The Streets Read online

  Out of the past

  OF THE HOURS following I have no certain memory. Shortly after Jo breathed his last I gather I suffered some kind of nervous collapse, and fell where I had stood in the hospital’s receiving room. Whether it was guilt, or grief, or exhaustion that did for me – or else some compound of all three – I cannot say; I only sense that it was the body’s way of absorbing a calamity which the mind refused to accommodate. On waking in a darkened ward, utterly disorientated, I found a guttering candle at my bedside casting phantasmal shadows on the wall, and cried out. A nurse came to my aid, and listened patiently to my forlorn ramblings. I was racked with anguish for Roma – it was my responsibility to tell her about Jo – but the nurse explained that I was in no fit state to do so. The police had gone to Clarendon Square, she said, to inform the lady of her brother’s death; she had been to the mortuary to identify the body.

  I think I talked on brokenly for some minutes more; then the nurse administered a chloral, and I swooned back into unconsciousness. When I woke next the shadows had fled, and it was morning. I struggled upright, and groggily perceived an outline at the foot of my bed, a seated figure dressed in a dark cloak and bonnet. Her face when it swam into focus was spectre-pale, with eyes sunken deep, like a death’s head. She held herself uncannily still, and in those first moments of recognition I felt a shiver of fear. Roma. I had an impression that she had been sitting there for some time. I said her name, my voice a raw-throated whisper.

  Her gaze didn’t waver. ‘They said you were delirious. You carried him in?’

  I nodded, still unnerved by her dreadful calm. I started to recount the events of the night, our meeting at Hungerford Buildings and the ambush laid against us, but she cut me short in a toneless voice. ‘The end – tell me about the end.’

  ‘We were in the cart. He was only half conscious. He’d lost such a lot of blood.’

  ‘Did he speak?’

  I paused. I could have said that Jo had asked for her. I felt sure he would have done, if he’d known how little time was left. But Roma wasn’t to be fooled. ‘He kept talking about hands – how men shook hands to show they weren’t concealing a weapon. I remember he told me this once before – I don’t know why.’

  She took this in with the merest flicker of her eyes, then turned her face to one side. We sat there for what seemed a long while, not looking at one another, my throat numbed into silence. I felt Jo’s absence as an almost palpable thing, like an ache. He was gone, gone from this place, from all places, forever. I felt another paralysing seizure of grief, and the words formed on my tongue before I was able to command myself. ‘He was the best friend I ever had.’

  She lifted her eyes to me again, and in a low, inconsolable tone said, ‘He was the only one I ever had.’ Her face seemed to suffer an inward collapse: she leaned her head on the edge of my cot and gave way to sobbing that harrowed me – long, piteous, childlike gasps of dismay quite startling in one whose manner was always proud self-containment. I had heard people weeping out their sorrow, but not like this. She seemed to be weeping out her very soul. I touched my hand to her arm, but she gave no sign of awareness, and remained hunched in that same attitude of broken supplication. At some point her sobs slowed, became longer-spaced; still she did not raise her head. I called her name once, softly, to no avail. It was the arrival of a matron that finally roused her from the daze of immobility; the woman had whispered something at her ear, and with a professional air of purpose helped her to her feet. Without a word Roma blotted her eyes with the heel of her hand, collecting herself. I thought (I hoped) she would speak to me then, to ask something more about Jo. But she did not. She only gave me a look, in which I read neither pity nor fellow feeling – just her own infinite desolation. Abashed, I averted my gaze; when I looked back, she was gone.

  Later in the day I had a second visitor. Paget advanced, almost tiptoed, to my bedside with an air of mournful solicitude and a bundle under his arm.

  ‘Your landlady was reluctant to admit me,’ he said, ‘until I showed her your note. Even then she watched me like a hawk whilst I collected your things.’ At my request he had gone to Islington to fetch a clean suit of clothes, for the ones I had worn the previous night were in atrocious dishevelment. I thanked him, and sank back on the pillow. He stared at me a little, grimacing.

  ‘Your throat . . .’ he said, palpating his own with stubby fingers. I could still feel the burn of the rope around my neck.

  ‘A garrotte. I should have heeded you about the life-preserver.’

  He gave a rueful smile. ‘You were lucky –’ he said, and seemed to hear the blunder in his words. ‘I’m so very sorry . . . about your friend. A stab wound, was it . . .?’

