Becoming Billy Dare (23 page)

‘Splendid!' said Clancy. ‘that's a smashing stage name. Father, there you go, you can announce a special performance by Billy Dare as Lightning Jack and I'll play Ida Golightly. You can call me Clarinda Lytton, if you like.'

‘And who's to play your own roles?' asked Mr Bowman, looking faintly amused.

‘I'm never on stage at the same time as Ida Golightly so I can do both.'

‘You'll run yourself ragged, boy!'

‘I suppose I can play the policeman,' said Mr Lytton, sighing. ‘though I can't say I fancy all that falling about. I'm too old for it. And are you positive, Clarence, that you are not too old to take on a girl's role?'

‘Nothing to it, old man!' said Clancy. He touched his chin with the tip of his finger. ‘C'mon, Billy Dare, kiss me right there, c'mon. Are you man enough, old chap?'

Paddy laughed. Harry Bowman and Charlie Lytton looked at each other questioningly, but before they spoke Paddy knew what their answer would be. The show would go on. Even Mrs Bowman rallied at the prospect.

‘We can't have him going out there with that golden hair. He looks more like a young angel than a bushranger,' said Mrs Lytton. ‘Clancy, fetch my bag.'

They sat Paddy on a stool near the campfire with a bit of old calico around his shoulders. Then the two women set to work, mixing a thick black sludge and working it through Paddy's red-gold curls.

‘It's a shame to change the colour, but if we darken you up, you'll look more of a man.'

When Mrs Lytton held up a hand-mirror to Paddy he hardly recognised himself. Even his eyebrows and lashes were darkened with a touch of dye. His eyes looked like pieces of sky, they were so blue beside the black curls.

Paddy grinned. When he slipped off the stool and changed into the bushranger's outfit, he was no longer the shipwrecked Paddy Delaney nor even the runaway Billy Smith. It was as if he had shed his past, sloughed it off like an old skin. In a matter of moments, he was transformed from a boy to a bushranger.

‘What do you think?' he said to Clancy.

The other boy laughed. ‘I think you'll become a legend, Billy Dare.'

That night, a summer storm moved in over the landscape. Flashes of lightning illuminated the tent as the audience took their seats. Paddy thought the rain might drown him out, but when he was on stage, he discovered he could make his voice swell louder than any thunder. As long as he was on stage, he really was Lightning Jack. It was like magic. It was exactly what he'd dreamt he would feel as star of the show. For three acts, Paddy forgot the past. For ninety minutes, while an audience watched his every move, Paddy was the bushranger Lightning Jack, defender of the weak, a rebel soldier against tyranny and injustice. And when the makeshift curtain fell and he stepped out to receive the audience's roar of approval, he was more himself than he had ever been. He was Billy Dare.

32
Limelight man

At the end of the week, the whole troupe was exhausted. Mrs Bowman had spent most of her time in the post office, wiring telegrams to Melbourne in the hope of finding Kate. Clancy was worn out from having to make three costume changes every evening and was having trouble remembering which character he was playing at any given moment. Old man Lytton limped around the camp, having injured his hip on the third evening of playing Officer O'Grady. Ted Bowman announced they were folding the tour and heading back to Melbourne. They'd made enough to cover their losses and the Bowmans wanted to go home.

‘We have to find Kate. There's still a chance we may be able to cover it all up. The marriage isn't legal without our consent. We'll have it annulled and get our Kate back.'

Clancy rolled his eyes and leant close to Paddy.

‘They've never fathomed Kate. They don't know how stubborn she is,' said Clancy. ‘I've known her all my life. If she's mad enough to run away with Whiteley, she's not likely to come back. She'll make a fist of it, will Kate. And everyone will just have to get used to the fact that she's Mrs Eddie Whiteley from now on.'

Paddy winced. Clancy might have known Kate for a long time but he didn't know much about Eddie. Paddy couldn't imagine Eddie sticking with anything, let alone marriage.

On the morning that they were to leave Colac, Paddy walked away from the camp and into the bush. Dappled sunlight cut through the gum trees and the air smelt sweet and dry, with a tang of eucalypt. Paddy took a deep breath. He plucked at a gum leaf and crushed it between his fingers. He shut his eyes and tried to imagine what it would have been like to be a bushranger, to be Ned Kelly or Ben Hall or a character like Lightning Jack, and roam across this huge, open land. And then he thought of the night of the storm, his first night in a starring role, and he felt a sharp happiness.

