Hettie of Hope Street

by Groves, Annie

  The air in the room smelled stalely of cheap scent and sweat, but despite that Hettie loved the atmosphere of the dressing room with its frantic bustle and sense of excitement and urgency.

  ‘’Ere, help me get out of these bloody feathers, will yer?’ Lizzie puffed, tugging at her headdress and heaving a sigh of relief when it was finally removed.

  ‘So what was ’e like then, ’Ettie?’ Babs asked her.

  ‘Well, he was…’

  Suddenly the dressing room door burst open and a woman rushed in still in full costume and make-up.

  ‘Oh gawd,’ Sukey muttered. ‘Now we’re in for it.’

  ‘Who is she?’ Hettie whispered curiously, as immediately all the girls seemed to be very busy ignoring the newcomer.

  ‘She’s the bloomin’ star, that’s wot, and she’s ’ere to mek trouble,’ Sukey told her.

  ‘Where is she, then?’ The imperious contralto voice rang theatrically round the now silent room.

  ‘Come on, you little sluts, no way are yer all deaf, even if yer dance like yer’ve never heard a tune in yer lives. Where’s the little slut wot’s bin making sheep’s eyes at my man?’

  ‘Just as well Maureen’s already left otherwise Gertie’d rip her to pieces,’ Babs muttered to Hettie.

  ‘Gertie, my darling, what on earth are you doing in here?’

  Hettie goggled as a tall, handsome, blond-haired man walked into the room, ignoring the chorus girls and approaching the infuriated contralto.

  ‘You know bloody well what I’m doing,’ the contralto howled. ‘I’m looking for that little whore you’ve been seeing behind me back, that’s what. Well, you won’t be doing it no more, matey.’

  Before he could move, she had picked up one of the heavy hand mirrors the girls used to check the back of their costumes and brought it down hard on a place no lady ever looked at on a gentleman. As he doubled up in pain Babs whispered, ‘Gawd, she’s cracked ’im one right in the Kaisers,’ sounding more impressed than shocked. ‘Bloody ’ell that will put an end to his messing about.’

  ‘If you touch that little tart again, I’m cutting it right…’

  As they both left the dressing room still arguing, Hettie looked at Babs and asked her curiously, ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘Well, she’s the star of the show, see, and ’e’s one of the angels.’

  ‘What’s an angel?’ Hettie interrupted.

  Lizzie, who had been listening, sighed and explained, ‘An angel is wot we calls someone wot puts up the money to put on a show. Bertie has a bankful of money he got for marrying his wife.’

  ‘He’s married but…’

  ‘Gawd, but you’re a know-nothing, ain’t yer, Miss Innocent. Of course he’s married. They allus are. But that don’t stop any of them messing about, like. Of course, the moment Gertie clapped eyes on him she’d got her mind set on ’im and ’oo can blame her? It’s part of tradition, see, that the leading lady gets her choice of the men, and ’eaven help any hoofer wot steps out of line on to her territory. Mind you, it’s past time Gertie retired, and if you want my opinion it’s because she’s so old that he’s bin messin’ around with Maureen behind Gertie’s back.’

  ‘She didn’t look very old,’ Hettie had to protest. She had looked very glamorous with her rouged cheeks, cherry-red lips, and her short skirt revealing her legs.

  ‘That’s on account of all the greasepaint. You oughta see ’er close up. More lines on her face than a tram station, she’s got. Anyway it was when we wus doing Cinderella a couple of seasons back that Bertie first come on the scene. Madam there was swarming all over ’im right from the start, and of course it weren’t too long before ’e got the message and the two of ’em became an item, like. But now he’s getting fed up wi’ her and he’s got a bit of an eye for our Maureen who better watch out because that thump she gave him in the balls is nothing to what Gertie’s likely to do to her. Gawd, she left the girl who made eyes at her last fella wi’ a right nasty scar on her face. Threw acid at her, so I ’eard.’

  Hettie gasped with shock.

  ‘There, don’t look so scared, young un,’ Lizzie comforted her. ‘She won’t do owt to ’arm you, why should she? So, what did you think of ’im, then, Ma Buchanan’s ’usband?’

