All That Glitters (22 page)

‘You thought you’d fallen out of love with Phyllis?’

‘I loved her all right. And I married your mother knowing I loved her. I think your mother knew it too. That’s probably why it went wrong between us from the outset. She didn’t stand much chance with me, not really. It wasn’t fair on her.’

‘If you knew you loved Phyllis, then surely it would have been better to have left Mam, and risked a breach of promise action.’

‘It would have, but I wasn’t in a position to leave her. You see, by then Bethan was on the way.’

Haydn suddenly saw Evan, not as his father, but as a man. Someone who had once been as young as he was now. And just like he’d been after Jenny’s defection to Eddie, bitter and angry. Angry enough to have made a mistake that had affected more lives than his own, even into a second generation. For the first time he was able to put many of the events and attitudes that had puzzled him during childhood into context. The cold, bitter silences that had characterised the relationship between his mother and Mam Powell, the warm loving woman who had been his father’s mother. Silences he’d never understood. Just as he’d never understood why his mother had to make so many offensive, cutting remarks that she knew would hurt. Had that bitterness been rooted in the knowledge that her husband had never loved her? Would never have married her if she hadn’t been pregnant? How different would his own and his brother’s and sisters’ lives have been if his mother had been loved? And if his father had married Phyllis, he wouldn’t even be here.

‘My mistakes cost others dear. Phyllis didn’t deserve to be stoned out of chapel when she was carrying Brian, and have her name dragged through the mud and end up in the workhouse just because she bore my bastard. And I had no right to go near your mother. She was earmarked for one of her own kind – a minister or a teacher who had an interest in lay preaching. But because I couldn’t hold my beer and let my senses rule my head, I made two women and myself wretched, and blighted a lot of years.’

‘But it’s all right now, Dad.’ Haydn tendered the platitude in an attempt to alleviate the pain his father obviously still shouldered.

‘After a fashion. Phyllis has no wedding ring on her finger. Her name, not mine, is on Brian’s birth certificate, and your mother feels she can’t hold her head up even in the Rhondda because of the shame I’ve brought on her and her family.’

Any thoughts Haydn might have had of telling his father about Jenny and Eddie dissipated as Evan laid his cold pipe on the mantelpiece and rose stiffly to his feet. ‘Well, I’m for bed. You going?’

‘After I’ve smoked a cigarette. And thanks, Dad.’

‘For what? Piling my misery on to you?’

‘For telling me the truth.’

‘Don’t sit up too long.’

‘I won’t.’

When the floorboards overheard stopped creaking and Evan finally joined Phyllis in bed, Haydn realised that his father might have been more astute than he’d given him credit for. He could have told him his history any time, yet he had chosen this night. Why? Was it because rumours of his affairs with showgirls were already circulating around Pontypridd? Had Jane said something more to Phyllis? He thought about the idea and dismissed it. After the row over the chips, Jane wouldn’t have said anything about him, especially to Evan or Phyllis.

No, if Evan had heard anything it must have come from another source. But then, he hadn’t even tried to be discreet. Any one of the waiters in the New Inn would know that he’d wined and dined two different girls there today. And if Jane had seen him kissing Mandy in the wings from the stalls, anyone else in the auditorium could have done the same. And knowing now how his father felt about his own disastrous marriage, had Evan chosen this moment to speak out because he was afraid his son was about to repeat history by playing around with girls he didn’t care for?

Haydn took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and removed one. He lit it and stared blindly at the old, familiar prints on the wall opposite. His father had hit the nail on the head. The problem was he didn’t care for Rusty, Babs, Mandy, Helen or any of the other girls he’d had brief flings and affairs with since leaving home. He’d once cared – no, loved Jenny, but tonight she’d driven the last coffin nail into that relationship. Not just because of what she’d said, but because he’d changed. More than he would have believed possible in eight short months.

By returning to Pontypridd, walking familiar streets and meeting old friends he’d been given the opportunity to look at himself through other people’s eyes: like Tony’s ‘Too proud to associate with us now’ or Fred’s ‘hard life on stage’.

And he hadn’t helped matters. He cringed as he heard himself say, ‘Nothing, but singing, champagne, beautiful girls, and the high life.’ What had Jane thought of him?

Suddenly, Jane’s opinion of him was very important. He didn’t know why. Perhaps because she was the only girl he’d talked to recently apart from Diana and Jenny who wasn’t on stage, and who he hadn’t slept with.

