Limehouse Nights

by Thomas Burke

  Yes, Ding-Dong had shown that he was a real man all right; one who could throw himself about with the best. Morally, he swaggered. He thought of the maidens he had loved: poor stuff. He thought of his pals who either were married or did not love at all: poor stuff entirely. It was himself and those like him who were the men. Masculinity, virility only arrived with intrigue.

  Myra learned to love him furiously, idiotically. She would have died for him. She knew by the very beat of her pulses when he stood a little away from her that this was her man; this and no other. Come what might of dismay and disaster, this was the man ordained for her. And he … did he love her? I wonder. In his own naïve, cleanly simple way he centred his existence on her, but it was rather because she was to him Adventure; fire and salt and all swiftly flavoured things.

  Tom the Tinker told her none of his secrets or business affairs. He had the cheapest opinion of women, except for hygienic purposes, and did not believe in letting them know anything about business affairs when they stood in the relationship of The Wife. But from Ding-Dong, in whom Tom did confide, Myra learnt all she wanted to know. It was from him that she had learnt of the Bethnal Green jewellery rampage, which was to come off that night; and if, as has been said, Tom had been able to give his mind to more than one thing at a time, he would have noted the evident disturbance which now held her, and have speculated upon its cause. Its cause happened to be an inspiration which had come to her the moment Ding-Dong, resting in her plaintive arms under the cool order of her autumn-tinted hair, had let drop the plans for that night.

  Since the appearance of Ding-Dong in her musty life she had come to hate Tom. She hated him because he had drawn her into the bonds of matrimony, and then had shown her that he regarded her as only a physical necessity. She hated him for his mistrust of her, for his reticence and for the sorry figure he cut against the vibrant Ding-Dong. She was ripe to do him an injury, but, by his silence about his affairs, he gave her no chance. And now Ding-Dong had, all innocently, placed in her hands the weapon by which she could strike him and force him to suffer something of what she had suffered as a matrimonial prisoner. He should have a taste of the same stuff. She knew that once he was nabbed a good stretch was awaiting him—five years at least—since he had long been wanted by the local police. She might, of course, have surrendered him at any time, but that would have meant an appearance in the witness box, and she did not wish to play the rôle of the treacherous wife; much better to let the blow descend from out of the void.

  Half-past twelve was the time fixed for the meeting between Ding-Dong and Tom, and it was now ten o’clock. Tom still sprawled by the fire, staring cataleptically at the carpet, and presently Myra languidly stretched herself and got up.

  “Got no beer in the house,” she said, addressing the kitchen at large. “I’ll just pop round to Lizzie’s and borrow a couple of bottles.”

  She swung out of the kitchen, sped swiftly upstairs, found a hat and cloak, and slipped from the house. But she did not go towards Lizzie’s. She went into East India Dock

  Road and across to a narrow courtyard. Leaning against a post at its entrance was a youth of about eighteen, a frayed Woodbine drooping from his lips.

  “That you, Monico?” she asked, peering through the gloom.

  “You’ve clicked.”

  “D’you know where Wiggy is? Go’n find ’im for me.”

  The youth departed, and presently a greasy figure shuffled out of the courtyard; a figure known and hated and feared in that district; Wiggy, the copper’s nark. He looked up at the woman, who had drawn a purple veil across her face. “Wodyeh want?”

  She told him. For three minutes she held him in talk. Then she disappeared as swiftly as she had come, disappeared in the direction of Pennyfields. At the corner of Pennyfields is a fried-fish bar. She entered.

  “D’you know a boy called Ding-Dong—comes in here every night? Big, fair-haired.”

  “Yerss, I know ’im.”

  “Has he been in yet?”

  “’Nit. I’m expectin’ ’im, though. ’As supper ’ere every night ’bout this time.”

  “That’s right. Well, when he comes, will you tell him—and say it’s most particular—that they’ve changed the time. It was to be half-past twelve, but they’ve changed it to one o’clock. Just tell ’im that, will you? He’ll understand. One o’clock ’stead of half-past twelve. See?”

  “Right-o. I’ll see ’e gets it.”

  “Thanks.” And homeward she went, calling on the way for the two bottles of beer which had been the ostensible purpose of her errand.

  Tom still sat where she had left him, and refused any supper. He was going out, he said, and would have supper with some friends. She needn’t sit up for him. So she took the two bottles up to her bedroom and sat in a hammock chair, drinking stout, which she found very comforting, and waiting anxiously for the hour when Tom would depart.

