The Lights of London (17 page)

‘But you have to admit she’s better looking,’ chipped in one of the sailors.

‘Depends on your taste, sonny,’ said the old man wistfully, eyeing the youngster beside him.

The sailor frowned. Not sure he’d quite caught the other man’s drift.

‘I even preferred the paper tearer they had on the other night,’ offered a woman sitting behind them, with a baby clamped to her breast, ‘and she was a right load of shit. Worse than that old bag with the musical saw.’

Teezer, hearing the growing buzz of discontent about him, took a long draw of porter, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and nodded towards the stage, where Tibs was doing her best to carry on, but Kitty wasn’t even pretending to do anything other than stand there, transfixed with shame.

‘Do you know, Buggy, you was actually right for once? She ain’t nothing like that sort I rescued. Not a bit like her at all.’ He craned his neck to see why the din coming from the front of the room was becoming increasingly aggressive. He jabbed his thumb at Kitty’s lean frame without a glance. ‘That one up there’s a very big, manly type of a girl. Nothing like my young lady at all.’ He half rose to his feet. ‘What’s all that going on up the front then?’

What was going on was a fight that had broken out between the young sailor and the florid-faced man who had been bold – or stupid – enough to have made a grab under the cover of darkness for the mariner’s groin. A fight always had entertainment appeal and when the alternative was something as horrible as what was going on up on the stage there was no contest.

Used to being in charge, Teezer ordered whoever was listening: ‘Oi, someone get the gasman to turn up them glims so we can have a proper butcher’s at them two
scrapping.’ He climbed up on his chair, balancing himself by clamping a hand firmly over Buggy’s head. ‘I’ll give odds on the young ’un,’ he grinned.

The four-piece band were as keen as everyone else to see what was going on – they had the welfare of their instruments in mind. This type of brawl had a habit of escalating with alarming speed and anything might be used as a weapon, even a piano. They all stopped playing and rose to their feet, leaving Tibs to go it alone like a strangulated sparrow. Her lamentable warbling soon petered out and she stomped to the edge of the stage in enraged, tight-lipped silence.

She stuck one hand on her hip and used the other to shield her eyes from the stage lights at her feet. ‘Do you mind?’ she bellowed, but even her fog-horn of a throat couldn’t carry over the row. She turned on her heel, grabbed Kitty by the arm and steered her towards the wings. The last thing she heard was someone shouting, ‘Are you gonna get the house lights on or do you want a good hiding and all?’

Someone did eventually turn the lights up, but it wasn’t Archie. Anxious for the girls’ safety in a roomful of half-drunken men and women, all eager for entertainment, which at that precise moment seemed to mean seeing blood being spilt, he’d ushered them out of the theatre and down the back stairs to the alley that ran along the side of the pub.

It was still very cold, and all Tibs and Kitty had on were the ill-fitting costumes made of some cheap, flimsy material that Jack Fisher had produced for them that morning.

Archie eyed the odd-looking pair with concern. There was Kitty, tall and broad, if still far too thin for her height, shivering and trembling like a gawky baby bird
that had tumbled from its mother’s nest. And Tibs, despite her façade of loud-mouthed bravado, a beautiful, warm-hearted little thing, with her pussycat eyes and her lovely blonde curls, so small and feminine. His heart went out to them both, and to Tibs in a way that had him feeling as confused as a schoolboy experiencing the first nervous stirrings when it occurred to him what the differences between men and women actually meant. ‘We’d better get you two inside,’ he said, trying to keep his tone casual and a smile on his lips. ‘You’ll catch your death out here.’

Tibs’s eyes flashed. ‘After the way they treated us?’

‘I don’t mean back upstairs. Come in the bar and get warm. Have a drink. It’ll be almost empty in there now. They’ll all have gone upstairs to see the punch-up.’

Right on queue a loud cheer went up, followed by a sharp smack, then a chair came flying through the high side window, just missing Kitty, who shied away, her eyes wide and rolling like a frightened thoroughbred.

Tibs shrugged. ‘All right then, Arch. We might as well get something out of it. I don’t suppose our wages are gonna amount to much.’ She looked at Kitty. ‘Come on, girl, get moving.’

Kitty said nothing, she just let Tibs lead her away.

