by Wesley Stace
Perhaps she’s a Romando, I thought. Perhaps I see a little of myself in her. But no, she was nothing like. Her beautiful blond hair fell from her black hat in a frame of ringlets about her face, and she had the loveliest complexion I had ever seen, as smooth as a snooker ball. I wanted to reach out and touch it. Her colouring was beautiful too; her lips the gentlest, one might almost say most human, red, her eyes a twinkling green. Come on, George, behave, I said to myself, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from her, and I lingered over her ruffled green shirt and her charmingly baggy jodhpurs. (Oh, I forgot to mention she was dressed for the hunt! Trousers cover a multitude of sins.) She was truly a superior sort of being, and with her in sight, the purgatory of the waiting room, despite the slow turnover, seemed rather nearer heaven than hell.
Inevitably, she caught me peeping. I ducked down behind The Stage, scared that her indignation would burn a hole through the newspaper, and vowed to stop embarrassing us both, though I couldn’t resist catching the odd glimpse as the minutes ticked by.
“Number twenty-seven. Zona Hallett, please,” announced the secretary, making a show of prepping her handbag for her evening departure. Funny name for a fella, I thought, as a rather serious-looking young man presented himself.
Finally there was only the four of us. It was the ideal moment to start a conversation, and I was just wondering how to manage it, when Bobbie himself addressed me. “Hello, you,” he said with a mischievous grin.
I started. It’s difficult for me to be urbane under the best of circumstances, but I was able to collect myself and affect a rather upper-class “Hell-o.”
“I think he likes my little friend,” Bobbie said to Joe. “He’s been trying to catch her eye.”
I unsuccessfully denied the charges with a frantic shake of my head.
“I can’t help you there, old boy,” Joe said to me. “You’re guilty as charged.” They introduced each other: Bobbie Sheridan, Joe Fisher.
“And?” I looked up at Joe. “And? What am I? A dummy?”
“And this is George,” he said, giving me my cue to say hello.
“Delighted to have the opportunity to make your acquaintance, Miss . . . er . . .”
“This is Belle,” Bobbie said. I bowed, and my cap fell to the ground. Joe bent down and picked it up. “Aren’t you boys good?” said Bobbie. “Leave me and Belle in the shade, you two.”
“Practise, practise, practise,” I said.
“That’s what they tell me,” said Bobbie with a sigh. “But I’m afraid Belle is the laziest girl in town.”
I couldn’t take my eyes from her.
From the office beyond came the last of the other auditionees. A large man with a walrus moustache clapped him on the back in consolation as his associate, a smaller man with the trace of a foreign accent, commiserated, “Not what we require today, Zona.”
“Tomorrow, though. Always tomorrow,” said the larger man cheerfully, shepherding the reject to the exit. He surveyed the room. “Bobbie, my dear boy, and . . .” He turned his attention to us. “Here for the concert party?”
“I’m number twenty-eight, Joe Fisher, sent by Max Large at the Drury.”
“Maurice’s boy! But surely you didn’t have to sit through this whole sorry cavalcade! For the love of Mike, whatever must you think of us? I’m Duke Edwardes and this is Duval.” He pointed to the petit man in the beret whose attention was elsewhere. “Duval!”
“Two ventriloquists in a room is one too many,” sniffed his partner without looking up.
“He’s not just a ventriloquist,” said Bobbie. “It’s more like a double act those two have. They’re a right pair. Siamese twins.”
“Is he any good?” asked Duval, unimpressed.
“Actually,” said Bobbie. “He’s bloody marvellous. The best I’ve ever seen.”
I could have blushed.
“There you have it,” said Duke, clapping his hands in celebration. “The best that Bobbie Sheridan, the jewel in Duke Duval’s crown, has ever seen.”
“Can I invite you to the Drury tonight?” asked Joe. “We’re only subbing, and I don’t know for how much longer.”
“The Drury,” groaned Duval, at the same moment that Bobbie cooed, “The Drury!” as though we were off to Ascot and he was picking the champagne. “Just like old times. We’ll come!”
