My Autobiography Page 9

  They were affable, quiet men in their late thirties, but looked and acted much older. The boss (as we called him) had a diabetic red nose and no upper teeth except one fang. Yet there was a gentle sweetness about his face. He had a ridiculous grin that exposed prodigiously his one tooth. When short of an extra teacup he would pick up an empty milk-tin, rinse it and, grinning, say: ‘How’s this for one?’ The other man, though agreeable, was quiet, sallow-faced, thick-lipped and talked slowly. Around one o’clock the boss would look up at me: ‘Have yer ever tasted Welsh rarebit made of cheese rinds?’

  ‘We’ve had it many times,’ I replied.

  Then with a chortle and a grin he would give me twopence, and I would go to Ashe’s, the tea grocers on the corner, who liked me and always gave me a lot for my money, and buy a pennyworth of cheese rinds and a pennyworth of bread. After washing and scraping the cheese we would add water and a little salt and pepper. Sometimes the boss would throw in a piece of bacon fat and a sliced onion, which together with a can of hot tea made a very appetizing meal.

  Although I never asked for money, at the end of the week the boss gave me sixpence, which was a pleasant surprise.

  Joe, the sallow-faced one, suffered from fits and the boss would burn brown paper under his nose to bring him to. Sometimes he would foam at the mouth and bite his tongue, and when he recovered would look pathetic and ashamed.

  The wood-choppers worked from seven in the morning until seven at night, sometimes later, and I always felt sad when they locked up the shed and went home. One night the boss decided to treat us to a twopenny gallery seat at the South London Music Hall. Joe and I were already washed and cleaned up, waiting for the boss. I was thrilled because Fred Karno’s comedy Early Birds (the company I joined years later) was playing there that week. Joe was leaning against the wall of the mews and I was standing opposite him, enthusiastic and excited, when suddenly he let out a roar and slid down sideways against the wall in one of his fits. The anticipation had been too much. The boss wanted to stay and look after him, but Joe insisted that the two of us go without him and that he would be all right in the morning.

  The threat of school was an ogre that never left me. Once in a while the wood-choppers would question me about it. They became a little uneasy when the holidays were over, so I would stay away from them until four-thirty, when school was let out. But it was a long, lonely day in the glare of incriminating streets, waiting until four-thirty to get back to my shadow retreat and the wood-choppers.

  While I was creeping up to bed one night the landlady called me. She had been sitting up waiting. She was all excited and handed me a telegram. It read: ‘Will arrive ten o’clock tomorrow morning at Waterloo Station. Love, Sydney.’

  I was not an imposing sight to greet him at the station. My clothes were dirty and torn, my shoes yawned and the lining of my cap showed like a woman’s dropping underskirt; and what face-washing I did was at the wood-choppers’ tap, because it saved me having to carry a pail of water up three flights of stairs and pass the landlady’s kitchen. When I met Sydney the shades of night were in my ears and around my neck.

  Looking me over, he said: ‘What’s happened?’

  I did not break the news too gently. ‘Mother went insane and we had to send her to the infirmary.’

  His face clouded, but he checked himself. ‘Where are you living?’

  ‘The same place, Pownall Terrace.’

  He turned away to look after his baggage. I notice he looked pale and gaunt. He ordered a brougham and the porters piled his luggage on top of it – amongst other things a crate of bananas!

  ‘Is that ours?’ I asked eagerly.

  He nodded. ‘They’re too green; we’ll have to wait a day or so before we can eat them.’

  On the way home he began asking questions about Mother. I was too excited to give him a coherent account, but he got snatches. Then he told me he had been left behind in a hospital in Cape Town for medical treatment and that on the return trip he had made twenty pounds, money he looked forward to giving Mother. He had made it from the soldiers, organizing sweepstakes and lotteries.

  He told me of his plans. He intended giving up the sea and becoming an actor. He figured that the money would keep us for twenty weeks, in which time he would seek work in the theatre.

  Our arrival in a cab with a crate of bananas impressed both the neighbours and the landlady. She told Sydney about Mother, but did not go into harrowing details.

  The same day Sydney went shopping and outfitted me with new clothes, and that night, all dressed up, we sat in the stalls of the South London Music Hall. During the performance Sydney kept repeating: ‘Just think what tonight would have meant to Mother.’

