Dodger (28 page)

At a moment like this, for a boy like Dodger who would trip over his own mental feet, he said, ‘Of course we don’t have to stay together if you don’t want to.’

Simplicity smiled. ‘Dodger, this may be hard for you to understand, but sometimes you should just stop talking.’

And as Dodger blushed, dinner was announced.

Miss Burdett-Coutts led the party into dinner, accompanied by a tall man with a severe flinty look on his face and, Dodger noticed in horror, dressed in exactly the same clothes as Dodger – a fact that made him unaccountably nervous. What was it that Izzy had said before giving him and Solomon such a good deal?
Dodger, I’ve got a really good deal on this wonderful new suit with wonderful and cherished unmentionables because some apprentice tailor got the sizes wrong first time
.

Yes, his frock coat was exactly like Dodger’s, and the man had opened the coat to reveal the splendid blue silk shirt that was the spit and image, apart from a trifling matter of size, to the one which Dodger was wearing; and now, oh dear, because he had been looking at the man, the man was now looking at him with the same sharp expression, causing hairs to rise on Dodger in places where he had never known he had hairs. But they had paid for the clothes, hadn’t they, fair and square? He knew that
Solomon
had most definitely got a receipt, Solomon being the kind of person who was almost as anxious about getting the receipt as he was about getting the relevant merchandise itself.

In this moment of slight panic Dodger recognized, coming towards them, Henry Mayhew and his wife, and indeed Simplicity was running towards Jane Mayhew to give her a hug.

While that was going on, Henry held out his hands to Dodger and said cheerfully, ‘The man of the moment. Mister Dodger, I have made a study of the multiple classes of people in London, and it does seem to me that you are climbing the ladder faster, if I may say so, than a chimpanzee.’ He smiled nervously and said, ‘No offence, of course.’ And indeed no offence was taken as Dodger had no idea what a chimpanzee was and made a mental note to ask Solomon later.

So Dodger took Simplicity somewhat nervously on his arm and followed the Mayhews into the dining room. And succeeded in parking her exactly where Angela had intended, according to the smile of approval.

Then Angela turned to him and said, ‘Well now, Dodger, I wonder if you have met my very good friend Sir Robert Peel? I suspect you may have some things in common.’ Her eyes twinkled as she introduced the two men, as if she was actually introducing the two sets of matching trousers.

Sir Robert Peel smiled, although because of Dodger’s nerves, it seemed to him more like a grimace, and said, ‘Oh yes, the Hero of Fleet Street. I would very much like to have a quiet word with you.’

Dodger looked into those eyes and they had ‘copper’ all over them. He thought: Is that always how it’s going to be? Always
being
the man who took down Sweeney Todd? Well, it was useful, no doubt about it, but somehow it was awkward as well, like wearing another man’s trousers, which in a sense was what he was doing right now. And the man was still watching him carefully, as if sizing him up.

People were now sitting down. Dodger was urged towards the chair next to Angela, with Simplicity already seated on his other side and Solomon beside her. Sir Robert – or ‘Dear Rob’, as Angela called him – sat on Angela’s other side.

In a lowered voice, Angela said to him, ‘Does it hurt? You wince when somebody calls you the Hero of Fleet Street. Do you not notice that? Charlie tells me that you are quite clear that people should know that the facts of the matter are not as they seem, and I suggest that you feel that every commendation for you is a damnation for Mister Todd, and I must say that this is to your credit. One feels there was another kind of heroism, of the kind which is often ignored. I will bear this in mind because I do have some influence. Sometimes a word in the right place can do a lot of good.’ She smiled then, and said, ‘Do you like it, scrabbling in the sewers for money? Tell the truth now!’

‘I don’t need to tell a lie,’ said Dodger. ‘It’s freedom, miss, that’s the truth, and pretty safe if you keep your wits about you and use your head. I reckon I earns more than a chimney sweep any day of the week, and soot, well it’s terrible stuff, miss, not good for you at all. Bad for you inside and out, my oath! But when I come back from the tosh, well, good old lye soap does the trick. Not what you would call fancy, but you do feel clean.’

