All That Glitters (39 page)

‘Got any more of this one?’

‘Here, six back shots, six front.’ Glan pushed them at Eddie, sensing a sale. ‘As you can see, a very tasty little piece.’

‘Very.’ Eddie said drily, seeing a way to get back at Haydn without even lifting a finger. ‘I’ll take these four. Five bob do it?’

Chapter Twenty-three

‘Thought I’d come backstage, admire my great brother and offer firewater to revive his jaded spirits.’ Eddie plonked a bottle of beer on to Haydn’s cluttered dressing shelf.

‘Thanks, but if you don’t mind I’ll leave it until after the second house. It’ll go down a treat once I know I’m through for the day.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Eddie opened a second bottle he was carrying, using a gadget attached to his pocket knife.

‘To what do I owe this honour?’ Haydn asked, hoping Babs would stay away until after the second house, as he’d asked her to.

‘I can visit you, can’t I?’

‘Any time. It’s great to see you. It’s just that I thought you’d be busy.’

‘I’ll never be too busy to talk to you, big brother.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ Haydn replied cautiously, wondering what was coming next. ‘How’s married life?’

‘You know of any reason why it shouldn’t be a bed of roses?’

‘None.’

‘There you are then.’

‘Been down the gym?’ Haydn asked, noticing the bag at Eddie’s feet.

‘Keeping my hand in. You know how it is. Can’t let anyone else aspire to the title of the most promising up-and-coming fighter in Wales. How’s life with you?’ Eddie raised his eyebrows as giggles resounded through the wall from the adjoining dressing room.

‘Can’t complain.’

‘Bet you can’t. Which one is it now?’

Before Haydn could answer Eddie’s barbed question, knuckles rapped at his door.

‘Come in.’

‘It’s only me.’ Jane stuck her head around. ‘Sorry, Haydn, didn’t know you had Eddie with you.’

‘No need to be sorry, I don’t bite.’

‘I know you don’t,’ she smiled. ‘The girls want ice creams. Do you want anything?’

Haydn shook his head. ‘Want anything, Eddie?’

‘No thanks.’ Sitting on the stool he propped his feet up on the wall and proceeded to drink the beer he’d brought. ‘She’s come a long way in a few short weeks,’ he commented after Jane left.

‘I suppose she has.’

‘William said you two are quite friendly.’

‘We are.’

‘You stuck to her like glue in Barry yesterday.’

‘Only because she’s never been there before. She’s a nice kid.’

‘Like everyone else, I’m wondering what plain Jane’s got that’s put all the crumpet in there -’ Eddie inclined his head towards the dressing room next door – ‘in the shade.’

‘They’re probably the reason I spend what little free time I have with Jane. What you see is what you get with her. There’s no false layers to dig through, of make-up or anything else.’

‘You think she’s honest?’

Haydn didn’t like his brother’s question. ‘There’s something innocent about her that reminds me of the way we used to be when we were kids.’ He turned to the mirror to check his make-up.

‘And that’s why you walk her home every night?’

‘There’s a few reasons, like we finish work at more or less the same time, and we go the same way.’

‘I’m surprised she doesn’t stop off in Station Yard.’

‘What do you mean?’ Haydn whirled around.

Eddie put his hand into his inside pocket. ‘Take a gander at these.’ He flung the photographs he’d bought on to the cluttered shelf below the mirror. ‘Bought them in the gym tonight. Glan was flogging them for the usual pound a dozen, but I managed to knock him down to six bob for those four. I think I did rather well. New girl and all that. But I don’t mind telling you she was the last one I expected to see posing for Merv. Still, what can you expect from a workhouse girl?’

Haydn reached out and picked up the photographs. The topmost one was a study of a brunette, ludicrously long hair cascading down over one shoulder, carefully arranged to give maximum exposure to her naked back. But there was no mistaking the features beneath the wig. Pouting lips, enormous eyes, thin cheeks. His mouth dried as he turned it over and stared at the one underneath: a full frontal view that left nothing to the imagination above the waist and very little below it. ‘Workhouse girl?’ he echoed dully, unconsciously reiterating Eddie’s last words.

Eddie had wanted to see Haydn hurting, he’d gambled on William being right about Haydn being infatuated with Jane, but he felt no jubilation on seeing Haydn’s pain. The triumph of getting his own back on a brother who still figured largely in his wife’s thoughts, and possibly even in her bed, disintegrated as he witnessed an anguish cross Haydn’s face that told of more than infatuation. All the resentment and envy he’d accumulated over Haydn’s past with Jenny dissolved in a wave of shame and disgust with himself for what he’d done.

