The Fun Factory

by Chris England

  Marie Lloyd was at this particular do, though, as were George Robey, Gus Elen, Albert Chevalier and many more, as well as theatre managers and impresarios from across the capital. Alf Reeves was clearly a popular figure on the music hall scene, and there was quite a turnout to celebrate his nuptials. Happy though I was for old Alf, it wasn’t my friendship with him that had brought me all the way down from Cambridge. It was his bride, lovely little Amy Minister, who had been on that Mumming Birds tour with me so many months before. She was friendly with Tilly Beckett, you see, and it was the chance of seeing her that had enlivened my every waking moment since the invitation had arrived, and had sent me running for the London train at the crack of dawn.

  The Karno organisation was such a sensitive and hierarchical monster that Alf and Amy had had to restrict their invitations to the top level, or else invite absolutely everyone, so only the top number ones were there. Fred Kitchen, Billie Ritchie, Jimmy Russell and Johnny Doyle were in attendance, and so, sitting together near the front, were Syd and Charlie Chaplin. The whole affair’s culminating act of diplomacy was the installation of the Guv’nor himself as Alf’s best man. Anything else was unthinkable.

  Karno had been the very soul of generosity, and had not only volunteered the use of the entire fleet of Karno company omnibuses to transport the assembled multitude to the reception, but had also offered up the Fun Factory itself to host the occasion.

  After the nuptials were officially concluded, we spilled out into the sunshine and crammed higgledy-piggledy into the conveyances like a bunch of kids going to the seaside. The non-Karno people were not aware that the lower levels were strictly for the senior performers, of course, so I found myself cheerfully crammed on the open top deck between the celebrated Mr Elen and Miss Lloyd, who waved at a few dozen star spotters on the pavement below.

  Off we rattled over the river towards Camberwell, and I took the opportunity to introduce myself to the great Marie.

  “Miss Lloyd?” I said. “We haven’t met, although I have written to you to thank you for your generosity when my knee was broken. I am Arthur Dandoe.”

  “Of course you are!” the great comedienne cried. “I recognises you, Arthur, an’ I recalls your letter. Most gracious it was. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance at last.”

  “Let me say again how grateful I am for your help,” I said. “It was much appreciated.”

  “Well,” Marie said, leaning in and confiding in hushed tones. “What you did was much appreciated by me, and all of Edith’s friends, so let’s say no more about it.”

  She patted me on the chest in a friendly manner, and I only discovered later that she had slipped a five-pound note into my inside pocket. I did feel something of a fraud, I must confess. Didn’t give it back, though.

  The Fun Factory was transformed for the reception, with cream-coloured ribbons and yellow flowers, and running along the back wall was the big backdrop from The Football Match, which had been painted over so that the crowd were sporting buttonholes and top hats.

  I was seated with Edith Karno and her party, next to Freddie and across from Clara and Charley Bell. They were all delighted to see me and treated me like some kind of martyred hero, which was a little embarrassing.

  The wedding party processed to the top table, and as they did so some unseen hand flicked a switch on the big fans so that the arms on the backdrop waved in the air. Nice effect.

  Alf and Amy made their way to the position of honour, wreathed in smiles. Then came Karno and Maria, who tried to ignore our table completely as they passed, but Karno caught sight of me there and turned to stare, his eyes narrowing in surprise. I stared right back. I didn’t work for him any more, and I didn’t care what he thought of me.

  Then came the bridesmaids, two of Amy’s sisters and – my goodness! – Tilly Beckett, looking a real picture, with her hair fully restored to its natural golden colour, and her green eyes twinkling with happiness for her friend. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  As luncheon was served I turned to Freddie.

  “That crowd scene will need a bit of cleaning up after this, won’t it?” I said.

  “Oh, The Football Match is long gone,” Freddie said. “Did you not hear?”

  “Hear?” I asked. “Hear what?”

