Mr Starlight. Laurie Graham

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       SIX

      There was no peace once the boilers were fired and the baggage lifts started up, but Sel lay on his bunk like the Queen of Sheba anyway, cucumber slices over his eyelids and curlers in his quiff. ‘Preparing to meet my public,’ he said. ‘You don’t get a second chance at first impressions.’

      I said, ‘Come upstairs with me. You’re the one with the open sesame. See if we can get near a rail. Watch for big names arriving on the dockside.’

      The word was Henry Ford was expected plus a Guinness millionaire, a mysterious star of the British stage and, of course, the Duke and Duchess.

      Wilkie said, ‘You won’t see them. They’ll come aboard from a launch once we’re under way.’

      But I went up anyway with a little Eyetie from the Tourist Class barber’s shop who knew a window we could watch from, and we had company. A girl called Ginger from the beauty parlour, very jolly with lovely knees. She let me light two smokes for her before she mentioned she had a fiancé.

      Her friend was quieter. Black wavy hair and skin so pale you could see the veins on her temples. Hazel. Not my usual type. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘There’s Lady Clackmannan.’

      But it was only Lady Clackmannan’s maid, down on the quayside supervising where the trunks were going.

      ‘Princess Olga,’ she said. ‘Mr Vansittart.’

      She was reeling off all these names, but they were just the servants down there. Hazel worked in the passenger laundry, so it was the maids and the valets she knew.

      I said, ‘Isn’t it boring down there, dhobi-ing? Never seeing daylight?’

      ‘It is not,’ she said. ‘Dhobi-ing! Cheeky beggar. What do you think I do? Bash shirts on rocks?’

      Ginger said, ‘Don’t bite his head off. He’s new.’

      Hazel said, ‘What’s your name, new boy?’

      ‘Cled Boff,’ I said. ‘Musician.’

      ‘Well, Cled Boff,’ she said. ‘I hope you’ll enjoy your work as much as I enjoy mine. I get to handle couture garments. They come to me when they need a delicate touch, see? Hopeless cases, that’s my speciality.’ She smiled at me. ‘And every stain tells a story,’ she said.

      Ginger shouted, ‘There’s Rex Harrison!’ And it was the actual man himself, climbing out of a taxi.

      Sel was still stretched out on his bunk, reading Tit Bits.

      I said, ‘I think I just got lucky.’

      ‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘I hope she won’t be disappointed when she sees your love nest. I hope she likes the smell of second-hand onions. See any notables?’

      I said, ‘Rex Harrison. The Windsors’ pug dogs. And there’s a Princess Olga come aboard.’

      He sat up. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘What, tiara and everything?’

      I said, ‘No. Felt hat and an overcoat.’

      ‘Glad I didn’t stir myself, then,’ he said. ‘If I had a tiara I’d never leave home without it. I won the toss, by the way. I’m letting Tex do the big one tonight.’ Tex Lane was the other support singer and the two of them had to cover six spots a night. If you did the First Class Dining Room, you finished with the ten o’clock spot in Cabin Class. If you did a turn in Tourist, you opened the late show in First Class, the Starlight Club in the Veranda Grill priming the pump for the star vocalist.

      I said, ‘I thought you were gagging to play the Starlight Club?’

      ‘I am,’ he said, ‘but not the first night out. I want Tex Lane to go over the top first, let them see how mediocre he is. Suits me to warm up on the peasants. By tomorrow night I’ll be ready for anything.’

      He slipped in СКАЧАТЬ