The Lights of London (19 page)

‘Well, you’re facing a man now, not some little lass you can knock about. So you’d better watch yourself, because I’m letting no one touch those girls. No one. So fuck off. I’ve got an establishment to run.’

Albert’s lip curled in contempt. ‘You stupid …’ He shook his head. ‘You’ve no idea, have you? You’ll be sorry you ever laid eyes on that treacherous little trollop by the time I’ve finished with you.’ He lifted his leg, swung back his heavily booted foot and took a shot at Rex, who squealed and scrabbled away from him.

Astonishingly, the old mutt actually managed to avoid contact with Albert’s toe and, as intoxicated by his success as his master had been, growled ferociously at Albert, left his precious bone and trotted off to stand by Jack’s side.

Jack scratched behind the mangy creature’s ear. ‘Good lad, Rex,’ he praised him. ‘Good lad.’ Then, with a lift of his chin, he pulled his hat down smartly and said down his nose, ‘I’ll be saying good-night then, Mr Symes.’

When he went back into the bar, with Rex by his side, Jack was glowing with achievement. This was how it felt when things were going well. He swaggered over to the girls, who were deep in conversation at one of the little side tables. ‘I’m; sorry about what I said earlier, about you trying harder.’

Tibs frowned at the half-daft expression he had on his face. ‘Forget it,’ she said, wondering what was going on.

‘I don’t want us falling out. We should sit down together and discuss a few things.’ He was about to say something else when he looked down and suddenly went quite pale. He shoved his hands behind him and began backing off. ‘Don’t go away, I’ll be back in no time. No time at all.’

‘What was that all about?’ Tibs shook her head in wonder as Jack reversed across the bar towards the back stairs that led up to his room.

‘Didn’t you see?’ breathed Kitty, grabbing Tibs by the arm. ‘He had blood on his hands.’

‘Course there’s blood on his hands,’ said Tibs more abruptly than she’d meant to. ‘Didn’t you hear the row up there? It sounded like a flaming slaughterhouse. But it’s our necks I’m worried about, not some drunk’s. I wonder what he wants?’

‘I don’t know if I care.’

‘Well, I bleed’n’-well do. I’ve just got used to having our bed – our clean, dry bed – in the lodging house paid for every night and to having two decent meals a day. And I must say, Kit, I rather like it. I ain’t gonna just let it go like that.’

‘Aren’t you?’ Kitty asked cautiously.

‘No, I ain’t. I’m gonna kid him somehow. Find a way to make him let us carry on for a while. At least until I come up with something else. The thought of going back to Albert ain’t exactly sweet, you know, and that’s me only other option. And don’t look at me like that, Kit. I know you ain’t taken to all this, but you ain’t exactly got much alternative either. I mean, it’s this or going back to kipping with all them other poor buggers on the streets again.’

Jack scrubbed furiously at his hands. If the girls only knew it, his anxieties were very similar to theirs. The momentary thrill of beating Albert had gone and he was wondering what Tess would have to say if she could see him now.

She was always so careful, so steady. And here he was, punching people on the nose, running a clapped-out music-hall and planning to throw good money after bad. Money that wasn’t even his. Given to him by a man he didn’t even know. And a doctor of all people.

He felt frightened and confused, to say the least.

‘So, Jack,’ Tibs said, with far more boldness than she felt, ‘you’ve got something to say, have you?’

Jack pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘We have to work out what’s wrong. Try and sort it out.’

Tibs rolled her eyes and said sarcastically, ‘Have you thought about selling hot meat pies. They always go down well.’

‘I meant with your act.’

‘You gave us the elbow, didn’t you?’ Tibs’s mouth was dry as sandpaper. Had she overstepped the mark?

‘No, that was just me shooting my mouth off. We’re going to change the act.’

‘Are we now?’ Tibs kept her voice calm, but her pulse was racing.

He nodded. ‘That’s right. I’ve had some ideas put to me.’

‘And they are …’

‘We’ll talk about them,’ he said with another nod, ‘soon.’

‘It had better be very soon,’ ventured Tibs. ‘I mean we can’t just sit around waiting for you, you know, Jack. Much as we like you. We have had other offers you know.’

Kitty opened her mouth to speak, but Tibs kicked her under the table and she said nothing.

