They headed on foot to Savile Row. The side streets were more busy with pedestrians than usual because of the tangle that they had thankfully left behind them. They arrived, wet and warm – which can sometimes, as in this case, be worse than wet and cold because it includes sticky and horsy – at the shining, polished door of Davies & Son, at 38 Savile Row, leaving Onan at a lamppost and on this occasion with a bone brought along for the purpose, in the company of which he was oblivious to the world.
Once inside, Dodger tried not to be awed at the world of schmutter. After all, he knew there were swells that had much finer clothes than he ever wore, but seeing such a lot of it in one place would have been overwhelming if he let it be so. As it was, he tried to look like somebody who barely glances at this sort of thing because he sees it every day – although aware that the cleaned-up but still quite fragrant shonky suit might be a clue that this was not entirely the case. But after all, a tailor is a tailor and all the rest of it is just shine.
Eventually, they were handed into the care of Izzy, small and skinny but nevertheless possessed of some inner nervous energy that would in other circumstances have turned a mill. He appeared like an arrow between Dodger and Solomon and the front-of-house man who opened the door for them, talking all the time so fast that the best you could do was understand that Izzy would take care of everything, had anything, and everything was in hand and if everybody left it to Izzy, everything would not just be all right but also extremely acceptable in every possible way, and at a price that would amaze and yet satisfy all parties – if, and this was important, Izzy was allowed to get on with the job, thank you all so very much. He fussed Solomon and Dodger into one of the fitting rooms, never at any time ceasing to worry, fret and apologize to nobody in particular about nothing very much.
A long cloth tape measure was whisked around his shoulders and Dodger was pushed gently but firmly to the centre of the room, where Izzy looked at him with the expression of a butcher faced with a particularly difficult steer, walking around him, measuring by the pounce-and-run-away method. And in all this time the only words he said to Dodger were variations on the theme of ‘If you would just turn this way, sir?’; and sir this, and sir that, until Dodger was seriously in need of refreshment. It didn’t help matters either when the spinning, dashing Izzy, apparently now with no alternative left to him, finally stopped with his mouth in the vicinity of Dodger’s left ear, and in the tones of a man enquiring after the whereabouts of the Holy Grail, whispered, ‘How does one dress, sir?’
This request was something of a problem for Dodger, who had never really given a thought to the aspect of putting his clothes on; after all, it was just something you did. But the little tailor was standing by him as if he expected to learn the location of hidden treasure, and therefore he made an effort, and said, ‘Well, normally I’d put on yesterday’s unmentionables if they ain’t too bad, and then I pulls on my stockings . . . No! I tell a lie; most days I put on my vest and then I put on my socks.’ It was at this point that Solomon crossed the room at the normal speed of a god intending that the ungodly should be smitten, only to whisper something in Dodger’s ear, causing the latter to say, with some indignation, ‘How the hell should I know? I never bothered to look! Things find their own way, don’t they? What kind of question is that to ask a man, anyway?’
Solomon laughed out loud, and then went into a huddle with an ever-vibrating Izzy, who seemed never to be actually still. Solomon and Izzy were chattering to one another in a language that went all over Europe and the Middle East until at last, laughing, Solomon said, ‘The luck of the Dodger is holding; Izzy says he can do us a wonderful deal! It appears that another tailor was told to work on a frock coat and a very elegant navy-blue shirt, but regrettably one of Izzy’s associates made a laughable mistake during the measuring, which meant that they would no longer fit the fine gentleman they were intended for, and so my friend Izzy,’ he continued, staring fixedly at Izzy, ‘has a little proposition for you, my friend.’
Izzy looked hesitantly at Solomon, and like a man throwing a bone to a lion about to eat him, turned to Dodger and said hurriedly, ‘I could do you an excellent deal, young sir, on both those garments; they are happily only a stitch away from your requirements at a very spirited discount of . . . fifty per cent?’
