When the Lights Go Down

by Pamela Evans

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

It is 1938 and the threat of war looms on the streets of London. But, when the lights go down in the cinema aisles, usherette Daisy Blake is transported to a world of glamour and romance. Among the staff there is much merriment and Daisy soon falls in love with the handsome organist, Al Dawson. Then war is declared and, just after Al leaves for the frontline, Daisy discovers she's pregnant. Her mother is distraught; she doesn't think Al is right for her daughter and when Daisy's letters to him go unanswered, her mother encourages her to marry John, the cinema's projectionist, to spare her further heartache.

As the blitz rages over London and disaster strikes, Daisy's morale is boosted by her work and her young son, Sam, brings her comfort and joy in the troubled times ahead...

(P)2016 Headline Digital

Release date: March 24, 2016

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

‘You’re very quiet tonight, Daisy,’ Bertha Blake observed of her youngest daughter one autumn evening in 1938 when the family were having their evening meal. ‘And you look a bit pale, dear. Are you going down with something?’

‘I’m feeling fine, Mum,’ fibbed Daisy, receiving an admonitory prod under the tablecloth from her sister Mary, who was sitting beside her.

Bertha was a sharp-featured woman with dark greying hair drawn back into a bun and watchful black eyes; very little went unnoticed by her in this house. ‘What’s all the nudging about? I know when you two are hiding something. So let’s hear about it. We don’t have secrets in this family. You know the rules.’

Seventeen-year-old Daisy was actually in despair. She’d confided in her sister about the traumatic events of the day but couldn’t bring herself to break the news to her parents because she was so ashamed.

‘Leave the girls alone, dear,’ intervened her father Bill helpfully. ‘They’re doing no harm.’

‘They are up to something, Bill.’

‘So what if they are? They’re grown women now,’ he reminded her. ‘They don’t have to tell us everything.’

‘They’re still in their teens and living under our roof so that makes them accountable to us,’ she riposted.

‘They are old enough to earn a living and pay for their keep every week so I reckon that entitles them to a degree of privacy,’ said Bill, who was a skilled worker in an engineering factory. An even-tempered man of solid build, he had light, greying hair, thinning around the edges and bright blue eyes which Daisy had inherited.

‘Please don’t argue on my account,’ said Daisy, desperately trying to summon up the courage to say what she must. ‘But yes, Mum’s right, there is something I need to tell you.’

Bertha’s eyes widened momentarily because that sounded like the forerunner to the sort of news every mother of unmarried daughters dreads. ‘Let’s have it then,’ she urged.

‘Er … well …’

‘Come on, spit it out, girl,’ said Bertha impatiently.

‘I lost my job,’ she blurted out, pale with worry and shame.

‘Oh.’ It wasn’t the worst news but bad enough to crease Bertha’s brow into a frown. ‘That lovely office job of yours … you’ve gone and lost it.’

Daisy pushed her corn-coloured hair off her face with her fingers. ‘I’m afraid so. I was sacked,’ she explained grimly.

Bertha drew in her breath, unable to hide her shock but still hoping for an explanation that would make it respectable. ‘Are they cutting down on staff then?’

‘No I’m the only one leaving,’ Daisy explained, her round sapphire eyes dull and lacklustre. ‘Well, I’ve already left actually. I have to go back on Friday to get what’s owing to me.’

‘Sorry to hear that, love,’ said her father calmly while her mother clutched her brow dramatically.

‘And what happened for you to be instantly dismissed?’ demanded Bertha, who had never been even distantly acquainted with tact.

Daisy chewed her lip, knowing her mother would be very upset by what she had to say next. ‘I complained to the management and they sacked me for being a troublemaker and said they won’t give me a reference.’

Up went her mother’s brows. ‘You complained!’ she exclaimed. ‘That wasn’t very sensible, dear. I’ve brought you up to know your place and it isn’t to criticise those who are paying you! People like us do as we’re told.’

‘She had to do it and I think it was very brave of her,’ put in Mary, who was a year older than Daisy and close to her sister. ‘If more people had the courage to speak out, maybe things would be fairer for employees, especially women.’

‘That’s all very well but that was a good job she’s thrown away.’ Bertha’s eyes narrowed. ‘So, what exactly did you have to complain about, Daisy?’

This was the part she’d been dreading the most but here goes, thought Daisy. ‘There’s a man at work, Mr Rumbold,’ she began nervously. ‘Ron they call him, a married man with a family. Middle-aged and quite high up in the company. One of the big bosses actually …’

‘And?’ her mother urged.

