Philippa Gregory - Fallen Skies

‘We can go back to the theatre and try something out,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m working late tonight anyway. Sylvia de Charmante’s music has arrived and I have to adapt it for our orchestra. We can try out Lily’s song. I’ve got an idea for it.’

‘Nothing tasteless,’ Helen stipulated.

Charlie met her determined gaze across the scrubbed wood table. ‘Your daughter has class, Mrs Pears,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to lose that.’

The theatre was very cool and quiet and empty, smelling hauntingly of stale beer and cigarettes. The rows of seats stretched back from the stage until they vanished into the darkness. The pale balcony floated in the dusty air. There was a hush in the theatre like that in an empty church, a waiting hush. Charlie’s little green light in the orchestra pit was the only illumination. Lily and Helen, crossing the darkened stage, were like ghosts of old dancers moving silently towards an audience that had vanished, called up and gone.

On the left of the stage was the rickety catwalk and steps. Helen walked gingerly down and sat in the front row near Charlie’s piano.

‘Can we have some lights?’ Charlie called to a technician working somewhere backstage.

A couple of houselights came on, and one working stage light.

‘Sit down,’ Charlie said to Helen. ‘I have an idea for her.’

Lily stood at her ease in the centre of the stage. She smiled at her mother.

‘D’you know this?’ Charlie handed a sheet of music up to her.

Lily gave a little gasp of surprise and then giggled. ‘I know it!’ she said. ‘I’ve never sung it!’

‘Try it,’ Charlie suggested. He played a few rippling chords and nodded to Helen. ‘Just listen,’ he said.

The beat of the music was regular, like a hymn. Helen knew the clear simple notes but could not think of the song. Then Lily on the stage, half-lit, threw back her head and sang Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’. Helen felt tears prickle behind her eyes as the sounds arched upwards into the bell-shaped ceiling, and the piano accompaniment formed a perfectly paced symmetry with the rhythm and cadence of the song. It was a holy moment, like the sound of a blackbird singing in no-man’s-land. When Lily was silent and the last chord had died away, Helen found her cheeks were wet.

‘That was lovely,’ she said. She fumbled in her handbag for her handkerchief. ‘Just lovely,’ she said.

‘It’s hardly music hall!’ Lily complained. She dropped to one knee to speak to Charlie in the pit. ‘I can’t do that in front of an audience.’

Charlie grinned at her, turned and spoke to Helen. ‘Just wait a moment,’ he said. ‘Think of Lily in a chorister’s outfit. Red gown and a white surplice, white ruff.’

‘Blue,’ Helen said instantly. ‘Brings out the colour of her eyes.’

‘Blue gown,’ Charlie agreed. ‘She comes out. No-one knows what to expect. She sings like that. Just simply. Like an angel. Everyone cries. All the old ladies, all the tarts, all the drunks. They’ll weep into their beer and they’ll love her.’

‘They’ll laugh themselves sick,’ Lily said.

Charlie shook his head. ‘I know them,’ he said. ‘I’ve been doing this a long time, Lily, and I know what tickles their fancy. They like their ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ays and they like a class act. They like something that makes them feel pious. They love a good weep.’

Helen nodded. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘But if they heckle …’

Charlie shook his head. ‘Not here,’ he said. ‘London maybe. Birmingham maybe. Glasgow, certainly. But not here. And not anywhere on tour. They want a good time, a good laugh and a good weep. They’ll adore her.’

‘I’m a chorus girl!’ Lily protested. ‘Not a choir girl!’

‘Not a choir girl,’ Charlie agreed. He nodded to Helen. ‘Keep thinking the ruff and the white surplice. Keep thinking Christmas cards and carols and weddings.’ He climbed out of the pit and strode up the catwalk.

‘Let your hair down,’ he said to Lily. He stood behind her and folded her sheet of music into a little fan. ‘Hold this under your chin,’ he said. He nodded to Helen. ‘Think of a spotlight, very white, and no make-up at all. Perhaps a little pale powder. No lipstick.’

He scooped up Lily’s mass of blonde hair and folded it so that it was as short as a bob.

‘Choir boy ,’ he said. ‘Ain’t I a genius?’

There was a full minute of silence from the auditorium. ‘You’d never cut her hair,’ Helen said finally, outraged.

‘Bob it,’ Charlie said. ‘So it’s the same length all around. She has a side parting and it comes down to the middle of her ears both sides. We oil it back a little bit, off her face. Nothing shiny, nothing slick. Just a newly washed boy. A well-scrubbed choir boy. A little angel from heaven.’

Lily giggled irrepressibly, but stood still as Charlie had ordered her, holding her folded sheet music under her chin while Charlie held her hair in handfuls off her neck.

‘A young Vesta Tilley,’ Helen said incredulously.

‘Delicious,’ Charlie said.

‘Tasteful,’ Helen conceded.

‘And hidden oomph,’ Charlie said, looking over Lily’s shoulder. ‘She’s just gorgeous. There isn’t a public school boy in England that wouldn’t fall down and die for her. Ain’t I right?’

Helen nodded. As he sensed her agreement Charlie dropped Lily’s hair and took the mock-ruff from under her chin. ‘What d’you think, Lily?’ he asked.

She shrugged and grinned. ‘I’ve wanted my hair bobbed for ages,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘As easy as that?’

‘Ma said I had to keep it long,’ Lily said. ‘If I can have my hair bobbed I’ll sing whatever you like!’

They never rehearsed Lily’s song again. She tried it through once more with Charlie that night and he gave her the score and told her to learn the words and practise with her singing teacher. Mr Brett the director was resigned to the experiment. Charlie had been batting on for years about a choir boy number and with the conjuror drunk in Swansea and Miss Sylvia de Charmante still in London, he had neither time nor energy for an audition and an argument. Besides, Charlie Smith was rarely wrong.

‘So what are you singing?’ the girls asked in the crowded dressing room. The costumes, hung on hangers on hooks on the wall, bulged out into the room, shrouded in cotton sheets to keep them clean. Lily, as the youngest and newest dancer, had her hairbrush and comb perched on the inconvenient corner of the table, nearest to the door and overwhelmed by hanging gowns.

‘It’s a classical song,’ Lily said. ‘Charlie Smith’s idea.’

‘He’s off his rocker,’ Madge said. ‘You should speak to Mr Brett and tell him you won’t do it.’

‘I couldn’t do that.’

‘You ought to,’ Helena said. ‘It’s not fair making you sing something no-one wants to hear. You should try “Blue-eyes”.’ She sang the chorus in a hard nasal tone, nodding at Lily.

‘Or “Walking my Girl”,’ one of the other dancers suggested. She sang the first verse.

‘No!’ someone else exclaimed. ‘That wouldn’t suit Lily, she ought to have something saucy!’

There was a gale of sarcastic laughter.

‘I can see your ma letting you do something saucy and tying your garter during the chorus!’ Susie said. ‘What are you wearing anyway?’

‘A long blue gown,’ Lily said mendaciously. ‘Charlie told Ma what I should have and she’s making it for me.’

‘You’re not going to set the town alight,’ Madge said, without troubling to conceal her pleasure. ‘A classical song and a home-made dress! Not so lucky as you thought then, Lily.’

‘Probably be dropped after the Southsea opening anyway,’ Susie said. ‘We’re running hours too long.’