‘So, what will we wear for the Bank Holiday?’ enquired Daisy, voicing her most urgent concern.
‘What do you want to wear, darlin’?’
‘A beautiful dress.’
Daisy Hammer, the only living daughter of a comfortable criminal, had the advantage of brand-new clothes, while her poor friend Emily, whose parents did honest work, had to suffer the hand-me-downs of her five sisters.
‘Any particular colour?’
‘Lilac. With ribbons and bows.’
‘Well, you know what you want, don’t you?’
So out they went to the West End (all except Charlie, who wanted to be on his own, though he said he was not in a bad mood). Grace always kept something by to splash in the shops, for fancy things they didn’t need. What else was the object of devoting the family to a life of crime?
They took the Green bus west, the boys heading straight for the top deck, right at the front, Daisy tripping up the stairs in her haste to keep up. She positioned herself in the middle where she wouldn’t miss anything, her eagle eyes scanning the vista. As they left Spitalfields behind she beamed at Grace, glowing, brimming with it. Faint sunshine ahead that seemed to come from the promised land of the West End lit her hair like butter melting. Grace promised herself to take outings more often, wrapped up in the joy of simple things that were there every day on the doorstep.
They passed the City and the Bank, and soon after the great dome of St Paul’s loomed before them, dwarfing all around it like a great grey mountain, stunning even Daisy into momentary silence. She kept her eyes upon it as they passed, as if it might fall, but recovered quickly, and resumed her barrage of questions–‘Who lives in there?’ ‘Why does that man have his hair like that?’ ‘Will we see the Queen?’–directed mostly at Billy, who seemed to know about everything. They made their way slowly, wedged in traffic, down Fleet Street towards the West End, gazing at the scene around.
The majestic façades of Regent Street are an enchanting sight when you have money in your pocket to spend. Their eyes were like dinner plates as the omnibus turned up towards Oxford Circus. Even Jake stopped fidgeting to look at the broad sweep of the street. Elegant store fronts lined the curve of the thoroughfare, clean, cream, shining in the sun, running perfectly parallel on either side of the broad road, wide like the Amazon river, which Billy had come upon in the encyclopedia while looking up ‘armadillo’. The sky was deeper here, the air sweeter, the clouds white! Billy wondered if it was like this every day in the West End, if they in East London were just idiots under a shadow. As they stopped in traffic his wandering eyes alighted on a wiry little man through an upstairs window, hunched at his desk beneath a tower of papers. A napkin was tucked into his collar and he was carving a piece of ham upon the desk before him. As Billy watched he sliced hard into his thumb, dropped the knife, yelped, silently, through the glass and shoved the bloody digit into his mouth. He shook his fist at the boys as they rolled away.
‘What are you laughing at?’ said Grace, leaning round from the front.
They alighted by Howell James & Company as if in a foreign land, mute and gazing round like marmosets, even Billy who had been once before at Christmas. They held hands so as not to lose each other. Diamonds glittered at them from a window.
‘Look at that!’ said Billy. Jake slipped between the passersby and pressed his face to the glass; Grace held Daisy up so she could see. They gaped aghast through the glass at sparkling rocks, brilliant cut, elegant tendrils of pale gold, intertwined at the throat, dripping yellow diamonds like shining syrup. The necklace was laid on black velvet and beside were the earrings, two carats each. The family’s eyes were as wide as they could go, as if it might help them see more. If they had observed themselves at that moment they would have laughed a great deal. In the next window was a tiara.
‘Look, Ma, a crown! Look!’
‘Yes, darlin’, isn’t it lovely?’
‘Is it for a princess?’
‘I expect so.’
‘How can you be a princess?’
‘You have to marry a prince.’
They admired a flamboyant brooch of flowers made from seed pearls; a citrine the size of a macaroon, a necklace and earrings set with table-cut emeralds of evil green, jet beads, opals, topaz like knuckles, clasped in golden claws. Grace led them away, up towards Oxford Circus. Their first port of call was Hamley’s toy shop.
