The Girl From The Savoy
Hazel Gaynor
‘Addictive, charming and gleaming with Jazz Age glitz’ The LadyThe fabulous new novel from the author of The Girl Who Came HomeDolly Lane is a dreamer; a downtrodden maid who longs to dance on the London stage, but the outbreak of war takes everything from her: Teddy, the man she loves – and her hopes of a better life.When she secures employment as a chambermaid at London’s grandest hotel, The Savoy, Dolly’s proximity to the dazzling guests makes her yearn for a life beyond the grey drudgery she was born into. Her fortunes take an unexpected turn when she responds to an unusual newspaper advert and finds herself thrust into the heady atmosphere of London’s glittering theatre scene and into the sphere of the celebrated actress, Loretta May, and her brother, Perry.All three are searching for something, yet the aftermath of war has cast a dark shadow over them all. A brighter future is tantalisingly close – but can a girl like Dolly ever truly leave her past behind?
Copyright (#u47f49e09-e0a7-5dab-8cdf-a533a2de869c)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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Published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Copyright © Hazel Gaynor 2016
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover photographs © Ilona Wellmann/Trevillion Images (girl); Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com) (pattern).
Hazel Gaynor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008162283
Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008162306
Version: 2016-04-14
Dedication (#u47f49e09-e0a7-5dab-8cdf-a533a2de869c)
For my sister, Helen.
With love, and a large G&T.
… men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Table of Contents
Cover (#u427c864b-bb17-5fbe-ac0b-d3bacd617bab)
Title Page (#ubd1a9726-4d7e-5586-a960-eaf6c5249028)
Copyright (#u13632ace-dee1-5609-a34b-48488274d932)
Dedication (#u0cf1a384-0236-5969-887e-7b2f8c69de45)
Epigraph (#u08ebc2e7-29ba-5c14-ad46-9ef99c9b3738)
Prologue (#u98cebb5c-21af-5723-996f-e9e10c92d8a6)
ACT I: Hope (#ua6d77b46-9fda-5367-9fa3-9fbfd30a43b4)
Chapter 1: Dolly (#u8cb13ffc-8cda-5e37-b9f3-e4fc24e27114)
Chapter 2: Dolly (#u7056cfd7-8e81-5aea-a395-70ae621e482d)
Chapter 3: Loretta (#u033096de-7459-50c7-8a24-3c23bbfd4f0b)
Chapter 4: Dolly (#u932e0245-80fd-583f-a611-eb7cd07557df)
Chapter 5: Teddy (#ub548f80a-341b-5494-a7c4-5f4f83c0204b)
Chapter 6: Dolly (#u32453ed9-755c-57bc-9c9c-6abe4d2e679f)
Chapter 7: Loretta (#u8ba741ee-4a83-5e3b-83ab-ccb5a4062671)
Chapter 8: Loretta (#u3dac7de2-61e3-5de9-861f-3270bac3a1b5)
Chapter 9: Dolly (#ub0b44074-2a5f-5119-bcea-04c3bfb59898)
Chapter 10: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11: Teddy (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: Loretta (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14: Loretta (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: Teddy (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18: Loretta (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
ACT II: Love (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21: Loretta (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23: Teddy (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27: Loretta (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30: Teddy (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34: Teddy (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36: Loretta (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38: Teddy (#litres_trial_promo)
ACT III: Adventure (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44: Loretta (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47: Dolly (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Hazel Gaynor (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u47f49e09-e0a7-5dab-8cdf-a533a2de869c)
Lancashire, England
March 1916
In my heart, I always knew he would go; that they would all go, in the end. Now the dreaded day has arrived. Teddy is going to war and there is nothing I can do to prevent it.
Everything is a blur. I don’t remember eating breakfast. I don’t remember laying the fires or doing any of my usual chores. I don’t remember hanging up my apron or putting on my coat and hat. I’m not even sure I closed the door behind me as I set off for the station, but I must have done all these things because somehow I am here, standing on the platform, and he is pressing a bunch of daffodils into my hands. Somehow, he is really leaving.
‘I’ll be back before you know it,’ he says, brushing a tear from my cheek. ‘They won’t know what’s hit them when we arrive. Look at us. Tough as old boots!’ I glance along the platform. The assembled conscripts look like frightened young boys. Not soldiers. Not tough at all. ‘I’ll be back for your birthday and I’ll take you to the village dance, just like last year. You’ll hardly notice I’m gone before I’m back.’
I want to believe him, but we all know the truth. Nobody comes back. The thought breaks my heart and I gasp to catch my breath through my tears.
Mam had warned me not to be getting all maudlin and sobbing on his shoulder. ‘You’re to be strong, Dorothy. Tell him how brave he is and how proud you are. No snivelling and wailing.’ And here I am, doing everything she told me not to. I can’t help it. I don’t want to be proud. I don’t want to tell him how brave he is. I want to sink to my knees and wrap my arms around his ankles so that he can’t go anywhere. Not without me.
‘We’ll be married in the summer and we’ll have little ’uns running around our feet and everything will be back to normal, Dolly. Just you and me and a quiet simple life. Just like we’ve always wanted.’
I nod and press my cheek to the thick fabric of his coat. A quiet simple life. Just like we’ve always wanted. I try to ignore the voice in my head that whispers to me of more than a quiet simple life, the voice that speaks of rowdy adventures waiting far away from here. ‘Head full of nonsense.’ That’s what our Sarah says. She’s probably right. She usually is.
A loud hiss of steam pierces the subdued quiet of the platform, drowning out the muffled sobs. Doors start to slam as the men step into the carriages. Embraces end. Hands are prised agonizingly apart. It is time to let go.
I reach up onto my tiptoes and our lips meet in a last kiss. It isn’t lingering and passionate as I’ve imagined, but rushed and interrupted by my wretched sobs and the urgency of others telling Teddy to hurry along now. We part too soon and he is walking away from me. I can hardly see his face through the blur of my tears.
The shrill blast of the station master’s whistle makes me jump. Mothers and daughters cling to each other. Wives clutch their children to their chests as they bravely wave their daddy good-bye. Great clouds of smoke billow around us and I cover my mouth with my handkerchief as the pistons yawn into life and begin turning on their cranks. The carriages jolt to attention, and he is going.
I start to move, my feet falling in time with the motion of the train, slow at first, and then a brisk walk. All along the platform, women and children reach out, clinging for all they are worth to prolong the very last touch of a coat sleeve, a fingertip, the last flutter of a white handkerchief. And I am jogging and then running, faster and faster, until I can’t keep up and he is gone.
He is gone.
He is gone.
I slow to a walk and stand among the suffocating smoke as my heart cracks into a thousand shards of helpless despair. Everything has changed. Everything will be different now.
I put my hands in my coat pockets, my fingers finding the piece of folded paper in each. I glance at the hastily scribbled note from Teddy in my right hand: Darling Little Thing, Don’t be sad. When the war is over, I’ll come back to you, back to Mawdesley. With you beside me, this is all the world I will ever need. I glance at the page in my left hand, ripped from the morning paper as I lay the fire in Madam’s bedroom. SOCIETY DARLING AND BRAVE NURSE VIRGINIA CLEMENTS REVEALED AS WEST END STAR LORETTA MAY! I look at her beautiful face and elegant clothes, the perfect image to accompany the glowing report of Cochran’s latest dazzling production and the enchanting new star of his chorus. I stare at the two pieces of paper. The life I know in one hand. The life I dream of in the other.
The church bells chime the hour. Time to go back to the Monday wash and the predictable routines that carve out the hours of a maid-of-all-work like me. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I fold the pages and return them to my pockets. I turn my back on the distant puffs of smoke from Teddy’s train and walk along the platform. The surface is icy and I go cautiously, my footing unsure. I slip a little, steady myself, and keep going. Crossing the tracks, I step onto the frosted grass verge that crunches satisfyingly beneath my boots. On firmer ground, my strides lengthen and I walk faster, and all the while the question nags and nags in my mind: Am I walking away from my future, or walking toward it?
