The Songbird (20 page)

The young man in front of her with a teasing smile on his lips was tall and slim and had long dark hair which flopped over his forehead and collar. ‘Show me,' he said. ‘Show me how your name should be and we'll see if we can't change it.'

She pressed her lips together anxiously and pointed to the bottom of the poster. ‘It should be Poppy Mazzini.'

He scrutinized the name. ‘Well, Miss Mazzini. I think that will be easy enough to change.' He turned to her. He was in his mid-twenties, she thought, and very amiable and good-mannered. ‘I'll bring a black pencil when I return and alter the Is to ps and the ss to zs, and there we will have Poppy Mazzini.' He glanced at the poster again. ‘And what about my name? Have they spelt it right this time?' He too ran his finger down the list. ‘Ah, yes, here we are.' He stopped halfway down and Poppy knew then why she had recognized him. ‘Anthony Marino.' He gave a small bow to Poppy. ‘I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Mazzini.'

‘How do you do,' Poppy said shyly, and wished that she hadn't been so foolish as to cry. She delicately wiped her nose with her handkerchief. ‘I know who you are,' she said. ‘You're Anthony Marino, the pianist. I came to hear you play at the Assembly Rooms in Hull.'

He seemed astonished. ‘Did you? And you remembered me?'

‘Oh, yes,' she said enthusiastically. ‘I thought you were wonderful! Your music made me cry. I think my pa cried too.'

‘Oh! Oh, dear.' He frowned. ‘That wasn't my intention, I assure you. I want to make people happy, not sad!'

‘It didn't make me sad,' she explained. ‘It made me feel . . . well, just feel, really. The music touched me, somehow, especially your own music.' She gave him a shy smile, wondering if he would think her silly and childish. ‘I wished at the time that you'd write a song for me.'

He gave her a wide beaming grin. ‘Well, perhaps I might one day. What kind of songs do you sing?' The carpenter coming through the doors with a ladder over his shoulder interrupted her reply. ‘I say,' Anthony Marino called to him. ‘Is Jack Bradshaw in, by any chance?'

‘No he ain't,' the man said, ‘and I'm going to put a notice up to say so, for if I've been asked once today, I've been asked half a dozen times. There'll be a band call in the morning.'

‘Thank you,' Anthony replied politely. ‘I'm sorry to have troubled you.'

The carpenter nodded, then looked at him in recognition. ‘Ain't you that fellow what plays the joanna? My old lady loves to hear you play. Makes her cry, she says. She'll want to come and see you, I expect.'

Poppy laughed as he went off whistling. ‘There you are,' she said. ‘So it's not just me!'

Anthony Marino shook his head disbelievingly. ‘Do people like to cry, do you think?' he asked. ‘Maybe they do. I hadn't thought of that before.'

‘I don't think they like to,' Poppy said. ‘But sometimes they have to.' She gave a shiver. A strong breeze was rushing up the street as if being drawn up a funnel. ‘It's nice to meet you, Mr Marino,' she said. ‘Perhaps we'll meet again tomorrow at rehearsal?'

‘I'm sure we will,' he said, ‘though it won't be a full rehearsal. The other performers won't arrive until Sunday night. But I promise to bring a pencil with me so that we can change your name,' he added. ‘Such a lovely name. We would want people to remember it.'

She said goodbye and went off in the direction of the Alhambra and the seafront, looking for somewhere she could have her supper. Although Mrs Johnson had said she could have supper there, Poppy didn't want to go back to the lodging house yet as the evening, she was sure, would loom long and lonely.

She found a small café, empty of customers, where she ordered a meat and potato pie. When it came, the pastry was soggy and the meat unchewable. She picked around the potatoes, which were hard, then pushed the plate to one side and ordered a steamed pudding and a cup of coffee. But the pudding was leaden and although the coffee was hot it was very weak.

She sat cradling the cup in her hands as she looked out of the window and watched the waves lashing on the shore. She felt terribly homesick and as she thought of home and her father, she reminded herself that she must write immediately and tell him that she had arrived safely in Brighton.

Her pen and ink were in her trunk back at Mrs Johnson's, so she paid the bill to the rather surly woman who had served her and left. The wind was blowing wild and sharp sand spattered her face. By the time she had walked back to her diggings she was frozen through and feeling thoroughly miserable.

