At the Admiral Nelson

At the Admiral Nelson

The Kid was back.

The artist flipped over onto a clean page, abandoning the sketch of the card school that had held his interest for the best part of an hour. He paused for a few seconds to fix the face, then his hand began to arch over the paper, strong clean lines for the head and neck.

Talk about a rose amongst thorns! Half the faces in here looked like they'd escaped from a Breugel, which was, of course why he came, braving the terrible beer and the permanent tobacco-smoke peasouper. But The Kid was something else, something else altogether; and in here he stuck out like .... the artist struggled to find something other than the old cliche and eventually settled for one of his Gran's expressions, The Kid stuck out in this dump like a good deed in a cruel world.

He grinned to himself, realising the only person in there who stuck out more than The Kid was himself. It had taken several weeks for the regulars to get used to him, and now he was more or less ignored. Unless some homesick sailor at the maudlin end of his night ashore came weaving over to demand a portrait to send home to wife, or girl or mother. Usually he agreed, it was easier than arguing, his usual fee -- half a crown and a bottle of stout. He had more sense than to drink the muck on draft.

He watched as The Kid went over and spoke to the man behind the bar, who shook his head. It hadn't taken the artist long to work out that this place wasn't just a pub. It was also pawn shop, accommodation address and fence for half the docks; and he had occasionally wondered how many of the bottles behind the bar had avoided an appointment with Her Majesty's Customs and Excise.

The Kid was arguing but it was no good, nothing for him today. Just as there had been nothing the other three or four times the artist had seen him ask. Once every couple of weeks or so, The Kid'd turn up at the Admiral Nelson, obviously just off a boat on one of the coastal runs, and ask and every time the answer was no.

He looked down at the drawing, tilting the page and then his head. Nah -- too saccharine, he'd made the poor little bastard into something out of a Victorian street scene, Poor Little Joe Lost in the Snow. He strengthened the chin and darkened the eyebrows: better but still not right.

Start again. Broaden the focus, take in more of the torso. The Kid still had some of his puppy fat but, if he didn't run to seed, he'd probably turn into a powerful man. There was the promise of strength in those shoulders, those hands. His hair was longer than the last time the artist had seen him; fashionable and all that but probably a mistake -- there was a beautifully-shaped skull under all those waves.

The Kid ordered a pint of mild, presumably to stay in the landlord's good books. He certainly didn't look to be in any hurry to drink it, and who could blame him? He took his beer, sat in a corner and pulled a small book out of his pocket. He didn't look old enough to order beer in the first place. How old was he? At first the artist would have guessed 18 or 19, but The Kid had one of those faces that would stay more or less the same throughout the owner's lifetime and tonight, in the corner, with that tired, disappointed droop to mouth and nose, he didn't look a day over 16.

From the vast height of his nineteen years and four months, the artist felt a faint, almost paternal care for his unwitting model. Nothing that young and beautiful should be out on its own on a night like this. He felt a pang of something entirely unpaternal and squelched it with the ease of long practice. That sort of thinking was all very well at the Three Feathers or the Rose and Crown, but at the Admiral Nelson you were liable to get your head kicked in for looking at a bloke with *that* on your mind. Just 'cause he looked like Little Lord Fauntleroy's less fortunate cousin, did not mean The Kid was a safe subject for speculation.

There, that was better, still not quite right, but when was it ever? He had no illusions about his own talents. Some of the regulars had taken to calling him Rembrant and that was as close as he'd ever get to immortality; but there was a satisfaction to be had from art he'd never found anywhere else in his short and not particularly pleasant life. He was making something: this drawing, all his drawings, something only he could make in quite this way, his way. Making his mark.

He tidied up the outline of the pea-jacket and jersey. Pity it was a drawing really; that skin cried out for paint. Be a bugger to get right though. How to get the pale perfection without making it look pallid or even corpse-like? He'd better go and have another look at the Reubens in the National Gallery. One of his teachers has waxed lyrical on the "nacreous perfection" of Reuben's nudes and, although he had had to look the word up, it described The Kid's skin to a T, especially now the faint tan of summer had faded.

Jesus, he looked miserable sat there, head stuck in his book, defying the world to notice he was on his own. Wonder if he'd like a drawing to send home to Mum or to the faithless whoever she was who didn't write the letters he hoped for? Perhaps he'd just like someone to talk to; and you never knew your luck, maybe he'd like someone to go home with.

First things first though, the two bottles of beer he'd already drunk were making their presence felt. Time to brave the horrors of the Nelson's khazi. He rolled his sketchpad into a cylinder, jammed it into the pocket of his army-surplus greatcoat and shouldered his way to the side door.

It was bitterly cold outside, he could see his breath steaming as he made his way round to the narrow alley to the privy out back. Once there must have been a lavatory in the little shed but the pan had been smashed sometime in the dim and distant leaving nothing but a hole, which the uncertain aim of generations of drunks seemed mostly to have missed. He paused at the end of the alley to roll up his trouser legs a couple of inches.

That pause might have saved his life. As he went up the alley and the noise of the wind was cut off, he heard a cry from the yard up ahead. He went forward, expecting to find some pub patron fallen on his arse. Instead he arrived just in time to witness the murder of Terence "Mack the Knife" McVitie by two members of what the broadsheets would call "The Pellegrini Gang" and the tabloids would call "The Maltese Mob".

