Street Child

by Berlie Doherty

  When he had finished his meal Nick belched loudly and climbed off the lighter onto the plankway. Jim could hear him trudging past the warehouse and up the alley, and guessed he would be making for one of the alehouses behind the wharf. He was glad. All he wanted now was to go to sleep. There was a wooden locker with two benches, and he guessed that these were to lie on. He rolled himself up in his sacking. He was so tired that he fell asleep at once. Somehow through his sleep he heard Nick coming back, full of ale and good cheer, saw him tousling Snipe’s head and slipping him more meat from his pocket. He didn’t take the bench next to Jim but lowered himself down into the hold of the lighter, and Jim was glad of that too.

  Far out on the river tug-boats hooted. Beside Jim, the yellow dog snuffled into its paws and groaned.

  When Jim fell asleep again he dreamt of his first home, the cottage. Only it was made of coal, its walls and floors and ceilings were black and gleaming, reflecting the orange glow of the brazier. Each side of it his mother and father sat with their hands stretched over the fire for warmth. His mother was just as he remembered her, pale and quiet, her dark hair smoothed back. But his father, whose face he never saw in his dreams, looked just like Grimy Nick. He had a gap between his teeth and a frothy beard and grey thatchy hair, and his face was black with coal-dust, his eyes white rings like lights. Jim didn’t mind, in his dream, because it looked like a proper home, even though it was made of coal. And it had a name, he was sure of that. It was called the Lily.

  14

  The Waterman’s Arms

  Jim woke up before Grimy Nick. The river was overflowing with mist and seemed to be breathing with secrets, with dark looming shapes. When the mist began to lift they bloomed into life, like a city, street upon street of boats. He could see downriver to the long silver gleam of water, under the dark arches of a bridge, and he knew that far away from there it flowed out to the sea. He imagined slipping the knot of the Lily and drifting downstream with her past all the floating castles of tall sailing ships and out to the huge ocean.

  When Grimy Nick lumbered up from his dark hole he swore at Jim for letting the fire in the brazier go out. ‘You’d think we didn’t have any coal on board, you fool.’ He laughed at his own joke, a great startling whoop of laughter that set Snipe leaping up out of his sleep. Jim tried to laugh with him.

  ‘Get water from the yard,’ Nick snarled. ‘Start the day off right.’

  When Jim came back with his slopping pail he found Nick toasting fish by the fire. He threw a piece in one direction for Jim and some heads in another direction for the dog. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and belched.

  ‘Work!’ he told Jim. ‘When we clears this lot, we goes out for more, off one of them big boats. So don’t think yer work’s done. Yer work’s never done. Not while there’s coal in the ground.’

  It took them the whole of that day to clear the hold of coal. Jim thought every bone in his body must break before he’d finished, but Nick kept grimly on, shovelling and lifting and tipping, shovelling and lifting and tipping, his body a grunting shadow swinging across the glow of the lantern. ‘Work!’ Nick shouted at him, whenever he paused to rest, swinging his shovel round to crack across the boy’s back. Jim struggled to keep up. Sweat poured down him like rain, soaking into him, and when he rubbed his eyes the grit of coal-dust smarted and stung him. By the end of the day he couldn’t see what he was lifting or where he was tipping, and no sooner was the basket winched up than he was shovelling coals into empty space, and being shouted at by Nick for his stupidity.

  But at last the hold was empty. Nick went up to the desk in the warehouse to get his payment, then came back on board, jingling the coins in his pocket.

  ‘You’re only a bundle of sticks,’ he said to Jim, ‘but you’ve worked. If yer wants a bowl of mutton stew come with me to the alehouse, and I’ll see you’re set up.’

  Jim was so tired he would rather have slept, but he reckoned that Nick’s invitation was meant to be some kind of compliment. He didn’t dare turn it down. He stumbled after Nick, and the dog loped between them, turning its yellow eyes first to one and then to the other of them.

  The Waterman’s Arms was dark and noisy, with a low blackened ceiling and lanterns hanging from the beams. It was thick with smoke from the fire in the hearth, and from the men and women who were puffing away at pipes. Grimy Nick pushed his way towards a crowd of men, who all wore large metal badges on their arms like him to show they were watermen. They whistled in contempt when they saw him, but he only laughed in his loud, sharp way. ‘This is my midget, little Jim, here. Show ’em your muscles, little Jim! Didn’t know ’e ’ad any, till he came to work alongside of me.’ He patted Jim’s head in a fatherly sort of way and told him to find a stool by the hearth and to keep quiet.

