If Poppy had had a chance to discuss all this with Dot before her eccentric relative arrived unannounced at Southampton harbour, then the young journalist would have tried to dissuade her aunt from travelling all the way to New York only to be hurt again. But Dot was a grown woman who could make her own decisions. And Poppy had to respect that. Nonetheless, she worried about her and would try her utmost to help ease the tension between the former friends. After all, Elizabeth owed Poppy her life.
Poppy reined in her thoughts and turned her attention back to her companions in the cab.
“When do you start recording?” Rollo was asking.
“Next week sometime. We’ll have a few days of rehearsals first, starting on Monday,” answered Delilah.
“Good-o! That will give us the weekend to settle in. Then Monday we can all travel downtown together. Will you be able to get to the Astoria on your own, Delilah? It’s on a different line to the Times.”
“Easy as pie,” said Delilah, and then confirmed with the native New Yorker the route she would need to take.
“Will we be passing the newspaper building soon?” asked Poppy.
“No. That’s on West 43rd Street,” answered Rollo. “If we’d stayed on Broadway we would have passed it, but that would have taken us to the wrong side of the park. On Monday we’ll catch the subway. That’s like the Underground,” he added for Poppy’s benefit. “It’s far quicker – and cheaper – than travelling by cab.”
Poppy sighed. She hated the Underground in London. She disliked being in tunnels and the stifling hot air – she far preferred travelling by bus; on the open-air top deck, if possible. Here she saw trams running down the middle of the road. That would be a much better option! She’d raise it with Rollo over the weekend. For now, she took in the rest of the journey through central Manhattan, with New Yorkers out and about in the April morning sunshine, waiting at crossings or buying wares from hawkers’ barrows. Poppy was pleased to see that in this most modern of cities, with offices stacked in layers, ordinary folk could still buy and sell on street corners, and horse-drawn trolley cars were not yet extinct.
Half an hour later, with the beautiful Central Park on their left, the cab turned into 82nd Street and pulled up to a five-storey townhouse. This would be their home for the next three months. “Welcome to Chez Rolandson,” said Rollo, and winced as the driver slapped him with the fare.
CHAPTER 14
SATURDAY, 13 APRIL 1921
Oh, what a spiffing weekend this is turning out to be! thought Poppy as she stepped out of the bathroom she shared with Delilah and opened her wardrobe to decide what to wear. Tonight she, Rollo, and Delilah were going to a speakeasy, which, according to her friends, was a bit like Oscar’s Jazz Club, only its location was supposedly a secret. It was all very intriguing, and Poppy, of course, could never resist a mystery. That, on top of the fun-filled day they’d already had, was making New York a giddyingly exciting place to be.
On Friday, the five of them had settled into their new lodgings – a townhouse owned by Rollo’s family and made available to them for the full duration of their stay. With five storeys, it had more than enough room for them all. Of course, Aunt Dot insisted that she couldn’t possibly impose, as her decision to come to New York had been so last-minute, and if Mr Rolandson would only point her in the direction of the nearest hotel… Rollo, naturally, had pooh-poohed this and said he had the perfect set of rooms for her on the first floor, with a balcony overlooking a small walled garden, and a stair-lift to help her up and down the stairs.
Rollo had had the lift installed the last time he was in New York as his dwarfish legs made ascending and descending most difficult. Back home in London he lived in a penthouse on a single floor, and of course at work – at the Globe office – he had a lift to ride. As Poppy had come to realize, with both an aunt and a boss with handicaps, the world was not built for such as they.
So Aunt Dot and Miss King settled in on the first floor, with connecting rooms and a shared bathroom, and Poppy and Delilah took the matching suite on the floor above. Rollo’s room was on the third floor, along with his private study and bathroom. The top floor housed Freddy (who, to Poppy’s disappointment, was away for a few weeks on business), and other members of the Rolandson family if they chose to visit or stay over in town.
The ground floor held the reception rooms, and below ground was the kitchen and staff accommodation. There was a butler, a cook, and two maids who lived in the house, whether or not any of the family were in residence. Rollo commented on the expense of it all – seeing Freddy was hardly there and his mother only rarely visited – but then added that seeing the family money was no longer his he had no say in it.