I don’t have an answer. It is not mine to give.
War holds all the answers now.
ACT I (#u47f49e09-e0a7-5dab-8cdf-a533a2de869c)
Hope (#u47f49e09-e0a7-5dab-8cdf-a533a2de869c)
London, 1923
To the question, ‘Are stars worthwhile?’ I must give the elusive reply, ‘There are stars and stars.’
– C. B. Cochran,the Weekly Dispatch, 1924
1 (#u47f49e09-e0a7-5dab-8cdf-a533a2de869c)
Dolly (#u47f49e09-e0a7-5dab-8cdf-a533a2de869c)
‘That’s the fascinating thing about life, Miss Lane. All its wonderful unpredictability.’
‘It is as simple as this: a person can be unpunctual or untidy, but if they intend to get on in life they certainly cannot be both.’ I’ll never forget these words, nor the housekeeper who barked them at me as I skulked back to the house – late and dishevelled – from my afternoon off. I’d been walking with Teddy in the summer rain and completely lost track of time. It was worth being scolded for. ‘You, Dorothy Lane, are a prime example of someone who will never get on in life. You will never become anything.’ It was the first time I was told I wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t the last.
I was in my first position in service at the time. Maid-of-all-work. ‘Maid-of-all-fingers-and-thumbs, more like,’ the housekeeper groused. Peggy Griffin was her name – ‘Piggy’ as I called her in private, on account of her stubby nose and hands like trotters. Piggy didn’t take to me, and I didn’t take to her. I didn’t take to domestic work either for that matter. I suppose it didn’t help that my thoughts were usually anywhere else other than the task in hand.
‘Dolly Daydream’ was the nickname I earned from the maids at Mawdesley Hall. Open windows and doors left ajar are a gift to a girl with keen ears and a head full of dreams. Music from the gramophone player set my feet itching to dance as I mangled the Monday wash. Snatched fragments of conversations drifted along the corridors as I swept and polished, filling my head with thoughts of the stars of the West End stage, the Ziegfeld Follies, Broadway – all of it a distraction from the dreary routine of work, from war, from my fears of Teddy being called up. I may have lost many things in the years since I first felt those naive desires, but I held on to my dreams with a stubborn determination worthy of a Lancashire lass. The longing for something more has never left me. I feel it like a fluttering of wings in my heart.
I feel it now, as I shelter from the rain, huddled in the doorway of a watchmaker’s shop on the Strand. My attention is drawn to the posters on the passing omnibuses: Tallulah Bankhead, Gertrude Lawrence, Loretta May. The stars whose photographs and first-night notices I cut from newspapers and stick into my scrapbooks; the women I admire from high up in the theatre gallery, stamping my feet and shouting my appreciation and wishing I was on the stage with them, dressed in silver chiffon. They call us gallery girls: domestics and shopgirls who buy the cheap tickets and faithfully follow our favourite stars with something like a hysteria. We long for the glamorous life of the chorus girls and principal actresses; for a life that offers more than petticoats to mend and bootlaces to iron and steps to scrub. But I don’t just want to escape a life of drudgery. I want to soar. So I care for this restless fluttering in my heart as if it were a bird with a broken wing, in the hope that it will one day heal and fly.
I jump at the sound of a sharp rap on the window beside me. I turn around to see a hard-featured gentleman scowling at me from inside the shop, mean-looking eyes glowering behind black-rimmed spectacles. He says something I can’t hear and flaps his hands, shooing me away as if I were a dog salivating outside the butcher’s shop. I stick my tongue out at him and leave the doorway, hurrying along, hopping over puddles, my toes drowning like unwanted kittens inside my sodden stockings.
I pass bicycle shops and tobacconists, wine merchants, drapers and milliners, the rain falling in great curtains around me as I catch my reflection in the shop windows. Straggly curls hang limply beneath my cloche, all my efforts with curling irons and spirit lamps ruined by the rain. My new cotton stockings are splashed with dirt and sag at my ankles like folds of pastry, the rubber bands I’ve used as makeshift garter rolls clearly not up to the job. My borrowed coat is two sizes too big. My third-hand shoes squeak an apology for their shabby existence with every step. Piggy Griffin was right. I am an unpunctual untidy girl. A girl who will never get on in life.
I dodge newspaper vendors and sidestep a huddle of gentlemen in bowler hats as tramcars and motorcars rattle along the road beside me, clanging their bells and tooting their horns. Cries of the street sellers and the pounding hooves of a dray horse add to the jumble of noise. My stomach tumbles like a butter churn, excited and terrified by the prospect of my new position as a maid at The Savoy hotel.
The Savoy. I like the sound of it.
With my head bent down against the slanting rain, I take the final turn down Carting Lane, where I collide spectacularly with a gentleman hurrying in the opposite direction. I stagger backwards, dropping my travel bag as he takes a dramatic tumble to the ground. It reminds me of a scene from a Buster Keaton picture. I clap my hand over my mouth to stop myself laughing.
‘I’m so sorry! Are you all right?’ I raise my voice above the noise of the rain and the hiss of motorcar tyres through puddles. ‘My fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.’
Dozens of sheets of paper are scattered around him, plastered to the sodden street like a child’s hopscotch markings. He attempts to stand up, slipping and sliding on the wet paving stones. I offer my hand and an arm for him to balance on. He grasps hold of both and I pull him upright. He is surprisingly tall when he’s vertical. And handsome. Rusted stubble peppers his chin. His lips are crowned with a slim sandy moustache, a shade lighter than his russet hair; the colour of fox fur. I really want to touch it, and clench my fists to make sure I don’t.
‘Are you hurt?’ I ask, bending down to pick up his pages.
‘I don’t think so.’ He shakes water from his coat like a dog just out of the sea and stoops to join me, scrabbling at the edges of the papers stuck to the pavement. ‘Feel like a damned fool, though. Are you hurt? That was quite a collision!’ He speaks like the man from the Pathé newsreels at the picture palace, all lah-de-dah and lovely.
I check myself over. ‘I’ve a ladder in my stocking, but nothing that a needle and thread won’t fix. At least I managed to stay on my feet. Should’ve been looking where I was going.’
‘Me too. It was completely unavoidable.’ He looks at me, the hint of a smile dancing at the edge of his lips, his eyes deep puddles of grey that match the weather perfectly. ‘Or perhaps it was necessary.’
We grin at each other like the greatest fools, as if we are stuck and neither of us is capable of pulling away, or doesn’t want to. London fades into the background as the rain becomes a gentle hush and the cries of the street vendors blend into a waltz in three-four time. For a perfect rain-soaked moment there is nothing to do, nowhere to be, nobody to worry about. Just the melody of a rainy London afternoon, and this stranger. I catch my reflection in his eyes. It is like looking into my future.
A ribbon of rainwater slips off the edge of the peppermint-striped awning of the florist’s shop beside us, pooling in the crown of his hat. Grabbing the last of the papers, he ducks beneath the awning and the moment drifts away from us like a child’s lost balloon and all I can do is watch it disappear over the rooftops. I join him beneath the awning as he pats at his elbows with a white handkerchief and inspects a small tear in the knee of his trousers.
‘Damned new shoes,’ he mutters. ‘Treacherous in weather like this.’
His shoes are smart two-tone navy-and-tan brogues. I glance at my black lace-ups, hand-me-downs from Clover, as battered and worn as old Mrs Spencer at the fish shop. I place one foot over the other, self-consciously. ‘That’s why I don’t bother with them,’ I say. ‘Old shoes are more reliable. Same with men.’
My Lancashire accent sounds common beside him and I regret giving up the elocution lessons I’d started last year. Couldn’t stand the stuck-up woman who taught me. In the end I told her to get knotted with her how-nows and brown cows. Now I can’t help feeling I might have been a bit hasty.
I watch as he fusses and fidgets to set himself right, adjusting his coat and replacing his trilby: nut-brown felt with a chocolate-ribbon trim. Ever so smart. Dark shadows beneath his eyes suggest a late night. He smells of whisky and cigarettes, brilliantine and rain. I can’t take my eyes off him.
