Ellie (54 page)

Bonny rolled her eyes at Ellie over her mother’s shoulder. ‘It’s only six weeks, Mummy,’ she said between clenched teeth.

Mr Phillips had stood back while all this went on. But as his wife finally let Bonny go, he came forward, hugged Bonny briefly and put a five pound note in her hand. ‘Look after yourself, sweetheart,’ he said gruffly. ‘Write to us won’t you? Good luck with the show.’

‘Phew,’ Bonny exclaimed once they had turned the corner and she no longer had to keep looking back to wave to her mother. ‘I swear every time I come I won’t go back. Aren’t they awful?’

‘Your mum is a bit much’ Ellie agreed. ‘But I wouldn’t mind a dad like yours, or a real home.’

Once on the train. Bonny fell asleep, her head lolling on to Ellie’s shoulder. Ellie thought again about Sir Miles Hamilton and smiled as she imagined how excited Bonny would be if she told her.

But she wasn’t going to tell her friend, not tonight, or ever. Bonny couldn’t be trusted with a secret as big as that!

They would be off to Great Yarmouth on Monday – a brand new start at the seaside, with no reminders of the past. The pay was awful, just two pounds ten shillings a week, plus their board and lodgings, and three matinées a week on top of the evening performances. Edward would be joining them too; Mr Biggs had been delighted to find a pianist. Everything was going to be just wonderful. She might even be able to forget Charley.

Chapter Twenty

August 1945

Edward played the introduction, the curtain drew back and Ellie and Bonny appeared through an archway before a painted backdrop of a country mansion.

‘
We’re a couple of swells
,’ they sang, dressed as tramps in battered top hats and frock-coats, canes swung over their shoulders with the inevitable red polka-dotted bundles on the end. ‘
We stop at the best hotels. But we prefer the country far away from the city smells
.’

Edward smiled up at the girls. This, their first number in the show, was always a crowd-pleaser. The Majestic Theatre didn’t live up to its name – it was a seedy little place, tucked away in a side street, desperately in need of new seats and redecoration. But tonight, like every night since they’d arrived in Great Yarmouth over four weeks ago, every seat was taken, with people standing at the back.

On the world stage, dramatic events had taken place in the last few weeks. First, in July, Labour had won the general election. Then came news of the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was little sympathy for the seventy thousand Japanese thought to have died in the blasts, only delight in hearing that the Japs had surrendered on August 14th, bringing the Far East war to a close.

Edward and the girls read in the papers that crowds flocked into the West End of London for VJ Day, but here in Great Yarmouth the celebrations were restrained. There were severe shortages of alcohol, and perhaps people on holiday felt no need to break out.

For Edward, Bonnie and Ellie, world events meant little. This show with Mr Biggs was a picnic compared with working for Ambrose Dingle. There was the beach, the funfair, sunshine, and their digs were right on the sea front. They didn’t really care what was happening elsewhere.

Edward had discovered he could be happy. Each day here he felt he was moving closer and closer to a state of bliss. Sometimes he had to remind himself that the show had less than two weeks to run and that unless another job like this was offered to him and the girls he might be plunged back into isolation. He often made himself look closely at his tiny room in the attic above Ellie’s and Bonny’s, and tell himself how frowsy the boarding-house was, that it was only the heady, holiday atmosphere and Ellie which made it fun.

He had so much to thank Ellie for. If she hadn’t put his name forward to Mr Biggs, he’d still be stuck in Wiltshire with his grandmother, holding her knitting skeins and mowing the lawn, all the time brooding on his sexuality, wondering if there was a place, anywhere for him, where he wouldn’t feel an outcast.

He’d found that place, here. All he had to do now was play the piano: no moments of terror standing in the wings, no endless rehearsals, no disapproval from Ambrose to face. He could laugh along with the rustic comic who gloried in the name of Farmer Pigswill and told jokes about animals mating, with a straw hanging out of his mouth.

He enjoyed the challenge of accompanying Stella and Sydney Smythe, the husband-and-wife team who changed their repertoire of romantic duets almost nightly without warning. This show was in the best seaside tradition: hammy, hilarious and warm. No one felt cheated because the dancers had wobbly thighs, the scenery shook, the singers hit the odd flat note, or the costumes were tawdry. It was cheap, jolly entertainment and if it bore no resemblance to a West End show, so much the better. People on holiday didn’t want reminders of city life.