Being seen is a concept hallowed among performers. Large made sure that word was out, and an aura attached itself to us among those at the Drury whose health still allowed them to perform. Our act surpassed all expectations, even mine.
Despite the posted warnings backstage, a certain calibre of guest was most welcome. The Duke Duval party was it. I lay on the sideboard beneath a parade of yellow lights.
“I told you,” said Bobbie, waving a chic cigarette holder like a magic wand. “He’s simply splendid. All he has to do is be himself.”
What praise! The only disappointment was the lack of Belle.
“Duval! Do please pay attention!” said Duke in frustration to his partner, who was inspecting the various surfaces on which he might risk sitting. “We are paying this boy court, in the hope of wooing him into our stable that he may better thrive under our caring wings.”
“He’s a horse? We’re birds?” groused the tetchy Duval as he whipped crumbs from a chair with his handkerchief. “Do calm down. You’ll do yourself a mischief.”
“Will you at least give the illusion that you are interested?”
“Sorry, sorry. Most enjoyable. Particularly the bit with the dummy . . .”
“Duval, you’re a misery, and I don’t know why we put up with you,” said Bobbie, looking only at Joe. “Joe, take no notice. It was top drawer, bloody marvellous. You are a dark horse, aren’t you? Where have you squirreled yourself away?”
“Family in the business?” enquired Duke.
“Any professional engagements?” asked Duval.
“Nothing much. Children’s parties,” answered Joe.
“Ch —” Bobbie squealed in horror. This admission was the final straw that forced the firm’s hand.
“Duke Duval at your service, sir,” said the former with a bow. “We would like to offer you the usual terms in return for the great honour of offering you representation. You do the show. We do the business. Our whole team is at your disposal.” Duke conjured visions of an office teeming with dedicated employees, but the whole staff clearly consisted of the nice man, the grumpy man, and their indifferent secretary.
Large, who had stood politely aside, offered a simple caveat: “He is under contract to the Drury until the end of the month.”
“In writing?” asked Duval. Large coughed. “Null and void,” said Duval, offering his legal verdict. “Null and void. We will, however, lend him back at preferential rates . . .”
“. . . Other commitments permitting,” added Duke. “No hard feelings, Maurice. Business is business.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Large, and left to find a bottle.
“You know what you’re doing up there,” said Duke, leaning forward and tapping his nose. “But do you know what you’re doing back here? You’ll need a hand. Someone to show you the ropes. You’ll be happy to help him, won’t you, Bobbie?”
“Delighted,” said Bobbie, who was sitting back in his chair, knees tightly together, looking at us intently, trying to find the answer to a riddle. “I’ll follow him round a bit . . . make suggestions.”
“Yes, I’m sure you will,” said Duval, who had had enough.
“Perhaps we could come to see you, Bobbie,” said Joe.
“Moi?” said Bobbie, ten fingers to his bosom.
“The Bijou? Heard of it?” asked Duke.
“Of course he’s never heard of the Bijou,” said Bobbie. “Well, here’s a card, and you’ll find us there. I’ll leave your name backstage tonight. Show begins at midnight. I must be off to pick up the tools of my trade. And Joe, you were just wonderful.”
And with some flamboyant scarf-furling, followed by furiou
s bickering in the corridor, the circus left town.
Large returned with a bottle of hock. “Departed?” he asked without disappointment, as he poured two generous glasses. “Went well, my boy, very well. Why didn’t you tell them about your mother?” Joe didn’t answer. “Maurice Large knows what’s what. Talent like that don’t come from nowhere. But perhaps you’re making your own way. Admirable, of course, but promoters like a crowd. Ah well, let’s drink to you: another graduate from Large’s Drury Academy. You’re on the way up, my boy.”
Straight to the top.
Joe separated the two parts of his life like black and white chess pieces. Queenie and Echo knew nothing about his nocturnal career, except that he was making money, and Duke Duval and Bobbie knew nothing of life at Cadogan Grove. But Joe could not divide his attention equally; as the parties went downhill for us, our twilight career took off, and this was where he threw all our energies. It was irresistible: a secret world where he was welcome, where he felt alive. And he always took the money home. He was working for the family; that was how he thought of it.
