The Streets Page 7

  ‘Why not?’

  His gaze now met mine. ‘Because we should always be at odds. You will discover – perhaps you already have – that we live in an age of conflicting attitudes to poverty. On the one side are those who denounce the practice of charitable giving. They believe that the poor must help themselves, must struggle on as best they can – that is the laissez-faire view propounded by Marchmont, and, I should add, Mr Gladstone’s government. Then you have the well-meaning but meddlesome evangelicals who give assistance with one hand and a biblical pamphlet with the other. It is a philanthropy which reduces the pauper to the level of a needy child, and tends to the prestige of the givers more than the plight of the receivers. But surely you have talked with Marchmont about this?’

  ‘We have. When I brought up the Moyles business he gave me quite a hot time of it.’ An image of the guvnor’s furiously congested face startled my mind’s eye.

  ‘I’ve no doubt,’ said Paget. ‘D’you know, we once had a conversation about Somers Town, he and I. The housing there has been in an atrocious state for years, and knowing of his association with the place I asked him what he would do about it, given the chance. I shall always remember his reply. He said, “As little as possible.” As little as possible. I think they were nearly the last words we ever exchanged.’ He had been talking almost to himself, his expression lost in brooding.

  There was a pause before I said, ‘So what should be done about it?’

  ‘I don’t pretend to know. But one cannot simply stand by and let the place go to rot. Property has its duties as well as its rights – do you not think so, Mr Wildeblood?’

  By now we had reached Covent Garden, and were being jostled on all sides by costers and draymen and flower girls. Their whistles and cries, dinning about our ears, relieved me of the obligation to reply. This was just as well, because I felt that whatever I said would be construed as a rebuke to Marchmont. On our brief acquaintance I liked Paget, but I did not want him to assume I was his ally. There was also the difficulty of answering the question satisfactorily. Yes, property did have its ‘duties’ to the less fortunate; but how far did they extend, and who would ensure that they were adequately carried out? I had believed that councils and vestries would be the agents of change, but since the revelation of the rents scandal I had seen how erroneous that thinking was.

  We had reached a corner somewhat beyond the bustle of the market, and Paget had stopped to buy a newspaper from a street vendor. I heard a nearby church bell strike the hour.

  ‘I must be off,’ I said.

  ‘To the good people of Somers Town?’

  ‘Yes, I’m going door-to-door with Jo – my associate.’

  ‘Old Henry keeps you hard at it . . .’

  I shrugged agreement, and hoped he wouldn’t say anything else about my employer. I had heard more than enough in the last half-hour.

  ‘Perhaps I will see you at Mr Kenton’s meeting,’ said Paget, offering a chubby hand. ‘Here’s to the No Rent Campaign – and the deuce take Moyles and his cronies!’

  It was a busy day in the Brill, and as I walked towards Jo’s stall I saw him talking animatedly with a young woman, dark-haired and sallow-skinned like him. I had an inkling that this might be his sweetheart, and held back from approaching them. I had noticed the puzzled looks we sometimes got during our perambulations in the neighbourhood, though Jo never seemed to be embarrassed by my company. Nevertheless, on this occasion I thought I should wait until he saw fit to introduce me, and I took myself on a roundabout stroll for twenty minutes.

  On my return I found him alone, paring an apple with his beloved knife and eating slices off the blade.

  ‘Doogheno or dabheno?’ I said, and he laughed. My back slang still had the power to amuse him.

  ‘Doogheno.’ He picked up another apple from a tray, rubbed it on his sleeve and tossed it to me. We stood there, chewing away. I considered asking him about the young woman I’d seen, but a kind of shyness held my tongue. He was rather private when it suited him, and he had never suggested that I visit his lodgings. At first I thought he might be wary of inviting a stranger to his home, but then I realised that the idea had simply never occurred to him. He had his work, and he had his life, and the two did not overlap.

