by Maureen Lee
Mollie’s anniversary present to Lily and Mike was two front stall tickets for the Rotunda on the night before the do. ‘The show’s called Parisian Music Hall,’ she told them. ‘It sounds really good.’
Outside the theatre, last week’s posters had been torn down. The replacements showed a row of colourfully clad women doing the cancan. Mollie hoped the sight of twenty-four legs clad in black stockings and suspenders and exposing a great deal of naked thigh wouldn’t offend Lily. There were Chinese acrobats, an Indian snake-charmer, a Russian choir, Apache dancers, roller-skaters, and a ballerina called Mimi. The star of the show was a young man called Zeke Penn, a tap-dancer, who’d actually starred on Broadway. Mollie couldn’t wait. She’d only manage to see the last part of the show, but she’d do her best to count the takings in record time and get into the auditorium as soon as she possibly could.
The Chinese acrobats seemed literally to fly through the air, as if, unlike ordinary people, they’d been granted the gift of flight. Mollie stood at the back of the theatre beside Betsy and watched, open-mouthed, hands on cheeks, terrified one of these human birds would plunge to the ground and break every bone in his body. And how Mimi could twirl around so fast and so furiously without getting dizzy and falling flat on her face she would never know.
Then the cancan dancers came on, six from each side of the stage. They met in the middle, kicked their legs, and shook their frilly skirts. Where did they get their energy from? Mollie wondered. She felt exhausted after half an hour of selling tickets. They finished with the splits, making her wince, then the stage went dark until a single spotlight revealed a young black man, Zeke Penn, dressed in white, who began to dance on the spot, faster and faster, his shoes clicking at an incredible rate. Suddenly all the lights went on and the girls came back, having changed into brief, glittering frocks. The young man danced with them one by one, each time doing a different step. The ballerina danced and he danced with her. Everyone seemed to be having an extraordinarily good time, laughing and clapping their hands. The audience joined in and laughed and clapped with them.
Mollie felt moved, exhilarated, excited, as if she, too, wanted to rush on to the stage and dance. The Russian choir - she’d only heard them before as she sat in her cubby-hole counting money - filed on at the very back and began to sing, then the jugglers came on, followed by the Apache dancers and the skaters. The acrobats flew overhead, and still Zeke Penn danced, a look on his face that said he was enjoying every minute. The stage was a mass of moving, singing people. Then, all of a sudden, as if a lever had been pulled or a switch turned, they stopped singing and moving, Zeke Penn stopped dancing, and the orchestra ceased to play. For a few seconds, they all stood as still as statues, until the curtain fell.
The audience leapt to their feet and began to cheer wildly. For the regulars, it was the best show they’d ever seen at the Rotunda and they could only wonder if they’d ever see another like it.
Harry Benedict was standing outside the theatre. ‘What was it like?’ he asked.
‘Out of this world,’ she said, linking his arm. ‘You should come one night. I’ll keep a ticket aside so you won’t have to queue.’
‘You’d do that for me?’ He looked both surprised and pleased.
‘Of course.’ She’d like them to become friends. Unlike most men, who spent every spare minute in the pub, Harry wanted to make the world a better place. He cared about people. Since the night he’d walked her home, her feelings for him had become clearer - she would quite like him to kiss her again. How things would proceed from there, she had no idea. They could never marry, not only because he was a Protestant, but because he had a miserable, dead-end job where he no doubt earned peanuts. Where would they live? Anyway, marriage, to her or any other woman, might be the last thing on his mind.
‘Fancy a cuppa at Charlie’s?’ he asked. ‘We could talk.’
‘All right,’ she said happily. Charlie was dead, but his wife still managed the chippy where they’d been a few times, much to Rita’s delight.
Tonight, there was a different girl behind the counter who looked just as pleased to see him. Her name was Issy and she brought the tea just as swiftly as Rita had.
‘What happened to your mam and dad?’ Mollie asked as soon as they sat down. She felt the urge to know everything about him.
