Dancing at the Victory Cafe

by Leah Fleming

  Belle mouths the name silently.

  ‘Good God! Does he know?’

  ‘No, sir, and he must not, I beg you. She left home many months ago. It is none of their business. I am hoping she will contact me. She promised to keep in touch. Can you imagine anyone wanting this made public?’

  The Inspector wipes his glasses on a handkerchief and mops his brow. ‘Well! Of all people! It would kill him . . . such a proud man, refused promotion for years. Says his reward in Heaven is sufficient. Dedicated chap is Goodman but I can’t see him as the doting grandfather to a tar baby! Leave it with me. I’ll set the ball rolling down the hill, but I’m not promising any mercy for that friend of yours. It may all be too late.’

  Leaving the station, Belle is in no mood to return to her work but scurries with sinking heart through the streets, back to her rooms. ‘What have I done? Where will this all end?’

  December 1944

  The summons from the Inspector comes three days before Christmas, right in the middle of Mollie Custer’s annual Christmas bun fight for the Dainty Dots. Wyn and the Prin are left to hold the fort, against the jelly and custard high spirits splattering the walls of the Vic.

  Belle rattles and jerks out of the city in Bindy Baverstock’s Austin Seven, borrowed for the occasion, clanking the gears, double declutching nervously. It is a long time since she was at the wheel of a car. Mona, her Morris Eight had been sold long ago, to finance the café. She crosses the Stafford Road into Abnall’s Lane, a winding narrow country road, rising steeply from the city, passing the gracious gatehouses. She marvels at the gorge with its layers of rusty pink earth revealing slabs of sandstone etched with grey lichens and emerald green moss. The gorge arches over with holly and evergreens against a cobalt sky. Belle stalls the engine, pausing to admire the open view, then chugs on towards the Military Hospital and the Asylum, with its bleak gothic turret. She heads northwards, up narrow lanes, in the direction of the ancient hunting forest of Cannock Chase.

  The Cottage Homes are a cluster of neat red brick houses, set in spacious gardens that now sprout vegetables, tended by boys who hoe and fork over the soil. The Homes are loosely attached to a grim fortress of a workhouse. A few paper chains cannot disguise institutional chilliness. Belle shivers at the thought of so many innocent lives stranded in this place. As she strolls down long corridors, with dark green painted walls and treacle paintwork, she sniffs a school dinner smell of boiled cabbage and disinfectant.

  This is a loveless place for babies: clean and efficient, but no home for Dorrie’s child. The matron, in dark uniform and starched head-dress, summons Belle swiftly to her office.

  ‘I gather you have come to select an infant from the Nursery, Mrs Morton. You will have to fill in all the forms and see the Welfare.’

  ‘Not select, just collect on a temporary basis, for a friend.’

  ‘This is not a Sorting Office, you know . . . Which offspring might that be?’ Belle explains the story briefly.

  ‘You mean the bus stop baby?’

  ‘No, the one in a telephone box.’

  ‘Oh that one!’ The matron peers at her closely. ‘You know the mother then? Don’t know what the world is coming to! So many half castes. No colour bar with our silly girls, is there? The flood of D-Day babies we are placing. Come with me,’ says Matron stiffly. ‘I want to show you something.’

  Belle marches down another corridor, through a labyrinth of turnings and twistings to a huge nursery full of canvas cots. The noise is deafening; a room full of crying babies, snuffling little grunting creatures, tightly swaddled in blankets, red faced and yelling with fury, while the nurses go about their duties unperturbed.

  ‘We let them cry. It is good for their lungs and we haven’t time to spoil them with unnecessary handling.’ Belle is still reeling from the din and the smell. ‘Look around you, my dear, we are inundated with D-Day babies, little souvenirs no one wants to keep. The aftermath of too many Yanks and some very silly girls with not enough to do but chase after anything in trousers.’ Matron parades up the aisle of cots and pauses. ‘Fortunately there’s a steady demand for the fair haired, blue eyed variety of course: nice little English babies are easy to place. The Colonies are crying out for children and some will be shipped out as soon as the war is over.’ She beckons her over to the far end of the room and points to a row of cots, full of dark-skinned babies with black eyes and thick lashes. ‘This lot are never going to be placed are they? The tar babies we call them . . . poor mites. A row of brown babies no one wants to own up to. We keep them together.’

