‘Get out of that costume, Tilly,’ he said. ‘Poesy will sing Winifred for the rest of the show.’
I stared at him in disbelief. ‘Poesy! You can’t be serious.
I can sing Winifred far better than Poesy.’
‘They’ve already seen you sing Carmenita. They’ll recognise you instantly. Poesy has only been in the chorus. And look at you, you great lump of a girl, you’re straining the seams. You can’t possibly wear that costume. Get out of that dress this instant and give it to Poesy.’
He flicked his ugly hands at Myrtle and pushed Poesy towards me.
‘Strip her,’ he barked. ‘Poesy, you have three minutes to get back on stage.’
I choked down my rage as Myrtle and Poesy meekly began unlacing the stays on the costume. I was numb with humiliation. To be upstaged by Poesy Swift, by a girl who was only in the troupe because I’d encouraged her, was simply too awful. If he’d let me go on as Winifred from the start, everything would have been all right. The Butcher, the Butcher, the Butcher.
We sat down for supper after midnight but I couldn’t touch a bite. I went up to my room instead and wrote a letter to my mother. It was the very first time I’d written to her and I told her everything that had happened to Ruby and Tempe and said the tour was a terrible flop. She’d be sorry to lose all the shillings the Percivals owed her but she simply had to send for me. When I’d finished, I realised I didn’t have a stamp, nor a single coin with which to buy one.
The next morning, I knocked on Miss Thrupp’s door to hand her the letter, knowing that it might never reach its destination if the Butcher saw it first.
‘What is it, Matilda?’ she asked.
I could hear her baby mewling in the background and she turned away from me to speak to the Indian ayah who had been hired to care for him. On the spur of the moment, I changed my plan.
‘I only wondered if you could advance me a rupee, against my pocket money.’
She had taken little Timmy from the ayah and was jigging the poor squalling creature up and down on her hip. ‘It’s because it’s that time of the month,’ I said. ‘And I have women’s troubles. I don’t like to bother Mr Arthur with the details, but the dhobi hasn’t come back with the laundry. If I had a few pice to tip the housemaid, she said she’d hurry him along.’
It wasn’t a very good lie and I was half supposing she’d see through it, but Timmy started screaming so loudly that I think he deafened her common sense. She fumbled for the little purse she wore at her waist and handed me a whole rupee without any further argument.
It was still early and there was no one about in the lobby. The hotel had a drowsy feel to it. Even the concierge looked more asleep than awake. I wasn’t sure I wanted to trust him with my letter. As I was agonising over whether to brave asking him to sell me a stamp, I noticed Charlie Byrne sneaking through a doorway. I nearly jumped out of my skin with surprise. Charlie raised a finger to his lips.
It wasn’t the simple fact that he was about so early that startled me. It was what he was wearing. He was dressed like a low-caste boy, a street-sweeper, with a raggedy piece of fabric tied at his waist, an old, loosely woven shirt and a strip of cloth wound around his head.
‘Charlie!’ I mouthed, without saying the word aloud.
He eyed the concierge warily and then crooked his finger at me.
‘Don’t tell anyone, Tilly, please,’ he whispered.
‘My lips are sealed, if you’ll do me one little favour.’
I held up my envelope and then pressed the rupee into his hand.
‘Post it,’ I said.
He grinned, took my letter and then slipped out the side doorway again, into the morning streets of Calcutta.
34
WAYS OF SEEING
Poesy Swift
I lay under a tree in the Maidan as tiny yellow and orange petals fell on my face. Charlie lay beside me, and we watched as the Lilliputians picnicked on the grass. The warmth of a lazy afternoon made me feel far away from my body. I listened to the sounds of bells and people’s voices speaking words I couldn’t understand. Somewhere a man was singing, but it was more like a wail, not a song, at least not one I had ever heard before. I didn’t have a name for his song, or for anything in the park. Everything was familiar yet strange – the trees, the birds, the flowers, even the people. It was as if I would need a whole new language to describe India, not just words.
