Veronica Lake gazed provocatively from the large poster in the glass case outside the Gaumont. Cherry gazed back, as she always did when she walked down the High Street and wished, for the thousandth time, that she had Veronica’s long flowing hair and luscious lips. ‘The Blue Dahlia’ – the very name conjured up romance. What wouldn’t she give to look even a tiny bit like Veronica, or Margaret Lockwood and Patricia Roc! She had cut out a picture of them both starring in ‘The Wicked Lady’ that she’d found on the cover of an old Picturegoer bought for a halfpenny at a jumble sale.
Cherry wasn’t sure which of these exotic creatures she liked best. All she knew was, they had one thing in common, glamour. This was something that she did not possess, and never would, in a million years. She had tried to copy Veronica’s peek-a-boo waves, but all that the torture of a headful of metal curlers had achieved was an uncomfortable night sleeping on her stomach followed by the inevitable let down in the morning when her hair dropped almost immediately into its usual straight bob.
She got little sympathy at home. When Cherry announced that, from now on, she wanted to be called Cherralyn, her brothers had burst out laughing while her mother had told her not to be so silly: “You were christened Cherry and that’s your name! Don’t you go getting ideas above your station, my girl!”
So Cherry kept her dreams to herself. She would have gone to the cinema every week if she could. But things were tight and she knew it was no use asking her mother for money to spend on ‘frivolities’ as she would have put it.
There were four of them in the family and she was the eldest. No Dad – he had been killed in France nearly two years ago, only a few months before the war ended. Cherry supposed she missed him; at least, she missed having a Dad, as opposed to her own Dad in particular. He had been away for much of the time she was growing up and her early memories were hazy. Her brothers hardly remembered him at all and Stephen, the baby, had never even met him.
What the loss of a father meant above all, it seemed to Cherry, was the loss of his wages. Mum supplemented the small pension by cleaning at the school, in the evenings, after Cherry had got home and could keep an eye on the boys. Cherry always prayed the other girls wouldn’t find out that it was her mother who cleaned up their mess – which was daft really, she knew, because they were by no means the only family on their uppers.
Mum managed to keep them all fed and clothed: she bought the cheapest vegetables and cuts of meat, made do and mended and, when it became imperative that one of the kids had a new shirt or dress, used the carefully hoarded coupons on material she found down the market that she could run up on her trusty Singer. But there was nothing left over for luxuries. The nearest Cherry got to seeing her idols was standing outside the cinema or poring over the pages of Picture Show.
When she turned fourteen, she asked if she could leave school and get a job. There was an ulterior motive in this – as well as being able to contribute to the household budget, she knew that, for the first time in her life, she would have a bit of money for herself, to spend just how she liked. But her mother would not hear of it.
“You’re certainly not leaving school! You’re going to stay on as long as I can afford it, to get the best education you can. I don’t want you ending up like me, you’re going to get a proper job, make something of yourself!”
It was useless arguing. So Cherry resigned herself to another year, at least, of childhood – and of having nothing to spend when she went round the shops with her best friend, Carol.
They were strolling down the main street one Saturday afternoon, window shopping as usual (Carol was nearly as hard up as Cherry), when Cherry’s eye was caught by a colourful display in the chemist’s. A perfectly made-up woman smiled enticingly at them, pointing to an alluring array of lipsticks. They were in a range of vivid colours – pink and orange and, most attractive of all to Cherry, deep red.
“Look, Carol! That’s just the shade Joan Crawford wears!”
“Hmm, Hollywood Crimson! More like Cherry Red, if you ask me!” Carol laughed at her own joke. She did not share her friend’s obsession with film stars.
The advertisement promised that the lipsticks would stay on ‘though you smoke, drink or kiss’. Cherry didn’t do any of those things, but the words only increased their appeal and she longed to wear Hollywood Crimson. In this drab post war world, she would feel beautiful and, yes, glamorous! Carol brought her down to earth with a bump: “Have you seen the price? 5 and 11!”
Cherry turned away; she had as much chance of owning a Hollywood Crimson as of flying to the moon!
During the following week, Cherry avoided walking past the chemist’s; there was no point in tormenting herself with something she couldn’t have. Then, Stephen, who was a sickly child, started with a cough. After two nights when he had kept them all awake, Mum sent Cherry for a bottle of linctus.
The elderly lady shop assistant greeted her with a smile. “It’s on the bottom shelf, me dear, could you get it, me back’s playing me up today.”
