Remember Me (12 page)

‘No, I haven’t given him an answer yet. I don’t want to offend him – I’m very fond of Uncle Will, as you know – but I think I would prefer to work somewhere completely different. Not because of the connotations with death, but I feel it might be rather restricting. There are already quite a few members of the family working in the business, aren’t there? Patrick went into it straight from school, and now my mother is in charge of the shop. I’d rather spread my wings and do something else. You didn’t work there, did you? You never wanted to.’

‘No, I worked for Aunt Louisa, learning the dressmaking trade, and then I joined the Pierrots and…here I am, an “artiste” or a “showgirl” or whatever you want to call me.’ Maddy laughed. ‘Anyway, why does my dad want someone else to work in the office? They’ve managed all right between them, haven’t they, with the office work, with the bills and bookings and everything?’

‘Your grandad is slowing down,’ said Jessie. ‘He doesn’t do nearly as much as he used to in the workshop, or attending funerals. You must have noticed that he’s getting frailer?’

‘Yes, I’ve seen quite a change in him,’ agreed Maddy. ‘It’s sad, isn’t it? I thought Grandad Isaac would go on for ever.’

‘Most of the work is falling on your father and Patrick,’ said Jessie. ‘Joe Black is a good carpenter, but I don’t think he’s all that competent at office work, and Patrick has never had much to do with
that side of the business. So Uncle Will really does need an extra pair of hands. I shall have to tell him, though, that I’d rather he appointed someone else. As a matter of fact, I have an interview next week. I’ll tell him and Mother before then.’

‘You clever thing, you!’ said Maddy. ‘So what’s the job? Where is it?’

‘It’s at a new store that’s opening soon in Castle Road,’ replied Jessie. ‘A furniture and carpet store, and they’re looking for office staff. I saw the advertisement in the evening paper so I applied and, as I said, I’ve got an interview on Wednesday afternoon.’

‘What about your college course?’ asked Maddy.

‘Oh, they’ll let me miss an hour or two at college. Several of us are applying for jobs right now. I might not get it, of course, and it might be quite a menial job if I do; running errands and making the tea, but I have to start somewhere.’

‘Don’t underestimate yourself,’ Maddy told her. ‘You stand as much chance as anyone else; more, I would say. Don’t be afraid to blow your own trumpet.’

‘I’ve never been very good at that,’ said Jessie. ‘I hate showing off. Do you remember when we went in for that talent contest at the Pierrot show? I said I’d rather die than appear on a stage, but you persuaded me to do it; and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected once I got up there.’

‘And you won a highly commended prize for your recitation,’ said Maddy, remembering how
reticent her friend had used to be. ‘You never know what you can do until you try.’ It was she, Maddy, she recalled, who had been far more outgoing when they were children, but Jessie had blossomed quite a lot recently, especially since she had been at the commercial college.

‘But you won the first prize, didn’t you?’ Jessie reminded her. ‘Everybody was enthralled when you sang “Scarborough Fair”. Is that song still in your repertoire?’

‘Yes, I sing it sometimes,’ said Maddy. ‘But I include more modern ones as well, quite a lot of music hall songs; the audience always enjoys those. You won’t be able to come and watch us during the day, will you, while you’re at college?’

‘No, but you can be sure I’ll be there on the front row at the evening performances,’ said Jessie. ‘We’re all coming tomorrow night, you know, to the show at six-thirty. Mother and Uncle Will, Patrick and Katy and the twins, and Grandad Isaac said he was coming as well. We’re expecting a first-rate performance.’

‘And that’s what you’ll get,’ laughed Maddy. ‘Mind you, it’s not really all that different from what it was a few years ago. The same old acts…’ She hesitated. ‘I shouldn’t say that, should I? It sounds as though they’re hackneyed and “old hat”, and of course they’re not… Well, I suppose some of the older ones might be getting a bit stale,’ she added truthfully. ‘I know Percy would like to inject
some “new blood”, as he calls it, but he’s always careful not to offend anyone.’

