When she got back, the family were surfacing for breakfast. Mum was in the kitchen frying bacon, Bob was polishing his shoes and Dad was drinking his first cup of tea of the day. Frank slouched in and then Wendy appeared, pale without her make-up and looking tired.
‘You’d think we could have a lie-in today. It’s supposed to be a holiday,’ she complained. ‘No cooked breakfast for me, Mum.’
When they were all sitting at the kitchen table, Gran made her entrance.
‘So—we’re all here at last. All the family together,’ she said, accepting the plate of bacon and eggs that Mum put in front of her. She looked round the table, her eyes coming to rest on her granddaughter. ‘And that’s how it’s going to stay.’
Lillian was eating a big mouthful of bacon and fried bread. She had been hungry after her early morning walk. Now her appetite deserted her. If she had hoped to postpone this part of the argument till later, she was doomed to disappointment. She looked round the table in a vain bid for support. The rest of the family sat there stolidly chewing, avoiding her eyes. She cleared her throat.
‘I’m sorry, Gran, but I have to go back. I’m under contract. That’s a legal binding agreement.’
She wasn’t sure whether that was so, but it sounded good. Across the table, she saw Frank grinning. He was expecting fireworks. He was right. Gran went off on one of her long tirades about family and duty and not knowing what the world was coming to. Lillian sat poking at her rapidly cooling breakfast.
‘I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go back, and that’s an end to it,’ she repeated.
To her infinite surprise, Bob spoke up. ‘Actually, I think Lillian’s right, Gran. If she’s under contract, she can’t renege on it. She’d be in trouble if she did.’
Lillian could have kissed him. But the Parkers weren’t in the habit of showing affection to each other, so she just shot him a look of profound gratitude.
‘Yes, I would,’ she agreed.
Gran didn’t back down immediately. She had a lot more to say on the subject of ungrateful young girls. But then she suddenly changed tack. ‘I’m not happy about it and I never will be, but if there’s the law involved, I suppose you’ll have to obey it,’ she said. ‘But I’ll expect you to send some of your earnings home each week. If you’re not going to be here, you have to contribute in other ways,’ she said.
Lillian was so relieved at being let off the hook that she agreed to do it.
After surviving that argument, it was a pleasure to spend the rest of the morning helping her mother with the Christmas dinner.
The Parkers never made a great deal of fuss about Christmas. A sad-looking tree and a few paper chains were the only decorations, but at least now that Gran had vented her displeasure over Lillian’s rebellion, there was a display of family unity. They all ate dinner together at one o’clock and afterwards they exchanged presents.
The highlight of the day was tea at the Kershaws’. Shoehorning all of the Parkers into their small flat was something of a feat but, once there, Lillian could admire the effort they had made for the occasion. There were paper garlands across the ceiling, tinsel over the pictures and the mirror, mistletoe hanging from the central light and a pretty little tree with baubles and a star on top on the sideboard. They all exchanged gifts—Lillian was touched and delighted to get a boxed set of writing paper and envelopes from Susan and a fountain pen from James—then Mrs Kershaw and Susan produced a feast of a meal with a beautifully iced cake as its centrepiece. ‘Susan made it all herself, icing and everything,’ Mrs Kershaw said proudly.
‘She’s a fine little housewife,’ Gran approved. ‘Not like some of these girls these days. Do you know what I saw advertised on the telly the other day? Packets of mashed potato mix! Fancy being too lazy to peel a potato. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’
They couldn’t watch Mrs Kershaw’s new television as it didn’t yet have an aerial, so they played Animal, Vegetable or Mineral and What’s My Line. Lillian couldn’t remember ever having enjoyed a Christmas more. And there was still the ride back with James to look forward to.
They set off at seven o’clock in the morning.
‘It’s really, really kind of you to do this for me,’ she said as she got into the car.
She settled down into the front seat and looked about her. She had hardly ever ridden in a car, and certainly not for a long journey like this was going to be.
‘That’s all right. Did you enjoy your visit? Have you sorted things out with your family?’
‘Sort of. Gran went on at me, of course, but in the end she gave in, except that she said I must send money home each week.’
‘What, even though you’re not living there?’ James questioned.
‘Well, it’s winter, isn’t it? Only the odd commercial traveller staying and the bills to pay.’
‘But Wendy and Frank and Bob and your dad are all earning and paying in.’
‘I know, but that’s what Gran said I had to do.’
What she didn’t tell him, because she didn’t want him to think badly of her, was that she had lied to her grandmother about how much she was earning. She wasn’t going to be made to send every last penny home.
‘Doesn’t seem fair to me,’ James said.
A warm glow started inside her. He did understand. He was on her side.
They drove through the silent streets, past locked shops and dark houses. It seemed as if they were the only people awake in the world, just the two of them enclosed within the car with the engine humming and the road swishing under the tyres. They talked about their families, carefully skirting round the subject of Wendy, then James asked about her life up in Sheffield and the people she was working with and the panto and rehearsals. Lillian tried to describe to him the atmosphere of a theatrical company gradually forming out of a disparate group of people—the rivalries and friendships, the love affairs and the rows, the fun and the frustrations.
