So Lexie had never in all her life met the sort of barely disguised and off-hand scorn she had met here at the Vaudeville. At first, when it had started, she’d paid no attention; it had been, she told herself, the business of being new. She could remember how she herself had behaved to the newcomers to Madame G.’s; cool, haughty, often disdainful. It was part of the fun of being there first. In time, of course, she had admitted the new people to the camaraderie of being one of the crowd, unremarked and unremarkable, and she had assumed the same would happen to her after André Charlot had given her a place in the back row of the chorus when Alex Lazar and Peter Hyman had arranged for him to see her. But now she had been with the company over six months; they were into their second show together, yet still the girls of the chorus treated her as an outsider, and a very much unwanted one.
Slowly it had grown on her that it wasn’t just her newness, that it went much deeper than that, and she had wondered for a while if it was because of Ambrose. When she had seen him again and realized he was part of the company, she had shrieked her delight and hurled herself at him in a fashion that had made it very clear she knew him extremely well — and after all, she had told herself, he is the best-looking boy on the line. Maybe they’re jealous of me, she had thought, sitting at her table in the communal dressing room putting on her make-up, while everyone around her chattered to each other and ignored her. Maybe they are — I’ll give them something to be jealous of.
And she had tried very hard to do just that, ignoring the girls, spending all the time she could in the theatre with Ambrose and the other boys, chattering to him with bright and brittle gaiety whenever any of the girls were around to hear her, larding her conversation with ‘dahlings’ and ‘sweeties’ and being altogether as familiar and flirty with him as she had known how to be. But she had realized fairly soon that this was a stupid game to play, on two scores.
First it annoyed Ambrose, who after the first moment of surprised recognition had shown no great wish to be close to her or to treat her as his childhood sweetheart — a role in which she had cast herself — concentrating all he could on his work. He never stopped practising, whether with the rest of the boys in the chorus or on his own, and never stopped exercising when he wasn’t dancing. He had grown into a very remarkable-looking young man; the dark red hair of his boyhood was still there, and the deep amber-coloured eyes, but now he had filled out and had a sleek muscularity added to the slenderness of his boyhood that made him very beautiful indeed to look at. He was clearly highly contented with himself and determined to use every atom of energy he had on improving his dancing technique and taking care of that perfect body and marvellous face. So Lexie’s attentions pleased him no more now than they had when she’d been a child.
Flirting with him had been pointless on a second score — it didn’t upset the girls at all, and made no difference whatever in their attitude towards her. The men they were interested in were the stage door denizens, the top-hatted and evening-caped vapid young men with money to jingle in their pockets and a burning ambition to be seen at Romano’s or the Trocadero with a chorus girl — any chorus girl — hanging on their arms. So it wasn’t Ambrose who had anything to do with their scorn of Lexie.
It had been some time before she had realized that Peter Hyman’s attention to her might be upsetting them. It had seemed to her absurd that he had been interested in her at all, except as a dancer. He was such a short fat little man (though in spite of his unlikely appearance he was delicate on his feet and had an unerring sense of timing that made him an ideal dance director, for all he looked so ridiculous when he went cavorting about the rehearsal room showing them what he wanted) that she could not take him seriously.
She had never imagined for a moment that he could have any interest in her other than as a member of the chorus. He had given her a place in the line, to be sure, but not as a favour, not even to oblige his old pal Alex Lazar; all he had done for him was agree to audition his little friend. To get her place Lexie had had to be a good dancer. She had known that, and known too that she had no reason to be specially grateful to Peter Hyman. To Alex perhaps, but to Peter definitely not. So, when he had asked her to have dinner with him or lunch or any other meal, she had been first amazed and then amused, and had consistently refused. But the girls had noticed the way he watched her as they worked, had seen the way he was always hovering in the wings as the back line left the stage, and drawn their own conclusions.
