Cuckoo Song

Chapter 20. FROSTY WELCOME

As Not-Triss edged and slipped her way down the wet boardwalk steps, she realized that the buildings on the riverside were surprisingly well lit and crowded for the time of night. All three buildings were made of wood, and had the words ‘J Wilkinson & Sons Boat Builders’ painted on the sides in tall, honest blue letters. The people Not-Triss could see through the windows, however, did not seem to be dressed for boat-building. She could make out sequins, bow ties and bare shoulders, and everybody seemed to be laughing about something.

Behind the drumming of the rain, music was audible. It reminded Not-Triss of the record that Mr Grace had played, and her heart gave a leap of fear. However, this was not the same crazy, breathless sound, as she quickly realized with a mixture of relief and disappointment. This was jazz that had wiped its feet and put on its best manners to meet somebody’s mother.

Over a door somebody had nailed a wooden plaque with the word ‘Pink’s’ painted across it in green and white, next to little black silhouettes of a man and woman dancing.

As Not-Triss was examining it, Pen emerged from a little outhouse nearby. She approached one of the windows and stood on tiptoe to peer in, her breath clouding the pane. As the light from the window fell on Pen’s face, Not-Triss again noticed three fine scratches that ran slantwise across the younger girl’s cheek. They were shallow but dark with dried blood, and Not-Triss felt a guilty pang.

‘I can’t see her,’ Pen muttered in an annoyed tone. ‘But she has to be here!’ The younger girl pushed her way in through the door, and with some apprehension Not-Triss followed, feeling uncertain and exposed.

There were no boats inside. Instead it was filled with dozens of people, all large and loud and moving around. From a central beam above hung a series of gently swinging lanterns made of chrome and pink glass, which bathed the hall in a patchy rosy glow and made everybody look flushed and a bit otherworldly. Lots of the women wore dresses that fell from tiny shoulder straps, and some carried feathered fans. Everybody’s hair seemed to be short and very shiny. The walls were partially concealed by hanging cloths, creamy white with fine vertical stripes of cerise.

The music lurched into loudness, and Not-Triss could see that there were actual musicians at the far side of the hall, one plinking at a piano, one nodding away with a cornet and a third pouting plump-cheeked into his clarinet. They wore evening dress, bow ties neat against their shining shirt fronts.

Just for a moment it reminded Not-Triss of drawings she had seen in magazines and on book jackets, of pastel-coloured parties where languid, fashionable women slunk and posed, slim and elegant as fish, and gentlemen passed them flutes of fat-bubbled champagne.

The impression did not last long, however. The scene around her was too jarringly and robustly real. The accents were all too Ellchester, and some of the girls had knobbly ankles. Two of the musicians were tubby and shiny-faced, as if they regretted having to wear their jackets. People did not glide, and the floorboards creaked under them. Aside from the smell of the river and cigarette smoke, there was another scent which reminded Not-Triss of Celeste’s wine tonic, but also of the way the family car smelt after the tank had been filled. It seemed to come from the large cluster of glasses on a trestle table by the wall.

Not-Triss was uncomfortably aware that Pen and herself were drawing quite a few odd looks. They were not exactly hostile, but rather the sort of crinkled-brow glances that somebody might direct towards a banging door or a dropped cigarette. The girls were clearly a minor problem that somebody needed to deal with, but nobody had yet worked out who. Not-Triss had a strong feeling that this was not the kind of party that welcomed sudden damp children.

One of the women nudged a young man with a large reddish nose and looked pointedly at the new arrivals. He glanced across at Pen and Not-Triss, then wandered over and stooped to peer at them as if they were so small that he needed to focus to see them properly.

‘Hello there.’ His voice was a bit slurred, and his eyes shiny as if it was raining inside his head as well. ‘Are you looking for somebody?’

‘Hello, Doggerel,’ Pen answered promptly. ‘We’re looking for Violet. Is she here?’

Violet? Violet Parish? Why are we looking for her, of all people? Not-Triss tried to catch Pen’s eye, but in vain.

Doggerel shut his mouth with a snap, and Not-Triss could see him sorting through scattered memories looking for Pen’s face and name.

‘Oh… It’s Penny, isn’t it? Yes… yes, I remember. Violet’s, er, little friend. Yes, Violet was here. But you’ve just missed her. She’s gone.’

