Touched by Angels (2 page)

Mrs O’Brien had only wandered ba
ck when the din had petered out, and only then, very gingerly. She found Molly sitting in her wing-back chair, staring into space, with blood coursing down her cheek. She didn’t seem to notice it. Sometimes, after a rage, she would sit like this for hours, and not a peep would come from her.

This time though, she only stayed like it for about fifteen minutes, before the sobs came, and Mrs O’Brien knew it was reasonably safe to approach her.

Having only caught the merest glimpse of the boy herself, she put her arm around Molly’s great shoulders; and whilst gently dabbing the blood away with a handkerchief, coaxed from her his name.

“
It were that
Smiff boy,” she sniffed.

Mr
s O’Brien knew the boy Molly meant. There were several families bearing that name around here, but she knew Molly meant the Smiths opposite, where the father, Bob, was a drunken wastrel, and the mother, Lil, thought her shit didn’t stink.

By now, she was seething as she lifted
her grandfather back into his coffin, and replaced the pennies, before placing the coffin back on its trestles.

Then s
he made another oath, as she had every time her Molly was harassed, that if she ever got hold of that boy, or any of the little guttersnipes he hung around with, she would make him wish he’d never been born!

***

Across the lane, Lil, Robert’s mother,
looked up as he entered the parlour, instantly suspicious of his furtive behaviour. She was darning a sock, but she was so practised, her gaze never left him. Her hair, the envy of Whitechapel, was piled up. A shaft of sunlight, through the cracked pane, made it shimmer like quicksilver.

A knock on the door made him flinch, confirming her misgivings. She nodded at him to open it
.

As he did, she knew he was already thinking up his alibi. She frowned seeing how relieved he was to see it was only Mr King, the landlord, come for his rent. Not that that was especially good news. A shaven-headed thug stood either side, one carrying the rent book.

As young as Robert was, she’d made sure he knew what happened to people who hadn’t the money to pay. They were evicted on the spot.

If they refused to leave, which was exceedingly rare, the neighbours would hear the sound of a beating for the man of the house, howling children, the wife screaming before the door slammed shut behind them. A few minutes later, they would stagger past, their few possessions strewn between them, and the husband with his head back to stop his nose bleeding into his moustache, with everybody peeking from behind their curtains, glad it wasn’t them. Everybody knew where they would be heading, because it was the same place they always went: the workhouse in Marylebone, which was run by the King family.

“
Is your mother there?”
His voice was deceptively soft, kind even.

“
Might be.”

King smiled over the starch of his winged collar. “May I see her, young man?”

“
Dunno. I’ll ask h
er.”

“
Yes, that’s all right,” she said.

Lil stood up
, holding the money they so desperately needed themselves. She neatened her skirt as she passed the moth-eaten curtains and skilfully avoided a tiny mouse as it disappeared through a hole in the skirting board.

“
Please give this money to Mr King, Robert. There’s a good boy
.”

Seething, he took the two one pound notes. King was taking the rent book and opening it. He took a fountain pen from its spine and, after taking the money and putting it in his already bulging purse, he unscrewed the top and made a neat tick.

After he had gone, with a “Good day to you, Madam,” whilst tugging the front of his bowler hat, Robert looked at her and snarled, “Two quid my arse! He’s stitchin’ us up like flamin’ kippers! Never repairs a fing. Why don’t we go an’ live somewhere else?”

Lil
laughed as she sat and resumed her darning.

“
This is all we can afford.”

“
I’ll get a job then. Anyfing, so we don’t have to live in this shit!”

“
You’re far too young. Anyway, you must keep on learning. Then you’ll have better prospects for when you
do
get a job.”

Then she added
caustically, “You can start by moderating your language.
I’ve
heard you.”

The needle went back and forth pointedly.

“
What does moderatin’ mean?”

“
It means learning not to swear, for one thing. Profanity is the language of the ignorant.”

“
Prof…?”
He frowned.

“
Look it up!” she said, reaching under the table for the heavy, dog-eared dictionary she was always referring to. She thrust it at him and he tottered backwards as he took it.

“
When
I
don’t know a word, I look it up. Important as the Good Book. That’s why I read the newspapers too.
And
you learn what’s going on in the world. No one taught
me
to read and write. I learned myself, and I don’t drop my aitches and tees, like all the others.”

She prodded the air with her darning needle, in the general direction of the street.

“
Can
Dad read?” Robert asked.

“
You know very well he can’t.”

“
Is that why
he gets pissed?”

She glared at him. “Your father is a good man. Don’t forget that. He just gets frustrated, that’s all. We’ve all got our shortcomings, including you.”

She watched him frowning and nodding,
as he tried to avoid looking at the fading bruise she could still feel around her left eye.

The factory steam whistles were
rending the air, above which slate-coloured clouds were gathering. The thump, thump, thump of the factories slowly petered out for the night, as Bob Smith stood, in hob-nailed boots and filthy braces, over the little Irishman he had knocked to the booze-stained floor of the Dog and Duck with a single punch. His bowler hat lay behind and blood was fanned across both cheeks.

Bob was proud to be kn
own from Bow to Whitechapel as
Fighting Bob
. He looked around, grinning through dense smoke, as a cheer went up.

The man he’d just knocked out was Benny, the youngest and simplest of the O’Driscoll brothers, a family with an indeterminate number of members, who lived next door to the O’Briens. They protected him like a newborn baby, though Bob didn’t know this, or he’d never have laid a finger on him.

