Frozen Billy (4 page)

I look back now and wonder why it took even the short while it did for Uncle Len to come to his decision: ‘Will! This is too good to miss. You must join me.'

‘Join you?'

‘At the Alhambra!' He snapped his fingers. ‘We'll do the act together. I'll get you fitted with clothes that suit.' His eyes gleamed more and more brightly and, tipping my brother off his knee, he rose from his chair and started striding up and down the little room. ‘We'll work up a new patter, and show it to Madame Terrazini. She'll give me double the time on stage. The audience will love it!'

No point, I thought, in letting Will get caught up in Uncle Len's wild dreams. It was a merry enough idea to cheer an evening, but no way to live a life. I didn't dare come out with, ‘And what do you think Mother will say when she comes home?' for fear that, tempted, Uncle Len might let drop how long that wait could be, and send my brother's good spirits tumbling again.

Instead I asked, ‘And what about Will's schoolwork?'

Uncle Len made a face. ‘What about it, Clarrie?'

I spread my hands. ‘I mean, when is he to sleep? Over his books in school? The twenty-minute act is always the last of the evening, after all. We've heard you saying it often enough: “Top of the Bill – End of the Show!” '

Perhaps I did make the words sound a little too close to his own tones. In any event, he shot me a very irritated look. ‘Perhaps there's one mimic too many in this family, Clarrie.'

I didn't let him scold me into quiet. ‘Will's schoolwork must come first.'

Uncle Len snorted. ‘Clarrie, his books can wait. Even old men can learn lessons, but how long will your brother look the same age and be the same height as Frozen Billy? Not for much longer. No, this is our chance, and we must snatch it!'

But I persisted. He'd talked of snatching things, so I snatched Mother's last letter off the table and read the lines at the end.
‘And, Clarrie my dearest, I hope the time we're so unjustly kept apart will not be wasted. Keep to your books, my darling. And be sure to keep your brother to his. Then, when I step off the boat and hurry home, there will be time for all the hugs and kisses we are missing.'

I swear I saw a sneer cross Uncle Len's face. ‘Hugs and kisses! Clarrie, I'm talking
double money
. Don't you think we could all do with more in our purses?'

Will pricked up his ears. ‘All?'

Uncle Len saw his advantage. ‘Half the act earns half the money. Don't you believe that I'd deal with you fairly?'

Will sat bolt upright, staring.

‘There's nothing
fair
,' I scolded Uncle Len, ‘about dangling in front of someone who's never had a shilling of his own the promise of loud applause and easy money.'

And that was that. Two careless words had cost me the argument.

‘“Easy money”, eh, Clarrie? You think I come back here at midnight as fresh as a spring daisy?'

I could have said, as Mother might have done, that, since the Alhambra emptied at ten, it must be the nearby alehouse, and not work, that kept him out so late. But Will had already leaped off his chair and thrown his arms around him.

‘I can do it, Uncle Len! I know I can. I can work every evening, and trade a beating at school each Thursday for slipping out to Wednesday matinées. And if Clarrie helps, I can keep up with my book work.' He shot a sly look my way. ‘I won't end up leaving school as she has. And we can earn a whole lot more than she does, selling thimbles! Mother will be so pleased when she comes home. And Father so
proud
.'

That's when I lost the argument with myself. Will said the words ‘And Father so proud', and suddenly a vision rose, startlingly clear. Will and I stood in a pool of coins and Father scooped us in his arms and said, ‘All of this? Ours? Why, with all this we can make every dream come true at last!'

So that was that. I had become a co-conspirator, and Uncle Len and I were friends again.

The Fourth Notebook

A
fter that, it was all work. First, Uncle Len and Will spent hour after hour perfecting the patter.

Will came up with the ideas – mostly for knockabout misunderstandings and fights between two brothers. Then, like a man who has no skills as a cook himself, but knows which of the pies in front of him is likely to taste best, Uncle Len would pounce.

