A Bed in the Sticks Read online

  40

  I lit a cigarette; Jimmy’s head came through the slit in the masking curtain, we said hello and he disappeared again. Then the Tabs opened and the footlights went on and Jimmy, to test the microphone, asked me what I thought of it all.

  ‘It’s fantastic,’ I answered, meaning it. ‘I never thought you’d have it ready.’

  He walked out to centre stage and put the microphone down. All part of the knack,’ he said. ‘You’ll soon learn the tricks.’

  I walked up the aisle to the stage, turning around then to look back up the hall. The front seats were folding chairs; six rows of them; the middle lot were bench seats covered in leatherette, the back rows being timber benches, and I just stood there, so knocked out by the whole layout that Pauline was half way up the aisle when I saw her.

  ‘The Palladium was never like this,’ she said as she passed me. I smiled because it was Pauline but I knew I would have defended it to someone I didn’t like.

  Jimmy called out to me and I lifted the Masking curtain and went side-stage. The piano was inside so that Pauline could see what was happening on stage while she played.

  A heavy wood box was the step up to the stage; beyond this on the right was the door to the single small dressing-room which the women would use while the men changed side stage.

  Property baskets were in a tight line against the wall; there were two black trunks open like books; suits and costumes hanging on the freshly sunk hooks.

  A small switchboard had been secured to the wall near the dressing room, each switch marked in small white lettering; House, Centre Stage, Entrance, etcetera. I was very impressed and Jimmy smiled as he told me that before long I’d be a good running electrician as, as well as everything else.

  A running electrician, he explained, is a fella that can handle simple jobs changing plugs, running a cable from one place to another, that kind of thing.

  He showed me the Tab Line, the length of cord used to draw the curtains. There would be times he said, when I would be on tabs. At a given cue, I was to pull the cord like mad to get as much dramatic effect as possible at the end of an act.

  Pauline came out of the dressing room, a cigarette in her mouth. ‘Got a light, Tony?’

  I held the match and she inhaled: ‘I like Paddy better.’ She sat down and switched on the light over the piano. ‘You look very handsome,’ she said. ‘Can we fix your numbers now?’

  I nodded okay. She had been missing when I returned to the piano in the afternoon. Moments later I was fascinated by the way the light, reflected on the keyboard, heightened the bone china effect of her lovely face.

  She touched the keys. ‘That wasn’t a pass, by the way.’

  Jimmy was coming out of the dressing room. ‘Not bloody much, Tony.’

  He threw the inevitable wink into the mix, stirring on. ‘God almighty, he’s not here five minutes and she has her knickers off already!’

  Pauline smiled, but she didn’t let Jimmy see it. Not much fear of anybody whipping their knickers off for you.’

  She gave me a wink and said, ‘How’s this?’ And she began to play ‘These Foolish Things’ with her wonderfully sensitive touch.

  ‘Fabulous,’ I said, still warm from the compliment she had given me. She had made me aware of my dress suit and my bow tie; I’d forgotten both in my excitement, the spontaneous theatre knocking everything else right out of my mind. Except Pauline, that is.

  ‘Not only do they want the last word,’ Jimmy said, like a guy talking to himself. ‘They have to kick you in the balls as well!’

  Pauline smiled at me as she was pulling out another sheet of music. ‘In your care, Jimmy, don’t you mean ball, as in just one!’

  ‘God, Tony, she’s on form tonight.’

  ‘And beautiful with it,’ I heard myself say.

  Pauline inclined her head in acknowledgement: Excellent timing, Tony, thanks.’

  She played and I mumbled my way through a couple of songs. I wasn’t being flash or anything; it was just that I had a hard time concentrating because of her nearness. She was too much; not just her piano playing, which was a knock out in itself but her hands and her face and her eyes. And the way she was, the tough, cynical way she had about her; the independence she that she wore like epaulets on her shoulders.

  Jimmy called me into the little dressing room. ‘When it’s a decent size, we curtain it down the middle/’ He grinned: ‘This is too small to share.’