  “Oh well, a few days after that business at the Oxford – must have been the very day you left for Cambridge, I should think – young Chaplin went down with bad laryngitis. Couldn’t say a dicky bird. Well, if only you hadn’t…” He waved a fork at my knee, and I completed his thought.

  “…hadn’t been crocked, I would have been right there to step in, wouldn’t I?” I sighed. “So, what, Will Poluski did it? Or who?”

  “No, the Guv’nor pulled the show entirely, scrapped it, cancelled all the bookings.”

  “He did what?”

  “He got wind that some of those football fellows had mucked about with the shows because of some gambling scheme that they had cooked up, and he was so furious that he took it as a perfect opportunity to sack them all. I’ve never seen him so angry. He swears he’ll never employ any of them ever again.”

  Ha, I thought. Retribution! Justice! Comeuppance! Eat that, you money-grabbing swine!

  “Do you know, I thought it might be that way,” I said. “So Billy Wragg broke my knee on purpose, d’you think?”

  Freddie shrugged. “That one was sacked before the curtain hit the apron,” he said. “The Guv’nor did it himself. He was livid.”

  I could see Syd and Charlie Chaplin sitting together at the opposite side of the room. “So, if not The Football Match, what is Charlie doing now?”

  “New piece,” Freddie said, chomping on a bit of beef. “Called Skating. On roller skates. Two companies. Syd’s number one of one, and Charlie’s the number one of the other.”

  Suddenly I didn’t feel like finishing my food.

  After the meal there were speeches, of course. I remember Karno’s best man speech well. He seemed to have the idea that we would like to hear a speech about himself, rather than the bride or groom particularly. After all, Alf and Amy worked for him fifty-two weeks of the year, so his story was their story, in a way, was how he set it up.

  He told us a tale of how he had first come to London. Like many successful fellows, he enjoyed laying it on about how poor he had been to begin with, and even reverted to his thicker accent to remind us of his humble roots. He’d found himself on his uppers, and he and a pal had decided to work their way down to the capital to try their fortune. Young Karno had got hold of a glazier’s kit, and they tramped from town to town mending windows and getting by that way. Until they hit a rough patch.

  “We come to this village, see,” the Guv’nor recounted, one thumb tucked into his waistcoat. “And we hadn’t a bean, not even t’ price of a cup o’ tea, and there was no jobs to do. So we sat there on a wall, glum like, an’ I says to Tom: ‘See that shop winder over there? That winder could just break tonight, and in t’ morning they’d be glad to ’ave it fixed.’

  “That night I slipped back into that village, bunged a brick through this winder and a branch through that, an’ when we came along in t’ morning shoutin’ ‘Winders to mend?’ the whole town come a-runnin’! An’ that’s how we made it down to London. Smashin’ winders at night, an’ mendin’ ’em in t’ mornin’!”

  Sound familiar, that story? Thought it might…11

  Karno then moved on to his solemn duty of offering a toast to the lovely bridesmaids. I saw a look pass between the Guv’nor and Tilly as he raised his glass, and struggled to interpret it. The image of the ‘guvving’ forced itself upon me for the umpteenth time, but his crooked smile looked, what…? Hopeful…? Or was I the optimist?

  “So when are you coming back, then?” Freddie asked me suddenly. “Clara’s kept your room for you, haven’t you, Clara?”

  “Of course I have,” Clara said cheerily.

  “Oh, well, I’m not sure the Guv’nor would have me back, after…” />
  “Oh nonsense,” Clara said. “He’s hardly spoken to Charley for nearly ten years, has he Charley, but he knows a good man when he’s got one.”

  People were beginning to mill about, now, in search of drink and conversation, so I excused myself and went for a wander rather than let them pursue the matter. Almost immediately I bumped into George Craig, last seen storming out of the Enterprise after being summarily fired, making his way back to his table with a couple of frothing glasses of champers.

  “Hullo, George,” I said. “I thought you were working for Wal Pink.”

