Frozen Billy Page 7

  Will took an age to wake. I handed him the envelope. Still blinking away sleep, he slid the letter out, unfolded it and started to read.

  I didn’t need to read it with him. I’ve known it off by heart for seven days.

  My darlings! The best news! Yesterday I went before the Board. How they all glowered at me, and scowled at their papers, and picked at my answers till I trembled.

  But all went well. I’m to be freed! How all my friends here cheered. All of them know how very much I’ve missed you. By Friday week, the prison gates will open, and I’ll be running to the docks. The women send—

  Will broke off reading. In the grey dawn light, his skin was silver pale, and his eyes huge.

  ‘Clarrie? Is this—? Does this mean—?’

  I laid a finger across my lips. ‘Sssh! Uncle Len will hear.’

  ‘He doesn’t know?’

  ‘Nobody knows – except for you and me.’

  ‘Next Friday?’ His whole face softened. His eyes filled with tears. For the first time in as long as I could remember, he looked like a child.

  ‘Mother’s to come home! Next Friday.’ He whispered it again. ‘Next Friday.’ He touched my arm. ‘Why, Clarrie, if there’s a boat that night, she’ll be with us the next day!’

  He drew his knees up under the coverlet and clasped them as tightly as if he were hugging Mother. ‘On Saturday!’ he whispered. ‘Only seven days!’

  I put my finger back across my lips to warn him again to keep silent. ‘No. Tonight.’

  ‘Tonight?’ He peered at me, then turned the letter over in his hand. ‘Clarrie, how long have you had this?’

  ‘Seven days.’

  ‘Seven days! But every day without Mother has seemed like weeks. Why didn’t you—?’

  ‘Because,’ I whispered, ‘I had an idea. And what I needed was for you to be the selfsame Will you’ve been all these past weeks.’

  He hung his head. ‘Have I been horrible? Oh, Clarrie! Yes, I have. I’ve been horrible, haven’t I? Say it!’

  ‘And you’re to be horrible one more day, or Uncle Len will see the difference and be on his guard, and my idea will come to nothing.’

  ‘But with this letter in my hand, I don’t feel horrible any longer.’

  ‘Will,’ I said sternly, ‘are you Top of the Bill at the Alhambra, or aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘And do the crowds come every night – and pay handsomely for their seats?’

  ‘Yes, they do – not that we see a penny for it!’

  I hid my smile. ‘Never mind that now. You are a showman, just like Uncle Len. And today, you’re to give the finest show ever.’

  I climbed under the coverlet beside him, to explain the plan.

  The Ninth Notebook

  I’m glad Madame Terrazini was in the theatre that night to wave me her fond farewell while everyone else was clapping. She raised her hand, and shook her elegant lace handkerchief as warmly and deliberately as if she were standing on a quayside, watching me sail away.

  Would she have smiled so broadly if she had seen her brand-new ‘Top of the Bill’ twenty minutes before? I shivered and shook inside the side stage curtain I’d wrapped so carefully around myself. I didn’t dare peek out as I heard Uncle Len come back to the carrying box he’d left ready beside where I hid. My limbs went cold with terror, and in my mind’s eye I could plainly see the look on his face as he flicked up the catches and lifted the lid on Frozen Billy’s side to find—

  Nothing.

  ‘Empty?’ Was he talking to Will, or to himself? ‘How can the box be empty? I put the dummy in myself, and we came straight from the house.’

  I heard the cheers of the audience as the acrobats tumbled off stage, and, trusting in the confusion, parted the drapes just enough to take a quick look.

  Uncle Len stood staring down at the carrying box. ‘It was as heavy as usual! It rattled just the same! Where’s Frozen Billy?’

  He lifted up the box and shook it. Sure enough, from inside came a rattle and a thud.

  ‘Of course!’ Uncle Len’s relief turned into irritation. ‘Is this some prank of yours, Will, to switch the dummy to the other side and give me the fright of my life?’

  He flicked the catch under the label that said STILL LUCY, and raised the flap on that side.

  There lay Still Lucy, smiling serenely up at him.

  ‘What the—?’

  Behind him, the stage manager was coming closer. ‘Len! The audience grows restless. Get out on stage.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Get on stage! Now!’

