Made in Myrtle Street (Prequel) (25 page)

Big Charlie smiled and waved briefly at the laughing crowds before pushing his way through them in order to pursue what now seemed to be the only course of action that was available to him and that was to go for a few pints of beer. Minutes later he was sitting gloomily staring into his pint in The Clowes Hotel and contemplating his now grim looking future and what it held in store for him. No longer stimulated to minor hero levels by the cheering neighbours and forced by the quiet loneliness of the bar to consider his situation more rationally, his mind seemed to have been enveloped in a cold, grey fog.

 The thought of going home to face his wife, and of trying to further pursue this briefly held dominance as master in his own house, filled him with an untold dread. His determined response of only a quarter of an hour ago had somehow lost its momentum and become quickly enfeebled. Almost as bad was the thought of going to his Mam’s and asking her for his old bed. That would almost certainly result in a clout round the ear – probably delivered, humiliatingly, whilst he remained standing on her doorstep.

Thoughts chased each other in a hopeless whirl round Big Charlie’s head and came to nothing. He took a large gulp out of his pint glass and watched the barmaid mop limply round the line of empty ashtrays.

‘I just heard about you dumping that oily little sod in the trough down Broadway,’ she said. ‘Should have held his head under for a bit longer. Mind you, that might have poisoned the horses.’

Big Charlie smiled bleakly. His dreams of nourishing days of good Lancashire meals had rapidly vanished to be replaced by the unpalatable prospect of a future without the woman that he needed so much. He had to admit that things had not always been quite right between them. Her sudden eruption into screaming rages, her capacity for rapacious derision and his bulky awkwardness in her slight presence made him almost fearful of physical contact. He had done his best to understand her torment but the memory of her in loving harmony with the dapper man made him now realise how badly he had failed.

A pat on the back and a cheery greeting ‘You did well to give that bloody dandy-pants a good dousing, Charlie,’ broke into his reverie. One of his neighbours joined him at the table whilst another went over to the bar to get them all a pint. Gentle probing was not a conversational art form that Big Charlie felt particularly familiar with so he was grateful for the subsequent willing disclosure by the two men of the story of his wife and the Dapper Man. It seemed that his wife, having endless lonely hours in the evenings to fill and not having the commitments that are the natural concomitant of a young family, had decided to take the first, faltering step in pursuit of an ambition that she had cherished since childhood. She had joined the Salford Glee Club that met every Tuesday and Friday evening at the Trafford Road Assembly Rooms. Her modest talent for singing, combined with a surprising gift for expressive drama, had soon resulted in her elevation to the ranks of the lead players.

From time to time the Salford Glee Club gave enthusiastic, if somewhat melodramatic, evenings of songs and sketches to parties of old people at the Regent Assembly Hall and to socials at a variety of churches. Their recent performance in front of an audience of injured soldiers at the wartime hospital in Langworthy Road School had been a triumph.

Occasionally, they went to the main hospitals to cheer up the patients with renditions of currently popular music hall songs and, only last Christmas, they had presented to a rapturously appreciative audience of four hundred inmates at the Salford Workhouse, a specially written version of Cinderella. Big Charlie’s wife, Dorothy – billed exotically by the Glee Club as Dolly de Vine – had given a tear jerking performance as Cinders. She had touched the hearts of the wretchedly unfortunate inmates with her interpretation of the role as the beautiful, though often beaten and humbled, young girl who did all the chores whilst her privileged, but ugly, older sisters went off to the Ball at the Palace.