‘Workhouse girl?’ Haydn repeated.

‘I shouldn’t have said anything. I promised not to.’

‘You knew all along she was from the workhouse?’

‘William said you were keen on the girl. I had no idea it was serious. If I had done, I wouldn’t have bought the photographs, I wouldn’t have come here.’

‘You would have let me find out from someone else?’

‘No … Yes … I don’t know! How was I expected to know you thought that much of Jane? You’ve never talked about her. Never said a word.’ Eddie tried to ease his guilt by shifting some of the blame on to his brother’s shoulders. ‘And it’s not as though you were about to marry her, or anything.’

‘No?’

‘Look, if you were thinking about going that far, then it’s just as well you found out about her now, before it’s too late.’

Haydn turned over the last photograph Eddie had given him. He looked at all four for a moment before laying them face down on the shelf. It was no use. He could see her still. Smiling face transformed by greasepaint into a doll-like mask, blatantly naked body, posed like a Revue trouper’s. ‘Tell me what you know about her.’

‘I promised -’

‘All the promises in the world won’t make any difference now. Not after these.’

Since childhood Eddie had been a fighter, possessing a physical strength and agility that had soon outstripped Haydn’s advantage of age. As a result, he had never been afraid of his older brother until now. There was an iciness in Haydn’s unnaturally calm composure that he found terrifying. If he’d been shown pin-up photographs of Jenny he would be smashing his fist into something by now. The door, Merv’s face, Glan for selling them …

‘She never told me about herself. I’d appreciate it if you would.’

‘She came into Charlie’s one morning. It was early. We’d only just opened up. She was wearing a workhouse dress. One of those grey flannel things, and she had clogs on her feet. She looked rough, as though she’d walked the streets all night. She didn’t have much money, and she was hungry so I gave her a pasty. The following Sunday Diana introduced her as the new lodger.’

‘Five-minute curtain call for Mr Powell. Five-minute curtain call for Mr Haydn Powell. Five-minute call for Miss Babs Bradley.’

Haydn looked into the mirror. He picked up a stick of flesh-coloured greasepaint and applied it to his chin and nose. Puffing powder on his face, he coated his lips with a lurid red. Every move seemed to be taking place in slow motion, as though he were underwater.

‘That’s all I know, Haydn.’

‘Then why did she make you promise not to tell anyone?’

Haydn was looking at his own face in the mirror, yet all he could see was Jane posed shamelessly in front of the camera. He looked down. The sales legend on the back of the cards leered up at him:

‘Want to see more, apply to this box number care of Pontypridd Post Office.’

‘More?’ Was she working out of Merv’s back room instead of Station Square? Warmer, cosier and easier money than sewing for the chorus.

‘I’m not sure, but I think there might be something fishy about the way she got out of the workhouse.’

Haydn didn’t even hear what Eddie said. He’d been a fool to think that Jane was special, someone he could care for. She was no different from any of the showgirls he’d slept with, except physically. Plain Jane! The ugly duckling who worked among swans. But her ugliness hadn’t stopped her from behaving just like every other woman he’d met. She was out for Jane Jones. No one else. Out for what she could get, and perfectly capable of using any man stupid enough to say he loved her. His first impression had been the right one. She’d do anything to earn a quick shilling or two – or better still, a pound.

‘Three-minute curtain call for Mr Haydn Powell.’

‘I’d better be going.’

‘Give my regards to Jenny.’

‘You haven’t seen her?’

‘Not since we waved you off to the New Inn. I wish you happiness, Eddie. I really do.’

‘I know you do.’

‘There never was anything between Jenny and me except puppy love. And there never will be, not now. You do know that don’t you?’

‘I do now.’

Haydn closed the door behind his brother. Straightening his bow tie, he slipped on his jacket and checked his image one last time in the mirror.

‘Two-minute call for Mr Powell.’

He picked up the photographs and held them in his hands ready to tear them in two, then, thinking better of the idea, he slipped them into the inside of his jacket. Opening the door of his dressing room he stepped out in front of Helen.

‘All right. Haydn?’

‘Raring to go.’ He led the way down to the wings. Holding out his arms to Helen and Babs, the three of them walked out on to centre stage in front of the chorus line-up seconds before the curtain started to rise.

‘One … two … three.’

