Tomorrow, Jerusalem

by Tomorrow, Jerusalem (retail) (epub)

  Charlotte stood up and walked to the mirror above the fireplace. Her face, she noted with disapproval, was lightly sheened with perspiration, tendrils of fair curling hair clung to her neck. She felt sticky and uncomfortable, her dark skirt flaring from padded hips too hot, the neck of her severe shirt too high for comfort. She stood for a long time looking into the mirror, taking stock as she did so often of the fair face, the pretty hair, the cupid’s bow of mouth, the wide, palely gleaming eyes. Pensively she lifted the wilful, wispy curls from her neck. ‘Well, Charlotte Bedford,’ she said softly aloud, ‘tell me. Do you want the vote? Would you – could you – fight policemen for it?’ In the street outside the winkle man called, his chanting cry all but lost in the dull, persistent rumble of the traffic, ‘Winkles a’ cockles. Winkles a’ cockles.’ ‘And if not,’ Charlotte continued her conversation with herself, ‘what do you want?’ Knowing the answer. Seeing again, with no effort at all, superimposed upon her shadowed reflection in the mirror the elegant room, the long mirrors, the lovely, expensive, flattering clothes—

  Outside the door crisp footsteps sounded in the long flagged corridor that connected this room, which once had been the main bar of the inn and now, as the parlour, was the general meeting room and sitting room of the house, to in one direction the courtyard in which stood the old stables, Doctor Will’s ‘unofficial orphanage’, and in the other some parts of the rest of the house, the rest, absurdly being reached by an outside staircase in the courtyard. She heard the quiet murmur of Doctor Will’s voice, and then, louder and more incisive, Ben’s voice answering him. ‘I know that, Pa. Of course I know it. But compulsory health inspections and free school meals are more important! If we’re going to give the poor little devils more than half a chance to learn – even to want to learn – even, God help us, to get them to school in the first place, we have to start with the basics. The money, initially, needs to go on health – preventive medicine – food – a decent meal for every child every day. Then perhaps we can teach them to think.’

  Their voices faded as they passed the open door and went on out into the courtyard. Charlotte closed her eyes against the spasm of sheer temper that overtook her. She was tired of it. Tired of it! Everyone was so concerned, so very concerned, about the unnamed, unfaced hordes of poverty. No one knew – no one cared – what she wanted. In their care for the whole damned world they could not see unhappiness right under their silly noses. With all the force of her romantic, eighteen-year-old self-centred soul she pitied herself. Her mouth set, miserably sulky. She tilted her head, took a long breath, with deliberation projected herself into her dream. Sunshine gleamed through ivory lace and lay in glowing, shadowed patterns across priceless, jewel-coloured rugs. A young man clicked his booted heels, bent a shining head reverently over her offered hand.

  And when he straightened she realized with a shock that brought her quite hastily and blushingly to herself and to the sound of the ponderous advance of Mrs Briggs and her rattling tea-tray that the silly phantom, until now ever vague, had this time inexplicably acquired the disturbing cornflower eyes and the thatch of blue-black curls that in real life belonged to the faintly terrifying Jackie Pilgrim.

  Chapter Two

  I

  ‘Kill ’im, Joey boy!’

  ‘Knock ’is block off, lad!’

  Poplar sweltered. The sky above the soot-blackened buildings was brazen with heat, the air heavy and suffocatingly still. Even in the long shadows of the tenements that surrounded the patch of waste ground where the fairground booths had been set up, the milling, shirt-sleeved crowd sweated, red-faced, their heavy, shuffling boots raising a dust to choke the devil himself.

  ‘Come on, Joey! Stop arsin’ about! Show the greasy little bugger what’s what!’

