The Blackpool Highflyer (26 page)

When Grace and Marie walked in, they were no longer pix­ies, of course, but ladies of the world in quite good dresses, carrying straw hats. My first thought was: They are not as beautiful in life as they are on stage. But still they
are
beautiful.

Clive was ahead of me, talking to them, and then he was walking back with the two of them following. 'We came up here by train, yes,' he was saying. 'As a matter of fact, we were
driving
the train!'

'Get away!' said Grace or Marie. 'Both of you?'

Clive gave me an extra big grin - he was coming over all unnatural for the benefit of these doxies.

'It takes two, yes,' he said, 'but no need to go into the mechanical details. Would you take a drink?'

Two minutes later we were all sitting down on the sea side of the room. Grace and Marie had glasses of punch; they asked what we were drinking, and Clive said, 'This stuff is "Plain", which would never do for bonny lasses like your­selves.'

It made me quite ill to listen to this talk.

On stage Grace and Marie had been all eyes (and legs, of course), but now you got their noses too. Grace's was a long nose but a good one - a whole story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Marie's nose was sharp, and she had a face that was round
and
sharp, like a vole's. With her dark, mischievous eyes, she reminded me of the wife, and I liked her best. I wondered how it would sound for a man to say to his wife: 'I went off with the one that reminded me of you, dear.' I supposed it had been done,
and
said.

We had barely started on our drink when Marie said to Grace: 'There's your bill-topper.'

I looked up. 'Monsieur Maurice,' I said.

'Which one was he?' said Clive.

'He has the walking figure and the drinking figure,' said Grace.

'No,' said Marie, 'the drinking's out now.'

'Is it? He was giving them Champagne Charlie until last year.'

'Oh he's had them all,' said Marie, looking across at me; 'multi-dolls.' 'Wasn't he giving the eye test shena a while ago?' asked Grace.

'Read the writing on that wall!' Marie suddenly com­manded.

'What wall?' said Grace, and they both laughed.

I guessed this was part of Monsieur Maurice's turn - the one that I had walked out of in Halifax. But Clive was looking cheesed-off at all this shop talk.

'It's a bit like the two of us,' he whispered to me, 'going on about steam pressure.'

'Why don't we
do
that?' I said, finishing my glass of Plain. Well, I was canned by now.

'The Boer War!' said Marie. 'What a blessing that was to us all.'

'How could a war help two singing pixies?' said Clive, a bit crossly.

'You could play all the service towns, you see,' said Grace, and I could see she was a little gone on Clive.

'Broken hearts being in favour, you see,' Grace continued.

'So the sad songs
went,'
said Marie.

'Went where?' said Clive.

'What kind of turn plays the Seashell?' I asked the two of them.

'You know Marie Lloyd?' she said.

'Yes,' I said.

'Well, she's never played here.'

They both laughed.

'Little Titch?' I said.

'Getaway,' said Marie. 'Little Titch is far too
big
for this place.'

The ventriloquist, Monsieur Maurice, walked across just then. 'I will not mince the fact, ladies -' he began, addressing Marie and Grace. Then he looked at Clive and myself and stopped. His beard rocked as his mouth came to a quite defi­nite close. His beard was very sharp, the moustache was very wide - it was like a music-hall turn in itself. Marie said: 'These gentlemen are from the railways.'

At this, the ventriloquist looked all about him; as if he wanted to start a whole other conversation with a whole other lot of people. But with the drink in me, I was at him straight away.

'I liked the walking business’ I said, 'how's it done?'

He looked away. 'Wouldn't do to say exactly how it's done’ he muttered, looking over towards the bar. 'Champagne,' he said to himself, and he went off. With his over-theatrical face, he looked like one of his figures: a waxwork gone live.

'Will Monsieur Maurice be bringing a bottle over, do you think?' I asked Grace and Marie. I had never tasted Cham­pagne, and meant to do so. It had been wanting at our little wedding down in London, in the supper room of the Water­loo pub, as Dad had more than once pointed out on the day.

'His real name is Morris Connell’ said Marie, 'and, no, he will not be bringing a bottle over here if past history is any­thing to go by.'

'How long have you known him?' I asked.

'Since the first of the Seaside Surprises,' said Grace. She turned to Marie: 'When was the first of the season?'

'Oh, early,' said Marie. 'April-time wasn't it?'

'We've all been back here every two or three weeks for the one-week runs ever since,' added Grace.

'All the same turns?'

'Yes. That's how it works with the Seaside Surprises.'

'Nothing very surprising about it,' said Marie, 'when you come to think of it.'

So that was how Monsieur Maurice had come to be in Blackpool, then in Halifax, and now back in Blackpool. I looked over to the bar, and he was standing there eyeing me.

'The one-week runs that you have here . . . They always begin on Mondays, do they?' I asked Grace.

'Mondays’ she said, 'that's it.'

'And does that fellow live here in Blackpool?' I said, nod­ding towards Monsieur Maurice.

'He has digs here’ she said, 'but he has a lodge in Preston as well.'

I remembered that I'd also seen his name in Scarborough, and mentioned this.

'Yes’ said Gracie, 'he's often at the Floral Hall there.'

Monsieur Maurice was walking back towards us carrying one glass of iced Champagne. As he sat down, he looked at me for a while longer, then he turned to Grace and continued his shop talk: 'Two whistles down the speaking tube to say you're on, and that's to the star room, so the question is: what's become of the call boy?' Shaking his head, he contin­ued: 'I don't know . . . Half-pay for matinees, and my expenses going on just as usual.'