  “No, no,” George said with an almighty wink. “I’m working for the Guv’nor. Don’t you worry about that.”

  And off he went to join Lillie. I reckoned one way or another George must be a better actor than I’d ever given him credit for.

  I found myself a vantage point where I could watch Tilly. She was smiling, fending off the drunken attentions of Billy Reeves, Alf’s brother. I found myself close to the table where the Chaplin brothers were sitting, and when I glanced that way I caught Charlie looking at me. He beamed brightly all of a sudden, and bounced over to where I was standing. Grasping my hand and shaking it vigorously, he made a great business of inspecting my right trouser leg, as though he could see through it to the knee inside.

  “Arthur! How marvellous that you are here! Are you recovered?”

  “I’ll manage,” I said, holding up the cane I now walked with.

  “Terrible business, that was, terrible. We were all terribly shocked, and worried about you, you know?”

  A brief mental image from the Oxford surfaced, of Chaplin being carried around on shoulders celebrating while an incompetent veterinarian overdosed me with ether.

  “And, you know, I’d much rather have won that contest fair and square, and I would have done, I think. Well, you know I would have, don’t you? Deep down?”

  “I … er…” I spluttered, but Charlie was chattering away, a bag of nerves.

  “And I know I didn’t come to visit you, and I should have, I should have, but you haven’t congratulated me on my success either, now have you?” And he poked me in the chest reprovingly.

  “Well … congratulations,” I managed to make myself say.

  “Thank you, Arthur, thank you kindly. Better man won, eh?”

  “I didn’t say that exactly,” I said, but his nervous chatter just rolled over it.

  “Good, good, and so … are you back in harness, so to speak?”

  “No, no, I’m just down for the day.”

  “So when can we expect you to return to the strength?” he said, punching me playfully on the bicep.

  “I’m not … I’m working at the old college again. I’m not coming back.”

  He was shocked for a moment, and then the relief washed over his features. He couldn’t hide it.

  “So-o-o-o! Cambridge’s gain is comedy’s loss, eh? Well, well, well. It’s a great pity, in a way, because I really think one day you might have been almost as good as me.”

  “You what?!”

  “And you know things really are going tremendously well for me just at the moment.”

  Suddenly, with a rustle of skirts, Tilly was beside him. I saw her slip her arm into the crook of his, and she was whispering into his ear before she recognised who he was talking to.

  “Shall we get some champagne?” she said, and Charlie glanced at me apprehensively. She followed his eyes, and her mouth popped open into an O of surprise.

  “Hullo, Tilly,” I said, my heart racing. “I hope I find you well?”

  “Yes,” she said, collecting herself quickly. “And you? Your injury?”

  I shrugged, nodded, held up my cane. I wanted to speak but no words would come. An awkward pause was developing, until Charlie clapped his hands smartly. “Well. Let us find ourselves some champagne, shall we?” He pressed his forehead to Tilly’s in a two-turtle-dovey gesture then patted me on the arm in a way which made it clear that I was not invited along. “Delighted to see you up and about, old chap!”

  I watched them go, arm in arm. So that was how things were now, I thought. Chaplin had my career, and he had my girl. Maybe he was just the better man, and that was that.

  I began to feel I couldn’t get my breath, that I needed to go outside. The desire to take back the things I had said to Tilly was like a physical pain. What did it matter if she had done what she needed to do in order to get herself a job with Karno? She had come back from Paris to be with me. What did any amount of ‘guvving’ matter? Really?

  Suddenly Charlie was back at my elbow. “Listen,” he said. “You’re not going to make a scene, are you? All’s fair in love and war, all that?”

  I shook him off and headed for the street. It crossed my bitter mind that I should just tell him about Tilly’s audition with Karno, and that such was his romantic inclination to place women upon pedestals that he might then have dropped her at once like a hot coal, but I couldn’t really do that. I had done enough.

