Searching for a Silver Lining

by Miranda Dickinson

  Mattie had to know the truth.

  As the group began to run through their songs with Thalia at the piano and the swing band’s leader standing beside her, Mattie found a seat at one of the booths, now covered with gold lamé cushions. She took Grandpa Joe’s diary from the zipped front pocket of her bag, opening it to the page where she’d placed the fraying spring-green ribbon marker last night.

  Tuesday, 25 September 1956

  THERE IS HOPE!

  Len visited today. He’s angry I lied to him, of course, but he understands why. Una told him everything – it seems she is as confused as I am. But she still loves me!

  The problem is their stepfather. He wants Una to marry a man of means. There is a son of a director at his company he’s marked out for her, but Una says she won’t have him. He’s unlikely to be impressed by me, or my uncle’s business.

  Una wants to see me. If I can convince Uncle C to let me visit Len, there’s a chance I’ll be able to see her. I will need to act out the fastest recovery, but I’m determined to do it. Knowing Una still wants me is enough of an incentive to succeed . . .

  Thrilled for Joe Bell – even though the woman he’d loved in 1956 wasn’t the grandmother she’d adored – Mattie turned the page and read on:

  Thursday, 27 September 1956

  She has accepted me! Una will be my wife!

  And we have a plan. As neither her father nor my family are likely to consent to our marriage, we are going to elope. I never thought I’d consider something so daring, but for her I would go to the ends of the earth. We can work everything out once we’re man and wife. But it has to happen soon.

  Una has accepted a dancing job at the Garrick Theatre in a musical that will run for six months initially, and maybe even transfer to Broadway in New York. Until I can support us both, her wage is vital to our survival. Rehearsals begin on 4 October. If we don’t act now, it may be a year or more before she’s free. I am not prepared to wait that long.

  We have tickets for the night train to Gretna Green on Saturday. I will meet her at Waterloo station when she finishes her last shift at the PG. It means I will miss The Silver Five – and here I must admit to a great deal of sadness. I’m consoling myself with the certain knowledge that they are headed for great things and are bound to appear at the PG again. Jacob Kendrick, the owner, likes to keep popular acts. But I can’t let the opportunity to be with my Una pass by.

  I’m taking my silver sixpence tiepin to give to her on our wedding night. It isn’t much of a gift, but she has always admired it. I hope it will be the first pretty thing of many I can give her during our life together.

  I’m telling my uncle that I’ve been invited to Brighton for the weekend by one of the lads from work. He will be suspicious if he sees me taking my best suit, so Len has arranged to collect my suitcase after work tonight. As far as Uncle C is concerned, Len is borrowing my case for a trip of his own to see his maiden aunt in York. I’ve put the money from under my mattress in the case for safekeeping and I’m going to meet him and Una at the station.

  I don’t know what will happen when Una and I return as man and wife, but I’m prepared to face all of it, knowing the woman I love is beside me. Once we’re married, they will have to accept us.

  I’m terrified, but I’m on fire. I couldn’t stop this if I tried. All I can think of is that in three days’ time I will be lying with my new wife across the border in our honeymoon hotel. This is all that matters to me now . . .

  So that was where Joe Bell had been, sixty years ago! Running from everything that might have prevented him from being with the woman he loved. It was wildly romantic and unbelievably foolhardy, but Mattie loved him for following his heart. She wished that in later life he might have afforded her the same opportunity. But this couldn’t be the end of the story. Hardly wanting to look, she turned the page.

  Saturday, 29 September 1956

  I waited for over two hours. But she never came.

  It was the worst thing to read, but a part of Mattie wasn’t surprised. Una had seemed too good to be true, and now it had been proved she was. The money in the suitcase given to her brother, who had seemingly accepted their relationship after being so violently opposed to it in the beginning – it was all too convenient, too obviously a ruse.

  Mattie’s heart broke for her grandfather, the image of the young man waiting in vain at the station for the dream he’d invested everything in – and risked his livelihood for. How had he come to the conclusion that Una wasn’t turning up that night? Had he denied it until the train had gone, the station cleared of passengers? Had a kind porter seen his distress and suggested he leave? And how must it have felt, sneaking back into his uncle’s house, explaining his sudden return from his supposed trip to Brighton? The answer came in two lines scrawled in heavy script on the next page.

