Street Child

by Berlie Doherty

  Jim spent the morning jolting from side to side on the cart, jumping down from time to time to help Betsy heave the horse over sticky heaps of snow.

  ‘There’s my yard,’ Betsy grunted to him at one point. ‘And there’s my cows. Hear them talking to each other? Like old men in an ale-house they are, full of wind and wisdom. Now, this is where my round finishes, but if Albert will let you we’ll carry on to the river.’

  Jim jumped down again and they both hauled on Albert’s reins until they’d coaxed him past Betsy’s yard and the mumbling of the cows.

  ‘Let’s smell your bread, Jim,’ Betsy said. He had already nibbled the end of it, and was keen to save the rest for his next few meals. Betsy reached out for it and took a huge bite, her loose teeth bending forward as she chewed it.

  ‘Poor old Rosie Trilling,’ she kept sighing in her breathy voice. ‘Poor old Rosie.’

  They were coming near the river. Jim could smell it, and he could hear the gulls keening across it. The street they were in now was littered with the heads and spines of fish, and women sat on crates gossiping as they worked at their filleting. Their hands were slimy and red with fish entrails. Cats and children prowled round them. A dairywoman with her pails slung across her shoulders on a yoke trudged past them and shouted out something at Betsy. Betsy clicked at Albert to stop.

  ‘She’ll be gutting me,’ she grunted, ‘if she thinks I’m selling milk on her patch. Hop down, Jimmy, and ask someone where Rosie Trilling lives. Someone’ll know her.’

  Jim slid down from the cart and watched Lame Betsy coaxing her horse round and limping back along the street.

  ‘I could stay with her,’ he thought, ‘if I don’t find Rosie. I could milk her cows for her and carry her pails. Surely she could give me a home.’

  He started after her. ‘Betsy …’ he called, but she didn’t hear him. She and the younger dairywoman were shouting at each other across the street, while the knock-kneed horse nosed into the muddy road and snorted at the fish-heads.

  Jim ran down the side street. The houses backed on to the river and had boats in their yards, spars and masts rocking gently, tinkling in the early breeze. Men were edging barges out, shouting across to each other, their voices bouncing off the buildings and echoing over the water. Some women were standing, hands on hips, watching them.

  Jim couldn’t remember what Rosie looked like any more. In his mind he saw a big woman with floury hands and her hair neat under a white cap, a starched apron tied over her long black dress. There was no one here like that. The women he saw had drab shawls draped across their heads and shoulders, and wore coarse dresses with ragged hems. He listened to their voices, trying to pick out one that he recognized, but they all sounded the same, pitched to shriek against the bustling noises of barges on the move and the screaming of gulls.

  At last he plucked up the courage to ask someone where Rosie Trilling lived.

  ‘If she’s in,’ he was told, ‘she’s at the white cottage at the bottom end.’

  When he knocked at the door a woman’s voice shouted to him to come in, and he knew it was Rosie’s.

  And she was there, crouching over a brazier that was glowing with hot coals, coaxing flames out of it. She was holding a twisted wire with a glistening herring skewered to it. An old woman, wrapped in bundles of brown and grey shawls, huddled next to her in a chair that seemed to be made out of boxes roped together. Rosie was breaking bits off the herring and feeding the old woman with it. She looked up at Jim, surprised.

  ‘The men have set off, son,’ she told him.

  ‘Rosie,’ said Jim. His eyes stung from the smoke. He rubbed them with the backs of his hands.

  ‘Yes, I’m Rosie,’ she said. ‘And I told you …’

  ‘I’ve come about Lizzie and Emily,’ he said. The smoke seemed to be in his throat now, twisting down inside him. It was hard for him to breathe. ‘I’m Jim Jarvis.’

  ‘Lord bless us.’ Rosie dropped the herring into the flames, where it spurted like a blue light. The old woman swore at her.

  ‘Annie’s little boy?’ Rosie stared at him, her hand to her mouth.

  Jim nodded. He bit the back of his hand to try to make the stinging in his eyes go away. He could hardly see Rosie. Now she was a brown, blurred shape that was moving round the brazier and coming towards him. She smelt of warmth and fish. She squatted down to his level, putting her hands on his shoulders.