  ‘He was kind and very jolly, not like I expected at all,’ Hettie told her innocently.

  ‘Was he now. Well, you just look out for men wot is kind to yer, cos like as not they’ll want sommat from yer, if yer knows what I mean,’ Lizzie warned her darkly.

  Half an hour later, they all trooped out into the autumn sunshine, laughing and joking as they hurried to the chop house a short walk away from the theatre. The owner of the chop house gave them a good reduction off his normal prices on the understanding that they came in to eat earlier than the other customers, and brought their gentleman admirers in whenever they were asked out to dinner by them.

  Hettie was hungry and she breathed in the warm, roasting-meat scented air appreciatively as she slid into one of the banquettes.

  ‘’Ere comes your admirer.’ Sukey nudged her when the owner’s young son suddenly appeared at their table.

  He was still at school, and only just beginning to shave, but he had still Brilliantined his hair and he blushed bright red as he looked at Hettie. ‘’Ave the steak pie,’ he advised her in a mutter. ‘Me Da has ’ad the chops in for so long they’re about to get up and walk out of their own accord.’

  ‘Yes, we’ll all have a bit o’ it, young Max, and make sure we gets plenty of gravy and ’taters wi’ it,’ Lizzie told him firmly. ‘And yer can stop gawking at our ’Ettie as well, otherwise yer ears will be getting a rare boxing. Cheek of it!’

  They all laughed, including Hettie, but the truth was that she was grateful to her new friends for their protection of her, not from Max, of course, but from everything that was so new and alien to her. She didn’t know what she would have done without them.

  ‘I’ll be right glad when that red-headed lad is gone,’ Jim told John grimly as they stood watching the group of young men sauntering across the airstrip in the direction of their accommodation. ‘You can’t tell him anything. He thinks he knows it all, and he’s beginning to get the others thinking the same way. It’s not even as though he’s going to make a good flyer. Too much of a risk-taker by half, he is. I caught him trying to get into the hangar this morning when his lesson wasn’t until after dinner.’

  John frowned. ‘Did he say what he was doing there?’

  ‘Aye, sommat about having left his helmet in there, but I’d been in there working meself and there was no helmet there.’

  ‘Would you prefer me to take him up for the rest of his lessons?’ John offered. Normally they split the students into two and then kept them in those groups so that they could monitor their progress individually.

  ‘Nah. I’ve made sure he knows I’m on to him, and I gave him a bit of dressing down in front of the others this afternoon, told him that the only way he’d ever be good enough to loop the loop would be with a toy flying machine. By the way, did you manage to get the photographs you wanted?’

  John had spent most of the day photographing the North West coastline for a government department whilst one of his previous students had come over for the day to fly the machine for him. The Ministry paid well and promptly, and he certainly needed the money.

  He had read in the papers that a certain type of wealthy young rip was now making flying lessons extremely fashionable, and that flying clubs were springing up all over the country to cater for their new passion. These wealthy young socialites apparently liked nothing better than to drive up to their flying club in their expensive motors, and then take to the skies to show off their skills to their admiring friends and ‘popsies’, as the article had referred to their lady friends. He suppose he shouldn’t have been surprised after what Alfie had said about his new venture when they had met up at the Adelphi, the same weekend as his quarrel with Hettie. He may not have seen Hettie since
, John admitted, but that did not mean he hadn’t been thinking about her – and worrying about her, too.

  Them as who had written that article ought to come up to Lancashire and see how real people lived. But of course the likes of the young toffs the article had referred to did not have to concern themselves with the problem of the country’s two million unemployed, John acknowledged bitterly. He had never thought of himself as an activist of any kind, but he had seen at first hand what poverty did to people. As a lad growing up under the roof of a father who was a butcher, his belly had always been full; but after their mother’s death, with the four of them – Ellie, Connie, baby Philip and himself – shared out amongst his mother’s sisters to be brought up by them, he had come to discover what hardship was.

