Ellie Read online

  Bonny lay back in the steaming bath. Her skin was fiery red, forehead dripping with sweat and the bottle of gin was empty beside her.

  ‘Ger’anover kettle,’ she said drunkenly, her mouth slack and her eyes almost closed.

  ‘No more, Bonny,’ Ellie pleaded with her. ‘This is stupid.’

  On VE Day, when they’d compared their identical shapes in the ancient mirror, the bathroom hadn’t seemed quite so grim. But the events of that day had tainted everything, like the black smuts flying from out of the old geyser. The window was cloudy with grime, the lavatory caked with brown limescale. It wasn’t a place anyone would choose to linger in.

  ‘Jus’ do it,’ Bonny insisted.

  Ellie hesitated before opening the door. She was afraid to leave her friend in case she passed out and drowned in the deep, almost boiling water, yet at the same time she felt compelled to go along with this barbaric attempt to bring on a miscarriage.

  In the days that followed VE night, Ellie had been too distraught about Charley even to think that there might be other repercussions. While she had cried herself to sleep night after night, too tormented by guilt and shame to take an interest in reviews or packed houses, she hadn’t even considered that one of them might be pregnant.

  When Bonny complained her period was late, Ellie thought it was another one of her tall tales, a ruse to gain sympathy. But when she saw for herself that Bonny’s breasts were getting larger and saw how queasy she was in the mornings, she had to take it seriously.

  It was now the end of June and Ellie had agreed to help her with the gin and hot bath treatment.

  She boiled another kettle upstairs. It was a Sunday afternoon and London was in the grip of a heatwave. Although the window in her room was open wide, there wasn’t enough of a breeze to flutter the curtains, or dispel the lingering cooking smells on the staircase.

  The sound of violent retching alerted Ellie. She turned off the gas and ran down the stairs, barging back into the bathroom. As she opened the bathroom door she recoiled in horror. Bonny had vomited over the side of the bath, projecting it up the walls and over a clean towel on the floor, and the smell was appalling. Worse still, Bonny was lifeless, only one arm over the side of the bath preventing her from sinking under the water.

  Ellie stepped over the mess and pulled out the plug. Grabbing a flannel, she doused it in cold water and wiped her friend’s face.

  Bonny’s eyes opened a crack. ‘Tolsho,’ she said, her mouth slack and senseless.

  Ellie assumed this meant it was working. ‘Get up,’ she said, trying to lift her friend under her arms. ‘I’ll get you into bed.’

  Hauling a wet and slippery body from the bath was an endurance test. Time and again Ellie almost got Bonny out, but then lost her grip. By the time she managed to get Bonny hoisted over her shoulder, Ellie’s cotton dress was soaked and she’d slipped on the vomit. All the time she was afraid one of the other tenants would come up the stairs and catch her hauling what looked like a dead body up to her room.

  Bonny had been in Ellie’s bed for less than ten minutes when she was sick again, this time all over the sheets and blankets. Her skin was still fiery red, she was unconscious, and her breathing laboured.

  Day slipped into evening, with Bonny waking up now and then to retch into a bowl, before passing out again. Ellie ran up and down stairs, cleaning the bathroom, washing the sheets and bringing bowls of water to sponge Bonny down. The smell of vomit and gin permeated the entire house, but that was nothing compared to her terror that Bonny might have done herself a permanent injury. Her face was green now. When she opened her eyes they were glazed and there was nothing inside her to bring up but bile.

  ‘Speak to me, Bonny,’ Ellie urged her, sitting beside her on the bed and stroking back her hair.

  ‘I’ll never drink gin again,’ Bonny croaked. ‘I think I’m going to die.’

  By the time it grew dark Bonny was sleeping more peacefully. Ellie had hung the sheets and blankets out of the window to dry and she was exhausted. Only now was she grateful for the heat. There were no more clean sheets and Bonny lay on a towel, covered with a dressing-gown. Ellie rolled-up a cardigan for a pillow, lay on the floor and pulled her coat over her.

  ‘Ellie!’

  Ellie woke instantly at the plaintive cry. Enough weak dawn light was coming in through the window for her to see Bonny was crying.

