Frank accepted a cup and wandered round the workshop, fiddling with the tools and running a hand over the Riley. James watched him, sure that this was not just a social visit. He and Frank had never really hit it off.
‘Doing all right, then?’ Frank asked.
‘Yeah, OK,’ James said.
‘How much d’you think you’ll make on this, then?’
‘Enough. Not a huge amount when you count the hours I’ve spent on it.’
‘But you got a bit of money coming in?’
James could see which way this was going.
‘Enough,’ he repeated.
‘Then you’d be able to help me out with a bit of cash, then? Just to tide me over, like?’
‘I don’t know about that.’
Frank was the last person he would consider lending money to. As almost-family, he would be last in line to be repaid.
‘Oh, come on, mate,’ Frank said. ‘It’s only till the end of the week. I’ll give it you back on payday.’
‘Been throwing it away on the gee-gees, then?’ James guessed.
‘Bleeding dogs. They fix it on that track, you know. I was on to a dead cert and it came in fourth.’
‘If they fix the races, then why do you bet on them?’
‘They don’t fix all of them. Look, mate, I need fifty quid to pay the HP on the bike or they’ll come and take it back.’
‘Fifty quid? It’ll take a lot more than a week for you to pay that back. How far behind are you?’
Frank shrugged. ‘Not much. But they’re sharks, these people. Won’t let you get away with anything.’
‘I’m surprised they let you run it up that far.’
James suspected there was more to it than just the HP. Frank must have borrowed from his friends already, and needed to pay them back too. His fifty pounds would be added to a long list of debts and, since Frank wasn’t earning much, it was unlikely he would ever see it back.
‘Oh, well, they don’t care, do they? They can always get the bike back.’
The phone rang again. It was someone with starter motor problems. Frank mooched around the workshop while James took the details. He was just about to carry on about a possible loan when there was yet another phone call. This time it was someone looking for a runabout for his wife. Did James know of anyone who had one for sale? As it happened, James did and, what was more, he knew it was in good running order because he had recently serviced it himself. James undertook to negotiate a fair price and anticipated a nice little bit of commission.
‘You’re busy, then?’ Frank said.
That couldn’t be denied.
‘Look, mate,’ James said. ‘I may be busy but that doesn’t mean I’ve got a spare fifty quid lying about. I’ll tell you what I can do, though—if you’d like to come and work with me two or three evenings a week you can earn the money, and while you’re working you won’t be out spending, so you’ll be gaining both ways.’
He knew Frank wasn’t much of a mechanic but he could do the unskilled work, leaving James free to do the difficult stuff.
Frank huffed and puffed over this. ‘Dunno about that. I got a job already. I don’t want to be working evenings an’ all. And, in any case, I need the money now.’
‘Suit y’self,’ James said. ‘That’s my offer.’
Frank gave him a sly look. ‘Wendy wouldn’t like it if she knew you wouldn’t help me out.’
But James was familiar with how things worked in the Parker household.
‘Wendy’s not going to know, is she? Because if you tell her you’re strapped for cash, she’ll tell your gran, and then there’ll be hell to pay.’
‘I don’t care what Gran says,’ Frank lied.
‘Like I said, take it or leave it,’ James repeated. ‘Now, I got work to get on with.’
Frank kicked at the back tyre of the Riley. ‘There’s other blokes that’re not as tightfisted as you. They’ll lend it me no trouble, you’ll see.’
‘That’s all right then, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, Terry Dempsey, for one. He’s got plenty.’
Alarm bells rang in James’s head. He might not like Frank, but he didn’t want to see him mixed up with Dempsey.
‘You don’t want to owe Dempsey. He’ll call in favours when he chooses, and you won’t be able to refuse.’
‘I’m not scared of him,’ Frank boasted.
‘Neither am I, but he’s bad news. If you’ve got any sense, you’ll stay away from him.’
Frank snorted. ‘You’re just jealous ’cos he’s got Wendy. And he’s got more money than you’ll ever have.’
