The place was small, dimly lit, but effortlessly welcoming. There were
only ten tables and each would seat no more than four each. These tables
were almost always occupied, though, with hasty rotation by some, while
others had the distinct privilege of lingering, dawdling over their after-
meal drinks. The tables were constructed out of various scraps of lumber,
donated, bought or traded over time and reworked with consummate skill into
furniture pieces that had some actual grace to them. The chairs were all
mismatched, some of them wrought iron that loving hands had rubbed free of
rust with sandpaper; others were armchairs, scrubbed and re-upholstered
with bright materials that were clean, if a bit on the eccentric side. They
had been bought from bins inside cloth stores- you know, those rolls of
material a little too unsightly to really appeal to anyone in a garment
sense.
She had come down quietly, her knowledge of London Below threadbare but enough to permit entrance. Circumstances had also facilitated the jump downward. Being a single mother had strained, then snapped, her finances. She wasn't homeless when she first went down, but she had soon given up her squalid flat in favor of the more spacious, if dark, corner of the underbelly world.
She was only unique in one, very important way- she was the only one who existed in both London Above and London Below. She cheerfully referred to those places, respectively, as Upstairs and Downstairs. "Come on, angel, we're going Upstairs," she'd tell her daughter when Jackadandy's was closed for Sundays. And they'd -go-, and she'd do her marketing, visit the storage lockers she kept in the Kensington Station and return back home with parcels and belongings to get them through the next week.
There would have been more of a stir if she hadn't kept to herself, but she did. She spent her days serving her food to people and making discreet trades for things she needed, and occupied her nights schooling her daughter, reading, and sleeping in the large room behind the diner. Jackadandy's wasn't really a diner, but it wasn't quite a restaurant and certainly not a bistro or café. It was a big room that served good food to people who could afford good, fresh food and to people who could not.
Puss was very pretty and still somewhat young, at twenty-three. She was very fair with round, swimming, chestnut-brown eyes and very thick, heavy, somewhat cumbersome strawberry-blonde hair. You knew she used to be pixie thin at one point, but had filled up hips and bosom until she was what might be called buxom. It was easy to look at her because, although she didn't have the waifishness trend someone had decreed was en vogue, she looked pliant, soft, curving and trim waisted, offering the pleasant notion that she'd be a welcome luxury of flesh in bed. She reminded you of a baker's daughter in a fairy tale. Healthy. That was the word for Puss.
Her daughter was just as winsome, but had skin like coffee with plenty of cream stirred in, dark mahogany curls and very light, blue eyes. Her features were those of her mother, however, and there was no mistaking their kinship. Someone had once heard Puss remark that Goldtree had the colors of her father, which was logical, for they certainly couldn't have come from Puss herself.
Goldtree was five and Puss was twenty-three. Goldtree was a merry young girl who liked to either talk a lot or not at all. She was naughty often and good oftener. As a whole, she was exactly as a five-year-old who had a mother who loved her and enough to eat should be. She was bright, knew when to ask questions and when to just hush for a bit, helped her mother as well as made more work for Puss and was well-liked by the patrons of Jackadandy's.
On this particular Tuesday afternoon, the place was somewhat less crowded, it being about five in the evening and the patrons usually coming in more thickly around seven. Puss was in the kitchen, lifting out a tray from the old oven that Scrab, one of her regulars, had fixed after she'd bought it from a junk shop on Portabello. It required a firm, swift kick now and again, but served her purpose and turned out some delicious dishes. This particular dish was a take-away order. It was thirty tiny cheese quiches, each about the size of a sterling pound. It had been fairly easy for Puss to make, and she had bought a block of Cheddar, six fresh, brown eggs and a pint of good cream for the occasion. Puss never was chincy about ingredients.
Setting each of the minuscule quiches into a small, paper bag, she felt a tug at her apron and looked down to see Goldtree peering up at her. Puss smiled.
"Are those for the rats?" inquired Goldtree solicitously. Puss nodded. "Can I add something?"
It was becoming a custom- Goldtree loved adding lagniappe to Puss' take- away orders. Her mother obligingly opened the bag and held it down low enough for Goldtree to drop in three thin, satin ribbons. They were only a little frayed at the ends and were bright in jewel colors of red, green and blue. "Baby," objected Puss gently. "You want to give away your new hair ribbons?"
Puss had an American accent. Goldtree did as well, but inflections of British crept in from time to time. People seemed more interested in that fact than they did in how she managed her co-existence with Upstairs and Downstairs. Goldtree nodded solemnly. Puss smiles, nodded, and folded down the top of the brown paper bag. Both girls were well known for compulsive acts of generosity. "It makes us both feel royal, giving things to people," explained Puss once to Scrab. "It's like buying joy with our things. Besides, we have more than we need."