The money was no longer his? Poppy wondered what he meant but didn’t probe any further. Rollo, despite his ebullient personality, was a private man, and wouldn’t appreciate her sticking her nose into his business uninvited.
On arriving at the townhouse, everyone was tired from their journey so they decided to stay in to eat and then have an early night. Delilah looked disappointed, but said she would delay painting the town red until Poppy had the energy to accompany her. “But don’t take too long, old girl; I’m not getting any younger!” Poppy had laughed and said she promised to make up for it the next day.
Poppy hummed to herself as she flicked through her wardrobe, remembering the events of the day so far. The morning had dawned bright and lovely. Despite all the traffic in New York, somehow it didn’t have half as much smog as London. During a vast breakfast of eggs, bacon, and some odd-looking but delicious ring-shaped pastries, which Rollo called “bagels”, the household had discussed their plans for the day. It was agreed that they would start with a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was only a short walk away on the edge of Central Park, and that they would follow that, if the weather held, with a ride around the park in a horse-drawn carriage.
“And then,” said Rollo, “we’ll top it off with a visit to my favourite café, which makes the most devilish cheesecake.”
Cheesecake? Bagels? Poppy feared her girth would be spreading on this trip to New York, then had stared in horror as Rollo slapped some bacon onto his bagel and drenched the whole lot with maple syrup. Would it be rude to ask just for a slice of toast tomorrow morning? she had wondered.
But as the day turned out, she indulged in everything New York had to offer, from bagels, to museums, to carriage rides, to cheesecake. And yes, Rollo was right: it was devilish.
Poppy sighed at the memory of it all, then pulled in her tummy as far as she could. Sometimes she wished corsets were back in fashion. Her fuller figure didn’t look half as good in the latest shift frocks as the waif-like Delilah’s.
There was a knock on the door. Delilah stuck her head round. “What are you wearing, old bean?”
Poppy turned around, hands on hips, wearing just a pair of camiknickers and one of those new-fangled bandeau brassieres that supposedly flattened the breasts to boyish proportions. Her tummy might not be strapped in, but her bosoms certainly were! Golly, how was a girl supposed to breathe in these things?
Delilah didn’t need a bandeau; Delilah didn’t need anything to make her look more beautiful. Poppy gasped when she saw what her friend was wearing. “By Jove! Isn’t that what you had on the first night I met you at Oscar’s?”
Delilah twirled around. “This old thing? Oh fiddlesticks, I think you might be right! Should I change?”
“No!” said Poppy. “You look – well – you look simply heavenly.”
Poppy remembered the first time she had seen the young actress: when she had just come off the dance floor after swooning from her first ever glass of champagne. Back then, Poppy had thought Delilah looked like Cleopatra reborn into the twentieth century; she thought the same again now.
Delilah had just trimmed her sleek black bob so the fringe – or “bangs”, as the Americans called it – brushed the top of her shapely, dark brows. Her Mediterranean olive skin perfectly a
ccented her coal-dark eyes, further emphasized by thick lines of charcoal. She was wearing the shortest sleeveless dress Poppy – back in the summer of 1920 – had ever seen. A shimmering gold number, covered in tassels from neck to hem, which stopped a good two inches above the knee. She wore a long string of pearls, knotted halfway at waist level, and matching “slave bangles” on each bicep. On her right forearm she wore another bangle, styled like a snake, winding its way up from her wrist.
“Not too much?” asked Delilah with a mischievous smile.
Poppy threw back her head and laughed. “Oh Delilah, you’re always too much. But that’s what I love about you.” And then she turned back to her wardrobe. “But actually, if you’re wearing that, why don’t I wear this?”
She pulled out a dress and held it up for her friend’s approval. It was a sheer red satin shift with a Vandyked hem that would brush the top of her knees and reveal lines of tantalizing flesh between the fingers of fabric. The red satin was overlaid with navy blue lace and cobalt blue beads appliquéd in abstract swirls.
