The Urchin's Song (25 page)

The young woman and the older one leaned against each other briefly, both shaking with laughter, and then as the chairman resumed his seat with melancholy dignity and banged his little auctioneer’s hammer, the orchestra broke into Sybil’s signature tune and she flitted lightly on to the stage, losing twenty years as she did so.

Dear Sybil. She had a heart of gold and such a warm, generous nature, and yet everyone knew her present husband had indulged his roving eye ever since they had been married. Why was it that some women seemed to have a penchant for philanderers and rotters? Josie asked herself as she hurried back to the dressing room. And then an image of Oliver’s attractive face came into her mind and she bit her lip hard, just before she opened the dressing-room door and was enfolded in a wave of chatter and cheap scent and colour. And then Gertie was at her side.

‘Oliver’s here! He’s sent you this.’ Gertie handed her an exquisite corsage as she spoke, her voice bubbling. ‘An’ he’s asked us out to dinner after the show. Look, he got me one an’ all.’

She pointed to a smaller corsage that was nevertheless just as pretty, and which she had already pinned to the lapel of her serge dress.

Josie glanced down at the delicate arrangement of pale peach orchids threaded through with cream lace, and she couldn’t quell the flutter of pleasure and excitement that speeded her pulse. However, her voice was quiet and steady when she said, ‘I presume Billy brought these along?’ Billy was the young lad who ran errands, assisted Oswald - the stagehand - and was general dogsbody and jack-of-all-trades. ‘And no doubt you accepted the invitation to dinner on behalf of us both?’

Gertie turned her head and stared at her sister for a moment before saying in a slightly defensive tone, ‘He’s come all the way from London, lass, an’ he
is
your agent, isn’t he?’

Josie nodded, seating herself on the stool Gertie had kept clear for her amidst all the mayhem. ‘Aye, he’s my agent,’ she said very softly, ‘but that’s all he is, Gertie. You understand? I . . . I don’t want him to get any ideas.’ That went for Gertie too, so it was better to nip any misunderstanding in the bud right now. ‘We don’t know how things are going to turn out down south and I’m going to have more than enough on my plate as it is. My work is the only thing which interests me. All right, Gertie? Is that clear?’

My work is the only thing that interests me.
What stupid things we say sometimes. As the thought took form, along with another - different - man’s image in her mind’s eye, Josie lowered her head and fiddled with the buttons of her dress. She had had a difficult time keeping the picture of Barney all alone at the graveside out of her mind, and even now it still crept in at odd moments when she wasn’t on her guard. And she could do nothing at all about her dreams.

She was glad she was going down south, she told herself savagely, whipping the hairpins out of her hair and massaging her head with the tips of her fingers, ignoring Gertie’s protests at the cavalier treatment of her painstakingly arranged curls and waves. It was the best thing all round, it was. And she was grateful, so, so grateful, that no one could read anyone else’s mind.

And then just for a moment that last thought was brought into question when Gertie’s hand lightly touched her shoulder and patted it twice, and her sister’s voice said quietly, ‘Aye, it’s clear, lass, it’s clear.’

Josie looked at her sister’s small elfin face in the mirror and Gertie stared back at her for a moment without speaking. And then she said, with a lilt in her voice, ‘So, what’s it to be then? Bread and cheese all by ourselves with water to wash it down, or a slap-up meal with Oliver where you’ll be fêted and adored? Difficult choice, I know.’

Oh, Gertie. In spite of herself Josie grinned back at her sister. ‘I don’t think bread and cheese was on the cards for tonight,’ she said drily, ‘but I get your point. And as you so rightly said, Oliver
has
come all the way from London.’

‘Exactly.’ Gertie beamed at her. ‘And I wouldn’t expect you to do any other than follow Sybil’s advice about the elastic on your drawers, by the way.’

‘Gertie!’

At that moment the dressing-room door was thrown open and Sybil herself entered on a gust of plumage and perfume. The painted face was smiling, and on catching sight of Josie, Sybil called, and loudly, ‘Josie, darling, there’s someone out here waiting to make your acquaintance! Come and put him out of his misery, and do feel free to bring him to my party tonight, dear. Such a nice young man and so polite. I do like politeness in a man, don’t you?’

Oliver.
He hadn’t had the good grace to wait until she left the theatre, but had come to the very door of the dressing room. What would people think? Her mouth smiling but her eyes cold, Josie ignored the last part of Sybil’s ringing proclamation which had had all the girls’ heads turning interestedly towards her, and said quietly, ‘Someone, Sybil? Can’t you give me a clue?’

