by Chris Hannon
‘It’s going to be alright Perry,’ Eva whispered.
‘Their graves,’ he asked, ‘where are they buried?’
‘I’m sorry. Either rowed out to sea and sunk with stones or more likely cremated.’
Fairbanks brought the bottle and a strip of gauze over to the bed. ‘It is awful news I know, but time now I think to see to our lady,’ there was something about the way he said lady that Perry didn’t like.
‘Yes,’ Perry realised how selfish he’d been and rubbed Eva on the back, ‘of course, I’m sorry,’ he said to Eva.
‘Don’t be,’ she said gently.
Fairbanks unscrewed the bottle and upended it onto the strip of gauze, ‘Where shall we start?’
Eva held up her arm, revealing a grazed elbow. Perry leaned closer to get a better look and sucked air through his teeth. The wound oozed a dark purple grape colour.
Perry thought of Donnegan’s boys. Their cuts and scrapes he’d tended to over the years. There was a lump in his throat. Grief sat heavy on him. Fairbanks turned to him and said something he didn’t quite catch.
Then came a flash of white. A vinegary smell.
He kicked his feet. Head gripped in a firm vice. He wriggled. His strength waned.
A blur of yellow.
Then all went black.
11
He gagged. Was that cat piss he could smell? His nostrils burned and bile tunnelled up his throat. His head rolled to the side and a sting warmed his cheeks.
‘- me! Come on!’
Confused and groggy, his eyelids parted. Where the hell was he? A purple tube was being wafted under his nose; smelling salts, he realised.
‘Urgh,’ he batted it away with a feeble hand.
‘Thank Lord! Get up Perry! Get up!’ The panic in Eva’s voice stirred him. He sat up and rubbed his stinging eyes. Eva ran to the window and pushed it up but it didn’t budge.
Dr Fairbanks was lying in an awkward bundle on the floor. What on earth had happened?
‘God Eva. Is he alive?’
There was a knock on the door.
‘Doctor?’ I heard a commotion, is all well?’
‘Uh, all fine in here!’ Eva yelled and she tried again to push up at the window. The doorknob rattled, it was locked.
‘The windows are locked, find the keys!’ Eva hissed.
‘Doctor?’ Cecil banged again, louder this time.
‘What happened?’ Perry got uneasily to his feet.
‘He attacked you Perry! We’ve got to get out of here, come on, now!’
He couldn’t remember anything, just the smell. It was almost too much for his fuzzy head to take in but even in his state, he knew an unconscious doctor found with two street kids would land them in a workhouse or jail.
‘Check his pockets,’ Perry scampered round to the desk and tried the drawers. The bottom one was filled with bottles stacked in neat rows, the next was full of files. When he looked up to check on Eva she was slipping Fairbank’s wallet into the pocket of her dress.
On the desktop, he looked under the stack of folders and checked an elaborate paperweight for a secret door. There was paper underneath; he skimmed the top sheet. Eva was saying something.
‘Huh?’
‘I’ve got them!’ she said.
‘Right.’
Eva limped over to the window and after a couple of attempts, unlocked it and pulled it up. He folded the paper and stuffed it inside his pocket. Cecil’s low tones came on the other side of the door. He was talking to someone. A metal sound fumbled in the lock.
‘Come on!’
He darted across the room and followed Eva out the window.
The drop stung his Achilles. Eva huddled into him, walking fast, their arms interlocked. It was only when they joined the busy twist of alleys that Perry felt safe.
‘They’ll be after us.’
‘We should hide.’
‘Eva, what happened in there?
‘When he put that cloth to your mouth, you struggled and twisted and both of you went tumbling to the ground,’ she tucked her hair behind her ear. A smile spread uncontrollably across her face. ‘Oh Perry, I was brilliant. See, when the doctor fell, I saw my chance. I think he must’ve knocked his head on the floor ‘cos he was blinking and groaning. I pounced on him, ripped the rag from his hands and stuffed it over his mouth.’
‘Blimey,’ he gave her arm a squeeze, ‘you saved me.’
Eva couldn’t hide her delight and bunched a little closer to him.
