Stella, page 6
Tommy took the rolled gold watch to Samuel’s, though instead of having it repaired he did a direct swop for a rolled gold neck chain, with a petite black ebony cross attached. The chain was a little too long for Sadie which consequently caused the cross to become lost in her cleavage. It wouldn’t have been important, except that the cross was very slim with severe edges and sharp corners. She endured the pain so as not to disappoint Tommy, though she would have preferred to wear the watch that didn’t work.
Stella thoroughly enjoyed every second of her latest stay in London. Just to walk up Shaftesbury Avenue was enough in itself to have made her stay there worthwhile. To see all those theatres showing hit or, at least, semi-hit shows, with billboards outside, boasting names of their famous artistes. They were names she had only read about, but she felt as though she knew each one personally – as if they were related to her.
I wish Sadie was with me, she said to herself as she bent down to study every front-of-house photo as she had done a hundred times.
‘One day, Sadie and I will play here,’ she announced, boldly. A bowler-hatted gent moved up to her and whispered in her ear, ‘How much do you charge, then?’
After that incident she stopped loitering and began looking more purposeful.
Some of the agencies had heard of the Raven Sisters, from their part in Babes in Portsmouth. One agent told her that their playing of Babes was one of the funniest things he had ever seen. When she asked him why, he said, ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Babes taller than the principal boy and older than the principal girl.’ Stella smiled, but there was little humour in it. He did go on to say that he thought they had a good act but that it was wasted in pantomime. ‘Always remember: in panto the kids want a lot of blood and gore and shouting, the grown-ups like a few naughty gags, and the old folk want to see knickers and have a good sing-song.’ She could see some sense in that. ‘The other bit of advice is never play Portsmouth, Plymouth, Catterick, or Aldershot. You’re too sophisticated for them.’
After a couple of weeks of knocking on doors she had fixed them up the odd work here and there. Moneywise there was little being offered, but at least she had found them some work. She returned to Lancaster, exaggerating how good their prospects were. It cheered her up in pretending things were better than they were, and it also kept her parents off her back.
Talking of her parents, one thing that struck Stella more squarely than anything else was how much their little world was identical to when she left it. It was as though they were counting time between when they became married and the day they died.
Previously she had found inspiration from observing their empty lives but now it caught her so unawares that it depressed her. What increased this feeling was that Sadie had reverted back so easily to this way of life, and that wasn’t a sign of someone who seriously wanted to strive forward in showbusiness.
When Stella prepared herself for yet another visit to London a few weeks later she insisted that this time Sadie accompanied her. She intended to enlighten her younger sister to the harshness and difficulties of finding work in their profession. ‘And I don’t want to hear Tommy or the cake shop as an excuse,’ she warned her. Sadie agreed to go.
Over the following two months it became rapidly apparent to them that they weren’t bringing in enough money to keep them both down in the City. Sadie, rather quickly, volunteered to go back up north, stating that by working in the cake shop she could put some money by each week for them. Stella was in no position to argue. The act needed every penny they could lay their unemployed hands on.
It was a Sunday, and Sadie had been home one day. Early in the morning she and Tommy were stepping down off the Ribble bus at Morecambe’s Euston Road Station. It was a bitterly cold morning, and as they walked along together they huddled up tight to keep each other warm.
The weather on the deserted promenade was even colder. Having crossed the road, they stood at the entrance of a closed Central Pier. For a while they just stared down on a scattering of fishing boats that bobbed and dipped on the angry, grey sea. The clock on the tower next to the pier struck nine, making a dozen seagulls spring three or four feet into the air before floating down again onto the shoreline.
They turned right, looked in the general direction of Scotland, and started to walk towards it. Both of them were suitably dressed to battle with the harsh conditions. Tommy wore his cap down over his ears, holding them close against his head and pulling up his eyebrows into an expression of permanent surprise. His scarf covered his mouth, and his overcoat was nearly as close to the ground as his feet. Sadie’s beret had started out from Lancaster at a saucy but fashionable angle, and the cold, blended with common sense, had made her pull it so far down that the rim rested on the bridge of her nose. Tommy glimpsed her red-button nose. ‘Do you want to sell that poppy?’ he asked in a muffled voice. She gave him a friendly punch on his arm, which to Tommy – him being so big, her being so slight – was like being prodded by a feather.
