by Wesley Stace
A toilet flushed. A shadow came back into the room, and George darted out of view, kicking himself for not waiting a moment longer to confirm his suspicions. It was now or never. He peeked his head round again and saw a man’s back. It was certainly not Don, but at that moment Don walked into the room and turned the television off.
George scurried around to the other side of the house as they talked. On an inspiration, with the two men safely in the other room, George went to the scullery door. Opening it as quietly as he could, he walked into a small spartan kitchen with a sink full of suds, peeling lino, a fridge door covered in photos and newspaper cuttings, and an electric kettle about to boil. Hearing muffled conversation from the sitting room, he took one of the walkie-talkies out of his pocket and placed it on the table. As his eyes surveyed the room, he took a closer look at the fridge.
The main photo, the epicentre of the collage around which all the other pictures and yellowed cuttings were arranged, was a picture of him, taken during the entertainment at the end of the previous term. He was holding forth, one arm raised, in the gymnasium.
The sheer weirdness of its presence startled George. He stood transfixed, unable to see anything else on the fridge clearly, and at that moment, when he was incapable of any movement, the door opened. He turned around, and there was Donald, who was looking over his shoulder, listening to something being said from the other room. Donald looked pale, cold. They faced each other. They froze. The other man spoke from the sitting room, but neither heard what he said.
Donald looked at George without any change of expression, as though he were seeing a familiar ghost. Behind him, the voice pressed its case through the open door. Donald still didn’t move. George glanced at the walkie-talkie on the table, looked into Donald’s empty eyes one last time, and bolted out of the house.
“Everything OK?” called the voice, which George didn’t recognize. George ran round the corner, where he hid behind a tree, heart pounding.
“Yes,” said Donald, snapping out of his trance. “Door came open.” He popped his head outside and scanned the back garden. George heard the door close and sprinted, hoping against hope that oncoming headlights would not send him scurrying back into the undergrowth.
Breathless, he got to the side gate, managing to get one foot onto the latch. He hoisted himself up, the faint smell of a bonfire in the air. Swinging one leg over and then the other, he groped for the latch on the other side with his right foot so he could balance before he dropped to the ground. Miraculously, his foot steadied on something. He then realized that his right foot was not so much balancing on as being held by something, something that wobbled slightly — a hand. There was nothing for it now, so he swung his other leg over and leaned backwards, to find himself sitting on someone’s shoulder.
“Mr. Fisher, I presume!” said Hartley, who had been enjoying his evening pipe in the fresh air. “Nice of you to drop by. The very last thing I expect to see when I am taking my nightly walk is a boy’s leg fishing for a hold on the gate.” He let George to the ground. “It’s all a bit Brideshead, isn’t it?”
George said nothing. Faced with silence, Hartley could moderate his temper only with his measured tone. “What did you think you were doing?”
“I was running away,” said George without hesitation.
“Then you have a poor sense of direction.”
“I thought better of it.”
“You thought better of it,” repeated Hartley, nodding. “You were running away, and you thought better of it.” George fixed his stare on the gravel. He wondered if he’d feel less miserable if he told the truth.
“How far did you get?”
“Not very. The conker trees.”
“And why were you running away?”
“I’m not happy.” He expected a caning. That was the least of it.
“You’re not happy. No, I understand that.” There was silence as they walked back towards the school. “A lot of boys and parents are happy with Upside: the abundant facilities, the competitive fees, the low death rate. How can we, the powers-that-be here at Upside, make you, George Fisher, happy?”
“I don’t know.”
They walked into the school through one of the doors that the boys were not allowed to use. It was the shortcut to the headmaster’s study, where George’s punishment awaited. He hadn’t done enough to deserve expulsion or suspension, and because he hadn’t actually run away, there would be little sympathy for him. He was merely going to be punished, whipped like a dog. When he moved to the headmaster’s study, however, Hartley peeled away towards his own living quarters.
“You don’t know how we can make you happy?” asked the headmaster. George shook his head. “Well,” said Hartley through his teeth, before walking away, “if you find out, get back to me.”
6
The King and Queenie Show
Very rarely, when things seem not to be able to get any worse, they don’t.
It was Joe who took me from the box. We were back at Cadogan Grove, in the dining room, where we had first met. I was home! Home amidst the silver frames, the earthy colours, and the drapery; home, where I could do my best for the man I was made for.
“Pop you up here, George! Wouldn’t want you to miss all the fun! You didn’t want to go to those children’s parties, anyway, did you, old boy?” he asked rhetorically, as I took my place on the sideboard among the decanters and bottles. “You don’t want sticky fingers in your hair. Queenie, it’s time for George to come home. But we didn’t want to leave you empty-handed, so . . .”
From beneath the table he produced a box, a Romando box, identical to mine: the same two brass catches, the same keyhole, and doubtless the lining I knew so well.
“You never!” Queenie gasped. On top of the box was an engraved brass plate on which was written in that familiar swirling script: For Queenie Brown. Romando Theatrical Properties of Henley. “Pip Squeak.” “Joe! Oh, thank you!”
