The Street Philosopher (6 page)

The short, guttural howl was alarmingly loud, and seemed to come from directly below Kitson’s window. He started, dropping his pen, which then rolled across the threadbare rug and under his desk; he’d been pacing the attic’s meagre length in his shirtsleeves, trying to relieve the constricting ache in his chest whilst reading through the afternoon’s work. Before he realised fully what he was doing, he’d rushed from his rooms, down three flights of stairs and out through the tenement’s peeling doors.

Princess Street was shadowy and quiet, with only a couple of small tradesmen’s carts progressing along it. To his right, Kitson could see the brightly illuminated thoroughfares of the warehouse district, still heavily populated by both pedestrians and traffic despite the hour. The faint haze of factory exhalations, ever present in Manchester, hung about the street in silky drifts tinted orange by the distant gaslight.

Kitson listened for the sound again. A large crowd of spinners started up the street, clearly just released from their labours, strands of unwoven cotton still clinging to their rough clothes. He guessed that they were heading across town towards the concert rooms and drinking dens of Deansgate. Several already had bottles in their hands, which were being passed round with aggressive, determined merriment. After a burst of hard laughter, they began to belt out a bawdy song. ‘
She’s a rum-
lookin’ bitch that I own to
,’ they roared, ‘
an’ there is a fierce look in ’er eyes…
’

Slipping into a side alley, Kitson walked along the tenement’s wide brick flank until he stood under his window. Back on Princess Street, the spinners strode noisily by; and then a gurgling moan came from somewhere up ahead, further down the alley. Kitson went towards it. Away from the neat grid of commercial streets around Piccadilly, of which Princess Street could just be considered a part, Manchester soon crumbled into a ramshackle maze of winding passages, interspersed with foul-smelling doorways and grubby, impassive casements. Where there were lights, the even yellows and oranges of gas were replaced by the glaring white-green of lime, lending a spectral pallor to the few who passed beneath them.

It took Kitson some minutes to locate the source of the moan. A man wrapped in a cloak lay sprawled in the corner of a stinking, unlit yard. It was too dark to see any more than this. He approached the stricken man slowly, crouching down and stating that he was there to help. The man merely whimpered in response. Relying on touch, as he had been taught, Kitson took the man–who was narrow-shouldered and light, and easily moved–in his arms and began to examine him. It had been many months, years in fact, since Kitson had performed such ministrations, yet he found that he had forgotten nothing; the medical procedure was still deeply impressed upon his mind. Feeling the glimmer of a long-lost confidence, he quickly discovered a metal object jutting out of the man’s side, something like a long nail with a catch of some sort at its end. There could be no doubt–this man was in serious danger, and had to be taken to a hospital as soon as possible. Kitson rose slightly to lift him, hoping to get the man to an alley where help could be obtained more easily.

This adjustment caused the uncomfortable pain that had been lingering in his chest all day to intensify abruptly. He gasped, his hand going instinctively to the deep scar on his ribcage. Beneath the scored skin, his lungs rattled as they tried haltingly to draw in sufficient air. The man, meanwhile, was reaching for the object in his side. Too late, Kitson went to stop him–just as he succeeded in wrenching it out.

Blood spurted from the wound, splashing hotly on to Kitson’s thighs. Its sickening metallic tang filled his nostrils, smothering completely the sense of purpose that had brought him into the yard. As he reeled, gagging helplessly, a half-heard voice spoke his name. It was unnervingly close, almost at his shoulder; he turned, but saw only blackness. Another voice called out, high with fright, from somewhere past the fallen man. Several others joined it a second later. They were talking in Russian.

Kitson tensed. The stones of the yard began to vibrate beneath him, faintly at first, but with a gathering, horrifying rhythm. A ripple ran through the fetid puddle at its centre. There was a dull rumbling, then a thud, and the sound of a shutter smashing; and then he was once more in the ruined suburbs of Sebastopol, a heavy artillery bombardment underway all around him. Others were nearby, his old colleagues–he could hear their boots, scrabbling frantically through the rubble. Several pistol shots were fired in quick succession. Brick dust, thrown up by a collapsing wall, made him cough hard. In the thick, soupy darkness, the body lying before him seemed to blur and shift, becoming someone else altogether. Kitson stared disbelievingly at this dreaded form, tears coursing across his cheeks and chin; and his guilt pressed down on him like a slab of icy granite, crushing him slowly beneath its weight.