When he opened his eyes, he found Clancy standing beside him.

‘We have to go,' said Clancy. ‘Father says we're to take the train back to Melbourne with Mother and Mrs Bowman. They're going to drive us to the station now. What are you doing wandering about like this?'

‘Just saying goodbye,' said Paddy. ‘I wish we could keep on touring. I wish we could have made it to Portland.'

‘Well, I'm ready to go back to town,' said Clancy. ‘I've never liked touring. All the spiders and the heat and the mud. I wish we could go on tour on a boat and sail home to England. That would be real touring. This gallivanting from one drought-stricken town to the next, it's simply not good enough.'

‘I don't want to go to England. It's not my home.'

‘Well, I'm looking forward to being a proper British citizen and going to England one day. You're as bad as Father, with all his republican ideas! If I was old enough, I'd sign up and go and fight for the Queen, to show I'm really British.'

All the way back to Melbourne, Clancy and Paddy argued about which was better, England or Australia. Eventually, Clancy had had enough. He pushed his cap forward over his face, folded his arms and slumped lower in his seat, pretending to be asleep. Paddy looked out at the blue sky arching above and the great expanse of dry fields. A stand of golden wattle glowed on a distant hillside. When had it happened? – that moment when he realised he belonged in this landscape?

At Spencer Street Station, Mrs Bowman and Mrs Lytton organised a porter to load their trunks onto a carriage.

‘No hard feelings, old bean,' said Clancy. ‘Hope to catch you round the traps. I'll watch out for those “Celebrated Star Artist – Melbourne Idol – Billy Dare” posters.'

‘And I'll keep an eye out for those headlines, “Colonel Clarence Lytton, hero of the empire”,' joked Paddy. They shook hands and punched each other in the shoulder.

‘But seriously, I'll send news if I hear anything at all about Kate and Eddie.'

The city smelt hot and sour after his months in the country. Paddy walked down Bourke Street feeling as if a huge weight was settling on his shoulders. He didn't want to go back to tell Bridie about what had happened. He could just imagine the look on her face; the crushing shame and disappointment when he told her about Eddie Whiteley eloping with Kate Bowman.

He turned into Stephen Street and stopped. The road was almost blocked with bird fanciers who were buying and selling their birds. One man had a big black-and-yellow cockatoo in a cage and its screeches were so loud, they hurt Paddy's ears. Another man had a sulphur-crested white one that he claimed could talk. There were hundreds of different pigeons changing hands. Paddy looked up at the copper-coloured evening sky. On a windowsill on the third floor, a flock of sparrows had gathered. Bridie was definitely at home. Paddy drew a breath and turned into the narrow stairwell.

The lodgings smelt of sour cabbage and rancid meat. Shifting his duffel bag and swag onto his shoulder, he trudged up the stairs of the building.

For a split second, Bridie stared at him, bewildered.

‘Billy Smith!' she exclaimed. ‘What drove you to turn those golden curls black as coal?'

‘It's a long story,' said Paddy. ‘And I'm not Billy Smith any more. I've changed my name again. Billy Dare.'

‘Billy Dare?'

‘Remember? Sir Gilbert, he told us about a character he knew once, a boy called Billy Dare who shot a bushranger? I thought it made a good stage name.
“I dare do all that may become a man, who dares do more is none
.”'

Bridie wiped tears of laughter from her eyes and clapped her hands.

‘Brave words, Billy Dare.' Then she peered over his shoulder into the darkening hallway. ‘But where's Eddie? Did he come back with you? I've missed you boys. The pennies have kept the wolf from the door but I've missed the pair of you every day.'

Paddy felt the words stick in his throat as he tried to explain what had happened. Bridie leant forward in her chair, frowning a little, as if he were speaking a different language and she had to concentrate hard to understand him. But when he'd finished she simply nodded. She took Paddy's chin in her hand and turned his face towards her.

‘You mustn't judge him too harshly, Billy. You mustn't judge if you don't know his story.'

Paddy couldn't stop himself. ‘I don't need to know his story to know he's a scoundrel.'

Bridie turned away and hobbled over to the window seat where she had left her work. She picked it up and returned to sewing sequins onto the costume. She would never hear a word said against Eddie.

