With that, she pulled her collar huffily up to her throat and flounced up the rest of the stairs.
Ginny hesitated for barely a moment, took a deep breath and stepped inside. Even as she heard the door slam behind her, she wasn’t sure what had made her do it – maybe the realisation that the redhead’s coat probably cost more than Ginny managed to earn in six whole months of eye-straining tedium at the electrics factory. Or maybe because she knew that if she didn’t at least try to make a better life for herself, she would more than likely go out of her mind with the worry of it all. She had to find a way to end the scrimping and scraping, the darning of stockings and the humiliation of queuing outside the butcher’s, only to be able to afford the cheapest cuts when her turn finally came, while – she was sure of it – the neighbours gloated at her downfall. She was, after all, married to Ted Martin.
As Ginny reached the top of the stairs and stood in the doorway, looking at the barn-like, shabby room before her, its every dusty corner and grimy crevice picked out in the harsh overhead lights, she almost turned on her heel and fled.
When Leila had told her about working there, Ginny hadn’t had a very clear picture of what she was expecting the club to be like, but she certainly hadn’t even begun to imagine that it would look quite so depressing as this.
The run-down room was empty, apart from a man who was standing behind a shabby semicircular bar with his back to her. He appeared to be engaged in an unequal struggle with one of the drinks optics and was muttering angrily to himself.
Ginny coughed politely and the man turned round to face her.
The first thing that struck Ginny about him was that he was holding a whisky bottle in mid-air, as though he were a rather bored magician who hadn’t been in the least surprised to have produced it from out of a top hat, and the second was that his eyebrows had been plucked into perfect Joan Crawford half-moons.
He looked her up and down, taking in every inch of her old-fashioned outfit with conspicuous distaste. ‘Mmmm? Can I help you?’ he asked in a camp, slightly northern lisp.
‘I’m looking for Miss Harvey.’
He sucked in his cheeks and shook his head. ‘Sorry, not with you, dearie.’
‘Harvey?’ she repeated. ‘Leila Harvey?’
‘Aw, Leila. You should have said.’ He returned his attention to the bottle and the disobliging optic. ‘She’s not here.’
‘But she told me to come tonight.’
He sighed wearily and jerked his head to one side without looking round. ‘Ask that lot out the back.’
‘Out the back’ turned out to be a dressing-room of sorts. It was a cramped, not very clean space, with a single chipped sink in one corner, a selection of mismatched chairs and a couple of mirrors propped up on rickety tables, amongst piles of cosmetics, over-spilling ashtrays and cheap, thick china teacups.
Six women, dressed in a variety of eye-poppingly low-cut dresses, were fighting for elbow-room in front of the mirrors. They were primping and preening themselves with various articles of make-up, which, by the look of their astonishingly brightly painted faces, they had plucked at random with their eyes closed from the heaps on the tables.
‘Hello,’ Ginny ventured, her voice tiny. ‘Does anyone knew where I can find Leila?’
‘Who’s asking?’ the tall redhead wanted to know. She was sitting in a prime position right in front of one of the mirrors, plastering yet more Panchromatic on to her already deep-orange face.
‘Ginny. Ginny Martin. Leila said I was to come here tonight. To work.’
Six pairs of eyes were turned on her.
‘Aw yeah, the new cigarette girl.’ The redhead sniffed inelegantly and rubbed at a lipstick smudge on her teeth with a nicotine-stained finger. ‘I thought you’d be older from what Shirley said.’
Ginny ignored the Shirley remark. ‘Cigarette girl. That’s right,’ she said politely. ‘Could you tell me who’s in charge, please?’
‘I don’t think the governor’s in tonight. Well, not till much later.’
‘Could you tell me what to do then?’
The redhead rolled her eyes. ‘You really are fresh off the boat, ain’t you, darling?’
‘If you could just—’
‘Look, your costume’s over there in the wardrobe,’ she said, flicking a scarlet-painted finger-nail towards a curtain-covered recess by the sink. ‘And the cigarette tray’s kept behind the bar. Gloria’s in charge when the governor isn’t here. She’ll give it to you and explain.’
‘Gloria?’ Ginny looked expectantly from face to face.
