*
I had a week to study the part before opening at the London Coliseum. Karno told me to go to Shepherd’s Bush Empire, where The Football Match was playing, and to watch the man whose part I was to play. I must confess he was dull and self-conscious and, without false modesty, I knew that I had him beat. The part needed more burlesque. I made up my mind to play him just that way.
I was given only two rehearsals, as Mr Weldon was not available for more; in fact, he was rather annoyed at having to show up at all because it broke into his game of golf.
At rehearsals I was not impressive. Being a slow reader, I felt that Weldon had reservations about my competence. Sydney, having played the same part, might have helped me had he been in London, but he was playing in the provinces in another sketch.
Although The Football Match was a burlesque slapstick affair, there was not a laugh in it until Weldon appeared. Everything led up to his entrance, and of course Weldon, excellent comedian that he was, kept the audience in continuous laughter from the moment he came on.
On the opening night at the Coliseum my nerves were wound tight like a clock. That night meant re-establishing my confidence and wiping out the disgrace of that nightmare at the Foresters’. At the back of the enormous stage I walked up and down, with anxiety superimposed on fear, praying to myself.
There was the music! The curtain rose! On the stage was a chorus of men exercising. Eventually they exited, leaving the stage empty. That was my cue. In an emotional chaos I went on. One either rises to an occasion or succumbs to it. The moment I walked on to the stage I was relieved, everything was clear. I entered with my back to the audience – an idea of my own. From the back I looked immaculate, dressed in a frock-coat, top-hat, cane and spats – a typical Edwardian villain. Then I turned, showing my red nose. There was a laugh. That ingratiated me with the audience. I shrugged melodramatically, then snapped my fingers and veered across the stage, tripping over a dumb-bell. Then my cane became entangled with an upright punching bag, which rebounded and slapped me in the face. I swaggered and swung, hitting myself with my cane on the side of the head. The audience roared.
Now I was relaxed and full of invention. I could have held the stage for five minutes and kept them laughing without uttering a word. In the midst of my villainous strutting my trousers began to fall down. I had lost a button. I began looking for it. I picked up an imaginary something, then indignantly threw it aside: ‘Those confounded rabbits!’ Another laugh.
Harry Weldon’s head came round the wings like a full moon. There had never been a laugh before he came on.
When he made his entrance I dramatically grabbed his wrist and whispered: ‘Quick! I’m undone! A pin!’ All this was ad lib and unrehearsed. I had conditioned the audience well for Harry, he was a tremendous success that evening and together we added many extra laughs. When the curtain came down, I knew I had made good. Several members of the troupe shook hands and congratulated me. On the way to the dressing-room, Weldon looked over his shoulder and said dryly: ‘That was all right – fine!’
That night I walked home to get unwound. I paused and leaned over Westminster Bridge and watched the dark, silky waters drifting under it. I wanted to weep for joy, but I couldn’t. I kept straining and grimacing, but no tears would come, I was empty. From Westminster Bridge I walked to the Elephant and Castle and stopped at a coffee-stall for a cup of tea. I wanted to talk to someone, but Sydney was in the provinces. If only he were here so that I could tell him about tonight, how much it all meant to me, especially after the Foresters’.
I could not sleep. From the Elephant and Castle I went on to Kennington Gate and had another cup of tea. On the way I kept talking and laughing to myself. It was five in the morning before I got to bed, exhausted.
Mr Karno was not there the first night, but came the third, on which occasion I received applause when I made my entrance. He came round afterwards, all smiles, and told me to come to his office in the morning and sign the contract.
I had not written to Sydney about the first night, but sent him a succinct wire: ‘Have signed contract for one year at four pounds per week. Love, Charlie.’ The Football Match stayed in London fourteen weeks, then went on tour.
