Laurie Graham - Mr Starlight

But a warm-up only got seventeen minutes: ‘How High the Moon’, ‘Slow Boat to China’.

I said, ‘I don’t see that you’ve got a lot of scope. You’re just there to air the room and Tex could hardly be heard tonight, for all the laughing and chattering. Nobody listens till the big name comes on. You’re supposed to sing your numbers plain vanilla. No chatting to the audience. No holding a lady’s hand.’

‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘We’ll see.’ That was when he started developing his trade mark wink.

Of all the public rooms on board the Queen Mary the Veranda Grill was my favourite. It had a big curved window that looked out over the stern of the boat. Everything was cream and silver and mahogany, with soft pearly lighting and wide steps from the dining area to the dance floor, with thick black carpet and glass balustrades. I’ve played much bigger rooms since, and plenty of five star venues, but I’ve never seen anything to top it.

We were an eleven-piece band under the baton of Lionel Truman and everyone had better know their play list. ‘Number twenty-four,’ he’d say, quiet but clear, and we’d go straight into ‘Tangerine’.

Even now, if somebody says ‘Thirty-nine’ I think ‘Besame Mucho’.

Sel opened his first night with ‘Blue Champagne’ and ‘Cruising Down the River’, and then he unbuttoned his jacket for ‘Moonlight Becomes You’ I don’t know if it was his silver cummerbund that got their attention but they piped down a lot more for him than they had for poor old Tex. He even got a little ripple of applause. ‘Thank you so much,’ he said.

He wasn’t supposed to say anything. He was meant to finish his last song and clear off, but Sel never liked to be hurried. ‘Tonight was my Starlight Club debut,’ he said, ‘and you couldn’t have been a nicer audience.’

I heard Glorette whisper, ‘Play me on.’ But Lionel Truman hesitated and as long as he hesitated Sel stayed out there.

‘Don’t forget,’ he said, ‘Thursday night is Gala Night. I’ll be here but it won’t be Gala night unless you’re here too.’

Glorette was getting irate. ‘Play me on, you deaf old fucker,’ she kept whispering and eventually Lionel lifted his baton.

But Sel still wasn’t finished. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘a warm welcome, please, for a lady who was playing the Veranda Grill while I was in short trousers. The one and only, the very fabulous, Miss Glorette Gilder.’

I didn’t see Hazel again till our last night at sea. After showtime I always went to the Pig and Whistle with the rest of the boys. It was nice to wind down with a cold beer and a game of cards, or a sing-song round the piano, but Hazel didn’t seem to socialise.

‘I haven’t had time to draw breath,’ she said, when I did run into her. ‘Pulled threads. Duck grease. You name it, I’ve had it this trip. Coty pancake on the neck of Mrs Vansittart’s beaded silk.’

I said, ‘You want to be careful, cooped up with cleaning products.’ I told her about Sel’s episode with DabAway.

She said, ‘I wouldn’t mind having a few visions myself. But I don’t use a lot of chemicals. Guess what I use to lift pancake make-up? A heel of stale bread. Never fails. See, I have to be careful. I can’t have my clients collapsing or going up in flames if somebody lights a stogie near them. Bread. That’s the answer. And a slow gentle rub.’ She brushed a bit of fluff off my shoulder.

‘Hello, hello, hello,’ I thought. ‘Cledwyn, your luck is in.’

The question was where to take her. Last night out was cleanup night below decks so the place never went quiet. We went up on top to where you could have your dog walked by a bellboy. There wasn’t anybody about. She had a smell of soapsuds when I kissed her. It was lovely, after days of Feifer’s onion breath and Wilkie’s socks. I only got as far as unbuttoning her cardie, though.

‘That’s enough,’ she said. ‘You’ll be waking the dogs.’

‘Funny you’re Welsh,’ I said. ‘I’m hundred per cent Welsh myself.’

She said, ‘Well, you don’t sound it. You sound Birmingham to me.’

We got a two-day lay-over in New York.

I said, ‘Got any plans, after we dock?’

‘Sleeping,’ she said.

I said, ‘We could go dancing.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Perhaps another time. You go and enjoy yourself. There’s nothing like New York, especially the first time. And don’t bother going to bed tonight. The pilot comes aboard about four o’clock. You should bring Sel up here, watch the sun come up over the city.’

I couldn’t persuade her to stay there with me.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m going to tidy my work table, soak my feet and go to sleep.’

Playing hard to get.

So I had to make do with Sel for company. We stood on the starboard side, like Hazel had said, and watched New York appear. First everything glowed red and then it turned pale green, and by the time we were coming into the pier, everything was sparkling in the sunshine. The whole place looked like it was made of glass.

‘I’ve arrived, Cled,’ he said. He was looking radiant for a person who wasn’t usually up before dinner time.

‘No, Sel,’ I said. ‘ We’ve arrived.’

But the ship’s whistle blew, so he could pretend he hadn’t heard me.

We’d had a plan of campaign. Test the water with some booking agents, see a few sights, send postcards to Mam and Dilys. And we were going to watch what we spent.

I said, ‘We should always have something put by for a rainy day.’

‘Yes, Cled,’ he said.

I said, ‘And business before pleasure. We should do the agents first. You got your list?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I’m not settling for any old ten percenter. It’s got to be somebody who can bring in quality venues and a record contract. He’s out there now, Cled, shaving, sipping his coffee. No idea that this is going to be his lucky day.’

He was only a few places ahead of me in the queue, but by the time I’d drawn my pay he’d disappeared.

Somebody said they thought he’d gone ashore with Mother Carey. Somebody else said he’d left with a bunch of boiler room boys. He was gone, that was all I knew, and he hadn’t taken his good jacket with him.

Two of the clarinettists were going off to get one of those big American breakfasts. I said, ‘I don’t know what to do. I suppose I should go looking for him.’

‘Save your shoe leather,’ they said. ‘You’ll never find him. He’ll be all right. You pal along with us.’

Which I did and I had quite a nice time, considering how worried I was about Sel, on the loose in a great big foreign city.

It isn’t just the look of a new place that can muddle you. It’s the smell of it and the noise. Steam leaking out of the ground and trains rumbling under your feet. Hot dogs and coffee and car horns tooting for the littlest thing. Even the girls were different: brighter and cheekier-looking, swinging along in their shiny nylons. The boys said they could point me in the direction of a bit of business if that was what I fancied, but I was contented just to look. Where the ladies are concerned I’ve never believed in paying for a thing when you might get offered it for free. I bought a little bottle of Evening in Paris scent in Macy’s department store. If Hazel was willing to play ball it was hers. If not, there’d be others. Scent never goes to waste.

‘The theatres,’ I said. ‘That’s what I want to see.’

And I wasn’t disappointed. Mary Martin was appearing in South Pacific at the Majestic, Carol Channing was in Kiss Me Kate at the Mansfield and Brigadoon was playing at the Ziegfeld. But the biggest thrill was Radio City Music Hall with pictures outside of all those high-kicking lovelies and Sold Out stickers across the Frank Sinatra posters. It made me realise what a fall Sel was heading for. It was one thing to be the toast of the Nechells Non-Political, but something else to come to a place like New York and think he could ever be a match for the big boys. We finished up in a club on 52nd Street called the Three Deuces listening to the great Art Tatum. I hadn’t realised he was black till I saw him in person. When I look back on my first time in New York that’s what I think of: seeing black people. And the meatball sandwiches, so big you needed both hands and dripping with gravy. And the adverts that lit up in Times Square. There was one that made smoke rings from a cigarette, and one that looked just like a waterfall, only it was all done with light bulbs.