1927, and in the spring she saw that Eddie was back, the resident singer now with Al Coleman at the Dubarry. Apparently he had been in Austria for six months with Max Schmitt’s band, then three months in Holland.
She had not forgotten him (although after the encounter with Queenie she would like to have), but had pushed him to the recesses of her mind. She joked when Sybil mentioned him and made her promise never to say anything to their escorts about her crush. Jack, Felix, Bonzo, Dennis, they must not know. Sybil, she had told about the meeting with Queenie, and how Queenie had said, ‘Just go up to him, give him the eye. All the girls do that.’ (Vera had been shocked. ‘What a thing to say!’) And they had laughed it off. Maria had not felt like laughing. A married man, she had thought, a door clanging shut in her mind. A married man.
Maria, the good girl. She had become the prop of Mrs Goldman’s life. She not only dealt with all the letters now, but opened them as they came. Made the decisions. Paid bills and settled accounts. ‘Call me Norina, dearie,’ Mrs Goldman said. She consulted Maria now on stock as well as special orders. She passed on expertise, made Maria choose from designs, from swatches, showed her small points about cut and flair. ‘This afternoon frock now – what would you make it up in? Georgette? Yes, good, what weight, dearie?’
Mr Goldman (‘Call him Harry, dearie’) came in one day and gave her a lesson in accounting. She remembered some from Miss Pritchard. For a while he visited regularly. He was full of praise for the new arrangements. (‘And she says she was no good in an office! You come and work for me any day.’) But she loved best still to handle the frocks. The fabrics. They stocked a few hats now, cloches, and laid one or two in the window as suggested accompaniments.
In June Jack Grindlay celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday. He was still an escort, although it wasn’t clear whether it was Maria or Sybil he hoped to snare now. Off the dance floor, neither of them wanted him. They made up a party at the Dubarry. She wore a black frock with a three-tier skirt and a vest insert of silver from the shop; Sybil, bright pink crepe-de-chine with a dipping hemline.
The Dubarry which had become very popular was crowded. Al Coleman played Sunny Disposish. Sybil said, ‘I’d just adore it if the Pragger Wagger came in …’ She and Maria had seen the Prince of Wales at the Embassy. He seemed to love Charlestoning as much as they did.
They were an hour or two into the evening, but with still a table or two reserved and not taken up, when Maria saw Queenie cross the floor. Grey silk frock, gold-sequinned, a yellow gardenia high on her right shoulder. Leading her in was a silver-haired, high-nosed and very tall man.
Dennis murmured: ‘A face I recognize there. See it in the City daily. I’ll take a sunny bet that’s not his wife …’
Maria, about to say to Sybil, ‘That’s her – that’s Queenie,’ thought suddenly better of it. She said to Dennis, ‘Dance hostess, I should think. She has that look …’
‘How do you know these things?’ Felix asked affectionately. But Maria had turned to look over at the band.
‘Ain’t she sweet,’ Al Coleman played. He blew badly a few bars on his cornet. Eddie had laid down his violin, and was getting up to sing.
‘Ain’t she sweet, see her walking down the street, now I ask you very confidentially …’ He had gone quite white. His voice carried still, was clear. But the smile had gone, from his face and from his voice.
‘… that’s what keeps me up at night, that’s why I can’t eat a bite.’
She watched his hands. Instead of the open gesture, they were clawed almost.
She wondered if Queenie would recognize her. She hoped not. Sitting at the table, she imagined herself, glass in hand, walking out on the floor, cracking it across that golden head, that Clara Bow mouth. In defence of Eddie. (‘Take him if you’d like him. I don’t want him.’) A little later, dancing with Felix, shaking vigorously to Crazy Words, Crazy Tune, she came for a moment close to her. Queenie, smiling at her partner, looked through Maria.
She spoke to Sybil in the Ladies’ Room. She said nothing about Queenie. She said only, ‘What about doing something really daring? Have you a pencil?’ Sybil had her little gold notebook. ‘You like the pianist, don’t you? What about asking him and Eddie Sabrini to come up to the house? Dodie won’t mind – she’ll be fascinated.’
‘Just for a lark?’
‘Just for a lark.’
