Born to Dance

by June Tate

  ‘Yes, it’s on its way.’ The stage manager told him.

  Tears trickled down Bonny’s cheeks. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know, sweetheart, but I’m bloody well going to find out!’ He looked pointedly at the stage manager, who just shrugged.

  ‘Then go and find out!’ Mickey demanded. The man rushed off.

  A stranger knelt beside Mickey. ‘Can I help? I’m a doctor, I was in the audience.’

  ‘Thanks, please take a look at her. I’m so worried. I’d be glad of your help.’

  The doctor carefully examined Bonny. He spoke softly to her as he did so. But when he stood up, he looked anxious and took Mickey aside. ‘She has definitely broken her leg. She will have to be X-rayed before we can tell if there are any internal injuries, but I’m afraid Miss Burton will not be dancing for the foreseeable future.’

  Twenty-Six

  Mickey climbed into the ambulance after the medics carefully transferred Bonny to a stretcher and lifted her into the vehicle. He took hold of her hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m here, darlin’, I’m not going to leave your side. We will get through this, together.’

  She looked pale and drawn with pain. ‘I’m so scared, Mickey.’

  ‘You’re going to be fine, princess. You do have a broken leg, but that’ll mend.’ He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. ‘When I saw you fall, I thought you were dead. Don’t you ever dare do that to me again!’

  She smiled bravely. ‘I felt the same when you went down in the fight.’ She looked at him and spoke softly. ‘Will I ever be able to dance again?’

  ‘Of course you will! It’ll take time, of course; you’ll have to let your leg heal first.’ He stroked her hand. ‘Whilst it does, I’ll spoil you rotten; you probably won’t want to work ever again after a bit of the O’Halleran magic!’ But he kept hidden from her the concerns that were whirling around in his head. Had she damaged her spine in the fall? Only an X-ray would tell them.

  True to his word, Mickey insisted that he stay with her during her examination and when she went for an X-ray, where he did have to wait outside the room, but he was at her side when she was taken back to the ward and put into a private room to await the results.

  Giles Gilmore had rushed to the hospital and was pacing up and down in the waiting room. Although he was concerned for Bonny, his hopes of going to America with the show were now in tatters. It was her name that was selling the production to the Americans. Without her, he had nothing! Her understudy would have to take her place at the Adelphi as it was, but although the girl was a competent dancer, she didn’t have the personality or talent of Bonny Burton. The bookings would drop as a consequence, as would the takings. He eventually sat down, his hands to his head, dreaming of what might have been and worrying himself sick as to what would happen to the production during the time it took for his star to recover.

  The door to Bonny’s room opened and a tall man wearing a smart suit, entered. ‘Miss Burton, I’m Nigel Matthews, your surgeon. I have the X-ray results.’

  Bonny looked at his expression and her heart sank. She gripped Mickey’s hand.

  ‘It’s good and bad news I’m afraid. You have cracked two ribs and broken the tibia in your left leg, but I’m afraid you’ve badly damaged your kneecap and that will take some skill to repair. I have to tell you that knees are the very devil to treat. However, the good news is that internally, apart from some serious bruising, you’ve not damaged any of your vital organs.’

  ‘Will I be able to dance again, Mr Matthews?’ Bonny held her breath.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Until we operate, it’s difficult to say, but although you may be able to, to a certain degree, I rather doubt if you will have the freedom of movement that you have now.’ He sat beside her. ‘I’ve seen the show and know how strenuous some of the numbers are … I doubt you will have the ability to do that again.’ He placed a hand on her arm. ‘I wish I could bring you better news. I’ve seen how talented you are.’

  ‘Or was!’ Bonny’s throat was choked with emotion. ‘You are telling me my career is over as a performer.’ And she burst into tears.

  Matthews looked over at Mickey. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr O’Halleran. I’ve scheduled Miss Burton for an operation, tomorrow morning. By the way, Mr Gilmore is in the waiting room.’ He rose and left.

