The Golden Chain

by Margaret James

  ‘It’s a waste of money, renting two rooms when we need just one,’ he grumbled, as they caught the bus home after she’d sung her heart out in Tulse Hill.

  ‘We can’t share a room,’ insisted Daisy.

  ‘Why? That old witch in the basement wouldn’t care, as long as the rent is paid.’ Jesse looked into her eyes, and she saw his own were dark and blazing with desire. ‘You’ll give in eventually,’ he whispered.

  Daisy was afraid he might be right, but locked her door at night in any case.

  They finally decided to split up, to do the rounds of managements and agents independently, and then to pool resources.

  There was nothing doing. Daisy almost gave up hope. But then, to her astonishment, she was called for an audition for the chorus line in a revue, in a little theatre that was almost the West End.

  After huffing a bit, and wondering why the agent hadn’t called him – he’d left his details with that agent, too – Jesse decided he would tag along.

  When they saw the line of hopefuls stretching round the block, they looked at one another in dismay.

  ‘But this is why we came to London, to be in a show,’ said Jesse, counting up the people who were ahead of them. He made it a depressing sixty-eight. ‘So we can’t give up now.’

  ‘Of course we can’t,’ said Daisy, who had made it an even more depressing seventy-five.

  ‘How do I look?’ asked Jesse, brushing tobacco ash off his lapels.

  ‘Lovely,’ Daisy told him. ‘They’ll offer you a contract on the spot. What about me?’

  ‘You’re fine.’

  She’d hoped she was a little more than fine. She’d made an enormous effort to look positively gorgeous.

  She’d washed her hair in Sunlight soap, then brushed it hard until it was a glossy golden helmet. She’d sponged Amy’s old tweed skirt and jacket until she thought they looked as good as new. Well, from a distance, anyway. She’d used the last of a stub end of lipstick which Julia had given her and which she’d been hoarding for occasions such as this. She’d polished up her shoes so that they looked like autumn conkers.

  Now she was praying hard.

  Jesse smoked and yawned and said that what he really needed wasn’t an audition, but a beer.

  ‘You go and get one if you want,’ she told him, as he muttered, fidgeted and grumbled. ‘I’m staying in the queue.’

  ‘If you get called while I’m not here, you won’t have a partner.’

  ‘There must be thirty or forty gentlemen standing in this line. I dare say one of them would dance with me.’

  ‘I think I’d better stay.’ Jesse lounged against a billboard advertising current shows. ‘If this lot don’t have finance, though, we’re all wasting our time.’

  The doors were opened, and the queue began to shuffle forward.

  ‘You’re not on the list,’ the girl told Jesse half an hour later, as she ticked off Daisy’s name.

  ‘It must be a mistake.’ Jesse gave the girl his biggest smile, the one that sold three dozen brushes every day.

  ‘Yeah, they all spin that line,’ the girl said, clearly unimpressed. ‘I’m sorry, sir – we don’t need you this morning, so could you move along?’

  ‘We’re a double act,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Oh?’ The girl regarded them suspiciously. ‘You’re Daisy Denham, I think you said?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, and Mr Trent’s my partner.’

  ‘We always do a double act,’ said Jesse.

  ‘Do you?’ But Daisy saw the girl was weakening, bathed in the warm glow of Jesse’s charm. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘go in.’

  ‘Music?’ said the pianist.

  ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz,’ said Jesse.

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ The pianist grinned, and looked them up and down derisively, but then began to play.

  Jesse and Daisy did the double act that they’d worked out on Hampstead Heath. They and twenty others were asked to stay behind, and a few hundred disappointed hopefuls shambled out, darting jealous glances as they went.

  The producer addressed the people still on the stage. The show was being done on a tight budget, he explained. The cast would have to provide their costumes – top hats, tails and patent leather dancing shoes for men, evening dresses, long kid gloves and silver shoes for women.

  ‘Does this mean anyone needs to leave?’ he asked, and looked around enquiringly.

  But not one person moved.

  Daisy didn’t have an evening dress, had never owned an evening dress, couldn’t make an evening dress and certainly didn’t have the cash to buy one.

