CHAPTER 15

Mrs Bleeker was in a tizz. So much to do in such a hurry. George and Minnie were to go to the Lord Mayor’s fancy-dress ball to meet Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria’s second son, who was also visiting Sydney. At first the plan had been for Charlie and Lavinia to go, and Mrs Bleeker had had a grand plan for thousands of silver sequins on the Queen of Beauty’s oyster-grey ensemble. But then Lavinia succumbed to a vile cold, and the doctor prescribed plenty of bed rest to protect her voice, so Mr Bleeker’s thoughts turned to the second couple. Charlie objected that the poltroon Commodore would disgrace them all. But then Lavinia had a word in private, and I saw her husband emerge from her boudoir to tell Mr Bleeker airily that he had had enough of fancy-dress balls and royal asses — his wife had reminded him of where his true interests lay. ‘The Coming Man, Mr B. The time is near,’ he said in a stage whisper, putting a conspiratorial finger on his nose. I waited for him to turn to me, to bestow his smile on Belly. But instead he looked back through the open door towards the day bed where Lavinia sat, her hands folded protectively over the bunched blankets so that it looked as if the Queen of Beauty were the one who was expecting.

Then Mrs Bleeker touched my arm. ‘No time to lose, we must have costumes. The Commodore can go as Dandy Pat, his velveteen will need a good brushing. Minnie must go as Little Red Riding Hood. Her red satin dress will do, but you must cut and sew the hem to the length of a little girl’s skirts. Red thread and tiny stitches, mind, this is for royalty. And she must have a splendid cape and hood in red velvet, with a red satin lining. Here is money, buy the best velvet you can find — crimson, not scarlet.’

Smiling at the thought that at last Minnie would be permitted short skirts, and that I would be spared the sewing-on of thousands of sequins, I made haste to obey. And when Minnie came to me later and instructed me to lower her neckline, again I complied. Lavinia would never see it under her cloak, and what harm could it do?

The morning after the fancy-dress ball, I woke late. The hotel was quiet, no one was around to scold me for oversleeping, so I crept to the breakfast room to see if anything was left. George was lifting the lid on a dish of kidneys. He winced and screwed up his haggard face in the steam, dropped the lid with a clang, winced again. His curls were plastered to his skull, as if he had dipped his head in a bowl of water to wake himself up. I knew better than to offer him a cheery greeting. He must have only just come back from the Lord Mayor’s ball, and either he had not enjoyed himself, or he had enjoyed himself too much.

Although the ball was over, the thousands of tiny stitches I had made were still running through my head and I had no more appetite than George, who was watching me with a bleary gaze.

‘Buck up,’ he muttered. ‘You’re lucky. You’re doing a great thing for her.’ He shuffled past me, out of the room, for once without the roses in his cheeks. Ned met him in the corridor, put his arm round George’s drooping shoulders and offered him something from a silver flask, and then they wandered off together.

On impulse I followed: down the stairs, out the back door, across the courtyard and along an alley to a murky little pond, a stream dammed with rocks where I’d seen horses brought to drink and washerwomen slapping their clothes on the stones, but all was quiet and deserted at mid-morning; it seemed a dank place for a confab. I was pretty sure the gents had not noticed me, and even if they had, they paid me no heed. I stood behind a copse of straggly eucalypts and watched as Ned stood on the muddy bank and looked about. George sat slumped on a dry stone and began a slow grumbling monologue, punctuated by Ned’s occasional cries. The wind blew too much of their exchange away from me — all I could catch were a few words.

‘The wolf,’ George was saying, ‘and the robin fucking redbreast.’

It was easier to hear Ned. He was either outraged and excited, or pretending to be so. ‘Surely not!’ ‘What happened then?’ And once, with a great guffaw: ‘Hah, the royal sceptre at work!’

But George wouldn’t be cheered, mumbled on and on. At last he raised his voice: ‘Don’t you dare say a word, Ned.’

Ned uncorked his flask. ‘You know me, soul of discretion. Come, drink up. This’ll warm your cockles. Just wait a sec while I take a piss.’ He slipped out of my vision, and I watched George take a long draught.

