At last he looked at his brother. Charlie was regarding him with a mirthless smile.
‘Knew you’d be interested.’
‘Where’d you get all this?’ Gerry burst out, though he knew the answer: the grocer in Cubitt Town.
Charlie just tapped the side of his nose. ‘Ask no questions, my son, get no lies.’
‘And you expect me to flog this lot for you? What do you think I am, a bloody fence?’
Again there was that calculating smile from his brother. ‘Split it with you. Fifty–fifty.’
Gerry was caught, and he knew it. Here in his hands lay the way forward, his future. Here was money without having to take out a loan, a start for his market stall, a whole barrowload of stock. In his fertile imagination he could see it already, bright and shiny, with a queue of customers. More than that, he could see Ellen Johnson looking at him with admiration: Gerry Billingham, street trader. She could not help but be impressed.
He tried to close his mind to the stark fact that these were stolen goods. After all, they had been stolen before the man in Cubitt Town got them. They had been passing from hand to hand for weeks, or, more likely, months. They certainly weren’t hot any more. His thoughts ran inexorably on, refusing to look at the tricky issues of right and wrong. What else was there to do with them? If he took them back to their last owner, they wouldn’t reach the people from whom they had been stolen, and handing them to the police was out of the question. It would bring all sorts of unwanted attention upon them. The last thing he wanted was that. So somebody might as well get something out of them, now that they were here.
But still he hesitated. He had cut a few corners in his time, done a few things that were not strictly legal, but this was quite different. If he did this, he would be no better than his brother. Abruptly, he dropped the stuff back on the table.
‘No.’
Charlie reached out and grabbed him by the collar. He pulled Gerry forward until their faces were almost touching.
‘What d’you mean, no?’
Then Gerry understood. Now he had seen the stuff, Charlie would not let him just walk away from it. He had to be in with him, or Charlie and his lot would get him. That was the choice, and put like that, he felt there was only one answer.
‘What I mean is, Fifty–fifty’s not enough,’ he said. ‘I got to slog all over the place selling that lot. Can’t take it all at once, can I? It’s got to be got rid of piece by piece. It’ll take me ages, that will, and every fence in the East End’s going to be looking out for it. I’ll find myself done over in a dark alley if I’m not careful.’
‘Fifty–fifty or nothing.’
Gerry shrugged free and took a step back, flexing his shoulders. He knew where he was now, bargaining, although his brother had an unfair advantage in threat and muscle power. After an acrimonious exchange, they settled on forty-five-fifty-five in his favour.
‘We’ll keep it out the back in the old rabbit hutch,’ Charlie said. ‘Mum don’t never look in there.’
For the next couple of weeks he spent his precious spare hours ranging the East End. His travels took him to parts he had never been to before, far away from the river and the familiar ground of docklands and Poplar. He ventured into areas where great new tenement blocks were inhabited almost entirely by Jews with hardly a word of English; to streets that might have been lifted out of Dublin; to neighbourhoods that tried desperately to be respectable, with tiny front gardens and lace curtains; to warrens where the courts and alleys were ankle-deep in filth, the windows filled with paper and families lived ten to a room.
Everywhere he went, he sold a piece or two of Charlie’s haul, telling plausible tales of family illness, emigration, hard times, to account for the heart-breaking sale of a prized possession. The men he spoke to, hard-eyed and cynical, merely shrugged or spat. They had heard it all before a thousand times. Sometimes it was true, sometimes it was not. It was all the same to them. They took the risk and financed it by giving far less than the item was really worth. Gerry haggled but accepted the principle of the deal. That was the game, and he knew it.
As he travelled he kept his eyes open. For miles and miles there were mean streets of terraced cottages, tenement buildings, factories and workshops, all crowded with people. Everywhere women fought a losing battle with the dirt, scrubbing steps and sweeping pavements. Everywhere there were hordes of children, often ragged and barefoot, the older ones looking after the babies and toddlers. It was a seemingly endless vista of poverty and struggle. But all these people had some money to spend. They had to eat, they had to clothe themselves, they needed pots and pans and plates for their homes. Every neighbourhood had its market. Gerry began to see what he could do. He would start with Chrisp Street, then work out into all these others. Now that he had a start, there was no limit to what he could do.
