Shoddy Prince

by Sheelagh Kelly

  ‘We’ll wait for you tonight, Smellie!’ Their threat echoed off the passage wall. ‘We’ll get a hook and pull your brains out through your nose, if you’ve got any!’

  In riposte, Nat shrugged his shoulders back into his jacket and wiggled his bottom at them before performing a leisurely swagger, as if their blows had been nothing.

  The cottage in which Nat lived was at the far end of the lane and the stench of urine and rubbish would accompany him until he reached home. It was an odour to which his nose had become accustomed, just as he had become accustomed to people’s loathing. To make his journey more interesting he kicked an apple core until he came to the end of the line of buildings where a grimy sign told newcomers this was Stonebow Lane. Nat’s front doorstep, being sited on a junction, was convex. Above the lintel an additional streetname perched at right angles to the other – Hungate: one of the most deprived areas of York. On the opposite corner of the insalubrious lane hung a gas lamp which was hardly ever in working order thanks to the mischievous deeds of the local youth. The homeward trek in pitch blackness was a terrifying ordeal for a little boy and Nat would run down the lane as fast as he could to escape the goblins who he was sure lurked here. Giving the apple core a parting kick that splattered it over the flags, he shouted ‘Goal!’

  The woman who lived in the basement came to her tiny window which was level with the pavement, squinted out like a blind mole, then retreated to her underground room.

  Before Nat could enter, a black and white terrier rushed barking at him. Fond of animals, he bent to pat it. ‘Hello, boy!’ It circled him, sniffing at his legs. Nat crouched on his heels and ruffled its fur briskly. ‘What’s your name? D’you want to be my dog? I’m gonna call you Toby.’ A rough tongue licked his hand. Nat beamed and jumped up. ‘Come on then!’ He turned quickly and slapped his thigh. The dog jumped up, wagged its tail and sank its teeth into the seat of Nat’s breeches. ‘Aagh!’ Nat leaped for cover, beat the dog off and slammed the door shut behind him. ‘Savage! Traitor!’

  On closing the door he slouched in malevolence, rubbing his posterior whilst his eyes became adjusted to the dinge. Then, leaving wet bootprints on each step, he climbed the linoleumed stairway to the upstairs room that was home to himself and his mother.

  Hardly was he through the inner door before his mother had seized him by the ear. ‘You haven’t been at school this morning!’

  ‘Aagh! I have, Mam, I have!’ Nat was dragged on tiptoe into the parlour which was basically furnished.

  ‘Liar! I’ve had the kid-catcher here – again.’ A furious Maria Smellie released his ear and thudded across the bare boards, arms crossed. ‘He hammered on that bloody door at half past ten this morning till I had to get up.’ Her work being nocturnal, it was unusual for her to rise before midday. Hoping that the people downstairs would answer the door, she had shoved her head under the blankets, but had eventually been forced to respond to the persistent knocking.

  Maria rubbed a hand over her tired face, her hair hanging as a lank curtain over one eye until she tossed it back over her shoulder; it was dark like her son’s. They were very much alike in feature too. It was easy to see from whom Nat inherited his starveling looks. Her white unpressed blouse hung virtually straight at the front and once the bustle on her green skirt was removed her hips were as narrow as a boy’s. ‘You promised, Nat!’

  ‘I did go – eh, Mam, a dog just bit me!’

  ‘Good! It serves you right for not being at school. You swore you’d go – and look at you, you’re dripping wet!’

  ‘I were sat on t’bridge and somebody pushed me in.’

  ‘You shouldn’t’ve been sat on the bridge, you should’ve been at school!’

  ‘I did go…’

  ‘He’s brayed you again, hasn’t he?’ guessed his mother.

  Nat had great difficulty in reading. His teacher, an impatient man, often tried to aid his concentration with blows round the head. Then Nat’s innate obstinacy would overrule his fervent desire to read and he would clamp his lips together refusing to say anything at all.

  Maria was correct in her assumption. This morning the blows had been particularly savage and Nat had finally run out of the building. He had not volunteered this information to his mother, for she would charge down to school as she had done many times before and give the teacher an earful of abuse, then all afternoon the other boys would poke fun at him. In answer to her question he hung his head.

