Ellie Read online

  Ellie made herself a small pot of tea, stirred in some condensed milk and sat down to toast some bread on the fire.

  As she stared into its orange glow she was reminded of making toast like this with her mother. It had been a coal fire then, Polly leaning forward holding the long toasting fork, her hair like burnished copper in the firelight, falling forward around her small face. They had been talking about Sadie Howard from further down Alder Street who was expecting a baby and wasn’t married. Edna downstairs had made some damning remarks about her ‘carrying on with a married man’.

  ‘Don’t you judge people like Edna does when you’re grown up,’ Polly had said. ‘No one knows what love will do to them until it hits them. It turns you inside out, stops you from thinking clearly.’

  ‘Were you like that with my daddy?’ Ellie had asked, a little puzzled by the sad look in her mother’s eyes.

  ‘Yes I was.’ Polly put one hand on Ellie’s head and stroked her hair. ‘When I look back I sometimes wish I hadn’t been so rash.’

  ‘Do you mean you wish you hadn’t had me?’ Ellie remembered asking.

  ‘Oh no, sugarplum, I’ve never regretted you for one moment,’ Polly said quickly. ‘Only that I was so impulsive when I first met him and that I didn’t think things through.’

  At the time Ellie had thought her mother meant she hadn’t visualised being left a widow with a young baby and no money. But now, after Marleen’s story, this little memory took on a whole new meaning.

  ‘Tell me what to do, Mum?’ she whispered, staring into the fire. ‘Guide me!’

  *

  When Ellie arrived at the club later that same evening she found Jimbo sitting at the bar with the Doc and another man she knew as Big Mike. Just one look at their flushed faces and glazed eyes was enough to know they’d been drinking for some time.

  ‘Here she is, my little songbird,’ Jimbo said, slurring his words and opening his arms wide, a full glass slopping in his hand. ‘Come here my treasure.’

  Ellie walked cautiously closer, but avoided his arms.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ Jimbo’s voice rose to an excited squeak. ‘I got my theatre! Come and have a drink with us, Ellie?’

  ‘I’m very pleased for you,’ she said stiffly, not liking this new familiarity. ‘But I won’t have a drink, I must get changed.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time for that.’ Once again Jimbo waved his arms, this time indicating the empty club. As yet none of the waitresses had arrived. ‘Give her a large gin, Cyril.’

  Cyril smirked at Ellie. His expression said it all: ‘Watch out girl, the boss is on the rampage.’

  ‘Just a small one then,’ Ellie agreed reluctantly. ‘Which theatre?’

  ‘The Phoenix,’ Jimbo chortled, rubbing his hands together with glee. ‘What could be better, eh? Close by, in good shape, I’ve even trodden the boards there myself. It’s a great place and it’ll be even greater soon.’

  Ellie sipped the gin slowly. She had only acquired the taste for it recently, and she was apprehensive not only about drinking so early in the evening, but about being alone with Jimbo and his friends. At the same time she was impressed that he’d found such a prestigious theatre and anxious to know his plans, especially her part in them. ‘That’s wonderful,’ she said, more warmly. ‘When will you take it over?’

  ‘Any day,’ the Doc said. ‘Just a few papers to sign, a few deals to be done and Bob’s yer uncle.’

  By this, Ellie had to suppose the Doc was in on it too and that didn’t please her. He was so slimy and as far as she knew he had no theatrical experience.

  But however drunk Jimbo was, he did seem absolutely serious about putting on variety shows. As Ellie sipped her drink he spoke of hiring a producer called Ambrose Dingle.

  ‘He’s one of the best.’ He banged his glass down on the bar for Cyril to refill. ‘He’s already got the dancers lined up and he can pull in a few stars. I can’t wait to see his face when he sees you tonight, Ellie. He’ll be staggered.’

  ‘Tonight?’ Ellie was really taken aback by this. ‘Is he coming here?’

  ‘Sure is,’ Jimbo laughed. ‘So best foot forward and all that. Don’t you let me down now.’

  The arrival of the other girls was a good excuse to slip away. Once in the dressing-room, Ellie hastily told Brenda about the new developments, wishing Jimbo had given her prior warning so she could have washed her hair and rehearsed something special. After visiting Marleen she felt drained and even a bit weepy.

