The Black Joke

by David Bramhall

  Chapter 19

  The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom (Psalms 37 & 51)

  After lunch Mother complained about him and Fenestra cluttering the place up, and suggested they go out for a walk, the day being fine. They went slowly down the Bearward, Pert looking out of the corner of his eye at Rosella's house which still seemed dead and silent. As they reached the bottom of the street they heard a shrill whistle behind them, and running feet, and they were joined by a grinning Billy Moon.

  “Well, fancy meetin' you 'ere,” he said, hardly puffing at all.

  “It's quite amazing, Billy Moon, how often you seem to be in this neighbourhood,” said Fenestra airily. Pert could tell that she was not put out at all.

  “Oh, yeah, it is, innit?” laughed Billy. “It jus' so 'appens I often 'as a bit o' business round 'ere, like!”

  Fenestra said nothing, but walked on holding Pert's arm in her best ladylike manner.

  “How's school?” asked Pert.

  “Borin',” was the reply. “No fights, no wackin's, nobody knockin' no teachers on their arses, nuffink interestin' at all, jus' borin'!”

  “Billy Moon, school's supposed to be boring,” reproved Fenestra, “and you're not supposed to say arse.”

  “You jus' said it!”

  “No I didn't!”

  “Yes you did, you said arse!”

  “I was just saying what you said ...”

  “Children, children, would you behave?” laughed Pert. “Can't we have a more grown up conversation?”

  “But we aren't grown up, are we? We're children,” said Fenestra. “Who's that standing in the middle of the road?”

  Pert looked. It was Batty Bunt, and just as they had spotted him his brother Spotty appeared round the corner, followed by Darren Durridge.

  “Uh oh,” said Billy Moon, “lout alert!”

  “Let's go back,” said Fenestra.

  They turned. From the alley beside the Emporium sauntered Will Durridge and George Bunt, and further up the hill were two more burly figures strolling down towards them.

  “Bert Millidge an' Fisty Marrow,” said Billy. “This isn't good. We better make ourselves scarce. Run!”

  They took to their heels and immediately a shout went up. “Get 'em!” yelled George Bunt, and there were whoops and jeers from the rest. Batty Bunt and Darren Durridge were running heavily up the hill towards them, and the rest of the men spread out across the street in front and behind. They were cornered.

  But the men hadn't reckoned with Billy Moon. “This way!” he called, and darted downhill to a small opening between two houses. He waited, and Pert and Fenestra reached the opening just before the hands closed on them. They tore down an alley so narrow Pert wondered if the bullies would be able to follow them at all, but knew from the noise of thundering feet and the heavy breathing that they were not far behind.

  Billy turned up another alley just as narrow, and immediately stopped. He handed Fenestra up into an opening in the wall, bounded through behind her, and pulled Pert in behind him. “Go on, Ferny, go up!” he said, and they followed her up a flight of steps and out into another alley. Pert glanced right and left, and saw burly figures at both ends, but Billy led them straight across, into a yard piled with timber and building supplies. He ripped open a shabby door and pushed them into a building, then led them across the floor to an open gate and out into the street beyond.

  Pert couldn't even recognise the street but thought it might be one of the little rows that led down to the harbour. Still Billy ran. Fenestra was flagging now, her skirt awry and her blue cloak flapping. Pert was out of breath. He knew he could carry on longer before they had to turn and make a stand, but he was worried about his sister.

  But Billy was master of the situation. He led them through another door, into someone's garden, up the side of their house and into yet another street, then across and into a shabby cottage.

  “Mum!” he yelled, “look after 'em! I'm goin' to draw 'em off, the great lummocks!” and he was gone, the door slamming behind him.

  Pert leant against the door and looked around him, chest heaving. Fenestra had collapsed on the floor, kneeling on all fours and fighting for breath.

  “Come in, come in, my dears,” said a fat, kindly voice, and a plump, rosy woman waddled into the room. “Come, sit you down,” she said, sweeping a pile of old clothes from a sagging sofa, “sit you down an' get your breaths, an' I'll make a nice cup of tea!”

  They did as they were bid. Fenestra leaned against her brother and gradually their breath returned.

  “Now, here we are, drink up and let's see who we've got! You must be Billy's little friends, Pertinacious and Fenestra? He's told me. Phew! Just let me get the weight off my feet ...” She turned and backed into an enormous easy chair, and sat with her feet off the floor. “We won't worry about Billy, the lamb, because this quite often happens to him. He's quick, though, and he wriggles and sneaks in and out and he knows every nook and cranny of this place, so they never can catch him, bless 'im!”

  “You're Billy's mum,” said Pert. “Sorry, that's a bit obvious, isn't it!”

