Dodger (10 page)

‘Then it's just as well we've nothing worth stealing, isn't it, Mother?' the son said. ‘And that I'm here to put a stop to it if we did.' He had a young face, this John Froggat, but his hair was as grey as iron filings. His eyes was watery, as if from lack of blinking, and his arms looked like they was made of oak. He had been telling me about what had become of my old criminal associates and said that he was sorry that it was causing me such distress. I told him not to worry and asked him to carry on.

According to what he told me, Bill Sikes had killed Nancy. It was a famous murder about which all of London had heard tell. He had heard from someone that she was planning on peaching upon him so he smashed her skull open with a pistol in the bedroom they shared together and then finished the job off with a club. Housebreaker Bill, who had been a hero of mine for his daring at burglaries, someone that I had often wished I should grow up to be, had worked upon the face of pretty Miss Nancy until it was unrecognisable as a human head. So mutilated was she that the girl who found her, a girl who I took to be her friend Bet, was sent mad by the sight and was removed to an asylum where, as far as John Froggat knew, she was still. When word got out about the murder the city was sent into a frenzy and the killer was hunted down to Jacob's Island, where he hanged himself from a roof in full view of a vengeful mob and from where his dog
also fell to its death. Soon after that, in a show of force by the new Metropolitan Police, the old Jew was taken and hung and then all their known associates was rounded up. Crackit, Chitling, Kags, Pugg – men whose names was as familiar to me as those of uncles – was executed in what Froggat called ‘a great culling of the criminal class'. All of this, I thought, must have happened within the weeks after I had got lagged. Perhaps within days.

‘Well, this is pleasant talk for the table,' said Mother Froggat. ‘Change the subject, John, it's putting me off my cabbage.'

‘What was the charge?' I asked, ignoring her. ‘Against the Jew?'

Froggat blinked at last. ‘I'm not sure, son,' he said. ‘I don't know if anyone ever said. I think,' he spoke as if unsure of what he meant, ‘that the city had just had enough of him.'

I have always hated to be thought of as a poor guest but on hearing this I just couldn't help myself.

‘He was a
fence
, was all!' I shouted, banging the table and unsettling the plates. ‘You don't hang fences!'

‘Steady, son. I know you're upset, but just steady now.' Outside the weather was all melodrama, wailing winds and sobbing rains and the windowpanes made to rattle. This did nothing to improve my mood.

‘It wasn't just that he was a fence, son,' he said, after we had all lit from the candle. ‘It's that he was a kidsman, a corrupter of children.' He said this in such a way that suggested that I, of all people, should know this. Mother Froggat had taken down the linen that was hanging from ropes and, at John's asking, had gone upstairs to find bedding for us. ‘There was one boy here, an orphan so I was told –' John flicked his ash into an empty pot – ‘who somehow or other got in with some rich folk who, by a rum coincidence, it turned out he was related to.' He leaned back on his chair and breathed out. ‘And this boy peached upon the whole lot
of them. When people – rich people, I mean – got wind of what your Fagin was running here, a school of thieves as it was, well, that was the end of it.'

‘What was his name?' I asked. ‘This orphan.'

‘Couldn't tell you, son,' he said, putting out his half-finished cigar, ‘and what does it matter anyhow? It's history now.' He yawned and rose from his seat. ‘Well, it's late and we rise early tomorrow. You will leave with us. Mother will have readied some bedding for the two of you in the attic room.' He began snuffing out the candles and shooed the cat off the lap of a blind man what was asleep in a rocking chair before draping an old blanket over him. The cat dashed up the stairs to the dark rooms above. ‘I told you, there's a room behind mine which was took by my brother before he grew consumptive and died. You should bed down there – it's more comfortable.' I thanked him but said that I very much wanted to sleep in the attic. ‘For sentimental reasons,' I said by way of explanation. ‘It's where the younger kinchins used to sleep when first I came here. I've happy memories of it.'

