Family Chorus

by Claire Rayner

  She knew the flat was empty even before she’d climbed the stairs from the front door. There was a dead feeling to it. She let herself into the living room and looked round at its neat polished perfection, at the flowers that Bessie always kept on the centre table, and was suddenly hugely angry. How dare she not be there when she wanted to talk to her? How dare she just go and leave a note? The fact that usually she was profoundly irritated by Bessie’s eagerness to sit and wait up for her after the show, and that often she went straight to her bedroom, refusing the supper that Bessie had always carefully prepared, she preferred to push aside. Bessie wasn’t here tonight and she should have been—

  ‘So sorry — had to go to Fanny’s,’ the note read. ‘Dave’s aunt ill — plate of sandwiches in the meat safe on the kitchen windowsill — hope to be home soon — sorry not in when you get home — Bessie.’ Lexie stared round at the silent room and smelled the hot stuffiness of it and the slightly cloying scent of wax polish and almost without thinking she turned and went out, slamming the door behind her. To be alone tonight — no. She couldn’t cope with that.

  It wasn’t until she had nearly reached Manor House, at the gateway to Finsbury Park, where Dave and Fanny had moved as soon as their wartime earnings had made them rich enough to do so, that she thought, ‘They won’t be there — perhaps I’ll have to just turn round and go back.’ Black depression settled on her and she half rose from her seat on the bus to get off. But she’d come this far, so she might as well go the rest of the way.

  The surge of relief she felt when she peered up at the block of flats on the corner and saw the light burning in the window of Number Seven lifted her spirits greatly. She went at a skip up the stairs scented with the familiar mixture of Jeyes fluid and soap — for this was a superior block that had a porter who kept it clean — and knocked cheerfully on the door, not caring who she might disturb, even though it was now past eleven-thirty, and most well-ordered London citizens were safely in bed.

  Dave answered the door. He stood for a moment, peering out at her in the dark hallway and then, as he saw who it was, split his face with a grin.

  ‘Well, if you ain’t a sight for the sorest eyes! Come in, doll, come in, take the weight off your feet and tell me how you are!’ He shepherded her into the flat with much delighted crowing, puffing at his inevitable cigar, and she let herself be bustled along, comforted by his patent delight in her presence.

  The flat breathed warmth and opulence at her from its lustrous chandeliers to its thick Turkey carpets and overstuffed chintz-covered furniture. Much as she disliked her sister Fanny and her pretensions, her vulgarity and the constant display of her wealth, she liked her flat. It had all the qualities she wanted in a place of her own, and when she wove daydreams about how her future life would be, she saw it in a flat much like this one, with its big square rooms, long hallway and the tile-lined bathroom with the big gas geyser that spewed out vast torrents of hot water. Now, as she reached the sitting room, and saw the cosiness of the sofa with its nearby standard lamp throwing a pool of warm glow on to it, she pulled off her hat and sank into its wide embrace with a deep sigh of satisfaction.

  Dave stood at the door and grinned, his mouth wide on each side of his cigar. ‘Oy, dolly, you look oysgermatert, you poor little nebbish —’

  She laughed up at him, amused as she always was by his Yiddishness. Fanny might irritate her profoundly, but not Dave. There was an engaging friendliness about him that was very disarming.

  ‘I look what?’

  ‘Oysgermatert! Worn out! Exhausted! Don’t you know nothin’?’

  ‘I don’t know much Yiddish,’ she said, resting her head on the back of the sofa. ‘But if that’s the Yiddish for the way I’m feeling I’ll try to remember it. I’m oysterwhateveritis.’ She yawned suddenly and shook her head so that her thick bobbed hair swung round her face and then settled back into its neat shape.

  He stared at her for a moment. ‘You need a little drink, maybe? I was having one myself, with Fanny being out and all. She fusses, a fella has a drop o’ schnapps, you know how it is. But I got some here —’

  She remembered then and was embarrassed for a moment. ‘I’m sorry — I should have said. You have someone ill in your family?’

