Frozen Billy

by Anne Fine

  Uncle Len laughed. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow, Will,’ he said. And, with a clatter, he was down the stairs.

  I left my bed to console my brother. ‘We’ll ask again tomorrow.’ And the next night – and the next, and the next after that – I prompted, ‘Go on, Will. Ask Uncle Len to speak to Madame Terrazini about his wages.’

  Will simply shook his head – until the night he lost his patience. ‘If you’re so sure that there’s a point to it, you ask him, Clarrie.’

  It took a day or two to gather courage. But the next Sunday morning, after bringing Uncle Len his porridge on a tray, along with a fizzing powder for his sore head, I spoke up.

  ‘Uncle Len, it’s been weeks.’

  He lifted his head to stare at me with bleary eyes. ‘Weeks, Clarrie?’

  ‘Since Will left school to help you with the act.’

  He went back to digging in the bowl with his spoon. ‘He’s a fine lad.’

  ‘Very fine,’ I said. ‘But nights on the stage were not what Father and Mother had in mind for him.’

  He scowled. ‘Oh, indeed!’ he said bitterly. ‘Charles would want better for his only son than to fetch up in music hall like his own wastrel brother.’

  ‘Uncle Len! Everyone knows you’re a brilliant ventriloquist. The best!’ I added the next words as gently as I could: ‘But there was a purpose to Will’s joining your act. And that was to help support the family.’

  ‘I’m sure we all support the family, Clarrie.’

  There was no other way to say it. ‘I mean with his share of the earnings, Uncle Len.’

  ‘Alas, Clarrie. As I’ve already explained, even the extra wages barely stretch to cover my own needs.’

  What lent me courage to persist was the memory of my poor brother trailing in night after night, so tired and dispirited.

  ‘Uncle Len, while your “needs” include so much beer and so many bets on the hors—’

  ‘Don’t hector me!’ said Uncle Len. ‘Take your complaints to Madame Terrazini! Ask her how a man can move to the Top of the Bill and still be paid a pittance!’ He clutched his head. ‘Now out of the room, Clarrie! Leave me, before I lose my temper.’

  Next night, Will sat with folded arms while Uncle Len gnawed at a fingernail with an anxious look.

  ‘Not getting ready, Will?’

  ‘Why should I bother to work?’

  Uncle Len turned to me. ‘Clarrie, tell your brother to get out of his pet and make haste to get ready.’

  I spread my hands. ‘He feels unfairly treated, Uncle Len.’

  Outside, the clock tower chimes began. Uncle Len turned to Will in a panic. ‘Hear that? The curtain will rise on an empty stage! What will we live on then?’

  ‘On Clarrie’s wages,’ Will said stubbornly. ‘As we do now, with most of your earnings going on your own pleasures.’

  ‘I pay the rent!’

  I might have spoken up then – ‘Only part of it. And for so little of the food that we might starve.’ But at that moment, hearing the last chime, Uncle Len dropped to his knees in front of Will.

  ‘Do you really think I’d see you out of pocket? No! Every week I put aside a share for you.’

  ‘So where is it?’

  Uncle Len rose. ‘Trust me!’ he said. ‘I am your only uncle. I love you dearly. I would do nothing to hurt you.’ He stretched out a hand to take Will’s chin in his fingers and turn the pale face towards him. ‘Will, can you really look me in the eye and call me a liar and a cheat?’

  Will tried. I know he tried. But Uncle Len had such a soulful, honest look about him that, after a moment, Will just broke away and stared in the fire.

  And I? I let my brother down by standing by and saying nothing. And as I hurriedly helped him into his knickerbockers and shirt, and passed the jars of face paste, I let him down a second time. For in the moment Uncle Len turned away to pick up the carrying box, my brother was brave enough to whisper across to me, ‘Do you believe him, Clarrie?’

  And all I dared whisper back was, ‘I don’t know.’

  Guilt turned to courage overnight. Next morning, I said to Will, ‘I’m going to find the truth,’ and went in search of Mavis and Anastasia. I found them cosy in a corner of the dressing room, busily lacing the bodices for the new cancan finale.

  ‘Here’s a long face,’ teased Anastasia as soon as she noticed me. ‘Have you strayed in the dressing room to tell us the theatre’s on fire?’

