Tiger Ragtime Read online

  ‘Fifty per cent of the floor area on the first, second and third floors has gone to create that high ceiling. Mr James has ordered four electric chandeliers from Waterford. They’ll be the largest I’ve ever seen and bright enough to illuminate the ground floor and the mezzanine areas on the floors above. They’re coming in next week from Ireland. This is going to be some building when it’s finished,’ George said proudly.

  ‘It looks like a big chapel to me,’ David commented with more honesty than tact.

  George laughed. ‘I’ll have to tell Mr James that one. If it’s a chapel he’s creating, it’ll be a temple to gambling and drinking.’

  ‘What time do you want me here in the morning?’ David asked.

  ‘Six o’clock, Micah did say you weren’t a time-served apprentice.’

  ‘I’m experienced but I haven’t completed an apprenticeship.’ David would have liked to have given him a different answer but he knew his age was against him.

  ‘I pay my carpenters five shillings a day, my labourers three. I’ll pay you whatever I think you’re worth – somewhere between the two – after you’ve put in a full day’s work, all right?’

  Needing the job, David nodded agreement. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Twelve-hour shift, six in the morning until six at night, half an hour for dinner at twelve and two ten-minute tea breaks at ten and three. If you don’t bring your own food, we can put in an order with Goldman’s the baker’s for you and dock it from your wages at the end of the week. Pay day is Friday. You’ll get whatever you’re owed then. If you haven’t any tools, book them in and out with your foreman, any losses have to be paid for and I’ll take those out of your wages too.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Powell.’ David shook hands with the man.

  A shout of ‘Watch out!’ preceded a wall crashing down from the first floor.

  David ducked out through the door and walked past the scaffolding and tarpaulins that shrouded the front of the building. He looked at the watch that Mary and Harry had given him, thought of home, then remembered it was no longer ‘home’. He had walked away from the farm. And the last thing he could do was return there and admit to Mary and Harry that he was a failure who was a useless sailor.

  Feeling very alone, he debated what to do. He could go and see Edyth but judging by the length of the queue outside her baker’s shop she was busy. He could return to Helga Brown’s house, but when he had left, she and Ruth had been cleaning the house from top to bottom and he’d have nowhere to sit. Judy wouldn’t be working in the bakery, but he suspected that she’d probably be sleeping after performing in the theatre. That left Gertie.

  He smiled, it wasn’t Monday morning, but it was early on a Thursday. She shouldn’t have that many other callers at this time of day. He felt in his inside pocket for his wallet. He’d taken one of the pound notes from his locked suitcase. He hoped it would buy him all the time he wanted for the week. But much as he liked Gertie and wanted to see her again, he sensed it would be prudent to change the note into silver before he went looking for her.

  ‘The young man who thought I was Harry Evans, I believe.’ David looked up to see Aled James. Dressed in a starched white shirt and collar, beige tie, cream linen suit and panama hat, he was better turned out than the bankers heading down into Mount Stuart Square. ‘Do you remember talking to me on the day of the carnival?’ he asked when David didn’t answer.

  David was intimidated by Aled’s air of authority but he would never have admitted it to Aled or anyone else. ‘Yes, I do and in those clothes you look even more like Harry Evans.’

  ‘And how do you know Harry Evans?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ David asked warily with a countryman’s innate distrust of strangers.

  ‘Because I know him too. We used to be friends when we were boys,’ Aled said, straying into the realms of fantasy.

  ‘Harry is married to my sister.’

  Aled looked at the tarpaulin-shrouded doorway behind David. ‘You’ve been in the old Sea Breeze?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but you have dust on the shoulders of your suit.’

  David glanced at his jacket and tried to brush it off with the flat of his hand but it clung stubbornly to the cloth and all he succeeded in doing was smudging it. ‘I was looking for a job.’

  ‘Did you find one?’

  ‘I start work tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m surprised that you don’t work for Harry in one of his shops.’

