The Golden Chain

by Margaret James

  By Friday, they’d run out of faith, of optimism, and almost out of Daisy’s money. ‘We’ll have to get non-acting jobs,’ said Jesse, as they shared a fourpenny bag of chips, warming their hands by cupping them around the greasy paper.

  ‘But if we get jobs,’ objected Daisy, ‘what do we do when agents find us something? What about auditions, if we’re working?’

  ‘We fit our work around auditions, obviously.’

  ‘What work do you suggest?’ Daisy rubbed some flea bites on her arm, desperate to have a good old scratch. ‘If there were any jobs, there wouldn’t be three million unemployed.’

  ‘We’ve each got a suitcase, we have a pound or two to buy some stock. We sell things door to door.’

  ‘You mean we go to Woolworths, buy dishcloths, towels and brushes, and try to sell them at a profit?’

  ‘We go to market stalls, love, they’ll be cheaper.’ Jesse grinned. ‘We fill our cases, and we put on a show.’

  ‘Splendid, everyone,’ said Dennis Foster. ‘I think we’ve got a show. Mr Fraser, you’re doing very well.’

  That’s a relief, thought Ewan, who wasn’t sure about the play itself. It seemed to consist mainly of ranting about the appalling living conditions of the working classes, and prophesying bloody revolution.

  But, since he was a natural mimic, reproducing the guttural accent of the Clydeside shipyards didn’t present a problem. He just hoped Mungo, Sadie and the other Comrades wouldn’t probe too deeply into his own origins, and say he was a fraud.

  He didn’t want to be a fraud.

  ‘Right, Antony and Cleopatra now.’ Dennis Foster, the manager and producer at the Comrades, looked at Ewan. ‘Mr Fraser,’ he went on, ‘you can have a crack at Antony.’

  Since Antony was an officer in the army, like his father, this was a role which Ewan was proud to play.

  Mungo was to be Octavius Caesar, and Sadie played Cleopatra, in a hideous black wig. ‘You’re very good,’ she said to Ewan, after the first rehearsal, whipping off the wig and tossing it back into the property basket.

  Mungo had cleared off already. He was probably desperate for a pint. But, still in character – or so it seemed – Sadie was apparently disposed to hang around.

  Now she smiled seductively at Ewan. Gazing up at him, she wound her long, thin fingers round and round his tie. ‘What about going to the Queen’s?’ she whispered. ‘Just the two of us?’

  ‘I think, my serpent of old Nile, we should go to the Thistle with the rest of them,’ said Ewan, as he gazed into her hazel eyes.

  ‘Oh,’ said Sadie, and her shoulders slumped.

  ‘But perhaps another time,’ he added.

  ‘I’d like that very much,’ said Sadie, and straight away she brightened up again.

  Then, like Antony, he felt his power.

  Jesse certainly put on a show.

  Daisy had been reluctant to spend their last few shillings on cotton tea-towels, oven cloths, and mops and brushes made in India. But Jesse finally talked her into it, and she had to admit it – he’d been right.

  The initial response from housewives in the smarter suburbs was almost always negative. No thank you, not today.

  But Jesse never took no for an answer, and before they’d closed the door on him he had his suitcase open, and his dubious wares out on display.

  He was shameless about telling them the cheap cotton tea-towels were finest Belfast linen, that the coarse bristle brushes were made in England and were going to last a lifetime.

  The large ones were six shillings each, which he admitted did seem quite expensive. But of course you couldn’t put a price on quality.

  ‘You overdo it,’ Daisy told him. ‘You behave like someone in a fairground, selling patent medicines.’

  ‘Yes, and like a patent medicine salesman, I try to entertain them. I brighten up their day. They get an oven cloth as well.’

  ‘You charge them far too much.’

  ‘If they can’t tell cotton from genuine Belfast linen, that’s their problem. You sell your stuff too cheaply, anyway.’

  ‘I’m not a fraud, like you.’

  ‘Sweetheart, I’m an actor!’ Jesse tossed a gleaming silver florin up into the air and caught it, grinning. ‘They pay to see a show.’