With a violent shudder, the stabbed man barked out a single flat syllable, an awful, involuntary sound dredged up from deep within him. Kitson squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, swallowed down the bile that was burning his throat and fought to recover his reason. Variations of this waking nightmare had visited him before, on countless previous occasions, but it had not manifested with such disorientating vividness for some time. He blinked until he was firmly back in the present, wiped his wet face with trembling hands and forced himself to consider the person slumped before him.

Anonymous once more, the poor fellow had fallen silent and was apparently unconscious. Kitson had experience of such wounds; he knew that unless it was staunched right
away, the victim would surely bleed to death. Ignoring the cramp that still bit at his chest, he struggled out of his waistcoat, screwed it into a tight ball and, guided by the flow of blood, pushed the wadded material hard against the injury. Then he turned his head and shouted for help with all his strength.

Moments later, to Kitson’s enormous relief, a thin shaft of lantern-light fell across the alleyway outside. This lifted the darkness a little and enabled him to make a proper survey of the yard. It was choked with refuse, broken crates and rotting sacks heaped everywhere. Against this drab, mouldy backdrop, two objects stood out. A large parcel, freshly wrapped, had been dropped near the yard’s entrance, and a velvet-covered hatbox stood in the puddle. Both bore the mark of one of the city’s finest tailors. The story here was plainly a familiar one; a wealthy gentleman, pressed for time, had foolishly decided to chance the back streets.

Footfalls echoed out in the alley. Kitson, still holding his waistcoat against the wound, considered the hatbox again. Dirty water was slowly saturating the fabric, climbing darkly up its sides. It struck him as strange that the man’s assailant hadn’t bothered to take these new clothes. They would be quite valuable, certainly worth the while of any street criminal.

An elderly woman in clogs and bonnet appeared in the yard. Seeing Kitson and the wounded man, she gaped in horror. ‘Goodness, what’s ’appened ’ere? Murder?’

Hurriedly, Kitson explained that a serious assault had taken place–that the victim had been stabbed but lived still, and needed to be taken to the Royal Infirmary with all haste. Impressed by the efficiency of his speech, and the education evident in his diction, she bustled to his side. He indicated where the wound was, and asked if she would hold the waistcoat over it whilst he secured some fresh dressings–thinking that he would have to tear off one or both of his sleeves.

The woman consented, then bawled, ‘
John! Walt! Tamper’s
Yard!
’ at the top of her voice.

Kitson stood, stretching his muscles. It felt as if he’d been
hunched on the ground for hours, not minutes. His side remained acutely sore, and his limbs shook; the events of the past quarter-hour had left him exhausted.

Two sturdy workmen arrived, flooding the yard with light and causing shadows to leap and duck across its soot-stained walls. One was the same age as the woman, and held the lantern in his hand. The other was like a younger version of the same man–plainly his son. Seeing Kitson, they took a step back, the lantern-carrier muttering an oath. Kitson glanced down at himself. He was covered in blood. His trousers were black with it, his shirt and hands shockingly bright.

‘This ’ere’s the doctor,’ said the woman authoritatively from the yard’s floor. ‘We’ve got to get this poor shaver to Piccadilly. Come on, John, look lively! Bring that light over!’

Then the stabbed man started to speak. ‘Do not let me die here,’ he whispered. ‘Not in the gutter. I–I beg you.’

The voice, lisping its way through clipped Etonian vowels, was jarringly familiar. Kitson froze. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Impossible.’ How could
he
possibly be here, in Manchester?

‘Who did this dreadful thing to you, sir?’ the old woman asked. ‘Was it robbers?’

