The Dreaming Suburb (14 page)

“Get yourself a job in a jazz band, lad. Maybe someone will pay you to bob-bob-bob from morning to night!”

Ted was not disposed to take this advice very seriously. No one was likely to hand him the keys of Paradise on a spoiled headstone.

Hitherto he had striven to keep his life in two separate compartments—those of beating out memorial tablets by day, and pursuing hot-rhythm by night. He was unaware, until the moment he had spoiled Mr. Hitchcock's tablet, how rapidly the one was encroaching on the other, how surely the tide of syncopation was engulfing him, and how little room there was in his mind for anything unconnected with cabins in pines; and moons over Colorado. It had never occurred to him to try and convert his obsession into a means of livelihood. How
did
one make a living from jazz? Who would employ anyone whose soul might be in pawn to the saxophone, but who had never yet handled one, whose musical accomplishments indeed were limited to a few chords on the banjolele, and a certain facility with the mouth-organ?

His sombre musings were cut short by a gentle knock on his door, and “Aunt” Edith came in. Her face was puffy with grief. In her eyes, however, was a glint of resolve.

“I've decided, Teddy; you mustn't leave here. It would be very bad for Becky; besides, wherever you go, they won't let you play your gramophone. I'm going in to talk it over with Mr. Carver! Go down now, and play something for Becky. She's in the kitchen shelling peas.”

She did not wait to hear if Ted had any suggestions, but let herself out of the house, and went along the Avenue to Number Twenty.

In the last two or three years she had made a habit of “talking things over” with Mr. Carver. She had respected his judgment in worldly matters ever since the day he had taken her to see the tomb of the Unknown Warrior, in Westminster Abbey, and explained to her the full significance of the phrase: “They buried him among the Kings, because his soul was great.” She looked back with quiet pleasure on this, her first visit to the Abbey, and her very first expedition “up West” with a man.

Back in November 1920 it had needed considerable effort on Edith Clegg's part to knock on the door of Number Twenty, and ask Jim Carver to take her to see the Unknown Warrior's Tomb, but he had been very understanding about it, and so kind in getting his daughter Louise to look after Becky while they were gone.

“You see, Mr. Carver,” she had said to him that first day they had spoken to one another, “it's almost like going to the funeral of somebody you knew and liked. I
might
have known him. Lots of the boys who came to the Vicarage when I was a girl went to the war, and I expected some of them were killed, poor dears.”

Jim Carver had agreed that she might well have known him; and later, when they had shuffled together past the open grave, and glanced at the silent guard of honour, leaning on their reversed arms inside the barrier, he had let his mind range over the possibility that he too might have rubbed shoulders with the man who was buried among the kings. It was not so impossible after all. Perhaps they passed one another on the way up the line with a ration party, or in some crowded estaminet, where men were singing
Keep the Home Fires Burning,
or even as the stretcher parties staggered back from the shambles of some sector like Mametz Wood,
carrying the Unknown to a field-dressing station to breathe his last, and be laid in a temporary grave to await immortality.

Jim was touched by this twittery little spinster's eagerness to identify herself with the national symbol, and all that wintry afternoon he had gone out of his way to be gentle, and mildly gallant towards her. He would have been surprised if he had known that this single encounter had elevated him in her mind to the level of a sage.

He now discussed her new problem readily and realistically: “He'll have to get a job, Miss Clegg, and apart from Kidd's there isn't another stonemason's yard round here that I know of.”

“But he mustn't
go,”
Edith insisted; “it would be so
bad
for Becky. Having him has made such a difference, you'd hardly believe! Besides, he's ...” she broke off, blushing, “... he isn't a gentleman-boarder any more, he's a sort of ... well
... nephew.”

She was going to say “son”, but checked herself at the last moment. It crossed her mind that even dear Mr. Carver might misconstrue their true relationship.

“Well,” said Jim, flatly, “I don't know your means, Miss Clegg, and I don't know whether you are in a position to feed and board him indefinitely for next to nothing. If he stays on here without a job, he'll only get his dole money. Besides, you'll have to let his room to someone else, won't you?”

“I couldn't do that,” replied Edith, firmly, but illogically, “it would always be dear Teddy's room, whoever had it!”