He’d been a fool. Using the excuse of pain at Jenny’s defection to Eddie, pain, he’d discovered that evening which no longer existed, as an excuse to rush headlong down the self-same road of destruction that his father had travelled before him. And as his father had found out, accidents happened. Anyone of the girls he’d slept with in the last months could be carrying his child. Rusty, Babs, even Mandy who’d beckoned him into the rehearsal room between shows in the last town. The thought of being tied to anyone of them for life made his blood run cold. He had a sudden vision of spending each and every day with a woman he didn’t love, running a typical theatrical retirement business. A pub, or boarding house. Watching Babs’ prettiness turn to blousiness as she put on weight and let herself go.

He resolved to get a grip on his life. Start being honest with the girls, and himself. Making the resolution eased his conscience …a little. But his biggest problem still remained. Jenny – and more important still, his brother’s happiness.

Chapter Twelve

‘Your pasty, Haydn.’ Jane knocked at his dressing-room door, which for once he’d actually left open between houses.

‘Thanks.’ He stretched out his hand from behind the South Wales Echo.

‘Haydn?’

He recognised the tone. It was one a woman adopted when she wanted something. ‘Yes,’ he replied warily.

‘You said the other day that I picked that dance step up quickly.’

‘The one I was demonstrating to Billy out in the corridor?’

‘I was wondering if there’s any chance of you teaching me more?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’d like to learn.’

‘You’re too short for a chorus girl, you do know that?’

Jane didn’t. Used to being one of the shortest, if not the shortest, in any group of girls, she’d assumed it was simply coincidence that all the chorus girls were taller than her. But, well versed in the art of concealing disappointment, she answered, ‘Of course.’

‘Then why do you want to learn?’

‘It might come in useful.’

‘For what?’ He lowered his newspaper and looked at her with narrowed eyes. ‘You’re not thinking of going on stage by any chance?’

‘What if I am?’

‘Because at your height you’ve got to have something more than dancing to offer. Can you sing?’

‘I’ve never tried.’

‘If you could sing, you would have found out by now. Weren’t you in the school or chapel choir?’

‘I’m church.’

‘They have choirs too.’

‘Only for boys.’

‘Look, I really haven’t the time or the inclination to play teacher to a …’ The paper slid from his hands and fell to the floor. ‘This isn’t about lessons at all, is it? It’s about Mandy.’

‘Mandy?’ she echoed in bewilderment.

‘You’re thinking of carrying tales back to the family about what Mandy and I did in the wings?’

‘No,’ she protested.

‘I saw you talking to Rusty earlier …’

‘About her mending. I told you the other night, I’m not interested in your carryings-on. What you do is your business.’

‘And it will stay that way if I teach you how to dance?’

‘If you think I’d blackmail you into giving me lessons, you don’t know me, Haydn Powell.’

‘No? I’ve met some scheming shrews in my time, but you take the biscuit with your sweet innocent airs and graces. I suppose you even have the time and place for the lessons all worked out?’

‘Forget I mentioned them.’

‘Oh no, you don’t get off the hook that easily. You want a lesson. I’ll give you one, right now.’ He gripped her wrist between his thumb and forefinger.

‘Let me go. You’re hurting me.’

‘You think this is pain. Wait until we start, madam. Pain is when your feet bleed. Come on, let’s go.’

‘Where?’ There was a strange expression on his face that made her blood run cold.

‘You’ve finished your work, run your errands and the doors won’t open for the next house for another twenty minutes. We can practise on stage.’

‘And if I want to rest?’

‘You? The great Jane who can work the market, the theatre and sit up all night sewing. You don’t know the meaning of the word.’

‘Haydn …’ Rusty barged in without knocking, her silk dressing gown floating elegantly around her tall slim figure, revealing far more than it concealed. It was obvious why she’d come, but a suspicious look hardened her face as she turned from Jane to Haydn. ‘Am I interrupting something?’

‘Dancing lessons,’ Haydn said abruptly, pushing Jane past Rusty and out through the door.

‘Dancing lessons?’

‘Dancing lessons,’ he repeated, realising he’d just found the perfect excuse to keep all maneating women at bay.

As two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon approached Jane grew more and more agitated. She tried to take Judy’s advice and think only about the money. Ten pounds meant security. But every time she allowed her imagination free rein, she trembled at what she was about to do. And then there was Phyllis – Phyllis who’d been shocked when she had talked about the money that could be made working in Revue. How much more shocked would she be if she knew what Jane was contemplating now? As she came to the workhouse walls she slowed her steps. Was it her imagination or could she hear the sister’s voice ordering the female paupers into line?