‘A cripple,’ came the weak reply. ‘Most horribly disfigured. I thought I–but…’

John was moving forward with his lantern. ‘We’ll tek ’im that way, Rose,’ he said gruffly, pointing off into the night. ‘T’Mosley Street. Not far.’

‘Bless us!’ the woman–Rose–exclaimed as she peeled back the man’s cloak. ‘’E’s a soldier!’

Compelled to turn around, Kitson caught a flash of a scarlet infantry coatee and an inch of braid; now all but certain, he bent down and turned the man over so that the lantern shone directly on to his face. Sure enough, there was that long fin of a nose, that narrow, protruding chin, those ridiculous whiskers. His patient was Captain Wray of the 99th.

Their eyes met. Even through the stupor induced by his wound, Wray clearly recognised Kitson. His lips, blue through blood loss, twisted into a frail sneer that expressed more fear and mystification than it did contempt.

Kitson stood back up and walked from the yard. He leant heavily against a damp-swollen doorframe and crossed his arms. So this was why he had run from his rooms, from his work, and searched through some of the city’s grimmest corners; had knelt in filth, and used his own waistcoat as a dressing; had strained his chest in ways that might take weeks to mend, and stirred up old ordeals which he had toiled so hard to contain. To save Captain Wray. To save that detestable villain–that
killer
. He shook his head incredulously, almost too stunned to be angry.

‘We’re going to lift ’im, doctor,’ Rose called. ‘Carry ’im t’Mosley Street. Will ye follow, sir, and bring our lantern?’

More than anything, Kitson wanted to get away from Wray. The thought that he had the man’s blood cooling on his hands disgusted him. Yet he found that he couldn’t deny this good-hearted woman’s request. It was not right that they should lose their lantern as a result of their misguided kindness. He resolved that he would follow them to Mosley Street and then leave, abandoning Wray to his fate–which, as he knew all too well, was still uncertain at best. It was no less than the brute deserved.

Collecting himself, Kitson watched from the alley as John and Walt took hold of the officer and then heaved him up between them.

‘’Ow about tha’,’ remarked Walt with some satisfaction. ‘Light as a child.’

Rose still pressed Kitson’s waistcoat hard against the wound. ‘Come, sir,’ she prompted as their ungainly group lumbered by. ‘Our lantern, if ye please.’

‘Very well,’ Kitson replied evenly. ‘I’ll be directly behind you.’

At the sound of his voice, Wray let out a strangled groan. ‘Keep him away,’ he slurred, waving a finger vaguely in Kitson’s direction. ‘The damned
Courier
…’

Rose quieted him, telling him that the gentleman he pointed at was a doctor, and his saviour no less, not the wicked cripple who had done him such a nuisance. Then she began proclaiming their approach like a particularly stentorian town crier, in an effort to summon others to assist them–making any further discussion quite impossible.

As Kitson went back into the yard, he noticed something lying on the ground close to where the lantern had been set down. It was a thin metal spike, almost like a stiletto, covered in a sheen of blood–the weapon used to fell Wray. He paused to examine it. The catch at its end, he now saw, was a locking ring; and at its point, the triangular spike had been fashioned into the narrowest of blades. Captain Wray had been stabbed with a British infantry bayonet.

The lamplighters had just finished their work on Mosley Street, affording Jemima James a clear view of the crowd that burst excitedly from a side alley, quickly flooding the pavement and overflowing into the path of the early evening traffic. It was comprised of working people, in jackets of canvas and fustian; Jemima sat up, imagining at first that a disturbance of some kind was spilling over from a back-street pot-house. But no–she soon saw that this crowd were working together, towards a unified and compassionate purpose. They bore a man between them, lifting him up almost to shoulder height. He was a soldier, and no private of the line; the gold on his uniform suggested a captain at least. His face, beneath some outlandish military whiskers, was all but white, and an elderly woman was pressing a bloody rag against his side.

Jemima rose to her feet. Her face was now so close to the office window that her breath misted on its surface. ‘Dear God,’ she said. ‘Be quiet for a moment, Bill, and come see this.’

