Mind the Gap (6 page)

“Oi! Watch it, y’lummox!” she said.

Rolston laughed and rolled his eyes. “Sounds more like Eliza than Mrs. Higgins.”

Jazz explored her hair and bonnet to make sure all was still in place, then shot him a dark look. “Lucky boy. I won’t have to kill you today, apparently.”

“What a glorious death it would be, though,” he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Smiling, Jazz exited the green room. Though her role in
My Fair Lady
was that of a lady, the entire cast had taken to imitating the rough, cockney speech of Eliza Doolittle backstage. Sometimes a well-placed
guv’nor
could reduce the whole stage to fits and giggles.

She rushed down the half dozen stairs to the door leading out into the auditorium. The hinges squeaked when she opened it, and she made a mental note to remind the director—the English teacher, Mr. Morris—to have someone take care of it before the first performance tomorrow night.

Today was the dress rehearsal. They were all in full costume and makeup for the first time. Though Jazz was a slender girl, her costume cinched her waist so tightly that she felt it might rip at any moment. The girl who’d been handling costumes promised to let it out tonight, and Jazz hoped she remembered, or there was the real possibility she’d pass out onstage.

The door squeaked shut behind her and Jazz glanced up onto the stage, where the hands were moving sets around with only a modicum of thunder. Then she glanced out over the auditorium. Most of the five hundred or so seats were empty. The director and the school’s principal sat with half a dozen teachers, patiently waiting for the dress rehearsal to begin. Twenty or thirty parents had come as well, along with a handful of kids who were the younger siblings of members of the cast.

Jazz felt a moment of crashing disappointment when she did not see her mum. Then her gaze flickered to the back of the auditorium and the figure standing just inside the doors, and her smile returned.

She hurried up the central aisle and presented herself to her mother, spinning once to show off her dress and then curtsying like a lady.

“What do you think?”

Her mother smiled nervously. “You look lovely, Jazz. I could do without all that makeup—”

“It’s stage makeup, Mum. You’ve got to wear it or the audience won’t be able to see the expression on your face.”

“Well, you do look lovely. Hardly a girl at all anymore. A young lady.”

Jazz basked a moment in the compliment, but then she saw that her mother’s attention had wandered, gaze darting around to take in the auditorium, the doors at either side of the stage, and the nearer corners of the room.

“What is it?” Jazz asked, seeing her mother’s brows knit.

Her mum nodded toward the stage. “And you’ll be up there, will you? The entire time?”

“Hardly,” Jazz replied. “My part’s not very big. It’s not as if I’m playing Eliza.”

“Yes, but when you are on, you won’t be out in the audience at all?”

“Of course not.”

“That’ll have to do, I suppose. Can’t be too careful, sweetheart.”

Jazz stared. Her mother had always been paranoid, and she suspected it had to do with the suddenness of her father’s death. Jazz tried to assuage her fears whenever possible, but sometimes she couldn’t bite her tongue.

“Honestly, Mum. What’s going to happen? It isn’t as if someone in the audience is going to try to hurt or rob me in the middle of the show.”

Her mother’s thin smile seemed to pain her. She gave a shake of her head. “No, of course not, love. Still, you can never be too careful. Never know what’s out there looking to do us harm, do we? Just look after yourself.”

But the following evening, and at all three performances that weekend, whenever Jazz spotted her in the audience, her mum was standing at the rear of the auditorium, not watching the show but instead studying the audience and the shadowy corners of the room, always on guard.

But that was her mother. Always on guard. She never seemed to know precisely what or who might pose a threat, so she mistrusted everything and everyone.

Jazz never participated in another play after that. She could find no joy in it.

Holborn station stood at the juncture of High Holborn Street and Kingsway, the foot traffic a mixture of hurried Londoners, business travelers, and enough casual tourists to warrant a map vendor on the curb outside the station’s entrance. The facade of the building looked more like an old theater marquee than a Tube station, but the red circle and blue band that marked the Underground gave it away.

On a pleasantly warm day—a workday, though she’d lost track of which one—Jazz stood near the magazine stand across the street from the station and pretended to talk into a disposable mobile. The phone had been fetched from the garbage in Tottenham Court Road station after having been discarded there and made a useful prop. Jazz had never seriously entertained thoughts of becoming an actress, but her few excursions onto the stage had come effortlessly. She’d been born to pretend.

“Can you believe it, Sally?” she asked into the inert mobile. “And he sent flowers the next day. He’s got no shame. I’ve half a mind to—”

She felt a tug behind her, on the hem of her skirt. Then Cadge whipped the back of her skirt up high, revealing her lavender thong and far more of her than she would have liked. A breeze fluttered the skirt, and then she forced it down, covering herself again and dropping the phone in the process. The mobile cracked when it struck the pavement. She spun on him.

“You cheeky little bugger!”

Cadge laughed merrily, his cheeks flushed with excitement and embarrassment. Though older, he looked no more than twelve.

“Nice arse, love. Let’s have a look at the rest!” he cried.

