‘You’ll soon wear those boots out,’ Rosie warned him. ‘Save your dancing for the proper customers.’
But Jim wanted to dance for the boys. They didn’t often laugh. There wasn’t much for them to laugh at. He was always too shy to talk to them. But after that day when he had made them laugh at the doctor they often came to watch him dance in the streets.
One of them was a red-haired, pokey sort of boy. He reminded Jim of Tip, just a bit. His hair was bright and untidy and it poked out of the holes of the cap he wore on the side of his head. His toes wriggled like cold pink shrimps out of the ends of his boots and his shirt hung off his skinny arms like tattered sails hanging off the spars of a ship. He made a sort of living selling bootlaces.
‘Bootlaces, mister!’ he shouted at passers-by, whirling the laces above his head as if he was a ribbon-seller at a fair. ‘Three for the price of two! You don’t want three, sir? Well, two for the price of three then, can’t say fairer than that, can I?’
When Jim was skipping, the boy used to sit with his mouth wide open as if he was afraid to laugh out loud. His eyes darted round, furtive, on the look-out all the time for likely customers, or for the police, or for something to help himself to. He would suddenly leap up and dash past a stall when the owner wasn’t looking, and grab a lump of cheese or the broken end of a pie, or a hot muffin. He’d run into a dark corner and stuff his cheeks full with it. Jim reckoned he must swallow it whole, it disappeared so fast.
If the stall-holders saw him doing it they usually swore loudly at him or chased him, but sometimes they saw him coming and looked the other way. It never occurred to Jim, watching him, that one day he would be doing this too, and be thankful to steal enough crumbs in a day to keep himself alive.
Jim liked the look of this boy. A few times he went over to him to say something, but the boy would just run off as soon as Jim came near, as if he’d just remembered a job that needed doing. Jim would feel awkward then, and would pretend to be searching for something on the ground where the boy had been squatting. But every day he thought, ‘I’ll talk to him today. I’ll find out what he’s called, that’s what.’
One evening, just as dark was coming, the lad was sitting watching Jim in his nervous, fox-like way when a raggedy woman crept up behind him. She put her hands on his shoulders and shook him.
‘Gotcha!’ she said. ‘You bin hiding, aincha?’
He jumped up, trying to get away, but she pushed him to the ground and pinned him there with her knee on his chest. Her hair was as wild and red as his, and her voice thick and slurred.
‘Where’s yer money?’ she demanded.
‘Ain’t got none,’ the boy said.
She flipped him over as if he was a wooden doll, felt in his back pockets and held up some coins. ‘Now you’ve got none,’ she laughed, and before he could sit up she’d gone.
Jim had been crouching on the other side of the road, watching. The boy saw him looking and turned away, covering up his face with his hands. He stayed hunched up just as the woman had left him. Jim stood up and clicked his fingers to make the boy look at him. Then he started to dance, just a few skipping steps. ‘Laugh,’ he wanted to say, but daren’t. ‘It’s all right. Laugh.’
It was then that the boy seemed to make up his mind about him. He jumped up and joined Jim, kicking up his legs in imitation of Jim’s dance, holding his arms high above his head so his laces fluttered round like maypole ribbons. His pink shrimpy toes wriggled above the flaps of his boot soles, and with each step he took he slapped his foot down again so firmly on the road that the muck spattered round him like flies round a cow. He danced with his eyes closed and his mouth wide open, in a kind of trance, and the more the watchers clapped, the wilder his dance became. Jim could hardly keep up with him for laughing, and even Rosie had to smile. She sold off most of her trayload to one family.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Shrimps, or whatever your name is. And you, Skipping Jim. You can finish off these for me – I’m going back to get some more. I’ve never sold two whole trayfuls like that in one day, never. You should go on the shows, you two! You should join a travelling circus!’
The two boys sat side by side near a night watchman’s fire, peeling the shrimps with their teeth and spitting off the shells.
‘I love shrimps, I do,’ said the boy. ‘But I’ve never pinched none off Rosie’s stall, never.’
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ said Jim. ‘She’d pickle you if you did.’
‘I dare do anyfink, I do,’ the boy said. ‘But Rosie, she’s like me. She ain’t got no more money than me, she ain’t.’
