Chapter 1
London, present day
Fiona gave the spray can a hearty shake and aimed the nozzle straight at the window. Out came a satisfying stream of white foam that settled in the gaps left by the paper stencils. Even though once again the promised white Christmas seemed elusive, given the leaden skies and steady drizzle of the last week, inside Gran Jane’s flat there would be snow, snow, snow.
“Watch that drip,” Gran said, lifting herself up from the sofa.
Fair enough, there was a tiny amount of fake snow sliding down the pane. Fiona caught it with a Kleenex and stepped back to admire her handiwork. “Now we’ll have afternoon tea and then I’ll do the rest of the decorations,” she said.
It felt strange to be climbing into the attic space where her grandmother kept her boxes with baubles, tinsel, and fairy lights, that used to enchant Fiona as a child. Back then, twenty years ago, she’d counted the days on the kitchen calendar until her mum would take her to Gran’s.
The procedure was always the same. They’d enter a silent living room where only rows and rows of fairy lights on the mantel would twinkle, until in one magical moment, the lights on the tree would burst into blazing life, and the record player would play “Winter Wonderland”. Fiona would burst into a face-splitting smile, which would grow bigger and bigger when she was allowed to climb onto a chair and put the topper on the Christmas tree.
This year though she’d be the one doing all the work, with Gran resting on her sofa with a sprained ankle. It could have been much worse, Fiona thought, considering the nasty tumble Gran had taken when she slipped on a lettuce leaf, of all things. It was a miracle really that at the age of 67 she hadn’t broken every bone on her body.
Fiona grabbed the box marked “Christmas decorations” and dragged it across to her. In doing so, she noticed another, much smaller box in a hard-to-reach corner. She took a closer look. On the side, it said “Christmas treasures” in a faded writing unlike Gran’s. Curious, she put her box aside and wiggled into the corner to claim her new find. She had to dust it off first, but instead of giving in to temptation and peeking inside, she dutifully clambered down with it, silently congratulating herself on her mature behaviour.
“Look what I found,” she said as she set down the small box on the coffee table.
Gran adjusted her spectacles. Her mouth fell open in astonishment. “I haven’t thought of those things in ages.” Her hand tenderly touched the lid.
“What’s inside?” Fiona asked.
“Family heirlooms that my grandmother said were magic.” Gran chuckled, a deep, satisfied sound that rose in her chest and travelled all the way up. “See for yourself.”
With exquisite care, Fiona untied the faded ribbon that once must have been a deep red velvet, but now was almost bald and faded to a pinkish tinge.
Inside, wrapped in tissue paper brittle with age, lay an angel-shaped tree topper, and a bauble. Fiona picked up the milky glass sphere with a golden shooting star spreading out around it. “It’s beautiful.”
Gran reached for it, but her hand must have shaken. The precious bauble dropped onto the floor.
“Oh, no,” Fiona cried out.
“Is it broken?” Gran asked, anguished.
“It seems fine, only the fastening has come off.” Fiona took a closer look. “There’s something inside. It looks like a strip of paper.”
Her words gave Gran a jolt. “What? Can you take it out?”
With a pair of tweezers, Fiona managed to get hold of the small strip. She rolled it and weighed it down on both ends with glasses, so she would touch it as little as possible. She could make out faint writing, impossible to read without a magnifying glass.
“What about your phone?” Gran asked. “You told me there’s nothing it can’t do.”
“Clever clogs,” Fiona said. A bit of fiddling with zoom and filters, and she could read the message. She blinked and read it again. “Very Zen,” she said. ““Find the other me and happiness will find thee.”
Gran’s eyes lit up. “It’s a message from the past,” she said. “It must have been meant for you all along.”
“What are you talking about? Some kind of fortune cookie in a bauble?”
“No. This was given to my grandmother, by a lady with special gifts. She told me about it once when I was little, but then I forgot.” Gran lightly fingered the bauble. “My granny gave me this box when I left Australia in 1978.”
“What special gifts? What lady?”
“Pour us some tea, and I’ll tell you.
Chapter 2
December 1931
Frances Palmer stood stock still. All around her, a crowd of shoppers bustled about, newspaper vendors cried out headlines, and veterans tried to hawk wooden pegs and other handmade objects.
She didn’t notice any of it. All she saw was a shop window filled with the most beautiful Christmas tree she’d ever seen, and a dozen wrapped parcels underneath. For this was Liberty’s of London, where the famous prints and the most exclusive garments and home wares came from.
“Shall we have a geek inside?” Uncle Sal, her godfather and, as a retired vaudeville artist formerly known as “Salvatore the Magnificent”, a man of the world, tucked his arm under her elbow.
“Much too expensive,” she said. “But it is bonzer, isn’t it?” A girl sniggered as she heard Frances’s Australian idiom, or maybe it was the accent, but Frances ignored it. After all she had been born and raised in Adelaide, and this was her first trip far away from home.
Uncle Sal jingled a few coins in his pocket. “We’re not paupers, love.”
The idea was tempting, but she shook her head. “Let’s move on.” They turned from Regent’s Street into a smaller alley, where a young boy of seven or eight handed out pamphlets. “Come and see Madame Gloria,” he sang out. “Find out all about your future and your past. Discover the name of your true love.”
A few people took a flyer as they strolled last the boy,
“Madame Gloria?” Uncle Sal’s brow knitted. “Now I wonder - son?”