  Sunday, 30 September 1956

  I have confessed all to Uncle C. Tomorrow, I leave London for good.

  ‘You must be Mattie.’

  Still reeling from Joe Bell’s jilting, Mattie looked up to meet the smiling green eyes of Gil’s brother. ‘Yes, I am. Hello.’

  ‘We meet at last,’ Colm grinned, shaking Mattie’s hand as she stood. ‘Don’t get up on my account. After your epic adventure, I imagine you could do with a rest. Can I get you a pot of tea or something?’

  ‘Tea would be great,’ Mattie smiled back. Gil had been right about his brother, at least: aside from the green eyes and identical height, the two could not have been more different.

  ‘Cool. I’ll get Derry to put the kettle on. So, what d’you reckon?’ His hand made a broad sweep of the club.

  ‘It’s amazing. I can’t believe you pulled this together in such a short time.’

  ‘Me either, but it was Gil who arranged most of it. I tried to send him over to say hi to you, but he’s being a complete foreman this afternoon. He’s obsessed with getting every detail right.’

  Too busy to face me, Mattie thought, her heart sinking. ‘Well, it’s paying off. The gig is going to be amazing.’

  ‘Personally, I think he’s pulled a blinder,’ Colm said, with a wink that threw Mattie for a second. Did he mean the gig, or something else? ‘I’ll get that tea. Sit down, relax. You’ve done it, Mattie.’

  Mattie settled back, but her spirit was uneasy. She’d wanted to see how she felt when she saw Gil again; but now it was obvious he wanted nothing to do with her. Heart heavy, she watched the activity in the club, the set dressers putting final touches, lighting technicians running through their changes and sound engineers testing microphones. I’ve done this, she thought, remembering back to when the idea for the reunion had first struck her. There had been many times she’d doubted the likelihood of success. Yet here she was, watching last-minute preparations for an event that was about to rewrite history. I did it: I made it happen.

  And then The Silver Five began to sing. Gathered around the baby grand piano, their voices rose from gentle beginnings – at first in unison and then, as the chorus swelled, splitting into perfect three-part harmonies. Mattie sat forward to watch them, the sound so familiar from her childhood listening to Grandpa Joe’s records filling the room. The notes may have been a little hesitant and delivered with more vibrato than the original performance, but the sound of The Silver Five was there in an instant, strong and joyful as it summoned the attention of everyone. Mattie could see Reenie, Alys, June and Tommy exchanging surprised smiles as they sang.

  Reenie took the main line, and watched as her bandmates leaned over to touch her hands. Mattie marvelled at how pure Reenie’s voice still was, how well it fitted with her bandmates’ tones. She heard exactly why Reenie Silver had found stardom, why Rico had foreseen and masterminded her career and why she’d rightfully earned her reputation as one of the most enduring artists in the music industry. Her voice soared above the others – and even in rehearsal, without microphones or amplification, the quality of her sound was unquestionable. She was a star; from her confident ad-l
ibs that peppered the melody with sparkle, to the way her voice seemed to fill the room as if it were ten times the size. This was what she had lived her entire life for, what she had sacrificed so much to be able to do. Husbands and lovers had been and gone, her only chance at motherhood had broken her heart with its passing – but the music had remained, a rock in the turbulence of Reenie Silver’s world. And even now, officially retired and unlikely to perform in public again, she was proving to the world how much poorer it would have been without her incredible talent.

  Mattie let her tears flow as she watched her friend doing what she had been created to do. She may well have been the most difficult, unfathomably cantankerous and opinionated person Mattie had ever had to deal with. But Mattie loved her – from her highly dubious showbiz recollections to her absolute refusal to accept she was an old lady.

  If I’m half the woman Reenie is when I’m her age, I’ll have lived a great life, she thought as the song ended. She and the other people preparing the room stood and applauded the surprised and delighted Silver Five.

