by Tara Hyland
With prize in hand, Cara straightened up, and started to look around for a way out.
It was then that she saw the dead body. In fact, it was only a coat that had fallen across the floor, but all Cara could hear was Olly’s earlier warning. Panicking, she stepped back heavily and knocked into the load-bearing steel beam that was holding up what was left of the building. Even though Cara weighed very little, the beam had been sufficiently weakened so that the tiniest push was enough to cause it to move. Cara froze as she heard the beam buckle and stretch, trying to right itself as it strained under the weight of the building. Then the joist gave up the fight.
There was an almighty crash, and everything went dark.
Outside, the boys stood frozen in shock. The cave-in had sent up clouds of dust, obscuring the site from view for the moment, so they couldn’t see the exact damage. But it looked bad.
It was Olly who reacted first. Swearing under his breath, he said, ‘I’m out of here.’
His words prompted Danny to action. He knew the boys would be scared of getting in trouble as they shouldn’t be there. But if they left, Cara would never get out alive. He was happy to go in and try to save her himself, but he’d need the others to run for the police or ambulance if he couldn’t get her out. He grabbed his friend roughly by the collar.
‘You dare . . .’ he growled. Leaving the threat hanging, he turned and ran towards the site.
Danny felt guilty now about sending Cara in there. He shouldn’t have let Olly pressurise her into doing the dare – after all, he’d known she was frightened. But it was hard being the leader: he had to be on his guard all the time against the other pretenders to his throne. As he raced towards the demolition site, he just prayed that his ambitions hadn’t cost Cara more than he could ever repay.
Cara woke up coughing dust. She fought to breathe, but the air was thick with dirt, and every time she inhaled, her lungs filled with noxious fumes. In her panic, she tried to move, but couldn’t. A wooden cupboard lay across her legs, trapping her. She knew instinctively that if the structure shifted again, the beam would topple and crush her. In the darkness, Cara whimpered. She could hear the brackets creaking under the weight of the rubble. She was terrified. How was she going to get out?
‘Cara?’
Danny’s voice came from above. Hearing it, Cara felt relief flood through her.
‘I’m here!’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah, but—’ She tried to move again. ‘But I’m trapped. I can’t get out.’ She heard the wobble in her voice and felt ashamed.
But Danny was reassuring. ‘Hold on. I’m coming for you.’
With anyone else, it might have seemed like false bravado. But Cara trusted Danny implicitly, and simply knowing that he was nearby and attempting a rescue had calmed her. It was pitch black, so from where she was lying she couldn’t see anything. But she could hear the reassuring sounds of him moving through the darkness: scrabbling across the rubble, breathing hard at the exertion and cursing as he lost his footing.
Soon he was by her side, a shadow in the darkness.
‘Are you hurt?’ he wanted to know straight off.
She felt sore all over, but didn’t think anything was seriously wrong. ‘No, not really.’
‘Good.’ He was brusque and authoritative. ‘Now, I’m going to try to get this off you.’
She felt his hands sliding under the cupboard, and she gritted her teeth as he began to lift the furniture. As one side went up, the other dug into her, and she couldn’t help but let out a small moan. Immediately, Danny stopped.
‘Am I hurting you?’
Cara clenched her fists, and forced herself to say, ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine.’
Even though Danny was strong, he was only ten years old, and so it took a combination of sliding the cupboard as well as lifting to finally shift it off Cara’s legs.
He knelt by her. ‘Can you stand?’
She tried, but her knee hurt too much. ‘No,’ she said, feeling a fresh wave of panic set in.
He smiled confidently, his teeth white in the darkness. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan.’
By now, the other boys had followed Danny over, and were at the opening. Danny instructed them to stand by, as he passed Cara up to them. Once he was sure she was safe, he hauled himself out. Being supported by Danny and Olly, Cara, along with the other boys, stumbled to safety. They were barely ten feet away when the structure groaned loudly and collapsed.
