The Streets Read online

  I gaped at him. ‘You’re – sacking me?’

  He made a regretful moue at the word. ‘Please understand, this is entirely a matter of business. It is not intended to reflect upon the standard of your work here. But I should be grateful if you were to clear out your desk.’

  I was momentarily at a loss. ‘Is it not traditional for employees to serve out a period of notice?’

  ‘Traditional, but not mandatory. It would be in everyone’s interest if your position was . . . resolved immediately.’

  ‘“Everyone’s interest”? Not mine, I do assure you.’ I was seized by an abrupt and unmanly urge to cry; but, keeping my eyes down, I took command of myself. A minute or so passed before I looked up at Rennert. ‘May I ask – did this decision originate from Mr Marchmont?’

  ‘I would rather not discuss the private –’

  ‘Mr Rennert, please,’ I cut in. ‘Did he want me out?’

  He paused, narrowing his eyes on me. I sensed a concession about to be made. ‘I dare say you know on whose authority the running of this paper depends.’

  ‘I thought as much. Though I’m surprised at the manner of it. If the guvnor is determined to dismiss me he ought to do so face to face.’

  ‘Mr Wildeblood,’ he said with a reluctant sigh, ‘pray, don’t take that tone. This is the same man who took a risk in hiring you.’

  ‘A risk?’

  He tilted his head knowingly. ‘It is not every editor who would employ an untried youth, still less a convicted felon.’

  Again, I was taken aback. ‘You knew . . . about that?’ He held his steady look, affirming it. I suppose I should have been grateful. Yes, Marchmont had taken a chance on me back then – but his dismissal of me now smacked of a desperate effort to cover his tracks. He had sensed that I was on to him. Perhaps Rennert suspected it, too. ‘Did he imagine that I would expose his connection with Condor Holdings?’

  Rennert stared back at me. ‘I don’t take your meaning.’

  Wait to see how the cat jumps, I thought . . . but Rennert was much too wily to play that game. He would never jump first. I had to take a guess. ‘I think our guvnor has run into trouble with some very unscrupulous people – slumlords, rack-renters, that sort. Maybe they have been underwriting his debts, and now they want some return on their money.’

  He was still staring at me, only now his expression had hardened into something more serious. When he spoke his voice had dropped a fraction. ‘Listen to me, sir. You may think you know what is going on, but you do not. You have no idea. Pursue this any further and –’ He stopped, as though mindful of trespassing against his own rules of close-mouthed discretion. ‘You are a bright fellow. You have prospects. Do not squander them. I am saying this now for your own good: stay out of Somers Town.’

  ‘Somebody said the same thing to me yesterday. I’m afraid it only makes me more curious to know.’

  Rennert had risen from his chair, and pushed an envelope across the desk towards me. I stood and picked it up, unimpressed.

  ‘Six weeks’ wages, by way of compensation,’ he said. I gave a little tsk of disappointment, and he squinted at me. ‘It is not enough?’

  ‘On the contrary. It’s generous,’ I replied. ‘But I object to being fobbed off. There is something afoot. Somers Town is being cleared, street by street, its poorest inhabitants forced out of their homes and hidden from sight in the country. The scheme is fronted by a private charity. Alfred Kenton knew something of it, and he ended up drowned in the Thames. I cannot yet say how far the guvnor is implicated, but I intend to find out.’

  ‘Mr Wildeblood, you would be wise not to meddle in this. The governor is innocent of –’

  ‘If he is innocent then he should have no fear of being investigated. Thank you for the money, Mr Rennert. Good day.’ I raised my hat, and walked out of his office.

  Kitty had written to me, expressing a desire to meet. Ordinarily I would have been happy to oblige her, but her involvement with Father Kay and the Social Protection League had given me pause. As matters stood, I didn’t wish to compromise her position as one of Kay’s trusted associates, and I remained suspicious enough of the charity to make sure that no utterance of mine should be reported to them, however innocently. I had written back to her pleading pressure of work – it was true but a short time ago – though I confess a less noble reason was keeping me within doors. The bandage across my nose, and the bruising beneath my eyes – now a livid purplish-yellow – continued to lend me an aspect nothing short of grotesque. So you may add ‘vanity’ to the roster of my shortcomings.

