  Bert Bunton, who was so ancient he could have sailed with Drake, slipped his cap off and wiped his forehead. ‘And much good it did him,’ he said, the leathery skin of his face creasing as he spoke. ‘All e’s got to show for it is a hull clogged with mud.’

  Patrick nodded. ‘That’s a fact, but a man can mend a boat. He can’t feed his family if he’s in prison, can he now?’

  Ezra Lennon, a regular in the Town of Ramsgate and one of the dock masters who gave out the daily work tickets, stepped forward. ‘Roy’s barge isn’t the first to be stoved in,’ he said. ‘Seth Morton’s Dolphin had its rigging cut and Conner’s had his sails ditched in the river. They’d told Ma to look elsewhere, too.’

  Bert’s rheumy eyes flickered into life. ‘That wot I’s saying - Ma and her boys will get you. I’ve been on this ’ere river over forty years, since I was a nipper. In me old dad’s time Popeye Wells and the Shadwell boys ruled, then it was Mad Corky and a dozen years ago Danny Donovan held sway. So if it weren’t the Tugmans, it would be some other fast crew. As I say, it is the way of the river.’

  ‘Only if we let it be,’ Patrick replied, in a voice that carried over the crowd. ‘You all know where I stand on the Tugmans, but I’m only one man. If we join together they won’t be able to pick us off one by one and they’ll have to move their pilfered goods some other way.’

  ‘What’s you saying?’ Ezra asked.

  ‘I’m saying that all of us who are interested should meet in the Town next Saturday and form an association,’ Patrick replied.

  Bert pointed a tobacco-stained finger at him. ‘You’re not one of those Chartists are you, Nolan?’ he asked. ‘Cos I ain’t marchin’ on Westminster. Not with my legs.’

  Patrick’s manner lightened a little. ‘No. I’m just after getting us to stand together against those who’re trying to take the bread out of our children’s mouths.’

  There were murmurs of agreement then, from the back of the crowd, a police officer in a navy, high-collared tailcoat and top hat, pushed his way through.

  The officer was shorter than Patrick and looked to be ten or so years older, with a girth that spoke of a man who did justice to his plate. He sported a fine pair of sideburns and a broad moustache. Stopping a foot or so in front of Patrick, he looked him up and down slowly.

  ‘Morning gentlemen. You planning a revolution like those frogs across the Channel then?’ he asked.

  ‘Someone’s taken an axe to Roy’s barge,’ Patrick replied, flicking his head sideways.

  The officer tucked his thumbs into his shiny belt and peered over the side of the quay. He tutted loudly then cast his eyes around the crowd of men. ‘Anyone know who did it?’

  No one spoke.

  The police were a fact of life and as such they were tolerated. They stopped runaway horses and pulled bodies from the river but they weren’t to be trusted. No one ever told them anything.

  A low-life who sneaked information to the constabulary wasn’t regarded favourably by the local population. The crowd shuffled away, and a few climbed down to help Roy bail out the Mary Ann. Within a couple of moments only Patrick and the officer remained.

  ‘It’s Pat Nolan, isn’t it?’ he asked, taking a pipe out from the front of his jacket. He stuck it in the side of his mouth and struck a Lucifer.

  ‘Aye,’ Patrick replied, not too sure he liked his name being known to the local peelers.

  ‘I’m Plant, Sergeant Plant.’ He drew on his pipe. ‘I heard you’re the one niggling at the Tugmans.’

  Ignoring the prickle of uneasiness creeping up his spine, Patrick gave the man an ingenuous smile. ‘Our paths have crossed.’

  ‘Harry and Charlie are a pair of wrong ’uns and no mistake. Especially Charlie; I reckon he’s got something missing up here.’ Sergeant Plant tapped his temple and Patrick was inclined to agree. ‘They’re almost as bad as that old mother of theirs but then they’d have to go some way to match her wicked streak.’

  Patrick wouldn’t have argued that one either but his expression remained impassive.

  Plant drew on the pipe and let a puff of smoke escape from the other side of his mouth. ‘I heard it was Harry who lifted the cargo from the Maid of Plymouth last week,’ he said.

  Patrick tried to look surprised. Plant studied him for a few more minutes then knocked the ash from his pipe before stuffing it back between his brass buttons. ‘Ah, well. If you do hear a whisper just come and find me. I’ve got an interest in the Tugmans’ business.’