‘It was really confusing at first, ’cos I didn’t know anyone and being in the end-of-the-pier show was nothing like being in this production. It’s such hard work, and sometimes you wonder if it’s ever going to be ready or if you’re ever going to be good enough, but it’s wonderful when it’s all going well, and then you finally get on to the stage and you’re in a real theatre and there’s the lights and the costumes and the sets and the music—you’d be amazed how different it is when you’ve got a proper orchestra playing and not just a piano! And this afternoon we’re opening! It’s really strange to think that there are loads of people up in Sheffield looking forward to coming and seeing us this afternoon. I still can’t believe it’s true.’
‘You really love it, don’t you?’ James said.
‘I do.’ Lillian struggled to put what she felt into words. ‘It’s like…like magic. When it all goes right it’s a whole magical world and people will come and, for that time when they’re in the theatre, they’ll believe in our magical world and we’ll make them happy. That’s a good thing to do, surely, to make people happy?’
‘It is,’ James agreed. ‘There’s not enough happiness in the world.’
For those few hours, Lillian was suspended in a little bubble of happiness, fragile and precious. They trundled through London and set off up the Al, all the while talking together, sometimes seriously, sometimes pulling each other’s legs. Apart from Wendy, there wasn’t anything they couldn’t discuss. They didn’t always agree, but they did respect each other’s opinions. The cafés along the road were closed for Boxing Day, but they found a pub and had a drink and a packet of crisps each. Lillian sipped her orange juice and felt like a queen. Everyone in the pub must think that James was her boyfriend, and she couldn’t have been more proud. He was definitely the most handsome man in the room, and she knew he was the kindest and the cleverest as well.
As they crossed the border to Yorkshire, her happiness had a hollow quality to it. If only they could just go on and on like this, travelling together. As it was, it was
as if she were on the crest of a wave. All too soon, that wave was going to crash on to the shore.
‘I wish you could stay and see the show,’ Lillian said.
‘I’d love to, Lindy, but won’t it be sold out?’
‘I suppose so, but you could ask at the box office. There might be a spare place at the last minute, someone sick or something. Please, James, won’t you try? I know it’d make you ever so late getting home, but I just so want you to see it.’
There was nothing else in the world she wanted so much at that moment.
‘If I can get to see it, Lindy, I will.’
James took her to Mrs Frazer’s to drop off her suitcase and pick up her stage make-up and dancing shoes, then they drove to the theatre. They parted at the stage door.
‘What’s it I’m supposed to say? Break a leg?’ James asked.
Lillian felt as if she might burst into tears at any moment. This might be the last time she saw him for weeks. She flung her arms round him and kissed him on the lips. She wanted to hold on to his warm, strong body and never let him go.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything!’
James disengaged her arms and gave her shoulders a squeeze.
‘It’s been a pleasure, kiddo.’
Kiddo! The tears did spill over then. Lillian broke away and made a bolt for the door.
When she arrived at the female dressing room, at least half the dancers and most of the courtiers were there already in various states of undress. The noise was tremendous as they exchanged accounts of their Christmases. Lillian slid into her place beside Diane and listened as she told her all about what her family had done as they put on their make-up and pinned up each other’s hair. Had James been able to get a seat? How would she know if he had? There was no way she could go to front of house now and find out. The familiar gripes of stage fright caught at her, leaving her sick and weak.
‘You’re quiet,’ Diane commented. ‘Not like you, you’re usually the big chatterbox. What’s up?’
‘Stage fright,’ Lillian admitted.
‘They say all the best performers have it.’
‘Mmm.’
They got into their costumes for the first scene. Around them, the noise level was going up and up. If anyone else was suffering, they certainly weren’t doing it in silence. Lillian could think only of James. Was he already on his way home? Or waiting till the last minute to see if he could get a seat? Or sitting in the auditorium with a programme and an ice cream?
The ten minute and five minute calls came round, and then it was overture and beginners. Lillian lined up in the wings with the rest of the dancers. From where she was standing, she could see the curtains and part of the set. The orchestra was playing a selection of jolly tunes and, beyond that, on the other side of the curtain, she could sense the audience, rows and rows of families rustling and shuffling, impatient for the show to begin. There was a small disturbance behind her, a whispering further down the line.
‘Lindy-Lou Parker?’
‘Yes.’
One of the scene shifters put a piece of paper into her hand. Surprised, Lillian moved to where the light was better.
I’m in the gods. Go for that dream. J.
Lillian almost squealed out loud. But there was no time to think about it. The curtains were opening. She shoved the note down inside her bodice. There was an ‘Ooh’ of appreciation from the audience as the hall of the castle was revealed, and then it was their cue. Onto the stage Lillian danced, into the blaze of the footlights and the heat of the crowded theatre, a great big beam on her face. This was it. This was what she wanted to do and, out there, James was watching. It was a perfect moment.
Chapter Seventeen
‘WHO’S it from this time?’ Diane asked.
‘Oh, only Bob,’ Lillian replied.
