by Louis Bayard
—Buy us a gin, mate…. We’ll go quiet….
We fly down Duke Street at twice our natural speed. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the image of that blade, bevelled and honed to a fare-thee-well, is all the spur we need. The buildings pull back, the pavement broadens, and it doesn’t even feel like London any more; we seem to be running once again into the old dream. But then up in the distance, I see King William astride his bronze horse, frozen in the act of tripping over a molehill. And I know then where we are: St. James’s Square.
The very opposite of a crowd. Here are private town houses with pedimented windows and decorative pilasters, all set back behind wrought-iron battlements. Earls and dukes and marquesses live here. The Army and Navy Club, the Bishop of Winchester’s home. A great big advertisement for gentility.
And we’re on the wrong side of it.
Chased by a Scotland Yard inspector, a peer of the realm…it’s easy to see where St. James would align its sympathies. And, indeed, as we tear across the square, it feels like enemy terrain: every house, every passing carriage seems to bear down on us. Even William III spins his bronze head round to track us with his falcon eye.
It’s all too much. I grab Philomela’s hand, and we swerve into Charles II Street, and when I look back I can see Bowler’s compact figure perhaps fifty yards off, moving as inexorably as a cannonball, and just as I prepare to accelerate, a new hurdle rises in our path: a large frame hung with green baize, capped by a tiny proscenium bearing a letter cloth—“Punch’s Opera,” and standing to one side, a man in a many-caped blue coat and a limp old beaver hat, already shaking his head.
—Very sorry, sir, done for the day. Must be home to the missus.
—No, it’s not…we’re…
Words fail, don’t they? They flail.
I lift the baize curtain of the puppet box and motion Philomela inside, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The puppetmaster’s hand slams down on my shoulder.
—Here! Do I look like a bloody hotel?
—There’s twenty shillings in it for you.
—Don’t matter if it’s twenty quid, I don’t let no one play with my happyratus.
What would Colin do?
And simply asking myself that question produces the metamorphosis. I whip off my hat, give the man a wink, and in my best Cockney approximation, whisper:
—The peelers is after us!
—Jesus, whyn’t you say so?
He shoves me inside, pulls the curtain closed.
—Mind you stand on the footboard, he says.—And keep the feet long-ways, now. You’ll be seen otherwise.
There’s not enough room for the both of us, so I must clasp Philomela round the waist and lift her off the ground. It’s a hard thing to do when you’re gasping for air. Between us, our chests swell so violently I think the entire booth must be billowing.
We hear the footsteps first, decelerating slowly, and then a soft, interrogatory grunt.
And then the puppetmaster’s voice, saying:
—Very sorry, sir, done for the day.
Bowler sounds barely winded when he speaks. The working-class vowels have reasserted themselves, and the tone is intimate and confiding: he’s undergone his own metamorphosis.
—Yeah, mate, sorry to interrupt. I’m looking for this young bloke, twenty-two, maybe. With a young gal. They was headed this way.
—Hain’t seen no one like that, Officer.
A pause; a soft chuckle.
—Oh, no, mate, it ain’t like that. See, they peached something from a friend of mine, I’m just trying to get it back for him.
—Have it your way, Officer.
Another pause. And the voice, when it comes back, is a little harder.
—A gentleman and a young girl. You must’ve seen them.
—We hain’t seen nobody ’ceptin’ yourself, has we, Punch?
Followed by a high, screeching call:
—Nooy-ey, nooy-ey!
I’d cede a fair amount of my life’s income to see the deputy inspector’s face right now, but his voice never wavers.
—Listen, mate, there’s a reward in it for you.
And there it is. The one word I most feared. Reward.
My hands tense round Philomela’s waist; my stomach screws itself into a ball. Any second now, those curtains will be torn open, and that will be all, won’t it? Every escape route closed off. Destiny bearing down….
And then I hear the puppetmaster say:
—A reward, is it? Well, in that case, ladies and gents, they went that way.
