Stella, page 20
Stella turned on the light and studied her features in the bathroom mirror. It took some bravado.
Twenty-three. My God, I look more like ninety-three. And my face. That high cheek-boned face, so perfectly oval, like a glorious pear. Now it looks more like a bruised apple.
After her bath and putting on some fresh clothes she sat down and tried to plan her day. When Annie nipped out to the shops she quickly went about tracking down Woody’s telephone number. It was a slow process of trial and error, as she wasn’t at all certain of his address – but she got through in the end.
‘Hello, this is Woodville,’ said Woody, sounding none too bright himself.
‘Thank heavens,’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t think I’d catch you in. I thought you might be at rehearsals.’
‘With my hangover, honey, there ain’t gonna be no rehearsals today – not for me, at least.’
He seems remarkably calm, she thought. Almost unconcerned with what has happened.
He said, ‘Why did you sneak off without a goodbye? You had me worried.’ There was a pause.
‘I think we need to talk, Woody. About last night, and so on.’
‘Don’t you worry. I’ll keep it a secret how much you drank.’
She gave an irritable little sigh. ‘Look, don’t make this harder for me than it is already.’
‘I’m all ears, honey; but as yet your words aren’t striking home base.’
‘We slept together,’ she blurted. Woody gave a short groan at something that never was.
‘Ah, we sure did. Such a shame that that was all we did. But you’re a married woman and I’m an honourable man.’
She fell into stunned silence while Woody went on to explain the true events of the previous night. When he finished she gave the biggest sigh of relief any living person could heave. It was more a moan of pure ecstasy. She hung up feeling reborn.
That evening, still feeling a little elated, she went to see a Gloria Swanson picture that was showing in Leicester Square. Deciding she needed some exercise – what with the show’s rehearsals fast approaching – she took a cab only a short part of the way home after seeing the film.
It was a moonless night and the street-lighting was insufficient. This was a great source of infuriation to her, stumbling over a crooked paving-stone for the third time. A hundred yards from her door, unbeknown to her, a figure moved out of the blackness and began trailing behind her at a short distance. The figure closed in on her, and when she was no more than fifty yards from her door Stella became aware of its presence.
She decided to play a game that she and Sadie always played with each other. One would speed up and the other would have to match the pace to try to maintain the exact same distance between them. The same applied if the leader then slowed down.
So Stella increased her pace and, to her surprise, the figure behind did likewise. It was eerie. She was relieved to reach the familiar steps that led to her door.
Home safely, she sighed inwardly, and began rummaging for her keys. The solid steps of the figure walked on by, and Stella told herself off for being so scared.
I’m getting too tensed up about everything these days, she said to herself.
As she twisted the key in its lock the figure sidestepped and lunged up at her with open hands that clamped around her throat with a vice-like grip. She choked as the air ejaculated from her windpipe. With head spinning, she fell to her knees, bruising them on the rough edge of the top step. Vainly, she struggled to free herself, but her attacker’s determination was equal to her own. She was going to die, she was sure of it. ‘I’ll kill you for it!’ cried the woman. Through a red haze Stella could see a pair of dark arms and a woman’s face. Then she saw light.
Annie burst out onto the steps, brandishing a rolled umbrella. She began striking the woman across the head with it.
The attacker ran away, screaming back, ‘Don’t think this is an end of it.’
Stella saw Annie looking anxiously down on her. ‘Oh, Miss Stella, Miss Stella,’ she heard her cry. Then she passed out.
Chapter Fifteen
Sadie continued to lose an alarming amount of weight, making Tommy quip that she more resembled an overworked knitting-needle than a person. But he couldn’t make light of it for long. It was plain she was ill, and finally she gave in to his demands that a doctor be called out.
Doctor Atkins arrived with the kind of solemnity more commonly reserved for undertakers. Speaking slowly, he said, ‘Show me to the patient, Mr Moran.’ Tommy wasn’t that fond of Doctor Atkins. He recalled how he loathed children, and how, as a five-year-old with whooping-cough, his mother had taken him to be treated by the doctor. He’d been most unsympathetic to Tommy’s condition.
