Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
About the Author
Also by Leon Garfield
Copyright
To
Paul and Renny
AT ABOUT A quarter past five on a Thursday afternoon early in September, a woman entered the Post Office at Charing Cross and inquired of one of the clerks if a letter was awaiting her. It was her third visit in as many days. On this occasion the clerk was able to oblige her. He handed her a letter which she opened immediately, without even stepping back from the counter. She glanced rapidly to see the name of the sender, as if to reassure herself, and then, clutching the letter in her hand, hastened outside with an air of strong nervous excitement.
Although the day was warm and summery, she was dressed entirely in black . . . which served to set off the extreme pallor of her complexion and the brilliancy of her eyes. Her name was Donia Vassilova. She was known as an enemy of the country and a grave risk to the security of the State.
Once outside, she hesitated briefly, glanced about her, and then set off in the direction of Charing Cross Road. She walked quickly, sometimes stepping out into the road rather than be restricted to the slower pace of those ahead of her.
From time to time she paused, looked behind her, and then hastened on. It was plain that she suspected she was being followed, but could not be sure who, among the shifting multitude behind her, was her pursuer.
She turned into Moor Street and then into Greek Street, where she stopped abruptly and gazed up searchingly at one of the houses on the right-hand side. Possibly she did this with the intention of deceiving her pursuer, or perhaps she hoped she would be seen by a confederate and her predicament understood.
After a few moments, during which she showed signs of agitation, she hurried northward into Oxford Street where she attempted to lose herself by mingling with the dense crowds. However, her striking appearance always rendered her an easy object for observation. Becoming aware of this, she sought out the less frequented streets to the north, doubtless hoping to isolate her pursuer and force him to show himself. On one occasion she stood for a full five minutes on a corner, intently staring back along the way she had come. Although she saw nothing to confirm her suspicion, she was by no means satisfied and continued with her evasive antics of hurrying from street to street, now north, now east, now south . . .
At half past eight, the evening, which had been increasing in heaviness, turned very dark and came on to rain. The woman, after sheltering briefly in a doorway, went into the Adam and Eve public house in the Tottenham Court Road, where she occupied a seat by the window from which she could observe the street outside. Then, for the first time since she had collected it from the Post Office, she read the letter. As she did so, it could be seen that her hand went continually to a trinket that she wore on a chain round her neck. It was a gold locket bearing an unusual design in black enamel: an eagle . . .
The rain persisted for just over an hour, during which time the woman remained in her place by the window, dividing her attention between her letter and the street, and speaking to no one apart from the waiter who served her. She left the public house at a quarter to ten, crossed the Tottenham Court Road, and walked in the direction of the City.
She seemed to have abandoned her earlier attempts at evasion. She no longer hesitated, but walked rapidly and with a definite sense of purpose. Perhaps she thought she had thrown off her pursuer – either that, or the need to meet with her confederates and inform them of the letter had become too urgent to admit of further delay. The only time she paused was in Fetter Lane, and then only briefly.
She looked behind her. She saw no one. The rain had emptied all the streets, and the lamps, shining on the wet, made watchers only of shadows. The pallor of her face was extraordinary; her eyes were enormous. It was possible that among the multitude of shadows that inhabited the doorways, one had suddenly seemed darker and more threatening than was natural. She drew in her breath and, with a violent shake of her head, hurried away towards Blackfriars.
She reached Bridge Street and then, after a moment’s indecision, decided that, rather than crossing the bridge, her best course lay among the narrow lanes and alleys off Union Street. For a little while she negotiated them with the skill and cunning of an animal until, suddenly, in Stonecutter Alley, a deep puddle obstructed her way. Instinctively she shrank back, as if more careful for her skirts than for her life. Such folly!
She turned aside into Pilgrim Court. Even as she did so, she realized her mistake. Pilgrim Court was a dead end. There was no way out. Just before she vanished into the darkness, she turned, and her face was caught in the dim yellow of a street lamp. The expression on it was one that would have been better unseen. It was a look of terror, hatred and despair; and the hatred was the strongest and the worst.
