Family Chorus

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Miss!’ Mr Gamba had come back bearing several pairs of white satin ballet shoes in his hands. ‘Miss, are you one of the dancers these shoes is meant for?’

  ‘Mmm? Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Madame Gansella measured all of us last week and sent the order in —’

  ‘I think this is the one for this docket — think it is, but I’m not certain. So, we must check, yes? Yes. I have here the shoes with the names. You should come, please, miss, check the names with me against the docket, we see we have the right shoes, maybe you try yours on, we find them and this makes certain we have the right order, yes? Yes. Come on — back here, we try on. You should excuse us, chentlemen, we have business to do. It’s a good thing he brings you with to collect the order, hmm? If he doesn’t, maybe we got problems. As it is, maybe we don’t.’ And he bustled her away into a dusty back room and sat her down so that they could go through the order.

  All the time, checking the shoes against the measurements on the docket, trying on her own — which fitted perfectly and confirmed that this was the right order — she strained her ears, trying to pick words out of the faint murmur of voices coming from the front of the shop. What were they talking about, Ambrose and that man? Why did it make her feel so horrible that they were talking at all? Just some silly man with nothing better to do than chatter about himself to anyone who’d listen — but she couldn’t rid herself of the sense of irritation that filled her, and as soon as Mr Gamba let her go she hurried back into the shop.

  As she reached it the bell on the shop door tinkled again, and someone else came in, a harassed woman with three noisy children in tow, and it was impossible to say anything to Ambrose in the resulting hubbub. Mr Gamba packed up the shoes and gave the parcel to Ambrose with a flourish, and then turned to the moustached man, who smiled at Ambrose once more as they made their way to the door, past the children who were now running about and shouting in a very distracted manner, and then put one hand out towards Ambrose.

  ‘Nice talking to you,’ he murmured, and Ambrose nodded. Lexie, glad to be escaping, managed to smile too, and then they were out in the street and it was as though someone had lit a little fire inside her to melt away the coldness, she felt so much better.

  ‘I didn’t like that bloke,’ she said as she tried to tuck her hand into his arm again, but he was holding the parcel of shoes in the crook of his elbow on that side, so she couldn’t. ‘Nasty pushy type —’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Ambrose said, and her belly tightened into a little knot. She hated that tone of voice; it meant he’d gone off into one of his brown studies, and almost desperately she said, ‘Let’s go back to Oxford Street, shall we, Ambrose? Maybe they’ve started putting up some of the Christmas stuff in the shops. It’s lovely when they do that, isn’t it? We could go and have a look and —’

  ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘That’s boring. Might as well go back now as do that.’

  ‘Well, let’s go to a matinée then. At — at the Alhambra. I haven’t got all my money with me, but I could get it when I got home. If you’ve got the cash now, I’ll stand the tickets, only you’ll have to lend it to me till we get back —’ She sounded a bit feverish now, and she knew that was the wrong way to do it. This isn’t boxing clever, this is being like I used to be, all nagging and getting upset —

  ‘I don’t —’ he began, and then there was a call from behind them. He turned and looked back, and she did too. The man with the moustache was standing outside Mr Gamba’s shop, and as they looked he lifted one arm in an imperious beckon. Ambrose stared at him and then said uncertainly, ‘I think he’s calling us —’

  ‘Don’t take any notice,’ she said loudly, but she knew it was too late. He’d pushed the parcel of shoes into her hands and said in a tight little voice, ‘Won’t be a sec. Just see what the fella wants —’ and had gone loping back up Dean Street towards Gamba’s.

  She wanted to run after him, but didn’t. It was as though she could hear Alex Lazar’s voice inside her head calling out to her, ‘Box clever!’ and she stood and watched, the parcel of shoes tucked behind her muff, and tried to be relaxed and comfortable, even though the cold feeling had come back inside her.

  Ambrose came back after a while, walking towards her with a casual swagger that he sometimes used on stage when they were doing one of the cakewalk sort of performances. He managed to smile, but it wasn’t a friendly grin of the sort she knew meant good things were going to happen. It was quite different, tight-lipped and private, as though he were laughing inside his head at a joke only he knew.

