The Lights of London (16 page)

Teezer held his head in his hands. ‘Buggy, for Christ’s sake just shut up. I will
try
and get us a seat, while you make yourself useful for once and go and get us two pints of wallop. And don’t be all night about it.

As Buggy was forcing his way down the stairs, fighting through the crowds going up to the theatre, Bartholomew Tressing was just arriving at the pub door with two companions he had brought along from the London hospital.

‘Any old clay pipes, mister?’ begged an eager barefooted child of about six.

‘Pipes, Tressing?’ enquired Cameron Hunton, the younger of his colleagues.

Tressing said nothing, but just looked down at the
fair-haired boy with a sort of detached, mild curiosity.

‘One never knows what these urchins will ask for next,’ Lucian Mayerton, the other member of Tressing’s party, offered in reply.

‘Go on mister,’ persisted the waif. ‘We only wanna blow bubbles. We’ve got a bit of soap and we …’

Tressing’s hand suddenly shot out from under his cape. He swatted the child aside without so much as a glance and swept open the door. ‘Do you intend joining me?’ he asked his two companions in his faultlessly cultured tones. ‘Or would you rather stay out here in the gutter?’

Hunton was about to reply, but Mayerton’s urgent if silent gesture made it very clear that he thought it better if they simply followed Tressing inside.

Albert Symes’s arrival at the Old Black Dog was a far more furtive affair. He made his way along the street, ducking in and out of the shadows, moving with the practised guile of a man used to looking over his shoulder.

When he was a few hundred yards from the Dog he stopped to check his pockets. Bone in one; knife in the other. Albert always liked to be prepared.

On stage, Bonzo had just launched into a yelping encore from
The Barber of Seville
and, surprisingly, the audience were still amused.

As she watched him perform from the little side room Kitty urged him on, praying that the smelly, slobber-jawed mutt had a canine repertoire that could last at least another couple of tunes. Another couple of hours, maybe. Until closing time, preferably.

Tibs, who was standing beside her, was equally nervous, but for different reasons. This was the chance
that she had to make work. She needed it to be a success. More than Kitty could ever know.

Archie, who was in there with them keeping an eye on his lights, could sense the mounting anxiety. ‘Anything I can do for you girls?’ he asked. Despite the caterwauling on the stage and the raucous cheers from the audience Archie spoke in a professionally low whisper. He had only been working with Jack Fisher for a few months, but he was a quick learner.

Tibs smiled at him. ‘No thanks, Arch,’ she whispered back. ‘But thanks for asking.’ Then, as she turned back to watch the ghastly performance on-stage she had a brainwave. She’d get Archie, with his dodgy arm, chatting about it – quietly of course – and that would take Kitty’s mind off her own worries. She’d show the great tall thing that there were people worse off than her. Far worse. ‘How d’you get that crippled arm then, Arch?’

In the candlelight Tibs didn’t notice the fleeting expression of pain that crossed his face.

‘Had an accident or something, did you? Or was you born with it?’

‘Only got it quite recently as a matter of fact.’

‘And Jack Fisher still give you a job?’ Tibs sounded more surprised than sceptical.

‘No. The boss took me on right at the beginning. As a chucker out. I’ve never really been one for fighting or anything. But I’ve always been strong.’ He paused. ‘I always was strong, I mean.’

‘You still are,’ Tibs said encouragingly.

Archie shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

‘Anyway, it was a way of earning a living without having to queue on the stones every day.’

‘The stones?’ It was the first time that Kitty had spoken.

‘I was a casual down the docks. You all crush forward when they come to pick the teams. Treat you like animals, they do. Specially at times like these when there’s not much work about.’

Kitty didn’t fully understand, but she got the idea. ‘And that’s how you got hurt? Chucking out?’

He nodded. ‘Two days after the opening. There was this drunk. Shouting the odds about how he could force down another dozen pints. He was upsetting some of the other customers. I went over to him and he stuck a knife right under me arm.’ Archie turned his head away.

‘Cor, bad luck, eh, Kit?’ Tibs said. ‘But good luck he never done you in, eh, Arch?’

‘I don’t remember that much of what happened after that; I lost a lot of blood, see, and passed out.’

‘Probably a blessing, what with all the terrible pain you must have been in.’

‘The boss was really good to me. Helped me.’

