Like one who has a terrible addiction to the drink, who after years of abstinence accidentally picks up the wrong glass, their longing is unearthed by a mistake, and the sisters must now have more. Disturbed, because they have so swiftly and unexpectedly lost their footing and know they cannot fight it, they prepare to set out once more in search of Rafe.
But first, another shock. It isn’t their neighbours, or their ever-changing housekeepers and gardeners, it is those who pass through their lives in other small ways who notice.
‘Good morning.’ The postwoman is surprised that one of the sisters answers the door.
‘Good morning.’ Constance reaches for the package.
‘Dear me. I grow fatter, slower and greyer each year.’ The post-woman’s lingering gaze detects no change at all in the woman, who politely smiles at her pointed remark.
Hired at the beginning of the Great War, the postwoman retains her position, and during eight years of service she has come to believe that there is something queer about the residents of Lawless House.
Similarly, the elderly newsagent on Park Street often hesitates with a quizzical rheumy eye on Verity before he relinquishes the paper.
‘After all this time, it is now, when Camden Town grows even more populated, that I feel we’re in danger of losing our anonymity,’ Verity says.
‘Perhaps it’s time to make more drastic efforts,’ Constance suggests.
They are not often caught in a nostalgic web, but today their thoughts loom on the Limehouse of their past, where late on sultry nights they dressed as men.
‘Will it be you? Or me?’ Verity asks.
Constance studies her sister’s face.
‘Try a pair of your dark glasses.’
Verity chooses silver frames with dark green lenses and curls the wire around her ears.
‘Definitely you,’ Constance says.
‘All right then, do it.’
Constance takes the scissors to her sister’s hair and shears it like a hedge. With a little Brilliantine it rivals any man’s cut in its accuracy. Verity steps into a pair of tweed trousers; the hairy wool grazes her naked skin. A man’s shirt and waistcoat help fill out the suit’s jacket. For an off the peg, it appears expertly tailored. The brogues are from Jermyn Street where a smirking snob of a man measured her feet. Admiring their sheen, she sits with her legs crossed, surpassing the garçonne, looking every bit the man.
‘And now the derby.’ Constance places the hat on her sister’s cropped head. ‘You will pass, but you must be confident. Practise your walk while I change.’
Constance stretches a wig over her pinned-up hair. The chestnut-brown bob takes ten years off her. A chemise-style dress with a dropped waist accentuates the angular lines of her body. A hat and gloves, a long lavender scarf that serves as a wrap, and ankle-strap, button shoes complete her ensemble. She looks unremarkable, and not herself.
On this Saturday they travel south on the electric railway, changing lines three times before they see the light of Wapping. The scent of the river encases them, reminding them that every structure, every path has tentacles that eventually reaches the Thames.
‘You can relax, Verity. We are of no interest to this community. Look how it still clings to its identity.’
‘It does, Constance. Men look happy to be out of uniform and back to work.’
‘Those who returned,’ Constance reminds her.
The docks have survived the horrors of the Zeppelins, but not without casualties. It is impossible to calculate how many young dock workers, sailors, merchants and wharfingers never returned to Sailortown. With their absence in mind, the sisters find the streets and dwellings teeming with people. Barefoot children spill out onto the pavement to collect manure and coal.
‘Mr Atlee’s in charge of Limehouse now. He has work to do here.’ Constance murmurs.
Verity’s confidence builds with each step on the cobbled streets. No one pays the slightest attention to the tall man with the dark glasses. Twenty minutes later they arrive at Three Colt Street. An artificial teeth-maker occupies the Fowler’s former house. Displayed on velvet cloth in the front window, pink-gummed models varying in size seem to laugh at them in an entirely sinister way. Knots twist in their stomachs. A memory of Rafe’s form standing in the first-floor window sears them.
‘Come, Verity. Don’t dwell here.’
They hurry past the artificial teeth, as if chased by their clomping bites, stopping a few feet down the street at a lively spit-and-sawdust pub. Seated at the Five Bells and Blade Bone they nurse their shandies with a ridiculous hope that someone will fling helpful gossip their way.
‘That’s my limit,’ Constance says. ‘I can’t drink any more.’ Her glass is still three quarters full.
Snatches of conversation hum in the background and then one voice hovers closer than the others.
‘I am arrested by your appearances.’
A trace of accent clings to her delivery. The slight trill to her ‘r’ makes the sisters bolt up in their seats.
‘Shhh. Do not say a word.’ Clovis, with her back to their table, speaks over her shoulder. ‘You place him in danger by coming east.’
Constance refuses to stay silent. ‘Is he well?’
A chair scrapes the floor. Clovis slides into the empty banquette at the sisters’ table. They are buttonholed by her muscular perfume and stupefied by this turn of events.
‘Did you not hear me?’
The sisters heed this new vision of Clovis Fowler. Her hair is either cut and dyed or she wears a wig of dark brown finger-waves under her cloche hat. A box-shaped knitted dress clings to her torso and flares out into a pleated skirt. Her legs make their shapely appearance into the world. There is a moment’s pause as the three women face up to their fresh transformations born in a new century.
‘I know the reason you keep him from us. I saw the evidence years ago.’ Suddenly clear-headed, Constance careers to the heart of their quest.
‘You know nothing.’
‘We have recently written again to Benedikt with our concerns.’ Verity says.
‘He has no power here.’
‘That isn’t true. More than once he has intervened …’
‘Yes.’
