The door slammed closed. Before I could speak the key clicked in the lock. I looked up desperately at my aunt, but even she was speechless, my uncle’s force creating a whirlwind that spun her madly back from the window and into the house as she heard his foot on the stair.
SEVEN
Billy
Miss du Maurier had filled the days before the audition with her recollections of the stage, until it had become unendurable. I had avoided her as best I could, loitering in my room until it was almost a relief the day of it came just to hear the end of it, for I couldn’t bear another minute of the atmosphere in the house, nor my desire to know what it was had been going on in the shed. I arrived at the theatre earlier than my shift demanded. I would find work for my hands to do, even if it meant cleaning the privies. But she burned in my mind, the word made flesh. To drink her in was all I wanted. The house lights were on in the theatre; I had been hoping it would be as dark as a church so I could sit and dream the future with my prayers. A cleaner walked onto the stage with his bucket spilling rags, the mop a wood-and-cotton rifle over his shoulder.
The foyer was filled with hopeful flotsam ready to audition and I wondered what Mr Harry Clay would make of the two of them, the bride and groom with their pigeons. Then the boss man himself walked in, freshly pressed as if he had just stepped off an ironing board.
‘You’re here early, Little, not come to do some adjusting of the till, are you?’ The faces of the would-be performers swivelled like owls in my direction. Who was he to call me Little? I wanted to erase his face with my fists. I had to speak. The longer my silence, the more his joke became an accusation. Was I losing my nerve? Hadn’t I always been flasher than a rat with a gold tooth?
‘I wished, sir, to come a little early to make sure the bookings are in order. Last night some drongo overbooked and we had to turn folk away.’
He tipped his hat in my direction and turned to the sunflower faces watching him, their imposing sun. ‘Which one of you wants to be first? The theatre’s being cleaned and my office is being painted, so here will have to do.’
I tilted open the internal blinds of the box office, a secretive slant. A couple stood up and the fellow opened a box of knives. Clay looked warily at his baroque moulded walls. I thought of Eliza, my circus girl, my voodoo doll.
To impress Eliza I had nailed a circular piece of wood loosely to a tree and spun it as fast as I could, before dashing back to my spot, pulling down the blindfold and aiming like the billy-o in the right direction, satisfied only by the pop of balloons. The odd knife flew into the leafy branches, rousing the squawk of cockatoos. Before I returned to Eliza I sharpened the blades on the strap, thwacking them back and forth, lost in the rhythm, until the edges were precise, surgical and bright. I was eager to show Eliza the finesse of my skill.
When I walked into our room, Eliza was rolling about with another man. They were so distracted by their heavings that they never heard my entrance, let alone my retreat. This I was not prepared for. I had anointed her with my attention and made her anew in my image; it was not fair of her to rebel. Was I not giving her the world?
I was not nervous that first time upon the stage. Eliza was strapped in for the spin and I took close aim, grazing her flesh where I could. One by one my silver sickles sang. Spin she did, but she would not cry out. The applause at my acts of risk encouraged me, as my whistling blades shaved the finest of hairs from her skin. They did not know that every throw was accuracy in perfection. I wanted the trickle of the graze to spell out my name in her blood.
If I had been sharper, perhaps Lily wouldn’t have turned to another. If my suit were made of gabardine or wool or tweed, if the trousers had pleats and pinstripes, my collar stiff as a stranger’s groin, my cuffs snowy white. If my tie were made of silk, with polka dots and a matching handkerchief like a plume in the pocket; if my face smelled of citrus or sandalwood cologne. If my shoes were shiny as a beetle’s back, clear enough to see my face in, if my socks weren’t riddled with holes like a piece of cheese. If my hat were free of lint with a clean striped band of grosgrain ribbon, the brim at a cocky tilt. If my suit were as fine as the Jew’s, then perhaps it would have been me who cast her off before she did me.