‘But no one would have just left you, surely. Not when you was being attacked,’ Tibs said pointedly, glancing at Kitty to see her reaction. She was gratified to see her looking thoroughly ashamed.

Archie laughed ruefully. ‘If most people’s reactions are anything to go by, the way they laugh and call me names, then I reckon the boss is special. And I’m not just talking about mouthy kids either. Adults are as bad.

But it wasn’t just the fact he was nice to me and let me keep my job, he took me to the hospital that night, you know. Paid for the hansom and the treatment and everything.’

‘Did he?’ Tibs raised an eyebrow. Fisher must have a few quid to be able to splash it about on the likes of Archie. ‘That
was
kind of him.’

‘He’s a good bloke. There’s not many that would have let me keep working here, not when I can’t chuck out no
more. Mind you, it’s not been that long since I got hurt. Maybe one day …’

‘Yeah, maybe one day.’ Tibs was beginning to feel sorry for making him tell his story. It obviously upset him.

‘But, you know, I keep busy. I find odd jobs. Working the lights, cleaning up.’

Tibs swallowed hard. The poor sod. A big, nice-looking feller like him, reduced to odd jobs.

‘And he let me keep my room up in the attic. Not much smaller than the boss’s own, you know.’

‘He sounds very kind,’ Kitty said softly.

‘I won’t hear a word said against him,’ said Archie.

Tibs, keen to keep the conversation steered away from Kitty and her problems, was about to ask him how he managed his ablutions, but Archie was saved from such personal revelations by the crowd who had started booing.

Bonzo had apparently run out of steam and the audience out of patience. A curl of orange peel had found its target in the soprano’s considerable cleavage and she had started screaming. The effect on Bonzo was instantaneous. He lost control of his bowels, knew what his mistress’s reaction would be and leapt into the audience, scattering tables and chairs as he went.

Archie rushed out and twisted the gas tap at the side of the stage that brought up the house lights.

Tibs, grinning with glee, watched the mayhem from the wings.

Kitty tapped her on the shoulder. ‘How could you ask him those things, Tibs?’

‘What things?’

‘Couldn’t you see how humiliated he was?’

Tibs shrugged dismissively, although she actually took what Kitty said to heart. She knew she had a big
mouth on her at times. And she really hadn’t meant to be so rude to the poor sod.

Tressing, who had just come up from the bar downstairs, entered the room and observed the confusion with detached calm.

He led his two companions to a table, flicked his handkerchief over the rickety wooden seat and sat down. Lucian Mayerton, his colleague of many years, looked perfectly at home in the grubby surroundings, but Cameron Hunton, a more recent acquaintance from the hospital, was rather more awestruck.

‘Aren’t we somewhat overdressed?’ he asked from behind the cover of his hand as a barrage of peanut shells flew past him.

Tressing shook his head. ‘Why lower standards? And anyway, compared with some of the blood tubs I’ve visited in these parts this, my dear Hunton, is a palace.’

Hunton wasn’t convinced. He looked around him, noting the rough-looking men and women with their jugs of ale and greasy-looking fish and chips wrapped in sheets of old newspaper. They were slapping their thighs, throwing back their heads and roaring with laughter. And there was more, some of them were touching one another. He was horrified by such openly wanton behaviour.

He puffed on his cigar and took a sip of whisky. ‘Lower orders are getting above themselves, if you ask me. People such as us being squeezed, while these dullards enjoy subsidised food, laze around rather than work, accept money from the Relieving Officer and rush out on railway excursions to Heme Bay every Sunday, or block up the roads with their damned safety bicycles. Smoking, drinking, gambling and fornicating. I’ve even heard talk of them using these damned public libraries.
It’s as though the Fall of the Roman Empire is being reenacted before our very eyes. I blame all this on the hysteria about the new century coming along. New Jerusalem. I ask you. The whole world’s going mad.’

Tressing turned his head and flashed a brief glance at his companion. ‘Shut up, Hunton, I’d like to watch the show.’ With that, he lifted his chin and twisted back to face the stage where Tibs and Kitty had just appeared.

Hunton’s face was a fair match for Kitty’s – both of them had cheeks blazing with embarrassment.

‘Look at her, will you, Bug?’ Teezer pointed animatedly at Kitty who was shuffling on behind Tibs. ‘I told you, it
is
her. And if it’s not then I’m a flaming Dutchman.’

