CHAPTER ONE

‘Girls! On stage! Quickly, please, we are waiting!’
Rose Taylor ground the toe of her ballet shoe into the tray of resin in the wings and looked across at the imperious figure outlined against the footlights. Madame was on the warpath again. She sighed and walked out onto the stage. The theatre had the chill, damp feel that always seemed to seep up from the sea below during the night, not to be banished until the audience came in for the evening performance. The sea was rough today and Rose could dimly feel the waves thudding against the timbers that supported the pier. She looked around her at the other four girls and felt the knot of anxiety at the pit of her stomach tighten. There should have been five.
‘Priscilla!’ demanded the harsh voice. ‘Where is Priscilla?’
Madame Dolores da Ponte was spare, upright, clad from chin to ankle in black, her dark hair drawn back into a tight bun, her lips scarlet. She carried a long cane whose purpose was to correct the position of her dancers’ feet but frequently served, as now, to indicate her irritation by rapping on the stage. Rose kept her eyes downcast. It was not fair that Madame always seemed to expect her to be responsible for the other girls. It was not as if she was the oldest. Sally Castle had had her twenty-first a month ago, beating Rose by a full six months.
‘Well?’ The stick beat another tattoo. ‘You, Rose, answer me!’
Rose spoke up unwillingly. ‘Her guardian took her out last night after the show, Madame. To a party in London. She said you had given her permission.’
‘So? I gave ‘er permission to go to a party last night. Zis is today.’ The phoney Italian accent became more pronounced, as it always did when Madame was annoyed. ‘She knows zere is a re’earsal zis morning. What time did she come in?’
There was a silence. Then Sally Castle said, in clear tones, ‘She didn’t. She stayed out all night.’
Rose waited for the explosion but it did not come. Instead Madame said, ‘Very well, we rehearse without her. We cannot keep Mlle Tereskova waiting any longer. Places, please! Thank you, maestro!’
From the pit the company pianist began the opening bars of Chopin’s Les Sylphides. Rose lifted her arms and let the music take her. Nothing gave her so much pleasure as dancing. Ever since she could remember it had been as natural and as essential to her as breathing. She sometimes felt that the urge to dance had been woven into her muscles while she was still in the womb; that her nerves were so attuned to the sound of music that at the first notes of it her limbs automatically began to move to its rhythm. Ballet, tap or modern, waltz, tango, samba or can-can – it made no difference. She loved them all. Only one person had the power to destroy that innate delight, and that person was Irena Tereskova.
To begin with the five girls of the corps de ballet were alone on stage. Then came the moment when they formed a diagonal line from upstage left, extending their arms in welcome to the principal dancer. As Tereskova floated into view Rose felt a catch at her throat. The woman might be past her best but the graceful line of her arms and the regal carriage still bore witness to the unsurpassed perfection of her training. Tereskova had once danced with the Bolshoi and Rose could understand her frustration at finding herself reduced to performing in a seaside Concert Party. What she could not understand, or forgive, was the fact that the prima ballerina chose to take out her irritation on one member of the corps be ballet, namely Rose Taylor.
The ballerina drifted like thistledown to the centre of the stage and the corps rearranged themselves into an attentive semicircle. So far, Rose thought, so good. Then Tereskova began to circle the stage in a serious of whirling pirouettes. Rose watched her progress with growing alarm. She was going too wide, every revolution bringing her nearer to the edge of the stage and the girls who stood around it. Nearer, in effect, to Rose. She had just time to register the fact before something, whether it was an elbow or a foot she had no idea, hit her in the small of the back with the force of kicking mule and pitched her forward onto her face. For a moment she was aware of nothing except the stunning blow and a sharp pain in her left leg.
Sitting up, she saw that blood was oozing through her tights from a long cut. Behind her, now that her head had cleared, she realised that all hell had broken loose. Tereskova was screaming at the top of her voice in Russian and Madame was shouting over her in pure East End cockney.
‘Rose, you stupid, clumsy girl! Why don’t you look what you’re doing? Irena! Irena, my dear, are you all right?’ She rushed across the stage and tried to help the ballerina to her feet. ‘Are you hurt? Shall I send for a doctor? Somebody bring a chair for Mademoiselle Tereskova!’
The dancer shook her off and stood erect. ‘No doctor!’ she said. Her voice was huskily dramatic and her words heavily accented. ‘I do not need a doctor. I need to work with professionals. With real ballerinas! Not with these clumsy elephants you call ballet dancers.’
Madame turned on Rose, who was still sitting on the floor hugging her up-drawn leg.
‘What were you doing, you stupid girl? Why didn’t you keep out of the way?’
‘Please, Madame,’ Rose struggled to suppress tears of pain and anger at the injustice, ‘I didn’t move! Perhaps Mlle. Tereskova caught her foot in an uneven board or something.’
‘Uneven board!’ sneered Tereskova. ‘That girl deliberately obstructed me. I will not have her on the stage with me. If she appears, then I do not!’
‘Of course, of course. Whatever you want, my dear,’ cooed Dolores. ‘Now let me take you back to your dressing room. Can I get you a brandy?’
‘Excuse me, Madame.’
The voice came from the darkened auditorium, deep, resonant, bringing to Rose’s distracted mind an image of warm brown velvet. She peered across the footlights but against their glare she could only make out a hazy silhouette. The man seemed to be quite tall and, for all its depth, the voice sounded young.
Madame advanced to the front of the stage. ‘Yes? Who are you? What do you want?’
‘Richard Stevens, Madame. You auditioned me yesterday. Forgive me for butting in, but I think it’s the other young lady who needs some assistance.’
‘What?’
‘I saw what happened. It wasn’t her fault. And now I think she really is hurt.’
Madame leaned forward across the footlights and when she spoke her voice was low and tremulous with fury.
‘Mr Stevens! You are very young, and you have a great deal to learn! In future you will please not interfere between me and my dancers. That is all I have to say to you!’ She turned back to the others. ‘Clear the stage. Rose, get that cut cleaned up and get someone to put a plaster on it. I will talk to you later. Irena, come. You must rest. It will not happen again, I promise you.’
Tereskova shoved her aside with a petulant gesture and stalked off stage. Madame was about to follow her when a door at the back of the auditorium was flung open and light footsteps raced down the centre aisle. A slight, raven-haired girl ran across the bridge that spanned the orchestra pit and threw herself dramatically at the older woman’s feet.
‘Oh, Madame, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to be late for rehearsal. Please forgive me! I’ll be changed in a minute and I’ll never be late again. I promise!’
Madame stared down at the young face upturned towards her. Her lips tightened and her nostrils flared.
‘Blame me, Madame, not Priscilla. I assure you I am the real culprit.’
The ballet mistress’s expression changed and softened. She looked out into the auditorium, her scarlet lips breaking into a seductive smile.
‘Sir Lionel! How delightful! Have you come to watch us rehearse?’
Rose looked down the aisle as the man addressed in this purring tone came into the reflected light from the stage.
‘Sadly not, Madame, merely to return my ward to your care and beg your forgiveness on her behalf. The party went on rather late, and of course none of us could leave until the Royal Party did. I hadn’t the heart to wake Prissy this morning and I had no idea that there was a rehearsal until she told me. We motored down at breakneck speed. I do hope we haven’t kept you waiting too long.’
‘Of course not, Sir Lionel. I quite understand. After all, there are certain obligations where Royalty is concerned.’ Madame turned to the girl who was still at her feet. ‘Go and change, Priscilla. And be quick!’
‘Oh, thank you, Madame, thank you!’ The girl jumped to her feet, blew a kiss towards her guardian, bestowed a radiant smile on Madame and ran off stage. As she passed, Rose heard Sally hiss,
‘Stuck up little bitch!’
Madame returned her attention to the rest of her corps de ballet. ‘Go and change. We have still to practice the tap routine. Last night’s performance was a disaster!’
Pamela and Lucy, two of the girls, helped Rose to her feet.
‘Who is he, Rose? Who’s your knight in shining armour?’ Pamela whispered in her ear.
‘How should I know?’ she responded. ‘I’ve never met him.’
‘Oh, come on! You dark horse! You must have.’
‘I haven’t! Honestly, I don’t know any more than you do. But if Madame auditioned him he must be joining the company.’ The thought produced a quiver of excitement in the pit of her stomach. She quelled it by reminding herself that the physical presence of her rescuer would probably be nothing like the expectations aroused by his voice.
‘That bitch Tereskova!’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘She did it deliberately.’
‘I know,’ Rose said unhappily. ‘She’s been picking on me ever since the season started. You must all be browned off with being dragged in for extra rehearsals because Tereskova’s complained about me again. I just don’t understand why she does it. Why me?’
‘That’s easy,’ Sally replied with her usual confidence. ‘She’s jealous, that’s all.’
‘But why of me?’
‘Because you’re good and you’re fifteen years younger than she is. You’re what she was fifteen years ago and never can be again.’
‘Oh no!’ Rose protested. ‘I’ll never be as good as her.’
Sally looked at her with friendly contempt. ‘Rose,’ she said, ‘you’re a dope!’
In the dressing room Pamela, always a practical girl, hunted out the First Aid box and offered to attend to Rose’s leg but Rose declined. If something was going to hurt, she preferred to do it herself. She peeled off her tights and was relieved to see that the wound was not as serious as she had thought. There was a long cut, caused by a jagged splinter, but it was shallow and would soon heal. She gritted her teeth and dabbed it with iodine, then covered it with a plaster and turned her attention to her tights. They had suffered more damage than her leg had. Ruefully, she wondered whether, if she soaked them to remove the bloodstain and mended them carefully, they would still be wearable. She simply could not afford to buy a new pair.
Her mind wandered, returning to the owner of that remarkably attractive voice. Who was he and why had he intervened on her behalf? Richard, he had said his name was. If he was joining the company, in what capacity? She remembered that shadowy outline and wondered if it was possible that the face might, after all, match the voice.
Sally’s voice broke into her thoughts.
‘There isn’t going to be a war! I mean, look at Hitler, with that silly little moustache and that funny walk! You can’t take him seriously, can you?’
‘I dunno. Will says there is. He says he’s going to join the RAF. He fancies himself flying a plane. I think he’s quite looking forward to it.’
‘Well, he’s going to be disappointed, take it from me. What do you think, Rose?
Rose withdrew her attention from the tights and looked around the poky dressing room. Sally was sitting in the washbasin, dangling her long shapely legs and carefully painting her nails. Her sister, Lucy, was slumped in the only easy chair in the room, idly turning the pages of a magazine, while Pamela sat at the table, patching a pair of black satin shorts. All three were blonde, though Rose knew very well that in the case of the Castle sisters the colour owed more to the peroxide bottle than to nature. She sometimes wondered if being the only brunette made a difference inside her head, as well as outside.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just pray there won’t be a war. My old Dad never got over what happened to him in the last one.’
‘I tell you, it’ll be all right.’ Sally finished painting her nails and waved a hand in the air to dry them. ‘I’m fed up with sitting here! Johnny was going to take me out for lunch. We were going to that new Roadhouse out on the Brighton road. Hasn’t the old bat finished with us yet?’
‘She said she wanted to go over the tap routine as well,’ Lucy pointed out.
‘Why, for heavens sake? We’ve been doing it for weeks.’
‘Oh, come on, fair’s fair,’ Pamela put in. ‘We were all over the place last night.’
‘Well, it’s not my fault if that silly cow Priscilla can’t keep in step, is it?’ snapped Maddy. ‘Where is she anyway?’
‘Goodness knows,’ Lucy said. ‘Taken herself off to get changed in private somewhere. I reckon she thinks she’s too good for the likes of us.’
‘Well, let’s face it,’ Rose said, ‘we haven’t exactly made her welcome, have we?’
The door was flung open and Barbara Willis, the fifth member of the chorus, appeared on the threshold.
‘Hey, girls, guess what! That chap who spoke up for Rose is the new baritone! He’s up on stage rehearsing with Monty.’
‘Let me guess!’ Sally said. ‘He’s short, fat and forty.’
‘Wrong! He’s tall and dark, and ever so sophisticated looking.’
‘How old, Babe?’ Lucy asked.
Barbara was the youngest member of the troupe and looked as if she should still have been at school – an impression that was emphasised at that moment by her wide-eyed, breathless excitement. She broke into giggles, ignoring Lucy.
‘You’ll never believe it. Monty’s got him acting as his stooge!’
‘How old is he, Babe?’ Lucy reiterated.
‘Oh, about twenty-three or four.’
The two girls by the table rose as one and moved towards the door but before they could reach it Sally had slid from her perch on the washbasin and drawn herself up to her full height.
‘Stand aside, kids!’ she demanded in husky tones. ‘This one’s mine!’
As the other girls crowded out of the room Rose hesitated. Her leg was hurting, but something harder to define held her back. This man, she told herself, couldn’t be as gorgeous as Babe made out – or if he was he was bound to be married. And anyway, if he did happen to be available Sally would soon have her claws into him. Rose had nothing against Sally. On the whole they got on very well. But she was not going to lower herself to compete with her for a man’s attention. On the other hand …. She heaved herself out of her chair and hobbled in the direction of the pass door leading to the auditorium.

Richard Stevens was not enjoying himself. It was the first day of his first professional engagement and he was aware that he had already put his foot in it. He should have had the sense to keep his mouth shut but he had never been able to stay quiet when he saw an injustice or thought that someone was being bullied. It had got him into many a fight at school, to the disgust of his fiercely proper mother. And when he remembered the girl’s face as she looked back at him, he knew he would do exactly the same if he had the chance to wind back the clock. That face! He couldn’t get it out of his mind. Heart-shaped, within a frame of soft dark hair and dominated by huge violet eyes. Violet? Yes, that was definitely the right word. He had not realised that eyes could be that colour before.
He forced his mind back to the job in hand. He had made an enemy of the manager’s wife and now, to top it all off, he found he was expected to act as straight man to her comedian husband. He couldn’t afford to make a mess of this, too.
‘I say, I say, I say!’
‘What? What do you want?’
‘My dog don’t eat meat!’
‘Why don’t – why doesn’t your dog eat meat?’
‘I don’t give my dog no meat.’
‘I don’t wish to know that! Kindly leave the stage. Ladies and gentlemen, for my next number …’
‘I say, I say, I say!’
‘Now what is it?’
‘No, no, no, no, no! Not like that!’
Richard stopped and blinked uncomfortably at the short, square, frog-faced man facing him. ‘Sorry, Mr Prince?’
‘You’re supposed to be angry. I’m interrupting your spot, remember? Look, I know this is all new to you but try to put a bit of life into it.’
‘Sorry, Mr Prince,’ Richard said again.
‘OK. Let’s try it again. I say, I say, I say!’
‘Now what is it?’ Richard allowed the frustration and anxiety he was feeling to drive the words.
The little man clasped his hands to his head. ‘It can’t go on! It can’t go on!’
‘What can’t?’ Richard asked in some alarm. This was not what was written in his script.
‘This hat – it’s too small!’ Monty chortled with delight at his stooge’s expression. ‘Now you’re getting the idea.’
‘I suppose so.’ Richard looked doubtfully at the script in his hand. ‘Excuse me, Mr Prince …’
‘Well, what is it? Speak up, laddie!’
‘I don’t mean to be rude but – do people actually laugh at this kind of thing?’
‘Laugh! Do they laugh? Of course they laugh. Do you think I could have made a career in variety all these years if people didn’t laugh at my jokes? Would I be where I am today, running my own company, if people didn’t find me funny? Do they laugh, indeed! Hey, you, down there. How do audiences react to my jokes?’
‘They laugh, Mr Prince,’ said a lugubrious male voice from the orchestra pit.
‘Laugh? They’re bloody hysterical! Now, where were we? Never mind, laddie. It’s easy to see you’re new to this game. Let’s try again, shall we? From the top. I say, I say ….Yes? What do you want?’
The spotty youth who doubled as call-boy and general dogsbody had edged reluctantly onto the side of the stage.
‘Excuse me, Mr Prince. Madame wants a word with you.’
‘Well, tell her I’m busy. I’m rehearsing with Mr Stevens here.’
The boy hesitated. Finally he decided to opt for the lesser of two evils.
‘She said it was urgent.’
Now Monty appeared to hesitate, too. And, like the boy, he decided discretion was the better part of valour.
‘Oh, very well! Tell her I’m coming.’ He turned to the new man. ‘Sorry about this, laddie. Tell you what, why don’t you run over your songs with Merry here while I’m gone? I’ll see you later. And don’t worry …’ he patted his arm reassuringly, ‘you’ll be fine. Fine!’
He waddled off the stage, followed by the boy, and Richard turned and peered down into the orchestra pit. All he could see was a shadowy figure behind the piano.
‘Got your dots, old boy?’ said the voice.
‘My what?’
The figure detached itself from the piano and came forward. In the reflection from the footlights Richard saw a tall, willowy young man with soft brown hair cut so that a long lock fell forward over his forehead.
‘Your dots,’ he repeated. ‘Your music.’
‘Oh! Yes, here somewhere.’ Richard retrieved his music case from the wings and extracted several pieces of sheet music. As he leaned across the footlights with them the pianist reached up a hand.
‘By the way, I’m Guy Merryweather. Generally known as Merry.’
The introduction was made in such a mournful tone that Richard had difficulty in suppressing a laugh. ‘Richard,’ he replied, shaking hands. ‘Richard Stevens.’
‘Welcome to the Fairbourne Follies, Richard. And there was never an outfit more aptly named!’
Richard laughed. ‘It can’t be that bad. I’m looking forward to it.’
‘This your first professional job?’
Richard hesitated and then decided in favour of honesty. ‘Yes, it is. I only got back to England a couple of months ago. I think I’ve been very lucky.’
‘You do?’ Merry lifted his eyebrows satirically. ‘Back from where?’
‘Italy. I’ve been training with a singing teacher in Milan.’
The pianist’s eyes widened. ‘Milan? My word! What are you doing slumming it here? You ought to be singing oratorio with some worthy northern choral society.’
‘No thanks!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘I had enough of them to last me a lifetime before I went away. I want to see life, have a bit of fun!’
‘So you came to Fairbourne?’ Merry surveyed him with an expression of mingled pity and amusement. Then he turned his attention to the sheets of music. ‘Well, let’s see, what have we got here? Ridi, Pagliacci; Don Carlos; the Toreador’s song.’ He looked up at Richard and pursed his lips. ‘Look, duckie, it’s the end of the pier, not bloody Glyndebourne!’
‘You think it’s too heavy?’ Richard queried. ‘But Mr Prince told me it was a very …’
‘A very high class show!’ Merry concluded for him. ‘Oh yes. That’s what he likes to think – and that, basically, is why it’s losing money.’
‘Is it?’ Richard said with some alarm.
‘Why do you think your predecessor quit?’
‘Hugh Evans? Mr Prince said they had an artistic disagreement.’
‘Oh, very artistic! Hugh’d been promised a share of the profits. When he discovered there weren’t any he got raging drunk and he and Monty had a very public showdown in the King’s Head. Sorry to disillusion you.’
‘Oh,’ Richard said, flatly. Then, ‘You don’t think these are suitable, then?’
‘Well, let’s have a look.’ Merry produced a sudden, unexpected grin. ‘Cheer up! It’s early in the season. Things will improve. Who knows, by September you could be a star.’ He returned his attention to the music. ‘You need two different programmes. You know – two different shows a week. So, keep the Toreador for one and Pagliacci for the other and chuck the Don Carlos.’
‘What would you suggest instead?’ Richard asked. He suddenly felt very helpless.
‘D’you know ‘Let the Punishment Fit the Crime’ from the Mikado? That always goes down well.’
‘Oh, yes. Good idea.’
‘How about Old Father Thames?’
‘Yes. But I haven’t got the music.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I can play that with my eyes shut. Let’s concentrate on those two and the Toreador’s song for tonight. We’ll sort out the rest another day. What else are you doing, apart from being Monty’s stooge?’
‘I’ve got to do a couple of duets with the tenor – er, Franklyn Bell? I haven’t met him yet.’
‘You will, when he gets out of the pub. That’ll be the Pearl Fishers and the Bold Gendarmes. Let’s concentrate on your solos for now. OK? Which one do you want to start with?’
‘I don’t mind.’ Richard hesitated, then added. ‘Look, I’m really awfully grateful.’
Merry, on his way back to the piano, turned and threw him another of his sardonic, amused looks. ‘Pure self-preservation, I assure you. I’m closer to the audience than you are if they start throwing things!’

Seated in the stalls, hugging her injured leg, Rose studied the man who had come to her rescue. For once, Barbara had not exaggerated. He was tall and dark, with hair that waved slightly and the build of an athlete rather than a singer. Singers, in Rose’s experience, tended to run to fat. The details of his face were hard to make out at this range but she could see dark eyes under strongly marked brows and a curving mouth that seemed to smile easily. She noticed that his laugh was warm and unaffected. From a little further along the row she heard Sally whisper to her sister.
‘Dishy! But talk about wet behind the ears! He won’t last long.’
Merry played the opening bars of Old Father Thames and then, for the first time, Rose heard what that voice was capable of. Smooth as honey but with the depth, the surging power, of the great river itself. She sat back in her seat and stared, transfixed. Richard was no longer the diffident boy he had appeared earlier. Alone in the pool of light, he had flung back his shoulders and lifted his chin and the voice seemed to pour effortlessly from somewhere deep in his chest, filling the theatre.
At the end of the song Merry said, ‘Bravo! That was splendid. Now, let’s have a look at the Bizet, shall we?’
Abruptly, Richard was transformed again. Rose did not know much about opera, but everyone was familiar with the Toreador’s song and here was the bullfighter, in all his arrogant self-confidence, swaggering about the stage. She was aware, too, that Merry was responding to the performance. Though she had no formal musical training, a lifetime of dancing had made her sensitive to the way it was played and she knew already that Merry was far too talented to waste himself as Musical Director of an end-of-the-pier concert party. He always gave of his best during performances, however trivial the pieces, and the boys in the band worshipped him, but in rehearsal she was often aware that his mind was elsewhere. Now, however, he was fully alert, responding to every slight change of tempo and nuance of expression. When the aria finished there was a moment of complete silence. Then Merry said,
‘Bravo, indeed! You’ve got a very fine voice. What the hell are you doing wasting it on the sort of audiences we get?’
It occurred to Rose that she should not be eavesdropping, but she, too, wanted to know the answer.
Richard shrugged and smiled. ‘Nobody believes an Englishman can sing opera.’
‘Have you auditioned for any opera companies?’
‘Oh yes. You know what it’s like. Don’t ring us, we’ll ring you. The Carl Rosa people said they might have a place for me next season.’
‘They didn’t snap you up at once? They’re mad!’ Merry declared. ‘But what’s new about that? Never mind. Their loss is Fairbourne’s gain. Now, what next?’
Lucy Castle nudged Rose. ‘Come on. We ‘d better get changed. Madame’s bound to want us in a minute.’
Moving cautiously so as not to betray their presence, the five girls slipped out of their seats and crept back to the dressing room.
When his rehearsal was over Richard, too, made his way back to his dressing room. He was about to enter when he was arrested by raised voices from behind a door labelled ‘Miss St Clair. Mr Franklyn Bell’.
A woman’s voice exclaimed furiously, ‘You know perfectly well the stupid girl’s mad about you. And you’re leading her on because you think her guardian might be useful to your career.’
A man’s voice replied, ‘It’s our career, remember!’
‘How long is that going to last? You married me because it seemed like a good career move, and I’ve no doubt you’ll divorce me just as quickly if you decide you can do better on your own.’
A brief pause. Then, ‘Well, if you believe that there’s no point in my saying anything else. You can be a spiteful bitch, Isabel.’
On the last words the speaker approached the door and Richard started guiltily and hastily turned away. Bell came out and slammed the door behind him. His face, as he left the room, was contorted in a furious grimace, but as soon as he saw Richard it immediately assumed a mask of suave courtesy. He was in his middle thirties, of medium height and, though he was not fat, there was a soft fleshiness about him that suggested he could very easily become so. With his sandy hair starting to thin at the temples he seemed an unlikely Casanova but then Richard noticed the sensuous curve of the mouth and the cocky set of the head and changed his mind.
‘Hello, are you the new boy? I’m Franklyn Bell. How do you do?’
Richard shook the proffered hand. ‘How do you do? Richard Stevens.’
‘Glad to meet you, Richard. Monty came back full of enthusiasm from your audition yesterday. It’s good of you to help us out at short notice.’
‘Oh, not at all. I’m glad of the opportunity.’
‘Look, we need to run through a couple of our duets sometime. Nothing complicated. I’m sure you’ll know them already.’
‘Yes, of course’, Richard said eagerly. ‘But I think the stage and the pianist are occupied right now.’
From above came the rhythmic rattle and thud of tap shoes and the sound of Merry thumping out a popular song. Bell cocked an ear and grinned.
‘Yes, it wouldn’t do to try and interrupt dear old Dolly.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘About twelve o’clock suit you?’
‘Fine.’
‘Right. I’m going out for a quick one. Fancy joining me?’
‘Oh no, thanks. Bit early for me. And I’ve got some lines to learn for Mr Prince.’
‘Oh well, mustn’t keep you from that! See you later, then. Cheerio!’
”Bye.’ Richard watched him go down the passage towards the stage door, setting his trilby hat at a jaunty angle and whistling softly under his breath. Then he turned away to his own room. There were three names on the door: Hugh Evans, his predecessor; Guy Merryweather; and ‘Mr Mysterioso’. Merry was still at the piano and the only evidence of the existence of the third person was an opera cloak and a top hat hanging in a corner, so he had the place to himself. He sat for a moment speculating about the identity of Mr Mysterioso. He knew that, as well as sharing a dressing room, all three of them were lodged in the same boarding house in the town. However, he had arrived the previous evening after everyone had left for the theatre and that morning he had eaten his breakfast and gone out before either of the others was up. He pictured the magician as short and plump, with a black moustache.
Richard collected his thoughts and forced himself to concentrate on learning the script that Monty Prince had given him – not that it required any great intellectual effort. Nevertheless, he had a feeling that he would get short shrift from his employer if he was anything less than word perfect by tonight. Tonight! He could scarcely believe that tonight he would stand on a stage and make his first professional appearance. He thought of his parents and his aunts and uncles, in their high stiff collars sitting on their high, stiff chairs in their stiff, respectable drawing rooms back in Didsbury. What would they think of Monty Prince and his Fairbourne Follies? He had not yet had the courage to write to his mother and tell her that he was going to work in a Concert Party.
It was just before one o-clock when he set off back to his digs for lunch. He was feeling a little more confident about the performance that evening after his rehearsal with Merry, though he was less than happy about his duets with Franklyn Bell. The tenor had sauntered through their numbers without bothering to sing above mezzo voce, leaving Richard with the impression of a pleasant, though rather weak, lyric voice and a somewhat erratic sense of tempo. When Richard had suggested that they go over them again he had waved a hand dismissively and headed for the exit.
‘Don’t worry, old boy. It’ll be fine. Got every confidence in you.’
Richard wished he could have returned the compliment.
When he entered the front room of Mrs Parish’s boarding house, it was empty except for one figure seated in an armchair. He was reading a newspaper that concealed every part of him except for a pair of highly polished shoes and the lower half of some sharply-creased flannels. Richard hesitated in the doorway and cleared his throat. The newspaper was immediately lowered and he found himself looking into the most beautiful male face he had ever seen. Beauty was not a term Richard normally thought of in connection with other men, but it sprang unbidden to his mind in that instant. The bone structure – straight nose, well-defined cheek bones, firm jaw – might have served as a model for a classical sculpture, except that the curving mouth was perhaps a fraction too wide for perfection. The eyes were a startling forget-me-not blue, fringed by long lashes the colour of dark honey and the thick, expertly cut hair was a shade or two lighter, like a cornfield just before harvest.
The young man rose to his feet at once, his lips parting in an engaging smile to reveal even white teeth.
‘You must be old Hugh’s replacement. Good to meet you! I’m Felix Lamont.’
Richard shook the extended hand and automatically repeated his own name. ‘You’re Mr Mysterioso?’ he added, gazing at his companion.
Lamont chuckled and lifted an eyebrow. ‘Not what you expected, eh? Mr Mysterioso, Illusionist extraordinaire, at your service! My card.’ He flicked his wrist and a small square of pasteboard appeared between his fingers. Richard took it, bemused.
‘Thanks.’
‘Sit down, old boy,’ Lamont invited, indicating an easy chair opposite his own. ‘Mrs P’ll be in with lunch in a minute.’ Richard obeyed. ‘So, tell me,’ Lamont resumed, ‘what brings you to the flesh pots of Fairbourne on Sea?’
There was something about his smile that invited confidences and Richard told him about his thwarted attempts to get work as an opera singer and how he had been on the verge of giving in and going home when Monty Prince’s offer had come.
‘Ah,’ his companion said with a laugh, ‘another fugitive from the parental nest.’
‘Why?’ Richard asked. ‘Are you running away from home too?’
A shadow passed across the handsome face in front of him and Lamont waved the question aside. He turned his head as the door opened to admit Guy Merryweather. ‘Oh, we’re all running away from something or other. Aren’t we, Merry?’
For a moment the two men’s eyes met and Richard had an impression of some unspoken communication, almost a challenge. Then Merry said lightly, ‘Oh yes. The only difference is some of us are running faster than others.’
Mrs Parish followed Merry into the room bearing a tray, on which were three bowls of thick, grey soup.
‘Come along, gents,’ she admonished them. ‘Don’t let it get cold. Now, you make sure you eat it all up,’ she added, tapping Richard on the shoulder. ‘I know you theatrical gentlemen need a good meal midday.’
‘I should take her advice,’ Felix said softly as the door closed behind her. ‘You’ll get nothing more than a sliver of ham and a limp lettuce leaf after the show, I can promise you.’
A slim black cat had followed the landlady into the room and as they took their places at the table it positioned itself next to Merry, neck outstretched, tail quivering, obviously intent on springing up onto his lap. With a single, easy movement Felix rose and scooped the animal up.
‘Come on, puss, you know you’re not welcome in here’ he said, running a caressing hand over its head and back. ‘Why do you always make a beeline for old Merry, when you know he can’t abide you?’ He decanted the cat into the passage and returned to his seat.
Richard looked at Merry curiously. ‘Are you one of these people who have a phobia about cats?’
‘Not a phobia, an allergy,’ Merry replied. He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘They bring on my asthma.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Richard said. ‘I didn’t realise you were asthmatic.’
Merry made a dismissive gesture. ‘It’s not a real problem. I’m fine as long as I avoid animals and dusty places. It’s one reason why I like it here. The sea air suits me.’
The food turned out to taste better than it looked though, like the soup, the stewed lamb and cabbage seemed to have been boiled to a uniform grey. As they ate Felix and Merry entertained Richard with anecdotes about the members of the company. There was Madame, whose great claim to fame was that she had once danced with Diaghelev’s Ballet Russes.
‘Only once, in the back row of the chorus,’ Felix said wickedly. ‘Then he found out she had two left feet. Of course, Dolores da Ponte’s not her real name. She was born plain Dolly Bridges. ‘
‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘That accounts for the extraordinary accent.’
‘Italo-Spanish Cockney?’ grinned Felix. ‘Marvellous, isn’t it? Then there’s La Tereskova…’
‘Now, she really can dance,’ Merry remarked, ‘or she could once. She’s getting a bit past it now, poor old thing. Trained at the Bolshoi -a refugee from Comrade Stalin.’
‘Can’t think why,’ Felix commented. ‘I should have thought even he would think twice about crossing La Tereskova. What a temper!’
‘What was my predecessor like?’ Richard asked.
‘A bit like that character from the Merchant of Venice,’ Merry said unexpectedly. ‘Vile in the evening when he was drunk, and most vile in the morning when he was sober.’
‘Oh dear,’ Richard grinned, secretly relieved. ‘Tell me about Franklyn Bell and – what’s his wife’s stage name?’
‘Isabel St Clair,’ Felix said. ‘There’s nothing much to tell except that she’s a saint and he’s a swine. Frank two-times her with every pretty girl he comes across – specially if he thinks she’s got money or influence. Right now he’s making a play for little Priscilla Vance.’
‘Is that his real name, Frank?’ Richard asked.
‘Oh yes. He adopted Franklyn just to make it a bit more memorable. And she’s really Sinclair, of course.’
‘Is anyone in this profession exactly what they seem to be?’ Richard asked.
Felix sat back and put his napkin aside. He glanced at Merry. ‘Oh, when it comes down to it we’re all performers, aren’t we, Merry?’
Once again Merry met his eyes. All through the meal Richard had been aware of a tension in the atmosphere, like an electrical charge, in spite of their light hearted banter.
‘Of course’ Merry replied. ‘Only some of us don’t take off our make up when we come off stage.’
Felix pushed back his chair and rose.
‘Well, I must love you and leave you. Well, leave you anyway. There’s a rather attractive young lady waiting for me and I’d hate to disappoint her.’ He moved to the door. ‘See you in the theatre.’
He went out and they heard the front door slam. Merry got up and picked up the newspaper Felix had discarded. Richard went to the window. Below him Felix was getting into a bright blue, open topped Lagonda.
‘Wow! Is that his?’ Richard exclaimed.
Merry joined him and watched as Felix drove away, his corn-gold hair blowing back from that stunning profile.
‘Oh yes,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s his all right.’
Something in his tone made Richard look at him but his face was expressionless.
‘Is there anything wrong?’ he asked.
The other man looked at him blankly for a moment. Then he slapped the folded newspaper into his chest and turned away to the door.
‘You could say that,’ he said.
Richard looked at the paper in his hands. The headline read,
WAR THREAT GROWS. HITLER DENOUNCES BRITISH DEFENCE PACT WITH POLAND.

