The Demi-Monde: Winter (16 page)

‘Don’t get shirty wiv me, luv,’ admonished the boy with an angry puff on his pipe. ‘Sos yous sing jad, right?’

Ella referenced PINC. Jad was the swing music popular in the JAD – the nuJu Autonomous District of NoirVille – and it was widely thought in the Demi-Monde that only Shades could sing jad in anything approaching an authentic manner.

‘Yeah, I’m a jad singer.’

‘Burlesque ‘as left me ‘ere to tell yous chirps that yous is to
go round to the back room.’ He nodded down an alleyway that flanked the Pig.

She flipped the boy a penny for his advice and trudged down the dark alley. Twenty yards along she came to a pair of red doors. Ella had never been in a real – well, as real as anything could be in the Demi-Monde – English pub before and she was taken aback by the concoction of smells she was subject to: the sweet stench of rancid sweat, the tart aroma of spilt Solution and the undercurrent of damp and decay. And if her nose took a moment to adjust to the Pig so too did her eyes. She had to squint against the glare of the dozens of gas lights that illuminated the place, the light reflected, in turn, by the huge mirrors that decorated the walls.

As it was early in the evening there were only about thirty or forty people in the pub. Most of the clientele seemed to be workmen enjoying an after-work pint and taking the opportunity to chat up the somewhat fly-blown girl idly polishing glasses behind the bar. There was also a circle of five or six heavily made-up women in rather risqué costumes drinking Solution – pinkies held out from the glass in an imitation of refined behaviour – around a table on the far side of the room. A trio of musicians were setting up on the low stage to the front of the bar.

When she walked in every eye in the room turned in her direction.

A quick reference to PINC told Ella that Burlesque Bandstand was the fat and scruffily dressed man seated at the table near the stage. He had a rather too well-endowed blonde girl – a floozy called Sporting Chance – by his side and a long-haired man sitting across from him. Long-haired or not, unfortunately – and worryingly – PINC couldn’t tell her anything about him. He was a mystery: a tall, lean mystery with a big bruise on the
side of his face. Despite the bruise she thought Mr Mystery to be rather good-looking and she liked the careless way he had draped himself over his chair: the word that came to Ella’s mind to describe him was ‘louche’, closely followed by ‘rascal’.

She strode across the sawdust-strewn floor of the pub and presented herself at the booth.

‘Excuse me, Sir, but would I be correct in thinking that I am addressing Mr Burlesque Bandstand?’

nuJuism is the religion practised by the Demi-Monde’s Sectorless nuJu community. nuJuism is an unrelentingly pessimistic religion which teaches that suffering and hardship is life-affirming and necessary to prepare nuJus for the rigours to be experienced during the Time of Tribulation (aka the End of Days). It is a central tenet of nuJuism that there will arise a Messiah who will lead the nuJu people safely through Tribulation and to the Promised Land. As with everything to do with the nuJus this is, of course, pernicious nonsense.

– Religions of the Demi-Monde:

Otto Weininger, University of Berlin Publications

Vanka looked up. It was difficult to see the girl who was addressing Burlesque as she had a light directly behind her and she was wearing a veil. All he could make out was a silhouette. It was a very nice silhouette though, without any of the usual humps and bumps that were de rigueur for women who frequented the Pig. From what he could see, the woman – girl! – was everything he had ever dreamed of in an assistant. Okay, she was a bit scrawny, but still …

He shuffled his chair around to get a better look, hoping, as he did so, that she didn’t have a beard. He held his breath as
she pulled back the veil that so completely covered her face. She didn’t have a beard. She was quite lovely. Young, slim and lovely: perfect.

Except that she was black. Well, not black exactly: she was a wonderful light caramel colour. But there was no denying she was a Shade and this was the Rookeries.

And if any of Archie Clement’s SS thugs ever saw her, there would be Hel to pay: Shades weren’t popular with the SS, who were liable to deal with them pretty viciously. As far as they saw it the ForthRight was a Shade-free zone and they would fight to keep it that way. But as a PsyChick the girl would be perfect. Even her colour would be useful: it’d bring a touch of the exotic to the proceedings. He could bill her as a WhoDoo mambo. It’d hide the bruising too, if the SS ever caught up with her.