The conversation had to stop there as waiters came past, and after the noise of the plates and the – oh so much – cutlery, Miss Burdett-Coutts said, ‘You appear to be everywhere and into
everything
, according to my informants, rather like the famous, or if you prefer, the
in
famous highwayman Dick Turpin. Have you heard of him, young man? What do you think about his extraordinary ride to York on his mare Black Bess? I believe they are doing plays about him now and the public just love him, because he was a scallywag.’

Looking apprehensively at the meal put in front of him, Dodger said, ‘I have heard about the gent, madam, and I like the way he put a shine on the world. But I think he was clever, and far too clever to ride all the way to York. Too risky, and while I have to say I ain’t – I beg your pardon, I
am not
– a horseman, I reckon that he would have knackered the horse within an hour if he’d done it as fast as they said. No, I reckon he rushed up to some of his mates what he knew to be not all that matey and shouted out something like, “Pray for me, my lads, for I am going to try to get to York this very night!” And o’ course, you see, you can be certain that when you have a price on your head like he did, his mates would have instantly peached on him to the runners within ten minutes, by which time, I’d bet you a crown, our friend Dick would be in the West End with his moustache a different colour, walking around with two sporting ladies arm-in-arm. That’s what’s
clever
; just legging it don’t do the trick, though I know they got him in the end. If I was him, I’d’ve dressed up as a priest and just laid low somewhere until everybody had forgotten about me. Sorry for the lecture, miss, but you did ask.’

Angela laughed. ‘Your reputation goes before you, Mister Dodger, as a young man of great courage and indeed understanding. Now it would seem you are a man of strategy and a breath of fresh air!’ She put her hand on his arm and said, ‘Are you a church-going man at all, Mister Dodger?’

‘No, miss. Take it from me, miss, Solomon does the believing for both of us, depend upon it! I reckon he tells the Almighty what to do. But don’t worry, I heard that Jesus walked on water, so he might know a little bit about toshing, but I ain’t seen him down there. I mean no offence; mind you, in the dark you don’t see everybody.’

He noticed Angela’s smile become a little strained before coming back to normal, whereupon she said, ‘Well, Mister Dodger, it would appear that an unbeliever might put some believers to shame.’ He assumed from this that once again he had got away with it, even though he wasn’t quite sure what the ‘it’ was.

Now, at last, Dodger was able to pay attention to the food in front of him: a rather good bowl of vegetable soup, even better than the stuff that Solomon made, and he said so as soon as he finished it, noticing as he did so that no one else had dived into the soup with the same alacrity.

‘It’s called julienne,’ said Angela. ‘I really don’t know why that is so. I envy you your appetite!’

Cheered up by this, Dodger said, ‘Can I have some more?’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw Charlie wearing the familiar expression of a man enjoying the fun.

Angela followed his gaze and said, ‘Charlie writes books, you know? I often wonder where he gets all his ideas from. As for the soup I’m sure there is plenty more, but there is a very nice turbot to follow, after which there will be roast saddle of mutton and that will be followed by roast quails. If, young man, you haven’t exploded by then, there will follow a compote of cherries – very sweet. I see you haven’t touched your wine; it is quite a decent sauvignon blanc, and I think you would like it.’ As Dodger
reached
for the glass, she turned to answer a question from Sir Robert Peel on her other side.

Dodger did like the wine, and because he was Dodger he thought, Well, this is pretty good stuff so I will drink it very slowly. After all, he very seldom drank wine, although Solomon used to buy some stuff at Passover which was so sweet it made your teeth ache. Dodger generally liked beer or stout, especially stout in the winter; they were simple drinks for simple people, and Dodger did not wish to become a complicated person, which he certainly would become if he drank more than one glass of this wine.

