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Authors: Lucy Ribchester
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her Italian mother out of Soho. Visiting it always had the uncomfortable feeling for Frankie of going somewhere she felt she ought to know but didn’t. Whenever she
saw Wardour Street she would think of her grandfather Lucchese’s funeral, the blurred memory of a gun cart, an open coffin and black horses with sinister plumes.
She hopped off the bus at Leicester Square and made her way up Greek Street, where the markets were still going, auctioneers selling off the last of their antiques, costermongers tossing
half-rotten veg to children with wicker baskets. French laundresses walked the streets with panniers of pressed linen bound to their hips. The public houses spilled out onto the streets, and the
steamed windows of French bistros and Hungarian restaurants were full of well-dressed men being served rich-smelling stews. There were men and women of all hair and skin colours bustling about,
speaking a mixture of languages, that seemed to shift with each street corner you turned. Tailors’ houses and patisseries of sweets and cakes had closed their doors for the night. A man in a
chef’s hat was smoking in the doorway of a trattoria. Frankie asked him in broken Italian if he knew Jojo’s Cocoa Bar. He gestured down the street, pointing away from Soho Square
towards Duck Lane.
Several slick-dressed men were smoking clove cigarettes and laughing on the corner of the junction, and because of them she almost missed it. They were standing in front of a painted sign with
an arrow pointing down the lane. Beyond them, a curved staircase led down to a basement door, open just a chink, where warm red light spilled up, deep and inviting, A glazed poster flapped against
the railings in the night breeze, showing a carnival of harlequins, tumblers, exotic barely-clothed people, bearded ladies and a woman with two heads, all clustered around one figure hanging in the
centre, as if her trapeze strings were being held up by the clouds: Ebony Diamond.
A sweep of wind pushed the basement door open and Frankie blinked as two figures standing beside the poster were suddenly lit up. She recognised the shape and stance of one of them, an older
woman, and her mind cast back to the previous summer. She had seen her outside the Palace Theatre. Lady Thorne, leader of the National Vigilance Association, notorious for causing fuss outside
theatres with her pamphlets. She wore a long blue cloak with a fur-trimmed hood, showing off her sharp little features. She was waving a bunch of papers in the other woman’s face.
The other woman, as Frankie clocked her, was slight and young, shiny with greasepaint and shockingly, or so it appeared from the back, wearing nothing at all on her top half. Frankie did not
consider herself a prude and knew that strange things went on in Soho – she had once seen a gentleman in a shirt and morning coat and nothing else running down the street howling for his
breeches – but she blushed and looked at her feet as soon as she clapped eyes on the muscles of the girl’s back. As the girl shifted, Frankie saw that in fact a looped bunch of shells
and coins was just about protecting her modesty. Her hair was covered by a velvet turban. The girl launched a hand for Lady Thorne’s face, making the shells on her top hiss. The old lady
darted backwards with impressive speed. Now the men who had been lounging at the sidelines were taking an interest.
‘Will you leave us be? People will think you’ve escaped from St Barnabas.’ The younger woman tried to grab Lady Thorne’s cloak but instead ended up with a fistful of the
pamphlets. A sea of papers fell over the cobbled street like giant confetti.
‘Jezebel!’ the woman cried. ‘Sharper than a serpent’s tooth!’
The girl looked ready to launch another attack, but then she put her face in her hands and took a deep breath. ‘François, call one of the cabbies over.’
A man in a bowler hat took his cigarette out of his mouth long enough to whistle
saw Wardour Street she would think of her grandfather Lucchese’s funeral, the blurred memory of a gun cart, an open coffin and black horses with sinister plumes.
She hopped off the bus at Leicester Square and made her way up Greek Street, where the markets were still going, auctioneers selling off the last of their antiques, costermongers tossing
half-rotten veg to children with wicker baskets. French laundresses walked the streets with panniers of pressed linen bound to their hips. The public houses spilled out onto the streets, and the
steamed windows of French bistros and Hungarian restaurants were full of well-dressed men being served rich-smelling stews. There were men and women of all hair and skin colours bustling about,
speaking a mixture of languages, that seemed to shift with each street corner you turned. Tailors’ houses and patisseries of sweets and cakes had closed their doors for the night. A man in a
chef’s hat was smoking in the doorway of a trattoria. Frankie asked him in broken Italian if he knew Jojo’s Cocoa Bar. He gestured down the street, pointing away from Soho Square
towards Duck Lane.
Several slick-dressed men were smoking clove cigarettes and laughing on the corner of the junction, and because of them she almost missed it. They were standing in front of a painted sign with
an arrow pointing down the lane. Beyond them, a curved staircase led down to a basement door, open just a chink, where warm red light spilled up, deep and inviting, A glazed poster flapped against
the railings in the night breeze, showing a carnival of harlequins, tumblers, exotic barely-clothed people, bearded ladies and a woman with two heads, all clustered around one figure hanging in the
centre, as if her trapeze strings were being held up by the clouds: Ebony Diamond.
A sweep of wind pushed the basement door open and Frankie blinked as two figures standing beside the poster were suddenly lit up. She recognised the shape and stance of one of them, an older
woman, and her mind cast back to the previous summer. She had seen her outside the Palace Theatre. Lady Thorne, leader of the National Vigilance Association, notorious for causing fuss outside
theatres with her pamphlets. She wore a long blue cloak with a fur-trimmed hood, showing off her sharp little features. She was waving a bunch of papers in the other woman’s face.
The other woman, as Frankie clocked her, was slight and young, shiny with greasepaint and shockingly, or so it appeared from the back, wearing nothing at all on her top half. Frankie did not
consider herself a prude and knew that strange things went on in Soho – she had once seen a gentleman in a shirt and morning coat and nothing else running down the street howling for his
breeches – but she blushed and looked at her feet as soon as she clapped eyes on the muscles of the girl’s back. As the girl shifted, Frankie saw that in fact a looped bunch of shells
and coins was just about protecting her modesty. Her hair was covered by a velvet turban. The girl launched a hand for Lady Thorne’s face, making the shells on her top hiss. The old lady
darted backwards with impressive speed. Now the men who had been lounging at the sidelines were taking an interest.
‘Will you leave us be? People will think you’ve escaped from St Barnabas.’ The younger woman tried to grab Lady Thorne’s cloak but instead ended up with a fistful of the
pamphlets. A sea of papers fell over the cobbled street like giant confetti.
‘Jezebel!’ the woman cried. ‘Sharper than a serpent’s tooth!’
The girl looked ready to launch another attack, but then she put her face in her hands and took a deep breath. ‘François, call one of the cabbies over.’
A man in a bowler hat took his cigarette out of his mouth long enough to whistle
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