  ‘Ambrose Dingle!’ Brenda said reflectively. ‘Now he is a name to conjure with. He’s good, puts on pretty slick shows up and down the country, I saw one of his a couple of years ago in Brighton.’

  This made Ellie even more nervous. Jimbo was drunk, she was unprepared – tonight could be a disaster. ‘Oh Brenda! What if I blow it?’

  ‘You won’t.’ Brenda’s grey eyes were kind as she put her arm round Ellie’s shoulders and squeezed her. ‘Forget Jimbo. I doubt very much that he’s bought the theatre, that’s just big talk. He’s probably only going to be a backer. This Dingle chap might not even turn up, that might be big talk too. Just get up on the stage and do what you always do. If the man comes he’ll love you – everyone else does.’

  Despite Brenda’s soothing advice, as Ellie watched the club fill up she was very nervous. For the last three or four nights a new, raucous set of people had been coming in here, Knightsbridge people who talked in loud voices right through her performance and got so drunk they knocked their chairs and drinks over.

  ‘Get those Yanks to sit right down the front,’ she whispered to Brenda as a bunch of GIs came in. Americans got just as drunk as anyone else, but they did tend to be more appreciative of an entertainer.

  ‘Will do,’ Brenda hissed back behind her hand and with a switched-on smile and a provocative wiggle made her way towards them.

  The band were playing a medley of Gershwin numbers when Ellie saw the man come in some time after eleven. She knew even before Jimbo pounced on him that he was Ambrose Dingle.

  He had an almost cherubic face, despite being close to fifty or so: a pink, smooth complexion, fair hair parted in the middle, a little long on the collar of his light coloured jacket. Ellie thought he looked effeminate. He had a silk handkerchief drooping out of his breast pocket, a purple cravat tucked into his open shirt collar and he was brandishing a cigarette in a jade and silver holder.

  Ellie took an order for drinks at one of the tables. The club was almost full now; all the tables were taken and a number of men were gathering around the bar. Unfortunately the Knightsbridge set had turned up. Brenda had seated them at a table right at the back, but even now they were braying at one another, the men lurching drunkenly as they moved through the tables to go to the gents.

  Jimbo had declined to do his act tonight, whether because he was drunk, or because he thought he might lose credibility in Mr Dingle’s eyes, she didn’t know, but now he was opening a hoarded bottle of champagne, clearly fawning on the producer.

  At half-past eleven, when Jimbo still hadn’t moved from the bar to introduce Ellie’s act, she made her way through the tightly packed tables and chairs to the stage.

  She began with ‘You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me’, an old number from the thirties which always went down well and which gave her the excuse to go among the audience and tease them a bit. To her surprise the noisy Knightsbridge set fell silent for once, and that gave her a surge of new confidence.

  Ellie couldn’t see Ambrose Dingle, or Jimbo – they were hidden behind a large group of men at the bar. But as she went on to her second number, ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’, she forgot about them.

  Halfway through the third number, an obscure music hall song she’d found called ‘What Would your Mother Say?’ she suddenly felt a ripple of tension. Faces were turning towards the Knightsbridge set and angry voices rose above the music.

  She carried on singing, but all at once she saw a burly Canadian leap from his seat and haul on
e of the Knightsbridge men up by the lapels of his dinner-jacket.

  A fight in the club would just about finish the evening and perhaps Ellie’s prospects with Mr Dingle too. If she waited until Jimbo had the presence of mind to intervene someone could be hurt.

  In a flash of inspiration, Ellie moved to the side of the stage where a spotlight was fixed to the wall. Grabbing it firmly with both hands, she swung it round so its beam fell on the two men locked together at the back of the club.

  ‘This is the show for tonight,’ she said huskily into the microphone. The band stopped dead and she half turned to signal to the drummer to play a roll. ‘Our friend from Canada is just going to show us how to remove an overgrown schoolboy from our midst and deliver him back to his nanny without causing bloodshed or spilling a drink.’

  The big Canadian looked round at Ellie, grinned broadly at her instructions and in one swift movement punched the other man on the chin. While he was still reeling from the blow, the Canadian stuck his shoulder into his victim’s stomach and hoisted him up in a fireman’s lift on to his shoulders.

