A Song for Joey (4 page)

green. That's where your father was born, and somehow those kids must have found out.
For a while, England was at war with Italy, but your dad refused to fight against us, and
became a prisoner of war here in Norfolk. When he was released after the war, he met
your Mum and they fell in love."

"What can I do then, Gran, when they shout like that?"
"Well, I could tell those children off, and you know I would do that for you, but I
suspect it would only make them worse. The best thing to do is just ignore them, so they
don't get any fun from upsetting you. Can you do that?"
"I'll try, Gran."
Actually, I quite liked the idea of being Italian - it sounded romantic and mysterious. I
went into Gran's bedroom and looked at myself in her long mirror. Did I look any
different from the other kids? I couldn't tell. My hair was black, always cut by Gran into a
simple pageboy style that I liked. Maybe it was a bit blacker than anyone else I had seen?
And my face: were my brown eyes unusual? Or my cheekbones? Was my skin lighter or
darker than anyone else? I didn't think so; but, from that day, I started to imagine I was an
Italian princess, much more important than those kids.
I followed Gran's advice. As soon as the kids started taunting me, I glared at them
haughtily and swept elegantly (I thought) indoors. It felt good, because the more they
shouted, the better I knew I had beaten them.

In the mind of a child, everything is normal. Looking back through the eyes of little
Belinda, the world looks simpler then than it is now. But that is because there were few
pressures on a five-year-old; life for adults was just as hard as at any other time.

For anyone who did not live through those early postwar years, it is hard to understand
how very different life was then. Almost all the things we take for granted now were
either not yet invented or too expensive for ordinary folks.

In nineteen fifty-one, for example, when I was five years old, television was yet to
become accessible to the masses; we relied on radio for entertainment and the latest news.
There were no automatic washing machines - we did our personal clothes in the big sink
in the kitchen, and sent the bed linen to the laundry - but we did have a vacuum cleaner, a
rather frightening beast that was as tall as me and made a dreadful noise when it was
switched on.

Telephones were just beginning to become more common in ordinary homes, though
businesses had quickly recognised how useful they were, and Gran had owned one before
I was even born.

Floors were rarely carpeted - more likely they had a covering of linoleum (which we
polished) with the odd rug dotted around. Central heating was for the wealthy, the rest of
us had open coal fires in each room and draughts from every door and window. Washing
dried on a line extended down the garden (if you had one), water was heated in a kettle on
the gas cooker.

Little girls played with dolls or helped their Gran (or at least tried to); boys played
marbles, or football, or scrapped. We wore sturdy clothes, designed to last, and if
something became torn, we mended it. I had two dresses - while I wore one, the second
was in the wash.

Boys wore short trousers of grey flannel, and leather shoes with scuffed toes. We didn't
feel deprived - you can't miss what you don't even know exists - and we didn't question
the way of things. If you had something, you assumed everyone had the same. I thought
everyone had a Gran to look after them, didn't know what it was like to have a mother and
father.

Each year, on my birthday, Gran took me to my mum's grave, at the huge cemetery on
the other side of town, and we laid flowers and talked to her. She never answered me - I
don't know if Gran had any response. Gran also talked to God ... a lot. She used strange
words like 'thou' and 'thine'; I figured God must be foreign.

On Sundays, we went to St John's Church, a short walk from
The Nest
. She left me with
Mrs Murdoch, a skinny, nervous woman with mousey brown hair and frumpy clothes.
Mrs Murdoch ran the Sunday School.

Actually, I liked Sunday School. While I sat with crayons, drawing pictures of baby
Jesus and camels in the desert, I could hear the grown-ups singing and praying in the main
hall. We children had our own songs and prayers, and I joined in enthusiastically.
Whenever I think about it, I can vividly recall that little back room and the five or six
children with whom I shared it. I felt safe there.

In the summer of 1951, however, at the age of five, I started to attend Infants School.
This was a different kind of place, with lessons and teachers, pencils and paints, a little
bottle of milk every morning, echoing voices in cold rooms, smells of unwashed bodies
and urine, dinners of boiled potatoes and cabbage and tapioca pudding.

For the first time in my life, I was thrown into close contact with a whole lot of kids of
my own age, and I was not equipped. Apart from the small group at Sunday School, the
only children I had met before had shunned and taunted me, making me sullen and
withdrawn. In the lessons, I avoided speaking to anyone, and at playtime, I found a spot
where I could be alone. But it did not save me from the attentions of a gang from the 'big'
school, on the opposite side of the playground wall, led by a stocky, red haired boy named
Thomas O'Reilly.