  ‘It pierced a major artery, the doctor said. That’s why there was so much –’ I felt my eyes go glassy, and tipped my head up to blink at the ceiling – the only way to stop it.

  ‘There, there, old fellow,’ he murmured feelingly, and waited for me to compose myself. It took a little while. ‘The police will investigate it, I suppose.’

  I nodded, though we both knew that a street stabbing, even a fatal one, would hardly exercise the police in Somers Town. Gaffy would be gone by now, lying low somewhere. ‘Jo shouldn’t even have been there. It was me they intended to do in – Moyles’s thugs.’

  I fell to brooding, which Paget observed from beneath his brow. After some moments he said, ‘The woman you’ve tracked down – Mrs Arkell – how do you propose communicating with her?’

  ‘I suppose I’ll – visit her at the workhouse.’

  He tucked in his chin at that. ‘I don’t think you understand. They won’t allow you simply to walk in – it’s not a social club. You need a reason to enter the place.’

  ‘I could send her a note,’ I said.

  ‘That would be to assume that she can read.’

  I shrugged; this was an obstacle I hadn’t anticipated. ‘What would you do?’

  He looked at me levelly. ‘Only one thing for it. You’ll have to go on the spike.’

  ‘You mean – as a pauper?’

  ‘Yes. You queue for a ticket at the door – once you’re in, you start looking for her.’

  The idea of entering a workhouse was almost as abhorrent to me as returning to prison – something I had vowed never to do. But I trusted Paget enough to believe he was right. There was probably no other way.

  ‘Some imposture will be required,’ he continued, reading my thoughts. He peered more closely at me. ‘Though – don’t be offended – you look quite knocked about enough to pass for an indigent.’

  At that moment I felt too sick within to be bothered by how I looked without. My mind’s eye kept returning, unbidden, to the flashing tumult of last night and Jo’s helpless face in the cart, silently pleading with me. Leaning in, Paget said quietly, ‘Would you like me to leave . . .?’

  I shook my head, and brushed at my streaming eyes. ‘Please could you – ask the matron for my things?’ He went off, and returned some minutes later with my apparel of the previous night, laying it on the cot. The coat smelt bitterly of smoke, and as I unfolded it I heard Paget gasp a little. Its dark flannel was matted from collar to hem with rust-coloured blood; the trousers, too, were similarly stained. The shirt, which had lost its collar, looked like it had been used to wipe down a butcher’s block. I wound it up into a ball. ‘This, I don’t think I can wear again – but these others –’ I picked up the coat, and felt in the lining: the money I had sewn into it was still there. Unbuttoning the side pocket I drew out the knife – Jo’s knife – which had fallen out of his pocket during that purgatorial ride to the hospital. I ran my finger along its blade. Paget frowned at it, and looked about us cautiously.

  ‘David – you weren’t thinking . . .?’

  I shook my head. ‘Just a memento.’ And folding up the blade I put it back in my coat.

  ‘By the way,’ said Paget eventually, ‘I suppose you heard about Marchmont. They are saying his debts ran to ov
er ten thousand.’

  ‘Impressive,’ I murmured, ‘even by his standards. I wonder where he is now . . .’

  ‘I fancy his creditors are asking the very same question. You said you saw him before he fled –’

  ‘Twenty minutes later and I would have missed him. He was packed up and ready to leave.’

  ‘And how did he seem, the guvnor?’ There was a prickle of contempt in his voice.

  ‘Oh, cheerful, I suppose – and unrepentant. It was almost as if he were off on holiday rather than scarpering. I think Mr Rennert had to pay for the removal men.’

  Paget snorted. ‘That sounds like Henry. Always a talent for spending other people’s money.’

  ‘There was something he said,’ I added, ‘about the Social Protection League. I hardly know if it can be true or not – apparently there’s a lobby in Parliament, led by Abernathy, to make Bindon Fields a labour camp. They intend to appoint a man to run it who’s a former governor of Maidstone Gaol.’

  He held my gaze for a moment. ‘I heard such a rumour a while ago, and dismissed it as foolery. Well . . . I’m quite thick with a chap in Harcourt’s office. He’ll know, one way or the other.’

  ‘Is it really – possible?’

