Forgotten Dreams (42 page)
‘Well?’ the landlord said; his momentary amusement had clearly evaporated and from his impatient tone he was keen to get back to his own quarters, wherever they might be. ‘Are you taking it? I want me money in advance, mind.’
‘Yes, we’ll take it,’ Merle said, fishing a half-crown out of her pocket and handing it over reluctantly. ‘But we’ll want a key to that there door because we’ve got to leave our holdalls here whilst we search for our gran.’
The landlord pocketed the money and turned away. ‘There ain’t no key as you’d see if you’d eyes in your head,’ he said nastily. ‘There ain’t no keyhole, so is it likely there’d be a key? But at present you’re the only lodgers so your stuff’ll be safe enough.’
‘In other words, if we lose anything we can tell the scuffers that it was you what took it,’ Merle said amiably, following him out of the room.
They descended the first flight of stairs and the man turned on the landing to grin at them. ‘That’s right; but I doubt you’d be believed. I’ve been runnin’ this ’ere lodgin’ house for twenty years and no one’s accused me of dishonesty yet. Well, if you’re only here for one night, no point in tellin’ you the house rules, but I’d best mention you’re not allowed to cook food in your room and the lavvy is in the yard at the back. I’ll show you.’
Once outside on the pavement again, the two girls smiled at one another. ‘I say, Merle, you are brave,’ Lottie said admiringly. ‘I’d never have dared to speak out like you did.’
‘Ah, but you’ve not spent your life touring the country and having to tackle landlords and landladies, fighting your corner with folk being prejudiced ’cos they reckon circus people are gypsies,’ Merle said. ‘Of course when I were a kid, me mam and dad did all the bargaining, but I suppose I took in more’n I realised because when I went off with me two pals to do our Sisters act I knew just how to treat anyone tryin’ to do us down.’ She glanced around the street, then linked her arm in Lottie’s. ‘Which way to the prom?’ she remarked. ‘I reckon our search should start there.’
Rhyl was not a big town and the couple for whom the girls were searching would have stood out in people’s memories, Lottie was sure, so by the end of the day they were pretty certain that Gran and Troy were not in Rhyl. As they made their way back to their lodgings with a newspaper-wrapped bundle of fish and chips, Merle was inclined to be depressed, but Lottie said she thought they had made a good start. ‘We’ve learned that young people can’t help us much, but older ones actually remember a circus which used to come every August, and had a fortune-teller who sounded just like Gran,’ she reminded her friend. ‘I know everyone says that the fortune-teller who’s come to Rhyl recently has been young and sharp-featured, but that only means Gran’s not with that particular show any more. We could try Llandudno, Abergele, Prestatyn . . . only so far as I know, none of those towns are visited regularly by a circus.’
‘Well, the seaside does seem the best bet,’ Merle acknowledged as they unlocked the front door of their lodgings with the key their landlord had given them. They scuttled quietly down the hall and up the stairs, and shut the door of their room behind them before shedding their coats and checking that their holdalls were still beneath the bed where they had left them, and did not appear to have been touched.
‘Let’s wrap ourselves in the bedding and eat our suppers,’ Lottie said. ‘I wish we could lock the door. If there was a chair we could jam it under the handle . . .’
She and Merle had both slumped on to the bed, but at her words Merle got up, put her finger to her lips and left the room. A minute later she was back, carrying an old kitchen chair. ‘It were in the room opposite,’ she said, jamming the door closed with the back of the chair. ‘There you are, safe as houses. And now let’s get at them fish and chips!’
Despite the tiring day they had had, however, Lottie did not find it easy to fall asleep. Long after Merle was snoring gently, she lay staring at the cracks which ran across the ceiling, for the curtains were thin and the moon shone through them, illumining the room with a ghostly grey pallor. Eventually, however, she did sleep, and pretty soundly too.
In fact she only awakened to daylight and the sound of someone sobbing. She opened her eyes and for a moment could not imagine where she was. Then she glanced blearily around her and remembered: she and Merle were in lodgings in Rhyl, and her friend, who had been quite cheerful and optimistic for most of the previous day, must have remembered her situation. She sat up, meaning to give Merle a hug and tell her that all would be well, but even as she did so Merle put her arms round Lottie and said bracingly: ‘Whatever’s the matter, chuck? Oh, don’t tek on so; I’m certain we’ll find ’em before too long!’