Oh, that little tell-tale question in the statement which told the world that Izzy was just slightly uncertain, and even more worryingly for Izzy, he was uncertain in the face of Solomon’s deadpan face.
The bargaining had only just begun, and rather wisely, Izzy, with an eye on Solomon, dived to, ‘I beg your pardon – seventy-five, sorry, no, eighty per cent. I will throw in two pairs of very elegant unmentionables as well?’
Solomon smiled, and Izzy looked like a man who had not only been pardoned on the very steps of the gallows, but had also been given a purse full of sovereigns to atone for the misunderstanding. And twenty minutes later a grateful Izzy sent Solomon and the Hero of Fleet Street on their way, with Dodger clutching his new schmutter, Solomon carrying the bag containing the unmentionables, and Izzy now in possession of some of the hero’s reward. There was also, courtesy of the management, Solomon’s umbrella, which had been dried and brushed; and there was a growler waiting for them in the street.
Well, not exactly; it was coming along the street right up until Solomon stood in front of it waving his finger of God in the air, and the horse began to slow even before the coachman had time to pull on the reins, because horses know trouble when they see it. Dodger was quite careful to put Onan and his bone in the cab before the man had a chance to object; Onan tended to leave a certain Onan-ness wherever he went.
Once inside, Solomon made himself comfortable and said to the man, ‘Lock and Co. of St James’s please, my man.’ He turned to a startled Dodger and said, ‘They will almost definitely have a hat there for you, my lad. Everyone who is anyone, or at least thought by everyone to be anyone, gets their hats there.’
‘I’ve got a hat from Jacob!’
‘That shonky thing? It looks like somebody used it as a concertina and handed it to a clown. You need a hat for a gentleman.’
‘But I am not a gentleman,’ Dodger railed.
‘You will be much closer to being one with an elegant hat for special occasions.’
And Dodger had to admit that the shonky hat, no doubt about it, was shonky. Generally, hats were not your friend when you were a tosher; they got knocked off your head far too easily. He often wore a thick leather cap, just good enough to save you from cracking your skull if you stood up too quickly in a small sewer, and easy to keep clean.
Everybody wore a hat of some kind, but the hats in the shop they stepped into now were extraordinary, and some were extremely high. And so, of course, Dodger pointed to the biggest one, which looked like a stovepipe and called to him with a siren voice which only he could hear. ‘I rather think that one will do me a treat.’
When he looked at his reflection in the mirror, he thought, oh yes, a really sharp look, sharp as a razor. He would be no end of a swell, where recently he had been no end of a smell – because no matter how hard you scrubbed, the curse of the tosher would always leave its own cheerful mark on you.
Oh yes, this would do him! How amazed Simplicity would be when she saw him in such a splendid hat! However, it didn’t do for Solomon, who considered the price of £1 and 18 shillings to be grossly extravagant. Dodger was firm. True, it was a lot of money for something that he really didn’t need, but it was the principle of the thing. He didn’t know exactly what the principle was, but it was a principle and it had a thing, and that was that. Besides, he pointed out that only the other day Solomon had said while he was working on one of his little machines that ‘this thing needs oiling’ and, he continued relentlessly, only the day before that the old man had said that his little lathe had ‘wanted’ oil.
‘Therefore,’ said Dodger, ‘surely want is the same as need, yes?’
Solomon counted out th
e coins very slowly and in silence, and then said, ‘Are you certain you weren’t born Jewish?’
‘No,’ said Dodger. ‘I’ve looked. I’m not, but thanks for the compliment.’
The last call before they went home was to a barber – a perfectly reasonable and careful barber who didn’t include extras like having your throat cut. However, the poor fellow was unmanned when Solomon said, just as the barber was shaving Dodger, ‘It might impress you, sir, if I told you that the gentleman you are now shaving was the hero who put paid to the activities of the nefarious Mister Sweeney Todd.’
