The Whispering Road

by Livi Michael

  Abel's friend, a burly bloke with a handlebar moustache, lets me into the warehouse and we unload the boxes. ‘Is that it?’ he asks, and I nod.

  ‘Best make yourself scarce then,’ he says, drawing the great doors to and bolting them. I've half a mind to ask if I can stay the night in the warehouse, because I don't know if it's safe to go back. How long do raids take? But the moment passes and he's hurrying off, drawing his collar up against the rain.

  I loiter a bit, not sure what to do. Maybe I should go to Nell's place. And tell her, tell her everything Annie said. But it's already beginning to sound daft in my mind – the ravings of a mad littl'un. Coincidence, I tell myself, and wander round at the back of the pub, kicking a stone.

  There's children waiting in the shadows at the corner, a girl holding the hand of a younger boy, three little boys pressed into a doorway, another girl holding a baby.

  Waiting for their mam or dad, I think, giving the stone an extra kick. There's an old man bent over crutches with a rag tied over one eye, hobbling slowly down the steps from the pub. He's had no luck there, I'm thinking then, remembering the last pub I was in, consider going in and trying my own luck at telling a story.

  Look where that got you, I think, and shrug, clutching my shirt at the chest, because it's cold now as well as wet. Then I remember the night I spent in a boarded-up house, after leaving Mr M. Lots of the houses around here have been sold off as warehouses. And I can't stay here all night. I turn round and head into the shadows at the back of the pub.

  And just as I'm passing a hand grabs me by the scruff of the neck, hoisting me clear off my feet and dashing me into the wall.

  ‘I've got nowt!’ I yell, soon as I can speak, but he just keeps clobbering me into the wall. My hands and feet thrash about wildly because now he's got me by the throat and looks set to dash my brains out. I can't see a thing because there's no lights, but as soon as he speaks I know his voice.

  ‘Thought you'd got away from me, eh?’ he says.

  Carver.

  20

  Knife

  Next thing there's a knife up against my throat as he hauls me away from the pub. ‘Thought you'd given me the slip, dincha?’ he growls, but I can't think anything. All I can see Half-moon's is face as the knife draws a red line across his throat, like another mouth.

  Carver pushes me up against a door. ‘All these weeks I been looking for you,’ he spits. ‘I'm going to slit your belly and feed your guts to the birds!’

  He raises his knife, and all I can do is shut my eyes tight and hope Miss C was wrong about heaven and hell. Because I know where I'll be going.

  Then all of a sudden there's another sound, like a thunnk, of someone bumping into Carver's arm. Carver staggers forward, driving the knife deep into the door, a gnat's whisker away from my ear. I open my eyes and there's the one-eyed tramp I saw before, clutching Carver's shoulder.

  ‘Alms, s-s-ir,’ he quavers, and just for a second I think I might be going mad.

  Carver curses horribly and wheels round, driving his fist into the old man's nose. It squashes like an overripe plum, and he staggers over. But in that split second I whip round the corner and crouch behind some bins.

  I can just see Carver smashing the man's crutches over his head and kicking him, then he wrenches the knife out of the door and comes walking my way.

  I don't know who's breathing louder, me or him. Closer and closer he gets and I want to shut my eyes but I can't. He kicks one bin over, then the next, then just as I'm thinking I'll have to run at him, head down, and butt his stomach like a goat, he turns off into the alley facing me, still cursing under his breath.

  I daren't move. Seems like my knees have turned to water and I can't move. Seems like hours of listening to his footsteps fading away, before I can bring myself to come out from behind that bin. And I should run, of course I should, but I have to make sure of one thing. I have to be sure I'd not gone mad when I heard that tramp speak. Trembling like water before it drips off a spout I make my way over to the bundle of rags on the cobbles.

  He's a pitiful sight – one leg ending in a bloody stump, the other foot twisted behind him, his nose smashed, his crutches broke and his good eye all shot with blood. He groans as I approach and spits out a bit of tooth. I sink down beside him and turn his face to mine. He smiles, with what's left of his mouth.

  ‘Hello, Tom,’ says Travis.