‘Yes! That'll make them laugh to split their waistcoats. We'll work up that one, Will. That'll be a winner.'

They'd go over the lines together like two instruments trying to get more and more finely in tune.

‘Which makes you laugh more? This . . . ?'

Uncle Len would direct Will with a finger. Keeping his jaw square and wide, my brother would spill out the words, then snap his bottom lip up like a trap.

‘Or this?'

They ran through the joke again, slightly differently. ‘Is it better that way?'

Finally, they turned to me. ‘Hey, Clarrie. Which amuses you more?'

I broke off pulling pans out of the cupboard under the sink and watched. ‘The way you did it first.'

‘Well, what about this?'

When they were sure they'd chosen right, they went over it again, while I reached into the cupboard with the cloth. Under my fingers, suddenly, I felt a piece of board wobble. Dropping the cloth, I poked my head in further, just like Mother used to do. Behind the square of board under my hand was a place my fingertips fitted easily.

I pulled a little and the board came up. Underneath, beside the floor joist, lay a few coins, a pair of earrings I recognized, and Mother's wedding lines. I knew Mother wouldn't thank me for spilling the secret of her hiding place – especially to Uncle Len, who's so accomplished at ‘borrowing' money when he feels in the mood for one more tankard of ale.

I let the board drop and shifted the pots and pans back on top.

‘Give over with your endless clattering, Clarrie,' called Uncle Len. ‘Come here and listen to us run through it all again.'

When they were sure the skit was at its best, they practised it over and over. Of course Will fell behind with his schoolwork. At first, I'd rouse him early and send him off – often with all his exercises done in my imitation of his hand, complete with ink blots, to save him from yet another thrashing. But after a few days I couldn't bear to pull him, still grey with the need for more sleep, out from beneath the covers. Promising myself (and the shade of Mother) that I would teach him better on Sunday to make up, I let him be.

And then, when Sunday came round, they'd be busy with the patter.

Until the day when Uncle Len declared: ‘That's it, Will. Time to show Madame Terrazini what we can do.' He dropped a hand on my head. ‘You'll have to come as well, Clarrie. You are a part of this as much as we are.'

I broke off laboriously penning my lies to our father – ‘This morning, Mother said she might take us to the zoo on Sunday, if we are good. We hope to see some of the strange animals you write of so often' – and tried to wriggle out of going with them.

‘Not me! What have I got to say to Madame Terrazini in an empty theatre?'

Uncle Len laughed. ‘No empty theatres round here at seven o'clock, Clarrie!'

I stared. ‘You're going to do it without speaking to her first? You're just going to step on stage and try the new show? In front of everyone?'

Was it my vehemence that made Will turn pale? Or did he have an inkling of bad times to come?

That first night, though.

Magic!

A few weeks later, everything about the Alhambra seemed almost commonplace. I knew all the acts backwards. In my sleep I could watch the contortionist twist himself into knots, and hear the ringing crescendo as the xylophonist whipped his balled sticks across the tin bars before tossing them in the air and catching them with a one-handed flourish.

I could tell which of the dancing belles had been snarling and snapping at one another in the dressing rooms even before they swarmed down the glittering staircase waving their feather fans, to start their high kicks and swirls. I knew the words of all the sing-along favourites, and how some of the magician's tricks worked (though I could never work out others).

But that first night!

Madame Terrazini found me where Uncle Len had left me to stand and watch, behind the stalls.

‘Stage-struck, young lady? In love with my glorious Italian tenor? But here at the Alhambra, I'm afraid, the rule is, “No ticket, no show”.' She bent closer. ‘Wait a moment. Don't I know your face?'

I suppose I was frightened she might raise her voice and, even as the lights dimmed and the curtain rose, people might turn and stare. So mine wasn't the cleverest answer. ‘I am Uncle Len's.'

‘Uncle Le—? Oh, you mean
Len
!' She took me by the elbow. ‘You've come to watch the show! And why not? Only a churl would ask a devoted niece to pay for a seat to see her own uncle.'