We arrived at the Gaiety Gala one night to find my name prominently displayed on a flyer that had been sent to our backstage room. Our first billing. Rather than Joe King Fisher, it said “Garrulous George & His Assistant.” It had always been Joe’s worst nightmare that I took over the act, but now he saw the benefit of allowing my name above his — he could hide behind me. That, remarked Bobbie, was top billing.
Bobbie was a constant backstage presence, bringing various friends, contacts, with him, feting us before them. How unusual he was, his conversation like patter, sparking this way and that, threaded with cheeky puns. He made us feel magnetic, worth the attention, deserving of the praise and applause; and how fond he was of me, always stealing my cap and ruffling my hair, popping one of his cigarettes into my top pocket. My Georgie, he used to introduce me to his friends after the show, my Georgie. But he never brought Belle backstage, and I was yet to see them perform. How else could I meet her, spend time with her? I could but wait and hope.
In the meantime, I had the ecstatic reward of our show, when we truly lived and breathed.
Cadogan Grove offered only slow suffocation. The middle of the night found me planning and scheming as the noises of the house whirred around me. I’d have rather stayed in the dressing room overnight, but of course we had to go home, ready for the next day’s misery. No vampire was ever happier at dusk, and I didn’t even have until dawn. My night ended when the last curtain fell.
One night, I dreamed that I felt movement beneath my clothes. What was at first a pleasant tickle soon developed into the tingle that might at any moment become a searing cramp. I looked down to see flesh creeping over me, covering the papier-mâché of my hands, biting into me. The sensation was as agonizing as the reverse, a flaying of the entire human body with the victim fully conscious. Nerves shot through my body, tendons hooked themselves to me, and nails pierced the skin at the ends of my fingers and toes, tearing their way towards the air as if gasping for breath. I tried to scream but I couldn’t, and with no rescue at hand, I lay helplessly writhing in my agonies until the metamorphosis was complete.
I got up slowly, moving cautiously, as though I were learning to walk, frightened that my legs might flip around the wrong way or buckle beneath me. I walked past Frankie’s room — there she was, sound asleep, so fragile, so vulnerable that I barely trusted myself around her — then to Queenie’s room. I opened the door a crack to see her lying in bed, breathing heavily, the lamplight from the street falling on her face. And across the room, Joe. I dared not look closer, for fear of what I might find.
I put the few things I knew I needed into my box, now my briefcase, and left through the front door. Good-bye, Cadogan Grove; no one needs me here; not now, no longer. Best leave while the going’s good.
On the empty street, a horrible thought — I had been special, a Romando Boy; now I was nothing, a nobody, another tiny speck of flesh on the back of the world. I hailed a cab. Out of nowhere, one appeared. The driver pulled down his window. “Yes, guv,” he said. “Hop in the back.” But his mouth clacked up and down as he beckoned me, and I ran.
“Help me!” I shouted to a policeman. “I want to be a boy again!”
“We’ve just had a call from the British Museum,” he said. “Your mummy is waiting for you there.” He blew on his whistle, but as he turned around, he fell over, his head rolling towards the gutter, saved from the wheels of an oncoming car only by the strings of his mechanism.
I came back to consciousness to the sound of screaming, but it was only in my head.
I even dragged Belle into my nightmares. She was real, human, a magnificent equestrienne in full point-to-point regalia, thirsting for the hunt. She sat in front of me, staring imperiously, drumming her crop on her leg.
“The thrill of the unknown,” she said to me, her voice throaty and calm. “And what happens when a boy puts himself in flesh?”
I was determined to remain chipper, utterly terrified of her power over me. “He gets some sweets?”
“Think again, dummy.”
“I give up.”
She opened her legs and tapped her crop where the material stretched tightest. “When wood joins with flesh,” she said, “wood becomes flesh.”
