There’d been a time when Freddy would have gone along with Mary Jane for fear of how she’d take it if he should refuse, but those days were long gone. She was all bark now and no bite, no harm to anyone. None of them were, not these days. It had been a long time since the coppers took an interest in any of them, Freddy, Mary Jane, old Georgie Bumble, any of that lot. Mind you, the coppers had no jurisdiction in the areas where Fred and Mary Jane spent all their time these days, and it was very, very rare you’d see a bobby round there, not one who’d got any interest in the likes of them. The only one who Freddy knew to say hello to was Joe Ball, Superintendent Ball, and he was all right. An old-fashioned copper out the olden days what had long since retired, though when you saw him he still had his uniform. He’d spend a lot of time talking to villains of the sort he’d once have locked up in the jail, including Freddy, who’d once asked Joe why he wasn’t spending his retirement somewhere nicer, somewhere like where Freddy’s pal down Scarletwell Street said that Freddy should have gone. The old Superintendent had just smiled and said he’d always liked the Boroughs. It would do him, and you sometimes got the chance to do a bit of good. That was enough for old Joe Ball. He wasn’t after anyone, not Freddy and not even Mary Jane. She’d been a holy terror but she’d had the fight go out of her when her old way of life ended abruptly after she’d been struck down by a heart attack. She’d had to reassess things after that and change her ways, so Freddy wasn’t worried now as he declined, politely, her kind invitation to revisit scenes of former glories.
“I’d as soon not, Mary Jane, if it’s the same to you. That’s more your cup of tea than mine, and I’ve got old affairs meself I should be getting back to. Tell you what, if you’ll keep old Malone and all his bloody animals away from me, I’ll break the habit of a … well, of a long while it seems to me … and I’ll perhaps come by the Smokers when I’ve been to watch me billiards tonight, how’s that?”
This seemed to please her. She stood up and stuck one callused hand out so that Fred could shake it.
“That’ll do me. You mind how you go now, Freddy, though I s’pose the worst has all already happened for the likes of us. I’ll tell you how I got on in the fight if I should see you up the Smokers. You make sure you’re there, now.”
She released his hand, then she was gone. He sat there on his own a while eyeing the barmaid. It was hopeless, Freddy knew that. He was older with his hair gone now, and though he still had what he could retain of the good looks he’d had when he was young, as far as the blonde barmaid was concerned he might as well not be there. He picked up his hat from where it rested on the seat beside him, crammed it on his bald spot and got up to leave himself. As he went through the door and onto Black Lion Hill, just from politeness and from habit he called to the barmaid, wishing her a good day, but she took no notice, as he’d known she wouldn’t. She just kept on drying glasses with her back to him, acting as if she hadn’t heard. He stepped out of the pub and turned right, up to Peter’s Church, where all the clouds were moving by so fast above that light was flickering on the old stonework as though from a monster candle.
As he passed the church he glanced in at its doorway, just to see if any young chap or young woman … they were always young ones these days, with as many girls as there were boys … was sleeping underneath the portico, but there was no one there. Sometimes, if he felt lonely or just needed human company he’d sneak in with them while they slept, which didn’t do no harm, just lying there beside them face to face and listening to them breathe, pretending he could feel their warmth. They were all drunk or too pie-eyed to know that there was anybody there, and he’d be up and gone before they were awake in any case, just on the off chance one might open up their eyes and see him. The last thing he’d want to do was frighten them. He wasn’t doing any harm, and he would never touch them or pinch nothing from them, not a one of them. He couldn’t. He weren’t like that anymore.
From Marefair, Freddy drifted up Horsemarket. As he crossed St. Mary’s Street that ran off to his left he glanced along it. You could sometimes see the sisters still up there, a proper pair of dragons who’d been widely-known and talked about when in their prime: wild, shocking and exciting. Famously, they’d once raced naked through the town, leaping and twirling, spitting, running along rooftops, all the way from here to Derngate in about ten minutes, both so dangerous and beautiful that people wept to see them. Freddy sometimes spotted them in Mary’s Street, just moping wistfully around the piles of dried-out leaves and litter drifted up against the sunken car park’s wall, drawn back here to the place where they had once commenced their memorable dance. The glitter in their eyes, you knew that if they had the chance, even at their age, they’d still do it all again. They’d do it in a minute. Blimey, that would be a sight.
Today, St. Mary’s Street was empty save a scroungey-looking dog. Freddy passed on, not for the first time he reflected, to the top of Castle Street where he turned left and headed down to where the flats were now.
It was when Mary Jane made that remark about what she got up to at the Dragon — the Green Dragon on the Mayorhold — which was where the lesbians gathered. As unwelcome as the thought of it had been, it had set Freddy off, set him off thinking about sex again. That’s why he’d eyed the barmaid down at the Black Lion. To be quite honest sex was a frustration and a nuisance now as much as anything, but once it came into his head it rattled round until he’d satisfied its nagging voice and all its wearying demands. Now that he thought about it, though, it had been much the same for him while he was in the life. It wasn’t fair of him to blame his circumstances now for all the things that made him feel fed up. He’d had a fair shake, Freddy thought, all things considered. No one was to blame but him for how he’d handled his affairs, and he could see that there was justice in the way he’d ended up. Justice above the streets.
He was just thinking that he’d not seen any of that area’s clergymen around as yet today, the brothers or whatever they preferred to call themselves, when who should there be struggling up the street towards him than one of that very lot: a stout chap looking hot under his robes and all of that lark, making hard work of an old sack what he’d got across his shoulder. Freddy had a little chuckle to himself, thinking that it was more than likely nicked church candle-sticks or the collection plates or else the lead from off the roof inside the sack, it looked that heavy.
As they neared each other, the old priest chap lifted his flushed, sweating face and noticed Freddy, giving him a big warm smile of greeting so that from the offset Freddy liked the man. He looked like that young actor off the telly who played Fancy Smith in Z-Cars, only older, how he’d look if he were in his fifties or his sixties, with a beard and all grey hair. Their paths met halfway down the bit between Horsemarket and the path or ramp or stairs, whatever it was called, that led into the houses there, the flats. Both of them stopped and said hello politely to each other, with this ruddy-faced old Friar Tuck chap having a great rumbling voice and something of an accent Freddy couldn’t place. It sounded a bit backwards, like a country accent could if you weren’t used to them, and Freddy thought the bloke might be from Towcester or out that way, with his thees and thys.