Touched by Angels (4 page)

Within seconds, both were in tears, though it was only in the light of the parlour that he saw her shredded ear, surrounded by redness and bruising. In that moment he hated his father more than ever.

The night wore on, though there was no more commotion from outside.

Maybe Sharp had arrested him after all, though they both knew from past experience it was more likely he had found a niche somewhere to sleep it off.

They were cold and hungry, but Lil grabbed him by both arms and said, as tears streamed down her face, “I want you to promise me you will grow up to be a good, decent man.”

“
You mean, not like
’im?”

She shook him.

“
He’s your father. Show more respect.”

He looked at her bewildered. Grown ups. He never would understand them.

“
Promise me!”

She stared deep into his eyes
and he replied quietly, “All right, I promise.”

“
And it doesn’t just mean talking, or dressing nicely, or sitting in church
pretending
you’re good. It means a whole lot more besides. It should come from your heart.”

“
All right,” he said, with more conviction. “I promise.”

He
felt the tears drip from her chin onto his head and knew it wouldn’t be long before she would start talking again about how she wanted him to grow up in a world away from the opium and the grape. That she wanted him to be a success, a winner, a strong, tall man.

But instead s
he embraced him in silence and held him for a long, long time.

The next day, Robert didn’t want to go to school; not for any reasons of laziness or neglect, but for genuine ones of worry. His father hadn’t come home, but it wouldn’t be long before he did, and there was no telling what he might do.

Sergeant Sharp’s threats were only any good in the very short term.
As soon as his dad’s fear of him wore off, his old habits would be back.

“
What did I say last night?” Lil asked him, as they heard the work whistles piping shrilly through the cold morning air.

“
That you want me to be good. That’s what I’m tryin’ to be, by protectin’ you.”

“
You have goodness in you already,” she assured him, as she stood at the sink washing the breakfast dishes, “but it will find better expression through your schooling. And in view of that, why did I see Mrs O’Brien taking you away last night?”

She continued scrubbing, not looking at him, her equivalent of an angry dog’s bark. Robert looked at the side of her face, shocked. He’d been certain she couldn’t have seen anything, or cared less, such was the state she had been in.

“
Er… well, she was tryin’ to get me away before I got hurt.”

“
Don’t give me that. She had a face like thunder.”

She turned suddenly
and grabbed his shoulders with soapy hands, making him jump.

“
You’ve been teasing Molly again, haven’t you? You and those little hooligans you hang around with.”

“
No
!”

“
So what
did
you do?”

He was a hopeless liar
and saw no sense in further bluff, so it all spilled out. She nodded several times, though if he thought any sympathy would come his way over the hair-brushing, he was sorely mistaken.

“
If you play with fire you get burned, and for what you did, you’re lucky that this time only, I’m content to let it be. You know how the Irish are with their dead. Now off you go to school and learn how to behave.”

Just as he was about to leave, she produced a thruppenny bit from her dress pocket and said, “Bring me back a newspaper, and with the remainder, buy yourself a sweet.” He grinned and pecked her on the cheek.

***

As he was leaving, counting his bl
essings, he didn’t see his near-sober father loitering across the lane, in the thin alley that ran between the O’Briens and the O’Driscolls.

Bob Smith
wanted a drink. Damp and miserable from a night spent half comatose in a neighbour’s back garden, after fetching up against a wheelbarrow, and taking the skin off one knee, he was watching his front door through the workers trooping past.

He knew exactly the moment when he would make his way across, and sure enough, ten minutes later, it came.

He saw the door being pulled open, and a moment later, out she came, with the small table she used for her fortune telling.

She placed it in front of the window, before going back inside, and reappearing presently with two stools. These she put either side of the table. Then, as she was going back in to fetch her crystal ball, he nipped across and was in.

She jumped, startled, as his arms were suddenly around her, crushing her breath, his filthy hands groping her breasts, pinching her nipples.

“
Where’re yer pennies?”

“
Get off!
What pennies?”

“
Don’t give me that shit. The ones you get from…”

“
That’s all money to pay bills. Now get
off
me!”

His body odour made her gag.
She was struggling, more frightened with every second, knowing this would end in one of two ways. He would either beat her up, or rip off all her clothes and rape her on the floor.

“
I
said
get off me!”

“
Yer me woman, ’an you’ll do as I sez, an’ you’ll shag when I sez. Now where’re the…”

She brought her heel down hard on his foot and he screamed, letting go.

“
You’re not having any,” she told him, nipping over to the other table, by the fireplace, where she kept the ball. “We need it to pay the bills.”

She grimaced against the pain in her breasts and added, “Unless you want asylum with the King brothers. Then you’ll never sup again.”

Enraged, he made to hop towards her and reached out to grab her dress, missing her by inches.

She picked the ball up, and seeing his eyes flicking towards the open door, where he knew anybody might be eavesdropping, she knew that this time, he would leave her be.

“
And you’ll not have me either, until you can wash first, and learn a few manners.”

She was tempted to say more, like telling him to report for work, for instance, but knew, that as she was ahead for once anyway, it was senseless provoking him further.

Mumbling, he hobbled to the door and after giving her an acid stare, skulked off.