  Snatching up the dummy, the stage manager thrust her at Uncle Len and pushed him out in front of the audience. Uncle Len held Still Lucy at arm’s length and stared at her in horror.

  The audience laughed.

  I’ve always said it: Uncle Len’s a showman. It took him barely a moment to gather his wits and say to the dummy, ‘Well, here’s a big surprise!’

  The audience laughed again.

  ‘A girl, indeed! That’s something new. A girl!’

  By now, with all eyes fixed on Uncle Len, I had dared part the fold in the curtain just enough to watch as he propped Still Lucy on a chair, then prowled around her.

  ‘A pretty patchwork frock! Nice smile! Enchanting hair ribbons! And such delicate red shoes!’

  I knew what he was doing. He was taking the chance to walk round the new dummy and inspect her. He spotted the flap of loose material over her back quickly enough.

  ‘Dear, are you comfortable?’

  He reached out a hand, as if to settle her better on the chair. Slipping his fingers under the loose cloth, he found the hooks and pulleys the sailors had made to match Frozen Billy’s exactly, and took a chance.

  ‘So what’s your name, dear?’

  Still Lucy blinked her eyes.

  ‘Shy, eh?’

  Still Lucy nodded.

  ‘Go on, dear. Be brave. Tell everyone.’

  Still Lucy shook her head.

  Was he unsure about the mechanism? Or was he worrying about the voice? To me in the wings, knowing how much sheer nerve Uncle Len needed (Suppose the mouth didn’t open? Suppose it didn’t shut?), it seemed an age of nods and winks and head-shakings before he took the chance.

  ‘So, Little Lady. I’ll ask you one last time. What’s your name?’

  My heart thumped. Jamie and Bert and Luis had pored over my drawings so carefully. They’d sanded and oiled so well. They’d tested every spring and wire a score of times, and taken advice from their shipmates. Still, I had never dared hope Still Lucy’s mouth would drop open and clack shut as naturally as Frozen Billy’s.

  And yet it did. And the voice that appeared to come out of it was sweet and shy. Uncle Len even dared give her a lisp.

  ‘Thtill Luthy.’

  ‘Thtill Luthy?’ Uncle Len teased.

  The audience chuckled.

  ‘No! Thtill Luthy!’

  ‘Just what I said. Thtill Luthy.’

  ‘No!’ The mass of ribbons shimmered as Still Lucy’s head shook. ‘I thaid, “Thtill Luthy!” ’

  As Uncle Len’s confidence grew, so did the audience’s amusement. They couldn’t take their eyes off the new, amazing dummy – so sweet, so pretty, with her shiny black cheeks and red, red lips and perfect ivory teeth. I glanced across at Madame Terrazini. Her lips were parted in wonder. It gave me confidence. I thought, if my uncle is such a fine showman that he can make even the theatre manager stare at the stage and not at the audience, then some of his talent must have come down to me. I know I can do it.

  And I stepped out on stage.

  I walked the way I’d learned from Will, picking up my black dubbined legs as though they were on strings. I let the shoes I’d stained bright red with stolen lip paste drop with a tap, tap, tap on the stage boards as I came closer.

  As Uncle Len heard the laugh he’d been raising turn to a sudden gasp, he twisted round to see me coming.

  But clearly nothin
g could surprise him now.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Still Lucy has brought her twin sister along with her. And what’s your name, dear?’

  Up until then, I hadn’t thought of lisping. But I suppose I am a showman, too! Because suddenly I caught sight of the dancers staring at me in great amazement from the wings, and the funniest joke in the world occurred to me.

  ‘My name ith Anathtathia.’

  ‘Anathtathia?’

  And off we went again. I was so up in the air with the thrill of it, I can’t remember precisely how the show went on. (Neither can Uncle Len, except for saying if I ever again bring him so close to nervous collapse, he’ll have my guts for garters.) So all I can tell you is that we kept up the prattle like old hands, stumbling from one to another of the many old jokes he and Will had tried and discarded.

  ‘So, Anastasia, you say you and Lucy live on a beautiful coral island. Tell us about life there. Does everyone work all week?’

  In my excitement, I clean forgot my lisping. ‘No, no. Since Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked with us, all the work has been done by Friday.’