It was she wrote the note. (‘Hurry up,’ Sybil said, ‘the men will think we’ve been flushed away.’) She wrote: ‘Two girls think you, and the pianist, are quite marvellous. We’d adore to talk to you. Maria, MAY 6089.’
‘It sounds rather naughty,’ Sybil said, ‘but nice. Do you think it’s all right?’
‘I’ve given the shop phone. I’ll be able to explain.’
Red Lips Kiss my Blues away. The small rotund banjo-player plucked at the strings. ‘Everything’s hotsy totsy now,’ Jack said. Eddie came forward to sing. Maria, dancing with Felix, waited till they were near the bandstand. She hesitated, disengaged herself to take out a handkerchief. She thrust out her arm – she’d never been so near him before – in a second the scrap of paper was in his hand.
‘All right?’ Sybil’s eyes signalled.
She picked up the receiver in Norina’s office. ‘Yes, it’s Maria speaking.’
His voice. A slight London accent. She wanted to say: I saw your wife upset you the other night, behave like a cow, taunting you with another man. Tell me to kill her and I’ll do it. ‘Yes, it’s Maria here. Look, I’d better explain …’
She didn’t know what he might have thought, but she told him straightaway that ‘two girls’ meant Sybil and her, and an invitation to tea. ‘The people we live with don’t dance often, but they’d love to meet you.’
He had tried to call on Sunday, he said. He hadn’t realized she’d given her work number. The pianist was called Roy and he’d love to come too.
She felt sick with desire and anticipation for the remainder of that week. What is happening to me? She couldn’t tell Sybil. She had to make a joke of it. ‘You’re still a bit sweet on him?’ Sybil said. ‘Pity he’s not free. We’ll have to find out if this Roy is.’
It was an afternoon of surprising innocence. The naughtiness of it all which had so excited Sybil seemed quite missing. Clive was not there, but Dodie and her mother who was visiting joined the party. Sunday afternoon tea.
Eddie wanting to know first of all, was Maria Italian? Surely with such a name, and those looks … Yes indeed she was, Sybil told them. Maria explaining yet again about Sicily, the States, the Lusy, Middlesbrough.
Roy was very shy. He lived with his widowed mother in Hammersmith. Yes, he’d always wanted to play for a living, ever since he’d heard the Original Dixieland just after the war. He’d played since he couldn’t remember when. ‘They say I climbed on the piano stool, trapped my fingers in the piano lid, and never looked back.’
Eddie told them about himself. Yes, he was Italian, and of course he spoke it at home but English was natural to him. He was born in the Abruzzi but came over here when he was two. He had an older brother and two younger sisters. His parents ran a restaurant in Soho.
Yes, it was a busy life. Into the small hours always. Rehearsals in the daytime, perhaps a recording session morning or afternoon.
‘What about playing our piano?’ Dodie asked Roy. And could Eddie sing a number or two?
Of course they’d love to. ‘This new one,’ Eddie said, ‘it’s only just got words. When Day is Done – it was a German number called Madonna when I was in Vienna.’ They played and sang No Foolin’, and I left my sugar standing in the rain. Roy played a solo, Flapperette.
Dodie asked for The Whichness of the Whatness of the Whereness of the Who. Eddie flung up his hands in hopelessness. ‘The Astaires? Stop Flirting? No, can’t recall that –’
Maria wore her best afternoon frock – bois de rose georgette, embroidered with silk in a Renaissance design. When she passed Eddie his cup, her hand trembl
ed.
Sybil asked for Ain’t she sweet. Maria, remembering Queenie’s entrance, his distress, didn’t want it. But she had forgotten perhaps his delight, his joy, in singing. For him, it was as if the song had not had associations before, and did not again now.
This time he sang directly at her, to her. Of her, perhaps.
‘Ain’t she sweet, see her walking down the street, now I ask you very confidentially …’
‘Ain’t he sweet?’ Sybil said afterwards, of Roy. ‘I’m sure he’s consumptive, though. His mother must be dreadfully worried.’
‘Maria, you’re wanted on the telephone …’
‘Listen, Maria, Eddie Sabrini here, remember me? Maria – crazy words, crazy tune, but I want very much to see you.’
