The Urchin's Song

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘I want to dance again.’ She stood up as she spoke, her voice high and sharp as she flicked at the table in front of her. ‘Da, tell them to move these tables back so we can dance.’

  ‘Aye, aye all right, lass. In a minute.’

  ‘Now.’

  Josie had to work her way through a crowd of folk who all wanted to say how well she had sung before she could reach her mother and Vera, who were now sitting on a long bench against the wall, their table having been one of the first to be taken away.

  There was a small man sitting on the other side of Vera but Josie didn’t pay him any attention as her mother said, immediately she saw her, ‘Ee, hinny, that were grand, right grand. Brought to mind some of the sing-songs we had at home when your da was out. You remember, lass?’

  ‘Aye, I remember, Mam.’ Josie smiled at her mother’s pleasure. She’d stand and sing all day long if it brought that look to her mam’s face.

  ‘An’ now . . .’ Shirley’s voice was suddenly pensive, ‘scattered here, there an’ everywhere, the lot o’ us. Mind, I’m not complainin’, lass. Never had it so good as at Vera’s. But me mind goes to the lads at times; whether your da is lookin’ after ’em right.’

  ‘Jimmy will take care of himself and Hubert, you know that, Mam. If anyone can handle Da, Jimmy can.’ She didn’t add that the reason for this was because her brother understood the way her father’s mind worked, being so like him.

  ‘Aye, you’re right there, me bairn. By, you are. An’ I dare say in a month or two the lot of ’em will turn up like bad pennies. Mind, your da’ll get a gliff then, ’cos I’m not budgin’ from Vera’s.’

  ‘Josie,’ Vera cut in before Shirley could say any more, ‘this is Mr Harper, an’ he wants a word with you, lass. He’s somethin’ important to say.’

  Josie smiled and said, ‘How do you do?’ to Mr Harper, but her mind was mainly on her mother’s last words, along with the two figures on the dance-floor. The fiddlers had just begun to play a lively tune and Pearl had swept on to the floor with her new husband, smiling and nodding at everyone as they clapped the bridal pair.

  ‘It’s like this, lass.’ Ernest Harper was not a man who wasted words. ‘I’m looking for a fill-in for a couple of nights at Ginnett’s, you know? Northumberland Road? I had a canny musical clown with a violin but he upped an’ skedaddled south last week.’

  ‘He did?’ Josie didn’t have a clue what Mr Harper was talking about.

  ‘Aye. Now I’ve got a nice comedian who plays the bagpipes an’ banjo an’ a one-string fiddle an’ goodness knows what, an’ he has been doing extra an’ standing in, but old Joey had got a right canny voice, an’ that’s what’s needed. They like a tune, you see, an’ I’ve only one other singer at present, although I’ve wizards an’ ventriloquists an’ acrobats coming out of me ears.’

  In spite of herself Josie’s eyes were drawn to the little man’s ears which were long and pointed and stuck straight out at the side of his head. And then she took hold of herself, and said a little breathlessly, ‘I don’t quite understand. Are you offering me a chance to sing at your theatre, Mr Harper?’

  ‘Just for a night or two, to see how it works,’ Ernest Harper said quickly. He didn’t want to commit himself too far - sometimes they got onstage and dried up worse than old Finley’s backside; you never could tell. But - and here he nodded reflectively - he felt in his water this one was going to come up trumps. She’d had ’em in the palm of her hand when she’d sung just now; if she could do the same at the theatre . . . He felt the stir of excitement - the same feeling he’d had once or twice in the past when he’d come across an act that had something extra. ‘But if you suit us an’ we suit you . . .’

  Josie stared at him, her head spinning. There was nothing she would like more than to accept this little man’s offer; it was the sort of chance she’d been dreaming about for years, but since her mind had cleared over the last few days and she had learned that her father had skedaddled with the lads, the weight of her mother’s welfare had settled even heavier on her shoulders. She needed to find work, steady regular work, and pay Betty and Vera what she owed them before she did anything else, and that would take months when you considered the ongoing debt of their board and lodging. The bill for the doctor hadn’t been cheap either, she knew that, and she couldn’t let Frank and Betty cover it. What’s more, her mam couldn’t stay with Vera for ever . . .

