Put Out the Fires

by Maureen Lee

  “You were curly as a baby,” Jacob said when she returned from the hairdresser’s. He’d been shocked to the core when she came downstairs that morning minus her long auburn plaits. “I must admit it looks very nice.

  Modern, like that film star, what’s her name - Laraine Day.”

  Ruth was amused to find he went to the pictures nearly every week, his single indulgence.

  “It’s only threepence at the front. I’d sooner go without a meal than miss the pictures.”

  He knew the names of all the stars and enthused over Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Myrna Loy and William Powell, his favourites. Perhaps, thought Ruth, he’d like to see Gone With The Wind, which she’d noticed was showing at the Odeon. They could go together as a special treat one Saturday. Presuming she got a job, of course, which wasn’t likely if she merely wandered around buying stockings and make-up; spending money rather than finding a way of earning it. She was, she confessed to herself, at a loss where to look.

  A familiar shop came within view when she turned the corner at the bottom of Ranelagh Street: Cranes in Hanover Street, where she used to buy most of her music. Ruth hurried across the road, drawn somewhat inexplicably by the sight of a white baby grand piano in the window. There were no customers inside and no sign of an assistant when she entered, though plenty more pianos, all upright. The sight of so many brought back the urge to play. She hadn’t played a piano since the Hun took the Steinway. There’d been a reluctance to use the one at home once her father told her it was badly out of tune.

  Remembering how he’d cared for his beloved piano, it would have made her feel even more guilty for neglecting him when she found the old mellow velvet notes off key.

  She’d never realised how poor he was. In fact, it was only over the last two years at Gertrude’s that she’d given him much thought.

  The baby grand’s lid was propped open and there was music for a collection of Chopin waltzes on the stand, just waiting to be played. Unable to resist, Ruth sat down and opened the music. She played hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence. Her fingers flew over the keys.

  Chopin was glorious!

  She was approaching the end of the second page and was preparing to turn the music over, when a wizened liver spotted hand reached out from behind and turned the sheet for her. Without pausing, Ruth played on. The sheet was turned again and again, until she finished with a flourish and looked up.

  A very old lady, well into her eighties, was standing directly behind. She wore a black ankle-length dress and several rows of jet beads, and her deeply lined face was as liver-spotted as her hands. Her blue eyes belied her age, bright and full of life.

  “That was beautiful.” She nodded approvingly. “You’re Ruth Singerman, aren’t you? I recognised you straight away, more from the way you sit, than anything. Your back is incredibly arched when you play.”

  “You recognised me?” gasped Ruth. The woman’s rather clipped, well modulated voice was as youthful as her eyes.

  “You gave two concerts at Crane Hall. I recall them distinctly, even though it must be more than twenty years ago. Everyone thought you would be a great pianist one day, but . . . ” She paused.

  Ruth raised her eyebrows. “But not you?”

  “No, if you don’t mind my saying. You were brilliant, but not brilliant enough.”

  “I haven’t got the span.” Ruth spread her hands. “See?

  They’re not big enough.”

  The old lady nodded. “Even so, you could have made a living giving concerts to the masses, the ones who can’t recognise brilliance from genius. What happened?”

  Ruth shrugged. She rather liked the woman’s blunt candour. “I got married and had a family. That seemed a better thing to do than earn my living as a second-rate pianist - not that I felt I was making a choice at the time.”

  “You did the right thing,” the woman said approvingly.

  “Do you play?” asked Ruth.

  “Not very well. I suppose you could say I was adequate.”

  “This is a beautiful instrument!” Ruth ran the back of her hand along the milky-white keys. “It has the tone of a harp.”

  The old lady smiled for the first time. “I don’t suppose I can persuade you to buy it?”

  “I couldn’t afford the music, let alone the piano!” Ruth got to her feet, suddenly embarrassed. “What a terrible nerve, walking in off the street and taking over your most expensive piano! I’m so sorry.”

