End of the Pier Show

End of the Pier Show(Sue Wilkinson) The incoming tide flowed in rhythm to the song Edie was humming as she walked along the seafront to the pier and its domed, doomed theatre.
Somewhere beyond the sea,
Somewhere waiting for me,
My lover stands on golden sands
And watches the ships that go sailing.
Somewhere beyond the sea ...

Edie stopped and leaned on the rusting, peeling railings which ran the length of the pier. The arcade lights along the foreshore were on and the beam from the lighthouse on the cliff spun, making the breeze-rippled sea where it hit silver. Edie watched the beam revolve, its light passing somewhere above her, like a mal-functioning spotlight.
She took out a hip flask from her leather handbag and took a sip of the sharp gin. She then took out a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches. She lit the cigarette, took a deep drag and blew out the smoke slowly: contemplating, life and death, when you were 70-something death was something you thought about, that and times past and changed.
The sun was setting orange, late September, autumn going out in a blaze of glory, a stark winter waiting in the wings. Edie walked past the posters for ‘The Summer Spectacular’ - faded and browned by the wind and rain and, occasional, outburst of sun. It had been a typical British summer: gales, floods and coach-loads of pensioners suffering from the Norwalk virus. It was the last night of the show and then the Gaiety would be closed, for good. The bulldozers would move in and a casino built where it now stood. It’s what people wanted, so the developers and town planners said. Summer shows were old fashioned and no longer made money. There were easier ways to part the punters from their pounds and a casino was one of them.


Edie went in to the theatre through the stage door. Letters had fallen off the sign above the door so instead of reading Artistes Only it read Ar..s.es only. It always made Edie smile, sadly. The doorman Albert, sitting on a stool behind the desk, looked up from his newspaper. He was eating, the noise of a sweet sucked through his false teeth and munched in slapping gums sounded like a blocked vacuum cleaner.
“Quality Street, the purple ones, my favourites but the nuts play havoc with my dentures,” he said to Edie, answering her look of disgust. “Daughter bought me a tin for my birthday.” “Many in?” she asked, same question every night throughout the season, always asked as she signed the register. In case of fire management needed to know who was there. She doubted Denis would bother to count, but she thought she had better register, an interest in being checked on that she was still alive.
“You know,” said Albert with a shrug. The same answer every time.
“You mean it’s as empty as a pit village in colliers’ fortnight,” said Edie. “Put us all out of our misery when they close this place,” she said.
“You’ll miss it,” said Albert.
“Difference is, it won’t miss me,” said Edie, putting down the pen and making her way up the stairs to her dressing room.
Before she went in, she straightened the star with her name on it, which had fallen, lopsided off the nail. Entering, she put her bag down on the lumpy sofa, took off her Dior coat, despite the quality it was now threadbare, and poured herself a gin and tonic from the bottles on the tray on top of the fridge. Picking up the bottle of Yves St Laurent from her dressing table she sprayed it round the room, masking the stale smell of damp.
“God, darling, I’ve seen better days,” said Edie, flopping into an armchair and raising her
glass to a framed photograph of a man dressed in a tuxedo and bow-tie standing on her dressing table.
“You’ll never guess what,” said Shiraz, who breezed through the door like a hurricane sweeping away everything in her wake. Shiraz was the lead dancer from Three in Step who formed the show’s chorus line and support for the Elvis impersonator Perfectly Presley. Shiraz was also Toby Worthington-Guthrie’s – Elvis’s real name - lover. Without pausing for breath or reply, she said: “The cops are only digging up Mike’s patio ... king of the keyboards? Killer of the keyboards more like,” she said. “He’s killed his wife and daughter.
“Come in, darling, why don’t you?” Edie said sitting up right.
“Sorry, Ede, but I had to tell someone, and Toby isn’t interested, he’s too busy sewing sequins on his Elvis suit. I said to him, Tobe, no-one can see there’s a few missing, but you know Tobe, he will never be a few sequins short of an Elvis.”
“They’re rumours darling, about Mike, he wouldn’t hurt anyone. The only thing he’s ever murdered is a tune,” said Edie, getting up, refreshing her drink and pouring Shiraz one. Shiraz took the glass.
“It’s going round Morrisons, so it must be true,” she said, knocking back the gin and tonic in one gulp and handing the glass back to Edie. “More gin with the next one, please,” she said, and went on, “Have you seen who the Spa has got for its pantomime, that’s right, queen of the missed cues. She was in Whoops, There Goes My Reputation, that farce last summer, curtain up, drawers down, went off with the leading man. They’re separated now.”
