The Whispering Road by Livi Michael

Author:Livi Michael
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780141927404
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-02-09T05:00:00+00:00

4

Gang

First day with the gang I have to learn my way around the streets of Manchester. And there's a lot of them. We all go together, running through a maze of alleys and courts. They show me around; I teach them to use the sling.

We hide round a corner of Market Street and I send a volley of stones over towards a meat-pie stall. Pie man comes running and Pigeon and Ors'n'cart nick enough pies for us all. Then we climb on to a shed roof up Back Piccadilly and sit eating them, and a police officer comes chasing a thief. We crouch down low and I fire stones at him so that he runs this way and that. Then back to the fish market near the burial ground and Digger uses the sling while Half-moon snatches a bag of oysters.

Course, they all want one of their own then, and we tear strips off our clothing to make them, and go and practise on Mad Pat, who stamps and shakes his fist at the spire.

‘Angels from hell!’ he shrieks, finally cowering behind one of the gravestones.

All day we work the crowds and alleys till we make our way back to the cellar, to count our booty.

We've got apples from the apple market, boots from a shoemaker's stall, a woman's purse nicked by Queenie and, best of all, a flagon of gin. We uncork this and pass it round, drinking a toast.

‘Here's to staying away from Bailey!’ Queenie says.

‘Here's to me!’ I say, wiping my lips, for after all, I've shown them all a new weapon.

Queenie pulls it off me. ‘We drink to the gang,’ she says. And she hands the boots to Pickings, who's barefoot, though I could do with a new pair.

Who died and made you queen, Queenie? I'm thinking, but Digger takes it next.

‘To freedom,’ he says, and we all drink to that. Then we act out some of the things we've seen, the policeman running round in circles, and Mad Pat shaking his fist at the spire. Finally we lie down on the wooden crates.

It's hard to sleep with all the noise of the town. Hard enough to sleep on wooden crates standing in a pool of water anyway, but there are drunks singing, a fight breaking out somewhere, a fire bell ringing and further along the river a babby crying on and on, and through it all the noise of the river slapping and sucking at its banks.

There's an hour or two when even the town sleeps and the streets are empty except for the last drunk staggering home and roaring out his drinking song. Tramps curl their chilly limbs in doorways. Even in April the snowflakes fall and melt as soon as they touch the mud. A thick yellowish mist hides the stars and the few streetlamps left lit look like the eyes of a sick man. In the crowded cellars people sleep piled on to one another; their breathing hoarse and bubbling like thick water.

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