Chapter 13
Kirsty Grace floated across the stage with the deafening applause ringing in her ears when The Hi-Tones were awarded second prize in the competition, her pink skirt bobbing up and down on a sea of scarlet net underskirt and her rosebud-pinned hair still perfectly in place. All thoughts of blistered heels and rubbed toes were forgotten, as the stilettos proudly tapped their way across the painted wooden boards, leading the way for the male members of the band who trailed almost bashfully in her wake.
The band had been together for over five years before Kirsty joined them, with Martin Kerr as a fairly decent lead singer, but this was the first time they had achieved any kind of success outside of their own locality, and they found themselves somewhat bemused by it. They were also acutely aware that Kirsty Grace’s voice and choice of songs for the competition – not to mention her slim, blonde good looks – had definitely helped to tip the judges’ opinion in their favour.
‘Well done!’ the main judge had told Kirsty as he handed her the wooden plaque adorned with a silver mould of a figure holding a microphone. He had then bent his shiny, bald head towards her, his subtly expensive aftershave lingering between them.
‘You have a great voice on you there, hen – and I’d say a great future in singing.’
‘Thanks very much!’ Kirsty had said, beaming with delight, then, suddenly realising that she shouldn’t be conducting a personal conversation on stage, she had blushed and moved to let him shake hands with the others, almost tripping in the pink shoes as she went. The spoilt, quarrelsome Shirley Temple – who turned out to have a far better voice than the real one – had walked away with the first prize, and Kirsty and the band had cheered with great gusto when the one-legged Highland dancer walked with great dignity across the stage wearing his artificial leg to receive third prize.
Back in the dressing-room, the lads all toasted their win with a complimentary pint of beer from the bar, and Kirsty decided to risk her father’s wrath by accepting a Babycham, which she was assured by the men would have little or no effect on her.
‘When you show him that plaque your father will be that delighted he’ll be offering you a drink himself!’ Joe Hanlon said, his face red with all the excitement and the beer.
‘I’ll tell him you said that,’ Kirsty joked, taking a sip of the sweet, fizzy drink. It was so nice and harmless-tasting that she took a bigger gulp straight afterwards.
Then, there was a knock on the changing-room door, and the bald, fragrant-smelling man who had presented the awards came in and made straight over to the band. ‘There’s someone outside who would like a wee word with you, Miss,’ he said, indicating the door to Kirsty. ‘It’ll only take a few minutes.’
There was a sudden silence. ‘D’ you mean all of us?’ Kirsty said, looking around the others.
‘I’m quite sure he said just you,’ the man said smiling, his gaze never straying from Kirsty. It was obvious from the way he was standing, with his back to the group, that they were not wanted or needed.
‘Who is it . . . and what does he want?’ Kirsty said, her brows deepening now. She turned again towards the others, an anxious look on her face. This didn’t seem right, that people wanted to talk to the youngest, least experienced member of the band.
‘It’s a personal friend of mine,’ the judge said, ‘with some very good contacts in the music business.’
‘Go on out and see, hen,’ Martin Kerr said in a low voice, touching her elbow, and Kirsty noticed that he had a strange, resigned look on his face. ‘If you need us for anything, we’re all just in here.’
The judge led Kirsty through the crowd towards the dazzlingly lit bar. As they walked along, people kept stopping them to congratulate Kirsty on her great performance and her fine voice. She smiled and thanked them all, and silently wondered if her feet would last the rest of the night in the shoes, as they were really starting to pinch at the toes. Then she found herself being guided into a seat at a table to the side of the bar, and there sat the handsome, smartly dressed man who had been sitting in the front row.
‘Larry Delaney,’ the man said in a refined Irish accent, holding his hand out towards her. He looked up at the judge. ‘And this hugely talented young lady is . . .’
‘Kirsty Grace from The Hi-Tones,’ Kirsty answered, knowing that the judge probably only knew the band’s name and not the individual members. She realised the dark-haired man was still holding his hand out, and quickly offered her hand to him.
