Dream On

by Gilda O'Neill

  ‘Some of them treat us with a bit of respect.’ Carmen pouted.

  ‘Yeah, but they’re never gonna take us home to meet mother, now are they?’

  ‘Or the wife.’

  ‘We’re their bit of fun.’

  ‘But it don’t pay that bad. Better than flaming machining in a sweatshop.’

  ‘Machining? You try to earn a living in a poxy hat shop where every time the owner goes out, her old man’s trying to get his hand down your drawers.’

  ‘If you’re gonna let ’em have it, you might as well put a price on it,’ Carmen said, then added without a trace of irony, ‘and it ain’t a bad way to earn a living.’

  Yvette nodded her agreement. ‘She’s right, Ginny. You wanna get the governor to let you start working with the punters. You’ll never make decent money walking around with that thing round your neck.’ She stabbed her thumb at the cigarette tray that Ginny had dumped on the floor. ‘All you’ll get from that is a backache.’

  Ginny shrugged. ‘It seems decent money to me. Much better than I was earning in the factory.’ She bowed her head. Her hopes of finding beauty, respectability and wealth suddenly seemed so childish.

  ‘Yeah, but why not earn more?’

  ‘I don’t want to go with no one, Yvette. I’m not saying that what you do is—’

  ‘Look, we all felt like that at one time.’ Patty fumbled around with her bag and took another hand-rolled cigarette from a silver-coloured case. ‘Wanna drag?’

  When Ginny looked surprised at not being offered a whole cigarette, Patty grinned. ‘It’s kif.’

  There was still no understanding in Ginny’s eyes.

  ‘Indian hemp?’ Patty persevered. ‘Reefer?’

  The look of shocked realisation on Ginny’s face had Carmen and Patty giggling helplessly.

  Yvette stood up, slowly straightening her seams. ‘Look, I’ve gotta get back to Mr Wonderful out there, but leave her alone, eh, Pat? We was all new girls once. And a little tip for you, Ginny, before I go: try a bit of Vaseline on them pretty teeth of your’n, it helps with all the smiling you have to do.’

  Just at that moment the door to the dressing-room creaked open and there stood Leila, dressed in her trade mark emerald-green silk. Behind her stood Shirley, so plastered with make-up that, in the harsh overhead light of the dressing-room, she looked like a hideous parody of a pantomime dame.

  Leila scowled angrily at Patty and Carmen, before turning a smiling face to Ginny. ‘Darling! Just thought I’d come to see how you’re getting on.’

  ‘We were all telling her,’ Yvette said matter-of-factly, as she threw her coat around her shoulders, ‘she’ll never make proper money selling fags and chocolates, she wants to—’

  Leila’s smile became brittle. ‘Thank you, Yvette.’ Then she linked her arm through Ginny’s and steered her towards the door.

  ‘I think, unfortunately, that they’ve come to the end of a rather tiring day, if you know what I mean,’ she whispered, slipping something into Ginny’s hand. ‘Now here’s a little something on account. Get yourself a cab home and treat yourself to the hairdresser. Have that hair blonded up a bit. Platinum would look just right with your complexion.’ She kissed the air next to Ginny’s cheek. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow night, sweetie. Same time.’

  With that, Leila ushered Ginny forward, out of the dressing-room and into the club, then spun round and glared at Yvette. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re up to, but there is a very lonely man waiting for you over there, Yvette. Mind you, if you’re too busy, I’m sure Shirley would oblige.’

  Outside on the pavement, Ginny shivered in the early morning chill. Huddling back into the doorway beneath the dim light of the red bulb, she opened her hand to see what Leila had given her. Two five-pound notes!

  She hurriedly stuffed them in her handbag, pulled her coat high around her ears and set off at a fast walk.

  She would walk at least half-way and only then get a taxi. She was going to save her money, buy herself out of the mess she was in. She wasn’t like those other girls.

  ‘Oi! Mum!’

  Nellie, her head bristling with metal curlers, opened a sleep-reddened eye.

  Ted flicked on the bedside lamp, making her blink myopically in the glare, as she fumbled around for the glass holding her false teeth.

