by Anne Douglas
A Selection of Recent Titles by Anne Douglas
CATHERINE’S LAND
AS THE YEARS GO BY
BRIDGE OF HOPE
THE BUTTERFLY GIRLS
GINGER STREET
A HIGHLAND ENGAGEMENT
THE ROAD TO THE SANDS
THE EDINBURGH BRIDE
THE GIRL FROM WISH LANE *
A SONG IN THE AIR *
THE KILT MAKER *
STARLIGHT *
* available from Severn House
STARLIGHT
Anne Douglas
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First world edition published 2010
in Great Britain and in the USA by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.
Copyright © 2010 by Anne Douglas.
All rights reserved.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Douglas, Anne, 1930–
Starlight.
1. Motion picture theatres – Employees – Scotland –
Edinburgh – Fiction. 2. World War, 1939–1945 – Social
aspects – Fiction. 3. Edinburgh (Scotland) – Social
conditions – 20th century – Fiction. 4. Love stories.
I. Title
823.9'14-dc22
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-181-1 (ePub)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6858-9(cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-211-6(trade paper)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
Part One
One
The evening before the interview, rain began to fall. Only summer rain, of course, for this was August. But miserable, all the same.
Jessica Raeburn, looking down at Leith’s Great Junction Street from the window of the flat that was her home, felt her spirits fall, along with the drops sliding down the pane. Supposing it was like this tomorrow? She’d have to go to the Princes Street Picture House wearing a mackintosh over Marguerite’s two-piece. So much for cutting a dash when she arrived!
‘Think it’ll fair up?’ she asked, turning to face her mother and sister, who were playing two-handed whist at the scrubbed wooden table in the flat’s living room. Beautiful women, both, they kept their blue eyes fixed on their cards, while to Jess, they looked as they usually did, like those classical figures you saw in the museums and such in Edinburgh. See their elegant noses and fine brows, their mouths like perfect bows!
‘Who can say?’ Marguerite asked absently, her mind on her next trick. Her fair hair was newly brushed, her face lightly powdered, and she was wearing a crisp blue cotton dress into which she’d changed after coming home from the teashop where she worked. Even if only playing cards with her mother, she was always very particular about her appearance.
What young man had she put off that evening? Jess was wondering, knowing that there were always admirers hanging about after Marguerite, very few ever getting very far. Too choosy, folk said, yet she wasn’t getting any younger. Twenty-nine that year! Imagine! But studying her sister’s beauty, Jess ran a finger along her own turned-up nose and sighed.
Of course, she knew she was attractive in her own way. Like her long dead father, and he’d been a good-looking man, her mother always said – before the enemy gas of the Great War killed him off three years after the Armistice. How nice it would have been, Jess sometimes thought, if he’d lived. Then there’d have been four in the family, instead of three.
Soft dark hair and gold-flecked green eyes, tall, slim and straight – yes, at twenty-three, she was attractive, as plenty of young men had told her, for she had her admirers, too, even if at present there was no one special. Just as well, as all she wanted to think about, on that wet summer evening in 1938, was her interview at the picture house tomorrow morning. If only it could be fine, so that she needn’t wear her old blue mackintosh over Marguerite’s smart grey two-piece!
Better not ask to borrow her sister’s good raincoat as well, though; it had been difficult enough to get her to lend her two-piece in the first place. Should really have saved up for something smart herself, Jess reflected, especially as she might have got it cost price at Dobson’s. Too late now. Unless, of course, she didn’t get the job at the Princes Street Picture House – but she wasn’t going to think of that.
Suddenly, the game was over. Marguerite threw up her hands and gave her mother an exasperated smile.
‘That’s it, then – thirteen tricks each. Nobody’s won.’
‘I can keep all my matches?’ Addie Raeburn asked, closing the lid on the box of spent matches, which were all she and her girls ever played for. ‘Och, I really thought I was going to go down.’
Though in her late forties, Addie could have been ten years younger, which always surprised Jess, who knew how much sorrow her mother had seen, and how hard she’d had to work. Before the war, Frank Raeburn had been an insurance agent and hadn’t done too badly, but after his death, there’d only been a widow’s pension of ten shillings a week. Addie’d had to take a job cooking in a restaurant and move from their Edinburgh flat to a smaller place in Leith where rents were cheaper.
This very flat they were in now, which was over a greengrocer’s; the only place Jess really knew, as she’d been only seven when they’d moved. But her mother had progressed since those early days, and now cooked luncheons for a ladies’ club in Edinburgh.
Very well, too, for that first restaurant’s chef had taught her to make excellent soups and sauces, casseroles and delicious things in pastry, little cakes and meringues and all sorts of good things. Her daughters knew, for she often brought leftovers home in a basket, always saying they should make the most of them for she couldn’t afford such cooking on her own budget. True, money was tight, but they considered themselves pretty lucky, eh? Compared with most in Leith.