Bob burped
and flexed his shoulders as he turned, feeling like the King of England. His shirt buttons strained against his gut. The other men started egging him on, which wasn’t hard, and while one of them started bashing tunelessly away at the upright, the landlord called from the bar, “All right, Bob, that’ll do. You’ve been ’ere ’arf the day. You’ve enough on board. Time to…”

Bob’s grin vanished.

“
This piece o’ shit’s gonna get wasss comin’ to ’im.”

He kicked Benny in the ribs, hawked up a lump of phlegm and spat it in his face.

He was too drunk to hear the landlord call to somebody, “Go and fetch a constable!”

Benny spat out a tooth as he wiped his face with his sleeve as a meaty arm grabbed Bob’s shoulder. He spun round to lash out, but was no match for Sergeant Sharp of the Met.

A truncheon was jabbed hard in Bob’s side, and as he collapsed onto his knees, gasping in agony, Benny was dragged from under him. The moment Benny had been lifted to his feet, somebody handed him his bowler, he hobbled quickly to the door and disappeared.

Sergeant Sharp, who stood six feet four, with medals won for gallantry during the Boer War, slammed Bob hard against the wall. He grabbed the scruff of his neck, and shoved him up ’til his eyes were watering.

“
Not so ’igh an’ mighty now,
are
you, Smiff?”

Bob said nothing as fear replaced bravado. He was cowering, sobering up quickly.

“
You ain’t gonna pick on someone who can fight back, are you, my lad? Wanna try it wiv me?”

Bob flinched, as he muttered, “Just a grubby lil’ Mick. A wanker. Beggin’ for it.” Sharp raised his truncheon, and Bob was shrinking down like a whipped pup, shielding his face and head.

Sharp made a show of sniffing the air before saying, “Smell pretty ripe yerself. You wanna get that missus o’ yours to fill the tub. A bar o’ Sunlight wouldn’t go amiss niever,
if
you can spare a shillin’ from the ale, that is.”

Then he grated, grin disappearing, “You gotta wife and kid to support. Get on wiv it!”

He kicked him hard up the backside and Bob made his way blearily out, rubbing his side and rear, cussing under his breath. As curtains parted here and there, some revealing grinning faces, others urgent gestures to come and have a look, his humiliation and anger increased with every stride.

As Bob was kicking open his front door, less than a mile away another, much larger one, was being knocked upon; that of the nemesis of all in Rice Lane.

The workhouse at Marylebone.

A little round man, with pink jolly cheeks and white hair
,
looked up at the damp, ivy strewn bricks, the barred windows and the three huge chimneys staggering the roof like accusing fingers. He sighed and knocked.

A
stooped and wizened man answered the door, a small Bible clutched to his breast. A dewdrop dangled from his nose, while spectacles were perched precariously on the end.

“
Yes, Sir?”
His voice was an asthmatic wheeze.

“
My name is William Fishwick. I’ve come about the position of children’s overseer.” The man beamed as he removed his hat, knowing his late wife, a devoted Methodist, would be proud of him for aiding the vulnerable and the poor.

“
Come this way, Sir.” The doorkeeper turned and shuffled off, his feet hardly leaving the floor. He muttered continuously as Fishwick followed him through a gloomy reception area. Fishwick couldn’t tell whether he was talking to
him
, or himself, though it seemed his name was Pocket, and that he ‘did things’.

They came to a high double door, which Pocket opened before limping off, still muttering to himself.

Fishwick
entered into a small hall, to be confronted by five men sitting atop a high wooden plinth behind a long table. If he was meant to feel intimidated and humble as he looked up at them, it had worked, he thought as he stood there, feeling as though he was on trial. As they regarded him, from their perch, their expressions ranged from distain to haughtiness.

“
Your name?”
the middle one asked. He was bigger than the others; black hair, monocle, gold fob watch, and a crisp white rounded collar below a double chin.

“
William Fishwick, Sir. I’m here in response to your advertisement in the
Telegraph
newspaper, for the position of children’s canteen overseer.” He smiled warmly.

The man grunted as he briefly scanned Fishwick’s correspondence. “Yes, we have your letter of application here. I am Sir Rupert King,” he said, looking up. “Master of this institution.”

He introduced the others, two of whom were his brothers. Alistair was slim, foppish, with hair so ginger, it looked like spun copper. The other, Horace, the smaller version for Sir Rupert, was the man who had knocked on Lil’s door, demanding the rent.

The other two, at the extreme ends of the table, were the Medical Officer, Mr Parsons, and the chaplain, Reverend Crockford.

“
This site was established,” Sir Rupert continued, “in 1833, as a haven for the paupers of London. We are funded out of the public purse, and here they work unpaid for their keep and lodgings, though their medical care is free. Understood?”

“
Yes.”

“
Good. Now then, have you references?”

“
I have indeed.” Fishwick fumbled inside his coat, pulling out an envelope.

Sir Rupert beckoned him forward and Fishwick passed it up. The knight let his monocle drop as he read the two sheets of paper quietly.

At last, he said, “Your references are impeccable in most respects, Mr Fishwick.” He reinserted his eyeglass.

“
Thank you
,” answered Fishwick.

“
As a school teacher, you commanded respect, both in and out of the classroom.”

“
Thank…”

“
Was this with, or without, the application of the rod?”

“
The rod?
Oh, you mean the cane.” He laughed. “Oh, good heavens, no! Well, at least very rarely. I firmly believe, as I expect you, gentlemen, do, that respect may be fostered more effectively, not by the application of intimidation and fear, but by mutual understanding, kindness, and concern.”