  A show was what they got. Jesse’s pockets were soon full of money, and his case was empty.

  ‘Let’s get the rest of your things sold,’ he said to Daisy. ‘Then we can have steak tonight.’

  Daisy’s mouth began to water at the very thought of a delicious, blood-red steak.

  ‘Listen, sweetheart, life is a performance,’ Jesse said the following morning, as they walked up a road they hadn’t targeted before. ‘We’re not holding anyone at gunpoint. If they buy our stuff, they do it of their own free will.’

  ‘You mesmerise them, Jesse. You’re like a weasel with a rabbit, or a mongoose with a snake.’

  ‘It’s the only way. All right, you start with number seven. I’ll work the other side, and let’s see who does best.’

  ‘Genuine Belfast linen,’ Daisy assured the bachelor or widower – a man who didn’t have a woman, she assumed, judging from the stains all down his tie, and the fact he carried a feather duster – who came to the door of number seven and looked her up and down.

  ‘A shilling each, five shillings for half a dozen,’ she added, smiling winsomely. ‘If you take a half a dozen, they’ll set you up for life.’

  A couple of minutes later, the bachelor or widower handed over two half crowns for six cotton tea-towels worth about a shilling.

  Daisy thought, I ought to be ashamed.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Jesse, when he met her on the corner with an empty suitcase and a handbag full of change.

  ‘I still feel like a highwayman,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Do you, sweetheart?’ Jesse smiled his charmer’s smile, the one the housewives clearly couldn’t resist. ‘You mustn’t. People like you and I, you know – we make this dull old world a better place. That chap you went to first, for instance. How old was he, sixty, sixty-five?’

  ‘At least,’ said Daisy.

  ‘So just imagine what his life is like, retired, living in a boring suburb on a private income or his old age pension. The most exciting it ever gets for him is potting up his geraniums or walking in the park. But one morning, there’s a beautiful young woman standing on his doorstep, smiling at him, talking to him, happy to spend ten minutes with him. Darling Daisy, you’ll have made his day.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ she told him, laughing.

  ‘You mean I’m fun.’

  ‘Yes, I agree you’re fun.’

  ‘I’m also witty, charming, handsome, talented and – ’

  ‘Modest?’ said Daisy, picking up her suitcase.

  ‘Modesty gets you nowhere.’ Jesse grabbed her other hand and danced along the pavement, so Daisy danced as well. People stopped to stare at them, but most of them smiled, too. One old man applauded.

  ‘Damn,’ said Jesse, ‘another opportunity missed. We should have brought a hat.’

  ‘I think we should go somewhere else tomorrow,’ Daisy told him later, as they sat in a little café having lunch and counting up their takings. She saw they’d made a handsome profit. They could afford to pay the rent and eat for a whole week. ‘We’ll get a bus going out of London, sit on it until we reach some tree-lined avenues, then we’ll do our routine.’

  ‘I knew you’d get into character in the end,’ said Jesse, and hugged her round the neck. ‘We’ll make an actress of you yet.’

  When Ewan didn’t open the box in which he kept the memory of Daisy, he was enjoying life.

  A mix of Shakespeare and experimental drama stretched him, interested him and kept him busy. Sadie was always smirking at him, eyeing him flirt
atiously and making it very obvious she liked him, and this helped to heal his wounded heart.

  Daisy had written six or seven letters now, all sent to the theatre because she didn’t have any other address.

  At first he’d been so angry and upset about her going off with Trent that he’d torn the first two up unopened. But he read the next few, and finally he decided to reply.

  He didn’t give much away. He just said that the Comrades were a jolly decent set of chaps – he didn’t mention the chapess – and everything was going very well. He was doing Shakespeare, and some challenging experimental drama inspired by Soviet Russia.

  Daisy was delighted to get a letter at long last, and read it on the bus.

  ‘I suppose I ought to ask you how he’s getting on,’ said Jesse, looking out of the grimy window and lighting up a cigarette. A cheap one these days, he’d had to give up the Sobranies when the cash ran out, and hadn’t started buying them again.

