Gooseberry: Chapter Three

I like to think that I am a man of the world—or, to be more accurate, having attained the grand age of fourteen, I am now two-thirds of a man of the world—and I would have you know that in my time I have seen both men dressed as women and women dressed as men. Of these, some have been most convincing. Many have been less so. Bertha, I’m afraid, didn’t even make it into this category. There was nothing feminine or effeminate about him whatsoever. In a sense he was simply a big, jowly bloke in a dress. No wonder Mrs. Blake’s aunt had been fascinated by him. I’m sure she’d never seen anything like him in her life.

“Look at you!” he cried, rubbing his eyes as if he’d seen a ghost. “My, ain’t you grown! Why, you’re almost a fully-fledged omi,” he said, meaning ‘man’ in palari, the actors’ slang he liked to use. “So where the hell you been, then?”

“Well, I wasn’t sent to some Australian penal colony, if that’s what you imagined.”

He blinked. “Wot, then?”

“I simply needed a break from the Life, that’s all.”

“But where d’you take yourself off to? Ain’t no one just disappears like that.”

No? I’d managed it pretty well up until now.

“I went to live in Edinburgh,” I lied.

“Edinbra?” He considered this carefully. “Ain’t that somewhere up norf?”

By the time I agreed that it was, he’d already begun to lose interest. Instead he was employing his critical eye to give me a quick once-over.

“Well, well, well! You’ve grown to be quite a looker, ’aven’t ya? You seeing anyone, then? If not, I’d be more than happy to—”
“No, Bertha, I’m really flattered, truly I am, but…”

“No, no, no! I ain’t talking about me!” He wagged a fleshy finger in my face. “You got to learn to lower those sights of yours, lad. No, I was trying to tell you ’bout this matrimonial bureau wot I runs now—strictly a sideline, o’ course. A young omi such as yourself, I could get you fixed up in a jiffy.”
“But what if I don’t want to be fixed up?”

He wasn’t listening. Something or someone had caught his attention on the other side of the piazza.
“’Ere, Florrie, get those scrawny little hips over ’ere! Octopus, I want you to meet Florrie. Florrie, this here’s Octopus.”

“Octopus?” The girl Bertha had summoned was gawking shamelessly at my eyes. “That’s an unusual name,” she said. She was dressed, as most of the market girls were, in a blouse and skirt, with a shawl draped over her shoulders. Her blonde hair was pulled back from her face and tied up with a black velvet band.

“Forget those bona big ogles, girl,” chortled Bertha, referring to my eyes. “It’s his lills you ought to be worried about. ’E’s got eight of ’em.”

“Eight?” Florrie’s gaze dropped to my hands in a panic. She gave a sigh of relief when she saw I only had two.

“This young omi used to troll through the streets lifting wallets left, right, and center—just like an octopus would if it ’ad any real appreciation of money! You keep your eye on him, girl, or his lills will be all over you in no time.” The girl blushed as Bertha gave a deep throaty chuckle. “First assignation’s free,” he continued, now addressing me, “it’s the second that’ll cost ya; strictly no third unless it’s a wedding!” Bertha gave me a big, theatrical wink. “Got to make it look proper, see; I won’t have no one thinking I’m procuring. Me, I’m a respectable woman!”

Florrie and I regarded each other in a state of nervous embarrassment. She looked almost alarmed; I’m sure I did too.

“Young people these days!” griped Bertha. “No sense of romance! Go on, Florrie, if he ain’t going to kiss ya, you may as well give us a hand with these posies.”

The two of them knelt on the pavement and began binding stems with green twine.

“So how’s the flower business going?” I asked. “Everything in the garden blooming?”

“Mustn’t grumble, mustn’t grumble,” he replied. “’Ere, wot do you think of my new line of patter?” He bowed his head, pulled his shawl across his mouth, and started whispering the same catchphrase he’d whispered before: “Buy a nice posy from a poor, honest woman, sir? Or a bouquet for your sweet, faithful wife?”

“It’s good. Really good.” It was a definite improvement on the one I remembered: ‘Varder me dolly flowers, sir.’—meaning, look at my pretty flowers—‘Get ’em quick before they die.’
Bertha grinned.

“I hear you were over on Wigmore Street yesterday,” I said.

The grin faded. “Oh? And where d’you hear that?”

“Some friends of mine were accosted…by a gang. The odd thing is, when I asked them about it, they managed to describe you perfectly.”

“Friends of yours, eh?”

“People I care about, yes.”

He took a moment to digest this. “Shame,” he said. “Seems like a poor, decent woman can’t go nowhere no more wiffout being set on by ruffians.”

“Wigmore Street’s a bit outside your territory, Bertha. And that got me thinking. This job had to be special—planned to order by someone much higher up.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know, ’cos I wasn’t there!” he bawled.

We eyed each other warily, like a pair of fractious circus tigers, until Bertha finally cracked and looked away. It wasn’t stalemate yet, however, for I still had one move left to me.

“So you weren’t the one who slipped the daguerreotype in the old lady’s bag?” I said.

