Kitty Peck and the Child of Ill-Fortune (7 page)

‘Actually, there’s someone else I want you to meet, Kitty. He’s been waiting upstairs.’

Joey knocked twice on the door and pushed it open. He stood to one side and let me go in first. The room beyond was in darkness apart from a small fire burning in the grate. I could smell apple wood again, laced with a rich leathery scent, and I could hear the soft ticking of a clock.

I was confused, the room appeared to be empty. Joey followed me in and closed the door behind us.

‘David?’

I wondered who he was speaking to, but then a tall figure rose from a chair set in shadow by the window. As he stood, the man put a tumbler down on the small table next to the chair.

‘Will you tend to the lamps, Josette, a little more light?’ The voice was low and I recognised a Scottish burr. Joey took a taper from a spill pot in the hearth and crossed the room to light a pair of oil lamps set either end of a long low table pushed up against the wall. The flickering light showed up a painting of a woman in a black evening gown. She was in profile, one hand clutching a string of beads to her chest, the other raised to her forehead. I was minded of Mrs Conway striking one of her tragical attitudes and the guilty thought came to me that it was very likely the old girl would look something similar after we’d had the little chat I’d been putting off.

Joey blew out the taper. ‘Kitty, this is my friend David – David Lennox.’

There was a rustling noise as the man closed the curtains. He turned to look at us.

‘There, that’s better. I can see you both now.’

More to the point, I could see him.

Truly, David Lennox was the most handsome man I’d ever set eyes on. He was almost a head taller than Joey, well put together, but lean with it. His skin was dark, not as black as some of the sailors who put in at the docks – in the soft glow of the lamps it had a smooth russet quality like a roasting chestnut. He had a broad forehead and close-cut dark, wiry hair. It was his eyes I remember most from that first meeting, they were an odd shade of green, like broken bottle glass that’s been turned against the stones in the river. Set against his skin they didn’t look right, only they didn’t look wrong neither.

He smiled and his wide full lips revealed perfect even teeth. I thought he looked like a prince from one of them Arabian tales Ma used to tell us.

‘It’s true then. You two are almost identical.’

I glanced uncertainly at Joey. I hadn’t really thought too deep about it, but in the dim light of the room, now I looked, I could recognise the line of my own features in his. Was that how others saw me?

David stepped forward and bowed. He took my hand and raised it to his mouth. ‘Forgive the darkness. I find it easier to think when I stare into a fire.’ There was a relaxed warmth to the tone of his voice.

‘And it’s safer.’ Joey went over to the window and adjusted the curtains to make sure they covered the glass completely. He turned. ‘You’re sure you weren’t followed?’

David shook his head. ‘No, I was careful. Anton took my hat and cloak and left The Chapeau Rouge immediately after I went off stage. I waited for half an hour and then I left from the back of the theatre. If anyone had followed I would have known.’

Joey frowned. ‘Anton took a risk?’

‘Yes, I am grateful to him. But I’m certain that if he was followed they would realise it wasn’t me soon enough. He was going on to The Lapin d’Or, so once inside—’

Joey interrupted. ‘Kitty, sit down please. There’s something we . . . David must ask of you.’ He gestured to a chair by the fire, but I didn’t move. The pair of them were talking over my head. They were deadly serious about something and it didn’t sound like a stroll in the park.

‘What’s going on?’ I planted my hands on my waist and waited. ‘Well?’

‘So, you want me to take this baby back to London?’

David nodded and leaned forward. He was sitting on the opposite side of the hearth from me, half in shadow. He took a pull on a long dark cigarette. ‘You’re leaving tomorrow, that’s right, isn’t it?’

I looked up at Joey standing behind my chair. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as you two suppose. The kid’ll need travel papers for one thing. And what the bleedin’ hell are they going to say back home when me and Lucca turn up with a Moses basket?’

‘You’ll think of something, Kitty. Say you’re looking after him for a friend.’ Joey put his hand on my shoulder. ‘It won’t be far from the truth.’