  The barmaid set a bowl of hot stew in front of Jim, and a small draught of ale. He could hardly keep his eyes open now. Before he was half-way through it the noises around him softened out into murmurs, and spread across a wide, dark sea, lapping as quiet as long ago. He was slipping into the sea, which wasn’t sea at all but a cradle with soft warm cloths, and it was rocking him as if he were a baby.

  There was a crash, and he woke up with a start to find himself lying face down in the sawdust and his bowl of stew broken and spilt in the hearth. Nick lifted him up and swung him across his shoulders, and Jim was carried outside past all the laughing, upturned faces and propped up on a bench in the dark, with Snipe growling at his feet.

  ‘Wait there,’ Nick grunted, and went back inside.

  Jim was glad to be outside, with the air cold and smarting on his cheeks. He could hear Grimy Nick’s voice inside, loud and boastful, his quick, surprising bellow of laughter. He was joined by other children, all squatting or standing in a silent line, waiting for their masters to come out with their food or their pay. Jim puffed himself up a bit. He was the only child there with a beer-pot in his hand, even if he did think it tasted like copper coins. He wished he could have his hot mutton stew back.

  ‘You with Grimy Nick?’ one boy asked. Jim nodded, taking a quick swig from his pot and scowling at its bitterness.

  ‘His last boy was took to ospickal,’ the boy muttered. ‘Beat to bits.’

  ‘Won’t beat me,’ said Jim, full of beery bravado, ‘I’ll beat him first.’

  The other children giggled into their hands at this, turning knowing looks at each other. They were a miserable lot of scarecrows, Jim thought, sipping again at his ale. Some of the children slept where they waited, leaning against each other. One group, roped together, told him they were a field gang, and were waiting to go with their gang-leader to dig up turnips on farms. They were led away at last, and one by one the other children ran off with their coins in their hands. At last Nick came out, breathing bad temper into the cold night.

  ‘Jim, you faggot, it’s time for you to take me home,’ he bellowed as if Jim was two miles away instead of standing beside him, and he leaned his weight on Jim’s shoulder. Together they made their slow way to where the Lily was moored. Nick stumbled down to his gritty bed in the hold and snored like a fog-horn all night.

  It seemed as if Jim had only just gone to sleep when he was kicked awake again. Nick, yawning and coughing, pulled him to his feet.

  ‘Move!’ he shouted. ‘Tide’s turning!’

  Jim staggered up. A fluttering of excitement lit up like a small candle flame inside him. It was time for them to move downstream. Beneath his feet the Lily was rocking round, soft as breaths. Jim ran to the wharf and fetched water, and Nick knocked on the door of a nearby cottage and came back with hot bread wrapped in a cloth. By this time the tide was streaming underneath the boat. She nudged round to face downstream, and Nick threw her rope on deck and jumped on board. Jim’s dream had come true. They were heading towards the sea.

  15

  Josh

  Grimy Nick stood with his long oar dipping into the water and guided the Lily out, and along with her came a flock of ba
rges and sailing boats. The watermen shouted abuse at each other, all racing to find work first. To Jim the Lily was like a water bird edging her quiet way along the brown river. Even Nick’s swearing and whistling didn’t take away from him the excitement he was feeling. He looked back and saw the city, with its black pall of smoke hung over it, and he saw the arms of the bridges looping across it, and the slow traffic of sailing boats like dark swans. He heard the sheesh! of water against the sides of the Lily, and the steady plash! plash! of Nick’s long oar and above him, the heckling of gulls. Nothing, not all the misery of the last year, not the pain of the last two days, not his fear of Grimy Nick and Snipe, could take away from him the thrill of the journey. It felt like a new beginning.

