Starlight

by Anne Douglas

  ‘It’s . . . well, I’ll admit, Jess, that what I have to say is not so easy to tell.’ John stirred his coffee, then studied the spoon. ‘Maybe I should have tackled it differently. Just told you straight out from the beginning.’

  As she waited, with her eyes fixed on his face, he met her gaze.

  ‘The fact is, Jess, that Keys and Keys want an entry into Princes Street. And they are prepared to pay a very good price for it.’

  ‘But, there is no entry into Princes Street!’ she cried. ‘There’s no space for another department store, is there?’

  ‘Except on the site of the Princes,’ he answered softly.

  Fifty-Nine

  There it was, then, the terrible thing. So terrible, she couldn’t take it in. The Princes Street Picture House wasn’t a site, it was a cinema. The best, the most beautiful cinema in the city. There was no way a department store could be built on a cinema, was there? So, what was John Syme talking about?

  Of course, she knew all the time, but once she’d heard his devastating words, her brain had blocked out their meaning, so that it was only underneath her consciousness that she understood her own question. And could provide an answer. The only way a store could be built on a cinema, was if the cinema were first demolished. Demolished. But ‘demolished’ was not a word she could at that moment accept.

  ‘Oh, God, Jess, you’ve gone so pale,’ John muttered. ‘Oh, you’re not going to faint, are you? It’s not as bad as that, not worth fainting over. Waiter, could we have some brandy over here? Quick as you can!’

  ‘I don’t want any brandy,’ Jess said, putting her hands to her face, as though she could feel her own pallor. ‘I’m quite all right.’

  ‘No, no, you’re not.’ John was twisting in his chair, trying to check the progress of the waiter, who was in fact already running with the brandy.

  ‘Over here, over here, that’s right. One for the young lady, and I’ll have one, too. Jess, drink that. Go on, it’s an order. We have to get you safely back to the Princes, remember. Go on, drink it.’

  And she did drink it and felt the feeling flooding back into her, bringing a pain so sharp it was as though someone had plunged a knife into her chest. How was she going to walk around with this knife in her chest? Well, people did. It was a well known fact, people could walk around for ages after being stabbed, before collapsing.

  But she was not going to collapse. No, she was going to be strong. And tell John Syme that this terrible thing could not happen.

  ‘I never dreamed you’d take it so badly,’ John was murmuring, shaking his head and downing his brandy. ‘I knew the Princes meant a lot to you, but not to make you feel there’d been a death or something, if it went.’

  A death or something. If the Princes were to be demolished, that’s what it would be. A death. No wonder she was feeling so full of grief. Could John really not understand that?

  ‘Tell me what’s been happening,’ she said as collectedly as possible. ‘How did this firm, Keys and Keys, know about the Princes. Did you tell them?’

  ‘Of course not. They did their own researches. Wanted to come to Scotland. Looked in Glasgow, looked in Edinburgh. Found a suitable site in Glasgow, that’s all taken care of, but couldn’t find anywhere in Princes Street. Nothing available. Then somebody saw the Princes.’

  ‘And you own the Princes.’

  ‘And I own the Princes – well, I and the company. They came to us. Made an offer we couldn’t refuse.’ John raised his hands apologetically. ‘You must see it their way. There are lots of cinemas, but not many on a prime site in Princes Street. All along, seems we’ve been sitting on a gold mine.’

  ‘You never thought it was too beautiful to pull down? That it would be a great loss?’ Jess’s eyes were full of angry tears. ‘You might say, there are lots of department stores. Why tear down something special to build something that isn’t special at all?’

  But, of course, she knew why, and the answer was money. They’d been given an offer they couldn’t refuse, John Syme and his board, which was why they would not mind destroying the Princes to put up another shop. They were businessmen, and if businessmen received an offer they couldn’t refuse, well, they didn’t refuse it.

  ‘Isn’t special?’ John was repeating ‘I don’t believe Keys and Keys would agree with you there, Jess. They think they are special, and I do, too. They’ll be a great asset to Princes Street.’

  ‘And you don’t think the Princes is an asset?’

