by Maureen Lee
The buskers entertaining the queue were sometimes better than the acts on stage; Jonty the Juggler, for instance, who worked in insurance during the week; Spit and Spat, who did a brilliant sand dance; John Lloyd, who was only fifteen but had a fine voice.
Mary Blunn, who had a face like a rosy apple, sold faded fruit. In the warmer weather, an ice cream man on a bike did a roaring trade, though the cones had to be eaten quickly as they weren’t allowed inside the theatre for fear of the mess they might make on the thick red carpet in the foyer and on the stairs. The foyer was round, like the theatre itself, and the walls were faced with red velvet, the woodwork painted gold. A chandelier glittered on the ceiling.
In the box office, a little cubby-hole behind a sheet of glass, Mollie waited for the doors to open and the queue to come pouring in, which would happen any second now on the dot of half past seven. The performance would begin at eight. Instead of the usual fare - an assortment of singers and acrobats, comedians and magicians - this week the Rotunda was presenting a play: Maria Marten: Murder in the Red Barn, starring Tod Slaughter. The theatre had been full to capacity all week, with many patrons coming twice, or even three times to see it.
Mr Samson, the doorman, splendid in his maroon uniform adorned with yards of gold brocade, opened up, and the people streamed inside. For the next half-hour, Mollie was frantically busy as she tore off the different-coloured tickets: yellow for the cheapest seats; blue for the front balcony; red and pink for the stalls. She didn’t sell many for the stalls, as the seats could be pre-booked. These rather better dressed personages presented their tickets to Mr Samson, who accepted them with a majestic bow and a quiver of his waxed moustache.
‘Hello, Mollie, two for the gods, please.’
‘How are you keeping, Daisy?’ She’d got to know many of the regulars by name. Daisy O’Connor and her daughter were always near the front of the queue for the second performance on Saturday. ‘Next, please,’ she sang without waiting for Daisy’s reply. There wasn’t the time.
By eight o’clock, her fingers aching from counting coins and tearing tickets, the door to the auditorium had closed and the foyer was unnaturally quiet. The orchestra weren’t playing their usually lively music, but something darkly dramatic that was more appropriate to the play. Every seat in the house had been sold: any latecomers would be out of luck. Mr Samson had put a sign, ‘Theatre Full’, on the door.
‘Phew!’ she said to no one in particular. She flexed her fingers and twisted her head to ease the pain in her neck. Her back hurt. In a minute, she’d sort the individual coins into one-shilling piles and put them into their own separate bags - the farthings and ha’pennies, the pennies and the threepenny bits, and so on - with a label to say how much was in each, then add up the totals. The children considered her something of a wizard to be able to carry out such a complicated task.
‘It’s easy when you know how,’ she told them.
There was a burst of applause from inside the theatre; the curtain must have gone up, and Tod Slaughter, who played the wicked Squire Corder, would be rubbing his hands gleefully as he confided in the audience the evil deeds he had planned. They responded with a chorus of boos - it was all part of the fun.
Mollie loved her job. She’d been there for seven months and it was almost, although not quite, like being in show business. Some of the stars were very friendly and came round and introduced themselves to the staff when they first arrived. Malvolio the Magician had shown her how he sawed his pretty assistant in half. ‘It’s all an illusion,’ he explained, as if she’d actually thought it real.
The wolf in the Christmas pantomime, Little Red Riding Hood, had been too friendly. He’d had the cheek to ask her out. ‘I’m a married woman,’ she’d said indignantly. She’d displayed her left hand. ‘Can’t you see my ring?’
‘One of these days, you’ll be sorry you turned me down,’ he said frostily. ‘You’ll kick yourself when I’m topping the bill at the London Palladium.’
‘I doubt it.’ She also doubted if he’d ever top the bill anywhere. His voice wasn’t very strong and a few people had complained the wolf couldn’t be heard up in the gods.
She pulled down a black blind over the glass and began to count the money. She was deeply involved, her head buzzing with figures, when she heard the door to the auditorium burst open and the place become full of voices. It must be the first interval.
