Tiger Ragtime (33 page)

‘And how old were you when you last played that game?’

‘About twelve,’ she said with a smile.

‘So we’re not that different after all.’ They drew near Edyth’s baker’s shop and he followed her through the yard to the back door. ‘You have two days off. What are you going to do until Monday lunchtime. Sleep?’

‘Probably.’

‘I’ll send Freddie with the car at eleven o’clock on Monday morning. He’ll take you to the club, wait while you change and bring you on to the Windsor. Lunch will be in my suite, but Lennie Lane and a few other people will be there. I take it that will be all right.’

‘Yes.’ She cringed. It was as though he had known about the warning her uncles had given her, never to go alone to his suite.

‘Goodnight, my lucky star.’ He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. And that time she was left in no doubt as to its intensity – or his passion.

Chapter Seventeen

David sat in Edyth’s sitting room and picked at the bacon, eggs, mushrooms, and sausages she had put in front of him. Harry sat across the table, watching him eat while the food grew cold on his own plate.

‘So, no matter what anyone says you intend to carry on working for Aled James as a bookie’s runner?’ Harry challenged, braving the silence that had fallen after he had brought up the subject.

‘It’s good money and a lot more than I ever earned working on the farm.’

‘The farm is yours –’

‘
Was
mine, Harry,’ David corrected strongly. ‘Now I’ve left, I want no part of it.’

‘You do realise that you could end up in gaol?’

‘Aiden Collins told me that he and Mr James will look after me. Aiden even gave me his card. He’s an attorney, look.’ David handed Harry the card.

Harry read it, then tossed it down on the tablecloth in disgust. ‘I doubt very much if Mr Aiden Collins is an attorney at law, but even if he is, his qualifications wouldn’t be recognised in this country. We have solicitors and barristers in Britain, not attorneys. And if you do get picked up by the police for running a book, I rather suspect Mr Aiden Collins and Mr Aled James will be nowhere to be seen.’

‘You don’t know them like I do, Harry.’ Ignoring the tight knot that had formed in his stomach, David forked two mushrooms and half a sausage into his mouth.

Harry dropped his napkin beside his plate, rose from the table, and went to the window. He looked back at David. ‘You really think Aled James will look after you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ David asserted.

‘I assure you, the only person Aled James will look after is himself. And that’s coming from his half-brother.’ Edyth glanced from Harry to David. She left her chair and picked up the teapot. ‘This is cold, I’ll make fresh.’

‘You don’t have to leave,’ Harry said.

Edyth recalled what Helga had said about having to live with David after Micah had lectured him. ‘This is between you two, not me.’ She turned and looked back at David. ‘No matter what happens, you are always most welcome here, David, you know that.’

David dropped his knife and fork on to his plate.

‘Thank you.’

She left and closed the door behind her.

‘You and Aled James are half-brothers? I know you look alike …’

‘My real father, as opposed to my stepfather, wasn’t averse to fathering bastards. And he didn’t care what happened to them,’ Harry said crudely, tired of making excuses for a father he had never known.

David turned bright red, not at the thought of Harry’s father fathering bastards but at what he had been doing with Gertie. Now he had got to know her better, he didn’t even like her. And the idea of her having his child, and bringing it up in Anna’s house, horrified him.

‘I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.’ Harry returned to his chair and sat down.

‘You didn’t. It’s just that …’ David had always found it easy to talk to Harry, even about personal matters, when they had both been living on the farm. But much as he wanted to discuss his mixed feelings about Gertie with someone, he felt that Harry wouldn’t understand, not after all the warnings he had given him about loose women. And a confession about Gertie would only give Harry one more reason to be angry with him.

‘What?’ Harry asked eagerly.

‘Nothing,’ David mumbled, shame-faced.

‘There’s absolutely no point in my trying to talk to you, is there?’ Harry asked irritably. ‘You’re not going to change your mind about working for Aled James.’

‘Not until I find another job,’ David agreed.

‘And you won’t be coming back to the farm.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘No, I won’t.’ David was surprised that Harry knew and accepted the fact. ‘Does Mary know?’ David picked up a piece of bread so he didn’t have to look Harry in the eye.

‘No.’

‘She’ll accept it, given time.’

‘All of us can get used to almost anything given time,’ Harry said finally. ‘I did what I set out to do. I came down here and tried to talk sense to you. If you refuse to listen to me I can’t make you.’

‘I’m old enough –’

‘To go to the devil in your own way, David. Yes, you are.’

‘You’ve been talking to Micah Holsten, haven’t you?’