  Outside the Fun Factory I lit a cigarette and loosened my shirt buttons, trying to calm down. It was late afternoon by this time, and there were groups of Karno performers hanging around waiting for the omnibuses to take them to the evening shows. They peered through the big double doors at the festivities inside, not venturing in.

  I nearly didn’t go back in myself, but I decided I couldn’t leave after only that ridiculously brief conversation with Tilly.

  Inside the tables were pushed to the sides, a band struck up, and dancing got under way. Tilly was sitting by herself now at the top table watching the happy couple twirling away. No time like the present, I thought, and limped over there.

  She glanced up at me as I joined her.

  “Lovely day,” I ventured, and she nodded and smiled.

  “That’s Amy sorted out now, then,” she said.

  “I suppose so,” I said, not sure quite what she meant.

  “Her career is his career, now,” Tilly explained. “Alf will manage the shows, and Amy can be in ’em.”

  “Good luck to them,” I said.

  “Well. It would not suit me,” Tilly said firmly.

  “In what way?”

  “To have my career determined so by my husband’s.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “Why should I not have my own career, that’s all?” she said. “There’s Marie Lloyd, over there look, as big a draw as any in the land, without any help from a husband. Why should I not be able to make my own way?”

  I shrugged, then asked: “What are you doing at the moment?”

  Tilly paused for a second. “Skating,” she said then.

  “With Charlie?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked down at the table, and I realised I had inadvertently scored a point off her.

  “And you?” she said. “When are you returning?”

  “I’m not,” I said. “That’s it for me.”

  Tilly gasped. “Oh? What a shame!”

  “Well,” I said. “There it is.”

  “What a shame!” she said again, and I saw to my surprise that she was becoming upset. “Do you mean to say that you’d really…? Because of…? Oh, you are such a…!”

  And she covered her face with her hands and fled from me, pushing her way through the dancers and out of sight. I sat by myself, wondering what had just happened.

  The band reached the end of the number, and the dancers came to a halt to applaud them. I watched Alf and Amy, the two of them beaming and out of breath. I was just thinking of slipping quietly away, back to the railway station and up to Cambridge, when I saw a familiar figure, leaning over one of the tables helping himself, and I clapped him heartily on the back.

  “Stan! Have you been here all along?”

  Stan turned furtively and whispered: “No, I came to get the bus for tonight’s shows and I just slipped in. I thought there might be cake. How’s the leg?”

  “Better, thanks.”

  It was good to see Stan
again. He had been one of my visitors when I left the hospital – he had leaned on my injury, and brought me a gift of hard-boiled eggs and nuts, which made a change from candied fruit. And he’d been making real headway at the Fun Factory while I was away, building up a good reputation for himself.

  “Wasn’t that Tilly you were just talking to?” he said, munching away. “However did you let that one slip through your fingers?”

  “I don’t know,” I muttered. “I just don’t know.”

  “When I first met you you were pretending to be married, remember that?” he chuckled.

  I nodded. How could I have forgotten it? I thought of little else. “They found out about it, though, and Syd gave me the choice to leave Karno or to split up with Tilly, basically.”

  “And you chose Karno?”

  “Well … I didn’t really have the chance … to actually choose one way or t’other… It’s complicated,” I said.

  “But…” Stan frowned. “However did they find out?”

  “Beats me,” I said. “No one knew except her and me. We told no one in the company.”

  Stan had frozen, a piece of wedding cake halfway to his mouth.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “You told me.”

  “Yes, but only you, and you weren’t in the company then.”

  Stan still hadn’t moved.

  “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “Well … you told me about it that day we had the picnic in Hartlepool, remember? And we laughed so much…”

  “I remember…”

  “And later, days later, Charlie asked me what was so funny, and … I knew you two were friends, so I thought what was the harm…? And I … told him.”

  Our eyes met, and I knew we were putting it together in the same instant.

  Charlie told Syd.