The Tiger in the Well

  Since it was Thursday night, and the week's wages were beginning to run out, the place was busy. Many poor families would pawn an item or two to bridge the gap between the end of one week's money and the beginning of the next's.

  Sally found a queue of women waiting in the musty shop, while the pawnbroker and his wife dealt with the pennies and shillings and issued tickets or shelved the items they took in: pitiful things like saucepans, a child's shoes, a framed engraving of the late Prince Consort.

  Sally felt out of place in her warm coat and hat, and Harriet stared round wide-eyed, a little frightened by the crush, the dustiness, the smell of stale clothes and unwashed bodies, the darkness of the shadowy shop. The other women stared curiously, and held themselves a little away, talking in quiet voices.

  Then it was Sally's turn at the counter. The pawnbroker, a white-haired old man with a calculating eye, said, "Don't take long, please, I've got a lot of customers waiting."

  "I want to pawn a watch," Sally said. She'd never done this before; she wasn't sure how much to expect, or how to behave. "A gold watch," she added.

  "Well, let's have a look then," said the old man.

  "Of course. Sorry." She fumbled for it and nearly dropped it from her gloved hands. She and Harriet had the only gloves in the shop. She handed over her father's watch, still faithfully ticking, and watched as the man's indifferent hands held it to his ear, flicked it open, tapped it with a fingernail, held it up close while he peered into the works.

  "Five bob," he said.

  "Five shillings -" She swallowed a protest. The watch was worth something like five pounds, twenty times as much. But he was already looking impatiently over her shoulder, and someone was jostling, and she sensed that five shillings represented a lot of money to any of the women around her. He had all the power, and she had nowhere else to go. So she said, "All right."

  He numbered a ticket, tore it in half, tied half to the watch and gave the rest to her. She tucked it into her glove and watched as he dropped the watch none too carefully into a drawer. Then he handed over a half-crown, two shillings and a sixpence, and she took Harriet's hand again and made for the door.

  "Cheer up, love," said a stout woman carrying an umbrella.

  Sally smiled, the woman was so jolly-looking, and felt her spirits lift a little. But five shillings! She'd hoped for something like three pounds. . .

  Outside in the busy street she suddenly felt hungry. Nowhere to sleep, but plenty of things to eat; jellied eels from that stall at a penny a dish, oysters over there, fried fish at that shop beyond.

  "Hungry, darling?" she said.

  "Want to go home," said Harriet.

  "In a little while. Let's go and find some supper."

  She wandered along, holding Harriet's hand, and the child came willingly enough. She was sleepy, and still flushed in a way that Sally didn't like, but she was fascinated by the lights and the bustle and the shouting, as long as she was close to Mama.

  Sally felt her tugging, and turned to watch a butcher, face ghastly pallid in the light of a naphtha flare, cheerfully slicing some anonymous beast in two, hacking and slashing like a pirate in a picture, while his mate bawled out, "Cheapy cheapy! Name yer price, lady, name yer price! Given away - look at this lovely fat bit of flesh - not you, love, the old cow here - no, not you, neither - given away! Name yer price!"

  Next to him, a greengrocer was rolling great knobbly potatoes into someone's basket, and a little further on there was an old-clothes man's shop, with racks of worn coats hung up outside, and a tub full of shoes. Sally and Harriet wandered along like tourists. So this was how people lived in Whitechapel? They pawned broken umbrellas, they ate jellied eels, they wore someone else's old shoes. They slept -

  No! Don't think of where we're going to sleep yet. One step at a time. Food first.

  There was a warm-looking eating-house next to the old-clothes shop. Through the streaming windows Sally could see people sitting down, and appetizing smells wafted out.

  She pushed open the door and they went into a narrow, steamy place with little box-like stalls on either side. There was an empty one on the left, with dirty plates still on the table, but it was the only one free. Sally lifted Harriet up on to the wooden bench and she scrambled along to make room.

  People were staring; was she so different from them, then? A grizzled workman in the stall opposite, shovelling a great pile of mashed potato steadily into his mouth, could hardly take his eyes off them. She wondered how long it would be before she was inconspicuous. Maybe they shouldn't have come to the East End.

