Fallen Skies Read online

  “Up you go, Lil,” Charlie said. “And remember, nice and slow and mournful.”

  While she was making her way up the gangplank to the stage he turned to the band. “She does it very slow,” he said. “We’ll take one and two and three and four—that slow. It sounds funny at first but I’ve seen her do it, and it works. It’s like a ballad, a sad Irish ballad.”

  Lily was waiting at the back of the stage. “OK,” Charlie said, counting again. “One and two and three and four . . .”

  The refrain played through once and then Lily stepped forwards. Her voice was strong and clear and simple. She had tucked her hair behind her ears and she looked like an orphaned boy. She held the lapels of her little jacket and sauntered like a street urchin. In her clear steady voice the song became the story of the survivors of the war, who came back to find that their place in the world was gone, that their friends were missing, that their joy was lost.

  When she finished Charlie found that he had a lump in his throat. He swore loudly and thoroughly.

  “Now sit somewhere out of the way,” he said disagreeably. “We’ve got work to do. When Mr. Rice comes he’ll listen to you.”

  Lily backed off meekly to the prompt corner, perched on the stool out of sight in the darkness and listened to Charlie rehearsing the band.

  They stopped after a few more minutes and Lily peeped around the open curtain. Richard Rice was talking to Charlie. He was a tall man, with a fringe of blonde curly hair around a large bald dome of a head, twinkling blue eyes and a look of complete unconcern.

  “Of course I’ll listen,” he said pleasantly. “Miss Valance!”

  Lily stepped forward, shading her eyes against the working lights. “I’m here.”

  “Charlie tells me you’re something special,” he said with a smile. “Is that right?”

  “He says that to all the chorus girls,” she said roguishly.

  Richard laughed and slapped Charlie on the back. “Let’s hear it then,” he said.

  “She does it in costume,” Charlie explained rapidly while the musicians turned back to the “Burlington Bertie” music. “Either morning dress—but I thought, what about uniform? You know, officer’s khaki?”

  “For ‘Burlington Bertie’?” Richard queried.

  “Well, just bear it in mind,” Charlie suggested, turning to the band and giving them a nod. “One and two . . .”

  Lily sang easily. She had the sense of the stage now, and had felt the acoustics of the theatre. She knew she could be heard clearly and easily. She knew she would not have to strain her voice. When the music finished she stayed in the centre of the stage and waited for Richard Rice’s comments.

  “Mmmm,” he said. He nodded at Charlie. “Can she dance?”

  “Loves dancing.”

  “Sing something a bit risqué?”

  Charlie shook his head. “It’s not her style. She’s too young for it. She sings ballads very well and she can do ragtime like no-one you’ve ever heard. She’s got the rhythm and she’s been taught to count.”

  “Can you do something else for me, dear? Can you do ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’?” Richard called up to the stage.

  Lily glanced at Charlie; he nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. The hours in the lodging house drawing rooms with Charlie playing the piano came back to her. He had made her count beats to the bar, clap the rhythm, tap the rhythm, count it silently and come in eight bars later after eight bars of silence, and hit the beat precisely. “I can do ragtime,” she said certainly.

  She went to the back of the stage. She had never sung ragtime on stage, she had always leaned against the piano and sung to Charlie. She thought of Madge’s outrageous vamping and Sylvia’s elegant drifting. Somewhere between the two there must be a style that Lily could manage. She walked as slowly as she could to her position, racking her brains.

  Nothing came. She would just sing the song pure and simple, trusting to the beat and the happy-go-lucky tune to take her through. Lily paused. That was it. Ragtime was more than anything else happy. It was joyful. And that was the style that Madge could not manage because she was a vamp, and Sylvia could not do in her style of an elegant English lady. It was a toe-tapping street dance, a song for errand boys to whistle.

  “Wait a minute!” Lily hissed at Charlie and darted to the prompt corner. Hanging up on the pegs were three or four hats and among them a straw boater. Lily grabbed it and rushed back on to the stage. She turned herself sideways to the audience, tipped the boater low down over her nose, stuck her hands in the pockets of her jacket and crossed one foot over another.

  “Attagirl!” Charlie said softly. “Pretty quick, eh, Lil?” he said aloud.

  “Very slow to start,” she replied without moving from her pose, “and then very quick.”

  “Tricky,” Charlie commented. “One, two, three, four!”

  Lily froze motionless, like a tableau of an errand boy, and started the catchy song as if it too were a haunting ballad.

  “Come on and hear, come on and hear, Alexander’s Ragtime Band . . .”

  Slowly she speeded up as Charlie just picked out chords with his left hand so that he could conduct the band with his right, keep them following Lily precisely on a steadily increasing beat. The excitement of the song was infectious. Lily, her face radiant, whipped the hat off her head and spun it on her finger. When she forgot the words in the middle she whirled around and tap-danced and Charlie cut off the band with a sharp gesture to let her tap in silence and then brought them in to a thundering final chorus without missing a beat.

  “Yes indeed!” Richard Rice called. He clapped, walking down the aisle to the orchestra pit. “That was stunning. Miss Valance, you’re in. Third billing. Start Monday, eleven o’clock.”

  Lily flung the boater in the air. “Yippee!”

  • • •

  There was an uneasy truce between Lily and Stephen at dinner. Muriel kept a flow of small talk steadily through tomato soup, liver casserole and apple crumble. Lily ate hardly any meat.

  “I don’t like liver,” she said when Muriel asked if she was unwell. “I never eat it.”

  “How unusual,” Muriel said frostily. The meals at number two, The Parade were planned on a monthly basis. Liver casserole occurred twice a month. She did not know what Cook would say if she were told that it was to be banned.

  “We often have it,” Stephen said. “It’s one of my favourites.”

  Muriel looked from Stephen’s determined heavy face to Lily’s pale stubbornness. “Shall we have coffee in the drawing room?” she asked, as if they did not have coffee there every night. “Lily dear, would you wind some wool for me?”

  Lily sat before the dried flower arrangement in the cold hearth with her arms upraised like a little doll. Muriel draped the yarn of wool over both Lily’s hands and then wound it off into a ball. “What are you knitting?” Lily asked.

  “A little matinée coat and boots. My niece, Sarah-Louise, is expecting a baby. She lives in Scotland so we hardly ever see them, but I like to keep in touch.”

  Lily nodded.

  “She’s only been married two months,” Muriel said, watching the downturned face for any expression. “She always said she wanted a large family. She might as well start as soon as possible.”

  Lily looked up and smiled at Muriel. “I don’t,” she said simply.

  Stephen wandered around the room, his coffee cup in his hand. The tide was down and they could not hear the sea.

  “I think I’ll pop out,” he said. Muriel and Lily looked at him. “I’ll take a run over to Hayling Island with Coventry. I’ve been cooped up in that office all day. I feel like a breath of air.”

  “As you like, dear,” Muriel said placidly. “Lily, would you like to go too?”

  “No thank you,” Lily said sweetly. “I was going to sit with Mr. Winters for an hour.”

  Stephen nodded. Muriel noticed that he did not press Lily to go with him. “I’ll be late,” he said. “I’ll dr