by E M Jones
“I don’t mind a black eye as long as I’m still breathing at the end of the night.” The smile had returned to Charlie’s voice. “And anyway, I might get to meet the chivalrous Ted.”
Dina and Charlie’s looks raised a faint blush on Lizzie’s face, and she damned herself for letting it happen.
“Well, he’s all yours if you want him.” Lizzie’s best attempt at nonchalance was unconvincing.
“Oh no, I’m not getting involved. Anyway, only I can please the ladies, so I’d better stick to that, especially when they pay well.”
“Has Sir Glynne not called, Dina?”
“No. We will know when he has—Mrs Henry will be polishing the doorstep and telling me again how it was she who introduced us, and it will be a new way since last time because she forgets her stories every time he goes away.”
“Out with us riff-raff then, Dina?” Charlie said.
“What is this ‘riff-raff’, Charlie? From the sound, I do not think I am it.”
“You’re not, Dina. Nor is Lizzie, really. Just me then! Somebody has to serve the less discerning customer.”
The women laughed, and then faded towards their own rooms to prepare for another night’s work.
8
Lizzie tried not to interpret every smoke-shrouded masculine form as Ted, keeping her mind on the task ahead. Find some customers, keep an eye on each other, make some money and get home safely. Nevertheless, she peered through smoke, sweat and stale air, preoccupied by hope. Though she knew it was incredibly foolish, her eyes searched the crowd for strong, square shoulders encased in red despite herself.
The three women’s stoicism had faltered slightly as they arrived at The Alhambra. Johnny had ushered them in with a familiar nod but without his usual smile. After admitting a few further patrons behind the three women, he had begun to perform a silent policeman’s rattle dance, which the three women eventually deciphered as a sign for them to come and speak to him when there was a quiet moment. After making eye contact with some potential customers, they returned to Johnny, who was once again gesticulating a message that suggested either the building was under siege from flying objects or the women should join him.
“Have you heard?”
“Heard what, Johnny? That you’re the best doorman in town?” Charlie gave him a wink that only earned half a smile. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone off me! Johnny, I thought we were going to retire together and keep goats in Essex!”
“Sorry Charl, but I ain’t got much time, and this is serious. You’ve heard about the second poor girl that got killed?”
As the topic shifted to the murders, all four become sombre.
“Of course we have, poor thing.” Lizzie voiced their sympathy and fear.
“Well, do you know who she is?”
The three women looked at each other in surprise; the thought that they might know the dead women illogically increased their sense of their own jeopardy.
Johnny took their silence as an answer. “She was Marie. You know, the one that came before you.” Johnny delivered this news staring at Dina, whose footing faltered, her face turning to fevered marble.
Lizzie and Charlie held Dina, who never lost control unless on purpose. Lizzie spoke on her behalf. “Marie who was with Sir Glynne, you mean? The redhead?”
“That’s her. I thought you should know, what with him being a visitor to Mrs Henry’s and all that.”
“Thanks, Johnny.” Lizzie smiled weakly and held Dina. “Let us know if you hear anything else.”
“Course. And you girls take care tonight. There are some nasty people out there.”
With that, Lizzie and Charlie guided Dina towards a table and tried to fashion her unusually limp limbs into continental aloofness.
“Bloody hell, Dina. Are you OK?” Charlie’s concern was evident in her unadorned turn of phrase.
Dina gave her a weak smile. “I will be OK. I had a surprise that is all. Marie…”
Lizzie recalled the vivacious woman whom Dina had usurped as Sir Glynne’s bedfellow of choice. There had been some unpleasant sparring between the two women about a year earlier when Dina first took Marie’s place. Lizzie remembered a meeting outside Mrs Henry’s where Marie had spat at Dina, and Dina, imperious and untouched, had turned away from the cursing redhead as if ignoring an angry child. Dina’s campaign of aloof detachment had prevailed and Marie’s temper had quietened to a smouldering dislike. Dina’s assured beauty had solidified during her relationship with Sir Glynne, while Marie’s voluptuous charm had sagged and faded. Sir Glynne was a predictor of a woman’s career prospects, and he had timed the end of his relationship with Marie to perfection.
