The pavements were shining with drizzle. Moving down the steps, Jane followed a loose knot of people walking into the yard, flushed and hopeful, to where the stage door stood open a couple of inches, a rod of bright light splitting open the pavement. Jane wondered if the doorman would still be sitting at his desk, feet up, or would he be standing like a policeman on guard, because didn’t they know Miss Albright was exhausted, wanting nothing more than a cup of cocoa and a warm pillow? And Mr Johnny Treble, though he might have looked full of beans, was just about ready to drop. ‘Still, he might sign your programme if you ask him nice enough, steady now, steady, he can’t do you all at once.’ From where she was standing, Jane could see women on their tiptoes waving handkerchiefs and programmes, men leaning with one foot against the wall, trying their best to look nonchalant. ‘Is he here yet?’ asked a woman. ‘I can’t wait for him all night, though heaven knows I’d like to.’
The drizzle fell over her face, catching on her lashes, blurring the lights from the hoardings and the thick yellow glow of the naphtha lamps. She walked with her hands in her pockets, which seemed to make her sway less noticeable, past the bulging taverns, the laughter trailing around the corner, where the chestnut man, sparks flying from his brazier, had a damp hungry crowd all wanting a cheap bag of supper.
Jane took a short cut down an alley, the throngs petered out, and she became aware of a ringing in her ears and the echoing of her boots. Hoops of pale mist hung around the street lamps. She shivered. At the top of the street, she walked on tiptoe and peeked through the windows of the houses, seeing a man standing on a chair fixing something onto the wall, a grey cat leaping from cushion to cushion and a woman holding a tray of trembling tall glasses. By the time she reached Covent Garden, where Jeremiah Beam was in a doorway chewing on a pig’s knuckle, licking all the grease from his fingers, Jane was exhausted and cold.
Mrs Swift, wearing her nightclothes, a smear of cocoa dirtying the collar of her overlong dressing gown, had been waiting all evening for news of Mr Treble.
‘The doctor has retired,’ she said, ‘but I wanted to know if he’s as good as they say he is.’
Jane stood by the hearth, the fire now nothing but a crush of orange splinters. ‘Well,’ she started, ‘he’s a born entertainer.’
‘Go on,’ Mrs Swift leant forwards.
‘The audience were all on their feet. They couldn’t get enough of him.’
‘Can he dance?’
‘Oh, very well,’ blushed Jane, ‘and he can sing, though sometimes it’s more speaking than singing, but he seems very natural, and I don’t know, it adds to his charm.’
‘Charm?’ said Mrs Swift. ‘You think the man has charm?’
Suddenly Jane felt chilled. She didn’t know what to say. She looked at Mrs Swift’s feet, the way they sat like raw pies inside her slippers. She thought about the coffee house, the sneers, the dropping of the teaspoon. But then she saw him dancing, flipping and twirling his hat, his dark eyes shining.
‘Mr Treble has charm,’ Jane told her. ‘But he doesn’t always use it.’
*
The doctor invited Jane into the consulting room, asking Alice to fetch the best tray with the scenes of painted bluebirds, a pot of fresh tea, and something to go with it.
‘We have nothing to go with it,’ Alice told him, lazily scratching the back of her arm.
‘Nothing?’ he said. ‘Not even a biscuit?’
‘Not even half a biscuit, sir.’
Jane felt jumpy. The room was covered in dust. Why couldn’t they sit in the parlour, or the kitchen? Was she in trouble? Would the doctor be dismissing her? While he shuffled through his papers, she allowed herself a good look around. The walls were papered with a pattern that might have once been garlands of roses. There were no medical instruments, charts or any kind of examining table. A whisky bottle stood between a cardboard calendar and an empty pen pot. When Alice returned with the tea tray, she caught Jane’s eye and pulled a face. ‘Will that be all, sir?’ she asked.
‘Yes, and could you please close the door behind you?’
When the door clicked, Jane shivered. Perhaps this would be the end of it? This time tomorrow she might be begging at that nice easy spot, not far from Oxford Circus. She could see her torn clothes and the knot of tatty ribbons in her hair. The doctor poured tea and Jane looked amazed. She had never seen a man pouring tea before. He smiled at her. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said. ‘Please. You have done nothing wrong.’