  ‘It is, but the time’s coming when we just won’t need so many cinemas, Jess. I’m a realist, I’m facing that already. Television won’t kill the film industry, but it will bring changes. There’ll be fewer cinemas but they’ll be bigger, with these wide screens everybody says are coming.’ John hesitated. ‘You won’t want me to say this, but the Princes probably wouldn’t have survived anyway – it’s too small, too hard to adapt. Why not accept it has to go?’

  Jess was silent for some time, too weary to argue any more. Finally, with one last effort, she asked if the Keys and Keys offer had been formally accepted.

  ‘I’m afraid it has.’

  ‘But it’s not been finalized yet?’

  ‘Well, that takes time.’

  ‘So, you could still change your minds?’

  ‘No, that’s out of the question.’

  ‘I’m sure it could be done. If you wanted to, enough.’

  ‘The point is, Jess, we don’t want to at all. I’m sorry, you must face facts. Be strong, because you’re in charge. I’ll be sending everyone letters, but it will be your job to tell the staff.’

  She stared at him, the colour that had only recently returned to her face draining away as, for the first time, she remembered that she was not the only one to grieve over the Princes.

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ she murmured, snatching up her bag. ‘Thank you for the lunch, Mr Syme.’

  ‘Mr Syme? Oh, Jess!’

  He lifted his hand and a waiter appeared from nowhere with a folded paper on a silver-plated tray, which John glanced at and covered with notes and coins, nodding as the waiter bowed, then giving his arm to Jess.

  ‘Come on,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll see you back.’

  ‘I’m quite all right, I don’t need any help.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve had a shock. My fault. I should have handled this better. Thought I was doing the right thing, preparing you, but it was all wrong, wasn’t it?’

  ‘There was no right way,’ she said quietly.

  Slowly, they left the hotel, Jess allowing John to tuck her arm in his, for she did feel rather strange, and together walked to the Princes and stood looking at it. How elegant it was! How it stood out from all around it, with its pristine walls and its glass doors, shining in the sunlight!

  What was going through John’s mind, Jess wondered, as he saw again what was to be sacrificed for an offer that could not be refused? Would he be sorry? Would he, after all, change his mind?

  ‘You see, Jess,’ he said kindly, as they entered the glass doors, ‘it is too small, isn’t it? It could never be adapted for the wider screen.’

  In the foyer, watched covertly from the box office by Netta, John studied Jess’s face.

  ‘We still have a lot to discuss,’ he told her, ‘but I think you’d better come into Glasgow and we’ll go through it all then. For today, I’d go up and have a rest, Jess, if I were you. Try to come to terms with what’s been decided.’

  ‘A rest?’ She looked away from him, towards the stars’ photographs lining the walls. ‘I don’t see me resting, John.’

  ‘You won’t be out of a job yourself, you know. There are plenty of openings for you in Glasgow, or elsewhere, here. Maybe not managerial, but good jobs, all the same.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘I’ll give you details when you come over. We’ll hope to place some of the staff, too, so it shouldn’t be all gloom and doom when you break the news.’

  As he adjusted his trilby and smiled encouragingly, she stared at him incred
ulously. Had he no idea at all of how folk felt at the Princes? Did he really think they’d be content to be given some job – any job – when the place they loved closed down? He might be a wonderful businessman, but thank heavens he’d never been manager here, for one thing Jess had learned – and he clearly hadn’t – was that a manager needed to know what made his staff happy. She’d always done her best to learn that, and if it was all out of her hands now, maybe they’d remember and understand.

  ‘Goodbye, then, Jess,’ John called, as he left her. ‘Give me a ring to say when you are coming to Glasgow. Make it soon!’

  ‘Jess, are you all right?’ Netta asked, as Jess stood without moving. ‘You’re awful pale.’

  ‘A bit too warm for me today, maybe.’ Jess made an effort to smile. ‘You just going to open up?’

  ‘In about ten minutes. Think I can see some folk already waiting. Dying to see Danny Kaye!’ Netta laughed merrily. ‘Did you see that bit where he thought he was the surgeon? Calling for the watering can! Oh, my!’

  ‘Might have a peep in later. Cheer myself up.’

  As though anything could, Jess thought, walking with drooping shoulders to her office.