They did, too- all of the things from their old flat had been locked away in seven Kensington station lockers. Those lockers were like coffers of riches. They hosted items that had once decorated and accessorized a pretty, clean, modest flat. Five of the lockers were picked through whenever Puss needed something to trade. Two of the lockers held the most valuable of items- jewelry, snow globes, china, five outfits from Montgomery Ward with the tags still on them, a bottle of Godiva liqueur from a wedding Puss had attended a long time ago, a set of Teflon pans, silverware, three pairs of shoes, a damask tablecloth, three boxes of candlesticks and two more of votives, and a set of bath oils. These things were never touched, for they were to secure a good future for Goldtree when she was grown and should something happen to Puss.
Puss never talked about Upstairs to anyone from London Below, and she certainly never talked about Downstairs with anyone from London Above. People let it be, from both sides. She was too warm, too giving and too merry to press her about it. Occasionally, there would be someone from Downstairs who'd be nasty about her ability, calling her a traitor or a freak. These people would be dealt with, kindly but firmly, by the Jackadandy's regulars, or else be converted into a friend by Goldtree's soft, little hand placing a few chocolate-covered raisins into their palm.
Now, Puss and Goldtree left the kitchen to come into the front room, with it's tables, chairs, unmatching dishes, and melting-pot patrons. There was no counter or cash register. Cash never came through the door. Puss moved to a table that hosted two thin, gaunt men, each dressed in frumpy, rather oversized brown suits. "How was the sausage?" she asked them. Both tipped up game smiles.
"Just fine, Miss Puss, just fine," declared the one whose hair was thinning more than the other. "Where'd you get it? Hasn't had sausage like that since.what, Jonah, back before the Races?" The other man nodded in assent and the thin-haired man dabbed at his mouth with a clean square of velour that had been on the table as a napkin.
"I made it, Gipp. Scrab found a good grinder last week, so I decided to have a go at making my own sausage. Rosemary, sage and pepper."
"Cat's meat?" inquired Gipp.
"Pork, actually. You folk can get cat anywhere. I like giving you a bit of a treat." Her smile make her eyes twinkle. Goldtree was already precariously picking the plates off the table and carrying them back to the kitchen. The two men rose, tipped their heads in a polite nod to Puss and reached into their pockets. One set down a brass door handle, the other proffered a somewhat dirty wool cap, somewhat holey from being stretched out of shape.
Puss seemed pleased and took up the items. "That's perfect, Gipp. Thank you. Goldtree needs a hat like this."
"Bit misshapen," admitted Gipp, but Puss shook her head with a bonny grin.
"I'm a wizard with a needle these days. This is nothing to mend up. You gentleman have a fine evening."
As the two left, Jonah murmured over to Gipp, both of them maneuvering past a rather imposing man who was entering. "Don't care if she's got a girl s'not mine. If I thought she'd have me, I'd make her my own in a tic."
The two men exited and the man who was entering turned to watched them go before focusing his gaze on the front room. Goldtree was in the kitchen still, washing the dishes, and Puss was handing over the brown paper bag to a scrawny, fleet-looking young boy, obviously a rat-speaker. ".thirty of them in there," she was telling him. "And a present for Miss Whiskers from Goldtree." The boy nodded, put down four butter knives and a ladle whose handle looked liked it had been chewed on by a dog, took the bag and departed. The man was still standing just inside the door.
"Oh, go ahead and sit anywhere that's free," invited Puss, not looking up as she placed the newly-acquired items into a large basket near the door of the kitchen.
"Puss," said the man.
She looked up sharply. The light went away from her eyes and her features. She was very still.
"Oh," she said, a little bewilderedly. "Oh, hell."
de Carabas didn't supplement his words with that usual bit of a smirk. He found that he couldn't. "Generally a place, not a person, but I suppose you should be allowed free-association with whatever you please at the moment." He fell silent again and watched her get over the initial shock.
Puss swallowed, took a brisk bit of a breath and exhaled it sharply. "You weren't supposed to know I was here," she began, then realized he hadn't. He was looking at her with some honest amount of surprise, though most of it was artfully masked. "Oh," she said again, falteringly. "Well, you can leave, now. I don't have anything I want to say and I'd rather you not eat here."
"Actually, I find the whole meeting rather auspicious," he countered, regaining that nonplussed manner. "After all, our last encounter ended with my owing you a very large favor. It's fortunate for you I stumbled upon this place."
Puss stared at him a moment, then looked over her shoulder, leaned back and rapped softly on the kitchen door. Pushed open, the door admitted Goldtree, who was wearing a summer dress with the word 'Hawaii' printed all over it, a small, child-sized apron tied about her little waist. She came out and looked first at her mother, then at the Marquis. de Carabas stared at the little girl who had his dark hair, his stark-light eyes, and some of his brown complexion.