  ‘He says the other people are very nice, and that they’re doing some Shakespeare – which of course was always his intention – and also, let me see, what did he call it, challenging experimental drama inspired by Soviet Russia.’

  ‘He means they spout a lot of left wing drivel at half a dozen people every night, and have no scenery.’

  ‘You don’t approve of Communism, then?’

  ‘It’s certainly an interesting theory, and as for up the workers, shoot the royal family, nationalise the factories and house the homeless in the mansions of Mayfair – I’d go along with that.’

  Jesse yawned and rubbed his eyes. ‘But it won’t catch on here. Most people like to own things, and anyway the British working classes idolise the monarchy. So nobody is going to shoot our own dear king and queen.’

  ‘I should hope they’re not!’

  ‘They won’t, don’t worry. Okay, let’s go and sell some brushes, shall we? If the revolution’s coming, we’d better take every chance we get to make the principles of free enterprise work for us.’

  ‘What do you fancy doing tonight?’ asked Jesse, several hours and many brushes later. ‘Do you want to see a show, a talkie? We could afford the cheapest seats, and probably stretch to ices, too.’

  ‘I say, a treat,’ beamed Daisy.

  ‘We deserve it.’ Jesse was very pleased with life today, perhaps because a woman in a slinky silken dressing gown had not only bought a dozen tea-towels and a couple of brushes, but had asked him in for coffee, too. He’d come out half an hour later looking rumpled, but insisting they’d only chatted about her daughter’s wedding.

  Daisy decided not to mention the lipstick on his cheek. ‘I’d like to have a proper bath,’ she said. ‘If I could do anything I liked, it would be to lie in a hot scented bath for hours and hours and hours.’

  ‘Let’s do it, then. Let’s go to the Clapham public baths and get ourselves cleaned up. I can have a proper shave, and you can wash your hair. Believe me, love, it needs it.’

  ‘Beast,’ said Daisy, punching him.

  ‘Ouch, don’t hit me, Daisy, I’m a delicate little flower,’ he cried, and parried her punches, laughing. ‘You’re such an aggressive little thing!’

  ‘A dirty thing as well,’ growled Daisy, punching him again, but laughing, too.

  ‘So purify yourself. Then, when you’re clean,’ said Jesse, deflecting Daisy’s blows, ‘I’ll take you to the talkies.’

  The outing to the talkies was not a huge success.

  The film itself, a musical called Puttin’ on the Ritz with Harry Richman and Joan Bennett, was absolutely wonderful, and Daisy thought, that’s what I want to do, be up there on celluloid. But afterwards Jesse wanted her to go back to his room, and Daisy said she couldn’t, and he sulked.

  ‘You’re a tease,’ he grumbled.

  ‘No I’m not,’ she said. ‘When we first came to London, you knew it was to look for work. I never led you to expect – ’

  ‘You did, you know you did.’

  ‘I like you, yes, of course I do, but I – ’

  ‘I’m going out.’ Jesse clattered down the stairs and slammed out of the house. Daisy sat down on her bed and seriously considered going home.

  But, but, but – she drummed her fingers on the chipped enamel washstand. She thought, I can’t go back to Dorset. If I do, I’d have to admit defeat, and Mum will say, I told you so.

  She locked her door – she didn’t want Jesse coming back drunk and making a big scene, or if he did she would prefer he did so on the landing – got out her writing paper, and then she wrote to Rose.

  It was ages since she’d written home, she now reflected guiltily. They’d wonder what had happened. But she hoped Rose and Alex hadn’t worried. They probably hadn’t been too concerned, she told herself. She often didn’t write for several weeks. They’d have assumed that she was still with Mr and Mrs Curtis, wouldn’t they?

  She told Rose that the company – she didn’t say it now consisted of just herself and Jesse – had moved to London. She added she was going to auditions for new shows. Fingers crossed, she thought, she’d get some soon.

  Then she wrote to Ewan to say she was delighted he was doing so well. She said she hoped she’d have a chance to visit him some day, and see a Comrades Theatre production.

