All That Glitters, page 11
‘I won’t forget,’ Jane promised solemnly. She looked down at the tray. Three glasses of orange juice still stood untouched. Mandy followed her glance.
‘Billy!’ she yelled. ‘We’ve bought you a drink, though why we bother when you can’t get off your behind to fetch it is beyond me.’
‘I’m busy,’ came the muffled reply from behind a closed door.
‘He takes more money off that orchestra every week than they earn,’ Judy said sharply. Opening the door to his dressing room she handed in the orange juice. ‘Won enough to stand me a supper after the show yet, Billy?’
‘And the rest of the girls as well,’ the German orchestra leader answered in his guttural tones.
Jane filed the knowledge away. Apart from the occasional game of Snap and Happy Families in the orphanage she’d never played cards, but if it was a way of making money it might be as well to learn. That’s if she could manage it cheaply.
Judy took the last two glasses and placed them on the floor outside the dressing room Jane already recognised as Haydn’s.
‘They’ll knock them over when they come out,’ Mandy warned.
‘When those two emerge, they’re going to need cooling down,’ Judy retorted flatly.
By the time the space between the last rows of seats had been checked for abandoned gloves, scarfs and handkerchiefs, and the final sweet wrappings and crumbs of cornet had been picked up from the floor, Jane could have lain down in the aisle, and slept. There had been no need for her to negotiate lodgings at seven and six a week. She would have been better off wangling a key to the theatre. Everything she needed was here: toilets in the dressing rooms, a sink and drinking water in the bar, a carpeted floor to lie on …
‘You walking our way Jane?’ Ann untied her apron. Her cap was in her hands, the hairpins that had clipped it in place bunched together at the end of the starched strip of cotton.
‘I live on the Graig.’
‘I live in Hopkinstown, Avril here lives in Mill Street and Myrtle and Myra in Pwllgwaun.’
‘Sheppard Street,’ Myra explained. ‘It’s handy because we can all walk home together, but it’s not your way at all.’
‘Know anyone who lives on the Graig?’ Ann asked Myra.
‘Only our prima don, or should I say Don Juan.’
‘If you’re at all worried about walking home by yourself, I could ask him for you,’ Ann suggested. ‘Underneath all that make-up Haydn’s quite human, or he was when he was a callboy.’
‘Haydn was a callboy here?’
‘Until just before last Christmas. We all thought a lot of him.’
‘But that was last year,’ Avril interrupted. ‘He’s changed. And if you want my opinion I think Jane would be a lot safer walking up the Graig hill without him escorting her.’
‘I’m not worried about walking home by myself,’ Jane lied. Last night had instilled terror enough in her for a lifetime. But perhaps tonight would be different. She wasn’t wearing workhouse clothes, and with lodgings to go to she wouldn’t be walking in dread of hearing a constable’s footsteps at every turn.
‘Well, we can go as far as Mill Street with you,’ Ann consoled her.
‘I’ve just got to get my coat.’
‘See you tomorrow, Mr Evans, Des,’ Ann called out to the under-manager and barman.
‘Night, girls.’
Jane went along to the dressing rooms. The mending was waiting for her at the end of the passage. She could hear loud conversation interspersed with laughter, and Haydn and Billy’s voices rising in unison, as they sang a rousing comic song about knickers and knockers – whatever they might be. She picked up the brown paper bag. One of the girls, probably Judy, had scrawled MENDING FOR THE USHERETTE across the outside in lipstick. Taking Phyllis’s coat from the peg at the back of the confectionery kiosk she followed the others along the corridor and down the stairs. A crowd of men had gathered at the stage door.
‘Now boys, remember what I said. No annoying the ladies,’ Arthur bellowed above their noise.
Head high, Jane carried on walking behind Avril, Ann, Myrtle and Myra. As she drew closer to the crowd she saw that one or two of them were holding bunches of flowers.
‘It’s only the usherettes.’
The voice might have been announcing a deeply mourned loss.
