Page 15 of There Are Rivers in the Sky

—O— ARTHUR

By the River Thames, 1856

T he year before Arthur turns sixteen, his family falls behind with the rent. The boy needs to work extra shifts. He wakes up before the pigeons start cooing, sleep oozing from his eyes. Always fastidious about hygiene, he still takes great care to wash as best he can, wiping himself with a flannel soaked in diluted vinegar or rinsing his body with water so cold that it pricks his skin like needles. He also uses, sparingly, a bottle of disinfectant and a bar of carbolic soap distributed by a charity. But the soap is of such poor quality that it barely lathers, no matter how hard he scrubs. Even so, he never fails to observe his daily rituals.

On some mornings when he leaves the building, he sees the silver beam of an argent moon glancing off the cobblestones. At so early an hour, the air in London has a peculiar tang, like copper on his tongue. He walks carefully, skirting round beggars, vagrants and opium addicts dozing on the pavement, those unable to afford even the two-penny bunks, or coffins – the cheapest sheltered accommodation available to the homeless. Once he stumbles on a man who has frozen to death – his beard encrusted with ice, his face softened into one final pleasant dream, his clothes stripped off, exposing a body as emaciated as a withered tree.

Hunger is a constant in his life – at times briefly assuaged but never absent for long. Most days his breakfast consists of a bread roll, which, if possible, he supplements with a scraping of butter. Sometimes he buys ale or coffee from a brightly lit stall with a charcoal brazier. The ale is watered down and the coffee tastes of nothing, but at least it is warm. He still picks up a treat for his mother and little brother whenever he can: hot-smoked eels, pickled whelks or kidney pudding. These, too, form part of his cherished rituals.

By the time he returns home, late at night, he is so exhausted that he must struggle to keep his eyes open, let alone read anything. He no longer dreams of Nineveh these days. So much arbitrary suffering has robbed him of hope for the future. The remorse he feels about his brother’s death never abates. He misses his mentor and his champion, Mr Bradbury. He is not sure he will be able to survive another winter. Fleeting moments still have the power to make him smile – a gull song drifting over the rooftops, the sight of primroses in a flower-seller’s basket or the smell of chestnuts roasting on a brazier … Only the small things can hearten him enough to hang on to a slender thread of existence.

One morning, Arthur is standing at a lectern in the office, reviewing a title the company is considering reprinting in English: The Works of Rabelais. The original book is illustrated by the French artist Gustave Doré. His drawings are full of ferocious elan. The boy studies them in admiration. It is his firm conviction that all books, whether fact or fiction, should have pictures. Images, like lanterns illuminating the path of a night-time traveller, should guide the reader through the realms of a narrative. But he no longer draws. He knows he does not have the skill of the French illustrator. He can observe the brash courtesans on the arms of wealthy gentlemen walking out of operettas on Drury Lane, or the dingy shops on Holywell Street selling pornographic books, or the railway travellers in Waterloo Station, or the milling pedestrians on Fleet Street, known as the ‘Street of Ink’, as it has become the heart of the newspaper publishing industry, and conjure up their likenesses on paper with vigour and finesse, but he cannot read a tale and come up with sketches that exceed the writer’s imagination.

So engrossed is the boy in his thoughts that it startles him when the door bursts open and a visitor rushes in. Of medium height and build, he has a neatly defined, pointed beard. Below his eyebrows, set in an angular face, his dark eyes blaze bright and alert.

‘Mr Evans, where is he? I need to talk to him urgently.’

‘He has not arrived yet,’ says Arthur.

‘Hellfire, this cannot wait!’

‘I am sure he will be here shortly, sir.’

‘I am pressed for time,’ the man murmurs as he consults his watch and tucks it back in his waistcoat pocket. Something about him is curiously familiar, although Arthur is certain he has not seen him before.

Still huffing, the visitor plants himself on the nearest armchair. Whether he is talking to himself or to Arthur is not clear.

‘After much deliberation, I have decided this is the right company for me. My novels must be printed here!’

Arthur’s eyes narrow into slits as he realizes who the man is.

‘I must first get rid of that scoundrel of a publisher with whom I have had the misfortune to be saddled all these years. They think I cannot leave; they shall see. My mind is made up. Henceforth I shall be published by Bradbury of education, civil and religious liberty and equal legislation.

They lose a lot of money.

Dickens goes back to writing his novels.

Arthur does not see the author for several months, but then, one day in autumn, he appears again. It is too early in the morning, the sky still ink black. As the boy approaches the office, he notices a shadowy form by the door. Hearing him coming, the figure shifts towards the light under a street lamp. It is Dickens. He looks sleep-deprived and anguished, with stubble on his cheeks and dark rings under his eyes.

Like many others in this city, Arthur has heard the rumours spinning wild. The author is said to have fallen in love with a younger woman and purchased a bracelet for her, none of which would have been revealed had the present not been delivered to his own house by accident and ended up in the hands of his wife.

‘Hello, sir.’

‘Young Arthur,’ says Dickens, tendering a smile that does not quite make it to his eyes. ‘I am so pleased to see you.’

‘I didn’t know you woke so early.’

‘Not always, boy. Only these days as I have got some domestic troubles.’

As soon as they enter the office, Dickens sinks down in an armchair, the knuckles of his hands white as he clenches its sides. He utters under his breath: ‘The truth is, I couldn’t sleep.’

Arthur notices he has more grey hairs now and the wrinkles around his eyes cut deeper.

