by Hazel Gaynor
“It’s just . . .”
“Just what?” He thumps the table with his hand, making me jump and setting my heart racing. “You thought you could waltz in here and act like a big house maid-of-all-work and that nobody would mind where you decided to hang about?”
“No, sir. I just . . .”
“Might I remind you that The Savoy is one of the most highly regarded establishments in London. In the world. Our guest list comprises some of the most famous names of our time and I can assure you that they do not wish to encounter a maid with mops and buckets as they arrive.”
“Of course not, sir.” I curl my toes inside my sensible black shoes and fidget with my fingers.
“Back-of-house staff must not be seen. As far as our guests are concerned, the staff are invisible. You, Dorothy Lane, do not exist.” His words sting like a slap to my cheek. “Do you understand?”
I hang my head. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ve a good mind to pay you for the week and get rid of you. Plenty of girls waiting to fill those shoes, let me tell you.”
I can’t bear the thought of being given my notice after only a month in the job. I look up at him, blinking back the tears in my eyes. “It won’t happen again, sir. You have my word.”
He finishes writing on the piece of paper and stamps it with an officious thump. “Off you go. I do not want to have reason to speak with you again. This was your second chance. There are no more.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
He waves me away and I leave the office, making my way to the staff stairway. His words pound in my ears. “Back-of-house staff must not be seen . . . they are invisible. . . . You, Dorothy Lane, do not exist.”
“But I do exist, Mr. Cutler,” I whisper. “And I will be seen.”
A dark cloud follows me around the hotel for the rest of the day. I’m anxious about the consequences of my mistake and dread the repercussions when O’Hara finds out, but more than that, I’m angry. I’m angry with the porter. I’m angry with Bessie for encouraging me to go. I’m angry with Cutler for his cruel words, but mostly, I’m angry with myself. As I dust and sweep and wrestle with my temper and great piles of bed linen, I think about the notice from The Stage and the reply I have written but not yet found the courage to send. One hour a week, arranged to suit. One hour a week is perfect. I think about it over lunch and all afternoon and I am still thinking about it over supper as I sip my hot chocolate.
Sissy sits down beside me. “Heard you got into a spot of bother earlier.”
“How do you know?”
“The hotel has ears, Dolly. Told you. Nothing goes unnoticed around here.”
The chocolate tastes bitter. The bread is dry in my mouth. “It was a misunderstanding. That’s all.”
Sissy takes my chin in her hand and turns my face toward her. She scrutinizes me as if I were a polished candlestick being inspected for missed thumbprints. “Don’t mind old Cutler. His bark’s worse than his bite.” She smiles sympathetically. “We all mess up from time to time. You’re not the first girl to be marched into his office. The Savoy does funny things to people, Dolly. Makes you feel like a movie star one minute, and a heap of muck the next.”
There’s a kindness in her eyes and I’m grateful for her words. “Thanks, Sissy. You’re a good friend.”
“And don’t forget it when you’re a famous actress drinking cocktails in the American Bar!”
I haven’t told Sissy about my dreams of a life on the stage. I’ve wanted to, but something has always stopped me. “How did you know?” I ask.
“Saw it the first day you arrived. You’ve got that distant dreamy look about you. Same as Gladys. Stars in your eyes. It’s like there’s a part of you somewhere else. And you talk about the theater all the time. Miss Bankhead this. Loretta May that.” She chuckles to herself. “I think you’re soft in the head, but good luck to you anyway. There’s something about you, Dorothy Lane. People watch you. They notice you.”
I laugh. “Nobody ever notices me!”
She stands up and walks to the door. “Oh, but they do. You’re just not paying attention.”
As I settle into bed and pull the blankets tight around my chin, I think about Sissy’s kindness. I miss having someone to tell me it will all be fine, to take me in their arms and protect me, just as Teddy used to. I miss the blush to my cheek brought on by his wink, the feel of his hand in mine, the racing of my heart as I savor the words of his latest letter. I miss the sensation of being loved, of being someone who matters so much to someone that they want to share their world with you.
