Gypsy

  Jack turned, his face half hidden in his wolf fur-lined hood, his mittened hand raised, but she guessed by the straight line of his lips that he was worried about leaving her.

  It had been terrible when Theo walked out on her. She felt exposed, humiliated and that her hopes and dreams were shattered. But she had been able to pick over the bones of their relationship, list his many faults and past failings, and see for herself that he’d always been out for the main chance. She really ought to have known better than trust him implicitly.

  But there were no such feelings to counterbalance the sadness she felt at Jack moving on. Hardly an hour went by when she didn’t miss him. When she made the first cup of coffee of the day, she’d imagine his sleepy morning face with a dark rash of stubble, breaking into a smile as she woke him. Later, when the saloon was open, she’d remember how in quiet times she used to sit up on a stool by the bar and chat to him as he cleaned the shelves and polished glasses.

  There were the jokes they shared about customers. Jack could convey a message to her about a very large nose, a speech impediment, a compulsive liar or any other defect, with no more than a smirk or a raised eyebrow. Sometimes they couldn’t contain their laughter and had to duck down under the bar or rush out to the back, for fear of being asked for an explanation.

  But it was in the evenings that she missed him most, for they had always gone to get supper together around six. She would change and do her hair when they got back, and later, when she walked back into the saloon to play, he’d give her a wolf whistle. He was always there, always admiring and supportive, always the friend who never let her down. He had been ready to talk at any time, night or day, and happy to sit in companionable silence too when that was what she wanted.

  When she looked back, that was the way it had always been. If he hadn’t fired her up to go to Heaney’s, maybe she would never have played in public, but found a job in a store. He didn’t falter when she jilted him for Theo, and despite all the girls he’d had, and there had been many, he’d never let them come between them.

  He gave her strength and consolation when she lost her baby and took control of everything in Skagway. He had got them up the Chilkoot Pass. He’d shared her grief at losing Sam, and understood how she felt about Molly’s death. He’d even shared her hurt when Theo ran off.

  But now he was off to have a life of his own, and however much she missed him, she was glad for him. He’d spent too long supporting her, Sam and Theo; it was time he used all that energy and ability he had for himself.

  She realized too that she must do the same.

  From the moment she met and fell for Theo, she’d virtually given her life into his keeping. She’d never stopped to ask herself if she really wanted to be part of his grandiose plans; in fact she lost the ability to make any of her own. Looking back, it seemed incredible that she’d travelled so many thousands of miles, put up with so many hardships, just to be at his side.

  She was brushing her hair in her room one morning a few weeks after Jack had gone, when all at once it occurred to her that One Eye was using her in just the same way as Heaney had back in New York. Accepting the money put into the hat each night and being grateful he let her keep her room was playing into his hands. She was being exploited, and if she wasn’t careful she’d become trapped like Dolores and the other saloon girls.

  She was making some 200 dollars or more a week, but the high cost of everything in Dawson soon whittled that down, for she’d bought new dresses, a fur to keep warm outside, and thick, fur-lined boots.

  In all the giddiness of getting here and being part of the madness that was Dawson, she’d lost sight of the reason why they made the hazardous journey in the first place. The plan had been to make their fortunes.

  Theo had done that, but all she’d got to show for her hard work was savings of 160 dollars. That wasn’t going to get her very far.

  ‘Come on now, honey, give me a kiss!’

  Beth recoiled in horror as One Eye drunkenly tried to lunge at her. He was wearing his yellow and black checked suit, the waistcoat so tight around his middle that part of his belly protruded beneath it. His face was red and shiny with sweat and his breath was rank.

  It was four in the morning and it had been a very busy night, with a poker game running for huge stakes. As usual, One Eye had sat at a table drinking with his cronies all evening, only shifting himself to call for more drinks, to order one of the barmen to eject a drunk, or to fondle one of the Paradise Alley whores who had taken to frequenting the place lately.