‘At least my money’s honestly earned,’ James retorted.
Frank went off in a huff. James was left to admit to himself that yes, he was jealous of Dempsey. Every time he saw him with Wendy, he wanted to smash his face in. But jealousy wasn’t going to get Wendy back, and neither was attacking Dempsey. He needed to follow his sister’s advice and find himself somebody else. He resolved to go back down to the Kursaal on Friday.
Bob was due to come to tea at their house that evening. James wasn’t sure he could stand a whole evening of being polite to him and decided to go back to the workshop to work on the Riley. The way the repair jobs were coming in, he wasn’t going to have much time to get it done during the day and it wasn’t earning him anything standing there. First, though, he had to get tea over with.
His mother always made a big fuss of Bob and, now that they had a more spacious home to entertain in, James knew that she really enjoyed having a guest. Sure enough, when he got in from work, there was a fresh baked chocolate sponge cake on the table, along with a choice of egg and cress or liver sausage sandwiches. Bob was already there, going on about some fuss at the bank.
Over the meal, Wendy’s name came up.
‘We’re still not happy about what happened at the weekend,’ Bob said. ‘Gran can’t get over it.’
‘No wonder,’ his mother said. ‘I must say, I’m surprised at Wendy. If Susan had behaved like that, I’d have been very upset. Very upset indeed. Not that she would, of course, and you’re too much of a gentleman to even suggest such a thing, Bob.’
‘Behaved like what? What happened?’ James asked.
Susan and his mother exchanged glances. He suspected that this was something they had decided to keep from him.
‘We were talking about it yesterday when you were out, Jamie,’ Susan said. ‘Wendy went up to London with Mr Dempsey on Saturday night—’
James frowned. That was another thing that irritated him. They all referred to the man as Mr Dempsey, never by his first name.
‘They were going to some nightclub or other so they weren’t expected back till late, and Mr Parker didn’t wait up for her. But, in the morning, they found that she hadn’t come home.’
‘She’d stayed the night up in town with Dempsey?’
This really was the end.
Bob nodded. ‘Of course, I had to tell Susan. She and I have no secrets from each other. But it’s not something that I want other people to know about my sister, so I’d like you to keep it to yourself, James.’
‘Of course,’ James said, annoyed that Bob should even ask such a thing. ‘I don’t go gossiping about people’s private lives, especially W—anyone in your family.’
‘It would ruin her reputation if it got out,’ Susan said.
She sounded very sober, but her eyes were round with the excitement of discovering that Wendy, who’d always totally eclipsed her, had proved herself to be a bad girl. She would never be as pretty as Wendy, but she was more virtuous. The moral high ground was hers.
‘Whatever was Mr Dempsey thinking of, keeping her out all night?’ their mother asked.
James knew perfectly well what Dempsey had been thinking of.
‘She did say that they stayed in separate rooms in the hotel,’ Bob said. ‘And of course I wouldn’t like to think the worst of my sister. I know she wouldn’t agree to staying all night with a man.’
/> James wanted to believe that as well. He held on to it when reason told him that Dempsey wasn’t going to bother staying up in town if they slept in separate rooms.
‘It’s not as if he’s got the excuse of missing the last train. He’s got that flashy Jag,’ he said. ‘He could drive her home at any time.’
‘I know. That’s what’s upset Gran. She says he’s got no respect for Wendy or for us.’
This was all too true. It wasn’t as if Wendy didn’t have a family. She had a father and two brothers to look out for her, but the fact was that the Parkers were scared of Dempsey. His reputation as a hard man stopped them from laying down rules about when Wendy should be in. Dempsey could do what he liked.
‘He’s got no respect for anyone,’ James said.
Gloomily, Bob agreed with him. ‘He’s not the sort of person we like seeing Wendy with, but she’s dead set on him. Gran tried to stop her from seeing him any more, and Wendy just refused.