  She listened out for Jesse, heard midnight striking from some distant steeple, but still he didn’t come in. She wondered if he might stay out all night, or if he’d walk and keep on walking, if she might never set eyes on him again.

  She finally heard him clumping up the stairs at four o’clock, banging into things and swearing softly to himself. She hoped things would be better in the morning.

  They were – a bit. When Daisy met him on the landing, he was somewhat surly. But as the day went on he brightened up. He sold a lot of brushes, and said that now they had some cash in hand he thought they’d better start to look for proper work again.

  Daisy decided looking so young was probably not helping. So she bought a pair of scissors from the market trader where they got their tea-towels and gave herself a clumsy, hacked-off bob.

  ‘I need to look more modern for auditions,’ she told Jesse, when he stared in horror and asked her what the hell she thought she’d done? She’d made herself look like a boy.

  ‘Although it suits you,’ he decided, when he had calmed down, and she had let him tidy up the mess she’d made by chopping so haphazardly at the back. ‘You’ve got a very well-shaped head. All right, we need to put an act together. Let’s go to Hampstead Heath and practise. We’ll take a picnic, shall we, and terrify the swans.’

  So they did, and spent all day rehearsing, arranging a ten minute song and dance act which they hoped would entertain any theatrical agent who would condescend to see them.

  Jesse was very critical of Daisy. ‘You need more singing lessons,’ he said. ‘You don’t breathe properly.’

  ‘How would I pay for singing lessons?’

  ‘What about your parents, wouldn’t they help you, if you asked them?’

  ‘They’d be much more likely to send the money for the next train home. They think I’m still with Ewan and the company, being chaperoned by Mrs Curtis. Mum would have a fit if she knew I was on my own here, with the likes of you.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the likes of me?’ Jesse already had her in his arms, and now he pulled her closer, gazing deep into her eyes.

  ‘You’re a man,’ said Daisy. ‘Men get women into trouble. They love them, then they leave them. Sometimes they don’t bother with the loving bit, provided they can get their wicked way.’

  ‘I’m not like that,’ said Jesse.

  ‘Of course not, you’re a saint.’

  ‘But I love you, mop head.’

  ‘Where did you go last night?’

  ‘I walked into the city, found a place to hav
e a drink or two, and then walked home again.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s all, I promise you.’ Jesse’s dark brown eyes looked just like melting chocolate now. ‘Daisy, come to bed with me? You can’t imagine how it torments me, knowing you’re lying there three feet away. I can hear you breathing, and I think how it would feel to run my fingers through your lovely hair, or what’s left of it.’

  ‘You know I can’t,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Why, are you too holy?’

  ‘I don’t want a baby.’

  ‘I’ll make sure you don’t have one.’

  ‘Plenty of women have heard that before, but the world’s still full of little mistakes and indiscretions.’

  ‘Oh, Daisy!’ Jesse sighed. ‘You sound like Amy Nightingale. Since we came to London, you’ve become so cynical, so worldly-wise.’

  ‘One of us has to be. Anyway, you shouldn’t try to corrupt me. I thought you’d been brought up to be religious?’

  ‘I gave up all that guff when I left home.’

  Daisy saw the postcard in the window of a shop: female vocalist wanted, mostly shift work, ring this number.

  ‘It’ll be in a drinking club or part time brothel,’ Jesse told her gloomily. ‘They must be really desperate if they’re advertising in shop windows. I think I’d better come along. Maybe they’ll employ me as a doorman or a barman. I can keep an eye on you.’

  But it wasn’t a brothel. It was a little dance hall in Tulse Hill. Daisy sang for old age pensioners doing shuffling quicksteps, and for couples dancing in the marathons that were currently all the rage – crooning, half asleep herself, to the exhausted, desperate couples wanting to win a ten pound prize for staying on their swollen feet the longest.

  Jesse was getting desperate as well. He couldn’t find any acting work at all. He couldn’t get auditions. He couldn’t even get a dead end job like Daisy’s singing shifts. Daisy herself was being a cruel tease.