Leaving Marguerite to gather up the cards, Addie now rose and said she’d make a cup of tea. As she moved into the tiny scullery where there was a gas cooker to boil the kettle, she said over her shoulder, ‘Shame about this rain, eh? We might all have gone for a nice walk to the Links.’
‘No’ me!’ Jess cried. ‘I’d to wash my hair and get my things together.’
‘All this fuss for that interview at the Princes,’ Marguerite said scornfully. ‘It’s only for a job in the box office, after all!’
‘I want it,’ Jess said firmly.
‘But you’ve got a good job in the cash desk at Dobson’s,’ her mother called from the scullery.
‘I want this one, I’m really keen.’ Jess shook her head, wondering how to make her interest plain. ‘It’s no’ just because I like going to the pictures . . .’
‘Though you do,’ put in Marguerite.
‘Yes, but it’s the Princes I like, too. It’s my favourite cinema, always has been. I think it’s beautiful and it’s where I want to work.’
‘Even if they’re paying five shillings a week less than Dobson’s? I think you’re crazy.’ Margueri
te was taking cups down from the dresser. ‘But you suit yourself what you do. All I want to say is, that if you spill anything on my best suit . . .’
‘I know, I know!’ Jess laughed. ‘I needn’t come home, eh? I’d better run away to sea – which will be handy, seeing it’s just up the road!’
Two
It was true enough that the sea was just up the road, though Marguerite and her mother always declared that it could hardly be seen for all the ships and sailing craft, docks, buoys, piers and various constructions that made up the Port of Leith. There was the Shore, yes, but that was just the harbour, and as Addie said, ‘hardly a beach, eh? Hardly golden sands, like at Portobello?’
Jess, however, didn’t care about golden sands. From being a small girl, she’d been thrilled by the activity and bustle of the new place where they’d come to live, and couldn’t understand why her folks didn’t feel the same. As for not seeing the sea, why there it was! Beyond all the ships and vessels and constructions of the port, miles and miles of exciting water that could make you think of all the places you might go and the people you might meet. Like the cinema, really.
Which was why Jess had set her heart on moving to the Princes Street Picture House. All right, she had a good job with Dobson’s Department Store on the North Bridge in Edinburgh, got on with everyone, did her work well. But instinctively she felt there was nothing there to excite her, to stimulate her, to make her feel there was a world beyond her own. The box office job might be no better than Marguerite had said, but it might bring her nearer, mightn’t it, to something different? Because the Princes itself was so different, and any job there would have to be different, anyway, from working on the cash desk at Dobson’s. She was right, Jess was certain, to try for it. Of course, she might not get it. She still wasn’t allowing herself to think of that.
In spite all that was on her mind for tomorrow, she was able to relax a little when she sat with her mother and Marguerite, having a cup of tea and a spice biscuit. The atmosphere of the living room – in fact, of the whole flat – was always pleasant, partly because Addie had the touch of a homemaker and even on her limited means had made it comfortable and even stylish, and partly because there were none of the pressures of tenement life.
They might not have the spacious rooms of some of the Old Town houses, but on the other hand, had nobody shouting down the stair, or drunks coming in late, kicking doors as they went by, or arguments over whose turn it was to hang washing on the green. Here, in the evenings, there was no one at all to bother them, and if during the day there was all the bustle of a busy greengrocer’s below, that didn’t matter, the Raeburns being out all day.
Besides, they got on well with Derry Beattie, who had taken over the shop from his elderly father. John Beattie had been their landlord when they’d first moved in, after he and his family had moved out to a nice solid house near the Links, Leith’s fine and historic open space of park and sports field. In those days, the flat had been very basic, with just a living room and two tiny bedrooms, one for Addie, one for the girls, but over the years there’d been improvements. A little bathroom. A scullery with a gas cooker. A separate entrance and stair.
All Derry’s idea, and sometimes Jess couldn’t help thinking guiltily it was because he was attracted to her mother. Shouldn’t think that, of course, for Derry had a wife, Moyra, who was a sweet character, and it might not even be true. It was just that whenever Addie went down to buy a few apples or a cabbage and Jess was with her, she’d see Derry hurrying to serve her, fixing his eyes on her and smiling, then knocking a penny or two off the prices.
But that was all there was in it, Jess was sure. Those lingering looks, those smiles. Probably her mother didn’t even notice, and wouldn’t have encouraged Derry, anyway, even if he’d been single. Her thoughts were with Frank, so long in his grave.
Och, I’ve probably got it all wrong, Jess would tell herself. And they did need a bathroom, didn’t they? And very nice it was.
Addie, still at the table, was now unfolding the evening paper and perching a pair of reading glasses on her fine nose.
‘Still no sign of this slump ending,’ she sighed. ‘Still so many poor laddies out of work, eh? When will things start looking up?’
‘They say only a war will do it,’ Marguerite murmured. ‘There’s talk of it.’
‘Another war?’ Addie’s eyes were horror-struck. ‘No, no, that couldn’t happen.’
‘It’s in all the papers, Ma. That fellow in Germany’s just dying to cause trouble.’
