The Whispering Road

by Livi Michael

  ‘More policing, that's what we need, more of the boys in blue, ha ha ha!’

  I say nothing at all this time, even when he leans over and pinches my cheek and says, ‘Soon be up and joining the hunt, eh? Ha ha ha ha ha!’

  As soon as they've gone I get up to stretch my legs. Then I hear them talking in lowered tones outside the door.

  ‘So what's the scheme then, Mosley? Are you planning to adopt the lad?’

  And I prick up my ears, creeping closer.

  ‘Not at all,’ says Mr M. ‘I merely want to satisfy myself on a few points.’

  ‘Conducting an investigation, eh? Well, you want to be careful.’ And he says something else I can't hear, finishing with, ‘You can take the boy out of the workhouse, but can you take the workhouse out of the boy, eh? Never mind, Mosley, ha ha ha!’

  Then they all go down the stairs, and I'm left wondering what they're going on about and why Mr M is keeping me here. I crane out of the window, watching them leave in a carriage, though they're only going further up the street.

  Time I was going too, I'm thinking. I've been here long enough, prodded and poked about and discussed. Time I was off, though I don't know where to. And I can't get far in my nightgown.

  Then right on cue my new clothes arrive.

  They're quality, I can tell that much. The feel of the cloth is like nothing I've felt before, the green dark and velvety, the blue shining like a peacock's tail. Before I can put them on I'm made to have a bath, which is mad, since I've already had one. Then Bung cuts my hair with a very bad grace, dragging the comb through it while I roar. He has to cut great chunks out of it that are matted, and when he's finally through Mr Silver comes in and fusses and clucks over the fastenings and hems.

  ‘Do you like them?’ asks Mr M.

  ‘Can't see them, can I?’ I say, and Mr M nods at Bung, who disappears then comes back, wheeling a long mirror.

  This is the first time I've ever seen myself – apart from looking at my face in brasses and such. I've never seen the full picture, though, and now I can.

  I don't recognize myself. I look small and white, with ginger stubble. The fine clothes make me look like someone else. Like a sparrow in a peacock's clothes.

  ‘Well?’ says Mr M.

  I reach out a hand and touch my face in the mirror. Whose are those small, scared eyes? I'm thinking. I don't look much like Jack the Giant-killer now.

  ‘Don't put your paws on the glass,’ says Bung and I take my hand away.

  ‘Will the clothes do?’ says Mr M and I nod at him, speechless.

  ‘Aren't you going to thank the master?’ says Bung, and I do thank him, stumbling over my words. But they take that for me being overwhelmed. Which is true in a way, but not the way they think.

  ‘Well,’ says Mr M, looking satisfied, ‘I think it's about time we went out, don't you?’

  11

  Carriage

  We go out in a big black carriage. Never been in one of these before and at first I'm nervous, remembering what we used to do to carriages in the gang.

  But nothing like that happens. And it's nothing like the workhouse van, I can tell you that much. After the first rush of air on my face, which makes me feel weak, I'm helped up by a man all done up in livery. Then Mr M's helped up too, because of his bad leg. We sit facing one another on seats covered in velvet, and the carriage gives a little jerk and we're off.

  I hang out of the window, looking at all the buildings. Then the street opens out on to a broad field with a church in the middle.

  ‘St Peter's Church,’ says Mr M. ‘It's best not to lean out too far,’ he adds, as I nearly catch my head on the gates. I sit back in, and he looks at me with that half smile on his face, both hands clasped round his cane.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask, and he tells me we're just taking the air.

  ‘What happened to your leg?’ I say, and the smile slips, as I meant it to.

  He raises the eyebrow. ‘A childhood illness,’ he says, and it's clear he's not going to discuss it. That's one thing I've learned. The rich don't like you asking questions – though they ask enough themselves.

  We travel along Oxford Street and apart from a few great houses it's as though we're in open country. Yet I know that behind the great houses there's Little Ireland, one of the poorest areas of all. Then we turn back, approaching the town from a different direction past the new town hall, along King Street and towards the great Royal Exchange. I lean out again, foolishly thinking I might see someone I know.

