All That Glitters (9 page)

‘Please, Evan?’

‘Until her wages come in. Not a day longer.’

‘Bless you, I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’ Phyllis hugged him before opening the washhouse door. ‘Jane, is seven and six a week for full board and lodge all right?’

The box room was seven foot by five. A single bed was pushed beneath the window. Alongside it, a chest of drawers with a jug and bowl on top did double service as a washstand, leaving an area only just large enough to stand, or stretch out your legs if you sat on the bed. The curtains and bedcover were of a faded green cotton which hadn’t even been pretty when new. But to Jane the room was the most beautiful she’d seen. The first that was hers, and hers alone.

‘There’s no wardrobe, not even room for one.’ Phyllis apologised, stripping the bed and replacing the embroidered linen cloth set below the jug and bowl with a fresh one. ‘But the drawers in the chest are deep enough to take most things, and if you’ve anything that needs hanging up, I’m sure Diana won’t mind making room for it in her wardrobe. Her room is across the landing, the boys are next door, and Evan and I are in the middle,’ she added, making certain Jane understood exactly how things stood.

‘I feel awful turning your little boy out of his room like this,’ Jane apologised as Phyllis picked up Brian’s teddy bear.

‘He won’t mind, leastways not for a week or two until you get your first wage packet. Now, I’ll move Brian’s things across to our room.’

‘Please don’t bother. All I’ve got is what I’m wearing.’

‘But you’re going to need clothes to change.’

‘I’ll get them. Just as soon as I’ve made some money.’

‘Until then, you’re going to have to let me lend you what you need.’

‘I couldn’t. You’ve done enough for me already.’

‘For a start, young lady, you’re going to need a towel, and a flannel.’ Phyllis walked across the landing to the bedroom she shared with Evan and pulled out the bottom drawer of a tallboy. Jane, unsure whether to follow or not, hovered outside the door, staring in fascination at the largest bed she’d ever seen. ‘And a brush and a comb,’ Phyllis continued.

‘I bought this from a pedlar outside the market,’ Jane pulled the comb from her pocket.

Phyllis glanced at the cheap Bakelite comb. She’d owned one like it. If it lasted a week Jane would be lucky.

‘Let me see, soap, a nailbrush,’ Phyllis removed the items from the drawer that Evan’s wife had always kept well stocked with stores she never dipped into. ‘And underclothes and a nightgown. Did they give you one in the workhouse?’

Jane shook her head, ashamed because she needed so many things.

‘Here,’ Phyllis took a floor-length white cambric, lace-trimmed gown from tissue paper.

‘Oh no. I couldn’t wear this. It’s far too grand.’

‘Take it.’ Phyllis thrust it at her. ‘It belonged to a very good friend of mine who kept it for best. She was over eighty when she died, and her “best” never came. I think she’d rather like the idea of you wearing it now.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Try thank-you. It’s generally enough for most people.’ Phyllis held out her arms and hugged Jane. Jane shrank from her touch. Being embraced was a new and bewildering experience. ‘Now if you’re going to be in the Town Hall at four o’clock, it’s time we warmed that soup up you didn’t touch at dinner time so you can go off on a full stomach.’

‘Haydn, I can’t dance another step or sing another note.’ Babs Bradley, the pretty, curly-haired blonde, who’d landed the choice leading lady role in the Variety, made a face as she slumped on the floor of the rehearsal room.

‘Then we’ll have no show to open a week Monday.’ Haydn was worn out and impatient from the morning’s rehearsals. ‘Come on, Babs, act like a trouper.’ He gripped her hands and pulled her to her feet.

‘We’re not going to get anywhere if you persist in playing the Prime Donna, Babs,’ ‘Chuckles’ Byrne complained. The show’s producer had been given his nickname because he’d never been known to smile, much less laugh. ‘Take five, everyone.’

‘Thank God.’ Babs miraculously perked up. ‘I need an ice cream.’

‘If you ask me she needs a good kick up the arse.’ Max Monty, the show’s comedian muttered to Chuckles. ‘If it was Haydn who was playing up, I could understand it. After all, the poor sod’s been rehearsing revue all morning.’

‘The way she’s carrying on, anyone would think Babs was the bloody star of this show.’

‘As opposed to you, Helen?’ Chuckles suggested drily, turning to the tall, dark girl who stood behind him.

‘You said it, Chuckles, not me.’

