‘I thought not,’ he said. ‘Jenkins was sure that you did; but he’s money mad. Doesn’t appreciate the finer feelings. No breeding, really. He thought you were telling lies. Lawyers and their clerks tell so many lies that they always think everybody else is lying. But I knew that you were telling the truth. So tell me why you wanted to see me?’
I told him. I told him as warmly and energetically as I could, about my father’s remorse and about his restless ghost; and that all I wanted was to set the past wrong right … somehow, anyhow, even if I could only do it with the strength of my feelings …
He listened, occasionally shaking his head, as if in sympathy, and shifting from one foot to another. I remember thinking how easy it was when you opened your heart, and that the worst only happened when you hid things.
‘I knew it was just feelings,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘I knew it all the time. I knew there wasn’t anything clever in it. You’re not very clever, are you, William? And that’s surprising, considering that you’re David Jones’s son. He was clever. You should have heard my late lamented talking about him! Clever as a cartload of monkeys, was old David Jones! But he didn’t pass it on. All you inherited was the money; and guilt. Well, as they say, a fool and his money are soon parted. But the guilt goes on.’
For the first time he looked at me. He turned his face and looked over his shoulder. I saw, with the most horrible sick feeling, that he hated me.
Even as I had inherited guilt from my father, he had inherited hatred from his.
He was eaten up with it; he was mad with it. He had nursed it in his heart for twenty years. He had dreamed about it as a child; he’d planned and schemed what he’d do if ever he found David Jones or anyone belonging to him.
All this he told me as we stood on the bridge, with the water rushing beneath and the wind driving across, so that half his words were lost. His face was wet with rain, and it looked like tears.
There was nothing I could say or do, because he knew that he was in the right and his hatred was justified. That was the worst part about it—his being in the right, I mean. He hated me because of what one dead man had done to another, so there was no way out of it.
Suddenly he stopped talking; and I thought that was the end. I started to walk away from him, filled with deepest gloom and despair; when I heard him whistling. It was his old tune and peculiarly piercing. In spite of the wind, I think it must have drifted down to Greenwich.
‘I care for nobody, no, not I;
And nobody cares for me!’
Even as I looked, I saw, creeping up onto the bridge and coming towards me, like the ghosts of all the murdered children hellbent on revenge, the London boys with their knives and the great iron hook! He had whistled them up!
14
WHEN YOU ARE killed, suddenly and violently, I always supposed that there would be a moment—a tiny moment—when your soul rushed out of your body at a great speed, and left it behind like a falling towel.
I felt that, if I looked back, I would have seen William Jones, lying by the parapet of London Bridge, all mangled and bloody, like Julius Caesar.
I expected at any moment that I would become transparent, and be grasped by the ear and taken off by whichever party had the chief claim … I mean angels or devils.
I felt I must have been killed, else how was it that I was running like the wind, with no worse injury than a ripped sleeve that had happened as I’d gone too close to a knife?
I had run straight at the boys instead of away from them; and they, who had been ready to fly after me, had been taken by surprise.
I ran, I suppose, just as a fox might have run; and, at the same time, uttered a shriek which, as they say, would have struck terror into the boldest heart. Anyway, it struck terror into mine. I’d never heard such a shriek; and, when I realized it had come from me, I felt unnatural.
I had a sensation of the boys, or one of them, at least, melting away before me; and then I was pounding along the bridge and back into the town.
The only safety I knew, was in the dwarf’s house in Hanging Sword Alley. As far as I remembered, it lay to the west of St Paul’s Cathedral and near to the river.
They were both large articles—St Paul’s and the River Thames—and, you would think, not easily missed. But I promise you that as soon as I left the bridge, they both vanished utterly from the face of the earth.
I never saw the river again though I twisted and turned a thousand times, and went down every sloping alley and every crazy winding street; and the great cathedral came up and peeped over the housetops only for seconds, as if it was playing at some huge and lumbering hide-and-seek. Now it was this side of me; now it was that; and God alone knew which was east and which was west; and I cursed Sir Christopher Wren for neglecting to paint on his dome which of its many sides was the one I had seen from the house of Mr Seed.
I did not think much about John Diamond as I ran, any more than a rabbit, I suppose, thinks about the man in the moon when he’s bolting like mad from the dogs.
I could think only about the private hailstorm of footsteps that followed me wherever I went: now gaining, now scattering, now seeming to run invisibly by my side.
It was a terrible sound; and even now, when I hear hail beating down on a roof, my heart thunders as I remember that merciless pursuit. I cannot even walk down a passage by night, without seeing again—as I saw a hundred times—a grim little figure come out of nowhere, whistle, and creep towards me.
They were whistling to each other all the time: fierce little noises like pins and needles in the night.
At first I thought they were hunting cries—whistles instead of horns. I never guessed, until it was too late, that they were signals, from one hunter to another, as they drove me deeper and deeper into town.
I thought it was just bad luck that I never reached an open street where I might have got help; and I thought it was just marvellous good luck that, whenever I seemed to be cut off, there was always one last alleyway that appeared mysteriously and offered me an escape.
