Forgotten Dreams

Chapter One

1921

It was a hot afternoon in August and Lottie Lacey was sitting on the top step of No. 2 Victoria Court staring unseeingly ahead of her whilst her tongue checked her small pearly teeth, as it had done so often this past week. Of course the result was always the same: she had a wobbler. Several of her friends had already lost some baby teeth, which was not unusual at seven years old, but they could regard such a loss with equanimity. Some even put the tooth under their pillow and next day found it gone and a round brown penny in its place. But even if their parents could not afford to hand out pennies whenever a tooth came out, there would be no dire consequences for the tooth losers.

Lottie, however, knew her own case to be very different, for her mother had impressed upon her the importance of looking ‘sweet’. It was one of the first prerequisites for a child star – a subject on which Mammy had been very bitter recently, for while Lottie had been in hospital she had been forced to employ another little girl to appear nightly in the current production at the Gaiety theatre just off the Scotland Road. But Merle sang flat and could not be persuaded to mime her songs, so she had been told to go. Consequently, Mammy had had to do a solo act until Lottie had been well enough to perform once more.

Sweetness, however, was not merely a matter of small pearly teeth; it encompassed hair as well. Lottie’s hair was brown and straight but her mammy had decided that it simply would not do. ‘You see, queen, when you’re part of a double act – a mother and daughter act like you and me – then it’s best to look alike,’ she had said, giving her appealing smile and twisting a strand of Lottie’s hair into a ringlet. ‘So this very evening I’ll lighten your hair up a bit. It won’t take more than an hour and I’ll buy a comic paper so that you’ve got something to read while the peroxide works.’ She had smiled lovingly at her daughter. ‘Then you’ll be as fair as me and the audience won’t ever know that we aren’t both true blondes.’

That had been when Lottie was only six, but even at six she had been well aware that Mammy was no more a true blonde than herself. She had not been tempted to comment, however, for Mammy could be reduced to tears – or temper – when unpalatable facts were pointed out. So Lottie had submitted to a long evening of boredom and discomfort whilst her mother covered her hair in a thick white paste, then rinsed and shampooed, and finally rubbed her head briskly before settling her on the hearthrug before the fire to dry out. Later, Lottie had looked in the mirror and had been shocked to find her hair not merely lighter but as yellow as her mother’s. She had hated it at first, but soon grew accustomed though it was a nuisance having to have her roots done every few weeks. ‘Stage lighting is strong and it wouldn’t do for you to come on half brown and half blonde,’ her mother had explained. ‘But like most theatricals I am a perfectionist, so even though it’s a bother I shall make sure you always look your best, as I do myself.’

Cautiously, now, Lottie’s tongue probed the wobbly tooth. She wondered whether it would be possible to glue it into place, perhaps with chewing gum, then remembered Baz O’Mara telling her that first teeth did not so much fall out as get pushed. ‘It’s your grown-up teeth wantin’ a place in the front row and pushin’ your baby teeth out o’ the way, you little idiot,’ he had said crossly. ‘You can’t stop it. All you can do is hope your new teeth will come through small. But I expect they’ll be huge, like horses’, and then, when you don’t look sweet any more, your mam’ll kick you out, same as she did with Merle, and it’ll serve you bleedin’ well right.’

Lottie took most of Baz’s remarks with a liberal pinch of salt because she knew Baz and Merle had been great pals and he had bitterly resented her dismissal, but this time Baz’s remark had scared her a bit. After all, he was ten, three whole years older than herself, and had been connected with the theatre all his life; and though he made no secret of the contempt he felt for Lottie at least he often answered her questions, which was more than her mother did. She knew her mother would never really turn her out, but she guessed that she might be relegated to being merely a daughter, which was nothing compared to being a performer.

