‘Do you think so?’ Ewan shook his head. ‘These past few weeks, I must admit I’ve wondered.’
‘You’re just preoccupied. You’re worried sick about your Daisy May, and I can’t say I blame you.’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ said Ewan, and now he thought, Amy’s not a harpy, after all. In fact, she’s very kind and, for an older woman, she’s quite attractive, too.
‘Just be patient, darling,’ Amy told him, shrugging, and Ewan could feel her bosom pressing close against his side. ‘She’ll come to her senses, see the error of her ways. Or Mr Smarmy Smartarse will overreach himself, and Mr and Mrs C will have to sack him.’
‘If that bastard so much as touches her – ’
‘I know, you’ll punch his horrid head in, his beauty will be ruined, and you’ll end up in prison. So calm down, let matters take their course, and in the meantime think about your own career.’
‘I don’t seem to have one nowadays.’
‘Ewan, don’t be ridiculous. But you’re a serious actor, not a lightweight. When you get a chance to play a part that’s got some meat on it, you shine. Audiences in the Midlands don’t want serious stuff. They want melodrama, or light, escapist comedy, and comedy isn’t really you, my sweet. You’re too intense for comedy.’
‘Amy – Mrs Nightingale – it’s all very well for you to say I should be playing Hamlet, but where should I be playing him?’
‘Somewhere like Manchester or Glasgow. The City Players or the Comrades would be perfect companies for you.’
‘I’ve heard about the Glasgow Comrades.’
‘I know one of its backers.’ Amy glanced up at Ewan and smiled conspiratorially. ‘If you like, I could put in a word?’
‘That would be very kind of you,’ said Ewan. ‘But I can’t leave Daisy. I told her parents I’d look after her, and I can’t break my promise.’
‘She might break it for you,’ Amy told him, grimacing. ‘Look, can you see them – straight ahead?’
Ewan looked, and saw the bastard Trent walking with Daisy, and they were hand in hand.
Chapter Ten
‘I’d love to see you dance.’ Jesse moved Daisy’s lemonade to make room for his pint of bitter, and then sat down beside her on the wooden bench.
Ewan caught Amy’s eye and saw her shake her golden head – don’t rise to it, she was saying, don’t gratify his vanity, don’t give him ammunition.
‘You have the perfect body for a dancer,’ continued Jesse. ‘You’re slender, not too tall, and you have nice, long legs.’
‘I do like to dance,’ admitted Daisy, going red as Jesse came out with words like legs and body, which seemed a bit too intimate for general conversation in a pub.
‘Ballroom, ballet, tap?’ asked Jesse.
‘Anything and everything,’ Daisy told him, smiling.
‘We’ll go dancing, then,’ said Jesse. ‘On the next rest day, we’ll try out the local palais, shall we? Give the regulars some entertainment? Show them how to do it?’
Jesse looked round the table to see half a dozen pairs of eyes all goggling at him. ‘All of us,’ he added hastily, as the others stared.
‘Oh, I thought you and Daisy May were fixing up a private outing,’ Amy told him caustically.
‘Good of you to let us tag along,’ said Julia, taking out her compact, then starting on her mouth.
Ewan didn’t say anything. He put his arm round Daisy’s shoulders, and then he pulled her close. He glanced at Amy, who nodded her approval and smiled covertly at him.
That evening, Daisy looked at herself in the spotted wardrobe mirror. She thought that yes, she did have nice long legs, that her still childish figure was perfect for a dancer.
She’d been inclined to envy Julia’s and Amy’s generous curves. But now she thought, who needs a bosom like a bolster, anyway?
Jesse made her feel attractive – even beautiful. When he smiled, she felt so warmed, so bathed in radiance, that it was as if the sun shone even on the dullest, rainiest day.
She couldn’t wait to dance with him.
‘You and Mr Smartarse, you should be in revue, that Mr C B Cochran doesn’t know what he’s been missing,’ Amy said sarcastically to Daisy, as the three of them straggled to the bus stop on another wet and windy morning, after they’d all been dancing at the local palais the previous Tuesday night.