Haydn came in at the beginning of the third bar. The girls joined in the chorus. They danced side by side, smiles nailed to their faces. Only Haydn’s eyes stared blankly out into the black void that cloaked the audience. He was playing musical comedy for all he was worth, because if he allowed himself to stop playacting and face reality, even for a moment, they would have to bring the curtain down.

‘I hoped to catch you on your way up.’ Jenny was standing outside the shop, the ‘Closed’ sign on the door behind her. She was shivering. The rain had brought with it a drop in temperature, and it had been a long wait. She’d been too nervous to sit in the comparative comfort of the shop once darkness fell, lest she miss Eddie in the blackout. He paused in front of her. He hadn’t said anything, but then neither had he ignored her and walked on. Summoning all the courage she could muster she forced herself to continue. ‘Eddie, about this morning, I’m sorry. I was half-asleep …’

‘And half-asleep you wanted Haydn, not me?’

‘I didn’t know who was there.’

‘In your bedroom?’

‘Eddie, please. You’ve been so foul to me since we got married … I didn’t mean that,’ she cried as he went to walk on. ‘Please, it’s you I married, not Haydn, and I don’t want to argue with you here in the street.’

‘You have no choice. I seem to remember your mother saying something this morning about never allowing me over her doorstep’ again.’

‘She doesn’t have to. I rented those rooms I told you about from Mrs Edwards. I’m moving into them first thing in the morning. I was hoping you’d move in with me.’

‘At ten bob.’

‘We knocked her down to five.’

‘Who’s we?’

‘My Dad. He heard the row last night, said it was as much Mam’s fault as yours. That you couldn’t be expected to live in our house the way things are.’

‘That was good of him.’

‘Eddie.’ She stretched out her hand and brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his jacket. ‘Please, give me one more chance. We can even go there tonight if you want to. Mrs Edwards will probably be asleep by now, but she said we could move in right away, and if you don’t want to go there, I think Mam’s in bed. There’s the storeroom …’

‘The storeroom? For an old married couple like us?’

‘We will make an old married couple, won’t we?’

‘Ask me again in fifty years.’

‘Then you’ll move to Leyshon Street?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Eddie, I’ll do anything … anything you want.’ She wondered whether or not to tell him she loved him. It wouldn’t be true, but did that matter? Lies or truth, love couldn’t be that important to him. He’d never once mentioned it, even when he’d suggested marriage. ‘Eddie, I want to sleep with you. You know I like sleeping with you. It just didn’t seem right with people around, that’s all.’

‘Mrs Edwards will be in the house.’

‘She’s deaf and besides she wouldn’t walk into our rooms, not the way Mam walked into mine this morning.’

‘And Haydn?’

‘He hasn’t said more than a few words to me since he’s been home, and even then it was to tell me what I already knew. That it’s over between us. That he doesn’t love me any more, if he ever did. Eddie, you know you were the first. I swear to you on my life, there hasn’t been anyone else.’

‘I suppose I’ve got nothing to lose by giving it one more go.’

‘Then you’ll go there tomorrow? To Leyshon Street after work?’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘I’ll have your tea on the table.’

‘I hope you can cook.’ Turning his back, he walked on.

‘Eddie?’

He looked back.

‘You do know the number of the house?’

‘I know the number.’

She watched until his shadow merged with the others on the hill. Rubbing the cold from her arms she opened the door and went into the shop.

Jane finished her work, unpinned her usherette’s cap and went into the Ladies to comb her hair. As soon as her hair had grown long enough to hold iron wavers she’d bought a set, although she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since she’d taken to wearing them in bed. But the look Haydn had given her the first time he’d seen her hair crimped was worth every minute of the nightly agony. She pinched her waves, looked sideways in the mirror, dabbed essence of violets on to her wrists and behind her ears and added a touch of pink lipstick to her mouth.

‘Dancing lesson?’ Avril asked, walking in behind her.

‘If Haydn’s not too tired.’

‘He never seems to be too tired for you, love.’

‘You think so?’

‘No doubt about it.’

‘Thanks, Avril.’ Jane finished primping and made her way to the dressing rooms. All the rooms were silent and all the doors closed except Haydn’s. Babs was with him, but outwardly oblivious to her presence he sat, slumped in front of his dressing mirror, his eyes glazed, a bottle of whisky and a metal beaker on the shelf in front of him. Wary of Babs, Jane hovered uneasily in the doorway. She hadn’t seen Haydn drink anything stronger than an occasional glass of beer before; never whisky, and never alone like this. He lifted his eyes and saw her in the open doorway. She started guiltily, as though she’d been caught spying.