India Dark (14 page)

Lo's face twisted in a snort of outrage. ‘As if you care when a girl is ruined,' she said, but then she looked stricken, as if she wished she'd never spoken.

Miss Thrupp hitched her baby higher on her hip. Little Timmy's face was a funny shade of yellow and his head lolled around on her shoulder in a peculiar way.

‘I cannot be involved in these histrionics. I have a sick child to care for. You employed me as matron, not as a prison guard.'

She turned and walked stiffly back to her room.

Tempe couldn't perform with us for the closing show in Kuala Lumpur. On the platform at the station the day we left for Ipoh, she sat on top of a trunk with a scarf wrapped around her head to hide her bruises. Ruby and Clarissa stood either side of her as if they were her bodyguards, but they needn't have worried. No one wanted to talk to them.

I was glad to be on the train again. If you shut your eyes to the jungle you could imagine you were anywhere in the world. The rhythm of the wheels, the smell of coal and the feel of the leather seat beneath us were comfortingly familiar, like any other tour. Valentine and I held hands and pretended we were somewhere else other than on a steam train riding through the dark jungles of the Malay Peninsula. My poor little Valentine. She was quite shaken by her terrible adventure. I told her she should never, ever go anywhere without me, ever again and she swore she never would and sobbed on my shoulder.

After Ipoh and Butterworth, we took the ferry across to Georgetown on the island of Penang. It was a pretty little town and the audiences were kind to us, even if there weren't many of them in the theatre.

Next morning, when we came down for breakfast in our hotel, Tempe and Clarissa were sitting in the foyer, their arms folded across their chests, their faces like thunder. Outside the hotel, Mr Arthur organised for their suitcases to be loaded onto the back of a bullock cart. I knew instantly that he was sending them home. He was talking with an older, matronly-looking woman. She didn't seem very excited at having been appointed as chaperone to the two vixens, but Mr Arthur slipped a small wad of money into her hand and she smiled, a horrible glossy smirk.

We'd just sat down for breakfast in the dining room when Mr Arthur walked straight to our table.

‘Are you ready, Valentine?'

Valentine couldn't look at me. She hung her head and a big tear rolled down her cheek and plopped onto her skirt. ‘I'm sorry, Tills. I didn't know how to tell you. I'm being sent home too.'

‘But you didn't
do
anything,' I cried. I put my arms around her neck and clung to her. I didn't care about the others leaving but I couldn't bear the thought of losing Valentine.

‘Enough nonsense,' said Mr Arthur. ‘Come along, Valentine.'

‘I'll only be a minute,' she said to him, and she hugged me tightly. ‘It's all right, Tilly dear,' she said, kissing me on the cheek. ‘I don't want to go to India. I want to go home.'

‘But why must he choose you? Why not Poesy? She was in the car too.'

‘Poesy told him we'd been with Mr Tolego instead of saying we'd been out for a stroll, silly girl. Clarissa wants to scratch her eyes out. Besides, Poesy doesn't want to go home.'

‘But why do you want to?' I cried.

‘I'm going to stay with Mrs Essie and if Tempe and Clarissa try to say bad things about Mr Arthur being too rough, I will say otherwise.'

‘You'd lie for Mr Arthur?' We both looked into the foyer where Mr Arthur was tapping his foot, waiting for Valentine to finish her goodbyes. He pointed to his watch impatiently and Valentine nodded.

‘It wouldn't exactly be lying to say Tempe and Clarissa exaggerate everything. I've been with the Percivals since I was five years old, Tilly. They're like family to me. You have to stick up for your family.'

I gripped her arm as she tried to leave me. ‘You can't go. You can't leave your sister behind. Iris is your real family.' I wanted to say she couldn't leave me but everything was turned upside down. For the first time in our lives, I wasn't sure of her.

‘Iris can take care of herself. She is twelve years old, for goodness sake. Besides, Mr Arthur can't spare her. She's the best in the troupe.'

I flinched and dropped her arm. She might as well have slapped me. She'd always said I was the best actress in the world. I watched her walk out of the dining room.

Out in the street, I stood to one side as Tempe and Clarissa said their farewells. Valentine didn't look back at me as she climbed onto the wagon.

