The Town in Bloom (3 page)

‘You must be thinking we look ghastly,’ said Lilian and explained that they seldom bothered to put their full
off-stage
make-ups on after taking their stage make-ups off. ‘It’s such a waste of time when we’re coming home on a dull bus.’

I asked if they ever went out to supper with admirers who waited at the stage door.

‘You’ve been reading about the days of the Stage Door Johnnies,’ said Molly. ‘Nobody waits outside our stage door but sentimental girls and kids wanting autographs.’

From the landing came a shout of ‘Kettle boiling!’

‘That could be ours,’ Lilian said, and went to investigate. I learned that kettles queued up for gas-rings; an owner, removing a boiling one, would replace it with the next in the queue. Lilian returned to say their kettle had just been put on, so they went to undress while it boiled.

Shortly after that, a deep voice said: ‘My God, Frobisher, how that man kissed me in the taxi!’

Molly shouted: ‘Kindly moderate your language, Macgregor. We have an innocent young mouse in our midst.’

‘Oh, sorry, infant,’ called Macgregor. ‘But anyway, you won’t stay innocent long, not in
this
village.’

I said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m quite
unshockable
.’ And I believed it to be true. Aunt Marion, a great admirer of Shaw – many of her triumphs in amateur theatricals had been as Shavian heroines – had brought me up on what she considered emancipated lines. Had I presented her with an illegitimate baby she would have uttered no word of reproach. But flippancy about sex had never come my way and when it did – there was a good deal of it at the Club – perhaps I was, at first, a little shocked; or to say the least of it, astonished, particularly by the fact that girls I took to be living perfectly respectable lives could regale each other with highly indecent stories. Macgregor, a dab-hand at these, was said to have a private line to the Stock Exchange.

The sixth occupant of our village soon arrived and joined the Frobisher-Macgregor conversation. She was addressed as Lofty, short for Loftus. I was to find that most Club members were called by their surnames, or abbreviations of them. But Molly and Lilian were called by their Christian names and I, from the first, was ‘Mouse’.

Molly soon came in for my tooth mug and brought it back filled with tea. She then went to drink her own tea in bed. Conversation continued until she called: ‘It’s time we all went to sleep. Mouse, you should brush your teeth after that bread and butter. You have good teeth and should take care of them.’

I got up and did as I was told, and heard Molly and Lilian also busily brushing. Then Molly called: ‘And in case you have need, there is a lav. just across the landing. In this village we only use our pots in emergencies.’

When I came back, Molly and Lilian had put their lights out but the others were still talking loudly.

‘Friends, I should appreciate silence,’ called Molly.

There were groans from Frobisher, Macgregor and Lofty but they did slightly lower their voices; and before long, they too put their lights out. I remember thinking it was strange to be sleeping so close to other people. Except during a few of our holidays I had never shared a room even with my aunt. I also remember thinking that I would describe the recent conversation in my journal. But I never did; the journal was in for a period of neglect. Had I written in it the next day, should I have recorded that I now thought Molly and Lilian would become real friends of mine? I doubt it. I think we slid into close friendship so easily that I never noticed it was happening.

No one in the village snored. It seems to me that no one so much as turned over in bed. Perhaps the six of us slept the profound sleep of youth; or perhaps it was just that the depth of my own youthful sleep blanketed out all sound.

I was awakened at nine-thirty by the clatter of crockery in the next cubicle: a maid was bringing Molly her breakfast in bed. Remembering, from the Club prospectus, that breakfast in the dining-room was served only until
nine-forty
-five, I sat up and wailed that I should never get down in time.

‘Of course you won’t,’ said Molly cheerfully. ‘Darling Charlotte will bring you something.’

Darling Charlotte was heard saying she would do no such thing. She then informed me that breakfast in bed had to be ordered the night before. ‘You need to write your name in a book, miss.’

‘But she didn’t know that,’ Molly explained. ‘And you’ll
want
to help her, because she’s a poor small mouse in mourning for her aunt.’

I wasn’t. Aunt Marion had disapproved of mourning.

