Dream On (25 page)

‘So that's it, that's all there is to tell.' Leila ducked her head to catch a fleeting glimpse through the taxi window of the tall, shadowy buildings of the London Hospital – the hospital that could have saved her mother; the hospital that had been just around the corner from the slum where her mother had died giving birth to her, because she couldn't afford the few shillings for the local handy-woman, never mind the three quid for the quack doctor who earned his gin money ‘seeing to' the local working girls. That was a part of her story, like so many others, that no one would ever know.

‘The top and the bottom of it, Ginny, is that I was poor once,' she went on, ‘and now I'm not. And, believe me, not is better. Don't look so shocked. What's the difference between what we do and in you being nice to the coalman for a sack of nutty slack when your old man hasn't bothered to leave you any money to heat the house again?'

Ginny's head felt fuzzy with drink. She couldn't remember telling this woman anything about Ted. But she must have done. ‘I'm not shocked—'

‘No?' Shirley interjected.

‘No. And whatever I said about Ted I never had to be nice to no coalman.'

‘I'm not saying you did. But whatever you said about Ted was the truth, wasn't it?' Leila coaxed her. ‘He's left you and his mother in the lurch.'

‘Well, yeah, sort of. But I've never been with no one else. Never. Not even in the war.'

‘Who said anything about “going” with anybody?' Leila, quick to recover the ground she'd nearly lost, squeezed Ginny's arm reassuringly. ‘Silly girl. I was simply giving an example about keeping someone company.' She laughed brightly. ‘You make it sound as though we're on the game!'

Ginny clambered out of the cab on the corner of Grove Road. She was sure that was where she was, because she could make out the lights and the outline of what definitely looked like Mile End station.

‘You've got the address?' Leila called to her through the open window.

Ginny nodded dumbly and, by way of proof, waved the piece of paper that Leila had given her. As she did so, she wondered at the strange, yet magical, day she had spent, but also how on earth she was going to set about cooking Nellie's tea when she could barely see straight.

She was still waving feebly as the taxi pulled away from the kerb.

Shirley fell back into her seat in a heap; her lips pursed as though she'd been sucking lemons. ‘I thought you said she was one of us.'

‘She will be,' said Leila, checking her face in her compact mirror. ‘As soon as she puts on a bit of slap and a bit more colour in that hair of hers. Really blondes it up – platinum would look good with her eyes. And when she learns how to speak a bit more softly in front of the clients, of course. As though she's got a bit of class rather than being just another little tart on the make.'

Shirley sighed; she felt exhausted, definitely not ready for the night's work she had in front of her. Wrapping one silk-stockinged leg over the other, she eyed her ankles with despair. She was sure they were getting thicker by the day. It wasn't fair, she didn't feel a day older than when, as an
almost
innocent seventeen-year-old, she had found herself alone and hungry in Greek Street and had let a nice man buy her dinner. Yet here she was, what felt like barely two minutes later, with a head full of grey hair that had to be tinted every single week and a body that seemed determined to give out on her. And with bloody younger women muscling in on her patch. It was a bit of luck the clubs were so dingily lit, and that she had her few special talents, or she wouldn't have stood a chance.

Leila snapped her compact shut. ‘When she turns up—'

‘
If
she turns up,' Shirley snarled.

‘When she turns up,' Leila repeated without a blink. ‘I'll talk to her about her hair and make-up.'

‘It's going to take a bit more than a bottle of Hiltone to get that one working,' Shirley spat nastily.

Leila, noticing the driver ogling her in his rear-view mirror, smiled seductively. ‘Don't you be too sure,' she said. Then, deliberately dropping her compact, she bent down and whispered up to Shirley from the taxi floor, ‘Play our cards right, girl, and this cab ride's for free.'

GINNY STARED AT
her reflection in the little mirror over the sink. It was a long time since she'd done more than swipe a quick stroke of lipstick across her mouth and she was worried that the mascara, powder and rouge she'd put on were a bit too much.