  The poker game had finished an hour ago. All the gamblers had gone home, and the only customers left were six or seven men so drunk they were either asleep with their heads on the table, or wavering precariously on their seats.

  The current bartender, known as Sly, an appropriate name for a man Beth was fairly certain pocketed the price of many drinks, had been trying to close up so he could go home. He’d asked Beth to help, and it was when she suggested to One Eye that the drunks should be ejected that he got up.

  But he hadn’t ejected anyone; instead, he’d made a play for her.

  Suddenly Beth knew she had to make a stand and prove herself.

  ‘Back off, you loathsome creep,’ she snapped at him. ‘I am not your woman. Lay one hand on me and you’ll regret it.’

  ‘You speak to me like that and I’ll throw you out on the street,’ he slurred.

  She looked scornfully at him swaying on his feet, and this time remembered that she was popular in the town, while he was laughed at. ‘Just throw this lot out,’ she said, indicating the drunks. ‘Then go home. I’ll deal with you in the morning.’

  She flounced off upstairs, locking her door behind her. She doubted One Eye would go home or throw the drunks out, for despite all his talk, he was in fact a weak man. The chances were they’d all still be there in the morning, out cold on the saloon floor.

  It was early December now, so cold that the snow on the streets was as hard as brick and it hurt to breathe. The reason she’d stalled on implementing the plan she’d made two weeks earlier was purely because her room above the Golden Nugget was warm and comfortable. She felt secure here, even though she loathed One Eye. But that security was gone now he’d got the idea she was his property. He’d been very drunk tonight, but he was much more dangerous sober. She wouldn’t put it past him to force himself on her, or even to hatch up some plot to implicate her in some kind of criminal act as his revenge for rebuffing him.

  She barely slept for the remainder of the night, for each and every creak in the building made her think the man was coming up the stairs. She gave up trying to sleep at nine, and got up.

  Going first into the saloon, she found all the men sprawled out cold on the floor. One Eye was still clutching a whisky bottle, his mouth wide open and snoring loudly. The stink in there made her gag; it wasn’t just the vomit on the floor, but something even more disgusting.

  Closing the door on them, she put on her coat and fur hat, then left through the back door.

  She had made a point of trying never to think about Theo, yet she couldn’t help but imagine his horror at what she’d just seen. He’d been scrupulous about refusing to serve any more drink to men once they didn’t know what they were doing. If a man looked about to collapse, he ordered the man’s friends to take him home to sleep it off. No one would have got away with lying drunk on his floor.

  It was too early for the saloons to be open, so she went into a cafe´ in King Street and ordered breakfast.

  At eleven, she walked through the door of the Monte Carlo. ‘I’d like to see Mr Fallon,’ she said to a young man who was sweeping the floor. ‘Tell him it’s Gypsy.’

  The Monte Carlo had changed hands several times since the previous June when she played there, and with every new owner it had been made grander with mirrors, chandeliers, oil paintings and carpets. The current owner, John Fallon, was said to be a Southern gentleman, with even bigger plans for the place. She hadn’t ever me
t him but she was banking on his having heard of her.

  ‘He’s still in bed,’ the young man said.

  ‘Well, get him up then,’ she said crisply. ‘I have other people to see this morning.’

  He disappeared out the back and she heard his feet clonking up the stairs. A few minutes later she heard them coming down, and her heart sank because she assumed Fallon had told him to say he wasn’t getting up for anyone.

  But to her surprise it wasn’t the young man, but a man in his late thirties. His fair hair was tousled, and he was wearing a satin smoking jacket over a rather grubby collarless shirt.

  ‘John Fallon at your service, mam,’ he said, taking her hand and kissing it. ‘Please excuse my appearance. Had I known the Klondike Gypsy Queen would come a-calling, I would have been spruced up, ready to meet you.’

  Beth was delighted that the gossip she’d heard was true, and he really was a Southern gentleman.

  ‘It is I who should apologize for calling so early,’ she said.

