Family Chorus Read online

  He was standing a little way along the sixpenny queue, now shuffling its way into the theatre, beside a man in a very smart suit and with hair even curlier than Joe’s, and with a straw hat set on one side of his head at an even more rakish angle than Joe’s. Even to Lexie’s Joe-bedazzled eyes, this man seemed to take from Joe some of his glory, and she moved nearer, reaching for Joe’s hand as she did so, and stared up at the stranger with her face in a scowl.

  ‘All right, then,’ Joe was saying as she came up to him. ‘All right, Mr Lazar, if that’s what you say. I’ll give it a bit o’ thought, discuss it with the child, like —’ and his hand came down and pinched Lexie’s arm so sharply that she whimpered, though the sound could hardly be heard in all the surrounding hubbub ‘— and we’ll see what we can do. Saturday, you say. Tricky, a Saturday, o’ course, but we’ll see what we can do —’ And the man in the rakish straw hat looked at Lexie and winked at her very solemnly and was suddenly gone as swiftly as he had appeared. And she was left staring at Joe as he scooped something out of his hat which he had been holding in his hand all the time.

  ‘Joe, aren’t we goin’ in? We won’t get in if you don’t hurry — Joe?’

  ‘We’ll get in —’ he said absently. He was counting the contents of his hat. ‘Look at that!’ he said after a moment. ‘Bloody hell, will you look at that! Two and eleven, just for you jumpin’ around and squawking. And then that chap —’ He shook his head at her, his face blank with surprise. ‘I tell you, doll, there’s no shortage of idiots, is there?’ And suddenly he laughed and bent and picked her up and swung her in the air above his head, and she shrieked with terrified delight and reached out to cling to him.

  ‘Come on, doll. We’ll go in and get you a basinful. You’ve really copped it tonight, ain’t you? And we’ll talk about what we’re doin’ on Saturday. We could be startin’ something very funny here, something bloody funny —’

  And he swung her round so that she was riding on him pick-a-back and marched along the line towards the box office.

  3

  ‘Bloody ’ell, ’oos idea was that one?’ The man in the flat cap stared at the stage, squinting through the smoke that rose from the cigarette clamped between his teeth, and then shook his head lugubriously. ‘Enough to make you cry, that is, if it don’t make you laugh. I’ve ’card of that there chutspah, but that’s chutspah wiv brass trimmin’s on it!’

  ‘Poor creature,’ the tall woman beside him said, and her voice was rich with sympathy. ‘Some of these mothers — reelly they ought to be shet up in boxes, they treat their deah children so cruelly.’ Her accent was so refined that the words sounded as though they had been squeezed through a laundry mangle. ‘Thet child hes hed no training whatsoevah — and yet they set her on a stage and expect her to be able to perform. It is indeed an insult to the theatah.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t know about an insult to the theatre — it’s a bleedin’ insult to me, as ’as to watch it. ’Oo brung the poor little cow in? D’jew know, Chalky?’

  ‘Mr Lazar,’ said Chalky, leaning on the ropes of the tableau curtains and watching the stage with the glazed stare of extreme boredom. ‘Said as ’ow she was to go on around the middle, so’s to be comfortable. One of the tribe, I dare say. Always is, ain’t they?’

  The tall woman beside them drew herself up and lifted her chin so that she looked like an affronted turkeycock. ‘If you intend that remark to be an aspersion cast on the integrity of Mr Lazar, who is a Jewish gentleman of the highest respectability, and certainly not given to any — ah — acts of dubious — ah — practice, I must tell you that —’

  ‘Oh, all right, Madame, all right. Give it a rest,’ the man in the flat cap said. ‘Meant no ’arm, for Chrissakes. Only said what everyone knows, which is that we all like to look after our own. I look after mine, you look after yours and Alex Lazar looks after ’is. Stands to reason — s’only natural. Thank Gawd, she’s nearly done, poor little cow. Will you look at ’er. S’nuff to make yer cry into yer beer —’

  ‘An’ it’s weak enough already,’ said Chalky, and began to haul on the ropes to close the curtains as a thin splatter of applause, well laced with shouts and boos, came from the auditorium. The tall woman lifted her chin even higher and swept off towards the backstage area, leaving the two men to stare after her and grin at each other, as the small child in the white dress and black stockings came off the stage and pushed her way between them.