This intervention caused the man to panic – only a fraction, but nevertheless not a thing to do when you have just put a very sharp cut-throat razor to a man’s throat, and it nearly caused another hey-ho-rumbelow in the vicinity of Dodger’s neck. The nick was not big, but the amount of blood was out of all proportion to the size, and so there was a great performance with towels, and alum for the cut. It would certainly leave a scar, which was something of a bonus as far as Dodger was concerned; the Hero of Fleet Street ought to sport something on his face to show for it.
Then, once his face was tidy and, of course, Solomon had negotiated in a friendly but firm way six months of free haircuts, they caught another growler home and there was just about enough time to get washed, dressed and generally smartened up.
It was while Dodger was sponging himself down, including the crevices because, after all, this was a special occasion, he found part of himself thinking: What would I have to do to let someone die and then come alive again? Apart from being God, that is.
Then, for some reason, the dodger at the back of his head remembered the Crown and Anchor men with their dice, and the man with the pea that you never, ever found. Then tumbling on top of that there was the voice of Charlie, saying that the truth is a fog and in it people see what they want to see, and it seemed to him that around these little pictures a plot was plotting. He trod carefully so as not to disturb it, but wheels in his head were clearly turning and he had to wait until something went click.
The new clothes still fitted him exactly as promised and Dodger wished that he had something more than a tiny piece of broken mirror in which to see himself in his finery. Then he pushed aside the curtain to ask Solomon’s opinion and was confronted by Solomon arrayed in all his glory.
A man who usually wandered around in embroidered slippers or old boots, and wore a ragged black gabardine, had suddenly become an old-fashioned but very smart gentleman with a fine black woollen barathea jacket, dark-blue pantaloon trousers and long, dark-blue woollen stockings with ancient but well-kept court shoes sporting silver buckles that shone. But what amazed Dodger most of all was the large dark-blue-and-gold medallion around Solomon’s neck. He knew what the symbols were on the medallion, but Dodger had never associated them with the old man: they were the seal and the eye in the pyramid of the Freemasons. Finally, since Solomon had washed his beard and primped it, the whole effect appeared to have an amazing power.
And Dodger said so, which caused Solomon to smile and say, ‘Mmm, one day, my boy, I will tell you the name of the august personage who was gracious enough to give this to me. And may I say, Dodger, as always you scrub up very well; one might almost take you for a real gentleman.’
It only remained to very cautiously give Onan his dinner and equally cautiously take him for a little walk outside to do what he needed to. They left him in dog Heaven with another bone; and then there was nothing for it but to find another growler, just as the evening fog was rising, and head back west to number one Stratton Street, Mayfair.
CHAPTER 12
In which Dodger mixes with the gentry, Disraeli accepts a challenge and Dodger proves to be a quick learner
DODGER STARED OUT of the cab as they rattled westwards with the words ‘I’m going to see Simplicity again’ etching themselves on his heart, or so it felt, and suddenly he thought of Simplicity being dead. Dead, and therefore no trouble to anybody – no reason for wars, no reason for people to prowl the streets with malice aforethought.
There had to be a way! Right now, she was a girl that no one wanted; that was to say, no one other than him. As the fog delivered the stink of the Thames to his nostrils, a click in his brain signalled a successful conclusion, and all that remained was the fine details. There were a few things he couldn’t quite see, but with the Lady on his side, he thought they would drop into his hand.
‘A remarkable woman, is Miss Burdett-Coutts,’ Solomon was saying. ‘She is an heiress, and also a major philanthropist, which is somebody who gives their money away to the poor and needy – which I must make clear to you, young man, doesn’t mean you, you being neither poor nor needy, just occasionally knee-deep in sewage.’
Solomon seemed very taken with his little joke, and it would have been like kicking Onan to do anything other than applaud, and so Dodger pulled his mind away from Simplicity and said, ‘That was a good one! Why on earth does she want to give so much money away?’
