Frozen Billy (9 page)

‘Clothes? For yourself, Clarrie?'

I nodded.

‘Dresses?'

I shook my head. ‘A bright blue jacket. A pair of knickerbockers. And, if I can find them, a pair of striped school socks.'

She raised an eyebrow. ‘You seem a little old for dress-up games.'

‘No, no. I thought, if I could find a jacket and knickerbockers to fit, then I could cut off my hair—'

‘Cut off your hair?'

‘As short as a boy's. Then I could take my turn on stage as Frozen Billy's twin.'

She stared at me. ‘You? On stage, Clarrie? What would your uncle think of that?'

‘I haven't told him yet. But he did once warn Will, “Be sure, on the day I finally find Still Lucy, I will be offering your job to Clarrie.” '

Madame Terrazini chuckled. ‘The day he finds Still Lucy! You are a family of dreamers, Clarrie!' Her face grew serious. ‘I've heard that Mrs Trimble and Miss Foy work you hard enough. Why would you add to your burdens by taking your brother's place on stage?'

‘To save him!' I burst out. ‘He works night after night. His temper sours, and nothing cheers him. If I could take his place, then he could rest and his good spirits might return to him.'

She smiled at me. ‘On stage to save your brother? Your lovely hair cut short? I tell you, you have the courage of a lion. A lion, Clarrie!'

My heart was lifting. ‘So I may go in the storerooms?'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘And try to take Will's place?'

She spread her hands. ‘Clarrie, your uncle knows his business. If you can satisfy him, I have no doubt you can satisfy me and the audience.' She sighed. ‘Maybe it's for the best. Anyone can see that things are very wrong between your brother and uncle. Out there on stage the two of them seize every chance to snarl at one another and pick over ancient battles. You have the look of someone hovering over a sickbed, and scuttle away each time I remind you we have business to settle—'

That word again. ‘Business?'

‘Your brother's wages!' She waved a hand towards the huge safe standing in the corner. ‘You can't believe I'd trust a boy his age to carry the amounts he's earned home in his knickerbocker pockets!'

‘But surely, Uncle Len has—?'

‘Uncle Len?' She threw up her hands in mock despair. ‘Oh, Clarrie, would you have me watch your brother work so hard, only to see your uncle drink his wages away in the Soldier at Arms straight after? How could you even think it? Oh, my dear child!'

‘But we
all
thought . . .'

Now she was staring at me as much as I at her. ‘Small wonder, then, that your poor brother is in such a pet! I wonder Len hasn't put him straight, if only to improve his temper.'

‘I don't believe my uncle knows. You see, you give him more than you did before—'

‘A mere pittance more, I admit, now there are two of them to pay.'

‘But more. Enough to confuse him into thinking that was the new wage for them both.'

She roared with laughter. ‘Then Len's no better with his figures than with his letters, Clarrie!' Again, she chuckled. ‘I'll leave it to you to turn your brother's growls to smiles. You've earned that pleasure.' Her face grew serious. ‘Meantime, let's hear no more about you cutting off your hair and going on the stage.'

She drew a few notes from a drawer. ‘Here. Take a little now to pay your rent and fill your larder. I'll keep the rest in my safe.' Pressing the money into my hand, she ushered me towards the door. ‘If you are wise, you might prefer to keep this news from your uncle.' She put her arm round my shoulders and drew me near. ‘But you can cheer your brother with the news that, by the end of this week, he will have earned—'

Lowering her head to mine, she whispered, then stepped back, laughing at the look on my face.

‘
That
much?'

‘Yes. That much, Clarrie!'

I tell you, I ran to the shop on air.

Mrs Trimble wiped the smile from my face.

‘Late, Clarrie! Late! Don't think that you'll be paid for this first hour, since you've missed half of it. Now get to work at once. Customers are
waiting
.'

But even her scolding and her terse commands couldn't tether my mind to my duties. All morning I floated in a daze, sliding the heavy rolls of silk back in the wrong places, mislaying samples of elastic, scattering the thimbles.

By noon, Mrs Trimble had worked herself into such a lather of irritation, she wanted me out of her sight. ‘Clarrie! You're of so little use today that you can carry these papers down to the Import Officer at the docks. Perhaps the fresh air will rouse you.'

It was a punishment. She knows I hate it when the sailors grin and whistle, and when the dockmen turn and stare. But she was right. The air was good for me. The cold winds filled my lungs and my head cleared.

Soon, I was standing on the quayside, watching a great steamship draw near. The old man clinging to the rail beside me shook out his pipe and nodded towards it. ‘That's the
Stirling Castle
.'

‘Castle?'

He saw my baffled look and chuckled. ‘Her
name
. She's in from Calais.'

‘Do you know all the boats?' I asked from politeness.