But when he finally got rid of the last pieces and shared out the proceeds with his brother, he found the rules had changed.
‘My pals ain’t happy with our arrangement,’ he told Gerry. ‘They think it should be forty–sixty. To us.’
‘We agreed!’ Gerry protested. ‘You can’t go back on a deal like that. I been tramping all over town getting rid of that stuff one bit at a time so’s it can’t be traced back here. I’m a busy man. There’s my time to be taken into consideration.’
Charlie just stared back at him, stony-faced. ‘You want to tell that to my pals?’ he asked.
Gerry wished he was brave, that he could say yes and take on his brother’s gang of roughs, beat them at their own game and make them see who was master. But he had always run from fights. He did not enjoy them like the rest of the boys in the street. If he gave in now, he knew that Charlie had a threat to hold over him for ever more. He even opened his mouth to argue and damn the consequences, but the picture of Tom Johnson walking carefully like an old man, still afflicted with blinding headaches, came vividly to mind. He did not want to end up like that.
‘Take it,’ he said, trying to act unconcerned though the words seemed to stick in his throat and choke him. ‘What the hell! I got what I want out of it.’
‘Very sensible,’ Charlie agreed.
The whole street came and patronized his stall the day he opened. They came by tram or they made it on foot, but practically everyone who was not housebound was there. They were proud of him. One of their own was going up in the world; not enough to become a source of envy – they would not have liked that – just enough to be able to boast about him to mates at work.
Ellen came, with Daisy and Jack, though her parents stayed at home. She gazed wide-eyed at his display of china and glassware. Tea sets, dishes, platters and tumblers were all carefully banked to show them to advantage.
‘You got what you wanted, then?’ she said to him. ‘I’m pleased. It’s nice to see someone doing well.’
He could see that she was clutching at her purse, indecision gnawing at her mind. Money for extras like new tea sets was just not there any more. The Johnsons were selling, not buying. Practically everything that was not essential had gone to the pawnshop. They were sleeping on mattresses on the floor, the bedsteads having long since gone.
Pride filled him as he saw the look on her face. He knew that feeling of everything being out of your reach. He had come a long way since he was a bare-foot urchin hanging around for the stuff that fell in the gutters. He waved an expressive arm at his stall.
‘Best display in the whole market, though I say it myself as shouldn’t. What do you like best, eh? What’s your favourite?’
‘Oh – I don’t know. It’s all so lovely.’ There was longing in her voice, a need for something bright and pretty and frivolous. Her eyes ranged along the rows, taking in the roses on the cups, the shine on the glasses, the gloriously clashing colours of the vases.
‘I like that jug,’ Daisy said, pointing to a ruby-red one at the top of the stall.
‘Yeah, it’s nice, ain’t it?’ Gerry agreed, without taking his eyes from Ellen’
s face.
Jack put his hands in his pockets and started whistling. He was bored.
Ellen’s gaze lighted on a teapot. It was white china with a gold rim and a scatter of violets. He could see that she wanted it, but she gave a little shrug and said, ‘I don’t know. It’s all so nice.’
Gerry reached for the teapot. With an expert twist, he wrapped it in newspaper and handed it to her.
‘Compliments of the house.’
‘Oh no.’ Ellen took a step backwards and put her hands behind her. ‘Oh no, you mustn’t.’
But Gerry insisted. ‘Yes I must. You brought me luck. It was just after I spoke to you about it that I got a break and got the money together. Go on, take it, or the luck might run out and then I’ll never speak to you again.’
Ellen laughed at the ridiculous threat. Gerry grabbed one of her hands and placed the teapot in it.
‘There, deal done. You can’t back out now.’