Every day, he and his chums shouted abuse at me over the wall from their part of the
school. "Dirty Wop! Smelly Eyetie! Your mother was a whore!"
If I managed to evade them in school, they waited for me afterwards ... then it was
worse. They jostled me and pushed me to the ground, they took my satchel and threw it
into nearby gardens (where I then had to beg the people to return it to me), and sometimes
they punched me or hit me with sticks.
Teachers became frustrated with me as I slipped further behind in the classroom, and
couldn't tell them why. I began to pretend to be ill in the mornings, so Gran would keep
me at home, but she soon became suspicious.
"What's up, pet?" she asked me one day when I complained of a headache. "I know
there's nothing really wrong with you, so why don't you want to go to school?"
Silently, I hung my head, unable to answer, afraid that, if I started to tell her, I would
cry.
"Belinda, darling, we don't have secrets, do we?"
I shook my head.
"Well then, you can tell me, that's what I'm here for."
I tried to think how to tell her.
"Gran, tell me about my Mum. Some kids say she was a whore! What is a 'whore'
Gran?"
"Oh my lovely, is that what's happening at school?"
I nodded again.
"Right, let's get this straight, your Mum was not a whore, she was a respectable married
woman. Those kids have no business saying bad things about you or your family, tell me
their names and I will go round to see their parents and give them a piece of my mind!"
"Oh no, Gran, that will make them hate me even more! Please don't."
"Well they can't get away with it, Belinda dear. I simply will not stand for them making
you afraid to go to school. I'll take you there now, and then I'll have a quiet word with
their headmaster. All right?"
"Ok, Gran."
She walked to the school with me and delivered me into my class, explaining quietly to
the teacher why I was late. Then she left me and went to find the headmaster of the Junior
School.

In our living room we had a 'radiogram', a beautiful piece of furniture the size of a
sideboard. It was made of light brown, almost orange-coloured, wood, with a dense,
swirling grain. Gran polished it lovingly, and it was often admired by guests.

But it was the inside that captivated me. Behind its elegant, curved doors hid a radio and
a gramophone - wonderful technology that opened up a whole world of excitement.
In cupboards at each end were stacked Gran's collection of records, and I played them
whenever I could, dancing around the living room, singing along with Vera Lynn or Glen
Miller and his orchestra.
Whenever the world outside started to hurt me, I would turn on the radiogram, listening
to the humming and fizzing of the valves and smelling that unique blend of wood oil and
and hot electronic components, then hearing voices and music as though by magic.
The radio stations tended to be mostly talk, with sometimes a comedy show, but
occasionally they had music programmes. Then I might have a special treat, because every
so often there would be a new recording to thrill me. I loved the steady beat and complex
rhythms of the jazz records, and soon became able to pick out the distinctive sounds of
different bands and the voices of the singers. Many of the records came from America, a
mystical land, far away across the ocean, where music seemed to be a living thing,
constantly growing and changing.
When I first heard the exciting sound of Les Paul exploring the amazing sounds he
could achieve with an electric guitar, blended with the sweet tones of Mary Ford's voice, I
was ecstatic. They created a complex sound by recording and re-recording themselves,
playing one tape back while adding fresh harmonies, and recording all that onto another
machine. It's process I later came to know as 'overdubbing'.
I wanted to be part of that beautiful, new music, and experimented day after day, singing
first one, then another of the harmonies Mary created, then trying some of my own. Music
became as much a part of me as my hands, as important as as my heartbeat, as natural as
breathing.
Gran would watch and listen with a smile on her face as I danced around, singing
happily. Then she would applaud enthusiastically.
"You have a rare gift, Belinda my love," she would say. "I don't know where it comes
from - certainly not from me, I can't sing to save my life, and your mother never had much
of a voice. Perhaps there is an Italian opera singer in your ancestry somewhere, who
knows."
That, of course, set my mind off on fantastic journeys of imagination, in which I would
see myself on a stage before an enormous orchestra, singing to adoring crowds of opera
lovers.

For several months after Gran spoke to the headmaster, the older kids seemed to leave
me alone. My confidence began to grow, and my lessons improved.
Then, unexpectedly, the following summer, O'Reilly and his gang were waiting for me
as I walked home. They pushed me into an alley, and two of them held me while O'Reilly
began pulling at my clothes, tearing open the buttons of my blouse, sneering at me and
laughing.
"Stop it!" I shouted. "Leave me alone."
"Oh, the wop wants us to stop," he taunted. "Shall we stop, boys?"
"Naahh!" they all chorused, and began to shove me forwards and back between them,
chanting again: "Wop! Whore! Wop! Whore!"
My world became a blur, as I was spun around and pushed from one boy to the next.
I was terrified, fearing they were going to kill me, when, suddenly, all movement and
noise stopped, and I stumbled and fell. Then I heard a familiar voice, and looked up to see
Mr Watkins, their headmaster, standing at the mouth of the alley, glowering at the boys.
In a voice that conveyed both his anger and his authority, he boomed: "O'Reilly, Scott,
Perkins, Andrews, get home right now, I will deal with you in school tomorrow."
Chastened and embarrassed, the bullies shuffled past him and out of the alley, Tommy
O'Reilly earning a special glare from the irascible head, who grabbed his arm and leaned
down to speak in his ear: "You've gone too far this time, boy. You are in serious trouble."
He pushed the bully towards the end of the alley, then turned to me. "Did they hurt
you?" he asked.
I was sobbing. But, with the boys gone, I was able to answer: "Not much sir, but they
tore my blouse."
"They will pay for that, I promise you. Can you cover yourself enough to get home?" I
pulled my blouse together, and he walked me to the B & B, where he told Gran what he
had seen.
"I will deal with them most severely," he assured us as he was about to leave.
"Sir?" I said.
He towered above me, but crouched down to answer.
"What is it Belinda?"
"Thank you, sir."
He smiled and touched my hair with his hand. "Those boys must learn to treat a lady
with respect," he said, gently.

