by Maggie Ford
‘Mrs Lovell!’ Emma was yelling. ‘Come on out – quick! This way!’
It was the smoke beginning to pour out through the door that brought Emma to her senses. Mum was upstairs.
Automatically she turned and stumbled up them to hammer on the door.
‘Mum! The place is on fire! Yer’ve got ter get out.’
The door opened and her mother’s alarmed eyes glanced first at her, then down the stairs. She turned, her voice high. ‘Oh, Gawd! Ben – the ’ouse is alight.’
Seconds later they were stumbling downstairs. Behind them clattered the couple from upstairs, alerted by Emma’s cries and screams coming from somewhere below.
Shuffling behind, step by painful step, both hands on the rickety banisters to help him, came a frail, elderly man who lived alone in the room across the landing to them, someone Emma had never seen.
The heat in the hall was already almost too much to bear, the flames now flickering around the downstairs room door. Emma, only half hearing short bursts of high-pitched, choking shrieks, ran with the rest out into the street, tugging along the elderly man, who was tottering, ready to fall. All she knew was the welcome impact of the cold, November afternoon air on her face. It was then that she saw that Skipman had followed them out. He was alone.
She turned to him. ‘Where’s Mrs Lovell and her little boy?’
He was panting. They all were. But his face, where not streaked with black, was ashen, his pale eyes were wide with horror,
‘I couldn’t get to ’em. I yelled fer ’er not ter be a bloody fool but she didn’t come. I begged …’
Not for long, the thought crossed Emma’s mind to be doused in the very same instant. She felt too sick and exhausted to condemn, trembling with sickness and a strange sort of exhaustion, bringing her to the verge of weeping with tiredness. Her legs seemed ready to give way under her as though she’d been in a battle as the horror of a woman and a child burned to death assailed her like some living, evil thing.
People were coming from other houses, mothers holding wide-eyed children protectively to their skirts in the knowledge that this tragedy could easily have been theirs in these filthy, decaying, cinder-dry tenements.
The flames were already licking at the downstairs window. A pall of smoke would by now be rising up the stairs to suffocate them had they not got out in time. Soon the blaze would follow, would burst out of the windows and out through the roof. All that Mum owned would be consumed. Nothing left. But she and Ben still had their lives.
Men had run across with the vain intention of tackling the blaze, only to stand in despair at the way it had got hold of the old timbers. There were plenty of men, out of work, killing time with hopes of one day finding a job and security.
Several had raced at top speed to alert the fire station in Commercial Road while the women hurried to give comfort to the stunned, bedraggled little group, ushering them away from the fire, coming out with cups of tea, an ever-present soothing balm for any situation.
Soon there came the jangle of fire bells. The red vehicle heaved into sight, its gleaming brass funnel belching smoke to add to that already filling the narrow, cobbled street. Flaring-eyed horses, manes flying, heads tossing, snorted to a halt, as men in gold-braided uniforms and brass helmets leaped down to begin frantically unrolling the hoses.
Cup of tea in hand, Emma watched from the far side of the narrow street as ladders were lifted down, the hoses filled to spurt water through windows and the door at the relentless flames, the steam pump adding its racket to the crackle of fire. Even so, they’d bring it under control only when there was nothing left to burn. All they could do was try to keep it from spreading to the adjoining houses, all mere tinderboxes, while the occupants gathered in groups, some in fear that their own homes might catch fire, others in dismay at seeing their possessions already going up in flames.
Bleakly watching, the only thing Emma kept thinking was not that her mother’s life had been saved or even that the life of a woman and child hadn’t, but that the few well-loved treasures Mum had desperately clung to in remembrance of a better life and the husband she had lost, were all gone. She and Ben had nothing but what they stood up in. There hadn’t been time to grab a single thing.
‘Come inside, luv,’ offered the woman who’d given her and Mum the cup of tea. ‘Don’t want ter stand out ’ere watchin’ it. I expect yer need ter sit down an’ recover a bit.’
