Harry sighed. ‘Not well,’ he said.
‘You and poor Miss Ursula both.’
Miss Ursula. Harry hadn’t seen her since her dignified exit from the stage. ‘Will she be all right?’ he asked Tina.
She gave him that sideways look again – of course the old lady was not going to be all right. ‘The theatre’s no place to grow old, Harry.’
It was a bald statement, and both of them knew the horrible truth of it too well. To fill the silence that followed, Harry took his cards from his pocket and began practising riffle and faro shuffles in the near dark.
Tina watched him. ‘Will you be all right, Harry?’
He shrugged. ‘I guess I shouldn’t have tried the magic act without an assistant. But I’d no shills for the mind-reading, couldn’t even get them interested in the card tricks … I should have just done some fortune-telling and left it at that.’
‘I used to tell fortunes. When I was a little kid.’
‘Oh?’
‘Fran made me stop. She didn’t like how they used to come true.’
Harry grinned. ‘Some people take it very seriously.’
There was an uncertain pause. ‘I think I scared her.’
Oh, thought Harry. That’s sad. ‘Well, like I said, some people take it very seriously.’
‘Joe was never scared of me. Joe … Joe’s been very good to me, Harry.’
Harry thought of Joe’s thin, street-wary face, his moments of unexpected gentleness. Silence weighed down on them once more. Harry let the cards run through his fingers, back-palmed the locator ace, cut it single-handed into the middle of the pack.
The abrupt rustle of Tina’s skirts startled him, and he looked up as she surged to her feet. He thought maybe she’d heard Joe coming, but she just stood there, staring towards the moon-washed stage. ‘Harry?’ she whispered. ‘Someone’s coming.’
The tone of her voice had him stowing the deck and rising cautiously to her side. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Someone … that man. That man is coming. Lord Wolcroft.’
Before Harry could say, How could you possibly know that? the theatre lights went on, making him jump.
‘He’s here!’ hissed Tina. ‘Oh, Harry! He’s here! What’ll we do?’
There were voices in the auditorium now: the sound of people murmuring to each other as they neared the stage. Harry grabbed Tina and swivelled her towards the ladder to the catwalks. ‘Climb up! Hurry! Just leave the darned cup! Climb up, before they catch you and you lose your job!’
Tina grabbed the hem of her heavy skirt, hoisted it over her knees and scrambled up the ladder with surprising agility. She had only just reached the top, with Harry climbing after her, when the first footsteps rang out on the stage.
Miss Ursula’s plummy voice said, ‘The witching hour approaches! If you do not object, Lord Wolcroft, I shall light the candles and lay out the spirit board so that when the others arrive, we may commence at once to commune with the dead.’
Tina leaned over the top of the catwalk’s sandbag wall. Harry scrambled to her side. There was a terrific view of the stage, but Tina did not seem interested. Instead, she was craning her neck to see down the back stairs, and Harry realised that she was watching for Joe.
‘Say,’ whispered Harry. ‘You knew that dandy was coming before the lights even went on. How did you know it was him?’
Tina shrugged. ‘Sometimes I just know things.’ She switched her attention to Cornelius Wolcroft, genuine unease creasing her face. ‘I don’t like him, Harry, or that man who works for him. There’s something wrong with them.’
Unaware of their scrutiny, Lord Wolcroft was strolling around, shaking hands with the various bohemian-looking gents and ladies to whom Miss Ursula was introducing him. Despite his beautiful clothes, he looked terrible, with great dark rings under his eyes and a dewy sheen of sweat on his pasty skin. Harry wondered: was the man an opium fiend? He certainly had the look. ‘Miss Ursula’s getting on fine with him, considering the way he treated her earlier.’
‘We find our uses as we may.’
‘Pardon?’
‘That’s what Miss U always says. She’s being what she calls “diplomatic”.’
Harry watched the old woman graciously introduce Wolcroft to each newcomer. She must be a fine actress, he thought. If Wolcroft had bellowed at him like that, Harry sure as heck wouldn’t have come back later just to smile and take his arm.
‘Lord Wolcroft, Lord of Fargeal, I believe,’ drawled a gentleman, shaking Wolcroft’s hand.
