Stella. Gary Morecambe

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СКАЧАТЬ said Stella. They always started conversations in this way.

      They gazed hungrily at the piles of shelled shrimps in a large carton. The dancing had made Stella hungry. Tommy just loved shrimps more than anything else, and Sadie could eat anything, anytime, any place.

      Pop smiled and his face wrinkled all the more. ‘Go on. ’Ave a few. I’ve plenty there.’ They didn’t need any further encouragement and dived in with eager hands. ‘Steady on, now. Don’t go spillin’ ’em.’

      Pop stood up to serve a customer. ‘What’ll it be for Bob’s supper t’night then, Mrs Robertson?’

      Stella nudged Sadie. ‘You’ve got more than me,’ she complained.

      ‘No I ’aven’t.’

      ‘Y’ave. Don’t argue ’bout it.’

      ‘Here yer are, Stella,’ said Tommy, coming between them. ‘Have some of mine.’

      Stella blushed. ‘I don’t want yours, thank you, Tommy Moran.’ She gave her sister a fiery glare. ‘I want hers.’

      ‘Now, now,’ calmed Pop, as he returned to his position on his crate. ‘You’ve all done well enough.’

      He began rummaging in his pockets and at once the children’s eyes lit up. This was the moment they liked best. Pop was famous throughout Lancaster for his giant pockets on his black great-coat. They’d been a source of much mystery to children for many years. They were always filled with ‘goodies’, and the girls had been told by their mother that they were the deepest pockets in the world – probably bottomless. They didn’t believe her, though. Maybe six or seven feet deep, but surely not bottomless? ‘Here y’are. A coupla green arras each. Suck ’em slow.’

      Green arrows. Red hot peppermints. Maybe they should be called red arrows, thought Stella.

      They thanked him, popped them into their mouths and with fleeting cries of goodbye, they trotted away. Pop shook his head as he put a green arrow into his own mouth.

      ‘You should come and watch Sadie and me dancing sometime, Tommy,’ said Stella, suddenly.

      ‘Oh, no. I couldn’t do that,’ replied Tommy.

      ‘I’m not asking you to join in, you know. Just watch us. We’re ever so good, aren’t we, Sadie?’

      ‘I suppose so,’ she said doubtfully.

      ‘’Course we are. We’re going to be dancers when we leave school: rotten, smelly, pooey school. Aren’t we, Sadie?’

      ‘I suppose so.’

      ‘Stop saying that,’ Stella snapped. Sadie stopped saying it.

      ‘Come along next Saturday, Tommy.’

      He pondered for a moment. It would be worth his while going, just to be near Stella, his sweetheart. But at what price? What would his mates say if they caught him coming out of the dancing school?

      Stone the crows I’d never live it down, he thought. ‘I can’t make it Saturday. I said I’d go with me dad to see Morecambe play.’

      Stella scowled at him. It was a poor excuse. Kick off wasn’t until three; even she knew that.

      ‘As you like, but don’t expect to see us any other times if you can’t accept our kind invitations.’ She held her nose up to add more aloofness as Sadie wished she wouldn’t include her in every decision she made.

      He had only himself to blame that they didn’t talk to him for the following three weeks. Well, Sadie did once or twice, but she made sure her sister didn’t find out.

      Chapter Two

      ‘Stella!’ beckoned a voice as she made to leave the Gaynor School of Dancing. She turned to see Mrs Bunting advance. ‘Just wanted to thank you for filling in for me this week, dear.’

      ‘That’s okay. I hope the cold’s much better now.’

      Stella studied her wiry body, which had lost much of its vitality and flexibility during the last six years. She was as thin and as active as ever she was before, but her body had taken on a certain stiffness, as though she was gradually solidifying.

      Stella, at sixteen, was now virtually running her dancing classes, whether Mrs Bunting was away ill with a cold or even in attendance at the school. She’d taken on the role of a supervisor, allowing Stella to carry out the more physical exercises.

      She had never been that immersed in the workings of the school, and, now her twenty-three-year-old daughter, Donna, was married and settled in a small village in the Pennines, what little enthusiasm she had ever had had now finally ebbed away altogether. If it wasn’t for her fondness of Stella, and the girl’s desire to succeed in showbusiness, she would have seriously considered closing down the establishment some years ago.

      Stella and Sadie had grown closer to each other through maturity. In fact, Stella found that she was sometimes too protective towards her ‘little sister’.

      Sadie had what she termed a ‘real job’. She was an assistant at the cake shop in Corn Street. And Tommy was still a fundamental part of their lives. The three of them would meet up most evenings at the girls’ home, and, whilst Stella would prattle on about her dreams of stardom, Tommy would be half listening and half wondering if Blackpool would reach the Cup Final.

      He had little ambition, and always did as he was told, especially by Stella, although his boyish feelings of love for her had long since dissipated. It was Sadie to whom he had diverted his affections.

      She’d developed into a beautiful young teenager who seemed to have been spared the puppy fat and acne that most young people endure. She was gentle, full of charm and personality, and happy with her life. Sadie could also laugh at herself, which he had noticed Stella was unable to do. If Stella said or did anything that wasn’t quite accurate she would argue with you until you finally weakened and gave her the benefit of the doubt. It was always the other person who would inevitably end up apologising.

      Although Sadie didn’t possess a wealth of topics she enjoyed discussing, she wasn’t as limited as Stella, who could only think ‘showbusiness’ to the point of obsession. Not only had Stella decided where her own career was going to take her, she also knew where Sadie’s was going to go. She was going to give up her regular job in the cake shop and be her partner in a dancing act. Already they had been rehearsing a few things together; the only problem now was to find somewhere to play.

      It was their father who fixed them their first showbiz date. He worked at Heysham Harbour, and, while waiting for the bus to Lancaster one day, he stood in a queue next to a man he had been at school with. It was Frank Bland, and at school poor Frank was considered to have been not all there. He’d never played games or participated in any rough or mischievous activities.

      The growl of the red bus could be heard as it assaulted the steep incline up to the bus stop. ‘So what are you doing in Heysham?’ asked Jack. ‘I’ve never seen you out this way before.’

      ‘I work at Mission,’ came the reply.

      ‘Mission? What Mission?’

      ‘The СКАЧАТЬ