Fifteen minutes later, silence reigned once again, but not for long. There was a bang on her window. She hastily wrote down a figure before she forgot it, and let up the blind.
‘I’ve come to take you home,’ said Harry Benedict. Mollie felt cross with herself when her heart gave a stupid little jerk. He hadn’t stopped pursuing her since the night he’d gone after the blackshirts and she’d been silly enough to let him kiss her. He was forever stopping her in the street and suggesting they went for a walk after one of his inevitable meetings. She’d refused every time. Tonight, he wore a polo-necked jersey full of snags and a thin tweed jacket with frayed cuffs. She couldn’t see his trousers, but assumed they were just as shabby.
She shook her head. ‘I’ve not finished, and I’m going home with Betsy Evans, like I usually do. She only lives across our street.’
‘Betsy’s got a date with her young man,’ he said smugly. ‘She just told me. They’re going for a stroll along the Docky; there’s a liner there, the Queen Mary, on its way to America.’
‘America - you mean, New York?’ Her heart jerked again, but for a quite different reason.
‘I reckon so. I’ve always wanted to go there. What’s the matter, Moll? You’ve gone quite pale.’
‘Nothing - nothing at all. It was just the mention of a ship sailing to America. It reminded me of something, that’s all.’ Nowadays, she went days, weeks, without thinking about Annemarie. ‘Look, Harry, I’m sorry, but I have to get on with this.’ She pulled down the blind. For a few minutes, she sat staring into space. The mention of a liner sailing to America had vividly brought back the memory of the Queen Maia and the single night she and Annemarie had spent on board together. The following morning she’d gone to buy digitalis and never seen her sister again. Next month, on 1 April, Annemarie would be twenty-five, no longer a girl, but a fully-grown woman. She’d always liked the idea of being born on April Fools’ Day, not any old day, but a special one, almost as good as being born at Christmas.
There was a burst of thunder that, at first, she thought was real, then remembered it was part of the play; there’d be lightning, too. The audience screamed. Mollie sighed and continued to count the takings.
She left during the second interval after Betsy had confirmed she was meeting her boyfriend. His name was Dave and he worked in a warehouse on the Dock Road - or the Docky as most people called it. Mollie had already seen the final act and she’d sooner go home and think about Annemarie. Tonight, she seemed very real. She tried to imagine what her sister would look like now that she was eleven years older, but couldn’t. In her mind, she would always be thirteen, with long black hair and violet eyes.
If only she could talk to someone about it, but there was only Agatha and she couldn’t call on her at such a late hour. Irene knew about her failed attempt to reach New York, but was inclined to come up with a dozen different fates that could have befallen Annemarie, none of them happy and some quite gruesome.
It had started to rain. The lamps were on and their reflections made little orange smudges on the wet pavements. She was hurrying in the direction of Turnpike Street when a voice said, ‘Didn’t I say I’d take you home?’ and Harry Benedict appeared beside her. He must have been waiting outside the theatre all this time.
‘Are you following me?’ she asked exasperatedly. The raindrops on his dark curly hair shone like diamonds. Why wasn’t he wearing a cap?
‘It’s not safe for a woman on her own in Scottie Road late at night.’
‘Don’t be an eejit, it’s as safe as houses. And it’s not at all late; it’s
only half past nine.’
‘Are you in a hurry?’
‘Of course I am. It’s raining and I’m wearing a new hat.’ It had cost nine and eleven in T.J. Hughes’s and she didn’t want it spoilt.
‘Come in here a minute.’ He took her arm and almost dragged her into a fish and chip shop. The girl behind the counter looked as if she were about to swoon when she saw him.
‘Hello, Harry,’ she said coyly. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’d like two teas upstairs as quick as you can, Rita.’
‘Straight away, Harry. It’ll hardly take a mo.’
‘The stairs are over there, Moll.’ He gave her a little push.
