Starburst (8 page)

“I think, Terry, old fruit, that our opportunity has just presented itself.”

“Oh? Why d’ye think that?”

“There’s a no-show tonight.”

“What?”

“Danielle What’s-’er-face has got tonsillitis, and the reserve act’s ’eaded off to York.”

“Oh, bugger me!” Terry exclaimed, looking open-mouthed at the hundreds of people in the packed club. He let out a high-pitched chuckle. “Oh, my word, ’Arold’s for the ’igh-jump!”

With that, the lights on the stage were brought up to full power and Harold Prendergast came out of the side wing, squinting blindly into the room. He was greeted by a thunderous hand clap and deafening wolf whistles, the audience expecting this to be the preamble to a wonderful night’s entertainment of songs made famous by the French-Canadian diva. Harold approached the microphone too fast, making it screech with feedback. He took a step back and cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid that I ’ave some quite bad news for ye.” This brought about an immediate and complete silence, which did nothing to help Harold’s nerves. He now let out a couple of hacking coughs. “I’m sorry to inform ye that our star performer, Danielle Vine, ’as been taken unexpectedly ill…” He got no further. The audience erupted with angry jeers and loud whistles, and a chorus of “We want our money back!” soon took hold and boomed around the club. Harold held up his hands in an attempt to pacify them, but soon realized the battle was lost and reversed away sheepishly to the sanctuary of the side wing.

“Right, go up and introduce me, Terry,” Rene shouted above the noise.

Terry turned and stared at her. “What?”

“Go up and introduce me,” she yelled louder.

“I ’eard you the first time. I can’t go up there.”

“Terry, I know ye’re a shy man, but this is our opportunity. All ye’ve got to say is something about the club being lucky enough to have some in-house entertainment tonight.”

“And what are
you
going to say?”

Rene burst out laughing. “I don’t know yet.”

Terry shook his head. “Ye’re mad, ye are.”

Rene nodded. “Probably, but do it. Go on.”

Terry reluctantly left the bar and made his way slowly through the tables. Nobody noticed him until he jumped up onto the stage and walked over to the microphone. The noise abated to a questioning hum before there was silence.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we might not be able to ’ave what we came for tonight…” A voice yelled out: “Too bloody right, we’re not,” but others in the audience hushed the protester. Terry smiled and held up his hand in thanks. “But I know this girl who is funnier than anyone
I’ve
ever seen up on this stage, and what’s more, she works right ’ere in Andy’s. So I ask ye now, ladies and gentlemen, to welcome ’er up ’ere by giving our own Rene Brownlow a big round of applause.”

There was a smatter of clapping and all eyes turned to watch Rene duck under the bar lid and make her way towards the stage. As she passed Terry, she reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. He leaned over and whispered “Break a leg!” in her ear.

The first laugh came before Rene had even got onto the stage. There being no steps at the front, Rose tried to get up by swinging one leg first and then the other before turning round and pulling two well-built lads out of their chairs to give her a heave-up. They carried out their task with such power that Rene’s feet hardly made contact with the ground until she was centre stage and she had to grab hold of the backdrop curtain to stop her from falling flat on her face. She walked forward to the microphone. “Thanks, lads,” she said, smiling down at the two men. “I’ll take your numbers later in case I ever want to get shot into space!” The remark brought some chuckles and she watched as the two guys had their backs slapped hard by those around them.

“Right. First I’d like to thank Elvis for that kind introduction.” More laughter as people turned to look at Terry, who reacted by running both hands over his quiffed hair. “Not every girl who gets her act announced by the King himself.” That continued the laugh for a moment or two, sufficient time for Rene to work out what the hell she was going to say next. “Okay, my name’s Rene Brownlow. I’m the short fat one who works over there.” She pointed towards the bar. “Of course, anyone who’s the same ’eight as me ’as probably never clapped eyes on me before. Either that, or ye’ve thought I was just a disembodied ’ead rolling backwards and forwards along the bar.”

That gave her another fifteen seconds to get her train of thought going. Her eye was caught by a shadowy figure standing in the side wing. It was Harold Prendergast. She smiled to herself and moved forward to the microphone once more. “Of course,” she said, moving her wide hips provocatively from side to side, “I’m no Marilyn Monroe, but I’m extremely ’appy in me skin, and I’ll ’ave ye know there are some who find me
most attractive!
” There was a loud cry of agreement that Rene didn’t allow to end. “Okay, ’ands up, all you sexy gentlemen out there,” she yelled above the noise, “who finds me outrageously attractive?”

