Hell and High Water

by Tanya Landman

  Yet Caleb also needed a director: someone who would watch and tell him straight if his performance was lacking. Who better than Letty? She’d looked at him sideways when he said that, clearly wondering what he was up to, but readily agreed to help him.

  Anne and Edward swallowed his tale whole and so, one bright spring morning when the countryside was just starting to emerge from its long winter sleep, Letty and Caleb carried the theatre and the sack of dolls to the barn. It was time for Pa’s puppets to see the light of day once more.

  * * *

  It was strange unpacking the theatre without Pa. Caleb untied the rope and peeled back the sacking. The cover badly needed washing – it had lain unaired, unused for so long that black mould had bloomed like storm clouds across it. The curtains were similarly blemished. This could be rectified later, but the frame was another matter. If the wood had warped after being left so long in the damp corner of the cottage it would be far more difficult to put right.

  The sight, the feel of the timber struts in his hands brought memories flooding into his mind. Feeling apprehensive, Caleb took the lower frame, stood up straight and gave it a flick. It unfolded in one easy movement and Letty’s mouth dropped open; and when he repeated the trick with the top half and slotted both together she laughed aloud.

  “It’s marvellous, Caleb! Why have you never showed me this before?”

  “Wait until you see the puppets.”

  For months they had remained in their sack. Caleb had slept almost every night curled around them but he had not been able to bear looking at them until now.

  Their cloth bodies were folded over their faces to prevent their paint chipping. He lifted each one out, straightening it, smoothing its costume before laying it gently on the ground. “This is Punch,” Caleb told Letty. “Here is Judy, his wife. Here is their baby, poor ugly thing. He could crack a looking glass, couldn’t he? This is the jester, the only one who can keep Punch in order. He sets Mr Punch to mind his sausages, but look, here is the dragon who eats them. This is Jack Ketch, the hangman.”

  “Does Punch get hanged?”

  “No! Punch outwits him. He outwits everyone. The judge, the hangman, even the Devil. He beats them all over the head with his slapstick, here, see?”

  “He does what I’d like to. Is there a puppet of a landlord?” asked Letty. Caleb shook his head. “Shame. I’d love to see Punch beat the hell out of one of those. Or maybe the landlord’s lapdog.” She ran her fingers over their faces, captivated. “You made these?”

  “No, Pa did. I mean to say, he carved them. I sewed their bodies.”

  “They’re wonderful.”

  He was pleased to have Letty’s admiration. It was consoling. Looking at the puppets lying on the barn floor, he thought they looked like a line of corpses. Poor dead things! Without Pa they were nothing. Joseph had given them such life that even after a show when he took the dolls off his hands they seemed animated. Indeed, Punch had always oozed with such delightful wickedness that it wouldn’t have surprised Caleb if the puppet had sat up and talked to him.

  Pa had often said that Punch had a mind of his own. There would be things that happened during a performance – someone fresh from the tavern would call out from the crowd, a man might heckle, yell abuse. As quick as lightning Punch would throw back a retort that bent folk double with laughter. Afterwards, if Caleb complimented Pa on his quick thinking Joseph would say it was nothing to do with him: Punch had reacted, Pa was a mere conduit. There had been a magic there – an alchemy – that could not be explained.

  And now Caleb had to attempt to capture it.

  When Caleb took Punch from the ground he was a painted doll – a grotesque wooden gargoyle with a hooked nose and hunched back. Seeing the puppet so limp and lifeless paralysed Caleb for a moment. It seemed Punch’s spirit had died with Pa. Caleb was not up to this! Whatever made him think he could do it?

  He took a deep, steadying breath. Rallied. He had to be up to it. For Pa’s sake, and for his own. It was the only way he’d get access to Norton Manor.

  Movement, he reminded himself: that’s the key.

  Caleb slid his right hand into the glove, his first two fingers in Punch’s head, his thumb in his left arm, the two remaining digits in his right. Caleb held the puppet above his head and attempted to wake the heart and soul within the wooden doll.

