Lily came up beside him and put her hand on the small of his back as he stood, watching the waves.
“Charlie . . .”
He gave a sudden wordless exclamation and then turned and caught her into his arms, crushing her against him, her face into his shoulder, his cheek pressed against her fair head. Lily, unable to move, hardly able to breathe, stood motionless, half-dizzy with sudden desire.
As soon as he slackened his grip, Lily flung her arms around his neck and raised her face but Charlie did not kiss her. He held her gently, scanning her face. Lily was flushed, her eyes bright.
“I thought you said spooning was beastly and you were never going to do it with anybody?”
Lily caught her breath. “This is different, I feel . . .” She broke off. “Charlie, will you kiss me?”
His smile down at her eager face was very rueful. “I suppose I will,” he said with mock reluctance, then he bent his dark head and his lips met hers.
Lily felt herself melt with rising desire. Her conscious mind noted that her legs felt suddenly weak and her whole body was longing for the touch of Charlie all over. She tightened her arms around his neck, pressing his mouth still harder down on hers. She heard herself make a tiny noise, a little moan, and suddenly understood what her mother had meant about getting carried away. Lily felt that Charlie could have carried her away in a handcart and she would not have objected. More than anything else in the world she wanted to lie down and feel the weight of Charlie along the length of her body. She bent slightly at the knees.
Charlie stayed determinedly upright. After a few minutes he released her, and then put his arm around her waist to steady her. Lily’s eyelids fluttered open slowly. She looked around at the blue moving sea, the shingle beach and Charlie’s tight smile.
“And that’s our lot,” Charlie said gently. “Your ma would skin me alive if she knew I’d brought you out into the country and then kissed you.”
“No she wouldn’t, she likes you.”
“She might like me when she sees me taking care of you at the theatre. She’d like me a lot less if she knew I took advantage of you when we’re away on tour.”
“But you didn’t.” Lily, finding her legs still a little unsteady, sat on the shingle and looked up at Charlie. “I took advantage of you.”
“Well, you’re a forward hussy,” Charlie said pleasantly. “And you won’t catch me in a weak moment again.”
He turned his back to Lily and stooped and picked out another flat stone. “Watch this,” he said. He threw it with a smooth sideways lob at the tops of the waves and the stone skipped. “Four! Four jumps. Bet you can’t do better than that!”
“Bet you I can. I spent my childhood on Southsea beach, remember.”
Lily scrambled to her feet and picked a stone. Feet astride, frowning as she took aim, she threw it at the waves. It skipped along from crest to crest. “Three, four, five!” Lily yelled, diverted. “Beat five if you can!”
Charlie picked another stone but it sank on four. Lily’s next was too heavy and dropped down at three. They threw for a few more moments.
“It’s hot,” Lily said. “I wish I’d brought my swimming costume.”
Charlie shot a quick look along the cliff. The skyline was deserted for miles in both directions, the only access to the cove was down the little zigzag path. “You could swim in your camiknickers,” he said. “I’ve got a towel in the sidecar.”
Lily was unbuttoning her shirt. “Will you swim?”
Charlie grinned. “Why not? I’ll get that towel first.”
He set off up the cliff path as Lily stepped out of Madge’s trousers and folded them carefully, laying them on the shingle. She picked her way down to the water’s edge over the knobbly stones. Charlie, climbing up the path, heard her shriek as a wave splashed her thighs. He turned and looked back.
Lily was wearing old-fashioned cotton camiknickers. They clung to her slim long back and as a wave splashed her he could see the smooth lovely outline of her buttocks. He watched her for a little while, saw her confident plunge into a wave and the strength of her stroke. When he turned to walk the last few yards to the motorcycle, his face was grim.
Lily was a small dot heading out to the horizon when Charlie arrived back at the beach with a large stripy towel. He shouted to her, and when she turned, waved her inwards. He stripped down to his shorts and waded into the sea and swam out towards her.
“Going for France, Lil?”