  But, looking round the other people lined up for the chorus, she knew this was her chance. She wouldn’t get another one. The others were all hungry enough to sell their little sisters into prostitution, if it meant being in a London show.

  ‘We’ll have to hire,’ said Jesse, as they made their way back to their digs.

  ‘We can’t hire shoes, hired shoes will give us blisters. We’ll need to buy our own.’

  ‘Okay, buy shoes, hire clothes, all right?’

  Thanks to living on chips and pies, and selling dozens of oven cloths and brushes, they had just enough to buy some second hand shoes, hire clothes from a theatrical costumier’s bargain basement, and feed themselves until they first got paid.

  ‘But why not?’ asked Jesse, as they walked home from the pub, where they’d celebrated getting jobs in the revue.

  ‘Jesse, I can’t,’ said Daisy.

  ‘It’s like I’ve always said, you’re just a tease.’

  ‘I am not a tease.’

  ‘What would you call it, then?’

  It was awful having Jesse look at her like that, so hurt, so sad, all that reproach and longing in his dark brown eyes. It would be so easy to give in, so easy to admit she wanted him, because of course she did. She’d always wanted Jesse Trent, from the first moment she had seen him standing in Mrs Fisher’s hallway.

  Ewan had given her warmth, affection, comfort, all the things she knew she ought to value. But Jesse meant excitement, passion, danger – and part of Daisy wanted those, as well.

  It was taking all her self control to keep in mind that it would be more than awful if she had a baby, if she had to go crawling home to Dorset in disgrace, with her baby wrapped up in a shawl.

  ‘I love you, Daisy,’ Jesse said, his dark eyes soft.

  Daisy didn’t know who she loved – Ewan or Jesse, either of them, neither of them? When she next wrote to Ewan, telling him about the new revue, as usual she left many things unsaid. But she did finish up by saying, I often think of you.

  Ewan quickly learned the Comrades took their commune very seriously. The warehouse loft was clean and tidy, and everyone took turns to sweep and cook.

  He’d always thought that cooking was something women did, but now he had to learn some basic skills. If he wanted any washing done, he had to do it.

  ‘Why does no one mind us being here?’ he asked one morning, as Mungo and he filled buckets at a standpipe, having waited in line with various shifty-looking people who were also camping in the warehouse. ‘Why don’t the sheriff’s men come round with bludgeons? Why don’t the police evict us?’

  ‘We don’t do any damage, and the building’s empty, anyway,’ Mungo told him, shrugging. ‘We’re unpaid night-watchmen. The police are probably happy to have us here. I’m sure they’ll tell us if they change their minds.’

  As he lugged his buckets up the stairs, Ewan decided that although he was a socialist, and certainly intended to remain one, once in a while he and Sadie ought to have some decadent, bourgeois fun.

  There wasn’t a matinee that afternoon. The other Comrades had left rehearsal promptly and gone to attend a meeting down on Clydeside. But Ewan took Sadie to
a crowded ice cream parlour run by cheerful, garrulous Italians, which was full of music, smoke and noise. They’d have something to eat, he said, and go to the meeting later on.

  ‘What would you like?’ he asked, as they sat down on a smart black bench behind a chrome and bakelite table.

  ‘Let me see the menu?’ Sadie took it from the smart young waitress and studied it suspiciously, running one long finger down the list. ‘Ewan,’ she said, ‘all this is very expensive for what is basically sugar.’

  ‘Sadie, you’re not paying,’ said Ewan. ‘You bought me stovies, so it’s my treat today. What do you fancy?’

  ‘I’d love an ice cream sundae,’ Sadie told him wistfully. ‘I’ve not had one of those since I was seven and one of my aunties took me to Dundee.’

  ‘Then you shall have one now.’ Ewan smiled at the waitress. ‘Thank you, miss – I’d like a sundae, too.’