So sympathetic had they been to the plight of the unfortunate Cinders that members of the audience had shouted angrily at the ugly sisters when they had told Cinders to go and prepare their gowns and then to clean the kitchen. The two loathsome women had then told her that she wasn’t allowed to go to the Ball and that she must stay behind and clear the cinders from the fireplace and scrub the floor. So moved were the socially disadvantaged inmates by this outrageous exploitation of the sobbing child that, when the brutish sisters took out a stick to thrash their desperate sibling, three unmarried mothers had jumped on the stage and attacked the startled bullies. A group of wardens had leapt forward to restrain the incensed women and a sword wielding Prince Charming – actually the Dapper Man, Sidney Snelgrove – had jumped in from behind the bed sheets that substituted for curtains at the side of the stage, having been forcibly propelled from there by the robust Chairwoman and director of the pantomime, Mrs Bollevant. Whilst the wardens grappled with the unmarried mothers, Prince Charming had stood trembling and waving his sword ineffectively at the restless audience. In a nervously high pitched voice he had pleaded with the crowd to remember that it was only a story and that it wasn’t real life but that had proved to be the breaking point for one old man who had then jumped up, brandishing his stick fiercely at the now quaking Prince Charming. ‘Don’t you come here telling us that rubbish, you raving Jessie,’ he had shouted. ‘It is real life. Why do you think we’ve finished up in here? It’s because people like you have put us in here.’

A portly Alderman in an expensive overcoat, who had unenthusiastically attended the pantomime only in order to show the concern that the city fathers felt for the welfare of their more unfortunate citizens, had then stood up and pushed the old man forcibly back into his seat. The old man’s wife, furious at this rough response to her husband’s rightful protest, responded with a surprisingly heavy blow to the Alderman’s nose. This had provoked a screaming reaction from the Alderman’s wife who, forgetting her carefully cultivated status and her Cashmere coat, had grabbed at the old woman’s hair and threatened to punch her eyes out. Her attack on one of their number had proved too much for some of the inmates in the adjoining seats who jumped up and tried to pull her off. The wardens, however, worried about this assault on their VIP guests and the implications that this might have for their future employment, had then reacted with a much too heavy response and within minutes the room was in chaos.

Inmates, sensing an opportunity to vent some of their suppressed anger at the inequitable lot that life had handed them, turned on the shrieking Prince Charming, intent on stripping him of some of the ill-gotten benefits that his high status had clearly conferred on him. Two old crones, having been deprived of the comforts of a male companion for some years, took the opportunity that fate had so generously presented them with, of a further exploration of the desperately struggling Prince Charming. Some of the other inmates had rushed over to the assistance of Cinders who was by now screaming and weeping with genuine fear. Moved by her awful distress many had joined the unmarried mothers and berated the ugly sisters who, sensing that their reception was less than warm and that their continuing presence might put themselves in serious danger, had picked up their skirts and fled through the nearest door. Those of the audience who were able, persuaded that their moment of destiny had come, had taken up the pursuit, ragged clothes streaming out behind them, bony fists waving their walking sticks and the swords stolen from Prince Charming’s courtiers.

After a frantic dash down the road, during which they had caused a horse to bolt leaving behind a very surprised coalman, the ugly sisters had sought refuge in the gent’s toilet at the corner of Trafford Road. The noise of the pursuit had brought the customers pouring out of the Ship Hotel and the word had quickly spread round that this was some upper class scoundrel who had put his servant girl ‘up the chuff’ and had thrown her out onto the streets. Outraged by this, and fortified by the strong ale from the Ship, the worthy dockworkers had joined in the protest. When, eventually, the police had arrived to deal with the three hundred strong mob that was blocking the road and they had discovered that the two terrified women were actually men, the rumours were greatly embellished. After much licking of pencils and taking down of notes, the police had finally arrested the ugly sisters ‘just to be on the safe side, like.’

Big Charlie listened with wonderment at these revelations of his wife’s involvement at the centre of a riot. He’d heard her singing in the cellar as she pounded the washing in the dolly tub, and he had to admit that she had a fair voice. But it appeared that Dorothy had confided in the woman next door that she nurtured a secret plan. She wanted to be a great singer so that when her Charlie came home, she could take him to a concert and surprise him with a dazzling performance. She reasoned that, when he saw how the audience applauded her and enraptured men stood and cheered and shouted for more, then Charlie would see her in a new light. He would see that there was more to her than just a sloven in a pinny who did all his fetching and carrying and who mithered him when he came home because she wanted some company. She would still be his Dot but she would be somebody special and that might put a bit more spark in his fire, a bit more oil in his can, so to speak, and, hopefully that could resolve this problem of her not having any family.

