‘Of course sweetheart,’ said Maria. She wrote her name in a swirl of loops and crossings.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘Do you think they were twins?’ Maria said to Michael as they moved away.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t have said so. They were just dressed the same.’
‘My mother’s a twin,’ said Maria.
That night she brought the house down at the cabaret. She did four encores, and the entertainments manager said he had never seen her perform so well. Over the course of the day she had taken over forty laxatives, and while standing on the stage for her final applause, she had stomach pains, but the more her stomach convulsed the more she smiled. After the show, some of the Redcoats gathered backstage. They opened a bottle of Asti Spumante and gave Maria a glassful. She drank it carefully and told stories about television shows. Ready to leave, she walked outside and was stopped beside the fountains by a man asking her to sign his book. ‘That was brilliant,’ he said. ‘You were absolutely brilliant tonight.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Can I write your name here?’
‘Just put “to Kevin”,’ he said. ‘That’s lovely. Slike really summer tonight.’
She looked up as she handed it back and realised her stomach was worse and she had to go.
‘Can I just talk to you for a minute?’ the man said.
‘I’m sorry … Kevin,’ she said, ‘I’m awfully tired tonight. I’m really really glad you enjoyed the show.’
‘Do you not want to speak to me?’ he said. She looked at him. ‘You can’t even spare me a minute?’ he said.
There was a blue light on the man’s face. It came from a neon sign that shone above the entertainment centre. ‘Our True Intent is All for Your Delight,’ it said.
Maria bit her lip and tried to smile at him. She walked forward and the entertainments manager appeared and said there was a car waiting. She looked round shyly one last time at the man, hoping he would understand, but he didn’t understand. His eyes narrowed, the book flapped open at the end of his arm, and the man gritted his teeth.
‘Fucking slut,’ he said.
*
Maria said she would miss the dogs most.
‘Never mind,’ said Marion. ‘You’ll be ever so near to the BBC. You know, dear, you can come here and visit any time you like. We shall expect it. Remember there will always be space for you here. The dogs and you are like brothers and sisters.’
Michael had found a house in Shepherds Bush and Maria had the funds to buy it outright. ‘I’ve been working since I was thirteen,’ she said, ‘and I got some of the money two years ago. I can have the flat. It will be mine, won’t it?’
‘It will certainly be yours,’ Michael said.
He borrowed a St Clare’s van and came round to St George’s Terrace to move her things. He was amazed to see her bedroom: it was filled with soft toys, on the bookshelves, the bed, the cupboards, the dressing-table.
‘Did fans send you these?’ he asked, picking up a handful of teddies.
‘Some of them,’ she said.
Michael stood looking at a painting above a table on the landing. It showed a naked girl lying in a green bath. ‘I’m leaving most of these clothes,’ Maria shouted from the bedroom. ‘I don’t like the style of them any more.’
‘Good,’ Michael said. ‘You can pick new ones.’
When she went down to the linen cupboard, he walked into her room again and sighed looking at the posters. Everything was ten years out of date. A portable television sat on the dresser. He slid open one of the drawers underneath; a smell of perfume and talcum powder came from it. He looked inside, and there, several layers deep, were dozens of balled-up tissues and chocolate wrappers.
‘Come out of there,’ said Maria at his back. ‘All of this is going in the bin. Everything.’
‘What can I take down?’
‘Take these records, will you? And this pillow – that bag, Michael, if you can. There’s memories in that.’
‘This?’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ said Maria. ‘We might dump it in the canal.’
She opened her wardrobe and in seconds was throwing dresses up in the air. ‘Take it easy, Maria,’ he said.
She put her head on his chest. ‘I just want to get out of here,’ she said.
When he went down to the kitchen the dogs licked his hands. Marion was standing by the cooker smoking a cigarette and drinking a brandy. ‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ he said.
‘Just the occasional.’
‘Have you got any more carrier bags, Marion?’ he asked.