  ‘Listen, Lexie, got a bit of a problem. This chap — good fella really — reckons I could do better than being with a daft kids’ show like the old B’s and so do I, come to that. And —’

  ‘He’s got a nerve! What’s it got to do with him? It’s none of his bloody business!’ she flared, and at once his face went mulish and she could have hit herself for being so stupid.

  ‘You sound like a Billingsgate tail, swearing like that! Why shouldn’t someone take an interest in me? He’s a dancer, knows about dancing —’

  ‘Fat lot he knows about your dancing! He’s never seen you!’

  ‘He knows personality when he sees it!’ Ambrose snapped. ‘And that’s almost as important as dancing talent. You should know, ducky. You haven’t exactly got the greatest share of talent there is, have you?’

  ‘You — you mumser!’ she shouted, unconcerned at the curious stare of passers by. ‘You stinkin’ lousy —’

  ‘Like I said, a Billingsgate tail!’ Ambrose said, and grinned, a vicious little grimace that made the tears sting her eyes. ‘Anyway, I don’t know why I’m bothering to talk to you about him. He’s none of your business. He’s my mate, not yours, and he’s given me a ticket to his matinée. He’d only got one, he said, or he’d have given you one too. Mind you, the mood you’re in you wouldn’t have deserved it anyway —’

  ‘I wouldn’t go to his stinking show if it was —’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s as may be. Anyway, you don’t get the chance, do you? You take the shoes back to the old B. I’m staying here to go to the Hippodrome to see Hello Ragtime. Hard luck on you, ducky!’ He patted her on the shoulder and bent and kissed her cheek with a little flourish, then turned and went back to the man still waiting outside Gamba’s, marching away down the street with the same swagger he’d used before but now greatly exaggerated. And Lexie stood in the middle of Dean Street, in her grown-up fashionable clothes, clutching a parcel of new ballet shoes, with tears filling her eyes so that she could hardly see. It had started to rain at last, and the rain and her tears fell down her cheeks together, equally unheeded.

  9

  All the way back to the East End in the bus, and then in a tram, she continued to weep, trying not to, but quite unable to prevent the tears from collecting in her eyes and running down her cheeks. Not that anyone seemed to notice: the bored bus conductor took her fare money and pinged her ticket without looking in her face, and her fellow passengers sat and clutched their parcels and chattered at each other or gazed ahead in dull silence, locked in their private worlds. So she was able to sit and stare blindly out at the passing grey streets and their sluggish burdens of vans and horses and pedestrians and lumbering drays, and let the tears run and not care.

  The drizzle thickened, becoming heavy relentless rain as she changed from bus to tram at Aldgate, and she stood at the stop waiting, not really caring that the water coursed down her skirt and dripped off the brim of her hat down her neck, feeling that the weather matched her feelings and it was right that it should be so. By the time she reached Cephas Street her clothes were sopping and bedraggled as the cheap fabric lost its dressing and the feathers on her brave little hat sagged and drooped.

  She fiddled through the letter box for the string hidden behind and drew out the key, not bothering to knock. Madame G. always complained bitterly at being expected to open the door, and Lenny Ganz never paid any attention if anyone did knock, so the key
was kept in its well publicized hiding place and the school’s pupils came and went at will.

  She put the sodden parcel of shoes down on the table just inside the front door and stood uncertainly for a moment. The house was silent; none of the usual thumping and clatter came from the attics where the dancing classes were carried on, and she was puzzled for a moment. Then she remembered drearily that they’d all been given a day off, even the little ones. Madame G. had private business to attend to, she’d said yesterday, and as long as Ambrose checked the posters at the theatre and collected the shoes their time was their own; so the house was empty, as dull and dismal as she felt, and she sniffed dolorously, finding some melancholy pleasure in the sound in the stuffy little hall with its walls lined with posters of past shows and Madame G.’s productions.

  ‘’Oo’s ’at?’ The voice made her jump, so certain had she been that the house was empty, and she stood still as the sounds came from the front room; a heavy chair pushed back, footsteps shuffling across a carpet, and then he appeared at the doorway and stood peering at her in the dim light.