  Everything looks different from this angle. You're looking down on people for a start, and the crowds part in front of you. Not like being down there, pushing and shoving. And I can see right into the shops. There are governesses pushing prams and market traders shouting, and men with briefcases heading into the Exchange.

  ‘My grandfather built that,’ says Mr M, nodding towards the huge building.

  ‘No way!’ I say. ‘He must have been an important bloke then,’

  Mr M looks amused again. ‘You could say that,’ he says, and he starts telling me about his family.

  Seems like the Mosleys own Manchester. That's how important they are. It was a Nicholas Mosley who bought it in 1596. I whistle, and Mr M looks stern. But I'm looking at him with new eyes.

  ‘So, do you own it then?’ I say, but he says his cousin, Oswald, owns most of it, and he lives in Ancoats Hall. Near where the fair was.

  ‘I am really a very minor branch of the family,’ he says. And yet he owns that big house.

  ‘Don't you have no children, sir?’ I say, and again he shoots me a look.

  ‘I never married,’ he says, and that's the end of that.

  There must be two Manchesters, I'm thinking. This one, with its broad streets and grand buildings and carriages, and the one where I used to live.

  Can't get the two of them to come together. Seems like the rich can travel around Manchester all they like, without ever seeing the poor. And I fall quiet for a while thinking, I don't know my way around here. And even if I did, where could I go, dressed like this? People notice you in gear like this. You're expected to belong somewhere.

  That night we eat in the same room, at opposite ends of a great polished table.

  He shakes out his napkin and lays it across his knee, then waits while I do the same. ‘Now, Nat,’ he says. ‘Let's see how well your reasoning and deduction can be applied to food.’

  He teaches me about knives and forks, which ones for which course, where the drink is poured and how to think of my plate as a perfect circle, divided between meat and three kinds of veg. I can't help thinking that the rich make it hard for themselves, when they could just pick up the plate and slurp, but I do as I'm told. The better I behave the sooner I'lI be out of here, I think, and then I ask him straight. ‘Why are you keeping me here?’

  He unfolds his napkin before he replies and dabbles his fingers in a dish of water. ‘Don't you like being here?’

  ‘I'm just wondering, that's all.’

  Mr M gives a thin smile. Then he leans forward. ‘Nathaniel,’ says he. ‘What in your opinion is the worst problem facing the poor?’

  That's easy. ‘Poverty,’ I say right off.

  He doesn't laugh. ‘But there are those who say that drink causes poverty.’

  ‘No,’ I say doggedly. ‘Not having money causes poverty.’

  ‘What about education?’ he says, wiping his mouth.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Do people not need to be educated before having money? So that they spend it more wisely?’

  Still I say nothing. Seems to me there's a hole in the argument somewhere, but I can't see where.

  He sits back and raises his glass. ‘Of course there are people,’ he says, ‘who believe that you cannot educate the poor – that they will always revert to a brutish condition. There are, even now, scientific papers that suggest that the ancestors of mankind may not be Adam and Eve, but a little lower. Animals, for instance.’
<
br />   He's talking with his mouth full again. Full of big words. But I get the idea and laugh at him. ‘That's crazy!’

  He smiles. ‘Certainly I do not think it could be applied to all members of the human race,’ he says.

  ‘You mean, not to you,’ I say, but he doesn't answer that one.

  ‘The difference between man and animals is that mankind can be educated,’ he says. ‘If the poor can be educated then something can be done for them. It would be the moral duty of the wealthy classes to do it.’

  Suddenly I see what he's getting at. ‘What am I then? Your big experiment?’

  ‘I wouldn't put it quite like that.’

  ‘Sounds like it to me.’

  He sighs, not looking at me. ‘Children who are left to fend for themselves grow into feckless adults. Who in turn produce more children.’

  I give up trying to understand him. ‘So what have you got in mind then? For me, I mean?’

  ‘I haven't decided quite what to do with you yet.’

  Don't like the sound of that.

  ‘So, you're not going to send me to the workhouse then?’