  But his palms were too small, his fingers too thin to support Punch’s head. It lolled to one side like a hanged man and flopped about uselessly. When Caleb tried to make the puppet clap its hands it was as though its arms were broken.

  He could have wept. He was useless! He couldn’t begin to catch Pa’s magic. He might more easily have scooped up the moon’s reflection in a fishing net.

  He glanced miserably over to Letty, mortified by his failure.

  But she wasn’t looking at him. In fact she hadn’t even noticed what he’d been doing. Letty was crouched, staring at the puppets on the ground with fascination. Suddenly she reached for Judy. Slid her hand into the glove.

  Caleb hated the story of Cinderella. So many powerful enchantments used just so the heroine can marry a prince? It had always seemed the most disappointing of endings. But what Caleb saw then was truly like a moment from the fairy tale. The glove fitted Letty’s strong, oar-calloused hand as well as the glass slipper fitted Cinderella’s dainty foot.

  Caleb knew it was a common fault amongst inexperienced or poor showmen to hold a puppet so that its head is thrown back and it looks only at the sky. But without instruction Letty was holding Judy so that the puppet’s eyes were focused directly on him. And then Judy’s voice erupted shrill and clear, “About bleeding time! What d’you mean, leaving me in the dark the whole damned winter?”

  Caleb addressed Judy, a broad grin breaking across his face, “I apologize most sincerely, madam.” He gave her a small bow. Then, “I have your husband here. Would you like to see him?”

  He handed Letty Punch, holding him so she could slide her hand into the glove. Judy protested, “Ooooh not him! Worthless good-for-nothing old devil! Put him back in the sack!”

  Caleb watched with delight as Punch began to live again. The puppet moved a little slowly at first, stiffly, as if he was waking from a long sleep. But second by second, minute by minute, he became his own ribald, seditious self again.

  Punch flung his arms wide. “Give us a kiss, Judy.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Just one little kissy. Kissy, kissy, kissy. Come on.”

  “You filthy devil!”

  “You like it.”

  “I love it!”

  Letty and Caleb had been oppressed by fear and secrets for months. To share some moments of utter nonsense was as unexpected as it was delightful. Joy, laughter, happiness: they had been hidden away with the puppets the whole of that long winter. To feel those sensations again was intoxicating.

  But there was work to be done. All too soon Letty took the puppets from her hands and gave them to Caleb with a sigh. “We’ve got to get on,” she said. “Go on, get in the theatre. Show me what you can do.”

  With a shake of the head, Caleb thrust Punch and Judy back towards her. “You must do it.”

  “What?” Letty had never looked so surprised.

  “I can’t, Letty. The puppets die in my hands. Yet you make them breathe.”

  She frowned, staring at him angrily, thinking he was mocking her. He could read what ran through her head as clearly as if she had spoken her thoughts aloud: a woman getting up in front of a crowd, a woman as an entertainer? He couldn’t be serious! The word “actress” was the same as “whore”, wasn’t it? If her father knew what Caleb was suggesting he’d forbid it. And Anne? She’d have a fainting fit! And yet, oh dear God, those puppets were lovely to work. She’d heard tell of women who got away with performing, ones who had the courage to brazen it out…

  “No one will see you, Letty,” Caleb told her. “You’ll be hidden inside the theatre. No one need ever know it’s you.”
He was alight with the possibilities Letty’s talent offered. “Don’t you see? This is the perfect solution! You can do the show at the gala. It will be our secret. They’ll think I’m in there and while you’re performing, I can slip into the house and find out what I can about the Linnet. I can look at the papers in Sir Robert’s study.”

  “But me … to perform…?”

  “You have a gift that I could never match. Pa always said a skill like that is given by God. Surely he means you to use it. Come, will you do it?”

  He held the puppets out to her. Her eyes gleamed, but still she paused. She looked at Caleb once more then read the challenge in his face and responded by snatching the puppets, unable to resist their lure.

  It had taken Pa years to perfect his craft. Years to hone his timing, to develop the routines that delighted both bishop and beggar. Letty had only the month of April, but she was a natural. How Pa would have loved her!

