King Dido

by Alexander Baron

  Everybody felt triumphant outside Blakers’ shop. A month had gone by without action from the Murchisons. The punishment of Cockeye was a turning-point. When cautious old Blakers could cast off fear, everyone could.

  In time they dispersed. One woman remained. Her name was Mrs Hackett. She was a scrubwoman, a faded little old woman with waxy skin who looked as if she had scrubbed most of herself away. “Well,” Blakers said. “What is it this time?”

  She crept into the shop and said, “If you could oblige, sir.”

  “Oblige.” He sighed. “I’m not made of money, you know.”

  “I know, sir. Only seeing as ’ow I’m working.”

  “Working, are you?” She lived in the Bug Hole. Her husband, a labourer at the brewery in Brick Lane, had been off work since the spring, when a barrel had fallen and broken his foot. “Then you can start payin’ off the last lot.”

  “I will, sir. As God is my witness, sir. Only I got nothing to go on with. I couldn’ ’elp my bronchitis.”

  “It wasn’t my fault, was it? I’m not made of money.”

  “No, sir. Only it’s the bronchitis. ’Alf a sovereign ’d see me right, sir.”

  Blakers lent out small sums of money at exorbitant interest. “You already owe me two bob a week.”

  “I shall work ’ard, sir. I promise you, sir. Please.” He sighed. “I could be living like a snob somewhere decent if I wasn’t soft-’earted.”

  He took ten shillings from the drawer in the counter and gave it to her. “All right. Four bob a week. Friday nights.”

  “I won’t fail you, sir.”

  “You’d better not. Just because Mr Murchison’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry ’e was ’urt, sir.”

  “’E ’ad a short way with dishonest people, didn’t ’e?”

  “I’m not dishonest, sir.”

  “Well, there’s someone nearer ’ome to keep an eye on things now. Mr Peach.”

  “Yes, sir.” Even the poorest people in the street had felt the authority of Ginger Murchison, for he had rendered some return for Blakers’ tribute, as his threatener. Mrs Hackett had already taken it for granted that Dido had assumed this responsibility together with his others.

  “Thank you, sir and God bless you. I shan’t trouble Mr Peach, sir. I promise you.”

  As usual in the afternoon, Dido sat in the teashop for an hour. He had noticed the place in Great Eastern Street, a main thoroughfare leading towards the City. Only fifty yards outside Bethnal Green in location, it was a hundred miles away in status, for it was one of a national chain catering for office workers and it was large, clean, and staffed by young ladies in waitresses’ uniforms. Dido went there because he had a secret yearning for superior things; and because it was not a place where any other Rabbit Marsher would venture.

  Passing the day was a problem. He could not bear to stay indoors. He would not loaf in the street. To spend too much time on his visits would appear over-sociable. He was without vainglory but unconsciously he was already dominated by the sense of his position. He dared not be seen slack and aimless in Rabbit Marsh. He did not wish to trudge all day about the East End or to sit with the old tramps in the public reading-rooms. He shunned the pubs and billiards halls. He had formed the habit of coming to this out-of-the-way teashop. For a penny cup of tea he could sit as long as he wanted to, stiff, silent but at least off his feet and in the warm.

  He always sat at one of the tables in the row by the back staircase, and he was always served by the same waitress, a thin girl, prim and genteel, who walked with a light step.

  It was because this girl served this group of tables that he always went to one of them. He had not yet acknowledged it but it was because of her that he now came to the teashop every afternoon. Apart from placing his order and saying, “Thank you,” he had never spoken to her. He did not try to this afternoon.

  Chapter Five

  “Please, daddy, can I leave the table?”

  “May I leave the table.”

  “May I leave the table. Please, daddy, may I leave the table?”

  “No, you can’t, Robert. Don’t you like roly-poly pudding?”

  “Yes, daddy.”

  “Mummy’s going to serve it in a minute, aren’t you, love?”

