A Slip in Time (2 page)

‘No. Are you?'

‘Course not. Look; I've got to go.'

‘No!' Fadge saw his hopes of The Reward getting ready to fade back into his dreams. Then came inspiration, flashing like a November rocket through the murky sky: ‘Let's go somewhere we can talk. You got money?'

‘Er, yes.'

‘I know just the place. Come on!'

Mr Tidy, his face round and glistening as one of his wife's home-made pies, looked up and saw a familiar, battered top hat hovering level with the pie-shop counter.

‘What's it to be, young Fadge?'

‘Two mutton pies, with all the trimmings, and two pints of best,' ordered Fadge.

‘Business doing well, then?' enquired Mr Tidy, setting the two plates down on the counter top and reaching for two pint tankards.

‘He's paying.' Fadge jerked a thumb towards the boy beside him, who was staring round the room as if he'd never seen the like in all his born days.

A rum sort of boy, thought Mr Tidy. No older'n Fadge, but tall as me. Rum sort of coat. Bit like an eiderdown.

‘How much?' asked Jack, fumbling for Mum's purse. Mum wouldn't mind. She was always on about the poor and hungry. ‘There's a pound. Is that enough?'

A very clean boy, thought Mr Tidy, taking the coin without looking at it. Unnaturally clean. He tossed it into the till.

The coin chinked once and Mrs Tidy, from a standing start at the far corner of the room, was on to it before it had a chance to settle.

Bets had been placed, won and lost, on Mrs Tidy's fine tuning where money was concerned. ‘Foreign!' she announced, holding up Jack's pound, slapping it back down on the counter, triumphant. ‘We don't take foreign.'

It was on the tip of Jack's tongue to argue that this was English money, with the Queen's head on and everything, but he had a feeling it wouldn't get him anywhere.

Fadge sighed and felt in his pocket for his day's takings, spreading the coins out on the counter.

‘Sorry,' said Jack, taking his pound back again. ‘Don't worry about me. I wasn't hungry anyway.' Not once he'd seen the inside of the pies people were eating, more fat than
meat. The drink looked suspiciously like the beer Grandad had given him to taste once. ‘Nobody likes it the first time,' said Grandad. ‘You have to work at it.'

‘You go ahead,' said Jack.

As soon as Mrs Tidy's back was turned, ‘Drink's on the house,' whispered Mr Tidy, tipping Fadge the wink. ‘I can't pour it back in the barrel, can I? You can owe me for the trimmings.' He pushed one small, brown coin back across the counter.

Fadge slipped it in his pocket and fixed his mind firmly on The Reward.

They found themselves a free table, between two tall wooden settles, and sat down, facing one another.

‘What did he call you?' asked Jack. ‘Fadge?'

‘That's right.' Fadge tucked in, making the best of things. Since he'd had to buy the meal after all, he might as well enjoy it. ‘What's yours?'

‘My name? Jack. Jack Farthing.'

Fadge put down his knife and fork and stared open-mouthed. ‘Well, there's a turn-up and no mistake! That's my name!'

‘I thought you just said it was Fadge?'

‘Yes.' Fadge rummaged in his pocket and pulled out the small, brown coin again. ‘That's a fadge. A farthing. Jack Farthing – Fadge!'

It was, as he said, a turn-up, thought Jack. What were the chances of bumping into someone with the same name as you? But then, what were the chances of any of this being real anyway? He was dreaming, that was it. But the film of grease that did duty for a tablecloth felt like real grease under his fingers. The fug of kitchen steam mixed with tobacco smoke, thicker than the fog had been, was real enough to set up a tickling in his throat.

A voice said, ‘Here! Take a swig of that!'

Jack picked up the tankard that was pushed in front of him and sipped at it. Beer! Ugh! But it stopped the cough.

The two of them seemed to have turned into four. There was a big lad sitting beside Fadge, boxing him in beside the wall. He wore a red velvet jacket worn down to white cotton at the wrists and elbows, a silk scarf dashingly arranged to cover the worst of the soup stains on his shirt front, and a brown bowler hat that was far too good for him.

‘Well, well!' said the big lad, looking round the smoky room. ‘This is nice! And how's life treating you, young Fadge?'

‘Mustn't grumble, Masher,' muttered Fadge, grimly shovelling in forkfuls of mutton pie till his cheeks were bulging like a hamster.