Sybil had almost reached her now but as was her wont when she had had a few, her voice was still strident when she exclaimed, ‘A handsome young fellow m’lad, dearie. The sort who makes me wish I was a few years younger, I tell you. He said his name was . . .’ she paused, more wrinkles joining the others as she screwed up her eyes. ‘What was it? Harry . . . Horace . . . No, I have it!’ She beamed at Josie triumphantly. ‘Hubert. He said his name was Hubert and that you would want to speak to him when you knew he was here.’

‘Hubert?’
She and Gertie had spoken together, and now, as Josie’s eyes met those of her sister in the mirror, she said dazedly, ‘That’s my brother, Sybil.’

‘Darling child, aren’t they all?’ Sybil gave one last leer before she tottered over to her stool and crashed down on its long-suffering legs.

‘Josie.’ Gertie was clutching her so hard on the shoulders Josie knew she would have bruises in the morning. ‘Oh, Josie.’

‘It’s all right. It’s all right, lass.’ Josie was speaking mechanically, her head whirling. She suddenly had the most inordinate desire to laugh, but she knew it was the kind of laughter that would finish up with her weeping. Hubert, here? Then Jimmy . . . And her da. All this time with no news. Her mam had been right. They
had
been here. Oh,
Mam
. . .

Josie was on her feet now, and she took Gertie’s arm as she said in a low, soft hiss, ‘Be careful what you say if it is Hubert out there. Remember how things were the last time we saw Da and the lads. It’s not so much Jimmy and Hubert, but I wouldn’t trust Da an inch.’ This wasn’t quite true. She didn’t trust Jimmy any more than she did her father, but now was not the time to go into that.

‘Josie, I’ve felt . . .’ Gertie paused, giving a small embarrassed laugh. ‘I’ve felt someone was watching us since we’ve been back. It started at Mam’s funeral so it could be them, couldn’t it?’

‘If it is, I shall want to know why the lads didn’t go and see Mam at least once, to put her mind at rest that they were all right,’ Josie said grimly. ‘And that’s just the start of it. Where have they been all this time?’ She had been pulling her hair into a ponytail as she spoke, and she now twisted it into a low chignon at the back of her head and secured it with a few pins. ‘Come on.’ She took Gertie’s arm and they walked towards the dressing-room door. ‘Let me do the talking, lass,’ Josie warned, ‘especially if Da and our Jimmy are anywhere near.’ She hadn’t forgotten the fate her father had intended for his youngest daughter, nor his brutality that night in Newcastle. Whatever this meeting was meant to accomplish, it would be for her father’s benefit, that was for sure.

For a moment, after they had opened the door and stepped into the passageway outside, Josie knew a feeling of relief mixed with disappointment. The youth standing with his back to them was far too tall for little Hubert. Her youngest brother had always been undersized and skinny, and although the last five years were bound to have wrought some change, he would now still only be twelve.

And then the lad turned, and a voice in her head said,
It is him.
And in spite of all she had said to Gertie just moments before, Josie found herself springing forward and taking him in her arms. ‘Hubert!’ she cried. ‘Hubert, I can’t believe it!’ And then Gertie joined them and the three of them were hugging and laughing and crying all at the same time.

It was Hubert who pulled away first, wiping his wet face with the back of his hand as he said, ‘I had to come but I’ve got to be quick. You must listen to me, both of you, but you can’t let on I’ve been here. He’ll kill me if he finds out.’

‘Da?’

‘Da? No, not Da.’

He was as tall as she was, Josie was thinking. And good-looking. ‘Who then?’ she asked, baffled.

‘Patrick Duffy. You remember him? He took me an’ Jimmy in when Da cleared off. He said there’d been some trouble, that you’d put the polis on to Da, an’ on to me an’ Jimmy an’ all, ’cos of the thievin’, you know? So he took us in, looked after us, like.’

She just bet he had. Josie stared at her brother, and when Gertie said, ‘That’s not true! Hubert, it isn’t true,’ she didn’t say anything for a moment.

‘Is it, Josie?’ Hubert’s voice was tremulous. ‘Patrick said you made Da skedaddle, that he signed on a ship leavin’ for Norway or somewhere foreign. He said Mam was part of it, too; that the pair of you had shopped us.’

‘Patrick Duffy and Da came to Vera’s sister Betty’s house in Newcastle and attacked me a couple of weeks after we’d left home.’ The words were slow and painful, and Josie looked hard into her brother’s blue eyes as she spoke. Hubert’s eyes weren’t the cold icy blue of her father’s eyes and Jimmy’s, but warmer, with an almost violet tinge. ‘They wanted to put Gertie on the game, probably me too, but Barney - Betty’s stepson - came home and there was a fight. I only told the police about that, Hubert, I didn’t mention you or Jimmy, and Mam had no part in anything.’