‘I’m afraid we’ve none left,’ she said. She rifled through one of the drawers. ‘Here’s a couple of black bags. Most of that stuff is old junk anyhow.’
Michael looked at her. ‘Charmed,’ he said.
She drew up to him and kicked the kitchen door closed with her foot. ‘Well, young man,’ she began, ‘we haven’t had a great deal of time to speak to one another. But I feel it would be irresponsible of me not to ask you: are you aware of what you are taking on?’
‘Taking on?’ he said.
‘Maria,’ she said. ‘She is not a well girl. Not too bad at present, as it happens, but she can be very difficult. My husband and I have, quite frankly, been through the mill with her. I only hope you have the … the resources to cope.’
‘We’ll cope,’ he said.
‘You think it was easy?’
‘Mrs Gaskell, I’m sure Maria appreciates everything you have done for her. It is not my job to tell you so. She is a woman now and she wants to –’
‘– turn her back –’
‘– get on with her life!’
‘– on what she’s achieved.’
‘Are you afraid that she’s leaving you?’
‘She’s not leaving me. We have lots of work to get on with, but she’s leaving this house and I worry for her.’
‘Have you asked her what she wants?’
‘Young man, I am very familiar with Maria’s wants. I require no lessons in the matter. We understand each other very well.’
‘Do you?’
Marion paused and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘She is a very sensitive girl, and my only concern is for her welfare. Her own family are too preoccupied to help her.’
‘Mrs Gaskell, I love Maria. If she wants to move into her own place I will help her. This business …’
‘And what do you know about this business?’
‘Not much. I’m only interested in what Maria needs –’
Marion raised her voice. ‘Maria needs! Maria needs! What would you know about what she needs? I have fed her and clothed her. I brought her into this house. She has always needed looking after. She is nothing but a child!’
‘She is not a child,’ he said, ‘not anymore.’
‘Yes – more,’ she said. ‘You cannot just uproot a girl from a place where she’s secure and expect her to cope. Not a girl like her. She needs to be looked after.’
‘Is that what concerns you, Marion? I’ll help Maria look after herself. Maybe you should think about … yourself.’
The air between them was thick with what had been said but thicker still with what hadn’t. Marion looked at him with hate but then it quickly became a kind of pain. Michael was sorry to have risen to this; lifting the refuse bags he made the decision to go easier with Marion. ‘Look, Marion,’ he said, ‘we shouldn’t be enemies.’
‘You have said enough. Please go now and help Maria with her things.’ Michael stepped forward and put a hand on one of the chopping boards. ‘Marion.’ he whispered.
She looked at his hand. She could hardly believe Maria was going from the house in the company of a man. It seemed unreasonable to her, unbelievable, this man in her kitchen, the look of his hand, his fingernails, the hair on his arm and the confidence he showed. One of the dogs came in from the patio and nudged against Marion’s leg. She bent down and kissed it between the ears. ‘She’s not a normal girl,�
� said Marion, looking up at him. ‘She’s special. That little girl who came into our lives is not just anyone.’
‘She’s a person, Marion. She’s a grown-up person.’
‘She won’t work again.’
‘That’s something only you and she can decide,’ he said, ‘and I’ve got nothing to say on that score.’
She came to her feet. ‘Just let her make up her own mind, Michael,’ she said.
‘That’s all I mean to do.’
‘Well, let us be civilised and shake hands,’ she said.
She was aware of the heat in his hand as it held her own, and suddenly she was afraid of him and wanted to run, but her training made her stand her ground. She looked with pity into his dark eyes. ‘You think you can save her,’ she said to herself, ‘and you call that love and you don’t have a clue.’
5
Mr Green
I once said to that little girl, I said: ‘Honey, this business isn’t worth a nickel you can spend if you don’t have your health. You have a great talent and you can’t argue with that, no siree, but you have to take care of yourself I’m telling you or the talent bombs and you’re back where you started.’ Years ago I was in Reno, Nevada, and they showed me onto the set of a John Huston picture – what do you call it? The Misfits. Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, good God, a whole world of talent, and that poor girl, God Almighty, she was so far gone they couldn’t even focus her eyes for the shot. She said to me, ‘You think I’m beautiful, huh?’ I said: ‘Honey, the whole world thinks you’re beautiful, but the question is what do you think?’