Suddenly, before I could move, Ned appeared around one of the trees. He smiled, but his eyes remained lazy-lidded. He had the silver top from the flask in his hand and he lounged against the trunk, raising his silver glass in a toast. I folded my arms and stared at him, and he winked.

‘Eavesdropping again?’

‘You’re not in the billiard room now.’

He attempted a hurt-puppy look.

‘You hung the General out of the carriage by his heels, didn’t you?’ It came out before I could stop myself, but I felt a savage pleasure in the saying.

Ned laughed. ‘Sweet Jesus, ma’am, how can you say that? All was confusion in that coach; we were so rocked about. I was thrown onto the Commodore, and the Commodore rammed his foot in Mr B’s ear, and the water so cold. We thought our hour had come. We were like a sackful of cats.’

‘Yes. All was confusion. So nobody in the carriage would have seen what you did. But I saw, I was close, I recognised those wrists — I thought at the time you were trying to pull him in. But now …’

Ned tugged his cuffs down, almost to his knuckles. ‘Now why would I hang the General out the window?’ he asked, as if it were some armchair mystery.

‘Because you are a troublemaker.’

‘I never bandy words with a lady, especially when she’s in pod. But you’re mistaken.’ Ned swigged at his glass, wiped his mouth with a grey handkerchief.

‘I am not a lady and you know it. But I see what I see.’

Ned narrowed his lizard eyes to slits, then opened them wide. ‘You speak like a lady. You’ve got breeding. Your pa and your dear departed were both men of God. I’m just a poor boy from Brooklyn who’s hoicked himself up and got himself educated. Mr Barnum is my God, ma’am. I mean no blasphemy. I study his words and his art.’ He put one hand inside his jacket, pulled out a little book. ‘Here’s my Bible: The Art of Money Getting by P.T. Barnum. You should read it, ma’am. I’m hoping for a sequel: The Art of Practical Joking. Mr Barnum’s very partial to practical jokes. Good healthy harmless fun.’

‘Hey, Ned!’ George was calling from his stony throne. I thought for a moment he could hear us, but the wind had shifted and was now blowing our words away from him. ‘Where are you, boyo? Can’t get your piss out?’

‘Coming!’ shouted Ned over his shoulder. ‘Just a mo!’ He came close to me, peered into my face; his breath was brandy-sweet. ‘Are you planning to tell Mr B? We can do a deal, you know. Just to save you the pain of making false accusations.’

I stared back. ‘I am not interested in deals, Mr Davis, only in heading off disaster.’

Ned grinned. ‘Sure, sure. What can I say, ma’am? You see what you see.’ His protruding canine gave him a vampire countenance. I had expected protest, anger, even snarling and clawing, anything but these cheerful shrugs.

‘Is that all? You have nothing more to say?’

He held out his hands. ‘What can I say? I’m just a poor boy from Brooklyn.’

‘Ned!’ called George.

‘Excuse me, I have company.’

‘You blackguard. You offered to broker a deal to buy my child. And when that didn’t work, it was you who had me kidnapped in Ballarat, wasn’t it?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You are in Dr Musgrave’s pay, aren’t you? It wasn’t just a tiger skin you tried to sell him, was it?’

Of course I could not be sure of what I was saying, but it was time for a challenge. I willed myself to stand straight, look him in the eye. I waited for him to shout and strike me, to give me proof of his guilt. But he just stood staring back.

Then, very slowly, he smiled, showed me his teeth. ‘You should take more care with your accusations, ma’am. Think where they’re coming from.’ He turned, then looked back over his shoulder at me, a coquettish gesture. ‘Good healthy harmless fun.’

He strolled back towards the pond, to a cheer from George. I waited for Ned to pull him to his feet, for them both to walk away, but instead he sat down beside him on the stone and they passed the flask back and forth in companionable silence. Finally Ned upended the flask while George lit a cigar. ‘All gone … Tell you what, Commodore. Do the Yarra Yarra.’

‘That old thing? You’ve seen it a thousand times.’

What a difference a shift of wind makes. Now I could hear every word.

‘And I never tire of it. Gets better every time. It’s a work of genius.’

‘I can’t do it here, somebody might come.’

‘You mean, you don’t dare.’

