Ellie Read online

  ‘The only palace I’ve ever seen was the one in Brighton,’ Marleen giggled, looking at Polly. ‘Remember that place, Poll? You caught my side too tightly when we did the wheel routine and your nails split my costume.’

  Normally Ellie would hang on every word of this sort of reminiscing, but just now she was too taken aback by the room before her.

  It was full of sunshine, even though the big windows had thick lace curtains which muted it. It had a carpet too, pale blue with scrolls in a darker colour, which went right up to the skirting boards. A big three-piece suite with floppy feather cushions and the covers all greens and blues. As if that wasn’t enough, there were gilt electric lamps, and a low table with lion’s feet, so highly polished she could almost see her face in it.

  Ellie often parodied Marleen. She would drape a coat over her shoulders, pretending it was her aunt’s musquash, and mince around, fluttering her eyelashes and talking in that special posh voice Marleen put on for effect. Yet, young as she was, Ellie knew there was another Marleen hidden beneath the brash, hard exterior. She was generous with love and money, loyal and kind-hearted, and when she hit low spots in her life she laughed about it, picked herself up and started out again. It was typical of her showy, caring aunt that she’d chosen to buy a new blue velvet party dress for Ellie to take away with her, rather than something practical like shoes or a coat.

  Marleen was still glamorous. Although her face was thin and her features unremarkable, she made the best of herself. Never a hair out of place, her eyebrows just a thin painted line, skin like a porcelain doll. Like Polly, she still retained that dancer’s stance, straight-backed, head up, tummy tucked in. She was always entreating Ellie to copy it.

  Ellie explored the rest of the flat with ever-growing amazement. A kitchen almost as big as their entire flat, with proper cupboards all built in and that unheard-of luxury, a refrigerator. The main bedroom was pink, with a silky padded cover right over the big double bed.

  ‘You ain’t got married ‘ave you?’ Ellie said, trying very hard to sound guileless.

  ‘Me get married!’ Marleen raised one thin eyebrow. ‘That’ll be the day, luv! My ship come in, that’s all.’

  Finally they came to the bathroom. Once again, Ellie was dumbstruck. It had white tiles right up to the ceiling and the bath was big enough for two. Pink soap sat on the wash-basin, there was a fluffy rug on the floor, and the lavatory had a shiny wooden seat. Ellie could only remember ever having had a real bath on three occasions – and all of them had been in Marleen’s many different homes. But those had been dingy, cold places, shared by other tenants, not this kind of opulent splendour.

  ‘Want yer bath now?’ Polly asked, smiling as she saw the excitement bubbling out of her daughter.

  ‘Yeah, ’ave it now,’ Marleen agreed, opening a mirrored cupboard on the wall and taking out a bottle of something pink. ‘And for a special treat, a touch of my smellies!’

  Ellie watched, fascinated, as Marleen poured a little of the pink liquid into the gushing hot water. Instantly, bubbles began appearing. The whole room smelt of roses.

  ‘Cor, that’s the stuff film stars ‘ave.’ Ellie hugged her aunt impulsively, dark eyes dancing with glee.

  ‘You can practise being one then,’ Marleen laughed, tickling the child’s upturned face. ‘Now wash yourself properly, mind, and when you come out I want to see if you can still do those dance steps I taught you. Just because you’re going away don’t mean the earth stops moving.’

  Ellie was in seventh heaven as she lay back amongst the bubbles. Her mother and Polly would be attacking the gin, soon there’d be a nice supper, and tomorrow would be a real adventure.

  Ellie had only been out of London two or three times in her entire life, and then only to Southend with Marleen. Although she was sad at leaving her mother, this was outweighed by the prospect of the new, exciting experiences before her. Miss Parfitt, her teacher, had assured Ellie there would be plays and school concerts she could take part in.

  It was inevitable that Ellie would want to go on the stage. As a baby she’d slept in a wicker costume box, and sometimes even been borrowed as a real-life prop when an act called for one. Actors, actresses, dancers and comics had all become an extended family, and she learnt their lines watching from the wings, noting timing, movements and gestures. Instinct told her which were good and bad performances. But Ellie knew she needed experience of acting to further her ambition, and she would never get that in Bancroft Road School.

