by Jodi Taylor
Sadly, we’re St Mary’s not a big budget blockbuster holo and all we could see was a brick wall. But a 19th-century brick wall nevertheless.
I panned the cameras around. We appeared to have landed in a narrow alleyway. Leon’s pod is the smallest we have, but we were taking up rather a lot of room and the alley hadn’t been large to begin with. We were going to have to squeeze out of the door. You never see that happen in time travel movies either.
I checked Matthew over once more, pulling his hat down because it was cold out there. He pulled it back up again.
‘Listen to me. Either you hold my hand or my dress. Not because you’re a baby, but because I need to know where you are at all times. Is that agreed?’
He agreed. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t argue.
I couldn’t put it off any longer. I opened the door.
The smell hit me at once. And the freezing fog. I was immediately transported back to Whitechapel all those years ago, when Kal and I were young and reckless and searching for Jack the Ripper and he found us first. It all came rushing back. The panic. The terror. The pain. And running. There had been an enormous amount of running. And then we’d been cornered in an alleyway very similar to this one and Kal had been stabbed …
I pulled myself together. The Ripper wouldn’t be along for another seventy years yet.
We squeezed out of the door. It wouldn’t have been such a squeeze for me if I’d heeded Helen Foster’s exhortations to lose ten pounds, but I think we all know that was never going to happen. True, Dr Stone hadn’t mentioned it yet, but he would one day. It was only a question of time.
Matthew, of course, slipped through with no problems at all. It was foggy and visibility wasn’t good but I thought he grinned at me. I regarded him balefully and thought unmotherly thoughts.
I looked around. We had high brick walls on either side of us, streaked with soot, grime and other things at splash height that I didn’t want to know about.
I straightened my bonnet and shook out my skirts.
‘Do you know where we are?’
He nodded. I sighed. Great. No chattier in this century than in the other one.
‘Can you show me the way? Is it far?’
‘Yes. No.’
Sometimes he really reminds me of his father. On the other hand, of course, whose father should he remind me of?
I picked up my box with the blankets on top, took a breath and said, ‘Got your box?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right, off we go then.’
This was definitely not the better end of town. The narrow alley was packed with rubbish and food so rotted even the starving poor wouldn’t eat it. We passed a dead cat. The ground was slippery with a dreadful kind of slush comprising mud, slime, decomposing animals and vegetables, shit, urine and other things too dreadful to investigate.
‘Keep to the centre,’ I said, nudging him in front of me where I could see him. We picked our way carefully along, slipping and sliding as we went. I know the day was cold and raw but I couldn’t help thanking the god of historians it wasn’t summer – the stench would have been overwhelming. Today, however, even though it was only mid-afternoon, the day was so overcast and dull we could barely see our way, and the smell was just the right side of bearable.
Emerging from the alleyway, I looked left and right. Dark clouds hung low but there were no lights anywhere.
Tales of this time often portray the streets of London as heaving with life – even if that life is fistfights, prostitutes offering a quick knee-trembler against the wall, gin-soaked women dropping their babies down flights of steps, old women robbing the dead, men beating their wives in a drunken rage, cockfights, and horses dropping dead in the streets. And for all I know that might be the norm, but not today. Today, Christmas Eve, with the biting temperatures freezing the very marrow in my bones, everyone was inside. There were no lights because candles cost money. There was certainly no form of street lighting in this area. The road on which we now stood was paved, but not well. Potholes gaped around us. No wheeled vehicle would ever make it down this little street. The houses on either side huddled together, dark and oppressive. The smell was just as bad, even though we were out of the alleyway. Everywhere was deserted. There wasn’t a soul in sight.
Yes, there was. Something moved in the shadows.
‘Stay in the middle of the road.’ That was Matthew saying it this time, because as I peered into the shadows, something moved.
I had another Jack the Ripper moment.
Deep in a doorway, something unfolded and became either a very small man or a large boy. He said nothing – just standing and staring at us. And the boxes we carried. This was poverty’s front line. They would kill us for what we carried and the clothes we wore without even thinking about it.