  ‘I feel terrible,’ Bonny whispered. ‘I’m so thirsty and hot.’

  Ellie got Bonny a drink of water and sat her up.

  ‘It hasn’t worked,’ Bonny said weakly. ‘I haven’t even got a tummy ache. What am I going to do now?’

  ‘We’ll think of something.’ Ellie wiped her brow with a wet flannel. This scenario reminded her of similar ones with Marleen, but Bonny’s problem couldn’t be solved by telling her to pull herself together. ‘Maybe you could ask your parents to help?’

  Bonny didn’t snap back at her as she’d expected; instead she gave a long, drawn-out sigh. ‘I’ve told you so many lies about them,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know why I do it, it’s so stupid.’

  Ellie sat up on the bed and pulled Bonny into her arms, letting her tell her everything. From just one brief meeting with Mr and Mrs Phillips, Ellie had seen enough to guess much of the truth about them, but she let Bonny explain anyway.

  Slowly the whole picture presented itself, of a child who felt smothered by her parents’ adoration and who, once she’d got a taste of freedom in Sussex, had rejected them entirely.

  ‘I got to hate everything they stood for,’ Bonny said in a small voice. ‘I love them, but I don’t like them. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Ellie said, remembering that she’d felt that way about Marleen many times before she was injured.

  ‘While I was at home, Mum made me feel so bad. She kept going on about how all she had in the world was me, how she wanted me back living with them. She can’t just be happy that I’m happy, like other mothers. She wants to think for me, wash me, dress me, devour me. To her I’m like a doll. She can’t understand I’ve got my own mind, or that I’ve got dreams and ambitions of my own. Dad’s not so bad. I think he understands, but Mum’s impossible. My old bedroom is like a bloody shrine. She’s got all my old toys arranged on shelves, my baby clothes are all still in the drawers. It makes me feel trapped, like a pinned butterfly.’

  Ellie privately thought it would be comforting to know she had a room like that to go to whenever she felt like it, but she didn’t say so.

  ‘They would help me,’ Bonny said simply when she’d finished her story. ‘But I can’t let them. You see I’d be compelled to be what they want. The poor baby would be me all over again; they’d smother it with love and I’d have no say in anything, no life of my own. I’d lose Jack and Aunt Lydia would be so disappointed. I’m going to get an abortion somehow. I can’t have a baby, not this Yank’s, if it was Jack’s it might be different.’

  Later Bonny went back to sleep and Ellie lay beside her thinking over everything she had revealed about herself. She wasn’t as insensitive as she made out, or as callous. Ellie had a strong feeling that before all this was over both of them were going to be tried and tested.

  She turned towards Bonny and looked at her carefully. Despite what she’d been through she still looked so beautiful. Long eyelashes like brushes on her pale cheeks, her mouth soft and childlike in sleep.

  She knew she couldn’t dissuade Bonny from going through with an abortion; she had an iron will and a lack of fear. But Ellie was afraid. There but for fate it might have been her faced with an unwanted pregnancy.

  Now she’d lost Charley, Ellie felt empty and alone. She seemed to be swirling around in a kind of whirlpool, being sucked this way and that by a current she couldn’t control. She was scared she wouldn’t be able to regain her grip over her own life, terrified she might not achieve success on the stage. But most of all she was scared for Bonny.

  Chapter Seventeen

  July
1945

  Ellie put her head round the door of the men’s dressing-room. Lorenzo and Riccardo had left, but Edward was bent over the wash-basin, wearing just a pair of trousers, taking off his stage make-up.

  It was July. London was in the grip of a heatwave, and there had only been a very small audience for today’s matinée.

  ‘Have you seen Bonny anywhere?’ Ellie asked.

  Edward groped for a towel. ‘She was rushing off as I came up here,’ he said, mopping his face. ‘That was ages ago.’

  ‘What, out?’ Ellie looked puzzled. ‘She didn’t say anything to me. She usually comes back to my place after the matinée.’

  ‘She was in a hurry,’ Edward said with a smile. ‘She hadn’t even brushed her hair or cleaned her face properly.’

  Ellie shrugged. ‘Thanks anyway. Maybe she went shopping, but we usually have tea together on Saturdays.’

