Ellie

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘On your head be it,’ he laughed. ‘Don’t complain later that I talked you into it!’

  They took their seats just as the musicians were tuning up. It didn’t look promising; only a pianist, a drummer, an ancient violinist and a saxophonist.

  Looking around him, Magnus saw the theatre was less than a quarter full, mostly of old people, and a sprinkling of those like themselves who’d come in out of the rain. The Arcadia was suffering from the same post-war malaise as shops and houses everywhere in England: peeling paint, upholstery worn and shiny with age, a threadbare carpet. Magnus felt that all too familiar stab of anger again. When were the government going to make a start on getting the country back on its feet?

  Magnus knew he was very fortunate. Born into a wealthy, landowning family, he had never known a moment’s deprivation in his life, or even the real necessity to work for a living as Basil had to do. Brought up at Craigmore, the family estate in Yorkshire, educated at Rugby and then Oxford, he could have spent his life just as his two elder brothers Frederick and George did, hunting, shooting and fishing. But even as a boy, Magnus had a social conscience. It never seemed right just to fritter his time away, secure in the knowledge that employees ran the estate. Or to whittle away the fortune that previous generations of financially astute Osbournes had left them.

  While his brothers concerned themselves mainly with their social lives, to the despair of their father, Magnus took a more active interest in the running of the estate, working alongside the men in his school holidays and vacations from Oxford, learning everything from the art of building drystone walls to carpentry and mending farm machinery.

  At twenty-two, with only a second-class degree in English behind him, Magnus regretted not having followed his instincts and chosen architecture or civil engineering instead. He was no academic, but neither was he cut out to be ‘just a gentleman’.

  Stifled by the social restraints in England and his inability to settle again in Yorkshire, Magnus took himself off, first to America, then on to Canada. His family would have been appalled to discover that in two years away from home he worked in logging camps, on river boats going up and down the Hudson and for a spell as a builder in Vancouver. He might never have come home to Craigmore again, but for his father dying and his mother pleading he was needed, and he certainly wouldn’t have stayed but for falling in love with Ruth Tomlinson, a doctor’s daughter.

  It was clear then, in 1928, that the old order of life in England was changing. The First World War had decimated the young male population and those who remained fit to work wanted more than a life of domestic servitude with the landed gentry. Craigmore was neglected, and Frederick and George, bewildered by suddenly finding themselves expected to take over the running of the estate, looked to Magnus for help.

  Magnus agreed to stay, but on his own terms. He intended to marry Ruth and she wasn’t a brittle, sophisticated woman like Frederick’s and George’s wives, or even his own mother. Ruth was gentle, a home-maker, a girl who wanted a real family life and a husband by her side. Above all, Magnus wanted her to have the happiness she deserved.

  In return for becoming estate manager, Magnus insisted on having a cash settlement immediately from his father’s estate, rather than risk his share being eaten away by his brothers’ excesses, as well as the dilapidated gatehouse, free and clear. George and Frederick found their younger brother’s requests amusing, and agreed willingly, assuming he’d later regret asking for so little. They continued to treat him like a simpleton as he worked tirelessly on the estate and watched in some amazement as in his spare time he restored the gatehouse into a gracious family home.

  In 1929, Magnus married Ruth, breaking a long family tradition in being the first Osbourne not to bring his new bride into the big house. Ruth was delighted with this arrangement; she had been used to living in a small family home and she found the prospect of scores of servants daunting. She had always admired the gatehouse for its elegant proportions, charming arched latticed windows and its position on the road into Harrogate and it meant even more to her now Magnus had restored it for her.

  Their marriage was a true love match. They complemented each other in every way: Magnus had the strength of character, the vision and stamina; Ruth smoothed his path, her quiet, loving way giving him the impetus to expand his ideals. Stephen was born in 1930, followed by Sophie some fifteen months later. Ruth didn’t subscribe to the idea of nursemaids, cooks or housekeepers, preferring to look after her family herself, and Magnus found real joy in being a husband and father.

