‘Good morning, Mr Alcock. I was just telling the lad here how busy you are and to stop squabbling with me and take the job we’re offering him.’
‘Maybe you have a better offer?’ Mr Alcock asked. A shadow of confusion and disappointment passed over Lonnie’s face. He was making a mess of this good and proper. ‘No sir, I’d love to work for you.
It’s only …’
‘Only what?’
‘The lad’s full of muddle, sir,’ interrupted Ned.
‘Won’t give me a yes or a no. Won’t speak to me. Wanted you in person. But he’s as honest as the day’s long. Just picked up a guinea he has, and handed it to me without a second thought. Honesty like that doesn’t come along too often these days. If you allow me to speak on his behalf, I reckon he deserves a chance to have his say.’
‘So do I,’ agreed Alcock. ‘Spit it out, lad.’
‘I want you to buy a horse.’ There. Lonnie had said it, plain as day, seeing as everyone wanted directness.
Ron Alcock pointed to his foreman. ‘See Ned here. He’s a very skilled and capable man who I pay a lot of money. And why do I pay him so much? Because it’s his job to find me the best horses and riders around. If that’s not good enough for you, young man, I’m intrigued.’ He turned to Ned. ‘Tell me again, what’s this fellow’s name?’
‘Lonnie McGuinness.’
‘The one from Crick’s?’
Ned nodded. Lonnie didn’t know what to make of the sharp look which passed between the two men. Ronnie Alcock placed an arm around his shoulder and led him a few paces away. ‘Come on then, lad, let’s leave Ned to his other business. Let me hear what you have to say about this horse.’
‘He’s real smart, Mr Alcock. Speedy, I mean. Exceptional. If you’d buy him, sir. And you should buy him.’ Lonnie heard himself rabbiting on at full speed.
‘Hold on, son. So this is what’s too secretive for my foreman’s ears; the same man I trust to find the best horses money can buy. How old are you?’
‘Sixteen, sir.’
‘And how is a sixteen-year-old going to convince me I should buy a horse on his advice alone? Especially a lad who should be jumping at the chance of a job here, but is more interested in selling me a horse.’
‘He’s not mine to sell, sir. The Cricks own him. But with the right training, this horse is a sure winner. I willingly admit I can’t look at any horse the way your foreman can and know at a glance how good it will become. But I know the heart of this one.’
Lonnie knew he was fast losing Mr Alcock’s favour, but he was determined not to give up. If he could only convince him. Lordy, he’d give it his best shot.
‘Would you buy Lightning for a hundred guineas?’
‘Lightning’s not up for sale. And if he was he’d cost a lot more.’
‘What if I say this horse is as good as Lightning, maybe even better?’
‘I’d say you’re still talking in riddles. There’s not a horse around at the moment to compare.’
‘A horse with spirit. A horse who is unproved, but I reckon could be the best. Real special. He hears me. I don’t know why, but when I ride him he goes so much better for me than for anyone else. If you buy him I can leave the Golden Acres without a second thought.’ Lonnie’s own strong sentiment for the horse took him by surprise. He hadn’t realised how attached to Trident he had become.
‘If I thought for one minute you were saying that if I didn’t buy this horse you wouldn’t work for me, I’d kick you out by the seat of your pants. I’ll not be blackmailed.’
Lonnie tried a final appeal to the Glen’s business side. ‘If the Cricks ever find out how good he really is, money won’t buy him. But right now I bet you could persuade them to sell him for as little as a hundred guineas. That’s what Thomas Crick said he’s worth. It’s a steal.’
The world seemed to slow down as he waited for a reply. Ronnie Alcock took out his pipe and lit it. Puffs of smoke dawdled upwards. In the distance a horse stood idly at the railings. Lonnie knew he had made an impassioned plea. Now he prayed it would work. Seconds ticked over. Any minute now the Glen owner would grab him by the seat of the pants and fling him out. He braced himself.
‘Ned likes the look of you in the saddle,’ Mr Alcock said, eventually breaking the silence.
Lonnie’s face broke into a smile as wide as a barn door.
