What Am I?

By Xanpet

HISTORICAL NOTES: Prostitution, including child prostitution was rife in London in the 1800's. There were some 17,000 people living in Ratcliff and 30,000 in the parish of Poplar so it was impossible to police. The story of Dr. Barnardo is well known and only passing reference is made to it here. The ragged school is still there as a museum and is worth a visit. The reference sources for this story include publications by Steve Jones and Wicked Press. These are great historical resources.


Chapter Two: I Am a Stable Waif.

Hello mate! Lurking. What, am I not allowed? I think I'm allowed. I think I've earned a good lurk, thank-you.

Now? I'm following you. 'Cos it bugs you of course. Know how cute you are when you're angry? So I'm irritating. You think I'm WHAT?! Oh that story. Well that's really more of an, 'I was'. If this patrol's boring you we could go somewhere. I'll give you my life story part two. Right here? - You have a thing about graveyards have you? Okay. Where was I when I threw you out? Oh yeah, on the street. Well what's new?

Actually that was. I'd lived all my life in the workhouse and now I was lost. I fled down towards the warehouses and wharfs of Wapping and the river. By the time I felt safe enough to slow down I was a mile or more from Ratcliff. I moved between the alleys. There were tall buildings, tall cranes and even taller men. "Oi, you." I was grabbed by the collar, "What you's doing 'ere, you oik? Don't come it wiv me, boy. Thieving in'cha. Peelers gonna lock you away!"

"I ain't, I ain't. Le' me go, I ain't done nuffin', you berk."

Well that was a lot ruder than it sounded and the bloke was seething, when a lady's silk purse appeared and clocked 'im one on the noggin. Hit him on the head - sigh.

"Pick on someone yer own size, Frank. Poor little bleeder, can't a kid go for a walk, without being manhandled by a wanker, like what you are?"

He snarled at the whore, standing as she was, with one hand on her hip and the other ready to swing the bag at him again. She probably had rocks in it an' all 'cos he fucked off without another word.

"I knows yer dun I?" She said. "Now remind us Billy or William?"

"I'm Wil'."

"What you doing out 'ere all on your lonesome? Lost your little friend 'ave you? You's ought to be in class. Needs your learning. Come on, I'll walk you back to the Highway."

"NO!" I yelled at her, "Can't go back, not never." And then I started to cry. The floodgates had opened and I couldn't stop. Big blobby tears ran down my face and dripped in dewdrops off the end of my fireman's. What? It was poetic until that point. Okay. Okay. I was inconsolable anyhow.

"There, there. Don't take on so. See 'ere 'ad a nice little earner last night, so's 'ow about you's an' me grab us a Shangri and you can tell me all about it?"

Not translating - guess.

We went to a pie shop and once we were seated and served she said, "Now tell Carrie-Ann all about it."

"I can't."

"Well it in't that bad. Things is always better…"

"Not this."

"Oh Wil' pet, what 'ave you done?"

"Something awful."

She gave up after that and busied herself with other stuff until we'd finished. She asked for the bill and paid, leaving tuppence ha'penny in the plate. She fixed her hair and tied her bonnet, using the shop window as a glass, and left. I followed, picking up the coins as I went. My tip - Don't leave money on the table!

I followed her back to her digs, a small attic atop one of the tall warehouses. Carrie-Ann Douglas never used a pimp. The lodgings were clean with a back bedroom for business. It stunk though - like a tart's boudoir ha ha. Talc, sweat and sex.

She said I could stay and made me up a cot in the corner of the room. I spent all day there with Carrie-Ann. She told me how she was saving to go hopping in September. Clients came and went. Joke. Get it? I calmed down. By the time she tucked me in that evening, I was fantasising about being there forever.

"Carrie-Ann?"

"Yes Wil' pet."

"Are you going to be my mama?" I was so innocent. She smiled and kissed me on the forehead.

"No luv, just your friend."

I went to sleep happy. Why? 'Cos I'd been kissed. By a girl!

The days rolled into weeks and took on a kind of rhythm of their own. Carrie-Ann worked and I studied. She took on extra clients so that she could buy me books when she caught me stealing them, and inks, paper, pens and a slate. She cleared a chest 'o' draws and bought me clothes and the like. It was the first time I had ever owned anything. Even the clothes I stood up in belonged to the workhouse. I can't tell you what that felt like, to be an individual, to be me at last.

Carrie-Ann took me hopping in Kent. I'd never ever been outside the city. The air was so clean I choked! I dreamed of moving to the country and living like the children in the books I read.

