Little Bones by Janette Jenkins

Author:Janette Jenkins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781409058571
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

Seven

Small Dark Eyes &

Little Hands

SUMMER, AND AT the Victoria Embankment accordionists played amongst signs declaring: MOST SPECTACULAR FIREWORK DISPLAY & INSTRUMENTAL CONCERT. Ned was busy selling paper flags, having persuaded the flag man that two could work the crowd, now spilling onto the pier, and he would only take a meagre cut, enough, say, for a bag of hot peanuts and a small glass of beer.

Jane walked with Edie and Alice. There were plenty of curiosities to keep them amused. A group of wild African savages in strange grass costumes were eating sticks of fire. A man balanced chairs on his forehead. On a flat stretch of grass, couples started dancing, shyly at first, to the Spanish gypsy musicians, while Jeremiah Beam, his hat on his knees, sat chewing a fatty pork rib, tapping his feet to the music.

‘I once got lost at a funfair,’ said Edie. ‘I was a tiny thing, a sprat my brother called me, and when I couldn’t see our ma anymore, I sat wailing by a carousel, until the man pulled me onto a horse, thinking that’s what I was crying for. It was terrible. The music was playing, the ride started up, and then I spotted her. But I was stuck inside the saddle. It was hopeless.’

‘She found you in the end?’ asked Jane.

‘Oh, she found me all right, and Pa beat me black and blue for the trouble of it.’

As they walked down a soft slope of grass, Jane could see Ned handing a flag to a girl who whispered something into his ear, and Jane looked away towards the river. Alice was eager to buy a cup of iced chocolate milk, saying it was her favourite thing in the world, especially if there was a good tot of rum in it. They queued behind girls in fringed cotton shawls, cooing over the boy who held the monkeys dressed in waistcoats, available for petting and for photographs.

‘We should have another picture,’ one of them said. ‘We should ask for the boy instead of the monkey.’

‘Oh, I hated my monkey,’ said another. ‘He nipped me good and proper, he smelled very bad, and I’m sure he was jumping with fleas.’

Taking their cups of chocolate, Jane and her companions sat on a bench by the pier. They watched a woman dragging her friend to where a man was offering boat rides. ‘That boat’s a filthy tub,’ the friend squealed. ‘I’m not getting into it, not for a minute I’m not!’ But of course she was persuaded, taking the man’s hand, blushing as she stepped over the side, tilting the boat and laughing.

‘It’s a shame Mrs Swift couldn’t come,’ said Jane.

‘What?’ Alice nearly spat out her milk. ‘Why would you want to come here with the missus?’

‘She’s like a blancmange,’ Edie smirked. ‘Like a great blubbery whale. One day she’s going to sit in that armchair of hers, and she’ll be stuck, and we’ll have to chop the blessed frame into pieces.’

‘She used to be slim,’ Alice told them.

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