Ellie

by Lesley Pearse

  He’d found that place, here. All he had to do now was play the piano: no moments of terror standing in the wings, no endless rehearsals, no disapproval from Ambrose to face. He could laugh along with the rustic comic who gloried in the name of Farmer Pigswill and told jokes about animals mating, with a straw hanging out of his mouth.

  He enjoyed the challenge of accompanying Stella and Sydney Smythe, the husband-and-wife team who changed their repertoire of romantic duets almost nightly without warning. This show was in the best seaside tradition: hammy, hilarious and warm. No one felt cheated because the dancers had wobbly thighs, the scenery shook, the singers hit the odd flat note, or the costumes were tawdry. It was cheap, jolly entertainment and if it bore no resemblance to a West End show, so much the better. People on holiday didn’t want reminders of city life.

  If there was a fly in his ointment, it was only a very small one. Bonny! He tried to like her because Ellie did. Bonny wasn’t quite as cutting as she had been in London, nor as self-centred; in fact at times he almost felt himself warming to her. But however much he tried to tell himself she must be a good sort, or Ellie wouldn’t care about her so much, he knew deep down he was jealous of just that.

  On their arrival here, Bonny had sarcastically remarked that Archie Biggs ‘couldn’t arrange furniture, let alone choreography’. When she’d seen the dancers, ten plump country girls on loan from the local dancing school with more enthusiasm than talent, she’d curled her lips in disgust and Edward had hoped she’d take off for home.

  But Archie didn’t put Ellie and Bonny in the chorus line; he paired them together as a singing and dancing duo. It soon became apparent that the man had keen perception and imagination.

  Together the girls were dynamite. Ellie had the real voice while Bonny was the brilliant dancer, but from the way they interacted, the audience wasn’t aware of either girl’s shortcomings – only of grace, beauty and talent.

  It was a mystery to Edward why Ambrose hadn’t thought of pairing them. Their identical heights, slender figures and long legs were perfectly matched. Ellie’s sultry looks complemented Bonny’s sugar and spice blondeness and their joy at performing together turned it into a feast for the eyes.

  ‘The Vanderbilts have asked us up to tea,’ the girls sang in exaggerated falsetto voices, standing back-to-back. ‘We don’t know how to get there, no siree.’

  Bonny broke into an intricate tap-dance, blonde hair tumbling from under her hat, while Ellie glided around her, posturing comically.

  Edward glanced round at the audience. They were loving it, beaming faces everywhere, forgetting that it had been raining constantly for three days, that their fearsome guest-house landladies locked them out after breakfast until tea and that on Monday morning they’d be back working in factories, queuing for rations, trying to save a little for next year’s holiday.

  Edward often looked at people such as these and wished he was as ordinary. Yesterday afternoon he’d voiced this to Ellie, and once again she’d made him feel special, even loved.

  Edward had joined Ellie in her room the previous afternoon because there was no matinée on Thursdays. It was pouring with rain and Bonny had gone off to look at the shops.

  Ellie thought her room was heaven, just because it overlooked the promenade and the sea. Edward thought it was the ugliest he’d ever seen, with its violent, salmon-pink wallpaper, its hideous blue curtains and the two beds with horsehair mattresses that groaned when you sat on them.

  Ellie was in the process of hanging up all Bonny’s clothes, not complaining once about how untidy she was.

  Edward lay on Ellie’s bed, watching her stop to dust the dressing-table. She was wearing the same old, worn skirt and blouse she put on most days. He felt it was unfair that she had so few pretty things – she deserved better than other people’s cast-offs.

  It wasn’t often Edward got the chance to be entirely alone with Ellie; if Bonny wasn’t around there was usually one of the dancers or another member of the cast. They hadn’t spoken of that last evening in London since they arrived in Great Yarmouth and he wanted to bring it out into the open.

  He began to talk about his grandmother and her increasingly eccentric behaviour. Then he moved on to his parents and admitted how unnatural they had been, always gallivanting around and rarely considering the fact that they had a son who needed them. ‘It’s no wonder I’m abnormal,’ he said, making it sound like a joke rather than a cry for reassurance.

