There was a piano and taking one of her music sheets he began to play, nodding to invite her to sing. He stopped her after a few bars and coaxed her to loosen a button at the top of her blouse.
‘Pretend I’m someone you love, flirt with me through the song,’ he said. ‘Dance, show me how you move.’ This had the effect of making her more, not less inhibited.
Through the next hour he persuaded her to move more sinuously. ‘Tell yourself you’re a cat, a tiger. Don’t walk, slide from one place to another. Lean towards me, don’t be afraid of showing what you’ve got.’
She relaxed and tried to do what he asked, but all the time she was hoping to hear the door open and the mysterious secretary appear. When someone did come in, it was a photographer.
‘Carry on singing, Shirl, we just want to check on how photogenic you are.’
‘Shirley,’ she corrected.
She became more and more nervous and after singing the two songs three times, told them she had to leave.
‘Leave? What d’you mean? We’ve got a lot of work to do before I can book you at some of my nightclubs. Best spots in London and they expect the best performers.’
‘I have a train to catch.’
‘Not today? You weren’t planning on going back today? I’d planned for some studio work tomorrow and my wife has our spare room all ready for you. Ain’t that right ‘arry?’ The photographer nodded agreement but Shirley didn’t believe them. She didn’t want a studio test or any more photographs, or to sing another song. All she wanted was to get out of this situation safely. Pleading exhaustion and promising to come back and stay for a few days, Shirley escaped.
She hurried towards what she hoped was a busy road where she could find a taxi to get her back to Paddington. She had only spent a few minutes there but Paddington represented safety; it was from where the train would leave to take her back to St David’s Well and home.
There were tears in her eyes. She was crying for lost hope and for her own stupidity. Why had she insisted on coming alone? If Mam had been with her, or Joseph, there wouldn’t have been the danger of things getting out of hand. Sitting on the train she was aware that she had been fortunate to have learned a lesson without losing more than the train and taxi fares.
Hetty was waiting on the platform with Janet when she stepped off the train. It was almost midnight; she was tired, hungry and dejected. ‘Mam, I’ve been so stupid,’ she sobbed.
‘As long as you’re safe, everything else can be worked out,’ Hetty soothed, when she had heard something of Shirley’s story.
Janet left them as they passed Oldway Street and Hetty explained why she had been at the station.
‘I couldn’t settle, knowing you were on your own so far away. I went to the market at lunchtime and told Janet where you were. She came to the flat after work and we waited together. We’ve seen four trains come and go but she insisted on keeping me company.’
‘I expect she was angry at me trying to do this on my own. Partners we’re supposed to be.’
‘Not angry, just worried. “I should have gone with her” was what she said. She knows you have a talent and will go further without her than with her. She enjoys what you two do but has no dreams of being a star.’
‘I don’t deserve a friend like her.’
‘She wouldn’t agree. She loves being your friend; you’ve brought her a lot of fun and excitement, and when your career takes off and she’s left behind, she’ll still be a friend. I’m not so sure about Joseph though.’
‘You didn’t tell him?’ Shirley gasped.
‘Janet did. She presumed he knew and once she’d mentioned it he had to be told the full story.’
‘I wish he had gone with me. I’d ask him another time. It was scary on my own.’
‘From the way he spoke when he came into the shop, you might have lost the chance!’
‘Good! If he’s so possessive, starting to think he owns me, I’m better off without him.’ It was bravado; she really did want him to remain her friend while she needed an escort.
She knew she was using him, but that thought didn’t make her feel guilty. She needed his help and he was willing to give it, wasn’t he? If he was hoping for more she had made it clear that was not to be. Hadn’t her mother always told her men were to be used?
Seven
Shirley waited for Joseph to call in the days following her unfortunate visit to London. All day she watched the door whenever a customer entered, a half smile ready to greet him, but when she closed the shop door at six o’clock he hadn’t appeared. She helped her mother prepare their meal in silence, wondering with some anxiety what Joseph would say about her stupid trip to London, at others asking herself why she cared.
