Читать книгу Stella - Gary Morecambe, Eric Morecambe - Страница 7

Chapter Two

‘Stella!’ beckoned a voice as she made to leave the Gaynor School of Dancing. She turned to see Mrs Bunting advance. ‘Just wanted to thank you for filling in for me this week, dear.’

‘That’s okay. I hope the cold’s much better now.’

Stella studied her wiry body, which had lost much of its vitality and flexibility during the last six years. She was as thin and as active as ever she was before, but her body had taken on a certain stiffness, as though she was gradually solidifying.

Stella, at sixteen, was now virtually running her dancing classes, whether Mrs Bunting was away ill with a cold or even in attendance at the school. She’d taken on the role of a supervisor, allowing Stella to carry out the more physical exercises.

She had never been that immersed in the workings of the school, and, now her twenty-three-year-old daughter, Donna, was married and settled in a small village in the Pennines, what little enthusiasm she had ever had had now finally ebbed away altogether. If it wasn’t for her fondness of Stella, and the girl’s desire to succeed in showbusiness, she would have seriously considered closing down the establishment some years ago.

Stella and Sadie had grown closer to each other through maturity. In fact, Stella found that she was sometimes too protective towards her ‘little sister’.

Sadie had what she termed a ‘real job’. She was an assistant at the cake shop in Corn Street. And Tommy was still a fundamental part of their lives. The three of them would meet up most evenings at the girls’ home, and, whilst Stella would prattle on about her dreams of stardom, Tommy would be half listening and half wondering if Blackpool would reach the Cup Final.

He had little ambition, and always did as he was told, especially by Stella, although his boyish feelings of love for her had long since dissipated. It was Sadie to whom he had diverted his affections.

She’d developed into a beautiful young teenager who seemed to have been spared the puppy fat and acne that most young people endure. She was gentle, full of charm and personality, and happy with her life. Sadie could also laugh at herself, which he had noticed Stella was unable to do. If Stella said or did anything that wasn’t quite accurate she would argue with you until you finally weakened and gave her the benefit of the doubt. It was always the other person who would inevitably end up apologising.

Although Sadie didn’t possess a wealth of topics she enjoyed discussing, she wasn’t as limited as Stella, who could only think ‘showbusiness’ to the point of obsession. Not only had Stella decided where her own career was going to take her, she also knew where Sadie’s was going to go. She was going to give up her regular job in the cake shop and be her partner in a dancing act. Already they had been rehearsing a few things together; the only problem now was to find somewhere to play.

It was their father who fixed them their first showbiz date. He worked at Heysham Harbour, and, while waiting for the bus to Lancaster one day, he stood in a queue next to a man he had been at school with. It was Frank Bland, and at school poor Frank was considered to have been not all there. He’d never played games or participated in any rough or mischievous activities.

The growl of the red bus could be heard as it assaulted the steep incline up to the bus stop. ‘So what are you doing in Heysham?’ asked Jack. ‘I’ve never seen you out this way before.’

‘I work at Mission,’ came the reply.

‘Mission? What Mission?’

‘The Mission. You must know the Church Mission?’

‘Bloody hellfire,’ swore Jack through a short, sharp laugh, before adding, ‘Sorry, Frank, it just came as a surprise.’

‘It’s for old folks really. I don’t work for the Mission proper, like. I just try and help ’em out with the old folk.’

‘I see.’

They both glimpsed the front grille of the bus as it levelled on the crest of the hill. ‘I try and keep them occupied and so on,’ continued Frank. ‘I’ve just been down there now.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘We try and arrange for them some entertainment and so on. Do a few songs on the piano and have a singer. That sort of thing.’

The bus jerked and squeaked as it pulled up in front of them. ‘It must be difficult to get entertainers, regular like,’ said Jack. The thought of his talented daughter looking for work was making his interest in Frank grow with each passing second.

‘Good ’uns, it is, yes.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s a bit difficult ’cos we can’t pay them owt, so we end up with the same old faces who don’t mind doing it for nowt.’

‘It must get boring for them,’ said Jack with feeling.

Jack put a penny in the conductor’s outstretched hand. ‘I know some youngsters who would be interested.’

‘Oh aye,’ said Frank. He was always looking for new talent.

The bus lurched forward, seemingly propelling him into conversation. ‘Well, if they’d like to come down to the Mission next Saturday I’ll give ’em a try-out.’

The bus swung off the main route and pulled up a few minutes later. Jack peered through the dirty windows where some kids had drawn their own version of the female anatomy. It was Jack’s stop, and as he climbed down from the bus he smiled to himself in the knowledge that he had secured his daughters their first date.