As Cherry bent down to reach the linctus, she saw something slim and gold that had rolled half under the shelf. It was a lipstick; it must have fallen off the display above. She picked it up and looked at it. It was a Hollywood Crimson! The temptation was too much. Before she could stop herself, Cherry slipped the lipstick into her skirt pocket, took the linctus to the counter and paid for it and hurried out of the shop, her heart pounding in case the theft – for that was what it was, she recognised that even then – was discovered.
When she arrived home, she was sure Mum would comment on her hot face, but nothing was said and she went straight up to her bedroom and took out the lipstick. No-one would notice it missing, it could have lain under there for ages, she tried to justify her out of character action. She unscrewed the top and admired the smooth red point. She tested it with her tongue and grimaced slightly at the unfamiliar taste. She sat in front of the small mirror on the chest of drawers and tentatively traced her lips, growing bolder and pressing more firmly. That was better! She looked quite different, grown up, almost like a film star!
“Cherry! Tea’s nearly ready. Come and lay the table, please!”
Cherry was about to obey when she realised that she couldn’t let her mother see her bright red lips. She rubbed at her mouth with her hanky but this had no effect. She tried scrubbing it with a damp flannel but the lipstick lived up to its promise and showed no sign of wearing off. Cherry started to panic. What would Mum say? She knew Cherry had no money and would want to know where she’d got the lipstick!
“What are you doing up there?” Mum sounded impatient. Cherry ran downstairs and hastily laid the table while Mum was busy at the stove. Then she returned to the bathroom to have another go. Eventually, her stained lips did look a bit more normal. Eating her tea helped as well.
But Cherry was now wondering when she was ever going to wear Hollywood Crimson. She had envisaged applying it when she and Carol went into town but realised that she would never get away with it; Carol would guess immediately that she had not come by it honestly. She shoved the gold case into her knicker drawer while she thought about it.
The next day, Cherry was having pangs of conscience. This, coupled with the knowledge that, in reality, she would never be able to use her precious lipstick, gave her a thumping headache, and she felt even worse when her mother showed an unaccustomed concern for the daughter who was rarely unwell.
A week passed by. Every time Cherry opened her knicker drawer, Hollywood Crimson stared up at her accusingly. She could bear it no longer. She wrapped it in a scrap of material left over from one of the boys’ shirts and pushed it deep into the rubbish in the dustbin. She watched as the dustman hoisted the bin onto his shoulder and emptied the contents into the truck. Soon, Hollywood Crimson, and a little part of Cherry’s dream, would be buried beneath a ton of refuse at the tip.
Cherry wasn’t sure which of these exotic creatures she liked best. All she knew was, they had one thing in common, glamour. This was something that she did not possess, and never would, in a million years. She had tried to copy Veronica’s peek-a-boo waves, but all that the torture of a headful of metal curlers had achieved was an uncomfortable night sleeping on her stomach followed by the inevitable let down in the morning when her hair dropped almost immediately into its usual straight bob.
She got little sympathy at home. When Cherry announced that, from now on, she wanted to be called Cherralyn, her brothers had burst out laughing while her mother had told her not to be so silly: “You were christened Cherry and that’s your name! Don’t you go getting ideas above your station, my girl!”
So Cherry kept her dreams to herself. She would have gone to the cinema every week if she could. But things were tight and she knew it was no use asking her mother for money to spend on ‘frivolities’ as she would have put it.
There were four of them in the family and she was the eldest. No Dad – he had been killed in France nearly two years ago, only a few months before the war ended. Cherry supposed she missed him; at least, she missed having a Dad, as opposed to her own Dad in particular. He had been away for much of the time she was growing up and her early memories were hazy. Her brothers hardly remembered him at all and Stephen, the baby, had never even met him.
What the loss of a father meant above all, it seemed to Cherry, was the loss of his wages. Mum supplemented the small pension by cleaning at the school, in the evenings, after Cherry had got home and could keep an eye on the boys. Cherry always prayed the other girls wouldn’t find out that it was her mother who cleaned up their mess – which was daft really, she knew, because they were by no means the only family on their uppers.
Mum managed to keep them all fed and clothed: she bought the cheapest vegetables and cuts of meat, made do and mended and, when it became imperative that one of the kids had a new shirt or dress, used the carefully hoarded coupons on material she found down the market that she could run up on her trusty Singer. But there was nothing left over for luxuries. The nearest Cherry got to seeing her idols was standing outside the cinema or poring over the pages of Picture Show.