‘Are you really called Shrimps?’ Jim asked him.
The boy shrugged. ‘Shrimps is what they call me, and Shrimps’ll do.’
‘Sounds like a funny name to me,’ Jim said. ‘Who was that woman?’
The boy narrowed his eyes. ‘My ma,’ he said. ‘Only she kicked me out years ago, didn’t she? She only comes looking for me when she wants money for gin. Not much of a ma, she ain’t.’
‘Where d’you live, then?’
‘Depends, don’t it? See, if I makes a copper or two selling laces, I spends it on a lodging house for the night.’
‘Cor. On your own?’
‘On me own and wiv about fifty other geezers wot snore their heads off all night! It’s like a funder-storm sometimes! And if I don’t have no money,’ he shrugged, ‘I sleeps where I can, don’t I? Where the bobbies won’t find me, that’s where I live.’ He jerked his thumb at Jim’s jacket, where the sacking shawl had slipped away. ‘I spent a week in that place. Worse’n anyfink I ever knowed, that workhouse was. Worse’n sleeping in a barn full of rats, and I done that a time or two.’
‘Worse than that,’ Jim agreed. ‘Worse than sleeping in a sack full of eels.’
The boys both giggled.
‘Eels!’ snorted Shrimps. ‘Eels is charming company. I ate an eel once, when it were still alive. It wriggled all down my throat and round my belly and up again and out through my mouth! “Bellies!” said the eel. “Boy’s bellies is nearly as bad as the workhouse!” And it wriggled off home. It was all right, that eel.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at Jim sideways. ‘You got a bruvver, Skippin’ Jim?’
‘No,’ said Jim. ‘Have you?’
‘Used to have. But I ain’t got one now.’ Shrimps dug the flaps of his bootsoles into the mud. ‘I’d like a bruvver to go round wiv.’
‘So would I,’ said Jim.
The two boys stared straight ahead, saying nothing. The watchman poked his fire so the flames hissed. He got slowly to his feet. ‘Five of the clock,’ he shouted, and trudged off to light up the lamps between the houses. ‘Five o’clock, my lovelies!’
‘Got to go,’ Shrimps said. ‘I got a queue to see to. People often breaks their boot-laces when they’re standing in queues. Just snaps off, they do, if I crawls round and tweaks ’em when they ain’t looking.’
‘Will you be here tomorrow?’
Shrimps looked down at Jim. He took a bunch of laces out of his pocket and swirled them round his head. Then he shrugged and ran off.
That night, as Jim ran home to his shed, his head was busy with new thoughts. There was easily enough room for another small boy to squeeze in. It would be warmer with two of them. Rosie wouldn’t mind, especially if Shrimps got his food in his usual way. ‘Be nice to have a brother,’ he thought as he ran. ‘A brother like Shrimps. Real nice, that would be.’
It would be a long, long time before he slept so well again. His sleep that night was broken by a stomping of boots and the screech the catch gave as the door was pulled open. It was as if someone had let the river in. A candle was held out towards him and Jim opened his eyes. Two men stood looking down at him, their eyes black holes in the candle-light, their beards froths of fur. Jim recognized one as Rosie’s grandfather. The other man was square with a box-like face and hair that slanted across his eyes like a slipping thatch.
‘This boy, d’you
mean?’ He gave Jim a kick. Jim sat up in fright, clutching his sack around him.
‘I knew I’d seen a lad running in here,’ Rosie’s grandfather wheezed. ‘A little rat, he is, skulking in my shed. I’ll weasel him out, I thought to myself. I’ll winkle him out when the time is right.’
‘Please, mister,’ said Jim. ‘I ain’t doin’ no harm.’
‘Stand up,’ the square man said. His eyes bulged above his fat cheeks as if they were lamps trying to make their way through the thatch.
Jim struggled to his feet.
‘He’s only a twig,’ the square man said. ‘There’s no bones in him, hardly.’
‘He’ll grow,’ said the grandfather. ‘I know his type. He’ll grow big and powerful. You can train him up, Nick, when he’s only that big. Won’t give you no trouble, that size. He’s just right. And while he’s training he won’t eat much.’
Nick grunted. ‘Well, he’s here, and I’m stuck for a boy, so I’ll take him.’
