Cat Among the Pigeons (27 page)

Christmas Eve. Pedro and I were standing in the centre of Covent Garden, watching the snowflakes fall. The stalls were busy with shoppers buying their festive meal. Wreaths of holly and mistletoe decorated the doorways; candles brightened the windows. Across the square, the stained glass of St Paul's Church shone like jewels; the organist was playing out a jubilant carol.

‘Cat, I want you to be the first to know,' Pedro announced.

‘Know what?'

‘My new name. You didn't expect me to stay Pedro Hawkins, did you?'

‘I suppose not. So what have you chosen?'

Pedro hugged his arms to his side. ‘It's better than that. I think I've rediscovered my true name.'

‘How?'

‘Mr Equiano. When I told him about my family – about my father being a king – he asked around among the African brothers and they came up with the answer. He thinks I'm probably an Amakye. I'm keeping Pedro – Mr Equiano told me it means “rock” and I was the rock that Mr Hawkins hit so that seems fitting. So Pedro Amakye it is.'

‘Pedro Amakye. I like it.'

‘So do I.'

Looking at my friend, free of the burden of slavery for the first time in his life, standing in the centre of London, his adopted home, I felt an exuberant joy bubble up inside me. We had to mark the moment. ‘Well, we'll need to baptise you then,' I said pulling him towards the church.

Pedro frowned. ‘I've been done once. I don't think they'll do it again.'

I began to laugh. ‘Then it will have to be in snowflakes. See if you can catch one on your tongue.'

Pedro snuggled down inside his fur-lined cloak – his Christmas gift from Signor Angelini who understood what it was like to come from a warmer climate. ‘That's a strange baptism. My tongue'll freeze.'

‘Chicken!' I stuck my tongue out and caught a fat flake on its tip. ‘Mmm, angel food!'

‘Not very satisfying – I prefer hot meat and puddings,' he said, thinking of the feast that was being prepared for us in Grosvenor Square after his last performance as Ariel tonight.

‘Try it!' I urged him. ‘You might like it.'

‘If
you
ask me, anything.' Pedro grinned and stuck out his tongue. ‘De-licious!'

‘What does it taste like?'

He linked arms with me. ‘It tastes of . . . of friendship, of freedom – it's iced Bach, melting Mozart – and all things wonderful!' He began to whirl me round until it seemed that we were the
only still things in the spinning world. ‘It tastes of a new start, of dazzling success – it's Pedro Amakye.' He let go and I pirouetted on the ice before collapsing in a dizzy, laughing heap.

Giving me a tug to my feet, he began to run towards a flock of cold pigeons huddled together in the centre of the piazza. ‘Come on, Cat! Now the baptism's over, let's see how far we can slide!'

With a shriek, we hurtled into the flock, arms flailing, shoes skidding. Startled, the pigeons flapped into the air and circled out to the boundless skies.

To the elements be free, and fare thou well.

Curtain falls.

ARTICLES OF APPRENTICESHIP
– agreement drawn up with a master to teach a boy a trade

BACK SLANG IT OUT OF SOMEWHERE
– to make a rapid exit

BALDERDASH
– a load of rubbish

BAMBOOZLE
– to outfox, pull the wool over someone's eyes

BANTLING
– a brat, an illegitimate child

BARNABY DANCE
– an odd shuffle, like a couple of dancing jesters

BASKET OF CHIPS
– a broad grin

BEAK
– magistrate (to be avoided at all costs)

BILLINGSGATE
– fishmarket on the north bank of the Thames

BLACK-BALLED
– excluded, cut out – the members in gentlemen's clubs use a system where a white ball means you're voted in, black out. Dr Juniper is certainly a candidate for black.

BOW STREET RUNNERS
– the magistrate's men who police the streets around Westminster (not my favourite people)

BREECHES ROLE
– girls playing boys on stage

BROOK
'
S
– an exclusive
gentlemen's
(though I have my doubts about some of its members) club known for its gambling

CANISTER
– head (and some of us have a lot more in our canisters than others)

CANTING CREW
– informal society of thieves with its own code of honour

CAPITAL TOPPER
– top-rate drinker

CARD SHARP
– someone who's handy with the pack, a professional trickster

CLAPHAM
– village on outskirts of London, home to many abolitionists

CLOUGH
'
S
– my boarding house at Westminster School

TO CUT A CAPER ON NOTHING
– dance of death on the scaffold

TO DIE DAMNED HARD AND BOLD AS BRASS
– praise often given to a condemned person's
brazen attitude on the scaffold

FAG
– a kind of schoolboy skivvy

FLASH
– showy, rich

TO FLING ONE
'
S CAP AFTER
– to make a hopeless appeal for something

GADSO
– ah yes, oh dear, sorry about that . . . see within for Frank's explanation

GOOD PASTING
– to be well and truly beaten (and don't I know how it feels!)

TO HOP THE TWIG
– to get going

HOYDEN
– boisterous girl (a term that's been applied to me – I can't think why . . .)