CHAPTER TWO

The orchestra was tuning up. Merry, unexpectedly elegant in white tie and tails, passed Richard in the dressing room corridor and patted his arm lightly.
‘Break a leg, old boy!’
Richard stared after him. A joke, he supposed, but hardly in the best of taste! The callboy passed him, shouting,
‘Overture and beginners, please.’
The door of the ladies dressing room opened and the six girls of the chorus tumbled out dressed in sailor tops, navy shorts and tap shoes, ready for the opening number. The dark one called Rose paused beside him and laid a hand briefly on his arm.
‘Thanks for standing up for me this morning. But you mustn’t do it, you know. Madame can’t stand anyone interfering.’
Her voice was soft, with the faintest hint of cockney, and in her stage make-up her eyes looked larger than ever. He said,
‘But it wasn’t fair. You were the one who was hurt.’
She laughed briefly. ‘What’s fair in this job? You just have to get on with it.’
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Can you dance?’
She grimaced slightly. ‘I’ll manage. Doctor Theatre’s a great healer, you know.’ She glanced round to where the last of the troupe was disappearing up the stairs leading to the stage. ‘I must go.’
‘Good luck!’ he said.
Her eyes widened in horror. ‘You mustn’t say that! You never wish anyone luck when they’re going on stage. It’s – well, it’s bad luck.’
‘What should I say, then?’ he asked.
‘Break a leg!’ She giggled. ‘Daft, isn’t it?’
‘Oh!’ said Richard, light dawning. ‘OK then. Break a leg – Rose, isn’t it?’
She smiled at him and touched his arm again, then turned and ran down the corridor after the others. As the door to the stage swung open he heard the orchestra strike up ‘I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside’ and caught his breath. The show had started.
Unable to stay in the dressing room he went up and lurked in the wings, watching with fascination as the girls tapped their way through the opening number. The applause at the end was enthusiastic, but he had the impression that the auditorium was far from full. It was stiflingly hot on the stage and Richard felt as if he had suddenly grown out of his clothes. Like Merry, he was wearing the regulation uniform of white tie and tails. He ran his finger round inside the tight collar and hoped that the greasepaint had not run down over it from his face. He was sweating profusely and longing for fresh air, but he was on next and he dared not leave the stage.
Monty gave him a terrific build up in his introduction and somehow his legs carried him out into the glare of the lights. Mercifully, out on the stage there seemed to be more air and he could dimly see Merry behind the piano. The first notes of the introduction to Old Father Thames floated up to him and he heard a ripple of approval from the audience. He filled his lungs and began to sing.
The volume of the applause that followed him off stage at the end of his first two solo numbers was extremely gratifying, but equally pleasing was the fact that Rose was waiting for him in the wings.
‘Oh, you were wonderful!’ she whispered. ‘You’ve got the most beautiful voice I ever heard.’
‘Thank you,’ he whispered back. ‘Look, I was wondering …’
The orchestra struck up again. ‘I must go!’ Rose exclaimed. ‘I’m on.’
Richard went back to the dressing room feeling a great deal happier. So happy, indeed, that as he entered he was whistling the Toreador’s song. Felix, who was sitting with his feet up reading a book, looked up in alarm.
‘For God’s sake, you mustn’t do that! It’s frightfully bad luck to whistle in the dressing room. Go outside, turn round three times and spit. Then you can come back in.’
‘Oh, come on!’ Richard grinned.
‘Do it!’ Felix commanded.
Feeling very foolish, Richard did as he was told. He had just completed the ritual when the door of the ladies’ dressing room opened again and a girl he had never seen before came out. She was dressed in a replica of a man’s tailcoat and white tie, black satin shorts, fish net tights and very high-heeled shoes. Passing Richard she paused briefly, flashed him a look from beneath eyelashes heavy with mascara and murmured huskily,
‘Bravo, mon ami!’
Back in the dressing room Richard said, ‘Who’s the girl with the auburn hair?’
‘Cheekbones you could shave with and legs like a racehorse?’ Felix suggested.
‘That’s the one.’
‘That, old boy, is our soubrette, Chantal. You know, light comedy sketches and slightly naughty French songs.’ He blew on his fingernails and shook them, as if he had burnt his fingers. ‘Very dangerous. High explosive – to be handled with extreme care.’
‘Is she? French I mean. After what we were saying at lunchtime …’
Felix shrugged. ‘Who knows? This is the theatre, old boy. A place of romance and illusion. It doesn’t do to inquire too closely into the fantasies people choose to construct around themselves.’
‘No,’ Richard said, chastened. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
The rest of the first half went very well. Richard got through his spot with Monty Prince without fluffing his lines and, to his amazement, the audience really did laugh at the jokes. Then he stood in the wings and listened to Franklyn Bell and Isabel St Clair singing duets from Whitehorse Inn and The Merry Widow. He had to admit they were very good together. Their voices blended well and on stage they seemed to have a rapport that was apparently missing from their real lives.
During the interval he lingered in the wings to watch the stage crew setting up for Felix’s magic act, which involved a lot of complicated props. Felix, debonair in scarlet lined opera cape, was supervising. When everything was arranged to his satisfaction he came to where Richard stood.
‘Spying on my secrets, eh?’
‘Oh, no!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘I mean, I didn’t mean …’ he floundered into silence and Felix laughed.
‘Don’t worry. The stage crew know exactly what’s going on. They have to. Ask Uncle over there.’ He indicated a tall man with greying hair who was fiddling with a set of ropes hanging from the fly tower above the stage. ‘Have you met our stage manager?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Let me introduce you. Mike Williams, universally known as Uncle – though I hasten to add that has nothing whatever to do with his balls.’
‘What?’ Richard exclaimed.
Felix shook his head, laughing. ‘Uncle? The actor’s friend? Three brass balls?’
‘Oh! You mean a pawnbroker?’
‘Exactly. Mind you,’ Felix looked at him speculatively, ‘I don’t mind betting you’ve never seen the inside of a pawnbroker’s shop, have you.’
‘No,’ Richard admitted. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Stay in this job and you will, you will,’ Felix assured him.
The tall man turned to them, apparently satisfied with the adjustment of the ropes. ‘Take no notice,’ he said, his voice a pleasant West Country burr. ‘Any help you need with staging or lighting, I’m your man. Just don’t try to touch me for a loan at the end of the week.’ He smiled and held out his hand.
‘Thanks,’ Richard replied, shaking it. ‘I’ll remember that.’
Felix’s act was extremely popular and Richard could see why. Even from where he stood in the wings he was unable to see how some of the illusions were achieved but, more importantly than that, Felix had the gift of mesmerising the audience by the sheer force of his personality. Add to that his amazing good looks and it was not surprising that, when he asked for a young lady to volunteer to help with one of the tricks, he was almost trampled to death in the rush. He came off stage to the biggest ovation of the evening.
After that things started to go down hill. Richard was on next with Franklyn Bell. They began with the duet from the Pearl Fishers. It was a favourite of Richard’s and he let himself go, relishing the wonderful cadences of the music. After a few bars he realised something was wrong. Bell was shooting him furious sideways glances and his voice had lost its lyric quality and become strained, until on a high note it finally cracked. Already the audience had become restless and at this point there was some laughter and the first whistles and faint boos and one voice called ‘Get off!’ Somehow they finished the number and under cover of the applause Bell hissed,
‘Where do you think you are? The bloody Scala, Milan? Tone it down, for Chrissake!’
Richard realised with some embarrassment that Bell thought he had deliberately tried to drown him out. In the next song he was careful to keep his voice well below full power, while Bell made the most of the comic opportunities by mugging and winking at the audience. He got a few laughs but the applause as they left the stage was lukewarm at best and, before Richard could attempt to apologise or explain, the other man stalked off to his dressing room.
The comic sketch that followed between Monty and Chantal went down well enough but the next item on the bill was the ballet sequence. Richard, still watching from the wings, was enchanted by the ethereal picture of the girls in their white tutus but as soon as the curtain went up the audience became restive. The fidgeting and murmuring increased until, as one of the girls sank gracefully to the stage, some wag shouted,
‘What you doing down there, ducks? Nesting?’
There was a roar of laughter and then someone else called out,
‘Talk about Dying Swan. More like dying ducks in a thunder storm!’
Into the ensuing babble of laughter La Tereskova made her grand entrance.
‘Ooh blimey!’ said a falsetto voice. ‘Look at me, I’m the queen of the fairies!’
Disturbed in the middle of a pirouette the ballerina wobbled and made a clumsy recovery. There was a derisive cheer and more laughter. Blank faced, apparently oblivious, the dancers continued until someone shouted,
‘Get ’em off!’ and someone else chimed in with, ‘That’s it, girls! Get ’em off!’
Then suddenly, in the middle of an arabesque, La Tereskova let out a high-pitched yelp, staggered and ran off stage. The corps de ballet struggled to continue but Monty Prince was in the prompt corner, and ordered Mike Williams to bring the curtain down. Off stage La Tereskova could be heard screaming hysterically in Russian, amongst which Richard could distinguish the words, ‘Never! Never again! Such an insult! Animals!’
As the girls tumbled into the wings Richard was astonished to see that several of them were struggling to suppress paroxysms of laughter.
‘Did you see?’ Sally squeaked. ‘It was a peashooter. Got her right on the bum!’
‘Serves her right!’ her sister giggled. ‘Giving herself airs!’
Even Rose was having difficulty keeping her face straight. ‘We shouldn’t laugh. It was awful. Madame’ll be livid.’
Only Priscilla seemed genuinely distressed. Her eyes were full of tears.
‘It’s not funny! It’s not! It was dreadful. How can people behave like that?’
The stage manager’s voice cut through the babble. ‘Get out of the wings, you girls. I’ve got a show to run here. Go and get changed or you’ll be off for the finale.’
Monty, meanwhile, was on stage, doing a magnificent job of getting the audience back on side. Listening to him as he extemporised, exchanging good-humoured banter with the hecklers, Richard was swept with admiration. This was what people meant when they said Monty Prince was a ‘real old pro’. The show never really recovered its momentum but mercifully they had almost reached the end of the bill and the grand finale, an extravagantly costumed Arabian Nights fantasy, brought the curtain down to applause which, if not ecstatic, was at least encouragingly warm.
Changing out of his tails in the empty dressing room Richard felt suddenly flat. Felix, who was not required for the finale, had gone home and Merry was still out front with the band. He was not sure whether the evening had been a triumph or a disaster – or whether perhaps such violent swings from one to the other were a normal part of life on the stage. Merry came briskly into the room and slapped him on the shoulder.
‘Well done, old chap! You had them eating out of your hand.’
‘Not the second time,’ Richard said. ‘But we’d never rehearsed properly. I mean, if we’d had a chance to really think about the balance ..’
‘Not your fault, old man,’ Merry said. ‘Truth is Frank’s got a nice voice but it’s not up to the big stuff. He just doesn’t want to admit it. We’ll sort it out tomorrow. Don’t worry about it.’
The chatter of female voices in the passage recalled a happier thought to Richard’s mind. He slipped out of the door as the girls of the chorus left the dressing room. Sally was the first to spot him.
‘Ah-ha! Our knight in shining armour.’ She came close to him and he could smell the heavy perfume of stage make-up lingering about her. She gave him a broad, flirtatious smile. ‘We were very impressed this morning – very.’
He hesitated awkwardly. Some of the girls were already at the stage door, waiting, looking back. Rose was lingering just behind Sally, avoiding his eyes. He said,
‘Well, it just seemed all wrong to me, when Rose was the one who was really hurt.’ He stepped sideways around Sally and said to Rose, ‘How is your leg now? I hope dancing on it hasn’t made it worse.’
Her eyes flickered up to his. ‘Oh no. It’s all right. It was only a scratch really.’
Richard drew a deep breath. ‘Can I see you home?’
She looked at him for a moment in surprise, then she blushed. ‘We only live round the corner from you. We can all walk home together.’
‘Oh,’ Richard murmured, somewhat deflated. ‘Yes, all right.’
Rose said softly, ‘Madame doesn’t like us being alone with young men after dark. She says she has to think of our reputations.’
‘Oh!’ Richard repeated in a different tone. ‘Oh yes, I see. Well, can I come along with all of you?’
Sally tucked her hand into his arm. ‘Course you can.’ She smiled at him. ‘Come on, Rose.’
Out in the street Richard found himself the centre of a gaggle of girls, with Rose on one arm and Sally clinging to the other.
‘So, Richard,’ she demanded, ‘tell us all about yourself. What’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?’
Feeling slightly flustered, he tried to answer, while the other girls chipped in with further questions. ‘What’s it like in Italy?’ ‘Did you go to Venice?’ ‘What are the girls like in Italy, Richard?’ ‘Have you got an Italian girl friend? Bet he has!’ Only Rose walked quietly beside him, occasionally responding when he squeezed her arm by glancing up at him with those huge, violet eyes. When they reached the house where the girls were lodging Sally said archly,
‘I’m afraid we can’t ask you in. Old Ma Watson is paid by Madame to spy on us and there’ll be hell to pay if she knows we’ve had a man on the premises at this time of night.’
‘That’s all right,’ Richard responded with relief. ‘I quite understand.’ He looked at Rose. ‘Where will you be tomorrow morning?’
Rose pulled a face. ‘In the theatre, I should think. After tonight Madame is bound to call a rehearsal.’
Richard felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Tomorrow he would have to square things with Franklyn Bell. ‘I’ll have to be there too,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow then.’
She smiled up into his eyes. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be all right. Sleep well.’
Back in his digs Richard sat down alone to the predicted thin ham and limp lettuce. There was no sign of the blue Lagonda, so presumably Felix was out with his lady friend and Merry had not returned either. Earlier in the evening Richard had entertained thoughts of celebrating his first night in the professional theatre by sharing a drink with his new friends. He had even considered blowing the last of his money on a bottle of champagne. Instead, he went to bed with an empty stomach and a head full of conflicting emotions, a combination not designed to promote sleep.
In the other boarding house Rose, on her way back from the bathroom, paused outside the door of the room shared by Sally and her sister. There was obviously an argument in progress, which was nothing unusual. What had arrested her was the sound of her own name.
‘I don’t care how you put it,’ Lucy was saying. ‘He obviously fancies Rose and it’s not fair for you to try and muscle in.’
‘Who’s muscling in?’ Sally demanded. ‘I walked home with him – and Rose and all the rest of you. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Oh, come on!’ her sister exclaimed. ‘You were flirting like mad with him.’
‘Well, it’s a free country. He’s got a choice, hasn’t he?’
‘But it’s not fair on Rose,’ Lucy protested. ‘You know what she’s like. She’ll never stand up for herself. If she thinks it’s going to be a competition she’ll just back down and leave you to it.’
‘Well, tough luck!’ Sally’s tone was unrepentant. ‘All’s fair in love and war.’
‘But it’s not love, is it? You’re not in love with Richard. You just reckon you’ve got some sort of God given right to every attractive man who comes along.’
‘If you ask me,’ Sally spat out, ‘you’re just jealous. You fancy him yourself.’
‘That’s not true!’ Lucy cried. ‘I like him, I think he’s very attractive, but anyone can see he’s taken a real shine to Rose and I reckon she deserves a fair crack of the whip.’
Rose moved on hastily to the room she shared with Pamela. The other girl was already in bed and apparently asleep. Rose got into bed, too, but she felt too tense to lie down. Instead, she sat with her arms round her knees, staring into the darkness and hearing again Lucy’s voice. Was it true that she never stood up for herself? Certainly she hated arguments and preferred to let people have their own way rather than have any ‘unpleasantness’. After years of living at close quarters with volatile ‘artistes’ she had developed strategies to avoid confrontations, but she regarded this as a sign of strength rather than weakness. But this was different. Would she stand aside and let Sally steal a man she loved from her? She felt sure that the answer would be ‘no’ but the question did not arise. For goodness sake, she and Richard only just met! She remembered Lucy saying ‘anyone can see he’s taken a shine to Rose’. Could that be true? He certainly seemed to have singled her out but you couldn’t jump to conclusions after one evening. And what about her own behaviour? It was true that she found him attractive, but had she made it that obvious? Was it obvious to him? In the darkness she felt herself blush at the thought.
She lay down and pulled the sheets up to her chin. Well, if Sally was that keen on him, let her have him. Tomorrow they would see. If he was weak enough to let Sally snatch him, then he wasn’t the man for Rose Taylor. That much she was certain about.

As Rose had expected, they were summoned to the theatre at 10 o’clock the following morning. The auditorium, uncleaned since the night before, was littered with sweet papers and empty cigarette packets and smelt of smoke and sweaty feet. After the bright sunshine outside, the single working light over the stage scarcely seemed to penetrate the gloom. To her surprise it was not just the dancers who had been called. The entire company slumped in the first rows of the auditorium while Monty Prince stood at the front of the stage with his wife, rigidly upright in a straight-backed chair, beside him.
‘Well!’ Monty began. ‘Last night was a bloody disaster!’
‘Mr Prince!’ It was Priscilla’s voice, full of youthful anguish. ‘It’s not our fault if people can’t appreciate real artistry.’
‘I’m not just talking about the ballet,’ Monty said. ‘I’ll come to that in a minute. We lost the audience. Gawd knows there were few enough of them out there and once they start passing the word round there’ll be even fewer tonight. If we don’t do something about it there won’t be enough cash for you to pay your landladies, let alone any to spare for your own pockets. So we’ve got to pull our fingers out. Now, about the ballet. Madame has something to say.’
Dolores da Ponte rose magisterially to her feet. ‘I have something to tell you,’ she intoned. ‘It is a tragedy! Nothing less than a tragedy! Mlle Tereskova has left the company.’ A low murmur ran through the listeners, not all of it expressing unalloyed dismay. ‘I cannot blame her. The insult to an artiste of her calibre cannot be tolerated. But we are left without a prima ballerina.’
‘Rose could do it.’ Sally’s voice sent a shock wave round the company and caused Rose to rise halfway out of her seat.
‘What did you say?’ Madame ground out.
‘Rose could dance the solo part. She’s the best ballet dancer of all of us. She’d be lovely in that role.’
‘Sally!’ Rose exclaimed. ‘I couldn’t. Please, Madame, I couldn’t!’
‘Don’t worry!’ Madame’s phoney Italian accent became more pronounced at moments like this. ‘You will not be asked to. This is a role calling for a prima ballerina, not a jumped up chorus girl. We shall advertise for someone of the right calibre. Meanwhile, we shall substitute the can-can number we used last season. We rehearse as soon as this meeting is over.’
‘Oh, not the bloody can-can!’ Sally muttered sotto voce.
‘Right!’ Monty said briskly. ‘That’s settled. I need to have a word with Frank and you, Richard. And this afternoon I want all of you out on the Prom in costume, handing out playbills. Understood?’
There was a universal sigh of unwilling assent and the meeting began to break up. Rose was moving towards the dressing room when Richard caught up with her.
‘I think that was really unjust of Madame!’ he whispered hotly. ‘Sally’s right. You’re every bit as good as Tereskova.’
She looked at him and found herself smiling. ‘Oh yes? And you’re an expert on the ballet now, are you?’
‘No, but I’ve got eyes in my head,’ he returned.
Rose shook her head. ‘I couldn’t do it. Honest! I’m not star quality. I’m much happier as one of the girls. Anyway, it would only cause trouble.’
‘Mr Stevens! Have you got a minute?’ There was an edge of sarcasm to Monty Prince’s voice. Richard moved away towards the piano, where Franklyn Bell was waiting, and Rose went to get changed. Priscilla was waiting for her in the corridor.
‘Rose, why did you turn down the chance of taking over from Mlle. Tereskova? Most people would kill for an opportunity like that. I know I would.’
Rose paused. She knew that the other girls did not care for Priscilla, with her society background and her wealthy friends, but she found something endearing in her starry-eyed passion for anything to do with the theatre. It was a pity that she simply didn’t have what it took to make a successful career as a dancer. For one thing, she had started too late. Being a member of the chorus in a small concert party like this one was about as far as she was likely to get. Rose, on the other hand, had grown up dancing. She lived for it, and she knew she was good. Now she was asking herself why she had panicked when Sally suggested that she might take over the leading role. She smiled at Priscilla.
‘Well, apart from anything else, I knew Madame would never wear it. She’s such a snob! It has to be someone with a Russian name, or at least someone who has danced with one of the famous companies. But anyway, it wouldn’t work. When someone is promoted like that, over the other girls, it only causes bad feeling. I’d hate that.’
‘It’s not right,’ Priscilla declared. ‘You’re brilliant, Rose. You ought to stand up for yourself more.’
Rose moved past her into the dressing room. Why, she wondered, did people keep telling her to stand up for herself?

Richard, meanwhile, was having an uncomfortable few moments with Monty and Frank.
‘Now then, Richard,’ Monty began jovially. ‘We all realise you’re new to this game, so nobody’s blaming you for last night. You just have to remember you’re not in the Albert Hall. And it’s not a competition. Your voice is supposed to blend with Frank’s, not drown it out.’
Richard glanced at Bell, who was lolling against the piano with a condescending smile on his lips. He opened his mouth to say that the problem was Frank’s unwillingness to rehearse but then thought better of it. By the end of the conversation he found that his first duet with Frank had been cut, Frank had been given a solo as compensation and he had been instructed to drop the aria from I Pagliacci. It was all over before he had time to take in the fact that his programme had been emasculated, that he had lost two of the numbers that showed his voice to its best advantage. He considered going after Monty and protesting but decided it would do no good. He was here now, and it was a job of sorts – even though the prospect of getting his full wage, meagre though it was, seemed to hang in the balance.
He was about to leave when Merry joined him. On stage Madame was marshalling the six girls with imperious thumps of her cane.
‘What happened to you last night?’ Merry said.
‘Happened?’
‘You disappeared after the show. I thought you might come round to the pub with the rest of us.’
‘Pub? I didn’t know you were going. I walked home with the girls and then went to bed. I wondered where you were.’
‘Home with the girls, eh?’ Merry gave him one of his lop-sided grins. ‘You’re backing a loser there, you know. Madame rules those girls with a rod of iron. Absolutely no gentleman callers after the show and everyone in bed by eleven.’
‘So I discovered,’ Richard agreed ruefully.
‘Well, join us for a drink tonight,’ Merry said. ‘We always go to the Red Lion and then get some fish and chips on the way home. You don’t want people to think you’re stand-offish, do you?’
‘No, of course not!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘I’d like to join in.’
Madame called from the stage. ‘Mr Merryweather! The can-can, if you please!’
Merry turned to the piano with a wry grin and a shrug and Richard made his way back to the digs.

By two o’clock that afternoon the whole company was strung out along the promenade. Rose had chosen a Dresden Shepherdess costume, which she wore for one of their numbers, because it was pretty and feminine and she knew that the décolleté neckline with its lace fichu flattered her shoulders and the pale lilac silk enhanced her eyes. She followed Richard out of the theatre and positioned herself carefully some yards away, where she could watch him without making it obvious. He was dressed in blazer and flannels, because the costumes he was supposed to wear for the big ensemble numbers were still being altered to fit him. Even so, it was obvious that he was feeling very uncomfortable at the prospect of thrusting playbills into the hands of complete strangers. Rose decided it would be only charitable to take pity on him.
As she moved towards him, he turned and headed in her direction.
‘Do you mind if I stand with you? I’m not very good at this.’
His diffidence was so genuine and so appealing that she suddenly felt completely relaxed. She grinned at him.
‘Shy, are you? You’ll get over it. Tell you what. You do the young ladies and I’ll do the gents. You won’t have any trouble stopping the girls – nice looking bloke like you. Just turn on the charm a bit. Look, like this.’
She stepped away from him into the path of two elderly gentlemen promenading decorously in white flannels and straw hats. She gave them her most persuasive smile and they responded gallantly, doffing their hats and taking the leaflet from her hand.
‘It’s a lovely show,’ she said. ‘Do come along and see us.’
‘Are you in it?’ one of them asked.
‘Oh, yes. I’m one of the dancers.’
‘You are? Well,’ he gave his companion a meaningful wink, ‘we can’t miss that, can we?’
Rose returned to Richard.
‘There you are, nothing to it. Look, try those two girls over there.’
From then on they began to enjoy themselves and the event became a kind of competition to see who could charm the greatest number of people into accepting playbills. By the time they had got rid of all of them they had wandered far up towards the end of the promenade and, looking round, realised that there were no other members of the company in sight.
‘Well,’ Richard said, ‘what now?’
‘Let’s sit down a minute. My dogs are barking.’
‘Your what?’ Richard queried.
Rose sat on a bench and laughed up at him. ‘Cockney slang, I suppose. I don’t know where it comes from. Means my feet are aching.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Richard laughed too and sat beside her. ‘Yes, I’m not surprised, in those shoes.’

‘Tell you what,’ Rose went on. ‘I could murder a cup of tea.’
‘So could I,’ he agreed. ‘I’d offer to take you out for tea, but you can’t go into a cafe dressed like that.’
‘You want to bet?’ Rose said with a giggle.
‘You wouldn’t, would you?’
‘If you’ll take me. I bet you’re too embarrassed.’
Richard got to his feet. ‘No I’m not. I think you look absolutely gorgeous. I’d be proud to be seen with you anywhere.’
‘Ooh, compliments!’ Rose exclaimed, but she felt herself blush.
They crossed the road and walked back a short distance until they came to the Kardomah Cafe.
‘This all right?’ Richard asked.
For a moment Rose hesitated. ‘It’s a bit posh, isn’t it?’
‘So? You look posh enough to me.’
‘OK!’ She squared her shoulders. ‘In we go then.’
The cafe was crowded with elderly couples and ladies in hats and the murmur of conversation over the polished tables and the china cups faded as heads turned to watch their entrance. A waitress in severe black with a white cap and apron bore down on them.
‘Yes?’
‘A table for two, please.’
Rose felt a small shiver of pride. He might be diffident in the theatre, but in this situation his manner was confident and polished. She saw the woman registering his well-cut clothes and upper class accent. Then she looked questioningly at Rose.
‘It’s all right,’ Rose said. ‘We’re from the Follies. You know, at the end of the pier.’
‘Oh, I see.’ The waitress hesitated, obviously weighing the good impression made by Richard against the possible consequences of allowing a couple of ‘theatricals’ into her establishment. ‘This way,’ she said finally, and led them to a corner table.
‘Oh dear!’ Rose stifled a giggle. ‘I think she’s afraid we don’t know how to behave.’
‘She probably thinks we’ll drink our tea out of the saucer and then juggle with the cups,’ Richard chuckled in return.
He ordered tea and toasted teacakes and a plate of fancies and while they waited he said,
‘Have you been with the Follies long?’
‘This is my second season,’ she told him. ‘Before that I was in a show in Eastbourne but the management changed and they took on a different lot of dancers.’
‘Don’t you find it a bit difficult working with Madame Dolores?’ Richard asked. ‘I mean, she’s a bit of a tartar, isn’t she?’
‘Oh, she’s all right. Her heart’s in the right place. You see, some of the girls in this job are very young and they get a bit – well, carried away by all the attention. Stage door Johnnies wanting to take them out dancing and all that. They can go off the rails if someone doesn’t keep an eye on them.’
‘I can’t imagine you going off the rails,’ Richard said.
Rose felt herself colour, but this time with pleasure. ‘Oh well, I’ve been in the profession for quite a while now. I’m used to it.’
‘How did you start?’ Richard asked. ‘I mean, what made you want to go on the stage in the first place?’
‘I’ve always wanted to dance,’ she said. ‘Ever since I went to my first ballet class when I was five. And it beats working in a shoe shop in Lambeth.’
‘Was that the alternative?’
‘Pretty much. My mum and dad own a shop. Well, Mum owns it now. Dad never got over the war. He was gassed on the Somme and he was never right after. He died three years ago. Mum gets a bit of a pension, of course, but it’s the shop that paid for our dancing lessons.’
‘Our?’ Richard queried.
‘Me and my sister.’
‘Is she a professional dancer too?’
Rose laughed. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you saw her. She’s put on a lot of weight since she had her second. She’s married to a garage mechanic and lives in Kennington.’
‘Kensington?’ Richard repeated, mishearing.
‘I wish!’ Rose returned. ‘No, Kennington. It’s just down the road from Lambeth.’
The waitress brought the tea and as they ate Richard questioned her about her childhood in Lambeth and her early experiences in the theatre. In turn he told her about growing up in Didsbury, among the claustrophobic propriety of his large family of aunts and cousins, where life centred on the local church and the choral society.
‘You don’t sound like a northerner,’ she said.
He grinned wryly. ‘My mother would be delighted to hear you say that. She spent years correcting my pronunciation. Her family regard themselves as a cut above the locals. It was her idea to send me to Italy.’
Their conversation was interrupted by a familiar voice.
‘Well, I must say this is a novel way of advertising the show!’
Merry was standing by the table.
‘We’ve handed out all our bills,’ Rose said tartly. ‘I reckon we deserve a cuppa.’
‘Of course you do,’ he agreed. ‘I saw you through the window and I couldn’t resist coming in to see what sort of reception you got, dressed like that.’
‘A bit frosty,’ Richard grinned, ‘but I think I’ve convinced them that we are reasonably civilised. Why don’t you join us?’
‘No, I wouldn’t dream of intruding,’ Merry protested.
‘Oh, don’t be silly!’ Rose said. ‘Bring up another chair.’
As Richard turned to call the waitress Rose spotted another familiar figure. Felix was just coming down the stairs from the first floor with a stunning redhead on his arm. She was casually dressed in fashionable beach pyjamas but every line of her clothes and every hair on her head proclaimed class and money. Felix spotted them and came over, grinning broadly.
‘Well, here’s a cosy little threesome! A shepherdess and two swains. Or is one of you the sheepdog?’
‘Shut up, Felix,’ Merry said equably.
‘Harry, may I introduce three fellow performers,’ Felix went on. ‘The lady who looks as if she’s stepped out of a Gainsborough portrait is Miss Rose Taylor. This gentleman is our newest recruit, poor devil – Mr Richard Stevens. And this character with the charming turn of phrase is Mr Guy Merryweather. May I present Lady Harriet Forsyth?’
Richard and Merry had risen and they all exchanged handshakes and general greetings.
‘I do think you’re all terribly brave!’ Lady Harriet said. ‘I’d never have the courage to stand up in front of an audience.’
‘Won’t you join us?’ Richard said politely. Rose saw him feel in his pocket and guessed intuitively that he was wondering if he had enough money on him to pay for tea for five.
‘No, thanks. We’ve eaten,’ Felix said. ‘But I tell you what, since we’ve bumped into you. They have a thé dansant at the Palace Hotel every Wednesday and Saturday. I’ve just persuaded Harry to come with me tomorrow. Why don’t you two come along as well – as my guests?’
Richard looked at Rose. ‘Would you like to?’
She answered almost without thinking. ‘I’d love it. I adore dancing – any sort of dancing.’
‘Right, that’s settled then,’ Felix smiled. He looked at Merry. ‘Don’t suppose it’s any good asking you, old chap, is it? Not your sort of thing.’
Merry looked back at him for a moment in silence. Then he said, ‘No, not really.’ He turned to Richard. ‘Look, I won’t stay for tea after all, if you don’t mind. I’ve just remembered I’ve got to run through Frank’s new solo with him.’
Felix and Lady Harriet left soon afterwards and Richard and Rose sat down again to their interrupted tea. Rose looked after the departing couple and wrinkled her nose.
‘Poor Merry!’
‘How do you mean?’ Richard asked.
‘Well, isn’t it obvious? He’s so desperately in love with Felix, and Felix knows it but he deliberately flaunts his lady friends in front of him.’
Richard swallowed a mouthful of tea too quickly and almost choked. ‘Do you mean to say that Merry’s …. queer?’
Rose stared at him. ‘You must have realised that, surely. I mean, he’s very discreet but he doesn’t actually try to hide it.’
‘I – hadn’t thought about it,’ Richard said. He looked embarrassed. Rose wondered if he was really so innocent that he had never come across someone like Merry before. Then it occurred to her that what embarrassed him was the fact that she had spoken about it so openly. Probably nice young ladies where he came from didn’t talk about such things – perhaps didn’t even know about them.
‘And Felix?’ he asked. ‘Is he…?’
‘Goodness, no!’ Rose laughed. ‘Felix is a real lady’s man. And of course, with his looks he can have any woman he takes a fancy to. I just think it’s cruel of him to tease Merry the way he does.’
‘Any woman?’ Richard queried, meaningfully.
‘Are you asking if I’ve ever been out with him?’ Rose was able to meet his eyes with complete openness. ‘The answer’s no. For one thing, Felix isn’t interested in the likes of me. He’s only after real class. And for another, I wouldn’t go with him if he did ask. He’s too full of himself for my taste.’
‘I’m glad,’ Richard said. ‘And if that’s the way Felix really thinks then he’s a fool. He doesn’t know real class when he sees it.’
‘Ooh, talk about soft soap!’ she said, but this time she could not conceal her blush.

The show that night went off without incident but there was one inescapable fact that cast a shadow over the whole company. The audience was smaller even than last night’s.
Coming back to the dressing room after his performance Felix remarked sardonically to Richard, ‘Well, Monty’ll be pawning poor old Dolly’s jewellery tomorrow at this rate.’
‘You’re joking!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘Things can’t be that bad.’
‘You think so?’ Felix raised an eyebrow. ‘Just have a look at the fourth finger of her left hand when he pays our wages tomorrow night.’
Richard was taking off his make-up at the end of the show when Merry came into the dressing room.
‘See you round at the Red Lion?’ he asked.
Richard stopped in the middle of swabbing his face with Leichner Removing Cream. He had forgotten the agreement he had made that morning and now, after Rose’s revelations, he was not sure that he wanted to go out with Merry.
‘Come on!’ Merry said. ‘It’s no good thinking you’ll get Rose on her own. I’ve told you. Come and have a drink with the lads. Otherwise they’ll think we’re not good enough for you.’
After that, of course, he had to go. Walking into the pub, he was relieved to see that most of the rest of the company was there, apart from the six girls. Monty and Dolores were sitting up at the bar and beside them was Chantal, perched on a tall stool with her superb legs elegantly crossed, a martini in one hand and a cigarette in a long holder in the other. Obviously, Richard concluded, Madame’s edict about early nights did not extend as far as Chantal. Felix was missing, but Richard had seen him drive away with Lady Harriet in the Lagonda as he left the theatre. Frank was there, sitting with Merry and some of the boys from the band. Richard joined them and Merry placed a pint of bitter in front of him.
‘I hope that’s right. I thought you looked like a bitter man.’
‘It’s exactly right, thanks,’ Richard said. ‘Cheers!’
Over his drink he found himself watching Merry. He had a lean, fine-boned face with lines at the corner of the lips that emphasised his habitual expression of sardonic melancholy. His most striking feature was his eyes, which were a clear light hazel and fringed with dark lashes. Richard had already noticed that when he was conducting the band his eyes sparkled and his whole face came alive. In the same way, his usually languid movements became vital and charged with energy. Now, relaxing among friends, the air of quizzical detachment had returned but Richard could see nothing in his behaviour to suggest that Rose was right about him. But then, he had to admit to himself that he had no experience in these matters.
After downing the pint Richard began to enjoy himself. The members of the company were obviously well known to the regulars and very popular and the atmosphere was akin to that of an impromptu party. Monty, unable to stop performing on or off stage, was regaling the assembly with a series of jokes and anecdotes which would definitely not have been suitable for a ‘high-class family show’ but which went down very well with the clients of the Red Lion. Even Frank seemed to have forgotten the jealousy and suspicion of that morning and mellowed, though in his case the alcohol had had the effect of rendering him lachrymose instead of cheering him up. He leaned across the table towards Richard and breathed whisky fumes into his face.
‘I suppose you realise that we’re doomed, you and me.’
‘You mean, you think there’s going to be a war?’
‘War?’ Frank blinked at him. ‘No. I’m not talking about war. Hitler’s not a fool. He won’t tangle with the Royal Navy. I mean professionally. People don’t want real singers any more. All they want are these crooners from America, people like this Crosby fellow who sing through their noses.’ He contorted his face and intoned, ‘Where the blue of the night meets the gold of the day, Someone waits for me.’
Richard laughed at the parody. ‘It’s just a passing fad, surely. Those people are all right in films or on the wireless, but they could never fill a theatre. They just wouldn’t be heard. It takes a trained voice to do that.’
‘You mark my words, sonny,’ Frank said gloomily. ‘That’s the future. Soon everyone’s going to want records, not live performances. In ten years time any pip-squeak who can hold a microphone will be able to make a career as a singer, whether or not they can read a note of music, or even sing in tune.’
‘Come on, Frank,’ Richard said cheerfully. ‘I think you’re looking on the black side. Can I get you another drink?’
‘Thanks, old man. Mine’s a double scotch, if you don’t mind.’
‘It would be,’ Richard thought rather bitterly, feeling in his pocket for the last of his loose change.
At the bar he found himself standing next to Chantal. She waited until he had ordered the drinks and then said huskily,
‘Eh bien, mon brave, what is someone with a magnificent voice like yours doing in a third rate show like this?’
‘I don’t think it is a third rate show,’ he replied. ‘I think there are a lot of very talented people in it. I think you’re fantastic, for one.’
It was true. He had watched her act from the wings that night. She had been funny and sexy in a way that had every man in the audience bewitched, without threatening the women. She had them hanging on every caressing inflection of her voice, every sinuous movement of her body. She smiled at him now, the wide, attractive mouth extending itself like a lazy cat stretching.
‘Vraiment? I am flattered. You have much experience, then, in this business?’
‘No. No, I …’ Richard floundered and felt himself blushing. Then he recovered. ‘I’m new to all this, but I still think I can recognise talent when I see it.’
‘Good!’ She lifted her glass to him. ‘Santé.’
He noticed that her eyes were the same deep amber tone as her hair and they held his own with an expression he found hard to interpret, part challenge, part invitation.
‘Are you really French?’ he asked.
‘My mother was French,’ she replied. ‘I lived in France for some years, as a girl. You didn’t answer my question. Why are you working in concert party?’
‘Because nobody believes you can be an opera singer unless you’re Italian.’
She drew on her cigarette, exhaled and looked at him through the smoke from beneath lowered lids. ‘So? Change your name. Become Italian. Do what the rest of us do. Where do you come from?’
He screwed up his face. ‘Didsbury. It’s near Manchester.’
She continued to regard him appraisingly. ‘Uh-huh. I think it is a long way from here – and I don’t just mean geographically.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘It’s a million miles away.’
She smiled again. ‘So! We have something in common, n’est-ce pas? We are both a long way from home.’
When they left the pub at closing time the senior members of the company like Monty and Dolores and Frank, who had rented houses for the season, went home to a good supper. The rest of them went round the corner to buy fish and chips, which they ate out of the newspaper sitting in a shelter on the promenade. There was only just room for all of them on the bench and Richard found himself jammed between the wall and Chantal. He could feel her shoulder moving against his own as she ate and the warmth of her thigh and hip along his leg. She said,
‘Are you coming down to the beach tomorrow?’
‘The beach?’
‘You know, that strip of sand between the promenade and the sea? Don’t you like to swim?’
‘Oh, yes. Yes, I do. Where … Is there a particular place? To meet, I mean?’
‘Monty and Dolores have a beach hut for the summer, up at the far end. It’s just this side of the last breakwater. We all meet up there. You should come.’
‘Yes, I will. Thanks.’
Richard ate the last of his chips and screwed up the piece of greaseproof paper that had protected them from the newsprint. Chantal was saying something about the weather and the moonlight over the sea, but he did not hear her. His attention had been caught by something being said further along the shelter. One of the boys from the band was speaking.
‘It’s true, I tell you. One of the blokes in the pub heard it on the nine o’clock news. The Government’s going to introduce conscription.’

CHAPTER 3

Richard slept badly. He dreamt that the war had started and he had been called up. His father, like most of his generation, had fought in the Great War but, unlike so many, he had survived. He did not often speak of his experiences, but what he had said had been enough to impress horrific images of trench warfare on his son’s youthful imagination. In his dream, Richard was dragging himself along such a trench, knee-deep in liquid mud that made every step a heart-bursting effort. All along the trench bodies lay half-submerged in the filth and, as he passed one, it stirred and cried out to him. He stooped to turn it over and found himself looking at Rose. He struggled to lift her but a hand caught hold of his sleeve and dragged at it and he turned to discover Chantal gazing up at him in entreaty. As he floundered between the two of them, unable to lift either clear of the clinging mud, he was aware of a man standing nearby. They were about the same age but Richard recognised his father from the photograph of him in uniform in the family album. He gazed at Richard and shook his head. ‘Tha canna tek ’em both, lad. Tha mun mek up thy mind.’
Richard woke in a tangle of sweat-dampened sheets and lay for some time in that miserable state of being unable to get back to sleep but not sufficiently awake to dispel the horrors of the dream. He finally dropped off as the first light was beginning to show through the curtains. As a result, by the time he got down to breakfast Felix and Merry were already sitting over their coffee, each immersed in the newspaper.
‘Is there any more about the Conscription Bill?’ he asked, helping himself to cardboard bacon and a leather egg from the chafing dish on the sideboard. Mrs Parrish had made it clear from the outset that she had better things to do in the morning than wait around to cook fresh breakfasts for ‘theatrical gentlemen’ who never got out of bed before 10am.
Felix looked up. ‘It seems it only refers to men of twenty at the moment, so we’re OK for now. But how long that will last if things go on as they are doing is anyone’s guess. Next month it could be twenty-one year olds and so on. How old are you, Richard?’
‘Twenty two.’
Felix made a rueful grimace. ‘You’re next for the high jump, then. And I shan’t be far behind you.’
‘How old are you, then?’ Richard asked.
‘Twenty four.’ He glanced across the table. ‘Old Merry there’ll be OK for a bit. What are you, Merry? Twenty-seven – eight? But perhaps you’ll gracefully decline if your turn ever comes.’
Merry looked up slowly. ‘What do you mean by that?’
Felix shrugged. ‘I thought you might object on moral grounds – peace-loving cove like you.’
Merry folded his paper without taking his eyes off Felix’s face. ‘I hope we’re all peace-loving coves, as you put it. But if you mean to imply by that that I shan’t be prepared to fight for my country if the need arises, then you’re mistaken. And I resent the suggestion.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Excuse me, Richard.’
Richard waited until the door closed behind him and then looked at Felix. He felt angry and embarrassed. ‘I say, Felix, that was a bit unnecessary, wasn’t it?’
Felix returned to his newspaper with an irritable twitch of the page. ‘He’ll get over it.’
By the time Richard had finished his breakfast Felix had roared off in the Lagonda and Merry was still shut in his room. Richard considered knocking and asking if he was all right but decided that it might be interpreted as an intrusion. That left him with no excuse for putting off a job he had been avoiding all week. He fetched his writing case and sat down at the table to write home.
Dear Mother and Father,
I am sorry that I have not been in touch for a while, but things have been moving rather fast here. As you will see from the address above, I am now living in Fairbourne on Sea. I am sure you will be delighted to learn that I have at last found work as a professional singer. I have joined a small but very talented company, which is performing here for the summer season. It’s a very high-class family show and I sing two solos plus duets with a tenor called Franklyn Bell. I know it isn’t quite what we imagined but the experience is valuable and I am sure it will lead to better things.
I would ask you to come and see me but it’s an awfully long way from Didsbury, so perhaps we had better wait until I am performing somewhere nearer home. Please don’t worry about me. I have excellent lodgings with a Mrs Parrish who looks after me very well and I have made several new friends
Richard paused and gazed out at the row of bay-windowed houses opposite. For a moment he indulged in imagining the reaction at the family breakfast table if he went on to describe his new friends. I share lodgings with two other men. The company pianist is a homosexual, but he is very pleasant and has been a great help to me. The other man looks and talks like an English gentleman and seems to have a private income but performs as an illusionist and conjuror and is very evasive about his background. Then there are the girls. There is Chantal, who is half French and who has the most amazing legs, and Rose, who is a chorus girl from Lambeth with the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen and with whom I think I am falling in love …. He stopped abruptly. Was he falling in love with Rose? It was the first time he had actually formulated the idea in so many words. And if he was, what had he been thinking of last night when he felt Chantal’s leg against his? He pushed the thought out of his head. One thing, at any rate, was certain. To write anything approaching what he had just imagined would be ensure that his mother would be on the next train south, determined to extricate her errant son from such dangerous company. He smiled to himself and went back to his letter.
Fairbourne is a very nice resort, very select and respectable, and I am looking forward to a pleasant summer. Please give my love to Auntie May and say I hope her arthritis is not too bad. I hope you are both well and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Your loving son,
Richard.
He sealed the letter, collected his bathing costume and towel and set off along the promenade. It took him a little while to locate Mr and Mrs Prince’s beach hut but eventually his attention was drawn in the right direction by girlish whoops and giggles. Sally and Lucy were playing with a beach ball in the edge of the waves, accompanied by two young men he had not seen before. Further up the beach Pamela and Barbara were settled in deck chairs with magazines. With a small jolt at the pit of his stomach Richard recognised the fifth member of the group. Chantal was lying flat on her face a little distance from the other two, her long limbs golden with suntan and glossy with oil.
Barbara looked up as he joined them and gave a squeal of delight. ‘Richard! Oh goody, a man at last! Come and sit by us.’
Chantal raised her head and gave him a long, lazy look from her heavy-lidded amber eyes.
He said, ‘Bonjour, Chantal.’
Disconcertingly, she looked at him for a moment and then dropped her head on her arm without replying. Richard sat down on the sand, a little awkwardly, beside the other two girls.
‘Where is everyone else?’ he asked.
Pamela gave him a sideways look. ‘Rose is having her hair done. Apparently she’s got an important date this afternoon, but she won’t say who with.’
Barbara giggled. ‘As if we couldn’t guess.’
Richard decided that there was no point in trying to keep his arrangement with Rose a secret. ‘I’m taking her to the tea dance at the Royal this afternoon. Felix suggested it. He’s taking Lady Harriet.’
Barbara giggled again. ‘Ooh, you are privileged! Mr Mysterioso doesn’t usually mix with the likes of us.’ She paused and looked at him. ‘But then, you’re not really the likes of us, are you?’
Richard felt himself blush. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I’m just a member of the company, like everyone else.’