The gang turned and gazed open-mouthed at the hole in the street. Cara was the first to react. She looked up adoringly at Danny and said, with a mixture of awe and admiration: ‘You saved me!’
Then, like Prince Charming from one of her fairytales, Danny scooped her up in his arms and carried her home.
Franny was horrified when she saw the state of her daughter. Cara was covered in dust, there was blood gushing from her leg, and it didn’t help that she was crying hysterically, making it impossible to know how badly hurt she really was. In fact, once the surface dirt had been cleaned away in the big steel bath in the Connollys’ kitchen, Franny saw it was little more than a graze, and that there would be a small scar but no permanent damage.
‘You stupid girl,’ Franny scolded, as she bandaged up her daughter’s knee. ‘Whatever were you doing in that place? I’ve told you time and again not to play there, that it’s dangerous. Have you not got a brain in your head?’
As Franny said those last words, she was aware of sounding just like her mother. Suddenly she could understand how Theresa had felt, that the harsh words she’d often spoken had been said out of worry and concern for her child, not simply because she was a spoilsport. In that moment, Franny wished she could tell her mam that she understood.
‘It wasn’t Cara’s fault, Aunty Fran,’ Danny piped up.
Franny gave him a withering look. ‘I know that, my boy. I’m sure whatever went on today, you were at the centre of it.’ Her accusation was meant to elicit some sort of acceptance of guilt, but instead of looking contrite, Danny Connolly simply stared back at her, defiant. Ten years old he was, and with the front of someone twice his age. She didn’t want him anywhere near her daughter. ‘Now get out of here.’
Danny didn’t do as she asked straight away. First he went over, kissed Cara on the forehead and said, ‘You did well today.’ Only then, with a last insolent glance at Franny, did he saunter out of the room.
Cara murmured a protest as her friend left, but the look on her mother’s face stopped her from saying too much.
‘It was him who made you go into that house, wasn’t it?’ Franny demanded. When her daughter said nothing, she sighed heavily. ‘You’re a fool for that boy, aren’t you? If Danny told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?’
Her daughter’s mouth set into a line. ‘Danny didn’t make me do anything.’
Franny shook her head in despair. To Cara, Danny was the hero of the hour. She’d conveniently forgotten that he was the one who’d got her into trouble in the first place. Danny was turning into a right little tyke. The only male in the household, he was doted on by his indulgent mother and sisters, and could do no real wrong in their eyes, which meant he got away with murder. God only knew what he would be like when he grew up.
But Cara was safe, and for now, that was all that mattered to Franny. Securing the bandage with a pin, she smiled at her daughter, wanting to show her that she was forgiven.
‘Come on, then. Let’s get you to bed.’
Despite being slight herself, Franny lifted her daughter easily. The child was tall for her age, but skinny, too: there wasn’t a pick on her. Around the age of three, Cara had started to outgrow her toddler’s potbelly, and now she was as long and skinny as a hare. With her shock of black hair and big green eyes that seemed too large for her gaunt face, even Franny had to admit that she wasn’t an attractive child. ‘She don’t look much like you,’ was a frequent comment from the women on the street. Franny knew what they meant:
you must be disappointed that she isn’t prettier. But she wasn’t. It was a strange, instinctive feeling – she loved Cara no matter what.
Now, looking down at her daughter, tucked safely into bed, Franny felt that same rush of love. Pushing the dark mop of hair back from Cara’s face, she said, ‘Would you like to read for a little while?’
It was a nightly ritual. Franny had encouraged her daughter to read from a young age. Back in Ireland, her mother, Theresa, had always been keen to ensure that her children made the most of the education on offer to them, and Franny wanted to do the same for her own child. So every Saturday morning, she would take Cara to Whitechapel library, a beautiful red-brick building over the entrance to Aldgate East tube station, where the little girl would browse the children’s section for the books she wanted. Then each night before bed, Cara would read a chapter or so aloud to her mother, and Franny would help her with any words she didn’t understand.