Puss' arm went around Goldtree's shoulders. "Your favor was claimed, Carabas," she told him. "After all, there's certainly nothing you have greater than this, is there?"
(To Be Continued.)
She had come down quietly, her knowledge of London Below threadbare but enough to permit entrance. Circumstances had also facilitated the jump downward. Being a single mother had strained, then snapped, her finances. She wasn't homeless when she first went down, but she had soon given up her squalid flat in favor of the more spacious, if dark, corner of the underbelly world.
She was only unique in one, very important way- she was the only one who existed in both London Above and London Below. She cheerfully referred to those places, respectively, as Upstairs and Downstairs. "Come on, angel, we're going Upstairs," she'd tell her daughter when Jackadandy's was closed for Sundays. And they'd -go-, and she'd do her marketing, visit the storage lockers she kept in the Kensington Station and return back home with parcels and belongings to get them through the next week.
There would have been more of a stir if she hadn't kept to herself, but she did. She spent her days serving her food to people and making discreet trades for things she needed, and occupied her nights schooling her daughter, reading, and sleeping in the large room behind the diner. Jackadandy's wasn't really a diner, but it wasn't quite a restaurant and certainly not a bistro or café. It was a big room that served good food to people who could afford good, fresh food and to people who could not.
Puss was very pretty and still somewhat young, at twenty-three. She was very fair with round, swimming, chestnut-brown eyes and very thick, heavy, somewhat cumbersome strawberry-blonde hair. You knew she used to be pixie thin at one point, but had filled up hips and bosom until she was what might be called buxom. It was easy to look at her because, although she didn't have the waifishness trend someone had decreed was en vogue, she looked pliant, soft, curving and trim waisted, offering the pleasant notion that she'd be a welcome luxury of flesh in bed. She reminded you of a baker's daughter in a fairy tale. Healthy. That was the word for Puss.
Her daughter was just as winsome, but had skin like coffee with plenty of cream stirred in, dark mahogany curls and very light, blue eyes. Her features were those of her mother, however, and there was no mistaking their kinship. Someone had once heard Puss remark that Goldtree had the colors of her father, which was logical, for they certainly couldn't have come from Puss herself.
Goldtree was five and Puss was twenty-three. Goldtree was a merry young girl who liked to either talk a lot or not at all. She was naughty often and good oftener. As a whole, she was exactly as a five-year-old who had a mother who loved her and enough to eat should be. She was bright, knew when to ask questions and when to just hush for a bit, helped her mother as well as made more work for Puss and was well-liked by the patrons of Jackadandy's.
On this particular Tuesday afternoon, the place was somewhat less crowded, it being about five in the evening and the patrons usually coming in more thickly around seven. Puss was in the kitchen, lifting out a tray from the old oven that Scrab, one of her regulars, had fixed after she'd bought it from a junk shop on Portabello. It required a firm, swift kick now and again, but served her purpose and turned out some delicious dishes. This particular dish was a take-away order. It was thirty tiny cheese quiches, each about the size of a sterling pound. It had been fairly easy for Puss to make, and she had bought a block of Cheddar, six fresh, brown eggs and a pint of good cream for the occasion. Puss never was chincy about ingredients.
Setting each of the minuscule quiches into a small, paper bag, she felt a tug at her apron and looked down to see Goldtree peering up at her. Puss smiled.
"Are those for the rats?" inquired Goldtree solicitously. Puss nodded. "Can I add something?"
It was becoming a custom- Goldtree loved adding lagniappe to Puss' take- away orders. Her mother obligingly opened the bag and held it down low enough for Goldtree to drop in three thin, satin ribbons. They were only a little frayed at the ends and were bright in jewel colors of red, green and blue. "Baby," objected Puss gently. "You want to give away your new hair ribbons?"
Puss had an American accent. Goldtree did as well, but inflections of British crept in from time to time. People seemed more interested in that fact than they did in how she managed her co-existence with Upstairs and Downstairs. Goldtree nodded solemnly. Puss smiles, nodded, and folded down the top of the brown paper bag. Both girls were well known for compulsive acts of generosity. "It makes us both feel royal, giving things to people," explained Puss once to Scrab. "It's like buying joy with our things. Besides, we have more than we need."
