The Urchin's Song

by Rita Bradshaw

  And she’d looked the same. Hubert rolled over on to his stomach, watching a large black ant as it struggled through the grass with some prize or other held above its head. Aye, she had. Older and more beautiful maybe, she was a woman now and there was no mistaking that, but the old Josie had been shining out of her eyes when she’d realised it was him. She’d been right pleased to see him. A small smile touched the corner of his mouth. And he’d known then, even before he’d asked her, that she was incapable of doing what Patrick had said. Now if Patrick had lied about Josie, it was fair guns he’d done the same about their mam selling them down the river. Which meant . . . The ant reached the tiny opening to its nest and disappeared underground, and Hubert sat up suddenly, taking off his cap and raking back his floppy brown hair before replacing the cap on his head. It meant Patrick could well be lying when he said their da had skedaddled on a ship. Josie seemed sure about it anyway.

  He continued sitting until the twilight turned the blue sky pearly grey and he knew he couldn’t delay his return any more. He rose slowly to his feet and began walking reluctantly along the coastal path which led to Marstack and then Salterfen Rocks, and the ragged outskirts of Bishopwearmouth.

  He would have to tackle Jimmy about all this one day, about their da and Patrick and his sisters. The thought made him bite his bottom lip. One day - but not yet. He didn’t consciously think, I’ll have to wait until I’m a bit older and bigger, until I can make a plan of escape and get out if I have to, but merely reiterated in his mind, as the sky turned to rivers of brilliant pink and mauve and scarlet, Aye, I’ll wait a bit, that’s what I’ll do, but one day, one day I’ll put it to Jimmy and to hell with the consequences - and Patrick Duffy.

  The two individuals who had been featuring so highly in Hubert’s troubled thoughts were at that moment making their way across the strip of town moor at the back of the orphan asylum and the Trafalgar Square almshouses. They were heading towards Prospect Row and Jimmy was saying, ‘He’s a good lad, Pat, you know that, but when all’s said an’ done he’s only twelve.’

  ‘He’s thirteen in a couple of weeks, besides which you were collectin’ at his age an’ makin’ a good job of it an’ all.’

  ‘Aye, I know, but we’re all different, man.’

  Patrick eyed the big strapping youth at the side of him who looked far older than his fifteen years. ‘I let him get away with murder ’cos I know you think a bit of him, you know that, don’t you?’ he said, his voice terse. ‘But it don’t look good, Jimmy, not to the rest of ’em.’

  ‘The rest of ’em don’t blow their noses unless they ask permission of you, and you know that. Besides, if any of ’em have got anythin’ to say they can say it to me an’ I’ll soon put ’em straight.’

  Patrick again glanced at Bart’s son, and his thin mouth twisted in a smile showing black rotting teeth. Aye, he would an’ all. He was nimble on his feet, was Jimmy, and handy with a knife, and he didn’t fight by the Queensberry rules, neither. Even a couple of years ago, before Jimmy had put on that spurt of growth and filled out, he’d seen him take down a man double his size. He could be a nasty bit of work and people knew it and were afeared of him. His da had been big but Bart had been all wind and water; Jimmy wasn’t like that. The thought carried an element of pride, as though Patrick had had something to do with the lad’s character - which, indeed, he considered he had.

  When Patrick had taken Jimmy and Hubert under his wing he’d had several reasons for doing so. There had been an element of revenge; he’d liked the idea of securing what had been Bart’s after the time, money and pain the other man had cost him, but also he had recognised that Bart’s lads were good little pickpockets and with the right training could become accomplished thieves. He’d also gained some satisfaction from breaking up the Burns family further, especially when he knew having the lads working for him would net him a profit, and the story he’d told had gained credence by the law and others assuming Bart had seconded his boys and the three of them had skedaddled. But overall, and linking all the other reasons together, was the fact that he had always had a soft spot for Jimmy. He’d seen himself in the lad and he had liked that, and Jimmy had proved to be everything he had hoped for. Unlike the other one.