‘Fuck you, Ned.’ George gave a weary cackle, blew smoke in Ned’s face.

‘Come on.’ Ned took his arm, helped him up. ‘It’ll make you feel better. And this is the perfect place. Upsadaisy. There you go. Good boy … Yes! Yes!’

I rose on tiptoe, peered through the leaves. George stood on the top of the rocky dam, about three feet above the black pond, his face screwed into agony or ecstasy, doing some frantic business to the front of his trousers with his hands, while Ned whooped and clapped. Was the little man in pain? No, he was … It was too shameful, even in mime, but I could not look away.

‘What are you thinking of, General?’ said Ned, suddenly all indignation.

‘What am I thinking of? Of the water, Ned, the mighty torrent.’ George had Charlie’s pompous, ponderous tone. ‘That’s what gets me vim and vigour going. The bath at Madam Boniface’s.’

‘Come, baby, time for your bath,’ cooed Ned.

‘Yes, yes …’ He was getting breathless, his moving hand never stopped. ‘I’m floating on my back, rosy Cupid. The mother-naked molls close in on me. They make waves with their cupped hands, they massage my limbs with sandalwood soap. The darkie embraces me, I suck at her luscious cinnamon breast.’

‘Oooh, greedy boy,’ cried Ned.

‘Now I’m in the Japanese bath house. Veils of steam are parting. The glistening geishas pat foam on each other’s nipples, they fondle each other’s hairless crotches. They see mighty me, at the barrier where Mr Bleeker has lifted me up. They laugh and beckon …’

‘Amellican, Amellican,’ simpered Ned, beckoning. ‘Please to jump.’

‘They open their arms to me. My manhood is massaged to perfection. The water, the roaring water, rushes beneath me. I am electric. My mighty army of spermatozoa is primed to burst forth and seek its prey.’ George spread his arms wide, swayed, jumped into the pond. The water only came up to his knees, but he staggered up the bank and fell onto the mud, rolled and thrashed and screamed. ‘Mercy me, I’m drowning! Save me, good woman!’

As Ned bent to pick him up, George grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down, threw his legs around his hips and thrust his pelvis up towards Ned’s groin.

‘Oh, sir!’ cried Ned in falsetto. ‘Do not take advantage of me! I am nought but a poor widow!’

‘Ohh, ahh, don’t you be coy with me, you frisky filly,’ gasped George, thrusting away. ‘Yes, yes, open your mantrap! You’re a busy little beaver, aren’t you? You like a ride, don’t you? Buck and rear for me! Napoleon ain’t retreating this time!’

Ned giggled and shrieked and returned George’s thrusts with extra vigour. They rolled over and over, coating themselves with mud, until Ned emerged again on top.

‘That’s right!’ yelled George. ‘Go at it, beaver!’

‘Ooh, ooh, ooh!’ wailed Ned. ‘Fuck me harder with your magnificent … miniature … sugar stick!’

George gave a final buck, screamed, ‘I am the Coming Man!’ and lay kicking his feet in the air, while Ned stood and adjusted his invisible skirts. Then George sprang up, sauntered to the stone where he’d been sitting, picked up his abandoned cigar in his black fingers and blew a perfect smoke ring.

Their laughter followed me as I crept away. Ned had wanted me to know my place. Everyone in the troupe had known my place all along. Charlie’s trollop. How odd that I had not known it myself, with my education and my breeding and my men of God, my fine needlework and piano playing and stories woven around me like a shabby shawl.

You really should be more careful with your accusations. Think where they’re coming from.

I went to the privy, the only place I could be alone, and wept hot tears. Belly was quiet, as if asleep; it was all my misery. After a while, though, a spirit came to me and began to scold me, and when my throat tightened and tears welled up again, I struggled to stop them falling. Your reputation does not matter, said the spirit. Of course Franz does not want you, how could he, but you have given up that ridiculous hope anyway. Your name might be brought low and your own future murky, but you are still the future for others.

Then Belly woke and kicked me. Kicks aplenty, but no shivers and tremors. No longer afraid, Belly was hard and ready to fight for a future.

I dried my eyes. Somehow I would devise a way to get Ned to confess to setting those ruffians on me.