Emma was grateful. Her heart was still beating with sickening thuds, her mind a whirl about what she must do. Her mother needed somewhere to stay. Ben, still outside watching the firemen, could fend for himself.
‘What yer goin’ ter do now, Mum?’ she asked falling easily into her old way of speaking. No reason to put on airs.
The blankness in her mother’s eyes shook her to her very soul. In that instant she brought her mind to focus on the problem.
‘We need ter find you somewhere. Somewhere really nice.’
Odd how this terrible business had offered an adequate way to get Mum out of that awful place without her feeling she was being patronised. Emma had hoped to see the bit of money she’d put by grow, but for now that must be sacrificed. Mum needed somewhere permanent and decent to live. This was her opportunity.
‘She could stay ’ere fer a bit if she wants,’ offered the woman who’d asked them in. ‘She could bunk in wiv me daughter.’
Emma turned and smiled at her. ‘There’s me brother too. He ain’t got nowhere either. But thanks anyway,’ she added as the woman’s expression changed. Ben’s reputation for belligerent behaviour clung to him like a dirty odour to a drainpipe. ‘I’ll be able to sort me mum out. Probably me brother too.’
There was a look of instant relief.
The fire finally overcome with just a little singeing to the adjacent tenements, Skipman was assisting in picking over the smouldering wood of the downstairs room, the stairs completely gone, the contents of the second floor also gone. They’d found the two bodies, and a covered ambulance took them away.
It was a sad little sight. Emma, with tears in her eyes, was surprised to see her mother weeping openly, she who seldom showed emotion. Emma knew with a pang of affection for her mother that it wasn’t lost possessions she was grieving over but a neighbour and her little boy.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was four o’clock and getting dark before Emma and her mother finally turned their backs on what had once been her home.
‘Where am I supposed ter go?’ Ben queried.
‘You’re a man,’ she told him. ‘You can fend for yourself. There are lots of men’s lodging houses about. Once Mum’s settled perhaps you can both come to some arrangement, but for now I need to worry about her.’
She had enough to do sorting Mum out without him expecting to be propped up. And especially after the way he’d acted. Maybe he had spoken about protecting his sister against what he saw as Theo living off her, but he had only been making sure his authority was being asserted, not from any kindness of heart.
She would let him know where Mum was. But it was Mum she was thinking of. She shouldn’t be left all alone after what had happened, and even Ben was company, and he might not be so bullying and bossy in a nicer place.
‘I’ll try to find something to suit you both,’ she’d promised.
It had taken time to find somewhere decent. She took Mum back to her hotel to pick up the money she’d been saving, enough to pay a month’s rent in advance that would most certainly be asked for.
There’d been no sign of Theo; he was probably in his room wondering where she was. There was only about an hour and a half to find her mother a place to live and settle her in before rushing off to the theatre, and she’d be compelled to stay with her for a short while after her traumatic experience. It left hardly time to gather up her things and compose her jangled nerves.
Jangled was right. By the time she found two nice rooms with a small kitchen suitable for a decent woman, Mum was shaking a little from delayed shock.
‘I’ll be orright,’ she told Emma, though she didn’t sound so as they stood in the rooms the landlady had shown them into. Her lips were firm, battening down any show of weakness as the woman stood back after showing them around. ‘Yer can’t afford this, luv,’ she said to Emma
‘I can.’
‘I ain’t takin’ yer money.’
‘Then what are you going to do, Mum? Roam the streets? Sleep under some arches with a bit of newspaper for a cover?’
It wasn’t large but it was neat and tidy and furnished. Emma had found it among the evening newspaper adverts, the top floor of a three-storyed house just off Whitechapel Road, not an especially smart area of London but far better than the slum she’d just left. Anything would have been better than that! Mum could hold up her head here. The rent of six shillings a week was a bit steep but she was earning.