  She smacked her lips noisily and propped herself up on one elbow. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Where’s Ginny?’ Ted hissed.

  ‘Aw, her. I’ve got some interesting things to tell you about that little whore.’

  With no one of any importance to see her, Leila yawned loudly and scratched her stomach where her roll-on was cutting into her as painfully as an instrument of torture.

  ‘Tired, dear?’ Gloria sneered. ‘Ain’t we all.’

  ‘Leave off, Gloria,’ Leila sighed. ‘It’s bad enough having to cash up here, when I’ve already done a night’s work, without you starting.’

  ‘Aaah! Can’t you manage?’

  Leila was just about to tell him his fortune, when the sound of someone coming up the stairs had her jumping to her feet. ‘Those stupid tarts must have left the door open. Quick, stick this under the bar.’

  She shoved the cash-box towards him, grabbed a bottle off the counter, ran across the room and stood behind the door.

  As a tall, powerfully built man stepped over the threshold, Leila raised the bottle above her head, ready to crown him.

  Before she knew what was happening the man had grabbed her wrist and had taken it from her as easily as if he’d been picking daisies.

  ‘It’s you! You nearly gave me a heart attack.’ She clutched her heaving chest. ‘I wasn’t expecting you in tonight.’

  ‘You know me, full of surprises.’ He grinned boyishly. ‘You can go home now, Gloria.’

  Gloria rolled his eyes. ‘Thank fuck for that, dear. I thought I was going to be here till the sparrows started coughing. These late nights play hell with a girl’s complexion.’

  The man laughed easily as he threw his overcoat across the bar. ‘Fancy a drink, Leila?’

  ‘I’d love one. Thanks.’ She leaned over the counter and took a bottle of the good scotch and two clean glasses from under the bar.

  She handed him a triple measure. ‘I started a new one on the cigarettes for you tonight.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘I reckon I can really do something with her. She’s bright, nice looking. Actually a bit sensible, if you can believe it. Like me, I suppose.’

  He winked at her. ‘Good.’

  ‘She’s got potential, and with Shirley looking rougher and more miserable by the day – hardly appetising – I could do with someone to take her place when we have . . .’ She paused and smiled seductively up at him through her expertly mascaraed lashes. ‘. . . private parties to cater for,’ she breathed through pouting lips.

  ‘How about the other girls here? None of them do?’

  Leila wrinkled her nose. ‘I wouldn’t trust any of them, not with the special clients. They’d show us up. You know the way they speak and act when they’ve had half a glass of champagne.’

  He ran his hand up and down her silk-clad thigh, letting it linger close to her crotch. ‘I’ll leave it to you, Leila girl. You never let me down.’

  ‘And I never will.’ She took his hand and clamped it over her breasts that were spilling out of the top of her dress, her skin creamy against the green of the silk.

  She closed her eyes and leaned forward, hoping for the kiss that she knew she could never depend on. Leila was in love, had been for years, but she wasn’t kidding herself; she knew that Billy Saunders was a man who had no loyalty to anyone but himself.

  After feeling the briefest brush of his mouth against her forehead, she opened her eyes to see him reaching over the bar for the cash-box.

  ‘Come on, Leila girl, let’s get this till sorted out and see how much they’ve earned me tonight.’

  Chapter 11

  ‘HURRY UP, D
ILYS,’ Ginny called through the letter-box, giving it a rattle for good measure. ‘I’m getting soaked out here.’

  Dilys, still in her dressing-gown despite it being almost half past three in the afternoon, opened the prefab door. Seeing Ginny, she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. After the business about her wanting to mind Susan, Dilys had been very firm about her never turning up without being asked – she hadn’t barred her altogether, because the silly cow could usually be depended on to bring stuff round with her no matter how broke she was. ‘What’re you doing round here at this time of day? Why ain’t you at work?’

  Ginny flashed her eyebrows and grinned happily. ‘If you’ll let me in and make me a cup o’ tea, I’ll tell you.’

  Dilys stood back and Ginny stepped inside.

  She took off her headscarf, shook the raindrops out on to the path and ran her fingers through her damp curls.

  Dilys gasped. ‘You’ve bleached your hair!’

