The Fun Factory

by Chris England

  “You two are absolute life-savers!” I gasped, as we headed back towards the Fun Factory.

  “What did they want?” Freddie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I dissembled. “Money?”

  “It’s a good job it were dark down there,” Charley grinned. “I’m not sure these suits’d pass muster in broad daylight!”

  I went into the Enterprise then, while Freddie and Charley returned to the Fun Factory. The Karnos’ home pub was quiet, as most of the performers would still be onstage at that time of the evening. Our company, of course, rehearsing the wretched Wow Wows by day, were there early, drowning their sorrows.

  Charlie Chaplin was there, sitting by himself in a corner, nursing a glass of port and smoking a cigarette, with all the cares of the world on his shoulders. He looked up at me as I entered the room, and I saw no hint of surprise in his eyes at seeing me unharmed. Alf Reeves grabbed my arm.

  “Look at him,” Alf whispered, glancing over at our morose lead comedian. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t think much of The Wow Wows,” I said.

  “It’s not just that,” Alf said. “Have a word with him, see what you can find out, will you? There’s a good lad.”

  Alf thrust a pint into my hand and I wandered over to Charlie’s table. The dark purple eyes flicked up at me as I sat, and then down into the port glass again.

  “Evening, Charlie,” I began brightly. “You’ll never guess who I just bumped into outside.”

  “Go on. Who?” he mumbled into his drink.

  “Mr Moulden, our heckling chum.”

  Charlie looked up sharply at this.

  “Oh yes,” I went on. “He and three of his pals seemed quite intent on rearranging my features. Said something about breaking my other leg. I don’t suppose you would happen to know anything about that, would you?”

  Charlie looked genuinely appalled. “No, I… You must believe me, Arthur, I would never… I mean, how awful! How did you…? I mean, how did you escape them?”

  “A little help from the local constabulary,” I said, taking a sip of beer.

  “Good Lord!” Charlie was distraught.

  I glanced over to the far end of the bar, where Freddie and Charley Bell were now gleefully reliving their daring rescue. I considered that I would have to repay that favour somehow and a delicious idea struck me.

  “Hey, Alf,” I sang out. “You know what Charlie says would cheer him up?”

  “No? What?” Alf said eagerly.

  “If Freddie were to join the American company. You could fix that, couldn’t you? And you were saying yourself only the other day that we were a trifle under strength.”

  “I could ask the Guv’nor, certainly,” Alf mused. “Would that cheer you up, Charlie?”

  I gave Chaplin a nudge in the ribs, and he gave Alf a thin smile and half a nod.

  “Right!” Alf said, and he trotted straight out of the pub, energised, leaving half of his pint still rocking in the glass on the bar there.

  “Are you sure?” Charlie said. “I mean … is Freddie going to be any good?”

  “Well,” I said, raising my glass. “What do you care?”

  “That’s right,” Charlie winced. “He can be bloody terrible for all I care.”

  He slumped back into the same miserable posture he had been in when I first arrived. I knew what he was thinking, of course. It wasn’t just about missing out on the American tour. He was wondering how he was going to explain it away afterwards and still keep his job with Karno. I leaned over and hissed into his ear: “You don’t have to care, but if Alf should manage to pull this off you can still be pleased for the lad. Got that?”

  I went back to the bar. Syd Chaplin and most of his company had just come in from their evening’s performances, and he saw me leaving Charlie in his miserable stew. His antennae twitched, and he planted himself squarely in my way.

  “Now listen,” Syd began. “You leave him alone, d’you hear?”

  I grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him close. “Mr Moulden sends his regards,” I snarled. “He’s looking for you, he says. Him and his friends.”

  Syd went white, and I let go of him, straightening his lapels where I had crumpled them in my fists. I wasn’t sure, but I thought Syd was as surprised and shocked as Charlie had just been. Maybe those sailors weren’t actually lurking for me after all. Maybe they were looking for him. Interesting…

  Shortly afterwards Alf returned from his chat with the Guv’nor, and whispered a few words in Freddie junior’s shell-like. The lad sprang to his feet with a yelp, beaming all over his chops, and Stan and Mike jumped up too and began to clap him on the back. I watched as Freddie pushed through the ever-growing throng, over to where Charlie was sitting, and pumped his hand gratefully.