  Belle leans anxiously over each cot. The matron dismisses her charges. ‘Oh they are poppets now . . . but just imagine in a few years’ time how they will stick out! The older girls call them their chocolate babies and wheel them out for fresh air.’

  ‘Which is the telephone baby?’

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer the one from the bus stop? It’s almost white.’

  ‘Quite sure, thank you. Which one am I looking for?’ Belle searches each cot, then pauses at the last cot with a pink label attached. The infant, eyes open, stares at the flickering of her approach: a baby with frizzled brown hair and coffee coloured skin.

  ‘You’ve spotted her then, our little Olive. Suits the name. Quite a cutie, but as I said, they are as babies. We keep them strictly to a Truby King routine, no picking up and spoiling. We are very short of staff so they have to be left to amuse themselves.’

  ‘Can I hold her?’ Belle asks, tentatively unwrapping the swaddling blanket, lifting her up, feeling the dampness of her nightdress. ‘She’s soaking.’

  ‘They all are by this time. We deal with that later, dear.’

  She means well, thinks the visitor sadly, as she stares into the dark eyes so old and world weary, blinking back at the attention. ‘This is no place for you, not for such a smasher. Look at your lovely long legs, just like Lucky’s lamp posts. Fancy calling you Olive. You need a tall name, a happy name . . . come on, let’s get your supplies. You are not stopping here when there are willing hands and doting aunties to mind you until your mum comes marching home. I know it’s madness. I don’t know where we’ll put you. What I know about baby care can be written on my hat pin but I can soon learn.’ Belle prattles and chirrups as she bumps them both down to Lichfield, back to the Cathedral spires, those Three Ladies of the Vale, standing tall and proud in the valley, awaiting their return.

  Sunday Morning

  Isobel prowled through the cottage at dawn searching for some peace. She made herself a strong cup of tea.

  They were all curious. Prin knew of course, the Preeces wondered and Bindy guessed. No one dared to tackle my decision or face my stubbornness. Look what the doctor brought in his bag, I laughed, as they peered into the bassinet with astonishment. Someone had to look after these little mites, the orphans of war, I told my customers. I was only doing my duty . . . Who am I fooling, silly old biddy!

  It was love at first sight; when I sniffed her head and she nuzzled into my heart, through all the layers of my good intentions.

  Sunday Morning

  Dorrie ate a hearty breakfast, bacon and eggs, toast and a pot of strong black coffee. She wiped her lips with satisfaction on a crisp linen napkin, her belly barrel-full.

  It was right to come back, to check out the old place. I have nothing to fear from it now. No one recognised me. Why should they? I am just another wrinkled face. The old are invisible if they are not eccentric. Perhaps thirty years ago I would have turned a few heads.

  Not all my life was pain and anguish. The golden moments came when I buried my secret in a kitbag, dumped it on Euston Station and re-invented myself.

  6

  CASSIE

  Menu

  Pea and Ham Broth

  Spam Fritters with Vegetables or Farmhouse Cottage Pie

  Jam Roly Poly Pudding or Railway Slice with Custard

  January 1945

  ‘Next!’ barks the disembodied voice from the orchest
ral stalls to a queue of hopefuls, trembling in the wings for an audition.

  ‘When the red red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin along . . .’ warbles a would-be Shirley Temple, out of tune.

  ‘Next!’

  ‘This is my lovely day,’ launches forth a soprano, built like an ocean liner.

  ‘Next!’

  Dorrie stumbles into the spotlight, trying to look as if she ate auditions for breakfast, praying her smart new slacks and lamé crossover shirt, her hair caught in a sophisticated golden net snood will cover her terror. ‘Bless this house, oh Lord, I pray, Keep it safe by night and day . . .’ she pauses, waiting for her dismissal.

  ‘Carry on,’ comes the order and she sings through her repertoire.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Cassie Gordon.’

  ‘And where have you been hiding yourself, then?’

  ‘Singing for evangelists, Gospel choirs . . . and a G.I. Band,’ the lies roll from her mouth like polished pebbles. Dorrie holds her breath. ‘Is this happening to me?’