Lottie herself had also been connected with the theatre all her life, of course, but ever since the accident her memories of the years before it happened had been vague and muddled. When Lottie had come round to find herself in a hospital ward, she had not recognised her own mammy – imagine that! She could still remember the trembling terror of finding herself lying in a narrow white bed whilst a beautiful blonde lady clutched her hands and wept and begged her not to die, not to leave her mammy, whose fault it was . . .

Apparently, Mammy had blamed herself for the accident because she had decided to leave Rhyl, where she had worked at the Pavilion theatre, and return to Liverpool, the city where Lottie had been born six years earlier. Mammy had explained that Lottie had been so excited at the thought of seeing the birthplace they had left while she was still a baby that she had dashed ahead, straight into the roadway, where she had been knocked down by a passing lorry. She had suffered from something called concussion and had been unconscious for three whole weeks and in hospital for more than three months, for she had broken both her legs and such fractures take a considerable time to heal. When she had come to herself, she could remember nothing, not her own name, not her mammy, nor anything that had happened over the past six years. It had been a bit as though she had been born in that hospital bed, and although a whole year had passed since then, her memories of the time before the accident were fuzzy and unreal. If she tried to make sense of them the headaches came back and this was bad for her: the doctors at the hospital had said so. Her favourite doctor had also said not to worry about the memory loss. ‘You may wake up one day remembering every tiny detail of your past life, or it may come to you in dribs and drabs,’ he had said. ‘But don’t try to force it; let it happen naturally, if you can.’

As her mother had pointed out, however, this had not been possible. The dance routines and songs which Lottie had been performing over the past year had gone along with everything else, and had to be relearned as quickly as possible, and in the process Mammy had let slip a great many details about their past life together. Lottie had fastened on to these eagerly.

If they had returned to Rhyl, of course, she might have remembered a great many things for herself, but in Rhyl her mother had been assistant to a conjurer with whom she had fallen out, which was why she had left the Pavilion theatre and come to Liverpool to work with Baz’s father. Mr O’Mara was also a conjurer, though he preferred to be known a magician, and Mammy, whose stage name was Louella, handed ‘Mr Magic’ his equipment, climbed into the disappearing cabinet and disappeared, and, as a finale, was sawn in half to reappear, two minutes later, miraculously unhurt. In their mother and daughter routine, Louella and Lottie tap-danced to popular tunes and sang a few songs, and then Mammy did cartwheels and flick-flacks all round the stage whilst Lottie, in a frilly pink tutu and pink satin ballet shoes, stood on her points, pirouetted with her arms over her head, and smiled sweetly at the audience to encourage their applause.

It had been suggested by one doctor that mother and daughter might return to Rhyl, just for a few days, in order to aid Lottie’s memory, but Louella had been horrified by the idea. It seemed that her former partner had been violent and had bitterly resented Louella’s abandoning him, even though she had stayed until the end of the holiday season. ‘He’d likely kill the pair of us if we went back,’ she had told anyone who suggested a return to Rhyl and Lottie was glad, for she dreaded the thought of facing more strangers, particularly one who disliked both herself and her mother.

‘Hey, what on earth are you doin’ starin’ into space like a great mooncalf? Your ma’s in a reg’lar takin’ ’cos you ain’t been down to the theatre so’s you can get her messages. I offered to get ’em but she said she wouldn’t trust me to pick out the freshest fruit, nor to know what sort of tea an’ that to buy, so you’d best get yourself over there afore she decides you’ve got yourself kilt stone dead runnin’ under another perishin’ bus.’

Lottie’s eyes, which had been half closed, shot open. ‘Great mooncalf yourself, and it weren’t a bus, it were a lorry,’ she said quickly. ‘Will you come with me, Kenny? Mammy usually gives me a penny for doin’ the messages so we’ll go halves. What d’you say?’

