by Alex Pheby
‘So, where’s it to be?’ Joes said.
‘Milliner’s?’
‘We had him last week.’
‘Haberdasher’s then?’
‘Which one?’
‘Meek Street?’
‘Can we do the False Damsel?’ Prissy asked.
Gam thought for a second and nodded. ‘Meek Street, False Damsel it is.’ Gam marched off to one of the doors and Joes followed him, Nathan and Prissy coming up behind. ‘Right, mates,’ Gam cried, ‘Hi ho!’
XV
The haberdashers was squeezed into the space between an upholsterer and a perfumier down a cobbled back alley. Tall and thin, its leaded bays bulged into the street, glass nets crammed with ribbons, lace, buttons and reels of coloured cotton.
‘It’s like where they made your mum, Nat, isn’t it?’ Prissy said, pointing in. When he nodded, she reached down and held his hand, twined her fingers with his, gripped it tightly.
On the door, a bell hung from the end of a curled brass spring. Every time a woman entered, it rang cheerfully, tinkling high and sweet.
Gam wandered away to stand innocently, paring his nails, and Joes bent to tie their laces.
‘You know what to do?’
‘Course. It’s my bleeding trick.’ Prissy unlocked her fingers from Nathan’s and walked briskly away.
Gam beckoned. ‘Keep close to me, Natty.’
Nothing much happened for a while. Nathan and Gam played dice by a wall, seemingly oblivious to the comings and goings in the shop and the haberdasher with the high cheekbones and the pinched lips who showed his last customer out of the door, his hand ushering her by the small of her back. He had an angular way of moving, nervous, darting glances up and down the street. As they rolled the dice, they appeared to ignore his turning of the sign to closed, preferring to argue over the lay of a die and whose brass penny now belonged to whom.
After a little while the haberdasher emerged, his purple jacket pleated like a lady’s fan. He had his key in one hand and a small leather clutch in the other. He put the key in the lock and here came Prissy. Her bosom was oddly full, and her shirt was open to the waist so that her underdress showed through. ‘Oh help… Oh my… Oh Lord…’ she whispered, quietly stumbling, dragging her fingertips on the wall.
At first the haberdasher didn’t notice – his key was sticking in the lock, and it took all of his attention. He strained this way and that, a deep ‘v’ of concentration marking his forehead. But when that was done and the lock turned to his satisfaction, it was clear to Nathan that he saw Prissy. He turned away from her, thinking to make his way in the opposite direction and thus save himself the trouble of attending to an unfortunate.
She raised her voice. ‘My honour! My honour! How dare they make so free with my honour, and so leave me in this naked state.’ Prissy put her hand to her forehead as if she might complicate matters by swooning.
This, it transpired, was enough to draw the haberdasher’s interest. He stopped and drew himself up straight. He did not turn immediately – there was a little while in which he appeared to be weighing up two finely balanced alternatives – but in the end, he did turn. A generous observer would have put this down to a superior philanthropic tendency in the gentleman, but Nathan thought he saw something else play across the man’s face, in the licking of his lips, something he had seen before on the faces of his mother’s gentleman callers.
When he turned, the haberdasher was very much the picture of a concerned patrician, a concentrated look in the eyes and a serious set to his posture. Prissy’s hand clutched at her chest, where buttons had now been undone so that flesh was visible. She faltered.
The haberdasher rushed forward and, when he was far enough towards Prissy, Gam pocketed the dice and followed, with Nathan up behind.
Gam whispered, ‘When he touches her, you go down on your knees behind him, understand? Joes will run into him. In the muddle I’ll take his clutch with the takings inside. Then we separate and make back to the den.’
Nathan understood, but in any case Gam didn’t wait.
‘My dear,’ said the haberdasher, ‘whatever is the matter?’
Nathan thought he could hear a trembling in the thin man’s voice.
‘Oh, sir! Kind sir! They were terrible. So rough…’
‘There, there, my child.’
‘Will I ever recover?’
‘Where is your mother, dear?’
‘She is at home, sir, on the other side of the city. I have been sent for ribbons.’
