The Fun Factory (37 page)

“Not this time, my friend,” Charlie said. “Look over yonder. You see that fellow?”

“The one with the prize ’ooter, you mean?”

“Exactly. And you see …
that
chap, there, with the beret?” The urchin nodded. “Here’s a shilling. Go and tell that one that
that
one wants to speak to him urgently.”

The kid flipped the shilling up in the air and caught it deftly. “You’re the boss,” he said, and sauntered out into the street. Charlie watched him go, and after a moment or two his protégé was leading Moulden by the arm down the street to our right.

Charlie gripped the handle of his trunk and I grabbed the other end. He was a changed man, a livewire.

“Ready?” he hissed, and I tensed. “Let’s go!”

We darted out of the doorway and belted off up the street to the left. We made it to the corner, and Charlie started to turn to find us somewhere to conceal ourselves, but before we could nip out of sight I saw that Moulden had realised he’d been had, and he and his mate were hurrying diagonally across the road towards us. There was no earthly point in hiding now, we just had to run for it, so we pelted straight up the main road.

Charlie looked back, and his eyes widened. We were badly hampered by his trunk, and Moulden was only a few yards adrift. He was going to catch us for sure.

Then, blessed relief, I heard the ting-ting of a tram bell warning us to move over, and a northbound tram slid alongside. Gathering the last of my breath I shouted to Charlie: “On!”

He jumped up onto the tram’s backboard. I shoved the trunk up after him, and made my own leap, landing there – just – on my knees. Blast it, that hurt!

Moulden’s chum in the beret had fallen badly behind, but Moulden himself wasn’t giving up his quarry so easily. A nasty grin spread beneath that bulbous twin-lobed pitted red nose, and he managed to get a hand on the pole. Next he would pull himself aboard, but before he could I lashed out a boot at his fingers, crushing them. With a howl he let go his grip and sprawled on the road in a heap, and Charlie and I watched him dwindle into the distance
as the tram rattled away up the Brixton Road. We looked at one another then, breathless and sweating, and both began to laugh.

We caught the boat train from Waterloo station with not an inch to spare, Chaplin-style, and as the locomotive headed towards Southampton Charlie seemed to regain a little of himself with every passing mile. Having started the journey looking very much like – well, not to put too fine a point on it – a
tramp
, he finished it spruced and gleaming like a thoroughgoing dandy. He contrived to shave along the way, which must have taken considerable dexterity, for there was not a scratch on him.

So high were his spirits now, from one extreme direct to the other without calling at points in between, that he was not much interested in any explanations from me. He preferred to beam at the passing countryside, and burble about America, the land of opportunity. I suppose, in a way, he must have felt like he’d been spared the noose, as he would not now have to invent an explanation for Karno that would enable him keep his job. He would have to make some sort of excuse to Alf Reeves and the company, but that was small beer by comparison.

As we neared our destination he suddenly leaned over and put his hand on my knee.

“Thank you, Arthur,” he said, with a quite dazzling smile (those teeth!). “Friends?”

“Friends,” I said, and we shook on it. He just loved doing
that
, didn’t he?

And at that moment we were friends, I think, and I was glad I had relented, not just for Alf’s sake, but for Charlie’s and for mine. After all, I thought, so Charlie Chaplin comes to America with us. What’s the worst that could happen…? (Hint: read his autobiography and you’ll find out.)

Once at Southampton we were collected at the dock gates by a functionary of the Thomson Line, and led to the RMS
Cairnrona
on foot. As we made our way along the quay we found ourselves passing by a steam packet with a lavender-grey hull and two red and black funnels. The name on the stern caught my eye.

“Well, well,” I said. “How about that?”

“What is it?” Charlie said.

“Wait here a minute,” I said. A little way off I could see a starched busybody of a fellow in a braided uniform heading towards us. His white peaked cap bore the same name as the ship, and I put on a gentlemanly air and accosted him before he could drive me away.

“Ahoy!” I said. “Are you from the
Dover Castle
there?”

“I am, sir. What is your business?”

“Are you the captain, might I ask?”

“No, sir, I am not. I am Dawkins, the purser. Can I help you?”

