Gaslight

by Mark Dawson

  HARRY AND GEORGE lived in the same lodging house in Little Italy. It was a smoke-dim slum that sprawled between Clerkenwell and Holborn, a graceless wilderness where the kips and spikes thronged with vagabonds, beggars, criminals and brasses, where whole families could be submerged forever and where, down darkened alleyways where policeman would only patrol in pairs, you could get your throat cut as easily as a ship on the South China Sea. The housing stock was old and decrepid, cruel-looking and dark, the floors of the terraces divided into flatlets and single rooms. London brick that had once been rosy red was now stained with smut and smog, browning cards advertising “apartments” stood against the dirty glass in nearly all of the ground floor windows, dingy lace curtains fell helplessly behind them. Mrs. Weaver, their landlady, specialised in rooms for ‘single gentlemen’ and female visitors were strictly forbidden. She offered bed-sitting-rooms with gaslight included, heating and baths costing extra. Meals were included, too, served in the staid dining room with horse brasses on the walls and porcelain models of horses on the dresser. The meals were stodgy and often cold but neither brother, although resented them bitterly, had the financial wherewithal to turn up his nose. They paid twenty-seven and six shillings a week each for the privilege of staying there.

  George fumbled with the lock on the front door and then disappeared inside with the bags of swag. They would stow them there overnight and then bring them to the meeting with the fence that they had arranged for the morning. Now, though, they both needed a drink. The thought of his cold, womanless bedroom sickened him and he wanted to put it off for as long as he could. And, after all, they were celebrating! The pubs would be full and noisy and busy with life and didn’t they deserve a drink? Harry waited for him on the street outside. He jingled the pathetic collection of coins in his pocket. He couldn’t wait to get some proper, real cash. He was twenty-five and he had accomplished precisely nothing. He consoled himself that a man could judge his success by any number of means: happiness could be derived from family and from friends, for example, and, on those scores, he considered himself fortunate. But, however many times he tried to fool himself to the contrary, he knew the truth. Money and status were the only measures that really counted. That was the means by which all men were judged. For after all, what is there behind success except money? You needed money. Money greased the wheels, opened doors, lubricated your passage through life from cradle to grave. Money for a proper education, money for friends, money for the trappings that spoke of success and power, money for security and a better life. On that score, the only one that really counted for anything, the ledger of Harry’s life was in the red.

  He had tried to persuade himself that the war had interrupted his career but that was a lie: there was no career to be interrupted. Their father was a clock-maker, arriving from Piedmont in 1888 and sending for his wife and children when his little shop in Hatton Garden had become moderately successful. The shop was still there today but following in his footsteps was not something that filled either of his sons with any enthusiasm. Harry was bright but he had been a lazy student and he had left school with no qualifications or prospects. He had drifted around on the fringes of the underworld for a year and then, as the assassination of that Austrian prince had thrown the world into chaos, he had accepted his call-up papers with equanimity. He had reported for duty not because of any sense of patriotism, rather that he had nothing else to do and the prospect of gallivanting across foreign fields sounded like an adventure. He would be fed and warm, they’d teach him plenty of useful skills and, most of all, they had promised in the papers that it would be quick and easy. If he had had an inkling of the things that he had seen and done in the service of the King then, perhaps, he might have approached the matter with the same slippery attitude that his brother had displayed.

  He chased the glum thoughts away. Now, though, there was hope. How much could they get for the gear they had lifted? Thirty quid, surely? Forty, maybe, if they were lucky? Dare they hope for fifty? The money was yet to be paid but already his imagination was racing away with itself. He imagined girls’ faces, bottles of expensive wine, as much beer as he could drink and as many fags as he could smoke, a brand new suit and his overcoat out of hock. He could almost feel the rough texture of the crisp, crackling one pound notes between his fingers. The sharpness of the edges. He could almost smell the paper.

