Forgotten Dreams (35 page)
Back in their dressing room, Louella positively glowed. ‘You’ve both done jolly well,’ she told them. ‘Max and I have a new angle, a really clever one, which you’ll see on Monday, but other than that our act scarcely changes at all. Oh, Max produces pigeons from his top hat one day and rabbits the next, but it’s all sleight of hand and doesn’t need anything but practice. Now off with you. Enjoy your last day of freedom!’
As January slid into February the weather worsened and full houses became a thing of the past. Lottie noticed that Merle was quieter than usual, and not such good company. She had taken to going off by herself for hours at a time and once Lottie, going up to her room to fetch a jumper for it was cold in the kitchen, had found Merle lying on her bed, clutching her pillow and weeping. She had immediately dropped to her knees and enveloped her friend in a warm embrace. ‘Whatever is the matter, chuck?’ she had asked gently. ‘Don’t say Louella’s been getting at you again! I thought that was all over weeks and weeks ago. You’ve not split up with Baz, have you?’
Merle had sat up and reached for her handkerchief. She had mopped her reddened eyes and blown her nose before giving a rather watery smile. ‘Can’t a girl have a good cry without you thinkin’ the worst?’ she had enquired, jerking a thumb at the book lying open on the floor by the bed. ‘I’ve been reading
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
. . . oh, it’s so sad, Lottie.’
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
. . . oh, it’s so sad, Lottie.’
Lottie, who knew the value of a good cry over a book, had accepted the explanation and thought no more of it, and when, a few days later, management cut the matinées saying it was not worth heating the theatre for such small audiences, she and Merle had been quite glad of the extra time off, though Merle pulled a face when she realised she had to take a cut in salary as well. Now that Lottie was heading for sixteen years of age, her salary was paid direct to her, although both she and Merle handed over a good deal of their money to Louella for their keep, which was only fair.
‘The weather will get better – and houses too – once Easter arrives,’ Louella assured anyone who would listen. ‘Yes, we’ll all be raking in our full salaries then.’
Although the winter had been cold and very wet, they had only had a few days of snow, and now that it was a little warmer great banks of fog came rolling in from the Mersey, so half the cast were coughing and no one much liked going home alone after the performance. Consequently, they usually gathered in the green room to drink a sustaining cup of cocoa after the show and to arrange their walk home in groups, rather than ones or twos. Merle had thought this precaution unnecessary but Lottie reminded her that Liverpool was a busy port. ‘Folk have been known to walk into the Mersey and drown,’ she told her friend. ‘And then there’s sailors who come ashore and have too much to drink. They’re on the lookout for bad girls – you know, prossies – and when they’re fuddled with the drink they can’t always tell good girls from bad ’uns. When the weather’s fine and clear you can see them coming and take a different route, but when the fog’s really thick you could walk slap into a group of them and before you know it you’re in trouble.’
The reason Merle objected, of course, was because she liked to walk down to the station and then come home with Baz, but once the dangers had been explained she saw the sense of leaving the theatre together with other players, though she and Lottie, and occasionally Max and Louella too, often hung around outside the theatre until Baz came up, whistling and self-confident, when his shift ended.
A poor week was followed by a wretched Saturday. The audience was so sparse that Jack descended to the footlights and invited everyone to come into the first couple of rows, and this improved matters a little. But then George, who dressed as a cowboy and sang of the Wild West, tripped and fell as he strode on to the stage, landing heavily on his ukulele and crushing it beyond repair.
As if that was not enough, Merle turned right in their first number when she should have turned left, bumped into Lottie, and the pair of them got the giggles so badly that they infected the chorus, who could hardly dance for laughing.
Louella was angry and berated Merle, calling her unprofessional and childish, and Merle, sobering up and promising to be good, then made a mess of her rendition of the Charleston, though Lottie didn’t think the audience noticed. Louella, however, commented bitterly that she was surrounded by silly little girls who cared nothing for the Laceys’ reputation, and was still smouldering when the tabs were lowered for the last time and the rest of the cast headed for the green room.
Lottie and Merle, about to follow suit, were prevented from doing so by Louella, who said ominously that they were to remain on stage since she wanted a word with them. She then swept off, her brow furrowed, leaving the two girls still in the costumes they had worn for the curtain call, glancing apprehensively at one another.
