‘All right, now the best of order now! If you please! Next on the bill to entertain us tonight we 'ave a young man who needs no introduction from me. Quiet, please, for our very own Billee Fishah! Break it up small, you lads!’
I climbed up on the platform, with the Clavioline running meaninglessly through the first bars of ‘I want to be happy’. I looked out across the concert-room at all the people, trying to remember the first line of my act but knowing perfectly well that, whatever it was, it was nothing to do with them, and, whatever they were, it was nothing to do with me. Some of the women at the round, rocking tables stared at me like cows waiting to be milked, but most of them took no notice at all. Freddy Platt and his friends stood at the end of the room, by the public-bar door, in a swaying, solid group, still swopping their secrets. I was surprised and depressed to see that Bob and Harry, the two young men involved in the miming act, had sat down with a crowd old enough to be their fathers; they were smoking the same Woodbines and drinking the same mild beer. All the people in the concert-room sat so comfortably, as though they had reached a reasonable agreement with life and death, as though they knew all about it, all that there was to know about it.
I put on my funny face and started on the club turn, wishing that I could whistle ‘In a Monastery Garden’ through my teeth instead, and please everybody.
‘Ah'm coortin'.’
A few titters from some of the more impressionable women but, on the whole, dead silence.
‘Ah am. Ah'm coortin'.’
I jerked my head round with the well-staged, well-practised pop-eyed, indignant look, as though expecting scorn or laughter or disbelief or some reaction of some kind or another from the audience.
‘It's a Wakefield lass.’
I saw the same people, the women, Freddy Platt and Co., and the few customers at the long bar. Most of the Stags had gone upstairs, knocking three times on the door to get themselves let into the lodge; but there was one man standing by himself at the bar counter, dragging on a cigarette and holding his beer as though it had dealt him an injury. I caught his eye and fear, real fear and not a substitute, clutched me. I forgot the act and bent down urgently to where Johnny the waiter was ladling out gin and pep at the table nearest the platform.
‘Johnny! Johnny! What the bloody hell is our old man doing here?'
Johnny looked up, surprised. ‘He's joining t' Stags, it's initiation night,’ he whispered. ‘Get on wi' t' turn!’
I muttered, ‘Jesus Christ Almighty’ and straightened up and faced the microphone, feeling as though somebody had just kicked me in the stomach. I had never seen the old man in a pub before, and had come to depend upon him never using the New House. He was looking at me sardonically; so, if it came to that, was the rest of the audience by now. Some of the women were getting restless. I gave the old man a stiff, formal bow and he turned away with a gesture of contempt and embarrassment. Freddy Platt shouted: ‘When's ta bringing t' dog on, Billy?’ I ran quickly through my lines. Ah'm coortin’. It's a Wakefield lass.
‘She does, she comes from Wakefield. She's a nice lass, only she's got one big fault. She stutters.’
There was some untidy sniggering from various parts of the concert-room. In so far as the act would come to life at all, it was beginning to warm up.
‘She does, she stutters.’
I gave them the pop-eyed look again, avoiding the old man's eye. I had just blasted him with the Ambrosian repeater gun; so far as I was concerned he was no longer there.
‘But she's a very warm-hearted lass, very warm-hearted. She'll do owt for you. And she likes a cuddle. Oh, yes, she likes a cuddle. Only she stutters.
‘We were sitting in t' parlour one night, y'know, just t' two of us, and she were sitting there, and I were sitting here, and she looked at me, she looked at me and she says, would you like a nice cuh cuh cuh cuh cuh cuh cuh cuh –’
The sniggering was well set in by now. The fattest woman of all screamed aloud and the others laughed, this time at her. Freddy Platt was making some kind of noise of his own at the back of the room.
‘Would you like a cuh cuh cuh cuh cuh cuh –’
I suddenly realized, with the old sinking feeling, what the low thudding noise I had been hearing for the last minute was. Councillor Duxbury had descended the stairs from the lodge and was clomping deliberately across the concert-room floor towards the gents, the seal of past grand warden swinging round his neck like a prize medal on an old shire horse. He passed within a yard of the old man, but they did not speak to each other.