  At last they came to where the big ships lay at anchor. They pulled up alongside a huge coal-carrying boat called Queen of the North, and there Nick pulled in his oar, whistling loudly till a rope ladder was dropped down to him. The Lily lay bobbing on the water while Grimy Nick shinned up the rope ladder and went on board the big boat. Jim gazed up after him, longing to follow him. Nick shouted down to him to pull back all the hatch boards. A basket brimming with coals swung out from the boom of the Queen of the North and was slowly lowered down. Nick shinned down the ladder again and whistled. ‘Drop!’ he yelled, and the basket creaked down. When it reached Nick’s grasp he and Jim swung it round and tipped the contents into the hold of the Lily. Jim spluttered in the clouds of black dust.

  ‘That’s your job for today, and tomorrow, till we get the hold full,’ Nick told Jim. ‘We’ve got eighty tons to load, and the quicker we gets it done the quicker we gets back. See we don’t lose any coals overboard. And keep the dog out of the way. And keep moving.’

  They worked through the day and into night again. They slept till dawn and set to work again, and at last the hold was so full that Nick had to scramble out of it, coughing and spitting out the coal-dust he had swallowed. His face was black, and under the blackened jut of his hair his eyes gleamed with red rims. His lips shone wet and pink when he opened his mouth, and his few teeth were as bright as polished gems.

  ‘Put some hatch boards across,’ he ordered, ‘I’m going for some food.’ He scrambled back up the ladder, hawking up black spittle as he went.

  Jim heaved down the hatch boards and lit the stove, squatting by it for warmth. The afternoon wore on into evening, and a grey gloom settled over the sky. The water glowed with the setting sun, and then faded into the dark. One by one the boats around him had their lanterns hung over their sides. It was as if there were hundreds of small fires dancing on the water. Jim guessed that nothing would move now until the next tide.

  From the Queen of the North came occasional bursts of laughter and shouts of singing. Jim could smell tobacco. He felt quite happy now that the work had stopped and he could rest. Soon, he knew, Grimy Nick would come swearing back down again and shout at him for something, but at least he would be bringing him food. Jim swilled out his mouth with the last of the water. Snipe lay watching him, his ears sharp, mean points of malevolence, his eyes yellow holes of light. Jim gazed out across the black water. He could hear it breathing, like a huge, waiting beast.

  ‘Hey, below!’ a voice called down to him.

  Jim jumped up. ‘Who is it?’ He held up the lantern, and watched as an unfamiliar pair of boots swung down the ladder towards him. Snipe growled and then settled down again as the owner of the boots jumped onto the lighter and stroked the dog’s head.

  ‘Come to see how Benjamin is,’ the man said, in a strange accent.

  ‘I don’t know him,’ said Jim.

  ‘The other lad that comes with Nick. Big, clumsy lad,’ the man said.

  Jim remembered what a boy had said to him outside The Waterman’s Arms. ‘I think he might be in hospital.’

  The man whistled. ‘Well, I’m not surprised. He looked bad last time I saw him. I’ve been worrying about him. And I’d say it was Nick that got him that way.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jim was afraid of saying anything in case this was a trick. Nick might be half-way up the ladder there, dangling in the dark and waiting to pounce on him.

  ‘Beats you too, does he?’ the man asked him.

  Jim said nothing.

  ‘Think they own you, some of these masters. Think they own you, body and soul. But they don’t. Not your soul. Know what your soul is?’

  ‘No, mister,’ said Jim, though in his head he imagined it to be something white and fluffy, like a small cloud maybe, floating round his body.

  ‘Well, it’s like your name. It comes with you when you’re born, and it’s yours to keep.’ The man puffed out his lips, as if it had been hard work thinking that out. ‘And my name’s Josh, and I don’t mind telling you that for nothing.’

  Jim was silent. He half-wanted to tell this man about Rosie and Shrimps, and how he used to be known as Skipping Jim, but he kept it to himself. He didn’t feel much like skipping any more. He didn’t suppose that he would, ever again. Josh settled down next to the brazier of glowing coals and held out his hands over it as if he would be quite pleased to stay there for the night. He told Jim that Nick was fast asleep on the Queen of the North.

  ‘He’s stuffed his belly so full that he can’t stuff any more in it,’ Josh said. ‘So don’t expect him down for a bit. Not till the tide comes in, I’d say.’

  ‘Where does the tide go to?’ Jim asked, a bit timid. He was still wary of Josh, but he liked him, he knew that. He’d never known any man like him before, who spoke kindly to small boys.