  ‘Ma died. A long time ago,’ Jim began.

  Rosie pressed him to her and ran her hands through his hair, hugging him as if he was a tiny child again, and for the very first time since Joseph had told him the terrible news, Jim let out all the hurt that had been locked up inside him and cried for his mother.

  11

  The Spitting Crow

  Rosie sat on the floor and rocked Jim until he had sobbed himself to sleep, and then she lowered him down and went outside. The old woman stuck out her foot and tried to nudge Jim awake, but he was just too far away for her to reach. She spat into the fire instead.

  Rosie had gone down the yard to a shed that was built out over the river. Foul-smelling water lapped round it. Inside, it was heaped with bits of yarn and tarred ropes, but she managed to push those to one end to make a bed of some sorts out of old sacks. She went back into the cottage and filled a tray with whelks and eels that she was going to sell down near the shops, and hurried out. She knew that if Jim woke up he wouldn’t wander far, and she also knew that she couldn’t afford to miss the morning shoppers.

  The old grandmother edged her box chair closer and at last managed to kick Jim awake. He sat up slowly, puzzled to find himself in this strange, smoky room with a toothless old woman peering down at him. Then he remembered where he was. He was in Rosie’s cottage, and he was safe.

  The old woman nudged him again with her boot and nodded towards the half-eaten loaf that was sticking out of his pocket. She stretched out her clawed hand and Jim broke off a piece of bread and held it out to her, afraid of her glaring eyes and her restless, chewing mouth. She scowled at him and pecked at his hand, then opened her mouth wide. Jim broke off a bit of bread and fed it to her, and like a greedy bird she pecked and waited, and he fed her bit by bit. Sometimes, when she was slow, he bit a piece off for himself.

  When she nodded off to sleep he wandered outside and sat by the river. It was as busy as a market, with sailing ships ploughing their way through the mist, and barges nudging in and out of the wharves. Far out he could just make out the bulk of a paddle steamer, huge and wheezing. He wondered how far the river went, and what it would be like to be on one of those boats, rocking in the wake of the steamers.

  When Rosie came home it was nearly dark again. Jim stayed outside all the time, a little afraid of the spitting grandmother and her greedy, pecking mouth. Quite a few people seemed to go into the cottage, mostly men and boys, and there came from time to time the sound of arguing and shouting. There was an old man who seemed to come and go a lot, and who did most of the shouting whether there was anyone else with him or not. When he wasn’t shouting he was laughing to himself, in a dry, coughing way that wasn’t laughing at all. Jim wondered if he was Rosie’s grandfather.

  It was cold out on the bankside, but Jim didn’t want to go back into the cottage. He watched some boys playing in the snow and tried to join in, but they ran away as soon as they saw him. When at last he saw Rosie coming he ran to her. The tray that she had strapped to her shoulders was half-empty. She dragged her feet as she walked.

  ‘Well, Jim,’ she said, ‘I’ve no time to talk to you now. I’ve food to cook for my grandfather and my uncles, as they’re kind enough to give me a home.’ She stopped by the cottage. ‘And I can’t ask you in. Grandfather would throw you to the gulls, and me with you, if he thought you were intending to stay. There’s too many of us. Do you understand?’

  Jim stared up at her.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Jim,’ she said. ‘You don’t know my grandfather, or you wouldn’t look at me
like that. But I’ll show you where you can sleep tonight, if you promise to be careful.’

  She took him down to the shed. ‘Will you be all right here?’ she asked. ‘It’s cold, and it don’t half stink with all that rot on the river, but it’s dry enough.’

  ‘I like it,’ said Jim. ‘I can pretend I’m on a boat, Rosie.’

  ‘So you can.’ She stood at the door and looked out at the darkening water as if she’d never seen it before, her eyes narrowing. ‘Like to sail away, would you, Jim? I know I would. Far way to anywhere. Anywhere would be better than this. Drowning would be better than this.’ She turned round abruptly. ‘You bed down then, and I’ll bring you some cooked fish in a bit.’

  Jim could hear shouting from the cottage when Rosie went down to it. He could hear the old pecky woman crowing for food, and the grandfather coughing. Nobody seemed to talk quietly. From all the cottage doors and windows along the wharves there spilled out the sounds of shouting and arguing. Jim remembered the quiet of the wards and wondered whether Tip was asleep by now, and whether he was missing him.

