Tipping the Velvet (3 page)

night, at least! - apart from them. When I reached the

'Of course.'

Palace I nodded to the ticket-girl, as usual; but then I left

'And really in a box?'

my favourite gallery seat for someone else to sweat in, and

'Why not? Between you and me, the only customers we made my way to the side of the stage, to a chair of gilt and ever get for those seats are the Wood family and the scarlet plush. And here - rather unnervingly exposed, as it turned out, before the idle, curious or envious gaze of the 17

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whole, restless hall - here I sat, while the Merry Randalls satin that was cut at the shoulders and showing her arms. A shuffled to the same songs as before, the comic told his lovely girl I had never seen before but felt ready at that jokes, the mentalist staggered, the acrobats dived. Then moment to despise!

Tricky bade us welcome, once again, our very own Kentish I looked back to Kitty Butler. She had her topper raised and swell... and I held my breath.

was making her final, sweeping salute. Notice me, I This time, when she called 'Hallo!' the crowd replied with a thought. Notice me! I spelled the words in my head in great, genial roar: word must have spread, I think, of her scarlet letters, as the husband of the mentalist had advised, success. My view of her now, of course, was side-on and and sent them burning into her forehead like a brand.

rather queer; but when she strode, as before, to the front of Notice me!

the stage it seemed to me her step was lighter - as if the She turned. Her eyes flicked once my way, as if to note admiration of the audience lent her wings. I leaned towards only that the box, empty last night, was occupied now; and her, my fingers hard upon the velvet of my unfamiliar seat.

then she ducked beneath the dropping crimson of the The boxes at the Palace were very close to the stage: all the curtain and was gone.

time she sang, she was less than twenty feet away from me.

Tricky blew out his candle.

I could make out all the lovely details of her costume - the

'Well,' said Alice a little later, as I stepped into our parlour -

watch-chain, looped across the buttons of her waistcoat, the our real parlour, not the oyster-house downstairs - 'and how silver links that fastened her cuffs - that I had missed from was Kitty Butler tonight?'

my old place up in the gallery.

'Just the same as last night, I should think,' said Father.

I saw her features, too, more clearly. I saw her ears, which

'Not at all,' I said, pulling off my gloves. 'She was even were rather small and unpierced. I saw her lips - saw, now, better.'

that they were not naturally rosy, but had of course been

'Even better, my word! If she carries on like that, just think carmined for the footlights. I saw that her teeth were how good she'll be by Saturday!'

creamy-white; and that her eyes were brown as chocolate, Alice gazed at me, her lip twitching. 'D'you think you can like her hair.

wait till then, Nancy?' she asked.

Because I knew what to expect from her set - and because I

'I can,' I said with a show of carelessness, 'but I'm not sure spent so much time watching her, rather than listening to that I shall.' I turned to my mother, who sat sewing by the her songs - it seemed over in a moment. She was called empty grate. 'You won't mind, will you,' I said lightly, 'if I back, once again, for two encores, and she finished, as go back again tomorrow night?'

before, with the sentimental ballad and the tossing of the

'Back again?' said everyone in amusement. I looked only at rose. This time I saw who caught it: a girl in the third row, a Mother. She had raised her head and now regarded me with girl in a straw hat with feathers on it, and a dress of yellow a little puzzled frown.

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'I don't see why not,' she said slowly. 'But really, Nancy, all Father leaned towards him. 'Well, we are told it is Kitty that way, just for one turn... And all on your own, too. Can't Butler,' he said. 'If you ask me' - and here he winked and you get Fred to take you along?'

rubbed his nose - 'I think there's a young chap in the Fred was the last person I wanted at my side, the next time I orchestra pit what she's got her eye on ..."

saw Kitty Butler. I said, 'Oh he won't want to see an act like

'Ah,' said Joe, significantly. 'Let's hope poor Frederick don't that! No, I shall go on my own.' I said it rather firmly, as if catch on to it, then ..."

going to the Palace every night was some chore I had been At that, everybody looked my way, and I blushed - and so set to do and I had generously decided to do it with the seemed, I suppose, to prove my father's words. Davy minimum of bother and complaint.

snorted; Mother, who had frowned before, now smiled. I let There was a second's almost awkward silence. Then Father her - I let them all think just what they liked - and said said, 'You are a funny little thing, Nancy. All the way to nothing; and soon, as before, the talk turned to other Canterbury in the sweltering heat - and not even to wait for matters.

a glimpse of Gully Sutherland when you get there!' And at I could deceive my parents and my brother with my that, everybody laughed, and the second's awkwardness silences; from my sister Alice, however, I could keep passed, and the conversation turned to other things.

nothing.

