The next part of the initiation went without a hitch. Nat walked into another pawnbroker’s shop, this time Haythorne’s in Walmgate, handed over the two jerseys to Uncle, gave a false name and received a few pence, which he was then forced to hand over to Denzil. ‘Am I in the gang now?’
Though satisfied with his performance, Denzil replied, ‘Not yet, you’ve another part of the initiation to go through.’
‘I’m starving,’ complained Nat.
‘So am I,’ agreed Denzil. ‘Let’s go get summat to eat first.’
There was a greengrocer’s nearby with a mound of produce outside. The old lady in charge was half blind and did not see the boys loading carrots and apples down their fronts for all they were worth. Their booty was consumed as they loped through town and along the riverside to their other camping ground, which was near Lendal Bridge on the west bank of the Ouse. The earth here was unwalled and sloped down to the water. In the shadow of the bridge with its toll booths at either end they had piled branches, planks and stones from a demolished building to make a fort, though almost every day they were forced to rebuild it due to sabotage. Whilst they crouched inside, eating apples, keeping an eye on some other boys on the landing stage across the river, Nat was pumped for his life story, which he embroidered in grosspoint.
When they had taken their fill, the boys used the apple cores as missiles to bomb one another. One of them caught Denzil on the nose and Nat had a glimpse of just how unpredictable the leader could be as he fell upon Gunner and beat him until he cried.
‘I’m gunner tell me dad o’ you!’ Gunner ran off sobbing, thereby providing Nat with an explanation of his nickname.
Totally unconcerned, Denzil shouted an insult, then calm as one pleased, announced, ‘Right! It’s time for the second part of the initiation. Lie down!’
Dreading violence, Nat lay on the ground. The other boys stood round him, made sure no one was about, then unbuttoned their kneebreeches and proceeded to urinate on him. Never had Nat experienced anything so ghastly. He thrashed from side to side, trying to escape being drowned, but Denzil’s aim followed his movements. When the flow stopped they used their feet to roll him in the mud and laughed uproariously at the end result. Nat hated and despised them.
‘You are now a fully-fledged member of the gang!’ pronounced Denzil. ‘Wash yourself off in t’river.’ Giving Nat little choice the leader pushed him in.
After his dousing one of them asked the leader, ‘Do we teach him the special handshake?’
Denzil agreed, showing Nat what to do. ‘It’s so we don’t get any spies from another gang trying to pinch our secrets. A spy wouldn’t be able to do the handshake, see?’
Nat thought it ridiculous that with only five in the gang none of them would recognize an interloper even without the handshake, but went along with it anyway.
‘Gunner’ll give you a tattoo tomorrow an’ all,’ promised Denzil. ‘He’s good at that, even if he is a bit weedy. Right! Let’s have a fire, Rodge.’
Roger lit a fire – it transpired from later conversation that this was his own speciality – and Spud went to hunt for more food.
Nat was still very damp when in the late afternoon they announced that they had to go home. He had forgotten that most people had homes to go to. They asked where he lived and he told them that he would live where the fancy took him. The news that he had no parents nor master to order him about elevated him even further in the eyes of Spud and Roger, though Denzil failed to be impressed, announcing that they would meet him at their headquarters in Patrick Pool tomorrow after school. Left alone, Nat felt utterly miserable and after spending a couple of hours wandering around hotel dustbins, looked for a place to sleep, gathering bits of newspaper as he went. Eventually, he curled up beneath a limestone arch. It was a very cold night.
* * *
By the next morning he knew that he would have to find somewhere more civilized to live. It would have been quite easy to go to the Maguires, divulge that his mother had left him, and they would have taken him in. However, he refused to do that. Nat did not even want to think about his mother, let alone face a barrage of questions, though it would be nice to see Bright.
How was he going to eat? If he continued to steal he would eventually be caught and he was determined not to be sent back to that school. As he lounged there watching the early morning sun play over the river, he mulled over what employment he might be qualified to do. He was good at sweeping up and picking oakum, that was about all. The small amount of carpentry he had learned under Mr Chipchase might just get him taken on as an apprentice, but Nat was determined to have no master save himself.
