Walking in Pimlico (35 page)

I surprised myself how quickly I adapted to the daily regime,
which was exhausting in its length and repetitiveness. Each day I told the same story (suggested by Soloman and embellished by myself) about the Fairy Child, discovered in a ditch, abandoned by its mother, fed water and chicken bones by an idiot woman, which regime alone accounted for its monstrous head and tiny limbs. Women gasped and some fainted and had to be removed outside, only to pay their penny again an hour later. Children laughed and pointed, some trying to squeeze its head, ‘to see if it will bust’, and pull its arms. It is said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Here, then, were chasms of deep pain, as it struggled in its wide crib to avoid pokes and pinches, to sleep only to be woken again, and when it cried, with raw, dry misery that should have melted the hardest heart, the crowds were not silenced, nor moved, but instead laughed or shook their heads in disgust.

This was my child, flesh of mine, and though many times I wanted to abandon it, until necessity drove me there I could not. My circus friends advised against keeping the child, and suggested leaving it on the steps of the workhouse or convent. They thought only of the years ahead, they said, and reminded me that many such children lived into infancy, though few survived into adulthood, and that pain would be their constant companion. They told stories of ‘monsters’ that had come and gone in the circus, other ‘fairy’ children scarcely twelve inches high whose little lives were bound by their keeper’s greed and public curiosity until they died from disease and rough treatment. Of giant men – and women – whose size belied weakness as their feet and knees and spines collapsed under the enormous weight. But mostly they spoke of the loneliness of the monster children, as if they had felt it themselves.

‘For,’ said little Mademoiselle Senga, as we sat in her caravan one morning, and I stitched away at the spangles on her costume, ‘they can never be like your normal child. They must always be hidden away, never feeling the sunlight or the wind, and only seeing the
four walls, and so being imprisoned. Why? Well, for fear of being seen, of course. A monster is only useful if it is a paying monster, and not something anyone can see for free.’

Though they were tender-hearted, most circus folk spoke of the monster children with little emotion, and I quickly understood and adopted their detachment. Like an animal, a dog or a horse, that is to be sold, there is no profit in attachment, just pain, as I knew only too well. And so, rather than feed the child myself, I was recommended a wet-nurse at the workhouse who was simple and affectionate, which nature caused her to be constantly with child, and while she mourned their demise (for they were taken away from her immediately they entered the world), she had milk a-plenty, and when my hungry monster was brought yawling to her, she crooned at it softly, and tenderly stroked its swollen head as she laid it against her breast. So the arrangement with Soloman, though temporary, suited me, and allowed me some little interludes of leisure (while the wet-nurse was about her business).

And, living in that small corner of penny amusement, I was unable to avoid the ripples of horror and fascination that accompanied the demise of Mr Halls. To the illustrated newspapers it was a penny-spinner, and the crowds that gathered outside the stationers’ shop windows (in which the front pages only of these garishly illustrated periodicals were displayed for public consumption) frequently overflowed into the public highway. Mr Soloman, who never passed up an opportunity to make an extra penny, immediately introduced into his shop a little waxwork scene depicting the murder victim, weltering in a pool of brilliant carmine, and the shadowy figure of the murderer lurking at the window.

‘See the Paradise-court outrage!’ he roared. ‘Witness the bloody attack upon an old man! Only a penny! Just about to start!’

Corney Sage – Birmingham

H
ere is a singular business and no mistake!

Oh, my!

Here I am, about my duties, tidying up around the ring and all, and of a sudden here are Brummagem’s Best Blue Boys doing their liveliest to prevent me! So I put on my cockiest face and manner and run along the ring fence and kick up the tan, and try to draw a smile on and off, especially from the young ’uns.

I cry, ‘Oh ho! Oh ho! Here we have, for the amusement of one and all, a crafty collection, a meddlesome medley, a fat and fortunate specimen of blue-backed, true-backed enforcers of Her Majesty’s regs and ru-u-lations!’

I give ’em my best ‘Potato’ wheeze, including my good line where I stand on the back of Poney Cocking (or a tub if he is not handy) and say in my highest voice, ‘Policemen they are blue potatoes – and very often turn out bad peelers.’ This always gets a regular roar, even from the boys themselves.

Until now, for this bag of peelers will not be amused, though some haven’t seen the inside of a circus before, or it was long ago when they was too young to remember. They gawp and look about them, and nudge each other, rough the tan about with their great
plates, until I am beside myself with aggravation and give the ring fence a kick and another kick until it rattles. This brings out Chittick from the back where he is doing business with the knacker-man over one of the mares. He hears the commotion and comes out fighting, then quizzes the Sergeant hard about why his circus is being invaded by bluebottles (which, by-the-by, only he finds amusing). The Sergeant steps forward and acquaints him with the circumstances that concern me and Halls, of Paradise-court, who has been ‘’orribly done in’.

‘This ’ere Merryman of yourn is spotted,’ the Sergeant finishes, at which all the bluebottles bristle about and finger their persuaders and look hard at me. Now I have never been fond of Chittick, for he was always too chummy with his stick and my back, but for what he said that day I will forgive him every offence he ever gave me.

He laughs at the Sergeant, one of his wheezy efforts, and then, looking scornful at me, ‘What, this pump-thunderer?’ says he. ‘He doesn’t know his arse from his eye and can’t find either without a picture!’

Even with this testament, I am still bounced around by the Sergeant as we inspect one of his loneliest cells (for he does not want to be interrupted), and this because I will not agree to having nobbled Halls. Perhaps I do not help my own cause, for I do say to the copper that I
applauded
the fellow who had clocked Halls. That fellow did the world a favour, in my opinion, for Halls was a piece of work about who you could say nothing good. His wife left him for a cat’s-meat man, and even his children hated him, and if he could rob you or otherwise do you down, he would. But I would not have done for him (though I would think hard about going to his aid). I would not have smashed his head about, I say nor left him in his own back parlour to die alone.