  There was a moment’s silence as the audience worked out the joke. Then how they roared!

  ‘So how do you pass the time?’ asked Uncle Len. ‘Do you play cards?’

  ‘No,’ I said sadly, shaking my head. ‘We have too many cheetahs on the island.’

  More mirth. Then:

  ‘Do you have grand feasts?’

  ‘No. We have afternoon teas on the beach.’

  ‘Why afternoon teas? And why on the beach, dear?’

  ‘Because of all the sand which is there!’

  There were as many groans as laughs, but Uncle Len kept on.

  ‘And are there quicksands too?’

  ‘Yes, but I won’t tell you about them. It will take far too long to sink in!’

  ‘You catch fish, surely?’

  ‘Every day.’

  ‘So tell us, Anastasia, which is the simplest way to catch a fish?’

  I paused, looked winsome, and tipped my head to one side. ‘Get someone to throw it to you!’

  Uncle Len waited for the audience’s laughter to quieten before bringing Still Lucy into the act again by making her ask me:

  ‘Anathtathia, how ith our little pet goat?’

  ‘Very annoying.’

  ‘How tho, thithter?’

  ‘Because it butts in such a lot!’

  Again, we had to wait for the merriment to die down before we could carry on.

  ‘And how ith our dear little pet parrot?’ Still Lucy asked me next.

  I made my eyes go even rounder, and my face turn sad. ‘Alas, our parrot’s very, very ill.’ I made them wait before I finished up, ‘I think it must need tweetment!’

  As soon as the theatre was quiet enough to allow Still Lucy to be heard again, Uncle Len made her comfort me: ‘Never mind, Anathtathia! Thoon our parrot will be well enough to fly higher than a houthe.’

  ‘A house?’ I said, stalling as I tried to remember the end of the joke. Then mercifully it came to me. ‘That won’t be hard. We’ve never seen a house that could fly at all!’

  After that, Uncle Len asked me and Still Lucy what we liked the best about our new country.

  ‘We’re very cold,’ I confided. ‘So what we like best is that stuff – that stuff—’ I cocked my head to one side, put a finger in my mouth and sucked as if I were a dolly, thinking hard.

  ‘What stuff, dear?’ Uncle Len prompted.

  ‘You know,’ I said. ‘That stuff that changes colour three times in its life.’

  ‘Three times?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s black when you buy it, red when you use it, and grey when you’ve finished with it.’

  ‘Coal!’ roared the audience.

  And on we went, with riddle after riddle twisted into jokes until we’d spent the time allotted, and a few minutes more. In the end it was Uncle Len who chose to roll some joke round neatly to match another, reached out a hand to draw me towards him as he held up Still Lucy, and made us both take a bow along with him.

  The audience cheered and stamped and roared. The curtain dropped, swept up, came down again, swept up. We kept on bowing until I was dizzy.

  The curtain came down one last time, and stayed down.

  Uncle Len turned to me. ‘Astonishing, Clarrie! A triumph! But how could you ever have—?’

  Now came the real performance: fooling a man whose skill is fooling others.

  I spread my hands. ‘Don’t blame me, Uncle Len. Will said it would be an excellent jape, and you’d enjoy it.’

  Uncle Len held up Still Lucy to admire her. ‘She is a splendid dummy.’ He turned her round and lifted the flap to inspect her mechanism. ‘Where did you find her? And was all this Will’s idea? Was it his aim to make me die of heart failure?’ He swung round. ‘Will?’

  The stage hands stood silent since, the moment the act began, every last one of them had seen Will snatch Frozen Billy up from where I’d hidden him when I switched the dummies, and lay him back in the box. They’d watched him pull a letter from his pocket, drop it on top, and run from the theatre.

  Only the stage manager dared say it. ‘Len, he’s gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘Ran off the moment the act began.’

  ‘A wise decision,’ Uncle Len said wryly. ‘He risks a thrashing when he gets home for tempting Clarrie into such mischief.’ He turned the dummy back to face him. ‘Ithn’t that right, Thtill Luthy?’

  No one laughed.

  Uncle Len didn’t notice. He went to the carrying box to lay Still Lucy safely inside.

  There, on top of Frozen Billy, lay the short note I’d made my brother copy out that very morning.