‘And what is the truth? I think I’ve a right to know a bit more before I agree to anything. It’s not like taking a stray dog back with me, is it?’ I pushed at the ringlets that were springing free from the elaborate coil the hotel maid had pinned to my head. It was beginning to pull at my temples. I longed to tear it all apart and shake my hair free.

‘There
is
more, isn’t there? You two are keeping something from me. For one thing, whose baby is it?’

I saw a look pass between the pair of them. ‘It’s complicated—’ Joey began, but David cut in.

‘He’s mine. The boy is mine and his name is Robbie after my father.’

‘But I thought you were . . .’ I bit my lip, unsure what to say next. Tell truth, I thought he was one of Joey’s mates, only not tricked out on this occasion.

David smiled and shook his head. ‘No, I’m not . . . what you think, Kitty. I’ve known your brother since he came to Paris two years ago. Our circles crossed. I make my living as a performer – a ballad singer. I came here from Glasgow in ’76 and the city has been good to me . . . until now. Joey and I have many friends in common – in the halls, in the theatres—’

‘In the ballet.’ Joey cut in sharp there. I saw another old-fashioned look pass between them.

David threw the cigarette into the fire and took my hands in his. ‘It’s the old story. I . . . got a girl into trouble. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but we weren’t careful. She can’t keep the child.’

‘Why not?’ I was indignant. ‘There’s plenty of girls back home in that position and they get by. Are you telling me they keep their morals knotted up so high in Paris that a working girl’s never had a misfortune?’

David stared hard at me. I blinked and looked down. His eyes were the most unusual shade against his dark skin. Sitting so close, I realised that the deep leather scent in the room was his cologne.

‘It’s not that, there are thousands of infants in Paris without benefit of a father.’ His Scottish accent came more distinct now. I could smell the faint sweetness of brandy on his breath as he continued. ‘I didn’t realise until just before Robbie was born who his grandparents were. They are an old family – a . . . powerful family who wouldn’t want the dark-skinned son of a singer from the halls among them. And now they . . .’

‘They are searching for him.’ Joey finished the sentence off, but I could tell there was a lot tucked in behind those words.

‘That’s why we need to get Robbie away.’ Behind me Joey moved closer to the hearth. I watched him twist about a china figure perched on the edge of the marble mantle. It was a shepherd boy with a lamb curled close to his heels. I realised with a jolt that it was Nanny Peck’s fortune piece, the one she always rubbed for ‘the luck of it’. He’d taken that as well.

Joey shifted the ornament a fraction to the right, running the pad of his thumb across the boy’s pottery rump. ‘When you arrived this week, Kitty, I saw that there was somewhere he could go. We’ve all been trying to shield him. Our people are close, but it’s getting more difficult. This will confuse them – no one would think of looking in London. Not if we are careful and move quickly.’

‘What about his mother, what’s she got to say about this?’

David answered me. ‘She wants him to be safe.’ He stared into the flames. I noticed he wore a signet ring on his little finger like the one I still wore on a chain round my neck – Joey’s ring. I meant to give it back to him. I felt it cold against my skin under the ruffled neckline of my dress as he continued.

‘It’s hard, but it will be for the best. We can’t risk the family tracing him. That’s why I came here alone tonight. The less you know the better. It will be safer that way. I wouldn’t want to cause you any harm.’ He tightened his grip on my hands and I found myself thinking that despite everything, whoever she was, little Robbie’s mother was a lucky girl.

‘He’s almost seven months old and as bonny a bairn as you could wish for. What do you say?’ David’s voice was thick like he was trying to swallow down a lump of gristle and there were tears now in his wide green eyes.

I had to look away again. I wanted to help him, but the thought of taking a baby back to Paradise was ridiculous. I didn’t know the first thing about looking after a kid.

He squeezed my hands. ‘Kitty?’

I cast around for a reply.

‘Listen, surely Robbie’s mother . . .?’ I began. ‘Surely the two of you could go off somewhere. I don’t see how taking him back to London with me is going to make things right? When all’s said and done, the best thing is for a child to be with its mother.’

