‘It’s ol’ Marie Lloyd,’ a man in the crowd explained. ‘Brought ’em all out on strike, she ’as. Ain’t been a proper show round these parts fer nearly a week.’
‘They got a demonstration outside the Britannia ternight,’ another man said. ‘What say we go an’ ’ave a look-see?’
‘Why not?’ the woman with him said. ‘Better’n nothink. They say all the stars come out on the pavement an’ sing.’
David and Ellen were very disappointed. They’d been looking forward to the show that evening. The crowd began to move away. ‘We could go an’ see the demonstration if you’d like,’ he suggested.
‘Why not,’ she said grinning at him. ‘Least it’s free!’
It was a very big demonstration. They could hear the noise of it long before they reached the theatre, even above the clatter of hooves and the continuous growling of wheels. And what a crush there was in the High Street, and what emotion. It was like being in the middle of a storm. Laughter crackled all around them and everywhere they looked people were on the move, hands gesturing, heads turning, breath billowing from open mouths in white clouds, and bodies swirling abruptly from side to side like weather cocks in a gale. And right in the eye of the storm, on the topmost step and cunningly lit by the blaze from the foyer, was the great Marie Lloyd herself, a small dumpy figure hung with furs.
As they arrived the manager came out onto the theatre steps with a paper in his hand, and from the anguished expression on his face and the pious position of his hands he seemed to be begging to be heard. Nobody paid any attention to him until Marie Lloyd pretended to plead his case. ‘Give the poor beggar a chance,’ she said cheerfully. ‘They might ’ave give in. Yer never know!’
The manager gave her a venomous look and began to read from his paper. The management had not capitulated, he was glad to say. On the contrary, they’d gone to considerable trouble and expense to provide quality entertainment for their customers tonight, as usual.
This provoked a roar of laughter and some ribald interest
‘’Oo’s ’e got then?’
‘’E ain’t got our Marie, or Gus!’
‘Or Little Tich.’
‘Or Florrie Forde.’
‘Perhaps it’s ’is old woman.’
‘’E ain’t got an old woman. ’Ave yer cock?’
‘No one would ’ave ’im!’
The manager tried not to be deterred. He had a job to do and he proceeded to do it, doggedly, although his paper shook in the gale of their mockery.
The management was pleased to announce the evening’s programme, he told them. Then he read the list, one long-forgotten unfamiliar name after another. The crowd was enraptured. ‘’Oo’s ’e when ’e’s at ’ome?’ they roared. ‘Never ’eard of ’im! You should a’ left ’em in mothballs. We’re in the twentieth century. Ain’t nobody told yer?’ They gave him a round of applause laced with moistly blown raspberries and derisive whistles, but none of them were tempted to buy a seat for his show. Their favourites were all out on the pavement so they were happy where they were.
Presently some of the original audience began to drift out of the building, bored by the sixth-rate entertainment inside and attracted by the racket they could hear from the street.
‘What’s It like?’ the crowd asked as they emerged.
‘Load a’ rubbish!’ one man yelled back, and was roundly cheered for his honesty.
‘Told yer!’ Marie Lloyd said. ‘We’ll ’ave ’em on their knees in no time. Take a leaflet, darlin’! Support the Federation!’
The turncoat took his leaflet happily and was cheered again.
‘Give us a song, Marie,’ a rough face urged from the crowd.
‘You give us a sub!’ she retorted grinning. ‘Support the Federation, an’ you can ’ave as many songs as yer like.’
‘Give us a dirty look then,’ another man called.
‘You’ve already got one!’ she said.
It was better than the real thing, as David and Ellen told one another on the way back to Shoreditch. Who’d have thought a strike would be like that? And what faces! David couldn’t wait to draw them; Marie Lloyd open-mouthed and fur-hung, the manager with his hangdog look and his begging hands; faces snarling and cheering and shouting and laughing. A feast of faces.
‘You ought ter send ’em to the papers,’ Ellen said, as they sat in the Lyons tea shop on Saturday evening and he showed her his first sketches. ‘Betcher they’d print ’em.’
But he wasn’t sure. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They ain’t good enough yet.’
