“I saw this in a paper two weeks ago. It says The Flying Fishes are in London because Anton, he’s the eldest, has a broken ankle and is in hospital.”
“An’ ’o might The Flyin’ Fishes be when they’re at ’ome?” Henry wagged a finger at Andrew, who was looking scornful. “Don’t come the acid with me, young feller, if it was the name of a ’orse or a grey’ound I’d know it which you wouldn’t.”
Andrew had been dismayed by Henry’s ignorance, but already in one day he was grasping that he must expect ignorance in the world of the “theys,” and that ignorance did not make a person dislikeable.
“They just happen to be the greatest trapeze artists in the world, that’s all. They’re an American combine. Their publicity hand-out is that they’re a sister and two brothers but they aren’t. The girl Alicia is American, and I think they’re all Americans now, but Antonio, that’s Anton, was born in Italy and the other man, Albert they call him, in Sweden.”
“’ow d’you know all that?”
Andrew wriggled with impatience.
“Everybody knows about them. It’s like saying how do you know that Walt Disney made Donald Duck.”
“Everybody don’t know, I don’t know for one, and I’d lay half-a-bar nor wouldn’t nobody else on this bus. Anyway what’s these Flyin’ Fish mean to you?”
“They’re here for the Christmas circus, but without Anton they can’t work for Albert is the catcher . . .”
Henry stopped him.
“Look ’ere, I take it you wants me to ’elp you. Well I can’t if I don’t know what you’re jawin’ about. Now tell me quiet-like, with no fancy talk, what you’re after.”
It took time, for every term Andrew used was unfamiliar to Henry. But gradually he got a dim idea of an aerial act. He understood, for he had seen it, that in Andrew’s act with Julie he did the flying and Julie such catching as there was. In a great act like the Flying Fishes, the catcher had much more to do, but what he had to do depended on who was working the act with him. In The Flying Fishes aerial act all three were stars, and an act could have been arranged for Alicia and Albert only, but they did not want to work a double act while Anton was away, for their fame was built as a trio, and they would not be out of the ordinary as a duo. If they could find a substitute for Anton they would work this Christmas, if they could not they were cancelling their contract and resting until Anton was well.
Once Henry understood, Andrew had an ally. Henry learnt there would be no opposition from the Borthwicks if Andrew worked for somebody else, as they did not use him in the winter except on feeding and caring for the animals, and on odd jobs, and if The Flying Fishes took him he would come back to Borthwick’s with special publicity, which would be useful to Uncle Sam.
“If that’s right,” Henry asked, “what’s this ’ush ’ush business?”
Andrew hesitated. It was new to him to have a confidant. Then the cockney warmth shining from Henry’s soul broke down his reserve.
“It’s Julie. She hasn’t the gift as I have. Her father wasn’t an acrobat, but she and I must work as a duo for there isn’t any other work for her, I mean not in our line and she wouldn’t be happy in other work. There’s a contract with these big circuses that the next summer season, perhaps more, after the Christmas you’ve worked for them you must tent with that circus. If The Flying Fishes take me, and Anton needed a longer rest I would have to tent with them, instead of with Borthwick’s. If Julie knew she’d say it’s all right, I mustn’t lose the chance for that, but it wouldn’t be all right for Julie. If you have been part of a good act it’s terrible to be nothing, you get everything put on you nobody else wants to do. So if I can see this Anton, he’s the boss, I must tell him it would only be for Christmas, otherwise I can’t do it.”
“Fancy yourself don’t you? Why should these Flyin’ Fish want a nipper like you?”
“Because I’m good.”
The answer came with such absolute assurance, allied to lack of vanity, that Henry was silenced. Understatement was his birthright, and normally he would have flashed back a retort to cover his embarrassment at such shameless bragging, but this time he could not, he did not know why and sheered off from the inexplicable.
“When did you see that piece in the paper? Reckon they may have got someone by now.”
“I don’t think they have. Only on Sunday I read a list of the acts engaged and they weren’t on it.”
“You say this Anton’s in ’orspital?”
“It’s called The Orthopaedic.” Andrew struggled with the difficult word.
“Was you plannin’ ’e should see what you can do? Was you thinkin’ of ’angin’ a trapeze up in the ward?”
Andrew giggled. Then he explained that like any other work, aerial trapeze work had its own jargon, which could only be understood by those in the profession.
“If I can get to see Anton he’ll hear what I can do and then he can arrange for Albert and Alicia to try me out.”
Henry, though accepting he was up against a quality in Andrew he did not understand, was not prepared for too much big talk.
“’ark at you! The way you goes on, you’d think all you had to do was to whistle and there was a trapeze ’angin’ from every lamp-post. Would this Anton see you if you wrote?”
They had reached the root of the matter.
“I write badly, I wouldn’t be able to say on paper what I can do. Do you think you could manage I could see him without asking?”
The rheumatic heart of his childhood had familiarised Henry in the ways of hospitals. He remembered countless visiting days. No one had noticed who came in or went out.
