Paternoster (7 page)

‘Rachel! It
is
you!’

She turned. A girl swayed towards her, dressed in the voluptuous costume of a Haymarket courtesan: bosom pushed so high it was abed with her nostrils; rouge, paint and patches all over her face; and vibrant silk skirts.

‘Jenny,’ Rachel said. She had known her at Mrs Dukes’s. Jenny must be what, at least twenty-six now. Old. Raddled. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘This is my patch,’ Jenny leered. She looked Rachel up and down. ‘More to the point, what are you doing here? I heard you’d got a rich cully and was above it all.’

She pressed so close that Rachel could smell spirits on Jenny’s breath and the sweet rot of the pox.

‘You heard right,’ Rachel said, smoothing the line of her dress so that Jenny could see her calfskin gloves.

‘And there was I thinking you was in a rented dress and stealing my trade.’

‘Oh no, I couldn’t work round here,’ Rachel said, glancing about at the riff-raff. ‘I’m used to the quality. And you?’

Jenny stamped her foot in vexation. Giving it away for a guinea a time. And getting more than she bargained for from the look of that sore on her cheek.

‘Can’t stand here talking all day,’ Jenny said. She snatched her skirts about her and swayed down the street. A barrow boy pitched an orange at her, and she bit into it, skin and all.

Pissed old whore. That’s what happens when you get old and your looks have faded, thought Rachel. Not that Jenny had much in the way of manners and arts, despite Mrs Dukes’s best efforts to teach her. No wonder she was tossed out. But the same wasn’t going to happen to her. She had youth and good looks, and she valued herself too highly to stalk the inns at the Haymarket prowling for a gin-pickled prick. No, Westminster was where she belonged, and to Westminster she would go.

The money lasted until the end of the week, then Rachel took herself to Westminster, hawking for a likely keeper. An MP or a lawyer would be a fat catch. They had money even if they didn’t have lineage. As she’d found, lineage came at a cost. No one who was behoven to papa, that’s what she wanted.

The shops in Westminster were smart; the haberdashers’ windows hung with the most tantalising bonnets and shawls. She stood before a fanned display of gloves in a shop window for a long moment, her breath fogging the pane, before she ventured inside. The shopkeeper sized her up immediately.

‘I’ve been asked to choose a present,’ she said. ‘My brother will come and pay for it, if it can be set aside.’

‘Of course, miss. Your brother is?’

‘Mr Harvey Humbold.’ She’d almost said ‘the Honourable’ and pulled herself back in time. Evidently she guessed right, that the shopkeeper knew every honourable and peer in town, and assumed Mr Harvey Humbold was new money, for he simply turned the name round on his tongue a few times and asked what she would like.

She asked to see the gloves, and he set about arranging them on the counter. She slipped her fingers into a pair of very tight, elbow-length saffron kid gloves. Divinely soft, and how delicate her hands appeared. The colour was exquisite: the latest thing.

‘Hm,’ she said, turning her hand to and fro and squinting at it. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe something not quite so bright.’

More gloves were fetched. She fingered them, bit her lip as she considered the colour, and asked if there was anything with more buttons, fewer buttons, a brighter blue, a softer pink, sending the shopkeeper scurrying to every box and drawer he had in the shop. When she’d almost exhausted his stock, she said, ‘And maybe some in plain white cotton,’ and he headed into the room at the back of the shop.

As soon as his back was turned, she scooped up three pairs of gloves that were lying on the counter and shoved them in her pocket. Still wearing the divine saffron gloves, she hurried from the shop. She was part-way down the street when she began to run, then heard a cry of ‘Stop, thief!’ behind her.

She grabbed the hem of her gown and held it high, pelting down the street, round corners and up alleyways as she hadn’t done since she was a girl, chasing the chickens to come and be executed. Her chest heaving, she dashed into an open doorway and hid behind the door. The thief-taker galloped past. She peeped out through the crack in the door, making sure no one else was in pursuit.

Her breath came hard and fast and her heart hammered against her ribs. She flopped back against the wall, her fist pressed into her side, and fought to breathe.

‘Hello, my dear.’ A voice spoke out of the shadows.

Rachel whipped round. ‘Who is it?’ she whispered.

‘Only me, dear.’ The woman stepped into the light. A brightly painted bawd with a brown hairpiece pinned to grey tresses, her mouth a scarlet slash, her front teeth brown stumps. ‘What have you been up to, then?’