‘As you like,' he said. ‘But hark this: there is nothing worth stealing in the bedrooms of either me or my mother. They will be locked throughout the night anyhow. This kitchen, where Uncle Huffam sleeps, is unlocked yet also has nothing of value in it. In spite of that, should I catch either you or your friend creeping about in the night, or if Uncle Huffam is disturbed, then there will be a reckoning.'

‘Mr Froggat, you and your family have nothing to fret about,' I told him. ‘I never steals from people who are poorer than myself.' These words was true although I did not know this until after I had said them. Warrigal and myself then lugged our bags over our shoulders. ‘Don't bother to show me the way up,' I said. ‘I remember it well.' Froggat handed us two cleft sticks with lit
candles in them and then, leaving the trunk in the kitchen with Uncle Huffam, we climbed the stairs to the landing above. The floors was so creaky and loud with our footsteps it was hard to see how we could have crept about the place even if we had wanted to. We said goodnight to John and found the small, rickety ladder that led into a tiny trap in the ceiling and we climbed up.

There was a reason why only the youngest boys ever slept in the attic and, as I squeezed my grown self up into it, I imagined that the place had shrunk. I stood and dipped my head under the low roof and turned to help Warrigal up after me. Once we was both through I looked about for the two lanterns what hung from the beams. It was hard to see in the long dark room but, as I lit them with my candle, the bright rays shone around the space and I was hit by the suddenness of my memories. There was the same four beds that we used to fight over, with the scratchings on, by which we had marked them as our own. And there was still toys scattered about the place, dusty and unused, a moth-eaten, cobwebbed bear that had once belonged to Mouse Flynn and the toy soldiers with which we had played war what was now broken and left underfoot like they had died in battle and not been buried. The walls was marked with chalkings of animals and lines where we had measured ourselves growing tall. On the beams above was our names, or what we could spell of them, carved in with knives. There was ‘Jem WITE', ‘CHarly', ‘Blukers', ‘mowse' and, at the top, ‘Jack DAW'. I pointed at ‘Jack DAW' and told Warrigal that this was me and then I showed him a chalking next to it of a bird flying upwards with his beak pointing down. ‘I did that,' I whispered.

Warrigal was sat on the bed by which Mother Froggat had left the blankets and looked to me as though he had no time for my reminiscing.

‘So –' I smiled – ‘see where the beak points to.' With my finger
I followed the line from the beak down to a thick floorboard near the wall. Warrigal understood and rose from the bed.

‘There?' he said.

‘There,' I said back and with my hand told him to open his bag. He pulled out a claw hammer and chisel and walked over to where I was crouched. The floor creaked and I told him not to move around so much as I took them from him. I went to work prising up the board as quiet as I could, knowing that John Froggat lay in the room below, most likely staring up at this very spot on the ceiling. But after some minutes' labour I had the board out and passed it to Warrigal who, quiet and soft, put it on a bed. Then I reached my hands down under the floor and felt something cold and rusty just where I had expected it to be. I grinned at Warrigal, pulled up my old metal box by the twine that I'd tied around it and took it over to the bed nearest to the lights. The lid was not easy to remove after all these years and it made an unfortunate, loud squeak as I got it off. Then I placed the box on my lap and started searching through. At the top, acting like a cover for the rest, was a folded copy of the
Newgate Calendar
which my mother had given to me when I was seven. It had turned a deep yellow and the weak, brittle pages was crumbling at the edges as I handled it. On the cover was a story I had read many times of how a treacherous servant had violently beaten his employer, a great lord, to death with a heavy candlestick when caught in the act of stealing the family silver. He was caught by a Bow Street Runner who had pursued him all the way to France and dragged him back to Newgate where he had been hung by the neck until dead. The man's name was Michael Dawkins and I was once told he was my father.

Underneath that was some breast-pins, fogles and a now colourless fob-watch what I had kept as souvenirs of my first ever outings.
But below all these was the real treasure and I was relieved to see it was still there. I pulled out the wooden toy and showed it to Warrigal. It was a mahogany-coloured doll of an Indian prince, with turned-up toes and bright-painted clothes, a blue coat with yellow lining and red trousers, and its white-teethed face was smiling up at me. It was an exotic thing and I remember being well pleased when given it. I shook it and heard it rattle. Warrigal leaned in to get a closer look.