  Ruth’s appreciation and enthusiasm at Magnus’s building talent fired him still further. While still managing the estate, he invested his own money in property. He bought small, semi-derelict houses in Harrogate, drew up plans to improve them, then employed local men to do the work, sometimes selling them on when they were finished, sometimes taking in a tenant. Back then he was motivated more by proving to his family that he could make his own fortune, rather than from altruistic ideals of improving people’s standards of living, but that was to change.

  Despite his background, Magnus was a sensitive man. During the depression years of the thirties, he became acutely aware of the hardship the working classes had to endure. His social conscience pricked at him daily as women knocked on the gatehouse door, begging for bread or a little milk for their children. He saw men who’d lost their jobs in the big shipyards of Tyneside tramping wearily past his comfortable house, looking for any kind of work in any town to keep their starving families.

  If it hadn’t been for the war, Magnus might have continued to salve his conscience as he had before, by giving the odd day or two’s work to needy men, passing on old boots and clothes and letting Ruth give food. But six years in the RAF seeing the wholesale destruction of big cities and mixing with people from so many different walks of life, made his re-evaluate everything. After his demob at the end of 1945, he returned home to Yorkshire realising he had a far bigger duty in life than concerning himself with Craigmore and supporting his indolent brothers.

  As Magnus was the youngest son, Craigmore would never be his, or his children’s. Frederick had three sons perfectly capable of taking up the reins. There were Yorkshire men returning from the war in need of work who would help them. What England needed now, more than anything, was houses, and Magnus intended to build some of them.

  It was estimated that half a million homes had been destroyed or made uninhabitable during the war, while another half a million were severely damaged. The White Paper of March 1945 suggested three or four million new homes must be built in the next ten years, yet now, in 1946, they were dragging their feet, the ‘prefab’ their only answer to the acute housing shortage.

  People were so desperate for homes they were squatting in disused army camps. The council housing waiting lists were so long it could take a man seven or eight years to get his family housed. Magnus knew he could only help a relatively few people to a better standard of living by building, but he had vision and he truly believed that if he led, others might follow, and England could be rebuilt.

  *

  The band struck up ‘I’ve Got Rhythm’, the curtain swished back and on pranced the dancers. Magnus sat back in his seat, his lips twitching with suppressed laughter because he was immediately reminded of amateur dancing shows put on at his local village hall in Yorkshire.

  The girls weren’t co-ordinated, either in their steps or appearance. Half wore top hats, tails and fishnet tights, the other half flowing chiffon dresses. Where it would have made sense to dress the tall ones with good legs in the masculine clothes and the short ones in the dresses, the producer seemed to have given out costumes at random. As they swirled in pairs their weak voices were almost drowned by the band and the tapping of their feet was far from synchronised.

  Magnus watched in amusement as the girls linked arms for a high kick routine. One girl was completely out of step with the others, and none of their legs reached a uniform height. The line
broke in the middle, leaving gold painted stairs at the back of the stage exposed and as they moved back to form a semicircle, two more girls appeared at the top of the stairs.

  A shiver went down Magnus’s spine. These two girls were perfectly matched. One was dark, the other blonde, both in tailcoats and top hats, sensational legs in seductive fishnet.

  ‘Wow!’ Basil exclaimed, nudging Magnus’s arm.

  Magnus was too enthralled to comment. The girls’ symmetry dazzled him. Their height, size, even leg length was identical. They came down the stairs tap-dancing, faultlessly in time with each other. Magnus found himself leaning forward, forgetting the rest of the troupe, watching and listening to only these two.

  They were both beautiful; slender yet curvaceous, with long legs and tiny waists. The dark girl’s face was reminiscent of an old movie star, with angular cheekbones, smouldering eyes, fleshy, succulent lips. The blonde’s eyes dominated her face. Even from his seat well back in the stalls he could see the bright blue irises, fluttering thick eyelashes and delicate eyebrows.

