Free. Free as a bird lifting upon the summer air. As a jungle cat flitting through dangerous shadows.
Unexpectedly Charlotte felt a stab of an all-too-familiar feeling; the vague fretting of discontent, the yearning for something – anything! – to happen beyond the everyday humdrum safety of her life. Oh, Lord! Nothing exciting – but nothing! – was ever going to happen to her, she knew it. She would grow old if not with Wilfred then with someone like him – safe, secure, respectable. She would live in a safe, secure and respectable house with her safe, secure and respectable children and her safe, secure and respectable friends—
Behind her she could hear the others talking. Cissy and Peter were laughing. She could positively feel Wilfred’s hurt eyes boring into her back. She tossed back the last of her cider, stood up – and staggered very slightly as for an alarming and rather amusing second the world tilted a little around her. She suppressed a sudden silly desire to giggle. ‘I shan’t be a moment.’
‘Where are you going?’ It was Hannah, surprised.
‘I’m—’ Where was she going? Anywhere. Just anywhere away from them all for a moment, ‘—just over to the ribbon stall. I need some lemon silk for my new hat. I shan’t be long.’
Hannah set aside her lemonade. ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No! No – truly, there’s no need. Finish your drink. It’s only over there – look – just a little way. I shall be perfectly safe alone.’ And that at least was true. It was well understood that, whilst daylight lasted at least, these young people associated with Doctor Will Patten need fear no harm in these rough and crowded streets. All were known, all were protected; though once night fell with the rats creeping from their sewers and the human vermin slinking from their holes it was a different story. Then, like all sensible people they remained within doors or walked protected and in pairs. Except Doctor Will and Ben. No one would hurt the one and not many cared to challenge the other.
Hannah sank back on to her chair. Her hair, inevitably, had begun to slide untidily from its pins and clung uncomfortably to her neck; the sensible brown dress she wore seemed to trap the heat and intensify it. ‘Well, all right. But don’t be long, dear, for we shall have to be going soon.’
Charlotte strolled to the ribbon stall, revelling even in this small freedom. A young man watched her, open admiration written upon his face. Studiedly she ignored him. An older man, his wife upon his arm, both dressed in Sunday best despite the heat tipped a civil cap to her. ‘Afternoon, Miss.’ She smiled gracefully, nodding her head. At the stall, which was a tumble of brightly coloured silk and satin ribbons, she took her time in choosing, lifting the brilliant, shining streamers in her small, nicely shaped hands, holding them to the evening light, knowing well the pretty picture she presented to the passing world. Scarlet and blue, green and yellow, gleaming silver and soft cream—
‘Buy a ribbon, pretty Miss – farthin’ a yard the narrow, ‘a’penny the broad. A ribbon for your pretty hair?’
She selected some wide lemon satin for her hat and a narrow crimson silk for her hair simply because it reminded her of the dress the dancing girl wore. She watched the old woman wind and wrap it with dark, gnarled hands that moved surprisingly deftly. ‘Thank you.’
She took her time in making her way back to the others. The girl was still dancing, the crowd around her several deep. Charlotte paused for a moment to watch. The wild tempo had died, the tambourine had been laid aside. Clicking long fingers in a hypnotically complicated rhythm the girl moved slowly and with insolent grace around the circle of onlookers, flaunting her full, lovely body, her face disdainful. The notes of the fiddle hung on the hot evening air, haunting and beautiful, rousing again in Charlotte that strange, almost sensual feeling of restiveness, of nameless and disturbing longing. The tempo quickened. The girl stamped rhythmically, moving still about the circle. Then she stopped and, back arched, fingers clicking rapidly above her head, she turned slowly, displaying herself, knowing her own beauty, revelling in its attraction. The faintest glimmer of a smile lifted the corner of lips as red as the dress she wore – surely, Charlotte found herself wondering, not naturally so? – and an answering, appreciative grin lit the handsome face of the young man who was quite evidently the amused recipient of her wayward attentions, his sapphire eyes agleam. Despite all she could do to prevent herself, Charlotte found herself watching him with the same avidity with which those about her watched the dancing girl. How brown and smooth was his skin, how wide and strong his shoulders; and how those untidy blue-black curls absorbed the evening light, transmuting it to shining darkness – for a long moment she watched him openly, studying the quite unconscious grace of his body, the cocky and very conscious set of his handsome head. The light and colour around her blurred a little, leaving the young man framed, vivid and beautiful, unaware of her eyes, alone. She blinked a little, for the first time suspecting that perhaps she had drunk Peter’s cider just a little too quickly. Truly her head felt a little less than clear. Reluctantly she gathered her wits and her attention about her and turned to where she could see lanky Ralph’s head above the crowds, short-sighted bespectacled eyes peering into the lamplit dusk, obviously looking for her.
