by Kathe Koja
Why can’t I have that topper? I asked Davey. It goes lovely with the braces—
Because I said so.
It’s mine from the declaiming, ain’t it?
And you’re mine, Pearlie, so the hat’s mine and your pretty face is mine and whatever you declaim is mine, too, got it? Got it?—smacking me all the while with the flat of his hand, and smiling, his choppers all brown . . . I thought I’d run away that night, hunkered beside the eaves at Freddy’s alehouse, cursing him from under that stupid cap. Me who makes all the lucre, more than any of his others, me who gets him his fancies and tobacco! sitting there chastised, with my lips all swollen! I got no nibbles that night, the gentlemen don’t like you so much if you’re marred, unless it’s them who does it—one time a gentleman wanted to burn me, put a hot pin to me in the shape of a Frenchy fleur-de-lys. I got myself away, but it was too near a thing. Which was why I went back to Davey: a fellow needs someone to keep the streets off, with the coin or the power or both, it’s no good to be alone. But I was still that miffed that I said I couldn’t declaim for the day, my mouth was still too sore—
Pearlie, now, don’t be like that!
It’s not me who made it so, is it?
—and took myself instead to the tea shop and then down to the panto, where they was putting on The Crying Ape, a fellow trussed up in feathers like an outlandish African chased by another fellow in a bear suit who was the Ape. The stage was that small that half the time the Ape chased the African and half the other way round, but they did it slick and got the crowd laughing. I kept myself to the shadows where I could scout the gentlemen, for it was my thinking that maybe I’d pick up a quick larker and buy myself a hat for secret spite.
But instead he picked me, that gentleman who said to call him Edmund: Mr. Edmund Chute, fresh of the countryside, of the schoolroom and the library and the books. I watched him come in and step all round the playing space, gazing and nodding at the curtains and the crowds, clapping for the African and Ape—until he saw me in the shadows, until I let him see me watching, too. And then it was closer, closer, closer still, but not like most gentlemen do, like I’m a sweet in a shop window or a piece of meat to chew, but as if he’d never seen the like of me before, which I could tell he hadn’t. Mr. Edmund Chute, fresh of the countryside.
Finally he stepped into the shadows, he stepped right up to me and Did that fierce Ape get after you, young fella? he asked, joking-like but kindly too, like he would offer help if I should need it. Or perhaps it was fighting? There are laws here against street brawling, you know.
I put my head to one side, angled into the light to make my hair shine even whiter, like a halo; I sucked in my lower lip and smiled. Not a flash suit but a nice one, and he didn’t smell of juniper, just Pears soap and coffee and clean sweat; his eyes were clear and brown as a spaniel’s. I put my hand on his arm.
I don’t bother so much, I said, about the law.
• • •
It was the first time I ever ate sauced quail, almost the whole bird!—and prawns in blue butter, and little rumcakes and quantities of boiled coffee, it gave me the headache so I had to chase it down with ruby port. I’m glad the port pleases, said Edmund Chute, I’m not much for spirits myself. Coffee is my vice! “Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.” As the theatre is my mistress.
Mistress? I looked around his rooms for a girl’s duds or furbelows, I couldn’t see what he meant. But he went on talking, to say he was a kind of teacher of the drama, who left his scholars and schoolhouse, his muvver and old da and younger sister—It was a leap of faith, truly—to come all the way to the City and put on plays, be what he felt called to be, what he called an impresario; I didn’t know that word, but there was some Maryann in it for sure. He told me of his time in the City, what he’d seen, all the magic of the theatre!—by then he was in shirtsleeves, and braces not so nice as mine; it was late, Davey would be hopping when I got back, for missing another night’s work. Be fucked to Davey. I mean, you see, to court the muse, brew strong wine for strong hearts! We construct such a play now, myself and my company, about love, and terror, and damnation: La Reine d’Enfer, a beautiful lady makes her way to hell, to free her lyre-playing husband . . . Did you know, Pearlie, that in Shakespeare’s day, all the female parts were played by boys?
If he’s such a liar, I said, maybe he belongs in Hell, but I said it saucy so he could see it was meant for clowning. Don’t you want your play to tell the truth?