JARVEY
– hackney cab driver

LIGHTER
– flat-bottomed boat used to ferry cargo to and from ships

MIDDLE PASSAGE
– second leg of three-part trading voyage that takes slaves from Africa to the West Indies

MONIKER
– name, title

NAN BOY
– a boy about whom you entertain doubts as to his manliness

NOUS
– intelligence, knowledge

OTTLEY
'
S
– a second-rate boarding house at Westminster School

PANTHEON
– a ballroom, now on the slide (especially since Billy bought into it)

PISSPOT BULLY
– small-scale, vulgar bully (an accurate description of Richmond, don't you think?)

THE PIT
– lowest level in the theatre, frequented by gentlemen and those aspiring to be counted in that class

THE POOL
– moorings in the Thames

POPPYCOCK
– rubbish, nonsense

QUEER COVE
– strange gent

RATS
'
CASTLE
– decrepit building in middle of the Rookeries

ROOKERIES
– also known as St Giles, a desperate and dangerous place

RUM
'
UN
– odd person

SHADOW
– new boy looked after by a ‘substance' or older boy at school

SKIVVY
– me most of the time – downtrodden maid of all work

STOCK-IN-TRADE
– what one does for a living

SUBSTANCE
– older boy sponsor at school

THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE
– the best theatre in the world. And my home, just off Covent Garden

TENTER GROUND
– place for stretching out cloth

TRAP
– magistrate's man (NB also to be avoided)

VAPOURS
– fainting fit, to be overcome, hysterical (NB only for rich girls)

WESTMINSTER SCHOOL
– supposedly a place of learning for young gentlemen; in truth a den of floggers and bullies

WIPE
– handkerchief

London and Paris, 1791
Curtain rises.

In the theatre, there comes a moment when we bid goodbye to a play. The scripts are put back on the shelf, the scenery dismantled, the actors move on to new roles. Yesterday, my life at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, came to the end of its run.

What can I say to you, Reader? For me, everything is over.

I admit that I'm scared. I don't know what I shall do. I wasn't prepared for such a sudden termination to the life I thought I was going to lead. And so strange to think that the curtain was brought down with such a simple question.

Mr Sheridan caught me in the corridor backstage as I carried the actresses' wigs out of the powder room. ‘Cat, come here. Tell me what you think.'

From the stage came the sounds of the orchestra tuning up. My friend Pedro would already be in his place, sitting with the other violinists. Counting the audience we were expecting a full house. Backstage was abuzz with excitement as the moment of performance approached. I really didn't have time to linger but my patron, Mr Sheridan, could not be denied. He hauled me into his office, snatched the tray, and dumped it unceremoniously on the floor.

‘Watch it, sir! I'll get skinned if anything happens to those!' I protested as I tried to prevent many guineas' worth of powdered curls tumbling on to the hearth.

‘No, no, forget about those,' he said, heedless in his enthusiasm. ‘I want you to be one of the first to see the plans,' and he hooked me by the elbow and propelled me to the desk.

‘Fifteen minutes!' called the stage manager outside. Three actors rushed by, not yet in costume. They'd obviously lingered too long in
the Players' Tavern.

On the scuffed leather surface of the desk lay a sheaf of crackling white parchment scored with lines and tiny numbers.

‘So?' Mr Sheridan asked, rubbing his hands eagerly, looking across at me, his brown eyes sparkling.

He evidently wanted my opinion – a fact that I would have found flattering if I hadn't been in such a rush to deliver the wigs; the actresses would not thank me if I made them late for their first entrance. I had better get this over with. I turned my mind to the papers in front of me. It was clearly a design for a grand building of some sort – a palace perhaps. Maybe Mr Sheridan's extravagant friend the Prince of Wales had yet another construction project in his sights?

‘Er . . . what is it?' I asked.

‘It's Drury Lane, of course.' My patron's flushed face beamed happily. Was he drunk already?

I took a closer look. I could now see the vast
stage and auditorium, but this wasn't my theatre. None of my familiar landmarks were here; he must be joking. ‘No, it's not, sir. Where's the Sparrow's Nest? Where's the scenery store?'

‘You don't understand, Cat. Not
this
worn-out pile of bricks and cracked plaster,' he waved dismissively at the ceiling. ‘These are the plans for the
new
Theatre Royal – one fit for our modern age that will rise from the ashes of the old.'

Mr Sheridan had often talked about sprucing up the theatre when he had the money – he never did, so I had always let these ramblings wash over me.

‘Very nice, sir,' I said non-committally, wondering if I could get on my way. In fact, I thought the plans looked terrible – they represented a vast, soulless place where actors would seem like objects viewed the wrong way down a telescope, if I had understood the drawings correctly. It would kill the theatre – and probably quite a few of our leading actors as they
tried to make themselves heard in that space. It was a good job that it would never be built.

‘Ten minutes!' called the stage manager. ‘Light the stage candles.'

‘I'm glad you like it, Cat,' said Mr Sheridan, caressing the papers, ‘because this evening I'm going to announce to the cast that the last performance within these walls will be on 4th June. When we close, the demolition crew will move in to knock the old place down.'