  ‘Well, the fear of the poor runs so deep at present one may envisage anything as possible. Though herding them into a labour camp is surely a measure beyond even the most draconian state.’ He paused, and stared ahead with an air of puzzled abstraction. ‘I mean, where would it end?’

  I discharged myself from the hospital that evening, unable to find any peace whilst thoughts of Jo excruciated my waking hours. I was on my way to the Polygon when I faltered, irresolute. I couldn’t bear the idea of Roma grieving alone in her room; and yet if I knew her at all that would be as she preferred it, aloof from intrusion, however well meaning. Changing direction I called in at the Rainbow, where the mood – did I imagine this? – felt queerly subdued. It was as though the place knew it had lost one of its own. I took a pewter of half-and-half, and drank it in silent salute to him. Then, on the back of an old menu card I wrote a short note to Roma, assuring her that I was at her service, and posted it through her door. I assumed that she would reply at some point, if only to communicate particulars of the funeral.

  That assumption was erroneous. As each day passed I waited for the post, and no word from her came. I was half paralysed with suspense, desperate to hear from her but unwilling to impose myself. By Thursday I had gone to Chalton Street in search of Jo’s pal, Jed, who told me that the funeral was arranged for tomorrow, at noon. Next to him Jo’s pitch stood empty. I asked him whether he had seen Roma, but he shook his head. ‘Poor gal – got nobody now,’ he added feelingly. I supposed he knew the circumstances of Jo’s death, but he betrayed no curiosity as to my part in it.

  The next morning, which was overcast with a nipping little wind, I set out for Somers Town on foot. St Aloysius, a Roman Catholic relic from the beginning of the century, stood on Phoenix Street, and before I had even climbed the steps I could hear singing. I went in by the side door, inhaling a dusty bouquet of incense and candle wax. The congregation was so numerous that even in the entrance hall there was barely room to move amidst the press of bodies. At the top of the nave, over a sea of heads, I could see a coffin, accusingly alone. The hymn’s melody was unknown to me, but I recognised its words.

  Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,

  But yet in love he sought me

  And on his shoulder gently laid

  And home rejoicing brought me.

  An usher sidled over to whisper that there were seats to be had in ‘the Lady Chapel’ (whatever that was) and, with a look, I indicated my willingness to follow him. He led me down a side aisle and thence by a gloomy passageway into a small whitewashed enclosure with benches, situated at a right angle to the altar. From behind a pillar I had a spy’s view of proceedings, the wreathed coffin, the officiating priest, the altar boys cassocked in black with a white collar at the neck. The hymn ended, its last notes echoing around the vaulting ribs and arches of the ceiling. The densely packed rows settled and squared themselves to the trembling pause that followed. The whole neighbourhood seemed to have turned out to say farewell to Jo. It took me a moment to recognise Roma, for though she stood in the front pew her face was veiled. She remained unnervingly poised and still, and as I watched her it dawned on me that my invitation had not been ‘forgotten’ at all – I had been excluded. She blamed me for her brother’s death. Nor could I feel righteously indignant at this rebuff, for did I not to some degree blame myself?

  I stood there, in creeping awareness of my being unwelcome. The forthright peals of the church’s organ, alternating with the sedate drone of the priest’s Latin, enfolded me in a trance of unhappiness. My distraction must have been severe, because when I came to attention Roma had lifted her veil and seemed to be looking directly at me. I shrank back into the shadows, wondering if I had been spotted or not. Outside I could hear the hammering clanks and thuds of building work, its brazen but muffled volume a sudden sad reminder of life going on, heedless of us, heedless of Jo.

  As the recessional hymn began I rose from the kneeler and slipped away via a back door. I didn’t want to risk being seen by Roma. Outside, a funeral carriage stood waiting on the street, the blinkered horse adorned with a glossy black plume. I crossed to the other side, where the noises I had heard from the chapel were revealed to be a new tenement block under construction. Part of the street had been broken up and vast trenches excavated. Engines and boilers sent up great clouds of throat-scouring smoke, and workmen were heaving loads of timber from waiting carts. The bricks, as was increasingly the fashion, were glazed terracotta. Another gritty billow of smoke belched from within the site, and I noticed that my coat already wore a light feathering of dust. Stepping away, I situated myself a little distance from the mourners now emerging from the church opposite. They huddled around the coffin as it was shouldered down the steps to the carriage; the pall-bearers were hard pressed to negotiate it. Amongst them were faces I recognised, from the Brill, from the Rainbow, from the streets where he had worked.