  Mickey sat gingerly on the bed and took Bonny into his arms. ‘There, there, darlin’. You let it all out.’ He sat silent until her sobs subsided.

  A nurse came in with a tray of tea and put it on the table at the bottom of the bed and quietly left without a word.

  Mickey poured two cups and handed one to Bonny. ‘Here, princess, you sip this. It’s good and strong, just right for a case of shock, they say.’

  ‘You had better go and break the news to Giles,’ she quietly told him. ‘It’s only fair that he’s kept abreast of the situation. After all, he has the show to think of.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  She nodded and sipped her tea. ‘Go, Mickey, he needs to know.’

  Gilmore looked up expectantly as Mickey entered the waiting room.

  Mickey sat beside him. ‘It’s not good news, Giles. Bonny has a broken leg and two cracked ribs, but she’s damaged her knee as well. The surgeon thinks this will limit her ability to dance in the future. But he won’t be able to tell for sure until he operates tomorrow.’

  Giles looked shattered by the news. ‘Then Broadway is out of the question!’

  Mickey’s anger rose. ‘But she’s not in bad shape considering how far she fell, thank you for asking!’

  The man flushed with embarrassment. ‘I’m really pleased to hear that, honestly I am, but you must understand my position; I have the responsibility of this production on my shoulders. There’s so much riding on Bonny. The success of the whole show depended on her. Now I don’t know how the bookings will be affected and that means a lot of people could soon be out of work if the public don’t come.’

  Mickey was not without sympathy for Giles … ‘Of course, I do understand, but you must also understand that, to me, it’s Bonny who is most important. How do you think she’ll feel, unable to carry on? Being a star was not paramount in her life, but dancing is. I just don’t know how she’ll react, that’s my concern. But I also know that she’ll fret about the show, knowing the facts. She’ll feel responsible.’

  ‘It’s not her fault the mechanism failed!’ Giles rose to his feet. ‘I’m going back to the theatre. I’ve got the engineers looking into what caused the accident and I want answers.’ He shook Mickey’s hand. ‘Give Bonny my love. I’ll look in again tomorrow.’

  Mickey stood up. ‘Let me know the result, because if the accident is through some error, I want the man responsible.’

  The threat in the boxer’s voice was not lost on Gilmore. ‘I’ll let you know,’ he said and hurried away.

  At the Adelphi, the man in charge of the mechanical devices used during the production had made a thorough search with his head man. To their horror, they discovered the apparatus used to move the liner had been tampered with.

  Down on their knees, they could clearly see a rod had been placed through the cogs, which would have turned a few times before juddering to a halt as it tore through the spindles.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ The chief engineer scratched his head. ‘This was a deliberate act! Get the crew together; there are questions to be asked here. Bonny Burton could have been killed!’

  But when the crew were assembled, one of them was missing.

  ‘Where the hell is Jenkins?’ asked the chief.

  ‘Don’t know, boss,’ said one. ‘The last time I saw him was when we were setting up the final scene.’ The others agreed. No one had seen him since.

  When Giles was given the facts, he called the police.

  Harry Jenkins had left the theatre quickly after tampering with the mechanism used to move the liner. He was certain that no one had seen him slip the rod between the cogs but he didn’t
want to be around when it all went pear-shaped. Consequently, he had no knowledge of Bonny Burton’s predicament when he arrived at Wally Cole’s house. But Cole had been informed of the accident by one of his men who had been in the audience, knowing that this was the night that the show was to be sabotaged.

  Cole passed an envelope over to Harry. ‘You did a good job tonight. The girl who was the star of the show is in hospital, so Gilmore’s dream of taking Broadway by storm is dead and Foxy Gordon won’t be making a fortune after all! You’d better disappear because the Old Bill will be looking for you and I want no comeback, understand?’

  Harry understood too well. He was a dead man if ever the police found him and discovered his connection to the villain. ‘I’ve packed a bag already. I just have to go and pick it up from my room.’

  ‘Are you mad!’ Cole’s eyes widened. ‘It’s the first place the coppers will look for you. You have enough money there to buy whatever you need, so get on your way. I don’t want to see you ever again.’