  ‘The workhouses are already teeming. Other solutions have to be found. There is a great deal of interest in Manchester in the problem of the poor. Different bodies and charitable concerns have put forward different proposals. It remains to draw all these together and come up with a single, workable solution, if possible.’

  ‘The problem of the poor,’ I say, as if chewing it over.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You said the problem of the poor. Not the problems.’

  Mr M looks a bit ruffled by this.

  ‘Semantics,’ he says, carving himself an extra piece of meat, and since I don't know what he means, I can't argue.

  When I leave him that night I think to myself, I'm not staying here to play your game, mister. I can leave any time I like! But quick as wink the thought comes, Not in these clothes, you can't.

  12

  Hat

  All the days go by exactly the same. Miss C moves me off the alphabet and on to Little Lessons for Little People, spelling out words, and putting words into sentences, like T-H-E P-O-O-R A-R-E A-L-W-A-Y-S W-I-T-H U-S.

  At the end of the lesson she says, ‘Now I want you to sit there a while, Nathaniel, and reflect upon your sins.’

  ‘What for?’ I say, thinking, How much time does she think I've got?

  Miss C looks disapproving. ‘Because it is something that the well-brought-up child must do, Nathaniel. It is an important part of a moral education.’

  I know better than to argue by now, so I stare at the little table and try to look guilty while I think about food, and Miss C mutters a prayer.

  ‘Very well, Nathaniel,’ she says, like she knows what I'm thinking about. ‘I will return in the morning.’

  Thing is, I do feel bad, but not about anything she'd understand. I feel bad about Annie. Sometimes I dream that I'm carrying her, and her arms are round my neck. One night I dream that she's staring at me from the window of Mother Sprike's house. I wake up and lie with my cheek pressed against the pillow, thinking of all the times we lay together. If I close my eyes I can feel her hair on my face. Sometimes I just stare out of the window, at the rain making circles on the pavement, and wonder what she's doing now. But even if I went back, even if I found her, the problem's the same. Where would we go?

  Once I start thinking about Annie, though, there's no stopping. So I try not to start. There's other things to think about.

  Why am I still here? There's nothing keeping me here, I'm not a prisoner. And I'm fed up with lessons. I should leave, and try to find Queenie, or Digger.

  But they don't want you, my thoughts say, and You're learning to read and You're getting good food.

  Feels like I've handcuffed myself to good food and a bed.

  Mr M teaches me numbers himself, and I get on all right, better than with reading and better than Mr M expects. I can add up well enough, and divide. In the workhouse, I used to have this scam going, that the littl'uns gave me a portion of their food in return for protection from some of the older lads and some of the men, and if they were good or did me a favour, I'd give them a portion back. So that way I learned adding, subtracting and division.

  Even so, it's hard going because we work right through till tea, and by the end of the lesson I'm completely cheesed off and my head's aching.

  ‘Perhaps you'd like another drive out?’ Mr M says as we eat, and I look at him sullenly.

  ‘Where's my hat?’ I ask.

  Up goes the eyebrow. ‘Your hat?’ he says.

  ‘Yeah, you know. Thing that goes on top of your head.’ And when he doesn't answer I say, ‘You said you'd kept it, remember?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he says. ‘But I hardly think it'll go with those clothes.’

  ‘I want it back,’ I tell him. For a minute I think he'll tell me off for being rude or ungrateful, but he only shrugs and says, ‘Very well, I'll have it sent up to you in the morning.’

  And in the morning, there it is! Mrs Quivel hands it to me like it's something she's just stepped in. ‘Master said you wanted this,’ she says, wrinkling her nose. I seize it in delight. It's all been cleaned up brand new, though there are still shiny, greenish patches on it.

  Soon as she's gone I put it on and strut about, feeling like Dodger again. Then I put my new clothes on and turn about, trying to see myself in the polished wood of the wardrobe.

  Milly comes in with tea on a tray. ‘Hey, Mil, what do you think?’ I say, and she nods and smiles, but I notice that her eyes are red.

  ‘What's up?’ I ask, and at first she won't tell me.

  Then she says, ‘Father's ill again, really poorly. And I can't go to see him.’

