In Lonnie's Shadow (3 page)

ALABASTER FIGURINE

Item No. 47

Victorian replica. Grecian style alabaster figurine (white lady). Located at a site known to have operated as a backstreet brothel in the late nineteenth century.

Madam Buckingham, who fancied herself as the queen bee of Little Lon and had crammed her overblown figure into an amber- and black-striped dress for such an occasion, was not taking too kindly to anyone trying to muscle in on her territory. It was as if all her body parts were wriggling and buzzing on the verge of temper, the seams of her dress pulling like lurid lightning strikes across her cleavage with each heaving threat.

‘Pearl’s with me, where she wants to be. So stay off my patch.’

She squared herself up for another slanderous scrap with the punch-fisted woman who was glaring dirty daggers at her.

Lonnie shook his head at the antics of Mrs B as she took on Annie Walker. Lordy, he was in no mood for any more confrontations. After leaving the Wesley, still checking guardedly over his shoulder, he had dashed past the furniture mart in the direction of Casselden Place where a burst of oriental firecrackers had nearly made him drop dead. The stink of the slaughter yard hadn’t exactly steadied his nerves either. Now, two doors away from home, when he thought he was safe, who’d he come across but this pair screeching blue murder at one another. Guessing he could be stuck for a while, he slipped into the doorway of number four.

The two harridans remained oblivious to the fact Lonnie had approached them through the darkness.

‘Says who? You don’t make the rules.’

‘I’m the law around here, you old scrag. There’s friends of mine in both parties.’ Madam Buckingham gestured towards Parliament House, whose roofline loomed over the rows of topsy-turvy terraces like a Grecian colossus. ‘I’ve spent years building up my reputation. You and your filthy girls ain’t going to drag it down.’

‘Drag it down?’ Annie blustered. ‘Drag it down? You weren’t the only one to entertain the Duke.’

‘Long time’s passed since you were able to shilly- shally around town with anyone on your arm. Who’d pay you, I wonder?’ Mrs B tapped her chin and threw a peevish look down at Annie’s squat figure. ‘The slaughtermen? The muckrakers? Nah! Too good for the likes of you.’

Annie Walker returned with a mouthful of her own. ‘I well remember the time yer sold yer wares for a copper a go. If yer think my girls are so scabby, why’re yer trying to steal ’em? I want Pearl back, yer filcher. She owes me. Otherwise I’ll set Jack on the lot of yer.’

Slasher Jack. That was a low-life of a name. He was a mover in the night, a mauler, who thought nothing of throttling a girl until she was senseless. He had been known to slice a gash from ear to ear with one cut of his blade.

Not that Mrs B was afraid of anyone. She drew a hatpin from her bonnet, causing strands of mouse- coloured hair to fly out in all directions, and prodded with it at Annie’s chest. ‘You just watch who you’re threatening or I’ll pinprick those balloons of yours till they pop and then pick out your eyes! See if I don’t.’

The door behind Lonnie slipped open. Someone tugged on his injured arm and he flinched. A hushed voice breathed from behind. ‘Don’t rat on me to Annie.’

Pearl, the reason for the argument between the two madams, drew him hastily into the front room of number four. Lonnie breathed in the smell of shellfish and his stomach growled, a grim reminder he hadn’t eaten all day. He looked hopefully through to the scullery, but a clutter of empty oyster shells told him there was little hope of a feed here. Looked like he’d have to hold on a while longer for a bite. Pearl most frequently ate from the oyster bar around the corner or brought home hot currant cakes from the bakehouse. Not like two doors down, where his mam would keep her big iron pot filled with a beef broth that warmed him through to the very bones.

‘That’s twice in one day you’ve rescued me, you cracker,’ he said. ‘Don’t know which is the worst to take on, the maniac with the dog or those two outside.’

‘Couldn’t stop the wild beast. Used all my charms as well.’

Lonnie raised an eyebrow. ‘The man or the mutt?’

‘Well, glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour,’ Pearl said. ‘Ain’t you going to tell me what you been up to then?’

Lonnie stood by the mantle. The hearth was cold. He contemplated the lack of comfort in the tiny front room. There was nothing truly cherished here. Everything spoke of trade rather than enjoyment. A figurine, the statue of a woman in flowing robes, was chipped. The wine glass next to it stood half- emptied and scummy. The velvet chaise longue dragged from Mrs B’s Big House was worn pink in patches, no longer fine enough for the pollies and the toffs who went there for their bit of skylarking. Lonnie answered with a sense of deep shame on Pearl’s behalf, ‘You know me. Trouble seems to follow.’

‘Let me at least clean you up.’ She reached over.

‘Can’t let your mam see you looking like something the dog dragged in, or smelling like one, either.’

He drew away his arm. ‘Stop fussing. I’ll just hang around until those turkeys quieten down. Sounds like Mrs B’s about to kill her.’