‘Could have told you that, Gwilym.’ His mate nudged him in the ribs as Jane faltered, debating whether to push her way through the crowd or walk around the perimeter as the others had done. That young one’s got a figure like a broomstick. No tits worth speaking of.’
‘Here, you, move on,’ the doorman shouted angrily. ‘I’ll have none of that language here. These here, are ladies.’
‘We can see that by the look of them, Grandpa,’ An anonymous voice cried.
‘Move on before I call the police.’ The doorman’s fury heightened with his colour.
‘Jane,’ Ann called sharply.
Jane ran past a row of shining black cars and taxis parked in Market Square until she caught up with them.
‘Take no notice of them, love. You’ll soon get used to it. The rest of us have.’ Avril pulled a triangular paper bag out of her pocket. ‘Peppermint?’
Jane shook her head. Accepting sweets meant that sooner or later she’d have to buy some to share around and she intended to save as much as she could.
‘What you got there?’ Ann asked, looking at the bag.
‘Mending. Some of the girls wanted sewing done.’
‘And you offered to do it?’
‘They’re paying me.’
‘I hope you set your prices at the same hourly rate you earn in the theatre. There’s no fun in working for nothing.’
‘I’ll make a profit.’
‘Just see that you do. Though why you have to mend and sew for the likes of them is beyond me,’ Avril commented acidly.
‘Seems to me it’s always the decent women in this world who get the worst deals.’
‘At least we’re respectable. And able to hold our heads up in any company.’
‘I’ll tell you now, Myra,’ Ann asserted forcefully. ‘For six pounds a week I’d think long and hard about giving up my respectability. My old man expected a sight more from me than just a peep show, and even when the pits were open and he was in steady work, the most housekeeping I ever got out of him was fifteen bob a week, and that was to keep me, him and the kids. After his accident it was all down to me. Work all night in the Town Hall, and all day cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing, and looking after him, and for what? He never took me on a bus trip let alone out in a fancy car like the ones that were waiting for those girls.’
‘Those cars in Market Square?’ Jane asked. ‘They were waiting for the Revue girls?’
‘You didn’t think they were waiting for Billy or Haydn, did you?’
‘There’s one or two men I know who wouldn’t say no to a night out with Haydn.’
‘Go on,’ Myra gasped. ‘Haydn’s not like that.’
‘I never said he was. But some men are.’
‘Those girls got it made,’ Ann harped on. ‘Silks and satins, best food, men sniffing around ready to shower them with flowers, jewellery, posh restaurants, trips out.’
‘Come on, Ann, you know as well as I do, you’d rather die than show what you’ve got to the world,’ Avril said in an attempt to end the conversation.
‘Nowadays there’s no one who’d pay to look, more’s the pity, so I can’t prove it to you one way or the other.’ Ann patted her grey hair into place. ‘But tell you what,’ she pointed at Jane, ‘if I was her age, I’d make the most of it and forget all about chapel morality. You can’t eat respectability and one of those Revue nudes told me before the show started that she’s got over two hundred pounds saved, and she’s only been touring for a year. She reckons she can live on under a pound a week. And the minute she’s got five hundred she’s getting out and buying herself a nice little business. A dress or hat shop, with a girl to help out. Now doesn’t that sound better than having to work the hours we do …’
Jane never heard the reply, as they’d reached Mill Street. She parted company with the others and began the long trek up the Graig hill, her mind awash with money-making ideas, but none as attractive as earning six pounds a week plus bunches of flowers, free dinners, outings and jewellery.
Chapter Seven
‘I kept a supper warm for you.’ Phyllis was alone in the kitchen when Jane walked in.
‘You didn’t have to. The last thing I want is to create extra work after you’ve gone to the trouble of taking me in.’
‘Seven and six a week includes breakfast and a hot meal.’
‘But I had soup earlier.’
‘First day, double rations. Tell me how did it go?’
‘It went fine.’ Jane took off Phyllis’s coat and hung it on the back of the chair before going into the washhouse.
‘It must be tiring, though?’
‘Nowhere near as tiring as scrubbing out the workhouse every day. Do you remember that time we stole dripping from the kitchens to put on our knees because they were so sore?’