I opened and closed drawers to make myself sound busy. Upon the counter I could see the front-of-house book. Lily’s name, the print shaky and etched into the page as if the bloke who was on the shift when she came had traced the original words over and over again. I ran my fingers over her name like braille. Lily del Mar, a silly but wonderful invention, the original I would pry out of her yet, as the oyster knife shucks the pearl. I hoped Clay’s office would still be filled with brushes and turps by the time their audition came, for the foyer was my domain. I felt the knife I kept strapped to me, pointed as a guiding star. The handle was made of heavy wood, counterweighted so it could spin handle over blade when it skimmed the air.
Harry Clay was weighing up the idea of the act against his precious gilt lobby. ‘Not bloody likely in here, sunshine,’ he boomed. ‘Come back next week.’ The knifeman closed his case and the next clown stood up to grasp his moment. At that moment the pair of them arrived, birds swinging in their cages. Lily was flustered; I could see the harsh rouge of exertion in her cheeks. At that moment the cleaner came from the theatre into the foyer, clanking his sloshing bucket.
‘About time,’ muttered Clay and all the hopeful auditionees, my Lily of the Valley included, followed behind him, all a raggle-taggle-gypsy-o.
I tested the knife’s weight in my hand and I felt its need. Who was I to hold it back? It flew through the room, my strange metal bird, happily planting its lethal beak in the wood of the box-office window frame, exactly as I had aimed it. Clay looked up from his meek disciples and over to the box office, but dismissed the evidence of his own ears. As they disappeared into the theatre, I walked over and pulled the knife from the grain and admired my calligraphy. With only a little more encouragement from the tip of the blade, snick-snick, two Ls shone back at me upon the wall – Lily Little – for all the world to see if they were sharp enough.
I left my box-office cubby hole to peer into the theatre, to try to catch a glimpse. I didn’t want to see his paws upon her; I wouldn’t be responsible for what else my knife longed to say. The door silently opened an eye width. For weeks they had spent hours cloistered in that shed, resistant to my keen observations. Whenever I asked Lily for a clue she smiled and said a magician never shares her secrets. As I peered through the theatre door, I watched the Jew fiddle with his violin case as Lily freed the birds. The parrot fluttered up to the gantry above, until with a whistle it came to her outstretched arm, a green smear against her calico skin, while the currawong seemed reluctant to step out into the false light of the stage.
Lily squinted out into the darkness of the auditorium, waiting for her cue, and the Jew stood solemnly, his head bowed. Was he composing himself or had he lost his nerve? Out of its cage, the lyrebird took several dainty steps across the front of the stage before it found its imaginary mark and flicked its spectacular tail outward, a firework of feathers. Lily draped her arms around its throat, like Pavlova and her pet, and I gasped.
Clay barely looked over his shoulder, his cigarette glowing like a sniper’s decoy in the dimness.
‘Clear the theatre please, Mr Little,’ he said, and I wished like hell I had a rifle on me.
Once the audition was over and her shift began, I tried to catch her eye again – oh, that red pillbox hat and the platinum ripple of her hair beneath – but she eluded me.
I balanced up the till at the end of my shift. Always a temptation, to line my pockets with a little pay rise, but mindful of my purpose not yet served, I abstained. My plan was still being knitted together.
With the theatre closing, I walked out into the night, wondering whether to linger for her. I looked upwards and saw the very stars arrange themselves to spell her name. The cold air braced my nerves and I roared it into my lungs, blowing smoke rin
gs as I walked along the street. It was too early to go back to the boarding house to wait for her – there was the risk of being trapped by Miss du Maurier’s tales. I saw the Red Rose was still open and I made my way in, not caring if the Jew sat there tinkling at the piano. I had my plans for him too, not yet, but soon. A good plan needs nurturing like a seedling – soil, water, sun and shit. He fortunately was not in sight. Though she would be. All I had to do was wait.
I ordered my cocoa and cupped it to warm my hands, sipped its dark sweetness, but declined the waitress’s enticement of cake. I loathed cake. My stomach heaved at the thought of it. All the sweet I wanted was her, my little neighbour. She would be along soon; I knew her route as she walked the same way every time. I’d follow her at a respectful distance, keeping my careful eye upon her, along King Street, with its overswilling pubs, sly grog shops and the punters from the boxing matches with the smell of blood in their nostrils. The street was probably even busier in the night than the day, lit with round streetlights like a string of pearls. But as soon as you turned the corner, the light was extinguished. One couldn’t be too careful around these narrow streets. I kept watch for her out in the darkness, luring her in with my mind.