‘Er …’ She bit her lip. ‘It’s really embarrassing …’

‘Never mind that; just get on and tell us what happened.’

‘In your own time,’ added Bill but he’d stopped eating and was looking concerned.

‘Well he …’ began Daisy.

‘He’s been taking liberties with her on a regular basis,’ cut in Mary, seeing that her sister was struggling. ‘Or trying to.’

‘What do you mean by liberties?’ Bertha frowned.

‘The usual sort; touching her up, trying to kiss her,’ explained Mary while Daisy turned scarlet and was rendered speechless.

‘Oh dear, that’s not very nice at all, is it?’ Bertha was clearly shocked.

‘It’s bloomin’ disgusting if you ask me,’ stated Mary. ‘Daisy’s supervisor wouldn’t get anything done about it so she went directly to the managing director and reported the man to him. I don’t blame her either.’

Bertha’s face worked. ‘You are usually such a reserved girl too, Daisy,’ she said.

‘Yes I am, but I couldn’t bear what was going on. It reached a point where I was dreading going to work every morning so I took my courage in my hands. Fat lot of good it did me because Rumbold turned it round on me; told them I was making a nuisance of myself with him,’ Daisy explained. ‘As if I’d fancy a repulsive old bloke like him.’

‘I’m really sorry to hear about your ordeal,’ sympathised Bertha. ‘But couldn’t you have just kept out of his way and avoided all of this?’

‘Not really because I had to go to his office for various reasons during the course of the working day, to take his post and run errands for him and so on.’

‘That’s when he tried it on; when he got her on her own in his room,’ said Mary, her dark eyes filled with disgust. ‘The dirty old devil. Men like him should be locked up.’

‘He’ll wish he was when I’ve finished with him,’ said Bill, leaving the table and pacing the room. ‘I’ll be at that office as soon as they open in the morning.’

‘No you will not,’ stated Bertha.

‘I will, you know,’ he said.

‘What good will it do?’

‘It’ll let them know that they can’t treat our daughter like dirt and get away with it,’ he said. ‘Rumbold is the one who should be sacked, not Daisy.’

‘If you create a fuss you’ll make things a damned sight worse because it won’t be his reputation that’s ruined; it will be Daisy’s,’ Bertha insisted. ‘So the least said about this the better. No one must know outside of this family.’

‘I think you should go and sort them out, Dad,’ urged Mary, a lively girl and a brunette like her mother. ‘They need someone to talk back to them. At least get them to agree to give Daisy a reference or she won’t be able to get another office job.’

‘I intend to, don’t worry.’

‘The whole thing is so awful it makes me feel sick,’ said Daisy. ‘I think Mum is right though. They’ll look after their own and paint me black. I just want to try and forget about it.’

‘For the moment I think we should all finish our meal before it gets cold,’ suggested Bertha in a tone that didn’t invite argument.

Silence fell over the room. In this Victorian house in a terraced row in Hammersmith, London, no one was in any doubt as to who was in charge of the household.

‘Mum and Dad are having a right old barney downstairs about him going to your office tomorrow,’ Mary said to her sister, the two having escaped upstairs into Mary’s bedroom after helping with the washing up. ‘I think Dad should do it. We can’t just sit back and take what happened lying down.’

‘I reckon that’s exactly what we will have to do because Mum’s right, they have all the power,’ said Daisy. ‘I’ve been going over and over it in my mind, trying to work out if I was to blame in some way. I mean, I was polite to him because it’s part of the job. But I’m certain I didn’t encourage him, Mary. Not ever!’

‘You don’t have to convince me because I know you didn’t, I mean why would you?’ said Mary who worked behind the counter at the Co-op Grocery Store and thoroughly enjoyed her job.

‘But I feel so guilty and kind of dirty …’

‘Well you mustn’t because you’ve done nothing wrong,’ Mary urged her. ‘He’s the one who should be feeling bad but you can bet your life he isn’t. He won’t have given it another thought once the blame was fixed firmly on you.’

‘I suppose it’s because they blamed me that it’s made me feel sort of grubby.’

‘Understandable I suppose,’ agreed Mary. ‘But eventually the memory will fade and with luck so will the feeling. Being realistic, Dad won’t go to the office. Mum will see to that.’

‘Maybe I should have kept quiet about Rumbold’s behaviour and left the job of my own accord; then at least my reputation wouldn’t be threatened and I’d get references,’ Daisy said. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I’m not usually that bold.’

