Mr Starlight

Hazel was on her break. We were having a cup of tea.

‘I’ll kill him,’ Carey was shouting. ‘I’ll kill them both!’

He’d been at the cooking brandy. You could smell it on him.

I said, ‘God Almighty, Hazel, I’d better run and warn Sel.’

But there were three hundred yards of boiler rooms and he could have been anywhere. I didn’t like it down there. I never liked the idea of all that steam being pent up.

Hazel had fetched two big kitchen porters in case assistance was required, but Carey had shut himself in his cabin in the meanwhile and was promising to do himself an injury, and as everybody seemed to be ignoring him I surmised it wasn’t the first time this had occurred.

I said, ‘I couldn’t find Sel.’

‘Shaft alley,’ somebody said. ‘That’s where he’ll be.’

I said, ‘I don’t know where that is.’

Everybody laughed.

Hazel said, ‘Pay no attention, Cled. And don’t worry about Mother. You couldn’t cut hot butter with that knife he was brandishing.’

I said, ‘I get the impression Carey isn’t a family man. I suppose things can get out of proportion when you don’t have a home life. It’s a shame he’s gone off the deep end, though. He’s been very fatherly to Sel.’

Hazel said, ‘I don’t know about that. Ask me, half the crew belongs in the madhouse.’

She’d put a saucer over my teacup, to keep it warm while I was searching for Sel. It’s funny the little things that make you fall for a girl.

I said, ‘Are you going to let me take you dancing when we get to Southampton?’

‘Maybe,’ she said.

I knew one of the pastry chefs was keen on her. I’d seen her chuckling with him.

Sel didn’t have a good trip sailing east that first time. There was the upset with Carey. Then one of the pianists complained about him improvising in the Midships Bar so he got a stripping down from Massie about doing what he was paid to do and not a note more. They started trying to needle him in the mess room too, calling him Sally instead of Sel.

‘Sally, Sally, don’t ever wander,’ they’d sing, hoping to aggravate Mother into grabbing a knife again.

On Channel night I went looking for Hazel before we started the show in the Veranda Grill. She was working on a silk blouse with a piece of tissue paper, trying to get a water mark off it.

I said, ‘Well, have you made your mind up? What’s it to be? Coming ashore with me or sleeping your life away?’

‘I don’t drink, mind,’ she said.

I said, ‘That’s all right. You can have a port and lemonade.’

‘Cled,’ she said, ‘invite Sel to come with us. He seems very down in the dumps.’

We had a nice crowd in for Gala Night. Tex got in a bit of a tangle with ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ but nobody appeared to notice and Tex couldn’t have cared less. He knew Sel outshone him. I think he was just vamping until something else came along; a rich widow looking for companionship, or death from strong drink. It’s only when you’re on the up that you care how highly you’re rated. The downward slide is the downward slide wherever you are on it.

I said to Sel, ‘Me and Hazel are going to the Imperial for afternoon tea after we’ve docked, but I don’t suppose you feel like coming with us?’

‘Yeah, all right then,’ he said. ‘Keep an eye on you, you old goat.’

The ladies always liked him, laughing at his silly jokes, telling him all their business. Not that he ever had a lot to show for it. I was the one who got results.

‘Hazel,’ he said, ‘I want to pick your brain. What’s the best thing for my patent leather shoes?’

‘Vaseline,’ she said.

He said, ‘And what about the black satin on my revers?’

‘Potato water.’

‘This woman’, he said, ‘is a treasure.’

He was holding her hand.

‘Now what about old Chufty Auchtermuchty? I was watching him during the cocktail hour. He looks like a man who doesn’t always know where his mouth is. You been removing stains for him?’

‘His name’s Lord Auchinloss,’ she said, ‘and I’m not telling.’

He said, ‘All right, just tell me this, you know that furry thing he wears between his legs all the time?’

She was laughing. ‘That’s called a sporran, Sel,’ she said.

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said. ‘But seriously, what would you do with that if he brought it to you and asked you to take care of it?’

‘Throw it a steak,’ she said.

They were in a silly mood, the pair of them.

I said, ‘Don’t let us keep you, Sel. I expect you’re keen to go and meet your pals.’

It was seven o’clock before I got shot of him.

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.’

NINE

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.

He must have been nervous. I know I was. But he didn’t show it. He made his entrance cool as you like, strolled on, carrying a tea towel and two plates, deadpan face. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Who ordered the turbot?’

Glorette used to just stand there, like she was propped up and daren’t move. A smoker’s voice and low-cut backs, they were her stock-in-trade. But Sel was a natural. Put him in front of a microphone and there was no stopping him. ‘Old Black Magic’, ‘If I Loved You’, ‘Beginning to See the Light’. ‘The Anniversary Waltz’, for Mr and Mrs Conroy. ‘A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes’, for ‘anyone who ever wished upon a star’ as he put it.