  ‘Ellie’s a lovely kid,’ Marleen said as she took a large swig of her gin, a cigarette poised in her scarlet-tipped fingers. She and Polly were sitting at the kitchen table, a warm breeze from the open window ruffling the white lace curtains. ‘You’ve made a good job of bringing ’er up, Poll, so don’t worry about ’er with strangers.’

  The two women had shared much more than a dancing career. Their deep, close friendship had been cemented with highs and lows, sorrows and joys since 1917, when they’d taken part in their first concert for a group of wounded servicemen. Marleen had been the ambitious one, grasping opportunities for both of them as the First War ended, when people were hungry for entertainment and fun. Yet it was Polly who had the real talent. She wasn’t a mere dancer, but a singer and brilliant comic actress. It was she who coached Marleen and comforted her when the breaks didn’t come as quickly as she’d hoped. They had cried on each other’s shoulders when love turned sour and supported each other in times of need, and though in those early days it had been Polly who was more often than not the provider, Marleen had reciprocated when Ellie was born.

  ‘I just ’ope they find ’er a good place,’ Polly said anxiously. ‘I dream of ’er getting set up with some toffs.’

  ‘I ’ope she keeps up ’er acting and singing,’ Marleen replied. ‘She’s got your talent, Poll, a lovely voice and she can take off anyone.’

  ‘I know.’ Polly smiled. ‘She was being Tommy Trinder this morning and if I ’adn’t bin feeling so down in the dumps I’d ’ave wet myself laughing.’

  ‘This bloody war,’ Marleen exploded suddenly. She knew Polly would be like a three-legged chair without Ellie around and it grieved her to think she could offer no consolation. ‘It ain’t even started yet and already I’m sick of it. Cyril was even talking about joining up today and I thought ’e was certain to wriggle out of it.’

  Polly shook her head in disbelief. Many of the entertainers had already joined up in the hope they’d get a cushy number rather than waiting for conscription, and she was worried the Empire might close with war coming. If a big shot like Cyril Henches, who ran everything in the East End from sweat shops to clubs, had turned patriotic, it seemed the world was going crazy.

  ‘Where will that leave you if ’e does?’ Polly asked. Marleen had been Cyril’s mistress for a couple of years and when he set Marleen up in this flat Polly was sure it meant that he intended to leave his wife at least.

  ‘Up shit creek,’ Marleen smirked. ‘Can’t see ’im sending me a few bob every week while e’s playing soldiers, can you? Even if I got a job I couldn’t manage this rent.’

  Polly thought for a moment before replying. ‘I could move in with you if push came to shove.’

  Marleen’s pencilled brows shot up in astonishment. ‘Blimey girl, that’s a turn-up,’ she said. ‘Thought you didn’t approve of my carryings on?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Polly said quietly. ‘But with Ellie away and Cyril maybe joining up we’ll both be alone. I ’eard there’ll be well-paid jobs in factories soon. Perhaps it’ll be good for both of us to start something new.’

  Marleen topped up their glasses. Working in a factory was her idea of hell, but she knew Polly meant well. ‘It’s a thought,’ she said. ‘But let’s see if Ellie settles in the country first.’

  Polly knew what Marleen meant. Marleen couldn’t and wouldn’t change her lifestyle: there would always be men around her. But though Marleen had few morals, she cared too much for Ellie to expose her to a
nything potentially damaging.

  Marleen wasn’t a tart, not in the true sense of the word, anyway. She just didn’t waste her time and energy on men with nothing to offer her, and Cyril was the latest in a long line of men. Polly worried about her friend, though. She wasn’t getting any younger, she drank too much, and though still attractive, the day would come when she’d be forced to fend for herself.

  Polly sighed. ‘I’ve gotta get out of Alder Street,’ she said, looking around her with envy. ‘It’s getting me down. Wilf leers at me when I go to the kitchen or the lav. Edna’s always prying. What with them and the mice, it’s ’ell. Edna even started digging about Tom the other day.’

  ‘Well, I told you years ago it was daft to take ’is name,’ Marleen said tartly, getting up again and flinging thick slices of ham on to three plates. ‘You could’ve called yourself Jones, or Brown, made up a story about ’ow ’e died. I never understood why you picked on Tom.’