There was a light in the yard, a single dim bulb in a lantern high overhead. In a corner formed by the pub and the privy lay McVitie, already bleeding to death from multiple stab wounds to the throat and chest. Over him stood his murderers, bending down to pick him up and hurry him away to the grave that was never found.

They heard him come and turned towards him, their faces white and shocked in the dark horror of the yard. For a second nobody moved, and then he turned and fled, back up the alley, towards light and people and safety. But this wasn't his place and it was theirs and, before he could get out into the street, he was brought down by a low tackle.

He landed, winded, and turned, fast as an eel, lashing out with fists and feet. One booted foot caught a wrist, a knife went flying into the darkness and the owner cursed and searched in the shadows as the two men on the ground struggled for advantage, trading blows, hampered by their coats and the narrowness of the alley. Then the searcher gave up looking for his knife.

The artist heard rather than felt the kick, heard bones break, heard his own voice howl in agony and then, mercifully, nothing.

The two men never found the knife; it lay hidden in a broken grating until the police found it next day. So they settled for working him over with their feet. Then, having room in their MG for only one body, they took McVitie and left for dead the man they knew only as Rembrant.

Later they would realise they had left behind them the man who would, not only testify against them in court, but who would also draw them and their victim with such accuracy that not even the police in their Boss's pay would be able to deny knowing them.

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At least books never let you down. He settled into his usual corner, took a pull at the pricey muck the landlord called "mild", and opened it at random.

"I am resolved to seek the baths of all the western stars until I die."

Thankfully he turned to the beginning of the poem and began to read, rolling the words around his mind like toffees, feeding off the sense and the music; so deep down in it that at first he did not notice the pub was emptying. It was not until someone trod on his feet in his hurry to leave, that the sailor saw what was happening.

He grabbed a passing arm. "What's up?"

"Someone's done over Rembrant. They 'ad to call in the filth."

He got to his feet. The busies'd probably have something better thing to do with their time than chase after under-aged drinkers, but it didn't do to give the bastards any excuse. He jammed Tennyson into the pocket of his jacket and slipped out with the rest.

'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' his arse, it was bloody freezing. He turned up his collar, hunched his shoulders and jammed his hands into his pockets, as the icy wind made a dive inside his jacket and up his sleeves, grabbing at every inch of exposed skin.

A clock somewhere struck half past nine and he turned towards the Seaman's Mission: where the cleanliness only just made up for the godliness.

What a dirty, rotten, lousy trick. Poor old Rembrant. What had he ever done to anybody? Sat in his little corner scribbling away, doing no harm to anyone and someone had turned him over. Poor bastard didn't look like he had two ha'pennies to rub together either.

His stomach twinged and he remembered he hadn't eaten since breakfast at the Mission. He turned over the pennies in his pocket, just enough for a fish supper if he walked back.

Oh fuck. He clenched his fists in his pockets. Thinking about how little he had left just brought it all back.

He should never have sent the money. It had seemed such a good idea a couple of weeks back, she'd been skint for as long as he could remember, surely she'd write back if he sent money? He ought to have known it wouldn't do any good. She'd made her decision two years ago, chosen that black bastard over her own son.

The smelly warmth of the chip shop hit him in the face, but there was no queue and the skinny girl behind the counter loaded his fish and chips with extra scraps.

Back out into the street, juggling the fresh-from-the-fryer food, burning his mouth as he tried to cram it all down before it got too cold. He hated it when they were all cold and greasy.

Well, that was that. He had fourpence to last until teatime tomorrow when he was due back on board for another trip to fucking Rotterdam.

She might have written to say thank-you. Come to that she could have sent it back if she wasn't going to change her mind. Bitch.

Don't think about her, not now, didn't do any good and it only made him mad.

Jesus, it was cold.

What a life. Run away to sea and see the world. All he'd ever seen was the docks of half a dozen dingy North Sea ports, each dirtier and smellier than the last. Two years of hanging around, two years of waiting for letters that never came, two years of waiting for that bitch to come to her senses.

The deserted street stank of rotting fruit and the oily, fishy, almost seaside smell of the river. An empty cardboard box bowled past him, like tumbleweed, shedding ribbons of paper which coiled round his ankles and clumped in corners. He stamped and twisted to get free, scraping his shins with his boots to break the strands.

Well fuck it. Fuck her. He'd had enough, more than enough. To hell with the Rotterdam run, to hell with putting up with skippers who thought you ought to be grateful for their lousy jobs, to hell with worrying about being found out. He could pass for eighteen if he had to, he was tough and he could take care of himself, not like that poor bastard back there.

Piet at the Mission had the right idea. Go to Rhodesia or South Africa, where they had to call you Boss and you could kick their arses if they didn't. Be someone.

He was walking faster now, trying to warm himself with movement. Be hot there, that far South. Better than freezing your bollocks off here anyway.

Piet said you could earn good money, if you weren't too fussy about how. Well, he wasn't, not now. Fuck 'em, fuck 'em all.

He'd write from South Africa and tell them, that'd show them, that'd shown them both. He didn't need them, he didn't need anybody.

Head down, eyes watering with the wind, he walked faster and then faster still, until eventually he was running, running as though his life depended on it.

THE END

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