Tottie grinned, plainly delighted. "Oh yes, please master. I can wag my tail like anything when I am pleased." She took it as permission to stay, and I couldn't bear to say otherwise...
Slaveholder. Part two, Slaveowner.
Jim McMurty:
As I was going to learn. It is one thing to be a slaveholder, and another to be a slaveowner.
During the evening I dressed her wounds again and noticed how relaxed she was in her nudity in the face of a strange man. We talked a little.
"In the morning I'll go and get old Doc Shapiro to look at you. He is retired now, but he still looks after the girls and a few people from up and down the street. He'll know what to do."
"I'm ok Master, don't worry about me. I'll heal in no time if you take it easy on my back for a week or two. How about you just spank me on the twat and the tits?"
"Tottie ducks, I don't plan to spank you at all."
Her face fell as if I had just told her she could not have any sweets. There was something seriously wonky in her circuits.
"Please don't say that. If you don't punish me, how am I going to learn to please you?"
See what I mean? She's misfiring on at least one cylinder. I turned the conversation, thanking her for the delicious soup she had made. Her little, pinched face lit up, and she smiled, timidly, as if smiling had been a high-risk procedure in her recent life, and she had to be ready to snatch a smile back at the drop of a hat.
In the course of conversation I learned that she had never been registered for food rations, and she was using her former Master's ration books. There was not enough meat, cheese or butter for two, so she had lived mostly on bread and vegetables and a scraping of jam. She did not even have her own identity card. Mister Horrabin had never given it to her when he gave her away. I'll have to have a serious conversation with Mister Horrabin if he ever reappears.
Getting her registered with a grocer and a butcher was no problem. We just needed to get his books transferred to my address, and bob's your uncle. Pity she did not freeze on to Mister Ypsilanti's book too. I know a bloke...
Anyway, we sat about and chewed the fat. I put a coverlid over her shoulders to keep her warm, but she did not seem to feel the cold. At eight o'clock we listened to a play on the Home service, all about a lifestyle in which the household had a Scottish maid called Aggie. Hubby was a doctor and she knitted socks for soldiers, or some such bollocks, and she was worried about his good-looking young secretary (needlessly as it turned out). All in cut-glass accents that reminded me of some of our posher officers. (In our regiment, posher certainly did not mean less competent or less conscientious than the others. Just saying...) Anyway, it was all a bit far removed from the lives of an East End tattooist and an escaped slave. We giggled through it. I drank a glass of pale ale, and she sipped from my glass, not enough to make an ant put its umbrella up, but she seemed happy.
At bedtime she again asked permission to use the bathroom. With my permission she got her toothbrush out of the carrier bag, and cleaned her teeth thoroughly, using ordinary lifebuoy toilet soap, then washed her hands, face and neck. She asked for a blanket and settled down to sleep on the hearthrug. I wasn't having that. I picked her up and plonked her on the bed and pulled the covers over her.
"You sleep there Tottie, and don't argue about it." Not that she would dream of arguing about anything. I got into bed behind her and cuddled her gently, listening to her soft, slow breathing until I fell sleep. It felt good to have a warm body to cuddle with.
In the morning she was up by seven thirty, making us both a cup of tea, without milk. We went down to the tattoo parlour and worked together on cleaning and tidying everything - I could easily get used to how much cleaner and newer everything looked - then we went to Alfredo's for breakfast. Doc Shapiro was just leaving as we arrived and I asked him to come and give Tottie a once-over.
"Sure enough, my girl, would about 10.30 suit you?"
Tottie looked scared stiff, but wouldn't say anything. The Doctor saw her hesitation and guessed, correctly, what the problem was. He addressed himself to me:
"Maybe oneish would be better? Then you could be there as a chaperone, Jim."
She relaxed immediately.
It was a patchy morning, just a few little jobs, an ear-piercing, a small red rose tattoo and a London Rifles badge. In the breaks, I started a list of things I needed to do for Tottie pretty sharpish.
1. Get her to a dentist.
2. Sort out some decent clothes for her.
3. Define a few ground rules for her so everything isn't so random and seemingly arbitrary.
4. See Stan the Man our friendly local wide boy about her ration book and if poss. an identity card.
Just before one, Doc. Shapiro stuck his head around the shop door. I was just putting away after my last client of the morning, and we walked up the stairs together. I opened the door and walked in. The curtains had been taken down to wash, and I had never seen the windows so clean. We found Tottie, naked as usual, in the tiny kitchenette, buttering bread for the corned beef and lettuce sandwiches she was making for our dinner. The Doc took one look and got her to lie face downwards on the settee so that he could examine her.
"Sorry, young lady, but I have to ask. Did Mr. McMurty do this to you?" I could tell by his tone of voice that he did not really suspect me, but Tottie did not know him.
She started to weep. "No, no, he has been nothing but kind to me. It was my previous master, Mister Ypsilanti. I lived at his house in Dynevor Road, Stoke Newington until the day before yesterday. He died in the night and I ran away and came here. Mister McMurty rescued me."
By now Tottie was really scared. She was sure that abandoning her former Master's body and stealing his property were serious crimes, and Doc Shapiro would report her to the Police. I, on the other hand, knew that the old medic sailed well on the wrong side of the law, and would do no such thing.
