by T E Kinsey
‘What time is everyone here?’ he said.
Dunn looked at his watch. ‘About now, I reckon.’
Nothing happened.
‘It would have been fantastic if they’d all walked in just then, wouldn’t it?’ said Skins.
‘I’d change my bill matter to “Mystic Barty, prognosticator and bass player to the aristocracy”. We’d be swamped with bookings. We’d—’
The door opened and a fresh flunkey entered, followed by Blanche and Puddle. Benny and Elk weren’t far behind.
‘It’s all in the timing, mate,’ said Skins. ‘It’s always about the timing.’ He stood up. ‘Welcome, one and all. The Dizzy Heights rhythm section is proud to welcome you to our humble whatsaname. Please, come in. Make yourselves at home. We have laid out chairs for you, fashioned from the finest . . . wood. Cushions available on request.’ He turned to the flunkey. ‘Cushions?’
The flunkey looked at him blankly.
‘Are there cushions, old mate?’
‘Cushions?’ said the flunkey, who was clearly unused to receiving requests from anyone other than club members.
‘Cushions, yes. For the comfort of the band’s delicate posteriors.’
‘I shall have to enquire.’
‘You do that, me old china. Pot of tea wouldn’t go amiss if the kettle’s on.’
The flunkey flunked off.
‘I’ve taken a liking to playing this gaff,’ said Puddle. ‘I could definitely get used to places like this.’
‘Some of us have played the Royal Albert Hall.’ Eustace had entered unseen while Skins was asking about the soft furnishings.
‘Meanwhile, some of us have to make do with cushy little jobs playing for dance lessons for a handful of toffs.’ Mickey had been close behind him. ‘You take what you can get in our line of work. And this’ll do nicely, thank you very much.’
‘If you’d rather play second trumpet in a provincial symphony orchestra, darling, I’m sure they’d be delighted to have you back,’ said Blanche. ‘We’d get by without you somehow.’
‘Now then, now then,’ said Skins. ‘Let’s not fall out. Mickey’s right – this is a cushy number. Think of it as a paid rehearsal. Half a crown says we don’t get to play even one number all the way through before the dance teacher stops us to correct someone’s entrechat.’
‘That’s a ballet jump, you nit,’ said Blanche. ‘But I apologize, Eustace. I should love to play the Royal Albert Hall. You have every right to be proud.’
Eustace harrumphed and stalked to his usual seat, where he took his trumpet from its case and fitted the mouthpiece.
‘Who’s the dance teacher?’ asked Puddle. ‘Anyone know him?’
‘It’s a her,’ said a voice from the door. ‘Millie Mitchell, at your service.’
A tall, slender woman with her jet-black hair cut in a boyish bob strode into the room. She spotted Mickey, who had turned to greet her. They walked together towards the corner of the room to discuss the arrangements for the evening.
At first glance her elegant movement seemed almost impossibly perfect, but after a few steps across the room Skins spotted the tiniest limp. An old injury, perhaps, but it might explain why this graceful beauty was eking out a living teaching moneyed oafs to dance instead of knocking them dead on the West End stage. Or even the ballet. She moved like a ballet dancer, he thought. Although maybe she was a little too tall. Then again, loads of people seemed tall compared with him. Maybe she—
His thoughts were interrupted by a nudge in the ribs from an amused Puddle.
‘Don’t drool, darling, you’re a married man,’ she said.
‘No drooling here,’ said Skins. ‘Barty’s your boy if you want drool. I was just exercising the old detective skills. The lady has a limp.’
‘A limp what?’ said Dunn.
‘You’ll have to forgive him,’ said Skins. ‘He can’t help himself.’
‘He’s right, though,’ said Dunn. ‘I was drooling slightly.’
‘As well you might,’ said Puddle. ‘I’d not kick her out of bed.’
Skins looked at her quizzically. ‘I didn’t know you were—’
‘I’m not, darling, but look at her. A goddess made flesh. What mortal wouldn’t sell their soul for just a glance from those perfect blue eyes? And those legs. My god, if I had legs like that . . .’
Blanche had joined them on the stage. ‘What would you do if you had legs like that?’