‘If you don’t mind me saying, you look knackered.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘Are you always this complimentary to strangers?’ That smile again, tugging at the edge of his mouth as if pulled by an invisible string. ‘It was a late night, if you must know.’
‘Hope she was worth it.’
He laughs. ‘Well, aren’t you the little comedienne! I needed some amusement today. Thank you.’
As I hand him the sodden pages that I’ve rescued from the pavement, I notice the lines of musical notes. ‘Do you play?’
‘Yes.’ He takes a page from me. ‘I write it actually.’
‘A composer? Blimey! Blues or jazz?’
‘Blues, mainly.’
‘Oh.’
‘You sound disappointed.’
‘Prefer jazz.’
‘Doesn’t everybody?’
I hand him another page. ‘Is it any good then, your music?’
He looks a little embarrassed. ‘I’m afraid not. Not at the moment, anyway.’
‘That’s a shame. I love music. The good type, that is. Especially jazz.’
He smiles again. ‘Then perhaps I should write some.’
‘Perhaps you should.’
And here we are again, grinning at each other. There is something about this fox-haired stranger that makes me smile all the way from my sodden toes to the top of my cloche. Nobody has made me feel like this since I was eight years old and first met Teddy Cooper. I didn’t think anybody would ever make me feel that way again. Part of me has always hoped nobody ever would.
‘And what is it you do?’ he asks. ‘Other than knock unsuspecting gentlemen down in the street?’
I hate telling people my job. My best friend, Clover, pretends she’s a shopgirl or a clerk if anybody asks. ‘Nobody wants to marry a domestic,’ she says. ‘Best to tell a white lie if you’re ever going to find a husband.’ I want to tell him I’m a chorus girl, or an actress in revue at the Pavilion. I want to tell him I’m somebody, but those grey eyes demand the truth.
‘I’m just a maid,’ I say, as Big Ben strikes the hour.
‘Just a maid?’
‘Yes. For now. I start a new position today. At The Savoy.’ The chimes are a reminder. ‘Now, actually.’
‘A maid with ambition. A rare and wonderful thing.’ A grin spreads across his face as he chuckles to himself. I’m not sure whether he is teasing me. ‘Well, I mustn’t keep you.’ He rolls the damp papers up and bundles them under his arm like a bathing towel. ‘Perry,’ he says, offering his hand. ‘Perry Clements. Delighted to meet you.’
His hand is warm against the fabric of my glove. The sensation makes the skin prickle on my palm. ‘Perry? That’s an unusual name.’
‘Short for Peregrine. Frightful, isn’t it?’
‘I think it’s rather lovely.’ I think you are rather lovely. ‘Dorothy Lane,’ I say. ‘Dolly, for short. Pleasure to meet you, Mr Clements.’ I gesture to the paper bathing towel under his arm. ‘I hope it’s not completely ruined.’
‘You’ve done me a favour, to be honest, Miss Lane. Possibly the most dismal piece I’ve ever written.’
And then he does something extraordinary and shoves the papers into a litter bin beside me, as casually as if they were the empty wrappings of a fish supper.
I gasp. ‘You can’t do that!’
‘Why not?’
‘Well. Because. You just can’t!’
‘But apparently I just did. That’s the fascinating thing about life, Miss Lane. All its wonderful unpredictability.’ He slides his hands into his coat pockets and turns to walk away. ‘It was terribly nice to meet you.’ He is shouting above the din of traffic and rain. ‘You’re really quite charming. Good luck with the new position. I’m sure you’ll be marvellous!’
I watch as he runs tentatively down the street, slipping and skidding as he goes. I notice that he carries a limp and hope it is an old war wound and not the result of our collision. He tips his hat as he jumps onto the back of an omnibus and I wave back. It feels more like an enthusiastic hello to an old friend than a polite good-bye to a stranger.
When he is completely out of sight I grab the bundle of papers from the litter bin. I’m not sure why, but it feels like the right thing to do. Something about these sodden pages speaks to me of adventure and, as Teddy said when we watched the first group of men head off to France, you should never ignore adventure when it comes knocking. Little did any of us know that the experience of war would be far from the great adventure they imagined as they waved their farewells.
Pushing the papers into my coat pocket, I run on down Carting Lane, being careful not to slip on the cobbles that slope steadily down towards the Embankment and the river. It is pleasantly quiet after the chaos of the Strand, even with the steady stream of delivery vans and carts that rumble past. I head for the service entrance, sheltered by an archway, and turn to walk down a flight of steep steps that lead down to a black door. A maid is stooped over, rubbing a great lump of hearthstone against the middle step. It seems to me a fool’s errand with the rain spilling down and dirty boots and shoes everywhere, but as I well know, it is not a maid’s place to question the sense of the chores she is given.
She looks up and wipes her hands on her sacking-cloth apron. ‘Beg pardon, miss.’
I smile at her. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’
Her cheeks are flushed from her efforts. She is young. Probably in her first position. I was that girl not so long ago, scrubbing steps, polishing awkward brass door handles, hefting heavy buckets of coal, constantly terrified to put a foot wrong in case the housekeeper or the mistress gave me my marching orders. The girl looks blankly at me and drags her pail noisily to one side so that I can pass. I go on tiptoe so as not to spoil her work.
Above the door, a sign says FOR DELIVERIES KNOCK TWICE. Since I’m not delivering anything I pull on the doorbell. In my head my mother chastises me. ‘Late on your first day, Dorothy Mary Lane. And look at the state of you. Honestly. It beggars belief.’
I hear footsteps approaching behind the door before a bolt is drawn back and it swings open. A harried-looking maid glares at me.
‘You the new girl?’
‘Yes.’
Grabbing the handle of my travelling bag, she drags me inside. ‘You’re late. She’s spitting cobs.’
‘Who is?’
‘O’Hara. Head of housekeeping. Put her in a right narky mood you have, and we’ll all suffer for it.’
Before I have chance to defend myself or reply, she shoves me into a little side room, tells me to wait there, and rushes off, muttering under her breath.
I place my bag down on the flagstone floor and look around. A clock ticks on the mantelpiece. A picture of the King hangs on the wall. A small table stands beneath a narrow window. Other than that, the room is quiet and cold and unattractive, not at all what I’d expected of The Savoy. Feeling horribly damp and alone, I take the photograph from my coat pocket, brushing my fingers lightly across his image. The face that stirs such painful memories. The face I turn to after every housekeeper’s reprimand and failed audition. The face I look at every time someone tells me I’m not good enough. The face that makes me more determined to show them that I am.
Hearing brisk footsteps approaching along the corridor, I put the crumpled photograph back into my pocket and pray that the head of housekeeping is a forgiving and understanding woman.
As she enters the room, it is painfully apparent that she is neither.
2 (#u47f49e09-e0a7-5dab-8cdf-a533a2de869c)
Dolly (#u47f49e09-e0a7-5dab-8cdf-a533a2de869c)
Wonderful adventures await for those who dare to find them.
O’Hara, the head of housekeeping, is a furious Irishwoman with a frown to freeze hell and an attitude to match. She is tall and strangely angular, her hair frozen in tight black waves around her face. Her arms are folded across her chest, her elbows straining against the fabric of her black silk dress, like fire irons waiting to prod anyone who gets in her way.
‘Dorothy, I presume?’ Her voice is clipped and authoritative.
I nod. ‘Yes, miss. Dorothy Lane. Dolly, for short.’
She looks pointedly at a watch fob attached to the chest panel of her dress. ‘You are five minutes late. Whilst I might expect poor timekeeping of flighty girls who work in factories and wear too much make-up and coloured stockings and invariably come to a bad end, I do not expect it of girls employed at The Savoy. I presume this is the first and last time you will be late?’
Her words snap at me like the live crabs at Billingsgate Market. I nod again and take a step back. When she speaks the veins in her neck pop out, as if they are trying to get away from her. If I were a vein in O’Hara’s neck, I’d be trying to get away from her too.