‘No you’re not as a rule. I was amazed when you told me what you’d done. Still, it’s time you spoke up for yourself a bit more and you did the right thing morally, no matter how it’s turned out.’

‘Having plucked up the courage to report him to the head of the department and be told in so many words to put up and shut up, I was so furious I marched into the managing director’s office on the spur of the moment and blurted it all out without thinking of the consequences. Now I have no job and no prospects and Mum and Dad are downstairs arguing about it.’ She clasped her head. ‘Oh Mary, I feel awful.’

‘Come on, Daisy, don’t let that moron Rumbold do this to you,’ Mary said gently. ‘I know things seem bad at the moment but you’ll come through this. No job is worth that sort of punishment.’

‘I know you’re right but there’s this awful feeling …’ She couldn’t find the words to describe the way she felt; lonely within herself and set apart somehow.

‘Aw, try not to upset yourself too much, kid. I know it was horrible for you but you’re not the first girl it’s happened to and you won’t be the last. You’ll get another job, references or not.’

‘I shall have to,’ Daisy said. ‘Mum will be none too happy if I can’t hand over my housekeeping money on a Friday. You know what a stickler she is about us paying our way.’

‘She’ll be all right about it if you have to miss a few weeks. She’s only strict about it because she has such a strong sense of fairness and believes in people making a contribution if they’re earning which is only right and proper. But if you’re not working she’ll let you off. She thinks the world of us both even if she is the bossiest mother in London and sometimes drives us mad.’

‘Yeah, I expect you’re right,’ agreed Daisy. ‘I’ll start looking for another job right away, though. In fact I’ll take a peek at the situations vacant in last week’s local paper if it’s still around somewhere downstairs.’ She gave a wry grin. ‘When things are quieter down there.’

‘Don’t risk going down while they are still going at it hammer and tongs.’ Mary smiled as she spoke.

‘The whole thing is best forgotten,’ declared Bertha. ‘You know I’m right, Bill, even if you’d rather not admit it.’

‘I can’t forget a thing like that,’ he said, his voice raised. ‘Our daughter being insulted in such a vile way. I don’t know how you can even suggest that we sweep it under the carpet.’

‘Because it will be the best thing for her, that’s how,’ she roared. ‘Do you think I’m not sick with fury at that man for doing that to her? Of course I am. I’m her mother so I feel her pain as my own. But I truly believe that she’ll be the one to suffer if we make a fuss about it. They have all the power and they’ve shown very clearly whose side they have taken. Daisy’s life will be a misery if she’s the talk of the neighbourhood.’

‘The firm is on the other side of town,’ he pointed out.

‘People from round here work there, though, and that sort of gossip has a way of getting around. Daisy won’t come out of it smelling of roses, you can bet your life on it. The woman never does under these circumstances. So we need to lie low and let it blow over.’

‘But it isn’t right.’

‘No, but it’s the way things are. We owe it to our daughters to protect them,’ she lectured. ‘A woman’s reputation is one of her biggest assets. With that in pieces, not only will Daisy be unable to find a job, she won’t get a decent man to marry her when the time comes either.’

He narrowed his eyes on her. ‘Are you sure it isn’t your reputation you want to protect?’

‘Mine, yours, all of us,’ she replied. ‘Of course I want to defend my family’s reputation and there’s nothing wrong with that. I see it as my duty.’

‘But Daisy has done nothing wrong except stand up for herself.’

‘And look where it’s got her, out of a job and leaving under a cloud. I don’t want this nasty business to linger so the least said about it the better. You know I’m right, Bill. You might not like the way things work but that’s how it is.’

He saw the determined tilt of her chin, the steely look in her eyes, and he knew he would concede. Bertha was a very controlling woman but she was also a loyal wife and a wonderful mother to the girls even though she did both things on her own terms. She was slavishly devoted to respectability and would go to any lengths to protect her family from any kind of slur. But he was certain she would give her own life for their family if it were ever necessary, which helped him to put up with her domineering ways. One thing they were in agreement about: they both adored their girls, and he supposed there was truth in what she said. Daisy would be the one to suffer from any intervention by him.

‘All right,’ he finally agreed. ‘I’ll keep quiet about the disgusting incident. But I’m not happy about it.’

She gave him a watery smile and her face softened. She had never been a pretty woman, even in her youth, but she was striking with her dark eyes and aquiline nose. ‘Thanks love,’ she said. ‘Now we can concentrate on supporting Daisy through this horrid turn of events. We must offer her plenty of encouragement and stop her from losing confidence in herself.’