Like a lot of children, Cara loved Enid Blyton, and she had recently discovered The Faraway Tree series. Opening up The Enchanted Wood, she began reading.
Half an hour later, once her daughter was finally ready to sleep, Franny went downstairs, intending to clean out the bath before she headed off to work. Walking into the kitchen, she was put out to find Liam Earley there again, a builder who boarded at one of the lodging houses down the road. Annie had taken up with him a few weeks earlier. Sitting alone at the table, he was halfway through a Spam sandwich – pretty much the last of that week’s precious rations.
‘All right, Franny?’ He belched loudly, and made no effort to apologise. ‘You’re looking mighty fine today.’
A tall, thickset man, he had a bald head and a big, quivering belly. His face was round and his features squashed and off-centre, courtesy of the boxing he used to do, and he reminded Franny a little of a pit bull terrier. But his most distinguishing feature was his red nose, the mark of a hardened drinker. Liam was a brickie by trade, but Franny secretly thought he was little more than a thug and a drunk. Lately he’d been spending more and more time at Annie’s. If Liam was going to become a permanent fixture, she would need to think about moving on.
‘How can you put up with the likes of him?’ she’d asked Annie once, after coming in to find him slumped on the settee, sleeping off his latest drinking binge, the floor beside him thick and ripe with his vomit.
The older woman, who had already begun clearing away the mess, had answered with surprising honesty. ‘I missed having a man in my bed. Liam takes some of that loneliness away.’
That had thrown Franny. After being burned so badly by her experience with Sean, she had been happy to put romance from her mind. It had never occurred to her that Annie might not feel the same way.
Now, Franny gave him a polite nod of greeting. ‘Where’s Annie?’
Liam belched again, and this time Franny was close enough to smell the sour mix of pickled onions, meat and beer. ‘She’s popped out to the shops.’
Franny’s heart sank. Liam gave her the creeps, and she hated being alone with him. He hadn’t done anything specific to make her feel that way, but she sensed it was only a matter of time.
As she bent to clean the bath, she heard the scraping of the chair on the floor. She’d been hoping that meant Liam would leave, but instead the next minute she felt his strong hand on her bottom.
‘Just as I thought, nice and firm,’ he murmured, squeezing one buttock, before slipping his hand into the crevice.
Quick as lightning, she straightened up, turned and slapped his hand away. Her eyes flashed with hatred.
‘Don’t ever do that again!’ she hissed, stepping back out of his reach.
But despite the venom of her words, Liam grinned, displaying a set of rotten brown teeth with bits of half-chewed bread stuck between them.
‘Come on, love. Take a joke, will you?’
Franny stared at him with utter dislike and contempt, then turned and walked out of the room.
Chapter Seven
It was a Tuesday, usually the quietest time of the week at the Victory Club, but there was a buzz in the air when Franny got to work that night. The dressing room was alive with chatter and excitement, the girls fighting even harder over the mirrors than usual. It didn’t take long to work out the reason for all the fluttering: Hollywood movie star Duke Carter was out in the audience. Debonair, charismatic and charming, he was a big box-office draw, the kind of actor who set hearts racing.
Peeping out from behind the stage curtain, Franny saw there were five people at the round table with the actor: three other men, all in white tie, and two very young women, in cheap but revealing cocktail dresses. Paula, one of the showgirls, filled Franny in: Duke was over in England filming a big-budget period drama on the English Civil War.
‘The girls are nobodies, hired floozies,’ Paula said dismissively. Gesturing at the other three men, she pointed out the director, a tall, skinny, intense-looking man named Landon Taylor, and second male lead, Earl Fox, a poor man’s version of Duke. Then she got to the last person, a short, fat man with a receding hair-line. ‘And that’s Clifford Walker, some hotshot producer at Juniper Pictures.’
‘Oh?’ Franny’s casual tone concealed her interest.
‘Yeah, he was the one behind Brothers in Blood.’
