Laurie Graham - Mr Starlight

Hazel said, ‘He’s lovely. I have enjoyed myself.’

I said, ‘I hope you’re not using me to get to him because you’ll be in for a disappointment. That business holding your hand? It’s just acting. He’s got no time for romance. All he’s interested in is seeing his name in lights.’

‘He’s still lovely,’ she said. ‘He has a very happy attitude to life.’

Of course, she didn’t know the half of it. She hadn’t seen him moving furniture half an inch till it was just so. She hadn’t seen him throw out a perfectly good egg cup because it had got a little chip on the rim.

Still, after Sel’s patter and three port and lemons she did allow me to get more serious with her. One of the telephonists she shared with had stayed aboard and I daren’t risk R64 in case Wilkie rolled in drunk, so we ended up in the Ripening Room.

Hazel had learned her trade at a high-class dry cleaner’s in Belgravia, and then joined the Queen Mary after her refit at the end of the war.

I said, ‘Don’t you get tired of not having a place of your own?’

‘It’s economical,’ she said. ‘It means I can save up.’

I said, ‘What for? Your own laundry?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’d like a seaside guest house. Different people passing through, in a good mood because they’re on holiday. Nice bed linen and towels and a brass dinner gong.’

We had Fred Astaire on our next passage to New York, a lovely, quietly spoken gent. I got him to autograph a First Class menu for Dilys. She was thrilled. Hazel came ashore with me that trip. I bought her a Pepsi at the Spanish Garden and took her to Radio City Music Hall to see Jerry Vale and the Rockettes. Where Sel got to I’ll never know, but for a boy who liked scented soap he kept some very low company.

Every sailing day we’d go up to watch for celebrity arrivals. Douglas Fairbanks Junior, Constance Bennett, Gloria Vanderbildt, Vincent Price. Kings, princesses, millionaires, we entertained them all. But my greatest highlight was the time Gracie Fields was aboard. She was an old friend of our leader, Lionel Truman. ‘Come down to the Pig and Whistle, Gracie,’ he said. ‘Give the crew a treat.’ And she did. I played for her, ‘Sing As We Go’, ‘Orphan of the Storm’, ‘I Took My Harp to a Party’ and they were packed in like sardines, singing along with her. Her voice wasn’t properly trained but she was a real card. Sel turned up when the party was in full swing, pushed his way to the piano.

I said, ‘Fetch Hazel.’

‘Fetch her yourself,’ he said.

He wanted to get into the limelight with Gracie and the mess room crowd were egging him on. ‘Go on, Sally!’ they were shouting. ‘Give us “Sally from Our Alley”. You and Gracie together.’

She said, ‘And who’s this when he’s at home?’

I said, ‘This is my brother Sel. On his way to stardom.’

‘Not with my audience, he’s not,’ she said. And although they did sing it together and she pretended to be amused, I could see she didn’t like it. They were two of a kind, Gracie and my brother. Very ‘hail fellow well met’ provided you remembered who was the great star.

Still, it had been a big moment for me, playing for a singing legend, and Hazel missed the whole ruddy thing.

I said, ‘Where were you?’

‘Working, Cled,’ she said. ‘I sometimes think they sit in their staterooms doing nothing but throw food and spill ink.’

I said, ‘Well, I had a great triumph last night.’

‘So did I,’ she said. ‘I got a big mayonnaise stain off an organdie skirt and four hours’ sleep.’

She could be testy, even then.

Sel was riding pretty high by the time we reached Southampton too. He’d had a couple of billets-doux passed to him, and presents, at the Au Revoir Gala. A tiepin from a lady in First Class and an alligator photo frame from an old gentleman in Cabin Class.

‘First stop the Imperial?’ he said.

I said, ‘I don’t know. Hazel’s tired.’

He said, ‘Then you and me can go drinking.’

I said, ‘How is it when we get to New York I don’t see you for dust and yet you’re hanging around me like a bad smell when we get to Southampton? What about all your pals?’

‘Going home to see their mams,’ he said.

I said, ‘Do you want to?’

‘Not worth it,’ he said. ‘We’d only be there five minutes. Let’s go to the Yard Arm and plan worldwide fame.’

The thing about working on the Queen Mary was you didn’t really get to see the world. You got to see galleys and corridors and Wilkie’s scabby foot dangling down from the top bunk.

Sel said, ‘I’m not sticking this much longer. There’s no scope.’

I said, ‘Then do something about getting an agent. Next leg, when we get to New York, don’t run off like a dizzy kid.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Definitely next time. I’m not getting due recognition with this lot.’

I said, ‘We’ll put our suits on. Decide on a couple of songs.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘“Some Enchanted Evening”. I see that becoming my signature tune.’

I said, ‘And I think we should go back to being the Boff Brothers. Sel Boff, accompanied by Cled Boff, it sounds too complicated.’

He said, ‘I don’t know. I might start being just “Selwyn”, you know? Like Hildegarde?’

I said, ‘Then what would I be? I’m not being “Cledwyn”.’ I hated ‘Cledwyn’.

‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘It sounds like a boarding house. This Hazel? Are you two getting serious?’

I didn’t have an answer to that. Sometimes, in the fruit store, I thought we were. Then I’d catch her chuckling with that pastry chef. ‘I’m a single woman,’ she’d say. ‘I can chuckle with anybody I choose.’

I said, ‘Why? You interested?’

‘She’s nice,’ he said. ‘And it strikes me, if you’re serious about her you’ll probably want to stay put. There doesn’t seem much point in you trying out for agents if you’re contented where you are. See what I mean?’

I said, ‘And who’s going to play for you if I don’t?’

‘I’ll find somebody,’ he said. ‘Don’t feel you have to throw up your chances with Hazel just to play for me. Accompanists are ten a penny, Cled.’

The ruddy nerve of it. But it did make me wonder how I stood vis-à-vis Hazel. I said, ‘If I got a chance in America, would you come with me?’

She said, ‘What kind of a chance?’

I said, ‘With Sel. I’m a class instrumentalist, Hazel, as you’d know if you’d seen me in action with Gracie Fields. I don’t have to play in a ship’s band for ever more.’

She said, ‘You only just started. And what would I do?’

I said, ‘You’d find something. You could work in a dry cleaner’s.’

She said, ‘But I’m happy here. Where? What dry cleaner’s?’

I said, ‘We could get married.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Cled,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I saw what my mam had to put up with all those years. Anyway, who’s going to give you this big chance in America? I’ll think about it if something happens and not before.’

But on that trip two things happened. Mr and Mrs Hubert F. Conroy came aboard, on their way home from London where they’d been celebrating thirty-five years of marriage. And Glorette Gilder was quarantined with a temperature of 105° and a nasty rash.

They asked Tex Lane to stand in first but as Tex himself admitted they were leaning on a weak reed. Being a front-liner is a high-pressure business. ‘Give it to the boy,’ he said. ‘He’s hungry for it.’

And that was how Sel got his chance as featured vocalist, with two hours’ notice. He unpacked his gold suit and Hazel steamed the creases out of it and goffered the frills on his dress shirt; Mother Carey brought him a cheese omelette on a tray, and while Tex opened the batting in the Starlight Club, Sel lay on his bunk wearing nothing but his Y-fronts and a mud pack.