The Runaway (20 page)

As Polly had foreseen, Dana was not only still up but beginning to be very worried indeed. As Polly pushed open the door she erupted into the hallway, almost knocking Polly over with the strength of the hug she gave her.

‘You’re safe! Oh, thank God, Polly … I’ve been so worried …’ Over her friend’s shoulder she saw the looming shape of a tall, heavily built man muffled up against the cold. She gave an involuntary gasp and stepped back and Polly hastily broke into an explanation.

‘Oh, Dana, this is Mr Freeway. He and his brother just about saved my bacon this evening.’ She turned to the man behind her. ‘Mr Freeway, you must be just as tired as I am, but I really would like to thank you properly and I know Dana will feel the same when I’ve explained
the situation. Would it be possible for us to meet tomorrow – after work, I mean? We both have jobs of sorts …’

‘That’ll be just fine and dandy,’ her companion said easily. ‘I think we’ll be at the Adelphi for two or three nights, so if we ask you to come to the hotel at six thirty would that be possible? You see, I think with your local knowledge you might be of great assistance to my brother and myself.’

‘Yes, of course we will,’ Polly said eagerly. ‘But right now what I want most in the world is a cup of cocoa and my bed.’ She turned as she spoke and Dana saw her torn and buttonless clothing for the first time. She gasped, pointing a quivering finger at the ruined garments, but the strange man reassured her.

‘It’s not as bad as it looks, Miss Dana,’ he said earnestly. ‘We reached your friend before any real harm had come to her. But I’m sure she’ll explain far better than I could.’ He had taken off his checked cap as soon as he and Polly had entered the hall and Dana saw that his hair was greying at the temples. She thought he was probably in his mid to late forties. He smiled at her, replaced his cap on thick, wavy dark hair and turned towards the still open door. ‘Good night, ladies. See you tomorrow evening. Six thirty at the Adelphi, and ask for the Freeway brothers.’

As soon as their visitor had gone Polly plunged into the story of her evening, though she did not say much about the row with Ernie which had resulted in her getting on the tram unaccompanied and penniless. Instead she gave a graphic account of the attack by members of the crew of the SS
Georgia
and of her rescue by the American brothers.

‘Oh, Polly, you poor kid, what a ghastly thing to happen,’ Dana said remorsefully. ‘But I’m surprised at Ernie letting you go home alone.’

‘Oh, dear. I suppose I’ll have to tell you the rest,’ Polly said rather forlornly. ‘The truth is, we had a bit of a barney.’ Dana listened to the story, torn between amusement and pity for poor Ernie. She was pretty sure he would never overstep the mark, but realised that Polly was in the right of it. If she did not love the lad then it would be unfair to encourage him to hope by permitting kissing and cuddling. Ernie was two or three years older than Polly. She would have a word with him; try to explain that Polly was still too young for a warmer relationship than that which already existed between them and could be best described as friendship. But right now she was just in time to grab Polly’s half-empty cocoa cup before its owner actually fell asleep sitting at the kitchen table on one of the hard wooden chairs.

‘You’re worn out. If there’s anything more to tell you can do so tomorrow before we go off to work,’ she said severely. ‘It’s very wrong of me to expect to get any sort of explanation out of you at this hour. Do you realise it’s after midnight?’ She pulled the younger girl to her feet and began to bustle her through the door.

‘Oh, Dana, I wonder why they want to talk to us? What use can we possibly be to a couple of rich Americans? They must be rich since they’re staying at the Adelphi …’

‘Polly Smith, will you kindly shut up and start getting ready for bed,’ Dana said firmly. ‘You’ve got to be up early tomorrow because you’ll have to mend your blouse
and your coat. Well, I suppose you can wear your other blouse, because the one you’ve got on won’t ever be much good again, but your coat is the only one you’ve got. Did you pick up the buttons?’

Polly, already tearing off her clothes with wild abandon and struggling into her nightdress, gave a wail. ‘Oh, Dana, as though I could’ve picked up the bleedin’ buttons in the dark with the quayside covered in boxes and packets and such like. Anyway, I never even thought of it. Oh, what’ll I do? Don’t ask me to go back there and crawl around on all fours, for I doubt if I’d find even one, let alone six.’

Dana, pulling her own nightgown over her head, gave a muffled giggle. ‘Honestly, Polly, you can buy a new set of buttons off Paddy’s market for a tanner; maybe less. We’ll do that first thing. I’ve got a long scarf you can borrow. If you leave it loose round your neck it’ll hide the fact that you can’t button up your coat. And now go to sleep for goodness’ sake or we’ll be a couple of nervous wrecks by morning.’

