A Sneak Peek At Angel’s Share, a prequel to the series.

I always knew I was goin’ to be all right, no matter what.

It ain’t reasonable, I know, considerin’ that the entire bloodstained universe ain’t fair, but that’s what I believed. And still do. Now, before you get to thinkin’ that I’m one o’ them credulous bastards what believes sunny days are just over the horizon, I got to add that me bein’ all right is one o’ a very small bunch o’ beliefs that I have any time for.

I’m gettin’ ahead o’ meself. Tellin’ you what I think about life is supposed to come later, once I’ve gotten into me story. When you’re hooked, I’ll can give you the benefit o’ all the wisdom what I’ve been stowin’ in me hold all these years.

So, back to the beginning.

I’m not much different from most folks: one ma, one da, no sibs. Ma didn’t live too long. Fact is, I never knew her to remember much, so Da was me leadin’ hand, so to speak. ‘Cept he weren’t there most o’ the time, and when he was, I couldn’t wait for him to leave. A hard voice me Da had, and a harder fist, what he often used on anyone he could best, and a fair slice o’ time on me — when he could catch me. The women what he called me step-moms he larmered hard and regular, but they could run off, an’ they all o’ them eventually did, an’ nobody to say them anythin’ but congratulations for gettin’ out from under the thumb o’ a rare nasty bastard.

Until I was more or less grown up and lookin’ after meself, there was always one o’ them unlucky women — quite a few o’ them over the years too, ‘cause women thought Da had the face o’ an angel — and me too at least, that’s what one o’ them told me. She went on to talk about other parts o’ him, too, but I’ll spare you the blushes what comes o’ hearin’ what’s best left unsaid. Anyway, there’s nothin’ like livin’ a lie, so Da called himself Angel from then on, an’ since he was me pa, I got the name, too, like, “Yer Angel’s brat, ain’tcha?” That’s when I wasn’t bein’ called “Hey you!” and “Wharf rat, look lively or I’ll give you such a bloody smack.”

Round about the time that most boys are gettin’ their small sliver o’ education from the local whoever what dishes it out for cash, I was still innocent and ignorant. Well, ignorant, anyway, ‘cause paid education ain’t in the cards for a sailor’s son living’ down in dockland where nobody goes ‘lest he has to, an’ nobody stays innocent long when there’s plenty o’ work that’s done mostly at night with no questions asked or answered. I was lucky. I found me an old codger what was willin’ to teach me to read, write a bit and get beyond countin’ on me fingers and toes, which was usually bare and right some cold for half the year. Back then, I thought I found him, but I know now that it was him what did the finding. He seemed ancient to me at the time, but now’s I think about it, I’d be callin’ him a young feller if he showed up on me doorstep this mornin’ the way you two did.

His name was Al. Not Alan or Albert, nor Alphonse, Aloysius nor Alouitious neither. If he ever had more than the two letters to his name, he never told me, nor anyone else. He were a seaman, you could tell. Short one finger on his left hand where he decided that losin’ a knuckle were better than a quick trip below with the anchor, what he’d got himself tangled up in by reason o’ bein’ a bit slow when it was let go from the cat-head. He told me that one himself, when he was enjoyin’ the pint he always drank at the end o’ our lessons in book learnin’. He finished the tale by saying, “Let that keep you respectful o’ the fact that it ain’t all in books, lad.”

He had more’n a few o’ such sailor’s yarns. He was a sea-daddy to me, even though we was on land the whole time. He made me honour me ma what had left me, an’ me step-ma’s as well. He protected me from me Da more’n once, too, specially when me progenitor — how’d you like that word he taught me? — was after drink taken. It was Al what made me un-scared o’ Da, because I saw he weren’t scared o’ him, and that showed me I didn’t have to be, either.

When I think back, I can still hear him gettin’ me started our first day with the numbers. “Now follow me, lad,” he said and began the old sing-song: pom, pom ti pom. Two ones are two, two two’s are four, two threes are six…and so on up to twelve twelves, which came a good many days and weeks later.