Somewhat piqued, her younger brother stopped his story (an inconsequential piece of gossip to which Jemima had hardly been listening), crossed his arms and pointedly did not get up. He sat surrounded by boxes and parcels, the fruits of a long afternoon spent in the city’s finest dressmakers, milliners and tailors. Jemima had endured many hours of solemn, tedious debate over the merits of ribboned
flounces, pagoda sleeves and the like, longing all the while to be back in her rooms at Norton Hall, out of her corset, deep in a book or periodical. Bill, however, loved these expeditions. That day, he’d even arranged his own appointments so that he could attend hers as well, and had been a terrible pest throughout. She simply could not be trusted, he’d declared, to select something suitably of-the-moment for the Exhibition’s opening ceremony, which was sure to be the event of the season–and if she looked dreary and widow-like before Prince Albert, he would never forgive himself. It had been an outright clash of wills, resolved only by uneasy compromise.

Jemima considered Bill. He was sprawled in his chair, glowering back at her. As usual, his clothes were of the very best quality, and included precious dashes of taste and individuality, like his purple silk necktie and the faint navy stripe in the grey of his trousers. Not for the first time, Jemima wondered what their father honestly made of this dapper son of his, who had no profession yet spent so much of his time in town, and who at twenty-six years of age had never once been linked to a member of the fairer sex.

‘I am going outside,’ she announced, ‘to find out what has happened, and who that poor man is.’

This succeeded in prising Bill from his seat. He crossed the office, glancing at the commotion in the street. ‘Is that really wise, Jem? It is Saturday evening, y’know. The mills will just have let out, and the liberated operatives will be debauching in their usual boisterous manner.’

‘Your intimate familiarity with the habits of the labouring classes never ceases to astonish, William.’ Jemima retied her bonnet. ‘I’m sure that we will be quite safe on Mosley Street.’

Bill, checked by this oblique reference to his more clandestine pursuits, swiftly changed tack, arguing instead that the carriage would be there for them at any minute. They could hardly afford to be wandering off into the city when Father would surely be expecting them at dinner. Jemima ignored him, knowing he would follow anyway.

Mosley Street, unquestionably one of Manchester’s finest, was home to a number of the city’s most august businesses
and banks, as well as several prominent cultural societies. The facing rows of grand buildings, many fronted with columns and marble, blocked out all sight of factory chimneys. The crowd bearing the injured officer had come to a halt before the shadowy portico of the Royal Institution. Some began calling loudly for the police–rather unnecessarily, as every constable in the vicinity was already converging upon them with all speed. The victim was set down on the pavement; Jemima watched as the constables tried to reach him through the thickening circle of onlookers. There was a ragged clamour of voices as a dozen different accounts of the attack were delivered at once. After a few seconds of this, a short bulldog of a police sergeant shouted sternly for silence, and then began methodically to extract what solid information he could, devoting much of his attention to the old woman who still tended to the officer’s wound.

All traffic along the street had come to a halt. Jemima took this opportunity to cross, with her brother a step behind her.

‘By Jove,’ muttered Bill as they drew near. ‘I believe I know that fellow. Saw him in Timothy’s only a couple of hours ago, in fact, having a new dress uniform fitted for the Exhibition’s opening ceremony. He’s from the 25th Manchesters–a major. Name’s Raleigh, Raymond, something like that.’

The sergeant conscripted a dray that had stopped close by to convey the injured major up to the Infirmary at Piccadilly. As the driver began shifting aside the crates that were stacked in his vehicle to make room for his passenger, the major was lifted again. Under the sergeant’s careful direction, he was moved slowly to the rear of the cart, past where Jemima was standing.

Finding a last reserve of strength, the major made a feeble attempt to squirm free. ‘Get that blackguard away from me,’ he croaked desperately. ‘Keep him away, damn you!’

The sergeant had noticed Jemima; she was conspicuous on the fringes of that humble crowd. He now shot her an apologetic glance. ‘Excuse the language, ma’am. He’s in a state o’ considerable confusion. Sure ye understand.’

