Mothers and Daughters

by Fleming, Leah

  Was that a stare or not? Neville was confused.

  ‘Not like my gran then. Never in. Gallivanting all over town, given half a chance, and me her chauffeur.’

  ‘You’ve got a car?’

  ‘I share it with my Mum: a Triumph Herald.’

  ‘Nice … Skiffle, that’s where I saw you. You were in a skiffle band that came to our youth club once. It was you, wasn’t it? You were good.’

  Neville flushed. ‘That was ages ago and then I managed a girl group – the Silkies, my cousins. It was hard work. They can bitch each other hairless.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. I’ve got three sisters, yap, yap, yap … So what’re you doing here?’

  ‘Minding the family fortune until teatime. Dad’s at the cricket club or down at the football. My uncle is the coach there. Not my cup of tea, is sport.’

  ‘Mine neither. I’m into dramatics.’ The boy paused. ‘We’ve got a big show coming soon: Annie Get Your Gun.’

  ‘Funny, I did a bit myself. I was in Romeo and Juliet over at the town hall. Did you see it? We did a bit at the Lawns School too.’ He dropped that in to impress.

  ‘Lucky you. I was at St Vincent’s Secondary and they did nothing like that. I’m junior lead in Annie. You should come and see us. They need young ones in the chorus.’

  ‘I might well do that but who’ll I be getting an autograph from then?’ He flashed a octane smile in the boy’s direction. ‘I’m Neville Winstanley.’

  ‘Trevor … Trevor Gilligan.’ Their hands touched briefly as Neville gave him the change.

  ‘See you around then?’ Was that a promise or an invitation? How could Nev be sure? As Trevor turned to leave, he shouted after him, ‘Get us some tickets then – two, for me and my gran, for the Saturday night. If I’m not here my dad will settle up with you. He owes me big time.’

  ‘Not your girlfriend then?’

  ‘You’re a cheeky one.’ Neville couldn’t resist winking.

  ‘It takes one to know one,’ came the quick riposte from Trevor, whose back view was as good as the front.

  Cheeky tart, Neville smiled. Things in Grimbleton had suddenly taken a turn for the better.

  * * *

  After the musical finished, Neville went backstage to see Trevor in his war paint. In his eyes, the boy lit up the stage every time he came on. He was a natural comic with a fine voice, coquettish and confident, and sang in tune, which was more than some of the old souls in the chorus could, creaking cowboys with phoney accents. But it was fun and Gran had enjoyed it too.

  ‘Fancy a drink somewhere?’ he offered. ‘I can take Gran back while you change.’

  ‘Sorry, there’s an after-show party so I’ll have to stay on.’

  ‘That’s OK then,’ Neville replied, disappointed.

  ‘Wait … look. I’d love to meet up. Tuesday night?’ Trevor offered.

  ‘You’re on. I’ll borrow the car. We can nip into Manchester. I know a few clubs …’

  ‘I bet you do.’ Trevor winked. ‘Nothing pervy, though. I’m a good boy.’

  ‘I’m sure you are but I’m not.’ Neville looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘That’s what I like to hear. Be seeing you Tuesday then. Can’t wait.’

  Neither can I, thought Neville. Wasn’t lust a wonderful thing?

  Rosa sat on the hard chair of the agent’s office in Manchester, staring up at the pictures of theatrical stars, now fading from the light of the window: cheeky chappies in funny suits, busty blondes, and matinée idols with slicked-back hair and David Niven smiles. She had to get herself fixed up for when her stint at Butlins finished: panto, variety acts. The season was short and she didn’t intend going home.

  Holiday camps were not like boarding schools, more like POW camps, especially one on the northeast coast of England. It was hard work entertaining babies and grannies, but it got her an equity card and some good experience. There were so many hopefuls wanting work – dancers, singers, comedians, resting actors and a bunch of handsome Red Coats, who took her to see the bright lights of Scarborough and tried to get her into their chalets after lights out. It was hilarious, the tricks they got up to in the dark, but rules were rules and she was Miss Free and Fancy. It was a contract she was after, and the name of a good agent.

  Now she was waiting for an appointment in Manchester to see Dilly Sherman of Strauss, Black and Sherman Associates, to whom she’d written years ago. Miss Sherman dealt with stage. Rosa hoped she’d make a good impression.

