LUDIC LOG

This is a ripe one, I think to meself as he crosses the bar. Sixteen if he's a day and he got that topper out of a coal chute. He's wearing it like it makes him look like a lord. Whatever it takes for the fare, I thinks, trying not to roll me eyes. I swear I can see him gurning, pulling on the menacing-doctor face while he walks. He's really concentrating. I'm surprised he don't poke his tongue out. He probably practiced in the mirror before coming out tonight. Make the sale, Marjorie, I tell meself.

"Ooooer, you're a fine figger of a man," says I. I put on the Cockney-crone voice real brassy like. These ones don't like it if they think you're from Windlesham. "A right gen'leman, oo are."

He eats it up. Easy money, I thinks the minute he opens his mouth. "Ah yes, my dear," he says. He's trying to put some bass in it. I swear to Jesus I'll laugh if his voice cracks. "I must say I am not well acquitted with these low sorts of establishments." Acquitted. Don't say nothing, don't say nothing.

"Ooo ah, you all dressed up in that finery! I shant wonder. 'Ow does a gel like me rate an or-dience with yez Lordship? Tee hee." I'm laying it on a bit thick, I think. If the lad had ever talked to a real girl in his life besides his sister, I'd be in real trouble. "I'd surely love to provide yez Lordship with some company on this loverly ave-nin'."

"Oh, would you?" he says. He's spotty and them's his dad's shoes he's wearing. He better not scuff them or he's in for a right thrashing when his little game is up. "I think you shall provide me with some delicatable entertainment indeed."

***

When we leave the Frog and Caverns, I think for about half a mo that I've underestimated him, as he's got a carriage waiting for him. Then I notice the livery on it: it's a rental. Poor bastard, he probably saved up all summer for this. I almost feel bad about it. Almost. At the very least, I decide to give him a real show of it. "Cor," I say, all swoony. "Look'er 'ere! Yez really knows 'ow to travel in style, dain't yez, Lordship?" I give him a wee goose and pretend to be drunker than you can get off the watery gin they serve at the Caverns. He got a glass when we were chatting, but when I went off to powder I seen him pour it out.

"Yes, indeed, my lady," he says, still affecting the to-the-manor-born talk. I try not to notice that he gives the driver a look when he lifts me into the cab, or that the driver is a weedy blond who keeps snickering. One of his fourth-form chums no doubt. "You will find that I travel in style."

The carriage has the name of the livery company right above the door. He probably doesn't even notice. Once we're on the way he offers me a choccy. It's grapes you're supposed to give, ya berk, I don't say. I'm never lucky enough to get laudanum with this lot -- too expensive -- but he's probably put a laxative or similar on it for a larf. I pretend to eat it and palm it when he's straightening his cravat.

***

After playing it up to the hilt in the carriage ride -- I even tell him I'm Irish, and call meself a "dirty hoor", even though I put on the Cockney hat earlier, and he don't even notice -- I regret it once we get to the rendez-vous. He tries to pass it off as "a little place he keeps for, ha ha, medical business when I'm in the city", but I swear on me mother's it's the equipment shed at Big School. There's rakes on the walls, honest there is. This time I actually do laugh out loud, but I remember I'm supposed to be drugged, so maybe he won't mind it. Sure enough, he goes into his bit just as I turn around.

"And now, my dear," he intones like a vicar at vespers, "the time has come for you to know the truth. I am not the wealthy aristocrat you thought me at all." He pronounces it 'aristocrate'.

"For you see, I..." and here he throws off the crepe overcoat he got at a costumers, "am the man known to your kind...", he starts fumbling about in his pocket for the shiver and blame me if he ain't forgot where he puts it and I'm trying to get me scream ready but it's hard to concentrate while he's patting about like he's lost his keys, "as Jack the Ripper!"

I give him the scream. It's a good one. It's more than he deserves.

***

After, he makes a scene. The young ones always do. I drop the naive act right after the scream; I can tell from the daddy's shoes and the rented carriage and the kitchen knife that he ain't gonna pay for extra, so extra I don't give him. Sure enough, like most of the ones his age, he's shocked to find out I'm in on the gag. When I ask him for a fiver he acts like I was the one what pretended to knife him.

"I'm just...well, I mean, I thought it would be a bit of a lark," he stammers. "I didn't know anyone else did it."

"Darlin'," I tell him, all brass, "this is how I make me living. Me and a dozen other girls in Whitechapel."

"But...for how long? How long has this been going on?"

"Since '88. Since they ain't caught him. And until they do, I expect. Mind you I don't judge. Whatever you want to play at to get your fun. I'm in no position, you understand."

"No, no, it's fine. I just...I thought I was the first."

"They all do, love. They all do."