A Mother's Wish

by Dilly Court

  Leah turned to her with a nod of approval. ‘He’s a fine boy. Took to me right away he did.’

  Effie controlled her erratic breathing with difficulty. She did not want to make a scene, and she realised that she was receiving curious looks from some of the women who were nursing babies or simply sitting on the steps of their wagons. With her panic subsiding and commonsense reasserting itself, Effie moved closer to Georgie. She did not know whether to snatch him up and make a run for it, or to brazen it out with this bold and slightly mannish female.

  Leah, however, seemed totally oblivious to the storm of unrest she had wrought in Effie’s bosom and she was casually stirring something in a black cast-iron pot suspended over the fire on a tripod constructed from forked branches. She looked up and grinned. ‘Fetch a couple of bowls from the van and we’ll eat now. Zilla will eat later.’

  ‘Zilla?’ Effie stared at Leah in surprise. She had assumed that this rather odd person lived alone, but it appeared that she had been wrong.

  ‘My pal Zilla, the bearded lady. You’ll meet her in a while. Now, are you going to join me for supper or not?’

  The thought of meeting a woman with a beard who went by the name of Zilla was so intriguing that Effie momentarily forgot her reservations and climbed the steps into the caravan, taking care not to tread on Georgie. Used as she was to living in the cramped conditions on a barge, the interior of the caravan seemed little different. It was, she thought, as she searched for the bowls, much better organised than the cabin on the Margaret and it was spotlessly clean. The paintwork was as colourful inside as it was on the exterior, and there did not seem to be a nook or a cranny that was not brightened either with plump cushions, polished brasses or china ornaments, some of which Effie recognised from the fairings stall. It was, to her surprise, a most welcoming home: comfortable, cosy and unashamedly feminine. She hurried out with the bowls that she had found on the shelf of a wooden dresser.

  The soup might not have been quite up to the standard of Betty’s rabbit stew, but it was flavoured with wild herbs and tasted very good: Effie consumed two bowlfuls with no difficulty, sharing the first with Georgie, after which he fell asleep on her lap replete and smiling, with remnants of toffee stuck to his face. Leah sat cross-legged on the ground smoking a pipe, but she tossed it aside and scrambled to her feet when a large woman squeezed her wide crinoline between two caravans, swaying towards them like a giant bell. As she came closer, Effie realised that this could be none other than Zilla, the bearded lady. Much to Effie’s astonishment, Leah greeted her friend with a smacking kiss on the lips, and, hooking an arm around Zilla’s ample shoulders, she proudly introduced her. ‘This here is my pal, Zilla. We’ve been together for more than twenty years, ain’t that so, my dear?’

  Zilla smiled and nodded, although the gesture was rather lost in the mass of grey beard that began at her hairline and tumbled in waves onto her large bosom. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, young woman.’

  Hampered by Georgie’s weight, Effie was unable to rise but she nodded her head. ‘Likewise, I’m sure.’

  ‘This is Effie,’ Leah said with an expansive wave of her hand. ‘And the fine young fellow asleep on his ma’s lap is Georgie. Don’t he remind you a bit of my Eddie?’

  Zilla’s green eyes filled with tears and she wiped her face on her beard. ‘Poor little mite. I knew him for such a short while, but he were an angel straight from heaven.’

  ‘And that’s where he is now,’ Leah said, raising her eyes to the darkening sky. ‘I like to think of my boy as a star, gazing down at me as I gazes up at him.’

  Zilla patted Leah’s gaunt cheek. ‘You are so poetical, my dear.’

  ‘And you must be starving, old girl.’ Leah cleared her throat with a loud harrumph and went to the fire to fill a bowl with soup. ‘Sit down and eat up. I’ve got to go back to me stall before young Myrtle gets the hump.’ She turned a stern face to Effie. ‘Now don’t you start talking nonsense about moving on at this time in the evening; your boy needs his sleep and you shall have the van. Zilla and me can share a bed beneath the stars as is our wont on a night like this. I shall look up at Eddie and Zilla will keep me company.’