She made no great struggle and uttered only the faintest of cries. All her strength and determination were directed towards clutching the locket. Indeed, her grip upon it remained so strong that it required considerable force to prise it from her hand before her body was tipped into the river off Blackfriars Stairs. She floated briefly, with her face upwards, before the stone that was attached to her waist by a rope dragged her down.
The chain on the locket had been broken, but otherwise it was quite undamaged: ‘. . . as you can see for yourself, m’lord.’
THERE WAS A boy up the chimney, but only God and Mister Roberts knew exactly where. How God came by His knowledge was, of course, a holy mystery; and how Mister Roberts came by his was almost as wonderful an affair. He’d only to lay his ear against a wall, medically so to speak, as if it was a wheezy chest, and it was enough! Leaving a black ear behind, he’d rush to the nearest fireplace, insert his head, and bellow upwards: ‘I knows yer, Barnacle! I knows ye’re just squattin’ up there, a-pickin’ of yer nose! Git on with yer sweepin’, lad, or I’ll light a fire and scorch yer to a black little twig! So help me,’ he would add, for he was a devout man, ‘God!’
Up and up the dreadful threat would fly, booming and echoing through all the narrow, dark and twisty flues, until it found out Barnacle, exactly as Mister Roberts had divined, squatting in some sooty nook and, if there was room enough to move his arms, a-picking of his nose.
‘I knows yer – yer – yer – yer . . . Git on – on – on – on . . . scorch yer – yer – yer – yer . . .’
Barnacle, neatly wedged in an elbow of broken brick, went on with picking his nose and waiting for ‘God!’.
His proper name was Absalom Brown, but his owner, Mister Roberts, called him Barnacle on account of his amazing powers of holding on. He could attach himself to the inside of a flue by finger- and toe-holds at which even a fly might have blinked. It was a real gift, and the only one he had. Otherwise he was a child of darkness, no better, as Mister Roberts often had cause to shout, than a animal.
‘So help me, God – God – God – God!’ came Mister Roberts’s voice, and Barnacle began brushing away at the soot, and dislodged a piece of brickwork for good measure. He heard it go bumping and rattling down until at last it clanged to a stop against the iron bars of a distant grate.
‘Watch it, lad – lad – lad – lad!’
‘Watch it, ’e says,’ marvelled Barnacle, who was as tight in blackness as a stone in a plum. ‘An’ wot wiv, might I arst?’
Eyes weren’t any help, as it was as dark outside his head as it was within; and anyway he was too bone-idle to open them. It was fingers, elbows and knees that told him where he was, and it was his nose that told him where he was going, and, most important of all, it was his ears that warned him of what was to come: either the wrath of Mister Roberts or a sudden fall of stinking, choking soot that was always heralded by a tiny whispering click.
Cautiously he eased himself up the flue, clearing the soot as he went, partly with his brush and partly with the spiky stubble that grew out of his head. Once he’d had a cap, but he’d lost it in his infancy, trying to swipe at a pigeon as he’d come out of the top of a chimney-pot. He’d cried bitterly over the loss, not of the cap but of the handsome brass badge on the front of it that had proclaimed him to be a boy of importance, a climbing boy belonging to a master sweep.
Presently he found he could move more easily. Either he was shrinking or the flue was getting wider. He paused and sniffed. There was a new smell. Mingled in with the sulphurous stink of soot was a faint aroma of toast. He divined he was approaching a coming together of God knew how many flues rising up from God knew how many fireplaces, for the house he was crawling about in, like an earwig, was a real monster, big as Parliament, almost.
He went on a little further and tried the darkness again. To his great pleasure he found he could move his arms enough to pick his nose. He sighed and reclined luxuriously against a thick cushion of soot. For a few brief moments he was happy, being no more than a sensation in the dark.
He could hear voices. They were very faint, scarcely more than murmurs, drifting up from somewhere far below. He listened. He liked listening. In fact, it was his only schooling, and his lessons were made up out of whispers, quarrels, sly kisses, laughter and tears.
