The companion of a Shoe Shine Boy

The aged, demoralised sun surfaces from underneath one of many ash engulfed clouds in the hope of a glance at her world below. The sights which meet her curious gaze are that of depressing soot coated chimneys overcome by a suffocating whirlpool of pollution; the odd washing lines struggling to keep a grip on the crumbling balcony bricks from which it hangs and the microcosm of ant like people that navigate through the tunnelled alleyways which whisper the tales of heated arguments, terrified cries and the secret encounters of business men dealing dodgy wares.

He lives in Ripper Square…

When I say lives in Ripper Square I literately mean on the cold dusty cobbles which others of a higher, more ‘respected’ class trample all over: horses kicking pebbles and grit out of the way of the carefully crafted wheels of the handsome cabs that they smugly lead, the plentiful chimney sweepers using their bushes as walking aids, tapping the soot from the bristles with every stumble.

The one part of the day that He longs for - other than when the scraps of discarded left overs are flung on to the cobbles - is the increasingly rare tick of silence. Day in and day out the sounds of the prancing street performers, clattering their tambourines on their grubby palms, hustle his young ears and force the lad’s mind to sing the jolly melody back at him at every waking moment. I call it the tick of silence as the final sound that compliments every sun set is the throbbing tick as the fortified hands that govern the Square reach nine o’clock.

Beyond this rhapsodic tick is the darkness. Sounds attack my ears now: screeches of cats and the squeaks of the giant sewer rats that scurry around the skirts of Jackson’s barber shop on the corner of Vic’s Lane and Lower Fleet Road. They too long for the scraps to be tossed on to their bedroom floor. I tend to slumber in the same spot in the summer months while he makes the cobbled stones across form the bins behind Matilda’s café his safe and warming start to the day: providing he gets the angle right on the bin’s shiny tops, she shines her beams on my face dead on dawn and her glow automatically brightens any laborious day ahead.

Men who tower over the scruffy down and out dress in pressed white shirts complete with cotton waist coats shipped in from across the pond adorned with tweed over coats lined with top end silk. These gentlemen of society entitle those like him their ‘Shoe Shine boy’: the clue’s in the name really; he slaves away for a shilling per pair, polishing the grime and filth off of the upper classes shoes. The same filth I shower in. Sometimes he gets a tip, only through ones own initiative: bobbies prefer to take their coats off when having their shoes shined to prevent them being blackened by any polish stains that may haphazardly be left on the stools. So as a fee for having a heavy coat chucked at his young head and a fastening button lodged an eye he often sees it as his duty to grope in a pocket or two for anything that the owner may not need -if you catch my drift.

At lunch I watch him shut up the foot stools and lock the pad lock placed around the leaky water pipe and the cloth box which harbours all the specialist tools, can’t be too careful, you have no idea who is about trying to steal your patch or nesting spot in Ripper Square.

This tiny part of London, on the perimeter of the market, isn’t enough to provide for a starving self. We all must make my own fortune – and I and the lad have just spotted fortune’s fool. Sticking out like a sore thumb… we see an old lady bent double over a basket of newly baked bread. I stew on the idea of letting her pass, she is but an old lady and has made these crusts to feed herself. Although… we are both growing lads after all, in a not so lenient society, maintained by the fortunate - not the needy. We need to eat, and come to think of it a scavengers meat stew would accompany those loafs most agreeably.

Approaching in his practiced clandestine manner from behind and avoiding any loose cobbles that could give him away while I keep high and out of sight, he then launches himself at her in a disingenuous tangle of limbs, but in his effort ended up scolding a passer-by for his clumsiness of getting in his way. He is no longer as concealed as before. No matter. You don’t get to reach your eleventh year in this square without being apt at talking yourself out of a pickle, let us hope he can. The unknowing mark carelessly drops our dinner on the floor through fright at the confuffle she is now witness to in the ally. However, fortune shines on my ally once more for the passer by here seems to have spent all his working quota in The Blind Beggers Public House on the upper west corner of the square this dinner time judging by his whisky slurred words. This, coupled with and his incapability to stand up like every other adult member of the poverty line says to me it could work this in our lad’s favour. Propping the drunk’s frame up against the leaky brickwork, the shoe shiner gets to thinking.