  That week we went to Cane Hill to see her. As we sat in the visiting room, the ordeal of waiting became almost unbearable. I remember the keys turning and Mother walking in. She looked pale and her lips were blue, and, although she recognized us, it was without enthusiasm; her old ebullience had gone. She was accompanied by a nurse, an innocuous, glib woman, who stood and wanted to talk. ‘It’s a pity you came at such a time,’ she said, ‘for we’re not quite ourselves today, are we, dear?’

  Mother politely glanced at her and half smiled as though waiting for her to leave.

  ‘You must come again when we’re a little more up to the mark,’ added the nurse.

  Eventually she went, and we were left alone. Although Sydney tried to cheer Mother up, telling her of his good fortune and the money he had made and his reason for having been away so long, she just sat listening and nodding, looking vague and preoccupied. I told her that she would soon get well. ‘Of course,’ she said dolefully, ‘if only you had given me a cup of tea that afternoon, I would have been all right.’

  The doctor told Sydney afterwards that her mind was undoubtedly impaired by malnutrition, and that she required proper medical treatment, and that although she had lucid moments, it would be months before she completely recovered. But for days I was haunted by her remark: ‘If only you had given me a cup of tea I would have been all right.’

  five

  JOSEPH CONRAD wrote to a friend to this effect: that life made him feel like a cornered blind rat waiting to be clubbed. This simile could well describe the appalling circumstances of us all; nevertheless, some of us are struck with good luck, and that is what happened to me.

  I had been newsvendor, printer, toy-maker, glass-blower, doctor’s boy etc., but during these occupational digressions, like Sydney, I never lost sight of my ultimate aim to become an actor. So between jobs I would polish my shoes, brush my clothes, put on a clean collar and make periodical calls at Blackmore’s theatrical agency in Bedford Street off the Strand. I did this until the state of my clothes forbade any further visits.

  The first time I went there, the office was adorned with immaculately dressed Thespians of both sexes, standing about talking grandiloquently to each other. With trepidation I stood in a far corner near the door, painfully shy, trying to conceal my weatherworn suit and shoes slightly budding at the toes. From the inner office a young clerk sporadically appeared and like a reaper would cut through the Thespian hauteur with the laconic remark: ‘Nothing for you – or you – or you’ – and the office would clear like the emptying of a church. On one occasion I was left standing alone! When the clerk saw me he stopped abruptly. ‘What do you want?’

  I felt like Oliver Twist asking for more. ‘Have you any boys’ parts?’ I gulped.

  ‘Have you registered?’

  I shook my head.

  To my surprise he ushered me into the adjoining office and took my name and address and all particulars, saying that if anything came up he would let me know. I left with a pleasant sense of having performed a duty, but also rather thankful that nothing had come of it.

  And now one month after Sydney’s return I received a postcard. It read: ‘Would you call at Blackmore’s agency, Bedford Street, Strand?’

  In my new suit I was ushered into the very presenc
e of Mr Blackmore himself, who was all smiles and amiability. Mr Blackmore, whom I had imagined to be all-mighty and scrutinizing, was most kindly and gave me a note to deliver to Mr C. E. Hamilton at the offices of Charles Frohman.

  Mr Hamilton read it and was amused and surprised to see how small I was. Of course I lied about my age, telling him I was fourteen – I was twelve and a half. He explained that I was to play Billie, the page-boy in Sherlock Holmes, for a tour of forty weeks which was to start in the autumn.

  ‘In the meantime,’ said Mr Hamilton, ‘there is an exceptionally good boy’s part in a new play Jim, the Romance of a Cockney, written by Mr H. A. Saintsbury, the gentleman who is to play the title role in Sherlock Holmes on the forthcoming tour.’ Jim would be produced in Kingston for a trial engagement, prior to the tour of Holmes. The salary was two pounds ten shillings a week, the same as I would get for Sherlock Holmes.

  Although the sum was a windfall I never batted an eye. ‘I must consult my brother about the terms,’ I said solemnly.

  Mr Hamilton laughed and seemed highly amused, then brought out the whole office staff to have a look at me. ‘This is our Billie! What do you think of him?’