‘What are those birds called?’ I asked Charlie. ‘Those blue-black ones that are everywhere and the bigger, raggedy ones that circle over the zoo and the gardens. And the tiny little squirrels – they must be Indian squirrels. They don’t look anything like Squirrel Nutkin in the story. I thought squirrels were very English animals.’
‘Maybe those birds are vultures,’ said Charlie. ‘There are so many vultures in India that the Parsees put their dead on towers and then the vultures eat them. It only takes minutes. But I don’t think there are many Parsees in Calcutta. When we get to Bombay, we can go and see one of their towers.’
I didn’t tell him this made me feel squeamish. I simply stared at him.
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘Of course I believe you,’ I said.
‘It’s true, you know. I’ve learned a lot about India. They have real magicians here, not just ones that do card tricks, but ones who do real magic. Snake charmers and snake jugglers and avatars and sadhus. I’m going to find one, a genuine fakir, who can show me how to grow a mango tree in an instant and conjure a rope that I can climb until I disappear, and get him to teach me everything he knows. You wait and see. By the time we leave India, I’ll be a sorcerer, not simply a boy magician.’
‘I heard Mrs Besant talk about seeing that rope trick here in India. She said the fakirs were mesmerists. I’m sure they’d do a better job of it than Tilly but I suppose I’ll never get a chance to find out. We can never see anything when we’re only going back and forth from the theatre, and half the time that’s in the dark.’
‘You only have to look around you. I’ve seen plenty. Yesterday, I saw a fakir sitting on a bed of nails. There are always fakirs in the marketplaces. They’re amazing. I saw one that had kept his hand above his head for years and it was all shrivelled, like a little wizened stick.’
I screwed up my nose. I didn’t like to even think of them, these people with all their bits missing or mangled.
‘Don’t be like that, Poesy,’ said Charlie.
‘Like what?’
‘Afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid. I feel for them. Tilly says they’re not like us but I don’t think she’s right. I think they’re probably exactly like us, Charlie. When I see them hurting, then I hurt too.’
Charlie looked offended and took his hand away from where it had been resting on my arm. I could feel my skin cool where his hand had lain.
‘I know that, and that’s why I like them. You say you want to see things but then you only look at the squirrels and the birds and the buildings. You ask questions but they’re the wrong questions. You don’t look at the people.’
‘I do!’
‘You mean the audiences? They’re mostly sahibs – white people, just like at home. But when you go into Blacktown, you see India.’
It made my heart sink when Charlie talked like that.
‘You haven’t been into Blacktown, have you, Charlie?’
He fiddled with a blade of grass.
‘You know it’s not safe,’ I said. ‘With all the protestors everywhere. They’ve come from all over the countryside, those ones that were marching in the protests.’
‘There are lots of boys about. No one pays me any mind. I only go exploring to find the magic men. Sometimes I slip out during the afternoon when we’re meant to be resting or if I’m feeling game, I go at night when everyone’s asleep.’
‘Charlie!’
‘It’s my secret. You’re not going to tattle, are you?’ It was the first time I’d heard Charlie use that loathsome word.
‘You know I wouldn’t,’ I said, pulling up a flower and picking off its petals.
‘You don’t have to worry about me, Poesy. I can take care of myself. But I can’t have your Eliza finding out. Or Lionel. Nobody knows except you and Tilly.’ Then he smiled a little smile that made me imagine he was thinking of Tilly.
‘Oh, Tilly,’ I said, spitting her name out. I didn’t mean to sound so snitty when I spoke but it simply bubbled out of me. ‘You be careful of her. You should never have lent her your book about mesmerism. She made such a mess of things and got Ruby into trouble.’
‘Ruby gets herself into trouble.’
‘It’s not her fault. She can’t help how she is. If it wasn’t for her sisters, she would have gone home with Tempe and Clarissa. I’m worried about Ruby, Charlie. She’s been acting very oddly. She said she wouldn’t set foot on the train tomorrow unless it was going straight to Flinders Street Station! She can’t seem to think about anything but going home.’
‘She’ll be right,’ said Charlie, standing up and dusting his trousers.
