The Girls from Greenway

by Elizabeth Woodcraft

  ‘I might go home,’ Carol said.

  ‘No, don’t,’ Angie said. ‘Let’s go for a walk. Let’s pretend we live in London, and we’re just strolling round our streets, and we’ll just casually end up at this café of Gene’s in Frith Street.’

  As they walked along Frith Street they could see scooters parked in the road, like the scooters that were always outside the Orpheus in Chelmsford. ‘I wish we were going there,’ Angie said.

  And then they saw Gene, standing outside the café with the scooters. He was rubbing his hands in the chill of the twilight. ‘I thought you’d stood me up,’ he’d said, putting his arm round Angie and kissing her on the cheek.

  ‘No chance,’ Angie said. ‘We came the long way round, down Charing Cross Road.’ It’s almost like living here already, she thought. It all seems so natural – talking about the streets and the underground. As if it’s my town.

  ‘Welcome to the Bar Italia,’ Gene said. ‘The hippest café in town.’

  The café smelt of warm milky coffee, like the Milk Bar in Chelmsford, but somehow sharper. It was smaller, and the lights were softer, peachy. Angie and Carol sat at a small table in the back while Gene went to the counter to order their coffee. He came back with a tray of cups, each one piled high with froth, and three pieces of some strange but delicious looking cake, which seemed to be nothing but cream.

  ‘It’s cheesecake,’ Gene said, knowledgeably, as if he was Italian. Perhaps he was a little bit Italian, Angie thought. The waiters in the café knew him, they’d shaken hands over the counter, one who was standing at the espresso machine had even said, ‘Ciao Geno’ to him, and then he knew all about the cheesecake.

  She liked this Bar Italia. It was stylish, just as Gene had said. There were mods but also people who looked like art students, certainly people who were interested in fashion, boys in sharp suits and Ben Sherman shirts, girls in dark straight dresses, a few in suede coats, all drinking coffee, talking and laughing. Angie thought she could happily spend the evening here. She could spend her whole life here. Oh London! She hoped, she really hoped she got the job.

  As she pressed her fingers on to the last crumbs of the buttery lemon cake, Gene said it was time to go. It was just across the road. Over the door was the name, ‘Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.’

  The place was dark but Angie could make out small round tables, and a bar and a small stage. ‘It’s not very big, is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘This is Ronnie’s new place,’ Gene said. ‘It’s not as good as the old one. That really had a jazz feel. This one, hmm, not sure.’

  Gene was calling Ronnie Scott ‘Ronnie’, as if he knew him. Did he really know the owner of the club? Sometimes she wondered what his life was really like. All these things he’d done and people he knew.

  Gene went over to the bar. Angie tugged Carol’s arm to follow him. Before he’d ordered their drinks he turned to a tall thin man in dark clothes, leaning against the bar, smoking.

  ‘Si, you old devil!’ Gene said, slapping the man on the back. ‘Angie, this is my old mate, Si Green. He’s the one we’ve come to see. You’ll never hear a smoother bass.’

  Angie smiled and said hello.

  ‘Si, I’ve been wanting to hear you for ages,’ Gene said. ‘Better make it good.’

  The man smiled. ‘Glad you could come.’

  ‘Angie was desperate to hear you.’

  Angie grinned. This was the first time she’d heard of him, but if it made people happy she’d agree with it. She held out her hand. She was in London, people shook hands here.

  ‘Oh, get you, all stiff and formal,’ Carol murmured.

  As she shook his hand Angie felt the hard tips of Si’s fingers, and the weathered texture of his palm. She looked at him. His face was open and his smile friendly. ‘Bass?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’ He gestured behind him. A large double bass lay on its side on the stage.

  ‘Oh, double bass,’ she said and laughed. ‘I thought it was going to be . . .’

  ‘Yes, unfortunately not a guitar. That would be much easier to carry around.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She smiled. He looked cool, in his dark grey shirt and his black jeans and his dark desert boots. If this was jazz it wasn’t bad.

  There was a shout. He twisted his head. ‘Got to go. I hope you all enjoy the show.’

  ‘Catch you later,’ Gene said.

  Si raised his hand and disappeared through a door at the side.

  They were sitting at a table to the right of the stage, but near enough that they could see the keys on the piano and all the elements of the drum kit.