‘Your mam’s in a real foul mood tonight,’ Merle observed. ‘She can’t believe I turned in the wrong direction on purpose, surely?’ She hugged herself, for the stage was extremely draughty and the fog, which was a real pea-souper, had managed to penetrate right inside the building so that everyone, though putting a brave face on it, must have longed for the show to end. ‘What say we go back to the dressin’ room and change into our street clothes? I wouldn’t mind puttin’ me coat on an’ all. If she’s givin’ the chorus a wiggin’ she’ll be gone for at least another ten minutes.’
Lottie considered. ‘Tell you what, I’ll go and fetch our stuff and bring it back here,’ she said. ‘We can slip our coats on and then take them off again if she wants us to show her how we came to collide earlier. You stay here, because you know what Louella’s like: she’ll want to give you lots of advice and if she has to hang about on the empty stage she’ll be so mad she’ll make our lives a misery for weeks.’
Merle agreed to this and presently Lottie returned, clutching their street clothes, which she dumped on the edge of the stage. Merle came towards her and Lottie noticed that not only was the older girl shivering, but she looked extremely pale – not well at all, in fact. ‘Are you feeling all right, Merle?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I think perhaps we ought to get changed and start for home. It’s a horrible night and if you go down with this flu that someone said was going about, then we really shall be in a fix.’
‘OK. You’d better find Louella and tell her how sorry I am, though . . .’ Merle whispered, her voice muffled by her costume, which she was pulling over her head. Lottie helped her out of it and Merle dropped it on the floor and stood there in her silky petticoat, looking so white and ill that Lottie was suddenly frightened.
‘Here, put your coat on whilst I sort out . . .’ she was beginning, even as Merle gave a little moan and fell to the floor. ‘Merle!’ Lottie gasped. She went down on her knees beside her friend and shook her shoulder. ‘Dear Merle, do wake up!’ Merle made no sign of having heard, so Lottie scrambled to her feet. ‘I’m going for help,’ she said breathlessly. Thoroughly frightened, she ran towards the wings just as Louella swept on to the stage. She did not appear to have noticed Merle, lying in a crumpled heap with a pile of clothes on the floor nearby, for Lottie had dropped everything to go to her friend.
‘Where’s that girl gone?’ Louella demanded sharply. ‘I told you both to wait on the stage, but isn’t it just typical of Merle to go her own way! I suppose she’s gone to meet Baz, choosing to ignore my instructions . . .’
‘Oh, Louella, she’s there,’ Lottie said, pointing. ‘It’s so bitterly cold . . . she was white as a sheet . . . I was just going to help her into her coat when she fainted; at least, I think she fainted. At any rate, she fell down and didn’t move when I called her name.’
Louella’s eyes widened. ‘Fainted? Oh, I suppose she’ll say she’s ill, which is why she made so many mistakes . . .’ she started, just as Merle’s eyelids fluttered open and she tried to struggle into a sitting position.
‘What – what happened?’ Merle said. She glanced down at herself and then began to cry. ‘Where’s me clothes?’ she wailed. ‘Am I dreamin’? Oh, I feel so funny . . . God, I’m going to be sick!’
‘Not on the stage, you’re not,’ Louella said grimly. She hauled Merle to her feet, put an arm round her for support, and gestured Lottie to do the same. ‘Never mind her coat, just get her off the stage and into the wings. C’mon, Merle, you can make it!’
Lottie thought her mother was being really cruel, for Merle was beginning to retch and to moan, but in fact they managed to get her to the nearest fire bucket, fortunately only half full of sand, before Merle actually vomited and Merle was not ungrateful.
‘Thanks, Louella, Lottie,’ she said as soon as the paroxysm of vomiting was over. ‘I never should have ate them potted shrimps at teatime, but somehow I really fancied them, even after Jack had said he thought they tasted a bit queer.’ She looked around her as Louella and Lottie lowered her into an ancient wooden chair. ‘But why’s I in me petticoat?’ She shivered violently. ‘I’m bloody near dead of the cold.’
‘I imagine you were getting changed when you came over queer and fainted,’ Louella said. ‘You were still on stage because the pair of you had been playing around during the act, instead of concentrating.’
Lottie had returned to the edge of the stage to fetch the pile of clothing and now Louella snatched Merle’s skirt and jumper from her daughter and began to heave the jersey over Merle’s head. ‘Stand up a minute, and hang on to me while you step into your skirt,’ she said briskly. ‘And don’t think that a little thing like a fainting fit is going to get you out of a good ticking off, because . . .’