  “Yes, I'm his mum, bless him, for all the good it's done 'im. My name's Primrose Moon, and your mother will have told you about me, I dare say. She probably doesn't approve of me, not one little bit!”

  “Actually,” said Fenestra, “she says you're pleasant and she doesn't see what else a body is to do ... I think that's what she said.”

  “Did she now?” said Primrose, her eyebrows raised. “Did she now, did she say that? Well, bless her for a wise and forebearin' woman. I think I'd like to meet your mother. There's not many in this town would be so generous.”

  “I don't understand really,” said Fenestra. Pert wished she would keep quiet, but when Fenestra asked questions in that innocent tone of voice, and gazed at you with that wide-eyed look, there were few people who could have resisted. “Why do people disapprove of you? Is it because you're fat?”

  Primrose gave a great shout of laughter, and her chins wobbled, as did several other parts. “Why, you little madame! I thinks you knows exactly why, so don't you play the innocent with me!”

  Fenestra looked only slightly abashed. Her innocent look was fireproof.

  “People say I'm a naughty woman, my dear, because I got a child and no husband, and I has gentlemen visitors occasionally. Well, most nights, really. And I like a drink and I like a dance and I like a laugh, and what's wrong with that?”

  “And would you mind if we washed Billy, because he does smell rather a lot?”

  Another shout of laughter. “Cor, you are a caution and no mistake! If you can get him to wash you'll be a better woman than I am, my love. Billy does what Billy wants, and I've never managed to get the hang of him at all. When he's home I feeds him, if I've got anything in the house, but otherwise he's his own boy, is Billy!”

  At that the door opened and his own boy came in, not breathing hard at all. He slid down the door and sat at ease on the floor, grinning.

  “That was easy!” he said. “I led 'em right out to the edge of town, right up near Throssell's farm, an' then I doubled back. It'll take 'em an hour to get back, rate they go, great fat slow things they are, and they'm knackered already, an' arguin' whose fault it was. Batty Bunt already got a clout round the 'ead from 'is dad, and I reckon they'll all be fightin' before long!”

  “That's my good boy,” said Primrose fondly. “I likes your friends, Billy, especially this one. Right little charmer, she is. Mind you,” looking at Pert, “you're going to be a handsome lad before long, and all the girls will set their caps at you!”

  “They'll be wasting their time, then,” said Fenestra, “because he's spoken for!”

  Pert felt himself blushing. “Oh yes, I heard. Poor lass,” said Primrose. “Trouble is, once Grubb gets involved, anything can happen and it's always nasty.”

  “I don't understand how Grubb's involved as it is,”
said Pert. “What's it got to do with her, me and Rosella?”

  “Well, my guess is that she's got something on the girl's father. That's the way she usually works. She finds out something, or gets 'em involved with something shameful, and then she's got them in her power, like. See, people like me and your mum, we're not in so much danger from her, because we ain't got any secrets. I'm a naughty woman, true enough, but everyone knows it and there's no secret to be covered up. And your mother's an honest woman, I judge, and the same applies.

  “Mistress Grubb knows secrets, see. She knows lots of secrets, does Mistress Grubb. How she finds out, nobody knows, but find out she do. She knew when I took Alice Trivett's dinner-money from her pocket at school. She knew when Gadarene Tyler pulled little Victoria Sponge into the bushes and made her do things, not that she minded much. She knew it was Amos Rossage what burned the dockyard paint shop down, though she never said nothing.

  “She's always found out which careless youth fathered which poor little bastard. She knows who cheats, or steals, or beats the servants, or blacks his wife’s eyes and breaks her teeth in a drunken rage. She knew when Thomas Millidge hid his own father’s will so he could keep the lot – she probably done the same herself. For years, Ovary Makepeace used his advancing years and the promise of a legacy to rule his grown children in misery, and they at each other's throats all the while, and she knew about that. It was probably her idea.”

  She took a sip off her tea, and sat forward to fix them with her eyes. “She knows who can’t resist one more drink, which is half the men in this town. She knows who takes their comfort with Primrose once in a while, which is the other half. She knows who lusts after the neighbour’s daughters – like Reverend Tench lusts after your Rosella, young sir ...” Pert felt his eyebrows go up and Fenestra sat up very straight and put her fingers down her throat as though she was being sick, “and she knows who's scared to stand up for what they know to be right, which is the whole damn lot of 'em. Oh, she knows, all right. She knows ...”

  There was a silence. Then Primrose gathered herself together. “Now then, I think it's probably safe for you to take these babes home to their mum, Billy. And I've got an appointment down at the Drop o' Dew, so I'll take my leave. And by the way, young lady, I ain't fat. I'm comfortably upholstered. Men like that, some of them. You skinny little waif, you wouldn't understand it, but you will one day.”