‘What wouldn’t I do, darling? With every eligible male in the place drooling on their shoes’ – she indicated Dunn, who had returned to his own contemplation of the living incarnation of Terpsichore standing at the other end of the ballroom – ‘the world would be mine and everything that’s in it.’
Blanche was less impressed. ‘You see girls like that everywhere. We had one in the Fannies in the war. All legs and . . .’ She held up her cupped hands in front of her chest. ‘She was a so-so nurse, but the boys adored her. They used to joke about getting shot again just so they could come and see her.’
‘You see?’ said Puddle. ‘Who wouldn’t want power like that?’
‘Yes, but she wasn’t happy. Takes more than a shower of drooling Tommies to make you happy.’
‘Well, if my fairy godmother turns up and offers me the chance to look like that, I’ll not be turning her down.’
The confab on the dance floor was finally over and Mickey was approaching the stage. It seemed they had a plan.
Once the band members had settled into their customary places, instruments were unpacked, assembled, tuned and warmed up. They trotted through Puddle’s new arrangement of the old music-hall song ‘Where Did You Get That Hat?’, which was about to go into the regular set list after a couple of trial runs at private parties.
Unlike Eustace, Puddle tended to play down her classical training. She didn’t mention her time at the Royal College of Music, nor her time playing clarinet in several of Europe’s more prestigious symphony orchestras, but she wasn’t shy about her skill as an arranger. The band had no formal leader, with Mickey Kent serving as public spokesman when the need arose, but Puddle and Benny Charles, the Antiguan trombonist, split the arranging duties between them, with occasional contributions from Barty Dunn, who ‘had a good ear’.
As the number drew to a close, a man’s head appeared round the door. His hair was so smooth and shiny with pomade that it looked as though it had been varnished. Skins and Dunn exchanged amused glances. The gleaming head withdrew but the door remained open. They could hear his voice shouting, ‘Come on, you chaps, they’re here.’
A few seconds later, five men in their early thirties tumbled into the ballroom. They were in high spirits and had obviously had a livener or two to give themselves a little Dutch courage for the dancing ordeal to come.
Dunn leaned down to talk to Skins. ‘Is that it?’ he asked quietly. ‘Where’s the birds?’
‘Gentlemen’s club, ain’t it?’ said Skins. ‘No birds allowed. I’m surprised they let Blanche and Puddle in, to be truthful. And Millie Whatsit over there must have some special hold over someone . . . Oh, there you go.’
One of the five newcomers approached Millie Mitchell and swept her into his arms to deliver a theatrical kiss.
‘My darling,’ he said. ‘Thank you. How absolutely divine of you to give up your time for us like this. Allow me to introduce you to the Alphabet Gang.’
His four pals made a great show of arranging themselves in a line with a gap in the middle. Skins looked closely and was disappointed to note that they were all about the same height – probably something close to five foot seven, just like every other bloke they’d ever met.
‘We have Alfie, Bertie, Danny and Ernie,’ he said, indicating each man in turn.
‘Where’s C?’ said Millie.
‘That’s me, you silly goose,’ he said.
‘But you’re Bob.’
‘Bob Chandler, see? C.’
‘Everyone else uses their first name, sweetie. Do t
hey call you Chandler?’
‘No, they call me Charlie.’
‘But—’
‘It’s quite simple, old thing,’ he said. ‘Ernie here’ – he indicated the bespectacled man at the end of the line – ‘is really called Edwin Cashmore.’
‘So you should call him Eddie,’ said Millie.
‘Cashmore . . . more cash? Earn-y? Get it?’
Millie groaned.
‘Then Dudley Daniels becomes Danny.’
The long-nosed man, next in line, bowed.
‘I’ve become Charlie,’ continued Charlie. ‘Then Jimmy Albert here is Bertie.’
The man with the varnished head smiled and nodded.
‘And Cornelius Rawson here is Alfie.’
‘Why?’ said Millie.
‘So we can be the Alphabet Gang.’
‘But why aren’t you Bobby? Then Jimmy Albert could be Albie, and Cornelius Rawson here could be . . . oh, I don’t know . . . Corny.’
The men shrugged and, as one, pointed at Alfie.
