‘Ma!’ I think I was crying but I got my voice working at last. ‘Stop! They couldn’t see us at Newgate, it was too dangerous.’
‘What – you and Billy dangerous? And how did our house become “criminal headquarters” and get SODOMITE LOVERS writ on the wall and us scrubbing it off in the night? By anything you and Billy done? It’s Ernest and Freddie who are dangerous to anyone who knows them, and even to people like Elijah and Dodo here who have lost their whole lives almost – these two people hardly knew you existed!’
‘Ma, they couldn’t see us I expect – because Billy and I were’ – I didn’t know how to say it, looked at Billy for words – ‘we were from the world forbidden to them by then, all the fun and the dressing-up and – we were, well you know’ – I sort of nodded at our little piano – ‘the music.’
Ma made an odd gesture of frustration with her hand, and closed her eyes, as if to close out everything and just for a moment nobody spoke in this whole roomful of people whose lives had all changed, and the fire spat.
It was Dodo who finally said something, she said to Ma: ‘Should we perhaps have some cake?’ and she put out one of the hands that were bent like claws and touched Billy’s arm. ‘There is a plateful of cakes in the red cupboard in the kitchen.’ And as we heard Billy’s footsteps going downwards Dodo turned to Ernest: ‘I believe you sing, young man. As you no doubt heard, I was once a singer myself but, as you no doubt could hear also, that was long ago. Could we hear you?’
Ernest looked at Freddie.
Freddie looked at Ma. She gave a tiny nod and said, ‘Sing Mattie’s favourite.’
Ernest looked puzzled but Freddie knew. He put his top hat on the card table, Ernest did the same and touched his own hair fussily, as a woman might. Billy came up the stairs again with the cakes from the red cupboard and Ernest’s sweet voice drifted around us.
When, like the early rose
Eileen Aroon…
That song I loved.
And as the verse finished Freddie stopped playing suddenly. I saw his rougher hands, which he had once manicured so carefully while he was laughing and preening, lying quite still now on the piano even as the last notes still echoed and he began speaking, but he didn’t look at any of us.
‘We came to say how sorry we are that everything we did has rebounded on the people who were kindest to us. Not for what we did, but for what happened to you because of it. Mattie is right – it hasn’t been safe for us – for the court case that must eventually be heard in whatever form – to see you or to come here or talk of Lord Arthur. I could have written a letter, but now we know how private letters can be used in evidence against us. We are warned that we have to – “lie low” as they put it. Ernest and I who have been each other’s constant companions and friends for so many years are not supposed to meet – in case it affects our court case. We are not supposed to meet with any of our friends – in case it affects our court case. We will do anything not to go back to Newgate Prison and you should not judge us for that, because you have not been held in there. But we knew we owed some sort of apology nevertheless to the people in this particular house who made us welcome and were good to us and where we were’ – the only time his voice showed any sign of any emotion – ‘happy.’
‘And I say the same,’ said Ernest.
No one quite knew what to say next; it was Elijah who finally answered, ‘You’re not the only people who have behaved badly, lads.’
And Ernest tossed his head, and looked not at kind Elijah, but at Mackie, from under his eyelashes in the way he always did. I’ve said before, Mackie was wild and arresting somehow and biblical-looking with his long hair and his beard and I suppose Ernest couldn’t help but want to impress.
‘We have the absolutely very best barristers in England working for us,’ he said to Mackie. He repeated it proudly: ‘The absolutely very best.’
‘Who’s paying for them?’ said Mackie.
‘Oh absolutely everybody. So many people wanting to contribute so they say. Dont they, Freddie?’ Freddie was still looking down at his hands on the piano. ‘Even the Church, we believe, has put some money towards our case.’
‘Is that so,’ said Mackie. ‘Well that is a surprise,’ and I saw him and Billy exchange a look – but Ernest caught it too.
‘Well of course, we’re not stupid,’ he said sharply. ‘We know perfectly well they’re afraid we might be indiscreet if we are convicted. Bring a few more important people along with us! Bishop Julius wouldn’t like it to be known he was at Mr Porterbury’s ball in the Strand, would he, Freddie!’
