The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [25]
Jack led him on. The market square, lit by gaslight, was a place of shadows and squalor. Tired prostitutes, mainly women but with two or three bare-chested men amidst them, converged in small groups underneath the roofed market, negotiating with late revellers who seemed unsteady on their feet. A man cursed loudly and was pushed away; he walked off, still swearing loudly. On the corner of the Opera House a man stood behind a stall and a small fire, and the heavy smell of frying onions and sausage-meat filled the square like a march of invading soldiers.
Orphan liked Covent Garden during the day, when the fruit and vegetable market was open and continental restaurants filled the air with the scents of garlic and cooking spices. He avoided it at night, when it became, or so it seemed, the lode-stone that exerted its powerful pull on every lecher and drunk in the Lizardine Empire. Even this late the barely discreet bawdy-houses on the side streets were no doubt operating, and the pubs and drinking establishments were still seeing out the late stragglers who refused to wave goodbye to the night and adjourn at last to their beds. He wondered what they were doing there at this hour, Jack and him, but his will seemed to have seeped out of him, and he merely followed in Jack's footsteps, not asking the question, content to merely walk on through the haze of the market.
They walked past a group of drunk students halfshouting and half-singing the words to the old favourite, "If I Had A Donkey Wot Wouldn't Go". Orphan smiled when he heard the closing words, followed by a last, spirited chorus:
Bill's donkey was ordered into Court,
In which he caused a deal of sport,
He cocked his ears, and opened his jaws,
As if he wished to plead his cause.
I proved I'd been uncommonly kind,
The ass got a verdict – Bill got fined;
For his worship and me was of one mind –
And he said… (and here the chanting students raised their voices even higher, and shouted again the refrain) – and he said!
If I had a donkey wot wouldn't go,
I never would wollop him, no, no, no!
I'd give him some hay, and cry Gee! Whoa!
And come up, Neddy! And come up, Neddy!
And they disappeared in a burst of laughter around the corner. Jack marched on. Orphan followed.
It wasn't long before they arrived in Drury Lane. Jack stopped outside a deserted-looking building. A fading sign that looked like a remnant from another century entirely declared the place as the King's Arms Tavern. The windows were boarded up and the gaslamp outside was broken, casting the area into gloom. Orphan found himself wondering if the sun would ever rise again. He blew on his hands to try to warm them. He could taste the faint tang of leaking gas in the air.
Jack went to a small door set into the side of the building. It was plain, made of rough, unvarnished wood. Jack knocked, a complicated beat.
They waited.
Presently they could hear steps, and the door opened.
"Wha' do you want?"
The woman filled the doorway. Fat rolled down her neck as she surveyed them with small hard eyes. The fat spread down to her arms and disappeared underneath the long fur coat that must have been made from the skins of an entire skulk of foxes. She raised a languid hand on which heavy rings cut into fleshy fingers. "Jackie, issat you?"
Jack surprised Orphan by reaching out and taking the woman's hand in his. "Mother Jolley," he said, and almost, it seemed to Orphan, bent down to kiss the woman's – who did not look at all jolly, to him – hand. "You get prettier every time I see you."
"Spare me yer flattery, cur," but she looked momentarily pleased.
Then the small, suspicious eyes shifted to Orphan. "Who's your friend?" She reached out her hand, extending it before her like a crane, and grasped Orphan's face between her fingers, pulling hard