First on was a boy of twelve or so who played The Happy Wanderer on the accordion. He got a decent smattering of applause and went off again looking fairly pleased with himself. Next came a lumpy girl in a short frilly dress and ringlets who sang On The Good Ship Lollipop in a shrill voice. The girl sitting next to Lillian leaned close and commented, ‘There’s always someone who does Shirley Temple. Isn’t she dreadful?’
‘Ghastly,’ Lillian agreed.
Nerves were really getting to her now. She felt sick and her hands and legs were shaking. Whatever had made her think that this was a good idea?
Two girls dressed up as twins went next and did a tap dance. Lillian couldn’t really see them from where she was sitting, but she could hear that they weren’t entirely in step.
‘That was pretty crummy,’ the girl beside her commented.
One by one the competitors went up. Singers, dancers, a conjurer, a violinist. Then it was the turn of the scornful girl next to Lillian. As she got up, Lillian started trying to warm up. It was difficult in such a restricted space. She could hear the girl singing Oh My Papa in a big brash voice. It was quite a crowd-pleaser, bringing in the most applause there had been yet. Lillian had a feeling of doom in her stomach like a stone. How was she going to follow that? It was obvious that the girl had been having lessons for ever and made a habit of going in for talent contests. She wished she could just run out of this place and keep running. But a motherly-looking woman with a clipboard was beckoning to her. Shaking, Lillian walked towards her. This was it.
‘And next—’ boomed the compère, ‘we have little Miss Lindy-Lou Parker dancing to We’re a Couple of Swells.’
The woman with the clipboard gave Lillian a little push. ‘Go on, dear, it’s you.’
Lillian took a deep breath and stepped onto the stage. There was a smattering of applause. It seemed very high up and exposed, and the audience was an impossibly long way away, sheltering at the back. Facing her were rows of wet unoccupied chairs. Lillian wanted to jump off the stage and crawl underneath them.
But then the pianist struck the opening notes, thumping the piano with unforgiving fingers, and something happened to Lillian’s body. The music, pedestrian though it was, told her what to do. She performed a perky stroll round the stage and launched into the routine she had practised with such persistence. The steps, the turns, the arm movements ran seamlessly one into the other. She began to actually enjoy herself. The smile she had pasted on her face became genuine as she projected her joy in dancing to the people huddled at the back at the bandstand. Before she could believe it, the last phrase was rolling out. Lillian executed a series of pirouettes, turned a perfect cartwheel and dropped into the splits on the last chord. She bowed and looked up, still with her legs splayed on the floor of the stage. They were clapping! They were clapping her! She bounced up and bowed again. There was more applause. This was wonderful. They liked her. She wanted it to go on for ever.
‘Thank you, Lindy-Lou,’ the compère was saying. ‘Thank you. Off you go, now.’
He was ushering her off the stage. There was a sniggering from the wings. Lillian saw the next child waiting to come on and realised that she had outstayed her welcome. Scarlet with embarrassment, she ran off.
On the other side of the stage from where she had been waiting to go on, the competitors who had already performed were penned up together. The Oh My Papa girl spoke to her with grudging respect.
‘Sounds like you were quite good,’ she said. ‘Better than most of this lot, anyway.’
‘You were smashing,’ Lillian said politely. ‘You’ve got a—a big voice.’
‘My teacher says I’m going to be the next Anne Shelton,’ the girl said.
Lillian could believe it. The famous singer must have sounded similar when she was young.
As the excitement of performing drained away, Lillian found she was cold and hungry. She sat shivering as the long list of young people did their turns. The crowd in the seats on her side of the stage grew and grew. The scornful girl continued her commentary on everyone’s efforts. Lillian had time to wonder how Janette was, waiting out there in the damp with all those mothers. And then at last it was over and the compère was telling jokes as the judges made up their minds. Nerves were gnawing at Lillian’s stomach again. She chewed her knuckles. She really, really wanted to win a prize. First prize, preferably, but anything would do, just some recognition that she could do it, she could be a dancer if she tried hard enough.
