The Trapeze Act

by Libby Angel

  Outside on the pavement, Leda thanked Gilbert for his generosity, then turned heel and, as if she had somewhere to go, made off down the street.

  She walked along the abandoned footpaths, turning instinctively towards the lit signs of H Street. Past a cinema, a department store and a pub, where the management were expelling the last of its patrons for the night, she found the Hotel Hotel. She booked a room, went to bed and didn’t wake up until two o’clock the next afternoon.

  She determined to find paid employment as soon as possible, and started by asking the concierge at the front desk, on her way out the door, if he knew of any opportunities.

  The concierge didn’t wish to presume what kind of work she might be looking for, a girl on her own, but she could try the Crazy Horse, a gentlemen’s club further down the street, if she was that way inclined. If she needed further incentive, girls who worked at the club qualified for a ten per cent discount at the Hotel Hotel.

  Well, she wasn’t going to waste any more time being an artiste in such a place.

  It was hard to miss it: the neon-pink roof sign visible from blocks away, the main entryway surrounded by light-boxed photographs of women in bikinis. She had noticed the establishment weeks ago, in the usual way, walking through town scouting potential venues to perform her trapeze act, trying to persuade Mandos that it was a better use of her time than performing the Saturday evening show for an audience of ten.

  Finding the street door open, she climbed the stairs and knocked on a second door. A man let her in and then, without speaking, resumed his place at one of the tables, where a cigarette butt in a glass ashtray let off a thin line of toxic-smelling smoke. He finished writing something in an exercise book, rolled up his plaid flannel shirtsleeves to reveal part of a blurred tattoo, and sighed.

  There was nowhere to rig a trapeze, Leda noted at once. The lighting scaffolds were too flimsy, the ceilings covered in mirrors. But there were three poles on low platforms, and she had spent an entire summer training with a Chinese pole troupe.

  The man, the manager, crossed his arms, looked up at Leda and scoffed. This is a strip joint, girlie. How old are you? Do you even know how to take your clothes off?

  She undressed without ceremony, folding her clothes into a neat pile on a chair. Scaling the nearest pole until her head was among the lights, she turned upside-down and, with the pole between her legs, ankles crossed, arms held out, she dropped until her nose was barely an inch from the ground.

  With her legs still gripping the pole she looked up at the manager and asked, G-string or no G-string, what’s the law here?

  I’ll pay you ten dollars an hour, the manager replied, plus tips.

  Fifteen, said Leda. Fifteen or I walk. And I’ll need some new underwear.

  In Amsterdam you had to have an angle, a fetish, an edge, to work in the sex industry. Live sex shows were baseline. By comparison, the Crazy Horse was quaint. All Leda had to do was mince around the floor and throw a few tricks on the pole every hour. The wage was mediocre but the tips could be generous. She only had to learn how to brush past the tables close enough for the men to tuck money into her knickers, fast enough so their fingers couldn’t linger there. The manager assured her that an obliging security team took great pleasure in expelling from the club any client who failed to abide by the golden rule, ‘Look, don’t touch’.

  It wasn’t long before she became one of the highest-earning girls on the books.

  There were two kinds of sex workers, Leda maintained, junkies and capitalists, and she was not of the first.

  You could say that, unlike my father, my mother had no problem revealing herself.

  8

  WHILE ERNEST waited for a reply from the colonial branch of the society he prepared the Ivory Lord for sale. The business would not fetch a huge price, but if he could persuade a potential buyer that a new source of ivory could almost certainly be found…

  At last a letter came. The men from the society would be honoured if, upon his arrival in the colony, Ernest would pay them a visitation. If Ernest could fund the passage, the branch would organise and subsidise suitable lodgings for him and his wife, who, they naturally assumed, would be joining him. They could put him to work as soon as he was ready; plans were already underway for a museum in the town.