Some purpose had returned to Dina’s stance. She looked up at Charlie and Lizzie. “OK, are you ready?”
“We are if you are, Dina. Have you got anyone in mind?”
“The gentleman from our last visit is here, as is your lady friend.” Dina had looked behind Charlie and Lizzie to begin planning the night’s work. “Lizzie, I can’t see Ted, so you will need a new customer.” Lizzie pretended not to care. “And remember, we try to do our work here tonight. We will leave together to go home tonight.”
The three women set off in different directions through the smoke. Lizzie’s heart beat irregularly as she spotted another uniform in the audience to the left of the stage, but when she meandered nearer she discovered that its wearer was another soldier off on leave, not Ted. She chastised herself for her foolishness and committed to finding a customer.
Dina had already slipped to a dark corner with a man who looked as though he might burst, even after Dina’s careful attention. Charlie was sitting at a circular table near the front of the stage. Her female companion once more patted and stroked Charlie as if she were her lapdog, and Charlie’s smile was widest and her laugh loudest. Her head bobbed and swayed, and Lizzie was amazed by the performance she could put on. She considered joining the group, making sure Charlie wouldn’t be injured again, but that would be foolish. Charlie would need to find a place to be alone if any money was to be made, and Lizzie would be a bizarre hindrance.
Lizzie returned to the bar and refocused on her own purpose: to earn her own money. She glided the length of the bar and settled between two groups of reasonably loud revellers. Most of the company were male, and a few of her colleagues were already encircled in their company. Lizzie recognised one woman—Anne, she thought—whom Johnny also knew. Lizzie looked up from the bar and tried to shuffle into the circle where Anne drank and laughed with empty eyes. Lizzie looked to her for help. Out of empathy or pity, Anne reached for her hand.
“Lizzie, how are you?”
Lizzie forced a wide smile. “Excellent. Fancy meeting you here. Who are all your friends?”
“Everyone,” Anne shouted, drawing Lizzie into the circle, “this is my friend Lizzie. Lizzie, these are all my new friends.”
The whole group laughed at that, and Lizzie joined in, even though she didn’t really know what was funny. She stayed with Anne, circled by intoxicated men, and started to talk and laugh and move in the tilting sway of drunkenness. Several men held her waist and brushed against her hip. Anne mirrored a similar swaying dance on the other side of the circle. It was like an elaborate children’s game, where eventually the man who manoeuvred himself closest to the woman, unbeknownst to his increasingly drunk friends, would, at the end of the night, remain standing and possess his prize—for a price. Lizzie laughed and drank as the game took place around her. Occasionally she looked up and outside the ever-decreasing circle to see the feigned merriness of the other girls at the music hall. They also moved in the synchronised game, their vacant smiles like masks around the darkened room.
As the night drew on, Lizzie could see that the game was coming to an end. Two men continued to flirt with her, joking and talking of their important jobs. It baffled Lizzie. They paid for her services, so why they bothered to try to impress was beyond her. One of the men was sweating profusely, and for that reason a
lone, Lizzie hoped the other would prevail; he too was drunk but looked a little cleaner.
Anne’s group of admirers had diminished at a similar rate, and so four men stood with the two of them in the final barter for their company. The sweaty man, who claimed to be a manager, had rivers of alcoholic perspiration oozing from his temples. His body seemed to have inhaled the very nature of The Alhambra and was jetting it out in hot streams. He couldn’t stand for much longer, let alone flirt, and so he made his final play. “Can I get you another drink, Lizzie?”
“Thank you. A glass of wine would be lovely.”
“Only the best in the house for you, darling.”
As he turned unsafely towards the bar, his companion took his chance. “Lizzie, while Chris gets the drinks, shall we move a little closer to the stage so you can enjoy the dancing?”
The triumphant move unfolded before Lizzie, and she allowed herself to be guided by the waist to a dark corner behind the wing of the stage. As she walked, she looked for Dina and Charlie. Charlie was no longer at the table, and Dina had moved, but Lizzie glimpsed her dress by the bar.
