by Hazel Gaynor
The truth of the matter is that Perry doesn’t want to live in luxury in Mayfair or Belgravia. He’s had enough of grand houses and the stuffy rules they come with. I can’t say I blame him. When I first started touring with productions, I relished the freedom of distant hotels and boardinghouses in much the same way that I had relished the freedom of the hospital dormitory. Cockie always made sure we stayed somewhere respectable and I came to enjoy the liberty those places provided. Even when I performed in London, I preferred to board at the Theatre Girls’ Club in Soho rather than return home to Nine Elms. It was a shocking departure from the living standards I’d grown up in, but it was convenient and daring. More importantly, it was somewhere my mother wasn’t.
Perry passes me a gin and tonic and pours himself a Scotch. I swirl the liquid around in my glass, silently lamenting the absent clink of ice. “So, are you ever going to tell me what happened with your muse or am I going to have to play a tedious game of charades?”
“You don’t have to say muse like that. You can just say ‘muse.’” I roll my eyes at him. “She was very pleasant.”
“Oh dear.”
“What do you mean, ‘oh dear’?”
“Pleasant is a dreadful way to describe someone. It’s like saying someone is nice. Pleasant and nice people are like flat champagne. They’re no fun.”
“Then she was delightful.”
“Better.”
“I already knew her, as it happens.”
“Oh?”
“She was the girl I bumped into outside The Savoy a few months ago. Do you remember? I was on my way to meet you for afternoon tea.”
“Yes. I remember. You had a hole in your trousers and you made a show of me in Claridge’s. The very same girl? How extraordinary.”
“Isn’t it.” He takes a long drag of his cigarette. That telltale pause of his.
“And?” I prompt.
“And I walked out on her.”
“You did what?!”
“I walked out on her. I left her in the Corner House.”
“Without saying good-bye?”
“I left her a note.” He takes a big slug of Scotch. “And paid the bill.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right, then. I’m sure she was perfectly happy and hasn’t given it a second thought.” I stand up and walk to the fireplace to warm my hands. “What a beastly thing to do, Perry. One doesn’t invite a person to tea and then simply disappear. You’re not Harry Houdini, for goodness’ sake. You’re impossible. Really and truly.”
I’m restless. On edge. With every pause in the conversation I try to summon the courage to tell him, but the words won’t come. I move over to the window seat and take a long drink as I look out of the large curved window, focusing my frustration on the busy street below. I watch a mother bend down to comfort her child who has fallen and grazed her knee. It is such a simple gesture, the two of them lost in a private moment as the world goes on around them. Little things like this catch my attention now. Quiet moments. Connections.
“So, what was wrong with her?” I ask.
Perry sits in his favorite chair beside the fire. He picks at his fingernails. Fidgets with his mustache. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
I take a long drag on my cigarette holder. “Then I simply don’t understand. You’re so infuriating!”
Perry runs his hands through his hair, sending it sticking up this way and that. “I don’t understand it myself. It just all felt too . . . sudden. The truth is that I haven’t stopped thinking about that girl since I bumped into her. There was something about her that day; something different. And of all the people in London, she was the one to reply to my silly little notice. I know you don’t believe in such things as love at first sight, Etta, and I know it sounds ridiculous and unconventional, but after spending half an hour in her company, I think I felt myself falling in love with her.”
“You think?”
“Yes. I’m not sure. How can one be?” He drains his drink and slams the glass down onto the mantelpiece. “That’s why I left her, and that’s why I can’t see her again, because the notion of falling in love terrifies me.”
I know he is thinking about Bea, that he is weighed down with the regret and guilt he carries heavy in his heart over her. I have no words to comfort him.
The room falls silent other than the crackling of the fire and the rumble of underground trains that rattle the glass in the window frames. Now would be a good time to tell him, but the words stick in my throat.
“Did she really leave that much of an impression on you? After one meeting?”