‘Them two,’ Ellen urged, picking out the pictures of Marie Lloyd and the manager. ‘Nothink venture, nothink gain. Ask that nice teacher a’ yours. I bet ’e’d say send ’em. Go on, I dare yer.’
‘You trying to organize me now?’ he asked, laughing at her.
‘On’y if yer want me to,’ she said, perfectly confident that he did. ‘You gotta admit I’m good at it.’
That was undeniable and as he couldn’t kiss her in a crowded tea shop he agreed to pay Mr Eswyn Smith a visit and see what he said. Perhaps they were worth a try.
Mr Smith was very pleased to see him and quite agreed with her judgement. ‘Essex Magazine,’ he advised. ‘They’re on the up. Not a bad company to join. And on the look-out for new talent, so they tell me. What would you do if they took you? Aren’t you on an apprenticeship?’
David admitted that he had another two years to run. ‘They won’t take me though, will they?’ he said. That would be too much to hope for.
‘I would,’ Mr Smith told him. ‘But then I’m prejudiced.’
That Wednesday David was going to supper with Aunty Dumpling and Mr Morrison, and on a sudden impulse he took his drawings along to ask their advice.
Mr Morrison thought they were very fine. ‘A sight better’n anythink in the East London Weekly Pictorial,’ he said, stroking the thin line of his moustache with his forefinger. ‘Your nephew’s a real artist, I tell you, Mrs Esterman.’
‘You think I don’t know it!’ Aunty Dumpling said delightedly. ‘So send them, bubeleh. Vhat you got to lose?’
David looked at his sketches again. ‘I don’t know …’ he said. It would be too painful to offer them and have them rejected. On the other hand they were the best he’d ever done, and he had to start somewhere.
‘So vhat she say, that nice young lady of yours?’ Aunty Dumpling asked. The question was so sudden and unexpected and personal it made him blush to the roots of his hair. Fancy Aunty Dumpling knowing about Ellen!
‘A nice young lady,’ Dumpling approved, smiling hugely. ‘Ve see you at the Standard, three four weeks ago. I say to Mr Morrison, vhat a nice young lady. Ve don’t say nothink to your mother, you understand. Nu nu,’ shaking her head till her chins wobbled.
He was only partly reassured. ‘She ain’t Jewish, Aunty Dumpling,’ he felt he should explain.
She shrugged the explanation away. ‘So the whole vorld should be Jewish? Vhat she say about the drawings, bubeleh? Don’t she say send them?’
He admitted that she did, and her good sense was applauded. ‘So you send them, nu? Vork so fine, vhat you vaiting for? You send them, they take them, you an’ your young lady come and have supper vid me and Mr Morrison, nu?’
Put like that it all seemed perfectly possible, even Ellen’s partial introduction to his family. And so, despite misgivings and the fear of failure, he sent his drawings to the Essex Magazine. Then there was nothing he could do except wait, proudly pretending unconcern. But after a week, to his surprise and Ellen’s delight, a letter arrived with the news that they had accepted both drawings and were sending him a guinea each for them. And what was more and better, they asked him to come up to the office in ten days’ time and see their Mr Palfreyman, ‘to discuss the possibility of a short-term contract’.
‘Who’d’ve thought it?’ he said to Ellen, amazed at such good fortune.
‘I would,’ she said.
‘You’re a girl an’ a
half,’ he said. She had such faith in him. It made him feel confident just to look at her. Oh if only he could find the right way to tell his parents about her! If he got a job, perhaps that would be the moment to tell them. A job as an artist! How proud they’d be! A job as an artist, a meal with Aunty Dumpling. Nothing but good could come of it.
Chapter Eighteen
Essex Street was an insignificant, cobbled alley that ran steeply downhill between the Strand and the Embankment. It was invariably dark and dank and uninviting, for the houses that hemmed it in on either side were too tall and overbearing and full of their own importance to allow entry to anything as frivolous and unnecessary as sunlight, and the street itself was so narrow it acted as a funnel to all the moisture both above and below it, drawing mists up from the Thames morning and evening, and sucking fogs down from the fumes of the Strand and the obfuscations of the Law Courts all day long.