  Leah disappeared into the dusky shadows and Zilla lowered herself down onto the ground with her skirts falling about her like a deflated hot-air balloon. She tucked her beard into the front of her dress while she supped soup straight from the bowl. When she had drained the last drop she licked her lips and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She held the bowl out to Effie. ‘I could do with some more, ducks. Would you? It takes me a while to get to me pins again once I’ve sat down and me corsets are killing me.’

  Balancing Georgie over her shoulder, Effie rose to her feet and did as Zilla asked. As she took her seat again she couldn’t resist voicing the question that had been on her lips ever since she first saw the bearded lady. ‘Is it real, ma’am? I mean, did it grow on your face?’

  Zilla’s emerald eyes twinkled as she peered at Effie over the rim of the bowl. ‘Let’s just say that it’s like everything in the fairground, duck – an illusion.’

  ‘So it’s not real then?’ Effie couldn’t hide her disappointment.

  ‘Oh, it’s real hair all right. This beard was cut off a Barbary pirate just afore he was hanged at Execution Dock, or so I’ve been led to believe.’

  ‘A pirate!’ Effie could hardly believe her ears. ‘A real live pirate?’

  Zilla pulled a face. ‘Well, he’s dead now of course, but I was reliably informed by the man what sold it to me that it was the beard of Kemal the Cruel. Between you and me, ducks, I’ve a feeling the whiskers was cut off his old grandpa afore he croaked, but it’s a good story and I’m sticking to it.’

  Effie sat in silence; her head was spinning with the strangeness of it all and she felt as though she had wandered into a weird dream world where nothing was as it seemed. The camp fires burned even more brightly as the shadows lengthened and deepened into dark canyons between the wagons. The shouts and laughter of the children gradually died away as they were sent off to bed and the murmured conversations of their mothers were drowned by the noise of the fairground. The musicians played their instruments even louder as they competed with the barkers shouting out the attractions of the various stalls and sideshows. The scent of woodsmoke and damp earth struggled to overcome the heavy chemical-laden atmosphere that hung in a cloud over Bow Common, and overlying it all was the faint sweet smell of hot toffee and herb-scented stew. A strange feeling of lassitude made Effie’s limbs heavy and she was finding it increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open.

  ‘Best get yourself off to bed, girl,’ Zilla said gently. ‘You look done in and the poor little mite is already in the land of Nod.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind giving up your bed for us?’ Effie asked anxiously. ‘Georgie and me have grown used to sleeping out on deck.’

  ‘On deck, you say?’

  Effie bit her lip. She had not intended to give so much away. Leah had asked no questions and Effie would have preferred to keep their history to herself in case Jacob had reported their absence to the police. She had a nasty feeling that he would stop at nothing in order to gain control of Owen’s son. Shifting Georgie to a more comfortable position on her shoulder, she rose to her feet. ‘It’s a long story, Zilla. Would you mind if we left the details until morning? I’m very tired.’

  ‘Of course you are. Anyone can see that. I didn’t mean to stick my nose into your business, my dear. Get some sleep and everything will look better in the morning.’

  When she had settled Georgie for the night, Effie lay down on the bunk, curling her body protectively around her baby son. She had made up her mind to leave as early as possible next day in order to continue her search for Tom. She tried not to think of the dangers that might beset a thirteen-year-old boy travelling the rough streets of the East End alone and penniless. She could only hope and pray that he had found Toby who, despite his raffish lifestyle and reputat
ion as a lady killer, would see that no harm came to her young brother. As her limbs relaxed and she began to drift off to sleep she remembered a conversation she had once had with Toby in the bar of the Prince of Wales tavern when she had graduated from scullery maid to helping Ben serve customers. As she recalled it was one of the rare moments when Toby had talked seriously about anything and in particular his past. He had spoken tenderly of his mother who had been a maidservant in a large house on the edge of Hackney Marshes. He had been born there, he said, but he had only been seven years of age when his mother died and he had been sent to live with her Romany family. Effie would have liked to know more about him, but Toby had not been very forthcoming. ‘Where are you now, Toby?’ she murmured sleepily. ‘I pray to God that Tom is with you.’