‘Mrs Johnson, could I possibly have hot water for a bath?' she asked when she went in. She'd realized there was no separate bathroom in the house when she'd seen a tin hip-bath hanging from a nail on the wall near the lavatory.

‘Oh, no, dear. Not tonight.' Mrs Johnson was sitting beside her parlour fire and seemed quite taken aback by Poppy's request. ‘Sunday you can have 'ot water for bathing, after the other guests have gone and afore new ones arrive, or else you can go to the public baths, which is what some of my guests do. Next year, landlord says I can 'ave one o' them newfangled geysers and then I'll turn one of the little bedrooms into a proper bathroom. You can have a kettle of 'ot water if you like,' she finished, relenting.

Gas geysers were hardly newfangled, Poppy thought, as she carried the steaming kettle upstairs to her room. At home they had had one over the bath for years, and her father had talked of having hot water piped upstairs to replace it. She put cold water into the earthenware bowl so that it wouldn't crack, poured in the hot, then took the kettle down again, refilled it from the tap over the sink and put it back on the hook over the fire. ‘I can see you're used to doing things for yourself,' Mrs Johnson pronounced. ‘You've not had servants to run after you?'

‘You're quite right, I haven't,' Poppy replied, though she thought of Nan who did the washing and made sure there were always clean towels for when they had their baths. ‘I'll say good night now, Mrs Johnson. I shall go to bed when I've finished unpacking.'

Mrs Johnson nodded. ‘Good night then. I'm expecting another guest to come in after the the-ayter. 'e'll want supper, I expect. 'e usually does.'

Poppy undressed and washed in the meagre amount of water, put on her nightgown and her robe, then, wrapping herself in a blanket off the bed, sat by the low fire to write to her father.

‘Dearest Pa,' she wrote. ‘I'm missing you more than I can say. I'm in Brighton now and have lodgings with a Mrs Johnson.' She put in the address and told him of her meeting with Dan Damone, and then added that Charlie had met her at King's Cross railway station and escorted her to her first lodgings in London. ‘Even though it was a very long way from his own,' she added, lest he should think the worst. ‘It wasn't a nice place,' she wrote, ‘but we' – she bit her lip. Should I have put I? No, that would be deceitful – ‘had a very good supper in an Italian café,' she continued. ‘And the people there said I could stay with them when I'm next in London.

‘I feel very homesick,' she went on, ‘and Brighton is quite different from Hull. But I'm sure I'll be all right once I start at the theatre on Monday. One very nice thing that has happened,' she told him, ‘is that I've met Anthony Marino, the pianist, who we heard at the Assembly Rooms. He'll be playing in Bradshaw's too, so I feel very proud to be appearing with him. He's very pleasant and kind,' she continued, ‘as well as being accomplished.'

She finished the letter by saying she would go to bed early and look forward to exploring Brighton the next day. She folded the letter into an envelope, and put it by her door so that she wouldn't forget to post it the next morning. Then, keeping the blanket wrapped round her for comfort as well as warmth, she climbed into bed.

But she didn't sleep. She tossed and turned and heard sleeting rain and wind rattling against the window. She got up once and looked out into the small yard below and saw rubbish bowling around. A metal bucket blown over by the wind was rolling and clanging about the yard. She was just drifting off into a doze when she heard the front door bang and a male voice booming and laughing, and then Mrs Johnson's higher-pitched one joining in, dropping aitches left, right and centre, and adding them in between.

Poppy sighed. In her room in the eaves at home, she had often heard the din and hullabaloo of carousing people as they passed the shop. But they were familiar sounds and she had always felt secure knowing that her father and Tommy were below. But these were unfamiliar voices in a strange house in an unknown town. ‘It'll be all right tomorrow, I expect,' she murmured sleepily, and snuggled further under the covers. ‘Once I'm used to being away from home.' But she couldn't control the few tears that slipped down her cheeks or the sense of loneliness that overcame her.

The guests ate breakfast in the parlour. A folding table had been opened out and a white cloth put upon it and set for three. Poppy was the first down and she had almost finished her breakfast, which was porridge and a kipper, when the door opened and a man in a striped dressing robe and nightcap appeared. He was thickset, though not very tall, and his jowly chin had not yet been shaved. ‘Morning,' he muttered. ‘Didn't think anybody else'd be down.'