A man at the newsstand shot him an angry glare. He’d just bought a magazine and now stuffed his wallet back into the inside pocket of his suit coat.

“Here, now!” the man said. “There’s no call for that.”

“Bloody right,” Jazz snarled, and she started toward Cadge.

“Oh, tough bird, are we?” Cadge said. “Come on, give us a show.”

“Right!” the man in the gray business suit said, catching hold of Cadge’s arm. “That’s enough. Leave off now. Get out of here.”

Jazz didn’t hesitate. The man had gotten an eyeful of her backside, and she knew she looked good. The skirt and blouse had come from the dress-up closet Harry Fowler’s United Kingdom had filched over time. Hattie had helped her choose the clothes and Faith had done her hair. Harry’d even managed enough hot water so that she could shave her legs. No one looking at her would have guessed that she’d been living in the Underground for an entire month.

Yes, she’d gotten the bloke’s attention. Now the business suit had to be her knight in shining armor. Couldn’t resist a pretty girl.

“I’ll have you, you little shit!” Jazz said, and she lunged for Cadge.

Businessman put himself between them—or at least later on he’d think he’d done that out of chivalry. Really, Jazz made sure to catch the man between herself and Cadge. She cursed and damned him and his relations and ancestors going back several generations. Cadge kept laughing, egging her on.

“Jesus, girl!” the man said, now alarmed to be stuck between them. “Get off.”

As the businessman struggled to keep hold of Cadge and to prevent her from clawing the boy’s eyes out, Jazz put to use everything Harry and the United Kingdom had taught her over the past few weeks. The fabric of his coat whispered as her fingers slid against it.

Finally she darted around him, spit at Cadge, shouted a final curse at him, and walked away. “Someone’s got to pay for that phone,” she told Cadge. “You’d better hope you don’t see me again!”

Jazz marched across the street and into Holborn station. She didn’t bother thanking the man. Time was of the essence now. She descended the stairs and felt the comfort of being enclosed again. It had been good to go aboveground again, but she’d felt eyes on her everywhere, the breeze whispered about her, and buildings stared down like sentinels.

Jazz went through the turnstile and took the escalator down. Leela waited for her on the platform. The sign above them declared the next train to be two minutes away. Jazz and Leela stood near each other for a moment, neither acknowledging the other. The Indian girl had downplayed her looks to be less conspicuous, which had to be difficult for someone with such natural beauty. But Leela managed it. Her right arm was looped through the handles of a big bag that seemed half purse and half briefcase, something she’d snatched earlier in the day.

Stevie and Bill emerged onto the platform. From their smiles, Jazz presumed they’d also had a successful day aboveground. The train arrived and all four of them stepped on through different doors.

At Tottenham Court Road station, Jazz got off. The other three would travel up to the next station.

“Mind the gap,” a voice warned.

Jazz let out a long breath of relief as the doors closed and the train pulled away. She went to a bench and picked up a discarded copy of that morning’s
Times.
A few minutes later, Cadge darted onto the platform.

Grinning, she got up.

“Right, give me the news. How’d I do?” she asked as Cadge approached.

“Perfect,” he said, clapping softly. “Like you were born to it.”

She felt herself swelling with pride, and it took her by surprise. Jazz had been reluctant at first. Of all the things she had one day imagined she might become,
thief
had never been on the list. But Harry and his tribe—
your tribe too now
—had persuaded her otherwise. Topsiders were all about money and merchandise. They lived for the illusion of success. And the rich bastards, the ones with more than they needed—if their wallets were a bit lighter at the end of the day, most of them would barely feel it. That’s why it was so damn easy to steal from them, to pick their pockets or con them on the street. They were hardly aware of what they carried, because they could afford to lose it.

And how else were they to survive down there in the Underground? The rich, Harry insisted, would happily pick their bones. He did not pretend to be some modern-day Robin Hood, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, but Jazz figured the same rules applied. If she was to hide down beneath, she had to survive. A little petty thievery from the arrogant and rich did not trouble her overmuch.

And the way she’d been raised—weaned on paranoia, caution, and suspicion—had laid the groundwork for a life of thievery. She’d learned to be stealthy and to blend in a crowd, and with her natural agility it almost seemed as though her past had been the perfect preparation. Jazz knew she shouldn’t take pleasure in discovering a talent for stealing, but the thrill was undeniable.

“Well, what’s your haul, then?” Cadge asked.

Jazz glanced around. By now the mark would have noted the theft, but unless he’d done so quickly enough to follow Cadge, there would be no way they would be caught. She plunged her hands into her pockets and drew out their contents. In her left hand she held the man’s wallet. She hadn’t checked to see how much money he’d been carrying and it wasn’t safe to do that here, but it felt thick with cash. In her right hand she held his mobile phone. Down there in Harry’s United Kingdom, they hadn’t any need for phones. No one to call. And it would be turned off by morning. But there was no telling when they’d find a use for it, so when her fingers had brushed against it in the right-hand pocket of the man’s jacket, she had liberated it.

“Well done, you,” Cadge said.