Still smiling from the good news, Stella trotted to Gaynor’s and informed the caretaker that they had a special booking come in and so would require the rooms for a while longer that evening. He smiled and nodded, though she doubted that he had understood fully as he was hard of hearing.

As the girls lay in bed that night, exhausted from their work-out at Gaynor’s, Stella began to consider the finer details of their act. ‘What do you think we should close the act with?’ Sadie fought to keep her eyes open, knowing how much her sister wanted her to share in the excitement.

‘You’ll think of something,’ came her bland reply. ‘You always do.’

‘Maybe the military routine is a good one to close with,’ she mused. ‘It’s a bit too serious, though. No, maybe the selection from the Broadway musical.’

She gave Sadie a firm shake to make sure she hadn’t fallen off to sleep. ‘Now, there’s one important thing I want you to listen to, Sadie. When we introduce . . . Sadie, wake up and listen.’

‘I am, I am,’ said Sadie feebly.

Stella watched her for a short while, making sure she didn’t shut her eyes. When satisfied she had her full attention, she continued. ‘When we introduce the songs and dances I want no Lancashire accents. We mustn’t sound common; we must sound posh. Understand?’

‘I can only talk the way I talk,’ said Sadie, almost apologetically.

‘Look, I’m Lancashire, Sadie, but I don’t have to talk it,’ said Stella in a forced southern accent.

She sighed, and then smiled down at her sister. Sadie’s head was rolling loosely round her neck. ‘Now, just before you leave the land of the living we must decide on what we’re going to call ourselves. We can’t use Ravenscroft, it’s too long. People’ll forget it.’

‘Let’s call ourselves the “Goodnight Sisters”,’ suggested Sadie, as she let herself slip further under the warm covers.

‘You’re a fine help, you are. I suppose I’ll have to think of everything from now on.’

Stella curled up but continued to think. There was no point talking aloud any more. Sadie was beyond her reaching.

The Champagne Sisters, p’rhaps? No. Too fancy. The Ravenscroft Sisters . . . Yuk! The Raven Sisters? Hmmm.

Stella blew out the candle. Had Sadie stayed awake she would have heard what her stage name was to be from that night onwards.

The concert at the Mission wasn’t quite up to Stella’s expectations. They had arrived at precisely six o’clock, with Sadie having spent the day secretly hoping the building had been burnt down, flooded, or undergone any other equally dramatic disaster.

Stella had insisted that they enter by the stage door, which proved exceedingly difficult to do as it turned out that the Mission didn’t have one. They settled on filing in with the audience, with Stella carrying the music and Sadie carrying all their props. One of the younger men in the audience volunteered to assist Sadie with the props, but he was at least seventy years old – albeit a young seventy years old – and Sadie ended up assisting him to his seat.

Stella took an audience’s view of the stage, which looked more like a coffee table with a piano perched on it. As they made their way to it Sadie kept her head hung low so she wouldn’t be seen, while Stella lifted hers defiantly at them, so as to show she had no fear. As it happened, it wasn’t possible to see their faces because the Mission was full of pipe smoke.

She whispered to Sadie, ‘They’re too old to inhale.’

‘Is it a full house?’ asked her sister nervously.

‘From what I can see through the smog, it is.’ She paused to count the audience. ‘Yes,’ she said at length. ‘All seventeen seats are taken.’

They stepped behind the curtain and, to Sadie’s relief, out of sight. The Reverend John Wright was awaiting them there, calmly pacing the floor with his hands behind his back. ‘Hello,’ he beamed encouragingly.

‘Hello,’ replied the girls suspiciously.

‘You must be the new talent we’ve heard so much about.’

Stella and Sadie exchanged furtive glances. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Stella confidently.

‘Oh, good. Mr Bland said you’d come highly recommended.’

Sadie put the suitcases down. She felt as though her arms had been elongated. ‘Please step this way,’ requested the Reverend with a gentle swaying motion of the hand. ‘Mr Barnes is at the rear.’

Wondering who Mr Barnes was, the girls headed for the rear of the building.

‘Hello, kids. I’m Joey Barnes. I do compering. I’ve done plenty afore, so don’t go fretting that I’ll make a right fool of myself . . . or yourselves.’

‘Your names?’ enquired the Reverend. Stella spoke at Joey Barnes.

‘Just say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, you’re about to be entertained by the fabulous Raven Sisters, with their own brand of song and dance and high-class comedy.” ’

‘The Raving Sisters?’ laughed Joey Barnes.

‘No. Raven. R.A.V.E.N. That’s Raven.’