  21

  Crutch

  ‘Blimey, Travis,’ I say, when I can speak. ‘What happened to you?’

  Travis makes a huge effort to get on to his knees, and sinks down again. ‘Help me up,’ he groans through clenched teeth. ‘Twisted – my – ankle.’

  And he's only got one foot.

  I pull at his arms, he clutches my shoulders and somehow we get him into a kneeling position. Then, sweating and desperate in case Carver comes back, I brace myself against the wall while he puts his full weight on me and hauls himself up.

  Good job I've got all these new muscles. Travis's face is creased in agony, and mine can't look any better, as he presses down and hops – one tiny shuffling step then another – out of the alley into Market Street, me acting as his crutch. People glance up at us curiously then look away. They don't offer to help, and I daren't ask. Got to get him to Nell's, I'm thinking. The shop isn't safe, and Nell's is nearer.

  Somehow we hobble across that road, me half dragging, half carrying Travis, him swearing like a trooper under his breath, which reeks of gin. We turn off into another alley and into a court, stumbling across the legs of people just lying in the yard. Then through another alley into the court where Nell lives.

  Travis sinks down on the steps leading to Nell's cellar while I bang on the door. Please, please be in, I'm thinking, and soon I hear her voice, sounding fearful. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It's me, Nell – Joe. Let me in!’

  A pause, then the door scrapes open. It's Nell pulling a skirt on over her nightgown, clutching her shawl. She claps a hand to her mouth when she sees Travis.

  ‘It's all right,’ I tell her. ‘He's a friend. And he's hurt. Please let us in!’

  She could say no, of course, but she doesn't. She opens the door wider and comes out. Travis shuffles down the steps on his backside and between us we haul him into Nell's room.

  There's a thin mattress on the floor and Travis collapses on to it, moaning. Nell's room, if you can call it that, is only part of a cellar. A sheet draped over a rope divides it from the rest, and I know from what she's told me that a family live in the other half. Nell's bit is big enough for the mattress and a stool and the boxes she took from Abel, which are piled up in the corner. There's mould on the walls but the stone flags are only a bit damp. Nell presses her finger to her lips, meaning we've got to be quiet, then she crouches over Travis.

  ‘It's his ankle,’ I whisper. ‘I think he's sprained it.’

  Nell unties the laces on his boot. Travis never wore boots, I'm thinking.

  The ankle looks blue, even in this light, and swollen. She moves his foot a little and Travis tries not to groan. She tugs the boot off gently then looks round and tears a strip off the end of the cotton sheet. She pours some water on it from a cracked jug and places the cotton strip over his ankle like a poultice. She does all this without asking questions, while I sit on the stool and wipe the sweat from my forehead. Then, from the pocket of her skirt, she produces a small flask and when she opens it there's a strong smell of rum. She holds it to Travis's mouth and he gulps it down. ‘Thanks, miss,’ he says, and closes his eyes. Then she offers me a swig.

  I don't think much of rum but I take it anyway, and it runs through me like fire. I can see why people take to it because, just for a few moments, it makes me feel strong and warm.

  Nell drinks the last of it herself. ‘Sleep,’ she says, and props herself up against the boxes and the wall. She looks too exhausted to ask questions. I slump down on the floor, propping my aching head up on the stool. I'll never sleep like this, I'm think
ing, then suddenly I do.

  Morning light's slanting in at the cellar window when I wake up, stiff and cramped. Travis is still flat out with his mouth open, Nell's on her way out of the door. There's noises from the other side of the sheet.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I ask Nell.

  ‘Work,’ she says shortly. ‘Where do you think?’

  The sheet shifts behind me and a bleary face appears, takes the scene in open-mouthed, and disappears again. Then they're all marching through, five or six of them with their boots or clogs, and the last of them: a fat, shapeless woman with a spiteful face.

  ‘Landlord'll have something to say about this,’ is her parting shot to Nell as she leaves, and Nell shoots me a despairing look, before hurrying after them.

  ‘Wait!’ I say, but she only hurries up the steps.

  ‘I'll be back at noon,’ she calls over her shoulder.

