Old Mrs Kelly waddled into the cavernous living room with the tea-tray. Pam watched through the eyes in the dog-suit, fascinated. Every time Auntie Olive’s mother opened her mouth her yellow teeth bounced up and down; the house stank of her and the laddered stockings that bound her straggly hair. It was hot inside the dog; she heard Auntie Olive saying,
“She looks perfect, doesn’t she, Margie?” then, “Pam dear, do your bark.”
Pam did a brilliant bark. Once she had set all the dogs off in Chester. Her mew bothered the Gateshead cats. She could scream with seagulls, whinny at horses, croon to her uncle’s hens ... and next week she was Doggie In The Window at the Tynemouth dancing display. The suit fitted; the yaps from within, somewhat muffled, drew gratifying applause. Olive was pouring tea.
“Margie, can we try her in the tutu? It may need taking in.”
Her mother reached across to another worn armchair and lifted a froth of bluebell-coloured organza.
“There are still some pins in it, so be careful.”
“Mummy, when I’ve tried it on can I go out and play in the field?”
“You’ve already had your picture taken out there!”
“Please!”
“Finish your tea first.”
Plain biscuits and weak Kiaora alternated with loose satin, tickly gauze and pinpricks. She would look adorable; she was going to dance to ‘Narcissus’ and every mother in the audience would sigh with delight. Her own mother’s eyes would brim with tears as years of frustration fell away and dance took centre stage again in a life throttled by middle-class marriage.
One day near the end of that life, Marjorie told her daughter what she had been... ‘sixpence a dance.’
Up to that point she never had the courage to come out with it; it seemed shameful.
“I was a professional partner.” She looked anxiously for the reaction. “All the best dance bands came to Hammersmith Palais and there were always people who didn’t know how to dance, or had no partner - so I was paid to dance with them...”
“But that’s wonderful, Mum! No wonder you taught me so well! Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“You might have thought ... well ... we weren’t considered very respectable.”
It was true; the girls had a reputation, but this was quite unjustified. In fact many of their contracted twenty-five dances a night were with other women, as so many men had been lost in the Great War. Marjorie was rescued from her questionable milieu by an ambitious, newly-divorced business-man.
They married in a blizzard, and began family life amid Hitler’s bombs. Two years in Glasgow turned their small mimic into a broad Scot; now on Tyneside her versatile little voice was being stripped back to perfect BBC as she and her mother conspired to unleash the inner performer.
“Out you go then, Pam. Don’t go too far from the house, now.”
It was June. At the end of the garden the ground sloped away in an endless field of sweet grasses and wild lupins. The little girl was swallowed up in all this sweetness, enchanted by sunlight dancing among the stems, the tiny buzzing and rustling life all round her, the intoxicating hot peppery spires of blue and purple flowers. For a while she hid there, keeping perfectly still, watching iridescent flies that darted from plant to plant, and minute beetles hurrying on unfathomable errands amid the grass-roots. She wandered on through the tall stems, her fingertips stroking the silky fur on swollen lupin pods she had put in her pocket. The magic forest drew her deeper into itself, drew her downhill, further and further from the edge of Percy Main. Her mother was forgotten; and now the lupins were thinning as summer sunshine blazed through them from the polished steel of a railway line.
Fred glanced up from his work. Something was moving in the glare beyond the wide doorway. Squinting, he thought he could see a child. Surely not. He stretched himself and strode through the clangour of the engine shed into the bright June sun. A little girl in a summer frock was walking down the glittering lines toward him. No trains were moving - she was perfectly safe. But what on earth was she doing down here without an adult? She couldn’t be more than six years old. Where had she come from? He ran toward her.
“Hallo? Little girl, what are you doing down here all on your own?”
The man in his greasy overalls now towered over her. Pam beamed at him.
“Hallo! I’m exploring. Who are you?”
“My name’s Fred. What’s yours?”
“I’m Pam.”
Pam knew she didn’t need to be shy. Men were friendly. When they were living in Glasgow they had men staying with them in the flat over the back green. They spoke in a funny language and Mummy and Daddy were very nice to them, so she was nice to them too. When she met one on the landing in the morning she would greet him with “Hallo darling!” - utterly unaware of how she charmed him, and how warm were the letters of thanks from Poland after World War 2.
“Where have you come from, Pam?”
“My Auntie lives over there. In that big house. My Mummy’s there. I’ve come out for a walk.”
“Who is your Auntie, Pam?”
“Auntie Olive. She lives with Mrs Kelly. She’s my dancing teacher.”
Relief swept over Fred. He would be able to take her straight back to the bosom of her family. But she was staring through the door of the engine shed with her mouth open in awe.
“What’s in there?”
“That’s where we look after the trains.”
“Can I see?”
“Are you sure your Mummy won’t mind?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Come with me, then, Pam, and I’ll show you inside.” He took her small hand and together they picked their way along the sleepers and into the massive building. It was full of ... wheels as big as buses! ... bodies of engines, pieces of engines, cabs, pistons, boilers, cylinders, coupling rods, drive shafts ... unimaginably huge chunks of clanging iron and ringing steel that filled the small girl with excitement. This was a real railway, not the silly circle of track with its one toy train that her father had bought her one Christmas. More tall men were crossing the engine-shed floor.
“What’ve you got there Fred?”
“We have a visitor! This is Pam; she’s staying at the Kellys.”
“Hallo Pam! Do you like trains?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to sit in a cab?” The foreman was smiling down at her. Why not give the little girl a treat?
Another big, oily hand took hers and led her through the maze of towering metal to a whole train, with its cab, a tender, trucks ... everything.
“We’ve got steam up to get this one out in a few minutes. Would you like a ride on the footplate, Pam?”
A ride in a train! In the cab, with the driver!
“Yes please,” she said very politely, eyes shining.
“Up we go then!”
Pam was hoisted into the driving cab. Her frock was smudged with oil from Fred’s overalls and the helpful hands. She beamed at the driver who had climbed in before her and now fed the firebox till it roared.
“You know what we have to do now, Pam? “
“No?”
“Before an engine moves off, we have to blow the whistle. Twice.”
“Why?”
“So that other people know we’re coming. Like your Daddy’s car horn.”
“He doesn’t toot very often.”
“Well, we have to. Now, Pam - would you like to blow the whistle?”
Oh, she would love to! What a thrill!
“Take the end of this pull-cord, Pam, and give it two really good long tugs, now.”
She grasped the cord in two small and very hot hands, and yanked it with all her might. The most glorious sound filled the cab, the entire sidings, the June air .. Whooooo-whooooo!
“Now we can go.” The steam regulator was open; the engine moved down the tracks and gathered speed.
“And again, Pam!”
Marjorie and Olive heard the whistle as they chatted over a G&T in the strewn and musty lounge.
“I suppose you get a lot of that, living here?”
“You don’t notice it, really, Margie. Want a top-up?”
A couple of refills later Olive said,
“I wonder where Pam’s got to?”
“Good Lord - she’s been gone over an hour!”
The two women rushed into the tangled garden - no Pam. Through the fence, into the mess of grass and weeds, calling... screaming...
“She’s been here - look, follow the bent stems. Pam! Pam !”
As they emerged onto the sidings a small shape and a much taller one emerged from the engine-sheds.
A beaming child and a laughing railwayman made their way over the tracks to the stricken women.
“I think this is yours!” said Fred.
“I don’t want to dance; I want to be a train driver when I grow up!” said Pam.