  ‘Come and have tea with me?’ Edward said quickly. ‘It’s absolutely ages since we had a chat. It won’t take me a jiffy to get dressed.’

  ‘That would be nice.’ Ellie smiled, pleased by the invitation. He was right – it was ages since they had a chat. Edward was good company, serene and calming, unlike Bonny, who often made her feel fraught and tense. ‘If you’re sure you’ve got nothing better to do?’

  ‘What could be better than tea with you?’ Edward said gallantly, picking up a clean white shirt. ‘Five minutes and I’ll be ready!’

  It seemed as if half the population of London had converged on Trafalgar Square as Edward led Ellie down towards Whitehall. Men in uniform perched on walls with their sweethearts, and children were splashing in the fountain, many wearing only their underwear. Younger men in open-necked shirts eyed up groups of giggling shop girls and typists in bright summer frocks, while whole families sat in groups, surrounded by shopping bags, perhaps reluctant to take the train home because of the hot sunshine.

  ‘We can’t go in there!’ Ellie hesitated as Edward caught her elbow, about to take her up the stairs into the Westminster, just across the road from Big Ben. ‘It’s too expensive.’

  The mahogany doors were open wide and a thick red carpet ran up the middle of its marble stairs. It was the sort of place that cabinet ministers frequented.

  ‘This is my grandmother’s favourite place for tea.’ Edward smiled at her awed expression. ‘And as she’s just sent me my allowance, what better place to blow some of it?’

  Ellie didn’t think her pink cotton frock and bare legs were appropriate for such a place, but Edward looked smart in his white shirt and grey flannels and she supposed he knew best. Besides, she was very hungry.

  ‘That was delicious.’ Ellie sat back in the comfortable, velvet-covered chair, sighing with contentment. ‘I’ll never be able to dance tonight.’

  The last time she’d had a tea even remotely resembling this one was before the war in the Copper Kettle out near Epping Forest with Marleen: dainty, crustless sandwiches, scones with real strawberry jam and wonderful cream cakes on a two-tier silver stand. But the Copper Kettle was little more than an old lady’s parlour, with rickety tables and everyone jammed in so tightly you had to mind your elbows. This place was really posh.

  Ellie thought about what it would be like to have enough money to come to places like the Westminster all the time. She was impressed by the snowy, thick table-cloths, huge starched napkins, the silver teapots and the vases of pink roses on the window sills – but most of all, by the other customers. All the women wore hats and smart afternoon dresses. There were a few dashing-looking naval officers gazing attentively at their wives as if just home on leave, and all the other men wore stiff collars and dark suits. Edward had been greeted warmly by the head waiter, who’d asked after his grandmother’s health. When they were given a good table by the window, Ellie realised she must be even more wealthy and influential than Edward had implied.

  ‘Tell me about your grandmother,’ she said. ‘Is she very old?’

  ‘Seventy-something and getting a bit frail now.’ Edward smiled with affection. ‘But she’s still very sharp-witted and elegant for an old lady. My grandfather was a barrister. Until he died they had an apartment in St James’s, they used to come here all the time.’

  ‘Was your father a barrister too?’

  ‘No, he broke the mould, he was a concert pianist, and even though he was very talented and well-known, Grandfather apparently always described him as a “milksop”.’

  Ellie giggled. The word ‘milksop’ conjured up a picture of a rather languorous man in a velvet smoking-jacket, blond hair parted in the middle, and a pasty face. ‘Did you like him?’ she asked.

  ‘I scarcely knew him.’ Edward frowned. ‘He was away a great deal, and even when he was home, he had little to do with me. The only clear memory I have is of him lying on a couch while I was doing my piano practice, constantly stopping me and making me start all over again. It was a wonder I ever got to like the piano.’

  ‘I didn’t know you could play! Are you any good?’

  Edward chuckled. ‘My grandmother believes I’m as good as Father. I’m not. But I love playing. It’s very soothing.’

  ‘So your grandmother dotes on you, then?’ Ellie wished he’d be a little more forthcoming; he wasn’t very good at creating pictures of his life before she met him, or of his family. So far all she could be certain of was that he’d been a very lonely child.