‘Good morning,' Poppy replied, embarrassed to see a strange man in his night attire. She wondered if he was the one making the noise last night. ‘I thought we had to have breakfast finished by half past eight.'

The man gazed at her from bleary eyes. ‘That's what she says, but take no notice. I didn't get in until midnight. I can't be expected to get up for half past eight.' He put his head back and bellowed towards the kitchen. ‘Coffee, if you please, Ma!'

Mrs Johnson scurried in with a pot of coffee and poured it for him as he sat at the table opposite Poppy. She noticed that it was stronger than the one she had been given.

‘How are you this morning, Mr Harding? Have you met our new young guest?' Mrs Johnson fussed around him, bringing him fresh toast and marmalade, which she hadn't offered to Poppy. ‘She's going to appear at Mr Bradshaw's when it opens on Monday.'

‘Is she?' the man muttered. ‘Well good luck to you. Hope you get some money out of him!' He gazed at Poppy over the rim of his coffee cup. ‘What are you? Dancer? Singer? They're ten a penny, you know. All you young girls think you can make an easy living on the stage. Don't realize just how hard it is.'

Poppy looked back at him. Who was he to speak so rudely? Was he so famous that he thought he could speak in such a manner to someone just starting out? ‘My name is Poppy Mazzini. I'm a singer and dancer. May I ask who you are?' she asked politely but pointedly.

‘This is Tate Harding!' Mrs Johnson said in a surprised tone of voice, as if Poppy should have known. ‘He's a very well-known comedian, playing at the Alhambra!'

Tate Harding's mouth turned down, but before he could comment Poppy said, ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Harding. I'm afraid I haven't heard of you, but perhaps you're better known in the south of England than the north, which is where I come from.'

She watched as a slow flush came to his already red face. ‘Only been north once,' he muttered. ‘Went to Bradford. They didn't understand my humour. I said I'd never go again. Riotous lot!'

Poppy nodded her head. ‘I believe they know what they like in Bradford,' she said in an innocent manner, and thought of Ben Thompson's offer for her to perform at his free-and-easy in Bradford, which Dan had warned her against. I think Mr Tate Harding was probably booed off the stage. That's why he won't go back. ‘We have very well-known performers who come to Hull,' she told him. ‘Will Vane, Norah Conner, Anthony Marino; he's playing at Bradshaw's next week,' she added, anxious to show that she wasn't just an inexperienced young girl, even if she knew that she really was. ‘And the Terry Sisters.'

Tate Harding humphed, but didn't answer. He took a last gulp of coffee and scraped back his chair. ‘Going back to bed for an hour, Mrs J. Don't be clattering about upstairs until I'm down again.' He left the room and didn't even acknowledge Poppy.

‘He's got a sore 'ead this morning,' Mrs Johnson said as she cleared away his breakfast things. ‘'ad a drop too much last night.'

‘He's a very rude man.' Poppy was cross and offended. ‘There was no need for him to be so unpleasant. He doesn't even know me!'

Mrs Johnson sat down and put her elbows on the table. ‘It's dog eat dog out there, young lady. You'll find there's some who'll stab you in the back as soon as look at you, if they think you're taking their spotlight. Then there's others who'll give you an 'elping 'and. I know,' she said, nodding her head. ‘I've seen it all. And Tate Harding is no better or worse than any of 'em.'

Poppy swallowed and considered. She'd only known her home town where everyone knew and supported her. She couldn't expect the same in a strange place. She would be judged only on her performance, not because she was the local grocer's daughter. ‘Does he always stay here?' she asked.

‘Always, when he's in Brighton. I'm the honly one who'll put up with 'im.' Mrs Johnson settled herself comfortably with her arms across her chest. ‘He came to stay with me when I first started in this business and 'e always paid prompt. He was the one who told me I should ask for money hup front, because he said that there were some who'd disappear at the end of the week without paying.'

The door opened again and a very small elderly lady with grey hair and a stoop looked round it. ‘Has he gone?' she whispered. ‘Is it safe to come in?'

‘Yes, come in, Miss Jenkinson.' Mrs Johnson got up from the table and smoothed the tablecloth. Miss Jenkinson took the remaining set place and touched the ornate silver brooch which clasped the silk scarf round her neck.