‘No, but I mean,’ the girl pursued, ‘I bet you come from a posh home, don’t you?
I bet your parents are well off.’
‘Well, quite, I suppose,’ Richard said, feeling more and more uncomfortable. ‘But I don’t see that that makes any difference. I mean, we’re all in the same profession, aren’t we.’
‘Course we are,’ Pamela put in. ‘Leave him alone, Babe.’
‘I was only making conversation,’ Barbara said, pouting.
‘What about the others?’ Richard asked, anxious to change the subject.
‘Well,’ Pamela said, ‘little Miss Prissy has been whisked off to London by her doting uncle again. Frank’ll be playing golf. Isabel may come down later. She sometimes does….’
She was interrupted by the arrival of Sally and Lucy and their two boyfriends. After brief introductions Sally exclaimed,
‘Come on, Luce. We’d better get out of these costumes and cover up. You know how Madame goes on if we start getting a tan.’
Lucy produced a creditable imitation of Dolores’s voice. ‘I expect my gels to look like ladies, not like cabin boys!’
As they went off to the beach hut, giggling, Chantal rose slowly to her feet and stretched. Obviously, Richard thought, she didn’t give a damn for Madame’s expectations. She reminded him of a leopard, with her lazy grace and golden body. Without looking round at the rest of them she strolled down to the water’s edge and struck out with strong, smooth strokes towards a raft moored some distance from the shore. Richard was seized by an urge to join her – an urge that he tried to rationalise on the grounds that it was hot and he was ready for a swim. As soon as the girls had finished in the beach hut Richard hurried to change into his costume but when he came out and ran down to the water Chantal had disappeared.

Meanwhile, sitting under the hairdryer, Rose was having second thoughts. She had agreed to Felix’s invitation on the spur of the moment, carried away by the idea of going out dancing with Richard. Now she was feeling increasingly nervous at the prospect of spending the afternoon with Felix and Lady Harriet. She could see why other women found Felix irresistible but for some reason she had never quite trusted him. He was too charming, too debonair, and always too flush with money. Harriet had seemed pleasant enough but there was no getting away from the fact that she was a ‘real’ lady, an aristocrat, and she, Rose, was only a cockney girl from Lambeth. She wasn’t ashamed of her background but she had grown up with the idea that there were two kinds of people in the world – people ‘like us’ and the ‘posh’ people. She remembered with painful clarity one of the few real rows she had had with her father before his death. It was during her first professional engagement, as a member of the chorus in a pantomime at the Victoria Palace. Two slightly older girls had been invited out to supper at a West End night-club by a well-heeled young man with a title. He was bringing two friends with him and wanted them to find a third girl to make up the numbers. Rose had been flattered and excited to be chosen. However, she was quite unprepared for her father’s reaction. He was adamant in his refusal to give permission and her plea that the men in question were ‘real gentlemen’ only made things worse.
‘I don’t ever want to see a daughter of mine getting mixed up with that lot!’ he wheezed. ‘They don’t give a damn for the likes of us. I learnt that in the trenches. They think we’re put here to black their boots and fetch and carry for them, until there’s a war and then they expect us to die for them. They’ll pick you up and use you and then toss you aside like an empty cigarette packet. You stick to your own sort, my girl.’
Rose had never forgotten his words and, by and large, her experience since then had tended to reinforce the warning. Now she felt torn. She desperately wanted Richard to be proud of her but the very urgency of that desire made her uneasy. ‘It’s no good getting too keen on him,’ she told herself. ‘He’s only marking time here, till he’s offered something better. Then he’ll be off, and you’ll be forgotten in a week.’
All the same, after lunch she put on her best dress of cornflower blue crepe de chine, with a skirt cut on the cross so that it emphasised her slim waist and flat stomach, and made up with great care – just enough to bring out the colour of her eyes and the shape of her lips, without being too obvious. When Richard called for her it was apparent that he had made an effort, too. The wave in the dark hair had been tamed with brilliantine and his flannels had a knife-edge crease.
‘You look gorgeous!’ he said.
She smiled and took his arm. ‘Well, I wanted to be a credit to you.’
‘You’d be a credit any man’ he said warmly.
Felix and Harriet met them in the foyer of the hotel. Felix, as usual, was immaculately turned out and Lady Harriet was wearing a dress that, by Rose’s reckoning, must have cost the equivalent of a couple of months’ salary. As they settled themselves at a table and ordered tea the atmosphere was constrained. However, it had to be admitted that Felix could be charming when he wanted to be and Harriet had a straightforward, friendly manner that quickly dispelled Rose’s anxieties. She seemed genuinely interested in their work and had obviously seen the show several times.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘when I see you and the other girls up there on the stage, dancing, I just long to get up and join in. But I know I’d be absolutely hopeless.’
‘How do you know?’ Rose asked. ‘Have you ever had any lessons?’
‘Oh yes. I went to ballet classes when I was little.’ Harriet said. ‘But I’m no good at girls’ things. Much better at riding horses and climbing trees. That’s how I got the nickname Harry. What I mean is, I really envy people like you, people with a profession.’
‘You mean people who have to work for a living?’ Rose said innocently.
‘It’s more than that, isn’t it?’ Harriet asked. ‘I mean, you live for your art, don’t you? At least there is some purpose in your lives.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Rose replied. ‘For most of us it’s just a way of keeping body and soul together. I don’t suppose you have to work, do you?’
Harriet sighed. ‘No. I wish I did. I really would like to have a career but my parents wouldn’t hear of it. I’m afraid they think that all a girl like me should do is sit around and wait for someone to marry her.’
‘Come on, Harry,’ Felix said. ‘Don’t sell yourself short. You don’t just sit around. What about your photography? She takes the most amazing pictures, you know, and develops them herself. She’s got her own dark room and everything.’
‘But that’s just a hobby,’ Harriet protested. ‘It’s not useful to anyone. I sometimes think about women like Florence Nightingale, who came from the same sort of background as I do at a time when it was much harder for a woman to be independent, and I feel I should be doing something useful too. Except I know I’d be useless as a nurse. I’m so terribly squeamish. I can’t bear anything messy and ugly.’
‘What would you like to do?’ Richard asked. ‘If you could chose anything you wanted?’
Harriet smiled. ‘I don’t honestly know. Something to do with photography, I suppose. Have my own studio, perhaps?’
‘Well, you could, couldn’t you?’ Rose said. ‘You’ve got the money. You could strike out a line for yourself even if your parents don’t approve. We’ve all done it. My Mum wanted me to stay and help in the shop.’
‘You don’t understand …’ Felix began, but Harriet cut in with a sigh and a rueful smile.
‘Well, that’s my bluff called, isn’t it. She’s absolutely right, Felix. I could, if I had the guts. I’m too much of a coward, that’s all.’
‘No you’re not,’ Felix said. ‘Don’t be so ready to put yourself down.’ The orchestra struck up a foxtrot. Felix held out his hand to Harriet. ‘Come on, let’s dance.’
Rose watched them as they joined the crowd on the dance floor and bit her lip. ‘Oh dear, now I’ve upset them both. But it just gets my goat when people like her talk about how difficult life is. When I think how my Mum had to skimp and save to pay for my dancing lessons, and how hard it is to make ends meet on my wages …’
‘I know,’ Richard said soothingly. ‘And I think Harriet probably understands too. Don’t let Felix worry you.’
‘Tell you something, though,’ Rose commented, watching as Felix and Harriet circled the floor. ‘She was right about one thing. She can’t dance. Look at them. Poor old Felix is practically having to carry her.’
Richard laughed. ‘Come on. Let’s show them how, shall we?’
To her great delight, he turned out to be an excellent partner. She had danced with a lot of men in her time, but even those who seemed to know the right steps and did not actually stand on her feet lacked any real feeling for it. They either steered her round the floor as if they were manoeuvring a machine of some kind or they clutched her so tightly that she felt more like their prisoner than their partner. With Richard she sensed an instant rapport. Perhaps it was because he, like her, had grown up with music that they shared an innate sense of rhythm. Whatever the reason, they seemed to flow across the smooth surface of the dance floor as effortlessly as water. Rose forgot about social inequalities and gave herself up to the pleasures of the moment.
Later, as they left the hotel, Felix stopped abruptly and exclaimed, ‘Hello! Look over there!’
Rose followed his gaze and saw a large, expensive-looking car a little further along the road. Just getting out of it were Madame and Priscilla Vance and, as Rose watched, they were joined by Sir Lionel and then by Frank Bell. The four then made their way into a neighbouring hotel.
‘Now there’s an interesting combination,’ Felix commented. ‘What’s Frank doing with those three?’
‘He’s been making eyes at Priscilla ever since she joined the company,’ Rose pointed out.
‘With Madame’s connivance?’ Felix said, sceptically. ‘There’s something going on there – something fishy.’
‘Well, it’s none of our business,’ Rose said. ‘Are you coming our way?’
Felix had to drive Harriet to the station, so Rose and Richard were able to walk back to their digs alone.
Rose said, ‘Thank you, Richard. It’s been a lovely afternoon.’
‘It’s Felix you should thank, really,’ he said. ‘But we’ll do it again, another day, on our own. OK?’ After a moment he added, ‘What do you make of Felix? I mean, he seems to have plenty of money and some pretty high-class friends, so what’s he doing working as a conjuror?’
Rose laughed. ‘Oh, don’t you think we’ve all been asking that ever since he joined the company? Sally set her cap at him right from the start – well, you can imagine, can’t you? Of course, he wasn’t interested. He was quite nice about it, quite gentlemanly, but he made it pretty clear there was nothing doing. One day she asked him straight out how come he always had money when the rest of us were stony broke. He made a sort of joke about a maiden aunt leaving him a legacy, but you never know with Felix. It might have been the truth, or it might not.’

Richard got back to his digs feeling more light-hearted than he had for months. At last everything seemed to be falling into place. He had a job and the summer stretched ahead of him. Days on the beach, evenings in the theatre – and Rose. His first real girl friend. He loved her straight-forward, common-sense manner and her occasional mischievous comments. He loved the way she looked at him out of those amazing eyes. He wasn’t sure if he was ‘in love’, but it certainly felt very like it.
That night the theatre was almost full and the show seemed to go down very well. But Felix, studying the audience from the wings, remarked cynically, ‘Looks as though Monty’s been papering the house.’
‘What?’ Richard had a momentary vision of the little comedian on top of a step-ladder, with paste and brush.
‘Giving away free tickets to make the paying audience think the show’s a success,’ Felix explained. ‘Better than playing to half empty house, but it doesn’t pay the bills.’
After the audience had left the company gathered on the stage to collect their week’s wages but there was no sign of Monty Prince or of his wife.
‘They’ve done a bunk!’ Sally muttered. ‘Gone off with the takings and left us in the lurch.’
‘No, they’ll be here,’ Merry reassured her. ‘Have patience.’
After a long wait Monty and Dolores reappeared and Monty began handing out the envelopes containing their pay.
‘I’m afraid you’ll find you’re a bit short this week,’ he said, rather breathlessly. ‘It’s been a bad week, as you know. But things will look up when the season gets going. You’ll have enough to pay your landladies, and I’ll make up the rest next week – or the week after.’
Felix caught Richard’s eye and nodded towards Dolores. He looked at her left hand, which usually sported a large, showy diamond solitaire on the fourth finger. The hand was bare, except for a plain gold wedding ring.

The following morning Richard found Felix alone at the breakfast table.
‘Merry not down yet?’ he queried.
‘Oh, up and out long ago,’ Felix replied. ‘He always is on a Sunday. He’s got an elderly widower father living in Seaford. Merry goes over every Sunday to check that he’s all right. Not that he gets much thanks for it, by all accounts.’
‘Poor old Merry. Is that why he always has that rather world-weary look, do you think?’
‘Partly, perhaps,’ Felix said, indifferently. Then he smiled suddenly. ‘Do you know who he reminds me of?’
‘Mrs Mop out of ITMA?’ Richard suggested. ‘You know,’ he assumed the quavering tones of the well-loved radio character, ‘It’s being so cheerful as keeps him going.’
Felix laughed. ‘I see your point. But no, I was thinking of Eyore out of Winnie the Pooh. That look of permanently expecting life to do the dirty on you, but putting up with it just the same.’
Richard remembered what Rose had told him. ‘Poor old Merry,’ he repeated.
‘Well, we all have our cross to bear,’ Felix said, as if he had lost interest in the conversation.
Richard grinned. ‘Yes, I had one.’
Felix frowned at him. ‘A cross?’
‘No, a bear. His name was Gladly. He lived on my bed when I was a kid. There was something funny about his eyes.’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Gladly my cross-eyed bear?’
Felix choked on his coffee. ‘You’ve been spending too much time with Monty. You’re supposed to be the straight man, remember?’
‘You coming down on the beach today?’ Richard asked.
‘No. I’m taking Harriet out for lunch. Why don’t you and Rose join us.’
Richard felt himself colour. ‘I’d love to, but I’m a bit short at the moment. It was a shock, not getting my full salary last night.’
Felix looked at him for a long moment. Then he said, ‘Ah. I told you you’d make the acquaintance of Uncle sooner or later. Didn’t realise it would be this soon, though.’
He did not offer to lend Richard money. Initially Richard wondered if this was a sign of meanness but he concluded after some consideration that it was probably tact. The offer would have embarrassed both of them.

Rose and the other girls were finishing breakfast the next morning when their landlady came into the room and remarked briskly,
‘Madam’s been on the phone.’ She resolutely insisted on maintaining the English pronunciation. ‘You’re all wanted at the theatre for a rehearsal.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Sally. ‘What on earth for?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ the landlady responded, leaving with a stack of dirty crockery.
‘It’s not fair!’ Sally went on. ‘What can she possibly want us for today? We know all those routines inside out.’
‘I reckon she just wants to stop us having a morning on the beach, the old misery,’ her sister commented.
Pamela and Babe assented gloomily. Rose accepted the situation with better grace. Richard had told her he was planning to run through one or two more numbers with Merry that morning, which meant he would be in the theatre too.
‘I suppose Miss Prissy’s still missing,’ Sally remarked, looking at Barbara, who shared a room with Priscilla.
‘She went up to Town for the weekend,’ the girl agreed. ‘I haven’t seen her since Saturday morning.’
Rose opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it.
‘Well, if she misses another rehearsal perhaps Madame will finally give her the boot,’ Sally said. ‘That would make it all worthwhile.’
As they entered their dressing room Rose was surprised to hear the strains of Chopin’s Les Sylphides echoing down from the auditorium.
‘Why’s Merry playing that?’ Pamela asked. ‘We’re not doing the ballet anymore.’
There was a brief silence, broken by Sally. ‘Oh Gawd! She’s found another prima ballerina! Better get your pointe shoes on, girls.’
When they made their way up to the wings Merry was playing the piece for the second time. Rose, following the Castle sisters and eager to see the new ballerina, bumped into Lucy as the two girls stopped short.
‘I don’t believe it!’ Sally whispered.
‘She can’t be!’ Lucy responded.
‘She bloody well is!’
For a moment Rose could not see what it was that had shocked them so much. Then Lucy moved aside and she saw, in the centre of the stage, holding a rather shaky arabesque, the slight form of Priscilla Vance.
‘What’s going on?’ Pamela demanded from behind her, and was instantly hushed by the others.
They watched as Priscilla went through the next steps and was then halted by a rapid tattoo of Madame’s cane.
‘No, no! Priscilla, my darling, you must be quicker on the jetée. Listen to the music!’
‘I don’t understand,’ murmured Barbara. ‘Why’s she doing Tereskova’s solo?’
‘I think I know why,’ Rose answered grimly. She beckoned the others deeper into the wings and related, in a rapid whisper, what she and Richard had seen the previous Saturday.
‘The scheming little bitch!’ Sally exclaimed.
‘It may not be entirely her fault,’ Rose said. ‘I think Frank Bell’s at the bottom of this.’
‘I still don’t get it,’ Barbara complained.
‘Oh, come on, Babe!’ Pamela muttered. ‘It’s pretty obvious. The show’s losing money and Monty’s desperate to find a backer. Sir Lionel’s agreed to put money in provided his precious Prissy gets to dance the leading role.’
‘But what’s Frank got to do with it?’
‘Grow up, Babe!’ Sally turned her exasperation on the younger girl. ‘Even you can’t be that naive.’
‘You mean she ….’ Barbara’s horrified whisper was cut short by the appearance of the commanding figure of Madame.
‘So there you are! What are you all doing lurking in the wings? Come, on stage, quick, quick! We have much work to do!’

Richard, arriving for his practice with Merry, was surprised and slightly annoyed to find the pianist otherwise occupied. He went to his dressing room and ran through some warm-up exercises until, some time later, he was startled by a clatter of feet and a sudden outburst of female voices outside his door. From the sound of it, they were giving vent to feelings that had been forcible stifled for some time.
‘It’s not fair! It’s not fair!’ That was Pamela.
‘That scheming little bitch! Wait till I get a chance to tell her what I think of her!’ That was Sally.
‘But she can’t do it. It won’t work. She just isn’t good enough.’ That was Rose.
Richard opened the door cautiously and looked out. Sally was scarlet in the face with rage, Babe was in tears. The other three looked pale and stunned.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘Good question!’ snapped Sally. ‘I’ll tell you what’s not going on. I’m not going on stage with that stuck up little schemer.’
‘Calm down, Sally,’ Rose said. ‘They’ll hear you, and it won’t do any good.’
‘What’s happened?’ Richard asked again.
Rose said quietly, ‘Sir Lionel has offered to put money into the show – on condition that Priscilla dances the prima ballerina role.’
‘But that’s not right!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘I mean, I don’t know anything about ballet but I’ve watched you all dance and any of you are better than she is.’
‘You don’t have to tell us that,’ said Sally bitterly. ‘But it’s the usual story. Money talks.’
‘Ssh!’ Rose warned. ‘She’s coming!’
Priscilla came down the stairs from the stage. Her eyes were wide and glistening, her lips tremulous. Seeing the others gathered in the corridor she hesitated, then came towards them with a winsome smile.
‘I’m glad you’re all still here. I hope you’re not going to be angry with me. It wasn’t my idea, honestly! But I’m so thrilled! It’s the chance I’ve always dreamed of. And I’ll do you credit, I promise. I won’t let you down. And I really need your help. I can’t do it on my own.’
‘Tough!’ said Sally curtly. ‘Come on, Sis. Let’s get changed and get out of here.’
She marched into the dressing room and Lucy followed with Pamela and Babe close behind. Priscilla stood looking after them, biting her lip. She threw a glance of appeal at Rose and Richard, then looked behind her towards the stairs. Richard saw that she was about to burst into tears and that she did not know where to hide. She could not leave the theatre without changing her clothes, but to enter the dressing room and face the other girls was more than she could cope with. On an impulse he opened the door to his own room.
‘Would you like to wait in here for a bit? I’ve got to go up on stage and there’s no one else here at the moment.’
Priscilla looked at him, gulped and shot into the room like a rabbit into its burrow. Richard closed the door and looked a trifle defensively at Rose.
‘I can’t help feeling sorry for her.’
To his relief she smiled back at him. ‘It was nice of you. I feel sorry for her too. She isn’t ready for something like this. She might be, in a few years time, though I doubt it, but it will be a disaster for her now.’
‘Never mind her,’ Richard said, taking her hand. ‘It’s rotten for you. If anyone got that part it should have been you.’
‘Oh, you know I don’t want it,’ Rose replied. ‘I’m much happier being just one the girls. But I’m not looking forward to the next few weeks. I know what it’s going to be like. Sally’s OK most of the time and I’m quite fond of her but she can be terribly catty and Lucy takes her cue from her big sister. The dressing room will be like a snake pit from now on.’
Merry appeared on the stairs. ‘Thank God! Two more or less sane people! Am I getting old or does this place get more of a madhouse every week?’
Rose smiled up at him. ‘It’s not you, Merry. You’re about the sanest person around here. It’s just show business, that’s all.’
He came down the last steps and touched her arm briefly. ‘I’m sorry, Rose. It should have been you. When I realised what was happening I was absolutely stunned. In fact, for a few crazy moments I actually contemplated marching up onto the stage and handing in my resignation.’
‘Oh, don’t do that, Merry!’ Rose cried. ‘You make us laugh. We shall need you more than ever now.’
‘Ooh!’ Merry’s voice assumed the tone of an indignant dowager duchess. ‘I didn’t realise that my pianistic efforts were the occasion of so much hilarity!’ In one of his rare excursions into high camp he turned and flounced back up the stairs, then paused at the top and looked at Richard. ‘Well, are you coming to rehearse these ditties, or not?’
‘Yes, coming,’ Richard said quickly. ‘I’ll be with you directly.’
‘Dear old Merry,’ Rose said fondly, watching the pianist’s departing back. Then, ‘I’ll wait for you, shall I?’
‘Oh yes, please do!’ he responded.

Since the ballet was not due to return to the repertoire until the change of programme on Thursday the next three performances proceeded more or less without incident. However, the atmosphere within the company became steadily more and more tense. By Thursday night the dressing room resembled the snake pit that Rose had predicted, and the mood was not improved by the arrival of a huge bouquet of flowers from Sir Lionel to wish Priscilla good luck. Priscilla herself had wisely adopted the habit of delaying her arrival until the last possible moment. She had made attempts initially to ingratiate herself with little jokes and compliments and had even brought in a huge box of chocolates. The remarks had been greeted with a frosty silence and the chocolates had remained uneaten, though Rose had caught Babe eyeing them wistfully more than once. On the Thursday evening Priscilla arrived as the others were putting on their make-up.
‘Look!’ she cried brightly, holding up a bag with the name Annello and Davide emblazoned on it. ‘I treated myself to a new pair of ballet shoes in honour of the occasion. I think I deserve them, don’t you?’
‘But …’ Babe began. Sally unexpectedly cut her short.
‘Sure, why not? Of course you deserve them.’
Priscilla glowed. ‘Oh, thank you, darling!’ She threw her arm across Sally’s unresponsive shoulders and kissed her on the cheek.
The first half of the show passed without incident and, at last, the audience numbers were beginning to pick up. Changing for the ballet, Rose felt her stomach taut with nervous anticipation. Normally she did not suffer from stage fright, but tonight she was certain they were heading for disaster. As the curtain rose there were coos of delight from some of the ladies and the little girls in the audience, but after a few minutes the familiar shuffling and rustling began, punctuated with occasional bangs as people got up from their seats to go out to the lavatory. On cue, the corps de ballet lined up to greet the entrance of the prima ballerina and Priscilla appeared. She glided down stage on her points, found her position centre stage and prepared a pirouette. Then, as she spun into the first turn, the new ballet shoe slipped and Priscilla fell heavily on one knee. There was a stifled gasp from the audience and then a guffaw of laughter. Rose gritted her teeth, willing the other girl to go on. To her credit, Priscilla got up at once, a smile pasted to her face, and resumed her steps at exactly the right point in the music. Two more pirouettes were executed without incident, then came a grande jetée. As the ballerina landed the treacherous shoe slid from under her once again and she collapsed flat on her back. This time the laughter from the audience was a roar. Priscilla picked herself up, her eyes suffused with tears, and ran off stage.
The orchestra faltered, and the dancers paused in mid step. Rose looked around her, caught her breath and launched herself into the centre of the stage. The musicians, under Merry’s direction, gathered their wits and played on.
Richard had remained in the wings to watch, as had most of the company. Felix was beside him and, as Rose took up the ballerina’s role without missing a beat, he heard him exclaim, ‘Good girl! Good girl!’
Rose executed a series of exemplary entrechats and followed them with a perfect arabesque, then poised herself for another pirouette. To the horror of her friends, she wobbled, flailed her arms, lost her balance and sat down on her bottom with a look of wide-eyed surprise. The audience rocked with merriment. Richard gasped in alarm, then choked back a guffaw as he realised what was going on. Rose got up, attempted a jetée, appeared to slip and fell flat on her face. The audience yelled. The other girls had grasped the idea by now. Sally jumped forward and, as Rose attempted to rise, forced her back onto the floor with one foot. Then she began a series of whirling pirouettes, which ended when her sister elbowed her to on side and took her place. One by one the girls threw themselves into the action until the stage was littered with sylphs in positions of inelegant collapse. The audience was hysterical with mirth. In the wings Richard and Felix clung to each other for support. Looking down into the orchestra pit, Richard saw that Merry could scarcely see the notes for the tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks, while the flautist and the trombone player had totally given up trying to blow their instruments. Meanwhile Madame, in the prompt corner, attempted to scream in a whisper,
‘Bring down the curtain! Bring down the curtain!’
But ‘Uncle’ Mike Watson, the stage manager, only clutched the edge of the proscenium arch and sobbed helplessly.
The music came to an end and the dancers, in a moment of inspired co-ordination, collapsed upon each other in a heap of quivering tulle. The curtain came down and the audience stamped and whistled their appreciation. Slowly the girls picked themselves up and came off stage. In the wings they came face to face with Madame. There was a moment of terrible silence.
Then Dolores said, ‘We shall speak of this tomorrow. Go and change for the finale.’
Without a word the five girls scuttled down the stairs to the dressing room, and it was only when they reached the corridor below the stage that those waiting in the wings heard the muffled eruption of hysterical giggles.

CHAPTER FOUR

The girls were summoned to an audience with Madame the following morning. Rose sat in the front row of the stalls between Sally and Lucy, trying to cling on to the last shreds of her courage, while Dolores surveyed them from the other side of the footlights. There was no sign of Priscilla.
‘What happened last night was a disgrace! A sacrilege!’ Madame intoned.
‘Yeah, but the audience liked it, didn’t they,’ Sally commented unrepentantly.
Madame fixed her with a look of scorn. ‘We are not here to prostitute our art for the gratification of the hoi poloi.’
‘No,’ Sally muttered under her breath, ‘but you don’t mind doing it for Sir Lionel!’
‘To me the ballet is sacred,’ Madame went on. ‘I cannot bear to see it travestied in that way. I need hardly tell you that Priscilla is no longer a member of the company.’ There was a slight stir among the five remaining girls. ‘I should be within my rights to discipline the rest of you by docking your wages – especially you, Rose, since you seem to have been the prime mover. But …’ she paused and regarded Rose with fierce dark eyes, ‘my husband has persuaded me that under the circumstances you did your best to rescue a potentially disastrous situation. So we shall say no more about the matter.’
‘But what happens tonight, Madame?’ Babe asked. ‘If Priscilla’s got the sack who’s going to dance the lead?’
‘The ballet is cancelled!’ Madame announced. ‘It is obvious that the type of audience we are playing to is incapable of appreciating the finer things. So we must give them what they can appreciate. We shall revive the Spanish Fiesta number from last season. The costumes are still good and you all know the steps. Rehearsals will begin at once. For tonight, we will revert to the can-can. Now, go and get into your practice clothes. Quick! Quick!’
She rattled her cane imperiously on the floor and the girls rose hastily and scrambled for the exit. In the dressing room they found Priscilla packing her things, her face wet with tears. When the others came in she sank into a chair and burst into sobs. For a moment they all stood and looked at her but the sight of her abject misery was too much for Rose. She went over and crouched beside her, an arm round her shoulders.
‘Don’t cry, Prissy. It really wasn’t your fault. You should never have been asked to dance that role.’
‘But I wanted it so much!’ Priscilla wept. She raised her tear-drenched face to Rose. ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, dance. When my father was alive he wouldn’t hear of it. Then, when I went to live with Uncle Lionel and Aunt Eleanor they let me take lessons. They didn’t like the idea of me going on the stage, but I persuaded them it was the only thing that would make me happy. And when Madame said I could take over the lead I thought my dreams had really come true.’ She paused and gulped. ‘I understand why you were all so angry. It wasn’t fair. I thought Madame had chosen me because I was the best one for the part, but now I know it wasn’t that at all.’
‘You didn’t know your uncle was putting money into the show?’ Sally asked.
Priscilla shook her head. ‘No, I swear I didn’t. Frank fixed it all up with Uncle Lionel. He said I deserved a break.’
‘A broken leg, more likely,’ Rose said. ‘We’re to blame for what happened last night, too. We should have told you that it was death to go on stage in those new shoes. Didn’t you realise you have to break them in first?’
‘I should have done,’ Priscilla said miserably. ‘I didn’t think. But I don’t blame you. I’d probably have kept quiet, too, in your position.’
There was a brief silence. Then Rose said, ‘What will you do now? Audition for someone else?’
The girl shook her head vehemently. ‘Oh no! I’ll never go on stage again. I couldn’t. Not after last night. I realise now, I’ll never be any good.’
‘That’s not true,’ Rose said gently. ‘You could be good – good enough for the chorus, like the rest of us, anyway. But it takes time, and perhaps you started rather late.’
Priscilla sighed. ‘No, I couldn’t face it. I’d be terrified to set foot on a stage again.’
‘So what will you do?’ Pamela asked.
‘Oh, do what my Aunt always wanted, I suppose. Go back to live in London, come out …’
‘Come out of what?’ Babe asked, mystified.
‘As a debutante. Be presented to the King,’ Sally said caustically. ‘Surely you know that!’
‘Yes.’ Priscilla gave a rueful smile. ‘Be presented, do the Season. You know, Henley, Ascot, all those dreary parties.’
‘Our hearts bleed for you!’ Sally said dryly.
‘Then what?’ Babe persisted.
‘Hope someone wants to marry me, I suppose.’
‘Of course they will,’ Rose encouraged her. ‘You may not be the new Pavlova, but you’re a lovely girl. You’ll meet someone dreamy and fall head over heels in love.’
‘Maybe.’ Priscilla dried her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘You’re awfully sweet, Rose.’
‘No I’m not,’ Rose said briskly, getting to her feet. ‘I can be as catty as anyone. But just you remember, when you do meet someone gorgeous, you bring him down here to see the show, so we can have a look at him.’
Priscilla laughed shakily. ‘Oh no. I don’t think I’d dare do that. He’d probably fall for one of you instead!’