  “Please don’t apologise!” The old lady squeezed Ruth’s hand. “I enjoyed the Chopin immensely.”

  “I don’t suppose you need staff?” Ruth said hopefully.

  “That’s what I’m doing in town, looking for work, but I’ve no idea where to start.”

  “The Echo’s the best place, dear. There’s a whole list of vacancies every day. We’re fully staffed, I’m afraid. Some of our assistants were called up, which is why I’m here part-time, along with one or two others who retired many years ago.”

  “I’ll buy a paper later on.” Ruth glanced around the showroom, grateful for the woman’s good manners or lack of curiosity in not demanding a detailed explanation of why she was in need of work. “It’s just that selling pianos is the thing I’d most like to do.” “Playing would be better, surely?”

  “Of course it would! But I need to earn some money, and who will pay me to do that?”

  The blue eyes twinkled. “Reece’s Ballroom will, my dear,” the woman said swiftly. “They need a pianist for their Afternoon Tea Dances. Wednesday to Saturday, three o’clock until five thirty, with a fifteen minute interval at a quarter past four. The pay is ten shillings a session and the tips are good. Most customers throw a threepenny bit or a sixpence in the saucer by the door on their way out.”

  “How on earth do you know all this?” Ruth asked, amazed.

  “Because I’m the current pianist! I was talked into doing it as a favour. I can’t wait to get away!” The old lady clasped her hands together fervently as if she was about to pray. “People can’t dance to classical music, and I detest these modern composers: Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter - their songs will never stand the test of time.

  In another few years, no-one will have heard of them.”

  “I don’t know about that! Night and Day is quite beautiful, and I couldn’t get They II Never Believe Me out of my head when I first heard it. There’s A Small Hotel was . . . ” Ruth paused.

  “Was what?”

  “My daughter’s favourite,” Ruth said abruptly.

  “Well, my dear, the job’s there waiting if you want it. Do you?”

  “Yes, I do,” Ruth said without hesitation.

  “Wonderful! What day is today?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Then I shall write a note of introduction which you can take with you tomorrow.” Her sigh of enormous relief was followed by a hearty chuckle. “I expect Reece’s will be glad to see the back of Edith Hollingsworth. It’s obvious to everyone I don’t enjoy what I do, and they’ll be pleased to have someone young and attractive for a change. I’ve joined the Women’s Voluntary Services, so I’ve far more important things to do with my afternoons whilst there’s a war on. I don’t need the money as you so obviously do.”

  “You remind me of my father. He’s in his eighties, yet still full of life.”

  Ruth felt uncomfortable when the woman looked slightly annoyed. “People are always surprised if the older generation don’t take to their beds and prepare to die once they’re past sixty. You are only as old as you feel, and I feel like a young woman—most of the time.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ruth murmured.

  “No matter.” The blue eyes regarded her searchingly.

  “You feel very old, don’t you, Ruth Singerman?”

  “Very old,” Ruth said slowly. “Very, very old.” She began to pick out There’s A Small Hotel with her right hand, and gradually extemporised the bass with her left.

  “Have you got a compend
ium of modern songs? I don’t know all that many.”

  “I thought you didn’t have enough money for music?”

  The old lady said with a smile.

  “I was going to treat myself to a coffee in the Kardomah if I found a job. I’ll go without.”

  Armed with the note from Edith Hollingsworth, and dressed in one of her old frocks which Brenda Mahon had quickly stripped of frills and shortened, altering the high neck to a more fashionable V, Ruth turned up at Reece’s, just across the road from Cranes, the following day.

  She wasn’t at all surprised to be met with indignation by the manageress.

  “But we don’t know anything about you! Oh, that Edith Hollingsworth is an arrogant woman! To think she can just give the job up without a moment’s notice and send a complete stranger along in her place.”

  “Would you like me to audition?” Ruth asked humbly.

  “What good would that do?” the woman said in high dudgeon. “People will be arriving in fifteen minutes.”

  “In that case, do you mind if I put in a spot of practice?”