  He shrugged and went over to the sideboard between the two wide windows to pour her a drink. ‘Listen, doll, she’s an alter kucker, a real oldie, my aunt, must be nearly eighty, the time comes for everyone, it’s come for her. But Fanny says we got to show willin’, you know how it is, so when my cousin sends a message I should come and I got business to look after she says all right, Benny should drive her, she’ll go over to the East End, do the right thing.’

  ‘Bessie went with her?’

  ‘Bessie’s a right gutene shuma — oy, I got to explain that, too? She’s a good soul, too good for her own good. Anyone wants anything, Bessie’s there to do it. I don’t have to tell you, hmm?’

  ‘No,’ Lexie said non-committally. She took the glass he put into her hand and sat and stared into it.

  He looked at her thoughtfully and after a moment said cheerfully, ‘So, there it is! I’m here all on my tod, and that glad to see you I could sing you a song.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, and drank deeply. Then, leaning back in the sofa again, she stared up at him. ‘Dave, what do you do when people call you a sheeny?’

  He laughed and sat down beside her, stretching his legs out widely. He was wearing carpet slippers, his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows and his braces were off his shoulders, dangling over his hips. He looked relaxed and comfortable in a way he rarely did when he came visiting at Victoria Park Road with Fanny.

  ‘What do I do? As long as they don’t throw nothing, and it don’t cost me no money, I much care! I chalk it up as another one against the lousy goyim and pay no attention. I should drey mein kopf over ignorant slobs that call me names? That’ll be the day, an’ I don’t think!’

  ‘It’s not always that easy,’ she said, and drank again.

  ‘Maybe you been lucky,’ he said and shot her a shrewd little glance. ‘Fanny goes on and on about how you never learned to be a good Yiddisher girl, always traipsin’ around with those farpotshket shows, but maybe you done better than us, at that. You don’t learn to be Yiddish, you don’t get people callin’ you names, because they don’t know you ain’t the same as them. Assimilation they call it, and for my part it’s no bad thing. Too late for me, but for you young ones — young Monty, he’s as English as a fella can be, with his spats and his topper and his fancy accent. His mother could die, the way he won’t go to shul, won’t live like a good Jew should, got his own place and all, but for my part it’s no bad thing. He don’t get people calling him names often neither. So when they do it feels worse, I suppose. You can’t win every game, though, can you? Who called you sheeny, doll?’

  ‘The girls in the show.’ She wriggled in her seat with the memory of it. Dave leaned closer, put his arm round her shoulder in an avuncular fashion and squeezed her.

  ‘That little bunch o’ shicksers? You worry they called you names? I saw them — when we came to that ferstinkeneh show — a right mess of little yoikelters on their way they are —’

  She gave a little crack of laughter. ‘You’re as bad as they are, Dave! They call me sheeny, so you call them shicksers and yoikelters —’

  He nodded, highly satisfied. ‘You see how good Yiddish can be? They can only insult you in one language — me, I can insult them in two — and Yiddish has some great words for insults. Believe me.’

  He hugged her close again. Lexie turned her head and laughed up at him, grateful for his cheerfulness and his comforting presence. He was right — it didn’t really matter. She wouldn’t worry about it. They were just stupid — shicksers. She drank again, aware that the brandy was reaching her shoulders and her face; her muscles felt tingly and it was an agreeable sensation.

  ‘I’m going to leave the show anyway,’ she said abruptly. ‘That’s what I�
�m going to do. I’m going to do better than back row of that mess —’

  ‘Attagirl! That’s the way to show ’em. You can do better than any of ’em, you can! You go out there and get in a better show and you won’t never have to worry what they call you —’

  ‘It’s not as easy as that,’ she said, and felt gloomy again. ‘You can’t just walk up to a producer and say, “Give me the lead in your new show, I’m the best dancer in town,” can you?’

  ‘Why not?’ he said. He got to his feet and was pouring second drinks for both of them, and he came back and sat down beside her again, a little closer this time so that she could feel the heat of his body through her thin frock. ‘It’s the way I do business! I see an opening, and I say to the guv’nor, “Here,” I say, “I got somethin’ good for you. It’ll cost you this and that, but it fetches you that and this,” and usually the fella says, “Yeah, okay, you got a deal.” Why not you? You go to a man puttin’ on a show, you say, “Here, I do this dance an’ I sing that song and the people’ll want to come and see me, so how about you put me in your show?”’

