‘Yes, Mister Dodger,’ Mrs Mayhew said. ‘I’m quite certain that is true, but my husband and I feel that we stand in loco parentis to this young lady, who appears to have no one else to care for her, and so the social niceties must be observed.’
Dodger, who didn’t know what a loco parentis was, shrugged and said, ‘Right you are, missus, but I will be passing this way again tomorrow just after lunch.’ He added, raising his voice a little, ‘In case anyone should change their mind.’
Mister Mayhew caught up with him just as he reached the kitchen and said, ‘My wife is a little highly strung right now, if you know what I mean.’
All that Dodger could find to say was, ‘No, I don’t,’ and like two gentlemen they left it at that, and he shook hands with Mister Mayhew and hurried through the kitchen door, his head still reeling with the way they seemed to let him speak out. Wait till he told Sol!
The cook did not look surprised when he came into the kitchen. She said, ‘Well, my lad, ain’t you the rising star, hob nobbing with your elders and betters! Good for you! I reckon what I see in front of me now is not just another tosher but a smart young man for whom the world is an opportunity.’ She handed him a greasy package, saying, ‘Money is tight here these days – things are a bit worrying all round, and of course you won’t know it but we got rid of the second maid. If things get any worse, I reckon Mrs Sharples will be next, no loss, and then I suspect that it will be me, although I can’t see my lady working down here. But I done you a package of leftovers – some cold potatoes and carrots, and a nice piece of pork.’
Dodger took the package, and said, ‘Thank you very much. I’m very grateful to you.’
This caused Mrs Quickly to throw her arms open in an attempt to cuddle him. ‘Spoken like a true gentleman. I couldn’t possibly expect a little kiss . . .?’ she asked hopefully.
And so Dodger kissed the cook – a rather pneumatic lady who kissed at some length – and when he was allowed to break free, she said, ‘When you rise up high, remember them as live lowly.’
1 Around about the time of Dodger, most sewerage in London went into septic tanks, or cesspits. The tanks were emptied out and the contents taken away by honey wagons.
CHAPTER 6
In which sixpence buys a lot of soup, and a foreigner’s gold buys a spy . . .
THE EMBARRASSMENT OF this followed Dodger all the way back home, as did a certain aroma of giblets. Somehow he wasn’t quite as certain of who he was now – a kid from the sewers, or somebody who chats with the gentry – although he knew enough to understand that Mister and Mrs Mayhew were not exactly all that much like gentry, even with their house and servants. It was certainly better than anything Dodger had lived in, but the place was just a bit shabby here and there. Not really dirty, but just enough to indicate that money was perhaps tight in this household, like Mrs Quickly said, so every penny had to be counted.
Mrs Mayhew had been worried too, and Dodger rather felt that the worry was somehow built in, and not just about Simplicity. He shrugged it off. Maybe that’s how it goes, he thought. The more you’ve got, the more worried you become, just in case you lose it. If money gets a bit short, then you might be worrying about losing your nice house and all those pretty little ornaments.
Dodger hadn’t ever worried too much about anything beyond the important things – a decent meal and a warm place to sleep. You didn’t need a house full of little ornaments (and Dodger was a great one for noticing little ornaments, especially the kind that could be picked up very easily and shoved into a pocket at speed and sold again almost as fast). But what was the point of them? To show that you could afford them? How much better did that make you feel? How much happier were you really?
The Mayhew household had been doing its duty in a stiff kind of way, but it didn’t appear to be very happy – there had been a kind of tension there which he couldn’t quite fathom, unhappiness riding on the very air – and in a strange way that made Dodger feel a little unhappy himself, and he wondered why. Unhappiness was a state of mind generally alien to him. Who had the time to be unhappy, after all? He was often pissed off, fed up, even angry, but these were just clouds in the sky; sooner or later they passed. They never lasted long. But as he walked aimlessly away from the Mayhews’ it seemed that he was dragging other people’s worries with him.
He felt that the only cure for something like this would be to go down into the sewers, because if you had to be down in the dumps you might as well have a feel around and see if you could find sixpence. He would have to go and get changed – the shonky outfit was the finest and smartest he had ever worn, and it would never do to go to work in, would it?
But . . . Simplicity. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Wondering who she might be, and who might know what had happened to her and why. And who had hurt her, of course. He really, really needed to know that now. And in this crowded town there would always be somebody to overhear anything that a body said.
The police wouldn’t know anything, of course – that was because no one in their right mind ever talked to the peelers. One or two of them were OK, but it didn’t pay to trust them. However, people talked to Dodger, good old Dodger, especially when he loaned them a sixpence, to be repaid on St Never’s Day.
And so, on his winding way back to the attic to change, a route not just roundabout but swings and slides as well, he found time to lounge around chatting to the dregs of the earth; and to the Cockneys, who sold apples and who liked nothing better than to gang up on the peelers for a real old-fashioned, no-holds-barred war in which any weapon was fair game. He spoke to the street traders, trading on the smallest of margins; and he chatted to the ladies who hung about doing nothing very much, but always happy to meet a gentleman with money who would be generous to a girl, especially after his drink had been spiked – after which he could have the luxury of a long voyage down the Thames to places far, far away where he would possibly meet interesting people, some of whom might even endeavour to eat him, by all accounts. If a gentleman was very unlucky – or upset someone like Mrs Holland on Bankside – he would do the journey down the Thames without a boat . . .
Then there were the men offering games of Crown and Anchor, which at least had the benefit of being winnable if you were sober enough and the dice rolled your way – unlike the other game you might be offered by a cheery man who owned nothing more than one flat wooden board on which were three thimbles and one pea. On that little battlefield you would indeed bet some money on the whereabouts of the said pea, relying on your keen eyesight to keep track of it as the thimbles turned and spun under the hands of the cheerful chattering man. You would never, ever guess right, because where the pea really was was known only to the cheerful man and God – and probably not even God was certain. If you had drunk enough, you would try again and again, betting more and more, ’cos sooner or later, even if you simply guessed, it was surely bound to be under the one you guessed. But sadly, it never would be, ever.
Finally, of course, there was the Punch and Judy man, running his puppet show, which was even more of a hoot these days now there was a policeman for Mister Punch to beat with his stick. The kids laughed, and the adults would laugh, and everyone would laugh as the laughing Mister Punch screamed, ‘That’s the way to do it!’ in that squeaky voice of his, like some terrible bird of prey . . . or the wheels of a coach.