Out of the box, she took a boy. My doppelgänger! My saviour! The same crest on the same forest green blazer, the same mop of hair beneath the same red school cap, the same black leather shoes over socks that didn’t match. Queenie compared us. “They’re perfect little twins! He’s adorable.”
Then I saw his face. He had the same (independently winking) bright staring eyes and the same permanently flared nostrils, but he didn’t look quite the same as I: a little blanker, not quite as live a wire. He might have been like me, very like me indeed, but somewhere among all those hieroglyphs there was a crucial difference: only one of us was V/IX/30. On the final day of judgement, we would not be mistaken.
“Pip,” said Queenie. “Pip Squeak!” Joe laughed. Here he finally was. Pip Squeak. My younger brother.
“Can I offer to . . . ?” she asked with caution.
“Absolutely not,” said Joe. “Compliments of the Fisher family. We should introduce them.”
Joe caressed my levers. I shuddered as my mechanism stuttered into gear, a car on a cold morning.
“Now, George,” said Queenie. “I’d like you to meet someone.”
“Hello, Pip Squeak!” I said, and winked. Close up, he was a handsome kid, and he wouldn’t have the easiest start in life, groped by Queenie, smeared by the birthday boy. He’d look up to me as an elder brother, of course he would, the prefect who knew the ropes, as I had looked up to Narcissus before he had put me so firmly in my place. “I’m George.”
“Ho, Geo.” Poor devil. He was only a baby. He could barely talk.
“Turn and face him a little more, then you can be a bit freer,” Joe advised Queenie.
“You’re rather handsome, aren’t you?” I said, turning my attention to the lad.
“I look like you.”
“My point exactly!” I made a show of yawning. “Are you tired? I am. I didn’t get a wink of sleep.”
“Hey!” said Queenie. “Not fair.” She was laughing at me, at him, at her boys. “I thought you were going to be my perfect little gentl
eman, George.”
Echo exploded into the house with the report of slamming doors, homing in on us like a guided missile.
“Success? Success? Joe? Does Pip Squeak fit the bill?” I nodded. “Success, Queenie, success?” Queenie smiled and nodded too in recognition of a quite different achievement. “Really, dear? Oh, I am relieved.” It was Echo who put the pause that followed out of its misery. “And I had an idea: should the two of you ever have the whim to do an act together . . .” Picturing the names in lights, she traced the perimeter of an imaginary billboard in midair: “King and Queenie.” She repeated it in exactly the same voice with exactly the same mime. She was ready to do this endlessly until everyone acquiesced.
Echo finally had her Pip Squeak. I had only narrowly escaped the name, but now there he was, Pip Squeak, sitting in front of me. And doubtless it was only a matter of time before she had her “King and Queenie” too.
Queenie was unexpectedly cast in The Count of Luxembourg, and Joe found himself somewhat relieved by her imminent departure for Edinburgh. It gave him time to think.
In the ten days before she left, there was no repeat of that final lesson, and certainly none in Joe’s room, a haven to which only the two of us were admitted and which I never left.
I was set back in my original chair. The room, the books, the desk, the dust: all was as it had been. What had changed was his attitude. For whatever reason, he was glad to have me back, and more than ever I found myself his confidant.
At first, we danced around the key issue. I didn’t want to rush him, yet I couldn’t let him be the unwitting victim of Echo’s manoeuvres. She had handed him off to Queenie. She had arranged every minute of the relationship, just as she had managed the beginning of our career together at the Drolls. The wise bet was that she had bought Queenie the perfume and told her which brand of sherry to buy. One hoped she had shied away from advising Queenie on precise techniques, but it was only a hope. If Echo and Queenie were in league now, they would always be in league. He had let himself be trapped again.
There was still time to escape, to make for the high seas. Only I could help. But I was happy to bide my time. Softly softly catchee monkey.
But, of course, I didn’t even have to say a word. He knew it already: he simply had to work it out for, admit it to, himself. At first he blamed me, then he blamed himself; only finally did he blame Queenie. Although he was in touch with her, this had all gone unmentioned. It wasn’t the kind of thing you scribbled on a postcard.
“There’s only one way,” he announced. “I’m going to Scotland.” He threw some clothes in a small brown suitcase and was gone.
On his return three days later, he made straight for his desk and wrote, always wrote. The postcards from Scotland, all thistles, kilts, and jokes about Gretna Green, dried up long before Queenie’s run was over. She returned to London but didn’t visit.
One day Echo was at the door.
“I’ve heard,” she said pointedly in mock-chiding tone. Her expression changed suddenly with the ludicrous theatricality she expended even on the smallest of moments. “Diane told me. Congratulations are in order.”
Joe looked up but said nothing.
“Surprisingly rakish of you, if you’ll forgive me.” She stood over him at the desk. “There’s no shame in it at all. We live in a world, a demimonde so-called, where these things are awfully run-of-the-mill.”
There was a pause.