  The Griffin was in Saffron Hill, not far from their lodgings. The pub was full and noisy. Three women, as chunky as the beer mugs in their hands, stood outside the side door, talking. From within came hoarse voices, the smoke of cigarettes, the acrid fume of ale. The street door had a frosted glass pane, a heavy brass handle and a brass inscription that said ‘Saloon Bar and Lounge.’ Harry led the way into the noisy clamour. The Saloon Bar was oblong and squat, about twenty feet in length and ten feet wide. Dead ahead was the bar itself, a series of bottles arrayed across glass shelves and two beer bumps for the dispensing of ale. On the left was a row of copper-topped tables set against a continuous wooden bench which went the whole length of the bar. The windows were opaque with steam, little rivulets of water running down to the sills. Hard benches, stale beer-stink and brass spittoons. Noise and violent colour. It was quite a place.

  To the right, the Saloon Bar opened out into the Saloon Lounge. This was another large room, with a handful of wicker-and-glass tables that were attended to by white wicker armchairs. The walls were lined with antique pewter pint pots on hooks and a series of prints that depicted historic engagements of the British military; there was a fireplace with a well tended fire; the floor was of bare boards, scattered over with sawdust in places. There was a third Public Bar around the other side of the building and, through the Saloon Lounge, there was the Private Bar.

  Harry paused. The air seemed damp with beer and the atmosphere was polluted with a thick fug of smoke from innumerable cigarettes, cigars and pipes; it hung in the air like a slowly shifting fog. The bar thronged with a scrum of customers, hurriedly downing their drinks and ordering replacements before last orders were called. The landlady, a tall austere woman with a severe black fringe, looking for all the world like the Madame of a brothel, stood behind the bar, her meaty forearms crossed, watching a game of darts between three labourers. George gave him half a crown; Harry slid between the drinkers, jostled and elbowed as he traversed the busy room. He found a space between a navvy drinking Guinness and a middle-aged man with a fuzz of thinning hair and a husky voice who, quite incongruously, burst into song at seemingly random intervals. The bar was laden with platters of stale ham and beef sandwiches, arrowroot biscuits and cheese, prawns and sardines on toast. None of it looked appetising. It had probably been there all day. Harry slid the half crown into a puddle of spilt ale.

  “Two pints of bitter, please.”

  “We haven’t any more pint pots,” cried the harassed barmaid, measuring out a dram of whisky with one eye on the clock. She was a pretty thing, neat and tidy, couldn’t have been much older than sixteen, with long dark hair that set off a perfect, porcelain-white complexion. Italian blood, for sure.

  “I’ve just put half a dozen pots on the top shelf, Bella!” shouted the landlady over her shoulder.

  Bella handed the whisky to a man to her left and then swiped down two tin pint pots. She hauled the pump three times for each, filling them to the brim with frothing ale. She passed them along the bar. Harry winked at her and put one of the pots to his lips. The beer flowed easily down his gullet, refreshing despite the bitterness, and he felt the last frayed nerves from the burglary begin to fade away. He looked at her appraisingly: she was bright and pert and industrious, the recipient of the confidences and jokes and leers of the men she was serving. She had a sharp sparkle in her eyes. She knew how to take it and how to give it out.

  “Bella?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Short for Isabella?”

  “It is,” she said with forced diffidence; the twinkle in her eyes betrayed her.

/>   “Pretty name.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “Harry,” he said.

  “Not so pretty.”

  She offered her hand––slender, alabaster, delicate––and he took it.

  “Nice to meet you, Harry,” she said.

  “Bella!” the landlady screeched.

  “Got to get back to it. These buggers ain’t gonna serve themselves.”

  Harry shouldered his way past drunken revellers, beer sloshing over the lip of the pots and onto his trousers and shoes. A tinker had found his way into the Saloon Bar and was trying to sell as many bootlaces, studs, watches and necklaces as he could before the landlady saw him; but then she did, and with her strident voice rising effortlessly over the clamour, dismissed him with a curt “Not this side, please!”