‘Well, I'd best be getting on. I have to find lodgings before dark,' said Paddy, hitching his swag back onto his shoulder.

‘Don't go, Billy,' said Bridie, looking up from her work. ‘I know it's not as comfortable as Charity House. All I can offer is a place to roll out your swag and a cup of sweet tea in the morning. I don't have any work for you and no sixpences to spare. But you always have a place here, with me, if you choose it. I promise you that.'

Paddy stood with his hand on the door handle.

‘Even if I'm an actor?'

‘Even if you're an actor. But you must promise me one thing.'

Paddy hoped it wasn't a promise he couldn't keep.

‘What?'

‘I want a front-row seat when you open at the Princess Theatre.'

Paddy laughed. ‘First I have to find a theatre that will take me!'

‘You're too late to find a part in the Christmas pantomimes. I'll have a word to Tom Wannan, down at the Bijou. He's the limelight man there and I've heard he's looking for a boy.'

‘But I want to be on stage, not behind the limelight.' ‘I know, and you will be, but you can make a start there. You'll meet everyone you will ever need to know. All of Melbourne goes to the Bijou.'

All through the long hot summer of 1898, Paddy worked at the Bijou, running back and forth from the footlights to backstage, scurrying along the underground passages beneath the stage.

‘Mr Hugarde!' Paddy called. ‘Five minutes, sir!'

Hugarde nodded and led his six soldiers into the wing, waiting for their final cue. Even after weeks of watching it, Paddy hadn't discovered how the man defied death day after day. Hugarde strode out onto centre stage and delivered his usual speech, his team of soldiers behind him. Then he moved to the left of the stage and the six soldiers lined up on the opposite side, guns at the ready. At a signal from Hugarde, they opened fire one by one. With a movement so quick, so deft that Paddy could never see it, Hugarde caught the bullets, holding them up between thumb and forefinger for the astonished audience to see.

Joey Windsor the ventriloquist and McGiney, his Irish dummy, were next up. Joey was always late but he usually blamed McGiney. They'd come on stage arguing furiously. McGiney was meant to be a stupid Irish dolt, but somehow, the dummy always managed to get the last word in.

Paddy watched them impatiently, waiting for the last joke that was a signal to him to run and line up the other acts. Jugglers, impersonators, shadowists and escapologists all crowded in the backstage dressing rooms, waiting for Paddy to give them their call. The stage manager panicked whenever anyone was late.

The second-last act was Georgia Magnet. Paddy felt the stage shudder as she lumbered past him. Georgia Magnet's act traded on the sheer strength of her presence. She was so powerful that no one could drag her from the stage. The audience roared as men were invited to step up from the stalls to try and move the giant of a woman. Three men with ropes couldn't drag her away.

Finally, Chung Ling Soo, the magician, took the stage. Chung wasn't really Chinese, but when he was on stage he carried an air of Oriental mystery that convinced the audience that he was from the heart of the East. He was a master of smoke and mirrors, bewildering everyone with illusion. Objects floated across the stage, a goldfish materialised out of thin air and Chung Ling caught it in his hand. Paddy hated it when he had to run under the stage to help Tom with the lighting. He couldn't bear to miss a minute.

After the show, Paddy met Nugget at the pie and tea shop in Little Collins Street. The boys squeezed into a corner booth and ordered a pie floater each.

Nugget packed his pipe while they waited and looked at Paddy appraisingly.

‘Glad to see you got rid of all that nancy-boy hair. You was starting to look like a right freak with that black and gold mop. You look like a man again.'

Paddy ran one hand over his scalp. A thin stubble of blond hair was all that was left. Nugget had given him such a hard time about the black curls with blond roots that he'd had the barber shave it all off.

‘I wish I did look like a man. I can't seem to get the parts I want. I've auditioned for a couple of shows but when I tell the directors that I'm fifteen, they say I'm too young to play a man and too old to play a child.'

‘You should spin ‘em a yarn. Say you're nineteen. No one's gunna snitch on you.'

‘No one's going to believe I'm nineteen, either.'

Nugget mashed his pie into his bowl of pea green soup. ‘Give it time, mate. I reckon you was born lucky. Never seen a man land on his feet like you do. Reckon you must be half cat. No matter how far you fall, you always come up trumps. How you going with the old girl? Still bunking down on her floor?'