  And Freddie was coming to America.

  35

  SHIP AHOY!

  IT was a happy and excited company which gathered at Euston station for the boat train to Liverpool, none more so than Freddie Karno junior, who was embarking not only on his first trans-Atlantic voyage, but also on a whole new career as a performer. The momentous decision had been taken too late for him to have even one single rehearsal, but we would be working on the show during the six-day crossing, so we’d be able to bed him in. Freddie had decided to perform under the name Fred Westcott rather than Karno, for fear of American audiences expecting to see the great man himself and asking for their money back.

  On paper, at any rate, the paper that Alf Reeves was clutching in his fist as he counted up the big pile of trunks and bags van on the platform alongside the luggage van, our party was sixteen strong.

  There were three married couples. Alf Reeves himself and lovely Amy Minister were one, then there was George and Emily Seaman, and Fred and Muriel Palmer. There was a trio of well-seasoned senior Karno troupers that I didn’t know all that well, namely Albert Williams, Frank Melroyd and Charles Griffiths, and Albert Austin, whom I knew from Jail Birds and Jimmy the Fearless. There were the four musketeers – myself, Stan, Mike and young Freddie – and there was Tilly Beckett.

  There was also, naturally, our number-one comedian, Chaplin, C., who was still unaccounted for. I knew why, of course, but I kept an eye out for him. I thought the phrase “I’ll finish you” was pretty unambiguous, but you never know, do you?

  Alf shooed us all aboard, much like a mother hen would if poultry travelled by locomotive transportation, watching all the while for Charlie to make one of his trademark dashes down the platform. Albert Austin, who was under the impression that the sun shone from Charlie’s nether regions, was the last to give up hope entirely and he stepped up into the carriage as we moved off.

  “Never mind, Alf,” we consoled Reeves. “He’ll get the next one for sure.”

  Although I knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t.

  We arrived later that day at Liverpool Docks and got our first look at our home for the next week or so. It was the RMS Lusitania, no less, one of the mighty Cunard liners that plied the trans-Atlantic route to New York.

  Whew! That first sight of her towering above us, her four mighty funnels thrusting into the autumn sky! Most of us stopped and gazed up, our mouths open. Even those hardened old pros George Seaman and Frank Melroyd, who had been to the States before, and who had been telling us how hard it was touring that massive continent, well, they pushed their hats back on their heads and admitted to a touch of awe.

  And if that was not excitement enough, even better news awaited us once Alf had ushered us up the gangplanks and into the belly of the mighty vessel. For in exchange for an agreement to perform entertainments in the evenings for the first-class passengers we were to be permitted to count ourselves amongst their number. First class to New York!

  Once we had become accustomed to the splendour of our accommodation – the sumptuous cabin Stan and I were sharing had two bedrooms and a lounge, and as much floor space and furniture as my old family house in Cambridge – we explored the
gangways and staircases, the ballrooms and the dining rooms and the viewing platforms like kids in a sweet shop. No, a sweet factory.

  If this was indeed to be the start of a new chapter in my life, then I could hardly wait to read the rest of the book.

  As the time to make steam approached, we got word that Alf had scurried back to the railway station in a cab to see if Charlie was on the last possible train from London, but I didn’t give that possibility much thinking time. There was too much else to see, and stewards to bring me a glass of champagne and a bowl of strawberries to eat while I watched the crowds of well-wishers gathering on the quayside to wave the Lusitania off.

  After a few minutes I strolled outside and leaned on the rail, looking down at the throng, feeling rather grand.

  A whisper of petticoat, and a familiar perfume, and I had company.

  “Remind you of anything?” Tilly said, leaning on the rail beside me.