‘She’s upstairs in bed,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’
‘In bed, you say?’ queried Doctor Atkins. ‘I was not informed of the gravity of her condition.’ He wasn’t expecting a reply from Tommy and he didn’t get one.
Sadie was propped up against three feather-filled pillows, her face gaunt and pallid. In her spindly hands was a copy of the ‘local’. It was opened at a feature article on Stella. ‘Mrs Moran,’ said the doctor curtly, so as to announce his appearance.
‘Oh, hello, doctor,’ she said weakly, her self-pride making her draw the blankets up to her neck so covering any exposed flesh. ‘I’m so sorry to trouble you like this. I told my husband not to bother you.’
‘It is no bother to me,’ he told her, firmly.
His examination was brief. ‘I should have been summoned sooner,’ he said, with a reprimanding glance at Tommy. Oh, yes, he could remember that scruffy little boy with the whooping-cough.
‘Er, well, we didn’t really know what to do for the best, like,’ stumbled Tommy. The doctor’s glaring glance at him said more than if he’d spoken.
Within six hours of his call, Sadie had been admitted into the Lancaster General Hospital.
Individual run-throughs for the Bradford show began taking place on a daily basis at the Camden Dance Hall, come the end of June. Despite not hearing a word from Bernard in all that time, Stella managed – through sheer professionalism – to have her act sparkling. She had new material, new dance routines, new numbers – and she put in as a whole as much creative material to the show as Woody Woodville had. He kidded her that soon she would be sole producer, sole management, and star of all London shows.
Her work-rate was all the more remarkable considering the delay she suffered due to a ‘throat infection’ – as she had everyone know it. In fact, severe bruising to the throat and knees caused by a crazed attack upon her when walking home from the pictures was the genuine reason for the delay. And her attacker turned out to be none other than Woody Woodville’s fiancée. He’d never told anybody he even had a fiancée. He believed it bad for his image, so he kept her locked away in his Long Island home. She’d apparently grown bored, and so had arranged a passage to England to surprise him. She’d surprised him, all right.
She tracked down his London address with little difficulty, very early in the morning of her arrival at Southampton, and arrived to see a young woman in ruffled evening dress closing his flat door and stepping out into the street. And that was how it had all come about; the attack was born from jealous anger. She followed the woman in evening dress in a cab – nearly losing her more than once – and then spent the rest of the day brooding on how she’d seek revenge.
Afterwards, when Stella was well enough, Woody called her to his flat, and with his fiancée, Nancy, the truth of what had happened emerged. Understandably, Nancy needed some convincing, especially when seeing how beautiful Stella was and hearing how she and Woody had worked together before this show. But it concluded amicably enough – and thankfully remained a secret between just four people: Woody, Nancy, Stella, and Annie – and Nancy moved in with Woody.
Stella had to laugh about it afterwards. All that bruising she’d received and the trouble she’d gone to to explain her innocence, and she didn’t even receive an apology. And Nancy was safe from the knowledge that Stella was hardly likely to press for assault charges, with the sort of bad publicity that would generate.
Stella’s only reminders about the whole incident were the aches in her knees and around her throat, and, once they’d healed up fully, the whole matter slipped from her mind. And anyway, she had a far greater concern: Bernard.
Laden with luggage, Bernard pressed into the flat. It was soon evident he was alone there. ‘Stella? Annie?’ he called, as a token gesture. The walls and furnishings stared blankly back at him.
He had nearly finished unpacking when he heard the door crack open and Stella come whistling her way into the lounge. ‘Is that you, darling?’
She must have jumped a foot off the ground from shock. ‘Stone the crows, Bernard,’ she gasped, half-angrily, half-delightedly while clutching at her pounding chest.
He rushed out to greet her, throwing his arms around her neck and holding her in a bear-hug. ‘I’ve done it,’ he told her. ‘I’ve found backers.’