  ‘I have a question,’ I admitted. ‘About my uncle.’

  They glanced at one another. ‘Has he been unkind?’

  ‘No, no,’ I assured them. ‘Though he can be a little irritable when he’s tired.’

  Again, their eyes met. ‘Tired!’ scoffed Anastasia. ‘More likely, when he’s—’

  Mavis frowned at her hastily, and she hushed.

  I interlaced my fingers. ‘Still, I was wondering . . .’

  ‘Spit it out, Clarrie.’

  ‘About his wages . . .’

  Anastasia burst out laughing. ‘Shall we guess Clarrie’s question, Mavis? “How can my Uncle Len be Top of the Bill, and still come home each night with empty pockets?” ’

  They laughed again. I felt the blood rush to my face.

  ‘So when he tells us Madame Terrazini pays him only a pittance more . . . ?’

  ‘He has a strange view of a pittance!’

  ‘And if he tells us that he has put aside a share for my brother . . . ?’

  Mavis shook her head. ‘Len’s heart’s in the right place, Clarrie. He’d truly mean to make good his boast. But then he’d hear some tip about a horse, and spend it all, and not even know how much he’d cost himself.’ She leaned towards me over her lacing. ‘Remember that, to your uncle, numbers are like alphabet letters. They fly straight out of his head. You could pour gold on Len, and he’d not thrive – not while he lives a few doors from the Soldier at Arms – without your mother’s firm leash around his neck!’

  I had my answer, so I crept away.

  That night, I told Will, ‘It seems Len’s such a foe to numbers and such a friend to ale, he truly thinks he’s poorly paid.’

  And that was the end of the matter. None of us spoke of money after that. But from then on, it seemed as if the last of my brother’s enthusiasm drained away. When Uncle Len said, ‘Time to get ready, Will,’ he’d scowl and delay, and from his mouth would come a tide of sullen muttering that Uncle Len was hard-pressed to pretend he hadn’t heard. The very air in the house seemed to turn sour, and laughter vanished.

  Once, as I was coming up the stair, I heard my brother’s voice, fierce and tense. The door was open. I stood in the doorway, laden with groceries, and saw him leaning over the carrying box.

  ‘Will, what are you saying?’

  Hastily my brother shuffled back. ‘Nothing. I was just setting Frozen Billy’s collar in place.’

  I could have told him, ‘Will, I could hear from the doorway.’ But what would I have said after that? ‘I heard you say it, Will. Clear as a bell. “You are the very devil, Frozen Billy! If you were quick and breathing, I could free myself. But how can I ever kill the unliving?” ’

  The longer I thought about it, the more anxious I became. In my concern, I took to following Will and Uncle Len to the theatre each night. I’d clear the supper things, and sweep the rooms. Then I’d lock up behind, and hurry through the dark streets to get there just as the acrobats came to a finish.

  Sometimes I ran into Madame Terrazini in the narrow carpeted corridor behind the stalls. She’d nod a greeting. I’d give a quick bob of curtsey in return, and hurry past to watch my poor brother grin and grimace his way through yet another show.

  The act lasted twenty minutes – never less, and never a moment more. I think Uncle Len was ever mindful of Will’s growing bitterness, and feared he might clamp shut his mouth the instant the last minute passed.

  But the more Will glowered, the more Uncle Len’s wits deserted him. Now, even when some wag shouted down from the cheap seats
in the balcony, poor Uncle Len would stand and hesitate (while Frozen Billy blinked). It would be left to my sharp brother to think of something he could weave into the act to please Madame Terrazini with some fresh laugh, till the banter picked up again.

  Still, Frozen Billy always won the argument. But by then I had usually left my hiding place – deep in the shadows at the back of the stalls if the theatre was full, hidden in folds of velvet curtain if one of the boxes was empty. I’d hurry down the carpeted passages and through the green baize door that is the barrier between those who pay to be entertained and those who are paid to entertain them, and come backstage.

  So I was always there for Will when, clicking and clacking the wooden clapper hidden in his pocket to sound even more like a doll, he finally stumbled off the stage each night, the laughter ringing in his ears, and, falling in my arms, burst into tears.

