Ellie (40 page)

‘Gosh! I believe that’s Phoebe Bonhill,’ Edward said, looking out of the pretend window. ‘How absolutely topping, such a sweet gel.’

While Edward was speaking his line, Ellie was lifting up a pair of underpants from a couple of chairs, which were standing in for the bed. She held them aloft, putting her finger through the hole in the front and wiggling it about suggestively.

‘I say, Ruby.’ Edward turned back towards Ellie. ‘I can unpack my underwear myself.’

‘I’m sure you can, sir,’ Ellie said in a strong cockney voice, rolling her eyes suggestively. ‘But it’s ever so much nicer when someone does it for you.’

This time they went right through the sketch, without Ambrose stopping them once.

‘Much better,’ he said as they finished, and for the first time that day he looked pleased. ‘That’s enough for one day. Be here again at nine tomorrow. Ellie, bring your practice clothes too – I shall be running through your song.’

Ambrose hailed a cab as they came out of the Fighting Cocks, leaped in and was off without a backward glance.

‘I wish the public houses were open,’ Edward said. ‘I could murder a gin and tonic.’

There was something wistful about his remark. Ellie had a feeling it wasn’t so much that he wanted drink, but company.

‘A cup of tea and a sit down would suit me,’ she said. She realised from his manner that he probably wanted male company, but she was curious enough about him to risk a brush-off. ‘Fancy joining me?’

Although Edward’s speech and manner were typically British, he looked German. His hair were white blond, eyes icy-blue and he had an exceptionally fine bone structure and glowing skin. Over their lunchtime sandwich she had forgotten herself and called him Lord Haw Haw. His only real flaw, apart from his starchy manner, was a weak and petulant mouth. She thought perhaps he had been spoilt as a child, but he had laughed at being called Lord Haw Haw, so he obviously did have a sense of humour.

‘Topping,’ he said with a smile. She couldn’t be certain whether he was still being Charles De Witt, or whether he normally spoke like that.

Sonny’s was closest, a grubby little café just off Tottenham Court Road. Edward looked a bit concerned about the stained and peeling oilcloth on the tables and hesitated before sitting down.

There were no other customers. A glass dome on the counter held two rock buns and a blackboard hanging on the wall had the scrawled message, ‘No sosages. But bacen.’

‘I hope you didn’t want a sausage,’ Ellie giggled. ‘I think it might be dangerous to eat one here anyway.’

‘Perhaps it might be better to go somewhere else,’ Edward said nervously. A large tabby cat sitting up by the tea urn was looking at him balefully with half-closed eyes. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone serving.’

As he spoke, a woman in a flowery, none too clean pinny and a turban-style headscarf appeared before them, a cigarette dangling between her lips, and muttered something unintelligible.

Edward looked askance at Ellie.

‘She said, “What’ll you have?”’ Ellie interpreted, amused by his shocked expression.

‘A pot of tea for two, please,’ Edward said. ‘Do you have any toasted teacakes?’

Again an unintelligible reply, and the woman turned and walked away.

‘What is it?’ Edward asked indignantly. ‘What did she say?’

‘She said, “We only do mugs of tea, and what’cha think this is, bleedin’ Lyons Corner House. I’ll get you toast.”’ Ellie spluttered with laughter.

‘Tell me about you, Ellie?’ Edward asked her, fixing her with his cool blue eyes. ‘Have you been an actress long? You’re frightfully good. I found it terribly hard not to laugh at you today.’

Ellie was a little in awe of him: he seemed experienced and she was very much aware of the huge divide between their backgrounds. But his flattery and interest warmed her, and she started to tell him about the Blue Moon and her ambitions. Perhaps they could be friends.

‘I say! Do you think she’s gone all the way to China?’ Edward asked, when ten minutes later the tea still hadn’t arrived.

‘She’s probably brewing it up in a bucket out the back,’ Ellie giggled. ‘But we’d better not complain, she might poison us.’

To Ellie, such cafés were perfectly acceptable. People had grown weary in the last year of cleaning up after bombs, of broken windows, food shortages and the bitter, cold winter. She could laugh at such slovenliness, because she sympathised with the reasons behind it.

‘You are a hoot,’ he said. ‘Most girls I know wouldn’t dream of coming in a place like this.’

At that point the woman came back. She slammed down the two mugs of tea with one hand, the toast with the other. Ellie realised she’d heard Edward’s remark.

