All That Glitters (12 page)

‘Well, we can go as far as Mill Street with you,’ Ann consoled her.

‘I’ve just got to get my coat.’

‘See you tomorrow, Mr Evans, Des,’ Ann called out to the under-manager and barman.

‘Night, girls.’

Jane went along to the dressing rooms. The mending was waiting for her at the end of the passage. She could hear loud conversation interspersed with laughter, and Haydn and Billy’s voices rising in unison, as they sang a rousing comic song about knickers and knockers – whatever they might be. She picked up the brown paper bag. One of the girls, probably Judy, had scrawled MENDING FOR THE USHERETTE across the outside in lipstick. Taking Phyllis’s coat from the peg at the back of the confectionery kiosk she followed the others along the corridor and down the stairs. A crowd of men had gathered at the stage door.

‘Now boys, remember what I said. No annoying the ladies,’ Arthur bellowed above their noise.

Head high, Jane carried on walking behind Avril, Ann, Myrtle and Myra. As she drew closer to the crowd she saw that one or two of them were holding bunches of flowers.

‘It’s only the usherettes.’

The voice might have been announcing a deeply mourned loss.

‘Could have told you that, Gwilym.’ His mate nudged him in the ribs as Jane faltered, debating whether to push her way through the crowd or walk around the perimeter as the others had done. That young one’s got a figure like a broomstick. No tits worth speaking of.’

‘Here, you, move on,’ the doorman shouted angrily. ‘I’ll have none of that language here. These here, are ladies.’

‘We can see that by the look of them, Grandpa,’ An anonymous voice cried.

‘Move on before I call the police.’ The doorman’s fury heightened with his colour.

‘Jane,’ Ann called sharply.

Jane ran past a row of shining black cars and taxis parked in Market Square until she caught up with them.

‘Take no notice of them, love. You’ll soon get used to it. The rest of us have.’ Avril pulled a triangular paper bag out of her pocket. ‘Peppermint?’

Jane shook her head. Accepting sweets meant that sooner or later she’d have to buy some to share around and she intended to save as much as she could.

‘What you got there?’ Ann asked, looking at the bag.

‘Mending. Some of the girls wanted sewing done.’

‘And you offered to do it?’

‘They’re paying me.’

‘I hope you set your prices at the same hourly rate you earn in the theatre. There’s no fun in working for nothing.’

‘I’ll make a profit.’

‘Just see that you do. Though why you have to mend and sew for the likes of them is beyond me,’ Avril commented acidly.

‘Seems to me it’s always the decent women in this world who get the worst deals.’

‘At least we’re respectable. And able to hold our heads up in any company.’

‘I’ll tell you now, Myra,’ Ann asserted forcefully. ‘For six pounds a week I’d think long and hard about giving up my respectability. My old man expected a sight more from me than just a peep show, and even when the pits were open and he was in steady work, the most housekeeping I ever got out of him was fifteen bob a week, and that was to keep me, him and the kids. After his accident it was all down to me. Work all night in the Town Hall, and all day cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing, and looking after him, and for what? He never took me on a bus trip let alone out in a fancy car like the ones that were waiting for those girls.’

‘Those cars in Market Square?’ Jane asked. ‘They were waiting for the Revue girls?’

‘You didn’t think they were waiting for Billy or Haydn, did you?’

‘There’s one or two men I know who wouldn’t say no to a night out with Haydn.’

‘Go on,’ Myra gasped. ‘Haydn’s not like that.’

‘I never said he was. But some men are.’

‘Those girls got it made,’ Ann harped on. ‘Silks and satins, best food, men sniffing around ready to shower them with flowers, jewellery, posh restaurants, trips out.’

‘Come on, Ann, you know as well as I do, you’d rather die than show what you’ve got to the world,’ Avril said in an attempt to end the conversation.

‘Nowadays there’s no one who’d pay to look, more’s the pity, so I can’t prove it to you one way or the other.’ Ann patted her grey hair into place. ‘But tell you what,’ she pointed at Jane, ‘if I was her age, I’d make the most of it and forget all about chapel morality. You can’t eat respectability and one of those Revue nudes told me before the show started that she’s got over two hundred pounds saved, and she’s only been touring for a year. She reckons she can live on under a pound a week. And the minute she’s got five hundred she’s getting out and buying herself a nice little business. A dress or hat shop, with a girl to help out. Now doesn’t that sound better than having to work the hours we do …’

Jane never heard the reply, as they’d reached Mill Street. She parted company with the others and began the long trek up the Graig hill, her mind awash with money-making ideas, but none as attractive as earning six pounds a week plus bunches of flowers, free dinners, outings and jewellery.

