by Barrie Shore
‘Jack? Is it Jack?’
How pleased he would have been a minute ago to see old Mrs Moxon rolling along on her way to market, laden with baskets. How gratefully he’d have taken her baskets and followed her to market. But now he felt interrupted, balked on the verge of an important discovery that would never come his way again.
‘Is it more book learning you’re after, my lad? On a Saturday morning?’
‘No, indeed. I’m to work here for Mr Pride.’
‘You never are.’ Mrs Moxon huffed her baskets down on the pavement and her eyebrows up to the heavens. ‘So your ma’s loosed the strings to her apron at last? Wonders’ll never cease.’
‘Mother doesn’t wear an apron, she has a pinafore. She buttons it round and over across her front.’
‘Well, and she would, wouldn’t she, her being so high and mighty in her ways, a cut and above, as you might say. I’m speaking metaphorical, lad, which for your knowledge and information is a riddle that is for the one to propose and the other to resolve. And you won’t find the answer in there, I assure you.’ She put her nose to the window and peered inside, shading her eyes with her hand. ‘He’s a right enough quirk pot, that Mr Pride. Still, comes from London, what do you expect?’
‘It was Mr Bright that said I was to come.’
‘Did he now? Well, and I suppose the Reverend knows what’s he doing, though there’s some would say otherwise.’
‘Two shillings and sixpence Mr Pride’s to pay me.’
‘Half a crown? I wouldn’t go in for half a guinea. Take my advice, boy, and run away home.’
Mrs Moxon shivered her shoulders, picked up her baskets and rolled off on her righteous way. As he watched her go, Jack forgot about discovery and adventure and was tempted to run after her comfortable back. He was about to take a step to follow her, but the clock tower of St Michael’s started to strike, the blind at the shop door shot up and a pale face appeared in its place, and he couldn’t move. His hands shook and his knees trembled. It was the goblin.
The face disappeared, and he gabbled a prayer, ‘Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord…’
The bolts to the door were drawn back…
‘…and by thy great mercy, defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, I mean day…’
A key to a lock that squealed as it turned…
‘…for the love of thy only son, our Saviour Jesus Christ…’
The door opened with the creak of a hinge and a jangle of bell…
‘Ah… ah… ah… men.’
It wasn’t a goblin that stood in the doorway. It was a lady, who looked like a witch… with a thin white face and long black hair… with trousers on her legs, sleek and black… and a velvet jacket with flowing sleeves… and a snow-white shirt with a frill at the front… and a silk scarf to her neck that shone like the night.
The lady witch looked at him, up and down.
‘So, this is Jack Carter. The Saturday boy.’ Her voice was smooth and black as treacle.
‘Yes, miss, I am.’ Jack’s was a high-pitched squawk of fear.
The lady threw back her head and laughed, a bewitchety sound like a cracked bell.
‘Please, miss, I am sent to see Mr Pride.’
‘He stands before you,’ the lady said.
Jack stood and stared, feeling the weight in his heart that he got when his mother was angry, or Miss Drewitt at school when he’d done something wrong and didn’t know what.
The lady witch held out her hand and he flinched away, thinking she would strike him.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to eat you.’
No, but the goblin might.
‘Well? Do you not shake hands with a lady?’
Her hand was long and bony with a ring on one finger with a sea green stone, the devil’s stone on the devil’s hand, and he thought if he took it she’d never let go. He took a step back, ready to run, then stopped in a fright as a crash came from across the street and an iron voice was bashing behind him…
‘Lay a hand on the lad and I’ll fetch the law.’
The lady man stood perfectly still, the kind of stillness that comes before anger breaks. A moment later, it was gone as if, like his mother when she raised her hand to give him a smack and changed her mind, she had thought better of herself.
‘Good morning, Mr Bashem, how delightful to see you. And looking so pretty, if I may say.’
Jack hadn’t dared to look round before, but he did now as a low growl rose up behind. He watched in horror as Mr Bashem, not pretty at all, but ugly and sweating, gathered his rage in the back of his throat, spat it out onto the pavement and marched it back into his shop.
