Unforgettable

by Jean Saunders

Such a commission would never be given to an unknown seamstress and her friend, working on their own, in a rented flat above a shoe shop.

  She was almost ready to slink away into the shadows, overcome with embarrassment at her own temerity, and acknowledging that Dolly Neath had far more sense than she did in certain matters. Dolly had her feet on the ground, while Gracie was still looking at the stars. And ordinary people who did that usually fell flat on their faces.

  She was pushed aside as a crowd of chattering extras came out of the stage door, followed by more band members. And there he was. Her heart beat louder than any drum, as for one, dazzling, glorious moment, she saw Charlie, illuminated in the light of the doorway before he stepped out into the night. She made an involuntary move to step forward, and then resisted it when a musical voice called out to him.

  The girl was beautiful, tall and willowy with a dancer’s grace, and she clung laughingly to Charlie’s arm as they came outside. Gracie tried to flatten herself against the wall, but in any case, they weren’t going to notice her. They were far too intent on themselves.

  So much for dreams, she thought, with an unexpected sob in her throat. The sound was obviously louder than she thought, because Charlie turned and glanced her way. She was mostly in shadow, but she could see his frown, and virtually trapped as she was, she knew she would lose all her dignity if she upped and ran, even though she felt like doing just that.

  But, oh God, he was moving forward, loosening the other girl’s grip on his arm … coming towards her …

  ‘Is something wrong, miss? Are you hurt?’

  The next moment it was as if a small tornado was hurtling towards her as Dolly came rushing back, yelling that they were going to miss the last tram if they didn’t hurry, and she wasn’t going to leave her to get trampled by all these toffs. She effectively blocked her from Charlie, and to Gracie’s despair she heard the glamorous girl calling him and pulling him away.

  ‘Do come on, darling. We don’t want to get caught up with these people, and we’ll be late at the supper club if we don’t hurry.’

  ‘All right, Joyce, I’m coming,’ he said, his voice becoming fainter as he moved out of Gracie’s sight. ‘I thought I saw someone I once knew …’

  Gracie could have felled Dolly as soon as look at her. Eyes blinded by tears, she lashed out at her with words instead, as she shook off her arm.

  ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ she raged. ‘Charlie was on the point of recognizing me, and you’ve gone and spoiled everything.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Dolly said sarcastically. ‘I suppose you didn’t hear that glamour puss call him darling? He’s already spoken for, and you’re wasting your time.’

  ‘You don’t know anything, do you?’ Gracie said furiously. ‘People in the theatre call each other darling all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Oh, come on, stop going on about the bloke. We’ll get arrested for hanging around on street corners if we’re not careful. You and your crazy ideas! We’ll have to run for the tram now, and I want to get home sometime tonight.’

  It had all gone sour for Gracie now. One minute her hopes had been as high as the sky, with her wonderful, unrealistic idea of creating spectacular stage costumes, and having an excuse to speak to Charlie.

  She had already imagined his eyes gazing at her wonderingly, joyfully … and then Dolly had come blazing along to spoil it all. As they jogged along on the rattling tram towards home, she was plunged into misery and fury. But as the usual late-night revellers catcalled to them, and Dolly answered back in kind, she began to think how pointless it had all been.

  ‘Sometimes I think I need you to keep my feet on the ground,’ she muttered by way of an apology for her temper.

  ‘Didn’t I always tell you so, gel?’ Dolly said cheekily, half her mind on one of the lads winking at her from the back of the tram. ‘Forget him, and I’ll see you in the park on Sunday afternoon.’

  As she climbed the stairs to her flat, Gracie thought that Dolly was right about a lot of things, but not everything. She was fast realizing that making theatrical costumes wasn’t for the likes of them. And not all stage artistes called one another darling without meaning something more, but as for forgetting Charlie Morrison … well, she agreed that that was sensible advice, but who ever thought sensible thoughts when you were in love?