  ‘That was only the rehearsal,’ Reenie yelled into the auditorium. ‘Just you wait till you hear the real thing!’

  The reunited members of The Silver Five were still smiling and hugging when Mattie joined them.

  ‘You were amazing! Just like your records. Congratulations, everyone.’

  ‘Thank you, pet. It’s good to be rubbing shoulders with these beautiful songbirds again,’ Tommy grinned. ‘We scrub up okay for a bunch of old-timers, don’t we?’

  ‘And young Thalia here did her grandad proud,’ Reenie added, pinching the young performer’s cheek. ‘You are a star in the making, kid. When this is all done, me and you are going to talk turkey, okay? I have some contacts still in this industry and me name counts for something.’

  Thalia looked as if she’d been crying, tell-tale salt streaks staining her pale cheeks. Her smile was sad when it reached Mattie. For her to be able to perform with the level of poise and sophistication she’d just shown, less than a week after losing her grandfather, was an astounding achievement. Even though Mattie had been at odds with Grandpa Joe when he’d died, the days immediately following his death had been so hard that simply breathing in and out had required a huge effort.

  ‘Just to be able to do it for him . . . It means the world.’

  June turned to Mattie. ‘So how long do we have until curtain up?’

  ‘About two hours, I think.’

  ‘Let’s check the schedule,’ Alys said, holding a sheet of paper at arm’s length and squinting at it. ‘Can’t read the damn thing, mind.’

  ‘The show starts at eight o’clock. The swing band are doing a set for the first forty minutes,’ Thalia read. ‘Then there’ll be a small interval till nine, and we’re up after that.’ She smiled shyly at Chuck’s former colleagues. ‘I’ve just been through the music with Chas, the swing band’s leader, for the six songs we’re singing, and the swing band is going to play behind us. We’ll have headset microphones so we don’t have to worry about holding them.’

  ‘Ooh, like Madonna!’ Alys grinned. ‘Always wanted to do a bit of naughty-grindy dancing in a pointy-boob corset, me.’

  ‘Don’t you try any bumping and grinding, sweetheart,’ June kept a perfectly straight face as she wagged a finger at her friend. ‘You’ll put your hip out again.’

  ‘Time to rest a bit until showtime, then,’ Reenie said, beaming up at the others. ‘Dunno about you lot, but I could murder a little tipple or two.’

  ‘Someone keep an eye on her,’ Tommy joked, putting his arm around Reenie. ‘Only we got this far last time, remember, and then she high-tailed it.’

  Mattie smiled at Reenie, who grinned and shook her head. ‘Oi, Tommy Mullins, you may be an old codger but you’re still young enough to go across my knee.’

  Tommy clasped his hands together and looked to heaven. ‘I live in hope, Reenie, I live in hope!’

  Reenie made her way over to Mattie. ‘This is what it was like with us, most of the time. When we weren’t threatening to murder each other, that is.’ Her smile ebbed a little. ‘Listen, Mattie, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you . . .’

  ‘Miss Silver?’

  Mattie and Reenie turned to see two ladies beside them. They each held an armful of records, and were gazing at Reenie as if seeing the Queen.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘So sorry to interrupt, but we wanted to catch you before you had to get ready for the concert. I’m Aline and this is my daughter, Clare. We’re huge fans. I can’t tell you how thrilled we are to see you perform tonight. I wonder, would you mind signing these?’

  Remembering Reenie’s fears from earlier, Mattie smiled and moved a respectful distance away. Right now, Reenie was a star and her adoring fans needed her.

  Ten minutes later, Colm arrived with what looked like the clipboard his brother had been nursing all afternoon. If he had that, where was Gil?

  ‘Ladies – and gentleman – your stylists are waiting for you in your dressing rooms. If you’d like to follow me?’

  This brought amused murmurs from the gathered group.

  ‘A stylist?’ June repeated. ‘My word, the closest we all got to a stylist last time we were here was some girl in the chorus who had heated rollers!’

  ‘Cathy and her team are excellent,’ Colm continued, leading The Silver Five to the area behind the stage. ‘She’s brought a whole rail of clothes for you all, and she’ll put together a great look for the gig.’