‘Dear Mr Bashem,’ said the lady man, ‘I do so enjoy our neighbourly chats.’ She had a curious, lopsided smile on her face that hadn’t anger in it, only sorrow. ‘Still, on this occasion perhaps he has a point. Run away home to your mother, child, this is no place for you.’ She turned her back and went into the shop with a lopsided walk the same as her smile, and Jack saw the clumpety boot on her foot that gave her a heavy dip to one side as she moved. And he thought of his friend Joss Hinxman at school who had a white scar on his face that he hid with his hand, and Ned Styles and the rest of the boys with their pointy-rude tongues… ‘Nick neck, scar face, scag heap…’ And he thought of the ugly spit that Mr Bashem had made on the pavement, and of his mother’s words at breakfast that morning: ‘Mr Pride’s not like other men are, and there’s some would pass by on the other side. But the Lord told the story of the Good Samaritan, and He said, “Go, and do thou likewise.”’ And he remembered her calling after him as he ran out from the house: ‘Mind now, don’t let him send you off without your payment that’s due.’ And he thought of the shiny half-crown he’d take home that night and of his mother’s satisfaction when he gave it her, and the pride he would have when she paid off the coal and was able to order a half hundredweight for the following week. And the comforting words of the psalm came into his head: ‘Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.’
And he followed the lady man into the shop.
The house where Jack lived was small and mean: two up, two down, and the privy outside. But inside his head there were many mansions: they rose high in the sky like the Tower of Babel and plunged forever to the bottom-most pit of Hell.
The topmost mansion was reached by a glittering staircase with a thousand steps, and was filled with Light and Unspeakable Joy. This was the House of the Lord God Almighty, Magnificent King, All Wise, All Beneficent (unless He was in Judgemental Mood, and then, oh, then, His Mighty Brow was furrowed with pain and His Holy Nails nibbled down to the quick). God sat in Great Splendour in this Wondrous Place, on a Golden Throne studded with diamonds; He combed the folds of His Snowy White Beard with Ancient Fingers that were Gnarled and Wise; and He viewed the World with a Satisfied Air and thought what a Wondrous Work was Man.
At God’s right hand Saint Peter stood, holding his staff and fishing for men; on His left was Moses who spoke in tongues and intoned his ten times tablets with a Commanding Voice. All around and about were Beauteous Angels, floating on high on cotton wool clouds, preening their feathers and stretching their wings. The Holy Trinity comported themselves at God’s Magnificent Feet, Mary, Joseph and the Holy Ghost. While Baby Jesus slept in his manger under a halo, and the ox and the ass knelt down and adored.
The lower depths of the Glorious Mansion were filled with multitudinous horrors: fiery furnaces and molten lead; boiling cauldrons and bubbling oil; sloughs of despond and valleys of death; the Devils of Diss and their Whirling Dervishes; cackling imps with forks to their tails; serpents that spat and sinners that howled; Judas who kissed and Cain who slew; the Giant Despair and the Foul Fiend Apollyon.
Somewhere between these Glorious Mansions was a strange, unidentified, cloudy pl
ace that was full of the stories Jack’s father had told. Out they spilled, like tumbling fountains, full of kings and queens and their over-proud offspring squabbling royally amongst themselves; tearful damsels in deep distress plaiting endless ladders from their golden hair, waiting for princes who turned out to be frogs; dispirited wenches spinning flax into gold, dreaming of knights of old when days were bold; there were horses with wings and dragons of fire; ships and pirates and old sea dogs, bewitching mermaids with slithering tails, and beguiling sirens singing farewells to spell-bound sailors.
But nothing that Jack had ever imagined in all these Great and Magnificent Mansions had prepared him for the Magical World that he entered now.
Books.
Everywhere. Row upon row on every side, shelf after shelf, stacked on tables in teetering piles, spilling from cupboards, bursting from boxes, strewn on the floor. Hundreds and thousands, troops and battalions, legions and cohorts, armies of books.
And the smell. Of faded cloth and dried-up leather, of ancient paper and musty ink.
