Stella

‘Doesn’t he like you?’

‘Well, they are the Moss circuit,’ he defended.

Sadie said, a little too honestly for Stella’s liking, ‘We haven’t played a number-one yet.’

‘We will do, though,’ promised Stella, and Billy couldn’t imagine much stopping her. She glanced up at him. ‘In fact, we may have to fill in for an act at the Hippodrome, Bristol, straight from here. Then we’ll have done a number-one.’

‘Which act is that?’ he asked.

‘Tip or Tap.’

‘Oh, I know them,’ chuckled Billy. ‘I was working with them only six weeks back. Do you know them?’

‘Only of them. Never worked with them.’

‘Two very nice girls there,’ he said with a wink.

‘I thought they were fellas?’ said a naive Sadie.

‘Almost. They walk with a limp, if you know what I mean.’

‘Are they – you know what?’ asked Sadie, delicately.

‘Oh, yes, I know what. And they know what as well.’

‘One of them got done by a sailor,’ revealed Stella, recalling a story she’d heard about them from Ronnie Brookfield.

‘Eh?’

‘It’s true. They were returning to their digs in Plymouth after a show one night when a sailor pounced on them.’ Billy started laughing. ‘This sailor ran off with the small one.’

‘And what did the other one do?’

‘He fainted.’ Now Billy exploded with laughter. He thrived on these sort of stories. They gave him a basis for fresh material.

Sadie said, ‘You shouldn’t laugh at someone else’s misery, Billy.’

‘That’s the best time to laugh. You don’t want to laugh at your own.’

‘Keep your voices down,’ urged Stella in a hushed voice. ‘You’ll have Mrs Fisher down on us.’

Billy rubbed his hands together excitedly. ‘Tell me more about Tip or Tap,’ he begged.

‘Well, he finally went to the police station to report the abduction of his friend. The police officer thought he was describing a girl. You can imagine his face when Tip or Tap came out with lines like “going bald”, “ double-breasted suit”, and “dance together”. Of course, he turned up in the end, having left behind him a very satisfied sailor.’

Billy cried hysterically into his hankie for a minute.

‘C’mon. Bedtime, you lot,’ announced Stella as she collected their mugs.

‘Is that an invitation, by chance?’ asked Billy with bright eyes. She kicked his shin.

‘You wouldn’t be able to handle the two of us.’

‘Maybe not, but think of the fun I’d have in trying.’ He grinned as he stood up. ‘That sailor-man managed on his own with old Tip or Tap.’

‘SARAH DEATH’ was all Sadie could think of as she switched out the lights and snuggled up. Eventually she did fall asleep. Under her pillow was a letter from Tommy. She never slept without it. She thought it the most wonderful love-letter in the world, though she would have preferred it that he hadn’t signed off ‘yours sincerely’.

A little typical of Tommy, she’d thought.

Stella stayed awake a little longer than her sister. As usual, when she could enjoy a tranquil moment, she considered her work.

Can’t always be song-and-dance performers. We must branch out a bit. Maybe break into the films.

It was thoughts like these that gave her her motivation. The way the future was going to go for her, she’d need all the motivation she possessed.

Chapter Five

After Grimsby, Sadie went straight home into the waiting arms of Tommy and Stella went to London in an effort to find them more work. Sadie had no problem in getting her old job back in the cake shop, though her mother made a point of telling everyone that it was because she was such a good worker – just like her dad.

Tommy took the rolled gold watch to Samuel’s, though instead of having it repaired he did a direct swop for a rolled gold neck chain, with a petite black ebony cross attached. The chain was a little too long for Sadie which consequently caused the cross to become lost in her cleavage. It wouldn’t have been important, except that the cross was very slim with severe edges and sharp corners. She endured the pain so as not to disappoint Tommy, though she would have preferred to wear the watch that didn’t work.