“And that’s the dress you wore the night I met Charlie Chaplin!” squealed Delilah and clapped with delight. “And of course you must wear the red satin shoes with the Cuban heels and that gorgeous little evening bag with the tassels, and the red satin headband with the feather brooch!”
“Of course!” said Poppy and did a little dance on the spot. Oh yes, this is going to be a marvellous night!
CHAPTER 15
Rollo – dapper in top hat and tails – escorted the ladies to the trolley car stop at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street. They would have a short ride down the east side of the park and then go underground at the Fifth Avenue subway station. From there they would go “downtown” – as Rollo termed it – riding the subway all the way under Broadway. This would be the route they would take to work on Monday too. Poppy followed the journey on the map Rollo had given her. The line went first west one stop to the 57th Street Station then turned south. Tonight they would be getting off at the Eighth Street Station. “After that,” said Rollo, tapping his nose, “it’s a secret.”
“Oh, do tell us!” said Delilah, pulling her gold lamé wrap closer around her shoulders to keep out the evening chill.
“If I did that, Miz Marconi, I’d have to kill you,” chuckled the editor as a horse-drawn trolley car pulled up. He grabbed the handrail and with a heave hoisted himself on. He paid the driver a couple of “bits” – what that was, Poppy wasn’t sure as she had not yet got her head around American money – and then grunted his disapproval that there were no seats available. Poppy and Delilah could easily reach the straps provided for standing passengers; Rollo could not. He braced his backside against the partition near the door and muttered something about speaking to Freddy about a motor.
Fortunately the drive was brief and they alighted at the south end of the park.
Saturday night in Manhattan was as busy as the West End of London. But oh my, the lights! There must be enough electricity surging through these few square miles to light the whole of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, thought Poppy. Theatres and restaurants, products and services, were all vying to have the biggest, brightest illuminations. Ever-ready safety razors were being touted for $1.50. Coca-Cola – not a drink Poppy had yet tried – claimed it would give her “life”. The Ziegfeld Follies high-kicked alongside Macy’s department store and Lucky Star cigarettes lit up with style. Poppy’s eyes were beginning to hurt and she was grateful to go underground at the Fifth Avenue subway station – despite her aversion to confined spaces. Actually, she was pleasantly surprised. New York’s subterranean rail network was better lit and ventilated than its older London counterpart, and Poppy didn’t feel nearly as claustrophobic as she did back home. As she sat down between Rollo and Delilah, in a carriage filled with New Yorkers ready to hit the town, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Seven stops later, with the streets of Manhattan pulsing above, they alighted at Eighth Street Station, the nearest commuter stop to Greenwich Village. “We’ll get a cab from here,” announced Rollo. “It’s only a few blocks away.”
The cab wound its way through streets filled with residential buildings and small businesses, closed for the night. The glitz of uptown was toned down here and the only lights were the intermittent street lamps. The cab stopped and they got out in an ordinary street in an ordinary neighbourhood.
Where on earth are we going? thought Poppy, who imagined they would be painting the town red under the lights of Broadway.
The cab pulled off, leaving them alone with a flickering street light under attack from midges and moths. “Where to now, Rollo?” asked Delilah, her voice seemingly amplified by the concrete pavement slabs. Rollo put his finger to his lips to shush her. Delilah giggled and mouthed “sorry”. The editor cocked his head and indicated that they should follow him. He walked a few paces, then turned right into an alleyway. They passed some bins and skips – or what Poppy had heard referred to as “dumpsters” in New York – and then found themselves in an open courtyard, hemmed on three sides by residential buildings. A flick of a curtain from an upstairs window and the glow of a cigarette tip suggested they were being watched.
Then there was a mutter of voices behind them. They turned round to see a bevy of well-dressed New Yorkers. The two groups stared at one another for a moment until one of the gents, wearing a swallowtail coat and white bowtie, whispered: “You first.”
He and his party stepped back into the shadows as Rollo led the ladies across the courtyard to a nondescript blue door. Rollo rapped a little rhythm with his silver-tipped cane. A small trap slipped back and Rollo pushed through a calling card on top of a wadge of dollar bills. Moments later the door opened just enough to let Rollo, Delilah, and Poppy through.