I gulped. “So it’s like scissors, paper, stone — but you’re throwing wood and flesh in there, which opens up the game entirely. I get it now. Wood burns paper? Stone bruises flesh? Flesh crumples paper?”
“Wood becomes flesh. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said weakly.
“Do you want me?”
“Yes.”
“You know what will happen.”
“Yes.”
“Just like being born.”
Her hair fell down around her face as she took off her immaculate riding hat. My previous nightmare vividly recalled itself as she unbuttoned her green shirt.
Then I woke up.
One morning, Queenie laid me on the kitchen table. I couldn’t stand another party, but the bookings kept coming in.
“Joe,” she called upstairs. “Joe. Are you ready?” He had taken to sleeping on the put-you-up in his own room when we came back so very late. We must have been running behind, for there was already a pile of props — Pip’s box, the silk cabinet — by the door. Even Frankie was ready. Queenie opened my box to pack me up but, thinking better of it, decided on a little practice to pass the time. Both of my nightmares collided in one gruesome moment as her hands slipped inside. What is more, she was making me chat to her as though nothing was happening, making idiotic small talk, asking me, “What’s your name?” (Doubly muddling because my name, in the dialogue, was Watts.)
“Hello,” said Joe rather sheepishly, unshaven in his dressing gown, standing at the door, where he had been observing us.
“Joe,” said Queenie, frowning. “The car will be here any . . . Oh, my poor boy! Sit down. You look awful.”
“I think you’ll have to go on your own. . . . I can’t make it.”
“Oh, lord. What if they complain?”
“They won’t. You can do without me, anyway.”
“Mr. Wilkins particularly said . . .”
“Well, sod Mr. Wilkins!” he shouted. “I can’t go.” He sat at the table, his head in his hands. “I’m sorry. My head is pounding. I feel terrible.”
The doorbell rang. “Oh, dear,” she said. “That’ll be the Fleet car now. I’ll have him give me a hand into the motor. You go to your room. You shouldn’t be up.”
He shuffled out. Queenie returned with the regular driver.
“No Mr. Fisher today, then?” the man with the greased black hair asked casually.
“I’m afraid he’s indisposed.”
“Touch of that tummy that’s going around,” he said, as he helped with the cases. “So you’re flying solo today.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Bringing the little toddler with you?”
“No, she’ll have to stay with her grandmother today. . . . No, not that one, thank you,” she said, indicating my box. “No point taking that today.”
“Just The Queenie Show today, then, Mrs. Fisher.”
“Yes, I suppose so, Mr. . . . er . . . And please call me Queenie.”
“Thank you, Queenie,” he said, as he held the front door open with his foot. “You can call me Reg.”
* * *
Joe emerged sooner than expected, looking a great deal fresher.
“Come on, old boy,” he said, as we left. “Something special tonight.”
“So what’s the secret?” Joe was asking, as my lid opened on arrival.
“Well, look,” said Bobbie. “She’s American and she’s wood. Her face is carved. That’s why it’s so smooth. I had her made by a clever chap in Chicago. Lovely sympathetic expression. Ah, Belle!”
And there she was before me. Of course I had always known we were different — she was from the New World, the brave New World; an American Belle if ever there was one.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with my Georgie. He’s perfect the way he is, but a girl like Belle . . .” Bobbie drew an imaginary veil over his nose and mouth. “. . . Sugar and spice and all things nice, you know; a girl needs a little extra assistance.”
“Enough with the small talk,” I said. “Let me woo!”
“Impetuous!” said Bobbie, slapping my knee with an imaginary fan. “Dost thou dare impugn a lady’s virtue?” He put his hand to his forehead in a mock swoon.
“I dost.”
“You’ll get your chance, George,” said Joe. “Tonight. We’re all going onstage together.”
“A baking powder?”
“We’re going onstage together — you can say what you want to Belle when we’re up there. We don’t want to waste any of the magic in the green room.”
“No,” said Bobbie. “I’ve wasted quite enough of my magic back here! We,” he said, pointing to Belle, “are going to make ourselves presentable. See you boys on stage.”