‘Ninepence,’ she snapped. ‘And it’s real butter an’ all. You don’t get nothin’ but marge in fancy places.’

‘Topping.’ Edward at least had the grace to blush as he hastily paid up.

Once the woman was out of earshot, Ellie thought she ought to put Edward straight. ‘I always eat in places like this,’ she said quietly. ‘I can’t afford to go anywhere else. I suppose you’ve got rich folks?’

‘Well, sort of.’ He looked a little uncomfortable. ‘Well, actually they’re dead Ellie. They were killed in a motoring accident in France back in thirty-two. My grandmother was my guardian until I came of age.’

With just those few lines Ellie got a clear picture. A boy who had all the advantages of a good education and money, but no family life. ‘I’m an orphan too.’ She put one hand on his, tentatively. ‘It’s tough sometimes, isn’t it?’

She saw a warmth creep into his eyes and knew then they were going to be friends.

‘I’m usually scared of girls,’ he admitted with a tight little laugh. ‘I’m twenty-two, but I was in a blue funk coming up here this morning. Don’t know what to say to them, you see.’

‘We’re just people,’ Ellie said, removing her hand from his and munching into the toast. ‘And this
is
butter!’

They stayed in the café for almost an hour. She learned his grandmother lived in Wiltshire, that he was in a sanatorium in Austria when his parents were killed and that afterwards he had a private tutor at his grandmother’s until he had caught up enough to be sent to boarding-school.

‘I hated every moment of it,’ he said with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘Except for when we put on plays. I always played women’s parts, but I didn’t mind that too much. I made up my mind to be an actor and I suppose I was lucky really that the war was on and there was such a shortage of men in the theatre.’

‘Why weren’t you called up?’ Ellie asked. It was something of a rarity to see a man of his age out of uniform.

‘Failed the medical.’ He grinned. ‘The one advantage of being a sickly kid. They wouldn’t even take me in ENSA.’

‘How did you meet Ambrose?’

‘Just a fluke, really.’ Edward shrugged. ‘We got talking in a bar one night. I was in a play in Bath. Ambrose was passing through. He said he’d be in touch if anything came up. I didn’t really expect to ever hear from him, you’re always meeting people who say such things. About ten days later he telephoned me at my grandmother’s and offered me this part.’

Ellie in turn told him about herself. Her childhood background in the theatre, her mother’s death and Marleen’s injuries. ‘The saddest thing is she won’t be able to see the show.’ Ellie felt a prickle of tears.

‘I won’t have anyone rooting for me either,’ Edward said sympathetically. ‘My grandmother won’t come to watch, she thinks dancing-girls are harlots and actors are pansies.’

Ellie wondered if he had a girlfriend, but she didn’t like to ask. Instead she told him a little about Charley.

‘It’s been awful,’ she admitted. ‘I miss him so much, Edward, but he hasn’t called round since I wrote to him. I suppose he just doesn’t care enough for me.’

She couldn’t bring herself to admit to such a new friend that almost every night she cried herself to sleep and that she didn’t believe she could ever get over losing Charley, but it was comforting to have someone to confide in, even partially.

‘Being in a show makes it hard to have friends outside the theatre,’ Edward said, guessing Ellie was as lonely and friendless as himself. ‘We don’t seem to speak the same language as outsiders.’

‘I think it’s time we went,’ Ellie said, seeing the woman glowering at them from behind the counter. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘Ambrose put me in some digs in Camden Town. They’re awful, but perhaps I can find somewhere else once the show has opened.’

‘Rooms are hard to get,’ Ellie told him. ‘Now all the evacuees are coming back it’s getting worse day by day. My room’s awful too, but it’s cheap and handy for the Phoenix.’

‘Well, I’d better get off there now.’ Edward looked at his watch. ‘I’ve missed the evening meal, but judging by the smell last night when I arrived, that’s probably just as well.’

‘See you tomorrow.’ Ellie grinned at Edward as they parted. ‘It won’t be such an ordeal again, not now we know one another.’

He gave her a curious, wobbly smile and disappeared into the crowd without replying.

Stacey Passage, where Ellie lived, was a narrow alley off Charing Cross Road. Sunshine never found its way down between the tall houses and it had a quaintly Dickensian quality, with small second-hand bookshops and malodorous gloom. All kinds of people lived in the dozens of rented rooms above the shops: Ellie had seen little old ladies, Jewish refugees, musicians, shop girls, and even some of the spivvy types she’d seen drinking at the Blue Moon.