A tramp shuffled past. Deep in quandary, Nat took little notice of him at first, but on paying more attention noticed that the tramp was collecting odd bits and pieces of what appeared to be rubbish. Why had he not thought about it before! He would be a scavenger. Jumping up, he stood there briefly tapping his chin, working out a routine. The vagrant had probably taken everything worthwhile around here, but there would be plenty of scrap metal near Foss Bridge. Wasting no time, he went there.
When Nat arrived, to his dismay there was an old man already in loco who shouted at Nat to go away. Annoyed, the boy moved a little further downstream. The man had a sack. Nat had nothing in which to put his find. With his clothes still damp from yesterday’s dip it wouldn’t matter if he got them wet again. He waded into the blanket of scum, feeling about with his boot. Encountering something, he crouched under the water, trying to keep his head free whilst grubbling with his hand. He took hold, revealing a piece of lead pipe. With no idea whether or not it was worth anything he threw it onto the bank and continued to grope.
Shortly after this he noticed to his alarm that the old man was approaching. He might be going to steal Nat’s find; splashing to the bank he hovered over it like an eagle over its prey.
The old man grinned, much friendlier than before. ‘Doing this for your dad, are you?’
Nat shook his head, loosing drops of water. ‘It’s mine.’
‘What’re you going to do with it?’
‘Sell it and buy food,’ answered Nat.
The old man rasped his bewhiskered chin. His nails were filthy. ‘Haven’t you got any mother to give you food?’
When Nat shook his head, the other nodded with empathy. ‘All on your own, eh? I know how it feels.’ He sighed and tapped the piece of lead with a worn-out boot. ‘I don’t like to say it but you won’t get much for that bit there. Hardly enough to buy you a loaf of bread. Hungry, are you?’
Nat returned a dismal nod.
The man appeared to undergo deep decision, then with a magnanimous gesture he plunged into his greasy overcoat. ‘Tell you what, I don’t like to see a youngster in trouble. I’ll exchange this gold coin for your scabby bit o’ pipe.’
Nat asked to see the coin. The man held it out but refused to let go, showing that it was very valuable. Nat was not totally gullible. ‘Why haven’t you spent it yourself?’
‘Can’t spend it, it’s not English money – came all the way from Egypt, but it has a lot of gold in it and the goldsmith’ll give you a good price. I’ve been keeping it as a sort of talisman, it’s brought me quite a bit of luck, but I reckon it’s somebody else’s turn to have a bit. Go on, take it, you look like you could do with it.’
Nat was still dubious. No one had ever done him favours and if they had then they wanted something in return. He dithered; then the lure of the bounty defeated his good sense. Once Nat had accepted it, the man was quick to drop the lead piping into his sack and hurry away.
Feeling optimistic, Nat turned the gold coin in his fingers, then sought out a goldsmith’s to exchange it for money. On being shown the tiny piece of base metal, the goldsmith dealt him a swift clip around the ear and chased him from the shop. ‘Take it to a scrapyard!’
The scrap dealer was a little kinder, telling Nat, ‘This is really what you should be looking for.’ He held up a piece of lead piping
. The boy’s face crumpled. ‘Somebody diddled you, have they?’ asked the man. Nat gave a glum nod. ‘Learned your first lesson then. It’s the ugly things that’re worth the most – course if you find a big bit of brass I’d not complain.’ He laughed. ‘But anything metal’ll do – screws, nuts. I’ll give you a halfpenny for every pound of scrap you bring me.’
Nat returned to the river and searched all morning, collecting nails, rivets, washers, anything that might make up the weight. By tying the tails of his shirt around his waist he managed to form a bag into which he dropped his prizes. Judging by the clinking sound he had accrued a fine haul. This he took back to the scrapyard. The scales barely dipped. Nat wondered how dozens of nails could weigh so little.