  All the same, it was the closest she had been to Charlie ever since the night of the fire, and she might be able to block out those wayward thoughts while she was awake, but dreams were out of her control, when the wildest, most romantic things could happen, and often did.

  * * *

  Gracie knew that the best thing to do when the heart was involved was to plunge straight into work matters. She got the swatches of material from Toby’s shop and presented them and the patterns to Mrs B-G to their mutual satisfaction. Later she was introduced to the small bridesmaids.

  The seven-year-olds weren’t intimidated by this very pretty girl with a mass of red curly hair and laughing blue eyes who told them funny stories while she measured them, especially when she had a mouthful of pins that fascinated them both, as they wondered, half-hopefully, if she was about to swallow them every time she spoke.

  But by now Gracie was impatient to see her advert in the newspaper, and when at last it appeared, it looked gloriously professional. Even Dolly was impressed, as were the elderly couple in the shoe shop downstairs.

  ‘Old Lawson saw it as well,’ Dolly informed her in the park that Sunday afternoon. ‘He was even bragging about it to the girls, just as if he’d taught you everything you know, and he said he always knew you’d make good.’

  ‘Pity he never said it while I worked for him, then!’

  ‘You were always his star machinist, Gracie.’ She sat up and looked at Gracie quizzically. ‘What’s up? I thought you’d be over the moon now you’re so famous, but you look as if you’ve just lost a tanner.’

  ‘I’m not famous just because I’ve got my name in the paper,’ Gracie said crossly. ‘You can be so daft sometimes, Dolly.’

  ‘Well, pardon me for breathing, I’m sure. What is it then? You’re not still mooning over that Charlie bloke, are you?’

  ‘No. If you want to know, I’ve given up thinking about him.’

  She didn’t add that she could hardly stop dreaming about him, but that was something Dolly didn’t need to know.

  ‘Thank God. Now perhaps we can find a couple of blokes to suit us both.’

  ‘I’m not looking for a bloke at all.’

  Dolly stared at her as if she had grown two heads. ‘Are you planning to be a nun or something?’

  ‘Of course not. I just want to earn my living at what I do best, that’s all.’

  Dolly relaxed. ‘Yeah, well, I aim to find me a bloke with enough money so I don’t ever have to work again. That’s my ambition.’

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Gracie asked with a grin.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong in it. Wouldn’t you like to be a lady of leisure like your Mrs double-barrelled, sitting around all day putting flowers in vases and having a maid to see to the children and all that stuff until your adoring husband comes home from work and makes mad, passionate love to you?’

  Gracie laughed as Dolly got more and more enthusiastic, and several passers-by tut-tutted as they overheard Dolly’s last words.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Dolly, put a sock in it. People will think we’re a couple of tarts.’

  ‘You can’t tell me it don’t appeal to you! The truth now, Gracie.’

  ‘Oh, all right, of course it does. But I’d soon get tired of being so idle, and I’d still be making clothes for the children, even if I had a dozen of them.’

  ‘Blimey, gel,’ Dolly said with a grin. ‘You and your old man are going to be kept busy in the bedroom department then, aren’t you!’

  * * *

  A couple of weeks later, Charlie Morrison unwrapped his fish-and-chip supper from the newspaper without much inter
est, his mind on other things.

  Or rather, on someone. The minute he’d said those words to Joyce after the show at the Roxy that night, he knew why the girl outside the stage door had seemed vaguely familiar.

  I thought I saw someone I once knew.

  The words echoed the title of his song that he was now toting around the music publishers … ‘Someone I once knew’ … and he was sure that the girl outside the stage door had been that someone. She had been Gracie Brown, and she was as elusive as trying to get his song published. In a way the two seemed to go together. If fate dealt his cards successfully, then once he found someone to publish his song, he would find his true love, because in his heart they were one and the same. The ‘someone’ in his song was the elusive Gracie Brown.

  As if to taunt him, his eyes were drawn briefly to an advertisement in the discarded newspaper. Or perhaps it was simply because her name was so dear to his heart that he expected every Gracie in the world to be her.