Grandpa sighed with pleasure. Nick fumbled in his pocket and gave him a coin, which the old man held out to the candle, chuckling.
‘Come on, boy,’ Nick said. ‘Bring your bed. You’ll need that.’
Jim stumbled after him, pulling the sack round his shoulders for warmth, and the door screeched behind him as the old man fastened it to.
‘Tell Rosie …’ Jim began, and Grandpa swung round and snarled at him.
‘She won’t need no telling. I’ll thank her, shall I, for stealing food from her grandmother’s mouth to stuff in yours? Go on. Go with Grimy Nick. You’ve got a home and a job now. You’ve nothing more to want in life, that’s what.’
He walked slowly back to his cottage, laughing aloud in his coughing way, spinning the coin that Grimy Nick had given him so it gleamed in the air like a little sun.
13
The Lily
Jim didn’t dare ask where he was going, or whether he would be coming back, or if he could just run back to the cottage to say goodbye to Rosie. He was quite sure that Grandpa would tell her nothing. He imagined her hurrying out to him in the morning with a mug of tea and a chunk of her solid bread, trying the locked door, calling out to him. He imagined Shrimps swinging his boot-laces over his head, dancing in the streets without him, waiting. He hung back, wanting to dodge into the shadows and run off, but as if he could read his thoughts Grimy Nick swung out his arm and grabbed him by the collar. Jim hurried beside Nick, stealing quick glances up at him. Nick never returned his look, but stumped on, his boots sparking now and then where the cobbles were dry. He took him through the narrow, dark alleys that threaded backwards and forwards between wharves. Rats scuttled away from them. Skinny dogs started up from their sleep and settled down again.
At last they came to a large warehouse with a row of carts lined up outside and Best Coals of Cockerill and Co. painted on them, the letters gleaming white out of the gloom. A man was leading a cart-horse out of a barn, and grunted to Nick.
‘Thought you weren’t coming no more,’ he said, his voice hollow still with sleep.
‘Damn you,’ said Grimy Nick. ‘You’d think the worst of the Angel Gabriel, you would.’
He took Jim round to the front of the warehouse, where it overhung the river, and jumped onto the deck of a lighter that was moored there. It was a flat-nosed boat about eighty-foot long. Jim had seen plenty of them working their way backwards and forwards with the tide, loaded up with tons of cargo from the big ships. It had the name Lily painted on its side. It lay in the mud, deep in the stench of the raw sewage that piled against the banks at low tide.
‘Get on,’ Nick growled, and Jim jumped onto the narrow coaming boards that ran round the side of the boat, and looked down into it. Covering one end were planks of wood used for hatch boards, and across these was a long oar. Swinging from the oar was a lantern, casting a dim light into the huge hold, which was piled high with coal. A large, yellow-eyed dog rose on its haunches as soon as Jim jumped onto the hatch, squaring itself to leap. A deep growl rumbled from it and its teeth shone wet. Jim started back from it. Nick swung round, took him by the shoulders and pushed him face down towards the dog. He could smell its sour breath. The dog flattened its ears back and whined.
Nick let go of Jim. ‘Now he’s smelled yer, he’ll never forget yer,’ he said. ‘Never. He’ll know you belong on here, see?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Jim.
‘Which means,’ said Nick, ‘that if yer tries to run away, he’ll be after yer, and he’ll probly eat yer alive. The faster yer runs, the faster he runs. See?’
Jim nodded again.
‘So yer’d better not try. Just let him taste yer, to sharpen his smell.’ He pushed Jim’s arm down towards the dog. ‘Bite!’
The dog snapped his jaw so his teeth rested round Jim’s wrist. He would have sunk his teeth right in if Jim hadn’t held himself steady, though every nerve in him was screaming out.
‘Leave!’ Nick said, and the dog sank back onto his haunches again, snarling. Jim nursed his arm. The teeth had just punctured the skin, and little points of blood were oozing there.
‘He’s quite friendly,’ Nick said. ‘Just so long as you’re friendly to me. See?’
Jim nodded. He was too afraid to speak.
‘Well, we’ll get along very well, in that case,’ Nick said. He straightened himself up, took hold of his lantern and held it up, swinging it slowly from side to side. High up in Cockerill’s warehouse a shutter opened and a white face peered out.
