Touched by Angels

by Alan Watts

  If he died now, so what?

  Scaling the top, he climbed onto a foot-wide ledge running the length of the roof, aware that if there was one thing he was terrified of, it was heights.

  Thirty-four

  As Belcher was wondering where to head to next, Tom Bride was making his way as quickly as he could to the Strand, cursing that idiotic cop with every step. It was now quarter to ten and he had the terrible feeling he must have lost her. He had heard the whistle blowing, and shouting, and wished he could have stayed to see what happened. He desperately wanted that giant dead, so he couldn’t go blabbing to the police, which he had been gambling on all along, but there wasn’t time.

  Then, as he rounded the corner of Berry Street in Piccadilly, he felt his heart stop when he saw the woman and kid walking at a fast pace right in front of him.

  Their backs were to him, so he was able to follow them easily. They could have no idea he was there. All he had to do was wait until they were secluded somewhere, before relieving them of the handbag once and for all.

  If that didn’t happen, he would make a note of where they went and intercept them later. He couldn’t fail now, he thought, as a great grin bisected his tired face. As an added bonus, he might give the kid a few overdue thumps too. He would enjoy that. It would be like afters.

  They no longer had the suitcase. Clever. A suitcase with a stripy pattern would stick out like a sore thumb. He could see the handbag was not only stuffed so much it looked as though it might split, it looked heavy too. How much wealth could there be inside?

  Ten minutes later, when they started walking down an alleyway, he let them get as far in as he could, before they might be visible from the other side and then grabbed the double-crossing bitch by the shoulder.

  He spun her round, slammed her up against the wall and she dropped the bag, her hat falling off.

  The boy just ran, too exhausted and scared to fight any more.

  Oddly, the woman didn’t put up any fight, as he had expected her to, and nor did she say anything, apart from an “Uh!” as her back struck the bricks… and then Bride noticed something odd.

  The light wasn’t especially good down here, but even so, he could see that she’d dyed her hair black in an effort to throw him off the scent. He had to admire her resourcefulness. Then, as he was reaching for the bag, mystified at her sudden lack of pluck, he saw that her nose was different. Her eyes were brown too, when before they were blue. Her mouth was wider. Her lips were fuller. Her ears were different; smaller. Her chin was…

  He staggered back in shock, his head swimming, his hands clenching and unclenching. His scalp felt as though ants were crawling through it. Confirmation that he’d been made of a fool of yet again only came when the woman spoke, “Dunno ’oo you are, but you can ’av the bleedin’ bag if yer want. She said you’d show up. There’s nuffing in it… well, lady said to tell yer there was a note.”

  And with that, she walked off after the boy, calling out, “Tommy, wait fer me, where are yer, yer little bleeder?”

  Overcome with sudden fury, Bride nearly went after her, but knew Lil was far too cunning to have let the woman know where she was headed next.

  Bride sagged against the wall behind, which was just as well, as he would have fallen down. As it was, he slid down it, his mouth sagging open, thinking this must be the worst nightmare of his life.

  It seemed an age before he opened the bag. It was stuffed with an assortment of old clothes, but even now, in one last forlorn hope, he emptied it onto the ground.

  Tears filled his eyes as he raked through the mass, and as well as the folded note, the only riches he found was a single pound. Trembling, he unfolded the note and began to read.

  Dear Mr Bride,

  I hope the enclosed money will help you get over your shock.

  In any case, it is yours, not ours. You will remember that you very kindly posted it under the door to the hotel room my son and I were staying in.

  It was a lovely gesture, though I’m sure you’ll quickly gather we don’t need it any more.

  I sincerely hope you are able to find work to support yourself, and the pound should help you get started.

  Good luck and God be with you,

  Lil Smith

  After what seemed an endless time, Bride stood. He hadn’t even the energy to kick the bag as he wanted to.

  As he considered ending it all by jumping under a tram, as he simply walked away, Belcher was tightrope-walking along the moss covered ledge, half-terrified, half-elated, as scores of faces looked up from four storeys below.

  Thirty-five

  Belcher could see that when he reached the end there would be nowhere else to go but up the dodgy-looking slates, to the chimney at the top, from which he could see and smell thick wisps of smoke.

  After that… well, he would see when he got there, though he had a sure-fire way of guaranteeing all those people, including the police, stayed where they were, while he went over the apex.

  He stopped when he reached the end, vertigo making him swoon as he looked over at the sheer drop below. It was another alley, where several cats were fighting over a pile of fish bones. He turned and looked down again at the sea of faces.

  There were even more people now and the police were trying to fan them back, out of harm’s way.

  This infuriated him, so he hawked up a great glob of green jelly from the back of his throat and spat it out as far as he could. He grinned as he saw people trying to dodge it and shouted down to them, “Fancy something bigger, you bunch o’ shits?” He picked up a loose slate and threw it with a flick of his wrist.

  It was pure luck it didn’t hit anybody, though it shattered on impact, sending razor sharp shards in all directions. Then he started inching his way up. Once, a tile gave way, and he nearly went with it. He heard gasps and mutterings from the crowd below, shouted orders and more blasts on police whistles.

