Dream On

by Gilda O'Neill

  Leila laughed delightedly and addressed the waiter without turning to face him. ‘You can arrange some crisps for the lady, can’t you, Richard?’

  ‘Of course, madam.’

  ‘Good. And some smoked-salmon sandwiches. Enough for three.’

  For some reason, no matter how Ginny wrestled with the crisp packet, the blue twist of salt would not come out of the corner of the bag, but now she had started trying to salvage the damned thing she couldn’t show herself up by giving in.

  ‘Here, let me.’

  Ginny watched, horrified, as Leila dipped her flawlessly manicured finger into the contaminating grease of the fried potatoes and hooked out the little blue twist for her.

  Handing the crisps back to Ginny, she wiped her fingers delicately on a lace-trimmed handkerchief, took a sip from her drink and smiled. ‘So, tell me, what do you do?’ She half closed her eyes and regarded Ginny closely. ‘Don’t tell me. You stay at home and look after some man?’

  ‘No. Well, yes, I do.’ When he’s there, she thought but didn’t say. Despite his neglect and cruelty, Ginny still couldn’t bring herself to be disloyal to Ted. ‘But I work as well.’

  Leila flashed an amused eyebrow at Shirley, as much as to say, you’re not the only one, dear. Shirley frowned with disapproval and gave a barely perceptible shake of her head.

  Leila smiled reassuringly at her companion, pushed the plate of untouched sandwiches towards her, then returned her attention to Ginny. ‘Now what sort of work do you do, I wonder.’

  ‘I work in a factory. On the assembly line.’

  Shirley rolled her eyes in boredom, lifted her glass to her lips and knocked her cocktail back in a single hit. ‘Fancy another?’ she asked resignedly.

  Leila nodded. ‘Thank you. I don’t mind if I do.’

  While Shirley spoke to the waiter and silently drank her way through several refills, Leila concentrated on finding out more about Ginny Martin.

  It took her less than half an hour, and a few little snippets about herself thrown in by way of reward, to gain a pretty accurate picture of Ginny’s life.

  She studied Ginny’s flushed cheeks as she drained yet another glass.

  Ginny was feeling wonderful. ‘So you come here all the time then,’ she chirped. ‘I can’t imagine what that must be like.’ She shook her head in wonder.

  It was a big mistake; unused to drinking very much, and definitely unused to knocking back four champagne cocktails one after the other, Ginny came over quite giddy.

  Holding on to the edge of the table she levered herself to her feet. ‘I’ve just gotta go to the lav,’ she explained.

  Leila pointed to a door in the corner. ‘Over there, sweetie.’

  As Ginny made her way across the room, Shirley leaned across the table. ‘For Christ’s sake, Leila, she’ll get us thrown out.’

  Leila sighed theatrically and took her time preparing another cigarette before replying, ‘Stop going on, Shirley.’

  ‘But why’re you doing this? I know you and how bored you get, and that you like to amuse yourself, but why her? Why risk it?’

  ‘She reminds me of me a few years ago.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘I’m telling you. She’s one of us. She wants something more than she’s got and it’s killing her. You can just smell it on her.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. All she is, is a quiet little drudge working in some God-awful factory, with no past, no future, no nothing. Except some old hag of a mother-in-law to torture her.’

  ‘You’re wrong. I can spot it a mile off.’ Leila blew a cloud of lavender smoke above Shirley’s head and watched as it curled up towards the elaborately decorated plaster-work ceiling. ‘And you know the governor’s always ready to pay a bonus for introducing new girls, especially if they’re as pretty as her. And if they’ve got a brain as well, then—’

  ‘Brain? Her? All right, I grant you, she’s got a decent sort of face, but—’

  Leila’s face grew dark. ‘Not jealous of her because she’s younger than you, are you, Shirley?’

  ‘Young? From what she said, she’s got to be in her late twenties.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right. But even you have got to admit she doesn’t look it. Her skin’s perfect. And with that body I’d lay money she’s never had a child. And, if she works on it, she’s got that sophisticated look that the foreign punters really go for. And with those big eyes. Come on, be honest, what do you really think? Am I right?’