  He wasn’t kidding. The room was about eight feet square, with one dirty window and a fireplace that would have held a couple of rabbits, provided they cuddled in tight.

  There was a small table with a vanity case and some make-up boxes on top of it, while the property trunks and the baskets were set backs to the walls. Dresses and soft stuff hung from what had once been a picture rail and Jimmy finished running a flex from the centre light which, in a way made the room even more awful, since every crack and every damp spot was high lighted and you could practically smell the neglect.

  My own basket had been placed on a bench against the wall behind the stage. There was, I suppose, about four feet clearance all around the stage, so that you could pass somebody while they were changing costume, provided you sort of slid by sideways and didn’t linger.

  This was where I would prepare for the show for at least a week. This was it, the real world of the touring player in rural Ireland in 1952.

  In the moment this world was so tatty, that it snuffed out my enthusiasm with a single puff, and I felt cold as hell.

  ‘Get made up,’ Jimmy said.

  He wasn’t looking at me, so he couldn’t have known how terrified I was. He was sorting out the records that would be used to create atmosphere in the play. And I had just realised that I didn’t have a mirror.

  On the wall above the trunk next to me, there was a large mirror advertising whiskey and I stood in front of that to rub a mix of makeup onto my face. The sticks were hard from the cold and I made a terrible mess of my first and second attempts but finally, just before I felt I would panic, I got what looked like a fairly decent blend. Dabbing on a hint of talc I mopped my forehead with the puff, surprised that my forehead was carrying some sweat, when just a minute before I’d been feeling very cold.

  I shook my head at god knows what, noticed that I needed a touch of carmine on my lips and got on with it. Deciding then that I didn’t look half bad, I realised how important the make-up people had been in any number of amateur shows that I’d been in during the last couple of years. Sadly, I had not paid much attention to how the make-up people did what they did because, in all honesty, I didn’t think for one second that I’d ever be in a profession group, even one that played at the back end of beyond.

  I was combing my hair, still using the broken mirror when Gary Martin swept in, his white hair seemingly flying behind his huge head.

  ‘You haven’t broken your mirror!’ he exclaimed in what might well have been called horror.

  I shrugged, liking him right away. ‘I left it behind in Dublin,’ I lied. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  He threw off his cape; he was already wearing his tails (for I knew not what) and I thought it must be wonderful to have your own caravan, to make up in comfort.

  Gary was flicking a grey forelock which sat, as though glued on, about two inches above his ferocious eyes.

  ‘My dear chap, not at all. Press on! I’m as camp as ever you’re likely to see me on a Monday night.’

  His la-de-da voice still sounded English, but he looked very different from the man Jimmy had introduced me to in the early afternoon. The long overcoat and the cap and the muffler were gone, replaced by a set of tails with just too much of a shine to it, a cardboard shirt front covering his flat, wide chest, and an old, black, bow-tie, sitting like a blackbird on a snow man.

 
He was all actor now. So different from the ageing man who had been helping erect the stage frame, all wrapped up to the neck, yet, not sweating like the Hunter brothers and Denny O’Mara, who had been working with him.

  His eyebrows seemed fierce now through his pale make-up, and his wide, hawk nose, like a very blunt blade, had a thin white line of makeup down the centre. At a guess, it had been broken at least once, but it went well with his strong chin, though his mouth was little more than a crooked line between the two.

  I thanked him about the mirror, but he waved it aside with his great hands. ‘Anything you need, old boy, just yell out. I know what a bastard it can be getting settled in a new company.’

  I nodded, but I said no more. I was so grateful to him that he’d have known I was a cowboy, an absolute beginner, had I opened my mouth further.

  He bent over to polish his shoes on the bench and I could see that the arse of his trousers was well on the way to second childhood. He was rambling on about theatre and tradition and all kinds of stuff and I just stood there listening. I didn’t say anything because I felt he didn’t want me to. And, anyway, what could I have said without showing up my own ignorance.

