23
Drummer finds us a space to practice in a cargo hold with a rail like the one on the docking bridge.
After much vigorous discussion, Jamie and I agree on a routine that, like Goldilocks’s porridge, is neither too hot nor too cold.
Yet even after we’ve practiced enough to imprint it deep in our fiber, a feeling of unease settles over me, like a London fog that can’t be blown away. Will it be too much for Jamie, after years of not practicing? Will it be enough for Mr. Stewart, who surely has seen his share of performers better than us? I hope I haven’t oversold the act.
Tao says he wants to fast, and so I join the Johnnies at dinner, digging into sausages gleaming with jewels of fat. Again, we don’t receive bread, and this time not even the pretense of butter. The headwaiter marches around the room with self-important strides, ignoring us. We ignore him right back.
I watch Jamie sling jokes and slip in and out of conversations with the Johnnies as easily as if he had known them all his life. The only one he doesn’t engage is Ming Lai, who’s deep in conversation with Dina Domenic, the Russian girl, despite lacking a common language.
Raucous laughter erupts from the other side of the room, where the sweeps winner Bledig and the other bottom cutters are lifting their cups. Under his stocking cap, Bledig’s face wears the ruddy sheen of one who has had a few drinks too many, yet he tosses back another and lifts his cup for more.
As if feeling my gaze upon him, he turns to me. His eyes lose their glazed look, and he elbows the man next to him, setting off a chain reaction. Suddenly, all four are peering at me, devilment in their faces. I can’t look away. It’s as if their eight eyes have become pins, trapping me like some insect specimen. The room seems to get louder and brighter, as if someone has raised a switch on the electricity, charging the air.
Jamie senses me stiffen.
“Those are the men who knocked us on purpose,” Olly whispers.
Jamie and Bo cut the men a look, drawing their interest. With the practiced hand of an old fisherman casting a line, Jamie flicks out his middle finger, using his other hand to slowly reel it in. Bo snickers.
Bledig’s eyes become two chips of dirty ice.
A door opens and out marches the headwaiter, carrying a silver platter of candied fruits as pretty as Christmas lights. Conversations shut off. Heads turn, their faces animated.
The headwaiter stops at our table. His lapel bears a fresh rose. “Sirs, one of our first-class passengers sends these with her thanks for valiantly defending her person and property from harm. Captain Smith commends you for your, ahem, heroism.” That last word seems as hard to get out as a corn kernel stuck between his teeth.
Jamie’s honest face wrinkles in confusion. “Oh, we didn’t—”
I kick him under the table. “We didn’t expect this, but we are ever so grateful,” I cut in.
A murmur rises up as the news circles the room. The platter is set before us.
“What’s this?” Fong sniffs a sliver of tangerine, then pops it in his mouth. “Tastes like the sunset over Lisbon.” He smacks his lips at me as I gape. Who knew the old goat has a poetic streak?
Wink surveys the platter for the biggest fruit, a plum, and pinches it from the hoard before Olly can get to it. Using a tiny pair of silver tongs, Olly serves himself two cherries. Ming Lai holds the platter for the Domenics, who nod their thanks. Drummer chews his fruit with quick beats, and a smile crests his face.
The other diners return to their own now-diminished meals, though several sneak looks back at us. Take that, all you Johnny haters.
I hold up a cross section of lime to Jamie. “This one’s for you, you limey. Mrs. Sloane is clearly a woman of exquisite taste.”
Jamie gives me a weary look and doesn’t take the fruit. “Congratulations. Now everyone hates us even more than they already did.”
I eat Jamie’s lime myself, then lick my fingers. “Go on, sourpuss. The captain called us heroes. Now doesn’t that tune your fiddle?”
“Some here look like they want to break our fiddles,” he says, eyeing a woman with a tight bun who casts us murderous looks as she wrestles her young daughter back into her chair. The girl points at our table and wails, her wavy dark hair spilling into her large eyes. Folks start staring at us anew. The mother unleashes a flurry of foreign words in a language that reminds me of the Syrian spice sellers in the Borough Market.
Jamie appraises our fruits, then cuts his gaze to Bo, who’s chewing with an almost-baffled look on his face. Bo shrugs.
I know exactly what Jamie intends before he stands. He wants us to share the spoils, a gesture that makes the waterworks in my mouth dry up. We owe these folks nothing except for a good thump with a bread heel.
“Let’s go, Mrs. Sloane, before your generosity gets us beat up.”
“Leave it,” I growl. “You’re not the fruit fairy.”
Jamie glances at Bo. With a sigh, Bo wipes his mouth on a napkin, then pushes out his chair. If Bo goes, then I will be the bread heel.
With a grumble, I grab the platter. I suppose it isn’t the child’s fault that the waiters gave us the bread heels. Still, why are we always called upon to show greater generosity of spirit?
The Syrian girl’s wailing dries up as I approach, and her mouth becomes a red lifesaver.
“Hello, poppet. Which one would you like?”
The girl points to a cherry. Jamie picks it up with the tongs, but before the girl can take it, he flips it up into the air and catches it behind his back with the tongs again. Her face, which has gone from outraged to baffled, now lights up with delight. Even her mother smiles as Jamie drops the cherry into the girl’s damp-looking palm.
Before moving on to a bunch of knee-biters at the next table, I can’t help noticing that the Syrian group’s basket is filled with bread heels, too. Somehow, it makes me feel better that we aren’t the only ones who receive poor treatment, but also worse that something as mundane as a bread heel can have so much power.
A few turn their noses up at our fruits, and I feel snubbed all over again. But all the children, and some adults, too, gladly take what we offer. I hope goodwill is like bay leaves, where just a few are enough to flavor a whole pot of stew.
We breeze by the bottom cutters without offering them any. After Jamie flipped them off, it just doesn’t seem sincere.
Once all our plates are licked clean, Jamie returns to the cargo hold to practice, while Bo and I hike to one of the enameled doors off Scotland Road marked “Emergency Only” that leads into the first-class area on E-Deck. I doubt needing a haircut qualifies as an emergency, but I can hardly beg off now.
“I’ll give you a two-minute lead,” I tell Bo briskly. “We’ll be less noticeable if we travel separately.”