Authors: Elizabeth Audrey Mills
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Historical, #Romance
We rehearsed three times that week, working intensely through their whole set. The
boys were anxious about an impending booking, for which they had been feeling
unprepared, but by the end of the week, we were confident and in high spirits. It was to be
quite a gig: a wedding reception, taking place at a country house in Bradwell, a village
just outside Great Yarmouth. The bride and groom were friends of Bruce's family, and we
would be performing for something like six hours to about two hundred guests. It was a
huge challenge for a relatively new group and an inexperienced singer.
Bruce drove us there in the morning. We carefully set up all the gear on the little stage
at one end of a marquee erected in the grounds of the mansion, tested and tuned it all and
ran a sound check.
As we were finishing, the caterers arrived and began arranging tables and chairs. We
laid covers over our equipment and drove back to Great Yarmouth to wait nervously for
our start time - three o'clock in the afternoon. We sat around a table in the Plough, in a
strange silence, each deep in their own thoughts, sometimes venturing out for a brief
exchange, then retreating again into safe self-absorption.
At half past two, we returned to Bradwell to remove the covers and switch on the
amplifiers, to allow the valves time to warm up, then we sat at one side of the stage until
the feasting was over, watching the floor-show.
Waiters glided around the tables, serving, collecting debris and generally pandering to
the clearly well-to-do diners. Eventually, a horde of helpers swarmed into the marquee
and descended upon the large tables, carrying them outside, leaving a large dance floor
before the stage. The stuffed guests, displaced from the comforting support of the dining
chairs, split into two groups: the men gravitating towards the bar, while the women
decanted themselves onto smaller tables arranged around the walls.
There is a pattern to such events, I have learned. Someone, in this case the father of the
bride, mounts the stage and uses the band's microphone to splutter and whistle a greeting
to the guests; some banal jokes and exchanges then take place, then the band plays the
first number. As this was a wedding, the boys played an instrumental piece for the happy
couple to begin the dancing, after which we launched into our set.
"Thank you, thank you," said Bruce, smiling and waving to the applauding crowd,
letting them show their appreciation for as long as they wanted. Then, as the din subsided,
he continued: "That was our last song. We are The Beacons, and we hope you've had a
good time. Goodnight."
With a final wave, he turned away from the microphone, to the expected chorus of
"More! More!" from the dance floor. One voice rose above the others: "Sing
Home
Again
," he shouted. Several people picked up on the idea and they began to chant it. Why
they wanted that song, I will never know - it was an old, wartime song, and not one we
had rehearsed.
I saw that Bruce was uncertain; he looked at me, anxiously, enquiringly, and I nodded. I
knew the song well; it had been popular in the last months of the war, and was sung by
Alice Moon in the film
Lost Angel
.
The rest of the guys were shaking their heads, so they sat together on the raised platform
upon which Bob's drum kit was perched, while Bruce picked up his acoustic guitar and
pulled up a stool. I stood alone at the mic.
Bruce was one of the best guitarists I have ever known. He played a tinkling, melodic
introduction, leading to a pause for me to come in. On the spur of the moment, picking up
on Bruce's intro, I decided to start the song in a low-key, conversational style, with rests
between each line. Bruce filled the spaces with some beautiful riffs, that made the number
like a duet, two friends in easy chat. As the song developed, we raised the tempo a little to
a steady, swaying beat, which Bob reinforced with some nice brush strokes on the drums,
and I heard the rest of the guys following, quietly.
We reached the last line, and Bruce gently stroked the final chord, letting it ring and
fade as I sang " ... for you, my love, to come home ... again ... to ... me," each word rising
in pitch above the one before, until I ended with a note that I could not believe was
coming from my mouth; it rang, like a wine glass stroked till it resonates and fills a room.
When the last echo faded away, the marquee was completely silent, and I shyly turned
from the mic, head down, sure that I had ruined the song by aiming for such an
impossibly heavenly note. Suddenly there was an explosion of sound, and I looked up in
shock. All the guys, Bruce, even Alan, and, as the room came into view, everyone in the
audience, were on their feet applauding.
From the day of the wedding reception onwards, I performed with them at all their gigs.
These consisted mostly of pubs, youth clubs and a few piano bars in Yarmouth and
outlying districts; we had two or more shows every week all through the summer. With
my contribution, we performed practically every tune in the hit parade. We could play
almost any style, thanks to the skill of the boys. We sounded good, and quickly became a
favourite in the area - new bookings were arriving nearly every day.
