Trinidad Street (23 page)

‘It was – then.’

‘And now it’s changed?’

‘No, I’m just working for him all the time, that’s all. And anyway, what is it to you?’

‘I don’t like seeing you giving up a perfectly good job to work for someone like Gerry.’

That did it.

‘Perfectly good job, you call it? I call it a blooming awful job. I hated it. And what’s wrong with working for Gerry, I’d like to ask? Gerry’s a good bloke, and he’s paying me more than what blooming Maconochie’s ever did.’

Anger and suspicion tightened in Harry’s face. He leaned forward until he was nearly touching her.

‘Is he? What for? What’s he expecting for this money, then?’

Ellen felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. So that was it. That was what he thought. Fury at the injustice of it boiled up and erupted in a scream of protest.

‘If you mean what I think you mean by that, you can blooming well take it back. What sort of a girl do you think I am?’

‘I thought I knew. Now I’m not so sure.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’m sure about. I’m sure it’s none of your business. What I do is up to me. You got no right to come telling me what I can or can’t do. Who do you think you are?’

He ignored this. ‘I’m only thinking of your own good. Do you know what people are saying in the street?’

‘I don’t blooming well care.’

For several nerve-stretching seconds they stood just inches apart, breathing heavily, glaring at each other, Harry trying to get her to back down, Ellen defying him. When he spoke, it was with deadly quiet control.

‘So it’s true, then. They’re right when they wonder just what you and Gerry do all day.’

She gasped. She was too hurt and angry now to consider what she was saying.

‘If that’s what you think, Harry Turner, you go ahead and think it.’

In answer, he reached out and pulled her roughly to him. Ellen tried to resist but she was no match for his strength. His mouth covered hers
in a long hard kiss that melted her bones, sending her spinning into a timeless, placeless realm of ecstasy. She was left swaying, breathless, disorientated.

Then he let her go.

‘Goodbye, Ellen,’ he said, and walked rapidly away without once looking back.

Union membership was at a low ebb. Will found himself recruited into going to meetings with his father, who was trying to rouse the men out of their apathy. It was heavy going. The men could not see that joining the union would do them any good. At times it was painful. They simply did not want to listen. Seeing his father growing desperate, Will was moved to jump up and help him. They made a successful impromptu double act.

For several days afterwards he basked in the afterglow, hearing his father describe how he took the meeting in hand and turned it round, how men had joined because of what he had said. They both of them conveniently forgot the scores who walked away unmoved. He saw pride in his mother’s eyes as she listened.

‘A real chip off the old block,’ she said, hugging his shoulders.

He tried to describe to Maisie what had happened. She looked at him anxiously. She could see it meant a lot to him, but she did not understand.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that was nice.’

‘It wasn’t nice, not nice, it was . . .’ He could not put it into words. He had no way to describe that glimpse of power he had seen.

Maisie bit her lip. The two toddlers were yelling for their tea and the new baby was crying. She found it difficult to concentrate at the best of times.

‘I’m sure it was lovely,’ she tried. ‘If it’s what you want.’

He gave up. It was no use talking to her. She had no idea. ‘Tea ready, then?’ he asked.

With relief she turned to the range. This she could do. ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s just coming. You sit down, I’ll get the plates.’

A week later, his father told him there was another meeting. They were hoping to get support from men in other docks. If even a small group of union men could be formed in each dock, that would make a basis for expansion. Eager now for a second taste of leadership, Will agreed to go, arranging to meet him there as his father was seeing the union leaders first.

‘I’ll tell them,’ his father said. ‘I’ll tell them my son’s coming.’

Will was just walking up the West Ferry Road when he spotted Siobhan at the tram stop.

She looked breathtaking. With the money she earned from singing in pubs, she had more than the other girls to spend on herself, and it all went on clothes. Now she was wearing a primrose-coloured dress that stood out against the brick and cobble and dust like some exotic flower on a rubbish heap. On her head was a confection of a straw hat with flowers on it, and beneath its brim her cornflower eyes danced in her sweet round face. She was fresh and young and beautiful. She stopped him in his tracks.

