‘Isn’t that what you think?’ I said.
Neither of us was in the mood to get touchy with the other.
‘No,’ he said, so quietly that I stared at him. I can see that pale face of his with the great high-bridged mournful nose and the wildish light eyes to this day. ‘No,’ he repeated. ‘She loves him, Polly. She loves that little squirt and she’ll go on loving him until she breaks her heart or someone takes him by the back of his scrawny little neck and twists it round and round until his head falls off.’
His voice had risen on the words and one or two of the other people in the room—it was a quiet little place—looked round at us. I felt uncomfortable.
‘You be quiet,’ I said. ‘Don’t say such dreadful things. Frank’s not the type to get done in and if he is it’s not going to be by you or me.’
I remember I choked over the last word, and he laughed and gave me a bit of bread and we cheered up after that. But I think of it now sometimes. It’s twenty-five years ago. I didn’t believe in the subconscious or fate then, and I don’t now, really, but I did choke and I did kill him.
Lorn took me home that night. I was digging at old Ma Villiers’ just off the Streatham High. You certainly wouldn’t remember her, but she was a fine old trouper and had been quite a queen of melodrama in her day. We sat round the fire in her kitchen and I can see her now standing on a swaying chair, ferreting about in the cupboard for some cinnamon for Lorn’s cold.
After he had gone—and he went slowly, I remember, with heavy steps like an old man—she stood talking to me while I filled my hot-water bottle from the kettle on the stove. She was a great gaunt old woman—they don’t all run to fat—with a shock of grey hair and a Shakespearean manner.
‘There’s death there,’ she said. ‘You won’t see him again.’
I was sharp with her.
‘He’s all right. He’s only got a cold and he’s fed up because his girl’s married somebody else.’
She looked at me sharply with her little black eyes.
‘‘A scratch, a scratch, hut marry ‘tis enough,’’ she said. ‘You won’t see him again.’
She was right. I didn’t. I never saw Lorn again. I heard about his death long afterwards from some people who were in the same bill as Louie up North when Lorn collapsed. They were nice people, a dancing act, who came into a burlesque show in which I was playing. We were calling them ‘revues’ by that time. I remember the woman, a pretty little dark-haired thing, she was called Lola Darling, telling me with tears in her eyes of the awful row there had been back stage, Louie insisting that Lorn was not fit to go on and Frank bullying her and swearing first at her and then at Lorn, and finally Lorn staggering out to the piano and doing his little bit in the icy draught that would have killed an elephant, let alone a man half dead already. And then Lorn collapsing—dreadfully vivid she was, I dreamt of Lorn in pools of blood for nights afterwards—and being rushed off to hospital and dying there.
‘Who’s accompanying her now?’ I said, and when she told me Frank was doing it himself I felt anxious.
He didn’t smash her career at once. Nobody could have done that except Louie herself. But he chipped away at the foundations of it, if you understand what I mean. The rumour went round that the act was temperamental, but that didn’t matter while she drew the houses.
I didn’t see much of her then. She used to write to me sometimes, but her letters grew guarded. At first they were all about Frank. Frank did this, Frank did that, Frank was so clever, Frank won three thousand pounds at Doncaster on one race. But afterwards I didn’t hear so much about Frank. She wrote generalities.
All the time, though, she was at the top of the bill, and when she did come to London her old songs went down just like they used to do, even if some of the new ones weren’t so successful.
The rumour went around that Frank was jealous of Lorn’s memory, and threw a tantrum every time she revived one of his songs.
He wrote one or two for her himself, but they were terrible, and even her personality couldn’t put them over. I believe he gave her hell when that happened, but, of course, nobody knew about it then.
That was the beginning of the secret life she led, the life that turned her into two different people.
Meanwhile I was having my own adventures. My husband—did I say I had a husband?—died and left me the little bit of money he had, bless him. We never got on together but we never worried each other. I banked my money and went on working.
It was war time now and there was a lot of stuff going. I was so hurried I didn’t have time to think. We were all so busy making merry in case we died to-morrow that I didn’t realise I was getting older, but I was always a sound worker, reliable and steady, and the managers found me little bits so that I could live and save my spot of money.
It was nearing the end of the war that I first saw the new Louie. We hadn’t set eyes upon one another for two years, and although there had been rumours about her, her extravagance, her wildness and the sort of crowd she was mixed up with, I was not prepared for the atmosphere I found when I went round to her dressing-room at the Palladium after my own little show at the Winter Garden was done.
I tapped on the door and the dresser opened it half an inch. It was a new woman. Old Gertie had got the sack, I heard afterwards. This new one was a beery old party with a face like a frightened hare. When she saw I wasn’t going to hit her she opened the door a fraction or so wider.
‘You can’t come in,’ she said. ‘Miss Lester’s resting.’
‘Resting?’ I said. ‘What’s she been doing? Swimming the channel?’
‘Polly!’ I heard Louie’s voice from inside and I pushed the woman aside and went in.
She was lying on a couch, her make-up still on but standing out from her face as though the skin beneath it had shrunk. I hardly recognised her. She was heavier, older, and although still lovely there was an exhaustion, a weakness which was incredible when associated with Louie.
‘Oh, Polly,’ she said, ‘oh, Polly …’ and burst into tears.
This was so unlike her that I forgot myself entirely.
‘Why, Duck,’ I said, ‘why, Duck, what’s the matter?’
She wiped her tears away and looked nervously at the woman.
‘You clear out, Auntie,’ I said. ‘Go and have a drink. I’ll look after Miss Lester.’
The old rabbit stood her ground.
‘Mr. Springer said she wasn’t to be left,’ she said.
‘Mr. Springer said …!’ I gaped at her. ‘You get out!’ I said. ‘Gawd luv a policeman, what d’you think Miss Lester’s going to do? Blow up? You get out. And if you meet Mr. Springer, you tell him I told you to.’
‘Oh, no, Polly, no.’ Louie put her hand to me and clutched my arm and I looked down at her hand and saw that her rings were paste. I can’t tell you why, but that shocked me more than anything I’ve ever seen in all my life … yes, more than his face when–––
But I’m coming to that later.
Finally the old woman went. I’m not so big, and the last part I ever played was a burlesque charwoman, but I usually get what I want when I set my mind to it.
When the door was closed behind her I locked it and turned to Louie.
‘Are you ill?’ I said.
‘No. Only tired.’
‘How many shows have you done to-day?’