‘Kirsty Grace,’ Larry said with a smile, showing a row of perfectly even, white teeth. ‘It works better than the band’s name.’
Kirsty smiled back at him, feeling more relaxed now she knew he was Irish. All the Irish people she knew both in her family and in the village were always warm and friendly.
The judge looked at Larry now. ‘Same again?’ he said, motioning to the bar.
‘That’ll be fine,’ Larry replied, ‘and whatever Kirsty here is having.’
‘A Babycham, please,’ Kirsty suddenly heard herself saying, as though she had been ordering the drink all her life. She had left half of her drink in the changing-room, and she decided that another one would do no harm. As the boys in the band had said, it was a special night and deserved to be celebrated with more than just a glass of lemonade.
‘How long have you been singing, Kirsty?’ Larry asked, taking a fancy packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He offered Kirsty one, which she declined, before taking one himself.
Kirsty shrugged. ‘I suppose I’ve been with the band for nearly a year.’
‘And have you enjoyed it?’ His eyes looked deep into hers now, and he was listening intently as though what she had to say was of the utmost importance.
Kirsty shrugged again, feeling a bit unsure of herself. She knew these questions were leading somewhere, but she wasn’t exactly sure where. ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘they’re all nice fellas, and they’re a good laugh.’ She paused. ‘They look after me well . . . and make sure I get home safe and everything.’
‘Very important,’ Larry agreed, his head nodding in approval. He paused to light his cigarette. ‘Have you ever thought of branching out on your own?’
‘How d’you mean?’ Kirsty said.
‘I’m going to be very direct with you,’ Larry said, politely blowing the cigarette smoke away from her, ‘because I can tell you’re a mature, intelligent girl. I mean you could do an awful lot better for yourself without the band. You’re far more talented than they are. They’re only an average club band, if that.’ He paused. ‘Have you ever thought about going it alone?’
Kirsty took a deep breath, suddenly realising what this was all about. A picture of Martin’s resigned-looking face came into her mind, and she immediately felt guilty. Before she had the chance to reply, the judge appeared back at the table with three drinks – the Babycham and two large whiskeys and water – balanced on a fancy silver tray.
‘I think you and I are of a like mind on this one, Frank,’ Larry said to the judge, ‘aren’t we? We both agree that Kirsty could have a very big future in singing, if we were to sell her as a soloist.’
Kirsty listened, bemused by the conversation that was taking place around her. Could they really be talking about her? And using words like ‘very big future’ and ‘selling’, which obviously meant there could be big money involved.
‘No doubts about it,’ Frank said, winking at Kirsty. ‘Maybe a wee change of image . . . a more sophisticated, glamorous one.’ He lifted the small blue-labelled Babycham bottle and proceeded to pour the golden bubbly drink into the elegant glass with the picture of the little dicky-bowed deer on the side. He stopped for a moment, allowing the bubbles to subside, and then he filled the glass to the top and handed it to her.
‘What age are you, dear?’ Larry suddenly asked.
‘Eighteen and a bit,’ Kirsty said, then immediately felt silly for adding the ‘bit’, as only immature schoolgirls did that.
‘Old enough,�
�� Larry said half to himself and half to Frank. Old enough, he thought, to make her own decisions and not have to have her parents too involved.
Kirsty went to lift the glass to take a sip of the lovely liquid, when Larry lifted his whiskey glass and moved it towards hers and then Frank’s. ‘Cheers!’ he said, turning back to meet Kirsty’s blue eyes. ‘And may you have a very long and very successful career in the music business.’
Chapter 14
There was a weary, depressed kind of atmosphere in the minibus going home that night and, instead of dozing as usual, Kirsty was staring out through the steamed-up, grimy windows, pondering over the happenings of the night. She felt strangely alert and excited, and couldn’t decide whether it was due to the proposition that had been put to her, or whether it was the effect of the couple of Babychams. Either way, it felt good to have something different to think about, even if it all came to nothing, rather than the same old routine.
