Leila and her big ideas. Where did she think they were, the sodding Windmill or the bloody Moulin Rouge?
Ginny groaned and dipped her chin to her chest. Knowing that with the new act she was actually expected to look directly at the punters; to flirt with them with her eyes; to smile coyly but provocatively at them, as she wiggled, and strutted, and . . .
‘Something wrong, sweetie?’
Ginny lifted her head and looked hard at the still beaming Leila. She had a way of sounding so innocent, so plausible, but there were times when Ginny could have sworn it was all an act. Times like now, for instance, when Ginny was so nervous she could barely stop trembling, yet Leila was yattering away as though it was something to look forward to, a real treat. But she must have known how Ginny was feeling. Just as she knew that she, Leila, was holding the trump card. Because, when it came down to it, it was this or hostessing. And if Ginny didn’t want to do either, how else would she pay off her rent arrears? And rent arrears were certainly what she had.
Like all the other girls, Ginny was still living in a bedsit owned by the governor and had been only too pleased to accept Leila’s kind offer of the occasional opportunity to put off paying for it for a week or two. Also like the other girls, Ginny had soon found herself with substantial debts.
She knew now that she shouldn’t have delayed paying, but at the time it had seemed like a godsend. The trouble was, her money just seemed to go nowhere. After she’d sent her weekly envelopes – stuffed with half her wages between them – one to Dilys for her and Susan, and the other to Nellie, there was barely enough to live on, let alone to pay her bills. She had, once or twice, determined not to send them anything – Nellie and Dilys were probably both laughing at her anyway, while she ran up bigger and bigger debts – but just the thought of little Susan in that big old brown hand-me-down coat, and the guilt she felt at the state Nellie would probably be in without her help, had her sending off the envelopes by the next post.
She supposed it would have been different if Dilys had been a better mother, or if Nellie had had someone else she could depend on. But what was the point of supposing? All Ginny could hope was that Susan actually saw some of the money she sent to the prefab and that Nellie got hers before Ted had the chance to nick it.
If he was still around.
Ted. There was another worry. Had he thought to send his little daughter a birthday card last month? Ginny really hoped so.
Even though it still felt as though she was being slapped in the face just to think of Susan being Ted’s child, Ginny couldn’t stop caring about her. She loved her. It was as simple as that.
Ginny’d sent her a pretty lacy card and a baby doll in a cellophane-wrapped box, although she had no way of knowing if Dilys would even let Susan see it. Maybe Dilys had pretended that the gift was from her; knowing Dilys, she probably had. But, whatever happened, Ginny could only hope that Susan had had something on her birthday. And that she was happy.
Ginny shook her head, trying to clear the images from her mind of the smiling child she missed so much, took another drag on her cigarette, then ground it out with slow deliberation.
For the moment, she had more immediate things to concern her. ‘Look, Leila,’ she asked, twisting round to face the stylishly suited woman, ‘are you honestly one hundred per cent sure about this? Are you positive I won’t get in no trouble?’
Leila touched a gloved fingertip to Ginny’s chin. ‘I promise with all my heart. As long as you don’t show anything actually moving, it’s all completely legal. And let’s face it, if you get in trouble, we all get in trouble.’
She had a way of making her words sound like a reassurance, but they could so easily have been interpreted as a threat.
Five minutes later, with Leila blowing her a final kiss of good luck from the wings, Ginny stood, quivering with fear, waiting for her cue.
And there it was: the band striking up the opening bars of the slow, sensual rumba she had rehearsed endlessly with them during the past nerve-racking weeks.
The curtains drew back to show Ginny, centre stage, lit by a single pink spotlight, with everything but her high-heel-shod legs hidden by two enormous pink feather fans.
As she took her first voluptuous steps to the left and let one of the fans drop a tantalising fraction, showing the merest hint of the creamy slope of the top of her breast, a loud cheer of approval went up and suddenly Ginny was no longer scared. Everything was going to be all right.
No, it was better than all right, it was wonderful.