  Her face was white and very stiff, and her eyes wide and dark in her pinched face. There was a thin film of sweat across her forehead and upper lip, and she wiped the back of one hand across her mouth tremulously as she reached the pool of light thrown into the wings by the off-stage floods.

  ‘I’m — where’s Joe?’ she said, in a thin little voice, staring up at the man in the flat cap. ‘Have you seen my brother Joe? I want Joe —’

  But before he could answer her the orchestra on the other side of the wall of red curtains sprang into life again and Alex Lazar, resplendent in a tail coat and with a white tie carefully knotted beneath his exceedingly high white collar, swept past on to the stage, signalling to Chalky to raise the curtain as he did so. Obediently Chalky hauled on his ropes and the curtain swept up. Alex Lazar marched to the centre stage and held up his hands imperiously as though to still a roar of applause, which was in fact totally absent. The audience was producing a low growling muttering sound redolent of discontent rather than pleasure, and the man in the flat cap shook his head gloomily, and made a face at the child still standing at his feet.

  ‘Got orf just in time, you did, ducks,’ he said. ‘’N’other coupla minutes and they’d’v’ad yer guts for garters —’

  ‘Ladees and gennelmen of Mile End!’ Alex Lazar was bawling, as the orchestra settled down to a steady tumty, tumty, tumty, turn. ‘Ladees and gennelmen of taste and judgement, as I must perforce call you! The next item in our show of our newest young talent is a very special one, one that’ll make your hearts beat with the joy of new discovery, one that will make you sit up straight in your seats and cry, “Now, there is an act!” I do not deceive you, ladees and gennelmen, I do not deceive you! As I live and breathe, I, Alex Lazar, assure you that this next act is the one you’ve been waiting for — the one we’ve all been waiting for — the enchanting, the dainty, the delicious, the lovely Madame Gansella’s gorgeous Girlies! And to add to your pleasure and delectation, her Bonny, Bouncing, Bee-utiful Boys! Ladees and gennelmen, I give you — Madame Ga-an-sella!’

  The audience still muttered, but a little less noisily now as the tall woman who had disappeared backstage now reappeared, swathed in a vast purple garment that seemed to have no shape at all, but which shimmered very fetchingly in the lights, and swept on to the stage to bow magnificently to the audience and then across to the piano which was set on the far side. She sat herself down at it, and with wide sweeping movements that displayed a great deal of white arm embellished with glittering bracelets and rings produced a rippling arpeggio which would have sounded better had the piano been in tune. But she rode superbly over this, throwing her head back in appreciation of the sound, as though it had come from a perfect Bechstein, and created another arpeggio, this time nodding her head violently back towards the wings.

  At once there was a rustle of sound and Chalky stepped back, pulling on Lexie’s shoulder as he did so, and with a rush half a dozen children pushed past her, small girls in very fluffy pink dresses, which stopped at mid-calf to show ballet slippers fastened with wide pink ribbons, and with wreaths of pink daisies round their heads over cheeks which had been painted a matching bright pink. They also had blue-shadowed eyelids and pencilled brows, and Lexie stared at them with her own eyes wide as they bounced on to the stage, followed by a cluster of boys, all dressed in miniature versions of the white tie and tails that Alex Lazar was wearing.

  The piano increased in speed as the children began to dance, with a great deal of swooping and swaying and a lot of noisy stamping from the
boys, and Lexie for a moment forgot her desperate need for Joe and the urgent desire to get away with which she had been filled a few moments earlier, and crept closer to Chalky so that she could peer round his legs and watch. Each child wore a fixed grin and each snapped his or her head round sharply with each twirl, an effect which Lexie found fascinating, and she jerked her own head from side to side in unconscious rhythm with them. Chalky laughed above her head and said, ‘If you’d done it that way when you was on, you’d ’a done better, ducks!’ And she reddened and shrank away from him and felt again the rush of terror that had filled her earlier.

