by Mick Finlay
As he scampered off to the scullery, the guvnor picked a pile of papers from the table. ‘Any mail?’
‘Nothing for you.’ Ettie rifled in the pile he held and took out a telegram. ‘Just this for Isabel.’
He took the white envelope and turned it over. ‘The medical scholarship?’
‘Probably.’
He put the pile down and checked his watch. ‘We must go. Neddy, you return home. Come and see me tomorrow for your money. Did you get the medicine, sister?’
‘I’ve given her a dose already. Are you going to see the princess?’
He nodded. ‘Her train should have arrived over an hour ago.’
‘Will Mabaso be there?’
‘I don’t think so. I told Napper and him she was returning tomorrow. I wanted to talk to her first.’
‘Tell me what I’ve missed,’ she said, crossing her arms over her chest and standing in front of the door. Seeing he was not to be let out, he quickly he told her where he’d got to in his thinking about Thembeka and Senzo, the princess and Mabaso.
‘D’you think she’ll tell you anything?’ she asked. Her belly gurgled. She ignored it.
‘We’ll try the same trick with Miss Druitt as we did in Scotland Yard. Hopefully they’ll let something slip.’ He looked at our young translator. ‘That’s if you don’t mind helping us a bit longer, miss?’
The young woman shook her head. ‘This is the most interesting thing I’ve done since we moved here. I’ve nothing to do these days but dancing lessons and entertaining father’s friends.’
‘Just don’t pretend to be your cousin this time.’
‘But will the same trick work again? The princess might just throw me out.’
‘I can’t see what other choice we have.’
‘I have an idea,’ said Ettie. ‘Where did you say they’re performing?’
‘The Alhambra,’ I said.
‘Delphine and I will go up and see them first,’ said Ettie. ‘Wait ten minutes, then you and Norman arrive. We’ll pretend we don’t know you.’
Ten minutes later, we were in the bar of the York Hotel. There were a few out-of-towners in there eating a late supper, but not many others. The bloke we’d talked to before wasn’t there, instead a big-eared lady of about my age wearing a high-necked black dress. We sat at a table and watched as Ettie talked to her, Delphine at her side. At first the woman shook her head, but Ettie talked some more, pointing at her briefcase, her eyes bright, her tongue quick. Finally, the woman nodded and pointed at the stairs.
A young girl who looked like she’d been supping on Dalby’s Calmative was cleaning the tables. When she came to ours, the guvnor put a penny down. He pointed at it.
‘That’s yours if you tell us which room the princess is staying in.’
The girl swallowed, then glanced back at her boss, who was fiddling with one of the beer barrels.
‘Room seven,’ she said at last, each word quiet and slow. ‘Don’t you tell her I said.’
We waited ten minutes, just as Ettie ordered. Then, as the landlady tried to fix a leak coming out the barrel, he snuck up the stairs. I had to wait till a punter ordered something from out back afore I could get past and join him.
The door to room seven was shut. I knocked. It was opened quick by a bald African bloke with a bushy beard. He wore a tweed suit.
‘How can I help you?’ he asked. He spoke with a thick African accent. ‘Are you with the artists?’
‘No, sir,’ said the guvnor with a bow. ‘I’m Mr Arrowood. This is Mr Barnett.’
‘Newspapermen? Come back tomorrow.’
‘We’re friends of Senzo Nyambezi and Thembeka Kunene.’
He looked down the corridor, then at me and the guvnor again. ‘Who?’ he asked.
‘They’ve been arrested,’ said the guvnor. ‘They asked us to deliver a message to the princess.’
‘Wait,’ he said, and shut the door.
A minute later he opened it again. ‘Come inside.’
The room had three narrow beds side by side. An African woman with a long neck perched on a chair under the gas lamp, while another, shorter woman, stood by the window. Ettie and Delphine sat on the ends of two of the beds, each with a sketch pad on their lap and a pencil in their hand. Two trunks were open by the window, full of beaded costumes and queer instruments. A small fire warmed the room.