‘If I see anything about war, I never read it. It’s just impossible! Impossible it could happen all over again.’ Addie took off her glasses and folded the newspaper, her lips trembling. ‘When I think of what your dad went through – are they saying that’d all be for nothing?’
‘No, no, Ma, nobody’s saying that!’ Jess ran to put her arm round her mother’s shoulders. ‘The government will never let it get that far. They’ll never let Hitler cause another war.’
‘The government?’ Addie smiled wryly. ‘You think they can do something? Haven’t done much for the men on the dole.’
‘All this war stuff, it’s just talk, Ma,’ Marguerite said soothingly. ‘I’m sorry I mentioned it.’
‘Aye, well, let’s leave it, eh?’ Addie stood up. ‘It’s getting late, I think I’ll away to bed. You, too, Jess. You’ve your big day tomorrow.’
And lying in her small bed next to Marguerite in the old brass double that had once been their parents’, all thoughts of war had faded from Jess’s mind. In the half-light of the summer night, she could just make out the smart two-piece hanging on the cupboard door, and her best white blouse on the back of her chair. Everything else was also ready where she’d placed it earlier; her bag and high-heeled shoes by her bed, her hat on a peg on the back of the door. Now all she needed next day was good weather.
‘Marguerite,’ she whispered urgently.
‘What?’ her sister asked crossly.
‘Can you tell if it’s still raining? I think it’s stopped.’
‘You’re waking me up to ask about the rain? Honestly, Jess!’
‘Sorry. I’ll try to go to sleep now. Oh, but I’ve just thought – with so many out of work, d’you think there’ll be a lot in for the box office job?’
‘Oh, yes, they’ll be queuing from one end of Princes Street to the other!’ Marguerite cried, then laughed. ‘No, I don’t think there’ll be all that many. No’ everybody’s cup of tea. You’re going to get it anyway.’
‘Think so?’
‘Sure to. Now let’s say goodnight, eh?’
‘Goodnight, Marguerite. And thanks. Specially for your two-piece.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Marguerite, and almost immediately fell asleep, to be followed, amazingly, by Jess, who didn’t even dream. Or at least, if she did, couldn’t remember, when brilliant August sunshine woke her up the following morning.
Three
‘Queuing from one end of Princes Street to the other’?
Remembering Marguerite’s joke as she arrived at the picture house at ten o’clock precisely, Jess gave a sigh of relief that it hadn’t turned out to be true. After all, it might have been, with so many out of work and looking for jobs. But there was no one outside the Princes at all.
For a moment, she stood in the sunshine, for which she was giving heartfelt thanks, gazing at the cinema at the east end of Princes Street. Sandwiched in between shops, the white-walled building with its handsome glass entrance was not one of the largest cinemas in the city, but so attractive in its styling, inside and out, it was certainly one of the most popular. At least, with those who didn’t mind paying a wee bit more to get in.
And that, of course, had always been Jess, who was now adjusting the jacket of Marguerite’s two-piece and straightening its calf-length slim skirt. Not too over-dressed, was she? After her sister’s scornful words, she’d begun to worry that she might be and had decided against wearing her best hat, the one
she’d bought at Dobson’s for a friend’s wedding.
Better not look as though she was going to another wedding, eh? Or a garden party at Holyrood? Marguerite had been right, really. She was a working girl, applying for a working girl’s post, even if she did hope it might lead to all sorts of things. Her plain white hat would add just the right touch, and giving it a final tweak over her dark hair, Jess took a deep breath and entered the elegant vestibule of the Princes, just as the clock was striking ten.
There were seven other young women already waiting, and as their eyes ran over Jess, sizing up another rival, hers ran over them. What a relief! No one looked too different from her. She needn’t worry about being over-dressed, just smile, try to relax. What a hope, with her insides churning! But she did smile, and so did her rivals, as she asked cheerfully, ‘No’ late am I?’
‘Och, no, it’s just on ten,’ someone answered. ‘And we’ve just got here.’
‘Seen anybody yet?’
‘Aye, a lady came out of the foyer there, but just told us to wait, she’d be back in a minute.’
‘Here she is now,’ said a tall redhead, as a plump young woman in a blue dress and matching scarf appeared with a paper in her hand. She had a mass of lightly bleached blonde hair and round blue eyes, and as she gave them all a beaming smile, Jess remembered her.
‘Good morning, ladies, and welcome to the Princes Street Picture House. I’m Sally Dollar, in charge of the box office, which is in the foyer behind me – perhaps some of you’ve seen me before, on visits here?’
Oh, yes, Jess thought, she’d seen her before, when she’d bought her ticket, and had always thought how pleasant she looked in her little glass office.
‘But you’ll be interviewed by Mr Hawthorne, the manager,’ Miss Dollar was continuing. ‘In alphabetical order, so you’ll know where you stand. Now, is everyone here?’
Checking them off on her list, Miss Dollar told them that she’d first be giving them a quick tour of the cinema, and then there’d be a cup of tea or coffee in the Princes Cafe and Tea Room if they wanted it.
