speaking he had always tried to keep a distance between himself and grief; and besides, he had pressing business to attend to.
But not so pressing as to prevent him from raising his mug and shouting, ‘Here’s to Grandad, wherever the hell he is now.’ This was echoed by all concerned – quite possibly, knowing them, in the hope of another round of drinks. But they were disappointed because Dodger continued, ‘Will you lot listen to me? On the night of the big storm, somebody was trying to kill a girl – one of them young innocents you was just talking about, I reckon – only she ran away, and I sort of found her, and now she is being looked after.’ He hesitated, faced with a wall of silence, and then carried on again, losing hope, ‘She had golden hair . . . and they beat her up, and I want to find out why. I want to kick seven types of shite out of the people who did it, and I want you to help me.’
At this point Dodger was treated to a wonderful bit of street theatre, which with barely a word being spoken, went in three acts, the first being: ‘I don’t know nuffin’,’ and the next, ‘I never saw nuffin’,’ and finally that old favourite, ‘I never done nuffin’,’ followed at no extra cost by an encore, which was that tried and tested old chestnut, ‘I wasn’t there.’
Dodger had expected something like this, even from his occasional chums. It wasn’t personal, because nobody likes questions, especially when perhaps one day questions would be asked about you. But this was important to him, and so he snapped his fingers, which was the cue for Onan to growl – a sound which you could have expected might come not from a medium-sized dog like Onan but from something dreadful arising from the depths of the sea, something with an appetite. It had a nasty rumble to it, and it simply did not stop. Now Dodger said, in a voice that was as flat as the rumble was bumpy, ‘Listen to me, will you? This is Dodger – me, right, your
friend
Dodger. She was a girl with golden hair and a face that was black and blue!’
Dodger saw something like panic in their eyes, as if they thought that he had gone mad. But then Messy Bessie’s big round features seemed to shift as she struggled with the concept of something unusual, such as a thought.
She never had many of them; to see them at all you probably would need a microscope, such as the one he saw once on one of the travelling shows. There were always travelling shows, and they were ever popular; and in this one they had this apparatus you could stare into. You looked down into a glass of water, and when your eye got accustomed you started to see all the tiny little wriggly things in the water, bobbing up and down, spinning and dancing little jigs and having such fun that the man who ran the travelling show said it showed how good the Thames water was if so many tiny little creatures could survive in it.
To Dodger, Bessie’s mind seemed to be like that – mostly empty, but every now and again something wriggling. He said, encouragingly, ‘Go on, Bessie.’
She glanced at the others, who tried not to look at her. He understood, in a way. It didn’t do to be known as somebody who told you the things they saw, in case those things included something they did not want to get about, and there were, around and about, people much worse than mudlarks and toshers – people who were handy with a shiv or a cut-throat razor and had not a glimmer of mercy in their eyes.
But now, in the eyes of Messy Bessie, there was an unusual determination. She didn’t have golden hair – not much in the way of hair at all, in fact; and such as it was, the strands that remained were greasy and tended to roll themselves into strange little kiss curls. She fiddled with a ‘curl’, then looked defiantly at the others and said, ‘I was doing a bit of mumping in the Mall, day before the storm, and a nobby coach went past with its door open, you see, and this girl jumped out
But not so pressing as to prevent him from raising his mug and shouting, ‘Here’s to Grandad, wherever the hell he is now.’ This was echoed by all concerned – quite possibly, knowing them, in the hope of another round of drinks. But they were disappointed because Dodger continued, ‘Will you lot listen to me? On the night of the big storm, somebody was trying to kill a girl – one of them young innocents you was just talking about, I reckon – only she ran away, and I sort of found her, and now she is being looked after.’ He hesitated, faced with a wall of silence, and then carried on again, losing hope, ‘She had golden hair . . . and they beat her up, and I want to find out why. I want to kick seven types of shite out of the people who did it, and I want you to help me.’
At this point Dodger was treated to a wonderful bit of street theatre, which with barely a word being spoken, went in three acts, the first being: ‘I don’t know nuffin’,’ and the next, ‘I never saw nuffin’,’ and finally that old favourite, ‘I never done nuffin’,’ followed at no extra cost by an encore, which was that tried and tested old chestnut, ‘I wasn’t there.’
Dodger had expected something like this, even from his occasional chums. It wasn’t personal, because nobody likes questions, especially when perhaps one day questions would be asked about you. But this was important to him, and so he snapped his fingers, which was the cue for Onan to growl – a sound which you could have expected might come not from a medium-sized dog like Onan but from something dreadful arising from the depths of the sea, something with an appetite. It had a nasty rumble to it, and it simply did not stop. Now Dodger said, in a voice that was as flat as the rumble was bumpy, ‘Listen to me, will you? This is Dodger – me, right, your
friend
Dodger. She was a girl with golden hair and a face that was black and blue!’
Dodger saw something like panic in their eyes, as if they thought that he had gone mad. But then Messy Bessie’s big round features seemed to shift as she struggled with the concept of something unusual, such as a thought.
She never had many of them; to see them at all you probably would need a microscope, such as the one he saw once on one of the travelling shows. There were always travelling shows, and they were ever popular; and in this one they had this apparatus you could stare into. You looked down into a glass of water, and when your eye got accustomed you started to see all the tiny little wriggly things in the water, bobbing up and down, spinning and dancing little jigs and having such fun that the man who ran the travelling show said it showed how good the Thames water was if so many tiny little creatures could survive in it.
To Dodger, Bessie’s mind seemed to be like that – mostly empty, but every now and again something wriggling. He said, encouragingly, ‘Go on, Bessie.’
She glanced at the others, who tried not to look at her. He understood, in a way. It didn’t do to be known as somebody who told you the things they saw, in case those things included something they did not want to get about, and there were, around and about, people much worse than mudlarks and toshers – people who were handy with a shiv or a cut-throat razor and had not a glimmer of mercy in their eyes.
But now, in the eyes of Messy Bessie, there was an unusual determination. She didn’t have golden hair – not much in the way of hair at all, in fact; and such as it was, the strands that remained were greasy and tended to roll themselves into strange little kiss curls. She fiddled with a ‘curl’, then looked defiantly at the others and said, ‘I was doing a bit of mumping in the Mall, day before the storm, and a nobby coach went past with its door open, you see, and this girl jumped out
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