Joseph was soaking wet and seemingly unaware of the discomfort. His mind in turmoil, he had walked around in the rain for hours. When he stopped to shelter and decide where he was going and why, he at last realised that his feet were wet and squeaky and he was very chilled.
He wondered why he felt so confused about Shirley. The death of his wife hadn’t helped as he’d thought it would. Dolly was present in death more than she had been in life, and beside that problem that wouldn’t go away, there was Shirley’s singing. If only she could forget it, accept a normal life keeping house and caring for him like most women did. He decided to give it one more try; surely she was ready to listen to reason?
In the flat above the newsagent, at seven o’clock, the doorbell rang and Hetty answered it. Shirley heard her mother’s voice blend with Joseph’s as they climbed back up the stairs. Half afraid to look at him, Shirley said, ‘Hi yer, Joseph. Fancy a bite to eat?’
‘What were you thinking of going to meet strange people on your own? I’d have gone with you if you’d asked.’
‘Or talked me out of it, like Mam tried to do,’ she retorted unreasonably; he had never strongly discouraged her from singing or dancing, just tried to warn her of the disappointments she might face.
‘You’re right, I wouldn’t have wanted you to go. Performing around here, having fun in places where you’re well known is one thing, disappearing to strange towns and mixing with the people involved in the entertainment world is another.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Safety!’ he snapped.
‘Shirley is sensible, she knows how to look after herself,’ Hetty interjected.
Joseph turned swiftly and said angrily, ‘Of course she isn’t sensible! She wouldn’t have gone off without me if she were!’
‘What are you so angry about? It’s none of your business,’ Shirley retorted, lifting a casserole out of the oven and standing holding it and glaring at him. ‘Don’t expect me to do what you think’s best for me. I know what I want and if you don’t like what I do you can get lost, and stop dripping all over Mam’s carpet!’
‘But, Shirley—’
‘Get lost, I said!’
He left without another word.
‘Best for him too,’ Shirley said, slamming the vegetable casserole down on the table.
Hetty went out later. It was one of the evenings when Bleddyn didn’t work at the fish and chip shop and she had arranged to meet him and go for a drink.
The evening was a miserable one. Rain fell almost silently but relentlessly on to the dark pavements, splashing up and chilling Hetty’s legs.
‘I’ll be glad to get in out of the wet.’ she grumbled as they approached the facade of the public house that stood shrouded in darkness, no glimmer of light to suggest it was even open, let alone offering comfort and bright, cheerful company.
They noticed a poster on the wall advertising a talent competition for the following weekend.
‘We’ll tell your Shirley,’ Bleddyn said as he pointed it out to Hetty. ‘The more she performs the more chance of someone noticing her and helping her to make proess.
‘D’you think she will make a career for herself?’ Hetty asked.
‘The only thing that can stop her is Joseph.
If he persuades her to marry him and give up on it, she’ll have lost her chance. She’s young and rather beautiful, with her long dark hair and those expressive eyes. In a few years, even if she did try again to recover what she has lost, her chances would be far less.’
‘I think I’ll put her name down now. Tell them she’ll sing Max’s song “Slide Down a Rainbow”. She can always cancel later if she doesn’t want to do it.’
‘Something else for Joyless Joseph to worry about.’ Bleddyn grinned.
‘I wish she’d tell him to get lost,’ Hetty frowned, then she laughed, remembering that Shirley had used those words only a couple of hours previously.
They didn’t stay long. The fire in the huge grate in the bar room was low, the publicans conserving fuel for the weekend when there would be more customers to enjoy it and, after sitting as close as they could to the smoking wood for half an hour. Bleddyn suggested going to see Marged and Huw.
Hetty was pleased to see that Maude and Myrtle were there. They were struggling to rescue the remnants of lipstick out of a tube and add it to another, getting into a real mess.
