Little Bones Read online

  Jane edged closer. So far, she had not encountered death, or indeed a tattoo, though when it came to inky pictures it was not from want of looking. ‘Won’t you tell the family, sir?’

  As the doctor lowered the bed-sheet, Jane could see the girl’s bruised eyes had been closed, her arms crossed, an attempt had been made to sponge the filthy stains from her nightgown.

  ‘And how? These girls do not bring names and addresses, they have often changed their own names to something more pleasing to the ear or the eye on a billboard or programme.’

  Jane looked at the girl’s closed face. She thought about Agnes. She could not have been more than eighteen.

  ‘I will inform Mr North, and he will arrange a pauper’s burial, and we must pay Mrs Jordan who has leant this bed and has performed the most basic laying out, though the poor girl could do with a wash.’

  ‘You will pay for the bed, sir?’

  ‘For now. Then I will bill the theatre management; they always cough up to save what remains of their somewhat tarnished reputation,’ he said. ‘Whatever people say, I always find the theatres very fair.’

  When the doctor went downstairs, Jane took the tin bowl with its inch of cold water, a piece of soap and a flannel. She stood looking at the body, the dirty nightgown that would have to be unbuttoned, and the arms, almost rigid. Humming, avoiding looking at the face, Jane told herself the girl was only sleeping, which was true, if not for half an hour then for all eternity. Then, realising the tune was something she’d heard long since at the music hall, she went into ‘Abide With Me’, which was more appropriate, if a little off-key.

  By the time she had reached the neck and face, with those shuttered eyes, thank God, the candles had almost burnt out, and though she had managed everything else – the bloody thighs, distended stomach, the pale oval shells of her fingernails – she could now only think about the girl and who she might have been.

  ‘Kitty,’ said Mrs Jordan, pocketing her money. ‘It was the only name she gave me.’

  The girl’s face followed Jane home, those three dark freckles sitting high across her cheekbone, the smear of yellow greasepaint crusted in her hair.

  ‘Are you still behind me, Jane Stretch?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said. ‘I’m here.’

  The streets were fast disappearing as she stumbled over the greasy paving slabs, the gas jets flickering in shop windows, gig-light blurred, and somewhere in the distance, Jane could hear a small boy crying for his mother.

  The wide parlour window was stuffed with green branches. Mrs Swift clapped her hands as the boy lifted the trunk, setting it into the bucket.

  ‘The room is already transformed,’ she beamed. ‘It is like sitting in a forest without all the inconvenience of outdoors.’

  The boy stood in a shower of needles, shaking himself out like a dog, as Jane arrived with the sweeping brush and pan, pointing him towards the kitchen, where he might get a cup of something and a biscuit.

  ‘The doctor will not be requiring you today,’ said Mrs Swift. ‘Instead, you will spend a day in the house doing pleasant activities, like trimming the tree, and helping Edie and Alice in the kitchen. Now, pass me that box and we’ll see what treasures have been sitting this past twelvemonth in the dark.’

  Jane, grinning from ear to ear, could not believe her luck: she busied herself with hanging fat-bellied robins and painted silver baubles, a good-humoured Mrs Swift throwing her the occasional sugared almond, and not one wailing girl in sight.

  ‘You are looking quite precarious,’ said Mrs Swift, watching Jane climbing onto the chair. ‘Would you like me to call Edie? She is a good few inches taller than you.’

  ‘Oh no, ma’am,’ said Jane, who did not want to relinquish this wonderful duty. ‘I can manage very well, and the chair feels steady and safe.’

  ‘Have you come across the doggie yet?’ Mrs Swift asked, dipping into a box of crystallised fruits. ‘He has such a sweet expression, and a red silk ribbon tied around his neck. I call him Boots. I have always called him Boots.’

  Jane had never known a Christmas Eve quite like it. The kitchen was groaning with food. Edie and Alice were running around in the steam, cursing and laughing. Jane was happily peeling potatoes, still thinking of the tree, the magic in the trimmings, and the candles to be lit in the evening. The girls chopped candied peel and nuts. They stirred figgy pudding. They soaked raisins and opened tins of pear halves, drinking the sweet gritty syrup themselves. Eventually, the sky darkened, and when the doctor had eaten and read the Sporting Life for twenty minutes, the girls were summoned into the drawing room for the lighting of the tree.