He tried clowning back: Why, I thought you said you didn’t bother much about the law—? But he swallowed hard when he said it, like Adam with the apple stuck in his throat. So I turned down the gas, all a-flicker like the panto, shadowy and pretty, and I know some Shakespeare, I said, and sat on the arm of his chair to give him the bit of Romeo and Juliet, my mouth right up against his ear. Soft what light from yonder window breaks, it is the east’n Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, he said; he touched my hair, his hand was trembling, just a little, just enough for me to see it. And kill the envious moon . . . Pearlie, I should like to ask you something. Would you— Have you ever—
O Romeo, I said, and tugged gently at his shirtfront. Wherefore art thou Romeo.
Pearlie, have you ever— Would you consider acting on the stage?
Spaniel eyes, the tremble in his hand—and food enough to feed an army, port and quail and prawns and who knows what else, in a cleaner room than Davey’s, much cleaner, and almost as big as the one all us boys slept in; better than Davey’s; much better than fucking Davey’s. It’s what we all want, us boys, to shut the door to the streets for good—and I would be the only one. Fishy-dotty . . . I sucked a little at my swollen lip; I gave him my very sweetest smile: That’s why for I studied elocution, I said. The kind of elocution that gets a fellow somewheres in this world.
• • •
The first thing be bought me was a hat, a jaunty topper with a wide yellow ribbon band. I had to hide it from Davey for of course I had to go back to Davey’s, until I could cut away clean, for Davey’d do the cutting, wouldn’t he, if I was to drop him flat. Look what he did to Georgie Booters that time! And he looked at me particular strange, like a sniffing dog, he said, What’d you get up to, last night, Pearlie? Where’d you go?
Nowheres. And I’m here now, ain’t I?
Don’t be cute, and he hit me, but not in the face and not hard. That night he worked me himself, and I declaimed away, I sang all night like Blinkers’ light-o’-love. Then he bought me a late supper at the Red Cock, sat drinking his lager and watching me, and Pearlie, he said finally. You know I want what’s best for you. Didn’t I keep you from the constables, when you looted that doctor fellow and his packets of dope? Fine lad like you can rise in the world like anything, with the right help behind him.
I know that, I said. I looked around the room, the dirty old Red Cock with its red walls and red-painted windows and smell of the Remedy; I almost laughed. Rise like an angel. “Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.”
What’s that mean? In a squint, Davey looked just like a goblin, like the Devil’s little bruvver. The red room, the scowl on his face. Who taught you that?
Dunno, I said. I must have picked it up somewheres.
You’re acting different these days. I don’t like it much.
Blinkers noticed, too—You’re awful jolly wolly, Pearlie, you must be gettin’ some good coin—and so did Paulo, who raised up his brows, and Getting something, is our Pearlie; he said it nasty. Or someone. Does Davey know, Pearlie?
Shut your hole, Paulo. Nothing’s any different than it was.
You’re growin’ out your hair, ain’t you.
Shut your hole or I’ll shut it for you.
Fact is I was growing out my hair, for to play the Dark Queen, who was the Fair Queen now because it was me playing her. Edmund was all excitable about it
: I shouldn’t dare to call myself a playwright, but to amend a character—And her name remains the same, Lady Frances.
That’s my name, I said. Pearlie, it’s just what Da—what people call me. My real given name is Francis.
Francis, said Edmund; he touched my hair. You’ve got the queen’s beauty, certainly. And then he blushed all over and hurried off up the aisle like a constable was on him. He hadn’t touched me yet, though Davey would never have believed it, Davey who kept watching me like a puss at a fucking mouse hole, sending me places and then turning up there himself, to see did I show up, Davey who had me declaiming lists of names till I was sick of it, and all for what? A greasy meal, a pint box of tobacco, some stupid scarf that smelled of a fellow’s basket, why would I want that? though It’s real silk, Davey scowled.
You keep it.
Watch your tone, Pearlie. Take the fucking scarf.