Though they had worn their best clothes that day, feeling overdressed as they waited for the bus on Whitechapel Road, Grace felt a little tawdry among the fine ladies and gentlemen of the West End, milling about at leisure. The boys had never seen so much unbroken glass. Grace kept her eye on them, though they were sworn to their very best behaviour, secured by the promise of two shillings each to spend.
‘Can we buy something for Charlie?’ asked Billy.
‘Yes, can we?’ echoed Daisy, wishing she had thought of it first. ‘Because he missed the trip?’
‘Yes, darlin’, course we can. Shall we let Billy choose? He knows what boys like.’
They left the boys looking at fishing rods, on a strict promise to meet them in an hour, and went to see about dresses.
How wonderful it is to have a little girl, to hold her hand in yours and chatter as you wander down the street. Grace thought of her own mother, remembered walking this way. She took Daisy to Marshall & Snelgrove, grandest store on Oxford Street, taking up a whole block to itself: swish enough for a princess.
Daisy tried several dresses on. She twirled before the mirror, charming the shop-girl, who had seemed doubtful when they had come in. Grace disarmed her with polite chatter, affecting a better accent and employing the natural air she could conjure of having some kind of status, whatever it might be, so that the girl had put her dark skirts down to Bohemian eccentricity. She was from the country herself, having been in the Smoke just two weeks, and fancied herself already a cosmopolitan lady. Her name was Tabitha Berry and one day she hoped to marry a rich man, to be a Tabitha Rothschild or a Tabitha Vanderbilt, and move in society circles. She did not yet know that, though sweet-faced enough, she had none of the requisite ruthlessness and would be back in the sticks within the year, happily hitched to a potato farmer.
Blue suited Daisy better even than lilac, though she would have looked delectable in a coal sack, to her doting mother anyhow. She chose her favourite dress the moment she put it on and did not trouble herself with a second thought about it. She wanted to wear it home but was persuaded, with the enticement of pink tissue paper, to take it wrapped. They chose a pretty little raffia hat for hand-me-down Emily, with a pair of tiny apples on the brim; and bought satin ribbon, green for Grace’s eyes and blue for Daisy’s.
After Grace had managed to tear Tabitha Berry and Daisy apart they joined the boys, who, to Grace’s amazement, were waiting in the tea-room as instructed, quiet as church mice. They were even standing up straight. The manager was eyeing them suspiciously, looking for a reason to turf them out.
‘What have you done?’ she said warily.
‘Nothing!’
They had bought a cricket bat for Charlie and a football for themselves, and had managed not to lose each other or venture towards shady St Giles. They did not show her the pocket-knife they had lifted in Gentlemen’s Sundries. Daisy brimmed with news about her dress, to which they listened sweetly, although they had no interest in clothing. All refreshed themselves with lemonade and iced buns.
Marshall & Snelgrove was a flurry of delight, a carousel of finery and ladies shopping, buying things they had already, in the latest style, such as dinner plates or luggage or gloves. Seated at every counter in the perfume hall, where a thousand delicious scents blend into a soft cloud that wafts across the ceiling, they primped and picked and enjoyed the eager attention of the staff. This season their hats were adorned with dyed ostrich feathers, which fluttered in the perfumed air, red or blue or violet; pheasant for the country.
The family meandered through this palace of wonders, trying not to touch anything, past the crystal, the silverware, the cut glass. Grace steered them towards the door, holding her breath as they traversed the fine-china department. Rows of polished cutlery blinked ostentatiously as they went by; a giant candelabra posed in all its pompous glory, as if it were the only thing in the shop.
They never noticed the pallid stranger who fixed his eyes upon them from behind the ostrich-leather-bound address book he was pretending to study. As they went past he put it down and moved after them towards the door.