‘That’s impossible.’ David’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘There are things I cannot tell you. I wish I could, but if you were to know any more it could be dangerous, for you as well as for the child. You must take my word on that. You are my only hope.’

I caught at something there, ‘
my
’?

‘You two still together? You and his mother, I mean?’

He glanced up at Joey. My brother shook his head.

David cleared his throat. ‘We are not.’ He paused and made a sound that was almost a laugh. ‘And I was sore glaikit to think we ever could be. No, Robbie is my responsibility entirely. The family will never acknowledge him, or me.’ He slumped and dipped his head. A warm tear splashed onto the back of my hand caught in his. I noticed how his close-cropped black hair spiralled at the crown of his head and I got the urge to stroke it.

‘But we are agreed on one thing. If anything were to happen to our boy . . .’ he faltered. ‘Will you help us, Kitty? It would mean the world.’ He didn’t look up.

I could feel something pricking away at me somewhere deep inside, something like a warning I suppose. Nanny Peck would have said that her marrow was calling from her bones. I closed my eyes. I’ll say whatever comes into my head, I thought.

David was still holding on tight. I’ll admit I liked the feeling of it – my hands were cupped entirely in his like a couple of wrens in a nest. Another warm wet drop fell onto my skin. He smoothed it away gently with the ball of his thumb and carried on stroking.

‘All right. I’ll take him with me. I don’t know what they’ll think back in Limehouse, but I’ll deal with it.’

I didn’t even know I’d said it out loud.

The room went still for a moment, like we was all frozen. Even the clock on the mantle held its breath. I swear it felt that if I’d given the wrong answer just then, everything would have shattered and fallen around us.

Joey knelt down beside me. His skirts whispered and breathed out gently as the material folded itself to a new position.

‘You needn’t worry about papers. I’ve already had something drawn up.’ He grinned when he saw the look on my face. ‘I know you, Kitty. I was certain you would help . . . well, almost certain. It needn’t be for long . . .’ He glanced at David, who was still holding my hands. I could feel a gentle pressure as he squeezed my fingers.

‘There are things we need to settle here in Paris to make it right. I’ll send word when it’s time. Then we’ll both come to Limehouse to take him back. If there are still . . . difficulties here, you might go on to America with him – that’s right, isn’t it?’

David nodded. ‘If we can afford the passage. It’s a vast country, they’ll never trace us there.’

‘If it comes to it, I’ll buy your passage when we are in London, David.’ Joey placed his hand over mine. ‘Thank you, Kitty. I’ll be relying on your hospitality when we next meet. It will be . . . interesting to see Paradise again.’

‘No! You can’t.’ I blurted out the words.

A look of raw pain flashed across my brother’s painted face – I saw it clear. But he mastered it and then he smiled. ‘Don’t worry, little sister, I’ll come as Joseph Peck, if that’s what worries you?’

‘No! I mean you can’t come to London at all.’ I remembered the peculiar phrase in Lady Ginger’s letter. The pair of them looked at me like I was a bedlam.

‘She told me to tell you that you can’t – ever.’

‘I don’t understand. Who told you . . . what?’ Joey’s plucked brows shot into question marks.

‘The Lady. When she knew I was set on coming here to find you she sent me a letter. Tell him ‘
Bartholomew waits
’ –
that’s what she said.

My brother’s face went grey as ashes left after a fire. I could see it plain, even through the pearl powder and the dabs of rouge.

‘What does it mean, then, Joey? You told me she never makes mistakes.’

Lady Ginger never made mistakes, but I was beginning to think that perhaps I had.

It had been so easy, hadn’t it? Those two had it all neat and prepared like a patter act. They’d caught me off guard and bounced me into taking the kid home. I was sure I’d have been more sceptic if I’d been on clean gin all evening and not that yellow stuff.