She said, ‘Why don’t you come to tea again, and if Roy’s free –’
‘I’ve got a home too. A flat. I’m not with my parents. Why don’t you –’
She cut him off. Meaning to say, ‘You’re married. So – no.’ Instead she said, ‘When shall we meet?’
‘You’ve come to kiss my blues away?’ he asked, showing her into the flat. (Maria, the good girl, visiting a married man, alone, in the afternoon.) She had left the shop early. Time off willingly given by a grateful Norina.
Inside the flat, she found herself looking at once for signs of Queenie. He was showing her to the sofa, insisting she sat down. He seemed restless: moving off into the kitchen, coming back, fetching her an ashtray, offering her a cigarette. As he leaned forward to light it for her, she felt faint. He was for the moment so near she could smell his skin, see the light beading of sweat. He touched her arm fleetingly as he put away the lighter. ‘Let’s drink some tea.’
‘I could make it,’ she said.
‘No, no. I do that very well. I boil the water, English style.’
He was gone again.
She walked round the room. It was simply furnished but rather cluttered, probably to fit the upright piano which stood in one corner near the window. On a small table just behind the door, so that she would have missed it as she came in, was a jam-jar of flowers in front of a photograph. Queenie, smiling, in white lace and embroidered chiffon, flowers on her brow. Eddie smiling too, proud, happy, handsome. Half a head shorter.
She heard his step behind her. The colour rushed to her face. She said, ‘You don’t hide it, do you?’
‘What?’ He looked uneasy.
‘About being married –’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s no secret … That photograph, that’s happy days. I let it remind me – why not?’
She wanted to say that it was like a shrine. That somewhere there must have been worship – before the disillusionment. He took her arm, led her to the sofa. It was all she could do then not to turn and fling herself into his arms. I should never have come, she thought. I shall never get out of here. All these years of buried longings – buried so deep I almost believed they were not for me. And now I burn. I am burning.
‘I could do with that tea,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette.
‘Queenie, she’s called, isn’t she?’ she said, as he brought in the tea. ‘Queenie Johnson, she used to be. Is that right?’
He was amazed, almost letting the tray drop. He sat down heavily beside her on the sofa. ‘What else have you been asking around?’
‘Nothing. We’ve – I’ve met her, you see. The girl I work with …’ And she told the story of meeting Queenie in the ABC (‘Take him if you’d like him. I don’t want him’), but not what she had said.
‘But that’s … All right, OK, so what did you think of her?’ He asked it, half bitterly, half eagerly.
‘She’s a good-looker, isn’t she?’
The ball was in his court now. But, she thought, I didn’t come here to talk about Queenie.
He astounded her then – as he wouldn’t in the years to come. Easy tears came into his eyes.
‘I sang for her, all that summer. 1925. All my songs were for her, you know.’
‘Tell me about it.’
He wanted to. Of course he wanted to.
A love story. All Queenie had wanted was to be with him forever. ‘She said that. She said that.’ Queenie was English, of course. Her family came from Streatham, her father worked in a bank, they were very respectable. Queenie’s work worried them. ‘I thought when I first saw her –’ his voice trembled ‘– she was an angel straight out of heaven – even though it was in a club I met her. Smoke and noise. But that’s my world anyway … I couldn’t rest till … I wanted her so. To marry her. Sweet, she was so sweet to me. You don’t know how sweet. I brought her home – we close Sunday evening, have the family meal. Poppa thought her an angel. Momma said never trust a blonde. She didn’t like her – but who’s going to be good enough for her son? A girl’s got to learn that from her husband’s mother, hasn’t she?’
As he spoke, his hand stroked her hair, just to where it was cut low on the neck. She ached with longing.
‘Twenty-two, she wanted to settle down, she said. “You’ll give me babies and a home to come back to,” I said. Momma and Poppa … we all got together. A real family wedding, Catholic of course. She said she didn’t mind that, she even went and saw a priest and made these promises. That day in the church – it was the happiest day of my life.’
‘What went wrong – or don’t you want to talk about it?’
