Stella, page 24
To London – a small, dingy flat.
Stop crying, Sadie. He’ll wait for you. He’ll always wait for you. Think of the act – of our partnership.
Billy Manners was right, poor little Sadie. SADIE DEATH. Why did you have to be right, Billy?
And now Stella could see her name towering above her in bright lights but it was worthless. Sadie was lying cold on a slab in the mortuary, never again to smile, walk, run, sing, eat – oh, and how she could eat.
I’m going to marry him, you said. And you did. And now you’re dead, Sadie Ravenscroft. You’re dead. You’re . . .
‘Please get out there,’ begged Milton. She fluttered her eyes as though awaking from a deep sleep. Milton saw she was coming round, though he hadn’t a clue what from. ‘Good girl,’ he encouraged. ‘Go on out there and shine for them.’
With a helpful shove from him she lunged forward. There was an explosion of pure joy from the audience. It was like a lull in a football match, broken by an unexpected goal by the home side.
‘So how are you all doing, out there?’ she bellowed, through a big, warm smile and authoritative stance. Loud cheers came back at her. ‘That’s nice to know. Sorry I was so late getting here, but the manager stopped me for wearing too many clothes.’ Big laughter. ‘I wouldn’t have minded, but I was undressed at the time.’ Bigger laughter.
Henry fumbled for a cigar and discovered that his hands were uncontrollably shaking. He took himself out into the corridor and enjoyed a quiet smoke while listening to muffled applause and laughter. Mike and Bernard remained, eyes transfixed to the stage.
Stella hadn’t suddenly and miraculously recovered from the shock of losing her sister; she had simply, with Milton’s help, found out just how professional an artiste she could be. She was scarred for life with wounds that would never really heal, but Stella, being Stella, would learn to cope and manage to make the most of her life.
She knew, already, that life was full of suffering; she just hadn’t estimated receiving so much in such a short period of time.
The one-week run at the Windmill Theatre was a huge success, and after the opening night – the Royal Night – no one asked her where she’d been hiding herself. It was no longer of any importance.
Epilogue
Supported by a gardening hoe, Stella held her face against the gentle August breeze. She loved her Jersey home and garden at this time of year, when nature had reached its potential and was ready to concede to the slumbers of approaching winter. It was grander, more idyllic than the home they’d had in Kent.
Her eyes caught dotted sailing boats, quivering carelessly on the shallow rocky waters beneath her cliffs. It was a tranquil, heavenly position to live in, overlooking St Peter’s and beyond. How her weatherbeaten body thrived on the embracing walks and clean air this small but glorious island offered.
A seagull squawked its arrival just above her head. It was one she knew very well. She’d fed him with stale bread and, knowing he was onto a good thing, he made a point of returning every afternoon with uncanny punctuality.
She pulled a small crust from out of her garden apron and held it aloft for him. The bird swooped, collected it firmly in his beak, and, with a departing cry that could have been interpreted as being a thank you, floated northwards to the secret place whence he always mysteriously came.
‘Miss Stella,’ said an elderly lady, hobbling down the garden path towards her.
‘What’s up, Annie?’ she asked, loudly, as Annie’s hearing wasn’t very good these days.
‘You’ve a telegram from Mr Bernard. I hope it’s to say he’s coming to your party tonight.’
‘So do I,’ she said, with feeling. ‘It’s not every year that I’m fifty.’
She opened it and read it aloud: ANGEL STOP WILL BE BACK IN LONDON ON BOAC FLIGHT BC 136A ARRIVAL 18.30 STOP HAVE ARRANGED CONNECTION STOP SEE YOU TONIGHT STOP B STOP
Bernard was getting too old to fly backwards and forwards to the United States to check on his property company. His manager – John Hammond – was more than capable of running things. But Bernard had had his fingers burnt so many times in the past that he considered any one younger than himself as untrustworthy, even poor John Hammond, who was probably the most trustworthy person he’d ever known.
A distant expression formed on Stella’s face. It wasn’t often that she thought about her dead sister – that is, not to the extent of dwelling upon the loss – but she did just at that moment. Maybe it was because she was fifty that day, and if Sadie was alive she’d have been at the party to celebrate the event. She would have been forty-eight, and would have teased her that she was old and past it now that she’d reached fifty.