‘Bishop Julius, eh?’ said Elijah. ‘Well that would hardly be a revelation in the Houses of Parliament.’
‘Ernest, that’s enough,’ said Freddie quietly. He got up from the piano and I knew he wanted to go but Ernest tossed his head again.
‘Tell about Lord Arthur,’ Ernest said. And because he could not help it he then added: ‘Did he mention me?’
‘No,’ said Mackie.
And I thought of poor sad Lord Arthur in the little horrible room, tears running down his face and saying, Stella broke my heart.
Dodo suddenly bustled – if you could call Dodo’s bent walk bustling – about the parlour, offering cake, it was just so mad and bizarre but we all politely accepted cake and ate it, all of us except her, and the fire crackled and crumbs got in Mackie’s beard, and Freddie’s, and I could hear myself swallowing and nobody said anything.
And while we were eating Dodo sat on the chair where Freddie had been. She put her bent fingers along the piano keys and knocked one or two of them, but she couldn’t play.
And soon afterwards Freddie and Ernest left.
They said goodbye to the room, and thanked Dodo who was now making her way slowly to Mr Flamp’s room with the remaining cake.
Billy went with them to the door. I watched from the hall, we hadn’t yet lit the hall lamps and I stayed there in shadow. Freddie and Ernest said goodbye to Billy and put on their hats and went out into the cold, darkening afternoon, pulling their cloaks tightly about them outside this famous bordello, 13 Wakefield-street.
41
I WAS GLAD they’d come, that strange afternoon. I was glad I’d seen Freddie, I was even glad I’d heard again that lovely old Irish song that Ernest sang. I knew I would never forget kind Freddie that night when I lost the baby. But I didn’t have any dreams about him any more. And I saw, that afternoon when she was so angry and so painful, how very hard in the end it had all been on Ma, including my part. The strongest woman I know, and keeping things close to her heart. I wanted to tell her I saw – and that I loved her. So I made her a new hat even though she didn’t need one, and I think it was one of the most beautiful hats I ever made and Ma looked at me so special when she saw it. And I knew she understood.
Our house was nice again. Elijah and Mackie and Billy came and went, and sometimes in the evenings the lovely smell of a pipe like our Pa smoked would be drifting about the house. Dodo baked cakes, and Mr Flamp even got a bit fatter! and Dodo still sang, and told us old music hall jokes and read her novels and newspapers. Elijah and Billy and Mackie often worked late. Two of the salesmen still came occasionally, none of the others, but we were all right, and I was sewing more hats than I’d ever done, that lady in Mortimer-street had now passed me on to three of her friends and they kept me really busy and didn’t seem to know – or if they did know didn’t mind – about Men in Petticoats at all.
And best of all Billy was happier. Elijah had got him to come and help at the night classes for the working men and Billy just loved that and one night when they came home I looked at his face and it was almost like the old Billy had come down to the basement kitchen, with the newspapers under his arm.
Then one day Elijah confided in Ma and me that he thought Billy had a sweetheart.
‘What?’ We both spoke at the same time. Knowing how discreet Elijah was we both thought Billy must have got married for Elijah to mention it!
&nbs
p; ‘There’s a very nice young woman who teaches at the night school sometimes, called Emily. Mark my words!’ We heard him whistling ‘Rose of Tralee’ as he went upstairs to Dodo.
But there was something sad about Elijah himself, he missed the Parliament buildings so much, no matter how he tried to whistle cheerfully.
Of course, as soon as I got Billy alone in the kitchen I asked him if he had a girl.
‘Who said that?’
‘Elijah.’
‘Well that’s very unlike Elijah!’ But Billy grinned all the same. ‘Elijah’s the most diplomatic man I’ve ever met.’
‘Yes, but how was he to know having a girl is a diplomatic matter! Only you would make it a state secret! I’d shout from the blooming rooftops if I had a boy!’ This wasn’t exactly true but it made Billy laugh. ‘Well – well at least tell me her name then.’