‘That’s wonderful, darling, but do you know the worry I’ve been going through? I’ve been worried sick about you.’
‘There just wasn’t the time to make contact,’ he explained, hurriedly. He’d had a suspicion she’d be displeased with him about that. ‘I was really up against it out there; life-and-death situation, and so on.’
They shared a long, warm kiss. Eventually she broke away, saying, ‘Oh, Bernard. It’s so good to see you again, and to hold you again. I’ve been lost without you.’ She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.
‘Me too, angel,’ he agreed, but more because he felt obliged to. The majority of his thoughts were still on the West Coast of America. ‘I found some private backers – some guys who back risky projects as a livelihood – and I’ve borrowed a whole load of money off of them. Now I just have to concentrate on selling the sonofabitch apartments.’
‘As long as you know what you’re doing,’ she said, concernedly. ‘I suppose you’ll have to go back there soon?’
‘In a short while, yes. But you must come with me.’ He clutched her shoulders as his excitement raced away with him. ‘We could make it that honeymoon we never really had.’
‘I’ll be working,’ she told him, glumly. How she wished she’d never accepted to star in the show. She’d have to wise up to Henry’s methods. Somehow he managed to make each proposition seem the best she’d ever have, and her hungry background had made her so easily cajolable to offers of work.
She told Bernard about the Bradford and London shows. He was understandably disappointed, but he didn’t let her see that he was. He wanted, as much as she did, for the two of them to spend some time together. ‘Well, if I go back there next month,’ he said, thinking as he spoke, ‘and get as much done as I can, I could return to London in time for your big show – the opening Royal Gala night.’
‘And so you’d better,’ she warned. ‘I’ll be counting on your support.’
‘Ooh, hello, Mr Goldman,’ said Annie, a little coyly as she stepped inside the room. ‘We’d given you up as lost.’ Stella laughed at this, and Bernard gently frowned.
‘I get the message,’ he said. ‘Now, c’mon Annie. What’s for lunch? I’m starving.’
‘Before you eat,’ said Stella, ‘there’s the little matter of the customary present.’
‘A present? Why are you so sure I’d bring you back a present?’
‘Do you honestly think you’d have dared come home if you hadn’t done?’ He thought about that one for a moment, shook his head a couple of times and then went to the bedroom to fetch the sapphire ring he’d bought for her – and the gold watch he’d bought for Annie.
On August the third – twelve days before her twenty-fourth birthday – dressed in a pair of slacks and a pink blouse, Stella gazed proudly up at the theatre frontage of the Alhambra in Bradford.
The names of Flanagan and Allen were in the process of coming down and her own name going up in their place. Standing beneath a warming summer sun, watching this happen, somehow signified her arrival to stardom more than anything else that had gone before.
When the workmen had finished she asked them the time. They grinned that senseless grin of instant recognition, which Stella really didn’t mind too much: it was better than not being recognised at all.
It was a bit later than she’d thought, but still she had time enough. She took a final look up. In tall, bright-red letters were the words, ‘STELLA RAVEN AND FRIENDS’. Beneath that in smaller red letters was ‘LONDON’S WINDMILL THEATRE SHOW’.
She liked the Alhambra with its attractive terracotta exterior. She could sense it was going to be a happy fortnight and to most artistes that mattered almost more than the success of the show itself.
Walking through the stage door she heard the music of The Freddie Banbury Sound – the orchestra for the Bradford and London shows – so she knew that band call had started.
It wasn’t the most serious of band calls, but time was against them, and so Woody had suggested that everyone should appear in full costume. It wasn’t such a bad idea, as it helped to avoid the last-minute struggle to find missing outfits on dress-rehearsal night.
She tapped her feet to the music for a while, then stared across the exceptionally large stage and proscenium opening that was capable of taking the largest touring productions. Somewhere amidst the eighteen hundred or so seats was stage manager, Tony Murray. She saw him. He was far back in the stalls, testing for sound quality and volume.
