by TP Fielden
‘Well, we aren’t going anywhere now. Not for the next six weeks,’ said Boots. ‘Someone’ll fix it.’
‘If it don’t get ripped apart by the fans.’
‘That’s another thing,’ said Danny, picking up a heavy amplifier. ‘Number One, and we’re stuck in this dead-and-alive hole for the next six weeks. We should be in London! If anyone’s doing the killing it’ll be me.’
‘Where’s Tommy?’
‘Where d’you think?’
Britain’s No 1 beat group had paused for a quick cigarette in the wings but their guitarist, a red-haired Irishman, was already onstage, guitar plugged in. He was noisily experimenting with various catlike cries he could squeeze from the instrument, fully aware that the racket he was making was filtering through the locked auditorium doors to the fans beyond, driving the girls to even greater ecstasy. He moved his body unnecessarily to the sounds he made, deeply in love with himself.
‘Turd,’ said Danny. Nobody bothered to respond because the singer had voiced the collective thought.
Boots McGuigan was sorting out the cat’s cradle of wires without which the magic and the mystery of their latest hit Please Me Baby Please would be inaudible. Each member of the band had a different responsibility beyond their musical role, and Boots’ was to make sure the sound equipment worked. Danny made the tea, Taz made sure they got paid. The exception was Tommy – who never did anything except play his guitar and waggle his hips in a most unpleasant fashion.
A curious rumbling, not unlike an earthquake, now gripped the building. The fans were drumming their heels hard on the floorboards, unaware the building was long past its best and a continuation of this heavy-booted tap dance might result in a complete collapse. A safety warning over the loudspeakers would have made no difference because by now delirium had set in.
Meanwhile, the grandmother of popular music’s most unpopular manager had scurried into the calm of the manager’s office and was lifting her Plymouth gin from the filing cabinet. There was a knock at the door and Judy popped her head round. ‘Can we come in? It’s terrifying what’s going on out there.’
‘Quick and shut the door.’ Geraldine Phipps knew Miss Dimont well, and liked her. She’d even got out her scrapbook once to show her the snaps from when she was a Gaiety Girl.
‘What on earth is going on?’ Judy shouted as she introduced Valentine. ‘It sounds like the Blitz.’
‘Strange how potent cheap music is,’ quoted Mrs Phipps, who had entirely ditched her reservations about Danny and the boys now she could see they were box-office gold. ‘According to Gavin, when the fans are finally let through the doors they will tear the seats out. Thank the Lord I renewed the insurance.’
‘It’s a terrible din,’ said Valentine.
‘You’re supposed to like it,’ said Judy crisply. ‘It’s your age group. Myself, I prefer Michael Holliday.’
Mrs Phipps was lighting a cigarette to help the gin down. ‘Heaven knows what the town will make of it,’ she said happily. ‘We had Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson the year before last. All very sophisticated – and look, they’re in the Top Ten now! Why can’t these greasy-haired fellows be more like them?’
‘I think that’s the point about them,’ said Miss Dimont, and another wave of joyous squealing erupted as the auditorium doors burst open and the Gadarene horde swept in.
‘So, Geraldine,’ said Miss Dimont, ‘I have to write something for the paper. Obviously, we can’t ignore this mass hysteria – I mean, Temple Regis can never have seen anything like it. Where have they all come from?’
‘St Saviour’s Convent, a lot of them.’
‘But … that’s a boarding school. For young ladies!’
‘Precisely,’ said Geraldine Phipps. ‘I sent a nicely worded invitation to Mother Superior – an old friend, don’t you know – and here they are. Shocking, isn’t it?’ But the smile on her lips suggested a remarkable absence of shock, convent girls being what they are.
‘So you probably “condemn this unbridled behaviour”,’ said Miss Dimont, using that old journalist’s trick of putting words into the interviewee’s mouth (Mrs Phipps said, I really have to condemn this unbridled behaviour when in fact all she’d done was answer the question with a simple yes).
‘Not a bit, my dear. In fact, I have come to the view that I positively encourage it.’
‘Can I say that?’
