Frozen Billy (2 page)

He heard me say something under my breath and looked up. ‘What was that, Clarrie?'

I wasn't going to repeat the words I whisper to myself every night, and the hope to which I rise every morning: ‘Let it be
soon
.'

I simply shook my head and I said nothing.

But we were happy enough – not as happy as the girl on the cocoa tin, but happy enough – until the day the telegram boy doffed his cap at my mother, and handed her a black-edged envelope.

Suddenly there was a flurry of tears and packing, and Mother was off to Ireland for Grandmother's funeral.

‘Be good.' She hugged us tightly. ‘Take care of one another. Uncle Len will look after you.'

We were expecting her back in a few days. (‘Friday,' she'd said. ‘Though, if the boat makes good time, you might even see me on Thursday.')

But, though we stayed up late, there was no clatter on the stair or rattle at the door. Friday passed, worried and silent. Saturday and Sunday, too.

‘We'll send a telegram,' Uncle Len declared on Monday, though, since he had no idea who we should send it to, nothing at all came of that. But on Tuesday, as he was talking of going to the docks to get advice, there was a knock on the door, a hurried spell of whispering on the stair, and suddenly Uncle Len was a man full of plans.

‘We'll move Will back to his own bed, and I'll put my stuff in your mother's room.'

‘But surely Mother will be back any day – tomorrow even.'

He let the silence drip. I thought I ought to add, ‘Won't she?' but Will was there first.

‘Why? Why are you shifting things round? What's happened?'

‘Nothing,' he told us.

‘So what was all that whispering?'

‘Nothing.'

It took an age to worm it out of him. He really didn't want to tell us. Something had happened in Dublin. Either Mother was wandering round in a daze after the funeral, or there had been some awful mistake. But she was suddenly ‘under arrest', and then ‘hauled up in front of the magistrate'. And now, it seemed, she was in gaol.

‘In
gaol
?' Will's eyes turned as huge and staring, his face as pale, as Frozen Billy's. ‘How can she be in
gaol
?'

Uncle Len shook his head. ‘They say she stole a basket full of food.'

‘A basket of food? They must know Mother never stole a thing in her life – not even a length of silk ribbon from Mrs Trimble and Miss Foy!'

I bit my lip. ‘They don't know anything at all about Mother,' I reminded him. ‘There's no one there to speak for her. Now Grandmother's gone, there's nobody left in Ireland who knows her well enough.' I turned to Uncle Len. ‘How long will she be away?'

He said he didn't know. ‘Not long, I hope. A few weeks? Surely not long at all!' Will's eyes so spilled with tears he can't have seen the way Uncle Len's gaze swept round the room, avoiding mine. But even through my dry-eyed shock, I guessed my uncle suspected it might be a good while longer.

Later, when Will had cried himself into the deepest sleep, Uncle Len took me aside.

‘You must write to your father tomorrow, Clarrie.'

Next day, I sent Will off to school, unwilling and alone. (‘Mother would
want
it, Will.') Then I put on my best Sunday bonnet and went down to the corner shop. I pleaded with Mrs Trimble and Miss Foy until they agreed that I could take my mother's place at the counter to earn our rent until our father could get back to rescue us (though they said they would have to pay me less, because I was younger and had no experience).

Then I sat down at the table to write my letter. It was so hard to throw this black, black blanket over my father's shining dreams. It took all day. But when Will trudged home from school to see the envelope propped on the mantelpiece, he asked at once:

‘A letter to Father? What have you told him?'

He saw the answer in my face and flew into a fury. ‘You mustn't send it! I won't let you send it. No!'

‘But, Will—'

‘No!' Snatching it up, he ripped it in two. ‘No! Father has to finish his job. If you tell him Mother's in gaol, he'll spend every penny he's earned on the first passage home. He'll end up spending it all. He might even have to borrow, and end up back with us worse off than he started – even deep in debt – just as Mother comes home again.'

How could I tell Will that, even coming from Australia, our father's ship might reach the docks long before Mother's? I just stood looking doubtful. But everything Will said to try to convince me was lifting his own spirits. ‘Mother will understand! It's only a silly little basket of food she's supposed to have stolen. They can't keep her
for ever
. It can't be long, and Uncle Len won't mind. Each week he stays with us, he'll save on his own rent.'

Better this new, determined Will than the distraught brother of the night before. But I had another worry.

‘How
can
Uncle Len keep this secret? Father is his
brother
.'

‘How can he
tell
him?' Will countered fiercely. ‘Uncle Len isn't going to
write
, is he?'

And it was true. Father has always said that one of the reasons Uncle Len slid into the music-hall world is because he found reading and writing so difficult. He would never ever manage a letter to Australia.

Sure enough, when he came home from the afternoon matinée, Uncle Len drew me aside. ‘Clarrie, have you sent the letter to your father?'

I couldn't lie, so I admitted, ‘No.'

‘Very well,' he said. ‘But your handwriting's a whole lot better than mine. So set down this.'