Wolcroft smiled tightly. ‘Among other things,’ he said.
‘I took the liberty of looking you up in the lists. Yours is an impressively old title, I must say. A peer of England, I believe, and not simply of this Emerald Isle? It is rare indeed to find a family with such an unbroken line of descent in this turbulent country.’ Still holding Cornelius Wolcroft’s hand, the gent turned to a scarf-draped woman by his side and exclaimed: ‘Apparently, m’dear, there has been a Cornelius Wolcroft at the head of the family since the late sixteen hundreds!’
‘You must be a very retiring family, sir, for us not to have heard of you sooner,’ the woman said with a smile. ‘Do you and the Lady Wolcroft never move in society?’
‘There is not yet a Lady Wolcroft, m’dear,’ answered her companion. ‘The Lord of Fargeal is still footloose. Ain’t I right, My Lord? Though at thirty-five years of age, one might suggest you are old enough to at least consider the prospect of marriage – give yourself time to produce a crop of little Wolcrofts before you are too old to enjoy the process!’
Lord Wolcroft lifted his lip ever so slightly and extricated his hand from the man’s grip. The man seemed undeterred. ‘Our families share business history, you know – both having dabbled in sugar and slaves.’ He laughed at Miss Ursula’s pained frown. ‘Ah, Ursula’s come over all Quaker on us! Never fear, old girl, the slaving days are long gone. And thankfully some of us were wise enough to diversify before America stole the sugar business right out from under us, ain’t that so, My Lord? I believe some of your ancestors had holdings in Saint Kitts?’
‘Nevis,’ Lord Wolcroft corrected.
‘Nevis! You’re mostly in shipping now, I believe? Brighton, India, the West Indies?’
There was a rolling of eyes from his female companion. ‘Must you constantly harp on about business, Phillip?’
‘As a matter of fact, Lord Wolcroft and I share an acquaintance in London. My nephew is an investor in one of your companies, I believe, sir. As such, he must deal quite regularly with your man of business?’
At Wolcroft’s attempt to physically withdraw from this interrogation, another man hemmed him in. ‘Oh, Lord Wolcroft has no man of business. All his accounts are handled by a woman. Is that not so, Lord Wolcroft? Your business is entirely managed by your … well, what would one call her? Your bookkeeper? Your assistant?’ The man raised an eyebrow. ‘Certainly she lives with you.’
The others glanced knowingly at each other.
Lord Wolcroft looked decidedly queasy. ‘My business associate, Raquel, handles all my accounts,’ he said. ‘She is a most gifted woman.’
‘Oh, your associate,’ smirked one of the women.
‘Yes,’ snapped Wolcroft. ‘My business associate. Raquel.’
‘Raquel,’ said one of the men. ‘Raquel …’ He tasted the word, his brow creased in mock surprise. ‘Why, that’s a very unconventional name. I don’t think I know anyone of that name – except, perhaps, my tailor’s daughter.’
The man’s smile became a sneer, and anger rose in Harry’s chest. ‘He means she’s Jewish,’ he whispered.
‘Harry,’ tutted Tina. ‘How would you know that just from—’
‘How many Raquels do you know, Tina?’
She drew back. Her expression told him that she knew none.
Onstage, Wolcroft had gone dangerously still, his eyes hard as glass, his hand clenched around the silver top of his cane. ‘The hour grows late,’
he said softly.
Miss Ursula clasped her hands nervously and began shooing the participants towards the waiting table and chairs. Harry whistled beneath his breath. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That look sent them scattering. For all that he dresses like a faygele, I wouldn’t like to tangle with Lord Wolcroft.’
‘Oh no,’ whispered Tina. ‘They’re starting the séance.’
‘Ah, don’t be scared, kid. I can tell you, it’s gonna be rubbish – and I’m not just saying that because I now hate their antisemitisch guts. Look at the slapdash way the paraphernalia is scattered about the stage. And what’s with all the lights? That’s no way to build up an atmosphere. Whoever this medium is, they’d better have some patter, I tell you, because so far this show’s on a short slide to Bumsville.’
‘Harry, are you even speaking English?’
‘They’re amateurs. It’s obvious they’ve no idea how to set up a show.’