He pushed a small pretty cup in her direction. It was decorated with pale yellow rosebuds. Was this the cup he had caught from the sky? She hoped so. The saucer didn’t match. From what she could see, there was not so much as a hair crack in it.
‘You are happy working for me?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ she nodded, the tea scalding the tip of her tongue.
‘You are a very valuable assistant – invaluable, I could not do without you, and I trust you implicitly.’
‘Implicitly, sir?’
‘It means absolutely.’
‘I’ll remember that.’
‘Despite “implicitly”, you are a very articulate girl.’
Jane smiled, thinking of Miss Prosser, The Big Book of Knowledge, and later Father Boyd, with his great polished table, the boxes of pencils, his lists of words, unusual words, like ‘vague’ and ‘pioneer’.
‘I do like words, sir,’ she said. ‘I like learning.’
‘And it shows.’
Jane blushed. The doctor laced his fingers and leant a little towards her. She could smell whisky on his breath as he said she must be wondering why she’d been called into this little-used room, but he had work to discuss, very private work, and as she was the only other person in the house to have sworn a solemn oath, he felt they deserved a little privacy.
‘It’s Mr Treble,’ he explained. ‘He has found himself in a delicate situation. Might I be honest? It’s a very serious matter.’
Jane tried to look serious, but now all she could picture was the handsome Mr Treble in his flashy chequered suit. She swallowed a grin as the doctor explained that Mr Treble had been ‘walking out’ with a society girl, the daughter of an aristocrat, no less, and according to her family he was a most unsuitable match. ‘A song and dance man does not marry into a good English family,’ the doctor told her grimly, ‘though it seems the girl is so enamoured with Mr Treble, she is willing to walk away from her heritage, her birthright and family, and live happily with him on the road.’
‘That’s wonderful, sir.’
‘No.’ The doctor, unsmiling, shook his head. ‘Mr Treble thinks the girl is deluded. His feelings for her have … waned.’
Jane took another sip of her tea. She saw the face of Johnny Treble in the coffee house. The girls in little clusters. Blushing. Giggling. Swooning. Of course his feelings had waned! It didn’t take a genius to work out that his feelings were probably spread very thinly over town.
‘Unfortunately, the girl is inconvenienced,’ the doctor told her.
Jane blushed. ‘She’ll be wanting the tincture then, will she?’
The doctor’s face looked troubled. He rubbed his left eye. ‘She would like to keep the baby,’ he stumbled. ‘Of course it’s a mistake.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Jane quickly agreed, thinking he was talking about the poor girl’s condition.
‘Mr Treble has no interest in becoming a father, or marrying anyone at present. He has a good heart you understand. He is thinking of the girl. That her family will disown her. Society will shun her. She will end up dead or in the workhouse.’
The doctor, now leaning back in his chair and relighting the dead little stub of his cigar, then went on to describe in lurid detail how life was lived in these sorry establishments, and though Jane tried to look interested, sighing at his descriptions of the harsh regime, she might have told him a good few tales herself, her grandparents having spent the last three years of their lives in Christchurch Workhouse on the Blackfr
iars Road.
‘It seems unthinkable,’ he said, raising his eyes to the ceiling, ‘but the girl is adamant, and though she wants to keep the encumbrance, Mr Treble would like to take the matter into his own hands, for the sake of everyone involved, you understand?’
‘But how can he do that, sir?’
The doctor, his voice now so low Jane had to hunch across the papers on his desk, told her that Mr Treble would be supplied with a large phial of tincture, which he would then pour into the girl’s morning coffee.
‘When the pains begin, she will think she is ill, or miscarrying, and Mr Treble will send for us. We will try to save the child, but alas, like many other infants born months too soon, the poor little scrap will perish.’
‘It will?’ Unconsciously, Jane put her hand to her throat.