‘Oh, awright,’ the boy said amiably. He was a ragged urchin, a year older than Lottie, and her best friend in Victoria Court. Indeed, Mrs Brocklehurst ‘gave an eye’ to Lottie when her mother was busy, as well as cleaning No. 2, and taking the Lacey washing on Monday mornings and bringing it back clean and freshly ironed on the Wednesday evening. She was a fat, motherly woman with five children of her own but thought nothing of taking on an extra one, and only charged Louella a nominal sum for childminding, though she enjoyed the privilege of being able to have a free seat at the theatre whenever she had time to see a show.

Everyone living in the court assumed that Louella and Baz’s father were married since they lived in the same house, but Lottie knew it was not true. ‘Only don’t say anything to anyone because folk don’t approve of theatre people,’ Louella had said, thoroughly confusing her daughter. ‘Let them believe what they want to believe, that’s what I say.’

Of course Baz must have known that Louella and Max O’Mara were not married, but he never remarked on it, so it was easy for Lottie to keep her own counsel. The neighbours referred to Max and Louella as Mr and Mrs Magic, and were friendly enough in an offhand way, though they seldom mixed much, of course. When the other residents of the court were coming wearily home after a day’s work on the docks, or in the factories and shops, Mr and Mrs Magic were setting out for the evening performance at the Gaiety. Thursdays and Saturdays they did matinée performances, and on Sunday they stayed in bed until noon and then went to the theatre, if they wished to do so, to rehearse whatever act they were going to perform the following week, for the management liked to vary its programme since this encouraged the audience to return. But quite often neither Max nor Louella felt the need to rehearse so Sunday was usually a holiday.

At Christmas, the entire cast abandoned their own acts and put on a pantomime. Baz, who despised the theatre, or said he did, always moaned and grumbled that he would not be dragged on to the stage, but usually ended up as the rear end of the cow in Jack and the Beanstalk, or a servant to the Marquis of Carabas when they did Puss in Boots. They all loved the pantomime season when every seat in the theatre was filled and the money rolled in steadily for six glorious weeks, and when it was over the theatre was closed for a whole fortnight so that everyone could go off for a well-earned rest.

‘Well? Are we goin’ or ain’t we? Honest to God, Lottie, I don’t believe you listen to a word I say. You sit there with your gob open, dreamin’ away, when I telled you your mam were in a takin’.’ Kenny seized Lottie’s hands and heaved her to her feet. ‘What’s gorrin to you today? You’re always dreamy but you ain’t usually this bad.’

‘Sorry. I’m a bit worried like, Kenny,’ Lottie said apologetically. ‘The fact is . . . If I tell you, will you promise you won’t tell no one else?’

‘Cross me heart and hope to die, slit me throat if I tell a lie,’ Kenny said rapidly, drawing a finger across his throat and making a peculiarly horrible choking noise as he did so. ‘What’s up then? Don’t say you’ve remembered you killed someone afore your accident?’

‘I’ll kill you if you don’t shurrup,’ Lottie said automatically. ‘No, but do you remember me tellin’ you how my mam had to get rid of Merle ’cos she weren’t sweet no more? Well, one of my teeth is wobbling, and that means the rest will start to wobble too quite soon. Baz says Mammy will kick me out, like she did Merle . . .’

‘Course she won’t. Merle weren’t no relation so that were different,’ Kenny said bracingly. ‘You’re daft, you are! Oh, I grant you teeth’s important if you’re on the stage, but you’ll grow some more, same as everyone else does.’ He grinned like a crocodile and tapped his own front teeth with a grimy forefinger. ‘See them? Them’s me second teeth, even better than the first lot if you asks me. Most kids lose ’em when they’s five or six – I did – so you’re lucky to have hung on to ’em for so long. I guess it’s because you’re small for your age,’ he concluded wisely.

Lottie stared doubtfully up at him. She supposed he was right because Mammy and she loved one another but she still wished she could do something which would stop the wobbler from wobbling. Hesitantly, she suggested gluing it with a wodge of chewing gum but this only made Kenny laugh. ‘You’re always tellin’ me how wonderful your mam is and I know she’s a kind woman,’ he said. ‘She’ll tell you not to open your mouth when you smile until the new teeth have growed in, but then you’ll go on as before.’ He heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘I never met a girl what worried more over less.’