‘I’m sure you have,’ agreed Jack, going along with what he could only hope was a blatant lie, ‘and I promise you it’ll be very soon indeed.’

‘Good. Now if we can have our lodging money for the night.’

‘I’ll just get it from behind the bar.’

As Jack was messing around with the cash box he looked up and called across to them, ‘By the way, girls, I don’t think Albert whatever-his-name-is will be bothering you again.’

Tibs frowned. What did he mean by that?

It was getting on for nine o’clock and Albert was just about ready to give up for the evening. He had been searching the streets for Lily Perkins for two cold days and nights without so much as a sniff as to where the stupid cow was hiding, and it was definitely getting on his nerves. Not only did he not like being defied, but he was spending so much time away from his business lately, chasing after one trollop or another, that it was beginning to interfere with his profits.

He’d been looking for her that far afield – as far as Bethnal Green – that he hadn’t had time to collect the takings off his other brides and he knew what they were like when they had money in their greedy little hands. They’d go spending it all on gin and bloody ribbons, and he’d have to waste even more time giving them all a good whacking to get them back into some sort of order.

Albert ran his hand over his jaw. And that was sodding painful as well. He didn’t take kindly to being on the receiving end of violence.

It was all Lily Perkins’s fault. He’d just about had enough of her. Why hadn’t she told him about Fisher being so handy with his fists? At least he could have been prepared, and have sorted out the business over Tibs there and then, but now that still had to be cleared up as well.

If she wasn’t careful he’d get shot of Lily for good. It wasn’t as though she’d be missed. All right, most of his
customers weren’t that fussy, especially when they’d had a few, but she was getting too haggard even for the rum-pickled old seamen who hung about the dock gates and wasn’t exactly coining it for him. There was plenty of fresh meat about for him to pick up.

What amazed Albert was how Lily had got wind that he was after her. Who’d tip
her
the wink? He couldn’t imagine who’d even think of helping that one. But the lousy tart definitely seemed to know he was looking for her. Well, he would personally make sure that there was something she didn’t know: Albert had a little surprise planned for Lily Perkins, something to repay her for his cuts and bruises.

When he eventually found the manky whore.

His attention was suddenly diverted by the sound of footsteps, a woman’s footsteps. They were coming his way.

He ducked into the doorway of a nearby shop.

Peering out into the darkness, he waited until she came close to the pool of yellow gaslight spreading out around the lamp-post. Albert’s luck was in at last. It was Marie.

As she stood among the broken chairs in the empty theatre – the Old Black Dog was doing strictly downstairs, bar-only business this evening – Tibs smiled brilliantly. It would have taken a shrewd individual to guess that, actually, she wasn’t completely thrilled by Jack’s new idea. Or rather, the idea that his new backer, whoever he was, had come up with. She was, in fact, secretly appalled by the prospect.

Not only was she going to have to think up yet more ways to persuade Kitty that she had to
Please, stick around for just a few more days, Kit. Please. Till I get myself sorted out, like
, but somehow she was going to have to
make her go up on the stage, open her mouth and sing again. And it certainly wasn’t going to be easy, especially not now Jack and his benefactor had come up with this hare-brained scheme.

But Tibs wasn’t going to let him, or Kitty – especially Kitty – sense even a hint of the reservations that were rattling around her brain. ‘Just look at you,’ she enthused, straightening the military-style gold frogging on the front of Kitty’s jacket. ‘You look exactly like a young hussar.’ She paused, then let out a tinkling, girlish giggle. ‘Whatever one of them is when he’s at home!’

Kitty just stood there, staring.

Jack didn’t look too happy either.

After listening to Dr Tressing and having had a few drinks, Jack had come up with what he’d thought was a brilliant idea – although the idea was, in fact, very much Tressing’s own, but that man had the knack of bamboozling you into believing whatever he wanted you to.

The big idea was that the girls’ straightforward double act should be changed into a novelty item. That Kitty should become a male impersonator, like Vesta Tilley, and Tibs would play the part of ‘his’ girlfriend.

Female cross-dressing acts were certainly taking big money in the halls and, with the added titillation of the artiste having a female companion, Jack had convinced himself – with Tressing’s help – that they couldn’t fail.

