by Robert Lock
Sam Collins, owner of the theatre and a fine singer in his own right, strode to centre-stage. “Ladies and gentlemen… ladies and gentlemen, your appreciation again for Areva, the Rubber-Limbed Disciple from the Golden Temple of Chiang Mai!” He thrust one hand in the direction of the wings. “Quite remarkable. Quite remarkable.” The applause died down. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, it is my very great pleasure to introduce a comedian who is no stranger to this stage… but I’ve asked him back again anyway!” The laughter was generous, because the people of Islington were grateful to Sam for providing them with a cheap source of entertainment. He held up his hands for quiet. “He’s back to make you forget your troubles, so let’s have a big Collins’ Music Hall welcome for the Lord of Laughter, the Camden Clown, your very own… Georgie Parr!”
George bounded onto the stage, almost colliding with Sam, who made a great show of avoiding him. Their accidental choreography was well-timed enough to appear part of the act and elicited a good deal of laughter, but what the audience could not see was the theatre owner’s expression, which was so venomous and intimidating that George forgot his opening line. For several interminable seconds he stood there, staring out at the expectant faces. He could sense the audience’s receptivity, its willingness to find him funny, but George knew that this warmth could evaporate in moments; he had to capture them now, or risk being heckled mercilessly for the rest of his act. And then Henry Dickinson’s off-stage remark echoed in his mind like some vulgar prompt. To the stagehand it was little more than a throwaway remark, the sort of thing he might say to friends in a pub, but for George it was career-altering, one of those mysterious moments of inspiration that have the power to transform lives. Unfortunately for George it also, ultimately, destroyed his.
“Wasn’t she truly a goddess?” he said. “You know, I had the pleasure of escorting her home the other evening after work, but all it took was one wrong turn and there I was taking her up Cock Lane!”
For the briefest of moments there was near silence, broken only by several audible gasps. George was terrified that he had gone too far, that his use of the unequivocal phrase had gone beyond what was acceptable in the halls, which already tolerated a level of innuendo far in excess of that allowed by society as a whole. How could he ever explain his disastrous opening line to Katherine?
And then the laughter began, tumbling down from the gallery and spreading across the tables in the stalls, accompanied by several ribald cheers from men who had obviously watched the contortionist with similar thoughts.
George, a seasoned enough performer to sense the mood and understand the need for momentum, racked his brains for another phrase to continue his ad-libbed adventure.
“A wonderful thoroughfare, to be sure,” he said, a note of nostalgia in his voice, “but not, alas, a route my wife lets me take with any degree of regularity.”
“You and me both, mate!” Someone called from the gallery, to more cheers.
George nodded in sad solidarity. “The last time I drank from that particular fruitful vine Lord Stanley was living in Downing Street!”
Where was it all coming from? Even as he marched to the edge of the stage to begin his next pun there was a part of his consciousness, standing apart from the improvised storyline like a detached observer, that marvelled at the process. How many times had he listened to Henry Dickinson, or men like him, and unconsciously filed away the subtle and not-so-subtle phrases describing the methodology and machinery of sexual congress? And why had he done so? George had never regarded himself as particularly risqué; indeed, as he looked out at the flushed and smiling faces of the audience — his audience — the controversy that was sure to follow his performance terrified him, but there was also an undeniable thrill, an offering up of himself to the moment, that made his heart pound.
“You know how it is, though, ladies and gentlemen,” he continued in a rather more sly and knowing tone. “Tell a girl you know the way and she’ll follow you anywhere, even when it’s wet and dark!” George turned to the side, showing himself in profile to the auditorium, and spoke in an exaggeratedly high-pitched, feminine voice. “Oh sir, I’ve gone and lost me way ’ome, and that copper’s ’ad me for a dollymop…” At this he had to pause until the cheers and laughter died down. “… show a girl a bit o’ kindness and get me ’ome to me own front door.”
He then turned to face the opposite wings as a physical way of differentiating between the characters in his monologue. “Certainly, madam,” he said, lowering his voice and adopting a grandiloquent tone. “How far do you want me to take you?”
He turned again. “Oh, all the way, sir!”
And again. “All the way?”
And again. “All the way!”
George could not help smiling. After all his analysing, all the post mortems and sleepless nights following yet another lukewarm reception for his act, he had finally found his own distinctive voice through a combination of happenstance and blind panic!
He turned and looked up to the gallery. These cheapest seats were the harshest of critics, ruthless in their denunciation of an act that failed to thrill or amuse, but they were also the most radical. If a performer showed them something new, which they could see was either physically dangerous or risked causing a scandal in polite society, then the gallery was ready to embrace it. George would not forget where the laughter had come from first, an endorsement that gave the rest of the audience the confidence to join in and seal his victory. Now he spoke directly to them and hoped that they would sense the gratitude within his words. “Well, we were there in a couple of winks, round the bend and up the back, because the girls from the golden temple, they’re like sailors. Sailors, you say? Yes, sir, and do you know why? Because they prefer the windward passage! It’s a heading respectable ladies never leave harbour on, no sir, but those temple girls, that’s the only way their compass’ll point. Due South!”
