Hold On to Hope

by Jean Fullerton

  Mabel nodded.

  Walking backwards, the boy swept aside the pungent slurry of waste so she could cross. Mabel followed him to the other side and handed him a threepenny piece.

  The boy looked astonished.

  ‘Cor, fank you, miss,’ he said, staring at the little silver coin in his hand.

  ‘Well, you did a good job,’ she said, brightly.

  The boy slipped the money in his pocket and touched his forehead. ‘Any time, miss.’

  Mabel smiled sweetly. ‘What’s your name, child?’ she asked in her best Sunday school voice.

  ‘Toby.’

  ‘Well, Toby, would you like to earn this?’ She fished a shilling from her purse.

  Toby’s nodded. ‘Sure fing I would’

  ‘Do you know a man called Freddie Ellis?’

  A guarded expression stole over the boy’s face. ‘Might do.’

  Mabel pulled out a note from her jacket pocket and offered it to him. ‘I want you to give him this.’

  ‘What’s it about?’ Toby asked, regarding the letter warily.

  ‘Something that he should know,’ Mabel replied. ‘You give it to him and I’ll give this to you.’ She held up the shilling again and twisted it so the sunlight glinted on it.

  Toby glanced around. ‘How do I know you ain’t a stooge for the nabbers and this ain’t a trap to catch Mr Ellis?’

  ‘Have you heard about Jesus?’

  Toby looked affronted. ‘Course I ’ave.’

  ‘Well, then.’ Mabel crossed herself. ‘I swear by Jesus that I have nothing to do with the police.’

  Toby still hesitated.

  Mabel closed her hand around the shilling. ‘Of course, if you can’t do it I’ll find a boy who can.’

  He snatched the letter and shoved it in his shirt then held out his hand.

  Mabel handed him the coin. ‘Make sure you take it to him straight away.’

  ‘And what if he asks who gave it to me?’ he asked, pocketing the money.

  ‘Tell him “a friend”.’

  Toby regarded her thoughtfully for a moment then shouldered his broom. ‘Right you are, miss. Consider it done.’

  ‘I hope that’s true because if you take my shilling and don’t give him my note’ – she pointed at the sky – ‘St Peter will write “thief” in black letters next to your name and then give you to the devil on Judgement Day.’

  Fear flashed across Toby’s face and he swallowed. ‘I’ll give it to him, miss. Promise.’ He turned and dashed off.

  As she watched the boy disappear into the crowd a sly smile crept across Mabel’s face. She’d like to see the look on Freddie Ellis’s face when he read about his wife’s little secret, but more particularly she would relish the look on Jonathan’s when he realised all his hopes were destroyed.

  Freddie sat on old Ollie Mac’s armchair in the corner savouring a fat cigar he’d lifted along with three gross like it from a warehouse the night before. There was a low hum of conversation as the Boy settled into the after-lunch lull. Other than a couple of the gang sitting on the other side of the room and a handful of people at the counter, the bar was empty. Aggie had gone for a stroll down Petticoat Lane to ‘catch a bit of fresh air’ and Freddie wondered, in passing, how much it would cost him.

  He picked up his glass and swallowed a mouthful of brandy. Settling his shoulders into the leather padding he leant back and closed his eyes. The hum of voices faded as he started to doze off. The door swung open and Freddie jumped awake.

  Aggie walked in and glanced around. The two trollops chatting to the landlord finished their drinks and hurried out. Her gaze rested on Freddie and her mouth pulled into a tight line.

  Freddie sat up. ‘Hello, ducks. Bought something nice for yourself, have you?’

  Aggie collected a glass from the bar and strolled over. ‘I thought you were going to take those barrels of salt pork over to Tommy the Top,’ she said, pouring herself a drink.

  Freddie drew on his cigar then puffed smoke circles towards the ceiling. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’

  Aggie smiled. ‘I tell you what,’ she said, conversationally. ‘Why don’t you leave them until Saturday? After all, they’ve only been sitting there for two weeks, and so in a day or two they’ll walk themselves to Club Row.’

  ‘I’ll get Harry to take ’em over in the morning.’

  ‘And have you taken a shufti at Lipton’s warehouse yet?’ Aggie continued. ‘Cos I’m thinking if you don’t do it before they dole the wages out on Friday the safe will be empty.’