‘No, no.' Again he chuckled. ‘But I can read.' He twisted himself round just enough to wave at a notice board on the harbour wall. Behind a sheet of glass were pinned a dozen sheets of paper.

‘In, out,' he told me. ‘Sailings. Dockings.'

When he had shuffled off, I gathered my shawl around me in the icy wind, and went to stare. There, next to the ticket prices, was the list of ships due in and out of dock. Berthings from Singapore and Valparaiso. A sailing bound for Australia on Saturday, on the midnight tide. Another for Tierra del Fuego. If I am honest, I was looking for the name of the ship that I'd waved out of port two years before: the
Firm of Purpose
. I'd stood, tears burning, waving until my arm could have fallen from its socket, and my father was no more than a speck, and the ship little more than a dot, on the horizon.

The Customs Officer signalled me back inside his cosy warm office. ‘Here, child. Give these to Mrs Trimble and warn her the next time her paperwork is so awry, she'll lose her rolls of silk for ever.'

What? Did he think, as Madame Terrazini does, that I've a lion's heart? I hurried back. Mrs Trimble snatched the import papers, broke open the seal and peered at the official stamp.

Satisfied, she turned back to me. ‘So, Clarrie, has the sea air cleared your brain of cobwebs?'

She kept me, to make up the hour I hadn't been in the shop. The clock was striking seven as I ran up the stairs and stumbled on the mat outside our door, sending it skittering sideways.

Out from beneath it poked the corner of an envelope. Dropped on the way to a neighbour's door? Or given to someone else by mistake, then passed back to us? I picked it up to inspect it.

It was from Mother.

I ask myself now how, knowing that Uncle Len and my brother were only a foot or two away, hungry for supper, I could have chosen so fast to clatter noisily up the next flight of stairs, to make them think I was only some neighbour passing the door on the way to their own room.

I think that – just for
once
– I longed to read the letter first, and by myself. I wanted to be first to hold it. I wanted to take my time to unfold it, and know that where my fingers rested, the last fingers to rest had been Mother's.

I read the letter and I cried and cried.

That night, I was so restless. Through my small window I watched the clouds scud over the sky and thought of the ships I'd seen straining at the tide, and of the voyage we all longed to make.

And finally, sleep came. Was it because Mother's letter lay hidden under my pillow that she was so vivid in my dreams? Singing under her breath; busying herself with her stitching as Will and I sat with our schoolbooks; gently scolding our uncle.

I woke to hear her voice ring round the room as clearly as if the dream were real. ‘Oh, Len. You know as well as I, a man makes his own fortune.'

Then I heard my own voice in a whisper: ‘Why not a woman, too?'

And as I lay, watching the silent moon dip and bow across the storm-bruised sky, I thought again of all the money waiting in Madame Terrazini's safe, of all the questions I'd asked her, and how she'd replied. And, for the first time since Will had climbed on Uncle Len's knee to play the dummy, I found myself wondering if – after all – some good might come of this talent for mimicry that runs through our family. In my mind's eye, in the dark, it suddenly came to me how my idea to rescue my brother from the music hall could grow and grow to be a veritable explosion of daring to rescue all of us from our waiting lives.

Would it work? Could it be done? And could I do it? Did I dare to try?

I'll tell you this: if you have been a ‘Good girl, Clarrie!' all your life, you have one gift that no one else is offered.

You don't know where your limits are or where your boundaries end. Why, if you're brave enough, you might just find your wits as wide and uncharted as some brand-new country.

Like Australia!

The Eighth Notebook

M
rs Trimble stared. ‘Leaving us, Clarrie? Have you found better employment to keep the roof over all your heads?'

I kept my eyes on my shoes. ‘No, Mrs Trimble.'

‘Then is this wise?'

I offered her no more than a tiny shrug. She peered at me closely, then muttered something about ‘ingratitude' and ‘docking a day's pay, in lieu of notice'. I didn't mind. It made it easier to slip a length of shiny red ribbon – and one tiny thing more – into my apron pocket and feel no guilt. Threads we had in plenty at home. And since Mother was allowed to pick through the shop sweepings every night for scraps to mend our clothes, we had a basket overflowing with patches.

I didn't say a word at home, and no one asked. That evening, after Uncle Len and Will left for the theatre, I hastily put away the broom and followed at once. I was so close behind that, if they'd turned, I would have had to dart down an alley. They vanished through the stage door. I hurried in behind and, the moment I'd seen them turn towards the dressing rooms, went the other way, to the storerooms.

Each one is bigger than the three rooms we have at home pushed into one. They're all piled high. I slipped into the first, filled with the most extraordinary things: statues, guns, papier-mâché pigs, clocks, coronets, a stuffed dog, candlesticks, framed portraits. Think of each scene from every play or pantomime you've ever heard of – all the things on that stage, along with a thousand others, were in one or another of the storerooms.