Tiger Ragtime (31 page)

‘Certainly, Mr James.’ Mandy disappeared down the corridor. Mystified, Judy followed Aled into his office. There was a window behind his desk and he had angled the Venetian blinds in front of it so he could look outside without being seen. He beckoned Judy forward.

‘You see those people trying to get in to the club.’

Judy was already nervous and she began to shake when she saw the size of the crowd queuing to get in. ‘There’s hundreds.’

‘I didn’t bring you here to see the size of the crowd. But those people, there, on the right, with Aiden and Freddie. Recognise them?’

Judy saw half a dozen men and four women who appeared to be arguing with Freddie and Aiden.

‘That woman seems familiar,’ Judy murmured.

‘She should do. She refused to serve us in the first department store we went in when we were buying your stage costumes. She and her colleagues are now getting a taste of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of discrimination.’

‘You saw them trying to get in and sent Aiden and Freddie out to stop them?’

‘No. I asked Aiden to make a note of the names of everyone in senior management in the store.’

‘I remember.’ She looked at him.

‘I sent them complimentary tickets to the opening, to make sure they’d come.’

‘You invited them just so you could turn them away?’

‘Yes.’ He saw the troubled expression on her face.

‘You don’t approve?’

‘No, I know just how humiliated they feel. And they won’t know why they are being turned away.’

‘Yes they will.’ He closed the blinds. ‘I told Aiden and Freddie to tell them exactly why they are being turned away. I also told them to tell them that their complimentary tickets will be honoured on the day they start serving coloured people in their store and not before.’

‘And you think that will make them change the store’s policy?’ Judy smarted at the memory of the supervisor referring to her and Aiden as ‘people like that’, but it still didn’t make what Aled had done right in her eyes.

‘I thought it was worth a try. You’re obviously not so sure.’

She bit her lip. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘It was probably childish of me to want revenge, but from where I’m standing,’ he flicked the blinds again so he could see out, ‘it not only feels good, it feels right.’

‘My grandmother used to say two wrongs don’t make a right.’

‘She was undoubtedly a wise woman and more generous and forgiving than me.’ He looked at her. ‘I’m sorry. I should have known you’d disapprove.’

‘You’re my employer. It’s not for me to approve or disapprove of anything you do, Aled.’

‘I wish you’d stop thinking of me as your employer,’ he said seriously.

‘That’s difficult when you pay my wages.’

‘You’re going to open with “You’re Driving Me Crazy”.’

‘I am.’ She smiled, happy that he’d changed the subject. He kissed her forehead. ‘Go out there and kill them.’

‘Break a leg, you mean,’ Lennie shouted through the open door.

‘Come in, Lennie,’ Aled invited. ‘I was just about to open a bottle of champagne.’

‘I drink after a show, not before, thank you, boss.’ Lennie came in and gave Judy an enormous hug. ‘Not nervous, are you, darling?’

‘A condemned prisoner waiting for the hangman couldn’t feel any worse,’ Judy admitted.

‘After all the rehearsing you’ve done, you could do your act in your sleep,’ Lennie encouraged her.

‘Then why have I forgotten all the words to my songs?’ Judy asked, suddenly panic-stricken.

‘We’ll go through them while I finish your hair and make-up,’ Mandy said, coming into the room with a bouquet of two dozen roses. ‘And while you recite them you can smell these. They’ve just arrived.’

‘You’ve already filled the dressing room with white lilies and roses,’ Judy reproached Aled.

‘These are nothing to do with me,’ Aled said. ‘And my congratulatory bouquet won’t be delivered to you until after the performance – and on-stage.’

‘He’s hedging his bets in case you corpse on stage. If you do he’ll save the florist’s bill,’ Lennie quipped. He saw Judy’s stricken face. ‘Sorry, bad joke. You’re going to be fantastic.’

‘Here’s the card.’ Mandy handed it to her. Judy opened the envelope and read the message as she followed Mandy back to her dressing room.

Sorry for all the arguing. If you sing like you did at the carnival, everyone in the audience will love you, including me, David Ellis.

‘Two dozen red rosebuds. Best quality.’ Mandy smelled them before handing the bouquet to Judy after she’d sat down. ‘Someone knows the way to a girl’s heart.’

‘Not really, they’re from a friend.’ Judy returned the card to the envelope.

‘I’ve never had a friend send me two dozen red roses. Not an uninterested one, that is,’ Mandy warned. ‘Now, do we use the gold stick on your eyelids or the rich cream?’