She let out a long, slow breath and glanced at the clock – five to nine. Damn! Well, it was too late to worry about make-up now, if she didn't leave soon she probably never would, and anyway, looking on the bright side, maybe her sooty eyes and peachy pink cheeks would take the attention away from the old-fashioned floral frock that, after a thorough search of her meagre wardrobe, was the best she could come up with.

With far more determination than she actually felt, Ginny twisted round and offered Nellie a bright, confident smile – anything to stop her mother-in-law asking any more of the awkward questions she'd been firing at her all day. ‘So, Nell, like I said, as it's the first time I've done this late shift, I ain't sure what time I'll be back exactly.'

Nellie stared at Ginny through narrowed eyes. ‘You're a bit done up, ain't you?'

‘How d'you mean?'

‘For the factory. You look more like you're going on the stage.'

Ginny gave a brittle, unconvincingly carefree laugh. ‘I had to make a bit of effort, Nell, didn't I? I'll be working with all new girls and I don't wanna scare 'em.'

‘And how come you're on this late shift all of a sudden? You never even mentioned it till this morning.'

Ginny's patience with Nellie's cross-examination was wearing very thin and her nerve was threatening to give out. ‘I told you: lates pay a lot more than the day or evening shifts. So we'll have more money to spend on ourselves.'

‘How much more?'

Ginny shrugged and puffed out her cheeks as she fished around for a likely answer. ‘Awwwww . . .' she finally came up with, ‘plenty, I reckon.' Another false laugh. ‘Enough to buy us both fags and to take you down the Albert for a few, anyway.'

Nellie digested the information in silence.

‘Well, I'll better be off, or I'll be getting the push on me first night. And that wouldn't do now, would it? So I'll see you later, Nell, and don't bother to waste the electric, leaving the light on for me.'

With that, Ginny bobbed her head and kissed Nellie's crêpey cheek, grabbed her bag from the table and made a dash for the street door before her nerve really did give out and she changed her mind.

Nellie listened for her to shut the door behind her. ‘That's funny, you working nights,' she said to herself, as she rubbed her face free of every trace of her daughter-in-law's kiss. ‘According to Florrie's girl, they don't let women work no later than the twilight shift at your place. And that don't start at ten; that's when it finishes.' She sniffed loudly. ‘Never try and kid a kidder, you stupid little cow.'

When Ginny arrived at the address Leila had given her – a place in Frith Street, a busy thoroughfare in the heart of Soho, linking Shaftesbury Avenue with Soho Square itself – she was trembling. But she wasn't cold. She was shaking from the ordeal of having walked along streets where she'd been propositioned by men in doorways, had been insulted by foul-mouthed women accusing her of intruding pn their pitches and alarmed by wild-eyed, tangle-haired drunks thrusting filthy hands at her, begging for spare change.

She swallowed hard. Squinting in the dim light coming from the single red bulb glowing above her head, she read the hand-written ‘Members Only' notice that was attached to the black-painted door with a rusty drawing-pin.

What on earth was she doing outside a place like this? She could have kicked herself. Even someone as naive as she was should have been aware that although the address was in the West End, it was also bang in the middle of the red-light district. A place as threatening and dangerous as any of the roughest of the dock-side neighbourhoods in the East End, places where Ginny would never have dreamed of going.

Leila had seemed so plausible when she described the club: that it was a place where tired and lonely businessmen, who wanted a quiet drink and a bit of pleasant company, could go after a hard day's work. Men who were prepared to pay good money for such a haven. Okay, Leila had admitted that some of the girls made private arrangements with the customers, but that was life, wasn't it? Ginny couldn't disagree with that; you found that sort of thing going on everywhere. But Leila had assured her that the club itself was all above board, a good place to earn a good wage for not doing very much. And, also according to Leila, Ginny wouldn't be doing very much at all, just carrying a tray of cigarettes around to the customers and maybe helping out with a bit of waitressing if things got busy.

Ginny covered her face with her hands. Had she really been
that
drunk?

No. What she had been was desperate. Desperate to have just a taste of the life that she had once had, when there had always been money in her purse and a meal on the table good enough to satisfy even Nellie's demanding appetite.