After Priscilla’s departure the Follies settled into a more or less steady routine and, as the season progressed, audiences improved and Dolly Prince’s ring reappeared on her finger. People were glad of distraction. The news from Europe grew steadily more and more disturbing. Germany and Italy had signed a ‘Pact of Steel’, pledging themselves to protect each other’s interests, and in early June the first conscripts were enrolled in the British Army. The newspapers trumpeted the fact that seven hundred and fifty planes a month were now being constructed for the RAF.
In the dressing room one evening Richard asked Felix, ‘If war does come, will you volunteer or wait to be called up?’
‘Oh, I shall volunteer,’ Felix replied. ‘I’d rather jump than be pushed, wouldn’t you? Besides, that way you might get some choice about where you go. I rather fancy the RAF myself.’
‘Yes, I can see you flying a plane,’ Richard agreed.
‘Oh, I’ve already had a few lessons,’ Felix said. ‘Thought it might be as well to be prepared. It’s a great feeling. Total freedom! How about you?’
‘I don’t think I’d be any good in a plane,’ Richard said. ‘I don’t like heights and I get seasick on a boat. So I guess it will have to be the army. But please God it won’t come to that.’
Now that everyone knew exactly what they were doing there was no further need for rehearsals, though Madame made a point of calling the girls in once or twice a week to keep them up to scratch. For the rest of the time the days were their own, except when it rained, when they put on a matinee performance. Fortunately for the cast, though not for the company’s finances, it was a good summer. Most mornings they all met on the beach, where they swam and sunbathed or played poker for matchsticks. Monty and his wife presided over proceedings from the veranda of the beach hut and the days were punctuated by Madame’s exhortations to the girls to move out of the sun or cover themselves up.
Sometimes Felix joined them and organised energetic games of beach ball or leapfrog or some other athletic activity, at which he had a natural ability. Occasionally Merry appeared too, but he could never be persuaded to join in the games, preferring to read or, when he thought Felix’s attention was fully occupied elsewhere, to watch.
For Rose it was a bitter-sweet summer. It seemed to be generally accepted that she was Richard’s girl friend and they spent a great deal of time together, but she could never quite allow herself to believe that this was anything more than a summer romance. As the threat of war grew she became more and more convinced that, one way or another, she must lose him by the time the leaves fell.
The situation was made more difficult by the fact that they were very rarely able to be alone together. He took her dancing again at the Palace Hotel, but coming out at five o’clock into the full light of day did not provide many romantic opportunities. In the evening, when most couples did their courting, they were both working and after the show she felt she must insist on going home with the other girls. Once he tried to persuade her to come to the pub instead.
‘No, it’s not right,’ she demurred. ‘Girls going into pubs.’
‘There are other women there,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t be the only one.’
‘Other women,’ she agreed. ‘You wouldn’t see a lady in there.’
‘Chantal goes,’ he said, unwisely.
‘Oh well, there you are then!’ she replied, and walked away.
Joining the other girls she guessed from their faces that they had been talking about her.
‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Go on. If you can say it behind my back you can say it to my face.’
‘We were just saying you ought to give Richard a bit of a chance,’ Lucy said.
‘A chance for what?’ Rose asked frostily.
‘You’re such a cold fish, Rose!’ Sally exclaimed. ‘You can’t string him along forever, you know.’
‘So what do you think I ought to do?’ Rose asked her. ‘Creep out at night and have sex with him under the pier – like …’ She stopped herself. They all knew that there were nights when Sally crept downstairs after Mrs Watson was in bed and climbed out of one of the dining-room windows, not to return until dawn, but the matter had never been openly discussed.
‘We just think you could be a bit more forthcoming,’ Pamela said quickly. ‘We’d cover for you.’
‘No, thanks,’ Rose replied stiffly, setting off for the digs.
‘You could get engaged,’ Babe suggested, keeping pace with her.
‘Don’t be stupid, Babe!’ Lucy said scathingly. ‘He hasn’t popped the question yet.’ She caught her breath. ‘Has he, Rose?’
”Course he hasn’t,’ said her sister. ‘He’s had no chance, has he? You’ve got to give him a bit of encouragement, Rose.’
‘Listen,’ said Rose, ‘I don’t need you to tell me what to do! I can think for myself, thanks.’
‘OK,’ Sally returned with a shrug. ‘But don’t blame me if he goes off with someone else. Men like him don’t grow on trees, you know.’
The next week Richard asked her to go with him to a matinee showing of the new film of Wuthering Heights, with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. She was completely swept up in the romance of it – so much so that when he took her hand and laid his cheek against her hair it seemed to be all part of the experience. It was only when his other hand slid down over her shoulder and gently brushed against her breast that she came back to reality. She took hold of his hand and gently but firmly returned it to his side and he clearly accepted the warning and made no further attempts.
Richard, too, was prey to conflicting impulses. He had very little experience of relationships with women. Three years in Italy had taught him that the only way to breach the almost impenetrable defences erected by Italian families around their daughters was by an offer of marriage. It was not an offer he had ever been tempted to make. However, he was not totally without experience. His singing teacher had introduced him to an older woman -‘ for the completion of your education, caro’ – and he was deeply grateful for her kindly, almost maternal, ministrations. Prior to that, before he left home, there had been the occasional sweaty fumbling in the back row of the cinema or the porch of the girl’s house but there, too, strict limits applied. He had grown up accepting the fact that ‘nice’ girls, the sort of girls one would eventually wish to marry, would not let you go too far until they had a ring on their finger. Admittedly, he had also discovered that what constituted going ‘too far’ was open to a wide variety of interpretations but in those days it had simply been a question of exploring the limits. Now, with Rose, he was anxious not to overstep the mark. He couldn’t be quite sure that he was in love with her, but he had certainly never felt like this about any other girl.
His problems were compounded by the fact that his mother was threatening to bring his father to Fairbourne on Sea for their summer holidays. This was a significant upheaval for them as, ever since Richard could remember, they had always gone to Lytham St Anne’s. Richard cudgelled his brains to think of ways of putting her off because he knew, beyond a doubt, that she would not approve of his ‘racy’ new friends and would find the show frivolous and ‘not in the best of taste’. He wrote back, pointing out the length of the journey, the necessity for changing trains in London, the fact that he would be home in a few weeks. It was useless. They booked a room at the Palace for the second week in September.
Rose was worried about her family, too, but for very different reasons. An item on the news was still fresh in her mind on a day when she had agreed to meet Richard. He had persuaded her, instead of joining the others on the beach, to come for a walk with him along the cliffs. They walked to the end of the prom and found a footpath that wound its way up to the cliff top. It was a steep climb and she was happy to have the excuse to take his hand when he offered it. The weather was perfect, with just enough breeze off the sea to temper the heat, and she was happy to be alone with him, but she could not get what she had heard out of her mind.
‘Rose, is there something wrong?’ he asked eventually.
She sighed and glanced sideways at him. ‘No, not really. I’m just a bit worried, that’s all.’
‘Worried about what?’
‘Did you listen to the news on the wireless this morning?’
‘No. What’s happened? What’s Hitler up to now?’
‘It’s not Hitler, it’s those mad Irish. The IRA, you know.’
‘What about them?’
‘They’re putting bombs in post boxes in London. Several went off yesterday. I’m worried about my Mum and my sister and her family.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘I’m sure you don’t need to. After all, it was probably just a stunt to draw attention. They won’t do it again. If your Mum or anyone you know had been hurt you’d have heard by now, wouldn’t you?’
‘Oh, I suppose so,’ she answered. ‘I expect they’re all right – this time. But you don’t know what those brutes are going to do next, do you? It might be bombs on buses or in phone boxes. London isn’t safe while these people are around.’
‘The police are bound to track them down soon,’ he said reassuringly. ‘And after all, with all those millions of people in London, the chances of anything happening to one of your family must be very small.’
‘But it has to happen to somebody’s family, doesn’t it?’ Far from being comforted she felt a stab of resentment. He didn’t seem to be taking the matter seriously. ‘It’s all right for you. Your parents are safe up in Manchester or wherever it is.’
His answer echoed her own irritation. ‘They are at the moment. I just wish they’d stay there!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh nothing. Just that my mother’s threatening to come down here for their summer holiday.’
She looked at him curiously. ‘So? Won’t you be glad to see her?’
He sighed. ‘Oh, I suppose so, in a way. The trouble is – oh, I can’t explain. She won’t approve. She’s got very set ideas about … about everything.’
Rose’s annoyance hardened into resentment. This was what she had been expecting. ‘You mean she won’t approve of the show. She’ll think it’s beneath you.’
‘No, not exactly.’ He obviously realised that he was getting into dangerous waters. ‘It just doesn’t fit in with her idea of what I ought to be doing.’
‘I bet it doesn’t!’ Rose said grimly. ‘And she won’t approve of us, either. Of Monty and Frank and Sally – and me. You’re ashamed of us!’
‘That’s not true!’ he cried, but she had already turned and was walking away. He ran after her. ‘Rose, please, listen! I’m not ashamed of you. I think you’re beautiful and sweet and I’m terribly lucky just to be with you. It’s just that I know what my mother’s like. Nobody’s ever been good enough for her. I could bring home the Queen of England and she wouldn’t approve.’
Rose looked at him and giggled, unable to resist his look of dismay. ‘I should think not. She’s a married woman!’
He laughed with relief. ‘I shouldn’t want her, even if she was still Elizabeth Bowes Lyon. You’re far prettier than she is.’
She lowered her eyes with mock coyness. ‘Thank you kindly, sir she said.’
They had reached a low break of dense gorse bushes enclosing an arc of short, rabbit nibbled grass. Richard reached for her hand.
‘Shall we sit here for a bit?’
She hesitated and then nodded. ‘All right, if you like.’
She allowed him to draw her down beside him, feeling the grass warm and yielding beneath her. The air was heavy with the coconut scent of the gorse and the hum of insects in the flowers. He lay back and reached out to pull her to him, cradling her head in the crook of his arm. His lips, when he kissed her, were warm and dry, slightly roughened by sun and wind. She felt the pressure of his mouth increase slightly and his tongue flickered across her lips. For a moment she resisted, then her mouth opened and his tongue found hers. He shifted his weight, pressing her back against the grass, forcing her mouth open wider to allow his tongue to probe more deeply. Desire sang through every nerve in her body. Abruptly she tensed, twisted her head away and thrust him off, pulling herself into a sitting position.
‘We shouldn’t be doing this.’
‘Why?’ he asked, his voice harsh with disappointment. Then he softened his tone. ‘What’s wrong, Rose?’
She looked at him. ‘It isn’t right. It isn’t fair. I know what happens. It’ll get to the point where you can’t stop yourself, and then you’ll say I led you on.’
He sat up, indignant. ‘What are you saying? You don’t think I’d try to – to force you to do anything, do you?’
‘I might not be able to stop either,’ she said.
He tried to take her hand but she pulled it away. ‘Rose, you don’t think I wanted to …? I mean, I wouldn’t. Not here, not like this.’ For a moment he was silent. Then he asked, ‘Has someone else …? Did someone try to force you?’
She looked away. ‘No! Well …not exactly. No, not the way you’re thinking.’
‘Something happened,’ he said, and she could hear in his tone that he was disciplining himself to speak gently. ‘Tell me.’
She glanced at him then looked down, her fingers plucking at the short grass. ‘It was nothing much, really. When I was in my first stage show I let a man walk me home after the performance. He seemed a nice enough sort of bloke. On the way he pulled me into a shop doorway and started to kiss me. I thought … I thought that would be all it was, and then he started trying … other things. I told him to stop but he wouldn’t. In the end I had to scratch his face to get away. Since then it’s always been the same. They turn up at the stage door, bring you flowers and chocolates, take you out to dinner and try to get you squiffy on champagne and then … My Mum warned me. She used to say men can’t control themselves after a certain point and it’s up to us not to let things get that far. Men think because you’re on the stage you can’t have any morals.’
‘I don’t think that,’ Richard protested. He took hold of her hand. ‘It isn’t true, Rose – what your mother said. We’re not animals. I would never try to force you to do anything you didn’t want to do.’
She looked at him. ‘No, I don’t think you would. But it isn’t fair anyway. I would be leading you on. I like you, Richard, very much, but it can’t ever be more than that.’
She got up and he scrambled to his feet after her. ‘Why not? I don’t understand. Why can’t it, Rose?’
She looked into his face, her vision blurred by tears. ‘Because it wouldn’t work. Not as a permanent thing. When this summer season’s over you’ll go off and get on with your career. You’ve got a big future ahead of you and I’ll never be more than a chorus girl from Lambeth.’
‘What does that matter?’ he demanded. ‘If you were my wife …’ He stopped, and they stared at each other, stunned by the enormity of what he was saying.
She forced herself to keep her voice level and practical. ‘If I was, the day would come when you’d look at me and ask yourself why you ever got yourself stuck with a girl like me. I’d just hold you back and in the end you’d regret it.’
‘That’s not true!’ he gasped.
She silenced him with a hand on his arm. ‘You wait. You’ll meet all sorts of girls, well-educated girls who speak properly. Young ladies. They’re your sort, not me.’
He grabbed both her hands and held them tightly. ‘I can’t imagine meeting anyone who will be more ‘my sort’ than you, Rose. Can’t you believe that?’
She looked up at him sadly. ‘You think that now. But things change. One day you’ll look back and see that I was right.’
For a moment he gazed down into her face in silence. Then he said, ‘All right. I can see I’m going to have to prove it to you. One day, when this season’s over and my career has done whatever it is going to do, if I come to you and say “nothing’s changed. I still feel the same”, will you believe me?’
Her throat ached and she felt sick with the effort of keeping her feelings under control. ‘I might. But until then ..’
‘Until then, we can still go out together, can’t we?’
‘As long as you understand that’s all it is. I’m not making any promises, and I’m not holding you to any, either.’
‘It’s a bargain,’ he agreed, and bent his head to kiss her, but she turned away and said, ‘I think we’d better be getting back, don’t you?’
As they walked back towards the town Rose tried to understand why she had acted as she had done. Why had she not simply agreed, when he had mentioned marriage? Going back over the conversation, she found the answer. The proposal – it had scarcely been that – had been uttered without thought, on the spur of the moment. He had been as shaken as she had. No one with any sense would expect to hold him to that. But in spite of everything she had said, she could not help cherishing the small flicker of hope that one day it might be repeated.
Richard suddenly exclaimed, ‘Oh, look. There’s Merry.’
Rose looked down to where a lower path threaded its way along the foot of the cliff. Merry was walking with a young man whom she had never seen before. They were strolling along, not touching but so close that their shoulders brushed each other as they moved.
‘I wonder who that is with him,’ Richard said.
Rose shrugged. ‘Someone he’s picked up in a pub somewhere. Don’t ask. And don’t mention you’ve seen him. Merry likes to keep his private life to himself.’

That evening, as they waited for the curtain to go up, Richard noticed that Monty Prince seemed distracted. Normally he was everywhere just before the show, chivvying the stage crew, cracking jokes with the performers, pinching the girls’ bottoms, but that evening he stood quietly in the wings, apparently absorbed in his own thoughts.
‘Are you all right, Mr Prince?’ Richard asked. Although everyone referred to him as Monty behind his back the little man insisted on what he regarded as proper respect to his face. Only Frank and Felix had the temerity to address him by his first name.
Monty started and came to. ‘Fine, fine! Just got things on my mind, that’s all.’
‘The show’s going well, isn’t it?’ Richard asked. ‘Audiences have been pretty good lately.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with the show, laddie,’ the comedian said. ‘No, I don’t like what I’m hearing from Europe, that’s all.’
‘You mean the possibility of a war?’
‘That’s part of it. I can’t see how we’re going to avoid it, personally. But it’s more than that. I’ve got family in the East End and friends who came over from Germany when Hitler and his lot came to power. They hear things, bad things. Polish Jews in Germany are being deported back to Poland. Jewish businessmen in Czechoslovakia are being ordered to curb their activities. I heard several thousand German Jews have packed up and gone to Brazil. And I have a feeling this is only the start.’
Richard said, ‘I didn’t realise your family were Jewish.’
Monty shrugged. ‘I don’t make a big thing of it. To be honest, I sometimes forget it myself. But my Grandad came over from Poland when he was a lad. I know there’s a lot of people in this country don’t like us – Oswald Moseley and his lot. That’s why I keep quiet about it. But there comes a time when you have to remember who your folks are.’
Down in the pit the orchestra launched into the opening bars of the overture and Monty made a visible effort to pull himself together. ‘Come on, this won’t do! What is it they say? Noli illegitimi carborundum!’
‘What?’
‘Don’t let the bastards wear you down!’
That night in the pub Richard found himself standing next to Chantal again, just before closing time. When the publican called ‘Time’ she uncoiled her long legs from the bar stool and said,
‘So, mon vieux, you will walk me home, non?’
Taken aback, Richard swallowed and said, ‘Yes, of course. You don’t want to go for fish and chips with the others?’
She looked back at him over her shoulder. ‘Tonight I have no appetite – for fish and chips.’
Outside the pub Merry said, ‘You coming, Richard?’
Richard felt himself flush. ‘No, not tonight. I’m seeing Chantal home.’
‘Really?’ Merry raised an eyebrow. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’
Richard caught up with Chantal, who had started strolling along the prom in the opposite direction. She cocked her head sideways and looked up at him out of the corner of her eye but did not speak. He smelt her perfume, subtle, with a flowery freshness and a heady undertone of musk.
He said, ‘I like your scent. Where did you get it?’
‘It was a present, from an admirer.’
‘Is it French?’
‘Of course.’
‘When did you leave France?’
‘Oh, years ago now – six, seven. I was seventeen years old.’ Her voice was low, the accent slightly less pronounced than usual, and her tone was dry, with an edge of bitterness.
‘And you came here to work on the stage, at seventeen?’
She laughed, a low, throaty sound. ‘Mais non! I came to work as a domestique. A parlour maid. The plan was that one day I should become a lady’s maid, like my mother. But I do not like to spend my life dressing someone else’s hair, pressing someone else’s frocks!’
‘No, I can understand that,’ he said. ‘But why did you came to England, in the first place? Why not work in France?’
‘Because there is a great demand in England for French lady’s maids. We are supposed to understand better the finer points of the tenu, the fashion, the macquillage. And my mother had contacts here. She worked here for many years. I was born here.’
‘Oh, where?’
‘In Scotland, to be precise. My mother was maid to Lady Melrose. My father was her younger son, Lord Anthony Fraser,’
‘Your father!’ Richard glanced sideways at her. He had never before heard anyone admit to illegitimacy with so little hesitation and it made him feel slightly uncomfortable.
‘Bien sur,’ she replied. ‘These things happen, you know. My mother was very attractive. He was the young lord. My mother believed that he loved her, that he would look after her. I don’t know, perhaps it was true. He was killed in the first year of the war, a few months before I was born.’
‘How tragic!’
She shrugged. ‘It was not so bad as it might have been. Lady Melrose was a good woman. She was a widow with two sons but no daughter and she was very fond of my mother. And she adored Lord Anthony. When she learned that my mother was carrying his child she decided that I was her responsibility. I was brought up at the family’s castle in Scotland. Not as one of the family, you understand! There are limits to the generosity of such people. But Lady Melrose saw that I was educated. She taught me herself how to read and write, and to play the piano. It was not an unhappy childhood.’
‘What happened?’ Richard asked. ‘Why did you go back to France?’
‘Lady Melrose died when I was eleven years old. There was no longer a post for my mother and the Earl, her elder son, did not see why he should keep his brother’s bastard. So we were sent packing. My mother found work with a French family in Normandy and I was sent to be educated at a convent. Ouff! That convent! How I hated it! Then, when I was fifteen, I began my training in the same household where my mother worked. I hated that, too. So she decided to send me to England. She thought I would be less trouble here!’
‘But how did you get into this business?’ Richard asked. ‘Where did you learn to sing and act?’
‘Oh,’ she shrugged humorously, ‘I always sang, from a little child. Perhaps I always acted as well! In the convent I sang in the choir, but when the nuns were not listening I sang popular songs for my friends. Then, when I came to England, I was with a family who had a house in London. There were two daughters, one about my age, the other a little older. They were, how you say, ‘bright young things’. It was the Season – every night cocktail parties, dances. When there was no ball to go to they invited their friends round and they danced to all the latest records. I used to creep down the backstairs to listen. Then, when they were all out, in my hour or two off in the afternoon, I used to steal into the drawing room and put on a record and sing along with it. On my evenings off I used to go to the music hall. That was where I fell in love with the stage. One day the younger daughter came home unexpectedly and caught me in the drawing room, singing. I thought she would be furious, but instead she thought it was funny. She liked my voice and after that the two sisters used to call me to sing to their friends. The younger one played the piano and she used to accompany me, and they even lent me their dresses so I didn’t have to appear in my maid’s uniform.’
‘Good for them!’ Richard remarked, then glancing at her profile, ‘Or was it? How did you feel about it?’
‘What do you think? I was like a performing dog, dressed up to amuse their friends. Then, one day, the father found out what was going on. He was furious. He said it was ‘inappropriate’ for a parlour maid to entertain guests like that.’ Chantal paused and gave a low, ironic chuckle. ‘So I got the sack. I went straight round to the nearest music hall and asked to see the manager. He refused to see me, so I found out which was the window of his office and I stood outside in the street and sang. Quite a crowd gathered. Some of them even threw me some money! Then a messenger came out of the theatre and said the manager would see me after all. He gave me a spot on the bill, the audience liked me and that was that. Goodbye Henriette the parlour maid, hello Chantal, the entertainer.’
‘So your real name is Henriette?’
She looked at him. ‘No, I have forgotten Henriette. This is the real me – Chantal.’
They had been walking all through the conversation, past the hotels and boarding houses lining the promenade in the centre of the town to where they gave way to small cottages and bungalows that were mostly used as weekend retreats. Chantal stopped at the gate of one of the smallest, barely more than a chalet.
‘This is where I live.’
‘All on your own?’ he asked.
‘Bien sur, all on my own. It is small and when the wind blows all the windows rattle, but at least there is no landlady to spy on me and tell tales.’ She pushed open the gate. ‘Are you hungry? I make a very good omelette.’
‘I – well, yes,’ he stammered and, smiling, she took him by the hand and led him down the path.
As soon as the front door closed behind them she turned to him and entwined her arms round his neck. She was tall, and in her high heels her face was almost level with his own. When her lips found his he was shaken by a mixture of intense desire and panic. Briefly, he remembered the promise he had made to Rose. But then he found himself asking just what it was he had promised – only to wait, for some indefinite time. Chantal’s tongue was exploring his mouth, her body pressed against his from shoulder to hip in a manner totally unlike that of any other girl he had ever kissed. Guilt gripped him like a cold, clammy hand. He released himself from her embrace.
‘Chantal, we shouldn’t be doing this.’
Chantal looked into his eyes with that provocative, mocking gaze and said, ‘Alors! You are not a virgin, surely.’
‘No!’ he exclaimed, and gave a brief, grateful thought to his singing teacher.
‘Bien! Neither am I. So, what is the problem?’
She kissed him again and he forgot guilt, forgot the strictures of his ‘respectable’ upbringing – forgot Rose. When he slid his hand under her blouse she eased back from him to make room for it to find her breast. The nipple was hard as a bullet and he heard her sharp intake of breath as he squeezed it. The angle of her body changed as she kicked off her shoes and then she drew away and led him by the hand into a darkened bedroom. He heard the rustle as she slipped out of her blouse and skirt and caught the pale glimmer of silk as she shed her underwear, struggling as he did so with clumsy fingers with shoelaces and fly buttons. Then they were both naked and she pulled him down with her onto the bed. She was experienced, her hands and tongue working expertly to arouse him, but she was eager to receive as well as to give and her uninhibited pleasure heightened his own excitement. For the first time he delayed his own climax in order to relish hers, and afterwards, as she lay limp and sated in his arms, he felt a satisfaction he had never known before.
She made omelettes for them both eventually, but not until much later. They ate them sitting up in bed, naked, but when he reached for her again she pushed him gently away.
‘No, mon cher, you must go now. You have a long walk home in the dark, I am afraid.’
‘Can’t I stay here with you?’ he pleaded.
She shook her head, smiling. ‘No. Your landlady would notice that your bed was not slept in and several people saw you coming away with me. People will gossip and sooner or later your Rose would hear of it.’
He felt a lurch at the base of his stomach.
‘Rose should know, shouldn’t she?’ he said.
‘No! No, mon ami, you must say nothing to Rose. She is not the same sort of girl as me. She is a girl who will remain a virgin until she marries – and she is the sort of girl you will want to marry.’
‘How do you know?’ he said, almost angrily. ‘Suppose I want to marry you?’
‘Then that would be a great mistake,’ she said gently. ‘I am not the marrying kind – and I think you knew that before you came here tonight.’
‘Rose won’t marry me either,’ he exclaimed. ‘She says it wouldn’t work because our backgrounds are too different.’
‘So, you have asked her then?’
‘Not exactly. Not in so many words. But she says we mustn’t get too serious.’
‘She says that to defend herself, because she doesn’t want to commit herself and then be disappointed. And she is afraid of getting pregnant.’ Chantal smiled. ‘Poor Richard! I can understand why you feel confused. But you must make up your own mind what you want.’
He sighed deeply. ‘I don’t know what I want, any more. Except that I want more nights like tonight. I can – come here again, can’t I?’
‘Perhaps. Yes, probably. We shall see.’
A new thought struck him with breath-taking force. ‘Oh, my God! I didn’t – we didn’t take any precautions. I should have thought …’
She chuckled softly. ‘Don’t worry. I am not so inexperienced in these matters. Tonight was safe, believe me.’
‘If you’re sure …’
‘I am sure. Now, you must get dressed and go.’
When he was leaving she kissed him once and he said, ‘When can I come again?’
‘I will let you know. But remember, tomorrow we are just as we were this morning. You walked me home, nothing more. If you want to come again, that is how it must be.’
‘All right. If that’s what you want.’
‘That is what I insist upon. Goodnight, cheri.’
He covered the long distance back to his digs without being aware of the pavement under his feet. The summer night was still, the tide high and the waves sucked and hissed hypnotically on the beach a few feet below him. He felt light, almost incorporeal. He tried to think of Rose, of the implications of what had happened, but his mind refused to focus. His moral upbringing told him he should feel guilty, defiled, but he was unable to summon up any sense of shame. Instead, he felt purified.

CHAPTER 5

As the weeks passed Rose tried to pretend to herself that this summer was no different from any other, with its familiar routine of days on the beach and evening performances. Sometimes she went walking with Richard and when they found a secluded spot she let him kiss her and hold her close, until every part of her body burned with desire. At such moments she longed to give herself up to him completely, to forget the restraint that had been ingrained in her since childhood, but he had obviously decided to respect her wishes and control his own impulses. She wondered sometimes if he was trying to prove to her that her mother’s estimation of men was faulty and that he could be trusted, even in extreme circumstances. At other moments the thought entered her mind that his natural desires were finding expression elsewhere. Once or twice she caught him watching Chantal and the look on his face disturbed her, but Chantal treated him with such indifference that she dismissed the idea as unworthy suspicion.
Intensely pleasurable as they were, these encounters left them both shaken and taut with frustration, so that it was difficult to resume their normal, easy companionship. Much as she longed to be in his arms, Rose decided reluctantly that the only solution was to limit the time they spent alone together. Instead, she suggested occupations that involved other people. They went dancing at the Palace Hotel quite often and once she let him take her to the cinema again, to see The Wizard of Oz. Even then, they were far from alone. All the girls in the chorus wanted to see Judy Garland and for days afterwards the dressing room rang to renditions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
The news from London continued to worry her. In her mind, the IRA bombing campaign overshadowed the increasingly gloomy reports from Europe. She tried to persuade her mother and her sister Bet, together with eight-year-old Billy and five-year-old Sam, to come and stay in Fairbourne. However, her mother insisted that she could not leave the shop and Bet maintained that her husband, Reg, could not afford to pay for her and the two boys to live in lodgings. Instead, he drove them down for the day one Sunday, in a car borrowed from the garage where he worked. She invited Richard to join them for tea at the Kardomah but the meeting was not a success. He did his best to be as natural and relaxed as possible, but Mrs Taylor and Bet obviously felt ill-at-ease and Rose and Richard both had to struggle to keep the conversation going.
For Richard, too, it was a time of emotional turmoil. On the one hand there was the hedonistic enjoyment of his new life, the carefree games, soporific afternoons after Mrs Parish’s substantial lunches, the adrenaline buzz of performance and applause. On the other, the ever-increasing menace of approaching war. Hitler and Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact, which meant that the Fuhrer was now at liberty to turn his full attention to Europe. The newspapers and news bulletins on the wireless were full of talk of the coming conflict and, although people talked about plans for the winter season ahead, Richard knew that all of them were privately facing up to the idea that by Christmas they might be leading a very different life.
More urgent, though, than these considerations was the contrary tug of his feelings for Rose and Chantal. When he tried to analyse these feelings dispassionately, he knew that it was Rose he really loved but he had promised not to pressure her for an answer and feared losing her altogether if he was too importunate. On the other hand, he craved the physical pleasure and release that he had experienced with Chantal, but she seemed determined to ignore him and gave not even the faintest sign that anything had happened between them. He began to be afraid that she had found him so inadequate that she had completely lost interest in him. Sometimes he reproached himself guiltily for his lack of fidelity to Rose, but the next moment he would find himself thinking that after all it was her fault. If she had not made herself so unattainable he would never have gone with Chantal. Or would he? He could not in all honesty convince himself that he would have turned down her invitation.
The evening came when, standing next to her at the bar, he heard her murmur,
‘Tonight, cheri. Tell the others you are tired and are going back to your digs. I will join you shortly. There is a key under the doormat.’
He found the key and let himself in to the tiny house. Somehow he would have expected it to be less than tidy – not dirty, certainly not that, but with some of the flamboyant disregard for convention which Chantal herself exhibited. Instead, it was as neat and orderly as a sailor’s cabin. He stood in the bedroom, uncertain whether to get undressed or whether that would appear to be taking too much for granted. She arrived sooner than he expected, carrying a bottle of champagne.
‘I told the man behind the bar it was a present for a friend!’
‘Look, you must let me pay for that,’ he said.
She glanced up from easing the cork out of the bottle. ‘Zut, alors! Save your money. Buy something for Rose instead.’
He moved closer to her. ‘Chantal, don’t you mind about me and Rose? Aren’t you even a little bit jealous?’
‘Why should I be?’ Her amber eyes stared into his own. ‘We give each other what we both need, and Rose keeps her precious virginity. It is a good arrangement, n’est pas?’
She poured the champagne, gave him a glass and then reached up to kiss him with the wine still on her lips. ‘Why are you still dressed? We are wasting time. Viens, cheri.’
This time he got undressed with less fumbling and when they were both naked she came and stood against him, her lithe body cool against his skin. She kissed him with her mouth full of champagne and he ran his hands down her back until they cupped her buttocks and then slid his fingers between her legs. She gasped and flung her head back, straining against him and he bent and took her breast into his mouth. After a moment she drew away and sank back onto the bed and in the faint light from the window he saw her body open to him, undefended, inviting. Slowly, almost reverently, he stooped over her, seeking with fingers and tongue for the secret centres of pleasure until she cried out and pulled him into her and he felt her convulse in ecstasy.
It was almost dawn when he got back to his own room, but if either of his fellow lodgers heard him they made no reference to the fact.

One evening, as Felix and Richard were putting on their makeup, Monty Prince came into the dressing room looking worried.
‘Have either of you seen Merry?’ he demanded.
‘Isn’t he out front?’ Felix said.
‘No, he bloody isn’t! That’s why I’m asking.’
Richard and Felix exchanged glances. Felix said, ‘Last time I saw him was at lunch.’
‘Me, too,’ Richard agreed.
‘Well, where does he go in the afternoons?’ Monty asked.
Felix lifted his shoulders. ‘Search me. He’s a secretive sort of cove, our Merry.’
‘You must have some idea where he spends his time,’ Monty insisted.
‘He goes walking sometimes, along the cliffs,’ Richard offered. He thought he caught a warning look from Felix and said no more.
‘Bloody hell! It’ll be just my luck if he’s fallen off and broken his neck!’ Monty fumed.
‘Not very lucky for Merry, either,’ Felix commented.
‘Don’t get clever with me!’ Monty snarled. ‘Somebody’s going to have to take over at the piano. It’ll have to be that dozy Vincent, so you can expect some wrong notes in your solos tonight, Richard.’
He went out and slammed the door. Richard looked at Felix.
‘What can have happened? Merry wouldn’t let the show down. Do you think he’s been in an accident?’
‘Possibly.’ Felix looked at his watch. ‘Ten minutes to curtain up. He could still come rushing in. Anyway, there’s bugger all we can do at the moment. We’ll be getting the five minute call any second.’
They staggered through the show somehow. Vince, the trombonist, fumbled through the piano accompaniments without making a complete disaster and if the orchestra was a bit ragged no one in the audience seemed to notice. Afterwards the cast congregated on stage. Merry was popular with everyone and the mood was sombre.
‘Madame has telephoned all the hospitals in the area, and no one answering Merry’s description has been admitted to any of them,’ Monty announced. ‘I’ve spoken to the coastguard but there’s been no report of anyone in difficulties on the cliffs or cut off by the tide. Now, can anyone recall seeing him, or anything that might give us a hint where he is?’
‘I know he goes to see his Dad at the weekends,’ Rose offered. ‘Do you think the old man’s been taken ill and he’s rushed off there?’
‘He’d leave a message in that case, wouldn’t he?’ Richard suggested.
‘Anybody know his father’s address?’ Monty asked.
‘It’ll be in his room, somewhere,’ Felix said. ‘I’ll look for it.’
Monty came back to the digs with them and Felix quickly produced a slip of paper with the address and telephone number, but a call to an extremely grumpy Colonel Merryweather, who had been fast asleep in bed, produced no further clue to his son’s whereabouts. Finally Monty declared that there was nothing more they could do that night and took himself off and Richard, too tired to worry, fell into bed.
He was awakened by a tapping on the door and by the time his eyes were fully open Felix was standing over him. He was dressed and alert, as if he had been up for hours.
‘Sorry to wake you, old boy,’ he said, ‘but I need your help – or rather Merry does.’
‘Merry!’ Richard sat up, his brain still hazy with sleep. ‘Have you found him?’
‘Yes. He’s been arrested. He’s up before the beak at ten this morning. That’s why I need you.’
‘Arrested! What on earth for?’
Felix frowned impatiently. ‘Soliciting. What do you expect? The idiot was probably drunk.’
‘Soliciting?’ Richard mumbled. ‘Where?’
‘In a pub called The Anchor, down by the harbour. I gather it has a certain reputation. It seems Merry made certain suggestions to a young lad. He obviously misread the signs. The boy reported it to the publican, who called the police. They’ve had him in the cells all night.’
‘My God!’ Richard said. ‘What can we do?’
‘I’ve been in touch with a solicitor already,’ Felix said. ‘He’s a good man who’s handled this sort of work before. He’s on his way down from Town now.’
‘From London!’ Richard exclaimed. It seemed hardly credible that Felix had not only traced Merry but had actually prevailed upon a London solicitor to take up his case at such short notice.
Felix ignored the interjection. ‘He’ll try to convince the magistrate that it’s just a bad case of drunk and disorderly and Merry didn’t really know what he was saying. Our job is to act as character witnesses. If we can stand up and swear that we’ve shared a house with him for months and never seen the slightest sign of – well, anti-social behaviour – it may help.’
‘You mean we’ve got to swear that Merry’s not queer,’ Richard said slowly.
Felix fixed him with a hard-eyed look. ‘Have you ever seen any indication that he is? Made a pass at you, has he?’
‘No!’ Richard felt himself blushing. ‘Of course not.’
‘Well then.’ Felix dismissed the quibble. He softened his tone. ‘I can’t go to Monty or Frank. They’re both too prejudiced. Frank wouldn’t speak up for fear of being tarred with the same brush and if Madame got so much of a hint of it Merry would be out on his ear. That’s why we’ve got to keep it quiet. You’re a nice, upstanding, well-spoken chap, the sort who makes a good impression on magistrates. Will you help?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. Sorry, I wasn’t meaning to be obstructive. What time is it?’
‘Just after nine. Time for you to get dressed up in your best togs and have a bit of breakfast before we go to court.’
‘You must have been up for hours!’ Richard exclaimed. His brain was wrestling with the notion that Felix, who always seemed to enjoy needling Merry at every opportunity, should have gone to such lengths to help him.
Felix turned away to the door without comment. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, turning back, ‘I’ve told Mrs P. that Merry went to see a friend in London and the friend offered to drive him back but they were involved in an accident and both spent the night in a hospital in Croydon.’
At a few minutes before ten Richard and Felix presented themselves, smartly turned out, at the local magistrates’ court. The solicitor, a lean, suave figure in black jacket and pinstripe trousers, met them in the foyer. He and Felix shook hands, not exactly like old friends but like two people who had had dealings before, and Felix introduced Richard.
‘I’ve spoken to our client,’ the lawyer said. ‘We’re taking the line that he had a bit too much to drink and didn’t know what he was saying, but we have to convince the magistrate that it was completely out of character. Your testimony as character witnesses could be crucial.’
Merry’s case was the third to come before the magistrates. He entered the dock pale and unshaven and with an obvious black eye, but his demeanour was controlled and his voice as he answered to his name was clear. Richard saw his eyes sweep round the courtroom. They passed over him and came to rest on Felix, their expression emotionless and yet, to Richard, somehow eloquent. He remembered Rose saying, ‘Poor Merry. He’s so desperately in love with Felix …’ And Felix knew it and was not, after all, indifferent.
After the case for the prosecution their solicitor rose. It was obvious from the outset that the magistrates were impressed and even a little over-awed by the presence of a man who was obviously known to them as someone more normally to be found in the Old Bailey. He put the case persuasively. It had all been a terrible misunderstanding. His client admitted that he had been exceedingly drunk, reprehensibly so indeed, but he was a young man and young men were apt to let themselves go from time to time. The remarks to which the complainant had taken such exception had been intended as a joke – ill-judged, tasteless even, but not criminal. This was a young man of hitherto stainless reputation, an artiste, whose career might be blighted by a single foolish episode. He would call witnesses who could vouch for the fact that, even though they had lived closely with the accused for several months, they had never seen any evidence of deviant behaviour.
First Felix and then Richard, called to the witness box, testified accordingly. The magistrates put their heads together and whispered. Then the Chief Magistrate gave his verdict.
‘In view of the fact that you have previously been of good character and bearing in mind the testimony of your friends to that effect, we are disposed to treat this incident as a case of being drunk and disorderly. However, if you ever appear before us again on a similar charge we shall bring to bear the full force of the law. Fined £25. You may stand down.’
In the foyer Merry extended his hand to Felix. ‘I can’t repay you, Felix, but I shan’t forget.’
Felix shook his hand and said lightly, ‘I hope not, indeed. We don’t want this sort of episode to become a regular event.’
Richard saw the pain in Merry’s eyes. ‘I meant the obligation. You need not worry about a repetition of last night.’ He turned to Richard and rather hesitantly held out his hand, ‘Thanks for standing up for me, Richard.’
‘Not at all,’ Richard responded, taking it. ‘I was glad to do it, but it’s Felix who organised everything.’
‘I know that,’ Merry replied quietly. He paused. ‘There’s just one problem. I don’t have twenty-five pounds to my name.’
Felix sighed theatrically and reached into an inside pocket. ‘I had a feeling that would be the case.’ He took out his wallet and peeled off five crisp white notes and handed them to Merry. Richard gazed in amazement. He had never known anyone who carried that sort of money around with him. It struck him that with the solicitor’s fees this case had cost Felix a pretty penny and he wondered again where the money came from. Merry took the notes, held Felix’s gaze for a moment, then nodded and turned away.
Over cups of bitter coffee in the little cafe round the corner from the court they agreed on the story to be presented to Monty and the rest of the company. There was always the chance that the case might be reported in the local paper or that word might get back to the Princes in some other way so they decided that it would be best to stick as closely as possible to the truth. Merry would own up to being drunk and spending the night in police cells but the precise details of the incident could be glossed over. Monty himself was known to drink too much on occasions and had had the odd brush with the law, so it was likely he would not inquire too closely.
‘How did you get the black eye?’ Richard asked. ‘Did you put up a fight?’
Merry gave him one of his typical sideways looks. ‘Can you see me resisting arrest? No, I walked into a door, of course.’ Then, in response to Richard’s frown, ‘The police don’t like ‘my type’ – whatever that means.’ He turned his head away and coughed and Richard was aware that his breathing was shallow and laboured.
Felix said quietly, ‘Are you OK?’
Merry drew in a breath and straightened his shoulders. ‘Night in police cells – more or less guaranteed to bring on anyone’s asthma, I should think.’
‘Do you want to see a doctor?’ Felix asked.
Merry shook his head. ‘No. I’ve got some medication back at the digs. I’ll be all right once I get back there.’
‘Right,’ said Felix. ‘I’ve got the car outside. The sooner we get you home the better.’
By the time they got back to the lodging house Richard could hear Merry wheezing as he fought to draw breath into his congested lungs. At the bottom of the stairs he checked and put a hand on the wall for support. Felix, as usual, took in the situation at a glance and acted.
‘Come on, Richard, give me a hand,’ he said, and grasped Merry by one elbow. The pianist protested feebly, but Richard grabbed his other arm and between them they half carried him up the stairs. At the door of his room Felix again suggested calling a doctor but Merry insisted that he would be all right as soon as he could take some of his medicine and disappeared into the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.
To Richard’s relief, he reappeared at teatime, apparently restored to his old self. Felix had already informed Monty of the situation and before the show Merry was summoned to the manager’s office to confront his employer. What passed between them was never revealed but by curtain up Merry was installed in the orchestra pit as usual.

There was one further incident of importance, as far as Richard was concerned, during August. One evening as he was changing after the show Monty put his head round the dressing room door. Felix had already left and Merry was still in the orchestra pit, so Richard was alone.
‘Visitor for you,’ Monty said, and stood back to admit a dapper-looking man in his mid thirties whom Richard had never seen before in his life.
‘Mr Stevens?’ the stranger said, coming forward. ‘My name’s Reginald Harrison. I work for the BBC. I’m down here on holiday so I thought I’d bring the family along to see the show. Thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly your items. You’ve got a fine voice, very fine. Mr Prince tells me you trained in Italy.’
‘Yes,’ Richard replied breathlessly. He could think of nothing else to say, but the other man went on smoothly,
‘What are you doing at the end of the season?’
‘I – I don’t know.’ He was still gasping like a fish out of water.
‘Give me a ring when you get back to Town. The number’s on the card.’ Harrison held out a visiting card. ‘I’m sure we can find a slot for you. We’re always on the lookout for new talent.’
Richard accepted the card and mumbled his thanks and the visitor, after exchanging a few pleasantries, took himself off, with Monty obsequiously in tow.

Next morning Rose was preparing to head for the beach as usual when Richard called for her at the boarding house.
‘Let’s go for a coffee somewhere. I’ve got something to tell you.’
She listened to his news and tried to look pleased, but the first thought that came into her head was that her predictions were beginning to come true.
‘So it looks as though I’ll be in London this winter,’ he finished.
She smiled at him. ‘See, I told you you were set to go places.’
‘But I’m not!’ he said, grinning back at her. ‘That’s the point. I’m not going away. I’m staying in London. So we’ll be able to see each other.’
Her smile faded. ‘But I don’t know where I’ll be, yet. I have to work too, you know. I’ll try to get into panto somewhere, but there’s no knowing where.’
‘Oh,’ he said, deflated. ‘Somehow I assumed you would be going home. Silly of me. But couldn’t you get into a pantomime in London?’
‘I might, if I’m lucky. Then again I might end up in Brighton or Bolton or Llandudno. You have to go where the work is. Anyway,’ she touched his hand across the table, ‘I shouldn’t set too much store by this BBC thing. They might want you to do a couple of programmes, maybe even a regular slot if you’re very lucky, but it won’t be enough to live on, you know. You’ll have to look for other work as well.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘Oh well, I suppose there are always plenty of choral societies wanting a soloist for the Messiah around Christmas.’ He brightened. ‘Or perhaps I could try panto too. Maybe we could both get into the same one.’
‘And maybe pigs might fly!’ she laughed. ‘This business just doesn’t work like that. You just have to be grateful if you’ve got a job – any job.’
‘But we could try, couldn’t we?’ he begged. ‘At least we could both try to stay in London.’
She felt a surge of tenderness. Sometimes he seemed so young, so much less experienced than she was. ‘OK. I suppose we could try, but you must promise me one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You won’t turn down a good opportunity just to be where I am. You have to think of your career first. Promise?’
He sighed. ‘All right, I promise. But that probably means London, so in return you must promise me you’ll try to find something there. Christmas in London, together – eh?’
She smiled, half unwillingly. ‘Oh, all right. Christmas in London, if we can.’

The following morning they heard on the wireless that all RAF and Army Reservists had been called up and that night ‘Uncle’ Mike insisted on buying everyone a drink in the pub.
‘I’m off first thing tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Duty calls.’
‘But you shouldn’t be going!’ Felix exclaimed. ‘A chap your age. It’s ridiculous.’
‘Fact is, I was just old enough to be in at the end of the last lot,’ Mike said. ‘I’ve been in the RAF Reserve ever since. Don’t suppose they’ll let me fly a plane this time, though. Pity, I’d just got my pilot’s licence when the Armistice was signed. Never saw any action.’
‘I hope to God you won’t see any this time, either,’ Frank said. ‘This is just a false alarm, isn’t it?’
‘I wish I could believe that,’ was the grim response.
The next day they heard that German troops had invaded Poland. There was a performance that night, but the auditorium was almost empty. Most people had cut short their holidays and headed for home while it was still possible to travel. Richard’s parents telephoned to say that they would not, after all, be coming to Fairbourne. The following morning, without needing a formal summons, they all gathered at the theatre. Rose went straight across to Richard and took his hand, no longer attempting to hide her feelings. Monty had brought in a portable wireless set and at eleven o’clock the announcement they were all dreading came over the airwaves, in the flat, exhausted tones of Mr Chamberlain.
‘This country is now at war with Germany.

