Her Turn to Cry. Chris Curran

by Chris Curran

      

       About the Publisher

       Chapter One

       The Pier Theatre, Hastings, Sussex – August 1953

      Joycie usually loves it when Dad takes her to work with him. But not today. She wants to stay at their lodgings in case Mum comes back. She keeps telling Dad she’s eleven now and old enough to be left on her own, but he won’t listen.

      Sid Sergeant is already in the dressing room, a fag in the corner of his mouth, squinting at himself in the mirror through the swirls of smoke. Old Harry, a conjuror they call The Great Zarbo, stands facing the sink in the corner. Joycie can hear a splashing sound and, along with the usual smells of tobacco, make-up, and beer, there’s a pong of wee that makes her nose twitch.

      Sid twists to look at them. ‘Cover up, Harry, will you,’ he says.

      Harry turns on the tap and fiddles with his trousers, talking to Dad over his shoulder. ‘Sorry, Charlie. Didn’t know you were bringing the nipper. Someone’s been in the lav for ages.’ He waddles to the dressing table. ‘You gonna sit with me while your dad’s onstage, eh darling?’

      Her dad raises his dark brows at Sid. ‘That’s OK, Harry; I’m going to ask Irene to mind her.’

      As the star of the show, Irene Slade has her own tiny room. She’s doing her hair at the cluttered dressing table. ‘Hello sweetie pie.’ Irene pats the chair next to her and, looking at Charlie in the mirror, she points at a packet of chocolate cakes sitting on top of the mess of jewellery and sticks of make-up. ‘I must have known you’d bring her in tonight. Got her favourites.’

      When Dad has gone Joycie eats her cake and watches as Irene gets dressed, trying not to think about Mum. Irene is lumpy and middle-aged in her street clothes, but crammed into shining satin and sparkling with sequins and fake diamonds she looks as glamorous as Rita Hayworth. People say that, once upon a time, Irene performed in front of the old king, George VI.

      She catches Joycie looking, fluffs out her hair and kisses the air with glossy lips. ‘Not bad for an old girl, eh, lovey? Now be a darling and go ask your dad to get Sid off that stage on time tonight. I don’t want to be hanging about in the wings for half an hour again.’

      Joycie stops between the two dressing rooms when she hears Sid’s voice: ‘So what’s wrong with Mary this time? You had another row?’

      ‘No.’ Her dad’s voice is so low she has to strain to hear him. ‘She saw Joycie off to bed, but she wasn’t there when I got back after the show last night. I looked in the wardrobe and all her best clothes are gone.’

      But that’s not right because Joycie checked when Dad went out and Mum’s favourite blouse was still there and her new black shoes in their box under the bed. She would never have left without them.

      And now Joycie’s thinking about what else she saw under the bed, but she doesn’t want to. Don’t think about that, don’t think.

      Harry the conjuror is too far away for her to hear more than a mumble. Sid is loud enough, though: ‘You’re better off without her, Charlie. You know what she’s like. Found herself another fancy man I shouldn’t wonder.’

      A rustle and a waft of scent as Irene touches Joycie’s shoulder. ‘Never mind them, darling. They’re talking rubbish. You come back in with me.’

      There’s a funny lump in Joycie’s throat, but she bites her lip and sits at the dressing table again. Dad has come into the corridor and she can see him in the mirror, tall and handsome in his dinner jacket and bow tie. He peers in at her as he and Sid head for the stage, but she looks down and picks at the cake crumbs that have fallen into a little tray full of jewellery.

      Irene sits beside her. ‘Don’t you worry, darling. I know Mary and she’ll be back soon. Couldn’t manage without you, could she?’

      She pulls Joycie into her arms. Her bosom is soft and scented with powder that gets up Joycie’s nose, and her hard corset digs in lower down. Joycie wishes she could cry, but there’s just that awful, hurting lump she can’t swallow away.

      Irene is top of the bill and on straight after Dad and Sid. When she heads for the wings Joycie creeps out to watch from the other side. It’s a full house with lots of laughter, but a few heckles too. Sid loves hecklers. Dressed in his trademark tweed suit and yellow tie he’s fat and red-faced, his shiny bald head fringed by greasy strands of bottle-brown hair.

      Sid is the star, the comic, and her dad is just the stooge, but it’s her dad the girls crowd round for at the stage door. Everyone says he looks like Cary Grant. His real name is Charlie Todd, but he’s called Lord Toddy in the act.

      ‘I’m sorry, Lord Toddy, I didn’t catch that,’ Sid says as her dad mutters some nonsense no one can understand. At home he’s cockney, but onstage Sid tells stories about Lord Toddy’s family, who, he says, are filthy rich but brainless. When Sid asks a question Charlie’s answer comes out as a splutter of posh noises, which Sid pretends to understand and pass on to the audience.

      As they come off stage and Irene’s music strikes up, Joycie steps further back into the whispering darkness.

      ‘Shouldn’t worry, Charlie boy,’ Sid is saying. ‘She’ll be back with her tail between her legs before long. And while she’s gone you might as well enjoy yourself. So what about getting Irene to take the kid tonight?’

      Dad rubs his face and pulls off his bow tie. ‘I don’t know, Sid.’

      ‘Go on.’ He pats her dad’s shoulder. ‘A few drinks to cheer you up and you can come back to ours afterwards. I got a nice bottle of Scotch needs opening.’

      Joycie waits until they’re gone. She hopes Dad does let her stay with Irene tonight. Irene will tell her stories and make her laugh. So she won’t have to think.

      And she doesn’t want to think. About the noises she heard in the night. Or the box with Mum’s best shoes still there under the bed. Or what she found rolled up next to the box: the mat from the living room blotched all over with dark red stains that look like blood.

       Chelsea, London – March 1965

      Joycie kept telling herself it was all in the past, but the memories wouldn’t stop flooding in. Things she thought she had forgotten; things she had tried to blank out. It was Irene Slade’s death that had brought it all back, of course. Well the funeral was today so that would put an end to it.

      Her face in the mirror was grey as the morning outside and the black dress didn’t help. She rubbed a touch of rouge onto her cheekbones.

      As she ran downstairs she could hear the wireless burbling away in the kitchen. Marcus had switched to the Home Service and on the Today programme, Jack de Manio’s posh growl was saying something about snow showers forecast this morning. There was a smell of boiling milk and she stood in the kitchen doorway as Marcus made coffee. It was a squeeze to get in, even though they were both skinny, and dangerous to try when he was pouring scalding liquid.

      He turned, holding the cups. ‘All right? You look a bit pale.’

      She sat on one of the spindly metal chairs that had to go sideways so you didn’t bang your legs on the drop-down leaves of the Formica table. The latest Vogue was in front of her and the face that was and wasn’t hers smiled from the cover through a cloud of black hair. She tapped the magazine. ‘I’m not, top model Orchid today, just common old Joycie Todd. Don’t need the false eyelashes or lipstick.’

      He kissed the