But now he had physically laid out the money, which Tressing had advanced him, for the hiring of the professional-quality outfits – man-about-town, cockney urchin and this showy army uniform for Kitty; and a single flouncy pale-pink creation, with matching parasol and picture hat, for Tibs – his anxiety had returned ten-fold.

It still seemed a terrible risk, even if he was being
subsidised by Dr Tressing. He couldn’t help it, when he began to reckon up how much he had already wasted he could just imagine what Tess would have had to say about such wanton profligacy. But Tressing, whose money he was spending, probably didn’t even care. Not only was he loaded, but, if Jack was honest, the man seemed more than a bit potty, or
eccentric
as it seemed to be called when you were posh.

But if Tibs and Jack were dubious about this latest venture, Kitty could only be described as totally horrified by the very idea. When Tibs had persuaded her to try on the uniform
just for a lark
, she had objected, but Tibs had, of course, managed to get round her. Then, when Jack Fisher had let the cat out of the bag, not knowing that Tibs was keeping the male impersonation as a kind of vile surprise, Kitty had gone into shock.

Since meeting Tibs less than a fortnight ago her life had spiralled out of control and plunged down into increasing madness. It now seemed impossible that she had simply wanted to end her life by plunging into the ice-cold waters of the Thames. That was far too simple a punishment for whatever she had done to wind up in this position. She was being tortured, was in some sort of purgatory, just as the nuns had predicted when she hadn’t scrubbed the stairs at the home as clean as they had wanted, or had dared to talk in the freezing dormitory after the candles had been snuffed, or had committed any number of other sins on an almost hourly basis.

It was as though when Tibs had found her she had briefly shaken off some terrible dream and the sun had found its way into the sky, but then she had fallen asleep again and entered some other, far worse, sort of nightmare world, the logic of which failed her completely.

The three of them, Kitty, Tibs and Jack, were just
standing there, as though time had decided to give itself a rest, when Archie shoved open the double doors with his shoulder and dumped his shovel and broom on the floor. He was intending to start sorting out the mess that the near riot of the night before had left in its wake. But when he looked up he didn’t see the damage or the dirt, all he saw was a vision in palest rose, her blonde curls framing her tiny heart-shaped face. He swallowed hard as he felt his body stirring. ‘You look beautiful,’ he blurted out, before he could stop himself.

‘That’s really nice of you, Arch,’ Tibs told his back as he turned and fled from the hall. She flashed a grin at Kitty. ‘See, Kit, he reckoned you looked beautiful.’

Kitty didn’t even have the will to disagree. She was a marionette and Tibs was working her strings.

Jack Fisher took a deep breath, a single step forward and said, ‘I’ll throw in a room.’

Tibs narrowed her eyes. ‘Room?’

‘Of your own.’

‘What sort of room? We’d want something decent, you know.’

‘Look, lass, I know you’ve been staying in that common lodging house in Cable Street. Anything’d be better than that.’

How wrong you are, thought Tibs and Kitty, for once in complete agreement.

What Tibs said, however, was somewhat different. ‘You’re right there,’ she lied.

Marie was doing her best to smile. When Albert had dragged her into the shop doorway she’d thought her heart would stop, but she knew she mustn’t show him she was scared, it only made him worse.

‘What are you doing around here?’ he snapped. ‘This ain’t nowhere near your patch.’

Think, girl, think, she urged herself. ‘I was going to see my auntie,’ she said. ‘She ain’t been very well.’

‘Where does she live, this auntie?’

‘Near here, in Hoxton.’

Albert stared deep into her eyes. ‘How much you earnt?’

She gulped back the bile that was rising in her throat. ‘Fifteen bob.’

‘Is that all? In two days?’

Marie squirmed. Hers was a small world, where word soon got around when there was trouble. She’d not needed to be warned twice. She’d been hanging around this strange manor, keeping out of Albert’s way, so that she wouldn’t have to answer any questions about Lily Perkins. That was all she needed, putting herself on bad terms with that vicious cow. The problem with that plan, however, was that it meant she’d only been able to work in fits and starts, whenever she’d been sure that there was no one else around doing business. If the local girls had caught her at it they’d have beaten her up for trespassing. But at least they might not have cut her face, which was something that Lily was almost guaranteed to do – especially to a bride almost twenty years younger than she was and a sight more attractive.