‘What?’ Pen’s eyes widened with dismay. ‘But she’ll be back, won’t she?’ She was glaring at him now, willing him to agree, willing the world to agree. ‘She has to come back.’ There was a slight edge of angry panic in her voice.

Doggerel winced sympathetically and drew his breath in through his teeth. ‘Probably not – you know what she’s like.’ Doggerel swooped one of his hands to and fro, and made whooshing noises. ‘Five minutes in a place, then off again!’ He seemed to notice the look of increasing desperation on Pen’s face. ‘Look, ah, is something wrong? Do you need somebody to drive you two home?’

Both girls shook their heads, perhaps a little too urgently. Not-Triss did not much like the idea of throwing herself on the mercy of Violet Parish, but what other options did they have? If the party came to an end and they were still out in this lonely spot, either some well-meaning adult would insist on taking them home, or they would be on the run again, with nowhere to hide.

‘Where is she?’ asked Pen. ‘Where did she go? We need to find her!’ She was looking younger by the second.

As Doggerel opened his mouth to answer, the door banged open, making any response from him unnecessary.

‘Here it is!’ a voice called out above the hubbub. ‘Kid Oliver’s Dippermouth Blues! I drove back for it, so you had all better bloody well appreciate this.’ In the doorway stood a figure in a rain-darkened tan coat and a fleece-lined motoring cap. Above her head she held a gramophone record, still in its sleeve. ‘Pinky – wind up that croaky machine of yours!’

It was Violet Parish, removing her cap and shaking out her cropped hair, tufty as a fledgling from the rain. Everybody seemed to know her, and there were calls and whistles of approval at her return. A dense gaggle gathered around her, and Not-Triss noticed that a lot of them seemed to be men.

‘Somebody get me a drink and a cigarette!’ Violet said as she dragged off her coat, to reveal a long dark-green dress with split skirts. It was not a sultry request, more like a mechanic asking to be passed a spanner. Nobody seemed offended, and soon she had a glass in one hand and was drawing on a cigarette as somebody lit it for her. Her face was still shiny from rain, but she did not seem to care.

The musicians looked a bit aggrieved at first as a wind-up gramophone was produced, but took the opportunity to seek out drinks and mop their brows.

‘Thank God they’ve stopped,’ Violet said quite audibly. ‘Music as hot as a dead frog.’

As the needle dipped to the record there was a white-noise hiss, and even after the first rude blare of brass there were still spit-spots of static. This was a record that had been places and come back scratched, and somehow the roughness made it seem all the more itself. This jazz had not wiped its feet; it crunched right into the room with gravel on its shoes.

Pen tried to call out to Violet, but was hushed. Everyone in the boathouse had drawn closer, listening until the mischievous, lawless song ended with a half-mocking salute and a last long note.

‘That,’ said Violet, stubbing out her cigarette, ‘is how you do it.’ The remark was partially directed at the musicians, who seemed to take it as a challenge. When they started up with their instruments again, the rhythm was fiercer and more defiant than before.

‘Violet!’ called Pen again, but Violet did not hear. She went out with the tide of dancers to the floor, and Not-Triss was unsure whether she drew the tide, or whether the tide drew her.

Half the windows looked out over the river, and it made Not-Triss feel as if she was on a boat. As the dancing began again and the floorboards started to thunder, it was easy to believe that there was no ground under them. Nobody was steering the boat, everybody was dancing, and nobody danced more wildly than Violet. There was something desperate about it, as if dancing would stop the boat sinking. There was something fierce about it, as if she wanted to drive her foot through the hull and sink the boat faster.

So this was Violet’s world. The fast world. The ‘high life’, as Celeste Crescent would put it. In spite of everything, it made Not-Triss nervous, as if wickedness was something she could breathe in like smoke, and which might leave a scent on her clothes.

Even though she was out of the rain, Not-Triss realized that she was starting to shiver. The more people looked at her, the worse the trembling became. She did not want anybody to stare too hard, in case they saw something monstrous in her face and reeled away in search of flames to destroy her. All these people could turn in a moment, she knew it.

‘Violet!’ At last Pen’s perseverance paid off, and as the musicians finished their piece she managed to force her way through the crowd. ‘Violet, it’s me!’ Violet’s eye fell upon Pen, and she paused in the middle of drawing from her cigarette, then closed her eyes and let out the smoke in a long exasperated breath.

