Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (24 page)

He would go to the theater again, because the intermedio seemed to connect him to the design, insert him into the weave. He was the warp and the weft, and connected as he was he felt … no, he
knew
that the design would begin to end there.

Perhaps the woman with shining black skin and bright eyes would be able to tell him what to do, or perhaps an answer would be forthcoming from elsewhere.

All he knew was that it would surely soon be time for a new pattern, a new design. A new weave, dyed with blood.

16

G
LORIA
M
ONDAY

Maria sat in the steam-cab for a long time, staring at the rag doll she still clutched in her hands. She should return it, but she couldn’t face the Elmwoods again. Not when they’d confronted her with her own … not
mortality,
but lack of it. The driver waited a respectful few moments, then said softly, “Back home is it, miss? To Grosvenor Square?”

“No,” she said, using the crook of her forefinger to wipe away the liquid leaking from her eyes. Damn Professor Einstein and his tinkering! Why did he have to make her so she could cry? She was a toy for the amusement of London’s chattering classes, a machine that could do remarkable things.

Machines should not be able to cry.

“No,” she said again, stuffing the doll into her skirt pockets. She would have it returned to the Elmwoods tomorrow. “Take me to the Britannia Theater on Hoxton Road.”

“Very good, miss,” said the driver, and with a hiss and a cloud of steam, the cab lurched forward, the steel wheel rims scrabbling for purchase in the slush, and they left not-quite-Winchmore Hill behind them.

It was fully dark when the cabbie let Maria out into the shelter of the canopy over the frontage of the Britannia, where the snow had redoubled its efforts, but it was still too early for Markus Mesmer’s evening performance. There were lights on in the foyer of the theater but no crowds, save for a knot of figures some way down Hoxton Road, laughing and shouting.

Maria was considering whether she should inquire of the ushers whether Mesmer was inside, or perhaps buy a ticket and watch his performance, when louder shouts drew her attention back to what now appeared a ruckus of some description. Through the swirling eddies of snow she could make out five, perhaps six men, gathered around a woman, her back to the shuttered window of a shop. Maria frowned as the wind snatched the voices and brought them closer.

“Come on, Gloria love, show us what’s under your skirts.”

Moving closer along the deserted road, Maria saw one of the men try to grab a handful of the woman’s dress. She slapped his hand away, and they all laughed. Before she knew what she was doing, Maria began to stalk toward them, shouting, “What’s going on! Leave her alone!”

“Leave her alone, she says,” laughed the man who’d grabbed at the woman’s skirts. He wore a derby pushed forward over his eyes, his high shirt collar frayed and grubby. In his hand he held a short club.

“This another Mary Ann?” said one of the other men. Maria counted six of them, young and cocky, their trousers tight and their jackets faded yet clinging to fashion.

“Well, well, well,” said the ringleader, smacking the club in the palm of his hand as he turned to inspect Maria properly. “I think we’ve got a right proper little lady here.”

Maria’s eyes flicked toward the woman, still with her back against the shutters. “You leave her alone, you rowdy boys,” she said, surprising Maria with the depth of her voice.

“Shut it, Mary Ann,” said the man with the club. “Think we’ll have a bit of fun with a real woman.”

The man lunged at Maria, laughing. She stood firm and her hand snapped out, clamping on the club and wresting it from his grasp. He blinked and glared at her as his compatriots laughed even louder.

“Feisty one, eh?” he said, rubbing his hands together. Maria took his club in both hands and snapped it clean in half, throwing the pieces at his feet.

“Fucking hell,” said one of the others.

When the ringleader looked up from his broken club, Maria smiled at him, drew back her fist, and smacked him hard on the chin. He staggered backward, falling on his backside in the slush, shaking his head. One of the others moved in toward her, and Maria gave him a swipe with the back of her hand, knocking him clean off his feet.

“Anyone else?” she said, looking at the others in turn.

“Fucking freak!” shouted the ringleader, scrabbling to his feet. “You’re all fucking freaks.”

Then he took off, his gang behind him, pelting through the snow until they were lost from sight. Maria turned to the woman, who was looking agog at her. She had on a fine dress with voluminous skirts, red curly hair flowing luxuriously over her shoulders. Maria said, “Are you all right, ma’am?”