My muff was sitting on top of my box where I could get to it easily. Or rather, get to the pepper spray inside it, although I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Further back in the dark recess, something else stirred. And then in another doorway on the other side of the narrow street, something else moved.
My heart thumped unpleasantly. What had I got us into?
I said quietly, ‘Matthew, put down your box and when I say run …’
He shook his head. ‘Walk.’
‘We leave the boxes to distract them and while they’re looting the contents we can get away.’
He shook his head again and shouted something. I didn’t understand a word of it. He shouted again and the only word I recognised was ‘Scrope.’
The figures melted back into the doorways.
‘Walk,’ he said. ‘Don’t run’. Which made a change, although escaping death by walking slowly is equally as heart pounding. Still, I’ll try anything once.
‘What did you say to them?’
‘I told them it was for Ma Scrope.’
I said nothing and carried on walking. What sort of power must she wield in this place? What fear did she inspire? She was inspiring a fair bit in me and I hadn’t even met her yet. And then I remembered the state of Matthew when I first saw him and the probable state of the two little boys still with her, took a tighter grip on my box, lifted my chin and said, ‘Let’s keep going.’
He turned a sharp left between two dark buildings. They were far too dilapidated to be called houses, even though people lived in them. The roof had almost gone on one of them. Whether it had caved in or been stolen was impossible to say.
I halted at the head of a blind alley. The hair rose on the back of my neck. It was in an alleyway just like this one where the Ripper had got us. That hadn’t gone well for any of us, actually. I’d had to chop his head off in the end. I’d nearly taken my own foot off in the process. And even then, he hadn’t died …
‘Down here,’ Matthew said, setting off into the gloom. I swallowed hard, took a tighter grip on my box, and followed after him.
The alley was cold and wet. I could hear water dripping from somewhere. The walls were green with slime, the only colour in this grey world. If there had ever been any paving here it had long since been buried under layer upon layer – generations of layers – of shit, rotting straw, stinking vegetables, and worse. All the refuse and decay from people with no access to sanitation of any kind, no fresh water, no fresh air, no heat, no light, no decent food, no hope …
My feet sank into this quagmire with every step. Evil smelling water rose over my boots. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bottom layers hadn’t been here since the Great Fire in 1666.
Again, there was silence all around us. The silence of misery and despair. The people living here didn’t even have the strength to fight with each other. I imagined tiny rooms, crammed with people but isolated in their wretchedness and suffering, sitting quietly because life – such as it was – just wasn’t worth fighting for. Sitting alone and waiting for death to release them.
For God’s sake, Maxwell – this isn’t why you’re here. Pull yourself together. I tried to tell myself all this ha
d happened a very long time ago, but the evidence of my own eyes told me it was happening now. All around me. Suddenly, our little boxes of food seemed very inadequate indeed.
I squelched my way behind Matthew and was just about to enquire how much further when the buildings to my left fell away – quite literally, actually – and a small space opened up before us.
I turned and looked back the way we’d come. That must have been Grit Lane and this must be Grit Court, although court was far too grand a name for the collection of dilapidated buildings around this irregular space.
Ahead of us loomed a tall building, four or five storeys high, speckled with empty windows. On the left was a blank brick wall, black with soot, and on the right a small, ramshackle wooden shed only a moderate puff of wind away from falling down.
I looked around us. Had this dismal place really been his home?
‘Where?’ Great, now I was picking up his monosyllabic habits.
He nodded towards the wooden shed.
I cast a glance around me. There were a lot of windows. All were dark. Most were shuttered or stuffed with rags to keep the cold out, but anyone could be watching. I found myself missing Markham. Don’t ever tell him that.
‘They’re in there?’
He nodded.
‘That’s where you lived?’
He nodded again. I noticed he was standing very close to me. I didn’t blame him in the slightest. What must it have taken for him to come back here today? I suddenly felt very proud of him.