  ‘Right! Well, I’m going down to see him.’ Maria rolled up her sleeves to indicate that she meant business.

  ‘Aw, Mam…’

  ‘He’s had enough warnings, Nat. He’ll have to be taught.’

  Anyone not knowing this delicate-looking girl would have taken her words for bravado, but Nat was well aware of her capabilities and began to panic. ‘He’ll have gone for his dinner!’

  The reply was forceful. ‘Then I’ll catch him when I take you back this afternoon.’

  ‘Aw, Ma…’

  ‘Hold your tongue! I’m taking you to make sure you go. Here, get your bloody dinner.’ Maria almost threw a tin plate onto the table, then sat down opposite to watch him eat its contents, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was still wet through. She had mixed feelings about her only child. Some days she loved him so fiercely she would die for him, yet at other times she could not bear to be in the same room. It was one of those latter moments now. She wanted to reach out across the table and grasp that narrow white throat and squeeze. Many a time during his eight years she had felt this emotion.

  Maria had been only fourteen when she had given life to him. The bitterness was not because he had robbed her of her own childhood – Maria had been working the streets for over a year prior to his conception – no, the crux was that he had robbed her of her income during the time she had been laid up at the workhouse giving birth, and in the penniless days that followed she had been compelled to scrub floors to earn her keep until fit enough to return to her profession. Some women might have been grateful for the change, but not Maria. She detested her occupation but it was better than hard graft. This opinion was reflected in her habitat which, though it had few chattels still managed to look untidy. She had been shown little example of domesticity as a child, but had taught herself how to cook through trial and error – evident from the ingredients on Nat’s plate.

  Maria leaned her bony elbows on the table and used both hands to keep the hair from tumbling over her face, glaring at Nat. It was those eyes that did it: got her back up. Why did they have to be blue when her own were brown? All her family’s had been brown so why in heaven’s name couldn’t his have been brown too? But no, they had to be blue to remind her that any one of a hundred men could have been his father. She felt like poking the blasted things out.

  Her mind drifted. Everything had gone wrong that particular year. The necessity of hiring a girl to mind her bairn while she worked had meant there was little over for food and rent. In the end she had eschewed the services of the minder and left Nat alone on an evening from seven till midnight; alone, apart from the bugs which infested the entire building and made it stink of rotten apples, the bugs that nibbled and sucked on her child’s body whilst some perverted human parasite did the same to her. Despite every precaution of standing the legs of the bed in jars of paraffin to stop the bugs crawling up, she would return to find the infant covered in red blotches.

  When Maria was back on her feet, financially speaking, she had rehired the minder, for by this time baby Nat was into everything. This up-turn was not to last; she had contracted a nasty infection which kept her off work yet again. However, there had been a nest-egg to fall back on that time. Maria had sworn they would never get her in the workhouse again and from every sovereign she earned a good few shillings was put by to this purpose. One day, she promised herself, she would have enough to escape from this life. Unfortunately, every time she had a little accrued there would be a hefty fine for soliciting and she was back at the foot of
the mountain again. Yes, Nat had certainly brought a load of bad luck for his mother. Her only blessing was that she had never conceived again – nor would she. Maria did not realize that it was the dose of gonorrhoea and not luck which she had to thank for this.

  Nat stole glances at her whilst he ate. For all his worldly talk this morning about whores, he had only become familiar with the term because of two other women who lived in the same row of buildings. He was unaware of how his mother earned her living. How would he know, when she looked nothing like them with their lewd talk, their rough manner and their common faces. The only time she ever swore was when he made her angry, whereas their conversation was peppered with expletives. With good clothes his mother could have passed for a lady – was better looking than some ladies he had seen – and she didn’t seem anywhere near as old as other boys’ mothers. He knew little of her background, either. He had asked but his mother was very mysterious about her kin. Nat was left to imagine what his grandparents had been like. His innocent mind could never have pictured the grim truth: her own mother had been a prostitute, and her father a bully and a drunkard who had enrolled Maria in the family profession when she was twelve. For almost a year she had endured him taking every farthing she earned before resolving to branch out on her own, sleeping rough until she had the funds to rent a room. In her naivety the haven she had found turned out to be a brothel. Not only did the madam extract high rates but there was violence too. When Maria had refused to part with her hard-earned cash she had been beaten and kept virtual prisoner until, with the aid of a client, she had managed to escape, only to find herself imprisoned a few months later by an unwanted pregnancy. Desperate though she might have been, Maria had never dreamed of having him aborted, not just through fear but because this baby was something she would have of her very own, the one who would give her the love she craved. The master and matron of the workhouse had tried to force her into placing Nat in an orphanage, but she had rebuffed their offers of help and had run away with her son, though over the following years she was often to regret this decision. Far from bringing unconditional love, all this child seemed to do was take.

