The Fun Factory

by Chris England

  Clara paused, took another sip of tea.

  “What he started to do, you see, eventually, was say she had to be nice to a particular theatre manager, so that they’d get more bookings, and so she would be, to please him, but then he would get it into his head that she must have gone as far as his filthy mind imagined she would, and he would fly into a jealous rage. He’d beat her black and blue, time and time again. He brought a doctor to her once, and when he saw her the doctor threatened to horsewhip him on the spot, that’s how bad it was. She has a scar, just here, on her cheek. Have you seen it?”

  I shook my head. I had, though.

  “She covers it well, but she’ll have it till the day she dies, like a little crescent moon. He did that to her, threw her to the ground and stamped on her face with his heel.”

  The image of Karno’s smart, shiny little shoes flashed into my mind.

  “She stayed with him, though,” Clara went on. “There were the children, of course, but she adored him still despite it all, if you can believe that. There was Freddie, the eldest, you know him. And Leslie too. In between there were six more that, well, they just weren’t meant to be, poor little scraps. And when each one died he’d beat her again, like it was her fault.”

  Clara took a moment to compose herself.

  “It wasn’t just the beatings, though they were bad enough. It was the mistresses, too. When little Leslie was born … what is he now? Seven? The brute had set up a second home, on the very same street, with that … woman…”

  “Maria?”

  “One of his Amazonian chorus girls, she was then. We all knew about it, everybody did, except poor Edith, and we hadn’t the heart to tell her. Introducing her as ‘Mrs Karno’ to everyone, he was, it was disgraceful, with his real wife still recovering from the birth of his own child. Well, one day he decided he’d let Edith know that he had a mistress now, and one who would … do things that she wouldn’t do. Wouldn’t dream of doing. So he delivered a packet of photographs. Oh, such things, they were! The two of them, naked as the day they were born, in a field if you please, cavorting around, posing, doing … well, anything you could possibly imagine, and then worse.”

  “You don’t mean…?”

  “I do mean. Well, Edith could hardly turn a blind eye any more, then, could she? When she left him, finally, she came to us, you know, and we took her in. Charley went and told Karno straight that Edith was under his protection now, and we got her and little Leslie a room next door. Karno was furious, but he couldn’t fire Charley, too many people would have had something to say about that, and Charley would never leave. But he’s never got the leads he deserved, Charley, because of it. Been a number two for, ooh, ten years now.”

  “So why did they never divorce? Edith and the Guv’nor?” I asked.

  “Edith went to a solicitor at the Variety Artistes Federation, who said to her that she should seek a separation, not a divorce, as that way Karno would have to support her while she raised his sons. He fought her in court, though, and was winning his case, spinning his ridiculous sob story, until I brought those photographs into the judge. Edith would never have done it, but I knew where she kept them, and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. The judge allowed that they should be separated, and determined that Freddie should be left with his father for some reason I couldn’t fathom then and still cannot now. Something to do with the chance of one day being brought into the family business. It’s a miracle that boy has turned out as well as he has, a perfect miracle.”

  I was finding it harder with every passing minute to imagine that I would ever be able to oblige Karno with his request.

  “Does she ever…? I mean, has she been alone since she and the Guv’nor separated … or have there been…?”

  “Good Heavens! What sort of a question is that?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, flustered.

  “Of course not, is your answer! She is a saint, that woman, a saint. She’d no more break her marriage vows than she’d cut off her own right hand. The very idea!”

  “I see.”

  “She has two satin pillows on her bed to this very day, one with ‘EDITH’ embroidered upon it, and the other with ‘FRED’. I do believe she’d take him back, even now.”

  I must have looked pretty crestfallen, for she said: “There now, that was more than you wanted to know, wasn’t it? He’s not a bad man to be working for, I dare say, if you can manage to stay on the right side of him. And it’s not really any of our business, now, is it? More tea…?”