Brothers in Blood was an epic movie set during the American Civil War, about two half-brothers who end up fighting on opposite sides, as well as over the same girl. It was Juniper Pictures’ answer to MGM’s Gone With the Wind, made more than a decade earlier, and it had certainly been as popular in the cinemas when it had been released the previous year. Hearing that the short, rotund man had been behind it, Franny studied him more closely.
The floozies were all over Duke Carter, but they were wasting their time. He might be the star, but Franny knew where the real power lay: with the producer. While working at the Victory Club, she’d learned a little about showbusiness. The producer oversaw the movie from beginning to end, organising everything from getting the financing together, to hiring the actors and crew, and arranging the distribution.
In the dressing room, Franny’s mind raced. This could be it, the opportunity she’d been waiting for – the chance to change her fortune.
It was four years since she’d started performing at the Victory Club, and life had definitely improved for Franny. The first few months, when she’d just had a short spot, she’d stuck mainly to Irish folk tunes, like the one she’d performed in her audition: songs about love and emigration. But she’d always known that if she was going to get more visibility, she needed to come up with a stronger act, with wider appeal. After a year or so, she’d decided to combine her singing with her talent for mimicry, and create a routine based around impersonating great singers. So she’d asked the bandleader, Jaime, to play a medley of popular songs, each immortalised by a different well-known artist, allowing her to make the most of her charisma and stage presence.
She would always remember the first night she had performed her new act. Taking the microphone, she’d looked over at Jaime and nodded, which was his cue to strike up the band. As the rumba sounds of the ‘Copacabana’ filled the theatre, she’d begun to sway to the beat, like she’d seen Carmen Miranda do in the movie, and sang the opening lines.
There had been a gasp from the audience. She wasn’t just singing the famous Carmen Miranda song – in that moment, she was Carmen Miranda, a perfect mimic. A verse and a chorus in, Jaime had changed the tempo and she’d switched to Marlene Dietrich singing ‘Falling in Love Again’. Then she was Edith Piaf performing ‘La Vie en Rose’. Maybe her voice wasn’t always on key, but she had the singers’ demeanour and movements down perfectly.
When she’d finished, the audience had given her a standing ovation, and the stage manager had asked if she could increase her hours.
The success of the new routine had allowed her to give up all the menial jobs – cleaning and coat-checking – so now she worked six evenings a week, three at the Victo
ry Club, and the rest of the time at a couple of other nightspots. They weren’t as classy as the Piccadilly supper club, but they allowed her to be an entertainer fulltime.
However, that still wasn’t enough for Franny. It was over seven years since she had left Ireland. At almost twenty-five years old, she could feel time creeping on, and she was still waiting for her big break – because however much she enjoyed singing, what she really wanted to do was act. And now, just as she’d begun to despair of ever getting an opportunity, one had finally presented itself to her: there was a Hollywood producer here, someone who could give her a start in the business. She couldn’t just let him walk out of the club without making some kind of impression. Unfortunately her routine tonight was fairly bland: she was supposed to be performing a medley of songs by the likes of Judy Garland and Doris Day, a girl-next-door act, complete with a frumpy, floral dress. It was hardly going to attract the attention of a flash producer.
As Franny dwelled on her problem, her eyes alighted on the next dressing-table. A black lace cocktail dress hung over the mirror. It belonged to one of the club’s best singers: Dawn Morris. She was very precious about her costumes, and wouldn’t let anyone near them. But she only worked at weekends, which meant she wasn’t here tonight, so she’d never know if Franny ‘borrowed’ the gown for the evening.
An idea began to form in Franny’s head. She was the next act up, so she had to work fast. Quickly slipping on Dawn’s dress, she teased out her hair and vamped up her make-up. Then she headed to Jaime and asked him to change her music. Instead of the chirpy medley she was supposed to sing, she opted for a sexy Mae West number. As the saxophone drawled the opening notes, she sashayed out onto the stage, taking her place at the microphone.