A bone-handled bread knife had been left on the table, broad and flat and dim. I ran it across the lines in my palm; I could make a better future for myself, no matter what the lines said.
After Eliza’s betrayal, I packed up my knives and laid them to rest for a time, letting the blades go dull and blunt. I had a few bob in my pocket, so I was not skint. There was only so much time one could spend bent over a beer like my father, holding up the bar with the soapy suction of the glass. The library seemed a natural refuge, a place to take stock. After all, it had been a book that had helped me block out the screams of amputee soldiers after I had sent my metal bouquet into Gerry’s trench after I had delivered my own stigmata. The library was quiet and warm, and when I had tired of reading I could nap behind the pages or have a gander at the female readers with their pursed expressions as they stumbled across difficult words. I favoured reading autobiographies such as Casanova’s with his nifty invention of the lottery and his adventures with women, though he was obviously a flagrant liar who wouldn’t know honesty if it was shoved up his arse as an enema.
Every day, the regulars showed up, until I became one myself. Another regular was the perfect professor, his tie a stiff fabric goitre beneath his chin. He always moved slowly, as if in a dream, never turning a page without a dab of moisture from a quick flick of his narrow cat-like tongue. Occasionally he would remove his spindle-rimmed glasses and wipe them clean, though they seemed impeccably clean already. It was as though even the dust would not dare settle on him. Our professor was smoother than a fake pearl.
I took to surreptitiously watching him from behind my book, the meticulous rhythm of his movements strangely alluring. I squinted at the authors he read – Mesmer, Charcot, Freud. Whoever they were, I wanted to know. But when I went to the shelves after him to find the volumes myself, they were not there. They had not been returned. I asked the librarian, but even she could not track them down and could only list them as lost or stolen. So when I next saw my portly professor, I watched him more closely.
He picked up a book, his tongue darting in and out of his mouth as if the words printed were cream, and tucked it under his arm as if it was already his. I quickly pulled my jacket on and put my book down, not taking my eyes off him for a second. His eye was fixed on the face of the librarian, who stood still before him as if caught in a snare. His spare hand waved twice, a strange gesture, and her hands fell down by her side as if they were no longer part of her body. He slipped past her, brazen as brass, but she just smiled and bid him good day, purloined book and all.
Not only was the book now his, the street was as well. If pedestrians came toward him on the footpath, it wasn’t the professor who stepped aside, oh no, everyone was a mere rowboat to his warship, scuppered to make way. He walked past a fruit stand and reached for a pear shaped with the perfect flange of a woman’s bottom, fondled it and put it back down, before grasping another and sinking his teeth right in. Perhaps it wasn’t ripe enough or was too floury, for he put it back down, a deep gouge in its side. The fruit seller, a swarthy continental, just waved cheerily at him, not registering the ravaging of his property. My professor was golden, untouchable.
I quickened when he quickened, stopped to inspect the time when he did (though I had no watch myself). His beautiful gold fob watch, like the one I had traded with Golden Fortune, was yanked with indiscriminate attention. Maybe he thought he could just filch another one when the fancy took him. His steps slowed. He looked about him and for a moment I thought he caught my eye, his blank stare seeing right through me. He quickly spun on his heel and disappeared through the door of the nearest shop. I stepped back and read the sign on the awning.
APOTHECARY
Home of Professor Cuthbert Crisp’s Elixir du Jour
The curiosity pounded in me, knocking my heart for six. I pushed the door open and it took me a moment to adjust blinkingly to the light. As I did, I almost wished I had never set foot across the threshold.
The professor was standing right in front of me, big as a brick shithouse, blocking my passage. My feet felt rooted to the spot. Who was this man? He would have filled the arse end of a trench without much ado. I had to crane my neck to take the bulk of him in. If he had bid me drink a foul concoction of Anzac soup I probably would have; I could not look away from his face, ugly prick that he was. He flexed his fingers into a fist and I felt my body brace for the blow, but I couldn’t have moved even if I’d wanted. My body had become a standing carcass waiting to be pulverised by a butcher’s fists. He didn’t strike then though – for that he made me wait.