  ‘As we have not been blessed with a family of our own,’ said Mrs Swift, ‘we would like you to share this special moment. Dr Swift, do you have the taper, and could you now light the tree?’

  Nodding, the doctor moved around the branches with the flame, catching the wicks on the small red candles, the girls sighing and clapping, Mrs Swift rosy-cheeked and emotional, clapping her own chubby hands, rattling her bracelets. ‘It is a picture, Dr Swift, it really is a picture!’

  The girls were allowed to go towards the gleaming tree, to look at the glass baubles, the metal decorations, and Boots.

  ‘Now, you must all take an orange,’ smiled Mrs Swift.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ they chorused, trying not to look too disappointed, because they all knew the bashed soft fruit had been sitting for over a fortnight.

  When things had quietened down, and the kitchen was cleared, Jane went outside and walked around Covent Garden, where the streets were quiet, the market gates locked, the wet cobbles scattered with holly leaves and needles. Jeremiah Beam, still wearing his top hat, stood by an open window, sipping from a hip flask, his eyes on the few passers-by, saying, Good evening, season’s greetings, is there anything we can do for you on this bone-chilling Christmas Eve?

  Outside the Swifts’ house, Jane hovered at the window, where the light splashed through the railings and trickled over her boots. In between the dripping branches of the tree she could see the outline of Mrs Swift, still sitting in her armchair, the doctor standing with his back to the fire, a glass of something amber in his hand.

  As soon as Jane stepped inside, Mrs Swift was calling her. ‘Jane! Come here,’ she said. ‘I almost forgot, this arrived for you.’

  The envelope Mrs Swift handed Jane looked frozen. Upstairs, Jane held it to her nose, smelling the good paper and ink, and if her imagination hadn’t planted it, perhaps a little cologne? Sitting on her bed in the candlelight, she could see the shadow of its contents. She moved her finger around the stamp. She traced all the letters of her name.

  It was not a message from her sister, or greetings from the cow farm, but a Christmas card, its gold words shining. Fear Not! For Behold, I Bring You Tidings of Great Joy! The picture showed a small girl in the snow, a rabbit at her feet, a robin on the pale furry trim of her bonnet. Inside, the words read: ‘To my dear friend Jane, with all best wishes for the season, Martha Bell.’ After a lurch of disappointment, she smiled, holding it at arm’s length above her head, across the seeping candlelight, then, succumbing to the cold and the weight of her eyelids, she stood it on the trunk before falling very quickly into sleep and dreams of the time she lived above a locksmith’s.

  It was Christmas and the locksmith’s wife had given them a plum cake, though Ivy had quickly thrown the gift aside, saying she wouldn’t eat anything that came from that woman’s kitchen, filled as it was with thieves and lock-pickers, waiting for keys that would open strangers’ doors, and one day they might come and open theirs, though what they’d find to steal, Jane could only wonder.

  There had been a flurry of snow, but it was already melting when the girls woke to trinkets, nuts, and the promise of a duckling from their pa, who went out that morning to get it, while they peeled and chopped vegetables and their mother sipped a cherry brandy she professed would go down very nicely with the bird.

  ‘Where’s this d
uck coming from?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Not the river?’ Agnes groaned. ‘Tell me it isn’t some poor bird swimming in the Thames.’

  Their mother had laughed, her breath sickly sweet, her wide furry tongue a lurid shade of puce. ‘He won’t be shooting anything. That great lolloping dope can’t work a simple slingshot, never mind a shotgun.’

  The room was small, the oven blazing, and after another couple of brandies, their mother’s elbows slid across the table, her head quickly following with a less than gentle thump. Agnes went to the window. She pressed her forehead into the glass.

  ‘Can you see him yet?’ asked Jane.

  ‘No,’ said Agnes. ‘And I’m not even looking.’