  Hitching her basket on her hips, Josie followed her friend Sophie Cooper along Shorter Alley. True to her word, Josie had volunteered to help Sophie with her round of pastoral visits to the poor of the area, and they were making their way to one of the rundown areas just north of Cable Street. It was the last refuge of the destitute before they were forced onto the parish.

  Sophie’s father, the Quaker minister, believed that charity didn’t begin at home - as Mrs Munroe would have it - but at his ever open front door. Because of Mr Cooper’s tireless work in the dark alleyways and stews of the area, Sophie was also well known and respected and therefore never needed an escort.

  The shops and businesses that made their living from their proximity to the river were already halfway through their
morning by the time the two girls walked past, their baskets of provisions held tightly in their hands. It was hard enough to cross the road with the constant flow of heavy wagons rolling by in each direction, but it was also difficult to navigate their way along the pavement, which was equally busy. The shop frontages were piled high with open barrels and crates displaying the goods for sale, while young lads in long aprons that almost covered their toes stood on sentry duty against opportunistic pilfering.

  Between the shops, small businesses that supplied the ships in port with provisions were flourishing. Every other yard had miles of rope, some as thin as your little finger and some as thick as your wrist, coiled around overhead beams. Unwary passers-by lost hats or bonnets if they weren’t mindful of the hazards above them. The pungent smell of tar wafted out as ships’ pitch was boiled and barrelled, ready for loading. Behind bevelled window panes, watchmakers tinkered with sextons, nautical clocks, barometers and compasses.

  As they made their way past quartermasters ordering provisions and shopkeepers replenishing their displays, Josie told Sophie about her visit to Patrick’s house.

  ‘I can hardly believe it,’ Sophie said, her oval face a picture of concern.

  ‘Of course it was a bit awkward,’ Josie replied, as the little niggle of hurt settling around her breastbone jabbed at her again. ‘But, as I keep telling everyone, it was a long time ago.’

  ‘Well, at least you know why he didn’t return.’

  Yes, because he fell in love with someone else! Not that I give a jot.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Josie asked, turning the conversation away from Patrick. She stepped over a gutter full of a reeking, slushy brown mixture of something better not investigated too closely.

  ‘Seven Street,’ Sophie replied. ‘There’s a young widow there with two children under five. Her husband fell in the East India dock and was crushed between the dock and the ship’s hull.’

  ‘When Mr Arnold, my stepfather’s apprentice, came to dinner last week he told us about men killed and injured in the dock.’ Josie said. ‘He said that drink was one of the contributing factors, which gave Mrs Munroe the perfect opportunity to launch into one of her tirades about the evils of inebriation.’ Josie, who had already unburdened herself to Sophie about Mrs Munroe’s visit, added, ‘I am surprised that she’s chosen to “give her life”, as she puts it, to the poor, as it seems that almost everything they do or say disgusts her.’

  Two women in faded gowns and knitted shawls stepped back as they passed and, out of the corner of her eye, Josie saw them nudge each other and point at her bonnet and gown. They turned left onto Elizabeth Street, where a dog with patches of mange on his hind quarters barked half-heartedly, lifted its leg and squirted urine up the wall, leaving a dark patch on the brickwork. On one side of the alley a couple of muddy pigs scratched about behind an improvised barricade. Sophie stopped in front of an old door that had once been cornflower blue but now only had a few flecks of the paint left on the panels.

  ‘Try not to be too shocked,’ Sophie urged, as she pushed the door open with her gloved hand.

  Josie nodded, thinking that her old home in Anthony Street was surely not much different from the one she was about to enter.

  Sophie stepped inside and Josie followed her down the narrow passage to the back of the house. Something scurried by her foot and she jumped.

  Don’t be silly, it’s only a mouse, she thought; a rat would have stood its ground.

  Upstairs, heavy boots stomped across bare floorboards. A man’s voice grumbled while a child grizzled. Sophie pushed open the scullery door.

  ‘Mrs Purdy, it’s only m—’

  Josie collided with her friend who was frozen to the spot. Looking over Sophie’s shoulder, she saw that the room was sparsely furnished, if furnished could describe a three-legged table, a milking stool and an upright chair. A pile of rags that had once been blankets were folded in one corner but there was no bed. Beside the empty fire grate an upturned fruit box lined with a knitted shawl served as an improvised cot. On the table was a plate and a broken-handled cup, half a loaf of dry bread and a jug with bluebottles hovering above it.