‘Ribbons, is it?’
From where he waited, Nathan watched the haberdasher’s attention play across the tantalising triangle of skin visible between the gaping sides of Prissy’s white undershirt.
‘Why not come with me? I have all the ribbons you might ever need. And much more besides.’
In Nathan’s gut, the Itch arose.
‘Come with me. I will show you ribbons galore.’ The haberdasher took Prissy’s hand, then turned to look around him. Whether he feared a trap, or just an observer, Gam and Joes and Nathan, all at various places on the street, had to quickly become inconspicuous. For the others this was second nature, but Nathan was too slow. Instead he caught the haberdasher’s eye. Without looking away, the man reached into his pocket and removed the key, leading Prissy by the elbow back to his shop. Nathan went to intercept them, but Gam coughed and, pretending to be a child asking directions, interrupted his progress. ‘Don’t panic,’ he hissed. ‘If he calls for the coppers then things’ll get tricky. Let Prissy handle it – she’s got it under control.’
‘He’s taking her inside.’
‘I said, let Prissy handle it.’
All Nathan was supposed to have done was kneel behind him, so that one firm shove from Joes would topple the fool and Gam could take his clutch, but now it was all ruined. Nathan hadn’t kneeled, he’d got himself seen, and now what? Prissy was in danger. Nathan went forward, blue blazing in his eyes, and though Gam tried to hold him back it was no good.
‘Who are you,’ the haberdasher said, ‘one of the yobs that made free with this girl’s honour? Get back before I call for the militia.’
The haberdasher may as well have said nothing for all the difference it made to Nathan. He marched directly at him, Sparks flying, Itch and Scratch coming on, satisfiable immediately. Prissy backed away, a look of horror on her face. Nathan put his hands on the haberdasher’s shoulders, his fingers touched the skin at his neck and the Spark passed into him. The haberdasher went stiff, as if someone had poured ice water down his back, then he began to judder.
‘Keep your ribbons!’ Nathan spat into his ear.
Deep in the form of the man, beneath his muscles, between his organs, inside his marrow, the Spark met the essence that made him, the thing that dictated his wholeness, his growth as a child, the processes that would one day lead him through old age to death, and it found what it was seeking, the soul of him, the thing that would take him beyond, and this it filled with energy, burning it with fire, scorching him inside.
The man fell limp to the floor. Sparks arced between his skin and the cobbles beneath.
Nathan stepped back, thrilled first, then appalled. It had never been like this before, the Spark. It wasn’t only the pain in his hand that stopped Nathan – though that was terrible and scoured him up to the elbow – it was something else. He felt as if he could have made a ghost of him, if he’d tried.
‘Whoa!’ cried Gam, with scarcely concealed glee. ‘You were only supposed to trip him up, not kill him.’
Prissy kneeled over the haberdasher, biting her lip. ‘What have you done?’
Nathan shook his head, looking at his hands as if they were strange things.
‘I thought…’
‘Never mind that; grab the money, and let’s get back down below.’
‘What’s he done?’ said Joes.
‘No time for chat. Let’s get out of here before someone comes.’
XVI
On
the trip through the sewers, no-one said a thing, and even down the spiral staircase the events cast a spell of silence over them. When they reached the library, the embers of the fire still burning, the smell of weed in the air, fat congealed in the frying pan, suddenly they all found their tongues.
‘He wasn’t dead.’
‘He looked dead to me…’
‘Then you weren’t looking close enough. Right in the crook of his throat, where the jawbone points, it was flickering like Jerky Joes’ eyelids.’
‘What the hell was he playing at?’ Prissy asked Gam, but she was looking at Nathan, angrily. ‘False Damsel’s easy, you don’t need to do any of that – distract, trip, snatch. Knee to the balls, flash a knife if required.’
Nathan took his place by the shelf, clutching his bad arm to his side.
‘He didn’t kill him, did he? Did he, Gam?’ Prissy was pulling at the buttons of her dress with her long fingers.
‘No. And anyway, don’t you think he’s killed enough himself, the haberdasher?’