  ‘I don’t want to work for Harry,’ David answered quickly, too quickly he realised when he saw the expression on Aled’s face.

  ‘So, you want to be independent, Mr Harry Evans’s brother-in-law.’ Aled offered David his hand. ‘I’m Aled James. George Powell is converting the Sea Breeze for me.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’ Impressed, David shook Aled’s hand.

  ‘What do you intend to do once the conversion is finished?’

  ‘I’ll find something.’ David hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.

  ‘I’m looking for likely young men to work in the Ragtime.’

  ‘What’s a ragtime?’

  ‘It’s what I’m calling this club when it’s finished, the Tiger Ragtime.’

  ‘Doing what?’ David asked.

  ‘I have a few different jobs going.’ Aled glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve an appointment shortly, but if you’re interested I can spare half an hour now. We could have a drink in the Packet and talk about it.’

  Trying to look as though it wasn’t the first time he’d been asked to have a drink in the middle of the day, David said, ‘I don’t mind if I do.’

  ‘Judy, this is a surprise, and a timely one. I’ve been wrestling with the mission’s accounts and they don’t look good. Too many waffles being eaten and not enough contributions coming in to pay for the eggs and flour.’ Micah left his desk and walked out in the hallway of the mission to meet her. ‘But I don’t doubt there’s enough eggs and flour here now for me to offer you a waffle lunch.’

  ‘No thank you, Pastor Holsten, I’m having lunch with Mr James in the Windsor at one.’

  ‘Coffee, then?’

  ‘That would be nice.’ A burst of laughter echoed down the stairs and she said, ‘Could we drink it in your office?’

  ‘Of course, I’ll bring it down, make yourself at home.’ When Micah returned a few minutes later Judy had hung the jacket of her beige linen suit on the back of the visitor’s chair and was sitting, beating time with her finger as she read a song score.

  ‘Do you ever stop working?’ He set the tray on the desk.

  ‘Mr James and I have been planning out my act for when the club opens. This is “Just a Crazy Song”. It’s brand new, I think he must have either brought the score over with him from America or bought it from one of the seamen here.’

  ‘Did he tell you that he’s invited me, along with your uncles, aunts, and Edyth to the opening night of the Tiger Ragtime?’

  ‘Yes, you will come?’

  ‘Unless I’m shanghaied.’ He poured two cups of coffee and handed her one before returning to his chair behind his desk. ‘Help yourself to milk and sugar.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She took her time, sugaring her coffee, pouring milk into it and stirring it but he didn’t try to hurry her. It was obvious something was bothering her and after what Edyth had said about the way Aled James made her feel, he wondered if Judy was also afraid of the man.

  ‘It’s about the contract I signed with Mr James,’ she said finally.

  ‘You’re sorry you signed it?’ Micah asked in concern. He recalled the solicitor warning him that although the contract was a good one it was watertight. If Judy didn’t perform for any reason other than illness Aled could sue her for every penny she had. Tony had raised a laugh by pointing out that the only pennies Judy was likely to have when Peter Pan finished in the New Theatre, were the ones Aled James paid her.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Judy
said quickly. ‘It’s about the clothes.’

  ‘Clothes?’ Micah looked at her blankly. ‘The stage costumes.’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember, Aled James has to pay for them. And that’s a problem?’

  ‘We went to Gwilym James the day before yesterday and he bought me twenty evening gowns. They were so expensive they didn’t even have price tags.’

  ‘It’s his club, Judy. He wants his singer to look her best. Did he choose them?’

  ‘With Edyth’s mother and the supervisor’s help.’

  ‘You don’t like them?’

  ‘Any girl in her right mind would like them.’

  ‘They’re too revealing?’ he asked, remembering Jed King’s reservations.

  ‘Not at all, although one is fairly low cut.’

  Micah waited, there was obviously more, but he was a patient man, and he wanted Judy to tell him in her own words without prompting. After he’d watched two minutes tick by on his wristwatch, he ventured, ‘You don’t want the clothes?’