  As we did our door-to-door, I handed out the ‘No Rent’ leaflet to certain tenants we encountered. A few people expressed interest in attending the event, having heard about the commotion at the Vestry Hall. One man said that the landlords ‘had it comin’’. This was the spirit of resistance Kenton was hoping to inflame. More often than not, though, they would stand at the door and look at the leaflet with bovine indifference. Some immediately handed it back without comment, which struck me at first as rather boorish. But after the third or fourth time this happened Jo explained: they couldn’t read. So I asked Jo to recite the salient points of the leaflet on the doorsteps. It sounded more persuasive coming from him, but I found he soon tired of repeating himself; he was not one of nature’s born revolutionaries. I suggested that we finish for the day, and he nodded his eager agreement.

  We walked back to Chalton Street, where he kept his pitch, just as the last stallholders were packing up for the day. The pavements were slimed with green, leaves and spoiled fruit that would rot for weeks after. I was humming a street tune that had recently lodged in my head, and Jo, hearing it, took over. It was one of the longer canting songs, yet he seemed to know every line of it, and as he came to the final verse we improvised a harmony.

  But mummery and slummery

  You must keep in your mind

  For every day, mind what I say,

  Fresh fakements you will find.

  But stick to this while you can crawl

  To stand till you’re obliged to fall

  And when you’re wide awake to all

  You’ll be a leary man.

  Once we had finished cackling, I asked Jo what a leary man might be.

  ‘Leary?’ he said. ‘Well, it’s like . . . fly. Wise to things, as such . . . the sort of feller you’re not,’ he added with another laugh. I tried not to look hurt. Jo began another song, this time one I didn’t know. His voice was as clear as a choirboy’s, and he finished on a trilling note that seemed to please him. But when I asked him to sing another he shook his head.

  ‘Nah, I ’aves to rest me pipe for tomorrer,’ he said, giving his throat a little tweak. Jo dreaded losing his voice, for he thought a coster at his stall should always be pattering. ‘But if you likes I can take yer to an h’establishment round our way where they’s singin’ all night.’

  ‘I would like nothing better,’ I replied, for lately I had felt a loneliness dogging my steps as winter turned to spring, and the city streets began to swarm with people. London crowds conspired to make me feel more of a solitary than ever. I was indeed ‘wide awake to all’, as the song had it, but it was melancholy to feel that I was also invisible to them. Jo said that I should meet him tomorrow evening at a public house called the Rainbow on Clarendon Street, and as I jotted the name in my pocketbook he gave a little chuckle.

  ‘You an’ yer notes. No wonder people mistakes ya for a slop!’

  I had never before been invited to drink with Jo outside of what he sardonically called ‘h’office hours’. For all the time we had spent in one another’s company I knew very little about his personal life. I would meet people in the Brill who were familiar with him, but since Jo knew just about everyone it was difficult to distinguish who his particular friends might be. The April evening was mild as I walked down the Pentonville Road, past the looming silhouettes of King’s Cross and St Pancras and into Somers Town. The Rainbow was a solid old place at the north end of Clarendon Street, and I could hear a chattering hubbub through its open door. I ascended a narrow staircase to the pub’s upper room where, through the thickening veils of pipe smoke, I met a lively crowd of men, women and girls, all with pewters and glasses before them.

  I had shouldered through to the bar, and was pee
ring in a distracted way over the heads of the drinkers when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

  ‘Cool this feller – like a tart in a trance.’ Jo stood there, smirking, flanked on either side by a young girl. Both were pert-looking creatures with hair brushed straight over the brow – the factory-girl fringe – and they giggled like hyenas at his droll description. ‘Nell, Nora,’ he said, with a flourish of his hand, ‘this is Davie, me pal up from the country.’

  ‘How d’you do?’ said Nell, or Nora.

  I made a little bow, which set them off on another fit of giggles. I felt that I had to rise above my introduction – surely I cut a figure more imposing than a bumpkin? – but could think of nothing to say. Meanwhile Jo, in response to one of the girls, was standing drinks; he passed me a pewter of ale, and pointed his thumb towards a fellow who was settling at a piano hard by the bar. The evening’s entertainment was about to begin. There rose a sudden anticipatory hum in the room as the pianist plonked out a few broken chords; then he was off, tinkling forth a selection of popular melodies. Now and then a man would be persuaded to stand up and sing the lyric, which, however indifferently performed, would be boisterously applauded. It was a striking phenomenon, this public hunger for music; I had never seen working people enthuse over anything so passionately, not even drink. As alcohol gradually overmastered inhibition, the singers came forward more readily. The evening looked likely to degenerate into a raucous free-for-all, but just then the pianist rose from his stool and held forth his palms in a hushing gesture.