Charlotte then told me she would see what she could do. ‘But it’ll only be toast and marmalade – it’s too late for a fried egg. Tea or coffee, miss?’

I chose coffee and thanked her profusely. While she was gone I went along to the lavatory and saw, as I passed between the two rows of cubicles, that Frobisher,
Macgregor and Lofty were already out of the village. (Frobisher was a music student, the other two were out-
of-work
actresses. Of course I eventually met them face to face but I always knew them better by their voices than their faces.) Lilian, seeing me through her open door and across her breakfast tray, asked me to notice if there were any finished-with trays already put out on the landing from which I could glean any unwanted pieces of toast. She said hers were unusually thin. I found three pieces and brought them back to her. She was looking very decorative in a blue chiffon bed-jacket.

‘One piece for me, one for Molly and one for you,’ she said, giving me her sudden, wide smile that was almost a grin. That smile did a lot for Lilian.

When I took Molly her piece I found her wrapped in a fleecy white shawl. That was when I first saw her as an enormous baby.

Soon after I got back to bed Charlotte brought my breakfast. She was a tall, boney Cockney to whose angular features the Club mobcap was most unbecoming. Though always very kind to me, her real devotion was reserved for Molly, who treated her with bullying affection and usually called her either ‘my faithful serf’ or ‘darling Charlotte the Harlot’, both of which names appeared to give great pleasure.

Breakfast trays came up on a service lift but had to be carried some distance. I don’t recall feeling guilty that mine was carried by a woman about three times my age. And I feel sure Charlotte did not mind, though she didn’t get the sixpence charged by the Club for the service. Neither did she get tips; giving them was against Club rules. I fear most
of us took the almost invariable kindness of Club servants completely for granted.

After breakfast I was initiated into the never-ending Battle of the Bathroom Door. There were plenty of ‘cold bathrooms’ where there was hot and cold water in the wash basin but only a cold tap for the bath. Access to cold bathrooms was free, but one could only get into a ‘hot bathroom’ by putting tuppence into a slot-machine on the door. Molly believed cleanliness should be free, always left bathroom doors open, and took advantage of any she found open. Lilian, while admitting the Club’s right to charge, objected to paying for baths which often turned out to be tepid. She went in for complicated mental
bookkeeping
and could be heard saying, ‘The bathroom door owes me three tuppences from last week,’ and so on. This might have indicated acute honesty on her part had she ever failed to take a free bath if she could get one. I adopted Molly’s system and never closed a bathroom door behind me – any more than, throughout my life, I have ever deliberately closed the door on leaving a pay-lavatory.

My bath that day was certainly tepid, but even had it been hot I should have spent little time in it as I had plans for the morning. While reading the
Stage
, the previous evening, I had discovered that a new play was being cast at the Crossway Theatre. I intended to hurry there and present my introduction.

It had been given to me by my aunt not long before her death. Some five years earlier, when Rex Crossway had brought his company to Manchester, she had met him at a lunch given in aid of some charity and made such an impression that he had driven out to our suburb to have
tea with her. (She was an unusually pretty woman.) When I got back from school – late, after a music lesson – he had just left, and I well remember taking deep sniffs of the air he had so recently breathed and patting the back of the chair where, my aunt assured me, his head had rested. She looked very bright eyed when she told me how interested he had been in her amateur acting; he had said she must come and see him if ever she went on the professional stage. I think she might have been tempted to, had not her heart trouble already begun though I did not know this until much later.

When she handed me the letter of introduction she said, ‘I think I can, without flattering myself, feel sure he will remember me.’ Although she smiled, as if with pleased reminiscence, it was a deeply sad moment, for we both knew the letter would only be presented after her death.

Before going to my bath I had told Molly and Lilian about the introduction and my determination to deliver it that morning. Lilian at once said, ‘Wait! Couldn’t you afford yourself one smart outfit before you try to see Rex Crossway?’

Molly squashed this. ‘Smart clothes wouldn’t suit her as well as her own do. She needs to be original.’