For the second time in twenty minutes, Bertha’s pock-marked face shot up. Florrie, who’d been watching our little exchange with increasing discomfort, rose to her feet and announced she was leaving.

“No, you stay right where you are,” Bertha growled at her, even though he was glaring at me. “It’s young Octopus here wot needs to leave. Go on, Octopus—” And here he bellowed a two-word Anglo-Saxon phrase at me, causing everyone in the square to look.

I beat a tactical retreat into the bustling piazza, and hid myself behind a barrow-load of celery. I’d purposely kicked the hornets’ nest, and I wanted to see what Bertha would do next. I didn’t have to wait long. Leaving his stall in Florrie’s care, he threw his shawl over his shoulders and set off at a cracking pace down King Street. Despite the considerable number of pedestrians, he made an easy target to follow. His yellow cap and ribbons bobbed a good six inches above most of the heads in the crowd.
At the corner he turned north, as if heading towards Long Acre, but then pulled up short outside a public house. I knew the pub, but only by reputation: they regularly staged bare-knuckled prize fights there. It was the Lamb and Flag, referred to hereabouts as the Bucket of Blood. After a moment’s hesitation, Bertha went inside.

I crept up to the windows and peered in. Though the hour was still early, business was brisk, as it tends to be for any pub on a market day. I scoured the room, but there was no sign of Bertha. I stepped back a little and gazed up at the windows above. Was one of the old crew up there, holding court in a private suite? Perhaps even Ned himself, if he still happened to be in charge. How would he react when he heard I was back, I wondered?

It seemed as if I had a choice. Burst in and confront him, or whoever it was who was running things now—a strategy that hadn’t played so well with Bertha—or wait and see what would happen. I took a coin from my pocket and flipped it. Tails. Better to wait.

I returned to the corner and stood by the railings, watching and biding my time. Ten minutes passed, and then twenty. At last the door opened, and Bertha emerged.

I held my ground for a moment as he marched away, curious to see if anyone else would appear. When no one did, I sped off after him, just in time to see him cross the road into Bedford Street. At the Strand he turned left and began to head east, past Temple Bar into Fleet Street. The pavement here was not so crowded, so I could afford to fall back a little.

Still he trundled eastwards, past St. Paul’s, past London Bridge, then past the Tower. Now came the docks with their innumerable ships moored up in miniature cities. Gulls reeled and circled among the masts against the steel-gray, mid-morning sky. Surrounded by beer-bellied dockers, Bertha was in his element, lapping up the hoots and wolf whistles he’d started to attract.

Somewhere between the London Dock and the East London Dock, Bertha paused. He peered to his right, then took a road that led down towards the river. A few minutes later he made another quick turn, this time to his left. As I came round the corner, I saw that he’d reached his destination. He’d joined a small line of people queuing up outside an octagonal marble tower. As those in the queue were all dressed rather fashionably, Bertha stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. So did the tower, come to that. Being new, and built of pale gray marble, it seemed truly at odds with the neighboring warehouses, all of which had seen better days. Gradually the line grew shorter and Bertha vanished within.

I followed a minute or so later, in time to see him picking a fight with a man in a ticket booth. “But it’s only a penny!” I heard the chap saying, as I popped my head round the entrance.

“A penny’s a penny!” growled Bertha. “And I’m not some damned sightseer; I’m ’ere on business! Now bleedin’ well let me in!”

Grudgingly the fellow complied, operating the narrow brass turnstile to allow him to pass.

I made my way across the blue and white tiled floor and handed over my penny. The man still looked livid from his encounter with Bertha, so I was dreading asking for a receipt—a matter of some necessity for me, for Mr. Bruff’s clerk who handles the petty cash claims is a tyrant where receipts are concerned. But before I’d plucked up the courage to do so, the man pressed some kind of lever, and I was forcibly propelled through the turnstile gates and spat out on the other side. I suppose I could have knocked on the back door of the ticket booth, but even I have my pride. In front of me loomed a doorway. Without knowing quite what to expect, I squared my shoulders and stepped on through.

I found myself at the top a circular shaft, lit entirely by gaslight. A lengthy spiral staircase descended forty feet or so to a marble floor below. Here and there, there were landings to break the descent, hung with paintings of palaces and waterfalls. There was even the odd plaster statue or two. Ghostly organ music echoed up from the depths, Rule Britannia, The Marseillaise, and a number of other tunes that sounded stirring enough, though I couldn’t tell you what they were. Below me, I saw that Bertha had nearly reached the bottom of the stairs. I quickened up my pace; I didn’t want to lose him in the crowd.

He barely glanced at the sideshow attractions dotted about the room (‘Your Fortune Told’, ‘The Egyptian Rune Reader’, ‘The Monkey Answers All Your Questions’), and made directly for the pair of tunnel entrances that stood opposite the stairs. Choosing the right-hand one, he set off down it, with me still in hot pursuit.