‘Absolutely.’

In nearby Shepherd’s Bush, later that same night, employment was very much on eighteen-year-old Al Dawson’s mind as he returned home from his second job of the day, playing the piano in a restaurant in the less salubrious outskirts of the West End. He was often out in the evenings, at the keyboard, after working all day in a local factory that manufactured electrical goods.

‘How did it go tonight, son?’ asked his mother Hester, appearing in a red woollen dressing gown.

‘All right thanks, Mum,’ he said, smiling at her as he took off his coat and hung it on the hall stand.

‘You look worn out, love,’ said Hester, a small woman of middle years with a round, pretty face and a thatch of greying blond hair that had more than a passing acquaintance with the peroxide bottle. Her son had dark curly hair and eyes the colour of black coffee.

‘Yeah, I am a bit tired but I need to wind down before I go to bed. My music falls on deaf ears because the punters are all talking over their meal but it feels like a performance to me even if I am invisible to my audience. It certainly gets the adrenalin flowing.’

‘It is a performance,’ she pointed out. ‘They’d soon notice if you didn’t play well.’

‘That’s true.’

‘So what’s on your mind, son?’ she asked. ‘I can tell when something’s up.’

‘Nothing serious but I finish there at the end of the week,’ he said. ‘They’re cutting the music in the evenings because they reckon it’s a waste of money paying me when the place is crowded anyway. But it isn’t a problem. Something else will come along. It usually does and it isn’t as if I am totally reliant on my musical work for my living.’ He omitted to mention that the restaurant manager had decided to have a pianist over the lunch period and had offered Al the job. The fact that he wasn’t in a position to take it would upset his mother so he’d thought it wise to keep it to himself.

‘It’s a pity you can’t give up the day job and concentrate on your music,’ said Hester.

‘Maybe one day I will but I’m fine as things are, and I’ve got some good mates at the factory,’ he said. ‘We’re lucky to have thriving factories around here in the new industries manufacturing cars and wireless sets. Some people in other parts of the country don’t stand a chance of getting a job.’

‘I know, but it isn’t right that you should be lumbered with your Dad’s debts,’ she told him. ‘It’s my responsibility to get them paid off.’

‘Mine too and Dickie’s.’ He was referring to his younger brother, who was seventeen and also worked in a local factory. ‘Dad only got into debt because he was trying to provide for his family when he got sick and couldn’t work. So we’ll pay the money back together.’

Hester sighed, sad at the memory of her beloved husband who had suffered a lingering death from TB three years ago. ‘Still, I reckon we’ll have paid off within the next few months. Then you can go all out for your music.’

‘I’m not sure if I will even then. It’s more of a hobby really, something I love to do. The factory pays steady money,’ he reminded her. ‘I’d be taking a chance if I gave it up.’

‘Apart from a few at the top of their game, it isn’t easy for a musician to make a decent living but I think you owe it to yourself to give it a try because you’re a very talented pianist and you’ve been properly taught. As you’re willing to take almost any booking, anything from pubs, restaurants and local shows and dance classes, I think you stand a fair chance. Now is the time to do it; get yourself established while you’re young and single.’

‘There’s something very comforting about having a regular wage packet each week, though, Mum,’ he told her. ‘Which I certainly wouldn’t have if I relied on my piano work, not at first anyway.’

‘We’re two of a kind, you and me, son; music is in our blood. We might never play on a concert platform but we’ll always be able to make a few bob at the keyboard. It’s what we want to do. I was lucky; I had your dad to support me so I was never totally reliant on the money I earned giving piano lessons. It did help with the family budget though, and of course it’s a godsend now that we’ve lost your dad.’

Al had never known a time when a stream of children hadn’t beaten a path to their front door after school for their weekly piano lesson. He himself had been taught by his mother and had managed to work his way through the grades before he’d left school while still finding time to hang out with the other kids in the street. Music was as natural as breathing to him but he’d always enjoyed company and had never had sufficient ambition to shut himself away to practise for long periods, which was why he’d never be a classical concert pianist. The piano was his preferred method of earning a living but, as his mother had said, very few jobbing musicians like him could live by their music alone.

‘I’ll see what comes along,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep my eye on the noticeboard in the music shop where I go for my sheet music. The manager there is in the know too because a lot of local musicians go in there. He might have heard of something.’

‘Meanwhile, do you fancy a spot of supper?’

‘I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich but I’ll get it,’ he said. ‘You go back to bed.

