Dodger (21 page)

Jem shook his head in admiration at this poetic retelling of my encounter with the law. As Ruby walked back to the table with two hot plates of breakfast, he grabbed her by the rump and pulled her to him. ‘You and me both,' he said, and gave her a hard kiss on the unbruised side of her face, almost causing her to drop the meat and eggs all over the table. She did not complain; in truth she seemed to delight in his rough attentions.

The moment when he had burst into the bathroom, to discover a man wet and unrigged in the company of his kept woman, was indeed a delicate one. Even after he had recognised me as his old pal the Artful Dodger he still looked fit to give me a bloody good hiding. He was bellowing curses at me and calling Ruby all sorts of horrible names and it took some persuasion to convince him that events was not how they appeared.

‘Don't give me that gammon!' he shouted loud enough for all of Bethnal Green to enjoy. ‘If it ain't what you reckon it looks like, then how can you know what it looks like unless it's the thing what you reckon it looks like and not the other. Cos if it weren't what it looks like, it would not look like what it does!'

He had me there. ‘I'm not sure I follow you, Jem,' I said.

He moved towards me and started prodding me in the chest. It was then that I noticed his hands was all covered in dried mud. ‘It looks like you've landed in the wrong nest again, Jacko,' he said through his teeth. ‘Looks like you're eating off the wrong plate!'

‘Jemmy,' I reasoned, ‘look at the state of me. I'm cut to bits.' I showed him the bruises on my arms, legs and the scar around my neck from my fight with Warrigal, lifted up my feet so he could see the cuts and leant forward to show him my lash marks. Then I got out of the bath and reached for a robe what hung from a hook. ‘I'm not fit to be making love to anyone,' I said, putting it on me. ‘I'm in too much agony. Ruby here was just nursing me, bless her kind soul, taking pity on a poor unfortunate what was dropped on her doorstep in disgrace. I knock on this door, the home of two of my oldest and much-missed friends, in the hope of finding some charity and she gives it to me. Then you come thundering in here looking to thump me as I wallow and making dirty insinuations about her good character. And she's just
spent the last ten minutes going on about how much she loves you. What way is that to repay her, I ask you?'

This plea to his senses had a calming effect upon the boy and before long he was saying how good it was to see me again, even if I had been as bare as a newborn. He amused himself with a few flash remarks about how he did not mind Ruby seeing me unclothed after all as it reminded her of how spoilt she now was. We laughed about that, leastways I pretended to, and he went off to rummage through his clothes closet for something to loan me.

So, soon as the sun began to peek through the cracks in their thick black curtain, I was sat at his breakfast table, in a thinner man's shirt and corduroy trousers what I had to roll up at the bottom. We was then puffing on a clay pipe and laughing as though six years and a suspect bath incident had never passed.

‘But enough of my tales of high adventure,' I said as I turned my half of the steak over with my fork. I half expected to see Ruby's black hair still stuck to it. ‘What's the news round this way? I see you've moved up to the house-cracking line, Jem?' I nodded towards the big open bag what he had carried in with him. It glittered with silverware, necklaces and other choice jewels. ‘You always was the ambitious sort.'

Jem nodded, leaning back after licking his plate clean. ‘Yeah. Pickpocketing is for kinchins. Burglary's the game,' he said, and relit the cigar. ‘Myself and Georgie Bluchers was at this cottage out in Kent last night. Took us forever to get there but between us we've stripped the crib clean. It's a fine business,' he declared, ‘and tonight was a good haul.' He leaned over to a tin pot and flicked some ash into it. Then, once Ruby had left the room, he lowered his voice as if about to disclose something dead secret. ‘If I do say so myself, I'm a natural at it. Quiet as mouse breath I am, when I wants to be. The flats of a house can be asleep in
their beds and they won't hear me emptying the cabinets of diamond necklaces right beside them.' Then he shrugged and looked to be ashamed about what he was about to say next. ‘But burglary is a two-man job if you mean to do it right and, well … I don't mean to speak ill of a friend …'

‘Georgie?'

‘Yeah.' He nodded. ‘Georgie ain't so suited to the trade. Stomps around in those big boots of his, alerting the whole house to our activities. More than once we've had to knock out some butler or other servant what has been sent down by his master to bother us.' Jem pulled a cosh out of his coat pocket to show me. ‘He's a liability, I tell you. It'll be the rope if we're caught.'

