so as to avoid the repetitive pounding of echo, ‘this week we’re going to learn a new variation of the time step.’
She gave her prodigies a hopeful smile, which was duly returned by a sea of blank expressions. She tapped carefully at her crisp red hair as she examined her mothers of tomorrow. They were such a mixed bunch of girls. Some fat, some thin, some short, some tall – and just the one boy.
Their ages ranged from six to fourteen. Some had no idea of dancing and never would, while others showed minor talent but lacked the necessary enthusiasm to make anything of it.
She marched slowly behind the second row, from where she could see all thirty-four stationary legs. Mildred’s caught her eye in particular. She had short, stubby legs that had to support a solid mound of body. Only twelve, she already weighed nearly eight stone. For a moment she thought ‘poor girl’, then consoled herself by thinking ‘money in the bank’.
She clapped her hands twice, the echo making it sound like fading applause. ‘All the girls in the front row go into the far corner of the room with Donna.’ Dutifully, they accompanied her to the selected area. As they moved eagerlessly across the room she knew that there was little hope of the variation on the time step being learnt this week. ‘Now the rest of you stay with me.’ The little boy looked confused as to which group he should be with. He was an enigma, and Sadie always pitied him.
For the Ravenscroft girls the lessons went quickly. They were quite competent and, more importantly, they enjoyed their dancing and the challenge of a new step. For Mrs Bunting and daughter it dragged miserably slowly. The challenge wasn’t there any more; just the money.
Sadie and Stella were always last out of the school, both wanting the thrill of being in showbusiness to last as long as possible, and until they turned professional one day, Mrs Bunting’s dance-school was the sole representative of show-business. ‘Thank you, Mrs Bunting. See you next week.’
‘Okay, girls,’ she replied, with a tired weak smile, the kind she used on her husband when serving up his dinner in the evenings.
Tommy hid under the cover of a shop doorway near the dance-school, waiting for his loved one to come out. The two sisters were now once more traipsing wearily down the crisp, white street, their shoes crunching and imprinting themselves on the ground in a snaking trail. They huddled close together as they went through the city centre, looking like one body with four legs. ‘Hey, bugger off,’ said the shopkeeper as he waved a firm fist at Tommy.
‘It’s all right, mister. I’m just waiting for my friends.’
‘Sod you and your friends. You’re putting customers off, so bugger off.’
‘Misery-guts,’ mumbled Tommy with a grimace.
He dug his hands deep into his pockets and stepped forward into the weather. When the shopkeeper had strutted back inside he scraped up a handful of snow in his gloved hands and tossed it violently at the shop window. ‘Yer little bastard,’ screamed the man, and Tommy ran for all his worth, not stopping until he’d caught up with the girls.
They deliberately ignored him, as it wasn’t the done thing to be seen talking to the male species outside of the school grounds. They increased their pace, but Tommy matched them step for step. They swung left into the arcade, quite often using this route as a short-cut. Tommy gallantly skipped ahead of them to open the large swing-doors, but, although he was strong for his age, the doors were a lot stronger for theirs.
The springs on the doors started, very early on, to establish their superiority and the girls only just managed to squeeze through before they closed.
A little embarrassed, Tommy forced one open to let himself through, the girls now waiting for him on the other side, having decided that, although they wouldn’t talk to him, they would let him accompany them.
Just as Tommy had managed to re-open it a stream of people filed through the arcade, oblivious to the fact that he was holding the door open for his own benefit and not for theirs. Many thank yous were uttered as they barged by him.
Eventually he escaped from his ‘door duty’ and trotted back up to the girls. They stopped outside the Palladium cinema to look at the photographs of the stars. A Janet Gaynor film was now showing. ‘Well, we can guess where Mrs Bunting will be spending her evenings this week,’ said Stella with a chuckle, and her younger sister laughed – as did Tommy, which immediately made the girls go quiet.
‘Oh, come on, give us a break,’ he pleaded as the three of them walked on. ‘I’m only trying to be friendly, like.’
‘So Molly Chadwick tells me,’ said Stella in a most sarcastic tone.
‘I DON’T LIKE MOLLY CHADWICK,’ he declared in a very loud voice, which convinced Stella he was telling the truth. She was a little surprised to have brought out such a reaction in him and it gave her an inexplicable thrill. However, once she had achieved her confession she wasn’t the sort to continue torturing her victim.
‘Are you bothered about seeing the Janet Gaynor film?’ she asked him.
‘No,’ he droned. ‘It’ll be a right mushy one that. I’d rather go to the Kingsway and see The White Hell of Pitz Palu. Aye, that’ll be a grand film.’
‘Who’s in it?’ asked Sadie with genuine interest.
‘Eh?’ Young Tommy had never been asked such a technical question before. As far as he and his mates were concerned a film was a film was a film. Who starred in it was of little consequence, so long as someone did. The important thing was how the villain died. Did he die slowly and in great pain or quickly with just a little pain because he had a likeable mum who’d contracted an incurable disease?
‘I said, who’s in it?’ repeated Sadie softly.
‘I . . . I’ve forgotten.’
‘Forgotten,’ sighed Stella, picking up on his slip.
‘That’s right,’ he said defensively.
‘Well, what’s it about then?’ she persisted.
Tommy looked blankly at Sadie. He needed her support. She was gentle and kind. She gave him some support. ‘Is it a love story, perhaps?’ she assisted.
‘Bloomin’ ’eck no.’ He felt himself blush bright red. He crossed his left eye to see if his nose had gone red. It had.
‘Then it’s probably an adventure story.’
‘Aye, that’s right. They’re always adventure stories with swear-words like “hell” in it. It’ll probably be about caves and savages and furnaces . . .’ He petered out of description.
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ said Stella condescendingly. Tommy wished he hadn’t mentioned anything about the Kingsway.
They drifted by the market and stopped at the fish stall to say hello to ‘Pop’. Everyone knew Joe Billings as Pop. He was a youthful seventy; that is, he was young at heart.
Pop had a round, wizened face and kindly attitude like everyone’s grandfather should have, and this was how he came to be called Pop. He helped out Saturdays on the stall since retiring as a trawlerman a couple of years back. Sitting on an upturned crate, he was shelling a bucket full of shrimps.
Stella
