Rags to Riches

by Nancy Carson

  He shrugged again. ‘Maybe I did. I can’t remember.’

  ‘Huh! How very convenient when you can’t remember such things…’ Maxine sighed. She’d had her say and her indignation was abating. She finished what remained of her drink and screwed the top back on to her thermos. From her basket she withdrew a pack of sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper, opened it and offered Brent one to demonstrate her enduring friendship. He took it sheepishly.

  ‘I’ll bring some extra tomorrow. Save you bothering. At least, that way you’ll eat. But it’s more than you deserve.’

  ‘You’re an angel, Maxine.’

  Chapter 16

  Brent Shackleton lit another cigarette and puffed smoke into his kitchen that already looked as if a whirlwind had ravaged through it. He turned over a page of his notepad, nudging a pile of dirty crockery against a mound of opened mail and musical arrangements to make room, then drew hard on his cigarette again. Just what sort of a band would he have if Maxine resigned? And all because of that bloody stupid Zadoc the Priest. What did she see in him? He wrote her name on the right hand side of the page. A definite no. The band would miss her.

  Pansy Hemming. He wrote her name on the left hand side. Pansy would be happy to go to anywhere. All she wanted was to be a professional musician with The Owls and the Pussycats. Pity Maxine wasn’t more like her. Pansy would have to fill in on Maxine’s vocals. Fair pianist, too.

  He flicked cigarette ash onto one of the dirty plates in front of him and wrote ‘Toots’ below Pansy in the left hand column. Toots and his trumpet would go to London if Pansy had made her mind up to go; he wouldn’t want to be left behind with half the young men in London ogling her.

  Charlie Holt, the double-bass player, had no real attachments. He was a draughtsman, designing pressure vessels on decent pay. Charlie might think twice about giving that up. He must have a word with Charlie, paint a rosy picture, promise the earth. Charlie should be okay.

  Ginger Tolley would be okay, too. He had no woman to hold him back, except his mother. He loved his mother. He loved the band, too and hated his job. Ginger would be no trouble. His name went in the left hand column.

  Now – Kenny Wheeler, the drummer. Brent’s first inclination was to write his name in the left hand column but he felt that might be wrong. Kenny was married, his wife had a baby to nurture. Kenny would not leave them in Birmingham while he went to work in London, no matter how many spare women were about. He might want to, but his sense of responsibility would not allow him to go that far. He might be reluctant, but he would almost certainly leave the band. The second name on the right hand side – two names too many.

  They could feasibly get away without a replacement for Maxine, since Pansy was so versatile. She could not sing anywhere near as well as Maxine and, while she was playing piano, she couldn’t be playing her clarinet or her saxophone. But they might get away with it…No. On second thoughts, Maxine would need to be replaced. Kenny certainly would.

  Two new band members…It would take a while to break them into the style and repertoire of The Owls and the Pussycat – one Pussycat, damn it – weeks, even. Better if they weren’t offered anything yet in the way of London work. But what if tomorrow brought an urgent request from Seth Cohen to do a season at the Lyceum Ballroom say, or tour the country with Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club Quintet? On the other hand, what if Seth offered them nothing and he’d already let both Maxine and Kenny go? That would be dire.

  Brent stubbed his cigarette out in an old eggshell, put his head in his hands and groaned. So which came first? Bloody eggs, or bloody chickens? Bookings in London or new band members?

  That Saturday night saw the band playing at Tipton Baths instead of the Tower. Recently they’d been offered lots of other work for Saturday nights and Brent was inclined to accept it. First, they did not want to risk getting stale at the Tower, but secondly, and more relevantly, these other venues were offering more money. The acoustics were not exceptional at the baths, but so what? The punters wouldn’t mind. Dancing was the nation’s favourite pastime and wherever they played the place was sure to be packed, and folk turned away at the door if they hadn’t got a ticket.

  During the evening Brent spoke to the band about the possibility of working in London and they all agreed that they would love to do it, with the exception of Maxine and Kenny. Brent had been right about Kenny. Whilst he would have liked to have gone, he could not he said, because of his wife and child and Maxine thought how noble of him.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ she told him afterwards while they were packing up their instruments. ‘You’re off with other women all the time, but you obviously care about your wife and baby enough to stay here.’