‘“You can throw me out if you like, but I’m not giving him up.” That’s what she said.’
Susan shook her head at this.
‘She’s a very headstrong girl,’ she said.
‘She’s had her head turned,’ their mother said. ‘That’s the trouble. What with all this Carnival Queen business, riding around in a big car and wearing a cloak and a tiara and having everyone fuss over her, and then all those places Mr Dempsey takes her to—! I was amazed when Susan told me about them going to Belgium in an aeroplane for the day. I mean, that’s the sort of things film stars do, isn’t it? Not ordinary girls like her who work in a shop. When you’ve done things like that, you can’t want to go back to the everyday world and go out with decent ordinary boys.’
‘Lillian once told me that Wendy wanted to be like Diana Dors,’ James said.
Bob pursed his mouth like an old lady. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to our family. There’s Lillian touring all over the North with that dancing troupe and Wendy running around with a man like Terry Dempsey. I think it’s something to do with all this rock’n’roll stuff. That American music rots the moral fibre. I don’t know what the world’s coming to when girls from a respectable family like ours behave like that, doing whatever they please.’
‘It is fun, though,’ James said. He loved rock’n’roll. ‘Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, they’re amazing. You just got to get up and move when you hear their music.’
The others looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.
‘Well, at least you and Bob are being sensible and doing everything the right way,’ his mother said to Susan.
Susan smirked and looked at Bob, who patted her hand.
‘Yes, at least we’re keeping the standards up,’ he agreed.
And the conversation turned to the subject of their wedding. James decided not to go to the Kursaal on Friday, but instead to one of the pubs where they had rock and roll bands and skiffle groups playing all night.
Chapter Nineteen
‘THIS ain’t a bad place, all in all,’ Diane decided.
‘It’s OK,’ Lillian agreed.
Since the shock of Brenda’s death, she hadn’t been able to summon up any enthusiasm about anything.
They had been in their new digs for a week now. It was a good thing they were all right, because this was their home for the rest of the summer. The company had settled in Blackpool for the season, playing five afternoons and six evenings a week. It was a gruelling schedule, but it was not that that concerned Lillian. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to be here at all. Imperfect though home was, she often found herself wishing she was back there. She worried about her mother, now that the season was starting and the PGs were beginning to arrive. She missed her brothers, annoying though she had always found them when she’d been living with them. She even missed Wendy, much to her own surprise. But there was more to it than that. She tried to explain it to Diane.
‘It’s this thing about being a stranger all the time,’ she said. ‘I liked it at first. I felt sort of—free, I suppose. I liked it that I didn’t know anyone in whatever town we were in. But now…I don’t know…it’d be nice if you went to the corner shop and they knew your name, and you didn’t have to ask where things were all the time.’
‘Everyone gets fed up of being on the road,’ Diane told her. ‘But we’re here for the summer now. We can make this place feel like home, you know, have a few knick-knacks and stuff around. And Blackpool’s a super town; there’s loads going on. We’ll get ourselves fixed up with a couple of nice boys for the summer.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
There were three things wrong with that statement, as far as Lillian was concerned. First, the digs were just like all the others, cramped and gloomy with old-fashioned furniture and a view of roofs and backyards. Her own room at home might be no better, but it was hers, or half hers anyway. Then there was Blackpool. It was a big jolly resort with lots going on and she had to admit that the beaches were better than back home, but there had always been a big rivalry between Blackpool and Southend, especially over which town had the best illuminations. Lillian felt she was being a traitor to her home town, being part of the attractions at Blackpool. Most of all, it was the boys. She didn’t want to go steady with someone for the summer because there was only one boy in the world she really wanted to be with.
She touched James’s latest letter as it sat in her pocket. He had written that he had been out dancing.
I’m really getting good at the rock’n’roll. You’d be proud of me, Lindy. I can spin my partners round like tops, and even do the under the legs thing. You really taught me well.