  Was it only three weeks since her forlorn arrival at Euston Station when, desperate to lose her past, she had resorted to the oldest of ploys: reporting her handbag, containing ration card and identity, stolen on the train. In that brisk walk from Police Station to Recruiting Office, she toyed with a wardrobe of new identities. God bless the sergeant at the Recruiting Office, who had believed every tearful word, given her a cup of tea and asked her what she did in civvy street.

  ‘I’m a singer, but I don’t suppose the Army can use my services?’ she joked, blushing at this subterfuge.

  ‘Just where you’re wrong, young lady. Ever heard of E.N.S.A.?’

  ‘Every, Night, Something, Awful!’ she retorted, remembering the Airmen in the Victory Café, who moaned about the boring concert parties held in the Hangars.

  ‘That’s a bit unfair,’ said the sergeant, but laughed all the same. ‘They are always on the lookout for new talent. Get yourself down to Drury Lane Theatre and see if they can fix you up . . . good luck!’

  So clutching a new name, age and identity and the last of Belle’s money, she had scoured Oxford Street for clothes suitable for a rising star. ‘This is the life for me!’

  Two weeks later, as she bumps up a mountain path in a rackety charabanc on the way to her first engagement, she is not so sure. And that’s after four hours on a sooty train, heading towards the remotest corner of the North Riding, hugging a battered suitcase full of second-hand hired evening gowns, smelling to high heaven, hastily altered to fit her new slim shape. Even her Leichner stage make-up is loaned, on pain of death, by a soft-hearted chorus girl. She sniffs her cleansing cream with relish, just to make sure this is not all a dream.

  The other ‘professionals’ keep themselves to themselves, fussing for the best seats on the bus: an elderly tenor, who sports a suspicious rug of rabbit fur on his head; a concert pianist, with corkscrew curls and bosoms like the cones of bomber planes; a violinist with a sad lined face and smouldering latin eyes.

  This is my first paid appearance in public, Dorrie smiles to herself. Never mind the torrential rain, the frosty company, the brief rehearsals or the venue in a converted cowshed, with the pong of manure still ripe in the air. Nothing dampens her spirit. The pianist may moan about the consumptive state of the piano. The violinist snaps his bow as he warms up. The strip of footlights has mysteriously disappeared and the shippon roof is leaking, but to Dorrie it might as well be the stage of Sadler’s Wells, when she wobbles on the pallets, draped in carpet, belting out her numbers to a fidgety audience, drawn from nearby outposts for the show. There is a caterwauling of whistles and cries for More! Which does not seem to please the rest of the Starlight Troupe. Icicles twinkle backstage after the performance.

  ‘Did I do all right?’ she asks innocently.

  ‘You’ll do,’ says the tenor, adjusting his toupee.

  ‘Praise indeed,’ sighs Dorrie in the farmhouse, as she tucks into steaming potato pie with a suet crust as thick as a doormat. Later she flops into a cupboard, on a bed as hard as a rock garden, curling herself into a ball. Only then does she weep, rocking her lost baby in her arms.

  The routine is always the same. First the journey, then the rehearsal; a quick cup of stewed tea, spam fritters and a slab of army cake; a brief feet up and then a flip round the shops for some fresh air and privacy. The dressing room is often only a corner curtained off with a sheet; no decent lights to put on make-up. After the show comes sausage and mash in the mess and home to cold digs in the dark. Occasionally a ‘big name’ joins them for the evening, with a trunk of pressed costumes, a glamorous whiff of expensive perfume and tailoring and then a brisk no nonsense exit, for the top of the bill, to the nearest decent hotel or the officers’ residence.

  ‘This is my apprenticeship and I’ll put up with anything to survive in this business’ is the Mae West that keeps her spirits afloat, even in the roughest, most mundane of factory engagements. Her solo spots increase and she finds, now and then, she is allowed to finish off the first half of the Starlight Show.

  Somewhere between Inverness and St Ives, Cassie Gordon transforms herself into Cassie Starlight, into Cassie Starr, singer with any showband that will give her good backing. Then comes the final accolade: an eight week tour overseas alongside chorus girls and acrobats. The destination is secret for the war drones on in Europe.