‘Mustn't get too fat, neither,' muttered the Masher, sliding Fadge's plate across to himself. ‘Or you'll be no use to me at all.' He snapped his fingers. Dumbly, Fadge handed over his knife and fork and watched as the rest of his dinner began to disappear down the Masher's throat.

The Masher swallowed, burped and nodded to the scarecrow figure perched on the settle beside Jack. ‘Rusty!'

A claw-like hand reached out and pushed the pint pot that had once – in Fadge's dreams – been his, away from Jack and back across the table for the Masher to take a good, long swig.

Jack sneaked a glance at the well-named Rusty. Rust-red hair straggling out from under a filthy cap, rusty-black coat, rusty-brown dirt under his fingernails and a voice, when he spoke, which wasn't often, that sounded like
coffin nails rubbing together for company.

Jack, easing himself away, in case any of the rustiness should rub off, felt the Masher's good eye fixed on him. ‘Who's this, then?' demanded the Masher.

‘That's Jack,' said Fadge.

‘Jack who? Jack Frost? Jack Sprat? Jack Tar? Ha ha! Jack-in-the-box?'

‘Jack Farthing,' said Jack, doing his best not to flinch away from the Masher's dragonbreath. Stand up to bullies, Grandad always said. Don't try to pick a fight, just look 'em in the eye and show 'em you're not afraid.

The Masher raised one eyebrow (a trick he'd spent hours practising in front of the mirror). ‘Family o' yours, Fadge? You actually got family?'

‘Yes,' said Jack.

‘That's all right, then,' said the Masher. ‘We can talk. I got a job for you, young Fadge. I need a snakesman. Tonight.'

Fadge wriggled uncomfortably. ‘I don't know about tonight, Masher. Tomorrow, maybe.'

‘Tonight.'

‘I don't know.' Go off with the Masher
and leave his prize goose sitting here before it had had a chance to lay its golden egg? On the other hand, the Masher wasn't in the habit of taking ‘no' for an answer. ‘You said yourself, Masher, I'm getting over-large for a snakesman.'

‘You'll do for this. I measured the jump already.'

‘I gotta look after Jack.'

‘I'll come with you,' said Jack. He didn't know what a snakesman was, or where Fadge was supposed to jump. What he did know was that sticking with Fadge had to be better than being left on his own in a strange town. A strange time, even.

Fadge beamed at him, gratefully.

The Masher nodded. ‘You can come if you want. I can use a fourth man. Specially one that ain't known.'

Fadge said, ‘All right, then, Masher. You talked me into it.'

Outside, the fog seemed to have cleared completely. It happened like that sometimes. But look into any dark corner, up any alleyway and you'd see it curled there, lurking, biding its time, ready to pounce.

It would have to move fast to catch the Masher, striding out on his long legs, while the rest of them jogged along behind. Down the street they went and round a corner. Across the next street, and down an alleyway, diving into a sudden bank of thick fog and surfacing again opposite a row of neat little terraced houses.

‘That's the one,' the Masher pointed, stopping as suddenly as he'd set off. ‘That's the doctor's house. Third from the far end. You got that? I'm talking to you, Jack Farthing!'

‘Oh! Right!' said Jack. ‘But why are you telling me? I don't need a doctor.'

‘Yes, you do. There's a poor old lady, sick and like to die, if you don't fetch the doctor to her, quick sharp.'

Jack was opening his mouth to say ‘What old lady?' and ‘Why me?' when the Masher gave him a shove. ‘Off you go, then. What are you waiting for?'

‘You haven't told me where she lives,' said Jack.

‘Where she lives?' The Masher looked blank. He turned to Fadge, as if to say, ‘Do I have to do his thinking for him?'

Fadge shrugged.

‘The Spread Eagle,' rasped Rusty.

‘That's a pub, right?' said Jack.

‘No!' exclaimed the Masher, spreading his arms wide and flapping them up and down. ‘It's a great, big, live bird! 'Course it's a pub, you cloth-head!'

‘Is that where she is?' offered Fadge. ‘The Spread Eagle?'

The Masher beamed. ‘Got it in one, young Fadge!'

‘Took bad, she was,' said Fadge, ‘right
outside the door, an' the landlord, like a Christian gentleman, he took her in. Right, Masher?'

The Masher nodded.

