Ellie (30 page)

Late as it was, she couldn’t sleep that night. Her body seemed to be on fire, her mind reliving every kiss and touch. It was the first night she could remember when imagining herself on the stage didn’t transport her into oblivion. All she could see was Charley’s face dancing before her and hear her heart beating too fast.

Chapter Eleven

Amberley, June 1944

‘Good morning, Mr Baker.’ Bonny smiled at the stationmaster. She was early for the 8.50 train to Littlehampton and he was still in his shirt-sleeves, watering his tubs of flowers outside the booking hall. Bonny always found it ridiculous how he scurried to put on his jacket and cap before passengers arrived. Mr Baker prided himself on being stationmaster and he didn’t like people to know he did all the menial tasks too.

It was a beautiful June day, the early wispy mist fast clearing with the promise of heat. Mr Baker didn’t subscribe to the wartime motto of ‘make do and mend’, at least not where his beloved station was concerned. The picket fence and the outside of the booking hall had a fresh coat of white paint and with the tubs of flowers, Amberley was probably the best kept station on the Southern Railway.

‘What’s got you up this early on Saturday?’ Bert asked. He thought Bonny looked lovely in her pink dress and dainty, strappy sandals. ‘Something on at your school?’

His missus looked forward with relish to the day when young Bonny Phillips would get on the London train, never to return. She claimed she tortured poor Jack, drove Lydia Wynter to distraction and upset all the other young girls in the village. But Bert had a soft spot for Bonny. She was like his prize-winning lilies, proud and beautiful, and he didn’t really believe she was as black as she was painted.

‘I’m going for an audition,’ Bonny said. She was so excited that even talking to boring old Mr Baker was better than waiting alone for the train. ‘It’s for a show in Littlehampton.’

‘For the summer, is it?’ Bert asked.

‘Yes, but I hope it might lead to something permanent.’ Bonny fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘Maybe even a show in London.’

‘Good luck then.’ Bert took out his pocket-watch to check the time. ‘I’ve got to see to the signals.’

Bonny went up on the footbridge, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jack down at his garage. It gave her a good feeling being high above everything, the breeze ruffling her hair. The river was like a silver ribbon winding its way through the lush meadows. She could see Alec Hatt hauling his boats down to the water’s edge, and Mrs Talbot from the tearooms putting out more chairs by her tables, clearly expecting an influx of holiday makers later on. But there was no sign of Jack. The garage doors were open wide and she could hear the whirr of some machinery, so he was probably inside, working on a car.

Today the view intensified Bonny’s impatience. She was bored with looking at green fields, trees and meadows. Bored stiff by a war which seemed endless, a village where nothing happened. Even bored with Jack.

Mayfield College had proved to be a disappointment. It was just the same as school, but without the boys. She had mastered typing, just, but she’d made no real progress at shorthand because her mind was always on something else. At least Littlehampton was more exciting than Amberley, or had been until most of the servicemen disappeared over to France for the Normandy landings. Canadians, Americans, Poles and French, along with British Royal Marines, airmen and soldiers could all be relied on to whistle at the girls from Mayfield, and to offer to buy them tea at the Pavilion. If Aunt Lydia hadn’t been so insistent on her coming straight home in the afternoons, Bonny might have been tempted to arrange a date or two.

Her parents harped on in their letters about her finding a ‘nice job in the City’ once the war was over. Aunt Lydia kept stressing Bonny must pay more attention at Mayfield and get her Pitman’s certificate. Even Jack, who she once thought shared her spirit of adventure, just looked hurt these days when she talked about going on the stage.

But Bonny intended to show them all what she was made of. This job as a chorus girl in a seaside variety show might not look much to anyone else, but as far as Bonny was concerned it was a springboard to bigger and better things.

‘Which way to the audition?’ Bonny asked a man in shirt-sleeves who was sweeping the path up to the Pavilion.

He looked her up and down and smiled. He was at least sixty, with a swirling, military-type moustache, and she recognised him as the man who usually sold tickets for the concerts and dances here.

‘Go on in,’ he said, pointing towards the café door. ‘Someone will tell you when it’s your turn. Good luck!’