‘How long have I got, Tony?’ she asked, clambering up to him. Then she said, ‘Hi, Woody’ to the producer, who was seated next to him. It wasn’t easy to see Woody with the lights down – unless he smiled.
‘Thirty minutes, love,’ said Tony. ‘Maybe a little longer.’
Yes, that would be time enough, she thought, as she skipped back to her dressing-room. Time enough to write a letter to her parents and then one to Sadie and Tommy. They wouldn’t have to be long letters; it was only to invite them to the Royal night at the Windmill Theatre.
That’ll keep our mam happy, she smiled. Sadie and me back on talking terms. Haven’t I been so childish?
Tony Murray nudged Woody. ‘You been with her?’ he asked, coarsely.
‘Hey?’
‘Been with her. Had her in bed?’
Woody said, ‘ No one gets Stella in bed except her husband, so you can forget that one, Tony.’
‘Just curious,’ said Tony, though he immediately knew he’d have to settle for one of the chorus.
Due to another engagement, Milton Keens had had to delay making his appearance at rehearsals. Therefore when Stella turned in the corridor and walked into him it was the first they’d seen of each other. ‘Milton,’ she sang. Automatically, they hugged each other warmly. ‘I like the flashy clothes,’ she observed.
‘A mere extension of my own flamboyant personality,’ he explained. He was in sparkling tails and topper, and carried white gloves and an even whiter cane. She nodded at the cane.
‘I didn’t realise you were having trouble with your eyes.’
‘Ha ha. I’m glad to see your sledge-hammer wit hasn’t lost any of its bluntness.’
They stared at each other in silence for a moment, then she said, ‘It’s good to see you, Milton.’
‘And you,’ he returned. ‘And I hear you’re a married woman. Where is the lucky man?’ He glanced over her shoulder as if expecting him to be there.
‘In America. He’s American.’
‘Then it would seem appropriate that he’s in America.’
She reversed the situation. She didn’t want to talk about Bernard. He’d been away for a little while now, and she was missing him. ‘And are you married to Jane, yet?’
‘That I am,’ he replied, and she thought it sounded a pained reply.
‘And Adolf?’
‘Oh, he’s still keen to start a war in Europe.’
‘Not that Adolf, silly,’ she laughed, ‘and you know it.’
‘The other one’s just as lethal.’ He forced a smile. ‘No; he’s fine. And, too, the baby, whom I believe you know a little about.’
‘Yes,’ she said, taking a look at her wrist-watch. ‘I have to rush now. I have a few things to get done before I go on.’
Am I deliberately avoiding this confrontation? she asked herself. No. I really must get a move on.
‘I must rush, too,’ he said, checking his pocket-watch. ‘I believe I’m on just before your spot.’
He rushed one way and she another, and, she thought, a little bitterly, how that had been the story of their lives.
The curtain fell on tumultuous applause on the first night. Stella was compelled to take three encores. Her act was highly polished, and she could manipulate the audience with apparent ease. It was her cheeky northern humour that seemed to please them the most. She so understood her audience – what they liked and didn’t like; where they lived; what sort of pubs they drank at – that she just couldn’t fail with them.
Her routine was to do a gentle ballad; a robust comedy number; display her gift for dancing – all interspersed with comedy patter – and wind up suitably on a show-stopper. That’s all it took. That’s all it would ever take while there was a stage for her to perform on.
There were flaws in the show as a whole. One of them was Milton’s act. He’d spent too long in Restoration comedy. He didn’t look relaxed or natural in front of a variety-show audience. He also overran by four minutes, which would earn him a harsh word or two from either Woody or Tony – most probably both.
The dancing girls were splendid and didn’t lose time once. As always, though, it was the unexpected that reared itself. Martino, the magician’s assistant, broke a heel early on in their routine and had to finish in stockinged feet. The stage was dangerously slippery, and noticeably so. After skating her way through the performance she took her bow to huge applause, but they didn’t know if it was for the act itself or because she’d managed not to fall over.