The general rule for comedians in the halls was to maintain a near-constant flow of banter and puns, but, on this night of subversion, Georgie Parr simply stood centre-stage and laughed along with the men and women beyond the footlights. He laughed and laughed, partly at the bawdy double entendres which were, he now realised, the level on which his humour was at its most instinctive, and partly in jubilation.
This pause, which was as brave and radical a departure from the comedic norm as Sam Collins could remember seeing, might have given George the opportunity to indulge in a little understandable hubris, but it also cemented his relationship with the people. For what they saw, quite apart from a comic unafraid to base his act in the phrasing of their world, was a man who trusted them, who had created an intimacy within the theatre almost clandestine in its power. Everyone who witnessed the genesis of Georgie Parr’s scandalous career felt a pioneering pride in belonging to this exclusive brotherhood. What they saw was new-fledged, hesitant and disjointed compared to his later polished performances, but there can only ever be one first night, one birth, with all its attendant magic.
He shook his head, his expression one of contented resignation. “Lovely ladies, to be sure, but we couldn’t do without our wives, could we, boys?” There was a somewhat half-hearted response of ‘no’s’. “No, of course not. God love ‘em. Our lawful blankets. And you know why we call them that, don’t you? Because they’re moth-eaten and thin and never enough to keep us warm in our beds!” The laughter and applause sent a shiver down his spine. “And what about us husbands, eh ladies? How do you describe us?”
“Bleedin’ useless!” came a raucous female reply.
It was just this sort of rejoinder that George had bargained for. Not only did it form a convenient link to his next section of narrative, the fact that he had an answer to the woman’s comment gave a splendid impression of quick-wittedness. What a revelation it was, this anticipatory gamble, this manipulation of the audience! This was the secret of every top name: their ability to bend an audience to their will, and for the audience to gladly give their conse
nt. And now, out of an act of desperation, he too had discovered this holy grail of the performing arts.
“Useless? Indeed, madam, you have us to a tee! If we aren’t out gallivanting with the most accommodating and flexible of ladies, we hide ourselves in our study and spend all our time drilling the corporal and his four privates, our own dear army, marching them up and down… up and down… ”
“Up and down! Up and down!” The audience chanted, mimicking Georgie Parr’s lascivious tone. At first they had been shocked by this staid-looking young comic who used phrases more often heard in gin-houses and brothels, but once over their initial reaction the music hall patrons sensed a curiously liberating cadence to the laughter, as though by embracing their vernacular George was acknowledging the vibrancy and importance of the working class. His dark, conservative clothing, sideburns and neatly manicured nails all spoke of a comfortable position in society. That he was prepared to undermine the cultural mores of this society in so scandalous a manner endeared George to them in a profound way. When, fifteen years later, the appalling news of events at the resort first spread and his name was vilified in the press there were angry gatherings outside the newspaper offices, with both men and women brandishing placards proclaiming his innocence and prepared to face police batons in their defence of Georgie Parr, the people’s comic.
“But ladies! Ladies!” He held up a forefinger to make his point. “A soldier needs to be drilled regularly or he will lose the firm resolve required for battle. If he cannot stand to attention on the parade ground then what hope has he of penetrating the enemy ranks? He must be taken in hand and marched, and how must he be marched?” George spread wide his arms, encouraging the audience to reply, which they did with great relish.
“Up… and down! Up… and down!”
He was almost overcome with emotion at their response. Not only had they picked up the precise cadence of the sentence, reproducing perfectly his own timing, they had also shown George that here was his catchphrase, that seemingly innocuous assemblage of words which a performer could make his own, and which when spoken in another context would nevertheless bring to mind its comedic chord.
The audience’s spirited rendition seemed the perfect finale, but in the fierce creation of his act George had lost all sense of time. For all he knew there were several minutes left to his ‘turn’, and to finish early would cause all sorts of problems backstage, not to mention risk incurring the wrath of Sam Collins. Timing, however, was everything, and the audience was his most accurate instrument. That, and the fact that George felt, for this performance at least, utterly invincible.
“So, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, the concluding note in his voice eliciting several groans of disappointment, “I shall bid you goodnight, and remember, if you knock on my dressing room door and I shout out that I am playing with my soldiers, they might not be lead ones!”
With that parting shot, George took his bow and turned to leave the stage, but before he could move Sam, who must have been watching from the wings, bounded on. He stood next to the comic and put one arm around his shoulders, whilst with the other gave a flamboyant gesture of introduction.
“One more time for the Camden Clown, your very own… Georgie Parr!” He roared, before adding in little more than a whisper, “You and me need to ‘ave a word later. Now bugger off.” And then again in his best compere’s voice. “I don’t think I’ve laughed so much since our Molly got ‘er bloomers caught in the mangle!”