Ginny was in a cocoon of soft feathers and sumptuous pink light, and lusciously flamboyant rhythms washed over her, urging her body to thrust and sway with the music. It was like being in a dream where there were no rent arrears, no worries and, best of all, no Ted Martin to hurt her.
As she gyrated behind, peeped over, and smiled coquettishly around, her provocatively swirling and dipping fans, she knew that the audience loved her.
Actually, not all of the audience was watching her. Carmen for one was too busy trying to get Patty’s attention to care about what Ginny was up to.
When Patty failed to respond to Carmen’s agitated waving and flapping, she reached across her punter – who was totally mesmerised by Ginny’s bumps and grinds – and tapped her urgently on the arm.
‘What?’ Patty mouthed, angry at Carmen’s interruption; she’d been enjoying a bit of peace, even letting her eyes close for a moment, while her punter goggled at the stage, his mouth half open like a drooling puppy.
‘Look who’s in tonight,’ Carmen hissed, jerking her head towards the bar.
Patty lazily checked out the occupants of the tall bar-stools. Now her mark wasn’t the only one with his mouth open.
She twisted back to Carmen. ‘It’s the governor!’ she squeaked. ‘So he ain’t inside.’ She dabbed at her hair to make sure it was tidy – although it would have taken a gale-force wind to have damaged Patty’s teased and lacquered creation – and sat up straight, hitching her dress further up her thighs.
‘Tits up and all, Carmen!’ she giggled, sticking out her chest and adjusting her circle-stitched bra with a determined two-handed grab. ‘You never know, he might take a shine to one of us and whisk us off into the night in that big fancy car of his.’
But despite Patty’s and Carmen’s best efforts, the governor was oblivious of their attractions; all he was interested in was Ginny’s performance up on the stage.
As he sipped his drink and listened to Leila telling him about all the hard work she had put in rehearsing the fan dancer and the band so that the evening would be a success, he didn’t take his gaze off Ginny for a single moment.
At the end of the number, the curtain dropped and the audience went wild. Their whoops, cheers and applause were so rapturous that even the resolutely morose Gloria, standing in his usually joy-free domain behind the bar, couldn’t help but grin.
While Ginny further teased her audience by peeking around the edge of the curtain and flashing just a glimpse of her naked thigh – supposedly to acknowledge the appreciation, but actually because she was so high on the rush of performing that she didn’t want it to end – the governor rose from his bar-stool and flicked a glance towards Johnno, his minder whom he had left over by the doorway.
Moving surprisingly swiftly for someone of his size, the huge man was almost immediately by his side, carrying his boss’s Crombie and trilby hat with as much care as if he were a handmaiden offering up a delicate casket of precious jewels.
‘Very impressive, Leila’, the governor said, shrugging down into his overcoat. ‘Very impressive indeed. As good as you said.’
‘I’m glad you approve,’ Leila said, smiling broadly in an effort to cover her disappointment that he seemed to be preparing to leave without her. ‘You’re off now, are you?’
He nodded. ‘Business before pleasure, you know me, girl.’
With that, he treated Leila to a friendly wink and left the club flanked by Johnno, his over
sized bodyguard.
Shirley, who had spent the whole of Ginny’s act with her eyes fixed firmly on Leila and the governor, was convinced she’d just witnessed something worth temporarily abandoning her punter for. And anyway, there was no risk of him going off with someone else, not tonight; there wasn’t a spare girl left in the whole place. The titillation up on the stage had put them all very much in the mood and eager hands had grabbed for the nearest bit of female flesh to pull down on to their laps.
Shirley whispered something suitably lewd into her punter’s ear – just to make sure she kept his interest – then sidled up to Leila, who was hovering by the bar staring into her glass of tonic water, trying to summon the enthusiasm to go and congratulate Ginny on the success of her solo début.
‘It’s enough to make a girl totally jealous, if you ask me, Leila,’ Shirley rasped, her voice harsh with sly nastiness and insinuation. ‘The way all the men in the place couldn’t take their eyes off her. It was bad enough when she was just doing the tableaux with Yvette. But that fan dance. Well . . .’
Shirley paused, waiting for Leila’s response. There was none, so Shirley continued dripping her poison. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen the governor so captivated by a girl before.’