  Before Shirley could reply, Leila hissed through her teeth, ‘That’s enough, Shirley, there’s a good girl. She’s coming back.’

  As Ginny slipped back into her seat Leila was all smiles again. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yeah, not half. I had a bit of a wash and now I’m smashing.’ She shielded her mouth with her hand and confided, ‘You should see that lav. I ain’t never seen nothing like it, even in the films. Imagine having a place like that to use whenever you fancied.’

  ‘You could have a nice place, Ginny. If you wanted it badly enough.’ Leila flashed a look at Shirley, warning her to keep her mouth shut.

  Ginny’s face puckered into a shy smile. ‘You mustn’t laugh, but I have this dream when I’ve got this really lovely place, with this great big staircase.’ She dropped her chin. ‘You’ll think I’m daft.’

  ‘No we won’t, will we, Shirley?’

  ‘No,’ said Shirley flatly.

  ‘It’s just like Scarlett’s house: Tara, from—’

  ‘Gone With the Wind,’ Leila finished for her.

  ‘That’s right!’

  Leila acknowledged Ginny’s admiration with a little shrug. ‘So, where do you live now?’

  Ginny turned her head away. ‘You won’t have heard of it.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure.’ Leila giggled girlishly for Ginny’s benefit, as she peered with steely resolve at Shirley across the top of her glass.

  ‘I come’, Ginny said with slow deliberation, ‘from a place called Bailey Street.’

  ‘Near the Roman eh, darling?’ Leila grinned. ‘Know it well.’

  The difference in Leila’s accent – from West End to East End in a single sentence – had Ginny boggling. ‘But the way you were talking about the kitchen back at the Festival. And the way you’re dressed’

  ‘I have to admit’, Leila said, her accent slipping effortlessly back to her previously haughty tones, ‘I was saying those things for effect.’ She lowered her voice to a breathy whisper as she leaned closer to Ginny. ‘Did you notice that posh old chap standing behind Shirley? The one with the RAF moustaches? The one who was pretending to look at the electric gadgets?’

  Ginny thought for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘Well, I knew different. I knew exactly what he was looking at. In fact, I thought he was going to explode, the way his eyes were bulging as he was clocking my tits!’

  Ginny suppressed a gasp. She was going mad.

  Leila draped herself back into her chair. ‘But I did mean what I said back there at the Festival. There are better kitchens than that to be had. Much better. That stuff’s meant for the plebs. I’ve been in places that’d make you cry they’re so beautiful. And I intend to have a place just like them.’ As she spoke, Leila’s eyes shone. ‘The place I’ve got now is already quite something, but when I get my Swedish kitchen put in the flat I’m going to buy, it’s going to be hand-made. Custom-built. Exquisite. Just for me. And as for the way I’m dressed, well, it’s exactly the same. You just have to know the right places. Good shops. Good dressmakers.’ She paused for effect, smoothing her hands down her emerald-silk-covered thighs. ‘And you need a bit of style and a right sort of shape to go with it, of course. That’s how you interest the right sort of gentlemen.’

  She looked at the tiny face of her gold watch, reached out and tapped Ginny playfully on the end of the nose, then picked up her bag. ‘Come on, sweetie, let’s find ourselves a taxi, and while we’re driving you home, I’m going to tell you a story.’


  ‘So that’s it, that’s all there is to tell.’ Leila ducked her head to catch a fleeting glimpse through the taxi window of the tall, shadowy buildings of the London Hospital – the hospital that could have saved her mother; the hospital that had been just around the corner from the slum where her mother had died giving birth to her, because she couldn’t afford the few shillings for the local handy-woman, never mind the three quid for the quack doctor who earned his gin money ‘seeing to’ the local working girls. That was a part of her story, like so many others, that no one would ever know.

  ‘The top and the bottom of it, Ginny, is that I was poor once,’ she went on, ‘and now I’m not. And, believe me, not is better. Don’t look so shocked. What’s the difference between what we do and in you being nice to the coalman for a sack of nutty slack when your old man hasn’t bothered to leave you any money to heat the house again?’