  I didn’t need tea, I needed the open air. I needed to think. I grabbed my hat and strode out to the Common.

  Clearly what the Guv’nor had asked me to do was beyond the pale, and equally clearly the man I had idolised since I came to London had feet of clay. In fact was little short of monstrous.

  Nonetheless, the tantalising vision of a near future in which I was the lead comic of a Karno company of which Tilly was a member, well, could I really pass that up? I could find somewhere else to live, far from Streatham and the protective Charley Bell. I could find a way of avoiding Freddie junior, for the next … well, for the rest of my life. Couldn’t I…?

  Tilly was doing her bit that very afternoon. I reckoned if I was going to go through with this, then I really should do it as soon as possible. I wasn’t sure how far I actually had to go before the weekend and Karno’s big decision. Perhaps I would be able to make him see that his scheme was madness? Perhaps the attempt itself would be enough to show him that in fact he was in the wrong?

  The one thing I couldn’t get away with doing was nothing at all.

  I decided that I should bring some flowers if I was really going to ‘pitch woo’, as Charlie would no doubt have called it, to a married lady. Whether I actually thought that flowers would make a difference, or I was just postponing the moment again, I can’t now quite recall. Whichever it was, I found myself browsing at a florist’s barrow at the bottom end of the Common for some considerable time.

  “If you wait until they turn they’ll be cheaper, is that what you’re thinking?” the crone in charge eventually enquired. I laughed off her sledgehammer sarcasm.

  “No, no, I beg your pardon. I just wanted to be sure I get it right. Difficult … choice,” I said.

  “Courting, are you?” she said. “Here, let me help you out, sonny.” She quickly gathered a two-bob bouquet together for me and thrust it into my arms. “Never a woman born yet that wouldn’t swoon at the sight of that little lot.”

  I thanked her, paid her, and was turning to leave, when she called me back and stuck something into the lapel of my jacket.

  “Lucky heather,” she whispered.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ve got a feeling I’ll need it.”

  A few minutes later I stood by the gate of next door’s house. Actually maybe it was longer: I may have walked around the block a couple of times. And nipped into a pub for a stiffener. Anyway, I stopped there at the gate and took a deep breath. I just about felt like I’d screwed my courage to the old sticking place, when a voice hailed me from across the street.

  “What ho, Arthur!”

  I turned, and there was young Freddie striding towards me with a big grin on his silly chops, just the very last person I wanted to see. He spotted the flowers clutched in my fist, of course, right away, and punched me jovially on the arm.

  “Flowers, eh? Who’s the lucky gal?”

  “Ha ha! No one, no one!” I said.

  “Oh? Have you got a secret admirer yourself, then? Some fellow sweet on you, is it?”

  “Don’t be an ass, Freddie.”

  “I’m just going to see Mama. Are you going out, or do you want to come in and say ‘Hullo’?”

  “I’m … er…”

  “It’s all right, you can if you want. I’m sure she’ll like to see you. I’m just killing time while Maria’s out shopping,” he said cryptically.

  “What?” I said, and he laughed.

  “Maria’s out sho
pping. That’s just what I call it. She goes up to town for the afternoon, looking at shoes and so on, deciding she’ll maybe get them next time, or the time after. And while she’s out, that’s when Dad does his auditioning. He doesn’t call it the Fun Factory for nothing, you know!”

  “Sorry, what?” I said.

  “Come along, Arthur, you’re not usually this dim. The Guv’nor is auditioning a young lady, and he does it when Maria is out shopping, because she’s an extremely jealous woman and he doesn’t want her to know what he’s about.”

  The truth was dawning slowly on me now, although I didn’t want it to.

  “Likes to see just how super the supers really are, if you follow me?”

  I nodded, but was barely listening. In my mind I was hearing Tilly’s voice, reciting her letter: “I’ve got an audition with Fred Karno himself, no less, next Wednesday in the afternoon at his house, while his wife is out at the shops, so fingers crossed for me, eh…?”