BACK TO THE STORIES BEHIND THE STORIES

BACK TO BOOKS

BACK TO HOME PAGE

CHAPTER ONE

‘Girls! On stage! Quickly, please, we are waiting!’
Rose Taylor ground the toe of her ballet shoe into the tray of resin in the wings and looked across at the imperious figure outlined against the footlights. Madame was on the warpath again. She sighed and walked out onto the stage. The theatre had the chill, damp feel that always seemed to seep up from the sea below during the night, not to be banished until the audience came in for the evening performance. The sea was rough today and Rose could dimly feel the waves thudding against the timbers that supported the pier. She looked around her at the other four girls and felt the knot of anxiety at the pit of her stomach tighten. There should have been five.
‘Priscilla!’ demanded the harsh voice. ‘Where is Priscilla?’
Madame Dolores da Ponte was spare, upright, clad from chin to ankle in black, her dark hair drawn back into a tight bun, her lips scarlet. She carried a long cane whose purpose was to correct the position of her dancers’ feet but frequently served, as now, to indicate her irritation by rapping on the stage. Rose kept her eyes downcast. It was not fair that Madame always seemed to expect her to be responsible for the other girls. It was not as if she was the oldest. Sally Castle had had her twenty-first a month ago, beating Rose by a full six months.
‘Well?’ The stick beat another tattoo. ‘You, Rose, answer me!’
Rose spoke up unwillingly. ‘Her guardian took her out last night after the show, Madame. To a party in London. She said you had given her permission.’
‘So? I gave ‘er permission to go to a party last night. Zis is today.’ The phoney Italian accent became more pronounced, as it always did when Madame was annoyed. ‘She knows zere is a re’earsal zis morning. What time did she come in?’
There was a silence. Then Sally Castle said, in clear tones, ‘She didn’t. She stayed out all night.’
Rose waited for the explosion but it did not come. Instead Madame said, ‘Very well, we rehearse without her. We cannot keep Mlle Tereskova waiting any longer. Places, please! Thank you, maestro!’
From the pit the company pianist began the opening bars of Chopin’s Les Sylphides. Rose lifted her arms and let the music take her. Nothing gave her so much pleasure as dancing. Ever since she could remember it had been as natural and as essential to her as breathing. She sometimes felt that the urge to dance had been woven into her muscles while she was still in the womb; that her nerves were so attuned to the sound of music that at the first notes of it her limbs automatically began to move to its rhythm. Ballet, tap or modern, waltz, tango, samba or can-can – it made no difference. She loved them all. Only one person had the power to destroy that innate delight, and that person was Irena Tereskova.
To begin with the five girls of the corps de ballet were alone on stage. Then came the moment when they formed a diagonal line from upstage left, extending their arms in welcome to the principal dancer. As Tereskova floated into view Rose felt a catch at her throat. The woman might be past her best but the graceful line of her arms and the regal carriage still bore witness to the unsurpassed perfection of her training. Tereskova had once danced with the Bolshoi and Rose could understand her frustration at finding herself reduced to performing in a seaside Concert Party. What she could not understand, or forgive, was the fact that the prima ballerina chose to take out her irritation on one member of the corps be ballet, namely Rose Taylor.
The ballerina drifted like thistledown to the centre of the stage and the corps rearranged themselves into an attentive semicircle. So far, Rose thought, so good. Then Tereskova began to circle the stage in a serious of whirling pirouettes. Rose watched her progress with growing alarm. She was going too wide, every revolution bringing her nearer to the edge of the stage and the girls who stood around it. Nearer, in effect, to Rose. She had just time to register the fact before something, whether it was an elbow or a foot she had no idea, hit her in the small of the back with the force of kicking mule and pitched her forward onto her face. For a moment she was aware of nothing except the stunning blow and a sharp pain in her left leg.
Sitting up, she saw that blood was oozing through her tights from a long cut. Behind her, now that her head had cleared, she realised that all hell had broken loose. Tereskova was screaming at the top of her voice in Russian and Madame was shouting over her in pure East End cockney.
‘Rose, you stupid, clumsy girl! Why don’t you look what you’re doing? Irena! Irena, my dear, are you all right?’ She rushed across the stage and tried to help the ballerina to her feet. ‘Are you hurt? Shall I send for a doctor? Somebody bring a chair for Mademoiselle Tereskova!’
The dancer shook her off and stood erect. ‘No doctor!’ she said. Her voice was huskily dramatic and her words heavily accented. ‘I do not need a doctor. I need to work with professionals. With real ballerinas! Not with these clumsy elephants you call ballet dancers.’
Madame turned on Rose, who was still sitting on the floor hugging her up-drawn leg.
‘What were you doing, you stupid girl? Why didn’t you keep out of the way?’
‘Please, Madame,’ Rose struggled to suppress tears of pain and anger at the injustice, ‘I didn’t move! Perhaps Mlle. Tereskova caught her foot in an uneven board or something.’
‘Uneven board!’ sneered Tereskova. ‘That girl deliberately obstructed me. I will not have her on the stage with me. If she appears, then I do not!’
‘Of course, of course. Whatever you want, my dear,’ cooed Dolores. ‘Now let me take you back to your dressing room. Can I get you a brandy?’
‘Excuse me, Madame.’
The voice came from the darkened auditorium, deep, resonant, bringing to Rose’s distracted mind an image of warm brown velvet. She peered across the footlights but against their glare she could only make out a hazy silhouette. The man seemed to be quite tall and, for all its depth, the voice sounded young.
Madame advanced to the front of the stage. ‘Yes? Who are you? What do you want?’
‘Richard Stevens, Madame. You auditioned me yesterday. Forgive me for butting in, but I think it’s the other young lady who needs some assistance.’
‘What?’
‘I saw what happened. It wasn’t her fault. And now I think she really is hurt.’
Madame leaned forward across the footlights and when she spoke her voice was low and tremulous with fury.
‘Mr Stevens! You are very young, and you have a great deal to learn! In future you will please not interfere between me and my dancers. That is all I have to say to you!’ She turned back to the others. ‘Clear the stage. Rose, get that cut cleaned up and get someone to put a plaster on it. I will talk to you later. Irena, come. You must rest. It will not happen again, I promise you.’
Tereskova shoved her aside with a petulant gesture and stalked off stage. Madame was about to follow her when a door at the back of the auditorium was flung open and light footsteps raced down the centre aisle. A slight, raven-haired girl ran across the bridge that spanned the orchestra pit and threw herself dramatically at the older woman’s feet.
‘Oh, Madame, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to be late for rehearsal. Please forgive me! I’ll be changed in a minute and I’ll never be late again. I promise!’
Madame stared down at the young face upturned towards her. Her lips tightened and her nostrils flared.
‘Blame me, Madame, not Priscilla. I assure you I am the real culprit.’
The ballet mistress’s expression changed and softened. She looked out into the auditorium, her scarlet lips breaking into a seductive smile.
‘Sir Lionel! How delightful! Have you come to watch us rehearse?’
Rose looked down the aisle as the man addressed in this purring tone came into the reflected light from the stage.
‘Sadly not, Madame, merely to return my ward to your care and beg your forgiveness on her behalf. The party went on rather late, and of course none of us could leave until the Royal Party did. I hadn’t the heart to wake Prissy this morning and I had no idea that there was a rehearsal until she told me. We motored down at breakneck speed. I do hope we haven’t kept you waiting too long.’
‘Of course not, Sir Lionel. I quite understand. After all, there are certain obligations where Royalty is concerned.’ Madame turned to the girl who was still at her feet. ‘Go and change, Priscilla. And be quick!’
‘Oh, thank you, Madame, thank you!’ The girl jumped to her feet, blew a kiss towards her guardian, bestowed a radiant smile on Madame and ran off stage. As she passed, Rose heard Sally hiss,
‘Stuck up little bitch!’
Madame returned her attention to the rest of her corps de ballet. ‘Go and change. We have still to practice the tap routine. Last night’s performance was a disaster!’
Pamela and Lucy, two of the girls, helped Rose to her feet.
‘Who is he, Rose? Who’s your knight in shining armour?’ Pamela whispered in her ear.
‘How should I know?’ she responded. ‘I’ve never met him.’
‘Oh, come on! You dark horse! You must have.’
‘I haven’t! Honestly, I don’t know any more than you do. But if Madame auditioned him he must be joining the company.’ The thought produced a quiver of excitement in the pit of her stomach. She quelled it by reminding herself that the physical presence of her rescuer would probably be nothing like the expectations aroused by his voice.
‘That bitch Tereskova!’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘She did it deliberately.’
‘I know,’ Rose said unhappily. ‘She’s been picking on me ever since the season started. You must all be browned off with being dragged in for extra rehearsals because Tereskova’s complained about me again. I just don’t understand why she does it. Why me?’
‘That’s easy,’ Sally replied with her usual confidence. ‘She’s jealous, that’s all.’
‘But why of me?’
‘Because you’re good and you’re fifteen years younger than she is. You’re what she was fifteen years ago and never can be again.’
‘Oh no!’ Rose protested. ‘I’ll never be as good as her.’
Sally looked at her with friendly contempt. ‘Rose,’ she said, ‘you’re a dope!’
In the dressing room Pamela, always a practical girl, hunted out the First Aid box and offered to attend to Rose’s leg but Rose declined. If something was going to hurt, she preferred to do it herself. She peeled off her tights and was relieved to see that the wound was not as serious as she had thought. There was a long cut, caused by a jagged splinter, but it was shallow and would soon heal. She gritted her teeth and dabbed it with iodine, then covered it with a plaster and turned her attention to her tights. They had suffered more damage than her leg had. Ruefully, she wondered whether, if she soaked them to remove the bloodstain and mended them carefully, they would still be wearable. She simply could not afford to buy a new pair.
Her mind wandered, returning to the owner of that remarkably attractive voice. Who was he and why had he intervened on her behalf? Richard, he had said his name was. If he was joining the company, in what capacity? She remembered that shadowy outline and wondered if it was possible that the face might, after all, match the voice.
Sally’s voice broke into her thoughts.
‘There isn’t going to be a war! I mean, look at Hitler, with that silly little moustache and that funny walk! You can’t take him seriously, can you?’
‘I dunno. Will says there is. He says he’s going to join the RAF. He fancies himself flying a plane. I think he’s quite looking forward to it.’
‘Well, he’s going to be disappointed, take it from me. What do you think, Rose?
Rose withdrew her attention from the tights and looked around the poky dressing room. Sally was sitting in the washbasin, dangling her long shapely legs and carefully painting her nails. Her sister, Lucy, was slumped in the only easy chair in the room, idly turning the pages of a magazine, while Pamela sat at the table, patching a pair of black satin shorts. All three were blonde, though Rose knew very well that in the case of the Castle sisters the colour owed more to the peroxide bottle than to nature. She sometimes wondered if being the only brunette made a difference inside her head, as well as outside.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just pray there won’t be a war. My old Dad never got over what happened to him in the last one.’
‘I tell you, it’ll be all right.’ Sally finished painting her nails and waved a hand in the air to dry them. ‘I’m fed up with sitting here! Johnny was going to take me out for lunch. We were going to that new Roadhouse out on the Brighton road. Hasn’t the old bat finished with us yet?’
‘She said she wanted to go over the tap routine as well,’ Lucy pointed out.
‘Why, for heavens sake? We’ve been doing it for weeks.’
‘Oh, come on, fair’s fair,’ Pamela put in. ‘We were all over the place last night.’
‘Well, it’s not my fault if that silly cow Priscilla can’t keep in step, is it?’ snapped Maddy. ‘Where is she anyway?’
‘Goodness knows,’ Lucy said. ‘Taken herself off to get changed in private somewhere. I reckon she thinks she’s too good for the likes of us.’
‘Well, let’s face it,’ Rose said, ‘we haven’t exactly made her welcome, have we?’
The door was flung open and Barbara Willis, the fifth member of the chorus, appeared on the threshold.
‘Hey, girls, guess what! That chap who spoke up for Rose is the new baritone! He’s up on stage rehearsing with Monty.’
‘Let me guess!’ Sally said. ‘He’s short, fat and forty.’
‘Wrong! He’s tall and dark, and ever so sophisticated looking.’
‘How old, Babe?’ Lucy asked.
Barbara was the youngest member of the troupe and looked as if she should still have been at school – an impression that was emphasised at that moment by her wide-eyed, breathless excitement. She broke into giggles, ignoring Lucy.
‘You’ll never believe it. Monty’s got him acting as his stooge!’
‘How old is he, Babe?’ Lucy reiterated.
‘Oh, about twenty-three or four.’
The two girls by the table rose as one and moved towards the door but before they could reach it Sally had slid from her perch on the washbasin and drawn herself up to her full height.
‘Stand aside, kids!’ she demanded in husky tones. ‘This one’s mine!’
As the other girls crowded out of the room Rose hesitated. Her leg was hurting, but something harder to define held her back. This man, she told herself, couldn’t be as gorgeous as Babe made out – or if he was he was bound to be married. And anyway, if he did happen to be available Sally would soon have her claws into him. Rose had nothing against Sally. On the whole they got on very well. But she was not going to lower herself to compete with her for a man’s attention. On the other hand …. She heaved herself out of her chair and hobbled in the direction of the pass door leading to the auditorium.

Richard Stevens was not enjoying himself. It was the first day of his first professional engagement and he was aware that he had already put his foot in it. He should have had the sense to keep his mouth shut but he had never been able to stay quiet when he saw an injustice or thought that someone was being bullied. It had got him into many a fight at school, to the disgust of his fiercely proper mother. And when he remembered the girl’s face as she looked back at him, he knew he would do exactly the same if he had the chance to wind back the clock. That face! He couldn’t get it out of his mind. Heart-shaped, within a frame of soft dark hair and dominated by huge violet eyes. Violet? Yes, that was definitely the right word. He had not realised that eyes could be that colour before.
He forced his mind back to the job in hand. He had made an enemy of the manager’s wife and now, to top it all off, he found he was expected to act as straight man to her comedian husband. He couldn’t afford to make a mess of this, too.
‘I say, I say, I say!’
‘What? What do you want?’
‘My dog don’t eat meat!’
‘Why don’t – why doesn’t your dog eat meat?’
‘I don’t give my dog no meat.’
‘I don’t wish to know that! Kindly leave the stage. Ladies and gentlemen, for my next number …’
‘I say, I say, I say!’
‘Now what is it?’
‘No, no, no, no, no! Not like that!’
Richard stopped and blinked uncomfortably at the short, square, frog-faced man facing him. ‘Sorry, Mr Prince?’
‘You’re supposed to be angry. I’m interrupting your spot, remember? Look, I know this is all new to you but try to put a bit of life into it.’
‘Sorry, Mr Prince,’ Richard said again.
‘OK. Let’s try it again. I say, I say, I say!’
‘Now what is it?’ Richard allowed the frustration and anxiety he was feeling to drive the words.
The little man clasped his hands to his head. ‘It can’t go on! It can’t go on!’
‘What can’t?’ Richard asked in some alarm. This was not what was written in his script.
‘This hat – it’s too small!’ Monty chortled with delight at his stooge’s expression. ‘Now you’re getting the idea.’
‘I suppose so.’ Richard looked doubtfully at the script in his hand. ‘Excuse me, Mr Prince …’
‘Well, what is it? Speak up, laddie!’
‘I don’t mean to be rude but – do people actually laugh at this kind of thing?’
‘Laugh! Do they laugh? Of course they laugh. Do you think I could have made a career in variety all these years if people didn’t laugh at my jokes? Would I be where I am today, running my own company, if people didn’t find me funny? Do they laugh, indeed! Hey, you, down there. How do audiences react to my jokes?’
‘They laugh, Mr Prince,’ said a lugubrious male voice from the orchestra pit.
‘Laugh? They’re bloody hysterical! Now, where were we? Never mind, laddie. It’s easy to see you’re new to this game. Let’s try again, shall we? From the top. I say, I say ….Yes? What do you want?’
The spotty youth who doubled as call-boy and general dogsbody had edged reluctantly onto the side of the stage.
‘Excuse me, Mr Prince. Madame wants a word with you.’
‘Well, tell her I’m busy. I’m rehearsing with Mr Stevens here.’
The boy hesitated. Finally he decided to opt for the lesser of two evils.
‘She said it was urgent.’
Now Monty appeared to hesitate, too. And, like the boy, he decided discretion was the better part of valour.
‘Oh, very well! Tell her I’m coming.’ He turned to the new man. ‘Sorry about this, laddie. Tell you what, why don’t you run over your songs with Merry here while I’m gone? I’ll see you later. And don’t worry …’ he patted his arm reassuringly, ‘you’ll be fine. Fine!’
He waddled off the stage, followed by the boy, and Richard turned and peered down into the orchestra pit. All he could see was a shadowy figure behind the piano.
‘Got your dots, old boy?’ said the voice.
‘My what?’
The figure detached itself from the piano and came forward. In the reflection from the footlights Richard saw a tall, willowy young man with soft brown hair cut so that a long lock fell forward over his forehead.
‘Your dots,’ he repeated. ‘Your music.’
‘Oh! Yes, here somewhere.’ Richard retrieved his music case from the wings and extracted several pieces of sheet music. As he leaned across the footlights with them the pianist reached up a hand.
‘By the way, I’m Guy Merryweather. Generally known as Merry.’
The introduction was made in such a mournful tone that Richard had difficulty in suppressing a laugh. ‘Richard,’ he replied, shaking hands. ‘Richard Stevens.’
‘Welcome to the Fairbourne Follies, Richard. And there was never an outfit more aptly named!’
Richard laughed. ‘It can’t be that bad. I’m looking forward to it.’
‘This your first professional job?’
Richard hesitated and then decided in favour of honesty. ‘Yes, it is. I only got back to England a couple of months ago. I think I’ve been very lucky.’
‘You do?’ Merry lifted his eyebrows satirically. ‘Back from where?’
‘Italy. I’ve been training with a singing teacher in Milan.’
The pianist’s eyes widened. ‘Milan? My word! What are you doing slumming it here? You ought to be singing oratorio with some worthy northern choral society.’
‘No thanks!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘I had enough of them to last me a lifetime before I went away. I want to see life, have a bit of fun!’
‘So you came to Fairbourne?’ Merry surveyed him with an expression of mingled pity and amusement. Then he turned his attention to the sheets of music. ‘Well, let’s see, what have we got here? Ridi, Pagliacci; Don Carlos; the Toreador’s song.’ He looked up at Richard and pursed his lips. ‘Look, duckie, it’s the end of the pier, not bloody Glyndebourne!’
‘You think it’s too heavy?’ Richard queried. ‘But Mr Prince told me it was a very …’
‘A very high class show!’ Merry concluded for him. ‘Oh yes. That’s what he likes to think – and that, basically, is why it’s losing money.’
‘Is it?’ Richard said with some alarm.
‘Why do you think your predecessor quit?’
‘Hugh Evans? Mr Prince said they had an artistic disagreement.’
‘Oh, very artistic! Hugh’d been promised a share of the profits. When he discovered there weren’t any he got raging drunk and he and Monty had a very public showdown in the King’s Head. Sorry to disillusion you.’
‘Oh,’ Richard said, flatly. Then, ‘You don’t think these are suitable, then?’
‘Well, let’s have a look.’ Merry produced a sudden, unexpected grin. ‘Cheer up! It’s early in the season. Things will improve. Who knows, by September you could be a star.’ He returned his attention to the music. ‘You need two different programmes. You know – two different shows a week. So, keep the Toreador for one and Pagliacci for the other and chuck the Don Carlos.’
‘What would you suggest instead?’ Richard asked. He suddenly felt very helpless.
‘D’you know ‘Let the Punishment Fit the Crime’ from the Mikado? That always goes down well.’
‘Oh, yes. Good idea.’
‘How about Old Father Thames?’
‘Yes. But I haven’t got the music.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I can play that with my eyes shut. Let’s concentrate on those two and the Toreador’s song for tonight. We’ll sort out the rest another day. What else are you doing, apart from being Monty’s stooge?’
‘I’ve got to do a couple of duets with the tenor – er, Franklyn Bell? I haven’t met him yet.’
‘You will, when he gets out of the pub. That’ll be the Pearl Fishers and the Bold Gendarmes. Let’s concentrate on your solos for now. OK? Which one do you want to start with?’
‘I don’t mind.’ Richard hesitated, then added. ‘Look, I’m really awfully grateful.’
Merry, on his way back to the piano, turned and threw him another of his sardonic, amused looks. ‘Pure self-preservation, I assure you. I’m closer to the audience than you are if they start throwing things!’

Seated in the stalls, hugging her injured leg, Rose studied the man who had come to her rescue. For once, Barbara had not exaggerated. He was tall and dark, with hair that waved slightly and the build of an athlete rather than a singer. Singers, in Rose’s experience, tended to run to fat. The details of his face were hard to make out at this range but she could see dark eyes under strongly marked brows and a curving mouth that seemed to smile easily. She noticed that his laugh was warm and unaffected. From a little further along the row she heard Sally whisper to her sister.
‘Dishy! But talk about wet behind the ears! He won’t last long.’
Merry played the opening bars of Old Father Thames and then, for the first time, Rose heard what that voice was capable of. Smooth as honey but with the depth, the surging power, of the great river itself. She sat back in her seat and stared, transfixed. Richard was no longer the diffident boy he had appeared earlier. Alone in the pool of light, he had flung back his shoulders and lifted his chin and the voice seemed to pour effortlessly from somewhere deep in his chest, filling the theatre.
At the end of the song Merry said, ‘Bravo! That was splendid. Now, let’s have a look at the Bizet, shall we?’
Abruptly, Richard was transformed again. Rose did not know much about opera, but everyone was familiar with the Toreador’s song and here was the bullfighter, in all his arrogant self-confidence, swaggering about the stage. She was aware, too, that Merry was responding to the performance. Though she had no formal musical training, a lifetime of dancing had made her sensitive to the way it was played and she knew already that Merry was far too talented to waste himself as Musical Director of an end-of-the-pier concert party. He always gave of his best during performances, however trivial the pieces, and the boys in the band worshipped him, but in rehearsal she was often aware that his mind was elsewhere. Now, however, he was fully alert, responding to every slight change of tempo and nuance of expression. When the aria finished there was a moment of complete silence. Then Merry said,
‘Bravo, indeed! You’ve got a very fine voice. What the hell are you doing wasting it on the sort of audiences we get?’
It occurred to Rose that she should not be eavesdropping, but she, too, wanted to know the answer.
Richard shrugged and smiled. ‘Nobody believes an Englishman can sing opera.’
‘Have you auditioned for any opera companies?’
‘Oh yes. You know what it’s like. Don’t ring us, we’ll ring you. The Carl Rosa people said they might have a place for me next season.’
‘They didn’t snap you up at once? They’re mad!’ Merry declared. ‘But what’s new about that? Never mind. Their loss is Fairbourne’s gain. Now, what next?’
Lucy Castle nudged Rose. ‘Come on. We ‘d better get changed. Madame’s bound to want us in a minute.’
Moving cautiously so as not to betray their presence, the five girls slipped out of their seats and crept back to the dressing room.
When his rehearsal was over Richard, too, made his way back to his dressing room. He was about to enter when he was arrested by raised voices from behind a door labelled ‘Miss St Clair. Mr Franklyn Bell’.
A woman’s voice exclaimed furiously, ‘You know perfectly well the stupid girl’s mad about you. And you’re leading her on because you think her guardian might be useful to your career.’
A man’s voice replied, ‘It’s our career, remember!’
‘How long is that going to last? You married me because it seemed like a good career move, and I’ve no doubt you’ll divorce me just as quickly if you decide you can do better on your own.’
A brief pause. Then, ‘Well, if you believe that there’s no point in my saying anything else. You can be a spiteful bitch, Isabel.’
On the last words the speaker approached the door and Richard started guiltily and hastily turned away. Bell came out and slammed the door behind him. His face, as he left the room, was contorted in a furious grimace, but as soon as he saw Richard it immediately assumed a mask of suave courtesy. He was in his middle thirties, of medium height and, though he was not fat, there was a soft fleshiness about him that suggested he could very easily become so. With his sandy hair starting to thin at the temples he seemed an unlikely Casanova but then Richard noticed the sensuous curve of the mouth and the cocky set of the head and changed his mind.
‘Hello, are you the new boy? I’m Franklyn Bell. How do you do?’
Richard shook the proffered hand. ‘How do you do? Richard Stevens.’
‘Glad to meet you, Richard. Monty came back full of enthusiasm from your audition yesterday. It’s good of you to help us out at short notice.’
‘Oh, not at all. I’m glad of the opportunity.’
‘Look, we need to run through a couple of our duets sometime. Nothing complicated. I’m sure you’ll know them already.’
‘Yes, of course’, Richard said eagerly. ‘But I think the stage and the pianist are occupied right now.’
From above came the rhythmic rattle and thud of tap shoes and the sound of Merry thumping out a popular song. Bell cocked an ear and grinned.
‘Yes, it wouldn’t do to try and interrupt dear old Dolly.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘About twelve o’clock suit you?’
‘Fine.’
‘Right. I’m going out for a quick one. Fancy joining me?’
‘Oh no, thanks. Bit early for me. And I’ve got some lines to learn for Mr Prince.’
‘Oh well, mustn’t keep you from that! See you later, then. Cheerio!’
”Bye.’ Richard watched him go down the passage towards the stage door, setting his trilby hat at a jaunty angle and whistling softly under his breath. Then he turned away to his own room. There were three names on the door: Hugh Evans, his predecessor; Guy Merryweather; and ‘Mr Mysterioso’. Merry was still at the piano and the only evidence of the existence of the third person was an opera cloak and a top hat hanging in a corner, so he had the place to himself. He sat for a moment speculating about the identity of Mr Mysterioso. He knew that, as well as sharing a dressing room, all three of them were lodged in the same boarding house in the town. However, he had arrived the previous evening after everyone had left for the theatre and that morning he had eaten his breakfast and gone out before either of the others was up. He pictured the magician as short and plump, with a black moustache.
Richard collected his thoughts and forced himself to concentrate on learning the script that Monty Prince had given him – not that it required any great intellectual effort. Nevertheless, he had a feeling that he would get short shrift from his employer if he was anything less than word perfect by tonight. Tonight! He could scarcely believe that tonight he would stand on a stage and make his first professional appearance. He thought of his parents and his aunts and uncles, in their high stiff collars sitting on their high, stiff chairs in their stiff, respectable drawing rooms back in Didsbury. What would they think of Monty Prince and his Fairbourne Follies? He had not yet had the courage to write to his mother and tell her that he was going to work in a Concert Party.
It was just before one o-clock when he set off back to his digs for lunch. He was feeling a little more confident about the performance that evening after his rehearsal with Merry, though he was less than happy about his duets with Franklyn Bell. The tenor had sauntered through their numbers without bothering to sing above mezzo voce, leaving Richard with the impression of a pleasant, though rather weak, lyric voice and a somewhat erratic sense of tempo. When Richard had suggested that they go over them again he had waved a hand dismissively and headed for the exit.
‘Don’t worry, old boy. It’ll be fine. Got every confidence in you.’
Richard wished he could have returned the compliment.
When he entered the front room of Mrs Parish’s boarding house, it was empty except for one figure seated in an armchair. He was reading a newspaper that concealed every part of him except for a pair of highly polished shoes and the lower half of some sharply-creased flannels. Richard hesitated in the doorway and cleared his throat. The newspaper was immediately lowered and he found himself looking into the most beautiful male face he had ever seen. Beauty was not a term Richard normally thought of in connection with other men, but it sprang unbidden to his mind in that instant. The bone structure – straight nose, well-defined cheek bones, firm jaw – might have served as a model for a classical sculpture, except that the curving mouth was perhaps a fraction too wide for perfection. The eyes were a startling forget-me-not blue, fringed by long lashes the colour of dark honey and the thick, expertly cut hair was a shade or two lighter, like a cornfield just before harvest.
The young man rose to his feet at once, his lips parting in an engaging smile to reveal even white teeth.
‘You must be old Hugh’s replacement. Good to meet you! I’m Felix Lamont.’
Richard shook the extended hand and automatically repeated his own name. ‘You’re Mr Mysterioso?’ he added, gazing at his companion.
Lamont chuckled and lifted an eyebrow. ‘Not what you expected, eh? Mr Mysterioso, Illusionist extraordinaire, at your service! My card.’ He flicked his wrist and a small square of pasteboard appeared between his fingers. Richard took it, bemused.
‘Thanks.’
‘Sit down, old boy,’ Lamont invited, indicating an easy chair opposite his own. ‘Mrs P’ll be in with lunch in a minute.’ Richard obeyed. ‘So, tell me,’ Lamont resumed, ‘what brings you to the flesh pots of Fairbourne on Sea?’
There was something about his smile that invited confidences and Richard told him about his thwarted attempts to get work as an opera singer and how he had been on the verge of giving in and going home when Monty Prince’s offer had come.
‘Ah,’ his companion said with a laugh, ‘another fugitive from the parental nest.’
‘Why?’ Richard asked. ‘Are you running away from home too?’
A shadow passed across the handsome face in front of him and Lamont waved the question aside. He turned his head as the door opened to admit Guy Merryweather. ‘Oh, we’re all running away from something or other. Aren’t we, Merry?’
For a moment the two men’s eyes met and Richard had an impression of some unspoken communication, almost a challenge. Then Merry said lightly, ‘Oh yes. The only difference is some of us are running faster than others.’
Mrs Parish followed Merry into the room bearing a tray, on which were three bowls of thick, grey soup.
‘Come along, gents,’ she admonished them. ‘Don’t let it get cold. Now, you make sure you eat it all up,’ she added, tapping Richard on the shoulder. ‘I know you theatrical gentlemen need a good meal midday.’
‘I should take her advice,’ Felix said softly as the door closed behind her. ‘You’ll get nothing more than a sliver of ham and a limp lettuce leaf after the show, I can promise you.’
A slim black cat had followed the landlady into the room and as they took their places at the table it positioned itself next to Merry, neck outstretched, tail quivering, obviously intent on springing up onto his lap. With a single, easy movement Felix rose and scooped the animal up.
‘Come on, puss, you know you’re not welcome in here’ he said, running a caressing hand over its head and back. ‘Why do you always make a beeline for old Merry, when you know he can’t abide you?’ He decanted the cat into the passage and returned to his seat.
Richard looked at Merry curiously. ‘Are you one of these people who have a phobia about cats?’
‘Not a phobia, an allergy,’ Merry replied. He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘They bring on my asthma.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Richard said. ‘I didn’t realise you were asthmatic.’
Merry made a dismissive gesture. ‘It’s not a real problem. I’m fine as long as I avoid animals and dusty places. It’s one reason why I like it here. The sea air suits me.’
The food turned out to taste better than it looked though, like the soup, the stewed lamb and cabbage seemed to have been boiled to a uniform grey. As they ate Felix and Merry entertained Richard with anecdotes about the members of the company. There was Madame, whose great claim to fame was that she had once danced with Diaghelev’s Ballet Russes.
‘Only once, in the back row of the chorus,’ Felix said wickedly. ‘Then he found out she had two left feet. Of course, Dolores da Ponte’s not her real name. She was born plain Dolly Bridges. ‘
‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘That accounts for the extraordinary accent.’
‘Italo-Spanish Cockney?’ grinned Felix. ‘Marvellous, isn’t it? Then there’s La Tereskova…’
‘Now, she really can dance,’ Merry remarked, ‘or she could once. She’s getting a bit past it now, poor old thing. Trained at the Bolshoi -a refugee from Comrade Stalin.’
‘Can’t think why,’ Felix commented. ‘I should have thought even he would think twice about crossing La Tereskova. What a temper!’
‘What was my predecessor like?’ Richard asked.
‘A bit like that character from the Merchant of Venice,’ Merry said unexpectedly. ‘Vile in the evening when he was drunk, and most vile in the morning when he was sober.’
‘Oh dear,’ Richard grinned, secretly relieved. ‘Tell me about Franklyn Bell and – what’s his wife’s stage name?’
‘Isabel St Clair,’ Felix said. ‘There’s nothing much to tell except that she’s a saint and he’s a swine. Frank two-times her with every pretty girl he comes across – specially if he thinks she’s got money or influence. Right now he’s making a play for little Priscilla Vance.’
‘Is that his real name, Frank?’ Richard asked.
‘Oh yes. He adopted Franklyn just to make it a bit more memorable. And she’s really Sinclair, of course.’
‘Is anyone in this profession exactly what they seem to be?’ Richard asked.
Felix sat back and put his napkin aside. He glanced at Merry. ‘Oh, when it comes down to it we’re all performers, aren’t we, Merry?’
Once again Merry met his eyes. All through the meal Richard had been aware of a tension in the atmosphere, like an electrical charge, in spite of their light hearted banter.
‘Of course’ Merry replied. ‘Only some of us don’t take off our make up when we come off stage.’
Felix pushed back his chair and rose.
‘Well, I must love you and leave you. Well, leave you anyway. There’s a rather attractive young lady waiting for me and I’d hate to disappoint her.’ He moved to the door. ‘See you in the theatre.’
He went out and they heard the front door slam. Merry got up and picked up the newspaper Felix had discarded. Richard went to the window. Below him Felix was getting into a bright blue, open topped Lagonda.
‘Wow! Is that his?’ Richard exclaimed.
Merry joined him and watched as Felix drove away, his corn-gold hair blowing back from that stunning profile.
‘Oh yes,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s his all right.’
Something in his tone made Richard look at him but his face was expressionless.
‘Is there anything wrong?’ he asked.
The other man looked at him blankly for a moment. Then he slapped the folded newspaper into his chest and turned away to the door.
‘You could say that,’ he said.
Richard looked at the paper in his hands. The headline read,
WAR THREAT GROWS. HITLER DENOUNCES BRITISH DEFENCE PACT WITH POLAND.