The smiling, buck-toothed man at the end of the line frowned for a moment and then erupted with a loud ‘Hah!’ A penny had finally dropped. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ he said. ‘That would be much simpler. Where were you when we needed you, old girl? Takes me an absolute age to explain why all my chums call me Alfie.’
‘It was your blessed idea,’ said Danny. ‘We tried to tell you at the time but you just looked vacant and told us you didn’t understand what we were on about.’
‘Should have been more . . . how do you say it? Forceful,’ said Alfie. ‘Chap needs to have things explained to him two or three times. Pictures help.’
The other men shook their heads.
‘Well, that’s the gang, anyway,’ said Charlie. ‘And this lovely lady is my darling fiancée, Millie Mitchell. After you lot saw off poor Georgina, she’s the poor soul who’ll be teaching you duffers all the new steps so we can beat the boys from the Wags Club in the dance contest. Let’s see if we can impress her a little more than we did Georgina. Poor girl had never seen anything like it.’
The Alphabets gave a ragged cheer.
‘And, ah, who are those chaps over there?’ said Alfie, pointing to the band.
‘That’ll be the band, Alfie,’ said Charlie.
‘I can see that, old horse. I mean, who are they? I thought old Thingy Doo-dah’s band played for the lessons. Did last week. You know, the chaps from Highgate with that knockout filly on the horn thing and whatnot.’
‘They’re from East Finchley,’ said Charlie. ‘They’re called the Finchley Foot-Tappers and they couldn’t make it because “old Thingy Doo-Dah” – who prefers to go by the name of Henry Bignell, by the way, should you ever chance to meet him again – had double-booked us with a twenty-first birthday party in Belgravia. And they were paying more. Sir Freddie Thompson’s youngest girl. Lovely family. And the horn thing is a saxophone. These nice people have two. Anyway, luckily for us, Millie happened to know Mickey there . . .’
Mickey gave a small wave of acknowledgement.
‘. . . and he was able to step into the breach.’
‘All well and good, old boy,’ said Alfie. ‘But who are they?’
‘The Dizzy Heights,’ said Charlie. ‘They play for the dance here every Friday night.’
‘Do they, by George? Are they any good? Can they play a Charleston? I’ve got to work on m’Charleston.’
‘Mickey?’ said Charlie. ‘I hate to be a bore, old thing, but would you mind playing a few bars to set poor Alfie’s addled mind at rest?’
Mickey looked to the band, who picked up their instruments. ‘“The Charleston”, then?’ he suggested.
Skins counted them in and they gave the assembled dance students the first verse of the popular tune.
‘Will that do you, Alfie?’ said Charlie.
‘Very nicely, old bean. Very nicely indeed. Ready when you are, Miss Mitchell.’ He shuffled a few clumsy steps.
‘I think we’d better start with the basics,’ said Millie. ‘The most basic of basics.’
The Alphabet Gang, it turned out, were truly terrible dancers. Charlie had a slight grasp on the basics, no doubt taught to him by his talented fiancée, but the others were an utter shambles.
Amiable Alfie, of the buck teeth and cheerful demeanour, was quite a mover. He was surprisingly graceful for a chubby chap, and managed to move all his limbs in time with the music. His problem was that he couldn’t for the life of him remember exactly how and where to move them – remembering the individual steps and the order in which they came was completely beyond him. The result was a chaotic mess, but one that was entirely in time with the band.
Bertie’s varnished head stayed completely still while the rest of him writhed about underneath as though head and body were under the control of two entirely separate people. He was able to remember the steps, but executed them with a peculiar loose-limbed fluidity that failed to match the jolly precision intended by the dance’s creators.
Danny was shy and awkward. In an apparent attempt not to draw too much attention to himself, he kept his movements small and jerky. It suited him, thought Skins. He was all pointy elbows, pointy knees, pointy nose – his little pointy dance steps fitted him perfectly.
Ernie seemed to have the worst of it. He had Alfie’s poor memory for the steps combined with Danny’s jerky self-consciousness, and, worst of all, no feel for the music whatsoever. He looked like he was dancing to the beat of an altogether-different drummer. One who was playing at a different tempo. In a different time signature. In another world, where the Charleston had never been invented. Over the years, Skins had learned to spot the strugglers and had always tried to play a little louder, a little simpler, a little more precisely, to give them a clue as to where the beat was, but Ernie was beyond the help of even the most obvious percussive hints.