  ‘He’s done it.’ Ellie clapped loudly, encouraging everyone else to join in. ‘Now he’s going to deposit our schoolboy out on the pavement.’

  As the Canadian carried the man out, Ellie swung the spotlight round across the club. ‘Any more trouble makers? Anyone wanting to join our chum on the pavement?’

  A titter of laughter and some applause banished the earlier tension.

  ‘Right then,’ she said, hand on hips. ‘Anyone in here reckon they can sing better than me?’

  ‘No one’s better than you, babe,’ yelled back one of the Yanks. ‘Do “My Baby Just Cares for Me”?’

  Ellie felt a surge of power. As a child in the Empire she’d heard people talk about this very thing – the moment when they knew they’d got their audience in the palm of their hand. ‘You pipe down, big boy,’ she retorted. ‘Did I ask for requests?’

  Instead she told them a joke Marleen had given her. It was a risqué version of the Englishman, Scotsman and Irishman jokes, changed to English, American and German and their sausages.

  Laughter boomed out, filling the entire club. Then she turned to the band and signalled for them to start playing again.

  ‘Whatcha think?’ Jimbo turned to Ambrose as they watched Ellie from the back of the club. ‘Is she great, or what?’ He might be a little drunk but to his mind this was the best performance of Ellie’s he’d seen yet. She’d averted a fight and stopped the trouble-makers stone-dead, and now she had the audience totally bewitched. She was doing ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’ and judging by the expression on the male faces as they watched her dancing, she’d be featuring in their dreams.

  ‘She’s not bad,’ Ambrose said cautiously. ‘Needs training and polishing, of course, but she might do to fill in between other acts. The show rests of course on getting a big star. If I can get Tommy Trinder or Tommy Handley we might be in business.’

  ‘So when can we talk?’ Jimbo asked. He had expected Dingle to bite his hand off to produce this show. He was disappointed in his reaction to Ellie, but perhaps his own old knack of spotting fresh talent was fading.

  ‘I’ll be in touch next week,’ Ambrose said. He was watching the girl’s face as she sang ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, wandering how she’d do in a screen test. ‘I’ve got to weigh things up first.’

  ‘Can’t you be more definite?’ Jimbo had plied the man with champagne, yet still didn’t know if he’d hooked him or not. ‘I’ve got other producers to see.’

  ‘Go ahead.’ Ambrose shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m the best around and I’m not rushing into anything blind. Now I must go, it’s a long drive back to Brighton.’

  As Ambrose took the Brighton Road he smiled to himself. Jimbo Jameson was the answer to his prayers. Enough money to back the show, good contacts throughout the business, and naïve too! If he’d had any sense he wouldn’t be risking his money on a West End revue but signing that kid up and becoming her manager!

  Ambrose had learnt the hard way to make the most of opportunities. Born in Manchester, brought up above his father’s butcher’s shop, with the smell of raw meat permeating the whole building, he’d decided at eleven or twelve he wanted a more glamorous life than humping sides of beef and cleaning up blood and bones from the floor. The only thing his parents had given him that he was grateful for were piano lessons, allowing him to escape from the shop after school, and indeed leading him on to tap-dancing.

  All those years touring America as Lois Lombard’s dancing partner had enabled him almost to forget his origins. Likewise no one here knew that they’d only played in small towns or that he himself was a mediocre performer. He could speak of his days in Hollywood, and without actually lying, convince everyone he’d been a star, rather than the lowly studio assistant he really was. Those hard times had stood him in good stead. He’d seen real talent and he knew how to make the most of it.

  Young Ellie had star quality. She wasn’t a brilliant singer, not as Jimbo had implied, nor a fantastic dancer. But she had the makings of a musical comedy star. That expressive, beautiful face, her impudence and timing. She was a stick of dynamite and he knew how to light the fuse.

  ‘Sign her up with the other girls,’ Ambrose smirked to himself. He’d got a good bunch now, collected up during summer shows, pantomimes and small revues. Sally, the statuesque brunette, Margaret with the fabulous voice. Frances, Muriel, Mary – and, of course, Bonny.

