Lime Street Blues (34 page)

Kevin McDowd had a suite of offices in Mayfair, a mews house in Knightsbridge, a mansion in Ireland, and a flat in Paris, which was hardly used as he couldn’t spare the time. He also owned several cars – the favourite being a Rolls Royce Corniche – a racehorse, and a de Havilland Dove five-seater plane with a pilot always on hand to take him anywhere he wished. Kevin had built an empire, a whole stable of artists, adding to the list all the time.

The most famous person on his books was his son, who had made his name in America where he was resident for most of the year. Always a rebel, Sean’s protest songs had caught the mood of the Vietnam era. Now he sang about the disillusionment of the seventies. He came home at least once a year to tour the British Isles and every venue would be packed, the tickets sold out weeks beforehand.

In her own quiet way, his daughter, Rita, was also a star, though she didn’t shine as brilliantly as her brother. Rita sang ballads in her deep, thrilling voice, having no messages to deliver. Her records rarely hit the charts, but the long-term sales were excellent. After giving a concert, or one of her rare TV appearances, Rita would hurry back to the converted farmhouse on the edge of the Yorkshire dales where she lived in splendid isolation
with her secretary, the stroppy Mavis, whom Kevin loathed.

It came as a total shock when his shy daughter agreed to take the leading female role in a revival of
The King and I
at a theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue.

‘Mavis thinks I should do it,’ she told her father.

‘Does she now!’ Kevin was about to add a tart remark, but realised the repulsive Mavis had done him a favour.

Rehearsals had started in August and Kevin had another shock when the news reached him that Rita was throwing her weight about, demanding, amongst other things, a dressing room as lavish as Bruce Lockeridge’s, a Shakespearean actor of some repute who was playing the King.

‘I bet it’s that Mavis bitch egging her on,’ Kevin remarked to Sadie. They were in their mews cottage in Knightsbridge and he was sitting on the corner of the bath in the black marbled bathroom while Sadie had a good old soak – she’d just returned from Knightsbridge with mountains of shopping and felt absolutely worn out. He licked his lips and eyed the enticing bits of her that peeped through a froth of bubbles. ‘I wonder why we’ve got two such odd, peculiar children when you and me are so normal?’ he mused.

Sadie flung a handful of bubbles at him. They landed on his face and smelt of strawberries. ‘I wasn’t always normal, was I, you eejit,’ she said scathingly. ‘You didn’t see me when I was in the depths of despair, a broken woman, abandoned by me husband, with two kids to bring up. They raised themselves, the pair of them. If they’ve turned out odd and peculiar, then it’s their own bloody daddy’s fault.’

‘Whatever, they’ve still done us proud, peculiar or not. Another month and it’ll be Rita’s first night and our
Sean’s coming home.’ That wasn’t all; the Survivors, his most successful group, had a new record out, and the others weren’t doing so badly either. Jeannie Flowers – he’d suggested she stick to her maiden name – was about to start on a Christmas album, and all was well with his world. The disillusionment about which his son sang hadn’t touched Kevin McDowd.

A pink toe peeped out of the bubbles. He grabbed it and gave it a tug. Sadie shrieked and, within seconds, Kevin had stripped off his clothes and joined his wife in the bath.

Jaysus! Life was good.

‘Don’t you think you’re laying it on a bit thick, darlin’?’ Mavis hissed when Rita insisted the rehearsal be stopped so she could have a drink, claiming to be parched. She’d walked off the stage, leaving the cast open-mouthed and astonished by her unprofessional behaviour.

‘Laying what on?’ Rita asked when they were in her sumptuous dressing room.

‘
It!
I dunno what else to call it, other than
it
.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Rita said coldly.

‘You’ll never do another show,’ Mavis warned. ‘Word gets around – it already has – that you’re a difficult cow. Unbiddable, as me old mum used to say.’

‘It doesn’t matter how arrogant I am as long as I’m good. How long is it going to take to make that tea?’

‘As long as it takes for the kettle to boil, unless you’d like it cold.’

The two women glared at each other in the dressing room mirror; little, insipid Rita in her neat check frock, and tall, stout, very plain Mavis Maguire, who was clad in flowing crimplene to disguise her lack of a figure. The
kettle whistled, announcing that the water had boiled. They both jumped.

‘It’s very nice tea,’ Rita said politely a few minutes later, taking a sip.

