Dodger

right?’
    Dodger tried to pull some of the stuff away from the old man, who groaned and mumbled, ‘Trust me on this one. I am banged about like nobody’s business, fool that I am, and at my age too! Should have known better, silly old fool. I reckon I have eaten more than my peck today and so it’s time to die. Be a lovely lad and get me the liquor right now, there’s a good boy; there’s a sixpence and a crown and five pennies in my right hand, and they’re still there ’cos I can feel it, and that is all for you, my lad, you lucky boy.’
    ‘Here,’ said Dodger, ‘I’m not taking anything from you, Grandad!’
    The old tosher shook his head, such as was left of it, and said, ‘Firstly I ain’t your grandad really, you boys only give me the name just ’cos I’m older than what you lot are, and by the Lady you
will
take my stuff when I’m gone, ’cos you are a tosher and a tosher will take what he finds! Now I knows where I am and I knows there is a bottle shop just round the corner, up there downstream. Brandy, I said, the worst they’ve got, and then remember me fondly. Now piss off right now, or be followed by the curse of a dying tosher!’
    Dodger came out of the next drain cover at a run, found the rather greasy bottle shop, bought
two
bottles of a brandy that smelled as if it could cut a man’s leg off and was back climbing down the drain almost before the echoes of his leaving Grandad died away.
    Grandad was still there, and was dribbling something cruel, but there was something like a smile when he saw Dodger, who handed him the first open bottle, which he threw down his throat in one long glug. Some of it spilled out of his mouth as he beckoned for the other, saying, ‘This will suit me right enough, oh yes indeed, just the way a tosher should go.’ Then his voice dropped to a whisper, and with his one relatively good hand he grabbed at Dodger and said, ‘I
saw
her, lad; the Lady, standing large as life just where you are now, all crimson and gold and shining like the sun on a sovereign. Then she blew me a kiss and beckoned to me and scarpered, only in a ladylike way, of course.’
    Dodger didn’t know what to say, but managed to say it anyway. ‘You’ve taught me a lot, Grandad. You taught me about the Lady of the Rats. So look, get the taste of the sewer out of your mouth, and then I reckon I can pull you out of here to somewhere better. Let’s give it a try,
please
?’
    ‘Not a chance, lad. I reckon if you were to pick me up right now I’d fall to bits, but if you don’t mind you will find the time to stay with me for a little while.’ In the darkness there was another liquid noise as Grandad took a further draught of the fiery brandy and went on, ‘You was a bloody good learner, I will say that for you; I mean, most of the lads I see doing it just don’t have the nose for toshing, but it done me good all these years to see how you was treating toshing like one of them professors going through all them books. I seen you just look at a whole pile of shite and your eyes would twinkle like you
knew
that there was definitely something worthwhile under there. That’s what we do, lad – we find value in what them above throw away, what they don’t care about. And that means people too. I seen you toshing, lad, and knew you had toshing in your blood, just like me.’ He coughed, and bits of his broken body moved in a rather ghastly dance. ‘I know what they call me, Dodger – king of the toshers. The way I see it, that’s you now and you have my blessing on it.’ What was left of his mouth smiled. ‘Never did know who your dad was, did you, lad?’
    ‘No, Grandad,’ said Dodger. ‘Never knew and probably neither did my ma; don’t know who
she
was neither.’ Water dripped off the ceiling as Dodger stared at nothing much and said, ‘But you were always Grandad to me, I certainly know that, and if you hadn’t given me the knowing of the toshing I would never have found out about all of them places down here in a month of Sundays, like the Maelstrom and the Queen’s Bedroom and the Golden Maze and Sovereign Street and Button Back Spin and Breathe Easy. Oh yes, that place saved my bacon a dozen times when I was still learning! Thank you for that, Grandad. Grandad . . .? Grandad!’
    Then Dodger was aware of something in the air, or perhaps the subtle sound of something that had been there and then gently ceased to be so. But there was still something there; and as