‘He can't be doing this,' said Ruby, wrapping one arm around Clarissa's neck and the other around Tempe's and drawing them close to her. ‘You can't go. I won't let you.'

Tempe turned her ruined face away. ‘I'm glad. Williamson's will have me, and I won't try out for the juvenile company either. I'll be a real showgirl. I'm sorry you're not coming with us, Ruby. When you come home, you can audition for Williamson's too and we'll all be together again. Then we'll be real actresses, singing songs worth singing.'

‘I want to come now, but he won't let me,' said Ruby bitterly. ‘He doesn't want my parents to find out that he's a brute, in case they come after Beryl and Pearl.'

The three girls huddled together for a moment, nestling into each other's bodies like a kindle of kittens. Clarissa looked up at Poesy and scowled.

‘What are you staring at, poo-faced Poesy,' she said. ‘Go away.'

Poesy stood a little apart from the rest of us. Her yellow hair fell limply around her shoulders and there were purple shadows under her eyes. ‘I only wanted to say goodbye,' she said.

‘If you'd kept your big mouth shut,' said Clarissa, ‘we wouldn't be leaving. You're a tattler, a tell-tale-tit, and I hope all the nasty monkeys come to take a bit.'

Even Tempe thought that was too harsh. She put her hand out and stilled Clarissa's sharpness.

‘You sound like a five-year-old, Lissa. It's all right, Poesy. This is not your fault. But be careful, all of you. No one can trust the Butcher.'

That was the first time I heard anyone call Mr Arthur ‘the Butcher'.

As Valentine, Clarissa and Tempe climbed onto the wagon, they turned to wave goodbye and Tempe's scarf slipped to one side. The sight of the long gash down her face seared the word ‘butcher' into my brain.
Butcher, butcher, butcher.
He'd taken my Valentine from me and cut me to my heart.

27

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Poesy Swift

Nightmares plagued me. Sometimes Mr Arthur came storming through the jungle, sometimes I could feel Mr Tolego's hands sliding up my body, and all the while I could hear Clarissa's voice shrieking, ‘Tattler!' Then everything would turn red and I would wake trembling.

After Kuala Lumpur, some of the girls refused to sleep in the same room as me. I was moved in with Lizzie again. It was such sweet relief to be with her. Once, I woke from my nightmare confused and sobbing. It felt like the middle of the night but it must have been early because Lizzie was coming in through the door and the light spilled across my bed. She lifted the mosquito netting and climbed in beside me. Even though it was hot to have two bodies so close, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep once she held me. Sometimes I felt Lizzie was the only one who believed I hadn't tattled. All I'd said to Mr Arthur about the trip with Mr Tolego was that we had been motoring in his new car. What else was I to say when Mr Arthur saw us all sneaking in the back entrance of the hotel? I never told anyone about Tempe disappearing into the jungle with Mr Tolego, not even Lizzie. It was when Flora sucked her thumb and said she was afraid of tigers that Mr Arthur turned on Tempe.

Lizzie said it was a good thing that Tempe and Clarissa were being sent home. She said they were poisoning the troupe, making everyone turn on Mr Arthur, and that he'd only done his duty. But Miss Thrupp and Mr Milligan the electrician had gone cold on him. You could see the frosty expressions on their faces when he spoke to them, you could sense their disapproval. You could hear them muttering about not being paid enough and how the tour would end in tears.

But it wasn't Mr Arthur's fault that the audiences were thin and so many of the children were falling ill. First it was Daisy and then Valentine's little sister, Iris.

The day after Valentine and the others were put on board a steamer to Australia, Iris collapsed on stage. It was our last night in Penang and she'd been playing Winifred, the lead in
A
Runaway Girl
. As soon as the curtain fell, her eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled in a heap. Luckily, Lionel was close enough to catch her. Miss Thrupp and Lo bundled her into the dressing room and stripped off her costume, which was drenched in sweat. The rest of us had to wait in the wings.

Iris had been sick ever since we left Kuala Lumpur but no one had wanted to admit it, least of all Iris herself. She'd pretended to be too ill to see Valentine off the day she left, so it was odd that she wasn't too ill to sing and dance.