The long-necked woman asked us something in her own language, testing to see what we knew. Her eyes were aslant, a sore on her lip. She wore a small coronet atop her black hair, and over her shoulders was a thick tartan shawl.
‘I’m sorry, madam,’ said the guvnor. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
‘We haven’t met a single person in this country who does,’ said the princess. Her voice was upper class, sharp and correct. You could tell she’d worked for a governor’s sister, as S’bu’d told us. She cleared her throat. ‘What is the message, sir?’
‘Are you Princess Nobantu?’ asked the guvnor.
‘I am.’
‘I’m Mr—’
‘Arrowood. I heard you. What do you have to say?’
The guvnor nodded at Ettie and Delphine. ‘I can see you’re busy. We can wait downstairs if you prefer.’
She looked at Ettie and spoke again in her own language.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Ettie with a frown. ‘I don’t speak your language either.’
The princess laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been talking with my friends all day. I asked if it would disturb you?’
‘No, but if you could try to remain still,’ said Ettie, lifting her pencil.
‘Talk,’ said the princess, turning her head side on to us.
‘Did you know that your compatriots Senzo Nyambezi and Thembeka Kunene have been arrested?’
‘It was in the newspapers.’
‘They’ve been charged with murder. If convicted, they’ll hang. They need your help.’
‘How can I help? Didn’t they kill a woman?’
‘I don’t believe they did, Your Highness. I believe it was a policeman from Natal named Constable Mabaso.’
She didn’t move, not even a twitch. There was nothing to be read in her.
‘Has he been to see you?’ asked the guvnor as Ettie and Delphine continued to sketch her.
‘We’ve been in Edinburgh.’
‘But you know him.’
‘I read the newspapers. I know he’s here to arrest those who raided the Kruger compound.’
‘Will you help us?’
Without moving her head, her eyes darted to the woman by the window. She was smaller, in plainer clothes, an intense look to her face. The bloke was looking at her too. The princess spoke in African. The bloke added something, while the small woman nodded. She looked down at her feet, chewing her lip. She spoke. The princess nodded, then looked back at the guvnor.
‘I don’t understand how we can help.’
‘Constable Mabaso’s looking for a certain cargo from your country. I think you know what it is. His only way to find it is through you.’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr Arrowood,’ said the princess.
‘Would you mind just looking at the window again, Your Highness,’ said Ettie. ‘It always looks better in profile.’
The princess adjusted her head.
The guvnor was silent for some time, a pained smile on his codfish lips. The bearded bloke got nervy, shifting on his feet.
‘You must explain, sir,’ said the princess at last.
‘Senzo Nyambezi told us about this cargo,’ said the guvnor.
‘What did he tell you?’ asked the princess.
‘He told us where it is, and that you also know.’
Again, the princess talked in her language. The small woman replied quickly, a fling of her hands.
‘Where did he say this cargo is hidden, Mr Arrowood?’ asked the princess at last.
The guvnor laughed and shook his head. ‘You don’t really want me to say in front of t
he two artists, do you? Now, I believe Mabaso will come to you tomorrow. He’s been told you arrive on the evening train. When he does, the police will be waiting to arrest him.’
‘Why are the police not here now, Mr Arrowood?’ asked the princess. ‘Why you?’
‘They’re looking for Mabaso right now. Will you help us? All you have to do is wait here for him to arrive, then cooperate with the police.’
‘Will the prisoners be released?’
‘Only if we catch Mabaso and it can be proved that he’s responsible for the murders. You must understand that the police need to convict somebody. If it isn’t the real murderer, they’ll have no qualms about charging your friends.’
The princess spoke again to the small woman. Finally, she nodded. We arranged a time to meet them the next day, and left Ettie and Delphine to struggle with their masterpieces.
Chapter Forty-Three
Mercy was wailing upstairs when we arrived at the guvnor’s rooms.
‘Ettie!’ cried Isabel, hearing us arrive.
‘She’ll be back in ten minutes,’ the guvnor called up to her. ‘Shall I get the baby down?’