Jemima looked around. ‘Who could he be referring to, Sergeant?’

The policeman jerked his head towards a jacketless man sitting on the pavement, well apart from the main throng. ‘Gent over there–but the poor cove’s got it all backwards. That’s the doctor what saved him, stopped him breathing his last in Tamper’s Yard.’ The many hands bearing the major knocked him inadvertently against the side of the cart. He squealed in agony and released a further stream of profanities. The sergeant patted his arm. ‘Easy, there, easy!’

Impulsively, Jemima decided that she would meet this heroic doctor. He was propped against a lamppost at the corner of Bond Street, staring down at his hands. They were shining with water; he’d plainly just been washing them at the pump that stood nearby, to clean off the major’s blood. A rusty lantern stood at his side. As she approached, she realised that he was talking in a harsh, low voice, as if admonishing himself.

‘Excuse me, doctor,’ she began, feeling a little awkward. ‘Permit me to introduce myself. I am Mrs Jemima James.’ She hesitated. ‘I am told that your intervention prevented this man’s death. A noble act indeed.’

He looked up sharply, his face hard and lean in the gaslight. ‘It was not
noble
, madam,’ he replied. ‘And I am no doctor.’

Immediately, Jemima’s interest was roused–this man had just saved a life, and yet seemed not only angry but strangely ashamed. She smiled disbelievingly. ‘Surely you have medical experience of some kind, though? How else could you have treated the major over there with such skill and success?’

‘He is a
major?
’ The man’s tone was faintly hostile.

Jemima nodded, studying him. ‘So my brother tells me–from the 25th Manchesters. And he is in your debt.’

The man pulled himself upright. Jemima saw that his shirt and trousers were stiff with drying blood. ‘I did little enough, in truth. The major may die yet.’

He was silent for a moment, as if contemplating this bleak fact. Jemima noted that he had not denied her conjectures. She glanced at his boots, always the best indicator of wealth; they were inexpensive and a long way past their best. Perhaps
he was once a medical student, she thought, obliged to abandon his studies due to lack of funds.

The man moved back from the edge of the pavement, smoothing his hair and straightening his ruined shirt. There was pleasing angularity to his features, interrupted only by deep crescents beneath the eyes, etched into the skin by want of rest. When he spoke again, his initial terseness was gone.

‘You must excuse my attire, Mrs James, and my manners. It has been a trying evening.’ He looked past her to the cart bearing the wounded officer, which was preparing to start up the street towards Piccadilly.

Jemima perceived that he was considering flight. ‘Tell me, sir,’ she said quickly, thinking to halt him, ‘if you are not a doctor, then what are you?’

‘I am a newspaperman.’ He made a shallow bow. ‘Thomas Kitson, madam. Of the
Manchester Evening Star
.’

Bill appeared breathlessly at Jemima’s side. He congratulated Mr Kitson for his efforts, shaking his damp hand before speculating briefly on the identity of the assailant. Then he informed Jemima that he was going up to his club to tell Freddie Keane and the rest of the chaps about the attack. Jemima tried to contain her irritation; this was typical of Bill. He would now stay out all night, roaming the very same streets he had been voicing such caution about ten minutes earlier–leaving her to endure their father alone. It had happened on countless previous occasions.

‘Mr Kitson,’ she said brightly, ‘would you do me the honour of taking some refreshment in my father’s office across the street? You must be in need of fortification after your labours, sir, noble or not. There is brandy, isn’t there, William?’

The deal had been proposed. Bill furrowed his brow, but he was not about to object. He nodded, mumbling an affirmative. Mr Kitson tried to protest, but was too tired and too courteous to disappoint her. After accepting Jemima’s invitation, he went to the cluster of working people close to the cart–not to check on the injured officer but to point out the location of the rusty lamp to a couple of workmen. It was
most extraordinary. He seemed to be actively avoiding the man he had saved, as if he had some personal objection to him. Jemima could not account for it.