“What else can he do?” asked Jim. He was quite ready to help Miss Clegg with advice, but he had an eye on the clock. He was due at a meeting in fifteen minutes.

“He can sing and play.... I ... I could teach him the piano!” said Edith, desperately.

It had often occurred to her that Ted could be taught to play the piano but, until now, she had never put the thought into words. Jim Carver was scornful. He had the manual worker's contempt for the arts as a means of earning bread.

“There's not much money in that,” he said. “Millions of people can sing and play!” He rose heavily to his feet. “I'll tell you what I'll do. Let him stay on for a week or so, and I'll make some enquiries at my depot. Maybe I can find him some sort of job down there, just something to keep him going. You'd better ask him to call in and see me tomorrow evening.”

“It's terribly kind of you, Mr. Carver,” said Edith. “I knew you'd think of something immediately.”

“I wouldn't count on anything,” said Jim, guardedly. “Whatever it is, it won't be much of a job, I can tell you that now!”

But in Edith Clegg's mind, as she went blithely back to Number Four, the matter was as good as settled, and her drooping spirits were quite restored. She and Becky and Ted sat down to a mackerel tea as usual, and afterwards they celebrated the reprieve with a concert.

Coming home after dark that night Jim Carver passed the cutained window of Number Four, and heard them all at the piano. They were playing and singing
Horsey, Keep Your Tail Up.

Jim did not possess a strong sense of humour, and rarely smiled, but a bubble of laughter rose to his lips at the vision of the Misses Clegg and their lodger, greeting the uncertain future, with a decorous rendering of
Horsey, Keep Your Tail Up.

2

In the event it was both Edith and Ted who found jobs.

Jim Carver secured part-time work for Ted as auction-hand in the sale-room of the firm for which he worked. Ted donned a green baize apron, and stood round the lots on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, afterwards assisting in the deliveries to dealers. He was paid seven-and-six a day, and Edith accepted twelve-and-six of his earnings for board. Ted would have gladly given her the whole sum, but she steadfastly refused it, pointing out that a young man had to have something left over for new gramophone records.

Notwithstanding, it was a struggle to keep him on such a
pittance, and when the financial strain became apparent to her she made the most important decision of her life. She took a job as cinema pianist at the Granada, in the Lower Road, and, having taken it, glided into a new and wonderful world.

Now that Ted was home for half the week, she had much more freedom of movement. Becky could be left, and Edith took to going out for her shopping, instead of relying upon tradesmen to call. She found she could shop more economically this way, and also enjoy the occasional change of scene.

It was on one of these shopping expeditions that she' saw the notice on the iron gates of the Granada, a small, ramshackle cinema, that had once been a Methodist Chapel, and was now run by an enterprising gentleman called Billings.

It was a very unpretentious cinema, with a capacity of about 150, one of a small chain run by Mr. Billings, in the outer suburbs, and employing a projectionist, an aged pianist, a cashier, and a single usherette.

Mr. Billings called twice a week to enter up books, bank the takings, and superintend front-of-house publicity. The remainder of the time the premises were nominally in charge of Mr. Billings's nephew, a sleek, hollow-cheeked young man, called Eddie.

On the day Edith happened to be passing, Mr. Billings was featuring a big, forthcoming attraction, Lon Chaney in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
and had been interested to discover, among the publicity sent on to him by distributors, a free copy of the theme song,
Song of the Bells.

Now Mr. Billings was not one of these latter-day motion-picture magnates, whose entry into the profession is brought about by their sound knowledge of accountancy. He was a showman, whose experience dated back to the old bioscope days, and he was, moreover, a serious student of audience reaction. He was also an unashamed sentimentalist, and made a habit of sitting through his own pictures, weeping and guffawing alongside his regular customers. His yardstick, as a professional purveyor of mass entertainment, could be found in the word “mood”. He believed that the success of any entertainment lay, not in any qualities it might or might not
possess, but in the subtle stimulation of the mood of the audience watching it Such stimulation he accepted as his own responsibility. He did not, in other words, leave such essentials to Mary Pickford, and Charlie Chaplin. They had their jobs and he had his, and at each of his cinemas, be it ever so lowly, he went out of his way to engage a good pianist, in order to ensure the creation of moods in the correct order.