Mr Milligan pushed his way through the crowd of Lilliputians that stood grumbling outside the dressing room. He put his head around the door and gestured for Miss Thrupp to come and talk to him. Just before he pulled the door shut again, I heard him say, ‘He's going to kill one of the kiddies before too long if he keeps this up, and if you won't speak to him, then I will!'

I hurried down to where Lizzie was folding costumes into a trunk.

‘I think Mr Milligan is going to have words with Mr Arthur,' I whispered.

Lizzie dropped the costume and put her hands on my shoulders. ‘You were with Iris before she went on stage, weren't you, Poesy? What was she like?'

I tipped my head to one side. ‘She said she wanted to go on. Though she looked peculiar. Her eyes were all shiny, in the wrong way. And Miss Thrupp said she had a fever, like the one Daisy had in Kuala Lumpur.'

‘And Lo said she shouldn't go on, didn't she? Lo told her she was going to take her back to the hotel in a gharry, but Iris refused.'

‘Well, she cried when Mr Arthur said he'd give her part to someone else if she didn't buck up. If she didn't play Winifred, then Tilly would have taken her place and that would have made Iris sicker than any old fever.'

Lizzie gave me a funny look and I realised something new about myself. I had sounded rather sly and unkind. But it was true. Iris would rather die than have Tilly play Winifred.

Lizzie took one of my hands and stroked it gently. ‘Poesy, I want you to do something for me. Not just for me but for our dear Mr Arthur. Mr Milligan will set upon Arthur if we're not careful. He's been stewing over this ever since Daisy fell ill. You know Daisy and Iris are Mr Milligan's favourites. If Mr Milligan takes it on himself to challenge Arthur, it will be bad for all of us. So I want you to go and tell Mr Milligan what you just told me.'

‘Why don't
you
go and talk to him?' I asked.

‘Because he won't believe anything I say,' she said. She turned me around and gave me a little shove in the direction of the dressing rooms.

I found Mr Milligan packing away his limelight, laying the cylinders side by side and arranging all the tanks and tubing in his special trunks. He was muttering to himself as he worked so I knew he was grumpy.

I tapped him very shyly on the shoulder and he scowled until he turned and saw it was me.

‘I thought I should tell you about Iris,' I said, suddenly uncertain of what exactly I was meant to be saying.

‘What about the little lass, then?' he asked, looking alarmed. ‘She's not taken a turn for the worse?'

‘No,' I said, swallowing hard, hoping Iris was better and that what I was about to say wasn't really a fib. ‘It's that she can't be very ill because she insisted, absolutely insisted, on going on stage tonight. We were in the dressing room together and she cried when Lo, I mean Eloise, I mean Mrs Quedda, when Mrs Quedda said she should go back to the hotel.'

‘
Mrs
Quedda, eh?' he said, his bushy eyebrows meeting as he frowned. I knew what he meant. It was hard to believe she was a ‘Mrs' anything – she didn't seem grown-up enough – but she was married and she did have a baby.

‘Yes. She was very worried for Iris but Iris insisted and cried and stamped her foot.' I'd exaggerated a little – she hadn't really stamped her foot but it wouldn't have been out of character for her to do it, so it was only a tiny white lie. ‘What could anyone do but let Iris have her way?' I asked, turning my palms upwards in an empty gesture.

Mr Milligan took each of my hands and held them firmly in his big, warm grasp. ‘I'm not sure, little Poesy, why you've come to tell me this. I hope it's out of the goodness of your heart. I hope it's because you want the best for your little friend and not because some weaselly gentleman put you up to it.'

I blushed and snatched my hands away from his. ‘Of course not. Mr Arthur would never do something like that. I simply thought you should know, because you looked so worried, I thought . . .'

Mr Milligan nodded and went back to disassembling the limelight. It smelt funny around him – sharp and unpleasant. Charlie had told me it was only calcium oxide, but that acrid stench mingled with my uneasy sense of guilt and seeped into my skin.

Was it wrong to want everyone to get along? Was it wrong to try pouring oil on troubled waters? I wandered back to the empty theatre and sat on the edge of the stage, dangling my feet above the disused orchestra pit. It was so melancholy without the audience. If only the show could go on forever and the curtain never fall. These days, the only time the Lilliputians seemed to be truly happy was when we were on stage, pretending we were little grown-ups. I wished we never had to take off our costumes and go back to being ourselves.

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