There were more cries of disbelief, however, and more

'Is there a feller you've got your eye on, at the Palace?' she smiles, when I came home from my third trip to the Palace asked me later, when the rest of the house lay hushed and and announced, shyly, my intention of returning there a sleeping.

fourth time, and a fifth. Uncle Joe was visiting us: he was

'Of course not,' I said quietly.

pouring beer from a bottle, carefully, into a tilted glass, but

'It's just Miss Butler, then, that you go to see?'

looked up when he heard the laughter.

'Yes.'

'What's all this?' he said.

There was a silence, broken only by the distant rumble of

'Nancy's mashed out on that Kitty Butler, at the Palace,' said wheels and faint thud of hooves, from the High Street, and Davy. 'Imagine that, Uncle Joe - being mashed on a the even fainter sucking whoosh of sea against shingle from masher!'

the bay. We had put out our candle but left the window I said, 'You shut up.'

wide and unshuttered. I saw in the gleam of starlight that Mother looked sharp. 'You shut up, please, madam.'

Alice's eyes were open. She was gazing at me with an Uncle Joe took a sip of his beer, then licked the froth from ambiguous expression that seemed half amusement, half his whiskers. 'Kitty Butler?' he said. 'She's the gal what distaste.

dresses up as a feller, ain't she?' He pulled a face. 'Pooh,

'You're rather keen on her, ain't you?' she said then.

Nancy, the real thing not good enough for you any more?'

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I looked away, and didn't answer her at once. When I spoke time I would leave Mother and Alice to work the shop, and at last it was not to her at all, but to the darkness.

run down to the beach to ladle out cockles and crab-meat

'When I see her,' I said, 'it's like -I don't know what it's like.

and whelks, and bread-and-butter, at Father's stall. It was a It's like I never saw anything at all before. It's like I am novelty, serving teas upon the shingle; but it was also hard filling up, like a wine-glass when it's filled with wine. I to stand in the sun, with the vinegar running from your watch the acts before her and they are like nothing - they're wrists to your elbows, and your eyes smarting from the like dust. Then she walks on the stage and - she is so pretty; fumes of it. Father gave me an extra half-crown for every and her suit is so nice; and her voice is so sweet. . . She afternoon I worked there. I bought a hat, and a length of makes me want to smile and weep, at once. She makes me lavender ribbon with which to trim it, but the rest of the sore, here.' I placed a hand upon my chest, upon the breast-money I put aside: I would use it, when I had enough, to bone. 'I never saw a girl like her before. I never knew that buy a season ticket for the Canterbury train.

there were girls like her . . .' My voice became a trembling For I made my nightly trips all through that week, and sat -

whisper then, and I found that I could say no more.

as Tony put it - with the Plushes, and gazed at Kitty Butler There was another silence. I opened my eyes and looked at as she sang; and I never once grew tired of her. It was only, Alice - and knew at once that I shouldn't have spoken; that I always, marvellous to step again into my little scarlet box; should have been as dumb and as cunning with her as with to gaze at the bank of faces, and the golden arch above the the rest of them. There was a look on her face - it was not stage, and the velvet drapes and tassels, and the stretch of ambiguous at all now - a look of mingled shock, and dusty floorboard with its row of lights - like open cockle nervousness, and embarrassment or shame. I had said too shells, I always thought them - before which I would soon much. I felt as if my admiration for Kitty Butler had lit a see Kitty stride and swagger and wave her hat . . . Oh! and beacon inside me, and opening my unguarded mouth had when she stepped on stage at last, there would be that rush sent a shaft of light into the darkened room, illuminating of gladness so swift and sharp I would catch my breath to all.

feel it, and grow faint.

