charm sometimes and at such moments it is unwise to push the aggrochat. I swallow back my resentment and prepare for the tedium ahead. Hoverton’s light entertainment industry is no threat to Broadway and seeing any show with my parents has been a source of embarrassment since they took me to a pantomime at Clapham Junction. First of all they always sit on somebody else’s lap and then Dad finds a seat and sits on it while it is still tipped up. He wonders why everybody is shouting at him and a right old how’s your father goes on until the manager and three usherettes force him into a seat like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Then he never understands what is happening.
‘Why is he doing that, mother?’ he demands. ‘Look, look, they’ve got it wrong. He’s got different clothes on.’
Perhaps Dad’s worst fault is that he has always seen everything. Despite only having been to the flicks about six times in his life, there is always one moment in every film when he suddenly springs to his feet, points at the screen and exclaims, ‘I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it. The bloke with the ’tash does it.’ He even did that in the Sound of Music.
Perhaps he will be better at the live theatre. He is always rambling on about how you could not beat the old music hall.
Rosie is definitely not pleased at the evening that has been arranged for her.
‘I don’t want to go down the pier,’ she says as she shovels in her last mouthful of fruit salad. ‘Is Sid ashamed of us or something?’
‘I think it’s “or something” ’I murmur under my breath. ‘Come on, Rosie, cheer up! I’ve heard it’s a great show.’
‘Who’s in it then?’ I rack my brain for some of the half-forgotten names of yesteryear.
‘Terry Grimley–’
‘He’s not still alive is he?’ says Dad, wiping the custard off his chin–some of it anyway. ‘I remember him when I was a boy.’
‘Radio’s “Mr Romance”,’ I continue lamely.
‘I wouldn’t cross the street to see him wrestling in mud with Donald Peers,’ snorts Rosie.
‘Then there’s the Amazing Arturo.’
‘What’s amazing about him?’
‘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