‘That it?' he said.

‘That's it,' I replied.

‘Go on,' he whispered.

‘No. We've made too much noise. We'll put the room back to how it was and then we'll leave good and early. We'll take a glim tomorrow.' Warrigal looked vexed but nodded and together we laid the floorboard back down, after having put the box back in its place. The only thing we wanted to take from this room was the prince.

‘Give,' said Warrigal, holding out his hand once we was readying ourselves for bed.

‘Piss off,' I said, climbing into the bed still holding on to it and pulling the blanket over myself. ‘It ain't his yet.' He cursed under his breath but went over to the lanterns and blew out the lights. I knew he wouldn't fight me for it tonight, not when the Froggats could hear. Once I was sure he was in his own bed I rolled over and pulled my knees up, so as to sleep in this bedstead that was made for children, and I placed the prince on the pillow next to me. I looked at it and thought about the man who had given it to me for a Christmas present. The man who was both my father and mother. It was hours later when at last I got to sleep.

It was hot, Australia hot, and close by I could hear the horrible screaming of wild beasts.

‘Meat for the lions, Dawkins!' jeered Lord Evershed as the whip cracked just by my ear, causing me to flinch. ‘That's all a thief is fit for. Meat. For. The. Li. Ons.' There was a whip crack for every full stop and my head turned this way and that as I begged him to knock it off. But he looked to be enjoying himself, the nasty old brute.

I was in these rusty convict shackles and my back stung from the whipping. I had this tight iron collar around my neck with which I was being pulled through the colony like some dangerous dog. Ahead of me, through the blinding sun rays, I could see it was Warrigal what was doing the pulling. He was as naked as Adam but covered in that white body paint his people slap over themselves whenever they is feeling celebratory. It was so thick on his face it made him look more like a pantomime clown than a proud aborigine. I shouted over to him to stop. Was we not friends? I asked him. But Evershed just cracked his whip again and repeated his comments about my use as lion meat.

The big tent was not dirty and ripped like all the other convict tents but clean white with red stripes. It was just like those of the travelling circuses in America I had seen in pictures of and, as I was dragged through its opening, I could see there was a full house for this here show. Inside the seats was lined with spectators, many of them people I recognised from picking their pockets in the London streets, and they was all grinning at me and pointing.

‘Picture if you will, ladies and gentlemen, a great big juicy steak!'

In the dead centre of the ring stood Ringmaster Evershed, now wearing a red coat and clutching a cat-o'-nine-tails. He was stood next to a giant cage with a red sheet covering it and from inside animal roars was getting louder and more terrifying. The cage shook with great violence and the crowd gasped.

‘Because that,' Evershed went on, ‘is what we have before us. For your delectation tonight … Mr Jack Dawkins!' As the crowds clapped and cheered Warrigal began prodding me with a stick to move forward. When I was a nose-length from the cage, Evershed pulled back the covering with one strong stroke, the bars of the cage fell away and I was screaming good and hard. Warrigal then poked me in the side of the head with his finger and I jerked my head to look at him. He was fully dressed and sat over my old bed in Saffron Hill. It was morning.

‘Shut up, you,' he said. ‘Too much noise.'

The tiny bed was soaked in sweat and the very second I recalled where I was I began feeling for the wooden toy I had gone to sleep with. It was gone. I looked to Warrigal and saw the blue hat of the prince's head poking out of his pocket.

‘You thieving imp,' I said, most vexed. ‘Fancy pinching a cove's property while he is fast asleep like that. I would never stoop to such unsporting behaviour.' I got out of the bed and took off my
nightgown. ‘
I
only steal from those what is awake,' I said. ‘Because an Englishman must have his standards.'

I began to dress as Warrigal looked out of the small window through which the light was shining in. It overlooked the crooked lanes of the vicinity and I could hear the church bells chiming eight times. I could tell that Warrigal was troubled about something even before he turned to me as I was belting up my trousers. ‘Animal screams,' he said.