Burlesque didn’t seem to notice the girl’s skin colour, in fact as Vanka remembered it he had specifically wanted a Shade singer. The punters liked Shade birds: they were sexier that the fat Anglo items Burlesque usually employed. In fact this girl was so sexy that even Burlesque was persuaded to be pleasant. ‘Good evening, m’dear,’ he crooned as his eyes made a professional inventory of the girl’s body. ‘I am indeed Burlesque Bandstand: purveyor of alcoholic beverages an’ fine victuals, an’ impresario extraordinaire. An’ to ‘oo do I ‘ave the pleasure of introducing myself?’ Burlesque used a boot to shove a chair out from under the table and gestured the girl into it. She sat down and now, illuminated by the candle that sputtered in the middle of the table, Vanka could see her better.

She wasn’t lovely.

She was more than lovely. She was beautiful and very, very clean. He couldn’t remember when he had seen anybody that clean before or who smelt so … nice. The bouquet of violets
and strawberries that shrouded the girl reminded him of days in the park and walks in the woods, which was remarkable because, as far as he could remember, he had never been in a park nor had he ever walked in a wood. She was so clean that he had to resist the urge to stretch out a hand and touch her shimmering black hair. The girl smiled – revealing the whitest teeth he had ever seen – and thrust out a slim, elegant hand in the direction of Burlesque, each finger adorned by a beautifully manicured and varnished nail.

Burlesque looked at the hand in bemusement and then, reluctantly, took the girl’s fingertips in his own mitt and gave the hand a cautious shake. Vanka could understand Burlesque’s trepidation: when people shoved a hand in your direction in the Rookeries it was usually wrapped around the handle of a knife.

‘My name’s Ella Thomas,’ the girl said softly.

‘An’ I’m Sportin’ Chance,’ said Burlesque’s girlfriend, sticking out a hand whilst simultaneously giving her beau a filthy look. Sporting obviously wasn’t keen on competition, especially good-looking competition.

‘Delighted to meet you, Miss Chance.’

‘An’ I’m delighted to meet yous, Miss Thomas,’ interrupted Burlesque. ‘An’ this is my mate, Wanker.’

‘Colonel Vanka Ivanovich Maykov: Licensed Occultist,’ Vanka corrected as he took the girl’s hand and shook it. He cursed himself as he did so: he had been so smitten by her beauty that he had forgotten to use an alias, and for all he knew she could be an agent of Skobelev. But gazing into those wonderful limpid eyes, he didn’t think so: no one so lovely could be so venal. As he shook the girl’s hand his cold reading techniques came into play. Her skin was so soft that he knew she’d never done a decent day’s work in her life: she was either a gentlewoman
fallen on hard times or an expensive hooker. Unfortunately his instincts told him to put his money on her being the former.

Shame.

‘‘Ow may I ‘elp you, Miss Thomas?’ smarmed Burlesque. ‘I’ve come to audition as a jad singer.’ The girl’s voice tinkled like a bell through the room.

‘A jad singer?’ Burlesque almost choked.

A frown creased the girl’s perfect forehead. ‘Yes, you’ve a notice on the door of your pub. It says you’re looking for a chirp… a jad singer. I understand the auditions are being held here.’ ‘Well, forgive my surprise but yous don’t look much like a jad singer. They tend to be bigger than wot yous is.’

The girl smiled her wonderful smile. ‘Well, I guess I’m one of the new generation of less-big jad singers.’ She thought for a moment. ‘People tell me, Mr Bandstand, that I’ve got a good voice and I can sing just about anything, so why don’t you try me out?’

Burlesque eyed the girl sidelong. He was probably, Vanka thought, trying to establish if the girl’s suggestion that he ‘try her out’ was a double entendre. Disappointment flared on the impresario’s face: he’d obviously decided it wasn’t.

‘D’you dance?’ Burlesque asked suspiciously.

‘Sure, I can dance.’

Sure?

From the moment she had opened her mouth Vanka had known she was just too good to be true. There was definitely something of the Yank about her, and Yanks, as everybody knew, were too independently minded to be reliable. Most of the bastards were Royalists too.

Her being a Yank would definitely be a problem: Burlesque didn’t like Yanks. But Vanka had never heard of a Shade Yank before. Maybe Burlesque didn’t like Shade Yanks. But then
Burlesque didn’t like anybody, be they Anglos, Slavs, nuJus, Shades, Polaks, Krauts, Russkis, Frogs, Eyeties, Wogs, Chinks or Nips. Burlesque was an equal-opportunity racist. He was probably wondering if the girl might be an undercover agent working for Shaka … or, worse, a Suffer-O-Gette assassin.

Burlesque continued his interrogation. ‘You tell jokes?’

A moment’s consideration. ‘I guess I could do.’

‘Right, let’s see you outta that shooba,’ said Burlesque, nodding towards the girl’s thick fur coat.

