‘Fannella, open your eyes!’ Lucca’s voice came from somewhere below and over to my right.
I didn’t want to look anywhere – it made me dizzy and confused. Madame Celeste had been very clear about what to do in case of an incident. Once she’d even loosened a rope without warning when I was forty foot up to test me. As the little trapeze in her tall, beam-latticed attic had suddenly dipped and swayed, I’d closed my eyes, wrapped my legs around the one taut rope and latched on tight until all the movement stopped. Then I’d slipped down like a rigging boy on a clipper ship.
She was pleased. ‘Good, Kitty. You have the nerve. Remember the three cardinal rules: never look down; never let go; and never give up hope. And that last is the most important rule of all, girl. If you ever allow yourself to think you might fall, you will. It’s as simple as that.’
Only it wasn’t so simple now. I’d been frozen into a crouching position on the inside of the cage for what seemed like hours, only it can’t really have been more than a minute. It had stopped spinning, but every time I moved the metal quivered and hummed around me like a cracked bell. The cage jerked and groaned again as something came loose and there was a dry, rustling, pattering sound as more plaster from the ceiling crumbled over my head and bare arms.
‘You must look, now!’ I opened one dust-crusted eyelid and squinted down in the direction of Lucca’s sharp command. He was in a second tier box, perhaps fifteen, maybe twenty foot below. He had a coil of thick rope in his hands. He held it up. ‘Look – we can use this.’
I opened my other eye and accidentally, because of the angle of the cage, I looked straight down. That was a mistake – just as Madame Celeste had warned. Instantly the jumble of gawping people, plaster-dusted chairs, tables, broken glass and floorboards below seemed to whirl and fall away. I was about sixty foot up, but when I looked down I felt there was such a space gaping open between me and the hall that I might as well have been about to knock on the gates of heaven itself. I closed my eyes tight and gripped the bars. Pull yourself together, I told myself, if you don’t sharpen yourself up the pearly gates likely will be the next thing you see.
I took a deep breath. I will not fall.
Lucca’s voice came again. ‘I need you to catch the end of this rope, but to do that you need to look at me, Fannella.’
I opened my eyes and locked them on Lucca. He smiled and nodded, but his face was paler than the plaster dust over my shoulders. ‘Good. Now I am going to throw the rope and you need to catch the end and tie it to the cage. Capisci?’
I nodded as Lucca continued. ‘But you cannot do that unless you let go of the bars and hang down – like on the swing, Fannella. You must let go gently and lean back. Keep looking at me.’
I took another breath and tried to let go, but I didn’t seem able to move.
I gripped even tighter. I could feel panic rising from somewhere deep inside. Under the flimsy costume my back prickled with sweat and my fingers were slippery as eels.
‘Please try.’ Lucca’s voice was tight.
‘I can’t move.’ My words came out as the faintest whisper. There was dust in my mouth and dust in my eyes. The thought came to me that I was being buried alive in the air.
But then something wonderful happened. Even now I can’t explain, but it was like someone or something took over for me. As I clung there, not able to move a muscle – not even my lips – Professor Ruben began to play my music softly on the piano. It was just him at first, but gradually the orchestra boys joined in and as the notes danced up into the air around me mingling with all the dust, of a sudden I found I didn’t have to think any more, just be.
I let go, leaned back and stretched out my arms, and even though the cage juddered about a bit and more plaster fell from the ceiling it didn’t matter. I was perfection. Ringlets swung loose below me and pins dropped to the floor. It was just like that first time again in Madame Celeste’s attic. I was flying and nothing could hurt me.
‘Catch!’
I caught the end of the rope the first time Lucca threw it across.
‘Now tie it to the side of the cage nearest me – just to your right.’
I hooked my feet around the bars to keep me secure and doubled up until I was able to sit once more. The cage juddered and would have begun to spin again if it hadn’t been for the rope snaking back down to Lucca in the box. More plaster dust rained from above as I passed it over the thick metal band around the foot of the cage, wound it tight and knotted it several times.
‘Yes – that’s good, Fannella.’
Lucca pulled the rope taut. He wound the other end around a pillar on the edge of the box and tied it securely while the cage groaned and the chain above me rasped. When he was satisfied it would hold he looked up and grinned warily.