‘Stop arguing, yer soft chump.’ Pearl fetched her washbowl. ‘Sit down now and let me see those wounds.’ She led him to the tattered French lovers’ chair, inched off his jacket and tended to the cuts on his arm. ‘Anyways, you may have quite a wait. They’ll scratch and tear at each other, but it’ll stop short of murder. Annie’s no real match for Madam. Although I’ll sleep better when this business is over and done with.’

Lonnie could see she was putting on a brave face.

‘She has to tire of coming after you, sooner or later,’ he said, knowing full well about the threats Annie Walker had been making of late. Pearl’s safety depended upon her working off an unreasonable debt of twenty-two pounds, two shillings. An amount Annie Walker decided had been lost to her business when Pearl crossed over to Mrs B, and which she was now claiming, in order to force Pearl back into her employ.

‘Annie may be no match for Madam, but you don’t know what she’s like with us girls.’

The shouts of the two women silenced Pearl. She hoped Madam was indeed the stronger of the two, for her choice to come under Big House protection had been a deliberate way of ensuring her own survival. She wouldn’t go back. Never. Not after what she had seen Annie do on the night of the wild storm. Pearl couldn’t even utter the words out loud; Biddy’s precious babby wrapped in newspaper and tossed out like a clot of muck; left to wash along the street in the stormwater. There were things you dared not reveal. Vile and heartless things. And all she’d done was stand there gawping. She should have done more. Maybe if she had, Biddy would have carried the little mite a full term. Although the truth of it was, and didn’t she know it, things would have all ended up the same way.

Lonnie interrupted her thoughts. ‘You should’ve walked out on Annie a long time ago.’

‘Don’t you think I’ve told myself that already? The only way to get her off me back once and for all is to pay up. By the time Madam creams off her percentage, there’s not much left over.’

‘If I had some spare coppers I’d willingly hand them over. As it is I’m giving Carlo a hand for the extra. It’s been tight since Da.’ He stopped, knowing they sounded like feeble excuses.

A dark frown creased Pearl’s forehead. ‘I don’t expect nobody to fix things. Needless to say I’m on me own with this one.’

The fiery argument between the two women was still going strong. Annie’s voice rose harsh and shrill.

‘I’ll stay out of yer rotten streets for now. But I want me girl back, or I’ll have her fixed good and proper.’

‘And I’m telling you, Annie Walker, you’re not the only one with brawn behind you. My Burke’ll take anyone on blindfolded, with one hand bound behind his back. It’ll be over my dead body before I ever answer to the likes of you.’ Suddenly her tone changed. ‘But think for a minute, woman. What good will it do either of us if we let Burke and Jack kill each other?’

‘I’m wise to them two madams,’ whispered Pearl, as she listened in. ‘Annie will never see reason, while Madam Buckingham is apt to think things through. But I’m banking on Annie not being game enough to let Slasher nab me because she won’t go an all out war with Madam Buckingham. Still, no one with a sound mind messes with Slasher. He scares me to death. Not as if I can hide from him anyways.’

‘If he tries anything. If he comes anywhere near …’ Lonnie broke off, feeling an immense surge of pity for his friend. He couldn’t deny Annie’s man was a menacing brute whose main business was to keep the working girls in line, but he hoped Pearl had guessed right. He hurried to reassure her. ‘Don’t forget you’re Mrs B’s latest girl. She won’t let anything happen to you.’

‘Where’ve you been? Don’t tell me you missed

Miss-Ruby-Come-Lately parading up and down town with a white feather stuck in her bonnet. I’ll just have to watch my own back. Anyways, I’ve done it for long enough.’

True. Pearl had only been a very young girl when sent to work on the streets with her own white feather for sale to the highest bidder. Maiden virtue came at a good price; it enabled her mother and father to take off without so much as a see you later. For the first year she had half expected her parents to come back and claim her, waited for something to happen that would explain her abandonment, but in the end she thought less and less about them.

As she drew out the last splinter of glass, she shook her head at him. ‘Looks like you took on the whole Glass and Bottle Gang.’

She was speaking about one of the most notorious mobs of larrikins, who roamed the neighbourhood armed with broken bottles. Their leader, Billy Bottle, as he liked to be known – although his real name was Francis Todd – had always been a mean, foul- mouthed lad who trained in the art of nastiness from the moment he could spit out a curse. Billy’s principal amusement as a child had been to rip the wings off blowflies and toss stones at birds. Not much had changed. Fully grown, he’d become an unsettling hood, with eyes and hands that were everywhere and a brain like a brick wall.

Lonnie had never liked him and didn’t Billy Bottle know it. So these days Lonnie tried to steer clear, more at ease in the company of the other main mob, the Push, led by George Swiggins. In reality he did not want to mix with either gang. His slight preference for the Push was only a matter of survival. He was neither a Bottle nor a Push. Lonnie liked to tickle the nose hairs by saying he was a Bush or a Pottle.