I could see the bar across the door plainly enough, but it would be good for him to lead, so I said, ‘How do we get in?’
‘This way.’ He put his shoulder under the bar and heaved it upwards. With a nasty graunching noise that made me look over my shoulder to see if anyone was coming to investigate, it came free. We set it carefully against the wall.
‘You go first,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to frighten them. I’ll bring the boxes.’
The tatty door scraped open.
We stood on the threshold, blinking. There were no windows and the only light came from the open door which we were blocking anyway. After a while, I thought I could see the outline of a handcart, filled with buckets, poles, brushes and all the tools of a sweep’s trade. Of two little boys, there was no sign.
Matthew took a step inside. I remained where I was, watching the court for any signs of life. There were none. I assumed everyone was inside suffering gin-induced after effects.
Eventually he said, ‘Jamie? Joshua?’
Something stirred back in the darkness and a tiny voice piped, ‘Joe?’
He said something, again in that dialect I couldn’t understand and there was another movement.
I wondered if they wouldn’t come out because I was here although I’m not that frightening. Honestly.
I said, ‘Just a minute,’ put down my box, pulled out my torch and handed it to him. ‘Here. Just wait until I have the door closed.’
Stepping back out into the yard, I caught hold of the latch – gently, because I was certain if I gave it a good yank then the whole thing would come off its hinges, possibly bringing the rest of the shed down with it – and, keeping an eye on the tall house, began to close the door. I did think, just for a moment, that I saw a faint flicker of light in the downstairs window and held my breath. Seconds passed but nothing happened, so I pulled the door to and said, ‘OK.’
The torchlight picked out two little boys huddled in the far corner, shivering with cold. Amazingly, they looked wet. I looked up. Yes, there were holes in the roof through which I could see grey clouds, but the dirt floor was dry. Where had the water come from?
In the silence, I heard a drop of water fall and then another. Matthew shone the torch on to the handcart which gleamed weakly in the light. They’d been cleaning the cart and the brushes. With ice-cold water, I bet. They were soaked and shivering, their bare feet blue and cracked. Their clothes gave rags a bad name and were wet through. I felt a slow burn of anger. Now I knew why Matthew disliked water so much.
I said in a whisper, ‘Go and talk to them, Matthew. Take them their blankets.’
He snatched them up. I watched as he folded them and carefully draped one each around their shoulders. They were both smaller than he was and he wasn’t big by anyone’s standards. He covered the smallest one first.
They stared up at him as if they couldn’t believe their eyes.
I meanwhile, was unpacking the boxes any old how, flattening the cardboard and passing them over to him.
‘Matthew, get them to sit on these rather than the cold floor.’
Finding the waterproof matches, I lit the candles, carefully placing them on the floor.
It was a small shed, about twelve feet by twelve, made of rough planks nailed together any old how and looked about as weatherproof as a lace doily. The handcart took up most of the space. I couldn’t see into the roof, but judging by the scuttling sounds up there we weren’t alone. I remembered Matthew saying the rats came in the dark.
‘Now then,’ I said, briskly, because if I wasn’t brisk, I might start to cry. ‘Shall we see what we have here?’ and held out the bag containing the sausages.
They wouldn’t take it. They sat, big eyed and frozen with fear, little faces peering out from their blankets.
Jamie was the smaller of the two. Huge sunken eyes stared out from his grey face. He had very little hair – most of his scalp seemed to be covered in sores and scabs. His knees and elbows were rubbed raw and scabbed over. I remembered Matthew’s had been the same. He too was burned, especially on his feet and some very nasty bruises were clearly visible through the rag he was wearing as a shirt. I suspected either he’d had a bad fall or been punched. Or kicked, even. He looked too frail for this job and I suspected he hadn’t been strong to begin with. Every now and then he hacked out a cough that shook him from top to toe.
