Frozen Billy (13 page)

I heard Will's piercing whistle even through the screams of the wind and the ship's hooter's steady warning bray.

‘Clarrie! Over here, Clarrie!'

To save my frilly wig and painted face, I pushed back Uncle Len's cloak hood just enough to see where my brother was hiding before scurrying over the wet cobbles to join him.

I thrust the carrying box into his arms. ‘Keep it safe,' I warned. ‘And keep your face well covered.'

I turned to peer through the dark and rain at the milling dockhands urging the last few passengers aboard. ‘Where's Uncle Len?'

Will pointed to a crowd of people hanging over the harbour rail, waiting to wave farewell to their loved ones. ‘There, begging everyone to tell him if they saw a young boy slip on board any of the vessels in the harbour.'

I set off towards him. The wind lifted the edges of the cloak with such force it fair blew me away.

I tapped my uncle on the shoulder. ‘Uncle Len! Uncle Len!'

He spun round. ‘Clarrie! For pity's sake! Have you seen him?'

Nodding, I pointed up the gangplank of the
Fresh Hope
. ‘Oh, Uncle Len,' I wailed. ‘He's gone aboard!'

‘What? Did you watch him go?'

‘The sailors turned their backs, and he ran on.'

‘Did he, indeed?' Uncle Len peered hopefully between the swaying shafts of light that fell from the
Fresh Hope
's portholes. ‘We're out of luck, Clarrie. They're at their posts again.'

Another warning blare came from the hooter on the first of the ship's mighty funnels.

He stared at me with haunted eyes. ‘Clarrie, your mother left Will in my charge, and if he goes, her heart will break! No good to tell her that I came too late! Too late to find the captain!'

‘What shall we do?'

‘Do? Only one thing to do, Clarrie!'

And without the least hesitation, my brave uncle charged at the gangplank.

As he hurtled past, one of the sailors reached out. But all he took in hand was Uncle Len's billowing sleeve, and the cheap theatre silk tore so easily that all he was left with was a handful of wet cloth.

At the top of the gangplank, Uncle Len darted a look first one way along the deck, then the other, then vanished through a pair of rain-lashed doors. And though the two sailors at the bottom of the gangplank seemed to make great play of waving their arms and opening their mouths wide, I fear their enthusiastic cries of ‘Stowaway! Stowaway!' must have been totally blown away by the wind, for the sailor at the top appeared quite deaf to their warnings.

Now, one by one, the last of the ship's crew finished their tasks on the quayside and hurried aboard. The dockhands loosed the cables. And as the powerful little tugs turned to their task, the great boat began pulling at the last of its moorings.

I ran back. ‘Will! They're laying hands on the gangplank. Time to go!'

And from my bodice I slid out the last, and strangest, of all my treasures:

A perfect bill of lading, carefully signed by the Import and Export Officer, Mr Henderson, and stolen by me the day Mrs Trimble punished me for leaving by setting me to file it along with a hundred others. You don't work all day with fine fabrics without learning how to remove the stains that spoil: soot, blood – and even ink. So in my very last hour in the shop I'd dabbed away with my tiny little pad of bleach to wipe out both the name of the ship and its commander. And, a little while later, in my own good time, I had refilled the blank space so neatly: Name of the carrier: The
Fresh Hope
. Under the command of: Captain Percival – and made one or two tiny alterations more – until this official form was turned into the very passport of happiness.

And now I held it stiffly between my fingers. And Will and I were ready to do our training at the Alhambra proud and make the grandest show of things. I only wish that Madame Terrazini could have been there to watch as we faced one another and let our cloaks slide to the ground.

Now, with our painted faces and colourful dolls' attire, we looked a strange pair indeed.

Will picked up the carrying box as if it were our travelling suitcase. Stiffly, he offered me an arm. Stiffly, I took it.

Together we made our eyes go huge and round and expressionless, and stepped out like puppets from behind the crates. In the wind, only the two of us could hear the eerie tapping of our feet on the cobbles as we picked our knees up high and made our way over to the sailors unlashing the gangplank.

We came up close. Will swivelled his eyes in their sockets to hold one sailor in a steady gaze as the other one ran for our cloaks. Twisting my upper body, I bent from the waist to drop the bill of lading from my stiffened fingers into his hand as we went past.

He smiled. But my face stayed as still as painted tin, and so did Will's. We never blinked. Arm in arm, we took our tiny mechanical steps ridge by ridge up the gangplank.

A call came down. ‘What says the bill of lading?'

But it had been easy enough, with a pen twist, to change, not just the date on the paperwork, but also the words ‘
two silk rolls
' into ‘
two silk dolls
'.

And if there was a wink from the sailor at the top as he cried, ‘Gangplank away!' then I'm the last to tell. All I will say is that those three grand seafarers, Jamie and Bert and Luis, kept to their story.

‘Two quite amazing dolls, Captain!'

‘Monstrous! Uncanny! Perfect automata!'

‘Capitán, if you had seen them – on that night, and in that dark – I swear you, too, would have read the bill of lading, and thought them real mechanicals, dressed in silk.'

There's more to getting a great ship out of harbour than simply freeing the lines to the tugs. It was an hour or more before Captain Percival came to the cabin in which the purser had locked us.

‘So,' he said. ‘One man without a ticket. One weeping mother found scouring the ship for a daughter called Clarrie. And' – here he raised an eyebrow, for smudged and disordered by wind and rain and Mother's hugs and kisses, Will and I looked like children who'd been at the dress-up bag and painted their faces with burnt sticks – ‘and two silk dolls.'

He turned to Mother. ‘What is all this about?'