‘Mr Cutler is not impressed by tardiness,’ she continues. ‘Not at all. Not to mention the governor.’
I have no idea who Mr Cutler or the governor are, but decide that now is not the best time to ask. ‘I’m very sorry. I bumped into someone you see, miss, and the rain—’
A brusque wave of the hand stops me midsentence. ‘Your excuses do not interest me and I most certainly do not have time for them.’ She consults the watch fob again, as if it somehow operates her. ‘Hurry now. Get your bag. Come along.’
She turns and sweeps from the room. I pick up my bag and scuttle along behind, following the familiar scent of Sunlight soap that she leaves in her wake. She moves with brisk neat steps, the swish swish of her skirt reminding me of Mam rubbing her hands together to warm them by the fire. We go up a short stone staircase that leads to a series of narrow sloping passageways, the plain walls lit by occasional lampless lights. We pass a large room where maids are stooped over wicker baskets sorting great piles of laundry, and another room where a printing press clicks and whirs and men with ink-stained aprons peer through spectacles at blocks of lettering. The air is laced with a thick smell of oil and tar. It is stark and industrial. Far from the sparkling chandeliers and sumptuous carpets I’d imagined.
‘Your reference from Lady Archer was complimentary,’ O’Hara remarks, looking over her shoulder and down her nose with a manner that suggests I don’t match up at all with the girl she was expecting. ‘And the housekeeper spoke highly of you.’
‘Really? That was very kind of them.’ I’m surprised. I can’t believe Lady Archer would be complimentary about anything, let alone me. I worked for her in my last position at a house in Grosvenor Square. She can’t have said more than a dozen words to me in the four years I spent there and most of them were only to remark on my appearance and suggest how it might be improved.
‘It wasn’t kind, Dorothy. It was honest. Kindness and honesty are very different things. You’d be advised not to confuse one with the other.’
We walk on a little farther until she takes a sharp left and stops. ‘We’ll take the service lift,’ she says, checking her watch fob again and tutting to herself as she bustles me into a narrow lift and instructs the attendant to take us to second. He mutters a good afternoon before pulling the iron grille across the front and pressing a button on a panel in the wall.
‘I presume you haven’t been in an electric lift before,’ O’Hara says as the contraption jolts to life and we start our ascent.
‘No. I haven’t.’ I push my palms against the wall to steady myself as the passage slips away beneath us. I’m not sure I like the feeling.
‘The Savoy is the first hotel to be fully equipped with electricity,’ she continues. ‘Electric lifts, electric lighting – and centrally heated, of course. No doubt there’ll be plenty of new experiences for you here.’ She pushes her shoulders back and stands proud. ‘You’ll soon get used to it.’
‘Yes. I suppose I will.’ The sensation of the lift makes me queasy. My mouth feels dry. I could murder a brew.
Stepping out of the lift, I follow O’Hara along another corridor and into a large room, similar to the servants’ room at Mawdesley Hall. She tells me this is the Staff Hall Maids’ Room, where I will take all my meals. At least a dozen maids sit around a long wooden table, their faces lit by electric globe lights suspended on a pulley from the ceiling. The walls are distempered a sickly mustard yellow.
O’Hara waves an arm towards the table. ‘I’m sure you’re capable of introducing yourselves. Afternoon break is ten minutes. Breakfast, lunch, and supper are all served in here. The tea urn can be temperamental. Wait there.’
She departs in a rustle of silk. I put my bag down and shove my hands into my coat pockets. ‘Seems like the tea urn isn’t the only thing that’s temperamental.’ I mutter the words to myself but one of the girls sitting closest to me hears. She spits tea with laughing.
‘That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all year. Where’d they find you then, the music halls?’
I have that uncomfortable feeling of being the new girl at school, unsure whether I should sit down and join the others or wait for the irate Irishwoman to return. The girls at the table chatter away like a flock of starlings. They pretend to pay no notice to me, but I can tell they are all trying to sneak a glance without obviously staring. A couple of them smile at me. One glares at me so intently that I wonder if I’ve worked with her before and offended her in some way, although I can’t place her.
The youngest-looking girl pours tea from a pot and hands me a cup. ‘You been for a swim in the Thames?’ she says. ‘You’re soaked. And you’re leaving puddles on the floor.’
I look down. A small pool of water has gathered on the floor as the water drips from the hem of my coat. I take it off and bundle it under my arm, telling the girl that it’s cats and dogs outside.
The girl who spat her tea asks if I’ve ever heard of a thing called an umbrella. ‘Sissy, by the way,’ she says. ‘Sissy Roberts.’
‘Dorothy Lane,’ I reply. ‘Dolly, for short. I never bother with umbrellas. Too much bumping into people and apologizing. Anyway, a bit of rain never hurt anyone.’
Sissy laughs. ‘It’ll hurt the governor’s Turkish carpets if you drip all over them.’
As I take my first sip of tea, O’Hara sweeps back into the room. ‘Come along now, Dorothy. I’ll show you to the maids’ quarters.’ She stops and stares as if noticing me for the first time. ‘Goodness, girl! You’re soaked. Did you swim here?’
Her comment sets the others sniggering again. Sissy mouths a ‘good luck’ as I reluctantly leave my tea and rush along after O’Hara like a gosling following a mother goose.
We walk down another long passage that leads to a narrow staircase where two porters are struggling with a heavy-looking crate of champagne. One of them winks at me as they shuffle past. Cheeky sod. We pass a maid whose cap is just visible above a towering pile of linen balanced in her arms, and then a young page in a powder-blue uniform who stands obediently to one side to let us pass. He reminds me of a toy soldier with his smart white gloves and epaulettes. He wishes O’Hara good morning and gawps at me like he’s never seen a girl before. I flash him my best smile, setting him blushing like a ripe peach. O’Hara tells him it is rude to stare and to straighten his cap and to hurry along with whatever message he is delivering. His cheeks flare scarlet under her castigation.
‘You’ll share your room with three other maids,’ O’Hara explains as she bustles on ahead. ‘I suggest you get out of those damp clothes straightaway or you’ll have pneumonia before you’ve even changed so much as a pillow slip. Your uniform is laid out on your bed: two blue print morning dresses, two black moiré silk dresses for afternoons and evenings, three white aprons, two frill caps, black stockings, and black shoes. Laundry is sent out on Mondays. The hotel has its own laundry out Kennington way.’ The mention of Kennington sets my heart tumbling, but I have no time to dwell on the memories stirred as O’Hara rabbits on. ‘Sissy Roberts will show you around the areas of the hotel you are permitted in. Pay attention. Nobody likes to see a maid where she isn’t supposed to be. I’ll stop by later with the house list.’
I haven’t the foggiest what the house list is. I would ask, but my mouth is dry and my tongue feels as fat as a frog.
‘Second floor is live-in staff quarters,’ she explains. ‘Heads of department are accommodated on eighth. The governor – Reeves-Smith – keeps an apartment here, although he usually stays at our sister hotel, the Berkeley. Each guest floor has an assigned waiter, valet, and maid for floor service. You’ll take instruction from them, as necessary.’
The corridor is brighter than the passages below. Electric lights shine from sconces along the walls. My sodden shoes squeak against the nut-brown linoleum as I walk, the sound setting my teeth on edge. I follow O’Hara to a panelled door, where she stops and takes a key from the impressive collection hanging from her waist. She opens the door and we both step inside.
The room is neat, functional, and comfortably furnished. Far nicer than the sparse little room I’d shared with Clover at the top of the house in Grosvenor Square. It smells of furniture polish and lavender. A Turkey rug sits in the middle of the room, worn in patches from the footsteps of countless maids. Each of the four iron bedsteads is neatly made up with a white candlewick counterpane pulled tight across the sheets and mattress. O’Hara strides towards a narrow sash window and pulls it shut.
