23. Near Mrs Twist’s Grave

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

THROUGH THE GATES OF TIME, Part 23

There was a mist descending as night fell on the cemetery the other side of an old church as Roger, May and the two children made their way through a wrought iron gate, looking for the boy Oliver.

There was something far from pleasant about the old medieval church with its smoke-stained crumbling stone walls and one of the windows was even broken. The street was dark as a country night with barely a flicker of light from the nearby windows of grubby terraced cottages.

Roger took out his mobile phone and switched on the torch app. A shaft of white light cut through the mist and smog, giving the world a look of being out of time and out of space.

“Not such a nice place,” he grumbled, “and my battery won’t take much of this.”

“Then switch it off. We’ll manage as best we can in the dark.” advised May.

“You’re right, of course,” muttered Roger.

One click on his phone and the light went out and the world around seemed darker than ever. May shivered. “I wouldn’t have liked living in the olden days when it was as dark and smelly as this,” she muttered.

Somewhere far off a child was crying, a baby maybe, and further away, lost in the fog, a dog was barking. Nearby they heard the sound of footsteps coming ponderously towards them, footsteps that paused as though the walker was watching them, but they could see absolutely nothing. The night was truly dark and Roger was tempted to switch his phone light on again, but resisted.

A smell of coal smoke filled the fog with a sudden acrid wave, creating a kind of pungent smog that made May cough and Roger wish he was anywhere but there.

“My teacher says that this air is called pollution and we shouldn’t breathe it,” contributed Apple, shivering. “And I’m freezing,” she added.

“Then your teacher is right,” confirmed Roger, “and no responsible parent would want their kids to breathe it. Come on. I’ve had enough of this. I only hope we can find our way home.”

“We should try to get back home now,” coughed May, “this is no good for anyone, and if we see the boy, what are we going to do about him? He lives here, it’s his life-time, and he’d be lost in our time. We can’t take him back with us, that’s for sure.”

“We could say goodbye,” murmured Apple, “it would be the decent thing to do.”

“I can see him,” interjected Frodo, “look, over there…” He pointed and they could all just about make out through the almost impenetrable gloom the shape of a boy standing stooped by a rough wooden cross. A breeze blew their way, the smog seemed to lift for a moment, and a hint of moonlight shone down on the sad figure of little Oliver in his twenty-first century jeans gazing forlornly at what they could only suppose was the grave of his mother.

“Come on,” decided Roger, “it’s hello, goodbye and home we go!”

“Nah then,” came an unexpected and harsh voice, “what we got ‘ere, then? Grave robbers, I’ll be sure, or what else would they be out for on a night such as this when good Christian folks are by their hearths? I’ve been watchin’’ you, I ‘ave, an’ what I saw told me that you’re up to no good.”

Roger spun round and saw the policeman. He was dressed not unlike policemen of his own age, but his uniform looked untidy with a row of tarnished buttons down its front and crumpled, as if it needed a good wash and ironing. His helmet, though was very similar to what they were accustomed to, as if time had wrought few changes to a constable’s head if you forgot the huge moustache that decorated his upper lip and shadowed much of his face.

“We’re wanting to say our farewells to that boy,” pointed Roger, “we met him in another place and at another time…”

“Ah,” grunted the officer, “young Twist. Up to no good, is that lad, the scurvy wretch. Dressed in blue trews as if he was special, an’ e’s not, no way, lost both his folks, he has, and I reckons that’s plain careless…”

May was suddenly angry at what she perceived as an obviously callous and unsympathetic attitude to the young Oliver. She turned and faced the officer, noted mentally what she thought was an obscenity of a moustache, which typified in her mind a preconception of a cruel Victorian policeman, and decided to take him to task.

“Look here!” she said, “I don’t know who you are or what you think you know about Oliver, but he’s a decent kid who needs a bit of love and help. It’s a harsh world, you know, for boys like him, and he needs any help decent folks can give him.”

“Now madam, you tryin’ to talk your way into jail?” sneered the policeman, “you coming all hoity toity on me an’ after trouble, are you? An talkin’ o’ trouble, that boy’s trouble, an’ I knows it, an’ there’ll be a space for him at the workhouse when ‘is gin-soaked aunt passes on, you mark my words.”

“Who you callin’ gin-soaked, peeler?” came the voice of Oliver Twist, “you’re a fine one to talk, you are, staggerin’ like you does from the pub any night o’ the week! Oh, I’se seen you, that I has. Seen you fall over, too, and seen you fumblin’ at ladies as they walked with you.”

“You cheeky young urchin!” roared the policeman, raising his hand and threatening to thump Oliver as hard as he could.

“You touch him and I’ll have you up before a magistrate before you can say Jack Robinson!” snapped Roger, “A boy can say his tearful goodbyes to his folks without interference from men like you in this green and pleasant land, surely?”

“There’s nowt pleasant nor much that’s green round here,” grumbled the policeman. “Now all of you, beat it! It’s my job to lock the gate to this ‘ere graveyard, an’ I’m only movin’ you on afore you get locked in. There’s no need to take on so, I’m only doing’ you a favour, so help me. So beat it or I’ll run you in easy as winkin’.”

“Come on, May,” muttered Roger, “and you kids…” He looked round to make sure that the uncharacteristically quiet Apple and her younger brother were listening to him, but they were nowhere in sight.

They had left that place as if they’d never been there, and the black night was closing in.

“Apple,” he called, “Frodo… where are you?”

“Frodo! Apple!” shrieked May.

But the night didn’t even reward them with an echo of their own voices. Yet far off, a baby still cried and the dog still barked.