Family Chorus

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Yeah, and that’ll cost a bob or nine,’ muttered a voice in Lexie’s ear, and she turned her head sharply to see the boy with the smooth red hair standing close beside her. ‘If not more,’ he added and grinned at her. ‘Want a biscuit? It’s all garbage, of course, but it’ll see you through to the next show.’

  ‘Next show?’ Lexie said, as the talk went on above her head between Joe and the vast purple shape of Madame Gansella. ‘I’m not doing anything else here. I was awful. Joe told me to dance but he never told me how and I — I didn’t know what to do. I was awful, wasn’t I?’

  He looked at her consideringly, his head bent to one side, and then he grinned. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You were awful. But what’s that got to do with anything? None of us is all that good. It’s just that she —’ and he jerked his head sideways, ‘— she knows how to make it look as though we’re good. I’ll grant her that. Silly old bitch.

  Lexie’s eyes widened at the bad word. ‘How?’

  He shrugged. ‘I dunno. She just gives lessons and makes you count and shows you how. You don’t have to be no good to do it. Just what she says. My Mum thinks she’s the tops, goin’ to make the family fortunes with me, my Mum, but I don’t reckon. She just takes the money and nags us. And the old man.’

  ‘Old man?’

  ‘Her old man. Never mind about him. Boring old fart, he is.’

  ‘You talk very rude,’ she said reprovingly, and he laughed, so that his teeth showed very white against his painted face.

  ‘Me, talk rude? You should hear some of ’em. Filthy! Daisy over there, and Baby Maisie — she’s worse’n a Billingsgate porter! If you start lessons with the old bitch, you’ll soon find out what talking rude’s all about.’

  She shook her head, alarmed. ‘I’m not taking no lessons!’ And she looked back over her shoulder at Joe and Madame Gansella, still in close colloquy. ‘Bessie —’ and then she stopped, suddenly, and stared at the boy again. ‘What happens — taking lessons?’

  He made a grimace. ‘You work, that’s what. She makes you practise all day, and then at night and on matinees we go and dance. All over the bloody shop. In a charabanc. It’s a bit of a laugh sometimes —’

  ‘What about school?’

  Again he grinned, a sight she was beginning to enjoy seeing. ‘Well, what about school?’

  ‘Don’t you have to go?’

  ‘Sometimes. When they catches up with her. But most of the time nobody cares either way. S’long as you can read a bit it’s all right. Got to be able to read because sometimes you have lines to say and if you can’t read ’em to yourself, you got a problem. Can you read?’

  She bridled. ‘Of course I can. I’m seven — nearly eight! Well, seven and a half.’

  ‘Ever so old,’ he said, and laughed. ‘I’m eleven and I can’t, not properly. But she don’t know. I get the others to tell me.’

  ‘I’ll read for you,’ Lexie said, and went a little pink. ‘I’m good at reading. I’m not good at sums, teacher says at Jubilee Street — that’s where I go to school — she says I’m no good at sums, but I’m ever so good at reading. I could read when I was four —’

  ‘Show off,’ he said, but there was no rancour in his tone. ‘Anyway, you can’t read for me. We’ll be off again next week. Over to Stoke Newington we are. Then to Stamford Hill and Finsbury Park. All over the place we go —’

  ‘Can’t I come with?’

  ‘Only if you take lessons with her. The old bitch. Then you can — if you learn fast enough. She’s lookin’ for another girl, a little one like you. Jenny there, she’s started to grow a chest, she has. Looks terrible, and the old B don’t trust ’em, not once they’ve started their you-know-who’s and get chests. Says they get themselves knocked up too easy. That’s why she’s going on at your brother there. She wants him to say you can have lessons so’s she can put you on the line and get rid of Jenny ’cause you’re so little.’ He nodded sapiently. ‘There’s nothin’ I don’t know about what goes on in her business. It’s the only way to get what I want, makin’ sure I know what’s goin’ on.’

  ‘Joe can’t say if I can have lessons,’ Lexie said, and frowned. ‘Only Bessie can say that.’