“Yes. And it’s been two meetings. And a letter.” He pokes sulkily at the fire. “But she’s just a maid. How can I possibly fall in love with a maid? Mother would die of shame. And as for Father. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“Ah. I see. Just a maid. Not good enough for a Clements boy. That’s what you’re afraid of—other people. My goodness, Father was right. You really are a coward.” My words are unexpectedly harsh, smothering the room with an atmosphere as thick and heavy as the acrid fog outside. “There. I’ve said it. And now you hate me and will probably never speak to me again. But I’m not sorry. Sometimes the truth needs to be spoken, Perry, regardless of how painful it is to hear or to say. In fact, there’s something I’ve been meaning to—”
“I don’t hate you, Etta. I’m not especially fond of you at this particular moment, but I don’t hate you.” He walks to the writing desk and sits at the chair, his shoulders slumped like an old man. “You’re right. I am a coward. I didn’t have the courage to stand up to my convictions. I shot men who were far braver than me. They stood by their principles, laid down their arms, refused to fight. I was just a puppet following orders, taking instruction, just like I always have.” He kicks against the writing table in frustration. “I’m a coward and a failure. I can’t even be pleasant to a bloody hotel maid.”
His voice is choked. It is uncomfortable to hear. I wish I could throw my arms around him and tell him it will be all right, but I don’t know how. I stand stiffly by the window, as inanimate and cold as one of his silly little figurines on the shelves.
“You know what people are like, Etta. They have standards. Expectations. I could never take someone like Miss Lane to the Mitfords’ New Year party. I’d be the laughingstock. They all think I’m enough of a joke as it is.”
“Miss Lane. So she has a name after all.” I sigh and stretch my arm behind my head. “What was in it for her, anyway, this arrangement of yours? Why did she want to be your muse?”
“I don’t think she did particularly. She wants to be a dancer. Wants to be on the stage. Lead a more exciting life. I expect she was attracted by the prospect of getting to know someone in the business.”
“So she was using you to her own advantage?”
“I suppose she was.”
“Good for her. I rather like the sound of this Miss Lane.” I finish my cigarette, crushing it in the ashtray on the sideboard. “In fact, I wonder.”
“What do you wonder?” Perry eyes me suspiciously. “You worry me when you wonder.”
“I wonder if we might not be able to come to some sort of arrangement whereby she inspires you and we improve her.”
He looks at me. “What do you mean, improve her?”
“What if you were to have your weekly tête-à-têtes, let her amuse you and distract you from your melancholy, let her inspire your compositions, and in the meantime we teach her how to behave more like the sort of person you could take to the Mitfords’ party. It can’t be that difficult. Rosie Boote was as sophisticated as a stick when she first started in the chorus. And now look at her, the Marchioness of Headfort! If Rosie Boote can become a lady, anyone can.” The more I think about it, the more I like the idea, and I’m quietly confident that Perry’s lifelong affections for Bea will never be replaced by those for a maid. If I can just encourage him to play along, to let this girl into his life, it might lift him out of the doldrums he’s
been languishing in for far too long. “I can help with the more feminine things. I can give her dance training if she’s serious about it. Does she get time off?”
“Yes. Wednesday afternoons and alternate Sundays.”
I am suddenly full of purpose and in a tremendous hurry. I grab my coat off the back of the battered old sofa. “Let me find her and apologize on your behalf. We can improve her together. It’ll be fun.”
He looks doubtful. “You make her sound like a toy.”
“I’m serious, Perry. In fact, I’m most exhilarated at the prospect. Is she pretty?”
“Yes, but . . . this is madness, Etta. I’m the last person she’ll want to see after my appalling behavior. And how on earth will you find her?”
I sigh and place my hands on my hips. “How many hotels do you know in London called The Savoy? Honestly, darling, have a little sense. I’ll talk to Reeves-Smith. I could find her this afternoon if I wanted to. And in the meantime, you can start working on a new piece. Charlot was asking about you. Says he’s looking for something new. Something different.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. You’re the composer. Write a piece about Miss Lane.”
“But I hardly know anything about her.”
“Precisely. You know enough to be afraid of falling in love with her, but not enough to have discovered her flaws and irritations and annoyances. There is no better time to write a song about her. Use your imagination. What does she look like?”
A small smile plays at his lips. “Deep brown eyes to get lost in. A face like a love heart. Perfect vermillion lips and a smile to brighten the dreariest day.”