  Her racing thoughts were cut short as Vera spoke again, saying, ‘Obviously with the lass bein’ so young her mam’ll have a say in this. Can you give us a minute to talk it over?’

  ‘Oh aye, aye. Aye, of course.’ Ernest hid his disquiet at the thought that this particular prize might slip away from him, but what he said was, ‘Mind, the best of ’em started young on the halls - mostly bairns, the lot of ’em. Look, I’ll say a trial of seven nights, all right? An’ we’ll say two bob a night - that’s more than I’d start many a one off, I tell you straight. You have a think with your mam, lass, an’ I’ll see you afore I go.’ He bobbed his head at them all and moved away.

  Had he said two shillings a night? Josie had bargained with too many shopkeepers and the like in her young life to let her amazement at what she considered a huge amount of money show, but two shillings a night! That was fourteen shillings for just singing seven evenings, and she still had the days free. The laundry had paid three shillings and tenpence for five and a half days of backbreaking work, and she knew she’d been lucky to get that. In some of the factories and shops hereabouts, bit lasses of her age were paid no more than two and sixpence a week on account of their age and sex, whilst being expected to do the same day’s work as women three times their age. And a collier like Frank only earned double what Mr Harper had just offered her! Had she heard right?

  ‘Fourteen shillings, Josie.’ Vera’s voice was hushed, and Shirley sat with her mouth agape staring at her amazing offspring. ‘An’ that’s just for starters, lass. You’ve got to give it a go. Now look, don’t worry about your mam. Me an’ Shirl’ve already decided she’s not leavin’ whatever your da says when he turns up. I’m clearin’ me front room an’ your mam’s havin’ that, an’ there’ll be room for the lads if needs be.’

  ‘Oh, Vera.’ Josie reached over her mother and took Vera’s hand. ‘Not your lovely front room,’ she protested. ‘You don’t have to, really. I’ll sort something.’

  ‘You can’t say anythin’ your mam hasn’t said already, hinny, but me mind’s made up. My Horace has never liked me front room anyway - says he don’t dare breathe in it.’ Vera grinned wryly. ‘An’ you’re settled here now; our Bett says she don’t know how she managed with the bairns an’ mendin’ an’ all afore you come. Little godsend, she says you are. Gertie’s doin’ fine, too, aren’t you, lass?’ The little girl had just sidled up to them and this last was said bracingly; Gertie still didn’t like her new school.

  Josie looked into the rough square northern face in front of her but found she couldn’t speak for the emotion filling her throat. She saw now why Vera had got Mr Harper to leave them for a while; her friend had known she was teetering on the brink of refusing his offer and the reasons for her hesitation. The love in Vera’s eyes was shining out at her, and it was in answer to that that Josie said, ‘I . . . I could give it a go for a week, couldn’t I? I’ve lost nothing that way. And if it doesn’t work out I can look for something else.’

  ‘Aye, lass, you could.’

  But she would make it work. As Josie looked at their faces - her mam’s, Vera’s and Gertie’s - they were all expressing different emotions. Her mam’s expression was one of incredulity and a certain amount of bewilderment, Vera’s, one of fierce pride and encouragement; and Gertie was simply trying to work out what was going on and what she had missed. As Josie stared at the three people she loved best in all the world, she knew she would make it work whatever it cost. This was her chance; this was what she had dreamed of ever since she had first started singing in the pubs as a wee bairn - to ea
rn her living singing. True, in those days she had never set her sights further than the pubs and supper rooms, but why couldn’t she aspire higher?

  She could learn what to do - how to sing properly, to walk, what clothes to wear and everything - she wasn’t stupid, but unless she put her toe in the water she’d never get started, would she? This was her chance, it was. Everything seemed to have conspired to bring her to this moment; even the nasty run-ins with her da and Patrick Duffy. She felt a moment’s chill but shrugged the spectres aside; she wouldn’t let her da and that other evil man ruin this moment.