‘The maids’ bathroom is across the corridor,’ she says. ‘The necessary is to the right. You’ll be attending to guest rooms on floors four and six. All rooms are turned out daily, starting with unoccupied rooms for incoming guests, and then on to occupied rooms as soon as the guest departs for the day. Knock three times before announcing yourself by saying, “Housekeeping.” You’ll hang a MAID AT WORK sign on the door and always close the door behind you. Nobody wishes to see the work in progress, as it were.’ She tugs at the edge of a counterpane and plumps a pillow. ‘Should a guest return unexpectedly, you must vacate the room and finish it when instructed to do so. Things happen at peculiar and unpredictable times of the day in a hotel, Dorothy. You cannot expect the rigidity and routine of a regular household.’
‘No. Yes. Of course.’ My mind dances with thoughts of the hotel’s impressive guest list. Hollywood stars. Privileged American heiresses. The darlings of London society. Far more impressive than the stuffy old ladies who visited Lady Archer for boring bridge evenings and dreary at-homes.
‘You’ll attend to various other duties throughout the day – sorting the linen cupboards, occasional sewing for guests, that sort of thing. You’ll pull the blinds and curtains and turn down the beds in the evening. You must greet guests with a polite good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, and use their full title.’
I try to take everything in as O’Hara reels off her endless lists of instructions, but I’m preoccupied with thoughts of who the other three beds belong to, whether my roommates are pleasant, whether we will become good friends.
O’Hara chatters on. ‘I’m sure I needn’t remind you that the utmost discretion is required at all times.’ She raises an eyebrow. ‘Maids may occasionally see or hear things that are, shall we say, out of the ordinary. My advice to you is to turn a blind eye.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘You have a ten-minute morning tea break. Lunch is at twelve or one, depending on which relay you are on from week to week. Tea is at five, and supper – if all your chores are complete – is cocoa and bread and butter at nine. You have Wednesday afternoons and alternate Sundays off. I presume you’ll be powdered and painted and heading off to the picture palaces or the dance halls like the others.’ She tuts as she straightens the hearth rug. Her words fall off me like raindrops. All I can remember is cocoa and bread and butter at nine and my stomach rumbles at the thought. ‘Curfew is ten o’clock. Sissy Roberts will accompany you on your rounds today and tomorrow. Then you are on your own. Watch and learn, Dorothy. Watch and learn.’
I set my bag down beside the bed where my uniform is laid out. ‘It’s Dolly,’ I mutter. ‘Dolly, for short.’ She doesn’t hear me, or if she does, she chooses to ignore me as she stoops to pick up a piece of lint from the rug.
‘Any questions?’
I have dozens. ‘No. Everything seems straightforward. I’m sure I’ll soon pick it up.’
‘Very well. Then welcome to The Savoy, Dorothy. She is quite wonderful when you get to know her. I hope you will get along very well.’
She closes the door behind her, leaving me alone with the sound of the rain pattering against the window and a nagging voice in my head wondering how I’ll ever remember everything.
Hanging my sopping hat and coat on the stand beside the door, I take a better look at the room. Beside the beds, occasional items on the nightstands suggest a hint of the other girls who sleep here: a framed photograph of a soldier in uniform, a copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, a scallop-edged gilt powder compact that I can’t take my eyes off, a well-thumbed copy of The Sheik, and a pile of Peg’s Paper magazines. Clover’s favourite.
Dear Clover. I wish she were here with me. She’d tell me to stop worrying. She’d say something to make me laugh. While I wonder about things, Clover just gets on with them, accepts her lot, and makes do. She teases me about my dream of a life on the stage, but she also believes in me. ‘There’s something about you, Dolly,’ she says. ‘Something in your eyes. I saw it the very first time I met you. And you’re as stubborn as an old Lancashire goat. If anyone can get onto that stage, you can. I’d bet my best knickers on it.’
Her belief in me has only ever been matched by Teddy. He always said I would become someone special, that the little girl who twirled and danced her way through childhood when she should have been sitting still or feeding the chickens would find greater things. It was Teddy who found The Adventure Book for Girls in the laneway behind the house all those years ago when we were just children. ‘It’s yours now, Dolly,’ he said, brushing the mud off the cover with his elbow and pressing the book into my hands. ‘Finders keepers.’ And then he ran off to chase a butterfly. Teddy was always chasing butterflies. He never kept them though. Said he just liked to admire them close up before he let them go.
The Adventure Book for Girls was heavy, filled with 236 pages of stories, but it was the inscription inside that intrigued me the most: Wonderful adventures await for those who dare to find them. With much love, Auntie Gert. Those words crept into my heart and since nobody knew who the book belonged to, or who Auntie Gert was, I kept it. My sisters squabbled about it, saying it wasn’t fair. My taunting response of ‘Finders keepers, losers weepers’ only made things worse. Mam eventually put the book out of reach on top of the grandfather clock and told us it would stay there until we could learn to be nice to one another.
It was a week before that book came down.
My sisters soon lost interest, but I read every page, a dozen times at least. As time passed, the book was discarded by all of us in favour of other things – bicycles and boys mostly. The last time I saw it, it was being used to balance out a wobbly leg at the kitchen table, but I’ve never forgotten those adventure stories, nor Auntie Gert’s words. They whisper to me still, blowing my dreams onward despite everything that has happened, and everyone I have loved and lost in the years between.
Shivering against the cloying damp of my clothes, which now feel horrible against my skin, I step out of my shoes and strip down to my underwear, draping my brown serge dress, slip, and stockings over a wooden clotheshorse that stands in front of the fire. They hang there like a wilted version of myself in shades of tea and stout as I place my shoes on the hearth, despairing at the dull practicality of them. More than any cap or apron, I’ve always felt it is a maid’s shoes that really distinguishes ‘Them’ from ‘Us’. I stand in front of the fire, first to the front, then to back, just like I did as a young girl standing beside my two sisters, our reedy bodies convulsing as we tried to get warm after the weekly bath. I smile at the memory. What would they say if they could see me now, standing half naked in The Savoy hotel in London? I squeeze my eyes shut and say a silent prayer to them.
When I’m a little warmer I take the photograph from my coat pocket and set it on the hearth to dry. ‘We made it,’ I whisper, resting my fingers lightly on the image of his face, my heart contracting and expanding in great waves at the thought of him. Beside the photograph and my shoes, I lay out the pages of music, wishing I could understand the black dots and squiggles dancing across the lines. The heat from the fire lifts the faintest scent of him from the paper: whisky and cigarettes.
Perry Clements. Peregrine Clements. Mr Clements.
The name skips through my mind as I picture him staggering to his feet; fox-fur hair, grey puddles for eyes. The thought of our brief encounter sends goose bumps running over my skin and makes me smile, and yet at the same time I am saddened to know that it is someone other than Teddy who occupies my thoughts and sets my heart racing.
I always knew the day would come.
I always knew it would be too soon.
I have to leave, Teddy. For reasons I can’t explain, I have to go away. I will never stop loving you, and if only things were different there is nowhere I would rather be than by your side.
My thoughts are disturbed as the bedroom door flies open and three maids come tumbling in. I shriek and run to my bed, pulling off the counterpane and wrapping it around my shoulders to cover myself. I recognize Sissy from the maids’ room. She takes one look at me and bursts out laughing.
‘I’d get dressed if I were you,’ she says, throwing herself down onto the bed beside mine and putting on a snooty accent. ‘This isn’t one of those hotels. This, darling, is The Savoy!’
3 (#ulink_2746b39a-2098-5238-a668-63e4efc3a63a)
Loretta (#ulink_2746b39a-2098-5238-a668-63e4efc3a63a)
‘Hope is a dangerous thing, darling. It is usually followed by disappointment and too much gin.’
The soothing lilt of the piano drifts around the Winter Garden at Claridge’s. With a pleasing jazz medley the pianist captivates us all, the music mingling with polite chatter and the jangle of silver teaspoons against fine china cups. The sounds of afternoon tea. The sounds of luxury.
I sit alone at my usual table for two, my brother being habitually late. One would think I would be used to his tardiness by now, but I find it irksome and unnecessary. Seated behind a huge date palm, I at least have a little privacy while I wait. A little, but not too much. The spaces between the foliage afford the guests an occasional glimpse, sending whispered speculations racing across the crisp white tablecloths. ‘Is it her?’ ‘I thought she was in Paris.’ ‘Yes, I’m certain it’s her.’