  ‘Is Roma in tonight?’ he asked, scanning the room. His eyes alighted on Jo, who lifted his chin in reply.

  ‘Servin’ at the bar downstairs.’

  The pianist asked for someone to go and fetch her, and, indicating his reluctance to play until that lady arrived, he slouched back on his seat and filled his pipe. A few minutes later his request was answered, and a dark-haired young woman entered the room, the same one I had seen Jo talking to on Chalton Street. Up close she – Roma – was rather striking, her pale forehead contrasting with very pronounced eyebrows in the Italian style; her eyes, bluish green, were misted with preoccupation, which the wide curve of her mouth seemed to accentuate. It was a strong physiognomy, beautiful in its way, but not one, I thought, to be easily moved to gaiety. She wore a dress of small-patterned print, with an embroidered linen collar. I wondered how long Jo had known her, and on what footing their relationship stood.

  She was now in animated converse with the pianist, whom she seemed to be upbraiding for this frivolous summons. From his shrugging conciliatory manner (he too, I thought, was of Italian stock) it appeared he had got what he wanted. She moved to the side of the piano, and as she composed herself she caught no one’s eye. The room had fallen quiet. She began singing, in a low, plaintive tone, ‘The Bonny Light Horseman’, which gathered in feeling as she proceeded. You could hear why her voice was so prized; it was at once husky and sweet, and whilst it ranged over the upper notes with ease you could hear a lost, lonely ache in it. At the song’s conclusion a tempest of applause broke out (‘That’s something like, girl!’) and the demand was raised for another. Roma acknowledged it with the merest twitch of her mouth, and, with a touch of perversity, she ignored the pleas for the music-hall standards and sang instead a short, mysterious ballad in Italian, or what I assumed was Italian. They cheered this one even louder when it was finished, for despite the unfamiliar words the meaning was in her voice, in a palpable warmth that spoke to the heart. The stamping and hoots and calls for more had no sway with her; she would not sing another. She lingered there for some moments, having performed a slow, grave bow to the assembled, as if to say, I accept your thanks, and now bid you goodnight. Then, with a brusque signal to the pianist, she made her way out of the room, deaf to the groans in her wake. I had never seen anything quite like it.

  I sidled back along the bar towards Jo, who had been watching her performance with an air of nonchalant pride: he was impressed, but unsurprised. The two girls had drifted off.

  ‘That was . . . quite something,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. In good voice tonight, our gal.’

  This affectionate moniker seemed to confirm it. ‘So that young lady is your sweetheart?’

  The mouthful of ale Jo had just taken exploded from his mouth in surprise. Spluttering, he stared at me, half amused, half appalled. ‘You wot?! Oh, I’ve ’eard it all now –’ He looked about him for a witness, but none was at hand. Still incredulous, he turned back to me. ‘Sweetheart, my eye! That’s me sister.’

  ‘Oh . . . I’m sorry – I didn’t –’ I said, flustered.

  ‘I said I ’ad a sister – d’ya not ’ear me?’

  I was about to protest that he had never told me her name, but behind us the piano had started up again, drowning further possibility of talk. I could see Jo still shaking his head, astounded by the ignorance of his pal ‘up from the country’. The musical entertainment continued at a roar, but my thoughts had gone elsewhere. I was wondering about Roma, about her singing, and her extraordinary air of self-possession. She did not look much older than Jo, so she must have been young indeed when she took on the responsibility of raising him. Perhaps that was why there had seemed in her expression something, not austere exactly, but – withheld.

  It had occurred to me that Jo might, at some stage in the evening, deign to introduce us. As midnight came round and the pianist finally drew down his lid, the two of us descended the stairs to the main bar. Tables were being cleared and the more unruly elements turfed out. The dimmed gas jets and the clink of glasses on wood announced closing time. She was sitting alone at a corner table, her face a mask of absorption, and as Jo led me over I could see she was totting up the night’s takings. She looked up as we approached, and her gaze met mine so penetratingly that I had to look down. Jo did a little caper in front of her.

