Street Child (8 page)

Grimy Nick stood with his long oar dipping into the water and guided the
Lily
out, and along with her came a flock of barges and sailing boats. The watermen shouted abuse at each other, all racing to find work first. To Jim the
Lily
was like a water bird edging her quiet way along the brown river. Even Nick’s swearing and whistling didn’t take away from him the excitement he was feeling. He looked back and saw the city, with its black pall of smoke hung over it, and he saw the arms of the bridges looping across it, and the slow traffic of sailing boats like dark swans. He heard the sheesh! of water against the sides of the
Lily
, and the steady plash! plash! of Nick’s long oar and above him, the heckling of gulls. Nothing, not all the misery of the last year, not the pain of the last two days, not his fear of Grimy Nick and Snipe, could take away from him the thrill of the journey. It felt like a new beginning.

At last they came to where the big ships lay at anchor. They pulled up alongside a huge coal-carrying boat called
Queen of the North
, and there Nick pulled in his oar, whistling loudly till a rope ladder
was dropped down to him. The
Lily
lay bobbing on the water while Grimy Nick shinned up the rope ladder and went on board the big boat. Jim gazed up after him, longing to follow him. Nick shouted down to him to pull back all the hatch boards. A basket brimming with coals swung out from the boom of the
Queen of the North
and was slowly lowered down. Nick shinned down the ladder again and whistled. ‘Drop!’ he yelled, and the basket creaked down. When it reached Nick’s grasp he and Jim swung it round and tipped the contents into the hold of the
Lily.
Jim spluttered in the clouds of black dust.

‘That’s your job for today, and tomorrow, till we get the hold full,’ Nick told Jim. ‘We’ve got eighty tons to load, and the quicker we gets it done the quicker we gets back. See we don’t lose any coals overboard. And keep the dog out of the way. And keep moving.’

They worked through the day and into night again. They slept till dawn and set to work again, and at last the hold was so full that Nick had to scramble out of it, coughing and spitting out the coal-dust he had swallowed. His face was black, and under the blackened jut of his hair his eyes gleamed with red rims. His lips shone wet and pink when he opened his mouth, and his few teeth were as bright as polished gems.

‘Put some hatch boards across,’ he ordered, ‘I’m going for some food.’ He scrambled back up the ladder, hawking up black spittle as he went.

Jim heaved down the hatch boards and lit the
stove, squatting by it for warmth. The afternoon wore on into evening, and a grey gloom settled over the sky. The water glowed with the setting sun, and then faded into the dark. One by one the boats around him had their lanterns hung over their sides. It was as if there were hundreds of small fires dancing on the water. Jim guessed that nothing would move now until the next tide.

From the
Queen of the North
came occasional bursts of laughter and shouts of singing. Jim could smell tobacco. He felt quite happy now that the work had stopped and he could rest. Soon, he knew, Grimy Nick would come swearing back down again and shout at him for something, but at least he would be bringing him food. Jim swilled out his mouth with the last of the water. Snipe lay watching him, his ears sharp, mean points of malevolence, his eyes yellow holes of light. Jim gazed out across the black water. He could hear it breathing, like a huge, waiting beast.

‘Hey, below!’ a voice called down to him.

Jim jumped up. ‘Who is it?’ He held up the lantern, and watched as an unfamiliar pair of boots swung down the ladder towards him. Snipe growled and then settled down again as the owner of the boots jumped onto the lighter and stroked the dog’s head.

‘Come to see how Benjamin is,’ the man said, in a strange accent.

‘I don’t know him,’ said Jim.

‘The other lad that comes with Nick. Big, clumsy lad,’ the man said.

Jim remembered what a boy had said to him
outside The Waterman’s Arms. ‘I think he might be in hospital.’

The man whistled. ‘Well, I’m not surprised. He looked bad last time I saw him. I’ve been worrying about him. And I’d say it was Nick that got him that way.’

‘I don’t know.’ Jim was afraid of saying anything in case this was a trick. Nick might be half-way up the ladder there, dangling in the dark and waiting to pounce on him.

‘Beats you too, does he?’ the man asked him.

Jim said nothing.

‘Think they own you, some of these masters. Think they own you, body and soul. But they don’t. Not your soul. Know what your soul is?’

‘No, mister,’ said Jim, though in his head he imagined it to be something white and fluffy, like a small cloud maybe, floating round his body.

‘Well, it’s like your name. It comes with you when you’re born, and it’s yours to keep.’ The man puffed out his lips, as if it had been hard work thinking that out. ‘And my name’s Josh, and I don’t mind telling you that for nothing.’

Jim was silent. He half-wanted to tell this man about Rosie and Shrimps, and how he used to be known as Skipping Jim, but he kept it to himself. He didn’t feel much like skipping any more. He didn’t suppose that he would, ever again. Josh settled down next to the brazier of glowing coals and held out his hands over it as if he would be quite pleased to stay there for the night. He told Jim that Nick was fast asleep on the
Queen of the North.