‘I can’t bear it, this waiting,’ she said to the girl next to her.
‘They always make such a to-do about the judging. I don’t know why, when it’s obvious who’s best.’
‘It is? Who is?’ Lillian asked.
The girl gave her a pitying look. ‘Me, of course, stupid.’
‘Bighead,’ Lillian muttered.
Then the pianist played a fanfare and the carnival queen and her court came onto the stage to huge applause to present the prizes. A photographer from the local paper got ready to snap the winners. The head judge handed a piece of paper to the compère.
‘Right then, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Here are the results in reverse order. Highly commended—’
Two names were read out. Part of Lillian was disappointed, another part was still hopeful of even better things.
‘Third prize—’
It was the accordion boy. He bounded up onto the stage, beaming all over his chubby face. Lillian felt she was going to burst with suspense.
Please, God, she bargained silently, please let it be me. I’ll be good for the rest of my life.
‘Second prize—Lindy-Lou Parker.’
It was her. They were saying her name. Lillian just sat there, confounded.
‘Go on,’ her neighbour said, poking her. ‘That’s you. You’re second.’
Her head swimming with amazement, Lillian stood up. Somehow she made her way onto the stage. There was a polite round of applause. She walked across to the carnival queen, an impossibly glamorous young woman in a long white gown and a blue cloak with a crown of what to Lillian looked like sparkling diamonds on her head. Lillian curtseyed, which made some of the court ladies giggle.
‘Well done, dear,’ the queen said, handing her an envelope. ‘Smile for the camera.’
She was directing a brilliant smile at the photographer. Giddy with delight, Lillian did the same. There was a flash, and then it was over. Once again, she was being ushered off stage. There was a shriek from the audience.
‘Lillian! We done it! We done it!’
There, in front of the mothers’ seats, was Janette, jumping up and down and waving both arms over her head. Lillian squealed and managed to wave back before she was grabbed and pushed into the wings. Somewhere behind her the winner was announced. It was the Oh My Papa girl. Lillian didn’t care. She had got a prize! The judges thought she was good. She was really going to be a dancer one day. It was all just too wonderful to be true.
All the way home the girls went over every detail of the contest, but at Lillian’s house they parted and Janette went on her way. Lillian was still buzzing with her success as she pushed her bike through the back gate. She did a couple of handsprings as she crossed the yard, out of sheer exuberance. As ill luck would have it, Gran was in the kitchen when she arrived, checking the state of the shelves.
‘Time you grew up, young lady,’ she said. ‘Kicking your legs up in public like that. What would the neighbours think if they saw you?’
Any lingering hope Lillian might have had that her family might be interested, let alone pleased at her success, instantly died.
‘Sorry, Gran,’ she said.
‘And what’s all that muck on your face?’
‘Oh!’ Lillian’s hand went to her cheek. In the excitement, she had forgotten to wipe the make-up off. ‘Er—Janette and I were playing about with her mum’s make-up. Her mum doesn’t mind.’
‘She ought to mind. Letting a young girl go out looking like a scarlet
woman! Go and wash it off at once. And then you can go and get a loaf and a pound of streaky bacon. We’re full tonight.’
Lillian had been too self-absorbed to notice the ‘No Vacancies’ sign up in the front window. Carnival week was the busiest of the year. There were two processions, one on Saturday and a torchlight one on Wednesday evening, a funfair at Chalkwell park, dances and dinners on somewhere in the town every evening and various competitions and displays. It was no wonder they were full mid-week.
‘That’s good,’ she said.
‘Seems people have got money to waste,’ Gran commented with a sniff of disapproval.
Lillian did not hang around to point out that surely it was not wasted if it came into Gran’s pocket.
It was one of the PGs who gave her away. She was bringing the toast into the guests’ breakfast room when a middle-aged man recognised her.
‘Well, if it isn’t Miss Lindy-Lou Parker!’
Lillian went cold. Gran was right behind her, making sure that the guests didn’t pocket the cruets or fill their flasks from the teapot.