‘You sit there and relax,’ she insisted and hurried from the room before he could object further.

He was very fond of his mother. She had never been like other kids’ mums and for a while as an adolescent he’d been embarrassed by her long bright hair and colourful clothes, wishing she looked more mumsy like the mothers of his peers. But he’d grown out of that and now embraced the fact that she was a one-off, full of life and heart. She might not always remember to dust the ornaments but she never forgot how much her family meant to her. He and his brother were her world, especially now that Dad had gone.

‘What’s going on down here?’ asked Dickie, coming into the room in his pyjamas. ‘Are you and Mum having a party or something? All this talking and clattering of crockery.’

‘I’m just having a sandwich and a cuppa.’

‘Mm, I wouldn’t mind some of that,’ said Dickie. ‘Seeing as I can’t sleep through all the noise you’re making, I might as well have some supper.’

‘If there’s food about you’d come back from the dead,’ joshed Al.

‘I’m a growing lad,’ said Dickie, who was dark-haired like his brother and similar in looks but thinner and more wiry in build, a feature that created a lot of banter because he had such a large appetite.

‘So, have you been out tonight?’ Al inquired casually.

‘Yeah, round my mate’s house listening to records on his gramophone,’ he replied.

Al raised his brow. ‘Not classical, I assume.’

‘Jazz. You should play that instead of all those daft love songs.’

‘I play what I get paid for and people out for the evening like to listen to something nice and gentle. Not that they listen as such. It’s just background music. Anyway, I keep up to date and play all the latest songs.’

‘Even so, it must be boring.’

‘Not to me.’ His brother had never taken to piano lessons so their mother hadn’t forced it on him when that had become obvious. ‘As soon as we can afford it we’ll get a gramophone of our own so you can listen to records at home.’

‘That will be good.’ Dickie sighed. ‘Listening to jazz is the most exciting thing in my life, which shows what a narrow life I lead. At work all day and listening to records in the evening with a mate and a visit to the cinema on a Saturday night. I mean, it’s hardly the stuff of dreams is it? One of these days I am going to travel the world.’

‘You’ll either have to join the navy or go as a stowaway,’ Al pointed out patiently. His brother had yearned for excitement since he was quite little.

Their mother re-entered the room carrying a tray. ‘Oh, you’re up, are you?’ she said to Dickie. ‘I might have known you’d appear at the first sign of food.’

‘I’ll get myself something, Mum,’ he said amiably, getting up and leaving the room.

‘Be careful with the bread knife,’ Hester called after him. She’d never quite grasped the fact that her sons were grown up when it came to safety.

She and Al were both smiling as Dickie headed for the kitchen. When he wasn’t bemoaning his boring life, he was the dearest boy: warm-hearted and funny. He had kept them all going in the dark days during his father’s illness and after his death with his determined spirit and sense of humour.

‘He’s a case,’ said Hester.

‘He certainly is,’ agreed Al, munching into his cheese sandwich with pleasure.

‘Well Miss Blake, you seem to be just the sort of person we are looking for,’ said the middle-aged man who was interviewing Daisy for a job in the offices of a food processing factory. ‘You have good all-round office experience and a very nice manner. I think you will fit in really well here.’

‘That’s good news, thank you.’

‘So it’s just a matter of references now,’ he explained airily. ‘If you could let me have the name and address of the person to write to at your current firm.’

‘Er, I’m not working at the moment,’ she said. ‘I left a few weeks ago.’

He raised his brows. ‘Oh I see.’ He leaned back slightly. ‘May I ask the reason you resigned?’

She lowered her eyes and didn’t reply.

‘So you didn’t leave of your own accord then.’

‘No.’

‘What was the reason for your dismissal?’

Her face burned so hard it throbbed. ‘It was a personal matter,’ she said. ‘But it had nothing to do with my work. They were very happy with that.’

‘But you’d rather not tell me about it?’

‘That’s right.’ She couldn’t bear to go through all that again with a stranger.

‘Am I to assume from this that they won’t be willing to give you a reference?’

‘That is the situation, yes,’ she said.

‘I see.’ He pondered for a moment. ‘Obviously this complicates matters. References are standard procedure here. I have rules to abide by and my colleagues to answer to.’

‘They didn’t sack me for dishonesty or lack of efficiency,’ she said in desperation as she had now been out of work for several weeks. ‘I really do need a job and I am very honest and hardworking. I promise I won’t let you down.’

‘Hmm, I’m sure. But as references are the rule here it isn’t possi. . .