  Travis is stirring by now, and I shift myself on to the stool, stiffly, for my legs've gone dead. Travis stares at the wall, then round at me. His bandage has slipped and it's hard to know which of his eyes is in a worse mess.

  ‘What place is this?’ he says, hauling himself into a sitting position.

  I try to explain, without making the story too long. He listens, closing his eyes again, and I'm not sure how much he's taking in. When he finally opens them he just says, ‘Water,’ and I pick up the jug and help him to drink from it. Then he turns over again and sleeps.

  But I want to know what's gone on at the shop. When I'm sure he's asleep I slip out, running fast as I can towards Oldham Street. And there's Abel and Matt, putting the shop back to rights with a crowd of helpers. I'm so pleased to see him I shout aloud, and he turns to me, spreading his arms wide.

  ‘Joe!’ he says. ‘You're safe then. Good lad!’

  He seems much happier than I thought he'd be.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask him.

  ‘I spent the night in a cell. Matt here had a whip round to bail me out. But they had to let me go anyroad because – guess what?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘The Stamp Act's been repealed!’

  I look blank.

  ‘That means the paper's legal! We can run it as a proper newspaper and sell copies on the streets!’

  He picks up a truncheon that's lying in the road and kicks it halfway down the street. ‘YES!’ he cries, raising his fists to heaven.

  ‘That's great!’ I say, feeling as though I should say something, and he cuffs me playfully. ‘We won, Joe! That's the last time my shop'll ever be raided. How d'you fancy being a street seller?’

  Telling stories on the street, to crowds of people? That's all I ever wanted!

  ‘But right now you can sweep up glass,’ he says, handing me a broom.

  First I have to tell him what's happened. And about Travis. ‘And I think Nell's worried she'll be in trouble with the landlord,’ I tell him. ‘Only I couldn't just leave him. He's saved my life, twice now.’

  ‘We'll have to move him,’ he says right away. ‘He can come here for now. What time did you say Nell's coming back?’

  ‘She said she'd be back at noon.’

  ‘Me and Matt'll be there. We'll see if we can rustle up a stretcher. Have you had breakfast?’

  Of course I haven't.

  ‘Well, go inside then!’ Abel cries. ‘Matt's mother's making tea.’

  I have a small feast of weak tea and bread, then I spend the rest of the morning sweeping glass and putting bookshelves back up.

  ‘Look at the state of these,’ Matt says. Several books are muddied, with pages ripped out. ‘It'll cost a fortune, this.’

  ‘We'll soon get the money when the paper's on the streets,’ says Abel. I've never seen him so cheery.

  Just before noon we set off to Nell's. She's so pleased to see Abel that she falls on him, hugging and kissing, till you have to look the other way.

  She lets us in and I half expect to see that Travis has gone, but he hasn't, of course, in his state. He's sitting up, though, dazed but awake.

  ‘Tom, you've come back,’ says Travis. ‘And I thought I'd dreamed you.’

  ‘Who's Tom, Joe?’ says Abel.

  ‘Who's Joe?’ says Travis.

  It takes a long time to explain. And even longer to get Travis out of that cellar. I'd never have done it on my own. Matt's made a stretcher out of a canvas sack pulled over broom handles – and at last Travis is up the steps, and Abel and Matt carry him in a sitting position all the way back to the shop. Abel makes a rough bed up for him in the back room, which has been cleared.

  Nell says she'll have to get back to work. ‘Not for long you won't,’ says Abel. ‘When we get this place sorted you can come and live and work with me.’

  Then Matt's mother brings us more bread and cheese and tea, and Travis eats like a ravening wolf. Then we're left alone again, while Abel goes after his stock.

  Travis doesn't seem comfortable on the bed. He keeps shifting and wincing. Gingerly I touch his foot. ‘Does it hurt much?’

  ‘Aye, lad,’ he says, frowning at the place where his other foot should be. ‘They both do.’

  ‘Travis,’ I say. ‘What happened?’

  It's a short, horrible tale. Not long after he left us by the forest he had an accident, poaching. Not so much of an accident, as a man-made trap that new landowners spring on folk who are passing, just in case they hadn't realized they were trespassing. Which Travis hadn't, for the land had been newly enclosed.