  Jenkins pocketed the envelope and walked out of the room without another word.

  Cole lit a cigar and sat back with a satisfied grin. It had been a good night.

  The following morning when Foxy Gordon read the paper he nearly choked on his cup of tea when he saw the headline. STAR OF BROADWAY MELODY IN HOSPITAL. He read on, his heart thumping.

  The reporter wrote about the accident and the fact that Bonny Burton was to have an operation that morning and that the police were investigating the cause of her fall. He was shocked to read that they suspected it had been a deliberate act. Foxy lost his appetite. His hopes of making a fortune, down the drain! He picked up the telephone and dialled Giles Gilmore’s number.

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on, Gilmore?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ Giles told him. ‘All I know is someone has tampered with the machinery and I don’t have a star any more! And frankly I can do without you bellyaching over the phone.’

  Foxy was furious. ‘Bellyaching! I’ve invested a lot of money in this production so I have every right to know what’s going on. Do we still have a show?’

  ‘The understudy will have to perform until I can find another leading lady.’

  ‘But the public want Burton; they won’t want to see anyone else.’

  Don’t you think I’m aware of that? I’m holding auditions from tomorrow, but the hopes of finding another Bonny Burton are few and far between. She was unique.’

  ‘Are you telling me we could lose our investment?’ Foxy’s voice shook with anger.

  ‘I’m telling you I’m doing my best!’ And Giles hung up.

  Whilst he waited at the hospital for Bonny to come out of the operating theatre, Mickey O’Halleran was wracking his brain as to who would have wanted to destroy the success of Broadway Melody. It had to be someone who had a personal grudge against Giles Gilmore. There was no other explanation. He was aware of Giles’s past and the fact that people had been sent to prison on account of him. He frowned. His trainer, Foxy Gordon, was one of them. He pondered over the fact for a long time, arguing that the man wouldn’t have done such a thing, but the more he thought about it, the more he wondered.

  Bonny eventually was wheeled into the recovery room and Mickey was told to come back later when she regained consciousness.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do here, Mr O’Halleran,’ the surgeon told him. ‘We’ve set the leg in plaster and we will have to wait to see the result of the surgery. Go and take a break. Have a bath, get changed and have something to eat. You’ve been up all night and you look terrible! I don’t want you as a patient too.’

  Mickey looked at his crumpled clothes and agreed. But after he’d bathed and changed, he made his way to the gym to talk to Foxy Gordon.

  Foxy was in his office when Mickey walked in. ‘Hello, champ, how’s your girl?’

  ‘Still under the anaesthetic,’ Mickey told him and sat down. ‘Did you have anything to do with last night?’ he asked abruptly.

  Foxy looked astounded. ‘No, I did not, how could you think such a thing?’

  ‘Because I know you and because Gilmore got you sent to prison.’

  ‘I’ve invested a bloody fortune in the production, you stupid bastard, so why the hell would I screw that up?’

  Mickey was taken aback by this news. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘I own forty per cent of the show. I wanted it to succeed, not fail. I could lose a bundle if it closes! I bet that pleases Wally Cole, no end!’

  ‘Wally Cole? Why would he care?’

  ‘He wanted to invest too. He didn’t know I had any money in it, but I didn’t want him moving in so I laughed at him, said he didn’t fit the mould. He didn’t like that.’

  Mickey left the gym and took a taxi back to the hospital. He knew Wally Cole. He wouldn’t have liked Foxy talking down to him and the two men already had bad blood between them after young Charlie Black’s death. Mickey wondered if the villain had discovered Foxy’s involvement after all. After he’d seen that Bonny was all right, he would make a few discreet enquiries of his own.

  When he walked into Bonny’s room, he found Rob Andrews sitting beside the bed. On the bedside table, a large bunch of flowers.

  ‘Hello, Rob, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I came to see Bonny, but she hasn’t come round yet. How did the operation go?’

  They both glanced down at the cage covered with a sheet, protecting the leg which was in plaster.

