Dodger (26 page)

A long cloth tape measure was whisked around his shoulders and Dodger was pushed gently but firmly to the centre of the room, where Izzy looked at him with the expression of a butcher faced with a particularly difficult steer, walking around him, measuring by the pounce-and-run-away method. And in all this time the only words he said to Dodger were variations on the theme of ‘If you would just turn this way, sir?’; and sir this, and sir that, until Dodger was seriously in need of refreshment. It didn’t help matters either when the spinning, dashing Izzy, apparently now with no alternative left to him, finally stopped with his mouth in the vicinity of Dodger’s left ear, and in the tones of a man enquiring after the whereabouts of the Holy Grail, whispered, ‘How does one dress, sir?’

This request was something of a problem for Dodger, who had never really given a thought to the aspect of putting his clothes on; after all, it was just something you did. But the little tailor was standing by him as if he expected to learn the location of hidden treasure, and therefore he made an effort, and said, ‘Well, normally I’d put on yesterday’s unmentionables if they ain’t too bad, and then I pulls on my stockings . . . No! I tell a lie; most days
I
put on my vest and then I put on my socks.’ It was at this point that Solomon crossed the room at the normal speed of a god intending that the ungodly should be smitten, only to whisper something in Dodger’s ear, causing the latter to say, with some indignation, ‘How the hell should I know? I never bothered to look! Things find their own way, don’t they? What kind of question is that to ask a man, anyway?’

Solomon laughed out loud, and then went into a huddle with an ever-vibrating Izzy, who seemed never to be actually still. Solomon and Izzy were chattering to one another in a language that went all over Europe and the Middle East until at last, laughing, Solomon said, ‘The luck of the Dodger is holding; Izzy says he can do us a wonderful deal! It appears that another tailor was told to work on a frock coat and a very elegant navy-blue shirt, but regrettably one of Izzy’s associates made a laughable mistake during the measuring, which meant that they would no longer fit the fine gentleman they were intended for, and so my friend Izzy,’ he continued, staring fixedly at Izzy, ‘has a little proposition for you, my friend.’

Izzy looked hesitantly at Solomon, and like a man throwing a bone to a lion about to eat him, turned to Dodger and said hurriedly, ‘I could do you an excellent deal, young sir, on both those garments; they are happily only a stitch away from your requirements at a very spirited discount of . . . fifty per cent?’

Oh, that little tell-tale question in the statement which told the world that Izzy was just slightly uncertain, and even more worryingly for Izzy, he was uncertain in the face of Solomon’s deadpan face.

The bargaining had only just begun, and rather wisely, Izzy,
with
an eye on Solomon, dived to, ‘I beg your pardon – seventy-five, sorry, no,
eighty
per cent. I will throw in two pairs of very elegant unmentionables as well?’

Solomon smiled, and Izzy looked like a man who had not only been pardoned on the very steps of the gallows, but had also been given a purse full of sovereigns to atone for the misunderstanding. And twenty minutes later a grateful Izzy sent Solomon and the Hero of Fleet Street on their way, with Dodger clutching his new schmutter, Solomon carrying the bag containing the unmentionables, and Izzy now in possession of some of the hero’s reward. There was also, courtesy of the management, Solomon’s umbrella, which had been dried and brushed; and there was a growler waiting for them in the street.

Well, not exactly; it was coming along the street right up until Solomon stood in front of it waving his finger of God in the air, and the horse began to slow even before the coachman had time to pull on the reins, because horses know trouble when they see it. Dodger was quite careful to put Onan and his bone in the cab before the man had a chance to object; Onan tended to leave a certain Onan-ness wherever he went.

Once inside, Solomon made himself comfortable and said to the man, ‘Lock and Co. of St James’s please, my man.’ He turned to a startled Dodger and said, ‘They will almost definitely have a hat there for you, my lad. Everyone who is anyone, or at least thought by everyone to be anyone, gets their hats there.’

‘I’ve got a hat from Jacob!’

‘That shonky thing? It looks like somebody used it as a concertina and handed it to a clown. You need a hat for a gentleman.’

‘But I am not a gentleman,’ Dodger railed.

‘You will be much closer to being one with an elegant hat for special occasions.’

And Dodger had to admit that the shonky hat, no doubt about it, was shonky. Generally, hats were not your friend when you were a tosher; they got knocked off your head far too easily. He often wore a thick leather cap, just good enough to save you from cracking your skull if you stood up too quickly in a small sewer, and easy to keep clean.

Everybody wore a hat of some kind, but the hats in the shop they stepped into now were extraordinary, and some were extremely high. And so, of course, Dodger pointed to the biggest one, which looked like a stovepipe and called to him with a siren voice which only he could hear. ‘I rather think that one will do me a treat.’

When he looked at his reflection in the mirror, he thought, oh yes, a really sharp look, sharp as a razor. He would be no end of a swell, where recently he had been no end of a smell – because no matter how hard you scrubbed, the curse of the tosher would always leave its own cheerful mark on you.

Oh yes, this would do him! How amazed Simplicity would be when she saw him in such a splendid hat! However, it didn’t do for Solomon, who considered the price of £1 and 18 shillings to be grossly extravagant. Dodger was firm. True, it was a lot of money for something that he really didn’t need, but it was the principle of the thing. He didn’t know exactly what the principle was, but it was a principle and it had a thing, and that was that. Besides, he pointed out that only the other day Solomon had said while he was working on one of his little machines that ‘this thing needs oiling’ and, he continued relentlessly, only the day before
that
the old man had said that his little lathe had ‘wanted’ oil.