‘They died in the big ’flu epidemic after the war along with me two little sisters. I was nine. We’d always lived with me gran, so I just stayed there and she brought me up. She’s where I got me politics from, me gran.’ He smiled fondly, his dark eyes far away, as he thought about the erect, silver-haired woman who’d raised him. So far, Mollie had merely passed the time of day with Mrs Benedict. ‘She’s a Socialist through and through, kept giving me books to read. When she was a young woman, she got sacked from a jam and pickle factory in Vauxhall for trying to organize a strike for better working conditions.’
‘She sounds wonderful,’ Mollie murmured.
‘She is . . . wonderful.’ He said the word as if he’d never used it before. ‘What about your mam and dad?’
‘They’re both dead, too. My dad was a doctor—’
‘A doctor!’ Harry broke in with a guffaw. ‘A doctor for a dad, an accountant for a brother, and a copper for a husband; I never realized I was in such exalted company. I’d better mind my Ps and Qs from now on.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Harry.’ She felt annoyed. ‘We both live in the same street, don’t we?’
‘Yeah, but I was born there. You only landed there by accident.’
Mollie had no idea how the conversation - or was it an argument? - would have continued, had there not been the sound of someone rapidly climbing the stairs two at a time and a young black man leapt, smiling, into the room. It was Zeke Penn, who’d just danced so brilliantly at the Rotunda. He lit up the dreary little room, his eyes shining and his skin glowing. His teeth were the whitest she’d ever seen. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she gasped.
‘I’m hungry, ma’am,’ he replied politely, the smile fading just a little, ‘and there wasn’t a sign outside saying “No Blacks Allowed”.’
At this, Mollie felt so horrified she nearly dropped her tea. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that,’ she stammered, ‘Only I’ve just seen the show and I thought you’d be staying at a desperately posh hotel with its own restaurant.’
‘I am staying at a desperately posh hotel, but the meals take a helluva long time coming.’ He sat at the next table, crossing his legs elegantly. He’d changed into well-cut brown trousers, a brown jersey, and a heavy suede jacket with fur lining. ‘First there’s the soup,’ he said, holding up a finger. ‘You have to wait until they’ve slaughtered the ox and cut off its tail, or caught the mulligatawny - whatever a mulligatawny may be.’ He raised another finger. ‘Then there’s another long wait for the main course.’ A third finger was raised. ‘The dessert appears about midnight, followed by the coffee,’ another finger, ‘which last night was cold. When I came out of the theatre, I saw this little diner across the street and thought I’d eat here. I’m sure as hell hungry,’ he added a trifle pathetically.
Issy appeared with a plate heaped with chips and two pieces of battered fish. ‘I’ll bring the tea in a minute, luv,’ she panted.
‘In Liverpool, all the women call me “love”,’ Zeke Penn remarked. He removed his coat and tucked into the food.
Mollie smiled. She turned away to let him eat in peace and told Harry the events of the day before. ‘When everyone had gone, Megan only asked her grandma for a divorce. “I don’t want to live with you any more,” she said. Irene nearly went through the roof.’
‘It must be funny having kids,’ Harry mused.
‘You can meet mine, if you want. They’re coming to the first house at the Rotunda on Saturday. You might like to come at the same time.’
‘Will your mother-in-law be there?’ When Mollie confirmed that was the case, he said hastily, ‘I’d sooner go to the second house.’ On reflec
tion, Mollie thought that was probably a wise decision.
Zeke Penn had finished his meal in record time. ‘What did you think of the show?’ he enquired.
‘I loved every minute,’ Mollie enthused. ‘At least, every minute that I managed to see. I’m in the box office and I missed the first half.’
‘Why don’t you bring your tea over here and drink it with us, mate?’ Harry suggested.
‘“Love” and “mate”; I like that.’ He put his tea on their table and sat next to Harry. ‘It’s a big improvement on what I was called back in the States by white folk. It was more usually “nigger” or “you dirty nigger”, or names that I can’t repeat in front of a lady.’
‘All white folk?’ Mollie’s brow puckered. ‘My auntie lives in New York and she’d never call black people names like that.’
