‘Nothing wrong with a spot of nerves,’ Barky said.

He gave me a searching look, but didn’t push it. After a moment, he steered me round and gave me a gentle shove in the direction of the steps that led backstage. Ellen hadn’t bothered to wait for me.

II

Making Ready to Perform

The dressing room came with the privilege of being Crillick’s headline act. It had a table, chair and gilt-framed mirror, but for all that it was clear it had started out as a broom cupboard. It didn’t bother me that it was still used to store the props. Coming from the slums of St Giles as I did, this amount of space all to myself could only ever be a luxury. If only you could see me now, Mother.

I’d moved in two weeks before and had insisted that Ellen share it with me. I’d even made a den in one corner for her tan and white spaniel Bouncer, who featured in my act. I knew it wouldn’t make up for losing her solo but it had helped to improve things between us. I picked my way past the magician’s birdcage, the balls and batons used by the clowns and a rope swing for the trapeze artist. It smelt of dust cloths and floor polish and the vinegar used to clean the stage.

Wooden boards known as flats and painted for all manner of backdrops were leant up against the walls. Snow-tipped mountains, foam-flecked waves and, my new favourite, the English countryside with rolling green meadows complete with daffodils and delicate little rosebuds. That rural greenery was a world away from St Giles and the cramped buildings that I’d grown up among. Most of my life I’d lived in broken-down hovels with not a pane of glass between them. Rooms where the walls were held together with rags and dirt, and where a body might die and no one notice for days, let alone lay it out and say the prayers. There was a time before that, but I tried not to dwell on it too much.