  As they moved into Prospect Row and then, taking short cuts, made their way through the streets and narrow side lanes towards North Moor Street they walked in silence, but just before they reached the slipway near the offices and the Commissioners’ Stairs at the far end of the quays, Patrick said, ‘You’ll have to talk to him, Jimmy. He’s takin’ advantage of me good nature.’

  ‘Good nature?’ Jimmy grinned at the small man alongside of him, his voice holding a warm teasing note which spoke of ease and friendship. ‘Good nature, is it? Where you bin hidin’ it all these years then?’

  Patrick grinned back. ‘Less of your lip, son.’

  They had turned down the narrow path off North Moor Street which led directly to the slipway now, and as a shadow emerged from the side of the offices the smiles slid off both faces and two pairs of eyes narrowed into cold calculating slits.

  ‘Ready an’ waitin’, eh, Percy?’ Patrick said flatly. ‘I like that.’

  ‘Whey aye, man. You know me.’

  The man who had spoken resembled nothing so much as a small gorilla. His pug face and thick, dark, spiky hair were definitely ape-like, but it was his heavily barrelled chest, long arms, short thick legs and perpetually hunched shoulders that encouraged the feeling one should offer a banana. He didn’t seem to have wrists or ankles; the arms grew straight out of his hands and his legs straight out of his feet, and he had no waist at all.

  ‘Sure I know you, Percy,’ answered Patrick, his voice low and without expression. ‘An’ you know me. Bairns we were together, me an’ Percy’ - this last was said as an aside to Jimmy but without Patrick’s head moving, his eyes intent on the bulky figure in front of them - ‘an’ our mams were right good pals, isn’t that so, Percy? Like family they were, Percy’s mam an’ mine.’

  Jimmy said nothing, and after a few seconds had crawled by, Percy, his voice less cheerful now, said, ‘What did you want to see me about then? Harry didn’t say.’

  ‘No, well he wouldn’t, would he, seein’ as how I told him not to.’

  Percy’s gaze flicked to Jimmy’s blank countenance and then back to the small Irishman, and now the nostrils in his flattened nose flared briefly, before he said, ‘Is owt wrong?’

  ‘Is owt wrong?’ Patrick echoed the words, savouring them before he nudged Jimmy and said again, ‘Is owt wrong? What say you, son?’

  ‘I’d say somethin’ was wrong, Pat.’

  Percy’s lower jaw moved from one side to the other. ‘Patrick, for cryin’ out loud, man, what’s the matter?’

  Patrick’s eyes became fixed on the man in front of him and whatever Percy read in the little Irishman’s expression caused him to bluster, ‘Man, what’s wrong? Tell me, Patrick. You know me--’

  ‘You’ve already said that.’ It was sharp and tight and silenced the other man. ‘You’ve got a big mouth, Percy. Anyone ever told you that afore? An’ strange as it may seem, I don’t like me private business bein’ spread over half of Sunderland. That little arrangement we had concerning the items that tend to fall off the boats from Sweden? I thought it was atween the two of us!’

  ‘It is, I swear it is.’

  ‘Then how come you were heard blabbin’ the odds in the Queen’s Head in Long Row a couple of nights back? An’ afore you deny it, I’ve checked. You’ve bin workin’ on that dockside for nigh on thirty years; you’re trusted, the bosses like you, so how come all that goes out of the window an’ you play the big feller, eh? Who were you tryin’ to impress? A few bit bar proppers!’

  ‘Patrick . . .’ Percy gulped deep in his throat, shaking his head and then gulping hard again before he said, ‘I . . . I’d had a few jars, man. I wasn’t meself. Look, no one cottoned on. It hasn’t got back to anyone who matters.’

&nbs
p; ‘It got back to me, Percy.’

  ‘Patrick. Please, Patrick . . . Look, I swear it won’t happen agen, man. I’d had a row with the missus; I was drownin’ me sorrows, you know how it is. I’d never . . . Please, man.’

  ‘Aye, aye, all right.’ Patrick held up his hands, palms facing the terrified man in front of him, and now his voice was understanding, warm even, as he said, ‘That’s all I wanted to hear, Percy. That it won’t happen agen.’