  Fenestra had the grace to look just a little embarrassed. She grinned sheepishly, and Billy took them to the door.

  That evening Pert went up to bed early, and while Fenestra sat on one side of the chimney breast and told the mouse a rather long story about a princess who was being chased by some bad men and had to be rescued by a handsome prince, he sat on his mattress on the other side with a candle and opened the parish accounts. As he'd expected, they were difficult to decipher, but after a while he began to get the hang of it.

  On each page there were two columns, one labelled “Income” and one labelled “Expend’re”. Down the left hand side were various headings, like “Fabric” and “Emoluments” and “Misc. Disbursements”, and against each heading there were entries of money in one or other column or sometimes both.

  EXPEND'RE

  Fabric

  ye chauncel window - £1/6s/9d

  V .Throstle, carpenter for repares to ye pews - 17s/2d

  Total expend're - £2/3s/11d

  Emoluments

  J.Tench, viccar - £4/11s/0d

  P.Scutterbuck, curat - £2/4s/3d

  S.Tench, altar boy - 12s/6d

  Mistress Tizzard, organ - £1/0s/7d

  Ezekiah Mould, sexton - £1/15s/8d

  Total expend're £10/4s/0d

  Pert stopped reading. S.Tench had been the altar boy, and had been paid 12s.6d. for it? Pert had never been paid a penny. He couldn't really remember why he had become an altar boy. The suggestion had come from the Vicar who had spoken to his mother, and it had never occurred to him to refuse, that was all.

  He read on ...

  Misc.disbursements

  Mrs.Throstle, ye flowrs - 6s/4d

  R.Meakins, chandler, for candels - 11s/10d

  R.Meakins, chandler, for coals - £1/1s/7d

  ye Destitute - £5/0s/0d

  Total expend're £6/19s/9d

  ye Collections

  Sunday 7th Aprille £1/9s/4d -

  Sunday 14th Aprille £2/1s/1d -

  Sunday 21st Aprille £1/12s/9d -

  Sunday 28th Aprille £2/7s/11d -

  Total income £7/11s/1d

  ye Bequests & ye Foundationnes

  Comfrey £5/0s/0d -

  Osakiah Wheable, gent. £15/10s/0d -

  Rossage £1/0s/0d -

  Millidge £2/10s/6d -

  a seaman 2s/5d -

  Total income £24/2s/11d

  At the bottom of the page the expenditure for the month had been subtracted from the income, and the Parish Fund was richer by £12/6s/4d, a handsome sum, he thought. At the foot of the page was the signature of the people who had drawn up the accounts, Tortice & Wetlow, solicitors. But what of ye Poor Box and ye Funde for ye Relieve of Destitution? He found these on a separate sheet. They were very simple ...

  ye Poore Boxe given 13s/8d distributed 13s/8d

  ye Funde for ye Relieve of Destitution

  Town levy on ye houses, collected £11/13s/3d -

  from ye Parish Fund, collected £5/0s/0d -

  Given to ye needy £16.13s,3d

  Total income £0.0s.0d.

  So the money people dropped in the Poor Box at the back of the church was just given to poor people straight away. Pert wondered who did the giving, and how they decided who needed it. But at least it was a simple system.

  The Funde for ye Relieve of Destitution was more complicated. Mr.Surplice had been right about the levy or tax on the houses of the town. Money was collected from every householder, the Parish Funde added a little to it, and the money was distributed to ye needy, though how and by who was not clear.

  Pert checked the date at the top of the sheet. These were the Parish Accounts for the meeting in May 1879. What about the accounts a little nearer the present? 1880 was little different, nor was 1881 or 1882. But 1883 was written in a different hand, and looking down the page Pert found one or two new entries, for instance ...

  to Reserve Account £10/0s/0d

  ... and ...

  Diocesan Levy £8/10s/0d.

  Right at the foot of the page were the words ...

  Reconciliation £6/2s/11d.

  ... and conveniently this was the exact figure that was left after all the Income and Expenditure were added and taken off. Pert looked at the next month, and the one after that. Similar entries, and the Reconciliation at the bottom again wiped out any remaining balance. Perhaps this was just a word that meant “what's left”?

  Then Pert's eye fell on the signature. It was no longer “Tortice & Wetlow, solicitors”. It now read “Patroclus Prettyfoot”.

  Pert took out the Parish Minutes and hunted through until he found 1882. Ah, here it was – the first appearance of the name U.Grubb as a council member. So the year after she took office, the solicitors were no longer keeping the accounts and Patroclus Prettyfoot was. Pert felt this was important. It was a clue. He had no idea what it meant, but it was definitely a clue to something.