Free Martha's Girls by Alrene Hughes Page B

table. She bent her head and carefully placed her fingers over the keys and buttons. Pat wondered if every note would take as long to find. Lizzie straightened up, fixed her eyes to the back of the room, took a deep breath and began to play a lively reel, tapping her foot energetically to keep time. Slowly, the pained look of concentration gave way to a bright smile and her delicate fingers danced over the keys. Soon the audience were tapping their feet too and Goldstein leaned in towards his young friend, spoke into his ear and both nodded. Lizzie finished her audition to loud applause, but by then the smile had disappeared and was replaced by her anxious look.
The Templemore Tappers were announced and there were squeals of excitement and a rustling of taffeta as they tapped-tapped on to the stage where they immediately formed a straight line with their backs to the audience. Meanwhile Peggy, who had agreed to accompany any acts who needed music, had crossed to the piano and began their introduction. There was a gasp from the audience as all six dancers bent forward from the waist to reveal their frilly black knickers. Goldstein’s mouth gaped, and from the back of the room a strong Belfast accent shouted, ‘You show ‘em, girls!’
The stage was a bit too small for their ambitious routine of fast tapping with lots of joining of arms and high kicks and at times there was some discrete pushing as they jostled for space. For the finale each dancer pirouetted in turn and ended with her arms held high. Myrtle was last in line and by the time the rest had finished, she found herself with nowhere to place her trailing foot and pirouetted off the stage landing with a thud, legs in the air, giving the front row a final look at her frilly knickers. The room erupted with loud cheers and whoops and Myrtle red-faced took her own bow from the floor as the Tappers hurried in confusion from the stage. Irene was shaking with laughter, rocking back and forth, shoving Pat. ‘Did you ever see …’ but Pat had on her affronted face.
‘Irene, for goodness sake, that’s so, so …’ She struggled to find the word.
‘What Pat … common?’ Irene could barely get the words out as she wiped away the tears.
By the time Myrtle returned to her seat she had moved from embarrassment to basking in the attention. Irene patted her on the back. ‘Well, I don’t think Goldstein will forget the Templemore Tappers in a hurry!’
‘No, not if the look on his face was anything to go by.’ Myrtle laughed. ‘Mind you, I don’t think we’re quite what he’s looking for, do you?’
Horowitz jumped on stage smiling broadly. ‘Well, that’ll be a hard act to follow! Next we have Walter Burns.’
‘Ooh, he’s a handsome man.’ Irene was watching Walter fix the wooden head on his ventriloquist’s dummy.
‘I know you’d fancy anything in trousers, Irene, but I thought even you would draw the line at a lump of wood with his head on the wrong way!’ Myrtle was out to enjoy the show, now that she’d had her audition. Walter’s dummy, Wee Shouie from the shipyard, had them all laughing so much they didn’t notice that sometimes Walter brought his hand up to his mouth to cover words beginning with the letter B. There was something about Shouie that put Pat in mind of Jimmy McComb, maybe it was the ginger hair sticking out from under his greasy cap, or the blue boiler suit and even she couldn’t help but smile at his silly notions.
There followed several more acts: dancers, singers, musicians, comedians, even conjurors and an illusionist. Some good, some dreadful, some where opinion was divided, but every one keen to be included in Goldstein’s new venture. After each performance Goldstein and Horowitz conferred and made notes.
‘Ok, it’s us next,’ said Peggy. ‘Let’s show them what the Gouldings can do!’
The opening bars of ‘Cheek to Cheek’ played, Pat and Irene swayed, picking up the rhythm and their cue as though they’d been