Lily pointed to a tiny island, weed-covered, which stood in the centre of the bay. “I was going to that.”
Charlie shook his head. “Too far,” he said firmly. “You will keep an old man happy and stay within your depth.”
Lily made a face at him and duck-dived. He saw the gleam of greenish fair hair underwater and then felt a tickle around his toes. When Lily burst up out of the water she was laughing so much that she choked. She turned and swam away from him and Charlie gave chase.
For an hour they played in the deep water and then they swam inshore and lazed in the shallows. The receding tide had uncovered a little shelf of sand studded with small pink shells. Lily, rolled over and back by the incoming waves, collected a handful, and then got up.
“You can have first go with the towel,” Charlie said. “I’ll have another quick swim.”
He turned his back on her and went out to sea and swam until he judged she would be dressed. When he came back inshore she was waiting for him with the towel spread out as if she would wrap him up in it. Charlie took it from her hands, fending her off, and skipped over the pebbles to his clothes. Lily openly watched him as he dried himself and pulled on his shirt and trousers.
“You’ve got lovely skin.” Her voice was lazy. Charlie sensed her desire as sweet as perfume.
He grinned. “Smooth as a baby’s bottom.”
“My dad was hairy all over. I don’t like that. But you’ve got a lovely smooth back.”
“I want a cup of tea,” Charlie announced. “Did you see a tea shop at any of those villages we came through?”
Lily thought. “Wasn’t there one at the post office, in that last little place?”
“Excellent,” Charlie said. “You may race me up the cliff.”
Lily started out at a good pace but stopped halfway up, panting and holding her side. Charlie, at a steady jog, trotted past her and overtook her. He slowed and they reached the top neck and neck.
“An honourable draw,” Charlie said.
He scrunched the paper bags, put the empty lemonade bottle in the sidecar and shook the crumbs from Lily’s headscarf. “Sidmouth tomorrow. Have you ever been there, Lil?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never been anywhere but daytrips from home. I just love it. Is Sidmouth pretty—like here?”
Charlie nodded and helped Lily into the sidecar. “It’s pretty all along here,” he said. He kick-started the engine and it roared into life.
“Tea for two!” he yelled.
The motorbike swung out into the lane and cruised along. Charlie relished the smell of the hedges in bloom and the flowers on the roadside. Over the noise of the engine he could hear Lily singing: “. . . a boy for you, a girl for me . . .”
She looked up and smiled at him with her whole heart in her eyes. Charlie, despite himself, winked at her and smiled back.
• • •
The theatre in Sidmouth was the smallest they had played on the tour. The bar at the back of the theatre was open to the auditorium. If they were rowdy in the bar then the audience would turn around in their seats and yell at them. Sometimes fights broke out. Lily was in a state of utter terror at going before them to sing a sacred song but Charlie had been right when he had judged the deep sentimental streak in the most unruly English crowd. And Lily did not realize how captivating she was as a choir boy.
They listened to Lily with attention and they clapped warmly and long at the end of her song. Sylvia de Charmante, on the other hand, received whistles and catcalls and loud indecen
t suggestions. She rode the wave of noise like an old trooper. Nothing upset her. Lily, waiting in the wings, found that she had her hands up over her mouth in horror at the lewdness of the shouts from the bar at the back but Sylvia swayed in time to the music and sang a little louder to drown out the heckling.
“She doesn’t answer them,” Charlie pointed out to Lily. They were between shows, sitting at the bar at the back of the theatre drinking lemonade. “Sometimes you can go downstage and give as good as you get. I’ve seen people do that with a really sticky house. But generally you do better just to sing over the top of the noise and leave it to the audience whether they listen to you or not.”
“I should never have the nerve.”
“You’d better learn to have the nerve. You’ve got to be able to sing for the drunks at the bar as well as the ladies in the dress circle, Lil. If you’re a performer you have to grab them whoever they are.”
Lily nodded. “I’ll learn.”