By now, the two of them were making their way along the crowded pavement and Lottie stopped short, grabbing Kenny’s arm so that he stopped too. ‘You’d worry if you couldn’t remember a great big dollop of your life,’ she said accusingly. ‘Anyone would.’

‘No, no, only a stupid girl,’ Kenny said tauntingly. ‘Just wait till I tell me mam that you think Mrs Magic would kick you out ’cos you’d lost your front teeth!’

‘If you tell anyone, you’re a horrible liar,’ Lottie said. ‘You swore you wouldn’t.’

Kenny began to say that such an oath only applied to other kids, but Lottie was having none of it. She hurled herself at him and in a moment the two of them were rolling on the ground, Lottie making a spirited attempt to punch her companion on the nose whilst Kenny, giggling helplessly, fended her off.

It was a friendly fight, for Kenny never used his full strength, but when they drew apart and lurched into a shop doorway – for passers-by had not been pleased when the fighters had barged into them – Lottie realised there was a salty taste in her mouth. When she checked the wobbler, she discovered why. Her tooth had come right out. She gave a wail of despair and spat it into the palm of her hand. It looked very tiny, but when she probed at the hole it had left, still wondering if she could stick it back, she felt the sharp edge of the new tooth and realised it was hopeless. She had lost her first tooth and could not possibly hide the fact from anyone, and of course Louella would have to be told.

‘What’s up?’ Kenny said, staring. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I? There’s blood on your chin.’

‘Me tooth’s come right out,’ Lottie quavered, holding out her hand to show the evidence. ‘I must have jammed me teeth together or something. Oh well, once it started to wobble there weren’t much I could do. I’ll just have to tell me mam an’ see what she says.’

‘I’m tellin’ you she won’t mind. All mams know their kids lose teeth,’ Kenny said reassuringly. ‘And if you put that tooth under your piller, chances are your mam’ll take it out and put a penny there instead.’

Lottie grinned at him. For some reason, now that it had actually happened, she realised she had been worrying for nothing. Mammy would never turn her out, no matter what horrible Baz might say, and besides, there had been times when she had wished that she was an ordinary child and not a theatrical one. If losing a tooth meant she did not have to perform for several weeks, what was wrong with that? When she had first started work again, after coming out of hospital, she had been so tired the day following a performance that she had repeatedly fallen asleep in class and this had not pleased her teachers. Because of her memory loss she had had a lot of ground to make up and the head teacher of the school in Bond Street had told Louella that her daughter should miss matinées rather than school. It was the summer holidays now, but of course theatres did not close down, like schools, so she was only able to play out when she was neither rehearsing nor performing and often she was too tired to join in the more energetic games played by the children in Victoria Court. Yes, a break from working in the theatre would not be so bad after all.

She said as much to Kenny but he looked at her with incredulity. ‘Wharrabout the money, queen?’ he asked. ‘Your mam’s got Number Two real nice but she’s bound to miss your money.’

They had almost reached the theatre by this time and were about to go down the jigger which led to the stage door, but once again Lottie pulled her companion to a halt. ‘Money? But no one pays me money,’ she said. ‘They pay Mammy . . . I must remember to call her Louella because she doesn’t like me sayin’ Mammy in the theatre, I don’t know why. What makes you think anyone would pay me, Kenny?’

‘Course they does,’ Kenny said impatiently. ‘Why, half the folk in the stalls goes there pertickler to see you; they think you’re sweet.’ He sounded disgusted. ‘Anyroad, let’s see what your mam – I mean Louella – says when you tell ’er about your tooth.’

