The Elf Service, Episode 6

In which Maddie Sharp explores the Old Town with the Newsies

All over the city children post letters to Santa Claus and they go undelivered and unanswered. Until Irving Jefferson founds the Elf Service, that is. The Elf Service is the story of charity, journalism and mayhem, the extraordinary story of an extraordinary young man, his extraordinary plan to make Christmas happen for the children of his city and all the extraordinary ways in which that plan goes extraordinarily wrong.

The Central Post Office was in the New Town, where it belonged, with all the other unimpeachable marble mausoleums and museums. All the great indifferent classical frontages that lined the calm and orderly squares, the tall columns, the blank, serious windows, the freshly painted and neatly spear-tipped railings.

There were mysteries there. Who knew what went on behind those implacable front doors. The bronze plaque outside said ‘Lawyer’ or ‘Doctor’, a list of names, ‘Barnaby, Barnaby and Bear’, or just one gnomic one, ‘International Businesses’, ‘Shipping and Disquisition’, ‘Electrifaction’. The doors were shut, however, and would not be opened to anyone who did not have an appointment. The curtains were half-drawn, the voices from the area below muffled, the steps outside untrodden.

There were mysteries on the other side of the Gardens, too. But different ones.

The New Town ran up the slope from the docks and the gleaming city development by the river, up to the main street where the big institutions like the Krampus department store and the Metropolitan hotel stood.

On the other side of the main street had once been another river, but it had been so bridged and built over that it only appeared now by the way, a glimpse of dark water between balustrades, the sound of rushing from under a pavement.

One of the things that had been built over it was The Gardens, a patch of severely restrained and ordered green in the middle of the City. It was small but much effort had been to cram as much outdoor entertainment into it as could be managed. There was the boating pond, a bandstand, a running track and a carousel, a fountain covered in over-excited sea horses and bare-breasted young ladies with ewers, which was permanently closed for repairs, a playground and a pet cemetery and a large number of statues of slightly larger than life town worthies, none of whom looked terribly pleased with the resident population of pigeons.

The sheer density of these amenities meant that there was no easy way to cross the park, and all paths had to swerve and double back and sidestep. What this meant in practice was that most people simply didn’t use the pavements at all, blundering onward through sandpits and flowerbeds, down unofficial but altogether more direct routes.

This was precisely, for example, the approach that Tin Lizzie habitually took when crossing The Gardens, squeezing through herbaceous borders and clambering over fences, which did not make Maddie Sharp’s life any easier, as she was considerably taller than the girl and was wearing clothes with fewer holes in. Clothes she wished to keep that way.

Irving Jefferson had told Maddie to go with Tin Lizzie to see the part the newsies played in the Elf Service, and now here she was, scrambling over an obstacle course across The Gardens, towards the other side.

Towards the Old Town.

On the other side of The Gardens, the other side of the old river, rose a steeper, higher hill. And over that hill heaped the Old Town.

Where the New Town was all white stone and classical pediments, the Old Town was soot blackened granite and gargoyles. It was a place of steep sided, blind courts, of cobbled alleys and dripping stairs. Here upper floors loomed out over the street, casting doorways into shadow, and above them was a tangled roofline of towers and crumbling chimneys and creaking weather vanes.

If there had ever been bronze plaques outside the doors they had been stolen long ago, or worn away to just ghosts of themselves, but there were mysteries here too. Only these were dark mysteries, sinister ones. A scurrying in a dead end, a shout abruptly cut off somewhere in a maze of alleys, a weathered door standing agape like an unwelcome invitation.

Tin Lizzie had come to the foot of a steep staircase that ran up out of The Gardens between tall, grim buildings, into the Old Town. She waited, watching Maddie Sharp struggling through a holly bush.

“You make heavy weather of it, don’t you?” she said, conversationally.

“And my tailor bill will make heavy weather of you, pipsqueak,” said Maddie, “Where on earth are we going and why are we going this way to get there?”

“Old Town,” said Tin Lizzie, happily, “It’s where most of the letters come from, after all.”

“I guess most of the kids in the New Town can afford to get their letters hand delivered,” said Maddie, finally extricating herself.

“Most of the kids in the New Town don’t need to ask Santa for presents,” said Tin Lizzie.

“They may not need to but I bet they still want to,” said Maddie.

“Come on,” said Lizzie, “The Captain and Wilson are waiting for us.”

“And will either of them - whoever they are - explain just what it is we’re doing here?” said Maddie, following Lizzie up the stairs, “Because I begin to suspect that you’ve had experience resisting interrogation.”

“We’re part of the system, aren’t we,” said Lizzie, evidently proud to be so, “Vital to it, Jefferson says.”

“That’s what he says to anyone he wants to do something for him,” said Maddie.

“No, but we are, aren’t we?” said Lizzie, “Because we’re the ones who make sure the system works.”

“Then I’m sure it must be running quite perfectly,” said Maddie.

“Like you say,” said Lizzie, “Anyone can write a letter to Santa Claus. Anyone. And believe you me, there are a lot of anyones in this town. Some real anyones.”

“Oh, I know some of them,” said Maddie, and, “Have you deliberately chosen the longest, steepest steps in the Old Town?”

“So Jefferson needs to know that the letters aren’t just from anyone,” said Lizzie, “That they’re from someone. Someone what really needs a present, someone who really wants one. And that’s where we come in. We’re the ones that find the letter writers.