  ‘Give your jaw a rest, Aggie.’ Freddie stretched and linked his hands behind his head. ‘And remember, I’m the one who does the brain work around here.’

  Aggie shot him a withering look and threw herself on the chair beside him. She studied him for a moment and then spoke again. ‘So when are you going to fetch your boy then?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Not that again.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon. Next week.’ Freddie buried his nose in his glass.

  ‘You said that last week.’ She gave him a mocking look. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d say for all your talk about him being a “chip off the old block” you know ’e’s too soft to take Inchy’s place.’

  Freddie glared at her. ‘My boy’s as sharp as they come.’

  ‘Well, then.’ Aggie swirled the drink in her glass. ‘Perhaps you’re too afraid of her family to fetch your own son.’

  Freddie slammed the bottle on the table. ‘For fuck’s sake, Aggie, give it a rest.’

  The bar door opened again and a boy carrying an old broom over his shoulder rushed in.

  ‘Mr Ellis,’ he shouted, dashing across the bar towards him.

  Aggie’s hand shot out and caught the boy by one skinny arm as he reached them. ‘What you after Mr Ellis for?’

  The boy snatched his arm from her grasp and rubbed it. ‘Some toff bit of skirt told me to give him this.’ He handed Freddie a crumpled piece of paper.

  Freddie opened it and he scowled.

  He could scratch out his name, if pushed, and recognise tobacco, brandy and tea written on a crate but that was about his limit. His lips moved silently as he tried to sound out the letters in his head.

  ‘What does it say?’ Aggie asked, impatiently.

  ‘If you stop yapping for a minute I’ll tell you,’ Freddie replied, trying to decipher the first word.

  ‘Give it here,’ Aggie said, snatching it from him.

  She scanned the document and chuckled. ‘It seems that your Joe won’t be taking Inchy Pete’s place after all.’

  ‘Wot you talking about?’

  Aggie waved the paper at him. ‘It seems your wife’s been making jiggy-jiggy as well as pies down at ’er shop. Her and the one-eyed schoolmaster who gave you a pasting are planning to run away to Australia and taking your “little lad” with them.’

  Freddie snatched the note back and stared down at it. But instead of the squarely printed words he saw Joe’s tousled hair, pale blue eyes and crooked smile that was so like his own. The pulse in his temple started to throb. Fury and an unfamiliar painful emotion caught in Freddie’s chest as Aggie’s words sank in. He stood up.

  ‘You’re not going to let her take your Joe, are you?’ Aggie asked, from what seemed like a long way away.

  Freddie’s eyes narrowed as he screwed the note in his fist. ‘She and that poxy schoolteacher can go to hell for all I care, and good riddance to them, but take my Joe? Not fucking likely.’

  Joe repositioned his satchel on his back and stepped through the school gate. Ella was already outside talking to her friends and when she saw him she came over.

  ‘Are you ready?’ She held out her hand.

  ‘I’m not a baby,’ he said, looking defiantly up at her from under the peak of his cap.

  Ella shrugged and started off and Joe fell into step beside her.

  ‘It’s oxtail stew tonight,’ Joe said as they turned the corner.

  ‘Don’t you
think of anything else but your belly?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Ella rolled her eyes in the same way that Ma did. She stopped in front of the haberdasher’s and studied the frilly girly things in the window. Joe shoved his hands in his pockets and nudged a stone back and forth with his toe.

  ‘Don’t do that, you’ll scuff your boots,’ Ella told him, walking on.

  Why couldn’t I have an older brother like Mickey instead of a bossy-boots sister? Joe thought, looking at Ella’s pigtails swinging back and forth.

  Dodging under the display of buckets hanging from the ironmonger’s awning Joe trotted after her. As they reached Bird Alley, Joe stopped.

  ‘Let’s cut through,’ he said, glancing down the walkway between the high walls of London Docks and Rolfe’s warehouse.

  ‘Ma doesn’t like us going that way,’ she said, trying to grab him.

  Joe poked his tongue out at her and danced backwards. ‘Ma doesn’t like us going that way,’ he repeated in a falsetto voice as he started down the alley.

  ‘Joe! You come back here,’ she shouted.

  ‘Ella’s scared, Ella’s scared,’ he chanted.