There was no reply. Instead, her feet moved across the floorboards. After a moment, Mercy’s wails got quieter, until she was silent. Flossie was sitting under the table, her arms wrapped round Neddy’s little dog. It watched her with its dark eyes, like it was afraid she’d abandon it.
‘Hello, darling,’ said the guvnor, getting to his knees.
‘Hello,’ said the girl in her gruff voice. ‘He ain’t got a name.’
‘Didn’t Neddy take him back?’
‘He said I got to look after him till tomorrow.’
‘You must go to bed. It’s late.’
She must have been very tired, for she crawled out from under the table, the dog still in her arms, and climbed the stairs. She’d been sharing a bed with Ettie since she arrived.
‘Has that woman she was living with answered your letter yet?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘She can take as long as she wants. I like having her around. It makes it easier somehow.’
I made the tea. As we sat drinking, listening to the clock on the mantel, the guvnor stroked the orange cat. Fifteen minutes later, Delphine and Ettie returned.
‘What did they say?’ he asked the moment they stepped into the room.
‘Nothing useful when you were there,’ said Delphine. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks rosy.
‘They began to quarrel when you’d gone,’ said Ettie, taking two digestives from the biscuit tin and biting into them both like a sandwich.
‘The man wanted them to move to another hotel so that Mabaso couldn’t find them,’ said Delphine, also taking two biscuits. ‘He said he’d kill them.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘They didn’t say. But the small woman said they needed Senzo to get the gold.’
‘Why?’ asked the guvnor, helping himself to a biscuit. ‘Where is it?’
Delphine shook her head and finished her digestives. ‘That’s all she said.’
I handed her a cup of tea. She put in four spoons of sugar and stirred. She looked at the biscuits again.
‘Help yourself,’ I said.
‘Thank you, Delphine,’ said the guvnor as she dived in. He turned to Ettie. ‘Now, what story did you spin them, sister?’
‘I told them the Alhambra needed a picture of the princess for their bills. She wasn’t sure about it because of the hour, but I said we’d been drawing the other performers all day and she was our last. I told her they’d sell more tickets with good billboards. The small woman told her to sit for us.’
‘But you can’t draw,’ said the guvnor. ‘Didn’t they realize?’
Ettie looked at Delphine and smiled. Delphine’s face darkened.
‘They weren’t entirely complimentary about our pictures, were they, dear?’
Delphine ignored her. She gulped down her tea and did up her coat. ‘Do you need me tomorrow, Mr Arrowood?’
‘Could you meet us at Scotland Yard at ten?’
‘My father’s having the committee over for dinner, but that should be fine.’
And with that she stomped out the door.
Ettie smiled. ‘They told her a child could have made a better picture.’
The three of us laughed. It was only then I noticed Isabel standing at the bottom of the stairs. Her face was twisted with fury.
‘Oh, my darling, I’m sorry,’ said Ettie, rushing to her. Isabel pushed her away. ‘How are you? Did you sleep?’
‘The parson came,’ she said, glaring at the guvnor, her eyes set in deep, grey sockets. ‘The burial ground can’t do the funeral tomorrow after all. Too many bloody influenza cases. They’ve moved it to the day after tomorrow. Half past eleven.’ She turned and climbed stiffly up the stairs. ‘And your daughter needs feeding, Ettie,’ she said without turning back.
I went direct to the Pelican. I don’t know why, nor what I wanted from Molly. I was confused and vexed, but I had a need for that woman I couldn’t escape. It was Monday night, getting near closing time. I got a beer from the landlord, and had just sat at a table when the door opened and Molly stepped inside.
‘Back, are you?’ she asked, her pipe in her mouth. Her strong arms carried a basket of turnips.
‘I don’t know why,’ I said.
‘Nor do I, Juggins.’
Juggins. There it was again, the sound of my dear Mrs B in my ear. The sound of my life.
‘You finishing soon?’ I asked.
She dropped the basket onto the counter, moved the curls from her face, and looked round the pub. ‘We’ll be shut in half an hour. I’ll see if he’ll let me go now.’
