Frozen Billy (7 page)

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 ventriloquist'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.'

‘In short,' said Will, ‘quite
unspeakably
cruel!'

The audience howled with laughter. Will turned to Frozen Billy. ‘So, brother. What do you think this fine “uncle” deserves, for sitting both of us in splendour on his knees every night, but making one of us work with no pay?'

I saw the beads of sweat gather on Uncle Len's forehead. Will seized the moment to turn to the audience again.

‘Should this kind “uncle” be despised for all his promises that turn to lies?'

‘Indeed he should!' called back the audience.

‘Perhaps he should even be thrashed like a scoundrel?'

‘Yes!' bellowed the audience, enjoying the joke hugely.

‘Arrested, even, for his false pretences?'

I saw the sweat run over Uncle Len's fixed smile as the audience roared their agreement.

‘Yes! Yes!'

‘Arrest him!'

Will tipped his head to one side in puppet fashion. ‘No. Wait! I have a better idea . . .'

The audience waited, spellbound.

‘I'll tell my mother! Yes! I'll tell my mother!'

They roared with laughter, and the act went on.

On my way backstage, I felt a hand on my arm and turned to see Madame Terrazini. She had a puzzled look. ‘Clarrie, your brother surely cannot—'

I broke away. ‘You must excuse me! I must be there for him when Uncle Len comes off the stage!'

I rushed off and waited, terrified, for the quarrel I was quite sure would follow. Smouldering with anger, Uncle Len strode to the carrying box waiting on its stand in the wings, hurled in Frozen Billy and left the theatre, ignoring both of us. I hurried after, dragging a grim-faced Will.

At the door of the Soldier at Arms, Uncle Len turned away without a word. Will muttered sourly, ‘Ale drowns more men than Neptune,' and moved ahead of me. Each time I hurried to catch up, he walked even faster, till he was running. So in the end I let him go, and by the time I'd reached our rooms, he had pulled the coverlet over him to pretend he was sleeping.

Next morning Uncle Len greeted him with a scowl. ‘Well, Will? Your humour last night sprang from some bitter root.'

Will stared back coolly. ‘You know the saying, Uncle. “You should be careful what you give a child, for in the end you'll get it back.” '

Uncle Len flushed. I thought the fur would fly. But there was something in Will's eyes that made Uncle Len hesitate. He looked quite frightened.

Pushing his plate aside, he sprang to his feet. ‘I must be off. I have a man to see, and errands to run.'

In half a minute he was out of the door. Will calmly watched him go.

I lifted my brother's empty plate. ‘Now it's my turn to ask: “Well, Will?” '

He only muttered sourly, ‘I think, if Uncle Len wants a dog to follow him, then he should perhaps take the trouble to feed it.'

A few nights later, I woke to the sound of busy voices. Raising myself in bed, I listened through the darkness as hard as I could. The earnest talk kept on. I slid my feet out from under the covers and down onto the cold floor. I crept across the room, avoiding boards that creak, and poked my head round the door to hear, quite clearly, Frozen Billy's voice:

‘. . .  and I assure you it is the very hardest thing, to lose a sister.'

Then, from the same corner, came my brother's own tones.