They veered inland a bit, and headed for one of the coast road’s bus shelters. Tommy pointed. ‘You can see Grange,’ he said in a loud voice, but struggled against the wind.
‘And Barrow,’ said Sadie, with equal difficulty. ‘Some-times you can even see the Cumbrian mountains. That’s a sign of rain, or so experts say, whoever they may be.’
‘Oh. I hadn’t heard that.’
‘Don’t think it’ll rain today, though.’
‘More likely start snowing.’
He pulled her gently by the hand. ‘Come on. Let’s head back to Central Pier and nip down Queen Street to the bus station.’
Tommy had been trying hard all morning to find the suitable moment to tackle Sadie about when she would be going back down to London. As the Central Pier grew before them it seemed that the moment had arrived. ‘I guess you’ll be wanting to get back to the show stuff soon?’
Sadie had hoped that the subject wouldn’t arise, but she knew it had been naive of her to think that it could have been avoided.
‘Well, er, Stella reckons, er, Stella says I’m to be back up next Wednesday.’ She paused for some reaction. None was forthcoming as yet. Tentatively she continued. ‘We’ve to start rehearsals fairly soon, you see, on a new revue – a touring revue, it is.’
‘What’s revue?’ he asked, darkly.
‘It’s like variety,’ she explained, ‘but has sketches and numbers, songs—’
‘Okay, okay, I get the picture,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not as bloody daft as you all like to think, you know.’
‘I know you’re not. I mean . . . Oh, I don’t know what I mean,’ she said. ‘I’m not the least bit eager to get going at the act with Stella again. But no doubt I’ll still be saying that when I’m fifty.’
Tommy dug his hands deep into his coat pockets and hunched his back a little to show her how miserable he was feeling. ‘Yer didn’t mention about Wednesday. I thought we had ages left together.’
Sadie said, ‘Sorry, I thought I had.’ Both of them knew very well that she hadn’t thought at all but it was her way of expressing to him how much she had been dreading having to break the bad news. ‘Anyway, I’ve ’til Wednesday lunchtime and it’s only Sunday, love.’
‘I’ll be working Wednesday,’ he said, sourly.
‘I know that, but you can see me off at Green Ayre Station at one o’clock. You can come straight from work during your lunch break. I’ll bring some food and we can have a picnic on the platform. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
Looking ahead, Tommy asked, ‘How long is the new revue lasting?’
‘Only eight weeks,’ she replied, knowing herself just how long eight weeks sounded.
‘Two whole flamin’ months,’ he groaned. He nodded in the approximate direction of the pier. ‘What’s wrong with here?’
‘Eh?’
‘Here – Morecambe. They have shows here, don’t they? You could work here.’
‘It’s not as easy as that Tommy. Neil and Claxton will be putting their own show on and they’ll use their own dancers.’
‘You could tell ’em you’d work cheaper if you could appear at Central Pier.’
‘Tommy, you know that’s not possible. And, anyway, Stella and me are booked for Shanklin for the summer . . .’ The sentence filtered out. She hadn’t intended letting that piece of devastating information slip out.
He stopped half-way through a stride and pulled her to a halt. ‘Shanklin?’ he cried, as if someone had said he owed them a thousand pounds. Sadie glumly nodded her head, and wished she’d kept her big mouth closed. ‘You mean, Shanklin in the Isle of Wight?’ To Tommy that could have been Australia. ‘Bloody hellfire!’
They started walking again but much slower. ‘I won’t see you all summer, then?’ He shook his head with despair. ‘It’ll be six months or more before I see you.’
‘I’ll be back first week in October,’ she promised, hoping the freezing tide would sweep over her and take her away.
‘Hellfire Sade!’
‘Or maybe I’ll even be able to get back in the last week of September. It depends how it’s going. They’ve got an option on the last week.’
