Frozen Billy Page 6

  ‘Yes. That much, Clarrie!’

  I tell you, I ran to the shop on air.

  Mrs Trimble wiped the smile from my face.

  ‘Late, Clarrie! Late! Don’t think that you’ll be paid for this first hour, since you’ve missed half of it. Now get to work at once. Customers are waiting.’

  But even her scolding and her terse commands couldn’t tether my mind to my duties. All morning I floated in a daze, sliding the heavy rolls of silk back in the wrong places, mislaying samples of elastic, scattering the thimbles.

  By noon, Mrs Trimble had worked herself into such a lather of irritation, she wanted me out of her sight. ‘Clarrie! You’re of so little use today that you can carry these papers down to the Import Officer at the docks. Perhaps the fresh air will rouse you.’

  It was a punishment. She knows I hate it when the sailors grin and whistle, and when the dockmen turn and stare. But she was right. The air was good for me. The cold winds filled my lungs and my head cleared.

  Soon, I was standing on the quayside, watching a great steamship draw near. The old man clinging to the rail beside me shook out his pipe and nodded towards it. ‘That’s the Stirling Castle.’

  ‘Castle?’

  He saw my baffled look and chuckled. ‘Her name. She’s in from Calais.’

  ‘Do you know all the boats?’ I asked from politeness.

  ‘No, no.’ Again he chuckled. ‘But I can read.’ He twisted himself round just enough to wave at a notice board on the harbour wall. Behind a sheet of glass were pinned a dozen sheets of paper.

  ‘In, out,’ he told me. ‘Sailings. Dockings.’

  When he had shuffled off, I gathered my shawl around me in the icy wind, and went to stare. There, next to the ticket prices, was the list of ships due in and out of dock. Berthings from Singapore and Valparaiso. A sailing bound for Australia on Saturday, on the midnight tide. Another for Tierra del Fuego. If I am honest, I was looking for the name of the ship that I’d waved out of port two years before: the Firm of Purpose. I’d stood, tears burning, waving until my arm could have fallen from its socket, and my father was no more than a speck, and the ship little more than a dot, on the horizon.

  The Customs Officer signalled me back inside his cosy warm office. ‘Here, child. Give these to Mrs Trimble and warn her the next time her paperwork is so awry, she’ll lose her rolls of silk for ever.’

  What? Did he think, as Madame Terrazini does, that I’ve a lion’s heart? I hurried back. Mrs Trimble snatched the import papers, broke open the seal and peered at the official stamp.

  Satisfied, she turned back to me. ‘So, Clarrie, has the sea air cleared your brain of cobwebs?’

  She kept me, to make up the hour I hadn’t been in the shop. The clock was striking seven as I ran up the stairs and stumbled on the mat outside our door, sending it skittering sideways.

  Out from beneath it poked the corner of an envelope. Dropped on the way to a neighbour’s door? Or given to someone else by mistake, then passed back to us? I picked it up to inspect it.

  It was from Mother.

  I ask myself now how, knowing that Uncle Len and my brother were only a foot or two away, hungry for supper, I could have chosen so fast to clatter noisily up the next flight of stairs, to make them think I was only some neighbour passing the door on the way to their own room.

  I think that – just for once – I longed to read the letter first, and by myself. I wanted to be first to hold it. I wanted to take my time to unfold it, and know that where my fingers rested, the last fingers to rest had been Mother’s.

  I read the letter and I cried and cried.

  That night, I was so restless. Through my small window I watched the clouds scud over the sky and thought of the ships I’d seen straining at the tide, and of the voyage we all longed to make.

  And finally, sleep came. Was it because Mother’s letter lay hidden under my pillow that she was so vivid in my dreams? Singing under her breath; busying herself with her stitching as Will and I sat with our schoolbooks; gently scolding our uncle.

  I woke to hear her voice ring round the room as clearly as if the dream were real. ‘Oh, Len. You know as well as I, a man makes his own fortune.’

  Then I heard my own voice in a whisper: ‘Why not a woman, too?’