Weldon’s comedy character was of the cretinous type, a slow-speaking Lancashire boob. That went very well in the North of England, but in the South he was not too well received. Bristol, Cardiff, Plymouth, Southampton, were slump towns for Weldon; during those weeks he was irritable and performed perfunctorily and took his spleen out on me. In the show he had to slap and knock me about quite a bit. This was called ‘taking the nap’, that is, he would pretend to hit me in the face, but someone would slap their hands in the wings to give it a realistic effect. Sometimes he really slapped me and unnecessarily hard, provoked, I think, by jealousy.
In Belfast the situation came to a head. The critics had given Weldon a dreadful panning, but had praised my performance. This was intolerable to Weldon, so that night on the stage he let me have a good one which took all the comedy out of me and made my nose bleed. Afterwards I told him that if he did it again I would brain him with one of the dumb-bells on the stage, and added that if he was jealous, not to take it out on me.
‘Jealous of you,’ said he contemptuously, on our way to the dressing-room. ‘Why, I have more talent in my arse than you have in your whole body!’
‘That’s where your talent lies,’ I retorted, and quickly closed the dressing-room door.
*
When Sydney came to town we decided to get a flat in the Brixton Road and to furnish it to the extent of forty pounds. We went to a second-hand furniture shop in Newington Butts and told the owner how much we could afford to spend, and that we had four rooms to furnish. The owner took a personal interest in our problem and spent many hours helping us pick out bargains. We carpeted the front room and linoleumed the others and bought an upholstered suite – a couch and two armchairs. In one corner of the sitting-room we put a fretwork Moorish screen, lighted from behind by a coloured yellow bulb, and in the opposite corner, on a gilt easel, a pastel in a gilded frame. The picture was of a nude model standing on a pedestal, looking sideways over her shoulder as a bearded artist is about to brush a fly off her bottom. This objet d’art and the screen, I thought, made the room. The final décor was a combination of a Moorish cigarette shop and a French whore-house. But we loved it. We even bought an upright piano, and although we spent fifteen pounds over our budget, we certainly had value for it. The flat at 15 Glenshaw Mansions, Brixton Road, was our cherished haven. How we looked forward to it after playing in the provinces! We were now prosperous enough to help Grandfather and give him ten shillings a week and we were able to engage a maid to come twice a week and clean up the flat, but it was hardly necessary, for we rarely disturbed a thing. We lived in it as though it were a holy temple. Sydney and I would sit in our bulky armchairs with smug satisfaction. We had bought a raised brass fender with red leather seating around it and I would go from the armchair to the fender, testing them for comfort.
*
At sixteen my idea of romance had been inspired by a theatrical poster showing a girl standing on a cliff with the wind blowing through her hair. I imagined myself playing golf with her-a game I loathe – walking over the dewy downs, indulging in throbbing sentiment, health and nature. That was romance. But young love is something else. It usually follows a uniform pattern. Because of a glance, a few words at the beginning (usually asinine words), in a matter of minutes the whole aspect of life is changed, all nature is in sympathy with us, and suddenly reveals its hidden joys. And that is what happened to me.
I was almost nineteen and already a successful comedian in the Karno Company, but something was lacking. Spring had come and gone and summer was upon me with an emptiness. My daily routine was stale, my environment dreary. I could see nothing in my future but a commonplaceness among dull, commonplace people. To be occupied with the business of just grubbing for a living was not good eno
ugh. Life was menial and lacked enchantment. I grew melancholy and dissatisfied and took lonely walks on Sunday and listened to park bands. I could support neither my own company nor that of anyone else. And of course, the obvious thing happened: I fell in love.
We were playing at the Streatham Empire. In those days we performed at two or three music halls nightly, travelling from one to the other in a private bus. At Streatham we were on early in order to appear later at the Canterbury Music Hall and then the Tivoli. It was daylight when we started work. The heat was oppressive and the Streatham Empire was half empty, which, incidentally, did not detract from my melancholy.
