All That Glitters, page 15
‘I burnt it trying out a home perm.’ Jane repeated a tale of woe she’d overheard one nurse tell another in the workhouse.
‘Take a tip from me,’ Mandy dropped the brush on top of a mess of squashed sweets and spilt powder on her shelf, and proceeded to attack Jane’s eyebrows with tweezers. ‘Never, never, touch a home permanent. If you can’t afford to pay a good, and I mean a good, hairdresser to do your hair, then leave well alone. Tie it back, put it up, or cover it with a headscarf until you can beg, borrow or steal the money. What do you think?’ She looked at Judy who’d been watching her efforts.
‘More rouge, and lipstick?’
Mandy stood back. ‘You’re right.’
‘Can’t I see yet?’ Jane pleaded. Mandy had turned the chair away from the only mirror in the room, so Jane couldn’t watch what was being done to her.
‘Absolutely not until I finish. Do me a favour, Judy, fetch one of the Lady Godiva wigs.’
‘Black or blonde?’
‘Blonde, oh please, blonde,’ Jane begged.
‘Blonde would be disastrous with your colouring,’ Mandy declared decisively. ‘You need blue or grey eyes and a fair skin to get away with blonde hair. Dark lashes, brows and eyes like yours are a sure-fire giveaway to the dyed blonde.’
Judy slipped on a wrap and left the dressing room. She was back a few minutes later with a waist-length black wig.
‘And we don’t even have to pin your hair back to go underneath it.’ Mandy pulled it down over Jane’s head.
‘It’s tight,’ Jane complained.
‘You have to suffer to be beautiful.’
‘I’d have to do a lot more suffering to achieve that.’
‘Turn around.’
Jane left the chair. She turned and stared at her reflection in disbelief. Her skin had the smooth, artificial, highly-coloured porcelain quality of a mask. And the hair transformed her. It cascaded to her waist, soft, shimmering strands of fine silk that caught the electric light and reflected its glow, lightening her face, lending it an ethereal, translucent quality.
‘We have to call the other girls in to see this.’ Mandy put her hand on the doorknob.
‘No,’ Jane protested.
‘Come on, sweetie, I’m proud of my handiwork. I want to show it off.’
‘Someone might be around. The manager or one of the other usherettes.’
‘She’s right, Mandy, management might not like it.’
‘Management might not, but I know someone who will. We called in the photographer’s today to tell him you’re coming. You haven’t changed your mind?’
Jane hesitated.
‘Ten pounds, remember,’ Judy reminded.
‘I said I’d go with you.’
‘Right,’ Judy pulled a cigarette from a packet in her skirt pocket and lit it with a small silver lighter. ‘It’s fixed for next Tuesday, two o’clock.’
‘Where will I meet you?’ Jane asked nervously.
‘His place will probably be best. It’s the photographic studio on top of the furniture shop. You know it?’
Jane shook her head.
‘Why don’t we meet in the New Inn again?’ Mandy suggested, remembering her own first time in front of the camera. ‘We could have coffee and sandwiches there, like we did the other day.’
‘That would be nice,’ Jane agreed in a small voice, despising herself for allowing Mandy to see just how uneasy she was.
‘Don’t worry, it’s going to go fine. Just close your eyes and think of the money.’ Judy patted her arm encouragingly.
‘If we’re going to send the usherette and not the glamour puss out on duty it’s time to turn the princess back into Cinders and wipe this lot off your face.’ Mandy picked up a wet sponge, the jar of cold cream and set to work.
‘You sure you know what you’re doing, introducing that girl to Merv?’ Mandy asked after Jane had gone.
‘You heard Merv, two pounds for every usable new girl we introduce him to, and four for a local within easy distance who’d be prepared to work for him again.’
‘But Jane’s such an innocent. An absolute baby.’