Don’t take me wrong. I wanted to help David, he seemed a decent type – more than that, tell truth – and Joey was so certain of me that I didn’t want to disappoint him. I was flattered that he asked – like he knew I would be. But now, standing here on the platform waiting for them, it was a different matter.

I hadn’t told Lucca about the baby. There hadn’t been a moment when it seemed right, and anyway, since we’d met up early in the hotel lobby he’d had a mood on him as black as Mrs Conway’s best hairpiece. I suspected he was nursing a head, which was unlike him. Mind you, if them Russian boys he was fraternising with had been anything like Old Peter, it was likely his belly was boiling over with firewater and his head was ringing out like Stepney belfry.

I glanced at his face. Even his good side was rough this morning.

He looked up at the station clock again. ‘We have to board now, Kitty.’

‘Just another minute, please. I know he’ll come.’

Lucca twisted his lip and made a sound under his breath that could have been a curse. He pulled the collar of his coat higher, folded the brim of his hat so that it sat lower to cover the scars and went a little further out to get a clearer view of the platform. He seemed almost as reluctant as me to climb aboard.

Scores of people jostled around us. Some were passengers – you could tell them from their sober grey travelling gear – but mostly they were families and friends seeing off visitors. Just down the platform a row of neat dressed, solemn-eyed children stood waving at a generously upholstered gent already safely ensconced on board. I noted that he didn’t look up from his newspaper.

Three windows along, a thin young man with a prominent nose and a hunted look leaned out to clasp the hand of a pretty girl who was still standing on the platform. The girl was crying. He didn’t say nothing, he just kept patting her fingers and squinting furtively at the clock. I didn’t need to be an oracle in the way of Swami Jonah to tell that tempus wasn’t fugiting fast enough as far as he was concerned.

Porters raced past, pushing trolleys stacked high with trunks and parcels. An over-officious guard, whose prodigiously buttoned navy blue uniform served as a lovely backdrop to his dander, kept tutting and sniffing as Lucca and me refused to go up the slatted brass steps and along to our compartment.

The engine whistle went off again and a cloud of gritty steam rolled down the platform. I covered my mouth and nose. Where were they?

When the maid had come to my room at six she seemed most surprised to find me sitting in my evening gown. I hadn’t been there for long, mind, just an hour or so. She helped me out of the dress, unpinned my hair – which was unravelling nicely by itself – brought me up a basin of hot water and, after I washed, she packed away the last of my things and helped me get ready for the journey home.

The evening had ended abrupt. Joey wouldn’t tell me what Lady Ginger’s message meant. He said it was unfinished business and that he was grateful to hear it from me, but I could tell he was rattled. When I pressed him he clammed up, went to the door and called for the Monseigneur. It was clear I was being dismissed. I didn’t know much French, but I’d picked up enough to recognise what ‘
elle quitte maintenant
’
meant.

While I waited the three of us talked briefly about what would happen the next morning. It all sounded so simple. I think I was even excited. Looking back, I reckon the champagne fizzled up my judgement. The whole evening had the quality of a performance and now I was one of the players.

After we’d gone over it a couple of times, David stood up to leave. He thanked me again and reached out to take my hand in a formal farewell, but then something came over him. He stepped over and suddenly crushed me against his chest. I just came up level with his shoulders. I could feel his arms around me and I could smell the leather of his cologne and the tang of smoke on his gear. I tried to fix the sensations in my head so I could bring him back at any time.

That was when I knew I’d agreed to take David Lennox’s boy back to London not for the sake of the child, but because I wanted to please his father. I was ashamed of myself.

Ten minutes later a Paris hack was waiting for me out on the shabby street beyond the courtyard of 17 rue des Carmélites. The Monseigneur, who never seemed to sleep so far as I could make out, came with me all the way to the hotel. He didn’t say a word the whole time we was alone together, he just watched me, his watery eyes glistening in the dim light of the lamp inside the carriage.

By the time I got back to Le Meurice there didn’t seem much point in going to sleep, and I knew I wouldn’t anyway. I threw some more coals onto the little fire waiting for me – they never let the rooms get cold in a high-class establishment – drew up a chair and I sat there thinking about what I’d agreed to. That was when I realised I’d made a mistake, but by then it was too late.