  ‘’Oo’s ’at?’ he mumbled again and then as he saw her, and came further out into the hall, grinning a little. ‘Well, if it ain’t the little Ascher. What ho and all that, nice to see you —’

  ‘Hello, Mr Ganz,’ she said dully. ‘I brought the shoes. There they are. Tell Madame Gansella I’m sorry they’re wet, only it’s raining.’ She turned to go, but as she fumbled with the front door he came shuffling across the hall to catch her arm.

  ‘No need to rush off like that,’ he said. ‘No need in the world, lovey! Come and have a — here, you’re soaked to the skin!’

  She looked down at her sleeve, on which he’d set one hand. ‘I said, it’s raining.’

  ‘Pissing down, more like — sorry, sorry! Got to watch my language with you young ’ns around, eh? Don’t tell the old B, will you?’ And he shook her arm roguishly. ‘Oh, I know what you call her! I know you all call her the old B. That’s what you call her and that’s what she is. You’re not wrong, you bright young sparks, you. A right old B, that she is! Still, we won’t say nothing to her, will we? No.’ And he leered at her in the half light and shook her arm again. ‘Come and get dry.’

  ‘You’ve been drinking,’ she said disgustedly and stared at his face, unshaven and puffy-eyed in the dark hallway, and drew back from his breath which was heavy with gin. ‘You’re drunk!’

  ‘Drinking I wouldn’t deny. On a day like this, all alone and nothing to do, what else is there but a little something to keep the draught off? But drunk? Never on your life. No one can ever say Lenny Ganz gets drunk. Happy, yes. Comfortable, yes. Cheerful, yes. But drunk? Not on your Nelly Kelly. And if you ever says so, you’ll —’

  ‘I’ll what?’ and she drew away even further.

  ‘Stop being my friend,’ he said after a moment. He grinned at her, and at last let go of her arm and leaned against the wall. ‘And I am your friend, you know. Who is it covers up for you all when the old B gets her dander up, eh? Who calms her down when she starts coming it a bit too brown? Eh? Me or the man next door?’

  She was ashamed for a moment. She didn’t like him much, but it was true that he often did calm Madame Gansella down when she hit one of her noisier moods, and started shouting at them all, and it was he who was able to make her stop working them when they were so exhausted they could hardly put one foot in front of the other, and she said awkwardly, ‘Well, anyway, you have been drinking.’

  ‘Of course I have! Any sensible fella would, day like this. No one in but me, rain coming down fit to bust, so there’s no joy poppin’ out for a quick one, and anyway there’s no dogs today so no need to get a bet on. So here I sit, all on my tod, lonely and having a nip by the fire. Come and have one.’

  ‘No thanks,’ she said and began to fumble with the door again.

  ‘Suit yourself. It’d be a lot better’n going out into that,’ he said, for now the door was open and she could see out into Cephas Street where the rain was coming down more heavily than ever and the gutters were running furiously as the few passers by went scurrying along, heads down under streaming umbrellas. It was cold, and she shivered involuntarily as a gust of the icy wind whipped round her ankles, wrapping her wet skirt around them. Her feet were frozen, she realized, as she moved her toes in the thin sogginess of her shoes; they’d looked lovely when they were new, these shoes, but now — and she wanted to cry again.

  ‘Might as well sit by the fire till the worst of it’s over,’ he said, and turned and went back to the front room, pulling the dressing gown in which he was wrapped round him as he went. She stared after him and then at the rain, and after a moment closed the front door and followed him.

  It was wonderfully warm, for the fire was piled high, higher than it ever was at home in Victoria Park Road. Even though Bessie was earning good money working for Alex Lazar, she still had to count her pennies carefully, what with the rent and food and bus fares to work and the cost of Lexie’s lessons and her insatiable appetite for new clothes and constant need for costumes and new dancing shoes, and big fires were a luxury they just couldn’t have. So the sight of this one, with the coals piled in a great crimson mountain and the flames leaping merrily from its peak to reflect in the glossy mahogany sideboard and the mirror over the mantle-shelf and the horsehair-stuffed leatherette sofa, and sending its shadows dancing on the ceiling, was very comforting.

  She shivered again and he grinned at her from the fireside chair into which he had settled himself and said, ‘Well, stand there if you like it better. For my part, if I was in those daft shoes o’ yours I’d take ’em off and come over and get me feet dry.’