Chapter Seven

‘I kept a supper warm for you.’ Phyllis was alone in the kitchen when Jane walked in.

‘You didn’t have to. The last thing I want is to create extra work after you’ve gone to the trouble of taking me in.’

‘Seven and six a week includes breakfast and a hot meal.’

‘But I had soup earlier.’

‘First day, double rations. Tell me how did it go?’

‘It went fine.’ Jane took off Phyllis’s coat and hung it on the back of the chair before going into the washhouse.

‘It must be tiring, though?’

‘Nowhere near as tiring as scrubbing out the workhouse every day. Do you remember that time we stole dripping from the kitchens to put on our knees because they were so sore?’

‘And the time you pinched a whole loaf of bread from the nurses’ kitchen, hid it under your skirt and shared it out after lights out.’

‘Your …’ Jane hesitated, not quite knowing how to refer to the man of the house.

‘My Evan,’ Phyllis supplied to save both of them further embarrassment.

‘He’s right. We are better off out of it. That’s if I manage to stay out.’

‘This is only your first day. Everything, including the job, is bound to get easier as you get used to it, and if you want my advice -’ Phyllis lifted a dinner of mince, and cabbage and potato hash off a pan of boiling water and set it on a cork mat in front of Jane – ‘you’ll go to bed as soon as you’ve eaten this. You look washed out. Not that it’s surprising, considering you didn’t get any sleep last night. And another thing: I think as soon as you’ve worked off what you owe Wilf Horton you should drop the market, otherwise it will all get a bit much, and you’ll end up doing neither job properly.’

‘You know how hard we had to work in the workhouse. I’ll manage.’

‘It was different in the workhouse.’ Phyllis took the teapot from the warming rack on the range and poured out two cups. ‘If we didn’t work long hours we’d have gone without food, but life is different on the outside. Especially for a pretty young girl like you.’

‘Pretty?’ Jane laughed.

‘You are.’ Phyllis assured her seriously. ‘When your hair starts to grow, and you get some decent food into you and fill out a little …’

‘Fill out – enough to work in Revue?’

‘Is that what you want to do?’ Phyllis was shocked at the notion of any girl actually wanting to work in Revue.

‘Did you know they get six pounds a week?’

‘No I didn’t, but money isn’t everything.’

‘If we’d had money we’d never have had to go into the workhouse. And if I succeed in staying out, it’ll be money, not clean living, that will keep me on the right side of the walls.’

‘That’s as may be, but do you think for one moment that those girls are happy with what they’re doing?’

‘As sandboys. You should have seen the cars queuing up in Market Square after the show to take them home. And the men waiting with bunches of flowers and boxes of chocolates. Ann – she’s one of the usherettes – said they get given all kinds of presents: chocolates, lace handkerchiefs, even jewellery.’

‘At the end of the day they’re just things. You can’t hold them up against what really matters.’

‘And you should see the clothes they wear. Silks, satins, lace, furs and -’

‘And to pay for them they take their clothes off twice a night in front of hundreds of men.’

‘Not all their clothes.’ Jane blew on a forkful of piping hot mash. ‘Just their top bits.’

‘Oh, Jane,’ Phyllis began to laugh.

‘Have I said something funny?’

‘Not really. It’s just that you’ve got a lot to learn, about life, money and men. Have you thought about what you want to do, not now, but …’

‘When I grow up?’ Jane joked. ‘Make a lot of money. Buy a house, and -’ she remembered what Ann had said about one of the Revue girls – ‘a business that will keep me out of the workhouse for good.’

‘Not marriage and children?’

‘And be mauled around by a sweaty man every night? No thank you.’

‘Some women like being mauled, provided the mauling is done by the right man.’

‘Not this one.’

‘You’ve had a couple of bad experiences, that’s all. One day you’ll meet someone.’

‘If I have to, I hope he’s a millionaire.’

‘You never know, you might be lucky. But in my experience millionaires are pretty thin on the ground in Ponty.’ Phyllis refilled both their cups. ‘I’m sorry you had to work so late, otherwise you might have met everyone else. Eddie is still out.’