Stella thoroughly enjoyed every second of her latest stay in London. Just to walk up Shaftesbury Avenue was enough in itself to have made her stay there worthwhile. To see all those theatres showing hit or, at least, semi-hit shows, with billboards outside, boasting names of their famous artistes. They were names she had only read about, but she felt as though she knew each one personally – as if they were related to her.

I wish Sadie was with me, she said to herself as she bent down to study every front-of-house photo as she had done a hundred times.

‘One day, Sadie and I will play here,’ she announced, boldly. A bowler-hatted gent moved up to her and whispered in her ear, ‘How much do you charge, then?’

After that incident she stopped loitering and began looking more purposeful.

Some of the agencies had heard of the Raven Sisters, from their part in Babes in Portsmouth. One agent told her that their playing of Babes was one of the funniest things he had ever seen. When she asked him why, he said, ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Babes taller than the principal boy and older than the principal girl.’ Stella smiled, but there was little humour in it. He did go on to say that he thought they had a good act but that it was wasted in pantomime. ‘Always remember: in panto the kids want a lot of blood and gore and shouting, the grown-ups like a few naughty gags, and the old folk want to see knickers and have a good sing-song.’ She could see some sense in that. ‘The other bit of advice is never play Portsmouth, Plymouth, Catterick, or Aldershot. You’re too sophisticated for them.’

After a couple of weeks of knocking on doors she had fixed them up the odd work here and there. Moneywise there was little being offered, but at least she had found them some work. She returned to Lancaster, exaggerating how good their prospects were. It cheered her up in pretending things were better than they were, and it also kept her parents off her back.

Talking of her parents, one thing that struck Stella more squarely than anything else was how much their little world was identical to when she left it. It was as though they were counting time between when they became married and the day they died.

Previously she had found inspiration from observing their empty lives but now it caught her so unawares that it depressed her. What increased this feeling was that Sadie had reverted back so easily to this way of life, and that wasn’t a sign of someone who seriously wanted to strive forward in showbusiness.

When Stella prepared herself for yet another visit to London a few weeks later she insisted that this time Sadie accompanied her. She intended to enlighten her younger sister to the harshness and difficulties of finding work in their profession. ‘And I don’t want to hear Tommy or the cake shop as an excuse,’ she warned her. Sadie agreed to go.

Over the following two months it became rapidly apparent to them that they weren’t bringing in enough money to keep them both down in the City. Sadie, rather quickly, volunteered to go back up north, stating that by working in the cake shop she could put some money by each week for them. Stella was in no position to argue. The act needed every penny they could lay their unemployed hands on.

It was a Sunday, and Sadie had been home one day. Early in the morning she and Tommy were stepping down off the Ribble bus at Morecambe’s Euston Road Station. It was a bitterly cold morning, and as they walked along together they huddled up tight to keep each other warm.

The weather on the deserted promenade was even colder. Having crossed the road, they stood at the entrance of a closed Central Pier. For a while they just stared down on a scattering of fishing boats that bobbed and dipped on the angry, grey sea. The clock on the tower next to the pier struck nine, making a dozen seagulls spring three or four feet into the air before floating down again onto the shoreline.

They turned right, looked in the general direction of Scotland, and started to walk towards it. Both of them were suitably dressed to battle with the harsh conditions. Tommy wore his cap down over his ears, holding them close against his head and pulling up his eyebrows into an expression of permanent surprise. His scarf covered his mouth, and his overcoat was nearly as close to the ground as his feet. Sadie’s beret had started out from Lancaster at a saucy but fashionable angle, and the cold, blended with common sense, had made her pull it so far down that the rim rested on the bridge of her nose. Tommy glimpsed her red-button nose. ‘Do you want to sell that poppy?’ he asked in a muffled voice. She gave him a friendly punch on his arm, which to Tommy – him being so big, her being so slight – was like being prodded by a feather.

They veered inland a bit, and headed for one of the coast road’s bus shelters. Tommy pointed. ‘You can see Grange,’ he said in a loud voice, but struggled against the wind.