  By concentrating on each of them in turn, Magnus realised that the dark girl had the best voice, while the blonde was the best dancer. Yet the interaction between them somehow made them as one. Magnus listened to the dark girl’s husky, contralto voice, and watched the blonde girl. Her feet moved so fast it was just a flash of glitter, her hair shone like gold satin under the lights, a smile as warming as summer sun. The choreography was disastrous, the band scratchy, yet these two girls managed to pull something remarkable out of nowhere.

  When the curtain closed on them Magnus settled back, somehow expecting more surprises in store. But he was disappointed. One sad act followed another and Basil guffawed beside him. It was tempting to get up and leave. But they stayed, nudging each other and sniggering as ‘The Great Gonzalis’ dawdled over a magic trick that a child of six could see through. They smirked at an awful rendition of ‘Danny Boy’ from ‘The Northern Songbird’, and Magnus found himself drifting away from what was on the stage, and thinking instead of the piece of land in Staines beside the Thames he’d bought that morning and the houses he intended to build on it.

  It could well turn out to be a disaster. In the last few weeks Magnus had discovered that all builders had to get a licence, then permits for certain materials like timber. On top of these hindrances, the government were insisting that only a certain percentage of new houses built could be sold on the open market; the rest had to be sold back to the local council for people on their waiting lists. Other builders had informed him he would be bogged down by red tape and a mountain of paperwork, because Attlee and his party were trying to prevent speculation in property. But Magnus felt he had to give it his best shot. He wasn’t a speculator, he just wanted to build homes.

  Both men’s interest in the show was re-awakened when the two girls came back singing ‘Keep Young and Beautiful’. This time they were in tight spangly shorts with tiny matching tops which gave a tantalising view of their flat, firm abdomens. The blonde’s costume was midnight-blue, the dark girl’s bright red, but as before, it was the way they interacted together which created the magic, not the set or their costumes. Now Magnus could see the dark girl’s comic talent as she preened in front of a looking-glass, catching the essence of all those postures women made when they thought they were unseen. The blonde did a faultless string of cartwheels, seemingly with no effort, and her smile remained as vivid throughout the last frenetic tap-dance as it had been at the beginning.

  ‘Keep young and beautiful,’ Basil droned as they came out of the Arcadia to find it still raining. ‘What shall we do now, old bean?’ he said, pausing to turn up his raincoat collar.

  ‘My hotel for tea.’ Magnus grinned. ‘Let’s cut out all the banter and talk about the important issues, like how it is for you back in teaching after the rough and tumble of the RAF. And I’ve got a few plans of my own I’d like to chew over with you.’

  It was around ten that night when Magnus and Basil found themselves in the Cabana, a small drinking club above a gentleman’s outfitters, just a stone’s throw from the Royal Oxford where Magnus was staying. It was reminiscent of many of the clubs in London’s Soho: candles in wax-congealed Chianti bottles on each of the bare wooden tables, tarnished gilt-framed mirrors on the tobacco-coloured walls and a half-hearted pianist playing in one corner.

  The men propping up the small bar had a striking similarity to the soldiers and airmen Magnus had drunk with on many a night in London, except they were all in badly fitting demob suits instead of uniforms. Most of them were young and at varying degrees of drunkenness. They leaned on the bar watching a few fresh-faced girls dancing together, from time to time shouting ribald remarks then turning to each other and laughing uproariously.

  Both Magnus and Basil were a little tight. They’d had a couple of drinks before dinner at the Royal Oxford, a bottle of wine with their roast beef, then a couple of brandies as they switched back from their plans for the future and their families, to reminiscing about their student days.

  It had been Basil’s idea to find somewhere else to go. Magnus was happy just to stay drinking in the hotel, then let Basil get a taxi back to his school. But Basil had said, ‘What we want is a place with a few fillies and a spot of dancing.’