  ‘I don’t mind the evening gowns. Mr James explained that I have to look well groomed because I’ll be representing his club.’

  ‘A glamorous club does need a glamorous star. But if it’s not the frocks, Judy, what is it?’

  ‘He wants to buy me a whole new wardrobe, not just evening gowns, but day frocks, suits, accessories – and fur coats. I’m meeting him for lunch now because he’s arranged for us to go back to Gwilym James. He even told the supervisor to select some fur coats for me to choose from. He insists I need three –’

  ‘Three!’ Micah interrupted her mid-flow.

  ‘A short one for day wear, a long one for evening wear and an elbow-length cape for summer.’ She picked up her coffee cup and saucer. Micah could see she was nervous from the way her hand shook.

  ‘Most girls would jump through hoops for three fur coats.’

  ‘I don’t want Mr James buying me one, let alone three. Evening gowns I can understand, but not day clothes. He even asked the supervisor to open an account for me so I can go in and chose new underwear.’

  ‘Have you talked to Edyth about this?’

  ‘No, she’s been so busy in the bakery since the workmen started converting the club that she has hardly any free time. Besides, nine times out of ten when I come home from the theatre, she’s in bed and she gets up hours before me.’

  ‘What about your uncles?’

  ‘They’re working such long hours in the Sea Breeze, I don’t like bothering them.’

  ‘As I said, most girls would love the idea of having a whole new wardrobe bought for them,’ he pointed out mildly.

  ‘Girls like Anna Hughes, you mean.’

  ‘So, that’s it. You feel like a kept woman.’

  Her green eyes flashed angrily. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Judy, no one who knows you would ever mention you and Anna Hughes in the same breath,’ he said swiftly.

  ‘What’s the difference? Aled James is spending a fortune on me and showering me with expensive things that I could never afford to buy in exactly the same way that Anna Hughes’s customers pay her and buy her things to …’

  ‘Has Aled James ever tried to kiss you?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Has he ever suggested anything inappropriate?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So all he’s done so far is give you twenty evening gowns and the promise of a new wardrobe.’

  ‘He hasn’t given me anything yet. He asked the supervisor to hold on to everything until my dressing room in the club is finished. Then he wants everything sent there.’

  ‘And there you have your answer,’ he said in relief. ‘He’s not giving you anything that you won’t wear either in the club or outside when you’re travelling to and from the club or out on club business. All you have to do is keep everything he gives you in your dressing room, except for the outfit you wear back and forth to work. That way, all the clothes remain his property. When you’re not working you can wear your own clothes. Just regard this wardrobe he’s buying you as your uniform.’

  ‘A uniform is what I’d be wearing if I was a waitress or a chambermaid.’

  ‘There’s no difference, Judy. You’re working for the man and he’s telling you what you can and can’t wear. That’s a uniform. And if, at end of the contract, you want to walk away from him and the club, leave all the clothes there and no one can possibly think of you as a kept woman.’

  She thought about what he’d said for a moment. ‘That sounds like common sense, Pastor Holsten.’

  ‘That’s because it is, and don’t you think it’s time you started calling me Micah? You’re not thirteen any more.’

  ‘All right, Micah. It sounds like common sense apart from the expense. Fur coats and evening gowns cost a fortune.’

  ‘Which Aled James is spending for the benefit of his club.’

  ‘That’s what he said when I told him that I didn’t want fur coats.’

  ‘Then he and I are in agreement. Think about it, Judy, if you don’t get to keep the clothes in your home then you can hardly count them as yours.’

  ‘And you really believe that everyone will see it that way?’

  ‘What other way can they possibly see it?’ He looked out of the window. ‘It’s a fine day; I’ll walk you to Stuart Street and the Windsor for your lunch date.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  He reached for his hat. ‘I was thinking of calling in on my sister anyway.’

  ‘She’s been complaining that you visit her far more often than you used to.’