He sighed and drew on his pipe. He seemed to be eyeing me in that moment to see how he and I compared. He moved his belt buckle from left to right as though this was meant to signify something and then blew tobacco smoke out of his nose.

He had grown handsome over time, I thought, as I waited for him to resume the conversation. Or leastways he was what some women might consider handsome to be if they was simple or easy to please. He was taller than me – this was a vexing truth – and he had a beard what was blond and wispy. My own hair was black and thick and I wondered if Ruby would prefer that or favour instead his lightness. I swept my own hair to one side, to make a raven's wing out of it in the hope that Ruby might notice and mark the difference. But I could tell, as he stretched a yawn revealing how strong and long his arms now was, that it was going to be hard sport stealing his woman away from him. And this was a thing I had very much made up my mind to do.

‘Take last night in Kent,' he said, glancing over to the doorway to make sure that Ruby was not about to come back. ‘We're all masked up, a barker and a cosh each, and we've got the maid-of-all-work
tied up in the parlour. The dogs are locked away safe in the cellar, the master of the place, this rich old landowner, is spending the night in London with his wife and daughter so we have all evening to strip his crib of anything that shines. Only we get surprised during the job by another fellow, a gardener what lives in a little barn at the bottom of the garden, just beyond the marrow patch. He hears the dogs, as well as Georgie's ruckus, comes to see what is what. Confrontation. Georgie gets agitated, hits him over the head with his persuader. Then the maid turns hysterical. “Georgie! You'll kill him!” The gardener turns to her, hands still on his thumped head. “Georgie?” the fellow asks. See, this maid, Fanny Cooper, is the sister of Cheap Jane from Crackity Lane and she and Georgie is sweethearts. It was she who told us the landowner and his family would be out and where the best jewels was hidden. She even took care of the dogs before we got there and we was only tying her up so things would look neat. But now, cos of Georgie's noise and her own stupidity, this nosey gardener knows that Fanny is in on it with us. We can't have that, and so it all went downhill from there.'

‘You had to pay him off?' I shook my head in sympathy. ‘Pity.'

Jem blinked. ‘We didn't think of that, to speak true,' He shook his head as if I had just said something very clever. ‘I wish we hadda done,' he sighed. ‘That would have been tidier. No, we dealt with him by taking him back to the bottom of the garden where he should have stayed. Only now he's five feet under it.'

I laughed, thinking this a joke. Then I remembered the reddish mud on his hands and my laughter stopped.

‘Georgie weren't happy about it,' he went on. ‘Left me to do the job. But I said to him, if your Fanny coulda just kept that big mouth of hers shut, I wouldn't be having to club anyone, would I?' He began rubbing the cosh between his thumb and forefinger
as if wiping it of something. ‘Couldn't use a barker. Too much noise. That's why I got home so late.'

I had this sudden memory of him at eight years of age crying because one of the bigger lads had told him a story about how some skeletons had come to life. I could scarce credit this was the same boy.

At that moment Ruby came back in the room and Jem placed a finger to his lips. He did not seem to mind sharing his burglary tales with her, but the part about burying nosey gardeners under the marrow patch was for my ears alone.

‘You must be exhausted after that walking, Jack,' Ruby interrupted. ‘You can kip in our bed if you care to.' She went through the door into their bedroom and began straightening the blankets on that big four-poster. ‘Jem never sleeps until the afternoon and I have to take his findings to the local fence.'

The big mahogany bed seemed to have taken root in that room and it looked back at me, uncaring and shameless. It struck an attitude, or so my sleep-starved mind supposed, of a dark beast what had feasted once and was now looking for its next victim. ‘Not likely,' I said, and decided to raise the point. ‘How can you,' I asked them, ‘stand to keep the same bed what a murdered woman once slept in?'

‘Why should we not?' asked Jem, wiping coffee away from his mouth. ‘It's a bloody good bit of wood, that.'

‘It's morbid,' I said, and appealed to Ruby. ‘If you had any decency you'd saw it up for firewood and be done with it. It's a despicable travesty to have it still sitting there.' Jem laughed as though I was the one what was being a fool, but Ruby had gone very quiet. ‘So no, in answer to your question, I do not wish to sleep in poor Nancy's bed, thank you very much.'

‘Please yourself,' Jem said. ‘Then you should bed down in Greta's
room, below ours. Ruby has a key and the fat cow ain't been seen for days. Failing that, you can piss off to the nearest doss-house if you'd rather.' His laugh was boisterous and he walked up behind Ruby, who was clearing away the plates, and gave her a light grope on the behind. She jumped and told him to behave himself. ‘We could do with a bit of private time up here anyway. Show him to Greta's room, Rube,' he said, unbuttoning his shirt and sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘Then get yourself back up here.' He grinned as he patted the sheets.

