The Dollmaker's Daughters (15 page)

Lottie reached for her drink, eyeing her shrewdly. ‘Not good, eh?’

Tossing her jacket and hat onto the nearest chair, Rosetta flung herself onto the stool at Lottie’s feet. ‘It was horrible. I hate all men.’

‘Take your time, Rosetta, and tell me all about it.’ Sipping her drink and smoking, Lottie listened to Rosetta’s impassioned account of the day’s events, nodding her head but without making any comment. She laughed out loud when Rosetta told her how she had stamped on Alf’s foot and walloped him with the bouquet of roses.

‘It’s not funny, Aunt Lottie,’ Rosetta said, with a catch in her voice. ‘He insulted me.’

Lottie tossed the butt of the cigarillo into the fire. ‘You would be more insulted if he had said you were untalented and ugly.’

‘What?’ Rosetta stared at Lottie in amazement. ‘You think I should be flattered?’

‘There are ways, Rosetta, of dealing with men like Alfredo.’

Rosetta’s head was spinning; the airless room was making her feel sick and faint. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You are such a child. You got to grow up a bit if you want to get on in this world. It’s a hard place; take it from someone who knows.’ Lottie refilled her own glass with gin and poured another for Rosetta, handing it to her. ‘Have a drink, cara. Calm your nerves and listen to me.’

Rosetta sipped the neat gin, choked and pulled a face. She could feel the spirit burning her throat and making its fiery way down to her stomach. ‘I ain’t going back, not ever.’

‘So what you going to do, then? You no work, you don’t get no money. How you going to live?’

Rosetta took a mouthful of gin; this time it went straight to her head and she felt pleasantly muzzy. ‘There are other music halls. I’ll get another job.’

‘Once Alfredo puts the word about, you don’t
get no work in the East End and they won’t look at you up West, take it from me. You want to end up back at Bronski’s, you’re going the right way about it.’

Shaking her head, Rosetta stared into her empty glass but her eyes wouldn’t focus properly and she could see two glasses instead of one. Everything was so confusing. ‘What shall I do?’

Lottie lit another cigarillo, blowing smoke rings over Rosetta’s head. ‘You go back to the theatre and you be nice to Alfredo.’

‘Never.’

‘Or you go back to Crowe and sweet-talk him into letting you sing. I hear that Lily is not always well and sometimes cannot perform. If Crowe sent you the roses then he got an interest in you, Rosetta, or at the very least it shows he’s sorry for the way he treated you. Take advantage of it; go and see him again. Use your charms. You got to learn how to flirt and make men fall in love with you.’

‘I wouldn’t flirt with Jonas Crowe if he was the last man alive. He laughed at me. I hate him.’

Lottie’s mouth curved in a wry smile. ‘One thing you got to realise is that deep down all men are the same. You play them like a musical instrument. You give a little and then you stop. Tease them until you get your own way. How far
you go depends on how far you want to get. Do you understand?’

Focusing with difficulty, Rosetta shook her head. ‘I’m not a tart, I’m a good girl.’

‘Of course you’re a good girl, but bad girls get more furs and jewels and a lot more fun. You’re like me, Rosetta. You want everything out of life and you want it now. You ain’t going to sit around and wait for some dull, respectable young man to come and make an honest woman of you.’

‘It’s true, but I ain’t going to end up on the streets neither.’

Lottie threw back her head and laughed. ‘Course you ain’t, not with Carlotta Capretti to tell you what to do. I been there, cara. I had more lovers than you got curls on your pretty head. I’d be a rich woman now if I hadn’t had the little weakness for gambling.’

‘But you didn’t have to be nice to men like Alf Ricketts. I can’t do it. And anyway, I’d probably end up in the family way.’

‘Have another drop of tiddley,’ Lottie said, slopping gin into Rosetta’s glass. ‘There are ways of not getting a baby and I can see it’s time I give you the benefit of my experience.’

Shocked but fascinated, Rosetta tried to imagine Lottie as being young and desirable, and failed. ‘But surely it was God’s will that you never had children.’

Lottie choked on her gin. ‘You been listening too much to that Father Brennan. He’s a man and a priest, so what does he know?’

Rosetta gulped and crossed herself. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that. You’ll go to hell.’

‘Don’t worry, Rosetta, the devil and me are old friends.’ Exhaling smoke from her nostrils, Lottie lay back in her chair, her eyes half closed. ‘My family back in Italy married me off when I was sixteen. At seventeen I had a baby.’

‘You had a baby?’

‘A boy, Gianni. My little Gianni.’