Leila turned to Shirley and said very slowly and deliberately. ‘I’d watch my mouth, if I were you Shirley. Because no one likes a stirrer, especially a sad old stirrer who is coming very close to being a has-been.’
With that, Leila finished her drink, smiled sweetly at Gloria as she handed him her empty glass and swept off to the dressing-room to see Ginny.
Shirley was left standing at the bar, with Gloria staring at her with his usual mixture of undisguised contempt and camp disapproval.
‘Don’t say a fucking word, you skinny-arsed old queen,’ hissed Shirley.
‘A few days’ time and it’ll be Christmas. Can you believe it? I can’t. Before we know where we are it’ll be Easter again.’ Carmen peered over the top of the late edition of the Evening Standard that she had been flicking through absent-mindedly, while she waited for the other girls to finish getting ready. ‘What plans have you got for Christmas then, Gin?’ she asked. ‘Gonna give your feathers a few days off?’
Ginny said nothing.
‘You must be due a break. You’ve been up on that stage every night for weeks, flapping them fans about and still doing the tableaux with Yvette. You must be knackered.’
Ginny, not wanting to become involved in any conversation that had anything to do with Christmas – and especially not one that was about families and Christmas – bent forward and started fiddling with the silver-sequined garter on her thigh.
‘Well?’ Carmen persisted.
‘I don’t know yet,’ Ginny muttered.
Carmen, not sure she’d heard properly, but still sounding scandalised, had another stab at sorting out what Ginny actually meant. The fact that Ginny had never talked to Carmen about her family – and Carmen being a curious type at the best of times and bluntly nosy at the worst – naturally made her want to know more. And this seemed like the perfect opportunity. ‘You don’t what, Gin?’
Ginny sat up and snapped, ‘I said I don’t know yet.’
‘Don’t know?’ Carmen was now clearly outraged and there was going to be no stopping her from saying so. ‘But it’s the twentieth of bloody December, girl. How can you not know? My mum would have me by the throat and be shaking me like a pepper-pot if I dared even think I didn’t know what I’d be doing on Christmas day.’
Patty grinned. ‘Sure don’t we all know what you’ll be doing at Christmas, Carmen? The same as every year. You’ll be there with your mum, sitting in that big old church in Brixton, with your best hat perched on top o’ your head, singing away like a beautiful brown skylark.’
Carmen rolled her eyes and groaned. ‘Don’t remind me, Pat. All Mum’s sisters have invited themselves over to hers this year as well. Imagine it, all my aunties, all there snooping on me.’
She tossed the newspaper to the floor, stood up, stuck her fists into her waist and launched into an imitation of her Caribbean relatives. ‘Why you not married yet, Carmen girl? I had ten kids by the time I was your age. There no nice boys where you work? No doctors?’
That last bit caught Yvette’s attention. ‘What you on about? Doctors?’
‘Well, you don’t think they know what I do for a living do you, Yve?’ Carmen laughed self-mockingly. ‘They all think I’m working at St Thomas’s. A nurse on the night shift. You should hear the lies I tell.’ She puffed out her cheeks and shrugged resignedly. ‘But if I want to keep breathing, I’ve got no choice but to lie.’
‘Least you haven’t got to go all the way to bloody County Clare to see your family.’ Patty sighed dramatically, handed Carmen the cigarette she had just finished rolling and flopped down on to one of the chairs. ‘It’ll be murder. And I bet I’ve told them more lies than you’ve told your lot. I’m working in an office, if you don’t mind. Me!’ She accepted the cigarette from Carmen and took a long drag, before handing it back to her. ‘Still, I miss my little brothers and sisters. It’ll be good to see them again. And it’ll be cheaper than staying at home.’
‘Broke again?’ Carmen asked.
‘What do you think?’
‘But you’ve got no plans yet,’ Yvette said, turning to Ginny.
‘I’ll probably be spending the day worrying if I can afford to put another shilling in the gas meter,’ Ginny replied quietly.
‘You’re never still sending all your dough to that old cow of a mother-in-law of yours, are you?’ Yvette exploded at full, shocked volume.
