Cornelius’ quiet voice intruded on this memory. ‘She had not even tried to stop them, Captain. The door to their room was unlocked, and yet …’
Yes, Raquel had been sitting motionless at the sewing-room window, her hands clenched in her lap, her eyes fixed on the path down which Cornelius was disappearing. Vincent had stared at her until she had turned to meet his gaze. Her expression had been a challenge. Everything about her was dark these days – her dark eyes, her heavy coils of braided hair, the dark-green of her dresses. These new, severe fashions suited her now in a way the old ones no longer could. Even the paleness of her creamy skin seemed to exist as a complement to the darkness.
She had tightened her hands and lifted her chin. Spare me your disapprobation, Vicente. They are Cornelius’ creatures, not mine.
Vincent stretched his arm across the back of the seat, clutched his friend’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Raquel is not what she once was. It is perhaps best not to expect too much of her … especially in relation to the children.’
‘I do not understand,’ whispered Cornelius. ‘I do not understand this wanton cruelty within them.’
‘We cannot help what moves them, cully. So …’ He tapped the list. ‘Monkeys and dancing poodles and parrots on sticks. The more the merrier. We can but hope they do their job. If they do not, well, perhaps we can arrange a dogfight?’
It had been meant to amuse, but Cornelius made a sharp sound of disgust. ‘Don’t be revolting! How can even you be so profane as to suggest such twisted amusements might sustain an angel!’
Vincent released his shoulder. ‘This from the man who planned to display an innocent girl like a bauble, that I might have my enjoyment of her. In your philosophy, that is worthy food for angels, is it? Cornelius, it would be so refreshing to have just one conversation that does not end up marooned within your hopeless superstitions. Do you think it is at all possible, friend, that you might just this once reconcile yourself to a discussion of the practicalities without hiding behind your usual romantic self-deceit?’
There was a stretch of scalding silence, then Cornelius drew himself up. ‘Speaking of self-deceit,’ he said, ‘did you retrieve your overcoat?’
Vincent sat back. He did not reply.
Cornelius would not relent. ‘You have spoken with that boy? It is clear to you, now, that he is just like all the others? That he is not—’
Vincent leapt to his feet, cutting him off in mid-sentence. He vacillated for a moment, ready to stalk away. Then, without warning, he found himself roaring towards the stage. ‘Ahoy there! Simmons! Are we to wait all day and night on your damned pleasure?’
The stage manager came into the light, shielding his eyes to try to see who had shouted. Uncertain, he called, ‘A … another thirty minutes, Lord Wolcroft? Will another thirty minutes be acceptable?’
Vincent did not reply. Instead, he arranged the tails of his jacket behind him and expressionlessly resumed his seat. Not looking at Cornelius, he lifted another pastry and took a large bite.
Onstage, the manager continued to squint into the lights, his whiskers bristling in anxiety. ‘Lord Wolcroft?’ he ventured.
‘Yes,’ snapped Cornelius, his attention on Vincent’s grim consuming of cake. ‘Yes. Thirty minutes. Just hurry it up, you swab, or I’ll gut you myself.’
The Purse
TINA WHISPERED IN his mind, Did you not trust me, Joe? and Joe answered, amazed, Tina? You said you weren’t meant to speak to me like this anymore. She fell silent, and Joe woke confused and achey, not sure if it had been a dream.
She was standing at the foot of Miss Ursula’s little sofa, looking down at him where he lay. She had a strange, wary expression on her face. For a moment Joe thought he must still be asleep, it was so odd. Then he saw the bundle she held and he recognised his spare shirt, his razor, his blanket, his book and his pencil. He struggled to his feet at the realisation that everything he owned in the world was held in Tina’s arms.
‘Have you been to my gaff?’ he cried.
At that moment, Harry rushed through the dressing-room door, calling out in a hushed backstage shout, ‘Tina! They told me you were back! Did you get his—’ He halted at the realisation that Joe was awake. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Joe … uh, hey there.’