  Uncle Len stared at it blankly. To save his pride, I picked it up and read it out aloud to everyone:

  ‘“I’m sorry, Uncle Len. I’ve run away. I’m off to make my own fortune overseas. Your nephew, Will.” ’

  ‘Run away?’ Suddenly my uncle looked like a rag doll whose stuffing has dropped out of him. His jaw dropped as low as Frozen Billy’s. ‘Run away to sea? Young Will?’

  I waited with heart stopped. Here was the test I’d dreaded. What would my uncle do? For though Will could have played my part that night as puppet on the stage, I couldn’t have played his as runaway. No one would ever have thought I’d gone to sea.

  But this way, what a risk we ran. For Uncle Len might believe that Will had gone. But if he chose to remember only his sour moods over the last few weeks, he might say nothing more than, ‘Damn the boy! He has been constant trouble! Now he must fend for himself!’ and stride off to cool his temper at the Soldier at Arms.

  Then he’d miss everything I hoped would follow, because this plan of mine depended on speed; and speed, here, hung upon a loving heart.

  Give him his due, he didn’t make me suffer long. I’d hardly caught my breath before he was seizing my arm.

  ‘Will? Down at the docks? A boy so young? Clarrie, for God’s sake, we must follow him!’

  ‘Quick, then!’ I said, my heart as light as air. For I knew, even if I failed in one thing, I’d managed another. I’d proved that, for all his petty sins and weaknesses, deep down my uncle’s heart was true.

  He stretched out a hand to hurry me, then stopped as if he only now saw clearly that I was standing in a fluffy wig, peppered with ribbons, with shoe blacking over every inch of me and bright red lips.

  ‘No time to waste,’ he told me. ‘I’ll run ahead!’

  Thrusting Still Lucy into my arms, he broke through the line of staring stage hands and ran like the very devil.

  The Last Notebook

  Here is a riddle that we missed on stage. How do you get four people onto one steamship with only one ticket? Uncle Len asked it a hundred times on the voyage, then answered his own question: ‘Best ask Clarrie! For she is the only person in the world who has ever yet managed it!’

  But it was simple enough, with everything set to fa
ll into place like dominoes in a line. Down at the docks, Will kept his painted face well hidden in the hood of his theatre cloak as he waited for the boat from Dun Laoghaire. Through driving rain, he strained to pick Mother’s face out from the throng of passengers leaning over the deck rail.

  ‘Look for the clothes she was wearing when she went off,’ I’d told him. ‘Look for a woman in black.’

  ‘But it was dark,’ he complained to me bitterly after. ‘And they seemed all in black. If I’d not had the sense to stand where I knew she’d pass, between the ship’s berth and the quickest way home, I would have missed her.’

  But it didn’t happen. He had the luck to spot her as she hurried past.

  He stepped up behind her. ‘Mother!’

  She stopped dead in her tracks. ‘Will?’

  She swung round, then clutched her hand to her heart.

  ‘The fright he gave me!’ she told me afterwards. ‘To hear my own son’s voice, then turn to see a living, breathing image of Frozen Billy grinning from the hood of a cloak. If I’d not been rooted to the spot in horror, I would have run a mile.’

  But Will had not been able to stop himself. Forgetting his painted face, he hurled himself into Mother’s arms. And as she felt his trembling frame through the wet folds of cloak, and heard him whisper, ‘Oh, Mother! How glad I am to see you!’ she came to her senses and all fears fled.

  They hugged and kissed, and then she held him at arm’s length. ‘Will? Why are you made up to look like a puppet?’

  Behind them, a ship’s hooter brayed, reminding Will.

  ‘No time for that! Quick. You must get your ticket.’ He dug in the cloak’s lining pocket and pulled out the cocoa tin. ‘Here is the money for your passage.’

  Mother lifted the lid. Inside, stuffed tight, was all the money Madame Terrazini had given me.

  ‘Will? Where does this money come from?’

  ‘Father!’ lied Will (though he claimed later that he was sorely tempted to ruin everything by boasting, ‘My wages!’). And all the time he was pushing Mother back through the stinging spears of rain towards the shipping office. ‘You must buy a ticket, Mother. The ship’s about to sail and you must get on board.’