  The Sixth Notebook

  One Sunday I lifted the cocoa tin to wipe the oilcloth beneath, and found myself staring in envy at the girl with the beautiful black face and shining smile.

  I turned to my brother, who was morosely churning out the weekly pack of lies to our father. ‘Will, what would make you happiest in the whole wide world?’

  He didn’t hesitate. ‘For Frozen Billy to fall under the wheels of a carriage and be broken in pieces.’

  I clapped my hand over his mouth. ‘Ssssh, Will!’

  He tugged away. ‘Oh, come on, Clarrie. Uncle Len won’t be listening. He’ll be dead to the world – again.’

  I knew he was right because only a few minutes earlier I’d pushed the bedroom door open a crack. I was sliding in the boots that he’d left by the fender because I so hated it when he woke with a sore head, and started his fretful shouting. ‘Clarrie, girl! Where are my stage boots?’

  That always set Will scoffing. ‘Stage boots!’ And it was true that they were just a plain pair of hefty black lace-ups (though I could make them shine as if they’d been freshly lifted out of a shopfront display). They were nothing to compare with Will’s perfectly round-toed shoes with intricate patterns of tiny holes, made especially to match the wooden ones carved on the feet of Frozen Billy.

  I came to hate those shoes of Will’s. I think it was because they were the last thing he put on before each show. While he was still daubing red on his mouth, or pulling on his shirt, I could still try to console him with talk of how soon Mother might be home, and how short the time would seem after that before Father had saved up the money for our passage.

  But with the first click of those shoes on the floorboards, I found myself dealing with a wooden heart.

  ‘Stuff your dreams in your pillow, Clarrie! For all we know, Father has found better things to do with his earnings than buy us tickets for the boat.’

  ‘You read his letters, Will. How can you doubt him?’

  ‘I think he sounds merry enough without us.’

  ‘Why should he weep and wail in letters? After all, we hide our troubles from him.’

  My brother turned on me eyes as hard as glass. ‘How much trust do you have inside you to throw away, Clarrie? We wasted some on Madame Terrazini, thinking she’d pay enough for two. We wasted more on Uncle Len, thinking he’d share what he has. You carry on if you like, but my well of trust’s run dry.’

  I thought of arguing, though what would have been the point? Tears could have washed away stone faster than any words of mine could have cheered my brother. But next time I pushed the broom past the open carrying box, I found myself leaning over to hiss at the dummy in sudden fury, ‘This is your fault, Frozen Billy! My brother changes day by day, and I blame you.’

  The wooden lips lay in their wide, still smirk. The eyes were closed.

  ‘I hate you, Frozen Billy!’ I told the dummy. ‘Each night you drip more poison into my brother’s life.’ I leaned even closer. ‘But don’t think you’ll win,’ I whispered. ‘Remember this. You might spend night after night on stage with him. But what do you know about me? Nothing! And if you don’t know anything about your enemy, how can you hope to win the battle?’

  To ram the message home, I banged the broom head hard against the table leg.

  The eyes flew open. How Frozen Billy stared! I know he’s made of wood, but I’ll still swear I saw something in that stiff face I’d never seen before.

  And it was triumph.

  That’s why I kept on following Will to the theatre. I felt as if I were locked in a duel for my brother’s soul. For there were two Wills now: the loving, ever-hopeful boy my mother had left with me, and a cold puppet with a marble heart. If I weren’t there each night to save my precious brother from Frozen Billy – wrap my arms tightly round him until his tears washed out the poisons of his act – I feared that somehow he might remain stuck for ever inside that queer little changeling doll he played.

  One evening, Madame Terrazini dropped a hand on my shoulder as I hurried past.

  ‘Clarrie.’

  I hung my head, thinking she’d had enough of seeing me scuttle like a rat down her carpeted passages. ‘Yes, Madame Terrazini?’

  ‘We have some business together, you and I.’

  I would have tried to find some way to excuse myself; but she could hear from the pattern of gasps behind that already the acrobats must be weaving their supple bodies into their last few astonishing patterns. In a moment they’d disentangle themselves for the last time and sweep off stage, leaving it free for Uncle Len to stroll on with his chair and Frozen Billy.