Despite his rejection of me, I respected Alan for his skill on the double bass and his
showmanship - he would spin it like a top between notes, or lay the great barrel of the
cello-shaped instrument on its side on the stage and climb over it while still plucking it.
Joey came to watch sometimes, when the gigs were in Yarmouth and he could get in for
free. Afterwards, we would walk along the beach, savouring the cool night breeze and the
reassuring, steady sound of the waves breaking on the sand.
"You got sumfing special in your voice, Bell," he said seriously on one of those
occasions.
"Thanks, darlin'." I had picked this up from him; he used it as an irreverent way of
removing barriers of class, age or gender. In his vocabulary, every man was 'mate', every
girl 'darlin'', and every woman 'missus', and I soon found myself copying him.
"No, listen, it's not a compliment, Bell, I'm trying to tell you sumfing important. I never
heard no-one sing like you, except maybe Doris Day. It ain't just musical - your voice 'as a
sort of ... oh, I don't know, I ain't got the fancy words to say what I mean. What I know is
this: I look at the people when you sing, and they stop talking, or eating, or whatever they
are doing, and they listen. They can't help it. It's like ... well, it's like your voice goes
inside them and touches their soul." He stopped, embarrassed.
I sat down on the sand, and he flopped beside me. The moon was low over the sea, its
reflection a broken brush stroke from horizon to shore. Together we watched the
luminous waves throw themselves onto the beach, their line of foam rushing towards us,
slowing and stopping, then drawing back with a hiss of sand.
"I never thought of it like that," I said eventually. "It's the other way round for me, the
song asks me to sing it. As though it's imprisoned, and needs me to set it free."
Again, the comfortable silence wrapped around us. We were like twins in a womb; two
lives sharing one experience - separate, yet inseparable - our thoughts floating between us
in the warm, amniotic love that held us together.
After a while he rolled onto his side to look at me. "Promise me sumfing, Bell."
"What's that?" I asked, dreamily.
"That you won't let your gift go to waste." He looked at me gravely. "I can see it in your
future: you could be a successful singer, if you go where your voice leads you."
I laughed. "You got gypsy blood in you, Joey? Maybe you could become a fortune
teller."
"I don't mean see the future like in a crystal ball, silly!" He leaned forward and pushed
my shoulder, not hard, but enough to throw me off balance, and I had to throw out an arm
to stop myself falling over. "Listen to me, and stop trying to be funny." He was smiling,
but his voice had an authority to it, a tone I hadn't heard before, as though he was trying to
drive his words through the clamour of thoughts and sensations that he knew filled my
head.
"Too many people let their gifts go to waste and never make anyfing of them," he
continued, forcefully. "We all have gifts - some are obvious, like yours, most are harder to
see, but we all have them, and it is a crime if we don't use them. Yours is special see,
because you can reach millions of people."
"Millions?" I scoffed.
"Yeah, millions. You could be a big star, Bell."
I traced patterns in the sand between us with my finger, as my mind took in what he had
said.
"And another fing," he said, suddenly, breaking into my thoughts.
"What?"
"Keep your name, don't let them change it. Belinda Bellini is a good name, be proud of
it. Promise?"
"Yeah, I promise."
As an outcome of all the gigs I was getting with the band, I suddenly had a little money
of my own. Not big sums at first, but more than I had ever earned before; and, as the work
flowed increasingly into our diary, so my income grew. I started putting it in my Post
Office savings account. Eventually I had enough coming in each week to pay the rent on a
small flat. Excitedly, I told Joey, and asked him to move in with me; it seemed logical and
obvious to me that we should share everything.
He seemed unsettled by the idea. "Look, mate," he said, looking awkwardly down at his
feet, "I don't want to spoil your plans. You go ahead, but I'm better out here."
"But ..." I stammered, puzzled at his reluctance, "you won't have to worry about keeping
warm and dry, or where to sleep, and we will be able to have hot dinners."
"I know that. But when the Old Bill come looking for me, they'll know where I am,
won't they? My way suits me best: I can have anything I want without being tied down. If
I want to get up and move on one day, well, I just pick up me bed and walk. Know what I
mean?"