Ginny didn’t answer, but it was obvious to Yvette, just from her expression, that Ginny was indeed still keeping Nellie.
‘Now I understand why you’ve been so broke,’ she went on. ‘I wondered why you’d been holding on to your rent so often. I mean, it’s not as though you’ve got kids to worry about. Not like some of us.’
Ginny had become close to Yvette in the eighteen months that she’d been working at the club, and enjoyed her company and her friendship, but she sometimes wished that her friend was a bit more subtle. And that she’d never mentioned Nellie to her. Yvette meant well, but it made Ginny feel vulnerable, having someone knowing things about her that, on reflection, she would really rather have kept private. She was only glad that she’d never blabbed about Susan.
Susan. The thought of what she might be doing on Christmas morning had Ginny swallowing hard, gulping back the threat of tears. She knew from last year what hell it was, being all alone with too much time to think. Not having any money suddenly didn’t seem so important . . .
‘Here’s someone who’s not going to have to worry about having a spend-up over Christmas,’ said Carmen, picking up the paper again and flipping it in half. ‘Listen to this.’
She began reading out one of the news stories in a slow, halting monotone. ‘Yesterday, in London’s West End, three postmen were forced into an alley off Shaftesbury Avenue and attacked by armed thieves. The robbers got away with the van carrying registered mail worth over £200,000.’
‘Two hundred grand!’ Yvette gasped.
‘And just around the corner!’ Patty grabbed the paper from Carmen. ‘Was anyone hurt? Fancy a terrible thing like that happening so close.’
A terrible thing. It was that all right. Patty’s words made Ginny think about Ted and how he’d been so angry when they’d had to call off the armed robbery he’d been planning. From the way he’d reacted to being grassed it was more like he’d been stopped from doing an honest day’s work, rather than prevented from committing a violent crime.
Ginny tugged at a loose platinum curl. How had he started thinking that way – that hurting people, stealing from them, was a reasonable thing to do? Surely he hadn’t always been so callous. He couldn’t have been. But was it possible for someone to change so much? Maybe he was desperate; but that was just finding an excuse. No matter how desperate or broke she was,
Ginny knew she could never do anything to hurt anyone else.
Doing things that hurt herself, however . . . That was a different matter.
Ginny’s increasingly disturbing thoughts were interrupted by one of the girls – a pale-skinned brunette, who had been sitting on the floor studiously painting her toenails. ‘It’s true what they’re saying in the papers, you know,’ she said, her words coming out in short grunting breaths as she bent forward to reach her smallest toe.
‘What’s that then, Betty?’ asked Carmen.
‘They’ve got to do something. ’Cos Britain’s . . .’ She paused. ‘Hang on, how did they put it? In the grip of a crime wave. That’s it. And it’s really frightening.’
‘Crime wave!’ Carmen exploded. ‘Are you having a joke, Bet? Most of our bloody customers are criminals. How else d’you think they can afford these bloody prices?’
‘But I bet our customers don’t all carry guns,’ Betty replied sulkily, feeling that she’d made a fool of herself.
‘Guns? Whatever are you talking about?’ Leila stepped into the room looking a picture of shocked innocence, but from her tone it was clear that guns were now a closed subject.
Carmen hurriedly stubbed out her cigarette and slipped the butt into her handbag – Leila had already taken her to one side and explained very clearly the governor’s views on girls using dope or alcohol while they were working and Carmen wasn’t about to be caught out again.
If Leila noticed Carmen’s sleight of hand she didn’t make it obvious, instead she smiled coolly and clapped her hands like a headmistress calling her pupils to order. ‘Don’t look so miserable, sweeties. Show those teeth. Come on now, off you go. Mustn’t keep them waiting.’
The girls jumped to their feet and began flapping around, hurriedly putting final touches to make-up and hair, straightening seams and slipping into elbow-length gloves. Leila turning up so early was a bit of a shock, as she didn’t usually show till closing time and they were already nearly fifteen minutes behind their official schedule. Gloria must have been grassing on them again – getting on the telephone to Leila and telling tales on them like some runty little school sneak.
Dream On Page 25