  ‘It is an honour to make your acquaintance, mam.’ He smiled. ‘I am a great admirer of your music. I’ve often lingered outside the Golden Nugget to listen to you play. Back in Virginia we have many great fiddle players, but I don’t think I ever heard any better than you.’

  Beth’s heart began to beat a little faster. ‘Why, thank you, sir,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Then perhaps I’ve come to the right place.’

  His wide smile and interested pale blue eyes were reassurance enough for her to keep her nerve. ‘You see, I’m looking for a new establishment to play in. And the Monte Carlo would suit me just fine, providing you would be happy with my terms.’

  ‘Suppose you tell me what they are?’ he said, his smile fading into a foxy smirk.

  ‘Fifty dollars a night, plus whatever your customers put in the hat. And a room too.’

  He sucked in his breath. ‘Fifty dollars a night is too much. I could only run to twenty-five.’

  The figure in Beth’s head to settle on had been just fifteen, but to be offered more made her confidence rise.

  ‘Then I’m sorry, Mr Fallon, I can’t play for you,’ she said, and turned to walk out the door.

  She was just about to push it open when he coughed. ‘Maybe I could run to thirty-five,’ he said.

  Beth turned. ‘Come now, Mr Fallon. You don’t want me playing at the Criterion, do you? Agree on forty-five and I won’t call on them. Providing the room you give me is a good one.’

  He wavered for just a second. ‘It’s a deal,’ he said, coming forward to take her hand and shake it. ‘When can you start?’

  ‘When will my room be ready?’ she said.

  ‘An hour?’ he suggested.

  She nodded. ‘Do you have anyone who could escort me back to the Golden Nugget to collect my things? I fear One Eye may be a little unpleasant about me leaving.’

  ‘I’ll come myself, mam,’ he said with a wide grin. ‘Just give me five minutes to get dressed properly.’

  It was the most deliciously satisfying moment to see One Eye’s look of sheer outrage when he encountered John Fallon on the stairs with his arms full of Beth’s dresses.

  ‘Wh-wh-where you going with that?’ he stuttered.

  ‘To my place,’ Fallon said breezily. He turned to Beth on the stairs behind him. ‘Have you got everything now?’

  ‘All that’s important to me,’ she said, smirking at One Eye. She had her fiddle in one hand and her valise packed with everything else in the other. ‘You can let my room to a couple more whores now. You’ll need some new attraction without me to pull folk in.’

  ‘You can’t leave me in the lurch like this,’ One Eye protested.

  ‘Come, come, Mr Donahue,’ Beth said silkily. ‘Customers who shit their pants and vomit on the floor don’t much care for fiddle playing, and you can turn the whole place into a brothel now. You’ll do just fine.’

  She had the delight of knowing that Dolores, one of the biggest gossips in Dawson, was at the top of the stairs listening. By tonight the story would be right round town.

  One Eye made an attempt at blocking Fallon from reaching the back door, but Fallon pushed past him.

  ‘Do make sure the saloon is cleaned up before opening up today,’ Beth said crisply as she breezed past One Eye. ‘Otherwise people might just think you’ve got the skids under you!’

  ‘The Gent must have been feeble-minded to walk out on you,’ Fallon said as he carried Beth’s clothes into one of the front bedrooms at the Monte Carlo. ‘It was admirably dignified, the way you put One Eye in his place.’

  ‘My time at the Golden Nugget is over now,’ she said sternly. ‘I’d rather you didn’t speak of it again.’

  He laid her dresses down on the bed and smiled. ‘That’s fine by me, and I think we should have some champagne to celebrate a new beginning.’

  ‘That would be very nice.’ She smiled. She liked the look and sound of this man. From now on she intended to stop looking back over her shoulder and make the most of any opportunities that came her way.

  The Monte Carlo was packed to capacity that evening, and when Beth peeped down over the banisters before she was due to start playing, she guessed that the latest story about her was circulating, gathering even more drama with each telling.

