Forgotten Dreams (20 page)
But he was speaking now and Lottie returned her attention quickly to his words. ‘. . . I don’t think we need worry too much about your schooling, young ’un,’ he was saying. ‘I’ve had a word with our landlady on that very subject. There’s a little school, privately run, only a couple of streets away and Mrs Shilling assured me they’re used to theatricals and wouldn’t turn a hair over you wanting one afternoon a week off for matinées. She says it’s a really good school, well worth what they charge, so now we’ve finished rehearsing I reckon Louella should take you round there tomorrow morning and sign you on.’ He leaned across the table to chuck Lottie under the chin. ‘Don’t look so outraged, sweetheart! I seem to remember you saying you wanted to meet kids of your own age, and this way you’ll do it all right. Classes finish at three, so apart from Wednesdays, when you’ll be doing a matinée, you’ll have two or three hours to yourself before the evening performance. And it’s only six weeks till the summer holidays start.’
‘It isn’t fair! Look at Merle, free to do what she wants from eight in the morning until six at night, pretty well. And I’ll be shut up in a horrible smelly schoolroom when I could be on the beach, or having a go on the scenic railway or – or doing a hundred lovely things,’ Lottie wailed. ‘Oh, Louella, say I needn’t go! No one will notice, and I’m sure I look nearly as old as Merle.’
Louella laughed but shook her head. ‘It’s no use, love; Max is quite right. Think of poor Merle, with no one to go around with until the holidays start. At least you’ll be with other kids, but she’ll be all on her ownio.’
It was on the tip of Lottie’s tongue to say that Merle would not be on her own but would have Baz’s company whenever he was not actually working, but then she remembered her promise and shut her mouth with a snap. She would have to make the best of it until the end of term and by then, with a bit of luck, she would have made friends at school so when Merle went off with Baz she would have someone with whom to share things. Sighing, she nodded. ‘All right, Louella, I’ll go,’ she said. ‘But I’ll tell you something: as soon as I’m grown up I’m going to get me a proper job, nothing to do with the theatre. Then I’ll have evenings and weekends off, just like other people.’
Louella laughed, having heard this sentiment expressed before when Lottie particularly resented the long hours which working in the theatre entailed, but Merle looked thunderstruck. ‘You can’t mean it!’ she gasped. ‘Everyone wants to be on the stage! Why, your mam told me when I auditioned for the job of taking your place all them years ago that you’d been toddling on to the boards and waving to the audience even before you could talk. You’re a real trouper, Lottie; you can’t want to give it up.’
‘Oh, she doesn’t mean it,’ Louella said easily. ‘She says it to upset me, and make me feel guilty because I got her into the act when she was too young to make up her own mind, but she loved it then and she loves it now, of course.’
Lottie scowled across the table at her mother’s fair, complacent face. ‘It’s all very well for you, Louella: it’s what you’ve always wanted to do,’ she pointed out. ‘It’s different for me. I know you say I loved it when I was a kid and was always running on to the stage and trying to join in your routines, but because of the accident I can’t remember any of that. So far as I’m concerned I was, what, six and a half before I danced a step, and when I danced and sang before an audience for the first time I felt sick and wobbly and simply longed to get off, away from all those staring eyes. And it’s not fair to say I deliberately try to upset you because I never have and never would.’
‘But you don’t feel like that now, Lottie,’ Merle protested, before Louella could answer. ‘You love it, like me. Well, you must, or you wouldn’t be any good at it.’ She turned appealingly to Louella. ‘That’s true, isn’t it?’
Louella nodded rather uncertainly, but Lottie answered before her mother could speak. ‘It’s a job, Merle, just a job. I suppose I do enjoy it – the dancing and singing anyway – but I still hate people staring at me, even audiences. It’s different for you, and for Mam, because you’re both awfully pretty with proper figures, busts and that, but I’m just a skinny kid, all arms and legs.’ She frowned, trying to put her feelings into words which everyone would understand. ‘I sometimes feel I’m doing my growing up in a very public sort of way, whereas most kids can grow up more privately like.’
Merle gave a hoot of derisive laughter. ‘That’s rubbish. All child stars do their growing up in public; I certainly did,’ she declared. ‘My mam used to say that she carried me into the ring for the first time when I was six months old and I waved to the audience and blew kisses.’ She turned to Louella. ‘And I bet young Lottie here was just the same, whatever she may say now.’