  Sixty

  Your job to tell the staff, John Syme had told her. And it proved to be the hardest work she’d ever done.

  Even getting them all together had been difficult, but somehow she’d managed it. Though most didn’t work in the mornings, she’d asked everyone to meet her at ten the following day in the auditorium. And on the stroke of ten, in they filed. Usherettes, cafe staff, cleaning ladies, Edie, Netta, Trevor, Fred and his new assistant, Gus, and the three she’d already told – Ben, Sally and Rusty.

  And in the quiet, dusty auditorium, with the curtained screen and silent organ behind her, she broke the news. That the Princes Picture House was to be demolished for its site by a department store, and that everyone, including herself, would lose their jobs. She couldn’t be more sorry. Well, they knew that, didn’t they?

  To begin with, there was stunned silence. People didn’t even look at each other, as, like Jess on first hearing it, they couldn’t take in the news. With sympathy, she watched, as they struggled to make sense of the words they’d never expected to hear. But who could imagine the Princes cinema’s being demolished? It had always been there, hadn’t it, a part of Edinburgh’s most famous street! At least, nobody could remember when it hadn’t been. And how could it possibly be true, that they’d come in that morning, still in work, and now saw their jobs going under the demolition hammer, along with their beautiful workplace? It was too much, so it was. They couldn’t be expected to understand.

  But, suddenly, the tongues loosened, the eyes flashed, and the words flew. Everyone vied with one another to express disgust, shock and disbelief. It wasn’t happening, was it? How could it be? How had Mr Syme sold them out, then? How could he have let the finest cinema in the city go to the owners of a department store who were going to flatten it to the ground?

  ‘What about the beautiful organ?’ Trevor cried, almost shedding tears. ‘What’s going to happen to that?’

  ‘What about all the oak panelling and the lovely pillars?’ Sally demanded. ‘And our pictures of the stars? That’s an archive, that is! That shouldn’t be destroyed.’

  ‘None of it should be destroyed,’ Ben said grimly. ‘But, that’s business for you. Everything bows to money.’

  ‘I suppose you canna blame Keys and Keys for wanting in to Princes Street,’ Joan Baxter said cautiously. ‘They’d know nothing about our cinema.’

  ‘Well, John Syme does,’ Ben retorted. ‘He’s the one I blame, not the store. He didn’t have to accept their offer, did he?’

  ‘An offer he couldn’t refuse,’ Jess said, blinking away tears.

  She looked at Rusty, who was lighting a cigarette and saying nothing, but then she’d already given him the news the previous evening.

  ‘So, what television might never have done, Keys and Keys have managed,’ he said softly. ‘I’m sorry, Jess. There’ll never be another cinema like the Princes.’

  She was so touched by his sympathy, she could think of no more to say, and was almost made uneasy by the way he could still surprise her.

  Now, trying to show strength before the dismay of those around her, she remembered that she should be passing on John Syme’s message of hope to the staff.

  ‘I just want to tell you all,’ she announced, ‘that Mr Syme said there would probably be jobs going in Glasgow, or even in Edinburgh, if you wanted to apply. So, don’t be too downhearted about finding other work.’

  ‘We don’t want other work,’ Pam from the cafe cried, her face twisting. ‘We like it here!’

  ‘And I’d got the cafe just the way I wanted it,’ sighed Joan Baxter. ‘Now I’ll have to start all over again.’

  ‘Aye, same as Vera and me,’ Mrs Watts, the senior cleaner put in. ‘And this place is classy, eh? Such marble and woodwork! Where else would you see that, then?’

  ‘Soon as you get keen on something, away it goes,’ Vera said dolefully. ‘But I never thought a whole picture house would go.’

  ‘Jobs in Edinburgh?’ Renie burst out. ‘Have you seen some of Mr Syme’s other cinemas? They’re nothing like the Princes, I can tell you!’

  ‘They are not,’ Faith agreed. ‘And I for one will never work in Glasgow. Who wants to travel in every day – pay out rail fare and get home God knows when! I’ll find ma own job, and no thanks to Mr Syme, eh?’

  ‘Me too,’ Edna chimed, and Edie and Fred nodded their heads.

  ‘It’s me for retirement,’ Fred declared. ‘Mebbe do odd jobs when I feel like it, eh?’