I can’t see, but from the tone of his voice, I’m almost positive he is pointing in opposite directions.
We wait there in the darkness, our breath stopped, our ears primed for the sound of travelling feet.
And before long, that sound does come, or at least something close to it. And after it the puppetmaster’s voice, murmuring in the night:
—He’s gone, but give it a minute.
In fact, it is two or three minutes before the curtain opens once again to reveal our benefactor, extending his hand to Philomela. He helps her back onto the sidewalk, then turns to me.
—Your accent needs work, mate.
I grope through my pockets, I say:
—Let me…let me….
He puts out a hand to stop me.
—Just tell me. Did you really pinch anythink?
—No.
—He really a peeler?
—I don’t know.
He nods.
—Well, you take good care of yourself, young miss. And a merry Christmas to you both.
Ten minutes later, we are making our way up Regent Street, relieved to feel the familiar press of bodies, London’s black-suited throngs squeezing us back into anonymity. But for all that, we are not so anonymous as to escape a tap on our shoulders just shy of Piccadilly.
—Mr. Timothy!
Philomela’s cloak hangs rather loosely on Colin now, but her scarf is still wrapped round his neck, and there is about him a barely concealed air of triumph.
—I give ’em a good chase, Mr. Timothy. The coach was a-followin’ me a good three blocks, I thought I had ’em, and then the damn cloak catches on a hitching post—ripped a bit, sorry, Filly—and Bowler Boy there, why, he jumps right out, don’t he? Hoofs it the other way, so I run back, but I can’t find no trace of you, not till now, anyways, so you gave him the shake, did you, there’s a treat, and you didn’t let him fillet you, there’s a good fellow.
—We’re fine, yes. Now if you’ll help me escort Philomela back to Mrs. Sharpe’s…
Colin frowns, falls back a step.
—Oh, I wouldn’t be in too big a hurry on that score, Mr. Timothy.
—Why not?
—Well, he were just knockin’ on Mrs. Sharpe’s door, weren’t he?
—Who?
—Bowler Boy, who else? Prob’ly been makin’ the rounds of the whole bloody neighbourhood. “You seen so an’ so?” “You seen so an’ so?” It were only a matter of time ’fore he got to yours.
Of course: one would expect no less from a dedicated emissary of Scotland Yard. And one could depend on no end of cooperation from the local citizenry.
—Colin, tell me. Who was it answered the door?
—Well, it were hard to see, Mr. Timothy, bein’ at pains to stay out of eyeshot and all.
—Man or woman?
—Man. That much I can say. Bit bald, maybe. Oh, and had his sleeves rolled up, real casual like.
George.
I see him now as I last saw him, on Mrs. Sharpe’s front stoop, with his middle-class ease, his submerged glee…and lying just behind, a bland hostility, ponderously deep. Who more likely to assist the police in their inquiries?
Colin claps me on the arm.
—Don’t trouble yourself, Mr. Timothy. Who’s to say they’ll even recognise you from the description?
—All the same, I think this young lady here will be wanting a new place to stay.
>
With his index finger, Colin gives my sleeve a caressing stroke.
—And a certain young hero will be wantin’ a raise in his salary. Retroactive, like.
Chapter 11
A FLEET OF COAL BARGES is moored at its base, but these days, Craven Street, the Strand, belongs to the law. The limestone fronts wear their attorneys’ shingles like so many lesions. Houses that once harboured wood-carvers and poets and doctors are now devoted to the promulgation of paper, more paper, and more paper still—a constipation relieved only by the periodic effluence of barristers carrying their hard-earned paper in bursting octavos as they hustle over to Lincoln’s Inn in search of new trade.
At night, though, the buzzing paper factories fall silent, and the buildings empty out into tall and imposing shells, and it becomes all the stranger to find, halfway up the block, this two-storey hunchback, gasping for air, stunted and squeezed by the terraced fronts and, for all that, curiously hardy—a gnarled cypress that finds its own way to the light and promises to outlast all its companions.
Perhaps this abiding quality is what infuses Colin’s voice with such respect when he first beholds the place.