She flushed and protested, but had to hold it, or it would have dropped to the ground and smashed. Gerry smiled at her, satisified. She was so pretty when she laughed. She didn’t laugh enough . . . One day he would make her smile just for him.
Towards the end of the day, Charlie turned up.
‘Doing well?’ he asked, lounging against the upright of the stall, dangerously close to the fragile piles of goods.
‘All right,’ Gerry said. He was not going to admit to any great success. ‘Making a bob or two.’
Charlie leaned across and took a china candlestick off the display.
‘My girl’d like this,’ he said, shoving it in his pocket.
‘You can have it trade,’ Gerry told him.
But his brother gave his mirthless grin.
‘Oh no, sunshine. I can have it for free. You’re one of us now, remember?’
It all faded, the excitement of setting up, the fun of bantering with the women and girls, the satisfaction of feeling the coins slide into his money apron. He was on a level with Charlie, and his brother was never going to let him forget it. And it wasn’t even as if Charlie was part of a powerful organization. They were only a gang of roughs, small fry, and he could not get away from them. It took the edge off the pleasure.
Harry saw it all happen.
He and Ernie Foster were both loading Cornish china clay from a schooner moored at the Cherry Garden Tiers. It was a cold March day with squally winds racing across the green waters of the Thames and flinging heavy showers in the face and down the neck. Harry merely turned up his collar. In his heavy melton overcoat, he was almost immune to the weather, and at least the wind was blowing away the whiff of guano being unloaded just downriver at Church Hole.
The river was alive with traffic: sailing barges tacking upriver, their tan sails bellying in the sharp squalls, colliers down from Newcastle, steamers from the Continent belching thick black smoke, and everywhere lighters loading and unloading and carrying the capital’s imports and exports to the innumerable wharves and factories along the banks. In amongst them a multitude of rowing boats plied, from the smart Customs cutters and the River Police with their white-bladed oars through the watermen and coal foremen to the old ropies, beer boats and drudgers for recovering coal that had been knocked overboard.
It was going to be a tricky trip today, Harry realized, with the wind so blustery and unpredictable, but the thought only made him smile. He liked a challenge. He knew the river as well as his own home. In many ways it was home to him, and the brotherhood of watermen his family. He raised a hand as a friend went by, recognizing the colours on his oars and his distinctive whistle. A series of waves told him that he was bound upalong on a long job.
Ernie’s barge was filled first.
‘See you at the potteries, mate,’ he called to Harry as he cast off.
Harry watched him as he manoeuvred into midstream. He was a master, was Ernie, knew his trade inside out. It was always an education to see how he shaped.
His own barge was filled and the tarpaulins pulled over. At about a hundred yards’ distance he followed Ernie under Tower Bridge and London Bridge, the barge now gathering headway and fair galloping along.
It was at Westminster Bridge that it happened. Harry never had liked Westminster since he had had a very close shave with the knife-sharp buttresses there. From his position aft he noticed Ernie just straightening up to shoot the fourth bridge hole. Then he suddenly veered, the archway darkened and through it came a small pleasure steamer in a billow of smoke.
‘My God!’ Harry cried out. ‘What the hell is that idiot doing? They’re going to crash!’
The splintering crack could be heard from where they were, but little could be seen through the screen of smoke. One thing was clear, though: neither vessel appeared to be moving.
‘Quick!’ he shouted to the boy. ‘Get that oar forward. We got to see what’s happened.’
With the tide under them and two rowing, the barge surged over the water. The bridge loomed up on them just as a heavy shower of rain and hailstones rattled down, pitting the angry surface of the river. Peering ahead, Harry saw Ernie’s barge pinned helpless against the buttress, with his apprentice desperately trying to push her off, while the steamer was just beginning to drift broadside out on the far side. Shouts and screams sounded above the general confusion.
‘What happened?’ he yelled.
Ernie’s apprentice looked up. His shrill cry, frantic with fear, came across the shortening gap of water.
‘Mr Foster – he’s gone in – can’t see him!’
‘We’ll go through number three,’ Harry decided. ‘Give it her – now!’