“Yes, sir?”
“This fortune-teller, is she related to the Fratellis who used to perform at the Alhambra?”
The boy’s eyes grew wide. “That’s us alright. Do you know my nana?”
“Do I ever. I used to share a stage with her, back in the day.” He turned to Frances. “Top-billing, she had, and well deserved too. My name came a wee bit further down the playbill.”
Frances took the pamphlet. “Then we should go and see that show.”
“How about tonight?” Uncle Sal rubbed his hands with obvious joy. “Even if it’s only the two of us, or three, if Mildred is free, it’ll be fun.”
Frances’s fiancé, Jack Sullivan, had already agreed to accompany his mother Katherine and her husband Charles to a dinner with Charles’s elderly relatives. Normally Frances and Uncle Sal would have gone along, but the family members in case were supposed to be bores of the first degree, as Katherine confessed cheerfully, and she wanted to spare her future daughter-in-law the ordeal.
“If you’re mates with my nana, I could take you now,” the boy said. He slapped a cap on his dark curls and stuffed the pamphlets into his pocket.
“What’s your name?” Uncle Sal asked as they followed him through a maze of alleys.
“Dave,” the boy said. “Or rather, Davide, after my dad, but nobody calls me that.”
Their journey ended at the back entrance of a narrow Victorian terrace. Dave rapped a staccato on the door. A gimlet-eyed woman of majestic proportions, with impossibly black hair opened. Large golden hoop earrings glittered on her earlobes, although their effect was spoiled by the sensible pinny that covered most of her black silk dress.
She gave them a wondering look before she broke into a huge grin and grabbed Uncle Sal’s hands. “Salvatore the Magnificent, and not looking a day older since I last clapped eyes on you. So, you’re the surprise I was promised.” She gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “And who is this young lady?”
“My goddaughter. Frances, love, meet the finest fortune-teller in all of England.”
“Clairvoyant,” Madame Gloria corrected him. “Fortune-teller smacks of cheap tricks, whereas I see the truth.” She invited them into a snug parlour, where the remains of a substantial lunch stood on a table. Everything Frances saw was scrupulously clean and old-fashioned, except for a brand new looking wireless the size of a small cabinet.
They sat on an overstuffed sofa from which an indignant cat had been shooed off. The cat now lay curled up in front of a fireplace.
“How long has it been?” Uncle Sal asked. “1907, wasn’t it? Just before the Music Hall strike?”
“I don’t mind telling you, Sal, the stage has never been the same again. Least not since after the war. So many fine young men, just gone.” Madame Gloria’s face clouded over.
“But we’re still here,” Uncle Sal said. “And you’re still working on stage.”
Madame Gloria nodded, but to Frances, it looked like a resigned gesture.
“What’s wrong?” Uncle Sal asked. “Not many people in the audience?”
“I don’t mind a small house,” the clairvoyant said with simple dignity. “Intimacy helps with my readings. No, it’s not that.”
“Then what is spoiling your fun? You can trust us. There’s a good-oh number if secrets we’ve kept, Frances and me.”
Madame Gloria twisted an earring until Frances worried, she might tear her own earlobe. “Somebody’s using my show,” she said. “A jewel thief.”
Frances gasped, and Uncle Sal blew out his breath. “Are you sure?”
“It’s happened at least twice. The first one was an old client of mine. She lost a necklace with a large ruby pendant. I thought she might just have been mistaken and dropped it somewhere else, but then it happened again. A gold watch went missing from its chain.” She bit her lip. “If it happens again - the police might even think it’s me, or one of mine.”
“That is serious,” Uncle Sal agreed.
“It’s devilish,’ she said. “Who can I trust? I’ve asked the cards, and the tea leaves, but the only clue I got was that there’d be a good surprise in store. Which must be you.”
“Can we see the theatre?” Frances said. “Maybe if we have a look at the layout, we’ll have an idea.”
“I don’t see what good it could do, but by all means.” Madame Gloria heaved herself upright.
The theatre, or rather a tiny music hall at the front of the building reached by a staircase to the basement, consisted of a wooden stage with a black velvet curtain, a dozen tables with seating for six people each, and a small dressing room at the back. It had a cosy feeling, more like Jack’s nightclub back home.
For an instant, Frances felt a pang of homesickness. She’d never away been from her mum at Christmas. Adelaide would now be experiencing endless sunshine and blue skies, with a gentle breeze that would hopefully keep the scorching summer heat at bay. Here in London, Frances spent most hours being chilly.
This room though was warm, an important factor in a venue that relied in audience word of mouth.
“Do you have a guest list?” Uncle Sal asked. “And a list of staff?”
“We tend to rely on ticket sales at our box office, if you can call it that. Dave’s big sister Anna is in charge of that, their stepdad is our doorman, and the landlord’s two sons act as paid audience members, to draw in custom. Nigel and Ted think of themselves as a bit fancy, but they’re reliable.”
“Does anyone of them move around freely?” Frances spotted a bar at the back. “Do you have a bartender?”
“He comes with the premises. Stiff leg, since Flanders, but there’s no drink he can’t mix. All the others are out and about, so to speak, taking orders and serving drinks and what-have-you.” Madame Gloria gave them a wan smile. “You can see for yourself tonight.”
“We will. We have another appointment now, but we’ll see you tonight.”