She spent the rest of the morning sitting one side of the table staring into the heavy ball, seeing nothing but hundreds of tiny bubbles and an inverted image of the punter, always a woman, sitting opposite.

Many a time, she had drummed into Robert the evil of lying, yet lie she did, on the one hand hating herself for it, and on the other, watching the pile of precious pennies steadily growing, knowing that any other income, was at best, tenuous.

With her clients, some of whom were regulars, her lies were never too incredible, as they would be seen through, but as everybody around here was as desperate for a bolt hole as she, they drank in the fiction, rather like the one peddled to Nigel Boakes, Dick Morgan, and Lenny Chapman, by Robert, as they sat at their desks in the classroom, though his tale was at least half true.

Mr Myer
s walked along the rows of boys slowly, tapping his heel with his cane. It was hidden mostly beneath his gown, but everybody knew from painful experience that as a cutlass, it could appear in a flash.

He was slightly deaf though, so when he was beyond eyesight, the whispering went round.

“
Nah, don’t believe yer,” Dick whispered, trying his best to smirk, “anyway, she lays a finger on me, my dad’ll give ’er a black eye.”

“’
ow?” Lenny said. “He’s in the nick.”

The others laughed
and Lenny added, as he looked at the sketch of a daffodil before him, “
God
, this is borin’!”

“
But she did,” Robert insisted, “I’m tellin’ yer. She yanked down me pants first. Bare arse.
An
’ Big Molly ’eld me in a head lock while she did it, so’s I couldn’t get away. I was screamin’ an’ screamin’. Fought I was gonna be sick, it hurt so much. An’ you’re all gonna get the same.”

“
Bollocks!”

“
What a loada shit!”

“
She wouldn’t dare.”

“
All right, if you don’t believe me, we’ll go in the bog at lunchtime, an’ I’ll drop me drawers an’ show…”

Whack
!

Four pairs of eyes were standing out on stalks at the sight of the wicker, stretched over Robert’s desk. It had missed his fingers by scant inches, but shattered the stencil he had been sketching with. Bits flew around like shrapnel.

“
Have you something to say to the class, boy?”

“
No, Sir.”

They looked up at the long thin face, upon which the mouth could barely be seen through the moustache.

He looked around the four waxen faces, as he flexed the limber rod, and said, “Do you want two cuts apiece on each hand?”

“
No, Sir.”

Mr Myers closed his eyes and stuck his nose out towards the blackboard.
“Morgan, what is a stamen?”

“
Er… don’t know, Sir.”

“
Boakes, what is a petal?”

“
Oh easy, it’s a…”

“
Shut up, you stupid boy! Any fool knows what a petal is. It is the intricate you must study. Only that will assure you ease in life. You boys will study, and study hard, or by God, you’ll be in the poor house, with pinched bellies and oakum raw fingers.
Do
you understand?”

“
Yes, Sir.”

He looked around the class, lest others needed caution.

“
Now get on with it!”

They carried on sketching, this time in silence.

***

In Rice Lane, Lil watched the O’Driscolls lining up on the other side of the street, along with the occupants of all the
Irish houses, as a horse-drawn hearse pulled up outside the O’Briens’. They were dressed in a motley collection of black, and each sported a black armband. It amused her, in spite of the occasion, that they always seemed to arrange themselves in order of height, with their mousy mother at one end.

Four pallbearers came out the O’Brien
s’ door, carrying the coffin from which her son had tried to take the pennies, with Mrs O’Brien and Molly following. They were arm in arm, snivelling, dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs.

Mrs O’Brien held rosary beads in one hand, while the O’Driscoll sons and everybody else doffed their hats, which ranged from flat caps to bowlers that had seen better days.

As the coffin
was being loaded into the back, Mrs O’Brien burst into tears, and at a prompt from his mother, Benny O’Driscoll ran forward to steady her.

Lil stood out of respect as the procession moved off, with big Michael O’Driscoll winking at her as they passed. She knew it was he who had saved her from a much worse beating the night before.

Her legs felt wobbly as she watched him, seeing his powerful arms, that she could imagine enveloping her and taking her away, and his dark face, smudged here and there with traces of blood from the cutthroat razor. She hoped her hot flush wasn’t too obvious.

When they had passed, she carried on, and by the time the whistles were piping dismissal from work, she had amassed nearly five shillings, and felt quite pleased with herself. She normally averaged no more than three.

***

Fighting Bob was feeling rather smug too
as he felt the heavy jingle of coins in his pocket, purloined from the upturned cap of the old soldier who stood outside the Mission in Pudding Lane, wearing blacked-out spectacles, selling laces for a farthing a throw.

Bob had bided his time, to make sure nobody was looking, befor
e shoving him over, kicking him and taking his money.

Until
now, he had been increasingly fidgety through alcohol withdrawal, but now, the world was his friend, as he stood in the Dog and Duck among his cronies and the welcoming thick smoke and said, “Six pints o’ Porter.”

Robert was scared of what he might find, when he arrived home from school, but
heard his stomach rumble after Lil opened the door. He smelt roast lamb, potatoes and thick gravy. There was mint too, unless he was mistaken.

The fire was lit
and Lil greeted him with a warm smile and an embrace, as she took the newspaper from him, her crowning glory piled up once more.