  Effie awakened to the delicious aroma of frying bacon, but her pleasure quickly turned to panic as she realised that Georgie was missing. She fell off the bunk and ran to the door but she stopped, holding on to the doorpost as she saw Georgie playing happily with a group of children. His laughter was a sound that she had not heard for some time and her eyes unaccountably filled with tears.

  Leah was turning bacon in a soot-blackened frying pan and she looked up, waving the fork at Effie. ‘Come and get your breakfast, ducks. There’s tea in the pot if you’d like to help yourself. Zilla’s had hers and she’s gone to wash her beard in the stream. She says there’s nothing like fresh water to keep the hair soft.’

  Brushing her long hair back from her face, Effie was suddenly conscious that she must look a fright and she needed a wash, but she was hungry and she did not want to offend Leah by retreating into the van to make herself presentable. A quick glance around the encampment was reassuring in the fact that no one appeared to be in the least bit interested in her. In the distance she could see a man juggling brightly coloured wooden clubs, although he did not seem very good at it as he kept dropping them and starting again. Effie was about to turn away when a tiny woman, little taller than Georgie, clambered down the steps of a nearby caravan. Effie couldn’t help but stare at the little person, who had the body of a child but a rather disproportionate head and a face that was lined and anything but youthful.

  Leah slapped some bacon on a plate and thrust it into Effie’s hands with a knowing grin. ‘That’s Margery, the midget. She may be small but she don’t like to be reminded of it and she don’t like people staring at her, which is odd because that’s what they do all day when she’s on show as the World’s Smallest Woman.’

  Effie felt the colour rise to her cheeks and she averted her gaze as Margery turned to look at her through narrowed eyes. ‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to upset her.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, ducks. You’ll find it a bit strange here at first but you’ll soon get used to us and our funny ways.’ Leah took a chunk of bread and tossed it in the bacon fat. ‘Eat up, Effie. You could do with a bit more meat on your bones.’ She stuck a fork in the fried bread and passed it to Effie. ‘Get that down you and then you can help me unpack a box of fairings and set them out on me stall.’

  With her mouth filled with bacon, Effie was not in a position to argue and she felt obliged to repay Leah’s generosity. By the time she could speak Leah had wandered off to speak to a tall man with a bare chest that rippled with muscles as he performed a series of exercises with much jumping and swinging of his arms. Effie doubted whether he had much breath left to answer the questions that Leah appeared to be putting to him, but eventually he stopped leaping about and stood with his head bowed as he paid attention to her, all the while mopping the sweat from his torso with a none-too-clean towel. Effie turned her head to look for Georgie, not liking to take her eyes off him for more than a few moments, but he was still larking around with the other children and a couple of mongrel puppies. Their shouts and laughter echoed round the encampment together with the happy yapping of the small dogs. There had been little to laugh at on the Margaret and this was the first time that Georgie had been able to play with children of his own age. She did not want to spoil his fun.

  She finished her food, washing it down with a cup of strong, sweet tea. She was immensely grateful to Leah but she knew that she could not stay here for long. She must renew her search for Tom. She would tell Leah the moment she had finished speaking to the muscular gentleman, who wore only a pair of ankle-length trouser drawers which left little of his manly shape to the imagination. Effie averted her gaze quickly, hoping that no one had noticed that she was staring at the extraordinary fellow, whose body seemed to bulge in most unexpected places. She concentrated her attention on the children, smiling at their obvious enjoyment of the game, which looked rather rough and tumble, but Georgie did not seem to mind. She was so engrossed in their play that she jumped at the sound of Leah’s voice calling her name. Effie looked round and saw her new friend striding across the springy turf towards her. The muscular man had picked up a set of dumb-bells and was striking poses to an imaginary audience while the rest of the camp seemed to ignore him.

  ‘Who is he?’ Effie asked, when Leah drew close enough for her to question without raising her voice.