“Indeed,” I said. “The purser, is that so? It so happens that I am acquainted with Mr Turnbull, from your London office on Fenchurch Street. Do you know the gentleman?”

“I do,” said this Dawkins.

“You have a fellow on your boat, name of Moulden,” I said.

“What of it?”

“I have a message from him,” I said. “He wishes you to know that he has retired from the seafaring life, effective immediately, and you should take steps to replace him as quickly as possible.”

“I see,” said Dawkins, frowning. “And did he give a reason?”

“He said – I’m sorry to have to say this, Mr Dawkins, but remember I am merely the messenger – that the ship’s purser was an insufferable prig and that he could not bear to spend another moment in his company.”

Dawkins stiffened, and his face turned a sort of purple colour.

“He also gave me to understand that you would be pleased as Punch, because this would give you the chance to scour the docks for a young boy more to your taste. Does that mean anything to you?”

The purser’s eyes bulged with outrage. “And what is
your
name, sir, if I might ask?”

“My name?” I said. “My name is Sydney Chaplin. I bid you good day, sir.”

I left him standing there with steam coming out from beneath his starched white cap, and rejoined Charlie and our guide, pleased with a very tidy bit of business.

Shortly we came to the dock where the
Cairnrona
was berthed, and I got my first look at her. A modest little vessel, black-grey smoke already beginning to billow from her single funnel.

The Thomson man noticed that I had stopped, and retraced his steps with a look of concern.

“Something wrong, sir?”

“Not exactly the
Lusitania
, is it?”

He grimaced apologetically. “Few ships are,” he said.

Once we joined the rest of the company on board it was plain to see that not everyone was as pleased to see Charlie Chaplin
as Mr Alfred Reeves was. Talk about the prodigal! He took him, and embraced him, and pinched his face as though checking he was flesh and blood and not an apparition come to torment him. Have you ever seen a mother who has mislaid a child, exclaiming that when she finds the errant infant she is going to tan his hide and make him wish he’d never been born, but then when the little rogue hoves into view it’s all hugs and kisses and never-leave-me-agains? Like that, exactly like that.

At one point, Alf managed to free an arm from this embarrassing display and grab me by the hand to offer his heartfelt, if silent, thanks.

The rest of the company, however (except for old Charlie Griffiths, who was floating off in the lap of luxury somewhere past Ireland by now), stood and seethed. Arms folded, lips pursed, eyes boring holes in the back of the Chaplin skull.

I found out why when the welcome party dispersed and I could grab a word with Tilly.

“I don’t suppose by any chance we have … first-class cabins?” I said.

“There isn’t even a first class on this bucket,” Tilly said. “There’s second class, and there’s third class, but there’s no first. What’s the point of that, I ask you?”

“I see, but it’s not
so
bad, is it?”

“I’ll tell you what it is, it’s a converted cattle boat, and I’m not even joking.”

No wonder Charlie got such a muted welcome.

Later, as the
Cairnrona
steamed out into the Solent, and on into the English Channel, I leaned on the rail and watched England slide by. I was filled with anticipation, for I had dreamed of travelling to America ever since I had whiled away my time
in Cambridge reading the good old penny bloods. I had a great sense of well-being all at once, because I felt things had been resolved between myself and Charlie. I had had my victory, but had not, in the end, rubbed his nose in it. I had also, don’t forget, scored a point over the creature Moulden, too.

Yes, I had a great feeling of optimism, a feeling that everything was going to turn out fine. I didn’t know then that instead of heading to New York, where we were due to perform, we were actually en route to Montreal. Nor did I know that the propeller was going to give way, leaving us adrift for three whole days in the middle of the stormy Atlantic, at the mercy of wind and waves and mal de mer. And I didn’t know that my rivalry with Chaplin was destined to erupt into strife, bitterness, alcoholism, ruin and murder. That was all still to come.

Tilly joined me, and slipped her arm into mine.

“The cabins are not quite so grand as on the
Lusitania
,” she said. “But I do still have one to myself. “Want to take a look?”

Yes, I thought, this is all going to turn out just fine.