I could tell he was uncomfortable, because his accent had become more noticeable and
he was using little phrases that he rarely said normally. But to me, this was a chance to get
some kind of comfort and safety back into my life.
"If I get the flat, we will still be friends, won't we? I couldn't bear it if we drift away
from each other; you are like a brother."
"Course we'll stay friends, yer silly tart," he laughed, ending with a little cough that he
had acquired.
"And will you come to stay, sometimes?"
"Yeah, that will be great." He gave one of his cheeky grins. "You any good as a cook?"
"Good? The nerve of him! I'm the best. My Gran taught me everything she knew."
"Sunday roast? I haven't had a roast dinner since me mum died."
"Sunday roast better than anything you ever tasted, I promise," I smiled, happy to prove
myself to him.
"It's a deal, then, Sunday dinner at yours. Me mouf's waterin' already."
Although I was spending much of my time rehearsing and performing with the band,
and my nights were spent alone in the comfort of a soft bed, Joey and I saw each other as
much as possible. Every morning, I walked over to the supermarket to meet him, and we
would forage together among the bins, before wandering down to the beach, or a park, to
eat our spoils for the day. As always, our time together was companionable, comfortable,
and I found myself thinking about the word 'love' - was this it?
Naturally, I asked him.
He was silent for ages, and I thought I had embarrassed him. When he spoke, he gazed
out towards the horizon, where merchant ships shimmered like a camel train in the dunes
of the Sahara desert.
He coughed. "I can't speak for you, but for me, yeah, it's love. Seems to me there's
different kinds of love. Like, you love to sing, you loved your Gran, I loved my mum - I
think I even loved my dad in a way. I fink you can love someone wivout all that romantic
stuff. That's how I feel about you. I look forward to seeing you, I feel happiest when
you're around, but I don't want to jump on your body." He turned to me and grinned.
"Well you know how to bring a girl down," I laughed. "There was me thinking I was as
sexy as Elizabeth Taylor." But I hugged him. "That's exactly how I feel. It's as though we
are two halves of the same person, separated at birth and now reunited."
On Sunday, I was more nervous than I had ever been before. Even pre-performance
butterflies were nothing compared with the near panic I felt at cooking my first dinner for
Joey. It's not as though I wasn't a thoroughly experienced cook - I had spent the last seven
years cooking breakfasts and dinners for the (admittedly few) guests at the B & B - but I
wanted it to be perfect.
I was up at dawn that morning, checking that I had everything ready. I had splashed out
on a leg of lamb, and over the course of the morning, I roasted the joint - with some
potatoes and parsnips - boiled more potatoes for mashing and steamed a handful of runner
beans. I laid the table and relaid it three times.
Half an hour before he was due to arrive, I made the gravy and whisked up the
Yorkshire pudding mix. I swear, I checked the clock every two minutes, praying he would
not be late and the dinner spoilt.
I need not have worried; at twelve o'clock prompt, he arrived, carrying a big bunch of
flowers, which he presented to me with a flamboyant Shakespearian flourish of hands. I
accepted the the bouquet, giggling.
"I want you to know," he said proudly, "that those flowers are not pinched from a
graveyard, or anyfing like that. I got them by honest trade."
"I'm glad to hear that," I smiled, "where did you get them?"
"I exchanged them with the lady at the flower shop for a bottle of whisky, if you must
know."
"And where, may I ask, did you get the whisky?" I grinned, knowing the probable
answer.
He gave a little cough. "Well, I nicked it of course. There was a delivery waiting outside
a pub, beer and wines and spirits; nobody seemed to be bothered to take them in, so I
helped myself to the whisky."
I frowned at him.
"And some brandy," he continued, quietly, after a pause. "And a couple of bottles of
beer."
Seeing my shocked expression, he carried on, almost whispering: "And a packet of
tobacco. Well, two, actually; I couldn't make up my mind whether to have the Old
Holbourn or the Golden Virginia, so I had both."
"And, pray, what time was this?"
Again he coughed, nervously, as though he expected me to scold him for being a
naughty boy. "Er, not sure really," he muttered. "Might have been about five o'clock this
morning."
I laughed out loud and hugged him. "Thank you, my dear friend, you always give me a
smile, and having you here for dinner is gift enough for me, but the flowers are lovely,
and I am very proud of you.
He beamed, simultaneously proud and relieved.