Lilian considered this idea, then made it her own and began improving on it. ‘Then she should be even more original. Let me see all your clothes, Mouse.’ She opened my cupboard door.

My aunt, too, had favoured originality for me, though, paradoxically, the word had often meant for her that my clothes should be like somebody else’s. I had a taffeta dress with a fichu said to be ‘like’ Marie Antoinette, and a
high-waisted
chintz dress ‘like’ Kate Greenaway girls. My black cloak worn without a hat (over party dresses) was ‘like’ a conspirator; worn with my straw bonnet it was ‘like’ Jane Eyre; accompanied by a small black tricorne hat it became ‘like’ Dick Turpin. Then there were my ‘Studio’ frocks. (Neither my aunt nor I had ever set foot in anyone’s studio.) These were of excessively bright colours.
Everything
was well made; my aunt had employed a good dressmaker. But nothing bore any resemblance to what was being worn in the middle nineteen-twenties. Lilian, inspecting an orange wool dress intended to be worn with an emerald shawl, had remarked, ‘Seriously, Molly, if she goes out in that she’ll get mobbed.’

By the time I got back from my bath the girls had decided that the black cloak and grey dress in which they had first seen me would be best for my onslaught on Mr Crossway. ‘But I’ve cheered things up a bit,’ said Lilian. She had taken a small pink feather from one of her own hats and pinned it on to my coal-scuttle bonnet. It looked like a pink question mark.

I wore my best pale grey suede gloves and carried a handbag made of black velvet trimmed with cut steel. This had a draw-string like a work-bag and could, if swung when it contained a good supply of coppers, have proved a formidable weapon. I also had a grey umbrella which had been my aunt’s. She had been a tall woman and it was a tall umbrella – unusually so, with its length increased by the ivory shepherd’s crook which formed its handle. I thought highly of this umbrella. Molly admired the handle through her lorgnette and then we all went downstairs and out to the bus stop.

As the bus approached Molly wished me luck and said: ‘I shan’t be at all surprised if Miss Mouse comes back with a job.’

‘Neither shall I,’ said Lilian, flashing her wide smile. ‘In fact, I have one of my feelings about it.’

Molly instructed the bus conductor to put me down as near as possible to the Crossway Theatre. He eyed my umbrella handle with interest and said he would take good care of Little Bo-Peep.

My visit to London six years earlier had only lasted a week, and though I vividly remembered all the theatres I had been taken to, I had no idea where they were. Looking out of the bus window I could not believe I should ever learn my way about. And when I got off I lost myself almost at once, in spite of the conductor’s careful directions. But at last, after several enquiries, I reached the theatre.

It was at the juncture of four narrow old streets – I remembered my aunt saying it was named with double aptness as it was both at a crossway and the property of the Crossway family. One of London’s oldest theatres, it still retained its late Regency façade, now freshly painted cream. Baskets of dwarf tulips swung between the slender pillars of its portico. On my earlier visit the baskets had been filled with pink geraniums. At twelve, I had gazed at that theatre with far more reverence than I had felt at Westminster Abbey. This had been a year before Rex Crossway had so miraculously come to tea with my aunt, but I had already seen him at Manchester’s Theatre Royal and installed him as my favourite actor.

The first time we came to the Crossway it was to book
our seats for
The School for Scandal
, in which Rex Crossway’s more famous father, old Sir Roy Crossway, was giving his farewell performance. (He died soon after retiring.) While my aunt stood at the box-office I discovered that the stairs to the dress circle also led to the offices of the Crossway Company. I now planned to find these offices and present my letter; it seemed likely that, as a play was being cast, Rex Crossway might be there. But first I looked at the playbills and the framed photographs of the play that was still running. Some of these were on the long side wall of the theatre and beyond them was a sign saying STAGE DOOR – the very words excited me. It then occurred to me that Mr Crossway might be in the theatre itself, rather than in the offices. I would ask at the stage door.

As I approached it, a girl overtook me and went in. I heard her say, ‘Good morning. I have an appointment.’ I reached the door in time to hear the stage door keeper say, ‘Right, miss. The audition’s down on the stage.’