As she turned into Stacey Passage her heart nearly stopped. Charley was standing there, looking up at number four.

He was wearing his best clothes; a tweed jacket, grey flannels and the blue tie Ellie had bought him for Christmas. He’d had his hair cut rather severely and the shorn patch above his collar, coupled with the anxious look on his face, made him look endearingly boyish.

‘Charley,’ she called out, unable to prevent herself from running to him, tears of delight pricking her eyes. He turned at her voice and the joyful expression on Ellie’s face made his resolve vanish.

She was wearing the same skirt and jumper she’d worn for much of the winter, bare legs and white ankle socks, her hair tied up loosely with a red ribbon, but she had never looked more beautiful to him.

He’d almost forgotten how big her dark eyes were. In the split second before she reached him, arms open wide with welcome, he thought he’d sooner die than face life without her again.

‘Ellie,’ he murmured as her arms wrapped around his neck. ‘Oh Ellie!’

There were people hustling through the alley, intent on getting home, but they were both unaware of being in the way, causing office workers to sidestep them as they clung to each other.

‘Have you forgiven me?’ she asked, warm lips showering his face with kisses.

Only then was he brought up sharply as to why he’d come and his mother’s insistence that he told her face to face. ‘We’ve got to talk,’ he said, catching hold of her two arms and creating a space between them.

‘Come upstairs to my room then.’ Her eyes danced, her skin glowed with excitement. She had all but forgotten the misery he’d put her through.

Charley glanced up. He’d been to many houses just like this in fires: rabbit warrens of small, dingy rooms with paper-thin walls. He knew that alone with her he would weaken. ‘No, let’s go to a café,’ he said. ‘It’s better.’

Ellie sensed he had something to say she wouldn’t like. But he was here, and that was enough for now. She let him lead her down to Charing Cross Road and into the cafeteria on the corner of Lisle Street.

‘Have you had a meal today?’ he asked as they queued at the counter.

Ellie saw piles of soggy golden chips, sausages and shepherd’s pie lying there invitingly on the hot plate and she was suddenly starving. ‘No. Could I have sausage and chips?’

‘I’ll get it, you go and find a table.’ Charley glanced over his shoulder at the crowded room, glad for once to see so many people.

It was hot and noisy, the sort of place where however hard the staff worked, they never got on top of clearing the tables before someone else grabbed them.

Ellie felt rather pleased with herself at finding a corner table only big enough for two. She dumped the dirty plates on to an already loaded trolley, flicked off the remaining crumbs and sat down.

In all these weeks since she’d moved out of Coburgh Street, she’d almost managed to convince herself that her memory of Charley was distorted. But as she watched him shuffling along the cafeteria counter her heart contracted painfully. The length of his eyelashes, his shy smile as the woman serving him made some cheeky comment, the healthy glow of his skin, all so different to the kind of men who drank at the Blue Moon. She could see the outline of hard muscle beneath his jacket, the big hands holding the tray hard enough to direct a hose at the biggest fire, strong enough to dig people out from mountains of rubble: yet she remembered how sensitive they were when he caressed her.

The curls in his hair were already springing up despite his efforts to tame them. He had a new small scar on his chin, another reminder that he lived with danger. But as he turned towards her with the loaded tray his brown eyes were soft with sorrow. She knew he’d got something serious on his mind.

‘How’s your mum?’ Ellie said once he had sat down across the small table to her. She wanted to keep the tone light until at least they’d eaten and she’d had time to gauge his real feelings.

‘She’s very busy.’ Charley sprinkled his chips with salt. ‘She took in a bombed-out family. There’s four kids and it’s bedlam. But with a bit of luck they’ll get one of those new prefabs soon.’

He told her about some of his friends who were also hoping to be re-housed, about builders repairing roofs in the street and plans going ahead for a street party for Victory Day. ‘I reckon it will be next month,’ he said. ‘It’s really quiet now at the fire station, all we’ve been doing is putting out fires on bomb-sites where kids have been messing around.’

Ellie told him her news and how she’d spent the day rehearsing.

‘I’m really glad for you,’ he said, smiling as she described the sketch. ‘I’ll come to see it, of course.’