  When he finally grabbed the apex, he found it much easier to haul himself up and started laughing as he did. He pulled himself against the chimneybreast. Although the smoke was making him cough, he was laughing all the harder as he looked down at the crowd that was now so vast, it had stopped all traffic on the road.

  He could see horse-drawn carriages, nose to tail in both directions, with the scrubbed faces of passengers peering out. A gleaming black Rolls Royce had boiled over, with billows of steam gushing from under the engine cowling. The chauffeur had lifted it up to investigate, but the mist had obscured his entire top half.

  Belcher coughed and wiped his eyes, as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out one of the wads of pound notes he had taken from Bride, shouting, “’ere you are, you greedy bastards!”

  With his elbow crooked over the apex to secure himself, he split the blue band with his thumb nail and bawled, “Come and get it!”

  He threw the wad out as far as he could and it split in mid-air. The effect on the crowd was electric. They knew what the green and white pieces of paper were, long before any had fluttered to within grabbing height. The police were jumping about the same as everybody else, grabbing handfuls and stuffing them in pockets, helmets, and open shirtfronts.

  Even the chauffeur had joined in, using his peaked cap as a container, while his employer leaned out the back window of the car, shaking his fist, white-faced with rage. Several fights broke out, even amongst the police. Two young women were screaming as they tore at each other’s hair.

  Belcher was laughing so much that, as he swung his leg over the top, to make his getaway, he overbalanced and slipped. He just managed to grab the corner of the chimney with his fingertips.

  The laughter died instantly, as he scrabbled desperately with his boots for purchase. A few tiles were kicked loose and shattered loudly on the cobblestones.

  Several women drew their children to them, covering their faces, to spare them the only possible outcome, though several boys were straining their necks to get a better look.

  An elderly vicar mu
ttered the Lord’s Prayer, while a little drunk near the back growled to the man in front of him, “Come on, aat the fuckin’ way, so I can get a butcher’s!”

  By now, Belcher’s fingers were straining against the moss the bricks were dotted with, so the police were fanning people even further back. He screamed as he finally went, clipping the guttering, sailing over the edge.

  Gasps rose from the crowd.

  As he landed, a great burp barked from his mouth. His limbs started twitching. His neck was broken. Blood was seeping from the corner of his mouth, as the vicar knelt beside him and read the last rites.

  A few of the women were sobbing as the crowd drew closer.

  One said, “Poor man.”

  Thirty-six

  Lil knew Robert was excited, not only about leaving their dingy existence behind for good, but about going on a ship too, having only ever seen pictures and photographs of them.

  He’d said he was also looking forward to seeing America, his imagination fuelled by what his mother was telling him, and from what he had learned in school, of vast open spaces, mountains, and horses, Red Indians and endless rail-roads.

  They walked along the less lavish pavements of Piccadilly. She held the suitcase in one hand and her son’s hand in the other, as the pungent odour of thousands of chimneys began to fill the early evening.

  Both were in shock, having not expected Bride to have fallen for their scam so easily.

  “Where are we going?” Robert asked.

  “What?” She was aware that she was breathing much too quickly.

  “To another hotel,” she told him, feeling faint, as she swapped the suitcase to her other hand.

  Thirty-seven

  As Lil and Robert were checking in another hotel, Alistair King was sitting in his brother’s study, trying to shut his ears to what the police inspector was telling him.

  It needed repeating three times and the inspector, a kindly fellow with a bald head and thick lamb chop whiskers, gazed upon him through sallow eyes, as he puffed on his pipe.

  He was asking if his brother had any enemies.

  After the inspector had left, twenty minutes later, he stayed there for a long time, fear creeping up his spine like a worm.

  ***

  It didn’t take long for news of the Guvnor’s demise to get around, as well as that of the bully, Mr Belcher. By noon, the place was in uproar.

  Staff were attacked everywhere, with the severity of the beatings determined by how much they were hated. In desperation, and in fear for her own life, Miss Becksersdeth put Mr Pocket temporarily in charge of the stone-breaking yard.

  The men downed tools immediately. He begged them to cooperate. They dissolved into laughter. If he’d had any sense, he’d have retreated there and then. Instead, flourishing his Bible, he reminded them of the inscription on the wall in the men’s canteen: ‘God rewards labour’. The laugher turned to hissing and booing. He ran for it as chunks of flint were thrown, nipping at his face and head and smashing his spectacles.

  Then, minutes later, as stolen cigarettes were passed around, the laughter and chatter faded, they heard the slow clump, clump, clump of shoes descending the stairs.

  At first, they thought the police were here to quell the disturbance, but grinned when they saw Alistair King instead. His mouth hung open. Tears streamed down his face. The clumping echoed against the high walls, as his arms dangled by his sides. He didn’t seem to know where he was going or what he was doing. He stopped at the bottom, where he stayed for a long time, staring into space.

  A few of the younger men, with particularly bad memories, wanted to savage him on the spot, and had to be held back.