I gazed up at him, with the blue Indian sky behind him, and wished I could be so sure. I wished I could be exactly like Charlie. There were so many things boys could do that I longed for: to be carefree and confident, to be able to go on adventures and not worry about what anyone thought, to be able to shrug your shoulders and say, ‘She’ll be right.’ But then, Charlie was wrong. There was nothing right about what Ruby did next.
35
THE STREETS OF CALCUTTA
Poesy Swift
The Mussalman’s early morning call to prayer woke me at first light. Every other morning I’d tried to go back to sleep, but this morning I listened. It was while I was lying very still and thinking of India that I realised Ruby was gone. Her bed by the window was empty. I stared at the crumpled sheets in dismay, and my skin prickled with alarm. I slipped out of bed and padded down the hall to check if she was with any of the other girls. Finally, I knocked on the door of the boys’ room.
Max opened it a crack and glared at me as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. ‘What do you want, tattler?’ he said. Then he snickered because I was dressed only in my slip.
‘I have to talk to Charlie.’
I pushed Max out of the way and stepped into the room. The little boys were still asleep but Charlie sat up as soon as I came into the room.
‘Your sweetheart’s here to see you,’ whispered Max.
I elbowed him hard in his tummy and ran to Charlie’s bedside.
‘Come outside. I need to talk to you.’
I grabbed him by his arm and dragged him into the hall.
‘Poesy, what is it?’
‘You can’t tell anyone about this. Not even Lionel. You mustn’t or he’ll go straight to Mr Arthur. Ruby has run away again. Last night she said that she’d met someone, another sailor, who promised her a berth back home. But she’s crazy. She’s not right in her head. She’s in so much trouble, Charlie. And I don’t know who else to tell. You’re the only one that knows how to go out and about. I wouldn’t know which way to turn.’
Charlie ran his hand through his dark hair, frowned and sighed. ‘Get dressed and tie your hair up in a scarf so you’re not so obvious. I’ll meet you at the top of the stairs in five minutes.’
Charlie took me through a small doorway that led to the kitchens and we left the building through the tradesman’s entrance.
The steamy city was beginning to wake, with wreaths of mist rising off the pavements. I followed Charlie into the streets, and even though I was ill with worry for Ruby, a tiny thrill shot through me to simply be out without a grown-up. Charlie walked quickly and with such certainty that no one would dream of asking us if we were lost.
We hurried past a long line of jennyrickshaws with all their coolie drivers asleep inside. We saw pariah dogs sniffing among the refuse behind a hotel and we stepped around the sleeping bodies of beggars curled around their begging bowls. I wanted to stop at a wayside shrine and stare at the tiny blue figure of a woman wearing a necklace of skulls but Charlie made me keep moving. We passed the stall of a sweetmeat-seller who had just lit the fire beneath a big black pan, and the scent of the warming oil was thick in the morning air. We turned into a street that was suddenly crowded with people walking in a procession around a cart decked with yellow flowers, and Charlie grabbed my wrist and wove a path around the crowd and into a laneway where a Brahmini bull stared, blinked his long lashes at us and then disappeared through the wooden gates of a tiny courtyard.
We walked and walked and walked, and I began to wonder if Charlie had any idea where we were going, for there was no sign of Ruby. As if he sensed my doubt, he said, ‘We’re going down to the riverbank, to where the ferries dock. Ruby would have headed that way.’
‘How do you know she’d take a ferry? Maybe she took the train.’
‘Trains won’t take her back to Australia. If she wants to go home, she’ll have to get to the deepwater port.’
When we reached the river, Charlie headed down the winding path that led to the ferry terminal on the Hooghly. There were very few white people about and the Indian people gazed at us with curiosity as we scanned the crowds and waterways.
‘This is hopeless, Charlie,’ I said. ‘We won’t find her like this.’
Suddenly Charlie pointed. ‘Look, on that dock over there,’ he said.
I followed the direction of his hand to where a lone figure sat on a bollard.