‘Emily,’ said Billy calmly. ‘She’s a teacher. A real one, not part time and unpaid like me and Elijah.’
‘Wont you bring her home,’ said Ma – who was not only supposed to be deaf but suddenly blooming appeared out of blooming nowhere!
I’ve told before about Billy. No one can tell him to do anything till he’s ready. But I still said it anyway, echoing Ma: ‘Bring her home, Billy, so we can look her over and see if she’s good enough for the famous 13 Wakefield-street!’ and that made Billy laugh again, and he looked like our pa, and then he went out again, to deal with death.
Mackie went home to Mudeford sometimes, but he always came back. He worked long hours on the Thames – some nights I dont think he even came home and me and Billy used to discuss whether he really was out ferrying, or smuggling, or just gone fishing. Sometimes he brought fish home. In the end he captained one of the Gravesend ferries himself. He told how he felt half sorry half envious of the people in the big ships crossing the seas to other continents, waving goodbye, not knowing when they would see the people they waved to again, or if they ever would, ever again. And whenever he brought us port for our Sundays he always said that it was straight off a smuggler’s boat, and for all we knew it might have been but we liked having him there so much, it seemed odd that if we hadn’t gone to Mudeford about Lord Arthur Clinton we wouldn’t have him living with us.
But it was so clear that in London Mackie missed the sea, not sea like Gravesend and docks and bustle but ‘the real sea’ he called it, ‘the coast and the far horizon’ and sometimes as he said it, you could feel it: loss and longing. Once Billy said to him:
The sea is calm tonight
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; – on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Mackie looked at Billy as if he was a ghost.
‘How do you know that?’
Billy grinned. ‘I learned it.’
‘No, I mean how do you know about the lights?’
‘What lights?’
‘The lights on the French coast when you get nearer. Like that, coming and going.’
‘It’s a poem, Mackie. It’s written by a poet. Mr Matthew Arnold came to see Mr Gladstone one day so I got his poetry from the lending library. I think he could see the lights from Dover beach on a calm night.’
‘Is that right?’ said Mackie slowly. ‘A poem.’ And after a moment he said it again. ‘A poem.’
One night I noticed that Mackie called Ma ‘Isabella’ – that was a bit queer but she didn’t say anything. Then I noticed that he often sat and talked late to her, and asked her about her life at the theatre and listened, I mean not polite questions but he just sat back in a chair and listened to her properly and Ma, who didn’t talk about the old days much, spoke of Pa, and our room at the top of Drury Lane, and Dodo so clever and popular and Billy calculating the speed of falling plums. I wondered if I was making things up in my head but I finally asked Billy and he nodded and said, yes he’d noticed too. Finally we understood that wild old Mackie was sweet on Ma, well we knew she’d soon put him in his place, plenty of lodgers had been sweet on Ma before of course, like I said, lonely old men from the North and a kind woman like Ma, still beautiful, looking after them, but she’d certainly laughed at anything like that and kindly sent them packing.
And then one night I had left the others talking downstairs and gone to my room, I hadn’t quite finished a hat due tomorrow, just some ribbons to be sewed.
‘Hello, Hortense,’ I said and I took the hat off her head and picked up the ribbons and then instead of taking everything down to the warm kitchen I sat right under the lamp as Ma always said and sewed the ribbons there, it was easier – and I fell asleep over the hat. When I woke up I finished the last bit of ribbon and I went to get a cup of water and warm myself by the stove before I got into bed and just from the top of the stairs as I looked down I saw the strangest, strangest thing in the hallway below.
Mackie had his arms round Ma, his face was in her hair. And her face was hidden in his shoulder. They didn’t move. They didn’t speak. They didn’t see me. I thought, they’ll move in a minute, but they didn’t, just stood there. Enclosed. And suddenly the extraordinary thought – but of course it wasn’t extraordinary at all, I just hadn’t considered – jumped into my mind: Ma must’ve missed being held too.
It was such a strange realisation: my Ma. But Pa had died so long ago, and I never saw that Mr Rowbottom much, and I never ever saw him hold Ma in this strange, still, quiet, long embrace.