  Nat was in blissful ignorance of all this. All he knew of his mother’s work was that it required her to put him to bed far too early, then took her away until God knew what hour. As soon as she had gone he would put his clothes back on and go out in search of company until he decided it was a suitable time for bed.

  It was not simply good fortune that kept him from bumping into his mother; Maria deliberately plied her trade as far away from home as possible so as to hide it from her son. However it was certainly pure luck that no one had acquainted him with the truth. Maria worried about this often, imagining his face crumpling with shame.

  Nat munched on the lump of cheese and avoided his mother’s eye by concentrating on the gnarled pine table. It was older than both of them put together. He knew this because his mother had pointed out to him some carved initials and a date – J.W. 1847. There were dark cuts and gouges all over it. In moments of boredom Nat had added a few of his own; there were so many she wouldn’t notice. He felt awkward eating with his mother staring at him, and asked, ‘Aren’t you having any?’

  She hunched over. ‘I don’t feel like it. I’m in such a bobbery over you I couldn’t touch owt.’ In its forlorn mood her face was almost identical to her son’s, young and vulnerable, belying the gross debauchery it had witnessed.

  He stopped eating and hung his head. ‘Sorry.’

  Despair rekindled anger. ‘You say that every time! It means nothing. You’re not bothered that I’ll be sent to prison if you keep playing truant, are you?’ Nat said that he was. He adored his mother and would never upset her deliberately. ‘Yes well, I’m making sure you go to school this afternoon.’ She jumped to her feet and began to move about the room, making as if she were tidying up but to little effect. The curtain which hung across part of the room swayed in the draught from her efforts. Behind this curtain was their ‘bedroom’ in which stood an iron bedstead and a table just large enough to hold a pitcher and basin for their toilet. ‘I don’t know what you find to do on your own. You’d be much better off with the other boys at school.’

  ‘They don’t like me.’

  ‘You’re just imagining it.’ Yet Maria knew that what he said was correct – or rather she knew that the boys’ mothers were behind the ostracism. It was nothing they said openly, just the way they behaved towards him, blaming him for his mother’s misfortune. The injustice of it all boiled up inside her. Unconsciously she clenched her fists. She hated the world and everyone in it. How could they be so mean to such a pretty little face?

  ‘They pulled a dead woman out of the river this morning. A Protestant.’

  His mother turned sharp brown eyes on him. ‘What?’

  From her manner Nat felt he might have got the wrong word, so did not repeat it. ‘She’d got no clothes on and she had loads of stab holes in her, and—’

  ‘That’s enough! Just get yourself ready for school!’ Maria grabbed his plate then threw some dry clothes at him. At least his mother’s profession ensured he had a change of clothing, which was more than could be said for most of those who behaved all high and mighty. ‘I expect your boots are soaking an’ all, aren’t they? Aye, well you’ll just have to put up with them while tonight.’

  Peeling off his wet garments and dropping them at his feet, Nat remembered. ‘I’ve brought you summat.’ He bent down to rummage through his breeches pocket, afraid that the gift had been washed away. But no, here it was. ‘A luckystone.’ He handed it to her.

  Maria jerked her thoughts away from the dead woman in the river and took possession of the ordinary looking pebble. There was a jar full of these ‘luckystones’ on the shelf, brought home by her son. They didn’t seem to be very effective. Yet she forced a smile and tipped it into the jar. ‘Let’s hope it helps us to cope with that schoolteacher.’