‘What?’ said Joes. ‘He looked like a noncer, but we didn’t have him down for a killer.’
‘Then you aren’t thinking about it hard enough.’ Gam took a match to his pipe, and then to a new pile of books and kindling. When the fire took, he carried on. ‘Every slum-boy who’s croaked, whose mum’s come in on him one morning to find him blue in the lips and still of breath – couldn’t he have sprung for the food that saved ’em?’
‘Not the same,’ said Joes. They picked up the frying pan and put it over the fire to melt the fat, ready for the evening’s meat.
‘Too right it’s not the same,’ Gam said, ‘it’s worse. He killed them sprouts in a sin of omission ’cos he wanted new glass in his windows and his missus had to have lace on her knickers. Don’t tell me he couldn’t put two and two together – his shop’s half a mile from where we’re dropping like flies. You, Natty my boy, carked him – except you didn’t – to protect a lady’s virtue. Add all that lot up – sums come out he’s worse than you.’
Prissy went over to where Nathan was standing, fidgeting and looking down at his hand. ‘Next time, do what you’re told. Keep on like that and we’ll never be able to set foot up there again, and I need the money.’
‘Anyway, enough of the remonstrations,’ Gam said. He threw a paper packet of bacon to Joes from a stack in the corner. ‘Let’s fry up, divvy up and get out; it’s getting late and the ghosts will be up soon. I’m not staying here when the boards start creaking. I reckon Prissy gets half, on account of it’s her that took the risk – who’s going to tell her I’m wrong?’
No one volunteered, so every other coin went to Prissy. Of the rest, more went to Nathan than Gam, since he did the job with the Spark even if he oughtn’t to have done, and what was left Joes got, them having done very little. The pile in front of Nathan remained untouched and gleaming. Though his hands were either side, he didn’t reach to gather them in.
‘I don’t need money – I need medicine.’
‘Course you do – we’ll take a trip to Mr Padge, soon as this dinner’s done. I hadn’t forgotten.’
At the mention of Padge’s name, Joes turned away and tended to the meat. Prissy stayed though, and, seemingly forgetting her annoyance, went and locked her arms around Nathan’s waist.
XVII
From the end of a narrow lane in the Merchant City came the clinking of glass against glass, the shrill shriek of knife against plate, and then, as the lane gave onto a wide plaza, laughter in various registers.
‘Keep to the shadows,’ Gam whispered, and nodded his head to where another lane left the plaza. Nathan did as he was told. Prissy was close behind him all the way, and Joes behind her – but Nathan’s attention was fixed on the centre of the plaza, where an area around a fountain had been roped off, filled with tables and chairs at which sat men and women, colourfully dressed.
Lanterns hanging from poles beside each table lit the scene like sunlight coming through a leaky roof – patches of soft yellow light separated by grey darkness. Through them strode men in black suits, moving with a purpose, covered salvers held high. Everywhere came the smell of spices and when the salvers were uncovered at the table, there were joints of meat of such size that Nathan could see them even from where he slipped around the periphery. Some were whole birds, their necks curled around their breasts as if they were sleeping, their heads burned black.
‘Just as well we’ve already eaten,’ whispered Gam, ‘the prices Padge charges would clear out your little stash before you got past the amuse-bouches.’
Prissy leaned in. ‘Sometimes I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is that book-learned stuff? Can you understand him, Nat? Joes?’
Nat couldn’t, but Gam was off again, skirting the far wall, making for the rear, so they both followed him.
At the back of the kitchens, out of sight of the patrons, the buzz of flies was loud enough to mask the sounds of merriment from the front. Around what mass the flies were gathered, Nathan tried not to think.
Gam knocked at a door: little more than three planks in a space in a brick wall. It came open, and a child poked its head round: he was wide-faced and ruddy and seemed to recognise Gam immediately, letting the door swing in. They stepped into a bricked yard. Now the source of the buzzing was obvious: stacked side by side along the walls were corpses in various states of butchery – pigs divided down the middle, lambs with single legs pared down, others little more than cow heads on scaffolds of raw bones, all resting in a pool of Living Mud from which the flies were birthed from bursting bubbles.