Her companion, who called himself Peter, quickened his pace, puffing slightly. Between the alcohol and the excited anticipation, he would be a quick customer. He was just about to pull her behind a tacky curtain when another man entered their already confined space.
“Lizzie!”
At first, Lizzie thought Chris had not understood his loss. As she looked up to laugh it off, her heart leapt irregularly as she saw Ted.
“Um, hello, Ted.” Lizzie stumbled over her words and looked dumbly from Ted to Peter and back again. She regained herself as Peter’s hold on her waist tightened. “Ted, I’m a bit busy at the moment. I’ll see you later?”
“But I was really hoping to see you tonight. I’ve been thinking about you.”
Ted romancing his prize pushed Peter to anger. “Look, Ted. Lizzie’s busy, and I suggest you mind your own business and leave us to ours.” Peter pushed Ted out of the intimate cubbyhole in the wings.
Lizzie feared that a fight might ensue and looked around for Johnny.
Ted held his composure, however, and ignored Peter. “Lizzie, are you sure that’s what you want?”
Lizzie stared hopelessly at him. What did he expect her to do? She nodded and turned towards Peter lest she lose her composure.
“Yes, soldier, she’s with me tonight. You probably only wear that uniform to impress the girls anyway.”
Lizzie held Peter’s lapel to try to immerse him back into his drunken victory. She leaned towards him, blurring her face to hide her revolt, and was suddenly swept away as Ted moved her aside and punched Peter squarely in the face.
“My friends died so that dolts like you can walk the streets in peace. They were all twice the man you are.” Ted’s rage spat in Peter’s face. “I wear the uniform because I’m a soldier, not a wastrel.”
Red mingled with the sweat streaming down Peter’s chin, and he fumbled with his tie as a makeshift plug for his bleeding nose. Lizzie recovered sufficiently to realise a scene was being created that wasn’t on the stage and saw Johnny approaching from the entrance.
“Go.”
Ted stared at Peter for another few moments before deciding that he had made his point and turning to leave.
With the imminent danger over, Peter recovered and spluttered, “Take your cheap whore. You deserve each other.”
Ted turned, fists clenched, but Lizzie held his arm and guided him towards a determined-looking Johnny.
“Lizzie, what are you doing?” Johnny’s voice rose in frustration.
“Sorry, Johnny. I’ll get him out of here.”
“You’d better, or I’m going to have to throw you out.”
Ted’s bravado had dispersed and he followed Lizzie to the door.
“Wait for me here,” she told him.
“Where are you going?” Ted seemed hurt as Lizzie turned to return to the swaying mass of the hall.
“I need to get Charlie and Dina. We’re all leaving together tonight.”
With that, Lizzie made her path through the crowd in search of her friends. She found Charlie in a dark corner by the bar and signalled for her to bring her work to a close. Dina was nowhere to be found. As she returned to the door, she tried to remember who Dina had been with when she had caught a glimpse of her dress. Johnny and Ted stood together in companionable silence; both looked up, mirroring Lizzie’s anxiety.
“Johnny, have you seen Dina?”
“Yes. She left about an hour ago with a smart-looking man. Said not to worry about waiting for her.”
Lizzie relaxed a little. “Are you sure? We’d said we’d go home together.”
“Sure as can be, Lizzie. She asked me to let you know.”
Dina knew her trade well and must have met a regular.
Charlie joined them and raised an indiscreet eyebrow at Lizzie as she took in a now relaxed Ted. “Right, I’ve earned my crust, are we going home? And stranger, are you coming with us?”
Lizzie was glad for the shadowy musk of the hall as she introduced Charlie to Ted, feeling like an embarrassed young sweetheart.
Ted turned to both women. “Right, are you ready to go?”
Charlie looked to Lizzie, who nodded for them both.
Ted held out both arms as he spoke. “Come on then—I’ll walk you home.”