Tommy had stepped up his pace and she was struggling to keep up with him. ‘It’s a good date for us, Tommy,’ she said. ‘Stella’s thrilled we’re going there.’
‘Sod Stella.’
‘Oh, Tommy,’ she cried, pulling up in her tracks. He walked on a few more paces before turning round to look at her.
‘Well, she’ll be seeing you and I won’t, will I?’
‘I know, but we have to look on the bright side. October isn’t too far away now,’ she lied.
‘Sadie, it’s seven months.’
‘Yes, but it’s only a short season from the first week in June when we open, and we only rehearse one week before and not the usual two.’
‘It doesn’t matter how you juggle it,’ he said wearily. ‘Seven months is seven months. I can’t take time off to visit you, and even when I take my holidays I can’t afford to go all the way to the Isle of flamin’ Wight.’
They drifted down Queen Street. ‘I’ll have to go there, Tommy, it’s a good run and other dates Stella’s got in the book amount to seven months, like you said.’ She was being firm with Tommy now. ‘I can help you with the fare if you’ll say you will come down.’
‘No,’ he snapped. ‘No woman is going to keep Tommy Moran, and that’s an end to it. You know my motto: “If you can’t afford it, you don’t have it.” I’ve always lived by it and it’s suited me just fine up ’til now.’
‘Look, I’ll ask Stella if she has any bright ideas.’
‘Oh yes, you ask precious Stella. Stella rules your life, she does.’ Now Sadie pulled Tommy to a stop.
‘She does not.’
‘She does.’
‘She doesn’t.’
‘She bloody well does.’
‘Don’t swear.’
‘I’ll bloody swear if I bloody well want to.’
‘No you won’t.’
‘How is it that every time I suggest or say something you always say, “I’ll see what Stella says”?’ Tommy was trying to imitate Sadie’s voice as he said this, but it sounded more like a midget with a groin strain.
‘I don’t speak like that.’
‘Yes you do.’
‘No I don’t.’
‘Okay, you don’t, but you can’t go denying I’m right about you and Stella,’ he said. ‘Stella’s got this and Stella’s got that for us.’
Sadie stormed off for ten quick paces, stopped, turned round, and came briskly back. She looked up at him, staring straight into his eyes, her own having become taut slits of anger. ‘I’m going to tell you something Tommy Moran. You say, “Stella’s got this and Stella’s got that for us.” ’
‘She takes you over, that’s all I’m saying,’ he interjected.
‘That’s right, because if she didn’t take over as you say who would do all those things? Me, that’s who. I would be in London right now looking for work and walking round all the agencies. Now, you tell me, would you like that?’ Before he could answer she continued. ‘I’d have to be the one fixing the digs, the music, the costumes. It would have to be me traipsing round, getting everything ready, so I agree with you when you say Stella does this and Stella does that, and I’d like to tell her how grateful I am because if she didn’t I wouldn’t be able to be here now having a flamin’ row with you.’ She took a long deep breath. ‘Now – I’m going home.’
She stomped away, leaving a stunned Tommy watching her diminish with every angry step. She knew that he would come round and see her later, all soft and meek, probably with a quarter pound of green arrows and a liquorice stick as a way of apologising. Maybe that was one of her frustrations with Tommy, she wondered as she jumped into the Lancaster bus: he was so predictable.
Tommy watched the gulls and the boats for a while longer, as if hypnotised by them. Suddenly he turned and sprinted for the bus station, his eyes swollen with tears.
Stella climbed into the underground train at Balham and headed for the West End. She had a couple of agents she wanted to call on: she had read about them in The Stage, and they’d sounded promising. She could hardly wait to see Sadie that night to tell her they had another two weeks’ work in the book.
As Tommy waved Sadie off at Green Ayre Station Stella returned to her one and a half roomed flat she was renting, thinking bitterly about The Stage and promising agents. She busied herself going through music and costumes and writing off for digs in areas they’d be working in.
