Locked rooms - Laurie R. King [114]
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the band-leader purred to the crowd, “the Blue Tiger is just thrilled to present, fresh from her triumphal tour of Paris, Berlin, and New York, our own home-town girl . . . Miss Belinda Birdsong!”
The singer with the unlikely name appeared in a sudden burst of spotlight, dressed in a shimmer of white, head bowed; the hall erupted in applause, cat-calls, hoots, and intoxicated laughter. It was evident that Miss Birdsong was well known here. And as soon as she opened her mouth to sing and the sound died down a bit, it became clear why.
She was a Personality, in the tradition of Lily Langtry and the like who had come to the city through the dance-halls and cabarets of the West. Pretty if not beautiful, saucy yet preserving an air of innocence, Miss Birdsong had the crowded hall wrapped around her nicely manicured little finger. And I had to laugh myself, when I recognised her first song—I'd heard just that tune coming from a peculiar dive in Delhi some weeks before, a 'Nineties ditty about a bird in a golden cage.
It was apparently her trademark song, because the patrons made no attempt to dance to it, even those already out on the dance-floor. Instead, they hung on her every syllable and note. When it ended, a wave of cheers arose that put the earlier cacophony in the shade; when that finally died away, the singer started another song, and this time, the couples on the floor started to move.
I knew none of the modern dances and would have sat most of them out, but Flo would not permit it, and demanded that Donny pull me out onto the floor. That night I learnt the ridiculously satisfying moves of the Charleston, as well as several variations, and between the various males in our party, and later from adjoining tables, I spent a respectable time gyrating beneath the lights. It is a dance of unbridled energy, making it impossible to feel anything but strong and filled with the invulnerability of youth. It was breathless and pointless and fun, and the thirsty work of it made the champagne flow. In time, another singer took Miss Birdsong's place, a rather raw-boned female with an uncertain voice and a practiced line in raunchy jokes, but then the local heroine returned, wearing scarlet sequins this time, and saw out the rest of the night.
I was, truth to tell, disappointed to call the evening to an end. Donny drove us all (or mostly all—I thought we numbered fewer than we had, and a couple of those newcomers) to Flo's house, where he opened cupboards and drawers with the readiness of long practice and whipped up cheese omelettes, after which Flo hacked uneven wedges off a slightly stale cake and served them with a bowl of strawberries dipped in sugar, and mugs of cocoa.
In the end, Donny piled the rest of us back into his blue Rolls and drove through a city where only the milkmen and paper boys were stirring. When I walked into the dim hotel, I looked around for the clock, and found to my astonishment that it was nearly four in the morning.
Holmes was still awake, so we'd talked for a while before turning out the lights. I was too elevated to sleep much, and rose a few hours later to take a walk through the waking city. It was very beautiful, San Francisco, its uneven terrain and highly varied inhabitants making it both distinctive and worldly. It resembled London, in that it seemed to be made up of hamlets that had been joined but which had not lost their individuality. Here, however, the air was clean, the buildings fresh, and working men met one's eye straight on (an egalitarian reaction one tended to find only in the docks area of the English capital).
I came back to find Holmes, astonishingly, still abed. And also, unfortunately, watching me as if I were about to relapse into the previous afternoon's quivering mass. The only answer to that sort of concern is to assume a brisk manner and an assertion