The boy pulled as hard as he could and the barge’s nose obligingly came round. They shot the arch with just inches to spare, and as they came out the other side, Harry anxiously scanned the water through the heavy veil of the rain.
Nothing.
The seconds dragged by. Nobody could stay under that long and live.
Then there was a dark shape surfacing, wallowing in the choppy waves, trailing a frill of blood.
Harry swallowed down the rush of sick foreboding. Action first. Shouting instructions at the boy, he grabbed the boat hook. Life seemed to be repeating itself; it was Tom Johnson all over again, only this time he did not think he would be in time to save the carcass that only minutes ago had been his friend.
Ernie had been swept under the steamer’s propeller. It was impossible to tell whether he had been drowned or had bled to death. Harry took his coat off to cover the gruesome remains, a last gesture to preserve the dignity of a fine man. Blood and water trickled out from underneath and washed under the gunwhales.
The boy, a tough youngster from Bankside, went white about the gills and threw up over the side.
‘Most frightfully sorry about that, my man. Anything we can do?’
The pleasure steamer’s skipper had her under control again and was coming alongside. It was a miniature thing, almost a toy boat, about twenty-five feet long and six wide at its broadest, all white paint, polished brass and shiny varnish, with a little yellow funnel belching real smoke. From the deck and the cabin portholes peered half a dozen vacuous faces of both sexes, topped with straw boaters and ribbons.
Harry stared with contempt at the young fellow supposedly in charge. He might have known it: some toff who thought skippering a boat on the Thames was like driving his motor car along a road.
‘Nothing. He’s dead,’ he yelled back.
He had the small satisfaction of seeing the man’s expression change.
‘Eoh.’ That grating, mincing accent.
‘He got cut to ribbons by your propeller.’
The face with its drooping fair moustache grew a shade paler. ‘Eoh, I say –’
‘You’ll be hearing from my company,’ Harry added, with such finality that the man dared not say another word. He sheered off and headed back upriver. Harry hoped he was shaken, but doubted it.
The boat’s name was branded on his memory. Ballerina. Ted
dington. The bloody idiot had probably never been on tidal waters before. Harry worked out exactly what had happened. Ernie had realized the fool was coming straight at him and veered off, since the heavy lighter would smash the delicate shell of the steamer and sink her with all her passengers. In the resulting crash with the bridge, he had been thrown into the river. Ernie had given his life for a few bored toffs out for a bit of amusement. It made Harry sick with anger.
He looked back. Ernie’s apprentice had managed to get his barge off the buttress and she was drifting through at last, swinging round as she emerged until she was broadside to the tide.
‘We’ll get you on board and the pair of you can take her up to the potteries. I can handle this one single-handed,’ Harry said to his boy.
The manoeuvre achieved, he was at last able to take in the full implications of what had happened.
‘Oh, God,’ he said out loud. ‘How am I going to tell Alma?’
The funeral was a corker. Half of Wapping turned out for Ernie. All of Trinidad Street was there to support Alma. Lightermen from riverside communities on both sides of the Thames came to pay their respects to one of the brotherhood.
The young man who had caused the accident sent a wreath and five pounds.
‘Blood money,’ said Ernie’s youngest daughter, and returned it.
She had no need of charity from on high – the watermen looked after their own. With admirable generosity, she kissed Alma and invited her to choose anything of her father’s to remember him by. Alma, who had been holding back tears all day, finally broke down and called her the sweetest girl in the world. Gerry and Charlie took an arm each and practically carried her home. She seemed to have shrunk since she heard of the accident.
Ellen was watching Harry. He stood carven-faced through the ceremony in the sooty church and the cramped little city graveyard. The weather had turned suddenly springlike, mocking the sombre occasion. Pale sunlight was still shining late in the afternoon as the Trinidad Street contingent left the large Foster family to their spread of ham and salad. She stole up alongside him as they all walked home, stiff and uncomfortable in their best clothes, with black ribbons on sleeves and hats.
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