"You're the most beautiful woman in the world, and I've never met anyone like you. But I don't need to, you know, stick bits in other bits to prove that." [loc. 542]
A delightful romance between a small-time criminal and a music-hall singer, set two years before Any Old Diamonds, and featuring cameos by characters from Charles' 'Sins of the Cities' trilogy. (I'm pretty sure Miss Christiana lives in Clem's lodging-house; her boss is definitely Pen Starling.)
Miss Christiana is in trouble with Kammy Grizzard, a sleazy and unpleasant fellow who intimidates, extorts and pimps. Kammy is disappointed in Miss Christiana, and bad things are about to happen when 'a pair of very badly cast fairy godmothers' (the Lilywhite Boys) turn up and make a deal. This, they explain to Christiana, is because their friend Stan has a crush on her, and they're doing him a favour.
Stan, unlike the Lilywhite Boys, is not given to violence: he would rather make and mend clocks. ("I know where I am with clocks.") He fences stolen goods for his friends, and sends most of his ill-gotten gains back to a large family in Poland, about whom I would love to learn more. Stan's never been romantically interested in anyone before, but he was drawn to Miss Christiana as soon as he saw her perform, and has been a regular at her shows ever since.
He's not quite sure how to handle the spiky young man he encounters in Christiana's dressing room.
The way the two negotiate around one another, questioning their own and each other's assumptions, is tender and touching. (Not that there is very much touching, because neither is interested in sex and both are capable of communicating this. Hurrah!) I especially liked the way that Stan adjusted his internal monologue when confronted by 'Mr Chris Morrow', in his grey suit and linen shirt, rather than Miss Christiana -- and how he instantly readjusted when Christiana explained that it was all her, all the time.
There is violence, threatened and actual (though bad things mostly happen to bad people, courtesy of the Lilywhite Boys: see under 'defenestration') and some deliberately offensive misgendering. But there is also a sweet and honest love story, with a happy ending, and a comfortable sense that Miss Christiana is unremarkable, unquestionable, to her colleagues and Stan's friends.
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