“Let’s try out that new act for you,” Charlie said. He led the way through the darkened auditorium. A cleaning woman was sweeping under the seats, grunting with the effort. She straightened up to let them pass, watching them without interest. Charlie opened the little door to the orchestra pit and waved Lily up to the stage.
“D’you know ‘Burlington Bertie,’ Lil?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I want you to do it. We’ll dress you in a gent’s morning suit, flower in your pocket, umbrella, all the props. Just sing it through for now. See how it sounds.”
Charlie shuffled through some music in his case. “Here’s the words,” he said, handing up a sheet. “Off you go. Just sing it. No actions.”
Lily stood still as he instructed and sang the little song, “I’m Burlington Bertie, I rise at ten thirty . . . ,” concentrating only on the tune and the light syncopation of the rhythm.
“Ever see Vesta Tilley do it?” Charlie demanded when they reached the end of the song.
Lily shook her head.
“She did it like a man. She walked like a man, she moved her hands like a man. She had this big bust on her, and her waistcoat stretched over it and then she went on stage and sang and moved exactly like a man. People loved it. It was really . . .” Charlie flapped his hand, seeking the right word. “Contradictory. Entertaining.”
“I don’t know I can do that.”
Charlie shook his head. “No! No! It’s been done! You never do what’s been done already. You don’t want to be the second Vesta Tilley, you want to be a wholly original Lily Valance. You do the song differently. How would you do it?”
Lily thought. “It’d have to be in boy’s clothes. It’s a song about being a man. I’d have to do it in man’s clothes.”
Charlie nodded, waited for more.
“It’s almost a sad song,” Lily suddenly said. “I don’t know how to do it but in a way it’s a song about someone pretending to be something he isn’t. Someone with nothing to do. It comes over funny, but if you actually think about his life—it’s lonely.”
Charlie snapped the fingers on both hands. “Jackpot! You try it!”
He played the introductory notes, Lily took a fold of her blouse in each hand, as a man holds the lapels of his coat, and strolled across the stage. She sang with a sort of lingering wistfulness, her clear voice very sweet on the simple tune.
“Magic,” Charlie said softly to himself over the keyboard. “Burlington Bertie as one of the lost generation. No real friends, no-one who knows what it was like. One of the ones who came back, who’s learning to envy those who won’t ever come back. A young man who has buried young men. Magic.”
Lily stood downstage, looking down at Charlie in the pit. “It felt really sad,” she said. “But I don’t know how to do it.”
“That’ll do nicely for a try-out.” Charlie hid his delight. “That’s all I wanted for today. Just to hear it through.”
Madge stepped out on to the stage. “Would you hear something through of mine?”
“All requests graciously received,” Charlie said with patience. “What did you want to do, Madge?”
“It’s a ragtime song. I want to have it as an audition piece. It’s called ‘Red Hot Baby.’ ”
“ ‘Red Hot Baby,’ ” Charlie repeated. “Can you count, Madge? Can you count beats to a bar?”
“Not really,” Madge said cheerfully. “But if you play it over to me and sing it to me then I can remember it.”
Charlie took the music and set it in the stand. He counted Madge in. She missed the introduction. He played it through again and nodded her when to start. This time she hit the beat and stayed with it, more or less, till the end of the song. She had a thin little voice but she could keep a tune, and she danced with a lot of energy, swinging her hips and winking at the empty auditorium. The cleaning woman wasted one glance on all of them and carried on with her work. Charlie clattered into the finale and did a mock drum-roll with the bass notes.
“Not bad!” he said. “Have you ever heard coon-shouting, Madge?”
Madge shook her head.
“You don’t worry about the tune at all, you just shout as though you are hoarse over the top of the music and dance like you do—only more so.”
Lily widened her eyes. “She’ll get arrested.”
Madge gurgled. “Divine!”
“Once more?” Charlie offered. “Try it without singing the tune, Madge, try just talking it. Leave the tune to me, but make sure you hit the rhythm of it. You’ve got to get the beat of it—the rest can look after itself.”
