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‘Lindy-Lou? Where does that come from?’
‘It’s what my Aunty Eileen used to call me,’ Lillian told her.
‘But you were only six then.’
‘All the same, it’s better than Lillian. More sort of stagey.’
‘More sort of babyish, if you ask me.’
Still arguing, they found a damp corner of the cramped room beside the stage. Lillian stepped into the taffeta dress. As a party dress it would have been much too short for her, but it was fine for dancing as it showed off her long slim legs.
‘You should have tights on underneath really, but your legs are nice and brown, so perhaps it won’t notice,’ Janette said.
‘I did them with gravy browning, like they used to during the war. You don’t think they’ll go streaky in the rain, do you?’ Lillian asked.
‘Keep them covered, just in case.’
The night before, Lillian had borrowed some of Wendy’s setting lotion, combed it through her hair, then made it into six tight little plaits. Now she unplaited them and brushed the now crinkly hair into two bunches, which she tied up with pink ribbons.
‘What d’you think?’ she asked.
Janette put her head to one side, considering. ‘Well…’
Lillian’s confidence plummeted. ‘You think it’s horrible,’ she accused.
‘No—’
Lillian peered into the hand mirror she had brought with her.
‘You’re right, it is horrible. Oh, if only Aunty Eileen were here, she’d of done it beautifully for me.’
‘Well, she isn’t, so it’ll have to do,’ said her practical friend. ‘Sit down, and I’ll do your make-up.’
Lillian submitted to Janette’s efforts with the powder and lipstick. Once more, Lillian looked in the mirror.
‘I look like a doll!’ she exclaimed, horrified.
‘It’s stage make-up. It has to be like that,’ Janette insisted.
Lillian looked about her. Some of the pushy mothers were applying real greasepaint to their little dears’ faces. All of the performers looked like badly painted dolls. Reluctantly, she accepted Janette’s word for it. After all, Janette had performed in dancing school shows. For all her ambitions, Lillian had never set foot on a stage before.
The time for the start of the competition drew near. The competitors were herded off into seats alongside the stage while the mothers and Janette had to sit in a different part of the bandstand. Day trippers and holidaymakers out for some entertainment huddled in the sheltered seats and the four judges sat at the table at the centre back. There was a huge gap of empty seats in the middle where nobody wanted to sit in the rain. A compère with an over-jolly voice came on and made a couple of feeble jokes, introduced the judges and the pianist, and the contest began.
First on was a boy of twelve or so who played The HappyWanderer on the accordion. He got a decent smattering of applause and went off again looking fairly pleased with himself. Next came a lumpy girl in a short frilly dress and ringlets who sang On The Good Ship Lollipop in a shrill voice. The girl sitting next to Lillian leaned close and commented, ‘There’s always someone who does Shirley Temple. Isn’t she dreadful?’
‘Ghastly,’ Lillian agreed.
Nerves were really getting to her now. She felt sick and her hands and legs were shaking. Whatever had made her think that this was a good idea?
Two girls dressed up as twins went next and did a tap dance. Lillian couldn’t really see them from where she was sitting, but she could hear that they weren’t entirely in step.
‘That was pretty crummy,’ the girl beside her commented.
One by one the competitors went up. Singers, dancers, a conjurer, a violinist. Then it was the turn of the scornful girl next to Lillian. As she got up, Lillian started trying to warm up. It was difficult in such a restricted space. She could hear the girl singing Oh My Papa in a big brash voice. It was quite a crowd-pleaser, bringing in the most applause there had been yet. Lillian had a feeling of doom in her stomach like a stone. How was she going to follow that? It was obvious that the girl had been having lessons for ever and made a habit of going in for talent contests. She wished she could just run out of this place and keep running. But a motherly-looking woman with a clipboard was beckoning to her. Shaking, Lillian walked towards her. This was it.
‘And next—’ boomed the compère, ‘we have little Miss Lindy-Lou Parker dancing to We’re a Couple of Swells.’
The woman with the clipboard gave Lillian a little push. ‘Go on, dear, it’s you.’
Lillian took a deep breath and stepped onto the stage. There was a smattering of applause. It seemed very high up and exposed, and the audience was an impossibly long way away, sheltering at the back. Facing her were rows of wet unoccupied chairs. Lillian wanted to jump off the stage and crawl underneath them.
