A Time to Love Page 7

  Good weather and beautiful colour and the prospect of earning his first sixpence filled him with energy. Walking was too tame for such a day. He went to Wentworth Street on the trot, running and skipping as he dodged through the crowds. And what crowds they were. The world and his wife were out in the streets that afternoon and the Lane was so packed with people it was impossible to see from one stall to the next.

  Alfie and his massive uncle were waiting in the entrance to Wentworth Buildings. And there was another young man with them, a tall shambling youth with a broken nose and very crossed eyes.

  ‘You took yer time, didn’tcher,’ the uncle growled by way of greeting, and he put a dirty sixpence into David’s palm and folded the child’s fingers down over it as though he were closing a purse. ‘There’s yer tanner. Keep tight ’old uv it! Speak when I give yer the wink.’

  ‘Is ’e cross?’ David asked anxiously as they followed the uncle through the mass of shoppers.

  ‘Ol’ Crusher? Nah!’ Alfie reassured him. ‘’E’s always that-a-way. Bear wiv a sore ’ead, my ol’ man sez. You don’t wanna pay ’im no mind. Got yer tanner? Be some sport this will.’

  But David wasn’t so sure, now that he’d arrived. He felt boxed in, cut off from the sunshine and the blue sky by the pressure of sweating armpits, shoving buttocks and jabbing elbows. He couldn’t see anything except arms and chests and belts and bottoms, and it was very difficult to keep up with Crusher who was striding through the crowds with the impervious rhythm of a tram. There was an element of danger about this job that David wasn’t quite sure about, now that he’d begun it. There’d be thieves everywhere in a crowd like this. Bound to be. What if somebody nicked his tanner? Clutching it tightly in his sweaty palm, he scowled and followed.

  But at last they’d struggled to the crossroads and were standing in front of The Princess Alice, and the Crusher had turned and was surveying his customers. The boss-eyed man had acquired an orange box during their progress. Now he set it on the top step, and Crusher climbed up on it and gave the heads below him a wide and peculiarly ugly smile, spreading his thick lips sideways to reveal half a dozen dark brown stumps and the fur-coated mound of a grey-white tongue. ‘He’ are! He’ are! You got the chance uv a lifetime ’ere, ladies and gentlemen,’ he boomed. ‘Jest you see if you ain’t!’

  The people below him shifted and rearranged themselves, some walking away as quickly as they could, others stopping and drifting towards him.

  ‘An’ when I say a bargain, do I mean a bargain?’ Crusher continued. ‘You never seen nothink like it, missus, I’m tellin’ yer. He’ are! Take a butcher’s. Whatcher think that is?’

  ‘’S a ring,’ a woman’s voice answered from the other side of the crowd.

  ‘So it is, missus! But what’s it made of? Tha’s the question. What you think it’s made of, sonny?’

  ‘Looks like gold ter me,’ Alfie’s voice said, and David saw that he was standing just to the left of the Crusher. Was he helping too?

  ‘An’ so it is, my son,’ Crusher said beaming at him and the crowd. ‘Solid nine carat gold that is. ’Ave a good look. You won’t see better’n that outside ’Atton Garden.’

  ‘No good showin’ us solid gold, mister. Likes uv us don’t go buyin’ gold. Ain’t got that sort a’ mazuma round ’ere.’

  ‘I know that, darlin’,’ Crusher said. ‘Tha’s why I come down ’ere this afternon ter do y’ a favour. Go to a jeweller’s, my love, ‘ow much d’you reckon they’d rook yer fer that. I can tell yer. Half a sov! Tha’s what! Ten an’ a kick. An’ worf every penny. Every single penny. Weil … they got their over’eads, ain’t they, darlin’? They gotta make a good profit, ain’t they? Jewellers. I mean ter say.’ The audience found this amusing for some reason, and began to laugh and call out And Crusher laughed with them, showing his brown stumps and holding up the ring between finger and thumb for them to see. ‘We don’t go fer big profits in the Lane, do we, missus? So I tell you what I’m gonna do. I got these little beauties, ‘olesale, I won’t tell yer no lies. Got ’em ’olesale, so I could sell ’em to yer fer ’alf the price.’

  ‘Five an’ frupence!’ the woman said mockingly. ‘Do us a favour!’