‘Not so fast. There’ll be one or two more things you’ll have to prove. Talk to Ned about the job. Then I’ll give some thought to your proposition about the horse.’
‘But you’ll buy him, Mr Alcock, sir?’
‘By Jesus, you have a load of pluck, son. No promises. I don’t even know the name of this so- called superb animal.’
‘Trident, sir.’
‘What? Lightning’s brother!’ Mr Alcock shook his head in disbelief. ‘He’s tops to look at, but word has it he’s a duffer. I’ll have to think this one over good and proper …’
It hit Lonnie like a brick that even if Mr Alcock did buy Trident, he could not start work at the Glen right away. There was too much riding on the street race. He must stay in the good books with the Cricks until it was over. Not that he could admit to Mr Alcock he was in any way involved in illegal racing. Anyhow, he’d jump that hurdle later. For now, he would go along with anything they said. ‘I’ll wait to hear from you then, sir.’ Lonnie stood rigid, not daring to move away until he was given the all clear, a fact not lost on Ronnie Alcock.
‘Anything else you’d like, lad, or shall I be off, leaving you to run the Glen by yourself ?’
‘No, sir!’ Lonnie grinned, relieved, and sped off down the drive.
HAIRPIN
Item No. 6551
Carved out of bone.
The prospect of one day becoming a jockey at the Glen stables left Lonnie flooded with the idea of celebrating, and put him in the mind to drop by the oyster bar and pick up a bag as a treat. What’s more, he’d check and see if Pearl was around. He’d heard she was back in her usual place by the Governor and was mighty relieved to think she had come back to Little Lon from wherever she’d scarpered off to. Some oysters would work wonders as her welcome back tidbit.
Treasured oysters in hand, he crept up on Pearl from behind, playfully pulling out one of the hairpins from under her bonnet. She turned around startled and Lonnie was shocked to find her face peaky, like a white dollop of sago pud, her cheeks hollow and gaunt.
‘Lonnie, you gave me the fright of my life.’
‘You’re a bit jumpy. Been sickly or something? We thought you’d scarpered off from Annie for a while and found a hidey-hole somewhere.’
‘Something like that,’ she answered vaguely.
‘Running a bit hot and cold. I’ll be on the mend soon.’
‘Fancy a bit of a celebration?’
‘I’m working.’ She cast her eyes around nervously, ever on the lookout these days. ‘Anyhows, what are we supposed to be celebrating?’
‘A bit of good news for one thing.’
‘I told you I’m working.’
‘You don’t have to stay for long.’
‘What if someone comes checking?’
‘We’ll lay low. How much is half an hour of your time worth, then?’
‘Oh, so that’s what you have in mind?’
Lonnie was relieved to see a glint of the Furies back in Pearl’s eyes. ‘Get away with you, Pearl. I’m not spinning you a line.’ He held up the bag of steaming oysters. ‘Even a working girl’s got to eat.’
‘Don’t think I haven’t whiffed them already, yer chump!’ A final scan of the area reassured her no one was watching. ‘I guess I can sneak a bit of time. What’s the worst that can happen, eh?’ She slipped her arm through his. ‘I bags the bulk of them.’
HARD RUBBER PIPE
Item No. 455
Various uses, including female contraceptive device used for washing out.
Back at number four Pearl rummaged behind a pile of knickers, tight corsets, hard rubber pipes and
glycerine bottles to uncover her stash of blended wines. She passed a bottle over to Lonnie and swigged long and hard from another. ‘This’ll warm our toes.’
‘I stood at the oyster bar for over an hour waiting for you last time,’ Lonnie reprimanded her. ‘Where’d you disappear to?’
‘You know how it is,’ Pearl said in a roundabout way. Her face clouded over. No sense in telling anyone the worst of her time spent beneath the floorboards. She pushed an oyster into her mouth and swilled it down with a few more mouthfuls of drink. ‘Never you mind what I’ve been up to.’
‘Go easy, girl, you’ll be giddy.’
‘I can handle it.’
‘Well, it makes my head thick. Watch out Mrs B doesn’t catch you pinching her good wine.’
‘See if I care,’ replied Pearl defiantly. ‘She can rot in hell.’
