THE CABARET

A cheesy early kind of music hall at the Maison de L'amour

THE COACHMAN'S HOLIDAY- 8

THE CABARET

“Well, now that you’re here, sweet daughter of mine, I’ve a job for you,” grunted driver Dave Wasp, “I’m giving the outside of the coach a fair bit of spit and polish, and you can do the same for the insides. You know, dust the seats where the fat brothers were sitting and generally tidy up a bit. There’s nothing so pleasing as a nice, tidy coach.”

“Yes, daddy,” replied Jane, smiling as sweetly as only daughters can.

“Then, tonight, I might forget you’re only fourteen and let you come to the show with me,” added David, wondering if he was saying the right thing and making a proper suggestion. After all the Maison de L’amour wasn’t famous for the innocence of its activities but rather for the risqué performances of some of its exuberant show people. This was the beginnings of cabaret in the seaside resort of Skegness whilst it was still in its infancy, and similar coastal towns around the country would eventually follow suit.

And the show that evening was no exce

ption to what had become the rule for the Maison de L’amour. The owner and producer of its extravaganzas, Countess Hope, saw to that!

The first warning that things might be a little on the adult side came when the bar opened and two barmaids dressed in almost nothing and with the cheeriest of smiles on their painted faces started pulling pints of strong local ale and dropping coins into a primitive fore-runner of what would eventually become a till. And because of their demure appearance and exposed flesh nobody appeared to notice that the prices were somewhat high.

“I think this is a bit raunchy for you, Jane,” whispered Dave to his daughter, “I don’t want you to get the idea that all women are good for is teasing the menfolk with their pert little bodies and smiling even when all they want to do is weep.”

“I’m not daft, dad,” replied Jane, “I know about stuff!”

What manner of stuff did I know about when I was fourteen? wondered her father and decided not much, but instead of taking her outside where she might remain sweet and innocent he edged her to a bench seat against one wall where there was what he thought adequate distance between her youthful charm and what might happen on the stage during the evening.

And what happened was the show.

Countess Hope entered the dimly lit stage from a hidden door, and rarely has such an extravaganza been seen on Mother Earth. She had feathery plumage on her lower half that imitated the tail of some large and colourful bird and she pranced about the stage like a peacock in drag. Lacy multi-coloured drapes formed a kind of skirt, one that shimmered as she moved, reflecting every shade of light that the candles and oil lamps that were concentrated on the stage shone her way. But it wasn’t that or the marvellous head-dress, also of feathers and also colourfully diaphanous, that made Dave gulp but the very fact that she was totally topless.

“This is too much,” he stammered at Jane. “Don’t look!”

“I can’t help it,” she grinned mischievously back at him, “and anyway that trollop hasn’t got anything I won’t have before long, but mine’ll be better!”

“That’s enough of that kind of talk!” he snapped.

“Sorry daddy,” she cooed, “but shush, what’s she doing?”

Countess Hope was indeed doing something. She had stepped off her small stage and was circling amongst the audience, which had by then swelled to include more natives of the village than visitors to it, and she clapped one hand on the shoulder of a thin, wiry man who was clearly trying to give the impression that he was anywhere but in the Maison de L’amour. But small he might have been, invisible he was not.

“It’s that Harry man!” squeaked Jane.

And it was. Harry was dressed very much after the fashion of the day, which means he was considerably overdressed bearing in mind the time of the year and the fact that Skegness was basking under a balmy July sun. Night may well have been falling by then, but the room they were in encouraged sweating by the men, perspiration by the women and glowing by the more refined folk. Yet they all seemed to think they needed layers of clothing, more even than a desire for modesty would demand.

“What’s she doing, dad?” asked Jane.

“She’s dragging him onto the stage,” replied her father, “look!”

Three dancers, unfeathered and virtually undressed, had joined them on the tiny stage, and they started gyrating round as a musician started tinkling on a harpsichord in front of the stage, engulfing the protesting shape of Harry with fleshy bits of them he hadn’t previously suspected might exist, nudging him with every conceivable part of their bodies as they moved to the tinkling music.

He started off by showing embarrassment on every line of his face, and proceeded to go through annoyance towards anger. When sober he was a quiet, placidly offensive little man, and when he was intoxicated he was a noisy, vigorously offensive little man … and he was becoming increasingly intoxicated as Countess Hope held a jug of strong liquor in one hand and encouraged him to sup of it.

“He’s going to fall over, dad,” whispered Jane.

“I’m only glad it’s not me,” replied Dave.

And Harry might have fallen unconscious to the ground as the dancers danced, but their bodies, nudging him and supporting him, kept him just about upright. His head started flopping, his knees wobbling, his eyes closing, as the musician reached a crescendo, standing up in order to coax the loudest possible notes from his harpsichord whilst the dancers adopted the kind of pose a dying swan might adopt in a finer establishment than the one in which they were performing, and Harry finally collapsed to the stage floor, gurgling in joy and shouting in anger, both at the same time.

It was time for a drag artist to perform. A middle-aged man in a short frock and with a bouffant wig that towered above him, lips made up like crimson lightning tearing across his face and eyes blackened to the point of being lost in all the make-up.

“Hello darlings,” he called in a husky voice, the product of many years’ seafaring in the fishing industry, which was the main source of income at the time for such coastal villages as Skegness.

He wasn’t funny and he wasn’t much good, his patter was, at its best, banal, but the sight of his knobbly knees when he raised his skirts was enough to send the audience into paroxysms of drunken delight.

“He’s crap, dad,” murmured Jane, but Driver Dave was laughing with such intensity at almost nothing that he didn’t hear her.

At which point Annie Anon slid onto the bench seat next to her.

“I’ve got a proposal for you, my dear” she whispered, “do you want to hear it?”

“Anything but this rubbish,” replied Jane.

“Come outside, then, and I’ll tell you,” whispered Annie, “and don’t let on to your dad. Not yet, anyway. But I’ll tell you now: it could well be the making of you. Yes, my dear, it could! I’m too old to think a great deal about my own future, but you, my dear, you need dreams!”

And the two of them, unnoticed by Driver Dave Wasp, slipped out of the main cabaret room of the Maison de L’amour and into the still balmy world outside its doors.

© Peter Rogerson 30.05.18