A large man in a pinstripe suit led them down a narrow, dimly lit corridor and then pushed open a door to reveal the sights, sounds, smells, and sweat of a small jazz club packed with patrons clearly intent on having a good time. This was Chester’s, opened only recently by the socialist Chester Wainwright, in the premises of a former blacksmith’s workshop. The purpose of the club was to flout prohibition and provide a safe place for New Yorkers to drink and dance. Alcohol was not actually sold here, but the hefty entrance fee covered the bar bill and if anyone was deemed to have drunk more than their share they were asked to make a donation to “charity”. If they declined, they simply would not be let back in. And for the bright young people of New York society that would be a fate worse than death.
First entrance to the club was by invitation only, and had to be approved by Chester Wainwright himself. Rollo, it seemed, was a personal friend of the host and had secured an invitation only a few hours earlier.
Poppy, Delilah, and Rollo stood at the entrance and took it all in. Crammed in the corner on a small stage, a negro jazz band jostled one another for space. The two trombonists were on high stools in the very back corner, with the rest of the brass and woodwind section seated on low benches below them. As Poppy watched, a clarinettist rose up to stretch his back and nearly lost his head when the trombonist extended his slide; he was saved only by the flugel player who pulled him down in time.
In front of the bandstand, thrusting out onto the dance floor, was another platform, hosting three high-kicking dancers with sequinned thigh-high leotards and feather headdresses.
“They’re moonlighting from Ziegfeld,” Delilah observed with authority. Poppy didn’t know enough to contradict her.
On the dance floor itself, five or six couples jiggled and jaggled, cheered on by friends and patrons around small tables squeezed into every available space. People were even sitting on the bar, and Poppy noticed a particularly leggy brunette wearing a scarlet boa surrounded by a bevy of male admirers.
Delilah squeaked. “It’s Theda Bara! She played Cleopatra!” She was just about to head over to see the screen siren when a booming voice, emanating from a short, rotund man wearing a purple velvet dinner jacket, called out
: “Rolandson! You yellow-livered hack – glad you could make it!”
“Chester! You old dog, flouting the law again, I see!” The editor and the squat proprietor shook hands vigorously.
Introductions were made, hands kissed, and the Rolandson party was ushered over to a reserved table; but not before a canoodling couple were evicted and told to do an “86”.
“What’s an ‘86’?” asked Poppy.
“It’s the code we use for a police raid,” explained Chester as he pulled out a chair for Poppy.
“There’s a raid?” asked Delilah, her eyes wide, her bobbed head flicking from side to side.
Chester chuckled. “No. But those two are so many sheets to the wind they won’t know that. They’ve drunk way beyond their share. Let them think there’s a raid and save my bouncers the trouble.”
“But why an ‘86’?” asked Poppy.
Chester cocked his head towards a door to the left of the bar. “This is 86 Bedford Street. That’s the entrance there. The cops, when they raid, always come through the courtyard entrance – the one you did – so it gives the guys and gals time to get out the number 86 door.” He opened his hands wide and grinned. “It works every time.”
“But,” continued Poppy, still curious, “how do you know they’ll always come through that door?”
Chester curled back his top lip to reveal a pair of buck teeth and chortled. “You need to brief your reporter a bit better than this, Rollo.” Then he winked at Delilah, who already appeared to know the answer.
“Because, Miz Denby, that’s what we’ve agreed with them!”
Before Poppy could ask any more, he called over a waiter and put in an order for a bottle of champagne, without asking if that was what everybody wanted.
“Sorry ladies,” he explained, “we’re limited with what we have. But it’s a good bottle of bubbly.”
Poppy smiled. She liked bubbly. And she liked Chester Wainwright. And whatever questions she had about this speakeasy – like why it was called a speakeasy – could wait. For now, she, Delilah, and Rollo were going to have as much fun as they could. And the thought that at any minute they might have to “do an 86” made it all the more exciting.
The Death Beat Page 10