As she joined him and Hannah she glanced around, surprised. ‘Where are the others?’
‘Cissy insisted on a visit to the fortune teller. Then they’re going on home to supper. Peter’s gone with them.’
She stared at her brother. ‘They’ve – gone without me?’
His mild eyes blinked surprise behind the wire-rimmed glasses. ‘Why, yes. Wilfred said that you’d told him you were too tired and wanted to come home with us.’
Temper rose, not cooled by the knowledge that it was unjustified. Charlotte all but stamped her foot. ‘Well of all the—! I said no such thing!’
‘Well, I must say I was a little surprised.’ Ralph glanced vaguely about him as if hoping to conjure the other young people magically from the thinning crowd. ‘They’ve not been gone long. Perhaps we can find them?’
Charlotte hesitated. She did not want to go to the Barnes’s. But neither did she want to spend a Saturday evening in gentle and exasperatingly improving conversation with Doctor Will.
‘Look – isn’t that them?’ Ralph pointed.
By the gaily decked fortune teller’s tent a bright red head bobbed, glinting in lantern-light.
Charlotte stood on tiptoe. ‘Oh of course. I’ll go and catch them up. Oh, it’s all right—’ she put a detaining hand on her brother’s arm as he made to accompany her, ’you and Hannah go off to your meeting. I’ll be perfectly all right. I’ll come home with Peter.’
‘It is getting a little late.’ Hannah consulted the watch that was pinned to her sensible brown lapel.
Charlotte pecked an affectionate kiss at Ralph’s pale cheek, dropped another on Hannah’s smooth one, ‘I’ll see you later. I’ll have to run, or I’ll miss them.’
She slipped through the crowds towards the fortune teller’s tent. The sun had set. Mothers were gathering tired children. Little girls with babies fast asleep in arms that looked too frail to carry the weight and with younger brothers and sisters trailing wearily at their skirts were shepherding their charges home, whilst bands of brash and noisy young men in cloth caps and Saturday neckerchiefs and groups of brightly dressed giggling girls swaggered and promenaded for each other, the happy prospect of a long warm summer’s evening lifting voices and lighting smiles. The hurdy-gurdy man crossed her path. She slipped around him, lost her sense of direction for a moment and then saw, a little way ahead, Cissy’s fiery curls, free of the straw boater she usually wore. She pushed forward. ‘Cissy!’ then stopped, nonplussed, as an unknown girl turned enquiringly. ‘Oh – I’m sorry – I thought you were someone else!’
The girl smiled, nodded her carrot head and turned back to her companions.
Blast it! Now what? Where on earth were they? Who would have thought there could have been two heads in the world that colour, let alone wit
hin a few yards of each other! She stood on tiptoe, looking around her. If she did not find them then it was back to the Bear to an evening with Doctor Will and his pipe, willy-nilly, for she had no money left to take her to the Barnes’s by omnibus, and it was much too far to walk—
‘Sure – is it me imagination, or is the lovely lady lookin’ ever so slightly lost?’
The voice, the beguiling accent, the closeness of him so unexpectedly took her breath from her completely. She looked up. A dazzling smile and a sapphire gleam of eyes quickened her heart-beat absurdly. ‘I – yes – as a matter of fact I seem to have lost my friends.’
He grinned engagingly. ‘That was a mite careless, wasn’t it?’
She laughed nervously. ‘Yes. I suppose it was.’ She lifted her chin, her pulse quickening. He was looking down at her with an appreciative, gracelessly speculative smile that was the most exciting thing she had ever encountered. There was neither respect nor a trace of proper deference in his manner. He smelled strongly of brandy and tobacco and of something else she could not identify, something male and frightening and utterly fascinating. He had no business talking to her. They both knew it. And she had no business listening. She should walk away. Now. This moment. She should, firmly and courteously, put him in his place and leave.