As for Ben, she’d contact him through Mum’s old neighbours and let him know where Mum was. She would speak to the landlady, who name was Mrs Blacker, about it.
But now she must be off. ‘You’ll be all right here,’ Emma reassured her mother after having told Mrs Blacker that they’d take it. ‘Try and get a good night’s sleep. I’ll pop over tomorrow morning,’ she promised. ‘You can make yourself a cup of tea and something to eat. There’s a proper kitchen with a sink. There’s a teapot and kettle, cutlery, cups and plates, even a gas stove.’ It was a black, skeletal, two gas-ringed thing with the tiniest oven, but Mum would no longer have to cook on an open fire.
She and Mum were still exploring all this luxury, when Mrs Blacker came back upstairs with a drop of milk, a little tea and sugar, a few slices of bread and some jam, even a slice of cake.
‘Such a terrible time you’ve been through,’ she said in a husky voice, having been told of the catastrophe. ‘Blessings be to God you wasn’t injured. But now here’s this to keep you going till morning.’
From Emma’s own experience of Jewish people they’d always struck her as kind to those in distress no matter who they were; they looked after their own and drove a hard bargain but were generous and helpful when need be, as Mum’s case proved. Mrs Blacker did not have to have brought up provisions.
‘You feel a bit out of sorts,’ she said to Mum, ‘come down for a bit of company,’ which made Emma sure she’d found the right place.
But whether Mrs Blacker would stomach Ben was another matter. Though knowing where her bread was buttered she’d probably ask a few shillings more on the rent. And who could blame her?
Quarter past seven – Emma, mentally urging the motor taxi to go even faster towards her hotel, fretted at the slightest hold-up by every slow hansom cab, hackney, trundling ‘growler’, omnibus and tradesmen’s cart that seemed to be waging a personal vendetta against her and stopping her reaching her destination. She still had to gather up her stage clothes and stage make-up, and settle her jangled nerves enough to follow Theo’s commands without any mistakes.
The way she felt, she was going to make every blunder possible. Fear of Theo’s anger ran through her like hot steel rods, or as if those razor sharp swords he used in his newest illusion were piercing her. He’d drilled her on doubling herself up small to avoid them as they drove through the wooden box in which she was concealed.
It had taken months to perfect, she was constantly exercising so as to manipulate her slim body into the tiny space the way he wanted, indeed the way she must if she wasn’t to be harmed. When she’d told him she couldn’t possibly contort herself to such extremes he’d said that she was young and supple enough to be able to master it.
On stage she would slip out of the flowing gown and stand in spangled tights; a dress would have got in the way. That first time, she had felt so exposed as to feel almost naked before the gaping of the audience, and she forgot to be frightened of making any disastrous errors, glad only to disappear into the box and away from all those eyes.
The lid closed, she’d contorted her body so much that it seemed her sinews would snap, but the illusion had been a huge success that night, and still was.
Theo was now working on having her escape from the box without being seen so that when it was opened with the knives still in place, she would have disappeared.
The skill was to move fast enough through the false opening at the rear and slither, flat as a pancake, under a striped cloth laid behind and around the box, the stripes helping to disguise any movement, and to appear from the wings the second the audience was shown the box, empty but for the crisscross of swords, quite unharmed.
Hurrying to Theo’s room, she knocked. There was no reply. Going to her own room she found a pencilled note jammed under the room number:
‘SEVEN-FORTY. WHERE ARE YOU? GONE ON ALONE. BE QUICK!’
He’d waited until the last minute, the curtain going up at eight. True, they had the main spot that wasn’t until later, but there were preparations to be gone through, a last-minute adjustment requiring her to be there. She could imagine him pacing about backstage, irritable. She found herself preparing for his fury. By the time she’d gathered what she needed there were barely fifteen minutes left to get there. What state would she be in after all this rush she dared not think. This had never happened before, and she felt guilty about it even though she had a good reason.