  ‘I could sell ’em to yer fer ’alf the price, darlin’. That don’t meanter say I will. I could sell ’em to yer fer five bob. I could sell ’em to yer fer two florins. You know me. ‘Onest Joe, that’s me. Nah four bob, tha’s a lot a’ money. So I tell yer what I’ll do. I won’t ask yer four bob for ’em, or free. I won’t even ask yer one bob for ’em. Not even one measly bob. I’m a mug ter mesself, darlin’. Seein’ as it’s you, I’ll let ’em go fer a tanner. One tanner, tha’s all I’m askin’. One tanner. Can’t say fairer’n that, can I, darlin’? One tanner. Who wants a solid gold ring fer a tanner?’

  His audience shifted and muttered and narrowed their eyes, but nobody offered to buy.

  ‘You won’t get another offer ter beat this, not in a month a’ Sundays,’ the Crusher said, looking straight at David. ‘A tanner fer solid gold.’ And he looked at David again.

  It was the signal. Now he had to earn his money. ‘I buy one,’ he called in his piping voice and he held the sixpence in the air, but inside his closed fist just in case anyone made a grab for it.

  ‘Young gentleman on my right,’ Crusher said to Alfie. ‘You got a bargain there, son. Who’s next?’

  But nobody offered. They were all looking at David and the ring Alfie had just delivered into his sweaty hands.

  ‘Tha’s never gold,’ the woman standing next to him said. ‘Let’s ’ave a look-see.’

  ‘No,’ David said, clutching the ring safely inside his fingers. The sense of danger was very strong now, and it wouldn’t do to let it be nicked when he had to give it back in the end.

  ‘Quite right, sonny,’ another woman said. ‘S’your ring.’ She was a comfortable woman, fat and motherly. ‘You stick to it.’

  ‘Who’s next?’ Crusher tried again.

  ‘I don’t buy till I’ve examined the goods,’ a posh voice said.

  The boss-eyed man was suddenly at David’s elbow. ‘I don’t reckon tha’s gold neither,’ he announced belligerently. ‘Kid’s a mug. ‘E’s been took fer a ride, tha’s what I reckon.’

  David was so surprised, his mouth fell open. Why was he being attacked? Surely the boss-eyed man was one of Mr Crusher’s friends.

  ‘Whatcher buy it for, eh?’ Boss-eyes said, his left eye focusing on a handbag just above David’s right ear.

  What could he say? If he told the truth he’d give the whole game away, and he knew Mr Crusher wouldn’t like that. But if he didn’t, he would have to lie and that was wrong, and would upset his father. Caught and confused, he said he didn’t know.

  ‘Yer a mug!’ Boss-eyes said. ‘You want yer ’ead examined. Been took fer a ride, you ’ave.’

  ‘Leave ’im alone,’ the fat woman said. ‘What’s it ter you?’

  ‘’E wants ter take that to Uncle Three Balls,’ Boss-eyes continued, still addressing the handbag. ‘Soon see if it’s gold then, ’cause yer can’t fool Uncle.’

  ‘Yes, why dontcher?’ the young woman said. ‘We’d all know then.’

  Other people joined in, urging him towards the pawn shop, pressing in upon him so that he had to move his feet in the direction they wanted or he’d have been knocked to the ground. He looked despairingly at Mr Crusher, but that gentleman was busy looking the other way. Alfie was grinning at him from the top step of the pub, and almost seemed to be nodding. Was this what he was supposed to do? Why hadn’t they told him exactly what he was supposed to do? His feet were still moving and now he was quite near the pop shop.

  ‘Go on in, son,’ Boss-eyes said, giving him a shove. ‘Or d’yer want me ter to pop it for yer?’

  ‘You leave ’im be, poor little mite,’ the fat woman said. ‘If anyone’s goin’ in wiv ’im, it’ll be me.’

  ‘You goin’ in or aintcher?’ Boss-eyes growled, turning his face towards David
, left eye flickering, right eye vacant.

  He was boxed in with bodies and couldn’t see over their heads to where Mr Crusher was standing, but even though he was alarmed, he was thinking fast and with clarity. Even if he pawned the ring, he could always redeem it afterwards, and at least it would be safe in the pop shop. ‘All right!’ he said, making a decision.

  ‘I’ll come in wiv yer, duck,’ the fat lady said, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm. And in they went.

  He was really quite glad of her presence, because the pawnbroker was brusque and suspicious. He examined the ring through a formidable eyeglass, grunting to himself all the time, and when he put them both down he narrowed his eyes and examined David in the same thorough way. The ring lay between them on the dark counter, butter yellow and gleaming.

  ‘’E come by it ’onest,’ the fat lady said, defensivelv.

  The pawnbroker shrugged. ‘Did I say anythink?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So.’

  ‘Is it gold?’