‘An innocent baby who’s greedy for money, just like the rest of us. Come on, Mandy, have you been in this business so long you don’t remember what it was like to work forty-eight hours a week for ten bob? The girl’s ambitious, and if she’s got what it takes, she’d have found her own way in sooner or later. All we’ve done is give her a head start. And if the worst comes to the worst and Merv turns her down, there’s no harm done.’
‘Isn’t there?’
‘For pity’s sake, the man’s after photographs, not some of the other.’
‘But both you and I know what photographs can lead to.’
‘Only what you want them to lead to.’
‘Sometimes I think all you care about is money and that bloody shop you want to open.’
‘Too royal. I’m not getting any younger, and we all know what happens when the wrinkles come out and the firm bits start to sag. Make money while the men are smiling, that’s my motto. And they don’t smile at us for long in this business. Rusty told me London’s coming next week to see the show.’
‘They got new girls they want in?’ Mandy asked anxiously. Judy and Rusty were the oldest in the Revue, but it wasn’t always the oldest who were laid off. She’d put on a pound or two recently. She’d hoped no one had noticed, but what if Norman had, and he’d wired London?
‘Who knows? All I know is last time they came up, Ginger was in and Alice was out on her ear.’ Judy threw the dog end of her cigarette into the bin. Three years! If she could only last three more years she’d have enough to buy not only a shop outright, but one in a good area of London with a flat above it. And then, God help anyone who tried to tell her that sinful employment leads to tragedy, as her vicar cousin had done the time she’d worn a fur coat into his church.
‘I changed extra quick so I wouldn’t keep you waiting.’
‘And I told you last Tuesday that I wouldn’t walk home with you again.’
‘But I knew you didn’t mean it.’
‘I most certainly did.’ Jane turned her back on Haydn as she removed her usherette’s cap and pulled on her tam.
‘I thought our dance changed everything.’
‘It changed nothing.’
‘My, but you can be hard-hearted towards a fellow when you want to be.’
‘I don’t like people who fool around and make fun of others.’
‘Well if that’s the way you want to play it, why didn’t you say so?’ He fell to his knees and laid his hand theatrically over his heart, much to the amusement of three passing chorus girls, who couldn’t resist knocking on Rusty’s door to get her out to witness the spectacle. She was just in time to hear Haydn declaiming in his best Shakespearean voice, ‘I promise faithfully to be most serious, walk beside you without taking advantage … and …’ he gazed at Jane with round, pathetic eyes ‘most definitely not buy you any chips.’
‘I’d still rather walk home alone.’ Jane turned on her heel and followed the other usherettes out of the door, leaving Haydn to run after her.
Jenny had bought not one but two new dresses. She was wearing one now, a thin red crepe, that was dressy enough to go out in, but not too dressy, she hoped, to wear in the shop without exciting comment from the customers or her mother. She should have closed and locked the front door hours ago. Her father wouldn’t be pleased if he knew she’d stayed open this late, especially on a Saturday when there were likely to be drunks around. She looked up at the clock. Half-past ten. The people who’d been to the pictures had already walked up the hill. She could lock up now and keep a lookout, but when she saw Haydn she wanted their meeting to appear accidental, not contrived. She’d spent all evening planning it. She’d step outside, look up and down the street as though she were checking to see if there were any last-minute customers. He would see her, stop and say hello and then … then … then what? She could hardly invite him in straight away or blurt out that she loved him in the street. No of course not – he’d say more than ‘hello.’ He’d ask her how she’d been. She’d answer, ‘Lonely.’ Or would that be too obvious? Perhaps she should play hard to get. But what if that put him off, when she wanted him so much?
She looked across the road. The small grocer’s had closed hours ago. Then she heard a laugh she’d recognise anywhere. Haydn was standing beneath the lamp in front of the shop, talking to a couple of boys from Leyshon Street. Standing next to him was the small, slight figure of a girl. A tiny, mousy girl wearing a plain black dress, without a single ornament. She wasn’t even wearing a coat, although the night was cool enough for all the boys, including Haydn, to be wearing theirs. Jenny craned her neck trying to make out features that were half hidden below an enormous beret. But all she could see was a wide-lipped mouth and the tip of a nose. Whoever she was, she certainly wasn’t any Powell Jenny knew of, and none of the Graig girls she could think of were quite that short.