‘You saw us together last night, so of course we’ve been talking to one another,’ Harry replied caustically.

‘About me?’

Harry sighed. ‘He told me that he’d had no luck in persuading you to stop working as a bookie’s runner either.’

‘And that’s all he said?’

‘You want more?’ Harry’s temper rose at David’s selfish attitude and his lack of consideration for the feelings of his brothers and sisters. ‘No matter what you think, the entire population of the world doesn’t spend all its time talking about David Ellis.’

‘I never thought it did.’ David carried on buttering a piece of bread.

‘And that’s all you can say?’

David looked up and finally met Harry’s steely gaze. ‘What else do you want me to say, Harry?’

‘Nothing.’ Harry left his chair. ‘I’m going to see if Edyth’s made that tea.’

‘Harry, if I could find another job that paid decent wages, I would take it,’ David conceded.

‘You could work in Gwilym James, here in Cardiff –’

‘No family handouts,’ David cut in, repeating what he’d said to Edyth. ‘Besides, can you see me bowing and scraping and
sir
-ing and
madam-
ing customers?’

‘No. But I can imagine you unloading stock.’

‘You’ve given me and my family enough. I want to make my own way, Harry.’

‘If one more person says that to me, I’ll scream.’ Harry opened the door.

David lifted the empty sugar bowl and waved it at Harry. ‘Tell Edyth we need more sugar, will you, please, Harry?’

Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second and David wondered if he’d pushed his brother-in-law too far. But Harry returned and snatched the sugar bowl.

‘If you hadn’t said please then, I would have smashed this over your head. You do know that?’

‘I do now,’ David said quietly.

‘Oh, David, I want that blue dog. Please, it’s absolutely darling …’

‘It’s also half a crown and it’s not worth tuppence,’ David said crossly. Bored and restless after leaving Edyth’s, he had returned to Helga’s to find everyone out. There was a note on the table asking him to join Helga and his fellow lodgers at the mission. Instead he had locked all his money except for a pound in silver in his suitcase and visited Gertie. After half an hour in her bed, she had persuaded him to take her on the short train journey to Barry Island so they could walk along the beach and visit the funfair.

‘But it’s adorable and it would look so-o-o good with all my other little kitties and doggies …’

‘I’m not buying it for you, Gertie, so you can shut up about it.’ Angry with himself for not parting on better terms with Harry; furious with Gertie for coming out with him dressed in the hallmark clothes and make-up of her profession; and irritated by her pleading to buy her every worthless knick-knack in sight, he was very close to losing his temper.

‘This has been a horrible trip,’ she snapped. ‘The tide’s in so there’s no sand to sit on. The fairground is packed. There are queues at every ride worth going on and the fish and chips you bought me were cold.’

‘They were hot when I gave them to you.’

‘Then you put too much vinegar on them and that cooled them down.’ She beamed at a couple of soldiers in uniform who were eyeing her. ‘Hello, Tommies.’

‘And hello to you, little lady,’ one of them answered.

‘If you want to go to work, go to work,’ David snarled. ‘You don’t need me along.’

‘A girl has to make a living.’

‘I’m not stopping you from making it.’

‘There are times when I think you don’t care this much,’ she clicked her fingers in the air, ‘for me.’

‘How can I care for someone who sees me as a money machine? Every time you take me up to your room you hold out your hand for half-a-crown.’

‘Why, you …’ She slapped David soundly across the face.

‘Trouble, little lady?’ One of the soldiers wrapped his arm around Gertie’s waist.

‘How can it be trouble for her when she hit me?’ David demanded rationally.

‘Seems to me that a lady wouldn’t hit a gentleman for no reason.’ The soldier smiled at Gertie.

‘Take the
lady
with my compliments, but I hope for your sake that you have deep pockets,’ David said.

‘I’ll get you for that, damn you, David Ellis,’ Gertie yelled at him as he walked away. ‘You wait and see. I’ll get you for that …’

With Gertie’s threats ringing in his ears, David walked straight to the railway station. When he reached the ticket office, he reached for his wallet in his inside pocket. It wasn’t there. He felt every pocket in his suit to no avail.

Cursing, because the wallet had been a present from Harry’s parents, he searched his shirt pocket. He found sixpence. He looked up and down the road. There was nothing for it except to start walking.