  Bonny had been a great deal of trouble, and there were many moments when he’d been tempted to ditch her. Fighting with the other girls, screwing around with every man in uniform, refusing to do as she was told. But she was beautiful and she could really dance. A spell in a London theatre would bring everything together nicely. Before long, Ambrose Dingle’s name would be as well known as Florenz Ziegfeld.

  Ellie was still up as the first dawn light slipped in through the curtains. A pile of screwed-up pieces of writing paper littered the floor, but at last she’d managed to write a letter to Charley that she hoped would bring him back to her.

  She’d set out everything with complete honesty. How she felt she couldn’t survive without him, but yet spoke of her need to pursue a career on the stage and her hopes they could find a way around the problems if they loved one another enough. She felt she’d hit the right note, loving but firm, prepared to compromise if he would too.

  Again and again tonight she’d been distracted by aircraft. Before they’d bypassed London to avoid the screen of barrage balloons. Now they were screeching directly overhead, screaming towards Germany fully loaded with bombs. For the first time in the war, Ellie felt a little sympathy for the people over there, imagining them not as the enemy, but as mothers, fathers and their children, cowering the way she had done in the Blitz, praying they’d get through the night.

  Another month or so and the war would be over. Jimbo had been too drunk to talk about what Ambrose Dingle had thought of her, but he had said she’d definitely get a part in the show.

  It did seem that the tide was finally turning in Ellie’s favour. If Charley would just agree to try again everything would be perfect.

  She got into bed and picked up the photograph of Polly and Marleen she kept on the chest of drawers. It was all she had left from the rubble of Gray’s Mansions.

  They were arm in arm, in spangled costumes and feathered head-dresses. She knew now that this picture had been taken just days after Polly met Miles.

  ‘I’ll make you proud of me,’ Ellie whispered, kissing each of the two smiling faces that meant so much to her. ‘I’ll pay you both back for all the love and care you showed me. Just watch.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ambrose Dingle abruptly stopped playing the piano halfway through the number. Ellie halted her dance and peered down anxiously into the gloom of the orchestra pit. It was so quiet in the empty theatre that her panting sounded like a traction engine. She felt certain she’d failed miserably.
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  ‘That’s it.’ He looked up at her. ‘I’ve seen enough. Come down here, I want to talk to you.’

  Ellie was confused by Mr Dingle. It was two weeks since he saw her act at the club. Last night he’d appeared again, nodded to her and then gone into Jimbo’s office. He remained in there for some two hours and when he did finally come out, he ordered her to meet him at the Phoenix at ten in the morning.

  Jimbo was very terse after Dingle left, so much so Ellie didn’t dare ask any questions. She wondered if they’d fallen out about her.

  The cleaners were still working when she arrived at the Phoenix this morning. One of them ushered her into the stalls and informed her Mr Dingle was discussing something with the manager.

  She sat waiting for an hour, and it seemed like three, especially as it was so dark. She could hear the cleaners chatting as they swept out the gallery, but no one came in to speak to her.

  She admired the splendid painted ceiling, noted every chip in the gilt cherubs on the boxes, and counted how many of the red plush seats had torn upholstery. She wondered if she dared climb up on to the stage and peer behind the curtain. The theatre smelt horrid, of stale cigarette smoke and mildew mingled with disinfectant, and she wondered if Mr Dingle had forgotten about her and gone home.

  When the safety curtain suddenly creaked up, she jumped. The red velvet curtains swung back and Dingle came down the steps at the side of the stage. He barely looked at her, made no attempt to put her at her ease, just handed her one page of a typewritten script and told her to get up on the stage and read it to him.

  She had no time to do more than scan quickly through it and she felt angry that he hadn’t had the good manners even to apologise for keeping her waiting so long. But her anger at least banished her nerves.

  The script was a soliloquy, spoken by a cockney woman deserted by her husband, who had left her with four children.

  Ellie felt she read it quite well. For the past two weeks she’d been waiting anxiously for a response to her letter to Charley. Now she felt he would never contact her again, so the anguish of the abandoned woman was easy to identify with. Mr Dingle made no comment when she finished. Instead, he sat down at the piano in the orchestra pit, began to play a number from The Quaker Girl and told her to forget singing it, just to dance.