It was when the train was about ten miles north of Wat-ford that Sadie began to feel really nervous about telling Stella she was going to leave the act. Stella met her at Euston Station, and Stella, being Stella, already had a porter poised to carry her sister’s luggage. ‘That’s her,’ Stella told the porter.
‘Which one, miss?’ he asked. ‘There’s a lotta people coming off the train.’
‘The one with the beret; that one, there.’ She pointed.
The porter nodded approvingly. ‘Ah, you mean the pretty one?’ He gave a genuine smile on what was inevitably a sad face.
‘You look fantastic,’ Stella told her sister after they had hugged each other for a few moments. The porter shuffled awkwardly on his feet. He hoped his mates weren’t watching. ‘There was no one to touch you walking down the platform, and I love the beret.’
‘Wanna taxi, ladies?’ enquired the porter.
‘No,’ replied Stella very definitely. ‘Just take the case down to the tube.’
The porter grimaced as he thought of the long walk to the tube, knowing that by the time he had returned there wouldn’t be a traveller left for him to make on. The next train wasn’t due in for another half an hour.
As they walked Stella rambled on about everything she had been up to in town. Sadie was unusually frugal with her words, and restricted herself to just ‘fines’ and nods of the head.
‘Here we are,’ gasped the porter, putting down the case and putting out his hands, all in one motion. ‘Phew! a long walk that,’ he hinted.
‘Yes, it was. Thank you.’ Stella pushed two pennies into his hand. He gazed briefly down upon the two copper coins, and then, without further word, ran back to the station in the hope that he would catch a late arrival.
Stella said to her sister with a canny glint in her eyes, ‘I’ve had to learn to watch the pennies carefully.’
Forty minutes later they were mounting the single flight of stairs at the Balham flat. Stella instinctively moved to the kettle and filled it. Sadie unpacked a few things and freshened up. Stella couldn’t understand why Sadie had brought so little luggage with her. But, stranger, she couldn’t understand why she didn’t dare ask her about it. ‘How’s the tea doing?’ asked Sadie, now joining her in the kitchen.
‘Just brewing.’ Stella leant against the sink and looked closely at her sister. Sadie dropped heavily onto a stool and began unwrapping a pork pie she’d bought at Kinloch’s, the butcher’s, just behind Corkell’s Yard. She didn’t have to look up to sense Stella’s questioning stare. ‘What’s the pie like?’
‘Fine,’ she replied, curtly.
‘Kinloch’s pies usually are,’ said Stella.
Stella began wondering if Sadie’s odd behaviour had anything to do with her parents. ‘How are Mam and Dad?’
‘They’re fine.’ Again, she didn’t seem to want to expand on her answer.
They sipped at their tea in an awkward silence; so unusual was it for two such close sisters. Sadie finished the pie and wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. She took a deep breath and asked, ‘What would you say if I told you I was getting married?’
Stella took her time answering. So this is what you were building up to, she thought. When finally she did answer, she kept her stare downwards onto the dregs in her cup. ‘I’d say, do you have to?’ Sadie briefly glanced at her.
‘I don’t have to – no. I mean, I’m not pregnant or anything.’
Stella looked at her with an angry frown. ‘Well, what on earth are you on about then?’
‘Didn’t you hear me right?’ Sadie asked her. ‘I’m talking about marriage. Marriage out of a natural love, not a convenience to avoid family shame.’
‘You asked me what I’d say and I’ve told you. Don’t even think about marriage.’
‘But you don’t understand, do you? You’ve never been in love. We’re in love.’
‘Of course I understand,’ she said. ‘What do you take me for, a monster without feelings? I understand exactly.’
She lifted the lid off the teapot and began stirring to occupy her hands. It was either that or put them round Sadie’s neck and start squeezing. ‘I understand very well that you love Tommy Moran. But marriage? There’s plenty of time for all that domestic bit. What do you want to get married for, anyway?’ She poured the remainder of the pot into her own cup. ‘If you love him proper and he loves you proper then you’ll both be able to wait a while. Go back home when you can and sleep with him if that’s what you want . . .’