‘A misunderstanding, that’s all.’ Rachel made to leave, and the woman’s hand shot out and gripped her wrist.

‘I know your type,’ she said. ‘Want me to hand you over to the thief-taker?’

Rachel’s heart dropped. The gloves were still on her: if she was handed to the courts they’d surely find her guilty, and that meant transportation, or death. ‘No.’

‘You got a place?’

‘Yes, I have a keeper,’ she said, affecting superiority.

‘Nah you don’t. That’s the only gown you’ve got, my girl.’ The woman sucked her stumps. ‘Come with me.’

Rachel struggled, but the woman had hold of her wrist, and looked like she wouldn’t think twice about screaming for help. She allowed herself to be hustled upstairs, where she was shown into a large room lined with sofas, draped with silk and reeking of perfume. Each sofa held at least two girls in a state of undress – reclining in erotic poses for the entertainment of two university fellows sniggering beside them.

Rachel’s eyes swept the room, pricing the furniture, the hangings, the clothes the girls almost wore. Not expensive, not cheap. Definitely a step down from Mrs Dukes’s place.

The two boys selected the girls they wanted and the four of them scuffled out of the room.

‘Won’t be long,’ the woman sniffed. ‘The amount they’ve had to drink.’ She turned to Rachel and smiled, ‘They’re the best kind: easy come, easy go, move on to the next bilk.’

‘Who are you?’ Rachel asked.

‘Mrs Bedwin. And you?’

‘Rachel Lovett.’ Rachel tilted her nose up.

‘Rachel Lovett? I’ve heard of you. Wasn’t you Darby Roach’s piece?’

‘I was.’

‘Lost all his money? Stripped his house they did. Betting is he’ll blow his brains out before long.’

Rachel shuddered.

Mrs Bedwin grinned. ‘You are down on your luck, my girl. Keeper’s lost his money, likely kill ’isself soon, thrown out on the street and the thief-taker after you. Thinking you’ll join Darby Roach in heaven?’ She laughed until she wheezed. ‘Nah, you’re mine now. I know too much about you.’ She snapped her fingers at one of the girls, who broke out of her artistic pose. ‘Celia, take Miss Lovett and show her a room. Get her changed and back here. Going to be a busy day, I can feel it in me water.’

As Celia led Rachel out of the room, she heard a clatter of boots on the stairs. Young men, from the noise. Behind her, she overheard Mrs Bedwin’s whispered instructions to the posing nymphs, ‘Empty their pockets, girls. Wine’s two guineas a bottle now. Remember not to tell them till after. Get to it, girls!’

Though her establishment was not as high-class as Mrs Dukes’s, Mrs Bedwin was an astute businesswoman constantly on the lookout for new opportunities. The gentlemen who frequented the house found girls who were plump, cheerful and willing to please. Want a chop? Sally will fetch it for you, sir. Only five shillings. Thirsty, sir? We have the finest wine for you, only two guineas a bottle. Every peccadillo, every taste, every craving was catered for at Mrs Bedwin’s. If a client had a particular secret urge that her girls couldn’t satisfy, she bought a girl who could and added the speciality to the menu of delights she laid out for the customers.

Several times a day a sedan chair pulled up outside and a message came that they were to collect Miss Susan, or Miss Hart, or Miss Roseanne, a black former slave who was a particular favourite. These girls climbed inside and were carried off to the bagnios and the gentleman who had requested them specially. It wasn’t long before the sedan chair started to call for Miss Rachel.

Mrs Bedwin had the magistrate in her pocket, and the house was never raided. She supplied girls for parties, transported them to some of the highest houses in London, and was said to have once bedded the Prince of Wales himself.

‘Keep your eyes on the prize, girls,’ she told them. ‘And don’t go soft on me. There’s no room for sentiment in business.’

After Rachel had been at Mrs Bedwin’s for five months, Mrs Bedwin closed and bolted the front door behind the last gentleman to leave, and called the girls together in the seraglio.

‘I have good news, girls. We’re moving on.’

‘Leaving here?’ Roseanne cried.

‘Yes, dear. Going to a fine new place, mixing with the cream of society. A place where even royalty can be found.’

She paused, and her gaze raked the room. ‘Girls, we’re going to Cheltenham.’