  Kenny grinned boyishly. ‘I worship the bab, Maxine. Just because I like a bit on the side, don’t make me all bad, does it? Anyway, I’ve never met one woman yet who could cope with me. I’m after it all the time, I am.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake…’

  ‘I ain’t braggin’, Maxine, honest. My wife can’t cope with me and she knows it. Do you fancy applyin’ for a part time position?’

  ‘No,’ Maxine laughed, shaking her head and collecting sheet music into a pile.

  ‘Pity. I fancy you rotten.’

  ‘And I thought you fancied my sister.’

  ‘I do. I fancy your sister as well. She’s nearly as pretty as you.’

  ‘She’d be a lot prettier if she smiled a bit.’

  Kenny stuffed two cymbals into a black cardboard case. ‘I bet I could put a smile on her face.’

  ‘I really don’t know what you mean, Kenny,’ Maxine said, feigning uppishness.

  ‘Well you smile a lot. I can only presume old Howard over there is suiting you well. Your sister – what’s her name again?’

  ‘Alice.’

  ‘She told me her telephone number but I’ve forgot it. Just remind me what it is, Maxine.’

  ‘No, why should I? You’re a married man.’

  ‘God, you’re a bloody spoilsport, you are.’

  ‘You work for the GPO telephones. You find it. Do some detective work.’

  ‘If I’m to be a sleuth I’ll need a clue, won’t I? Can’t you even give me a clue, Maxine?’

  ‘Here’s one – you won’t find her listed in the telephone directory.’

  ‘That’s some bloody use.’

  The following Saturday night, The Owls and the Pussycats were due to play at Dudley Town Hall, sharing the limelight with Jack Bradney and His Band. Lately, work was coming in from everywhere. Soon they were due to play at West Bromwich Baths, Brierley Hill Town Hall, Stourbridge Baths, Sutton Coldfield Town Hall and even further afield, many of them midweek bookings.

  The band, with the exception of Maxine and Brent who would be late due to a CBO concert, had arrived early to set up. That done, they had called at the Saracen’s Head before returning to the Town Hall to await the arrival of the other two. To Kenny’s surprise and delight, he saw Alice looking a picture in a new dance dress, standing alone in the foyer looking as if she was waiting for someone. When she saw him, her face lit up.

  ‘Alice! Fancy seeing you here. You look really nice.’

  ‘Hello, Kenny,’ she replied pleasantly. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Where’s Rose?’

  ‘I dunno. She ain’t here at any rate. Where’s your fella?’

  ‘I dunno,’ she mimicked. ‘He ain’t here either.’

  Kenny was thrilled at the prospect of getting her alone. ‘You on your own, then?’

  ‘Yes. I thought I’d see our Maxine and her chap here.’

  ‘I expect they ain’t arrived yet. Fancy a drink while you wait?’

  Alice followed Kenny as he pushed past others to get to the bar. It was crowded in there, noisy, and trying to get served tested your patience. But Kenny did not mind being pressed against Alice – nor did she – while they waited and talked.

  ‘So where’s Rose tonight?’ Alice v
entured to ask.

  He shrugged. ‘I didn’t think to ask her over here. Anyway it’s not as if we’re courting or anything – she being married and that.’

  ‘You stopped in the car park at the Tower long enough the other night.’

  ‘Hark who’s talking,’ Kenny parried and he could not help grinning. ‘I spotted you with your car windows all steamed up.’

  ‘How d’you know I didn’t stay just to spy on you?’ Alice fenced, pleased that he should have noticed after all.

  ‘My only disappointment was that you and me was in different motors,’ he baited. ‘So what are you doing after?’

  Alice clasped her handbag in front of her swaying coyly, like a little girl holding a rag doll. It was a pose that usually got her what she wanted with men.

  ‘I ain’t doin’ nothin’ in particular,’ she confessed. ‘What you got in mind?’

  When the dancing was over, Kenny had stacked his drum kit, his pride and joy, in a pile of boxes at the foot of the stage and asked if anybody would like to give him a hand to load his van. Alice and Maxine each took a box they thought they could easily manage, and the lads helped, carrying their own instruments out too.