  As for his hypothesis concerning heretofore-undiscovered species of Old World mammalia in the interior, well, owing to the publication of Waterhouse’s landmark thesis on the subject (he was undoubtedly familiar with it), the idea was no longer a popular one; though nobody could say it was outright impossible. As Ernest himself suggested, there was certainly evidence to suggest the existence of a vast inland sea that might sustain countless varieties of plant and animal life, all of which would need to be documented in due course. If Ernest had the mettle, there was sure to be opportunity for an excursion of some kind. In any case, the committee looked forward to meeting him and discussing his proposal in more detail.

  After several fraught months, Ernest found a buyer for the Ivory Lord. While the house was on the market, he and Henrietta sorted and packed the furniture, crockery and linen, deciding what to take and what to give to relatives and friends. The piano, Ernest insisted, would come with them, whatever the cost. In that case, Henrietta decided, she could not possibly fit in the hold her collection of corsets and hoop dresses. She was not convinced that women who lived among snakes and spiders need endure the same sartorial flagellations as women did in London. A snake might hide unnoticed under a dress, a spider spin a web among petticoats.

  Relieved at the news they were to have their contracts renewed, five of Ernest’s erstwhile employees, Misters Hopkins, Barnes, Jenkins, Foley and Hope, insisted on taking Ernest out to celebrate. Ernest could not very well refuse—in all his years as their employer, he had not once accepted the pleasure.

  From the warehouse, the group of men made their way towards the East End. The streets were muddy and cramped with horses and carts; sack-trolleys rumbled and swerved over the cobblestones with drivers yelling, Mind yer backs! Up ahead on Bethnal Green Road, chimney smoke hovered with low-lying cloud over the streetscape.

  They passed Brick Lane, crossed the road and arrived at the Knave of Clubs, a three-storey hotel with handsome corner frontage.

  My shout, Ernest announced, full of goodwill, as they entered the saloon bar. The men claimed a booth and settled in.

  Ernest ferried pint glasses overflowing with pale ale from the bar to the table, then sat down, stuffing his top hat between his legs and loosening his cravat.

  The men vacuumed the heads off their beers, dipping their moustaches in. They made their usual inquiries after one another’s wives and children, then turned to speculating on the existence of various types of plant life in the colonies and the peculiarity of the wildlife.

  Ernest listened, but only remotely, absorbed as he was in his surroundings: by the elaborate floor-to-ceiling gilt-framed engraved mirrors on the walls depicting, respectively, the Jack, King and Queen of clubs. On the staircase, he observed, men passed each other with meaningful looks, but what kind of meaning he could not tell. Why had his employees brought him to this particular pub, he wondered, when they had passed at least fifteen others on the way? It seemed impolite to ask.

  The wombat, for instance, one of the men said. What a sorry excuse for a bear.

  Ernest nodded and smiled, nodded and smiled.

  Now an ear-piercing screech cut through the din. Ernest looked to the men seeking some kind of explanation, but they merely continued on with their conversations. He wondered if it was a woman’s voice he’d heard, when there it was again, the same, high-pitched screech, then another, this time more of a squawk. Ernest pressed his palms flat on the table, as if it might suddenly lose its mooring.

  Sensing his unease, Mr Hopkins smiled at him in a not-altogether-reassuring way, while Mr Foley retrieved Ernest’s hat from where it had fallen onto the floor and handed it to him.

  It’s time, they
said, rising to their feet, bidding him to do likewise.

  They ushered him towards the very source of the screeching and squawking, into the murky front bar where an acrid smell prompted him to raise his handkerchief to his nose.

  When he had recovered sufficiently to open his eyes he saw a row of birdcages on the bar, each occupied by an exotic bird. Here were flaming tail feathers, jewel-coloured crown feathers, iridescent beaks, the likes of which Ernest had only ever seen between the covers of books.

  He edged his way through the line of men who stood sentinel in front of their charges.

  On closer inspection, the effect was somewhat shabby—the birds cramped in their cages, thin and wasted-looking, wings clipped. Some pecked at the wire bars, others appeared to have ripped their own feathers out.

  Mr Barnes explained how on the first Thursday of every month, bird fanciers from all over the world gathered here for the most spectacular bird show in London. And today, his friends, who had been coming regularly for some years, would be honoured if Ernest would join them, just this once, in taking a bet on a bird.