Ruby was watching the children swimming in the wide river. A small brown boy jumped off a rock and silvery flecks of water flew up around him. Ruby seemed mesmerised by the boy. I tried to see him through her eyes, and for a fleeting moment I remembered picnics at home on the Yarra River, taking off my stockings and putting my feet into the cold water at Dights Falls. It was almost like something I’d dreamt, something that had happened to someone else in another lifetime. I couldn’t imagine wanting to go back to it but I could see the shape of Ruby’s longing.
We had to climb up and down rickety stairs, past the tea-wallah and the hawkers who lined the path to the ferries. I was about to cry out to Ruby when Charlie grabbed my wrist. ‘Shhh,’ he said. ‘You’ll scare her off.’
We approached her slowly, as if she were a frightened, lost animal. ‘Ruby,’ I said softly. ‘Ruby, we’ve been looking all along the ghats for you.’ I moved closer and picked up one of her hands. ‘Come back with us.’
‘I want to go home,’ she said, and tears washed down her pale face.
‘No, you want to come with us.’
Ruby’s eyes grew narrow. ‘Why should you care?’
‘Because you’re my friend and we have to help each other.’
Charlie stepped forward. ‘C’mon, Ruby,’ he said gently, hooking an arm around her waist and bringing her to her feet.
I put my arm around her. She slumped against me and put her head on my shoulder. ‘I’m so tired,’ she said.
Charlie led the way back up from the jetty. I kept talking to Ruby in a low, soothing voice, the way I did for Yada when she was coming out of one of her fits. I know that Ruby wasn’t troubled in that way, but trouble is trouble and when people get broken you have to hold them together gently, not try to ram the pieces back together.
When we reached the road again, Charlie walked up and down a line of waiting jennyrickshaws, haggling with the coolies about how much it would cost to take us back to the hotel. I knew he didn’t have very much money but somehow he managed to find a coolie who agreed to take us back to the hotel for a few annas.
Ruby sat between us, her head on my shoulder, her eyes shut as if she were asleep. I kept my arm firmly around her but I couldn’t take my eyes off the back of the coolie who was pulling our jennyrickshaw. He was such a skinny, wiry man that I could see his shoulderblades pushing through the thin fabric of his shirt. Strands of black hair that had slipped out from his turban lay wet and shiny with sweat against his dark skin. Charlie had been right. Too often, I didn’t
look. I didn’t see.
The rickshaw passed beneath the spreading branches of giant banyan trees, and sunlight dappled our clothes. Ruby stretched one hand into the air, as if she could catch the shadows like raindrops. ‘I never wanted to come to India,’ she said. ‘I never wanted any of this.’
I looked at Charlie, hoping to catch his eye, but his gaze was on the wide Calcutta street.
‘You’ll feel differently about it soon,’ I said, taking Ruby’s hand in mine. ‘When we really start to see India, everything will be different.’
‘Everything changes,’ said Ruby. ‘Whether we want it or not. Everything.’
36
UNDER THE SEATS
Tilly Sweetrick
On the day we left Calcutta, gharries and oxen carts lined the street outside our hotel. I wasn’t the least bit sorry to be leaving, though I was disappointed Ma still hadn’t sent a wire insisting I be shipped back to Melbourne. We were harried and shoved into carriages and taken straight down to the Armenian Ghats, from where a steamer ferry carried us across the Hooghly to Howrah Railway Station.
Trains puffed steam into the morning air and the platform echoed with the babble of voices. We had to stand like a flock of sheep while the Butcher ticked our names off his list as if we were simply baggage. Porters vied for our trunks and Mr Milligan looked flustered as he tried to direct them to handle the lighting equipment with care. A tall, skinny native wound a red rag in a circle on his head and then popped one of our portmanteaus on top. I watched it bobbing its way down the platform.
Miss Thrupp and Lo shepherded everyone into a group. They seemed to think it would be easy to lose one of us in that vast building but of course we stuck out like sore thumbs: eighteen girls in white frocks and straw hats and eight boys in sailor suits aren’t easily lost among soldiers, government officials, fat businessmen, hawkers and porters.
Max and Freddie broke away from our group and started jumping up and down on the platform, trying to see in through the windows of the carriages.
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