‘But why did he attack you?’
It was the question on his own mind, ‘I’m not sure yet,’ but he had an idea. ‘You need to get off the main streets. Do you know Blue Anchor Lane?’
‘Of course,’ she rolled her eyes.
He gave her directions and told to knock and ask for Joel and crossed his fingers that Ma wouldn’t answer.
She nodded, chewing her swollen lip. ‘What about you?’
‘There’s somewhere I need to go.’
A fog had crept in from the sea during the morning. Ravens squawked atop brick pillars, dots of black in the chalky air. The guard took his foot from the desk and dropped the penny dreadful he was reading. He left the booth and crunched through the gravel, stopped and listened. Breakers smashed and foamed on rocks, barely visible under the blanket of white.
‘Who goes there?’
Perry cleared his throat. ‘I’m here to see a prisoner. I can make it worth your while.’
He was shown to a room without windows and rested his hands on a dented table, then on his lap. The door opened with a clang and the guard showed the prisoner in. Samuel Scrimshaw shuffled in, his chains jangling so loudly that Perry wondered if a man could ever get used to it.
‘You’ve got ten minutes,’ the guard left them alone, the bang of the lock, echoed in the cold between father and son.
Perry wasn’t sure how to start.
‘The other day you were with the note boy. I couldn’t say if it was you or not at the time. This place,’ his wild eyes searched the ceiling, ‘it can play tricks on you. But here you are,’ he rested his chains on his lap. ‘Did you know it was me?’
Perry nodded. It was like sitting with a stranger, but one whose features he sensed and knew, as if he had dreamt of this person night after night and then met them in a crowd. His voice was deeper than he remembered, but still with its gravelly quality.
‘I always hoped you’d come.’
Perry shuffled on his chair. ‘I spose it’s about time.’
‘There’s so much I want to-’
‘- I was seven. How could you do something so stupid and risk everything? You were supposed to look after me.’
Samuel Scrimshaw pursed his lips. ‘I know. It was for you I did it.’
Excuses were worthless to him. ‘You killed someone, how-’
‘-it was an accident.’
‘I don’t want to hear your lies,’ Perry was surprised at the strength of his own feelings. ‘You abandoned me - I’ll never forgive that.’
Samuel nodded. His chains rustled as he wiped his nose.
‘So that’s why you came. To tell me I’ve been a hopeless father. Perry, being in lock up is one thing, but my real sentence has been knowing I let you down. Every single day I regret it. I know I’ve been a terrible father. Saying sorry alone isn’t enough I know, but it’s all I have.’
Perry tried not to show how much this admission meant to him. They were but a few sweet words, but they were a start, something that they could both build on. He decided to open up.
‘I came, not just to see you, but to tell you something. I was attacked today.’
His father looked surprised. ‘By who?’
‘By a doctor.’
He grimaced. ‘Fairbanks?’
Perry nodded. ‘Last time I was here, I saw the old goat coming into the prison. And then there’s this. I nicked it from his office earlier.’
Perry took the paper he had stolen from Fairbank’s office and
unfolded it on the table in front of his father, who stared blankly at it.
‘You know I can’t read.’
‘Oh,’ Perry was embarrassed, he really had forgotten, ‘It’s a list of names. I recognise a few of them on there. Every one of them is someone taken by The Sick. Each with a line crossed through it. Except one.’
‘Me.’
‘Exactly,’ Perry confirmed. ‘So, what does it mean? What’s Fairbanks doing here, coming to the prison? Why’s your name down here?’
His father scratched his stubble. ‘I had The Sick. Beat it I did, but barely.’
Perry’s mind flooded with realisation. ‘I had it too,’
His father leaned in. ‘By God Perry. That’s why he attacked you!’
It didn’t make any sense, ‘But why?’
Samuel Scrimshaw was shaking his head, almost talking to himself. ‘Of course, it’s the blood he said, the answer’s in the blood.’
‘Dad!’ Perry interrupted him. The word had come out naturally, without check.
His father’s features softened. ‘Now that, I haven’t heard in a long time.’