But even that wouldn’t have been enough to explain their enmity; dance directors, after all, were notorious for their attempt to use a chorus line as their own private harem. She had been in the business long enough to know that, even though she had spent most of that time with one show that was little more than an amateur shambles compared with a really professional one like an André Charlot revue; but as long as the object of such a man’s interest wasn’t promoted beyond her level of ability none of the other girls in a chorus really minded. But these girls clearly did mind about her, even though Lexie remained firmly in the back line, well out of any share of the real limelight. It had taken a long time for the full reason for their hostility to seep through to her, and when it had she had first been amazed, and then puzzled, and then hugely, impotently, angry.
Impotent until tonight. Until this evening she had heard no direct comments she could seize on to bring their attitude out into the open, had had to suffer silently the helpless fury of hearing just snatches of words, seeing sidelong glances and listening to their giggles rise and then subside as she came into the room. Until tonight, when at last Mabel Leary started whining in that high nasal tone that she affected about the bloody little sheeny of a dance director who had fined her just because she’d torn a shoe ribbon and his bloody sheeny favourite, Ascher — and at last she could get hold of it all, could force them to stare her in the face and say it.
Now, standing in the middle of the dressing room with the other girls ranged in front of her, and with Ethel, who was supposed only to be their dresser but who in fact ran the dressing room like a sergeant-major, she had said it and she felt better, as though she had been sitting in a bath of ice-cold water for a very long time and had at last got out of it. Warmth was filling her from her belly outwards and it felt good. She stood there with her head up and stared back at them with her eyes glittering.
‘You’re moanin’ because she called you a sheeny?’ Ethel said. ‘Well, so what if she did? Eh? So bleedin’ what? You are, aren’t you? She’s Irish and she wouldn’t go shouting off her mouth and hittin’ you if you told her so, would you, Mabel?’
‘No,’ Mabel said, sniffing, and made her mouth tremble delicately. ‘’Course I wouldn’t. Like you said, it’s true, Ethel. an’ she hit me for talkin’ the truth.’
‘It is not true that I’m having any sort of — that I have anything more to do with Peter Hyman than any of you,’ Lexie said, staring at her and feeling the warmth that had been so agreeable getting less agreeable. ‘That’s a rotten lie —’
‘Well, I can’t say as I blame you for mindin’ anyone sayin’ that,’ Ethel allowed with great magnanimity. ‘’Ooky-nosed fat little bugger like that — ’oo’d ever fancy ’im? Tell ’er yer sorry for that, Mabel. Come on. Right now. This minute. Say you’re sorry —’
Mabel opened her mouth to protest but Lexie was too fast for her. ‘I don’t want her damned apologies,’ she said. ‘What I want is —’
Behind her the door opened again and a head came round. One of the boys from the dressing room next door called plaintively, ‘Has anyone here got any cloth glue? My damned trousers for the matador number won’t hold no matter what I do — Ethel? Girls? Can you help? Ambrose said — oh, here he is — Ambrose, you did say they had some glue in here that’d hold my poor old bags, didn’t you? One more performance in these and I swear to you they’ll have me up on an indecent exposure charge —’
‘Come on in, then,’ Ethel said, and shoved Lexie aside as she went lumbering to the doo
r. ‘I’ll fix the bleeders for yer — give ’em ’ere —’
‘Ambrose!’ Lexie called loudly, running towards him and taking his arm. ‘Ambrose, you’ve got to do something about this — they’re calling me horrible names just because —’
‘What?’ He had come in behind the other man, a willowy-dark-haired fellow with his hair plastered close to his head with very heavily scented brilliantine, who was now staring at Lexie with his head on one side and his lips a little pursed. Ambrose frowned sharply. ‘What is it?’
It was as though she were a small child again, and he the lordly big boy who had alternately rejected her and been kind. She felt better and held his arm even more tightly.