And the lady man, dipping her way through the shadows of flickering gas, coming to rest behind the counter, looking at Jack with her lopsided smile.
‘It’s called a club foot. An affliction I bear with the illest of will and one about which I will bear neither pity nor ridicule.’
‘Please, what is ridi… ridic… the word that you said?’
‘Ridicule. Teasing. I don’t like to be teased.’
‘I do not tease.’
‘Then you are out of the ordinary. Most little boys, and grown men too, as you’ve just seen for yourself, like nothing better than to kill with their tongues. What makes you any different?’
‘It is against God. For the Lord said, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Matthew, chapter five, verse eight.’
‘Good God Almighty.’
‘Yes, miss, amen.
The lady man laughed, the same cracked laugh that she’d laughed before, not so frightening as it was, but still bitter to hear, so that Jack regretted his charity and thought that God was wrong, that if you open your heart a stone will fall. He bent his head to hide his hurt. Don’t cry, never cry, never cry again.
‘I do beg your pardon,’ the lady man said. ‘I told you not to tease and yet I make fun of you. It was wrong.’
‘Yes, it was.’
The lady man looked at him with her lopsided smile, no cackle of laughter behind it now. ‘So, well, shall we start again?’
‘Yes, miss. I mean sir.’
‘For pity’s sake stop calling me miss or sir or any other unsuitable epithet. Despite evidence to the contrary, I am a man and my name is Robert Pride. Bob, to my friends, such few as I have.’
‘Yes, sir, Mr Pride.’
‘Bob.’
‘Bob.’
‘That’s better.’
Bob stretched out the hand with the sea green stone and Jack didn’t hesitate this time. He wiped his hand on the seat of his britches, reached up, and they shook hands solemnly over the counter. And the weight of the stone in his heart was gone.
‘And now I suppose I must put you to work. What do you like to do the best?’
‘My duty.’
‘Good heavens above, how old are you, child?’
‘Ten. I shall be eleven next birthday and then I shall be quite grown up.’
‘So you will.’
Jack saw by the twitching of his mouth that the lady man was wanting to laugh again, and he frowned mightily, willing him not to. And won. Mr Pride, Bob, trod more gently now.
‘Tell me, what do you read?’
He thought for a little, wondering what answer was wanted. ‘My primer, my arithmetic book…’
‘Not at school. I mean home, what books do you have at home?’
That was easy. ‘The Holy Bible, my Prayer Book and The Pilgrim’s Progress.’
‘Nothing else?’
This was harder, but he thought and frowned and found the answer.
‘The Bible is all that any man needs.’
‘Who told you that? Your mother, I suppose.’
‘Yes, God tells her what’s right and then she tells me.’
‘Why doesn’t he tell you himself?’
This was impossible. ‘He has no need. He relies on Mother to give me His Message.’
‘Does he. Then she is blessed among women.’
‘Yes, she is. “She opens her mouth in wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.”’
‘Proverbs,’ said Bob. ‘Chapter thirty-one, verse twenty-six.’
And that was so unexpected it made both of them laugh.
‘What of your father. Was he a reader?’
‘No, he was a drayman, he had no need of books.’
‘Then he was the poorer.’
‘No, he wasn’t. He had stories all of his own, he was brim full of them.’
‘What sort of stories?’
‘Adventures and battles and… and lots of things. He was a soldier in the war.’
‘Poor man. What horrors he must have seen.’
‘Yes.’
Cowering in a corner of the kitchen like a dog that was kicked, trembling, sobbing… his mother slamming the door in Jack’s face to stop him seeing …
‘I had brothers in the war.’
Brothers? Bob had brothers?
‘Freddie and George.’
And were they lady men too? With club feet?
‘I miss them very much.’
Three lady men, three club feet.
‘I expect you miss your father too.’
‘Yes.’
Oh, yes.
Always…
Everywhere…
The wildness of him, the laughter and song, the golden arc of his piss out in the privy… the tobacco and hops, the sweetness of sweat…
Oh, Dadda, my Dadda, I miss the glorious smell that was you.