  ‘Go to?’ Josh puffed out his lips again. ‘Well, it’s just there, isn’t it? It’s pulled over one way, then it’s pulled over another, but it just keeps coming in and out, day after day after day, and it always will. Where there isn’t land there’s water, lots of it. And you can only see the top of it. There’s more of it underneath. Miles and miles of it. Imagine that!’

  Jim tried to imagine it, but he was tired and hungry and thinking was difficult. ‘Do you live in that boat?’ he asked Josh.

  ‘No more than I can help. I’ve got a proper home. As soon as you lighters take our coal off us we go home. We sail up the coast of England from here, right up to the north. And that’s not the end of the sea, you know. If you just stayed on water you could go right round the world.’

  ‘I wish I could do that,’ Jim said.

  Josh laughed. ‘You’re a funny one, you are. What would you want to do that for? It’s big and empty, the sea is. Lonely.’

  ‘I might find somewhere nice to live.’

  Josh laughed again and shook his head. ‘You don’t like living here, then?’

  ‘No, mister, I don’t. It’s cold and it’s hard and I don’t get enough food.’ Jim lowered his voice. ‘And he shouts and screams so much.’

  ‘Not much of a life for a boy,’ Josh agreed. ‘I’ve got a little lad like you. I’m glad he’s tucked up in bed with his sisters and his mam, and not stuck out here.’

  Jim riddled the coals in the brazier. He could feel his cheeks blazing hot and his eyes smarting. He had a new idea inside him, a little feverish will o’ the wisp idea. He poked the coals again, easing them round to let the ashes sift through the grid.

  Josh stood up and stretched. ‘Well, I’ll be getting up on deck for some sleep. We’ll be off with tomorrow’s tide.’ He swung himself onto the ladder.

  ‘Josh.’ Jim’s idea burst out of him, taking him by surprise. ‘Can I come with you?’

  Josh looked down at him. His face was in deep shadow. ‘Come with me?’ His voice was soft. ‘Why?’

  Jim lowered his head and shrugged. His cheeks were burning again. He couldn’t find his voice properly. ‘I think it would be better, that’s all,’ he whispered.

  ‘Nothing gets much better,’ Josh said. ‘Not till you’re dead.’

  He hauled himself quickly up the rope, whistling tunelessly between his teeth. Jim sat for a long time with his legs crossed and his arms folded across his knees. The moon wa
s out, bright and round as a mocking face, and the river was billowing up to it, and beyond was blackness. There was no other world but the blackened heart of the lighter and his own small bench space. This was his home. He had to accept it.

  16

  Boy in Pain

  Jim lay awake listening to the sounds of laughter that floated down from the Queen of the North. He felt very lonely. Clouds had thickened, and the sky was darker than he had ever known it. The night seemed to stretch on for ever.

  ‘I wish I’d got a brother,’ he thought. He said it out loud. ‘I wish I’d got a brother.’ His voice was a tiny, quavering thing. He stood up and shouted. ‘I wish I’d got a brother!’

  He thought of Tip, sleeping in the workhouse in the snuffling darkness. He thought of Shrimps in a lodging house full of snoring old men. He thought of Josh’s son, tucked up in a proper bed with a real mother and sisters.

  ‘You got lots of bruvvers, Jim,’ he said to himself, the way Shrimps would have said it. ‘Only they ain’t around at the moment, is all.’

  He pulled his sack round him and fell asleep.

  Grimy Nick was laughing softly to himself as he came down the ladder. The sky was the colour of milk. Jim started up out of his slumber, his first thoughts to the fire in the brazier, in case he’d let it go out. Nick tossed a bone to the dog, who leapt on it, growling. Jim held out his hands for his food. Nothing.

  ‘There’s work to do soon, such as you’ve never seen before,’ Nick told him. He half-fell down into the hold, sending the packed coals skittling.

  Snipe snarled and guzzled over his bone, his paws securing it. Jim could smell the meat on it. ‘Tell him, bruvver,’ a voice in Jim’s head said. ‘He’s forgot you. Tell him!’

  ‘Nick,’ Jim whispered.

  Nick snorted and turned over.

  Hunger gave Jim courage. ‘Did you forget my food?’