  Ella hesitated for a moment then caught up with him.

  ‘Cor, it stinks,’ she said.

  Joe was already breathing through his mouth to avoid drawing in the acrid smell of urine. ‘I can’t smell anything,’ he replied, blinking to relieve his stinging eyes.

  They had just reached the halfway point when, out of the corner of his eye, Joe caught a glimpse of someone hiding in the shadows.

  ‘Ella,’ he whispered, taking her hand.

  ‘I told you not to come this way,’ she whispered back, quickening her pace.

  Footsteps sounded behind them, raising the hairs on the back of Joe’s neck.

  ‘Joe!’

  Letting go of his sister’s hand, Joe spun around. ‘Pa?’

  Joe started forward but then the image of his mother lying beaten and bruised on the floor flashed into his mind. He hesitated, his heart torn between both parents.

  The look of love and pride, that Joe craved above all others, crept into Freddie’s eye. ‘I’ve missed you, son,’ he said, tenderly.

  Something burst in Joe’s chest and he launched himself at his father. ‘Oh, Pa, I kept watch for you every day, Pa, hoping you’d come back.’

  Freddie’s eyes narrowed. ‘And I’ve been keeping watch for you too, boy.’

  Ella grabbed Joe’s hand. ‘Ma’s expecting us for supper. Come on, Joe.’ She pulled him away.

  Freddie caught his other arm. ‘Joe’s coming with me.’

  Joe wrenched his hand out of Ella’s and stood next to his father.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked, hopefully.

  ‘You’re forever pestering me to take you to pub, so now I am.’

  ‘But Ma’s expecting us,’ Ella replied.

  ‘Your mother can go to hell!’ Freddie’s face contorted with fury. ‘Clear off,’ he yelled, swiping at Ella with the back of his hand.

  She backed away. ‘Come with me, Joe,’ she pleaded.

  He looked back and forth between the two of them then shook his head. ‘I’m going with Pa.’

  Ella hesitated for a second then ran off. Joe stared after her and felt oddly alone. If the truth were told he was a little afraid of his father, but if Pa was especially looking out for him . . .

  ‘Now Miss Sour Face has gone, it’s just me and my boy.’ Freddie shoved his hands in his pockets, turned and walked off. ‘Well, let’s go.’

  Joe glanced behind him and an image of his mother preparing supper flashed through his mind. Me and my boy, he heard his father’s voice say again in his head.

  Joe turned. ‘Pa! Pa! Wait for me,’ he yelled.

  He was so happy to finally be allowed into his father’s world that it was only when he almost tripped over a scar-faced old woman lying in a doorway that he realised they weren’t in Wapping any longer.

  ‘Where are we, Pa?’ he asked, stepping closer to his father.

  ‘Whitechapel.’

  Joe looked fearfully around. Although he dashed around the streets of Wapping without a care, he’d never crossed to the other side of Commercial Road alone. To suddenly find himself in an area full of robbers and murderers set fear churning in his stomach. He looked up at his father, who seemed to know almost every ragged man and woman they passed. Grey, hollow-eyed people huddled in doorways or squatted on the dirty pavement. To Joe, they looked older than his gran but many of the women held limp infants in their arms and had skinny, hollow-eyed children clutching at their skirts.

  At last, he and Freddie reached the Blue Coat Boy, a pub he’d heard his ma and Uncle Pat whisper about in connection with his father when they thought he wasn’t listening.

  Joe’s eyes watered and burnt from the thick tobacco smoke, which swirled around him as he walked in after his father. He drew a sharp breath when he noticed the rough men leaning on the bar and the young women with very red lips and untidy hair who were clinging on to the men. Joe pressed in behind his father as Freddie strolled between them.

  ‘What you drinking, boss?’ one pock-marked man asked.

  ‘The usual, Tommy.’

  A young woman with a sore on her top lip slipped her arm in Freddie’s. ‘Hello, guv,’ she said, giving his father a noisy kiss.

  Freddie grinned, took his drink and strolled on. Dodging a drunk and a sleek speckled dog with chewed ears, Freddie came to a halt at the far corner, where Joe tucked himself behind his father’s legs.

  ‘Did you get ’im?’ a woman’s voice asked.

  ‘Course I did.’ His father stepped aside.