“Echo?” he asked. “You pushed her towards me, didn’t you? You planned it all —”
Echo pished this with a dismissive hand. “The girl was besotted with you, smitten,” she said blithely, and twirled around on the spot, a debutante dancing her first waltz with a dashing nobleman. “Oh, it was so romantic. She must have seen you onstage in your evening dress and just fallen head-over-heels in love with you there and then.” The waltz suddenly crashed to a halt. “But waiting for you would have been . . . A mother knows what’s best, sometimes. Besides,” she added matter-of-factly, “I wasn’t expecting her to be quite that successful.” Joe did nothing to fill the silence. “Hadn’t you better see her? A little bird tells me she’s waiting to hear from you. Darling, there is so much more to say, but congratulations. It’s just what you need. She’ll be excellent for you. Joe, you have my approval!” Out she went. She came back in. “And one more thing. Demimonde though it may be, bohemians and children of paradise though we undoubtedly are, speed and timing are of the essence, for obvious reasons. Chop chop!”
She was gone. Joe threw his head back, closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and exhaled for ten full seconds. Lost in thought, he stared ahead through the tears.
The wedding of Joe Fisher and Queenie Brown took place at St. Mary in the Meadows, Islington, on the fifth day of December 1935. It was a hastily arranged family affair, but the reviews were good, even for Reverend Wooley’s sermon, with its obligatory chuckling reference to Evangeline’s heathen pseudonym.
Queenie’s digs were no longer considered appropriate, and since the newlyweds could not afford a house of their own, she moved into the Fisher residence. The invasion was almost complete. Joe relocated his bed within two feet of hers in a quainter room on the second floor but kept his bedroom as our den, sensibly defending this last bastion of privacy.
With the marriage came new financial concerns. They’d be a double act, all right, as Echo had suggested, and so should I: at children’s parties, King and Queenie, George and Pip Squeak. I was pleased to see him engrossed in a project, whatever its nature, particularly one that included me. I even opened my heart to the rehearsals. We had had dreams, of course, but now we had to adapt and be as good as we could at what was required. We could no longer headline the Theatre Royal, but we might perhaps live on in the hearts of some children. These were different responsibilities, and I respected his wishes. Reflection would be fatal, and Joe was determined to move forwards into this new life without it. For all I know, he would have described himself as happy.
And then, just when I had forgotten all about it, Queenie went to the hospital. She had assumed a kind of queenly grandeur as her stomach grew and her bosoms inflated to the size of hot-air balloons, but I had ignored it, preferring to concentrate on our pitiful little entertainment. That there was a reason for her great size (I just took her to be an ever-increasing parody of her original shape) had almost slipped my mind.
She returned looking radiant, vastly slimmer. It was the most beautiful I ever saw her, as she was pushed into the house in a bath chair. That night Joe, Queenie, Pip, and I sat on the carpet in the parlour in front of a roaring fire, and she said, “Look what I have for you, George.”
And out of a bundle of white blankets poked a little bald head. Given my negative feelings about children, their parties and their fingerprints, I didn’t quite know how to react when confronted with this pink lump, this baby girl. Yet my heart melted. She was so beautifully unspoilt: I wished only that she could remain so, free of the crippling shyness, the loneliness that had blighted her father’s life.
Perhaps she could be his saviour; I didn’t believe that for a minute. In this ludicrous, necessary union, he had to hide himself away more than ever, as if his true nature were monstrous.
“How about Francesca?” said Queenie, who couldn’t stop smiling a worn-out smile.
“Yes, I like that,” said Joe, who was smoking incessantly now. He was such a banal monster — a man who preferred his own company, his best attempts doomed to failure. “Frankie Fisher.”
Frankie Fisher — my little assistant.
* * *
Marriage wasn’t, nor can it ever be, a cure. Theirs was a practical arrangement of friendliness but no great passion. They slept in the same room but not in the same bed — and one never kept the other awake. It was even money Frankie would be an only child.
Joe was still happiest in his private room, and in this Queenie humoured him, without remark, for she was happiest with the baby; the baby, it was assumed, was happiest w
ith her. Joe did his best, but Queenie was better with children: she was the natural. She wasn’t scared that Frankie would snap in her hands, suffocate in her arms, tumble and shatter on the floor. Queenie handled her with calm, loving authority, never in doubt as to the right course of action. She left Joe to look on and occasionally test the water with his elbow. Eventually, he was allowed to shoulder a modicum of responsibility, but not before it had become clear that Frankie was essentially someone else’s. He had pictured himself walking the corridor late at night, when he returned from his smokers, book in one hand, baby in the other, but somehow this never happened. On his return, Queenie would shoo him off to bed: “Let me, Joe. That’s woman’s work. . . . You go and sleep. You’ve had a busy night.”
When Queenie allowed, I sat on one of Joe’s knees, Frankie on the other, and we bounced and played. (We were at least considered up to this.) Most of our early attempts at entertainment went over her head, but gradually things improved. She made the slow transition from nearly bald in the cradle, to blond in the cot, before the curls graduated to brown by the time she slept in her own little bed.
One day Joe brought home a miniature library of Beatrix Potter in a smart presentation box. Over the next year, we read every book to her. I played the frogs and the rabbits, the squirrels, the town mice, the flopsy bunnies, and the kittens, while Joe was narrator, pig, and farmer.