‘Percy Morgan’s a grand fellow, isn’t he?’ Jessie remarked. ‘I remember all the children used to love him, and he’s so friendly and courteous to the adults as well.’

‘Yes, he’s one of the best,’ agreed Maddy. ‘Far too nice to be a showman, really. He’s not ruthless enough, but he keeps the loyalty of his troupe and that’s the important thing… So what do you do with yourself when you’re not at college?’ Maddy went on to ask her friend. ‘I take it you’re still a member of the cycling club?’

‘Oh yes; we’re out and about quite a lot, now that the lighter evenings are here. And Saturdays and Sundays, too, sometimes. You would be very welcome to come with us, Maddy, whilst you’re here, but I wanted you all to myself this afternoon, and that was why I didn’t go with them today. There are some lovely rides around Scarborough. We’ve been to the Forge Valley, and the Mere, and out towards Flamborough Head.’

‘It’s ages since I went to those places,’ said Maddy, rather wistfully. ‘Of course, I’ve been away from Scarborough for a couple of years and during the summer I’m always so busy… I shall have to try and get a bit of time to myself, though, when Dan comes,’ she said.

If he comes…she added silently to herself, wondering why she suddenly felt so unsure.

Chapter Ten

M
addy dashed to the door on Monday morning on hearing the rattle of the letter box. She was hoping there would be a letter from Dan in reply to the one she had written, in which she had suggested a possible date for their meeting. But, alas, the only mail consisted of a couple of brown envelopes addressed to her father and a rather larger white one for Mr and Mrs W Moon. She felt her heart plummet in a spasm of disappointment, but she told herself that it was possibly too soon to be expecting a reply. It was, after all, less than a week since Dan would have received her letter. There was sure to be one tomorrow, or the day after.

There was no time to brood, however, because it was today that Uncle Percy’s Pierrots were to start in earnest with their summer season performances. Three shows a day, morning, afternoon and early evening, weather and tides permitting, of course. The notice ‘If wet, under the pier’ had become something of a standing joke amongst the Pierrots in former years, those belonging to Percy Morgan’s troupe and to the rival troupes who performed on
the South Bay sands at the other side of the headland. But now the pathetic little notice regarding the wet weather was no longer applicable, because Scarborough Pier was no longer there. On the 8th of January in 1905, the pier and the pavilion had been blown away overnight in a particularly vicious storm. So since then, having no shelter to run to, they had carried on stoically and cheerfully in all kinds of weather: blazing sunshine, strong wind or drizzly rain; only the heaviest of showers would cause them to abandon the show altogether. The tides, too, were out of their control. If there was no sand, then they moved their pitch to the promenade at the top of the cliff path.

It was good to be back, Maddy reflected later that same morning as she donned her Pierrot outfit; the white tunic with the large frilly collar and red pompoms, the white skirt that came down to her ankles, and the conical-shaped hat. The only difference between the male and female Pierrots was that the men wore baggy trousers and the women wore skirts. It was a traditional costume that had been derived originally from the French characters of Harlequin and Pierrot, and was worn by all the troupes, not only in Scarborough and the East Coast but in other parts of the country as well. For Pierrots were to be found almost everywhere where there was a beach. The only variation was in the colour of the pompoms on the hats and tunics.

Some troupes still kept to the old tradition of
employing only male performers. Percy Morgan’s biggest rival, Will Catlin, who had had a pitch in Scarborough for many years, was still keeping to his strict rule of men only. Maddy found that hard to imagine. Women, in her opinion, added a touch of originality, of lightness and frivolity and diversity. Certainly the five women in their own troupe could not be more different, both in appearance and in the content of their performances. The thing they had in common, though, and which Percy insisted upon, was their adaptability and their willingness to help out – to ‘muck in’, as he put it – wherever they were needed.