  “Of course,” I said. “The good old Wontdetainia. You know, I thought that contraption was the size of a real ship until I stepped onto this beast. She’s impressive, isn’t she?”

  “Wonderful!” Tilly said, her eyes sparkling as she smiled at me.

  “Just be careful not to throw up on anyone down below,” I warned. “Or else you’ll be out on your neck like your friend…”

  “Angeline,” she laughed. “You remember that fellow with the top hat? He was most put out.”

  “I think he’d brought his own hat, if I remember aright,” I said, and we both laughed.

  There was a pause, then, amiable enough, but with a hint of awkward matters still left unspoken between us. Perhaps now we could clear the air?

  “So, we’re going to America,” I said. “Just like back then.”

  “Yes,” she said, “we had such plans, didn’t we, as I recall? Back then?”

  “We did,” I said, remembering the elaborate story that we had concocted around our insignificant super characters. “I wish we could turn back the clock.”

  “Calendar,” she said. “You want to turn back the calendar if you want to go back that far. Turning back the clock will take an age.”

  “Right you are,” I said. “What I meant was: I wish that in Warrington, when Charlie and Syd blew the whistle on us, that I had left with you, chosen you, rather than Karno’s.”

  “You said that in Paris,” she said. “That was why I came back to London, because of what you said in Paris. Do you remember? Always and only.”

  “There has only ever been you, Tilly.”

  “And then you were so … bitter suddenly, so cruel, after my audition that day.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know. I wish I could take it back. Could I?”

  She looked out over the wharves, her expression unreadable. I ploughed on.

  “Freddie told me, you see, just that day, just that afternoon, what an audition with the Guv’nor actually meant, and I found I couldn’t bear the thought…”

  “…of me and Karno together?” she finished. “Give me some credit, Dandoe. Every show girl knows what an audition with Karno is supposed to consist of. Supposed by him, at any rate.”

  “So, what, you mean…?”

  “Well, there are ways and ways to play a scene like that. You can play it his way, and trust him to be a man of his word, or…”

  “Or what?”

  “The trick is, you see, to make him feel like you could do whatever he asks, if only he could help you with what you want, and once he’s taken care of that, well then, all things are possible. But ‘possible’ is not the same thing as ‘going to happen right now’.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t actually…?”

  “Are you saying you actually want to know?”

  “No, no, I don’t want to know,” I said emphatically. “It is none of my business. What I want to do is apologise unreservedly for my actions that afternoon outside the Fun Factory, and reiterate, in the strongest possible terms, whatever I said in Paris that made you come back to London in the first place.”

  Tilly looked at me for a long moment. I watched as the sea breeze caught the curls of her blonde hair and blew a couple of strands into the corner of her mouth. She brushed it back in place.

  “Well,” she said, with the most marvellous smile I had ever seen in my life. “That’s all right then. Apology accepted.”

  We hovered on the very edge of an embrace for a long moment, but in the end both turned back to the rail and looked down again. It seemed to an inexperienced seafarer’s eye like mine that some more or less final preparations were being made, and that departure was actually imminent. The crowd lining the quayside was the densest it had been, and handkerchiefs were being waved and dabbed to tearful eyes.

  “This tour of America feels like a fresh start, doesn’t it?” I said. “New World, all that?”

  “Mmm,” she agreed.

  “Perhaps it could be a fresh start … for us, too.”

  “For us two?”

  “For us two, too.”

  “I’d like that,” Tilly said eventually, slipping her arm in mine and sliding closer along the rail. “You know what the best thing about this magnificent ship is?”

  “No?”

  “Well now, you know that all the other ladies in our company are married ladies, Amy of course, now, and Emily, and Muriel?”

  “So they are.”

  “Which means that I have no one to share with. I have one of these marvellous luxurious cabins all to myself. Just rattling about in there, I am. Hardly know which chair to sit in first.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Perhaps you’d like to take a look, later?”

  My heart skipped. “I would like that,” I said.

  “Then that’s settled,” Tilly said, and laid her head on my shoulder, as she had on the Wontdetainia all those long months ago.

