The Girl From Penny Lane (23 page)

For a start, she no longer worked at the bag and sack factory. She had told Nellie about her new job of course, but not how she had come to get it. It had all come about when she had realised that she had lost touch completely with Art, that the O’Brien family neither knew nor cared where he was, that the authorities merely said his whereabouts were not known to them. Then the iron had entered Lilac’s soul. She couldn’t get Art out of her mind, she couldn’t take other fellows seriously, so she decided the thing to do was to fill her life totally, to find as many men-friends as possible, and to wait.

Accordingly she had told Alan that she was not interested in seeing him again and had deliberately set out to meet the type of man who she felt could give her a good time without trying to tie her down to marriage or a permanent relationship. She went to modern dancing classes at the dancing academy on Edge Lane and became very proficient very quickly, for she was a natural dancer. She also made a new friend who was to show her how to escape from the drudgery of the factory into something far more amusing – something which also paid well, as she was soon to discover.

Her new friend, Charlotte Unwin, was in looks at least the exact opposite of Lilac. Her father, she said, was a Spaniard, her mother Irish, and this fiery combination had resulted in Charlotte having luxuriant black curls, olive-tinted skin and a figure as curvaceous and footsteps as light as any Irish fairy.

The two girls took to each other on sight. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Charlotte’s young husband had disappeared with a chorus girl from a Cochran review at the Empire Theatre on Lime Street. She told Lilac bluntly that men were not to be trusted, but that didn’t mean she was averse to netting another one.

‘Only next time,’ she told her new friend, ‘I’ll have more sense than to talk about love or forever; it’ll be
what’s in it for me?
next time.’

It was Charlotte’s suggestion that the two of them might go into partnership and rent a room on a popular thoroughfare where they might teach seamen, as well as others, the intricacies of modern dancing.

‘They need patience an’ a pretty lass to give ’em confidence,’ she said. ‘Most of the dancing academies teach girls, but we’d specialise in fellers. We’ll be Miss Charlotte an’ Miss Lilac an’ they’ll be queuein’ up jest to get in at the door.’

‘Sailors? Queueing to learn to
dance
?’ Lilac said derisively. ‘They’ll think we’re teaching something very different, you mark my words, and I don’t intend to have anything to do with
that
sort of thing.’

Charlotte flashed her Mediterranean smile, then rolled her eyes expressively.

‘Oh aye, they may come in for the wrong reasons, queen, but they’ll stay ’cos they can see the point o’ larnin’, if it gets ’em into the arms of girls like us.’

‘What do you mean by arms?’ Lilac said suspiciously. She had only known Charlotte a couple of months.

‘I means jest what I say. Arms as in dancin’, not whorin’, if that’s what you was thinkin’. Listen, are you on? Because in my considered opinion, the pair of us could make a tidy living if we rented the right sort of premises and found ourselves enough pupils. Only we’d have to mek it clear from the start that it was regular teachin’ for older people, not for kids an’ flappers. There’s plenty caterin’ for them already.’

‘I’m on, for a bit at any rate,’ Lilac decided. ‘If it works . . . well, we’ll see.’

It did work. And not only did they soon find themselves with more pupils than they could cope with so that they had to hire other girls to work for them, they also began to meet quite a different type of customer to the ones they had envisaged when Charlotte first got her bright idea.

And oddly enough, the dancing school really helped Lilac, if not to forget Art, at least to keep his loss from the forefront of her mind. And when she discussed it with Charlotte, her friend admitted that with so much to do and with success so close, she hardly ever woke in the night to weep for her absent husband.

As the school flourished, their fame as teachers of modern dance and as girls in whom beauty and character mingled began to spread. Respectable people, particularly older men, came to learn from them and after a few lessons, often asked one or other girl out to a theatre or restaurant.

Charlotte was choosy, Lilac more so, but they began to have an enviable social life, though there were always some people who raised their eyebrows. Then respectability, which had hovered doubtfully, arrived on their doorstep. At Lilac’s insistence they opened the dancing school to young ladies as well as men.

‘Never mind if they say it’s a marriage bureau, so long as they come to our classes and pay our fees,’ Lilac said decisively, when Charlotte complained that one particularly pretty girl had stolen a patron from under her nose. ‘We’re neither of us interested in permanence, not yet, so we shouldn’t worry ourselves when the flappers are prepared to take on men who may interest us only briefly.’