Back I went to the table and sat obediently. ‘Don't worry, Charles,' he made me write. ‘As long as your little chickens are with me, they'll be kept warm, safe and fed.' And there was a whole lot more besides, because Uncle Len worships his brother. (I've heard Mother tease: ‘If Charles told you to leap off a cliff, you would do it.')

I wrote everything he said down, as neatly and carefully as I could. We sealed the letter in an envelope and I addressed it, giving Will money for the stamp we both knew he wouldn't buy. Then Will took the letter straight past the post office down to the docks, where he tore it in pieces and dropped them in the harbour.

‘I watched till the ink swam,' he whispered to me later.

So the only letter posted that week was the one Will sent to Mother, begging her not to let our father know that things were any different.

That last bit was so clever. I could as good as see Mother in the gaol, showing the letter to all the tough women round her, and them all taking Will's side.

‘Got brains and sense, that boy.'

‘What wouldn't I give for a chance of a new life?'

‘Go on, Mary. Trust him. What have you got to lose?'

Somehow they managed to persuade her. So she kept writing her ever-loving letters to our father, making it all up about walks in the country, and people she'd chatted to in the shop. She slipped the letters inside ones she sent to us, and I kept back some of the money I earned to buy stamps to send them on to Australia along with the letters we wrote to Father.

And Father wrote back, full of excitement and love, with hundreds of plans. Will read the letters aloud, using his quick way with words to chop and change the bits that might lead Uncle Len to guess that the letter he made me write had never arrived there.

After, Will handed the thin sheets of paper to me, to send on to Mother. Sometimes I kept them one more night, to read the real words alone. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that, but I did. I think it was a sort of tax I charged for being brave, and hanging on, while we waited for the strange time of lying to be over.

The Second Notebook

E
verything went well at first (though the rooms seemed so cold and empty without Mother's cheerful humming, and the sweet smell of rose water that trails all about her). I made a brave fist of preparing the meals I'd watched her cook most often.

Uncle Len would tuck in. ‘Excellent, Clarrie, my girl! Fine fare indeed!' He'd scrape the dish with his spoon, making a din like a stone rattling round a tin can, and when he caught me sternly eyeing him, he'd grin and wink. ‘Come on, Clarrie. An empty sack can't be expected to stand upright.'

But sometimes, if the audience had applauded too thinly at the afternoon matinée, his mood was darker. I might frown at him for lolling his muddy boots on my polished fender, and he would make a face. ‘Little Miss Disapproval,' he'd chide me. On days like these, he'd scowl at the burning coals till it was time to hurry back to the music hall for the evening show.

Will and I didn't fret. We knew all about Uncle Len's moods from whispers we had overheard. Father always said they happened when his act didn't go well. Uncle Len feared he'd lose his place at the Alhambra Music Hall and end up where he'd begun, singing and telling old jokes in clubs while the working men pelted him with nut shells; or strumming his banjo at the end of the pier, rolling calf eyes at ladies he hoped might take pity and toss a few coins into his frayed cap.

And that would have been such a waste. Because, from the day he'd found Frozen Billy hanging on the back of that shop door and badgered Father into lending him the money to buy it, Uncle Len had worked so hard. He'd made good his promise to learn the art of ‘throwing his voice' from scratch. He'd practised every day, and even risked the odd beating by sneaking into theatres without the price of a ticket, to watch other illusionists and pick up tips.

And soon he was a brilliant ventriloquist. He might lie abed for hours. (‘Don't give me that fish-eyed look, Clarrie. You know I think the streets aren't properly aired till noon.') But the moment he lifted Frozen Billy from the box, his face took on a glow. He seemed to grow taller, and his eyes darted and shone. He was so skilled that he could keep the dangling wooden dummy blinking and shrugging and tipping his head to one side without anyone noticing his busy, busy fingers.

Even the theatre manager admitted it. One day, when we ran across her in the street, Madame Terrazini said, ‘You have the makings of a great act there, Len.'

Uncle Len preened himself. And I knew why, because I've heard him saying it to Father often enough: ‘Once Madame Terrazini takes you under her wing, you're set fair for fortune.'

‘So I'll be moving up the bill, will I?' Uncle Len dared to ask.

Madame Terrazini didn't answer. She just kept smiling, and made to move on down the street.

‘Soon?' Uncle Len persisted. ‘A whole twenty minutes in the top half of the show?'

Madame Terrazini shook her head. ‘I said “the makings” of a great act, Len. You have a thing or two to straighten yet.'

Again, she made to move on.

Stubbornly, Uncle Len grasped me tighter, to keep us all in her path. ‘What things?'

Madame Terrazini met my eye. I knew she was uneasy about criticizing Uncle Len in front of Will and me. But, then again, I sensed she wasn't prepared to be bullied out of saying what she truly thought, just because he was holding us hostages to listen.

‘Well,' she admitted finally, ‘there is your terrible affection for the beer, Len. And though it's true I never see your lips move, night after night that dismal old patter lets your act fall flat.'

We knew about the fondness for the drink. We had heard Mother and Father speak sharply to him often enough. (He'd only laugh. ‘Beer is the best broom for troubles,' he would say.)