George headed for the wings, eager for their shadowed anonymity. Having expended so much nervous energy on his improvised performance his body now felt drained, his limbs wooden and obstinate. He was like a puppet, suspended by the threads of applause and cheering, that could collapse in a heap at any moment. And then there was Sam’s whispered aside. What had the music hall owner meant? Was he angry and planning to drop him from the bill? Sam knew a lot of hall owners in London; he could make it almost impossible for Georgie Parr to find a booking anywhere in the capital, an embargo which would quickly spread to the provinces, effectively ending his career.
He was so preoccupied with this terrible scenario that he barely noticed the contortionist waiting at the bottom of the staircase that led up to the changing rooms. In the near-darkness, his eyes still adjusting from the bright footlights, and with the girl wrapped in a black cape, George at first thought her pale face was a mask hanging on the wall. But then she noticed him approach and the mask moved.
“Mr Parr, I will speak with you.”
All George wanted to do now was change his clothes and go home to tell Katherine about his extraordinary performance. After so many years of unswerving support she would be thrilled to hear that her faith in him had been vindicated at last. They could make plans for the future, rather than living from week to week, chasing bookings and pretending to each other that the shabby accommodation and uncertainty were all part of some quixotic adventure. Circumstance had dictated this romantic blurring of reality, but now they would be able to build something more substantial, more enduring, like Birch and his navvies and engineers conquering the ocean with their magnificent piers.
He could tell, both from the tone of her voice and the fury which lent a peculiar glaze to her dark eyes, that the contortionist had taken the gravest of offences to his introductory lines, but he was not prepared to waste time in what would doubtless be a futile attempt to explain either the circumstances or serendipitous nature of this evening’s act.
“I know what you’re going to say,” he began, “but this is neither the time nor the place to discuss the matter.”
His pre-emptive statement delivered, George made to ascend the staircase, but as he brushed past her the contortionist reached out and grabbed him by the arm. This demonstration of such immodest physicality from the opposite sex was shock enough; when coupled with the pain from her vice-like grip it stopped George in his tracks.
“No, Mr Parr,” she said, “you must hear to me.”
Her accent was peculiar, more Eastern European than Oriental, with a trace of East End in the vowels, as though she had lived in the capital for some time.
“What is it?”
“You cannot say such things, such horrible things. I am not a part of your act. I will not be used as a joke!”
George sighed and looked away from her. A gas lamp, turned down low to acclimatise performers to the gloom of the wings, flickered on the wall behind the contortionist like a will o’ the wisp.
“It was not meant as a slight on your character. May I ask your name?”
She hesitated. “It is Zlatka.”
“Zlatka,” he continued, “I’m a comic. My job is to make people laugh, and if I think of something funny I’ll say it. They’re only words.”
“Words! Yes, I hear your words! Saying I am like a… a common prostitute, that I will do all kinds of things for a man who takes me home! What kind of words are these? Because you are standing on a stage does not make it right to say!”
Her grip had tightened further, and yet George could only marvel at Zlatka’s strength. The pain in his bicep, which in normal circumstances would have triggered some form of evasive or retributive action, was instead something to be welcomed, even cherished, a fiercely intimate connection rather than a manifestation of her anger. And enveloping them both, an intangible yet no less powerful bond, was the contortionist’s odour, that heady combination of perfume and sweat which had so bewitched him before his act. Cloves and nutmeg mingling with a sappy spice, like the resin released by an axe biting into a pine tree’s bark, its bitter notes balanced by a thread of dark molasses. It made his mouth water.
“Will you not say these things again?”
George looked down at her. At close quarters there was an undeniably masculine set to Zlatka’s features, from the bushy, straight eyebrows to the angular lines of her jaw. He could make out a thick vein in her neck, throbbing rapidly, which quite repulsed him with its bestial virility. She was more a being shaped and
defined by her profession than a woman, so why did she affect him so? How utterly different the contortionist was to the sharp intelligence and delicacy of his Katherine!
“I have to go,” he said, placing his hand over hers.
She snatched her arm away as though scalded. “Do not touch me! Because you see me on the stage you think you see me, but that is not truth.”
It is not the truth about me either, is what George thought, but he had wearied of the exchange. If this freakishly bendy girl was so thin-skinned that one mild bit of innuendo gave her the vapours then perhaps she should consider a career outside of the halls. What did she expect? Men never normally saw a woman’s body so brazenly defined, especially not in the positions she was able to adopt. Obviously he would not always be following her on the bill, but there was bound to be a similar act on which he could base his opening lines, and if she thought that he was going to tamper with a winning formula for the sake of her or any other performer’s vanity then she was very much mistaken.
“We shall have to endeavour not to find ourselves on the same bill,” was his final word on the matter, and without waiting for a reply, he began to climb the stairs.