  After the moon had appeared, shining in the sky like a great empty dinner plate, they ate the soggy cabbage, the dried-out carrots and the watery heap of potatoes. Ivy, her head pounding, tried to make the best of things by sprinkling Worcestershire sauce over everything, saying she had heard this was how they ate things on the Continent. Afterwards, they played gin rummy and succumbed to the plum cake, though Ivy swore she could taste iron filings, could feel them grating her teeth and rubbing over her tongue.

  The girls’ father appeared around ten o’clock, holding nothing but the duck’s head, the poor neck dangling like a cut piece of rope, saying ducks were very hard to come by that Christmas, he’d had to fight for the bird and come off worst, though perhaps Ivy could make a soup with it.

  ‘We don’t need your blessed duck,’ said Ivy. ‘And now I come to think of it, I’ve gone off meat altogether in any shape or form, and that includes that poor piece of saveloy sitting in your trousers.’

  ‘But Ivy,’ he whined, ‘it’s Christmas.’

  ‘And as it’s the season of goodwill, you can sleep on the floor. Why, I’ll even throw in a blanket! Just make certain you get enough rest, because tomorrow morning, bright and early, you’ll be going on a long hike away from this place.’

  ‘I’ll get you a goose,’ he promised. ‘A great fat goose, make no mistake.’

  ‘I don’t want your meat! I don’t want anything!’

  ‘Oh, but I do like goose,’ bleated Agnes.

  Having no Christmas visitors, and none to be expected, the Swifts appeared in dressing robes at breakfast, embarrassing Jane, who had only ever seen the doctor in the most respectable tailored suits and now found his bare hairy ankles almost impossible to look at.

  The doctor, examining his kippers for bones, seemed in jovial spirits as his wife prattled on about the goose club, whose secretary had absconded with the funds, the advantages of oil-warming stoves, and the recent fire at the foundling hospital, that place where Jane ought to have been posted through the letterbox, according to her mother whenever she was in a temper, or had run out of ale. The doctor attempted to strike up a serious conversation about the trouble in South Africa, but Mrs Swift was having none of it.

  ‘It’s Christmas Day,’ she said, waving a slice of buttered toast at her husband. ‘I expect the soldiers will be busy opening up their presents from the Queen.’

  ‘Presents?’ the doctor spluttered. ‘What do you mean, presents?’

  ‘I have read that Her Majesty has sent tins of chocolate to all her brave soldiers, though I was wondering … Isn’t Africa scorching? Is it not like an oven? Do you think all their chocolate will have melted?’

  The doctor said nothing, but busied himself with his kippers. His wife was now scraping the remains of the jam pot. ‘Jam would have been a better gift,’ she said, licking the end of her spoon. ‘If the heat gets to jam, you can make it into a cordial. Delicious! Especially in the heat. Perhaps I should write to Her Majesty and offer my advice.’

  ‘Oh, I am sure she would be grateful,’ said the doctor, narrowing his eyes. ‘Though let’s hope by next Christmas those poor fighting men won’t need it.’

  For Jane, the morning was filled with more cooking, cleaning, and re-setting the table for lunch. She wondered why anyone with such a large house would want such a quiet poky Christmas. She asked the girls about the previous lodgers (the card had not been replaced inside the window), and Edie explained they were Mrs Swift’s idea, and though the doctor had tried to put his foot down, she’d been adamant, saying she felt like a turtle with a great hollow shell sitting on her back.

  ‘The only other lodger they had was a very sallow man called Mr Pike,’ Alice told her. ‘After only two months he went to live in Hampstead, where the air would be better for his chest.’

  In the evening, Jane managed to escape. She walked towards a small red-bricked church, where the door was ajar and the nave quite empty, apart from the odd glove that had been left, and a few umbrellas standing in a pool of grey water. Sitting in a pew she closed her eyes and bowed her head. She was exhausted. The silence was satisfying, then it made her feel cold. She thought about her parents and the tears came. It was Christmas Day! Did they miss her? Did Agnes? She imagined her sister sitting at a table with a plate of roasted capon, laughing with strangers, flicking back her hair.

  At the house the tree had been lit with fresh candles. ‘Jane!’ called Mrs Swift. ‘Is that you? Come into the drawing room where the fire is practically roaring. I have a box of fruit creams that are rather sickening, but you might like them.’