Both children had forgotten that Kenny had already seen Louella in the box office or they might have gone in through the front. As it was, they found the stage door uncompromisingly locked so they had to retrace their steps. There was a short queue for tickets, for the theatre put on extra matinées during the school holidays, giving a shortened performance and charging half the usual price. They joined the queue but several people looked round and Lottie was immediately recognised. Faces beamed and there were murmurs of ‘It’s little Miss Lottie come to visit her mammy’ as the folk in the queue pushed her gently to the front. Lottie had grown used to being hailed when she was with her mother or near the theatre, but she did not like it. However, she smiled brightly, keeping her lips clamped together and reflecting that at least being recognised meant she could speak to Louella at once, rather than having to wait her turn.

It was apparent, however, as soon as she reached the front of the queue that her mother was not in a very good temper. ‘Lottie, you bad child, where on earth have you been?’ she snapped. ‘I was beginning to think you must have had an accident. You know full well that you’re supposed to come down to the theatre for my messages as soon as Mrs Brocklehurst has given you your dinner. What were you doing? I must say you’re usually . . . oh, my God!’

Wordlessly, Lottie had opened her mouth, indicated the gap, and then held out her hand with her small tooth in its palm. ‘Me bleedin’ tooth come out, Louella. I’m awful sorry but I couldn’t help it,’ she said humbly. ‘I wanted to stick it back in with chewing gum only Kenny said that wouldn’t work. Will it – will it mean—’

Her mother interrupted her. ‘Losing a tooth doesn’t take over an hour, nor should it make you as dirty as though you’d been rolling around on the pavement,’ she said accusingly. ‘And how many times have I told you not to use bad language? It’s vulgar and unnecessary.’

Lottie stared at her mother with considerable respect. How on earth had she known about the fight on the pavement? She opened her mouth to enquire but Louella was producing her purse, a list and their marketing bag, so she said nothing. After all her worry it seemed that a missing tooth wasn’t even an acceptable excuse for being late. But Louella was standing up and coming round to the little side door. She emerged into the foyer, holding out the marketing bag with one hand and fluffing up her blonde curls with the other. She smiled sweetly at the queue of people, then bent to give Lottie a quick kiss and to smooth a hand over her daughter’s rumpled curls. ‘Off you go then, pet, and you may buy a couple of iced buns for you and your little friend,’ she said gaily. Then she turned her sweetest smile on her audience. ‘Aren’t children little wretches?’ she enquired laughingly. ‘When I left home to come to work earlier little Miss Lottie was clean and neat as a freshly picked flower, and look at her now!’

‘Well, missus, the kid ain’t born what can spend a couple of hours out in the street wi’out gettin’ muck up to the eyebrows,’ someone remarked, and there were murmurs of agreement from those around.

‘Very true,’ Louella said. She turned back to Lottie. ‘Don’t be long, darling. I’m dying for a cup of tea but there’s no milk – or tea for that matter – so I’m relying on you to buy me some.’

She turned away but Lottie followed her, saying in a low undertone: ‘Can I go on this evening, Mammy, without me tooth? I’ll try to smile with me lips closed but I might forget . . .’

Louella whipped into the box office, then turned and faced her daughter. ‘Of course you’ll go on tonight,’ she hissed, her voice losing its sweetness and becoming merely impatient. ‘And you’d better practise smiling with your lips closed.’ And with that, she slammed the box office door, causing Lottie to jump backwards, for had she not done so she might easily have lost another tooth.

Rather chastened, the two children left the building and headed towards St John’s market, for Louella was a great believer in fresh fruit and vegetables and always bought quantities of both.

‘Your mam were in a rare old temper,’ Kenny said presently. ‘An’ it weren’t your tooth, though I aren’t denyin’ it shook her up a bit. Don’t she like doin’ a turn in the box office?’

Lottie shrugged. ‘Dunno,’ she said vaguely. ‘I think it was me bein’ late and her worrying about the messages which made her a bit short like. Actresses is all the same. And it ain’t temper – it’s temperament what they’ve got.’

