All That Glitters (6 page)

‘Soap. I tried to wash it.’

‘When’s this interview of yours?’

‘Ten o’clock.’

Daisy glanced at the clock on the tiled wall behind her. ‘Why, we’ve all the time in the world to sort it out. Tell you what, how about I rinse the soap out for you, comb it and then we’ll try the hat on.’

‘How much?’ Jane asked warily.

‘Bless you,’ the woman smiled. ‘No charge. Monday mornings are always slow. It’ll be a good way of passing the time. Come on, sit on the chair over here. I’ll run a sinkful of water and get a jug.’

No one had ever taken such pains with Jane’s hair before, but no matter how much effort Daisy put into rinsing, dampening, combing, teasing and parting, it persisted in sticking out, short and plain in what was very obviously a workhouse cut.

‘We could give you a fringe, I suppose.’ Daisy held up a piece at the front and stared doubtfully at it. ‘It wouldn’t mean cutting much more than has already been taken off, and it might look better in the long run. But then again it might not. Good job you’ve got that ram, If I were you I’d wear it all the time until your hair grows long enough to wave.’

‘I intend to.’

‘Well, shall I cut it, or not?’

Jane looked at her reflection in the mirror, and nodded. Nothing could make it look worse than it already was. Daisy pulled a short-bladed pair of scissors out of her pocket. Combing the front of Jane’s hair forward, she separated a thin layer from the rest and cut straight across. The ends she cut fell limply over Jane’s forehead, shortening the length of her thin face.

‘Just as I thought, young lady, the right hairstyle and you’re a really pretty girl.’

‘You think so?’ Jane treasured the first compliment she’d ever received.

Daisy looked down at the shining eyes and smiling lips. ‘I think so.’ At that moment with that smile, it was almost true.

Chapter Four

Jane climbed the steps to street level just as St Catherine’s church clock chimed nine o’clock. She paused on the top step, her new clothes feeling surprisingly strange and light against her skin. A smartly dressed middle-aged woman walked towards her. She glanced at Jane before adjusting her hat to the fashionable side angle then descended the steps to the Ladies. Jane felt ridiculously pleased with herself. For the first time since she had left the workhouse someone had passed by after only a cursory look. She was anonymous, no longer set apart by her clothes, just one of a crowd. She felt like dancing and singing in the street.

She stepped down from the fountain. Having an hour to spare before the interview she strolled leisurely up Taff Street towards Market Square. A young boy tipped his cap as his path crossed hers. She quickened her step but had to fight the urge to turn back and thank him. He’d seen her as a girl. Perhaps even as Daisy had said, a pretty one.

She lingered in front of shop windows, enthralled by the new and fascinating clothes, shoes, handbags, iridescent bottles of scent, green eau-de-Cologne, clear lavender water – the scent Daisy had splashed behind her ears ‘for luck’ after her transformation – and luscious, tiny, blue bottles of Evening in Paris. She made a promise to herself that the moment she had worked off her debt to Mr Horton and had some money in her pocket she would buy a new bottle for Daisy. But first she had to get that job.

Three girls were already stationed in front of the locked stage door entrance to the Town Hall when she arrived. Furious with herself for taking time out to window-shop, and with the girls for being ahead of her, she moved up behind them. The first in line was dressed in a low-waisted, rose pink suit of soft, clinging material that showed off the kind of curved, rounded figure Jane imagined she possessed in her daydreams. The girl was also blonde, with curls that could have graced a cocoa advertisement. Jane tried not to look at the others, lest her confidence be dented even more. Folding her hands, she automatically adopted the institution stance that had been drilled into her since babyhood, stared at her feet, and prepared to wait.

Two girls, one brunette, one blonde, wearing fox furs, lavishly trimmed hats, jangling, glittering rings and bracelets, and make-up thicker than a firegrate’s coat of blacklead, bestowed condescending looks on the queue as they skipped past and banged on the steel door.

‘Coming! coming!’ an irritable voice boomed from inside. Bolts scraped back and the door creaked open to reveal a wide, steep flight of red-painted steps. The girls ran up them, their short skirts swirling high, revealing shapely ankles, silk-clad calves and brief flashes of naked white thighs. An overly sweet, flowery perfume trailed in their wake, overpowering the final vestiges of Jane’s lavender water.

‘I’m here about the job.’ The girl at the front of the queue jumped smartly through the open door.

‘By the look of them so are the dozen behind you, Miss,’ the doorman grunted. ‘Manager’ll see you when he’s good and ready. Not before.’ Standing his ground, he forced her back and slammed the door in her face. The two girls in front of Jane conceded the advance they’d made, creating room for the first girl to rejoin the line. Losing her balance, Jane accidentally trod on a foot behind her. Turning to apologise, her spirits plummeted at the sight of eight more hopefuls.