  She laughed, amused at his naïvety. ‘It doesn’t work that way, Dave. A show has a book, a story line, and its own songs and dances. You can’t just bring in your own. You’re talking about cabaret acts, people doing their own little show —’ She stopped, sat up a little straighter, and turned to stare at him. ‘What did I just say?’

  He blinked and looked puzzled. ‘Eh? You said I was talking about cabaret acts — or somethin’.’

  She laughed then, put her hand on his shoulder and almost shook it. ‘I did, didn’t I? I said cabaret acts! My God, I did. Of course, that’s what I want to do! My own act, my own choreography, my own music — that’d show them. My God, but that’d show them —’

  He emptied his glass and set it down on the small table beside him and then beamed at her. ‘Sure, doll, that’d show ’em ! I told you, it’s good business to tell people what you got and make ’em buy it your way! The schmutter business, the dancin’ around and singin’ business, what’s the difference? It’s all business! So, old Dave ain’t so bad, eh? He’s got good ideas for you, eh? Soon they’ll all be talkin’ about you, all over London, and it’ll be old Dave set you on the right track —’

  But her face had clouded as she sat back in her corner again. ‘It’s not going to be that easy. I need to get a good act together. Get some good songs, a pianist, a dancing partner maybe —’

  ‘So go get! That’s good business too. You got to speculate to accumulate. You heard that said often enough, surely! Speculate to accumulate,’ and he nodded owlishly at her, clearly pleased with the phrase, even though he was now having to concentrate on speaking it clearly.

  ‘It takes money,’ she said, leaning wearily back into her seat again. ‘A lot, to start a thing like that. I’d need time to get it together, to rehearse. Have to buy the songs, costumes—’

  ‘You need money?’ Suddenly the slurriness of his speech was gone and his eyes sharpened a little. ‘That’s no problem —’

  ‘Bessie’d find it, I suppose. She’s earning enough, she says, and she doesn’t spend a lot. And I know she’d want to. But —’ She wriggled in her seat again, but with irritation this time. ‘Oh, I don’t know — it’d be something else from her. She does too much as it is.’ And wants too much back, a small voice whispered deep in her secret mind. Wants loving and caring and company, and looks at you with those big eyes and says nothing, but wants and wants and wants —

  ‘There’s Mr Lazar,’ she said after a moment. ‘He got me the introduction to Peter Hyman that got me this job. Maybe if I put it to him —’

  ‘You don’t go getting no help from that mumser!’ Dave said with a sudden violence in his tone. She stared at him, puzzled for a moment, then remembered and grinned.

  ‘Oh, yes! I’d forgotten. You two don’t get on, do you? Had a row, Bessie said, but not what it was about. What was it about, Dave?’

  He shook his head and bit hard on the stump of his cigar, then irritably pulled it out of his mouth and ground it out in the ashtray beside him.

  ‘Never mind that,’ he grunted. ‘It’s none of your never mind. I got my own reasons for not liking Alex Lazar. Listen to him, you’d think everyone else in business was a crook. You got to be clever sometimes, I don’t deny, and I’m clever, I promise you that. But that don’t give the likes of Alex Lazar permission to go telling me what’s right and wrong. A cholera on him! Listen, doll, you need money to do whatever it is you want to do? Okay, you got it, Dave Fox’ll see to it. You don’t need no one else but me.’ He stopped then as she sat up and stared at him, her face alight with excitement. ‘Mind you, you don’t have to say nothin’ to Fanny about it. She’s a good girl, but she’s got different ideas to me. I got a lot of irons in the fire these days she don’t know nothin’ about and I want to keep it that way. This can be one of them —’

  ‘Oh, Dave!’ she said, and threw her arms round his neck and kissed him hard. ‘Oh, Dave, thank you! I won’t say a word to anyone! I know just what I’m going to do! I’m going to get Madame G. I knew that show’d fold once I left it, and anyway, with the war over who wants a show called Babies on Parade? She’s looking for a shop, I know she is, and I’ll take her on and she can play the piano for me and be a dresser and generally look after things. I know that’d work — I can make her do whatever I like, I always could — and then I’ll look for some good material and really get an act right and find an agent and everything —’