He stood staring at her. The man who had addressed a crowd of dockers and swayed them with his words was gone. He was as tongue-tied as a fourteen-year-old. He just waited, desperately hoping that she would notice him, and in noticing, smile. He never knew where he was with Siobhan, though he was well aware that she only looked at him when she had nothing else to do. All the men at Morton’s were wild for her. Rumour had it that one of the foremen had asked her out. But she never stayed with any of them for long.

She was gazing along the road, watching for the tram, detached from her grubby surroundings, a different species from the other people at the stop or the passers-by in the street. She made him feel gross, ugly, dirty.

And then she saw him. Her eyes flicked over him, bringing him out in a sweat of longing. Miracle of miracles, she smiled.

Will stepped forward as if pulled by strings. ‘Hullo, Siobhan. Not at work?’

She looked down at herself, then around at the busy street. ‘No, I don’t think I am.’

He went hot. He hated it when she mocked him. He tried not to let it show.

‘Where are you off to, then?’

She smiled up at him, teasing. ‘Now that’d be telling, wouldn’t it?’

There was an air of barely suppressed excitement about her. She was fair buzzing with it, it made her whole body vibrate.

‘It’s something special. I can tell.’

‘Well, who’s the clever one, then?’

Men passing by in the street stopped to look at her. Delivery drivers whistled.

‘You shouldn’t be going alone, wherever it is,’ he said. ‘You need someone with you to look after you.’

‘Is that so? And I suppose you think it should be you?’

A wonderful possibility opened up in front of him. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘And what makes you think I’d agree?’

‘Because you know I’d protect you.’

A McDougal’s van trotted by. The driver flourished his whip. ‘Wotcher, darling! Coming my way?’

Siobhan ignored him.

‘You see? You do need someone with you.’

The tram was approaching, the two horses straining against the heavy load. Will flagged it down and Siobhan jumped on to the platform. She turned to look down at him.

‘You coming, then?’ she said.

He was beside her in an instant.

It was only as they passed by the western end of the docks that he remembered he was supposed to be going to the meeting. But with Siobhan sitting beside him, almost touching him, the meeting did not seem to matter.

She would not tell him where she was going. She kept him guessing, would not say whether he was close or not. They left the tram and caught a bus, Will saying goodbye to the last of his money without a second thought, and finally got off by a small theatre crammed between the shops in the Commercial Road.

Siobhan’s excitement had turned to nervous tension. She scanned the red and gold sign outside.
Sullivan’s Musical Theatre
it declared.

‘I think I need the stage door,’ she said. The usual confidence had gone out of her voice.

‘So . . .’ Light dawned for Will. ‘You’re going to do it, then? Go on the stage? I always said you should.’

‘I’m going for an audition,’ she told him.

‘Stage door’ll be round the side.’ Will took charge, grasped her elbow, propelled her along the filthy alley between Sullivan’s and the next building and opened the peeling door. It was so dark inside after the sunny street that neither of them could see.

‘We’re closed,’ came an unwelcoming voice out of the gloom.

‘Miss Siobhan O’Donaghue, come for an audition,’ Will said loudly.

As his eyes adjusted, he saw an ancient man peering at them from a cubbyhole by the door.

‘Another one of ’em. Never learn,’ he muttered, whether to himself or to them, Will did not know. He gestured impatiently at the interior of the building. ‘Go on up there. Up the stairs, turn left, turn right, second door.’

‘Thanking ye kindly,’ Siobhan said, but for once her charm failed. The man merely grunted and retreated into his lair.

Naked gaslights showed the way along twisting corridors and up dusty stairs. Their footsteps tapped hollowly on the bare boards. Following the old man’s instructions, they found themselves in what felt like a large space, though there were high partitions in front of them and a clutter of ropes, while around their feet were weights and boxes. Strong artificial light flooded through a gap.

Then quite near to them, a piano chord was struck. Will felt Siobhan jump and catch her breath. Just the other side of what Will now realized was a wood and canvas stage flat, a man’s voice broke into a patter routine.

‘We’re backstage,’ Siobhan breathed.