I smile. Let them whisper and wonder. It is, after all, part of the performance.
I sip my cup of Earl Grey as I watch the raindrops slip down the windowpanes. Mother always insists that tea tastes better when it rains, something to do with precipitation and dampness bringing out the flavour in the leaves. She is full of such tedious nonsense. It is one of the reasons I visit her as infrequently as possible. The fact that she can barely stand to be in the same room as me being another. In any event, despite the inclement weather, my tea tastes peculiar, and there is nothing more unsettling than peculiar-tasting tea, particularly at Claridge’s.
I sniff the milk jug as discreetly as it is possible for one to sniff a milk jug in public. It has definitely turned. Mother would be appalled by the very fact that I take milk in Earl Grey at all. I look around for a waiter but think better of it. I don’t like to make a fuss. Not at Claridge’s. I’m awfully fond of Claridge’s, and besides I can’t summon the enthusiasm to make a proper fuss about anything recently. I decide to forgive this small oversight, assign the bad taste to too many gin cocktails last night, and reserve my annoyance for my wretched brother.
I’m quite aware that Peregrine tolerates our ritual of afternoon tea simply to humour me. He has complained about it since we first started meeting here when he was a jaded young lawyer and I was a bored society debutante. He thinks it unfair that I only invite him to tea and not our older brother, Aubrey, but as I remind him frequently Aubrey is too busy and too married and too full of his own self-importance to contemplate tea with his little sister and brother. We are better off without him.
‘But must we take afternoon tea every Wednesday, Etta?’
‘Yes, Perry. We must.’
‘Might I ask why?’
‘Because afternoon tea is predictable and charming – qualities that should be preserved wherever possible. Because it is one of the few things in my life that I can do without a chaperone, and because if we stop meeting for afternoon tea, who knows what we will stop doing next. Eventually we’ll stop seeing each other altogether. We’ll become distant strangers, like Aubrey, communicating only through a few thoughtless lines scribbled on tasteless Christmas cards. One day we’ll realize that we miss afternoon tea on a Wednesday terribly, but it will be too late, because one – or both of us – will be dead.’
Perry laughed and called me melodramatic, but he kept showing up nevertheless. In the end it wasn’t his lack of enthusiasm that brought an end to our little arrangement, it was war.
Overnight, the carefree privileged life we knew came crashing to a halt as a new and terrifying existence settled upon us all like a suffocating fog. My brothers went to France to serve as officers on the Western Front. I enrolled as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse. Simple pleasures such as afternoon tea became a distant memory until the war ended and my brothers returned. We were all changed irrevocably by the long years between. Now I cling to Perry and afternoon tea at Claridge’s like a life raft, holding on with grim determination, even if his habitual tardiness irritates me immensely and gives me a daylong headache.
‘Would you care for another pot of Earl Grey while you wait, Miss May?’
I glance up at the waiter. A handsome young chap. All taut-skinned and vibrant-eyed. The treasures of youth. ‘I suppose another can’t do any harm.’
‘No, miss. Not on such a dreadful day. And another slice of Battenberg, perhaps?’
I nod. Even the waiters at Claridge’s know my preferences and tastes. It makes life extraordinarily dull at times. ‘And a fresh jug of milk,’ I add.
‘Very well, Miss May.’
He moves with the precision of a principal ballet dancer, pirouetting behind the great ferns and Oriental screens that segment the room into private nooks and crannies. I almost call after him, tell him I’ve changed my mind and to bring Darjeeling and Madeira cake instead, but I don’t. Sometimes it is simpler to keep things as they are.
The pianist plays ragtime as the rain thrums in time against the window. All is a colourless grey smudge outside, weather for reading a racy novel, or for playing backgammon by the fire if one isn’t easily enthralled by the notion of illicit love affairs. Bored and restless, I drape my arm casually over the back of the chair beside me, the creamy white of my skin visible where my sleeve rides up over my wrist. A gentleman at the table to my right can’t take his eyes off me. I stretch out a little farther, languishing like a cat. I am still beautiful on the outside, despite the cracks that are appearing beneath the surface.
The waiter returns and pours the tea as I shuffle in my chair, fussing with the pleats and folds in my skirt, checking my reflection in the silver teapot: perfect golden waves, crimson lips, pencilled eyebrows over hooded eyes, green paste earrings that swing pleasingly as I tilt my head from side to side to catch the best of the light from the chandeliers. Claridge’s has always had flattering light. It is one of the reasons I insist on coming here.
I check my watch. Where the devil can Peregrine have got to?
I fiddle with the menu card, tapping it against the edge of the rose-patterned saucer. Lines of script whirl through my mind like circus acrobats as carefully choreographed steps play out on my feet beneath the linen tablecloth. I cannot sit still. My nerves rattle like the bracelets that knock together on my arm.
It is always the same. Always at three o’clock on the afternoon before opening night when the butterflies start dancing and the jitters set in. Tomorrow is opening night of a new musical comedy at the Shaftesbury, a full-length piece, the female lead written especially for me. The Fleet Street hacks and society-magazine gossip columnists are waiting for me to fail, desperate to type their sniping first-night notices: Miss May’s acting talents are obviously limited to revue and the lighter productions that made her a star. She would be well advised to leave the more challenging roles to accomplished actresses, such as the wonderful Diana Manners and the incomparable Alice Delysia. I feel nauseous at the thought.
The new production, HOLD TIGHT!, is a huge personal and professional risk. I don’t know how I ever let Charles Cochran talk me into it. Presumably it had a lot to do with the wonderful Parisian dresses he promised, and the large volume of champagne we drank on the night the contracts were signed – not to mention the fact that I cannot deny darling Cockie anything. But it isn’t just opening night that has my nerves on edge. There are other matters troubling me, matters far more important than forgotten lines and missed cues. Matters that I do not wish to dwell on.
My only small comfort is in knowing that I’m not the only one feeling anxious today. It is early in the autumn season. New productions open nightly across the city and everyone in the business is skittish. Final dress rehearsals are gruelling fourteen-hour-long marathons. Tempers and nerves are as frayed as the hems on unfinished costumes. The precariously balanced reputations of writers, composers, producers, actors, and actresses are all at stake. Everybody wants their show, their leading lady, to be the big sensation. For established stars such as myself, there is the added threat of the new girls – ambitious beautiful young things who will inevitably emerge from the chorus to become the darling of the season. That dreadful Tallulah Bankhead has already gone some way to shaking things up with Cockie engaging her in the lead role of The Dancers. The gallery girls find everything about her so exotic: her name, her beauty, her quick wit and overt sexuality. Under the glare of such bright young things, is it any wonder I feel dull and worn? It wasn’t so long ago when ambition and beauty were synonymous with the name Loretta May, when I wore my carefree attitude as easily as my Vionnet dresses. I was the darling of the set, wild and free, out-dazzling the diamonds at my neck. But things move quickly in this business. What shines today glares horribly tomorrow. We all lose our lustre in the end.
As the pianist plays ‘Parisian Pierrot’,a popular number from André Charlot’s new revue London Calling!, I spot Perry crossing the road. I urge the pianist to play faster and finish the piece. Perry is fragile enough without hearing the most popular number of the season so far, written by one of his friends. While Perry struggles to write anything at all, Noël Coward could write an address on an envelope and it would be a hit. Thankfully the final chords fade as he is shown to our table, limping towards me like a shot hare, apologizing all the way. He is as sodden as a bath sponge and has a tear in the knee of his trousers. Disapproving stares follow him.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’ He leans forward to kiss me, his stubble scratching my skin. He smells of Scotch and cigarettes. I tell him to sit down. Quickly.
‘You’re an absolute fright, Perry Clements. You look like a stray dog that has been out all night. Where on earth have you been to get into such a state?’
‘In the rain mostly. I bumped into someone near The Savoy. Quite literally. She sent me skittering across the pavement like a newborn foal.’