  ‘You do,’ Polly retorted. ‘You know exactly. Besides, ’e would’ve married me, given ’alf a chance.’

  Back in 1926, when Polly found herself pregnant by a married man, she had run away rather than let him be disgraced by scandal. She had known Tom Forester since childhood and he’d always been sweet on her. When she heard he’d been killed in a tragic accident at the docks just a couple of months before Ellie was born there seemed nothing wrong with taking his name. But one lie led to another. She even deceived the registrar by giving Tom’s name as her husband when she registered Ellie’s birth.

  Once the false date and place of their marriage had been entered on her daughter’s birth certificate, there was no going back. She had a new identity, a faded photograph of Tom and her together taken at Southend, and some happy memories of the big, kindly man who adored her. Enough, she thought, to stop tongues wagging. The only person who knew the truth was Marleen.

  ‘You’re a mug, Poll.’ Marleen cut a few tomatoes into slices and scooped them on to the plates. ‘You could’ve ’ad ’elp from you-know-who.’

  Ellie padded out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped round her, hair dripping on to her shoulders. She’d forgotten to take her clean underwear in with her and she wasn’t sure now where her mother had put the bag. As she approached the open kitchen door she heard Marleen speaking and stopped short, instinctively knowing she was hearing something secret.

  ‘If I’d told ’im, soon other people would’ve found out,’ Ellie heard her mother reply. ‘I couldn’t do that to ’im, I loved ’im too much to see ’im ruined.’

  Ellie knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, yet she couldn’t turn away.

  ‘He loved you an’ all,’ Marleen said stoutly. ‘And ’e was stinking rich. If I’d been in your shoes I’d ’ave grabbed anything I could get.’

  This curious revelation, together with the sensation of thick carpet curling round her bare toes, gave Ellie the strangest feeling of having stumbled into an alien, yet luxurious world. She crept closer to the door, curiosity getting the better of her.

  ‘Divorce might be possible wiv an ordinary bloke,’ Polly said, her tone oddly wistful. ‘But not wiv someone wiv a bleedin’ Sir stuck in front of ‘is moniker.’

  ‘Get the pickles out.’ Marleen’s voice was close to the door now and Ellie was forced to retreat. But what on earth was it that her mother couldn’t tell ‘him’, and why hadn’t she ever admitted she was once in love with someone other than Tom Forester?

  Ellie woke up first the next morning. Her mother was flat out on her back, her mouth wide open, her breath smelling of gin.

  It had been a lovely evening. Once the supper had been eaten and a few more gins had gone into her auntie and mum, they were very funny, telling her all those stories she loved, about their time with the travelling dance troupe. Ellie had prompted Marleen to talk about the ‘stage door Johnnys’ with the hope she might discover where this mysterious titled admirer fitted in. But though Marleen told her about a butcher who gave them a leg of lamb when they had nowhere to cook it, and about ‘Dandy Jim’, whom they had to climb out of a window to avoid, and Big Frank who serenaded them under the boarding-house window in Margate, there was nothing about a ‘Sir’ anyone.

  A violent storm began just before they left Marleen’s – thunder, forked lightning and the heaviest rain Ellie had ever seen. They borrowed an umbrella from Marleen, and Ellie had to catch hold of her mother’s waist tightly as they hurried to the tube, because she was quite drunk and unsteady on her feet. When they went out to the lavvy before going to bed, Polly kept singing, ‘The boy I love is up in the gallery,’ and Wilf shouted for her to shut up. Ellie had been on the point of admitting she’d been eavesdropping when they got into bed, but her mother had fallen asleep the moment her head touched the pillow, and the chance was gone.

  Now Friday 1st September had finally arrived. My last morning here, Ellie thought, wriggling closer to her mother’s side. Polly was too hot and a bit sweaty but it was the last chance to cuddle her.

  Ellie knew why Polly had got so drunk last night: it was the only way of coping with sending her child away. She might keep insisting that Ellie would get a better education, and come back speaking posh with swanky manners, but Ellie knew she was breaking up inside.

  Teachers at school had often suggested it was wrong of Mrs Forester to take Ellie to work with her every night. But as Polly always said, ‘Better under my nose than under another woman’s thumb.’ Ellie loved helping get the costumes ready for the cast. She had learnt which stars would bite her head off if they so much as saw her, which ones appreciated her running messages and helping with the hooks and eyes. Perhaps most children would find it tiring, but Ellie had the theatre in her blood and the cast and backstage hands were family.