Archie was right, the big downstairs bar was almost empty, apart from a few huddles of battered-looking old drunks leaning against the walls for support. The bar staff – Joe, a young but big Irishman, who doubled as a chucker out since Archie’s accident, and Florrie, a dumpy, middle-aged woman whose hefty bosom burst out from either side of her stained, once starched apron – had left the remaining customers to their own devices, while they went upstairs, Joe to see if his help was needed and Florrie to have a bit of a laugh.

Archie lifted the flap in the counter and poured the three of them a large measure of gin, which he topped up with water from a muslin-covered jug.

Tibs and Archie were leaning on the bar, sipping at their drinks, and Kitty was standing close by, staring at her feet, when Jack came storming in. ‘We might as well give up. It’s more like a boxing booth than a theatre up there, and even that manky excuse for a Chairman’s gathered his stuff together and walked out.’ He slapped down a handful of copper coins on the scratched mahogany counter. ‘Here, take this. You’re obviously not up to the job and you’re certainly not going to make the money I thought you would, so just finish your drinks, pocket your wages and then, if you’ve got any brains, clear off before that mob upstairs turns really nasty and decides to take out on you whatever it is that’s got in their pipe.’

Tibs looked at the miserable pile of coins. ‘But this’ll barely pay for our beds for tonight. There’s only …’ She began counting.

Jack gestured with a lift of his chin for Archie to pour him a drink, then said to Tibs without looking at her, ‘If you wanted more money you should have tried harder, lass.’

She was slack-jawed with indignation.
‘Try harder
? You bloody hypocrite. You knew I weren’t no flaming Lillie Langtry when you took me on.’ She jabbed a finger at Kitty. ‘And that she
certainly
weren’t no Marie Lloyd.’

Jack turned to Kitty as though he was about to say something, but she immediately looked away. He took a step towards her, was about to take another, when an alarming crash reverberated through the building.

Jack’s head shot back as he stared up at the ceiling. ‘What the hell was that?’

‘Someone trying to dismantle the stage?’ suggested Archie.

Forgetting his other worries, Jack made for the stairs. ‘Archie, get up here with me,’ he shouted over his shoulder.

Tibs stuck her elbows on the bar and rested her chin on her fist. ‘Me and my big ideas,’ she said, as the din above their heads increased to a wild crescendo. ‘Remember what I said about me not being able to carry a time in a bucket?’

Kitty nodded miserably.

‘I should have listened to meself for once.’ She swallowed the remainder of her gin, stood on tiptoe, reached for the bottle and poured herself another. ‘All I’m fit for is a life on the streets.’

‘And I’d have been better off at the bottom of the river.’

Tibs spun round and confronted her. ‘Don’t you
dare
say that, Kitty Wallis. Don’t you dare.’

Kitty looked away, unable to meet her gaze. She had never wanted to be here, had only ever wanted to repay her new friend’s kindness and then disappear back into the night where she had come from. She had wished, time and again, that she could get away and never set eyes on the Old Black Dog ever again. But it was true what they said: be careful what you wish for, it might just come true.

Now it had. They were never going to have to come inside this building again, because as far as Jack Fisher was concerned they were finished. And now they had nothing. And this kind, plucky little thing, who had been through so much but had still taken the time to help a stranger, was probably in worse trouble than she’d been before.

This wasn’t what Kitty had wanted. Not what
she had wanted at all.

‘Listen to me, Kit,’ said Tibs, pouring herself another drink. ‘We’re gonna have to do something about this. Do something a bit lively. We’re gonna have to use our loaf. ’Cos I’m telling you, I ain’t gonna wind up kicking the bucket in some pigsty of a stew down the Seven Dials. And you ain’t gonna drown yourself neither. Right?’

Kitty gnawed at her lip. If only she could think of a way out for Tibs, that would be something. ‘You could get a job as one of those shop girls,’ she said. ‘That seems a nice clean type of work.’

Tibs snorted. ‘Yeah, slave labour for no money. No thanks. I knew someone who did that for a while. Young Marie. They made her live in this horrible little room with a load of other girls, right up in these flea-bitten attics above the shop. Made the lodging house look like some fancy toff’s hotel, so she reckoned, and they had the cheek to keep back most of her wages to cover the rent. And the old slop they used to give ’em for their so-called meals. Treated worse than dogs, she said they was.’