Monday, 23rd August, 1925
The brewery. Smelling hot and strong in the heavy air of the late afternoon: dried hops, malt and yeast, rich with horseflesh and steaming manure.
The yard was quiet at the end of the day, only the stable lad still at work sweeping the burning cobbles with a slow broom, pausing to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, blowing his hot breath upwards to cool his face, before sweeping lethargically on.
Even the great iron archway over the entrance to the yard seemed to droop in the heat. It was wrought with trailing vines of hop and stooks of barley with curlicue letters looping between: Hope & Hopcraft, 1827. Under its meagre shade, two boys squatted at play, drawing with sticks in the dust.
Jack made an angel with a long robe and gigantic wings.
‘’Tis a fly. Gert bluebottle fly.’
‘’Tis not.’ Jack added some stripes to the angel’s robe.
‘A hornet then.’
‘No.’ Jack drew a lopsided halo over the angel’s head.
‘Oh, how stupid, a mankety angel.’ Ned kicked the angel away with the toe of his boot, wiped his nose on his sleeve and took his turn. ‘Wait till you see something now, softie bum.’
Ned Styles was a bully of a boy. His father was head coachman at the brewery and Ned knew his importance and had to be best. He drew in the dust, a long droop of a shape with two round circles on either side. Jack stared. It looked like a cucumber, or no, something bigger.
‘Marrow?’
Ned added some whiskery curls to the circles.
‘I know, ’tis an elephant, with great ears and a big long trunk.’
Ned hissed with derision and drummed his heels. ‘’Tis likely you baint got one at all, such a girl you are.’
A thin shadow fell across the drawing. Joss Hinxman, come to the yard to fetch his m
other who worked at the brewery skinning hops. He held his hand to his cheek as he always did to hide the yellow patch of thickened skin that ran from his left eyebrow down to his neck.
Ned curled his lip. ‘Scag off, dung heap.’
Joss stared at the drawing and his face turned red, except for the patch that didn’t know how to blush. He stuttered with nerves, ‘You sh-should be ashamed.’
Ned spat in the dust at his feet. ‘None of your business, nick neck, scar face.’ He scrambled up and brandished his stick and as Joss scuttled off into the yard, Ned spat again and threw the stick after his retreating back.
‘Leave him be,’ said Jack. ‘He baint doing no harm.’
Ned turned back to him. ‘Know what it is yet, girlie boy?’ He thrust out his pelvis and grunted like a pig. And now Jack knew. His ears burned and he felt a rush to his groin, like a spurt of blood, making the thing that he hated between his legs thicken and stir.
Ned snickered. ‘Bet’n you mine’s bigger’n yours.’
His what was bigger? Bigger than what? Jack scrambled up, ready to fight. ‘Bet’n it baint.’
A rough shout came from the street, a steady clip clopping of hooves. Ned ran out to the pavement with a whoop of delight. Jack hurled his stick to the ground, scrubbed the drawing away with his toe of his boot, followed him slowly. The boys flattened themselves against the wall as the big delivery wagon turned into the yard with a creak of iron on stone and the hollow rumble of empty barrels.
‘Whoah, there, steady, my beauties.’
The two great shire horses stood in the yard steaming with sweat, tossing their manes and stamping their hooves. Jim Biddulph, the ostler, ran out to unloose the shafts, the stable lad dropped his broom and ran to fetch water while Mr Styles hooked up his reins, jumped down from the high seat at the front of the wagon, slapped the nearside horse on its rump and scooped up his son in a rough embrace.
‘Your pa’s on his way,’ he called. ‘Passed him back along, snoring his head off, dead to the world and all its wonders.’ He swaggered away roaring with laughter, Ned riding high on his shoulders, yelling with triumph.
Jack heard Nell’s hooves in the distance before the little horse emerged through the shivering heat, picking up pace as she neared home. She swung into the yard too fast, too tight; hit the corner of the dray cart on the gate, so that the empty bottles rattled in their crates and Jack’s father lurched in his seat.