  In the end, my efforts to avoid her came to naught. I was idling in my rooms one morning when the clop and clatter of a carriage pulling up on the street drew me to the window. I peered down to see the driver dismount, whilst a lady, face obscured by an elaborate hat, remained seated behind him. When I heard a knock at the door I guessed the visitor was mine, and sure enough Mrs Home was hurrying up the stairs calling my name. ‘A lady,’ she said in a voice hushed with deference. I just had time to put on a collar and my most presentable coat, forgetting for a moment as I emerged from the house the ridiculous excrescence that disfigured my face.

  ‘Good heavens,’ cried Kitty, staring at me in genuine alarm. ‘What has happened to you?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, reflexively covering it with my hand. ‘I, um, poked my nose where it wasn’t welcome. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Why, you’ve been hiding yourself away! It occurred to me that you might be ill or – I don’t know what. Then I enquired at the paper, and was told that you didn’t work there any more.’ She glanced about her, seeming to take in the street for the first time. Mrs Home was still watching our visitor from the doorstep, her gaze stunned with pride, and perhaps a little envy. ‘I always wondered where you lived,’ Kitty continued with a quick smile. ‘I hope you’ll join me for a drive, now that I’ve come all this way.’

  ‘So long as you don’t mind having a griffin as your companion.’

  She laughed at that, and pushed open the door in invitation. ‘Thank you, John,’ she called to her carriage man, and we were off. The sleek conveyance drew sidelong glances from passers-by – it was not a type much seen in this part of Islington – though Kitty seemed oblivious. As we sailed down Rosebery Avenue towards Holborn, she turned the full beam of her attention on me. ‘So . . . why have you parted company with Henry?’

  ‘I didn’t have any choice in the matter.’

  ‘You mean – he dismissed you?’ she said, aghast.

  ‘A matter of economy was the official reason. But I believe he had other motives for wanting rid of me.’ I saw her eyes widen in curiosity, and immediately I regretted my unguarded speech.

  She made to speak, but then checked herself. After a while I felt her watching me again. ‘Your poor face!’ she began. ‘At least tell me this – you didn’t get into a fight with Henry, did you? I know he used to box –’

  ‘What? No, of course not. He wasn’t even there to give me the bag – his secretary did it for him. No . . . this was sustained in another business altogether.’ I palpated the wound gingerly, hoping the subject would be dropped.

  ‘How very mysterious you’re being,’ she said, clicking her tongue in annoyance. Still I kept silent. ‘What is the matter? Have I offended in some way that has made you unwilling to talk to me?’

  ‘I would merely prefer to be quiet,’ I said testily.

  She stiffened. ‘Now you’re just being disagreeable,’ she said, and cast down her eyes in hurt. I listened to the brisk clacking of the wheels and John’s muttered hyups to the horses and the surrounding noise of the street until I could bear it no longer.

  ‘Kitty, forgive me. I fear I am not myself . . . You will hear how I came by this wretched thing – and understand why I didn’t wish to burden you with it.’

  She slowly deigned to look up, her mouth set in a reproving pout. ‘Well?’

  I sighed, and began the story of my stumbling upon Moyle
s’s public house, my encounter with Gaffy in the yard, and what befell me there. Her hand flew to her mouth as she took in the precise nature of my injury. ‘How horrible,’ she said, in a voice tremulous with feeling. ‘But I don’t – I don’t understand . . . what you were doing there?’ She blinked at me in plaintive puzzlement.

  It was the reason I had not wanted to discuss the matter in the first place, but now that I had come this far I could see no use in dissembling. ‘I had reason to believe I might recover . . . a certain diamond ring, which had been stolen from a friend of mine some weeks ago. I hoped to be able to surprise her without having to explain how I came by it . . .’

  I sensed her go very still at my side. When I at last ventured a look, tears were bulging in her eyes. ‘Oh, David . . . what a perfectly gallant thing to do! I’m sorry to have . . .’ She grasped my hand tightly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me yet,’ I replied with a shrug. ‘Its return is by no means secured. I am obliged to wait until that blackguard who cut me decides upon a deal.’