‘Eddie?’

‘I told you about the family earlier. Eddie’s Evan’s son, he and Evan’s nephew, William, share the bedroom next to yours. They both work for a butcher, but Eddie is training to be a boxer. That’s where they both are tonight. At a match.’

‘In the workhouse you told me you had no one. Now all of a sudden you have this huge family.’

‘Not that huge. Just Evan and the three – four now Evan’s eldest son has returned – boys, and Diana. I find it odd myself. I never thought Evan and I would live together this way.’

‘I’ll try to remember who’s who.’

‘You’ve had an awful lot to remember for one day. Tuesday is a busy day for them. Eddie has to open the shop early so they can cook meat enough for both Tuesday and Wednesday’s market day, and William has to be at the slaughterhouse by four to cut meat for Charlie’s stall, so you probably won’t see them at breakfast. Diana, she’s Evan’s niece, she tried to wait up for you, but she just couldn’t keep her eyes open. You’ll meet her tomorrow.’

‘That’ll be nice.’ Jane leaned back in her chair. She felt warm, and comfortable. The hash was good, and very welcome after a long shift with just one glass of orange juice to sustain her. She wondered if she’d ever feel flush enough to be as free with money as Mandy who’d bought three Fry’s chocolate bars between houses.

‘Did you see any of the show?’

‘I saw a few minutes of the first act and a couple of minutes of the last act before the break.’

‘And?’ Phyllis continued, feeling she knew Jane well enough to press for gossip.

‘As I said earlier there were a lot of girls standing on stage with no clothes on top. They hid their bottom bits with fans and things, but most of them were wearing knickers of one sort or another. Except one. When I saw her on stage she was wearing a pair of tiny knickers, but backstage she was nude all right.’

‘Nude?’ Phyllis repeated as though she couldn’t believe her ears.

‘Not a stitch.’

‘I don’t know how they can do it.’

‘Six pounds a week,’ Jane reminded her.

‘I wouldn’t do it for fifty.’

‘I would if I had the offer.’

‘You can’t be serious?’

‘If someone showed me the banknotes you’d soon see how serious I was. Honestly, the girls wear so much make-up on stage you’d never recognise them off. Most of them look quite ordinary in their street clothes. Just a bit more made up and dressed than most. There’s a couple of men on stage too, a comic, Billy and a singer, Haydn.’

Totally unaware that Haydn was Evan’s son, Jane prattled on, and Phyllis let her. After his distant politeness that morning, she was curious to discover exactly what had transformed the old Haydn into the detached, well-mannered man who’d breakfasted with her. His easy going charm and good looks had always been there for all to see, even when he’d worn rags. But since his return she sensed that Haydn the professional singer wasn’t the same person as Haydn the market and callboy. A hint of cynicism and lack of sincerity, a hardening of attitude and compassion – it was nothing she could put her finger on; just an underlying coolness she felt, more than observed. The smiles were still as frequent, the banter as humorous, but the smiles were too easily dropped, and genial bouts of talkativeness, even with Evan, had ended in silences which in his younger brother Eddie would have been construed as moodiness.

‘This Haydn, he’s incredibly handsome and he’s got an eye for the ladies,’ Jane chattered on, unaware of Phyllis’s heightened attention. ‘You know that nude I told you about, she was with him. In his dressing room. When I brought them ice creams during the break she was standing next to him.’

‘Alone with him, with no clothes on?’

They locked themselves into his dressing room between houses – shows. The other girls bought orange juices and I took them to the dressing rooms. They left two glasses outside Haydn’s door, said he and the girl he was with would need cooling down when they came out. He’s got quite a reputation. Avril- she’s another usherette – well, she said I’d be safer walking up the Graig hill by myself than with him – he lodges somewhere around here. And there’s rumours that he’s got more than one girl on the go.’

‘On the go?’

‘Come on Phyllis, you’ve been in the workhouse. You know what I mean.’

The front door closed. Footsteps echoed down the passage and halted outside the door. It opened, and Haydn stood there, his blond hair covered by an expensive trilby, a camel-hair overcoat draped over his shoulders. ‘I thought I heard voices. You didn’t have to wait up for me, Phyllis.’

‘I waited up for our new lodger.’

He looked into the room and saw Jane sitting at the table. A crooked smile played at the corners of his mouth as he removed his coat. ‘Well, hello again. That was good ice cream you brought us earlier, even if it was mushy around the edges.’ His greeting dashed Phyllis’s fragile hopes that Jane had exaggerated the story simply to entertain.