But Mother was as confused as he was. All she could do was show him her ticket and tell him our father was in Australia.

When Uncle Len was asked, he was less help even than that. He lifted his head from his hands only to mutter, ‘Me? I was offered a choice of terrors. To go home to face a mother without her only son whom she had left in my care; or risk travelling with him to the dark side of the world.'

‘Not dark,' I couldn't help reproving him. ‘They're upside down. It's summer there now – full of light and heat.'

‘None the less,' snapped Uncle Len, ‘you have tricked all of us aboard a ship with only the clothes we stand up in.'

Defensively, my mother drew Will and me closer towards her. ‘I've everything I need. And more!'

My brother, too, defended me. ‘And Clarrie thought to bring Mother's wedding lines and earrings from the hiding place under the sink.'

Now it was Uncle Len's turn to raise an eyebrow. But then he shrugged. ‘You'll have no more need of hiding places, Mary. I made a solemn vow as I was searching the boat for Will: “If I can bring the boy safely back to his mother, I swear I'll never drink or gamble again.” '

He looked so forlorn that Will tried to cheer him. ‘Don't forget, Uncle, you still have Frozen Billy and Still Lucy.'

‘Billy? Lucy? Are there still more of you hidden on my boat?' cried Captain Percival.

‘No. They're just dummies.'

Seeing the captain's bewilderment, Uncle Len flicked up the catches of the carrying box and took out Frozen Billy. He slid his hand inside, and then, as if the puppet had just arrived, made introductions.

‘Captain Percival, meet Frozen Billy. Now, Frozen Billy, tip your hat politely to Captain Percival.'

‘I'm honoured to make your acquaintance,' chirped Frozen Billy as the hand shot up to touch the school cap.

Captain Percival stared at Uncle Len. ‘You're a ventriloquist?'

‘The very best!' I assured him.

‘Top of the Bill at the Alhambra!' crowed my brother.

As usual, the showman in Uncle Len came out on top. He made Frozen Billy pipe up, ‘Don't forget me! Len here might be the ventriloquist, but he is nothing – nothing – without the dummy.'

‘Or the theatre,' added Uncle Len in his own voice. ‘And the audience. But thanks to Clarrie here, we're missing those.'

‘Oh, I assure you that you'll get your audience,' said Captain Percival. ‘Since you'll be earning your passage, you'll get them every night. What you
won't
get is any pay for your labours.'

He turned to Will. ‘What about you?'

‘I'm part of the act,' Will said promptly.

‘Only till the day you set foot on land,' Mother warned him. ‘After that, you'll be back to your schoolbooks, like Clarrie.'

The captain turned to me. ‘And you?'

I spread my patchwork skirt wide. ‘I can sew.'

‘And so can all my sailors. And so can I.'

‘And I can cook.'

‘And so can the men in my galley.'

‘Well, I can—'

But I could think of nothing else that I could do, and the tears flowed.

Mother gathered me into her arms and told the captain proudly, ‘Nobody knows how she managed it. But if my Clarrie can get us all safely on a boat to Australia to join her father, then surely she can do
anything
.'

‘I have no doubt of it,' said Captain Percival drily. And maybe because he'd been parted too often and too long from his own family to show a marble heart to ours, suddenly his tone softened.

‘So, Clarrie, if nobody knows quite how you did it all, then you can begin your punishment by writing your story so even a humble ship's captain can follow it.'

So that's what I do. In notebook after notebook, I'm setting down the story. Mother snatches away each notebook the moment I move on to the next, and I amuse myself by listening to the little cries she lets out as she reads: ‘Oh, Clarrie! . . . Oh, my poor love! . . . No, surely not! . . . What courage! . . . You
amaze
me!'

She's not the only person taken up by the thrills of the story. Day by day, Captain Percival strolls by to read the next few pages, and tell me that if my father's any man at all, he will be sterling proud of me.

‘Of both of you. I know I would be! Yes. And of your mother too, who did more than most sailors will – stepping off one boat straight onto yet another.' He gives a little smile. ‘And Len, who's such a showman I swear he could stop a mutiny simply by picking up one of his puppets!'

He's kind to Mother, too. He's even found her a little job, copying things into the log – so by the time we leave his ship, our family will owe so little for our passage that, with the money Father must have saved, we'll be free to start our lives again before you can blink and say ‘Jacaranda!'

Everyone smiles as they watch me hunched over the notebooks, writing and writing. I think Mother sees it as a way of making up for all the time I didn't go to school. But Uncle Len can't help thinking of it as a terrible punishment, so he's forgiven me for tricking him on board.

In any case, he's happy as a bird. He's heard enough from all the other passengers to know he'll make a fine living with the dummies, once we arrive. (I've given him Still Lucy.) When he's not giving shows, he strides up and down the deck, whistling and charming the ladies. Today he wheedled me into darning a few of the holes in his clothes. ‘Hurry up, Clarrie! Even the poor devils in steerage need amusing. I've promised them a few moments with Still Lucy before my show for the nobs tonight, and I must look my best.'

‘Plenty of time,' I assure him, and he grins.

‘Clarrie, even this endless voyage will be over before I trust your word again.'

I hang my head and blush, in part from shame, in part from pride. After all, if I'd not been ‘Good Clarrie! Good girl, Clarrie!' all those years, somebody might well have noticed when I began to take my family's fortune in my hand, and risk it all to get our heart's desire.

And so I sit on deck, raising my head every few minutes to watch the cormorants that follow us. The girl on the cocoa tin smiles at me as I lift the lid to take out my pen, or the needles and threads that one of the sailors has lent me. This tin is my only possession in the world now, and yet my smile's as wide as hers.