Joe ignored him. At first he was simply filled with horror that Tina had been there. She’d gone there. Then the implication of what she had in her arms hit him, and panic set in. Oh God. What had she done?
She held the things out to him, and he snatched them from her arms. Rooting quickly through the meagre pile, relief flooded him. It wasn’t there. Thank God. She hadn’t found it. ‘Did Mickey see you take these?’ he said.
Tina shook her head, her face grim and watchful.
‘I’m bringing these home, Tina. I’ll be there and back before they get in from the morning shift. No one need know—’
‘The whole street saw me. There’s no keeping it a secret.’
He looked her up and down, suddenly aware of the mud spattering her coat, the mess of her hair. ‘What happened?’
‘Never mind that. The women just threw some dirt.’
‘Jesus, Tina,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t believe you went to that place.’
‘Don’t go back, Joe.’
He groaned. ‘You don’t understand.’
She stepped close, that strange, hard expression on her face. She gripped his arm. ‘Don’t go back,’ she said. ‘Do as I’m asking you, for once in your damned life, and don’t go back.’
She was so earnest, so set-looking, he almost lifted his hand to touch her. ‘I have to,’ he said softly. ‘I … Tina, I have a plan.’
‘I’ve never heard of any plan. You’d think you’d have told me there was a plan.’
‘I’ll tell you in a little while,’ he said, his eyes searching hers. ‘I just … I just want everything to be certain first.’
In an unexpected gesture, Tina laid her cold hand on his heated cheek. He shut his eyes, his lips parting in pleasure, and she shifted her palm to his forehead. ‘You’re awful warm,’ she whispered. ‘I think you’re very sick.’
‘I’ll be all right.’
And he would, too. So long as his secret was safe, and his plan was on track, everything would be all right.
The blood froze in him at Tina’s next words.
‘I found something under the floorboards in your gaff, Joe. In the corner where you sleep. Hidden under your blanket. I dislodged the board when I was taking down your shirt, and I saw it.’
He opened his eyes. Oh no, Tina. No.
‘Margaret Reynolds’ kids had followed me up to the room. They saw me lift it out; they saw me open it up. They thought it was treasure.’
‘Oh Jesus, Tina. Tell me no.’
Tina reached into her pocket and withdrew his mother’s purse. She held it out to him. ‘I’m really hoping this is yours, Joe. I really am. Otherwise I’ve just robbed your cousins of nearly eighty pounds, and I don’t fancy our chances of surviving when they find out.’
Harry came to peer over her shoulder. He glanced at Joe, then back to the money, and Joe knew what he was thinking: how had a raggedy-arsed street-rat like him got his hands on so much treasure? Without taking his eyes from Harry’s face, Joe took the cracked leather purse and shoved it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He sat back down on the sofa, folding his arms.
Harry continued to stare at him, his gaze as piercing as a hypnotist’s. ‘I’ve never seen so much cash in my life,’ he said. ‘Where did you steal it?’
Before Joe could answer, Tina stepped between them, her burgundy skirts filling his view. There was a sharp slap. When she came to sit by Joe’s side, Harry was clutching his cheek and glaring. ‘Say!’ he cried.
‘Tina,’ gasped Joe, ‘there was no need for—’
‘You can shut up and all, Joe Gosling. The only reason I haven’t slapped you is because you’re sick.’
She sat rigidly staring at nothing for a moment, her chee
ks pink, her expression furious. Then she reached and grabbed Joe’s hand. He flinched in anticipation of more unaccountable female violence. But Tina just dragged his hand onto her lap and held it there, clutched between her own. It was the first time she had done this since they were children, and Joe marvelled at how small her hand was within his big chapped paw. He chanced gently closing his fingers on hers.
‘All these years I’ve been worrying over you and crying over you, and thinking you were starving. All these years I thought them bloody gougers were stealing half your money every week and leaving you without.’ Tina compressed her lips and shook her head, seemingly too angry to go on – but still she held on to Joe’s hand.
‘They are stealing half me money,’ he said softly. ‘But only from the wages they know about.’