  The sundaes came in great tall glasses, towering concoctions of sweet sauce and fruit and cream. Sadie said she wasn’t keen on cherries. So Ewan had to eat them. Then Sadie got some chocolate on her cheek. Ewan wiped it off, and as he did she caught his hand. ‘You’re a very bad influence,’ she whispered, and gazed into his eyes.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Ewan leaned towards her and kissed her on the mouth, tasting both ice cream and her own sweetness, and thinking that her lips were firm as berries.

  ‘You’re corrupting me.’

  ‘You don’t appear to mind being corrupted.’ Ewan kissed away a little blob of strawberry sauce. ‘In fact, Red Sadie, I would say you like it.’

  ‘Aye, perhaps I do, just now and then.’ She kissed a streak of chocolate off his chin.

  The sundaes melted in their glasses, but they forced themselves to finish them, spooning up the sauce and cream and feeding one another, making a mess and laughing about it.

  As Sadie pointed out, when she finally put her spoon down, some underpaid and underprivileged worker had gone to all the trouble of making them. So leaving them would be a wicked waste and cruel shame.

  They never got to the meeting, and Mungo told them off, saying they’d missed a perfect opportunity to support a workers’ worthy cause.

  Ewan thought it was just as well Red Mungo hadn’t asked them what they’d done that afternoon. He would have had an ideological fit.

  After just a few days of rehearsals for the new revue, nobody felt ready, but the management said the show must open. The company financing it, Daniel Hanson Enterprises Limited, apparently insisted. So the bills were printed and the show was advertised. The bookings started trickling in.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ said the producer, as he surveyed his ragged chorus line, and smiled encouragingly at his off-key singers. ‘I’m sure we’ll do the business.’

  He ran his finger round his collar, and Daisy saw his face was damp with sweat. ‘Mr Daniel Hanson,’ he continued grimly, ‘is not a gentleman who likes to be let down. So, boys and girls, be sure to do your best.’

  To everyone’s relief, the first night went quite well. On the whole, the notices were good, and the producer said – in jest, they all supposed and hoped – Mr Hanson wouldn’t need to get his men to smash their kneecaps now.

  But Jesse wasn’t altogether pleased, because one critic on a daily paper singled Daisy out for special mention.

  ‘As for the pretty blonde soubrette with the enchanting smile, forget-me-not blue eyes and stunning figure, whose short solo in the second half was perfectly delightful – I’m sure Miss Daisy Denham will go far,’ the critic said, but didn’t mention the handsome, debonair and hugely talented Mr Jesse Trent.

  ‘Your turn soon,’ said Daisy, at the end of one evening performance when Jesse was still rumbling on about it. Goodness, he was such a baby sometimes.

  ‘I need a drink,’ said Jesse, grumpily.

  ‘Let’s go and have one, then.’

  But Jesse wasn’t listening. He’d turned to look at someone who was also in the chorus line, a girl with dyed red hair who looked on the wrong side of thirty-five, but dressed and made up young. ‘You all right, Belinda?’

  ‘Tip top, Jesse.’ Belinda flashed some fishnet-stockinged leg in his direction and bared her less than perfect teeth. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m fine. Where are the others going for a drink tonight, do you know?’

  ‘The Old Nag’s Head,’ replied Belinda, and she tossed her head flirtatiously.

  ‘See you there,’ Jesse said, grinning.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Daisy.

  ‘Oh, but you don’t drink,’ said Jesse.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just kidding, sweetheart.’ Jesse hugged her round the neck. ‘We’ll let you tag along.’

  Phoebe walked down the cobbled side street, thinking about her youth and wondering where the years had gone.

  The smell of the dusty little theatre brought the whole thing back – those nights during the war, the men and officers hanging round and looking hopeful after every show, picking up the chorus girls and taking them to pubs and night clubs.

  One officer in particular, there’d been. One handsome, fair-haired Royal Dorset with beautiful blue eyes and an enchanting smile, with silver in his pockets and a silver tongue to match.

  The stage door was open now, and people were pouring out. A blonde girl and a dark-haired man were coming down the stairs, he was nibbling at her ear, and she was half pushing him away, but laughing, too.

  Phoebe had been studying the picture she’d been given by Rose. The girl’s sweet face was hot-pressed on her brain. But what if she was wrong?

