Faded Dreams (17 page)

   ‘Come here, Ellie,’ her father whispered, ‘come closer, all of ya… Ellie,
you
can have me hens and pigeons… our Billy can have me rabbits, and make sure he gets me dad’s gold watch and chain when he’s old enough.’ He was making his will, something he had never done before. Florrie wailed even louder.

   ‘Betty… come nearer cock, and listen…you can have all me antiques,’ (he must mean all that junk he’d been throwing around for years and sticking back together again, Betty thought.) ‘ I want all of you to promise me you’ll look after your mam after I’ve gone.’

   Florrie shoved two pennies and a telephone number into Ellen’s hand. ‘Quick, ring Dr Ross up, tell him to come right away, tell him your dad’s dying.’

   Ellen raced to the red telephone box on the corner and as soon as she heard the doctor’s voice sobbed, ‘My dad’s dying, come quick and help him.’

   Ten minutes later Dr Ross arrived to find Joe sitting up in bed laughing and joking and apparently risen from the dead. After prescribing cough linctus for a mild bronchitis, he berated his patient for causing his family unnecessary distress. Yet even
he
found it difficult to stay angry with the sharp-witted and highly-strung Joe Pomfret, a free spirit so unlike any of his other patients. At the front door Florrie wrung her hands.

   ‘I’m sorry for calling you out Doctor Ross. It’s just that I never know when to believe him, I mean I never know if he’s really ill, or not.’

   ‘Mrs Pomfret, even I can’t tell whether or not he’s exaggerating. One of these days he’ll be dying and then nobody will believe him. We’ll all just think he’s play-acting and it will serve him right, won’t it?’

   Barely an hour after bequeathing his livestock to his anguished family Joe was fully dressed and on his way to the backyard to reclaim it.

*

   Just as Ellen was mesmerised by the Kingsley’s way of life, so Mary was intrigued by the goings-on across the road where family life was so much more colourful and unpredictable than her own.

    In his backyard between the hen-pen and the vegetable garden Mr Pomfret had built a double see-saw which seated four, which meant there were always lots of Ellen’s friends there for Mary to play with.

   Even more surprising was the slide, which Mr Pomfret had built in the shabby sparsely-furnished back bedroom. There were no rugs on the broken linoleum and you had to clamber over the bed and be careful not to bang your head on the ceiling when you climbed the steps of the slide but as far as Mary was concerned the house across the road was a wonderland.

   Yet even at 10 years old her common sense told her it was a wonderland not to be discussed with her parents. Mary adored her elderly parents with their calm, sensible and courteous approach to everyone and everything but wouldn’t life be exciting if occasionally they could be as outrageous and entertaining as Ellen’s fiery, vibrant family?

   ‘Haven’t you got a lovely dad? I wish I had a dad like him,’ she’d say, (which was exactly the sort of things other children said after watching his ‘performances.’)

   Mary laughed till she cried as Mr Pomfret mimicked neighbours and local shopkeepers with their comical ways of walking and talking,  their habits and mannerisms that she had never even noticed before. She wondered if he made fun of her own parents, she wouldn’t be surprised in the least.

   When he impersonated Adolf Hitler - banging his fist on the table like a madman and shouting German-sounding words into an empty pint-pot so they echoed around the room - it was like having the real Hitler standing before them. It was quite terrifying yet nobody was brave enough to ask him to stop.

   She was spellbound the first time she heard Mr Pomfret, with an invisible cigar in his hand, deliver one of the Prime Minister’s moving speeches. She had listened to Mr Churchill on the wireless many times and this was exactly that same voice.

   But it was when he pretended to be King George, stammering his way through a speech, that she thought him un-Christian-like, and yet even then she couldn’t stop herself from laughing.

    Suddenly, completely out of the blue, while Mary and the rest were still laughing, something would upset him and he would shout louder than she had heard anyone shout in all her life. She wondered what some of the angry words meant and why they always led to a tearful Mrs Pomfret ushering the children out through the front door.

   Yet although his outbursts frightened her they weren’t enough to keep Mary Kingsley away from the house across the street, where something exciting and dramatic was always happening to someone.

*

   Something exciting and dramatic happened to Betty at dancing class one Saturday afternoon in 1944. A middle-aged couple were watching Miss Julie put the children through their tap and ballet routines and from their pointing and whispering it looked like their attentions were focused on Betty. At the end of the lesson Miss Julie called Betty over to one side and asked if she would like to “go on the stage” with Mr and Mrs Harris’s dancing troupe.

   ‘Oo, yes please,’ Betty said, ‘but what about our kid, our Ellie? She’s a good dancer, can she come as well?’

   ‘How old is she?’ said Mr Harris.

   ‘Ten.’

   ‘She’s too young now, but in another two years time she’ll be old enough. For the present I’ll see what your parents have to say about you.’

   Joe and Florrie listened intently as Bert Harris outlined his plans. Their daughter would be one of six dancers on the same theatre bill as him. He was, he enlightened them, a well-known music hall comedian, perhaps they had heard of him under his stage name of Paul Tracey? Joe, even with his broad knowledge of who was who in the theatre, had to admit he
hadn’t.

    With his extrovert personality, sense of humour and musical abilities, not to mention his flair for mimicry, Joe had long harboured his own dreams of stardom. Now that the next best thing was happening it was like a miracle!  Here was this fella, Bert Harris - or Paul Tracey - offering his Betty the chance to make summat of herself. And it was very good of his wife Beryl, to offer to look after her welfare. Bursting with pride he put his arm around Betty’s shoulders.