By now he was crying. She saw that he must cry easily. Sitting there, she trembled, tea left untouched. Listening to his love for someone else, as he wept and kissed the back of her neck – she was back on the dance floor: Eddie, first seen, first heard, waking the long sleeping ghost.
‘We went to live with Momma and Poppa … I thought she’d soon have a baby and we’d move out. I got this work in Italy, a singing spot, six weeks. She wouldn’t come along. She didn’t want to see Italy. I thought it was home-loving, a baby, all that … She didn’t write. Then I get back – and what happens? She’s back at work. All those men paying for her smiles and Jesus Christ knows what else besides. And she’s fought with Momma and moved out. I have to look for her – my own wife. Oh mister, oh sister … I’ve to go around asking. Then I find her and what the hell, I get us this place but she won’t come back. “I never wanted sitting at home,” she said. “I was mad …” I say, “I don’t want that. I want a home. I want a wife. I want babies.” But no. Her new life, her old life, it’s too good … Now, just look what I have. I have fun. Nice little girls come to call … But I want that girl in the photograph. I want my wife. I want Queenie….’
She knew if she touched him in return, touched him to console, then she was lost.
‘Your cigarette’s gone out.’ He took it from her, ‘I’ll light it again.’ He put it in his mouth. His mood had changed. From looking desperate, dejected, he became suddenly jaunty. ‘You’ll see I don’t care,’ he said. Keeping her cigarette in his mouth, he walked over to the piano, strummed a few chords.
She came and stood beside him. ‘My cigarette,’ she said. He took it out, put it back in her holder. He reached for some sheet music, ‘Know this?’
‘I can’t believe that you’re in love with me …’
She stood well away from the piano. Made as if ready to go.
‘Talk to me again,’ he said. ‘Tell me why you’re here?’
‘I’m a flirt,’ she said. Falling into his arms. (Oh, good girl Maria.)
He took her over to the sofa. Led her over to the sofa. And then it was, it was … ‘No,’ she told him, ‘No, I don’t, I don’t do that –’
‘Is it because I’m married? I told you I –’
‘No. No. I don’t. I didn’t come for. I have to stop, Oh God …’
‘I’ll take care of all that, I don’t give you babies –’
It was she weeping now. ‘No, no … let me alone. I’m sorry. I didn’t …’
The sudden mood change again. He was shaking. Angry, surely. ‘I have to sing, that always makes me better. Listen to this, an
d then – you go home.’
He sang, with all the patter, That’s my hap hap happiness.
Time to go. I must leave now, and forget I ever came here. Forget him.
‘When am I going to see you again?’
‘Now you’re asking!’ She shrugged her shoulders. More the flirt than she meant.
‘I’ll take you down.’ He helped her on with her coat. Her body, still on fire, trembled. A fine tremor. They went down the stairs together.
Outside a fine drizzle had begun. She had no umbrella. (Oh Eleanor, oh Thackton.) As they stood in the hallway, he said:
‘I’ll whistle you a cab. I don’t want to have to sing, I left my sugar standing in the rain …’
‘He’s nice, Sybil. I’ve been to tea with him. The marriage is over really. She’s left him completely. I might see him again, it’d be rather naughty.’
‘Naughty but nice, M.’
How much to tell Sybil? She said nothing very much in the end. (All those years of talking. How very little she had ever really said.)
Above all, I can’t tell of how I felt this afternoon. Of my deep terror. Yes, deep – because that’s where Peter went. I am not just a good girl misbehaving – but a frightened one too. Not frightened of that, because with him how could it be anything but happiness? Frightened of myself – shan’t I fall into the deep pit of my nightmares: those months at The Laurels. My nightmares that if ever I should be myself … Everything is mixed up. The Lion, the linen chest, Minicu, the Lusy, Peter, and my child. I must never let go. Never, never, unleash the demons.
‘Eddie here. Eddie Sabrini. Remember? When am I going to see you, Maria?’
‘Eddie speaking. Listen to this, Maria. I can’t believe that you’re in love with me … I want to sing that for you, Maria.’
‘It’s Eddie here, Eddie Sabrini. Would you like to see some records cut? I could fix …’
‘Eddie again, Maria. I’ve been gigging around or I’d have called before. Maria, When am I going to see you?’
The Golden Lion Page 21