Mermaids Singing

by Dilly Court

Kitty dropped the last potato into the big black saucepan full of water. She gave Maggie a sheepish grin. ‘It’s all right, Maggie. I know I brought it on myself. You obviously had a lovely day.’

  ‘Make it up with him, Kitty,’ Maggie said, yanking the hatpin from her battered straw hat. ‘He’s planning to go back to sea next week because he feels so bad.’

  ‘I’ll not apologise,’ Kitty said, hefting the pan onto the range. ‘He’s got to learn that I won’t be pushed around.’

  ‘Takes two to quarrel, ducks, and you’re upsetting Betty.’

  ‘I know it,’ Kitty said, picking up the long, slightly rusty hatpin and staring at it thoughtfully. ‘You’re right, Maggie, but I’ll need your help.’

  Kitty eyed the blackened tip of the hatpin nervously; beneath the layer of soot it was hot from being held in the fire. She handed it to Maggie, who stood poised for action, holding the cork from a vinegar bottle.

  ‘Make it quick then,’ Kitty said, closing her eyes and holding her breath.

  ‘This might hurt a bit,’ Maggie said, jabbing the pin right through Kitty’s earlobe until it stuck in the cork.

  Kitty let out a squeal of pain, her eyes watering. ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘Don’t swear, it ain’t ladylike,’ Maggie said, tugging at the hatpin and drawing it out through the blackened hole. ‘Hold on while I slip the earring in. Oh, and better hold that cloth to your ear, it’s bleeding a bit.’

  ‘That really hurt,’ Kitty said, dabbing at her ear and examining the bright scarlet stain on the material.

  ‘Don’t be a baby,’ Maggie said, stabbing at the other ear. ‘There, it’s all over.’

  Tears of pain ran unchecked down Kitty’s cheeks as Maggie hooked the last earring into her raw flesh. She was staunching the trickles of blood when Jem walked into the kitchen.

  ‘What’s going on? It sounded like someone stuck a pig.’

  Kitty shook her head making the earrings jiggle painfully. ‘I love the greenstone earrings, Jem,’ she said, with a wobbly smile. ‘I don’t want us to fight.’

  Jem opened his arms and Kitty walked into them.

  In spite of Kitty’s pleas and Betty’s tears, Jem had made his mind up to go back to sea and nothing would budge him.

  ‘It’s not too late to change your mind,’ Kitty said, trotting along beside him as he strode towards the docks.

  ‘You’ll get into trouble at the works if you’re late,’ Jem said, quickening his pace.

  ‘I don’t care, Jem. I’m not giving up so easily.’

  Jem slid his sea chest off his shoulders and dumped it on the pavement, mopping his brow on his sleeve. ‘I can’t stay in that house full of women; it’s driving me barmy. The Mairangi is sailing again tonight and I’ve got to go with her if I want to stay with Captain Madison. It’s a rough old life at sea, Kitty, and I think I might have given up at times if it hadn’t been for him.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Kitty said, hopping from one foot to the other. ‘He’s a grand chap, so you keep saying, but think about your ma – she needs you more than ever now.’

  Jem hefted the chest onto his shoulders and picked up his ditty bag. ‘Don’t go making me feel guilty. I’ve told you my reasons and, anyway, it’s best that I go now since you made it plain you don’t want me around.’

  Breaking into a run in order to keep up with him, Kitty tugged at his sleeve. ‘That’s not true. I care for you, Jem, and I’ll miss you something awful when you’re gone.’

  Jem stopped walking. ‘D’you mean that, Kitty?’

  ‘I do, but not in a lover-like way – not yet, anyway.’

  ‘You mean you might, later on?’

  ‘I just don’t know. Later on is a long time away.’

  Jem strode on, saying nothing. He kept up a smart pace until they reached the jetty. Horse-drawn carts, laden with provisions, were ranged alongside the Mairangi, while stevedores finished loading the casks, sacks and crates into the ship’s hold. There was bustle and noise all around them as people milled about, bustling like ants up and down the gangplanks, going about their business. Huge cranes lifted heavy items off the quay wall, swinging them precariously overhead and then unloading them expertly onto the deck. Kitty covered her ears to shut out the thunderous sound of the metal hatch covers closing over the refrigerated holds. She gazed around in awe, feeling small and insignificant in the shadow of the huge ship.

