Читать книгу Street Child - Berlie Doherty - Страница 9

They must have slept in the end. The next thing Jim heard was a stamping of heavy feet on the stairs and the rapping of a cane on the floor outside their room.

“The Stick Man!” whispered Emily.

Before the children could sit up the door was flung open and in strode the owner of the house, stamping snow off his boots. He swung off his cape, scattering snowflakes round the room, and as he shook it into the hearth the white embers spat.

“I did knock,” Mr Spink barked. “But when lie-abeds don’t answer then lie-abeds must be got up.”

Emily and Lizzie scrambled to their feet at once. Jim would have crawled under the covers, but his sisters hauled him up between them. The children stood in a limp row in front of their mother.

Mr Spink pushed the damp, yellowy strings of his hair behind his ears and peered over their heads at her. His breath came in little wheezing gasps.

“Is she dead?”

“No, sir, she ain’t dead,” said Emily, fright catching at her throat.

“Sick, then?”

“No, sir, she ain’t sick, neither,” Emily said.

Jim looked at her in surprise. It seemed to him that his mother was very sick, and had been for days.

“Then if she ain’t dead nor sick what’s she doing down there? Lying under the covers like a grand lady with nothing to do! Hiding is she? Counting all her money?” Mr Spink pushed the children out of the way and lifted up the rag-pile with his cane.

The children’s mother had her eyes closed, though the lids fluttered slightly. In the daylight Jim could see how pale she was. He felt for Lizzie’s hand.

“Leave her, sir. She’s tired out, she’s been working that hard,” Emily said. “She’ll be off out to work again soon.”

Jim could tell by the way her voice shook how afraid she was, and how brave she was to talk back to Mr Spink like that.

“Well, if she’s been working, she can pay her rent, and we’ll all be happy. Up you get, woman!” With the silver tip of his stick he lifted the rags clean away from her.

Lizzie knelt down and helped her mother to sit up.

“Where’s your money, Mrs Jarvis?” Mr Spink thrust his cane under his arm and stood with his hands in his pockets, jingling the loose coins there like little bells, as if they made sweet music to his ears. He saw the purse bag on the floor and peered down at it. He leaned down towards Jim, who backed away from his wheezy breath.

“I’m an old man, and I don’t bend. Pick up that purse for me, sonny.”

Jim bent down and picked it up. He held it out at arm’s length for Mr Spink to take, but the man rolled his eyes at him.

“Is it empty, sonny? Empty?” He said, as if he couldn’t believe it. He saw the pie cloth in the hearth, with the crumbs of pastry that the children had left, and the stain of gravy on it. He started back as if the sight of it amazed him and glared round at them all.

“Did you eat pie last night?”

The girls were silent.

“Did you, sonny?”

“Yes,” Jim whispered.

“Was it a lovely meat pie, all hot and full of gravy?”

“I don’t know.” Jim’s throat was as tight as if he still had a piece of pastry stuck there, refusing to be swallowed. He looked at Emily, who had her lips set in a firm line, and at Lizzie, who was sitting now with her head bent so her hair dangled across her face, hiding it. He looked at his mother, white and quiet.

“I bought it,” he burst out. “It was Ma’s last shilling, but I bought the pie.”

He heard Emily give out a little sigh beside him.

Mr Spink nodded.

“No money.” He nodded again, and for a moment Jim thought he’d done the right thing to tell him that the pie had cost him Ma’s last shilling. Mr Spink put out his sweaty hand and took the purse from Jim. He pushed his fingers into it as though it was a glove puppet, and then he dropped it on the floor and jabbed at it with his stick. He took out his silk handkerchief and flapped it open, wiped his hair and his face with it and then had a good blow.

“Oh dear,” he said. He blew his nose long and hard. Jim stole a glance at Emily, but she wouldn’t look at him. “No money, no rent.” Mr Spink blew his nose again. “No rent, no room, Mrs Jarvis.”

“We’ve nowhere else to go,” said Jim’s mother, so quietly that Mr Spink had to stop blowing his nose and bend towards her to listen.

“Ma,” said Jim. “Couldn’t we go back to the cottage? I liked it better there.”

Mr Spink gave a shout of laughter, and for a moment again Jim thought he’d said the right thing.

“Your cottage! When you came crawling to me twelve months ago you was glad of this place, make no mistake about it. But if you like a cottage better, find yourself a father, and let him pay for one. Can you do that?”

Jim shook his head. He swallowed hard. His throat filled up again.

“We’re quite happy here,” Jim’s mother said. “Give us a little longer, and we’ll pay our rent. The girls can help me.”

Mr Spink flapped his handkerchief again and stuffed it in his pocket.

“I’ve made up my mind, Mrs Jarvis. I’ve a family wants to move in here tonight. There’s eight of them – don’t they deserve a home, now? And what’s more – they can pay me for it!”

He swung his steaming cape back over his shoulders and strode out of the room, and they listened in silence to the sound of his cane, tap-tap-tapping on the floor outside the next room. Jim watched with a cold dread as his sisters moved slowly round the room, gathering up their belongings. They had no furniture, though they had seemed to have plenty when they piled it high on the cart the day they left their cottage. But it had all been sold, piece by piece, and what hadn’t been good enough to sell had been broken up and used as firewood.

“Get your horse, Jim,” Emily said, indicating the wooden horse that Jim’s father had carved for him two Christmases ago. “And Lizzie’s boots. You might as well have them. They’re too small for Lizzie now.”

He picked them up. The boots were too big for him to wear yet, but he folded his arms over them and stuck the wooden horse between them. The children stood by the doorway clutching their bundles, while Mrs Jarvis tied her bonnet and fastened her shawl round herself. She moved slowly and quietly, as if all her thoughts were wrapped up deep inside her and she was afraid of breaking them. At last she was ready. She looked round the bare room. The snow had stopped, and sunlight came watery through the window.

“Ma …” said Emily.

Mrs Jarvis looked down at her daughter. She was pale and strained. “I’m coming,” she said.

“But where can we go?”

“I’ll find us a home,” her mother said. “Don’t worry.”