  He put his fish and chips on a plate and screwed up the paper quickly, disgusted at himself for being a sentimental fool. She would have forgotten him long ago. A beautiful girl like her would have a dozen young men wanting to marry her, and he was wasting time in dreams instead of putting all his energies into his work. He was tiring of being constantly on the move with the band, and he just wanted to be a songwriter.

  Besides, if he really had marriage in mind, he knew Joyce was ready and willing. The band-members always said she sang her soulful songs just for him and he could do a lot worse. They were in the same business, and they were fond of one another … but he didn’t love her as a man should love his wife, and Joyce was too fine to settle for being second best.

  The stray cat who had lately acquired him as its owner came swathing around his legs, purring seductively, and he laughed at her antics.

  ‘All right, Cat, you want to share my supper, do you?’

  He picked up the newspaper again, smoothing it out and putting it on the floor ready to break up a piece of his fish for the cat. And just as quickly, he picked up the paper again, his heart jumping. The cat would have to wait.

  It was sheer coincidence that he had spread out the paper so that Gracie’s name leapt up at him again. But Charlie didn’t believe in coincidences unless they were there for a purpose. He had seen the girl the other night, or thought he had, unless she was a ghost who was haunting him. And now this name was in bold letters, leaping up as if inviting him to find her.

  ‘And what would I be doing, visiting a strange woman at this Gracie’s Glad Rags and asking for alterations instead of going to a tailor? She’d probably think I was turning the other way!’ he said aloud, mocking himself.

  The cat purred more loudly, clawing at Charlie’s trousers, and clearly seeing its chance of a choice bit of haddock slipping away. At the intrusion, Charlie chopped up the fish almost savagely, before sliding the cat’s portion on to the paper and blotting out the advert altogether.

  But the night was hot, and later, with thoughts that should have been long forgotten still vivid in his mind, he rescued the greasy paper from the waste bin and copied out the name and address. It would probably be some old girl, trying to make ends meet by taking in sewing, but when he had the time and inclination, he intended to find out, and to exorcise the ghost of another woman called Gracie, once and for all.

  16

  During the next weeks there were too many fractious rehearsals and last-minute changes to the show at the Roxy theatre for Charlie to think about putting any such thoughts into action.

  On a day when tempers were particularly stretched to near boiling-point, the leading lady threatened to walk out half a dozen times, one of the dancers broke an ankle and was carted off to hospital, and a piece of the scenery came crashing down, Charlie was summoned to the musical director’s office.

  Feinstein continually prowled around the room, wreathed in a haze of cigar smoke, the half-empty bottle of whisky on his desk attesting to the fact that he had marginally calmed down from the day’s rantings.

  ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’ Charlie said, wondering what he’d done to blot his copybook. Feinstein rarely summoned anybody to his sanctuary without good cause, and even more rarely to the artiste’s benefit.

  ‘Sit down, boy, you’re making the place look untidy,’ the man said, waving him irritably to a chair. ‘I’ve been thinking about you.’

  Charlie felt his heart sink. This was definitely not good news. Then Feinstein retreated behind his desk and smiled, flashing his gold fillings.

  ‘It’s about that song of yours. I’m not saying we’re going to use it, mind, but before this entire show goes up in smoke, we need something new to pep up the second act. The tune sounded catchy enough the one time I heard it, but unless you have lyrics as well, it’s no good to me.’

  Charlie was stunned for all of five seconds. It was the last thing he expected to hear, but he recovered quickly. Feinsten had to time for ditherers.

  ‘Yes, there are lyrics,’ he said swiftly. ‘I’ve been trying to find a music publisher to produce it, as a matter of fact, but if it got a hearing in the show …’

  He didn’t need to go on. Couldn’t go on, because there was a such a lump in his throat. If it got a hearing in the show and people liked it, he’d be made. Music publishers would be seeking him out, instead of the other way around.