There were several voices and, little by little, he began to make them out. There was one that was smooth and thin, like a bone, and another that was a real wobbling fat-guts of a voice. There was a lady who laughed whenever she said anything, and there was a fourth voice that was hard to put a shape to. It was a voice with a kind of whistling edge to it, which seemed to cut through the quiet without even making it bleed.
‘. . . as you can see for yourself, m’lord,’ said Whistling Edge.
‘Why, it’s charming, charming,’ twittered Laughing Lady. ‘And so unusual, don’t you think?’
‘Well done,’ wobbled Fat-Guts. ‘Well done indeed!’
‘A sorry business, but villains must pay the price,’ murmured Smooth-and-Bony. ‘We owe you much!’
‘The December Rose,’ said Whistling Edge. ‘We will be waiting.’
‘The December Rose!’ repeated Fat-Guts, and Smooth-and-Bony echoed him. ‘The December Rose!’, while Laughing Lady chuckled, like pebbles in the rain.
Eagerly Barnacle poked a finger in his ear and reamed out the soot. He wanted to hear more. He leaned forward, perilously. Suddenly he felt something thin and cold creep up the side of his leg. A moment later he felt a sharp, stabbing pain, as if he’d been stung by a chimney snake!
It was Mister Roberts. Suspecting that his boy was idling, he’d shoved his sweeping rods up the chimney with a spike on the end of them instead of his brush. It was his own invention. ‘Nothin’ like it,’ he’d declare, ‘for unstopperin’ even the tightest lad!’
He was right. Barnacle howled – and jerked. He crashed his head, scraped his back and skinned his elbows and knees. Frantically he clutched at the blackness, kicked at the air, and howled again. He was falling. Despairingly he clawed at the rushing brickwork, but his amazing powers had deserted him, and he left only fingertips behind.
His rush down to hell – for that’s where he was going and no mistake: everybody had always told him so – was tremendous, and accompanied by a furious storm of soot and rubble.
‘Gawd ’elp us!’ he shrieked, and awaited the iron fist of Grandmother Death.
A moment later, it came. His bones seemed to shoot out of their sockets and his teeth snapped together over the top of his head as, with immense force, he struck the bars of a grate. Then, with a contemptuous shrug of iron and brass, he was tossed out into a carpeted darkness that smelled of cigars and toast.
‘What is it? What is it?’
‘It’s a nest –’
‘It’s an animal –’
‘No, it’s a boy,’ said Whistling Edge.
He was not in hell. Mister Roberts’s spike had jerked him and tipped him down another flue. He was in the room of voices.
‘Yes . . . a climbing boy . . . a sweep’s boy . . . only a boy –’
He opened his eyes. Instantly light blazed and half-blinded him. The room was huge and gleaming, with a crusty ceiling, like a cake . . .
‘Come to me, boy,’ said Whistling Edge, a dark and terrible figure, shaped like a coffin, with enormous square-toed boots.
‘That’s right, go to Inspector Creaker, boy,’ urged Smooth-and-Bony. ‘He won’t hurt you.’
Whistling Edge smiled a smile of a thousand teeth. Barnacle, dazed and terrified, dragged himself upright, clutching at the fire-irons for support.
‘Put that down, boy!’
He’d got hold of a poker. Whistling Edge took a pace back, Laughing Lady screamed, and the room was full of glaring, frightened eyes.
‘Oh my Gawd – oh my Gawd!’ came a familiar voice, as the door opened and round it came the sooty head of Mister Roberts, with his hair bolt upright and shame and horror all over his face. ‘What the ’ell are you doin’ in ’ere, lad? Beggin’ yer honours’ pardons! Come ’ere, you little turd! Drop that bleedin’ poker or I’ll kill yer, so ’elp me God, I will!’
He meant it; he always did. Barnacle screeched defiance and threw the poker at him. Something smashed, but it couldn’t have been Mister Roberts, as he was able to shout, ‘Like a animal! Just like a animal, ’e is!’
Whistling Edge – Inspector Creaker – began to advance. Barnacle’s terror increased until it filled him from frowsy top to stinking toe. He had a natural horror of policemen, and this one was the worst he’d ever seen. He threw the tongs at him; and then, without any thought of the consequences, and feeling only a desperate longing to be elsewhere, to escape, to dart into some dark hole, he began to throw everything he could lay his hands on.
