Page 3 of Strangers in Time

The other man was short and squat and had on a slouch hat, pulled low. He wore an expensive black waterproof, and new-looking stout wellies against the foul weather. He was jowly, with a bit of stubble on his weak chin. He handed the shop’s owner a packet of papers bound with black ribbon, and said something that Charlie could not hear.

The other man took the papers and put them away in a drawer that he then locked.

When the shorter man turned and headed to the door, Charlie hid behind a handy dustbin overflowing with bomb debris, of which there were thousands in the city. The man opened the door, which caused the tinkling of a bell, and stepped out. He gave a searching look right and left, making Charlie shrink down farther. Then the gent turned up his waterproof’s collar and hurried off.

Charlie waited a few moments to make certain the squat man was not coming back. He stole up to the window once more to see the shop owner bent over a fat ledger behind the counter and right next to the till. His long finger moved down the columned page as he made small tics on the paper with a pencil. After a minute or so he put the pencil down and drank from a chipped porcelain cup set next to his elbow. Beside that rested a plate holding a few slender biscuits.

Charlie eyed the biscuits as his empty belly commenced speaking to him in the form of bold protest.

Next the man picked up a curious cylindrical-looking device. Parts of the contraption seemed to rotate, because he was moving things around on it. He continued manipulating it for a few moments before returning to his pencil and ledger.

A minute later, the man lifted up a box labeledSimpkin & Marshall Book Wholesalersand disappeared through a curtain into a backroom. Charlie instantly seized the doorknob. Fortunately, it was unlocked. Unfortunately, the little bell tinkled when Charlie wrenched open the door; he had forgotten about that.

He quieted the bell, scurried behind a tower of books in one corner, and waited. Momentarily, the man appeared and looked around, his eyebrows touching in confusion, his spectacled gaze bouncing around the small space. He rushed over to the drawer where he had placed the packet of papers and unlocked it. He took out the sheaf of documents and examined them. Satisfied, he locked them back up, used the lift gate on the counter to pass through, strode across thefloor, turned the door latch, and then retreated the same way, disappearing back through the curtain.

Quick as a ferret, Charlie came out of hiding, grabbed the biscuits, and thrust them into his pocket. He examined the odd device that lay on the counter. The thing was wood and metal with little rotating disks on which letters were imprinted. Setting it down, he rushed over to the ancient till. He pushed one of the metal-dipped keys, pulled back the large lever, and the wooden drawer popped open like a cuckoo from a clock. Paper and coins disappeared into one of his other pockets. He also grabbed a book off the counter, figuring it might be worth something.

Charlie thought his escape had been unseen. However, as he looked back, he saw the man bracketed in the curtained doorway, his mouth open perhaps in disbelief or dismay, or both. The next instant Charlie had unlocked and flung open the door, and was sprinting down the rain-slickened alley.

He had just turned wretched defeat into splendid triumph.

It was about time.

DOWN TO THEEASTEND

CHARLIE FOLLOWED THE CURBS, trees, and lampposts that had been painted white to help folks navigate the city at night. There were no exterior lights permitted on buildings, and vehicle lights had to be concealed, except for a small crack in the covering. The traffic lights were also shrouded, again save for a small slit so drivers could view the necessary colors. All streets other than the main thoroughfares were dark, and these roadways only possessed a small starlight filtering downward so as to give no aid to the Luftwaffe above.

The buses had signs that readLOOK OUT IN THE BLACKOUT. Yet even with these aids, people were still regularly struck and killed by cars, taxis, lorries, and double-decker buses lurching out of the darkness at them like leaping predators on the prowl. Charlie had had more than his share of close calls. Thousands of others had not been so fortunate and currently lay six feet under the earth for their effrontery at taking a walk in the city.

The blackout had been difficult for many Londoners, who had been used to a city brilliantly lighted at night. Charlie could still recall when the blackout had been instituted. He had watched with his grandfather from atop a building as, sector by sector—including the mighty Big Ben—the great city went dark. And with the absenceof light came a deluge of fear for many, because everyone knew that terrible things always tended to happen in the dark.