‘You’re right,’ Charlotte sighed. ‘George Harris was rich, but he had two left feet and bad breath. Miss Nichols is welcome to him.’

The dancing school, successful though it was, did not keep both girls occupied during the day. Charlotte saw to the books, kept the rooms in good order and trained the staff, whilst Lilac took a job as receptionist at a big hotel, the Delamere, situated in a prime position on Tythebarn Street. She found the work congenial and not too hard. She was offered the job by the proprietress after she’d organised a display of modern dance in the Delamere’s ballroom, and she accepted with some trepidation. Factory life had made her believe that she could do nothing else, but in fact the job of receptionist suited her very well. She sat behind a flower-decked desk looking immaculate and smiling a welcome, she did the books, learned to use a typewriter . . . and fought off amorous male customers so tactfully and with such success when she was on the late shift that the proprietress, a harsh-featured woman called Mabel Brierson, told her she was worth her weight in gold and would undoubtedly own and run her own hotel, some day.

So Lilac was beginning to have a very good idea of her own worth, and she did not intend to throw herself away on any handsome young sailor or poorly paid clerk. If it had been Art it would have been different; even thinking about him still gave her a warm and breathless glow, but she was beginning to wonder if her old friend would ever show his face in Liverpool again. Certainly he had never visited The Waterfront Academy of Modern Dance, Props Miss Lilac and Miss Charlotte.

But the letter from Nell put her in a spin.

Her sister knew all about the job as receptionist, knew that Lilac taught dancing in the evenings, but had no idea what a very successful venture the dancing school was, nor how convenient a place for meeting men with money and time on their hands. And if Nellie had known she would not have approved; Lilac knew that five years ago she herself would have been horrified at the mere suggestion of deliberately setting out to meet fellows, but now it was different. A factory girl only met clerks and deckhands. A receptionist might never click with a customer. But a dancing teacher . . . ah, that was a different kettle of fish altogether. She and Charlotte had made up their minds to marry for money if they could not marry for love, and because of the school at least they had the choice. Men of all shapes and sizes, men from every walk of life, crossed their paths and were closely scrutinized with a view to matrimony.

‘Not that I’d dream of marrying whilst there’s a chance that Art and I might make up,’ Lilac admitted wistfully. ‘Besides, I do enjoy life; I’d rather not marry at all than pick the wrong man.’

‘I’m not marryin’ again yet, either,’ Charlotte confirmed. ‘We’re mekin’ money, and having a lot of fun at the same time. But later, when we’re gettin’ really old – say when we’re twenty-six or twenty-eight – then we’ll mebbe need a rich feller!’

‘By that time it’ll be too late,’ Lilac said, chuckling. But Charlotte, though she laughed too, said Lilac knew very well what she meant – and Lilac acknowledged it. One day they would get tired of dancing with every Tom, Dick and Harry, tired of having their feet trodden on and their dresses tugged off their shoulders, tired of theatres, cinemas and restaurants, even. Perhaps they’d get tired of waiting for the men in their lives, too, for whatever Charlotte might pretend, Lilac knew very well that her friend was always scanning the crowded room with the same wistful thought that haunted Lilac herself: will he come? Will he be here, tonight?

‘My sister and her family are coming to see me tomorrow and staying till Monday, so I shan’t be teaching,’ Lilac reminded Charlotte on Thursday evening. ‘Mrs Brierson’s given me time off . . . we’ll have fun, the four of us.’

She knew Nellie would ask awkward questions and Stuart would eye her shrewdly and listen to local gossip and perhaps even put two and two together and make four, but she would still have fun because she loved them all so much, the young Gallaghers. Besides, she was hostess and she loved entertaining. She had moved out of Lord Nelson Street and into a flat on Mount Pleasant when she got the hotel job, and as soon as she had read Nellie’s letter she made her plans for the weekend. She would sleep on the couch in her living room so that Nellie, Stu and little Elizabeth might have her bedroom. She had planned meals, entertainment, cosy sessions round the fire in the evening whilst baby Elizabeth slumbered in the next room. It was November, the days shortening, and the weather had passed through every possible phase in a couple of weeks. Rain had fallen, and sleet; they had enjoyed a couple of days of brilliant sunshine; fog, always prevalent in a city so close to a river estuary, had blacked them out for three solid days, and even now, after a pleasant enough afternoon, there was a decided nip in the air as soon as darkness fell – a good excuse for a fire, roast chestnuts, and bread toasted on a fork held out to the flames.