The Reverend started to blush and moved awkwardly from one foot to the other. ‘Er, like the bird, perhaps?’ he offered, hoping he was right. Stella nodded. Sadie remained silent, with head hung even lower than before. Joey Barnes couldn’t help but notice it.

‘Is there owt wrong with her neck?’ he whispered to Stella. ‘It isn’t broken or anything, is it?’

‘It’s called fear,’ she explained, at which Sadie dropped it even lower which would have seemed impossible until she actually did it. Then Sadie asked, ‘Could someone show me to the dressing-room, please?’

The Reverend looked to the compere for advice, and he in turn looked at Stella and said, ‘I’m afraid you’re standing in it.’

‘Don’t worry, my child,’ said the Reverend, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘Once we get started, no one will disturb you here.’

The curtain burst open and a middle-aged man bounded in with the sort of expression that said this wasn’t the first time he had worked at the Mission. ‘Evening, Vicar. Watcha, Joey. Sorry I’m late, the bus was running late.’ He glanced at the girls. ‘Hello, ’ello. Who picked these dainty little flowers from the Garden of Eden, then?’ The Reverend blushed again, as he so often would.

‘These young ladies are on our show tonight, Mr Rodgers.’

He offered his right hand. ‘I’m Rodgers, alias Magico the Master Magician.’ Stella told him who they were, emphasising the word Raven.

Magico took Barnes to one side to discuss his act and a fragile old man wavered up to them from behind the curtain. The girls both jumped with fright. It was like watching the walking dead. ‘This is our pianist, Mr Baxter,’ said the Reverend, feeling that there needed to be an explanation.

Without saying anything the old man reached forward and gently pulled the music sheets from Stella’s grasp. Having studied them from behind half-moon glasses for a while, he said, ‘Sorry, girls, I don’t do any of these.’

‘But it’s all there for you,’ said Stella. ‘All you have got to do is read it.’

‘I only play by ear,’ he said, indignantly.

‘Only by ear?’ she repeated, dumbfoundedly.

‘Let’s go home to Mam and Dad,’ suggested Sadie, who must have got to know every inch of the stage floor by now.

‘So what you’re saying is that you can’t play any of our music?’ said Stella.

The old man didn’t like this forthright young woman’s attitude at all. ‘Don’t you shout at me, Miss Wonderful,’ he croaked. ‘I once played with G. H. Elliot.’ And with that, and a body that tremored so much it seemed on the brink of falling apart, he shimmied over to join Barnes and Magico.

Eventually, in the old showbiz tradition, the show went on. Magico succeeded in making the audience disappear – most of them to the toilet. Joey Barnes, because the pipe smoke had blanketed the stage, walked straight over the edge, struggled back on, and then introduced the girls as the Crow Sisters.

Mr Baxter played all the songs he knew and none of the ones the girls had rehearsed to. Of all the free concerts put on at the Mission, it was the first where booing had been heard.

Stella stormed out at the end in a raging temper, stating that she would never work there again – not even if they paid her. And Sadie, who did manage to finally lift her head for the briefest of moments, left in floods of tears.

Reflecting on the affair and the injustice of it all in the comfort of their home, Sadie categorically stated that her brief flirtation with showbusiness was at an end. The same humiliation had had the reverse effect on Stella. It made her more keen to succeed, and more motivated about improving the act and finding the right places to play. The Mission was merely a hiccup on her way to becoming a great performer, one day to be idolised by the public. At least, that was how she intended looking at it.

There were two important things she’d learnt from this unfortunate experience: always make sure that the piano-player was capable of playing their music and that the compere said their names right.

It took nearly two weeks of kindness mixed with animal cunning for her to persuade Sadie to make a return to the dancing classes. By making Sadie understand her own importance to their act, and the fruitlessness of embarrass-ment, outrage, and humiliation, by the third week she had her making suggestions for an act of her own.

When they came to the time when they felt the act was as polished and presentable as it could ever be, Stella made it her job to find them a public gathering to perform it to.

She kept alert to any opportunities, and, at the very low fee of nothing, she managed to fix them a job in the very high-class venue of the County Hotel, Lancaster.

It was for a firm of brewers, and drink was top of the bill. She got them the job because the previously booked double-act had had a major bust-up and was consequently cancelled.

They did very well that night. They were bright and young, and the audience were drunk enough to enjoy two young teenagers cavorting about in costumes they couldn’t envisage their wives in. They did well enough to be given a pound to split by a very drunk landlord, whose wife never forgave him.

Over the next twelve months their act blossomed like summer flowers, as did their figures. They were tall, easy movers, with natural blonde hair. Unsurprisingly, the only thing of importance to Stella was the act, and Sadie was willing to go along with this, for, as yet, she had no other interests or distractions.