  ‘Smashin’ turn that, tonight, Ro,’ he said. ‘This is David, feller I was tellin’ you about.’ From his sly smile I had a moment’s dread that Jo was about to chaff me about my mistaking her for his sweetheart, but all he said was, ‘Most h’enamoured of yer singin’, ’n’ all.’

  She inclined her head, rather regally, in acknowledgement. ‘Our mum taught it me, years ago,’ she said. I heard a soft London twang that had not been discernible in her singing voice. ‘So you’re the feller who’s been round the houses’ – owsers, she pronounced it – ‘asking about the rents and such.’

  I admitted that I was. ‘It’s for Henry Marchmont’s periodical.’

  ‘I know, I’ve read it,’ she said, and there came an elusive half-smile. ‘The Criminal Classes of London.’

  ‘No, not “Criminal”,’ I corrected her, ‘it’s the Labouring Classes.’

  ‘Oh, beg y’ pardon,’ she said, though I now sensed that her mistake was actually a little jibe. And I might have challenged her – why criminal? – if I hadn’t felt so disconcerted by her knowing look. The unspoken implication was, you understand what I mean, even if you won’t admit it. There followed some desultory chat between herself and Jo about what hour each would be repairing homewards; the latter declared his intention to ‘make a night of it’, which elicited an indulgent nod from his sister. I took this as the moment to withdraw, and bid them both good evening. Jo gave his usual cheery ‘g’night’. Roma said nothing, but only raised a slow hand in farewell, or dismissal, which seemed to me the more likely.

  An honest living

  I WAS IN the office dictating a piece about cats’-meat dealers one morning when Rennert stopped by my desk with a letter, addressed to D. Wildeblood, Esq.

  ‘You ought to look in your pigeonhole more often. It’s been there for days,’ he said, his eye hovering quizzically over the envelope before he moved on. I was not inclined to check my pigeonhole for the simple reason that nobody ever wrote to me, but this one broke my duck in grand style: no wonder Rennert had looked curious. The creamy vellum envelope was embossed; within, the single sheet of paper I unfold
ed felt as crisp and unarguable as a royal summons. The discreetly printed address at its head – Kensington Palace Gardens – seemed to continue that illusion. Who would possibly know me there? The impressively exact hand, in brown ink, belonged to the private secretary of Sir Martin Elder: he wished to inform me that my company was requested for a dinner at Sir Martin’s house, please to reply, &c.

  I knew the name, though I had never met the man. A City banker of some renown, Martin Elder had known my father at Brasenose nearly thirty years earlier; a chance meeting at an alumni dinner had briefly renewed their friendship, and there must have been sufficient affection between them (or else strong drink had contrived a likeness) for my father to seek the honour of Elder’s standing as godparent to his firstborn. He had accepted, though aside from an infrequent exchange of letters with my father contact between him and the Wildeblood family was almost nil. He had never visited Swaffham, we had never visited London, and it was not until I was in my teens that I discovered I had a godfather at all. Circumstances had induced my father to write to him some months ago, requesting the favour of finding a situation for me in London, and thus came about my apprenticeship to Elder’s distinguished journalist friend, Henry Marchmont.

  I reread the invitation. The appointed dinner was for 19 April, which, because of my delay in picking up the letter, meant the date was rather more proximate than I had first thought. It was the next evening, in fact.

  Shadows were lengthening as I stepped off the omnibus on Bayswater Road. The night sky was a blanket of indigo. Kensington Palace Gardens was cordoned off by a gatehouse, where I was obliged to explain my business to a guardian before I could pass through. The houses along this private tree-lined avenue were huge stone and stucco palazzi, each set back from the road behind a spiked palisade, and unlike any others I had seen in town – or indeed any others I had seen in my life. Sir Martin’s, larger than its neighbours, loomed above a bank of elms. From its tall stone gate-piers, each surmounted by a carved eagle, a crescent path of gravel led round to the colonnaded entrance. It looked like an embassy or some important public building, and I had an abrupt intuition that I would be the only guest to arrive here by ’bus. As I was walking in, a man and boy, both in the shabby apparel of their class, were at work in the road, patiently shovelling horse dung into a cart; I supposed they would only be allowed to do so here under cover of night. The man raised his head on hearing my step, and I saw weariness dragging on his features.