  ‘And I’ve worked in a nice place too long,’ Edie whispered, wiping her eyes. ‘There are no picture houses like this one, I might retire, too.’

  ‘How about you, Jess?’ Joan asked Jess. ‘You got anything in mind?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Jess answered flatly. ‘I can’t even think about it.’

  ‘You’ll find something good!’ someone shouted, and other voices agreed.

  ‘Somebody’ll snap you up, Jess!’

  ‘Who would that be?’ She laughed briefly. ‘Edie, shall we serve the tea now? There’s tea and coffee in the staffroom, everyone, if you’d like to make your way there.’

  ‘And coconut biscuits!’ Edie cried, brightening. ‘Used my own points to get them.’

  ‘Never find anyone else like you, Edie,’ Jess told her. ‘And isn’t it time those biscuits came off the ration?

  ‘Thanks very much for coming, everyone. And I wish you all good luck for the future.’

  ‘Too late to wish the Princes good luck,’ Ben said, drinking his coffee. ‘Ah, what a world we live in, don’t we? Everything good seems to go to the wall.’

  ‘Aye, and all those folk in the future buying their undies at Keys and Keys will never know what they’re missing,’ Renie said with a crooked little grin. ‘But what are you going to do now, Ben? Look for something here?’

  ‘Dunno,’ he answered, his brown-black eyes fixed on Jess, who was advancing with the teapot. ‘I wouldn’t mind Glasgow, to tell you the truth. I’m footloose and fancy free now, you know. Or will be, one day.’

  ‘Shame we’re not, eh, Jess?’ Renie laughed. ‘Only joking, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Ben said, still looking at Jess, but her thoughts were far away.

  Sixty-One

  ‘It’s a disgrace!’ Addie cried, when given the news of what was going to happen to the Princes. ‘It’s a scandal! To pull down that lovely place just for another shop. Whatever were the owners thinking of?’

  ‘The money, Ma,’ Marguerite told her. ‘What else?’

  She turned her eyes to Jess, who had thought by now, a couple of days later, that she’d be feeling better, but was in fact feeling worse. Only now was the reality of the situation beginning to sink in. The Princes to go, her job to go, perhaps her marriage, too, in spite of Rusty’s occasional sympathetic momen
ts.

  At least people who knew the Princes felt as she did. Poor George Hawthorne, of course. He’d been so upset over the news, Daisy said it had almost set him back. As though they needed another department store! Mind you, Keys and Keys, she’d heard, did have some very nice things, but to say that they were replacing the Princes, well, George would never get over it.

  ‘You will find something else?’ he’d asked Jess anxiously. ‘Mustn’t let your talents go to waste, you know. There’s that nice art deco place in Leith – you could try there. Not quite the same as the Princes, but might suit?’

  ‘Nothing is the same as the Princes,’ she had declared. ‘I’m no’ sure yet what I want to do.’

  ‘What about Ben?’ Marguerite was asking quietly. ‘What’s he going to do?’

  ‘He’ll have to hope someone wants a projectionist. He did once mention retraining as a television engineer, but I don’t think he was serious.’

  ‘And Rusty?’ asked Addie. ‘Is he going to stick with projection work?’

  ‘I don’t know about Rusty,’ Jess answered, after a pause. ‘We haven’t discussed the future.’

  Her mother and sister studied her for a moment, saying nothing, but thinking a lot, Jess knew. She picked up her jacket and bag, and said she’d better get back to the cinema – had only looked in to give her mother the bad news.

  ‘And I’d better get back to my flat,’ Marguerite said, rising. ‘I’ve got Guy coming round with his sister for a little supper.’

  ‘You should’ve said,’ her mother exclaimed. ‘I could’ve rustled up something nice.’

  Marguerite shook her head. ‘Got to show what I can do, Ma, thanks all the same. Especially as Rowena’s coming. She’s an expert on everything.’

  ‘Lucky you to be moving into that family,’ Addie said acidly. ‘That’s if you ever do.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll move in, all right,’ Marguerite retorted. ‘I’ll get my divorce one of these days.’

  Addie, shaking her head dolefully, put her hand on Jess’s arm.