  Jem, for his part, seemed totally at home and Kitty recognised a gleam of excitement in his eyes. Pushing his cap to the back of his head, he bent down and kissed Kitty on the cheek. ‘This is it then.’

  ‘I suppose it is. You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, Jem Scully.’

  ‘You’re a stubborn little monster yourself, but I love you all the same.’

  ‘Here we go again. Don’t you ever give up?’

  ‘You do care for me, Kitty. Don’t deny it.’

  ‘I will miss you, Jem, and I’ll pray every night for your safe return.’

  Pulling something out of his pocket Jem held his clenched hand out, palm downwards. ‘Give me your hand.’

  Eyeing him doubtfully, Kitty shook her head. ‘It’s not a spider, is it?’

  Chuckling, Jem took her hand and he pressed the half-sovereign, now fixed to a fine gold chain, into her palm. ‘Luckily old Sparks hadn’t found a customer for it.’

  ‘Oh, Jem, you shouldn’t have. Now I feel really mean.’

  ‘Take it as a friendship token,’ Jem said, taking the chain and fastening it around her neck.

  ‘I’ll wear it always,’ Kitty said, touched beyond anything and attempting to smile.

  A toot on the ship’s horn made them both jump.

  ‘Got to go.’

  ‘Take care of yourself, Jem. Have wonderful adventures and come back and tell me about them.’

  ‘I’m going to catch a falling star,’ Jem said, caressing Kitty’s cheek with the tip of his finger, ‘and hear mermaids singing.’

  Kitty stared at him in alarm. ‘Have you gone barmy?’

  ‘It’s a poem by a geezer called John Donne, a chap who died centuries ago.’

  ‘You reading poetry.’ Kitty giggled. ‘Whatever next, Jem Scully?’

  ‘Captain Madison has a sea chest full of books and he lets me read any that I’ve a mind to. I’m educating myself.’

  ‘Blimey!’

  ‘One day I’ll be a rich man and make you proud of me.’

  ‘I’m proud of you now, but from what I’ve seen of rich men it don’t make them any better than the poor ones.’

  ‘We ain’t all bad, Kitty. If only I could make you believe that.’ Holding her face between his hands, Jem looked deeply into Kitty’s eyes. ‘If only I could rub away those bad memories, I know I could make you love me.’

  Swallowing hard, Kitty blinked away tears. ‘Oh, Jem, please don’t. I do love you, of course I do.’

  ‘But not in the way I love you.’

  ‘I don’t know. Just give me time.’

  ‘I’ll give you all the time in the world and more, sweetheart, and I’ll catch that falling star and bring it back for you to wear in your hair. You see if I don’t.’ Picking up his gear, Jem headed off towards the gangplank, whistling cheerfully.

  That’s how I’ll always remember him, Kitty thought, smiling through a veil of tears. ‘Go and catch your falling star, Jem,’ she whispered. ‘I hope you hear your mermaids singing, but more than that, I want you to come back, safe and sound.’

  The factory gates were locked. Kitty shook them, shouting for the gatekeeper to let her in. He came out of his hut, eyeing her suspiciously.

  ‘Let me in,’ Kitty gasped, trying to catch her breath, having run all the way from the dock. ‘I’m late as it is.’

  He shook his head and spat into the dust at her feet. ‘Gates is locked. No one in and no one out till the hooter blows. You’ve had it for today.’

  ‘Oh, please. I can’t afford to lose a day’s pay.’

  Glancing over
his shoulder, the gatekeeper produced a bunch of iron mortice keys and unlocked the side gate. ‘Slip in quick and you might be lucky but don’t let on it was me what let you in.’

  ‘Ta ever so,’ Kitty said, scuttling past him and hurrying to the shed where she worked. She opened the door just wide enough to slip through the gap, and was making her way to her end of the workbench, when she saw the foreman bearing down on her.

  ‘You’re late, Miss Cox.’

  ‘I – I’m sorry, Sir. I was taken poorly in the night but I feel a bit better now.’

  ‘This could be a sacking offence, you know.’

  ‘But that’s not fair. This is the first time I’ve been late and I work hard.’

  ‘We could discuss this in my office.’