Out of the goodness of his heart the man gave him a halfpenny anyway. ‘But this is the last time! I’m not a charity.’ He had a sudden idea. ‘Tell you a better line of work for you, if you can get hold of a bucket and shovel, that is. The tannery’ll pay you for every bucket of dogmuck you take them.’
Nat was angry at such blatant fraud, but the man announced that he was not trying to humiliate him. ‘It’s right! Heaven knows what they use it for, I’m not sure I want to know.’ He studied the pathetic waif before him, the kind of waif he saw every day, but inexplicably this one touched a nerve in him. ‘Look, to show I’m not stringing you along I’ll do you a favour. I’ll lend you a bucket and shovel until you’ve got enough to buy your own. I’m trusting you, now.’
Nat took the bucket and shovel, but before making a start on his new employment he used the halfpenny to buy food. Whilst eating his bread he looked up and down the street. There was plenty of excrement of all kinds but the man had specified dogmuck, so dogmuck it would be. Brushing the crumbs from his chin he braced himself, then set about his revolting task. Notwithstanding the amount of detritus about, it took a long time to fill the bucket. Anticipating mockery, he dithered outside the tannery for a long time before summoning the nerve to go in.
But no one laughed! A man just instructed him to tip the contents of his bucket into a pit, gave him a halfpenny and that was that. Pocketing his fee Nat spent the afternoon refilling his bucket. Whilst he was doing this he saw Bright and hid to avoid being caught in this humiliating position. It was for this same reason that he hid the bucket and shovel before going to meet Denzil and the gang that evening – not that he liked any of them, but they were better than no company at all.
Throughout September he continued to meet them on an evening, shovelling faeces during the day. From this insalubrious occupation and collecting bits of scrap he had almost earned enough to purchase his own bucket and shovel, but was reluctant to waste his money in this way. The scrapman had not yet asked for his implements to be returned, and until he did Nat would continue to make use of them.
Food was not a problem now, though finding a warm sleeping place was. Also, his boots had been too tight for some time and with a big hole in one of them they would have to be replaced. He was about to discard them when he noticed a smaller urchin without any footwear at all and asked if he had any money. Receiving a negative answer, he told the boy that if he could come up with tuppence the boots were his. The urchin rushed off to accost passers-by and soon returned to claim his prize. Nat added the coins to the rest in his pocket. If his feet could withstand the weather he would not be frittering his money on boots. He was saving it to buy himself a house.
Nat found other ways of earning money too – he should have done, he spent enough time thinking about it as he cleaned the city’s footwalks. To save on buying food he began to wait outside factories for the men to leave and begged the scraps from their cans. If there was anything whole like a cake he would sell it for a penny. The scraps he would give to other boys in exchange for favours. He was going to be rich. No one would push him around again. It was amazing, the good ideas that came to one whilst shovelling dogmuck. On Sundays, when the bells rang out from St Saviour’s and St Cuthbert’s, he followed the rest of the parishioners into church. When the collection plate came round and others put money in, Nat took it out. He had become very adept at this, would hold a penny between his first and second fingers and lower his hand over the plate, then at the precise moment that the penny was released his thumb and third finger would nip a threepenny piece – or if he was lucky a sixpence – and transfer it deftly to his palm. With the services at different times he could manage to visit a number of churches; so many at the early service, one later in the morning and another two in the evening. Church provided a bed too, if he could manage to hide under a pew before the vicar locked up for the night.
One night, towards the end of September, he lurked in St Margaret’s off Walmgate, only a few hundred yards from where Bright performed her worship. That was one place he had not visited for fear of encountering the Maguires, but greed was beginning to get the better of him and as he lay on his pew trying to sleep the thought kept niggling at his mind. St George’s was just about the only church in the city from which he had not pilfered. It irked him, knowing the Catholics were more inclined to put a higher denomination of coin into the collection plate than anyone else. What was to say the Maguires would see him anyway? The church would be full, and a small boy like himself could easily evade their eye.
He waited until one rainy Sunday evening when the light was poor before chancing an encounter with the Irish family, hiding and watching until most of the congregation was in and the doors were about to be closed before making a dash inside.