‘He’s stuffed his belly so full that he can’t stuff any more in it,’ Josh said. ‘So don’t expect him down for a bit. Not till the tide comes in, I’d say.’

‘Where does the tide go to?’ Jim asked, a bit timid. He was still wary of Josh, but he liked him, he knew that. He’d never known any man like him before, who spoke kindly to small boys.

‘Go to?’ Josh puffed out his lips again. ‘Well, it’s just there, isn’t it? It’s pulled over one way, then it’s pulled over another, but it just keeps coming in and out, day after day after day, and it always will. Where there isn’t land there’s water, lots of it. And you can only see the top of it. There’s more of it underneath. Miles and miles of it. Imagine that!’

Jim tried to imagine it, but he was tired and hungry and thinking was difficult. ‘Do you live in that boat?’ he asked Josh.

‘No more than I can help. I’ve got a proper home. As soon as you lighters take our coal off us we go home. We sail up the coast of England from here, right up to the north. And that’s not the end of the sea, you know. If you just stayed on water you could go right round the world.’

‘I wish I could do that,’ Jim said.

Josh laughed. ‘You’re a funny one, you are. What would you want to do that for? It’s big and empty, the sea is. Lonely.’

‘I might find somewhere nice to live.’

Josh laughed again and shook his head. ‘You don’t like living here, then?’

‘No, mister, I don’t. It’s cold and it’s hard and I
don’t get enough food.’ Jim lowered his voice. ‘And he shouts and screams so much.’

‘Not much of a life for a boy,’ Josh agreed. ‘I’ve got a little lad like you. I’m glad he’s tucked up in bed with his sisters and his mam, and not stuck out here.’

Jim riddled the coals in the brazier. He could feel his cheeks blazing hot and his eyes smarting. He had a new idea inside him, a little feverish will o’ the wisp idea. He poked the coals again, easing them round to let the ashes sift through the grid.

Josh stood up and stretched. ‘Well, I’ll be getting up on deck for some sleep. We’ll be off with tomorrow’s tide.’ He swung himself onto the ladder.

‘Josh.’ Jim’s idea burst out of him, taking him by surprise. ‘Can I come with you?’

Josh looked down at him. His face was in deep shadow. ‘Come with me?’ His voice was soft. ‘Why?’

Jim lowered his head and shrugged. His cheeks were burning again. He couldn’t find his voice properly. ‘I think it would be better, that’s all,’ he whispered.

‘Nothing gets much better,’ Josh said. ‘Not till you’re dead.’

He hauled himself quickly up the rope, whistling tunelessly between his teeth. Jim sat for a long time with his legs crossed and his arms folded across his knees. The moon was out, bright and round as a mocking face, and the river was billowing up to it, and beyond was blackness. There was no other world but the blackened heart of the lighter and his own small bench space. This was his home. He had to accept it.

Jim lay awake listening to the sounds of laughter that floated down from the
Queen of the North.
He felt very lonely. Clouds had thickened, and the sky was darker than he had ever known it. The night seemed to stretch on for ever.

‘I wish I’d got a brother,’ he thought. He said it out loud. ‘I wish I’d got a brother.’ His voice was a tiny, quavering thing. He stood up and shouted. ‘I wish I’d got a brother!’

He thought of Tip, sleeping in the workhouse in the snuffling darkness. He thought of Shrimps in a lodging house full of snoring old men. He thought of Josh’s son, tucked up in a proper bed with a real mother and sisters.

‘You got lots of bruvvers, Jim,’ he said to himself, the way Shrimps would have said it. ‘Only they ain’t around at the moment, is all.’

He pulled his sack round him and fell asleep.

Grimy Nick was laughing softly to himself as he came down the ladder. The sky was the colour of milk. Jim started up out of his slumber, his first
thoughts to the fire in the brazier, in case he’d let it go out. Nick tossed a bone to the dog, who leapt on it, growling. Jim held out his hands for his food. Nothing.

‘There’s work to do soon, such as you’ve never seen before,’ Nick told him. He half-fell down into the hold, sending the packed coals skittling.

Snipe snarled and guzzled over his bone, his paws securing it. Jim could smell the meat on it. ‘Tell him, bruvver,’ a voice in Jim’s head said. ‘He’s forgot you. Tell him!’

‘Nick,’ Jim whispered.

Nick snorted and turned over.

Hunger gave Jim courage. ‘Did you forget my food?’

With one rapid movement Nick tossed away his blanket. He hauled himself up out of the hold and onto the boards.

‘Forgot, did I?’

‘I think so, Nick.’

‘Here’s food for you.’ Nick bent down and snatched the bone from the dog’s jaws. Snipe’s teeth snapped down on it and Nick kicked him off. He grabbed Jim’s hand and thrust the boy’s face into the bone, so his mouth was pressed against it. He could smell the dog’s breath on it. Jim squirmed to get away. The dog sprang and fixed his teeth round Jim’s hand, and as Jim tore it away Snipe bit again, worrying and snapping, till with a shout of laughter Nick flung the bone across the boards. The dog pounded after it and lay guarding it, growling, his eyes fixed on Jim.

