Walking in Pimlico (11 page)

I resisted the inclination to make something of this, and hurried away to the hall where I was already ten minutes late. The orchestra, having tuned and scaled up and down, were well advanced with Madame Laurie and her selection of Scottish melodies, so I sat at the back of the hall and thought on what Mr Beeton had said, for I was sure now – though not glad about it – that if this Mr Shovelton was who I thought he was, a close acquaintance with him was not desirable.

In the days before I left, the police in Whitechapel were still searching for poor Bessie’s murderer though the trail was, as Tegg told me one night in a ratting ken, ‘cold for want of ’eat’ – and no likely customers apart from a gent who had been hauled in and given a roasting, but then let go. There were posters reminding anyone who had been in the colonies or in quod of the awful murder of an innocent girl and calling for witnesses and anyone with information, but I knew that the very girl and the very bloke who could say much – Lucy and me – were too scared and, as I thought, one of us too far away.

But this gent, this Shovelton. Well, was he the one, the cove that I saw in the yard of the Constellation? Who Lucy saw stamping the life out of poor Bessie Spooner? And if it was him who had stood there in the yard at the Old Pitcher, and let me know that he knew me and where I was. . . Well, true to you, Corney Sage was not a safe man. For if he had done Bessie in, sure as sure, Mr Shovelton had not come upon Springwell by accident, nor for the air and the
water. If he had followed me here, it was a different matter. A different complexion, as they say, and one not so rosy.

Signor Frazerini was in a poor temper that morning, having lost a fiddler to a neighbouring town and being forced to bring in a bass player whose instrument had been so knocked about in transportation that it had the appearance of something fit only for kindling. His hair was a positive explosion, no doubt where he’d been tearing at it all night, and he was snappy, though still polite enough.

‘Professor Moore,’ cried he, ‘will you join us on the stage, or do you prefer to perform from the rear of the hall?’

‘Signor,’ says I, making my way down the aisle, and not wishing to inflame him, ‘I am at your service. I would rather have you in my eye than on my back!’

The fiddlers sniggered and shuffled their music.

‘So, sir, now you have found a moment to give us your attention, which piece shall you offer this evening? Shall it be’ – and he sniffed and sorted through my pieces – ‘“Alonzo the Brave” or “The Spider and the Fly”, or perhaps that old favourite of yours “The Ratcatcher’s Daughter”?’

But I had other plans.

The Pavilion was packed with the great and the good, top to bottom. Mr Beeton had sold every ticket, and had a list as well. From half past six, carriages were drawing up and the little River Walk was so crowded with folks hanging about waiting to get in that Mr Cashmore was forced to open up the refreshment bar for fear that someone might end up in the water! He opened the Pump Room too, and could be seen, leaning into the job like it was a strong wind, with his bunch of keys, opening doors, raising hatches and putting out chairs. The orchestra was rounded up before their due hour and persuaded to ‘play on’ like they was enjoying the extra work, and the Signor,
who was smiling but tetchy, played everything, in his agitation, double time, so we were all of a hot fluster by the time eight o’clock come round, and Madame Laurie, the first on, took to the stage.

Standing in the wings, with my eye to the curtain, I trained it over the assembly, while Madame started with her ‘Bonnie Braes’. By the time she’d worked through her ‘Annie Laurie’ and her ‘Blue Bell of Scotland’, and commenced her finale, the grand ‘Loch Lomond’, I had ranged across almost every row and gangway (extra chairs being placed there) from back to front, and was commencing upon the front chairs. Here were three rows of the military, all red coats and red cheeks! They was well-behaved, though chatty, and it was only Madame Laurie’s powerful vocals and steely eye, both of which might have stilled the waves one way or another, that kept them down. When she finished there was loud applause, and she looked somewhat startled, thinking that a ribbing might follow, but Frazerini, who knew the military of old, just give a nod and struck up ‘Old Ling Sign’ or whatever it is, and had them all sing along, not in a free-and-easy way of course, but refined with Madame as lead horse. I took my medicine – Cream of the Valley to open up the chords – and, holding it in my mouth, looked through the curtain again.

Which, you will anticipate, is when I saw her. The very image of the woman in the picture, even now, lying in my coat pocket alongside its paper and wrappings. With the face of an angel, with golden hair and skin like a chinee doll, the artist had not done her any disservice. She was quite as beautiful in life as she was in paint. She was dodging around, trying to see alongside a soldier with a wide head, and leaning into her neighbour who, by the smile on his face, didn’t object to her attentions at all. And those attentions were slight enough. A little smile or a word, a nod of the head, the flutter of her fan (for the room was hot despite Mr C’s best attentions to the windows). Now at any other time, I would have willingly got a
cold-in-the-eye from training it through the glory-hole, just to take in this young lady, but it was the gent on her other side who I was eager to see and his face was blocked out by the square shoulders and massive napper of another military, a sergeant-at-arms, a one-man barricade. Whatever rank he filled, he also filled the seat like there were three of him, and I felt sorry for the parties behind him who would see nothing of the platform and everything of his collar and the lime oil in his hair.

I was also annoyed, for though I could see the angelic lady on his right and the pleasant dark-haired lady on his left (who leaned to talk to him and so was surely acquainted with him), I could see only his arm, try as I might. And so occupied was I in trying to get even half an eyeful of Mr Shovelton that I very nearly missed my spot. Madame finished, and there was the usual roaring and stamping that the military believe shows appreciation, and I was introduced with one of Frazerini’s jaunty medleys.