There was no theatre dressing room here such as they had been used to during their autumn and winter tours, although several of those had been far from luxurious, or even comfortable. They dressed, on Scarborough sands, in two tents, one for the men and another for the women, on either side of their stage of wooden boards which was laid down every time they performed. The piano that Letty played was wheeled down to the beach each day on a handcart or ‘barrer’, by an odd-job man in the town who was known as the ‘Barrer Man’.

Maddy peeped through the flap of the tent. There was not a very big crowd there as yet, but there were still five minutes to go. The day was chilly; fine but with a grey sky and a stiff little breeze; not the sort of weather that was conducive to sitting around on the beach. The children on the front
benches and the adults, seated on deckchairs further back, were all wearing their coats, and a few of the grown-ups looked far from happy. The children, though, were chattering excitedly and Maddy remembered how she had loved the Pierrot shows when she was a little girl. And she was sure that the infectious humour and light-hearted banter, and the magic of the songs and dances would coax a smile from even the most miserable face.

There was a ripple of applause as they all tripped onto the stage for their opening number.

It took a little time for them to get into their stride and for the audience to respond as enthusiastically as they might have wished, but there was a gradual improvement as the show continued.

There were one or two unfortunate little incidents that made the audience laugh, in sympathy, fortunately, rather than in derision. Daisy, one of Nancy’s little West Highland terriers, who was usually very well behaved, cocked her leg up against her stool and would not jump onto it and ‘sit up and beg’ until she had finished what she was doing. Nancy decided that the best thing to do was to laugh along with the audience, then Pete, her
husband, made a great show of coming on with a mop to wipe up the stream that was running across the platform.

Then Barney’s bow tie was knocked askew when Benjy flung out a hand rather too energetically.

‘Hey, mister, yer tie’s all crooked,’ called a cheeky lad on the front row of the audience, at which Benjy stopped in the middle of the dance and fussed around straightening his partner’s apparel.

Susannah, to her consternation, muddled up the words when she was singing ‘In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree’, although she had sung it dozens of times before, but like a true pro she turned it to her advantage. It was far better, sometimes, to admit that you had slipped up rather than try to disguise it. ‘Oh, come on, you lot, help me out!’ she cried, and the audience good-humouredly joined in with her.

As for Maddy, she felt that she performed reasonably well, but it was strange singing in the open air again after being used to the cosy intimacy of many of the theatres in which they had played. Not that all of them had been ideal; some of them had been great barns of places, and others were
functional church or civic halls with few amenities. The sound was confined, though, when you sang indoors, whereas here it tended to drift away on the breeze. Her unaccompanied song, in particular, did not get the applause she was used to. It can only get better, she told herself, and tonight she would be singing especially for her family.

Nobody could help but notice that Queenie’s top notes were decidedly wavy, and her voice cracked as she strained for a top F in ‘Poor Wandering One’, a favourite Gilbert and Sullivan number which she had sung on many occasions. Seaside audiences, however, were not as critical as those in a theatre and no one winced – at least not noticeably – or jeered. On the contrary, she received a good round of applause, although it could have been out of sympathy for a brave performance, in view of the fact that she was getting a little ‘past it’. Indeed, there had been a few catcalls and boos from the gallery in a couple of the inland towns in which they had played. Percy had not commented on it, but Maddy felt sure that he was aware of it. She saw him frown a little as he listened to Queenie. She knew of his concern and could foresee that there might be difficulties ahead.

‘Well done, everyone,’ he said after the performance. ‘A few minor hiccups, but nothing that can’t be remedied, I’m sure.’