Bonny had reminded herself several times on her way here that the Pavilion was little more than a long, low hut, without proper tip-up seats or a big stage, and that therefore they wouldn’t be too choosy. But to her surprise there were already some thirty other girls waiting in rows in the café, already changed into practice clothes. They were all older than herself, many of them distinctly glamorous.

‘Your name?’ A woman in a dull, green dress with a frizzy halo of orange hair came towards Bonny, a clipboard in her hand.

‘Bonny Phillips,’ she whispered, unnerved by the other girls’ stares.

‘Have you got your music with you?’ Again the woman didn’t look up, merely ticking off her name on her pad.

‘Yes.’ She could hear a girl singing next door in the concert hail and she was better than Bonny.

‘Change in there.’ The woman pointed towards a cloth-covered screen set up in the corner of the café. ‘Then wait here until your name is called.’

Bonny emerged from behind the screen some few minutes later feeling despondent. Two other girls who sounded far more experienced than herself were already dressing to go home again, having been dismissed. She had learnt too that so far only five girls had been asked to stay for a second audition.

Her despondency increased as she sat in the café, listening to girl after girl perform. She wondered now if her short flared satin tunic with matching knickers smacked of village dancing classes. Most of the other girls were wearing old, much darned ballet tights and leotards which, although shabby, at least gave them an aura of professionalism, and their whispered conversations revealed that none of them were strangers to auditions. Would Mr Dingle see her as a complete novice and dismiss her immediately?

Mr Dingle, whom she caught a glimpse of every time the concert hall door opened, looked formidable. He wore a beige, linen jacket with a rose in the buttonhole, fair hair artistically long, and the expression on his face was one of weary exasperation.

Bonny thought he must be fifty at least, because he’d escaped call-up, but his face was smooth and unlined, and his features rather feminine. Without even speaking to him she somehow knew he would be a hard taskmaster, the kind of man immune to her brand of flirtatious charm. Just the sardonic smirk he gave as he dismissed the girls who weren’t up to his exacting standards suggested he’d be cruel too.

Bonny rarely considered herself anything but the best, but as she heard other girls sing, her confidence plummeted. She couldn’t see them dance, of course, and she was certain she could give them all a run for their money where that was concerned. But where were the fat, the short, the clumsy that she’d expected? Four out of every five girls here looked like beauty queens!

She squeezed the little black cat Jack had given her. He’d won it at a fair in Bognor at Easter. When she’d put it in her case this morning it had seemed childishly superstitious: she firmly believed she had enough talent not to need luck too. Now she wasn’t so sure.

Jack was one of her main reasons for wanting this job. She was certain what she felt for him was love. His kisses were thrilling, his hard body made her tingle from head to toe, and he was the best friend anyone could have. But he was getting so serious, and she felt trapped.

In Amberley Jack was well known and respected. No doubt he would one day own a garage, since he worked so hard. But a small voice inside Bonny kept reminding her that there was a big world outside Amberley, one she needed to explore and taste before committing herself to Jack. She suspected there might be other men who could make her feel the way Jack did, ones with even better prospects and no engine oil beneath their fingernails. A summer job away from him would at least give her some breathing space.

A girl with red hair was belting out ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ and her tap-dancing sounded as good as Bonny’s own.

‘Thank you, Margaret,’ Mr Dingle called out as she finished. ‘Stay behind please for a second audition.’

‘Bonny Phillips,’ the woman with the green dress called out.

Bonny jumped up, dropped the black cat, clutched her music to her chest and ran into the hall. She was beyond wondering if ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ was a good choice – she’d rehearsed it so often with Aunt Lydia she knew it backwards. She handed the music to the pianist, jumped up on to the small, bare stage and switched on her smile.

Ambrose Dingle winced as the girl began to sing. Her voice was too sugary for his taste and he found it a little presumptuous on her part to choose a number which Eleanor Powell had immortalised in
Lady Be Good
. She was much too young too.

But as he watched the girl he began to forget her tinny voice. She could dance and she had the kind of confidence he liked. He glanced at the list in his hand. Only fifteen, as he’d suspected, no experience except in panto and village dancing displays. But she did live locally.