‘Better than dying under a slimy railway arch,’ Kitty murmured. Then – she couldn’t stop herself – she began to weep.

Tibs didn’t notice her tears. ‘That wasn’t all,’ she went on, staring into her gin. ‘She was also expected to be
nice
to the owner of the shop whenever he felt like it. At least she gets paid for doing it now she’s working the Lane.’ She sipped at her drink and said quietly to herself, ‘But Marie ain’t got Polly to worry about, has she?’

Jack climbed up on the stage and stared about him. The place had gone mad, with practically half the audience fighting, while the other half watched and offered their
advice and encouragement. Behind him, the Amazing India Rubber Man had actually launched into his act as though nothing was happening. He was surprisingly deft, as it happened, balancing on his hands while wrapping both legs behind his head. He didn’t appear to notice the incongruity of doing his act in front of a throng of men and women who were more interested in smashing seven kinds of bells out of one another than in whether he could stick his toe up his nose.

Jack ducked as a chair flew past him. It knocked the contortionist flying sideways, causing peals of appreciative laughter from the table where both Bartholomew Tressing’s companions were now thoroughly enjoying their evening out – thanks in no small measure to the amount of port they had managed to polish off between them.

Dr Tressing himself was sitting calmly, observing the spectacle of the masses taking one another apart. Almost languidly, he beckoned to a boy, the younger brother of Joe, the Irish barman, who was scrabbling about the floor searching for coppers that just might have rolled from the pockets of unwary brawlers.

The boy looked about him, searching for who the man might be signalling to. There was nobody obvious. He glanced back at Tressing, tapped his chest and mouthed, ‘Me?’

Tressing nodded.

He thought for a moment, then went over to the table, making sure he was just out of reach – you could never tell with toffs.

‘Is that the owner? That man over there?’ Tressing asked the scabby-kneed child.

‘Why d’you want to know?’ the boy answered cautiously.

Tressing held up a shilling. ‘That’s why.’

The boy hesitated for a moment, but the coin tantalised him. It was enough for him to buy a whole big paper twist of barley sugar – just for himself – a couple of meat pies and have plenty left over to waste on toot down the market. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, straightening up as though on parade. ‘That’s him. That’s Jack Fisher.’

‘Give him this note and the shilling’s yours.’ Tressing scribbled something on a gold-cased pad, ripped out the sheet of paper, folded it in two and held it out to the boy.

‘I’ll do it if you give me the shilling now.’

A trace of anger clouded Tressing’s face and a muscle twitched in his jaw. He slapped the coin into the boy’s hand.

‘I’ll take it over to him right away, sir.’

Hunton, now really in the swing of things, was grinning like a monkey. ‘Have you heard what Dolly Bosanquet had to say about errand boys?’

Tressing, weary of Hunton’s sudden perkiness, raised a bored eyebrow. ‘No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell us.’

‘They’re like postcards, so easy to send and so cheap that everyone likes to have one handy!’ He paused long enough to laugh at his own wit, then went on, ‘I say, Tressing, d’you suppose this Fisher fellow can read?’

Tressing didn’t reply, he just wondered why he had been rash enough to invite this tedious man along to the next meeting of the Occultist Circle. Then a hint of a smile flitted across his lips. He knew full well why he had asked him. It would be amusing to see how the fool would react.

Jack Fisher could read, and when he saw what was in the note he pulled the child up on to the stage beside
him. ‘Point out the man who gave this to you, Sean.’

‘That’s him, Mr Fisher. The one with the posh clothes and the two pie-eyed mates.’

‘Good lad, Sean,’ Fisher said, his brow pleating into a frown. ‘Now you go over and tell him to come out and meet me on the landing.’

The boy looked reluctant.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘He’s a bit, you know, Mr Fisher. Strange like.’

‘I’ll keep an eye on you, Sean. Don’t worry.’

Tressing immediately joined Jack outside the auditorium, at the top of the stairway where the din from inside was muffled by two heavy swing doors. The landing was lit by a pair of hissing, popping gaslights, which sent long shadows up the scarlet-painted walls.

Jack looked the finely dressed man up and down, warily appraising the person he was dealing with. ‘Your note said you wanted to speak to me.’

Tressing smiled and nodded his approval. ‘A man who gets straight down to business. I like that.’