‘Mr Treble is a very big name in the theatre world,’ the doctor said. ‘A rising star. You have seen him at work. You have seen the enormous pleasure he gives to hundreds at the theatre every night. You can only imagine what would happen to his fledgling career, his reputation, his very livelihood, if word of this gets out. And if it does get out, you know what I would think?’
‘Sir?’
‘I would think that you, Miss Stretch, had broken your very solemn oath, and blabbed to all and sundry.’
‘I would not do that,’ she said, feeling small and lightheaded. ‘I would not break my oath and tell anyone.’
‘And I believe you.’ When the doctor took hold of the teapot, his hands were shaking and Jane felt better for it. ‘We shall have ourselves another cup,’ he smiled. ‘Sugar?’
*
‘It’s spring. The sun is out, the weather is turning, and in its honour I have a new sign,’ said Ned. ‘What do you think?’
Taking a few steps back, Jane pretended to study it. ‘Believe in the Lord,’ she read. ‘Well, it’s certainly to the point.’
Unhooking his sign, which was already slightly battered, they sat side by side on a bench by the Cock. Jane liked his company. She liked the easy way they talked, as if her bones didn’t matter.
‘The doctor, he pays you all right?’ Ned asked.
‘He pays me nothing at all,’ she told him honestly, ‘though I do get bed and board, and sometimes a patient, or Mrs Swift will push some coins into my hand. A girl gave me sixpence this morning.’
‘Why?’ he grinned. ‘Did she think you were a beggar?’
Jane blushed. ‘No,’ she said. ‘The girl was grateful because I was good to her, mopping all her sickly mess with no complaints.’
‘Lovely.’
The bench was sheltered. The sun felt warm. Men with bleary eyes tripped into the doorway of the Cock. Jane watched gangs of flower girls, the way they walked along the gutter, their shoulders slumped, laughing, whispering, and she wondered what it would be like, working with flowers.
‘Do you know any flower girls?’ she asked.
Ned scratched his head. He pulled a dandelion from the edge of the cobbles and proceeded to tear it apart. ‘My sister once sold violets, though she was never fond of the outdoor life, or the singing of “violets, sweet violets”, and so now she burns her fingers moulding wax ornaments.’
‘I’d like to work with flowers,’ said Jane, suddenly seeing herself surrounded by daisies, roses and frilly edged carnations, all scented, and not one of them clawing her arms, though the roses may scratch now and then.
‘What about your doctor?’ said Ned, wiping the squashed yellow mess from his fingers. ‘Fond of a drink is he? I saw him the other day, sliding all over the place he was. Lord, I wouldn’t feel any better with him at my sickbed, all glassy eyed and stinking of the booze.’
Frowning, Jane looked at the men already heading into the tavern. She had noticed the doctor now kept a small bottle of whisky in his bag, and by the end of the day it would almost certainly be empty.
‘It’s the work I don’t like,’ she admitted. ‘I can’t get it out of my head.’
‘Death and gore?’
‘Something like that,’ she said.
Leaving Ned, she watched the flower girls plunging their arms into greenery, their eyes glazed with purple-phlox headaches and the endless monotony, and though some of them were chatting in pale strips of sunlight, most of them were working, hunched across their crates. Jane wondered if they did this in their sleep. Did their torn pink hands pick across the blankets? Did they dream of yellow buds and cutting twine? Of the wedding orange blossom, the cold white lilies of the mourning party, the jaunty scented buttonholes of the men-about-town, who wouldn’t look at a flower girl twice?
‘Miss Stretch!’ The apothecary smiled, making a face of mock surprise. ‘Is it Friday already?’
‘No, sir,’ she said, feeling guilty, because Friday was the day she usually collected their supplies, and today was only Wednesday.
‘The doctor must be a very busy man.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘People will always need doctors,’ he said. ‘And then doctors will always need chemists.’
‘Are you a chemist, or an apothecary, sir?’ asked Jane.
‘“Apothecary” has such a nice old-fashioned ring to it,’ he told her. ‘Don’t you think?’
The shop was full of coloured glass. There were shelves of white jars. High, scalloped mirrors. Standing in a pool of oily light, Jane handed him the note and watched him move behind the counter. She felt sick. She could hear the Frenchman humming. A picture of a thin green snake hung next to framed and sealed certificates. The light fittings shivered and Jane glanced towards the ceiling.
