Dodger Page 0,8
he is slung out into the cold. And I don’t think Mister Charlie would be too happy if I told him about the lack of hospitality you’ve shown to me, Mrs Sharp Balls.’
He had mangled her name offensively without a thought, and was rather pleased, even though she appeared not to have noticed. The cook, however, had, and the laugh she laughed had a sneer in it. Dodger had never read a book, but if he had ever done so he would have read the cook just like it – and it was amazing how much you could glean from a look, or a snort, or even a fart if it was dropped into the conversation at just the right place. There was language, and there was the language of inflections, glances, tiny movements in the face – little bits of habit that the owner was not aware of. People who thought that their face was entirely blank did not realize how they were broadcasting their innermost thoughts to anyone with the gumption to pick up the signs, and the sign right now, floating in the air as if held by an angel, said that the cook did not like the housekeeper, and the dislike was sufficient enough that she would make fun of her even though Dodger was standing there.
So he carefully made himself look a little more tired and a little more frightened and a little more pleading than usual. Instantly the cook motioned him towards her, saying in a low voice, but not so low that the housekeeper couldn’t hear it, ‘OK, lad, I’ve got some porridge on the boil – you can have some of that, and a piece of mutton that’s only slightly on the nose, and I dare say you’ve eaten worse. Will that do you?’
Dodger burst into tears; they were good tears, full of soul and fat – there was a certain amount of body to them – and then he fell on his knees, clasped his hands together and said, with deep sincerity, ‘God bless you, missus, God bless you!’
This shameless pantomime earned him a very large bowl of porridge with a very acceptable amount of sugar in it. The mutton wasn’t yet at the stage when it was about to start walking around all by itself, and so he took it thankfully; it would at least make the basis of a decent stew. It was wrapped in newspaper and he shoved it in his pocket very quickly for fear that it might evaporate. As for the porridge, he pushed the spoon around until there was not one drop left, to the obvious approval of the cook, a lady, it might be said, who wobbled everywhere one could wobble when she moved, including the chin.
He had written her down as an ally, at least against the housekeeper, who was still glaring at him balefully, but then she grabbed him sharply by the hand and shouted, much louder than necessary, ‘Just you come down here into the scullery and we’ll see how much you have stolen, my lad, shall we?’
Dodger tried to pull out of her grip, but she was, as aforesaid, a well-built woman – as cooks tend to be – and as she was dragging him she leaned towards him and hissed, ‘Don’t struggle. What are you, a bloody fool? Keep mum and do as I say!’ She opened a door and dragged him down some stone steps, into a place that smelled of pickles. After slamming the door behind them, she relaxed a little and said, ‘That old baggage of a housekeeper will swear blind that you must have picked up a lot of trinkets when you were here last night, and you may be sure that the picker-up of said trifles will be that lady herself. Therefore it would be very likely that any friendships you have made here will vanish like the morning dew. The family are decent sorts, always a soft touch for a hard luck story from a broken-down artisan or fallen woman who would like to get up again, and I’ve seen them come and go. Quite a lot of them are genuine, let me tell you; I know.’
As politely as possible, Dodger tried to remove her hands from his person. She seemed to be patting him down rather more than was warranted and with a certain enthusiasm and a gleam in her eye.
She saw his expression and said, ‘I ain’t always been this old