Despite the traumatic events of the previous evening both girls woke early, and when someone knocked at the front door Dana went to it at once with her mouth full of toast, expecting to see the postman with a package for some other tenant who hadn’t answered his knock. However, it was not the postman but Ernie, looking flushed and worried. Dana had barely got the door open before he had pushed past it and grabbed her hand, his own so hot and sweaty that she detached her fingers from his as soon as she decently could and wiped her hand across the back of her skirt. She opened her mouth
to tell him that all was well but had no chance to say a word before he broke into speech.

‘Where’s Polly? Is she home? Oh, Gawd, Dana just tell me she’s safe … but I reckon she must be or you wouldn’t be standin’ here but round at the nearest police station, tellin’ the scuffers she were lost.’

‘She’s here, don’t worry.’ Dana would have said more, but Ernie gave a huge sigh and closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and fixed them on Dana’s face.

‘Oh, thank Gawd,’ he breathed devoutly. ‘I bin imaginin’ her in all sorts o’ trouble. The thing was, you see, that we’d had a bit of a disagreement in the picture house; nothin’ to write home about, just what you might call a lovers’ tiff …’

‘It weren’t nothin’ of the sort,’ an indignant voice said from the doorway of the girls’ room. ‘I’ll thank you not to go tellin’ Dana a load of lies, since I’ve already told her the truth and she knows just what happened.’

Ernie’s shoulders sagged with relief. ‘I never should’ve let you get on that tram wi’out me, though. I thought you mightn’t have any money, but by the time it occurred to me the tram I were on was going full pelt along the Dock Road.’ He turned to Dana, who was hustling them all into the living room and closing the door firmly behind them. She had no desire to make their doings public property, and Mrs Bowen who had the rooms on the first floor was notoriously nosy. Ernie began to gabble an apology, adding what a good thing it was that his Polly had a head on her shoulders and had thought to provide herself with a tram fare in case of emergencies such as the one that had arisen the previous evening. Polly interrupted him without ceremony.

‘I did have me tram fare but it fell out through a hole in my pocket,’ she began, and told Ernie the whole story. Dana watched as Ernie paled.

‘Oh, Polly, will you ever forgive me?’ he asked huskily. ‘And them fellers what rescued you – them Yanks – are you sure it’s wise to go to the hotel to meet them? Suppose they got the wrong idea, thought the fellers from the SS
Georgia
… or mebbe they’s what they call white traders, pickin’ up gals off the streets and shippin’ ’em to South America …’

He got no further. Polly clapped a hand over his mouth and boxed his ears when he protested. He began to ask indignantly what he had done to deserve such treatment and she enlightened him at once. ‘You’re sayin’ they think I’m a bad girl, what that horrible man called a dockside whore,’ she said bluntly. ‘Well, if that’s what you think, Ernie Frost, you can just bugger off and never come near me again.’

Ernie began to protest that he had neither said nor meant such a thing; Polly insisted that his remark had mortally insulted her; and Dana, laughing helplessly, got between them. Then she made them both sit down whilst she poured cups of tea and started toasting bread. ‘You are a pair of idiots, honest to God you are,’ she said when both parties had ceased to shout and were merely sipping tea, crunching toast and glowering at one another. She turned reproachful eyes on Polly. ‘Of course Ernie didn’t mean to insult you; I’m sure he knows by now that your morals are strict enough for a bishop. Now calm down and see if Ernie can think of a way we might be able to help the Freeways.’

Ernie began to say rather sulkily that he could think
of nothing, then suddenly stopped and stared from one face to the other. ‘Freeway, Freeway,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Now where have I heard that name before?’ He appeared to cogitate, a frown etched on his brow, then it cleared and he snapped his fingers. ‘Got it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Remember that old cinema, Poll, the one out in the sticks where we went to see
Snow White
’cos you’d not seen it when it first come out? I went past it a week or so ago when I were doin’ messages on me bike for the greengrocer at the top of St Domingo’s Road. It were pretty run down when we was there and I believe it closed only a couple of weeks later. But now someone’s done it up real posh. The frontage was white marble, with gold edgings to each block. It used to be called the Harmonica – well, maybe not that, but something similar – but now it’s got a new name what’s writ in that stuff what lights up at night and it’s called the Freeway Cinema. Well, if that ain’t a coincidence it’s pretty damn weird.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Polly said having thought the matter over. ‘Perhaps it really is just one of those odd coincidences. Or might you have remembered the name of the cinema wrong? Might it be the Fairway? Or the Freedom? You never know.’

Ernie, however, shook his head, ‘No, I’m sure I’m right,’ he insisted, ‘and what’s more there’s something else, something I never even thought of until just now. I’ve got a pal, a feller named Bruce Evans. I met him a couple of days ago and asked him where he’s been, ’cos we’ve not met for years. He told me he’s been workin’ at a cinema in Manchester. He’s a trained projectionist, but his cinema is closing and he’d had news on the grapevine that someone’s reopening an old picture house
on the outskirts of Liverpool. I reckon it’s that one. No, don’t you scoff, Polly Smith.’ Ernie tapped his head. ‘There’s a lot more to me than meets the eye. What do you bet me, those two Yanks is a-goin’ to reopen the old Harmonica? I’ll give you odds of ten to one if you like.’