  ‘Do you want Howard and me to give you a lift home, Alice?’ Maxine asked.

  ‘Oh, no, it’s all right. Kenny’s taking me, Maxine.’

  Maxine had guessed as much but felt she should offer anyway. ‘Okay. Tell Mother I’ll call round tomorrow.’

  ‘Shall you stop for your Sunday dinner?’

  ‘Yes, okay.’

  ‘See you tomorrow, then.’

  Maxine held Howard’s hand while she watched Alice get eagerly into Kenny’s Post Office van. ‘I hope she knows what she’s doing,’ she said to Howard as she waved goodbye to her sister. ‘He is a married man, after all.’

  ‘She’s a grown woman, Maxine,’ Howard advised. ‘She has her own life to lead.’

  ‘Let’s go that way home. Let’s just see if they are going straight to the dairy house. Somehow I doubt it.’

  Of course they didn’t. Kenny drove straight past Willowcroft and Alice directed Kenny through a gate into a dark, secluded spot off the unlit Oakham Road near Dudley Golf Club with its undulating hills and hollows. They found themselves on the golf course itself, at the top of a downward slope near one of the tees. Through the windscreen, the view over Halesowen and Cradley Heath was spectacular. The furnaces of a hundred forges and the cupolas of a hundred foundries glowed yellow in the distance and, when a load of molten slag was tipped at the Round Oak Steel Works in distant Brierley Hill, the horizon bloomed as if God had switched a light on. The bright moon, too, hovering like a luminous balloon, afforded them plenty of light.

  Kenny stopped the engine.

  He looked into Alice’s eyes. ‘I fancied you, Alice, the moment I saw you.’

  ‘I know,’ she replied and stroked his hand. ‘I could tell.’

  ‘So what are we gonna do about it?’

  ‘What do you think we should do?’

  He put his arm around her and drew her to him. Their lips met unhesitatingly and they kissed, their ardour increasing rapidly, for they both knew where they were headed with no time to waste. Kenny’s free hand roamed first to Alice’s breasts and, experiencing no resistance at all, soon ventured boldly up her skirt. She parted her legs obligingly and he began teasing her between her thighs, to instant sighs of pleasure.

  ‘Let’s lie on the grass,’ he whispered, trying to visualise the splendour of unfettered horizontal activity on this their first encounter. ‘It’s hopeless in here, unless we open the door and stick our legs out.’

  ‘But it’s too cold,’ Alice protested, imagining the chill night’s wind whistling around her bare backside. ‘We’ll freeze.’

  ‘I’ve got two blankets in the back. One to lie on, one to put over us. It’ll be better than trying to outdo Houdini in here.’

  It meant starting the rigmarole all over again, but it would be worth it; like lying in bed under the stars.

  ‘Oh all right.’ Nobody could ever accuse her of being unadventurous where sex was concerned. She got out of the van, took off her best coat and tossed it inside.

  In the darkness, Kenny fumbled around in the back of the van for his blankets while Alice stood and shivered in her sleeveless dancing dress. At last he placed the blankets on the grass at the side of the Post Office van and invited her to join him. When he spread the top blanket over them, she snuggled up to him for warmth.

  ‘Brrr! That’s better,’ she said. ‘Do you always keep some blankets in the van?’

  ‘Usually. To cover my drum kit.’

  ‘I hope you thought to bring some French letters as well. I don’t want to get into trouble.’

  ‘Never use ’em. Waste o’ time.’

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t let you then. How do I know you’ll be careful?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be careful – I don’t need hassle. Now shut up and kiss me.’

  While they kissed, he slid the hem of her dress above her waist and she unceremoniously raised her bottom so that he could take her knickers off easily.

  ‘Now get your trousers off.’