  She pulled out the postcard from Connie with the picture of the Tower of London. She was up for the chop with the Winstanleys since her runaway act. Mamma and Susan were full of her midnight elopement as if it was something terrible.

  Good luck to her for taking her chance. Exams weren’t everything, following your dream was, and at least Maria was keen for her to get into showbusiness. Going off with Marty Gorman and his band was a bit risky, though. She hoped it worked out.

  ‘Miss Santini?’ A little woman with a frizz of orange hair stared at her sharply. ‘Come inside.’ There was hardly room to squeeze through the pile of files and typewriters to a tiny chair. The room was thick with smoke.

  ‘I read your letter … bits of this and that … Butlins is a good training ground for working an audience … So what are you after? I can’t promise much up north. Variety is dying on its feet and panto with it. Television is king now. Musicals pull in girls from the stage schools in London. Hmm …’ She puffed on her cigarette. ‘You have classical … jazz and tap, I see … amateur acting. Your voice … can you give me something, a tape?’

  Rosa shook her head.

  ‘What are you, eighteen? … Is this your real name? That explains the Italian looks. Just give me a few lines of a song.’

  What on earth could she sing? Rosa felt her throat close over. Deep breaths. She sang the first few lines from an aria from West Side Story, giving it as much soul and volume as she could.

  ‘Fine, in tune, good control … you’ll do.’ Dilly paused and rustled through some papers. ‘Look, to be honest, I’ve nothing for you except Sadie Lane is looking for a new backing group.’

  ‘Shady who?’ Rosa misheard, and Dilly roared with laughter.

  ‘Sadie Lane, the band singer.’

  ‘I thought she was dead,’ Rosa replied.

  ‘Hardly, dearie. Large as life and twice as big. She did well in the late forties with Anne Shelton, Tessie O’Shea and Dorothy Squires. She’s trying to revive her career in the current climate so it means younger voices and a decent song.’

  ‘Where would I fit in?’

  ‘An audition first. She’s very particular – a bit too particular – that’s why the last lot walked out mid-tour. You have to understand she was once near the top of the bill on the variety circuit. Others might retire but not our Sadie. I have her requirements here. You’ll see what I mean.’

  She shoved a letter across for Rosa to look at.

  Dear Dilly,

  I got rid of the last load of shit last week. Get me some fresh girls with good voices who can sing in tune this time. I want no lookers, no niggers, no dykes, no blondes, dark, small and dumpy, no upstaging little shysters. If they move an eyelash they’re out. This is my show, not the stairway to the stars.

  Try harder this time, darling,

  Sadie

  ‘It’ll be no rose garden but you’ll get some good shows and make contacts. Would you be willing to pad up for the audition? You’re on the petite side. Scrape the curls back and put on fake glasses. She’s as blind as a bat but too vain to wear specs. Sadie is well past her prime but she’s clinging on with the claws of a tiger.

  ‘Don’t believe a word she says either about her devoted husband, the Battle of Britain pilot. He was a fitter in RAF maintenance. The nearest he got to a Spitfire was scraping the crashed ones off the tarmac. There is one poor adopted son who was packed off to some boarding institution at the age of four and calls her “the mater”. Poor Sadie, she�
��s a monster and as fake as a glass eye but I keep her on as a warning. She did her morale bit in the war and kept the theatres busy in the fifties, but everyone’s home watching TV now. She needs a hit song – a novelty song would do it. Are you interested?’

  ‘I’ll try anything once,’ Rosa gulped.

  ‘That’s the spirit. Be professional, stay in her shadow and you’ll be fine. Step into her limelight and you’ll be out faster than Stirling Moss. But remember, go plain or she’ll have you for breakfast. Wear black to show off her glitz.’

  ‘No one wears glitz but Alma Cogan,’ Rosa quipped, thinking of the glamorous young singer.

  ‘I know, dearie. Sadie still thinks she’s in the fifties … Having second thoughts? It’s all I have on the books.’

  ‘I’ll take it. I might not get through the audition.’

  ‘Turn up like you are now and you’ll not get past the door, but think of it as a performance. She’s got a casting in the Midland Hotel. Sing whatever she asks you and fawn over her past glories and you’ll be fine.’