‘Would you like a cuh cuh cuh cuh cup of tea?’
The women shrieked. ‘T’ record's stuck!’ shouted Freddy Platt. I saw Councillor Duxbury off to the door of the lavatory.
‘Then she gets all coy and says yes, ah knows thee, ah bet you thought I were going to ask if you wanted a cuh cuh cuh cuh cuh cup of cocoa!’
I got to the end of the stuttering joke, whatever it was. Councillor Duxbury emerged from the gents, buttoning his flies. He walked slowly over to the old man and stood indecisively at the side of him, as though he had forgotten what it was all about.
‘But o' course, ah'm a poor man. Ah can't support her. Ah can't support her. Ah only had one clog on me foot when ah came to Stradhoughton. Only one clog on me foot. But very soon ah were riding about in taxis.’
The two of them, the old man and Councillor Duxbury, stood talking for a moment. The old man glanced in my direction once, but not malevolently. He finished his beer and the two of them set off towards the stairs, the old man hanging back to keep pace with Duxbury. I had no idea why he should be joining the Stags, but it was obvious that as one Stag to another Councillor Duxbury would tell him all that there was to be told about me.
‘Ah had to take a taxi because ah only had one clog.’
I was back with the fat women and Freddy Platt and his crowd. I brought out the jokes as I remembered them, trying to bring the act to a finish. Some of the women screeched from time to time, but nobody really cared whether I was on or off the platform. They were beginning to turn round to each other and whisper and light cigarettes, and to pour out beer and hold it studiously to the light, as though I wasn't there at all.
‘Any road, this feller stuttered as well. So he goes up to this bookie and y'know, it were t' right busy time, just before t' last race, and he says, ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed –’
‘Ah've backed a loser!’ shouted Freddy Platt… ‘Ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed. So t' bookie says, gerron wi' it, ah've not got all day –’
(‘Neither 'ave we!’)
‘So he says ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed. So t' bookie says, come on, nark it –’
‘Nark it?’ exploded Freddy Platt triumphantly. ‘Nark it? That's not Yorkshire!’
‘So he says nark it –’
‘That's not Yorkshire! That's London talk! He thinks he's in London!’
‘So he says –’
Freddy Platt's mate, giving an excruciating imitation of a cockney, went: ‘Eeyah! Ply the gyme, myte! Caw bloimey!’
The whole thing was getting out of hand. The concert-room was buzzing with talk and laughter, as though they had all just come out of a meeting. They were beginning to nudge each other, nodding in my direction and laughing to themselves. Johnny the waiter was making winding motions with his hand, telling me to get off the platform.
I called back in the bluff, appeasing voice: ‘It's all right, ah'm just practising for when ah get to London! Any road, let me finish t' story! So this bookie says give ower, 'ere's five quid, you can tell me what you've backed after t' race. So t' bloke – this feller – says nay, ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed –’
There was a gale of laughter, the kind of laugh you get for sheer audacity. Freddy Platt and his friends were beginning to chant: ‘Ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed.’ Chairs were scraping and people were knocking glasses over and rooting
in their handbags. Other people, total strangers, started chanting: ‘Ah've backed ah've backed ah've backed.’ There was a mood of pandemonium. I was expecting them any minute to start flicking pellets at each other.
‘Ah've backed my lorry through thy window,’ I finished, almost in a whisper. I jumped down from the platform, spraying the lot of them with the Ambrosian repeater gun. There was a trickle of applause from about four people, but most of them did not even realize I had finished. The pianist did not bother to give me a few bars on the Clavioline, whether of ‘I want to be happy’ or any other tune. Staggering across the room I tried to remember how many times I had done this club turn in the past; knowing that each occasion would, in retrospect, become a rich, separate source of acute embarrassment. Some of the women looked at me with a kind of compassionate detachment as I passed. They had stared at me in this way before but I had never realized that it was because they knew things I didn't know, because they were involved in basic matters that I had never even heard about.
