Chapter 6
‘Get out of it!’ the bridge keeper shouted at Frankie, who was waiting halfway across the drawbridge, but the boy knew what was he was doing.
The keeper couldn’t raise the bridge while he stood there.
Cook hurried after him, hopping over the gap between the two sides of the bridge as the keeper started the diesel engine that worked the mechanism.
‘There’s only two bridges,’ Frankie explained as they stepped off the metal roadway.
‘The bridge keepers have to keep the ships moving, in and out all day. If they decide they don’t want you to cross, you can wait all day.
’ Cook turned and watched as the section of roadway clanked into its upright position.
There was a finality in the sound, like a prison door slamming shut.
‘This is the island,’ Frankie said, grinning.
It was an illusion, of course, but now they were on the island, Cook really could smell the sea more strongly.
There wasn’t any white sand. No palm trees.
But Cook could see how the place had got its name.
A bend in the river half a mile long, cut off from the city proper by an interlinked series of docks and canals, wide and deep enough to take ocean-going cargo ships from all corners of the world.
‘This is the high street,’ Frankie said.
A narrow canyon-like street led away from them, high walls on either side.
It was unlike any high street Cook had ever seen.
Rather than the usual collection of shops, the right-hand side was towering warehouses.
The other side was tenement buildings, reaching up five storeys, and yet more warehouses.
Metal gangways crossed the road at great height, presumably to ease the transport of goods from one side to the other.
The road itself was choked with horse-drawn traffic and children playing.
A group of young boys had tied a rope to the top of a streetlight and were swinging around it.
Further down, girls were chasing after a pedlar, pushing a cart of ice chips.
He turned back on them and they screamed, running away in mock terror.
To Cook’s left, a large metal gate guarded the entrance to a dock – Hermitage Basin according to a weathered sign.
Through the gate, a vast rectangle of water about the size of Cook’s largest field.
All around the edge of the water, freighters were docked next to huge warehouses.
Some of the ships were being unloaded manually – men streaming from ship to shore, carrying tea chests.
A larger ship was being unloaded by a crane on a massive shelf on the outside of the warehouse, sticking out over the water.
The busiest port in the world, Frankie had told him, raw materials and finished goods from every part of the empire.
Part of the torrent of information the boy had produced on the train journey up from Uckfield.
A strange place to live, Cook thought, as Frankie did his disappearing act yet again, this time down a narrow passage between two warehouses.
Cook followed. After twenty yards the passage opened up somewhat to become an alley – low houses on either side and, at the far end, a pub nestled alongside a larger building belching black smoke.
A painted sign on the brickwork answered the question before Cook asked it – the source of the smell – Empire Fast-Stick Glues, Established 1892.
Cook recognised the name of the pub from the correspondence he’d had with Frankie’s mum.
The King’s Stairs. A reference to an ancient right of access to the nearby shorefront, Frankie had said, dating all the way back to when all this had been marshes.
The pub was narrow, not much more than a low door and a grimy window.
Cook had pictured a thriving tavern, Frankie’s mum a wizened landlady leading rounds of ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ around the piano.
If this place was thriving, it was doing a good job of hiding that fact.
If Cook hadn’t known better, he would have assumed the place was derelict.
The door opened before Cook reached for the handle. A woman pushed her way through the heavy blackout curtains and threw a bucket of grey water into the alley, only acknowledging Cook once she’d done so.
She had a look of Frankie. Undoubtedly his mother.
She looked like she’d lived a hard life.
Her arms and cheeks were red, contrasting with her black and grey clothes.
From the way she’d manhandled the heavy bucket, Cook got an impression of strength – she looked like someone who meant business, not someone you’d want to get on the wrong side of.
‘We’re open at six,’ she said. ‘Don’t want any trouble.’
Cook looked back at Frankie, but the boy had disappeared. He realised she’d mistaken him for someone in authority. He held out his hand.
‘John Cook,’ he said. ‘From Sussex. Frankie’s staying with us.’
The woman straightened up, taking a proper look at Cook.
‘What’re you doing here?’ she asked.
‘We’re here for the party,’ Cook said.
‘Party?’ she replied.
Cook held up the present as evidence.
‘You wanted him home for the day,’ he said.
The woman shook her head, looking at Cook as if he were speaking a foreign language.
‘Frankie,’ Cook shouted. ‘You’ve got some explaining to do.’
But when Cook looked back at the woman, she was smiling.
‘Should have seen your face!’ she said.