“He got a leg over and she got a leg up, it’s the business, darling,” said Edie.
“Well, he can’t get herpes now, not from her anyway and she has offers coming out of her ....”
“I did panto, played the wicked queen in Snow White four years in a row,” Edie said interrupting and handing Shiraz her drink, “But I got too,” This time Shiraz cut in and said: “Old?”
Edie blanched. “Nice!” she said.
Instead of sitting back down, Edie went behind her screen and started getting ready for the show. As she did, Shiraz walked round the small dressing room picking up photographs and trinkets, as she had a dozen times before.
“I can’t believe this is you,” said Shiraz holding up a photograph, though Edie could not see it. “You’re wearing that necklace you always wear,” she said as way of explanation. Behind the screen, Edie ran her fingers over the diamond necklace; it was reassuring, evidence of a more glorious, glamorous past.
“That’s me, Ken Dodd, Bruce Forsyth and Matt Monroe, at the London Palladium. We brought the house down every Sunday. They don’t put shows on like that anymore,” she said.
“Thank god”, Shiraz said too quietly for Edie to hear. “Tobe and me are off to London when this show closes. Tobe said it’s the place to be if we’re going to make it.”
“Be careful, darling, just because you love Toby it doesn’t follow that he loves you back,” said Edie.
“The reason he hasn’t taken me home is that he said his father would think I was a bottle of red wine to accompany dinner not his girlfriend. I said ‘Tobe you know Shiraz isn’t my real name, I took it from a bottle of wine when I stacked shelves in Tesco cos I thought it sounded more refined than Sharon’.”
“It’s not because he’s a lord of the manor and a magistrate who put your brothers in prison then?” said Edie.
“All they did was take a few things from a skip. Where’s the crime in that?” said Shiraz.
“It’s called theft, darling,” Edie said coming from behind the screen. The grey velour track suit had been replaced by a Hardy Amies taffeta and silk, black and silver gown. Edie sat down at her dressing table and Shiraz continued her walk round the dressing room. She picked up the photograph of the man in the tuxedo Edie had been talking to earlier.
“Have you ever been in love, Ede?” she asked.
Edie took the photograph from her, looked at it and said: “Yes, always with the right man at the wrong time.” She put the photograph back in its place on the dressing table.
“You still planning on putting yourself in that care home when the show closes?” said Shiraz.
“It’s a residential home, there is a difference, I’m not senile,” said Edie, starting to put on her make-up. “What’s the alternative, teaming up with Mike and doing the hotels? Can you really see me dueting You’re the One That I Want to a coachload of tee-totalers?”
“Stick with Mike and you’ll be playing Wakefield Prison,” said Shiraz.
“They wanted me for Grease, but I was too ...”
“Sexy?” said Shiraz.
“Old,” said Edie to her reflection as she put on her wig to complete the transformation to the ‘chanteuse of the coast’.
Edie waited with Shiraz and Toby in the wings of the Gaiety stage. They were watching the Summer Spectacular compere Finetime ‘Sunny Side Up’ Fontayne’ make a spectacle of himself, again. Finetime was a former binman and was to comedy what Jordan was to decency.
“I can’t watch,” said Toby turning away from the stage, “He’s bound to make a fool of himself. Remember that matinee? It had lashed it down for three weeks, there were flood warnings, sandbags against every door on the foreshore, row after row of pensioners in rain hats and macs and what did Finetime go on and sing? The Sun Has Got His Hat On.”
“He’s always been a punchline short of a joke,” said Edie.
From the stage, Finetime said: “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight is our last show,” he paused for a sympathetic, collective groan from the stalls but all he got was a lone ‘Hurrah!”. Despite it Finetime continued: “Because we won’t be together at this time of year, I’d like to end with this and if you could all join in ...”
“Oh no, he can’t possibly be going to do ...” started Toby.
From the stage Finetime, a beat in front of Mike on the keyboards, started: “Sleigh bells ring are you listening,” and sang it out to the bitterly cold end of a winter wonderland. He bowed to no applause and then announced Toby and the dancers.
“Put your hands together, but don’t stand on his blue suede shoes cos he just wants to be your teddy bear, and welcome Perfectly Presley,” Finetime said loudly and then, as an afterthought, “With Three In Step.”