I even started to teach Carrie-Ann herself. I said she should learn to write her name. It wasn't right that she always had to make her mark even with me to witness it. "People will think you're just an ignorant cockney."

"But Wil' pet, I am a cockney and so are you."

"No I'm not. I'm better than that."

"If you say so luv, if you say so."

One evening a client came what I'd never seen before. I let him in and then went back to my arithmetic exercises. He spoke to briefly to Carrie-Ann and then came right over to me.

"How much for the little boy?"

Carrie-Ann was furious. "Okay. That's it. Out. I don't need the likes of you."

"Well if you don't want to make money…"

"How much money?" They both turned and stared at me. "How much will you give me?"

"Wil', NO!"

"I just wants to know how much?"

He held my chin in his broad nahday and named his price. It was three times what we'd have got for Carrie-Ann.

"Done." I said.

She grabbed me and pulled me to the sink on the far side of the room. "You don't know what you're doing, petal. Please don't do this."

"I do know - I'm not a kid and you're not my mama, you said so. We needs the money and I don't want to live on handouts. Rather I went up chimneys?"

"Well you listen to me then and hear me good…"

She laid out her rules. I was not to lock the door. I was not to make any promises and do nothing I was uncomfortable with. At the first sign of trouble I was to holler.

"Don't let him hurt you Wil'. He's a big bugg…bloke."

He was at that and it had been well over two months since the fiasco with Whittaker, which had resulted in my leaving the only home I had ever known. Still I coped. I'd learned to concentrate on small details, his hair, his veins, his navel and when facing the wall to find a spot and focus on it. This chap didn't take long anyhow and was more than pleased. Fat and greasy had always said I was good.

Carrie-Ann however, was not pleased. When he'd gone she shook me 'ard, "What you go and do that for, you stupid little bleeder? Think this is a game do ya? Think I chose this?" She stopped and stared at me as if seeing me for the first time.

"This was why you left wasn't it?"

No reply

"Well wasn't it?" That was accompanied by another shake.

"Yes." Was all I could say and that almost in a whisper. I felt so meek, small, dirty and ashamed.

Then something amazing to me, my mother figure began to cry. I wrapped my arms around her waist. Like a bizarre tableau of the Madonna and child we huddled there, even though cold jisim was still oozing from between my cheeks.

She finally told me I could work but no soliciting on the streets. She would vet the clients and I had to keep up with my learning. "After all you don't want to grow up an ignorant cockney now does ya?"

Her attitude softened. "Let me draw you a tub and find a salve. Do you need a salve?"

Mummy was back and that was all that mattered to me.

I worked; she worked. I studied; she studied. We began to talk about Christmas. Carrie-Ann liked Christmas. To me it was just another day but she made it sound so exciting and new. We'd decorate and go to Church and have a slap-up tea. Play parlour games, maybe even skate on the river if the ice held. Never happened. I hate Christmas now. Everyone avoids me on that day, Dru, Angelus, and you will too if you've got any grey ones at all, 'cos less than two weeks before that, my mother left me.

I was sat on the stairs while she busied herself ready for the evening's clients. She didn't want me in the room while she bathed. I squinted at the Latin verb tables in front of me. "Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant," close the book. "Amo, amas, amant, shit," open the book. "Amo, amas, amat," I hardly noticed the gentleman coming up the stairs 'til he was past me. "She ain't ready for you's but I can say who's calling." I said.

"No you won't boy." Another voice. The two gentlemen eyed me, one with distaste and one with derision. The rougher looking of the two, went towards the door. I started to follow but the other grabbed me. He was well spoken with glasses. A 'librarian' type, not a little likes our Ripper. Yeah, I know who he is. What d'you think I am - stupid? And just as dangerous.

He held me fast. I kicked and struggled, sliding on paper, my books tumbling down the stairs as we grappled. I cursed him loudly. "Berk, dratsab, wanker, cunt, let go, let go, CARRIE-ANN."

He placed his hand over my mouth. That was it. I became hysterical. I can't stand that for obvious reasons. I had a complete panic attack. I bit him, clawed at his face, his eyes. Then I began to retch. Still he didn't let go until the other emerged from the lodgings, wiping his hands as if he'd been touching something foul. Suddenly I was unrestrained and slumped unceremoniously to the floor. I spat bile and venom. "Hadn't you better go in and check on your Whore?" Said the librarian type.

"Isn't she his mother?" Asked the bully.

"No."

"Yes, yes she's my Mama and you's better not have hurt her or I'll kill you!"

They laughed. Book man came right up to me and whispered low, "Tell her she's been a stupid girl and she is to do the right thing before you both get killed."

"Am I your errand boy?"