  “Yes, dear. Lovely roly-poly pudding. And you can pour your own treacle on, Robert.”

  “But daddy said I couldn’t have any roly-poly pudding.”

  “Not till you’ve eaten your greens.”

  “But I don’t want my greens. So please may I leave the table?”

  Mr Merry said, “Not till you’ve eaten your greens, old lad.”

  Robert, seven years old, subjected his father to a final momentary gaze, decided that the verdict was unshakeable and with no sign of ill-will started to shovel up his vegetables.

  Jane, aged nine, said, “I’ve eaten my greens.”

  “I should think so too,” Mrs Merry said, “big girl like you.”

  Mrs Merry matched her plump, smooth husband like the second of a pair of china ornaments. She was thirty, four years younger than him, a short, bustling little person with round, rosy cheeks, a mop of curly chestnut hair, a bosom that swelled her neat blouse and a general fleshy thickness of form that gave an impression of ceaseless energy. They lived off the Kingsland Road, not far from her husband’s work, in De Beauvoir Town, an enclave of broad roads and classical villas in the midst of a poorer London, inhabited by well-paid artisans, small businessmen and minor members of the professional classes.

  William Merry had married ten years ago. He was a young man for his rank; but he was keen and he had joined the Force at the minimum age of twenty-one. He had done so with the express ambition of becoming a detective; from an early age it had been in his mind as the natural thing to do. Seven years ago, when he had become a sergeant, he had been lucky enough to get this house on a long lease at a low rent. Its superior status suited him; he was a man with strong notions of getting on. He had in his own phrase “made something” of the house. When he was not taking the family out he was forever painting, plastering, papering and repairing. The sight of the bright, white villa rejoiced him when he walked home down the street. He saw it as his own creation.

  The maid came in with the pudding. Mrs Merry served out, and left a good portion on the tray. “Here’s a nice bit for you, Sally,” she said.

  Sally’s “Thank you, ma’am,” was heartfelt as she went downstairs. Sally was fond of boasting to the tradesmen that she was treated almost as one of the family and had the best master and mistress in the world.

  Mr Merry watched with pleasure while the children had second helpings and had some more himself, for he loved roly-poly pudding. He had his rules, which he enforced firmly but without harshness, the genial reminder of his authority being enough. But he did not insist on niminy-piminy table manners. He liked a good scoff himself and children were children. He let them play and gallop about the house more than most parents did, and sometimes joined in the horseplay that Robert loved.

  Robert said, “Please may I leave the table now, daddy?”

  Jane said, “Please may I leave the table?”

  Mrs Merry said, “Run along, children.”

  The children got down from their chairs and chorused “Thank you, mummy. Thank you, daddy.”

  Mr Merry said, “Cut along. And work hard at school.”

  Mrs Merry said, “Get ready quietly, children. Daddy’s on duty this afternoon. Let him have a pipe in peace.”

  Robert lingered at the door. He said, “Daddy, are the people near your police station very naughty when you’re not there?”

  Mr Merry puffed till he saw the glow in his pipe, then said, “No, son. Because there’s other policemen there.”

  Robert said, “They must be a very bad lot. The people in this road don’t do bad things.”

  “They are, son. Just that. They’re a bad lot. Dirt, I call them.”

  “And you have to stop them from doing wrong.”
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  “Well, son,” Merry let smoke jet from between his pursed lips, and pondered. “It’s like this. I don’t think you can ever stop people from doing wrong.”

  “What about us?” Robert asked.

  “I don’t mean people like us. I mean —” He made a gesture with the pipe “— people. It’s the way they’re made, son. But those that do give trouble, it’s my job to catch them and put them away.”

  Robert said, “You mean lock them up?”

  “That’s right, son.”

  “How long for?”

  “As long as possible.”

  Mr Merry walked to Kingsland Road. It was October now. Shrivelled leaves scuttled away from him on the pavement. There was a pleasant nip in the air. He took a tram to Shoreditch and walked down Bethnal Green Road to the police station. He settled at his table and sent for Weldon. When the constable arrived, Merry asked, “Did you find when he was coming out?”