Teddy was always showing me things, spotting things that I would have missed: kingfisher, hawk, rabbit, pike. “Look,” he would whisper, gently taking hold of my arm and pointing to where he was looking. “Do you see?” Most of the time I didn’t. I was always looking in the wrong direction, or at the wrong thing.
It was Teddy who saw The Adventure Book for Girls as we walked back from the stone bridge. We’d been fishing for sticklebacks that day. Teddy had a whole jam jar full of them. I hadn’t caught one. He knew I was disappointed. Even at the age of ten he was a sensitive soul. When he found the book, I said that we ought to find who it belonged to.
“We already have,” he said. “It belongs to you. They’re your adventures now.”
They’re your adventures now.
Dear Teddy. Like a silent-movie reel, images of him flash through my mind, fleeting glimpses gone before I can hold on to them. Teddy, silhouetted against the setting sun at the end of the street. Teddy, running through the field with his butterfly net. Teddy, waving his white handkerchief from the window of the train. Private Teddy Cooper, ashen-faced and gaunt. He looks at me, and yet he doesn’t. I take hold of his hand but he pulls it away as if I am a candle flame that burns.
It is too painful to remember. I close my eyes and sweep the splintered fragments of my life into a corner, like embers to be taken out later.
11
TEDDY
Maghull Military War Hospital, Lancashire
April 1919
She is like spring sitting beside me, my very own daffodil.
I sit in my favorite chair at the window, my trembling hands folded neatly on my lap. I look out at the rooftops, the soaring chimney stacks of the textile mills, the distant slag heaps of the collieries. Black smoke billows skyward, smothering the sun, blotting out the shadows. I like to watch the clouds with all their changing colors; sometimes dark and moody, sometimes delicate fragile feathers. They are racing each other today, scudding by, blown on invisible winds.
Through the distant chatter of the other patients, I hear the nurse approaching. Soft black rubber soles. Each sticky step peeling away from the floor, like the rip of shells through the air. I still hear it. I press my palms against my legs to control the shaking.
“Tea, Teddy. Thought you might fancy one.”
She sets the cup and saucer down on the small table to my right and places a hand on my shoulder. I don’t look at her. I stare at the scene beyond the window. Life always happens beyond the window these days. I don’t go outside.
“How are you today?” she asks, sitting in the empty chair beside the bed.
Her voice is a blackbird, all singsong and breezy. She is like spring sitting beside me, my very own daffodil. I can’t remember her name and I’m too embarrassed to ask.
She follows my gaze to the window. “I see your butterfly is still there. Can’t say I blame it. I wouldn’t want to go outside today if I was a butterfly. It’d be blown to Ireland in that wind!”
I almost smile.
“Are you ready for another letter?”
I shrug. Take a sip of tea. Extra sugar. She’s very kind, this nurse. I close my eyes as she clears her throat and starts to read.
April 15th, 1917
My dearest Teddy,
The cat had eight kittens! I’ve never seen anything so helpless and tiny. I wish you could see them. The smallest is a tortoiseshell. She’s so be
autiful. Her eyes are bluer than yours. Mam doesn’t know what to be doing with them all but she’s promised she won’t drown them in the river. I think Smudge will be a great mother until we find a home for them. Bunty Brown says she’ll take two, and the vicar’s wife wants a good mouser for the vicarage. I’m keeping the smallest. I’ve called her Poppy.
Jack Elvidge came home with a shrapnel injury. They thought he might lose his leg but he’s made a miraculous recovery and is being well fed by his mam. He won’t be going back to the front, what with him being injured. He says he wishes he could go back to carry on fighting alongside you all. I tell him that’s silly talk and that he’s done his bit and should be grateful that his life—and his leg—were spared. I gave him one of the kittens to cheer him up. He called it Private.
So, you see, some good news.