  Ginny’s head felt fuzzy with drink. She couldn’t remember telling this woman anything about Ted. But she must have done. ‘I’m not shocked—’

  ‘No?’ Shirley interjected.

  ‘No. And whatever I said about Ted I never had to be nice to no coalman.’

  ‘I’m not saying you did. But whatever you said about Ted was the truth, wasn’t it?’ Leila coaxed her. ‘He’s left you and his mother in the lurch.’

  ‘Well, yeah, sort of. But I’ve never been with no one else. Never. Not even in the war.’

  ‘Who said anything about “going” with anybody?’ Leila, quick to recover the ground she’d nearly lost, squeezed Ginny’s arm reassuringly. ‘Silly girl. I was simply giving an example about keeping someone company.’ She laughed brightly. ‘You make it sound as though we’re on the game!’

  Ginny clambered out of the cab on the corner of Grove Road. She was sure that was where she was, because she could make out the lights and the outline of what definitely looked like Mile End station.

  ‘You’ve got the address?’ Leila called to her through the open window.

  Ginny nodded dumbly and, by way of proof, waved the piece of paper that Leila had given her. As she did so, she wondered at the strange, yet magical, day she had spent, but also how on earth she was going to set about cooking Nellie’s tea when she could barely see straight.

  She was still waving feebly as the taxi pulled away from the kerb.

  Shirley fell back into her seat in a heap; her lips pursed as though she’d been sucking lemons. ‘I thought you said she was one of us.’

  ‘She will be,’ said Leila, checking her face in her compact mirror. ‘As soon as she puts on a bit of slap and a bit more colour in that hair of hers. Really blondes it up – platinum would look good with her eyes. And when she learns how to speak a bit more softly in front of the clients, of course. As though she’s got a bit of class rather than being just another little tart on the make.’

  Shirley sighed; she felt exhausted, definitely not ready for the night’s work she had in front of her. Wrapping one silk-stockinged leg over the other, she eyed her ankles with despair. She was sure they were getting thicker by the day. It wasn’t fair, she didn’t feel a day older than when, as an almost innocent seventeen-year-old, she had found herself alone and hungry in Greek Street and had let a nice man buy her dinner. Yet here she was, what felt like barely two minutes later, with a head full of grey hair that had to be tinted every single week and a body that seemed determined to give out on her. And with bloody younger women muscling in on her patch. It was a bit of luck the clubs were so dingily lit, and that she had her few special talents, or she wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  Leila snapped her compact shut. ‘When she turns up—’

  ‘If she turns up,’ Shirley snarled.

  ‘When she turns up,’ Leila repeated without a blink. ‘I’ll talk to her about her hair and make-up.’

  ‘It’s going to take a bit more than a bottle of Hiltone to get that one working,’ Shirley spat nastily.

  Leila, noticing the driver ogling her in his rear-view mirror, smiled seductively. ‘Don’t you be too sure,’ she said. Then, deliberately dropping her compact, she bent down and whispered up to Shirley from the taxi floor, ‘Play our cards right, girl, and this cab ride’s for free.’

  Chapter 10

  GINNY STARED AT her reflection in the little mirror over the sink. It was a long time since she’d done more than swipe a quick stroke of lipstick across her mouth and she was worried that the mascara, powder and rouge she’d put on were a bit too much.

  She let out a long, slow breath and glanced at the clock – five to nine. Damn! Well, it was too late to worry about make-up now, if she didn’t leave soon she probably never would, and anyway, looking on the bright side, maybe her sooty eyes and peachy pink cheeks would take the attention away from the old-fashioned floral frock that, after a thorough search of her meagre wardrobe, was the best she could come up with.

  With far more determination than she actually felt, Ginny twisted round and offered Nellie a bright, confident smile – anything to stop her mother-in-law asking any more of the awkward questions she’d been firing at her all day. ‘So, Nell, like I said, as it’s the first time I’ve done this late shift, I ain’t sure what time I’ll be back exactly.’

  Nellie stared at Ginny through narrowed eyes. ‘You’re a bit done up, ain’t you?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘For the factory. You look more like you’re going on the stage.’