It was working. She looked out onto a sea of hands, laughed and then turned towards the side wing. “’Ang on a moment!” she said, putting her hands on her hips and frowning theatrically. “There just ’appens to be a man over ’ere who ’asn’t put ’is ’and up.” She saw Harold begin to slide away, so she moved quickly over to the side wing and grabbed his arm. “Oh, no, no, no, sunshine, you come right out ’ere.”

“What the
’ell
are ye playing at?” Harold Prendergast hissed angrily at her. “Don’t ye realize my
wife’s
out there?”

Rene turned back to the audience. “Oh, he says ’is
wife’s
out ’ere. Where is she, ’Arold? Stop hiding yerself in there and come and point ’er out to us all.”

The laughter in the club was growing louder, but it was never as strong as the chorus of “Come out, ’Ar-old!”

With a sneer of fury, Harold allowed Rene to drag him onto the stage and the audience applauded his arrival for at least half a minute. Rene held up her hand and there was immediate silence, and in that briefest of moments she knew she had the audience totally with her.

“So, go on, ’Arold, tell us all where yer good wife is sitting.”

Harold pointed down to the table in front of the stage and flashed an uneasy smile at his wife.

“That’s no use, ’Arold,” Rene exclaimed, shaking her head from side to side in time with her words. “I can see at least eight beautiful ladies sitting at that table.” She took hold of his arm and pulled him to the front of the stage. This time, there was no resistance and he followed on after her like a lamb to slaughter. “Which one is she, ’Arold?”

“That one,” Harold said quietly, pointing again to his wife.

Rene shielded her eyes against the glare of the lights as she made a show of appraising the manager’s wife. “Wow, ’Arold, you’ve got a real stunner there! Tell me, ’ow long ’ave you two been married?”

There was a look of intense concentration on Harold Prendergast’s face as he carried out a quick bit of mental arithmetic. “Twenty-four years,” he replied meekly.

Rene drilled a finger into her left ear. “I’m sorry, ’Arold, my ’earing doesn’t seem to be too good tonight. ’Ow long did you say?”

“Twenty-four years,” he repeated, only a fraction louder than the first time.

“Twenty-four years!” Rene exclaimed, jamming the microphone under her armpit as she joined in with the audience’s applause. “Well, that is what I call a wonderful achievement!” She moved close to Harold and leaned her head against his chest, anguish written all over her face. “I can see now why ye never put yer ’and up. How could I
ever
compare with someone as beautiful as that?”

There was a cry from the back of the hall. “Put yer bloody ’and up, ye tosser!”

Others began to join in the refrain and Rene saw with glee that even Mrs. Prendergast’s companions at the front table were calling out their disdain, their own hands shooting up into the air.

Very slowly, Harold Prendergast raised his hand, and Rene Brownlow began to smile serenely, as if she were Sleeping Beauty just aroused from her sleep by the handsome prince. She pulled Harold Prendergast’s face down towards her and planted a lingering kiss on his cheek, and the club was filled with the hammering of feet and the beating of pint glasses on the tables.

Rene felt the manager’s hand grip tightly to the back of her blouse and he leaned over towards her, as he continued to look out at the audience with a smile fixed on his face. Rene knew what was coming. As he made to speak, she leaned her hand against his right shoulder. He was so distracted with anger and humiliation that he did not realize that that was the hand in which she held the microphone.

“I want to see you in my office immediately afterwards, d’ye understand?”

He had meant it to be a whisper, but his words rang with instant betrayal around the club. There was no need for Rene to say anything, but she couldn’t resist turning towards her audience with a knowing grin on her face and giving a slow continuous nod. To begin with, the audience burst out laughing, but then, as four hundred eyes focused on Mrs. Prendergast to witness her reaction, the volume faded away to an uneasy silence. Even in the dim light of the bar it was possible to see her cheeks redden with embarrassment at the sudden and improper attention that her husband’s remark had brought upon her. Glaring with hostility at his drooping form onstage, she got quickly to her feet, grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair, shouldered her handbag and, with her head bowed, started to make her way towards the exit. And as she ran the gauntlet, the only sound that emanated from the crowd was the uneasy clearing of throats and the creaking of chairs as her progress was followed across the hall.

By the time the door had closed behind her, Harold had disappeared from the stage, quickly making for the fire door in order to catch up with his wife and start to make immediate amends. Having captured her audience’s attention once more with a quick-fire remark, Rene kept them engrossed for the next hour, never giving Harold Prendergast another thought nor mention. After the show, she went to his office as he had asked, even though she was not sure whether he would be there, and entered when a weak voice answered to her forceful knock. Ten minutes later she reappeared, clenching her fist in triumph as she closed the door behind her. She literally bounced back along the corridor and out behind the bar.