  ‘Where’s Joe?’ she said and her face began to crumple as the tears suddenly leapt up inside her. ‘I want Joe —’ And now her face was tight with misery and the tears were running down her cheeks.

  ‘Oh, Gawd, ’ere we go — a right little bawler we got ’ere — now what do I — Oy! Mr Lazar! This is one o’ yours, ain’t it? Cryin’ for its mother, it is — get it aht of ’ere, do me a favour already —’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear, what have we here? A little oyden pisher? Peeing with the eyes, yet? That’ll never do! Come, now, dolly — let’s sort you out then — come on.’ And Alex Lazar bent and picked her up and held her against his shoulder, and after a moment of holding herself rigid and pulling away from him she gave in and allowed herself to weep bitterly and luxuriously into the black barathea.

  The sound from the stage — now a piping rendition of the highly sentimental Chirgwin song, ‘The Blind Boy’ — diminished as he bore her away, and she sniffed dolorously and wept more and then relaxed a little as the sound became even more distant. They had clearly left the stage behind and were walking along an echoing corridor and then into a big room with several people in it; she could hear conversation.

  ‘Well, here she is!’ he said with a booming sound to his voice that made Lexie stop sniffing and keep her head still for a moment. ‘I’d have brought her sooner, only I had to get the Gansella lot on — she’s a bit upset, poor little boobalah —’ And he jiggled her a little against his shoulder, at which Lexie lifted her head and tried to wriggle out of his arms. To be treated like a baby had stopped being comforting.

  ‘Joe?’ she said and looked around, squinting a little against the bright light after the comfortable darkness of Alex Lazar’s shoulder ‘Where’s Joe?’

  ‘Here.’ Joe growled it, and she slid out of Alex’s arms at last and stood beside her brother, holding on to his jacket hard, though he tried to flick it away from her grasping fingers.

  ‘Not quite the ticket, eh?’ he said and his voice sounded even to Lexie to be filled with a studied nonchalance. ‘Not quite up to snuff this time?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Alex Lazar said a little sardonically, and then bent and patted Lexie on the head. ‘Not her fault, though, no, nor mine either. Can’t win ’em all, can we? It was just seeing her outside t’other night — she really had something. Lots of chein, you know what I mean? Style. Sweet little thing, dancing like a little — well, I dare say I got it wrong. Thought she’d had some training, you see, and I have to tell you, it’s that that counts. Talent’s all very well but you got to bolster it with a lot of real how’s-your-father. The easier it looks, the more training in it, you see, and watching her I got the impression — well, there it is. Sorry you were troubled.’

  ‘Well, we’ll settle for the half dollar then and call it a day —’ Joe said, and suddenly Alex Lazar’s voice lost its friendly note.

  ‘Half a dollar? For a kid that can’t so much as walk on a stage in time to the music, let alone dance? You must be joking!’

  ‘You said half a dollar,’ Joe said stubbornly. And his voice, though a little shaky with anxiety, came out strong and loud. ‘A deal’s a deal —’

  ‘I’ll say it is, boychik, I’ll say it is. You told me as this child could dance, and I booked her for the talent show on the understanding that what you told me was the truth. If you reneged on the deal by giving me a bad artiste, there’s no call for me to keep to it, is there? Let’s not get nasty about this, eh? Let’s be gennelmen and call it a day —’

  ‘I never said that she was a trained dancer —’ Joe said hotly and at once Alex held up his hand and began to argue with him, and as she stood there between them, listening to the anger grow in the voices above her head, Lexie’s tears started again. She felt dreadful, sick and frightened and very, very lonely. It was as though she weren’t there at all with Joe, as though she were completely on her own, with a lot of strangers, and what was worse, strangers who fought over her the way she had seen cats in the street fight over a fish head. It was horrible — but it was something else as well. There were different feelings growing in her as she listened to the squabbling going on and on about whether or not the promised half crown had been earned and would be paid. They were not feelings she yet understood, but she was aware of them and the way they filled her with a sort of painful heat. It was a disagreeable sensation, and yet — and yet it wasn’t, and she stood and listened and tried to understand.