It was nearly daybreak before they let him go and he was buzzing. ‘Eh, Cled, eh!’ He kept hugging me and thumping me on the back. ‘They loved me! And just wait till the next show. Tonight I’m really going to shake my feathers.’

I said, ‘What if they let Glorette out of quarantine?’

‘Get down to the infirmary,’ he said. ‘Put a pillow over her face.’

But there was no need. Glorette was out of action for the whole crossing and Sel saw this as his big chance. ‘Come upstairs with me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to need extra shirts.’ There was a branch of Austin Reed in First Class, but it was strictly off limits for us.

I said, ‘Smile nicely at Hazel and she’ll freshen your things up between shows.’

‘I know she would,’ he said, ‘but that’s not the point. What kind of star wears the same shirt three nights in a row? Anyway, come on up, see how the other half lives. How we’ll be living.’

There were stewards you had to get past. Tourist Class weren’t allowed into Cabin Class, Cabin weren’t allowed into First Class and crew weren’t allowed anywhere except in the line of duty. But Sel breezed us both through, greeted the gatekeepers like old friends, told them we were on urgent outfitting business for the Starlight Club.

‘Ask for George,’ one of them said. ‘He gets stuff brought back, already worn. He’ll fix you up with something.’

He did too. He had a dress shirt with a pin-tucked bib and a slightly imperfect cuff, and a silk waistcoat with a seam that had taken too much strain.

Sel said, ‘How about shirt studs? Have you got anything glittery?’

But everything George had was from Garrards, top of the line, in beautiful silver-bronze display cases.

Sel said, ‘How about on loan, like a library book?’

George said he didn’t really see how he could, considering the value of the goods.

‘Unless somebody stands surety for you,’ he said. ‘How about your uncle? Won’t he treat you?’

I always had a more mature appearance than Sel.

Sel said, ‘What, Uncle Cled? No, he’s as tight as a duck’s arse. Oh well, I’ll just have to hope nobody notices I’m wearing the same old studs.’

That was when Hubert Conroy stepped forward. ‘Why if it ain’t Mr Starlight!’ he said. ‘Can I help? My money any good around here?’

So Hubert left a precautionary deposit with Austin Reed and Sel walked out with a set of lapis lazuli shirt studs and a new name. Hubert only called him ‘Mr Starlight’ because he couldn’t remember his name. All he knew was he’d seen him in the Starlight Club. But anyway, it stuck. Ever after that Sel styled himself ‘Mr Starlight’.

Hubert said, ‘Come and meet Kaye. She’s in the Garden Lounge ordering tea and pastries.’

Hubert was a retired refrigeration tycoon from Los Angeles, California. He was a big man, very friendly considering his wealth, and he knew what he liked. ‘It’s a pleasing thing’, he said, ‘to find a vocalist singing tuneful songs and not ignoring his audience. Eye contact, that’s what I like. There are too many performers who act like they’re singing to an empty room, never mind the poor Joe who’s paid for his seat. And enthusiasm is another thing I like. Me and Kaye have seen big names and there are some come out on the podium and look like they’re doing you a biggest favour just being there. You this boy’s manager?’

‘No …’ I said.

He said, ‘Well, you should be. I know a good thing when I see it and he’ll go far. Have a pastry.’

Kaye wanted to know all our history and Sel was never afraid to embellish a story, or ‘make it more entertaining’ as he put it. How we’d grown up barefoot and starving. How we’d had to sing for our supper even when we were nibs, and then the Virgin Mary had visited him on his deathbed and told him to head for America.

I said, ‘That story better not get back to Mam. You’ll get a clip round the ear.’ We’d always had shoes and three meals a day.

He laughed. He said, ‘It won’t get back to her and anyway, I was just giving value. Fans want a story. Rags to riches or riches to rags. Mam’d understand that.’

We were walking aft along the sheltered promenade when we ran smack into Milligan, the Ship’s Writer. He never forgot a face. ‘Well, what have we here?’ he said. ‘Two lost boys.’

You got a warning the first time you went out of bounds. After that they sacked you.

Sel said, ‘I’m glad I’ve run into you. I’ve been thinking, now I’ve replaced Glorette I should be getting my own cabin.’

Milligan looked at him. He said, ‘On this occasion I’m going to pretend I’m deaf as well as blind, Mr Boff, but it’ll only be temporary, the same as your promotion, so don’t depend on being so lucky a second time.’

Sel never batted an eye. ‘Temporary!’ he said. ‘We’ll see about that.’

His name was on the agenda they printed every day. The first time it said ‘Tonight in the Starlight Club, Sel Boff replaces Glorette Gilder who is indisposed’. The next day it said ‘Midnight in the Starlight Club, Selwyn, with the Lionel Truman Band’. The last day it said, ‘Au Revoir Gala with Mr Starlight, Midnight in the Veranda Grill’.