One of the boys staggered slightly. He must have come from either the Graig or the Morning Star. Haydn moved protectively closer to the girl and put his hand on her elbow. She shrugged it off. Did that mean they’d quarrelled? Or weren’t they going out together, after all? Well, even if she couldn’t see Haydn alone, she could still make sure that he saw her. Patting her hair to make sure the waves she’d created were still in place, she left the counter and opened the door. The clang resounded across the road. She looked up and down the hill, but Haydn didn’t turn her way, although he must have heard the shop bell. The other boys were looking at her, but not him. Trembling from a peculiar mix of emotions including anger, resentment and a sudden fear that it might be even more difficult than she’d thought to get Haydn back, she leaned through the open door and turned the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.
‘You’re working late tonight, Jenny.’
Glan Richards, a porter in the workhouse who lived next door to the Powells, had joined the group. Before she had a chance to answer him, the girl who was with Haydn took one look at Glan and ran off up the road. Jenny thought it strange, particularly when Haydn called after her and she kept on running.
‘Thought you might want a packet of cigarettes, Glan,’ she shouted, still hoping Haydn would turn and acknowledge her. He didn’t. Instead he followed the girl. A dry, burning sensation choked her throat as she slammed the door and thrust the bolts home. Tomorrow! Haydn would be in Ronconi’s with everyone else. He had to be. After all, where else could he go in Pontypridd on a Sunday evening?
The bells on St Catherine’s church were calling the faithful to morning service when Haydn turned up on the doorstep of Babs Bradley’s digs. She’d been looking out for him for half an hour although she would sooner have forgone the outing than admitted it.
‘Where we going, then?’ she asked, keeping him waiting as she pinned on her hat and pulled on her gloves.
‘The park?’ Haydn suggested. ‘We have an exceptionally good park here in Pontypridd.’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t let the slag heaps fool you. There’s some beautiful countryside around here. When you’re in a more amenable mood I’ll show you a lake where you can swim.’
‘What’s to say that I’ll ever be in a more amenable mood with you than I am now?’
‘No girl can resist my charm for long.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’ Irked by her theatrical airs and graces, he mimicked her Cockney accent. ‘But then, even if by some miracle you were in a loving and adoring mood, today wouldn’t be a good day to go. Every child on the Graig congregates around Shoni’s pond on a Sunday afternoon at this time of year to catch young frogs and baby minnows.’
She wrinkled her nose as she closed the door behind them.
‘What do they do with them?’
‘Fry them in dripping.’
‘You’re teasing me.’
‘Would I do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘On my word of honour,’ he said with a straight face as they walked along Broadway towards Taff Street and the park.
‘You’re pulling my leg.’
‘If you come to the theatre early next Wednesday, I’ll take you to the food market before we start rehearsing. Show you our laver bread. It’s black and sticky, and made from the most delicious seaweed. Goes down a treat fried with bacon and cockles.’
‘Now I know you’re lying.’
‘I’m trying to give you a lesson in Welsh delicacies, woman. And if there’s a better topping for bacon, cockles and laver bread than fried leggy tadpoles, I haven’t found it.’ Taking her arm he led her down the side of Woolworth’s, past the Park Cinema and over the bridge into the park.
‘This is lovely. All this greenery, you’d never guess we were in the middle of town.’
‘What did I tell you?’
They turned right, past a covered seating area and flowerbeds, brilliant with roses and geraniums, past a lido and through a children’s playground.
‘You used to play here when you were little?’
‘When I wasn’t kidnapping little girls and having my evil way with them. Come on, I’ll show you some of my secret places.’
‘I want to go over to that wall. Look, there’s someone walking down behind it.’