  Later Rosie brought hot fish and tea and bread, and a candle in a holder for him. Jim had been lying on his stomach watching the boat lanterns glimmering like eyes on the water, as if they were creatures turning themselves upside down in the darkness. She knelt down and tucked the sacking round him.

  ‘Don’t you ever let Grandpa know you’re here. See?’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Good boy. I’ll go in soon, and see to the old lady.’

  ‘She’s like a sparrow,’ said Jim.

  Rosie laughed. ‘A crow, more like. Seen crows, Jim? Flappy, greedy things? That’s Grandma, when she gets going. A spitting crow. I sometimes think she’d peck my hand right off if she was hungry enough.’

  ‘Rosie,’ said Jim. ‘Can I stay here?’

  She held the candle up so she could look down at him. ‘Stay here? I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here myself.’

  ‘Can’t you ever go back to his lordship’s house?’

  ‘I wish I could! I was very comfortable there. I was very lucky to get that job. It was because Lame Betsy spoke up for me that I got it. But never mind. I lost it, and that’s that.’

  ‘Was it because of Lizzie and Emily that you lost it?’

  Rosie was silent for a bit. Then she said, ‘Lord, no. Whatever made you think that, Jim? It was because my cooking was so bad! I’ve never cooked anything but fish in my life! And they expected me to bake bread. Bread! My bread broke the flagstones if I dropped it.’

  Jim smiled to himself in the darkness. He’d just tried some of Rosie’s bread and he reckoned she was right.

  ‘But what about Emily and Lizzie? They didn’t get sent to the workhouse, did they?’

  Rosie blew her nose on her fishy apron. ‘To the workhouse? Emily and Lizzie? I’d have fought them all, his lordship included, if they’d done that. No, I’ll tell you what happened to Emily and Lizzie. Close your eyes and I’ll tell you what happened.’

  Jim listened quietly while Rosie told him about a grey-eyed lady who had visited the big house. She had come right down into the kitchen to see the two girls for herself. ‘She took them upstairs, Jim, and had them washed in her own wash room. And she sent out for dresses for them, a blue one for Emily, and a white one for Lizzie. And then she took them in a carriage, a beautiful carriage drawn by four white horses. You should have seen them setting off, as proud as little queens! They went all the way the countryside, to her summer home, to be looked after there.’

  She tucked the sacks round him and crept out of the shed and back to the noisy cottage, and Jim lay for a long time listening to the soft lapping of the river against his shed, thinking about the story Rosie had told him. And hoping it was true.

  12

  Shrimps

  Next morning Rosie told Jim that he would have to help her if she was going to feed him. She tied an old sack over his shoulders to disguise the workhouse clothes, in case the police saw him.

  ‘You’ll have to keep moving, Jim, same as me,’ she warned him. ‘If the bobbies see me standing still they’ll soon pack me off as well. We’ll both be running all day.’

  Jim liked working for her. When her voice grew tired he would shout out for her. ‘Whelkso! Salmon for sale! Pickled fish and shrimpso!’ He danced round while he was shouting, partly to keep himself warm and partly so he could watch out on all sides for policemen coming. He had such a light, skipping way of dancing that people stopped to watch him on their way to their shops and offices. They soon got to know him.

  ‘Skip for us, Jimmy!’ they used to say, especially if they saw him standing on his own.

  ‘Buy some shrimps and I will!’ Jim would say, and Rosie would step up with her tray of seafood and persuade them to buy something. While they were eating Jim would dance for them, and he would close his eyes, close out the street, and close out the faces of all the strangers …

  A long time ago his father had danced for him in their cottage. Jim could just remember the laughing faces of Emily and Lizzie as they sat on a long polished bench by the fire. He had been a very small boy then. He remembered clapping his hands and shouting out as his father danced, and the faster his father jumped the more the flames in the fire had danced, like wild, yellow spirits. ‘Faster, Pa! Faster!’ the children had shouted, and the black shadow that leapt from his father’s feet had become a crazy, long-limbed prancing shape across the walls and the ceiling, and Jim had jumped down and run to do a skipping dance with him, and been lifted up to the beams. There he was, in the room again, while strangers watched him and ate Rosie’s sea-food in the cold street.