  ‘I’m trying…’

  ‘Here, let me help…’

  Eventually, they had his trousers and his underpants off. She submitted to him readily as he shifted on top of her. Without further ritual she felt him enter, thrusting into her gently, a bit further each time till he was inside her to the hilt, filling her up. She groaned with the pleasure of it till he found her lips again, and she tasted him with delight. She forgot about the cold and, as she clung to him, she first fondled his neck, then gripped his buttocks to pull him harder into her. She looked up at the stars and the moon and saw they were moving, oscillating in time with their rocking bodies. An owl shrieked eerily overhead and she thought she heard something scuffing across the fairway of the golf course, like a fox dragging its quarry. But Kenny was zealously active inside her and that addictive glow deep in her groin was already growing brighter, promising extreme pleasure, urging her to press herself even closer to him. She heard the scrunching on the grass again, further away this time, and tilted her head to see what it was. Odd that Kenny’s Post Office van was not there anymore. She could have sworn…Then, with effortless detachment, she saw it rolling away. God alone knew where it might end up…Turning her attention back to Kenny, she thrust up to him, grinding against him harder and harder, for relief was imminent. In time with their movements, the van uttered a quickening, rhythmic squeak as it rolled away, gathering pace.

  Kenny heard it too, turned and watched his van disappear down the hill. ‘The bloody van!’ he cried in disbelief.

  ‘Sod the van,’ Alice retorted fervently, and held him hard into her to forestall any inclination he might have to dismount and run after it.

  They were at that ecstatic point when she couldn’t stop. But he wouldn’t dream of foregoing her eternal admiration for such a monumental performance either. The world could cave in under them, the sky could fall in on their heads, but they could not stop. Not at that moment.

  At last she cried out: ‘Bloody hell, Kenny!…Oh, my God!…Jesus…’

  He gave her a few seconds before he spoke. ‘You done already?’ he queried prosaically.

  She nodded, breathless. ‘Ooh, I needed that…Thank you, Kenny…It was smashin’.’

  ‘One hundred percent effort, me. Tell all your friends, eh?’ He looked around. He could not see the van at all.

  Then, they heard an almighty crash.

  In a panic, he made to get up and investigate but she grabbed him between the legs and made sure she held on to him. He was still rock hard, and seemed as thick as her wrist. Impressive, she thought.

  ‘You didn’t let go inside me, did you?’ she asked, still getting her breath back.

  ‘No. I still haven’t.’

  ‘Good. I’ll do it for you, eh?’

  ‘But the van…’

  ‘That van a
in’t goin’ nowhere else now, Kenny. Relax a bit…Relax…’

  ‘Okay,’ he muttered submissively, ‘but quick as you can…No, don’t squeeze him too tight…Gently…That’s it…’

  She finished him off and he squirmed with pleasure, holding his breath, his whole body rigid as he climaxed.

  ‘Come on now, let’s find the damned van.’

  As unceremoniously as it had begun, it ended. He found his trousers, she her knickers, and they dressed themselves in silence. Alice stifled a giggle at the absurdity of the whole thing.

  ‘Your van’s rolled into the quarry, I think,’ she informed him tentatively, then burst into whoops of uncontrollable laughter.

  ‘Quarry? What damned quarry?’

  ‘There’s a quarry. Just over that bump…’ She pointed in the darkness, shivering without the protection of the blanket. ‘Good job we weren’t still in the van.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me there’s a quarry?’

  ‘You din’t ask.’

  ‘Oh, Christ! The bloody van! Me drum kit!’ He went to walk towards the edge to find out if he could see anything.

  ‘Keep away,’ she yelled, ‘else you’ll end up down there with it. You won’t make out the edge in this light. It’s a sheer drop.’

  ‘But me drum kit, Alice. The van.’

  Alice shrugged. ‘It’ll still be there in the morning. Come on, we’d best get to our Henzey’s house, I’m frozen. It’s only just down the road. With any luck we might catch Howard there still. He’ll be able to give you a lift back to Brum.’

  Chapter 17

  Next day an outbreak of mirth brightened Sunday dinnertime at the dairy house. Maxine was expected and she in turn had invited Howard to eat with the family after Matins, knowing her mother would have roasted a large joint of beef with ample Yorkshire pudding and fresh vegetables for everybody. While they ate, Maxine and Alice exchanged secret looks and tittered like schoolgirls. Their amusement gathered momentum until they could contain it no longer and they burst into fits of unrestrained giggling. Howard knew, of course, that the cause of all this hilarity was the thought of Kenny’s van plunging into the quarry last night while Alice and Kenny were spread-eagled on the grass beside it. But they could not let on to Lizzie or Jesse, of course.