Not a great deal of money had been collected, though, when Pete, the bottler, had gone round at the
interval with his wooden box to collect contributions – halfpennies, pennies or threepenny bits as a rule – from the children on the front benches, or the grown-ups who had chosen to stand. They charged a shilling now for the privilege of sitting on a deckchair, and most adults considered the price to be well worthwhile. There were still a few, though, who would stand, and even some who would walk away when the bottler appeared. ‘Bottling’ was an old tradition in the Pierrot troupes. It had derived from the fact that the proceeds of the collection had, in the early days, been placed in a large bottle so that they were not easily removable. At the end of the week the bottle would be broken and the money shared out fairly between the members of the company. Nowadays, though, they had more sophisticated ways of earning their money. Seats that had to be paid for; programmes and song sheets to be bought at twopence a time; and sepia postcards of all the Pierrots, in groups or in separate poses, for sale at the end of each performance.

The afternoon performance went ahead without any mishaps and there was a larger audience, which was encouraging. The bigger the audience, the better the show, was the usual way of things. Artistes responded more enthusiastically to a goodly crowd than to a handful of people.

By the time of the evening performance the tide had come in, and so the show took place at a spot halfway up the cliff known as Clarence Gardens. It
was an ideal venue with a little bandstand, where the Pierrots congregated before going onto the stage for their various acts. There were forms aplenty which were permanent fixtures at the site, and grassy banks where those not wanting to pay for a seat could recline, as well as the deckchairs and benches for the children, which had to be transported from the beach. It was quite an undertaking, shifting everything around, but there were always local chaps and visitors to the resort who were willing to lend a hand for the price of a pint of ale.

The evening show turned out to be the best of the day and Percy declared that he was well satisfied with the takings and with the way the troupe had rallied round and given it their all. Maddy was delighted that all the members of her family had come to watch. Tilly and Tommy beamed at her from their seats on the front row, and sitting a little way back were her father and Aunty Faith, Grandad Isaac, Jessie, and Patrick and his girlfriend – now his fiancée – Katy. And, to her surprise, there on the row behind was Miss Muriel Phipps, the senior assistant from the store; Martin Sadler who was in charge of the gentlemen’s clothing, with his wife at his side; and even young Doris, the thirteen-year-old who had recently started as a trainee sales assistant. And Joe Black, too, who was on the undertaking staff, with Alice, his new wife whom he had married a few months ago.

Maddy was moved almost to tears at the sight of
them all. They smiled at her, not without an air of propriety that she was their very own daughter, or sister, or friend, and applauded loud and long at the end of each song. She knew it would be most unprofessional to wave at them, as children did at school concerts, but she nodded her head slightly in their direction to acknowledge that she valued their support.

Then, on an impulse, she said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this next song is for all of you who love Scarborough. And especially for my family, who live here and who are all in the audience. It happens to be the very first song I sang for the Pierrots, and it is my favourite song of all…‘Scarborough Fair’. She did not say that it was the one she had sung when she won the talent competition at eleven years of age, but there were many people there who would remember that.

Letty played a single note on the piano, because this was the song that she always sang unaccompanied.

‘You’re getting better and better, lass,’ her grandad told her later that evening when they were back home, ‘and that song never fails to bring a tear to
my eye. It’s grand to have you back with us for a while, it is that. We’ve missed you; aye, we’ve missed you, lass.’

‘It’s lovely to be back, Grandad,’ she told him, ‘and I miss you too, all of you, when I’m away.’

Grandad Isaac had aged a good deal during her last absence. His shoulders were stooped, whereas he had once had such an upright carriage, deep furrows creased his brow and cheeks, and his once blue eyes had a pale and rheumy look behind the spectacles that he now wore nearly all the time. She felt a stab of sorrow at the thought of her grandad not always being there. He seemed in good health though, if a little less agile, and was still quite alert in his mind. So he could well live to be ninety or more, she told herself.

It was good to be back in the bosom of her family again, and in the place she loved most in all the world. Not that she had travelled the world, of course; she had scarcely seen anything of England until she joined the concert party. Her thoughts flew involuntarily to Samuel, who would quite soon be embarking on his journey to foreign parts. He was the only member of the family who had been missing that evening.