Den of Stars. Christopher Byford

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СКАЧАТЬ as an insult. Her tending to the contents of the pans was uninterrupted. Corinne made sure that she wasn’t misunderstood and taken personally.

      ‘Nothing, dear, you’re a fabulous cook. Sometimes people don’t want fabulous. They want –’

      ‘Dirty,’ Katerina added flatly, though queried her own word choice.

      ‘Exactly. Yes. That.’

      Katerina rested her head in her hands, uneasy with Jacques tending to his grief with booze in hand. She had witnessed far too many succumb to the bottle when using it to drown misery and unable to climb back out again, persuading her to avoid that pitfall. It was a worry. He was a worry. Attempting to ignore it, she recalled her fondest moment with sincerity in her voice, though she kept an eye on his secretive grumbling.

      ‘I remember this one time that I fell ill. I spent a few days shivering and sweating in bed – horrible it was. Of course I was just paranoid I was going to let Franco down. I had only been with you all for a couple of weeks, so I was insistent I was going to perform for the show that night. So I’m there sneezing and my teeth are chattering as I’m so cold. Misu tells him that I’m sick. He comes knocking on my door and sits on the bed and I begin to ramble. I tell him that I’ll be fine. I tell him that I can do it no problem. No problem at all.’

      Corinne smiled to herself, remembering the time all too well. ‘Not in your condition, he said. I remember that. All that sneezing – and you gave it to a couple of others if I recall correctly.’

      ‘You know what he does?’ Katerina’s voice faded slightly in earnest. ‘He shoots me down. I won’t have you doing that, he goes. You stay here and rest; we’ll be fine without you. It’s just one show – it’s not worth doing yourself a mischief. Well I’m just a wreck at this point anyway and I just start crying. I mean, I can’t stop. He leans over and takes my hands. I tell him that he’ll get sick – that this thing is probably contagious. You know what he says? He looks at me and goes: I’ll take my chances.’

      Katerina dabbed her eyes on her dress sleeve, careful not to paint mascara on the material. Her smile was cracking as her lips quivered. ‘Wasn’t that just like him?’

      ‘I would argue he took too many. Thieving stowaways. Bad deals. Never saw him not bounce back from it all. The man sure did know how to push that luck of his.’

      ‘I suppose he never believed it would run out.’

      ‘What about you, Corinne? You knew Misu longer than any of us here. Surely you have stories to tell.’

      * * *

      Sure, she had stories. Plenty of them in fact. She had stories of the pair of them trapped in a nest of vipers, forced to do things to keep themselves alive and their limbs intact. There was plenty to be told about how Corinne herself was paraded on show for folks rich in currency and broke in morals. They had met one another in what generous people called an establishment of entertainment. In reality it was a club where criminals congregated, bragged about their misdeeds, and made their plans.

      It just so happened that women like them were bought and paid for, shuffled around like property. Corinne kept her mouth shut, doing enough to keep her unscarred, performing as was expected and never putting a word out of turn.

      But Misu was different.

      She adapted. Instead of falling into the long-drop trap, she talked to the right people and made the right impressions to ensure that nobody laid their hands upon her person. She was clever – too clever some would say – walking the thin line of cunning, though those around her would not compliment her for that. Cunning usually resulted in betrayal. And betrayal could get you killed.

      So she carved her reputation among those caught up in the debacle that nobody was to cross her. She would be your best friend if you won her favour, or your greatest threat if you lacked it. Securing her place in the food chain, she and a handful of others brokered the dealings of innocent women, played the games those in power wished them to play, and did so in such a way to keep herself always one step ahead.

      Corinne had stories, but none that they would want to hear, and nor were they appropriate. Instead she recalled something more light-hearted.

      ‘I remember the dandiest thing I got told. It was when Franco took on that stowaway, whatshername …’ She circled her hand at the wrist.

      ‘Wyld,’ someone added.

      ‘That’s her. Jacques has this girl dragged out of her hiding place and taken to the boss. She’s squirming, thinking that she’s going to be straight up executed and babbling about being heard. On the way she sees her opening and belts him one! Bam! Gives him a damn good print of her fist on the cheek, which stuns him somewhat. Jacques hits the floor and Wyld runs for it. Well she doesn’t reach the carriage door before Misu steps through. She sees Jacques all down-like and deduces that this desert rat must have been the cause.’

      ‘Then what?’ A handful of others parroted the question. Corinne tossed her hands out, gesturing.

      ‘She stands aside! Just, whoop, steps to the side in the doorway, looks her right in the eye, and says: In case you’ve not noticed, you’re stuck on this train in the middle of the hottest damn sand you ever did see. Unless you’re looking at dropping every last one of us like you did our friend there, this is all rather pointless. You’ve got nowhere to go, unless you fancy jumping. And you know what Wyld did?’

      ‘What?’

      Jacques bit at the inside of his mouth, impatient for the anecdote to end.

      ‘She gives up. Just sits her ass on down and waits for Franco to turn up. A moment passes, Franco barges in, and Jacques picks himself up from the ground …’

      Jacques interrupted with a sudden, sarcastic snort before Corinne continued.

      ‘However she does it, Wyld convinces Franco to give her passage. Now Misu, she doesn’t like this one bit. Change to the status quo makes her suspicious so, when the need takes her, she sits herself down and starts interviewing Wyld.’

      ‘Interviewing?’ Kitty scrunched her young face up, producing wrinkles before her time.

      ‘Interviewing. Like, asking her all the questions of initiation to make our troublesome little stowaway a showgirl. Calm as anything, she was. It’s a ruse of course but the girl don’t know this. Wyld starts protesting but Misu is too quick and starts saying this and that, asking her how good her dancing is, and makes a point that she’ll need significant work prettying her up for the shows – especially the hair. This goes on for a good few minutes until Franco, who’s been staying silent up to this point, just bursts out laughing, finding the whole thing hilarious. It took a few minutes before Wyld calmed herself but it was a joy, such a joy …’

      The broad smile eventually subsided upon realizing once again that two of their number from the anecdote were missing. This was mirrored by almost everybody else in earshot.

      Corinne took to her bare feet, a mite unsteady, and raised her drink up. The others followed in unison, blinking back tears of their own.

      ‘To the Gambler’s Den. To those who are with us today.’ Corinne held her cup aloft, trying desperately to keep it steady before sternly adding with a final push, ‘And to those we have lost along the way.’

      * СКАЧАТЬ