Perry didn’t want him to feel like he was forgiven and couldn’t hide the sharpness in his voice. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’
‘It all started a while back. Years. Me and a few of others due for the noose were called in one by one to see the Warden. The man offers us all the same deal. There’s this doctor he says, needs some subjects to try his remedies on. As we’re all dead men anyway, the deal was, we let Fairbanks test things on us - pills, injections and the like and in return the Warden delays the date.’
Perry felt sickened. ‘He was experimenting on you?’
Samuel bowed his head. ‘I wanted more time, wanted to see my boy again. Only you never came.’
Perry shook the guilt off before it could cloak him. ‘Don’t you dare pin that on me.’
Samuel scratched his head and looked under his nails. ‘It’s my fault Perry. I’m not looking to blame you for not coming to see me. It was just hope - no more than what I deserve.’
Perry decided not to press it.
‘So Fairbanks was trying to find a cure for The Sick by testing it on prisoners?’
‘No son. Not at first anyway. The Sick started in here,’ he pointed to the floor as if it were the exact spot where the disease was born. ‘Fairbanks invented it by accident! It’s his bloody fault!’
‘What?’ Perry stammered. ‘Why would anyone do such a thing?’
Samuel shook his head. ‘He’s still coming here a day or two a week, giving me some pill to take, testing me, scribbling things in his notebook, weighing me, taking my blood.’
‘But why?’
‘Look Perry, I’ve never been the cleverest bloke in the world, Lord knows that. But I think Fairbanks is trying to find a cure. He’s testing me because I was the only person to survive it.’
Perry levelled his gaze. ‘Until me.’
The quiet was broken by the clang of the lock sliding back. His father leant forward.
‘It must be in our blood. He’s got me Perry, nothing we can do about that. But you need to stay clear of him, stay clear of here and all. Skip town!’
‘Time’s up,’ said the guard.
Perry slowly got to his feet, his head spinning and tried to find something of himself in his father’s features. Eyes, brown as bark stared back, amber flecked and hopeful.
‘Perry?’ Samuel motioned down to his hand, outstretched for his son to shake.
‘Hurry up,’ said the guard.
Perry didn’t shake it. ‘Next time.’
He paced back to town, the sea frothy and unsettled in the distance. As he neared the outskirts, he was struck, as if finally seeing the place in its truest form, how much he hated Southampton. Not its buildings, its streets, its people or its strange ways, but what the poisonous combination of them all had wrought onto his life. Mrs D and the boys were all dead, his home gone. His Pa was in lockup, The Sick had nearly claimed his own wretched life. The only things he was truly grateful for were his two new friends. It was clear to him now what he must do…what they must do.
At Ma’s, he found Eva in the kitchen. Joel had a bowl of hot water at her side and was carefully dabbing Eva’s cuts and grazes with a sponge.
‘I think we should leave,’ Perry announced.
‘What?’ Joel looked around the kitchen, ‘Now?’
‘Have you found someplace nicer for us to stay?’ Eva asked.
He took a seat, told them all about his Pa, and all he’d learnt at the prison.
‘So when we did the notes that time, that feller with the chains…he was your Pa?’
Perry nodded.
‘Bleedin’ heck! So that’s why you wanted out of there so sharp.’
Eva cleared her throat, ‘So anyway, you said we should leave. Is it because of this doctor then?’
‘Not just that actually. It’s Southampton. I’m sick of it and all it’s done to me…all it’s done to you. Taken our loved ones, taken our homes. I feel like a spider, caught by some cruel boy who is pulling off my legs one by one.’
‘Urgh, that’s creepy,’ Eva shuddered.
‘But where? How do we know we’re going to somewhere better?’
‘Abroad. Somewhere hotter than here. France maybe? I don’t know. But that’s the beauty of it, we just keep going until we find someplace we like. Then when we’ve had enough, we move on.’
‘I like it, sounds like an adventure,’ said Eva.
Perry glowed, thrilled at the idea of the three of them on the road. He smiled at Eva, but she was holding a cloth over her graze. The bloom of blood soaking through almost looked pretty. Joel was harder to read.