  She stood for only one more uncertain moment and then came over to the fire, pulling off her hat and looking at it mournfully; it was a wreck, for the gloss that had seemed so much a part of the blackbirds’ feathers had washed off in grimy runnels to reveal ordinary pigeons’ feathers underneath, and not very sturdy ones at that, for they had collapsed entirely under the onslaught of the rain, and the hat’s brim was drooping and misshapen. After a moment she dropped it on the floor and looked at her muff instead, but that too looked thin and meagre now it was wet, none of the richness it had seemed to have at the start of the day having survived the relentless London downpour. She dropped that on the floor too, and began to peel off her jacket. The rain had gone through to the white blouse beneath, making the colour run and leaving ugly stains on the thin fabric, and the lace fronts were twisted and sagging as well. She stared down at herself and again the tears filled her eyes.

  ‘Here, you’re really soaked through, aren’t you? You’ll catch your death like that. Why didn’t you take shelter, you soppy kid? Look at you!’ He sounded genuinely concerned as he got to his feet again, came over to her, and picked up the wet clothes from the floor. ‘Here, I’ll go and get the clothes horse from the kitchen and we can set it all to dry. Better take your skirt and that off and all — no, don’t be so daft! You’re not shy of me, are you? Known you since you was a nipper, for Gawd’s sake. Nothing to be shy about with Lenny, do me a favour! I’ll get you something to put on if you’re going to make a fuss about it —’

  He came back from the kitchen with the clothes horse and with one of his own dressing gowns over one arm. ‘Here you are, kid. Get those rags off and put this on. Come on, it won’t bite you! I’ll take this stuff out to the kitchen and put it round the range there. It’ll get in the way here.’

  He went away and she could hear him whistling as he pottered about in the kitchen, and after a moment she did as she was told and took off the blouse and her skirt and put on the dressing gown. Her chemise and drawers were wet too, and as blue-stained as her blouse, but she couldn’t take them off — they’d have to dry on her just as her black stockings would. She crept nearer to the fire and crouched on the rug in front of it, and for the first time since she had left Ambrose in Dean Street some of the misery in her abated. Not much, but enough to make
her feel grateful for the small physical pleasure of being warm again.

  He came back with a kettle in one hand and a cup in the other and set the kettle on the fire, balancing it carefully on the coals, and almost at once it began to whistle softly.

  ‘Thought it was nearly on the boil!’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Give it a minute and we’ll have as nice a toddy as anyone could order between here and the Ritz down Piccadilly.’ He crouched beside her on the rug, fished under his armchair, and brought out another cup and a bottle of gin, half empty. ‘And here’s the rest of the necessary,’ he said, digging triumphantly into his pocket and pulling out a lemon, a small bag of sugar lumps, a knife and a teaspoon.

  ‘Soon have you as right as ninepence,’ he said. ‘Right as ninepence you’ll be,’ and he began slicing lemon into the cups and adding sugar as the kettle began to whistle more purposefully.

  ‘Right, now,’ he said after a moment. ‘Drop of the necessary and —’

  ‘I don’t like gin,’ she said quickly as he unscrewed the bottle, and he looked at her with his head set on one side. He looked better now, for he’d combed his hair while he was in the kitchen, and he looked perkier and brighter-eyed, too.

  ‘Bet you’ve never had it!’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not. Bessie’d never —’

  ‘Then how do you know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That you don’t like it.’

  ‘I mean I’ve never had it,’ she said and giggled suddenly, for he was looking at her so drolly, with his head on one side and his eyes so bright despite their puffiness, that she couldn’t help it.

  ‘Then don’t say you don’t like it,’ he said, pouring some into the cup and a good deal more into his own. ‘I’ve only put in a teaspoon, see? See how you like the taste, and it’ll warm you up a treat. Time you tried, anyway. Your age — not a baby any more, are you? Got to grow up some time, no matter what your sister says. They’re all the same, these women. Try to stop likely kids like you growing up, having a bit of fun for themselves. You drink up, lovey. I’ve put lots of sugar in —’ And he poured some boiling water into the confection and set the cup down in front of her.