  Ralph Bedford stood on the fringes of the crowd, blinking behind his ill-fitting wire-rimmed spectacles against the acrid and unpleasant smell of perspiring humanity and the lifting dust. He was no expert on prize-fighting – far from it – but it seemed to him that the huge, fair young man at whom the crowd’s advice was aimed, stripped to the waist, sheened with sweat, the thin, milk-pale Anglo-Saxon skin of his body marked savagely by the punishment he was receiving, had about as much chance of showing his viciously agile young opponent what was what as he had of sprouting wings and flying. The gipsy fighter flitted around him graceful as a dancer, on his dark, unmarked face the shadow of a purely malicious smile, his flashing, spiteful blows taking the bemused young docker where and when they pleased. The fair young man had long given up trying to duck – had indeed all but given up trying to land a telling blow of his own – and seemed, understandably thought Ralph, intent merely upon defending his already badly damaged face with glove and forearm, determined only to stay on the feet that were planted so flatly upon the wooden boards of the ring for one more round and collect his hard-earned guinea. Joey might be – and looking at him probably was – a good lad in a bare-knuckle bar-room brawl at the Prospect of Whitby or the Newcastle, but he was clearly no match for this ferociously elegant young professional, hard of body and harder of hand who was cutting him to ribbons with no apparent effort and even less apparent concern. Despite himself Ralph flinched as another well-placed blow landed, and big Joey’s grunt of pain was clearly audible, even at this distance. His opponent danced away, still smiling, wolf-like in the shadows. The crowd muttered, shouted half-hearted, scathing encouragement to their almost fallen champion.

  ‘Come on, Joey – what yer waitin’ for, Christmas?’

  ‘Give ’im what for, Joe boy.’

  ‘No chance, I’d say.’ Peter Patten, standing beside Ralph, a full head shorter than his lanky companion, dapper in well-fitting light grey suit, a straw boater at a dashing angle upon his fair young head, grinned a little, blithely unsympathetic. ‘The gipsy lad could take him with one hand tied behind his back, for all his size.’

  ‘The gipsy’s a professional.’ Ralph averted his eyes from the punishment being meted out in the ring. The crowd had fallen silent.

  ‘He is that.’ Peter, despite the heat, somehow contrived to appear cool as a cucumber. Ralph on the other hand was uncomfortably hot, and knew that he must look it, his shirt beneath the none-too-well-fitting jacket drenched with sweat, his thin dark hair plastered to his head.

  ‘Where are the girls?’

  ‘They were over at the skittle alley with Cissy and that twerp of a brother of hers. Ah – there they are—’ Peter waved a hand, ‘over here!’

  Charlotte, dainty and cool beneath a fringed ivory silk parasol, waved back and in a moment she, Hannah and their companions had joined the two young men. ‘Ralph – Peter! What on earth are you doing over here? We thought we had mislaid you entirely! You surely aren’t watching this – this barbarity?’ Charlotte’s small straight nose wrinkled in undisguised distaste.

  The young docker was reeling now upon the ropes as his slighter, faster, more venomous opponent launched a last attack. The crowd, mostly the foolhardy Joey’s workmates who had until a moment before been offering raucous support, turned on him now in defeat, the low, animal growl of their displeasure rising to a ragged, wordless shout as the battered loser retreated and fell beneath a barrage of short, viciously jabbing blows a scant – and, Ralph wondered, calculated? – moment before he could have earned his guinea.

  ‘Oh – really!’ Twirling her parasol, Charlotte turned fastidiously away, then stopped, her eye resting upon a tall figure who, some short distance from her, leaned with negligent grace upon the high, painted wheel of a gipsy wagon, cap tipped to the back of his shining dark head as he watched the fight.

  ‘Charlotte’s right, Ralph – do come away.’ Hannah surveyed Charlotte’s brother, mild surprise upon her strong, plain face. ‘You surely don’t want to watch this?’

  ‘Of course he didn’t,’ her own young brother answered for Ralph, grinning unrepentantly, ‘I did.’

  Hannah tutted exasperatedly. ‘I might have known. But do come away now. You’v
e surely seen enough?’

  The young docker had disappeared from sight, manhandled half-conscious from the ring by his disappointed, and none-too-sympathetic mates. In the ring the barker was calling for new volunteers.

  ‘Come on now, all you brave lads – roll up! Roll up! Oo’ll ’ave a go? A guinea if yer stay three rounds, two if yer can knock ’im over. Oo’ll ’ave a go, I say? You ain’t a scared o’ Gipsy Mike, are yer?’