  “Ginger Murchison —? Friday.”

  Mr. Merry took out a pocket diary and made a note in it.

  Dido had been coming to the teashop for a couple of months. The waitress paused at the table and gave him a small, doubtful smile. “Tea and bun, Mr Peach?”

  “That’s right. Usual. Keepin’ all right, Miss Matthews?”

  “Mm. Thank you.”

  She went for his order. After a number of visits he had broken out of his silence with an “Afternoon, miss.” Then, familiarity growing by mere repetition, he had found ways to detain her with talk. The place was always empty. At first she seemed transparently loath to stay but without the strength to snub him. The first time he spoke he had to struggle to find words before she escaped. “Quiet today, miss.”

  “Afternoon always is.”

  “Glad of a bit of rest, I expect.”

  “Still on your feet.”

  “Won’t they let you sit down?”

  “Have to keep on your feet.”

  “Hard on the feet, eh?”

  “It is a bit.”

  And the next time he noosed her with, “Been here long, miss?”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Just wondering. Coming here every day. You been here long?”

  “Two years. More.”

  “Good job?”

  “They treat you very fair. Don’t often get that.”

  “No. Not many treat you fair.”

  Until one day it was she who artlessly countered question with question and prolonged the talk. Curiosity overcame her instinctive recoil from his too intense look at her, for she and the other girls had speculated about the stranger in the navy serge suit who came every afternoon and sat stiffly among the empty tables. The other girls were always giggling, “He fancies you.” So that one day she asked, “Do you work nights?”

  “Nights?”

  “You’re in every afternoon.”

  He frowned at her, searching his wits for an answer.

  She said, “I don’t wish to be inquisitive. Every afternoon regular, I just wondered.”

  He said, “In business.”

  “Oh, I could see,” she said. “I could see how you dress.”

  “Rags,” he said. And quickly, fearing a bad impression. “Wholesale.” His tongue went on. He had never heard it boasting before. “Fair way of business.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Got a depot. Other side o’ the railway. Buy ’em in, sell ’em in bulk. It’s a fair business.”

  “It must be.”

  When he first realised what drew him to this place he tried to keep away. A pain in his heart would not go away until he went back. It was just that; a sharp hurt as if a knife was cleaving something in the left side of his chest. She was thin. Her skin was sallow. Her face was plain. There was nothing to read in it. Sometimes he stared and stared and asked in vain what he saw in her.

  Then one day he ventured, “Ah, fancied a nice hot cup, miss. Miss — ’ere, excuse me, Miss — er — what?”

  “It’s not Miss Watt.” Her smile was more relaxed and truly touched with amusement than he had ever seen it; and he smiled genuinely.

  “Don’t mind me asking,” he said. “Comin’ here all this time. Doesn’t seem polite not knowin’.”

  “Miss Matthews.”

  He said, “Miss Grace Matthews.” He had heard the other girls address her.

  “Yes.” She seemed to be striving for a formula of rebuke; but in a moment she said rapidly, pleading, “You ought to hear them. Twelve o’clock, they’re all in. Egg on toast, teas, coffees. One long rush. And it’s “Gracie,” “Here, Grace.” All these men. “Gracie.” Just because they heard my friends calling me. Strangers. No respect.”

  “Don’t mean no harm, I reckon.”

  “No respect.” Her face went stubborn.

  “Yes,” he said. He picked up his teacup. “Thank you, miss.”

  The quick tap-tap of her step as she went away sounded a thank-offering for release.

  When he left, he called, “Day, miss.”

  She called back, “Good day, Mr ——” and his heart thumped because she had broken off interrogatively.

  “Peach.”

  “Good day, Mr Peach.”