  And then a waiter appeared, in a long apron that had once been white. He swept up the dirty plates and cutlery and the empty beer bottles, wiped the table round with a filthy cloth and said, "Yus?"

  "Is there a menu?" said Sally.

  "A what?"

  "What have you got to eat?"

  "Same as usual. Sausage and mash. Stewed eel. Fried herrings. Tuppenny pie."

  "A tuppenny pie, please. And -"

  "Mash?"

  "Oh. Yes."

  "What about the kiddie? Eh? What's your name, then?" he said to Harriet, who was gazing up at him.

  She hid her face in Sally's sleeve.

  "She's Harriet," said Sally. "We'll share the pie and mash, if I could have a spoon and fork for her, please. Oh - and a cup of tea and a glass of milk," she added, hoping that those beverages would be available.

  The waiter nodded, winked at the emerging Harriet, and hurried away. Sally discreetly counted her remaining money: eight shillings and sevenpence. And only yesterday - if she'd had the forethought to take her money out then -

  No. Don't think of that.

  Their tuppenny pie, when it came, was enormous. There was beef in it, Sally supposed, and the pie-crust was thick and the gravy was fragrant and the plate was hot; so it was possible to eat, and they wouldn't starve. Moment by moment. She cut some pieces off the pie and put them on one side of the plate to cool for Harriet.

  Harriet had come fully awake again, in that bright-eyed, hot-cheeked way that ends in fretful sleeplessness. A moment at a time, Sally thought; just be grateful she's awake. She blew on one of the pieces of pie to cool it quickly and gave it to Harriet on a spoon; never mind table manners now.

  Between them they could only just finish the pie, but they had to leave some of the potato, for they had no room for it. Sally lingered as long as possible in the little booth, reading out a music-hall poster on the wall line by line to Harriet, following it with her finger and telling her what a prestidigitator was, what Senor Chavez, the Mexican Boneless Wonder did. Harriet sat happily and listened to it all; she probably understood about a tenth of it, but it was her mama's voice and they were warm and close together.

  "Puddin', me lady?" said the waiter. Sally looked up; he was addressing Harriet, who was staring back, puzzled. "We got plum duff, roly-poly jam puddin' and custard, spotted dick -"

  "No, thank you," Sally said. "But we enjoyed the pie. May I have the bill?"

  "Eh? Oh, right you are. Tuppenny pie and mash - gravy - tea - milk - fivepence, love," he said.

  She gave him a sixpenny piece and told him to keep the extra penny. He raised his eyebrows. She thought: I shouldn't have tipped him - they don't tip here - or was it too little? Should I have given more?

  But he dropped the money in his waistcoat pocket, took up the plate and the cutlery, and said quietly, "Good-night, love. Here - you don't mind if I say summing? It ain't yer clothes as gives yer away - it's yer voice. Talk a bit rougher, and you won't stick out. You'll get used to it."

  She opened her mouth to reply, but found nothing to say; then closed it again and nodded. With a flick of his dirty cloth around the table, the waiter was away to the kitchen.

  Well, out again, she thought, and picked Harriet up. She was heavy, full of pie, or Sally was tired. And she knew very well that her voice gave her away. But she'd never learned to speak cockney; never had to. Never 'ad to. 'Ave to now. Nah.
No, it was silly, she couldn't pretend, it would sound even worse.

  So what were they going to do?

  Harriet was quite content to be carried about by Mama and gaze at the busy stalls, the pubs, the shops, the press of people buying and selling and gossiping and quarrelling. And Sally was content for the moment to drift with her, because out there in the darkness of the street, where only the flaring lamps cast any light, and that inconstant and theatrical, she felt invisible. Hardly anyone looked at them. She felt safe.

  But so tired. Tiredness made you feel drunk, she supposed, who had never been drunk. Though she had once succumbed to the fumes of opium, and this extremity of weariness had the same dizzying helplessness about it. . .

  She didn't know how long they wandered; she didn't know where they were. The only thing was, they were free. Occasionally they passed a house with the word Lodgings on a board outside, or Rooms for Travellers; and once a card in a window saying simply Logins. In the dim gaslight they all looked unsavoury: dark narrow places, with filthy windows.