  In a small leaflet on the table was a description of tonight’s show, ‘The Doug Bourne Trio play Ronnie Scott’s for the first time!’ Beside it was a tiny picture of three men, and one of them was Si, looking tall and slightly uncomfortable beside his upright double bass.

  A man came on to the stage. ‘Ronnie!’ Gene murmured to Angie, out of the side of his mouth.

  ‘Ronnie,’ Angie whispered to Carol.

  He was introducing the group. He made a joke about digging Doug, and the trio not being as Green as Si was cabbage-looking. There was a loud laugh from someone at the back of the room and a spattering of applause. ‘Please yourselves,’ the man said. ‘A first for the club, a first for many of you, and not the last I’m sure – the Doug Bourne Trio!’ He walked off the stage backwards, clapping.

  The trio came onto the stage, Si was shaking his head. The three men murmured to each other as the drummer shuffled onto his seat behind his drums, Si leaned down to pick up his double bass and the third man sat at the piano on the far side of the stage. He ran his hand over the keys.

  ‘Glad we’ve got the best seat in the house, so we can be sure we hear the drums,’ Angie muttered into Carol’s ear.

  They both snorted.

  Listening to jazz was, at times, like the year at school when she had tried to learn French. The teacher would mouth a string of incomprehensible words and then suddenly, with relief Angie would recognise the word café or restaurant. She would smile and congratulate herself. But by then the teacher was off again with another string of words until she heard boutique and she could smile again.

  The men would play a series of notes, there would be a crash of drums and a thomp thomp thomp on the bass and then the pianist would play a chord and she would recognise it and maybe another and she could relax, and sway to the rhythm of a tune she knew, but then off they went again, playing strange notes with no recognisable melody.

  There was a piano solo, complicated rhythms and positioning of hands, crossing back and forth, and Si and the drummer, watched, relaxed as the pianist bent over the keys.

  She kept her eyes on Si, watching his left hand manoeuvring over the frets up by his shoulder and those hardened fingers of his right hand plucking and tugging at the strings to make a rhythm, a sound, almost a tune.

  And then they stood up and bowed. It was over. She could relax. The trio left the stage, saying something to each other, laughing a little, as they walked through the door. The applause went on, someone whistled, people stamped their feet. They came back on. She couldn’t believe it. She’d thought they could go home now. This was hard. She’d never understand jazz.

  But the pianist’s fingers ran across the keys and a tune she knew floated through the room. ‘My Funny Valentine’. She knew it, she knew the words, she almost cried with relief.

  And then it was really over. There was clapping and cheering from the audience. People stood up and whooped. The trio on the stage bowed. The lights lifted and Angie yawned.

  ‘Drink?’ Gene said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Angie said. ‘Is there much more?’ She turned to Carol and murmured, ‘I’m half asleep.’

  ‘There’s another combo in the second half,’ Gene said. ‘But Si’s set’s over and it was him we came to see. We don’t have to stay. But I told Si we’d see him in the interval.’ Gene stood up. ‘Let’s have a dri
nk with him.’

  ‘All right,’ Angie said. She yawned behind her fingers. ‘I’ll have a rum and Coke.’

  ‘So will I,’ said Carol.

  ‘I think being in London has gone to your heads,’ Gene said.

  ‘Did you like that?’ Carol asked Angie, as Gene walked to the bar.

  Angie screwed her face up. ‘If this is the sort of jazz they play all the time, well, I’d rather have Acker Bilk.’

  ‘That’s a bit drastic,’ Carol said. ‘I thought you wanted to learn to like jazz so you and Gene could share something.’

  ‘Well, I don’t mind him asking me to listen to Dave Brubeck or Mel Torme. I like Mel Torme.’ They both sang, ‘Doo doo doo,’ softly. ‘But honestly, that stuff tonight. I thought I was going to die. I could feel my ears dropping off.’

  They laughed.

  Angie tapped her briefcase. ‘But I’ve got to get this job. I’ve got to be in London. I want to live like this every day. I’ll get this job, or another one just like it, then I’ll swan around with arty people, eat cheesecake in that café and then in the evening go to clubs, not like this one, I’m not a complete idiot. But just stroll over to the Flamingo, or the Marquee. They’re round here somewhere, I know. When the money arrives in that new bank account, we’ll come back and have a really good day in London. And I’ll pay you back the money I owe you.’