The boys were outside already when Daisy noticed the display by the entrance and stopped. It had a rural theme: branches fanned out on either side, hung with shiny artificial fruit. At its centre was a mannequin, dressed for the next season in sumptuous velvet, standing on a cushion of moss. She wore a short tweed jacket, draped with silver fox, and a full skirt of deep berry red that matched her hat, frozen jauntily atop her upswept curls. In her gloved hands she held a fur bag and a lace handkerchief. Daisy appraised this ensemble, aping the pose, admiring the skirt, the blue glass eyes, the pink painted lips.
The stranger sidled closer, lurking behind the display. He could hear them talking. They were looking at a stuffed robin perched above the mannequin’s hat, and as he crept round the plinth he glimpsed them through the branches. They never noticed him, staring, like a man who had seen a ghost. As they went out through the grand doors into Oxford Street he hurried after them.
Mr Ivor Squall is a spindly little man. He resembles an insect, with his hunched back and dark suit, cut tight and mean as befits his demeanour. In fact, his wealth is his only personal asset. His business is ostensibly bookkeeping, run from offices in Oxford Street–it launders the proceeds of his quiet export trade. He finds his offices most conveniently located for his frequent business in notorious St Giles–hive of lawless activity, just a stone’s throw away–coming and going, scuttling about unnoticed. His various associates are well aware that Mr Squall has always something hidden, shifty as the woodlice in the skirting, and keep their wits about them. When he laid eyes on Grace he forgot altogether the purpose of his shopping trip, not because she caught his fancy–for Ivor Squall has none–but because a bell rang in the back of his head, from long ago.
He remembered her face as if in a dream. Compelled by this notion–under a spell–he abandoned the umbrella he had set out to purchase, and followed. There was no doubt that he knew her from somewhere. He knew he must remember where.
This was the first day all year that Grace Hammer had dropped her guard. She was not in her own manor, and in the rare delight of taking a whole day for entertainments she had abandoned her usual watchfulness. The sky was blue, the boys were behaving themselves: there was no reason to look over her shoulder.
Ivor Squall shadowed them at a discreet distance until they took the bus and, hiding at the back of the line, he slipped on unsuspected. He had been involved in many underhand things but had never actually followed anyone before, and he began to enjoy it thoroughly; as thoroughly, that is, as he could in his own miserly way–a sly tingle of excitement pinched his scrawny belly, the cloak-and-dagger thrill of his mission, though he was still unsure of its end. He stole furtive glances at the family, the little girl smiling to herself, proud of the parcel on her lap, the boys hanging out over Regent Street, pointing at things and kicking each other. The bus crawled towards Charing Cross; all the while he wrestled the clues in his head, long-ago pictures, things he thought he had seen.
He might well struggle to place her. The first and last time they had met was seventeen years to the day before. The answer buzzed around him like a fly. He realised he was staring; the little girl had noticed him and tugged at her mother’s sleeve. Luckily for him, she was busy reprimanding the boys for spitting on somebody’s hat. Mr Squall bent down in his seat, pretending to tie his shoelace, which took him a full minute. When he lifted his eyes above the handrail of the seat in front, the family were engaged with some new distraction, laughing among themselves. He watched more carefully this time, making a show of looking out at the view as they crossed Trafalgar Square. As the bus passed Nelson the children craned their necks to look at him, stood all alone on his great big column. The woman was smiling contentedly, taking in the scenery. A ray of sunshine crept through the clouds and she shut her eyes and tilted back her head–and then he saw it, like a flash. He almost shouted aloud with the relief of remembering.
Grace did not notice their shadow until Cheapside. She wondered where he had got on and decided to ignore him, for what else was there to do? They would get off by St Mary, beyond their stop, and walk back.
Now, perhaps Grace was unusually carefree that day–it might be, as he sat behind them, she had not enough time to get a good look. Whatever, we are witness to something rare, like a perfect eclipse of the sun: Grace Hammer misses a trick. She does not recall Ivor Squall. Not a penny drops, not a bell rings.
