Sapphire Battersea (36 page)

‘Oh, Freda! Of course she didn’t! How could you help growing?’

‘My father was ashamed of me. He kept me in a dark cupboard for months after Mama died, hoping it might restrict my growth.’

‘How terrible!’

‘And then, when I was fourteen, he sold me to a travelling fair, to be displayed as a freak of nature.’ Freda sighed and the whole bed trembled. ‘It was very hard at first, but now I am used to it. Mr Clarendon is kinder than most and treats me fairly enough. It is a little lonely at times, living with so many strange men – but now I have you for company, Emerald! You must not be frightened of me, even though I am so very big and queer-looking.’

‘I am not the slightest bit frightened of you, Freda dear – and I am charmed to share a room with such a kind, gentle lady,’ I said, and I meant every word.

As the weeks went by we grew as close as sisters. We breakfasted together while the men were still fast asleep. Freda did not care to stroll along the promenade because people would stare so and shout after her, but she liked to sit in the garden at the
back
of the lodgings and get a little fresh air that way. I’d sit with her and we’d chat while I sewed.

I embroidered little pink roses around the neck and cuffs and hem of Freda’s large nightgown, which utterly delighted her. I was making a lot of money from tips, so I decided to make Freda a proper present. I went back to the draper’s shop and bought several yards of blue silk and set about fashioning her a proper lady’s costume. She had only her bathing dress and her nightgown and a shabby man’s coat to keep her warm in winter. She cried with joy when she held the lengths of silk and felt their softness.

‘But they are far too fine for me, Emerald. I will tear them to shreds.’

‘Not if I make you a costume that fits you properly. I will sew it very carefully, with tiny strong stitches. Just be patient, Freda. You are going to have such a beautiful dress, I promise.’

I did my very best to keep my word. I had to stand on a borrowed ladder to measure Freda from her shoulders to her ankles, and we both blushed painfully when I had to stretch the tape to measure her chest and waist and hips, but once these indignities were out of the way and I could start sewing, we had an extremely companionable time together.

Freda offered to read aloud to me from the little
fairy-tale
books Mama had given me. I had never let anyone else even touch them before, but I found it curiously soothing for Freda to read in her soft husky voice, holding the tiny tales reverently in her huge hands. I became agitated when she started reading the tale of Jack the Giant Killer – but Freda was fascinated, astonished to discover a story about distant relatives. She didn’t mind that the giants were all treated as villains by the anonymous author. She seemed to like it that they were very fierce and tried to catch little people and feed them to their ogre children.

When she’d read her way through all the tales, I did my best to make up a few fairy stories myself featuring Fearless Freda and tiny Emerald Mermaid. She loved these stories so much that I wrote them down for her when I’d finished her costume at last.

Oh, how she loved her blue silk costume! She trembled all over when I made the final fitting, stroking her own arms, marvelling at the softness of the silk. I detached the mirror from the wall and held it up for her so that she could see herself in sections, and she gave little squeals of joy.

I could not fashion her real kid or leather boots to set off her dress because I did not have the right skills – nor indeed, tools – but I managed to make her matching blue silk gaiters that came up to her
calves
. I reinforced the soles with thickest cardboard, stuck on with my glue.

‘I’m afraid you won’t be able to walk very far in them, Freda,’ I said regretfully, but she still seemed delighted.

She wore her new costume very proudly while on display at the curiosity tent. Mr Clarendon made her a new painted background of the promenade, with tiny figures all pointing and exclaiming at the very fine figure of Fantastic Freda, the Fashionable Female Giant.

He had made me a backdrop too – of blue sea and yellow sand – and he displayed me on a pile of real sand stolen from the beach. Folk marvelled at Freda, but I knew I was now the main attraction. I think it was only the very little children who believed I was a real mermaid – but all the lads and gentlemen clustered around me eagerly, and even their ladies clapped their hands and declared I was as pretty as a picture.

I simpered and smiled for all I was worth, even when some of the louder lads made extremely uncouth remarks about me, because I wanted them to stuff my housekeeping jar with tips. I kept it by my side, painted with sea anemones and decorative fish, and by the end of each evening it was crammed to the brim. Every time someone dropped another coin into the jar with a satisfying clink I thought of
Mama
and how it meant I could stay close to her.

I bought her little delicacies every day, and bribed a kind ward orderly at the infirmary to take them in to her: little jars of custard cream, small bottles of fortified wine, a perfect bunch of hothouse grapes. Mama always smiled and nodded and mouthed her thanks to me when I looked at her through the window – but she seemed to be getting thinner and thinner, and even when she lay as still as a statue in bed, the coughing tore her apart.

Then, one terrible evening, she started haemorrhaging as she coughed, blood seeping through her fingers as she clutched her mouth. I heaved the heavy glass window upwards with sudden desperate strength, climbed right through, and ran to her bed. As she coughed and bled, I held her tight and stroked her, and told her that I loved her over and over again, until she was still at last. I held her poor lifeless body and would not let her go. The nurses let me stay there on the bed with Mama, knowing they could not prise me away.