‘Come on, mate, lift your spirits.’ He could sense Pearl was really out of sorts. ‘Hey, wanna know more about the horse race?’
‘Found something out, have you?’
‘Turns out I’m riding in it.’
‘How’d you manage that?’ She took another swig.
‘You’d better win.’
‘I did some checking. The two horses weren’t in their stable. No one’s been exercising them, at least not while I’ve been around. I’m gonna check some more, but I reckon I already know what they’re up to.’
Pearl emptied her bottle and took another.
‘Slow down. You’ll get in all sorts of strife.’
‘I already worked out why we’re celebrating,’ she said with a smile, raising the bottle and clinking it against his.
Pearl couldn’t have heard about his job offer. He’d only just found out himself.
‘It’s the ninth,’ she said.
Lonnie gasped; he’d completely forgotten. Fancy, the ninth, and he’d not even remembered. He recalled telling Mr Alcock he was only sixteen, but couldn’t be blamed for an honest mistake.
Pearl giggled. ‘Get drinking, seeing it’s such a special occasion.’
They carried on sharing the bottles and drinking to each other’s health. Fast becoming sloshed, Pearl toasted everyone’s birthday and anniversary, even Annie Walker falling and breaking a leg. Lonnie was feeling a little under the weather himself. Out of the blue she clutched his arm. ‘Let’s do some more snooping about the horses. I’ll be lookout.’
‘I dunno,’ he said. There’d be some nifty climbing and fast running to be done. He wasn’t sure of their chances. ‘Thought you had to go back to work.’
‘Men are bad for my health. They make me sick.’ As a way of proving her point she burped loud and long. She looked at him accusingly. ‘Lonnie’s a scaredy-dare.’
‘Save your bull,’ he answered. ‘It won’t work on me.’
‘You weren’t a scaredy-dare the time we stole the empty bottles.’ She nestled into Lonnie’s shoulder and swilled some more wine. ‘Remember?’
How could Lonnie forget that lark, where she’d helped him pinch empty bottles from the back of the Traveller’s Inn and then carry them around the front, all the while pretending Lonnie had been out collecting them. They’d almost taken a good payment for returns from the publican.
‘I was a good cockatoo,’ Pearl said. ‘I warned you in time, didn’t I?’
‘Got chased all the way down Spring Street,’ Lonnie replied good-humouredly. Carlo’s warning – ‘She’s trouble with a capital P’ – drifted like a mist, in through one ear and out the other. But even when Pearl was carted off and threatened with prosecution, she never dobbed him in. ’Course Pearl was a good cockatoo. Why not the two of them go out on a midnight venture like old times? Especially tonight, being the ninth, even if the drink had made them a bit bleary-eyed. He could do with a little excitement on his birthday. As long as Pearl stayed cool-headed.
‘I’m up for it if you are.’
Before the words even tripped off his tongue, Lonnie was beginning to regret them.
IRON FILIGREE
Item No. 3080
Moulded ironwork. Fashioned from bars of pig iron brought into the country as ship’s ballast. Used in building facades.
Across on the beautiful side of town where the houses were statelier (although souls could be less giving), Rose Payne was having an intense argument with her father.
‘But, Daddy –’
Henry Payne glared angrily at his daughter. ‘You know as well as I do, Lonnie McGuinness is one of those half-witted sons of Little Lon. Tell me if you dare that he doesn’t loaf with other undesirables on the street corners of an evening.’
‘But he’s not a larrikin.’ Who had told her father about him? Thomas, she supposed. Even as she made her defence, Rose thought dismally back to their encounter with the Glass and Bottle Gang and of her unlikely rescue by the Push. She couldn’t deny that Billy Bottle and George Swiggins both seemed to know Lonnie. However, she pushed the thought aside. It was too horrible to consider he was one of them.
Henry Payne was far from finished. ‘Moreover, my girl, he may well be the thief who robbed our Carlton house. Boys like him are a scourge; can’t step over a lump of bluestone without seeing it as a missile and smashing it through the nearest window. The die’s cast, his sort will never change. If I prove he’s to blame, I’ll haul him up to the magistrate’s court in a flash. No daughter of mine will be seen with the likes of that ruffian, do you understand? I’ll hear no more of it.’