‘Don’t look at us, darling,’ one of the women said, with an amused snigger. ‘Gloria’s the old queen out there behind the bar. The one who probably wants to scratch your eyes out ’cos you’ve got better legs than he has.’
The women laughed raucously as Ginny mumbled her thanks and backed hurriedly out of the room.
With the main lights dimmed and the pink-shaded table lamps glowing, the three-piece band playing soft, easy jazz tunes in the background, and the room crowded with customers and the six girls from the dressing-room – plus about another dozen who had turned up in a giggling waft of scent and cigarette smoke – Ginny felt strangely exhilarated. The club now seemed much more like the ones she had seen on the films. While it might not have had quite the sophistication of the place where Rita Hayworth had sung and danced and twirled her long satin glove provocatively above her head – while Glen Ford’s eyes stood out on stalks, poor man – it was definitely much more like it.
And the work wasn’t too bad either. All she had to do was walk around the room with the tray round her neck, selling cigarettes, chocolates and fluffy dogs. It was almost like being an usherette at the pictures, selling cartons of Kia-ora and Lyons Maid lollies during the interval. Admittedly, her uniform was a bit briefer than the cinema’s regulation overalls, in fact, there wasn’t much more to it than a sparkly bathing costume with a frilly skating skirt attached, but it wasn’t too bad. And the men didn’t bother her much either, which was a relief.
They were more interested in the girls – the hostesses, as she had to learn to call them – who were sitting staring admiringly into the men’s eyes, listening to them while they paid a fortune to drink cheap booze and for the girls to sip drinks that were actually plain tonic water, so they could keep their wits about them. In fact, the men barely looked up at Ginny as they handed her crisp, unfolded fivers for items off her goody tray to impress their chosen girl for the evening. Their chosen girl who, in a few hours’ time, would return the ridiculously over-priced cigarettes, toys or chocolates to the tray, on the promise of earning herself an extra pound in her wage packet every time she did so.
She also had to deliver drinks from the bar to the tables when Gloria was too busy, or overwrought – which seemed to be most of the time – but Ginny didn’t mind that either. He wasn’t exactly friendly, but he fascinated her with his outrageously rude manner and his camp affectation as he nagged incessantly and minced about behind his bar complaining and sighing like Bette Davis on overtime.
But although the work wasn’t that hard, it was tiring. Ginny wasn’t used to wearing such high heels and the effort of smiling the whole time was making the muscles in her face ache; so she was more than glad when, at ten past three the next morning, Gloria said it was time to pack up for the night.
She was surprised, however, when the redhead – who had been sitting wrapped around a man in one of the darker corners of the club all night – signalled to Ginny that she should go out the back with her.
‘Come on. Let’s stick our feet up for five minutes before you go,’ said the redhead, plonking herself down in an ungainly sprawl across one of the chairs. She offered Ginny a cigarette.
Cautiously, Ginny took it – ‘Ta’ – but she didn’t sit down. After the way they’d laughed at her earlier, she was a bit wary of what strings might be attached to this apparent overture of friendship.
‘Come on,’ the redhead coax
ed her. ‘Keep me company while I have a smoke. I hate being by myself. I’ve told lover boy out there that I had to go to the little girls’ room.’ She lit her own cigarette, then Ginny’s. ‘Silly bastards. They’ll believe any old rubbish.’ She patted the chair next to hers. ‘Come on.’
‘Me feet are aching a bit.’ Ginny dropped down beside her, kicked off her shoes and rubbed her calves.
‘There, that’s better. Now, I’m Yvette.’ She grinned saucily. ‘Well, that’s what I call meself. I daren’t tell you me real handle. You’d never stop laughing.’ She sucked in a lungful of smoke and exhaled slowly. ‘What was your name again?’
‘Ginny.’
‘So what did you make of your first night then, Ginny?’
‘Interesting.’
‘Interesting!’ Yvette laughed, not unkindly this time, but from genuine amusement. ‘That’s one way to describe it, I suppose.’
‘Well,’ Ginny said slightly defensively, ‘it’s just that there are so many different people out there. It’s been a while since I’ve been out much, so, yeah, I do find it interesting. Just watching them. And it’s been a while since I’ve seen anyone spending that sort of money an’ all.’