‘Go back down the alley, Jack,' said Fadge. ‘Turn left at the end, instead of right, back the way we came. Then first right and second left and keep straight on. The Spread Eagle. You can't miss it. Ask for Mrs – Mrs –'

‘Smith,' grated Rusty, like he was already sliding the old lady's first coffin nail into place.

‘Granny Smith,' nodded the Masher.

‘Just leg it, the first chance you get,' Fadge muttered out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I'll meet you,' he glanced from Rusty to the Masher, ‘the same place we met before.'

The Masher, with his hand clamped fast to Fadge's shoulder, was already hurrying him away, with Rusty close behind.

‘Where are you going?' demanded Jack.

‘We got to fetch the old woman's family, before she snuffs it. Eh, Fadge? Eh, Rusty?'

‘The priest,' wheezed Rusty. ‘She's asking for a priest.'

Jack caught Fadge's desperate look, as he was dragged away. Fadge was well worried,
but it wasn't about some poor old lady.

Then the Masher whisked them round a corner and the only evidence they'd ever been there was the fading sound of Rusty coughing. Jack was on his own after all, still with a load of shopping to get and not the foggiest idea how to find his way back to Grandad's. There was nothing he could do about it, not just at present. Not that he could see.

So he set off down the narrow street of terraced houses until he came to the third one from the end, where a plump young man in shirtsleeves was busy polishing a brass plate on the wall beside the front door.

‘Excuse me,' said Jack.

The young man gave a guilty start and spun round, trying to hide his polishing cloths behind his back.

‘I'm looking for the doctor,' said Jack.

‘You've found him! John H. Watson, M.D.' The young man stuck out a hand to shake, noticed the cloth still in it, and hid it behind his back again. ‘My housekeeper!' he explained. ‘Old lady. Bad chest.' He thumped himself twice on the chest to demonstrate. ‘Outside work. Not good for her in this pea-souper.'

He seemed very young for a doctor, with a round baby face, bright, innocent eyes and a shock of curly hair. The moustache looked like a cheap disguise. But the brass plate said Dr J.H. Watson, M.D. So Jack gave him the message about poor old Granny Smith, sick and like to die, and the others going off to fetch her sorrowing family etcetera, and before he was halfway through, the young man was shrugging on his coat and racing upstairs for his doctor's bag (very shiny, very new), then down again, exclaiming, ‘Oh, this is exciting! My first call-out! My first emergency! Where's my hat? My hat! My hat! I can't go without my hat!'

‘Can't you?' said Jack.

‘Of course not! Must look the part! Doctor must wear a hat. Imagine it, if a doctor came to call, looking like a … a butcher, say! Would you believe he could make you better?'

‘I suppose not.'

‘Of course not! Ah, here it is! Hanging on the hook behind the door. Off we go, then!'

Off they went. Down the road and through the alley, turn left at the end.

A thought struck Jack. ‘Dr Watson,' he
said. ‘You're not
the
Dr Watson, are you? The friend of Sherlock Holmes?'

‘Shylock – ?'

‘Sherlock.'

‘Sherlock … Holmes, did you say? Odd sort of name.' He shook his head. ‘No. Doesn't ring a bell.'

Of course it didn't. There was no such person. Never had been. Though Grandad said people from all over the world still wrote to the Great Detective at 221B Baker Street, asking him to solve their problems.

Did Fadge say second right, then first left? Or the other way round? Second right, Jack decided. Poor Fadge. Jack couldn't forget the worried look on his pinched face before the Masher whisked him out of sight.

Nothing worried Dr Watson. With John H. Watson, M.D. on hand, you just knew everything was bound to turn out all right. Jack couldn't help wishing that he'd met Dr Watson before he met Fadge.

Turn left. Soon be there. He was worried about Fadge. Leaving him with the Masher. And Rusty. There was something going on. Some reason they wanted him out of the way.

‘Dr Watson,' said Jack. ‘Do you know what a snakesman is?'

In the dim alleyway that ran along the back of the terrace, Fadge stood beside the Masher, looking nervously up at a small, rectangular window. ‘It's smaller than the last one, Masher.'

‘We been through this before. Get your head and one shoulder through and the rest'll follow, easy as slicing butter.'

‘It's awful high. What if I make a noise coming down the other side?'

‘The house is empty. Jack Farthing's seen to that.'