‘It’s not a show, Harry. It’s a séance.’
Harry groaned. Oy gevalt. She was a believer.
Onstage, the old woman was exhorting everyone to hold hands and open their hearts to positive thoughts and energies. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ Tina insisted, sounding panicked. ‘I shouldn’t be anywhere near a spirit board.’
‘Aw, come on. It’s all just entertainment. You’re theatre, kid! You should know this.’
She was shaking her head, trying to push past him towards the ladder. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’
Harry gripped her arm. ‘Look, there’s nothing you’ll see or hear that I can’t explain for you, okay? I’ve done it all: messages from the dead, apparitions, spirit boards … You wouldn’t believe the things I could convince you of, given the right set-up.’ He pulled Tina back to his side. ‘Look,’ he urged again. ‘Keep watching! I’ll explain it all as it unfolds.’
Miss Ursula’s voice rose up; the usual tremulous warble of a spiritualist, calling her spirit guide to come forth. ‘Dora? Are there any eternal beings present? Any roaming spirits who require our aid?’
Harry froze as, deep below, in the pit of the backstage stairwell, a pair of pinprick lights sparked to life. At the same time, the old lady hesitated, as if aware of a sudden charge in the air. ‘Dora?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘Are … are you there?’
The twin lights moved, bobbing in the darkness as they drifted up from the black. They blinked off and then on again, coming closer, and Harry gripped a handful of Tina’s blouse as he realised that they were eyes. Eyes! Glowing and moving in the darkness, ascending in the darkness, as if their owner were staring upwards while climbing the stairs below.
‘Tina,’ he whispered. ‘What’s that? Down there. Look!’
But Tina was not listening to him. Her attention was fixed on Lord Wolcroft, who had sat forward at the séance table, his face sharp with concentration. He was staring up at Tina and Harry as if he could see them crouched there in the shadows.
Miss Ursula was now positively effervescent with excitement. ‘Oh! Oh my!’ she cried. ‘Oh my, we have contact! Everyone, place your fingers on the spirit glass! Gently now! Gently!’
The assembled dilettantes did not do as they were told. Instead, they watched, rapt, as the small crystal glass began making its own way around the table. The click, click, clickity of its progress on the inlaid wood of the spirit board was very clear in the stunned silence.
The pinpricks of light reached the top of the stairs. Their owner stepped from the darkness, and Harry found himself staring down into the eyes of Lord Wolcroft’s carriage driver. The tall man was looking up at the catwalk, his face transfixed with wonder. Heedless of the drop, Tina was leaning far out over the edge of the catwalk, her own eyes huge, her fingers gouged into the gritty fabric of the sandbags, and Harry realised with a jolt that the carriage driver was not, in fact, staring at him, but at her.
Lord Wolcroft rose to his feet at the séance table, his eyes also riveted on Tina.
On the spirit board, the little glass revolved faster and faster, its faceted surface glittering in the wavering light of the candles. It spiralled to the centre of the board, where it spun on its own axis like a top. Then, without warning, it rose straight into the air. Miss Ursula shrieked, and the hitherto awed spiritualists leapt back in fear. Undeterred, the glass continued its glittering ascent until it was spinning at their eye level, small and sparkling and beautiful, shooting arrows of light and rainbows into the faces of the watchers.
Lord Wolcroft stared through the darkness into the eyes of the girl above, his lips parted, his face, like that of the carriage driver, infused with joy. ‘At last,’ he whispered. ‘We have found another.’
And, as if in agreement, the dark-skinned man in the shadows whispered, ‘Yes.’
Tina made the strangest noise in the back of her throat: a choking sort of gurgle. Harry was dimly alarmed by it, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes from the carriage driver, who had crossed the backstage to stand directly below them.
Still gazing up at Tina, the man lifted his hand, as if to catch a thrown coin. Harry heard a distant pat, pat, pat as something dropped into his upraised palm.
The flock of dilettantes were frozen, apparently mesmerised by the glitter of the airborne crystal. For a brief moment, Lord Wolcroft looked from face to terror-struck face. Then he sighed, reached across, and plucked the spinning glass from the air.
‘None of this is important,’ he said.