Solomon had told him beforehand that there could be a different wine with every course with meals like this; he had to wonder how on earth people would get back home. So, while Angela spoke to Sir Robert Peel and Simplicity delicately finished her own bowl of soup, he treasured the little glass, taking a small sip at a time. Oh, he had been rascally drunk occasionally, but while it had looked a good idea at the time it never looked quite the same later on when you woke up, and it was very hard to go on the tosh without your mind being clear. Of course, not throwing up a lot helped too, and more than anything he didn’t want to disgrace himself in any way in front of all these nobby people, and while Simplicity was watching. And she was watching.

So was the turbot, which came past on a silver tray before being distributed among the guests. It was big and fat, but you had never seen such a sorry expression on the face of a fish before, although perhaps it might have been cheered up by the fact that along with the rather piquant sauce it tasted very nice. Dodger was more at his ease now; the dinner was going well, people were
chattering
to one another, and it was all rather jolly. It was still jolly when the roast saddle of mutton turned up, slightly yellow and rather greasy, and to a lad as energetic as Dodger, pure pleasure, although he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten so much. In the attic, the meals prepared by Solomon were . . . wholesome, and enough. Meat came in small amounts, more a seasoning than the whole meal, and generally the basis of a thick soup or nourishing gruel. He was aware now of a general tightness of the stomach; but good mutton was the food of the gods, and therefore it would be totally unrighteous not to do it justice.

Things were going well; he had listened to Solomon on the subject of which knife and fork you should use for each course,
²
he had tucked his napkin in his neck, and he could definitely do this sort of thing every night. But he knew that he had been ignoring – how could he? – Simplicity, who was, he saw, very politely listening to one of Solomon’s stories now, with every semblance of interest, which was right and proper because Solomon could surprise you every time.

Just as he turned to look at her, she turned to look at him, and said, ‘It’s rather droll, Dodger, that you appear to be dressed like a slightly smaller version of Sir Robert.’ Here she lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Much more handsome, and you don’t scowl as much. But I must say you look like two peas in a pod.’

Dodger said, ‘He’s a lot older and bigger than me.’

A remark which caused Simplicity to smile and say, ‘Sometimes I think English people don’t always think about what they say; if
you
look inside any pod of peas, you will see that they are all sizes. The pea pod shapes them differently.’

He stared at her with his mouth open. Because firstly, he realized he often shelled peas for Solomon and had never really bothered what shape any of them were, and secondly, here was Simplicity telling him something new. Not for the first time, he thought, Yes, Simplicity is not simple.

She laughed softly. ‘You don’t know anything about me, Dodger.’

‘Well, I expect that someone will let me find out some more at some time, please?’

‘I have very fat legs!’ she announced.

The chances of getting very fat at all in the rookeries were small, but Dodger had never heard of any girl saying that her legs were too thin, and so he said, in the silence that followed her remark, ‘I don’t want to be indelicate, miss, but that is a matter of opinion – your opinion obviously, but alas I have as yet been unable to form one for myself.’

It wasn’t quite an uproar, he thought, more like a halfway up roar, but Dodger heard variations on the theme of ‘I’d say!’ And quite a few examples of that hard-to-describe noise that people make when they are pretending to be shocked, but really are just rather amused and possibly also relieved. It was probably Charlie who said, ‘Excellent, worthy of the famous Beau Brummel himself!’

Solomon’s face was absolutely blank, as if he hadn’t heard, and Angela, God bless her, was chuckling. This was very useful, Dodger thought, because she was the hostess, and an incredibly rich woman, and quite clearly to everybody there she was perfectly happy about what was going on, thus defying anyone
who
thought otherwise. After all, who would want to disagree with one of the richest women in the world?

Around them there grew then a sort of comfortable buzz as people finished their drinks and in some cases started them again anew, and at this point Dodger realized that he certainly needed the jakes, and he had no idea where they would be, except of course they would be downstairs. In a world of unmentionables – real, erratic and sometimes invisible – he was not going to ask a lady where he could go to take a piss.

Then he found himself looking into the eyes of Sir Robert Peel, who was grinning round Angela like a cat who has seen a mouse, and the boss of the peelers said, ‘Ah, Mister Dodger, I rather suspect from the way in which you are searching about that you are looking for a place of some easement; allow me to escort you, because I myself am noticing the same urgency.’