Alis (14 page)

She tried to kick him, but there wasn’t room and it only made him laugh again. With his free hand, he took hold of the front of her shirt, pulling at it so that the fastenings began to tear away. As the thin material ripped, horror gave her strength, and she spat in his face. His head jerked back in surprise, and at the same moment a voice shouted urgently, “Alis! Alis! Where are you?”

“Here!” she screamed. “Help me! Help me!”

The sailor put his hand over her mouth but it was too late. From the end of the passageway, Edge said sharply, “You’d best let her go, sailor. She’s got a brother who won’t like what you’re up to. He and his mates are on their way. This is their patch.”

The sailor released Alis and turned round. Hesitantly, he stepped toward the exit. He was blocking her view but Alis heard Edge say, “That’s right, sailor. You keep coming. You’re in a trap now, and if I were you, I’d be out of it when the boys arrive. Nasty things knives, especially when it’s three to one in a little space like this.”

He took a couple strides and was out of the passageway. Edge shouted, “This way, you lot! Quick!” Alis caught a glimpse of the knife in her hand.

A pair of boots clattered on the cobbles. Then there was silence. Trembling and sick, Alis clutched her tattered shirt to her. She leaned against the wall, her legs shaking so much she did not think she could walk. Edge was still silhouetted in the opening, keeping watch. “Come on! We must get away.”

When Alis did not stir, Edge said urgently, “He might come back if he guesses he’s been fooled, and this is a bad place. Move, Alis.”

Shakily, Alis took a step, and then another, forcing herself forward. Edge grabbed her by the hand. “Straighten up,” she said tersely, “and try not to look as though something’s happened.”

Alis did her best to comply. Dazed, she looked round for Joel and the others, saying hoarsely, “Is my brother . . . ?”

“No, of course not! I was bluffing. Now let’s get away from here.” Alis hardly noticed the route they took. She clung to Edge, terrified that the sailor would reappear. No one troubled them, however, and after a while, they emerged from the twisting alleyways into a district of squares and ruined buildings. There were children playing in the dirt and women going to and fro with baskets. After a while she said, “I can’t go any farther.” She sat down on the pedestal of a broken fountain.

Edge looked round warily. “All right,” she said. “But we shouldn’t stay too long.”

Alis felt as if the ground were moving beneath her. The smell of the man was on her skin. She could taste him on her lips and feel the coarseness of his fingers on her breast. She leaned forward and vomited into the dirt. Over and over her stomach heaved and her throat convulsed. It seemed as though it would never stop.

When it did, her mouth remained full of foulness, though she spat into the dust until she could spit no more. At last Edge said, “Let’s move on.”

 

 

The tavern was down a flight of steps, in the cellar beneath a chandler’s shop. It was crowded, but Edge was obviously a regular. She made straight for the yard at the back, where there was a well. Alis splashed her face with cool water and drank a little to freshen her mouth. She was still trembling, and she felt exhausted.

When they went back inside, two old prostitutes sitting at the bar made room for them. A tankard of something cold was put before Alis.

“Try it,” Edge said. “You’ll feel better.”

One of the women, thick face paint clogging the creases in her skin, jerked her head at Alis and raised her plucked eyebrows. “What’s up with her?”

“A sailor tried it on,” Edge said. “We got away, though.”

The woman nodded. “Men,” she said without feeling. “All bastards.” She stared moodily into her drink.

Alis took a sip from the tankard before her. The bitterness of the dark brown liquid took her by surprise, and she thought she would be sick again. She drew a deep breath, and after a moment the feeling passed, to be replaced by an agreeable warmth in her belly.

She lifted her head and saw that Edge was looking at her without expression. She felt her eyes fill with tears. “You saved me,” she said tremulously. “If it hadn’t been for you . . .” She could not go on.

Edge shrugged in her usual way. “No point escaping from the minister man to be banged up by a sailor.”

The prostitute lifted her head from her drink to say to Edge, “Came to her rescue, did you? You’re a tough ’un all right. Friend, is she?”

The fair-haired girl hesitated briefly, then nodded. She caught Alis’s eye and looked away, flushing faintly. She lifted her tankard. “Drink up,” she said. “Time we were on our way.”