  Nat, who had hoped to disarm her with the present, dawdled over his task, but it didn’t help. Chivvying him for his tardiness, Maria tied her hair up in order to look more respectable, donned a black bonnet, wrapped a shawl around herself and accompanied him to the school, which was jammed amongst crowded rows of dwelling houses in Bilton Street. He begged and pleaded for her not to take him all the way there, but she stayed with him until the bell clanged. Worse, when the boys fought and jostled through the narrow entrance into the classroom, she was amongst them.

  The internal walls were much the same as those outside, composed of rough bare brickwork. Their only adornment was a portrait of the monarch, whose doleful face did nothing to aid welcome. Neither did the master, who gave Maria a look that questioned her right to be there. The slightly built young woman stood her ground. She had met his type dozens of times; the type that would probably want her to use the cane on him had they been meeting on different terms. ‘I’d like a word with you, Mr Lillywhite, if you’d be so kind as to grant me a hearing.’

  ‘Quiet!’ The master quashed the shuffling of feet and the drone of voices as boyish posteriors slid along benches, deliberately ignoring Maria until every one of the pupils was located. Concealing her impatience, she used the time to take stock of his face which, with its many crags, held plenty of interest. His hair was turning grey. It was neatly combed with just the correct amount of bear’s grease. He stood like a monolith in his highly polished boots, the black frock coat and trousers pressed to perfection. His winged collar would have been pristine too, but for a greenfly which had been accidentally squashed on it. His nose was patrician and his top lip was so thin as to be almost non-existent. There was about him an overall air of control. Lillywhite was a most distinguished man – and isn’t he aware of it, thought Maria as, finally, with great condescension he turned to her. ‘If you wish to see me, you may call at four o’clock after school is over.’ Not even the courtesy of her name.

  Maria abandoned all patience and dignity. ‘Don’t think you’re talking to me like
one of your victims, you tight-arsed pillock!’ She stuck a finger within an inch of his left nostril. The boys gasped and sniggered. Nat wished the floor would open up and engulf him. ‘You might fritten them but you don’t fritten me. I’ve told you before about hitting my lad round the head, you’ll be sending him daft! I don’t mind a whack with the cane if he’s done summat really wrong but when he’s trying his best to—’

  Lillywhite’s voice incised with great emphasis, ‘What goes on in this classroom is no concern of—’

  ‘It is when it involves my son! Now, I won’t give you any more warnings. If it happens again I’m off to the police.’

  The schoolmaster looked down on the termagant, beholding her as if she were something in the gutter, thought Nat. ‘Yes… well, I am certain you are much acquainted with the police, Miss Smellie.’

  Maria said no more, she just hit him – a bone-crunching hook to the nose. Whilst Lillywhite rushed a handkerchief to his face, she wheeled on Nat. ‘Now, you bloody well stay there and pay heed to your lessons!’ Then she stormed out.

  ‘Atkidsod,’ the master, eyes brimming, spoke through blood-drenched linen, ‘go ask de headbaster to sed for de police.’ He himself left the classroom to tend his throbbing nose. There was a chorused, ‘Whoo!’ from the boys, on the premise that Smellie Nat was in for it now, as if he had not guessed.

  On his return, Lillywhite was carrying the punishment book which he opened with great deliberation, and entered the victim’s name and the number of strokes. Then, picking up a cane he ordered, ‘Nathaniel Smellie, come to the front of the class!’

  Nat supposed he should be grateful that the man did not share the melodramatics of another teacher who would lash the air a number of times before making contact with flesh, just to prolong the ordeal. At least Lillywhite waded right into the flogging, though this was hardly a comfort to the recipient. Each blow was accompanied by an instruction: ‘I do not,’ – whack! – ‘expect’ – whack! – ‘a repetition,’ – whack! – ‘of this afternoon’s’ – whack! – ‘performance,’ – whack! – ‘Do you,’ – whack! – ‘understand?’ Then an extra whack for luck and a shove of dismissal. ‘Mother’s boy!’ The rest of the form were permitted a chuckle as a wet-eyed Nat made ginger contact with the bench.