But then the pianist struck the opening notes, thumping the piano with unforgiving fingers, and something happened to Lillian’s body. The music, pedestrian though it was, told her what to do. She performed a perky stroll round the stage and launched into the routine she had practised with such persistence. The steps, the turns, the arm movements ran seamlessly one into the other. She began to actually enjoy herself. The smile she had pasted on her face became genuine as she projected her joy in dancing to the people huddled at the back at the bandstand. Before she could believe it, the last phrase was rolling out. Lillian executed a series of pirouettes, turned a perfect cartwheel and dropped into the splits on the last chord. She bowed and looked up, still with her legs splayed on the floor of the stage. They were clapping! They were clapping her! She bounced up and bowed again. There was more applause. This was wonderful. They liked her. She wanted it to go on for ever.
‘Thank you, Lindy-Lou,’ the compère was saying. ‘Thank you. Off you go, now.’
He was ushering her off the stage. There was a sniggering from the wings. Lillian saw the next child waiting to come on and realised that she had outstayed her welcome. Scarlet with embarrassment, she ran off.
On the other side of the stage from where she had been waiting to go on, the competitors who had already performed were penned up together. The Oh My Papa girl spoke to her with grudging respect.
‘Sounds like you were quite good,’ she said. ‘Better than most of this lot, anyway.’
‘You were smashing,’ Lillian said politely. ‘You’ve got a—a big voice.’
‘My teacher says I’m going to be the next Anne Shelton,’ the girl said.
Lillian could believe it. The famous singer must have sounded similar when she was young.
As the excitement of performing drained away, Lillian found she was cold and hungry. She sat shivering as the long list of young people did their turns. The crowd in the seats on her side of the stage grew and grew. The scornful girl continued her commentary on everyone’s efforts. Lillian had time to wonder how Janette was, waiting out there in the damp with all those mothers. And then at last it was over and the compère was telling jokes as the judges made up their minds. Nerves were gnawing at Lillian’s stomach again. She chewed her knuckles. She really, really wanted to win a prize. First prize, preferably, but anything would do, just some recognition that she could do it, she could be a dancer if she tried hard enough.
‘I can’t bear it, this waiting,’ she said to the girl next to her.
‘They always make such a to-do about the judging. I don’t know why, when it’s obvious who’s best.’
‘It is? Who is?’ Lillian asked.
The girl gave her a pitying look. ‘Me, of course, stupid.’
‘Bighead,’ Lillian muttered.
Then the pianist played a fanfare and the carnival queen and her court came onto the stage to huge applause to present the prizes. A photographer from the local paper got ready to snap the winners. The head judge handed a piece of paper to the compère.
‘Right then, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Here are the results in reverse order. Highly commended—’
Two names were read out. Part of Lillian was disappointed, another part was still hopeful of even better things.
‘Third prize—’
It was the accordion boy. He bounded up onto the stage, beaming all over his chubby face. Lillian felt she was going to burst with suspense.
Please, God, she bargained silently, please let it be me. I’ll be good for the rest of my life.
‘Second prize—Lindy-Lou Parker.’
It was her. They were saying her name. Lillian just sat there, confounded.
‘Go on,’ her neighbour said, poking her. ‘That’s you. You’re second.’
Her head swimming with amazement, Lillian stood up. Somehow she made her way onto the stage. There was a polite round of applause. She walked across to the carnival queen, an impossibly glamorous young woman in a long white gown and a blue cloak with a crown of what to Lillian looked like sparkling diamonds on her head. Lillian curtseyed, which made some of the court ladies giggle.
‘Well done, dear,’ the queen said, handing her an envelope. ‘Smile for the camera.’
She was directing a brilliant smile at the photographer. Giddy with delight, Lillian did the same. There was a flash, and then it was over. Once again, she was being ushered off stage. There was a shriek from the audience.
‘Lillian! We done it! We done it!’
There, in front of the mothers’ seats, was Janette, jumping up and down and waving both arms over her head. Lillian squealed and managed to wave back before she was grabbed and pushed into the wings. Somewhere behind her the winner was announced. It was the Oh My Papa girl. Lillian didn’t care. She had got a prize! The judges thought she was good. She was really going to be a dancer one day. It was all just too wonderful to be true.