‘Anyone interesting?’ I ask.
‘No. Just some girl.’ He takes a tin of Gold Flake from his breast pocket, lights a cigarette, and takes a couple of long, satisfying drags. ‘Damned nuisance really. And then the omnibus got a flat, so I decided to walk the rest of the way. Anyway, I’m here now, and while I know you’re desperate to lecture me on appearance and send me straight off to Jermyn Street for some smart new clothes, I’d rather like it if we didn’t squabble. Not today. I have an outrageous headache.’
‘Scotch?’
‘And absinthe. Rotten stuff. Don’t know why anybody drinks it.’
‘Because the Green Fairy is wicked, and everybody else does. I have no sympathy for you, darling. None whatsoever.’
Much as I’d like to, I can’t be cross with him. I don’t have the energy. I take a Turkish cigarette from my case and lean forward for a light, studying Perry through the circles of smoke I blow so expertly. He isn’t unpleasant to look at. A little shoddy around the edges perhaps, but nothing that couldn’t be improved with a little more care. I’m sure he could find a perfectly decent wife if he tried a little harder. There are plenty of young girls in need of a husband, after all. The divine Bea Balfour, for one. But that is a romance I fear I will never see flourish, despite my best efforts to get the two of them to realize they are perfectly matched and to get on with it.
‘So who was this girl anyway?’ I ask.
‘Hmm? Which girl?’ Perry inspects the delicate finger sandwiches and miniature cakes on the stand, lifting each one up as though it were a specimen in the British Museum. He takes a bite from a strawberry tart, curls his lip, and replaces it. I smack the back of his hand.
‘The girl you bumped into. Who was she? Anyone we know?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because you paused after you mentioned her. I know you too well, darling. Whoever it was left a mark on you as clear as that unsightly tear in your trouser knee.’
He smiles. ‘You’ve been reading Agatha Christie novels again, haven’t you? We’ll make a detective of you yet!’ I glare at him. I am in no mood for jokes. ‘Oh, all right. She’s amaid. Not the daughter of an earl, or a beautiful American heiress. I know what you’re thinking and she was most definitely not marriage material. Pretty young thing, though. Eyes to make you wonder. She made me laugh, that’s all.’
‘Goodness! Well, I hope you invited her to dinner. Perhaps she could make you laugh more often and we could all be cheered up.’
He pours milk into his tea. ‘I’m not that bad. Am I?’
‘Yes, you are. Honestly, darling, sometimes it’s like spending time with a dead trout.And you used to be such tremendous fun.’ I stop myself from saying before the war, and take a sip of my tea. The milk is fresher, and the tea tastes better. Perhaps Mother is right about the rain.
Perry relents a little. ‘Well, perhaps I have been more serious of late. But the way the others carry on is ridiculous. Fancy-dress parties and all-night treasure hunts. Did you see the photographs of them dancing in the fountains in Trafalgar Square? Were you there?’
I laugh. ‘Sadly not. It looked like terrific fun, though. The society columnists can’t get enough of them. Bright Young People, they’re calling them. You shouldn’t be so serious, darling. They’re just shaking off the past. Living. You do remember what that feels like?’
‘Running around like bored children, more like. Did you hear they had one of the clues baked into a loaf of bread in the Hovis factory?’
‘I did. And they had to take one of Miss Bankhead’s shoes from her dressing room in a scavenger hunt last month. Of course, she adores the attention. I suppose I’d be part of it if I were ten years younger. When a woman reaches her thirties it seems that she can’t be referred to as a “young” anything, bright, or otherwise.’
‘Well, I think it’s all a lot of foolish nonsense.’
I can feel my irritation with him growing. ‘I wish you were plastered all over the front page of The Times or hanging around in opium dens or literary salons.Anything would be better than hiding away in that dreadful little apartment of yours eternally stewing on things.’ I grab hold of his hand and squeeze all my frustration into it. ‘You can’t change what happened, darling. You can’t bring them back. None of us can.’
We’ve skirted around the same conversation so many times. I cannot understand Perry’s enduring guilt about what happened under his command in France and he cannot understand the apparent ease with which I have put the war behind me. If only he knew the truth.
I take a long drag from my cigarette and change the subject. ‘So, you say this maid amused you?’
A smile tugs at the edge of his lips. ‘A little. She was different. Honest. She told me I looked tired. “Knackered”, actually.’
‘Eugh. Vulgar word, but she’s right. You do.’ I lean back in my chair. ‘Was that it? She insulted you and now you can’t stop talking about her?’
He stares out of the window, watching the rain. ‘It’s you who keeps talking about her! She just seemed different, that’s all. There was something about her. Some infectious indescribable thing that made me want to know her better. For someone in her position she seemed so full of hope.’
‘Hope!’ I laugh. ‘Hope is a dangerous thing, darling. It is usually followed by disappointment and too much gin.’
He casts a wry smile from behind his teacup. ‘Anyway, that was that. She went her way and I went mine. The shortest love story ever told. Now, enough about me. Tell me about tomorrow night. Who’ll be there?’
‘Bea Balfour.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘The usual. But especially Bea.’
He crushes his spent cigarette in the cut-glass ashtray. ‘You’ll never give up, will you?’
‘Not until I see the two of you married. No.’
‘Then I’m afraid you’ll be waiting a very long time. I missed my opportunity with Bea. And anyway,’ he continues, glumly pushing crumbs around his plate, ‘she deserves better. What prospects does a struggling musical composer have to offer a woman like her?’
‘You could always go back to the bar. A successful barrister would be hard to decline.’
‘What, and give Father the opportunity to gloat and prove that he was right all along; that I would never be a good enough composer? I’d rather end my days a lonely old bachelor and see Bea happily married to someone else.’
I sigh and take a sandwich from the tray. I am simply too tired to argue with him.
We spend a tolerable hour together chatting about this and that, but like the withered autumn leaves tugged from their branches outside, my thoughts drift and swirl continually elsewhere. I think about the houselights going down and the curtain going up. I think about the third scene in Act Two. I think about a rapturous standing ovation and the cries from the gallery, ‘You’re marvellous! You’re marvellous!’ I think about the letter in my purse that I have written to Perry but cannot bear to give him.
After kissing him good-bye and imploring him to smarten himself up for tomorrow’s opening night, I take a taxi to the theatre for a final dress rehearsal. A fog has rolled up the Thames and the streets are lit by the orange lamp standards, giving everything a sense of winter. The fog makes my eyes smart and sticks to my face. I feel choked by it and long for the warmth of spring and the flowers that brighten the Embankment Gardens.
As we approach the Shaftesbury Theatre, I see a line of fans already gathered outside the ticket office. The gallery girls: factory girls and shopgirls, clerks and seamstresses, ordinary girls and women who would give anything to live my life. Their adoration and enthusiasm can make or break a star quicker than any society-magazine columnist. I know they adore me and desire my beautiful dresses. If only they knew the truth my costumes conceal.
The front of house sign blazes through the dim light: LORETTA MAY IN HOLD TIGHT! My name in lights, just as I’d imagined when I was a starry-eyed novice in the chorus. Except it isn’t my name. It is the stage name I chose in my desire to leave the real me, Virginia Clements, behind. She was the respectable daughter of an earl, the daughter who had failed to secure a suitable marriage, the daughter who was suffocated by expectation. Loretta May set me free from the starchy limitations imposed on titled young ladies such as myself. She allowed me to be somebody daring and new.
Virginia Clements. Loretta May. Just names, and yet I wonder. Who am I? Who am I really?
That’s the curious thing about discovering one is dying: it makes one question absolutely everything.
4 (#ulink_56be10b5-a405-5d43-abb6-4ca543fd2835)
Dolly (#ulink_56be10b5-a405-5d43-abb6-4ca543fd2835)
‘If only the mess we make of our lives could be tidied as easily.’