This Greta, so I was told, was a young girl of industrious character what rented a downstairs room. She lived in a different part of London, where she supported her malingering father and four lazy brothers, but she came over this way for work whenever she could. Ruby told me that I could rest in Greta's bed for a few hours and then, at midday, she would be happy to go finding with me so I could start paying my way again.

‘Are you boys all still going to the rat pit tomorrow night?' I asked Jem before taking my leave.

‘Yeah,' he replied. ‘My whole gang'll be there.'

‘I mean Fagin's boys,' I said, unsure as to who he was on about.

‘So do I,' he said, and shot me a challenging eye. ‘Mouse, Herbie, Georgie, all the others. My gang.'

‘Good then,' I said, and went to shake his hand. ‘I shall look forward to reacquainting myself with your gang tomorrow.'

We both of us squeezed a bit harder than we might have done and Jem held my eye as he did so. He seemed unsure as to whether my return was a good thing or not. Then Ruby walked me down to where I could sleep for a while.

The bed in this room was black iron and big enough for two, although Ruby said it was not likely that I would be disturbed. Before she took her leave I took her by the hand and thanked her
for her kindnesses. Ruby smiled and I thought her prettier than ever. She said she was happy I was back and I drew her close to me, close enough to kiss. ‘I'm happy you're happy,' I said. ‘Your smiles are a tonic to me.' She looked unsure of herself but pulled away and made to leave. Just before she shut the door I said her name again and she turned about. ‘Now I'm back things are going to get better,' I promised. ‘There'll be no more bruises from falling over. Not if I'm about.' Ruby gave me a look to say she did not know what I meant. ‘I'll steady you,' I told her.

‘Sleep well, Jack,' she said. ‘See you in a few hours.'

Once in bed I lay facing upwards, and I could feel the whip-mark lines on my back and where her fingers had run along them. The plaster on the ceiling had crumbled from rot and I could see through to the thin wood rafters what ran under their room above. I could hear the door of that room shut after her and I heard Jem ask a question but could not make out what it was. She mumbled an answer and I could hear him ask her the question again, with more force. Their footsteps began shuffling and it sounded like a struggle. I sat up as I heard Ruby give a small cry like he was hurting her and I felt an urge to get back up there and pull her off him. Then a thump, as though something had been thrown on to that bed, and I was back on my feet and heading towards the door. I had a vision of Bill striking Nancy, and then another of that hapless gardener, and I was determined to prevent another violent crime from taking place. Another thump. I stopped with my hands on the door and listened. Then a rhythm of many quiet creaks began to be heard and I realised he was not hurting her at all. I took my hand off the handle and went back to the bed where I had to lie back down and watch those rafters above me pulse under the weight of the bed and listen to the girl I now wanted making love-noises for another.
It was a miserable moment. For all I knew the filthy sod would be banging away at her for hours.

Five minutes later he had finished. And, according to the clock on the mantelpiece, he was snoring noisily in less than ten. This made me feel much more confident about trying things with Ruby although, in all truth, if I had been out all night burgling houses and digging graves I'm not sure I would have dazzled her with my prowess either. But tiredness was now covering me like morning dew and I soon found myself sinking into slumber also. In my mind an image of Ruby in the arms of that there Jem persisted in my head even after my eyes was shut, and this caused me greater pain than the lash marks ever had. There was many things what was troubling me at that time. I was still grieving over the death of Fagin and, if I am to be honest, also that of my mother, madwoman though she was. Lord Evershed was no doubt going to want me dead as a result of failing to deliver the Jakkapoor stone and there was an aborigine somewhere in this city what would be happy to oblige him. Above where I lay sweet Nancy had been killed by her lover whose heroism I had once admired. And now, on top of this growing list of unhappinesses, I had fallen for a girl the music halls had once billed as Ruby in Red. I had only seen her twice since my return to London but she had, in that short time, stolen my heart like it was a steak in a market and made off with it under her hat. I was good and bewitched by my crimson sweetheart and I wanted to possess her more than the fattest wallet. That she was already spoken for, and that it was my old friend Jem doing the speaking, was an unfortunate obstacle but not one that made her any less appealing. Nor would it dissuade me from taking her regardless because, in truth, it just made me want her more. I am a thief in all things, even matters of love.