They did, too- all of the things from their old flat had been locked away in seven Kensington station lockers. Those lockers were like coffers of riches. They hosted items that had once decorated and accessorized a pretty, clean, modest flat. Five of the lockers were picked through whenever Puss needed something to trade. Two of the lockers held the most valuable of items- jewelry, snow globes, china, five outfits from Montgomery Ward with the tags still on them, a bottle of Godiva liqueur from a wedding Puss had attended a long time ago, a set of Teflon pans, silverware, three pairs of shoes, a damask tablecloth, three boxes of candlesticks and two more of votives, and a set of bath oils. These things were never touched, for they were to secure a good future for Goldtree when she was grown and should something happen to Puss.
Puss never talked about Upstairs to anyone from London Below, and she certainly never talked about Downstairs with anyone from London Above. People let it be, from both sides. She was too warm, too giving and too merry to press her about it. Occasionally, there would be someone from Downstairs who'd be nasty about her ability, calling her a traitor or a freak. These people would be dealt with, kindly but firmly, by the Jackadandy's regulars, or else be converted into a friend by Goldtree's soft, little hand placing a few chocolate-covered raisins into their palm.
Now, Puss and Goldtree left the kitchen to come into the front room, with it's tables, chairs, unmatching dishes, and melting-pot patrons. There was no counter or cash register. Cash never came through the door. Puss moved to a table that hosted two thin, gaunt men, each dressed in frumpy, rather oversized brown suits. "How was the sausage?" she asked them. Both tipped up game smiles.
"Just fine, Miss Puss, just fine," declared the one whose hair was thinning more than the other. "Where'd you get it? Hasn't had sausage like that since.what, Jonah, back before the Races?" The other man nodded in assent and the thin-haired man dabbed at his mouth with a clean square of velour that had been on the table as a napkin.
"I made it, Gipp. Scrab found a good grinder last week, so I decided to have a go at making my own sausage. Rosemary, sage and pepper."
"Cat's meat?" inquired Gipp.
"Pork, actually. You folk can get cat anywhere. I like giving you a bit of a treat." Her smile make her eyes twinkle. Goldtree was already precariously picking the plates off the table and carrying them back to the kitchen. The two men rose, tipped their heads in a polite nod to Puss and reached into their pockets. One set down a brass door handle, the other proffered a somewhat dirty wool cap, somewhat holey from being stretched out of shape.
Puss seemed pleased and took up the items. "That's perfect, Gipp. Thank you. Goldtree needs a hat like this."
"Bit misshapen," admitted Gipp, but Puss shook her head with a bonny grin.
"I'm a wizard with a needle these days. This is nothing to mend up. You gentleman have a fine evening."
As the two left, Jonah murmured over to Gipp, both of them maneuvering past a rather imposing man who was entering. "Don't care if she's got a girl s'not mine. If I thought she'd have me, I'd make her my own in a tic."
The two men exited and the man who was entering turned to watched them go before focusing his gaze on the front room. Goldtree was in the kitchen still, washing the dishes, and Puss was handing over the brown paper bag to a scrawny, fleet-looking young boy, obviously a rat-speaker. ".thirty of them in there," she was telling him. "And a present for Miss Whiskers from Goldtree." The boy nodded, put down four butter knives and a ladle whose handle looked liked it had been chewed on by a dog, took the bag and departed. The man was still standing just inside the door.
"Oh, go ahead and sit anywhere that's free," invited Puss, not looking up as she placed the newly-acquired items into a large basket near the door of the kitchen.
"Puss," said the man.
She looked up sharply. The light went away from her eyes and her features. She was very still.
"Oh," she said, a little bewilderedly. "Oh, hell."
de Carabas didn't supplement his words with that usual bit of a smirk. He found that he couldn't. "Generally a place, not a person, but I suppose you should be allowed free-association with whatever you please at the moment." He fell silent again and watched her get over the initial shock.
Puss swallowed, took a brisk bit of a breath and exhaled it sharply. "You weren't supposed to know I was here," she began, then realized he hadn't. He was looking at her with some honest amount of surprise, though most of it was artfully masked. "Oh," she said again, falteringly. "Well, you can leave, now. I don't have anything I want to say and I'd rather you not eat here."
"Actually, I find the whole meeting rather auspicious," he countered, regaining that nonplussed manner. "After all, our last encounter ended with my owing you a very large favor. It's fortunate for you I stumbled upon this place."
Puss stared at him a moment, then looked over her shoulder, leaned back and rapped softly on the kitchen door. Pushed open, the door admitted Goldtree, who was wearing a summer dress with the word 'Hawaii' printed all over it, a small, child-sized apron tied about her little waist. She came out and looked first at her mother, then at the Marquis. de Carabas stared at the little girl who had his dark hair, his stark-light eyes, and some of his brown complexion.
Puss' arm went around Goldtree's shoulders. "Your favor was claimed, Carabas," she told him. "After all, there's certainly nothing you have greater than this, is there?"
(To Be Continued.)