“My goodness. You really have fallen, haven’t you?” He shrugs. “Imagine if you could see those lips every day, could kiss them, taste them. Send your heart on a rampage, dear boy, and the music will follow.”
I pick up my hat and gloves and bend to kiss him on both cheeks. As he looks up at me I see something of hope in his eyes.
“I’ll see you next Wednesday,” I say. “Don’t be late.”
Despite my enthusiasm for this little project, I walk slowly down the three flights of stairs, each step reprimanding me. You should have told him, Loretta. You should have told him. But when I see how lost and confused he is, I realize how much Perry needs me. Like so many others, he relies on me. Cockie, Jack Buchanan, the rest of the cast, the girls in the gallery who have saved everything to come and see me—they all rely on me in one way or another.
I can’t burden them with my sadness.
I must entertain. That is all. I must stand in the spotlight and play my part because that is what I do, what I am good at, what made me who I am.
I may not know how to die, but I do know how to live and I do know how I can help my brother. Right now, that is all that matters.
22
DOLLY
I close my eyes, imagining that I am dressed in lavender chiffon; soft silver dance shoes on my feet.
An entire season has passed since I arrived at The Savoy. The last golden touches of autumn have made way for the bare branches of winter. A biting wind blows off the Thames with a temper, pushing people along the pavements, billowing out coats and skirts and turning umbrellas inside out. The fogs come thick and often, the days are short, the gas lamps in the street and the lights in the hotel suites burn ever longer. Another year nearly over. Another year in which my child has not known me.
Mildred and I haven’t spoken again of our shared past. She keeps her distance and remains as frosty as the glass at the windowpanes. While part of me wants to talk to her, wants to ask a thousand questions, I’m afraid she won’t have the answers I long to hear. The matter isn’t discussed between us again.
The incidents that blighted my first weeks are thankfully no longer spoken about, although I know that a record of my misdemeanors is written in stark black ink inside Cutler’s ledger. I’m learning that life in a hotel moves in peculiar ways. An incident with a stolen hair comb can be hushed up at the request of an influential guest; a crisp note slipped from one hand to another can see the end to a matter. The inevitable gossip about my own indiscretions has faded as new mistakes are discussed around the breakfast table: an undelivered urgent message, a too-hot iron left against a couture dress, a badly timed fumble with a delivery boy at the back of the storerooms, an overheard derisory remark about a guest. While O’Hara watches me like a hawk, I try to put the past behind me, and as the weeks come and go I begin to understand the governor’s romantic sentiments about the hotel. I feel myself drawn to it as if it had a personality of its own. It lives and breathes, shocks and surprises me as much as the guests who occupy the suites.
The anticipation of Christmas fizzes through London’s streets. The freezing December air licks at my ears and snaps at my cheeks. I sometimes feel exhilarated, sometimes exhausted; sometimes hopeful, sometimes despairing. When I tell Clover about the disastrous ending to my meeting with Mr. Clements, she takes me to see the window displays in Harrods and Selfridges, Hamleys and Liberty to cheer me up. The winter hats and gloves, coats and shoes are beautiful: thick felts and velvets in all the latest colors, heavy furs in mink and sable. Like scruffy children from the East End peering through a sweetshop window, we stare in admiration. Londoners flock in their thousands especially to see Mr. Selfridge’s spectacular displays. I listen to the gasps of rosy-cheeked children as they press their noses to the glass, squealing with excitement at the sight of nutcracker soldiers, pretty dollies, teddy bears, and wooden trains. I see small hands nestling in woolen mittens, held tight by fretful mothers and nannies. My own hands have never felt more idle.
Clover has another new coat for me to admire and envy—another hand-me-down. She treats herself to a new lipstick and a mascara in Woolworth’s and insists on buying me a pair of real silk stockings, wishing me a happy Christmas as the shop assistant wraps them up for me. I don’t know how she can afford all these things, but she tells me she’s been saving her wages.
“What’s the harm in treating yourself now and again?” she says. “There’s no bugger else going to buy these for me, is there?”
She’s right. There isn’t.
The Christmas theater trip is a tradition of ours. We’ve saved for the tickets for weeks and queued for hours to secure our place in the gallery at the Shaftesbury.