  Freddie was still talking. “I walked in on him once, not long back, auditioning, and got a pound pay rise so I wouldn’t tell Maria. Ha! I’d tell you who the girl with him was, but it wouldn’t really be fair, would it? I see her on pay night. Think it’s her, anyway. I only got the briefest look at her face, to be honest. Eh? You with me?”

  I laughed along with him, hollowly, my mind racing.

  “In fact sometimes I amuse myself on a Saturday night by ticking them off in my head. She’s been ‘guvved’, she’s been ‘guvved’, I saw her being ‘guvved’, ‘guvved’ twice to my certain knowledge, ‘guvved’, ‘guvved’, ‘guvved’ and so on. I should put a little ‘g’ next to their names in the ledger, shouldn’t I? Baffle future generations of accountants!”

  His bawdy grin turned to a look of concern as he saw my expression.

  “I say, are you all right, Arthur? You look rather pale.”

  “Here,” I said, slamming the bunch of flowers into his chest. “Give these to your mother!”

  I set off at a run down the street.

  Too agitated to wait for a tram or an omnibus, I ran up Streatham High Road towards Brixton. Got passed by a tram, which would have got me there sooner if only I could have calmed down to wait for it. Cursing, ran on up the hill. Lost a scarf – it blew off from round my neck. I didn’t go back for it. Up to Coldharbour Lane, red in the face, panting, sweating. Into Vaughan Road, seeing the Fun Factory, lit up by the winter sunshine, seeing Karno’s house. Stopped, gasping, leaning on somebody’s garden wall, trying to get my breath back…

  The door of Karno’s house opened, and Tilly stepped out. She was smiling, and gave a little wave back to the occupant, as the door closed.

  She set off walking along the street towards me, saw me, smiled.

  Karno’s face leering down at her.

  “Hullo there, you!” she said, as she got close.

  Karno unbuckling his belt.

  “Guess what!” she asked, brightly.

  Karno giving a little cough.

  “I passed the audition!” she beamed.

  Karno’s lips leaving a wet smear on her cheek.

  “Didn’t you hear me? I got a job…”

  Tilly’s face changed. I saw her read in my eyes that I knew perfectly well what her audition had consisted of.

  She said, in a small voice. “It was for you, Arthur. So I could be with you.”

  But I didn’t hear her. All I could think of was … her. Being ‘guvved’.

  “Leave me alone,” I said. “You … disgust me.”

  She walked away, of course. Her head bowed, one hand over her face, not a sound. She walked away from me, to the end of the road, turned the corner and disappeared from view.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. I sat on the pavement, rested my head on my knees, closed my eyes. It began to rain, a sudden, heavy shower. Within a couple of minutes I was soaked through to the skin, but I couldn’t bring myself to get up.

  After a few minutes I heard a front door bang and glanced up. There was Karno, strutting across the road to the Fun Factory under a bright red umbrella, exceedingly full of himself, clip-clopping lightly around the puddles in his shiny little shoes. I wondered if they were the same shoes he’d used to stamp on his wife’s face, to scar her for life. It made me think of the other people he wasn’t worried about scarring for life. Me, for one. I felt a volcanic anger building up inside me. I scrambled to my feet and followed.

  He’d just started talking to Alf Reeves about some theatre plans of some sort when I kicked the door of his office open. I stood there in the entrance like a drowned rat. He got half the way up to his feet and opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it.

  “You!” I shouted. “You’re a monster!”

  “Are you drunk?” Karno said calmly.

  “Not yet!” I roared. I grabbed his bottle of Scotch from atop his cabinet and took a big, spluttering swig from it.

  “What is this about?”

  “I’ll tell you!” I cried. “It’s about me telling you where to stick your stupid contest, and where to stick your bloody job!”

  Karno’s jaw dropped. “You what?” he said.