  ‘One shirt,’ Tommy said. ‘That was my wardrobe back in the day.’

  Alys chuckled. ‘Oh, that shirt. It was so crusty, I swear it gave a more animated performance than you most nights.’

  ‘Still doing the cruise-ship circuit, last I heard,’ Reenie joined in, and Mattie could see her joy at being one of the group again.

  On it continued, the light-hearted mockery and sharing of memories, through costume fittings to hair and make-up. Mattie let it all sink in, thinking about how Reenie had missed all of this the first time around. Grandpa Joe, too: and that made her the saddest of all.

  What would Joe have spent that afternoon doing? His case already packed and in Len’s supposed safekeeping, all he had to do was enjoy his daydreams, whiling away the hours until he had to be at Waterloo. She thought of the bright hope emanating from two venues in 1956 London: both parties preparing for events they believed would change their lives. And both would, but not in the way they’d planned.

  They were sitting in the largest dressing room, The Silver Five looking wonderful in black and silver outfits as they warmed their voices with a mixture of vocal exercises and a bottle of best-quality Bourbon ‘for old times’ sake’, when a knock sounded at the door – and Gil Kendrick walked in.

  His eyes met Mattie’s as soon as he entered the room, quickly drifting away again as he addressed his special guests. ‘How are we all doing?’

  ‘We’re ready to go. And the place looks better than it did when your grandpa was in charge.’ Tommy rose to shake Gil’s hand.

  Mattie had never wanted to disappear into thin air as much as she did at that moment. Gil had resolutely avoided her since she’d arrived – and even now, in the enclosed space of the dressing room, he might have been a thousand miles away from her for all the interest he displayed. She hadn’t expected a warm welcome, but she’d hoped at least for some professional courtesy. Determined not to let him see her hurt, she took a schedule from one of the dressing tables and busied herself with reading it. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing she cared.

  ‘. . . By the way, your families have arrived and, if I remember rightly, Jacob had a tradition of allowing visitors backstage for his headline acts before the show. Shall I send them in?’

  His suggestion was met with loud murmurs of approval and, smiling, he opened the door fully, beckoning out to the corridor. Mattie, her head kept resolutely low, thought Gil looked over at her momentarily before stepping out of the room,
but before she could make sure, the room was filled with a rush of excited, chatting bodies and he was gone.

  She recognised Thalia’s family, who were noticeably quieter than the other visitors, fiercely proud of their girl but no doubt battling the bittersweet reality of being there without Chuck. Teifi fussed around Alys, who threw back her head and laughed loudly, clearly adoring every minute of his attentions. June’s son Hugo and his wife were admiring her transformation by the stylists, while Tommy’s daughter and grandson presented him with a flask of tea ‘in case you’re thirsty’. He quickly pushed his empty Bourbon glass behind Alys’s make-up bag without them noticing.

  Mattie looked over to Reenie, but her chair was empty. She remembered what she’d said about visiting hours at Beauvale; how she watched every week as her neighbours received family and friends, quietly envious of the riches they didn’t know they possessed. Had this sudden flood of familial admirers been too much for her? Quietly slipping out into the corridor, she looked left and right to see where Reenie had gone.

  ‘Hi, Mattie.’

  She closed her eyes and reluctantly turned to face Gil. ‘Hello.’

  ‘So, it’s happening, then?’

  ‘I said it would.’

  Gil abandoned his attempt to smile. ‘Listen, I—’

  ‘It’s going to be a wonderful concert,’ Mattie rushed, wishing she could leave. ‘The club looks great. A sell-out, I hear?’

  ‘Yes. I want to . . .’

  Behind him, Mattie spotted the familiar shape of her friend shuffling down the corridor towards the stage door. There was so much she’d wanted to say to Gil – not least to demand a reason why he’d left the hotel in Crickhowell a day early – but she was struck by a sudden sense of déjà vu as she realised Reenie was retracing her steps from the original gig. The steps that Gil’s grandfather had taken alongside her, thinking he was speeding their unborn child’s escape from imminent danger. Was Reenie leaving again?