I made for the nearest door I could see. ‘By! Tha dropped a clanger there, Billy!’ said Freddy Platt. ‘“Nark it?” Tha didn't learn that in Yorkshire! Tha what? By!’
I raised my fist in what he was to imagine was a playful gesture. Up on the platform Johnny the waiter, trying to mend the broken illusions and turn the place back into a concert-room, announced that somebody or other would sing a laughing song. A middle-aged, cocky-looking man in a cloth cap, a seasoned club turn with a full diary of engagements, took the microphone. He began singing in a broad, confident voice.
‘Now I think that life is merry,
I think that life is fun,
A short life and a happy one
Is my rule number one,
I laugh when it is raining,
I laugh when it is fine,
You may think I am foolish,
But laughter is my line,
Oh, ha ha ha ha ha ha,
Ha ha ha ha hee,
Ha ha ha ha ha ha,
Ho ho ho ho hee.’
‘When's ta bahn off to London, Billy?’ cried Freddy Platt. Some of the women nearest to him turned round and went ‘Sssh!’ They were all watching the singer, their potato crisps untouched. The place was already transformed.
‘Billy Liar and his talking dog, the well-known double act!’
‘Sssh!’
‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha,
Ho ho ho ho hee,
Oh, ha ha ha ha ha ha,
Ha ha ha ha hee.’
I blundered out of the pub and into the car-park. I did not stop running until I was clear of Clogiron Lane.
10
THE Roxy was the last splash of light before Stradhoughton petered out and the moors took over. It was supposed to be a suburban amenity or something; at any rate its red, humming neon sign spluttered out the words ‘Come Dancing’ six night a week, and all the grownup daughters of the cold new houses round about converged on it in their satin frocks, carrying their dance shoes in paper bags advertising pork pies. Youths who had come from all over Stradhoughton for the catch sat around on the low brick banisters by the entrance, combing their hair and jeering at each other.
I approached the place warily, along the shadows, in case Rita was among the girls who promenaded up and down the cracked concrete forecourt, waiting for their escorts to come and pay for them in. I was still full of the evening's fiasco, with selected incidents from it swimming in and out of my head like shoals of bright fish, but as I stepped into the pool of light outside the Roxy I felt an overwhelming relief that another experience was finished with and not still to come. A girl I had once known was waiting by the entrance; I said, ‘Hiya, Mavis!’ boldly as I passed. I had once written a poem comparing her bosom with twin melons, and it was always fairly embarrassing to meet her nowadays. But it was something fresh to think about anyway. She said, ‘Lo, Billy,’ and I walked almost cheerfully up to the paybox.
Inside the Roxy it was hot and bright and, as Stamp had once put it, smelling like a ladies’ bog. The foyer, separated from the dance floor by a certain amount of cream fretwork and a lot of big plants, was crowded with the same kind of youths I had seen in the X-L Disc Bar earlier; they were all pulling at their tight clean collars and working their heads round like tortoises. Their girl friends queued for the lavatory, and emerged with their zip-boots and their head-scarves discarded, each one making a sort of furtive entry like a butterfly that has turned into a caterpillar. I surveyed this scene with the usual distaste, hunching my shoulders and adopting the attitude of the visiting poet; I was not inclined at this moment towards the bit of No. 1 thinking, fairly standard in this quarter, where I took the floor to a cha-cha with one of the professional exhibition dancers who looked so much like wardresses. I could not see Liz anywhere. I wandered through the fretwork Moorish archway on to the fringe of the dance floor.
The floor was already crowded, with the revolving ball of mirrors overhead catching a hideous violet spotlight and dancing the colours over the pimpled face of, to name the first person I saw, Stamp. He was doing a smirking foxtrot with some girl in a tight, red-wool dress; when he turned her in my direction for a piece of cross-stepping that nearly had the pair of them flat on their backs, I saw that his partner was Rita. From her slightly dazed expression, open-mouthed and cloudy-eyed - a kind of facial rigor mortis that touched her whenever she got inside a dance hall – I guessed that Rita had been here about half an hour. I was a little pained that she had not bothered to wait outside for me - she was, after all, still my fiancée, or thought she was – but I was glad to see that Stamp was taking care of her. He looked a little drunk; but that was his problem and not mine. They glided past without seeing me.