‘Yes she was,’ Louella said at once. She reached out a caressing hand and rumpled her daughter’s hair. ‘If only you hadn’t had that awful accident! Because you’d simply forgotten your entire past, I’m afraid I made you work tremendously hard to relearn all our songs and routines, and I suppose that gave you a distaste for the stage. As for doing your growing up in public, that’s what audiences love, my pet. They’re really impressed to see a young girl singing and dancing like the professional you are.’ She smiled brightly round the table. ‘And now let’s talk about something else.’
Max laughed. ‘Don’t try to change the subject just because you’re tired of it, Lou.’ He turned to Lottie. ‘I know exactly what you mean, because that’s why Baz has always refused to start learning magic,’ he said. ‘He told me that being at school all day and in the theatre all night was like serving two life sentences, and I could see his point of view, so I never pressed him. But I do believe that when he’s a bit older – say twenty-five – he may change his mind. And now you two will want to try your luck with a bit of fishing. Have you thought about bait? There’s a shop on Regent Street which sells mealworms . . .’
‘We’re going to use bread pellets,’ Lottie said primly. ‘Neither of us fancy impaling a wriggling creature on a hook and then chucking it into the sea.’ She shuddered eloquently. ‘But Jack says he’s caught fish with bread pellets, and that’s good enough for us, isn’t it, Merle?’
‘Sure is,’ Merle said in an American accent. ‘Sure is, honey!’
‘Oh, you,’ Louella said, getting to her feet as the two girls stood up. ‘It won’t surprise you to know that I shan’t be throwing out any fishing lines, but that doesn’t mean I’ll turn down any fish you catch. Especially if it’s kippers,’ she added, and hurried over to the till whilst Merle and Lottie, laughing, left the Winter Gardens and headed for the theatre.
Lottie had always enjoyed school in Liverpool but did not expect to do so in Great Yarmouth, for she knew no one and was afraid they would cold-shoulder her as an outsider, and one who was older than themselves. However, she soon found she was mistaken, for the other pupils were friendly and there was another new girl of about her own age. The teacher introduced them and told them to sit at the same desk. ‘Lottie Lacey, meet Angela Capper. You’ll soon discover you’ve a lot in common,’ she said, smiling at them. ‘And you can spend your break finding out just why I’ve put you side by side.’
Angela beamed at Lottie. ‘Hello. You’re appearing at the Wellington, aren’t you? My mum and dad are at the Britannia, and so am I, though I only help behind the scenes. Is this your first time in Yarmouth?’
‘Yes. We come from Liverpool. What about you?’ Lottie said. She did not recognise the other girl’s accent, but thought it was rather like that of local shopkeepers and Mr and Mrs Shilling.
‘We actually come from King’s Lynn. It’s still Norfolk, but a good way from here,’ Angela explained. ‘We’ve been with the theatre always – my dad does the lighting and props and my mum is wardrobe mistress though she was a performer when she was younger; she was a dancer, actually, with a group called the Melodeons. Only she began to get awful aches in her legs and back – the doctor say it’s arthuritis, whatever that may mean – so she had to give up performing,’ Angela explained. ‘I know all about you, of course. You’re the youngest of the three Lacey sisters and you dance and sing and throw toffees at the audience. We always spy on the cast at the Welly, and I reckon someone in your company will have spied on us an’ all.’
‘I don’t know, but you’re probably right,’ Lottie admitted. ‘I’m sorry about your mam, though; arthritis is very painful, I believe. And I don’t throw toffees
at
the audience, I throw them out into the auditorium. What do you do?’
at
the audience, I throw them out into the auditorium. What do you do?’
‘Oh, I help Dad with the lights and understudy the dancers, because I like dancing, and of course I know all the songs by heart, though my voice isn’t strong enough to sing solo,’ Angela said cheerfully. ‘I sell ice creams in the interval and tickets if they’ve no one else to man the box office, and I go up and down the aisles at the beginning of a performance, showing people to their seats. I help with scenery changes and check props for my dad . . . in other words I’m a sort of odd-job person. A dogsbody, my dad calls me.’
