Ellie (74 page)

Ellie could only laugh; he looked so funny and woebegone. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said, drawing him back into her arms. ‘It will be all right, just cuddle me.’

They talked then. Ellie told him just how bad the tour had been. ‘It was a mistake,’ she said grimly. ‘There were times when I actually felt like jacking it all in and getting an ordinary job.’

‘It wasn’t the same here without you,’ Ray said tenderly. ‘All the backstage crew missed you, Alf more than anyone. I never knew what to do with myself when I wasn’t working. Are you coming back to London once the tour’s over?’

Ellie was dying to tell him she was going for an audition on Monday morning to replace the present actress paying ‘Aldo Annie’ in
Oklahoma
, but she felt it might be a jinx if she told anyone. She hadn’t even told Bonny.

Oklahoma
had been running for two years at the Theatre Royal, since arriving fresh from Broadway, and the comic role of the flirtatious Annie was one that most of the actresses in England would die for. She thought she’d pretend to go shopping on Monday, then if she was lucky enough to be accepted she could rush back to celebrate with Ray before catching the evening train on to Coventry. If she was turned down, no one would be any the wiser.

‘I want to work in London,’ she said, cuddling into him. ‘I’ll have to see if Bloomfield’s have got anything up their sleeve.’

They dropped off to sleep for a while and when they woke it was almost time for Ray to leave.

‘You stay here,’ he said, leaping out of bed. ‘You can see the play tomorrow. Have a bath and get dolled up and we’ll go out for some supper when I’m finished.’

She lay there watching him dress. To her surprise he put on a dinner-jacket and bow-tie.

‘Where d’you think you’re off to?’ she giggled. ‘The Ritz?’

‘Part of my new image,’ he grinned as he tied the tie. ‘The theatre’s been smartened up, the owners even put a new carpet in the foyer and mended the broken seats. I thought I’d better do myself up too.’

‘I’ll come up about ten,’ she said sleepily as he bent to kiss her goodbye. ‘It will be nice to see Alf and everyone. Is Edward still around?’

Edward hadn’t written to her for some weeks. He’d had a lead role at the Little Theatre at that time. She thought maybe he’d written again but that the letters hadn’t reached her.

‘He’s playing the piano in a pub up the road,’ Ray said vaguely. ‘I’m not his favourite person now because I couldn’t offer him another part for a while.’

Ellie left Ray’s flat before nine. She had dozed for a bit, and then got up and had a bath and once she was dressed there seemed no sense in staying there alone.

It was a frosty, cold night, the sky studded with stars and a full moon. As she walked briskly up Fitzjohn’s Avenue she noticed that a bombed-out house which had been just a shell when she was last here had been pulled down and that a small block of flats was being built in its place. As she got closer to Hampstead village, the dowdy dress shop by Haverstock Hill was transformed by fresh paint, its display of ‘New Look’ spring suits brightly lit.

Ellie stopped to look, smiling with delight. Clothing coupons had finally been abolished last week and clearly the owners of this shop were expecting good business. Ellie had no money for new clothes herself, but it was exciting to see the years of austerity coming to a close. If she
did
get the part in
Oklahoma
she was never going to wear anything second-hand again.

It was good to see all the old familiar haunts again – the teashop she used to go to with Edward, the pub she often went at lunchtimes with Ray – but though she popped her head round the door of all the pubs she passed, Edward wasn’t playing in any of them.

‘My word, you look the bleedin’ ticket.’ Alf’s face broke into a broad grin as she came through the stage door. ‘Where’d yer get the titter? Bin over to Russia?’

‘This is the last word in elegance,’ she joked, mincing around the small space between Alf’s bench and chair and the stairs that led to the dressing-rooms. ‘I got the bleedin’ titter in a Birmingham second-hand shop, the coat came from a jumble sale.’ She swaggered around, dramatically swinging the skirt of her coat to make him laugh.

‘You’ll soon be wearing mink,’ he insisted loyally. He’d become very fond of Ellie in her time in Hampstead, as most of the backstage crew had. ‘You’d better leave me the ’at, then I can flog it once yer famous.’