A line of crows crying on the rooftops, my lines running round in my head—“To the depths of deathless Hell I’ll go / No matter how dark the way”—and it was dark, that theatre, no windows in the back and the gas there-and-gone, but what Edmund called rehearsals was jolly larky. Trussing up in the Queen’s glad rags, painted crown atop my head, though He ought to have a wig, said the freckled lady who did the dressing, but It would be a shame, Edmund said, to cover up that hair . . . Give the incantation again, Francis, a little louder this time? so By all the spirits of the darkness, I said, hands on my padded-up hips, I bind you to my bidding, I adjure you to set my lord free! declaiming out to the empty theatre that, the playing folk told me, was never so empty, for There are watchers out there always, you know, ghosts that no one can see. Some are only watchers, but others—
Especially with a show like this one! said the dressing lady, and she shivered; I thought she was having me on, but they were all serious-like: Mind that extra devil that came to Doctor Faustus—thirteen up onstage, when there ought only have been twelve! I’d not stay here alone at night, not while this show’s in play.
I’m not afraid of devils, I said. No matter how many there are. That day I was feeling extra larky, for Edmund had been watching me like the king watched the queen, all longing-like from his prison bench: today Edmund was the king, as the fellow who played him—the African fellow, from the Ape show—was off somewheres or ill. So Set my lord free! I called out into that darkness, picturing the seats all stuffed with devils, crunching peanuts and flicking their tails, poking one another in the arse with their pointy rods—but it was true you could see something if you squinted, like the air above the seats was dirty, somehow. Like smoke, but not. Like a fancy but not. Deliver him into my keeping, you host of the lost, for I have spells to crack your evil souls like lice! And I put my hand on Edmund’s shoulder, and looked into his face all creamy, like the Queen would; he looked back at me, and looked, and had to be reminded of his line by the fellow playing the head devil onstage: Hsst, Mr. Chute! “It is you I have awaited, my beloved.”
It is you, said Edmund Chute, I have awaited. My beloved.
After the rehearsal, he bade me stay behind till everyone had gone. Spaniel eyes, and clean sweat, and a bigger basket then you’d think just by looking; and no Remedy, for I had no worries of the clap neither, whatever he done before wasn’t much. Afterward he held my hands, he kissed my hands, and I did not mean to do so, he said, but you—Are so lovely. So very lovely.
Come live with me and be my love, I said. That’s Shakespeare, too.
No, it isn’t, he said, and kissed me again. It’s Marlowe . . . Oh Francis, live here with me, and be—my star, my shining actor, my Queen of the stage! Surely the muses brought us together for that very reason! And surely whomever—shelters you now will understand?
Shelter? I didn’t laugh, but I felt the laugh in my mouth, like when you want to spit the spendings but you can’t. It ain’t—it’s not like that. It’s more like Davey bought and paid for me, except he never paid, just took me— And I made a story of it, a tearjerker cobbled up from other boys’ tales, Blinkers’ sadness and Paulo’s dead muvver and my own muvver coughing herself empty though I made it to be a sister instead and Ever since she died, I said, with my head on his chest, I been alone. I only went with Davey because I was afraid. But now—his heart started beating quicker; I could feel it under my cheek. Now, with you, Edmund—Eddie— But he won’t want to let me go.
I’ll talk to him, he said. One gentleman to another, I’ll convince him it’s for your best.
He’s not a gentleman, Eddie. But I touched him while I said it, in the way I was learning he liked, and he hugged me tight. I didn’t leave for Davey’s till dawn was broaching, red across the rooftops, the theatre empty of its shadows or smoke or whatever it was, and no red-eyed crows to be seen. Why should I give a romping fuck for devils or the Devil or anything else of the darkness? Ain’t I seen darkness enough, seen it all around me, Davey’s brown teeth and that pot-slinging bitch at the tavern? And Blinkers blinking like sixty when I stepped over the threshold, whispering Paulie, oh Paulie you better run—until Davey put him back into the wall with one blow, then turned the buggy whip on me—
You traitor, after everything I done for you! Behind my back and taking trade, I’ll beat the white right out of you, you lying little whore—
And he did. He did. Eyes rolling back in his head like a horse’s, I screamed and tried to fight him but that made it worse, so finally I just put my face to the wall till Davey wore himself out, and left panting. Even Paulo looked scared, then. After some long time—it felt long—I got up on my feet, I wiped my face on the first thing I found, Davey’s vest that he had took off for the beating, his quilted blue vest and I smeared it with blood, my blood, I spit more blood on the floor like a fat red flower. All the while Blinkers was sniveling—Holy Mother, Paulie, Holy Mother, but he got you good—until Shut your hole, I said, on your holy mother, for when did praying do good for anyone? What bright angels come to watch this show?