Feeling the boy’s scrutiny, Dickens straightens his shoulders. ‘Look, I have brought us a treat – something to cheer up even the most miserable.’

Thus saying, he removes an elegant tin from his pocket and opens it. Inside, arranged in perfect lines, are pink, jellied cubes, dusted with sugar.

Arthur’s eyes grow wide. ‘What is it, sir?’

‘They are lumps of delight,’ Dickens replies with a lightness that belies his expression. ‘Brought over from the Ottoman lands – a delicacy cherished by the rich and the not so rich alike. Come on, try one.’

Arthur leans forward and picks one up. It has an unusual taste, chewy, soft and perfumed.

‘So, what do you think?’ asks Dickens.

‘It’s strange … very tasty. Do they eat this every day?’

‘I believe they do. I have heard the sultan is in the habit of distributing it amongst his harem .’

‘What’s a harem ?’

‘Oh, the most dreadful thing,’ Dickens says, his voice intensifying. ‘A horrid, demeaning institution that doesn’t bear talking about. Although the late Miss Bront? clearly enjoyed reflecting on it. What a disreputable scene she conjured up for poor Jane Eyre! Remember what Rochester said? That he would not exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk’s whole collection of women with their gazelle eyes, houri-forms and all! And then, what is the writer’s intention, you might wonder, in causing dear drab Jane to imagine herself in Rochester’s “pleasure villa”, scantily covered in silks and flowers, awaiting a night of sensuous delights … What a fantasy to place in the mind of a reserved English lady.’ Dickens pauses. ‘Still, it is quite an erotic thought, I must say.’

Arthur has read Jane Eyre and, although he has not dwelt on this particular detail, he grasps enough now to make him blush.

Oblivious to the boy’s discomfort, Dickens carries on. ‘Even though the Bront?s were raised in Yorkshire, their roots, let us not forget, were in the heart of Cornwall. Having lived by the sea, generations of their family must have grown up with tales of Ottoman corsairs raiding homes and kidnapping English women to take them back to their harems . That, I believe, inflames the literary imagination. Anyway, let’s set aside that interesting, if somewhat sensational, detail.’

The author picks another lump of delight and holds it between his fingers. ‘You must know that many cultures around the world are demonstrably inferior to our own – especially the Oriental race. It will take them a long time, if ever, to reach our level of civilization.’

Arthur arches his shoulders as a stark realization dawns on him. However passionate a supporter of the poor and downcast, however fervent a champion of the oppressed and downtrodden, the author takes a dim view of societies other than his own.

As if he has sensed the boy’s disagreement, Dickens returns his gaze. ‘It appears you hold a different opinion. Do you have in mind to go beyond our shores someday – are you ever tempted to travel to distant lands?’

Arthur nods wholeheartedly.

‘To where?’

In lieu of a response, Arthur opens a drawer and pulls out the newspaper clipping he keeps under a pile of engravings.

Holding the paper to the light, Dickens reads it out loud. ‘ At the British Museum this afternoon, a large crowd greeted the arrival of colossal statues and other artefacts from Nineveh. ’ He stops and peers at the boy over the page. ‘Is this where you wish to go – Nineveh? That is a most singular interest of yours. Tell me, have you ever been inside the British Museum?’

‘No, sir … A few times I went as far as the bottom of the stairs, but I did not dare to enter.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘I do not have the proper attire.’

Dickens’s face softens. ‘My boy, there is no need for that to be an obstacle.’

‘It usually is,’ says Arthur, resolutely. ‘And, with all due respect, sir, you might not be in a position to know.’

In these words, the author detects another unspoken rebuke. He may once have laboured in a blacking factory, and ever since been a fervent advocate for the working classes and openly critical of the Poor Law Amendment Act, depicting in his novels the plight of the destitute, and making it plain that the blame for poverty is not to be laid at the door of those who endure it; but here in this room, compared with this boy, he is one of the privileged.

Dickens is pensive for a moment. ‘Is it true what they say about you – that you never forget a thing?’

‘I seem to spend a lot of time inside my memory,’ Arthur admits. ‘It’s a useless thing.’

Dickens scratches his beard. ‘No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.’

‘I am not sure I have lightened anyone’s burdens. Not my father’s, certainly.’

‘All fathers love their children after a fashion. Perhaps yours does not exactly know how to show his esteem for you.’

Arthur bites his lip. He does not want to challenge the famous novelist, but love that manifests only in a profound and bruising coldness, and leaves the other person hurting, can it ever be deemed love?

That same week a package arrives at the office for King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums. Inside he finds a tweed jacket, waistcoat and trousers, tailor-made and a perfect fit, together with a pair of brown leather boots exactly his size. Dickens has observed him remarkably well. There is a letter attached:

My dear Arthur,

I greatly enjoyed our exchange and I have subsequently given much thought to your words. You are a young man of considerable talent and commendable intelligence. I believe you must go to Nineveh and see the River Tigris for yourself. For reasons beyond your power, London has broken your heart. Perhaps when you arrive in the Orient, you will find it within yourself to forgive your home city, and its redoubtable river, the Thames. One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it is left behind.

Ever your affectionate friend,

Charles Dickens

After that, the author disappears once again, rushing headlong into the love affair and marital scandal that will usurp his energy and reputation in the months ahead. Arthur will write to him but not get the chance to thank him personally. Nor will he be able to tell him that he will eventually succeed in visiting the British Museum and the winged creatures of Nineveh, where he will find a surprise waiting for him that will change his life forever.