‘I can see them. What the hell are you up to, Harry Benedict?’ She climbed the narrow staircase and entered a small room furnished with an assortment of tables and chairs that didn’t match. Her heel caught in one of the holes in the lino and she nearly tripped. An elderly man was sitting in a corner eating chips out of a paper bag. He gave them a curt nod. Harry said, ‘What’cha, Bill. How’re y’diddling?’ and got a shrug for his pains. There was salt and pepper and a bottle of vinegar on each table, but no cloths. ‘This reminds me of the Ritz,’ she said.
‘Are you always so sarcastic?’ he asked when they sat down.
‘No,’ she confessed. ‘The only person I’m sarcastic with is you.’ Then she wondered why. Perhaps it was her way of putting him off, keeping him at a distance. If so, it didn’t seem to be working.
Rita, true to her word, arrived immediately with two mugs of tea. ‘Would you like some chips, Harry?’ She fluttered her lashes invitingly. ‘They’re on the house.’
‘No, ta, Rita. Tea’s enough.’
The girl departed, swinging her hips and looking back at Harry to see if he was watching, but his eyes were on Mollie. ‘I went to a lecture earlier tonight,’ he said.
‘What was it about?’ she asked, interested.
‘Hitler and the threat he poses to Europe.’ For once, he looked deadly serious.
‘Does Hitler pose a threat to Europe?’
‘A really big threat, according to the lecturer, Doctor Stein.’ Harry cleared his throat importantly. ‘He teaches at some university in London. Germany has done away with the Treaty of Versailles, brought in conscription, and has a big re-armament programme. Hitler wants to expand. He’ll take over Austria first, then the Sudetenland. Who knows where he’ll go next? Wherever it is, Fascist Italy will go with him.’
‘You mean he might try to involve this country?’ Mollie could hardly believe what she was hearing.
‘Not without a fight.’ Harry smacked his lips, as if he couldn’t wait.
‘A fight? A war? But it’s hardly five minutes since the last one.’ She pushed away the tea and made to get to her feet. ‘I don’t want to hear this, Harry. I’d sooner not know.’
‘You can’t close your eyes to it, Moll.’ He looked at her regretfully, as if he’d considered her made of sterner stuff.
‘I can if I want,’ she said stubbornly, but sat down again.
‘Trouble is,’ Harry said, ‘the government’s closing its eyes too. This country needs to start re-arming. Instead there’s some people talking about appeasement.’
‘I’m not sure what that means,’ she confessed.
‘It means letting Hitler do whatever he wants as long as he doesn’t touch us.’ Harry looked so angry she didn’t like to say that sounded a sensible, if somewhat cowardly approach.
The old man was leaving. ‘Would you like a fag, Bill?’ Harry offered.
‘Wouldn’t say no.’
Harry produced a packet of Woodbines. ‘Take a couple. Have you got matches, mate?’
‘I’ve got some at home. Ta, Harry, you’re a sport.’ The old man shuffled away.
‘Could we talk about something different?’ Mollie asked when his footsteps could be heard slowly descending the stairs.
‘All right,’ Harry said, lighting a ciggie for himself. ‘Let’s talk about why you went as white as a sheet when I mentioned the Queen Mary was sailing to America. You asked if it was going to New York; have you ever been there?’
‘I nearly did - once.’ She explained what had happened, leaving out, as she always did, anything to do with the Doctor and finishing, ‘I’ve never seen Annemarie since. My brother, Finn, went to New York to look for her, but had no luck. I’ve an auntie there who still keeps an eye out. I’d love to go myself one day, but I’ll have to wait until the children are older.’
‘Perhaps we could go together?’
This seemed so unlikely that Mollie thought it wouldn’t hurt to say that perhaps one day they could. She looked around the squalid room with its odds and ends of furniture and dirty, steamed-up windows. Where was Annemarie right now? What sort of room was she in? She hoped it was a better one than this, but at least she couldn’t fault the company.
‘What does your brother Finn do?’
‘He’s an accountant back in Ireland; a village called Duneathly where we were born. He’d married to Hazel and they have eight children: four boys and four girls.’ Mollie smiled. On average, Hazel produced a new baby every fifteen months. ‘My young brothers live with them, Thaddy and Aidan, so they’ve got a houseful.’ She’d had photos of the new children, but would love to meet them - and see Hazel again. She hadn’t seen her sister-in-law since she’d been to Ireland with Tom, the girls and Joe. Finn had come to Liverpool twice, but that was the only real contact she’d had with her family. ‘I really should be going, Harry.’