  Peter nudged Wilfred, Cissy’s slight, sandy haired brother. ‘There you are, Wilf. There’s a chance for you. A couple of guineas in your pocket and a chance to impress the girls,’ he grinned gracelessly, his eyes flicking to Charlotte and back to Wilfred’s reddening face. Charlotte herself ignored both of them; she stood with her back half turned to them smoothing, with great care and concentration, her immaculate white lace gloves to slim fingers, holding her long narrow hands before her to inspect the effect of her efforts, an apparently absorbed and, critical little frown upon her face, which was suddenly and prettily flushed.

  ‘Don’t be such a fool, Pete,’ Wilfred muttered.

  ‘Where are we going now?’ Cissy asked briskly. ‘I do declare I’m almost dying of thirst. Why don’t we have some lemonade?’

  ‘Ripping idea.’ Peter was standing on tiptoe, looking about him, ‘If you’ll just give me a moment – ah!’ His sharp and laughing eye had lit upon a villainous-looking man in dirty vest and a battered top hat that sported an unlikely bright green feather. ‘I’ll pick up the wherewithal, and then it’s my treat.’

  Hannah watched blankly as the young man slid swiftly through the crowds like a minnow through waterweed. ‘Now where’s he going?’ Her voice held that trace of affectionate exasperation that always in Hannah seemed to accompany speech to or about her scapegrace young brother.

  ‘To pick up his winnings, I suspect,’ Ralph said with a small smile.

  ‘His – winnings? You mean he gambled on this awful business?’

  ‘I do believe so.’

  Hannah shook her head in disbelief. Cissy giggled. Charlotte had turned away, parasol tilted at a flirtatious angle over her shoulder, and was strolling very slowly and with elaborate composure a little way from her companions, turning her head, smiling dazzlingly at a hurdy-gurdy man’s gaudily dressed monkey as it pattered and danced upon its master’s shoulder.

  ‘Charlotte?’

  So engrossed had she been in her pretty show that the unexpected voice at her shoulder took her unawares. She caught her breath in irritation and surprise. ‘Oh. Wilfred. It’s you. You startled me.’ Less than graciously, a small line of ill temper fretting her forehead, she shook free of the hand he had laid upon her arm.

  ‘Will you let me buy you some lemonade?’

  She lifted a delicate shoulder clad in pale muslin the same shade as the parasol and scattered with tiny light blue flowers that exactly matched her eyes. ‘If you like. Where are the others?’ She glanced around, apparently casually. Amused and knowing vivid blue eyes acknowledged her little display, a long-fingered dirty hand that clasped a pocket flask openly toasted her, then the dark curly head tilted as Jackie Pilgrim drank deeply, and for one astounding, almost frightening moment she found that she could not look away from the strong, exposed column of the young man’s throat, the muscles moving as he drank. He straightened, pocketed the flask, wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. His neckerchief today was scarlet as was the handkerchief tucked with gaudy style into his top pocket. He looked a young brigand; reckless, handsome, more than a little dangerous.

  For her life, she could not take her eyes off him.

  He smiled again, his own eyes veiled for a moment by the long dark lashes, then he flicked his fingers to his cap in that small and somehow mocking gesture and turned and strolled into the crowd, long-legged, swaggering, drawing her eyes after him like a magnet.

  ‘There they are – waiting for us. Everyone’s dying of thirst in this heat. Do come and have some lemonade?’ Wilfred, in trying to tread the impossible line between a would-be lover’s coaxing and a would-be husband’s masterliness succeeded only in sounding peevish.

  Pointedly, Charlotte moved her parasol to her left shoulder, thereby denying her unwanted swain access to her arm and strolled towards the refreshment booth where the others waited, wrinkling her nose a little at the smell as she passed the whelk and winkle stall.