Mavis sat down with a groan. ‘I made it strong, the way madam likes it.
I
don’t want to get in madam’s bad books, do I?’

They exchanged grins in the mirror. They’d met three years ago in a ladies’ toilet on Charing Cross station. Mavis was the attendant and Rita had been in a cubicle vomiting up her guts. She had no idea why, she said, when Mavis rescued her.

‘Poor little lamb. You must’ve eaten something that disagreed with you,’ Mavis crooned in her thick, creamy voice. She took Rita into her cubby-hole, sat her down, and made the first of a thousand cups of tea. ‘What did you have for your breakfast?’ she enquired.

‘Nothing,’ Rita confessed.

‘It must’ve been something you ate last night.’

‘I ate nothing last night either.’ She was useless at looking after herself.

‘Doesn’t your mum feed you?’ demanded a shocked Mavis.

‘Not any more. I’ve left home.’ Rita had felt obliged to leave when it became apparent that Mam and Dad didn’t want her there. Nothing had been said, but she just got the impression they would have liked to wander round the house stark naked, making love whenever the urge took them, but they couldn’t because she was in the way.

She’d bought a little house in Primrose Hill, but felt desperately lonely. She’d never been any good at making friends. When invited out, she always refused, knowing
the dinner or the party would be torture while she racked her brains to think of something to say.

‘You’re far too young to have left home,’ Mavis said reprovingly. ‘Would you like a slice of bread and butter? I’ve brought some for me lunch with a piece of Cheddar.’

‘You mean you eat in here?’ It was Rita’s turn to be shocked.

‘It’s either here or the waiting room. I’d buy a meal, but I couldn’t exactly afford it on what they pay me.’ She gave a big, warm smile, as if she didn’t mind terribly eating in a communal toilet.

‘I don’t think I could eat anything, thanks. I suppose I’d better be going.’ Rita was reluctant to leave. She had felt an instant rapport with the outsize woman with cheeks like cushions and bright, pea green eyes, who seemed so extraordinarily kind. She knew straight away that Mavis was the guardian angel she’d been waiting for ever since Robert Briggs had suggested at Marcia’s wedding that it was exactly what she needed.

‘Are you sure you feel up to it, darlin’?’ Mavis regarded her with genuine concern.

‘I think so.’ Loads of other women had been coming in and out of the ladies. Rita was worried Mavis was losing tips – there was a saucer on a table by the entrance containing half a dozen coppers.

‘Come straight back if you feel queasy, and I’ll make you another cuppa.’

‘Oh, I will,’ Rita promised, rather hoping she would collapse outside the door. She had a feeling Mavis hoped something the same. ‘What’s your name, by the way?’

‘Mavis, darlin’. Mavis Maguire. What’s yours?’

‘Rita McDowd.’ There was no spark of recognition in the green eyes.

Two days later, Rita went back to Charing Cross ladies’ toilet. Mavis was there in her white overall. She wore big, sloppy shoes and appeared to be bad on her feet. Her face lit up with her wide smile when she saw her visitor.

‘Are you feeling all right now, darlin’?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been ever so worried about you. You don’t look fit to be out on your own. I hope you’ve been eating properly,’ she added sternly.

‘I had cornflakes for breakfast.’

‘Oh, well, they’re better than nothing.’ She looked wistfully at Rita. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like a cuppa?’

‘I’d love one.’

‘Are you married?’ Rita enquired when they were seated in the tiny cubby-hole.

‘No, darlin’. I had a fiancé once, but he was killed in Korea. His name was John. I live on me own.’ She was thirty-seven, she explained – Rita had thought her much older – and her old mum had died ten years ago. They’d lived in a council flat along with her brother. ‘He took over the flat – being a man, like, the rent book went to him. Not long afterwards, he got married, and he and his missus chucked me out. Now I’m on me own in this bed-sitting room in Islington.’

Rita reckoned Mavis was as lonely as herself. ‘Can you type?’ she asked.

Mavis blinked slightly at this odd question. ‘I wouldn’t be working in a ladies’ toilet, darlin’, if I could type.’

‘Can you cook?’ Rita persisted.

‘Well, I ain’t an expert. Mum liked plain food, so I never learnt to make anything fancy. What’s the third degree for?’ she asked uneasily.

‘I’d like you to work for me,’ Rita stated baldly. ‘I need a secretary, a cook, and a friend.’

‘Do you, now.’ Mavis looked even more uneasy. ‘I’ve just told you, I can’t type and I ain’t much of a cook.’