His tone was so convincing that Polly declined to bet, and even Dana said firmly that she would keep her money in her purse thank you very much but would be the first to congratulate him if he proved to be right.

Ernie crunched down the last piece of toast, swigged his tea in one long swallow and set off for the outside world. ‘Can I come with you this evening to talk to these here Yanks?’ he enquired hopefully, a hand already on the doorknob. ‘If there’s jobs going …’

Both girls cried out at this but agreed that he might come round to their place at about nine o’ clock to be told what had transpired.

All that day both Dana and Polly dreamed wonderful dreams. Suppose Ernie was right and the Freeway brothers really were rich Americans, perhaps even film stars? Suppose they had taken a liking to Polly and Dana and meant to offer either one or both of them a part in a film being made at Pinewood Studios? But by the time work was over and the girls had enjoyed a strip down wash in front of the fire and dressed in their best, they were beginning to face the difference between their wild imaginings and what was likelier to be the truth.

They took a tram to the city centre and entered the Adelphi dead on half past six, to be greeted in the foyer by a smart young woman in a plain black skirt and frilly white blouse, who seemed to be expecting them. ‘You’ll be the two young ladies who’ve come to see Mr Freeway
and his brother. Follow me and I’ll take you to the interview room.’ Obediently following, Polly hissed, ‘Interview room? Does she have the right people? They never said …’

‘I expect it’s just that they want to talk to us quietly,’ Dana reassured her. ‘Or they may really have work for us and need to know if we’re suitable for the sort of job they have in mind. I wonder if Ernie was right and there’s some connection between them and that cinema?’ At this point the young woman ahead of them stopped outside a white-painted door, knocked gently on the panel and then, upon hearing a voice bidding her to enter, pushed the door open and gestured the girls to go inside.

Here, a considerable surprise awaited them. They had expected to see the Freeway brothers and indeed they were there, smiling a welcome, but so were several other people. A plump, motherly-looking woman in her fifties, two neatly dressed girls, a young man with hornrimmed spectacles and another, younger, with a quiff of blond hair and a cheerful grin. ‘Ernie!’ Polly exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

By the time everyone had been introduced and everyone’s story told, it was getting on for ten o’clock and the Freeway brothers insisted on sending everyone home by taxi. Ernie and Bruce – the young man with the hornrimmed spectacles had turned out to be Ernie’s friend the projectionist – joined the girls in their taxi but very little was said until the four of them were in the girls’ room, where Dana made everyone cocoa and they discussed the glorious news that the Freeway brothers had told them.

Apparently, Jake and Ralph – they had insisted that Christian names must be used – had been interested for some time in acquiring an old cinema, in order to emulate a young American who had done just that in what Jake described as small-town America. Seeing his success, both Jake and Ralph had thought they would like to do as he had done, but if possible in England, for though they had been absent from the country of their birth for a decade they both wanted to return to their roots.

‘And it’s not as though we have family in the States,’ Jake had explained. ‘Our parents are dead, but we owe a great deal to our father’s younger sister. She gave us money for our fares to America when we decided to try our luck over there, and though we repaid her as soon as we got jobs, we felt we’d like to be near her.’ He had grinned at the motherly-looking woman, sitting primly on a straight-backed chair. ‘Meet Auntie Jane – Mrs Jane Mullins to you. We asked her to keep a lookout for any cinema likely to come up for sale over here, and a year ago she got word that the Harmonica was failing. Six months after that she told us that the place was on the market. We came over, bought it and arranged with someone Auntie knew to refurbish it completely. We were both working in the cinema industry and sent money home to our aunt every month to pay for the renovation. The workmen did a good job and Auntie thought it was about time we returned to start trading, so we booked our passage on the SS
Georgia
. We were lucky in that Bruce contacted us, sending excellent references, so naturally we hired him – by letter of course – and told him to keep his eyes open for other likely employees, because we knew we’d need a fair number of ’em. But we’d had
a bad experience in the States – a front of house manager was systematically stealing from us, and when we began to suspect he took off with just about every cent we’d made. So you see, we didn’t mean to employ folk we didn’t know; and that, guys and gals, is why you find yourselves here today. Every one of you is known to either ourselves or our aunt, so no strangers will be involved, for now at any rate. We’ll need a projectionist, that’ll be Specs here, half a dozen usherettes, a fair number of cleaners, a cashier, and a clerk to do the books. Eventually, when we get going, we’ll be opening a cafeteria on the third floor, though that’s for the future.’