As they had arranged, on their rest day the whole company had gone dancing. Mr and Mrs Curtis had floundered round the hall like walruses, but looked as if they were having a good time. George and Frank had danced a bit with Julia and Amy, but the four of them had soon got tired of this unwonted exercise, and settled down at the bar.
Ewan had been taught to dance at school. But he wasn’t naturally graceful. Strong and athletic, rather than lithe and sinuous, he was no Fred Astaire.
After he’d watched Ewan and Daisy dance a fairly competent but wooden foxtrot, Jesse had found he couldn’t stand to watch them any more. He’d disentangled her from Ewan, who couldn’t punch him in a public place, and then he took Daisy in his arms. They’d shown the other dancers how it should be done, with style and flowing grace.
‘Where did you learn to foxtrot like a pro?’ Jesse had demanded grinning, when they finally took a break and went to get a drink.
‘In India,’ Daisy told him, aware that she was glowing and feeling gloriously alive, lit up with the happy satisfaction of doing something she did well. ‘My father was in the army there, and Mum sent me to dancing lessons. Singing lessons, too.’
‘Sing for me, then?’ Jesse had whispered, slipping his arm round her waist and pulling her close to him again.
Daisy had been aware of Ewan watching, of Amy screwing up her face and scowling, but she was enjoying herself so much she didn’t care.
As the band struck up again, she’d sung for Jesse Trent, keeping perfect time with the middle-aged, over-made-up dance hall vocalist, her sweet soprano ringing true and clear.
‘You’re very good, you know.’ As she’d sung to him, Jesse had pulled back a little, so that he could gaze into her eyes. When he’d smiled, her heart turned joyous cartwheels. ‘You need more lessons to teach you how to move and how to breathe. You’re not too well co-ordinated yet, and when you’re dancing you must learn to follow, while the man should lead. But your voice is lovely, and you float like thistledown. Adele and Fred Astaire had better watch it when we get to London!’
‘We’re going to London, are we?’ Daisy breathed.
‘You bet we are,’ said Jesse.
‘When are we going?’
‘Soon, my angel,’ whispered Jesse, and he winked at her as if she were a fellow plotter. ‘You try to save a bit of money, sweetheart – then we’ll see.’
As Amy, Julia and Daisy fought their way on to the crowded bus, a trundling, dirty vehicle full of people spitting, coughing, arguing and shoving their elbows into one another, she realised she couldn’t wait to see him.
She couldn’t wait to get her frock on, get her make-up on and be on stage that night. When Jesse kissed her, she could feel he meant it, and for just a few short, precious moments she could forget the audience noisily sucking boiled sweets, rustling their boxes of cheap chocolates half-filled with shavings, bran or crinkly paper, forget old ladies coughing, fidgeting and whispering to their next door neighbours.
Every night, under the glare of spotlights, she fell in love again.
Chapter Eleven
The company was going north to Yorkshire.
‘You’re going home,’ said Daisy, as they all piled on the Sunday train to Doncaster.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Jesse, who was struggling with a suitcase he wasn’t quite tall enough to heave on to the rack. So Amy had to help him, which she did with a sarcastic grin.
; ‘You’re going to Yorkshire, where you come from, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Jesse, grimacing. ‘But I’m from Wakefield, miles from all the places we’ll be going.’ He lit a cigarette and slumped down in his seat. He stared out of the window, making it clear he wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
Daisy realised she’d been very tactless. Of course he wouldn’t be happy to be going back to Yorkshire, the scene of all his childhood misery.
Monday morning saw the company members trooping from their various chilly lodgings to a shabby theatre in a rough part of the town, where they would spend the next two weeks giving twelve evenings and four matinees to a hopefully receptive audience of shop assistants, mill hands, clerks and general tradesmen and their wives.
‘All right, girls and boys, less gossiping!’ Alfred Curtis strode on to the stage, his monocle in place and white spats gleaming – they’d obviously been Blancoed recently. ‘We’ve three hours to get everything set up. The property and costume skips will still be at the station. So, Mr Trent and Mr Reed, could you please go and fetch them? You may take a taxi, gentlemen. If you can find one in this godforsaken town.’