I had said too much - but it was that, or say nothing. Alice's That is how it was on my solitary visits; but on Saturday, of eyes held my own for a moment longer, then her lashes course, as we had planned, my family came - and that was fluttered and fell. She didn't speak; she only rolled away rather different.

from me, and faced the wall.

There were nearly twelve of us in all - more by the time we The weather continued very fierce that week. The sun reached the theatre and took our seats, for we met friends brought trippers to Whitstable and to our Parlour, but the and neighbours on the train and at the ticket-booth, and they heat jaded their appetites. They called as often, now, for tea attached themselves to our gay party, like barnacles. There and lemonade, as for plaice and mackerel, and for hours at a wasn't room for us to sit in one long line: we spread 23

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ourselves about in groups of threes and fours, so that when I wished, too, that I might be alone when she did so - alone one person asked Did we care for a cherry? or Did Mother in my little box with the door shut fast behind me - rather have her eau-de-cologne? or Why had Millicent not brought than seated in the midst of a crowd of people to whom she Jim? the message must be passed, in a shriek or a whisper, was nothing, and who thought my particular passion for her all along the gallery, from cousin to cousin, from aunt to only queer, or quaint.

sister to uncle to friend, disturbing all the rows along the They had heard me sing 'Sweethearts and Wives' a way.

thousand times; they had heard me tell the details of her So, anyway, it seemed to me. My seat was between Fred costume, of her hair and voice; I had burned all week to and Alice with Davy and his girl, Rhoda, on Alice's left, have them see her, and pronounce her marvellous. Now that and Mother and Father behind. It was crowded in the hall they were gathered here, however, gay and careless and hot and still very hot - though cooler than it had been on the and loud, I despised them. I could hardly bear for them to previous, sweltering Monday night; but I, who had had a look upon her at all; worse still, I thought I couldn't endure box to myself for a week, with the draught from the stage to to have them look upon me, as I watched her. I had that chill me, seemed to feel the heat more than anyone. Fred's sensation again, that there had grown a lantern or a beacon hand upon mine, or his lips at my cheek, I found inside me. I was sure that when she stepped upon the stage unbearable, like blasts of steam rather than caresses; even it would be like putting a match to the wick, and I would the pressure of Alice's sleeve against my arm, and the flare up, golden and incandescent but somehow painfully warmth of Father's face against my neck as he leaned to ask and shamefully bright; and my family and my beau would us our opinion of the show, made me flinch, and sweat, and shrink away from me, appalled.

squirm in my seat.

Of course, when she strode before the footlights at last, no It was as if I had been forced to pass the evening amongst such thing occurred. I saw Davy look my way and give a strangers. Their pleasure in the details of the show - which I wink, and heard Father's whisper: 'Here's the very gal, then, had sat through so often, so impatiently - struck me as at last'; but when I glowed and sparkled it was evidently incomprehensible, idiotic. When they sang out the chorus with a dark and secret flame which no one - except Alice, along with the maddening Merry Randalls, and shrieked perhaps -looked for or saw.

with laughter at the comedian's jokes; when they gazed As I had feared, however, I felt horribly far from Miss round-eyed at the staggering mentalist and called the Butler that night. Her voice was as strong, her face as human loop back on to the stage for another tumble, I lovely, as before; but I had been used to hearing the breaths chewed my nails. As Kitty Butler's appearance grew more she drew between the phrases, used to catching the glimmer imminent, I became ever more agitated and more wretched.

of the limes upon her lip, the shadow of her lashes on her I could not but long for her to step upon the stage again; but powdered cheek. Now I felt as though I was watching her 25

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through a pane of glass, or with my ears stopped up with I heard Mother ask, How did the lady in the evening dress wax. When she finished her set my family cheered, and read all those numbers with a blindfold on?

Freddy stamped his feet and whistled. Davy called, 'Stone The cheers were fading, Tricky's candle was out; the me, if she ain't just as wonderful as Nancy painted her!' -

gasoliers flared, making us blink. Kitty Butler had looked then he leaned across Alice's lap to wink and add, Though for me - had raised her head and looked for me; and I was not so wonderful that I'd spend a shilling a week on train lost and sitting with strangers.