  Everyone was delighted and smiled beamingly at me. What had happened? It seemed the world had suddenly changed, had taken me into its fond embrace and adopted me. Then Mr Hamilton gave me a note to Mr Saintsbury, whom he said I would find at the Green Room Club in Leicester Square, and I left, walking on clouds.

  The same thing happened at the Green Room Club, Mr Saintsbury calling out other members to have a look at me. Then and there he handed me the part of Sammy, saying that it was one of the important characters in his play. I was a little nervous for fear he might ask me to read it on the spot, which would have been embarrassing as I was almost unable to read; fortunately he told me to take it home and read it at leisure, as they would not be starting rehearsals for another week.

  I went home on the bus dazed with happiness and began to get the full realization of what had happened to me. I had suddenly left behind a life of poverty and was entering a long-desired dream – a dream my mother had often spoken about, had revelled in. I was to become an actor! It had all come so suddenly, so unexpectedly. I kept thumbing the pages of my part – it had a new brown paper cover – the most important document I have ever held in my life. During the ride on the bus I realized I had crossed an important threshold. No longer was I a nondescript of the slums; now I was a personage of the theatre, I wanted to weep.

  Sydney’s eyes were filmy when I told him what had happened. He sat crouched on the bed, thoughtfully looking out of the window, shaking and nodding his head; then said gravely: ‘This is the turning point of our lives. If only Mother was here to enjoy it with us.’

  ‘Think of it,’ I continued, enthusiastically. ‘Forty weeks at two pounds ten. I told Mr Hamilton you attended to all business matters, so,’ I added eagerly, ‘we might even get more. Anyway, we can save sixty pounds this year!’

  After our enthusiasm had simmered down we reasoned that two pounds ten was hardly enough for such a big part. Sydney went to see if he could raise the ante – ‘there’s no harm in trying,’ I said – but Mr Hamilton was adamant. ‘Two pounds ten is the maximum,’ he said – and we were happy to get it.

  Sydney read the part to me and helped me to memorize the lines. It was a big part, about thirty-five sides, but I knew it all by heart in three days.

  The rehearsals of Jim took place in the upstairs foyer of the Drury Lane Theatre. Sydney had so zealously coached me that I was almost word-perfect. Only one word bothered me. The line was: ‘Who do you think you are – Mr Pierpont Morgan?’ and I would say: ‘Putterpint Morgan’. Mr Saintsbury made me keep it in. Those first rehearsals were a revelation. They opened up a new world of technique. I had no idea that there was such a thing as stage-craft, timing, pausing, a cue to turn, to sit, but it came naturally to me. Only one fault Mr Saintsbury corrected: I moved my head and ‘mugged’ too much when I talked.

  After rehearsing a few scenes he was astonished and wanted to know if I had acted before. What a glow of satisfaction, pleasing Mr Saintsbury and the rest of the cast! However, I accepted their enthusiasm as though it were my natural birthright.

  Jim was to be a try-out for one week at the Kingston Theatre and for another week at the Fulham. It was a melodrama patterned on Henry Arthur Jones’s Silver King: the story of an aristocrat suffering from amnesia, who finds himself living in a garret with a young flower-girl and a newspaper boy, Sammy – my part. Morally, it was all on the up and up: the girl slept in the cupboard of the garret, while the Duke, as we called him, enjoyed the couch, and I slept on the floor.

  The first act was at No. 7A Devereux Court, the Temple, the chambers of James Seaton Gatlock, a wealthy lawyer. The tattered Duke, having called on his rival of a past love affair, begs for alms to help his sick benefactor, the flower-girl who had supported him during his amnesia.

  In an altercation, the villain says to the Duke: ‘Get out! Go and starve, you and your coster mistress!’

  The Duke, though frail and weak, picks up a paper-knife from the desk as if to strike the villain, but it drops from his hands on to the desk as he is stricken with epilepsy, falling unconscious at the villain’s feet. At this juncture, the villain’s ex-wife, with whom the tattered Duke was once in love, enters the room. She also pleads for the tattered Duke, saying: ‘He failed with me; he failed at the Bar! At least you can help him!’