 

 

Back with the others, Edge merely said that they had been attacked but had gotten away. The girls and Weasel showed little sympathy, while Dancer fluttered round them uselessly until Edge turned on him. Joel looked grim and said they must take better care. His eyes rested on his sister anxiously, but he said nothing. Alis retreated to the room where she slept, feeling soiled and ashamed.

 

 

For a few days, she would not go out. She shivered with fever on her thin mattress, and in her dreams the sailor came toward her, his features monstrously enlarged, hands everywhere. Eventually, Edge, who had tended her for nearly a week, lost patience.

“Nothing happened, and you can’t stay here forever. I’ve brought you water to wash in and here’s a shirt you can have. You can burn the other one if it makes you feel better. Now get up!”

So the matter was ended. Alis felt herself harden toward the world. She looked about her distrustfully and thought that perhaps all men were vile. But Edge was her friend—there was no doubt of that—and she owed her a debt that could never be paid.

A
s the year went on, the Elders tightened their grip on the northern side of the river. Some of the empty rooms around the courtyards acquired occupants, and other groups began to move into the territory that Joel had claimed for his own.

Late-summer rain chilled the air, making the streets and alleys slimy and dank. Tempers in the group frayed. They had spent the money so easily acquired earlier, and when rats got into the food store, they were even worse off. Alis still slept where she had the first night. Sometimes Edge slept there also. When she did not, Alis understood that she lay with Joel, just as Fleet and Weasel shared a bed.

Joel called them all together. They needed money and they must make plans. Weasel indicated Alis and said, “She oughta do more.”

Mute, sitting with his arm round Shadow, nodded, and the red-haired girl gave Alis a scornful look.

Joel said evenly, “She keeps lookout.”

“Lookout!” It was Shadow, sneering. “Anyone can be a lookout.” Fleet, sitting at Weasel’s side, leaned forward to join in. Her pretty face with its dark eyes and lashes was hard. “Why’s she special? The rest of us do the real work. Shadow and me put up with dirty men pawing us to bring the money in. She eats, same as everyone else.”

There was a murmur of agreement. Alis looked at Edge, who usually stood up for her these days, but Edge, with her elbows on the table, was pulling at her fringe and chopping bits off it with her knife. There was a little pile of blonde tufts in front of her.

Weasel looked hostile as usual. “It ain’t fair that she’s treated different.”

Joel’s face was cold. “Fair or not, I’m leader here. And if you don’t like it”—he looked at Weasel—“you don’t have to stay.”

There was a sullen silence in the room.

Alis went fearfully to her bed: what if they attacked her in the dark, while she slept? She could not stay awake forever.

In the room, however, she found Edge preparing for the night and was pleased. When she was ready, she blew out her candle and lay down. She allowed herself to think of Luke for a moment and was overwhelmed with longing, but eventually she fell asleep.

When she awoke, the other girl was sitting cross-legged on the floor watching her. There were two knives between them on the bare boards. She pushed one toward Alis. “Yours,” she said. “I’ll teach you to use it.”

 

 

In the room where they slept and out in the courtyard, they practiced. For this they used an unsharpened knife, but that did not mean it was blunt. If she turned the edge toward her when it should be away, if she were clumsy in handling the blade, she could and did cut herself. She did not care. The fair girl said it was the best way to learn.

“If you know it’ll cut you, you’ll watch more carefully. That way you’ll learn more quickly.”

When they went out on a job, Edge would not let her carry the weapon. “Not yet,” she said. “If you don’t know how to handle it, it’ll be turned against you maybe. Wait.”

And so she waited, glad enough for the delay. In truth, she knew very well that she would never be able to use the knife. She was not dexterous enough to cut a purse, and as for defending herself or anyone else with it, the idea of the blade cutting through flesh sickened her.

 

 

Summer turned to autumn. In the dark alleys and passageways of the city, Edge stayed close to Alis. When food was short, she saw that Alis got a share of what there was. The others did not like it, but with them, Edge remained her old unpredictable self.

