by Lee Dunne
As I was leaving, Jimmy handed me a script. ‘I’d like to put this on Tuesday, if you think you can handle the lead.’
The play was called The Prodigal Son and I began to open the manuscript. Jimmy put his hand on my arm. ‘Forget it for now, Tony. Read it when you’ve had your breakfast in the morning, then drop over to my wagon and let me know what you think.’
I wanted to tell him that I wouldn’t let him down, that I’d be better in the play than I had been in variety but, he was so busy rushing about attending to this and that, that I didn’t get the chance.
It being Saturday night, I let go of my need to go to bed, agreeing to join everybody, except the Maguire’s, mother and daughter, who led a very sheltered life, in the walk down the street to Johnnie Cullen’s, and though I knew I’d be drinking orange juice, it was a great feeling to be in the party with my first weeks salary as a Pro in my pocket.
May Mitchell got friendlier as the week went on. Something to do with the fact that I didn’t react the way she expected me to, I suppose, but little did she know, her white sweater being a coat of paint that hurt to look at without the opportunity to give her breasts the attention such beauties deserved.
In Cullen’s pub, I sipped an orange juice while Johnnie Cullen put in a request - that was an order, really - that Jimmy entertain the company, this being backed up by the men that were lining the counter. The young copper was sitting at his usual table, looking more alone that ever, apparently unaware that there was anybody else in the bar.
Jimmy obliged by hamming it for a bit and Denny sang a couple of songs while Johnnie stood with his back to the counter, his eyes on our table all the time and a blind man could have seen that he was out of what was left of his mind about our lovely May.
The way May moved was enough to give you an ulcer, with every man in the room captured by the blatant sex thing she emitted. Even Jenny and Pauline were silent as May wriggled through the song before sitting down to huge appreciation.
As she sat down, Johnnie scurried in response to a loud banging on the front door, and I allowed myself to be pushed into doing some bit of a turn. I found the idea daunting since I had sipped just one Club Orange but I thought, to hell with it, and I chanted a parody on the old chestnut ‘Like a Golden Dream’ and it went down very well with the company. I was pleased about that, knowing for the first time in my first week as a pro that I had truly reached the audience.
As I sat down, Pauline leaned into me with a smile of appreciation. ‘You learn fast, don’t you?’
I grinned until I realised that Villiers, the obnoxious doc was standing at my elbow. In fact, he was leaning against my chair, though his eyes were glued to May’s white sweater.
‘I told you not drink,’ he said in chastisement, and I realised he was already drunk when his grip on my shoulder developed its own muscles.
‘Take your hand off me, will you?’ I asked, trying hard to keep my voice casual.
‘Take your hand off me, will you?’ He was mimicking me and it got a laugh from Peter Hunter who was half jarred at the table.
Then Villiers said with a drunken laugh. ‘You weren’t so particular about my hands the other day, were you?’
Jimmy moved in quietly: ‘Come over to the bar, Doc, and I’ll get you a drink?’
Villiers looked at Jimmy. Then his eyes came back to me. His grip tightened on my shoulder and I ground my teeth to prevent myself from punching him in the mouth, thinking that if I could just ignore him he might just get bored and wander off. But, he merely moved slightly around the back of my chair so that he was now between Pauline and me.
‘Is this your bit for the week, is it?’
He touched Pauline’s face with his right hand. She drew back and he moved to touch her again. Jimmy was beside him in a flash but I got there first, hooking Villiers hard enough that he tumbled back, falling down over a chair at the next table.
‘Are you alright, Pauling?’
She nodded, smiling. ‘You and your timing,’ she said, and I wanted to hug her so badly that the May Mitchell and her great breasts had faded from the moment.
Jimmy, along with Johnnie Cullen had Villiers on his feet and they walked him carefully to the counter.
I sat down, my legs shaking and I picked up Pauline’s glass and down the whiskey in one gulp.