‘No, not all white folk,’ he conceded. ‘I suppose I got over-sensitive about it. I had some really good friends who were white, but they moved to California. Not long afterwards, I left to live in Paris. It’s different there; I’m treated as an equal.’ He gave a joyful sigh. ‘You’d have to be black yourself to know how good it feels, though I badly miss my family back in New York. Whereabouts in New York does your aunt live, ma’am?’
‘Oh, please call me Mollie and this is Harry,’ Mollie cried. ‘Aunt Maggie used to live in Greenwich Village, but now she’s in Queens.’
‘I lived in Harlem; ’fact I was born there, but I know Greenwich Village well. There’s clubs there, jazz clubs, that admit blacks.’
He seemed ready to chat all night, but after a while Mollie said reluctantly that she couldn’t stay another minute. Irene would have been expecting her home ages ago. Zeke said he’d catch a taxi back to the hotel, but Harry informed him he’d have a long time to wait for a taxi, as not many cruised along Scotland Road in the hope of picking up a fare.
‘Best thing is to take a tram into town. I’ll come with you, show you to the door of your hotel. It’d be a bit risky to go wandering round town looking like that. I’m talking about your coat, mate, not your colour. There’s some scallies who’d give their right arm for a coat like yours; they’d have it off your back before you could turn around.’
The audience must have gone home and told their friends about the show, and the friends told their friends. The following night, the queue was longer than Mollie had ever known. At least a hundred people had to be turned away. The night after, the queue was even longer. Some who’d queued for hours sold their tickets for twice as much to people at the back.
‘Couldn’t you stay another week?’ she asked Zeke when he turned up at Charlie’s for the third night in a row. The room was almost full. It seemed to have got around that Zeke Penn graced Charlie’s with his company after the show.
‘Sorry, Mollie,’ he said regretfully. ‘I must say I’m enjoying Liverpool, but we’re due in Manchester next week and Birmingham the week after, then three other cities - I can’t remember the names. We finish at the Palladium in London around the end of May. We’ve been given to understand the King of England will be there.’
‘Lucky old you,’ Harry said scornfully. ‘I hope you don’t bow and scrape to him. Don’t forget you were born in a country that got rid of kings and queens a long time ago and became a republic. As for France, they chopped the buggers’ heads off.’
Zeke’s eyes twinkled merrily. ‘I shall probably bow, Harry, but I certainly won’t scrape.’
‘Where did you learn to tap-dance, Zeke?’ someone shouted.
‘I went to a stage school in New York.’
‘Does anyone know if there’s a stage school in Liverpool?’
No one did, but Mollie said loudly there were plenty of dancing teachers around.
‘I wouldn’t mind our Rosie learning to tap-dance. I wonder how much it costs?’
The questions continued. Zeke, the centre of attention, seemed perfectly happy to answer them. Yes, he really had starred on Broadway, he confirmed: ‘It was in a show called Roses are Red; I played a bellboy.’
As the week progressed, more and more people packed into Charlie’s, and the chip shop, unused to doing so much trade at such a late hour, required extra help. The late Charlie’s wife, who only worked during the day, came to supervise. A tiny, wizened woman, who wore a dirty white overall and too much lipstick, she sat at the top of the stairs, watching the charismatic young man entertaining her customers with tales of New York and Paris.
Harry continued to accompany him on the tram and deliver him safely to his hotel. ‘What do you talk about?’ Mollie asked.
‘All sorts of things.’ Harry shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Football. He’d like to see a match on Saturday - Everton are playing Chelsea - but he’d have to leave at half-time and it wouldn’t be worth it. He’s worried about the situation in Europe - Hitler loathes Negroes as much as he does Jews. Oh,’ he grinned, ‘and we talked about you. He thought you were me wife.’
Mollie claimed to be offended. ‘If I were your wife, I wouldn’t let you go around looking like a tramp. I’d’ve chucked that jersey a long time ago and bought you a new pair of trousers and a pair of socks - two pairs of socks. Doesn’t your gran look after you?’ she asked exasperatedly.
‘She’d like to, but I won’t let her. I’m all right as I am, Mollie. Don’t fuss.’
‘I’m only fussing because Zeke thought I was your wife.’