CHAPTER TWO

The orchestra was tuning up. Merry, unexpectedly elegant in white tie and tails, passed Richard in the dressing room corridor and patted his arm lightly.
‘Break a leg, old boy!’
Richard stared after him. A joke, he supposed, but hardly in the best of taste! The callboy passed him, shouting,
‘Overture and beginners, please.’
The door of the ladies dressing room opened and the six girls of the chorus tumbled out dressed in sailor tops, navy shorts and tap shoes, ready for the opening number. The dark one called Rose paused beside him and laid a hand briefly on his arm.
‘Thanks for standing up for me this morning. But you mustn’t do it, you know. Madame can’t stand anyone interfering.’
Her voice was soft, with the faintest hint of cockney, and in her stage make-up her eyes looked larger than ever. He said,
‘But it wasn’t fair. You were the one who was hurt.’
She laughed briefly. ‘What’s fair in this job? You just have to get on with it.’
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Can you dance?’
She grimaced slightly. ‘I’ll manage. Doctor Theatre’s a great healer, you know.’ She glanced round to where the last of the troupe was disappearing up the stairs leading to the stage. ‘I must go.’
‘Good luck!’ he said.
Her eyes widened in horror. ‘You mustn’t say that! You never wish anyone luck when they’re going on stage. It’s – well, it’s bad luck.’
‘What should I say, then?’ he asked.
‘Break a leg!’ She giggled. ‘Daft, isn’t it?’
‘Oh!’ said Richard, light dawning. ‘OK then. Break a leg – Rose, isn’t it?’
She smiled at him and touched his arm again, then turned and ran down the corridor after the others. As the door to the stage swung open he heard the orchestra strike up ‘I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside’ and caught his breath. The show had started.
Unable to stay in the dressing room he went up and lurked in the wings, watching with fascination as the girls tapped their way through the opening number. The applause at the end was enthusiastic, but he had the impression that the auditorium was far from full. It was stiflingly hot on the stage and Richard felt as if he had suddenly grown out of his clothes. Like Merry, he was wearing the regulation uniform of white tie and tails. He ran his finger round inside the tight collar and hoped that the greasepaint had not run down over it from his face. He was sweating profusely and longing for fresh air, but he was on next and he dared not leave the stage.
Monty gave him a terrific build up in his introduction and somehow his legs carried him out into the glare of the lights. Mercifully, out on the stage there seemed to be more air and he could dimly see Merry behind the piano. The first notes of the introduction to Old Father Thames floated up to him and he heard a ripple of approval from the audience. He filled his lungs and began to sing.
The volume of the applause that followed him off stage at the end of his first two solo numbers was extremely gratifying, but equally pleasing was the fact that Rose was waiting for him in the wings.
‘Oh, you were wonderful!’ she whispered. ‘You’ve got the most beautiful voice I ever heard.’
‘Thank you,’ he whispered back. ‘Look, I was wondering …’
The orchestra struck up again. ‘I must go!’ Rose exclaimed. ‘I’m on.’
Richard went back to the dressing room feeling a great deal happier. So happy, indeed, that as he entered he was whistling the Toreador’s song. Felix, who was sitting with his feet up reading a book, looked up in alarm.
‘For God’s sake, you mustn’t do that! It’s frightfully bad luck to whistle in the dressing room. Go outside, turn round three times and spit. Then you can come back in.’
‘Oh, come on!’ Richard grinned.
‘Do it!’ Felix commanded.
Feeling very foolish, Richard did as he was told. He had just completed the ritual when the door of the ladies’ dressing room opened again and a girl he had never seen before came out. She was dressed in a replica of a man’s tailcoat and white tie, black satin shorts, fish net tights and very high-heeled shoes. Passing Richard she paused briefly, flashed him a look from beneath eyelashes heavy with mascara and murmured huskily,
‘Bravo, mon ami!’
Back in the dressing room Richard said, ‘Who’s the girl with the auburn hair?’
‘Cheekbones you could shave with and legs like a racehorse?’ Felix suggested.
‘That’s the one.’
‘That, old boy, is our soubrette, Chantal. You know, light comedy sketches and slightly naughty French songs.’ He blew on his fingernails and shook them, as if he had burnt his fingers. ‘Very dangerous. High explosive – to be handled with extreme care.’
‘Is she? French I mean. After what we were saying at lunchtime …’
Felix shrugged. ‘Who knows? This is the theatre, old boy. A place of romance and illusion. It doesn’t do to inquire too closely into the fantasies people choose to construct around themselves.’
‘No,’ Richard said, chastened. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
The rest of the first half went very well. Richard got through his spot with Monty Prince without fluffing his lines and, to his amazement, the audience really did laugh at the jokes. Then he stood in the wings and listened to Franklyn Bell and Isabel St Clair singing duets from Whitehorse Inn and The Merry Widow. He had to admit they were very good together. Their voices blended well and on stage they seemed to have a rapport that was apparently missing from their real lives.
During the interval he lingered in the wings to watch the stage crew setting up for Felix’s magic act, which involved a lot of complicated props. Felix, debonair in scarlet lined opera cape, was supervising. When everything was arranged to his satisfaction he came to where Richard stood.
‘Spying on my secrets, eh?’
‘Oh, no!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘I mean, I didn’t mean …’ he floundered into silence and Felix laughed.
‘Don’t worry. The stage crew know exactly what’s going on. They have to. Ask Uncle over there.’ He indicated a tall man with greying hair who was fiddling with a set of ropes hanging from the fly tower above the stage. ‘Have you met our stage manager?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Let me introduce you. Mike Williams, universally known as Uncle – though I hasten to add that has nothing whatever to do with his balls.’
‘What?’ Richard exclaimed.
Felix shook his head, laughing. ‘Uncle? The actor’s friend? Three brass balls?’
‘Oh! You mean a pawnbroker?’
‘Exactly. Mind you,’ Felix looked at him speculatively, ‘I don’t mind betting you’ve never seen the inside of a pawnbroker’s shop, have you.’
‘No,’ Richard admitted. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Stay in this job and you will, you will,’ Felix assured him.
The tall man turned to them, apparently satisfied with the adjustment of the ropes. ‘Take no notice,’ he said, his voice a pleasant West Country burr. ‘Any help you need with staging or lighting, I’m your man. Just don’t try to touch me for a loan at the end of the week.’ He smiled and held out his hand.
‘Thanks,’ Richard replied, shaking it. ‘I’ll remember that.’
Felix’s act was extremely popular and Richard could see why. Even from where he stood in the wings he was unable to see how some of the illusions were achieved but, more importantly than that, Felix had the gift of mesmerising the audience by the sheer force of his personality. Add to that his amazing good looks and it was not surprising that, when he asked for a young lady to volunteer to help with one of the tricks, he was almost trampled to death in the rush. He came off stage to the biggest ovation of the evening.
After that things started to go down hill. Richard was on next with Franklyn Bell. They began with the duet from the Pearl Fishers. It was a favourite of Richard’s and he let himself go, relishing the wonderful cadences of the music. After a few bars he realised something was wrong. Bell was shooting him furious sideways glances and his voice had lost its lyric quality and become strained, until on a high note it finally cracked. Already the audience had become restless and at this point there was some laughter and the first whistles and faint boos and one voice called ‘Get off!’ Somehow they finished the number and under cover of the applause Bell hissed,
‘Where do you think you are? The bloody Scala, Milan? Tone it down, for Chrissake!’
Richard realised with some embarrassment that Bell thought he had deliberately tried to drown him out. In the next song he was careful to keep his voice well below full power, while Bell made the most of the comic opportunities by mugging and winking at the audience. He got a few laughs but the applause as they left the stage was lukewarm at best and, before Richard could attempt to apologise or explain, the other man stalked off to his dressing room.
The comic sketch that followed between Monty and Chantal went down well enough but the next item on the bill was the ballet sequence. Richard, still watching from the wings, was enchanted by the ethereal picture of the girls in their white tutus but as soon as the curtain went up the audience became restive. The fidgeting and murmuring increased until, as one of the girls sank gracefully to the stage, some wag shouted,
‘What you doing down there, ducks? Nesting?’
There was a roar of laughter and then someone else called out,
‘Talk about Dying Swan. More like dying ducks in a thunder storm!’
Into the ensuing babble of laughter La Tereskova made her grand entrance.
‘Ooh blimey!’ said a falsetto voice. ‘Look at me, I’m the queen of the fairies!’
Disturbed in the middle of a pirouette the ballerina wobbled and made a clumsy recovery. There was a derisive cheer and more laughter. Blank faced, apparently oblivious, the dancers continued until someone shouted,
‘Get ’em off!’ and someone else chimed in with, ‘That’s it, girls! Get ’em off!’
Then suddenly, in the middle of an arabesque, La Tereskova let out a high-pitched yelp, staggered and ran off stage. The corps de ballet struggled to continue but Monty Prince was in the prompt corner, and ordered Mike Williams to bring the curtain down. Off stage La Tereskova could be heard screaming hysterically in Russian, amongst which Richard could distinguish the words, ‘Never! Never again! Such an insult! Animals!’
As the girls tumbled into the wings Richard was astonished to see that several of them were struggling to suppress paroxysms of laughter.
‘Did you see?’ Sally squeaked. ‘It was a peashooter. Got her right on the bum!’
‘Serves her right!’ her sister giggled. ‘Giving herself airs!’
Even Rose was having difficulty keeping her face straight. ‘We shouldn’t laugh. It was awful. Madame’ll be livid.’
Only Priscilla seemed genuinely distressed. Her eyes were full of tears.
‘It’s not funny! It’s not! It was dreadful. How can people behave like that?’
The stage manager’s voice cut through the babble. ‘Get out of the wings, you girls. I’ve got a show to run here. Go and get changed or you’ll be off for the finale.’
Monty, meanwhile, was on stage, doing a magnificent job of getting the audience back on side. Listening to him as he extemporised, exchanging good-humoured banter with the hecklers, Richard was swept with admiration. This was what people meant when they said Monty Prince was a ‘real old pro’. The show never really recovered its momentum but mercifully they had almost reached the end of the bill and the grand finale, an extravagantly costumed Arabian Nights fantasy, brought the curtain down to applause which, if not ecstatic, was at least encouragingly warm.
Changing out of his tails in the empty dressing room Richard felt suddenly flat. Felix, who was not required for the finale, had gone home and Merry was still out front with the band. He was not sure whether the evening had been a triumph or a disaster – or whether perhaps such violent swings from one to the other were a normal part of life on the stage. Merry came briskly into the room and slapped him on the shoulder.
‘Well done, old chap! You had them eating out of your hand.’
‘Not the second time,’ Richard said. ‘But we’d never rehearsed properly. I mean, if we’d had a chance to really think about the balance ..’
‘Not your fault, old man,’ Merry said. ‘Truth is Frank’s got a nice voice but it’s not up to the big stuff. He just doesn’t want to admit it. We’ll sort it out tomorrow. Don’t worry about it.’
The chatter of female voices in the passage recalled a happier thought to Richard’s mind. He slipped out of the door as the girls of the chorus left the dressing room. Sally was the first to spot him.
‘Ah-ha! Our knight in shining armour.’ She came close to him and he could smell the heavy perfume of stage make-up lingering about her. She gave him a broad, flirtatious smile. ‘We were very impressed this morning – very.’
He hesitated awkwardly. Some of the girls were already at the stage door, waiting, looking back. Rose was lingering just behind Sally, avoiding his eyes. He said,
‘Well, it just seemed all wrong to me, when Rose was the one who was really hurt.’ He stepped sideways around Sally and said to Rose, ‘How is your leg now? I hope dancing on it hasn’t made it worse.’
Her eyes flickered up to his. ‘Oh no. It’s all right. It was only a scratch really.’
Richard drew a deep breath. ‘Can I see you home?’
She looked at him for a moment in surprise, then she blushed. ‘We only live round the corner from you. We can all walk home together.’
‘Oh,’ Richard murmured, somewhat deflated. ‘Yes, all right.’
Rose said softly, ‘Madame doesn’t like us being alone with young men after dark. She says she has to think of our reputations.’
‘Oh!’ Richard repeated in a different tone. ‘Oh yes, I see. Well, can I come along with all of you?’
Sally tucked her hand into his arm. ‘Course you can.’ She smiled at him. ‘Come on, Rose.’
Out in the street Richard found himself the centre of a gaggle of girls, with Rose on one arm and Sally clinging to the other.
‘So, Richard,’ she demanded, ‘tell us all about yourself. What’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?’
Feeling slightly flustered, he tried to answer, while the other girls chipped in with further questions. ‘What’s it like in Italy?’ ‘Did you go to Venice?’ ‘What are the girls like in Italy, Richard?’ ‘Have you got an Italian girl friend? Bet he has!’ Only Rose walked quietly beside him, occasionally responding when he squeezed her arm by glancing up at him with those huge, violet eyes. When they reached the house where the girls were lodging Sally said archly,
‘I’m afraid we can’t ask you in. Old Ma Watson is paid by Madame to spy on us and there’ll be hell to pay if she knows we’ve had a man on the premises at this time of night.’
‘That’s all right,’ Richard responded with relief. ‘I quite understand.’ He looked at Rose. ‘Where will you be tomorrow morning?’
Rose pulled a face. ‘In the theatre, I should think. After tonight Madame is bound to call a rehearsal.’
Richard felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Tomorrow he would have to square things with Franklyn Bell. ‘I’ll have to be there too,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow then.’
She smiled up into his eyes. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be all right. Sleep well.’
Back in his digs Richard sat down alone to the predicted thin ham and limp lettuce. There was no sign of the blue Lagonda, so presumably Felix was out with his lady friend and Merry had not returned either. Earlier in the evening Richard had entertained thoughts of celebrating his first night in the professional theatre by sharing a drink with his new friends. He had even considered blowing the last of his money on a bottle of champagne. Instead, he went to bed with an empty stomach and a head full of conflicting emotions, a combination not designed to promote sleep.
In the other boarding house Rose, on her way back from the bathroom, paused outside the door of the room shared by Sally and her sister. There was obviously an argument in progress, which was nothing unusual. What had arrested her was the sound of her own name.
‘I don’t care how you put it,’ Lucy was saying. ‘He obviously fancies Rose and it’s not fair for you to try and muscle in.’
‘Who’s muscling in?’ Sally demanded. ‘I walked home with him – and Rose and all the rest of you. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Oh, come on!’ her sister exclaimed. ‘You were flirting like mad with him.’
‘Well, it’s a free country. He’s got a choice, hasn’t he?’
‘But it’s not fair on Rose,’ Lucy protested. ‘You know what she’s like. She’ll never stand up for herself. If she thinks it’s going to be a competition she’ll just back down and leave you to it.’
‘Well, tough luck!’ Sally’s tone was unrepentant. ‘All’s fair in love and war.’
‘But it’s not love, is it? You’re not in love with Richard. You just reckon you’ve got some sort of God given right to every attractive man who comes along.’
‘If you ask me,’ Sally spat out, ‘you’re just jealous. You fancy him yourself.’
‘That’s not true!’ Lucy cried. ‘I like him, I think he’s very attractive, but anyone can see he’s taken a real shine to Rose and I reckon she deserves a fair crack of the whip.’
Rose moved on hastily to the room she shared with Pamela. The other girl was already in bed and apparently asleep. Rose got into bed, too, but she felt too tense to lie down. Instead, she sat with her arms round her knees, staring into the darkness and hearing again Lucy’s voice. Was it true that she never stood up for herself? Certainly she hated arguments and preferred to let people have their own way rather than have any ‘unpleasantness’. After years of living at close quarters with volatile ‘artistes’ she had developed strategies to avoid confrontations, but she regarded this as a sign of strength rather than weakness. But this was different. Would she stand aside and let Sally steal a man she loved from her? She felt sure that the answer would be ‘no’ but the question did not arise. For goodness sake, she and Richard only just met! She remembered Lucy saying ‘anyone can see he’s taken a shine to Rose’. Could that be true? He certainly seemed to have singled her out but you couldn’t jump to conclusions after one evening. And what about her own behaviour? It was true that she found him attractive, but had she made it that obvious? Was it obvious to him? In the darkness she felt herself blush at the thought.
She lay down and pulled the sheets up to her chin. Well, if Sally was that keen on him, let her have him. Tomorrow they would see. If he was weak enough to let Sally snatch him, then he wasn’t the man for Rose Taylor. That much she was certain about.

As Rose had expected, they were summoned to the theatre at 10 o’clock the following morning. The auditorium, uncleaned since the night before, was littered with sweet papers and empty cigarette packets and smelt of smoke and sweaty feet. After the bright sunshine outside, the single working light over the stage scarcely seemed to penetrate the gloom. To her surprise it was not just the dancers who had been called. The entire company slumped in the first rows of the auditorium while Monty Prince stood at the front of the stage with his wife, rigidly upright in a straight-backed chair, beside him.
‘Well!’ Monty began. ‘Last night was a bloody disaster!’
‘Mr Prince!’ It was Priscilla’s voice, full of youthful anguish. ‘It’s not our fault if people can’t appreciate real artistry.’
‘I’m not just talking about the ballet,’ Monty said. ‘I’ll come to that in a minute. We lost the audience. Gawd knows there were few enough of them out there and once they start passing the word round there’ll be even fewer tonight. If we don’t do something about it there won’t be enough cash for you to pay your landladies, let alone any to spare for your own pockets. So we’ve got to pull our fingers out. Now, about the ballet. Madame has something to say.’
Dolores da Ponte rose magisterially to her feet. ‘I have something to tell you,’ she intoned. ‘It is a tragedy! Nothing less than a tragedy! Mlle Tereskova has left the company.’ A low murmur ran through the listeners, not all of it expressing unalloyed dismay. ‘I cannot blame her. The insult to an artiste of her calibre cannot be tolerated. But we are left without a prima ballerina.’
‘Rose could do it.’ Sally’s voice sent a shock wave round the company and caused Rose to rise halfway out of her seat.
‘What did you say?’ Madame ground out.
‘Rose could dance the solo part. She’s the best ballet dancer of all of us. She’d be lovely in that role.’
‘Sally!’ Rose exclaimed. ‘I couldn’t. Please, Madame, I couldn’t!’
‘Don’t worry!’ Madame’s phoney Italian accent became more pronounced at moments like this. ‘You will not be asked to. This is a role calling for a prima ballerina, not a jumped up chorus girl. We shall advertise for someone of the right calibre. Meanwhile, we shall substitute the can-can number we used last season. We rehearse as soon as this meeting is over.’
‘Oh, not the bloody can-can!’ Sally muttered sotto voce.
‘Right!’ Monty said briskly. ‘That’s settled. I need to have a word with Frank and you, Richard. And this afternoon I want all of you out on the Prom in costume, handing out playbills. Understood?’
There was a universal sigh of unwilling assent and the meeting began to break up. Rose was moving towards the dressing room when Richard caught up with her.
‘I think that was really unjust of Madame!’ he whispered hotly. ‘Sally’s right. You’re every bit as good as Tereskova.’
She looked at him and found herself smiling. ‘Oh yes? And you’re an expert on the ballet now, are you?’
‘No, but I’ve got eyes in my head,’ he returned.
Rose shook her head. ‘I couldn’t do it. Honest! I’m not star quality. I’m much happier as one of the girls. Anyway, it would only cause trouble.’
‘Mr Stevens! Have you got a minute?’ There was an edge of sarcasm to Monty Prince’s voice. Richard moved away towards the piano, where Franklyn Bell was waiting, and Rose went to get changed. Priscilla was waiting for her in the corridor.
‘Rose, why did you turn down the chance of taking over from Mlle. Tereskova? Most people would kill for an opportunity like that. I know I would.’
Rose paused. She knew that the other girls did not care for Priscilla, with her society background and her wealthy friends, but she found something endearing in her starry-eyed passion for anything to do with the theatre. It was a pity that she simply didn’t have what it took to make a successful career as a dancer. For one thing, she had started too late. Being a member of the chorus in a small concert party like this one was about as far as she was likely to get. Rose, on the other hand, had grown up dancing. She lived for it, and she knew she was good. Now she was asking herself why she had panicked when Sally suggested that she might take over the leading role. She smiled at Priscilla.
‘Well, apart from anything else, I knew Madame would never wear it. She’s such a snob! It has to be someone with a Russian name, or at least someone who has danced with one of the famous companies. But anyway, it wouldn’t work. When someone is promoted like that, over the other girls, it only causes bad feeling. I’d hate that.’
‘It’s not right,’ Priscilla declared. ‘You’re brilliant, Rose. You ought to stand up for yourself more.’
Rose moved past her into the dressing room. Why, she wondered, did people keep telling her to stand up for herself?

Richard, meanwhile, was having an uncomfortable few moments with Monty and Frank.
‘Now then, Richard,’ Monty began jovially. ‘We all realise you’re new to this game, so nobody’s blaming you for last night. You just have to remember you’re not in the Albert Hall. And it’s not a competition. Your voice is supposed to blend with Frank’s, not drown it out.’
Richard glanced at Bell, who was lolling against the piano with a condescending smile on his lips. He opened his mouth to say that the problem was Frank’s unwillingness to rehearse but then thought better of it. By the end of the conversation he found that his first duet with Frank had been cut, Frank had been given a solo as compensation and he had been instructed to drop the aria from I Pagliacci. It was all over before he had time to take in the fact that his programme had been emasculated, that he had lost two of the numbers that showed his voice to its best advantage. He considered going after Monty and protesting but decided it would do no good. He was here now, and it was a job of sorts – even though the prospect of getting his full wage, meagre though it was, seemed to hang in the balance.
He was about to leave when Merry joined him. On stage Madame was marshalling the six girls with imperious thumps of her cane.
‘What happened to you last night?’ Merry said.
‘Happened?’
‘You disappeared after the show. I thought you might come round to the pub with the rest of us.’
‘Pub? I didn’t know you were going. I walked home with the girls and then went to bed. I wondered where you were.’
‘Home with the girls, eh?’ Merry gave him one of his lop-sided grins. ‘You’re backing a loser there, you know. Madame rules those girls with a rod of iron. Absolutely no gentleman callers after the show and everyone in bed by eleven.’
‘So I discovered,’ Richard agreed ruefully.
‘Well, join us for a drink tonight,’ Merry said. ‘We always go to the Red Lion and then get some fish and chips on the way home. You don’t want people to think you’re stand-offish, do you?’
‘No, of course not!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘I’d like to join in.’
Madame called from the stage. ‘Mr Merryweather! The can-can, if you please!’
Merry turned to the piano with a wry grin and a shrug and Richard made his way back to the digs.

By two o’clock that afternoon the whole company was strung out along the promenade. Rose had chosen a Dresden Shepherdess costume, which she wore for one of their numbers, because it was pretty and feminine and she knew that the décolleté neckline with its lace fichu flattered her shoulders and the pale lilac silk enhanced her eyes. She followed Richard out of the theatre and positioned herself carefully some yards away, where she could watch him without making it obvious. He was dressed in blazer and flannels, because the costumes he was supposed to wear for the big ensemble numbers were still being altered to fit him. Even so, it was obvious that he was feeling very uncomfortable at the prospect of thrusting playbills into the hands of complete strangers. Rose decided it would be only charitable to take pity on him.
As she moved towards him, he turned and headed in her direction.
‘Do you mind if I stand with you? I’m not very good at this.’
His diffidence was so genuine and so appealing that she suddenly felt completely relaxed. She grinned at him.
‘Shy, are you? You’ll get over it. Tell you what. You do the young ladies and I’ll do the gents. You won’t have any trouble stopping the girls – nice looking bloke like you. Just turn on the charm a bit. Look, like this.’
She stepped away from him into the path of two elderly gentlemen promenading decorously in white flannels and straw hats. She gave them her most persuasive smile and they responded gallantly, doffing their hats and taking the leaflet from her hand.
‘It’s a lovely show,’ she said. ‘Do come along and see us.’
‘Are you in it?’ one of them asked.
‘Oh, yes. I’m one of the dancers.’
‘You are? Well,’ he gave his companion a meaningful wink, ‘we can’t miss that, can we?’
Rose returned to Richard.
‘There you are, nothing to it. Look, try those two girls over there.’
From then on they began to enjoy themselves and the event became a kind of competition to see who could charm the greatest number of people into accepting playbills. By the time they had got rid of all of them they had wandered far up towards the end of the promenade and, looking round, realised that there were no other members of the company in sight.
‘Well,’ Richard said, ‘what now?’
‘Let’s sit down a minute. My dogs are barking.’
‘Your what?’ Richard queried.
Rose sat on a bench and laughed up at him. ‘Cockney slang, I suppose. I don’t know where it comes from. Means my feet are aching.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Richard laughed too and sat beside her. ‘Yes, I’m not surprised, in those shoes.’

‘Tell you what,’ Rose went on. ‘I could murder a cup of tea.’
‘So could I,’ he agreed. ‘I’d offer to take you out for tea, but you can’t go into a cafe dressed like that.’
‘You want to bet?’ Rose said with a giggle.
‘You wouldn’t, would you?’
‘If you’ll take me. I bet you’re too embarrassed.’
Richard got to his feet. ‘No I’m not. I think you look absolutely gorgeous. I’d be proud to be seen with you anywhere.’
‘Ooh, compliments!’ Rose exclaimed, but she felt herself blush.
They crossed the road and walked back a short distance until they came to the Kardomah Cafe.
‘This all right?’ Richard asked.
For a moment Rose hesitated. ‘It’s a bit posh, isn’t it?’
‘So? You look posh enough to me.’
‘OK!’ She squared her shoulders. ‘In we go then.’
The cafe was crowded with elderly couples and ladies in hats and the murmur of conversation over the polished tables and the china cups faded as heads turned to watch their entrance. A waitress in severe black with a white cap and apron bore down on them.
‘Yes?’
‘A table for two, please.’
Rose felt a small shiver of pride. He might be diffident in the theatre, but in this situation his manner was confident and polished. She saw the woman registering his well-cut clothes and upper class accent. Then she looked questioningly at Rose.
‘It’s all right,’ Rose said. ‘We’re from the Follies. You know, at the end of the pier.’
‘Oh, I see.’ The waitress hesitated, obviously weighing the good impression made by Richard against the possible consequences of allowing a couple of ‘theatricals’ into her establishment. ‘This way,’ she said finally, and led them to a corner table.
‘Oh dear!’ Rose stifled a giggle. ‘I think she’s afraid we don’t know how to behave.’
‘She probably thinks we’ll drink our tea out of the saucer and then juggle with the cups,’ Richard chuckled in return.
He ordered tea and toasted teacakes and a plate of fancies and while they waited he said,
‘Have you been with the Follies long?’
‘This is my second season,’ she told him. ‘Before that I was in a show in Eastbourne but the management changed and they took on a different lot of dancers.’
‘Don’t you find it a bit difficult working with Madame Dolores?’ Richard asked. ‘I mean, she’s a bit of a tartar, isn’t she?’
‘Oh, she’s all right. Her heart’s in the right place. You see, some of the girls in this job are very young and they get a bit – well, carried away by all the attention. Stage door Johnnies wanting to take them out dancing and all that. They can go off the rails if someone doesn’t keep an eye on them.’
‘I can’t imagine you going off the rails,’ Richard said.
Rose felt herself colour, but this time with pleasure. ‘Oh well, I’ve been in the profession for quite a while now. I’m used to it.’
‘How did you start?’ Richard asked. ‘I mean, what made you want to go on the stage in the first place?’
‘I’ve always wanted to dance,’ she said. ‘Ever since I went to my first ballet class when I was five. And it beats working in a shoe shop in Lambeth.’
‘Was that the alternative?’
‘Pretty much. My mum and dad own a shop. Well, Mum owns it now. Dad never got over the war. He was gassed on the Somme and he was never right after. He died three years ago. Mum gets a bit of a pension, of course, but it’s the shop that paid for our dancing lessons.’
‘Our?’ Richard queried.
‘Me and my sister.’
‘Is she a professional dancer too?’
Rose laughed. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you saw her. She’s put on a lot of weight since she had her second. She’s married to a garage mechanic and lives in Kennington.’
‘Kensington?’ Richard repeated, mishearing.
‘I wish!’ Rose returned. ‘No, Kennington. It’s just down the road from Lambeth.’
The waitress brought the tea and as they ate Richard questioned her about her childhood in Lambeth and her early experiences in the theatre. In turn he told her about growing up in Didsbury, among the claustrophobic propriety of his large family of aunts and cousins, where life centred on the local church and the choral society.
‘You don’t sound like a northerner,’ she said.
He grinned wryly. ‘My mother would be delighted to hear you say that. She spent years correcting my pronunciation. Her family regard themselves as a cut above the locals. It was her idea to send me to Italy.’
Their conversation was interrupted by a familiar voice.
‘Well, I must say this is a novel way of advertising the show!’
Merry was standing by the table.
‘We’ve handed out all our bills,’ Rose said tartly. ‘I reckon we deserve a cuppa.’
‘Of course you do,’ he agreed. ‘I saw you through the window and I couldn’t resist coming in to see what sort of reception you got, dressed like that.’
‘A bit frosty,’ Richard grinned, ‘but I think I’ve convinced them that we are reasonably civilised. Why don’t you join us?’
‘No, I wouldn’t dream of intruding,’ Merry protested.
‘Oh, don’t be silly!’ Rose said. ‘Bring up another chair.’
As Richard turned to call the waitress Rose spotted another familiar figure. Felix was just coming down the stairs from the first floor with a stunning redhead on his arm. She was casually dressed in fashionable beach pyjamas but every line of her clothes and every hair on her head proclaimed class and money. Felix spotted them and came over, grinning broadly.
‘Well, here’s a cosy little threesome! A shepherdess and two swains. Or is one of you the sheepdog?’
‘Shut up, Felix,’ Merry said equably.
‘Harry, may I introduce three fellow performers,’ Felix went on. ‘The lady who looks as if she’s stepped out of a Gainsborough portrait is Miss Rose Taylor. This gentleman is our newest recruit, poor devil – Mr Richard Stevens. And this character with the charming turn of phrase is Mr Guy Merryweather. May I present Lady Harriet Forsyth?’
Richard and Merry had risen and they all exchanged handshakes and general greetings.
‘I do think you’re all terribly brave!’ Lady Harriet said. ‘I’d never have the courage to stand up in front of an audience.’
‘Won’t you join us?’ Richard said politely. Rose saw him feel in his pocket and guessed intuitively that he was wondering if he had enough money on him to pay for tea for five.
‘No, thanks. We’ve eaten,’ Felix said. ‘But I tell you what, since we’ve bumped into you. They have a thé dansant at the Palace Hotel every Wednesday and Saturday. I’ve just persuaded Harry to come with me tomorrow. Why don’t you two come along as well – as my guests?’
Richard looked at Rose. ‘Would you like to?’
She answered almost without thinking. ‘I’d love it. I adore dancing – any sort of dancing.’
‘Right, that’s settled then,’ Felix smiled. He looked at Merry. ‘Don’t suppose it’s any good asking you, old chap, is it? Not your sort of thing.’
Merry looked back at him for a moment in silence. Then he said, ‘No, not really.’ He turned to Richard. ‘Look, I won’t stay for tea after all, if you don’t mind. I’ve just remembered I’ve got to run through Frank’s new solo with him.’
Felix and Lady Harriet left soon afterwards and Richard and Rose sat down again to their interrupted tea. Rose looked after the departing couple and wrinkled her nose.
‘Poor Merry!’
‘How do you mean?’ Richard asked.
‘Well, isn’t it obvious? He’s so desperately in love with Felix, and Felix knows it but he deliberately flaunts his lady friends in front of him.’
Richard swallowed a mouthful of tea too quickly and almost choked. ‘Do you mean to say that Merry’s …. queer?’
Rose stared at him. ‘You must have realised that, surely. I mean, he’s very discreet but he doesn’t actually try to hide it.’
‘I – hadn’t thought about it,’ Richard said. He looked embarrassed. Rose wondered if he was really so innocent that he had never come across someone like Merry before. Then it occurred to her that what embarrassed him was the fact that she had spoken about it so openly. Probably nice young ladies where he came from didn’t talk about such things – perhaps didn’t even know about them.
‘And Felix?’ he asked. ‘Is he…?’
‘Goodness, no!’ Rose laughed. ‘Felix is a real lady’s man. And of course, with his looks he can have any woman he takes a fancy to. I just think it’s cruel of him to tease Merry the way he does.’
‘Any woman?’ Richard queried, meaningfully.
‘Are you asking if I’ve ever been out with him?’ Rose was able to meet his eyes with complete openness. ‘The answer’s no. For one thing, Felix isn’t interested in the likes of me. He’s only after real class. And for another, I wouldn’t go with him if he did ask. He’s too full of himself for my taste.’
‘I’m glad,’ Richard said. ‘And if that’s the way Felix really thinks then he’s a fool. He doesn’t know real class when he sees it.’
‘Ooh, talk about soft soap!’ she said, but this time she could not conceal her blush.

The show that night went off without incident but there was one inescapable fact that cast a shadow over the whole company. The audience was smaller even than last night’s.
Coming back to the dressing room after his performance Felix remarked sardonically to Richard, ‘Well, Monty’ll be pawning poor old Dolly’s jewellery tomorrow at this rate.’
‘You’re joking!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘Things can’t be that bad.’
‘You think so?’ Felix raised an eyebrow. ‘Just have a look at the fourth finger of her left hand when he pays our wages tomorrow night.’
Richard was taking off his make-up at the end of the show when Merry came into the dressing room.
‘See you round at the Red Lion?’ he asked.
Richard stopped in the middle of swabbing his face with Leichner Removing Cream. He had forgotten the agreement he had made that morning and now, after Rose’s revelations, he was not sure that he wanted to go out with Merry.
‘Come on!’ Merry said. ‘It’s no good thinking you’ll get Rose on her own. I’ve told you. Come and have a drink with the lads. Otherwise they’ll think we’re not good enough for you.’
After that, of course, he had to go. Walking into the pub, he was relieved to see that most of the rest of the company was there, apart from the six girls. Monty and Dolores were sitting up at the bar and beside them was Chantal, perched on a tall stool with her superb legs elegantly crossed, a martini in one hand and a cigarette in a long holder in the other. Obviously, Richard concluded, Madame’s edict about early nights did not extend as far as Chantal. Felix was missing, but Richard had seen him drive away with Lady Harriet in the Lagonda as he left the theatre. Frank was there, sitting with Merry and some of the boys from the band. Richard joined them and Merry placed a pint of bitter in front of him.
‘I hope that’s right. I thought you looked like a bitter man.’
‘It’s exactly right, thanks,’ Richard said. ‘Cheers!’
Over his drink he found himself watching Merry. He had a lean, fine-boned face with lines at the corner of the lips that emphasised his habitual expression of sardonic melancholy. His most striking feature was his eyes, which were a clear light hazel and fringed with dark lashes. Richard had already noticed that when he was conducting the band his eyes sparkled and his whole face came alive. In the same way, his usually languid movements became vital and charged with energy. Now, relaxing among friends, the air of quizzical detachment had returned but Richard could see nothing in his behaviour to suggest that Rose was right about him. But then, he had to admit to himself that he had no experience in these matters.
After downing the pint Richard began to enjoy himself. The members of the company were obviously well known to the regulars and very popular and the atmosphere was akin to that of an impromptu party. Monty, unable to stop performing on or off stage, was regaling the assembly with a series of jokes and anecdotes which would definitely not have been suitable for a ‘high-class family show’ but which went down very well with the clients of the Red Lion. Even Frank seemed to have forgotten the jealousy and suspicion of that morning and mellowed, though in his case the alcohol had had the effect of rendering him lachrymose instead of cheering him up. He leaned across the table towards Richard and breathed whisky fumes into his face.
‘I suppose you realise that we’re doomed, you and me.’
‘You mean, you think there’s going to be a war?’
‘War?’ Frank blinked at him. ‘No. I’m not talking about war. Hitler’s not a fool. He won’t tangle with the Royal Navy. I mean professionally. People don’t want real singers any more. All they want are these crooners from America, people like this Crosby fellow who sing through their noses.’ He contorted his face and intoned, ‘Where the blue of the night meets the gold of the day, Someone waits for me.’
Richard laughed at the parody. ‘It’s just a passing fad, surely. Those people are all right in films or on the wireless, but they could never fill a theatre. They just wouldn’t be heard. It takes a trained voice to do that.’
‘You mark my words, sonny,’ Frank said gloomily. ‘That’s the future. Soon everyone’s going to want records, not live performances. In ten years time any pip-squeak who can hold a microphone will be able to make a career as a singer, whether or not they can read a note of music, or even sing in tune.’
‘Come on, Frank,’ Richard said cheerfully. ‘I think you’re looking on the black side. Can I get you another drink?’
‘Thanks, old man. Mine’s a double scotch, if you don’t mind.’
‘It would be,’ Richard thought rather bitterly, feeling in his pocket for the last of his loose change.
At the bar he found himself standing next to Chantal. She waited until he had ordered the drinks and then said huskily,
‘Eh bien, mon brave, what is someone with a magnificent voice like yours doing in a third rate show like this?’
‘I don’t think it is a third rate show,’ he replied. ‘I think there are a lot of very talented people in it. I think you’re fantastic, for one.’
It was true. He had watched her act from the wings that night. She had been funny and sexy in a way that had every man in the audience bewitched, without threatening the women. She had them hanging on every caressing inflection of her voice, every sinuous movement of her body. She smiled at him now, the wide, attractive mouth extending itself like a lazy cat stretching.
‘Vraiment? I am flattered. You have much experience, then, in this business?’
‘No. No, I …’ Richard floundered and felt himself blushing. Then he recovered. ‘I’m new to all this, but I still think I can recognise talent when I see it.’
‘Good!’ She lifted her glass to him. ‘Santé.’
He noticed that her eyes were the same deep amber tone as her hair and they held his own with an expression he found hard to interpret, part challenge, part invitation.
‘Are you really French?’ he asked.
‘My mother was French,’ she replied. ‘I lived in France for some years, as a girl. You didn’t answer my question. Why are you working in concert party?’
‘Because nobody believes you can be an opera singer unless you’re Italian.’
She drew on her cigarette, exhaled and looked at him through the smoke from beneath lowered lids. ‘So? Change your name. Become Italian. Do what the rest of us do. Where do you come from?’
He screwed up his face. ‘Didsbury. It’s near Manchester.’
She continued to regard him appraisingly. ‘Uh-huh. I think it is a long way from here – and I don’t just mean geographically.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘It’s a million miles away.’
She smiled again. ‘So! We have something in common, n’est-ce pas? We are both a long way from home.’
When they left the pub at closing time the senior members of the company like Monty and Dolores and Frank, who had rented houses for the season, went home to a good supper. The rest of them went round the corner to buy fish and chips, which they ate out of the newspaper sitting in a shelter on the promenade. There was only just room for all of them on the bench and Richard found himself jammed between the wall and Chantal. He could feel her shoulder moving against his own as she ate and the warmth of her thigh and hip along his leg. She said,
‘Are you coming down to the beach tomorrow?’
‘The beach?’
‘You know, that strip of sand between the promenade and the sea? Don’t you like to swim?’
‘Oh, yes. Yes, I do. Where … Is there a particular place? To meet, I mean?’
‘Monty and Dolores have a beach hut for the summer, up at the far end. It’s just this side of the last breakwater. We all meet up there. You should come.’
‘Yes, I will. Thanks.’
Richard ate the last of his chips and screwed up the piece of greaseproof paper that had protected them from the newsprint. Chantal was saying something about the weather and the moonlight over the sea, but he did not hear her. His attention had been caught by something being said further along the shelter. One of the boys from the band was speaking.
‘It’s true, I tell you. One of the blokes in the pub heard it on the nine o’clock news. The Government’s going to introduce conscription.’

CHAPTER 3

Richard slept badly. He dreamt that the war had started and he had been called up. His father, like most of his generation, had fought in the Great War but, unlike so many, he had survived. He did not often speak of his experiences, but what he had said had been enough to impress horrific images of trench warfare on his son’s youthful imagination. In his dream, Richard was dragging himself along such a trench, knee-deep in liquid mud that made every step a heart-bursting effort. All along the trench bodies lay half-submerged in the filth and, as he passed one, it stirred and cried out to him. He stooped to turn it over and found himself looking at Rose. He struggled to lift her but a hand caught hold of his sleeve and dragged at it and he turned to discover Chantal gazing up at him in entreaty. As he floundered between the two of them, unable to lift either clear of the clinging mud, he was aware of a man standing nearby. They were about the same age but Richard recognised his father from the photograph of him in uniform in the family album. He gazed at Richard and shook his head. ‘Tha canna tek ’em both, lad. Tha mun mek up thy mind.’
Richard woke in a tangle of sweat-dampened sheets and lay for some time in that miserable state of being unable to get back to sleep but not sufficiently awake to dispel the horrors of the dream. He finally dropped off as the first light was beginning to show through the curtains. As a result, by the time he got down to breakfast Felix and Merry were already sitting over their coffee, each immersed in the newspaper.
‘Is there any more about the Conscription Bill?’ he asked, helping himself to cardboard bacon and a leather egg from the chafing dish on the sideboard. Mrs Parrish had made it clear from the outset that she had better things to do in the morning than wait around to cook fresh breakfasts for ‘theatrical gentlemen’ who never got out of bed before 10am.
Felix looked up. ‘It seems it only refers to men of twenty at the moment, so we’re OK for now. But how long that will last if things go on as they are doing is anyone’s guess. Next month it could be twenty-one year olds and so on. How old are you, Richard?’
‘Twenty two.’
Felix made a rueful grimace. ‘You’re next for the high jump, then. And I shan’t be far behind you.’
‘How old are you, then?’ Richard asked.
‘Twenty four.’ He glanced across the table. ‘Old Merry there’ll be OK for a bit. What are you, Merry? Twenty-seven – eight? But perhaps you’ll gracefully decline if your turn ever comes.’
Merry looked up slowly. ‘What do you mean by that?’
Felix shrugged. ‘I thought you might object on moral grounds – peace-loving cove like you.’
Merry folded his paper without taking his eyes off Felix’s face. ‘I hope we’re all peace-loving coves, as you put it. But if you mean to imply by that that I shan’t be prepared to fight for my country if the need arises, then you’re mistaken. And I resent the suggestion.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Excuse me, Richard.’
Richard waited until the door closed behind him and then looked at Felix. He felt angry and embarrassed. ‘I say, Felix, that was a bit unnecessary, wasn’t it?’
Felix returned to his newspaper with an irritable twitch of the page. ‘He’ll get over it.’
By the time Richard had finished his breakfast Felix had roared off in the Lagonda and Merry was still shut in his room. Richard considered knocking and asking if he was all right but decided that it might be interpreted as an intrusion. That left him with no excuse for putting off a job he had been avoiding all week. He fetched his writing case and sat down at the table to write home.
Dear Mother and Father,
I am sorry that I have not been in touch for a while, but things have been moving rather fast here. As you will see from the address above, I am now living in Fairbourne on Sea. I am sure you will be delighted to learn that I have at last found work as a professional singer. I have joined a small but very talented company, which is performing here for the summer season. It’s a very high-class family show and I sing two solos plus duets with a tenor called Franklyn Bell. I know it isn’t quite what we imagined but the experience is valuable and I am sure it will lead to better things.
I would ask you to come and see me but it’s an awfully long way from Didsbury, so perhaps we had better wait until I am performing somewhere nearer home. Please don’t worry about me. I have excellent lodgings with a Mrs Parrish who looks after me very well and I have made several new friends
Richard paused and gazed out at the row of bay-windowed houses opposite. For a moment he indulged in imagining the reaction at the family breakfast table if he went on to describe his new friends. I share lodgings with two other men. The company pianist is a homosexual, but he is very pleasant and has been a great help to me. The other man looks and talks like an English gentleman and seems to have a private income but performs as an illusionist and conjuror and is very evasive about his background. Then there are the girls. There is Chantal, who is half French and who has the most amazing legs, and Rose, who is a chorus girl from Lambeth with the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen and with whom I think I am falling in love …. He stopped abruptly. Was he falling in love with Rose? It was the first time he had actually formulated the idea in so many words. And if he was, what had he been thinking of last night when he felt Chantal’s leg against his? He pushed the thought out of his head. One thing, at any rate, was certain. To write anything approaching what he had just imagined would be ensure that his mother would be on the next train south, determined to extricate her errant son from such dangerous company. He smiled to himself and went back to his letter.
Fairbourne is a very nice resort, very select and respectable, and I am looking forward to a pleasant summer. Please give my love to Auntie May and say I hope her arthritis is not too bad. I hope you are both well and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Your loving son,
Richard.
He sealed the letter, collected his bathing costume and towel and set off along the promenade. It took him a little while to locate Mr and Mrs Prince’s beach hut but eventually his attention was drawn in the right direction by girlish whoops and giggles. Sally and Lucy were playing with a beach ball in the edge of the waves, accompanied by two young men he had not seen before. Further up the beach Pamela and Barbara were settled in deck chairs with magazines. With a small jolt at the pit of his stomach Richard recognised the fifth member of the group. Chantal was lying flat on her face a little distance from the other two, her long limbs golden with suntan and glossy with oil.
Barbara looked up as he joined them and gave a squeal of delight. ‘Richard! Oh goody, a man at last! Come and sit by us.’
Chantal raised her head and gave him a long, lazy look from her heavy-lidded amber eyes.
He said, ‘Bonjour, Chantal.’
Disconcertingly, she looked at him for a moment and then dropped her head on her arm without replying. Richard sat down on the sand, a little awkwardly, beside the other two girls.
‘Where is everyone else?’ he asked.
Pamela gave him a sideways look. ‘Rose is having her hair done. Apparently she’s got an important date this afternoon, but she won’t say who with.’
Barbara giggled. ‘As if we couldn’t guess.’
Richard decided that there was no point in trying to keep his arrangement with Rose a secret. ‘I’m taking her to the tea dance at the Royal this afternoon. Felix suggested it. He’s taking Lady Harriet.’
Barbara giggled again. ‘Ooh, you are privileged! Mr Mysterioso doesn’t usually mix with the likes of us.’ She paused and looked at him. ‘But then, you’re not really the likes of us, are you?’
Richard felt himself blush. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I’m just a member of the company, like everyone else.’