  ‘If she expects me to ignore the fact that I’m about to become an uncle she can forget it.’ He offered her his arm. ‘Let’s go, you don’t want to be late.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Are you sure that you’re happy with the idea of working in Mr James’s club?’ He wasn’t sure why he’d asked the question and he had absolutely no idea what he’d do if she said she wasn’t.

  ‘It’s a great opportunity.’

  ‘Yes it is, but it’ll be hard work and long hours.’

  ‘And more money than I’ve ever made before Micah. Money my family can use.’

  ‘One thing I’ve discovered since I’ve been in the Bay is that one member of a family can’t keep a whole tribe and the Kings are a tribe. Besides, your uncles wouldn’t be very pleased if they knew that they and their children were one of the reasons you took the job in the club.’

  ‘I’m far more selfish than that. I took it for me.’

  ‘You always were more ambitious than the rest of us in the band put together.’

  ‘And you think that is wrong?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Especially in someone with your talent,’ he said quickly.

  ‘Did you know that Mr James has plans to open clubs in London?’ Now that Micah had set her mind at rest about the wardrobe Aled James was buying her, she couldn’t wait to tell him about the future Aled was planning for his club – and for her.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘He said he’d want to me to headline in all of them, eventually.’

  ‘And incidentally make him a lot of money. I always knew you were destined for great things, Judy.’ He waved to a group of seamen across the road. ‘Just don’t forget where you came from.’

  ‘As if I could.’ She looked at half a dozen small girls who were playing hopscotch on the pavement. ‘It only seems like the other day I was doing that.’

  ‘It only seems like the other day I was watching you,’ he said.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘I could really earn as much as a pound a day?’ David sat with both hands clamped around the pint of beer Aled had bought him, but he made no effort to lift it. He was too amazed by what Aled was telling him.

  ‘You could, and in time I have no doubt that you will, but it might take a while. And to start with, it’s a job you can do while working on the building site. All you have to do is refer to a list of races, the horses that are running in each
race and the odds against them winning. Plus, of course, you’ll have to keep a book of copies of all the betting slips you’ve issued and a note of the amount you’ve collected, and the winnings you’ve paid out.’

  ‘But betting and gambling are illegal.’

  ‘There’s a handsome profit to be made and no bookie’s runner who’s ever worked for Aiden has gone to gaol, or will. Why don’t you try running a book for us for a couple of weeks? If you prove you can handle it, there may be a permanent job at the end of it for you in my club.’

  ‘As a bookie’s runner?’ David asked.

  ‘No.’ Aled finished his brandy. ‘Inside my club everything will be legal and above board. I’ll need croupiers, card dealers, crap game organisers and a whole lot more a bookie’s runner is a good way in to any one of those jobs. Are you doing anything this afternoon?’

  Deciding Gertie could wait, David answered, ‘No.’

  Aled opened his card case. ‘Go to the White Hart in James Street. Aiden Collins is running a training school for people who want to become bookie’s runners. Give him this card, and tell him that I think you have the makings of a runner. He’ll soon work out if I’m right or not. How is your basic arithmetic?’

  ‘I’ve never had trouble adding up money.’ David wasn’t boasting. He hadn’t learned to read and write until Mary had met Harry and Harry had taught him alongside the rest of the family. But he’d always been able to work out what the farm was owed at the livestock sales.

  ‘Aiden will check how good your calculations are. We won’t let you loose with the books until we’re sure you’re up to it. Now, I’m meeting a lady and I can’t keep her waiting. Don’t forget: the White Hart, James Street. Ask for Aiden Collins and they’ll show you to the room he’s booked.’

  ‘Just one thing, Mr James.’

  Aled jammed his panama on his head and turned around. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You said I’d have to keep a note of the winnings I pay out. What happens if there’s more money to pay out than I’ve taken in bets?’

  Aled laughed. ‘There never is, boy. And that’s your first lesson as a bookie’s runner. The punters sometimes win, the bookie always does.’ Still laughing, Aled left the pub and headed down to Stuart Street and the Windsor.