  In the centre of the earth floor stood a pale and thin young woman of about twenty with a baby in her arms and a little girl clinging to her skirt. She stared at the two newcomers with a mixture of relief and dread on her emaciated face. Something caught Josie’s eye to her right and she turned to see a familiar figure.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Tugman,’ Sophie said, with a slight tremble in her voice.

  The misshapen figure, dressed in what looked like old rags, turned around. Josie found herself facing the same horrid woman whose slovenly son had manhandled her on the day when she’d met Patrick. The fury surged up in Josie as she remembered their first encounter. She gave the old woman a withering look.

  A flicker of recognition passed over Ma Tugman’s grimy face as she glanced up at Josie.

  ‘Call me Ma, Miss Cooper, everyone else around here does,’ she drawled, scratching a finger through her tangled, oily hair. ‘And you have the pretty Miss O’Casey with you.’

  ‘You’ve met Ma Tugman?’ Sophie exclaimed, a look of alarm on her rosy face.

  ‘I have,’ Josie replied.

  Amusement flickered across Ma’s face and then she thumped her chest and coughed noisily. ‘Well, Meg, you have better company than me calling on you, so I’ll not intrude.’

  A too-bright smile spread over Sophie’s face. ‘Oh, don’t leave on our account; we can always come back another time,’ she said in tight voice. ‘Can’t we, Miss O’Casey?’

  Josie looked across at Meg, whose whole demeanour screamed terror, and then to the child staring at the basket on her arm. She couldn’t have been more than four, with dirty, worn clothes, no more than rags, covering her thin body. Her bare feet were almost as black as the floor she stood on. There were scabs at the corners of her mouth and her legs were already bowing with rickets.

  Josie thought of her brother Joe, only a little older. She swept past her friend and swung her basket onto the table.

  ‘The children look too hungry to wait,’ Josie said, turning her back on the old woman.

  She unpacked the fresh bread and milk before her friend could argue. Ignoring the traces of grease on the plate, she set out the bread and poured some milk into the cup.

  She held her hand out to the small girl at her mother’s skirts who, after the briefest hesitation, ran to the table and snatched up a hunk of bread. She crammed it in her mouth, slurping milk at the same time. Ignoring Sophie, who was glaring at her, Josie turned to Ma Tugman.

  Fury passed briefly across the old woman’s face before it cracked into an artificial smile. ‘What a good heart you have, Miss O’Casey.’

  Ma crossed the room and ran a black-nailed index finger slowly down Meg’s cheek. The young woman flinched. ‘Charity all well and good, but it’s me who can put food in your brats’ mouths, regular like. Your friend Lucy’s living like a queen since she took up with my Charlie. You’d be wise to study her and see where your best interests lie.’

  She lurched back across the floor and stopped in front of Josie, exuding a smell of unwashed body and gin. ‘Oh, and Miss O’Casey, when you see your friend Patrick Nolan tell him I was asking after him.’

  She shuffled out of the door, banging it shut behind her.

  Sophie put her basket on the table next to Josie’s. ‘I feel rather faint,’ she said, fanning her hand in front of her face.

  ‘What on earth is the matter?’

  ‘That was Ma Tugman,’ Sophie said.

  ‘So I understand,’ Josie replied, leading Meg to the chair and handing her one of the small meat pies Mrs Woodall had sent with her.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Sophie said.

  ‘Ma controls everything below Commercial Road and from Limehouse Dock to New Gravel Lane,’ Meg explained. ‘Including the lighthorse men who rob the ships and the heavyhorse ones who move the stolen goods u
p river. She also runs most of the brothels up Rosemary Lane. Keeps the girls hungry and charges them rent for their clothes and room.’

  Josie stroked a stray lock of fair hair out of the little girl’s eyes then looked at Meg. ‘That’s what she was offering you, Meg, a chance to earn some money in one of her stews?’

  Meg nodded.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ Josie told her. ‘We’ll find you some work, won’t we, Miss Cooper?’

  ‘Of course we will,’ Sophie replied, although she looked less than certain.

  ‘It’s not just Ma who shoves her weight around,’ Meg said. ‘There’s those boys of hers, Harry and Charlie and the Boatman gang headed by that weasel, Ollie Mac. Between them they have a penny out of every till and cashbox.’