The City rumbled past, then Aldgate. A boy was standing on his hands outside the window when the bus stopped, a group round him watching as he walked about upside-down. A couple dropped coins into the hat between his feet. They passed St Botolph, then the rag market, and rolled past their stop.
By Church Lane he and they were the only passengers left from the West End. As Grace made ready to get off she turned to look at him again–just a little too long, with a quizzical air so fleeting he might have imagined it. He felt his face colour and his heart quail as he shrank into his seat. Then she was gone. He dared not get off after them but stole a glimpse over his slippery shoulder as the bus moved away again, to catch them rounding the corner into Osborn Street. Alighting at the next stop Ivor Squall tore back down the street as fast as his matchstick legs would allow but, of course, by the time he reached the turning they were nowhere to be seen. He recovered his weak breath and made his way home, trembling with impatience. Had he stayed on the corner for another minute he would have spied them coming out of the grocer’s, with a bag of oranges.
Ivor Squall recorded every detail of his encounter, with his bookkeeper’s pedantic efficiency, the very moment that he reached his office in order that he might not forget the smallest thing. He found he derived considerable pleasure from compiling this furtive intelligence and positively glowed with self-satisfaction at the prospect of passing it on to its intended recipient. Though he had nothing much to note he made a great deal of it on new paper, toying with the idea of small sketches before contenting himself with exhaustive descriptions of each member of the family in perfect lines of spider-crawl across the page, scratching away in his favourite uncomfortable seat at his plain desk that had spindly legs to match his own. He stopped only to dip his pen in the ink, as urgently as he could without splashing, holding his breath–as well as he was able with his meagre lungs, being sickly from birth–feverish as the drop trembled at the end of his nib. Ivor Squall had never yet splashed ink on his desk. Every day this became more significant and he was not ready to blot it, however whipped up he might feel. He finished carefully, as if he was writing important legal documents, and set down his pen with a weak sigh, before allowing himself to revel–as much as he might in his tight suit–in his own efficiency and his symmetrical desktop.
Then he rubbed his hands with glee and wrote a short message addressed to Mr Horatio Blunt, with which he caught the last post.
Dear Esteemed Friend,
I trust this letter finds you in sufficient health after these long years. I send intriguing news–brooking not a moment’s delay–which I venture may be of interest. This very afternoon I have uncovered information, by fortunate chance–and artful investigation–pertaining to the whereabouts of your former employee: a Miss Hammer, if I recall correctly. I hope these efforts will serve to be of satisfaction.
Yours most faithfully, Ivor Squall Esq.
On the other side of London the Hammer family reconvened and shared gifts.
‘You picked the right day to go up west,’ said Charlie. ‘That man from the board school’s been about.’
‘Look at these beautiful chocolates,’ said Daisy.
The subject of Jake’s education had come up in conversation not two days before between Grace and her busybody neighbour Mrs Jacob, who had raised six children–as she never tired of recounting–all of whom now lived as far away from her as was possible without leaving the country.
‘Do you not think that Jake might be better at school now?’ she had ventured nosily.
Grace wondered at how no one ever noticed that Billy was not at school either, most likely on account of his beautiful manners. ‘Well, they do seem very crowded, Mrs Jacob. And a hotbed for typhoid.’
‘A proper schooling teaches a youngster some discipline, Miss Hammer. Prepares him for a trade, perhaps. A good, decent future.’
Grace had felt her blood begin to simmer. She put a swift, graceful end to the conversation.
‘Well, the last time he went he reckoned they were still learning the alphabet, Mrs Jacob. Once they’ve got past that I’m sure he may consider going again. And as for a trade, well, I’m sure he’s spoilt for choice. I expect you’d have him up some toff’s chimney, or sewing shirts, perhaps. Jake’s quite happy to be out and about with me. He’s a good little helper. Good day to you.’