  ‘Dil, I’ve done a lot of things and I’m just busting to tell you all about it.’

  Dilys, her lips tightly pursed as she listened to Ginny’s breathlessly happy description of her new work-place, made no effort to help as Ginny filled the kettle, warmed the pot, took cups and saucers from the cupboard and generally set about tidying the mess that covered every available work surface in the compact prefab kitchen. As usual, whenever there were jobs to be done or tea to be made – no matter that it was in Dilys’s house – there was an unspoken understanding that, if Ginny was there, she would be left to get on with it.

  But Ginny was so carried away with telling her story that she would have happily cleaned the whole prefab inside and out; in fact, she was so excited that she didn’t even notice Dilys’s openly hostile glare as she chattered away about her wonderful new life.

  ‘And when I come out in the early hours of the morning,’ she beamed, carrying the tea through to the front room on a brightly painted tin tray bearing the legend Guinness is good for you, ‘the place is either still awake or getting ready for the next day. You wouldn’t believe it, Dil. I know it can be lively round here, but Soho. You should see it. I wasn’t sure about it at first, it was a bit unfamiliar like, but now I’m getting to know people I think it’s smashing. Really smashing.’

  Ginny didn’t stop talking while she poured the tea. ‘And you don’t drink this stuff there, you know,’ she went on, weighing the pot in her hand. ‘Well not all the time. There’s this place see, in Frith Street.’ Her tone became reverent and a wistful look came into her eyes, as though she were describing some exotic vision. ‘The Moka Bar it’s called. And they make this frothy coffee with a special machine. You should try it, Dil. It’s great.’

  While this newly vivacious, platinum-haired Ginny perched herself on the edge of one of the armchairs and continued to talk nineteen to the dozen, Dilys sat in the armchair opposite, sipping mechanically at her tea, not saying a word.

  ‘So what I was thinking,’ Ginny went on, ‘as this is my night off, I’ve got a bit of time on my hands, so, if it’s all right with you, as soon as Sue gets in from playing with her little friends I’ll take her down Burdett Road to Mandor’s. I saw this beautiful little coat and hat in their window that I want her to try on. Bright-red wool it is, with little cords with brown fur bobbles on the end to tie under her chin. And you should have seen the little hat that went with it. Talk about cute. She’d look a real sweetie in it!’ Ginny dipped her chin and blushed. ‘Hark at me! Sweetie! That’s what Leila calls everyone. She’s the one who got me the job, the one I told you about. Mind you, I could only put a deposit on it for now. But I’ll pay it off weekly, then as soon as I get myself straight, I’ll pay off the rest and get it for her. It’ll do her just nice when she starts school. And that’ll be here before you know it.’ Ginny looked at her watch. ‘I hope she gets in soon. What time did you tell her to be back?’

  Still Dilys didn’t say a word.

  Rather than provoking Dilys by pressing her about Susan – she would probably be having tea with one of her little friends – Ginny carried on talking. ‘Anyway, I could get her some of them lovely little Cherub vests and matching knickers, and some of them pretty petticoats an’ all. She’ll like them better than them scratchy old-fashioned liberty bodices, I’ll bet.’

  Dilys plonked down her cup and saucer on the arm of her chair and let out a long, slow breath. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Susan’s liberty bodices.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re what Florrie passed down to her from her daughter’s kids. I was talking about getting her some nice new things. Not going mad or nothing, ’cos like I say, I’ve gotta get myself straight first and I’m gonna try saving a few bob an’ all. But I definitely reckon I can afford to treat her to a few bits and pieces.’

  So carried away was Ginny with this new dream world she had entered, a world where Susan would be dressed up like a real little doll and would have all the toys she could ever wish for – a Fairy Cycle even! – that she didn’t notice the look darkening Dilys’s already irritated expression into one of pure, murderous hate.

  As Dilys turned her head away to avoid having to look Ginny in the face for a moment longer, her eye was caught by the matching vases on her sideboard, a gift from one of her recently acquired American ‘friends’. And, as she stared at the heavily engraved glass, she thought how easy it would be to snatch up one of them and to bring it crashing down across Ginny’s pretty blonded skull.