The name shadowed him to prison. Little Jimmy. His real name was James Little, but people always called him Little Jimmy, even at primary school, even his mam’s boyfriends. When he stumbled out of the prison van, the screws cacked themselves laughing when they saw him, with his pale skin and pigeon chest, his permanent sniff and asthma.

‘Little by name, little by nature,’ the screw who searched him said.

Jimmy said nothing. People always laughed. Even Hammond had smirked.

That first meeting with Hammond haunted him. He lay in the narrow metal bed in the narrow cell, with its smell of farts and sounds of men jacking off, and watched the grey light seeping through a high window. Like drowning in dishwater. The rough blanket scratched his chin. Spots freckled his throat and there was a dab of blood on the sheet where one had spurted. He was afraid to close his eyes, because then the dreams would come.

A year ago his conviction sheet listed shoplifting, a few taking without consents, theft and a public order offence. No biggies. And then he met Dave the Nutter. Not met. Their paths crossed. Jimmy was in McDonald’s nicking a woman’s bag from the back of her chair while she shovelled soggy fries into a kid’s gob. He slid the bag from the chair and shoved it up his jumper, then strolled from the store. Soon as he was out, he legged it. Down the High Street and round the corner, up the alley near the Indian takeaway, over the bins and smack into Dave the Nutter.

‘Watch where you’re going,’ Dave said. He clocked he was running, clocked he was up to no good, and clocked the bulge in his jumper. ‘What we got here?’

‘Nothing,’ Jimmy stammered.

‘We’ll see about that.’ Dave thrust a paw down his jumper and yanked out the bag. He raised his eyebrows at Jimmy. ‘Little thief, are you?’

‘No, it’s my sister’s,’ he stammered.

Dave the Nutter had hold of his arm. He was a heavyset man with a shiny bald head and air of pent-up aggression. If he held him any longer, Jimmy thought he’d piss himself. Dave was looking at him and breathing heavily through his mouth, weighing something up. Jimmy prayed he wasn’t a bum bandit. Not here, on the bins amongst the garlic sauce and cat piss.

‘I’ve got a proposition for you, my lad,’ Dave the Nutter said. ‘You can come along with me, or I’ll call the police.’

‘Go where with you?’

‘See my boss.’

Jimmy nodded. There might be a chance to run. Besides, if he called the police he’d definitely be sent down for nicking the bag and he’d get bummed anyway.

Dave the Nutter dragged him off to see Hammond. ‘Thought he might be useful, Boss.’

Hammond sized him up, nodding, running his tongue over his teeth. ‘What’s your name?’

The voice was smooth and posh. Not what he expected.

‘James Little. Jimmy.’

Hammond laughed so hard Jimmy got a flash of his fillings. ‘You’re Scotch, eh?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Little Jimmy. What d’you say, Dave?’

Dave chuckled. ‘No one’s going to think a squirt like him works for you, Boss.’

‘I think you might be right.’ Hammond circled him. ‘Right, Little Jimmy, you work for me now. You do what I say, and I’ll see you’re all right.’

Hammond sent him on errands. Jimmy slipped unnoticed into places where Hammond, with his big personality and swanky clothes, couldn’t go. Dave the Nutter was sarky to him and pushed him around. Jackie was all right, though. She made him a cup of tea when he came in out the cold. Asked him how his mam was. Didn’t make fun of his puzzle books.

She still called him Little Jimmy, though.

The prison gate slammed shut behind him. He stood on the street, the wind whistling up the road, and chips of ice in the rain. He was wearing the suit he wore in court when he was sentenced and had his bus fare in his pocket. He supposed he ought to go to his mam’s.

As he trudged up the road to the bus stop, a car drew alongside. The passenger window descended.

‘You Little Jimmy?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Get in.’

He hesitated.

‘I’m not telling you again. Get in.’

He opened the rear door and got in. The car reeked of cigarettes and the upholstery was tacky. The air was all fugged up with smoke and he fondled the blue asthma inhaler in his pocket.

The car set off across London. He didn’t know where they were taking him. The two men up front – the driver and the bloke in the passenger seat – never spoke. They just smoked. Cigarette after cigarette. Lighting the next with the smouldering stub of the one just finished.

The car stopped in a street of terraced houses. Some of them were boarded up and graffitied over. Metal gates barred the front doors. Pakistani kids in flowery dresses played in the road, talking scribble to each other. A woman shielded in black from head to toe pushed an old pram along the pavement.