  Was it possible, Ernest wondered, as he continued inspecting the birds, that some of the African species had been smuggled in on the same ships that he himself had commissioned? Observing the crowd more closely, he recognised a couple of stevedores from the docks, but he could not catch their eyes.

  He came to the last bird in the row, which he identified as a kingfisher of the Dacelo variety from New Australia, a stout creature with an unusually large head. Compared to the other birds, most of which were from Africa and the South Americas, the kingfisher was a rather peculiar-looking and dun-coloured specimen, brown and grey save for a few green flecks on its wings. The men behind him laughed at it. Yet it stood proud, its beak strong and straight, its yellow eye meeting Ernest’s with unsettling boldness.

  Ernest experienced a surge of homesickness for a land he had not even seen, felt suddenly out of place amongst the sharp-elbowed, hard-faced Eastenders who were his countrymen. He became certain that once he left England he would never return.

  The bird fancier started his spiel. This is the Laughing Jackass from New Australia.

  Ernest could not resist: It’s actually a kingfisher.

  Regardless, the man went on, I guarantee that unlike many of its competitors, this bird will sing. It’s no nightingale and it doesn’t have a pretty plumage, but he never lets me down. He’s ever so loud and reliable.

  Quite, Ernest replied.

  And should you be interested, sir, the man whispered with his beery breath, I would be happy to discuss a more permanent arrangement, once the competition is over.

  He nodded at a sign on the wall, which read: ‘The selling of wild birds is strictly prohibited in this bar.’

  Of course, we’d have to settle it somewhere else, he added.

  Ernest winced.

  He’s a good earner, the man pressed on, measuring the alarm on Ernest’s face. I’d be very sorry to let him go.

  It was a seedy spectacle but, nonetheless, Ernest felt compelled to line up in front of the bookie. He did not wish to offend his employees, after all.

  A barmaid stood in the middle of the floor tapping a glass with a spoon. The crowd gathered around. From the time his name was called out, each fancier had five minutes, she explained. Each bird was to be taken out of its cage and tethered to the perch. She gestured to a large perch beside her. The judges would allot a mark out of ten for plumage and another mark out of ten for birdsong. Now she saluted a row of three men standing on wooden crates. (None of them, as far as Ernest knew, was a qualified ornithologist.)

  When their time came, many of the birds sat on the perch stunned and mute; some lifted their tail feathers and let forth a string of droppings onto the floor. Thinking it a great joke, one man had entered a crow into the contest. The bird screeched and flapped trying to free its leg then tipped the whole perch over and dragged it through the jeering crowd, halfway across the floor. One of the judges eventually freed it and cast it out the door, whereupon it tore off down the centre of Bethnal Green Road, screaming like the damned.

  After a dismal line-up of balding and depressed-looking exotics, the kingfisher’s moment finally arrived.

  The bird fancier opened the cage and out it stepped, royally, onto the perch.

  For the first minute the bird stood regarding the room in silence. Then just as the crowd began to lose interest and started chatting and ordering drinks, it raised its head, lengthened its throat, and let out a sound so staggering that Ernest would not have believed it had he not heard it himself: OO-OO-OO-OO-AH-AH-AH-AH-AH. More like a primate than a bird.

  The men roared and stomped their feet, and Ernest joined them, proud as a father.

  At the end of its allotted time, the bird resumed its composure and waited patiently to be reinstated in its cage.

  The kingfisher was awarded third place in the competition. The winner and runner-up titles went to a toucan and another foppish sort of bird from the rainforests of South America.

  Outside on the footpath, Ernest thanked his party for an enthralling evening. The men shook hands, bid farewells and went their separate ways. Ernest too, turned as if to make his way home, but as soon as his employees were out of sight he returned to the pub and made arrangements to buy the kingfisher.