Off the yard was a low shed of planks nailed together, in front of which were a pair of bruisers built two sizes too big for their shirts and jackets, and whose ears were swollen and noses crooked.
‘The Dawlish brothers,’ Gam said. ‘Pair of mummy’s boys, only their mummy gives Padge a run for his money – runs a gin-house back in the slums. That shed’s Mr Padge’s office,’ Gam said, and if Nathan hadn’t known Gam better, he’d have thought to hear nerves in his voice.
‘Who is this Mr Padge?’ Nathan said. ‘Joes?’
‘He’s a nasty piece of work,’ Joes said, lowering their voice to a volume that scarcely competed with the buzzing flies. ‘His dad shaped him from a block of butter gone rancid, and stuffed him into black velvet. His mum topped him off with ringlets shaved from hair-sellers too old to blacken their eyes. They made him to punish the city, since they had come here from Malarkoi to find their fortune, and found the slums instead. They raised him in the ways of gentlemen and civility and sent him into high society to do his worst. You shouldn’t expect to find good in him any more than you’d expect to find good milk at the bottom of a churn of sour. All he wants to do is rise, like cream, but then only so he can poison and choke those at the top. And not because he wants to avenge the slum folk – them he hates too. He hates everyone. The only sensible thing to do is to avoid him, except Mr Padge does not wish to be avoided. He is everywhere like a rotten smell. Disease is carried by his odour, and he is liable to make you ill.’
‘So why are we going to see him?’
‘He’s my boss,’ said Gam, ‘and he can get his hands on anything, medicine included.’
XVIII
Padge was short and round, seemingly more a chubby adolescent than a grown man. His hair, which even Nathan could see the top of, was almost obscenely luxuriant – glossy mounds of curls which he’d oiled slick and shiny. His features were as large as his stature was small – doe eyes and a fat nose crammed uncomfortably together above thick wet lips, purple as aubergines, glistening – and these he checked in a hand-mirror he withdrew from his jacket, monitoring them constantly, though to what end was not obvious. He spoke very clearly, as if he were addressing a foreigner or an elderly relative, but always with a twist to his tongue, a tone of perpetual sarcasm as if his words were meant for the amusement of someone very like him, offstage, listening in from the wings. ‘Hello, my young gentlemen – a
nd lady – to what does the overworked Mr Padge owe the privilege of your company? Something pressing, no doubt, to deprive you of your drawing rooms so late of an evening. I fear I have no cigars to offer, still less any brandy, but if you seat yourself on that upturned crate behind you, I’ll see if there’s any rubbing alcohol left in my bottle.’ Padge bowed deeply, as if he was in earnest, but, his speech done, he made no move to find anything, only looked off and smirked to himself.
When he looked back, foppish and disdainful, Nathan had already decided he did not like Padge at all, and the feeling appeared to be mutual – he spared the boy a few glances only. He turned his attention solely on Gam, and occasionally Prissy. Never to Joes, who were near enough invisible to him.
Gam took his cap in his hands, looking for all the world, despite his usual gruffness, like someone intimidated. ‘I don’t know about all of that, Mr Padge – it’s just we were looking to get some medicine for my friend here.’
‘Medicine, eh?’ said Padge, standing again. ‘A euphemism, I suppose.’
Prissy shook her head. ‘He don’t want any of that… that mism.’
Padge spared her the briefest of sidelong glances, but then dismissed her with a shudder. He checked himself in the mirror, as if Prissy’s ignorance might have caused the development of a wrinkle, or the growth of a wart.
‘No, he don’t want that,’ Gam went on. ‘It’s for the lungworm.’
Padge stepped back, now a handkerchief taken from his pocket, pressed to his face. ‘You bring your disease into my place of work? You filthy little dogs. I should have you boiled. How dare you?’
Gam raised his hands but Padge stepped away, knocking bottles and clinking the hanging knives.
‘No, no! It’s not for him. I wouldn’t do that, would I? I wouldn’t knock about with him myself if he was ridden, would I? No. It’s his old dad, isn’t it?’