‘Oh that. That’s nothing.’
‘It has to be something.’
‘Just a sunken garden.’
‘Oh do let’s look. Do …’
She clattered off, tottering on her ridiculously high heels and leaving him no other option but to follow. When he caught up with her she was standing on a crazy-paved stone platform which had steps leading down either side. It looked over a heart-shaped sunken garden set with raised flowerbeds that bloomed in dazzling blazes of colour several feet below ground level. Benches were set in recesses built into the walls at intervals, most of them occupied by middle-aged women dressed in black.
‘Why are they sitting there?’ Babs demanded in a shrill voice.
‘This park is a Memorial Park to the dead of the last war,’ he said flatly hoping to shame her into leaving.
‘The war to end all wars?’
‘So they said until the newspapers started telling us that another’s going to start any day now.’
‘Three of my dad’s brothers never came back from France,’ she spoke in the strained, reverential tone her father had always adopted when talking of his dead kin and comrades.
‘Neither did my father’s brother or half the young men from Ponty. This park was bought and planted with money raised by public subscription. Just about everyone gave something.’
‘And this garden?’
‘Is somewhere where people can sit in silence and mourn the ones who never came home, not even in a coffin.’
He left, wishing he’d never brought Babs to the park, or at least that he’d walked off in the opposite direction when she’d spotted the sunken garden. She looked as inappropriate in that sacred spot, with her bright red suit, blue blouse, painted face and nails, as a tart in a convent.
‘You cross with me?’ she asked breathlessly when she finally caught up with him.
‘No. Over there, as you can see, are the tennis courts where the sons and daughters of the idle crache play, but if we go down here to the left, we end up in a wild, wooded area that leads down to the river. Not many people walk this way.’
‘Is that why you want to walk here? Because you’re ashamed to be seen with me?’
‘Hardly, when I’ve booked a table in the New Inn for lunch. You can’t get any more public in this town than that. It’s just that after half a season spent apart I thought we should take time to get to know one another again. Preferably in private.’
She’d made him angry. She looked and acted like she didn’t have a brain in her head, but she exuded a blatant, arousing sexuality he found irresistible after a week of sleeping alone. One brief session with her, and others with Rusty in his dressing room between shows, were no substitute for the shared bed and sex on tap he’d enjoyed with Babs in Brighton, and Rusty in Finchley.
‘Supposing I don’t want to get to know you again?’ she goaded him.
‘Oh, but you do.’ He kissed her lips.
‘Now you’ve got lipstick all over you. Here.’ She dabbed ineffectually at his mouth with a scrap of lace.
‘What say you, we retreat into those bushes and put some more on.’
‘Haydn, you’re always so …’
‘Wonderful?’ He fought his way through the undergrowth and gained access to the secluded copse he’d had his eye on.
‘No … so like nothing ever matters to you. Especially me.’
He took off his mackintosh, and spread it on the ground. ‘I assure you, madam, after a good time, you’re the most important thing in the world to me.’ He picked a daisy and solemnly presented it to her.
‘Really?’
He was finding it hard to keep up the jocular style he habitually adopted in the theatre, after looking down on the sunken garden. He should never have led her anywhere near the place. It had been special to him since the day his father had taken him there and explained why it had been built, and how it was the only grave his Auntie Megan had for her husband. And that whenever any of the grown-ups in the family wanted to mourn his brother William, that was where they went.
‘Ooh, you looked quite nasty then. What were you thinking about?’
‘You,’ he lied, suppressing his mood. ‘Come here woman.’
‘Why, so you can have your wicked way with me?’ She batted her eyelashes. He was left with the uncomfortable feeling that they were playing out the leading roles in a Victorian melodrama. He was growing tired of women who never stopped acting, on and off stage. For an instant, a brief instant, he almost walked away, then he noticed the swell of her breasts beneath her thin jacket, and the fullness of her legs clearly outlined beneath her tight skirt. Grabbing her hand he pulled her down beside him.