Ordinarily David would have avoided such a place, and probably been more than a little deterred by it, but now, with his precious letter safe in his pocket and an undeniable hope burgeoning in his brain, he trotted happily down the hill over the wet cobbles, and soon found the office of the Essex Magazine.
He knocked politely, once, twice, three times. And waited. But as nobody took any notice he pushed open the door and walked in.
He found himself in a narrow vestibule that led to a panelled office, so small it was really little more than a cupboard and only just big enough to contain one roll-top desk, two cane-bottomed chairs, a thriving office plant and a drooping office boy who was slouched on one of the cane chairs with his legs on the other and his chin on his chest, fast asleep.
David coughed. Politely. But the snoring continued and it didn’t look as though a paroxysm of coughing would rouse the sleeper.
The front door was flung open with a bang and a huge man in a grey topcoat and a green bowler hat strode into the room and gave the office boy such a crack across the back of the skull it was a wonder his neck didn’t snap.
‘Look alive, young Shaver!’ he said mildly. Then he saw David. ‘Who are you?’
David explained.
‘First floor, Mr Palfreyman. An’ if he sez you’re late, tell ’im the Shaver was asleep.’
‘Can’t a feller close ’is eyes?’ the Shaver grumbled, adjusting his collar and relocating his neck.
‘Never know’d you with yer eyes open,’ Green Bowler said, stirring the papers on the desk. ‘Any messages? You don’t know, do yer? Useless pudden.’ Then without looking at David he addressed his next remark to him. ‘Door at the top a’ the stairs.’
This time one timid knock brought an instant reply. ‘Pray do come in.’ David did as he was told and walked into the room trying not to look too self-conscious or feel too nervous. It was a calm, well-ordered room, and remarkably dry considering all the dampness outside the building. A red fire burned brightly and neatly behind the black bars of the grate in the corner. ‘Do sit down, dear chap,’ the voice said, and it was a dry voice, but welcoming. Very welcoming indeed. ‘You are Mr Cheifitz, I take it. Yes, yes, of course. Did you bring your work?’
David handed his folder across and watched as Mr Palfreyman carefully undid the ribbons and exposed the top sketches to scrutiny. His heart was beating most uncomfortably. Would they be good enough? Perhaps he should have brought some of the others. Making the selection had been very difficult.
Mr Palfreyman examined the folder slowly and methodically, without looking up. He was the most orderly, dapper man David had ever seen. Everything about him was clean and correct, from the immaculate stiff collar propping up his little round chin to the well-buffed nails on the plump fingers he was using with such care and precision among the sketches. His suit was made of very good material and was silvery grey, like the fringe of neat hair that ringed the bald dome of his head. He wore a gold watch chain neatly across the centre of his waistcoat and a gold pin neatly in the centre of his cravat, and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles were perched neatly on the bridge of his short snub nose. A round, friendly face, David thought, watching it hopefully, and noticed that the muddy light from the long office window shone on the gentleman’s pink skull as though it had been polished.
‘Yes,’ Mr Palfreyman said, laying the last sketch exactly on top of all the others. ‘Yes, yes, of course.’
David felt as if he was suffocating. What did he mean? Yes, he was going to offer him the job? Or yes, I like your work? He shifted his damp feet to warm them a little and looked hopefully at Mr Palfreyman, his brown eyes eager.
‘Well now, Mr Cheifitz,’ Mr Palfreyman said, smiling benignly. And then his expression suddenly changed as though his face had been transformed to India rubber and somebody was screwing it into a knot. ‘Good heavens above! Will you look at that?’
He was staring at the window, and before David could turn his head to see what was the matter, Mr Palfreyman had leaped to his feet, seized a duster from the top drawer of his desk and rushed across the room to attack the window with it. ‘If there is one thing I cannot stand,’ he said scrubbing at the glass, ‘it is a damp window. Ugh! Ugh! I will not stand it!’ He worked furiously while David watched and the red coals shuffled in the grate. It took a lot of effort before the gentleman was satisfied, and as he returned to his desk, tossing the wet duster into the waste paper basket en route, he still sounded aggrieved. ‘Moisture in the open air is deplorable enough,’ he said; ‘but within doors it is an abomination. Don’t you agree?’