  ‘He will set an extortionate price, I suppose.’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘I shall pay whatever he demands,’ she said decisively. ‘But promise me you will not put yourself in danger again.’

  I could not offer any such guarantee, but I made a placatory gesture that implied caution without committing to anything. The tale of my perilous adventure appeared to have impressed Kitty, for she became quite nervously animated about the possibility of redeeming the ring (‘it was my mother’s, you know’, which I already did). Her talk turned skittish, inclining me to wonder if she had something else on her mind. The carriage had slowed up in the dense traffic of the West End, heading towards Piccadilly, when she broke off from her latest monologue and looked at me directly.

  ‘There is something I must tell you,’ she said, abruptly earnest. ‘Indeed, I have been rather fearful of telling you.’

  ‘Oh?’ I could not imagine what it might be, and waited.

  ‘I am engaged to be married.’ She spoke in a tone of uncertain defiance, as if she anticipated objection from me. But I felt only surprise.

  ‘I’m – that is – I congratulate you. May I presume your intended –’

  ‘It’s Douglas. The man I told you about. Our families have been intimate friends for years.’ Her face had coloured, and her mouth twitched with the anxiety of one who had said too much, or perhaps too little.

  ‘Your father must be delighted,’ I said. ‘I remember your remarking how seriously he takes lineage and so on.’

  ‘Yes, he does – and he is. Delighted, I mean.’ She fell silent at that, and looked thoughtful. I sensed a more enthusiastic note was in order.

  ‘And the lady herself? I fancy you are overjoyed!’

  Her answer came after a pause, and in a small voice. ‘Yes, of course.’

  I waited for something more, but after her recent stream of chatter she seemed now to withhold. Perhaps this was maidenly modesty, I couldn’t tell, but it felt possible that I should tease her out of it. ‘Only think, the manly hearts that will break on hearing that Miss Catherine Elder is to marry!’

  She looked very queerly at me then, as though there were a hidden implication in my light-hearted words. ‘Do you think the news of my betrothal would really . . . grieve someone, then?’ She spoke quite seriously, and I wondered if I had somehow mistaken her mood. Less certain of myself, I replied in a careful but affectionate way.

  ‘I think whenever a young lady makes herself unavailable through marriage it will always cause regret amongst her admirers.’

  ‘“Admirers” . . .’ she repeated the word, almost dejectedly, then returned to her scrutiny of me. ‘I have sometimes wondered about them – about what they think of me.’ I smiled at her in a vague, rueful way, as if to suggest the dashed dreams of so many, but again she rather bemused me by saying, ‘I could have wished that one or two of them had been more – forthright.’

  I hesitated, before saying, ‘Kitty, forgive me – you seem not entirely happy –’

  ‘Is that how I seem?’ she cut in airily. ‘At present I hardly know what I am about.’ She dropped her gaze, and fell silent.

  The carriage had come to a halt at the south-east corner of Hyde Park, and the driver looked round to ask how he should proceed. Kitty, as though roused from a trance of preoccupation, said, ‘We’ll go home through the park, John – but wait a moment.’ She regarded me again, with a smile of slightly forced carelessness. ‘I have an appointment at hand, David. Would you mind my dropping you here?’ I tried to hide my astonishment at this sudden dismissal, and was making to rise when she checked me. ‘I shall not forget your bravery,’ she said, and put her hand to my cheek. Then she leaned back, with nothing more to say; I opened the carriage door and stepped down. John made a clicking sound with his mouth, the horses clopped off, and I watched Kitty, bolt upright in her seat, recede into the distance. She did not turn to look back at me.

  13

  Fresh fakements

  JO WAS ON the mend from his illness, which had turned out to be a case of pneumonia. He was swaddled in blankets like a little old woman when I called at the Polygon one morning, whilst Roma, plainly cheered by his recovery, had just prepared a toddy of hot lemon and brandy for him. As I entered his bedchamber he hooted with laughter at my injured phiz.