9
The warm body next to Lizzie shifted and a hand came to rest on her midriff. The hand was covered in small scars and sun-faded hair. The house was quiet but sunlight glimmered through gaps between the curtains. It was going to be a sunny day. Lizzie tried to measure the haze of light drifting into the room, but the weight of the sleeping body prevented her from lifting her head towards the window. A male smell mingled with Lizzie’s cheap perfume in the warm room.
Lizzie tried to shift again but remained enclosed by Ted’s body. She preferred when customers didn’t stay the night, and many had no choice but to return home to wives or respectable households to sleep. Mrs Henry also charged extra for lodgings, as she termed it, as if she was providing a homely hostelry. It was one of the few times Lizzie was grateful for Mrs Henry’s pretension, since it meant that she had her room to herself and she got some sleep.
Ted’s ribs pushed against Lizzie’s back as he breathed deeply. Her space between his chest and hand seemed to be constricting. She considered waking him, but that would break one of Mrs Henry’s golden rules, and Charlie had already transgressed this week. Lizzie was sure Ted would not be speaking to Mrs Henry about Lizzie’s services, but still, he was a customer, and she was trying her very best to remember that.
“Good morning, beautiful.”
Lizzie blushed from her collarbone, feeling her neck and face redden. She turned slightly so she could meet Ted’s greeting with a smile. She felt her hipbone against his strong stomach and tried to ignore it. When she had turned far enough to see his face, Ted’s eyes were closed and his brow at ease. Sun had etched itself onto his face, and his skin was marked and crumpled by life and by sleep. Lizzie tried to imagine the sights he had borne witness to as a soldier. Had he killed?
“Do I pass inspection?” Ted’s eyes remained closed, and Lizzie’s blush returned.
“I should think so.”
Ted opened one eye and smiled. “Only think? What do you find lacking, madam?”
Lizzie let a moment pass, wavering between flirtation and her well-developed ability to maintain shallow small talk with any client. “Nothing lacking. I just find it a little early to judge after such a brief inspection.”
Ted suddenly moved to lean over her, his warm breath brushing the tip of her nose. “Would you like to take a closer look?”
Lizzie exhaled carefully, lest her breathing belied her receding control over her emotions. “Well, the brow is sun-kissed.” She drew her index finger over Ted’s features as she spoke. “The eyes seem to have lived a thousand years and hold the wisdom of the ages. The nose has been broken
, at least once, but still sits proud. The cheeks are not lazy and like to smile; the chin is dignified, as befits a man in uniform. And the lips… The lips are kind.”
Ted kissed Lizzie softly. “Thank you, madam. I’m glad that I pass muster.”
Before Lizzie had an opportunity to lose herself in the romance, she heard a crash downstairs. Ted moved back slightly, allowing Lizzie’s room to appear in her vision, framing his face.
He leaned back on the bed. “Time to get moving?”
“Yes, it will be soon. Mrs Henry likes to tidy the house in the mornings.”
“Mrs Henry, eh? I’m sure I could bribe her to keep you off your chores today.”
Lizzie tried to keep the insult out of her eyes and laugh despite herself.
Ted looked away briefly before raising his head to catch Lizzie’s sad glance. “Right then, I should let you get on with things. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of Mrs Henry.”
While Ted dressed himself, Lizzie got up and pulled on a dressing gown. She felt like a marionette, moving according to somebody else’s choreographed plan. She tidied some paints and opened the curtains. The sun was high and warm, but with the unpleasant closeness that had been lingering for days.
When she turned, Ted was looking at her. His uniform was on and a little crumpled; he looked like a man who had slept at a brothel. “You are lovely, Lizzie.”
Lizzie turned away to keep her sadness to herself. “Thank you.”
“Right, I’ll see myself out.” Ted smiled boyishly and opened the door.
Lizzie allowed him a few seconds before following him.
***
Mrs Henry, in her many years as matriarch, had developed the ability to appear in the hallway at the exact moment a customer was leaving. Whether this was due to her forensic knowledge of the creak of each floorboard or active surveillance, the girls were not sure, but whatever her methods, Mrs Henry never missed giving a fond farewell to each client, particularly new and rich ones.