She looked sideways at him, and he smiled. ‘I’ve had three jobs since I was seven years old, Tina Kelly. I don’t get drunk. I never smoked—’
‘You eat less than a cat,’ she whispered. ‘You never wear a coat.’
‘Mickey sold me coat,’ he reminded her.
‘Jesus, Joe,’ she whispered. ‘Jesus.’ She closed her eyes and held his hand to her mouth, squeezing it tight. He felt the heat of her breath on his fingers as she gritted her teeth against some strong emotion. A desire to hit him, maybe – or hug him? He hoped the latter.
‘You could have been having a lovely time all these years!’ she cried suddenly.
‘I want more than that.’
‘You could have been in a nice lodging. With a nice landlady.’
‘Pissing away me money on rent and frivolities, with nowhere to stash me savings without some busybody snuffling around when I’m in work. What the lads don’t know has never hurt me, Tina. They’d never a bloody clue there was anything more than fleas and mouse shit under me blankets. Until today, that is.’ There was a moment of silence between them. Then he said, without much hope, ‘Maybe the kids won’t say anything?’
‘They ran off up the street screaming for Mickey.’
Joe grimaced at her, but he wasn’t angry. Not really. He was just tired suddenly, bone-tired and weary to his soul. He’d been careful such a long time. Mickey had never considered him much worth pissing on – but now? Tina had just shoved him straight into the spotlight, stark and vulnerable, with a fistful of money in each hand. He sighed. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘Eighty pounds is a lot of money to have saved,’ said Harry. ‘Three jobs or not.’ He was still staring at Joe with that fixed intensity, demanding an explanation.
Joe was tempted to cut him dead with a sneer. To hell with Harry if he thought Joe was a thief. But Tina was squinting sideways at him now, doing the figures in her head, and Joe knew she deserved more than a gutter-boy’s guff and bluster.
‘Me da saved most of it,’ he said. ‘He spent his whole life saving, it seems. After he died, and me ma moved us in with them, she taught me how to hide the money from them and how to keep secretly adding to the purse. And after she was dead … I just kept doing it.’
‘But why, Joe?’ asked Tina. ‘Why?’
Joe saw it in her face, the horror at all the things his mam had endured, all the hardships she’d made him endure in that squalid room in the care of those brutes, when the two of them could at least have had their own place. He shook his head.
‘I don’t know what Ma and Da were saving for. Sometimes I wonder if they even knew. Maybe they’d have just kept on saving until they died of old age. Year after year, shoving money into that purse under the floorboards. It getting fatter and them getting thinner. I wonder if they’d have died having never done anything at all …’
‘They did,’ said Tina. ‘They died with all that money, and never did anything. And now you—’
‘No, not me,’ cried Joe. ‘I know what I’m doing with it. For a long time I didn’t. I just kept squirrelling it away week after week like me ma had shown me, and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing it for – but I know now, Tina.’ He gently squeezed her hand. ‘I’ve known for ages what all them years of shite were for.’
‘A future,’ breathed Harry, his face illuminated with fervent understanding.
Joe nodded. ‘Not just tuppence-worth of comfort that’s pissed away in an hour. A proper future; one worth sacrificing for. I have a plan.’
Harry leapt to his feet. ‘So do I!’ he cried. ‘And it’s not to be a darned carpenter. What the heck was I thinking? I hope I’m not too late.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To get my place in those auditions. I won’t get to be a magician sitting on my ass dreaming about it!’ He dived for the door.
‘Break a leg!’ called Tina.
Harry paused, then ran back. He grabbed Joe’s hand and shook it. ‘Don’t go back to that cesspool, Joe. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and there are plenty of places to sleep in this theatre until you get yourself sorted.’
‘I can’t do that!’
‘Why, of course you can. Free rent? No bedbugs? Come on, Gosling.’ He winked. ‘You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to get past a locked door.’
Joe had to smile, so earnest were those fierce blue eyes and that handshake. He lost the smile pretty damned quick when Harry leaned across the table and kissed Tina on her mouth.