   ‘Well kid, how d’ya fancy going on tour with this lady and gentleman?’

   Betty nodded vigorously. Bert shook her father’s hand and promised to be in touch in a few days but it was a nerve-racking three weeks before the letter finally arrived.

     Dear Mr Pomfret

          Will be home Sunday, to arrive Blackburn at 3.20. Would like Betty to meet us with the others so that I can arrange about rehearsal on Monday. I will see the education people about getting her off school on Monday afternoons for rehearsals for two weeks until the school holidays start. She can come down here to the house on Sunday with young Isabel.

          Have enclosed contract. Can you sign it and give it to me on Sunday. I will give you your confirmation on Monday.

          All Good Wishes

               Bert Harris

   ‘That’s that then, our Betty’s gonna be famous,’ Florrie gave a sigh of relief and hoped that her stage-stuck husband would forget his own silly ideas once and for all.

*

   The Pomfrets were regular patrons of The Grand Theatre, hanging around the stage door after the shows, waiting for a smile, a handshake or even just a glimpse of some radio or film star. And following the second-house of “Cinderella”, is where Joe first met the ballad singer Terry Johnson.

   “Cinderella”, with its dancing girls, comedian, and Terry Johnson as ‘Buttons’, was just the sort of brash, exuberant pantomime to take their minds off the war. To distract the audience from the clattering of scene-shifting behind the red velvet curtains as the scruffy scullery was transformed into Prince Charming’s Palace, a giant song-sheet was lowered. Buttons pointed to each word with a long cane and invited the audience to sing along. From the front row of the stalls The Pomfrets enthusiastically belted out:

     If only we had some eggs we could have some eggs and bacon,

     If only we has some bacon in the lar-der.

          If only we had a cow… we could have some milk.

          If only we had some silkworms… we’d wear silk.

          If only we had a rabbit, we could have a rabbit-pie.

          If only we went to College, we could wear a College tie.

     Oh… if only we had some eggs we could have some egg and bacon,

     If only we had some bacon in the lar...der.

   An encore was demanded and this time ‘Buttons’ invited children, including Betty, Ellen and Billy, on stage with him. Joe was on the edge of his seat applauding louder than anyone else. But the real thrill came at the Stage Door after the show when they were quite unexpectedly asked to join Terry in his dressing room.

   Terry frequently topped the bill at The Grand and Joe never missed an opportunity to see him and so their friendship blossomed. Terry would take him to the nearby pub for a drink after the show leaving Florrie and the children to go home alone.

   If they happened to be on holiday in Blackpool when Terry was appearing in a Summer Show, he would take them to extravagant show business parties. Joe was in his element rubbing shoulders with the likes of Frank Randle and Two-ton Tessie O’Shea.

*

   It soon became obvious to Florrie that Terry’s interest lay solely with her husband. The way he fawned over him, bombarding him with flattery, the lingering handshake, the arm draped casually around her husband’s shoulder, not casually enough for her liking, and then there were the weekly letters when he was on tour.  Joe was rattled when she broached the subject.

   ‘What’ya talking about now, you daft bugger? D’ya mean to say Terry’s a
nancy
-boy?’  

   Yet, spellbound by the attention lavished on him by the handsome young singer Joe was confused and ashamed at the same time. Things were spinning out of his control.  If he were honest with himself he might admit to secret feelings for Terry but that was just bullshit…it couldn’t be right…it was abnormal…or at least he’d always
said
it was.  And yet, Terry’s letters weren’t the kind of letters he’d want Florrie to get hold of.

   Unaware that Joe had been answering the letters, Florrie wondered why Terry had nothing better to do but send them in the first place. What did he have to say to her husband that was so important? Joe brushed aside her curiosity by saying that Terry simply wrote to tell him how his latest show was going.

   Her suspicions were realised after she came across one of Terry ’s letters hidden under a pile of newspapers. It read:

 
My Dear Joe,

   Sorry I have not written sooner. I cannot tell you how unhappy I have been since our last conversation in Blackburn three weeks ago. Only now do I feel able to put pen to paper again. When I invited you to come on the road with me as my manager I think you realised although I did not put it into so many words that my dearest wish was that we would be more to each other than the good friends we have been over the years. Was it so wrong of me, my dear Joe, to hope our destiny lay with each other?

    
Perhaps I was selfish in wanting to take you away from your dear Florrie and your three beautiful children but sometimes in life one has to follow one’s heart even though in this instance following my heart has proved futile.

      Unhappily for me, it seems that I completely misunderstood your affection, your steadfast devotion. With a heavy heart, in which you will always have a special place, I now accept that you and I must follow our separate paths.

      I will be back at The Grand before Christmas and dearly hope to see you then.

                     Yours ever, Terry.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
  

   Florrie tried to make sense of the letter. Something was going on between Terry and her Joe…her Joe who had always had plenty to say about nancy-boys… surely he wasn’t one himself?  Over the next hour as she waited to confront him, her disbelief turned to anger.

   ‘What the bloody hell’s all this about then?’ she waved the letter in his face.

   Joe blanched. ‘Where d’ya get that from? have you been snooping, sticking your nose in my business?’

   ‘If a fella’s a puff it’s his wife’s business too.’

   ‘Hold your horses and keep your voice down for Christ’s sake, ya don’t need to tell all our business to them nosey sods next door.  I’m no puff and if you’d bothered to read
my
private
letter properly, you’d see I turned him down when he asked me to go on the road, so pipe-down now about it, will ya?’

   ‘Well, I never liked that Terry, never trusted him,’ she was beginning to feel reassured, ‘how he were always mauling you, it weren’t natural.’