‘Oh!’ the man’s wife exclaimed. ‘So it is. Oh, we did enjoy the show, dear. You was ever so good.’
‘Lovely little dancer,’ her husband agreed.
‘Lovely. Ain’t she a lovely little dancer?’ the woman asked Gran. ‘You must be very proud of her.’
Lillian could feel her grandmother’s piercing eyes on her, shrivelling her up inside.
‘Yes,’ Gran said.
Lillian knew she was only saying that to keep face in front of the guests. Sure enough, as soon as they were all safely out of the house, she was summoned to Gran’s room.
‘What’s all this about dancing?’
Lillian glared back at her, her heart beating hard.
‘I was in the Carnival Talent Contest,’ she said, her voice loud with defiance. ‘I got a prize.’
‘You went up on a stage and made an exhibition of yourself in public?’
The way Gran said it, performing on a stage was something disgraceful. Anger overcame Lillian’s fear of her grandmother.
‘I wasn’t making an exhibition of myself, I was dancing. What’s so wrong with that? And I was good; I came second out of lots of people.’
This made Gran even angrier. If there was one thing she didn’t like, it was people arguing with her.
‘Don’t you defy me, my girl. If I say you’re not to go up on a stage, then you’re not, and no questions asked. Understand?’
‘No, I don’t!’ Tears of anger and frustration were gathering in Lillian’s eyes now. ‘Just tell me what’s so wrong about it!’
‘You lied to me. Lied by sneaking out and doing it behind my back. And I won’t stand for liars. You’re a disgrace to the family—’
Gran was off on one of her tirades. Lillian stared at a point above her shoulder and tried not to listen.
‘—and you’re not too big to be punished.’
Lillian came back from the place where she had been mentally sheltering to see that Gran had the stick in her hand. With a wicked swish, it came down hard on her calves, sharp and stinging, five times. She couldn’t contain a squeal of pain.
‘There—’ Gran was looking at her with satisfaction now, breathing hard. ‘Now say you’re sorry.’
‘Sorry,’ Lillian mumbled, with huge reluctance.
‘Let this be a lesson to you. No going out for two weeks.’
‘But, Gran—’
This was a real blow. Lillian had been looking forward to going to the funfair with Janette and her other friends.
‘No buts. Go and see if your mother needs some help.’
Sore, angry and resentful, Lillian did as she was told.
To her surprise, Wendy was completely on her side. In bed that night, she wanted to know all about the contest.
‘Good for you, kid,’ she commented. ‘Don’t you take any notice of what Gran says. Blooming killjoy! It’s Eileen, you know. She thinks if she’s hard enough on us we won’t turn out like her.’
Light dawned in Lillian’s mind. So that was it.
‘But how could going in for a talent contest mean I’m going to run away with a married man?’
‘Search me, kid. That’s Gran, isn’t it? Grumpy old bag. I always wanted to go in for the Carnival Princess, but I never dared. I bet I would of won, too. Maybe next year I’ll go in for the Carnival Queen. That’d show them!’
Warmed by the thrill of sisterly solidarity, Lillian agreed. ‘I think you should, if that’s what you really want. Aunty Eileen said you should always follow your dream. That’s what she did.’
‘Bully for Eileen. I hope she’s enjoying herself. She was right to escape from this family,’ Wendy said.
Despite the gating, Lillian didn’t regret her actions for a minute. It was more than worth it when she relived her short spot on stage, the heady thrill of performing, and the dizzy moment when her name had been called out.
Ten days or so after the event, support came from an unexpected quarter. As the family sat round the tea table, Bob made a pronouncement. ‘I think we may have been a little hard on Lillian. After all, she did win a prize in that contest.’
Lillian gazed at him in astonishment. Her brother was sticking up for her! It was unheard of. Only Bob, with his status as the brains of the family with a respectable job, could have got away with saying such a thing. Even so, Gran did not look best pleased.
‘What, for kicking her legs up in front of a lot of strangers?’