  ‘Him?’ Leah shrugged her shoulders with a dismissive snort. ‘Thinks he’s somebody, but he’s not. Calls himself the Great Arnoldo but his real name is Arnold Hicks and he comes from Hoxton. He’s the strong man act and the punters are impressed, but it’s all show. He’s afraid of his own shadow.’

  ‘Oh!’ Effie digested this piece of information in silence, staring at Arnoldo and frowning. He looked every inch a man, but Leah was clearly unimpressed. ‘Don’t you like him then? You were talking to him for ages.’

  ‘He owns two vans, his and the one that was used by the two-headed lady before she run off with the lizard man. Anyway, it gave me an idea which I’ll put to our head man, Frank senior, when I’ve got a moment, but I’ll not say any more for the time being.’

  Effie was too concerned about the fate of the odd couple to take much notice of Leah’s mysterious pronouncement. ‘Did she really have two heads and was he really a lizard?’

  Leah gave her a pitying look. ‘Of course she didn’t have two heads, one was stuck on, and he was only half lizard, all scaly and horrible. I dunno what the attraction was there.’

  ‘At least they have each other,’ Effie said, sighing.

  ‘Forget them; we’ve got work to do. The punters will be arriving as soon as they’ve done their duty and been to church.’

  Effie had quite forgotten that it was Sunday, but now as if to confirm Leah’s statement church bells began to chime, their differing tones and timings making them sound as though they were calling to each other as in the old nursery rhyme, ‘Oranges and Lemons’, which Effie had learned at her mother’s knee. She closed her eyes, picturing her mother’s sweet face and the soft sound of her voice as she sang.

  ‘Stop daydreaming, Effie. Leave the boy here, no harm will come to him.’ Leah marched off, hitching her skirts above her knees to accommodate her long strides.

  Effie glanced anxiously at Georgie. She couldn’t leave him here. What if he missed her and panicked, thinking his mother had deserted him?

  ‘It’s all right, dearie.’

  Effie looked around and couldn’t see the woman who had spoken, until someone tugged at her skirt. She looked down into Margery’s grey eyes. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t—’ Effie clapped her hand to her lips. She had almost admitted that she had not seen the tiny woman, but just in time she remembered Leah’s warning.

  ‘You could leave the boy here, ducks,’ Margery said with a smile that transformed her stern features. ‘I’ll keep me eye on him for you. He’s having a lovely time with the other nippers. Why spoil it for him?’

  ‘I’ve never left him before,’ Effie murmured.

  ‘There’s always a first time. I got a nipper of me own. She’s asleep in the van with her pa looking after her, but your little ’un will be safe here. We’re like one big family and we all looks out for each other. You go off and
help Leah. Your boy won’t even know you’re gone.’

  Reluctantly, Effie left Georgie under the watchful eye of Margery, but she kept glancing over her shoulder in case he should suddenly realise that his mother was not there and start to cry. She was almost disappointed when Georgie showed no signs of missing her, but Leah was already out of sight and Effie had to quicken her pace as she tried to remember where the fairings booth was sited. She wended her way through narrow gaps between stalls selling everything from sweets to quack medicines. The stallholders were getting ready for a busy day’s trading and the sun was already high in a clear sky, giving the promise of continued hot weather. The gilding and gaudy paintwork on the merry-go-round sparkled in the bright light and the wooden horses seemed to smile at Effie as she paused to admire their sleek beauty. Their names were painted on their necks and she found herself thinking of Champion, and hoping that Salter would treat him kindly.

  She moved on and the warm grass crushed underfoot gave off the scent of new-mown hay. The sugary scent of toffee, boiled sweets, liquorice and peppermint made a heady concoction when mixed with the faint whiff of leather and horseflesh, cheap cologne and woodsmoke, but the sudden powerful odour of wood alcohol and a loud whoosh brought Effie to a halt as a plume of flame erupted from the mouth of a man holding a flaming torch. She uttered a faint scream, thinking that he must have exploded.

  He gave her a toothless grin. ‘Ain’t you never seen a fire-eater afore, lady?’