It was common knowledge: the apothecary had a beautiful young wife, Claudine, who spent her days in the rooms above the shop, the windows open wide whatever the weather, the air full of garlic and rich spicy sausage. She sang French songs to her little fat canary. She wore fine silk scarves and gold embroidered slippers.
‘Here.’ The Frenchman handed Jane a small white package. He looked serious. ‘Be careful,’ he told her. ‘Please.’
‘Careful, sir?’
‘What I meant to say is, don’t drop it,’ he smiled.
Clutching the small paper bag, she stepped onto the street, and turning the corner she looked back up at the window, where a birdcage held a fluttering of yellow, and behind it Claudine was moving her hands, her eyes tightly closed, dancing.
Jane felt relieved, and in all honesty more than slightly thrilled to find Mr Treble waiting in the corner of the coffee shop. He looked quite inconspicuous in a plain black overcoat. He had the collar up and his head pulled down. If Jane hadn’t been looking for him in particular, she might not have known he was there.
‘I ordered you a cup,’ he said, looking up. ‘Do you drink coffee?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He laughed quietly, showing his perfect white teeth. ‘You don’t have to call me sir. Mr Treble will do.’ Then after taking a sip of his coffee, he looked somewhat abashed. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ he said. ‘My name’s Johnny. You must call me Johnny.’
‘I thought your show was very good,’ she whispered, in case talk of the theatre might attract some attention. ‘Thank you for the ticket.’
He lifted his head properly now, his hair almost free of that sticky dark pomade. A strand fell over his forehead, his eyes the colour of peat. ‘Did you? Did you really like it?’ he said. ‘Mind you, with all this blasted trouble I was hardly at my best. You’ll have to come again when this rotten mess is over. Then you’ll see how good I really am.’
‘The audience would never have guessed,’ she told him honestly. ‘They thought you were wonderful.’
‘Wonderful?’ He looked sad for a moment, circling a teaspoon around the fine white rim of his cup. He closed his eyes. ‘Then perhaps they’re easily pleased,’ he said.
Jane’s coffee tasted bitter. Her hands were shaking so badly, a fierce brown storm was crashing into the saucer.
‘Have you brought the medicine?’ he asked.
Reaching into he
r pocket she pulled out the small paper bag.
His eyes widened. ‘Is that it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Really?’
She nodded.
‘It just looks very small,’ he said. ‘Like nothing.’
Pushing it carefully into his own pocket, Jane could hear him breathing heavily. His hands on the table looked soft, like they’d never really been used.
‘Does your lady friend take sugar in her coffee?’ she asked.
‘Sugar?’ he said. ‘I don’t know. She might do.’
‘You see, I’ve been told it’s very bitter, and if she doesn’t take sugar, then she’ll taste it.’
He frowned. ‘Really? I must remember that.’
The shop was overheated and it suddenly felt hard work, sitting opposite Mr Treble, talking.
‘I don’t want to hurt her,’ he said suddenly. ‘But I suppose I’m going to, aren’t I?’
Jane looked away.
‘Girls,’ he said. ‘They kill you.’ He watched Jane as she kept her eyes on the street outside, then leant forward. ‘Do you know something?’ he said. ‘Almost everything in my life is a lie. Half the time I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. I’m not a cockney. I was born in Reigate of all places. My name isn’t Treble, it’s Simpson. Oh, I do work hard, and I like being popular with the ladies, show me a man who doesn’t, but the truth is, the only girl I’ve ever really loved went and married somebody else.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He smiled. ‘I’ve never told anyone that before, but I like talking to you. It’s easy, because what with you being a cripple you’re not after anything else – I mean, they all want a piece of me, have you noticed that? And I was rotten to you the other day. I behaved very badly and I’m sorry.’
‘I have to go,’ she told him.
‘Of course you do,’ he said, tapping at the phial now sitting in his pocket. ‘Tell me, does it always work?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it’s my reprieve,’ he said.
Little Bones Page 9