  More people came into the room, and for the first time she looked around, tried to see where she was, and discovered that it was indeed a big room, cluttered and noisy, with old chairs and sofas scattered about and a table in the corner where bottles and glasses made a cheerful huddle. The people there were much more interesting than the room itself, however: a conjuror in red plush tights with his face as painted as the women she sometimes saw in Commercial Road, and a man in a brightly checked suit and huge shoes with his face adorned with a great red grin and an even redder nose, stood talking earnestly with their heads together in one corner, while women in dresses as frilly and pink as the children who had gone dancing on to the stage after her own ignominious departure and with heads covered in girlish curls but faces as lined as old Mrs Feldman’s down the street, chattered busily in another. There were men with bald heads and moustaches wearing very neat black tail coats and white ties knotted as carefully as Alex Lazar’s, over baggy old trousers and carpet slippers, sitting in a group drinking beer. There were men in overalls leaning against the wall smoking stubby little pipes and whispering together conspiratorially. It was all very confusing and alarming and also exciting.

  But the most exciting were the people who had just come into the room — the children who had gone dancing past her on to the stage. She stared at them as they came pouring in, all chattering shrilly, and tried to think how old they were. Very old, she decided, for they were all a good deal taller than she was, and anyway they seemed to be very knowledgeable. One of them, a particularly tall boy with very smooth dark red hair cut in a fringe over his straight eyebrows, was helping himself to beer, as coolly as though it were a glass of water, and she stared at him open-mouthed, and then, when he caught her eye and winked, blushed crimson and looked away.

  ‘Still heah, then, my deah? Not gone running away from our deah old theatah, after all?’ It was Madame Gansella, sweating heavily under her thick make-up and seeming somehow less alarming than she had when Lexie had first seen her sweeping on to the stage.

  ‘Just leaving,’ Alex Lazar said firmly. ‘All right, already, Have your half dollar. If you’re so hard up you got to nag for it, take it already —’ and he began to fish in his trouser pocket.

  ‘It’s not for me, it’s for the kid,’ Joe said defensively and took it, but made no move to give it to Lexie. ‘And anyway, a deal is a deal —’

  ‘Don’t start that again, for Gawd’s sake. I told you, an untrained dancer I didn’t take. It’s a mistake, all right?’

  Madame Gansella shook her head. ‘I thought as much!’ she said regally to the room at large. ‘No training, you see! None of the polish that a little education at the right hands can provide! That was this deah child’s problem. Lots of telent, I hev no doubt, but it needs nurturing, needs the care of a teacher who has the inspiration to help a child partake of the joys of creative dancing —’

  ‘Do me a favour, Poppy! I ain’t the kid�
��s mother! You can’t get me to fork out the necessary. I saw the kid on the street with the barrel organ, thought she danced well enough — the queue were eatin’ her up, I tell you — and I thought I’d found a good ’un. Got a bit of chein, you know? Not pretty but got something about her — a good ’un, I thought I’d found. And I hadn’t! So this time Alex Lazar got it wrong — win a few, lose a few. But she’s nothin’ to do with me. You want a new pupil? Go talk to her brother here. He’s the one reckons he’s got her best concerns at heart —’ and he threw a sharp little glance at Joe and went across the room to talk to one of the men from the orchestra, picking his way through the pink fluff that was the children sitting on the floor in the middle and squabbling over the plate of broken biscuits that one of the acrobats had good-naturedly given them to keep them happy till the second show of the day should start in an hour’s time.

  ‘So you’re the deah child’s brother, are you?’ Madame Gansella said, and Lexie lifted her head to listen, fascinated by the odd mixture of rich tones and strangled vowel sounds. She’d never heard anyone talk in that particular drawling fashion in Sidney Street, nor even in Arbour Square.

  ‘She has considerable potential, you know, considerable —’ And Madame Gansella lingered over the word with some relish. ‘Yes, indeed, young sir, considerable potential. But she needs careful training, you understand. Careful teaching by an expert of sensitivity and integrity. One who can recognize the telent in a young performer, and bring it to flower by tenderly nurturing it —’