Would a nod be the right answer?
‘Now then, my dear chap, how long do you think it will be before you can give me an answer?’
‘An answer, sir?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. To our offer. To our offer.’
‘Are you offering me a job, sir?’ David was so excited he could hardly breathe.
‘Yes, yes, of course. Did I not say so? Dear me! I do apologize, dear chap. Very remiss of me. All that moisture, you see. Quite sets my teeth on edge, moisture. Well now, I will explain our terms.’
They were princely. Twenty-five shillings a week and all materials found. A trial period of three months, then a review, then the job proper, all things being satisfactory. It was miraculous.
‘If I gave in my notice today, I daresay I could start Monday, sir,’ he said breathlessly.
‘What is your trade?’
‘Apprentice bookbinder, sir.’
‘Ah!’ Mr Palfreyman said thoughtfully, and he looked at David for quite a long time, straight through the centre of his spectacles. ‘How many years do you have to run?’
‘Two, sir.’
‘Ah! Then we have matters to consider. This must be weighed up. Yes, yes, indeed.’
David’s heart sank. Was he going to reconsider the offer? An apprenticeship was nothing. Not compared with a chance like this. ‘Mr Palfreyman, sir …’
‘We will consider this carefully,’ Mr Palfreyman said, smiling his benign smile. He had taken a large box of matches from the second drawer of his desk, and now it was being opened and the first match picked neatly from the pile.
A pipe, David thought, to aid concentration.
But he was wrong.
‘These matches,’ Mr Palfreyman explained, ‘will represent the pros and cons. Pros to the right, cons to the left, you understand. Very well,’ selecting a matchstick from the righthand pile, ‘we will begin. We will pay you twenty-five shillings a week, which is more than you could earn as a bookbinder. However,’ selecting another matchstick from the lefthand pile, ‘bookbinding is a steady trade.’
There was a pause while they considered the two little shreds of wood now lying so reasonably on either side of the desk.
‘Secondly. You will meet many interesting people if you work for the Essex. Yes indeed. On the other hand, you will miss those friends you have already made.’ Now there were four matches on the desk, neatly opposing one another, two by two. ‘Thirdly …’
What a very kind man he is, David thought, watch
ing as the matches were lined up in thoughtful and eccentric order, taking all this trouble just for me. He had no doubt at all now that he wanted to work on the Essex with Mr Palfreyman, but he waited politely until six pros and cons had been explained and aligned, and when he was finally asked, ‘Now, me dear chap, what do you think?’ he took his time to answer, as befitted such an important moment
‘I should very much like to accept your offer, Mr Palfreyman,’ he said. ‘Verymuch. I’ll go straight back to Mr Woolnoth’s now, an’ see how soon he’ll release me, an’ I’ll write an’ tell you just so soon as ever I know. I give you my word.’
‘I’m sure you will, dear chap. Welcome to the firm.’
The next half hour blurred like a dream. They shook hands solemnly. Mr Palfreyman rose from his seat and took a walking stick from the stand in the corner of the room and gave three sharp raps with it in the centre of the carpet. The summons was answered by the Shaver who presently arrived, blinking and confused, and was despatched to ‘fetch Mr Quinton’. Mr Quinton turned out to be the man in the green bowler and the journalist whose work David would be illustrating, and as boisterously friendly as ever.
‘Welcome to the madhouse, young’un,’ he said affably as they shook hands. ‘I shall be down your way in a day or two. Doin’ a piece on Spitalfields in the small hours. You know the sort a’ stuff. London by night. Plenty a’ local colour. Come an’ see the print shop.’
By now excitement and success were making David’s head spin, but he followed Mr Quinton obediently down the stairs and along a dark corridor into an echoing barn, where four huge printing machines crouched on the stone flags, black and oily like brooding dinosaurs. A half-wall of wooden partitions had been erected along three of the walls to form a series of cramped, badly-lit offices. Mr Quinton had his name on the door of his particular den. He led his new colleague into the gloom and introduced him to a filing cabinet bulging papers and a desk bent sideways under the combined weight of a library of books, several tons of newsprint, three clotted inkwells, an old shoe and a variety of paperweights.
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