He should not have waited: all the pews at the back were filled and he had to go further into the church to look for a gap. Someone grabbed him and hauled him into a space. With tentative eyes he looked up, but it was no one he knew. Only half relieved, he glanced around at the other worshippers, but being small did not have a very good field of vision. What matter, if he could not see them, the Maguires would not see him either.
In part he was right. Though seated only two rows behind, none of the Maguire family had noticed him, at least not for a while. However, in the brief change of position when the worshippers in front kneeled down to pray, the youngest Maguire caught a glimpse of him and, delighted, craned her face to watch him through a little gap between two elbows, praying for Mass to be over so she could be reunited with her friend.
To Nat the droning of priest and congregation seemed interminable, but he endured the tedium in the knowledge that there was to be reward at the end of it. Finally the ordeal was over, and he became alert as the collection plates began to move up and down the rows.
To his rear, Bright dropped her Sunday penny into the wooden bowl and watched it travel along the row in front. She was always fascinated by the amount that some people put in and paid great attention to it. Eventually the bowl came to Nat. He took it with his left hand and used his right to put the coin in – no, he had taken a coin out! Bright’s jaw fell open as she saw his fingers come away with a threepenny piece which was swiftly hidden in his fist and the bowl passed on. Oh, how could he?
The Maguires began to shuffle out of their stall. Nat, eager to be gone now, stepped out of his own pew, saw them and immediately jumped backwards. It was too late; Bright had seen him. Whilst her parents led the family out she lagged behind to confront him. Reluctantly he was nudged forward by those behind.
To Bright’s indignance, he did not even have the decency to look ashamed. ‘Hello,’ was all he said.
Pursing her lips she turned and left the church, but was waiting for him outside to accuse him. ‘You’ve stolen off Our Lord! I saw ye!’
Nat did not deny it. ‘I need it to buy food.’ It was raining. He began to walk.
Bright moved after him. ‘What’re ye talking about? Why don’t you eat at home like everyone else?’
‘I can’t.’
Bright was still angry at this most heinous of crimes. ‘Why?’
Nat did not answer, his eyes following the rest of the Maguires who were hurrying up George Street. Cold raindrops dappled her
head and trickled down her brow. ‘Why?’ she demanded again.
‘There’s nobody at home to feed me,’ he said, then looked down at his bare dirty feet.
Bright saw them too now, and tempered her approach. ‘Where’s your mother?’
‘Hull.’
The rain was growing heavier. Bright pulled her shawl over her head. ‘What’s she doing there?’
Nat shrugged and kept walking, his head and shoulders glittering with droplets.
‘When’s she coming back?’
Nat didn’t want to answer, but Bright kept repeating her question. ‘I don’t know! I don’t think… I don’t think she is coming back.’
‘Bloomin’ heck, you mean she’s left you?’
‘No! She wouldn’t leave me, dummy. It’s that Sep Kendrew who took her away.’
‘But…’
‘Just shut up being so bloody nosey!’
‘What’re ye getting mad at me for?’ demanded Bright. ‘I never made her go.’ She flounced ahead and hurried after her family.
She was going to leave him. Everyone for whom he had ever held affection always left him – his mother, Bowman – but he made no attempt to stop her. Come back, his mind begged. Come back! As if by telepathy, Bright turned back and stopped, squinting against the needles of rain. ‘Are you living on your own then?’
He drew level, nodding.
‘Glory be to God, I’d never be able to do that. Come on!’ She ran to catch up with her parents and, after a few chattered words, they stopped briefly, turned to look at Nat and signalled for him to follow before hurrying onwards across waste ground and up a narrow lane.
He quickened his pace but did not run, unsure that he wanted any interference from them. They were at their doorstep before he caught up.
‘Is it true what Bright says?’ Mrs Maguire’s gentle eyes looked with pity upon his bare feet, when they were all inside the house. ‘Your mother left ye?’
Shoddy Prince Page 16