—A right shitheap, ain’t it?
Hard to quibble there. The knocker swings off its screw, the windows sag in their frames, the walls go concave or convex according to whim—we might as well be back in Drury Lane. And when we open the front door, five shrieking cats burst upon us, slip through our legs, and scatter into the street like minions of Chaos. I smile a little to think that tomorrow, these creatures will be invading some attorney’s office, knocking over inkwells, befouling foolscap. Still, I can’t be too happy about the prospect, for these same cats are the bane of Captain Gully’s existence.
The house, you see, is owned by a corpulent spinster who has dedicated her life to felines and whose daily mission it is to add one new member to her collection. As a consequence, cats do not overrun this place so much as they bleed from every pore of it. Squeezing through the railings, swarming along the gutters, leaping from door lintels, copulating on the landings and in the stairwells—there’s not a floor, wall, or ceiling they haven’t colonised in some way. Such is their artfulness they can even penetrate the closely guarded fortress of Gully’s upstairs flat.
—Don’t understand it, Tim, he once lamented to me.—Gully keeps the door closed, stops up the holes in the floorboards, jams the windows shut…they gets in all the same! It’s diabolic. And don’t you think they knows how Gully gets to sneezin’ round them? Sneezin’ his brain halfway out his head? Why, they makes sure to pass under his nose every time, and as soon as he’s done with one fit, they makes one more pass and starts another. Instruments of Lucifer, Tim, sure as I breathe.
It is said that every man needs a vocation, and this, I fear, is Gully’s: defending his person from the daily—hourly—onslaught of cats. I have seen him sprinkle gunpowder under the door, pour pools of tar along the windowsill. I have seen him hang dummy kitties from the ceiling. Nothing works. The cats keep coming, and Gully takes up his vocation with an urgency that verges at times on the monomaniacal.
Tonight, for instance, he answers our knock by throwing open his door and roaring into the hallway, all five feet of him. Arms swinging, eyes bulging, he looks ready to seize us by our tails and hurl us to Lambeth Palace.
—It’s Tim, Captain. I’ve brought a couple of friends.
He passes his hand across his eyes.
—Tim. ’Course, it’s Tim. Well, come in, then. Quick, before they notices.
Ushering us inside, he makes one last reconnaissance of the hallway, then slams the door after him. And for another full minute, he is still and silent, his ears pricked for the slightest whisper of paw on wood.
—Aye, they’re gone.
Mindful now of his hostly duties, he claps his hands together and beams all around.
—Well, ain’t we pleased as punch, havin’ company in this blessed holiday season? Sorry, place is a bit of a stable, as you can see, and we don’t have much for the young ’uns, but we can spot you some Madeira, Tim, if you’re agreeable.
Freed for the moment of his vocation, he hums a scrap of carol to himself as he wraps his box wrench around a well-handled cork and pops it free. I hear Colin murmur:
—Most buggered excuse for a hook I never saw.
At once, the humming grows louder and more confident, erupting now and then into fits of language: Herald…glory…born king. Gully’s head rocks back and forth, his foot keeps the beat, the box wrench follows in time.
Mercy…sinners…recon—…joyful.
And then, in a burst of combustion, a blur of calico streaks past him, so blinding in its speed it spins Gully round like a top.
—Aaaahh!
He raises a fist to the sky.
—D’you see? D’you see? Where’d he fuckin’ come from, eh? Bloody fan-tooms is what they…what they…
The rest is lost in a titanic sneeze, a sound so ferocious it sets the whole house to rattling, and it seems to rattle Gully, too, for he forgets that one of the glasses is mine and promptly drains it, then the other. Collapses into his chair and closes his eyes, as though there were no one else present.
—Fiends, he mutters.—Devil’s issue.
—Philomela, come meet Captain Gully.
Small wonder she is apprehensive. Has to be dragged part of the way. Doesn’t quite know whether she should curtsy or kneel. Compromises by lowering herself onto her haunches and giving her host a curt half-nod.
