She didn’t sleep well, but tossed and turned and felt wretched the next morning; she tried to concentrate on sorting through her song books to decide which music she might use. She thought that five pieces would be sufficient for her act, perhaps alternating two of them on different evenings for variety.
She liked to use semi-classical operatic arias but had to be careful that the music was within her range and the words light-hearted, unlike some, such as Romani’s libretto for Norma which she couldn’t bring herself to sing, as it conveyed a woman’s love for her children. She chose the romantic ballads of Rossini but also included folk songs and gypsy music which the audience would know; she had many pages of sheet music, and although she never thought of herself as a celebrated singer she knew she had a pleasant voice, a mezzo-soprano that was easy to listen to.
After breakfast she visited the theatre to look at the programme on the doors and then took a walk around the town to remind herself how it used to be and see what had changed over the years. From Paragon Street she walked back towards Market Place and Holy Trinity church; and although the weather was cold and wet she retraced her steps to the shopping street of Whitefriargate, where the white-robed monks had lived of old. From there she cut through Parliament Street, skirted the Queen’s Dock and walked to the Mechanics’ Institute just behind George Street, which she remembered well and was pleased to see was still open as a theatre; she had never played there but recalled how popular it had been. Some of the other theatres were now derelict having been destroyed by fire, a great hazard in theatreland not only here but in many other places too; a stray cigar left carelessly burning and unnoticed could cause devastation within minutes.
Over a pot of coffee in a small café she sat brooding and thinking and wondering if perhaps, now that she had a three-month contract in her possession, she should go back to Hedon and find her son, apologizing that she’d been unwell and hadn’t known what she was doing; but, she pondered, that was no excuse, nor did it alter the fact that he needed schooling and she’d still have to leave him alone during her night-time performances and that wasn’t good for a growing boy. He would go off to look for entertainment, she thought; I know he did that in Brighton. He must have been bored, poor boy, but it was a dangerous thing to do and he could have got into bad company. She sighed, and thought, not for the first time, that she would be considered a neglectful mother.
I should have taken a different kind of work from the beginning, she thought. I should have stayed as a cleaner, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and at the time I didn’t know what to do about my situation, and who would have kept me on when they discovered my real reason for leaving home? And then, when I found I could sing for my supper, rightly or wrongly I made the decision to travel to London with the company and disappear altogether into their world. The theatre folk were very kind to me when I needed them most; they seemed to understand, and they accepted both me and my child.
She sighed again, heavily. If only I’d had someone to confide in, her thoughts ran on, but my one true friend had also left home to fulfil her own desires; she was more confident than I was, and more sensible, with good parents to guide her, and would have stood up for herself more ably than I did. I couldn’t have told her, of course; it would have been a risk to our friendship, although I almost told her mother, until she uttered those fateful words.
I wonder where she is now and what she’s doing. She wasn’t in Hedon for the hiring festivity, that’s for certain. With that shining beacon of glorious red hair I would have spotted her immediately. I was always jealous of her hair; mine seemed so dull at the side of hers. Delia gave a wry smile when she thought of the secrets they had shared, bar one, and how they had each thought herself plain when they were young, whilst the other insisted no, you’re beautiful.
Ah, Jenny, she thought. Where are you now? With a fine husband and children? Or still bent on an independent career of your own?
After the first performance, she sat in a café with Giles Dawson, Fraser Macbeth, a magician, who swore that Macbeth was his real name, and Miriam Edgar, an acrobatic dancer.
‘Monday night performances are never expected to have full capacity in the first week,’ Delia said in a quiet response to Macbeth’s grumble that the house was only half full. ‘And I think you’ll find that it was more likely three quarters full. I have performed to much smaller audiences than we had tonight and the management still broke even.’
‘Tonight was a try-out,’ Dawson agreed. ‘Monday is the night for ironing out any difficulties and polishing up the acts, the lighting and so on.’
‘I happen
