Forgotten Dreams (8 page)
Jack finished his act and bowed deeply, so deeply that the panama hat he had perched on his head fell off. He caught it adroitly, however, waved it at the audience, and headed for the wings. He grinned at Lottie as he passed her. ‘It’s perishin’ hot out there; wish I could prance around in a frilly pink skirt and satin slippers,’ he whispered, making Lottie giggle as she pictured Jack in such a costume. And perhaps that was what he intended, for as she ran on to the stage to join Louella, coming on from the opposite direction, she was smiling as brightly as anyone could wish.
The audience began to clap as the orchestra struck up their first number, a dreamy ballad during which she and Louella faced each other holding hands and singing alternate lines of the verses, though they sang the chorus together. When it was over Lottie performed her skipping dance whilst her mother sang, and then Lottie disappeared into the wings for a moment to change into her tap shoes. She ran back on to the stage to the opening bars of ‘Tiger Rag’ and they began to dance. It was a brisk number and the orchestra always increased the pace as it neared its end. Lottie felt sweat trickling down her back and was grateful when Herman, the conductor, kept the tempo slower than usual. Then it was time for her to sing her last song, during which a large paper moon was lowered from on high, a cue that the act was about to end. Louella and Lottie held hands and ran towards the footlights, smiling and blowing kisses, and then – oh bliss – the tabs were lowered and mother and daughter were able to return to their small dressing room and pour themselves two tall glasses of lemonade, which they gulped down thankfully.
‘No curtain calls for a matinée,’ Louella said, unbuttoning her tap shoes and kicking them off in order to wiggle her toes. She smiled across at Lottie who had collapsed on the small pouffe in one corner of the room. ‘Only one more performance, sweetheart, and you’ll be off to the seaside. Oh, I do envy you.’
‘You could come as well,’ Lottie said, but she knew that Louella would not dream of accompanying them. Her mother’s idea of a restful break was to stay in bed late before going to the nearby public baths where she would lie for ages in steaming hot scented water, and then spend even longer curling her hair, painting her nails, and generally titivating.
So it was no surprise to her when Louella said immediately: ‘Darling, I wouldn’t dream of it. I don’t want to cramp your style. You and Kenny will want to paddle and dig sandcastles and do all sorts of energetic things, whereas I want a nice restful day. Which reminds me, I’ve not yet given you the train fares. You said Kenny liked the idea, didn’t you?’
Lottie laughed. ‘He certainly did. He skipped a lecky and went today anyway, just in case tomorrow’s wet,’ she said cheerfully. ‘But two days at the seaside is twice as good as one, and a ride on the overhead railway is a favourite treat. And I do love going to the beach, though Seaforth is nowhere near as good as Rhyl.’
‘Never mind. At least it’s sand and seawater,’ Louella said vaguely. ‘Maybe next summer we’ll take our act on tour – that usually means seaside towns. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? We might go to Scarborough and Whitby, places like that.’
‘Are they near Rhyl? I’d love to go to Rhyl again,’ Lottie said eagerly. ‘There’s no end of things to do in Rhyl, quite apart from the beach, and I’ll bet the theatre is full every night.’
Louella, however, shook her head. ‘No, darling. Whitby and Scarborough are on the east coast, and so is Great Yarmouth. There are two piers there which means two shows and they get enormous audiences. Yes, we might try for a booking in Great Yarmouth. Max would like that because he’s awfully fond of bloaters and they say the best ones come from Yarmouth.’
‘Right,’ Lottie said. It was clearly useless to expect her mother to talk about Rhyl, and anyway, now that she came to think about it, Rhyl was not that far away from Liverpool. Louella was generous over such things as pocket money so it was quite possible that Lottie could save enough money for a return train fare for herself and Kenny.
But here, unfortunately, her imagination gave out. Just what she meant to do when she reached Rhyl she truly did not know, for finding one boy amongst the thousands who thronged the prom might well be beyond her even if she had a week at her disposal.
She and Kenny discussed the situation as they sat on Seaforth Sands the next day, chucking pebbles into the grey sea, for though it was warm enough, the sky was cloudy. ‘I don’t see why you want to find that feller again anyway,’ Kenny said, when she explained why she wanted to revisit Rhyl. ‘He called you Sassy, which ain’t your name, and he ran off before you could ask him what he meant. What good would it do, meetin’ up with him again?’