Louella was helping Merle into the skirt as she spoke. It was a garment fastened at the side by three buttons, but when she endeavoured to do them up Merle said quickly: ‘They don’t work any more, Louella; the skirt has shrunk something dreadful. Use the safety pins.’
Lottie, staring, saw that the skirt had indeed shrunk, saw also that Merle had enlarged the waist by employing six of the enormous safety pins more normally used for fastening babies’ nappies, and even as the thought occurred, Louella spoke. ‘You wicked girl!’ she said venomously. ‘You’re pregnant . . . you’re havin’ a bleedin’ baby! If you’d spoke up early enough you could have gone somewhere and got rid of it, but by the look of you it’s too late for that, and you’ve never said a word to anyone. Well, my girl, that’s your career down the drain! As soon as we get back to Victoria Court you can pack your things and go.’
Lottie was so astonished that she simply stood there, staring at Merle, and saw her friend’s face begin to turn first scarlet and then, as the colour drained from her cheeks, white as a sheet. Louella tapped an impatient foot. ‘Well, Merle? Do I have to ask who the father is?’
Large tears welled up in Merle’s eyes and trickled down her pale cheeks. ‘I’m not having a baby, I’m not, I’m not,’ she said desperately. ‘How can you say such things, Louella?’
‘Because it’s true, and you must know it,’ Louella said angrily. ‘I should have guessed a long time ago except that I thought you were a decent girl. But now you’ve proved me wrong. You’re a slut, Merle O’Mara.’
Merle gave another wail and Lottie stepped forward and put her arm round her friend’s shaking shoulders, eyeing her mother defiantly. ‘She’s not what you called her because of course Baz must be the father,’ she said. ‘I know they’re not very old but I’m sure they love one another, and anyway, you’re always telling people that you were only seventeen when I was born. Merle’s eighteen, so why shouldn’t she have a baby? If she is having one, that is.’
‘Because she’s not married, that’s why,’ Louella shouted. ‘And I’m not having her lumbering about the stage like a great clumsy elephant, and ruining our act. She’s got to go and the sooner the better.’
Lottie had been half aware of a movement in the wings behind her, and Max chose this inauspicious moment to come forward. He stood behind his niece’s chair, one hand on her shoulder, the other smoothing the rumpled curls away from her hot, wet face. Across the top of Merle’s head, he eyed Louella coldly. ‘What did you call my niece, Louella? If my son has got her into trouble, should you not save your abuse for him? And then there’s myself, of course. My brother is a strict Methodist, and he put Merle in my charge, made me promise that I’d see she kept to the straight and narrow. If you want to apportion blame, then you had best put a good deal of it to my account.’
Lottie saw colour begin to blotch Louella’s neck and spread across her face as her mother smiled ingratiatingly at Max. ‘Oh, dear, you weren’t meant to hear any of that because I – I didn’t really mean it. I’m afraid I lost my temper . . . in fact, I can’t remember what I did say.’ She turned hopefully to Lottie. ‘It was the shock, and the realisation that I would have to train someone else to take Merle’s place.’ She turned back to Max. ‘I really am sorry, Max. I never should have said what I did.’
‘It’s Merle to whom you should apologise, if you think an apology can help,’ Max said stiffly. He looked down at his niece, still huddled on the hard wooden chair, her arms folded defensively across her breast. ‘Merle, my dear, Louella has said terrible things, but one charge she made I think you must answer. Are you expecting a baby?’
‘I’m very sorry for what I said, Merle,’ Louella said glibly.
Once again, there was an interruption. Footsteps hurried along the corridor into the wings and Baz, whistling cheerfully, came on to the stage, closely followed by Jack. Baz looked around him in some surprise. ‘Hello, ’ello, ’ello, what’s all this then? I know I’m late but the fog’s that thick you can’t see your hand in front of your face, and my torch battery is giving out, which didn’t help matters. When I arrived, I went straight to the green room, but the fire’s out and there were no sign of you. Jack was still there, trying to find one of them gold cufflinks what his father left him. When I asked him where you were, he said he thought he’d heard voices coming from the stage, so here we are.’ Baz glanced around him, apparently becoming aware of the strange stillness caused by their arrival. ‘What’s up?’ he said again. ‘You’re all very quiet, which ain’t usual; cat got your tongues?’
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