To the Devil - a Diva!

by Paul Magrs

  ‘… And perhaps you would like to help me out?’ Karla was saying now. Effie had let her attention drift.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I was just asking whether you’d like to keep me company today, dear. I have a shopping expedition in mind. Kendals, Selfridges, and so on. I’ve hardly got anything with me and I need a whole lot of stuff.’

  Effie listened, biting her lip. She wasn’t used to shopping trips like this. Sometimes on a Saturday she and Sally would have an amble up Market Street and a take a look at Debenhams, and Sally was very fond of bargain hunting in TK Maxx. They weren’t exactly enjoyable, those afternoons, but they made you feel as if you were in the swing of things. Everyone headed into town on Saturday afternoon. It was just what you did. It got a bit busy and you could get shoved around, but it filled up a few hours.

  Effie had looked before at those rather grander, more expensive ladies who went to the more exclusive shops. She had noted their carrierbags as they had loaded them into taxis on Deansgate. Just last weekend she had heard two of them going on as they went by Kendals. One of them had been saying she was keeping an eye out for some particular shoes. ‘Something in stone …’ she had said. Effie tried to picture that exact colour. Then she tried to imagine being a woman who could fill her afternoons worrying that she’d never find just the right shoe.

  Still, those two women had been very smart people. Effie had liked the way they were bustling on down the street with a mission in mind.

  So here was Karla – a woman who had made an appearance on the Six o’clock News last night – and she was inviting her, Effie, to become just that type of lady.

  ‘Is Sally coming along as well?’ Effie had to ask. She made herself sound uncommitted. She hoped she sounded like she had no end of ideas for filling up her Saturday.

  Karla sighed. Such a weary sigh. Impatience, Effie thought. She’s spitting into that receiver. ‘She says she’s spending time with her grandson today.’

  Oh, Effie thought. So she phoned Sally first. Of course. That’s her real friend here. And Sally’s busy with her precious Colin. I’m next best, of course.

  ‘I don’t know anything about her grandson,’ Karla went on. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Sally’s just about brought him up,’ Effie said. ‘His parents were killed in a house fire. He’s been with her since he was a kiddie, really. She’s very fond.’

  ‘Oh.’ Karla drifted off for a moment or two. ‘Well, what about it, Effie?’ she said, rather brusquely.

  ‘Well,’ Effie stammered. ‘I’m not really …’

  ‘It’ll be fun,’ Karla urged. ‘We’ll have a lovely lunch together and you can tell me all about your life, and I can tell you all about my ridiculous life. Come on, Effie. I need someone … sensible like you around. To stop me from blowing all my first six months’ salary on my first weekend here.’

  People might recognise Karla out and about. She’d been on the news after all. And Effie would blush and feel more self-conscious than ever. It could, it would probably be, quite horrible.

  But it was something different, wasn’t it? Better than watching sport on the telly, in her housecoat all afternoon. She didn’t even like sport. Maybe athletics. She liked the cleanness of the springy plastic mats. And the one-piece outfits the chunky, streamlined men wore. The way they put chalk dust on their hands before attempting anything. It seemed a very civilised kind of sport to her. She frowned into the mouthpiece. ‘All right,’ she said, cautiously. ‘Shall I meet you in …’

  ‘I’ll send a car,’ Karla told her briskly. ‘At eleven.’

  So then they were out in town and, Effie had to admit, she was having her eyes opened.

  Somehow I never understood the point, she thought. All of this is about enjoying yourself. All these things are here for you to enjoy. This plethora. She rolled the word around on her tongue as Karla tugged her arm, easing her through the commotion.

  On this particular Saturday afternoon I am taking my time. Karla is making me stop and stand and take my time. To do things and enjoy things I never would have before. Usually I hurry on, I know. I think they’re looking at me. I think they’re going to make me buy something that I don’t want. They’re going to press something on me and I’ll get confused and I shall end up wasting all of my money. And I will hate myself for it.