  ‘I swear it. On me bairns’ heads, I swear it.’ Percy was gabbling now, relief bringing the sweat shining on his forehead. ‘I mean, we was bairns together, weren’t we. An’ like you said, your mam an’ mine were as thick as thieves.’

  ‘That they were. Well, you’d best get yerself home an’ the less said the better, eh?’

  ‘Aye, aye, man, an’ thanks, thanks Patrick. There’s . . . there’s a boat due in the morrow as you know. Same arrangement as afore then, is it?’

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  Patrick turned as he spoke, Jimmy with him, and as he said over his shoulder, ‘Missus all right, Percy?’ the other man came up behind them, intending to follow them out of the small patch of ground beside the slipway. It was then Patrick and Jimmy turned as one, the knives in their hands flashing for one chilling moment before they were buried up to the hilt in Percy’s chest.

  Percy made a vain grab at Patrick as he went down on to his knees but he was already gasping his last, and within seconds he was stretched out on the cold cobbles and the silence of the night enclosed them again. Patrick stared down at the body for a second, kicking it with his hobnail boot. There was no response. ‘Aye, well now you’ve convinced me it won’t happen again, Percy,’ he said conversationally as though the other man could still hear him.

  ‘Are we leavin’ him here?’

  Patrick glanced about him for a moment. ‘We’ll send him down the slipway into the water. He’ll be found soon enough an’ it’ll send a warnin’ to any of the others with slack mouths.’

  ‘Aye.’ Jimmy nodded. He fully agreed that Patrick had needed to make an example of Percy. One mistake was one too many in this game, and you couldn’t afford to be soft. Any sign of weakness and they’d all be taking liberties. Everyone knew Percy had stepped out of line and they’d all been watching to see what Patrick would do, especially since Percy and the little Irishman did go back a long way.

  Patrick bent down, wiping the blade of his knife on Percy’s moleskin trousers before slipping it back in his inside jacket pocket, and Jimmy followed suit. They disposed of the body with equal equanimity, and it was as they stepped into North Moor Street that Patrick said, as though they had been discussing the matter seconds before, ‘Your sister’ll be back one day, son, sure as eggs are eggs, if not to play the halls then to see that old biddy in Northumberland Place she seems to think so much of. An’ when she comes we’ll be waitin’, you an’ I. She’s made a monkey of me three times; she won’t do it again. I owe her an’ you do an’ all, for your da an’ her rattin’ on you an’ the lad. She’d have seen you all go down the line if she’d had her way, the lyin’ little upstart.’

  Jimmy turned his head on his shoulder and looked sideways at Patrick as they walked on, and his voice was quiet but of a quality that pleased the other man when he said, ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt I’ll see me day with her, Pat. No doubt at all. She aimed to ruin the lot of us an’ all the time actin’ like Lady Muck. There’s enough of the lads primed now to let us know when she comes back an’ we’ve surprise on our side. But for that load of whores an’ dolts she had with her the last time she’d be pushin’ up the daisies by now.’

  ‘Or doin’ time in one of Doug’s secure whorehouses,’ Patrick put in slyly. ‘I tell you, man, they don’t last long in them places, not with the perverts Doug caters for, but the lassies’ lives are hell while they’re still breathin’. If we’re goin’ to do her in, that’d be poetic justice to my mind, considerin’ all them singers an’ actresses an’ the like are on the game in one way or another, ’cept they dress it up to appear different.’

  Jimmy stared at Patrick for a moment. Murder was one thing, but Doug’s locked and guarded brothels which catered - as Doug himself put it - for a special type of customer were something else. And then, as Patrick said, ‘Remember your da, son, an’ how she turned your own mother agin you an’ Hubert, an’ broke up the family,’ he nodded slowly. He’d think about what they were going to do with Josie once they had her but, by all the gods, get her they would. They’d heard this singing lark had taken her down south but like Patrick had said, she’d be back, and not just because of Vera neither. Josie was a northerner at heart; the north was in her blood, her bones, and eventually she’d return to her roots. To her ain folk. And when she did, this particular member of her ain folk would be waiting.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Ee, lass, you’re as white as a sheet. Put a bit more rouge on, for goodness’ sake.’