Then Mrs Curtis, clad as usual in regal purple, and wearing an amazing hat that looked as if she had a chicken nesting in her wig, came up to join her husband.
‘Ladies, your dressing room leaves quite a lot to be desired,’ she told them, all her chins a-wobble with disapproval. ‘There’s no basin, the flipping roof is leaking, and there’s an inch of water on the floor. I’ve asked the management to find duckboards, but God knows if they will. You’ve got facilities down the passage.
‘Gents, you’ve got a khazi in the yard, and it looks disgusting. But there are chamber pots in all the cupboards.’
When they scanned the local papers after their first night, Daisy found she’d got some decent notices again. She cut them out to stick them in her album.
Then, to her surprise, she got a pay rise, to three pounds two and six a week. She would soon be earning enough to send some money home.
‘It’s not your acting, it’s your legs, my darling,’ whispered Julia, as they stood waiting in the wings that evening. ‘Alfred can’t resist a pair of pins, neither can the audiences, and of course yours are up there with the best. If I had legs like yours, I’d walk around in knickers all the time, so everyone could see.’
‘But he’s still exploiting you, like he exploits the rest of us,’ said Amy. She shot a poisonous glance at Alfred Curtis, who was standing on the opposite side and arguing with a lighting man who seemed both daft and drunk.
‘You’re only jealous.’ Julia elbowed Amy in the side. ‘Daisy, darlin’, I don’t like to ask, and you’ll get every penny back, I swear, but lend me a quid till Friday?’
‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ warned Amy. ‘She’ll spend it all on gin and fags and lipstick, mark my words.’
‘Who asked your opinion?’ Julia looked beseechingly at Daisy. ‘Sweetheart, fifteen bob?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Daisy. ‘Just remind me after we come off tonight.’
‘You’re far too soft, young Daisy May.’ Amy Nightingale hitched up her stockings, smoothing out the wrinkles at her knees. ‘This leech will bleed you dry. Come on, love, we’re on.’
Ewan was determined to be cool with Daisy, to give her space to breathe, to hope that if he didn’t stifle her she’d get sick and tired of being smarmed at by the devious bastard Jesse Trent.
‘Who’s your letter from?’ he asked one lunch time, sitting down beside her on the edge of the apron stage. They’d come back early from the pub and were made up and costumed for the matinee, in plenty of time before the audience came in. Daisy was swinging her legs and reading, shaking her head and laughing now and then.
‘My mother,’ she replied, not looking up.
‘Oh, which one?’ said Ewan.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘As I remember, you have two.’
‘Yes, I suppose I do.’ Daisy folded the letter up and put it in her pocket. ‘It’s from Dorset,’ she explained. ‘Mum sent it to the last address but one, so it’s been following me around, and it’s all old news now. But it’s so nice to hear from them and find out what they’re doing, especially the twins.’
‘It wasn’t so very long ago we were searching every street directory in England for Phoebe Gower or Rosenheim,’ said Ewan. ‘I would be happy to start again while we’re in Yorkshire.’
‘I don’t know if there’s any point.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. But, as I say, if you want to knock on doors, look at electoral registers, or anything like that, I’ll be glad to help you.’
‘Thank you, Ewan, you’re very kind.’
Then Daisy looked at him, and suddenly she was wistful and soft-eyed, and Ewan saw the Daisy that he loved.
He saw the glint of gold around her neck. So she still wears my chain, he thought, she must still feel she’s mine. They would find their way back to the place where they had been so happy, and everything would be all right again. He reached out, touched her lightly on the shoulder. ‘Daisy?’ he whispered.
‘Yes?’ She leaned towards him, red lips parted, blue eyes wide.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been a stupid, jealous fool.’
‘You haven’t, Ewan,’ said Daisy. Then she put her arms around his neck, and he was about to kiss her when there was a thump, a curse, the unmistakeable sound of someone dropping something heavy, probably on a foot.