The hotel doorman swiftly got her a cab. Even that short journey to the theatre seemed to go on for ever. She arrived to see the queues outside had all gone. She almost fell through the stage door. As she got to the tiny dressing room she and Theo shared, he was standing outside the door, his expression dark.
Seeing her, he turned and went inside without saying a word. Out of breath, she followed him in, ready with her explanation. But before she could say a word he swung round on her.
‘I’ve had to cancel.’
‘Why?’ An apology died on her lips.
‘I wasn’t to know when or even if you’d arrive.’
Emma was breathing hard, not just from hurrying but from all that had happened – the trauma of the fire, people killed, her mother losing everything, the anxiety of finding her somewhere to stay, having to leave her on her own after all she’d been through; now Theo, who must have seen that she wasn’t herself and that something very unusual must have occurred to make her so late, had the audacity to think only of the show. Damn the show! Her mother was far more important.
Perhaps it was the abrupt manner in which she started telling him what had happened that made him interrupt her when she had hardly begun.
‘This is where you are needed. Here. Not somewhere else.’
‘You know I went to visit my mother,’ she flared.
‘What possessed you to stay out so long?’
‘I made sure I had plenty of time to get back. But what happened was that there was a fire, and …’
‘It doesn’t matter what happened. I was here on time. You thought not to be.’
Outrage at his attitude began to take hold. ‘I told you, there was a fire. My mother’s home has gone up in flames! It was important to …’
‘Nothing is more important than honouring one’s contract.’
How could he be so callous? ‘Don’t you understand?’ she tried again. ‘My mother’s home burned down. She’s homeless. Everything she has is gone. She could have been burned to death. A neighbour and her son were.’
Her voice rose as he regarded her with not the slightest change of expression. ‘What did you expect me to do?’ she raged. ‘Leave her? Tell her I had to be somewhere else, playing the fool to a lot of other fools?’
Anger in Theo seemed to be frozen, his tone low and steady and threatening. ‘Is that how you feel about what I do?’
That deep-toned accusation shook her, her voice high-pitched and emotional. ‘But when it comes to someone of your own in dire trouble with nowhere to turn, then it has to take second place.’ How could he hold his temper in such check when she was seething and she knew he was too?
‘You do recognise the words, “the show
must go on”?’ he said slowly. How many times had that been drummed into her?
‘We have to draw a line somewhere!’
‘I have seen an actor force himself on to the stage for the sake of those words while his father lay dying.’
‘Then that’s just stupid!’ Emma snapped, throwing down her case with its stage clothes and make-up. ‘And selfish. An understudy could have gone on in his place. His father, it seemed, had no one to ease him.’
Theo’s voice had grown even deeper. ‘After my wife’s death I was on stage for the next performance. Those who have paid good money to see a show must not be let down.’
‘What if you’d been the only one there to save her life?’ Emma burst out. She was sick of being treated like a recalcitrant child.
‘Would you have gone and left her just so as not to disappoint your audience?’
She couldn’t help it, the sarcasm that had crept into her tone. In pent-up anger she began feverishly unpacking the case though she knew it was futile – they wouldn’t be appearing tonight. He’d said so.
‘I did not have the choice,’ came the quiet reply. ‘She was already dead, and there was nothing I could do.’
The quiet way it was said stopped her frantic activity.
With those few words she saw a man who was still living with the knowledge that he had driven the woman he loved to her death by a once uncontrollable temper, perhaps from a drinking habit that had started long before the tragedy.
She knew about that. Was this why he was holding his temper so firmly in check now?
She fell silent, and the silence drew itself out, leaving distant laughter and applause to trickle into the room as a comedy artiste took his bow before leaving the stage. Emma saw Theo’s lips tighten at the joyous sounds, knowing that he wouldn’t be on stage tonight. He was interested only in what concerned him, came the smouldering thought. Had he been concerned only with himself when he drove his wife to such a point that she had rushed blindly from their dressing room and out into the street to her death?