  ‘Yes?’ the boy with the red hair said and moved away. He was beginning to get bored with her now; she knew that look, had seen it often enough on Barney and Sammy’s faces. It was a look that big boys always got sooner or later when they talked to her. She never minded when the others did, though, because they were only Barney and Sammy, but now she did. She wanted this boy to be interested in her all the time and to talk to her all the time, and she turned her head towards Joe to listen to what he was saying. It was suddenly important to know.

  ‘Nothin’ to do with me, Missus. I told you, I’m just her brother. Thought it’d be a bit of a lark when Mr Lazar said bring her to the show — now I got other things to do. So never mind askin’ me. It’s got nothing to do with me —’

  ‘Well, perhaps the family will care to consider the matter.’ Madame Gansella dug into the dolly bag that hung or her wrist to fish out a piece of pasteboard. ‘Mai card,’ she said grandly, and put it into his hand. ‘Ai can be reached at this address on most Sundays. If the femily are prepared to consider giving this little deah here her chance, and the opportunity to develop her undoubted gift with a teacher worthy of her telents, they may call upon me.’ She bowed at Joe, smiled distantly at Lexie and patted her head, and went away across the room, making unerringly for the table where the bottles and glasses were.

  Leaving Lexie to pick up the piece of card that Joe had stared at and then dropped on the floor before pushing her on her way towards the door and home and Bessie.

  4

  By nine o’clock Bessie was almost frantic. She had sat at the window until it was too dark to see out properly, and then had gone to stand at the street door to stare down the street, keeping one ear cocked for a call from Shmuel. The little squares of window along the street sprang into life one by one as householders lit their lamps and then, as the gaslighter made his slow erratic progress along the kerb, the grey street too became more visible, and she squinted towards the end of it as though that effort alone would be enough to make the small figure materialize.

  But there was no sign of her, and distractedly she ran back upstairs and looked into Shmuel’s room, where he lay staring up at the ceiling in his usual blank silence, and then ran down again. She had to go and find her, had to see what had happened, but Shmuel — what should she do about Shmuel? To leave him alone was unthinkable, and Mrs Feldman downstairs had gone to visit her newly delivered daughter and infant grandson, and Sophie from next door was playing her usual game of solo and would never agree to stop even for one hand just to oblige a neighbour. And Lexie wasn’t home and it was dark and she’d promised faithfully after last week’s trouble about coming home late that she’d come straight home from Fanny’s — and Bessie began to weep, her face twisting into ugly little crevasses.

  There was nothing she could do; yet she had to do something, and she ran upstairs again to look at Shmuel, lying in exactly the same position as she had left him, and then went down again, not taking her coat or her hat — she who was always so punctilious about dressing properly! — and went running down the street. She didn’t lock the front door, feeling obscurely that this would be safer for Shmuel, alone and helpless in bed, though by the time she had reached the end of the street she wished she had, but it was too late to turn back. She had to find her Lexie, had to find her now — no time to waste —

  When she reached Arbour Square she was wet with the sweat which had been drawn from her through fear as well as effort, for now she no longer attempted to control the terror that filled her. She saw vision after vision: Lexie run over by a horse and cart; Lexie crumpled and silent in a back room somewhere, destroyed by some murderer’s hand; Lexie in the hands of the doctors at the London Hospital, struck down by some mysterious plague; and she was gasping with the sobs that filled her an
d her eyes were staring and fixed as she ran up to Fanny’s front door and banged on it.

  The first person she saw as the door opened was not Benny, who had his hand on the latch, but Lexie behind him in the hall, and she pushed Benny aside and ran in and fell on her knees in front of the child and tugged on her arm desperately, crying her name and repeating it over and over again.

  ‘What’s going on here? What on earth is all the row about?’ Fanny’s voice cut across the noise of Bessie’s tears and the loud wails which Lexie had immediately started to produce, and she came out of her parlour with Dave close behind her as Joe came out of the kitchen with a cup in his hand and stopped short at the sight of the fuss.