‘You just watch yourself,’ Yvette warned her. ‘Don’t get carried away with all their flash acting. Some of them ain’t got two bob to rub together. They’re just spending money they should be using to pay their bills or to give their old woman for the housekeeping.’
Ginny frowned. ‘What sort of people are they, then?’
Yvette waved her cigarette in the air. ‘All sorts. Black marketeers. Genuine businessmen. Playboys even – well, sometimes. Servicemen. Posh blokes out slumming. Artistic sorts. You get a lot of them round here. Painters, writers, actors and that – they’ve never got a ha’penny to bless ’emselves with, but they’re a good laugh if you ain’t busy.’
Ginny smiled. ‘See. I told you it was interesting.’
Yvette returned the smile. ‘You seem a genuine sort of a girl, Ginny. Make sure you stay that way. Don’t let none of this get to you.’ She suddenly leaned forward and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Hark at me, I’m getting sentimental in me old age. But, seriously, there are one or two things you should know.’
‘Yeah? Like what?’
‘There’s some hard men round these parts. Men who fight over every bit of turf. The men who run the betting, the protection and most of the girls out on the streets. Men who’d think nothing of smacking a good-looking sort like you into a pulp.’
Ginny hurriedly looked away for fear that Yvette would be able to see in her eyes that she knew exactly what she was talking about.
‘They’re the ones,’ Yvette continued, seemingly not noticing Ginny’s discomfort, ‘who don’t have to pay for anything when they come in here. We’ll make sure you know who they are.’
The two women were sitting there, both locked into their private thoughts, when two of the other hostesses came barrelling into the dressing-room like children bursting out of the school gates at home time.
‘I got a fair tip but I don’t reckon Leila’s gonna be very pleased,’ squealed one of them, a black girl with a strange accent that was a cross between a South London drawl and a musical Caribbean lilt. ‘He was off like a stuck pig when I told him we could go upstairs. Stupid sod. What’s he come in here for if he don’t wanna do nothing?’
She inhaled deeply on a hand-rolled cigarette, holding the smoke in her lungs until she sould stand it no longer. ‘How about yours, Patty?’ she asked in a gasp of expelled breath, handing the cigarette to her platinum-blonde companion. ‘He on for it, is he?’
‘Tell you the truth, Carmen,’ Patty said in a low, guarded voice with a hint of Irish brogue just audible behind her flat London vowels. ‘I don’t think I fancy it. See, I reckon he’s pissed himself. He stunk just like the bloody men’s lav.’
Carmen went cross-eyed, stuck out her tongue and made a loud, gagging sound. ‘How’d you get rid of him?’
‘Told him I’d just got the curse.’
‘Yeah, the curse of having to have it away with ugly bastards like him!’
They both burst into loud, uncontrolled laughter.
‘Ginny,’ said Yvette loudly enough to interrupt their hysterics. ‘Let me introduce the comedy double act – Carmen and Patty. I’m always telling these two they should go on the stage.’
As if on cue, the girls linked arms and broke into an impromptu routine of badly co-ordinated high kicks, until, with tears of laughter streaming down their faces, they collapsed on to a pile of coats that had been dumped in the corner of the room. ‘But we can’t dance!’ Patty screeched.
‘Shut your mouth, you,’ giggled Carmen, shoving her friend in the ribs. ‘I’m a lovely little mover.’ She puckered her lips and blew Ginny a kiss. ‘Pleased to meet you, Ginny love.’
‘Likewise, I’m sure,’ offered Patty in a mock-posh voice that had her and Carmen spluttering and snickering all over again.
‘Much as I’d love to stay and enjoy the fun . . .’ Yvette said with a resigned sigh, as she stood up and smoothed the wrinkles from her short sheath dress. ‘Who’s left out there?’
‘Only one or two,’ gasped Carmen, puffing from the exertion of propping herself up on her elbows. ‘The others have either disappeared upstairs, or they’ve gone off for the night.’
‘Ah well, no peace for the wicked, eh? I’d better get out there meself before my mark gets fed up and has it away on his toes.’
‘That big feller with the moustache?’ Patty asked, her nose wrinkling in distaste.
Yvette nodded gloomily. ‘That’s the one.’