  Ginny gave a brittle, unconvincingly carefree laugh. ‘I had to make a bit of effort, Nell, didn’t I? I’ll be working with all new girls and I don’t wanna scare ’em.’

  ‘And how come you’re on this late shift all of a sudden? You never even mentioned it till this morning.’

  Ginny’s patience with Nellie’s cross-examination was wearing very thin and her nerve was threatening to give out. ‘I told you: lates pay a lot more than the day or evening shifts. So we’ll have more money to spend on ourselves.’

  ‘How much more?’

  Ginny shrugged and puffed out her cheeks as she fished around for a likely answer. ‘Awwwww . . .’ she finally came up with, ‘plenty, I reckon.’ Another false laugh. ‘Enough to buy us both fags and to take you down the Albert for a few, anyway.’

  Nellie digested the information in silence.

  ‘Well, I’ll better be off, or I’ll be getting the push on me first night. And that wouldn’t do now, would it? So I’ll see you later, Nell, and don’t bother to waste the electric, leaving the light on for me.’

  With that, Ginny bobbed her head and kissed Nellie’s crêpey cheek, grabbed her bag from the table and made a dash for the street door before her nerve really did give out and she changed her mind.

  Nellie listened for her to shut the door behind her. ‘That’s funny, you working nights,’ she said to herself, as she rubbed her face free of every trace of her daughter-in-law’s kiss. ‘According to Florrie’s girl, they don’t let women work no later than the twilight shift at your place. And that don’t start at ten; that’s when it finishes.’ She sniffed loudly. ‘Never try and kid a kidder, you stupid little cow.’

  When Ginny arrived at the address Leila had given her – a place in Frith Street, a busy thoroughfare in the heart of Soho, linking Shaftesbury Avenue with Soho Square itself – she was trembling. But she wasn’t cold. She was shaking from the ordeal of having walked along streets where she’d been propositioned by men in doorways, had been insulted by foul-mouthed women accusing her of intruding pn their pitches and alarmed by wild-eyed, tangle-haired drunks thrusting filthy hands at her, begging for spare change.

  She swallowed hard. Squinting in the dim light coming from the single red bulb glowing above her head, she read the hand-written ‘Members Only’ notice that was attached to the black-painted door with a rusty drawing-pin.

  What on earth was she doing outside a place like this? She could have kicked herself. Even someone as naive as she was should have been aware that although the address was in the West End, it wa
s also bang in the middle of the red-light district. A place as threatening and dangerous as any of the roughest of the dock-side neighbourhoods in the East End, places where Ginny would never have dreamed of going.

  Leila had seemed so plausible when she described the club: that it was a place where tired and lonely businessmen, who wanted a quiet drink and a bit of pleasant company, could go after a hard day’s work. Men who were prepared to pay good money for such a haven. Okay, Leila had admitted that some of the girls made private arrangements with the customers, but that was life, wasn’t it? Ginny couldn’t disagree with that; you found that sort of thing going on everywhere. But Leila had assured her that the club itself was all above board, a good place to earn a good wage for not doing very much. And, also according to Leila, Ginny wouldn’t be doing very much at all, just carrying a tray of cigarettes around to the customers and maybe helping out with a bit of waitressing if things got busy.

  Ginny covered her face with her hands. Had she really been that drunk?

  No. What she had been was desperate. Desperate to have just a taste of the life that she had once had, when there had always been money in her purse and a meal on the table good enough to satisfy even Nellie’s demanding appetite.

  ‘If you’re not going in, get out of me way, will you.’ A tall, bosomy redhead, dressed in a Persian lamb swing coat that showed her high-heeled, sheer-black-stockinged legs right up to mid-knee, shoved Ginny unceremoniously to one side, pushed open the door and teetered into the dimly lit interior.

  Ginny watched the woman as she paused half-way up the flight of stairs at the end of the hall and threw up her arms in what looked to Ginny like intense indignation.

  Ginny was right.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ she hollered over her shoulder, ‘the minder don’t come on for at least half an hour. If you’re coming in, then come in. If not, then shut that bloody door. We don’t want every tramp in the flaming street walking in and pissing on the carpet.’