  Ginger Murchison had been fourteen weeks in hospital. When the ambulance had taken him away the family had been loud in its boastings that he would soon be back. They took it for granted that their patriarch, their grey old bull elephant who had suffered no worse than dents for fifty years, would come charging and bellowing back with hardly a scar to show. A jaw smashed by a hammer was nothing to them. They did not reckon with the effects on the brain of a fractured skull. He had lain in coma while doctors muttered about haemorrhages. Now that he was home, members of the clan came in to see him and thronged round him, and whispered to each other, crestfallen and puzzled at what they saw. But they had prepared a booze-up to welcome him, and they assured each other that there was nothing like a good old boozeup to put Ginger on his feet. He’d be his old self when he had a skinful inside him.

  It was nearly midnight. The booze-up was in full swing. Jaggs Place was a courtyard entered by a deep, square arch in the front of a tenement. On each side of the paved yard were five doorways, and there was another doorway recessed into the irregular righthand corner, where the Keoghs lived.

  Each of these doorways opened into a stone-floored scullery. The scullery led into a single room with a floor of bare, rotten planks. Each of these kennels housed a family; as many as ten people might live in one dark, small room on whose walls the naked plaster was soaked and evilly smelling of mould where it had not fallen away.

  At the end of the yard was a wooden door, which always hung open and askew where a lower hinge had rusted away. This was the only toilet in Jaggs Place. It was always choked with muck. Its wooden seat had long vanished. A puddle always covered its floor and ran out into the yard. Its stench blended with the stench of blocked drains, foul rooms and unwashed bodies to assail anyone who came in through the arch. Another puddle spread beneath the only source of water in Jaggs Place, a single outdoor tap.

  By slum standards the Murchisons were not poor. They lived here because they liked it. It was communal. It was their own, apart from the world. The stink and filth were those of an animal den, a comforting lair; and the crowding kept their bodies warm as it warmed their spirits in a hubbub of shared life.

  A dreadful hullabaloo echoed between the walls of the tenement, which rose in black shafts to an oblong of night sky pallid with moonlight. No neighbour could sleep but no-one dared complain. Windows above still showed the glimmer of gas or candle light against which black heads looked down on the Murchisons’ orgy.

  Wild song, shrieks of laughter and shouts mingled. The archway was pitch dark and the yard unlit, but doors were open, and weak light filtered out into the court, in which, like clustered shadows, there writhed and leaped a horde of crazy figures.

  Crates of beer and liquor were stacked against the walls. The din and shrieking was punctuated by t
he splintering crash of empty bottles hurled against walls or into the street. The Murchisons’ idea of a celebration was purely liquid. No food had been prepared, although in one or two kitchens older women sat round tables like witches, in a flicker of shadows and yellow light, gossiping, drinking endless mugs of dark brown tea between their glasses of ale, and eating chips from sheets of newspaper. Children darted to and from the fish-and-chip shop with fresh supplies.

  Mr Merry paused in the street outside. At his feet a man and woman wrestled, cursing and striking at each other. They rolled into the gutter and squirmed in a huddle of foul rags, the man heaving up, wrenching the woman’s skirt up to the waist, her legs crooked apart, the two faces white and savage in the moonlight.

  He stepped through the arch, between the panting and whispering and laughter of couples bundled black against the walls. A small boy scurried past him into a doorway leaving behind the oily smell of chips imposed upon the acid urine sharpness — the yard was puddled with it now, as people came out and relieved themselves against the walls. The bawled, discordant chorus of “Nellie Dean” smote him. Against it he heard shouts of derisive greeting to him, in tones of drunken bravado.

  He looked in at the corner door. Keogh sat with his back to the door. His wife was on his knee, limp-drunk over him with her arms hanging down behind him. The other women were shrieking with laughter, doubling themselves up and smiting their bellies with enjoyment. Children sat on the mattresses or peeped from under blankets, eating chips. The table was covered with bottles and mugs.

  “They was boozin’ for two days,” one of the women gasped. “Oh, it was a right booze-up when you was married, eh?”