  And as I lay, watching the silent moon dip and bow across the storm-bruised sky, I thought again of all the money waiting in Madame Terrazini’s safe, of all the questions I’d asked her, and how she’d replied. And, for the first time since Will had climbed on Uncle Len’s knee to play the dummy, I found myself wondering if – after all – some good might come of this talent for mimicry that runs through our family. In my mind’s eye, in the dark, it suddenly came to me how my idea to rescue my brother from the music hall could grow and grow to be a veritable explosion of daring to rescue all of us from our waiting lives.

  Would it work? Could it be done? And could I do it? Did I dare to try?

  I’ll tell you this: if you have been a ‘Good girl, Clarrie!’ all your life, you have one gift that no one else is offered.

  You don’t know where your limits are or where your boundaries end. Why, if you’re brave enough, you might just find your wits as wide and uncharted as some brand-new country.

  Like Australia!

  The Eighth Notebook

  Mrs Trimble stared. ‘Leaving us, Clarrie? Have you found better employment to keep the roof over all your heads?’

  I kept my eyes on my shoes. ‘No, Mrs Trimble.’

  ‘Then is this wise?’

  I offered her no more than a tiny shrug. She peered at me closely, then muttered something about ‘ingratitude’ and ‘docking a day’s pay, in lieu of notice’. I didn’t mind. It made it easier to slip a length of shiny red ribbon – and one tiny thing more – into my apron pocket and feel no guilt. Threads we had in plenty at home. And since Mother was allowed to pick through the shop sweepings every night for scraps to mend our clothes, we had a basket overflowing with patches.

  I didn’t say a word at home, and no one asked. That evening, after Uncle Len and Will left for the theatre, I hastily put away the broom and followed at once. I was so close behind that, if they’d turned, I would have had to dart down an alley. They vanished through the stage door. I hurried in behind and, the moment I’d seen them turn towards the dressing rooms, went the other way, to the storerooms.

  Each one is bigger than the three rooms we have at home pushed into one. They’re all piled high. I slipped into the first, filled with the most extraordinary things: statues, guns, papier-mâché pigs, clocks, coronets, a stuffed dog, candlesticks, framed portraits. Think of each scene from every play or pantomime you’ve ever heard of – all the things on that stage, along with a thousand others, were in one or another of the storerooms.

  I inched between a wheelbarrow and a large cardboard snowman. Behind a pile of swords, there was a box – WIGS, BEARDS, MOUSTACHES – under a pile of harem cushions topped with an Aladdin’s lamp.

  It took a while. Through cracked boards over my head thrummed all the tunes and drum rolls I knew so well. I searched through ‘Props’ and ‘Wardrobe’, taking my time, comparing, discarding. And as the acrobats finally bounced off stage, dislodging a host of dust puffs, I realized I’d found and borrowed – should I now call it stolen? – all that I had in mind the day the idea to rescue my brother came.

  Next morning, I tied my bonnet as usual and hurried from the house. Nobody thought it strange that I carried a basket, and, if they had, I would have talked of bread or sausages I planned to buy.

  Down at the docks, the sailors teased me, as I knew they would: first with whistles and smiles, and then, as I stitched all the morning in the bitter wind, coming closer to try to vex me.

  ‘Who do we have here, shivering in her thin shawl? Sweet Sister Suzie, sewing shirts for sailors?’

  I peeped out from under my lashes, as I had seen the pretty ladies do when a boy they would like to be sweet on follows them into our shop. />
  A sailor the others called Jamie soon drew nearer. ‘What are you sewing so busily, little lady? And why here in the stiff sea breeze? Have you no home to go to?’

  I blew on my fingers to warm them for the thousandth time, and nodded at the customs office along the quay. ‘I’m waiting for my papers – you know, the papers that must go with Mrs Trimble and Miss Foy’s rolls of silk when the ship sails . . .’

  ‘The bill of lading?’

  ‘Yes, the bill of lading!’ I said, as if I’d been trying to remember, not find out what I didn’t know. I offered him a warm smile in secret thanks for giving me, with so little trouble, the first piece of information I needed. And I could almost see him scour his brain for something else to say.

  ‘Odd, to send rolls of silk back over the sea when we’ve faced wind and weather to bring them here!’

  ‘They’re going on the Fresh Hope.’

  ‘Then make sure Mr Henderson gets everything in order. Captain Percival is a stickler for paperwork.’