  These shops and stalls stayed open very late. But it was dry now, and the sky had cleared. They passed an old-clothes shop with some folded blankets in the window. On impulse she went in, taking no notice of the reek, and paid fourpence for two of them. That was tenpence gone, but they'd eaten and they could keep warm. She couldn't remember, when she came out of the shop, what she'd said to the old man, or what voice she'd said it in, but he hadn't registered any surprise.

  There was a church or something opposite, with trees overhanging darkly, and a bench, was it? In the dimness it was hard to see. Yes, she found, it was a bench, and it was dry, being under a thick canopy of yew.

  She shook out one of the blankets and spread it on the bench, Harriet looking on doubtfully. Then she sat down and took Harriet on her lap and wrapped the other blanket around them, and then tucked the first one around the outside, and leant back.

  "Oh, Hattie," she whispered. "What would your papa say to see us like this? D'you know what he'd say? He'd say Lockhart, you're insane. The whole of England to hide in, and you sleep on a bench in the East End. He'd say outface them, that's what to do. Stand firm and show them. . ."

  Harriet lay close, thumb in mouth, soothed by Sally's whispers, warm on her breast. After a moment Sally went on, her breath hardly stirring the fur on Harriet's hat:

  "Fred, what shall I do? It seems as if there are too many enemies to fight, and I don't know who they are or why - why they want. . . They're not ever going to have it, you know that, don't you? You know I'd never give her up? You know I'd die first? You do know that? Oh, Fred, all that silence where you are. . . That money, Fred, this morning. . . That was four years' wages for some of the people who live around here. They'd never believe their eyes if they saw that much money. Those poor women, Fred, pawning saucepans for pennies. . . And it's all gone. . ."

  "All gone," muttered Harriet sleepily.

  "All gone," Sally said, stroking her cheek. Then, whispering again: "All gone. But the other money's more important still. If Margaret could have sold some stock for me, we'd still have been all right. A little house in, I don't know, Hampstead or somewhere, and Sarah-Jane to come and look after Harriet - change my name - Mrs Jones - then start to fight back. I could, Fred. I've done it before, haven't I? Fought and won? But I had you then. And I knew who I was fighting. . ."

  She looked out across the dim graveyard. The street seemed a long way off now, the cries of the street-traders muffled by distance, leaves, weariness. A figure stumbled into the graveyard, drunk, and fell over a stone, and lay there cursing quietly. Then it got up, so swathed in rags that she couldn't tell whether it was male or female, and fumbled towards a doorway in the church wall. But it was just going to settle when another figure - just a shadow among shadows - rose up and shoved it away. It fell; Sally heard the sound of vomiting, and then a muffled curse.

  She watched all this without surprise. Little by little she became aware of other shapes huddled in the darkness, in the doorways, behind gravestones, on the other bench further off into the shadows.

  "There's a lot of people here," she whispered silently. "All of them asleep like I should be. Why was this bench free? I can see two, or is it three, on the other bench. Huddled up like Harriet and me. Oh, Fred, I've done wrong to come here. I shouldn't expose her to this. But I didn't know what to do. Me, the great independent woman - oh, I used to be so proud. . . I cruised along earning money and organizing businesses and thinking I was so clever and then this comes at me and all of a sudden I'm huddling on a bench with only seven shillings in the world, and a couple of old blankets. . ."

  Suddenly she caught her breath. There was someone else on the bench with her. Harriet didn't stir, but in a moment Sally was awake and prickling all over with tension. A man's shape, that was all she could tell, and he was looking at her.

  And then she heard footsteps: heavy ones, steady ones, coming down the gravel path, and she knew why this bench had been empty. The footsteps came to a halt nearby. The policeman was wearing a cape and carrying a lantern, which he shone full in her face.

  "What you plannin' on doin'?" he said. "Cause you can't stay there. You ain't no vagrant."

  And before she could reply, the other man spoke, the shadow-man.

  "It's all right, officer," he said in a deep voice, a voice with a strong accent - Russian? Polish? "My wife speaks no English. We are resting. We have just arrived at the docks from Hamburg."