“Nothin’ easier. Just give me time to find out which is the visitin’ days and you’re in.”
Julie could not at first feel at ease with Charles. She could not know how much she had been in his thoughts, and how well, in his imagination, they knew each other. She suffered from a recurring fear that he was only taking her out as a joke. Each time she became relaxed and was enjoying herself, Charles would remark that she was a scream, or laugh affectionately at what to him was her endearing naïvety, and at once, crimson-cheeked she had jerked back into her shell. Charles could feel when she was happy with him and when she was not, but re-meeting her he fell so in love he was past reasoned thinking about anything that concerned her. There had been a note with the flowers in her bedroom, saying he would call for her at half-past six that evening, and he would not have time to change. The lady high school rider had told Julie that if a gentleman asked her out, and said he wasn’t wearing evening dress, you couldn’t go wrong in a nice black dress under your coat. Charles did not know that night about the lady high school rider, but without knowing it he backed her taste. The utility copy of a model chosen for Julie suited her beautifully. It outlined her figure and toned down her brassy hair. The lady high school rider had told Julie that by changing accessories you could make the same dress look different each time you wore it. For these changes Julie had a sash with roses attached, for one occasion, and matching green beads, earrings, and chiffon handkerchief for another. It was chance she left these adornments for another night, and so Charles first saw her as he had dreamed she would look. In his eagerness to have her to himself he took her to a quiet but first-class restaurant, and on to dance at one of the simpler places. It was Julie’s first view of restaurant life. She had been up to London for the day with Bess and Sam, and constantly passed through it, but she had never imagined the London Charles knew. She looked round at the other diners, and up at the hovering maître d’hôtel, her brown eyes wide. When Charles had to order the dinner Julie could only shake her head and shrink into herself as the string of strange words fell round her. Charles watching her melted as if he were butter in the sun. She wasn’t real. His usual methods with girls were unthinkable when dealing with Julie. He who never thought of himself at all, was filled with the strangest longings. That he was back in uniform, so that he could fight for her. That he could scatter flower
s over the carpet for her to walk on. That there was something that she wanted that he alone could obtain for her. As the meal progressed his need to touch her, to feel his arms round her slim body, hurt, so he hustled her through the sweet course and, refusing coffee for them both, out into his car. But when they were alone, her complete unawareness of how he felt, and unawareness of how any man alone with her might feel, made the thought of holding her in his arms seem gross. He did gasp as he shut the car door, “Oh, Julie!” But there had not been a glimmer of understanding in her reply. She had been fascinated by the commissionaire, who had helped her into the car. As Charles spoke her name she turned politely, her enormous brown eyes larger than usual, due to the excitement of the evening, and replied sedately, “Yes, Charles?” To keep his hands busy, and his mind off his desires, Charles started the car, muttering “I was only going to say shall we go and dance a bit?”
Charles had arranged things so that he was free from work during Julie’s visit. He had told his father he would be looking after somebody for Clara. He let it be understood the somebody was a niece of Clara’s he was helping to entertain. His father was surprised that Charles should take time off for such a purpose, for from what he had heard Clara’s nieces were likely to be a dull lot. But Charles was the only boy in the family, the other Willises having produced daughters, and there was openly expressed hope that Charles would marry soon and produce sons. His father hoped this more fervently than anyone, but as he pointed out to his brothers, as long as the girls gave Charles what he wanted without marrying him, it was unlikely that Charles, income tax being what it was, would saddle himself with a wife. A dull daughter-in-law would be a misfortune, but any daughter-in-law would be acceptable if she got straight down to having a family, so he told Charles it would be quite all right if they didn’t see him for a week, and he would telephone if anything that needed him cropped up. Charles was therefore free to serve Julie from breakfast-time until she insisted on going home to bed. His car was in Gorpas Road by nine each morning, and each morning he had an excuse for his early arrival, to which each morning Henry gravely listened.
Henry, companioning Andrew, was unable at first to envisage a Julie with whom Charles was in love. That Charles was after her, he could accept, but that a gentleman, such as he was, could be thinking of her seriously did not, to begin with, cross his mind. Then the way Charles shot up the stairs, almost as soon as he had opened the door to him, and the look in his eyes made him change his ideas. His views on Charles’s feelings he kept to himself, the only outward expression he gave them was a long surprised whistle. As the days passed he added to the whistle a sympathetic shake of his head, a shake which said it was shocking what love could do to you. There was Mr. Willis, who only a short while back had been as nice and sensible a gentleman as you could wish to meet, turned in two or three days into as near as made no difference a deaf mute who could do nothing but gaze at his girl, and hurry her out of the house. Because of Charles’s habit of hurrying Julie where he could have her to himself, Henry, seeing the end of the children’s visit in sight, realised he must pin Charles down to a day to visit Clara’s horses, so on the fourth morning when Charles was inventing a new reason for calling at nine o’clock, he cut him short.
“That’s all right, sir. Miss Julie’s just puttin’ on ’er tit-for. Would it be all right for us to go to see the ’orses Monday?”