Rose went cold at the sternness of his words. How dare he speak to her like that? However, she was well schooled in her father’s threatening tone. ‘Yes, Father,’ she said, biting her tongue. It was pointless to argue.
Upstairs and out of his sight, Rose stomped up and down in her room. ‘I hate you. I hate you. I’ll see who I want to see.’ Wasn’t she old enough to make up her own mind who she saw, whether he was Lonnie McGuinness or even … even … Ned Kelly, if she had a mind to?
But was it possible Lonnie was a member of the Push? Those larrikins all seemed too familiar with him. And what did Daddy mean by calling him a thief ? She knew he was capable. She’d been with him when he’d worked that lock.
The evil of that night resurfaced: the monster Billy Bottle mauling her; the dark squalid alleyways of Little Lon; the maid in the grubby room that looked like a whorehouse; that common dress she had been forced to wear. The same dress she had hatefully ripped off on her return and bundled into the cupboard where it had remained untouched for the past week.
And even though Rose Payne resolved never to set foot again in a place fit only for thugs and dirty girls, she was still vexed at her father. She would see who she wanted. But if ever she did see Lonnie McGuinness again, whatever would she do? She had never felt so out of sorts in all her life.
She pulled out the dress and in her temper tore the neckline and side seams. Then believing she would be better rid of it in case her father made the discovery, she made up her mind there and then to send it back with the coachman immediately to that hateful hotel. What was it called? The Leitrim?
DARK LANTERN
Item No. 903
Badly damaged remains of a lantern. Squashed and flattened.Found in area that had once been a cellar.
‘For goodness sake, Pearl, shut it.’
She sounded like a drunken navvy. The dark lantern in her hand bobbed along, marking time to one, two, three, loud belches. Pearl threw Lonnie an apologetic look. He grabbed the lantern from her and held the light towards a shutter at the stable, half-hanging from its hinges. It was the obvious point of entry. He went in search of the ladder he knew lay in the grass, located it and propped it against the stable wall. ‘Dog out for me here,’ Lonnie ordered. Pearl would probably break her neck if she tried to climb. Better leave her outside.
He climbed the ladder with the ease of a possum, leaving Pearl at the bottom to keep watch while he scrambled through the opening to disappear amongst the hay bales. When he heard Pearl giggling, he reappeared, whispering, ‘Find somewhere to
hide and keep quiet.’ A speedy change of mind decided him she would be better under his watchful eye.
‘Nah, climb up here.’
‘Make your mind up, yer chump.’ She hiccupped. Muttering a swift prayer that the moving moon
of light he saw in the distance was nothing to do with the Cricks, he hung his own lantern on a nail and hoisted her up, preventing her from falling backwards. ‘Lordy, hurry up, girl.’ He half-dragged Pearl through the opening. ‘Someone’s coming.’
They were bound to spot the ladder. He knew he had to take one more chance at revealing himself. Leaning forward, he pulled for all he was worth. The ladder scraped against the sill as he dragged it inside.
‘Douse the lantern before we’re seen,’ he whispered.
Still larking around, Pearl swung the lantern and made futile attempts to snuff out the flame. ‘Make a birthday wish.’
Lonnie grabbed the lantern before she could burn herself or set fire to the stable. He smothered the flame and hauled Pearl across the straw, settling on an old horse blanket near some disused tackle. Below was the sound of restless horses shuffling and nosing the stalls, impatient to run.
Pearl was still prattling on. ‘Lots of straw here. For bedding. For a wedding. How about it, you and me? I’ll let you marry me.’ She snuggled up close. ‘I know you want it, Lonnie.’
‘Will you shut up?’ He pressed his finger hard on her lips.
Pearl swiped it away and nestled into his neck.
‘Give us a kiss, yer chump.’
He broke free from her embrace. ‘If you make any more noise we’ll be in real strife.’ Capital P – Carlo wasn’t far wrong. Lonnie forced her to crouch low amongst the bales, praying she would keep quiet. Then he held his breath and waited.
In Lonnie's Shadow Page 11