Only Charlie seemed to know what he was doing. Clearly, he had the advantage of having had some private tuition from his fiancée, but he had a modicum of natural ability, too.
Skins was disappointed that no one had taken his bet – he’d have cleaned up. The record for shortest performance so far was three bars before Millie shouted for them all to stop.
‘Gentlemen, please,’ she said, clearly struggling not to lose her temper. ‘How have you been dancing a Charleston all this time without being able to do this? Come on. One-and-two-and-three-and-four. Remember? Step-and-tap-and-step-and-tap. Swivel those heels inwards on the step. Stay up on your toes, Alfie – keep your heels up. From the top, please, Dizzies.’
Skins counted them in and laughed to himself as he watched the dance students nodding their heads along with him, trying to fix the tempo in their heads, readying themselves for that first step.
They made it all the way to the chorus this time before Millie called a halt.
‘Bobby, darling – I mean “Charlie” – would you be an absolute sweetheart and get someone to bring us some refreshment. I think it’s time we took a break.’
‘Right you are,’ said Charlie. ‘Beers all round?’
The other four cheered.
‘What about you chaps?’ he called to the band. ‘You lot deserve a drink and a sandwich after all that. A drink, a sandwich, and our humble apologies.’
The band cheered.
Charlie set off to find one of the club’s flunkeys while the four remaining Alphabets formed a conspiratorial huddle at the other end of the ballroom. Finding herself suddenly alone, Millie joined the band on stage. Mickey found her a chair.
‘You don’t mind if I sit up here for a moment, do you? I feel a bit exposed down there.’
The band offered a cheerful collective welcome.
‘I’m so sorry, where are my manners. Millicent Mitchell. Although everyone calls me Millie, obviously.’
Blanche gave her a friendly smile. ‘Millie Mitchell?’ she said, still smiling. ‘How lovely to meet you. I’d introduce everyone but we’re not as conveniently named as the Alph
abet Gang. I’m Blanche. Blanche Adams.’
They shook hands.
‘You have the patience of saints,’ said Millie. ‘I had no idea what we were all letting ourselves in for when I agreed to this. Bobby . . . Charlie – I’ll never get the hang of that . . . Charlie said his pals wanted a bit of tuition before this stupid contest they’ve organized. “You know the sort of thing, old girl. Polish up the old skills.” He failed to mention that they couldn’t dance a step between them. They go to clubs. They go to dances. They go to parties. They even had a few lessons with another teacher before she ran off. Presumably screaming and vowing to give up dance teaching and become a nun. What on earth have they been doing all these years? They dance the Charleston like they’ve never even seen it before. It’s been about for a couple of years now. Surely everyone can Charleston.’
Skins put up his hand. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’m always sitting down when it’s on.’
‘Well, at least you’ve got an excuse, darling,’ she said. ‘And I bet you could make a better fist of it than these duffers.’
‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ said Dunn. ‘I’ve seen him dance.’
‘That’s a shame. Drummers often make such good dancers. Have you heard of that American chap Fred Astaire? He was on Broadway last year in Lady, Be Good. The papers say he’s a terrific dancer. And quite the drummer, too, apparently.’
Skins attempted a seated tap dance behind his drum set.
‘I’d stick to drumming if I were you, son,’ said Dunn.
Blanche smiled. ‘Do you teach full-time?’
‘Have to now,’ said Millie. She pointed to her leg. ‘Went over on the ankle a while back. Tore the ATFL quite badly and it never healed quite right. I was never destined for greatness – always the tall one in the chorus, me – but with a dodgy ankle I can’t even get a job as Third Hoofer from the Right. Teaching is all I have these days.’
Blanche frowned a little. ‘That’s a shame. But you’re terribly good at it. You think we’ve got the patience of saints, but all we have to do is start and stop at the right time. You’ve got to bite your tongue every time that Alfie character taps when he should step, and then swivels on his heel.’