Sometimes upstairs windows opened and people shouted down for the dreadful clatter to stop; and I panted, ‘Save me! Save me!’ and then wept and swore when the windows banged shut.
If ever I learned anything during that night, it was that, if you should hear the noise of running feet, you should not be angry, but think that somebody down below might be gasping and groaning and struggling on to save his life. If you should see a boy raise his fists as if to bang on your door and then stumble away, it is not because he’s a dirty little ruffian, but because he’s just caught sight of somebody coming round a corner with a terrible hook.
I stopped. Not because I was tired—I could have run another yard, I think—but because the hailstorm behind me had stopped. This was the worst moment. The sudden stoppage of footsteps has always been a particular nightmare of mine.
I leaned against a wall, listening. I could hear nothing, absolutely nothing. I knew the boys were close, but I did not know where.
I was in a stony passageway, between tall, toppling tenements that went up so high that even the moonlight only got halfway down, before giving up the ghost on the dirty walls.
Only the rain came down. It was falling in large, sullen drops. I looked up and saw a line of washing stretched across the narrow sky like hanged men in a row, sullenly weeping rain.
I thought I might cry out, just once more, for help. I would shriek, ‘Save me! Please save me!’
But I couldn’t. There was something over my mouth. It smelled foul and tasted bitter. It was a hand!
At the same time another hand pushed me violently against the wall, which seemed to open and engulf me. It was a door and it shut as soon as I was inside.
I think my blood would have run cold, if any part of me had still been able to run. But, like the rest of me, it was quite worn out. I stood, in total blackness, with a vague sensation that I had been put aside, like a leg of lamb, to be eaten later.
&nbs
p; Outside I heard the whistles start up again, and the scattering of hail. It went on for I don’t know how long; but no one came into my darkness.
At last the hail dwindled away and all I could hear, apart from the grunting and creaking of the building over my head, was the ticking of my father’s watch. It seemed quite undisturbed.
I began to feel about for the door when it opened in quite an unexpected place. Then it shut again and I was no longer alone. I knew that by the sound of breathing, other than my own.
‘Who are you?’
The hand, as before, was put over my mouth. I was not to speak. I didn’t really mind, as I didn’t have much to say.
I felt myself begin to be pulled through the darkness. I followed without offering the smallest resistance. I was too tired.
I stumbled against the beginning of some stairs. At once I was gripped sharply round the wrist. Nails dug into me. I was to be quiet. I followed up the stairs, waving each foot cautiously before putting it down.
I think there were a hundred stairs and about the same number of landings. I began to see dimly, as we rose, doors and doors, and heaps of rubbish, some of which looked like dead men.
I thought one of them stirred; and all about I began to hear vague stirrings, and murmurings, and sighings, and once, the small cry of a baby that made me jump with alarm.
I thought we must be pretty near hell by now, although we’d been going the wrong way. I don’t think I would have been very surprised to have seen Satan come out of one of the doors, and welcome me inside, and thank the dark, hunched-up figure that was leading me, for his trouble and care.
I stumbled again; and received a fierce pinch. We came at last to a ladder, propped up against a wall. I groaned quietly at the thought of climbing still further; and was kicked for it.
The figure began to mount the ladder, and I followed. The wood was slimy to the touch.
I looked up and saw that a slice of the night was appearing and enlarging itself into a square. The rain came down and the sky was blotted out for a moment as the figure obscured it. Then the figure was gone, leaving only a beckoning hand behind.
I took it and climbed up into the open night. We were on the roof. Or, rather, we were standing on a narrow pathway between two roofs that rose on either side like steep little hills.
One end of the pathway was covered over by what looked like a pile of old coats. It made another little house, balancing on the first one, like the crazy top of a house of cards. Within, I could make out a faint glimmering of coals. My guide pointed.
‘Git inside,’ he muttered. ‘It’s where I dosses. You ken doss there, too.’
My guide was Shot-in-the-Head; and he urged me forward, towards his place of residence, with every appearance of pride.
15
I WOKE UP to a bright sky and a view of my Uncle Turner and two fat beadles in a row. They were standing on a short stretch of wall and smoking, to pass the time, while they waited to take me into custody. After a few moments, they resolved themselves into chimney pots, and I remembered where I was.
I was in Shot-in-the-Head’s high residence and being heated all down one side by an iron basket half-filled with glowing coals. Shot-in-the-Head himself was nowhere to be seen, so I crawled outside to inspect the landscape.
My situation was distinctly airy. All around me chimney-stacks and pots of gigantic size loomed and leaned and scowled and puffed, and balanced themselves uncomfortably on the edges of slate hills, as if they’d decided there was no such thing as gravity and were going to prove it by jumping off.
I saw Shot-in-the-Head. He was crouching on top of a roof, with his chin in his fists and the wind blowing his rusty hair about. He was enjoying the morning sunshine.
He waved and slid down the slates to meet me.
‘Yus,’ he said, looking at me rather sharply. ‘Yus.’
His voice was harsh and hoarse, like an iron bolt that had seized up from not being used; but his eyes were as bright as if he’d just been polishing them.
I said: ‘Good morning.’
‘You ’it me,’ he said.
‘I didn’t!’