  ‘Who wants to be entirely normal?’ Ellie laughed and beckoned him to come over to the window and look out with her. ‘That’s normal,’ she went on, pointing out a couple with a child in a pushchair, hunched up in a shelter, stoically eating a picnic. ‘It doesn’t look like much fun, does it?’

  The rain was like stair-rods, waves breaking over the deserted promenade, the sky an unpleasant, yellowy-grey colour.

  ‘But they are at least married, with a child,’ Edward said wistfully. ‘If I don’t like sex with women, or men, what is there for me?’

  ‘You haven’t tried it with a woman yet!’ She tweaked his face round to hers and gave him a cuddle. ‘But if and when you do and you still don’t like it, you’ll just have to forget about it and just be Edward Manning.’

  ‘But what is he? A neutered tom-cat?’

  ‘Neutered toms are more lovable,’ she laughed up at him. ‘Besides, Edward Manning has other talents. He’s an actor, a fine pianist, a good friend and a very attractive gentleman. Look at him!’ She pointed down to the man in the shelter with his family.

  Edward looked. The man was probably younger than himself, wearing a badly fitting demob suit and a battered trilby. He got up as they spoke, standing, hands in pockets, staring dejectedly out at the rain. Even at a distance of some forty yards it was possible to see that his wife was nagging him as she fed their child a sandwich.

  ‘Would you like his life?’ Ellie giggled, but Edward sensed she wasn’t being entirely frivolous. ‘He’s come out of the forces expecting everything to be wonderful. But is it? I bet their home’s a couple of shabby rooms and he works twelve hours a day just to keep them. His wife doesn’t look a barrel of laughs, does she? She’s even blaming him for the weather. You must stop thinking you need someone to make you happy, Edward. It has to come from within you.’

  Edward later decided that Ellie had a point. He was doing a job he liked. He was handsome. He had a private income, his grandmother’s money coming to him when she died. No one here made jokes about him being a ‘nancy boy’. Priests got by without sex. He could too.

  ‘What are we going to do tonight?’ Bonny asked on Friday night as the three of them got to the stage door. It was raining still, just as it had been most of the week. A glance out showed deserted streets. ‘We can’t go home. It’s not even eleven yet.’

  ‘We could go to the Regent,’ Ellie said.

  Bonny groaned. ‘Not that dump!’

  ‘It’s the best hotel in town,’ Ellie said indignantly. She liked its aura of genteel sophistication and, to be entirely truthful, she got a kick out of being treated like a celebrity by the cocktail bar manager who’d seen the show three times.

  ‘It’s stuffy,’ Bonny said, picturing the old dears nodding off in their armchairs. ‘Besides, the drinks are too dear.’

  The three of them rarely went straight home to bed, even though Great Yarmouth had little to offer in the way of night-life. On warm nights they often just sat on the front, watching people, but the weather prevented that tonight.

  ‘What a waste of getting Stella to do our hair,’ Ellie said wistfully. Stella Smythe had been a hairdresser before she began singing professionally with her husband Sydney. This afternoon she’d washed and set both girls’ hair for them, giving them both the same swept-up style, with artfully arranged curls on top.

  Edward looked at both girls appraisingly. They looked so gorgeous, it was a shame to waste it. ‘We could’ve tried that place Marcel told me about,’ he suggested. ‘But it’s a bit o
ut of town – we’ll get soaked in this.’

  Marcel had been a trapeze artist, but a bad fall had put him off the high wire for good. He incorporated many of the other things he’d learned in the circus in his act – clowning, juggling and a few acrobatics. All three of them were fascinated by the man. He was a womaniser, a gambler and he enthralled them with his circus tales.

  ‘It sounded a bit odd to me.’ Ellie popped her head out of the door to see just how hard the rain was, but drew it in sharply. ‘He said it was a private house and you could only get in if someone recommended you. I expect it’s all old men playing cards.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Edward insisted. ‘Marcel said it’s like a party, except you pay for drinks. He wanted me to go with him last Friday. He said I’d have the time of my life.’

  ‘I can’t imagine anyone having the time of their life in Great Yarmouth,’ Bonny said, an impish grin on her face. ‘Mind you, Marcel seems to enjoy himself, so maybe it’s worth a try.’

