All That Glitters, page 9
‘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.’
‘With nudes.’ She wrenched herself from his embrace.
‘You know I’d prefer to be with you. How about Sunday? Lunch at the New Inn. It’s not the Ritz, but it’s the best place this town has to offer.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘Never mind afterwards, how about before? We could go for a walk in the country. Work up an appetite. I know a few secluded beauty spots.’
‘I bet you do.’
‘You’re irresistible when you’re angry.’ He moved towards her, pinning her into the corner next to the make-up mirror.
‘Haydn …’
As his lips closed over hers, he reached out and turned the key in the lock. Her skirt was short and very full. Once he’d unfastened the button at the waist it fell around her ankles. He lifted her into his arms. Still kissing her, he opened one eye and looked around. A purple velvet cloak trimmed with rabbit fur dyed to imitate ermine was draped over a peg on the back of the door. Without relinquishing his hold, he lifted it down and dropped it to the floor.
‘Haydn, it will get filthy.’
‘I’ll brush it afterwards.’
‘But …’
‘Nothing’s too good for my lady,’ he teased with mocking gravity, lowering her on to the bed he’d made. Leaning on his elbow next to her, he slid his hand beneath the skimpy silver top.
‘Naughty,’ she smiled as his fingers encountered bare skin.
‘Beats me how you don’t freeze to death on stage.’ He lifted the hem and pulled it over her head.
‘I do freeze to death.’ She arched her back and thrust out her breasts. ‘But I have no choice, my costumes aren’t exactly built to accommodate woolly vests.’
‘So I see.’ He slid his hand into her silver cloth knickers.
‘Don’t.’
‘Why not? We’ve plenty of time, and,’ he smiled as his hand slid deep between her thighs, ‘it’s not as though you don’t want it every bit as much as I do.’
‘The door …’
‘Is locked.’
‘The others …’
‘Are gone.’
‘What if someone hears us?’
‘If the noise you make is true to form they’ll think I’m a very lucky man,’ he murmured as he pulled off his shirt and moved on top of her.
Chapter Six
Jenny Griffiths meandered restlessly from the end wall of the shop where she was dusting shelves in a half-hearted fashion, to the window and back. Logic told her that Haydn Powell wasn’t likely to call in, not after she’d thrown herself at Eddie in the New Inn last night, but logic didn’t stop her from hoping otherwise. She glanced at the clock for the sixth time in less than a minute. The hands were fixed obstinately at four o’clock. The first show in the Town Hall started at five. If Haydn had gone home to eat before the performance he would have had to start back by now. She knew he’d gone out early that morning because she’d seen him pass by on the opposite side of the road. But he hadn’t turned his head in the direction of the shop. Not once, although she’d clenched both fists and willed him to do so with all her might.
The door clanged open and she started nervously.
‘Jenny,’ Eddie Powell greeted her.
‘You gave me quite a turn. I didn’t see you coming.’
‘I came up Factory Lane. I’ve been delivering over in Maesycoed.’
‘Charlie’s got a butcher’s round?’
‘You know Charlie, any chance of making a bob or two and he’s there. I only hope he makes enough to buy a van to replace the bicycle before next winter.’
She moved in front of the till, glad the counter was between them. Eddie unsettled her and it wasn’t simply his dark, brooding good looks, or even the passion she nurtured for his brother. She didn’t love Eddie, not in the same way she loved Haydn, but neither had she forgotten the night she had lost her senses and succumbed to his physical, almost brutal lovemaking. Every time she remembered it, like now, it brought floods of colour to her cheeks, and the shameful urge to repeat the experience.
‘Packet of Woodbines and a box of matches.’ He pushed a two-shilling piece across the counter.
Thursday, the day before pay day and Eddie had two shillings in his pocket. But then times had changed from the days when Haydn and his sister Bethan had been the only breadwinners in the Powell family. She put the cigarettes on the counter and took his money. ‘I enjoyed last night,’ she ventured, hoping he’d say something about Haydn. Any news, even second-hand from Eddie, was preferable to no news about Haydn at all.
‘Like to do it again some time?’
‘In the New Inn?’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s expensive.’
‘Not that bad,’ he said airily. ‘I can afford to take you.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘What about Saturday?’
She turned her back on him as she counted his change out of the till. Why not go out with Eddie? It wasn’t as if she could go out in the evenings with Haydn. Even if he’d wanted to take her he wouldn’t be free. And Eddie would be able to tell her what Haydn was doing. She’d find out if there was another girl … She gripped the till hard with both hands, not wanting to consider the possibility.
‘Well?’