  At five minutes to twelve she heard the door slam, and she knew that revenge was very near. Punishment would now swiftly fall upon the hated Tom the Tinker, and freedom would be hers and the joy of Ding-Dong’s continual presence. She opened the second bottle and drank to her new life. Oh, she was a smart girl, she knew; she was the wily one; she had ’em all beaten. Life was just beginning for her, and, under the influence of the stout, she dreamed a hazy dream of rejuvenation; how she would blossom into new strength and beauty under the admiring eyes and the careful ministrations of her Ding-Dong. Farewell the dingy little back kitchen. Farewell the life of slavery and contempt. Farewell the wretched folk among whom she had been forced to live while Tom pursued his dirty work. Hail to the new world and the new life!

  Her head nodded, and for a few minutes she dozed. She was awakened by the sound of a creaking window. Then footsteps—stealthy, stuttering steps. They came up the stairway.

  Ding-Dong! She knew his step. Her plan had come off. Tom had been nabbed by the cops; Ding-Dong had arrived half-an-hour after the appointed time; had waited for Tom; found that he had not arrived, and so had come to his place to make inquiries. Oh, joy! Now that Tom was taken, nothing that anyone could do could save him; so that it would be left to them only to enjoy the blessed gift that the gods had given to them; and by the time Tom came out again she would have won Ding-Dong entirely for herself, and he would have taken her to Australia or America.

  The step stopped at her door, the handle was turned and in walked the intruder. She stared at him for a moment, then a low, nondescript cry burst from her throat: the cry of a cornered animal.

  Tom the Tinker came into her bedroom. He was more agitated than she had ever known him to be. He showed no surprise at finding her out of bed. On his shirt, just where his tie failed to cover it, were spots of blood. He sank into a chair.

  “Myra, old woman, I’m done. There’s been some rough stuff. I ’ad a job on, at Bethnal Green. With Ding-Dong. On’y ’e was late. ’Alf-an-hour late. If ’e’d bin on time we could ’a’ done it and fixed our getaway. But ’e was late. And the cops must have ’ad the office. I didn’t wait. I went in alone, and when I ’eard the jerry I up and off over the wall at the back, where it was clear. But just as I up and off, old Ding-Dong, ’earing the schlemozzle, come running up, and they copped ’im fair. I slipped round to see, and he lashed out and sent a cop down with a jemmy. Then they drew their whackers and smashed him on the ’ead. He fell kinder sideways, and come with ’is ’ead crack on the kerb. ’E’s dead now. Dead. I ’eard it from Paris Pete, who followed ’em up to the station. Dead, ’e is. ’E was a blasted good feller. … Well, I levanted, but I reckon they got me taped somehow. I ’it one of the cops—’it ’im ’ard. And now I got to lie under a bit, till it’s blown over. I’m all right, I think; they don’t know me. I bin too careful alwis. They don’t know I b’long ’ere. So I’m all right, if you’ll stand in, old woman. You won’t let on, will yeh? Nobody knows about it but you and Ding-Dong.
And ’e’s dead. They’ll never git me unless you go back on me. You’ll ’ave to play up a bit, cos I sha’n’t be able to git about at all for a bit. You’ll ’elp us out, old woman, won’t yeh? I bin a good ’usban’ to yeh, ain’t I? I ain’t never let yeh want for nothing, ’ave I?” She seemed to catch a sob in his throat. “Ol’ Ding-Dong …” he stammered. “Blasted good feller. … Dead, ’e is. Yeh won’t go back on me, will yeh?”

  She flung herself back in the hammock and laughed, a high, hollow, staccato laugh, in which was weariness and bitterness.

  “Oh … that’s all right, Tom. Yerss … I’ll … I’ll stand in. Oh, but it’s dam funny …” And she went off into peals of muffled laughter.

  Old Joe

  Mr Peter Punditt nipped out of his little newsagent’s and tobacconist’s shop in West India Dock Road, carrying in his hand a large, damp sheet, smelling strongly of the press. This he carefully pasted over a demurely complacent contents bill of The Telegraph, and then stepped back to look at it in the grey incertitude of the Limehouse twilight. It read:

  PUNDITT’S ONE-HORSE SNIP

  One Penny Daily

  Is Away from Everything

  Who Gave

  PAINTED LADY

  GOLD CUP?