Vases, dishes, ornaments, cups and plates, jugs, a silver teapot and a china bust of the queen flew through the air as if of their own accord, and crashed and banged against walls and furnishings while the little black figure of Barnacle hopped and darted hither and thither, frantically seeking a way out.
‘Stop him! Stop him!’ shouted Fat-Guts. ‘Stop him!’ screamed Laughing Lady, shaking in a corner and blazing with beads. ‘I’ll kill yer!’ panted Mister Roberts. But Whistling Edge was the worst. He seemed to know Barnacle’s every twist and turn. There was no escaping him. His eyes bulged like cobble-stones, and his great square hands came nearer and nearer . . .
‘Come to me, boy, come to me . . .’
‘I’m a goner!’ thought Barnacle, desperately clawing across a table for something more to throw. ‘I’d ’ave been better orf in ’ell!’
He clutched a fistful of spoons and something glittering on a chain. He raised his fist, but even as he did so he knew that what he held was pitiful against a man like Whistling Edge.
‘Come –’ began the policeman, and then he stopped. He was staring at Barnacle’s fist or, rather, at what was held in it. A strange look had come into his face, a look of infinite distress. He grew pale, as if his blood had turned to water and his flesh to stone.
For maybe two seconds – no more – he seemed unable to move. But two seconds were enough! With a scream of joy Barnacle darted under his outstretched arm, rushed across the room and hurled himself at the drawn curtains. Wood snapped, glass exploded and Barnacle, speckled with splinters, billowed through yellow velvet and out into the late afternoon!
He landed on grass, but only for an instant. No sooner had he touched it than he was off, like a black cinder whirled away by the wind. He ran and ran through streets and alleys and courts and squares, up hills, down steps, through markets and across wide thoroughfares thick with traffic. He ran until he could run no more. Gasping and panting, he leaned inside a doorway, trying to get back his breath. It was only then that he realized that there was still something clutched in his fist.
Cautiously he examined his prize. He frowned, and then he beamed. He was now the possessor of six silver teaspoons and a locket on a broken chain. It was a gold locket with a curiously enamelled design: a bird, an eagle, black as the hand that held it.
PROPERTY CHANGES A man. It elevates him above the animals. Barnacle, deep in his dirty doorway, gazed down upon the mingled brightness that lay within his black fist, and a grimy little candle was kindled in his soul. For the very first time in his life he began to have thoughts that reached beyond the living instant that had always enveloped him like another skin. Wonderingly he contemplated the prospect of a Barnacle improved, a comfortable Barnacle, owning, among other things, a smaller, more ignorant Barnacle, who would fetch his food and beer. He beamed.
Such was the mysterious power of a golden locket and six silver spoons. Curiously he examined the locket. To his alarm, it seemed to come apart; then he was relieved to discover that it was only opening on a hinge. He whistled. Inside was a tiny painted picture of a lady with a baby in her arms.
He peered at it closely, for it was nearly evening and the light was fading fast. He sighed. The colours pleased him, but it was more than that. It was the faces. Although their eyes were no bigger than pinpricks and their smiling lips no more than scarlet specks, they gave off a powerful sweetness that turned the light inside him rosy and warm.
He shut the locket. He would keep it. He could get rich enough just from the spoons. Suddenly he scowled. He’d heard something that had alarmed him. Among the grinding noises of the town, he heard the voices of children, shouting and chanting:
‘Eaver, Weaver, chimney-sweeper,
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her –’
They’d spied a walking sweep. He poked his head out of the doorway and looked both ways. He was in a narrow alley inhabited only by fly-blown rubbish and clustering shadows. Nothing else. Cautiously he advanced –
‘Took another, didn’t love her –’
The unseen children were coming nearer; already he could make out the pelting rattle of running feet. Then the voices rose to a venomous screech:
‘UP A CHIMNEY HE DID SHOVE HER!’
and round the corner came the object of their mockery. It was Mister Roberts, wobbling and hobbling and red-faced with rage!