  9

  THE NEXT time Gilbert saw Leda she was on the seven-o’clock news. The footage showed two men carrying a body on a stretcher out of a room at the Hotel Hotel. In the background, two barefooted girls in nightgowns stood linking elbows, their hands over their mouths. It looked to Gilbert like they were giggling, and from what little he’d learnt about Leda, if that was even her real name, that would not have been out of character.

  He stood closer to the television. Yes, it was definitely her, but with dark hair piled into a dishevelled sort of beehive. Was it a wig? A hand fluttered in front of the camera before the girls disappeared from frame. ABC’s man on the scene, Bruce Fraser, reported that a suspicious death by shooting had occurred. The police were interviewing hotel guests as he spoke.

  In the brief hours he’d known her, Leda had given Gilbert the impression that she was more than capable of taking care of herself. She claimed to have a black belt in Wing Chun, and, looking at the muscles in her arms, Gilbert thought it entirely possible. But did she have the skills, he wondered now, to cope with the particular perversities of this town? Perhaps he should attempt to contact her, and offer her—what, exactly? He was not a rescuer. He had never chased a woman, and yet…

  Of more interest—professional interest, Gilbert reminded himself—was the murder itself. It was not the first time a major crime had occurred at the Hotel Hotel. The management, some of whom had at one time or another been Gilbert’s clients, had their fingers in all the usual sorts of pies: strip clubs, brothels, illegal gaming. They owned most of the real estate in the west end of town. Their names appeared frequently on the court lists.

  Gilbert felt sure that Gary Gore would have a theory about the incident at the Hotel Hotel. As long-standing president of the pistol club, Mr Gore was well placed to give advice on matters of gun violence. If a firearm were recovered from the town’s riverbed, for instance, Mr Gore would almost certainly know whether or not that firearm was registered and, if so, in whose name. Beyond guns and ammunition, Mr Gore’s expertise extended to the psychology of gun owners. Over the years he had noticed how certain people in the town favoured certain kinds of weapons and that, contrary to common sense, perpetrators of firearm offences might frequently be found honing their skills at the local pistol club or rifle range. It was par for the course when Gilbert asked Mr Gore to keep him updated about any rumblings he might hear at the club in relation to the incident at the Hotel Hotel.

  As it turned out, Leda was at the Crazy Horse at the time of the murder. She gave a statement to the police (she might have seen a suspicious-looking man when she returned to the hotel at around 4 a.m. but could not provid
e a detailed description of him as the bulb in the third-floor passageway had blown) and showed them her passport. They extended her visa for six months and requested that she stay in town, on the grounds she might be called to give evidence in court.

  The Rodzirkus tent had been packed down for more than a week, Leda noticed, but the circus vehicles had not yet moved; there was grass growing around the wheels. It made her uneasy to think she might unexpectedly encounter Mandos or one of the other troupe members in the street or at the supermarket. She would continue to disguise herself as best she could and avoid the parklands, using her temporary detention to work as many hours as possible and save up for an air ticket to New York, or some other vestige of civilisation.

  She had been mistaken to think she could settle in this nowhere outpost, a town she’d heard the locals refer to, in a tone nearing pride, as the murder capital of the world. The men were an abomination: sleazy, disrespectful, stingy to boot. All too often she’d thought a man at the club had snuck a ten- or twenty-dollar bill into her underwear only to later discover a single dollar. One dollar for an international performer, the likes of whose skills this town had never before seen! Even more offensive were those delusionals who offered nothing more than a hand-scrawled note: ‘Call me’ and a phone number.

  The wigs itched, the shoes were uncomfortable and the G-strings went up her clacker. The club was windowless and airless; a mingling of stale alcohol and hospital-grade cleaner clung to every surface and permeated her pores. She began to suffer from tinnitus. There was an art in being able to bear the place, to glaze her eyes over and retract her soul, to armour herself every night, to be hypnotised by the music that pounded through the walls and floor, by the mirrored tiles on the walls, ceiling, tables, pillars and disco balls, by the red velvet on the upholstery and in the entranceway. She was part of a montage of skin, nipple, flesh, darkness and light, soft and warm, cold and jagged.