  ‘The surgeon said they’d have to wait and see, but you might as well get used to the idea that Bonny won’t be able to dance normally again. Her knee’s in a bit of a mess and it will probably restrict her movement.’

  ‘But they don’t know that for sure, do they?’

  ‘Now you listen to me, Andrews. I don’t want you putting any pressure on Bonny when she is recovering. She’ll have to take it easy and you of all people should know just how much dancing means to her. She is going to have a tough enough battle finding out just what she can do. So leave her alone!’

  Rob looked at the Irishman, his jaw tight, trying to keep his temper. ‘Don’t you think I care about her at all?’

  Mickey leaned forward. ‘I think you care about her a tad too much. Back off!’

  Getting up from his chair, Rob picked up his coat. ‘I’m not getting into an argument with you in Bonny’s sickroom. Tell her I was here, that’s all.’

  Mickey sat down and, taking Bonny’s hand in his, whispered, ‘I’m here, darlin’, I’m here.’

  Twenty-Seven

  The day after Bonny’s operation, her parents and Mickey were sitting beside her bed when Nigel Matthews entered the room to talk to her. She asked them all to stay, needing their support.

  The surgeon looked somewhat grave as he began. ‘The operation went well, Miss Burton, but I have to tell you it is my belief that the injury to the knee will prohibit you from any very strenuous exercise, like the dancing you were doing up until your accident.’ He saw the look of horror on her face. ‘It doesn’t mean you can’t dance at all, after you’ve had treatment from a physiotherapist. But there will be a certain amount of stiffness in the knee, I’m afraid.’ He looked down at his notes. ‘Just how much, we’ll have to wait and see. You will have to attend the hospital on a regular basis for a while so we can monitor your progress.’

  ‘This is going to take some time, isn’t it?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so. You will be in plaster for six weeks, then you’ll start with the physio, but please, don’t be disheartened – it could have been so much worse.’

  As the surgeon left the room, Bonny looked at Mickey as her eyes filled with tears. ‘My career is over! I’ll never dance again.’

  He held her hand. ‘That’s not what the man said, darlin’, he said you just can’t dance as you used to. Who knows what you can achieve in the future? But if you’ve already made up your mind you can’t do it, then you’ll never make it. Come on, princess, I’ve seen yo
u battle with rehearsals, your feet bleeding with the effort. Don’t you lose that fighting spirit – not now. Now is when you need it most of all!’

  ‘Mickey’s right, Bonny.’ Frank looked at his daughter and his heart ached for her. ‘You must never give up. If you do, you’re not the girl I know.’

  Millie stood up and said, ‘We’ll leave you and go and have something to eat, but we’ll be back this afternoon to see you. Is there anything you need?’

  Bonny shook her head.

  When they were alone Mickey spoke quietly. ‘When you can leave here, I’ll take you away for the six weeks, build you up, spoil you rotten. Then we can face this battle together.’ He smiled softly. ‘We’ll go to Ireland! I’ll teach you to fish, take you to a real Irish pub, buy you Guinness; it’s full of iron so it’s good for you.’

  But Bonny appeared not to hear a word he was saying; she just stared at the bottom of her bed and the cage that covered her leg.

  ‘Look at me, Bonny!’

  The sharpness in his voice made her look up.

  ‘We are going to train as if we are going to tackle the prize fight of your life! I’ll make your body strong, but it will be your job to train your mind. I can’t do that for you. You must want to win – otherwise I’m wasting my time. Do you understand?’

  She saw the worried furrows in his brow, the deep love he felt for her shining in his eyes.

  Squeezing his hand, she took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I do. I do understand and you’re right, I can’t let this beat me. I do want to win!’

  Detective Inspector Joe Phillips was reading a crime sheet. ‘Jenkins has quite a history,’ he told his sergeant. ‘Burglary, GBH – he got into a fight outside a pub and knifed a bloke, spent two years inside for that – and other misdemeanours. Well, we’ve got a warrant out for his arrest; let’s hope we catch him soon.’