  “You heard me,” I snarled, pushing my face right up to his, nose to nose. “Stick it where the sun doesn’t shine, because if the only way to keep it is to compromise your poor wife, well then clearly it’s not a job worth having and I’ll find some other bloody thing to do!”

  I had no idea what that other thing might be, and to be honest that big swig of whisky was beginning to make me feel dizzy, but I was rather enjoying myself. The smoke in my nostrils from all the bridge burning I was doing had an exhilarating tang.

  “Do I take it that you are resigning from the company?!” Karno shouted, trembling with fury.

  “You can take it up your arse!” I roared, rocking back on my heels. “That poor woman still loves you, you know, even though you have got yourself another so-called wife, and are betraying that one with any available trollop whenever her back is turned!”

  “Resignation accepted!” Karno yelled, banging his fist on the table as if it contained a rubber stamp to make things official.

  “Fine!” I shouted, my face an inch from his.

  “No!” another voice cut in, strongly, firmly.

  Karno and I were stunned. We’d been so wrapped up in our fury that we’d almost forgotten Alf was still in the room, yet there he was, red in the face and visibly quivering with suppressed rage.

  “You what?” Karno said, slowly turning to face him, hands on hips.

  “I said, no,” Alf said, with a dreadful calmness. “No, Arthur is not resigning from the company, nor are you going to sack him. I won’t allow it.”

  “Oh-ho!” Karno bellowed nastily, turning an interesting puce colour. “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” Alf said, ice cold. “That is so. Or do you want me to tell everyone what you asked this boy to do?”

  “You can do exactly as you damn well please!” shouted Karno, but the wind was leaking from his sails.

  “This is what is going to happen. You can play out your contest on Saturday, even though it is silly and demeaning to this lad and to young Chaplin, both of whom deserve better from you…”

  “He doesn’t,” I muttered.

  “…and then you may come to whatever decision you think proper at the end of the evening. But I shall be there, too, and I will feel obliged to see that no travesty of justice is done, do you understand me? Fred?”

  Karno glared at Alf for a moment, but Alf held his gaze.

  “Fred?” he said again, with steel in his tone. “Do you hear me?”

  “Very well,” Karno said through gritted teeth, after a long, long moment in which he seemed to be weighing up Alf in his mind, reappraising him. “Very well then. But I shall stop the money for that door out of his wages.” He turned to Alf with exaggerated deference. “Unless you think that would be inappropriate?”

  “No, that will be perfectly acceptable,” Alf said, holding
himself erect. “Now come along, Arthur – time we left, I think.”

  I let Alf guide me out of the office, and out into the wet street. I was astonished.

  “What on earth did you think you were you doing?” I shouted. Once we were clear of the Fun Factory Alf’s superhuman composure suddenly deserted him. He grabbed at his heart and leaned heavily against a lamp post.

  “Saving your life, you young fool!” he gasped. “Now get me a bloody brandy!”

  27

  BREAK A LEG

  SO we come to that most peculiar of days at the Oxford, when Charlie Chaplin and I went head to head.

  The Oxford – gone now, pulled down and replaced with a Lyons Corner House – had the reputation then of being the handsomest music hall in London. It was certainly one of the most prestigious places to play. George Robey made his name there in the 1890s, you know, and it was always a favourite of his.

  I was there in plenty of time for the matinée, even though I wasn’t to be in it, or even allowed to watch it. Once or twice a couple of strangers popped their heads in at the door and stared curiously at me, before whispering to one another as if to say:

  “There he is, he’s one of them!”

  At some point during the first half – The Football Match was in the second – Chaplin came to pay me a visit, all dressed up in Stiffy the Goalkeeper’s roll-neck jumper and long pantaloons, and shut the dressing-room door behind himself.

  “Listen, Arthur,” he began, shuffling from one foot to the other. “It’s embarrassing, this, isn’t it, to be set against each other like this?”

  I shrugged.