  He had just handed the second pint to his brother when he heard, through the cascade of raucous noise, the barman’s shout: “Last orders, gentlemen, please!”

  He put the pint to his lips and took a long pull. George did the same. The beer fizzed in his throat, and because he was hungry it went a little to his head. Harry removed the pot from his face, exhaled in pleasure, and then drank down the rest. George had finished ahead of him and, grinning, he held up the empty pot. Harry crashed his against it, the collision ringing out, and laughed helplessly. It was relief, he knew, but it felt good. They would sell the gear tomorrow; even with the commission that the fence would surely charge they would be looking at a tidy sum of money.

  They were standing next to the door to the Private Bar. Harry became aware of it, and of the two men standing guard outside. A man approached and Harry watched as one of the guards stepped forwards to search him, running his hands along his arms and down his torso, reaching around and smoothing the back of his overcoat from belt to collar. Words were exchanged, curt words, but the guard appeared to be satisfied and the man was admitted inside. The ebb and flow of the thronged room moved the brothers a little to the left and afforded him a glimpse into the room. Harry saw a small group of men and, at the bar, he recognised one of them: Antonio Scarpello, the man that they had watched shaking down the tobacconist, earlier.

  “What’s that all about?” he shouted above the din to George.

  “That’s where he does his business. I told you––he’s Sabini’s man over here. He runs Little Italy and Soho.”

  “And father pays him?”

  “Everyone pays him.”

  “You haven’t tried to stop him?”

  George frowned, his face adopting a serious cast to it. “Are you paying attention, you clot? You don’t argue with men like that, not if you don’t want to get your throat cut. That’s how it’s always been.”

  “But he’s Italian? And he bothers other Italians?”

  “Sabini knows they have no-one to protect them. Why wouldn’t he take advantage?”

  4

  THE PUB GRADUALLY EMPTIED. Harry went back to the barmaid and charmed her into pouring another two pints while the landlord was in the Saloon Bar. The noisy din abated, the crowd started to thin and, eventually, the breeze through the open doors started to dissipate the cloying stench of sweat, flatulence and booze. Harry watched with wary curiosity as Antonio Scarpello and his friends came out of the Private Bar and made their way to the bar. Scarpello had changed clothes since they saw him that afternoon but he still looked like a strutting peacock: he was wearing a three piece navy and orange plaid suit, Edwardian cut, three high buttons and short peaked lapels, and a natté silk waistcoat with cloth covered buttons. He finished a conversation with one of the others, shrugged his overcoat over his shoulders and left, stepping out into the smoggy night beyond the doors.

  The others stayed, arraying themselves around the bar. They did not show any inclination towards leaving. One of the men started to talk to the barmaid who had served Harry.

  She looked uncomfortable.

  “You know him?” Harry asked.

  “Don’t get any stupid ideas,” George warned. “They’re all connected.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Monkey Benneworth. They call him Trimmer.”

  “Look at him,” Harry said. “He thinks he’s the cock of the walk.”

  “That’s because he is. Are you listening to me at all? He’s with Scarpello. And Scarpello is with Sabini.”

  “Bollocks.”

  It was obvious that Benneworth was trying to seduce Bella. She smiled at his jokes but her laughter was awkward, cramped and effortful. He laughed, a barking sound that accompanied his mouth curving upwards at the corners and his large nose seemingly about to disappear into it. He tried to charm her again, was politely rebuffed again, and then reached out and took the girl around the wrist.

  Harry put his pint down.

  George grasped him around the shoulder. “Harry,” he warned.

  With his other hand, Benneworth threw open the hatch and went behind the bar. Bella turned to face him, anger blackening her face and, as he leeringly said something else to her, she struck him across the face. The other men at the bar erupted into surprised laughter; Benneworth dropped her wrist and put his hand to his reddened cheek.

  Harry paused.

  Benneworth took a sudden step towards her and, before she could react, he flung out a hand, grabbed her dress around the neckline and yanked it clean off her body. She shrank away but there was nowhere for her to go. The men whooped in drunken approval.