  As if in answer to a silent prayer, a taxi cruised down the side road. Taxis were as rare in Great Yarmouth as a good meal at their digs.

  ‘Come on!’ Edward leaped out into the rain to flag it down. ‘We’re meant to go there. If we don’t like it we can always leave.’

  Ellie expected Vincent House to be something like their own boarding-house. She had a picture in her head of ex-servicemen gathering in a gloomy, smoke-filled room with a few Marleen-type brassy girls swigging gins.

  To her surprise, Vincent House wasn’t one of those tall, narrow Victorian houses, but a medium-sized country house well out of the town. Set behind an eight-foot wall, with wrought-iron gates and a gravel drive, it looked rather grand. The porch was lit up welcomingly, soft dance music wafted out into the darkness and there were many smart cars. Edward paid off the taxi and ushered them to the door.

  At the mention of Marcel Dupont, the man in dinner-jacket and bow-tie on the door dropped his initial haughtiness. ‘I will tell Mr Dupont you are here,’ he said with an obsequious smirk, taking their raincoats as if he were handling mink. ‘Perhaps you’d like to go into the bar, I’m sure he’ll be with you in a few minutes.’

  ‘It’s a bit more ritzy than I expected,’ Bonny whispered behind her hand to Ellie, noting the wide staircase, thick red carpet and small, twinkling chandelier. She wondered how they’d managed to keep it so nice when no one else could get paint, and wallpaper had disappeared from the shops at the start of the war.

  ‘Me too,’ Ellie agreed. She was impressed that dropping Marcel’s name produced such deference from the doorman. The bar was on the right-hand side of the hall and music was wafting out from another room to the left. ‘I hope we’ve got enough money for some drinks between us.’

  ‘I’ll get them,’ Edward said. The two pounds ten shillings a week they got in wages was soon gone, but he had just got his monthly allowance from his grandmother and he was feeling flush. The bar, with its low couches, subdued lighting and tasteful furniture, was much more to his taste than the sort of pubs they usually frequented.

  There were five or six middle-aged men, all smartly dressed, sitting here, two of them chatting to younger, very pretty women. A voluptuous blonde in her midto late-thirties served them with a drink, informing them that the first was always on the house. Smiling, she said she hoped they would enjoy themselves as there was dancing across the hall.

  ‘I wish you’d suggested this earlier,’ Ellie said in a low voice to Edward. ‘I’d have put on something smarter.’

  Two women were just being helped out of their coats in the hall, and a glimpse of cocktail dresses made Ellie extremely aware that her pink cotton dress was better suited to afternoon tea than a posh club and that her shoes had run-down heels.

  But before Edward could reassure her she looked prettier than anyone else, Marcel swept in. ‘Well, hello.’ His rather high-pitched voice was loud enough to make everyone look up. ‘What a surprise! My favourite dancing duo and our talented pianist.’

  Marcel’s parents were French and although he was as English as Edward, having been sent to boarding-school here, he retained his Gallic charm and appearance, with black hair, olive skin and very white teeth. They were so used to him being in clown make-up and costume that it came as a shock to see him as himself in a dark lounge suit. He wasn’t exactly handsome – his eyes were too close together and his nose too large – but he was striking, even though he was now in his forties.

  ‘I hope you didn’t mind me bringing the girls?’ Edward said quickly, looking a little anxious. ‘Perhaps I should’ve asked first?’

  Marcel hesitated for a split second before replying. Ellie thought perhaps he was worried they were too young to be in such a place.

  ‘Two beauties like these are welcome anywhere.’ Marcel took Ellie’s hand and kissed it flamboyantly, reassuring her his hesitation was due more to surprise than reluctance. ‘You’ve made my evening, Edward, and I’m sure everyone else’s. Now let me introduce you to my friends.’

  Twelve o’clock passed, then one, but Ellie wasn’t thinking about the time. She was slightly tight; she’d danced with just about everyone and she couldn’t remember when she’d last had such fun.

  But although not one of the twenty or so men in here seemed anything less than a gentleman, she was wary. She was keeping her eye on Bonny, who was flirting with a tall, dark man. Always observant, she’d noticed enough odd things to know this place wasn’t entirely a straightforward drinking club.

  The balance between the men and women was all wrong. All the men were middle-aged. The cut of their suits, good leather shoes, their upper-class accents and good manners united them all as being officer class or professional men.

  In contrast, the women were much younger, the eldest less than thirty and, with just one or two notable exceptions, working-class girls disguised by expensive clothes, manicures and glamorous hairstyles. Three or four of them were exceptionally lovely. One in particular, who’d been introduced by Marcel as ‘Saffron’, had dusky skin, jet-black sleek hair and dramatic, dark, flashing eyes.

  As Ellie had danced and chatted to the men, albeit in most cases briefly, she’d had the distinct impression that each one of them had come either alone, or with a male friend. Considering that most were probably married, it seemed rather suspicious. Furthermore, they all appeared reluctant to reveal anything personal about themselves, and she had a feeling that even some of the names they gave were false.

  Having been brought up knowing how Marleen avoided work yet still had nice clothes, Ellie had to assume the women here tonight survived in much the same way. She wasn’t shocked by this, nor did she particularly care if married men were out looking for ‘a bit on the side’, but it was baffling as to why such a beautifully appointed club didn’t attract any married couples or groups of friends out for an evening.

  Ellie’s eyes were drawn to Saffron again and again, especially when Edward began to dance with her. She was very tall and willowy, wearing a floor-length red dress. Most of the women showed a great deal of flesh, but although Saffron’s dress was high-necked and long-sleeved, she looked more naked than any of them. The dress was made of a fine crêpe, which clung to her almost feline body like a second skin, leaving little to the imagination and certainly no room for underwear.

  Edward was a better dancer than Ellie had expected. She watched him leading Saffron to ‘When They Begin the Beguine’. He had lost all his stiffness, his body almost melting into hers. Ellie smiled. He had changed so much since their time in London, was so much more relaxed and happy. She hoped this exotic-looking girl might unbend him a little further.

  It was nearly half past one when Ellie came out of the powder room to see Bonny standing alone in the hall, their coats over her arm.

  ‘Can we go now?’ she asked.

  Ellie had never known her friend to be the first to suggest they went home. Usually she had a job to drag her out, particularly when men were plying her with drinks.

  �
�What’s the matter?’ Ellie noticed she looked very pale suddenly.

  Bonny leaned closer to whisper in her ear. ‘I’ve got the curse. My tummy’s aching too.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll just get Edward,’ Ellie said.

  ‘Don’t worry about him.’ Bonny caught hold of Ellie’s arm, digging her nails into it as if in extreme pain. ‘He’s with that girl in the bar and I don’t want to explain. Let’s just go, he can get home alone.’

  Before Ellie could reply, Bonny was out of the front door and down the steps into the rain.

  ‘Will you tell our friend Edward that we’ve gone?’ Ellie asked the doorman who suddenly appeared again in the hall.

  ‘Certainly.’ He nodded, but there was no smile or even an invitation to come again. It seemed odd after his welcome when they’d arrived.

  ‘Bonny, it’s not normal to lose that much blood,’ Ellie said as she helped her friend into bed, tucking the blankets round her. It was even further home than they’d imagined and they were wet through. Bonny had almost passed out as they came up the stairs and when Ellie had helped her into the bathroom she was horrified to see that her underwear was soaked. ‘You’ve got to see a doctor tomorrow!’

  ‘You’re a worry-guts,’ Bonny murmured sleepily. ‘It would happen though just when I was having such a good time. That man I was dancing with was so nice. He’s coming to see the show tomorrow night.’

  ‘He’s married,’ Ellie said tartly.

  ‘So!’ Bonny opened one eye. ‘What’s that got to do with the price of fish?’

  Ellie shook her head in despair. ‘Go to sleep,’ she said. ‘You’ll see a doctor before you even think about getting up to anything else.’

  Ellie sat at the dressing-table, slowly taking the pins out of her wet, bedraggled hair. She felt quite sober now and very anxious. She felt Bonny’s trouble was something more than a bad period, that it must have something to do with the abortion. What if she wasn’t well enough to dance tomorrow? They had only another week and a bit in Great Yarmouth before the show finished and although Archie had said he could probably put them in touch with another theatre owner, if Bonny couldn’t finish their contract here he might change his mind.