  ‘Last time I seen a nose band thick as that was on a horse!’

  Roma gave me a sympathetic look. ‘Been in a fight?’ she asked.

  ‘Not a fair one,’ I said, and on recounting my misadventure at the Victory Jo stopped laughing very abruptly.

  ‘Get the fuck out of it,’ he said in a voice tight with outrage. ‘How could ya? How could ya be such a fool to go there on yor own?’

  ‘Jo,’ said Roma in sharp rebuke, whether of his language or his ill temper I wasn’t sure. I had heard him swear before, many times, but never at me. He looked away, scowling, and Roma stepped forward to examine the bandage. She peeled back a corner of it and I flinched as the gauze came away from the wound. ‘I could clean that for you. Looks a bit . . . crusted.’

  Jo made a sort of hissing noise through his teeth at her solicitude. ‘Lucky it was just your snout they cut,’ he muttered. I was going to make a facetious reply, but he looked so angry I thought better of it. Roma told me to go into the parlour, and followed shortly after, carrying a little tin of medicines. From it she plucked a thin brown-glassed bottle, removed the stopper and sniffed the top. My nose smarted wildly as she lifted the old bandage away and dabbed the stitched cut (‘Sorry,’ she murmured) with a little rag soaked in iodine. She stood close to me, so close I could smell the soap she had used on her skin. Her dark hair, still damp from washing, was brushed back from her forehead, leaving her face oddly open and vulnerable; its contours were even more vivid in their detail than I had previously allowed. Her eyes, with their counterpoint of green and blue, unsettled me enough to wonder if they were the outward expression of a temperamental divide – green, perhaps, for all that was ardent and unyielding, blue for the quiet, melancholy side of her character. I was still entertaining this fancy when she gave a short laugh and, drawing back her head appraisingly, said, ‘Like a good stare, don’t you?’

  Jo had calmed down by the time we returned to his room, and talked happily of his imminent return to the market on Chalton Street. A coster pal had managed his stall whilst he was ill. ‘Yeah, well, Harry’s a rum cull, but his patter ain’t up to much. I needs to get bisniss up again . . . Course, the old moke’s missed me, too.’ I had seen Jo’s donkey in the interim, but had failed to note any sign of the creature’s yearning for his master. Roma’s ministrations had freed my nose from its cone of plaster but exposed anew the unsightliness of the wound. It had none of the glamour of a Heidelberg duelling scar – it was just raw and ugly and spiked with stitches. Jo stared at it. ‘Gaffy . . .’ he said, then shook his head disgustedly. ‘What’s he say to you arfter – I mean, ’bout the fawne
y?’

  ‘Only that he’d arrange a drop somewhere. I bring the money, he gives me the ring. But I haven’t heard from him.’

  ‘And you might never, neither. He knows you not got the blunt to buy it back.’

  ‘No, but Kitty has,’ I said, recalling our bemusing conversation of the previous week: I was still troubled by an inkling that I had offended her in some way.

  Jo looked dubious at this. ‘That won’t solve it. You can’t call the odds with Gaffy. He’d offer you a rat’s arsehole and swear it was a ring – an’ you’re the sort who’d buy it off him.’

  ‘Are you determined to keep insulting me?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve ’ardly begun –’

  ‘Right, that’s enough,’ said Roma. ‘I’m not havin’ you two at each other’s throats. Jo, I’m off out. And you,’ she said, fixing her eyes on mine, ‘are comin’ with me.’

  Jo flopped down in an armchair, folded his arms and fumed quietly. I stared out of the parlour window until Roma had put on her coat and boots, ready to leave. Without looking at him I called ‘goodbye’, but heard no response as I exited. Five minutes later we had left behind the Polygon and were walking north. It was typical of her that she refrained from commenting on the little scene of discord just gone; she always had a much keener sense of when to speak and when to withhold than I ever did.

  ‘Don’t know why Jo’s got the hump – wasn’t his nose,’ I said eventually, unable to suppress a sense of hurt. A pause followed, before she replied.

  ‘It’s only cos he was worried for you – just got a different way of showin’ it.’