The days shortened; it was colder at night. Then it was winter: icy drafts through the broken shutters, bitter wind, fewer people abroad at night, and less to steal. They went farther afield and took more risks. There was boredom as well as hunger to fuel resentments. One evening, coming back from the privy, she encountered Weasel in the narrow upper corridor. Instead of passing her, he stood blocking the way, baring his broken teeth at her in a mocking grin. Suppressing her fear, she said firmly, “Let me by please, Weasel.”

He did not move at once. “Not very friendly, are you? Ain’t I good-looking enough for you?”

Then he stood aside for her, and she felt his eyes on her as she went along to the room where she slept.

“How can Fleet bear to lie with him?” she asked Edge later.

“It’s what most girls do,” Edge said. “For protection.”

Alis asked, “What about you? You and my brother?”

Edge said sharply, “I don’t need protecting; I can look after myself. I go with your brother for my own pleasure.”

They were silent for a few minutes. Then Edge said, “And he doesn’t expect me to go on the streets. Weasel would have Fleet sell herself to any man with a purse, if he could.”

Alis had seen the women in their flimsy clothes waiting in doorways and on street corners. Disturbed, she said, “Weasel would do that even though he and Fleet . . . ?”

“Most men would. Jojo’s unusual.”

Alis thought of the people she had known before. She could not imagine her father or Luke behaving like this. She shook her head. “It’s a different world.”

“You think so?” Edge sounded scornful. “What were your parents doing when they said you had to marry the minister man?”

Alis was shocked. “They weren’t selling me. He wasn’t paying.” “Oh no? He was getting you for his bed, and your parents were getting power, importance. Doesn’t seem so different to me.”

She felt sick. She did not want to think about it. To turn Edge’s attention from her she asked, “What were your parents like?”

“Never knew my father; he went off when he knew I was on the way. My mother kept me fed as best she could, and taught me to speak nicely.” She grimaced. “I ran off myself when I was ten.”

“What happened?”

There was a long silence. Eventually Edge said reluctantly, “Where we lived, the landlord had rooms in the same house. He was always leering at my mother and making remarks. I think she sometimes, you know . . . when she didn’t have enough for the rent. And then he began on me—how pretty I was growing, what lovely hair I had; it was long then. I was scared of him. I tried to tell my mother but she didn’t want to know. Didn’t dare offend him in case he threw us out. One day I was there alone. I can’t remember why. Maybe I was sick. He came into our room, pretending to be nice and all the time trying to touch me.”

Her face was twisted with loathing.

“I picked up a knife off the table and said I’d kill him. He laughed at me and tried to take it from me. I suppose he thought it wasn’t sharp, but my mother was funny about knives; she wouldn’t have them blunt even if we only had bread to cut. So he grabbed for the blade and I pulled and it cut his hand. He was angry then, cursing, calling me foul names, and saying he would put us out on the street. But he went away.”

She stopped speaking and swallowed. Alis waited.

“I didn’t know what to do. I thought he’d throw us out and my mother would blame me. I was so frightened. I wanted to get out of the house, but I thought he might be waiting for me on the stairs.”

Again she stopped. Her face was that of the ten-year-old child she had once been, full of pain and fear.

“I waited a bit, but in the end, I crept onto the landing. There was no sign of him so I got out and ran. When I stopped running, I walked until I couldn’t walk any more.”

Beyond the broken shutters the winter afternoon had already darkened. Outside snow began to fall—large, soft flakes descending steadily in the windless air. Edge said in a tense voice, “Let’s go out for a bit. It’ll feel warmer now that the snow’s started again. I need to walk.”

They both owned boots, purchased at summer’s end with the last of the easy money, so they wrapped themselves up in whatever they had and went out. Beyond the gateway, they turned in the direction of the river, walking arm in arm. For a long time they said nothing. At last Edge said bitterly, “I wasn’t any better off really. There was a place I knew—a building had collapsed and there were kids living in the ruins. When I made her angry, my mother used to tell me I’d end up there.” She gave a short laugh. “Anyway six or seven, mainly girls, were sitting on the steps to a kind of basement. I went right up to them. I don’t know what I was going to say. They just stared at me; someone spat. And then one of them said, ‘Is that blood?’ They’d seen the knife. I was still carrying it. The blood from his hand had dried on the blade. I told them I’d stabbed him in the stomach.”