Master Georgie Read Free Page B

darkening room with the watch ticking and glinting on the table.
    At last Master Georgie looked up and the dread became palpable, for his face was drained of colour and his eyes as bewildered as my own. I ran to him then and put my hand on his shoulder, and though I don’t believe he knew who it was, for a fleeting moment he inclined his head and rested his cheek against my wrist. Then he shrugged away and stood up.
    ‘We must move him,’ he said, addressing the boy. ‘You must help me move him.’ He was pleading rather than asking.
    ‘Is it to the Infirmary?’ the boy wanted to know, at which Master Georgie shouted out, ‘God damn you, no.’ After which outburst, visibly struggling to gain control of himself, he added more reasonably, ‘I know this gentleman. It will be kinder to his family if I take him to his house.’
    Seeing me standing there he ordered the woman to put me into another room. ‘I ain’t got no other room,’ she said. All the same, she hustled me on to the landing and endeavoured to shut the door in my face, only I fought her and she gave up. She had no power in her arms and her breath stank of drink.
    It took strength to unclasp the hands from the bed rail and turn the body over. Quick as a flash Georgie pulled down its shirt, for decency’s sake. And now it was my turn to cry out, for it was Mr Hardy who lay there, grey hair lank as seaweed, lips purple as the plums in his orchard.
    The woman came to me then and whispered, ‘Who is he, dearie?’ but I stayed mute. She tugged at my hair to make me tell, and I never even whimpered. She could have pulled out every hair on my head and still I wouldn’t have told, for that would have been a betrayal.
    1 need a conveyance to take him home,’ Master Georgie said.
    The boy nodded in the direction of the window. ‘There’s a van out in the alleyway and a horse in the stables. I’ll need money.’
    ‘I have money,’ said Master Georgie, digging into his pockets.
    The woman had sidled closer to the bed, her eyes concentrating on the watch on the table. I guessed what she was about and darting forward snatched it up and held it fiercely to my chest. She struck at me, catching me a blow on the ear which sent me tumbling backwards on to the bed. My leg touched Mr Hardy’s ankle and its fading warmth sent such a shock through me that I jerked upright as though galvanised by lightning.
    I gave the watch to Master Georgie. He was standing at the window looking on to the alleyway below. He took it without acknowledgement, flopping it over and over in his cupped hands. So as to be less noticeable I sat on the floor with my back to the stained wallpaper.
    Presently, the duck-boy returned. He said the horse was being put into harness and we should go out the back way, through the scullery and into the yard. Master Georgie said, ‘Good, good,’ and stared down at the bed. Plucking the trousers from off the brass rail he began to steer Mr Hardy’s feet into the funnels of cloth; there were corns round as beads embossed on his white toes.
    The woman, her assistance required, flapped her hands and shrank away. I stood up, prepared to help, but the boy got there before me. When they humped the breeches over Mr Hardy’s backside, his shirt rolled up and I was taken by surprise at the limpness of his private parts. I’d seen them before, one Easter when he’d felt compelled to show them me, only that time a thing rigid as a carrot had stuck out between his fingers.
    Master Georgie and the boy carried him down between them. He was a well-built man and his weight sank him in the middle. The woman, who had been given money to open up the yard, defaulted and scuttled back into the room, whining she had palpitations. I was clutching Mr Hardy’s boots, and when his hat tipped off on the bend in the stairs I harvested that too. His eyes were closed but his mouth sagged open, from his being jogged.
    I had to squeeze past to unlock the scullery door into the