‘But what happened to him?’

‘I don’t know. I was young, Rosetta, too young to be a wife and mother. I ran away to join a touring dance troupe.’

‘You left your husband and baby?’

‘And I never saw them again. When Aldo decided to come to England, I come too. The rest is history, but by that time I had learnt how to make men fall in love with me, and more important, how not to have more babies. Now you listen to me, Rosetta, and I pass this knowledge on to you. Then you make your own choice, cara.’

Standing outside Alf Rickett’s office, Rosetta took a deep breath and knocked on the door. She had spent a sleepless night listening to the drunken revellers stumbling along the corridor
outside her room and the street noises that went on into the early hours. She had lain awake struggling with her conscience. If she followed Aunt Lottie’s shocking advice she would be going against her strict upbringing, and there was little difference between the edicts of Mum and Father Brennan when it came to morals. On the other hand, if she behaved like a good girl, she would end up back in Bronski’s sweatshop working alongside Ruby, sharing the same bed as her sister and falling asleep to the sound of Granny Mole’s snoring.

‘Come in.’

Alf’s voice jarred Rosetta back to the present. She straightened her fur hat, pulled the veil down a little farther over her eyes, bit her lips to make them red, and went into the office.

Alf sat behind a desk littered with playbills and papers. His expression darkened as he looked up and saw Rosetta standing in front of him. ‘You’ve got a nerve.’

Rosetta forced her lips into a smile. ‘Mr Ricketts, I dunno what come over me last night. I come to apologise for my behaviour.’

Alf’s jaw went slack and his mouth hung open like a toad catching flies. He swallowed hard and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down above his starched collar. ‘Well, now. Well, now!’

Seeing him at a loss for words, Rosetta perched on the edge of his desk with what she hoped was
a seductive smile. ‘I was a bit embarrassed, you see, Mr Ricketts. You got me all of a dither and I didn’t know what to say. I may have been a bit hasty.’

Alf leaned back in his chair, squinting at her through narrowed eyes. ‘Give me one good reason why I should take you back.’

‘One, I got talent, and two, I can be very grateful, if you know what I mean.’

Alf’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He ran his finger round the inside of his collar. ‘How grateful, girlie?’

Fighting panic and the desire to run away, Rosetta shot him a glance beneath lowered lashes. ‘That depends on you, Alfie.’

Twenty minutes later, Rosetta left the office, flushed, breathless and triumphant. She stopped for a moment to button up her blouse; it wasn’t so bad really, not if you kept things under control and only let the old goat go so far and no farther. She had been so nervous at first that she had been sure he could hear her heart hammering inside her chest, but then she had realised that Aunt Lottie had been right: once you got a man’s interest, the rest was easy, as long as you kept control of the situation. She had left him greedy for more and the feeling of power was more intoxicating than gin.

‘So you came back!’

Madame Smithsova’s voice behind her made Rosetta jump and spin round. ‘And why not?’

‘Don’t act all innocent with me, girl. It’s all over the theatre what you did to old Ricketts.’ Madame’s granite features crumpled into a smile. ‘Good for you. It’s time someone put him in his place.’

‘And I got third billing next week,’ Rosetta said, unable to keep it to herself any longer.

Madame’s smile widened into a grin that almost split her face in two. ‘I knew you had it in you the first time I set eyes on you. You got talent, Rosetta, and you got brass.’

‘What’s happened to your voice, Madame?’ Rosetta stared at her, realising suddenly that Madame’s strong Russian accent had given way to pure cockney.

‘You heard old Alfie. I’m Clara Smith from Plaistow.’

‘So why pretend to be Russian?’

Madame shrugged her shoulders. ‘Russian ballerinas were all the rage when I danced at the Paris Opera. Plain Clara Smith wouldn’t have gone down too well in the theatre, so I became Clarissa Smithsova. I had brass too, in the old days, but now I got to turn great lumps of horseflesh into dancers. Beauty fades with age, remember that, Rosetta. Grab what you can while you’re young.’

‘I intend to,’ Rosetta said, turning to go.

‘And where d’you think you’re going?’

Rosetta hesitated. ‘Going home to learn me new act.’

‘Oh no you don’t!’ Madame caught her by the shoulders, propelling Rosetta towards the rehearsal room. ‘You got to work twice as hard now if you want to be a pro. You’re going to dance until your feet bleed and practise your scales until you croak like a frog. Success don’t come easy; you got to work for it and fight for it. Understand?’

