Chapter 3
1876 – Christmas
Charles – Aged 16
It had been 6 months since that fateful train journey when he had left all he had knew but the feeling was just as raw. He had met Harry off the train at Kings Cross, and seen the new job. A stagehand, maintenance, for a man who was in the top 10 students in his class he found it hard to accept but he knew work meant survival so at 5 pounds a year he didn't turn his nose up at it.
He was in his lodgings; a small bare room with a cast iron bed, when a man called Charles Griggs introduced himself, Stout with shifty look about him. He was uneasy probably because the last person he knew with a smile like that was Ernst. Griggs had helped him get settled with everything, but too soon he realised Griggs wasn't all he seemed. Griggs had a slight tendency to fall into ill ways with no image of the consequences, nothing too bad and the other staff just ignored it. Griggs asked for him to join him dancing on stage it was extra money and as Griggs said any money was good money, he had realised that he had nothing else to lose the extra money might even help him get out of here, and so the Cheerful Charlies were born.
The first time on stage he nearly died, he wanted the ground to swallow him up he enjoyed dancing but not like this, a laughing stock of others. He couldn't even feel happy when the extra money came he just felt empty, he stayed because he had nowhere else to go. No school grades, no experience, no reference he could only get a job in something like this and he might as well stay where he was accepted by the other people around him. If his mam could see him now, god she would die of shame, he sighed he had thought about home again and the sense of loss came flooding back.
He had sent letters home every week with meaningless prattle about his life, keeping the dancing part out of it, he hardly got a reply the first one he did was in July.
My dear Charlie,
I am glad to hear you are safe and well, especially as you are in a job I always knew you would land on your feet. I am so sorry about this situation I cannot leave it but I can make sure you are not involved. I am fine and well before you begin worrying as I know you will do. I miss you dearly yet my love to keep you away is stronger, I pray you continue writing and do not dwell on the past too much.
All my love
Mam
He read it and sobbed; even now it still opened the wounds of that first time. To know his mother was not safe but defenceless to do anything, he realised this when he went to visit at the beginning of December. The once warm welcoming house was no better than a ruin, freezing cold with his mother wearing an overcoat inside, thin as a matchstick. It broke him he tried to get her to leave but mam answered she was a good Christian wife and she would not abandon her husband, she was too proud. Ernst had returned from the pub in such a rage, he had tried to stop him from hurting mam but Ernst had just taken him out. His mam ended up on the floor beside him she had just got up picked him up and walked him to the station saying never return, she couldn't bear to see him hurt. He left regretting his weakness vowing to get enough money to pay for a divorce for her.
Now on Christmas Eve he had never felt so alone the party at the theatre was good and everyone was happy but Christmas was for family and he was miles away, knowing that there it was just pain. He knew then there was no way out.