‘But it was for the Carnival Fund. That’s a very good cause, you know. They’re building bungalows for deserving old folk. Mr Caraway supports the Carnival Fund. He said that our Lillian was a credit to us, giving her time and her talent.’
Mr Caraway was the manager at Bob’s bank, and second only to God as far as Gran was concerned.
‘Huh, well, that’s as may be. I’m sure it is a good cause, though no one ever offered me a bungalow, but it still doesn’t mean I want to hear of my granddaughter making an exhibition of herself in public,’ Gran said, unwilling to concede the point, even to her favourite.
It was only later that Lillian found out how Bob came to be championing her. Susan had written to James about it, and James had written back in her defence. Susan had then used her influence with Bob. Lillian was overjoyed. Even far away in Catterick, James had thought to come to her aid. It was practically another prize.
Chapter Seven
THERE were far better reasons for a forty-eight-hour pass than attending your sister’s engagement party, James thought as he watched the lighted windows of the eastern suburbs of London trundle by. Especially when that sister was set on marrying Boring Bob Parker. The party itself didn’t promise to be a bundle of laughs, either. His army pals had envied him his trip home, assuming that the celebration would be a big booze-up at the pub. James hadn’t told them that it was going to be Saturday tea at the Parkers’ place. Even with a cake made and iced by Susan, it was not his idea of fun. Still, family was family and Susan had insisted that the celebration be postponed until he could get leave, so here he was on the train to Southend, ready to be happy for his sister and his mother, both of whom appeared to be delighted with this turn of events. And, of course, there was the bonus of seeing Wendy again. Maybe she was an unattainable star, but he wasn’t going to give up trying.
Homecoming was always special, engagement or no engagement, and as the train passed through Leigh-on-Sea James put away his book and stared out into the darkness, trying to see the estuary. Moonlight spilled through a gap in the clouds as he gazed, making a silver path across the Thames and emphasizing the dark shapes of the boats moored in the shallows, while across on the other side the flames from the oil refineries flared like beacons. It was good to be back.
Susan and Bob were waiting for him at Southend Central. An irrational disappointment dragged at James when he saw it was just the two of them. He hadn’t expected Wendy to be with them to greet him. He hadn’t even hoped.
It was Friday night and she was sure to be out with some flash bloke enjoying herself. But, all the same…He pulled himself together and strode along the platform to meet them.
‘Hello, you two! Congratulations—’ He kissed Susan’s cheek, shook Bob’s hand. ‘I hope you appreciate what a treasure you’ve got in my sister.’
‘Oh, James—!’ Susan exclaimed, embarrassed but pleased.
‘But of course I do. She’s going to be the perfect wife,’ Bob assured him.
James could believe that all right. Susan had been in training for it all her life. She was an excellent cook, even with the limited facilities they had in their tiny kitchen, an accomplished needlewoman and a fanatical housewife. And she was used to managing on a limited income. There would be no overspending in their household.
Susan threaded her arm through her fiancé’s and gazed up at him with pride.
‘And Bob will be the perfect husband.’
This James doubted. How could his sister be in love with such a dull stick? It was still a mystery to him.
‘How’s your family?’ he asked Bob, hoping for news of Wendy.
‘Oh—fine, fine, thank you. All very well. They’re looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. Lillian wanted to come with us to meet you this evening! But of course it was out of the question.’
Little Lillian. James smiled to himself. That put him in his place. He hoped for Wendy and got her kid sister. Well, at least someone was pleased he was back.
All the way home, he was treated to an account of how Bob and Susan were saving up for the deposit on a house of their own. Before they had crossed the High Street, he was bored almost to tears with the minutiae of percentages and repayments and surveyors and solicitors. It all seemed so dry compared with the active challenges he had been tackling every day on his army training. It was only when they arrived at the flat that his own achievement was recognised.
‘My darling boy!’ His mother gave him a welcoming hug. She seemed smaller than when he had last seen her. He could feel the frail bones of her back.
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