and round they go, Reg chasing after and growling like a bear. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, so I clap and cheer, loud as the rest. I’ll show them I’m the kind of fellow who can laugh at himself. I’d be a welcome addition to their number. With the suddenness of a thunderclap, they stop. I stop also, but a second behind. They stare at me, chests heaving.
Reg draws his hand across his mouth. ‘Who said you could laugh?’
‘No one,’ I mumble.
A chill crawls down my thighs, right to my boots. Reg pokes me in the chest.
‘You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?’
‘No sir!’ I exclaim.
I stumble under the assault of his finger. Someone kicks my legs from under me and I drop to my knees, hard and heavy as a sack of turnips. Wilfred wrenches my arms behind my back and holds them tight. Reg presses his nose to mine. He has sharp eyes that see through me as easy as through a piece of glass, right to the other side.
‘You little shit. Asking for trouble, aren’t you, eh?’
‘You tell him, Reg,’ says Wilfred, his expression even more weasel-like, if that were possible. ‘How about a new game?’ he murmurs in Reg’s ear. ‘A man’s game.’
The world breathes in, like that moment before a storm begins. I hold particularly still.
‘There’s a thought,’ says Reg.
He unbuttons his fly with luxurious deliberation, licking his lips to ensure I am paying close attention, which I am. He slides his hand into the gap and draws out his porker. It’s near long enough to tie a knot in. The other lads grin, their eyes slick with knowing.
‘A proper man’s pipe, that’s what I’ve got. How’d you like to blow bubbles on this?’
I try not to breathe. I mustn’t show I’m spooked. If he smells fear who knows where this may end?
‘Even better, how about a ride on Jumbo?’ he purrs. He tugs his pocket linings inside out. They look uncommonly like elephant ears. ‘Little girls like a circus ride.’
His coven giggle, wheezing like witches. It takes every ounce of courage to affect an air of boredom. I roll my eyes lazily and shuffle away.
‘Not so fast,’ leers Wilfred.
He wraps his arm around my throat, shoving his nadger into my spine. It’s rigid and I’m damned if I can understand why. I have no leisure to solve the conundrum, for I am far too exercised by having the life crushed out of me. Reg swings his hips from side to side and his sausage swings too. He takes a lumbering step forward.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Only a penny a ride.’
‘That’s a bargain,’ says Wilfred.
‘Cheap at half the price,’ quips another, until the whole nasty lot are egging him on.
‘Put him down!’ blares a woman in a hat as broad as a soup tureen. She waggles her finger in the direction of Reg’s privates. ‘You can put that away and all.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says me, Reginald Awkright. He’s half your size.’
‘We’re only playing.’
‘You’re throttling him.’
Wilfred tightens his grip. ‘Nah. Bit of rough and tumble, isn’t it, Bubbles?’
‘Tumble!’ I squeak.
‘See?’ says Reg. ‘He loves it, don’t you?’
Wilfred squeezes again, like I’m a set of bagpipes.
‘Yes!’ I rasp.
‘I said, leave the poor mite be,’ she snaps. ‘He can’t hardly breathe. I know your sort, Reginald.’
He lets out a whickering laugh. ‘I know your sort and all, Jessie, you wet-kneed slapper.’
The remainder of their banter is lost in the roaring between my ears. Reg and his rabble seem a long way off. Or rather my head seems a long way from them, detached from the neck and floating away. It is most peculiar, very like the feeling I get when I – she—
I splutter into myself. ‘Get off me!’ I shriek.
Whether it’s the command in the woman’s voice, or the shock of me fighting back, I’ve no idea, but Wilfred loosens his stranglehold. I tumble forwards, giving my elbow a blinder of a crack and half stagger, half crawl away as fast as I can. Jessie picks me up as easily as you might a dropped glove. I don’t cling to her like a drowning man to a lifebelt. Not me, not by a long chalk. I just need to steady myself on her arm, that’s all.
‘There you go,’ she says, setting me upright. She rounds on the gang. ‘As for you lot, play nicely or bugger off.’
She commences patting dirt off my jacket. She smells of trapped violets.
‘I’m all right. Don’t need help,’ I say half-heartedly.
‘You tell her,’ jeers Reg. ‘See? He doesn’t want you, you old whore.’
The boys snigger at the insult. I wait for the blubbing to start. But she tips up her chin with something that looks uncommonly like pride.
‘Don’t you just wish you could get a morsel of what I’ve got to offer!’ she hoots.
‘As heck as like,’ snarls Reg. I’ve never seen a man’s eyes so famished. He points at me. ‘I wouldn’t touch you with his,’ he declares.
Jessie furnishes us with a bray of merriment, turns with extravagant grace and promenades into the throng. I watch her go, mightily impressed. I’ve no idea why Reg called her old, either. She’s as pretty as a picture. The sort of woman a chap would be proud to have on his arm. However, I have precious little opportunity for approbation.
‘Just like a girl,’ he growls. ‘Ganging up on us.’
‘I’m not a flaming girl,’ I sigh with wearied emphasis. ‘You blind or brainless?’
‘You cheeky little sod. You are what I say you are.’
‘That’s right,’ says Wilfred, still determined to get on the right side of Reg. He grinds his fist into his eye socket. ‘Run to Mama,’ he whines. ‘Wah, wah, Mama!’
Reg twists his unpleasant attention from me to Wilfred. My face cools as the awful heat is taken away.
‘Who are you calling Mama?’ he says.
‘I didn’t mean you, Reg, old pal. I mean her.’ He stabs a finger in the direction of Jessie. She’s long gone and he is pointing at a vacancy.
‘I don’t see anyone.’
I concentrate on making myself unnoticeable. Things