  There is a secret trick to making Punch’s squeaking voice. Pa had learned it from the Italian who had crafted his first set of puppets. A small object is placed near the back of the throat and pushed up hard against the roof of the mouth with the tongue. A linguetta, the Italian had called it, and Pa said the same although Caleb had sometimes heard other Punch men call it a “swazzle”. The air is squeezed through it when the user talks, and this changes the pitch and volume of the voice. Pa had once tried to teach Caleb the skill but the thing had made him gag so much he’d nearly vomited.

  Letty had no such problems. Caleb placed the rectangle of silver and linen tape in the palm of her hand and, once he’d explained the principle, she popped it into her mouth and into position. Taking a deep breath, she tried her first, experimental blast. When Caleb had attempted it some years ago all that had emerged from his throat was a hiss of air. But Letty now emitted an ear-piercing shriek in Punch’s falsetto. The noise – the sheer volume – she produced would have made Caleb leap out of his skin had he not anticipated it. It startled Letty so much that she spat the linguetta out in alarm.

  “Was that me? Did I do that? Dear God, Caleb, I scared myself half to death! Why didn’t you warn me?” They both collapsed into peals of laughter at her reaction, but when Letty had recovered herself a little she slid the thing back into her mouth and began to try words, phrases, sentences. She sang bawdy ballads and pious hymns in the squeaky, comical voice of Mr Punch. She took to it like a duckling takes to water five minutes after it has hatched. The linguetta made her drool to begin with, admittedly: spittle ran down her chin until she grimaced at the absurd repulsiveness of it, but she never once gagged or choked.

  Caleb explained the show’s basics and Pa’s rule of three – the same joke once, twice, three times before the punchline on the fourth – and Letty revelled in developing each routine under Caleb’s watchful eye. Her show would not be the same as Pa’s of course. It was rough, unvarnished. But she had a natural feel for the rhythm of the comedy, for its wild, anarchic mayhem, and for its violence. In her hands Punch’s fight with the Devil was a hundred times more gleefully brutal than Pa’s had ever been.

  Caleb stood out front: the conductor to Letty’s orchestra. He made suggestions, recalling things Pa had said and done, fine-tuning each separate act in the drama. He told her where to make a longer pause, to let the puppet appear to think, to let the crowd anticipate what would happen next. As the day wore on there was a wild, creative excitement in both of them. Caleb had not realised how very much he’d missed the puppets. They had been so much part of his life they’d been almost invisible to him, but to rediscover them now was like having part of his father back.

  There was besides the thrill of seeing Letty blossoming into something quite extraordinary. For the length of that day she was freed from the constraints, the grindingly hard labour, the boredom of ordinary life and consumed with the pleasure of discovering something she excelled at, that she seemed to have been made for.

  The work was intense. Absorbing. By sunset they were tired but deeply at ease with each other. To discover they were bound by something other than the shared knowledge of villainy was a marvel.

  After that, they rehearsed daily. As the month went on Caleb began to feel that there was something sweet in the air. The future seemed to hold an unspoken promise.

  It was easy, almost, to forget the purpose behind it all.

  17.

  It was not possible for Caleb to revive Pa’s show without the gossips noticing. He had expected – indeed counted on – their spreading word of it. It came as no surprise that everyone in Fishpool now took him for a showman. What did amaze him was the sudden elevation in his status. As his aunt’s assistant he had been the object of contempt and derision. The colour of his skin had been deplored. Despised. Yet now his supposed foreignness gave him an aura of mystique, of exotic rarity. He became an object of fascination. For the first time since he’d arrived the women who gathered at the well spoke politely to him. They smiled. Some of them even flirted! The children who’d once pelted him with stones now pelted him with desperate pleas to see the puppets, to watch a show. And before long the housekeeper of Norton Manor sent a maid with a request that he perform at Sir Robert’s May Day gala, and give some amusement to the poor unfortunates of the parish – a request to which Caleb very graciously agreed.