In the end, like true pros, it was my circus friends who came forward and agreed with my story, for they could all say I had not
left the circus for days, and Mrs Chittick quietly affirmed the nights, for I had been warming her feet while her master was away. (However, this was not a circumstance I wanted all the world to know, and Mr Chittick in particular I wanted to remain ignorant of how I plumped his pillow and drank his brandy and squeezed his wife.) But it was enough, and I breathed the fresh air with only a black eye.

I returned to my circus duties, thinking about the new shop I was going to and wishing I was going that moment, for it seemed to me that as fast as I ran, trouble caught up with me one way or another, so I ought to try to get a head start. Even my good turn to Mrs Marsh had left me contrary-wise, for she disappeared one day with her baby and not a word of thanks, and some few outstanding expenses that she had promised to cover and not made good. With this in mind as a church clock struck, I hove back to Halls’s, thinking I might see if she had cleared out of that front room, and if there were something left behind that I might sell and take as my dues. With my eyes set on that nobby shop in New Clay, I wanted to pick up my bits of things – a pair of boots, a comforter (useful for winter mornings) and my gag-book, which I would be very sorry to lose. Not that I used it much at Chittick’s, doing less talking and more tumbling as it worked out. But there were gags in there that had been given to me at other times when I had worked in circuses, and they were like remembrances of fellow professionals I had known. I had a song-book too, and here were songs given to me, and little notes of patter and the like. Very useful to write down when a song has gone well, and the words are fresh.

So I took myself off to Paradise-court with no great cheer but the sustaining thoughts of pastures new. It was not a pleasant place. Always gloomy, being at the dark end of a dark street and much closed in by warehouses and a brickyard. There was always a good deal of green about the bricks and a feeling of dampness which
dragged along with you when you went inside Halls’s estab., and clung still along the front passage and up the stairs. My room, number 3 at the back, was always cool and dark, even when the sun was shining and the ice-man doing a belter. Halls said (in the summer, of course) that number 3 was the coolest room in the house and he ought to charge me extra. In the winter he would have kept quiet, for like as not it would be colder in number 3 than outside.

So, going in the front door and standing in the passage and looking down that passage at the door to the back room where he was bashed about – well, here was a strange feeling and no mistake. It was the middle of the day and already it was dark in there, and there was a smell about the place – damp, of course, but something else, which might have been a perfume, so I didn’t linger on it, fearing I would lose my nerve and run out and never return. I hastened up the stairs, noticing how heavy my boots seemed and how there were creaks and groans that I had never noticed before. Number 3 was down the passage, which had never seemed quite so long and narrow and gloomy. And the door to number 3 had never stuck before, but now I had to put my shoulder to it, bursting it open and rattling it hard.

It all looked as I left it, though it was some weeks since. My good coat still hanging on the back of the door, and the comforter over it. The gag-book and the song-book on the little table. I gathered them up, looked around once more, and pulled the door behind me. But it wouldn’t shut, so I left it, standing ajar, like all the doors along the passage, including the one at the front, belonging to Mrs Marsh. Now I am not usually inclined to poke around in other people’s property but I felt, since she owed me cash and wasn’t forthcoming with it, entitled. I pushed the door open and went in.

The trunk was in the middle of the floor, sturdy and dark, with bands about it. And of course I recognized it as belonging to Mrs
Marsh, for didn’t I arrange for it to be brung on my handcart, and hadn’t Halls and I discussed it. Or, rather, Halls had, for he had a fancy that a quantity of jewels lay within. I recall that my cut of the operation was going to be books, which pleased me not at all. But now at least I would have the trunk. And if I had nothing much to put in it, I could always sell it.

This trunk should have been tight shut with a padlock, but it was not and sprung open like a tart’s legs. In it – and it was a great surprise to me – were gents’ clothes: a coat, trousers, a pair of boots and a shirt, a fancy waistcoat. And gents’ bits and pieces – hair oil, macassar mostly, and a great waft of it greeted me when I opened the lid, and I realized that was what I had nosed downstairs. I have heard that the lining of trunks should always be searched for that is where jewellery is often put for safe-keeping. But Halls knew this too, for the lining was ripped to flinders and there was nothing left to be found. Here’s a teaser, I thought, for why would Mrs Marsh want a box of gents’ clothes, and certain it
was
her box, for I had carried it myself. There were no books, but no jewels neither, unless Halls had already searched them out. Just a box of duds, which I might get a few bob for. But I had no time nor inclination to pack them up and hawk them round.

Here was a turn-up. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked hard at the heap of stuff in the middle of the floor. I tried to think of why Mrs Marsh should have a box of men’s clothes, good ones, well made, though none would do for me, for while they were small, they were also flashy. A young man’s duds.

I sat there awhile, with the light getting dimmer and dimmer, and just a fly buzzing, listening to those creaks and shifts what empty houses make. Like they was a-talking to themselves. Squeaks and groans and every now and then a foot upon the stairs. I started to think of Halls and how someone – ‘Person Unknown’ the Sergeant called him – had done him to death for nothing. For unless
Halls had a secret pot of treasure that the murderer helped himself to, he’d been done in for nothing. Or one of those poor beggars who he’d done over came back to get him. So, I thought, as it seemed another footstep found its way up the stairs. Supposing the murderer came back, which they always say they do in the penny papers. Murderers, I thought, as I cast about me for a handy defender and found him in Brighton for the day, are said to be much inclined to visit the scene of their crime, the better to gloat over it, and have another taste of the deed they have done.