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 Happy Wanderer 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