  ‘It’s only a quid,’ Carol said.

  ‘But we’ll buy you a new suede as a sort of interest. And then I’ll buy a car and then . . .’

  ‘And then we’ll be sooo modern!’

  ‘May I join you?’

  It was Si. He sat down between Angie and Carol. ‘Well, what did you think?’ He looked from one to the other.

  Angie looked at him. ‘If I’m honest . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t know much about jazz, so I don’t know what to say, really. I don’t understand what you’re doing. I mean, you play fantastically. How do you get so much sound out of a double bass? It must be awfully hard on your hands.’

  ‘You get used to it,’ Si said. ‘Sometimes jazz just doesn’t speak to people.’

  ‘I don’t think it speaks my language,’ Carol said.

  ‘Or perhaps you just have to let it roll over you, like waves in the sea.’

  ‘Not much fun if you can’t swim,’ Angie said. There was a pause. ‘How do you know Gene?’ she asked.

  ‘I met him years ago,’ Si said. ‘When I was at school, I got a Saturday job in his shop in Kings Road when it was all very straight and three-piece suits. Gene was good to me. I worked on commission and he let me serve the customers who he knew would pay a decent amount for their clobber. And when he found out I played, he introduced me to one or two people in the music business, people he’d met through the shop, and he basically got me going.’

  ‘So he really is a nice guy,’ Angie said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s taking him so long, getting the drinks?’ Angie twisted in her seat. ‘Oh, he’s talking to someone. Oh. Oh.’ She stood up and the briefcase slid to the floor.

  ‘What?’ said Carol. She craned her neck to see.

  ‘Anything wrong?’ Si said. He turned round.

  ‘No,’ Angie said. ‘It’s, it’s my sister.’

  ‘Doreen?’ Carol said. ‘What’s she doing here?’

  ‘What a good question,’ Angie said.

  Doreen and Gene were walking towards them. Gene was holding a tray of drinks. He was frowning. ‘There’s someone to see you.’

  Angie looked up. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Before she could answer, Gene said, ‘I understand your sister likes jazz. Sit there, Doreen was it?’

  ‘It was, and it still is,’ Doreen said. She sat in Gene’s seat, while he dragged a chair across from a nearby table.

  ‘You haven’t brought Mum and Dad, have you?’ Angie peered past Doreen towards the bar.

  ‘No, they’re safely tucked up on the train home. I wanted to make sure my little sister wasn’t getting into any trouble.’

  ‘No fear of that,’ Gene said. He placed the chair beside Doreen.

  ‘And I just thought I’d come and listen to a little jazz. As you know, I like jazz.’ Doreen took her mac off.

  ‘Did you catch the set?’ Si asked Doreen.

  ‘I just caught the last couple of numbers,’ Doreen said. ‘Nice sound. You’re the bass player, aren’t you? A real hep cat!’

  ‘Thanks. Yes, Si Green. Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Doreen Smith. But call me Reen.’ She stood up and they shook hands across the table. ‘Carol,’ Doreen said, ‘why don’t you and I swap seats so I can talk to Si?’

  ‘Did you just call him a hep cat?’ Angie murmured to Doreen as she and Carol shuffled past each other.

  ‘We’re all hep cats here,’ Doreen said, looking round. ‘Aren’t we?’

  Si laughed. Doreen whispered something in his ear, and he laughed again. They clinked glasses.

  Gene was looking at Doreen.

  Angie took his arm and nuzzled her face on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t know she was coming.’

  ‘It had to happen at some time,’ he said, taking a mouthful of his drink.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Angie said.

  He patted her arm. ‘Oh, nothing. No harm done. It’s good to meet your sister, out in the open. At last.’

  ‘And I think Si’s pleased,’ Angie said. ‘They’re getting on like a house on fire.’ Doreen was running her fingers over the palm of Si’s hand. ‘Oh Gene.’ Angie leaned against him and sighed. ‘It’s been a lovely day.’

  Carol drained her glass. She looked at her watch. ‘I should go.’

