Page 6

Saturday, 17 June, 9.02 a.m.

I raced out and made my way down the staircase. The rest of 89 Kensington Gore Mansions was just as luxurious as Miss Decima’s apartment, all thick carpet and polished wood; there was even an electric lift for the residents, which opened out into a marble foyer on the ground floor. There was no sign of Mr Benson in his porter’s office, but that was no surprise. After his chat with Miss Decima, he was probably downstairs in the basement clearing out that trunk room as fast as he could.

I stepped out of the front entrance and found myself standing on Kensington Gore: one of the most prestigious addresses in all London. One turn of the head, and there was the Royal Albert Hall at the end of the road – the biggest auditorium in the city, capable of seating thousands, less than twenty seconds from our own front door. I strolled past the towering apartment blocks lining the street and turned right; sure enough, there was the Prince Albert Memorial, a great golden statue of the man himself sat on a marble throne like a gleaming god. A turn to the left and I was heading towards the shops on Kensington High Street with a spring in my step.

Even after a year, I still couldn’t quite believe it. There I was, Stephen Pike from Bow, twenty years old, side by side with the wealthiest and most well-to-do in the city. If I’d have told Nan that one day I’d end up here, she’d have slapped my hand for fibbing.

I tugged at the collar of my shirt. The newspaper hadn’t been lying – it was barely nine o’clock and it was already roasting. They said it was the hottest summer since 1868: weeks without rain, with droughts all over the country. It felt like being sat on. I’d have paid handsomely to take off my heavy tailcoat, but I couldn’t – the cuff on my left shirtsleeve was fraying, and it was the only shirt I had. Miss Decima had bought me a brand-new uniform when I moved here, but she’d only bought me the one and I couldn’t afford something like that myself. I couldn’t face the shame of asking her for another either. So the jacket stayed on as I sweated my way down Kensington High Street.

Maybe that was why I made such a fuss of cleaning the doorbell and dusting the apartment. I’d been living in Kensington for a year now, but I still didn’t feel like I fitted in. Even now, I was certain that everyone was looking at me, sniggering at my scuffed shoes and tatty clothing, saying doesn’t he stick out like a sore thumb. My weekend clothes were even shabbier than my work ones, so I’d started wearing the livery on my days off, too, just to blend in. I was sewing buttons and pressing collars night and day, but nothing I did ever seemed to stop the cuffs from fraying.

What I really needed was a proper set of clothes: the kind you saw the fops and mashers wearing on their weekend walks out. ‘The monkey parade’, they called it: young men swaggering around in groups, decked out in diamond tie pins and silk cravats. If I’d had my way, I’d be right alongside them, with kid gloves and a silver cigarette case and a collar so stiff I could barely turn my head. Then all the passers-by would nudge each other as I sauntered past, and say there’s a fellow who knows what’s what.

Of course, that was impossible. I could never afford a set of clothes like that. But what I could afford – if I saved up a little bit, every single week for ten months – was a hat. And I knew exactly which hat, too.

I had finally reached Ponting’s. The awnings had been lowered to shelter the shoppers from the worst of the morning sun, and the windows I walked past were filled with fine fabrics and all the latest brollies and riding gear. The millinery section was in the furthest window along. And there, right in the centre, was the hat of my dreams.

What a hat. At first glance, you’d say surely that’s just a bowler … but then you’d take another look and realize how wrong you were. It wasn’t black, or even charcoal – it was red. Rich crimson velvet, with a red ribbon tied in a bow around it. I had to stop myself from pressing my nose against the window and fogging up the glass.

‘That’s my hat, that is,’ I whispered.

Ten long months, I’d been saving up for that hat. And now I was nearly there. It was my birthday in a week’s time: I had the whole day off, some money in my pocket, and, mark my words, I was going to buy that hat – that beautiful hat – and spend the day walking around with it perched on my head like a cherry on a happy little cake. Then it wouldn’t matter if my cuffs were frayed, or my clothes were shabby – everyone would be too busy looking at my fantastic hat.

I pushed through the doors and made my way to the milliner’s desk. He was wrapping up a bonnet when I got there. ‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘I have a hat to collect for Miss Decima Stockingham.’