  ‘Where were you? Where were you?’ Bessie cried. ‘I waited and waited, and your supper was ready and I watched the street and — where were you? You promised me you’d come straight home at seven o’clock, it was nine o’clock already, and you still hadn’t come, just like last week — where were you? What did you —’

  ‘Bessie, be quiet! What’s all this fuss? She’s here, she’s all right, what are you making such a drama about?’

  ‘I thought she was hurt, thought she’d been —’ Bessie shook her head and got awkwardly to her feet, and rubbed her eyes with one hand. ‘I thought God knows what had happened —’

  ‘But you knew she came over here!’ Fanny said, and reached in her pocket and gave a handkerchief to Lexie. ‘Stop that noise, Lexie! At once! Bessie, you’re being ridiculous. She came here. Joe said he’d take the child out a while, what harm could she come to with us? You’re not her only sister, you know. You’re not the only one she can be with!’

  Bessie stared at her, her face white beneath the tear stains. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘You heard me! You’re making a ridiculous scene over nothing. Such a fuss when the child’s with us!’

  ‘I told her to come home at seven. It’s time she was in bed, a child of her age!’

  ‘So I said she could stay up, all right?’ Fanny said coolly, and stared at her challengingly. ‘So what are you going to do? Wash your hands of her? Send her here to live with me? She’d be company for Monty, why not, eh, Dave? She’s my sister too. I can give her as good a home as you can — anyway, you’ve got Poppa to look after. I’ll have her here, you can stop worrying and getting yourself so hysterical over where she is.’

  ‘No!’ Bessie shouted it, wanting to run across the hallway and hit out at that smooth handsome face and straight back, so different from her own, wanting to shriek her sense of injustice at the effrontery of Fanny’s suggestion. Seven years of Lexie to be taken away, now that the long sleepless nights when the baby wouldn’t sleep were over, when the struggle to teach her to be a well-behaved nice child who would have a better life than Bessie had ever thought possible for herself was at last beginning to show fruit? Seven years of dreaming and wanting and loving and worrying to be thrown away just like that because Fanny wanted someone for Monty to play with, because Fanny was at last beginning to see that Lexie could be an asset rather than a nuisance? She wanted to spit it all out, but all she managed was, ‘No!’ in a tight choked voice as she leaned over and pulled Lexie’s arm again so that she was standing closer beside her. Again Lexie began to wail, tired and frightened now, and confused, and at once Fanny threw her hands in the air and turned to Dave and said loudly, ‘You see! The child wants to come to me! She’d be happier, better off without all this nonsense —’

  ‘Do me a favour, Fanny!’ Dave said disgustedly. ‘Ain’t I got enough problems with your brothers? Lay off already —’ And he went back into the parlour, slamming the door behind him.

  ‘You see what you’re doing? Upsetting Dave now with all your nonsense! Lexie, shut up! You see what you’re doing, Bessie? I tell you, the way you are now, hysterical — you’re not fit to look after her. You’re upsetting Dave and he’s a hard-working man, needs peace and quiet in his own home. A fine thing my own little sister can’t come here but I have a great mishagass made! I won’t have it — she’ll come here — an end of it!’

  Bessie bent and picked up Lexie awkwardly but firmly and held her close. Her own diminutive size and crooked back made the child look big in her arms, but she stood with her chin up and stared at Fanny very directly.

  ‘You try and you’ll see what happens. Seven years she’s been mine, and so she stays. You try to take her away and I won’t answer for anything that happens. You hear me? I’m telling you she stays with me.’

  ‘So maybe she’s got her own ideas,’ Fanny said, and for the first time sounded a little uncertain, a rare note in that loud and self-confident voice. ‘So maybe we’ll ask her what she wants —’

  ‘I want to go to bed!’ Lexie said suddenly, and rubbed her face with both hands and then scrambled out of Bessie’s arms to the floor. ‘I want to go to bed —’ She ran to the front door and pulled it open, and Benny, who had stood silently watching all the fuss, stepped aside and let her.

  ‘I know what she wants,’ Bessie said, and her voice was flat and expressionless. ‘She wants to stay with me. Good night.’ She followed Lexie out into the street, and left them standing there, Joe still with the cup of water in his hand. Lexie seemed to have forgotten she’d asked for a drink.