‘No, but I mean,’ the girl pursued, ‘I bet you come from a posh home, don’t you?
I bet your parents are well off.’
‘Well, quite, I suppose,’ Richard said, feeling more and more uncomfortable. ‘But I don’t see that that makes any difference. I mean, we’re all in the same profession, aren’t we.’
‘Course we are,’ Pamela put in. ‘Leave him alone, Babe.’
‘I was only making conversation,’ Barbara said, pouting.
‘What about the others?’ Richard asked, anxious to change the subject.
‘Well,’ Pamela said, ‘little Miss Prissy has been whisked off to London by her doting uncle again. Frank’ll be playing golf. Isabel may come down later. She sometimes does….’
She was interrupted by the arrival of Sally and Lucy and their two boyfriends. After brief introductions Sally exclaimed,
‘Come on, Luce. We’d better get out of these costumes and cover up. You know how Madame goes on if we start getting a tan.’
Lucy produced a creditable imitation of Dolores’s voice. ‘I expect my gels to look like ladies, not like cabin boys!’
As they went off to the beach hut, giggling, Chantal rose slowly to her feet and stretched. Obviously, Richard thought, she didn’t give a damn for Madame’s expectations. She reminded him of a leopard, with her lazy grace and golden body. Without looking round at the rest of them she strolled down to the water’s edge and struck out with strong, smooth strokes towards a raft moored some distance from the shore. Richard was seized by an urge to join her – an urge that he tried to rationalise on the grounds that it was hot and he was ready for a swim. As soon as the girls had finished in the beach hut Richard hurried to change into his costume but when he came out and ran down to the water Chantal had disappeared.

Meanwhile, sitting under the hairdryer, Rose was having second thoughts. She had agreed to Felix’s invitation on the spur of the moment, carried away by the idea of going out dancing with Richard. Now she was feeling increasingly nervous at the prospect of spending the afternoon with Felix and Lady Harriet. She could see why other women found Felix irresistible but for some reason she had never quite trusted him. He was too charming, too debonair, and always too flush with money. Harriet had seemed pleasant enough but there was no getting away from the fact that she was a ‘real’ lady, an aristocrat, and she, Rose, was only a cockney girl from Lambeth. She wasn’t ashamed of her background but she had grown up with the idea that there were two kinds of people in the world – people ‘like us’ and the ‘posh’ people. She remembered with painful clarity one of the few real rows she had had with her father before his death. It was during her first professional engagement, as a member of the chorus in a pantomime at the Victoria Palace. Two slightly older girls had been invited out to supper at a West End night-club by a well-heeled young man with a title. He was bringing two friends with him and wanted them to find a third girl to make up the numbers. Rose had been flattered and excited to be chosen. However, she was quite unprepared for her father’s reaction. He was adamant in his refusal to give permission and her plea that the men in question were ‘real gentlemen’ only made things worse.
‘I don’t ever want to see a daughter of mine getting mixed up with that lot!’ he wheezed. ‘They don’t give a damn for the likes of us. I learnt that in the trenches. They think we’re put here to black their boots and fetch and carry for them, until there’s a war and then they expect us to die for them. They’ll pick you up and use you and then toss you aside like an empty cigarette packet. You stick to your own sort, my girl.’
Rose had never forgotten his words and, by and large, her experience since then had tended to reinforce the warning. Now she felt torn. She desperately wanted Richard to be proud of her but the very urgency of that desire made her uneasy. ‘It’s no good getting too keen on him,’ she told herself. ‘He’s only marking time here, till he’s offered something better. Then he’ll be off, and you’ll be forgotten in a week.’
All the same, after lunch she put on her best dress of cornflower blue crepe de chine, with a skirt cut on the cross so that it emphasised her slim waist and flat stomach, and made up with great care – just enough to bring out the colour of her eyes and the shape of her lips, without being too obvious. When Richard called for her it was apparent that he had made an effort, too. The wave in the dark hair had been tamed with brilliantine and his flannels had a knife-edge crease.
‘You look gorgeous!’ he said.
She smiled and took his arm. ‘Well, I wanted to be a credit to you.’
‘You’d be a credit any man’ he said warmly.
Felix and Harriet met them in the foyer of the hotel. Felix, as usual, was immaculately turned out and Lady Harriet was wearing a dress that, by Rose’s reckoning, must have cost the equivalent of a couple of months’ salary. As they settled themselves at a table and ordered tea the atmosphere was constrained. However, it had to be admitted that Felix could be charming when he wanted to be and Harriet had a straightforward, friendly manner that quickly dispelled Rose’s anxieties. She seemed genuinely interested in their work and had obviously seen the show several times.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘when I see you and the other girls up there on the stage, dancing, I just long to get up and join in. But I know I’d be absolutely hopeless.’
‘How do you know?’ Rose asked. ‘Have you ever had any lessons?’
‘Oh yes. I went to ballet classes when I was little.’ Harriet said. ‘But I’m no good at girls’ things. Much better at riding horses and climbing trees. That’s how I got the nickname Harry. What I mean is, I really envy people like you, people with a profession.’
‘You mean people who have to work for a living?’ Rose said innocently.
‘It’s more than that, isn’t it?’ Harriet asked. ‘I mean, you live for your art, don’t you? At least there is some purpose in your lives.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Rose replied. ‘For most of us it’s just a way of keeping body and soul together. I don’t suppose you have to work, do you?’
Harriet sighed. ‘No. I wish I did. I really would like to have a career but my parents wouldn’t hear of it. I’m afraid they think that all a girl like me should do is sit around and wait for someone to marry her.’
‘Come on, Harry,’ Felix said. ‘Don’t sell yourself short. You don’t just sit around. What about your photography? She takes the most amazing pictures, you know, and develops them herself. She’s got her own dark room and everything.’
‘But that’s just a hobby,’ Harriet protested. ‘It’s not useful to anyone. I sometimes think about women like Florence Nightingale, who came from the same sort of background as I do at a time when it was much harder for a woman to be independent, and I feel I should be doing something useful too. Except I know I’d be useless as a nurse. I’m so terribly squeamish. I can’t bear anything messy and ugly.’
‘What would you like to do?’ Richard asked. ‘If you could chose anything you wanted?’
Harriet smiled. ‘I don’t honestly know. Something to do with photography, I suppose. Have my own studio, perhaps?’
‘Well, you could, couldn’t you?’ Rose said. ‘You’ve got the money. You could strike out a line for yourself even if your parents don’t approve. We’ve all done it. My Mum wanted me to stay and help in the shop.’
‘You don’t understand …’ Felix began, but Harriet cut in with a sigh and a rueful smile.
‘Well, that’s my bluff called, isn’t it. She’s absolutely right, Felix. I could, if I had the guts. I’m too much of a coward, that’s all.’
‘No you’re not,’ Felix said. ‘Don’t be so ready to put yourself down.’ The orchestra struck up a foxtrot. Felix held out his hand to Harriet. ‘Come on, let’s dance.’
Rose watched them as they joined the crowd on the dance floor and bit her lip. ‘Oh dear, now I’ve upset them both. But it just gets my goat when people like her talk about how difficult life is. When I think how my Mum had to skimp and save to pay for my dancing lessons, and how hard it is to make ends meet on my wages …’
‘I know,’ Richard said soothingly. ‘And I think Harriet probably understands too. Don’t let Felix worry you.’
‘Tell you something, though,’ Rose commented, watching as Felix and Harriet circled the floor. ‘She was right about one thing. She can’t dance. Look at them. Poor old Felix is practically having to carry her.’
Richard laughed. ‘Come on. Let’s show them how, shall we?’
To her great delight, he turned out to be an excellent partner. She had danced with a lot of men in her time, but even those who seemed to know the right steps and did not actually stand on her feet lacked any real feeling for it. They either steered her round the floor as if they were manoeuvring a machine of some kind or they clutched her so tightly that she felt more like their prisoner than their partner. With Richard she sensed an instant rapport. Perhaps it was because he, like her, had grown up with music that they shared an innate sense of rhythm. Whatever the reason, they seemed to flow across the smooth surface of the dance floor as effortlessly as water. Rose forgot about social inequalities and gave herself up to the pleasures of the moment.
Later, as they left the hotel, Felix stopped abruptly and exclaimed, ‘Hello! Look over there!’
Rose followed his gaze and saw a large, expensive-looking car a little further along the road. Just getting out of it were Madame and Priscilla Vance and, as Rose watched, they were joined by Sir Lionel and then by Frank Bell. The four then made their way into a neighbouring hotel.
‘Now there’s an interesting combination,’ Felix commented. ‘What’s Frank doing with those three?’
‘He’s been making eyes at Priscilla ever since she joined the company,’ Rose pointed out.
‘With Madame’s connivance?’ Felix said, sceptically. ‘There’s something going on there – something fishy.’
‘Well, it’s none of our business,’ Rose said. ‘Are you coming our way?’
Felix had to drive Harriet to the station, so Rose and Richard were able to walk back to their digs alone.
Rose said, ‘Thank you, Richard. It’s been a lovely afternoon.’
‘It’s Felix you should thank, really,’ he said. ‘But we’ll do it again, another day, on our own. OK?’ After a moment he added, ‘What do you make of Felix? I mean, he seems to have plenty of money and some pretty high-class friends, so what’s he doing working as a conjuror?’
Rose laughed. ‘Oh, don’t you think we’ve all been asking that ever since he joined the company? Sally set her cap at him right from the start – well, you can imagine, can’t you? Of course, he wasn’t interested. He was quite nice about it, quite gentlemanly, but he made it pretty clear there was nothing doing. One day she asked him straight out how come he always had money when the rest of us were stony broke. He made a sort of joke about a maiden aunt leaving him a legacy, but you never know with Felix. It might have been the truth, or it might not.’

Richard got back to his digs feeling more light-hearted than he had for months. At last everything seemed to be falling into place. He had a job and the summer stretched ahead of him. Days on the beach, evenings in the theatre – and Rose. His first real girl friend. He loved her straight-forward, common-sense manner and her occasional mischievous comments. He loved the way she looked at him out of those amazing eyes. He wasn’t sure if he was ‘in love’, but it certainly felt very like it.
That night the theatre was almost full and the show seemed to go down very well. But Felix, studying the audience from the wings, remarked cynically, ‘Looks as though Monty’s been papering the house.’
‘What?’ Richard had a momentary vision of the little comedian on top of a step-ladder, with paste and brush.
‘Giving away free tickets to make the paying audience think the show’s a success,’ Felix explained. ‘Better than playing to half empty house, but it doesn’t pay the bills.’
After the audience had left the company gathered on the stage to collect their week’s wages but there was no sign of Monty Prince or of his wife.
‘They’ve done a bunk!’ Sally muttered. ‘Gone off with the takings and left us in the lurch.’
‘No, they’ll be here,’ Merry reassured her. ‘Have patience.’
After a long wait Monty and Dolores reappeared and Monty began handing out the envelopes containing their pay.
‘I’m afraid you’ll find you’re a bit short this week,’ he said, rather breathlessly. ‘It’s been a bad week, as you know. But things will look up when the season gets going. You’ll have enough to pay your landladies, and I’ll make up the rest next week – or the week after.’
Felix caught Richard’s eye and nodded towards Dolores. He looked at her left hand, which usually sported a large, showy diamond solitaire on the fourth finger. The hand was bare, except for a plain gold wedding ring.

The following morning Richard found Felix alone at the breakfast table.
‘Merry not down yet?’ he queried.
‘Oh, up and out long ago,’ Felix replied. ‘He always is on a Sunday. He’s got an elderly widower father living in Seaford. Merry goes over every Sunday to check that he’s all right. Not that he gets much thanks for it, by all accounts.’
‘Poor old Merry. Is that why he always has that rather world-weary look, do you think?’
‘Partly, perhaps,’ Felix said, indifferently. Then he smiled suddenly. ‘Do you know who he reminds me of?’
‘Mrs Mop out of ITMA?’ Richard suggested. ‘You know,’ he assumed the quavering tones of the well-loved radio character, ‘It’s being so cheerful as keeps him going.’
Felix laughed. ‘I see your point. But no, I was thinking of Eyore out of Winnie the Pooh. That look of permanently expecting life to do the dirty on you, but putting up with it just the same.’
Richard remembered what Rose had told him. ‘Poor old Merry,’ he repeated.
‘Well, we all have our cross to bear,’ Felix said, as if he had lost interest in the conversation.
Richard grinned. ‘Yes, I had one.’
Felix frowned at him. ‘A cross?’
‘No, a bear. His name was Gladly. He lived on my bed when I was a kid. There was something funny about his eyes.’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Gladly my cross-eyed bear?’
Felix choked on his coffee. ‘You’ve been spending too much time with Monty. You’re supposed to be the straight man, remember?’
‘You coming down on the beach today?’ Richard asked.
‘No. I’m taking Harriet out for lunch. Why don’t you and Rose join us.’
Richard felt himself colour. ‘I’d love to, but I’m a bit short at the moment. It was a shock, not getting my full salary last night.’
Felix looked at him for a long moment. Then he said, ‘Ah. I told you you’d make the acquaintance of Uncle sooner or later. Didn’t realise it would be this soon, though.’
He did not offer to lend Richard money. Initially Richard wondered if this was a sign of meanness but he concluded after some consideration that it was probably tact. The offer would have embarrassed both of them.

Rose and the other girls were finishing breakfast the next morning when their landlady came into the room and remarked briskly,
‘Madam’s been on the phone.’ She resolutely insisted on maintaining the English pronunciation. ‘You’re all wanted at the theatre for a rehearsal.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Sally. ‘What on earth for?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ the landlady responded, leaving with a stack of dirty crockery.
‘It’s not fair!’ Sally went on. ‘What can she possibly want us for today? We know all those routines inside out.’
‘I reckon she just wants to stop us having a morning on the beach, the old misery,’ her sister commented.
Pamela and Babe assented gloomily. Rose accepted the situation with better grace. Richard had told her he was planning to run through one or two more numbers with Merry that morning, which meant he would be in the theatre too.
‘I suppose Miss Prissy’s still missing,’ Sally remarked, looking at Barbara, who shared a room with Priscilla.
‘She went up to Town for the weekend,’ the girl agreed. ‘I haven’t seen her since Saturday morning.’
Rose opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it.
‘Well, if she misses another rehearsal perhaps Madame will finally give her the boot,’ Sally said. ‘That would make it all worthwhile.’
As they entered their dressing room Rose was surprised to hear the strains of Chopin’s Les Sylphides echoing down from the auditorium.
‘Why’s Merry playing that?’ Pamela asked. ‘We’re not doing the ballet anymore.’
There was a brief silence, broken by Sally. ‘Oh Gawd! She’s found another prima ballerina! Better get your pointe shoes on, girls.’
When they made their way up to the wings Merry was playing the piece for the second time. Rose, following the Castle sisters and eager to see the new ballerina, bumped into Lucy as the two girls stopped short.
‘I don’t believe it!’ Sally whispered.
‘She can’t be!’ Lucy responded.
‘She bloody well is!’
For a moment Rose could not see what it was that had shocked them so much. Then Lucy moved aside and she saw, in the centre of the stage, holding a rather shaky arabesque, the slight form of Priscilla Vance.
‘What’s going on?’ Pamela demanded from behind her, and was instantly hushed by the others.
They watched as Priscilla went through the next steps and was then halted by a rapid tattoo of Madame’s cane.
‘No, no! Priscilla, my darling, you must be quicker on the jetée. Listen to the music!’
‘I don’t understand,’ murmured Barbara. ‘Why’s she doing Tereskova’s solo?’
‘I think I know why,’ Rose answered grimly. She beckoned the others deeper into the wings and related, in a rapid whisper, what she and Richard had seen the previous Saturday.
‘The scheming little bitch!’ Sally exclaimed.
‘It may not be entirely her fault,’ Rose said. ‘I think Frank Bell’s at the bottom of this.’
‘I still don’t get it,’ Barbara complained.
‘Oh, come on, Babe!’ Pamela muttered. ‘It’s pretty obvious. The show’s losing money and Monty’s desperate to find a backer. Sir Lionel’s agreed to put money in provided his precious Prissy gets to dance the leading role.’
‘But what’s Frank got to do with it?’
‘Grow up, Babe!’ Sally turned her exasperation on the younger girl. ‘Even you can’t be that naive.’
‘You mean she ….’ Barbara’s horrified whisper was cut short by the appearance of the commanding figure of Madame.
‘So there you are! What are you all doing lurking in the wings? Come, on stage, quick, quick! We have much work to do!’

Richard, arriving for his practice with Merry, was surprised and slightly annoyed to find the pianist otherwise occupied. He went to his dressing room and ran through some warm-up exercises until, some time later, he was startled by a clatter of feet and a sudden outburst of female voices outside his door. From the sound of it, they were giving vent to feelings that had been forcible stifled for some time.
‘It’s not fair! It’s not fair!’ That was Pamela.
‘That scheming little bitch! Wait till I get a chance to tell her what I think of her!’ That was Sally.
‘But she can’t do it. It won’t work. She just isn’t good enough.’ That was Rose.
Richard opened the door cautiously and looked out. Sally was scarlet in the face with rage, Babe was in tears. The other three looked pale and stunned.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘Good question!’ snapped Sally. ‘I’ll tell you what’s not going on. I’m not going on stage with that stuck up little schemer.’
‘Calm down, Sally,’ Rose said. ‘They’ll hear you, and it won’t do any good.’
‘What’s happened?’ Richard asked again.
Rose said quietly, ‘Sir Lionel has offered to put money into the show – on condition that Priscilla dances the prima ballerina role.’
‘But that’s not right!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘I mean, I don’t know anything about ballet but I’ve watched you all dance and any of you are better than she is.’
‘You don’t have to tell us that,’ said Sally bitterly. ‘But it’s the usual story. Money talks.’
‘Ssh!’ Rose warned. ‘She’s coming!’
Priscilla came down the stairs from the stage. Her eyes were wide and glistening, her lips tremulous. Seeing the others gathered in the corridor she hesitated, then came towards them with a winsome smile.
‘I’m glad you’re all still here. I hope you’re not going to be angry with me. It wasn’t my idea, honestly! But I’m so thrilled! It’s the chance I’ve always dreamed of. And I’ll do you credit, I promise. I won’t let you down. And I really need your help. I can’t do it on my own.’
‘Tough!’ said Sally curtly. ‘Come on, Sis. Let’s get changed and get out of here.’
She marched into the dressing room and Lucy followed with Pamela and Babe close behind. Priscilla stood looking after them, biting her lip. She threw a glance of appeal at Rose and Richard, then looked behind her towards the stairs. Richard saw that she was about to burst into tears and that she did not know where to hide. She could not leave the theatre without changing her clothes, but to enter the dressing room and face the other girls was more than she could cope with. On an impulse he opened the door to his own room.
‘Would you like to wait in here for a bit? I’ve got to go up on stage and there’s no one else here at the moment.’
Priscilla looked at him, gulped and shot into the room like a rabbit into its burrow. Richard closed the door and looked a trifle defensively at Rose.
‘I can’t help feeling sorry for her.’
To his relief she smiled back at him. ‘It was nice of you. I feel sorry for her too. She isn’t ready for something like this. She might be, in a few years time, though I doubt it, but it will be a disaster for her now.’
‘Never mind her,’ Richard said, taking her hand. ‘It’s rotten for you. If anyone got that part it should have been you.’
‘Oh, you know I don’t want it,’ Rose replied. ‘I’m much happier being just one the girls. But I’m not looking forward to the next few weeks. I know what it’s going to be like. Sally’s OK most of the time and I’m quite fond of her but she can be terribly catty and Lucy takes her cue from her big sister. The dressing room will be like a snake pit from now on.’
Merry appeared on the stairs. ‘Thank God! Two more or less sane people! Am I getting old or does this place get more of a madhouse every week?’
Rose smiled up at him. ‘It’s not you, Merry. You’re about the sanest person around here. It’s just show business, that’s all.’
He came down the last steps and touched her arm briefly. ‘I’m sorry, Rose. It should have been you. When I realised what was happening I was absolutely stunned. In fact, for a few crazy moments I actually contemplated marching up onto the stage and handing in my resignation.’
‘Oh, don’t do that, Merry!’ Rose cried. ‘You make us laugh. We shall need you more than ever now.’
‘Ooh!’ Merry’s voice assumed the tone of an indignant dowager duchess. ‘I didn’t realise that my pianistic efforts were the occasion of so much hilarity!’ In one of his rare excursions into high camp he turned and flounced back up the stairs, then paused at the top and looked at Richard. ‘Well, are you coming to rehearse these ditties, or not?’
‘Yes, coming,’ Richard said quickly. ‘I’ll be with you directly.’
‘Dear old Merry,’ Rose said fondly, watching the pianist’s departing back. Then, ‘I’ll wait for you, shall I?’
‘Oh yes, please do!’ he responded.

Since the ballet was not due to return to the repertoire until the change of programme on Thursday the next three performances proceeded more or less without incident. However, the atmosphere within the company became steadily more and more tense. By Thursday night the dressing room resembled the snake pit that Rose had predicted, and the mood was not improved by the arrival of a huge bouquet of flowers from Sir Lionel to wish Priscilla good luck. Priscilla herself had wisely adopted the habit of delaying her arrival until the last possible moment. She had made attempts initially to ingratiate herself with little jokes and compliments and had even brought in a huge box of chocolates. The remarks had been greeted with a frosty silence and the chocolates had remained uneaten, though Rose had caught Babe eyeing them wistfully more than once. On the Thursday evening Priscilla arrived as the others were putting on their make-up.
‘Look!’ she cried brightly, holding up a bag with the name Annello and Davide emblazoned on it. ‘I treated myself to a new pair of ballet shoes in honour of the occasion. I think I deserve them, don’t you?’
‘But …’ Babe began. Sally unexpectedly cut her short.
‘Sure, why not? Of course you deserve them.’
Priscilla glowed. ‘Oh, thank you, darling!’ She threw her arm across Sally’s unresponsive shoulders and kissed her on the cheek.
The first half of the show passed without incident and, at last, the audience numbers were beginning to pick up. Changing for the ballet, Rose felt her stomach taut with nervous anticipation. Normally she did not suffer from stage fright, but tonight she was certain they were heading for disaster. As the curtain rose there were coos of delight from some of the ladies and the little girls in the audience, but after a few minutes the familiar shuffling and rustling began, punctuated with occasional bangs as people got up from their seats to go out to the lavatory. On cue, the corps de ballet lined up to greet the entrance of the prima ballerina and Priscilla appeared. She glided down stage on her points, found her position centre stage and prepared a pirouette. Then, as she spun into the first turn, the new ballet shoe slipped and Priscilla fell heavily on one knee. There was a stifled gasp from the audience and then a guffaw of laughter. Rose gritted her teeth, willing the other girl to go on. To her credit, Priscilla got up at once, a smile pasted to her face, and resumed her steps at exactly the right point in the music. Two more pirouettes were executed without incident, then came a grande jetée. As the ballerina landed the treacherous shoe slid from under her once again and she collapsed flat on her back. This time the laughter from the audience was a roar. Priscilla picked herself up, her eyes suffused with tears, and ran off stage.
The orchestra faltered, and the dancers paused in mid step. Rose looked around her, caught her breath and launched herself into the centre of the stage. The musicians, under Merry’s direction, gathered their wits and played on.
Richard had remained in the wings to watch, as had most of the company. Felix was beside him and, as Rose took up the ballerina’s role without missing a beat, he heard him exclaim, ‘Good girl! Good girl!’
Rose executed a series of exemplary entrechats and followed them with a perfect arabesque, then poised herself for another pirouette. To the horror of her friends, she wobbled, flailed her arms, lost her balance and sat down on her bottom with a look of wide-eyed surprise. The audience rocked with merriment. Richard gasped in alarm, then choked back a guffaw as he realised what was going on. Rose got up, attempted a jetée, appeared to slip and fell flat on her face. The audience yelled. The other girls had grasped the idea by now. Sally jumped forward and, as Rose attempted to rise, forced her back onto the floor with one foot. Then she began a series of whirling pirouettes, which ended when her sister elbowed her to on side and took her place. One by one the girls threw themselves into the action until the stage was littered with sylphs in positions of inelegant collapse. The audience was hysterical with mirth. In the wings Richard and Felix clung to each other for support. Looking down into the orchestra pit, Richard saw that Merry could scarcely see the notes for the tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks, while the flautist and the trombone player had totally given up trying to blow their instruments. Meanwhile Madame, in the prompt corner, attempted to scream in a whisper,
‘Bring down the curtain! Bring down the curtain!’
But ‘Uncle’ Mike Watson, the stage manager, only clutched the edge of the proscenium arch and sobbed helplessly.
The music came to an end and the dancers, in a moment of inspired co-ordination, collapsed upon each other in a heap of quivering tulle. The curtain came down and the audience stamped and whistled their appreciation. Slowly the girls picked themselves up and came off stage. In the wings they came face to face with Madame. There was a moment of terrible silence.
Then Dolores said, ‘We shall speak of this tomorrow. Go and change for the finale.’
Without a word the five girls scuttled down the stairs to the dressing room, and it was only when they reached the corridor below the stage that those waiting in the wings heard the muffled eruption of hysterical giggles.

CHAPTER FOUR

The girls were summoned to an audience with Madame the following morning. Rose sat in the front row of the stalls between Sally and Lucy, trying to cling on to the last shreds of her courage, while Dolores surveyed them from the other side of the footlights. There was no sign of Priscilla.
‘What happened last night was a disgrace! A sacrilege!’ Madame intoned.
‘Yeah, but the audience liked it, didn’t they,’ Sally commented unrepentantly.
Madame fixed her with a look of scorn. ‘We are not here to prostitute our art for the gratification of the hoi poloi.’
‘No,’ Sally muttered under her breath, ‘but you don’t mind doing it for Sir Lionel!’
‘To me the ballet is sacred,’ Madame went on. ‘I cannot bear to see it travestied in that way. I need hardly tell you that Priscilla is no longer a member of the company.’ There was a slight stir among the five remaining girls. ‘I should be within my rights to discipline the rest of you by docking your wages – especially you, Rose, since you seem to have been the prime mover. But …’ she paused and regarded Rose with fierce dark eyes, ‘my husband has persuaded me that under the circumstances you did your best to rescue a potentially disastrous situation. So we shall say no more about the matter.’
‘But what happens tonight, Madame?’ Babe asked. ‘If Priscilla’s got the sack who’s going to dance the lead?’
‘The ballet is cancelled!’ Madame announced. ‘It is obvious that the type of audience we are playing to is incapable of appreciating the finer things. So we must give them what they can appreciate. We shall revive the Spanish Fiesta number from last season. The costumes are still good and you all know the steps. Rehearsals will begin at once. For tonight, we will revert to the can-can. Now, go and get into your practice clothes. Quick! Quick!’
She rattled her cane imperiously on the floor and the girls rose hastily and scrambled for the exit. In the dressing room they found Priscilla packing her things, her face wet with tears. When the others came in she sank into a chair and burst into sobs. For a moment they all stood and looked at her but the sight of her abject misery was too much for Rose. She went over and crouched beside her, an arm round her shoulders.
‘Don’t cry, Prissy. It really wasn’t your fault. You should never have been asked to dance that role.’
‘But I wanted it so much!’ Priscilla wept. She raised her tear-drenched face to Rose. ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, dance. When my father was alive he wouldn’t hear of it. Then, when I went to live with Uncle Lionel and Aunt Eleanor they let me take lessons. They didn’t like the idea of me going on the stage, but I persuaded them it was the only thing that would make me happy. And when Madame said I could take over the lead I thought my dreams had really come true.’ She paused and gulped. ‘I understand why you were all so angry. It wasn’t fair. I thought Madame had chosen me because I was the best one for the part, but now I know it wasn’t that at all.’
‘You didn’t know your uncle was putting money into the show?’ Sally asked.
Priscilla shook her head. ‘No, I swear I didn’t. Frank fixed it all up with Uncle Lionel. He said I deserved a break.’
‘A broken leg, more likely,’ Rose said. ‘We’re to blame for what happened last night, too. We should have told you that it was death to go on stage in those new shoes. Didn’t you realise you have to break them in first?’
‘I should have done,’ Priscilla said miserably. ‘I didn’t think. But I don’t blame you. I’d probably have kept quiet, too, in your position.’
There was a brief silence. Then Rose said, ‘What will you do now? Audition for someone else?’
The girl shook her head vehemently. ‘Oh no! I’ll never go on stage again. I couldn’t. Not after last night. I realise now, I’ll never be any good.’
‘That’s not true,’ Rose said gently. ‘You could be good – good enough for the chorus, like the rest of us, anyway. But it takes time, and perhaps you started rather late.’
Priscilla sighed. ‘No, I couldn’t face it. I’d be terrified to set foot on a stage again.’
‘So what will you do?’ Pamela asked.
‘Oh, do what my Aunt always wanted, I suppose. Go back to live in London, come out …’
‘Come out of what?’ Babe asked, mystified.
‘As a debutante. Be presented to the King,’ Sally said caustically. ‘Surely you know that!’
‘Yes.’ Priscilla gave a rueful smile. ‘Be presented, do the Season. You know, Henley, Ascot, all those dreary parties.’
‘Our hearts bleed for you!’ Sally said dryly.
‘Then what?’ Babe persisted.
‘Hope someone wants to marry me, I suppose.’
‘Of course they will,’ Rose encouraged her. ‘You may not be the new Pavlova, but you’re a lovely girl. You’ll meet someone dreamy and fall head over heels in love.’
‘Maybe.’ Priscilla dried her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘You’re awfully sweet, Rose.’
‘No I’m not,’ Rose said briskly, getting to her feet. ‘I can be as catty as anyone. But just you remember, when you do meet someone gorgeous, you bring him down here to see the show, so we can have a look at him.’
Priscilla laughed shakily. ‘Oh no. I don’t think I’d dare do that. He’d probably fall for one of you instead!’