The tunnel seemed to stretch for as far as the eye could see. Strategically positioned gas lamps lit the way, and every so often there was a gap in the wall that allowed access from one tunnel to the other. Stalls selling various lines of cheap goods were set up in each of these gaps, staffed in the main by pallid young women, with skin that was even paler than mine. Ahead of me, Bertha drew up in front of one such stall and began to examine the merchandise. As I huddled against the tunnel wall, I felt a drop of ice cold water hit the back of my neck and trickle its way down my collar. By now I had a very good idea where I was.

Bertha was on the move again. As I passed the stall where he’d stopped, I glanced down at the ribbons he’d been inspecting. Each had the words ‘Souvenir of the Thames Tunnel’ woven through it. I’d been right. Here I was in the world’s first sub-aquatic tunnel, well below the bed of the Thames, with ten thousand of tons of water pressing down on me!

My moment of reflection came at a cost. When I looked up, Bertha had vanished.

He couldn’t have gone far, I reasoned; my attention had wavered for a few seconds at most. I kept going in the direction he’d been heading. To my left was another gap, this time with a stall selling magic lantern slides. Twenty yards on, there was another, this one a coffee shop decked out with tables, nearly all of which were occupied. An eccentric-looking waiter in a costermonger’s jacket, stitched with rows of mother-of-pearl buttons, weaved his way between the tables delivering drinks and light refreshments. Bertha couldn’t have got any further than this.

I moved swiftly through the underwater coffee shop, searching amongst the faces, till I came out in the adjacent tunnel. I peered up and down. Bertha was nowhere to be seen. I retraced my steps back to the shaft, checking each of the stalls as I went. As impossible as it seemed, Bertha had given me the slip.
I loitered at the base of the stairs and watched the procession of people. I made a tour of the room, and examined the organ that was churning out music. Driven by steam, it somehow managed to play itself. I considered consulting the monkey, the one that ‘Answers All Your Questions’, for I had several that were puzzling me deeply. The problem was his method. Two nuts were placed on a board before him; one on a square that said ‘yes’, the other on a square that said ‘no’. The nut he chose first indicated his answer. Is Bertha still in the tunnel? Is Bertha still in the right-hand tunnel? At a penny a shot, and with only yes-or-no answers to guide me, it could cost a small fortune to locate Bertha this way. I took out a coin, but it wasn’t for the monkey. Should I stay or should I go? I flipped it.

Heads. Stay, then.

I wandered back to the coffee shop, took a seat, and ordered a piece of cake from the man in the button-clad jacket. Idly I wondered where he kept his supplies, for he was doing a roaring trade.
The afternoon wore on. I began to notice that nearly everything in the tunnel cost a penny. It was rather clever, really; for the price of a couple of nice, fat herrings anyone could buy a piece of tat to remind themselves of their time spent down here. I bought a candle at one stall and moved on to the next, which just happened to sell writing equipment. It was staffed by a young woman with bright auburn hair, whose mouth gaped open in an undisguised yawn. I couldn’t resist following her example, and gave a big yawn myself.

“Who buys these things?” I asked, as I browsed through the pencils and dip-pens laid out on the white marble counter-top, each stamped with the brand, ‘Souvenir of the Thames Tunnel’.

“Tourists,” she replied without enthusiasm.

“How much?” I asked, selecting a fine looking pencil for Julius. “No, don’t tell me. It’s a penny, right?” I saw her eyes roll towards the ceiling. “Oh, and may I have a receipt, please?” I added.

“A receipt for a penny?”

“If you would be so kind…?”

She threw me a look of pure hatred.

Before too long the music ground to a halt, and stewards began to herd everyone out. “Ladies and Gentlemen! The Tunnel is closing in fifteen minutes. Please make your way to the exits!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I nipped up the stairs and was outside in a shot. Night had fallen, but it couldn’t have been late. I took shelter in a nearby doorway and watched as people emerged—first the patrons, who took their sweet time about it, and then the staff (including the monkey), who were champing at the bit to get home. The waiter from the coffee shop had changed out of his jacket. He looked positively run-of-the-mill without it. The last person to leave was the man from the ticket booth; it was he who was in charge of locking up. He took the task seriously—he checked the doors twice before tucking his keys in his pocket. I followed him as he set off towards the river, making, as it turned out, for the nearest public house.

Retrieving the receipt for my pencil, I crumpled it a little (to add an air of authenticity), then ran up and tapped him on the elbow.

“Yes?” he said, peering down at me, as his fingers closed round the handle of the pub’s glazed door.

“Sir,” I addressed him in my most earnest voice, “I believe that you might have dropped this.” I held out the receipt for inspection.

He looked at it, recognized the commercially-printed header, and dismissed my claim with a wave of his hand. Then he pulled the door open and stepped into the pub, shutting me out on the footpath.

Though I kept my face blank, on the inside I was beaming, for I now had his full set of keys.


Gooseberry continues next Friday, July 25th.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.

So what did you think? Love it, or hate it, or still too early to tell? Find any typos or continuity errors? Please let me know—use the comment box below.