  For once I was glad that someone wasn’t interested in me. I was nervous and excited, hot and cold at the same time, which

  meant to me that it was a bad night for bullshitting. If you tell the tale, you’ve got to have a good memory, so I just closed my lips around a fresh cigarette and let him get on with it.

  The West End! Shaftsbury Avenue. According to his monologue, he’d had his moments there and not for one second did I doubt him, not forgetting a decent spell at the Abbey, Ireland’s National Theatre.

  Right away, I liked Gary Martin, so that it was no hardship to feel that I was in his debt, which I most certainly was for the way he had helped me in that first night back-stage. I don’t think he knew that I was such a cowboy and he went on talking while I went on listening.

  He was an actor and, to his own mind, the greatest, yet he could welcome me and tell me to go ahead and use his mirror or anything else that I needed. He didn’t give a damn about who I was, nor where I had come from - he liked me because of how I was. Had this not been true, he wouldn’t have spoken to me: as I found out later, he was like that.

  Tom and Peter Hunter arrived and we exchanged greetings that were more politeness than sincerity. Gary was touching up his hair again, the brothers, nudging each other, shaking their heads in amusement at the old guy, who had to be sixty if he was a day. And whether he had made the bright lights or not, he was still in The Fit-Ups, still dressing side stage, working as hard as anyone else when it came to Moving Day. I had seen him hump baskets, arrange seats, while always looking like an old-time actor, so that it was hard to imagine him doing any thing other than Shakespeare, and all that other stuff where you shout a lot and throw your arms about.

  Peter Hunter said something I didn’t hear, but from the way he smiled at me, I guessed he was getting it up for Gary.

  In the moment, Gary Martin said, ‘We must have a drink after the show, Tony. I’m rather desperate for some intelligent conversation.

  He caught my eye, winking slightly: ‘I feel that you are far removed from the normal run-of-the-mill types that the business seems to be attracting these days.’

  ‘Go and get stuffed,’ Peter said, grinning.

  ‘Aye, with the rough end of a hard brushed, Tom Hunter added, while Peter turned to Gary in mock anger and lisped: ‘And don’t you let me catch you sitting on that door handle again, do you hear me now!’

  Gary exploded into a laugh that became a cough, from which it took him a minute to recover, in time to join the other pair in the amusement they had cooked up between them.

  I combed my hair, laughing a bit to myself, but not wanting to join in, just in case they thought I was being fresh.

  Tom Hunter was about twenty four while Peter looked to be a couple of years younger, both of them good looking guys with fine Romany features and heads of dark tight curls.

  They were all muscle too, like acrobats and I thought that my mother would have shaken her head at the sight of them reminding me that she had warned me that I would end up that I would end up with a lot of bloody gypsies or something.

  Jimmy appeared and called me to one side. He looked me over and I could tell that I looked alright for him. ‘You fixed your numbers alright with Pauline.’ He knew that I had and when I nodded, clearly happy with my rehearsal, he put an arm around my shoulders.

  ‘Great,’ he said, looking pleased. ‘You know, I’ve a good feeling that our luck is on the mend.’ He jerked his head sharply to the right and back again. ‘I hope to Christ, I’m right.’

  He began to explain the order of the acts but he stopped dead when I offered him the Sweet Afton. His eyes became glued to the packet in my hand, but he made no move to take a cigarette. ‘Do you believe in Kismet, Tony?’

  Really stuck for an answer, I said, ‘that depends.’

  He stuck a fag into his mouth and inhaled deeply. ‘Well, I do,’ He exhaled: ‘And as sure as God made little apples, I’m going to be proved right.’

  I lit my own cigarette and blew the match out and he said, ‘Before I saw you in Dublin, I’d already met with other performers that wanted the job.’