‘Do you mind?’ I asked, she shaking her head with a smile as she said: ‘There’s another round on the way.’
I was looking right at her and crazy as it might seem, I knew that I had fallen in love with her.
That was the end of the fun for that night, not just for me but for everybody at the table. And I felt the old guilt thing stand up inside me. Maybe I should have let Jimmy handle it. If I hadn’t punched out the doctor, Jimmy would probably have got him away from our table without any fuss. And there was this thing of me hitting the drunken medicine man. A large part of the force in my punch had been to do with the way he had treated me all week. Like, sure, he did his job by giving me medication that dried up my infection, but he had been really unpleasant about condition, which, in reality, was a hint of VD which all your whore masters were likely to run into sooner or later.
I got up and said my goodnights, wishing that I could just find whatever it would take to lean over and kiss Pauline on the lips, but apart from the lack or courage, I had no idea who in the company was involved with who else, and that last thing I needed was to step on the trip of those who were now my workmates.
Johnnie Cullen let me out and when I apologise to him, he laughed. ‘What? Are you having me on? Sure, if the doc had a shilling for every poke in the gob he’s had down the years, wouldn’t he be the richest quack in County Fermanagh!’
This helped me feel a little better, but as I walked back to Molly Dale’s, I wondered how many of them around the table could add two and two. I guessed that Tom and Gary and Denny probably knew why I’d gone to the doctor. Probably Pauline too, since she had this worldly thing about her that made her even more attractive. But, there it was. If they knew, they knew - and there wasn’t a lot I could do about it.
When I got into bed, I found that Molly had placed a hot water bottle between the sheets for me. It was too much, if only because it was unexpected, but, on top of everything else, powerful enough, that I ended my first week in show business by crying myself to sleep.
7
‘You were tremendous, Tony,’ May Mitchell said as the curtains finally closed. I turned to her and she stood on tiptoe to kiss me full on the mouth, her tongue just caressing the inside of my lips for a second.
Jimmy was already coming back on stage and he clapped me on the back. ‘Well done, Tony, you never fluffed a line.’
This said, he went out front of the tabs to make his pitch for the next night and I drew back from May.
‘Thanks, May,’ I said. ‘I was nervous, I can tell you.’
Tom and Peter Hunter came on stage, placing the props for the ‘long laughable sketch, to send you home with a smile instead of a tear’, both brothers giving me thumbs up.
‘More power to you, Tony,’ Tom said, and even Peter, the quiet man, grinned at me and gave me a thumbs up sign.
I walked off, my head spinning, knowing I really had done an alright job in my first leading role. Somehow, I had come through with any fluffs and I had not made one wrong move.
Side stage, Pauline was tinkling at the piano, supplying a hint of music to Jimmy’s Out Front pitch for the next show.
As I stepped down side stage, she looked at me and said: ‘If you stick this scene more than three months, you want your head examined.’
‘How do you mean?’ I lit a couple of cigarette and stuck one carefully between her beautiful lips.
‘It’ll destroy you...’ She nodded her head: ‘As you might have gathered, I’m not one for throwing bouquets a
bout.’
‘I know that,’ I said.
She nodded her head in acknowledgement. ‘Okay so! You are some kind of gifted actor.’
Jimmy brushed by, hissing ‘John Audley’ which was his ‘get a move on’ expression. I didn’t have to rush because I wasn’t in the sketch.
‘Thanks, Pauline, that’s very encouraging.’
‘And I mean an actor, not like the rest of us here.’
Peter Hunter squeezed by me to get to the tab line and as he started to pull on it to open the curtains, Pauline started to bang out ‘Roll Out The Barrel’ as Jimmy rushed on stage with his ‘I’m the funny man around here’ stutter of a running walk!
‘Can we finish this conversation later?’
She looked up from the piano, smiling wickedly with her deep, dark eyes: ‘Sure, if May hasn’t got you in a half-nelson.’