  I’m not the first girl to claim I could have kissed a sailor – and probably with more cause than any other: two names without the asking. But I kept busy with my needle.

  After a while, Jamie lifted the hem of my handiwork. ‘The young lady who fits into this could do with a few weeks’ growing!’

  ‘It’s not for a lady,’ I told him. ‘It’s for a sort of puppet.’ I sighed. ‘But I have only a week to finish, and there’s one part of it that, try as I might, I still can’t manage.’

  ‘Which part is that?’

  I pulled a few bits and pieces out of my basket: a broken wooden spindle; copper wire; strong cord; two empty bobbins; and a bent metal shuttle.

  The sailor stared. ‘An odd collection of cast-offs. What did you hope to make from these?’

  I had the answer ready. Maybe I can’t make pictures easily with words, as Will can in his letters. But give me time and no one there to tease, and I can draw. The hardest part was opening Frozen Billy’s mouth to peer inside. After that fright – after my heart stopped thumping – I’d set to work and made my careful sketch of all the springs and coils and wires inside his head. Then, rolling him over in his padded coffin, I’d lifted the patch of clothing that hides my uncle’s busy hand, and drawn what I saw in there, too.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Jamie, inspecting my first picture. ‘A cave of fierce teeth! But what’s all this inside?’ After a moment’s studying, he picked up the other sketch. ‘Aha! So that’s where the wire goes. What a clever little pulley. And these, I suppose, are tiny weights . . . But what’s this spring for? And how does this bit work?’

  Seeing him scratch his head, his shipmates drew closer, one by one. The argument started in earnest.

  ‘Surely this spring must work with a balanced counterweight.’

  ‘The merest touch here and look, the eyes would blink open.’

  ‘With a deft finger, you could learn to lift this bar yet leave that one in place!’

  And that was that. All week, I kept at my stitching and embroidering, while in between their own tasks (and often, I fear, in spite of them) Jamie and Bert and someone from Santiago they called Luis chipped, whittled, chiselled, planed and buffed. They tossed my hopeless pieces of wood and metal over the quayside (‘We’ve finer rubbish in our bilges, Clarrie!’) and scoured ship’s stores for other, better finds.

  ‘Wouldn’t these lengths of wood make good legs for your dolly? A bit of whittling, and she’ll have ankles as fine as your own!’

  ‘See? A prize coconut to hollow out for her head!’

  ‘Gambling dice for her teeth. Last night I painted out every black dot on the ivory, and this morning they look perfect!’

  ‘Look, Clarrie. The joints in your puppet’s knees will move one way but not the other. One tiny drop of oil . . . Now can you see why I was polishing that ring of metal till it shone?’

  At home, the snarling and snapping went on apace. I gnawed at a fingernail as, for the third time that week, Uncle Len snatched up the tub of lip paste and scolded, ‘Will! I bought this only last week and already it’s half gone! Can you be eating it?’

  They were so taken with glaring at one another that neither saw my guilty face. I stole away, back to my bed, urging myself to be strong and keep my secrets one more week for all our sakes, whatever the cost to Will’s spirits. Afterwards, I knew, the questions would rain down on me. ‘How did you put it all together so cleverly, Clarrie?’ ‘Where did you find each perfect match?’

  But, really, all I did each time I needed something was sit and think. And almost every time, the picture came to me of some small corner of the theatre storerooms, and I’d go running back. It was like hunting for treasure. I’d pick up the perfect bodice, and remember a pile of frilly aprons with the very same fine lace edging, tossed in a corner. I’d stumble on a heap of dancing shoes, and search till I came across ballet pumps the same colour at the bottom of a box marked THE BALLET COPPELIA.

  All week I kept my secrets hidden. Each night I’d carry my basket home and try to cheer my brother by drawing out some small ham or sausage I’d bought with the money Madame Terrazini gave me. But I let neither Uncle Len nor Will see that underneath, folded as flat as I could keep them, were my two sets of bright matching handiwork, growing and growing.

  By Thursday, the sailors were done. And so was I. That night, as I cleaned Uncle Len’s stage boots till they shone, I stole one last dollop of black dubbin to add to the cupful I’d kept hidden under the sink. And when my brother turned his back, I lifted one last smudge of red out of his tub of lip paste.