‘Barnacle!’ howled the master sweep, forgetting his tormentors in the excitement of catching sight of his bolting boy. ‘I’ll kill yer!’
Barnacle vanished. In an instant he was gone from the alley, leaving no more than a shriek of dismay and a whiff of panic behind. He was out in the street, scuttling among hurrying feet and rolling wheels and lifted sticks and angry, jerking skirts.
Just how Mister Roberts had found him out was a deep and horrible mystery; but then most things were a mystery to Barnacle, so he wasn’t surprised. He scampered round a corner, then another, and another, going off like a firecracker each time . . .
‘Eaver, Weaver, chimney-sweeper,
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her –’
The children were after him! He knew it. It was only natural. See a running boy and you’ve got to run after him. He’d have done it himself –
‘Took another, didn’t love her –’
Didn’t love him either! Their voices came flying after him like arrows. He twisted again, sharp as a wish-bone. He screamed. He’d wished wrong! Straight ahead was a dirty great wall, all prickly with broken glass. He was in a dead end. He turned to go back, but it was too late!
‘Up a chimney he did shove her!’
There they were, coming towards him! The lousy stinking children, all fists and boots and shrieks! From somewhere at the back he could hear Mister Roberts, screeching his insides out: ‘Catch ’im! Catch ’im! A shillin’ if yer gets ’im, dead or alive!’
He glared about him for something to throw: anything – a stone, a brick, a lump of wood. Frantically he tried to claw up a cobble: then, with a despairing scream of defiance, he hurled the only weapon he had. A fistful of silver spoons!
If, as he’d thrown the spoons, he’d prayed to God to save him, he’d have been a religious person for the rest of his life, for the yelling, shrieking monster of a hundred fists and feet stopped in its tracks. It swayed and tottered like smoke in the wind. Then, with little howls of ‘Silver! Silver!’, it turned into a struggling heap of children, biting and scratching for possession of the spoons.
Barnacle fled. Nobody wanted him any more. He wasn’t worth as much as spoons. He scuttled away at a tremendous rate, and Mister Roberts, cursing the greed of his helpers, limped and panted after his bolting boy.
Barnacle’s chimney nature led him among the dark and narrow ways behind the main thoroughfare. Solitary street lamps, posted on corners like burning policemen, glared down mistily, now catching him, now losing him, in a prison of yellow light.
He was weary and aching but a million miles from despair. He still owned property. Though he’d flung away most of his fortune, he had something left. Clutched in his fist, so fiercely that they bit into his flesh, were the locket and a single silver spoon. He was prepared to keep on running to the end of the world.
But though his spirit was willing, his breath was getting ragged and his twiggy black legs were beginning to fail. His soul might have carried on, but the rest of him was almost done for. Gasping and groaning with effort, he pelted down a last street, whirled blindly round a last corner and thumped. with sickening force, straight into a brick wall!
‘Oi!’ grunted the wall, staggering under the unexpected blow. ‘Watch where you’re goin’, lad! You caught me fair and square in the supper!’
The wall had sprouted an enormous pair of arms, and Barnacle found himself seized in a grip there was no escaping.
‘Lemme go! Lemme go!’ he wailed, struggling pitifully. ‘’E’ll kill me!’
‘Oh?’ inquired the wall, weirdly turning itself into a giant of a man with a huge puzzled face. ‘And who’s going to kill you, lad?’
For answer, Barnacle twisted his head until it nearly came off at the neck and did what he always did. He bit the arm that was gripping him.
‘Ow! You little savage!’ cried the man, for Barnacle’s teeth were as sharp as a puppy’s, and they’d drawn blood. ‘I’ll –’ he began, lifting a hand as big as a shovel, when, from half a street away, came a hoarse and horrible voice:
‘Barnacle! Barnacle, yer little turd! I’ll kill yer . . . so ’elp me, I will!’
For an instant, the man hesitated; then, opening the door of the public house from which he’d just emerged, he tipped Barnacle inside. ‘Wait in there!’ he muttered, and shut the door.
