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about the death of poor Simplicity, the girl that nobody really cared about, except for you. And, of course, dear Angela, who seems suspiciously unmoved? I expect, nay assume, that you will before very long find another girl quite like her. Indeed, I might even bet on it.’
Dodger tried to keep any expression away from his face and then gave up because no expression at all is an expression in itself. He looked into Charlie’s eyes and then said, slowly and deliberately, ‘Well, I don’t know nothing about that, sir.’ And he winked.
Charlie laughed, and the two of them shook hands, then went their separate ways.
The day after this conversation, a coach left London bound for Bristol, with the usual cross-section of passengers to endure the raggedy road. However, in this case the coachman reckoned that one of the passengers was the most unpleasant he had had that year, and it was all the worse because it was an old lady with a voice as crackly and demanding as a cauldron full of witches; nothing would please her – the seats, the ride, the weather and, as far as he knew, the phase of the moon. When the passengers were allowed off for a mercifully quick meal at one of the coaching inns along the way, she found fault with every dish put before her, including the salt, which she declared was not salty enough. The old baggage, besides smelling too much of lavender, also bullied incessantly a rather pleasant-looking young lady who was her granddaughter. She, at least, lit up the atmosphere in the coach a little, but mostly the coachman remembered Grandma, and he was very glad to see the back of the old besom as she almost fell off the coach when they got to Bristol. Of course, she had complained about that too.
A cheerful-looking young man then went to a pharmacist at Christmas Steps, near the centre of Bristol, where he discussed certain things to do with pigments and similar, in a very useful discourse that included words like henna and indigo. Shortly afterwards, quite a pretty young lady with beautiful red hair and a dark-haired young gentleman hired a coach and a driver to take them out of the city and all the way to the gaunt grey Mendip Hills, whereupon they told the driver that they wished to continue the journey along the turnpike past the pub at Star, where they had lunch consisting of excellent cheese and the type of cider that was so strong it might have been fortified by lion’s piss, and all the better for it apparently, because even the young lady had a second half pint of the scorching stuff.
After their lunch they dismissed the coachman, telling him to meet them at the same place in precisely one week’s time. The man happily agreed, because he had already been paid quite a considerable sum by the young man, who had handed him a beautiful amount of money, whispering that he would be grateful if nobody was told about this little excursion since they would both be in trouble if her father found out. The coachman was not unfamiliar with journeys of this sort, and therefore saluted and tapped the side of his nose with a greasy little grin that said, ‘Me? I know nothing, I am totally blinded by the shine of money, and God bless you, sir.’
The following day a man in the local pub, a carrier by trade, was induced by means of a jingling purse to take the young couple on a short cut to the small town of Axbridge, on the other side of the Mendips. The couple came down the southern slopes and took lodgings near the water mill. It was an unusual arrangement, however, since the young man made it clear that the young lady was to sleep in the best bedroom, such as it was, and he himself would sleep on a straw palliasse outside the door, covered with a horse blanket. This caused a little bit of talk locally with the ladies of the village, who took the view that the runaways (which everyone agreed was what the nice young couple were) were being very careful about things as decent Christians should be.
Christian or otherwise, that was in fact the case. The communication had passed between Simplicity and Dodger almost by telepathy; this had to be a time to relax, heal and, well, enjoy the world. And the world itself seemed