He taught me readin’ as well. Where he got the books, I’ll never know, but most o’ them was some old and real musty, like they’d been too long in a cellar and were only a damp day away from bein’ a rat’s mattress. There were books with numbers, what had their white spaces around the edges all scribbled up by whoever had owned them first — and maybe second and third.

An’ there was the book that Al made me wash me hands before I touched ‘cause he said it was what Holy writ. He never exactly told me who Holy was, ‘cause he had a notion that if you named him, her or it, you’d be followed by no end o’ bad luck to the end o’ your days, which you’d be wantin’ to come right speedily, it would be that horrible. Al said it was all right to say the name o’ the blokes who had done the actual writin’ down, because they was Holy’s amanuensis. There’s another pricy word he told me. Al told me Holy had many o’ them amanuensises, each o’ them a righteous sort, what had little patience with the rest o’ the world. They were mostly “Woe unto ye…” folks, although there was one what Al called Singin’ Solly who wrote a whole lot about his wife. Al told me it was all about love, an’ that I should put it out o’ me head until I was much older, an’ since I was o’ an age when boys steer clear o’ girls anyway, I did just that. Back then, I didn’t have the experience to tell if it were true or one o’ those songs the lads sing when their mothers ain’t listening.

Al liked me to read him stuff he already knew by heart, so he could correct me. First time he did it, I near dropped the book. I was gobsmacked that he would know not just the next word or two, like you do when someone gets you goin’ on a song you’ve sung before, but could goon and on, page after page, with me readin’ along like we was doin’ a chorus together.

 He sure liked the writings o’ those old folks with names like Hosea, who was all about destruction; Nehemiah, who was a bit more cheerful but not by much; Job, who Holy never gave an even break; Jonah, the unlucky one who every sailor fears to meet, and jaw-breakin’ Habakuk, the sad sack, who was a rare old whiner to Holy about them who he thought deserved to be smited or smote or however you say the word for gettin’ whacked. Thanks to all o’ them, I heard more than I care to remember about smitin’ and gettin’ smoted by Holy, who for sure wasn’t what you might call friendly. But what can you do with or for a god who says from the outset that he’s some powerful an’ serious jealous? Try not to cross him, I guess. But there were so many ways how you could bring down Holy’s wrath, from messin’ with his name to covetin’ your neighbour’s house, wife, ass, ox, manservant, maidservant or whatever. I wasn’t interested in anyone’s ox, ass, or manservant. What’s more, I didn’t know no maidservants, so I decided to keep it that way for safety’s sake.

Many a time, Al would end up our readin’ sessions with Holy’s Ecclesiastes, a preacher-man who was long on advice. “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, when the evil days come not nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’” That were one o’ Al’s favourite bits. On and on he’d go together with me readin’ right to the end o’ them little numbered bits until we both fetched up with the last words “… of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Then he’d mutter his favourite saying: “It ain’t all in books, lad.”

That was when he’d wink at me — a kind’a twitch o’ one blue eye under a great awnin’ o’ an eyebrow — and call for a pint. “So tell me another,” I’d ask, an’ he’d spin a yarn for me, perhaps from some book he’d lost along the way, perhaps somethin’ what had happened to him.

One time, he looked into the middle distance and spoke low and soft. “I believe my love more fair than any she belied with false compare. “Go on,” I said. “Tell me about her,” but by that time he had his nose in his pint, and wouldn’t say no more — till another day, when perhaps he’d give me the words that came first, but only if I could remember what he’d said before. It made me listen, I can tell you, and learn right quick. Made it fun for me, like a competition ‘tween him and me, even when what he was teachin’ me wasn’t stories or songs.