Chapter Sixteen

Harry waylaid a waiter, ordered a round of drinks for the table he, Micah, and Edyth were sharing with the King family, Helga, and Moody, then looked around for David. Edyth saw him turn his head.

‘David’s upstairs.’ She glanced up at the mezzanine that ran around all four sides of the room. ‘What’s he doing up there?’

‘The gaming machines and tables are there. David’s been telling people that he’s working the roulette table, but he’s a kind of apprentice. Watching and learning.’ Micah slipped his hand inside his collar and adjusted it.

Edyth saw the gesture and smiled. Despite the electric ceiling fans attached to the chandeliers it was even warmer inside the club than outside and all the men looked distinctly uncomfortable in their starched collars.

Harry rose to his feet. ‘I think I’ll have a quick walk round before the show starts.’

Micah rose alongside him. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘I’m happy on my own,’ Harry said.

‘I don’t doubt you are, but I’m a pastor. It’s my duty to see if any of my flock are here.’

‘So you can hold an impromptu service?’ Harry joked.

‘I have my prayer book in my pocket.’ Micah patted his dinner jacket.

‘I take it Edyth told you about the threat Aled made,’ Harry said as they walked up one of the staircases to the second floor.

‘Yes,’ Micah replied shortly.

‘And that’s why you’re playing bodyguard?’ Harry challenged him.

‘Hardly. Aled wouldn’t dare try to hurt you or David in here. It’s his home territory and far too public. The man’s arrogant, knows who to bribe and operates on both sides of the law, but one thing he isn’t is stupid.’

‘As he’s my half-brother, I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not,’ Harry said doubtfully.

‘Good heavens above.’ Micah stopped at the head of the stairs and stared at the array of mechanical and electric gaming machines Aled had installed on the second floor. ‘I heard Aled had imported machines from America. I had no idea he’d brought in this many or that they’d be so …’ He blinked at the flickering coloured electric lights.

‘Pretty?’ Harry suggested.

‘I suppose some people will think they are.’

‘People who can afford to lose money, maybe,’ Harry said doubtfully. ‘But I can’t imagine who they might be in this day and age.’

‘People gamble, whether they can afford to or not,’ Micah said flatly. ‘Some idiot or other proves that adage every day on the Bay. There’s David, over by the roulette table in the far corner. See him?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the Catholic priest is playing at the blackjack table. I’ll remind him that he’ll have to add gambling to his list of sins at his next confession.’

‘See you downstairs.’ Harry apologised to a group crowding around one of the electric machines, pushed his way past them and made a beeline for David.

David saw Harry coming. As soon as his brother-inlaw drew close enough for conversation, he snapped, ‘I’m working, Harry.’

‘So I see,’ Harry said. ‘I wish I could get a job where I could stand and watch people.’

‘I could be operating this table next Tuesday.’

Not wanting to antagonise David, Harry said, ‘You must get a break some time. Can we talk then?’

‘I’m on duty all evening.’

‘Afterwards?’

‘The club doesn’t close until two o’clock, and then there’s a staff party. I probably won’t get away until three or four in the morning.’

‘I’m staying the night with Edyth. Perhaps we could have breakfast together tomorrow in her rooms?’ Harry persisted.

‘I’ll want a lie-in.’

‘I’m not in a hurry to leave. The trains will be on Sunday service and won’t start running regularly until the afternoon. You have to eat, so why don’t you come to Edyth’s for a late breakfast and lunch combined?’

‘I may be busy.’ David moved closer to the table and away from Harry but Harry refused to be deterred.

‘If you won’t meet me in Edyth’s I’ll get up early and camp outside your bedroom door. I’m sure Mrs Brown will let me into her house if I ask her. And I’ll stay there for days if I have to.’

‘You only want to lecture me.’

‘I want to talk to you, not lecture you,’ Harry countered. ‘And you can’t avoid me for ever. The more you try the more determined I’ll become.’

‘All right,’ David conceded sullenly. ‘I’ll be at Edyth’s tomorrow.’

‘What time?’

‘Around midday.’

‘I’ll be waiting. And I warn you now, if you’re not there by one o’clock, I’ll come and find you.’

‘Success?’ Micah asked when Harry rejoined the others downstairs.

‘David’s agreed to talk to me tomorrow.’

‘I wish you better luck than Edyth and I had.’