‘But of course. Gavin has assured me that all over the country the floodgates have opened to allow in this rock and roll, as they call it, and they are unlikely to shut any time soon. I want to encourage more of this bad behaviour.’
Miss Dimont was scribbling in her notebook.
‘My dear, I first set foot on the stage nearly fifty years ago,’ she went on, waving her gin glass gently. ‘We wore long dresses and frilly underpinnings. We smiled coyly and threw as many double-entendres as we could at the audience.
‘In those days, such things could drive men wild, and when I was a Gaiety Girl they would do the most extraordinary things – one climbed in my dressing-room window. On the third floor! One sent fourteen wedding rings, one each day for a fortnight, in the hope of getting me into bed if not into church. One did a thing far too rude for me to describe. And quite often, too.
‘Is this so very different? They’re noisier, yes. And it’s the girls now, not the boys, making the running. But the young have always craved sensation, and this is what we have today.’
Judy’s pen sailed across the page. This was supposed to be Valentine’s story, but she couldn’t resist – Mrs Phipps was priceless!
‘Aren’t you worried about them wrecking the theatre?’
‘My dear, if they do, the publicity will pay for it. These fellows are here for six weeks and we are already in profit.’
‘The lads themselves seem so surly,’ said Miss Dimont. ‘I caught a glimpse of them as I came in.’
‘I expect Gavin has got them on short rations. A well-known ploy in our business for keeping your workforce hard at it. They perform much better when they’re hungry.’
‘Good Lord!’ laughed Judy, ‘I didn’t know you had it in you, Geraldine! You’re far better at running this place than old Ray, er, Mr Cattermole.’
‘For continuity’s sake and for the health of my bank balance, I shall be running the Pavilion this season,’ purred the miraculous Mrs P. ‘Of course I have Gavin here to call on should I need assistance.’
And no Ray Cattermole to dip his hand into the takings, thought Miss Dimont. But any subsequent musings were wiped away by a sudden and frightening cacophony not unlike a bull entering a china shop without bothering to knock. It was Danny Trouble and The Urge making their debut in summer season at the Pavilion Theatre, Temple Regis, with their latest offering, ‘Schoolgirl Crush’.
Mrs Phipps poured herself another of Plymouth’s finest and serenely produced some earplugs.
Judy and Valentine were reunited in Beryl’s café just along the promenade. It was late but both were exhilarated by the day’s events.
‘Hoped I’d find you here,’ said Valentine, his face pink with excitement. ‘I went and had a wander backstage but I didn’t want to end the day without thanking you for all your help. I already feel as though I’ve been here for half a lifetime.’
‘Well, quite an interesting day,’ agreed Judy. ‘Heaven knows what Mr Rhys will make of it, but I’d favour writing positively about this beat group thing. No point in denying the future if, indeed, that is what it is.’
‘From what you say he may find that hard to accept.’
‘He’s always had a way of looking backwards rather than forwards. I think it’s because of all those old dinosaurs he mixes with in that club of his. They were all grown men long before the War. They cling to the past, want to turn the clock back to the summer of ’39.’
‘No point in trying to go back,’ said Valentine. ‘Because in life they’re always rolling up the carpet behind you.’
He looked rather sad a
s he said it, and Judy asked, gently, ‘Yes?’
‘Look, we hardly know each other. On the other hand, we share a desk and I very much hope I shall be on the Riviera Express for a long time to come,’ said Valentine. ‘I may as well come clean.’
Oh dear, thought Miss Dimont, thinking of Mulligatawny and her supper, I hope this isn’t going to take all night. I shouldn’t have inquired.
‘I’m grateful to be here,’ said Valentine, looking out to sea. ‘Very. Life to date has not been entirely kind. I hadn’t realised when I applied for the job that this – this journalism, this local newspaper business – is not just a way of life, it is a life. I can see that these people, the ones you work with, are your family.
‘I have a family – you seem to have met a few already, in conversation anyway – but it’s not the same. They’re all pretty distant. My father was an alcoholic and died when I was four. All he left me was the title and …’
‘Title?’
‘Lowest of the low. Baronet. I don’t use it.’
‘Sir Valentine Waterford?’