The milliner turned to the hatboxes and started checking the names. I glanced at the window display beside us and cleared my throat. ‘I say, that’s a rather fetching red bowler you have in the window. Might I enquire how much a hat like that would cost?’

‘Same as last week,’ the milliner snapped. ‘And the week before that.’ He shoved Miss Decima’s hatbox over the counter to me. ‘You’re going to have to hurry up and buy it, you know. It’s been getting some attention recently.’

I felt a jolt of dread. ‘It … has?’

‘It has,’ said the milliner. ‘So, please, put me out of my misery and buy it. Today, ideally, before those shrieking harpies burn the shop down.’

He’d lost me. ‘Harpies?’

The milliner pointed outside. ‘Haven’t you seen the posters? Suffragette meeting at the Hall tonight! Biggest ever, they say. Come this evening, there’ll be fifty thousand of those harridans marching down the high street, chucking half-bricks about like wedding confetti and thumping policemen and all sorts. I’ve told management, we have to close early and board up the windows! They said they’ll lose customers, and I said, it’s not customers you should be concerned about, mate, it’s a bloodbath …’

I could hardly breathe. I felt like I was about to have a nervous collapse. ‘Much obliged,’ I squeaked, grabbing the hatbox and racing out of the door.

The moment I stepped outside, I saw one. A poster stuck to a lamp post, right in front of me. THE WOMEN’S CORONATION PROCESSION: a march going right through the city, five miles long, starting at Whitehall and finishing just down the road at the Royal Albert Hall. There were going to be speeches from Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst and more besides. And it was happening today.

I could have kicked myself. I’d been so caught up thinking about my hat whenever I walked down the high street that I hadn’t once noticed the posters. There was no getting away from them now. There were already women on the other side of the road with placards, decked out with green and white and purple suffragette ribbons and sashes, heading to Whitehall no doubt. I could have sworn there were more policemen out than normal, too.

I made a decision, right then and there. I couldn’t wait until my birthday any more. The moment I got home, I would ask Miss Decima for an advance on my wages, and then I’d go back to Ponting’s that afternoon and buy the hat before the march arrived. I couldn’t lose it now – not when I’d waited for so long, not when I was so close. I turned to face the hat a final time, gleaming in the window like a ruby in Aladdin’s cave, and made a promise to myself. A mantra, if you will.

‘You are mine,’ I said. ‘You are my hat.’

Two women standing beside me jumped, and I decided it was best for everyone concerned if I pretended I’d never said a word. I marched down the road with the hatbox tucked under one arm and two ears whose bright red colour would have matched the bowler perfectly.

5

Saturday, 17 June, 10.08 a.m.

By the time I got to our end of the road, the heat was even worse than before. The pavements were more crowded now, thick with morning shoppers, but I barely noticed them. I was thinking over everything that had just happened. Maybe Miss Decima was right. I did need training, and badly. Those posters had surely been up for days – weeks, even – and I hadn’t once noticed them.

That’s the problem with living in the city. There’s so much going on all the time that you have to block out most of it or else you’ll give yourself a headache. Back when I lived in Romney, I knew all our neighbours by name, every person on our street – but I couldn’t do that here. There were probably over a hundred people living within a minute of our apartment, and I had no idea who they were. They could be conmen, kidnappers, homicidal maniacs, anything. You never know who might be around you, in a city.

I glanced up. There was the beggar that I’d seen that morning, hunched against the park railings. None of the passers-by so much as glanced at him – if you stopped to notice every beggar on the streets of London nowadays, you’d probably go mad. Thanks to the lack of jobs and all the slums being demolished, you’d see them hanging around corners, huddled in groups, keeping the crossings clean in the hope that someone might give them a penny for it. This one was on his own, gazing down at the pavement in silence. It was odd, seeing a man in rags sitting a stone’s throw away from a gleaming golden statue. He looked like a castaway. I hated to admit it, but I felt more in common with him than I did with anyone else I’d seen on this street. I glanced at his rags as I walked past, again tucking the threads of my tattered cuff back into my sleeve.