All the way home the girls went over every detail of the contest, but at Lillian’s house they parted and Janette went on her way. Lillian was still buzzing with her success as she pushed her bike through the back gate. She did a couple of handsprings as she crossed the yard, out of sheer exuberance. As ill luck would have it, Gran was in the kitchen when she arrived, checking the state of the shelves.
‘Time you grew up, young lady,’ she said. ‘Kicking your legs up in public like that. What would the neighbours think if they saw you?’
Any lingering hope Lillian might have had that her family might be interested, let alone pleased at her success, instantly died.
‘Sorry, Gran,’ she said.
‘And what’s all that muck on your face?’
‘Oh!’ Lillian’s hand went to her cheek. In the excitement, she had forgotten to wipe the make-up off. ‘Er—Janette and I were playing about with her mum’s make-up. Her mum doesn’t mind.’
‘She ought to mind. Letting a young girl go out looking like a scarlet woman! Go and wash it off at once. And then you can go and get a loaf and a pound of streaky bacon. We’re full tonight.’
Lillian had been too self-absorbed to notice the ‘No Vacancies’ sign up in the front window. Carnival week was the busiest of the year. There were two processions, one on Saturday and a torchlight one on Wednesday evening, a funfair at Chalkwell park, dances and dinners on somewhere in the town every evening and various competitions and displays. It was no wonder they were full mid-week.
‘That’s good,’ she said.
‘Seems people have got money to waste,’ Gran commented with a sniff of disapproval.
Lillian did not hang around to point out that surely it was not wasted if it came into Gran’s pocket.
It was one of the PGs who gave her away. She was bringing the toast into the guests’ breakfast room when a middle-aged man recognised her.
‘Well, if it isn’t Miss Lindy-Lou Parker!’
Lillian went cold. Gran was right behind her, making sure that the guests didn’t pocket the cruets or fill their flasks from the teapot.
‘Oh!’ the man’s wife exclaimed. ‘So it is. Oh, we did enjoy the show, dear. You was ever so good.’
‘Lovely little dancer,’ her husband agreed.
‘Lovely. Ain’t she a lovely little dancer?’ the woman asked Gran. ‘You must be very proud of her.’
Lillian could feel her grandmother’s piercing eyes on her, shrivelling her up inside.
‘Yes,’ Gran said.
Lillian knew she was only saying that to keep face in front of the guests. Sure enough, as soon as they were all safely out of the house, she was summoned to Gran’s room.
‘What’s all this about dancing?’
Lillian glared back at her, her heart beating hard.
‘I was in the Carnival Talent Contest,’ she said, her voice loud with defiance. ‘I got a prize.’
‘You went up on a stage and made an exhibition of yourself in public?’
The way Gran said it, performing on a stage was something disgraceful. Anger overcame Lillian’s fear of her grandmother.
‘I wasn’t making an exhibition of myself, I was dancing. What’s so wrong with that? And I was good; I came second out of lots of people.’
This made Gran even angrier. If there was one thing she didn’t like, it was people arguing with her.
‘Don’t you defy me, my girl. If I say you’re not to go up on a stage, then you’re not, and no questions asked. Understand?’
‘No, I don’t!’ Tears of anger and frustration were gathering in Lillian’s eyes now. ‘Just tell me what’s so wrong about it!’
‘You lied to me. Lied by sneaking out and doing it behind my back. And I won’t stand for liars. You’re a disgrace to the family—’
Gran was off on one of her tirades. Lillian stared at a point above her shoulder and tried not to listen.
‘—and you’re not too big to be punished.’
Lillian came back from the place where she had been mentally sheltering to see that Gran had the stick in her hand. With a wicked swish, it came down hard on her calves, sharp and stinging, five times. She couldn’t contain a squeal of pain.
‘There—’ Gran was looking at her with satisfaction now, breathing hard. ‘Now say you’re sorry.’
‘Sorry,’ Lillian mumbled, with huge reluctance.
‘Let this be a lesson to you. No going out for two weeks.’
‘But, Gran—’
This was a real blow. Lillian had been looking forward to going to the funfair with Janette and her other friends.
‘No buts. Go and see if your mother needs some help.’
Sore, angry and resentful, Lillian did as she was told.
To her surprise, Wendy was completely on her side. In bed that night, she wanted to know all about the contest.