‘The next bit is easy. You just have to climb down the rope and join me here in this box.’
I nodded. ‘Like you say – easy!’
I reached for the rope with my right foot and wound it deftly around my ankle and lower leg. Then I inched forward and slowly freed every part of myself from contact with the bars until I was clinging to the underside of the rope like one of the acrobatic monkey boys in the seasonal tumbling act over at The Gaudy. Without my weight to steady it, the cage began to sway from side to side, the rope with it. I kept my eyes locked on Lucca.
The hall was completely silent now. If another one of my hair pins dropped, I swear I’d be able to hear it bouncing off the boards below.
‘Now come.’ Lucca’s voice was level and warm.
I went slowly feet first, pushing myself down hand over hand, with my ankles crossed over the rope. All the while the cage kept up its clanking and growling behind me and once I heard a gasp from the crowd as something big fell off the ceiling – perhaps a whole plaster baby this time? Whatever it was it crashed and shattered on the boards below. I didn’t look down.
When I was about three foot from the box, Lucca leaned out and caught my legs roughly, dragging me in so that I fell on top of him and the pair of us disappeared behind the painted front.
As I lay there panting with tears of relief streaking down my plaster-dusted cheeks I heard a rippling noise. Quiet at first but then it grew and grew until I could hear clapping, stamping, cat-calls and whistling. It was even louder than that first time I’d performed my act at The Gaudy.
Lying on the floor of the box next to me, Lucca let out a huge shuddering sigh like he’d been bottling air up in his lungs ever since the moment I slipped off the swing. He sat up and pushed his hair back from his face. There were raw bloody stripes across his palms where he’d been holding tight to the rope. He turned to look down at me.
‘What’s this, eh? There’s no need.’ He brushed the tears and the dust from my cheeks, pushed a stray ringlet from off my face and kissed my forehead. ‘You are safe now. And listen to them . . .’
People in the hall were chanting my name now, over and over. Lucca grinned. ‘You must take a bow. They want to see you.’
He stood and offered me a hand. I sat up, and for a moment the little box swam around like I was up there in the cage again. I took a deep breath and clenched my fists. ‘The show must go on, eh?’
He nodded. ‘Of course, always.’
I wiped my face with the backs of my hands, dusted off my shoulders and my frock and let him help me to my feet. As I appeared over the edge of the box the crowd went wild. I waved and twirled and blew kisses and then I tried to make Lucca take a bow too, but he wouldn’t come into the light, no matter what I said. He just stood in the shadows behind me, watching.
*
After my ‘performance’ at The Comet – the last in that theatre as it happens on account of there not being much in the way of a ceiling to hang from – Fitzy was clear that I’d be moving back to The Gaudy.
‘Did you hear them, now?’ He rubbed his palms over and over as he stood next to my chair. The room was crowded and stuffy. There were at least twenty men crushed in there with us and more out in the hallway trying to get a view of me. Fitzy had shifted my dressing table back against the wall to let more of them in.
After taking my bows, me and Lucca had made our way through the curtained passages to the dressing room. When we got to the narrow winding stairs at the back of the stage my legs gave way and I’d crumpled up on the lowest step. Lucca had to carry me the last bit of the way, but now he was gone. There were too many people pushing and shoving around and he wasn’t one for a social.
I felt Fitzy’s rough hand on my shoulder as he stooped to whisper in my ear. ‘I’ve got the hands looking over the cage now, so I have. If it’s not damaged – and there’s no reason it should be, the boys at the foundry did a lovely job there – we’ll have you up at The Gaudy by Monday. Don’t want to miss out on all this, do we?’
He straightened up and his piggy eyes glinted in the gaslight as he took in the scene. I felt a stab of anger in the pit of my belly. For all that he was Lady Ginger’s creature as much as I was, Fitzy was a scurfy coker out for himself too. Even now, just a couple of hours after telling me I had a week before Lady Ginger ‘dealt with’ my brother, he was assessing how much he could sell me for.
I felt like the Queen of Sheba sitting there with a score of Johnnies gazing down at me with puppy eyes. They were yapping so much that I couldn’t hear myself think let alone answer their idiot questions.