I instantly felt I must get into that audition. So I followed the girl, said what she had said (wasn’t my letter as good as an appointment?) and barely waited for the stage door keeper’s instructions before pushing through the swing doors. Then I went down stone steps until I reached a heavy iron door. I opened it and, a moment later, stood for the first time in my life on the stage of a professional theatre.

I could see very little, because the stage set cut off most of the light that was illuminating it. But there was a bright patch from a window in the set, and near this the girl who had come down ahead of me was standing with a slight, dark young man. Presumably she was telling him who she
was – I saw him pencil a tick on the notepad he was holding. Then he waved her aside and she joined some other girls, who were seated in a row.

I went towards the young man. He said, ‘Yes? What’s your name and what time’s your appointment?’ Though he spoke only in a whisper he managed to make it a very brusque whisper and he was most noticeably unsmiling. I had been feeling excited, adventurous; suddenly I felt nervous.

I said, ‘I haven’t exactly got an appointment but I’ve brought a letter of introduction to Mr Crossway and—’

The young man interrupted me. ‘Well, you can’t give it to him now. You’d better post it. Excuse me.’ He turned away.

‘But, please,’ I begged, ‘as there’s an audition on now, couldn’t I get into it?’

He turned back to me. ‘Certainly not. We’re running late as it is. And anyway, you’d be all wrong. We need a tall girl – a Society type.’

A voice I recognised as Rex Crossway’s called loudly, ‘Brice! What’s happening? Why this hold-up?’

The young man called back, ‘Sorry, Mr Crossway,’ then turned to the waiting girls. ‘Who’s next?’

A girl stood up and he took her out to the front of the stage. I heard him introduce her to Mr Crossway, who asked what work she had done. When she answered I thought she spoke very sloppily; she didn’t sound to me like a Society girl. I could well imagine myself playing one – and surely they weren’t
all
tall? I heard Mr Crossway say, ‘Well, now, just read me a little of the part. You’ve had the chance to look at it, haven’t you? Mr Marton will read with
you – just imagine he’s me. And this time, Brice, cut my long speech and only give her the cue. Now off you go.’

The girl began to read deplorably and was not helped by Brice Marton, who read in a curt monotone, a louder version of his brusque whisper to me. Very soon Mr Crossway stopped them, thanked the girl and told her he didn’t think she’d had quite enough experience. ‘But write to me again later,’ he added kindly. The girl returned to the wings and Brice Marton came with her and took another girl back with him.

I decided to go on listening but I wanted to hear better than I could from where I was. So I walked down into the prompt corner. (I knew all about such things as prompt corners, having twice played children’s parts in amateur theatricals before my aunt gave up acting.) It did not strike me that I was doing anything outrageous and I had stopped feeling nervous of Brice Marton. A man who read as badly as that couldn’t be of the least importance; still, I was glad to find he had his back to me.

This girl read better and was allowed to go on to the end of the scene, thus giving me a clear idea of the part. I felt I could play it admirably and I was sorry to hear Mr Crossway, say to the girl, ‘Come down and have a word with me. Brice, show her the pass door.’ It sounded as if she might get the job before I’d had a chance to win it.

I hastily got out of the prompt corner and was careful to keep out of Brice Marton’s sight when he brought the girl back to the wings, took her down some stone steps, and opened a narrow iron door for her. He then went back to the stage, taking another girl with him. I went closer to the open pass door and could see the rose-red carpet and the
brocaded walls of the theatre. A moment later, I heard Rex Crossway’s voice, and though I could not see him I felt sure he had come
to
the side of the stalls to talk to the girl. He was speaking too quietly for me to make out the words so I went right down the steps to the pass door, determined to find out if the girl really had got the job. I was in time to hear him say, ‘Weil, I mustn’t decide for a few days but you can count on hearing from me one way or the other. Now perhaps you’d like to go out of the front of the theatre.’ Then he held open one of the swing doors of the stalls – I could see him now. The girl went out and he turned to go back to the middle of the stalls.