I went down the side of the hall to the door. Jenny was standing there, watching the sketch.
‘If you’d like to go up,’ I said, ‘it’s warmer.’
‘Thanks...’ she said, somewhat surprised, and away she went.
I watched her go and I wondered what kind of man her husband had been. Quite a guy, to judge by the way she was still grieving. But so far, Jenny hadn’t talked much to me about anything, let alone her dead husband. She was a shy kind of woman, sharing the breakfast table with myself and the Hunter brothers, without contributing much more than the time of day.
As the audience filed out of the hall, Jimmy joined me as a couple of well-built girls came towards us. ‘We could make a foursome there without too much trouble,’ he whispered.
‘I’m off,’ I said, grinning as his face registered serious disappointment, ‘doctor’s orders.’
The girls passed by, smiling desperately at Jimmy and he immediately stepped out after them. All I did was say good night to everybody came my way, but when I went backstage to look for Pauline, she had already gone to her wagon.
Gary congratulated me as I was taking off my make-up.
‘You have the makings, dear lad, indeed you have. Will you allow me guide you, help in any way I can?’
I looked at him, knowing he was being sincere. He looked so different without his make-up, and his eyes were alight with enthusiasm: ‘That was quite a feat tonight.’
I thanked him and told him I’d be grateful for any advice he could give me. He nodded, pleased by my response and he said: ‘We’ll have a talk this week. If you’re willing to work, you can go a long way.’
When I left the hall, I crept out a side door since I was afraid that Jimmy was out front with the two lassies seen earlier and I had no desire to get into small talk with strangers, even though they were both well endowed up top. I was also tired and carrying a hint of disappointment that I didn’t get any time with Pauline before she split.
I stood in the darkness for a few minutes, taking in the night sounds, wondering if she expected me to drop by her wagon on my way to the digs. She had helped me so much with the play, running me through it again and again, cueing me until I was word perfect, so that she knew I could be in her home with her, without expecting to jump on top of her.
There hadn’t been any physical contact, apart from when our hands touched accidentally, or when I had kissed her face as I thanked her for all the help. I’ll admit that I had felt close to her but I felt that something was bothering her during the time we spent together on the play. I don’t think it was a reaction to the possible sexual outcome of serious time spent together. She must have guessed that I had a very soft spot for her but I hadn’t got within a mile of making a pass at her.
So, I guessed it was something within her, but even in the moments where I felt she needed to unload something that had nothing to do with me, she pulled away and we were back to the script, which had paid off wonderfully well for me as an actor.
I walked back to the digs and went into the kitchen to fix myself a cup of cocoa. Molly was there, full of chat about the play. A neighbour was sitting with her, the pair of them close to the fire but I hadn’t been in the place five minutes before Molly had managed to get rid of her without causing offence.
‘She’s a shocking gossip.’ Molly explained, stirring the cocoa like she was mix cement. ‘And she’d talk the hind legs off an ostrich!’
I really didn’t care, but I nodded my head occasionally, my mind full of Pauline, even though I could not help getting hot for May Mitchell who certainly gave the impression that she was hot for me. I could still feel her tongue where she had run it along the inside of my lips and I practically felt a tingle when her incredible bust has pressed against my chest.
I found myself smiling at my belief that May knew exactly what she was doing when she pressed those beauties right into me the way she did.
Molly put a mug of cocoa on the table along with slices of bread and jam, and she sat down by the fire again, going straight into how much she enjoyed the play, and what a great actor I was, and a lot more stuff like this.
I did my best to be polite, yawning a lot and finally getting up from the table with a grateful tone to my voice as I thanked her and bid her a real goodnight.
I went asleep amazed at my own immaturity, as I heard Jimmy’s guffaw of a laugh once more, this hardened veteran of the touring life, being decent enough not to call me a gobshite after I had vowed, in the first flush of shame about the VD, that I would ‘from here on in’ remain celibate until I went to my marriage bed.