Along the way home, the sore-footed Charlie was still nimble enough to latch on to the rear end of a full bus that was shepherding folks engaged in the round-the-clock war efforts to either their homes or places of work. He had been taught how to expertly perch on the outside of buses by Lonzo. It required strong fingers and exceptional balance, with the bottoms of your feet pressed against the vehicle’s metal hide, as well as the ability and courage to safely jump off a moving bus if the ticket conductor spied you and angrily came for the freeloader with his club.

At his ramshackle building in Bethnal Green, Charlie entered his tiny flat the way he always did after one of these nighttime forays. The overturned dustbin in the alley led to the bottom of the frayed rope attached to the lowest rung of the fire escape ladder. A tug on the rope brought the ladder down. After a quick clamber up the steps to the landing above and resetting the ladder, he was in through the window that, unlike the back door to St. Saviour’s School, had never latched properly.

Charlie slid into the wooden crate that represented his bed inside the space that had once been a small storage cupboard. When they had first moved here, it had been cozy. Now, with his quickly lengthening limbs and torso, it felt akin to a coffin. Yet at least he had a room of his own. He had many mates who did not.

Charlie had learned that his crib had once been an egg box, where as a wee thing he’d spent much time lying in nappies. As he’d grown, his digs had been replaced with an orange crate. He didn’t know what his current box had once been, but at least it was larger, because so was he.

Despite the cramped quarters, Charlie knew he and Gran had it better than most around here. Many East Enders lived multiple families to a few rooms with exterior toilets and no kitchens, with the fronting streets barely ten feet wide. And being jettisoned intothose same streets was, for many folks, only an illness or death of a husband and father away.

His grandmother had once told him in front of a meager fire and lukewarm tea, “There was a workhouse in Whitechapel, Charlie.” She had shivered at the memory. “Bloody awful place. Nearly a thousand helpless souls. And the whole family had to go and share in the shame of being destitute. Shaved your head to keep off the lice. Fed you but not really with what I would call food. And they separated husbands and wives, and their children too. It was hard labor every day, and the law said the living conditions had to be worse than that of the working poor. And that’s saying something, Charlie, because we’re working poor, aren’t we? And look at us! And if you were old and your family couldn’t take you in, you went there, too. Bread and soup, and one day out so you could do your begging on the streets.” She had paused, lips quivering with emotion. “You hear anyone ever speak of the workhousehowl, luv?” she said in a fearful tone.

Charlie had shaken his head. “What’s that?” he’d said, with dread in his voice.

She had settled her despondent gaze on him. “Well, Charlie, it’s hard to describe. It’s… it’s when folks have been so beaten down by life and all the hardships that go with it, least for our kind, that… that all that sadness and, well, anger too, just comes out of your mouth and you howl away, like some poor, suffering beast. Because that’s what folks can become who haven’t ever had a decent turn in life. You still see it often round here,” she’d added bitterly.

“Have… have you ever had to howl like that, Gran?” he’d asked.

She had hurriedly changed the subject and didn’t answer him.

Charlie knew he never wanted to go to the workhouse. And he never wanted to be so sad that he howled, though some days he could see it happening.

He tugged a single tattered sheet over his wet self, felt in his pocket for the biscuits, and broke off a piece. He pushed it into hismouth and quickly chewed. He wanted to eat slowly, but he was too ravenous for that.

With his other hand, he felt for the paper money and coins. Foodandproper money, instead of a shilling or mere pence. His prospects had gone up quite nicely with a single night’s larcenous labor.

He lit a candle stub, angled it into the crevice between the wooden box and several old pillows that constituted his mattress, and pulled the money out. His soiled fingers rubbed over the countenances of the august royal images imprinted on the notes and then touched the coolness of the coins. On the penny farthing was the image of Britannia on one side and George the Sixth on the obverse.

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