She stayed talking to Alf for a few minutes about the current play,
Blithe Spirit
. She could hear laughter from the front of the house and the sound, coupled with all the familiar smells of mustiness, greasepaint, disinfectant and cigars made her feel nostalgic, so when Alf was called away by one of the stage-hands, she wandered up to the dressing-rooms.

As she made her way along the corridor, she heard a shrill woman’s voice raised in anger.

‘You really expect me to stay out of the way until then?’

The voice was coming from the dressing-room which was usually allocated to the leading lady. She didn’t recognise it as belonging to anyone she’d ever met.

‘Don’t be like this, Ruby!’

Hearing Ray’s voice took Ellie by surprise. During performances he was always either at the front of the house, or in the wings. She paused, curiosity getting the better of her.

‘I did warn you,’ he went on. ‘You said you understood. It certainly doesn’t warrant you refusing to go on tonight. What on earth were you thinking of?’

‘You didn’t say she was your old girlfriend.’ The woman’s voice rose another octave, and Ellie was so startled she stepped back in alarm. ‘Did you really think I could go on stage tonight knowing you’d been screwing some tart all afternoon? Or spend the next few days twiddling my thumbs while you show this “old pal” a good time?’

Ellie was stunned, not only by the ferocity in the woman’s voice but by the sudden realisation that she was the cause of the woman’s anger. She stood stock-still, a chill running down her spine.

She hadn’t really expected Ray to remain faithful to her in her absence; he was after all a man who was attractive to women and he’d made no promises. But his loving manner this afternoon had given her the idea that he’d thought again about her position in his life. She waited, expecting to hear him put this woman in her place, but as he spoke she reeled back in shock.

‘She means nothing. She never did,’ he said forcefully.

Ellie knew she ought to run away now – just hearing she meant nothing to Ray was enough – but she couldn’t run, she had to hear the rest.

‘I love you Ruby, you know that,’ he went on. ‘Ellie’s boring, too naïve and docile for my taste. I told you why I need to keep in with her. She’s going to the top soon and I’d be a fool to fall out with her when she might help my career.’

Tears sprang to Ellie’s eyes and she turned and ran back downstairs. Alf looked up in surprise, but she didn’t stop, just pulled open the stage door and ran out into the night.

She kept running until she was up on the heath. It was very cold – frost was making the grass sparkle, and the moon was reflected in the black water of Whitestone pond – but Ellie was unaware of anything other than her own misery. She only stopped running when she was completely out of breath and a stitch in her side prevented her going on.

The heath was deserted. She sat down on a bench and sobbed bitterly.

‘Boring, naïve and docile!’ If he had used words like ‘too demanding’, ‘fiery’, or even ‘too ambitious’ she could have lived with it. But he’d made her sound like some humble little nursemaid! How dare he say such things?’

That afternoon was still so fresh in her mind. Why did he agree to her staying these four days with him if he had another woman? How could he make love to her, say such tender things, if he was in love with someone else?

She remembered then the new teeth and the smart new dinner-jacket! Ray had never cared about his appearance before; it had to be the influence of this Ruby!

Ellie felt cheap and used, smarting with shame when she thought of some of the things they’d done together in the past. Ray had taught her everything about love-making, but she would never have been quite so abandoned with him if she hadn’t believed he really cared for her. He’d told her once she was the most fascinating woman he’d ever met. Now she was boring!

Rage welled up inside her. She should have stormed into that dressing-room, slapped his face, maybe even smashed something. Why hadn’t she?

‘Because you are docile,’ she told herself. ‘You let everyone walk all over you. Go back there now and show them all it’s not true. I bet everyone in the theatre knows what’s going on, they’re probably laughing up their sleeves about you. Even Alf will tell Ray you came running out.’

But she knew she couldn’t go back and make a scene. She was too hurt inside to face further humiliation. She dried her eyes and tried to think. It was almost ten now, she had nowhere to go and very little money. On top of that, all her clothes and the things she needed for Monday’s audition were at Ray’s flat.

Blind panic consumed her. She was freezing, the dark, deserted heath looked threatening and the knowledge there was no one, anywhere to turn to robbed her of clear thought for a moment or two. But instinct made her get up and start walking back towards Hampstead village and as she walked she tried to think of somewhere to go.