Gran cleaned me up and gave me fresh clothes to wear. When she was sure I had
recovered, she sat me down with a cup of tea and some bread and butter, while she got on
with preparing dinner for the guests.

Ted Bailey, a comedian staying with us, found me sitting pensively, alone in the garden,
a little later.
"What's up, Princess?" he enquired.
Many of the entertainers called me "Princess", it was a nice gesture that helped me to
feel part of their exciting lives. Ted had been a regular at the guest-house every year since
before I was born; he was a jolly man, kind and caring, and he was like an uncle to me. I
told him about the kids tormenting me, though I didn't mention what O'Reilly and his
gang had called my mum.
"Ah," he said with a wry smile. "I am only too familiar with taunts like that. In my case
it's because of my size."
Ted was indeed a huge man, tall, broad and plump, with a wild head of mousy brown
hair and twinkling blue eyes.
"My way of dealing with them was to clown around and tell jokes, to try to make them
like me. Eventually, when I was old enough to look for a job, I figured that if people
wanted to laugh at me, I would turn it to my advantage. That's why I became a comic."
I smiled at him, grateful for the insight. "But I'm hopeless at jokes," I said, "I always
forget something important, and I can never think what to say when they start jeering."
"Oh, we all have different gifts; mine is humour, yours is something different." He
leaned back in his chair. "Do you know why they do it?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, people, kids especially, usually attack someone else because they are different,
like wild birds do if one has white feathers, or something else that marks them out.
Anything unusual unnerves them, scares them, so they respond aggressively."
"But that's just it, I'm not different from them, I look the same and talk the same. Why
are they picking on me?"
"Because, my little lovely, you are prettier than any of the other girls and cleverer than
any of the boys. And you can sing and dance as good as anyone I ever saw."
I blushed. I did not think I was pretty, or smart. And as for singing and dancing - well,
couldn't everyone do it?
"I tell you what: would you like to come to see the theatre where I'm working?" he
asked.
Everything else was forgotten in an instant. "Oh yes please, that would be great. Thanks,
Ted."
After consulting Gran, he took me to the Windmill, a spectacular building on the
seafront, only five minutes walk from home. I had passed it many times, and marvelled at
the huge, brightly painted sails that adorned its façade, but I had never seen inside.
At first, as we entered the auditorium through the doors from the foyer, it was too dark
to see, but as my eyes adapted to the gloom, I saw the rows of seats, stacked up in tiers,
falling like a wave to the foot of the stage. There was a smell, one with which I have
become very familiar over the years, a mixture of stale cigarette smoke, the sweet aroma
of popcorn, the accumulation of body odours of the thousands of patrons whose bums had
pressed into those seats, the hot dust rising from spotlights, and a kind of oily smell I
could not identify, but later came to know well - the smell of greasepaint.
Several women were hard at work, brushing the seats and the floor, collecting rubbish
and dusting the enormous blue-and-gold-painted crests that adorned the walls, and
someone was perched at the top of the tallest stepladder I have ever seen, working on one
of the great chandeliers hanging from the beautiful, ornate ceiling. I was spellbound; the
whole scene was magical.
On the stage, I saw men erecting scenery, pulling on ropes and arranging wires that
trailed across the floor. In the centre stood three young, blonde-haired women, singing
into a microphone, to the accompaniment of a piano hidden in the orchestra pit. The song
was 'The Tennessee Waltz', which I knew well from a recording by Patti Page, but they
were singing it in beautiful three-part harmony.
"See those girls?" Ted asked me; I nodded. "Well they are going to be famous before
long. I never heard such beautiful voices. They are real sisters, too, Joy, Teddie and Babs,
The Beverley Sisters. You watch out for them."
As each person saw us on our wanderings, they called out a greeting to Ted. He was a
very popular man, and we stopped many times to chat. He introduced me to everyone as
his Princess, and they all made me feel welcome. After a while, I knew that this was what
I wanted to do with my life: become an entertainer.