  He was leaning so close to her that Kitty could smell onion breath and stale sweat; he was smiling and his yellowed teeth reminded her of fangs. Old memories came flooding back, she felt sick, and when he trailed his fingers over her breast she could stand it no longer.

  ‘Get your hands off me. You can keep your bloody job. I wouldn’t work here another day if you paid me in gold.’

  Kitty let herself into the house and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. She found Betty sitting at the kitchen table, holding her head in her hands, her shoulders heaving.

  ‘Betty, what’s wrong?’

  Betty raised a tear-stained face and thrust a sheet of paper in Kitty’s hands. ‘We’re ruined, Kitty. The lease on the house has expired and the land agent wants sixty pounds to renew it. He might as well have asked for six hundred, because there’s no way I can raise that sort of money.’

  Kitty dropped onto the chair next to her. ‘But I thought Captain Scully had bought the house.’

  ‘He did but it was leasehold. I never thought to check the deeds when Herbert passed away. I assumed it had years to run but it hasn’t. Kitty if we can’t find sixty pounds by the end of the month we’ll all be out on the street.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Battling with first-night nerves, Bella stood in the wings of the Vaudeville Theatre in the Haymarket. Fighting down the nauseous feeling in her stomach, and the almost overwhelming desire to run back to her dressing room and hide, she swallowed hard and braced her shoulders. The stage stretched before her like an endless floodlit plain. She couldn’t see the audience in the dark void beyond the footlights, but she sensed them as a living, breathing entity that, in just a few seconds, would judge whether or not she still had the power to handle a West End crowd. She breathed in as deeply as possible, allowing for the vicious grip of her whalebone corsets. Maria had cinched her waist into a hand’s span, lacing the stays to a suffocating tightness. Making a supreme effort to put everything else out of her mind, Bella wiped her damp palms on her skirt and waited for the orchestra to play her intro.

  She was on – no time now for stage fright. She swept onto the apron of the stage, painting a smile on her lips, and holding her arms out in a gesture of supplication to her audience. There was a faint murmur of appreciation and Bella relaxed. Thank God, they were friendly. This was her big break and she was not going to fluff it! She broke into her first song, moving sinuously across the stage and addressing herself to every part of the theatre, from the front stalls to the gallery.

  As usual, she began her act with an upbeat, saucy, cockney song that never failed to warm up even the toughest audience. Bella had learned long ago to play on the purity of her soprano voice and her fragile blonde beauty. She had discovered that she could sing the most risqué words, tempering their vulgarity with a studied air of innocence, which usually brought the house down. Her early days, singing in her father’s East End pub, had taught her how to use her sexuality to dazzle and enthral the male members of the audience. For them she would adopt the guileless manner of a little girl singing a naughty grown-up song. Having captured the hearts of the men, she would then launch into a heart-rending, sentimental ballad that would win over even the toughest of the East End fishwives, and have them weeping into their gin or port and lemon.

  She was well into her second number when, as she swept her gaze around the boxes that flanked the stage, she spotted Rackham. He was watching her with an appreciative smile on his lips. Seated next to him was Iris; this time the catch in Bella’s voice, and the way her hands flew to clutch her heaving bosom, was entirely spontaneous. She had not believed him when he said that he intended to see Iris again, and she had certainly not thought that Iris would be so stupid as to take him back. They could both go to hell for all she cared … But she did care, that was the biggest shock of all. Somehow Bella managed to falter her way through a fog of barely controlled emotion, ending the ballad with a genuine sob that rippled, in a sympathetic echo, throughout the auditorium.

  She left the stage to the sound of tumultuous applause and calls of ‘Encore!’ Blinded by angry tears, she collided with top-of-the-bill comedian, Sam Lennard.

  ‘Hey, look where you’re going, ducks,’ he growled, breathing whisky fumes into her face. Then, as if by some magic metamorphosis, his furious expression changed into a smile, and he cantered onto the stage.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ demanded Maria, as Bella burst into the dressing room and threw herself down on the stool in front of her make-up table.

  ‘What’s wrong? Giles Rackham, that’s what’s wrong. He’s out there watching the show.’

  Maria whipped off Bella’s ostrich feather headdress and began to undo the tiny pearl buttons at the back of her gown. ‘Pardon me for being stupid, but didn’t Rackham get you this job in the first place? Stand up, I can’t reach the bottom buttons.’