“One too many ah Mr, your family must be having you ‘ome soon ah, perhaps some flowers for that Mrs of yours to make up for being late ‘ome ah?” He slurs what I think to be a yes and falls forward into our nimble thinking boy yet again, his whisky drool dripping from the side of his mouth.

This is becoming tiresome; I stretch my wings in frustration. If this was my hunt for supper, I would have closed the deal by now and swoped in on my prey.

The intoxicated fool finally begins the jaunt up the ally, my associate turns to the moth-eaten woman and insists on offering his services as a chivalrous good citizen and helps her with collecting up the crisp breads. He stoops with a smile to pick up her bakes as does she. A loaf is in hand… He is away.

Darting in and out of the clusters of people he runs for refuge to inspect our catch. I glide overhead following his route by peering through the channels between the houses. But to be honest our boy has no need to run, it’s not like a bent double old prune could catch him.

Then, abruptly, a youth grabs him by the collar and hauls the bread winner around the corner, pinning him up against a damp wall under a viaduct, where not even the clattering rails could overwhelm the thrashing of our hearts. I land on a lamp post, my talons clicking one by one on the cold metal as I attempt to get a birds eye view of the situation. I could tell that yob wanted our bread, but we weren’t going to give it up without a good reason, or a bloody nose, not after all the confuffle with the drunk we have just went through to get it.

***

I, a small-fry shoe shine boy try squaring up to my assailant but he has my arms pinned up above my head and any attempt to wriggle renders my knuckles bare of skin against the harsh bricks. I look up and around to see if my pal is about, I spot his silhouette aloft a gas lamp. Then, to my surprise, a tiny framed girl peeps her head around an iron bar jutting out from the wall across from me, the right sleeve of her over coat as frayed as my shirt. She let out a little cough.

“I told you to wait around the corner Flo. This business is not of any of your concern,” ordered my pursuer.

This is why he wanted the bread, to feed his little sister and he can have it for all I care; Flo seems fraught with fear, colder than I am and if I’m honest the bloody nose is most likely to be my own.

What would you have done? ... I wanted to give the bloody nose not receive one.

I tip my gaze upwards once more and send my sorry gaze up to the gas lamp before I wiggle my wrist loose and offer the loaf in Flo’s direction. She scurries over and politely takes the bread with a bow of her head. And her bother backs off with sibling in toe and exits the viaduct. I check the gas lamp once more but my aerial assistant has disappeared… will he go in search of his own dinner, scan the fields for a vole through utter impatience at my dashed attempts. At least one of us will eat. I begin the short walk back towards Matilda’s café. Maybe she has some left overs from the days specials she won’t mind being charitable with.

As Luck would have it when I reach the front door to the café, Matilda is just locking up for the night.

“Good evening Harry, blind me have you been in a scuffle? Look at ya’ shirt! I saw your work station was all shut up shop, figured you were on a break but then I had some bobies on the beat pop by wanting their boots polished and I had to send them to George coz’ I had no idea where you were. Sorry ‘arry I know you need the money. But don’t you worry, I left both you and Feathers a little something, yours is in a bowl out back and his is in the usual place so enjoy the pair of you. Got to be honest though, such an odd pairing, a shoe shine boy and an owl, most lads your age have pals who aren’t nocturnal or have feathers, but then again most lads don’t have talons to claw your eyes out so perhaps you got a good thing going looking out for one another.”

I smile and thank Matilda and she curtsies and leaves for home. She has a proper home, four walls and a fire, maybe I will too one day but for now my bowl is summoning me in the ally out back. Hopefully, I won’t be eating alone tonight…

The aged, demoralised sun finally dips underneath one of the many ash engulfed clouds. The last sights which meets her curious gaze is that of me, a young man, still a shoe shiner by trade sat on the cold dusty cobbles, bowl in hand and barn owl by side picking apart our supers: his was an unfortunate rat that didn’t dodge the chefs broom quick enough and mine, a warm meat stew and staling end of a loaf too hard for a beak to break apart but once left to soak in my bowl for a minute Feathers should welcome the warming tasty side to accompany his rodent.