They heard the audience gathering in the foyer, buzzing like a swarm of happy bees. The auditorium doors crashed open, and the spell was broken. Daisy scrambled to her feet to duck behind the curtain, and Ewan did the same.
Amy and Julia skittered up behind them, chattering and laughing at some private joke.
‘All right, you two?’ said Amy. She gave Ewan a big grin, a saucy wink, and then she kissed him on the cheek before she scurried off to fix her make-up.
Just about all right, he thought, and smiled. I hope we’re almost home and dry. He’d have to try to think of somewhere he and Daisy could go together on their next day off. Somewhere the others wouldn’t follow them.
‘I’ve been wanting to ask you, Ewan,’ whispered Daisy, as they joined each other in the wings, ‘why are you so thick with Amy these days? Why are you always following her around?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Ewan, genuinely astonished.
‘I think you do,’ said Daisy. ‘She’s always nodding at you and smirking. She was doing it just now. It’s as if there’s something private going on between you.’
The monster, who’d been lying dozing, suddenly woke up. ‘Why do you see so much of Jesse Trent?’ demanded Ewan. ‘You seem to spend every daylight hour with him!’
‘If I do, why shouldn’t I?’
‘You’re my girl, that’s why!’
‘So I can’t have a conversation with another man? I spend time with George and Frank, as well. You don’t mind that.’
‘George and Frank aren’t interested in girls.’ Ewan scowled at Jesse, who’d just walked on to the stage with George and started to do stretches, while George made sure the chairs and tables and various other props were where they ought to be. ‘George is not like Trent.’
‘Ewan, hadn’t you better make sure you know where all your things are for this afternoon?’ asked Daisy coldly. ‘You couldn’t find your boots last week, and don’t forget you’re going to need the violin today. You won’t be able to do Scene 3 without it.’
‘Less chattering, now,’ hissed Mrs Curtis, bustling up behind them. ‘Darlings, if could you possibly save your lovers’ tiff till later, I’d be very grateful. The audience is coming in, and they’ve paid their money to see the play, not hear Mr Fraser carrying on.’
Ewan went to find
his violin.
‘There’s not a bad old crowd out there today,’ said Julia, as the beginners for Blighted Blossoms huddled in the wings.
‘Jolly good,’ grinned George, patting first his padding and then his crêpe moustache.
‘Daisy, I must have a word.’ Jesse Trent took Daisy’s arm and pulled her to one side, turning his back on George and Julia. ‘It’s no good,’ he whispered. ‘You must know how I feel about you. What are we going to do?’
‘We can’t do anything right now, we’re on in thirty seconds.’ Daisy didn’t know what else to say.
‘Oh, Daisy, don’t be such a flirt!’ cried Jesse, making Julia turn and stare at him. He glared at her until she finally shrugged and looked away. ‘You and I, we’re not meant for this dull provincial stuff!’
‘Ten seconds, boy and girls,’ said Mrs Curtis, who was stage manager that afternoon. ‘Miss Denham, you look flustered, are you well?’
‘Yes, Mrs Curtis, I’m all right.’
But Daisy was confused. What was Amy up to, why was she vamping Ewan, and why did he seem to like it?
Well, two could play at that game, she decided, as she glanced again at Jesse Trent.
All the time they were in Doncaster, Jesse stuck to Daisy like a debt collector’s runner, appearing out of nowhere when Ewan was rehearsing, squashing himself down next to her when Ewan went to the bar, making use of any opportunity to talk to her, or smile a secret smile.
One evening in the pub, Daisy happened to remark to no one in particular that she had ambitions to play Juliet one day.
‘You can’t be a tragedienne with a name like Daisy Denham,’ Jesse told her, laughing.
‘I could change it, couldn’t I?’ retorted Daisy crossly.
‘No, my love, don’t change your name, or anything about you.’ Jesse’s hand caressed her shoulder, stroking away an errant strand of hair. ‘You could be wonderful in a musical comedy, you know. Or I can see you in revue. Gertrude Lawrence, Daisy Denham in Good Evening, London.’
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