Thank God it was men she was working with. She found them so much more reasonable than the girls and women she both worked with and was friends with. Girls were far more bitchy and jealous, Kirsty thought. Instead of being all catty and accusing, the lads in the band, even Martin, had just been quiet and had steered well away from asking her any awkward questions about Larry Delaney and the judge.
Kirsty drew the collar of her mother’s fur coat around her neck, feeling the warm softness against her skin and inhaling the familiar Coty L’Aimant scent from the collar. Maybe, she mused, she might be able to afford her own fur coat if she was to have that exciting, successful future in singing that the two men had been going on about. Maybe she might be able to afford a lot of things. It was funny how she saw the fellows in the band as ‘lads’ but Larry and Frank as ‘men’ – or maybe, more rightly, gentlemen. However she referred to them, they had definitely treated her as a lady as opposed to a girl.
She went over the conversation in her mind: how her image could be moulded into something along the lines of Marilyn Monroe or the English equivalent, Diana Dors. She almost laughed at the thought. Imagine anyone thinking that she could look all sexy and sophisticated like that, with her blonde hair loose and hanging over one eye.
‘And even better,’ Larry had said, raising his dark eyebrows, ‘is the fact that you’re younger . . . and genuinely more innocent.’
Frank had looked at Larry then, and raised his eyebrows too. ‘Just a wee bit of moulding here and a wee bit of moulding there would make quite a difference.’
Kirsty bent her head to look out of the van window now, up into the dark, starry sky. Even if it all came to nothing, it was certainly worth giving a bit of thought to.
Some time after midnight, as she waved goodnight back to the boys on the minibus, Kirsty wondered who would be the best person to ask advice about her singing. She felt very torn between her ambitions and loyalty to The Hi-Tones. She could think of no one who would really understand. Heather would listen and give an honest opinion, but she didn’t know what she was talking about when it came to the world of singing and clubs.
Her mother and father would give their opinions, but it would be coloured by old-fashioned views about the places she would be going to and the people she would be meeting. And if she asked her Auntie Mona, it would be all about whether she was singing in chapel halls or clubs that were frequented by Catholics.
The boys in the band were the only ones she could have relied on, but given the fact that she would be dumping them to move on to better things, they were hardly going to be full of advice.
When it came down to it, she would have to make the decision herself.
The van pulled away from the opposite side of the street, leaving a trail of exhaust dust in the cold, damp air. Kirsty turned to walk the few yards to her own gate, when she suddenly noticed a shadowy movement in the back garden.
‘Is that you, Daddy?’ she called, thinking that it was Fintan come to meet her as he occasionally did.
But there was no reply.
‘Uncle Pat?’ she called, catching sight of a man’s coated figure crossing over the back fence into the next-door neighbour’s garden. Then, a cloud moved from in front of the moon, and she saw the figure of a man quite clearly jumping a fence into the next-door neighbour but one’s garden.
She wondered now if it could be her Uncle Pat. Sometimes when he had a drink, Pat did daft things that he would never do sober. It would be just like him to take a short-cut through a fussy neighbour’s garden, delighted that they wouldn’t be able to see him trampling on their carefully cut grass.
Whoever it was, it wasn’t anyone who wanted to make themselves known to Kirsty.
It was only later, when she was lying in bed, recounting the whole evening in her mind, that it dawned on her that the stocky dark-haired figure looked a bit like Gerry Stewart. She looked across at her sleeping sister, and wondered if she should wake her to tell her about it. Then, she thought better of it.
In all honesty, she couldn’t be really sure who the fellow was, and if she was wrong, it would cause a lot of trouble.
She turned her face into her pillow and decided that it might be best to say nothing.
Chapter 15
Heather rubbed a gloved finger on the steamed-up train window and thought how she would have to be much smarter at pushing on the train this evening if she wanted a seat. The whole procedure of boarding the train reminded her of fighting to get on the school bus when she was twelve or thirteen. She hadn’t imagined that adults would behave in the same manner, desperate to get a seat for the half-hour journey into Glasgow.