I went on whispering to her, even though I knew she could no longer hear me. I told her that she was the best mother in the whole world. I went through all the tender kindnesses she’d shown me through the years at the hospital, until the ward grew dark.

Then a nurse came and whispered softly, ‘We must tidy your dear mother, child.’

I helped wash her and comb her tousled hair. The nurse snipped me off a lock to keep for ever. We gave Mama a clean nightgown and folded her poor thin arms neatly over her sunken chest. I tucked the satin pouch containing my letters under her fingers so that she might read them in Heaven and remember just how much I loved her.

‘We will have to make the funeral arrangements,’ said the nurse. ‘I expect it will have to be a pauper’s funeral …’

‘No! No, I will pay for Mama to have a proper decent funeral,’ I said firmly.

I went to the undertaker’s with my jar of tip money – to find it still wasn’t nearly enough. Dear Freda insisted on giving me the rest. It wasn’t a grand funeral. At the undertaker’s they outlined various options: beautiful ornate oak caskets with golden handles, black carriages drawn by a matching pair of black horses with plumes, professional mourners in top hats and tails … I selected the simplest funeral possible: a plain coffin, a horse and cart to carry it to the graveyard, and no paid mourners at all – only me.

I didn’t have any money left for a length of black material to make a decent funeral dress. I had to content myself with a black velvet ribbon tied round my sleeve. But I promise you no professional mourner grieved more profoundly. I murmured the
responses
with heartfelt concentration, I threw a posy of wild flowers down on Mama’s coffin, and when the ceremony was over, I knelt by the raw earth and wept for hours.

Eventually the vicar came over to me, bent down, and rested his hand on my shoulder. ‘Try not to grieve so, child. Your mother is at peace now,’ he said gently.

I could not imagine Mama at peace. I saw her twitching restlessly, racked with that terrible cough. ‘Mama suffered so dreadfully,’ I sobbed.

‘She is free of earthly pain now,’ said the vicar. ‘Go home now, child.’

Where
was
my home? I was only here because of Mama. I did not belong anywhere without her.

I stayed for another few weeks, working for Mr Clarendon at his curiosity tent. I went through all the motions required of me – combing my hair, making eye contact with the customers, arching my back to look my best, twitching my velvet tail, smiling all the while. Tips were plentiful, and I smiled again as I carried my full jar back to the lodgings – but I cried every night cradled in Freda’s great gentle arms. I smiled until I had enough to pay Freda back for her loan, and then I told her I must leave.

‘I shall miss you so, Freda. You are my dearest friend in all the world. But I cannot stay here now.
It
is too miserable without Mama,’ I told her.

‘I understand, Emerald, but oh, I shall miss you so. I have never had a friend before,’ Freda said.

‘I shall be your friend even if we are apart. I shall come back to Bignor every summer, I promise – and each time I’ll make you a new silk dress.’

‘But where will you go, Emerald?’

I had thought about it long and hard while lying on my mound of sand performing my mermaid mime. I had various options. I could go to Miss Smith in London and beg her to help me. I knew this was the most sensible idea, but I was not sure I could bear to do this. I did not want to apologize for my behaviour at Mr Buchanan’s. I did not want to grovel until she took pity on me and found me a similar position. I was especially frightened that she would make me return to the hospital while she was seeking this position for me.

I could seek out the Greenwood family in Arundel and see if their offer still held – but somehow I shrank from this too. Our fortnight together already had a strange dream-like quality, as if it hadn’t really happened. Even if they welcomed me into their home, I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted now. Too much had happened to me this summer. I was not sure I could be a child again with Charlotte and Maisie. I felt too old and too sad to play games any more.

I could go back to see Bertie – dear valiant Bertie, who said I was his sweetheart. But we weren’t
real
sweethearts. We certainly weren’t old enough to set up home together. We could picture for all we were worth on our Sunday afternoons together, but he was still stuck in that reeking butcher’s shop every day, up to his elbows in gore. It would be years and years before we had saved up enough money for a little house of our own – and did I really
want
that with Bertie? I’d wanted to share a house with
Mama
. I did not want to live in any house without her.

I’d had a real home once, long ago – that dear cottage in the country. I had a mother there too. She had been fierce with me sometimes, and paddled me royally, but I knew she loved me in her own way. I felt a real longing for her warm strong arms. I had been part of that family once. Jem had written to me again and again. He had made it plain that he wanted me back. I had doubted him, but he had stayed constant in his love. He longed for me – even though he did not really
know
me any more. He only knew that fierce, funny little five-year-old who had played at his side.

I was not sure I wanted to go back now. I wanted to go
forward
.

‘Oh, Mama, what shall I
do
?’ I asked the empty air. ‘If only I could ask you.’

And then I knew where I had to go.

THE TRAIN JOURNEY
on Sunday seemed endless. I had bought myself a cheese roll and an apple at the station, but they were poor substitutes for Mrs Briskett’s picnic. I was exhausted and very hungry and thirsty by the time I got to Waterloo Station. I stared longingly at all the food stalls, but I did not want to spend so much as another penny now. I was not sure how much my evening might cost. It might take all my money.