  ‘What are you thinking, Ellie?’

  Ellie turned her face, surprised by her mother waking so soon. Polly’s blue eyes were bloodshot, her skin looked as worn as her old nightdress, but there was a softness in her voice that meant she too was holding on to these last precious moments with her child.

  ‘Just wondering whether you’ll remember to eat when I’m not here,’ Ellie whispered. She couldn’t voice her fears that her mother might start drinking like many of the theatre people did. Or admit she had butterflies in her tummy. ‘You will, won’t you, Mum?’

  Polly looked at Ellie’s troubled face and her heart seemed to swell alarmingly. ‘Of course I will,’ she said firmly. ‘Now don’t you go worrying about me, sugarplum. You just be a good girl and make the best of your new home.’

  A lump grew in Ellie’s throat. The pet name ‘sugarplum’ was one she had as a little girl and it evoked all those memories of sitting on her mother’s knee, of being bathed in a sink and carried home half-asleep in her arms through dark streets. It meant love, that word they never actually said, but she felt it now, hot and sweet.

  ‘We’ve never been apart for even one night before,’ she whispered, wriggling closer in her mother’s arms. ‘I’ve never even slept in a bed without you there.’

  ‘It’s all part of growing up, baby,’ Polly whispered back. ‘And it won’t be for long.’

  As they reached the junction of Alder Street and Whitechapel High Street there was a sea of mothers and children thronging towards the school. Only a few carried a real case like Ellie’s, a leather one which Polly said was once part of a fancy set. Mostly the other children had only oilskin shopping bags, pillowcases or canvas haversacks, but every one of them had a big brown label with their name on it pinned to their chest and the square box containing a gas mask over their shoulder.

  Women pushed prams with as many as three small children inside, bigger children holding on to the handles. There were few men, and most of those old enough to be grandfathers. Some children had entire families clustered round them. Grown-up brothers and sisters, aunts and grannies. Many of the children looked shamefully bedraggled.

  Ellie looked down at a girl a couple of years younger than her, whose dress was torn and dirty. The s
ole of her shoe flapped as she walked. Ellie felt proud of her new blue checked dress and the matching ribbons on the ends of her plaits.

  ‘Don’t look like that,’ Polly whispered, shaking Ellie’s arm. ‘She ain’t so lucky as you, that’s all.’

  It was enough to chasten Ellie. She was lucky. Maybe she was fat and plain, but she had the nicest, prettiest mother and she was going off on a big adventure.

  ‘How much longer, Mum?’ Ellie looked beseechingly at Polly. It was cooler after last night’s storm, but her legs ached from standing. There was a desperate kind of atmosphere in the playground. Some children had dumped their belongings and ran around wildly, others were clinging to their mothers and crying. They’d been waiting for over two hours.

  ‘Not long now.’ Polly smiled, sliding an arm round her shoulders. ‘Miss Parfitt said she thinks you’re going to somewhere in Suffolk. I’ve been in shows up that way and it’s right pretty.’

  Miss Parfitt, Ellie’s teacher, was flushed, rushing around with a register in her hands. A tall, hatchet-faced woman who normally ruled her pupils with fear, today she seemed to have lost her grip.

  ‘Line up now, in twos,’ she shouted, blowing her whistle. ‘Say goodbye to your mothers now please and we’ll be off.’

  Here in the school playground, Ellie had no wish to look like a baby and cry, yet she felt as if someone was pulling out her innards as she gave her mother one last frantic hug. She breathed in her mother’s smell deeply, that mixture of face powder and soap, and tried to imprint it on her memory. Never before had her mother’s skin felt so soft, her arms so comforting. Even though she struggled to fight it, a tear came rolling out.

  ‘Bye, sugarplum,’ Polly whispered, struggling not to cry too. ‘Best behaviour mind and write to me soon. I love you!’

  The train journey was interminable. Doris Smithers had eaten a whole box of Pontefract cakes and then been sick. Reggie Blythe kept sticking his head out of the window and had black smuts all over his face. Carol Muller hadn’t stopped crying since they left Liverpool Street.