—Captain, I say.—I would appreciate very much if you would put this girl up for the next few days.
His face opens into a mask of remonstrance.
—Days, Tim? Days?
—Not so very long, I promise you.
—But we—you see, we’re a bit cramped as we are, Tim.
—I understand, Captain, and I should have been glad to keep her with me, but I’m afraid there were some men lying in wait for us near Jermyn Street.
—Men?
—Rather sinister men, Captain. Who may well know by now exactly where I live.
His brows converge. He leans into my ear, speaks in a stage whisper.
—She some kind o’ criminal, Tim?
—No, Captain. Just an orphan.
—Not one o’ them Belgian girls, is she?
—Italian, actually. Which does make conversing with her a trifle sticky, but I’m expecting to bring in a translator tomorrow.
—An’ she won’t steal nothin’, will she?
—If anything, she’ll offer you all her copper nails.
He nods, then raises himself to his full height and fixes Philomela with an interrogatory stare.
—See here, young miss. Has you ever been to Majorca?
Whether it is the name itself or his tone of voice that flummoxes her, I cannot say, but she takes some time before shaking her head. And Gully, far from accepting this denial, appears to find in it some positive assertion of the highest order. For he winks at her and nods very slowly and says:
—Ahh. Ahh.
And then he is thrown back in his chair as a screeching blur of orange flies up his front and vanishes over the top of his head.
—We’ll skin you from head to tail! Just try us if you don’t believe it!
The girl is up on her feet now, not in alarm, as I first think, but only to survey her surroundings. The Dutch clock and the tiny coal scuttle and the teetering column of atlases. (The captain these days travels mostly by armchair.) And there, over the door, a bedraggled rope of privet—Gully’s best approximation of mistletoe. I believe she is even smiling a little by the time she sees that.
I touch her on the shoulder.
—Do you think you would mind staying here for a few nights? Until we can find you something more permanent?
She makes a second perusal of the privet, considers a while longer, then says:
—I was having the cat once.
To which Captain Gully mutters:
—Cats, my eye. Spawns of Beelzebub, that’s what.
—And perhaps tomorrow we can talk about those men, I say.—The ones who were chasing you.
How familiar it is already, this closing down of her face, like a bank on holiday. Come Again Tuesday. But rather than sending me on my way, it makes me want to rap on the glass.
—You must tell us who they were, Philomela.
Nothing.
—Were they with the police? What did they want from you?
More silence. Deeper silence. And behind me, Gully’s voice, softened.
—Leave the bitty thing alone, Tim. She’s done in, we’re sure of it. My dear…
He cups a hand to his mouth, until his already penetrating voice is cannonading off the walls.
—Would you care for a bit of washy-washy?
At a loss, she whirls back to me.
—He means a bath, Philomela.
To this she consents. Within a minute, Gully has set the water to heating, and he and Colin have dragged up a washtub and placed it behind the fireplace screen (only briefly arrested in their labour by a tortoiseshell thunderbolt). Looking dazed and fatalistic, Philomela disappears behind the screen. We hear a brief dappling sound and then a wholehearted plunge, followed by the smallest of exhalations. And then nothing for a good ten minutes but hands ladling water, and then only silence. And when our calls go unanswered, Gully, peeking round the screen, finds the girl asleep in her bath, head lolling against her arm, hair spilling over her shoulder.
Between the two of us, the captain and I manage to lift her from the bath, dry her off, and wrap a couple of blankets around her, and then, with Colin’s help, we lay her on Gully’s turnup bedstead. She makes barely a stir, opens her eyes only to close them again. And as soon as she is prone, she rolls over on her side, draws her knees up to her chest, and drops back into sleep.
Colin gives a whistle.
—She were a bit knackered, weren’t she?
—’Course she was, wee poppet. Now, Tim, don’t you go a-frettin’ on Gully’s account. The chair’s bed enough for us. Many’s the night we’ve slept in it, anyways. Reminds us of some of our old berths, it does.
