Burning Bright. Tracy Chevalier

      ‘Little bitch!’ the whore shouted and struck out at Maggie, who easily dodged the blow and threw her off balance. As she staggered, Jem recognised the smell of gin mingled with the rancid orange. She reeled about, and he reached a hand out to try to help her regain her balance. Maggie stopped him. ‘Don’t – she’ll just latch on to you again! Rob you blind, too. Probably already has. D’you have anything on you?’

      Jem shook his head.

      ‘Just as well – you’d never get it off her now. She’d have hidden it by her snatch.’ Maggie looked around. ‘There’ll be more of ’em when the show lets out. That’s their best time for business – when everybody’s happy from the show.’

      Jem watched the woman totter into the dark along the bridge. In the next pool of light she grabbed onto another man, who threw her off without a glance. Jem shuddered and turned back to the river. ‘Tha’ be what I hate about London.’

      Maggie leaned against the balustrade. ‘But you’ve got whores down in Piddle-dee-dee, don’t you?’

      ‘In Dorchester, yes. But they an’t like that.’

      They stood still, looking out over the water. ‘Why’d you leave the show?’ Maggie asked.

      Jem hesitated. ‘I were poorly and come out for air. It were stuffy in there.’

      Her expression told him that Maggie didn’t believe him, but she said nothing, only picked up a stone at her feet and let it drop over the side of the bridge. They both listened for the plop, but a carriage passed at that moment and its clatter obliterated the sound.

      ‘Why’d you leave?’ Jem asked when the carriage was gone.

      Maggie made a face. ‘There’s just the Tailor of Brentford left, and then the finale. I seen the Tailor too many times already. Finale’s better from outside, anyway, what with the fireworks on the river.’

      From the amphitheatre they heard a roar of laughter. ‘That’ll be them laughin’ at the Tailor now,’ she said.

      When the laughter died down it was quiet. No carriages passed. Jem stood awkwardly with Maggie by the balustrade. Though she had clearly been hurt earlier in the Abbey, she did not show it now. He was tempted to say something, but didn’t want to ruin the fragile truce that seemed to have been established between them.

      ‘I can show you some magic,’ Maggie said suddenly.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Go in there.’ She pointed to one of the stone alcoves that stood above the piers all along the bridge. The recess was semi-circular and about seven feet high, designed so that passers-by might shelter there out of the rain. A lamp was attached to the top of the alcove, and shone down around the recess, making it dark inside. To please Maggie, Jem stepped inside the dark space and turned to face her.

      ‘No, stand with your back to me, with your face right up to the stone,’ Maggie ordered.

      Jem obeyed, feeling foolish and vulnerable with his back to the world and his nose close to the cold stone. It was damp in the recess, and smelled of urine and sex.

      He wondered whether Maggie was tricking him. Perhaps she had gone to get one of the whores and thrust her on him in the alcove where he wouldn’t be able to get away. He was about to turn around and accuse her when he heard her seductive voice in his ear: ‘Guess where I’m talkin’ from.’

      Jem whirled around. Maggie wasn’t there. He stepped out of the alcove and searched around it, wondering if he had imagined the voice. Then she stepped out of the darkness of the alcove opposite his, on the other side of the road. ‘Go back in!’ she called.

      Jem stepped into the alcove again and turned to the wall, thoroughly confused. How could she have whispered in his ear and then run across the road so fast? He waited for her to do it again, thinking he would catch her at it this time. A carriage passed by. When it was quiet he again heard in his ear, ‘Hallo, Jem. Say summat nice to me.’

      Jem turned around again, but she wasn’t there. He hesitated, then turned back to the wall.

      ‘C’mon, Jem, an’t you going to say nothing?’ Her voice whispered around the stone.

      ‘Can you hear me?’ Jem asked.

      ‘Yes! In’t it amazing? I can hear you and you can hear me!’

      Jem turned around and looked across at the other alcove. Maggie shifted slightly and he caught a flash of the white shawl over her shoulders.

      ‘How’d you do that?’ he said, but there was no answer. ‘Maggie?’ When she still didn’t answer, Jem turned to face the wall. ‘Can you hear me?’

      ‘I can now. You have to face the wall, you know. It don’t work otherwise.’

      Two carriages passed and drowned out the rest of what she said.

      ‘But how can it be?’ Jem asked.

      ‘Dunno. It just works. One of the whores told me about it. The best is if you sing.’

      ‘Sing?’

      ‘Go on, then – sing us a song.’

      Jem thought, and after a moment he began:

      The violet and the primrose too

      Beneath a sheltering thorny bough

      In bright and lively colours blow

      And cast sweet fragrance round.

      Where beds of thyme in clusters lay

      The heathrose opens its eyes in May