We sit at the very top of the theater, a collection of shopgirls and clerks, seamstresses and domestics, growing more hysterical by the moment. We’ve all come to watch our favorite stars; the beautiful women who occupy our thoughts as we stitch and type, scrub and sell. This is where we come to forget the dull monotony of our jobs. For a few magical hours we are not just ordinary girls, we are Tallulah Bankhead, Gertrude Lawrence, Bea Lillie, and Loretta May. From our perch high up in the Gods, we are as far away from the stage as it is possible to be, yet we will never feel closer to the people who fill our dreams.
Everyone is restless as we wait impatiently for the houselights to fall and the curtain to go up. Weeks of anticipation mingle with the swirling cigarette smoke that dances around the chandeliers suspended high above the gathering crowds. The excitement grows with each passing minute, fueled by the prickle of nerves that escapes from the dressing rooms and drifts along the corridors and staircases until the entire theater has a desperate urge to fidget.
Clover fusses at her hair, waved especially for the occasion. She folds her program, fanning cheeks that burn crimson with excitement and heat. We wave to friends along the row and turn to the girls crammed beside us to speculate about the performance and Miss May’s costumes and the chorus numbers.
Pressed against the rail at the very front of the gallery, I fan my face with my hat. Beside me, squashed so tight that I can feel every rise and fall of her breath, Clover stands with her feet splayed, her back arched, and her puce face tipped up toward the ornate ceiling. I burst out laughing.
“What’s tickled you?” she asks.
“You look like an overr
ipe tomato! If you go any redder you’ll pop!”
“I’m glad you find it funny. You won’t be laughing when you’re telling everyone how I passed out from the heat and that you had to carry me outside and we both missed the whole bloody thing.”
I pass her my hat. “Here. Have a go with this.”
Clover’s hat was lost in the stampede on the gallery stairs when the doors opened. “Leave it!” she’d cried over her shoulder, bracing herself against the handrails to make a gap for me after I’d stopped to pick it up. “It’s a rotten color anyway. Come on!” Clover wasn’t going to let a hat stand in the way of a place at the rail. Hers wasn’t the only one to fall victim to the gallery crush either. A trail of discarded possessions littered the back stairs as we thundered up. I saw at least four pairs of gloves and three lost shoes.
I watch as the stalls begin to fill up, wishing I could afford the three-guinea ticket to be down there.
“I really need a pee, Clo.”
“Me too. But we’ll have to hold it. Far too late to go to the lav now. Jiggle about a bit until the urge passes.”
As the bells ring in the lobby, we link arms and hold tight on to the rail with our free hand, refusing to give in to the shuffling and shoving behind us as others try to wheedle their way to the front. Being so slight, I’m glad of Clover’s ample girth. She forms a sort of barricade around us with her bottom so that nobody can dislodge us.
Gradually, the ladies and gentlemen, theater and film stars, dignitaries and socialites arrive to take their seats in the stalls. We all gawp at the elegance. Furs and satin, diamonds and silk, shingled hair, necklaces of big sham pearls and silver beads, velvet capes and brightly colored dresses. The collective trill of excitement from the gallery gathers into a shrill crescendo, filling the theater with a sound not unlike that of the Portobello Market. I see a lady in the dress circle place her hands over her ears, but we continue on. Gallery girls don’t care for the delicate heads of fragile ladies.
And then the houselights go down. My heart pounds. There is never a moment when I feel more alive than just before curtain up. An outburst of screaming and applause erupts from the crowd behind me. Someone bumps into me and I lose my balance for a moment, grabbing on to Clover to steady myself as the orchestra strikes up the opening bars. The music sends a tingle through my entire body. The dazzling white spotlight pierces the gloom and the curtains fall to each side of the stage in great swooping arcs. I lean forward, my knuckles white as I grip the rail. The chorus girls glide onto the stage, the rhythmic kick and tap of their heels against the boards sending a thrilling reverberation throughout the auditorium. Such precision. Such beauty in their costumes of cream silk and black feathers. Their perfectly synchronized dancing grows into a marvelous, thundering finale, their heels snapping like a rainstorm against the boards.