Buggy rolled his eyes. ‘I reckon you’d better get out your clogs then, mate,’ he muttered. All he could think was that Teezer must’ve had more purl before they’d come out than Buggy had realised. Admittedly, they weren’t very near the front and Teezer’s eyes weren’t exactly as sharp as a hawk’s, but surely even he could see that it wasn’t her. It was obvious. Not only did this girl have more meat on her, but she was far prettier and her face had a nice sort of pink colour to it. She was glowing. And her hair was all shiny and nice. In fact, if she wasn’t such a lummocking great thing Buggy could have been quite taken with her.

As Mr Tompkins, the music-hall Chairman – a vision of cod-gentility – scanned the room, anxiously seeking out possible missile launchers who might be targeting him, Tibs yanked Kitty to her side.

‘Smile, for Gawd’s sake, Kit. You look like you’ve been flaming-well pole-axed.’

Albert, who was standing at the very back of the room, shook his head in disbelief. Lily Perkins had been telling the truth for once in her lying life. Even with the
strange effect of the limelight there was no mistaking it. That was Tibs up there on the stage. His Tibs. Earning money for some other man.

He’d kill him. He’d kill the pair of them.

But despite his temper, Albert was no fool. There were too many people around for him to take any chances. Anyway, he was in no particular hurry. Let the disloyal bitch earn a bit extra – he’d have that off her as well. He’d let her get all nice and comfortable with her new life. Let her be off guard and then he would strike.

He slipped out of the theatre and down to the main bar. He’d seen enough for his purposes.

As Mr Tompkins scanned the baying crowd for potential antagonists he spotted Archie, dragging a toppling stack of chairs along the side of the room. The sight of the odd-job man triggered something in his memory. What was it? Mr Tompkins looked about him. The card on the easel, announcing the next turn. It hadn’t been changed!

This place really was a shambles. He signalled frantically to Archie, who immediately abandoned his chairs – the newly arrived group of sailors would just have to sort themselves out – and rushed over to swap the brightly painted card on the announcement board.

Satisfied, or rather, placated, Mr Tompkins raised his gavel, brought it down with a crash, which both terrified Kitty and alerted the audience, and introduced them in the mock-refined tones of his profession. ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, we have here tonight for our delight and delectation …’

‘Get on with it!’ yelled one of the sailors, who had taken a chair and seated himself right by the front of the stage.

Mr Tompkins merely raised a suspiciously perfectly arched eyebrow – Tibs was sure he used a pencil on his facial hair, no one that old was without a bit of grey in his mutton chops – and continued, ‘A brand-new double act. They are Mistresses of their Music. Doyens of their Dance. They are, in short …’

‘That big ’un ain’t very short!’ cheye-eyeked one of the sailor’s shipmates.

‘… the very latest act! All the way from San Francisco!’ With that, Mr Tompkins sighed with the weariness of a disappointed man – he should have been at a civilised venue such as the Alhambra, not a rough old gaff like the Dog – raised his whisky glass to his lips with one hand and crashed his gavel down again with the other.

The piano struck up and Tibs gave Kitty a little pinch above the elbow. ‘This is it, girl,’ she warned, ‘now don’t you let me down.’

Staring into the wall of darkness that the glare of the limelights created before them Kitty was mesmerised, a vole held by the stare of a stoat, and as Tibs launched into the opening lines of ‘Shabby Genteel’, she found herself singing along, just as they had rehearsed. Her voice might have been pitched unnaturally high to keep up with Tibs’s warbling, wavering soprano, but she was singing none the less: ‘Too proud to beg, too honest to steal!’

They hadn’t even got as far as the chorus and Jack Fisher already had his head buried in his hands. After having kidded himself for a whole, stupid, head-in-the-clouds week, even he had to admit that whatever else their oddly matched pair might be, it was clear that they weren’t going to be his salvation. They didn’t only sound terrible, they looked it. Instead of the lively, prancing girls he’d expected, they were standing there as if they’d been paralysed. The punters were beside themselves with laughter.

‘Bring the talking dog back on,’ hollered an elderly, ruddy-cheeked man, apparently unperturbed to be pressed up hard against the group of young seamen. ‘It had a better voice than that lanky mare!’