‘Well, star or not, as you’re here you can run through the Avenue routine with Haydn and Max.’

Haydn managed to summon up more energy as Helen walked into the centre of the room. Dressed in a skirt cut higher and a bodice even lower than those of Babs, she exuded sex. And with her make-up-free face and open smile, it was a cleaner, healthier sex than the titivating, astringently perfumed eroticism that the girls of the Revue radiated. Max joined them, carrying three canes. He tossed one to Haydn, the other to Helen. Chuckles nodded to the pianist, who hit the opening notes. He chanted, ‘One, two, three, go.’

‘We would drive up the avenue …’ Chuckles beat time to the music then screamed, ‘Stop!’ Trained by endless fraught rehearsals, all three froze. ‘Max, you’re the shortest, you go in front. Helen, you next. Haydn, bring up the rear. That’s it, and again … one two three …’

‘Chuckles is a bloody slave-driver,’ Babs said as she came back with her ice cream. Eating it one-handed, she took off her shoes and rubbed her feet. ‘Him with his, “one more time, one more time”. I’ll have no feet or voice left by the time this show actually opens.’

‘Then Helen had better rehearse lead, and you second fiddle,’ Mousie Summers, the ‘head’ chorus girl sniped.

‘I suppose you’d prefer it if I was out altogether, so you could be promoted to second fiddle?’ Used to giving as good as she got, Babs mimicked Mousie’s bitchy tone perfectly.

‘Well, if you’re giving up …’

‘One dusting of talcum powder and I’ll be back on form. Don’t worry your pretty head about me, Mousie.’

‘That one’s a cow,’ Harriet, the youngest of the chorus girls declared as Babs left in search of a drink.

‘Aren’t we all when we set our sights on a higher rung in this bloody business,’ Freda the oldest and most cynical of the girls observed.

‘Full chorus for Avenue!’ Chuckles yelled, carried away by the momentum of the music.

‘That’s us.’ Mousie stubbed out the cigarette she’d lit up in defiance of the No Smoking signs beneath the toe of her tap shoe. Freda clamped her hands on Mousie’s waist, Harriet did the same, and as the piano belted out the refrain they shuffled behind Haydn, Helen and Max, three in a snake of twenty toe-tapping, singing girls, all of them desperately trying to look as though they hadn’t a care in the world.

‘No! No! No! Call yourself chorus girls!’ Chuckles stamped his foot so hard he hurt his ankle. Hopping and swearing, he took his anger out on the hapless dancers.

‘Haydn, Max, Helen take a break. You deserve better than this row of dancing bears at your back. Now …’

Glad to be out of the spotlight for five minutes, Haydn slipped out through the door and made his way across the theatre to the bar. He glanced up at the clock. Three o’clock. Half an hour left of Variety rehearsals, if he was lucky, none involving him, then an hour and a half’s break before the curtain went up on the first of the two Revue performances. Another eight hours before he could walk home, and he was on his knees now. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what rehearsing was like. Why, oh why had he agreed to open in the Variety?

Money! the little nagging voice at the back of his head sang out. It had been barely six months since he’d left home. He’d sent half his wages to his mother until his father had written and told him to stop because they no longer needed it. After that he’d been able to keep himself in style, or at least what he considered style, and he’d still managed to save over a hundred pounds, which he’d stowed safely away in a Post Office account book. And between getting nine pounds ten shillings a week for playing in the Revue – above rates because few Welsh singers were prepared to be associated with nude revue on their home territory – plus five pounds rehearsal fee for the Variety until it opened, when he would be cut to a flat seven pounds a week, he was well on the way to making it a great deal more. Life was good. So good in fact, it was worth putting up with Babs’ tantrums and his own aching feet.

‘Beer, Haydn?’ Joe Evans asked as he walked into the deserted bar.

‘Those words are magic to my ears.’

‘Seeing as how doubling up on work has put you in desperate need, this one’s on the house.’ Joe walked behind the cream and gilt bar, lifted a bottle from a crate and poured the beer into a glass. It frothed over the top and down the sides.

‘You might be a first-rate assistant manager, but you’ll never make barman.’

‘That’s just as well, seeing as how I’ve no intention of tending bar.’

Haydn climbed on to a stool, stretched his legs and picked up the glass.

‘You’d better make it up with the lady.’

Haydn looked blankly at Joe.