At the end of the day, Rosetta limped out of the theatre, footsore and hoarse. Madame had worked her like an overseer on a sugar plantation; the only thing she lacked was a whip, although her sharp tongue could lash and hurt much the same. Rosetta was beginning to think that allowing Alf to fondle and squeeze her titties was the easy part of clawing her way to the top.

It was raining and large puddles had pooled on the pavements, gleaming like mirrors in the glow of the gaslights. If only she had thought to borrow an umbrella. Rosetta’s sigh turned into a muffled scream as a man leapt out from a doorway and clapped his hand over her mouth.

‘It’s me, Rose. Don’t scream.’

‘Joe!’

‘I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

Joe’s face was pale in the gaslight and his eyes lost in dark shadows, but Rosetta was too angry to feel sympathetic. Shaking all over, she punched him on the shoulder. ‘You stupid bugger, you scared me half to death.’

Joe hooked his arm over her shoulders. ‘Rose, I’m in trouble; I need money or I’m a dead man.’

‘Oh, Joe! What have you done?’

‘Nothing wrong, I swear it. I owe some money, that’s all. Can you loan me some? I’ll pay you back, honest.’

Rosetta shivered as the rain soaked through her jacket, running in icy rivulets down her neck and between her breasts. ‘I’m stony-broke. I ain’t even got the money for a cab.’

Joe struck his forehead with his hand. ‘You’re my last hope.’

Rosetta’s knees buckled as he leaned his full weight on her and it was all she could do to hold him up. ‘Let’s get you home. You’re soaked to the skin. When did you last eat?’

‘Dunno,’ Joe said, laughing weakly. ‘Food ain’t exactly my uppermost consideration at the moment, Rose.’

Somehow, with many stops on the way, Rosetta managed to get Joe back to Raven Street. Refusing to go in through the front door, Joe dragged her down the area steps, insisting that they go in through the servants’ entrance.

Elsie was alone in the kitchen, stirring a pan of
stew on the range. She goggled at them, clutching the wooden spoon like a dagger. ‘He’s not allowed in here,’ she cried, pointing the spoon at Joe. ‘Mr Sly said he’s not allowed.’

‘It’ll be all right,’ Rosetta said, stripping off her wet coat and hat.

‘She’s right,’ Joe said, backing towards the door. ‘I don’t want to cause you no trouble.’

‘Take those wet things off and sit down,’ Rosetta said firmly. ‘I’ll settle things with Uncle Sly.’

Reluctantly, Joe did as he was told and Rosetta hung their damp clothes over a clothes horse by the fire to dry. She set Elsie to cut bread while she ladled out a bowl of stew, placing it in front of Joe with strict instructions to shut up and eat.

Elsie scuttled about like a frightened crab, eyeing Joe warily and tugging at Rosetta’s sleeve, repeating over and over again that Mr Silas wouldn’t like it. When Silas came through the kitchen door, Elsie shot off into the scullery, howling.

‘What’s the matter with the daft cow?’ Silas stopped, staring at Joe and frowning. ‘And what are you doing here, boy? Didn’t I tell you to make yourself scarce?’

Joe mumbled something with his mouth full of bread.

‘You can’t stay here,’ Silas said, fumbling in his pocket and bringing out a packet of Woodbines.
‘You know what Lottie said last time you got yourself in a fix.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Rosetta said, staring from one to the other. ‘What’s going on?’

Silas lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘You tell her, mate. Tell her how you fell foul of the Crowe gang and now they want your guts.’

‘It’s true, Rose. I lost me job and I’ve been living rough, scared out of me wits for fear of the gang. If I can’t pay Crowe then I’m a dead man.’

‘No, I don’t believe it,’ Rosetta said, shaking her head. ‘Jonas ain’t like that. You got to speak to him, tell him how you’re fixed.’

‘Like he’d listen!’ Silas spat the words. ‘No one messes with Crowe. Best thing you can do, son, is get as far away from here as you can and don’t stop running.’

‘It’s too late,’ Joe said, holding his head in his hands. ‘I done a terrible thing.’

Rosetta threw herself down on her knees beside him, tugging his hands from his face. ‘What have you done? Tell me, Joe.’

‘I’m a poor apology for a man, Rose. I was too cowardly to go meself so I sent Ruby.’

Rosetta shook him, hard. ‘Sent Ruby where?’

Joe stared at her, white-faced, with tears springing from his eyes. ‘Crowe,’ he whispered. ‘I sent Ruby to beg Crowe to let me off. I got me own sister involved with the Raven Street gang. God knows what that bastard will do to her.’