Spoutwell Lane

London’s a dangerous place for anyone.

I didn’t learn this in my younger years. Up until my twelfth birthday I lived the sheltered life of a rich man’s daughter, without the rich man - My father had obviously seen nothing in me; ‘little skinny’ as my mother so affectionately called me; and had therefore left shortly after I was born.

My mother was a lady. Born and bred. Only circumstance left her alienated from society. Her high hopes were instead realised in me, who she taught everything she had ever learnt, and spoilt to a dangerous degree.

Then, on the first day of my twelfth year there suddenly wasn’t anyone left to call me little skinny.

The house I’d lived in suddenly wasn’t mine anymore. And because there had only ever been my mother, I now had nobody. Not even the brash comfort of an unfeeling lawyer. Of course, I was only little at the time – I didn’t quite understand the situation. I don’t quite understand how it happened still. All I know is that that day there was one more street child wandering alone around London.

I spent three years attempting to trick and thieve my way out of poverty, my heart getting chipped and battered by the constant cruelties. I lost my breeding, my distinctive high-class accent. I lost more weight than I had thought resided on my originally skinny frame. The first winter nearly killed me, let alone the second and third. I avoided the workhouse, the mysterious matrons who preyed on girls my age, and the cops who were always on the lookout. But how was I left? Unfeeling, cold, merciless.

And then, out of the blue Thames fog, there was Spout.

Someone to feel about. Someone to hate, or love…

I still can’t forget the day I met him.

* * *

“Oi!” someone called, brash-voiced against the genteel clatter of Leicester Square, “Oi, you! Little skinny!”

I stopped, my hand half into a gentleman’s pocket, fingers just tensed around the chain of a pocket watch. Alarm rang in my ears and ‘Police’ flashed through my head. Abandoning my prize I began to run like wildfire.

“Oi!” called the voice again.

A jerky head motion showed a tall, ragged boy close at my heels. Dark hair flying he called out again, fingers reaching dangerously close to my ragged coat this time. Unfamiliar with the alley I’d run into, I turned a wrong corner and ended up in a dead end.

“I ent got nuffin!” I barked, wary he might knife me.

“What d’you think you’re doin’ on the Blood patch?” he threatened, pinning me to the wall with a fistful of dirty shirt and coat, “D’you have any idea ‘oo you’re messin’ wif?”

“I didn’t mean nuffin’! Besides, you ent the ducks and geese!”

“Don’t give me that! ‘Ow old are ya?!”

“Fifteen,” I spat.

“Fifteen? Do you haf any idea ‘ow hard Blood’d thrash ya if ‘e found out what you were doin’?”

“I ent done nuffin!”

“’Ow long you been on the streets?” he asked, face close to mine.

“Free year,” I replied, his hot breath mixing with mine.

“An’ you don’t know what’s what still? ‘Ow’re you still alive?”

“I-”

“You’re a bleeding lucky bastard, that’s what.”

“I’m not a bastard,” I cried, enraged.

“No, you’re a soddin’ girl,” he replied, throwing my coat and shirt out of his grasp, striding off without a backwards glance.

That was the first time I met Spout. Within a week I’d met him again. This time, he seemed to seek me out, although that may have simply been my overactive imagination. I was, after all, on his patch.

“Alright little skinny,” he whispered in my ear, just as I was about to pull a purse from a young lady’s satchel.

“I’d be more right if you didn’t turn up whenever I was about t’get summat,” I hissed.

The girl looked round from the book she had been examining on a stall and screamed as she saw me crouched by her satchel.

“Dammit,” I cried, kicking my legs into action.

In another back alley, I whirled round to face my follower, outraged.

“What’cha think you’re doin’?!” I hissed, “’Oose patch am I on now?”

“Mine,” he replied breezily, pushing straggly black hair out of his eyes.

“Well, do you mind sharin’?” I asked viciously, “Cos I ent eaten nuffin but a rotten apple this last week.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t mind,” he said, tongue tracing teeth, “But, seein’ as ‘ow it’s my patch, I’d expect fifty percent o’ your profits.”

“You ent gettin’ nuffin from me,” I glared.

“Then you ent gettin' nuffin from me,” he grinned, leaning casually against the brick alley wall.

I fumed silently for a moment.

“Ten percent,” I offered.

“Fifty,” he replied, picking at his grimy nails.

“Twenty.”

“Fifty.”

“Twenty-five,” I growled.

“Done,” he said, wincing before spitting on his hand and offering it for me to shake.

I forewent the wince and spat on my own.

“Nice doin’ business wiv ya, Miss…?”

“Fi- er, Williams. Miss Williams,” I coughed, attempting to cover up my blunder.

“Miss Fi-er Williams,” he replied, still grinning, “The name’s Spout.”

“Spout?” I asked, eyes narrowing at the obvious falsehood.

“Cos my patch is Spoutwell Lane,” he explained, “I ent givin’ you my real name, jus’ like you ent givin’ me yours.”

“My real name ain’t important.”

“An’ neither’s mine. Now, you ent gettin’ no respect wi’ a name like Williams, so let’s make you a new one.”

“I ent needin’ a new name,” I protested, glaring again.

“If you want ta keep breathing, aye, y’do,” he looked around carelessly, “I ‘ereby baptize you… Sparra.”

“Sparra?” I repeated.

“Aye, after that Sparra on the roof,” he pointed, “Spout and Sparra, how ‘bout it?”

The bird was definitely not a sparrow, but I paused. We surveyed each other for a moment; both grimy to the point of being a black, hair in rat-tails, clothes ragged and yellowed… Both stubborn to a point of desperation. His dark eyes concluded their survey with a glance at mine, already fixed upon his dark face.

“Aye, alright,” I nodded.

“Right then, Miss Sparra,” he said, “Let me show you your new patch.”

Did I need him? Yes and no. I hadn’t been fairing too well on my own. Nobody did in London. If you wanted to get somewhere, you needed contacts. So Spout was my first. Our little patch expanded, invading at first the surrounding alleys, then taking Cresswell Avenue along with the bunch of petty pickpockets who ran there. Within a few years we had the whole of Cheapside. Ten years later and we were the best Tea Leaves in London. Sure, we fought each other back-and-forth from one end of Whitechapel to the other, but being thieves, we were thick as such.

Spout grew into a tall, handsome young man. I grew into god knows what. Most of the people we dealt with believed I was a boy. And for the sake of appearances, the majority of the time I dressed as such. The other part I found myself increasingly obliged to act the part of a lady in order to deceive gentlemen into walking into side alleys, there to be robbed of their last farthing, late at night. Perhaps it wasn’t the elegant occupation my mother had always imagined for me, but it paid the bills.

Spout and Sparrow, the notorious thieving pair…

We worked well together. His risk-taking coupled with my careful planning. His straight, full-on approach and my sneaking behind-backs surveillance. His violent vengeance and my subtle revenge. Two halves to a whole. Only Spout knew I was both Sparrow and Lizzy, the nightwalker who tricked men into alleys. Only Spout knew the real me. And in vain I believed I was the only person who knew the real Spout.

Did I want him? Maybe so.