  ‘Nine carat.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Five bob,’ the pawnbroker offered casually, looking at David.

  It was a terrifying amount of money. ‘Yes,’ he agreed huskily, his heart thumping alarm.

  They emerged from the shop to a clamour of questions, from a crowd grown larger and more aggressive and avid for information.

  The fat lady enlightened them at once. ‘Five bob!’ she said, triumphantly. ‘Show ’em, kid! Nine carat gold, so ’elp me. The genuine article.’

  David held up his two fat half-crowns to show them, but they were already off, pushing their way back to Mr Crusher and his incredible bargain. ‘Put ’em away,’ she said, as she followed them. ‘Got a breast pocket, ’ave yer?’ But she was gone before he could answer, and before he’d undone the buttons on his jacket Alfie had replaced her and was standing breathlessly beside him.

  ‘You done a good job, kid,’ Alfie said, grinning his approval. ‘Give us the five bob, quick, an’ the dooplicate, ’fore some fievin’ ’ound gets ’is maulers on it.’

  David handed the money across at once, glad to be rid of it, and fished the pawn ticket out of his trouser pocket. He was still trying to make sense of Boss-eyes’ odd behaviour and wondering whether he was supposed to have pawned the ring or not, but Alfie didn’t give him the chance to ask questions.

  ‘’Ere’s yer tanner,’ he said. ‘Nah scarper!’

  It was unnecessary advice, for David was already running home, taking his confusion and his reward with him. He noticed as he went that white hands were raised in the air all around Mr Crusher and that Boss-eyes was handing out rings and gathering sixpences as fast as ever he could. It was nice to think that he’d been the one to show all those people what a fine bargain they were going to get

  And it was a marvellous homecoming, because Aunty Dumpling was there. She’d brought one of her nice cakes and she and Mama were setting the table for tea. The oilcloth had been newly scrubbed, so that all its pretty little blue and white flowers were bright and clearly defined, the kettle was knocking and steaming on the stove, and Mama’s work had been folded neatly away in the orange-box cupboard.

  ‘So kiss your old aunt, vhy don’t you?’ Aunty Dumpling said, holding out her arms to him as he rushed towards the table. And Mama said, ‘Just in time, bubeleh,’ in the most loving and approving way. But he couldn’t greet either of them, not just yet. He was swollen with the pride of his first real achievement. He put the little shining coin in the middle of the oilcloth, just in front of Aunty Dumpling’s cake, and stood back to let them see it, his face bright with importance and love.

  ‘This is for you, Mama,’ he said. ‘My earnin’s. In the Lane. For you to ’ave a place in the Buildin’s.’

  Aunty Dumpling let out a shriek and threw her apron over her head. ‘Oy, you ever see such a boy? Seven years old and earning already. A blessing to you, Rachel my dear, don’t I tell you. Oy, such a good son.’ Tears rolled down her nice plump face, collecting in the creases above her cheeks and running into her open mouth. ‘Come an’ give your Aunty Dumpling a kiss, bubeleh!’

  But Mama had put the kettle back on the stove and run across the room to him, to kneel beside him and throw her arms round his neck. ‘He did it for his Mama, Raizel,’ she said proudly, holding his face between her hands and kissing him fondly. ‘For a place in the Buildin’s. Such a dear kind boy ve got.’

  He was so happy and so proud, all doubts were forgotten. Then they sat up to the table and drank their tea and ate Aunty Dumpling’s cake and praised him all over again.

  ‘So vhat you do, bubeleh? Vhat you do to earn all this money, eh?’ Aunty Dumpling asked, her cheeks bulging with smiles and prune cake.

  It was a difficult question, but he’d answered it before he realized how difficult it was. ‘I ran an errand,’ he said, truthfully enough.

  ‘So vhat you do?’ she persisted.

  ‘I took a ring to the pop shop, Aunt.’

  ‘So young and he runs errands already,’ Aunty Dumpling crooned.

  ‘You pawned it?’ Mama asked, her brown eyes wide with surprise.

  ‘Yes,’ he said proudly. ‘He give me five bob fer it.’

  ‘Seven years old and he pawns rings!’ Mama said trying to sound disapproving. ‘Vhat next ve hear?’ But her pride was obvious too. Her face was glowing with it, cheeks lifted so that the dark shadows under her eyes spread and lightened, pale mouth stretched so wide she was showing her broken teeth. Normally she kept her lips together except when she had something to say, and even then she spoke towards the ground, her head bowed. It was extraordinary and rewarding to see her head lifted like this.