  “Practice? You need to practise?”

  Ruth had practised for hours the night before, much to her father’s delight, though he was uneasy about the job.

  “It seems a bit degrading, love, getting tips off people,” he said doubtfully.

  “I meant I’d like to see what your piano is like,” Ruth explained, entirely sympathetic to the woman’s anger.

  “My piano is every bit as good as anything they’ve got in Cranes,” the manageress said, even more indignant.

  “I’d just like to get used to it - that’s if you want me to play. I perfectly understand if you prefer to cancel this afternoon’s dance.” She prayed the suggestion would be rejected. It was.

  “I can’t possibly cancel this afternoon’s dance,” the woman said scathingly. “You’ll just have to do for today.

  At least you look a bit more pleasant than that Edith.

  Bloody old bat, you’d think she was playing for a funeral, not a dance where people have come to enjoy themselves.”

  The dancers were mainly middle-aged and middle class, though there were several servicemen who looked lost without any young women to partner them.

  Ruth started off feeling more nervous than she’d done as a child when taking an exam, but she soon relaxed and the piano became an extension of herself. She’d never minded what sort of music she played; Beethoven and Bach might well be far superior composers to Berlin and Porter, but in the end, no matter who wrote it, it was merely a combination of notes on a keyboard, and she had always played everything to the furthest extent of her talent.

  She put everything she had into the last waltz, I’ll Be Seeing You, and whispered underneath her breath, “Will I; will I, be seeing you, my dear Simon, my darling Leah?”

  “Here’s your tips. You’ve got twice as much as that old bat Edith.”

  Ruth came to. She was still sitting at the piano, miles away. Everyone had gone and she hadn’t noticed. The manageress was offering her a plateful of threepenny bits and sixpences. Amongst them, Ruth noticed several shillings.

  “Thank you.” Her heart lifted. She’d brought the ration books, just in case, so she could buy groceries on the way home and order some more coal.

  “You can stop for the interval, you know,” the manageress was saying. “You played right through.”

  “I didn’t want to stop, though I will if you’d prefer.”

  “Oh, no!” the woman said with alacrity. “Whatever it was, the customers really loved it.”

  “It was Brahms’ Lullaby.”

  “Well, I’ll see you the same time tomorrow.”

  Ruth had a job!

  The kettle boiled, a high-pitched whine which briefly drowned the screams still coming from next door. Surely, Ruth thought impatiently as she made the tea, the woman would have to stop sometime? She was amazed she hadn’t lost her voice by now.

  “You filthy whore! You dirty, filthy little whore!”

  Ellis spoke—yelled—in English for the first time. So, it was one of the girls in receipt of this epic tongue-lashing!

  Almost certainly Dilys, a pathetic spotted pudding of a girl, as quiet as her mother was voluble.

  Poor kid! Ruth had never shouted at her children, though there’d been plenty of rows with Benjy over the last few years. She felt a surge of anger against Ellis. The woman was lucky to have her children. She was abusing her position as a mother, screeching at poor Dilys like a mad woman.

  Anger rising, Ruth went into the parlour and lifted the lid of the piano. It had been tuned and cleaned and sounded as mellow and velvety as it had ever done. She pressed her feet down on both pedals, and began to play Alexander’s Rag Time Band as loudly as she could.

  Three things happened in quick succession: the All Clear sounded, Ellis stopped screaming, and a door slammed with such force in the neighbouring house it must have shaken the entire street.

  “What’s going on?” Her father came in, a coat over his pyjamas, looking more intrigued than anything. He loved drama. Any unusual happening was apt to cause him much enjoyment. He’d gone to bed in exceptionally high spirits, having beaten Tony Costello at Monopoly for the first time in weeks.

  “I was merely trying to remind Ellis there are people living next door. It seems to have worked.”

  “That was a row to end all rows. I wish I could speak Welsh. I would have loved to have known what it was all about.”

  Ruth closed the piano lid. “Would you like some tea, Dad? I’ve just made a pot.”