Business was going so well that the bar staff were having a hard time keeping up with the orders. For a while, Rene could do nothing to help out, as those who thronged the bar greeted her with loud cries of congratulations and thrust out hands for her to shake. Rene smiled and said her thanks while scanning the bar for Terry. She eventually caught sight of him over in the corner, leaning on the bar lid and watching her every move. She walked along to the end, ducked under the bar lid, and hardly had the chance to straighten up before she found herself enveloped in a tight hug in his arms.

“You were bloody fantastic, lass. That was absolutely spot-on.”

“D’ye think so?”

Terry pushed her away and eyed her suspiciously. “Ye know fine well it was, don’t ye?”

Rene smiled and nodded. “Aye, I suppose I do, really.”

“I don’t think ye’ve left ’Arold Prendergast much of an ’eart to try out his old tricks again, that’s for sure.”

“No, I reckon ’e’ll be well occupied trying to seduce one particular lady for the foreseeable future.”

“So, did ye go to his office to see him?”

“Aye, I did.”

“What ’appened?”

Rene shrugged her shoulders. “We threw insults back and forth across his desk for five minutes, and then we negotiated.”

“Right,” said Terry, wanting to hear everything immediately. “So what did ye come away with?”

Rene’s face broke into an excited grin and she reached up and grabbed hold of the lapels of Terry’s denim jacket. “A bloody raise and an ’alf ’our comedy spot up on that stage every Thursday night!”

“Ye never ’ave!”

“I ’ave!”

Terry grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. “That’s just the best bloody news I’ve ’eard for a long time. Ye’ll show ’em ’ow it’s done, lass, ye’ll damn well show ’em.”

H
aving shown the affluent-looking man into her pristine front sitting room, the small elderly woman politely excused herself from his company, closed the door and walked past the dark-varnished staircase to the kitchen. She filled the kettle from the tap, put it on to boil, then slid open one of the double-glazed doors that led out into the small garden at the rear of the house, allowing immediately the thundering noise of the traffic on the Kingston bypass to fill the room. With one hand on the door handle to steady herself, she stepped down onto the concrete-slabbed patio and walked out of the shadow of the house to the edge of the immaculately kept lawn, feeling the warmth of the mid-morning sun permeate through the back of her woollen cardigan.

“Leonard,” she called out, “are you there?”

There was no reply. She walked out onto the grass and made her way around the curved herbaceous flower bed where she found her husband kneeling on a black plastic sheet, carefully digging around the stubborn roots of a dandelion with a hand fork.

“Leonard?”

Leonard Hartson pushed himself upright and turned to look at her, shielding his eyes against the sun with an earthy glove. “Hullo, Gracie. Coffee time, is it?”

“No, dear. It’s Nick Springer. You remember, he called you two nights ago and said he was going to pop in today.”

“Oh, goodness gracious!” her husband exclaimed, getting laboriously to his feet. He took off his cap and pulled the back of his gloved hand across his glistening forehead, leaving behind a streak of dirt. “I totally forgot he was coming. You should have reminded me, Gracie.”

“I did, dear, this morning at breakfast.”

“Oh, bother me, did you?” he said, pulling off his gardening gloves. “How forgetful of me.” He cast an eye over his earth-smudged corduroys and ragged home-knit jersey. “Do you think I should change my clothes before I see him? I do look rather scruffy.”

“I don’t think he’ll mind. He seems very nice.”

Leonard smiled at his wife. “That sounds like Nick. He always was a charmer with the ladies.”

Putting a hand on her elbow, he guided her back towards the house, not relinquishing his hold until she had negotiated the step back into the kitchen. “Where is he, then?”

“In the front room,” she replied, licking her thumb and rubbing away the streak of dirt from his forehead. She caringly ran her hand either side of his straggling grey hair to make him look slightly more presentable. “You go through and see him, but take a raincoat or something from the coat stand in the hall and put it on the chair before you sit down. I’ve just had those loose covers dry-cleaned and I don’t want you making them all dirty again. I’ll bring through coffee and biscuits in a moment.”

Using the aluminium ledge of the sliding door to pull off the rubber gardening shoes, Leonard then pushed his feet into a pair of bedroom slippers that lay in wait for him and shuffled through to the hall, unhooking a sleeveless quilted jacket off the coat stand as he passed by. He opened the door of the sitting room and entered. Nick Springer turned from the mantelpiece where he had been studying the photographs spread along its length.

“Leonard!” he shouted out enthusiastically, approaching the elderly man with his hand outstretched. “How wonderful to see you!”