"You, you're nothing."

And then they were gone. Their footfalls echoing my books, further down the stairs.

When I entered our rooms I couldn't see Carrie-Ann. I called her softly but she didn't answer. The nausea began to return in waves. I opened the bedroom door. There had clearly been a struggle but there she was, lying on the bed, apparently unhurt. I said nothing. I just stroked her hair. Then curled up next to her and went to sleep.

When I awoke it was late and I was in my own cot. I sat up and watched as the lamp took Carrie-Ann around the house.

"What yeh doing?"

"Oh Wil', I thought you'd sleep till morning, pet."

"What are y' doing?" Panic was already rising in my voice.

"Now I don't want no carry on." She said, "You just stay calm and you'll be all right."

"You're packing."

"Now luv, there's no need to start."

"Where are we going?"

"William - please!"

The world stopped turning, just for a second, and I held my breath. She was leaving, leaving here, leaving me.

My eyes stung, my vision blurred, I couldn't speak or move or think. The spell was broken by a knock at the door. We both looked. Carrie-Ann was the first to move. She began to pick up bags, handing them to the bloke who was standing there. "What about me?" I'd never felt so timid and weak.

"Now listen luv. I can't explain it and you wouldn't understand if I did, but I gots to go. You'll be safe if you's ain't wiv me. Rent's paid up for the month and Lotty will look in on you every now and then. I'll get word when I can. Be brave Wil' pet, take care."

And as she left I thought I heard her say, "I love you."

Frozen I was, locked, rigid to the bed. Then I shot up and across the floor. I ran down the rickety stairs, my bare feet pattering on the wood. Trip; crash, over the Latin texts still lying at the bottom. My knee instantly spewed blood, my palms stung, my toe throbbed, but I was up and to the door. Out into the cold, unforgiving, December night. The Hackney carriage lights swung in the distance and the clatter of hooves was already no more than an echo in the pounding of my blood. "Carrie-Ann." I screamed to the night like my words alone would catch her. "MAMMA."

I sat in a doorway, at the end of the block, until daylight and all that day, just waiting for her to come home. When I finally returned in the evening it was to a bonfire of our stuff. So much for the landlord and the rent, the whole warehouse was ablaze.

I had nowhere to go and no daisies to go in. Don't ask - think about it. For the next few days I wandered, begging what I couldn't blag, filtching what I couldn't buy. However, winter draws on as they say. - Yeah that was a pun - see the English do that. The Big Smoke was getting colder and smokier. You could have sliced the fog into chunks and fried it with bacon. Down in Stepney - like the bells - there were these donkey sheds and you can get your mind out of that gutter right now, thank you. They was warm 'cos of the donkeys and kept clean. Fresh straw an' all. Costermongers owned them and a number of boys used to sleep in them.

I had no sooner ingratiated myself into this clique, than a chap came round with a toff. - Nah, not our Angel, though Irish all the same. Didn't really take a lot of notice, 'cept he was offering us a little schooling, at a ragged school in the Mile End. Well, I enjoyed school. It was my salvation and 'sides thought I could find stuff to half inch and flog. Just get a dictionary and keep up! It was warm and the schoolmistress was pleasant. Had a kind smile. Soon this paddy geezer 'ad a hostel opened an', after this coppernob popped 'is clogs one night, he said he'd never turn no one away. I liked it. It was like being back in the workhouse.

After a six-month flirtation with life on the outside, I was back in the institutionalised setting I felt safest in. Over the next few years I learnt a trade and everything. What? Oh, what. A cook. Didn't know I could cook, well I can. Right good too. You should let me cook for you.

Couldn't last though. Remember me and luck? Not best mates.

In the evenings I used to read to the younger boys. Anything and everything, penny rags, novels, Greek myths, fairy tales and the Police gazette. Very popular that was. This lad, Davey something his name was, came to me one day and asked if I could read for the workers in the factory, where he was doing his apprenticeship. I hesitated at first on account of having my own things to do, however he was persuasive and offered cash. It all started off well enough, but then I was approached by a fella in the slash house, lavvy, loo, bog, call it what you please. I think it's called cottaging now or visiting the tearoom. He was also very persuasive and offered cash. Caught? Oh yes. By the Irish doctor himself no less, on a tour of placement sites.

Well he may never turn a boy away but I was fourteen and no child. I was also caught in the unspeakable act. That's what it was called in law at that time. So out on me ear I was.

It's getting late you know, maybe I should walk you home. 'Cos I'm a gentleman - okay so that's a lie, but seriously there are big, bad, scary things in Sunnyhell, and one of them wants to walk you to your door.


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