‘Looked like temper to me,’ Kenny said shortly. ‘Tell you what, queen, we’ll go to the nearest shop for a tin of conny-onny and two ounces of Typhoo and take it straight back to the theatre. I knows women, I does: she’ll be sweet as apple pie once she’s got her gob round a cuppa tea.’

Lottie agreed that this would be sensible and the two children hurried to the corner shop to buy the tea and a tin of condensed milk. Then they returned to the theatre and went straight to the foyer. Kenny tapped loudly on the box office pass door, then thrust it open. ‘We brung you some conny-onny and some tea, Mrs Magic,’ he said in a loud and cheerful choice. ‘We guessed you’d be gaspin’ for a cuppa, but we’ll get on now and do the rest of the messages.’

‘Ah, you’re a good lad,’ Louella said gratefully. ‘I’d ask you to put the kettle on but Mrs Mulvaney arrived ten minutes ago so I dare say she’ll make a brew, and I’m about to close the box office anyway. You’d best go straight home with the rest of the shopping.’

‘All right, Mammy,’ Lottie said, as her mother shut and locked the box office window and came out of the pass door to close off the foyer. ‘Will – will you be coming home before the performance?’ She glanced at the clock which hung just over the door leading to the stalls. It was only half past three and the first house started at seven: plenty of time for Louella to get back to Victoria Court and fix them both a snack before they returned to the theatre together.

Louella cocked her head on one side, considering. ‘I suppose I’ll have to since you’ve got yourself in such a mess,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘Now off with you. If you’re home before me, queen, you can start the tea.’

‘Yes, all right, Mammy . . . I mean Louella,’ Lottie said as she and Kenny were pushed out of the foyer and on to the pavement. ‘What do you want for tea, though? There’s some cold mutton . . .’

‘That’ll do. Butter some bread and buy a piece of slab cake from Sample’s,’ Louella said, and the children heard the bolts being drawn across as they turned away, heading once more for St John’s market.

Lottie always went to the same stall since it was a well-known fact that if you shopped regularly with the same stallholder he or she was unlikely to risk losing custom by selling you inferior fruit or vegetables. Nellie Crabbe was a tiny wizened old lady with dyed ginger hair, a pair of enormous spectacles and a face wrinkled as a prune. Once she had been wardrobe mistress at the theatre but failing eyesight had led to her retirement and now she ran the greengrocery stall for her son, William, who farmed on the Wirral and provided her with excellent fruit and vegetables in season. Everyone in the theatre patronised her because they knew she would never cheat them and also from a sense of loyalty to one who had, in her time, worked well for them. When Louella did her own shopping, which was not often, she would not have dreamed of going to any other stall first, though if Mrs Crabbe had run out of a particular fruit or vegetable she would buy from another source, though she would make sure to do so where Mrs Crabbe could not see her.

For her part, Lottie did very well out of Mrs Crabbe for she personified the two loves of the old lady’s life, the theatre and little girls. Mrs Crabbe always made up Lottie’s order with meticulous honesty and then added little extras. At this time of year there might be a peach with a bruise on it, a handful of late blackcurrants or the fat, red dessert gooseberries, sweet and juice-filled, which Lottie and Kenny particularly loved. Later, there would be apples and pears, and when winter came an orange with a split in it, or a banana whose yellow skin was turning black, for William Crabbe bought from the wholesalers such fruit and vegetables as he could not grow on his own farm.

The children arrived at the stall and Lottie handed over her list. Mrs Crabbe pursed her lips and frowned down at the writing, then handed it back to her small customer. ‘Just you read it to me, my love; it’ll save time and reading small writing makes me eyes ache,’ she said. ‘And don’t forget, read out the heavy things first – spuds, drumhead cabbage and such – so’s they go into the bottom of your marketing bag and don’t crush the fruit.’ She chuckled softly. ‘I knows your mam of old; she don’t think logical, but there, that’s actresses for you.’