I’m now part of the factory football team. We call ourselves Mawdesley United. We play against the other munitionettes in the neighboring factories. Turns out some of us have a bit of a knack for football. I’ve been told I have quick feet. I reckon that’s from all the dancing you taught me.
Write to me soon. The weeks between your letters feel like months. I long to hear from you, Teddy. I worry so much and hope you will be home on leave soon.
I will close now.
With fondest love,
Your Little Thing,
Dolly
X
Seeing no response from me, she carries on. I watch her take another piece of paper from another stained envelope. I close my eyes again, and listen.
October 20th, 1917
My dearest Teddy,
I hope that you are reading this on the train—that you couldn’t wait a moment longer to see what words I’d written to you. How happy I was to have you back home. I have never known two weeks pass so quickly. I’m so pleased you found your mam and dad well.
I enjoyed our long walks to the stone bridge. It was so lovely to feel the warmth of you beside me, to just sit with you. I found the silence between us a little strange at first, but I understand that sometimes words are not needed, and I know your thoughts were with your brothers, back in France. I know you were anxious to get back to them.
It is selfish of me to wish you had refused to go back. You are a brave man, and I have to try to understand that you had to return to France to fight and to give someone else the chance to go home to their mam and the girl who loves them.
I pray that this will all be over and that you’ll be home for good soon. Until then, know that I am thinking of you always.
Your Little Thing,
Dolly
X
She folds the letter and slips it back into the envelope. She sits beside me for a while, not reading, not talking. I watch the butterfly open and close its wings, basking in the sunlight at the window, and I cannot stop the tears that prick my eyes at the thought of this girl in the letters who writes all these wonderful words to me.
I wish I could remember.
With all my heart, I wish I could remember her.
12
DOLLY
“Get a job in a shop. Marry a nice young chap. Leave the dancing to someone else.”
Remembrance Sunday arrives with scudding gray clouds and a decision to deliver my reply to the musical composer. Teddy always said that when you’re not sure about something, you should let the weather decide. Today is wild and willful. There’s a reckless urgency to everything that I can’t resist.
As I leave the hotel I feel every blast of the eager east wind swirling around my ankles and gusting at my back. Before I go to the Strand Theatre, I step into the dark interior of the small chapel beside The Savoy. I remove my hat and hurry to the altar to light a candle, my cheeks burning from the wind. I settle at a pew and say my prayers. I think of the photograph in my pocket, and pray for him; for his well-being and his happiness. I pray for strength and forgiveness for myself.
My prayers said, I head back outside, the wind pushing me down the sloping path toward the Embankment. I pass a bootblack and a coffee seller and the regular pavement artists. There are several gathered today, including a young woman who kneels on a piece of cloth and chalks her drawings onto the flagstones. I drop a penny into her hat. She thanks me and tells me she’s collecting for the British Legion. A little farther along, a man is drawing a field of poppies. He has already completed an image of a young woman and a view of the Houses of Parliament. His likenesses are very good. Lines of poetry and verse are scrawled among his images. I drop a penny into his hat too and walk on.
Back on the Strand, the roads that usually teem with trams and motorcars are empty, the pavements free of the crowds of shoppers and street sellers, the awnings of the shops pulled in until trading starts again on Monday. The significance of the date lends a sense of somber reflection to the city, and at the corner of Lancaster Place I buy a poppy, pinning it to my coat with a sense of pride and sadness. The guns will be fired at eleven as the wreaths are placed at the Cenotaph at Whitehall. We will all stop and reflect for two minutes, and then we will carry on, as we have always done, as we always will. What else can we do?
I walk on, passing wine merchants and tobacconists. I catch my reflection in a furrier’s window. Despite the sweep of Gladys’s rouge and Sissy’s lipstick (applied as soon as I’d escaped the beady eyes of O’Hara and her notions of flighty girls), I look as drab as a dray horse. The envelope in my pocket tugs at my thoughts as a gust of wind tugs at my hat. I hold it tight against my head and hurry on, pulling my collar around my neck. I’m glad I’ve resisted the lure of the shingle bob. As it is, I feel every cheap fiber of Clover’s old coat as I scurry along Lancaster Place toward the Aldwych. It is a walk of only five minutes with the wind at my back. I wish it were longer.