His pianist at the Granada was an aged musician called Stubbs, known affectionately as “The Professor”, who could be relied upon to regulate the emotions of the audience, much as an experienced janitor regulates the steam-heat of a block of flats.

Mr. Billings thought a great deal of Mr. Stubbs, having himself shed many a tear in the privacy of the one-and-threepennies, while witnessing Lilian Gish mount the steps of the guillotine, or sob on the bosom of Ramon Navarro, and the moment Mr. Billings's eye fell on
Song of the Bells
he shouted hoarsely for Eddie, his nephew, and told him to send the maestro up to the office, which was sited alongside the projection-loft.

“Professor” Stubbs did not appear. Instead Eddie himself looked in, a limp cigarette hanging from his lower lip.

“The old Prof's in hospital,” he told the astonished Mr. Billings. “Went there night before last. Ain't comin' back, neither, if you ask me. Looked half-dead when they took him off, smack in the middle of the Custard-Pie!”

This was grave news, and caused Mr. Billings to chew his ragged moustache.

“What you do without him las' night?” he wanted to know.

Eddie shrugged his padded shoulders. “Got a kid in; She played pieces through both houses. Trouble was, she kep' stoppin' to look at the film. Bloody awful it was. Proper shambles!”

“Well,” said Mr. Billings finally, “we gotta get someone fer the
Hunchback,
and they gotta be good. No pianer-player, no mood! No mood, no 'ouses! Simple as that, Eddie!”

They found somebody, and they found somebody good, so good indeed that Mr. Billings never again made the mistake
of judging an employee's worth on his or her outward appearance.

In later years it made him shudder to think how close he came to denying Miss Edith Clegg the opportunity of proving how well she understood the moods of cinema audiences. He interviewed her because she was the only applicant attracted by the card that he hung on the iron gate, and he decided at a glance that she was too nervous, too dowdy, and obviously quite inexperienced. It was his disparaging glance, however, that put Edith on her mettle. She anticipated his gloomy dismissal, by saying with a peftness that surprised him:

“I can play anything, and play it in the dark. Why don't you try me?”

He was struck by her unexpected forth rightness, and jerked his head towards the dim auditorium. Ahead of her he padded down the central aisle to the tiny railed-off pit, where a cottage piano stood at an angle of forty-five degrees to the screen.

“You don't
'ave
to play in the dark,” he told her, “you get a pilot light, see?” and he switched on the light beside the score bracket.

The 15-watt bulb glowed eerily, giving Edith the impression that the cinema was as big as a cathedral. Mr. Billings opened
Song of the Bells,
and placed it reverently on the bracket.

“It's not just a question of
playing,”
he warned her. “It's a question o'
mood.
You gotta foller the story
without
follering it, if you see what I mean. You gotta be ready to switch moods at 'arf-a-sec's notice, to 'ave ‘em drippin' into their handkerchiffs one minute, ‘oldin' the edge o' their seats the next, and fair bustin' wiv laughter the one after that, see? Now this ‘ere
Song o' the Bells
is a noo one on me. They don't usually send along a special like this, but mindjew, it's a good idea. They oughter do more of it. If the toon's good it get under everyone's skin, see? And when they ‘um it after, when they come out, what do you think of? Tell me that, now? What do they think of? They think of the picsher—an' that's what we want, ain't it?”

Edith murmured an agreement, but he was not really listening. He was launched on his favourite theme and, because
she was his audience, he found himself warming towards her.

“Now the ‘Prof, he ‘ad routines, see?
'Earts ‘n' Flowers
for the sob-stuff, ‘Andel's
Water Music
whenever a stream or a river comes on, and
Minuet
and
Yewmer-esk
for costume—always remember that—they got used to it be now, see?
Minuet
and
Yewmer-esk
for wigs and knee-britches, but he flipped about a bit, mindjew, fer the action stuff—
William Tell
fer chases,
‘Untin' Song
fer ‘untin', and whatnot, but fer straight love, wi' no-niggers-in-woodpiles, and all through the kisses, he plumped fer
Blue Danube,
every time. Got me?”