Free Little Bones by Janette Jenkins Page B

father who was in the Navy, or at least wore the ill-fitting uniform when he appeared on their doorstep smelling of rum, though as Ned’s mother liked to point out, what kind of navy took a man who got sick on the Greenwich Pier ferry? Jane liked listening to him. It made a change from the doctor’s bleating showgirls.
    ‘And I don’t just carry that blasted sandwich board,’ he told her. ‘When I’m walking with it, I keep my eye out for other opportunities.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘Like picking fruit and veg what’s only just landed in the gutter and too good to be left for the maggots, only you have to be quick, because everyone’s up for that game.’
    Ned collected horse manure. He looked for stalls and barrows needing an extra pair of hands, because if there was a large enough crowd, he could put fruit into baskets and crates, keeping the customers sweet, and only last Friday he’d earned a few pennies and a good free supper from the shellfish man, who’d had a queue as long as your arm of people wanting liquor, and the water needed keeping on the boil.
    ‘I’ll do anything,’ he told her blithely, and Jane wondered if he would catch a stream of stinking vomit, wash the face of a dead girl, or take a slap from another who didn’t like the taste of the pennyroyal tincture. But she liked Ned’s spirit, the tea and gabble had taken her out of herself, and when he went back for his sign, she strode towards the Thames, because she felt like seeing the water.
    On the banks of the river a crowd had gathered to watch a troupe of travelling players, their platform a boat, just run aground. Undeterred, a man in a long black coat continued gesticulating with his arms, reciting blank verse. Next to him, a woman blue with cold and wearing a thin satin nightgown, beat her bird-like chest as if trying to restart her heart.
    ‘And they call it entertainment.’
    ‘Miss Bell?’
    ‘The very same. Are you fond of the bard, Miss Stretch?’
    ‘Who, miss?’
    ‘The man who wrote the lines this deluded ham is spouting.’
    Jane listened again. Frowned. ‘I’m not sure I quite understand them,’ she admitted.
    Miss Bell moved closer, wrapping an arm around Jane’s bent shoulders. ‘Believe me,’ she said, ‘the words sound better when you’re not being blasted on all sides by these cruel winter elements.’
    Wiping her hair from her eyes, Jane supposed she must be right, though surely the words would be the same whatever the weather, and wondered if the man was speaking English or half nonsense.
    ‘Now,’ said Miss Bell, as the woman on the boat started shrieking, ‘you must come back to my lodgings. Flora has been very clever and got herself a job, and we’re having a pig’s head with all the trimmings. Surely a pig’s head is better than turning to ice watching this third-rate excuse of a performance?’
    ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to—’
    ‘But I insist,’ said Miss Bell, with her hands on her hips. ‘I will send you home with a note if I have to.’
    They walked the short distance to a lodging house on Kite Street. At the corner a group of rascally boys decided to mimic Jane’s rolling, tipsy walk. Miss Bell, humming softly, pointedly ignored them, and though Jane felt stung and somewhat ashamed, she also felt something of a thrill walking next to this beautiful actress in her elegant blue coat, the hem embroidered with poppies, her thick hair shining, and what a transformation since the last time they had met!
    ‘I’ve brought company!’ Miss Bell yelled as soon as they stepped inside the little house, where the pig’s head was already scenting the air with its sweet fatty juices.
    ‘A gentleman friend?’ a voice shouted from the top of the stairs. ‘Heavens to betsy, Martha Bell! What have I told you about bringing home men?’ A woman bounded down the stairs, red-faced, a mop of ginger hair springing from its combs like strands of hot wire.
    ‘Now, who said I’d brought a man?’