Her hands were pressed tightly together beneath her lips, her expression rapt as she listened to the unseen performer. He was nervous. He stumbled over words and lost his place. Without an audience to shout back in the right places, the whole thing sounded feeble. Painfully, he launched into a song that was supposed to follow on with the theme of the routine.

‘You can do better than that,’ Will whispered in her ear.

She did not answer him.

The song came to an end, dropping into the great dark void beyond the stage. There was a moment or two of silence, then a bored, faintly Irish voice sounded. ‘Right, thanks. We’ll let you know. Next!’

Behind them, a door opened.

‘Hey, you.’

Siobhan jumped and gasped. Will had never seen her look so unsure. They both turned round to see a harrassed-looking young man with a large notebook in his hand standing in the doorway.

‘What are you doing here?’

Siobhan took a deep breath. Then she switched on her sweetest smile. ‘Sure and I was waiting just to see you.’

Will saw the young man fall beneath her charm; he grew flustered and shifted his notebook from one hand to the other.

‘And you are . . .?’

‘Miss Siobhan O’Donaghue and this’ – a wave in Will’s direction – ‘is my brother.’

Will caught breath to protest, but was stopped by a freezing look from Siobhan. The young man nodded at him and turned back to Siobhan.

‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss O’Donaghue. Teddy
Perkins, assistant stage manager. If you’ll just follow me, I’ll show you where you ought to be.’

Will realized now why he had been allowed to come along. She wanted it to be known that she was available, but protected. That way she could play the field with safety. And since he himself had said that he ought to look after her, he had brought it upon himself.

Together they followed Teddy Perkins round the back of the stage and into a small room where a dozen or so hopeful artistes were waiting. They were all smoking heavily and eyeing one another. Some evidently knew each other, for they were talking together in loud, confident voices about theatres and fellow performers. Siobhan’s new conquest scribbled in his notebook and found her a rickety chair.

‘If you’d just sit here, Miss O’Donaghue, I’ll see that it won’t be too long before you’re called. Have you got your music?’

She nodded, and fished into her bag to produce a sheaf of sheet music. As she held it out to him, her hand shook. He thanked her and hurried out, leaving them both to the scrutiny of the other occupants of the room.

A woman with impossibly yellow hair and a brightly painted face smiled at Siobhan. ‘This your first audition, dearie?’ Her voice was cheerfully throaty.

Siobhan swallowed. ‘Of course not.’

She did not sound at all convincing.

The woman laughed. ‘Go on, dearie, pull the other one. I wasn’t born yesterday, even if you was. You want more than a pretty face to get on in this business, you know. You got to have talent, and you got to work hard, bleedin’ hard.’

‘I know what hard work is,’ Siobhan told her.

‘And she’s got talent,’ Will put in.

‘You better watch her, then, mate,’ one of the men warned sourly. ‘Old Mick Sullivan’s got an eye for a pretty little girl.’

‘What man ain’t?’ another woman said. ‘More than one way to get on if you’re young.’

Everyone had something discouraging to say. Siobhan just sat there trying to look vaguely uninterested, though Will could see by the stiffness of her shoulders that their remarks were getting to her. They were all either younger than he was or on the wrong side of forty, Will noticed. He guessed that Sullivan’s was a place for hopefuls or those on their way down.

The painted women was called. The moment the door closed on her, the others discussed her past record. General opinion was that she
would fail, since every management in London knew she drank and was unreliable. She reappeared some ten minutes later, calling Mick Sullivan every name under the sun. Then a small man in a checked suit and red tie was called. He did not come back.

‘Jimmy’s in, then,’ someone commented as Teddy Perkins put his head round the door.

‘Miss O’Donaghue.’

There was a rumble of annoyance from the others, which Siobhan ignored. Will followed as she swept out.

In the wings, Teddy gave her some hasty instructions. ‘Mr Sullivan’s up in the dress circle, so look up there. Tell him who you are and what you’re going to do. Sing up, and try to imagine there’s rows of people out there just dying to see you.’

Siobhan nodded. She was ashen. Even her head was trembling with nerves.

‘Pinch your cheeks to bring out the colour,’ Teddy advised.