  She said the words out loud: ‘I’ll do it.’ And then louder: ‘I’ll do it, I will.’

  Shirley hadn’t taken her eyes from Josie, and now she said very quietly, ‘Lass, are you sure? I mean, a music hall? Some of them actress types an’ singers are no better than they should be.’

  Josie looked steadily at her mother. It was strange, but in this moment she felt years older than the woman who had given birth to her. Her mother had allowed her to go into some of the worst pubs in Sunderland from when she was little more than knee high in order to scratch them a decent going-on, and her father had brought men like Patrick Duffy into their home and moreover started her brothers on a life of crime as soon as they were off the breast, and now her mother was questioning the morals of the performers in the music halls?

  For a second she wanted to laugh, and then the well of pity which always accompanied her dealings with her mother made itself felt. She didn’t understand her mam at times, and she would never comprehend how she could have stood by and let Ada and then Dora go down that road, but she was her mam and she loved her. ‘I’m going to give it a go, Mam, and see what happens because I’d regret it the rest of my life if I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure, hinny.’

  ‘Aye, I am sure.’

  And so it was settled.

  Part 2

  Ambition 1900

  Chapter Seven

  Josie smiled and curtsied as she stood listening to the tumultuous applause spilling over the gold radiance of the footlights, and not for the first time she reflected that the music hall was an enchanted place to its patrons. People just wanted to enter a warm world of magic and romance where their troubles were forgotten for a few hours, and who could blame them? She even managed to escape from the real world herself when she was onstage - or at least she usually did, she corrected herself in the next moment as the heavy velvet curtain swung across the stage and she heard the dapper Sidney Potts - in his role of chairman - begin his exposition to introduce the next act.

  Josie moved gracefully into the wings of the theatre as the Amazing Lamphorcini Brothers passed her. They were a troupe of five Italian brothers who presented a skilful juggling and acrobatic knockabout comedy routine, including grotesque gymnastics and outrageous innuendo. The youngest of the brothers, a cheeky seventeen year old, winked at her as he caught her eye, and Josie smiled back at him absently.

  She was so glad she was finishing at Hartlepool tonight. She needed to get back to Sunderland and see how her mam was. This wretched influenza. All that stuff they had written in the newspapers at the beginning of the year about inventions and suchlike, and yet no one knew how to fight the illness which was sweeping the country and ravaging its occupants. It had already taken old Maud and Enoch Tollett before Christmas.

  The new century had been ushered in on the heels of a decade which many had glowingly described as one of unparalleled achievements. The spectacular discovery by the German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of some kind of ray streaming out of gas-filled bottles when he passed electricity through them (which he’d called X-rays simply because X was the standard symbol for anything scientists didn’t understand) had been hailed as miraculous.

  Residents of Coney Island in America were the first folk to try a novelty ride called an escalator; a miracle drug - aspirin - which contained properties to reduce fevers and pain and came in the form of easy-to-take tablets was now available, and most exciting of all - and the hardest for Josie to comprehend - was the birth of radio communications which had been pioneered in Britain at about the same time as she had first set foot on a stage.

  When Guglielmo Marconi was granted a patent which met with Royal approval and Queen Victoria herself communicated wirelessly from Osborne House with the Prince of Wales on board the Royal Yacht, the newspapers had been full of it, along with the news that Lord Kelvin had sent the first ever telegram by wireless.

  Which was how it should be, Britain’s inhabitants had declared patriotically. Didn’t one in four of the world’s population look to Britain as their ruler? The Empire was the greatest power on earth, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Britain ruled far-flung lands as well as the waves and that this would always be so.

  However, as the influenza epidemic which had taken hold in December grew worse, there was less thought about the glory of the Empire and more about who was going to be the next to die in all the towns and cities of Britain. Fifty people a day were dying in London alone, and the illness which had been regarded as something of a fashionable malady when it had first occurred several years before, was now inspiring widespread panic and alarm. Gravediggers were working day and night all over the country, and due to a shortage of nurses and closure of some hospital wards, the situation was getting worse daily.