Too soon, I arrive at the Strand Theatre. I must have walked past it a hundred times but have never really paid it any attention. Now I scrutinize it like O’Hara at her morning inspection. It is an elegant gray building, wrapped around the corner of Wellington Street and the Aldwych. My eyes travel toward the windows on the upper floors. They remind me of castle turrets. I wonder which window belongs to apartment three. I wonder if he is up there, looking out. If he might be watching me.
Crossing the road, I push open the swing doors and step onto a beautiful mosaic floor. The lobby is empty. I almost turn around and walk straight back out, but the wind rattles the glass in the panes and whistles through the gaps at the door hinges and I’m glad to be inside for a while. The dusky pink marble walls send back an echo of my footsteps. Above me, the ceiling reaches up into an ornate glass dome.
Look up, Dolly. Look at the stars.
For a moment, I stand perfectly still, looking up at the glass. I wrap the fingers of my left hand around the envelope in my pocket. The fingers of my right hand settle around the photograph.
“Can I help you, miss?”
I turn around to see an elderly woman watching me from behind the window of the ticket office. I walk toward her with small hesitant steps and am reminded of the post office in Mawdesley, of hesitant steps walking toward Mrs. Joyce, her wrinkled old hand ready to snatch my words from me and send them off to France. I was never quite ready to let my words go, afraid they would be unheard; unanswered.
I stop in front of the narrow window. The woman smiles. Her face is as plump as a sponge pudding, her eyes dark little currants. Several chins fold like melted candle wax toward what would be her décolletage, if it were visible. But there is a kindness in those currant eyes; a warmth to her smile.
“Can I help you?” she asks again.
“Where can I leave a letter for apartment three? Care of a Mrs. Ambrose.”
“You can leave it with me, duck.”
“Thank you. I’m . . . well, thank you.”
I push the envelope beneath the window. The woman’s fingers touch mine as I hesitate to let go, but she pulls it from my grasp.
“Come along now. Don’t be making a fuss. It’ll be much easier
if you just let go.” The awful tugging of my fingertips. The hollow ache in my arms; the weight of his absence. A woman in a yellow coat, the color of daffodils.
She places my envelope in a pigeonhole on the wall behind her. “Did you want to buy any tickets, miss?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Tickets? For the show. A Noël Coward farce. Did you want any?”
I’m too distracted to think properly. “No. Thank you. Not today. I just wanted to hand in the letter.”
The woman nods, folds her arms across her chest, and closes her eyes.
I watch her for a moment. “Excuse me.”
She opens one eye. “Yes?”
“Do you know the occupant of flat three?”
Her currant eyes sparkle. “And what if I do?”
“I just wondered what he’s like. Whether he’s decent enough. You know. Pleasant.”
The woman chuckles, sending her chins wobbling like a jelly pudding. She leans forward. “I’ll tell you this much, love. If I had a daughter looking for a nice husband, I’d send her right on up to flat three and I’d lock the door behind them until he offered her a ring. Couldn’t meet a nicer gentleman, in my opinion. Could do with being a bit tidier about the place, mind, but what man couldn’t?”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “You will make sure he . . .”
“Gets the letter. I will.”
Taking one last look at the envelope, I silently wish it good luck, push open the swing door, and step out into the street. Like a needle settling in a groove on a gramophone record, all I can do now is wait for a reply; wait for the music to play.
Despite the cold, I walk through Covent Garden, past the bookshops on Charing Cross Road and on toward Trafalgar Square, where Nelson’s column reaches proudly toward the salt-and-pepper sky and the lions languish on their plinths. I walk along Haymarket and through Piccadilly Circus, where a long line of girls snakes around the Pavilion Theatre, all the way from the stage door around the front of the building and along Coventry Street.