When he remarked as such, Pearl chuckled. ‘So Mr Bush or Mr Pottle, which one of you wants flirting with?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Well, I daresay you’ll live. If you don’t poison yerself first.’ She passed him his jacket. ‘This smells like a horse’s backside. Still rolling in the muck at Golden Acres, I’ll bet. I don’t know how you can stand all the stink around there.’

He gave it a quick sniff. ‘Too true,’ he agreed, pleased her mood had brightened. ‘I’m doing a bit of track work on the sly as well.’

‘So, have you caught up with Daisy lately?’

‘Not since last week.’

‘She’s been having those nightmares again.’

The shouting between the two madams ceased. Heavy footsteps stomped off in opposite directions.

Pearl shrugged. ‘All clear. And just in time I reckon. We’re expecting a party of la-di-dahs at the Big House. Better you leave this way.’ She ushered him towards the back door. ‘A drop of French wine, a bit of hoity-toitying, lots of tweaking and pulling of beards, even if some of them lads have barely a whisker.’ She pinched her fingers together, playfully prodding Lonnie’s chin, moving along his shoulder and chest, down to his waist. There her fingers paused. ‘Shame poor Ruby, the little chump, can’t have a turn all by herself. Let’s hope Madam gets a good price for her white feather, then she may go a little easier on me.’

A great desire to sleep came washing over Lonnie. He handed over the two heirlooms from the Carlton house. ‘Will you hang on to these, please?’

Pearl scrutinised the horseshoe pin, then flicked open the watch and read the inscription. She stared understandingly at Lonnie. ‘So that’s what you’ve been up to. I should have known.’

‘Only for a few days,’ he pressed.

Pearl answered by slipping them down her front.

‘This’ll keep’em safe.’ She pulled his hand so it brushed against her bodice and winked mischievously.

‘No better hiding spot.’

‘Easy does it.’ Lonnie turned scarlet. For all that Pearl was younger by a few months, she was much too knowing for the likes of him.

‘You get along home,’ she said, with a swift turnaround, acting more like his mam. ‘Tuck yourself into bed and get a good night’s sleep.’

As he left he heard her sigh. ‘Huh, all right for some.’

SHOULDER PROTECTOR

Item No. 5111

Padding made from hide. Used to protect a nightcart man’s shoulder from the weight of the soil can.

Lonnie, who blotched up crimson at the drop of a hat, was still flushed as he left Pearl’s. She was a fast girl, there was no doubting it, and much too flirty. Pearl had been right about one thing, his mam would have a fit if she saw him in this state, but with a smidgeon of luck she would be fast asleep.

As he opened his own backyard gate only two doors down, he heard the snarl of a dog. This was his only warning. A hand grabbed the back of his coat and pulled it roughly over his head. The sickening thud across his skull sent him crashing to the ground.

And left his body lying …

Lonnie came around panting for air, but only managed to gulp in a foul stench. He found himself lying face down by the old cesspit. The winter rains had caused it to ooze out its history, straight up his nose and into his open mouth.

His mam spoke of the smell as a curse. When Lonnie was younger he imagined it steaming like a spectre from the cesspit, a decaying corpse floating in the air. This ghost place still gave him the shivers.

A dark shadow loomed from above. It reached out and wrenched him to his feet. Instantly, Lonnie was a ten-year-old, circling around the edges of the old cesspit with Daisy and Pearl. He could almost hear their chanting whispers, Around the rick, around the rick, and the old bottles clinking together as they beat time. And there I found my Uncle Dick. I screwed his neck. I sucked his blood …

They never succeeded in conjuring up the broken bodies they believed had been tossed into the cesspit. But that same feeling, those sneaking, creeping insects crawling along his spine up towards his neck were suddenly back with him all these years later.

It took him a few moments to realise this was not one of the dead creatures rising with the foul air from his childhood memories, but the nightcart man on his nightly run up and down the lane, clanking full cans of night soil from yard to wagon.

The broad accented voice was full of concern.

‘What’s ailing thee?’

Lonnie’s jacket pockets had been turned inside out. The only money he had, tuppence, was gone from them. He said shakily, ‘I’ve been bashed and robbed.’

The nightcart man shook his head. ‘Who’d rob thee? Everyone around here knows tha’s got nowt.’ He gave Lonnie a sly grin. ‘Tha’s not been messing with someone’s girl?’

Lonnie rubbed the back of his head. ‘No. And I don’t reckon this bump was from anyone around here.’

He now knew what it felt like to be belted with a pickaxe handle. Still, a battering and bruising from one of Payne’s men was luckier than a mongrel dog being set on him. He was still alive. Relieved too, that he’d left the horseshoe pin and watch in safekeeping. They were out of harm’s way and that’s what mattered most of all.