Lottie stared at her friend, then put tentative fingers up to her own cheek. It was wet with tears. ‘It was me crying, then,’ she said wonderingly. ‘But I thought it was you . . . I must have been dreaming.’
‘You were,’ Merle said. ‘You . . . well, you were talking about Louella . . .’
All in a moment, Lottie remembered. She had been dreaming about the Gaiety theatre. In her dream, Louella had had to explain to Mr Quentain that The Three Lacey Sisters were no longer an act, and Mr Quentain had turned Louella out. She had seen her mother, shoulders drooping, walking dejectedly away from the theatre, despair in every slow dragging footstep. ‘What am I to do?’ her mother had said, in a small, hopeless voice. ‘I know it was wrong to abandon my baby, but what choice did I have?’
Then, in the manner of dreams, Max had been there, walking along beside her mother, talking earnestly. ‘You won’t be able to manage when you have only the money I pay to my assistant coming in,’ he was saying, in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘Is there nothing else you can do? I suppose you could launder sheets and tablecloths for the big hotels . . .’
‘I couldn’t possibly do work of that nature,’ Louella had cried. ‘Oh, Max, I know I was wrong to leave my baby with that old woman, but since getting her back again I’ve really, really tried to be a good mother. I don’t know whether I succeeded – I suppose not, since Lottie’s run away from me – but I truly did try. And now that she’s gone, there’s a dreadful ache in my heart and I miss her more than I can say.’
Then the dream had faded and Lottie realised that the tears she had shed had been for Louella, and not for herself. She looked at Merle. ‘I thought I hated Louella but I don’t believe I do,’ she said slowly. ‘And I don’t believe she hates me, either. So I’ve made up my mind that when I go back to her, I’ll always call her Mam, never Louella, and I’ll make her listen to me and tell me the absolute truth, always. Then we can be a proper mother and daughter, even though we may never live under the same roof again, because I mean to live with Gran, you know.’
‘Good for you, love,’ Merle said. She hesitated, then went on. ‘But darling Lottie, has it never occurred to you that – that ten years is a long time, and Mrs Olly may be . . . may be . . .’
‘May be dead, you mean,’ Lottie said. ‘Yes of course it’s a possibility, but if she was, I – I think I’d know. And now we’d best get dressed because we’ll want to be moving on today and it’s broad daylight. Why, it could be noon!’
‘Well it ain’t; I heard a clock strike eight just before I woke you,’ Merle said. ‘So you were dreaming about Louella. Why were you crying then?’
‘Oh, it was a silly dream,’ Lottie said, beginning to wash. ‘I dreamed Mr Quentain and Max told her she’d have to take in washing.’
Merle laughed. ‘I can just see Louella doing that,’ she said, taking her friend’s place at the washstand. ‘I wonder if the old bugger would sell us half a loaf and let us make ourselves some toast at his kitchen fire? Because I don’t mean to go without me brekker, not now that I’m eating for two.’
It was a cold day towards the end of February. Max came into the kitchen, talking as he did so, then stopped short. Louella was before him, making porridge, whilst Baz cleaned his shoes, whistling. Max looked at Louella intently. ‘You’ve been crying,’ he said gently. ‘I thought you would have come to terms with it by now . . . Lottie’s leaving, I mean. I told you, young Merle’s got a sensible head on her shoulders and she’s been raised in a hard school. Circus folk are grand but they’re always on the move and ordinary townspeople think they’re gypsies and treat them accordingly, so Merle has had to be tough. And remember, Lottie never said she was going for good; I’m sure she means to come back just as soon as she’s explained things to this Mrs Olly you mentioned.’
‘Oliphant, that’s her real name,’ Louella said. ‘But everyone calls her Mrs Olly.’ She began to ladle porridge into the dishes she had stood ready, then banged the pan back on the stove and turned away from the two men. ‘I can’t get used to there being only three of us,’ she wailed. ‘I miss them both, but losing Lottie is like losing an arm. I can’t stop thinking about her, wishing I’d told her the truth, only of course if I had I’d have lost her earlier.’
‘It doesn’t follow,’ Baz said, his spoon poised halfway to his mouth. ‘Oh, I don’t deny she would have wanted to go back to Gran, but I’m sure between you you could have worked something out. Why, Gran could have come and stayed nearby every summer season so that Lottie could do her act yet be with both of you.’