  “That’s it,” Harry said.

  “Jesus Christ, Harry––”

  He collected the tin pint pot and strode purposefully towards the bar. One of the other men turned as he approached and, without breaking stride, Harry whipped the pint pot in a vicious hook that terminated just above the man’s right eyebrow. He dropped to the floor, a sudden rivulet of blood running down his forehead and soaking into the sawdust. The others started towards him but paused as they noticed George, as big as Harry and with the same murderous expression across his face. One of the men stepped into his path and George thumped him, a clubbing swipe that knocked him to his knees. Benneworth came to the hatch but Harry intercepted him before he could get clear and, impeded by the bar on either side, he could only raise one hand to fend off the blow from the pint pot. Harry jabbed it into his face, flattening his nose, and then, his hands fluttering impotently to staunch the flow of blood, he backhanded him with it across the temple. He grabbed Benneworth by the lapels, dragged him out, spun him around and then flung him against the bar so that he jacknifed over the counter.

  He reached into his pocket for his switchblade; he had taken the knife from the body of the bayoneted German infantryman who had stumbled into his trench late one night. He pressed the button and the spring-loaded blade clicked open.

  “Harry,” George warned in a low voice. “That’s enough.”

  No, it wasn’t.

  Not yet.

  Benneworth was dazed from the blows to the head; his torso was draped across the bar with his backside in the air. Harry slashed quickly and accurately, twice horizontally and then twice vertically. He kept the blade whetted and razor sharp and it sliced easily through the fabric of Benneworth’s trousers and undergarments. The cloth––and the flesh beneath––were marked like the grid. He had seen it done to a drunken squaddie after a brawl in a bar in Picardy. Noughts and crosses, they called it. The poor chap hadn’t been able to sit down for a week. It was humiliating. Benneworth would be the same, no doubt. Harry was happy enough with that. The brute had deserved it.

  “Harry,” George urged. “Let’s go.”

  He turned to the other men, the bloody switchblade held out before him. None of them dared hold his gaze. The only noise was the sound of a horse passing across the cobbles outside and, inside, the pitiful moaning of Benneworth. As Harry stepped away, facing the others as he did so, he risked a quick look across the room to Bella. She had clasped the remains of her dress to her bosom. Her glare was fiery with angry pride and, as she noticed Harry looking her way, she nodde
d, almost imperceptibly, twice.

  Harry winked at her and allowed George to drag him into the street outside.

  5

  HARRY WAS outside The Griffin when it opened the next day. It was eleven and Clerkenwell was busy: the brewery’s dray was parked alongside the pub, the big horse stamping its front feet to keep warm in the cold, the drayman rolling fresh barrels across the pavement to the hatch that opened into the basement. The pavement was smeared with dog’s excrement. A couple of cars bumped across the cobbles and a lamplighter that Harry recognised was servicing the mantles of a nearby lamp. A taxi pulled up down the street and a horde of ragged shock-haired beggar-boys appeared around the door it from nowhere, imploring the disembarking passenger for pennies.

  Harry pulled on his cigarette as he heard the key turn in the lock to the pub’s main door. The girl, Isabella, unlocked it. She was wearing a plain black dress with a white apron over the top of it. He leant against the wall, smiling through the cloud of smoke that he had just exhaled, and she unsuccessfully fought a moment of surprise that quickly became fright.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said with quiet urgency.

  “Just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

  “What you did to Trimmer––”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. He drew down the last of the cigarette, dropped it to the floor and ground it beneath his foot. “He deserved it.”

  “They had to take him to hospital. Stitches––in his, in his––you know.”

  “In his arse?” Harry grinned. “Good.”

  “If he sees you. If the others––”

  “Don’t worry, darling, I can look after myself.”

  “You don’t know what he’s like.”

  “It’s Isabella, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said, flustered. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Harry Costello.” He extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Isabella––properly, in any event.”