  You only had to go to Liverpool’s once proud docks and look into the pinched bitter faces of its working men to know the true state of the country, John reflected. The country was in a sorry way and his business with it. Tomorrow, instead of dressing himself up in the cast-off suit of Gideon’s that Ellie had sent up for him and sitting watching Hettie sing, he should by rights have been working on his figures and thinking of ways to bring in some much needed extra money. His flying machines were sound enough but getting old. He thought enviously of the new machines Alfred had told him he was ordering for his own club. The science of building flying machines was changing almost by the day. Only weeks ago the Americans had stunned the world by announcing that they had used flying machines to drop bombs on a captured German boat.

  If the unthinkable happened and there should be another war, would his beloved flying machines be used to rain death down out of the skies? If so, John prayed he would not be there to witness it.

  NINE

  Having refused Connie’s suggestion that she come to her house to prepare for her debut, and that Connie and Harry escort her to the Adelphi, Hettie was now wishing she had agreed and was longing for the support of those closest to her as she stood in her shift and gazed anxiously at her red gown.

  ‘’Ee tha looks that pale, ’Ettie. Not getting nervous, are yer?’ one of the girls asked her sympathetically.

  ‘Only a little,’ Hettie fibbed.

  ‘Everyone gets stage-fright, Hettie,’ Babs comforted her. ‘But yer family are going to be there, didn’t yer say?’

  ‘Yes. Mam and Da, and Aunt Connie, and Mam’s cousin Cecily. And John has promised to be there as well,’ Hettie added.

  ‘John? So ’oo’s this John, then?’ Babs teased.

  ‘He’s Mam’s younger brother,’ Hettie explained.

  ‘So ’e’s yer uncle, then?’

  Hettie shook her head. ‘No, because Mam is my step-mother – I’m adopted, you see. John and I are the best of friends, thick as thieves – or we used to be anyway,’ Hettie trailed off.

  ‘Oh ho, I see now, and yer sweet on this ’ere John, are yer?’

  ‘No,’ Hettie denied, but she still couldn’t help blushing as Babs laughed at her.

  ‘Oh yes you are, I can tell. Tell us all about him then, ’Ettie. Good-looking, is he?’ Mary demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ Hettie admitted honestly. ‘But it isn’t like that, Mary.’

  ‘No, of course it ain’t, and I’m a monkey’s uncle.’ She laughed and winked. ‘I wish we wasn’t doing a matinée and then we could come along and get a look at this ’ere John of yours.’

  Hettie bit her lip, uncomfortably aware that she was actually relieved the girls would not be there. She loved them dearly and they were terrific fun, but somehow she suspected Ellie would not see them in the same light as she did.

  ‘Who are you kidding, Mary?’ Lizzie challenged her. ‘No way would they let the likes of us in the Adelphi for afternoon tea.’

  ‘Why not? My money’s as good as the next person’s, I’ll thank you to know,’ Mary responded pertly in a mock posh voice, tossing her hair as she did so.

  ‘Come on, let’s get Hettie into her frock and get a bit of rouge on her face to liven her up a bit,’ Babs broke in.

  Hettie held her breath as Babs took control.

  ‘Ooh. Yer look a real treat,’ Babs breathed approvingly. ‘Doesn’t she, girls?’

  ‘Aye, a real treat for some masher, who will want ter gobble her up whilst his wife’s sipping her tea,’ one wit chirped up, making the others laugh and Hettie blush nervously. She felt uncomfortable at the constant talk of men leering at women and especially at her. Maybe at the Royal Court but she couldn’t imagine such a thing happening at the Adelphi.

  ‘You watch out for them posh chaps, Hettie. They’ll only be after one thing, mind, no matter what they tells yer. And then before yer know it you’ve got a swelling belly and no wedding ring.’

  ‘Leave off, Mavis, that’s enough of that vulgar talk,’ Lizzie scolded. ‘Hettie isn’t like that…’

  ‘Mebbe she ain’t, but show me a fella who ain’t and I’ll show yer an Ethel,’ Mavis, one of the other girls Hettie hadn’t spoken to much so far, chortled.

  ‘What’s an Ethel?’ Hettie asked Lizzie in bewilderment.

  ‘Oh now see what yer’ve done, Mavis,’ Lizzie complained.

  ‘It ain’t my fault if the kid’s too green to know what’s what.’ Mavis shrugged.