  "You got somewhere to go, then?"

  "Oh, yes. I have a cousin in Lamb Street, Spitalfields. But we had to rest a moment."

  "Better be along, then. This ain't no place to stop for long."

  He watched as the man gently took Sally's arm. She let herself be helped up, and draped the blankets high around her neck, holding Harriet close to her.

  Saying nothing, she accompanied the man along the gravel path, through the gate, and turned left along the street.

  "Who are you?" she said, when they'd gone far enough to be out of earshot of the policeman.

  "A friend," he said. "A friend of a friend. My name is Morris Katz. Forgive me for referring to you as my wife; it seemed the safest thing to do. The policeman is watching us. Will you come with me?"

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE MISSION

  He was of medium height, heavily built, and dressed in a shabby overcoat and a black hat, which he took off as he spoke to her under the sputtering gaslight on the wall. He had a thick black beard, and his expression was a curious mixture of mildness and understanding and determination.

  He replaced his hat, and the shadow fell back across his face.

  "I've never heard of you," she said. "If you're a friend, then you'll know my name. What is it?"

  "Your name is Lockhart, and the child is Harriet."

  "How did you know who I was? Have you been following me?"

  "Yes. For some time. You have thought you were in danger, and so you are, but you have friends as well that you do not know about."

  "Friends. . . Who? Who's the friend of a friend you mentioned just now?"

  "I don't think his name would mean anything to you. It is not Mr Parrish, in case you are wondering. Now it would be safer to come with me, because the policeman is watching."

  She turned to look, and there was the policeman, still standing suspiciously outside the churchyard.

  "Where then?" she said.

  "A house not far away. There is a bed. You will be safe."

  He walked on. Sally, shifting Harriet from one arm to the other, followed. She was bewildered. If this was a dream, as it felt like, then she'd go with it; because Mr Katz seemed trustworthy enough for the moment. And besides, there was really nothing else she could do.

  From time to time, when a drunk man or a gang of children or, once, two fighting, shrieking women threatened to knock Sally off the pavement, he drew close and took her arm, putting himself between her and the threat. He didn't seem particularly pugnacious, bu
t his hand was strong, and his pace was steady. She let him lead her.

  Not very much later, in a quiet old street somewhere in Spitalfields, Sally's guide stopped and rang the bell of a tall house with remnants of the eighteenth century still in its windows and the fanlight over the door. The door was opened by a middle-aged woman, who stood aside silently and let them in.

  Sally found herself in a dimly lit, shabby hall with an institutional smell of boiled cabbage everywhere. There were no pictures, no carpets, no linoleum, but the bare boards were clean.

  Her aching arms prompted her to put Harriet down, but the child was fast asleep and she cried as she felt Sally moving. Wearily Sally changed positions yet again, and then felt with a sigh that Harriet was wet. No fresh clothes. What to do?

  Her guide was speaking quietly to the woman who'd let them in. When he'd finished, he turned back to Sally.

  "I shall leave you here," he said. "You'll be safe. Some time soon I shall come back and we shall talk. But now I must go."

  He raised his hat, and again she saw those disconcerting black eyes. Then he was gone. The woman said, "Come this way, miss. Miss Robbins will see you now."

  "But who -" Sally began, but the woman was already climbing the stairs ahead of her. Sally followed, and was shown into a room. The woman announced her name and then left, and Sally looked around.

  It was a large, Spartan room, nearly empty except for a couple of chairs and a large desk littered with papers, government reports, copies of Hansard and various political journals. Seated at the desk was a woman whom Sally took to be Miss Robbins: forty or so, with a stern, almost cruel expression, and solidly built. She was wearing a severe dress, and had scraped her hair back into a bun, with no attempt at softening her appearance. The white of her eyes showed all around the iris, giving her a disconcertingly predatory look. She stared at Sally for a few moments, and then stood up and offered her hand. Sally shook it.

  "Sit down, Miss Lockhart," said the woman. "My name is Elizabeth Robbins. This is the Spitalfields Social Mission. I have been expecting you."

  More astonishment. Sally sat, holding Harriet carefully.

  "Expecting me?" she said stupidly.