It was nice that he was grateful for her lessons, but she envied every girl who danced with him. If she were to go home, would he take her out dancing with him? What a brilliant partnership they would make. They would blow away everyone else on the floor. It was her favourite daydream.
‘…out down the seafront before we go to the theatre?’
She realised that Diane was talking to her.
‘Oh—yeah—all right.’
There was a sharp wind coming in off the Irish Sea. Battling against it made Lillian feel alive again. Before she knew it, her cheeks were rosy and she was laughing and chasing Diane like a kid. Crossing the road back towards the theatre with the wind shipping her hair into her eyes, she suddenly caught sight of someone who made her stop in her tracks.
‘Eileen?’ she gasped. ‘Aunty Eileen?’
She dashed over to the pavement, narrowly missing a tram. The woman she had seen was walking away from her with her hands in her pockets and her head down. Her heart thumping in her chest, Lillian ran to catch her up.
‘Aunty Eileen?’ she yelled. She caught the woman by the arm. ‘Aunty—oh—!’
The disappointment was crushing. A stranger was looking at her with something close to annoyance.
‘I—I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else. I’m sorry,’ she gabbled.
The woman looked at her for a moment, then just shrugged and walked on, leaving Lillian standing staring after her.
Diane caught up with her. ‘You’re daft, you are. You nearly went under that tram.’
Lillian explained her mistake.
‘Your Aunty Eileen? The one who was like a mum to you?’
‘Yes. Only it wasn’t.’
‘Never mind. Maybe you still will find her one day. She might see you dancing in the show and come and say hello.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
Lillian allowed herself to be marched along the road to the theatre. She breathed in the smell of the dressing room, the mix of dust and greasepaint and cheap scent and female sweat. This was why she was here. This was why she didn’t just leave and go home. She still loved the theatre, and she still revelled in being a dancer.
The afternoon audience was quite sparse. The season had hardly begun and most of them were elderly people. Everyone in the troupe assured her that it would be quite different when the wakes weeks s
tarted. Then all the mills in a town would close for the holidays and half the population would arrive in Blackpool. Every seat in the house would be full then, especially if the weather was bad.
Lillian was half changed after the show when the messenger boy put his head round the door. ‘Lillian Parker? Anyone here called Lillian Parker?’
‘No,’ several girls chorused.
‘Yes!’ Lillian called above the noise. ‘That’s me.’
Heads turned in her direction. Everyone here knew her as Lindy-Lou.
‘Phone call for you at the stage door.’
Lillian pulled her stained dressing gown on over her underwear and hurried to the stage door keeper’s cuddy. Her heart was thumping painfully. What had happened? Was it bad news from home?
She was surprised to hear Wendy’s voice. ‘Oh, Lill, thank goodness. Lill, I got to talk to you.’
‘What is it? Is Mum ill?’
‘No, no—it’s me.’
‘You’re ill?’
‘No, not ill. Not…I…I’m…oh, Lillian, I don’t know what to do. I can’t ask the girls at work; they’re all so jealous of me. And if the Carnival committee find out, I’ll be sacked, and if Dad and Gran—Oh Lillian, they’ll kill me. So I rang you.’
Lillian could feel herself going cold. She had heard this before. Fear and horror crawled over her. Not Wendy. It couldn’t happen to Wendy as well. Not her sister.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Are you…I mean…’
From his cuddy hole, the stage door keeper, an elderly man in a grey collarless shirt and a muffler, was tactfully sorting through some papers. But he could hear every word she was saying.
‘—pregnant?’ she whispered.
‘Y—oh, damn and blast—the pips—’
Wendy sounded desperate. There were various clonking and whirring noises on the line, then her voice came back. ‘Lillian? Are you there?’
‘Yes, I’m still here.’
‘I’ve put lots of money in now. Yes, I think I must be. I mean, I’ve missed two—’
It was Brenda all over again. Lillian couldn’t believe this was happening.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ Wendy wailed.
Follow Your Dream Page 20