If there was a fly in his ointment, it was only a very small one. Bonny! He tried to like her because Ellie did. Bonny wasn’t quite as cutting as she had been in London, nor as self-centred; in fact at times he almost felt himself warming to her. But however much he tried to tell himself she must be a good sort, or Ellie wouldn’t care about her so much, he knew deep down he was jealous of just that.

On their arrival here, Bonny had sarcastically remarked that Archie Biggs ‘couldn’t arrange furniture, let alone choreography’. When she’d seen the dancers, ten plump country girls on loan from the local dancing school with more enthusiasm than talent, she’d curled her lips in disgust and Edward had hoped she’d take off for home.

But Archie didn’t put Ellie and Bonny in the chorus line; he paired them together as a singing and dancing duo. It soon became apparent that the man had keen perception and imagination.

Together the girls were dynamite. Ellie had the real voice while Bonny was the brilliant dancer, but from the way they interacted, the audience wasn’t aware of either girl’s shortcomings – only of grace, beauty and talent.

It was a mystery to Edward why Ambrose hadn’t thought of pairing them. Their identical heights, slender figures and long legs were perfectly matched. Ellie’s sultry looks complemented Bonny’s sugar and spice blondeness and their joy at performing together turned it into a feast for the eyes.

‘
The Vanderbilts have asked us up to tea
,’ the girls sang in exaggerated falsetto voices, standing back-to-back. ‘
We don’t know how to get there, no siree
.’

Bonny broke into an intricate tap-dance, blonde hair tumbling from under her hat, while Ellie glided around her, posturing comically.

Edward glanced round at the audience. They were loving it, beaming faces everywhere, forgetting that it had been raining constantly for three days, that their fearsome guest-house landladies locked them out after breakfast until tea and that on Monday morning they’d be back working in factories, queuing for rations, trying to save a little for next year’s holiday.

Edward often looked at people such as these and wished he was as ordinary. Yesterday afternoon he’d voiced this to Ellie, and once again she’d made him feel special, even loved.

Edward had joined Ellie in her room the previous afternoon because there was no matinée on Thursdays. It was pouring with rain and Bonny had gone off to look at the shops.

Ellie thought her room was heaven, just because it overlooked the promenade and the sea. Edward thought it was the ugliest he’d ever seen, with its violent, salmon-pink wallpaper, its hideous blue curtains and the two beds with horsehair mattresses that groaned when you sat on them.

Ellie was in the process of hanging up all Bonny’s clothes, not complaining once about how untidy she was.

Edward lay on Ellie’s bed, watching her stop to dust the dressing-table. She was wearing the same old, worn skirt and blouse she put on most days. He felt it was unfair that she had so few pretty things – she deserved better than other people’s cast-offs.

It wasn’t often Edward got the chance to be entirely alone with Ellie; if Bonny wasn’t around there was usually one of the dancers or another member of the cast. They hadn’t spoken of that last evening in London since they arrived in Great Yarmouth and he wanted to bring it out into the open.

He began to talk about his grandmother and her increasingly eccentric behaviour. Then he moved on to his parents and admitted how unnatural they had been, always gallivanting around and rarely considering the fact that they had a son who needed them. ‘It’s no wonder I’m abnormal,’ he said, making it sound like a joke rather than a cry for reassurance.

‘Who wants to be entirely normal?’ Ellie laughed and beckoned him to come over to the window and look out with her. ‘That’s normal,’ she went on, pointing out a couple with a child in a pushchair, hunched up in a shelter, stoically eating a picnic. ‘It doesn’t look like much fun, does it?’

The rain was like stair-rods, waves breaking over the deserted promenade, the sky an unpleasant, yellowy-grey colour.

‘But they are at least married, with a child,’ Edward said wistfully. ‘If I don’t like sex with women, or men, what is there for me?’

‘You haven’t tried it with a woman yet!’ She tweaked his face round to hers and gave him a cuddle. ‘But if and when you do and you still don’t like it, you’ll just have to forget about it and just be Edward Manning.’

‘But what is he? A neutered tom-cat?’

‘Neutered toms are more lovable,’ she laughed up at him. ‘Besides, Edward Manning has other talents. He’s an actor, a fine pianist, a good friend and a very attractive gentleman. Look at him!’ She pointed down to the man in the shelter with his family.