  Fallon had put signs outside proclaiming she was playing there tonight, and young Tom had just informed her that he’d been past the Golden Nugget and there were only three or four customers in there.

  She was going to earn a great deal of money here. She had the best room in the house, complete with a feather mattress on the bed, and a dressing table grand enough for the Queen of Sheba. Even electricity had been installed, and the place was as warm as toast.

  Theo was just a slight ache now. She could live very well without him.

  As she turned back to her room to collect her fiddle, she looked at herself in a long mirror on the landing. Her hair shone like wet tar, her eyes were bright with excitement, and her cheeks flushed a becoming pink. In the purple satin gown with black lace flounces she’d recently had made by a dressmaker, with elbow-length black lace fingerless gloves and a purple flower in her hair, she knew she looked sensational.

  ‘Use it to your advantage,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Be the Gypsy Queen!’

  All through the remainder of December, into the New Year of ’99, Beth triumphed at the Monte Carlo. She did two hour-long sets each night, but often sat in with other musicians too. John Fallon liked her to mix with his customers, and it was like a party almost every night.

  New Year’s Eve and her twenty-second birthday later in January were special highlights, for Fallon threw a private party to celebrate the New Year for all the wealthiest and most influential people in town, and on her birthday he organized one especially for her, and presented her with a gold bracelet.

  Beth sensed by the way Fallon slipped the bracelet on to her wrist and kissed her hand that he wanted her, and it delighted her to find she wanted him too, for that meant she was free of Theo at last.

  She wasn’t looking for another serious love affair, but she was ready to have a little fling. Not immediately — she wanted to get Fallon’s full measure first — but in the meantime she could flirt with him.

  Sometimes in the dark and icy January and February days, Beth actually felt glad Theo had left her, for if he’d still been around she would never have discovered how strong and independent she really was. She had taken control of her own life, she was a living legend in Dawson, and she knew that wherever she decided to go after here, she had enough confidence and belief in herself to succeed.

  In early March she decided the time was ripe for a night of love. She had found it hard to think of anything else for a few weeks, often waking in the night from erotic dreams.

  It was the law in Dawson that on Saturday nights everything should be closed by midnight, and ever since Beth came to the Monte Carlo, Fallon had always opened a bottle of champagne once the doors were shut, and asked he
r to join him.

  She had been saving all her money since she began at the Monte Carlo, but because she wanted to look extra special for Fallon, she got a seamstress to run her up a new scarlet gown. It was modelled on the style of a flamenco dancer’s dress, with a low-cut neckline, frilled sleeves, and a close-fitting boned bodice taken right down over her hips, then flaring out in layers of frills to her feet.

  It was a sensational gown, one that she would never have dared wear anywhere but Dawson, and part of its delight was knowing that it was risque´ and would raise eyebrows. She knew people still gossiped about Theo leaving her, and perhaps this gown would prove she was over him. She knew she was, for as she slipped it on over new silk, lace-trimmed underwear, all she could think of was Fallon undoing her laces and buttons, and it brought a flush to her cheeks.

  She played for him alone all evening. The saloon was crammed with people, all looking up at her on the little stage, tapping their feet, clapping their hands and smiling. But her dark eyes were on his face as he stood at the corner of the bar. He wasn’t dashingly handsome like Theo; his skin was pale and he had unremarkable features and pale blue eyes. But he had style — tonight he wore a sea-green silk waistcoat beneath his dark suit, his hands were soft and manicured, and the smile on his lips was just for her.

  ‘You look very beautiful tonight,’ Fallon said as he handed her a glass of champagne in his parlour after the saloon had closed. ‘And your new gown is very becoming.’

  The parlour was small, with no room for anything more than a couch in front of the fire, a large polished wood desk and chair, and a safe stacked high with papers. He ran the saloon from here, and the adjoining room was his bedroom.

  ‘Well, thank you, Mr Fallon,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘It’s John,’ he said, standing with his back to the fire. ‘I can hardly seduce a lady who calls me Mister.’