  ‘Do you have it here?’ Feinstein went on. As Charlie nodded, he stood up and went on testily: ‘Then let’s hear it. Get that young Joyce Wilkinson to sing it. She can hold a tune better than most around here. Chop-chop now.’

  Charlie shot out of the office. Joyce didn’t always come in for rehearsals that didn’t involve her, but these days, with Feinstein in his present mood, it didn’t pay to be absent. Much to his relief, he found her and grabbed her around the waist.

  ‘Feinstein wants to hear my song, and he wants you to sing it. You’ve heard it and you’ve seen the lyrics, so are you game?’

  ‘Of course. Oh Charlie …’

  She didn’t need to be told what this might mean. She gave him a quick hug and then he was off to find the pianist. The song would work best with the whole band, especially with Charlie’s plaintive saxophone accentuating the music, but for clarity of sound, the pianist and Joyce’s husky voice would do.

  Ten minutes later, after listening intently, Feinstein sat thoughtfully stroking his chin. The kid had something, that was for sure, but there was something not quite right.

  ‘Who’s this Gracie in the lyrics? There’s no Gracie in the show. You’ll have to change that if we’re going to use it.’

  ‘No,’ Charlie said flatly. ‘The song is dedicated to Gracie, to someone I once knew, and it stays the same, or I don’t let you have it.’

  There was a shocked silence. Nobody dared to defy Feinstein unless they risked being thrown out.

  ‘And you can’t have a girl singing about another girl,’the pianist put in.

  Charlie began to feel reckless. It was clear now that Feinstein wanted to use his song. It was good, as he had always known.

  ‘I know. The male lead should sing it, especially with an extra scene—’

  Feinstein was screaming now, his nervous temperament erupting. ‘You damn pipsqueak, telling me what I have to do.’

  The leading lady hovered nearby; she put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘It wouldn’t take much of a rewrite, sweetie, and Charlie’s right. Ralph can sing the song, and we could have a sort of ghostly scene going on in the background with this unknown Gracie. Maybe she’s died, and he has to move on to someone new—meaning me. Whadda you say, Feiny? Let’s face it, at the moment the show’s too static, and this will put some romance back into it.’

  Charlie held his breath. The leading lady was forty if she was a day, but once she was on stage she was transformed into a stunning beauty, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, and she could twist Feinstein around her little finger.

  ‘Get Ralph,’ he barked out. �
��Let’s see what he makes of the lyrics first.’

  * * *

  Charlie phoned his parents that night.

  ‘I still can’t believe my luck. One minute I thought I was going to be slung out of the show, and the next, they’re using my song, and Feinstein reckons that once the critics hear it the music publishers will come running, and there’ll be thousands of sheet-music copies of it before you can say Open Sesame.’

  His father was congratulating him and he was sure his mother was crying in the background. It wasn’t so far from his own feelings. If this song worked and he made enough money from it, he would be able to give up touring and set himself up as a proper composer and lyricist.

  ‘It’s wonderful news, Charlie, and it’s time you came home to celebrate your success with your family as well as your theatre friends. Your mother misses you,’ his father added meaningly.

  Charlie was too wrapped up in the thrill of what was happening to do other than agree. He hadn’t been home for several months, and he promised to do so as soon as he could. No doubt his mother thought that now that success was beckoning so fast, Charlie would be thinking of settling down, getting married and producing the grandchildren she craved. Well, so he might, in time, but not unless it was with the right person.

  * * *

  Feinstein was a fair businessman, and he advised Charlie to register the song in his own name. He paid him handsomely for the use of it in the show, and the arrangement would continue for as long as the show ran. But now Charlie needed an agent to deal with the business side of things, and from then on, everything proceeded so fast he didn’t know if he was on his head or his heels.

  The agent knew a music critic who would be in the audience on the night the new scene was included. He introduced him to Charlie after the show, and the next day Charlie Morrison’s name was blazoned all over the theatre pages of the newspapers as the new songwriting discovery of the year, together with several photographs of the cast, including one of him and Joyce looking very cosy together, and clearly speculating on their relationship.