Lottie screwed up her eyes and rubbed her nose. The truth was, she had no more idea than Kenny whether a meeting with the strange boy would be any use. She remembered she had dreamed about him but could not recall any details. She wondered whether to mention the dream to Kenny but was sure he would only scoff. Instead, she told the truth. ‘I don’t know if I just looked like this Sassy and the boy simply made a mistake,’ she said honestly. ‘But I do want to know about the years before my accident. I think it’s important that I know.’
‘But you
do
know. Your mam told you,’ Kenny said impatiently. ‘Ain’t that enough for you?’
do
know. Your mam told you,’ Kenny said impatiently. ‘Ain’t that enough for you?’
Once more, Lottie hesitated. But if she was to go to Rhyl to find the strange boy, then she knew she needed Kenny with her. It was far too big an undertaking for an eight-year-old to venture on alone, which meant she had better come clean. ‘Louella is my mam but she’s not like other people’s mams,’ she said slowly, picking her words. ‘Sometimes she says things which aren’t true. It’s part of her being an actress . . .’
Kenny had been gazing towards the sea and preparing to hurl another pebble, but at her words he stopped short. ‘D’you mean she tells lies?’ he asked. ‘If you means she says she’s put the rent money aside when she ain’t, or she likes someone’s new hat when she really hates it, all mams do that and I don’t think it counts as lyin’. Everyone’s gorra pay the rent money in the end, an’ sayin’ you like somethin’ when you don’t is what my mam calls a white lie, ’cos it does no harm and makes folk feel good. And think o’ the marvellous stories Louella tells you sometimes. Why, when she telled us the story of Moses in the bulrushes, it was clear as clear . . . she made a picture, like, an’ it went into our minds. I could see the big ole river, an’ the crocodiles what were tryin’ to get the baby out o’ the reed basket so’s they could eat it for their dinners, an’ the beautiful girl walkin’ along the river bank an’ singin’ a song an’ not even thinkin’ about babies . . . I’d heared it in church, an’ school, an’ I’d even read a bit of it in the Bible, yet when your mam telled it . . . d’you know wharr I mean, queen?’
‘Yes, I do. She’s a perishin’ wonder at tellin’ tales. Max says she’s a real actress – that’s why she can make you see what she sees, inside her head. But I didn’t say she told lies, I said sometimes the things she says aren’t true,’ Lottie pointed out, remembering her mother’s marvellous stories with real pleasure. ‘Max says she embroiders and Jack Russell says she exaggerates, but what I’m trying to say is that sometimes she gets a bit muddled between what’s real and what’s not, if you understand me.’
Kenny’s brow lightened. ‘Oh, you mean like telling you your dad were killed by the traction engine one day and a Guinness lorry the next,’ he said. ‘But those things don’t matter, queen. What matters is that your dad were killed in a traffic accident, and your mam telled you that. D’you see what I mean?’
‘Yes. But when Louella talks about what happened to me before my accident she’s always sort of vague, and I don’t want a story, I want the plain, unvarnished truth,’ Lottie said a little plaintively. ‘She told me we lived in Rhyl for two years but when I wanted to know where we lived before Rhyl, she said we were on tour, going all over the place, and that I wouldn’t remember anyway because little kids don’t. Sometimes – oh, Kenny, sometimes I think she’s hiding something from me, hiding it on purpose I mean, and that’s kind o’ worrying.’
‘Yes, it would be,’ Kenny acknowledged. ‘But what makes you think that, queen? I mean, what reason would your mam have for keeping you in the dark? It don’t seem to make sense.’
‘No, it doesn’t, though there must be a reason,’ Lottie said. ‘But you know how I’ve always loved circuses? Yet Louella never told me that we were with a circus for a while in Rhyl and she must have known how it would have thrilled me. Of course I’d have asked lots of questions, but surely that wasn’t enough for her to keep it from me? It was Baz who told me about the circus, but when I wanted to know all about it, Louella just said we weren’t with them long, and went out of the room. Oh, I know she thinks circuses are low, which could be the reason she fobbed me off, but I still want to know what happened before the accident. Kenny, it was six whole years, just gone, disappeared. Sometimes I feel as though I’m only half a person, as if I only began to exist after the accident . . . it’s horrid, I’m tellin’ you.’
‘It sounds as though you’ve been cut in half, like your mam is in Max’s magic act,’ Kenny said. He guffawed at his own wit and Lottie smiled too, though somewhat reluctantly.