  On the cool, spacious ground floor of Kendals department store Karla made Effie pay attention to the woman at a swanky make-up counter. She made her sit on a high metal stool and stare at her own reflection. Effie had to examine little pots and tubes of unguents and cream. Then she had to listen to them all talk about her face. And she became content to let them rub this stuff into her skin and swipe it off again with balls of cotton wool. Then they talked about what lovely skin she had, actually, and what marvellous bones. And Effie realised that she was having a nice time.

  Karla was fussing around her as well, giving her own expert tips on skin-care. On what Effie might do with her hair. She knew what would match Effie’s striking complexion.

  Very respectable and smart today, was Karla. Effie looked on her approvingly. None of that vampish black and fishnet. But, of course, that was just her acting persona. Her celebrity uniform. Naturally Karla didn’t dress and behave like that on her days off. This was her mufti, as it were. Karla was in a russet trouser suit, cut very flatteringly. A cream silk blouse. Effie thought the whole ensemble did very well on a top-heavy lady like her. She had already complimented her new friend on her very discreet jewellery.

  Part of Effie had worried, as she’d been driven into town by Karla’s chauffeur, that her shopping companion would doll herself up and be all showy, to attract attention to herself. But instead, Effie had been pleased. It turned out that Karla dressed herself very much like Effie would, had she the resources.

  They looked at clothes together, slowly ascending the levels of the store on smooth-running escalators. Effie felt fresh and strange and stiff with all this new stuff on her face. She could feel the expense of it: it felt cool on her skin.

  They made comments to each other as they compared fabrics and prices and the cut of things; what might wash well and what would last. They found that many of their opinions exactly chimed in. Who would have thought it? Effie chuckled to herself as she waited while Karla tried on a number of garments. Who ever would have thought they’d have anything in common at all?

  Not Sally. Never in a million years. She’d have kept us far apart. Far apart. Sally hadn’t been at all pleased to see Karla last night in the bar of the Prince Albert. Not really. No matter how she fussed and went on all jaunty. She looked at Karla like something she’d never wanted to clap eyes on again. Which was cruel really. What with Karla trying so hard. And that was why Sally had made excuses today. Sally was determined not to be friends. Well. It would be her missing out. No one else.

  I don’t believe, Effie thought, in cutting off my own nose to spite my face.

  Then she thought: but yes I do. That’s what I’ve always done.

  And then she was confused. They went to look at shoes.

  Karla praised Effie’s small, rather elegant feet, with their high arches. Said her own were diabolical. Effie perched on a little leather stool with one foot stuck out, angling it about. ‘Oh, I don’t know …’ she laughed, as if Karla was being ridiculous, paying her the compliment. Though really, she had always known her feet were one of her more special features.

  Karla seemed pleased to see Effie laughing. She urged her to try on different pairs. Some of them had heels Effie would never consider braving. She wondered how she would look, strutting about. Karla was very good though. Whenever she suggested that Effie slip into something more stylish than she was used to, she never made it seem like criticism. It never felt as if Karla disapproved of how Effie looked now. Even trying to walk across the thick carpet in a pair of heels that would pay a year’s Council Tax, Effie still never felt old womanish and silly in Karla’s eyes.

  That was
the very last thing she wanted to feel.

  Sally was impossible to shop with. When she went digging through the scraps and mismatched rails in TK Maxx she didn’t have an ounce of dignity. She’d be elbowing people aside and having a good rummage. Effie always stood on the sidelines, pretending she wasn’t there. ‘It’s all good stuff,’ Sally had told her severely, on a number of occasions. ‘These are all designer tops, you know. Knocked down.’

  ‘Hm,’ Effie would reply. She never did say much when they were out and about. She’d be thinking: have I locked the front door properly? Did I leave the gas on? Was that iron still plugged in? These were the kinds of thoughts she had when she was with Sally.

  The two of them never went anywhere like this for lunch, either. In the basement of the new Selfridges there was what Karla called a sushi bar. More high stools to sit on and there was a conveyor belt going round in front of your nose like a miniature railway. All these dollies’ dishes, brightly coloured, sliding by, like things Effie had never seen before in her life.

  ‘This is an adventure,’ she said, not knowing where to start.