‘Bit too much of a mouthful, wouldn’t you say? Got me into all kinds of trouble at school and of course in the army, since I never rose above the rank of Trooper. Though, of course, they wanted me to put in for a commission – but I preferred it where I was.’
He lit a cigarette and went on.
‘That’s not the confession. The confession is, I’ve been here two days and I absolutely adore it. I couldn’t believe that there could be so much … humanity out there to be discovered. You went to sea with the fishermen yesterday, I went to the police station. This morning we were in court, we went and saw that positively creepy woman …’
‘Nothing creepy about her, Valentine. Learn to look below the surface.’
‘OK. Bet you half-a-crown there’s something wrong about her, remember I’ve spent most of my life cooped up with odd-bods and I know one when I see one. Anyway, we saw her and then down here to meet the most important beat group in the country.’
‘You met them?’
‘I went backstage, I told you. More about that in a minute.’
He got up and looked down at Judy. ‘I don’t want to hang on your coat tails,’ he said. ‘You’ve been already more than kind – it’s sink or swim, I know that, I have to make my own way.
‘What I want to know is, do you think I’ll make it?’
Miss Dimont was not quite sure what he meant. ‘What was that you were saying about rolling up the carpet?’
He sat down again and pushed back his hair. ‘Nothing ever stays the same. I was born in a sort of castle, but when my father died, it went. So that was gone. My uncle paid for me to go to school and I liked him very much but after the war he went to live in France, so he was gone. My mother – well, she was never what you’d call interested in child-rearing and she’d always hankered after a moat. She found the chap with the moat, but the moat didn’t want children so I got dumped on an aunt in Eastbourne. Then she died in a car accident – d’you see what I mean about rolling up the carpet?’
‘You don’t have any brothers and sisters?’
‘Alas no. Some cousins but it’s not the same. Actually, I get on better with some of the chaps in my troop in the army. Different background, but solid as they come.’
‘From the sound of it you didn’t inherit any money.’
Valentine laughed sheepishly. ‘You see this suit? That’s what I inherited. Doesn’t fit terribly well either, does it?
‘So you see,’ he went on, ‘this is the first piece of good fortune I’ve had in quite a while. But before I start to believe in it, I want to know your opinion. D’you think I’ll last the course?’
‘Yes,’ said Judy, after a pause. ‘I think you probably will. Just work hard, and don’t fall in love with the idea of being a journalist. It’s the worst thing you can do.’
The pair walked slowly back to the office. It was brewing day at Gardner’s and the precious aroma of hops and yeast still hung heavy in the air, divinely guiding their footsteps towards the Express.
‘So these Urge are terrible yobs?’ asked Miss Dimont.
‘Very nice actually, except the one with the guitar. I think they care very much that what they do is good, of its sort, and they were very happy to talk to me about the making of hit records. I made some notes. Thought it might make an article – I was going to mention it to Mr Rhys.’
‘Depends. You’ve got yourself a scoop talking to the most famous beat group in the country,’ said Judy, ‘but who knows which way Mr Rhys will jump when he hears about the riots – he automatically steers away from what he sees as trouble. I should keep your powder dry for the time being.’
Back in the office car park, Judy was reunited with her beloved Herbert and together they made their way home. All too soon the streets of Temple Regis would be jammed with holidaymakers, but so far only the early birds had come to fill the hotels and B &Bs, and by common consent, they’d decided to make an early night of it. Or maybe it was Eamonn Andrews on the TV compering What’s My Line.
Mulligatawny was waiting when she got home, threading himself through her legs as she came in the door so that she had to pick him up to avoid falling over. These warm evenings he would often go out mousing, but only when she got home. If she was working, he faithfully kept guard until her return.
‘Oh, Mull,’ she sighed, ‘what a DAY! All that noise, all those people – as if having a mysterious death wasn’t enough! And that poor chap who’s come to work on the paper. He looks so dashing but he’s a very sad figure. Sadder, I think, than even he admits.’ Mulligatawny, though, was uninterested in this line of conversation and settled firmly into her lap as, supper having been taken, the pair sat down for an hour with the radio.