Phyllis was her first and best friend, but she and Evan had made it clear from the outset that she could only stay in Graig Avenue until she had her first wage packet, and although she’d assumed that wages meant unimaginable riches before she’d left the workhouse, she knew better now. Wages meant keeping a job, on never being ill, or unemployed. Ten pounds in the bank would mean staying on the outside even if the worst happened. She hurried on, looking ahead, not back, but her breathing didn’t steady until she stood below the clock outside the jeweller’s at the junction of Mill and Taff Street. The hands pointed to twenty-five minutes past one. Mandy and Judy had told her to meet them at half-past, and the last thing she wanted was to walk into the New Inn early, and risk facing the waiters alone.

She idled five minutes away window shopping, studying trays of wedding and engagement rings, and next to them eternity rings. She knew about rings because the nurses in the workhouse had talked about them, the unmarried ones, that is; all the married ones discussed was ways of making ends meet.

She gazed at glittering arrays of brightly polished gold engagement rings set with tiny diamond chips. Some had two, some three, but the ones she liked best had just one central stone set in the middle of the band. She wondered if any man would ever buy her a ring like that. The housemother in Church Village had warned her to forget marriage and concentrate on getting a domestic position with a good family, because no decent mother or father would allow their son to ally himself with an orphan: there was no saying what kind of tainted blood might flow in her veins. She thought of the boys she’d met since she had run away from Bletchetts’. Boys like Eddie who looked with adoring eyes at Jenny Griffiths; and who could blame him, giving Jenny’s milk white complexion and golden hair. And William, despite his friendly manner and humorous pleasantries, kept his flirting for Tina Ronconi. Neither of the boys had ever attempted to kiss her, or put a hand on her knee as some of the boys in the orphanage had done. Not that she’d wanted them to, but it would have been nice if they’d made allowance for the fact that she was a girl, as opposed to treating her as though she were part of the furniture. It merely endorsed what the housemother had said: being an orphan meant she had no right to expect romance. She would have to learn to be grateful for the blessing she did have. A room of her own in a temporary home with Phyllis. And even Phyllis was an unmarried who had no ring. Just a bastard by someone else’s husband, a man who couldn’t even marry her. Was that the most she could expect for herself? If it was she’d settle for it, and happily. It was preferable to accepting that no man would ever look at her the way Eddie looked at Jenny, or kiss her the way Haydn had kissed Mandy when he’d thought no one was looking. She wanted something to look forward to, even if it was only as fleeting as the affairs Haydn had with the showgirls. What was it Ann had said? ‘Memories to warm old age’. Something to hold on to: the knowledge that a man had cared for her, if only for one night.

Perhaps that ten pounds could buy her even more than security. In freeing a portion of her wages for pretty clothes and perfume, it might go some way towards buying her a boyfriend, one who didn’t care too much about where she’d come from.

The clock pinged as the large hand reached the half-hour. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself and crossed the road. Walking up the short flight of stone steps, she pushed open the etched glass-panelled mahogany door and stepped on to the thick carpet of the foyer. She stood there, mesmerised by her reflection in the gilt-edged mirrors. She never thought the day would come when she’d be surrounded by glittering chandeliers, wood panelling, a sumptuous staircase and silk wallpaper. Overwhelmed by the opulent atmosphere, and the curious stares, clothes, hats and scent of the women walking into lunch, she failed to notice the uniformed porter approaching her.

‘Can I help you, madam?’ He laid an emphasis on ‘madam’ that turned the word into an insult.

‘I’m meeting friends,’ she stammered uncertainly.

‘The dining room is that way, madam.’

‘I know, thank you.’ She held her head high as she walked away. But for all her show of self-possession she couldn’t help feeling that the porter knew she didn’t belong here. She wondered if the ten pounds would really stop her from feeling inferior to everyone else.

It was then she decided that the money took precedence over her loyalty to Phyllis, and her modesty. Savings would provide her with the buffer she needed against illness, or unemployment, and perhaps even lend her the confidence to face people like that porter and look them in the eye.

‘We’ve ordered salad sandwiches again.’ Mandy greeted her as she walked through the double doors into the smaller of the two dining rooms. ‘And a pot of coffee for three. Is that all right with you?’

Jane murmured assent as she sat down. She put her hand into her pocket and fingered the knotted handkerchief that still did service as a purse. ‘Isn’t it my turn to pay?’