  ‘You might not like it,’ said Karla thoughtfully. ‘We should have gone somewhere else, really.’ She peeped over at the small dishes. To Effie, everything looked as if it was very tightly rolled or wrapped up in parcels, or dyed unlikely colours to seem like something else. ‘I just wanted to try it in here,’ said Karla. ‘They never used to have places like this in Manchester. Not in the old days.’

  Effie perked up at the mention of the old days. ‘Oh, we used to have all sorts,’ she said. ‘There was always everything here, if you looked for it. Even sushi, I bet.’

  Karla laughed – a lovely, deep warble of a laugh.

  ‘It’s not different,’ added Effie. ‘It’s just dressed up a bit smarter.’

  That stopped Karla chuckling and Effie regretted sounding a little sharp then. But now she needed help, sorting out which utensils to eat with, and how to hook the dishes off the shunting conveyor belt. Karla helped out, trying to work out the system for her. It was delightful, really – all this fiddly, picky food. There was even a tap in front of them and when you held one of the tiny cups underneath, it would rush hot green tea into it for you. It was that pungent, oriental-type tea that you could only sip at.

  As they picked and fiddled Effie decided that she had to brave it.

  She looked at Karla’s famous face beside her (odd how no one had recognised her in her respectable garb today) and she asked outright: ‘When was it, then, the last time you saw Sally? Years ago, I suppose?’

  Karla glanced at her and started messing about with the slivers of pink stem ginger that they had both found rather overpowering. She was trying to take the tiniest piece possible, jabbing at it with a toothpick. ‘What has she told you?’ Karla asked.

  ‘Nothing much,’ Effie shrugged lightly. ‘Not a lot. She’s quite deep, really, our Sally. Doesn’t give much away. All she’s told me is that you two knew each other as kids …’

  Karla smiled. Really, when she smiled, she looked so much younger. And at these close quarters you could see how marvellous her skin was. There was an almost unnaturally healthy sheen to the woman.

  ‘We were evacuees together,’ Karla said at last. She went hunting for her cigarettes and lighter, then realised that she wouldn’t be able to here, where everything was fresh and raw and new. ‘Yes, that long ago. A long, long time. We went to the same family, up in the Lake District. We’d lived in the same street, you see. Known each other all our lives. At that point, in Kendal, it was almost like we were sisters.’

  ‘Sisters!’ Effie was starting to tackle a purple-tinged slab of tuna. It was on a bright green plate.

  ‘Oh, yes. I don’t suppose she put it that way, did she?’

  Effie jabbed at her fish. ‘Like I say, she doesn’t let much slip, our Sally.’

  Karla tossed her beautifully streaked mane of hair. Effie wondered if all of it was real. ‘I was the mucky kid on the street,’ Karla explained. ‘Deprived, I suppose they would call it now. Abused, maybe.’

  Effie kept a respectful silence, as she would if anyone brought up that curious word ‘abuse’. It was something she had noticed had crept into the language, these past twenty years or so. The word had taken on an increasingly frightening, serious charge and the respectful silence that had to follow its use had to be proportionately intense. You couldn’t mess around with words like that. It was something she had heard from people of even her own age: that they could look back on their lives and start thinking and using that word. It seemed to make them feel better somehow.

  Karla was going on. This was the next stage, Sally thought grimly. When the person starts telling you the details of their purported abuse. Then you have to measure it up, along with them, against the known scale of historical neglect and maltreatment. And you finish the conversation by agreeing between yourselves that no life is easy; everyone suffers; there are degrees of different hurts. But Karla was an actress, Effie reminded herself. She’d use her training to elicit even more sympathy than that which Effie was prepared to show.

  ‘Sally and her mother were both very good to me,’ Karla was saying. ‘My own mother was hopeless. When the war finished at last and we were sent back to Salford, I found my mother in a terrible way. She’d always been a drinker, of course. Always running after the men. Before the war she’d been relatively glamorous. There was always a queue of new uncles down our street. She got a name for herself, not that she cared. Well, by the time I was back home from the Lake District I’d grown up quite a bit and suddenly I was the one having to look after her and do for her. The supply of booze and the uncles had started to dry up for her. She had turned into this proper old woman.’ Karla laughed and shook her head. ‘God, she was probably twenty years younger than I am now. But she’d never looked after herself. Back then, people didn’t look after themselves, did they? Not in the same way. Not like now.’