  ‘Well, I suppose it u’ll have to be me who has to tell her then.’ Lizzie sighed. ‘An Ethel, ’Ettie, is what we calls a man who isn’t a proper man, like.’

  ‘Not a proper man?’ Hettie was still confused.

  ‘What Lizzie means is that an Ethel is a chap wot only does it with other men,’ Mavis clarified, adding bluntly in case Hettie still hadn’t grasped what she was trying to say: ‘Instead of shoving it up a woman like other men, he wants to shove it up another chap’s arse.’

  Hettie’s face went brick red with embarrassment and shocked disbelief. She knew in a vague sort of way what happened between married couples, although it had never been fully explained to her, but now Mavis’s brutally frank explanation had shocked her on two counts.

  ‘’Ere, that’s enough, Mavis. The poor kid doesn’t need to know about that,’ Babs told her, adding, ‘Come on, ’Ettie, let’s brush yer hair for yer, and put this flower in it’.

  She had to say one thing for her chorus line friends: they were expert ladies’ maids, Hettie admitted, as her hair was brushed and then rolled into sleek elegance and a pretty red silk flower pinned into it.

  ‘All yer needs now is a touch of carmine on yer lips – yer don’t need no blackin’ on yer eyelashes like blondes do.’

  Hettie wasn’t sure she should be wearing the carmine either but she didn’t want to offend kind-hearted Babs by saying so. She could always rub it off before her family saw her, she consoled herself as her helpers finally decided she was ready for her debut.

  John stepped out of the tin bath and reached for one of the cans of water he had filled earlier, leaning over the bath to sluice his head and torso with it before repeating the exercise for the lower half of his body whilst standing in the now tepid bath water itself.

  The sunlight coming in through the cottage’s small windows gleamed on flesh pulled taut against firm muscles, his arms and chest tanned brown from the hours he spent shirtless, working to ensure that the grass his sheep didn’t crop was kept short enough for the flying machines to land on.

  John was not a vain man – he had more important things to worry about than silly lasses – but Ellie was for ever sighing over him and telling him he was the image of their good-looking father, and John had seen the looks young women gave him.

  He reached for a towel and started to dry himself. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the thought of spending such a perfect flying day sitting togged up in a straitjacket of a suit, sipping tea, was not one that appealed to him. But Connie had told him how Hettie had begged her to ask him to go.

  Luckily there were no flying lessons on today’s schedule, the students instead receiving instruction from Jim on the maintenance of flying machines.

  John dressed quickly,
smoothing his hair straight, and wondering if he would have time for a bite to eat when he got to the station. He had decided to cycle there rather than walk which meant he would have to fold up his suit jacket instead of wearing it.

  He looked at his watch. Jim would have started his lecture, and rather than go and interrupt him John decided he would leave without saying goodbye to him.

  He was half a mile from the station when he heard the familiar sound of the flying machine’s engine. Frowning, he stopped pedalling and got off his bike to look up. Suddenly, with an awkward movement, the pilot took the machine into an amateurish and unsafe loop.

  ‘Christ, you fool, you’re too low; you’re too bloody low, climb. Get back up. Get back up!’

  John was screaming the words into the sky as he got back on his bike and started to cycle as fast as he could back to the airfield. The flying machine was floating in the sky belly up, the engine stuttering as the machine lost height while it slowly rolled over.

  John prayed as he had never prayed in his life, even though he knew it was futile. The machine was so low that he could see the four helmeted heads in the cockpit.

  ‘Ease back, ease back, give her a chance to get some air and then take her up, take her up…Oh God, Oh God,’ he heard himself cry.

  The engine coughed, and then the machine surged forward, before the engine coughed again and then died, the sounds of its struggle followed by an eerie silence, and then a mighty bang.

  John could see the plume of black smoke rising like a pall, but then there was a second horrific explosion, with flames and smoke shooting up into the sky.

  Ahead of him lay the airfield. Where the flying machine hangar had been there was now merely flames and smoke.

  Leaving his bike he ran towards the inferno. Jim was in there somewhere. Jim, his friend and partner. Jim, who had warned him that he feared their rebellious student would do something reckless. Jim, who he hadn’t listened to, because he had had more important things on his mind. Jim, who was now being burned alive because of him…