‘They were Revue girls,’ the girl in pink nodded knowledgeably to those around her. ‘They’re rehearsing for tonight.’

‘How do you know?’ Jane asked eagerly, hoping to pick up crumbs of knowledge that might impress the manager.

‘I’m walking out with one of the stagehands,’ the girl responded, in a tone that said the job was already hers. ‘He told me what kind of person they’re looking for. It’s not just standing around selling programmes and showing people to their seats, you know. All the usherettes are expected to take a tray out in the intervals.’

‘A tray?’

‘Of ice cream and sweets,’ the girl said patronisingly as though Jane were a backward infant. ‘And then of course there’s the dancers and the performers to look after. The management likes to employ people who can make themselves useful when the occasion arises. Help them dress, make up, mend costumes …’

Costumes! The one thing Jane could do was sew. From the day she’d been old enough to hold a needle she’d had mending baskets thrust upon her.

‘... they also like to employ people with an interest in the theatre. People who know how to present themselves.’ She lowered her Vaselined lashes, and Jane saw smudges of bright blue powder on her eyelids. Her confidence took another dive. Who was going to offer an untrained, naive girl like her a position, over the head of a sophisticate who knew about make-up and dressed, looked and talked the way this girl did?

‘Hello ladies, and good luck to all of you.’

Wide-eyed, Jane stared at the most handsome man she’d seen off a picture poster. Tall, slim, with deep blue eyes and hair the colour of gorse blossom, he flashed a smile that every girl in the queue instantly took as intensely personal. Straightening the red cravat he’d tucked inside the open collar of his shirt, he thrust his hands into his pockets and waited for the doorman to respond to his knock. The door opened a good deal quicker than it had done for the girls.

Jane caught a snatch of conversation as he entered.

‘How’s the rheumatism, Arthur?’

‘Better now the fine weather’s almost here, thank you …’

The door slammed before she heard his name. She strained her ears and looked around in the hope that someone would mention him. To her dismay she saw the line had grown even longer, snaking out of sight around the corner into Market Square.

‘That was Haydn Powell,’ the girl with the eye make-up and rose-pink suit announced to the queue in general. ‘He’s singing and compering the Revue, and the week after next he’s opening in the Summer Variety.’

‘He’s so handsome,’ her companion murmured dreamily.

‘My young man says he’s a -’ the girl hushed her voice, but not so low that Jane couldn’t hear the whisper – ‘a ram.’

This time Jane needed no explanation. The workhouse separated men and women into opposite blocks, in segregated yards. They even ate on different sides of the dining room, across a divide of nurse-patrolled gangway. But women, especially the unmarrieds, gossiped every opportunity they got. She knew exactly what a ram was.

‘It’s nothing for Haydn Powell to have half a dozen girls on the go at once, and some of them, well they’re showgirls. And as my mam says, most of them are no better than what you see in Station Yard after dark, if you get my meaning.’

‘That’s why my mam didn’t want me going after this job,’ the first girl interrupted. ‘My father was all for it, said it was better than domestic, which is all I’ve been offered, but my mam told my dad that all Variety women are tarts.’

‘Tarts?’ The tallest of a group of six dancers echoed indignantly from behind the queue. ‘Tarts!’ she repeated menacingly, looking down from her superior height. Her lurid crimson hair and green eye make-up reminded Jane of an illustration of the witch in ‘Hansel and Gretel’.

‘I didn’t mean …’ the girl squirmed in embarrassment.

‘Leave it off, Rusty,’ one of the other dancers said as the door opened.

‘Don’t worry, sunshine,’ Rusty couldn’t resist a parting gibe, ‘no one will ever mistake you for a tart. The arse end of a cow maybe, but never a tart.’

An awkward silence settled over the queue, but not for long. Prompt on the strike of ten the door opened and the elderly doorman waved them through. For the second time in her life Jane entered the Town Hall theatre. She climbed the steps quickly, careful to safeguard her precious place in the line. At the top of the stairs the box-office kiosk was shuttered behind dome-shaped glass. Like the Pied Piper, the doorman led the crocodile of applicants past it and down a corridor. On the left Jane noticed an alcove that had been turned into a sweet stall. She had no time to do much more than register jars of barley twists and boiled sweets, before they turned right into another corridor. From somewhere up ahead came the sound of muffled giggles and shrieks of laughter.

‘The dressing rooms,’ the girl in pink muttered.

‘Wait here,’ the doorman commanded as they reached the end of the corridor. He marched ahead and knocked a door. It opened and he disappeared, leaving behind a heightened air of tension and expectancy. Jane checked the queue; she’d held on to fourth place, but only just. The girls behind her were pushing and jostling in an attempt to move further up the line.