‘I thought I saw them,’ she said foolishly, the first thing that came into her head, ‘but it was someone else.’
Obligingly he smiled. ‘The redhead and the two young fellers, was it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, sure, I saw them meself just a minute or two ago. At this very spot.’ He was still watching her with a warmth in those spectacular eyes that was doing purely dreadful things to the pit of her stomach. ‘Will we look for them for you?’
Alarm bells rang loudly in her befuddled brain. This was impossible. She should not – she should not! – be seen here talking to this unknown and outrageously handsome young man like any shopgirl with her fancy lad. ‘I – thank you, but – I think I must have missed them—’
‘Nonsense. Come. We’ll find them.’ Smiling, he took her arm, and by his touch effortlessly and apparently unknowingly destroyed the last of her precarious hold upon herself and upon her wayward emotions. She allowed him to draw her back into the crowd, leaned to him as he steered her through, his hand warm and hard upon her arm, his spare, broad frame protecting her. There was no sign of Hannah or of Ralph; they had obviously assumed her to be safe with the others and had left for home. The thought sang suddenly in her heart like a freed bird; for a moment, just for a moment, she was free. For this short space of time she could do as she pleased. Not for long, of course – the mistake would be discovered, an anxious search launched. But for this little while it could surely do no harm to take pleasure in this small adventure, to accept and enjoy the excitement that the warmth and strength of his grip on her arm afforded her, to encourage, just a little, that flattering, frightening look in his wonderful eyes?
It somehow came as no surprise at all to find herself skilfully manoeuvred into a quiet, shadowed space between two gaily painted gipsy wagons, away from the now swelling evening crowds and with no sign whatsoever of the friends for whom – ostensibly – they had been looking. For whom, she knew, they had not been looking at all in these last five minutes.
He leaned, smiling, against the side of the wagon, long legs crossed in front of him, eyes bright and appreciative on her face. ‘Seems you were right. You have lost them.’
It was growing darker by the moment. The bright blossom of lanterns glimmered in the shadows across the fairground. Where they stood the wagons offered a false and intimate shelter.
‘I – should go.’ She had to force the words out. The look in his eyes had stained her face to scarlet. But she could neither move nor look away from him.
Jackie Pilgrim smiled, reached into his pocket, pulled out his flask. ‘Why? Surely there’s not such a very great hurry, is there? You’ll come to no harm, I promise you. I’ll see you meself to your doorstep, an’ that’s a promise. No one’ll hurt you while you’re with Jackie Pilgrim.’ He was pleasantly drunk, and he knew it. The brandy he had steadily consumed throughout the afternoon had brought, as it always did, a shining confidence, an utter, happy satisfaction with himself and with life and all its varied, recklessly taken pleasures. And now this silly, pretty girl with her fluffy hair and clean, smooth skin, her dainty sprigged cotton that showed neither patch nor stain, was standing looking at him as at her hope of heaven. Jesus, Mary and Joseph he’d have to be mad to pass up this chance. And wouldn’t the lads at the Prospect give their eye teeth to be Jackie Pilgrim at this moment? Wouldn’t they always? And God rot that stupid Smith bitch with her ugly face and scornful eyes. What did she know? Jealous – that was what it was – jealous as a green-eyed cat. And with good cause – perfectly steadily, his eyes still warm and intimate on Charlotte Bedford’s pointed, kitten’s face, he held out the flask. ‘Will you take a wee drop? ‘Tis good for the health. Good’, he smiled a little, ‘for the heart, so they say.’ His voice was softly persuasive.
She bit her lip. Shook her head.
The smile widened, wolfish as the gipsy fighter’s as he had stepped in to Joey’s destruction. ‘Aw, come on now – it won’t harm you, I promise.’ He put the flask into her small hand, covered it with his large strong one, curling her fingers about the smooth, warm metal, guiding it gently to her lips, ‘Just a wee drop. A wee drop of Jackie’s brandy—’
III
Sally had had enough. Full darkness had fallen an hour ago, Josie had gone off to cook supper for her father and brothers, her plea to have Sally and Toby join them pleasantly but very firmly rejected. Sally Smith hadn’t yet fallen so low that she could bring herself to cadge a favour from friends that she well knew she would not be able to return. She smiled a little grimly to herself. Not yet, anyway. She tousled Toby’s dirty curls. ‘Come on, Toby Jug – time for home.’