  ‘I suppose she does,’ Edward said thoughtfully. ‘Though she isn’t one for showing affection demonstratively. Giving me an allowance is her way of saying she loves me, but really I’d prefer it if she forgot the money and came to see me act. I’d rather have her approval.’

  ‘What’s her home like?’ Ellie wanted to know much more about this elegant, frail woman.

  ‘A rambling, early Victorian place, not far from Chippenham in Wiltshire.’ His eyes brightened. ‘The garden is glorious – huge trees, wonderful roses – it goes down to a river. It was requisitioned as a convalescent home during the war, which she protested violently about at first, but in the end she not only accepted it, but rather liked having wounded officers sitting around in Bath chairs. “Doing her bit”, she called it. She used to read to the men, and watched the nurses constantly for what she called “over-familiar behaviour”.’

  Ellie smiled. ‘And now what does she do? Has she got the house back to herself?’

  ‘Yes, she has, though it needs a great deal of work doing to it. But you must come with me one day to visit her, she’d like you, Ellie.’

  Ellie poured them both another cup of tea and they discussed Edward’s awful digs in Camden Town. He was certain his landlady went through his belongings while he was out.

  ‘What is wrong with Bonny?’ he suddenly asked. ‘She hasn’t been quite the ticket for some time. Neither have you, for that matter.’

  Ellie gulped hard. She was not only surprised by this abrupt change in the conversation, but by him being so observant. His cool blue eyes were looking right into hers, daring her to lie.

  ‘There’s nothing the matter with me,’ she said quickly. ‘Aside from getting very tired. Bonny’s just had some trouble with her parents, she hasn’t quite got over it.’

  Lying had become a habit lately, something she didn’t like one bit, but Edward was very thick with Ambrose and if he got even a whiff of Bonny’s predicament, she’d be out on her ear.

  Bonny was ten weeks pregnant now and it had knocked the stuffing out of her. Some days even the sight of food made her sick; other days she ate like a pig. Although she still managed to sparkle on stage, backstage she was quiet and morose, given to bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. The problem might ultimately be Bonny’s, but that didn’t stop Ellie feeling it was hers too.

  Edward poured another cup of tea for them both. ‘I thought we were chums.’ His lower lip curled petulantly, and his eyes said he knew there was more. ‘Can’t you share your worries with me?’

  Ellie felt a little ashamed. Bonny had taken
over her life, leaving very little time for anyone else, and there were many times when she regretted ever having got involved with her. Edward’s friendship was easy, comfortable and undemanding and she knew she was guilty of leaving him out in the cold since palling up with Bonny.

  ‘I haven’t felt myself since Charley and I split up,’ she said, blushing because although this was true it wasn’t the whole story. ‘I know I turned him down because I didn’t think I was ready for marriage, but I feel as if he’s taken part of me away with him. Can you understand that?’

  Edward nodded. ‘I think so, though I’ve never felt that way about anyone yet. But you aren’t helping yourself, Ellie, not hanging around with Bonny all the time. I get scared she’ll lead you into trouble.’

  Ellie laughed lightly, unable to think of any sensible counter-argument. How could she truly explain how she felt about Charley? All those nights of crying, the dull ache inside her, the knowledge she’d smashed something up that was irreplaceable. She wasn’t likely to get into any trouble with Bonny: she’d learnt her lesson the hard way.

  ‘Have you heard about the woman who keeps asking for Lorenzo at the stage door?’ She changed the subject deftly. ‘The girls think she’s his wife. For a magician who can make anything disappear, he’s not having much luck with her.’

  ‘Nobody tells me anything,’ Edward said pointedly. ‘Especially you, Ellie, not these days.’

  Ellie winced, aware now how she’d hurt him without meaning to. As they’d sat down at their table she’d overheard a woman say what an attractive pair they were. This was probably very true – Edward’s Germanic looks, his height and golden skin complemented her more sultry appearance – but it was the word ‘pair’ which had struck her as appropriate. They were a pair, linked not only by their stage act, but with fundamental similarities. Both orphaned and basically loners, he had only an aged grandmother, she had only Marleen, and the theatre was the mainstay of their lives.