  He waved the smoke from between us. ‘To be honest, Tony, they were both fair singers, maybe even better than you at the chanting.’ He smoked as he searched my face for a reaction. ‘But, they had nothing else, at least, what I mean, they didn’t have what I was looking for, they didn’t know how to work a number the way you do, but, that apart, I had a feeling about you right away, a sort of buzz I get, some bit of excitement, ‘ he grinned: ‘You wanted to get on the stage so back, that, it, well, it excited me, you know, and you have this thing about you, a sort of presence thing, and’ he broke into a grin, ‘you had something else, a very important something else...I had the feeling you would bring me luck, which, to be quite honest, the show badly needs. And that,’ he went on, and touched the Sweet Afton packet, ‘really puts the tin hat on it.’

  I dragged on my cigarette, not knowing what to say to this whispered outburst. ‘

  ‘The fag packet, it’s like a sign to me. Y’see, tonight we were going to call the play “Where the River Shannon Flows”

  but now, after seeing that’ he touched the cigarette package which was still in my hand, ‘ the show will be called ‘Flow Gently Sweet Afton’ and it’ll be the same show with a Scots accent, and I know, I just know, it’ll knock the punters dead.’

  His eyes shone with excitement and he punched the palm of his left hand, and I said, ‘ I hope you’re right’, meaning what I said, since I didn’t want to pick up the tab blame wise if his fantastic idea went down the tubes.

  ‘I will be right.’ He grinned, flashing his marvellous teeth: ‘I can feel it in my water, which, I might add, makes a great change from VD.’

  He moved down to the piano and pulled the curtain aside: ‘Here, Pauline,’ he said. ‘Take a dekko!’

  Pauline stood up from the keyboard and I could see her nodding her head even before she turned around to me. ‘Tony has brought us luck,’ she said, nodding her head, looking very pleased.’

  Jimmy turned back to me. ‘Here, Tony, take a look.’

  I peeped through the masking curtain and saw that the hall was three parts full and people waiting to pay their way in.

  ‘That’s the best opening night we’ve had in months,’ Pauline said, giving me a look that suggested I was a very welcome addition to the company and I was very grateful for the unspoken admiration in her eyes.

  Jimmy interrupted my ego trip as Jimmy took my elbow and said quietly: ‘I’ll tell you what I want you to do right now. You step out into the hall, give people a nod of welcome, make them welcome, smile at the Oul’ones, y’know, and
make the young one’s feel you’d be willing to marry any one of them.’

  I didn’t say anything because I was now nervous enough to throw up. Jimmy pointed at Pauline, ‘this lady here, and, May, oh, you haven’t met May yet, right. Well May and our Precious Pauline, they do the same with the blokes, make them all come back for another look, a smile, whatever, night after night. Now you mesmerise the young ones and we’ll have a great week in this place.’

  ‘You’re saying girls will come back just because I smile at them?’

  He nodded with a grin: ‘Again and again and again. You give them one of your smiles and they’ll be back every night this week, yes, they’ll be fighting for the chance to pay the half dollar to get into the hall first, to get a front seat where they can feast their eyes on you.’

  I looked from Jimmy to Pauline: ‘He’s right,’ she said, ‘though I hate to admit it.’

  I shook my head, embarrassed, and blushing a bit under my nine-and-five. ‘I’m blushing already.’ I said.

  ‘As I said, Tony, this is just for openers.’ Pauline smiled: ‘You are now part of the big con, the big illusion called Show Biz!’

  I smiled, wondering how she had known so easily that I was a cowboy. She wasn’t trying to be smart or funny. She had just known that, up to now, I hadn’t been a part of the big con, that I was some kind of talented amateur reaching for the stars.

  ‘Out you go then, Tony, and remember, keep smiling.’

  Jimmy shook my hand. ‘Good luck tonight.’ He said.

  I nodded my head. ‘Thanks Jimmy, for having me.’

  Pauline gave me a wink, and I gave her a smile laced with relief, seriously relieved that she didn’t hold the con trick I had worked to get the job, against me, and I found her more and more attractive by the minute.

  I nodded: ‘Thanks.’

  She winked and gave me a warm smile, knowing bloody well that I was finding her more attractive by the minute.