“Yes. Thank you. My God, I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Maria frowned at the unexpectedly deep voice again. Then she noticed the peppering of black whiskers forcing their way through the thick greasepaint on the woman’s face like spring buds. Now Maria realized why those boys had been calling her “Mary Ann”—she had heard Aloysius bandy the term about when talking about men who dressed as women to satisfy the urges of those who liked to pay for such a thing.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re—”

“Not what you think, dear,” said the other, pointing to a damp bill pasted to the wall. “Not what those lads were saying. I’m not a Mary Ann, not a chap who dresses up as a lady for attracting those men who like that. This is what I’m about.”

Maria looked at the bill. T
WO SHOWS A DAY!
It proclaimed. T
HE SENSATION OF
S
OHO!
G
LORIA
M
ONDAY, BORN ON A
S
UNDAY, SHE’S BONNY AND BLITHE AND GOOD N’GAY!

“Gloria Monday?” said Maria.

“Sic transit gloria mundi!”
said Gloria, curtseying with a flourish. “Thus passes the glory of the world. Now, there’s a coffee shop around the corner, and I don’t have a performance for another two hours. What say I buy you a drink to thank you for that rather amazing display of physical prowess?”

*   *   *

Gloria led Maria through throngs of loudly chattering people, gaily attired, who leaned on the counters ranged along the walls of the gaslit, cigarette smoke–wreathed coffee shop, until they found a snug booth in the shadows at the back. Gloria instructed Maria to save the table at all costs and disappeared into the crowd, returning moments later with two steaming white mugs of dark coffee.

“I got sugar,” said Gloria. “Just the thing for shocks.”

Maria stared into the chocolaty depths of the drink. “It must have been awful for you, those boys saying those terrible things.”

Gloria watched Maria levelly over the coffee cup rim. “Those idiots? I get that all the time, though I am grateful to you for coming to my assistance like that. No, I meant you. It’s always a shock for people when they first meet me.”

Maria looked around the coffee shop. “They haven’t given you a second glance in here.”

Gloria shrugged. “Theater people. They get all sorts in here.”

Maria sipped her coffee. “And what sort are you, Gloria? A man who dresses as a woman?”

Gloria smiled. “No. A woman in a man’s body who dresses as a woman.”

Maria raised an eyebrow. “Is that allowed, then? To be one thing and just decide to be another?”

“Ah, Maria, anything is allowed.” Gloria laughed. “But I did not just choose to be what I am, on a whim. I chose to
not
be what I
wasn’t
. Does that make sense?”

Maria shook her head. Gloria cupped her mug in her hands and gazed into the depths. “Almost as soon as I could think for myself, I knew I had been the victim of some divine joke, or perhaps hellish prank. With every fiber of my being I knew that I was a girl, with every single instinct. I would dream I was a girl, and be ever so disappointed when I awoke and found my soul was still imprisoned in the body of a boy.” Gloria took a sip of the coffee. “School was hell. I was constantly in love with all the handsome boys. My father thought I was … distressingly unmanly, let us say.… When I was fifteen he found in my room women’s clothing I had stolen from my mother, my sister, even from washing lines in the streets. He beat me until I was barely conscious and threw me bodily from the family home.”

Maria looked curiously at Gloria. “And could that not have been it? What your father said? I know that it is, strictly speaking, against the law, two men loving each other, but … well. I knew Captain … I knew a man who loved another with as much vigor as any courting couple. There is no shame in it, whatever the courts say.”

“That there isn’t, Maria. But this wasn’t really about sex, about loving other men. It was about loving
me
; about
me
loving me. Being happy with what I am.” Gloria cocked her head, the curls falling over one shoulder. “Do you cook, Maria?”

“A little.”

“You know the difference between scrambled eggs and an omelet? It is simply a matter of stirring. Leave your beaten eggs in the pan, and you have an omelet. Stir them, and you have scrambled eggs. It’s the same with living things. Ten years ago, a German by the name of Boveri found this out with sea urchins. Chromosomes, they call it. Boys and girls are so close together, before they’re born, Maria. There’s nothing different about them for most of the time they’re in the womb. Then, a stir here, you get a baby boy. No stirring, a baby girl.” A sad, faraway look entered Gloria’s eye. “My eggs got scrambled by mistake, Maria. I should have been an omelet.”