Leonard winced a smile as he felt the grip send an arthritic jolt up his arm. “Nice to see you too, Nick. What a real surprise.” He walked over to the sofa and spread out the jacket on the pale blue loose cover. “You’ll have to forgive my appearance. I’m afraid it had completely slipped my mind that you were coming, hence the reason you find me in my gardening clothes.”

“I hope this hasn’t inconvenienced you, then.”

“Not at all,” Leonard replied, waving a hand towards an armchair as an indication for Nick to take a seat before he lowered himself slowly onto the sofa. “It’s very rare that I see anyone from the old days in the film industry.”

Nick gave a sharp pull at the creases of his navy blue suit trousers before sitting down in the armchair. “It’s been a long time. I was just working it out while I was driving down here, and I reckon it’s all of twenty-eight years.”

“Really? That long?” Leonard shook his head slowly. “Oh, well, time stops for no man, as they say.” He observed the younger man as he brushed a hand across his thick dark hair, noticing now that there were traces of grey showing above each ear. His recollection of Nick was that he had been one of his better camera assistants, a quick learner with a good sense of humour, an essential when one had to spend so much time in each other’s company, both traveling and on location. However, he had always felt that Nick had an arrogant streak in him, and it seemed to show now more with age in the narrow set of his eyes, the determined jaw and the slide of his mouth when he talked. Whatever he had done with his life, Leonard could tell that he had accomplished it with some success. “So, are you still behind the camera?” he asked.

Nick shook his head. “No, I run my own production company now. I did operate camera for a time with Gerry Mansell. You’ll remember him, of course?”

“Most certainly I do. We joined Pathé News together many moons ago. Gerry became a particularly gifted lighting cameraman and he and the director Doug Standing formed a most successful partnership. I remember on the film
The Man From Syracuse,
he shot a number of scenes with very little use of a key light. It was both a brave and brilliant concept and the effect was quite staggering.” Leonard chuckled. “I tried it out myself once, but I’m afraid it all ended up a bit of a disaster.”

Nick smiled at him. “The only reason I got the job with Gerry was that he knew I’d worked with you. He was equally complimentary about your work.”

“Really? Well, that makes a certain amount of pride course through these old bones of mine.”

The door handle of the sitting room rattled, but it did not open. Jumping up from the chair, Nick was there in two strides, opening the door with force and taking the tray from Grace Hartson’s hands before she had even the chance to enter the room.

“Where would you like me to put it?” he asked, swinging the tray from side to side in a way that made Grace fear for the safety of her precious Royal Doulton coffee set. She scuttled around the back of the sofa and spread out Leonard’s
Guardian
newspaper on the low stool in front of the electric fire. “Here, I think, would suit you both,” she said, smiling nervously at the man. “Thank you for your assistance.”

“Nick, you’ve met my wife, Grace, haven’t you?” Leonard asked, making an effort to push himself to his feet, then deciding not to bother.

“Of course. I was reminding Mrs. Hartson that we met many years ago, when I picked you up here once on the way down to Portsmouth for a shoot.”

Grace shot her husband a worried look. “I’m afraid I had to tell Nick that you had so many assistants over the years, I couldn’t quite remember—”

“No reason why you should, Mrs. Hartson,” Nick interjected with a laugh. “I was just saying to Leonard that it was all of twenty-eight years ago.”

“My word,” she said quietly, already making her way towards the door. “Well, I’ll leave you two to have your chat in peace.” She opened the door and closed it soundlessly behind her.

“Shall I do the honours?” Nick asked, squatting down on his haunches and picking up the coffee pot from the tray. “How d’you like it?”

“Just milk, please.”

“What? No sugar, Leonard? I remember when we used to stop in transport cafés on our way around the country, you put so much sugar in your coffee that you could practically stand a spoon up in it.”

Leonard laughed. “Goodness, you do have a good memory, don’t you? I’m afraid I can’t get away with that anymore.” He patted his heart. “Doctor’s orders, you know.”

“Really?” Nick handed Leonard the cup of coffee and then sat back down in the armchair, precariously balancing his own cup on the arm.

Leonard pointed to it. “You’d better not put that there. Just in case…you know.”

Nick grimaced. “Sorry. Is it all right on the carpet?”

“Safer there, I think.”

Taking a sip from his cup before placing it and the saucer on the floor, Nick leaned back in the armchair. “So, is that the reason you gave up work?”

“What?”

“The heart. Was that the reason?”

Leonard shook his head. “Oh, no. That’s only been a slight problem for the past five years.”

“So why did you give up? It really took everyone in the industry by surprise.”

“Now, I know you’re over-exaggerating on that account, Nick. I never did quite make
that
kind of a mark.”