Edward looked. The man was probably younger than himself, wearing a badly fitting demob suit and a battered trilby. He got up as they spoke, standing, hands in pockets, staring dejectedly out at the rain. Even at a distance of some forty yards it was possible to see that his wife was nagging him as she fed their child a sandwich.

‘Would you like his life?’ Ellie giggled, but Edward sensed she wasn’t being entirely frivolous. ‘He’s come out of the forces expecting everything to be wonderful. But is it? I bet their home’s a couple of shabby rooms and he works twelve hours a day just to keep them. His wife doesn’t look a barrel of laughs, does she? She’s even blaming him for the weather. You must stop thinking you need
someone
to make you happy, Edward. It has to come from within you.’

Edward later decided that Ellie had a point. He was doing a job he liked. He was handsome. He had a private income, his grandmother’s money coming to him when she died. No one here made jokes about him being a ‘nancy boy’. Priests got by without sex. He could too.

‘What are we going to do tonight?’ Bonny asked on Friday night as the three of them got to the stage door. It was raining still, just as it had been most of the week. A glance out showed deserted streets. ‘We can’t go home. It’s not even eleven yet.’

‘We could go to the Regent,’ Ellie said.

Bonny groaned. ‘Not that dump!’

‘It’s the best hotel in town,’ Ellie said indignantly. She liked its aura of genteel sophistication and, to be entirely truthful, she got a kick out of being treated like a celebrity by the cocktail bar manager who’d seen the show three times.

‘It’s stuffy,’ Bonny said, picturing the old dears nodding off in their armchairs. ‘Besides, the drinks are too dear.’

The three of them rarely went straight home to bed, even though Great Yarmouth had little to offer in the way of night-life. On warm nights they often just sat on the front, watching people, but the weather prevented that tonight.

‘What a waste of getting Stella to do our hair,’ Ellie said wistfully. Stella Smythe had been a hairdresser before she began singing professionally with her husband Sydney. This afternoon she’d washed and set both girls’ hair for them, giving them both the same swept-up style, with artfully arranged curls on top.

Edward looked at both girls appraisingly. They looked so gorgeous, it was a shame to waste it. ‘We could’ve tried that place Marcel told me about,’ he suggested. ‘But it’s a bit out of town – we’ll get soaked in this.’

Marcel had been a trapeze artist, but a bad fall had put him off the high wire for good. He incorporated many of the other things he’d learned in the circus in his act – clowning, juggling and a few acrobatics. All three of them were fascinated by the man. He was a womaniser, a gambler and he enthralled them with his circus tales.

‘It sounded a bit odd to me.’ Ellie popped her head out of the door to see just how hard the rain was, but drew it in sharply. ‘He said it was a private house and you could only get in if someone recommended you. I expect it’s all old men playing cards.’

‘It’s not,’ Edward insisted. ‘Marcel said it’s like a party, except you pay for drinks. He wanted me to go with him last Friday. He said I’d have the time of my life.’

‘I can’t imagine anyone having the time of their life in Great Yarmouth,’ Bonny said, an impish grin on her face. ‘Mind you, Marcel seems to enjoy himself, so maybe it’s worth a try.’

As if in answer to a silent prayer, a taxi cruised down the side road. Taxis were as rare in Great Yarmouth as a good meal at their digs.

‘Come on!’ Edward leaped out into the rain to flag it down. ‘We’re meant to go there. If we don’t like it we can always leave.’

Ellie expected Vincent House to be something like their own boarding-house. She had a picture in her head of ex-servicemen gathering in a gloomy, smoke-filled room with a few Marleen-type brassy girls swigging gins.

To her surprise, Vincent House wasn’t one of those tall, narrow Victorian houses, but a medium-sized country house well out of the town. Set behind an eight-foot wall, with wrought-iron gates and a gravel drive, it looked rather grand. The porch was lit up welcomingly, soft dance music wafted out into the darkness and there were many smart cars. Edward paid off the taxi and ushered them to the door.

At the mention of Marcel Dupont, the man in dinner-jacket and bow-tie on the door dropped his initial haughtiness. ‘I will tell Mr Dupont you are here,’ he said with an obsequious smirk, taking their raincoats as if he were handling mink. ‘Perhaps you’d like to go into the bar, I’m sure he’ll be with you in a few minutes.’