‘I remember what it felt like to be David’s age.’ Harry sat at the table.

Micah laughed. ‘You sound a hundred years old. Yet Edyth told me you’re only twenty-five.’

‘Twenty-six, but being married and having two children ages a man. There’s nothing like responsibility to make you take life more seriously.’

‘I can’t wait to find out.’ Micah saw Edyth’s hand resting on the table and laid his over it. She saw him looking at her and turned away.

The curtain on the small stage rose. Lennie Lane walked on to an orchestral fanfare. Micah wondered if it was his imagination or if Edyth really was avoiding meeting his steady gaze.

While Judy was singing ‘What is This Thing Called Love’, Edyth looked around the nightclub. People who had been in the old Sea Breeze before and after the conversion had told her that the place was unrecognisable in its present guise. Given the Victorian layout of the other buildings she had visited in Bute Street, she could believe it. Aled James had ordered George Powell to rip out the centre of the building to create a ceiling that soared four storeys to a new glass done that had been placed over the centre of the roof. Four enormous, glittering electric chandeliers hung from the perimeter, shedding diamonds of light that illuminated the furthest corners of every floor.

Judy’s voice soared upwards, past the gamblers on the first- and second-floor mezzanines, who were leaning, games and gaming machines abandoned behind them, as they listened, rapt, to her singing, to the revellers who had walked to the topmost floor to view the interior of the club from the highest vantage point. If Aled was concerned that Judy’s performance was affecting business, he gave no indication of it. He was standing on the ground floor close to the stage, his back to the bar, facing Judy and the orchestra behind her, as absorbed as everyone else in the club.

Every one of the tables was full of meticulously groomed and expensively dressed revellers. And, although Edyth didn’t know many people outside of Tiger Bay, she believed Harry’s assurance that Aled James had attracted the cream of Cardiff society and those who lived in the suburbs beyond.

Judy sang the last note. The orchestra died into the silence that occasionally follows an exceptional performance, then Micah and Jed rose simultaneously to their feet and began applauding. Within seconds every person in the club was doing the same.

Lennie Lane walked on-stage, short, rotund, and comic in contrast to Judy’s slender elegantce and classical figure. ‘The Tiger Ragtime’s headliner, ladies and gentlemen, Miss Judy King.’ He held out his arm. The applause escalated to deafening proportions when some of the younger men began stamping their feet and whistling.

Judy took another bow and one of the chorus girls came on-stage with a massive bouquet of white roses. Judy took them and, overcome with emotion, fled from the stage.

‘I apologise in advance on behalf of the management, ladies, gentlemen, and gamblers,’ Lennie pursed his tiny button mouth, which was almost lost between his chipmunk cheeks, ‘but you will have to make do with me for the next ten minutes.’ He cracked a dozen or so jokes before ending with a rousing rendition of ‘Tiger Ragtime’; the audience joining in with him.

‘
Where’s that Tiger …?
’

‘
Who’s that Tiger …?
’

‘Judy was a success.’ Tony tried to refill everyone’s glass from the bottle of champagne Aled James had sent to their table, but Harry and Edyth clamped their hands over the tops of theirs to prevent him.

‘Did you doubt she would be?’ Micah asked. ‘She always was too good for the Bute Street Blues.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Tony reprimanded with mock seriousness. ‘I’m a consummate musician. It’s not been easy all these years making allowances for you lot.’

‘You wouldn’t have had to make allowances if you’d been playing the same tunes as the rest of us,’ Jed bit back.

Lennie finished his song. ‘Our headliner, Miss Judy King,’ he waited for the applause to die down, ‘will return in one hour. Until then, please go upstairs and take a look at the machines and gaming tables – but I warn you, anything more than a look will cost you. For some lucky people that money will be repaid hundreds of times over and when it is, a crate of champagne to be marked “for the attention of mine host Lennie” and sent backstage will be very welcome. If you want a drink, please alert our waiting staff and they will be with you. If you want to dance, grab the prettiest lady next to you because if you don’t,’ he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, ‘I will.’

Tony left his chair. ‘Which of you gentlemen would like to take a tour of the upstairs with me to admire my carpentry?’

‘None of them,’ Tony’s wife May answered for all the men at the table. ‘Because they all know it’s not your carpentry you want to admire, it’s the gaming machines Mr James has had installed.’

‘Are you accusing me of lying?’ Tony asked blandly.

‘Yes,’ May replied bluntly.