Barnacle collapsed. He sniffed. The air was as thick as a stew. It stank of beer, onions and tobacco. All around him there was a creaking and grunting of high-backed pews as their inhabitants turned to see what the night had blown in. Barnacle shrank into himself, which, all things considered, wasn’t much of a hiding-place. Anxiously he thrust his property into the pocket of his vague trousers, which, apart from his furry covering of soot, were the only garment he wore.
He peered about him. He could see a fireplace, a dull black arch like the door of a church. The darkness of the chimney drew him powerfully, like home. He began to crawl towards it. A booted leg suddenly thumped down in front of him, barring his way. He tried to go round it. Down came another leg, heavy as a hammer, an inch from his reaching fingers. Desperately he searched for another darkness, even a mousehole . . .
Outside he could hear voices. At any moment now the door would burst open and the big man would come in with Mister Roberts. It was only natural. Mister Roberts was his owner and had his papers. He crept under a table and hid his face in his hands, in case the shining of his eyes gave him away.
The door opened and feet clumped into the room. They stopped and, for a moment, there was silence. Then a voice grunted, ‘Is this what you’re looking for. Tom Gosling?’, and a hand reached down, got hold of Barnacle by the shoulder, and hauled him into view.
The big man was back and looking for him.
‘That’s the article,’ he said, and Barnacle observed with interest that his arm was still bleeding. ‘Come here, lad.’
Barnacle scratched his head. Where was Mister Roberts?
‘I said, come here,’ the big man repeated, and beckoned.
Barnacle, helped by a shove in his rear, obeyed. They went to a pair of blackened pews that stared at one another across a narrow table, like old men thinking.
‘Sit yourself down, lad.’
Barnacle sat and the big man sat opposite. Like the pews. they looked at one another. What the big man saw was a mystery; but Barnacle, to his surprise, saw that his companion wasn’t such a giant after all. In fact, he wasn’t much bigger than Mister Roberts. It was just that there was a feeling of size about him, as if he was no more than the visible part of another, much larger man.
‘Landlord!’ called out the big man suddenly. ‘A glass of brandy, please. The strongest you’ve got!’
‘Coming up, Tom Gosling!’ returned the landlord, and Barnacle felt hopeful.
The brandy came, and Mister Gosling, with a reproachful look at Barnacle, poured it over his bleeding arm. Barnacle sighed. ‘Bet it tastes better now than when I bit yer, mister,’ he said. ‘I should ha’ waited.’
Mister Gosling raised his eyebrows. Then he called to the landlord again. ‘Half a pint of milk, if you’ve got such a thing!’
Barnacle rubbed his head. The big man puzzled him. He just sat there, with his hands on his knees, like he was wondering whether or not to give Barnacle a clout round the ear. Barnacle couldn’t make him out at all. If you was going to clout, you clouted; and if you wasn’t, you went to sleep. And another thing. What had happened about Mister Roberts?
‘What’s your name, lad?’ asked Mister Gosling.
‘’E calls me Barnacle.’ Then, with a flicker of pride, Barnacle added, ‘It’s on account of me amazin’ powers of ’oldin’ on.’
‘Why were you running away . . . Barnacle?’
‘I allus makes a run for it when ’e says ’e’s goin’ to kill me. It’s me nature.’
Mister Gosling frowned, but before he could say anything, the milk arrived and was set down on the table, with the information that the landlord had had to rob the cat. Barnacle gazed at the cat’s supper distastefully. ‘Cor!’ he remarked. ‘Looks like water what’s ’ad a fright!’
Mister Gosling’s powerful face twitched with the speck of a smile. It was only a speck, but it had a peculiar effect on Barnacle. Somehow it reminded him of the tiny picture inside the locket. It was nothing like, really, but –
‘Drink up, lad,’ urged Mister Gosling, and, as Barnacle lifted the white glass to his black face, he said, ‘Dirty, ain’t you?’
Barnacle put down the glass. ‘You’re a sharp one, mister,’ he said. ‘Don’t miss nuffink, do you?’
Mister Gosling compressed his lips but did not reply. Instead, he waited for Barnacle to finish his drink before saying, ‘It’ll be all right for you to go now. And – and the best of luck to you, lad!’