‘What do you think Joely?’
He crossed his arms, ‘I dunno. Maybe. I just don’t see how we can afford to leave, let alone what’ll we do for money and food when we’re in a strange place. I don’t know any language but English.’
‘I do like the idea of being somewhere warmer.’
‘Joely. You have to trust us, this could save us. The three of us are smart, we can get by, adapt to anything. We just need to be clever, save up hard, pull off some money-spinners and in a couple of weeks we’d have enough for a ticket to France.’
Joel looked at Eva, who gave him an encouraging nod. ‘Well, you nearly spread your legs to get by,’ he said with a cheeky smile, ‘and got beaten up for your trouble. Can’t be too many places worse than this.’
Perry wasn’t sure whether to laugh or hit him, but he felt Eva’s hand upon his knee. She was smiling.
‘It’s fine. What Joel said is kind of true. We all know it, why pretend? Let’s not dwell on it. Are we all in?’
They did an awkward three-way handshake. Perry grabbed a dusty jar from the shelf and unscrewed the lid.
‘We’ll put everything we each have in this collectin’ jar. While Eva’s healing up, we’ll be out there pulling every scam, every trick, every little thing we can think of until we have enough money to go. I’m going to enjoy taking something back off this town. We start tomorrow.’
12
It was a fresh May morning. Perry wandered through the marketplace and stopped at a stall. Coppery onions, bright carrots and piles of grass-green apples were on display. He yawned, scooping one of the apples into his sleeve and strolled away, finding a spot where he could take the whole place in.
It was still quite early, and the townsfolk grazed the market with an unrushed, slovenly air. Perry was looking at every person in a new, predatory fashion. It didn’t matter whether they were old, young, a maid, businessmen – none of that. It was much more simple. Each person was either a possible target, or wasn’t. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for, but he’d know when he saw it. It wasn’t ostentatious wealth on a person – a jewellery dripping wife or ennobled gentlemen - they weren’t people to mess with unless you were an excellent pickpocket. He wanted someone with understated wealth, someone he could work on. He
rubbed the apple on his shirt and took a satisfying crunch. Flecks of apple spittle sprayed over his face, as good as having a wash.
The bells of St. Michael’s tolled, Bong. Everyone in the market paused. Those who bore caps or hats removed them - Perry included - and held them to their chests. Bong. Southampton stopped but for the gulls flapping from the rooftops. Bong. Their wings beat against the overcast sky. Bong. The bells stopped. Four times. Four more people were dead. Perry was getting numb to it now. He watched the market a little longer, tossed the core and decided to try somewhere else.
At the dock, seagulls cried and wailed. Water lapped at the hull of a cargo ship and a horn sounded somewhere out at sea. Perry peeked around a crate. It was the strangest thing. He’d snuck around these docks of a morning fifty times or more in his life. It had always been a hive of activity, but not today; he couldn’t remember seeing anything like it.
The dockers all stood with their arms crossed, facing the sea. No yelling, no rattling pulleys or shepherding down the bales of crates from the cargo ship. Just silence. Perry climbed up the small stack of crates to get a better view, smelling the sharp tang of citrus fruit and wood until he reached the top.
The men number eighty or so, all wore caps, most with their shirts rolled to their forearms, facing an upturned crate. A few of the men at the back twisted round nervously. These burly dockers looked worried. There was a noise and the group broke up in disorder, bumping into one another in a hurry to get away.
‘You lot!’
Perry locked on the voice, a thin man with long ginger sideburns.
‘Back to work you scum!’ he wiped perspiration from his brow. ‘What do you think you’re playing at eh?’
The weasel prowled round the cargo dock, pointing his cane like it was a pistol. He whacked one of the dockers on the rump.
‘Ow!’
‘Get a move on!’
The docker grabbed his behind and hurried up without further complaint. Perry stifled a laugh and scrambled back to the edge of the crate and lowered his legs down. Strong hands grabbed his calves and yanked him down to the floor. When he looked up there was a fist cocked above his head. He stuck up his hands to protect his face, ‘Don’t hit me!’