According to the station clock it was now six minutes to eight.

‘Hold this, Fannella. I’ll go to the entrance.’ Lucca handed me his crumpled leather holdall and turned back to the gate. I heard him mutter something in Italian, and caught a couple of words,
‘Mi ha promesso.
’

Joey had promised all right, I thought, wondering about the kid. I shouted after him, ‘Where are you going?’

‘Just to the gate. We are lost here. He’ll never find us in time.’

‘Then I’ll come with you—’

‘No. One of us must wait here in case. Joey knows the carriage,
sì
?’

I nodded. ‘But don’t be long.’ I looked anxiously at the clock again – less than six minutes, now. ‘The boat train is always punctual on account of the connections. It won’t wait for you, Lucca Fratelli.’

There was a great shriek from the engine up front as if to confirm what I’d just said. The last of the platform stragglers started to climb aboard now. Along the carriage, blinds were being thrown up and windows wound down as passengers said their farewells.

Behind me I heard the guard rattle the door to carriage B in annoyance as Lucca loped back to the entrance gate. In a second or so he was swallowed into the crowd and then the crowd itself disappeared in another rolling cloud of dirty grey smoke. I coughed as the stuff fugged up my eyes and lungs. I could feel smuts landing across my cheeks and my nose so I rubbed hard, wondering if I was doing more harm than good.

I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t come – they had every detail planned right down to the compartment number. Thinking about it now, I was certain they had the bones of it all mapped out long before we had that little chat last night.

I buried my chin in the stiff material of my travel coat collar and took a deep breath. The steam billowing around was thicker than a London fog, I couldn’t make out a thing. Perhaps if I moved down a bit away from the engine I’d get a clearer view?

I gathered Lucca’s bag in my arms and stepped blindly into the smoke. The platform was broad, maybe twenty foot across. If I could just get to a place where I was a bit more visible then Joey and David still had time to find me.

I couldn’t see the clock overhead, but I reckoned there were five minutes to go. I moved across the platform and walked back a little way in the direction Lucca had gone. The steam cleared for a moment leaving me standing alone in a little window of fresh air.

There wasn’t a train waiting over on this side and there were no people clogging up the view neither. I hugged the bag close to my chest – Lucca had travelled light – and swayed from left to right, craning my neck to see if anyone came through the steam. There was a rumbling noise, and then a bulky shadow in the smoke ahead gathered itself into a porter’s trolley stacked so high I couldn’t see the man behind pushing it. It was coming towards me and coming fast.

I stepped aside to let it pass, only it didn’t. It swerved and came straight at me, the metal rollers gnawing at the platform as it gathered speed. I dodged to the right, but the trolley swung towards me again. The teetering packing cases strapped together in a pyramid taller than a man juddered and slipped to one side at the sharp change of direction.

I still couldn’t see the porter, but I called out to warn him I was there. The words became a yelp of pain as the metal-bound corner of one of the trunks stacked aboard clipped the edge of my left leg, sending me and Lucca’s bag toppling over the platform edge and down onto the track below. I lay there, stunned I think, for a second. The bag had fallen into the middle of the track just ahead of me. It had broken open and was lying on its side. Bits and pieces had spilled out and something white, a shirt perhaps, was flapping about almost indecently over the cinders. Lucca wouldn’t be happy.

I blinked hard as I lay there and thought I should go and pick it all up. My ears were ringing from the fall, but then I realised that the noise was coming from somewhere outside my head.

The metal rail below my cheek was singing. Something was coming.

I snatched myself up onto all fours in the cinders and twisted my neck to look back down the track. Two golden eyes blinked in the steam and a whistle fit to wake the dead ripped through the air. I tried to stand, but the coarse hem of my coat was caught up in the bolts holding the rail. I yanked hard but it wouldn’t come free.