  Sally Smith, her fingers busy in a plateful of cockles, watched her go by with a grin that was perhaps not as kindly as it might have been. She had watched, entertained, the whole pretty charade. ‘Better’n a peep-show,’ she said with mischievous mockery to her companion, a handsome, dark-haired girl in neat and respectable blue cotton with a touch of white at neck and wrist and a gay cluster of forget-me-nots upon her white straw hat. Josie Dickson’s eyes crinkled into laughter. She was Sally’s best – indeed Sally thought of her as her only – friend; and by some, she knew, who perhaps regarded Sally Smith as being no better than she should be, the friendship was regarded as an odd one, Josie’s father Bill and her older brother Dan were stevedores, working aristocrats of the docklands, her brother Walter a lighterman saving penny by penny to own his own craft. As docking families went the Dicksons were well off and well respected – for even in the bad times there was almost always work for the skilled. It was the casual labourers, the unskilled workers – of whom there were so many – that suffered most from the traditional, cut-throat and corrupt system of ‘calling on’. Even in times of high employment a large percentage of the mass of workers who clamoured at the dock gates at dawn and midday for work would likely be turned away empty-handed, destitute and sometimes dangerous victims of a system designed to keep labour cheap and plentiful and to line the owners’ pockets at whatever cost to working families who were often left without bread. But for the Dicksons a day without work was hardly known and, hard working and respectable, taking pride in their skill and their strength, they gave good measure for their hire. They were a likeable and close-knit family, the only one of its kind that Sally Smith in her short life had encountered. Though red-hot irons might well have had to be employed to make her admit it in so many words, she admired them all enormously, envied them more than a little and greatly valued the affection and esteem that they, for reasons she had never been able to fathom, offered unstintingly to her.

  Josie, who like Sally had watched with wry but not entirely unsympathetic amusement Charlotte’s beguiling and naive attempts to hold Jackie Pilgrim’s fickle attention, laughed a little now softly. ‘Oh, come on, Sal. Don’t be so hard on her. She’s a pretty little thing. And if she is a bit on the daft side – well, she’ll come to no harm, will she? She’s well protected. Which is just as well.’ She lifted bright, dark eyes to the sky. ‘The Lord only knows what Jackie’d do to her if he did get his hands on her!’

  Sally, deftly and with some style, conveyed more vinegar-soaked cockles to her mouth. ‘She wouldn’t know what ’ad ’it ’er. An’ I’m not jokin’.’ There was a sudden, small, raw edge to her husky voice.

  Josie pulled a face. ‘He’s not my cup of tea I must say. Never has been. And even if he was,’ she giggled a little, ‘can you imagine me dad’s face if I turned up at Bolton Terrace with Jackie Pilgrim in tow?’

  ‘Never mind about yer dad – can you imagine Dan’s? ’E’d knock ’is block off. An’ yours for good measure.’

  Josie shook her head. ‘Well believe me it’s not something that’ll ever get put to the test. He may be a pretty lad, and there’s no denying that, but I wouldn’t get near him with a bargepole. He’s nothing but trouble.’

  Sally, with efficient, grimy, square-tipped fingers, cleared her plate of the last moist scraps, relishing them, licking the salty vinegar from her skin. ‘Jackie?’ she said mildly. ‘Oh, come on – that’s a bit ’ard, Josie – Jackie’s not so bad.’ She smiled, drily, tilted her head so that the broken daisies upon her hat brim nodded drunkenly. ‘Oh, ’e’s vicious, an’ ’e’s stupid, an’ I wouldn’t trust �
��im with ’is own mother after a few pints – but apart from that ’e’s all right.’

  Her companion laughed a little, but her bright eyes were shrewd. ‘A little bird tells me that you didn’t always feel like that?’

  Sally shook her head. ‘Don’t never believe all them little birds tell yer, Jose. They’re terrible liars. Didn’t yer know?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Sal. Isn’t it true that you and Jackie were – well – a bit more than friends some little while back?’

  Sally appeared to consider that seriously. ‘Ter be a bit more than friends, Josie love, you ’ave ter be friends in the first place, right? An’ I’d no more make friends with the likes of Jackie Pilgrim than I’d put me right ’and in a snake pit. Or me left fer that matter. Not now an’ not then. But,’ a flashing grin lit her face, gleamed in her narrow hazel eyes, ‘—like yer said, he’s a pretty enough lad. An’ – yes – there was a time when I thought it might be worth the try—’

  ‘And was it?’

  The other girl turned to put her plate on the stall, adjusted about her bony shoulders the brilliant, threadbare, silky shawl that was her dearest possession and had been donned despite the weather for this festive afternoon. ‘No. It wasn’t,’ she said shortly. ‘I should ’ave ’ad me ’ead examined first. But there – yer live an’ learn, or so they say – where’s the Jug? Can yer see ‘im? Toby? Tobe! Come ’ere yer little monster! Where is the little blighter? Toby! Get out from under there!’