I grabbed up whatever I could put my hand to, a silver spoon from the table, a bottle of gin; then threw it all down again, my head aswim like being drunk. Then I took a steady breath and took up the things that were mine—precious little they was!—and rolled them up into a pillow bag.
Where you going? Paulo asked, quiet-like.
You’re leaving us, Pearlie? Blinkers said. But what should we say to Davey?
Tell Davey I went to the Devil, I said. And if he wants he can look for me there.
• • •
It was the theatre I went to, the doors locked tight, but that made no never mind to me. I know how to do the in-and-out—and been caught at it more than once by the constables, not only that doctor fellow that Davey got me out of, but other places, too, and other lootings, and knifings, a boy’s got to make his way . . . Eddie would want the constables for this surely, he would take one look at me and cry for the law. But the law knows what kind of boy I am, and that my name’s not Pearlie nor Francis neither. Whatever law had charge of this case, my scalp torn and back welted and tooth cracked, a red line still running from my lip—I spat blood again, dark clot on the dark floor—none of it had to do with constables.
Out front, the banners said PREMIERING SOON! He jests at scars that never felt a wound. To the depths of deathless Hell I’ll go, no matter how dark the way. Set my lord free. But when I spoke it come out twisted, my lips was twisted and the words all slurred, was it no Fair Queen for me, then, was that how it would be? May Davey and his fucking buggy whip be damned to hell . . . They leave a light burning back behind the stage, the dresser lady calls it the ghost light. In that little light the empty seats seemed more smoky and shadowed still, or maybe it was shadows in my eyes, both of them squinted with swelling, one of them half-blacked by the butt of the whip. I blinked, but the shadows hung the same, like clouds on a midsummer’s day, you see them and you know the storm is coming. As I sat there bleeding, more words come to me, dark and
quiet, like backwards poetry—Propitiamus vos. Pandemonia. Consummatum est—from another world, the world of plays, Eddie’s world. The gentlemen don’t like you so much if you’re marred, would Eddie take a look and put me out, send me back to the fucking streets?
May God damn Davey down to hell!
—and this time I must of said it out loud, with all the hate that I was feeling, a mighty hate for the shadows come right toward me, just like a storm wind blows the thunderheads.
Red eyes, black birds, none of that is what you see, the bogeyman they call it, the hosts of the lost; naught like that at all. I think I laughed. Just like Davey, they don’t give without taking, but I know how to reckon with that. I laughed, and said the poems, all of them—consummatum est, that’s from church, ain’t it? You don’t need to know what you’re saying for the thing to work—I declaimed the poems and watched the shadows boil. And when I finished, my blood was gone from the floor, just as neat as if some maid had swabbed it up.
I must of slept, then, for the next thing I knew was Eddie bustling in, jingling keys and whatnot, you could hear him before you could see him—and when he saw me in the seats he give a great cry and Francis! What’s— Oh dear Lord, what has happened! Who has done this to you?
He took me to my feet and felt me up and down, then draped me on his shoulder like a baby; I think he cried. Fishy-dotty; I could have cried myself, I was so chuffed up with relief. It was me who finally patted his back, and There there, I said. Don’t, Eddie, don’t take on so.
But who—? Your poor sweet face—
His name is Davey, I said, and he kissed me, kissed the blood dried on my lips.
• • •
Cold compresses, and lots of ruby port, and a hurried-up rehearsal of others taking half my lines, Eddie insisting that The rôle is his if he wishes, he is still our star as the dresser lady rigged up a lacey veil for the crown, to hide the spot where my hair was wrenched out, and ’Twas a lover, she said, am I right? No one hits harder! Well, no matter, Mr. Chute will see to you. Now tilt your head for me, your ladyship, just like so—