  Before long a dense crowd had clustered about the carriage in readiness for the march to the cemetery. Whilst the priest intoned another prayer, people reached out to touch the bier, then conspiratorially crossed themselves. Roma, her face veiled once more, looked utterly alone amidst the sea of dark-clad companions ranged about her. I was almost moved to go to her – but I didn’t have to, for in a dreamlike moment of surprise she detached herself from the throng and began to cross the road towards me. A friend instinctively hurried to accompany her, but Roma stopped and leaned to say something into her ear – the building noise was just then cacophonous – at which the woman nodded, and withdrew. Having thought myself unnoticed I was ill-prepared for this encounter, and dropped my gaze. She lifted her veil; her face was as pale as plaster, though her eyes, which I had supposed to be glossed with tears, were merely bruised-looking.

  ‘You are well again?’ she said, and I imagined then what a fright I had looked that morning in the hospital ward.

  ‘Thank you, yes,’ I said. ‘The service,’ I began, feeling a blush rise up my neck, ‘I wanted to pay my respects . . .’ – but you didn’t want me there, I thought. She spoke in a distant way.

  ‘When our mum died, they were set on takin’ him away – an orphanage. He was nine years old . . .’ She shook her head. ‘I might’ve lost him.’

  ‘You were very brave, I know –’

  ‘No, you don’t know – you have no idea what I did.’ The sudden hard anger in her voice startled me. ‘How d’you think I managed to keep him – me, at fourteen?’ I wasn’t sure what she was asking me, but my look of confusion only seemed to sharpen her hostility. ‘How d’you think I paid for it all – our food, our rent?’

  ‘Well, you did dressmaking, needlework . . .’ I faltered, stopped, quite in the dark as to her meaning. She snorted thinly, and her gaze narrowed in pi
tying disdain.

  ‘If you think needlework could keep the both of us, you must be – Try a bit harder. You don’t know? Then arsk your friend Paget – about the night house off the Haymarket. He wasn’t sure he remembered me the other day. But I remembered him.’

  ‘A night house,’ I said, my voice hollow.

  ‘That’s right. A girl can earn a livin’ if she knows how.’ A defiant note of pride mingled with her bitterness. ‘Don’t look so shocked. I thought my heart would break to do it, but it didn’t – it just turned to stone. I had something to sell, an’ there was plenty of gentlemen out there to pay for it.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I stood there, stunned, and my muteness seemed to provoke her. Her mouth trembled with rage. ‘I should curse the day you ever came into his life. If you’d – if you’d just left us alone . . . After all I’d done, to keep him and me together –’ Her voice gave out at that, and she turned her face away.

  ‘Roma, I’m so –’ A hard slap across the cheek silenced me. Her eyes widened, as though surprised by her abrupt violence. She took a breath as though about to say something, then checked herself. I dropped my gaze, not daring another word, and after some moments of seeming deliberation she turned and walked back to the waiting company. My cheek stung hot from the blow; one or two onlookers had seen it and were staring at me in puzzlement. Roma was engulfed within the inky mass of mourners, and I did not see her again once the carriage slowly creaked away, with the crowd in step. I followed at the back of the march as they turned left at St Pancras Road, and then I stopped at the corner, until the jingle of the horse’s harness dissolved into the dusty air.

  The following Monday I received a note from Paget urgently requesting a meeting. It seemed that his man at the Home Secretary’s office had expressed an interest in the Bindon Fields case and wished to meet. The mere sight of Paget’s handwriting revolted me, and crushing his letter into a ball I hurled it across the room. I stalked about my rooms in an impotent fury. I envisaged the vicious things I might do were I to come face to face with him. Then I tormented myself a little further by recalling the awkward scene in Somers Town when Paget thought he had recognised Roma but could not place her. Had he later realised who she was? No surprise to me that she had remembered him, and I shrank at what she must have felt as this ghost had materialised before her. Certain phrases oppressed me like fragments from a horrible dream. A girl can earn a living if she knows how . . . plenty of gentlemen out there . . . the night house off the Haymarket.