Friday arrived at last. Lilac was at the station fifteen minutes early, with a beautiful teddy bear for Elizabeth and a heart full of affection for Nellie and Stuart. They got off the train, tired, pale, even a little confused, with a very large suitcase and the baby clutching Stuart’s shoulder and wailing, and found themselves whisked off in a taxi and welcomed to Lilac’s shining flat with a meal in the oven keeping warm and a bottle of wine standing in the sink, keeping cool.

‘You’re living in style, queen,’ Nellie said, sounding pleased yet puzzled. ‘My goodness . . . wine!’

‘I’ve a good job and a good boss. The wine came from Mrs Brierson, with her compliments,’ Lilac explained. ‘What does little Elizabeth eat, Nell? I’ve done a casserole of beef with suet dumplings for us, it’s nice and warming on a chilly evening – but I was at a loss what she would like.’

‘She’s a young lady now she’s had her first birthday, and will have a tiny bit of the stew with some bread and butter,’ Nellie said. ‘Dearest Li, do you mind if I go through and change her into her night-things and clean her up? She’s fractious now, and cross, but once she’s clean and fed she’ll be a different person – and so will I, because there’s nothing so tiring as a grizzling child.’

‘You carry on. Stu will help me to dish up and lay the table. We can gossip whilst we work,’ Lilac said. As soon as Nellie had bustled from the room with the baby in her arms she turned to her brother-in-law. ‘Sit down Stu, this minute. When I need your help I’ll tell you what to do.’

‘That’s nice, because I’m extremely tired,’ Stuart said, sinking into Lilac’s rocking chair. ‘What a pleasant room, my dear, and how cosy you’ve made it. Let me do something soothing, like boiling a small pan of milk with a little sugar in it for Elizabeth’s drink, and we’ll talk. ‘I don’t mind telling you Nell’s been in a real state about you. She thinks you’ve got too many fellers and you change them too often. She doesn’t believe you’re really happy. In short, chuck, she still has hopes of you and Art.’

Lilac, pulling a pan of potatoes over the heat, looked thoughtful.

‘Nellie always did know me better than I knew meself,’ she said. ‘I’ve tried and tried to contact Art though, Stu, and there’s no way. Nell is right, I do go out with a great many young men, but there’s safety in numbers, they say. This way I can wait for Art without being bored and dull. And I sometimes think I’ll wait for ever, rather than give even the thought of him up. If
only
he’d left some sort of address with someone, so I could write. But he’s bound to turn up here some day – isn’t he?’

‘I think so. Us Liverpudlians are queer folk, queen. We’re attached to this dirty old city by a strong cord and it tugs us back eventually no matter how far we roam. Look at Nell, she’s got a nice home – well, you’ve seen it – and a lot of friends, yet she can’t wait to come back here. Any excuse and she’s planning a quick visit. I reckon I can keep her down south for another two years and then it’s bring her back or see her seriously unhappy. And I wouldn’t want that.’

‘What about you, Stuart? You were born and bred here, same as Nell and me. How do you feel?’

Stuart had boiled his little pan of sweetened milk. As Lilac watched he poured it into a mug with a spout and began to run it under the cold tap. ‘Cooling her majesty’s booze; she can’t cope with drinks unless they’re blood heat,’ he explained. ‘Me? I’m the same, love. Just the same. I can’t wait to get back.’

The weekend flew by, of course. Nellie and Stuart proved to be extremely understanding about the dancing school and were very impressed when Lilac took them round on Saturday evening when the classes were in full swing.

‘Your partner can Charleston up a storm,’ Stuart said admiringly as Charlotte, long beads swinging, headband low on her dark brow, proceeded to make the wild, wiggly dance look both easy and exciting. ‘You have some very superior pupils, Lilac love – that’s a First Officer off a liner over there, still in uniform!’

‘Who pays the band? They must cost you the earth!’ Nellie exclaimed, but Lilac was able to reassure her.