I was lucky with Jimmy. We clicked from the very start and he had been a real friend to me when I needed him most. I also realised that if I kept my ears open and my mouth shut, I could learn from him all the time. And I was wide open to the idea of wising-up, hungry to know it all.
Next morning while I was sweeping out the hall, I got a glimpse of another drama involving my employer Jimmy.
This began with Denny O’Mara, looking pale and very worried, who was so busy with his own stuff that he didn’t even hear my greeting of Good Morning. I got on with sweeping the floor and because of the fact that I’d raised the masking curtains to let some air in back stage, I could see Denny cramming his gear into a suitcase. When he closed the case, he came out front, and I saw that he was sweating. He didn’t say anything so I left him alone, and though I couldn’t have said why, I felt sorry for him. Something big had to be wrong for him to be leaving without his trunk and the rest of his stuff.
The front door of the hall opened and slammed shut behind my back. I turned around and found Jimmy Frazer standing just inside. He was out of breath and his face was white with anger.
He didn’t look at me. His eyes were on Denny at the far end of the hall. I moved further into the row I was sweeping to get myself out of the way. I’d seen enough punch-ups to know that one was about to get under way.
Denny put his suitcase down and Jimmy walked up the aisle. His breathing was normal enough but his eyes were pin points of serious anger.
‘You lousy bastard,’ he hissed, ‘his teeth clenched tight across the words. ‘After the lousy run we’ve had.’ He stopped about six feet from Denny. His back was now to me but I could imagine how he looked from the way the words seemed to hurt him. ‘All you had to do was ask. I never said no when I was flush’.
Denny didn’t say anything. He just took his jacket off, knowing that he wasn’t going to talk his way out of whatever he had done to Jimmy.
‘You’ll have to walk over me to catch that train.’
Denny still didn’t speak and I watched, fascinated, as he put his jacket of the chair nearest him. Then he moved like a shot out of a gun - I am only just exaggerating. And though a thing like this happens in a fraction of a second, I had time to think that Jimmy was in real trouble. And I was wrong.
He didn’t move so much as sway slightly to one side, his right hand flashing at the same time. De
nny didn’t have a chance as Jimmy’s fist caught him on the jaw near his left ear, stopping him in mid-move, before he seemed to leap backwards, knocking down seats and chairs on his way to end up in a heap about six feet away. He didn’t move and Jimmy stood for a few seconds looking at him, before he went over and hauled him to his feet to give him a good shaking.
Denny slowly came around and Jimmy pushed him onto a chair. Then he lifted Denny’s jacket from a chair and took an envelope from the inside pocket, from this he pulled a wad of notes. He peeled off a few of these and pushed them into the breast pocket of the jacket. ‘Half a week,’ he said, ‘it’ll get you to Dublin.’
Denny nodded while I put a cigarette into his hand and held a match while he dragged deeply on the tobacco. ‘Thanks, Dub’ he mumbled. I lit a cigarette for myself and offered the packet to Jimmy, my hand shaking a bit.
Denny now faced Jimmy and he said, ‘I’m sorry’
Jimmy nodded his head. ‘Me too,’ he said as he turned and walked back up the centre aisle to the front door of the hall.
I asked Denny: ‘Are you catching the eleven o’clock?’
He nodded, still a bit shaky on his legs.
‘I’ll take the case for you, Denny.’
He didn’t argue and I followed him out into the morning sunshine. Jimmy was there, leaning against the wall.
‘I’ll be back to finish sweeping up,’ I said.
He nodded and I knew he didn’t mind me helping Denny. But he did look disturbed and I could tell he was upset over what had happened. He was a tough man, but he was the type to suffer when he’d had time to think about things.
‘What about your trunk and the other things, Denny?’
Denny stepped on his cigarette end. ‘You can keep them, Dub. I’m through sleeping in the sticks.’