A youngish, prematurely balding man in shirt-sleeves and braces opened the door and stared at the crowd of girls. He straightened his tie and withdrew. He re-emerged with a resigned look on his face, a sheaf of pencils, a notepad clipped to a board and a pile of papers in his arms.

‘Follow me.’

He led, the girls trooped after him. He pushed a door. And there it was, shimmering in all its crimson gilt glory. Rooted to the spot, Jane could only stand and stare. The lights were set low in the auditorium, the stage was uncurtained and brilliantly lit, illuminating blue boiler-suited stagehands who were heaving on ropes and giant hooks, fastening them to enormous slices of scenery stacked in the wings.

‘All of you, front row.’

Remembering why she was there, Jane rejoined the line only to find she had lost her precious place. She eventually sat, sixth girl from the right-hand end of the row.

‘I’m the assistant manager, Mr Evans. Before we go any further, I’ll tell you exactly what being an usherette in the Town Hall means, and what will be expected of the successful applicant. If any of you don’t like what you hear, the door is behind you. Close it on the way out. I’m a busy man, and I’ve no time to waste on anyone who thinks that a theatre is all glamour. The successful applicant must be prepared to work, and work hard. Those of you who wish to be considered for an interview after I’ve spoken will have to fill in these forms.’

‘Sir.’ Jane dared to raise her hand.

He glared at her, annoyed at being interrupted, but used to being ordered around by workhouse staff she didn’t flinch. Rising from her seat she spoke steadily and directly.

‘How soon do you want someone to start?’

‘Next week.’

Next week! The words tolled in her mind like a funeral bell. With no money and no lodgings, she had to start now. Tonight!

‘The hours are long. Monday to Friday, four in the afternoon until eleven at night, sometimes later – the staff are only allowed to leave when their work is finished, and the theatre ready to open the next day. On a Saturday when there’s a matinee as well as two evening shows we work from one until eleven. If things go well the usherettes sometimes manage a break on a Saturday between the matinee and the five o’clock show, but only when all the preparation has been completed for the doors to reopen. There are five usherettes here, including the new appointment. Their duties include showing patrons to their seats, selling programmes and taking a tray out in the intervals. They also make up their own confectionery trays, and check the money from their sales. Any small discrepancies will be deducted from wages. A large one will lose the girl her job. All usherettes are responsible for keeping the confectionery areas clean, including the trays and the ice-cream storage machines. They assist the stagehands and callboy to pick up litter from the auditorium after, and between performances.

Lips pursed in disapproval the girl in pink lifted her hand. ‘Surely usherettes aren’t expected to clean?’

‘We have cleaners, but their job is to dust and sweep out the theatre and scrub the washrooms. As I said, it’s the usherettes’ responsibility to keep the confectionery areas clean and pick up litter from the auditorium.’ Joe Evans frowned. Apart from the girl in pink he’d already marked as a madam to be avoided, he could barely tell the others apart. They were all fresh-faced, keen and eager to please, and there had to be at least forty of them sitting in front of him. Even if he rushed the interviews and gave them only ten minutes each, it would still take him more than six hours to produce a short list of five or six for the manager. He shuddered at the prospect, but bowed to the inevitable. He’d have to whittle the numbers down with the aid of the forms, and the sooner he started the sooner the whole business would be finished.

‘Remember what I said,’ if you don’t like what I’ve told you, there’s the door.’ He pointed to the back. The girl in pink tossed her head and left, her heels clattering in the silence. Another hand went up.

‘Do we get the same night off every week?’

‘Yes. Sunday when the theatre’s closed.’

‘No other?’

‘Not if you want to keep the job.’

‘And the wages?’ The speaker was older than the majority of applicants. A brassy blonde who looked as though she knew all there was to know about life.

‘Twelve and six a week to start, negotiable after the trial period ends.’

‘That’s slave labour rates.’

‘At the risk of repeating myself, there’s the door if you don’t like it. Plain black dresses …’ He looked along the row, pausing when he came to Jane and the only other girl dressed in black ‘...to be worn at all times. You’ll be supplied with two sets of aprons and hats, which you’ll be expected to wash, starch and iron. From the minute you go on duty until the minute you finish clearing up after the last performance you’ll be on your feet. If you’re nervous about walking home late at night, this isn’t the job for you. The manager gives preference to girls who live within easy distance of the theatre so they can get in, even if the trams and buses are on stop because of flooding or snow. Right, you have ten minutes to fill out these forms.’ He held up a sheaf of papers. ‘If you’re still interested, hand them to me on your way out.’

Jane put up her hand again. ‘What about the interview, sir?’

‘We’ll get in touch with those we want to see again.’

‘But …’ In touch! All she could think of was her lack of address. She could hardly write ‘Female Ward, Workhouse, Graig’, any more than she could ‘The most sheltered shop doorway in town.’ ‘... I thought we’d know today.’