I said, ‘You must be driving them round the bend in the print room.’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I’ve brought a bit of interest and variety into their lives. And I’ve been talking to Lionel, too. I’m going to loosen things up. Take requests, talk to people. I’m not up there to see how fast I can race through the play list.’

I said, ‘Well, while you’re redesigning the show, you might think of singing one of my compositions. That’d give the evening a bit of added interest.’

‘Such as?’ he said.

I said, ‘How about “You’re the Vinegar on my Chips”?’

‘I don’t think so, Cled,’ he said. ‘I think it still needs work.’

See, he was all for himself.

He wore the blue lamé jacket for the Au Revoir, with the lapis studs in his shirt and he fetched Kaye Conroy up to the microphone, kidding her to do a daft old Max Miller song with him, ‘La-di-dah-di-dah’. Now there’s a song that needed further work. But he pulled it off, wisecracking between verses. He had them in stitches. And then he did a canny thing. He changed the mood. Number 22: ‘Till Then’. He played it straight to settle them down, and then he went roving, like he’d started doing at the Birmingham Welsh, casually looking for a place to perch. But I knew him. He’d already weighed up the scene. He knew exactly who to aim for. Mrs Gertie Walters, widow of Walters the suet king and worth a mint, but Sel didn’t pick her out because of that. He picked her because she was sitting on her own, looking wistful, and he took her hand and sang to her as if he was singing to our mam.

Although there are oceans we must cross

And mountains that we must climb

I know every gain must have a loss

So pray our loss is nothing but time

Ooooh ooooh …

He closed with ‘A Grand Night for Singing’, then straight into number 49, ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

It was a grand night for singing, and for playing. I was proud to be there; proud to think he was family. I thought, ‘Perhaps he has got what he takes. If he can light up an agent the way he’s lit up this crowd …’ This wasn’t the Nechells Non-Political. This was Lord and Lady Delacourt, and Aly Kahn, plus a very big name in suet.

We didn’t go to bed. We never did before a New York docking. Mother Carey made us smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, and then we went up to the dog deck to watch the pilot take us through the Narrows. There was the kind of mist you get before a hot day so they blasted the foghorn a few times, bottom A. I loved the sound of it.

I said, ‘So today we go looking for an agent.’

‘Correct,’ he said. ‘Hubert sees me in musical shows for family audiences. Hubert’s got contacts in Los Angeles.’

Hubert Conroy giving him this inflated opinion of himself didn’t help Sel strike the right attitude when we went to sign off. Glorette Gilder had got a clean bill of health for the next sailing.

Massie said, ‘You can put your iridescent garments back in mothballs, Selwyn.’

Sel said, ‘You’re not having her back, after the way I performed?’

Massie said, ‘Of course I am. Glorette is our featured vocalist.’

Sel said, ‘You’re out of your mind.’

But as Massie said, Sel had only ever been a stand-in. And he’d been paid extra.

Sel said, ‘What about the paying public? Why don’t you ask them who they’d rather see?’

Massie said, ‘Do you mean the passengers who just disembarked, or the passengers who’ll be arriving on Thursday, expecting to be entertained by Miss Gilder?’

I said, ‘Leave it, Sel. You’ve got your bonus.’

‘Mind your own!’ he said. ‘And you want to wise up, Massie. Call yourself an entertainments manager? You wouldn’t recognise entertainment if it flew in wearing a leopard-skin jockstrap. I’ve had offers from California, you’ll be interested to hear.’

Massie said, ‘That’s neither here nor there. Miss Gilder has a contract.’

‘Well,’ Sel said, ‘now we all know which old lizard is sucking your dick.’

Massie sacked him on the spot. Ripped up his discharge book. ‘I’ll not delay you a moment longer, Mr Boff,’ he said. ‘I’m sure California is impatient to have you.’

Sel stormed off, left me with everybody staring at me. They’d all been earwigging, of course.

I found him in the cabin, sitting on his valise, trying to fasten it. ‘Don’t start,’ he said.

I said, ‘Nice work. You’re out of a job, out of a bed for the night and you’ll be out of money by tomorrow the way you spend it. You haven’t got the sense you were born with.’

‘No?’ he said. ‘Well, I’ve got no regrets neither. I’m ready to move on. Onward and upward.’

I said, ‘Don’t you move in any direction. You’re to wait here while I see to a bit of business.’

‘Just don’t go crawling to Massie,’ he shouted after me, ‘because I wouldn’t take his poxy job back if he came in here on his knees.’

But it was Hazel I had to see.

I thought, ‘Well, this isn’t quite how I planned it, but why not? She’s a pretty little thing, hard worker, not averse to a roll in the Ripening Room.’

I intended asking her to come with me. We could have got engaged, set ourselves up in America. She’d have been handy to have around with Sel, too. He was more likely to listen to her. But there he was, when I got to her billet, leaning in her doorway chatting her up, still in his whites. That ruddy pastry chef.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.