Saturday night was sad enough seeing the show for the final time, but even sadder at Charlie’s where a crowd had gathered to say tara to Zeke. The atmosphere was gloomy. Zeke was like a star that had briefly shone on their minuscule part of the universe and was about to move on. Unless a miracle happened, they would never see his like again.
‘Manchester and Birmingham and all those other places will seem very dull after Liverpool,’ Zeke said to Mollie.
‘Liverpool will seem dull without you,’ she told him. She put her arm around his neck and kissed his cheek. ‘Goodbye, Zeke, it’s been lovely knowing you.’
Everyone went outside to see him and Harry off on the tram, cheering and banging the windows. Mollie watched the tram make its rackety way towards town. The magic was over and life was about to resume its normal dull routine.
Actually, life wasn’t all that dull. Her job at the Rotunda continued to enthral her, although the shows weren’t a patch on Parisian Music Hall. Harry met her every night and they became regulars at Charlie’s, but never bought more than two cups of tea, which they drank while sorting out the problems of the world.
She felt convinced it must have got back to Irene that she was seeing Harry, but her mother-in-law didn’t say anything. For months now, putting aside the occasional tiff between Megan and her grandma, an air of tranquillity had filled the house in Turnpike Street. Mollie and the girls enjoyed a decent night’s sleep, having swapped bedrooms with Irene, who’d moved into the middle bedroom. Mollie had bought an extra bed. No doubt due to the provision of better food, Dandelion hadn’t found it necessary to fill his stomach elsewhere, so Brodie was happy. Furthermore, after seeing Parisian Music Hall, Mollie had heard Megan and Brodie saying how much they’d love to dance, not like Zeke, but Mimi. She found a ballet teacher who taught in St Oswald’s church hall, Old Swan, and booked the girls in for two hours on Saturday mornings. The cost was sixpence an hour for both and she was thrilled at the idea of being able to spend an entire shilling without having to cut back on other things. She made the little frilly frocks herself - they were called tutus - and visited Paddy’s Market to look for ballet shoes. She’d actually found some that only required a small amount of darning on the toes.
Mollie would far sooner Tom were still alive and they were living in the house in Allerton. But Tom was dead and she had to make the best of things the way they were. Tommy was now five and would start school in September and be able to keep an eye on his brother; she worried about Joe when he was at school. Brodie was such a sweet little girl and the other girls seemed to like her. Megan didn’t care if
they liked her or not. As for Irene, she relished her weekly visits to the Rotunda with the children; they went to the first house every Saturday. The only fly in the ointment was Harry Benedict.
They couldn’t go on the way they were. He was young, virile, and exceptionally good-looking. If he bothered to comb his hair now and again and dress more smartly, he could have had any woman he wanted. As it was, enough girls went weak at the knees at the mere sight of him. Mollie knew he wouldn’t be content for long with tea in Charlie’s and a stroll along Scotland Road. Much to her disappointment, he hadn’t tried to kiss her again. Even if he did, the time would come when he’d want more than just kisses. She tried to visualize going to bed with Harry Benedict, but her imagination refused to let her; she was too attached to the memory of Tom.
The crunch came months later, in August, when the children were on holiday from school and the theatre had closed for a month. She still met Harry. At half past nine, when it was beginning to grow dark and the children were in bed, she’d say to Irene, ‘I’m just going for a walk, I won’t be long.’
Irene didn’t ask where she was going or why hadn’t she gone for a walk in daylight, just, ‘All right, luv. I’ll probably be in bed by the time you get back.’
Harry would be in Charlie’s, the tea already paid for. Rita or Issy would bring it up as soon as she arrived. ‘Hello,’ Mollie would say, touching his shoulder lightly then sitting opposite him at the wobbly table.
‘Hello.’ He in turn would touch her hand.
On the night in particular, when the crunch came and everything changed, Harry was hunched over the table and didn’t move when she sat down.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘You look very glum.’
‘Glum!’ He sat up straight and gave her a caustic smile. ‘I’m not glum, as you put it,’ he said angrily. ‘I’m on top of the world. I’m going away. I’m going to do something proper with me life for a change, stop fiddling round at the edges trying to put things right and wasting me bloody time.’