Lottie chuckled. ‘And do you have to be in the theatre every evening and for matinées?’ she asked wistfully. ‘I bet you get more time off than I do. My mother – she’s Louella Lacey – never lets me leave before the final curtain. Still, it won’t be so bad once the summer holidays arrive: then I’ll have all mornings and most afternoons to myself.’
‘I’m not always in the theatre, though mostly I’d rather be there than by myself in our lodgings,’ Angela said, pulling a face. ‘We’re with Mrs Masters, on Gordon Terrace. She’s a horror, really she is. There are rules and regulations hung up in every room and she’s mean with the food, too. Mum keeps on saying we’ll move somewhere nicer, but Mrs Masters is cheap and we’re saving up for a place of our own when Mum and Dad retire, if they ever do, which I dursen’t think about,’ she added gloomily, ‘since I reckon they’d be lost without the theatre. You’re at Mrs Shilling’s place, I’d put money on it. We stayed there last year . . . the food was just the best!’ She looked curiously at Lottie. ‘But I’m the only young person – really young, I mean – in the whole company, and you’ve got your sister to go around with. I envy you that.’
‘She’s not really my sister, and she’s got a young man, so once he’s on the spot I don’t suppose I’ll see much of her,’ Lottie said. ‘I was dreading starting school because I thought I’d be the only new girl . . . how about if you and I go around together? Only I’m pretty tied up until the holidays start.’
Angela agreed that this would be fun, and Lottie went home that afternoon well satisfied with her lot.
To her considerable surprise, however, Merle was waiting for her outside their lodgings and linked arms with her, giving Lottie’s a squeeze. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said, sounding unflatteringly surprised. ‘I suppose I’d got used to you while we were rehearsing. Let’s go down to the prom.’
‘Thanks,’ Lottie said dryly. ‘But once Baz arrives you’ll be happy enough to give me the go-by, the way you did in Liverpool. When is he arriving, by the way? When you told me he was coming to Norfolk you said “a week or two”. That ought to mean any time now.’
She happened to be looking at Merle as she spoke and thought the older girl looked downright shifty, but before she could remark upon it Merle replied, stiffly, that she was not Baz’s keeper. ‘He’s probably here already,’ she said, ‘but of course he won’t get time off immediately. I dare say they’ll make him work pretty hard for his first week. And I don’t know nothin’ about public transport around here. He may have a long walk to catch a bus into Yarmouth.’
They had been walking along Marine Parade as they talked, but now Lottie pulled her companion up short and swung her round so that they were staring one another in the eye. ‘Merle O’Mara, if what you told me is true, then Baz won’t need to catch a bus! Why, you silly girl, he’s working at a station, as a porter, and everyone knows about porters’ perks; he’ll be able to hop on any train, because they all come to Great Yarmouth. Just what sort of a yarn have you been spinning?’
Merle dropped her eyes to her feet, which were scuffling uneasily on the pink paving stones. ‘It’s what Baz said,’ she muttered. ‘He said he were going to try for a job in Norfolk, so’s he could be near me. He didn’t say which station, exactly, but he thought he’d be here in a couple of weeks.’ She glared at Lottie. ‘I bet he’s here already. It’s just as I said; he’s too busy right now to come a-visiting. And you shouldn’t make out I’m a liar when I’m only telling you what Baz said.’
There was a long pause, then Lottie said slowly: ‘I don’t think you’re telling the truth. I think you only said that about Baz coming to Norfolk because I didn’t believe you when you said you and Baz were going steady. I know I promised not to say anything to Louella or Max, but I didn’t promise not to write to Baz. Come to that, I reckon I’ll telephone Lime Street station and ask to speak to him. Then we’ll find out if you’re telling the truth.’
This time the pause stretched even longer before Merle suddenly shrugged and gave her companion a sheepish grin. ‘All right, all right, it wasn’t exactly the truth. Baz said he wished he could get a job in Norfolk so we wouldn’t be so far apart, and I suggested he might have a try at getting work somewhere near. He – he sort of said he would, but of course I knew there might not be any jobs going. Only when you wouldn’t believe we were going steady . . . oh, I’m sorry, Lottie, it was a mean thing to tell you fibs and I wish I hadn’t.’ She linked her arm in Lottie’s once more. ‘I will get in touch with Baz, but I hate letter writing, so I’ve not done so yet. What about you? Have you written?’
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