‘They’re calling me sheeny, Ambrose — it’s horrible. They’ve been hateful all along just because I’m Jewish. Tell them that —’
‘Tell them what?’ Ambrose said loudly. ‘That they ought to be young ladies and never say anything you don’t like? Pigs’ll fly first.’ The girls behind her giggled and Ethel gave a sudden croak of heavy laughter as she pushed her way back to her domain at the back of the dressing room with the trousers in her hand.
‘I’m told that when we go to America they’ll call us Limeys or some such,’ Ambrose said, his voice still loud, and he stared at her with his eyebrows raised. ‘And if we ever go to Australia they’ll call us something else odd, I dare say. Cobbers, isn’t it? Really, my dear, what does it matter? You’re making a great fuss about nothing.’
‘But you —’ she began and then stopped, for his eyes seemed to have brightened sharply as he stared at her, and as though he had said it aloud she heard the warning.
‘I mean,’ he said easily, grinning at the other man beside him, ‘I mean, if I were Jewish I’d ignore it too. It’s only a word, after all.’ He pushed past her, and with the other boy at his heels went through the clutter of girls standing behind her until he reached Ethel, whom he began to tease with a string of heavily flirtatious jokes that made Ethel giggle as coyly as a twelve-year-old. Lexie, standing by the door, was left staring after him and feeling very cold indeed.
She waited for Ambrose long after the others had trooped out of the stage door and down the alleyway in a haze of patchouli and Parma violet on their way to lobster suppers. She stood pressed against the wall outside so that she was in the shadow and no one could see her. She wondered after a while whether she’d missed him and was about to turn and go home to Bessie when she heard the clatter of footsteps on the stairs inside and his voice shouting something to someone. At once she stepped out into the patch of light thrown on to the cobbles from the stage door keeper’s cubbyhole as he appeared, blinking, in the doorway.
‘Ambrose,’ she said breathlessly, ‘I must talk to you —’ She took his arm and pulled him back into the shadows. ‘Ambrose, I’ve been waiting for you. For heaven’s sake, what did you mean when you said —’
The words slid out of her mind as she stood there very close to him. He was hot, so hot she could feel the warmth of his body through his shirt, for his jacket was left negligently open to display the cream silk of the shirt and the carefully casually knotted cravat tucked into the open collar. He smelled as good as he looked, a mixture of expensive eau de cologne, soap and Turkish cigarettes. She slid her hands up the silk and round his neck, clasping her fingers together so that he couldn’t help but bend his head to bring it close to hers.
Her eyes were fully used to the dimness by now and she could see his face very clearly; could see the gleam of his eyes, the thickness of his lashes, the shape of his mouth, and suddenly she found herself lifting on her toes to pull his head down more urgently, even though there was resistance in him. She put her mouth on his and hung on, feeling a rush of sensation that was unlike anything she’d ever felt before, even when, long ago, she had lain in bed on cold nights remembering him, missing him and weeping for him. But now he was here, real and solid, and kissing him was the most marvellous experience she had ever had — better than the first time she’d been lifted in a dance, better than the first time she’d managed to get up on her points, better even than her first solo, better than anything —
She let her lips open, let her tongue push against his, but he was trying to speak, pulling back from her, and she couldn’t hold his head down any longer. Unwillingly she let go. Cool air moved between them and the sensation in her belly flickered and subsided.
‘Listen, you —’ he began in a harsh whisper. ‘Listen, Lexie.’ Now he sounded all reasonableness, relaxed and friendly, almost the Ambrose she had known all those years ago. She grinned up at him in the dim light and said softly, ‘Yes?’
‘This sheeny business — don’t be a fool, ducks. Make a fuss about a thing like that, and you’re in real trouble. These people — they make you sick, but you don’t want to take any notice of ’em. It’s not worth it. Do it my way, lovey, and keep your mouth shut. What’s it got to do with anyone who you are or what you are or where you come from? Just keep your mouth shut —’
She shook her head, not believing him. ‘What do you mean, keep your mouth shut? Let ’em say what they like about you and not care?’
