Kit straightened. “Any idea who?”
Mulligan hesitated.
Kit’s instincts pricked. “What?”
Mulligan shifted farther into the office, then said, “His name’s Bill Johnson. He says he’s not here about a job, and I believe him because the daft beggar is too proud to ask.” Mulligan crossed his beefy arms across his chest. “I didn’t know he was still in Bristol, or I’d have suggested you hire him earlier, when we were taking on men. Like I said, he’s too proud for his own good, but he’s a right handy man to have in a workshop, even though he has no skills. He’s a lifter, see? He’s good at moving and positioning things, then holding them in place while we work around him. Lots of bits in ship work are long and clumsy—Bill can easily handle them all. Us older men all know him and trust him to do things right. It really helps move things along to have a man like him working alongside us.”
Kit nodded. “You’ve made a good case. I take it you and the others wouldn’t be averse if I offered this Johnson a position here.”
Mulligan flashed him a grin. “You’ve got the gist of it.” He tipped his head toward the workshop doors. “But I’ve no idea what he wants with you.”
With a glance at Wayland, Kit tossed the sketch he’d been studying on the table. “In that case, best I come and see.”
Mulligan returned to the men about the hull that was taking shape in the first bay of the three they’d set up in the workshop.
Kit walked to where a large, hefty, obviously very strong man stood waiting to one side of the open doors, incongruously twisting his cloth cap between his massive hands. Kit halted in the doorway and nodded. “I understand you wish to speak with me.”
Johnson bobbed his huge head. “Yes, sir, your lordship.” He moistened his lips, then blurted, “I’ve seen you at the school, and I’ve come to ask if you’ll use your influence to get them at the school to stop teaching my nipper.”
Kit blinked several times as he took that in. Of all the things he might have imagined being asked, that wasn’t even on the list. “You want me to ask the school to stop teaching your boy...” He focused on Johnson. “What’s the lad’s name?”
“Ned. He’s Ned.” Johnson c
ontinued to wring his cap. His earnest, almost-desperate expression left Kit in no doubt that whatever his reasoning, Johnson’s request was sincere.
Puzzled and curious—and faintly concerned, for this was the first he’d heard of any parent being unhappy over their son attending the school—Kit turned and glanced into Miss Petty’s office to discover that two desks and chairs had appeared that morning. He looked back at Johnson and waved to the office. “You’d better come in and tell me what the problem is.”
The big man was reluctant, but Kit gave him little choice, ushering him in and closing the door behind them. Then he waved Johnson to one of the chairs and drew the other to him and sat.
He waited while Johnson gingerly lowered his massive frame onto the rather small chair. Once he had, Kit fixed him with a commanding but unthreatening gaze. “Right, then. Tell me why you want the school to stop teaching Ned.” As he said the words, Kit realized their oddity. Why couldn’t Johnson simply stop his boy from attending?
It took more than half an hour of carefully probing questions and considerable patience to tease the full tale from Johnson, but finally, Kit felt he had it straight.
The problem centered on Johnson’s fear that, once educated, Ned wouldn’t want anything to do with his father. That fear was compounded by the fact that, at the present time, Ned wasn’t living with Johnson but with Johnson’s sister-in-law.
Johnson finally relaxed enough to explain, “I lost my Myra shortly after Ned was born, see, and then I lost my job when the big shipyards moved down to Avonmouth. I couldn’t pay the rent after that, and so I had to move to one of the working men’s hostels. That was no place for Ned—and that’s when Cora, Myra’s sister, took Ned in.” Johnson swiped his cap across his mouth and, almost in a whisper, went on, “I might get work if I move to Avonmouth, but I don’t want to leave Ned behind.” The big man met Kit’s gaze, his own full of quiet anguish. “He’s all I have left.”
Kit nodded. “I understand.” And he did; Johnson’s devotion to his son was written all over his homely face.
“It’s not that I’ve anything against the school itself, mind,” Johnson conceded, his mind plainly following a track much trodden. “All of the people there seem nice, not that I’ve spoken to them, but you can tell—the kids all like them and are happy at the school. But in my case—in Ned’s case—that’s not the problem.” Johnson raised his gaze to Kit’s face. “Once Ned learns a trade, he won’t want anything more to do with me—I’ll just be his out-of-work, layabout father. Cora’s already hinted that I shouldn’t come around to her house too often, that Ned would be better off being left to make his own way...”
Johnson choked and looked down. After a moment, in a remarkably small voice for such a mountain of a man, he whispered, “But he’s all I have.”
Kit was suddenly beyond certain that he wanted to help—that he would help Johnson and his Ned.
After a second of rapid thought, he said, “Buck up, Johnson. I think I can see a way around this.”
Blinking, Johnson looked up. “You can?” As yet, there was no sign of hope in his eyes.
Slowly, Kit nodded. “I can.” Reminded of Mulligan’s warning about Johnson’s pride, Kit said, “I’m willing to make a deal with you, one I believe will solve all your troubles and get you back to where you want to be—by which I mean living in your own place with Ned. Am I right in thinking that’s what you want?”
Now hope flared in Johnson’s eyes, but was swiftly reined back by native shrewdness. “Yes. But how?” He swallowed and asked, “What deal?”
“I’ll explain in a moment, but first, I want you to clarify something for me.” Kit hadn’t missed the reference to the people at the school. “Have you been watching the school?”
Johnson’s expression turned wary, but he nodded. “At times. I just wanted to see Ned, but I didn’t want to go up to him while he was with his friends, so I just looked from out there”—he tipped his head, indicating outside the workshop—“and now the school’s moved, from the Abbey gardens at the end of the street or from down on the Butts.”
“Have you ever seen Miss Buckleberry—the lady who runs the school?”