Big Charlie winced with shining embarrassment at the revelation that his less than masterful performances in the marital bed had clearly been opened up for speculative assessment by the gossiping wives of the neighbourhood. When Dot had learned, just two weeks after his Prince Charming humiliation, that Sidney Snelgrove had suffered another misfortune when his mother had thrown him out because of his funny ways, she saw this as an opportunity to further her plan. Despite some strange traits in his character, he did have a talent for the piano and for interpreting and presenting a song. There was much that could be learnt from him and the chance for more frequent rehearsals could not be ignored. She offered Sidney the use of the spare room for a modest rent and on the strict understanding that she would need it just as soon as she and Charlie started their family.

Big Charlie ‘Hmmmphed’ a few times and drank several mouthfuls of beer. His mind struggled to form a link between the slightly frumpy wife that he was familiar with and the glamorous Miss Dolly de Vine that his neighbours were describing. He pointed out, however, that it was obvious to him that there was a lot more to it than they thought because he had seen with his own eyes how they were gazing longingly at each other and singing ‘I Love You as I’ve Never Loved Before.’ It was Big Charlie’s opinion that what you had witnessed with your own eyes couldn’t be argued with and he would bet that he had been made the laughing stock of the whole area by their antics.

The neighbours countered this by agreeing that, initially, there had been a bit of gossip. However, the truth about Sidney Snelgrove had soon started to emerge. There was the story about why his mother had thrown him out because she was so ashamed of him but they wouldn’t go into all the detail now. There were the customers of the gent’s outfitters on Regent Road who confirmed Sidney’s enthusiasm for measuring up clients for suits, and the whole area knew that he had been turned down for army service because he would be bad for army morale. ‘In other words,’ the neighbours explained ‘Your Dorothy was in no danger from Sidney Snelgrove because, as everybody knows, it’s not women that he has a fancy for.’

Big Charlie’s mind finally grasped the awful significance of what he had just done.

***

The train was crowded with servicemen making their way down to the South Coast for the ferry. The majority were grim faced, battle weary soldiers rejoining their regiments after a pitiably short leave. Despite the obvious dangers that they would face, most of them felt sordidly reassured to be going back rather than afraid. These were men who understood the part that they had to play in this death-dealing structure. They worked together, played together and suffered together. Decisions were all made for them and they had no responsibility other than to each other. They were a meld of different characters from similar backgrounds that had been moulded into a fighting unit with a shared common focus. Fears were dealt with by complaining about the officers, the politicians, the toffs, the quality of the tea and the bully beef, the weather, the vermin and the equipment. But they did what was asked of them, and more as well. And, as they sat on this train heading back towards France, they all knew that they had a big job still to do.

Amongst the group there were clusters of newly trained recruits, easily distinguished by their loud, nervous laughter, their fresh faces and their neat, unblemished uniforms. They pressed the older soldiers for information about the fighting and the conditions on the Front but the responses were guarded and mostly superficial. Liam had enjoyed an hour of mischievously explaining to some of the young listeners how the diet included horse meat, which was partly true anyway, frogs and snails. He warned them that the French women, having been denied the comforts of their own men, had voracious appetites for young Lancashire boys, some of whom had not been seen again. He explained that it wasn’t wise to take on the old French men in the game of bowls which they play with metal balls on a croft. They always let you win a few to encourage you before they up the stakes and clean you out.

Now he had settled himself back into his seat and was thoughtfully watching Edward who had barely spoken throughout the journey. ‘What’s bugging you, Eddie?’ he eventually asked. ‘You’ve been a bit quiet, even for you. You certainly won’t be talking the hind legs off any donkeys today.’

Edward looked at him and half smiled. ‘Sorry mate. I’ve just been thinking. I seem to have really buggered things up at home over this last couple of weeks and now I’ve come away leaving things not sorted. I suppose Laura partly understands but I don’t think the kids do.’