  * * *

  As luck would have it, the gala was taking place on the very same day the Lady Jane was to sail on the evening tide. Anne was frantic with preparations to ensure her husband had all he required for the forthcoming voyage; Dorcas, sensing a change in the air, was tearful; and Edward Avery was distracted, silent. It was a relief for Caleb to escape to Norton Manor.

  Letty must not be seen – that was vital to the deception. Caleb had to appear to be performing alone so while he proceeded along the road and then the carriageway she crept through the woods, keeping low to the ground.

  On arrival, a maid showed Caleb to the middle of the vast lawn and told him this was his place. He looked up to the sky then protested as politely as he could, “Unfortunately, the sun will strike the audience in the eyes and they will not be able to see the puppets. My apologies, but I cannot put the theatre here.”

  He then appeared to give great thought to the matter of where would be best to set the show, finally deciding on the spot that Letty had described to him before he’d left: backed up against a line of bushes whose lush growth would conceal their coming and going.

  He set up the theatre. Opened the frame, slotted the two halves together, pulled on the cover and then hung the puppets on their hooks. As he finished, there was a rustling in the undergrowth. Letty had arrived, and stepped swiftly inside before she could be seen.

  The audience assembled shortly after. Every servant in the house was there by the looks of things, along with the parson and his wife. William Benson stood behind his master. Sir Robert had condescended to join the audience of skinny women, pinched with hunger, and children, scrubbed clean but with eyes too large in skull-like heads. He and his wife had strolled across the lawns and now each held a nosegay of sweet-smelling herbs, presumably to mask the stink of poverty that hung over the rest of the audience. Lady Fairbrother, gaudy as a parrot, was wearing the gown that Caleb and Anne had stitched. For her to be dressed in such a showy manner in front of such a company grated on Caleb, but he was all smiles, bowing low to Sir Robert and his lady, showing them the respect they thought was their due. He had a job to do. Nothing must distract him.

  It had been his father’s habit to begin the show by first addressing the watchers, for Pa said that every crowd had a different personality. It was his way of gauging them, of seeing where troublemakers might be, of assessing whether they needed whipping up or calming down. Pa’s introduction determined the pace of the show and sometimes its content. Routines could be changed or swapped according to the mood of each individual audience.

  And now Caleb had to fill Pa’s shoes.

  He felt a moment’s blind terror. What was he doing?
Hadn’t he always hated crowds? What was this madness? He was the bottler, not the showman!

  His hands had bunched into fists. But he was not Caleb now, he told himself. He was being Pa. Acting a role. The part must be his armour.

  Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Caleb donned Pa’s personality like a coat. Stepping forward, he introduced himself with elaborate theatricality: “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Let me introduce myself. My name is Henrietta…”

  An exchange of glances. A gasp here and there of both confusion and embarrassment. A few muffled giggles.

  “Oops! Oh dear me!” he said. “Sorry. I’m a little nervous. I’ve never done this before, you know. That’s a girl’s name, isn’t it? Yes, I made a mistake. I’ll try again. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. My name is Betsey.”

  Now realizing the joke was deliberate the children giggled louder. Adults smiled and Caleb suddenly saw why Pa had loved performing. There was power in it. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand. It could become intoxicating.

  “Wrong again! Whatever is the matter with me? I’ll try once more. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. My name is Charlotte. Oh no!”

  He was applying Pa’s rule of three and it was working. Repeat once, twice, thrice, then change on the fourth. Rhythm and timing were everything.

  “I’ll try again. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, my name is Caleb – I got it right that time! I am Caleb Chappell. Welcome to the Hunch and Roody show!”

  There were three variations on this deliberate mistake too. Caleb welcomed them to the Lunch and Booby and then the Munch and Pooby show – before finally giving the correct introduction. By this time some of the children were screaming with laughter and making Lady Fairbrother wince at their noise.

  Telling the crowd that Mr Punch could not wake without a rousing cheer and a round of applause, Caleb then stepped back, as if into the theatre. But Letty was already in there, and with a wink she started the show with the loud sound of Punch’s snoring.