Madge took a couple of steps upstage and cakewalked her way to the front. Her speaking voice was lower than her singing, huskier. At once the song became compelling, sexual. Madge winked at Charlie and went into a few dance steps, wiggling her bottom with a swing of her hip on each beat. At the end of the song she stretched out her arms and frankly jiggled her breasts and then finished with her arms upflung and her head thrown back.
Lily applauded with her mouth open. Charlie roared with laughter.
“A star is born, Madge! That’s the way to do it! You want an exotic kind of set, like a speakeasy or a club, and some kind of tight dress with a big slit up the front. You’ll be a huge hit!”
“Will you suggest it to Mr. Brett?” Madge asked breathlessly. “He listens to you. He let you put Lily in even though he didn’t think it would work.”
“If someone drops out and makes a space, I’ll mention it to him. And it’d be a good audition piece for you, Madge. It’s a real knock ’em dead number.”
Madge beamed. “Will you rehearse me again sometime? Like you do with Lily?”
Charlie smiled. “I have no favourites, ladies: Of course I will.”
Madge blew him a kiss for thanks and then slipped her hand through Lily’s arm and led her off the stage. “Liar,” she said under her breath. “He does have favourites. You.”
They went to their dressing room. It was empty, the other girls had gone out for tea. Lily dropped into the broken-springed armchair, the only furniture in the room. Madge sat before the mirror and scowled at her reflection.
“Are you courting?” she asked. “I can’t tell with you two. He takes you out a lot and you went out for the day on Sunday but then he treats you like he treats the rest of us when we’re all together.”
Lily slung her legs over the arm of the chair and picked at the frayed edge of the loose cover. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think he’s wonderful. Sometimes I feel like he really likes me, and then other times I don’t know. He makes a big fuss of my singing and he’s really taught me a lot. But he’d do the same for you, I think.”
“He doesn’t take me out for a day in the country,” Madge observed. “Did he kiss you?”
Lily flushed. “Sort of. Actually, Madge, I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had a proper boyfriend and Charlie is so . . .”
“So what?”
“When he looks at me,” Lily said slowly. “When he looks at me and smil
es and his eyes are so dark and his smile is so . . .”
“Well?”
“I just want to take all my clothes off and crawl all over him!” Lily said defiantly. “I do! When he smiles at me I don’t care what I do. And I don’t care what anyone thinks.”
Madge shrieked with laughter. “Lily!” she said. “Your ma would go mad!”
Lily’s face was alight with mischief and desire. “I don’t care! I don’t care what she would think. I don’t care what anyone thinks. I must be in love with him. I must be. This must be what it feels like.”
Madge nodded. “Head over heels,” she said.
Lily looked at her wonderingly. “D’you think so? Is this it? I’m in love?”
Madge nodded.
“Just think of that!” Lily said. “I’m in love with Charlie Smith.”
“But what about him?”
Lily frowned and picked at the threads of the armchair cover again. “I don’t know,” she said. “He kissed me on the beach and he held me really tight. But then he said we shouldn’t. That my ma would be angry. And then he didn’t touch me for the rest of the day.”
“He thinks of you as a little kid,” Madge advised. “He knows your ma and he dressed you up in the choir boy costume. He thinks of you as a little girl still. You’ll have to show him you’re a woman if you want him to take you seriously.”
Lily’s dark blue eyes were huge. “How?”
Madge shrugged and then giggled. “If I felt like you do I’d wait till everyone had gone to bed and then I’d sneak down the corridor and just get into his bed.”
Lily gave a short delighted scream and clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’d never dare!” she said. “What if he threw me out? What if he was angry?”
Madge shook her head. “He wouldn’t be angry. There isn’t a man in England who would be angry! He might say you were too young or that your ma wouldn’t like it but at least you’d be there—wouldn’t you? And he’d have to do something!”
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