“This classy gent is Chow Bo Wah.” Jamie claps Bo on the back. “He’s a fireman like me, but he shovels coal twice as fast. The muscles are all an act, though. Inside, he’s a kitten.”
Bo scowls. “You are a fool.”
Jamie laughs. “Now out with it. Why are you here and not with the Sloanes?”
I muster a smile, despite Jamie having sidesteppedmyquestion. I will beat it out of him later. “Mrs. Sloane died, and her son and his wife went to Scotland to tour her ashes.”
“Why didn’t they take you with them?”
“They wanted to, but...” My mind flies back to when Mrs. Sloane’s daughter-in-law launched a potted fern at me after I gave her my notice. Never mind that my main duty was to watch Mrs. Sloane and she no longer needed watching. I never told Jamie of the abuse I suffered there.
“But?” He cocks an ear toward me, as if trying to make my response come faster.
“But I quit. They didn’t need me anymore. See, I read yourletter about your leaving on theTitanic, and with Mrs. Sloane departing and you departing, it all made sense.”
“What?” He shakes his head as if clearing his ears of water, and his eyes take on the grippy look he gets when he thinks I’ve swiped one of his biscuits. “What made sense?”
“That it was time for us to go to New York together.”
He wheezes out a laugh. “I can’t go to New York. They’re expecting all of us in Cuba, and I can’t stop for a jaunt.”
“I didn’t mean a jaunt.” I ignore the disbelief trampling his face. “Remember how Ba called America the beautiful country, where the air is always blue and fruit trees grow like weeds? And now here we are, going there together. You can’t tell me you’d rather spend your time”—remembering his mates, I lower my voice—“shoveling coal than making our way in New York.”
“Shoveling coal is hard work, good work. It’s good for me.”
“So we’ll find you some good hard work in America, something that won’t have you sticking your head in an oven every day.”
“We don’t stick our heads in the boilers.”
“Then why are you getting a vulture neck?”
He straightens his posture.
“You want to end up like those men in E-16, crabby and missing fingers?”
Bo nearly smiles. He pushes himself off the rail. “Hey, kumquats, let’s see the propeller.” Catching the reluctant Olly and Wink by their arms, he hauls them away.
We watch the lads stop in front of a couple of young menwith plaid jackets tossing a strange oval ball. Back and forth it flies. Olly says something, and one of the plaid jackets shakes his head and grips his ball tighter. Bo pushes them along, taking one last glance at me.
Jamie sinks onto the bench and holds his head between his hands. “America doesn’t want us. They passed a law to keep the Chinese out.”
“But we’re not from China. We’re British. We write our letters better than our characters.”
“British subjects, not citizens. England’s only happy to be rid of us.”
I carefully smooth my skirts before sliding in beside him. “If everything goes according to my plan, New York will be throwing a ticker tape parade for us.”
His eyes narrow. “What are you on about?”
“I happen to know that Mr. Albert Ankeny Stewart, part owner of the Ringling Brothers Circus, is a first-class passenger here on theTitanic.”
“Stop there.”
But the barrel has already started rolling. “If we could impress Mr. Stewart, he could hire us as employees of his circus. Surely America would make an exception for an influential man like him. We’ve been talking about this since forever. Virtue and Valor, the Chinese acrobats. Come on, Jamie, you can’t tell me you don’t miss it. This is our chance!”
Before he contradicts me, I sweep ahead, the barrel picking up speed. “We can do the Jumbo routine and make sure he sees it. It’ll be just like in St. James’s Park. They loved us there.”
St. James’s Park was our stage of choice, with its wide expanses of green and constant stream of people. We’d make enough in one day to keep us fed for a week in the summer months.