  She stepped into a pool of lamplight. ‘ ’Scuse me, are you Miss Denham?’ she began.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Daisy smiling, thrilled to have a fan at the stage door, but wondering why the woman didn’t seem to have a programme or an album, if she wanted Daisy’s autograph?

  Phoebe had rehearsed this moment over and over and over in her mind. She had her speech all ready. But now she forgot her lines. ‘Hello, Daisy darlin’,’ she began. ‘I’m Phoebe – I’m your mother.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘I love you, Ewan, but I’m not in love with you,’ said Sadie, who often talked like this, as if she were discussing it with herself. ‘Romantic love’s a base and bourgeois concept. It’s totally discredited. It has no place in twentieth century thinking – wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so, Sadie.’ Then Ewan nodded, assuming this was what she wanted him to do. He pushed one hand into his trouser pocket, where a couple of Daisy’s recent letters lay creased and crumpled up.

  He ought to write to Daisy soon, he thought – he should congratulate her on her big success in the revue. He’d read her notices, and in spite of himself he’d been impressed. He’d been so pleased to hear that she doing so well. He wouldn’t mind going to see her, actually, even if it also meant he’d have to see the bastard.

  ‘What are you grinning at now?’ demanded Sadie, trying to scowl at him, but when he looked up he saw that she was grinning, too.

  ‘Come here, my little apparatchik.’ Ewan pulled her close and then he kissed the top of her dark head.

  ‘Get off, you loon,’ she muttered, but she didn’t push him away.

  The Glasgow Comrades Company was rehearsing for the première of a brand new drama set in Tsarist Russia, in which heroic workers battled against a brutal Tsarist boss.

  Ewan played a worker who stabbed and killed the boss because the boss had raped his wife. The worker’s subsequent arrest, imprisonment, travesty of a show trial and gruesome execution were acted out on stage, in as much lurid detail as Dennis Foster the producer thought the Lord Chamberlain’s office would allow.

  Of course, his mother would have hated it, reflected Ewan. All those nasty people being horrid to her boy. All that
unnecessary, ill-bred shouting. All that blood, for even Ewan had to admit his death scene did go on a bit.

  But when they opened, he got excellent notices in all the left-wing papers, commending his great passion and commitment to the cause of workers’ freedom. So he kept his bourgeois reservations to himself.

  At least, he thought, nobody here expected him to speak as if came from Surrey. In fact, the producer had wanted all the workers to have strong Glaswegian accents, while the villainous bosses and their lackeys should sound English to a man.

  Sadie was a fully paid up member of the Communist Party. She told Ewan that her father had worked for thirty years in various Clydeside shipyards, and it was a disgrace to have a Labour government in power, and so many millions of workers unemployed.

  She spoke her lines with fervour and, as Ewan’s wife, raged and carried on like anything about the awful things done to her man, and by extension to workers everywhere.

  ‘I’d always thought red hair like yours looked better on a lassie, but on you it’s bonny,’ she told him, after one performance in which Ewan had died especially noisily and energetically, cursing the capitalists and all their works, to great applause.

  ‘Thank you, Sadie.’ Ewan smiled. ‘It’s very kind of you to say so.’

  ‘I wasn’t being kind. I – ’

  ‘Fraser, are you going for a beer?’ Mungo, another tormented worker, clapped him on the back and grinned at him. ‘I’m sure you’ll need it, after all that shouting.’

  ‘I’m coming, too,’ said Sadie, pulling on her coat. She’d done her hair a little differently this evening, Ewan noticed. She hadn’t combed it flat and slicked it down. Instead, she’d tried to make it pretty, and she had succeeded. She was even wearing lipstick.

  Bourgeois decadence, he told himself. If it’s determined, it can even worm its way into the heart of a nicely brought up socialist girl like our Red Sadie.

  They sat with Mungo and the other workers in the Thistle, drinking beer. At chucking out time, Sadie put her hand on Ewan’s arm. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere else tonight?’ she whispered softly, looking up at him with big, round eyes.