Ambrose Dingle had begun his theatrical career as a song and dance man in music hall. During the thirties he’d taken a chance and gone to America, intent on getting into a Broadway show. He never made it to Broadway, but he did become the dancing partner of Lois Lombard and toured America with her during the Depression. Lois was spotted by a talent scout and became one of Busby Berkeley’s chorus girls. Ambrose took the only job on offer, as a stage-hand.

In 1938 Ambrose came back to England, his dreams of becoming a Hollywood star shattered. All he had in his favour was the knowledge of what made a spectacular show, a firm grounding in choreography and the determination to make the name Ambrose Dingle as well known as Busby Berkeley’s.

The war had been his saviour, yet a curse. People wanted glamorous variety shows, yet dancers who met his Hollywood standards were hard to find. He’d staged small shows like this up and down the country, collecting girls with talent as he went. When the war was over he intended to get his ‘girls’ on to the West End stage and forget these provincial concert halls for ever.

This blonde had the makings of a real showgirl. Long, slender legs, dramatic large eyes, and a perfect body. Perhaps he could just give her a try.

‘Thank you, Bonny,’ he said as she finished. ‘Wait here for the second audition.’

‘I’ve got it!’ Bonny burst into the Tollgate garage, dropping her vanity case to the oily floor. ‘I’ve got it, Jack!’

Jack was lying flat on his back under a car, but at Bonny’s excited shriek he hauled himself out. The double doors were folded right back to let in the fresh air, but the smell of oil, exhaust fumes and rubber tyres in such a small place was overpowering.

‘Well done,’ he said, getting to his feet and grinning at her. Deep down he’d hoped she wouldn’t get it, but the excitement in her voice and eyes shamed him into being pleased for her. ‘I’d like to hug you, but I’m filthy.’

‘You’re always filthy,’ she said, torn between disgust at his oily hands and grimy face and a desire to kiss him regardless. ‘Can’t you wash and come and have a cup of tea with me to celebrate?’

‘What, now?’ Jack looked scandalised. ‘I can’t knock off in the middle of a Saturday.’

Bonny pouted and perched on a high stool by the garage door. ‘I want to tell you all about it,’ she said. ‘I can’t in here.’

She’d overheard Sally, one of the other dancers, say she was being taken out to lunch to celebrate getting the job and seen her swanking away down the promenade on the arm of a Royal Marine. Bonny felt she should have similiar attention.

‘Bonny, I’m dying to hear about it.’ Jack sighed deeply. ‘But I can’t break off from this job, I’ve got to have it finished in a hour. Go on home and tell Miss Wynter. I’ll take you into Arundel tonight if you like and you can tell me everything then.’

It was no secret any longer that they were sweethearts. When it got out last year, Miss Wynter had read him the riot act, warning him she would get him locked up if she discovered there was any ‘hanky panky’, as she called it, but she seemed to accept Jack’s intentions were honourable. Jack wanted to keep her approval and he’d lose it pretty quickly if he was seen to be a conspirator in Bonny’s latest plan.

Jack was eighteen now and he loved Bonny with a passion that often terrified him. Just a touch of her hand made him tremble, a day without seeing her seemed like a month and she was on his mind every waking hour. But there was no peace in loving her. She wound him up, teased him, played with his feelings, belittled him and wounded him; yet each time she put her lips on his, pressed her body against his, he was lost.

He looked at her now, sitting on the stool, and he wanted to crush her into his arms. She sat provocatively, legs crossed showing just enough honey-coloured thigh to enflame him still further, her arms folded, pushing up her breasts, and her lovely mouth pursed in reproach. He had learnt a long time ago that he had to stand against her demands, but it was so hard.

‘I don’t know that I
want
to go to Arundel with you,’ she said peevishly. ‘I might ring Belinda and see if she wants to go to the dance tonight.’

Jack turned away, sickened by her manipulations. ‘Go home and tell Miss Wynter your news,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring you when I’ve finished work.’

‘I might not be there.’ Bonny jumped down from the stool and picked up her vanity case. ‘I may have found someone by then who is interested in my job.’

‘Bonny, I
am
interested.’ Jack’s voice rose in anger. ‘You know that perfectly well. But I have to get this job finished. Don’t be so childish!’