I could feel my heart going off like a steam hammer. The rail beneath my left boot was shuddering now as the approaching engine grumbled into the platform. I screamed for help but my voice was lost in the rumble and metal of the oncoming train.

Where was old dander and buttons when I needed him, I thought?

Buttons?

I ripped at the horn buttons on my travel coat, there wasn’t time to undo them – I just tore like a wild cat. Mostly they popped off, but two at the bottom were stubborn buggers. It didn’t matter. I’d freed myself enough to shrug my way out of the straitjacket.

Still holding the shape of my arms and body, it crumpled like the rough grey case of a new-minted butterfly, as I sprinted off down the track past Lucca’s broken bag, holding up the skirts of my good blue dress for fear of tripping over them. If I could just get enough speed up to hurl myself over the platform edge, I stood a chance.

The engine was less than six foot behind when I jumped. I could feel its lick on the back of my neck as I cleared the brick-lined edge and rolled aside.

‘
Mon Dieu, c’est une fille!
’ A gentleman with a fine pair of mutton chop whiskers living around his ears stared down at me in alarm. He didn’t even try to help me up, just rolled his eyes as he took in the grease stains on my skirt and the hair falling loose from the roll on my head.

The train juddered to a halt. Immediately, shiny black carriage doors clattered open along the side like toppling dominoes. The gent was blocked from view by a woman in a vast hooped skirt thirty years past its prime, like its owner. I caught the sour breath of old moth and fresh piss as she stepped down over me and billowed between us.

I struggled, unaided, to my feet. The platform was almost solid now with the heaving mass of passengers alighting from the train that nearly killed me. What time was it? I pushed against the flow and within seconds I was lost in the scrum. My head was throbbing and lights were going off like fire crackers in front of my eyes. Had I missed them?

I shoved through the crowd until I was level with carriage B.

‘Fannella! What on earth?’ Lucca caught hold of my arm and span me around.

‘Your coat—’ He stopped when he saw my face. ‘What has happened to you?’ He reached out to wipe something from my brow and I saw red on his fingers. The engine – our engine – whistled again and another bank of steam roiled up.

‘Did you find them?’ My head was whirling. I felt like I’d taken in a skinful of Old Peter’s noxious stuff myself.

‘Kitty!’

I heard Joey before I saw him. Seconds later two young men, one tall and dark, one slight and fair, emerged from the smoke and hurried towards us. They were dressed in dull workwear the colour of French gravy, and both of them wore mufflers and caps.

Between them they carried a trunk strung on looped leather handles set on either side. They came to a halt just in front of us and set the trunk down carefully. I felt, rather than saw, Lucca stiffen in surprise.

‘You’re bleeding.’ Joey reached out to touch my forehead just as Lucca had done. I saw him dart a look at David, who was reaching into the pocket of his jacket.

‘Here. Take it.’ David handed me a white square. ‘What happened to you, lass?’ He bent to examine my face, brushing the tips of his fingers gently across my forehead and down the right side of my face.

The whistle shrieked again and the guard clapped his hands. ‘
S’il vous plaît, monter à bord
.’

I took the ’kerchief and gripped it tight. ‘There’s no time to explain. We have to go aboard.’

‘First class, number 24?’ David took up the strap again.

‘It’s that one.’ I pointed at a blank train window several foot away. The blind was pulled down. I bit my lip as I looked down at the trunk. My ears were ringing again.

‘Joey, take it up, quickly, man.’ Without looking at me, David and Joey lifted the trunk. I made to follow them aboard, but Lucca pulled at my sleeve. ‘Fannella?’

He glanced up at the two men who were just disappearing from view into the train corridor running alongside the compartments. He frowned and jerked his head in question.

‘No time.’ I gripped the brass rail and hauled myself up the steps. My head felt like a cracked egg.

I was surprised that Lucca didn’t follow straight behind.

‘
Monsieur! Le train quitte maintenant
.’

The guard barked again as Lucca dithered on the platform. He scanned the crowd one last time and then, finally, he climbed the steps to follow me along the narrow corridor to our compartment.