  “A midnight feast!” He did a little jig. “I’d love a cup.”

  As they went into the living room, he said blissfully, “Oh, it’s lovely having the house so warm. I think I’ll have a shortbread biscuit with my tea, that would be luxury indeed!”

  Such little things seemed to please him out of all proportion, thought Ruth sadly.

  They sat drinking their tea in the dark, the room lit only by the glowing embers of coal in the grate. “This is nice,”

  Jacob sighed contentedly.

  Ruth didn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry, love.,” His moods could rise and plummet within the space of seconds. Suddenly, he sounded close to tears.

  “What for, Dad?” Ruth asked, mystified.

  He beat his brow dramatically. “Ah! I am such a selfish old man. Here I am, so happy you are home, flaunting my happiness, and forgetting entirely that you can’t possibly be as delighted to be with me as I am with you.”

  “That’s silly, Dad. It’s lovely being home.” Which was true, in a sort of way. Her main worry when she was in hiding was what would happen to Gertrude if the Germans discovered her sheltering a Jew. This was the reason she’d risked her life to escape, but deep down inside she felt an urgent need to be with her father. She’d been too busy even to think about him over the years, but suddenly she’d become aware he was the only family she had left.

  “But you’re not happy!”

  It was more a statement than a question, but Ruth recognised a question did indeed lurk behind the apparently innocent remark. He was probing. He wanted to know what had happened to Benjy and the children.

  Perhaps this was the time to tell him, in the dark where he could scarcely see her face, nor she his. He had to know some time.

  “Benjy’s dead,” she said softly.

  There was a long silence.

  “Oh, my dear!” his old voice quavered eventually.

  “He killed himself,” Ruth went on, “because he couldn’t stand what the Germans were doing. Even worse, what they were likely to do in the future. They put us Jews out to work like slaves, Dad; cleaning the streets, scrubbing the steps of the public buildings. The soldiers laughed and kicked us. I could stand the humiliation, but not Benjy.”

  “And your children, Simon and Leah, my grandchildren?”

  Ruth could scarcely hear, his voice was no more than a whisper. “I’ve no idea whether they a
re dead or alive,” she said hopelessly. “They planned to escape through Switzerland and France to Spain, then to America. I’ve had no word since, but then, how could I? They are as ignorant of my fate as I am of theirs.”

  “That is a long journey to make,” Jacob said gravely.

  “But why America?”

  “I don’t know, Dad.” Incredibly, she actually managed a smile in the dark. “Perhaps, like you, they’d seen too many pictures!”

  She’d made the first part of the journey herself two years later, sold everything she still possessed, her wedding and engagement rings, every scrap of jewellery.

  Together with Gertrude’s life savings, there’d been enough to buy forged papers and bribe someone to drive her to Spain. No, not quite enough; the “someone”, an acquaintance of Gertrude’s husband, had wanted more than money once they’d set off, a typical Austrian couple going on holiday. Ruth, past caring, made no objection.

  It would have been dangerous to do otherwise. The man held her fate in his fat little hands. She let him have his way, it meant nothing.

  She gave her father the bare bones of her own escape, leaving out the part that would have upset him.

  “I arrived in Barcelona,” she concluded. “Gertrude had discovered, God knows how, a synagogue there acted as a kind of sorting house for refugees. They wrote to tell you I was safe and arranged for my sea passage to England.”

  “This Gertrude, she sounds like an angel sent from heaven,’Jacob breathed.

  “She is indeed,” Ruth said fervently. “Some day, when this is all over, I shall repay Gertrude for all she did for me.”

  “You must also go to America to search for Simon and Leah. There must be similar places keeping a check of refugees.”

  “I intend to one day, Dad.” Ruth felt as if a load had been lifted from her shoulders. “Will you do me a favour?” she asked.

  “Anything, you know that.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it again.”

  “Then we shan’t,” he said gravely, “though I have one question. Your Uncle David and his family, what happened to them?”