Lottie scanned the list, then began to read it in reverse order, thinking indulgently that Louella wrote her list in order of her own preference so that peaches entered her head long before mundane things like potatoes. When the list was completed, Mrs Crabbe selected a brown paper bag from the hooks behind her and regarded her stall. ‘Them grapes will be mush by tomorrer,’ she murmured, popping a bunch into the bag. ‘An’ them plums won’t go till Sat’day.’ She picked up two large Victoria plums, put them carefully beside the grapes, then named the sum which Lottie owed for the rest of her goods.

Lottie fished out her purse and paid up, beaming at her old friend. ‘You are kind to us, Mrs Crabbe,’ she said gratefully. ‘I wish I’d been in the theatre when you was, though Mrs Jones is very nice and hardly grumbled at all when I told her I’d growed out o’ me tutu an’ needed a new one. She made me a beauty, too,’ she added reminiscently.

Mrs Crabbe chuckled indulgently. ‘I trained that young woman so she’s bound to be capable,’ she remarked. Mrs Jones was Mrs Crabbe’s daughter and was in fact very good at her work, though Lottie would not have dreamed of saying so to the old lady. In fact, Mrs Crabbe had retired before Lottie was born, but Lottie knew what a formidable reputation the old lady had had for making costumes out of nothing, and at a moment’s notice.

Now, she consulted her list as soon as Mrs Crabbe moved to serve the next customer. ‘Not much more, Kenny,’ she informed her friend. ‘Most of it we can get on our way home.’ She dug a hand into the basket and produced the plums, and soon both children were eating the fruit, juice dribbling down their chins. ‘Don’t let me forget Mammy wanted some slab cake because it ain’t on the list, and she likes to cut little bits off the slab to dip into her tea.’ She glanced ahead of her. ‘Race you to Pringle’s.’

Louella usually enjoyed her stint in the box office, but today, she thought as she went to join Mrs Mulvaney in the green room, she could have done without it. And now, on top of her disagreement with Max, she would have to face up to the fact that her daughter was beginning to lose her teeth and might easily lose her appeal as well.

When she reached the green room, Mrs Mulvaney, who was responsible for the hiring and firing of usherettes and made tea for the cast, was not there, but the kettle was steaming gently on the paraffin stove, so Louella tipped tea into the big brown pot and let it brew for a few moments. Finally she poured herself a large mugful, flopped into an armchair and began to sip. She was still cross, however. She and Max had fallen out when he had suggested that she might begin to pay a fairer share of the rent of the house in Victoria Court – half, in fact – and she had reminded him, pretty sharply, that he earned more than she and the arrangement had always been that she should pay one-third and he two. After all, she pointed out, she kept the place clean, did the marketing and cooked the food, as well as keeping his stage clothes spotless and the paraphernalia of his magic act in tip-top condition. This included feeding two white rabbits and four white doves, though to be fair young Baz always looked after the animals and birds. He bought their food and the sawdust with which the cage floors were lined, but she had not mentioned this fact to Max, of course.

The argument had started soon after they had got up, when they were sitting in the kitchen, toasting rounds of bread and spreading the slices with strawberry jam. Usually they had porridge, but Louella had forgotten to buy milk or conny-onny the previous day, and Max liked his porridge creamy. Perhaps it had been that which had led to his grumbling that money seemed to go nowhere these days. ‘It’s not so bad for you because the management pays you pretty well for little Miss Lottie,’ he had observed. ‘What’s more, you don’t need no rabbits nor pigeons nor disappearin’ boxes to perform your act. I reckons it’s time we split the rent down the middle, ’cos there’s two of us an’ two of you and it ’ud be fairer all round.’

Louella had glanced at him expectantly, hoping to see a teasing smile cross that handsome face, but Max was staring at her challengingly, so she waded straight in on the offensive, listing all that she did in the house.