  ‘Vid a boy like this vhat for you vant others?’ Aunty Dumpling asked, patting Mama’s hand with her rough gentle paw. ‘You got all a mother could vant in just the one boy, nu?’

  ‘Just think, the poor soul, to get a child to pawn her ring for her,’ Mama said. ‘How she must suffer. We got a lot to be thankful for, Raizel.’

  Later that evening, when the cobalt sky had paled to duck-egg blue and the curled clouds were pink as roses, his father came stooping home, tall and tired, to be told of his son’s success. And Aunty Dumpling cried all over again, and his mother put the sixpence in the palm of her hand like the precious coin it was and showed it to his father.

  ‘For a place in the Buildin’s, he earned it,’ she said. ‘Ve got a good son, Emmanuel. He vant his mother to live in the Buildin’s.’

  Emmanuel hung his coat and hat on the door and sat himself wearily in his cane chair beside the table. ‘A good son,’ he agreed, but there was no pleasure in his voice. ‘Nu-nu, ve talk of it later.’ His long face was grey with fatigue and his eyes were withdrawn. He gave his beard a tug, sighing deeply, and David saw that his right hand was ringed with red pressure marks from the shears.

  ‘Ai!’ his mother sighed too. ‘You vork too hard, Emmanuel.’ And she put the sixpence in her pocket and, taking his plate from the cupboard, began to dish up the supper. ‘Gefilte fish,’ she said, offering comfort.

  David was so disappointed that tears began to prick his eyes. He blinked them back at once because he didn’t want to upset his father, especially when he could see how very tired he was. But the disappointment remained. However rewarding it had been to impress his mother and to enjoy Aunty Dumpling’s irrepressible emotion, it was his father he really wanted to please. And he wanted it passionately, even though he had a vague suspicion that his father might ask more probing questions than Mama had done, and might even expose his uneasy suspicion that the transaction hadn’t been entirely honest. Nevertheless, he wanted him to know everything about it, to approve his intentions and praise him for a ‘good son’. For his father was a good man, upright and righteous, a model of patience and tolerance and endurance, and everybody who knew him valued him and spoke well of him. To be praised by such a man was the greatest good the child could imagine. It was demoralizing that his great effort, his first
wage, wasn’t good enough to notice.

  That night the bugs bit worse than ever, and what with their constant irritation and the discomfort of an emotion that an older child would have recognized as a guilty conscience, David was wakeful. A full moon lit the faded wallpaper above his truckle bed so clearly that once he woke to see a bug crawling down its bright surface towards him, and reaching out his hand defensively he caught it and squashed it under his thumb. It was little consolation. One might be gone, but there were hundreds of others. He scratched at the raised red bumps under his armpits, wondering vaguely whether everybody got bitten in the summer, and as he scratched he realized that his parents were awake in their creaking bed, and that his mother was talking, in Yiddish and in her low apologetic voice.

  ‘We should ask maybe, Emmanuel? Your sister Rivke, she got a place, and she said to me, “Keep on,” she said, “you got to ask and ask. Worry them, ask them, keep on,” she said. Your sister Rivke.’

  ‘We will wait, Rachel,’ his father said. ‘They will give us a place in their own good time. You will see.’

  ‘Nu-nu, we never get a place. We don’t ask, we don’t get.’

  ‘You want we should be schnorrers? Begging is not a good thing, believe me. The more we beg, the more they refuse. Better strip a carcase of its hide than be a beggar.’

  ‘Would it hurt to ask just once?’ his mother urged. ‘Such a little thing!’

  ‘Tenant that worry they don’t like.’

  ‘So we ain’t a tenant yet. Once, Emmanuel!’

  Emmanuel sighed, and shifted in the bed so that the springs creaked and twanged. ‘Oy, oy,’ he sighed with troubled resignation, ‘once then, Rachel. Once, you understand. We don’t make a habit of it.’

  The great bed creaked and rattled again and David, quiet on his moonlit pillow, strained his ears to hear what his mother would say next. But she was murmuring now and his father was whispering and the words were lost among the covers and masked by the harsh sounds from the street below. He was confused by the undertones of this conversation, because they’d roused a remembered emotion, and it was one he didn’t welcome. It was the nagging sub-sense he’d felt when Boss-eyes came striding across to bully him into the pop shop, a feeling that things were not as they appeared to be, and that there were other and less admirable emotions at work just below the surface of the words. But the words he’d been listening to were his father’s. Surely his father meant what he said. Always. Because he was a good man. And yet, there was this sense …