‘None of your innocent looks. This is Joe who knew you when you were a callboy, remember. The whole theatre understands exactly why Babs is being difficult. I heard her shouting at you earlier for making sheep’s eyes at Helen.’

‘I barely know either girl.’

‘That’s not what I heard. You and Babs made quite an impression in the Brighton pantomime. And not only on stage, from what I’ve been told.’

‘By who?’

‘The same little bird who told me you’ve made a great deal more than just sheep’s eyes at Rusty from the Revue.’

‘Busy bird.’

‘Haydn,’ Joe shook his head as he bent over the bar account book. ‘Take the word of a happily married man …’

‘There’s no such thing.’

‘You’re looking at it. Why don’t you stop playing around, settle down and join us?’

‘You suggesting I should marry Babs?’

‘No, and not Rusty from the Revue either.’

‘Her husband might object if I tried.’

‘All the more reason to stop playing around and settle down with a nice, normal girl. We’ve a monopoly on them in Ponty.’

‘Introduce me to one who’ll go out with a boy who does what I do for a living, and I’ll think about it.’

‘Is that a challenge?’

Haydn sipped his beer and thought about Jenny. ‘No it’s not. Perhaps I’m not fit company for showgirls let alone decent girls any more, Joe. Have you thought of that?’

By the time Haydn left the bar, Chuckles had called halt to rehearsals for the day. He and Norman were in the auditorium talking to the manager. Haydn glanced at his wristwatch. He had three-quarters of an hour to himself before Billy and the girls from the Revue came in. Joe was right about one thing: he ought to apologise to Babs. After all, he’d be rehearsing with her for the next two weeks, and working with her for six weeks after that. If she took her anger with him out on everyone else as she had done this afternoon, the situation would soon become intolerable for the whole cast.

He walked around the back of the stage and down the corridor that led to the dressing rooms. There were only four. He’d managed to commandeer one for himself because he had to store not only his half-finished costumes for the Variety, but also his costumes for the Revue. He put his hand on the door handle, and hesitated. Dabs and Helen had been given the daytime use of Rusty’s room, next door to his. She might still be there … He took another step and knocked.

‘Yes?’ The voice was thick with tears. He wished he hadn’t bothered, but he could hardly turn back now.

‘Babs, it’s Haydn.’

‘So?’

‘Come on, open up. I can’t talk to you through a plank of wood.’

‘It’s open.’

He stepped inside, negotiating his way around the usual litter of greasepaint, costumes, odd shoes and dancing slippers.

‘Where’s Helen?’

‘She went early. She’s meeting a friend for tea. A gentleman friend.’

‘Can I sit down?’ He picked up the only other chair in the room, swung it towards him and sat on it the wrong way round, leaning his hands on the back.

‘Why should I let you after you spent the entire afternoon flirting with Helen?’

‘Babs, Babs, can’t you tell the difference between rehearsing and real life?’ He reached out and ran his fingertips over her bare arm.

‘That wasn’t rehearsing, Haydn Powell, and you know it. You were trying to get into her knickers, and she, tart that she is, was lapping it up. If it had been anyone else I wouldn’t have given a damn. But Helen! You know I have to share a dressing room with her. And where does that leave me? Well I’ll tell you, looking a right bloody fool.’

‘I was trying to get to know her. We have to work together. I want her to become a pal, like Max.’

‘I’ve never seen you kiss Max when you thought no one was looking.’

‘That’s because I don’t have to kiss Max on stage, thank God. We were practising, that’s all. Come on Babs, I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to kiss someone for the first time in front of a man like Chuckles. He’ll shout that I’m puckering my lips all wrong, or kissing too fast, or too slow, or not in step, or so badly I must be a fairy.’

She smiled in spite of herself.

‘That’s better.’ He left his chair and locked his arms around her waist, but she wasn’t prepared to be placated. Not yet.

‘The trouble is you’re a flirt. I don’t know where I am with you. After Brighton you said you’d write, count the moments until we could be together again. I never got a single letter.’

‘I sent them.’

‘Did you?’ She gazed at him sceptically.

‘You’re here with me now, that’s what’s important.’ He aimed a kiss at her lips, but she turned her head and he found himself kissing the back of her neck. Undeterred he slid his hands round to her small, pointed breasts. ‘How about I send out for sandwiches, cream cakes and tea,’ he murmured in her ear as he teased her nipples through the thin fabric.

‘You think I can be bought that cheap?’

‘I’d suggest dinner, but I have to work tonight.’