“Come on, I can see the others at the top.”

The Captain was hopping impatiently from foot to foot at the top of the steps as Lizzie and Maddie came up to street level. Wilson, lounging against the wall, evinced no emotion whatsoever.

“We found her, didn’t we?” said The Captain, “We found her, Lizzie.”

“Nice hat,” said Maddie, “Found who?”

“Who’s she?” said the Captain.

“Reporter,” said Wilson.

“That’s right,” said Lizzie, pulling a tattered letter out of an inner pocket and handing it to Maddie, “The one that wrote this letter. We’ve been looking for her.”

Maddie read the letter, peering at the signature.

“Midge, Floor 5, the yellow building,” she said, “That the one at the end of Market, do you think?”

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?” said Captain, “She knows the city, doesn’t she?”

“I ought to,” said Maddie, “Same reason you lot do - that’s the newspaper business, isn’t it?”

“She moved,” said Wilson.

“She did,” said Lizzie, “So we’ve been looking for her.”

“So we’ve found her,” said The Captain, “Want to see?”

It was quite a sight. Lizzie and Maddie followed the other two, Wilson shouldering impassively onwards, The Captain dancing around them excitedly, across the main street and into a tiny sliver of an alley which then opened out into a cold little court. On the other side was a short flight of steps up to a gate in a row of iron railings behind which was a desultory garden with some moss covered statues and bird bath full of stagnant water. Then down a passage that led through the ground floor of a building and out across another street and in at an unlocked door at the side of a shop, the ancient goods inside - a saggy old cloth cat, a some kind of miniature organ - barely visible behind the dusty bullseye bow window.

Inside a rickety staircase ran up between damp walls. The building smelt of boiling vegetables and old clothes. They trudged up three floors, at every landing doors opening and suspicious eyes peering out at them.

On the highest landing The Captain stopped and knocked at a door tucked in under the eaves, so that its top corner was sawn off to allow it to open under the slope of the roof.

The woman who opened it looked tired. Tired of living in an attic, tired of looking after the screaming baby behind her, tired of being interrupted by The Captain.

“You again,” she said, “I told you, she’s not here. She’s at work. Down the Market. Leastways she better be.”

“Maddie Sharp, The Argus,” said Maddie stepping forward, “Does a girl called Midge live here?”

“The Argus?” said the woman, suspiciously, “The newspaper? What do you want with her?”

“Nothing bad,” said Maddie, “Quite the opposite. You her mother?”

“Me?” said the woman, “Do I look dead? All too alive, believe you me. No, she hasn’t got one now, has she? That’s how come she’s lodging with me.”

“Show her where she sleeps,” said the Captain, “Do you want to see where she sleeps?”

“I’m not having any reporters in my house,” said the woman.

“Honestly,” said Maddie, “It's nothing bad. I’m sure you’re being very charitable, after all, taking in an orphan.”

“Charitable,” said the woman, relishing the word, “I’m sure I am.”

Across the other side of the tiny room, crammed in beneath the crumbling tiles, was an old wardrobe. The woman crossed over and opened it, revealing a pile of clothes and a pillow in the bottom.

“She had privacy, see?” she said, gesturing at it, “A space of her own. Not many has that. Charitable, isn’t it?”

“Very charitable,” said Maddie, grimly, and then said nothing more until they were back on the street.

“So the kid is an orphan who sleeps in a wardrobe in a garret,” said Maddie, “Think she deserves a Christmas present?”

“Landed on her feet, hasn’t she?” said Lizzie, “But we have to make sure, that’s the system.”

“Could have made her up, couldn’t she?” said The Captain, “Got to check.”

“The Market,” said Wilson.

“Alright then,” said Maddie, “The Market.”

The Market ran along the bottom of the hillside on the other side of the Old Town. Once upon a time there had been a big street market there, but now several blocks had been cleared to make room for a vast, glazed roofed, iron beamed, glazed tiled market building. And with all that glass and ceramic it echoed and clanged with business.

Even in December the market was crammed with goods, and with Christmas approaching it was filling with delights. Great piles of apples, all gleaming red and green, crates of bright fish on beds of sparkling ice. Bins of shining nuts, polished and brown, great swathes of green: kale and spinach, cabbage and leek. Piles of potatoes, mountains of swede, rolling and bumping, racks of meat, slapped swaying by the butchers. Geese waddled, complaining, between the stalls, and crabs climbed over each other patiently, ceaselessly, in a tub. And everyone rushing and shouting and haggling and joking, in and out between the shops and barrows, under the iron arches, clattering over the tiles. All doing business.

Outside in the street, there was just as hubbub as within. Lorries came and went, loading and unloading, men rushing to and fro with crates and sacks, people dashing back and forth with their shopping.

And between them all, children, darting in to catch fallen fruit from beneath the wheels of trucks, gathering up discarded vegetables from the gutter, running after and propositioning the shoppers with their own, delicate deals. They all, it turned out, knew Midge.

“We can’t let on why we’re asking,” said Tin Lizzie as they approached, “It’s a secret, isn’t it? That’s the system.”

She was a grimy little thing, hardly coming up to Maddie’s waist, trying to buff up some apples with the edge of her coat.

“Are you Midge?” said Maddie, “I’m from the Argus, doing a piece on the Market. I’m told you work here.”

“I do,” said Midge, proudly, “You want an apple?”

Maddie, in the end, bought them all.