“There they go,” Edie said, nodding to the dancers, to Finetime as he joined her in the wings, “girls in laddered stockings, pushed up bras and full of hope singing about things they know nothing about. They’ll get their hearts broken and then they’ll learn.”
“Sunny side up,” said Finetime. “It’s not just my catchphrase, you know, it’s how I look at things,” he said as Edie sighed. “I became a comedian after my wife left me to cheer myself up. She said she couldn’t stand the smell of me anymore and went off with a fish and chip shop owner.”
Edie patted his arm and said: “No accounting for taste or smell. What you going to do when the show closes?”
“Back on the bins for me,” he said. “From Finetime to waste of time, get it?”
Edie smiled, thinly, and said: “Yes, that’s very good.”
Former miner and war veteran Arthur Mills sat in the stalls next to Tiffany, an 18-year-old care assistant from the residential home, the Bide Awhile, he now lived in. He knew it was a name that hedged its bets, it wanted you to stay but was not sure how long you would be around, but he was content with the sea view and company. On the stage Finetime was introducing Edie.
“This next act is why we’ve come, Tiff,” he said, “She’s a knock-out. I courted my Dora to her, we saw her at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool. Her first number is a knock-out, she always opens with it.”
“Terrific,” said Tiffany unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. So far she had seen a comedian who was not funny, Myster-E, a magician who had failed to pull off the disappearing act when the trap door stuck, an Elvis impersonator, whoever Elvis was, so she had no idea whether he was any good, a chorus line with three girls in it and a keyboard player who seemed to know only one tune and that was I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside. Her hopes were not high. The lights went down and then the spotlight spun, wavered a little, and then found Edie. Edie nodded to Mike in the orchestra pit and started to sing.
Never know how much I love you
Never know how much I care
When you put your arms around me
I get a fever that's so hard to bear
“Wow,” said Tiffany.
“Told you she was a knock-out,” said Arthur, clapping loudly, trying to sound like a full audience, for Edie and old times’ sake.
Edie sat in her dressing room. Back in her track suit, she was sitting in her chair drinking a gin and tonic. A bin liner full of her possessions from the dressing room was propped up against the door. The photograph of the man in the tuxedo was the only item left on her dressing table. She was talking to it as she finished her drink.
“Just one more for the road,” she said raising the glass. “The show’s over. Mike hit all the right notes in the right order. Shiraz and Toby are going to make it ... they’ve just got it ... you know like I,” she trailed off and took a sip of her gin. “Mike looks like a haunted man but I can’t believe he killed his daughter, his wife maybe but his own child? I can’t see Mike as a star of a Greek tragedy. As for me, darling, the Bide Awhile here I come.” She finished her drink, rinsed out the glass in the sink next to the dressing table and put the glass in the bin bag. She also put the photograph in the bin bag, picked up the bin bag, draped her handbag over the other arm and exited.
Waiting at the stage door was Arthur and Tiffany.
“Go on,” Tiffany said, nudging Arthur as Edie came out of the stage door.
“I can’t, I don’t know what to say,” he said.
“Give’s them here,” said Tiffany taking the programme and pen off Arthur.
“Excuse me,” Tiffany called to Edie as she walked back along the pier. “Will you sign this please? He’s a fan,” she said nodding at Arthur, who was now standing by her side.
“I am,” said Arthur.
“Of course,” said Edie, putting down her bin bag, “Who do I make it out to?”
“Me,” said Arthur.
“Arthur,” said Tiffany, shrugging and raising her eyebrows as if to say, “Men!”
Edie watched them walk away as she lit a cigarette and then picking up her bag followed them. The Small Fry fish and chip shop was closing and the owner nodded at Edie as she passed. Two young girls were playing the latest arcade game in the Silver Dollar. It looked like an upright version of Twister and was being played to I Should Be So Lucky. An elderly woman, carrier bags at her feet, was sitting at a slot machine. She had a cigarette in one hand and was pumping the lever of the machine up and down with the other hand: her eyes focussed on the winning line as though her life depended on it.
Reaching the end of the pier, Edie put down her things and leaned against the railings. One by one, she watched the seafront lights go out. She flicked her cigarette butt into the sea and watched it fizzle out. The lighthouse beam was still rotating and casting its light across the sea, its beam missing Edie, hitting a spot above her head.
Edie started singing, the rhythm in time to the tide, now on the ebb.
Somewhere beyond the sea
He's there watching for me
If I could fly like birds on high
Then straight to his arms
I'd go sailin'
It's far beyond the stars, It's near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon

We'll meet beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailin'