Mr Starlight

by Laurie Graham

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I meant how are you? Have you seen Bryn?’

  ‘Next week,’ I said. ‘I’ll call him next week.’

  Hazel had been nagging me as well. ‘At least send him your condolences,’ she kept saying. ‘If you’re going to earn a living you’re going to need Bryn Reynolds.’

  I said, ‘It’s not easy, Sel, keeping it to myself.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I can imagine. Well, tell Jennifer Jane to get to work on that cure. Tell her to burn the midnight oil. I’ll pay for the test tubes. And remember, if there’s anything I can do, I’m here if you need me.’

  I said to Penri, ‘I think Sel’s hoping we can get back together again, do another season. He won’t come right out and say it, but he’s been dropping hints.’

  He said, ‘A big name like Mr Starlight, you could likely get Blackpool. I’d speak up if I were you. Cled. I’d strike while the iron is hot.’

  So I picked up the telephone and called Bryn. I said, ‘I was very sorry to hear of your sad loss.’ I’d practised saying it.

  ‘To tell you the truth, Chegwin,’ he said, ‘things weren’t the way they seemed between me and Avril. She went her own way and I went mine, had done for years. As a matter of fact she was going her own way the night she …’

  I said, ‘On the M6. I read about it. In fog.’

  ‘Correct,’ he said. ‘On the M6. In fog. With Stan Butterworth. You’re probably shocked.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  He said, ‘I was shocked, Chet. I mean, we’re all grown-ups. We are all free to make our own arrangements. But it’s always been a rule of mine not to mix pleasure with business, and I thought Avril did the same. Well, I was wrong. Stan Butterworth. After all I’d done for that man. Well, you reap as you sow. He’s blown his last balloon.’

  I’d been picking myself up, starting to feel a bit better, and then he had to go and tell me a thing like that.

  He said, ‘Now, I was wondering about you for Pwllheli. I’ve got Rita Delmonte top of the bill, a band called the Nite Riders, and Titch and Lofty. Remember them from Aberystwyth?’

  I remembered them very well. I was wondering whether Avril had shared her charms with Lofty as well as me and Stan Butterworth. Or was Lofty the doll? Anyway, that decided me. I couldn’t work for Bryn Reynolds any more. Too many bitter memories. I said, ‘No thanks, Bryn. As a matter of fact me and Sel may be joining forces again. There’s talk of a United States tour.’

  Then I had to tell Hazel. I said, ‘I might go back on the road with Sel.’

  ‘Where?’ she said. ‘Back on the road where?’ She laughed when I said I was going to talk to Sel about a tour of the Midwest. ‘That’ll be a long way to bring your laundry home,’ she said. ‘You’re dreaming. Well, you’d better wake up and talk to Bryn Reynolds.’

  I said, ‘I already did. All he had to offer was Pwllheli so I told him no thank you.’

  She said, ‘Then you can just phone him back and tell him yes please. You’ve got to do something, Cled. I can’t have you mooching around here, burning electric and being sarcastic to my gentlemen.’

  That was because I’d laughed one time when some novelties salesman suggested we were both in the same line of business. ‘Sales is a solo act,’ he said. ‘Every time you walk in to see a buyer and slap your order book on the counter, it’s like standing in the spotlight at the Swansea Grand. You’re out there on your own.’ Anyhow, I don’t believe he heard me laugh. He was too busy fascinating my wife with his Welsh dragon pencil tops.

  I said, ‘Bryn Reynolds isn’t the only one putting shows on. I’ve got contacts. I might get a season in Spain. Benidorm. There’s plenty of work there. I’d be gone for months. Would that suit you?’

  ‘Spain!’ she said. ‘More silly talk. And meanwhile somebody else is snapping up Pwllheli. You know your trouble, Cled? You’ve got a highly inflated idea of yourself. To hear you talk you’re some big star. Well, you’re not. You’re run of the mill. You think you’re God’s gift to women. Well, you’re not that either.’

  Jennifer Jane slammed her bedroom door. It was already closed, so she must have opened it so she could slam it.

  I stayed very calm. I went upstairs, packed a bag and slipped out the back way. I said, ‘I’ve had enough, Penri. Enough of not getting due recognition.’

  He said, ‘Pwllheli wouldn’t have been bad. You might have built on it, for next year.’

  I said, ‘It’s not just that. I’ve had enough of men in shiny-arsed suits winking at my wife, giving her promotional biros. Enough of the bloody buggering rain.’

  He said, ‘I can see you’re out of sorts.’

  I did phone Hazel.

  She said, ‘If you look lively and get down to Moira Street, Probert’s are looking for a piano salesman.’

  I said, ‘I’m not going to be a piano salesman, Hazel.’

  She said, ‘Are you in a railway station?’

  I said, ‘No. I’m at London airport.’

  She said, ‘Does that mean you’ve left me?’

  And then my money ran out.

  TWENTY-SIX

  ‘I’ll send Blue,’ he said. ‘He’ll meet you off the plane.’ There had been a lot of changes at Desert Star and Blue was one of them. He was Sel’s driver, bodyguard and personal assistant, and he lived in one of the guest bungalows. Sel had bought the house next door and knocked it down, so he could enlarge the garden and have more rooms built. From the street all you could see were yuccas and prickly pears, and a high wall painted pale peach. Everybody knew who lived there, but nobody made a fuss about it. That was a nice feature of Las Vegas. You didn’t get people cruising by, rubbernecking, not in those days.

  He’d had a glass arcade built between the pool and the breakfast terrace, filled with banana palms, and a pair of panthers guarding each end. They were life-size, covered in flock and wired up to roar, except to me they looked more like they were yawning than roaring and the noise they made sounded like a toilet chain being pulled. But Sel was very proud of his jungle atrium, as he called it. His pride and joy, though, were his raised flower beds filled with Mr Starlight roses. ‘Fortunes may change,’ he said. ‘Sometimes you’re in, sometimes you’re out. But once you’ve had a floribunda named after you they can’t take that away.’

  Mam was very happy about me visiting. It was the warmest welcome I ever remember getting from her. ‘This is how we should be,’ she said. ‘Proper family together. We don’t need outsiders.’

  Sel said, ‘Hazel’s not an outsider. Cled should have brought her with him. I’d love to have her here.’

  A trial separation, that’s how I saw it. Time for both of us to review the situation.

  Mam said, ‘Wives hardly ever fit in. You do your best to guide your boys but in the end you have to let them realise their own errors. Well, now Cledwyn has realised his.’

  I said, ‘It’s not a question of errors. I’m here to talk business with Sel.’

  ‘A bit late for that,’ she said. ‘You should have stuck with him when you had the chance. Made something of yourself instead of vegetating in Llandudno. Boffs don’t run boarding houses. Boffs perform.’

  I said, ‘I perform.’

  ‘Aberystwyth!’ Mam said. ‘Morecambe! They’re for no-hopers.’

  Sel said, ‘Now, Mam! You didn’t say that when I was there.’

  She said, ‘That’s because you were only there out of the kindness of your heart. You went to give your brother a helping hand, instead of taking your mother on a star-studded cruise, which you could have done. What kind of business are you here for, Cledwyn? If you need work you can be my driver. Selwyn will pay you. Then I won’t have to be driven around by a black man.’

  I said. ‘I’m here to talk Boff Brothers business. We had a great success in Morecambe, didn’t we, Sel? Something we could build on.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah. I’m mulling it over. Why don’t you take young Ricky to Malibu for a few days, while I’m mulling
? Take one of the cars.’

  Ricky hardly left his room, except for mealtimes. As Pearl said, he should have been in school but he’d never really settled down after Betsan uprooted him from Birmingham. He hadn’t found it easy to make new pals. And not being gifted at sports hadn’t helped him get along with his new dad. I think Larry might have taken better to a lad who could hit a ball.

  Sel said, ‘He’ll be all right. He’ll find something he’s good at, give him time.’ So he was allowed to stay at home, plucking at a guitar and trying out different hairstyles.

  Mam said, ‘He’s been to school. He was too advanced for the class they put him in.’ She made him sound like a chip off his great-grandad.

  I said, ‘Do you want to go to Malibu, Ricky?’

  ‘Don’t mind,’ he said.

  That was teenagers for you. No enthusiasm for anything. I’d read in the papers that they were becoming the most influential age group in the world.

  I said, ‘Want a trumpet lesson? When I was your age I practised for hours, didn’t I, Mam? Trumpet, piano. I could show you the basics.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s all right.’

  Suited me. I didn’t want to be a babysitter. I wanted to get my new career under way and it was proving very hard to get Sel to sit down and talk. There was never any sign of him till the afternoon. I’d have my breakfast outside, under the awning, and then play one of the pianos.

  Pearl loved tunes by Jerome Kern. ‘You better had stop, Mr Cled,’ she’d say. ‘I already polished this room twice over.’

  I’d take the runabout sometimes, drive down to the Strip late morning and make myself known to the showroom managers, but it was Sel I was waiting on and sometimes it’d be three o’clock before he put in an appearance. And Mam was like a guard dog. She wouldn’t let anyone give his door a gentle tap. ‘He needs his sleep,’ she’d say.

  And Pearl’d say, ‘Only because he stays up all night watching fool movies. What he needs is regularity and fresh air. He should play golf.’

  A lot of Sel’s neighbours whiled away their days at the Sahara Country Club, hitting a few balls and sinking a quantity of drink, but of course they weren’t appearing in cabaret. I knew from my own days in show business that if you’re in the spotlight till three in the morning you do need time out of the public eye. When you’ve been out there, practising your craft, you can’t just come home, put the cat out and go to bed. You have to wind down.

  His fans would have been surprised to see him when he did crawl out. In the magazine pictures he was always wearing silk pyjamas or a nice, cheerful leisure shirt. They’d show him arranging a vase of Nile lilies, or getting ready for a fancy dinner, checking the table settings were perfect. But that was done for the photographs. I never saw him in any silk pyjamas. He wore the same old dressing gown he’d had at Mission Avenue and he’d slop around like that till it was time for Blue to drive him into town. And there were never any fancy dinners either, although the table with the elephant tusk legs was always kept laid, with crystal and linen, and a little silver pepper and salt for every seat. You could walk in any hour of the day or night and think the Aga Khan was expected. But we ate in the kitchen as a rule.

  Sel lived on ice cream and cigarettes but Ricky ate everything Pearl put in front of him: fried chicken, macaroni cheese. When Mam had first moved in there had been ructions in the kitchen. Pearl didn’t understand about the kind of gravy we’d had in Birmingham and Mam was scandalised to see her putting strawberries in a lettuce salad. It had gone as far as bags being packed and they weren’t Mam’s bags. But Pearl loved Sel like he was her own, so she’d unpacked her bags and tried to work alongside Mam, and her patience had paid dividends because once Mam discovered the slot machines she lost interest in how the gravy was made.

  She’d have Randolph drive her to the Tumbleweed with a bag full of nickels and dimes, and then he had to stay with her, so that if she needed to answer a call of nature she wouldn’t have to leave her machine unattended and risk somebody else winning her jackpot. Four or five days a week she did that, if she wasn’t booked to make a celebrity appearance. And Randolph had his instructions. Escorting Mam to the Tumbleweed took precedence over the gardening and the odd jobs, and when all her money was gone he had to top her up with more. I couldn’t see any satisfaction in it myself, sitting in the gloaming when the sun was shining outside, but Mam never tired of it. She dressed up and kept to a timetable, as if she was going to a job of work. They had slot machines at the Flamingo, where Sel was showcasing. She could have gone there and had VIP treatment, but she said the slots at the Tumbleweed were better value and anyway, she didn’t like distractions. People recognised her sometimes, from her custard adverts, and thronged her for her autograph.

  She had me escort her to Showtime with Mr Starlight a couple of times too, although it had no appeal for me, sitting out there with the mugs when I should have been performing. I preferred a nice rib dinner followed by Nudes on Ice. You could hang your hat on some of those girls’ nipples.

  I’d say to Sel, ‘Well? Have you mulled?’ And I’d play one of his old favourites, ‘An Angel Passed’, ‘Time on my Hands’, to get him in the mood.

  ‘I save that stuff for the ladies in Wisconsin,’ he said. ‘Here you’re singing over the chinking of glasses, for one thing. And you have to keep things light and cheerful. People don’t come to Vegas to have their heart strings pulled. They want “Zip-ah-dee-doo-dah”.’

  So I played ‘Zip-ah-dee-doo-dah’. I said, ‘I’m adaptable.’