  He didn’t see them conferring, and several minutes later, the crack of iron on flint was heard, though he barely heeded it. He ambled on, with the vague intention of having a word with Mr Parsons, to see if he could help, though he knew that even he despised him.

  When he drew level with the tool shed though, hands came from everywhere, and his scream was muffled abruptly by a huge one across his mouth. King’s body began to shake out of control, nausea making him fall. Through bulging eyes he saw the boy Mr Flint had thrashed in the boys’ canteen getting closer.

  “You like pricks, don’t ya, yer queer bastard? ’Ow d’ya like this one?” he said, flourishing a long needle before his eyes, not unlike the one Mr Parsons used to prick boils. The tip glinted wickedly.

  He stabbed him in the arm and a squeak came from under the hand. He stabbed him all over and only stopped as King momentarily lost consciousness. Then, as he opened his eyes, he saw the boy holding a poker, and it didn’t take much working out to wonder where that was going, as they bent him over.

  ***

  Mr Flint was set upon in the children’s canteen, while Miss Beckersdeth was cornered in the laundry. A dozen of the bigger boys held his head under the sickening broth in the huge tureen, until he nearly drowned.

  Then they knocked him to the ground and laid into him with a couple of the long canes he had been so fond of using, until he was covered from head to toe in red weals and cuts. He screamed and howled for mercy, while Mrs Scantleberry cowered in the corner, snivelling.

  ***

  As Mr Flint was trying to crawl away from the kicks, Miss Beckersdeth shook, paralysed with fear, as a bunch of women, with Mrs Inkpen to the fore, advanced upon her.

  Miss Beckersdeth held the strap she had spanked Mrs Inkpen’s seven-year-old daughter with, for playing up when the time had come to have a boil lanced. She swung the stout piece of baked leather back and forth half-heartedly, knowing she didn’t stand a chance.

  She managed to gasp, “Get away from me,” before being struck dumb with terror. Some of the women carried rolling pins, while others had bars of soap wrapped in towels. One even had a broom. Others had their only their nails.

  They charged. Beckerdeth’s screams were drowned in the clatter of clogs.

  Thirty-eight

  The next morning was a sunny, cheerful day, with the bloom of spring in the air.

  Lil told Robert she had a surprise; this on top of the leviathan they were to sail the ocean upon. The only clue she gave was that they would not be travelling by train from St. Pancras after all.

  “Can you guess?” she asked, as she stood behind him, brushing his hair.

  His shoulders dropped in frustration. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come on,” she told him, picking up the suitcase, “it sounds as though it’s here.”

  She opened the door to reveal the bellboy, who she had already tipped off, lest he should spoil it all by loud announcement.

  “There,” she told him, when they reached the hotel steps. She had told him to close his eyes before venturing outside.

  He fell back with shock when he opened them. The rear door, held open by a grinning chauffeur, was that of a sixteen foot, dark green, Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. The interior was no less plush, with green leather upholstery, topped with lace napery and walnut, silver and gold surround. There were even wool twist carpets on the floors.

  The entire staff of the hotel were there to wave them off.

  Later, as Alistair King’s last words begging for mercy were being muttered, the car was pulling up alongside the ship that was even bigger than it had featured in Robert’s grandest imaginings.

  Part Two

  Thirty-nine

  Lil had been so anxious to get out of London, she had paid scant attention to any of the minutiae surrounding the ship. Affairs of the sea had never held much interest for her. All she knew was that today was Titanic’s maiden voyage.

  Now though, she couldn’t stop staring, and nor could Robert, and nor could anybody else. The dock was heaving with people. It seemed the whole of Southampton had turned out.

  Wisps of smoke trickled lazily into the blue sky from one of the four funnels, which looked as big as a mountain. Everywhere, parents fought to keep their children togeth
er, as the gangways for the first, second and third class passengers were sought. People and luggage swarmed from a train that had just arrived, while scores of porters dashed about.

  Gentlemen from the press were everywhere, fighting to get the best shots of dignitaries, there both to board the ship, or to wave loved ones off. Some didn’t care about the famous. It was the ship, the biggest in the world, that they wanted to photograph.

  A Daimler landaulet touring car came to a stop a hundred yards further down, and a man and woman climbed out, with three children and their governess. Lil watched as the woman embraced the man, before he hugged the sobbing children in turn. She heard the woman say, tearfully, “Write to us, Bruce,” as he made his way to the ship with his staff and luggage-laden porters in tow. She blew him a kiss. He blew it back.

  A man with a black cloth covering his head slowly turned the handle of a movie camera from a raised plinth, taking in, not only the ship, but her and Robert too, as a brass band belted out Rule Britannia.

  As ecstatic as she was though, Lil wanted to board as quickly as possible, knowing Bride might have made his way here, and could be loitering in the shadows, ready to pounce.

  ***

  She had booked an outside stateroom, that although in first class, was on the port side of the ship, facing away from the dockside.

  They spent some time, though, simply gazing over every inch of the room, with their mouths hanging open. It was ornate almost to a ridiculous degree, with virtually everything edged in gilt.