  Gertie’s voice was brisk and meant to be reassuring, but to Josie, sitting weak-kneed and trembling on her stool in the dressing room, it was further confirmation that she didn’t look the part.

  ‘She’s fine.’ Gertie received a dig in the ribs which made her gasp as the young woman sitting on the next stool to Josie’s physically objected to Gertie’s well-meant advice. ‘Any more rouge and she’ll glow like a beetroot once she’s onstage and enjoying herself. And you will enjoy yourself, lovey, believe me. All right?’

  ‘Thanks, Nellie.’ Josie smiled at the colourful figure who had auburn hair piled high on her head, the colour of which definitely came out of a bottle. The two girls had only met a couple of days previously when Josie had visited the large theatre in Ealing to familiarise herself with its layout and size, and to have a series of rehearsals before her début on the London stage. She hadn’t been too nervous then, and it had been lovely to meet Nellie and discover she was the daughter of an old music-hall friend of Lily’s. In fact, Nellie strongly reminded Josie of Lily; they had the same happy-go-lucky nature and outrageous sense of humour, and - unfortunately - the same penchant for falling for handsome rogues.

  However, Josie wasn’t thinking about Nellie’s torrid love-life at the moment; her mind was on her forthcoming appearance which was now only minutes away. Oliver had assured her that this theatre was nowhere near as grand as the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane or Covent Garden, both of which held four and a half thousand happy theatregoers at a sitting, but nevertheless its décor and size had proved to be overwhelming. In her mind’s eye she was picturing the magnificent salon reached from the street by a flight of fine curved stone steps, and the air of elegance, comfort and convenience it contained. On every side immense gorgeous plate-glass mirrors reflected surrounding objects and the massive crystal-drop chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. Against the walls on either side were comfortable stuffed seats of superior quality, in front of which were small marble-topped tables. From end to end, rows of similar tables were fixed at convenient distances from each other with as many chairs as would seat some one and a half thousand loungers.

  The mirrored wall at the back of the stage itself reflected the carved, gold-painted cupids and swans which decorated tall pillars at various intervals and again made the hall itself appear far larger than it actually was. Bars were situated through a section of open arches at the rear of the auditorium but divided by a promenade from the main salon. Altogether it was gracious and undoubtedly beautiful, and the thought of it at the moment was scaring Josie to death.

  ‘Look, lovey, them out there are just the same as the audiences in the north where you’ve worked,’ Nellie said now, adjusting her generous bust within her low-cut, lurid green satin frock as she spoke. ‘They just want to enjoy themselves, that’s all. I’ve had a peek, and we’ve got a load of the crutch and toothpick brigade in tonight, and you’ll go down just dandy with them with your hair and figure.’

  ‘The crutch an’ toothpick brigade?’ Gertie queried at the back of them.
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br />   ‘You know, the swells, the Beau Brummells, the smart man-about-town type,’ Nellie said, grinning. ‘Them with their eyeglasses and gold toothpicks and jewellery. You can always recognise them a mile off with their gold-knobbed crutch sticks and tight trousers and immaculate hair and dress, but they’re good customers and don’t heckle on the whole, unlike some. You know that song Nellie Farren sang about ’em? She took the mickey good and proper but they didn’t seem to mind, even the bit about how they got their trousers on and whether they hurt much!’

  There was general laughter from the other girls around them who were listening to Nellie too, and one of the old hands called out, her manner ribald, ‘And I bet you’ve helped take a few pairs down in your time, eh, Nellie?’

  Nellie wasn’t in the least offended; she loved being the centre of attention, and now she returned with a lascivious wink, ‘Would I ever do that, Violet? I’m a good girl, I am, not like the majority these days. All they think about is where to buy their next frock and who to take it off for.’

  ‘How many new frocks have you had recently then, Nellie?’ another wit called.

  ‘One or two, Dot. One or two.’

  Josie was still smiling when the little stagehand, who couldn’t have been a day over eleven years old and who blithely ignored scantily dressed females like a veteran, popped his blond head round the corner of the dressing room, calling, ‘Miss Josie Burns? You’re on in three minutes. And Nellie Wood, you’re after her.’