  Rosa sat amongst the hopefuls in the ballroom of the hotel, waiting for the arrival of the Queen of Sheba. Looking around at the competition she could spot Dilly’s girls at once. They were dressed in black, flat shoes, padded jumpers, no make up except round the eyes and mouth. The others were kitted out in tight pants, Brigitte Bardot hairstyles and the highest of winkle-picker heels.

  It wasn’t going to be the best of jobs but she’d gone home to Grimbleton trying to pretend it was her big break. Mamma was rushing round the salon telling everyone her daughter was going to sing with Sadie Lane. What if she didn’t pass muster?

  There was a fanfare of yapping dogs and two full-sized poodles rushed into the room. One cocked its leg on a gilt chair and sprayed the floor. Then came Mr Battle of Britain with his cavalry twill trousers, tweeds and moustache. Rosa thought of the famous cookery artist and her husband, Fanny Cradock and Johnny.

  Sadie made her regal entrance wrapped in a mink stole over a silvery brocade dress, with beautiful shoes that showed off a pair of still shapely calves and ankles, but the rest … definitely outsize, corseted with steel to make some indentations where a waist should be and emphasise the sort of cleavage you could lose a biscuit down and never find the crumbs. Her white-blonde hair was fluffed up like a meringue nest, and her make-up was an inch thick. She was the star, the Queen Mother, the shark in this fish pond of minnows.

  Rosa sank back into her chair. Who would Sadie be swallowing?

  ‘Sadie’s got a head so big, I bet no one could get past her on the stairs,’ whispered the girl in black next to her. ‘You must be with Miss Sherman too.’ She grinned, eyeing Rosa up and down.

  ‘How did you guess?’ Rosa winked. ‘Rosa Santini.’

  ‘Melanie Diamond … break a leg.’

  ‘You too,’ Rosa smiled.

  Miss Lane sat on her throne, lining them all up on stage and shuffling them around without anyone singing a word.

  ‘What do you think, Reggie?’

  He shrugged his shoulders and left her to it. Half the girls were dismissed there and then.

  ‘I only want three of you,’ Sadie barked, parading up and down the remaining ten, eyeing them all carefully. ‘You.’ Rosa stepped forward. ‘You next.’ Melanie joined her. ‘And you over there … what’s your name?’

  The plump girl blushed. ‘Gabriella Blenkinsop.’

  ‘You can be Gabby. Now sing the music you were given. I want action and timing.’ ‘How Much is that Doggie in the Window?’ was the novelty song, and they all sang dutifully, trying to look together. Gabby had a good alto voice and she harmonised well with the other two.

  ‘Stop! That’s enough, Reggie,’ she ordered the husband who was playing on the piano. ‘You’ll have to do. All dark, same height and blend OK. We shall think of a name for you. Who’s your agent?’

  ‘Miss Sherman,’ Rosa offered, and the others nodded.

  ‘She knows what I like. I’ll sort it out with her then.’

  That was it: no hand-shaking or formal welcome, more like class dismissed, and an order to return to a studio in Manchester on the next Monday morning. Rosa was going to have to rush back north, pack her bags and head home. Mamma would want to come and see her perform, and them all looking like a dog’s dinner. Perhaps better to say nothing.

  ‘I’m supposed to be at school,’ said little Gabby, who needed no padding at all.

  ‘It’s a job. We’re on the circuit – who knows what might turn up? It’ll be fun,’ Melanie encouraged them.

  ‘With that monster?’ Rosa giggled, and they huddled together.

  ‘Welcome to the madhouse. Let me get this kit off. I’m sweating.’ Melanie pulled some foam out of her waistband.

  ‘Me too. How will we stand it under the spotlights?’

  ‘Mine’s real,’ Gabby sighed.

  ‘Don’t worry, she’ll soon sweat it off you, but let’s get a contract before we reveal all. We have to make her look glam and thirty,’ Melanie said, looking at her watch.

  ‘Thirty. She’s nearly fifty. Fair, fat and fifty, I reckon! What does that make us, then?’ Rosa answered.

  ‘Employed!’ Melanie laughed. ‘We can eat at the end of the week, pay rent and buy nylons. Who cares if we look like Baa baa black sheep, three bags full behind her?’