  Magnus had no interest in either ‘fillies’ or dancing; but when the hotel porter directed Basil to this club, it had seemed a little churlish to refuse, especially when he didn’t know when they’d next have a chance to meet again.

  Basil was in fine form. He had always been something of a raconteur and the war had given him a whole new fund of hilarious anecdotes. Now as the drink loosened him up still more, he moved on to tales from his school.

  ‘I must tell you about the two little blaggards I found drunk in the gymnasium,’ he began – but a sudden hush in the club stopped him short. ‘Wow!’

  Basil turned first, his face flushing purple in the candle-light. Magnus’s head swivelled round; he blinked, then stared open-mouthed.

  It was the two dancers they’d seen that afternoon, coming in through the door.

  Their entrance had the same confidence as the afternoon’s performance and was as deliberately staged. Not for them a peep round the door, or nervous giggling at finding the club full of men. They merely swept in, leaving the door swinging behind them.

  The dark girl wore a cream dress, the blonde an identical black one. They floated across the floor to the bar, seemingly unaware of the dozens of male eyes on them, yet at the same time scanning the crowd.

  A little warning bell rang in Magnus’s head. He turned back to his drink and tried to pick up the conversation with Basil. He guessed the girls had come here looking for male partners, and though he considered himself far too old to attract their attention, Basil was a good-looking chap and by far the most personable one in the entire club.

  ‘I’ll have the brunette,’ Basil whispered, leaning across the table. ‘I wouldn’t say no to the blonde either, but she seems to have set her cap at you, old boy!’

  Magnus had been married to Ruth for seventeen years and their marriage was strong enough to withstand even the most cunning of predatory women during the war. But as he turned his head involuntarily and met the blonde’s turquoise eyes, looking right into his, it was as if the thinking part of his brain had switched off, leaving only the baser animal instinct.

  She was a walking dream. The kind of girl that graced magazine covers, slender, yet curvy and soft. Her mid-calf dress covered those beautiful long legs he’d admired on stage, but it was her face which stunned him. Not just lovely eyes, but a perfect delicate nose and a soft, pouty mouth. Her hair curled on her padded shoulders and her complexion was as clear as a child’s.

  ‘I’m Bonny,’ she said, putting one hand on his shoulder. ‘Can Ellie and I join you? We’re celebrating tonight and it would be more fun with company.’

  The impudence in her voice warned him to make excuses and leave, but Basil, always a ladies’
man, was already jumping up, pulling out chairs and grinning with delight.

  ‘We saw the show this afternoon,’ Magnus admitted after Basil had gone through the introductory pleasantries and bought both girls a double gin and tonic. ‘You were excellent. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the show, but I’m afraid you were the only stars.’

  Ellie blushed prettily, but Bonny locked her eyes into his. ‘It’s only been a temporary stopgap,’ she said with a dismissive shrug of her shoulders. ‘We’re off to Brighton next week and then on to another show in the West End.’

  She claimed they were both twenty-two. She dropped names of famous show business people into her conversation as if they were personal friends, spoke scathingly of Oxford being ‘too provincial’ and mentioned shopping in Bond Street as if she never went anywhere else. Although Magnus knew all of this to be a pose, he was intrigued by both girls and the bond between them.

  It was no ordinary girlish friendship, but something deep and binding. Although Ellie appeared to take a back seat, Magnus sensed she was an equal partner. They had a curious ability to allow each other equal time in the spotlight, backing each other up, almost as if it were a script they’d learnt together.

  Yet Ellie made no wild claims as Bonny did. She made them all laugh with an impersonation of Ruth Rivers the Northern Songbird, holding her throat to get the exact warbling voice, and told a hilarious story about her Aunt Marleen during the Blitz, lapsing into a perfect cockney accent. Magnus noticed she mentioned visiting this aunt in Stoke Mandeville Hospital each week and saw a glimmer of real anxiety in her eyes about moving away to Brighton. But when Bonny told her well-embroidered tales, Ellie’s dark eyes glinted with silent amusement.