‘No, donkey.’ He tried to make it sound jocular but it sounded merely strained. ‘Just don’t let ’em know things about you that’ll give ’em handles to use against you and names to call you. I don’t, and I won’t. What you do is your affair. You can say what you like about yourself, if you must, but I’ll thank you to say nothing about me. That’s my way and it suits me. I tell people I come from the Cromwell Road area if they ask me, and that’s all about it. And I don’t want you making trouble for me saying anything else. Do you understand me?’
She still kept her arms round his neck, and she didn’t let go. But the warmth that had been there had dissipated. She felt bleak and alone again. Almost experimentally she pulled his head down again and kissed him, and at once the sensation came back, the rich glow in her belly, the lifting of excitement and she was, somewhere deep in her mind, relieved, for she had feared that it wouldn’t come back and a small voice whispered in her head, ‘What does it matter anyway, Jewish or not? He’s right — he’s right — kiss me, Ambrose. Kiss me as I’m kissing you — what does it matter? None of it matters but you — Ambrose —’
But he was pulling away from her now. He tugged her hands away from behind his head and shoved her away so that her shoulders scraped painfully against the brick wall behind her.
‘Stop that, for Christ’s sake,’ he snapped as the tall young man with the brilliantined hair came out of the door behind them. ‘That’s the last thing that’ll get you anywhere —’
‘Ambrose?’ the tall young man called, and at once Ambrose stepped forward into the patch of light, pulling his cravat into place as he did so. The other stared at him, head on one side, and Ambrose said loudly, ‘My dear — women! Like bitches on heat, some of ’em. For pity’s sake get me out of here! If I stay another moment the poor wretch’ll have my bags from me. Don’t ever leave me alone again for so long —’
He tucked his hand into the other’s elbow and they went off down the alley, leaving Lexie leaning against the wall staring after them, feeling the roughness of the brick behind her through the thin cotton of her frock.
14
All the way home in the bus and then on the tram she brooded on the girls and their jibes, going over the evening’s episode in her head again and again, inventing conversations in which her own comments were so blistering, so pithy and so brilliant that all of them, especially Ethel, were rendered totally speechless. She heard the rolling phrases she hadn’t used, heard the neat barbs that had not come from her lips, then started it all over again, experiencing their scorn and then humiliating them twice as much as they had humiliated her. Doing that helped her not to think about Ambrose and his behaviour, and it was important not to think about that.
But long before she reached Clapton Pond, where she had to change buses, she had to let go of the fantasy about putting the chorus i
n their place; she couldn’t sustain her anger at a high enough pitch, and she began to think instead about her general situation. She’d been thinking about that anyway, before this evening, getting more and more restless about it, and now, fed by her anger, her restlessness increased, became actually physical so that, instead of sitting still in her seat, staring out of the window into the blue summer night as the bus went on its swaying bumpy way, she fidgeted, moving from one buttock to another, twisting her gloves between her fingers, tapping her feet on the floor.
Six months, she told herself. Six months since I came back to London and where am I? I’ve been in over two hundred performances of this damned revue, and if I’ve actually been seen by that many people it’s a lot. Back row of the chorus, hidden under stupid great heaps of feathers and sequins — who could notice me even if they wanted to? And why should they want to, doing those dreary routines and those boring steps? She thought of Peter Hyman and his skilful but unadventurous choreography, and made a sharp little tutting sound of disgust that made her neighbour on the bus look at her curiously. What hope did she have of getting anywhere like this? Six months — I ought to have my own flat by now, instead of living with Bessie. I ought to have enough to take taxis everywhere, and be riding home in style after the show instead of sitting on this horrible bus full of old men reeking of shag tobacco, unwashed clothes and grease. I ought to be hearing applause for myself, not having to stand there listening to them stamping and shouting at Delysia mopping and mowing in her stupid Parisienne fashion (although Lexie had to admit in her deepest heart that the girl was good). I ought to be almost there by now, almost at the top. I haven’t time to waste, no time to waste, to waste, to waste—
Family Chorus Page 16