‘But you’d make a great friend.’ Rita had never thought the day would come when she could speak so plainly, without a hint of embarrassment, to another human being.

Mavis had obviously decided to humour her. ‘The thing is, darlin’, I’d love to work for you, I really would, but I need to earn enough to pay me rent amongst other things. As for being your friend, I’ll do that for nothing. You can come and see me whenever you like.’ She waved a majestic arm around the minuscule cubicle.

‘I’ll pay you a hundred pounds a week.’

‘And where would someone your age get that sort of money? You can’t be no more than sixteen.’

‘I’m twenty-nine, actually. I’m a singer, and I probably earn more in a day than you do in a month. I’ve thousands and thousands of pounds in the bank, but I don’t know what to do with them. I’ve bought a house, but there’s hardly any furniture. I don’t know anything about curtains and stuff. You can help me,’ she added coaxingly.

The woman still looked dubious. And who could blame her? She probably considered Rita a lunatic. ‘What time do you finish work?’ Rita asked.

‘Six o’clock.’

‘Let’s have dinner and we can discuss it properly. Where would you like to eat?’

‘The Ritz,’ Mavis said flippantly.

‘OK, the Ritz it is. I’ll book a table for half six.’

‘You’ll do no such thing.’ Mavis sniffed indignantly. ‘I ain’t going near the Ritz in these old rags. I need to have a bath and get changed first – oh, I can’t believe I said
that. I think you’re leading me way up the garden path, darlin’.’

‘Just come to the Ritz at eight o’clock, ask for Miss McDowd’s table, and you’ll know that I’m not.’

And that was how Mavis had come to work for Rita. They trusted each other implicitly, spoke with total honesty, often resulting in blazing rows, but always ended the day the best of friends. Mavis was fiercely protective of her employer. Anyone who telephoned for Rita had to go through Mavis first, who wanted to know who was calling and precisely why. She drove Kevin insane.

‘It’s none of your business!’ he would scream.

‘Everything’s my business if it’s to do with Miss McDowd,’ Mavis would prissily inform him.

It was Mavis’s idea that Rita buy a place in the country, but keep the Primrose Hill house for when they stayed in London. ‘You can get away from the rat race, darlin’. You could do with some proper fresh air, it’ll bring the roses to your cheeks. You’re much too pale.’

Rita suggested they buy somewhere in Ireland, but Mavis pooh-poohed the idea. ‘It’d mean flying if you were needed in a hurry. I ain’t prepared to fly meself.’ She’d never actually flown, but had sworn never to set foot inside a plane. ‘It ain’t natural, darlin’. If God had meant us to fly, he’d have given us bloomin’ wings.’

As Rita needed Mavis with her all the time, she bought a farmhouse, completely modernised, on the edge of the Yorkshire dales, only a train ride away from London, if a long one. They had enormous fun furnishing it, buying only from the very best stores, until it looked fashionably comfortable.

They both discovered an interest in gardening and acquired two stray cats. Rita had never been happier than
sitting in front of a blazing fire on a winter evening, a cat or two on her knee, while Mavis fetched cups of tea or cocoa. It was just as good in summer, lounging in a deckchair in the garden, watching Mavis weed.

There was a knock on the dressing room door now. ‘Come in,’ Mavis called.

‘Have you had your drink?’ the show’s director demanded through gritted teeth.

‘She’s coming now.’ The director was treated to a curt nod.

‘But I haven’t finished!’ Rita complained when the man had closed the door.

‘Then do it quickly, madam. It’s time you went back. It’s rude to keep people waiting. I don’t know what’s got into you lately, I really don’t. You’re usually such a mild little thing, but you’ve become a monster.’

A monster! Rita rather liked the idea. ‘I enjoy messing people about,’ she said. ‘It makes me feel important.’ When she’d started rehearsing for
The King and I
, she found herself in a position of enormous power, able to bring proceedings to a halt at her slightest whim. It was an odd, stirring sensation.

‘You need your bumps feeling, darlin’. Now, hurry!’

Rita swallowed the remainder of the tea. ‘All right, Mavis,’ she said obediently.

The director gave a sigh of relief when Rita returned to the stage. If looks could have killed, the female lead would have dropped dead on the spot from the lethal glances aimed in her direction by every other member of the cast.

‘We were about to do the dance scene,’ he said stiffly, ‘when you decided you needed a drink. Are you ready to do it now?’