Of the three people who wrote to her—Bob, James and Ja-nette—James was, of course, her favourite correspondent. His life was full of change. He had started his own garage, just as he’d said he would. After a slow start, it was now doing very nicely and he was thinking of moving the Kershaw family to a bigger and better flat. Something with a bit of a garden for his mother to look after and sit in, he said. All this Lillian enjoyed reading about. What she hated was hearing about where he had been with his latest girlfriend, especially if they had been dancing. She suffered agonies of jealousy, picturing him leading some girl round the Kursaal dance floor. What did soften it a bit, though, was the fact that none of these girls seemed to last long. No sooner did Lillian decide that Audrey or Val or Maureen was the name she hated most in the world, than he wrote and said that they had broken up and he was going out with someone else.
There was no danger of that kind from Bob’s letter. It was full of details of houses that he and Susan had looked at, and why they were unsuitable. At the end was the information that their mother was very poorly. Lillian thought of the big spring clean coming up. How was her mother going to manage? Wendy might be dragooned into helping, despite being too grand these days to be doing anything useful, but, if not, it was just Frank and Bob, plus Dad when he came home from work. Oh, and Susan. Susan would be a big help to her mum. That stopped Lillian from feeling quite so guilty at not being there.
‘You coming out?’ Diane asked.
‘Yes, why not?’
There was no matinée this afternoon, so they were free till the evening.
‘Only those lads who took us out last night are downstairs offering to take us to lunch.’
‘Ooh, lunch. That’s a bit posh, ain’t it?’
After the panto had ended in Sheffield, they had both got jobs with a touring company. This week they were in Preston. Lillian was getting the hang of assessing new towns now. The first concern was the quality of the theatrical digs, then the facilities, or lack of them, at the theatre, then came the cafés, shops and after-hours drinking holes. The last were essential if you wanted somewhere to wind down after the high of performing, and there were always men ready and willing to take the girls along to them. So far, Preston was doing rather well in her eyes. The digs were clean, warm and comfy and the landlady nice, the theatre was OK, and the place they’d gone to last night had not been a dive at all. In fact, it had been quite classy and the young men who had taken them there had not tried to take liberties with them just because they were dancers.
Lillian quickly flicked on a dash of lipstick and eyeshadow and backcombed her hair into a fashionable beehive. She pulled on the smartest things she could find that weren’t creased from being in a suitcase, checked that the seams of her stockings were straight, and was ready to go.
Diane banged on the door of the room next to theirs as they passed. ‘You all right, Bren?’
‘No,’ came a muffled voice from within.
Lillian and Diane looked at each other. The question of should they go in, and the answer that yes, they must, passed between them unspoken. Diane opened the door. Brenda, one of their fellow dancers, was curled up in bed with her back to them.
‘Has it started?’ Lillian asked hopefully. ‘You want me to get you a hot-water bottle?’
‘No,’ came the anguished reply. ‘It still hasn’t.’
‘You might feel better if you got up,’ Diane suggested.
‘What do you know? Go away.’
‘But you—’
‘Just go away and leave me alone!’
Diane and Lillian exchanged glances again.
‘We’ll look in again when we get back,’ Diane said.
There was no reply. Lillian closed the door behind her.
‘How long is it now?’ she asked
‘Six weeks. She’s missed two.’
‘Oh, Gawd.’
Lillian had learnt a lot very quickly in the last few months; quite enough to know the significance of two missed periods. The dancers in the touring company she was now part of had all been on the road for two years or more and constantly gossiped about each other and chewed over their male conques
ts. There was a sharp divide between Those Who Did and Those Who Didn’t. The virgins thought the other girls gave all dancers a bad name, while the more experienced girls taunted them for being frigid little goody-goodies. But Brenda had taken Lillian aside soon after she’d joined the company and given her a talking-to.
‘Don’t give it away to just anyone,’ she advised. ‘The first time ought to be special. It was for me. I was head-over-heels and I thought he was too. Trouble was, it turned out he had somebody else all along and I was really cut-up about that for ages. It made me go off the rails a bit. So don’t do what I did, right?’
Lillian thought of Harvey Goddard and shuddered. That had been a very lucky escape. How could she ever have looked James in the face again? It was bad enough having to live with what he had done.
‘Right,’ she agreed.
‘Oh, and don’t tell anyone what I just told you, either, or I’ll have your guts for garters.’
As the girls came downstairs after leaving Brenda, two young men were waiting for them in the hall, both smartly dressed in long coats with their hair slicked back. They looked up and gazed with admiration.
‘That’s a right pair of little crackers we got there!’ one said.
Lillian smiled and tried to remember the name of the one she had paired off with. Was it Alan or Andy? She knew it was something beginning with A. They made useful escorts for the week, saving Lillian and Diane quite a bit in meals and drinks and accepting with good grace the fact that they weren’t going to get more than a kiss and a cuddle in return.
‘They’ll boast to their mates for years about the dancers they went out with. They think we’re exotic,’ Diane said.
‘They wouldn’t if they saw us in the mornings.’ Lillian laughed, thinking of how they all slopped around in their tatty dressing gowns with no make-up and their hair up in rollers.
Follow Your Dream Page 18