  The doctor and his wife had been drinking Madeira, and Mrs Swift’s face was crimson as she sat tapping her foot to a grating musical box. The room was very warm, the fire like a furnace and Jane could feel herself swaying.

  ‘Have you been outside?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘I went to church, sir.’

  ‘Then you must think us very remiss,’ he said, sitting with his legs crossed, and Jane was glad to see him wearing socks with his black velvet slippers. ‘Mrs Swift and I are good Christian people, but we do find church very difficult. I don’t like attending alone, and my wife finds the narrow pews almost impossible to navigate.’

  ‘Orange cream?’ asked Mrs Swift.

  ‘Do sit down and warm your bones,’ the doctor smiled. ‘Please. It is Christmas Day after all.’

  Sleepily, Jane watched the fat flakes of snow as they danced between the branches of the tree, which was already shedding needles, and listened to Mrs Swift lamenting these quiet festivities, when once they’d held great parties, with wassailing, dancing, and a raucous blind-man’s bluff.

  ‘Was that in Brighton, ma’am?’

  ‘Brighton?’ she bristled. ‘What do you know about Brighton?’

  Dr Swift rose from his armchair and started poking at the fire. ‘We were talking about the stars,’ he said. ‘It was I who mentioned Brighton.’

  ‘The stars?’ said his wife. ‘George Leybourne? Sam Cowell? The lovely Lottie Collins?’

  ‘No,’ he smiled stiffly. ‘Orion.’

  Two

  Before

  Birds

  SHE WAS LYING in a warm bed facing a window, watching the birds sitting in the tree, the branches criss-crossing the panes. The birds, big and black, were nothing like the canary or the finches her mother had kept. Jane wondered if the birds in the tree could see into the room. Her father said they were rooks. Could the rooks make out the steaming bowl of chicken soup? Her plate of bread and butter, or the knitted blue coverlet? Could they see Dr McKenzie wrapping the poultices over her legs? Would they make her legs any straighter? No, he’d said, but they might ease the aching. She had retched with disappointment. The doctor’s hands were long and wrinkled. They shook a lot. Sometimes he had cherries or a twist of barley sugar hidden in his pocket. When he took out the sweets, the birds seemed to move a little closer. They tilted their heads. In the sunlight, their dark eyes twinkled, like very small marbles.

  Sledging

  The snow had been falling for days and the house was full of water. Pipes cracked. The fires were almost impossible to light. Agnes cried with the cold. Her long straight fingers were patterned with chilblains. Outside, the boys from Dock Street had made a deathly slide, their orange-box
sledges powered with streaks of grease and candle fat.

  Jane stood at the top of the hill, her breath forced from her chest, winding out through her mouth like tobacco smoke or steam. The boys were quick to slap her on the shoulders, grinning, saying she was the only little girl with any nerve at all, the rest having gone home teary-eyed and wailing to their mothers. The world creaked. Slowly, Jane rocked on her broken boot heels. Here, the outstretched world was brilliant. The ground was clear and dazzling, like sugar, or grated washing soap. The orange box was pushed towards her. ‘Go on, girl,’ they sniggered. ‘You can do it.’

  Hitching up her skirts she positioned herself on the crate. She could feel herself tilting, and now someone, without even thinking, gave Jane a more than generous push. The air belted her face. Her hands ripped as they fell across the ice. The sky dropped towards her. She had never moved faster in her life.

  Whooping, the boys ran to where she had fallen. Suddenly, they stopped. Their faces looked afraid. The orange box had crashed into a wall. Was Jane breathing? Was the girl alive? The boys paled. It’s not our fault, she did it, she wanted us to push, we’re not the ones to blame. But then the heap came to life, shaking the snow from her head, her bloody hands now moving to her face, where a grin had broken out, and the boys were grinning with her. ‘Again,’ she said, much to their amazement. ‘Again!’

  Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

  The picture had been torn from a long-lost book. Her mother had made a flour and water glue and pasted it onto the wall to hide a fist-shaped hole in the plaster. The sky was the same blue as his eyes and the glimpse of the water behind him. If you blinked very quickly, over and over again, the fishes in his hands, and in the baskets, looked as if they were wriggling.