  ‘It’s not that easy, Cled,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a regular set-up here. Dusty plays for me here, Tubby plays for me when I’m on the road. I can’t start changing everything just because you’ve blown into town.’

  I said, ‘As I recall, from events in Atlantic City, you can do anything you like.’

  ‘Cled,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice having you here, but don’t you think it’s time to sober up? Work things out with Hazel?’

  I’d had Dilys on at me too, and Jennifer Jane.

  Dilys said, ‘It makes me very sad, Cled, very sad indeed. And I don’t want to hear any tales. Hazel’s always been a good friend to me.’

  Jennifer said, ‘I don’t want to hear anybody’s side of it, Daddy. I’ve got exams.’

  I said, ‘I’m not going back, Sel. I’m like a lodger in that house. Waiting in line behind her gentlemen for the All-Bran every morning. Having to go to Penri Clocker’s house every time I want to play. So if you don’t want me here, just say the word. I’ll make my own way. I’ve still got contacts.’

  ‘Don’t talk so daft,’ he said. ‘Of course I want you here. Look, I have got something in mind, if you were to be here permanent.’

  I said, ‘Now you’re talking!’

  He said, ‘I’m not getting rid of Dusty and I’m not getting rid of Tubby, so you can forget that. But there’s that lot I bought on Tropicana standing idle. I’ve had in mind to put a club on it, only I never seem to get round to it. That’d be something you could do.’

  I said, ‘You mean play?’

  He said, ‘First you have to build it, open the doors, do the hiring. After that you can play. Play, count the takings, do a striptease if you like. It’d be yours. But think it over, Cled. It’s a big step. You should talk to Hazel.’

  But Hazel didn’t want to talk to me. The minute she heard my voice she’d put the phone down. And anyway, I’d already made up my mind, assisted by a certain little lady called Lupe Leon.

  I met Lupe at one of Thelma Arden’s parties, across the street from Desert Star. Thelma always had a house full of company. The Nulties, the Pecks, the Winegartners, the whole Vegas crowd, plus whoever happened to be in town: Harry Belafonte, Joey Bishop, Mitzi Lamour. People would gather around the pool or in the pool, because there was a fibreglass waterfall and a swim-up bar that served every drink you could name.

  They’d wheel a piano out on to the sun deck and I’d be asked to play. Sel
would never sing, though. Sometimes he didn’t even show up, but if he did he’d just sit in the shade, drinking vodka and Coke. He got his suntan out of a bottle and the only pool he’d ever go in was his own. ‘All those people!’ he’d say. ‘All those little bits of skin floating off! It’s disgusting. Anyway, Thelma’s pool is over-chlorinated. It’d ruin my hair.’

  Thelma had a high-backed peacock chair she reserved specially for Mam, and there she’d sit, holding court and eating everything she was served. One of Pearl’s cousins cooked for Thelma. There’d be sausages roasted on sticks and fresh-popped buttered popcorn, just to keep you going till the roast was ready. Loin of pork cooked on a spit, and baked potatoes and home-made ice cream. It was a very nice way of life and you could never do it in Llandudno. They don’t have the weather for it.

  When Lupe found out I couldn’t swim she wouldn’t leave me alone till I learned. She had starred in a number of films that called for a girl who could dive and turn somersaults and look good underwater, and when the demand for that fell off she’d gone into business, training her own squad of Aquarettes. They travelled all over the world performing in water spectaculars. Lupe could do anything underwater and she did. She definitely helped me to get over Avril. It was thanks to her I learned to do the doggy paddle. It was thanks to her I decided to stay on in Vegas and open the Old Bull and Bush: a traditional British pub, with horse brasses and a beam-effect ceiling and an upright piano played by Mine Host. I was star of my own show every night of the week, with good cold beer on tap and some toothsome wenches working the pumps.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sel lost his libel case against Uncensored, but then he went back for more, a glutton for punishment, suing them for damages caused by invasion of his private life.

  I said, ‘How can you be entitled to a private life when you bring books out with pictures of you sitting in your bathtub?’

  He said, ‘Bringing out books is a way of allowing my fans to share my fabulous lifestyle. All my ladies, sitting in their little houses, dreaming. It cheers them up to see me with my nice things. It makes them feel like they really know me. And they’re respectful, Cled. They enjoy what I give them and they don’t ask for more. They never cross that line.’