A song-and-dance troupe preceded us called ‘Bert Coutts’ Yankee-Doodle Girls.’ I was hardly aware of them. But the second evening, while I stood in the wings indifferent and apathetic, one of the girls slipped during the dance and the others began to giggle. One looked off and caught my eye to see if I was also enjoying the joke. I was suddenly held by two large brown eyes sparkling mischievously, belonging to a slim gazelle with a shapely oval face, a bewitching full mouth, and beautiful teeth – the effect was electric. When she came off, she asked me to hold a small mirror while she arranged her hair. This gave me a chance to scrutinize her. That was the beginning. By Wednesday I had asked her if I could meet her on Sunday. She laughed. ‘I don’t even know what you look like without the red nose!’ – I was playing the comedy drunk in Mumming Birds, dressed in long tails and a white tie.
‘My nose is not quite this red, I hope, and I’m not quite as decrepit as I look,’ I said, ‘and to prove it I’ll bring a photo of myself tomorrow night.’
I gave her what I thought was a flattering one of a sad, callow youth, wearing a black stock tie.
‘Oh, but you’re quite young,’ she said. ‘I thought you were much older.’
‘How old did you think I was?’
‘At least thirty.’
I smiled. ‘I’m going on for nineteen.’
As we were rehearsing every day, it was impossible to meet her during the week. However, she promised to meet me at Kennington Gate at four O’clock on Sunday afternoon.
Sunday was a perfect summer’s day and the sun shone continuously. I wore a dark suit that was cut smartly in at the waist, also a dark stock tie, and sported a black ebony cane. It was ten minutes to four, and I was all nerves, waiting and watching passengers alighting from tram-cars.
As I waited I realized I had not seen her without make-up. I began to lose the vision of what she looked like. Much as I tried, I could not recall her features. A mild fear seized me. Perhaps her beauty was bogus! An illusion! Every ordinary-looking young girl that alighted sent me into throes of despair. Would I be disappointed? Had I been duped by my own imagination or by the artifices of theatrical make-up?
At three minutes to four, someone got off a tram-car and came towards me. My heart sank. Her looks were disappointing. The depressing thought of facing the whole afternoon with her, keeping up a pretence of enthusiasm, was already deplorable. However, I raised my hat and beamed; she stared indignantly and passed on. Thank God it was not she.
Then precisely at one minute past four, a young girl alighted from a tram-car, came forward and stopped before me. She was without make-up and looked more beautiful than ever, wearing a simple sailor hat, a blue reefer coat with brass buttons, with her hands dug deep in her overcoat pockets. ‘Here I am,’ she said.
Her presence so overwhelmed me that I could hardly talk. I became agitated. I could think of nothing to say or do. ‘Let’s take a taxi,’ I said huskily, looking up and down the road, then turned to her. ‘Where would you like to go?’
She shrugged. ‘Anywhere.’
‘Then let’s go over to the West End for dinner.’
‘I’ve had dinner,’ she said calmly.
‘We’ll discuss it in the taxi,’ I said.
The intensity of my emotion must have bewildered her, for all during the drive I kept repeating: ‘I know I’m going to regret this – you’re too beautiful!’ I tried vainly to be amusing and impress her. I had drawn three pounds from the bank and had planned to take her to the Trocadero, where, in an atmosphere of music and plush elegance, she could see me under the most romantic auspices. I wanted to sweep her off her feet. But she remained cool-eyed and somewhat perplexed at my utterances, one in particular: that she was my Nemesis, a word I had recently acquired.
How little she understood what it all meant to me. It had little to do with sex; more important was her association. To meet elegance and beauty in my station of life was rare.
That evening at the Trocadero, I tried to persuade her to have dinner, but to no avail. She would have a sandwich to keep me company, she said. As we were occupying a whole table in a very posh restaurant, I felt it incumbent to order an elaborate meal which I really did not want. The dinner was a solemn ordeal: I was uncertain which implement to eat with. I bluffed through the meal with a dégagé charm, even to my casualness in using the finger-bowl, but I think we were both happy to leave the restaurant and relax.
After the Trocadero she decided to go home. I suggested a taxi, but she preferred to walk. As she lived in Camberwell nothing suited me better; it meant I could spend more time with her.