‘Mine.’ Judy said, ‘yours next time.’

‘And then you’ll have your ten pounds.’

‘Nervous?’ Judy poured coffee into the cups set out on the table.

‘A bit.’

‘Only a bit?’ Mandy giggled. The sound attracted disapproving glares from two matrons at an adjacent table. ‘I went doolally tap the first time I posed in the altogether.’

‘Did you, really?’ Jane demanded earnestly. ‘You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?’

‘Good Lord, no. I was gibbering, a complete idiot. The photographer had the patience of an angel. If he hadn’t, I’d be back in Bermondsey now, working as a skivvy in a dosshouse or a pub.’

That was a little too close for comfort for Jane.

‘Most Revue girls start by posing for photographers.’ Judy divided the sandwiches between their plates.

‘Is that how you got started?’

‘I think I saw the inside of every studio in London before I got a break in Revue. But it’s not easy to make a decent living, or an indecent one come to that, out of snapshots. A couple of afternoons’ work here, a couple of nights there. Money coming in dribs and drabs, nothing regular. All the while hoping that someone who matters will see your pictures and offer you a contract with a weekly wage. I was almost at the point of giving up when Adrian, he’s the one who produced this Revue …’

‘I thought Norman Ashe was the producer,’ Jane interrupted.

‘Only for this tour. He works for Adrian just like the rest of us. Adrian’s the real driving force. He devises and opens revues in London. If they take off, he organises the money for a provincial tour, and in the meantime starts off another Revue in another London suburb. That way he always has at least two, and sometimes more shows running simultaneously. He’s a good man for a showgirl to know.’

‘I thought the Revue made its money at the box-office.’

‘Darling, you’re a complete innocent. It costs hundreds, if not thousands of pounds to put a show like the one we’re in, on the road. There’s the wages for a start, then the train tickets. The scenery to be constructed, painted and lugged around, the costumes, and Lord only knows they cost the earth. The fans alone cost over ten pounds each.’

‘Ten pounds!’

‘Real ostrich feathers, and a lot of them. They never come cheap, and the cloaks, spirit gum and sequined stars, they may not be big, but they are expensive, and there’s Haydn’s and Billy’s suits. Not to mention the wages bill for rehearsals as well as the show. Not just ours, but the orchestra’s, and Norman’s as well. Then there’s all the fees that have to be paid for the use of the music, and the cost of making all the bookings in the theatres, costs that have to be met no matter whether anything’s made in ticket receipts, or not.’

‘I’ve never heard of a revue that lost money, or an impresario who’s gone broke,’ Mandy said picking up a sandwich.

‘Not a Revue,’ Judy agreed, ‘but there have been shows that have bombed.’

‘All too often.’

‘Well anyway, as I was saying, Adrian saw some pictures I’d had taken in a studio in Southwark, or perhaps it was Brixton. Where doesn’t matter, only the pictures, they were being sold in packets of twelve for a pound like they are, and -’

‘Twelve for a pound!’

‘The photographer’s got to make his money somehow, sunshine. He’s not going to pay ten pounds just for the pleasure of looking at what we’ve got. He can see that for a darned sight less in any Revue.’

‘But twelve for a pound. He could make …’

‘Hundreds,’ Mandy mumbled through a full mouth. ‘Most of them do. Here,’ she pulled an envelope out of her bag. ‘Look at these, only for heaven’s sake keep them under the tablecloth. The old hag behind us has already turned purple listening in on our conversation. We don’t want her choking to death.’

Jane opened the envelope and the white folder inside it. After the Revue she thought nothing could shock her. She was wrong. Seeing Mandy posed in front of a dark grey backdrop which accentuated every curve and contour of her pale, naked body was somehow far more shocking than seeing her standing among the smoke, fans, feathers and coloured lighting on stage.

‘I keep those because I think they show my assets to their best advantage.’

Jane flicked through them, conscious of her burning cheeks as she tried to concentrate on the props, the strings of beads, feathers, and wisps of gossamer scarves that drew attention to, rather than concealed what Mandy so disarmingly called her ‘assets’.

‘So, we make an easy tenner for an hour, or at the most two’s work, which can’t be bad by anyone’s standard.’ Judy finished her sandwiches and poured out more coffee. ‘The photographer’s happy, although he’s had to foot the bill for our fee, the studio, film and developing, because he knows he’s going to make his profit by selling the photographs …’

‘To theatre people?’

‘Don’t be a goose. To anyone who wants to buy them.’