‘And the time you pinched a whole loaf of bread from the nurses’ kitchen, hid it under your skirt and shared it out after lights out.’
‘Your …’ Jane hesitated, not quite knowing how to refer to the man of the house.
‘My Evan,’ Phyllis supplied to save both of them further embarrassment.
‘He’s right. We are better off out of it. That’s if I manage to stay out.’
‘This is only your first day. Everything, including the job, is bound to get easier as you get used to it, and if you want my advice -’ Phyllis lifted a dinner of mince, and cabbage and potato hash off a pan of boiling water and set it on a cork mat in front of Jane – ‘you’ll go to bed as soon as you’ve eaten this. You look washed out. Not that it’s surprising, considering you didn’t get any sleep last night. And another thing: I think as soon as you’ve worked off what you owe Wilf Horton you should drop the market, otherwise it will all get a bit much, and you’ll end up doing neither job properly.’
‘You know how hard we had to work in the workhouse. I’ll manage.’
‘It was different in the workhouse.’ Phyllis took the teapot from the warming rack on the range and poured out two cups. ‘If we didn’t work long hours we’d have gone without food, but life is different on the outside. Especially for a pretty young girl like you.’
‘Pretty?’ Jane laughed.
‘You are.’ Phyllis assured her seriously. ‘When your hair starts to grow, and you get some decent food into you and fill out a little …’
‘Fill out – enough to work in Revue?’
‘Is that what you want to do?’ Phyllis was shocked at the notion of any girl actually wanting to work in Revue.
‘Did you know they get six pounds a week?’
‘No I didn’t, but money isn’t everything.’
‘If we’d had money we’d never have had to go into the workhouse. And if I succeed in staying out, it’ll be money, not clean living, that will keep me on the right side of the walls.’
‘That’s as may be, but do you think for one moment that those girls are happy with what they’re doing?’
‘As sandboys. You should have seen the cars queuing up in Market Square after the show to take them home. And the men waiting with bunches of flowers and boxes of chocolates. Ann – she’s one of the usherettes – said they get given all kinds of presents: chocolates, lace handkerchiefs, even jewellery.’
‘At the end of the day they’re just things. You can’t hold them up against what really matters.’
‘And you should see the clothes they wear. Silks, satins, lace, furs and -’
‘And to pay for them they take their clothes off twice a night in front of hundreds of men.’
‘Not all their clothes.’ Jane blew on a forkful of piping hot mash. ‘Just their top bits.’
‘Oh, Jane,’ Phyllis began to laugh.
‘Have I said something funny?’
‘Not really. It’s just that you’ve got a lot to learn, about life, money and men. Have you thought about what you want to do, not now, but …’
‘When I grow up?’ Jane joked. ‘Make a lot of money. Buy a house, and -’ she remembered what Ann had said about one of the Revue girls – ‘a business that will keep me out of the workhouse for good.’
‘Not marriage and children?’
‘And be mauled around by a sweaty man every night? No thank you.’
‘Some women like being mauled, provided the mauling is done by the right man.’
‘Not this one.’
‘You’ve had a couple of bad experiences, that’s all. One day you’ll meet someone.’
‘If I have to, I hope he’s a millionaire.’
‘You never know, you might be lucky. But in my experience millionaires are pretty thin on the ground in Ponty.’ Phyllis refilled both their cups. ‘I’m sorry you had to work so late, otherwise you might have met everyone else. Eddie is still out.’
‘Eddie?’
‘I told you about the family earlier. Eddie’s Evan’s son, he and Evan’s nephew, William, share the bedroom next to yours. They both work for a butcher, but Eddie is training to be a boxer. That’s where they both are tonight. At a match.’
‘In the workhouse you told me you had no one. Now all of a sudden you have this huge family.’
‘Not that huge. Just Evan and the three – four now Evan’s eldest son has returned – boys, and Diana. I find it odd myself. I never thought Evan and I would live together this way.’
‘I’ll try to remember who’s who.’