Barnacle stared at him. He’d sooner the big man had clouted him than said that, so calm and easy. He felt a horrible emptiness inside of him, such as he’d never felt before.
‘Go on, Barnacle,’ muttered Mister Gosling, shifting in his seat. ‘Shove off, lad!’
‘I s’pose ’e’s waitin’ out there for me,’ said Barnacle, not understanding, but resigned to the way of the world. ‘After all, ’e’s got me papers, so I s’pose it’s right.’
‘If you mean your Mister Roberts, Barnacle, you don’t have to worry. He’s gone.’
‘’Ow come, mister? What ’appened?’
‘Oh, we had words, Barnacle. We had words.’
Barnacle refused to believe it. Words? He’d seen Mister Roberts stand up to words what would have felled a horse. They just bounced off of him. No, it took more than words to shift Mister Roberts. It took something more in the nature of a boot up the arse . . .
‘Words, lad, just words,’ Mister Gosling assured him, and went on to relate how Mister Roberts had come puffing and panting up to him and inquiring, in a very disagreeable manner, if a boy had just run past, a boy, black as your hat.
‘That’s me, mister!’ cried Barnacle eagerly. ‘’E allus calls me that! So what ’appened then?’
Mister Gosling smiled the smile of a storyteller whose audience is longing for more. ‘So I says to him, “A boy, you say?” And he says to me, “A boy”, and shows me his papers to prove it.’
‘That’s ’im, that’s ’im, mister! ’E’s allus got ’is papers! What ’appened then?’
Mister Gosling rubbed his hands together in anticipation. He was just coming to the best part of his story and was looking forward to telling it to great effect. ‘So I says to him, “I’m sorry to have to tell you, Mister Roberts, but since I’ve been standing here, no boy has run past me, neither a black one nor a white one nor a green one with purple stripes.”’
‘And – and ’e believed yer?’
‘Why shouldn’t he, Barnacle? It was the solemn, Old Bailey truth. You never ran past me, lad. You ran straight into me supper and stayed!’
Mister Gosling beamed. He couldn’t help it. He was still surprised and delighted by the quickness of his own wit. And so was the boy. He clapped his hands and grinned all over his black little face.
‘And then, mister, what ’appened then?’ pleaded Barnacle, not wanting the story to end.
Mister Gosling shook his head and frowned. It seemed that Mister Roberts had not been entirely convinced. In fact, he had gone so far as to call Mister Gosling a liar. To which Mister Gosling had taken exception.
‘So I asked him, Barnacle, very quiet-like, if he’d ever heard the old saying that it was lucky to black a sweep’s eye.’
‘So you did ’it ’im, then?’
‘No. He didn’t wait. The last I saw of him, he was going like an engine, puffing black smoke.’
‘Cor!’ breathed Barnacle, gazing at Mister Gosling like he was a king. ‘Cor!’
Mister Gosling expanded visibly. He couldn’t help it. The boy’s admiration warmed him like rum. Then he remembered and shook his head. ‘So it’s like I told you. He’s gone. You can shove off now, lad.’
Barnacle looked at him. No man on earth could have told what the boy was thinking, least of all himself. Mister Gosling scowled and stood up. ‘Suit yourself, then,’ he grunted. ‘I’m off.’
Barnacle stood up. Mister Gosling looked uncomfortable. He muttered something to himself and sat down again. Barnacle sat down. Mister Gosling opened his mouth as if to say something, thought better of it, and stood up. Barnacle did likewise. No word passed between them. Mister Gosling began to walk towards the door. So did Barnacle. Mister Gosling stopped. So did Barnacle. Mister Gosling took another pace, and so did Barnacle.
There was a shifting in the parlour. Heads appeared round the sides of the high-backed pews. Everybody was interested.
‘Reminds me,’ said somebody, ‘of what happened to me once with a stray pup.’
‘What happened, then?’
‘Poor little runt it were,’ said the man who’d had an adventure with a dog, ‘left out in the street. I bent down to stroke it and give it a bit of bread.’
‘And then?’
‘It followed me all the way home.’
‘And then?’