Joshua was slightly older and slightly bigger. His shock of dark, matted, soot-filled hair hung either side of his face. He looked more robust than Jamie but then, paper bags looked more robust than Jamie. Like Jamie, he was fearful, but with a kind of defiant belligerence in his look. He would survive. Of Jamie’s survival, I was far less certain.
Matthew was obviously the oldest. Watching his behaviour, I suspected he had been their protector. Jamie’s blanket slipped from his shoulders and I watched Matthew pull it back around him, saying something that made him smile.
Which reminded me I was still holding the sausages. I gave one to Matthew and said, ‘Show them.’
His table manners are a lot better than they used to be. These days, no one is actually injured in his determination to eat as much as possible in as short a time as possible but, on the other hand, he does like sausages. One minute it was there and the next minute it wasn’t.
I passed him the bag, saying, ‘They might find it easier if you give it to them.’
He held out a sausage to each of them. I could only imagine the fear that must be holding them back. Did they expect to be punished for eating? I was going to have to give this Scrope woman a seriously good talking to.
So fast that I could barely see it, their sausages had gone and they were rummaging in the bag for more.
‘Careful,’ I said to him. ‘Don’t let them gobble the food too quickly. It could make them sick.’
I don’t think anyone was listening to me. I could understand their haste. Yes, they were starving, but it didn’t need the fearful looks they kept casting to the door to suss out their real concern. They were terrified of the not-here-but-somehow-always-present Ma Scrope. I had forgotten, until this moment, how suspicious and resentful Matthew had been towards women – with the exception of the follicly exuberant, dirigible-building, pig-exploding Miss Lingoss, of course, who was, in his eyes, not so much a woman as a god. I hadn’t even bothered trying to compete. Actually, I gather I’m not alone in this. Rosie Lee was telling me her son is always coming home telling her about the bane of her life – David’s
mum. Apparently, David’s mum doesn’t make him clean his bedroom. David’s mum lets him stay up to watch Iron Man 6. David’s mum doesn’t make him eat his peas, and so on, inspiring her with a desire to punch David’s mum’s lights out which I could perfectly comprehend.
I spread the spare blanket on the ground and laid out our feast. Chicken, cake, mince pies, everything. Personal experience of Matthew had given me to think they’d fall on everything like a pack of wolves and thirty seconds later there wouldn’t be anything left. That didn’t happen. They just stared in bewilderment, their weary pinched grey faces peering out from the folds of their blankets.
I said to Matthew, ‘Tell them it’s all right to eat. It’s all for them.’
He spoke again in this strange dialect I couldn’t understand. I wondered if it was a private language between just the three of them. A little thing all of their own and private from this Ma Scrope who appeared to inspire such fear in nearly everyone. Leon had said she was an unpleasant woman and I was beginning to suspect he hadn’t told me the half of it.
Hesitatingly, the slightly bigger one reached out for a drumstick. And paused. Matthew picked one up and handed it to him. He bit into it – his face changed – and we were off. They fell on the food like a pack of ravening wolves. The drumsticks disappeared, followed by the cheese, the mince pies, the cake, the meat pies, the chocolate – which they regarded with deep suspicion for nearly a whole second – and finally the soup. I poured it into the two mugs we’d brought, blew on it, said to Matthew, ‘Warn them it’s hot,’ and passed it over.
He blew on it himself, took a careful sip and then gave it to them. They never took their eyes off him. Very gently, he showed them how to wrap their hands around the mugs for warmth. The air was filled with the sounds of very noisy slurping. When they’d finished, they ran their fingers around the insides, picking up every last drop.
That done, Jamie carefully turned over all the wrappings in the vain hope they’d missed something. I took the opportunity to ‘find’ another bar of chocolate in my muff – don’t make me do all those old muff jokes again – and gave it to Matthew to give to them. I would have loved to have given it to them myself, but given Ma Scrope and her seemingly effortless ability to inspire terror in everyone she met, it really wouldn’t be a good thing to give them the idea women were nice people. I suspected mistrust and distance and downright fear were the best ways to deal with her and I shouldn’t do anything to undermine that.