The girl paused, then with a shrug stood up from the chair and wriggled out of her coat. She shuffled self-consciously on her feet as Burlesque gave her body his usual forensic examination.

Looking at her without her coat, Vanka was sure his guess that she was a down-on-her-luck gentlewoman was correct. She was wearing a very sober outfit, just the sort of thing a young lady from a more refined background might wear. The dress was the epitome of decorum, being restrained in both its colouring – dark grey – and its skirt length – only an inch above the floor. Unfortunately the decorum didn’t end there: her bosom was ensnared in an all-encompassing bodice – which was unusual for women in the Pig. Even the bustle was small. All in all it was an outfit that only those of the most proper and conservative of outlooks would be seen dead in: it was the sort of outfit women got buried in.

But proper and conservative though her dress was, it couldn’t disguise the fact that the girl’s figure went in and out in an appealing manner … very appealing indeed.

Burlesque was less than impressed. ‘Gor, your frock’s a bit drab innit and you’re a bit skinny for this singing lark. People coming to see a singer wanna see a bird wiv a bit ov flesh on ‘er. ‘Course you ‘ave got a nice set of charms.’

‘Charms?’ the girl asked in a puzzled way.

‘Tits,’ explained Burlesque with commendable brevity. ‘Yeah, it’s good that you’ve got a decent upper ‘amper. My punters like their singers to bounce around a bit, iffn you knows what I mean.’ He winked at her and miraculously she didn’t run for it. ‘You’ve got to wiggle ‘em abart when yous singing.’ Suddenly he stopped and looked at the girl suspiciously. ‘Yous ain’t a Suffer-O-Gette is you? I’ve been getting sum funny letters from Suffer-O-Gettes lately.’

‘I most certainly am not a Suffer-O-Gette, Mr Bandstand. And with regard to my … charms, I came here this evening to audition as a singer not a stripper.’

Spirited, Vanka liked that. He decided to come to the girl’s aid. ‘You were saying you wanted to take the Pig upmarket, Burlesque, that you wanted to get out of the bump and grind business. Miss Thomas, here, certainly looks refined.’

‘All right,’ said Burlesque with a resigned sigh, ‘let’s see wot you’re abart. ‘Ave a word wiv Arthur.’ He nodded towards the stage. ‘He’s the bloke on the piano. You got your book wiv you?’

The girl had, and with a confidence that belied her youth she gave Burlesque a determined nod and walked to the stage.

Vanka had never heard the song before. It was a jaunty little number called ‘Falling in Love Again’. It seemed that the band hadn’t heard it either, and to begin with they were foxed by the song’s peculiar waltz time. Eventually though they got into what the girl called ‘the groove’ and her performance, to Vanka’s untrained ear, was remarkable. Remarkable and highly unusual.

She didn’t have one of the big blowsy voices usually possessed by women singing in Burlesque’s pubs: hers was more subtle, and nuanced. She managed to quiet the room, even the gabbling hookers sitting gossiping at the back of the
pub. She was a stunningly different singer. The problem was that Burlesque wasn’t comfortable with ‘different’.

When the final notes of the song faded away he sat immobilised by indecision. ‘I dunno,’ he said eventually. ‘People coming to the Pig like their singers big an’ loud. Waddya fink, Wanker? Should I give ‘er a gig?’

Vanka gave an incredulous shake of his head. ‘Burlesque, she’s the most amazing singer I’ve ever heard. Of course you’ve got to give her a gig. Give it a couple of weeks and the Pig will be packed.’

Burlesque remained unconvinced. ‘I dunno …’ He trailed off and then, obviously struck by inspiration, his face lit up in a smile. ‘I tell you wot, luv,’ he shouted towards the girl, who was still standing rather awkwardly on the stage, ‘as this is a burlesque show yer auditioning for, ‘ow would you feel about singing charms out? I could bill you as the “Naked Nightingale” or some such.’

Vanka buried his face in his hands. His interpretation of ‘upmarket’ and Burlesque’s were obviously very different.

‘Absolutely not.’ There was a decided frost in the girl’s voice.

Burlesque’s face darkened. ‘Why not? It’d get a lot ov punters in.’

‘I don’t care. It isn’t dignified. It’s not jad singing. It’s pornography.’

Burlesque wasn’t used to being told no by a woman. Like most men in the Rookeries he was used to women doing as they were bloody well told, especially women who wanted a job from him.

‘Don’t be a soppy cow. It ain’t pawnography; it’s show business. And the fings I want yous to show are your tits.’