‘O – oh!’ He caught her hand, swinging on it like a monkey. ‘Can’t we stay? Oh Sal – go on! Just a little while?’ The child’s blue eyes were huge and shadowed with tiredness, yet still bright with the Godless mischief that was her bane and her joy. A year ago she had found him – caught him, rather, an urchin not above four or five with his small fingers in her purse whilst those merry eyes beguiled her. A changeling. An imp of mischief. A ray of sunshine in a life that had not lately seen too much of warmth or of light. Someone to care for – a small, dependent being whose devotion to her more than compensated for the need to work for two. She grinned now, catching his ear none too gently with her free hand. ‘No. Home I said an’ home it is. I thought you wanted a sausage?’
He cocked his head, his small face wicked. ‘I’d rather have another go on the merry-go-round.’
‘Aren’t you hungry?’ Sally’s own stomach was rumbling, uncomfortably empty. He shrugged, suddenly avoiding her eyes. With a quick, unexpected movement Sally caught his chin and turned the small, dirty face to the light of a near-by lantern. He struggled for a moment, then subsided, his expression the embodiment of innocence. On one cheek and around his mouth were tell-tale smears. ‘What you bin eatin’?’ Sally’s voice was suddenly, dangerously quiet, her grip on his chin fierce.
He said nothing. Smiled, treacherously trustful, artfully affectionate.
‘Tobe!’ The word rang with warning.
‘Toffee apple,’ he said.
With a sharp, exasperated exclamation she let go of him and straightened, half turning from him. He watched her warily, one small booted foot rubbing against the threadbare material of his trouser leg, his expression not quite as certain as it had been. Sally stood for a moment fighting a temper that was always touch-paper quick. ‘You thieved it,’ she said.
He shrugged.
She swung on him, caught him by the shoulders, shaking him roughly. ‘You bloody thieved it! Didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tobe, ’ow many times must I tell you? What do I ’av
e ter do ter stop you? You know what they’ll do if they catch you? Do yer?’
‘Yes,’ he said again, subdued not, she knew in despair, by any regret at wrongdoing nor any understanding of the peril in which he put himself, but because he had been discovered and had brought her wrath upon his curly head. He tried a small, tentative smile, unable to believe that she could remain angry with him for long.
She hunkered down beside him on the pavement, holding his hands, careless of her skirts in the dust, her expression grave. ‘Toby – listen to me. You won’t get the things you want by thieving. Believe me, I’ve tried it. It isn’t worth it. It’ll bring nothin’ but trouble – to you, an’ to me. To me, Tobe. Is that what you want?’
He shook his head. Sudden, easy tears brimmed in the tired, forget-me-not eyes.
Sally tried for a moment longer, unsuccessfully, to hold on to her anger; then, with a quick, rough movement she pulled the child to her, hugging him fiercely. His thin arms wound about her neck and he clung like a limpet, his face buried in her bony shoulder. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said, ‘I’ll get work soon, you’ll see. An’ then, little old Toby Jug, you can ‘ave as many toffee apples as you like. But – please! – stop pinchin’ things. You worry me sick!’
‘I’m sorry,’ his voice was a whisper, ‘I won’t do it again.’
She put him from her, studying the small, woebegone face with clear doubt in her eyes. ‘You promise?’
‘I promise.’ Anything. Anything to bring the warm smile back to those narrow eyes, to iron out the fierce lines of displeasure and anxiety that disfigured what to Toby was the loveliest and most loved face in the world.
She stood, and took his hand in her own narrow, hard one. ‘Right. We’ll forget about it then. Let’s go an’ get that sausage.’
His elfin smile was like sunshine after rain. He opened his mouth – and ‘No,’ she said severely and with her laughter firmly repressed, ‘a sausage it is. No more merry-go-rounds for you old son! You’ll bring that toffee apple straight back up – an’ serve you right!’
Tomorrow, Jerusalem Page 6