‘I’ll ask Rita for some newspaper to protect your hat.’ A grin crossed his thin, handsome face. ‘See, I can be quite gallant when I want.’
The three Ryan brothers, their wives and children descended on the house on Sunday. Irene was in her element as she served tinned salmon sarnies, with cold stewed apple and cream for afters. Mollie had insisted she use butter, not marge, on the bread.
They hadn’t exactly become rich overnight once she’d started work at the Rotunda, but money was no longer the nagging worry it use to be. She’d given up making gloves, though had continued to read to Mr Pettigrew. After a while, it had dawned on her that it was unfair to keep the job, when a man or woman whose need for an extra ten shillings a week was much greater than hers could do it. To her surprise, the old man had been upset to learn she was leaving.
‘You read very well,’ he said. ‘You put expression into the words. It’s like listening to a play.’
She didn’t remind him that he’d told her he didn’t like plays, couldn’t see the point in them. She promised to drop in whenever she was in town, but when she’d called one day soon after Christmas, he’d been too unwell to see her.
‘He seems to sleep most of the time,’ the woman, an ex-nurse who’d taken her place, told her. ‘I usually end up reading the papers to meself.’
Three months later, only half listening while Lily and Pauline made digs at each other, Mollie realized how much she missed being kept up to date with the latest news bulletins. From tomorrow, she’d start buying the Daily Herald, if only to keep track of what Hitler was up to. All that stuff Harry had come out with last night had really taken her by surprise.
Tom’s brothers were talking about the new King, Edward VIII, yet to be crowned. It was rumoured he was having an affair with a married woman who’d divorced one husband. ‘The British people are being kept in the dark,’ Enoch said indignantly. ‘I met this chap the other day who knew another chap who’d just come back from France. He said it’s in all the papers over there. She’s an American with a dead funny name.’
‘What does divorced mean, Mammy?’ Megan whispered.
‘I’ll tell you later. Why don’t you play out in the street with your cousins, love?’ Mollie whispered back.
‘I’d sooner stay here. S’interesting.’ Megan was the nosiest child under the sun.
Irene looked just as indignant as Enoch, but for an entirely different reason. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she declare
d. She was a devout royalist. ‘The King would never have an affair, let alone with a woman who’s already married.’
The lads groaned.
‘Our mam thinks royalty can do no wrong,’ Brian snorted. ‘They’re just human beings, Mam; they go to the lavatory and wipe their arses, just like us ordinary mortals. And have affairs with married women.’
It was Pauline’s turn to be indignant. She claimed that sounded as if Brian was speaking from experience and had actually had an affair with a married woman.
‘I should be so lucky,’ Brian muttered underneath his breath.
‘I heard that,’ Pauline spat.
‘Bloody hell, Pauline, he was only joking,’ Lily said with a sneer.
Irene glared. ‘If you’re going to swear, Lil, I’d sooner you did it in your own house.’
‘I’ll make more tea.’ Mollie left the room, feeling she might explode. She was pouring water in the kettle when Gladys joined her.
‘Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?’ she asked mournfully.
‘Oh, let’s laugh. It’ll do us more good than crying.’
‘I wouldn’t mind divorcing Enoch if it meant I’d see no more of that lot. How you stand living with Irene I’ll never know - and if you say her heart’s in the right place, I’ll kill you.’
‘All right, I won’t say it, though it is.’ Mollie dodged out of the way when Gladys came towards her making a throttling gesture with her hands. ‘They all mean well. They just have a funny way of showing it.’
‘I don’t find it funny.’ Gladys groaned. ‘How can we avoid Lily and Mike’s twentieth wedding anniversary the Sunday after next?’
‘We can’t,’ Mollie said crisply. ‘We both married a Ryan and we’ll just have to grit our teeth and bear it.’