  Dragging herself to her feet, Bella leaned her hands on the dressing table, making a huge effort to control her ragged breathing. She must calm down or the tight lacing of her corsets would cause her to swoon. ‘He’s a lying, cheating, swindling cad.’

  ‘That’s not news,’ Maria said, slipping the gown to the floor. ‘Lift your feet up.’

  ‘He’s with Iris. He’s actually courting that bitch Iris! He’s brought her here so that she can crow over my situation and run straight back to Desmond telling tales.’

  Maria shook the creases out of the gown and slipped it over a hanger. ‘What if she does? You’ve got second billing and you’re back up West. You’re not starving in the gutter, which was what your old man wanted.’

  ‘No, but it won’t make it easier for me to get Leonie back if Desmond tells the Court that I’m singing lewd songs in a music hall. He could convince any judge that I’m an unfit mother and I’ll never see my baby again.’ Bella beat her fists on the table, sending up a flurry of face powder. ‘How could Rackham make up to that hateful bitch, when he knows how I’ve suffered at the hands of the Mableton family? How could he?’

  Maria stared hard at Bella’s reflection in the mirror. ‘Why would you care what Rackham does? Serve him right if he marries Iris, she’ll make his life hell. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?’

  Bella seized a stick of greasepaint and scrubbed it onto her pale lips. ‘He can rot in hellfire for all I care.’

  ‘On stage, please.’ The call boy rapped on the door. ‘Grand finale, Miss Lane.’

  ‘Pull yourself together,’ Maria said, slipping Bella’s finale costume over her head. ‘And get out on that stage.’

  At any other time, Bella would have been thrilled by the standing ovation she received, and delighted by the fact that she was even more popular than Sam Lennard.

  ‘Well done, ducky,’ he hissed in her ear, holding her hand and bowing as the curtain fell for the third time. ‘I’ll have to watch my back or you’ll be taking over the number one spot.’

  ‘No chance of that,’ Bella said, as the curtain went up again.

  The call boy ran on and presented Bella with a huge bouquet of red roses. She didn’t have to read the gilt-edged card to know that they were from Rackham, but a quick glance in his direction confirmed her suspicions. He rose to his feet, clapping enthusiast
ically, and he blew her a kiss. Iris was not applauding. She tugged at Rackham’s sleeve, her expression laced with venom.

  A cold fist of anger balled in Bella’s stomach and she ripped out a long-stemmed rose, tossing it into the front stalls, following it with another and another until the whole bouquet had been thrown to a wildly appreciative audience.

  ‘You completely upstaged me, you bitch,’ Sam said, through clenched teeth, as the final curtain fell, even though the audience was still calling for another encore.

  Humphrey Chester was waiting in the wings, his arms outstretched. ‘Well done, my little angel. I knew you could do it,’ he said, kissing Bella on both cheeks.

  ‘Seems to me you only need a fine pair of titties to get on in this game.’ Sam lurched against Bella, pushing her into Humphrey’s arms.

  ‘You’ve been drinking, Lennard,’ Humphrey said, sniffing suspiciously. ‘I warned you what would happen if you didn’t keep off the booze.’

  ‘So I had a drop or two to steady me nerves, guvner. You can’t blame a fella for that.’ Sam’s aggressive manner vanished, replaced by an ingratiating grin and he winked at Bella. ‘Just joking, girlie!’

  ‘Another joke like that and you’ll be busking outside the theatre,’ Humphrey said, slipping his arm around Bella’s shoulders.

  ‘It’s all right, Humphrey,’ Bella said, twisting free of his grasp. ‘I can take a joke and if I upstaged you, Sam, it wasn’t intentional.’

  Sam glared at her from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

  ‘A handsome apology from a real lady,’ Humphrey said, his scowl turning into a grin. ‘By George, that’s it. We’ll bill you as Lady Bella, the crème de la crème of songbirds. The lady with the face and voice of an angel.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Bella said, backing away. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I must go and change.’

  ‘You don’t fool me so easy,’ Sam whispered in her ear. ‘You’re no bloody lady.’ He pushed past her and lumbered off.

  Bella hurried towards her dressing room but she could hear Humphrey’s footsteps following her.

  ‘Bella, stop. You must at least allow me to escort you home in my motor car.’