There was her old digs, but Mrs Blake would charge her and anyway Ruby might well be staying there. She could go to Annie King’s, but calling so late Annie would be bound to ask questions and besides, it was a bit of an imposition. She had just about enough money for the train to Bury St Edmunds, but nice as it would be to see Dora and Amos, there wasn’t a train until the morning and she’d have to come back on Sunday to be ready for Monday’s audition.

Then suddenly she remembered Edward.

She ran then, down the hill, back past the theatre just as everyone was coming out. She had already checked four pubs on the way up from Ray’s earlier, but there were plenty of others.

‘We’re closed,’ the barman shouted as the door of The Feathers opened and Ellie looked in.

Edward was having a last drink with a barmaid. He felt the blast of cold air from the open door and heard Fred shout out, but he didn’t turn round.

‘I only wanted to ask if Edward Manning plays the piano here.’

Edward spun round instantly at the familiar voice. ‘Ellie!’ He put down his glass and rushed over to where she stood hesitantly in the doorway. ‘What a super surprise!’

She looked like a stranded extra from a film set in her fur hat and heavy military-style coat, but closer inspection showed there were tear stains on her cheeks and her eyes looked desperately forlorn.

‘Oh Edward,’ she whimpered, lips trembling. ‘Thank goodness I’ve found you.’

An hour later Ellie was feeling a little better. Edward had bought her two large gins in the pub, even though it was past closing time, while he listened to her story, then he’d taken her back to his tiny room in Haverstock Hill. Creeping up the stairs in darkness, smelling that peculiar smell that all rooming houses seemed to have, was so reminiscent of other digs they’d shared, all the good times, that she felt a little less fraught.

Edward jokingly said his room was like a coffin. It was narrow and long with a very high ceiling, but once he’d lit the paraffin stove and poured her another gin from the bottle he’d bought at the pub, it was almost cosy.

‘My landlady will throw a fit if she knows I’ve got a girl up here,’ he whispered. ‘Thank God she didn’t hear us come in.’

Edward was so sympathetic. He admitted he’d seen Ray with Ruby Powers, the new leading lady, on several occasions, but then he’d seen him with other women too. He took the view that Ray was a male Bonny, a man who collected up women who might be of use to him. He promised he would get Ellie’s case in the morning, but insisted that for tonight she must stay with him.

‘You aren’t boring,’ he said tenderly. ‘Naïve perhaps, and you are sometimes a bit too docile for your own good. But never boring. Ruby Powers is one of those neurotic, hysterical women who I’d call truly boring. Let him stew with her, he deserves her.’

‘But why say he was keeping in with me in case I got to the top? I don’t understand that.’

‘Well, we all know that’s just a matter of time,’ Edward smiled. He found it amusing that Ellie never fully appreciated how talented she was. ‘But perhaps he’s heard a whisper about something, he’s very thick with Harry Bloomfield.’

Ellie considered this for a moment. Perhaps Ray knew all along she was going for the audition? Could Sir Miles’s company be backing
Oklahoma
? It was a cheering idea. She’d barely given the man a thought while she was away, but this brought him sharply back into focus. She half wished she could confide in Edward about him, but something told her it was better to keep it to herself.

The gin made them sentimental. Edward gave her a pair of his pyjamas to put on and they got into the single bed together and reminisced about the good times they’d shared. By the time they’d had a few more drinks they were both very emotional. Ellie started to admit all her failures with men.

‘I don’t know what I do wrong,’ she confided, slurring her words a little. ‘But it just never seems to work out. They either think I’ll be really “easy” because I’m on the stage and drop me when they discover that isn’t so. Or they put me on a pedestal and almost worship me. Why can’t I fall in love and have them fall for me too?’

‘Part of it’s because of the way you earn your living,’ Edward said soothingly. ‘You can’t really blame a chap for trying to get you into bed when he knows next week you’ll be moving on. As for the ones who put you on a pedestal! – Well, I can understand that too, Ellie. You’re so beautiful, they are bound to be bowled over at first and you aren’t around long enough to get to know properly.’

‘But I did stay in one place with Ray.’ She began to cry again, remembering what she’d overheard. ‘It was so lovely with him this afternoon, for a short while I actually thought I’d found what I was looking for. How could a man be that way when he feels nothing?’