Instantly, I was in thrall to Professor Cuthbert Crisp, who was to become my teacher, the refiner of my talents. Though I would one day come to wish that it was I who could teach him the lesson of a lifetime, in the same way he had delivered mine.
As I finished draining my cup in the Red Rose, I caught sight of her ghost face in the doorway. She had spotted me before I had spotted her and she had paused on her way for me.
‘Lily,’ I called, thrilled, rising to my feet and ushering her in. ‘Let me buy you a drink.’ If I could have drawn her into my arms I would have, but it was too soon, too soon.
‘It should be me buying you one,’ she said as she sat down. ‘I owe you, after all.’
That she did. Or perhaps I was in debt to her. It was a delight to see her in her usherette’s uniform, the red suit with brass buttons and matching pillbox hat. She was like the Queen of Heaven, the way her face glowed back as she illuminated the aisle with her torch, a tender guide for latecomers. Would she be able to show me the way too, pale angel at my side? Would she drape her arms around my throat, as she had with the lyrebird? Could I hope for as tender a touch?’
‘How’d the audition go?’ I prodded her. ‘Where did that lyrebird come from?’ It had surprised me to see such a thing, a bit of the bush lit electric on the stage.
She looked at me with her mercurial eyes and blinked her pale lashes. When she opened them again, had her eyes changed colour?
‘Well, I think it went well, but Clay had to dismiss a certain spy before we could begin.’
It was my turn to colour, blood rushing to my face.
‘Forgive my curiosity, Lily. Every time you and your friend disappear into the shed, I can’t help wonder what you’ve been up to.’ Her eyes fell then to the table; my double-edged question had made its point. My aim was true.
‘We have not quite perfected it all yet, you’ll have to wait like all the rest to see,’ she said bluntly. Her confidence was slipping from me, but I would kindle it yet. ‘It will surprise you.’
‘Will you still be an usherette?’ I’d miss seeing her as my little usherette, my bold little soldier, her light blazing through my own no-man’s-land.
‘Maybe. It’s t
oo soon to tell. It’s better than my last job, that’s for sure,’ she replied.
‘Which was?’ I pressed her again.
Agitatedly she fiddled with the bowl of sugar, dabbing up dropped granules on the table and plying them between her fingertips.
‘Just helping a bit at the general store,’ she lied. I could see it as she looked into my eyes; it was writ large in her irises. She would tell me one day, but for now I could only imagine. Feeding poddy lambs? Arranging flowers in a church? Teaching children Sunday school songs?
When her cocoa came, she held the cup close to her lips, blowing a cool wind on its steam, her mouth moist as a bitten cherry. I stared at her, drinking her in, her skin, her smell, until I looked solely at her eyes. Instilling my will in her with my eyes alone. Oh, I could dry her wet little lips with my own!
I kept my eye fixed upon her, just as I had been taught. She blinked several times, a helpless doll, her lashes fluttering to stay open. I reached out to her, my fingers coarse against the silk slip of her skin, her hand showing no resistance. That she submitted so easily to my strong eye, the timbre of my voice, my gentle stroking of her skin, all this delighted me. Her eyes shone with a darker light, her pupils swelling, spilled inkwells in her iris, and I had that thrill I had first felt long ago, when I had learned all from the master.
But Lily pulled her hand away from mine. My hand quivered from the shock of it. I had to contain myself, for I wanted to clutch at her and bring her back, her hand held close in mine as it should be.
‘I have to be going,’ she said, rising from the chair like mercury. She left the cocoa unsipped and disappeared through the door. The steam made question marks in the air that I was afraid to blow away in case they multiplied.
I thought she was receptive to the tenor of my touch, the hypnotic stroke. Had I lost my gift since Crisp, since Merle? She was still fallow, but I could wait, with a patience unsurpassable. She would have the full measure of me soon enough, and then it would be my name, only mine, that she would think of dawn through to night, not his. There would be no more questions, no hasty departures; she would be mine and mine alone.
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