‘If you're not going in, get out of me way, will you.' A tall, bosomy redhead, dressed in a Persian lamb swing coat that showed her high-heeled, sheer-black-stockinged legs right up to mid-knee, shoved Ginny unceremoniously to one side, pushed open the door and teetered into the dimly lit interior.

Ginny watched the woman as she paused half-way up the flight of stairs at the end of the hall and threw up her arms in what looked to Ginny like intense indignation.

Ginny was right.

‘For Christ's sake,' she hollered over her shoulder, ‘the minder don't come on for at least half an hour. If you're coming in, then come in. If not, then shut that bloody door. We don't want every tramp in the flaming street walking in and pissing on the carpet.'

With that, she pulled her collar huffily up to her throat and flounced up the rest of the stairs.

Ginny hesitated for barely a moment, took a deep breath and stepped inside. Even as she heard the door slam behind her, she wasn't sure what had made her do it – maybe the realisation that the redhead's coat probably cost more than Ginny managed to earn in six whole months of eye-straining tedium at the electrics factory. Or maybe because she knew that if she didn't at least try to make a better life for herself, she would more than likely go out of her mind with the worry of it all. She had to find a way to end the scrimping and scraping, the darning of stockings and the humiliation of queuing outside the butcher's, only to be able to afford the cheapest cuts when her turn finally came, while – she was sure of it – the neighbours gloated at her downfall. She was, after all, married to Ted Martin.

As Ginny reached the top of the stairs and stood in the doorway, looking at the barn-like, shabby room before her, its every dusty corner and grimy crevice picked out in the harsh overhead lights, she almost turned on her heel and fled.

When Leila had told her about working there, Ginny hadn't had a very clear picture of what she was expecting the club to be like, but she certainly hadn't even begun to imagine that it would look quite so depressing as this.

The run-down room was empty, apart from a man who was standing behind a shabby semicircular bar with his back to her. He appeared to be engaged in an unequal struggle with one of the drinks optics and was muttering angrily to himself.

Ginny coughed politely and the man turned round to face her.

The first thing that struck Ginny about him was that he was holding a whisky bottle in mid-air, as though he were a rather bored magician who hadn't been in the least surprised to have produced it from out of a top hat, and the second was that his eyebrows had been plucked into perfect Joan Crawford half-moons.

He looked her up and down, taking in every inch of her old-fashioned outfit with conspicuous distaste. ‘Mmmm? Can I help you?' he asked in a camp, slightly northern lisp.

‘I'm looking for Miss Harvey.'

He sucked in his cheeks and shook his head. ‘Sorry, not with you, dearie.'

‘Harvey?' she repeated. ‘Leila Harvey?'

‘Aw, Leila. You should have said.' He returned his attention to the bottle and the disobliging optic. ‘She's not here.'

‘But she told me to come tonight.'

He sighed wearily and jerked his head to one side without looking round. ‘Ask that lot out the back.'

‘Out the back' turned out to be a dressing-room of sorts. It was a cramped, not very clean space, with a single chipped sink in one corner, a selection of mismatched chairs and a couple of mirrors propped up on rickety tables, amongst piles of cosmetics, over-spilling ashtrays and cheap, thick china teacups.

Six women, dressed in a variety of eye-poppingly low-cut dresses, were fighting for elbow-room in front of the mirrors. They were primping and preening themselves with various articles of make-up, which, by the look of their astonishingly brightly painted faces, they had plucked at random with their eyes closed from the heaps on the tables.

‘Hello,' Ginny ventured, her voice tiny. ‘Does anyone knew where I can find Leila?'

‘Who's asking?' the tall redhead wanted to know. She was sitting in a prime position right in front of one of the mirrors, plastering yet more Panchromatic on to her already deep-orange face.

‘Ginny. Ginny Martin. Leila said I was to come here tonight. To work.'

Six pairs of eyes were turned on her.

‘Aw yeah, the new cigarette girl.' The redhead sniffed inelegantly and rubbed at a lipstick smudge on her teeth with a nicotine-stained finger. ‘I thought you'd be older from what Shirley said.'