always,’ said Delia, re-lighting her cigar, which had gone out. ‘We used to be with a showman. Separate acts, this was, a long time ago, and we got along so we figured we’d try and make a go of it together and cut him out. He was slippery. Nothing written down. Got to get it written down. We get good rates now. We negotiate. This man Rates now.’ She lounged back against the pillow. ‘We all started out on the right foot.’
‘So you remember,’ Myrtle called from behind the screen, ‘you tell him, you want a contract, numbers, security.’
‘I will.’
‘Don’t underestimate it, Julia,’ Delia said. ‘All this. It’s hard work. Always on the move, God, you can die of boredom. You got to get paid. You make sure.’
‘I will. I’ll talk to him.’
Charlotte was sweeping the yard outside the back door. A fat white cat with a smug expression watched from the step. Ted and Jonsy were eating pancakes and eggs on a bench outside the kitchen, and Cato was on the swing, thin legs kicking, head thrown back.
‘Sit down, Julia,’ Myrtle said, ‘you want some eggs?’ She sauntered towards the kitchen door. ‘Morning Cass,’ she said, leaning in, ‘any coffee?’
Julia sat down at the table nervously, nodding at Ted and Jonsy. Ted nodded back. ‘Sleep well?’ he asked, shovelling egg with his fork. By daylight, he was cadaverous.
‘Not so well,’ she replied, ‘I kept waking up and wondering where I was. But I’ve been doing that ever since I left home.’
Jonsy was still wearing the pink suit.
‘That’s a nice colour,’ she said, nodding at it.
Jonsy’s mouth and eyes widened at her.
‘He doesn’t speak,’ Myrtle said.
Ted ate food like a man filling a hole in a hurry. ‘You’ve come a long way,’ he said, emptying his plate and sitting back with a satisfied shifting of the shoulders.
‘I have,’ she said, ‘and I’m going a long way more.’ The strangest feeling, sitting out here with strangers, bare-faced. What do you want? – she asked herself. Just this, out in the world, free, unafraid. Don’t spoil it by being afraid, fool. Pretend. Shake inside but never let it show.
Ted put his plate down next to him on the bench, picked up his can of coffee and slurped loudly. ‘I can tell fortunes,’ he said dryly.
‘Can you really?’ Julia leaned forward eagerly. ‘Is that what you do? I’d love to have my fortune told.’
He drew the makings of a pipe from a pocket. ‘Anyone can tell your fortune,’ he said with a dolorous air. ‘Your face. I been doing the rounds these fifteen, sixteen years, and I never in all that time seen nothing like your face. Oh, they’ll pay to see you. They’ll pay all right.’
Myrtle sat down across the table. She’d cleaned herself up and was puffy round the eyes. ‘You’re no fortune-teller,’ she told Ted.
‘Aren’t you?’ asked Julia, disappointed.
‘No.’ Ted looked mildly amused but didn’t bother to smile.
All this time her eyes had been straying to Cato, trying to take him in.
‘Do you want to see what I do?’ asked Ted.
‘Of course I do.’
‘This.’
He gripped the skin at the side of his neck and pulled it away from his body about four or five inches till it stretched into a thin membrane. Julia screamed, then laughed. Hearing her, Cato jumped down from the swing and came running. Ted let go of the great flap of skin and let it slap back into place.
‘How do you do that?’ she asked, delighted and appalled. ‘It looks as if it hurts.’
‘Doesn’t hurt at all.’ Ted swilled the coffee grounds round in his can. Cato crouched next to him on the bench and set about picking fingerfuls of his neck and face, pulling them out as far as they’d go and letting them snap back. Unperturbed, Ted puffed away. When the cook brought coffee and eggs and more pancakes, Cato let go of Ted’s skin and lurched towards her along the bench babbling excitedly, but he was so gangly and badly co-ordinated that he knocked Jonsy’s cold coffee flying. ‘You bad Cato!’ she yelled, striking the table with the flat of her palm. ‘I’ll tell your master on you.’
Cato wheedled up to her, stroking her apron. She put her hand on the slope of his head and her eyes connected with Julia’s, snagged and stared. Julia smiled. The cook nodded.
‘Cato, you have to be careful,’ said Myrtle. ‘You know you’re clumsy so you have to be careful.’
‘Anyhow,’ Myrtle said, ‘where’s Ezra? How come we always get to do the babysitting? Ezra!’ She threw her voice clear to the other side of the yard. ‘Ezra!’
‘Why is everyone always shouting around here?’ said Delia, swinging herself onto the table. ‘Is this pancake anyone’s?’
‘Hoo-hah.’ Cato pointed at Julia. ‘Hoo-hah.’
‘Yes!’ she said, ‘Hoo-oo-lya!’ Rates and everyone else called her Julia with a J, and it was nice to hear the old pronunciation, even if it was unintentional. ‘That’s how they say my name in Mexico.’
Cato came round to her side of the table and put a child’s hand up to stroke the hair on her cheek. ‘Yes, Cato,’ she said, smiling, ‘I’m hairy.’
‘Cato,’ said a high man’s voice. ‘You behave yourself.’
A big round-shouldered boy with curly black hair was coming slowly across the yard, giving himself plenty of time to get used to Julia before speaking. ‘You should ask,’ he said nasally, ‘don’t bother the lady.’
‘I don’t mind him,’ Julia said.
‘Ezra Porter, Ma’am.’ He offered a large fleshy hand. ‘Just you tell him if he’s in the way, he won’t mind. Come on now, Cato, you leave the lady alone.’
‘But I really don’t mind.’
Fascinated, she and Cato stared at each other.
‘Listen,’ Ezra Porter said, ‘if you’re sure you don’t mind . . .’
Breakfast was over and people were dispersing. The girls went off to the rehearsal room and everyone else drifted away, till there was just Julia and Cato smiling at each other, and Ezra Porter shuffling about with the look of a giant well-fed toddler, saying nervously in his irritating voice, ‘You know I – I have one or two things I really need to do. If you really don’t mind watching him for a while I’d be obliged . . . But don’t let him go out in the street.’
‘We’ll play on the swing,’ she said, ‘won’t we, Cato?’
Cato dashed for the swing, and Ezra Porter nipped smartly away.
‘Ready?’ she said.