  Joe’s eyes opened wide as he stared at a young woman sitting on a sofa. Her red hair was scooped up on the top of her head and held in place with a blue-feather pin, which reminded him of the picture of the peacock on the school chart. The dark green gown she wore was much too tight and wouldn’t do up at the front. She leant forward until her nose was within a couple of inches of his. He could see the small red veins on her nose and cheeks and was overwhelmed by the proximity of her bosoms and the heady smell of her cologne, which barely cloaked her foul breath.

  ‘Where’s your manners, boy?’ Freddie snapped.

  Joe took off his cap. ‘Good evening, miss,’ he said, trying not to look at the nit crawling up a strand of her hair.

  She slapped her thigh and laughed. ‘Did you hear that?’ she shouted at the men loitering around them.

  They joined in laughing and Joe looked at his father. Freddie stepped forward and placed his hand on Joe’s shoulder. ‘Didn’t I tell you he was the replica of me?’

  Aggie lifted the corners of her mouth but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. ‘You’re a bit skinny, ain’t you, boy? Don’t your muvver feed you?’

  Joe looked at his toes.

  ‘Wot, cat got your tongue?’ she continued.

  Joe raised his head. ‘My mother’s the best cook in the world, isn’t she, Pa?’

  A couple of men behind his father looked away and smiled while Aggie’s neck went red.

  Joe’s stomach rumbled and his father laughed and reached into his pocket. ‘Oi, Ginny,’ he called to a girl sporting a black eye, standing against the bar. ‘Go and fetch me a pie-and-potatoes supper.’ She took the money and ambled off. ‘And you,’ he jabbed his finger at Aggie, ‘watch yourself.’

  She smiled lovingly up at Freddie. ‘I was only wondering if he’s too little,’ she said, in girly voice.

  ‘Course ’e’s not.’ Freddie looked down at Joe. ‘You’re not too little to help your old man out, are you?’

  Joe beamed up at his father. ‘No, Pa.’

  Freddie squeezed Joe’s shoulder. ‘Listen here, you lot. This is my boy and I don’t want any of you to forget it.’

  The men around them called ‘No, boss’ and ‘Right, Mr Ellis’ and Joe thought his chest was going to burst with pride.

  Aggie caught Joe’s cheek between her blac
k-nailed finger and thumb. ‘He’s your Joe and I’ll look after him as if he were my own.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kate tied the last bundle of old clothes and put it alongside the others. It wouldn’t fetch more than ten shillings but she could only take what she and the children could carry, which wasn’t much for a four-month voyage. Jonathan had assured her they’d be able to buy cotton, linen and other goods in the African ports along the way, so Kate was taking her sewing box, too.

  Jonathan had arranged everything so well. To allay suspicion, he’d told the board of guardians that he was going to Scotland for a holiday two days before the Charlotte Anne sailed from East India Dock. In reality he was booking into the Brunswick Hotel alongside the berth, where he would be waiting for her and the children. He’d wanted to collect them from the shop in the early hours but Kate thought it better to avoid any scene with the children until they were safely aboard. In two weeks they would be off to a new life, and although she was excited, she knew it would be a great shock for Ella and Joe. She intended to present the journey as a big adventure and hoped that once they saw how happy she and Jonathan were they’d be happy too, although she was prepared for some tears.

  Pulling open the ill-fitting drawer she slipped her hand under the lace-trimmed nightgown and lifted it out. She ran her fingers over the narrow ribbon gathering the neckline together and then held it up so the light from the window behind filtered through the finely woven lawn cotton. She closed her eyes and hugged it to her.

  Fourteen days! How was she going to keep her excitement in check? But she had to hold back, just for a short while longer until they were safely beyond Freddie’s reach. Then she could slip on Jonathan’s ring and become Mrs Quinn in fact, if not in law. Although it went against every honest grain in her body, Kate planned to tell the children that she’d been able to divorce Freddie and marry Jonathan in secret.

  The back door slammed shut downstairs. Kate refolded the nightgown and returned it to the drawer.

  ‘I’m up here,’ she called.

  Ella came banging up the stairs and swung around the doorpost into the room. ‘Ma! Ma! Pa stopped us on the way home and Joe’s gone with him to the pub.’

  Kate’s heart lurched. ‘When was this?’