  ‘I do. I was hoping to be a Vernons Girl or a new Beverley Sister. My mamma thinks I’m sharing the bill,’ Rosa sighed. It was so important for Mamma to think she was a star.

  ‘Don’t say anything. Just do the job, let her think what she likes and no one will recognise us in this rigout. I dread to think what she’ll drape us in. Sackcloth and ashes … to show off all her sequins. We’ll be part of the backdrop curtains,’ Melanie added, her black eyes flashing with mischief.

  ‘She’s the one who ought to be in black,’ Gabby offered.

  ‘Shall I tell her or shall you?’ Rosa asked, and they burst out laughing again. ‘How am I going to keep a straight face watching that derrière swaying in the breeze?’

  ‘We’re professionals, doing whatever is required for as long as we can. If she gets too bad we’ll have our revenge,’ Melanie whispered.

  ‘How?’ Gabby was all ears.

  ‘Don’t know yet, but we’ll think of something.’

  ‘You’re on!’ Rosa said. ‘See you on Monday. I’ve got to dash.’

  There was just time to get a train back to York and on to Scarborough after seeing Miss Sherman and signing up, time to ring up the salon to tell Maria the good news, or at least to tell her a version that might have her mother putting a notice in the Mercury.

  16

  The War Baby Blues

  The band stayed in London all through June, much longer than they expected, hoping for a contract, living out of the van, cadging from friends where they could, but when the money ran out they took to busking with guitars and tambourines, under subways and stations, in parks until they were moved on.

  Connie went to visit Auntie Diana, Mama’s old friend who was nursing at St Thomas’s Hospital and sharing a flat nearby with her friend Hazel. They were kindness itself, inviting her friends for a meal and a chance to bath and freshen up.

  Connie was ashamed of all their scruffy clothes and ragged hair, but Diana took all in her stride. It was good to feel clean and tidy, and eat proper food from a table, not some hurried mush from a transport café.

  ‘You young people do things differently, I must say,’ Diana lectured them in her pukka voice. ‘All I ask is you keep in touch with your families. Susan is worried. She asked me to look out for you. I know you’d not pass my door but you must be fair to your families too.’ Connie sensed there was a lot more she could say but was holding back out of politeness and reserve.

  Diana was one of the original Olive Oils who came up for Mama’s funeral and promised to keep an open door if ever she needed to talk over things. Diana was so correct, and the band all rose to the occasion, behaving themse
lves like squaddies before an officer.

  To Connie she was a reminder of home and all she’d sacrificed to live this exciting adventure. If only it wasn’t so scary having to sing with Marty in doorways in a strange city, but she was so besotted with him and anxious to please.

  One night she sat outside their van under the July stars and revised that very first ballad written ages ago, in her school exercise book.

  ‘The colours of my love are like a rainbow in the sky, the colours of my love I give to you, midnight blue and silver, reflections in your eyes … the colours of my love I give to you.’ The words just fell into a tune in her head but she didn’t tell anyone that these little songs often burst out of nowhere, waking her up at night, begging to be written down before they were forgotten.

  Usually she turned over, not wanting to disturb anyone, and by morning they were almost gone, just a haunting line that would nag away all morning.

  The band had trawled the demo tape around the record companies to no avail. The Carroll Leavis audition didn’t materialise but Tony Amos came down, as promised, to find them a gig in a coffee bar in Camden Town.

  ‘I wanted you to be in the Two Is,’ Sandra sighed, looking out of the café window and down at the dusty curtains. ‘All the students are on their vacs … it’ll be dead.’

  ‘We have to look on this as a start; it’s better than the pavement,’ Connie defended.

  ‘O-ooh! Who’s talking “we” all of a sudden? You’re not in the group yet,’ Sandy snapped. ‘I could do what you’ve done so far.’

  ‘Not with that foghorn you call a voice,’ Marty jumped into Connie’s corner. ‘Connie sings real good and she’s on the beat.’

  ‘Pardon me for breathing, I’m sure.’ Sandy backed off. ‘Jack says you don’t pull birds to listen if there’s a girl on the stage.’

  ‘Then Jack should tell me himself, not hide behind your skirt.’