  And I was ready. Hidden around me, under the mattresses, beneath the rugs, in the pillow case, and right at the back of the kitchen cupboard, was everything I needed.

  Yes, I was ready.

  I found Madame Terrazini in the Alhambra foyer, watching a man on a ladder polish the droplets of the chandeliers until they sparkled.

  When I came close, she turned. ‘Ah, Clarrie! I’m glad to see you.’ She hurried me aside. ‘Your brother still seems discontented. Have you let him sigh and scowl through yet another week, and still said nothing?’

  ‘How could I tell him?’ I burst out. ‘Will’s smiles of triumph would have said it all. Uncle Len would have started with his charm and his promises, and by now all our gains would have been lost.’

  She sighed. ‘True enough.’

  ‘But I have come to fetch the money now.’

  ‘Why now, Clarrie?’

  I said determinedly, ‘I have a use for it.’

  ‘But can you keep it safe?’

  ‘It won’t be with me long.’

  Still looking doubtful, she signalled me to follow her into the office. ‘Are you quite sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  She gave a little shrug, as if to say, ‘I tried my best.’ Then, shutting the door behind us so no one could see, she made me face the wall until she had opened her safe. Sliding out trays of money, she laid them on the table and started to count.

  In front of me, the piles of notes and coins began to grow. I couldn’t believe the amounts of it.

  She saw my face. ‘What’s earned is earned. Your brother worked as hard as Len.’

  She finished counting and pushed the heap towards me across the table. ‘Clarrie, it makes me nervous even to think of you carrying all this away. Surely it would be safer to wait till your mother comes home.’

  I tried my hardest to deceive her, but couldn’t stop the first little twitchings of a smile.

  She gave me another long and searching look. ‘Clarrie? You have another secret, I can tell! You’ve had good news from Ireland!’

  I kept my face set, but she wasn’t fooled. Still, she didn’t push me, either for truth or lies. ‘You keep your secrets, Clarrie. You’ve earned them just the same way your brother’s earned his wages. You’ve cared for him like a mother, and tried your very hardest to protect your uncle from his worst self. Really, I have to commend you. You’ve show
n the courage of—’

  Last time, she’d said ‘the courage of a lion’.

  This time, she paused, stared at the huge pile of money, stared at me, then finished up: ‘The courage of a pioneer.’

  Then what a weight rolled off my heart! She’d dealt with my family so fairly, I wanted to be honest and true in all my dealings with her. And now I knew that she had guessed at least a part of my secret. And from her look of wonder – of admiration, almost – I knew for certain she would be the last person in the world to try to stop me.

  I scraped the wages Will had earned and she had saved for him into the pocket of my apron. ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Mind?’ She came round her desk to take me by the shoulders and kiss me warmly. ‘Clarrie, my only wish is for things to go well for you and your family.’ She chuckled. ‘Oh! And, of course, that my glorious tenor will be free to return for the Monday performance!’

  Back in the quiet of my room, I counted the money three times over. There was no mistake. Once I had thrown in Mother’s few coins from under the sink, there was enough for what I needed.

  One single passage to Australia.

  All night, the rain lashed at the windowpanes. I barely slept. My hopes were too great, and my heart too full. I watched clouds buffet the moon and listened to the scratching of rats behind the skirting.

  And watched Still Lucy.

  There she sat, propped safely out of sight behind the door. Under the silk frills of her bodice were hidden Mother’s precious wedding lines. On her head was a wool wig covered with scarlet ribbons. Her patch work skirt flared out around the tubes of fine brown silk I’d sewn to cover her legs. The prim little ballet shoes rounded off her feet to perfection.

  But it was still her face I stared at most. Her huge embroidered eyes. The pretty tucks and gathers that made her pert nose. The painted dice of her teeth. The shiny black shoe dubbin of her beautiful wide cheeks. The bright red of her smile.

  She had become the doll of my dreams as well as of Uncle Len’s. For I believed that, when I had risen at dawn and sewn Mother’s earrings safely under the pretty pigtails, this beautiful twin of the girl on the cocoa tin would help to make us all happy – give us smiles like hers.