The stage is my home. It is where I am most comfortable. Under the gaslights it is warm when the weather is stormy without, and the sun always shines on a backdrop street. When I step out and Professor Hugh Moore comes along with me, we make the wooden world our own and though no one regards me in the street and I eat in the back parlour of a public or a coffee room, on the stage I am the king of all I survey, and all eyes are upon me. I have been at this job so long that I am easy with myself. I know some artistes get the back-door trots regular, even though they’ve been at the job twenty years, but me, I do it like it was a natural thing. I feel safe behind the floats. To me they are the wooden walls of old England, excusing the pun, for they keep us apart, the monster with the many mouths and me.

So when I stepped out on to the Pavilion stage that evening, and felt the warm hiss of the gas and the waft of oil and lavender that comes from a well-heeled audience, I knew once again that I was
King. Frazerini stood in the orchestra with his arms up and hair to attention, and ‘Alonzo the Brave’ broke out at a merry lick. Then ‘The Industrious Flea’ and a couple of Sammy Cowell’s tunes (passed on to me by that gentleman). But when we got to the point where I usually took off my jacket and put on my clogs (too heavy and thumping to walk around in) I changed my mind. Not of a sudden. I had thought it round like a clever fellow. I shook my head at Frazerini who was ready to give the medley of Olde Englishe melodies to which I capered, and I walked over to the wings and instead of my clogs, I brought out a wooden-backed chair and placed it carefully, dead centre, with its back to the audience.

Not a sound. Not a movement. Even Frazerini was still.

I unbuttoned my shirt and coat, and let it slouch off one shoulder. I gave my hair a ruffling. And I walked around the stage, slowly, with my hands in my pockets, and my shoulders down, like I was a man on his last legs. Then I sat astride the chair, and cast my eyes about the audience, slowly, from one side to the other, like I was considering.

I’ve seen my pal Bill Ross do it a hundred times in the Cellars. He walks on to the platform, and the waiters shout ‘Mr Ross is about to sing!’ and ‘Take your seats! Mr Ross will sing this moment!’ and the whole of London, it seems, crowds in and falls silent to hear one little man sing one song, even though they’ve heard it countless times before. And I am often one of them, standing in the wings, holding a glass of Bill’s Cream of the Valley (which is where I picked up the habit) and waiting while the quiet settles on the audience like a door closing. He’d keep ’em waiting, Bill, for he could, and times I’ve thought he kept ’em too long, but no, it was like they was all holding their breath, every one of them. And then he’d begin, and I would feel my skin crawl with the fear and the power of him. And the song.

I’ve never sung it myself, even though Bill said I might. Out of
London, of course, and I have sometimes thought I should try it out, in my own way, for I am taller than Bill, and with a voice what is lighter. I did not have about me Bill’s props – his clay pipe and his tattered clothes. But that didn’t matter.

I began. With my voice as low as a guardsman’s box, I started quiet and slow.

My name it is Sam Hall, is Sam Hall,
Oh, my name it is Sam Hall, is Sam Hall,
My name it is Sam Hall,
And I hates you one and all . . .

Here I paused and looked around.

You’re a gang of mockers all,
Damn yer eyes.

A few ladies gasped, and I conned Mr Cashmore in the wings ready to fly on. But Frazerini held him up, and I carried on.

I killed a girl they said, so they said,
I killed a girl they said, so they said . . .

I knew why Bill Ross loved this song, for it spoke out fiercely of the rotten lives of poor men and women, like Bessie and Lucy, trampled and done over by the likes of them sitting out front, with open mouths and full bellies. And one in particular.

I hit her on the head with my fist like it was lead,
And I left her there for dead, damn her eyes!

There was a bit of a buzz now, and some of the ladies were looking troubled, but I knew how it should be done, for I had seen Bill do it many a time (though not with so many fine ladies present, I admit). I got up off my chair and walked around, and Frazerini, who had shifted the cove off the piano, struck up with a solemn march
to pace me out. When I got back to the chair, I gripped it hard, and stared out, but not meeting anyone’s eye.

She lay there dead and still, dead and still,
She lay there dead and still, dead and still . . .

And I took a breath, and looked swift and hard at where I judged he was sitting.

Bessie lay there dead and still,
But I hadn’t had my fill,
So I trampled her some more,
Damn her eyes!

It didn’t rhyme, but I didn’t care for I felt someone was looking hard at me now, and for a moment my mouth dried up like a witch’s cunny, and Frazerini stopped his piano-playing and he too looked at me. There was a longish pause before I started up again.

They will catch me, like a rat, in a trap,
Oh, they’ll catch me like a rat in a trap,
Ah, they’ll catch me like a rat,
And I ain’t no dandiprat
Nor a bloomin’ aristocrat, damn their eyes.

Frazerini was in his element, stomping away on the ivories, and even Mr Cashmore had forgotten where he was and seemed to be taken up by the power of the song. The hall was dark, and even more inky from the stage, where it is difficult to see beyond the front row, so I might have been fixing on quite the wrong place, but it seemed like there was no one else in that place except me and him, and as I stand there, with everyone seeming to hold their breath, I hear his steps after me, snap, snapping on the stones, and smell the piss and sweat in the yard.

It was hot under the floats, and the sweat stood out upon my
brow like drops of rain and ran into my eyes. I drew my handkercher from my pocket to wipe it, and carried on.

Oh, the hangman he draws near, he draws near,
Oh, the hangman he draws near, he draws near,
Oh, the hangman he draws near,
And I don’t shed a bloody tear,
I don’t know the taste of fear, damn yer eyes.

Of course, if he had seen and recognized me, then my card was marked from that moment. This raced through my head and nudged me hard, but before I could decide what to do, me and Billy Ross had already took him on, and mocked him out.

So this shall be my knell, be my knell,
So this shall be my knell, be my knell.
This is my funeral knell,
And I’ll see you all in hell
And I hope that you roasts well, damn yer eyes.