In fairness, the air of desperation earlier was probably because it was not only a cold, wintry morning, but because it was also raining. People were trying to put their umbrellas down, shake the rain off them and board the train at the same time. Also, Heather hadn’t realised that certain passengers, who had already boarded the train at an earlier station, kept seats for their friends. As she passed the empty seats marked for someone else with a coat or a handbag thrown over them – or a briefcase when it was a man – it dawned on her that there was a knack to getting on this train, finding an available seat and grabbing it before anyone else.
By the time she had pushed her way up and down the crowded, smoky carriages, she realised that she might as well stay put at one of the doorways where there was a bit of room, or she would be forced to stand in the aisles where there was always the risk of falling in an ungainly heap over another passenger. She’d travelled lots of times by train when she was going into the city shopping with her mum and Kirsty or Liz, but that had been on a later train – she’d never had to negotiate anything like this bustling commuter one.
Eventually, the train came to a shuddering halt at the Central Station. Heather moved smarter this time, and was one of the first off the train and weaving her way towards the ticket clerk with her weekly ticket held up for inspection. Then, as she came to leave the main station building, she stopped for a few seconds to check if she needed to put up her umbrella. She decided that her hat would fend off the worst of the light rain, and moved into a quick walking pace uphill towards her new office in Bothwell Street.
By the time she had arrived at the granite-stone row of offices, the rain had eased, she had warmed up considerably, and found she had actually enjoyed the walk. She was slightly out of breath as she joined a crowd of people who were entering the big lift.
‘All in?’ the elderly, uniformed, lift attendant checked. He dragged across the first set of white wrought-iron gates, and when they were securely in place, he dragged across the second set, and then the lift took off.
Heather felt a mixture of excitement and anxiety as the lift moved up floor by floor, as she listened carefully to the lift attendant call out the list of offices on each one. She knew perfectly well from her interview that her office was on the fourth floor, but she listened intently and didn’t move out of the lift until he called out Seafreight amongst the other offices on that particular f
loor.
There was no comparison between the small, three-roomed office in Wishaw and the city shipping office that took up a whole floor, and even had its own kitchen and separate – very elegant, Heather thought – Gents and Ladies toilets. The walls were painted cream and were hung with large, elaborately framed pictures of very serious sea-going vessels with large, windswept sails. There was liquid soap in a glass dispenser, and piles of freshly washed blue and white towels folded in an old sea-chest.
‘I think we’ll start you on the filing and the post this morning,’ Mr Walton, the office manager, said with a kindly smile, walking her in the direction of the smallest office where two smart middle-aged women were hanging up their coats, scarves and hats. ‘And then maybe after lunch, we’ll check out your shorthand and typing skills.’ He’d paused then, indicating to one of the women. ‘Talking of lunch, Miss Ferguson – Muriel – will sort you out with luncheon vouchers for the week, and I’m sure some of the other girls will be only too happy to suggest places that you can use them.’
‘Thanks, Mr Walton,’ Heather said, trying not to show how delighted she was about the luncheon vouchers. They had been one of the attractions of the job. Apart from saving her the bother of making sandwiches or having to pay for her own lunch, it gave her a reason to try all the exciting city places that had the LV sign on the door.
Mr Walton now introduced Heather to Muriel and Anna, and then they went back out to the main office. ‘You can put your coat and things on there,’ he said, pointing to a long wooden rack, ‘and there’s an umbrella stand by the door.’ He gave a little sigh. ‘At this time of the year it’s well used.’
Heather deposited her damp umbrella in the stand and then hung up her belted tweed coat and matching hat, then Mr Walton took her over to a group of large grey filing cabinets in the centre of the largest office, and explained how the numerical system worked for the shipping documents. He indicated a table piled high with documents. ‘They’re all numbered according to the files in the cabinet,’ he said, showing her the stamp on the corner of the top sheets. He gave an apologetic smile. ‘I’m afraid we’ve got a wee bit behind since Janice left.’
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