‘You’ve had an awful lot to remember for one day. Tuesday is a busy day for them. Eddie has to open the shop early so they can cook meat enough for both Tuesday and Wednesday’s market day, and William has to be at the slaughterhouse by four to cut meat for Charlie’s stall, so you probably won’t see them at breakfast. Diana, she’s Evan’s niece, she tried to wait up for you, but she just couldn’t keep her eyes open. You’ll meet her tomorrow.’
‘That’ll be nice.’ Jane leaned back in her chair. She felt warm, and comfortable. The hash was good, and very welcome after a long shift with just one glass of orange juice to sustain her. She wondered if she’d ever feel flush enough to be as free with money as Mandy who’d bought three Fry’s chocolate bars between houses.
‘Did you see any of the show?’
‘I saw a few minutes of the first act and a couple of minutes of the last act before the break.’
‘And?’ Phyllis continued, feeling she knew Jane well enough to press for gossip.
‘As I said earlier there were a lot of girls standing on stage with no clothes on top. They hid their bottom bits with fans and things, but most of them were wearing knickers of one sort or another. Except one. When I saw her on stage she was wearing a pair of tiny knickers, but backstage she was nude all right.’
‘Nude?’ Phyllis repeated as though she couldn’t believe her ears.
‘Not a stitch.’
‘I don’t know how they can do it.’
‘Six pounds a week,’ Jane reminded her.
‘I wouldn’t do it for fifty.’
‘I would if I had the offer.’
‘You can’t be serious?’
‘If someone showed me the banknotes you’d soon see how serious I was. Honestly, the girls wear so much make-up on stage you’d never recognise them off. Most of them look quite ordinary in their street clothes. Just a bit more made up and dressed than most. There’s a couple of men on stage too, a comic, Billy and a singer, Haydn.’
Totally unaware that Haydn was Evan’s son, Jane prattled on, and Phyllis let her. After his distant politeness that morning, she was curious to discover exactly what had transformed the old Haydn into the detached, well-mannered man who’d breakfasted with her. His easy going charm and good looks had always been there for all to see, even when he’d worn rags. But since his return she sensed that Haydn the professional singer wasn’t the same person as Haydn the market and callboy. A hint of cynicism and lack of sincerity, a hardening of attitude and compassion – it was nothing she could put her finger on; just an underlying coolness she felt, more than observed. The smiles were still as frequent, the banter as humorous, but the smiles were too easily dropped, and genial bouts of talkativeness, even with Evan, had ended in silences which in his younger brother Eddie would have been construed as moodiness.
‘This Haydn, he’s incredibly handsome and he’s got an eye for the ladies,’ Jane chattered on, unaware of Phyllis’s heightened attention. ‘You know that nude I told you about, she was with him. In his dressing room. When I brought them ice creams during the break she was standing next to him.’
‘Alone with him, with no clothes on?’
They locked themselves into his dressing room between houses – shows. The other girls bought orange juices and I took them to the dressing rooms. They left two glasses outside Haydn’s door, said he and the girl he was with would need cooling down when they came out. He’s got quite a reputation. Avril- she’s another usherette – well, she said I’d be safer walking up the Graig hill by myself than with him – he lodges somewhere around here. And there’s rumours that he’s got more than one girl on the go.’
‘On the go?’
‘Come on Phyllis, you’ve been in the workhouse. You know what I mean.’
The front door closed. Footsteps echoed down the passage and halted outside the door. It opened, and Haydn stood there, his blond hair covered by an expensive trilby, a camel-hair overcoat draped over his shoulders. ‘I thought I heard voices. You didn’t have to wait up for me, Phyllis.’
‘I waited up for our new lodger.’
He looked into the room and saw Jane sitting at the table. A crooked smile played at the corners of his mouth as he removed his coat. ‘Well, hello again. That was good ice cream you brought us earlier, even if it was mushy around the edges.’ His greeting dashed Phyllis’s fragile hopes that Jane had exaggerated the story simply to entertain.
‘So where did you two meet?’ Haydn had demolished his plate of hash in record time and was now sitting in his father’s easy chair smoking a gold-banded cigarette and watching Jane.