“You are very well informed on such matters,” said Maria.

Gloria laughed. “Such journals as I subscribe to do not make for very exciting reading, I admit, Maria. But when you are convinced God—or the devil—has played a trick on you … I searched out as much scientific evidence as I could find, to prove to myself, at least, that I was right.”

Maria reached out and put a hand on Gloria’s. “But your body, it is still…?”

Gloria grinned. “Meat and two veg all present and correct below.” She dipped into the front of her frock and pulled out a half-sphere of stuffed cotton. “And these things won’t sag, no matter how old I get. But … there’s a doctor in Zurich I heard of. He can perform an operation … actually make a man into a woman. But it doesn’t come cheap. That’s why I do two shows a day here, to raise the money. That’s why I parade myself in front of idiots and sing music hall songs, and try not to mind when they jeer and throw cabbages.”

“Then you’ll be happier? After this … operation?”

Gloria considered. “I think so, yes. I’ll look like what I feel.” She dropped her voice. “And … I have a sweetheart. A more unlikely match you couldn’t imagine. I can’t tell you his name, but he’s a copper. Loves me to high heaven. It would ruin him, if the top brass found out about us, but he doesn’t care. I sneak into the police station to see him sometimes.”

“Then you want to have the operation for him?”

“I cannot deny that I long for the day when we can have a proper tumble, for when I have my own pussy he can touch and kiss. But I am not doing it for him. I am doing it for me. He loves me just for what I am.”

Maria smiled sadly and sighed. “Loves you for what you are.”

“Because he knows as well as I do,” said Gloria, pointing at the table, “what makes us what we are isn’t down there, what we’ve got between our legs.” She reached across the table and placed her hand on Maria’s breast. “It’s here, in our hearts.” She tapped Maria’s forehead. “And here, in our heads.”

“You would be very surprised what I have in my heart and my head, Gloria.” Maria felt wetness on her cheek and blinked away the tears. “I am sorry. This happens sometimes.”

“Oh my darling,” said Gloria, handing her a handkerchief. “Whatever is the matter?”

Maria looked down at herself. “I wish I were half of the woman you are. A hundredth of the woman.”

Gloria laughed. “I would kill for tits like yours, love. And skin so smooth.”

“I’m not real.”

“You have a pretty mean right hook for a phantom.”

Maria looked around. They were sheltered in the booth, and no one was looking their way. Swiftly she unlaced her bodice and opened her dress, baring her breasts. Gloria whistled softly. “Not real? You’re beautiful, girl.”

Wordlessly, Maria pressed her breastbone just so and a hairline crack appeared down the length of her chest and stomach. Gloria swore as the two halves of Maria’s torso split and opened, revealing the array of pumps, pistons, gears, and pipes that powered her mechanical body.

“No, not real at all,” said Maria, closing up her torso and rapidly lacing her corset. “I am an automaton. I have a human brain, true, but…”

Gloria continued to stare, then reached over and clasped Maria’s hands in hers. “You’re a miracle,” she whispered.

“I’d rather be a woman.”

“And do you feel like a woman? Do you know you’re a woman, despite all this?”

“I sometimes forget I’m
not,
” said Maria, her eyes overflowing with tears. “Then days like today happen, and I am somewhat brutally reminded.”

Gloria smiled and squeezed her hands. “Look at us. A fine pair of…”

“What was it that boy said? Freaks?” said Maria.

“I was going to say ‘women.’” Gloria raised her mug. “Here’s to us.”

Maria bit her lip and said, “I have a sweetheart, too.”

“And he knows about all this? And he loves you for what you are?”

Maria nodded uncertainly. “He knows. And, yes, I think he does. I thought what I was stood between us, but I didn’t realize until now that if that were the case, it was down to me, not him.”

“Then you should go to him, girl. Now!”

“I was here to find him. Gloria … do you think you could get me inside the theater? I rather urgently need a word with Markus Mesmer.”

*   *   *

The Britannia had just opened for business and to sell tickets, and crowds were already forming at the doors. Gloria took Maria’s hand and pushed through, taking her past the rope barriers and nodding to the ushers. “She’s with me.”