‘Just for luck!’ he cried, already running out the door.
Tina put her fingers to her lips, her cheeks cherry-red.
‘Hey,’ said Joe. ‘You needn’t look so delighted!’
She turned to him with smiling eyes. She opened her mouth to say something.
Mr Sheridan’s scandalised voice cut her off. ‘God preserve us!’ His massive bulk filled the dressing-room door, his horrified eyes fixed on their joined hands. ‘Miss Kelly! This is not your own private courting parlour!’
They leapt up and apart like scalded cats. Sheridan crowded Joe out into the back corridor, pushed him out into the alley, and slammed the door on his face.
Unbalanced and empty after the warm company of the dressing-room, Joe dithered, uncertain of what to do. He looked down at his hand, which Tina had, only moments before, held clutched in her own. Snowflakes drifted from the gloomy sky and fell like small kisses onto his palm. Joe closed his fingers over them.
The door slammed open behind him, and he turned to find Tina leaning out into the cold.
Her breath streamed out when she hissed his name. ‘Joe!’
He stood like an idiot, grinning at her, his fingers still closed over the feel of her palm on his.
She thrust out her arm. ‘Give it to me!’ Then again, impatiently: ‘Give it to me, you eejit! Unless you want them nicking it!’
It took him a moment to understand. Then he dug the purse from his pocket and handed it over.
‘I’ll keep it safe for you,’ she whispered, and then, incredibly, she kissed him – her lips soft and surprisingly cool, her breath a warm cloud around them in the snowy air – before ducking inside and slamming the door.
Séance
DEAR MAMA,
Here I am, only two days ashore and already a phenomenon! The manager says he has never seen such skill of prestidigitational art. He has ordered posters printed with my name in top billings – Harry Weiss, the Great Houdini! How’s that for your boy, Ma? I will be sending you billings from all over the world soon.
I hope you aren’t still sore at Pa for having slipped me the fare – as you can see, I have returned most of it with this letter! Your boy finds himself very well-in, and set up nice and cosy already, Ma! The Irish are not, as you’d feared they would be, unkind to those not of the Catholic persuasion, and I am well lodged, with a cosy room (a fireplace and wardrobe and full board!) and an introduction to the community over here. My week’s wage goes a long way over here, so I can cheerfully send my mama and my papa back their investment in me without any dent in my pocket!
Harry nibbled his pencil and squinted in the dim backstage light, thinking hard. If he could find a penny-pr
inter willing to press a single handbill, he could include a flyer with his stage name on it – The Great Houdini! – that would thrill Ma to no end.
He looked at the little stack of money he was enclosing with the letter. It was all the savings he had. He had intended sending his first week’s wage home as part-payment for the boat fare. There was no first week’s wage on the horizon now, of course, but Harry couldn’t stand the thought of wandering about with a pocketful of cash while his ma was tearing her hair out trying to pay the rent.
He smiled at the thought of her opening the envelope and all the money showering out. Then she’d unfold the handbill, see his name on the top, and turn and show it to all the others.
Mein Ehrich! she’d say. The Great Houdini!
Yes, he’d go tomorrow and get that bill printed up. Grinning, he set pencil to paper again. I am enclosing a copy of the bill Mr Simmons (stage manager) has had printed up. As you can see, I am using my new stage name—
‘Harry?’
Tina stepped into the wings. Harry shoved the letter and pencil in his pocket as she offered him the steaming mug she carried. ‘Oh, say!’ he whispered. ‘Thanks! How’s Mr Gosling?’
She sat on the sandbags beside him. ‘He just finished his shift. I snuck him into Miss U’s room. He’s promised to have a bit of a rest.’
‘He’ll be back to himself before you know it,’ said Harry.
‘Mm hmm.’
‘You really should go home, Tina. Joe and I don’t have a heck of a lot to lose here, but it won’t do you any good to be caught hanging about after lockup like this.’
She cut him a sideways look that conveyed just about all she had to say on the subject of her leaving. ‘How’d you do in the auditions?’ she asked.
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