But working in the hardware store, along side the taciturn Mr. Mann? He couldn’t imagine anything worse.
At noon, delighted to escape from the narrow world of the canvas tent and Mr. Mann’s watchful, hooded eyes, Angus carried his meal down to the docks to watch the boats coming in and the crowds gathering.
It was a pleasant day, the sun warm in a white and blue sky. The docks didn’t offer any place to sit as every tree or patch of green grass had been chopped down or pounded underfoot long ago. Angus placed his lunch on a tall wooden box and unwrapped it. Mrs. Mann didn’t disappoint, and he dug enthusiastically into a thick sandwich. This working stuff made a man hungry.
A poster had been nailed to the box advertising a prize fight between Slim Jim, “The Pride of New York City” and “Canada’s Own” Big Boris Bovery. Angus wished he could go to the match. But they’d never let a boy like him across the threshold.
The sandwich was dry, could do with a lot more butter, and the bread wasn’t fresh. But the beef filling was thick, and there were two more sandwiches in the packet, along with a pile of cookies.
“What are you doing down here, my lad?” Sergeant Lancaster bellowed into Angus’s ear. “Sterling gave me your message. Said you can’t make the lesson ’cause you have to work. In a store. That’s no excuse for a man missing his boxing lesson. Take me to meet this boss of yours.”
“That’s probably not a good idea, sir. He wouldn’t understand.”
“Nonsense, boy. Soon as the fellow knows what’s what, he’ll let you off work. Nice lunch you have there. Your mother make it for you?”
“No, sir. Mrs. Mann, our landlady.”
Lancaster eyed the remaining sandwiches.
“Would you like one, sir?”
“No. No. Can’t take your food, eh? You’re a growing boy.”
“There’s more here than I can eat.” Angus said. Reluctantly, he pushed the package over.
Lancaster snatched a sandwich and bit off a generous mouthful. “Let’s go talk to this boss of yours.”
“I don’t think…”
“Lead the way, boy.”
Before Angus could fold up his lunch wrappings, Lancaster snatched a couple of cookies. Angus’s boxing instructor was big, burly—owing more to fat than muscle these days—nose broken multiple times, almost bald, with a bullet-shaped head, ears like cauliflowers, and as ugly as sin. All that good stuff, Angus thought, that came with being a genuine boxing champion.
Mr. Mann agreed that Angus could take the occasional afternoon off work in order to have his boxing lesson. Mrs. MacGillivray had no need, he said with a heavy wink, to know that her boy wasn’t working in the store in the afternoons. He also told Angus that his pay on lesson days would be cut in half. Oh well, if his mother asked what happened to half his pay, Angus would explain that Mr. Mann decided he didn’t need help some afternoons. But he didn’t expect her to have much interest in counting the few cents that would amount to his day’s wages.
Lancaster led Angus through town to the fort. “Shopkeeping’s no job for a man,” he said at one point, stepping around the carcass of a horse that had moments before simply decided to stop working and to lie down to die in the middle of the street.
“Mr. Mann does well at it,” Angus ventured to say, feeling some need to be loyal to his employer. “He makes good money.”
“Shop work’s for immigrants and women,” Lancaster explained. “You can stay there for awhile. It’s important you begin to earn some money to support your mother, but not for long.”
Angus was happy to be given the chance to take lessons. And from a former champ at that. After all, there was no one else who could be relied upon to protect his mother. But his face still hurt from the “accidental” blow Lancaster had landed on it at the first lesson.
“Tell you what,” Lancaster said, as they crossed the Fort Herchmer central square. The wind was low, and the Union Jack hung limply on the flag pole. “There’s a match Thursday at the Horseshoe between Slim Jim and Big Boris Bovery. How’d you like to come with me,?”
“Would I? Yes, sir! That would be wonderful, sir!”
“Good lad.” Reality intruded, and Angus’s heart sank.
“But they won’t let me in, sir. I’m only twelve.”
“Don’t worry about it, son. I’ll vouch for you.” Lancaster slapped him so hard on the back, Angus almost tumbled across the square. But he scarcely minded. A real prizefight. He couldn’t wait.
Now all he had to do was make sure his ma didn’t catch wind of it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
My screams brought Ray double quick, followed by most of the staff and a good many of the barflies and gamblers.
News of the murder and the dead body found on our stage had brought out everyone from the mildly curious to the seriously ghoulish. When I’d checked the dance hall shortly after my dinner break, I’d found a man down on the stage on his knees, rocking back and forth and moaning. He was, he informed me, attempting to get the boards to “give up their secrets”. He had no sooner been escorted to the door—the last thing I needed was someone suggesting to the dancers that the stage might be haunted—than another man slipped in. He fell to his knees for a different purpose. I found him rubbing his fingers across the stained boards and licking them. I screamed and the finger-licker wasn’t escorted out quite as politely as had been the moaner.
I escaped to the privacy of Helen’s kitchen slash storage room. Ray followed me.
“Less than a month since these people began flooding into town. I’m beginning to wonder if my nerves can last for the remainder of the summer,” I said.
“Fee, ye’ve got the strongest nerves of any woman—any man, at that—I’ve known. We could close down and open a restaurant, if it’s getting a wee bit too much for you. Serve breakfast and light lunches. How much money did you take to the bank this morning?”
I smiled, embarrassed at my outburst. “Probably more than my father, bless him, earned in his lifetime.”
“There’s always that restaurant.” “If I were doing the cooking, then we’d have the >Mounties investigating us for sure. Go along, Ray. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Light lunches. What d’you suppose that means? Never had a light lunch in me life.” He opened the door and disappeared into the noise and smoke of the saloon.
I pinched my cheeks to put a touch of colour into them and patted my hair. I was wearing my second best dress, promoted to best. It was a pale green satin, the colour of distant ice floes reflecting the weak North Atlantic sunshine. Its clean folds fell, largely unadorned, in a perfect, curving line from high neckline to hem. It went exceptionally well with my dark hair, adorned with nothing but a single ribbon, cut from excess cloth, salvaged when (thank goodness) the over-sized bustle faded from fashion. Because the dress was so simple and the front cut so high, covering my throat, I’d added interest by wrapping strands of fake pearls around and around my neck. But I never felt quite as lovely wearing the green dress as I had in the crimson Worth. Still, I smoothed the fabric over my hips, took a deep breath, and marched into the packed bar.
“You’re looking even more stunning tonight than you normally do, Fiona.” Graham Donohue appeared at my elbow. “That shade of green does your hair perfect justice.” He bowed deeply and held his whisky glass up in a toast.
I recovered, just a bit, from mourning the red dress and gave him a smile. “Quite