‘Well, it’s no good wishing, because I didn’t do it at the time and it’s a bit late now,’ Louella said. She came over to the table and sat down, pulling a dish of porridge towards her, then pushing it away. ‘And the worst thing is the worry. I’ve never been a worrier but now, not knowing where she is or what’s happening to her . . .’
‘Eat that porridge,’ Max said firmly. ‘The girls have written, so you know they’re all right even though you can’t reply because they won’t give you an address. It’s early days, Louella, and Mr Quentain isn’t going to want a singer-dancer with legs like matchsticks and a face as long as a wet weekend. You’re always fond of telling us you’re a pro, a real trouper; now’s the time to prove it!’
Chapter FifteenIt was a cold spring, and as the girls continued their search it became imperative that they should work. They had tried all the larger East Anglian seaside resorts without success, though a good many people – the older ones – remembered Gran and Troy from years back. Some reckoned she had retired, others that she had perhaps joined a travelling fair. ‘There’s tiny fairs what don’t do the big resorts at all, but go from village to village from March to October, and then lays up somewhere snug to overwinter,’ one elderly man told them. ‘Come to think, she and the boy appeared on the scene around ten years gone. She must ha’ done something before then, though I misremember her ever referring to it. Maybe, as she got older, she went back to her roots, so to speak.’
This was bad news for the girls and that evening, as they lay huddled together in the single bed in a cold and rather dirty lodging house, they discussed what best to do. ‘We need to earn some money badly; I know we’ve had bits and pieces of work in every town we’ve stopped in, but it really isn’t enough. We want a job that will last weeks, not days, and will pay well enough to cover food, lodgings, and a little bit over,’ Lottie said. ‘There don’t seem to be many jobs about anywhere but I think if we ask folk to employ us – say we’ll do anything – then someone may take us on. Only I don’t fancy sleeping out again now that it’s got so bitter.’
Merle, pulling the thin blankets up to her chin, shivered and agreed that sleeping out was no longer an option. Some time previously they had received a tip-off from an elderly woman who remembered Gran and Troy and also the winter quarters of the fair which had last employed the old lady. ‘Mrs Olly telled fortunes and the lad did just about everything: he took the money on the bumper cars, lifted the kids on and off the horses on the galloper, barked for the side shows and helped wi’ the takin’ down and puttin’ up,’ she had said, smiling. ‘He were a grand lad. He looked after the old gal real good; well, I suppose you could say they looked after each other. Yes, I reckon if you make your way to King’s Lynn you’ll mebbe find ’em, or at least get news of ’em.’
The girls had taken her advice but no amount of questioning had helped in their search. Even then, the caravans had been drawn into the shelter of a nearby wood and the amusements tucked away under canvas. The field in which the fair overwintered was several miles from King’s Lynn and by the time the girls had finished questioning the fair folk night had been drawing in. The thought of tramping back into town and then having to search for lodgings was daunting, and it was then that Lottie had her bright idea. ‘It doesn’t look as if it’s going to rain,’ she said. ‘I reckon if we crawl under the canvas and curl up in one of the cars, we’ll lie snug enough until morning and it’ll save us a night’s rent.’
They had done this for a couple of nights but then had felt impelled to move on and had not been sorry to do so, for they were not the only ones who sheltered beneath the canvas covers. Scuttlings and squealings indicated that rats and mice also appreciated having a roof over their heads, and there were spiders and earwigs in residence as well.
So now Merle agreed fervently that work was infinitely preferable to sleeping rough. ‘If it snowed, we’d be found dead by morning,’ she said. ‘But there’s a big café in the town centre and they get real busy around lunchtime, when folk come out of the offices and factories to get themselves a bite to eat. They might need girls to wash up or wait on; you never know.’
They were in luck and worked for a couple of days at the café in question, but when they left on what turned out to be their last evening to go back to their lodgings, they ran into an ugly situation. A group of girls accosted them, forming a circle round them and demanding to know what they were doing, taking jobs from local girls and working for a pittance. ‘My mum’s cook assistant in Heyworth’s Dining Rooms and she says you’re so desperate you let the old feller pay you half cash an’ half grub,’ she said accusingly. ‘He sacked me an’ Rita here, as well as Dottie and Mabel, because he said we weren’t satisfactory, took food when he weren’t watchin’ and flirted wi’ the customers. But we were all right until you come along, and now we wants our jobs back.’
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