‘What was it like up there, Miss Peck?’ One of them caught my hand between his and knelt at my feet. ‘Tell us, what was going through your mind as you whirled so perilously above? Did you think you might die?’ His fingers were clammy.
I pulled free and wiped my hand on my skirt. ‘What do you imagine I was thinking about – buttering up a toasted muffin, or perhaps a nice little stroll in the park with a penny lick?’ The young man’s cheeks burned as everyone in the room laughed. I felt bad for him, but really, ask a stupid question . . .
‘I think we should allow Miss Peck to rest now, gents. Out!’ Fitzy thumped on the door behind him to draw attention. He opened it wide and began to usher the Johnnies out into the passage. They grumbled, but I reckon Fitzy knew his songbird was about to turn into a right old crow and that wasn’t good for business.
‘Remember, The Limehouse Linnet will be back in her cage seventy feet up at The Gaudy on Monday, so tell all your friends about what you’ve seen tonight and make sure you bring them with you when you come to see her again – as I know you will.’
When the last of them had gone he closed the door, leaned back on it and folded his arms. ‘Very nice, very nice indeed. You’re a lucky little bitch, so you are. But I won’t deny it, you’re good for the trade, Kitty. Lady Ginger always had an eye.’ He looked at me speculatively, sucked in his cheeks and seemed to chew on his tongue before continuing. ‘I tell you what, girl, if you give her what she wants before the week is out – and maybe even if you don’t – me and you might have a little talk about carrying on this act of yours. I reckon we could make quite a packet together in Paris – maybe even New York. What do you say to that?’
I was still for a moment, then I answered very slow and deliberate. ‘I should say that Lady Ginger would be very interested to hear about that, Mr Fitzpatrick sir. It sounds to me like her old yard dog needs a stronger leash.’
He clenched his fist and scraped a flat yellow thumbnail over the side of his index finger. I could hear the scratching on his dry skin.
His hand jerked out and I flinched, but instead of belting me he reached for the door handle. ‘Be at The Gaudy tomorrow by noon. We’ll need to do a proper run-through with all the checks before Monday night – we don’t want a re-run of today, do we?’
In the dim passage he looked back and narrowed his eyes. ‘Seven days, Kitty.’
I ran my hand over the torn skin on my knee where I’d scraped against the inside of the cage. I was beginning to feel the ache of it. Fitzy started off, but I called out, ‘I don’t see the point in going up again, not back at The Gaudy, not anywhere. How am I supposed to find what she wants in a week when I’m hanging up there every night?’
Fitzy’s bulky figure flickered in the doorway; the gaslights were low now.
‘There are three reasons why you’ll be at The Gaudy on Monday. Firstly, The Lady says so – if nothing else, after this business tonight you’re a powerful sign to the Barons that everything is in order in Paradise. If you don’t do as she says your brother will be kissing the hull of a packet steamer quicker than that.’ He clicked his fingers.
‘Second, I say so. I’ll not lose out on the takings. You’ll be the talk of London now, so you will. If you don’t turn up The Lady will hear of it. Is that clear?’
I nodded sullenly and Fitzy turned into the passage. I called after him, ‘You said three reasons. What’s the other one, then?’
He paused, but he didn’t look back. ‘I think you already know the answer to that, girl. I’ve worked the halls long enough to recognise the signs. Take a good hard look at yourself, Kitty Peck.’
The door slammed and I was alone. I looked at myself in the mirror on the dressing table. My stage make-up had smudged into blue-grey crescents beneath my eyes, my face was white with plaster dust and my lips were still smeared with the red paint that showed up my pretty mouth when I sang that ‘ugly’ song. I looked like a badly drawn ghost of myself.
‘What’s happened to you?’ I asked the girl in the mirror. She didn’t answer. Diamond tears welled up in her big dark eyes. ‘Who do you think you are?’ I asked and the tears began to snake down her face leaving glittering trails of lamp-black mascara.
Because the truth is that the girl in the mirror was my guilty shadow. She’d loved being the centre of attention up in that box. When the crowd went mad for her and stamped and called her name she had lapped it up like a kitten with its paws dipped into a saucer of cream. And while she was taking her fill, the thought of her brother and Peggy and Alice had gone clean out of her head.
‘Seven days – and don’t you ever forget that again,’ I whispered to the girl in front of me.