But there would be no Sadie there nor, indeed, her mother and father, who had both passed away in recent years. She found it strange how capable the human mind was at dealing with the deaths of close ones. She loved and missed them – just as she did the late Henry Charles in a totally different way – yet now she even had trouble some-times remembering certain features about them, and this frustrated and annoyed her and made her feel guilty, as if perhaps she didn’t really care. But Bernard was quite right in saying, time plays strange tricks on the memory. But there was one memory that was crystal-clear. It was the day after Sadie’s funeral, when her mother confessed to having been the one who broke up the sisters’ partnership. Stella had, at first, misunderstood her, saying, ‘Don’t blame yourself, Mam.’ But then she went on to explain in full how it hadn’t been Tommy pressurising Sadie – although, she couldn’t deny, he did do a fair bit of that. And it wasn’t Sadie’s own spontaneous decision when she’d reached London that fateful day to announce the split. Sadie deliberately blamed herself because she was a kind girl like that, not wanting others to suffer unnecessarily. But no, it had been Lilly Ravenscroft – their own mother – who had instructed her to finish it all with Stella and settle down in Lancaster with Tommy.
Sadie had refused point-blank, stating that Stella and she were inseparable. So her mother threatened to disown her, never to allow Tommy or her into the home again if she didn’t do exactly as she said. She knew Sadie was softer and weaker than Stella, and that the threat wouldn’t be received lightly. And she was right.
How Stella had cried when her mother had told her this, for it made their squabble all the more futile. ‘If I’d known at the time, I would never have stopped loving her,’ she told her mother. ‘You realise you broke Sadie and me up as sisters as well as partners? Does that make you feel proud?’ Stella had seen her mother cry for the first time.
With the passing of time, Stella found herself forgiving her mother for what she had done. On reflection, she considered it rather brave of her to confess to it all, for she must have known what her daughter’s reaction was going to be.
Entertaining the troops with ENSA during the war years had played a big part in Stella’s change of attitude to her mother. The war, and seeing the conditions that men lived and died in, made her mature as a person. And then there was Tommy Moran. How dashing and fine he looked in his uniform. And how ironic that after the war he should have married a wartime widow called Molly Chadwick – the girl who was reputed to have stolen a kiss off him by the tobacconist’s on the corner of Penny Street.
But today was her birthday, and other than the thrill of now knowing that Bernard could make the party was that of knowing that their daughter, Emma, could also make it. It was over two months since they’d last seen her, but that was to be expected: the three of them had agreed that finishing school in Switzerland was by far the best thing for her – in spite of Emma’s desire to get into acting school as soon as was feasibly possible.
She was tall and attractive, and with Stella pushing her every inch of the way, she would make it in the business – if, at the end of the day, that was what she was really seeking. There were times when her mother wasn’t so sure; times when she behaved as whimsically as her father could. One minute a ball of total commitment and en thusiasm, the next a hesitant, uncertain shadow of their former selves. Stella couldn’t understand it. What she’d ever wanted in life she’d driven herself to achieve. Perhaps there wasn’t the motivation for kids these days. Perhaps life was too easy. One thing she hoped, was that her daughter wouldn’t bring any of her Beatles’ records home and spoil the island’s tranquillity.
‘How many will be coming, all told, Annie?’ she asked. Annie screwed up her face.
‘I’ve forgotten, exactly, but I think it’s about forty-something.’
She put an arm around Annie’s shoulder and smiled. ‘Let’s go and check the name tabs. It’s good fun mixing them up and putting people together who you know don’t get on very well.’
‘Ooh, Miss Stella,’ sniggered Annie behind her hand, really thinking it a wonderful idea.
As they drifted back to the house another seagull floated onto the lawn. Stella didn’t see him as he looked blankly around for food. He would have to wait until tomorrow afternoon before having a free meal off Stella Raven.
Copyright
The Friday Project
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This edition published by The Friday Project 2012
1
First published in by Severn House Publishers Ltd, 1986
Copyright © The Estate of Eric Morecambe and Gary Morecambe 1986
The Estate of Eric Morecambe asserts the author’s moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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ISBN 978–0–00–739507–1
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Eric Morecambe, Stella