This was thinking time for both Miss Dimont and for Mulligatawny, for though cats live independent lives, they like to be sure of certain things. And Mulligatawny liked to be sure of his mistress. He dug his claws in ever so slightly.
Judy had taken up her novel – a moment’s bliss at the end of such a busy day! – but her eyes were on the photograph on the silver frame on the mantelpiece.
‘That young man,’ she said, half aloud, to the photograph. ‘Younger than you. But just like you were when you hopped off that last time. Oh, Eric, you fool …’
EIGHT
While the rest of the office was feverishly turning out this week’s edition, Curse Corner paused to allow history to reinvent itself.
‘He kept a Commando dagger in the glovebox of his Alpine,’ droned the chief sub John Ross, scratching his back with an em ruler. ‘He taught me how to use it. No’ many people have had that privilege.’
Betty, relieved to be back from Newton Abbot for the morning but finding herself prisoner of Ross’s self-inflated anecdotage, submitted to this old chestnut but wished she hadn’t wandered down to ask how her Women’s Institute piece was getting along.
Ross was busy revisiting some big-time Fleet Street anecdotes. ‘He introduced me to crooks, thugs, gangsters, members of the Sweeney and …’ here he paused dramatically to take a sip of tea, ‘. . . tarts. In the afternoons we’d drive off to Mayfair or Knightsbridge to take refreshment with the ladies of the night. My dear girrrl, ye have no idea the stories we used to get from them!’
‘Astonishing, Mr Ross. And all so long ago, too. Now, if you could just tell me about my piece, I’ll be off back to Newt—’
The Glaswegian, all convex belly and hook nose to match, had the roar of a lion. ‘Stay, lassie, ye’ll learrn something here,’ he said, and flipped open the Scotch whisky drawer to rest his foot on it. ‘He was working on Rachman. The Mirror provided him with a bodyguard – they called him Freddie the White Eagle of Poland – a wrestler, ye know, who’d been banned from the canvas for biting off his opponent’s ear.’
He looked hard at Betty. ‘They always said it was the ear, but, lassie, I could tell you a truth or two …’
‘I’m sure you could,
Mr Ross,’ quavered Betty, ‘but I’ll miss my bus.’
‘Bus? BUS?’ roared Ross. ‘In my day it was taxis and chauffeur cars – all expenses paid! Poor Freddie – we were in Churchill’s Club and some girl took exception to the way he looked at her. The boyfriend went and found a cricket bat – a cricket bat, lassie, in Mayfair! – and hit him so hard it broke. Freddie just stroked his head and asked what was for dinner!’
More inflated tales were clearly in the pipeline but just then Rudyard Rhys made his way down the newsroom.
‘Ah, Betty,’ he said heavily. ‘My office, please.’
Betty turned to stalk away – she despised the old windbag Ross and under the protective mantle of the editor wanted to show him what a bore she thought him – but unfortunately at that moment one of her ankles gave way as she turned, and her dramatic exit was reduced to a comical limp.
‘Trust me, lassie,’ bawled Ross after her, ‘it was a different worrrld in those days!’
The editor felt on safe ground with Betty. She was not the most instinctive or intuitive of his reporters but she knew when to say yes.
‘Want to talk to you about Miss Dimont, Betty.’
‘Yes, Mr Rhys.’
‘I’ve got the Daily Herald making trouble. The Rejuvenator story.’
‘Yes, Mr Rhys, the Rejuvenator? I’m told it does wonders for … you know …’
The editor sat up fussily. Always between them was that unmentioned business of when he gave her the lift in his car. ‘It’s about Ben Larsson, Betty. I want you to go and interview him, and be quick about it. The Herald say they’ve got more evidence against him, and their crime reporter has just called me for help. I want to head them off at the pass.’
‘Mr Larsson’s always been very nice to me,’ mused Betty, recalling a cocktail party on the terrace and a hand proprietorially laid upon her rear quarters.
‘Get over there now,’ barked the editor, ‘and get him to deny all the accusations. You’ve got the whole of Page 3, top to bottom, I’ve taken the ads off. Just get him to deny, deny, deny!’