They were passing through Leicester Square and Solomon said, ‘Because she feels that she should. She pays for the ragged schools, which give some children at least an elementary education and funds mmm scholarships and bursaries, which I must tell you means giving brighter pupils the chance to go to university for an even better education. That’s all they know about her down at the synagogue, apart from the fact that she keeps bees, and you need to be a very mmm sensible person to keep bees – someone who thinks about things, plans ahead and thinks about the future. A very thorough lady, in fact, who I assume does not wish to die rich. Which I’ve always considered to be mmm an admirable ambition. A very singular lady and a power in her own right.’
He paused. ‘I wonder who else there is likely to be at this little soirée since she knows so many important people. In a sense, I rather suspect you might see tonight some more of the mmm powerhouse of politics. Of course, the lords and elected members debate the issues of the day in Parliament itself, but I strongly suspect that here in London the actual outcomes have a lot to do with the things that people say to other people over a drink. The process of ratifying what they have decided amongst themselves may be a variant of mmm what is known as proportional representation, but on the whole it all seems to work, if somewhat mmm erratically.’
He warmed to his subject. ‘What I really like about the English is that they don’t have theories. No Englishman would ever have said, “I think, therefore I am.” Although possibly he might have said, “I think, therefore I am, I think.” The world can have too much order, alas. Ah, here we are at last. Mind your manners and remember what I told you about how to eat with so much cutlery1 – which, I have to reiterate, I would rather you did not attempt to steal. I know you to be a well-intentioned young man, but occasionally you get a little mmm absent-minded around small light objects; please refrain from the habit of a lifetime, just for tonight, please?’
‘I’m not a thief!’ said Dodger. ‘I can’t help it if things are left lying around.’ Then he nudged Solomon’s arm and said, ‘Just kidding. I will be on my best behaviour and a credit to my wonderful unmentionables – I’ve never had a garment that fitted so well in the groin. If I’d known what it feels like to be among the gentry I would have applied for a ticket a long time ago!’
The driver stopped just short of their destination; private coaches and growlers were politely jostling to disgorge their passengers without their drivers having to swear at one another more than usual. They got out and walked up the steps of the very pleasant building Dodger had hardly noticed the night before. Solomon raised his hand to knock on the door and magically the door opened before he had touched it, to reveal Geoffrey the butler.
The important thing to do, Dodger thought, was to keep close to Solomon, who seemed to be entirely in his element. The guests were still coming in, and most of them knew one another, and they certainly knew where the drinks were, and therefore Dodger and Solomon were ignored right up until Charlie and Mister Disraeli
returned together from wherever it was they had huddled to exchange current information.
Disraeli made a beeline for Solomon and said, ‘How nice it is to see you here!’ They shook hands, but Dodger read from their faces that here were two people who distrusted each other quite a lot. Then Disraeli, with a glint in his eye, turned to Dodger and said, ‘Oh, wonderful, the young tosher transmuted into a gentleman! Excellent!’
This slightly annoyed Dodger, though he couldn’t exactly figure out why, but he said, ‘Yes, sir, indeed, tonight I am a gentleman and tomorrow I might turn out to be a tosher again!’ As the words dropped into Dodger’s ears, his brain clicked again, telling him: This is the opportunity, don’t mess it up! And so, grinning, he added, ‘I can be a gentleman, and I can be a tosher; can you be a tosher, Mister Disraeli?’
For a moment, and probably entirely unnoticed by anyone else in the throng apart from the four of them, there was a moment when the world froze, and then thawed instantly the moment Mister Disraeli had decided what to do, which was to smile like the morning sun with a knife in its teeth. He said, ‘My dear boy, do you think I would make a tosher? Hardly a profession I had reason to contemplate, I must say!’
He had to pause because Charlie had slapped him on the back, saying, ‘It’s just scrambling in the mud to find the hidden treasure, my friend, and I might suggest it is remarkably like politics! If I was you I would take the opportunity to learn something very valuable about the world. I always do!’
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