  She still had her arms around his neck and he was staring at her. Suddenly he leaned forwards and kissed her, but not in the way he had in the past, not the kiss on cheek or forehead that had been part of her growing up years. This was the same sort of kiss she had given Ambrose just a couple of hours ago, and as Dave’s mouth became more urgent on hers she felt the control she’d been exercising over her memory of that ten minutes in the dark alley outside the stage door slip and then crumble. Ambrose had been there in her arms and she’d kissed him with all the feeling she had in her and he’d pulled away. And then when that other man had come he had talked about bitches on heat, and now here was Dave kissing her and the feelings weren’t the same. It wasn’t Ambrose and it should be—

  Another memory came surging back; herself in a rain-stained chemise and drawers and wet black stockings, sitting in front of a hot fire in Cephas Street with Lenny Ganz. She had been crying inside because of Ambrose that time, too; he’d left her alone with a parcel of shoes to go off with a young man in a fur-collared overcoat, just as tonight he’d left her to go off with a tall young man with brilliantined hair. She thrust the memories, now inextricably entwined with each other, deep into her mind and refused to think about what was happening.

  ‘I’ll look after you, doll.’ Dave was holding her closer now, whispering thickly into her ear, and she could smell the mixture of cigar smoke and brandy that hung around him like a cloud. But it wasn’t unpleasant. He felt warm and strong, and it was Dave, someone she’d known all her life, and what did it matter anyway? Ambrose had called her a bitch on heat and maybe she was, after all, for there was a sensation inside her that was growing and rising and it was pleasant, even if it wasn’t the same as she had felt with Ambrose. What did it matter anyway, and if it made Dave feel good—

  If Fanny knew, what would she do? whispered that wicked little voice again in her ears as he kissed her again and his hands began to move across her body. If Fanny knew? If Bessie knew? And Alex Lazar who had been the one to send her to that lousy show where girls called her sheeny and Ambrose called her a bitch? They’d all be so angry and so noisy, there’d be tears and trouble and I’d be the one that had started it all. And I’m going to have my own act and he’s going to give it to me, and why not? It’s all so stupid anyway.

  And all through the rest of it, as he pulled her dress away from her small breasts, and nuzzled at them, as his heavy legs pushed hers apart and he fumbled at her belly and her groin, trying
to find his way, that was all she could think. It’s all so stupid, so really stupid, that I don’t know why they all make such a fuss about it and the girls giggle about it and leave me out of their giggling when I know how daft it is—

  And painful. Dreadfully, agonizingly painful. Then she was crying and not thinking about how stupid it was at all, as Dave, grunting and sweating, eyes closed and his face set in a grimace, rose and fell rhythmically above her, ignoring her cries of pain, and went on and on and on hurting her.

  15

  ‘You must be crazy!’ Ambrose said. ‘D’you really think I’d give up a sure part in an André Charlot revue to act as second string to you? Crazy!’

  ‘Not so crazy,’ she said equably. ‘Not when you think it through. What’s so special about the part you’ve got at the Vaudeville? Front row of the chorus — I grant you it’s the front row, but where do you go from there? Take over the lead? When will that be? Tomorrow or the day after, d’you think?’

  He flushed. ‘So, what’s wrong with chorus? It’s a steady job, and it’s a class show —’

  ‘But you’re not class in it. You need a decent solo spot for that, and I’m offering you one. I’ve already got someone sorting out cabaret bookings for me — good ones. Café Royal, Ambassador’s, Miramar Club —’ She spoke the names casually, praying he’d take her word for it and not ask for proof. He did, swallowing it whole. ‘And I’m offering you the chance to ride on my back. Of course, if you want to stay chorus with that lot, that’s up to you —’ She stood up and began to draw on her gloves. Lexie was looking particularly splendid today and she knew it, in a knee-length picture frock of emerald silk, with tiers of frills falling down the skirts, ending just below her knees to display silk-clad legs and small kid shoes, the whole ensemble surmounted by a very fetching cavalier hat well trimmed with matching ribbons. She stood there in the middle of the restaurant knowing she was being stared at, and waited until he did as she knew he would. He capitulated.