‘And you call yourself a Christian woman, May.’

‘What has that got to do with anything?’ May asked.

‘Suspicion, suspicion,’ he repeated, ‘and me an honest man.’

‘This is you, Tony King, we’re talking about?’

‘I’ve given you a month’s wages. I’m heading out to Argentina in two days. A man’s entitled to a little relaxation.’

‘Relaxation, yes. Gambling no.’ May looked at the stage. The orchestra had struck up ‘Putting on the Ritz’ in foxtrot time. ‘I can’t think of a better way to relax than by dancing. Husband,’ she extended her arm, ‘the floor, please.’

‘Good job I’m not a boxer or that request would have a different meaning.’ Tony grimaced but followed her to the polished wooden floor in front of the stage where a few couples were already dancing.

‘The star of the evening.’ Jed rose to his feet as Judy approached and kissed her cheek. She had covered her dress with a white silk shawl. Her eyes were sparkling, but her hand shook when she took the glass of champagne Jed handed her.

‘You were a triumph,’ Edyth complimented sincerely. ‘In a few years, people will be wanting to know us because we know you.’

‘That will be the day,’ Judy answered. ‘I still can’t believe we pulled it off. You should have heard the mistakes the orchestra and I made this afternoon. I don’t know who hit the most wrong notes.’ She sipped her champagne. ‘I’m on again twice more this evening, but I only have two songs to sing after twelve o’clock and as they’re the last of the evening and won’t start until twenty minutes to two, I don’t expect you to stay.’

‘We wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Edyth assured her.

I won’t be home much before dawn. Aled’s organised a staff party, but he’s such a perfectionist I’ve a feeling it won’t be all congratulations. The last time I saw him he was talking to Aiden Collins about taking the rough edges off the table service and the entertainment.’

‘I haven’t noticed any rough edges on either!’ Jed protested.

‘That’s because you don’t own the club,’ Judy replied.

‘Lennie told me backstage that Aled’s written a list of complaints three pages long to the orchestra leader. But as it’s the first time they’ve performed together they’re bound to get better.’

‘It must be wonderful to only see the good side of everything,’ Micah commented. ‘I swear if the undertaker buried someone alive you’d say he was only practising and he’d get it right next time.’

‘I would not,’ Judy said indignantly.

‘You were magnificent tonight; a credit to the Kings. Pearl King would have burst with pride if she had been here.’ Jed slipped his arm around Judy’s shoulders.

‘Thank you, Uncle Jed.’ Tears started into Judy’s eyes at the mention of her late grandmother.

‘And absolutely no sign of nerves,’ Edyth added, knowing just how jittery Judy had been before she had left the house.

‘It feels as though my whole life has been building up to this moment.’ Judy’s eyes shone, suspiciously damp. ‘I still can’t quite believe that it’s actually happened.’

‘Judy?’ Aled walked up to their table. ‘I’m sorry to break in on you when you’re with your family and friends but a reporter from the
Western Mail
would like to a word with you.’ He turned to the table, and managed to speak to Judy’s uncles and aunts without apparently noticing Harry. ‘I do apologise for taking her away.’

‘We understand,’ Jed said. ‘Show business first.’

‘Second, and third,’ Aled added. He signalled to a waiter. ‘A round of drinks for this table.’

‘You don’t have to do that,’ Harry and Micah objected at the same time.

‘My pleasure and penance for monopolising the star. And don’t worry about Judy getting home, Jed. Aiden and Freddie will take her and Mandy in the car.’

‘Some mothers would worry about those two bruisers taking young girls home,’ Jed’s wife Bessie commented after Aled had whisked Judy away.

‘Not with Aled James breathing down their necks and watching every move they make, they wouldn’t.’ Jed finished the champagne in his glass. ‘Anyone else want a beer?’ He looked around for a waiter.

‘Two here, please, and I’m paying, seeing as how you got me in here for free.’ Harry held his hand up and a waiter came running, Harry gave him an order and the man disappeared. The band finished the foxtrot and paused for a few seconds before sailing into the Charleston, which brought a crush of people on to the dance floor. ‘If Aled James keeps people coming in at this rate, he’s going to make a fortune,’ Harry observed.

‘He’s certainly spent one to bring them in.’ Micah glanced up at the glass dome and chandeliers. ‘As for Judy, she’s going places after tonight. No more Bute Street Blues Band for her, Jed, or probably us.’