‘Do you swear that, Josie? On Mam’s grave?’ Suddenly the small lad was very evident inside the lanky youth.

‘Aye, I do, but you must have thought Duffy was lying, else you wouldn’t be here now,’ Josie said very quietly.

Hubert nodded, and then grinned. ‘Still the same old Josie, sharp as a knife. But you’re right. Mind, Jimmy thinks the sun shines out of Patrick’s backside, an’ I have to say he don’t knock us about like Da did, an’ he always gives us our fair whack. He’s bin good to us, lass. Credit where credit’s due.’

Josie made no comment. Whatever Patrick Duffy had done he would have done it for his own gain, she had no doubt about that, and she didn’t like to think what the tall, fresh-faced young lad in front of her was involved in. Duffy would taint everything and everyone he came into contact with, he was that type of man. ‘Mam’s last words were about you and Jimmy,’ she said suddenly, reaching out and grasping her brother’s arm. ‘She loved you, Hubert, she did, and she wanted us all to be together again. Look, I’m going to London the morrow with Gertie - you and Jimmy could come with us.’

‘What?’

‘I mean it. You could make a fresh start - I’d help you. You don’t have to stay here with Duffy. He’s rotten, Hubert, through and through. You must see that?’

She watched her brother’s face straighten, and his jaws champed for a moment or two before he said, ‘I told you, Patrick’s bin good to us. In his own way he’s bin right good when no one else cared a penny farthin’. Da cleared off and Mam - well, she might not have shopped us but she wasn’t o’er bothered about me an’ Jimmy, about any of us.’

‘That’s not true, lad. That’s Jimmy talking.’

‘An’ you an’ Gertie were in clover an’ out of it all. Patrick took us in ’cos he was Da’s friend an’ there was no one else. Anyway,’ he paused, rubbing his hand hard across his mouth, ‘him an’ Jimmy are as thick as thieves like I said, an’ Jimmy wouldn’t go anywhere.’

And what Jimmy said and did, Hubert lived by. By making sure of the elder brother, Patrick Duffy had known he had the younger too. Oh, she hated that man. She really hated him. Josie looked into Hubert’s troubled face and tried one more time. ‘Won’t you at least talk to Jimmy about it and see what he thinks? He might like the chance to leave here and try his hand in London. Please, Hubert?’

The lad turned his gaze from her and stared at the floor, and his voice was very low as he said, ‘You don’t understand, lass. Jimmy believes every word Patrick says, an’ he thinks you were the cause of Da leavin’ us an’ all the trouble. He don’t know I’ve come to see you, but I had to. They’re plannin’ to . . .’ He stopped, raising his head but still not looking Josie directly in the face as he said, ‘Patrick knows people, people who’d do anythin’ for a few bob. He’s got a finger in every pie there is; nowt happens here without him knowin’ about it. He knows you’re goin’ tomorrow.’

Josie merely stared at him, but it was Gertie who said shakily, ‘What are you saying, lad?’

‘It’ll be tonight, later, when you go back to Vera’s. He’s already got blokes watchin’ an’ he’s told ’em however long it takes they wait till the time’s right. If you’re walkin’, all to the good; if you’re in a carriage or with someone they see to them an’ all if they have to - whatever’s necessary, Patrick said. But he wants you an’ Gertie alive an’ kickin’.’

‘And you’re saying Jimmy knows about this?’ Josie blinked her eyes as her vision blurred with shock. ‘He’s part of it?’

‘He’s goin’ to be the one who steps out an’ stops you afore you open the door. He’ll make out he’s friendly like, that he wants to talk to you about Mam dyin’, that he’s only just heard.’

‘But . . . but you can’t just kidnap people,’ Gertie stammered. ‘Duffy must know he wouldn’t get away with it. When me an’ Josie didn’t come home Vera’d contact the authorities an’ there’d be a stink.’

Hubert looked at her, and for all his tender years his gaze was pitying. ‘He’d get away with it. I’ve seen--’ And then he stopped abruptly. He wasn’t here to shop anyone or to frighten his sisters any more than he had to. But they
were
his sisters, his own flesh and blood. He just couldn’t understand their Jimmy over Josie. Jimmy hated her every bit as much as Patrick did, perhaps even more so, and in this - as in more than one or two things lately - his brother gave him the willies. He remembered how Jimmy’s face had changed when he’d pointed out they only had Patrick’s word that she’d blown the whistle on them all. By, fair mental Jimmy’d gone. He’d agreed with Jimmy and Patrick before, that no contact with their mam and Josie was best, but once they’d started talking about all this . . . The thieving and such was part of life and he was good at it, he knew he was, but lately there’d been things that had fair turned his stomach.