‘I’ve been conducting guests up to Mr James’s suite all morning.’ The porter straightened his sleeves when the lift reached the third floor of the Windsor Hotel and stepped back to allow Judy to precede him. Once they were out of earshot of the lift boy he started talking non stop. ‘You’re the fifth person I’ve taken up in the last hour, madam. Mr Lennie Lane was the first to arrive. I saw him – and you, madam – in
Peter Pan
. You were both really good and it was a marvellous show. My little sisters couldn’t stop clapping their hands to make fairies come alive for days. Mr Lane’s a real card. He had the lift boy in stitches on the way up with his impressions of an angry train.’

‘An angry train?’ Judy repeated. Lennie had told her many jokes, but she had no recollection of an angry train. The porter made a series of hooting noises. Judy listened politely although she didn’t find them remotely amusing.

‘Of course, it goes without saying that I’m not as good as Mr Lane.’ He paused, obviously expecting a reply.

‘Few people could be.’

‘Everyone on the Bay is talking about your performance in the Tiger Ragtime on Saturday night. I heard that you’re better than Bessie Smith –’

‘I don’t think so,’ Judy interrupted, blushing at the comparison to the famous American Blues singer.

‘That’s what my brother said. And he should know. He’s working in the Ragtime as a barman. He said the place is bigger than most palaces, and you could have heard a pin drop there when you were singing. And once the applause started there was no stopping it. He said that he and the other workers expected the roof to blow off.’

‘Your brother works in the Tiger Ragtime?’ After only a month ‘on-stage’ Judy was finding it easier to deal with criticism than praise and she was anxious to change the subject.

‘Thanks to Mr James. He’s made a real difference to me and my family – and not only in the tips he gives me here for the errands I run for him. We got to talking a couple of weeks back. I told him that my father had died at sea two years ago and my mother was finding it hard to make ends meet with seven of us at home and only me in work, so he told me to send my eldest brother, Neil, to see Mr Aiden Collins. I did, and that’s how our Neil got to be working in the Tiger Ragtime. Now there are two of us bringing home wages, the family’s not doing too badly. My mother’s even scraped together enough to get my eldest sister apprenticed to a tailor.’

‘Who else have you taken up to Mr James’s suite this morning?’ Judy asked, curious as to the identity of Aled’s other lunch guests.

‘As I said, Mr Lane, and there was the estate agent, Mr Arnold, the builder, Mr Powell, Mr Peterson, the theatrical impresario – but as he stays here so often he’s practically one of us – I mean the regular guests, not the staff. And,’ he lowered his voice, ‘a man from the BBC. The receptionist told me who he was. She said he compères the Monday night music show on the wireless. And now you, madam. You’re the last one I was asked to look out for. But you’ve spent so much time here with Mr James, the staff regard you as a regular as well.’

As Judy continued to follow the porter down the corridor to Aled’s suite she wondered how she could have allowed herself to feel intimidated by the staff in the Windsor the night Aled had invited her and her family to dinner. The porter was so eager to please, that apart from the occasional ‘madam’, he reminded her of her young cousins when they were trying to coax pennies out of her to buy sweets. Recalling his mention of the tips Aled had given him, she debated whether or not to give him sixpence.

It hadn’t occurred to her to give any of the staff money before. Whenever she had gone anywhere it would have been appropriate to tip, she’d been with Aled, and he had put his hand in his pocket. Then she remembered her uncles and their families, and decided that if she had any pennies to spare, they should go in their direction.

The porter knocked on the door of Aled’s suite and showed her in. A waiter was serving drinks, but Aled rose to his feet as soon as she entered.

‘Judy, looking lovely as always.’ Aled took the fur cape he had insisted she wear and handed it to the waiter who carried it into the bedroom. ‘Gentlemen, I think after Saturday night you all remember Miss Judy King.’

Stan Peterson was the first to grab her hand. Instead of shaking it, he kissed it. ‘I hear you were a great success on Saturday. I’m only sorry I wasn’t able to see your debut, but it was the opening night of
The Student Prince
in the New Theatre and as the producer I had to be there.’

‘Was the show a success?’ Judy asked.

‘Not as much of one as
Peter Pan
,’ Stan admitted ruefully, ‘and we’ve nowhere near the same number of advance bookings. We’ll be lucky if it runs two weeks and covers the cost of the scenery. Old Heidelberg doesn’t come cheap.’

Aled moved Judy on. ‘Mr Raymond Smith, the radio producer.’

‘Everyone calls me Ray, Judy, and I was at the club on Saturday night. That’s quite a talent you have there. I’m sure our listeners will go for it. I was just telling Aled that you must come down to our London studio. If you travel on Sunday, we can rehearse on Monday, transmit Monday night and you can travel back on Tuesday in time to play the Ragtime on Tuesday night.’