When she turned fourteen, she asked if she could leave school and get a job. There was an ulterior motive in this – as well as being able to contribute to the household budget, she knew that, for the first time in her life, she would have a bit of money for herself, to spend just how she liked. But her mother would not hear of it.
“You’re certainly not leaving school! You’re going to stay on as long as I can afford it, to get the best education you can. I don’t want you ending up like me, you’re going to get a proper job, make something of yourself!”
It was useless arguing. So Cherry resigned herself to another year, at least, of childhood – and of having nothing to spend when she went round the shops with her best friend, Carol.
They were strolling down the main street one Saturday afternoon, window shopping as usual (Carol was nearly as hard up as Cherry), when Cherry’s eye was caught by a colourful display in the chemist’s. A perfectly made-up woman smiled enticingly at them, pointing to an alluring array of lipsticks. They were in a range of vivid colours – pink and orange and, most attractive of all to Cherry, deep red.
“Look, Carol! That’s just the shade Joan Crawford wears!”
“Hmm, Hollywood Crimson! More like Cherry Red, if you ask me!” Carol laughed at her own joke. She did not share her friend’s obsession with film stars.
The advertisement promised that the lipsticks would stay on ‘though you smoke, drink or kiss’. Cherry didn’t do any of those things, but the words only increased their appeal and she longed to wear Hollywood Crimson. In this drab post war world, she would feel beautiful and, yes, glamorous! Carol brought her down to earth with a bump: “Have you seen the price? 5 and 11!”
Cherry turned away; she had as much chance of owning a Hollywood Crimson as of flying to the moon!
During the following week, Cherry avoided walking past the chemist’s; there was no point in tormenting herself with something she couldn’t have. Then, Stephen, who was a sickly child, started with a cough. After two nights when he had kept them all awake, Mum sent Cherry for a bottle of linctus.
The elderly lady shop assistant greeted her with a smile. “It’s on the bottom shelf, me dear, could you get it, me back’s playing me up today.”
As Cherry bent down to reach the linctus, she saw something slim and gold that had rolled half under the shelf. It was a lipstick; it must have fallen off the display above. She picked it up and looked at it. It was a Hollywood Crimson! The temptation was too much. Before she could stop herself, Cherry slipped the lipstick into her skirt pocket, took the linctus to the counter and paid for it and hurried out of the shop, her heart pounding in case the theft – for that was what it was, she recognised that even then – was discovered.
When she arrived home, she was sure Mum would comment on her hot face, but nothing was said and she went straight up to her bedroom and took out the lipstick. No-one would notice it missing, it could have lain under there for ages, she tried to justify her out of character action. She unscrewed the top and admired the smooth red point. She tested it with her tongue and grimaced slightly at the unfamiliar taste. She sat in front of the small mirror on the chest of drawers and tentatively traced her lips, growing bolder and pressing more firmly. That was better! She looked quite different, grown up, almost like a film star!
“Cherry! Tea’s nearly ready. Come and lay the table, please!”
Cherry was about to obey when she realised that she couldn’t let her mother see her bright red lips. She rubbed at her mouth with her hanky but this had no effect. She tried scrubbing it with a damp flannel but the lipstick lived up to its promise and showed no sign of wearing off. Cherry started to panic. What would Mum say? She knew Cherry had no money and would want to know where she’d got the lipstick!
“What are you doing up there?” Mum sounded impatient. Cherry ran downstairs and hastily laid the table while Mum was busy at the stove. Then she returned to the bathroom to have another go. Eventually, her stained lips did look a bit more normal. Eating her tea helped as well.
But Cherry was now wondering when she was ever going to wear Hollywood Crimson. She had envisaged applying it when she and Carol went into town but realised that she would never get away with it; Carol would guess immediately that she had not come by it honestly. She shoved the gold case into her knicker drawer while she thought about it.
The next day, Cherry was having pangs of conscience. This, coupled with the knowledge that, in reality, she would never be able to use her precious lipstick, gave her a thumping headache, and she felt even worse when her mother showed an unaccustomed concern for the daughter who was rarely unwell.
A week passed by. Every time Cherry opened her knicker drawer, Hollywood Crimson stared up at her accusingly. She could bear it no longer. She wrapped it in a scrap of material left over from one of the boys’ shirts and pushed it deep into the rubbish in the dustbin. She watched as the dustman hoisted the bin onto his shoulder and emptied the contents into the truck. Soon, Hollywood Crimson, and a little part of Cherry’s dream, would be buried beneath a ton of refuse at the tip.