‘Oh Lord,’ she muttered. ‘Pen, for… Pete’s sake, what are you doing here?’ Once again, her mock-London drawl grated on Not-Triss’s nerves.

‘I had to come!’ exclaimed Pen. ‘It was life and death!’

‘Of course it was. Isn’t it always?’ Violet sighed, and drew Pen aside. Not-Triss followed at a small distance, still loath to draw attention to herself. ‘Pen – have you run away again? And how did you get here from Ellchester? You haven’t been throwing rocks at cars again, have you?’

Pen opened her mouth wide, made a small not-quite-squeak and shut it again.

‘And what’s happened to your face?’ continued Violet. ‘Where did you get those bramble scratches on your cheek?’

Pen’s eyes crept across to Not-Triss. Violet followed her gaze and stiffened, her long jaw dropping.

‘Oh – you have to be joking.’ She stared, then shook her head in disbelief. ‘This evening is just… you brought your sister out here? Pen! What—’

‘It was the only place I could think of to go! You said I should! You said I should always come to you—’

‘I said that if you ran away, then you should come and stay with me until you were ready to go home, instead of sleeping in hedges or getting into strange cars. And I could get into trouble for saying that.’ Violet gave Not-Triss another glance, as if assessing the likelihood that she might run to the police straight away. ‘This is different. If both of you are missing, your parents will be calling everybody short of the prime minister. I need to take the pair of you home right now.’

‘No!’ shouted both girls, with enough volume that several people looked round in curiosity.

‘Please don’t!’ blurted out Not-Triss. ‘I’m sorry we interrupted your party, but please, please don’t take us home. Our parents…’ She trailed off, desperately trying to think of a good story.

‘They tried to burn Triss alive!’ Pen leaped into the gap.

Violet raised her eyebrows and just looked at Pen. Not-Triss’s spirits sank. Violet didn’t like Mr and Mrs Crescent, but adults believed adults. Adults believed in adults. Violet evidently liked Pen, but Pen told lies and Violet clearly knew that.

Pen took hold of Violet’s arm.

‘Please!’ she said through her teeth, her eyes bright with the effort of willing Violet to listen to her. ‘Really. Truly. Cross my heart and hope to die.’

‘It’s true,’ Not-Triss whispered, uncertain how much her word was worth. ‘I know how it sounds… but we can’t go home. We’re in danger.’

There was nothing warm about Violet’s long-jawed face as she scowled at them. She was an adult looking at two silly girls who had come to her with a silly lie. Then she gave an annoyed sigh, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again she looked angry but tired.

‘One night,’ she said simply, and it took Not-Triss a moment to understand what she meant. ‘I really shouldn’t do this… but you can stay at my lodgings tonight. I’ll take you there now and drop you off. But first thing tomorrow, you are going to tell me what is going on. Is that clear?’

Not-Triss nodded, hardly daring to believe in the reprieve.

‘Where are your coats? Don’t you even have coats? Wait here and I’ll get you blankets, or you’ll catch your death in the sidecar.’ It was becoming chilly, Not-Triss couldn’t help but notice. A number of the women in the hall were pouting a little, rubbing at their bare shoulders and looking for their shawls.

After Violet had departed in search of blankets and her coat, Not-Triss stole a glance at Pen.

‘Violet’s your friend then? Are you… Are you sure we can trust her? You’re sure she won’t pretend to help us, then drive us back home?’

Pen nodded confidently.

‘You don’t know her. If she was going to take us back, she’d tell us. Really loudly.’

Nobody wanted to see Violet leave, but nobody seemed surprised. Her record was passed back to her and she tucked it under her coat.

‘Don’t go, Violet!’ A drunk young man kept trying to haul her back to the dance floor. His drawl made her name sound like ‘varlet’. ‘Stay for once! Why do you never stay anywhere?’

‘Because I’m avoiding you, Ben,’ Violet declared calmly, pushing him aside. ‘It’s all personal.’ There was a burst of laughter.

‘Give up, Ben,’ somebody shouted. ‘Don’t tangle with old Frosty over there.’

Violet gave a short laugh, and for a moment her face held an odd mixture of pride and something less happy. She led Not-Triss and Pen out of the dance hall into the darkness, where the rain was slicingly cold against the skin.