  Effie nodded slowly. She was thinking about the adverts on the telly that had models saying they pampered themselves and titivated themselves all day long. And that you, the viewer, should do just the same. ‘Because I’m worth it,’ is what they kept saying. Their endless self-serving mantra that seemed like an excuse, a justification for all their nonsense. No one seemed to quibble with that. Everyone believed that they were worth it too and the thought of that scandalised Effie sometimes. The money and time that people lavished on themselves. Her own face was burning under its new mask of dear creams.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Karla. ‘We were on the run after that. We went from room to room, boarding house to boarding house. We only ever got places with one room. Shared a bed. Did our laundry in the sink in the corner. We had to climb out of the windows, sometimes. Just to get away from paying the rent we owed. The two of us – shinning down drainpipes! Chucking our cases down into the alley! Sneaking away. Well, we had nothing. And as time went on we couldn’t stick each other. We rubbed along so hard and so long we brought out the worst and hated each other.’

  ‘How terrible.’

  ‘So that was when I lost touch with Sally. When me and my mother were moving around so much. Flitting. Keeping away from the law. Sally’s mother was quite respectable, you see. A nice person. A proper widow woman. And I think she’d have thought we’d gone beyond the pale. Decent people didn’t do flits like we did. Decent people stayed in one place. They faced their problems. They didn’t have their problems chasing them. I was too ashamed to walk down our street, you see. I couldn’t even walk down our original street, where I’d been happiest.’ Effie nodded.

  ‘I think perhaps Sally and her mother might have thought that I’d drifted into the same way as my poor old mum. With the dirty men and the gin and all.’

  Effie looked shocked. ‘Would they have assumed that?’

  ‘Oh, they thought that I was a wild one. They definitely thought that. And I was, but not in the way they suspected. I was full of fire and energy and determinat
ion. I was wilful and ambitious. But then, I had to be, didn’t I? I had to be if I wanted to haul myself out of the muck and to become an actress. You can’t do that by just staying at home and living the quiet, respectable life. You’ve got to stick your head over the battlements …’

  ‘You knew then what you wanted to be?’

  Karla smiled. ‘It was like a little voice had told me. Whispered it to me. A little demon on my shoulder, bending in close and hissing. When it came to my ambitions I was on automatic pilot. No question but that I was going with my demon. I knew where I was headed.’

  Effie loved to hear about other people’s ambitions, even when they hadn’t worked out. She found them the most fascinating thing about anyone she met and she was always amazed at how gladly people would discuss them. Karla was turning out to be no exception. This was like being on a chat show. Here was Effie, firing off the questions, and here was Karla being so unguarded. She was opening up complacently as they nibbled at their delicate dishes.

  ‘So you never saw Sally again after that? After you left your street?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Karla nodded slowly. She toyed with her chopsticks, tapping out a little rhythm. ‘I don’t know if she’d remember. But we saw each other again when I was about nineteen. Just out of the blue we bumped into each other. We were both having tea at the Midland Hotel …’

  ‘How glamorous,’ Effie smiled.

  ‘It should have been.’

  ‘It used to be lovely then,’ Effie sighed. ‘When was that, the Fifties? High tea at the Midland …’

  ‘I really wanted it to be lovely and special,’ said Karla. ‘And Sally was the last person I expected to see sitting there. It was a shock to both of us. Of course, we recognised each other straight away. I was there with a man.’ She smirked at the look on Effie’s face. ‘It wasn’t anything like that. He was a theatrical agent. Piggy, they all called him. He was the first one to show any real interest in me. For the right reasons, I mean. Well, he’d made it plain that I held no interest for him in any other way than professionally, as an actress. So I thought: well, Piggy chum, you’ll do for me. So we were having high tea together, to seal the bargain, while the ink dried on the contract we’d both signed. He was going to represent me! He’d seen my promise and would let the whole world know. He’d sworn to make me a star.’