Nick pushed himself forward in his chair. “You always were a bit of a self-deprecating devil, Leonard. That is simply not true. I went up to Sammie’s on Cricklewood Broadway to pick up some hire equipment about three months after you retired, and I was reliably informed that they’d received endless correspondence from the likes of David Watkin asking why you’d retired.”

“You’re not being serious.”

“I certainly am. Come on, Leonard, you were at the top of your professional career and I know for a fact that you were only a stone’s throw from being made a member of the British Society of Cinematographers. So, why did you choose that particular moment to give it all up?”

Leonard took a sip from his coffee cup, placed it back on the saucer and let out a long sigh. “There were a number of reasons, Nick, but overall it was because I was becoming disillusioned with all the changes taking place within the industry at that time. The ACTT union had become far too powerful and was hindering a lot of new blood entering, and I really had no time for all the new video technology being introduced. I hated the lack of refinement in the way that one was supposed to just blast a set with lights. There was no delicacy anymore in the technique of lighting, no artistry. Everything was just too immediate. I used to love those nail-biting twenty-four hours when one had to wait for the rushes to come back from the lab, and then see the results up on the screen in the viewing theatre. I really thought it to be the death knell of the industry as I had known it. I even believed that features would eventually end up being shot on video.”

“But they haven’t.”

“No, that’s true, but you have to remember I was working more and more in documentaries, using sixteen mill, and that was the part of the industry hit hardest by the surge in popularity of video. It was much cheaper, less of a risk, and, to my mind, it all seemed to be becoming so…amateurish.”

“The quality of video production has really improved in leaps and bounds, you know, especially now with the introduction of High Def Digital.”

Leonard laughed. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me on that one, which really only goes to confirm my belief that if I’d stayed on I would have just become a bit of an old dinosaur.”

“So what did you do after you left? You could only have been in your mid-forties.”

Leonard let out a short sigh. “It was a difficult one. I had no training to do anything else. I’d left school at the age of sixteen with no qualifications and went straight to work at Ealing Studios as a general dogsbody. I’m close on seventy-three now, so yes, you’re right, I would have been in my mid-forties, and prospects for further employment at that age were not very bright. I did do a brief spell in financial services but found it appallingly dull, so I gave that up and became a taxi driver.”

Nick started with amazement. “What? A London cabbie?”

“No, just a private hire company here in Kingston. Actually, I found it quite a relief. I’d spent so much time away from home and from Grace, I really enjoyed getting back to my own house every night…or in the morning, if I was working night shift.”

Nick picked up the cup and saucer from the floor, drained his coffee, then leaned forward and placed them on the tray. “Do you have any regrets now?”

“What about?”

“Leaving the film industry.”

Leonard pulled at an earlobe thoughtfully. “I would say that I
did
have regrets, but they have faded with time. You have to understand, Nick, that film-making was in my soul, and I never quite came to terms with the fact that, in my mind, I had never accomplished what I would have considered to be my definitive film. There were just so many different facets of lighting that I wanted to try, being able to push the film stock to the limit, but the type of jobs I was getting didn’t allow me to try them out. I’m an old man now, Nick, and I’m quite happy pottering around in my garden, but if you really want to know the truth, I did harbour a very deep frustration for a number of years after I’d given everything up.”

Nick nodded slowly. “Do you still remember much about how you worked?”

Leonard smiled. “You don’t forget how to ride a bicycle, do you?” He knocked a finger at the side of his head. “It’s all still up here. I don’t know what I’d be like at operating a camera now. My hands may be a bit shaky, but no doubt equipment will have improved and someone will have invented a tripod that’s even superior to the great Miller fluid head. And I’m sure film stock will have changed for the better too. I would have thought a much finer grain to it.” He let out a quiet, nostalgic laugh. “My word, you’ve got me harking back, haven’t you?”

Nick had not sat back in the armchair, but rested his arms on his knees, his hands clutched together. “Do you remember a job we did at the Royal Ballet?”

“Of course I do. We shot it all on 7242 Ektachrome with available light. All pretty grainy, but it turned out to be quite effective.” He pointed a finger at Nick in recollection. “You operated on that job. First one I ever allowed you to do.”

Nick laughed. “Now whose memory is working overtime! I don’t even remember that.”

“You did a damned good job of it too. It was after that one I was convinced you were going to make the grade.” He let out a sigh. “But you gave it up too and went into production, right?”

“Yes,” Nick’s face became serious, “and that’s really the reason I’ve come down here to talk to you today.” He rubbed his hands together as he gathered his thoughts. “Leonard, I’ll get straight to the point. Would you ever consider coming out of retirement?”