‘There’s food for you, if you want it,’ Nick said. He stood with his arms on his hips, watching Jim. The boy sank back on his heels again.

‘No time for eating now, nor sleeping.’ Nick lifted up his head, sniffing the air. ‘I reckon we’ve got the tide.’

With the hold full of coal the lighter lumbered slowly back upstream. Nick stood working the oar, staring ahead of him, yelling sometimes to other lightermen as they drew close. The whole fleet of rivercraft was moving home at the same time, like flies swarming.

It wasn’t until they were in sight of the wharves again, and all the bridges and domes and towers of the city, that Nick leaned round to look at Jim.

‘You done all right,’ he told him, and taking a handful of scraps of meat out of his pocket he threw them at him, laughing at Jim’s surprised face.

But Jim didn’t dive for them, as Nick expected. Nothing would have tempted him to pick up the meat. He wanted to kick the meat overboard into the river, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit that he had even seen it. Better to pretend it wasn’t there at all. He turned away, fists clenched, and thought of the big bowl of meat Nick would have eaten on the
Queen of the North
, with gravy and mustard and hot potatoes. He could have called to Jim to come up with him and share it with him. Instead he had shoved the left-overs of his plate into the grimy dust of his pocket. Jim hated him for it. When he turned round again he saw that the dog had eaten the lot.

‘You wouldn’t have ate it anyway, bruvver,’ the
voice in his head muttered. ‘Would have stuck in your gullet.’

Nick stood with his hands in his pockets, whistling quietly and watching the dog. ‘Well, you’re an odd one,’ he said to Jim. ‘I don’t knows if I understands you.’

‘Don’t answer him, Bruv,’ Jim thought. ‘If he can’t be bovvered to give you proper food, don’t you be bovvered to talk, see? Just pretend he ain’t there at all.’

As soon as the
Lily
had nosed into the wharf outside Cockerill’s coalyard Jim and Nick set to work. White-face lowered down the basket and they filled it up, watched it being winched up to the chute, waited for it to come down empty again. Jim knew the pattern of his life now, filling up the hold of the
Lily
from the big coal-carrying ships that waited outside the port, bringing it upriver to the warehouse, emptying it so it could be taken by horse and cart to the people of London. Backwards and forwards, filling and emptying, shovelling and piling, day after day after day. And never a word spoken between him and Nick. He would sleep on his hard bunk every night of his life. He would eat when Nick thought fit to feed him. He was Nick’s slave, and he was treated worse than an animal.

‘I wish I was Snipe,’ he thought sometimes, when Nick fondled the dog’s head and fed him tasty scraps from his pocket.

Once or twice when they moored up to the
Queen of the North
again Nick showed by a jerk of his
head that Jim was to follow him on board. Jim looked round eagerly for Josh, but he never saw him again. ‘He got a job on shore,’ one of the men told him. ‘Wanted to see more of his family. Said he’d met a little boy who made him long to be at home again.’

Jim didn’t like the rough company of the men any more than Josh had done. Their voices were loud and boastful, but at least they were a change from the silent, brooding company of Grimy Nick, and he was sure of food when he went on board. But he never again thought of hiding on deck and sailing off with them. If he did the men would find him and take him back to Nick, he was sure of that. There was no escape, ever.

But Jim did try to escape one night. He had been living with Nick nearly a year before his chance came.

There was a sudden storm that was so wild that they made straight for the river bank instead of heading back to the wharves. The river rolled and heaved like a boneless beast, tossing the
Lily
as if she was made of matchsticks. Jim clung to the side, weak and afraid, but as soon as they pulled in and tied up to land he felt better. Nick and Snipe settled again into sleep.

Jim heard the faint sound of bells. Through the slant of rain he could see a village in the distance, and a church tower. He could run to it for shelter. Maybe the storm was making such a noise that Nick and Snipe wouldn’t even hear him going.

‘Come on, bruvver!’ the voice in his head urged. ‘You can do it! You can do it!’

Jim slid over to the coamings. They were awash with rain. He swung one leg over the edge, then the other, and just as he was about to lever himself up to jump his arm caught on the oar, which had been propped up across the boat. It slid down with a sickening thud. Snipe’s ears jerked up to listening points. Immediately into the storm were tossed strange pieces of sound – the barking of a dog, the shouting of a man, and the crying of a boy in pain.

‘Thought yer’d try it, did yer?’ Nick bellowed. He picked Jim up and threw him down into the hold of the
Lily
on top of the coals. ‘Yer’ll know better next time!’ He slid the hatch boards shut over Jim’s head.

Jim lay in the dark, nursing his leg where Snipe had ripped his flesh. It was hot and wet with blood. He had never known such pain in his life before.