Belle - Lesley Pearse [21]
‘Everyone’s a bit scared of her.’ Belle gave a watery smile. ‘She’s not an easy person to be with. Not like Mog. I often wish she was my mother.’
Belle talked generally about how it was to grow up in a house of women. ‘If I didn’t read books and newspapers I don’t suppose I’d even know what it would be like to have a father,’ she ended up.
‘It was a bit like that for me too,’ Jimmy said thoughtfully, moving his arm to put it round her shoulders. ‘It was always just me and Ma, and the visits from the ladies she sewed for. Uncle Garth came round every few months, and he used to say she was making me soft. I didn’t know then what he thought men ought to be like, and now that I see them in his bar, I don’t want to be like that. You wouldn’t want a father who was like the men who come in your ma’s place, would you?’
Belle half smiled. ‘I expect he was one of them. But I’ve never seen any of the men, except the murderer, and they can’t all be like him.’
‘Do you know what the man’s name was?’
‘He called himself Mr Kent, but I heard Ma say he was known as the Falcon. You wouldn’t get a name like that unless you were dangerous.’
They walked on then to keep warm, going right along the Embankment towards Westminster Bridge. When Belle was about nine Mog had taken her to see Trafalgar Square, the Horse Guards, Westminster Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament. Back then Belle had believed she’d walked miles – it wasn’t until Jimmy had taken her to St James’s Park that she realized that all these splendid, historical places were very close to home.
Jimmy knew much more than she did about London. He explained about the ceremony of the changing of the guard at the Horse Guards, and what went on in Parliament.
‘When the spring comes I’ll take you all over London,’ he said. ‘We’ll go to Greenwich, Hyde Park, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London. That is, if you’re still my friend?’
Belle giggled. ‘Of course I will be,’ she said, suddenly aware he had made her feel hopeful and happy again. ‘I really like being with you.’
He stopped walking suddenly and turned to her with a smile of pure delight.
‘I think you are lovely,’ he said, a blush staining his cold, pale face. ‘But we’d better go back for now or we’ll both be in trouble.’
As they were walking back to Seven Dials he told her that his main job was to collect and wash glasses, keep the beer cellar clean, and check all the deliveries, but his uncle kept him busy with a great many other things too, from washing their clothes and keeping the floors above the bar clean, to cooking meals. Belle got the idea that he was working from around eleven in the morning till gone twelve at night, without ever a kind word.
‘A smart boy like you could get a better job,’ she said, feeling very sorry for him.
‘Yes, I could,’ he agreed. ‘But hard as Uncle Garth can be, he didn’t hesitate to take me in when my mother died, and she thought a lot of him. Besides, I’m learning a great deal from him. He’s shrewd, hard-nosed, you’d have a job to fool him about anything. I’m going to bide my time, learn everything I can from him, make myself indispensable, and then I’ll find a better job.’
‘Perhaps that’s what I should do too at Annie’s,’ Belle said.
Jimmy stopped, turned to her and took her two hands in his. ‘I think the less you learn about that place the better,’ he said. ‘Read books, Belle, including ones about history and geography. Practise your letters, and go on dreaming of your little hat shop. You don’t have to become a whore, just as I don’t have to be a barman who serves thieves and pimps and wife beaters. Let’s be really good friends and support one another. We could get out of Seven Dials if we helped one another.’
Belle was deeply touched. She looked into his tawny eyes and wished she had the right words to tell him how much better he had made her feel about herself. He made hope flicker inside her again, made her feel she could have a good life away from Seven Dials. She thought he might even have the power to erase the memory of the ugly side of men