‘So where did you two meet?’ Haydn had demolished his plate of hash in record time and was now sitting in his father’s easy chair smoking a gold-banded cigarette and watching Jane.

‘She’s the daughter of a friend, from Church Village,’ Phyllis told him, deciding that with Haydn working in the Town Hall it would be safer to perpetuate the myth Jane had created when she’d applied for the job.

‘And when I was offered the usherette’s job today with an immediate start, Phyllis very kindly said I could stay here.’

‘Jane’s in the box room.’

‘Where’ve you put Brian?’

‘In with us. It’s only for a couple of weeks until Jane gets her first wage packet.’

Jane picked up Haydn’s plate as well as her own.

‘I’ll do those along with the breakfast dishes in the morning,’ Phyllis intervened.

‘Then if you’re sure there’s nothing I can do, I’ll go to bed.’

‘I told you when you came in, you should have gone right away. What time would you like to be called in the morning?’

‘Early. I promised Wilf Horton I’d be there before six.’

‘You work for Wilf Horton?’ Haydn asked.

‘Only since this morning.’

‘Holding down two jobs, particularly two that start opposite ends of the day, isn’t going to be easy.’

 ‘I know. That’s why I’m off to bed now.’

‘I’ll call you at five,’ Phyllis promised.

‘Thank you.’

‘Just be sure you don’t make enough noise to wake me,’ Haydn warned. ‘I don’t have to be in rehearsals until nine and I’ve no intention of getting up until at least eight o’clock.’

‘Just one more favour, Phyllis. I have some mending to do, so please could I borrow your work basket?’

‘Help yourself.’ Phyllis picked up a work box and handed it to her.

‘Can I take it up and bring it down in the morning?’

‘Of course.’

The last Jane saw of Haydn as she closed the kitchen door was his head resting on the back of the chair, his long legs and stockinged feet stretched out towards the fender. She knew there wasn’t a chorus girl in the theatre who wouldn’t have given her eye teeth to lodge under the same roof as him. But for the first time that day she was looking forward to having enough money in her pocket to live elsewhere. She picked up the mending she had hidden under the coats in the hall. Climbing the stairs quietly she closed her bedroom door, switched on her light, sat on the end of her bed, and set to work.

Her light was still on when Eddie and William came in at one in the morning. Eddie had been boxing, William drinking, and the after-fight party had gone for a long time. Eddie saw the lamp burning and went to bed wondering if the new lodger was afraid of the dark.

‘You’re prepared to graft, I’ll give you that much.’ Wilf Horton looked past Jane to the people wandering between the stalls. The steady flow of the morning had slowed to a dinner-time trickle. Women had made their way home to cut bread and scrape for those of their children who didn’t have free school milk and meals. ‘If you want to go to dinner now, that will be all right by me. Just be sure you’re back within the half-hour.’

‘I don’t mind staying, Mr Horton.’

‘No point in both of us manning the stall when the market’s half empty.’

Jane picked up Phyllis’s coat. The bag of mending was beneath it. There was no point in taking it, but she carried it with her all the same. It represented one shilling and twopence of work. Put together with her savings it would increase her wealth to two shillings and ninepence. She debated whether that gave her enough security to splash out on a pasty, but decided against it. The one and twopence wasn’t in her hand, not yet. When it was, that would be the time to buy pasties. Until then she’d survive on the salt fish breakfast Phyllis had given her. And tonight there’d be another hot meal waiting after work.

She left the clothes market, turned the corner into Market Square, which was empty as the outdoor market only set up on Wednesday and Saturday, and headed towards Woolworth’s. Half an hour was long enough to walk over the bridge into the park. The sun was shining, and the weather warm enough for her not to bother with the coat which she carried on her arm. Flowers would be blooming, and for the first time in her life she’d be able to stand and admire them without anyone shouting it was time to move on. She crossed the road, glancing back at the polished windows and columned, grand facade of the New Inn.

‘Jane! I didn’t expect to see you in town. I thought you’d be sitting at home sewing.’ Mandy was with Judy, both of them dressed in sober dark blue suits and white blouses that were buttoned to the neck, but if they’d sought to project a Sunday School teacher image it was somewhat tarnished by the thick make-up and profusion of glittering jewellery they both wore.