That Tambini girl spent half her childhood hiding in dressing-rooms and starving herself. No wonder she breaks down now and again. People said, ‘You should’ve left that girl where she was’, but I said, ‘Where was she?’ I’m telling you a girl like that is travelling under her own steam. We just made it a bit easier for her by bringing her to the attention of the Great British Public. If it hadn’t been Opportunity Knocks it would’ve been New Faces or she would be ripping up the nightclubs in Glasgow and Newcastle. Believe you me, you don’t invent talent. Talent invents you. It changes your mind and brings you up short. Jesus. The girl wanted a life and she got a life. She spent a little too long in costume, I’ll say that: a baby has to grow up eventually and face the music as an adult performer. Don’t get me wrong, you have to be honest, people like a bit of suffering, Jesus yes, it adds to a performance no doubt about it, but you got to get a grip on it for Chrissakes before you end up in the drink.
The Variety Club of Great Britain had a tribute for me a few months ago – Lordy Lord, a roast they’d say in New York – and they gave me the works, bags of talent onstage, the speeches, handshakes, the bloody gold watch, all the best acts from the shows I’ve done over the years, and there we were, down at a theatre in Bridlington with the lovely Princess of Wales in the audience, and all in a good cause, all in a cracking good cause indeed, not me I mean but the National Youth Theatre, all those kids and bless them there’s talent in there somewhere.
I came to the theatre early. I know I was supposed to turn up in a car like some la-di-da but Jesus I had to come and see what’s what, that’s my style you see, and turning up later I’d miss the greasepaint and all that palaver, the stuff I like. They weren’t too pleased of course, but hell, I’ve been out of the business now these last years, and you don’t often get a chance to do the rounds and turn a few door handles. I found that nice Tambini girl chucking hangers around her dressing-room. ‘What you doing there, stranger-o’-mine?’ I said.
‘I’m counting my dresses.’
‘You’re what?’
‘I’m counting my blessings. Come in here.’
And she welcomed me into her room the wee thing. Oh my what a change in a person I have to say. Thin. Not an inch of gristle on her. The skin was stretched across her face but Jesus there’s no use denying it the girl was lovely and her eyes glittered just the same as they did when she was barely as much as a teenager. ‘This is your big night, Mr Green,’ she said.
‘Hughie,’ I said. ‘Call me that.’
‘What are you doing here?’ she said. ‘You should be away having a meal or something.’
‘So should you,’ I said.
‘Oh, don’t start,’ she said. And the smile I’m not kidding you would have upset a chandelier. I said, ‘Are you looking after yourself, Maria?’
‘I am,’ she said, ‘I am that.’
Well good enough, and what do you make of her, she goes and gets me a wee dram and I’m saying to myself this girl has all the class now that we spotted in her years ago. ‘The older you get, Mr Green, the more Scottish you sound.’
‘Hughie, call me Hughie. My father was Scottish. You know he was the Fishmonger General. Well, I always had affection – cheers! – I always loved the Isle of Bute, and you’ve no idea how lovely a place it is from the air. You fly over there and it’s like New Zealand or better than that.’
I drank a malt whisky in front of her and promised myself a few glasses of wine, but you want to look after yourself on a night like that so I kept it down. ‘Affection demands a hug from you,’ I said to her, and she smiled at me, Jesus, the girl is not your run-of-the-mill, and I said to her I really hoped she was enjoying her career despite everything.
‘I am,’ she said, and there was no two wits about it. She said, ‘I am.’
‘Because I get worried for you,’ I said, ‘and people say we brought you into the business too young.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ she said. She said it herself and I’m not worrying to contradict her, I think she’s right enough.