‘But it’s not you who cleans the place,’ Max pointed out. ‘Mrs Brocklehurst does that, as well as the washing and ironing, to say nothing of some cooking and any shopping that you and Lottie don’t have time for. And it’s me who usually pays her, remember.’

‘Ye-es, you usually do,’ Louella admitted unwillingly. ‘But that’s because it was your house for a couple of years before I moved in, and Mrs B has always worked for you. If you ask me . . .’

‘And it’s Baz who feeds and cleans the animals and birds, not you at all,’ Max continued remorselessly. ‘I’m telling you, Lou, it’s not fair and it’s time we sorted things out.’

Louella had jumped to her feet, realising that she had been unwise to claim to do so many jobs which were in fact done by other people. ‘You’re in a bad mood because you lost your bleedin’ shirt on the horse what one of your pals said was a dead cert,’ she announced firmly. They had been sitting on either side of the kitchen table, but then she had crossed the room and as Max had struggled out of his chair had flung herself at him, throwing her arms up round his neck, for he was a good deal taller than she. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know you back the horses and go to the races for relaxation,’ she said, pushing her head into the hollow of his shoulder. ‘But oh, Maxy, darling, I do pay more than my share of the housekeeping, you know I do. Don’t let’s quarrel. Suppose I pay all the housekeeping; would that do?’

Max had heaved a great sigh. ‘You know very well I’m not the sort of feller to check up on you when you tell me what the food has cost,’ he said, but to Louella’s relief he no longer sounded angry. ‘What’s wrong with paying half the rent, anyway? No, tell you what. You pay Mrs B for the work she does – the whole lot, mind – and we won’t argue over the rent.’

Louella had had to agree but she had not been at all pleased. She and Max had been together now for a year and this was the first time he had questioned her contribution to household expenses. Louella knew that many men would have expected her to hand over most of her earnings, so before she had moved in she had made it plain how things were to be. She was an independent woman with a child to bring up. One day, she would need money for her daughter’s schooling and so on, which meant she must have savings. Max had agreed to all her conditions, for apart from his work on the stage he was both lazy and easy-going, and he had been quite content, in the past, for Louella to manage their finances.

Now, sitting in the green room sipping her tea, Louella cursed the wretched horse, which had proved to be not a dead cert at all but had run as though it only had three legs. But for Flying Finish’s abysmal performance Max would never have dreamed of querying how she spent their money. Indeed, he would have shared his winnings with her, taken her somewhere exotic for a meal, and bought her a pretty necklace or some of the thin silver bangles which she wore in her stage act. However, Louella thought she had been lucky that Max had not asked to see the household bills. The arrangement was that she should purchase everything for the house and then split the price of such items down the middle. In fact, he usually paid somewhat more, and Louella salved her conscience by telling herself that Baz ate at least twice as much as Lottie, and that Max himself ate a great deal more than she. This was true but did not take into account the fact that Max thought fruit and salads were miserable fare, whereas she and Lottie ate masses of vegetables and fruit all the year round, even when the latter was expensive, as it was in winter.

Louella’s train of thought was interrupted as the green room door opened and several members of the cast entered. They surged into the room led by the comedian, Jack Russell, a small, sharp-faced man with bristly grey hair and shrewd twinkling brown eyes. Louella did not know if Jack Russell was his real name since it was a part of his act to bound on to the stage, yapping like an excited terrier, and his first line was always: ‘Well folks, was I named after the dog or was the dog named after me? C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, answers on a postcard and if youse wrong I’ll come down and nip your ankles!’

Just now, however, Jack’s mind was on other things. ‘Fee, fie, fo, fum,’ he boomed, pointing to the pot, ‘I smell tea in the auditorium. Who’s goin’ to pour Giant Jack a cup, eh?’

One of the chorus girls smiled at Jack and patted his bristly head. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, beginning to get mugs down from the shelf. ‘Anyone else gasping for a cuppa?’

Lottie and Kenny completed their shopping in