‘Have you got an egg cup?’ Hetty asked Marged and, when one was produced, she used a nail-file to put the remnants of the two lipsticks into the egg cup and stood it in boiling water to melt. The resulting liquid was poured carefully into a lipstick case and left to dry.
‘Not perfect and I’ve no idea what the colour will be, but better than what you were trying to do, eh?’
‘That’s clever, Mrs Downs, thank you,’ Maude smiled.
‘Where did you learn that?’
‘I saw it in a women’s magazine and I’ve been longing to see if it works.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘I think I earned a few points this evening,’ she told Bleddyn as they walked home.
‘I just hope it doesn’t fall to pieces when Maude tries to use it tomorrow!’
* * *
Joseph didn’t go home. He was uncomfortably wet but continued to walk for more than an hour around the streets and dark lanes, stopping at intervals to sit on a bench, crouched inside his sodden raincoat and umbrella, almost enjoying the discomfort that matched his mood, lost in his thoughts. He had to decide what he should do next. He wanted to marry Shirley. But he couldn’t cope with her travelling around from town to town singing in concert halls and theatres and in nightclubs. He knew she was good, very good, and she might be successful, for a while. Just long enough to make her unhappy, he told himself.
He knew he had a choice: he would have to give up on his own life and travel with her, or stay at home and spend occasional days with her and the rest of the time alone. Their marriage would be a series of telephone calls. From a wife who was constantly ill for the whole of their married life, to a wife who would be constantly absent. Hardly an improvement, he frowned, his thoughts welling up in self-pity and creating a sullen look. Didn’t he deserve a better future than that?
At nine o’clock, still unable to make a decision on whether to leave her or stay, and hope the show-business dream would fade away, he went into a public house. There was a notice on the wall advertising a talent competition for the following weekend that Hetty and Bleddyn had noted. The landlord told him who was organising it and, seeing the man at the bar, pointed him out. Joseph went to talk to him.
‘Have you got many acts booked yet?’ he asked.
‘Only seven so far,’ the man replied. ‘Mostly singers, one comedy act and one accordion player.’
‘Is one of the singing acts The Two Jays?’
The man shook his head.
‘Shirley Downs and Janet Copp?’
‘No, no Janet Copp.’ he said, checking a list taken from his pocket, ‘but there is a Jane Downs. She’s singing a song called “Slide Down a Rainbow”. It’s new, written by a friend of hers.’
‘That’s her, a friend of mine,’ Joseph said. ‘Shirley she is, but she calls herself Jane Downs.’
‘I can be co-operative, mind, if you want her to win,’ the man said with a wink.
‘What’s it worth to make sure she loses!’
‘Spends too much time on singing and not enough on you, is it?’
Joseph looked thoughtful for a moment before replying softly, ‘Something like that.’
* * *
‘Slide down a rainbow into my arms,’ Shirley sang as she opened the shop on Saturday morning. ‘Come with the magic and come with good luck charms.’
‘Blimey, Shirley, you’re cheerful this morning!’ her first customer gasped. ‘You can hardly open your eyes most days. Had an early night for a change, did you?’
‘Tonight will be a late one.’ She laughed. ‘There’s a talent competition at the pub and I’m going to win.’
‘Good on you, girl.’
The steady stream of customers calling for their papers and cigarettes kept her busy until nine o’clock, when she stopped for a cup of tea. Everyone going to work had passed through by that time, the shoppers had not yet begun to trickle in. Taking out the sheet music and going over the words, singing softly, she didn’t see Joseph coming in until he spoke.
Looking up, she continued to sing, but this time she sang the words aloud.
‘It’s the end of the rainbow where treasure is found, meet me my treasure my joy my delight, Slide down the rainbow, meet me tonight.’
‘I will if you like,’ he said, with a hesitant smile.
She shrugged. ‘Only if you want to.’
‘Are you entering the talent show?’ he asked innocently.