  Sunday Morning

  Dorrie smiled as she checked out her hemline in the mirror. Old habits die hard when appearance matters.

  Be careful what you wish for, it may come true, they say. How was I to know, when I ditched poor Dorrie, that I would end up warming up troops for the star turn, singing in dingy barracks, riding on camel’s back to sing for ‘desert rats’ on makeshift stages in the sand dunes!

  Cassie Starr, my tinsel name, has seen me through the best of times, the fifties feasts, singing on Variety Bandbox and Workers’ Playtime on the wireless, the Palladium shows, starring in pantomime in the best theatres, a Jaguar with personal number plates and my own mink coat. It didn’t last, of course, not for me or David Whitfield, Josef Locke, Yana, Lita Rosa in the lean years of the sixties.

  Where are we all now . . . Those faded faces on sixpenny sheet music, crackling on 78 records, sold for pennies in car boot sales; all of us blasted into orbit by television and the Mersey beat.

  Never go back I told myself and I did not, except for one brief passing through, which hardly counts.

  April 1964

  Cassie Starr parks her Triumph Herald slap in the middle of Lichfield Market place and dashes to the red brick loo, tucked in the corner by the Corn Exchange. On her way north for the Summer season on Blackpool Pier, it is only a small detour off the A5 to give the place the once over.

  The bus station has disappeared but the statue of Doctor Johnson still patrols the Square. Window boxes are sprouting bright daffodils despite the chill of a late spring. It is half-day closing and the pavements are empty. Her made-up eyes rove instinctively across the street to the old house. It is painted white with LA CASA BLANCA COFFEE BAR emblazoned in black letters above the window of what was once the Victory Café.

  The chill easterly ruffles her fashionable bob, cuts through the leopardskin, fun fur jacket, pulling her towards the warmth of a tearoom. Only the smoky fug is still the same. The walls are stuccoed in white plaster on which garish posters of bullfighters and toreadors pose and posture with arrogant calves. The ceiling is lowered with netting, in which dangle plastic crabs and sea shells. In the corners hang Spanish flags and lanterns. Each table has a tired dusty bottle of Mateus Rose, dripping with candle grease, a souvenir ashtray from Spain and a bowl of Demerara sugar. The coffee, brought to the table by a sullen young waitress with a pony tail, chewing gum, is slopped in a glass cup and plonked onto the table with the bill. The liquid is an apology for the real cappuccino served in the King’s Road but Cassie is glad of its warmth. She stares around sadly. Not all change is progress. In the corner, under t
he stairs now boarded off, stands a majestic juke box, playing the latest on the Hit Parade. Not one name of the recording artists does she recognise. The café hums to the noisy debate of a group of earnest young men in duffle coats.

  ‘How long has this been a coffee bar?’ Cassie asks the waitress politely.

  ‘Dunno,’ answers the girl, staring at her. ‘It were a milk bar when I was little.’

  ‘Do you remember it as the Victory Café? Mrs Morton had it then,’ Cassie adds, trying to look enthusiastic about the dishwater taste.

  ‘Dunno, I’ll ask in the back, if you like.’ Cassie catches a glimpse of a dark Spanish-looking girl, peering out from the kitchen, who smiles at her interest. The waitress pauses for a moment. ‘I’ve seen your face somewhere . . . are you off the telly? I won’t be a moment.’

  Cassie slurps the dregs for the lumpy sugary bits, leaves some coins for a tip and makes for the door.

  Sunday Noon

  Dorrie packed her overnight bag carefully, pausing to listen to the Cathedral bells as they peeled out across the city, such a tranquil overture to the day.

  Never go back and here I am, waiting for the performance, waiting in the wings again with stage fright for the last act; a finale long overdue.

  Isobel baked scones and her Yorkshire cheese tarts. She could do them blindfold and they never failed to impress. Her eyes darted to the kitchen clock, stomach churning like a cement mixer.

  Why does she have to include me in her pilgimage of Grace? I hope she doesn’t stay too long. Perhaps she has a bus to catch this evening. Then I can settle down to Songs of Praise or Coronation Street and rest in peace.

  A carillon of bells carried away present thought, to drown in the flood from the past.

  7