‘I don’t know. He juggles, I think.’
‘Big deal.’
‘And Renato and his Little Squeaking Friends.’
‘Is that the one who has the vampire bats that feed him sugar lumps? Oh, I’ve seen that on the telly.’ Mum is obviously impressed.
‘It sounds disgusting to me,’ sniffs Rosie. ‘I don’t want to go.’
‘Have a cherry brandy,’ I say, waving desperately for a waiter. In fact, Rosie has three cherry brandys before I deem her sufficiently mellow to be led off to the Pier Pavilion. With maxiMum cunning I steer the conversation round to the brilliance of little Jason, always a subject calculated to soothe her savage breasts.
I have hopes of escaping from the hotel before the Pendulum Swingers finish dusting the inside of their toes with talcum powder but this is not to be. As we pass the ballroom, Sam the Ram is having words with the hotel electrician.
‘All those lights we can do without,’ he says. ‘I’m not planning to conduct an autopsy in there. Let’s make it strictly fanny by gaslight, you dig?’
‘We’d better hurry along,’ I say, glancing at my watch, but it is no good. Rosie gives the kind of delicate little cough which has been known to spark off avalanches and lurches into King Conk.
‘Oh!’ she says, ‘it’s you.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ he says. ‘Geeze, but you’re looking lovely.’ When he turns round I can see that he is wearing a white ruffled shirt open at the neck and his trousers are so tight they look as if they have leaked through his pores. ‘I hope you’re going to save me a dance tonight?’
‘I’m being taken to the theatre,’ says Rosie, making it sound like she means quarantine centre.
‘Come along later.’ Sam smiles and runs his hand lightly up her arm. ‘I’d love to get you on the dance floor.’ The way he looks at her you know he means any floor. This bloke is definitely another Ricci Volare.
‘Charming, wasn’t he?’ says Mum, when I have eventually dragged Rosie away.
‘He looked a great poof if you ask me,’ says Dad, speaking the truth for once. ‘What’s he want to go wearing a woman’s blouse for?’
‘Oh Dad, don’t be so stupid. It’s fashionable to wear shirts like that.’
‘He won’t do himself any good in those trousers either. The body has got to breathe.’
‘In your case, I wonder why sometimes.’
‘Now, that’s unkind, Rosie.’
‘Typical, bleeding typical–’
‘–He shouldn’t go on like that–’
‘–Slave your fingers to the bone to give your kids a decent start in life and–’
‘Belt up, both of you,’ I groan. ‘Let’s get to the bleeding pier before it closes down for the winter.’
‘No need for coarse language, dear,’ says Mum. ‘I’ve noticed you’ve been a lot more free in your speech since you went on that boat.’ Mum has a very low opinion of sailors, especially those not blessed by the sight of the Red Ensign fluttering at the masthead. I imagine it stems from an unhappy incident in her youth.
‘It was a very coarsening experience, mother,’ I tell her. Little does she know.
Rosie is still sulking when we get to the pier. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that it has been raining since we left the hotel and I have been unable to find a cab.
‘This pair of shoes are ruined,’ she moans.
‘Oh, they’re shoes, are they?’ says Dad. ‘I thought you’d forgotten to take them out of their box.’
‘They’ve got cork soles, Dad, it’s fashionable.’
‘Bloody handy if it rains any more. You can float home.’
‘You sure we’ve got the right night?’ says Mum, ‘there don’t seem to be many people here.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ sniffs Rosie. ‘Terry Grimley. Oh my gawd.’
When we get onto the pier the planks are glistening with rain and the coloured bulbs–those that have not been broken–swinging in the gusty wind.
‘I think I’ll walk off the end of the pier and drown myself like Necrophilia,’ says Rosie.
‘You mean Ophelia, don’t you?’ I tell her. Rosie has a big thing for Richard Chamberlain and ever since seeing him as Hamlet on the telly, has liked to crash in with the odd Shakespearean reference. Very odd, some of them.
‘Alright, clever-shanks,’ she snaps, ‘have it your way.’
Boy, this is going to be a marvellous evening, I think to myself as I slap down the complimentary tickets. I have not stood such a good chance of enjoying myself since we ran out of candles during the power strike.
Inside the theatre there are less people than at a meeting of Jack the Ripper’s fan club and Rosie starts moaning again before I have bought the programmes.
‘I can’t stand it,’ she says. ‘I just can’t stand it.’
‘Oh, look,’ says Mum, ‘what a shame–Terry Grimley is “indisposed”.’
‘Thank God,’ says Rosie, nastily.
‘Still, there’s always Renato and his Little Squeaking Friends, Mum,’ I say cheerfully. How right I am!
The orchestra sound as if they were introduced to each other five minutes before they started playing the National Anthem and the opening number, ‘Hoverton, Hoverton, It’s not a Bovver-town!’–at least I think that is what they are singing–could be one of the most forgettable tunes written in the last twenty years. The chorus girls look like rotarians in drag and their make-up could have been put on by a bloke responsible for painting puppets. All in all, the production lives down to my worst fears and I dare not look at Rosie.
The opening number gives way–maybe surrenders would be a better word–to one of the lousiest ventriloquists I have ever seen. The patter is so bad that the dummy must have written it and the ventriloquist moves his lips more than a short-sighted lodger trying to spit out his landlady’s dentures. After that comes a Scottish comedian who does imitations of Andy Stewart doing imitations of Harry Lauder, and two child tap dancers who make up in clumsiness what they lack in skill.
‘How much longer to the interval?’ whispers Rosie. ‘I can’t take much more.’
‘After the bats,’ I tell her. ‘They’re on next.’ She shudders and I sit back as a decrepit looking geezer wearing a black cloak and false eye teeth–at least, I imagine they are false–comes out onto the stage and spreads his arms wide to receive the non-existent applause. He waits hopefully for a few seconds and then waves a hand towards the wings. From the other side of the stage one of the chorus girls teeters out holding a large cage at arm’s length. I can sympathise with her distaste because when Renato whips off the cover I can see what appears to be half a dozen broken black umbrellas hanging in an ugly cluster. My reaction is not an isolated one because a combined exclamation of disgust is the biggest noise produced by the audience the whole evening.
‘Ooh! I don’t fancy that!’ says Rosie.
‘Imagine one of those in your hair,’ says Mum. I remember her words later.
The chorus girl gingerly inserts her hand into the cage and then withdraws it sharply.
‘It bit her,’ gasps Mum.
‘I’m getting out,’ says Rosie.
‘Don’t be daft,’ says