‘Yus. In the Splenner.’
For a moment I thought he was referring to some part of his anatomy, and I wondered where it could be; but then he opened his mouth and indicated that he’d recently lost a tooth, so I knew that he meant the Sun in Splendour where I’d punched him in the face.
I told him I’d only been trying to get away; and he told me that I’d been a right addle-cove not to have knowed that he’d been trying to help, as he’d knowed that they was only wanting to get me outside to chop me up as they couldn’t wet their chives in the Splenner.
After that, he said, I’d fair give him kittings when he’d been penny-boying me back to his doss.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Wot wot?’ said he, scratching his head over my ignorance.
I gave up; but afterwards, when I got used to the way he talked, I realized that all the time I’d been running through the night, Shot-in-the-Head had been skilfully driving me, like a sheep to the slaughter; only it hadn’t been to slaughter but to safety, on account of my having saved him from Mr Seed.
Somehow it didn’t seem right to thank him. I don’t think he wanted to be thanked. He’d done what he’d done because he’d done it, and that was that, if you know what I mean.
He brought out some food: a piece of blackened meat (I don’t know from what animal, or person, even), which he’d cooked himself, and a lump of bread.
While we ate he told me how he and his mates had knowed me by the black marks on my hands and face. He grinned and I felt all my old fear and bewilderment about John Diamond rising up again. Only this time it was ten times worse. I realized how cunningly he’d marked me out by the paint on the Horse Boy; and how well he must have known me to have done it. He had seen right through me all the time.
I thought at first that he’d called himself Robinson just for my benefit; but even Shot-in-the-Head knew him as Robinson, although he called him ‘Mr Rob-a-Son,’ which, I suppose, was near enough. So I wondered what crime he had committed that made him hide John Diamond, except on his trade card.
Mr Robinson was well-known to Shot-in-the-Head and his mates, particularly to Liverguts, who was the boy with the iron hook, and not to be trifled with.
It had been Mr Robinson all the time who had been behind the attacks on the dwarf’s house; and there were several others going on at the same time.
It was all business, really. If people wanted to get other people out of their dosses, they went to Mr Robinson, who went to Liverguts and it was all fixed up.
‘Yes,’ said Shot-in-the-Head. ‘Mr Rob-a-Son wants you chopped.’ He stood up and went along the flat pathway from his house and leaned over a low parapet at the end. He pointed down into the deep slit of the street.
‘You keep up ’ere,’ he said. ‘Dahn there you’ll git chopped as soon as spit.’ He spat; and it was very quick.
‘How long for?’
‘Dunno. Long as yer likes.’
He looked at me wonderingly, as if he couldn’t understand why I should ever want to leave.
‘Ah!’ he said suddenly. ‘Yus. If yer wants to go somewhere, I gin’rally goes be’ind them pots.’
He looked very mysterious and I guessed that he meant the privy and was informing me, as delicately as he could, that every convenience was to hand. He himself, I noticed, used a broken-off pot two roofs away and watered right down into it. He told me he did this because he had a grudge against the people who lived in the house, and was trying to put their fire out.
‘Got to go,’ he said. ‘You keep ’ere.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Wiv me mates, on the snick-an-lurk.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Wot’s wot?’
‘Snick-an-lurk.’
He scratched his head. He didn’t know another word for it. Then he said, ‘Yus.’
He reached across me, put his hand into my waistcoat pocket, took out my watch and put it in his own pocket. Then he returned the watch and said:
‘Snick-an-lurk. See?’
I saw.
He looked hard at my waistcoat and then beckoned me inside his house. It was warm and smoky and roofed over with wooden planks. The back and sides consisted entirely of ancient coats and gowns and waistcoats and jackets and pairs of breeches that hung down like bell-pulls.
It was such a venerable feast of ripe old clothing that, once inside, you felt like a moth at its birthday party, wondering where to begin.
Shot-in-the-Head began diving his hand into the walls, where it kept vanishing, sometimes up to the elbow, in the hundreds of pockets that served him for cupboards and drawers.
He brought out his treasures. He had watches—better than mine—brooches, rings, a snuffbox, dozens of gilt buttons and buckles, and the top part of a plated candlestick. I never saw any coins; but I don’t think he needed them as I’m sure he never paid for anything in his life.
He wasn’t so much a thief as a magpie; he just liked things that shone. I often wondered why he didn’t nick my watch; but I suppose that, as long as it was in a pocket under his roof, it was all the same.
He must have had hundreds of pounds worth of goods in his house; but it was only the glitter that pleased him. The strangest thing I ever saw was on one morning when Shot-in-the-Head was crouching on his roof and staring intently and enviously towards a particular object in the east. It was the gold cross on the top of St Paul’s. He wanted it, I think.
He put away his property, told me to keep the fire going (there was a heap of coal beside the trapdoor), and went off on the snick-an-lurk.
I was alone. I went to the parapet and looked down for Shot-in-the-Head. I saw numerous ragged, scabby heads and hulking shoulders drifting by, like rubbish in a deep ditch; but Shot-in-the-Head must have gone too close by the wall.
John Diamond (Vintage Childrens Classics) Page 10