‘Yes, I am. Janet and I are going with Mam and Bleddyn Castle so we don’t need a chaperone.’
‘I’ll call for you at half seven, shall I?’
She shrugged again. ‘If you like.’
He left the shop more than a little worried. He was in danger of losing her. He had to persuade her to give up her ambition, but how? Then he remembered the man who was organising the talent competition. Perhaps there was a way. Show business was all about confidence, wasn’t it?
* * *
Janet wasn’t singing with Shirley in the competition that night. She knew that for Shirley their double act was not enough. Shirley needed a career and Janet didn’t think she was capable of rising to stardom with her and Janet told her so.
‘I’ll sing and dance with you whenever you want me to. I love it. It’s fun. When you want to audition on your own I’ll go with you and clap louder than anyone because I know you have talent and you need to concentrate on going it alone.’
Shirley hugged her. ‘Janet, I don’t deserve a friend like you. I’m selfish, and pushy, and greedy, and—’
‘All right, don’t go on or I’ll change my mind and sulk instead of helping!’ Janet laughed. ‘Now, what are you wearing?’
Since clothing rationing had started in the previous June, stage clothes had become a problem. Appearing in a number of dances and concerts close to home it was unacceptable to wear the same dress repeatedly. Shirley took her dresses to Hannah, who restyled them. Tonight she was wearing a long black dress she had been given by Eirlys. It had been Eirlys’s mother’s and was very old, but the material was beautiful.
Hannah’s nimble fingers set to work removing sections of the full skirt to make a stole which was edged at each end with scraps of fur. It was now a sleek, figure-hugging gown, glittering with sequins from a dress bought in the second-hand shop. Make do and mend didn’t only refer to basic clothing; it was even more important to entertainers who had to create dreams.
When Shirley stood on the makeshift stage in the church hall where the competition was held. Joseph felt a surge of admiration and love – and jealousy. She was beautiful and her voice filled the hall and touched every heart. He glanced around at the faces of the audience and possessiveness was his greatest emotion. She had no right to be up there pleasing these people. She belonged to him, not this crowd gawping at her, he thought savagely. She wasn’t meant for this, she w
as meant for him, his reward for the years he had suffered, caring for Dolly.
To his surprise Janet went on next. She was singing with Max, a light-hearted song, undemanding and very successful. When it was announced that Janet and Max had won, the applause was far from enthusiastic and Joseph felt ashamed. Paying the man to make sure Shirley lost had been despicable.
He took her home before the others and they went to her room. His loving and soothing words consoled her. When he told her she should give up on her dreams, she sobbed bitterly, and when Hetty and Bleddyn came in, he stayed and slept beside her till morning. The joy of comforting her was worth the pain of guilt, he smiled, as he silently left her and went back home in the early hours of Sunday morning.
* * *
As he was a professional entertainer, Max and Janet refused the prize and the hamper of fruit was auctioned, the money going to the Red Cross. They walked home with Bleddyn and Hetty discussing the unlikely result. When they left them at the shop, Max asked Janet, ‘How do you feel about joining our concert party?’
‘Give up the café, you mean?’
‘Yes. You’re good enough, you know. You put over a song well and your smiling, friendly personality is as much a gift as your voice.’
‘Max, I think I’m too afraid. To let everything go when you have a family to come back to is bad enough, but for me, if I left St David’s Well, I wouldn’t have a base.’
‘I understand, but what if you could have a base here, keep your home firmly rooted, what then?’
‘How can I do that? I’m an orphan with not even a distant cousin to call my own.’
‘That’s easy. Marry me.’
She stared at him as though the words were unclear. ‘Marry you?’
‘I know we haven’t known each other long but it’s wartime and we don’t have time for long engagements. I know we’d be happy.’ He looked down at her with his bright blue eyes, his untidy red hair surrounding his face. She knew that he was right. They would be happy and, in the uncertainties of war, there was no advantage in waiting.
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