Part o’ what he taught me was that there are different kinds o’ words: the grubby work-day words that I’d learned growin’ up by the wharves,

and the book-learned words that hang together in an orderly fashion what makes sense. Al showed me there’s more: words with power, the ones what sing to themselves and make you glad that they’re comin’ out o’ your mouth. He made me swap between the ways o’ talking, so that one day I’d be soundin’ all o’ a piece like we was loadin’ barges and slangin’ the sonumbitch in charge, and the next, speakin’ distinctly and with great precision as if I actually was the muck-a-muck who gives the orders.

Always we’d come back to what he called po’try. Stuff like, “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings that then I scorn to change my state with kings.” But he’d never tell me who she was what he had loved so much that when he said the words the corners o’ his eyes filled up, so’s he had to knuckle them dry an’ sniff.

After five or more years, when Al had me to the place where I was lookin’ for more to read, learn, and figure out on me own, one mornin’ he weren’t there anymore. The publican at the inn where Al lived told me he’d gone away with money owin’ on the slate, so I paid up for him from what I earned runnin’ errands, crewin’ the harbour ferry, fetchin’ stuff, cuttin’ bait, rowin’ seamen to their girls, and girls to where the seamen’s ships was anchored — all the ways a bright lad can make a handful o’ coins until his Da shows up and took it away like it was his right and privilege, along with

a thump across me ear, like as not. I never cried from that, but I cried for Al. After a couple days when he weren’t where he should a’ been, they fished him out o’ the harbour, all nibbled by fishes so’s I could only tell it was him by his hand.

Da found me when I’d got back from showin’ the harbour master where Al’s finger wasn’t, so’s he’d be buried proper with a name over him even if it was only two letters. I was blubbin’ quietly to meself in the room in the chandler’s shed Da called his, what I paid for so I had somewhere to be when he was off at sea doin’ stuff he didn’t tell nobody. He had sneaked in dead quiet, and had been standin’ there until I heard his foot move and I looked up, me nose all snotty and me eyes raw from rubbin’ them. Instead o’ his usual paternal greetin’ o’ a quick slap up the back o’ me head, he laughed at me. Without thinking, I jumped to me feet and hit him on the nose hard enough so’s I heard it crack. And then when he was doubled up, eyes and nose runnin’ into his hands, ‘cause that’s what you do when you get hit a good shot on the beak, I was around him and out the door before he could get himself together. I’d seen him fight more’n once, and he was good — meanin’ real nasty. Head-butting, eye-gougin’ and bitin’ if he was losing, and doin’ kick-face and knee-crotch if he got the better o’ someone.

So I kept goin’ till I was dockside, lookin’ behind for me avengin’ parent, feelin’ desperate, when a sailor caught me by the shoulder, pointed me at an empty dory that someone had just tied up and left there, dropped his kitbag into the stern an’ told me to get weaving. Off we went, me rowing, him lookin’ at me like he was wonderin’ about what had made me lose me professional calm with which I usually plied me trade as a seasoned wharf-rat. Over his shoulder, I seen Da on the dock, wavin’ his fist and shoutin’ words nobody should yell at any man, least o’ all his son. The wind was from where we were going, but the sailor heard them right enough to guess that I was adrift.

“Need a berth, all found, no questions asked?” he asked. I didn’t even think about it. I nodded and kept pullin’ on me oars. “Then swing a bit to starboard into the lee o’ that big schooner what’s gettin’ ready for sea.” I nodded again, this time beginnin’ to ask meself what I was gettin’ into.

“Five years,” he said, like he’d heard me brains at work. “Are you willin’ an’ able?” “Yes to both,” I said. Just then the wind blew me a few more words from Da that are not fit for writin’ down, so I nodded again.

“I’m Smitty to me friends,” he says to me. “Leadin’ Hand Smith to the officers on the quarterdeck. What do they call you?”

“Angel’s son,” I started to say, but it just came out “Angel.” 

“You said you were willin’ an’ able, so Able Angel you’ll be.” 

And that’s how I got me name and ran away to sea.