‘Therefore,’ said Dodger, ‘surely
want
is the same as
need
, yes?’

Solomon counted out the coins very slowly and in silence, and then said, ‘Are you certain you weren’t born Jewish?’

‘No,’ said Dodger. ‘I’ve looked. I’m not, but thanks for the compliment.’

The last call before they went home was to a barber – a perfectly reasonable and careful barber who didn’t include extras like having your throat cut. However, the poor fellow was unmanned when Solomon said, just as the barber was shaving Dodger, ‘It might impress you, sir, if I told you that the gentleman you are now shaving was the hero who put paid to the activities of the nefarious Mister Sweeney Todd.’

This intervention caused the man to panic – only a fraction, but nevertheless not a thing to do when you have just put a very sharp cut-throat razor to a man’s throat, and it nearly caused another hey-ho-rumbelow in the vicinity of Dodger’s neck. The nick was not big, but the amount of blood was out of all proportion to the size, and so there was a great performance with towels, and alum for the cut. It would certainly leave a scar, which was something of a bonus as far as Dodger was concerned; the Hero of Fleet Street ought to sport something on his face to show for it.

Then, once his face was tidy and, of course, Solomon had negotiated in a friendly but firm way six months of free haircuts, they caught another growler home and there was just about enough time to get washed, dressed and generally smartened up.

It was while Dodger was sponging himself down, including the crevices because, after all, this was a special occasion, he found part of himself thinking: What would I have to do to let someone die and then come alive again? Apart from being God, that is.

Then, for some reason, the dodger at the back of his head
remembered
the Crown and Anchor men with their dice, and the man with the pea that you never, ever found. Then tumbling on top of that there was the voice of Charlie, saying that the truth is a fog and in it people see what they want to see, and it seemed to him that around these little pictures a plot was plotting. He trod carefully so as not to disturb it, but wheels in his head were clearly turning and he had to wait until something went
click
.

The new clothes still fitted him exactly as promised and Dodger wished that he had something more than a tiny piece of broken mirror in which to see himself in his finery. Then he pushed aside the curtain to ask Solomon’s opinion and was confronted by Solomon arrayed in all his glory.

A man who usually wandered around in embroidered slippers or old boots, and wore a ragged black gabardine, had suddenly become an old-fashioned but very smart gentleman with a fine black woollen barathea jacket, dark-blue pantaloon trousers and long, dark-blue woollen stockings with ancient but well-kept court shoes sporting silver buckles that shone. But what amazed Dodger most of all was the large dark-blue-and-gold medallion around Solomon’s neck. He knew what the symbols were on the medallion, but Dodger had never associated them with the old man: they were the seal and the eye in the pyramid of the Freemasons. Finally, since Solomon had washed his beard and primped it, the whole effect appeared to have an amazing power.

And Dodger said so, which caused Solomon to smile and say, ‘Mmm, one day, my boy, I will tell you the name of the august personage who was gracious enough to give this to me. And may I say, Dodger, as always you scrub up very well; one might almost take you for a real gentleman.’

It only remained to very cautiously give Onan his dinner and
equally
cautiously take him for a little walk outside to do what he needed to. They left him in dog Heaven with another bone; and then there was nothing for it but to find another growler, just as the evening fog was rising, and head back west to number one Stratton Street, Mayfair.

CHAPTER 12

In which Dodger mixes with the gentry, Disraeli accepts a challenge and Dodger proves to be a quick learner

DODGER STARED OUT
of the cab as they rattled westwards with the words ‘I’m going to see Simplicity again’ etching themselves on his heart, or so it felt, and suddenly he thought of Simplicity being dead. Dead, and therefore no trouble to anybody – no reason for wars, no reason for people to prowl the streets with malice aforethought.

There had to be a way! Right now, she was a girl that no one wanted; that was to say, no one other than him. As the fog delivered the stink of the Thames to his nostrils, a click in his brain signalled a successful conclusion, and all that remained was the fine details. There were a few things he couldn’t quite see, but with the Lady on his side, he thought they would drop into his hand.

‘A remarkable woman, is Miss Burdett-Coutts,’ Solomon was saying. ‘She is an heiress, and also a major philanthropist, which is somebody who gives their money away to the poor and needy – which I must make clear to you, young man, doesn’t mean you, you being neither poor nor needy, just occasionally knee-deep in sewage.’

Solomon seemed very taken with his little joke, and it would have been like kicking Onan to do anything other than applaud, and so Dodger pulled his mind away from Simplicity and said, ‘That was a good one! Why on earth does she want to give so much money away?’

They were passing through Leicester Square and Solomon said, ‘Because she feels that she should. She pays for the ragged schools, which give some children at least an elementary education and funds mmm scholarships and bursaries, which I must tell you means giving brighter pupils the chance to go to university for an even better education. That’s all they know about her down at the synagogue, apart from the fact that she keeps bees, and you need to be a very mmm sensible person to keep bees – someone who thinks about things, plans ahead and thinks about the future. A very thorough lady, in fact, who I assume does not wish to die rich. Which I’ve always considered to be mmm an admirable ambition. A very singular lady and a power in her own right.’

He paused. ‘I wonder who else there is likely to be at this little soirée since she knows so many important people. In a sense, I rather suspect you might see tonight some more of the mmm powerhouse of politics. Of course, the lords and elected members debate the issues of the day in Parliament itself, but I strongly suspect that here in London the actual outcomes have a lot to do
with
the things that people say to other people over a drink. The process of ratifying what they have decided amongst themselves may be a variant of mmm what is known as
proportional representation
, but on the whole it all seems to work, if somewhat mmm erratically.’