His own hands were empty. Today had been her first time hitting the street with them, and Cadge had been assigned to work the mark, not to do the actual nicking.

Jazz glanced nervously at the entrance to the platform. “We should go.”

Cadge nodded. “Wait for the train.”

Two minutes ticked past with excruciating slowness until the train pulled into the station. People were disgorged and others got aboard, and then it rumbled away again. In moments, they were alone.

Cadge led the way to the edge of the platform. He glanced both ways along the tunnel. According to Stevie Sharpe, there were other ways to get to the unused platforms at Tottenham Court Road, but the tracks were fastest. With great care, they picked their way along the side of the tracks, retrieved their torches from a nook where they’d stashed them, and fifty yards along they split off along a section of unused track. The abandoned tunnel ran past the old platform, but they didn’t slow. It wasn’t the moldering platform they wanted but this lonely, abandoned track. Following it would take them back to Holborn station, and from there they could descend to one of the older, deeper stations that had sheltered air-raid refugees during the Blitz. They would meet up with the others and make their way back to Deep Level Shelter 7-K, their sub-subterranean home.

Home.

A chill went through her. It was the first time she’d thought of the underground refuge as home, and something about it felt very wrong to her. She knew she had to hide, knew that if she ever tried to return to her real home, ugliness and murder awaited her there, perhaps along with truths and revelations she had no interest in ever learning. But to think of the shelter as home was to submit to the idea of living there forever, and that she could not do. Silently, she promised herself she’d never think of it that way again.

Ever since the moment Cadge had yanked up her skirt, Jazz’s heart had been racing, adrenaline pumping through her. Now, at last, far away from any chance of discovery, her pulse slowed and the thrill began to lessen.

And then she heard the music, distant and tinny at first, then growing in volume. A plinking piano, a jaunty violin, a tooting horn…and then a sudden chorus of wolf whistles and lecherous howls so loud that Jazz felt surrounded.

“Oh, Jesus,” she whispered, and clapped her hands to her ears.

Frantic, she whipped around, shining her torch into the shadows on both sides of the old track. With the light shining, she saw nothing at all, but when she swung the torch away, she saw spectral images in the darkness left behind. The piano player, the violinist, and the trumpeter, who swayed his hips to get a laugh. And the audience roared.

Jazz spun and saw them there, rows and rows of them, applauding. They were dressed not in the thirties’ garb of the spirits she’d encountered before but the clothing of an earlier era. Still wartime, though. Always wartime. The music hall had phantom walls and curtains, a stage, and above her hung a ghostly chandelier.

For a moment the whole room flickered and became a tavern full of men locked in serious debate, and on the plate-glass window at the front she could read the reversed lettering of the name of the place—the Seven Tankards and Punch Bowl. Then the moment passed, the tavern blurred, and the music hall returned, accompanied by laughter and those wolf whistles.

Voices called out a name. “Marie!”

“Marry me, Marie!”

“Get yer knickers off, Marie!”

But the voices weren’t addressing Jazz. She could see in the faces of that spectral audience—many of them in uniform—that their focus was on the stage. Jazz turned just in time to see the tall blond woman sashay suggestively onto the stage. A microphone awaited her. She ran her fingers down the smooth contours of her body, over the sparkling material of her dress.

And she sang.

“I didn’t like you much before you joined the army, John,” Marie cooed, “but I do like yer cockie now you’ve got your khaki on.”

The audience erupted with hoots and applause.

Jazz fell to her knees and slapped her hands over her ears. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly. The sound of her own breathing filled her head, and her heart thundered in her chest.

When she felt fingers on her shoulder, she screamed.

Scrambling away, she rose to a crouch, ready to flee. Blinking, she saw that the apparitions had gone. She had left her torch on the tracks a dozen feet away, and the light shone off into the darkness.

Cadge stood staring at her, torch trained on her, his eyes wide with concern.

“Get that light out of my face,” she said, but couldn’t manage the scolding tone she’d attempted.

He lowered the torch, and they stood staring at each other in its diffused glow.

“You hear them too,” he said.

Jazz cocked her head, staring at him doubtfully. “What are you saying? You heard that?”

Cadge moistened his lips. He hesitated a moment as though afraid to confess, but at last he nodded. “A song, this time. And cheering. It’s always different. Almost always.”

Torn between relief that she wasn’t mad and astonishment at this confirmation, she stared at him. “Are we the only ones?”

The boy glanced away, shifting nervously. “Harry hears ’em, I think. Just echoes, he says. Echoes of old times. But he told me never to mention it to the others. They’ll think I’m a nutter.”

“Echoes,” Jazz whispered. Then she narrowed her eyes and studied him. “You see them too?”

Cadge gave a small shrug. “Sometimes. Like bits of fog. Used to think my eyes were going, the way things would blur. Once…once I thought I saw a face.”

Jazz swallowed and found her throat dry. He might have heard the phantoms lost down there in the tunnels, the ghosts of old London that had manifested to her twice since her descent, but it was obvious Cadge could not see them the way she did.