  ‘Have you asked?’

  ‘Of course I've asked,’ she says hotly. ‘But Mrs Quivel says –’ She stops and presses her lips together as Quivel herself appears, arms folded.

  ‘Laundry's waiting,’ Quivel says, and shuts her mouth up like a trap.

  Milly goes, but reappears an hour later. ‘Mil,’ I say. ‘How can I get out?’

  ‘Out?’ she says, looking scared.

  ‘Out on the streets,’ I say. ‘Just for a walk around.’

  Milly plumps up the pillows on my bed. ‘All the doors are locked,’ she says.

  ‘What – all the time?’ She doesn't say anything to this, so I ask her, ‘Don't you ever go out?’

  Milly shakes her head, and there, like magic, is Quivel again.

  ‘I don't recall saying as there'd be time for idle chat,’ she says.

  I glare at her, thinking, I'll not be taking orders from you for much longer, you old hag. But Milly goes with her meekly.

  Then Miss C arrives but I can't concentrate on my lessons. All the time I'm thinking, All the doors locked! And I get quite snappy with her, so that she makes me copy out T-H-E M-E-E-K S-H-A-L-L I-N-H-E-R-I-T T-H-E E-A-R-T-H ten times.

  Over tea I ask Mr M, ‘Don't you ever go for a stroll about?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You know, a walk. Stretch your legs.’ As I say it I remember he's got one leg lame.

  I could kick myself, but all he says is, ‘If I want to take the air I go out in my carriage.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but… it's not the same, is it?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I miss having a walk.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Perhaps I could go out one time, on my own?’

  ‘I hardly think that would be wise.’

  ‘You can't keep me here – I'm not your prisoner.’

  ‘Certainly you are not,’ says Mr M. ‘But wandering about the streets led to the mess you were in when you were brought here. You of all people should know that the streets aren't safe.’

  I go on at him then, about how it'd be different now, but all he'll say is, ‘Perhaps when you are well enough, we'll see.’ And he won't be budged.

  That night we go out in the carriage
again. Past St Peter's Church we go, turning right along Peter Street to Deansgate. I'm working out the street signs as we go, and I can actually read them! Doesn't help, though. In some funny way it's distracting. Seems like I knew the area better when I couldn't read the names of the streets.

  I keep peering out of the window, hoping to catch sight of someone, anyone, I know. There's a flash of striped material on a corner, but it isn't Queenie. Even the street sellers look different, like the whole world's changed while I've been cooped up with Mr M. And I think to myself, I could push the door open now and jump out and run, but still the thought comes to me, Where to, in these clothes? Scallies'd have me stripped to the bones before you could say ‘cravat’. So I sit back and drum my heels on the wood.

  ‘See anyone you know?’ says Mr M, like he's been reading my mind.

  ‘No,’ I say shortly, and for the rest of the journey he doesn't talk and I don't either. We just glide through the streets, and I have a funny feeling, like I'm dead and travelling in a hearse. That's it, I tell myself, loosening my collar. I'm getting out.

  That night I get into bed in my clothes, and wait until the house is silent, then open the door of my room. All's quiet as I creep downstairs, and I nearly jump out of my skin when the clock chimes. But no one comes, and the carpet's so thick that the stairs don't even creak when I go past.

  There's four floors to this house, and a long line of portraits going down with the stairs. I can tell they're all Mr M's family, because they look just like him and their eyes follow you just like his.

  Mr M's study is two floors down. I put my ear to the door. All's silent, so I try the handle. Locked.

  Just out of curiosity I try the next handle along. That's locked as well.

  A hard house to nick stuff from, I'm thinking, and it comes to me that maybe that's what they're thinking, that I'll nick stuff, and even though I was going to have a bit of a look about for something I could take with me, I feel insulted.

  I go all the way to the ground floor without trying any more doors, because I don't know who sleeps where. There's a curtain across the main door, and when I pull it back I feel a furious disappointment. It's bolted, of course, top and bottom, but I could pull those back. Problem is, there's three big locks – the door's locked outside and inside as well!