Fifteen minutes later, with a pint of gin in my pocket, we arrived in my room. I lit the paraffin lamp and watched Molly as she looked round. It was cold and bare and unlovely, but it was home of a sort. I knocked at Mrs Kosminski’s door upstairs and borrowed enough coal for a fire, then set about getting it going while Molly rinsed out my two mugs and poured us drinks. For some time we sat with our boots on the fender.
‘Why d’you do it?’ I asked at last.
She sighed, and when she started to talk I realized she’d had a few drinks already. ‘Me and Ann got a stack of debt. Not through our own fault, but debt it is.’
‘So what happened?’
‘We wanted to buy a little beershop. Wanted to be our own people for once. I’ve been under blokes like that pasty bastard in the Pelican all my life. I know there are good ones, Norm, but I’d say I’ve lost my faith in people.’
I nodded, had a sup, lit a fag.
‘The chandler on the corner agreed to borrow us the money to get the lease. He’s the one everyone goes to. So on the day we need the money we sign our names, he hands over the money, and on the way back, ’tween his shop and our room, we get robbed. Four fellows with scarves over their faces. It was like they was waiting for us.’ She shook her head, staring into the hot coals. She had a swallow.
‘You think he’d set it up?’
‘Don’t matter what I think. We lost it all and now we owe him. Got to pay him back ten bob a week. That’s why I do it. Ain’t got no other way of paying.’
‘Does your sister work in the same place?’
‘Her arthritis is too bad.’
The bells of All Hallows rang down the road. Mice moved behind the walls. Molly took up her pipe and we sat there puffing away.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked at last.
‘You’d have run a mile, mate.’ She laughed sadly. ‘You did.’
She pulled a piece of chocolate wrapped in Christmas paper from her coat and broke it in two, giving me half. It was the good stuff, creamy and silky on my tongue. I hadn’t had chocolate that fine for a long time, and I let it melt in my mouth, thinking about what she’d said, enjoying the warmth of the fire on my feet and the looseness that came with the gin. She was right. I didn’t know how to touch her now I knew what she di
d, how to read her.
‘It’s good chocolate, Moll,’ I said, wondering how I could tell her what I was thinking.
‘One of the blokes on Bankside gave it me,’ she said, then paused. ‘I do him every week.’
Spit filled my mouth, and I noticed the smoothness of the chocolate had given over to something grainy and rancid, like it’d been made with bad marge. I wanted to spit it out, but I knew this was a test of some kind.
She poured more gin into my mug. ‘Wash it down with that,’ she said with a smile. ‘Gin can take away the taste of anything.’
I swallowed it down, looking at her smirking face in the dim light, unsure what she was doing.
‘What d’you think of me?’ I asked her.
‘I’m fond of you, Norm,’ she said, raking her fingers through her curls. ‘I like being with you. I feel easy.’
‘Am I like one of your punters?’
‘What kind of a question is that?’
‘I mean, can you be with a man proper without the other men tainting it?’
‘Tainting it?’ she asked, putting her hand on my leg. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘Can you forget them when we…’
‘When we touch each other?’
‘When we’re fucking.’
‘How can you ask that?’
‘How can you expect me to understand if I don’t?’
‘Can’t you see how I feel about you, darling?’
I looked into her brown eyes. The glow of the fire softened her nose and cheeks, wiped away the creases and lines that life had given her. My old man stiffened in my britches, my body remembering the last time we lay together. I felt my breath shorten, and though I couldn’t see what she felt, I nodded, hoping I would if I just let go a bit.
I wanted her.
I reached out and touched her hair. We kissed, her fingers running down my neck. I stood and took her hand. By the bed I unclothed her, then she unclothed me. We pressed our bodies together, the cool of her skin on mine, my lips on hers, hungry and forgiving and lonely. She pushed me onto the bed, and suddenly all that mattered was her breath, her skin under my fingers, and the scent of lavender on her neck.
After, we lay together, the room warmed from the little coal fire. Her head was on my chest.
‘You got to be around more, Norm,’ she whispered.