I’m old now and you don’t sit down to sup tea with all the pains-in-the-ass, good God, we gave it our best shot to make people’s lives a bit easier in our own way. I looked into the face of that wee lassie Maria Tambini and I knew we did honour to who she was and who she will be for years to come if she works hard.
Later on, they sat me in a box. Lord Jesus. Her Royal Highness Princess Diana was two chairs over from me and there is another girl who knows how to fix a room with her eyes and everything. As long as I live I’ll remember that lovely occasion, the pink dress the princess wore, believe you me, it seemed to float about her in slow motion. The Tambini girl came on in the first half and I was proud of her. I really was proud: she came from nothing that girl and nobody in her family had ever been outside a chip shop and the way she sang that night it was as if to confirm every notion you could ever have about talent and what it means. A thing happened, Her Royal Highness leaned over, you know the way she blushes, and she says to me, ‘Is that woman unwell?’
‘She’s a trouper,’ I said.
‘No, Mr Green. Is she eating?’
I just told her what had been in the magazines and the papers and that she was on the mend. You have to hand it to that Princess all the same: she takes an interest in people, and I watched her out the corner of my eye, looking down at the stage and her blonde hair was all swept round in that lovely way and she had such a care for that Tambini girl you could really tell, although some of the acts that night were better acts you’d have to admit.
The TV cameras were fairly swinging from one end of the place to the other and Les Dawson had us in stitches. After Maria’s big number – the way she held those notes! – she came out and her and Les did ‘Be a Clown’, you know the old Donald O’Connor number, and good Lord, the two of them threw in every joke and every ounce of talent they had between them, I’m telling you, and the energy down there, it’s hard to believe. And then they did a scene, you know, where he is supposed to be the reprobate and she’s the nagging wife. ‘Aw wifey,’ he says, ‘come and sit upon my knee. Here’s a wee seat, my bonnie dwarf,’ and all that stuff. The audience are killing themselves. The Tambini girl climbs on his knee and the audience are loving it but she is supposed to put her arms around his neck and just pretend to cry for a second.
‘She’s not pretending.’ The lady two chairs up was waving h
er programme like a fan and said it again: ‘She’s not pretending.’ I thought the Tambini girl had missed her cue but it turns out she was holding on to Les’s neck, and I must say that is not at all professional even if you’re tired or whatever, you know how it is in this business, you have to just dust yourself off and we certainly didn’t train people to lose the place onstage. But good old Les he can always save the day – what a turn – he just lifts her up and makes a joke to the audience about her being in a coma from too much Scottish mince and tatties and he carries her right off the stage to loud applause.
6
The Hunger Artist
‘I don’t know a single thing about history,’ said Maria. ‘Not even any of the proper dates for things. I don’t know when the war was really or what it was about. Couldn’t tell you who fought who in the Hundred Years War.’
‘At least you know there was a Hundred Years War.’
‘I heard them speak about it on The Krypton Factor.’
‘You know a lot more than you think you do.’
‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘I know when Elvis died.’
They were standing together in the observation lounge of the St Clare’s building at Ovingdean. The lounge had large windows facing the English Channel a few hundred yards down the hill, the miles of water going from green to grey in the evening. Maria was good with the old soldiers: she found it easy to help them, and though she never mentioned as much to Michael, it gave her comfort to know that the men couldn’t see her.
She stood behind him and hooked her fingers in his belt and put her head on his shoulder. He always smelled clean, like fabric softener, like a warm iron over washed cotton, and his own smell, the smell of his skin, was to her mind like biscuits and polished wood. She wondered sometimes where all his confidence came from, the ease of his laughter and the way he used his voice, she could marvel at the way he spoke on the phone or just shrugged when comments seemed wrong. He was always shaping facts to make her feel stronger, or presenting the world to suit themselves, and he was someone who lived easily with what he knew and what he didn’t know. He took lines from the books and poems he loved, to clarify things, to elevate them, but it never seemed oppressive to her or taxing to anyone, it merely seemed characteristic of this person Michael, who could laugh at himself in advance of others.
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