She turned to see Eddie staring expectantly at her. ‘Do I book tickets for the next supper dance, or not?’
‘I’d rather go to a show.’
‘The one that’s opening tonight in the Town Hall?’ he teased suggestively.
She glanced outside before answering, to make sure no one was likely to walk in on them. ‘My mother would have a fit if she thought I even knew what kind of a show is running there at the moment.’
‘Our Haydn said it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Most of the girls have something on underneath the fans and flowers. None of them – well, none of them have nothing on at all,’ he divulged, trying to conceal his embarrassment at discussing nudes with a decent girl like Jenny Griffiths.
‘I’d like to see your Haydn on stage.’ She almost choked on Haydn’s name, but Eddie didn’t appear to notice.
‘I’ll get tickets for his opening night in Variety,’ Eddie offered, expecting her to wriggle out of giving him a straight yes or no, just as she’d done with the supper dance.
‘I’d like that.’
Taken aback, he stared blindly at her outstretched hand and the change in it.
‘Then I’ll get tickets for a week Monday, shall I?’
‘That would be nice.’
‘First or second performance?’
‘Second, I’m never sure what time I can get away from here. It will finish before half-past ten though, won’t it? My mother won’t let me stay out any later than eleven on a week night. I keep telling her that I’ll be twenty-one next month, but you know what mothers are like.’ She could have bitten off her tongue. Before the words were out of her mouth she remembered that Eddie’s mother had walked out when his father had been jailed.
‘It finishes at ten. I’ll have you back by half-past.’
‘I’ll make a supper for us. Do you like ham sandwiches?’
‘Yes.’ As he took his change from her he decided to drop the subject of Saturday’s supper dance. She’d agreed – actually agreed to go out with him in two weeks’ time. A smile played at the corners of his mouth as he walked up on the hill. It would have died on his lips if he’d known her reason for accepting his invitation.
‘The tickets are marked with letters and numbers. The letter tells you which row to direct the patron to, the number gives you the seat. Here’s a copy of the seat plan. Memorise it. There’s nothing the manager hates more than an usherette clogging up the auditorium by misdirecting the audience. And here’s your programmes. One pound’s worth of change in this bag.’ Joe Evans offloaded a leather money bag, belt and a pile of programmes on to Jane. ‘Usually the programmes are sixpence each. These are specials just for this Revue, they’re two and six. Mind you get the money right and no one lifts the odd programme from the top of your pile, or it will cost you the half a crown. And be careful to fold the top of the leather pouch over at the end of every sale. As I warned you this morning, all discrepancies will be deducted from your wages. You have fifty programmes, we’ll expect either the money for fifty or the unsold programmes.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘As the customers come through that door you offer them a programme and pass them on to Ann,’ he pointed to a hard-faced older woman who was standing in the aisle. ‘For this first night only she’ll take them into the auditorium. Tomorrow, after you’ve memorised the plan, you’ll be doing both.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You’ll show everyone to their seats then stand at the back for the first quarter of an hour ready to direct any latecomers. Afterwards you go upstairs to the bar, Ann will show you where it is. You’ll make up your confectionery tray for the interval there, but I want you out before the bell rings and they start serving drinks. That’s the barman’s job. Am I making myself clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Joe Evans stood back and looked Jane over critically. Her dress was pressed, her apron tied in a neat bow. She’d come in wearing a decent coat – it belonged to Phyllis, who’d overridden all of Jane’s protests and insisted that she borrow it. Phyllis had also styled Jane’s hair as best she could, combing it into a straight back and sides boys’ cut. Anything but attractive, its one saving grace was that it looked neat, both under the hat Jane had coaxed from Wilf Horton and the starched usherette’s uniform cap that Ann had helped to fix on her head.
‘Your shoes could do with a bit more polish,’ Joe Evans commented, feeling the need to make at least one criticism.
‘They’re oilcloth,’ she murmured apologetically.
‘Then they won’t stand any wear. Buy a pair of leather ones as soon as you get paid, and see that you polish them every night.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He looked into the auditorium. The lights were on full strength. Avril, the oldest and most experienced of the usherettes had taken position at the first door the stall customers would come to. He had placed Jane at the second, which was never as busy, and with Ann waiting in front of her to show customers to their seats he hoped she’d manage, although he was only too aware that he was throwing her in at the deep end. Myrtle and Myra were upstairs, Mrs Brown was behind the sweet stall, Mrs Arkwright in the ticket booth. The callboy was backstage, the artistes in their dressing rooms and the manager loose on the prowl. He stepped into the corridor. ‘Open the doors!’ he shouted down to Arthur, the doorman.