  ‘I’m very pleased with you, Skipping Jim,’ Rosie told him, breaking into his dream. ‘I’m selling more salmon than I can pickle. They’ll have to have it boiled plain if they want more, and like it!’

  He had been staying with Rosie a few days when he first saw the doctor. He and Rosie were going back to her cottage one afternoon when they heard a voice behind them calling, ‘Rosie! Rosie Trilling!’ and they turned round to see Lame Betsy limping after them, holding up her skirts as she tried to hurry through the mud.

  ‘I’ve been worriting about that boy,’ Besty panted. ‘Whether he’d find you, and whether you could give him a home, and how he was doing.’

  ‘He’s doing fine,’ Rosie laughed. ‘He’s a real little dancing man, ain’t you, Jim? But he can’t stay with me for long, he knows that. I’m in mortal fear of my grandfather finding him and throwing us both out. You know what he’s like, Betsy.’

  Betsy stuffed her loose hair back under her cap. ‘Well, I’ve got a fine plan!’ She held out her hand, plump and pink with cold. ‘You come with me, Jim. I’m going to take you to school!’

  Jim’s stomach churned with terror. ‘I hate school!’ he shouted. ‘I hate school-teachers!’ He tried to pull himself away from Betsy.

  ‘He’s not a school-teacher, Jim. He’s a doctor, so they say. And he’s a school going for the likes of you, Jim. He’s a queer soul, they say, and he stands on a box in the middle of the street and asks people to bring their children along to his school, and he don’t charge them nothing!’ She stopped for breath, banging her chest with her fist. She held out her hand again. ‘Come on, Jim! It’s a fine chance for you!’

  Jim felt tears scorching. ‘Please don’t make me! Don’t make me go to school!’

  But Rosie pushed him gently towards Betsy. ‘Go with her, Jim,’ she said. ‘Somewhere to go where you’ll be warm and dry. And it’s free! Wish I had a chance to go to school!’

  ‘But I want to help you, Rosie!’ Jim called out, but Rosie hurried away from them.

  Betsy pulled him along with her, squeezing out comforting words betwen her breathy wheezings.

  ‘You’ll hear Bible stories, I should think, and sing lots of nice hymns. I don’t want you getting into bad ways, Jim, just because you ain’t got a mother and father. Look at that crowd! That’ll be him, talking n
ow.’

  Besty pushed Jim to the front of the staring crowd. A thin man with spectacles and fluffy side-whiskers was standing on a box, turning from side to side. He spoke in a light, soft voice with an Irish accent which Jim could hardly understand. Some of the people watching him were laughing, and a group of ragged boys were jeering. The man didn’t seem to hear them, but just kept on talking in his gentle voice. Jim strained to hear what he was saying, and then caught the words that he dreaded. It was almost as if he had been hauled by the scruff of his neck into the long, dim schoolroom in the workhouse, with Mr Barrack slicing the air with his whistling rope.

  ‘God is love,’ said the doctor. ‘God is good.’

  ‘No he ain’t!’ Jim shouted. ‘He ain’t good to me!’

  Everybody broke into a roar of cheering laughter and shouts. One of the boys on the corner picked up a lump of mud and flung it at the doctor. It landed with a splash across his face, stopping up his mouth as he opened it to speak again. The doctor coughed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He was jostled off his crate. He pushed his way through the crowd, struggling to keep his hat on his head. As he passed Jim he looked at him, just for a second, and what Jim saw in his eyes wasn’t anger, or reproach, but sadness.

  Jim turned away. Betsy was wiping her eyes on her sleeve. ‘Go on!’ she laughed. ‘Back to your Rosie, you vagabond! There’s not much you don’t know!’

  Jim raced off through the alleyways to find Rosie. He was followed by some of the boys from the crowd. ‘Hey, Skipping Jim!’ they shouted. ‘Wait for us!’

  But Jim didn’t stop until he had found Rosie again. The boys panted up to him, cuffing him lightly with their fists to show they wanted to be friends.

  ‘Come on, Skipping Jim. Dance for us!’ they shouted, and they stood about in their tattered clothes, hugging themselves against the cold, while Jim capered round to make them laugh.