  And just for a moment there, just at that very moment, do you see it? Let’s just hold onto that, stretch it out as far as it will go. Just at that precise moment everything was working out perfectly. How long did that last, do you think?

  “Is that Alf down there?” Tilly suddenly said, breaking from me. “Whatever is he doing?”

  Down on the quayside I could indeed now see Alf Reeves. Beside him an ominous pile of Karno trunks was accumulating, dumped on the dock by fast-moving ship hands. A minute later Stan was there too, and then Frank Melroyd, and then in a rush the rest of the Karno troupe was scurrying down the gangplank onto the dock, with bags and loose clothing stuffed under their arms.

  Alf was inching along the ship, looking up at the passengers arrayed as we were along the rail for departure. He caught sight of the two of us, and suddenly began beckoning furiously.

  “We’d better see what’s what,” I said, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. You don’t want a sinking feeling, not when you’re on board a ship. Tilly nodded, her mouth set grimly.

  We found our way through the crowd to the shipboard end of the gangplank, and hurried down onto the quay. Alf strode towards us and turned us bodily around to usher us back.

  “Go get your things and then step off, as quick as you can. They’re leaving in about ten minutes!” he cried.

  “Why?” I shouted. “What’s happening?”

  “We’re not going.”

  “Not going?” I yelled, frantic. “Why not?”

  “Not without Charlie Chaplin,” Alf said. “He’s not here yet, so we have to take another boat.”

  “What?!” I howled. “We can go without him, surely to God?!”

  “No,” Alf insisted. “He’s the number one, and we have to wait for him.”

  “But what if he’s decided not to come?” I said. “We can manage without him. Stan is just as good, he’s understudied the whole piece. And at least he’s been trying. Let Stan take over.”

  The other members of the company had gathered around us, and there was a murmur of encouraging assent to this plan. To be honest, I’d already prepared this argument
in my head, but I’d not planned to be having this conversation until we were well under way to New York, or even there.

  Alf was adamant, however.

  “No, we’re making other arrangements, once we know what’s happened to Charlie,” he said.

  “Listen, Alf,” I said, trying to sound as reasonable as I could. “Why do we not go, now, on the Lusitania here…”

  At this there was a sigh from the assembled ranks, who had seen the trappings of luxury and had them snatched from their grasp.

  “…and leave a message for Charlie to make his own way as soon as he can. Is that not the sensible option?”

  “Yes, let’s go back on board,” said Frank Melroyd, turning to look for his trunk. He was not alone in this. Even Amy looked ready to defy her new-minted husband if there was a chance to regain the use of those gold-plated taps.

  “I really think we should wait for Charlie, you know,” said Albert Austin, the crawler, and Alf jumped in to stamp his authority on the discussion.

  “Arthur, Tilly, go and get your things, right now, or leave them on there, I don’t care which, but the company is not travelling today. I am making other arrangements. Understood?”

  Tilly stared at him for a beat, and then turned and ran up the gangplank to fetch her belongings. I glanced from her retreating figure to Alf and back again.

  “But…!” I said.

  “But me no buts!” Alf shouted. “Run!”

  And so, shortly afterwards, we all sat on the quayside on our travelling trunks, watching the lovely, the gorgeous, the impossible (as it turned out) dream that was a first-class crossing on the Lusitania ease out of Liverpool Docks and steam away into the distance. All around us the crowds cheered, hats were waved, and a brass band played a happy farewell, and we sat, our chins in our hands, thinking of what might have been. If Charlie had sauntered up then, at that very moment, I believe he would have been torn limb from limb.

  It was dark by the time Alf returned from the booking office. Finding alternative passage for a party of sixteen was not proving an easy matter, and we were obliged to traipse off glumly for a miserable supper and a night in a cramped hotel, four in a room, and Tilly sharing with the Palmers. So much for our fresh start, I thought, as I lay awake listening to Mike Asher snoring, and wondering how my scheme would play out.