Charles had been about to bound up the stairs. He paused in mid-bound as it were and gaped at Henry, his expression that of one coming round from an anaesthetic, still unable to focus the eyes, or take in what was said.
“Horses! What horses?”
Henry was patient. Slowly, as if explaining something to an imbecile, he reminded Charles that he had promised Clara that while the children were with her he would drive them to see her four horses. When Charles grasped what he was being told he was dismayed.
“Oh I say, Henry! Did I? What a frightful waste of a day. Miss Julie would be bored stiff. She sees enough old crocks in the circus. I tell you what, I’ll stand a hire car, you and Andrew take Miss Hilton to see them.”
Henry clung to his plan. His feelings about Andy were strong. During the years he had been with Simon, Alfie and Perce, and their dealings with the horses and dogs, and their red-hot tips, had been the woof, threading the dull warp of life in Gorpas Road. When the old man had been strong enough they had once or twice visited Alfie’s stables. They were not much to look at, for Alfie’s ideas on the way to live had been on a level with Perce’s, but the horses were well cared for, and Henry had often watched Alfie lean on the gate into his field, and call an old horse, and see him fondle him, and give him a piece of sugar or slice of apple, while he reminded Simon of the horse’s history. It was usually a rather shady history, but neither Simon nor Alfie minded about that, and the conversation usually finished with Alfie saying that he reckoned the old horse had earned his bit of comfort now his racing days were done. When an old horse had been his at some time or another, or when he had earned him money, Simon paid what he called the old-age pension. For Henry those days at Alfie’s stables, with buttercups in the fields, for their visits were mostly in the summer, had remained clear in his memory. Watching Andy, or the stable lad, exercising the horses. Seeing a foal; though rearing foals was not in Alfie’s line, there had been on one occasion a very young one trembling on spindly legs. Always there were Alfie and Simon standing by the shabby loose boxes, and in memory Henry’s nostrils filled with the mixed scents of Alfie’s filthy pipe, Simon’s cigar, flowers, and ill-kept stables. His ears still carried Alfie’s confidential cockney twang as he confided to Simon plans he was laying to fix things so that they made money on a horse, interrupted by Simon’s clipped words, and for background a horse stamping, birds singing, sometimes it had been a cuckoo. Every mind carries its pipe dream, Henry’s was to be an Alfie. He knew it was only a pipe dream, yet he knew how it would feel to lean on your own gate, calling up your own horses. So when through Perce he heard suspicions of what Andy was up to, it was not only his real love of horses which made him angry, but in putting his father’s place to wrong usage, Andy had destroyed a dream. At Charles’ words this anger seethed up.
“No you don’t, Mr. Willis. A promise is a promise. Miss Clara’s not one to ask favours, but she ’asn’t seen much of the kids and she’ll enjoy the day out.”
Charles looked gloomy.
“It’s miles. It’ll take all day.”
Henry saw Charles was yielding, so he spoke soothingly.
“T’aint miles, only Essex. She did oughter see ’em. You know I got the receipts, the old gentleman paid regular for their keep, ’e paid the last cheque two days before ’e was took.”
For a moment Charles’ mind was off Julie, and on Clara’s affairs.
“That’s right. I must see those. It’s just their keep, isn’t it? They’re not racing any more?”
“That’s right. Alfie ’ad the ’orses, but ’e was took not so long before the old gentleman went. ’is son Andy carries on. I got the letter what ’e wrote the old gentleman, you must read that, lovely it is, all about the place ’e ’as where the ’orses can ’ave a beautiful old age. ’is father ’ad old ’orses, nice field for ’em an’ all, but I reckon from what this Andy wrote in ’is letter ’e thinks ’e’s done better.”
The children had arrived on a Wednesday, and they were going back to the Borthwicks on the following Wednesday. It was already Saturday. It seemed to Charles deplorable waste of the last day but one. Still, it was clear from what Henry had said, and the look on his face, that there was no getting out of it.
“You better get those papers for me. I’ll look them over before Monday.”
Charles had turned to climb the stairs. A knowing grin spread across Henry’s face. That ought to fix Andy. Then an idea struck him, which would please Charles and be a help to Andrew. He whistled through his teeth, and when in answer Charles turned, he drew him back to him with a jerk of his head.
“I don’t think Miss Clara would mind if the kids, Miss Julie and Andrew I mean, was to stay a coupl’a days extra.”
Charles smiled fatuously at Henry. It was as if he had become his fairy godmother.
“I say! Well, that is an idea. I mean, what about your room?”
Henry grinned more broadly.
“Now, Mr. Willis, you can’t think I’d sleep in there.” Henry wished Charles was not desperate to see Julie, or he would have told him about Maurice and Doris’s visit. “I reckon we’ll keep that nice for Miss Julie, I’m quite satisfied kippin’ in the front room.”
Charles took out his note case, and put five pounds in Henry’s pocket.
“You’re a pal. I’ll see Miss Hilton and fix up about Monday.”
* * * * *
It was a silent party that drove to Essex, for each had matters on which to brood.
Aunt Clara Page 20