It’s quite hard for a cripple to move silently, and in our house there’s so many boards that creak, but I tried, and when I went back into my room I didn’t quite close the door in case Mackie heard the click, and I lay in my bed, amazed.
42
SPRING FRONT-STEP-SCRUBBING, like summer step-scrubbing, they’re all right. I do them mornings, and I suppose people come mostly to Wakefield-street in the mornings and because I’m kneeled down I often see their boots first, like when Mackie came.
Mackie. I couldn’t forget what I saw that night, they were so, well – well so still and loving together, or relieved, or – I dont know. Something I cant forget. But me and Billy dont quite know what it is that’s going on, for they talk normal and somehow you dont ask Ma things like that.
I was thinking about this that spring day when more boots arrived. Nobody spoke, just the boots there. So I stopped thinking and scrubbing.
‘Yes?’ I said. Looked up, saw a young man in a suit.
‘Could I speak to Mrs Stacey, the landlady?’
‘What about?’
There was a pause. Then the boots and the legs and the whole person crouched down to my level. ‘Sorry, miss. I dont want to shout my business to the street.’ He had a nice, open face and he was being kind and I wasn’t being very kind.
‘Are you looking for a room?’ I said, more friendly.
‘No I’m looking for Martha Stacey.’
‘I’m Martha Stacey, who are you?’ We were still kneeling down on the steps, he wasn’t to know I found it hard to get up. (I fell down these steps once, long ago. When they brought Jamey from Kings Cross and I was trying to run to get to him.)
‘I’m Tom Dent.’ He spoke quietly. ‘I work for Lewis and Lewis, solicitors.’
I whispered. ‘Is it about Freddie and Ernest?’
‘Yes.’
‘We better go in.’ He helped me up at once, but how would he know it was hard for me? he must be very well-mannered I thought. He had a shiny polished face and nice eyes. We took in the bucket and the scrubbing brush and put them in the hall and I closed the front door and dried my hands on my apron.
‘Mrs Stacey. You are a witness for the prosecution at the upcoming trial—’
‘What?’
‘Well – you are a prosecution witness.’
‘I’m blooming not! I’m not prosecuting them! Those rude policemen are and if you’re working with them you can just go back again and leave me to my work becau
se I’ve got nothing to say to you thank you! Dodo!’ I called into her room.
‘No – Mrs Stacey, wait, please. I should have explained. We are working for the defence of Mr Boulton and Mr Park – of all the accused, and especially Mr Boulton and Mr Park for if they are not guilty, then nobody can be found guilty.’
‘Well dont call me a witness for the prosecution.’
‘Yes, dear? Oh – good morning, young man.’ Dodo came walking in her laborious way out of their room. She’s pretty, still, you know, Dodo is. She was holding Bleak House in her curled-up hand and even though she was all bent and crumpled she looked pretty, and smiled at Mr Tom Dent. ‘What is it, Mattie dear?’
Mr Tom Dent must’ve thought he’d come to the Home for the Incurables, me limping in from the steps, Dodo all crooked, I saw he was looking a bit bemused – specially as he probably thought he was coming to a criminal headquarters or a bordello.
‘Could we come and sit in your room, Dodo? This man Mr Dent says the trial is upcoming, and he’s come about Freddie and Ernest. This is Mrs Dodo Fortune who used to be a music-hall singer and dancer.’
‘Come in and have a cake,’ said Dodo.
So Mr Tom Dent explained it all to us – that the real trial was starting quite soon, and that because Freddie and Ernest had lived here, and their women’s clothes had been found here, I was a prosecution witness, not because of anything that I’d said but because of the evidence that was found, but this Mr Lewis and Lewis he worked for had read my evidence from the Magistrates’ Court– ‘and Mr Park also advised us that maybe you could be helpfully cross-examined by the defence and help Freddie and Ernest. If you are willing.’ He ate Dodo’s cake with great enjoyment while he was explaining all this.
The Petticoat Men Page 30