Patty flapped her hand. ‘Sit down for five more minutes, Yve, he won’t know the difference. He didn’t even know what time o’ day it was by the look of him.’
Yvette didn’t take much persuading; she dropped back on to her chair without a murmur of protest. ‘You wanna stay away from these two, Ginny,’ she said, throwing back her head and closing her eyes. ‘They’re bad influences. They could lead you astray.’
‘Well I reckon it’s smashing to see someone enjoying themselves so much,’ Ginny said.
‘See,’ Carmen said, thumbing her nose at Yvette. ‘She loves us.’ Then, suddenly serious, she said, ‘Anyway, it’s Shirley she wants to stay away from. Spiteful bitch.’
‘You’re right there,’ Patty agreed with a flash of her eyebrows.
‘Don’t start, you two,’ sighed Yvette. ‘You married, Ginny?’ she asked, pointedly changing the subject.
Ginny shrugged. ‘Sort of.’
‘He left you,’ Carmen said.
‘Sort of.’
‘It’s all sort of with you, ain’t it?’
‘I suppose it is.’ Ginny shrugged. ‘I’ve had a bit of a bad time, see, and . . .’ She took a long, last drag on her cigarette before grinding it out in one of the over-spilling ashtrays. ‘I can’t explain it, but I always wanted more than what I seemed to wind up with. I don’t mean just things, although I’ve always liked nice stuff, but . . .’ She ran her fingers distractedly through her hair, trying to find the words to explain. ‘It’s different for girls now, they can get an education. Make a living with their brains. But I’ve got to work with what I’ve got. I can work here at night and do another job during the day. And I’ll be able to save enough to get out of—’
‘Look,’ Yvette said, signalling for the other two to stop laughing, ‘we all say that, darling. And we mean it. But then we all stay in bed all day.’
‘I won’t. I’m going to work hard. And I’m going to get out of the mess I’ve wound up being stuck in.’
‘We all say that an’ all, darling.’
Patty folded her arms and leaned back against the wall. ‘I was talking to this bloke the other day. He reckoned he could get me in the films. Be a starlet like. I might give it a go.’
Yvette gasped in disbelief. ‘You’re as bloody green as Ginny. At least she’s new to the game. Look, we all dream about get
ting out of the business and becoming models and film stars, don’t we? But how could you do anything else? You need a block and tackle to get you off your arse, you lazy cow. You don’t even get out of bed before four o’clock in the afternoon.’
There was a tense silence as the girls thought about their lot, then Ginny said, ‘Leila reckons I’ve got the real makings of something.’
‘Leila?’
‘Yeah. That’s right. She said working here would be a good start for me. That I’d meet a lot of people who’d help me get on. Give me opportunities not just to earn good money, but to change my life.’
‘If it’s so good,’ Carmen sniffed, ‘why isn’t she working here?’
Ginny frowned. ‘She does, doesn’t she?’
The girls laughed as though she’d just cracked the funniest joke they’d ever heard.
Yvette shook her head in amused wonder. ‘Leila wouldn’t lower herself to actually work here, darling. She’s a bit more select. And a good friend of the governor, if you get me drift. She does a bit of this and that in some of the posher clubs, and sorts out the takings here and in some of the governor’s other Soho establishments, when he’s too busy to do it himself.’ She grinned wickedly. ‘Mind you, that’s only if she’s not throwing one of the special parties the governor gets her to put on. That’s her real business and she has the privilege of running that from her own flat.’
‘Flat?’ Patty interrupted. ‘More like a bloody palace.’
Ginny was confused. ‘What, she throws parties? As a business?’
‘She having me on?’ Yvette asked the other two. ‘It’s this business she’s in, dopey-drawers: getting drunks drunker and then charging ’em over the odds for a bit of how’s your father. Although some of her little talents are a bit more, er, specialised.’
Patty tutted. ‘She’s on the game, just like the rest of us. Only Leila high and mighty Harvey gets paid a proper rate and don’t have to use them poxy rooms upstairs like we do. Or go to some bloke’s idea of a hotel that’s more like a doss-house. All right, we ain’t slags like that lot outside who hang around street corners. But we’re all whores, when all’s said and done.’
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