There was an instant surge of relief. People smiled sheepishly, as if to say, Well, of course not.
‘It is time to go home,’ murmured Wolcroft, and they immediately began a merry chattering and gathering of overcoats. Only Miss Ursula seemed aware of the situation, her fingers pressed to her mouth, her eyes on the glass that glittered in Wolcroft’s hand.
‘I … I’ve never …’ she whispered. ‘I don’t …’
Wolcroft took her by the arm. He smiled down into her anxious face. ‘There is nothing to worry about, dear.’ She relaxed. Wolcroft began to lead her from the stage. ‘About the Christmas show, Miss Lyndon. I think you shall travel with me ahead of the other performers, to act as my advisor.’
‘Advisor,’ she breathed.
‘Indeed. I am no expert in setting up a production, I’m afraid. You shall be a fount of usefulness in advance of your associates’ arrival.’
‘Oh, I can be very useful.’
‘Of course, you shall bring your staff,’ he said, guiding her down the steps to the auditorium.
‘My … my staff?’ said Miss Ursula.
‘Indeed – your maid, your girl-servant. You would be shocked, Miss Lyndon, at the number of people these days who find it acceptable to travel without staff. A woman of your breeding, of course, shall wish to travel properly, with your companion in tow, as a lady should.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Ursula dreamily. ‘Oh yes, my companion …’
‘And you shall bring only your finest clothes, dear. No doubt you have some lovely dresses. Tell me about them …’
They strolled off, arm in arm, apparently forgotten by the others, who, one by one, began to drift away.
Soon only the carriage driver remained, standing in the wings, gazing down at his palm. Harry, leaning far out across the sandbags, was aware of Tina’s arm pressed hot and trembling against his own, and that she was still making a strange and gurgling sound. He wanted to turn to her, to ask what the matter was, but he couldn’t seem to move his head or tear his eyes from the tall, dark-skinned man below. Somewhere far off, he could hear water running – a thin, distant sound, as if someone had left a tap dribbling into a sink.
The carriage driver looked up. Harry flinched as a rich, deep voice sounded in his head.
Don’t just sit there, boy. Help her.
His words seemed to release some iron-tight grip, and Harry collapsed against the sandbags. The sound of running water was much closer than he’d thought: a light, steady fall, pattering against canvas. The roof must be leaking.
Harry tur
ned his swimming head to check on Tina. She was staring at the stage, her eyes huge, her teeth clenched tight. Her nose was pouring blood. It ran in impossible gouts from each nostril, streaming onto her clawed hands and down into the darkness below. Her lower face was drenched in it.
As Harry clutched her shoulders and dragged her back from the edge he thought, very clearly: He caught her blood. The carriage driver. He reached out his hand and caught her blood. And then, with a sharp sense of panic he thought, How am I going to get her down the ladder?
Safe and Warm
JOE DREAMT THAT Mickey the Wrench was chasing him. As Joe scrabbled featureless walls, weak and hot and desperate for breath, Mickey ambled along behind, carrying the big staff he used to beat the fighting dogs, swinging it from side to side, from side to side. Eventually there was nowhere left to run, and Joe waited like a child, his face pressed to the corner of a blind alley, unable to turn, unable to hide as Mickey advanced, taking his time, swinging the staff, his grin a living presence in the dark.
A DEEP VOICE called him from his desperation. ‘Sit up.’
Strong hands gripped his shoulders and dragged him upwards, propping him against something soft. The change in position loosened something in Joe’s chest and he took a breath.
He was too hot; too hot and there was no air.
He opened his eyes to find two green points of light floating over him. He reached for them. They drew back, and his fingers brushed skin: a face.
‘Your eyes,’ he whispered. ‘They glow in the dark.’
Something lay briefly against his forehead, hot and dry – a hand? The deep voice said, ‘You are ablaze, Matthew. Tell me you have not succumbed to my disease.’
Joe just stared up into the green lights, fascinated by the fans and whorls and patterns he saw within them. ‘I know you,’ he said.
The hand withdrew. ‘Yes. You know me. What are you doing, huddled like a vagrant in this corner?’
‘Not doing any harm. I’ll leave when I’ve had me rest.’
Resonance Page 7