  It was the kind of trap sometimes used by farmers on foxes, only man-sized. Great steel jaws on a spring, triggered by stepping on them, and well concealed. They're made to trap poachers, so they didn't take the foot off cleanly, but mangled it as he tried to get away. He was in luck, if you could call it that, because a cottager passed some time later with his son, and they helped him to free himself. Otherwise he could have been caught and hanged.

  The cottager and his son hauled Travis back to their hut and sent for a man who set bones and pulled teeth for the rest of the village. This man gave Travis a long swig of rum and took the rest of his foot off with a hand-saw. I can feel my eyes water when he tells this bit. And the cottager, who was a joiner by trade, made Travis a crutch and gave him one of his own boots.

  But what about listening to the road through the soles of your feet? I'm thinking. How will you hear what the road's telling you now?

  Course, he couldn't get far after that, not like he had done before. There wasn't too much work he could do, and when he begged he was clapped in the workhouse. There he spent thirteen hours a day smashing stone in a cubicle, until a chip of stone flew up and put out his eye. Then he had to lie all day in the corner of the men's ward, dreaming of the open fields.

  He was given a job clearing the slops. And one day, when the master of the workhouse stood with his back to Travis and his front to the open door, Travis raised his crutch and beat him senseless, making his way across the yard.

  Then he was a wanted man, and he made his way to where every criminal seeks refuge, here in the big town, where he was less noticeable and could beg in peace. All this time I've been taking papers around the streets, Travis has been here as well, skulking in corners, begging for bread.

  ‘It's not that bad, lad,’ he says, seeing my face. ‘Could have been worse. It could have been a spring gun.’

  Could have been better, I'm thinking. But a spring gun, hidden in bushes, has taken many a poacher to an early grave.

  ‘You shouldn't have left us,’ I say, because I still feel a prickle of resentment about it, even now.

  Travis sighs. ‘Aye,’ he says. ‘Happen not.’

  ‘You could have come with us, into the forest,’ I say. ‘We met Dog-woman, you know.’

  Travis smiles with his ruined mouth. ‘How is she?’ he says.

  ‘Horrible,’ I tell him. ‘You never said she was real.’

  Travis hutches himself up. ‘All stories are real, lad, one way or another.’

  ‘She's no an
gel, though. Or I'm St George.’

  ‘Now, you can't go passing judgment on folk like that.’

  ‘How do you suppose she got there?’

  ‘I don't know, lad,’ Travis says vaguely. ‘I wouldn't mind seeing her again, though.’ He pauses, looking round. ‘I don't suppose you've brought any of that rum with you?’

  I haven't, and he seems sorry to hear it. I can't imagine the old Travis drinking, but the wreck he's become needs drink. He spreads his shaking fingers across the blanket.

  ‘Travis,’ I say, almost whispering. ‘What will you do?’

  He only looks vague again. ‘Oh, I do this and that.’

  I want to ask him if he's still got his stories, if he can still hear what the road's telling him through the sole of his one boot, but I don't like to, so I say nowt.

  After a while he says, ‘Where's your sister? Where's the little maid?’

  Another long story. I try to make light work of telling him everything that happened after he left. I tell him about Dog-woman guiding us to the edge of the forest. He listens intently when I tell him about my storytelling in the pub, and he seems to know all about Barney Bent-nose.

  ‘Bent as a nine-bob note, that one,’ he says. ‘I hope you've learned by now you can't go trusting everyone you meet.’

  ‘You taught me that,’ I say pointedly, but he only grins his gap-toothed grin. Blowed if I know what he's so cheerful about.

  I tell him about Barney trying to sell us at market, then being taken from the market to the fair and, of course, he knows Honest Bob.

  ‘Known him for years,’ he says. ‘He's the only bloke I know who makes Barney look decent and true. But he's all right really,’ he says. ‘He let me do a day's work for him a few weeks back.’

  I lean forward. ‘Then you'll've seen Annie,’ I say.

  ‘Annie -?’

  ‘Julie, I mean – my sister. She stayed with the fair. She wanted to, I mean…’ I trail off lamely, but Travis looks puzzled.

  ‘You left her with Honest Bob?’