  It was to be noted that Mr. Punditt, from motives of modesty or wariness, refrained from throwing any light on his part in this dubious transaction.

  With cocked head and silently whistling lips he contemplated his work, recognising, with some satisfaction, how much more arresting was his bill than that of Gale’s Monday Night Special, by whose side it stood. He was just about to nip in again, when he heard a weak, erratic step behind him, and, turning, beheld a youth of about twenty, with sallow, pimply face, slack-mouthed and furtive. An unlit Woodbine dropped from his lips.

  Little Peter Punditt, the smartest bookie in Limehouse, Poplar and Blackwall, turned swiftly about. “Well?”

  “Er—look ’ere, Punditt, o’ man, I’m—I’m ’fraid I sha’n’t be able to manage anything. Y’see—”

  “Oh!” Punditt regarded the weed in front of him with an airy tolerance. “Oh! Yeh can’t manage anything, can’t yeh? Yer afraid, are yeh? … Look ’ere, that kind ’o talk is twos into one wiv me. See?”

  “Two’s into—”

  “Yerss. It won’t go. It’s Punditt what’s talking to yeh. Yeh know Punditt’s way wiv bilkers, doncher? Before I’ve finished wiv a bilker he’s wishing he’d collected stamps instead.”

  “Yes, but … I mean … I … It was your tips what I followed. You let me down every time. Every time. You said this last was a cert., and I put me shirt on it, and—”

  “An’ if I did? Who th’ell arst yeh to back ’orses at all? Eh? Did I arst yeh to buy Punditt’s One-Horse Snip? Eh? Yeh lose yer money, then yeh come whinin’ rahnd ’ere wiv a face abaht as cheerful as cold boiled potatoes on a foggy night. Did I arst ye to put yer money on—eh?” His tone changed. “Look ’ere—don’t get gay wiv me, me boy. Cos gettin’ gay wiv me’s about as ’ealthy as monkeying wiv a buzz-saw. See? You just got to settle up. I gave y’an extra fortnight, and it’s up to-day. Lessee … Monday, ain’t it? Tell yeh what I’ll do—an’ I don’t go as far wiv most people—I’ll give yeh two days more. If yeh don’t brass up by Wednesday night—then I’ll see that yeh get it where the bottle got the cork. That plain enough for yeh?”

  He wagged a minatory finger wearing a thick band of mourning in the nail. “Y’know what I can do to you, doncher, sonny? A dozen words out of my mouth, and … Wow-wow. You be good, and don’t make me do it.”

  The boy spluttered, with vociferant hands. “No, but, Punditt, o’ man, how can I? How can I get it? There ain’t no way. I mean—”

  “Don’t matter a shake of a nannygoat’s tail to me where yeh git it or ’ow yeh get it. Yeh got to get it by Wednesday—that’s all. Else …” He threw his arms to the street, lifted both hands, thumbs protruding upwards. With dramatic pantomime he reversed his hands, thumbs pointing fatefully downwards. “Fumbs up, Punditt. Fumbs down, Perce Sleep. Three quid by Wednesday, mind. Get a sudden rush of brains to the ’ead and perduce it; otherwise …” he lingered on the word—“otherwise—I shall behave in a very varicose vein, I can tell yeh.”

  “No, but, Punditt, I—”

  “Suffish. Make a noise like a hoop and roll away!”

  From his pallid face the boy expressed the bitter essence of contempt which the weak have for all that is pitiless and strong. His mouth made rude noises. His fingers interpreted them. He went away grieved, for he had no possessions. He slouched away, his feet seeming not in complete accord with his knees. A lurid sunset turned a last sickly smile upon him before it died.

  It was Peter Punditt who had spoken, and he knew it was the last word. He knew what Peter could do for him. He knew what Peter knew about a certain affair in Amoy Place.

  His floury face, flecked with pimples, slacked some degrees further, and he went miserably down the road. He hated the look of it. He had quarrels with God and man and all creeping things, and his legs loathed the pavement. He was smitten and afflicted. He thought he would like to creep away and die. He thought comfortably upon death, and was rather sorry he had not told Peter that he would throw himself in the river that night. Yes; he could die and leave a note that would put the fair khybosh on old Peter Punditt. Mentally, he wrote the note, showing up old Punditt.