'What did you think of the two of us tonight?' Grace asked him, and I could tell that as long as he was at the table, all remarks would have to be addressed to him. You could tell he wasn't keen to think of Grace and Marie at all, but he seemed to put his mind to it for a second, after which he said: 'You two must decide if you are to be stars or specialities.'

'Well nobody wants to be a speciality,' said Grace.

'It's why we've brought in the new closer', said Marie, 'with the drumming.'

'That was the best bit of all,' Clive put in, 'the way you shook those ... you know ... bells.'

'I felt it suffered rather from a want of daintiness,' said Monsieur Maurice.

'It got a good hand,' said Grace.

'Especially from me,' said Clive.

Monsieur Maurice turned around just as a new man entered the room. 'People will always clap for decency's sake,' he said. 'Now there's somebody whose performance I
must
commend,' he went on, standing up and walking over to the new fellow.

'There's twenty vents on the sands,' said Grace, as Mon­sieur Maurice moved off, 'and they're all better than him.'

'Why does he top the bill then?' said Clive.

'There’ said Grace, 'you are into the very crannies of a mystery.'

'Could be money’ said Marie; 'thirteen consecutive fronts paid for in the
Era
don't hurt.'

'Special New Year's card to every manager in the country’ added Grace.

'Sounds a good notion,' said Clive, trying to cut in again.

'No,' said Grace,
'we
send
telegrams.'

'Wire best offer!' Marie suddenly shouted. 'We're coming!' and she looked at us all with wide eyes. I did like her, but I had a feeling Clive would fare better alone.

I found a wobbly pair of legs and walked over to the bar. Monsieur Maurice was standing by the billiard table, shaking the new man's hand and saying: 'You were quite a favourite tonight.'

The new man - who was the ventriloquist that had been on first, Henry Clarke - was thanking him. Off stage, he looked an amiable sort: brown eyes and silky hair parted down the middle like a church roof.

'Let me stand you supper’ Monsieur Maurice said to Henry Clarke. 'The fish pie's rather good here.'

'That's awfully kind,' said Henry Clarke. 'Only they
will
put cayenne pepper in, and I don't care for it.'

'Nothing easier in the world than getting a helping with­out’ said Monsieur Maurice.

'Well, I did ask yesterday’ said Clarke, 'but in the end I had to go for the mutton instead.'

'Oh I think we'll be able to manage,' said Monsieur Mau­rice.

I looked over to where Clive was sitting with Grace and Marie. More drinks had come from somewhere onto their table, but I wasn't keeping track of my own let alone anyone else's. Clive was laughing, looking only at the two women, especially Grace, so odds-on she was his favourite. You could watch Clive for ages in a room, and he would only ever look at the women, no matter what the men were up to.

I thought I might go back over to Marie later. It wouldn't hurt to talk a little longer.

Next to me at the bar, Monsieur Maurice was shouting at the serving girl: 'What do you mean by "It can't be taken out once in"? I
insist
on having a fish pie without cayenne pep­per!'

The serving girl went away into the kitchen and came back, and something along the right lines was worked out, for Monsieur Maurice ordered Champagne in a friendly voice and not only paid for Henry Clarke's fish pie, but stood him a glass of beer into the bargain. So he wasn't such a tightwad after all.

I stood in the middle of the room for a while, thinking of ventriloquists, Blackpool, trains and the wife - a hundred things and nothing at all.

As I wandered across to the Gentlemen's a moment later, I could hear Monsieur Maurice saying to Henry Clarke: 'Do you know the words that frighten me most
in all the world?
"Wanted: for children's party, a ventriloquist".'

They didn't seem very frightening to me.

Henry Clarke was smiling in a shy way, eating and trying to be polite.

'Second only', Monsieur Maurice was saying, 'to "unex­pectedly vacant all season".'

Henry Clarke smiled again.

I looked out through the window. The moon was there above the sea, the last entertainment of the evening laid on for the trippers. The room became like a boat in rough water as I started crossing it. Then I struck the billiard table, which I looked at long and hard: the long green gaslit field, against the storminess of the sea - telling the sea how to behave.

'He's a dear old pal of mine,' the Elasticated Man was say­ing to somebody while staring at his picked-over chop; 'helped me when I was down.' Looking again at the Elasti­cated Man, I could see that he was old himself - sixty or so. Yet still elasticated.

When I returned to the table where Clive and the two girls were sitting, I heard Grace saying:'... because I don't want to be a step girl, stuck down some warren with two kids, and expecting again.' She looked all about the room before adding with a sigh: 'This is a jungle sort of life though.' She turned back to Clive and sighed again. I had never seen Clive spooning at close quarters, and had little experience of the art myself, having married very young, but I somehow knew that with all this sighing, things were progressing for him.

Marie said to me, 'You look all-in.'

Clive was saying something in my ear that I couldn't catch. Now he was standing up, taking Grace by the hand, but my eyes were on Monsieur Maurice, who was sitting and watch­ing Henry Clarke eat fish pie. Clarke looked pretty uncom­fortable, as well he might, and the drunken thought came to me: if for whatever reason it was Monsieur Maurice who'd thrown the stone through my window, then the wife was sit­ting pretty at the present moment, for she was in Halifax, and he was here.

A little while later Marie was also standing up, saying to me, 'Will you stroll on the beach?'

There was a shivering mini-sea on the beach, left over from the tide going out. The electric lights on the North Pier were reflected in it. Two figures were walking under the North Pier: Clive and Grace. As I watched, they stopped and kissed. For all that Clive was due his medal, this was his true busi­ness: not driving engines but kissing.
And
the next lot.

'Well!' I said to Marie, who was very surprisingly nearby.

I turned and saw a tram coming along the Prom, all lit up like a theatre. Its lights took away from the moonlight. I watched it stop at the North Pier, then move on.