  She saw my hesitation. ‘Another time, then. Run along and watch over your brother.’

  Watch over, she said. Not watch, but watch over.

  I stared at her as she walked off. How had she guessed?

  But the answer came instantly. My brother had changed so much, no one could fail to notice. Even picking his way through street puddles two or three steps behind Uncle Len, he looked like an automaton. When people spoke, his eyes swivelled in their sockets and he held his questioner in an unblinking gaze. Sometimes it seemed as if he’d taught himself to slip through some small green baize door of his own between living child and cold, unfeeling figurine.

  And just as a clock has no feelings about the passage of time (‘So early!’ ‘Too late!’) to distract from the purpose of telling it, so Will, it seemed to me, had turned himself into a grim and monstrous little doll, the better to play his part.

  Even the act had changed. Day by day, so imperceptibly I scarcely noticed, a word changed here, a tone of voice hardened there, until I found myself shrinking behind the fluted pillar at the back of the stalls, sensing the chill that ran through the audience.

  The patter somehow gathered a threatening edge. Now, when my brother spoke, it seemed that Uncle Len’s eyes widened as much as Frozen Billy’s. There was a sense of menace in the air, and laughs grew scarcer as the audience gasped at the cruelties spat out by two snarling puppets.

  It made me shiver. But it was good for business. Seats filled on what were once the slackest days. The price of tickets rose, and still the people came in droves. There was talk round the town, till even over the long rolls of patterned Chinese silks in our little shop, the ladies were exchanging strange stories about the ventriloquist at the Alhambra and his sinister ‘twin’ schoolboys.

  At home, there was a kind of truce. Will passed Uncle Len’s plate along the table, or handed him the bread basket civilly enough. He answered questions about the neighbours who’d spoken to him on the stair, or how well he’d slept. But as he swung the cloak around his shoulders every night, he seemed to change. Sometimes he’d look at Uncle Len without a blink, and give a cold little smile as if to warn him, ‘Be on your guard tonight.’

  And sometimes, even from as far away as where I was standing at the back of the stalls, I could see panic in Uncle Len’s eyes as he struggled to keep pert answers firing out of Frozen Billy’s mouth. The shirts he handed me to wash came drenched in sweat now. The performance that had started in such hope and excitement was not really a ventrilo
quist’s act any longer.

  It had turned into something much darker and deeper.

  One night, Uncle Len and Will slid into battle from the start. When Will walked out on stage, Uncle Len turned the dummy’s head towards him as usual as he made Frozen Billy ask his first question: ‘And what did you learn in school today, little brother?’

  Will’s answer was a fresh one.

  ‘School? I’ve not been in school for weeks now.’

  I could tell Uncle Len was startled. The best response he could make Frozen Billy offer was, ‘How so?’

  And Will was ready.

  ‘Because I have a wicked uncle who has somehow turned me into his slave.’

  The audience chuckled, though you could tell they weren’t quite sure what amused them.

  The cold hostility in Uncle Len’s eyes came out in Frozen Billy’s voice: ‘Slave?’

  Will plucked at his schoolboy shirt and trousers. ‘Don’t be fooled by these clothes. What would you call it if someone was snatched out of school in his mother’s absence, and forced to work and work and work, and be paid not a penny?’

  Before some smart answer could come from Frozen Billy, and turn the joke, Will played Uncle Len’s trick of bringing in the audience.

  ‘Should you all think that cruel?’

  ‘Yes,’ called the audience.

  ‘Very cruel?’

  The audience called louder. ‘Yes!’

  ‘Very, very cruel?’

  ‘Indeed!’ they roared. ‘Very cruel!’

  ‘Preposterously cruel?’

  How the audience laughed, to hear such a fine word coming from a schoolboy’s mouth. ‘Yes! Yes!’ they shouted. ‘Preposterously cruel!’

  ‘Monstrously cruel?’

  ‘Indeed!’ they all shouted, and some wag called down from the balcony: ‘Unconscionably cruel!’

  Then they all started. ‘Uncommonly cruel! ‘Thunderingly cruel!’ ‘Shockingly cruel!’ ‘Devilishly cruel!’ ‘Unbearably cruel!’ Even, from someone no more than a few rows in front of me: ‘Damnably cruel.’