Now that my emotions had simmered down she seemed more at ease. That evening we walked along the Thames Embankment, Hetty chattering away about her girl friends, pleasantries and other inconsequential things. But I was hardly aware of what she was saying. I only knew that the night was ecstatic – that I was walking in Paradise with inner blissful excitement.
After I left her I returned to the Embankment, possessed! And illumined with kindly light and a fervent goodwill, I distributed among the derelicts who slept on the Thames Embankment the remainder of my three pounds.
We promised to meet the following morning at seven o’clock because she had rehearsals at eight o’clock somewhere in Shaftesbury Avenue. It was a walk of about a mile and a half from her house to the Underground in the Westminster Bridge Road, and although I worked late, never getting to bed before two o’clock, I was up at dawn to meet her.
Camberwell Road was now touched with magic because Hetty Kelly lived there. Those morning walks with hands clasped all the way to the Underground were bliss mingled with confused longings. Shabby, depressing Camberwell Road, which I used to avoid, now had lure as I walked in its morning mist, thrilled at Hetty’s outline in the distance coming towards me. During those walks I never remembered anything she said. I was too enthralled, believing that a mystic force had brought us together and that our union was an affinity predetermined by fate.
Three mornings I had known her; three abbreviated little mornings which made the rest of the day non-existent, until the next morning. But on the fourth morning her manner changed. She met me coldly, without enthusiasm, and would not take my hand. I reproached her for it and jokingly accused her of not being in love with me.
‘You expect too much,’ she said. ‘After all I am only fifteen and you are four years older than I am.’
I would not assimilate the sense of her remark. But I could not ignore the distance she had suddenly placed between us. She was looking straight ahead, walking elegantly with a schoolgirl stride, both hands dug in her overcoat pockets.
‘In other words, you really don’t love me,’ I said.
‘I don’t know,’ she answered.
I was stunned. ‘If you don’t know, then you don’t.’ For answer, she walked in silence. ‘You see what a prophet I am,’ I continued lightly. ‘I told you I would regret ever having met you.’
I tried to search her mind and find out to what extent her feeling was for me, and to all my questions she kept replying: ‘I don’t know.’
‘Would you marry me?’ I challenged.
‘I’m too young.’
‘Well, if you were compelled to marry would it be me or someone else?’
But she was non-committal and kept repeating: ‘I don’t know… I like you… but – ’
>
‘But you don’t love me,’ I interposed with a sinking feeling.
She was silent. It was a cloudy morning and the streets looked drab and depressing.
‘The trouble is I have let this thing go too far,’ I said huskily. We had reached the entrance to the Underground. ‘I think we’d better part and never see each other again,’ I said, wondering what would be her reaction.
She looked solemn.
I took her hand and patted it tenderly. ‘Good-bye, it’s better this way. Already you have too much of a power over me.’
‘Good-bye,’ she answered. ‘I’m sorry.’
The apology struck me as deadly. And as she disappeared into the Underground, I felt an unbearable emptiness.
What had I done? Was I too rash? I should not have challenged her. I’d been a pompous idiot and made it impossible to see her again – unless I made myself ridiculous. What was I to do? I could only suffer. If only I could submerge this mental agony in sleep until I meet her again. At all costs I must keep away from her until she wants to see me. Perhaps I was too serious, too intense. The next time we meet I shall be levitous and detached. But will she want to see me again? Surely she must! She cannot dismiss me so easily.
The next morning I could not resist walking up the Camberwell Road. I did not meet her, but met her mother. ‘What have you done to Hetty!’ she said. ‘She came home crying and said you never wanted to see her again.’
I shrugged and smiled ironically. ‘What has she done to me?’ Then hesitantly I asked if I could see her again.
She shook her head warily. ‘No, I don’t think you should.’
I invited her to have a drink, so we went to a corner pub to talk it over, and after I entreated her to let me see Hetty again she consented.
When we reached the house, Hetty opened the door. She was surprised and concerned when she saw me. She had just washed her face with Sunlight soap – it smelt so fresh. She remained standing at the front door, her large eyes looking cold and objective. I could see it was hopeless.
My Autobiography Page 12