Bill walked Jemima and Mr Kitson back to the office, leaving them with the desk clerk. They sat before the window, Mr Kitson moving a chair next to the one Jemima had occupied earlier. The clerk, watching their bloodstained guest very closely, poured a tumbler of brandy and brought it over, setting it on the wide sill. Mr Kitson picked up the glass, hesitating when it was close to his lips. It was clear that he still found something about his hand profoundly distasteful. He had washed both quite thoroughly at the pump, but had evidently not managed to clean them to his satisfaction. Swallowing the liquor in one swift gulp, he put the glass back down and muttered an apology for his hastiness.

Jemima knew little of the
Evening Star
, but she felt that this man could not be a representative example of its staff. He had no real accent, for example–one would surely expect a correspondent from so modest a publication to be a Lancashire man from the lower middle classes, with the speech to match. I’d stake my library, she mused, on Mr Kitson being a recent arrival in our city. Adopting a cordial tone, she began to inquire politely about his situation.

He proved an agreeable if somewhat opaque conversationalist. He’d been in Manchester only since the end of the previous year, as she’d guessed. Other things about him, however, were more surprising.

‘I am the
Star’
s society writer,’ he revealed. ‘A street philosopher, I believe it is called in these parts.’

‘
A street philosopher
?’ Jemima didn’t try to hide her amazement. ‘A professional gossip, you mean? The spy who lurks on the margins of our parks and theatres, labelling everyone who passes him with some acidic, facetious sobriquet? Surely not! I mean–you must excuse me, Mr Kitson, but you hardly seem the type.’ As a rule, Jemima tried to keep well clear of any publication that vaunted such writing as part of its appeal. It tended to be facile in the extreme, tawdry and vacuous, concerned only with fashion, scandal and money. And it was proving increasingly hard to avoid.

He appeared unperturbed by her reaction; there might even have been amusement in his eyes. ‘You flatter me with your doubt, Mrs James, but it takes more expertise than you might realise. There are important lessons to be learned, you know, from the living panorama of the modern city–lessons in the ever-shifting chances and changes of life.’ He turned his face away from the window as the major’s dray rolled past, a chattering crowd trailing behind it. ‘Besides, I was in urgent need of a position, and it was the only one available.’

Was this a mordant joke, or in earnest? Jemima found that she could not tell. ‘Are you working now, Mr Kitson? Can I expect to feature in the next edition of the
Star
?’

The smile was a brief one, and obviously infrequent. ‘No, madam, I’m afraid that I have other responsibilities at present. My paper has no dedicated art correspondent, you see, so they have assigned me to cover the Exhibition.’

This disclosure made Jemima immediately impatient. The Art Treasures Exhibition was widely held to be the finest undertaking ever to be staged in Manchester, the city’s answer to the Great Exhibition of 1851. A vast display had been gathered from the private picture collections of the country, and then assembled in a modish iron-and-glass structure at Old Trafford, on the outskirts of town–well away from the grime of the factories. Charles Norton, Jemima’s father, was on the ninety-strong committee of local luminaries who had brought this thing into existence, and she had been made to listen to his boasting and self-aggrandising on the subject for the better part of a year. The building was to be opened in three days’ time, with all the pomp and splendour that the rich men of the city could procure. The trip to town for new clothes had been Jemima’s final trial before the occasion itself.

‘The Exhibition,’ she intoned heavily, dragging the word out to its constituent syllables. ‘Do you concur with the general chorus of opinion, then, Mr Kitson, and believe that it will be a magnificent triumph?’

‘I do, Mrs James, very much so.’ He paused. ‘But you, I think, do not.’

Jemima sat up in her chair. ‘I simply look around me, sir,’ she responded with some energy, ‘at the slums of Salford, and Ancoats, and elsewhere, and then at the glorious Art Treasures Exhibition, and the many thousands of guineas that have vanished into it, and I cannot help but think that if the masters of the Cottonopolis were really interested in the benefit of all, as they so frequently say, they would realise that an art exhibition is a long way down the list of things that our urban poor require.’