After Priscilla’s departure the Follies settled into a more or less steady routine and, as the season progressed, audiences improved and Dolly Prince’s ring reappeared on her finger. People were glad of distraction. The news from Europe grew steadily more and more disturbing. Germany and Italy had signed a ‘Pact of Steel’, pledging themselves to protect each other’s interests, and in early June the first conscripts were enrolled in the British Army. The newspapers trumpeted the fact that seven hundred and fifty planes a month were now being constructed for the RAF.
In the dressing room one evening Richard asked Felix, ‘If war does come, will you volunteer or wait to be called up?’
‘Oh, I shall volunteer,’ Felix replied. ‘I’d rather jump than be pushed, wouldn’t you? Besides, that way you might get some choice about where you go. I rather fancy the RAF myself.’
‘Yes, I can see you flying a plane,’ Richard agreed.
‘Oh, I’ve already had a few lessons,’ Felix said. ‘Thought it might be as well to be prepared. It’s a great feeling. Total freedom! How about you?’
‘I don’t think I’d be any good in a plane,’ Richard said. ‘I don’t like heights and I get seasick on a boat. So I guess it will have to be the army. But please God it won’t come to that.’
Now that everyone knew exactly what they were doing there was no further need for rehearsals, though Madame made a point of calling the girls in once or twice a week to keep them up to scratch. For the rest of the time the days were their own, except when it rained, when they put on a matinee performance. Fortunately for the cast, though not for the company’s finances, it was a good summer. Most mornings they all met on the beach, where they swam and sunbathed or played poker for matchsticks. Monty and his wife presided over proceedings from the veranda of the beach hut and the days were punctuated by Madame’s exhortations to the girls to move out of the sun or cover themselves up.
Sometimes Felix joined them and organised energetic games of beach ball or leapfrog or some other athletic activity, at which he had a natural ability. Occasionally Merry appeared too, but he could never be persuaded to join in the games, preferring to read or, when he thought Felix’s attention was fully occupied elsewhere, to watch.
For Rose it was a bitter-sweet summer. It seemed to be generally accepted that she was Richard’s girl friend and they spent a great deal of time together, but she could never quite allow herself to believe that this was anything more than a summer romance. As the threat of war grew she became more and more convinced that, one way or another, she must lose him by the time the leaves fell.
The situation was made more difficult by the fact that they were very rarely able to be alone together. He took her dancing again at the Palace Hotel, but coming out at five o’clock into the full light of day did not provide many romantic opportunities. In the evening, when most couples did their courting, they were both working and after the show she felt she must insist on going home with the other girls. Once he tried to persuade her to come to the pub instead.
‘No, it’s not right,’ she demurred. ‘Girls going into pubs.’
‘There are other women there,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t be the only one.’
‘Other women,’ she agreed. ‘You wouldn’t see a lady in there.’
‘Chantal goes,’ he said, unwisely.
‘Oh well, there you are then!’ she replied, and walked away.
Joining the other girls she guessed from their faces that they had been talking about her.
‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Go on. If you can say it behind my back you can say it to my face.’
‘We were just saying you ought to give Richard a bit of a chance,’ Lucy said.
‘A chance for what?’ Rose asked frostily.
‘You’re such a cold fish, Rose!’ Sally exclaimed. ‘You can’t string him along forever, you know.’
‘So what do you think I ought to do?’ Rose asked her. ‘Creep out at night and have sex with him under the pier – like …’ She stopped herself. They all knew that there were nights when Sally crept downstairs after Mrs Watson was in bed and climbed out of one of the dining-room windows, not to return until dawn, but the matter had never been openly discussed.
‘We just think you could be a bit more forthcoming,’ Pamela said quickly. ‘We’d cover for you.’
‘No, thanks,’ Rose replied stiffly, setting off for the digs.
‘You could get engaged,’ Babe suggested, keeping pace with her.
‘Don’t be stupid, Babe!’ Lucy said scathingly. ‘He hasn’t popped the question yet.’ She caught her breath. ‘Has he, Rose?’
”Course he hasn’t,’ said her sister. ‘He’s had no chance, has he? You’ve got to give him a bit of encouragement, Rose.’
‘Listen,’ said Rose, ‘I don’t need you to tell me what to do! I can think for myself, thanks.’
‘OK,’ Sally returned with a shrug. ‘But don’t blame me if he goes off with someone else. Men like him don’t grow on trees, you know.’
The next week Richard asked her to go with him to a matinee showing of the new film of Wuthering Heights, with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. She was completely swept up in the romance of it – so much so that when he took her hand and laid his cheek against her hair it seemed to be all part of the experience. It was only when his other hand slid down over her shoulder and gently brushed against her breast that she came back to reality. She took hold of his hand and gently but firmly returned it to his side and he clearly accepted the warning and made no further attempts.
Richard, too, was prey to conflicting impulses. He had very little experience of relationships with women. Three years in Italy had taught him that the only way to breach the almost impenetrable defences erected by Italian families around their daughters was by an offer of marriage. It was not an offer he had ever been tempted to make. However, he was not totally without experience. His singing teacher had introduced him to an older woman -‘ for the completion of your education, caro’ – and he was deeply grateful for her kindly, almost maternal, ministrations. Prior to that, before he left home, there had been the occasional sweaty fumbling in the back row of the cinema or the porch of the girl’s house but there, too, strict limits applied. He had grown up accepting the fact that ‘nice’ girls, the sort of girls one would eventually wish to marry, would not let you go too far until they had a ring on their finger. Admittedly, he had also discovered that what constituted going ‘too far’ was open to a wide variety of interpretations but in those days it had simply been a question of exploring the limits. Now, with Rose, he was anxious not to overstep the mark. He couldn’t be quite sure that he was in love with her, but he had certainly never felt like this about any other girl.
His problems were compounded by the fact that his mother was threatening to bring his father to Fairbourne on Sea for their summer holidays. This was a significant upheaval for them as, ever since Richard could remember, they had always gone to Lytham St Anne’s. Richard cudgelled his brains to think of ways of putting her off because he knew, beyond a doubt, that she would not approve of his ‘racy’ new friends and would find the show frivolous and ‘not in the best of taste’. He wrote back, pointing out the length of the journey, the necessity for changing trains in London, the fact that he would be home in a few weeks. It was useless. They booked a room at the Palace for the second week in September.
Rose was worried about her family, too, but for very different reasons. An item on the news was still fresh in her mind on a day when she had agreed to meet Richard. He had persuaded her, instead of joining the others on the beach, to come for a walk with him along the cliffs. They walked to the end of the prom and found a footpath that wound its way up to the cliff top. It was a steep climb and she was happy to have the excuse to take his hand when he offered it. The weather was perfect, with just enough breeze off the sea to temper the heat, and she was happy to be alone with him, but she could not get what she had heard out of her mind.
‘Rose, is there something wrong?’ he asked eventually.
She sighed and glanced sideways at him. ‘No, not really. I’m just a bit worried, that’s all.’
‘Worried about what?’
‘Did you listen to the news on the wireless this morning?’
‘No. What’s happened? What’s Hitler up to now?’
‘It’s not Hitler, it’s those mad Irish. The IRA, you know.’
‘What about them?’
‘They’re putting bombs in post boxes in London. Several went off yesterday. I’m worried about my Mum and my sister and her family.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘I’m sure you don’t need to. After all, it was probably just a stunt to draw attention. They won’t do it again. If your Mum or anyone you know had been hurt you’d have heard by now, wouldn’t you?’
‘Oh, I suppose so,’ she answered. ‘I expect they’re all right – this time. But you don’t know what those brutes are going to do next, do you? It might be bombs on buses or in phone boxes. London isn’t safe while these people are around.’
‘The police are bound to track them down soon,’ he said reassuringly. ‘And after all, with all those millions of people in London, the chances of anything happening to one of your family must be very small.’
‘But it has to happen to somebody’s family, doesn’t it?’ Far from being comforted she felt a stab of resentment. He didn’t seem to be taking the matter seriously. ‘It’s all right for you. Your parents are safe up in Manchester or wherever it is.’
His answer echoed her own irritation. ‘They are at the moment. I just wish they’d stay there!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh nothing. Just that my mother’s threatening to come down here for their summer holiday.’
She looked at him curiously. ‘So? Won’t you be glad to see her?’
He sighed. ‘Oh, I suppose so, in a way. The trouble is – oh, I can’t explain. She won’t approve. She’s got very set ideas about … about everything.’
Rose’s annoyance hardened into resentment. This was what she had been expecting. ‘You mean she won’t approve of the show. She’ll think it’s beneath you.’
‘No, not exactly.’ He obviously realised that he was getting into dangerous waters. ‘It just doesn’t fit in with her idea of what I ought to be doing.’
‘I bet it doesn’t!’ Rose said grimly. ‘And she won’t approve of us, either. Of Monty and Frank and Sally – and me. You’re ashamed of us!’
‘That’s not true!’ he cried, but she had already turned and was walking away. He ran after her. ‘Rose, please, listen! I’m not ashamed of you. I think you’re beautiful and sweet and I’m terribly lucky just to be with you. It’s just that I know what my mother’s like. Nobody’s ever been good enough for her. I could bring home the Queen of England and she wouldn’t approve.’
Rose looked at him and giggled, unable to resist his look of dismay. ‘I should think not. She’s a married woman!’
He laughed with relief. ‘I shouldn’t want her, even if she was still Elizabeth Bowes Lyon. You’re far prettier than she is.’
She lowered her eyes with mock coyness. ‘Thank you kindly, sir she said.’
They had reached a low break of dense gorse bushes enclosing an arc of short, rabbit nibbled grass. Richard reached for her hand.
‘Shall we sit here for a bit?’
She hesitated and then nodded. ‘All right, if you like.’
She allowed him to draw her down beside him, feeling the grass warm and yielding beneath her. The air was heavy with the coconut scent of the gorse and the hum of insects in the flowers. He lay back and reached out to pull her to him, cradling her head in the crook of his arm. His lips, when he kissed her, were warm and dry, slightly roughened by sun and wind. She felt the pressure of his mouth increase slightly and his tongue flickered across her lips. For a moment she resisted, then her mouth opened and his tongue found hers. He shifted his weight, pressing her back against the grass, forcing her mouth open wider to allow his tongue to probe more deeply. Desire sang through every nerve in her body. Abruptly she tensed, twisted her head away and thrust him off, pulling herself into a sitting position.
‘We shouldn’t be doing this.’
‘Why?’ he asked, his voice harsh with disappointment. Then he softened his tone. ‘What’s wrong, Rose?’
She looked at him. ‘It isn’t right. It isn’t fair. I know what happens. It’ll get to the point where you can’t stop yourself, and then you’ll say I led you on.’
He sat up, indignant. ‘What are you saying? You don’t think I’d try to – to force you to do anything, do you?’
‘I might not be able to stop either,’ she said.
He tried to take her hand but she pulled it away. ‘Rose, you don’t think I wanted to …? I mean, I wouldn’t. Not here, not like this.’ For a moment he was silent. Then he asked, ‘Has someone else …? Did someone try to force you?’
She looked away. ‘No! Well …not exactly. No, not the way you’re thinking.’
‘Something happened,’ he said, and she could hear in his tone that he was disciplining himself to speak gently. ‘Tell me.’
She glanced at him then looked down, her fingers plucking at the short grass. ‘It was nothing much, really. When I was in my first stage show I let a man walk me home after the performance. He seemed a nice enough sort of bloke. On the way he pulled me into a shop doorway and started to kiss me. I thought … I thought that would be all it was, and then he started trying … other things. I told him to stop but he wouldn’t. In the end I had to scratch his face to get away. Since then it’s always been the same. They turn up at the stage door, bring you flowers and chocolates, take you out to dinner and try to get you squiffy on champagne and then … My Mum warned me. She used to say men can’t control themselves after a certain point and it’s up to us not to let things get that far. Men think because you’re on the stage you can’t have any morals.’
‘I don’t think that,’ Richard protested. He took hold of her hand. ‘It isn’t true, Rose – what your mother said. We’re not animals. I would never try to force you to do anything you didn’t want to do.’
She looked at him. ‘No, I don’t think you would. But it isn’t fair anyway. I would be leading you on. I like you, Richard, very much, but it can’t ever be more than that.’
She got up and he scrambled to his feet after her. ‘Why not? I don’t understand. Why can’t it, Rose?’
She looked into his face, her vision blurred by tears. ‘Because it wouldn’t work. Not as a permanent thing. When this summer season’s over you’ll go off and get on with your career. You’ve got a big future ahead of you and I’ll never be more than a chorus girl from Lambeth.’
‘What does that matter?’ he demanded. ‘If you were my wife …’ He stopped, and they stared at each other, stunned by the enormity of what he was saying.
She forced herself to keep her voice level and practical. ‘If I was, the day would come when you’d look at me and ask yourself why you ever got yourself stuck with a girl like me. I’d just hold you back and in the end you’d regret it.’
‘That’s not true!’ he gasped.
She silenced him with a hand on his arm. ‘You wait. You’ll meet all sorts of girls, well-educated girls who speak properly. Young ladies. They’re your sort, not me.’
He grabbed both her hands and held them tightly. ‘I can’t imagine meeting anyone who will be more ‘my sort’ than you, Rose. Can’t you believe that?’
She looked up at him sadly. ‘You think that now. But things change. One day you’ll look back and see that I was right.’
For a moment he gazed down into her face in silence. Then he said, ‘All right. I can see I’m going to have to prove it to you. One day, when this season’s over and my career has done whatever it is going to do, if I come to you and say “nothing’s changed. I still feel the same”, will you believe me?’
Her throat ached and she felt sick with the effort of keeping her feelings under control. ‘I might. But until then ..’
‘Until then, we can still go out together, can’t we?’
‘As long as you understand that’s all it is. I’m not making any promises, and I’m not holding you to any, either.’
‘It’s a bargain,’ he agreed, and bent his head to kiss her, but she turned away and said, ‘I think we’d better be getting back, don’t you?’
As they walked back towards the town Rose tried to understand why she had acted as she had done. Why had she not simply agreed, when he had mentioned marriage? Going back over the conversation, she found the answer. The proposal – it had scarcely been that – had been uttered without thought, on the spur of the moment. He had been as shaken as she had. No one with any sense would expect to hold him to that. But in spite of everything she had said, she could not help cherishing the small flicker of hope that one day it might be repeated.
Richard suddenly exclaimed, ‘Oh, look. There’s Merry.’
Rose looked down to where a lower path threaded its way along the foot of the cliff. Merry was walking with a young man whom she had never seen before. They were strolling along, not touching but so close that their shoulders brushed each other as they moved.
‘I wonder who that is with him,’ Richard said.
Rose shrugged. ‘Someone he’s picked up in a pub somewhere. Don’t ask. And don’t mention you’ve seen him. Merry likes to keep his private life to himself.’

That evening, as they waited for the curtain to go up, Richard noticed that Monty Prince seemed distracted. Normally he was everywhere just before the show, chivvying the stage crew, cracking jokes with the performers, pinching the girls’ bottoms, but that evening he stood quietly in the wings, apparently absorbed in his own thoughts.
‘Are you all right, Mr Prince?’ Richard asked. Although everyone referred to him as Monty behind his back the little man insisted on what he regarded as proper respect to his face. Only Frank and Felix had the temerity to address him by his first name.
Monty started and came to. ‘Fine, fine! Just got things on my mind, that’s all.’
‘The show’s going well, isn’t it?’ Richard asked. ‘Audiences have been pretty good lately.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with the show, laddie,’ the comedian said. ‘No, I don’t like what I’m hearing from Europe, that’s all.’
‘You mean the possibility of a war?’
‘That’s part of it. I can’t see how we’re going to avoid it, personally. But it’s more than that. I’ve got family in the East End and friends who came over from Germany when Hitler and his lot came to power. They hear things, bad things. Polish Jews in Germany are being deported back to Poland. Jewish businessmen in Czechoslovakia are being ordered to curb their activities. I heard several thousand German Jews have packed up and gone to Brazil. And I have a feeling this is only the start.’
Richard said, ‘I didn’t realise your family were Jewish.’
Monty shrugged. ‘I don’t make a big thing of it. To be honest, I sometimes forget it myself. But my Grandad came over from Poland when he was a lad. I know there’s a lot of people in this country don’t like us – Oswald Moseley and his lot. That’s why I keep quiet about it. But there comes a time when you have to remember who your folks are.’
Down in the pit the orchestra launched into the opening bars of the overture and Monty made a visible effort to pull himself together. ‘Come on, this won’t do! What is it they say? Noli illegitimi carborundum!’
‘What?’
‘Don’t let the bastards wear you down!’
That night in the pub Richard found himself standing next to Chantal again, just before closing time. When the publican called ‘Time’ she uncoiled her long legs from the bar stool and said,
‘So, mon vieux, you will walk me home, non?’
Taken aback, Richard swallowed and said, ‘Yes, of course. You don’t want to go for fish and chips with the others?’
She looked back at him over her shoulder. ‘Tonight I have no appetite – for fish and chips.’
Outside the pub Merry said, ‘You coming, Richard?’
Richard felt himself flush. ‘No, not tonight. I’m seeing Chantal home.’
‘Really?’ Merry raised an eyebrow. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’
Richard caught up with Chantal, who had started strolling along the prom in the opposite direction. She cocked her head sideways and looked up at him out of the corner of her eye but did not speak. He smelt her perfume, subtle, with a flowery freshness and a heady undertone of musk.
He said, ‘I like your scent. Where did you get it?’
‘It was a present, from an admirer.’
‘Is it French?’
‘Of course.’
‘When did you leave France?’
‘Oh, years ago now – six, seven. I was seventeen years old.’ Her voice was low, the accent slightly less pronounced than usual, and her tone was dry, with an edge of bitterness.
‘And you came here to work on the stage, at seventeen?’
She laughed, a low, throaty sound. ‘Mais non! I came to work as a domestique. A parlour maid. The plan was that one day I should become a lady’s maid, like my mother. But I do not like to spend my life dressing someone else’s hair, pressing someone else’s frocks!’
‘No, I can understand that,’ he said. ‘But why did you came to England, in the first place? Why not work in France?’
‘Because there is a great demand in England for French lady’s maids. We are supposed to understand better the finer points of the tenu, the fashion, the macquillage. And my mother had contacts here. She worked here for many years. I was born here.’
‘Oh, where?’
‘In Scotland, to be precise. My mother was maid to Lady Melrose. My father was her younger son, Lord Anthony Fraser,’
‘Your father!’ Richard glanced sideways at her. He had never before heard anyone admit to illegitimacy with so little hesitation and it made him feel slightly uncomfortable.
‘Bien sur,’ she replied. ‘These things happen, you know. My mother was very attractive. He was the young lord. My mother believed that he loved her, that he would look after her. I don’t know, perhaps it was true. He was killed in the first year of the war, a few months before I was born.’
‘How tragic!’
She shrugged. ‘It was not so bad as it might have been. Lady Melrose was a good woman. She was a widow with two sons but no daughter and she was very fond of my mother. And she adored Lord Anthony. When she learned that my mother was carrying his child she decided that I was her responsibility. I was brought up at the family’s castle in Scotland. Not as one of the family, you understand! There are limits to the generosity of such people. But Lady Melrose saw that I was educated. She taught me herself how to read and write, and to play the piano. It was not an unhappy childhood.’
‘What happened?’ Richard asked. ‘Why did you go back to France?’
‘Lady Melrose died when I was eleven years old. There was no longer a post for my mother and the Earl, her elder son, did not see why he should keep his brother’s bastard. So we were sent packing. My mother found work with a French family in Normandy and I was sent to be educated at a convent. Ouff! That convent! How I hated it! Then, when I was fifteen, I began my training in the same household where my mother worked. I hated that, too. So she decided to send me to England. She thought I would be less trouble here!’
‘But how did you get into this business?’ Richard asked. ‘Where did you learn to sing and act?’
‘Oh,’ she shrugged humorously, ‘I always sang, from a little child. Perhaps I always acted as well! In the convent I sang in the choir, but when the nuns were not listening I sang popular songs for my friends. Then, when I came to England, I was with a family who had a house in London. There were two daughters, one about my age, the other a little older. They were, how you say, ‘bright young things’. It was the Season – every night cocktail parties, dances. When there was no ball to go to they invited their friends round and they danced to all the latest records. I used to creep down the backstairs to listen. Then, when they were all out, in my hour or two off in the afternoon, I used to steal into the drawing room and put on a record and sing along with it. On my evenings off I used to go to the music hall. That was where I fell in love with the stage. One day the younger daughter came home unexpectedly and caught me in the drawing room, singing. I thought she would be furious, but instead she thought it was funny. She liked my voice and after that the two sisters used to call me to sing to their friends. The younger one played the piano and she used to accompany me, and they even lent me their dresses so I didn’t have to appear in my maid’s uniform.’
‘Good for them!’ Richard remarked, then glancing at her profile, ‘Or was it? How did you feel about it?’
‘What do you think? I was like a performing dog, dressed up to amuse their friends. Then, one day, the father found out what was going on. He was furious. He said it was ‘inappropriate’ for a parlour maid to entertain guests like that.’ Chantal paused and gave a low, ironic chuckle. ‘So I got the sack. I went straight round to the nearest music hall and asked to see the manager. He refused to see me, so I found out which was the window of his office and I stood outside in the street and sang. Quite a crowd gathered. Some of them even threw me some money! Then a messenger came out of the theatre and said the manager would see me after all. He gave me a spot on the bill, the audience liked me and that was that. Goodbye Henriette the parlour maid, hello Chantal, the entertainer.’
‘So your real name is Henriette?’
She looked at him. ‘No, I have forgotten Henriette. This is the real me – Chantal.’
They had been walking all through the conversation, past the hotels and boarding houses lining the promenade in the centre of the town to where they gave way to small cottages and bungalows that were mostly used as weekend retreats. Chantal stopped at the gate of one of the smallest, barely more than a chalet.
‘This is where I live.’
‘All on your own?’ he asked.
‘Bien sur, all on my own. It is small and when the wind blows all the windows rattle, but at least there is no landlady to spy on me and tell tales.’ She pushed open the gate. ‘Are you hungry? I make a very good omelette.’
‘I – well, yes,’ he stammered and, smiling, she took him by the hand and led him down the path.
As soon as the front door closed behind them she turned to him and entwined her arms round his neck. She was tall, and in her high heels her face was almost level with his own. When her lips found his he was shaken by a mixture of intense desire and panic. Briefly, he remembered the promise he had made to Rose. But then he found himself asking just what it was he had promised – only to wait, for some indefinite time. Chantal’s tongue was exploring his mouth, her body pressed against his from shoulder to hip in a manner totally unlike that of any other girl he had ever kissed. Guilt gripped him like a cold, clammy hand. He released himself from her embrace.
‘Chantal, we shouldn’t be doing this.’
Chantal looked into his eyes with that provocative, mocking gaze and said, ‘Alors! You are not a virgin, surely.’
‘No!’ he exclaimed, and gave a brief, grateful thought to his singing teacher.
‘Bien! Neither am I. So, what is the problem?’
She kissed him again and he forgot guilt, forgot the strictures of his ‘respectable’ upbringing – forgot Rose. When he slid his hand under her blouse she eased back from him to make room for it to find her breast. The nipple was hard as a bullet and he heard her sharp intake of breath as he squeezed it. The angle of her body changed as she kicked off her shoes and then she drew away and led him by the hand into a darkened bedroom. He heard the rustle as she slipped out of her blouse and skirt and caught the pale glimmer of silk as she shed her underwear, struggling as he did so with clumsy fingers with shoelaces and fly buttons. Then they were both naked and she pulled him down with her onto the bed. She was experienced, her hands and tongue working expertly to arouse him, but she was eager to receive as well as to give and her uninhibited pleasure heightened his own excitement. For the first time he delayed his own climax in order to relish hers, and afterwards, as she lay limp and sated in his arms, he felt a satisfaction he had never known before.
She made omelettes for them both eventually, but not until much later. They ate them sitting up in bed, naked, but when he reached for her again she pushed him gently away.
‘No, mon cher, you must go now. You have a long walk home in the dark, I am afraid.’
‘Can’t I stay here with you?’ he pleaded.
She shook her head, smiling. ‘No. Your landlady would notice that your bed was not slept in and several people saw you coming away with me. People will gossip and sooner or later your Rose would hear of it.’
He felt a lurch at the base of his stomach.
‘Rose should know, shouldn’t she?’ he said.
‘No! No, mon ami, you must say nothing to Rose. She is not the same sort of girl as me. She is a girl who will remain a virgin until she marries – and she is the sort of girl you will want to marry.’
‘How do you know?’ he said, almost angrily. ‘Suppose I want to marry you?’
‘Then that would be a great mistake,’ she said gently. ‘I am not the marrying kind – and I think you knew that before you came here tonight.’
‘Rose won’t marry me either,’ he exclaimed. ‘She says it wouldn’t work because our backgrounds are too different.’
‘So, you have asked her then?’
‘Not exactly. Not in so many words. But she says we mustn’t get too serious.’
‘She says that to defend herself, because she doesn’t want to commit herself and then be disappointed. And she is afraid of getting pregnant.’ Chantal smiled. ‘Poor Richard! I can understand why you feel confused. But you must make up your own mind what you want.’
He sighed deeply. ‘I don’t know what I want, any more. Except that I want more nights like tonight. I can – come here again, can’t I?’
‘Perhaps. Yes, probably. We shall see.’
A new thought struck him with breath-taking force. ‘Oh, my God! I didn’t – we didn’t take any precautions. I should have thought …’
She chuckled softly. ‘Don’t worry. I am not so inexperienced in these matters. Tonight was safe, believe me.’
‘If you’re sure …’
‘I am sure. Now, you must get dressed and go.’
When he was leaving she kissed him once and he said, ‘When can I come again?’
‘I will let you know. But remember, tomorrow we are just as we were this morning. You walked me home, nothing more. If you want to come again, that is how it must be.’
‘All right. If that’s what you want.’
‘That is what I insist upon. Goodnight, cheri.’
He covered the long distance back to his digs without being aware of the pavement under his feet. The summer night was still, the tide high and the waves sucked and hissed hypnotically on the beach a few feet below him. He felt light, almost incorporeal. He tried to think of Rose, of the implications of what had happened, but his mind refused to focus. His moral upbringing told him he should feel guilty, defiled, but he was unable to summon up any sense of shame. Instead, he felt purified.

CHAPTER 5

As the weeks passed Rose tried to pretend to herself that this summer was no different from any other, with its familiar routine of days on the beach and evening performances. Sometimes she went walking with Richard and when they found a secluded spot she let him kiss her and hold her close, until every part of her body burned with desire. At such moments she longed to give herself up to him completely, to forget the restraint that had been ingrained in her since childhood, but he had obviously decided to respect her wishes and control his own impulses. She wondered sometimes if he was trying to prove to her that her mother’s estimation of men was faulty and that he could be trusted, even in extreme circumstances. At other moments the thought entered her mind that his natural desires were finding expression elsewhere. Once or twice she caught him watching Chantal and the look on his face disturbed her, but Chantal treated him with such indifference that she dismissed the idea as unworthy suspicion.
Intensely pleasurable as they were, these encounters left them both shaken and taut with frustration, so that it was difficult to resume their normal, easy companionship. Much as she longed to be in his arms, Rose decided reluctantly that the only solution was to limit the time they spent alone together. Instead, she suggested occupations that involved other people. They went dancing at the Palace Hotel quite often and once she let him take her to the cinema again, to see The Wizard of Oz. Even then, they were far from alone. All the girls in the chorus wanted to see Judy Garland and for days afterwards the dressing room rang to renditions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
The news from London continued to worry her. In her mind, the IRA bombing campaign overshadowed the increasingly gloomy reports from Europe. She tried to persuade her mother and her sister Bet, together with eight-year-old Billy and five-year-old Sam, to come and stay in Fairbourne. However, her mother insisted that she could not leave the shop and Bet maintained that her husband, Reg, could not afford to pay for her and the two boys to live in lodgings. Instead, he drove them down for the day one Sunday, in a car borrowed from the garage where he worked. She invited Richard to join them for tea at the Kardomah but the meeting was not a success. He did his best to be as natural and relaxed as possible, but Mrs Taylor and Bet obviously felt ill-at-ease and Rose and Richard both had to struggle to keep the conversation going.
For Richard, too, it was a time of emotional turmoil. On the one hand there was the hedonistic enjoyment of his new life, the carefree games, soporific afternoons after Mrs Parish’s substantial lunches, the adrenaline buzz of performance and applause. On the other, the ever-increasing menace of approaching war. Hitler and Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact, which meant that the Fuhrer was now at liberty to turn his full attention to Europe. The newspapers and news bulletins on the wireless were full of talk of the coming conflict and, although people talked about plans for the winter season ahead, Richard knew that all of them were privately facing up to the idea that by Christmas they might be leading a very different life.
More urgent, though, than these considerations was the contrary tug of his feelings for Rose and Chantal. When he tried to analyse these feelings dispassionately, he knew that it was Rose he really loved but he had promised not to pressure her for an answer and feared losing her altogether if he was too importunate. On the other hand, he craved the physical pleasure and release that he had experienced with Chantal, but she seemed determined to ignore him and gave not even the faintest sign that anything had happened between them. He began to be afraid that she had found him so inadequate that she had completely lost interest in him. Sometimes he reproached himself guiltily for his lack of fidelity to Rose, but the next moment he would find himself thinking that after all it was her fault. If she had not made herself so unattainable he would never have gone with Chantal. Or would he? He could not in all honesty convince himself that he would have turned down her invitation.
The evening came when, standing next to her at the bar, he heard her murmur,
‘Tonight, cheri. Tell the others you are tired and are going back to your digs. I will join you shortly. There is a key under the doormat.’
He found the key and let himself in to the tiny house. Somehow he would have expected it to be less than tidy – not dirty, certainly not that, but with some of the flamboyant disregard for convention which Chantal herself exhibited. Instead, it was as neat and orderly as a sailor’s cabin. He stood in the bedroom, uncertain whether to get undressed or whether that would appear to be taking too much for granted. She arrived sooner than he expected, carrying a bottle of champagne.
‘I told the man behind the bar it was a present for a friend!’
‘Look, you must let me pay for that,’ he said.
She glanced up from easing the cork out of the bottle. ‘Zut, alors! Save your money. Buy something for Rose instead.’
He moved closer to her. ‘Chantal, don’t you mind about me and Rose? Aren’t you even a little bit jealous?’
‘Why should I be?’ Her amber eyes stared into his own. ‘We give each other what we both need, and Rose keeps her precious virginity. It is a good arrangement, n’est pas?’
She poured the champagne, gave him a glass and then reached up to kiss him with the wine still on her lips. ‘Why are you still dressed? We are wasting time. Viens, cheri.’
This time he got undressed with less fumbling and when they were both naked she came and stood against him, her lithe body cool against his skin. She kissed him with her mouth full of champagne and he ran his hands down her back until they cupped her buttocks and then slid his fingers between her legs. She gasped and flung her head back, straining against him and he bent and took her breast into his mouth. After a moment she drew away and sank back onto the bed and in the faint light from the window he saw her body open to him, undefended, inviting. Slowly, almost reverently, he stooped over her, seeking with fingers and tongue for the secret centres of pleasure until she cried out and pulled him into her and he felt her convulse in ecstasy.
It was almost dawn when he got back to his own room, but if either of his fellow lodgers heard him they made no reference to the fact.

One evening, as Felix and Richard were putting on their makeup, Monty Prince came into the dressing room looking worried.
‘Have either of you seen Merry?’ he demanded.
‘Isn’t he out front?’ Felix said.
‘No, he bloody isn’t! That’s why I’m asking.’
Richard and Felix exchanged glances. Felix said, ‘Last time I saw him was at lunch.’
‘Me, too,’ Richard agreed.
‘Well, where does he go in the afternoons?’ Monty asked.
Felix lifted his shoulders. ‘Search me. He’s a secretive sort of cove, our Merry.’
‘You must have some idea where he spends his time,’ Monty insisted.
‘He goes walking sometimes, along the cliffs,’ Richard offered. He thought he caught a warning look from Felix and said no more.
‘Bloody hell! It’ll be just my luck if he’s fallen off and broken his neck!’ Monty fumed.
‘Not very lucky for Merry, either,’ Felix commented.
‘Don’t get clever with me!’ Monty snarled. ‘Somebody’s going to have to take over at the piano. It’ll have to be that dozy Vincent, so you can expect some wrong notes in your solos tonight, Richard.’
He went out and slammed the door. Richard looked at Felix.
‘What can have happened? Merry wouldn’t let the show down. Do you think he’s been in an accident?’
‘Possibly.’ Felix looked at his watch. ‘Ten minutes to curtain up. He could still come rushing in. Anyway, there’s bugger all we can do at the moment. We’ll be getting the five minute call any second.’
They staggered through the show somehow. Vince, the trombonist, fumbled through the piano accompaniments without making a complete disaster and if the orchestra was a bit ragged no one in the audience seemed to notice. Afterwards the cast congregated on stage. Merry was popular with everyone and the mood was sombre.
‘Madame has telephoned all the hospitals in the area, and no one answering Merry’s description has been admitted to any of them,’ Monty announced. ‘I’ve spoken to the coastguard but there’s been no report of anyone in difficulties on the cliffs or cut off by the tide. Now, can anyone recall seeing him, or anything that might give us a hint where he is?’
‘I know he goes to see his Dad at the weekends,’ Rose offered. ‘Do you think the old man’s been taken ill and he’s rushed off there?’
‘He’d leave a message in that case, wouldn’t he?’ Richard suggested.
‘Anybody know his father’s address?’ Monty asked.
‘It’ll be in his room, somewhere,’ Felix said. ‘I’ll look for it.’
Monty came back to the digs with them and Felix quickly produced a slip of paper with the address and telephone number, but a call to an extremely grumpy Colonel Merryweather, who had been fast asleep in bed, produced no further clue to his son’s whereabouts. Finally Monty declared that there was nothing more they could do that night and took himself off and Richard, too tired to worry, fell into bed.
He was awakened by a tapping on the door and by the time his eyes were fully open Felix was standing over him. He was dressed and alert, as if he had been up for hours.
‘Sorry to wake you, old boy,’ he said, ‘but I need your help – or rather Merry does.’
‘Merry!’ Richard sat up, his brain still hazy with sleep. ‘Have you found him?’
‘Yes. He’s been arrested. He’s up before the beak at ten this morning. That’s why I need you.’
‘Arrested! What on earth for?’
Felix frowned impatiently. ‘Soliciting. What do you expect? The idiot was probably drunk.’
‘Soliciting?’ Richard mumbled. ‘Where?’
‘In a pub called The Anchor, down by the harbour. I gather it has a certain reputation. It seems Merry made certain suggestions to a young lad. He obviously misread the signs. The boy reported it to the publican, who called the police. They’ve had him in the cells all night.’
‘My God!’ Richard said. ‘What can we do?’
‘I’ve been in touch with a solicitor already,’ Felix said. ‘He’s a good man who’s handled this sort of work before. He’s on his way down from Town now.’
‘From London!’ Richard exclaimed. It seemed hardly credible that Felix had not only traced Merry but had actually prevailed upon a London solicitor to take up his case at such short notice.
Felix ignored the interjection. ‘He’ll try to convince the magistrate that it’s just a bad case of drunk and disorderly and Merry didn’t really know what he was saying. Our job is to act as character witnesses. If we can stand up and swear that we’ve shared a house with him for months and never seen the slightest sign of – well, anti-social behaviour – it may help.’
‘You mean we’ve got to swear that Merry’s not queer,’ Richard said slowly.
Felix fixed him with a hard-eyed look. ‘Have you ever seen any indication that he is? Made a pass at you, has he?’
‘No!’ Richard felt himself blushing. ‘Of course not.’
‘Well then.’ Felix dismissed the quibble. He softened his tone. ‘I can’t go to Monty or Frank. They’re both too prejudiced. Frank wouldn’t speak up for fear of being tarred with the same brush and if Madame got so much of a hint of it Merry would be out on his ear. That’s why we’ve got to keep it quiet. You’re a nice, upstanding, well-spoken chap, the sort who makes a good impression on magistrates. Will you help?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. Sorry, I wasn’t meaning to be obstructive. What time is it?’
‘Just after nine. Time for you to get dressed up in your best togs and have a bit of breakfast before we go to court.’
‘You must have been up for hours!’ Richard exclaimed. His brain was wrestling with the notion that Felix, who always seemed to enjoy needling Merry at every opportunity, should have gone to such lengths to help him.
Felix turned away to the door without comment. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, turning back, ‘I’ve told Mrs P. that Merry went to see a friend in London and the friend offered to drive him back but they were involved in an accident and both spent the night in a hospital in Croydon.’
At a few minutes before ten Richard and Felix presented themselves, smartly turned out, at the local magistrates’ court. The solicitor, a lean, suave figure in black jacket and pinstripe trousers, met them in the foyer. He and Felix shook hands, not exactly like old friends but like two people who had had dealings before, and Felix introduced Richard.
‘I’ve spoken to our client,’ the lawyer said. ‘We’re taking the line that he had a bit too much to drink and didn’t know what he was saying, but we have to convince the magistrate that it was completely out of character. Your testimony as character witnesses could be crucial.’
Merry’s case was the third to come before the magistrates. He entered the dock pale and unshaven and with an obvious black eye, but his demeanour was controlled and his voice as he answered to his name was clear. Richard saw his eyes sweep round the courtroom. They passed over him and came to rest on Felix, their expression emotionless and yet, to Richard, somehow eloquent. He remembered Rose saying, ‘Poor Merry. He’s so desperately in love with Felix …’ And Felix knew it and was not, after all, indifferent.
After the case for the prosecution their solicitor rose. It was obvious from the outset that the magistrates were impressed and even a little over-awed by the presence of a man who was obviously known to them as someone more normally to be found in the Old Bailey. He put the case persuasively. It had all been a terrible misunderstanding. His client admitted that he had been exceedingly drunk, reprehensibly so indeed, but he was a young man and young men were apt to let themselves go from time to time. The remarks to which the complainant had taken such exception had been intended as a joke – ill-judged, tasteless even, but not criminal. This was a young man of hitherto stainless reputation, an artiste, whose career might be blighted by a single foolish episode. He would call witnesses who could vouch for the fact that, even though they had lived closely with the accused for several months, they had never seen any evidence of deviant behaviour.
First Felix and then Richard, called to the witness box, testified accordingly. The magistrates put their heads together and whispered. Then the Chief Magistrate gave his verdict.
‘In view of the fact that you have previously been of good character and bearing in mind the testimony of your friends to that effect, we are disposed to treat this incident as a case of being drunk and disorderly. However, if you ever appear before us again on a similar charge we shall bring to bear the full force of the law. Fined £25. You may stand down.’
In the foyer Merry extended his hand to Felix. ‘I can’t repay you, Felix, but I shan’t forget.’
Felix shook his hand and said lightly, ‘I hope not, indeed. We don’t want this sort of episode to become a regular event.’
Richard saw the pain in Merry’s eyes. ‘I meant the obligation. You need not worry about a repetition of last night.’ He turned to Richard and rather hesitantly held out his hand, ‘Thanks for standing up for me, Richard.’
‘Not at all,’ Richard responded, taking it. ‘I was glad to do it, but it’s Felix who organised everything.’
‘I know that,’ Merry replied quietly. He paused. ‘There’s just one problem. I don’t have twenty-five pounds to my name.’
Felix sighed theatrically and reached into an inside pocket. ‘I had a feeling that would be the case.’ He took out his wallet and peeled off five crisp white notes and handed them to Merry. Richard gazed in amazement. He had never known anyone who carried that sort of money around with him. It struck him that with the solicitor’s fees this case had cost Felix a pretty penny and he wondered again where the money came from. Merry took the notes, held Felix’s gaze for a moment, then nodded and turned away.
Over cups of bitter coffee in the little cafe round the corner from the court they agreed on the story to be presented to Monty and the rest of the company. There was always the chance that the case might be reported in the local paper or that word might get back to the Princes in some other way so they decided that it would be best to stick as closely as possible to the truth. Merry would own up to being drunk and spending the night in police cells but the precise details of the incident could be glossed over. Monty himself was known to drink too much on occasions and had had the odd brush with the law, so it was likely he would not inquire too closely.
‘How did you get the black eye?’ Richard asked. ‘Did you put up a fight?’
Merry gave him one of his typical sideways looks. ‘Can you see me resisting arrest? No, I walked into a door, of course.’ Then, in response to Richard’s frown, ‘The police don’t like ‘my type’ – whatever that means.’ He turned his head away and coughed and Richard was aware that his breathing was shallow and laboured.
Felix said quietly, ‘Are you OK?’
Merry drew in a breath and straightened his shoulders. ‘Night in police cells – more or less guaranteed to bring on anyone’s asthma, I should think.’
‘Do you want to see a doctor?’ Felix asked.
Merry shook his head. ‘No. I’ve got some medication back at the digs. I’ll be all right once I get back there.’
‘Right,’ said Felix. ‘I’ve got the car outside. The sooner we get you home the better.’
By the time they got back to the lodging house Richard could hear Merry wheezing as he fought to draw breath into his congested lungs. At the bottom of the stairs he checked and put a hand on the wall for support. Felix, as usual, took in the situation at a glance and acted.
‘Come on, Richard, give me a hand,’ he said, and grasped Merry by one elbow. The pianist protested feebly, but Richard grabbed his other arm and between them they half carried him up the stairs. At the door of his room Felix again suggested calling a doctor but Merry insisted that he would be all right as soon as he could take some of his medicine and disappeared into the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.
To Richard’s relief, he reappeared at teatime, apparently restored to his old self. Felix had already informed Monty of the situation and before the show Merry was summoned to the manager’s office to confront his employer. What passed between them was never revealed but by curtain up Merry was installed in the orchestra pit as usual.

There was one further incident of importance, as far as Richard was concerned, during August. One evening as he was changing after the show Monty put his head round the dressing room door. Felix had already left and Merry was still in the orchestra pit, so Richard was alone.
‘Visitor for you,’ Monty said, and stood back to admit a dapper-looking man in his mid thirties whom Richard had never seen before in his life.
‘Mr Stevens?’ the stranger said, coming forward. ‘My name’s Reginald Harrison. I work for the BBC. I’m down here on holiday so I thought I’d bring the family along to see the show. Thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly your items. You’ve got a fine voice, very fine. Mr Prince tells me you trained in Italy.’
‘Yes,’ Richard replied breathlessly. He could think of nothing else to say, but the other man went on smoothly,
‘What are you doing at the end of the season?’
‘I – I don’t know.’ He was still gasping like a fish out of water.
‘Give me a ring when you get back to Town. The number’s on the card.’ Harrison held out a visiting card. ‘I’m sure we can find a slot for you. We’re always on the lookout for new talent.’
Richard accepted the card and mumbled his thanks and the visitor, after exchanging a few pleasantries, took himself off, with Monty obsequiously in tow.

Next morning Rose was preparing to head for the beach as usual when Richard called for her at the boarding house.
‘Let’s go for a coffee somewhere. I’ve got something to tell you.’
She listened to his news and tried to look pleased, but the first thought that came into her head was that her predictions were beginning to come true.
‘So it looks as though I’ll be in London this winter,’ he finished.
She smiled at him. ‘See, I told you you were set to go places.’
‘But I’m not!’ he said, grinning back at her. ‘That’s the point. I’m not going away. I’m staying in London. So we’ll be able to see each other.’
Her smile faded. ‘But I don’t know where I’ll be, yet. I have to work too, you know. I’ll try to get into panto somewhere, but there’s no knowing where.’
‘Oh,’ he said, deflated. ‘Somehow I assumed you would be going home. Silly of me. But couldn’t you get into a pantomime in London?’
‘I might, if I’m lucky. Then again I might end up in Brighton or Bolton or Llandudno. You have to go where the work is. Anyway,’ she touched his hand across the table, ‘I shouldn’t set too much store by this BBC thing. They might want you to do a couple of programmes, maybe even a regular slot if you’re very lucky, but it won’t be enough to live on, you know. You’ll have to look for other work as well.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘Oh well, I suppose there are always plenty of choral societies wanting a soloist for the Messiah around Christmas.’ He brightened. ‘Or perhaps I could try panto too. Maybe we could both get into the same one.’
‘And maybe pigs might fly!’ she laughed. ‘This business just doesn’t work like that. You just have to be grateful if you’ve got a job – any job.’
‘But we could try, couldn’t we?’ he begged. ‘At least we could both try to stay in London.’
She felt a surge of tenderness. Sometimes he seemed so young, so much less experienced than she was. ‘OK. I suppose we could try, but you must promise me one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You won’t turn down a good opportunity just to be where I am. You have to think of your career first. Promise?’
He sighed. ‘All right, I promise. But that probably means London, so in return you must promise me you’ll try to find something there. Christmas in London, together – eh?’
She smiled, half unwillingly. ‘Oh, all right. Christmas in London, if we can.’

The following morning they heard on the wireless that all RAF and Army Reservists had been called up and that night ‘Uncle’ Mike insisted on buying everyone a drink in the pub.
‘I’m off first thing tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Duty calls.’
‘But you shouldn’t be going!’ Felix exclaimed. ‘A chap your age. It’s ridiculous.’
‘Fact is, I was just old enough to be in at the end of the last lot,’ Mike said. ‘I’ve been in the RAF Reserve ever since. Don’t suppose they’ll let me fly a plane this time, though. Pity, I’d just got my pilot’s licence when the Armistice was signed. Never saw any action.’
‘I hope to God you won’t see any this time, either,’ Frank said. ‘This is just a false alarm, isn’t it?’
‘I wish I could believe that,’ was the grim response.
The next day they heard that German troops had invaded Poland. There was a performance that night, but the auditorium was almost empty. Most people had cut short their holidays and headed for home while it was still possible to travel. Richard’s parents telephoned to say that they would not, after all, be coming to Fairbourne. The following morning, without needing a formal summons, they all gathered at the theatre. Rose went straight across to Richard and took his hand, no longer attempting to hide her feelings. Monty had brought in a portable wireless set and at eleven o’clock the announcement they were all dreading came over the airwaves, in the flat, exhausted tones of Mr Chamberlain.
‘This country is now at war with Germany.