  But the villain refuses. The scene rises to a climax, in which he accuses his ex-wife of infidelity with the derelict and denounces her also. In a frenzy she picks up the paper-knife that fell from the derelict’s hand and stabs the villain, who falls dead in his armchair, while the derelict still lies unconscious at his feet. The woman disappears from the scene, and the Duke, regaining consciousness, discovers his rival dead. ‘God, what have I done?’ says he.

  Then business follows. He searches the dead man’s pockets, finds a wallet in which he fingers several pounds, a diamond ring and jewellery, all of which he takes, and as he leaves by the window he turns, saying: ‘Goodbye, Gatlock; you did help me, after all.’ Curtain.

  The next act was the garret in which the Duke lived. The scene opened with a lone detective looking into a cupboard. I enter whistling, then stop, seeing the detective.

  NEWSBOY: Oi, you. Do you know that’s a lady’s bedroom?

  DETECTIVE: What! That cupboard? Come here!

  BOY: The cool cheek of him!

  DETECTIVE: you stow that. come in and shut the door.

  BOY [walking towards him]: Polite, ain’t you, inviting blokes into their own drawing-room?

  DETECTIVE: I’m a detective.

  BOY: What, a cop? I’m off!

  DETECTIVE: I’m not going to hurt you. All I want is a little information that will help to do someone a good turn.

  BOY: A good turn indeed! If a bit of luck comes to anyone here, it won’t be through the cops!

  DETECTIVE: Don’t be a fool. Would I have started by telling you I was in the Force?

  BOY: Thanks for nothing. I can see your boots.

  DETECTIVE: Who lives here?

  BOY: The Duke.

  DETECTIVE: Yes, but what’s his real name?

  BOY: I don’t know. The duke is a ‘nom de guerre’ as he calls it, though blow me if I know what it means.

  DETECTIVE: And what does he look like?

  BOY: As thin as a lath. Grey hair, clean shaven, wears a top hat and an eye-glass. And blimey, the way he looks at you through it!

  DETECTIVE: And Jim – who’s he?

  BOY: He? You mean she!

  DETECTIVE: Ah, then she’s the lady who –

  BOY [interrupting] : Who sleeps in the cupboard – this here room’s ours, mine and the Duke’s, etc. etc.

  There was much more to the part, and, believe it or not, it was highly amusing to the audience, due, I think, to my looking much younger than I was. Every line I spoke got a laugh. Only
mechanics bothered me: the business of making real tea on the stage. I would get confused about whether to put the tea in the pot first or the hot water. Paradoxically enough, it was easier for me to talk lines than to carry out stage business.

  Jim was not a success. The reviewers panned the play unmercifully. Nevertheless, I received favourable notices. One, which Mr Charles Rock, a member of our company, showed me, was exceptionally good. He was an old Adelphi actor of considerable reputation, and I played most of my scenes with him. ‘Young man,’ said he solemnly, ‘don’t get a swollen head when you read this.’ And after lecturing me about modesty and graciousness he read the review of the London Topical Times, which I remember word for word. After writing disparagingly of the play it continued: ‘But there is one redeeming feature, the part of Sammy, a newspaper boy, a smart London street Arab, much responsible for the comic part. Although hackneyed and old-fashioned, Sammy was made vastly amusing by Master Charles Chaplin, a bright and vigorous child actor. I have never heard of the boy before, but I hope to hear great things of him in the near future.’ Sydney bought a dozen copies.

  After completing the two week’s run of Jim, we started rehearsals for Sherlock Holmes. During this time Sydney and I were still living at Pownall Terrace, because economically we were not too sure of our footing.

  During rehearsals Sydney and I went to Cane Hill to see Mother. At first the nurses told us that she could not be seen as she was not well that day. They took Sydney aside out of my hearing, but I heard him say: ‘No, I don’t think he would.’ Then turning to me sadly: ‘You don’t want to see Mother in a padded room?’

  ‘No, no! I couldn’t bear it!’ I said, recoiling.

  But Sidney saw her, and Mother recognized him and became rational. A few minutes later a nurse told me that Mother was well enough, if I wished to see her, and we sat together in her padded room. Before leaving she took me aside and whispered forlornly: ‘Don’t lose your way, because they might keep you here.’ She remained eighteen months at Cane Hill before regaining her health. But Sydney saw her regularly while I was on tour.