  But three quid. … Was there as much money anywhere in the world? If only he’d been in regular work now—when he kept the petty cash at the warehouse. …

  Oh, blast it. It didn’t bear thinking about. Blast everybody. He hated the world. He hated the sky. He hated his home and all that was in it. No good going home. No good mooning about the streets. No good in anything, so far as one could see. He stopped near the bridge of the Isle of Dogs and glowered upon the river and upon smoke-stack, rigging and sail.

  The evening was at once heartsome and subdued. On the deck of a Nippon the dear, drunken devils of yellow seamen were making soft music on Chinese guitars. A steady frost had settled and, with complete darkness, the usually lowering streets of the Asiatic quarter seemed strangely wide and frank. A fat-faced moon was slowly rising. The waters were swift and limpid, sprinkled with timid stars, and seemed to promise a very blessed time to the weary. On the corner by the dock gates the Blue Lantern shone sharp, like a cut gem. He lounged over the side of the bridge, and, so still was the night, he could almost hear a goods train shunt. It was still enough to bring from a narrow street, flanked by two tremendous walls, a curious sound of sup-sup, sup-sup.

  Perce Sleep heard it. “Bloody Chinks!” he growled. The next moment the sup-sup came from behind him, and a hand fell on his shoulder. A yellow face peered at him. It was old, flabby, steamy.

  “’Ullo, li’l Perce!” The words came so musically that one would have said they were sung.

  “’Ullo, Chopstick. Gointer buy us a beer?”

  “Les. Co’long Shaik Yip. Have plelty beer.”

  “Aw right. Look ’ere, Chinky, I’m in a mess. You’re all right for the ready, everyone says. Got a pot o’ the dibs, I reckon. Now look ’ere … would you … I mean … will yeh be a sport, and—”

  “Ao.” Shaik Yip smiled a meaningless Oriental smile. “Perce want money. Ao. Peree and Shaik Yip talk business. Co’long. Co’long.”

  And they entered the Blue Lantern and ordered two Gypsy’s Warnings and some of the Nearer-my-God-to-Thee sandwiches.

  The Sleep ménage was not such as one would turn to happily, when weary, for repose. Perce lived with his stepfather, a paralytic, and the old man’s daughter, a “softie.” The old man, a mass of helpless flesh, lived in a chair by the fireside. He had been a stevedore in his time, and his great shaggy head, his rolling shoulders, and the long, thick arms, all now as white and motionless as death, told a tale of superb strength in youth. There he sat now,
and there he was fed and tended and washed. The only life that had been left him was his voice, and of this there only remained a thin piping, so that he was known locally as Old Joe, after that Fleet Street notability who, every morning at ten-thirty in the Fourth Edition, gives the world his famous treble.

  His daughter, a slip of a girl, was the mother of the house. Her face had that arresting beauty sometimes seen in the faces of the vacant-minded. There was nothing of the idiot about her, save in her talk and her simple character. She managed the house, and she managed Old Joe, and she strove hard to manage the waster, Perce.

  “Wis’ful,” someone had said. “Wis’ful—that’s ’ow she looks. Like as if she was wanting to catch ’old of something that ain’t there.”

  As for Perce, he only ate and drank and slept at the house, and had little to do with Fanny, save to borrow coppers from her.

  “A wicked boy,” piped Old Joe. “That’s what ’e is. Never tries to get work. Got one job, and got sacked from that, and ain’t done a stroke since. ’Anging about pubs and mixin’ wiv wasters. Grr! ’E’ll end in gaol, mark what I say. Blast ’im. Arr. … Fanny’s the good girl. Where’d we all be if it wasn’t for Fanny? Looks after us and keeps us all going. Does anything to keep the ’ome together, doncher, me gel? Goes out charing, or does needlework. Clever wiv ’er needle, she is. But that blasted Perce. Grr! I’d spit on ’im. I’d turn ’im out the ’ouse if I could. But ’e won’t go. Cos ’e knows I’m ’elpless and can’t do nothing. Not if ’e struck me I couldn’t do nothink. An’ ’e’s nearly done it, oncer twice. The blasted drunken little waster. Gawd—if I’d a-got my strength back—I’d learn ’im. You dunno—nobody dunno—what I’ve ’ad to put up wiv from ’im—all cos I can’t move—an’ ’e knows it. Things ’e’s said to me. Things ’e’s done. Gawd. Dunno what I’ve a-done that I should ’ave to put up …”