  Had Ginny realised just how close she was to being crowned with a couple of pounds of cut lead crystal she would soon have shut her mouth, but it was the sound of the street door opening, as Susan let herself in with the key she wore on a string around her neck, that saved her.

  As always, the moment Susan spotted Ginny she launched herself across the room, with a delighted whoop of ‘Auntie Ginny!’

  After a hasty brushing of her lips on her mother’s cheek, Susan struggled out of her wet, oversized coat – another legacy from Florrie’s grandchildren – and let the heavy, dull-brown garment drop in a heap on the floor; an action that Ginny noticed drew not the slightest reaction from Dilys.

  ‘And where have you been, my little angel? You’re soaked.’

  Susan looked warily at her grim-faced mother. ‘Out playing.’

  ‘You dopey thing!’ exclaimed Ginny, reaching out to ruffle the child’s damp hair. ‘You should have come home when it started raining. Go and fetch me something to dry you off.’

  Susan ran out of the room and returned immediately with a dingy-looking towel, clambered on to her ‘auntie’s’ lap and gazed up adoringly at her.

  ‘You could have fetched a clean one,’ Ginny teased.

  Susan managed a thin smile and snuggled closer.

  ‘Like I was saying,’ Ginny continued. ‘I meant what I said about good money, Dil. Honest, I’m earning plenty. I’ve even given up me job at the factory.’

  She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, mindful that Susan was sitting with her. ‘D’you know, the girls earn at least a tenner a night. Their basic’s quite low, but what with the commission on all the drinks that the customers have to order,’ Ginny winked at Dilys behind her hand, ‘by way of payment for their company, if you catch me drift; plus all these tips they get. And even their cocktail dresses are supplied by the governor. I’ve never met him, but apparently he likes to keep the tone of the club just right. Likes a bit of class about the place. But I’m not a fool. I know that some of the girls’, she looked down at Susan and then mouthed, ‘go with the blokes. But you should see the presents they get from the fellers when they do take them upstairs for a bit of you-know-what. I’m not saying I agree with it, but like Leila says, even—’

  Dilys leapt to her feet, her dressing-gown flapping open. ‘You what! You come round here looking like a two-bob tom with your bleached hair and your nylon stockings—’

  Ginny’s hand went automatically, defensively, to her legs, as her bright smile closed – snap! – on her
face.

  ‘—talking filth in front of my baby!’

  ‘Your baby?’ Ginny said quietly, hugging Susan protectively. ‘What, the one who was out in the rain, Gawd knows where, and had to let herself in, while you was sitting here not even dressed?’

  Dilys pulled Susan away from Ginny. ‘D’you really think I’d let you buy my kid anything out of whoring money?’

  Now Ginny was also on her feet, but she kept her voice low, as she didn’t want to scare Susan. ‘Dilys, I told you, I ain’t got nothing to do with that side of things. I sell cigarettes. That’s all.’

  ‘Cigarettes, my Aunt Fanny. Pull the other one, sweetie, it’s got sodding bells on it.’ Dilys jabbed a furious finger in Ginny’s face. ‘I’m disgusted with you, Ginny Martin, really disgusted.’

  Susan picked up her coat, stuck her thumb in her mouth and made resignedly for the haven of her bedroom and her teddy. She knew when it was best to keep out of the way.

  Dilys was now in full flight; her venom at seeing Ginny looking so good and so happy, and her own dissatisfaction with the joys of motherhood, triggering off every kind of nastiness and wild accusation.

  ‘Just look at the way you’re done up,’ she finished triumphantly.

  Ginny blinked back the tears that threatened to spill on to her cheeks, determined not to let Dilys see how much she was hurting her, knowing that her friend’s temper would subside as easily as it flared. ‘I thought you’d be pleased to see me looking smart again,’ she said reasonably.

  ‘Smart! You call dressing like a brass smart? And Christ knows what you think you’re up to, hanging around clubs.’

  ‘I thought you liked clubs.’ Ginny could have added: ‘Well, according to Milly Barrington, your nosy neighbour, you do,’ but she didn’t want things to degenerate any further, certainly not with Susan in the next room.