At the bandstand Arthur's friends, the Rockets, blew their muted instruments behind little plywood pulpits, the drummer brushing away and grinning round at everybody as though he knew them. Arthur himself, wearing a blue American-cut suit, was swaying about in front of the stick-shaped microphone, waiting to sing. He looked like Danny Kaye or somebody doing a relaxed season at the Palladium, and I could not help admiring his poise and the professional way he stood there doing nothing. I was glad that he had not seen my performance at the New House. I caught his eye and waved to him, a half-wave arrested before it began. Arthur gave me the same mock bow that, in his situation, I had given to the old man; but he did it with a casual dash that made it part of the act.
The people on the dance floor hung around holding hands limply as one tune finished and the Rockets started on the next. Arthur, splaying his hands out, began to sing. ‘Yooo're - my ev'rthring, ev'ry li'l thing I know-oo.’ He always affected an American accent when he sang. I disliked it, but I had to admit it was good. Then swaying couples brushed past me and, as Stamp and Rita came round for the second time, I began to pick my way upstairs to the balcony.
Liz was sitting by herself at one of the wickerwork tables, gazing down over the dance floor with her chin resting on her plump arms, and smiling happily to herself. I sat down without saying anything to her. She reached out her hand across the table and I took it.
‘Late,’ said Liz reprovingly as the song finished.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I've had an exciting day.’
‘I bet you have. Where've you been?’
‘Oh, here and there –’
‘– up and down,’ said Liz, joining in the chant.
‘– round and about.’ This was a common exchange between us. We used it most when I brushed, without actually asking, on the subject of where Liz kept disappearing to for weeks at a time. I took her hand again. She was still wearing her old black skirt, but with a fresh white blouse. Her green suéde jacket hung on the back of the basket chair. I was happy to be with her; it was like being in a refuge, her beaming, comfortable presence protecting me from the others.
‘Tell me some plans,’ said Liz luxuriously.
‘What plans?’
‘Any plans. Your plans. You always have plans. What are you going
to do next?’
‘I'm thinking of going to London,’ I said.
‘Only thinking?’
‘Well, going. Soon, anyway.’
‘When's soon?’ Liz and I could talk like this for hours, batting the same moonbeams backwards and forwards across the table, enjoying ourselves enormously.
‘Well, soon.’
‘That sounds remote. Why not now?’
‘Difficult,’ I said.
‘No, it's easy. You just get on a train and, four hours later, there you are in London.’
‘Easy for you,’ I said. ‘You've had the practice. Liz –?’ We were both leaning over the balcony, our hands dovetailed together. On the packed dance floor, near the bandstand, there was a small arena of space where Stamp and Rita, gyrating dangerously, were working out a dance of their own invention. They were both looking down at the floor to see what their feet were doing.
‘Yes?’ said Liz.
‘Stamp calls you Woodbine Lizzie,’ I said.
‘You should hear what I call Stamp,’ said Liz.
I scanned the dance floor idly, and then sat up with a jolt. I had once read about Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo that if you sat there long enough everyone you knew would pass your table. The Roxy was this sort of establishment too and why someone didn't blow that up I could never understand, because the next person I picked out, bouncing along the pine-sprung floor with fresh chalk on his uppers was Shadrack himself, doing the quickstep as it might be performed by a kangaroo. The girl he was with, just to complete the wild pattern of coincidence, was Mavis, the one with the twin-melon bosom I had spoken to outside the Roxy. They were no doubt talking about me. Stamp and Rita were still milling around near the bandstand, and I suddenly knew for certain that somewhere on the premises the Witch, too, was waiting, breathing through her nose and swinging her skirt and looking in general as though she had come to dance the Gay Gordons over a couple of swords.
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