  ‘We should all go,’ Angie said. ‘Mum and Dad really will think we’re in trouble.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Doreen said, ‘knowing our parents.’

  ‘I told you, you can all stay at my flat,’ Gene said.

  ‘Even me?’ Doreen said.

  ‘Even you,’ Gene said.

  ‘How about Si, too?’ Doreen said.

  ‘Let’s not go mad,’ Gene said.

  ‘And what about your darling wife?’ Angie said.

  ‘She’s not there. She’s never there. I did tell you that.’

  Angie smiled.

  ‘Come on,’ Doreen said. ‘I’ve got to get these girls home. Nice to meet you, Si. I hope our paths cross again.’

  ‘So do I,’ Si said. He took her hand and kissed it.

  ‘And nice to meet you too, Doreen,’ said Gene, rising to his feet. He kissed each of them on the cheek, ending with Doreen. He crushed a note into her hand. ‘Get yourselves a cab to Liverpool Street. And look after yourself. All of you. Goodnight!’ He turned away and walked over to the bar.

  They hailed a taxi and climbed into the back. Carol closed her eyes and her breathing became slow and regular.

  ‘Could this day get any better?’ Angie said. ‘We’re riding in a black taxi cab. I’m glad you came, Doreen. Now you can see how nice Gene is. He’s generous and thoughtful.’

  ‘Oh yes, very generous when there’s something in it for him,’ Doreen said.

  ‘Why did he give you the money and not me?’ Angie drooped onto Doreen’s shoulder.

  ‘Probably because you two have obviously had too much to drink.’ But Angie was asleep. ‘Oh Angie,’ Doreen whispered.

  CHAPTER 21

  ANGIE AND DOREEN WERE SITTING AT the kitchen table, Angie was pouring cornflakes into a bowl. Doreen said, ‘What time did we get in last night? I feel like I’ve had about five minutes sleep.’

  ‘It was gone midnight,’ Angie said. ‘I’m going to ring work and tell them I’m coming in late.’

  ‘I told Bolingbroke’s I was having the morning off today. We’ll both get the sack soon, if we’re not careful,’ Doreen said. ‘And look, Dad’s left us this!’ She turned over the notes their dad had left on the table. ‘I might go into town and spend it.’ />
  ‘Things just keep getting better,’ Angie said. ‘I’ll give some to Carol. I can’t keep borrowing money off her.’

  ‘Well, buy something for yourself as well,’ Doreen said. ‘Isn’t it nice when you get a note in your hand like this? Makes you feel rich.’

  ‘And we are rich!’ Angie said. ‘Oh, why don’t they just buy a new house in that development in Springfield, forget about Australia, and we can all stay here and be happy.’

  ‘Don’t start,’ Doreen said. ‘We’ve all had the interviews now.’

  ‘I forgot! How did yours go?’

  ‘Oh, they said I passed. We’ve all passed, though I can’t think how. I assume Dad didn’t smell of drink, or else he just held his breath and let Mum do the talking.’

  Angie reached for the milk bottle, ‘So are you going to see that Si again? You looked very friendly last night.’

  ‘Oh no, last night. I was just trying to make . . . make you jealous. Make you all jealous.’

  ‘I don’t think Gene was jealous!’ Angie laughed. ‘I mean he likes Si, but he had his hands full.’

  ‘Yes,’ Doreen said. ‘I could see that.’

  ‘And I don’t think Carol could have cared less.’ She pulled the sugar bowl towards her. ‘And I had Gene so I was occupied. So no one was jealous of anyone.’

  ‘Of course not. I meant, make you jealous that I understood jazz.’ Doreen drew a cigarette from a packet on the table. She lit it and inhaled deeply. There was a feeling in the pit of her stomach, a grinding that made her want to bend over and wail. Why had she gone to the Club last night? What did she think she was doing? She’d thought at first she was making sure Angie was safe but she’d ended up trying to make Gene jealous. Why had she done that? She felt so stupid.

  ‘Well, Gene—’ Angie began.

  ‘What’s happening with you and Gene?’ Doreen interrupted. ‘Are you really keen on him? I mean really?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want to go on, but I think you should keep your wits about you.’ Oh, this was so difficult. She wanted to warn her, but how could she do that without telling her everything, and that she couldn’t do. It would break her heart.