‘Yes, all right. I know it sounds silly but it might help if I could go back to Rhyl some time and see what I can find out.’
‘Awright, awright, don’t get upset. You know I’m your pal and I’ll do everything I can to help you,’ Kenny said quickly. ‘I’ll even go wi’ you to Rhyl, though I don’t see it’s goin’ to help much.’
‘Thank you, Kenny. You are kind to me,’ Lottie said humbly. ‘Though I reckon it’ll be next summer before I can save up enough for us to have a day in Rhyl again.’
‘Mebbe so,’ Kenny said, heaving her to her feet. ‘And now let’s see who can make a pebble hop the most times when we skim it across the waves!’
He picked up a couple of flat pebbles as he spoke and handed one to Lottie; then the two of them headed for the sea. Lottie had never quite got the hang of skimming pebbles, but on this occasion Kenny showed her exactly how to do it and very soon her pebbles were skipping almost as lightly across the surface as Kenny’s. Then the sun came out for the first time that day and when Kenny suggested going into the water for a swim it seemed like a good idea, though Lottie thought that a paddle would be more in keeping with the cool breeze which was getting up. Accordingly, she tucked her skirt into her knickers and Kenny rolled up his trouser legs as far as they would go, and the two of them gambolled in the sea until the sun hid itself behind the clouds once more and Kenny decided it was time to eat the remains of their carry-out, most of which had been devoured within ten minutes of boarding the train.
Wet and sandy but happy, they gobbled paste sandwiches and swigged milk from the bottle Louella had provided. Then they began scraping around in the sand, for this time they would make not a castle but a racing car. Lottie, digging industriously, was suddenly sure that, with Kenny’s help, anything was possible. She would either remember of her own accord what had happened in her life before the accident, or she would be a sort of detective, like the ones in the books Louella was so fond of, and track down anyone – not just the boy with the golden-brown eyes – who knew anything about her past.
Together, the two youngsters worked hard on the creation of their racing car, though by the time it was finished the tide had crept rather too close for comfort and was within six inches of the car’s long bonnet. ‘If we dig a little channel all round it and then down to the sea, it will be a car moat, like a castle moat only more interesting,’ Lottie said, but Kenny shook his head.
‘We can’t do that if we’re to get home in time for that high tea your mam promised us,’ he pointed out. ‘And just look at yourself! Honest to God, Lottie, you’re a right mess. If we go up to the recreation ground, there’s a drinking fountain where we can rinse off the salt and the sand, and then run around a bit until we’re dry. I say, your mam gave you money for ices, didn’t she? There’s nearly always a “stop me and buy one” cycling round any sort of park. I wouldn’t mind an ice.’
Lottie agreed that this was an excellent idea and soon both children were a good deal cleaner, though still damp. They bought ice creams, for as Kenny had said there was a vendor hanging about the gate to the recreation ground, and then they made their way back to the dockers’ umbrella. Tired but happy, they finished their ice creams and climbed aboard a train. Lottie leaned back in her seat with a satisfied sigh. ‘I’ve had a grand day, Kenny; don’t I wish we could do this every day,’ she said as the train began to pull out of the station. ‘I wonder what Louella is doing now? Making our tea, I hope.’
Louella had had a quiet sort of day and now she was lying on her bed wondering just where she had gone wrong. She knew herself to be both pretty and desirable for she was always fending off the attentions of young men, yet for some reason Max, though a dear friend, seemed impervious to her charms. Well, perhaps impervious was not quite the right word, she corrected herself, remembering several incidents, but despite the closeness of their relationship – and her expectations – he had not yet asked her to marry him.
Looking back, she remembered her first marriage, the union which had resulted in Lottie’s birth. She had been seventeen and working in the theatre when she had met Denham Duncan, and she was certain that it had been a case of love at first sight on both sides. At any rate, he had asked her to marry him within a month of their meeting and she, of course, had been delighted to accept. Denham had been ten years her senior and already a very successful magician, performing feats of illusion which left other magicians gasping. He and Louella had been idyllically happy, and just before Lottie’s birth Denham had landed an important engagement in a London theatre. ‘My name will be up in lights, sweet Lou,’ he had said excitedly when the letter had arrived, seizing her hands and whirling her round and round. ‘As soon as the baby’s born you can start working again as my assistant, and we should be able to afford a full-time nursemaid. We’ve got our feet on the ladder of success at last!’
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