Fisheye badgered me for most of that long, awful afternoon. But I wouldn’t give in. He was still at it when I heard the downstairs door open and heels clop up the creaky stairs. In a minute the room was flooded with a sickly sweet perfume, strong enough to make me gag.
“Well, well. What you got here, Bill?”
“This ’ere’s my stepson, Kate. The one I told you about from my married days, short and sweet as they were,” Fisheye Bill told a thin, sharp-looking woman.
She had bright spots of red on her cheeks, and even redder lips. She smiled, showing yellow teeth stained with brown streaks. “Got ’im at last, eh, Bill?”
The woman came close and stuck her face right into mine. I was almost overtaken by the smells: beer and fish and tobacco, all mixed with that stinky perfume.
“But ’e ain’t pretty, except for the saucer eyes on ’im,” she said in surprise. “I thought you said ’e would make our fortune.”
“Not this one, Kate,” Fisheye Bill growled. “This ’ere boy is the big one. ’E’s got the little one hidden from me.”
Kate put her hands on her hips and looked at me in mock astonishment. “Well, I never. Who ever heard of such a thing? Hidin’ a child from his own devoted father. That’s a cruel thing for a lad to do. Dangerous too.”
“Cruel and dangerous,” agreed Fisheye Bill. “And now that you’re home, love, you can hold ’im down so I can take the strap to him, like any good father would when ’is son goes against his wishes.”
“Before I’ve had me tea?” Kate shook her head, and a thin strand of oily hair escaped her cap. “ ’Ave a heart, Bill. I been workin’ all day.”
Working? I couldn’t imagine what kind of work Kate did. Probably another thief, I thought. I glanced down at the floorboards, which were black with grime and splotches of grease.
I thought of how Abel Cooper had taught me to keep the floors of the Lion Brewery clean. “As clean as if you might drink ale right off ’em,” he’d said.
I’d been wrong. Even if I’d been too cowardly to talk to Mr. Edward, I should have gone back to see Abel Cooper. Maybe, like Florrie, he was a friend, one I could have trusted with my secret—and the whole truth about Henry and me.
But I hadn’t done that. Instead I had got myself into trouble. Great trouble indeed.
I wish I could say that after a good amount of gin, Fisheye and Kate forgot about me and I escaped. But that’s not what happened. In fact, eating a hot steak-and-kidney pie seemed to give Fisheye extra energy for the strap, which he used on me with considerable force, with Kate holding me down.
I can say, though, that maybe I cried, and maybe I yelled, and I might’ve even used some words that my mum told me not to say—but I never told where Henry was.
After a while Fisheye threw the strap down in disgust. “I’m off to the pub. This vile creature has worn me out. We’ll see what he says in the morning after no supper and no breakfast. I expect he’ll change his tune.”
“You ain’t gonna leave me alone w’im, are you, Bill?” asked Kate, rubbing her thin hands together nervously. “What if ’e gets loose and turns on me?”
“I’ll tie him down under the iron bedstead,” Fisheye said. “He can lie on the floor and call it a good bed. Can’t you, boy?”
“Better gag him, just the same,” Kate suggested.
Fisheye stuffed an old, smelly rag in my mouth and tied it tight. After he left, Kate stretched out on the bed above me and was soon snoring up a storm. My mouth felt dry and sore. The welts on my back stung something fierce.
I tried to come up with some way to escape. It was no use. It might’ve been the effects of being beaten, or the long walk in the sun, but a dark wave came over me and there was nothing I could do. I slept.