  As with the dreaded typhoid and cholera, the influenza seemed to hit the old, infirm and very young most severely, and this was on Josie’s mind as she walked down the thirty or so stone steps leading from the stage to the dressing rooms.

  The room designated for the female performers was long and low, with whitewashed walls and one window. Gas jets gave feeble illumination, but overall it was dark and hot and smelly, two ventilators releasing draughts of unpleasant air. Apart from several wooden forms to sit on and a large wardrobe, the room was empty. An ancient stone sink stood in a corner. The dresser, a blowsy old woman with a permanent dewdrop at the end of her nose, used the sink solely for the purpose of keeping her grey hen - a large narrow-necked stone jar holding a vast quantity of beer - cool, and consequently there was always a pool of water skimming the floor where she’d had to remove it for a few minutes for performers to wash either before or after applying their stage make-up.

  Since entering the brassy, rumbustious world of the music hall, Josie had appeared at numerous venues, from halls which were little more than the song and supper rooms which constituted the origins of the music halls, to theatres which had been purpose-built. Certain music halls, she had found, had personalities of their own, but by and large they were all much of a pattern. However, she’d never travelled further afield than some thirty or forty miles from Sunderland, simply because she always felt she must be within easy travelling distance of home, should she be needed. Josie knew her mother was ill, very ill, and wanted to be able to reach her within a couple of hours, should it be necessary.

  The fact that this had severely restricted her choice of venues and undoubtedly held her career back had caused Josie some regret but no real dilemma. During the last four years she had been approached by numerous agents, most of whom had made extravagant promises that they would take her to top billing if she was prepared to put herself in their hands, but knowing this would mean travelling all over the country and undoubtedly working the London halls, she had refused them all.

  And so, with Gertie by her side, she had done a few weeks here and a few weeks there all over the north-east, comforting herself with the knowledge that she was getting plenty of valuable experience and a good basic understanding of how things operated. Josie knew she was fortunate never to have been without work since she’d first started. Most weeks she would appear at two or occasionally three halls a night in the area in which she was working, earning a certain amount at each per week which added up to her final wage.

  She could now command a fee of thirty shillings a week or more at any one hall, but her expenses were considerable. B
oard and lodging for herself and Gertie, carriages to whisk her from one venue to another several times a night, her costumes and make-up all took their toll, and she sent home regular payments to Vera for taking care of her mother, along with extra funds to cover her mother’s doctors’ bills and medication. Although Gertie was her dresser, in some of the halls the management would insist that the artistes contributed to the wage of the resident dresser, whether they availed themselves of her assistance or not, like this present one.

  Gertie was waiting for her when she opened the door to the dressing room and as ever, amid all the chaos and bustle, her sister had contrived to secure a small corner where Josie’s clothes were folded neatly and securely and her hat box and other possessions were in place. ‘Here.’ Gertie handed her a mug of hot, sweet tea. ‘Drink this afore you do anything else, lass.’

  Josie took the tea gratefully, remarking, as she did most nights, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Gertie.’

  From the moment Josie had put her hair up that first night she had stepped on to Ginnett’s Amphitheatre’s stage four years ago and received a hearty encore, she had no longer felt like a young girl, but a young woman. Sure enough, within the following eighteen months her figure had filled out, she had grown another few inches and now - at seventeen years of age - she had turned into a composed and very lovely young woman. Gertie, on the other hand, had barely changed at all, and at fifteen was still tiny. However, what she lacked in inches she had gained in confidence, and although her health was never particularly robust, Gertie had developed into a force to be reckoned with, Josie reflected fondly, as she gazed into the plain little face smiling at her.

  ‘You tired, lass?’ Gertie asked her and then, shaking her head at herself, she said, ‘ ’Course you’re tired, hark at me! Dashing about like a blue-arsed fly seven days a week, it’s no wonder. I wish you’d take a break for a few days.’