  ‘So don’t stand there like a dummy,’ Fanny snapped at him, as the door closed behind them. ‘You’ve done enough harm for one night, shlapping the kid out that way, getting Bessie all stirred up! And if we get lumbered with her, it’ll be your fault. Don’t we do enough for you already, you have to make problems for Dave and me? Do we deserve it? I ask you, do we?’

  ‘Listen, I didn’t say she should come to live here!’ Joe said, and his voice took on a faintly whining note. ‘It was you said that —’

  ‘So — I was provoked,’ Fanny said. She turned and opened the parlour door and marched in. ‘Dave, you’ll have to do something about all this. I can’t have Bessie making such a megillah all the time —’

  ‘If anyone’s making a megillah it’s you,’ Dave grunted. ‘Shut up already, Fanny. The kid’s not coming here. You know it, I know it. You were just talking the way you do sometimes, so shut up. I got an early start down in the Lane tomorrow and so have the boys, the last thing we want is you carrying on at us. It’s over, forget it. She ain’t coming here. Enough I got to keep them and have the house full of your brothers, I don’t need no more aggravation —’

  Bessie couldn’t get it out of her mind. All the next day and the day after, and all through the week that followed, the spectre of it rose in front of her eyes. Fanny, swooping down on Sidney Street from Arbour Square to take Lexie up in her arms and spirit her away. Fanny loitering at the school gates, watching to steal her away, even Fanny coming in the night time to creep into her room and — it was ridiculous, but all the same she worried and fretted and was silent and grim as she moved through her daily work with Shmuel and the flat.

  Lexie hardly seemed to notice any difference in her. She went to school as usual, came home as usual, but, not as usual, sat on the windowsill staring out at the street in the evenings with a book on her lap, instead of wanting always to rush out and play with the other children. She could think of nothing but the boy with the smooth dark red hair. Every time she thought of him there was an odd feeling inside her chest, a sort of tightness, and she liked the feeling and thought about him often, just to get the feeling again. But it got more and more difficult to conjure it up as the week wore on, and the memory of his face faded a little from her mind.

  And that alarmed her, because she didn’t want to forget him and she began to think about how she could see him again. No good going back to the Paragon Palace of Varieties, even though it wouldn’t be too hard to get there on her own, without Joe. No good asking Joe to help her — and it was strange how now she thought about the red-haired boy all the time just as she used to think about Joe, without thinking less of Joe; very strange, that — because one of the few things Bessie had said to her since all the fu
ss that awful Saturday evening was that she wasn’t to go to Arbour Square again, no matter what. And even though it usually was easy to get Bessie to do what she wanted, this time Lexie knew she meant it. She couldn’t risk it. Joe was not accessible.

  So what could she do? She thought and puzzled and imagined him walking down her street so that she could bump into him and then puzzled again, for she knew he wouldn’t. She’d have to go and find him, that was the thing. But how? And where?

  It was when Bessie was sorting out the laundry that she discovered how. Bessie was piling all her white pinafores in one heap with her white vests and knickers to be boiled in a bucket over the stove. She put her hands in all the pockets to check they were empty, and came out with the square of pasteboard Madame Gansella had given Joe.

  ‘What’s this?’ Bessie said. ‘Where’d you get this?’

  Lexie thought for a moment of saying she didn’t know, that she’d picked it up in the street, that a bird had brought it in its beak and put it in her pocket when she wasn’t looking and then, almost without realizing what it was she was saying, or what memory it was that prompted her to say it, she said, ‘She’s a lady who says I could be a dancer. She wants to teach me.’

  Bessie stood with the card in her hand, staring at her, her face once again fixed with that white blankness that meant she was thinking a great deal. Lexie knew that expression very well.

  ‘I was dancing,’ she said, suddenly knowing it was all right to tell her. ‘A barrel organ. And this man came and said did I want to dance on the stage and I could on Saturday so I did and this lady said I could dance if I learned properly because of talent and she said she’s always there on a Sunday because they’re all over the place. That’s where they are, all the children, all over the place —’