‘Don’t tell me you’re ready!’ the white face shouted. ‘If we don’t get this load out we’ll have lost tomorrow’s tide as well as today’s.’
‘I knows that,’ Nick shouted back. ‘I’ve been training my new boy.’
The white face disappeared and a door opened next to the window. A large wicker basket that was roped to a winch was lowered slowly down, creaking as it came. Nick jumped down into the hold on top of the coals.
‘Lantern,’ he grunted, and Jim passed it down to him. ‘Well, get in.’
Jim scrambled down beside him, his feet slipping on lumps of coal as he landed. The inside of the lighter was like a black cave, gleaming with heaps of coal. It smelt of damp and sulphur. Nick thrust a shovel at Jim. The basket hovered just above the hold and Nick eased it down, steadied it, and started shovelling coal into it, his body swinging into a deep, easy rhythm. Jim stabbed at the coals with his shovel. He had to lift it nearly as high as himself before he could tip it into the basket, and the few coals he managed to lift slid off and bumped against him. He gave a little yelp of pain and Nick stopped shovelling for a moment. He whistled in contempt.
‘Get on with it!’ he shouted.
Jim panted, trying to slide his shovel under the lumps of coal again, and Nick threw his down and swore at him. He banged his hand across the back of Jim’s head and came to stand behind him, reaching round Jim so his hands were gripping the haft just above Jim’s own, forcing Jim to swing into his own level rhythm of shovelling and lifting, shovelling and lifting. When he let go Jim’s hands were burning. Jim did his best to keep up, lifting just two or three coals at a time to Nick’s shovelful, bending and lifting, bending and lifting as if this was all there was to do in the world. At last the basket was full. Nick yelled up to White-face and the bucket creaked away from them as it was winched upon its rope to the top storey of the building.
Nick swung himself up on to the hatch boards, and somehow Jim pulled himself up after him, rolling well away from the dog. Day had come, grey as pigeons.
The man picked up a pail and emptied water out of it into a cooking pot on a small iron stove. ‘Get some more,’ he said to Jim. ‘There’s a pump in the yard.’
As Jim jumped across to the planks of the landing stage he heard Nick say to the dog, ‘Watch him, Snipe.’ The dog loped after him, skulking round his legs as he ran, nipping his ankles. From the back of the warehouse he could hear the rumble of the coals as they slid down a chute onto the waiting cart. The empty basket c
reaked down again towards the Lily.
Jim pumped water into the pail and ran as steadily as he could back to the lighter, the water slopping out against his legs as Snipe nosed against him. Nick had lit a fire in the stove and he poured some of the water onto a mess of gruel in the cooking pot.
‘Stir that,’ he said to Jim. ‘And don’t take all day.’
Jim watched over the gruel until it was beginning to thicken, then lowered himself down into the hold again and swung painfully back into Nick’s rhythm. His stomach was beginning to growl with hunger. When the next basket was full they went back up and Nick ladled the gruel into two bowls. They ate it fast, squatting on their haunches by the heat of the stove, and when the basket was lowered down again they left their bowls and set back to work.
They spent the entire day shovelling coal in this way. There were tons and tons of it. From time to time the white face would appear at the window and shout down to them that the cart was full and that they would have to wait for another. At these times they both stretched themselves full length on the hatch boards of the Lily, cold though they were. Jim would fall asleep immediately and would be kicked awake by Nick, or roused by a shout from White-face that the basket was coming down again. His bones seemed to set while he slept. He could hardly kneel or stand, but he was so afraid of Nick and of the yellow-eyed dog that he lumbered up like an old man and hobbled to his job.
A long time after dark, White-face shouted down that he was going home and they could finish for the day. Jim could hardly crawl by then. His shoulders felt as if they had knots of pain in them that would never undo. Nick put some potatoes in the pot and passed Jim some water to drink. He gurgled it down, his throat dry and parched with coal-dust, and dozed off again until the potato was ready. He ate it clutched in his palm, burning his skin, peeling it with his teeth the way Nick did. He was glad of it, and of the heat from the fire. He saw that Nick ate meat with his potato and that he tossed what he didn’t want of it to Snipe. During the entire day he had only spoken about a dozen words to Jim.
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