While I wriggle into my maid’s dress I learn that my roommates are Sissy, Gladys, and Mildred. Sissy does the introductions. She reminds me of Clover, all round-cheeked and generous-bosomed with bouncy blonde hair. I feel comfortable around her and know we’ll get along. Gladys is much quieter. She offers a distracted ‘hello’ as she studies her reflection in the scallop-edged powder compact I’d admired earlier. She’s very pretty with a peaches-and-cream complexion and her hair perfectly styled in chestnut waves, just like Princess Mary of York. The third girl, Mildred, barely acknowledges me as she perches on the edge of the bed beside the nightstand with the Austen novel. She is prim and rigid, like the governess in Grosvenor Square who Clover used to say was so brittle she would snap in two if she bent over. Mildred is the girl who had stared at me downstairs. Something about her is familiar, and although she busies herself, I know she has one ear firmly tuned to the conversation.
Sissy props herself up on her elbows and flicks through a well-thumbed copy of a Woman’s Weekly magazine. ‘So, where’d you come from, then?’ she asks, turning down the corner of a page with an advert for a new Max Factor mascara.
‘Grosvenor Square.’ My words are muffled as I pull the black dress over my head.
‘No, you great goose. I mean, where are you from? Not where did you get the omnibus from this morning, ’cause that’s not a London accent, or I’m the Queen of Sheba.’
I shimmy the dress down over my stomach and hips. It fits perfectly. The moiré silk fabric feels so much nicer against my skin than the starchy cotton dresses I’m used to. ‘Oh. I see. I’m from Lancashire. A small village called Mawdesley, near Ormskirk. You wouldn’t know it.’
‘So what brought you to London, then? Or should I say, who? Bet it was a soldier you met in the war. Told you he loved you and you followed him here only to find out he was already married with five children?’ She laughs at her joke. Gladys tells her to stop being a nosy cow and to mind her own. Mildred sits like a stone statue on the edge of her bed.
‘It wasn’t a soldier,’ I say, tying my apron in a neat bow at my back. ‘It was work. That’s all.’
Sissy puts down her magazine. ‘None left in Lancashire?’
‘Only the usual. Domestic service. Tea shops. Textile factories. London offered … more.’ My explanation is as limp as my damp clothes hanging beside the fire. How can I explain what really brought me here? ‘I had an aunt who worked in a private home in Grosvenor Square. I started as a maid-of-all-work and worked my way up. Gave my notice a month ago.’
‘Let me guess. It was stuffy and boring and Madam was a miserable old cow?’
I smile. ‘How did you guess?’
‘Always the same. Anyone who ends up here wants more than picture rails to dust and fires to lay and chamber pots to empty. We all fancy ourselves a cut above the ordinary housemaid. And then of course there’s some like our Gladys here who spends far too much time at the picture palaces and doesn’t think being a maid at The Savoy is good enough.’ Sissy winks at me. ‘Has her eye on Hollywood, this one does. Fancies herself as the new Lillian Gish. I keep telling her it’ll never happen. Silly dreams. That’s all.’
Gladys is plucking her eyebrows. ‘It’s not silly dreams, Sissy Roberts. It’s called ambition.’
Sissy chuckles to herself from behind her magazine, but I’m interested.
‘Did you ever audition, Gladys?’ I ask.
‘Dozens of times. Most of them turned out to be with seedy old men full of empty promises, but some Hollywood bigwig arrived last week. We think he’ll be staying for the season, and I’m going to make myself known to him. You see if I don’t.’
I’d love to talk more to Gladys but Sissy’s disregard for her ‘silly dreams’ makes me reluctant to share my own, so I say nothing and sit down on the edge of my bed, pulling a stocking over my toes before working it carefully up my leg. I don’t notice Mildred walking over to the fireplace.
‘What are these?’ she asks.
I look up. She has my photograph in her hands, and one of the pages of music. In my hurry to dress I’d forgotten all about them. I jump up from the bed and rush over to her.
‘Nothing. Just some papers that got damp on my way here.’ I snatch the page from her, gather up the rest from the hearth, and push them under my pillow.
‘That’s piano music,’ Mildred remarks. ‘Do you play?’
‘No. I’m just minding them for someone.’
She seems more interested in the photograph anyway. ‘And who’s this?’
My heart leaps. For a moment, I am back with him. I see his face, my hands trembling as I open up the lens on the little VPK camera. ‘It’s my brother,’ I say, grasping for an explanation and holding out my hand to take the photograph from her.
She looks at the image a moment longer and hands it to me. I place the photograph under my pillow along with the pages of music and sit protectively beside them as I pull on the other stocking. Mildred walks back to her bed. She glances at me over her book, her silent interest in me unsettling.
‘What’s the house list?’ I ask, desperate to change the subject. ‘O’Hara mentioned it.’
‘Ah, the famous house list.’ Sissy rolls onto her back, sticking her legs straight up in the air like fire irons. She doesn’t seem to care that her dress falls around her hips and shows her knickers. ‘That’s the most important thing. It’s the list of guests. We’re given a copy each day and expected to remember who’s staying in which apartment and suite. We need to know the names of their valets and lady’s maids, their secretaries – even their silly little dogs.’
This is bad news. I’m awful at remembering names. ‘Doesn’t it get confusing?’
‘You get used to it. The regulars always ask for the same rooms. Some of the apartments have the same residents for months at a time.’ She stands up and walks over to the window. The rain is still coming down in torrents. ‘The Mauretania docks in Southampton tonight, so we’re expecting a load of Americans to arrive on the boat train tomorrow. We’ll be rushed off our feet.’ She turns around and leans her back against the window, amused by the look of panic on my face. ‘Don’t worry. The Savoy is a tightly run ship. It’s like clockwork, all the parts clicking and whirring together to move us all around to the right place each day. I don’t think about it anymore. I just go from here to there, and there to here. I grab a cuppa and a bite to eat when I can, and fall into bed at night exhausted. Don’t even have the energy to take off my undies sometimes. But it’s all worth it when you see Fred and Adele Astaire dancing on the rooftop.’
‘Did you see them?’ I ask. ‘Really?’ I have a picture of them both in my scrapbook. I would give anything to dance as wonderfully.
‘Yes! Really! I was polishing windows one minute and the next, there they were, dancing a quickstep and a photographer taking pictures of them. You never know what’ll happen at The Savoy. Better get used to it.’
This is what I had imagined when I thought about working here: stars dancing on rooftops, Hollywood bigwigs. This is the magic I heard in the words ‘The Savoy’.
‘So, what are the Americans really like?’ I ask as I pull on my frill cap. ‘Are they as glamorous as everyone says?’
‘Dresses and shoes to make your head spin. More importantly, they tip well. You’ll do fine as long as there’s Americans upstairs. Save those half crowns and you’ll soon have enough for a pound note. Before Christmas, you’ll have a fiver in your purse.’ She nods towards Gladys. ‘Or a fancy powder compact, if that’s your thing.’
I gaze at the compact on the bed beside Gladys. ‘Oh, it is my thing.’
‘Selfridges,’ Gladys brags. ‘Had my eye on it for months. Isn’t it the bee’s knees?’
‘Think you’re the bee’s knees,’ Mildred mutters.
I’d almost forgotten she was in the room. Gladys and Sissy roll their eyes at me.
I stand up and slip my feet into the shoes that have been provided for me, black as night but at least they have a strap and button. I spin around to face my roommates.
‘Well. Will I do?’
Gladys smiles. Mildred’s left eye twitches. Sissy nods. ‘Yes, Dorothy,’ she says, mimicking O’Hara’s Irish accent perfectly. ‘You’ll do very nicely. We’ll make a Savoy maid of you yet.’
I wish I knew her well enough to throw my arms around her. I wish I could kiss her dumpling cheeks and thank her for the vote of confidence. Instead, I tug at the counterpane on my bed, straightening the creases I’ve made by sitting on it. A habit of mine. If I can’t untangle the knots in my heart, it seems that my life must be spent untangling everything else, setting things straight, making neat all that has been messed up.
Wonderful adventures await for those who dare to find them.
I think of Auntie Gert’s words and feel the flutter of restless wings on the edge of my heart. If adventures are waiting for me here, then I’m ready to find them.
‘Right, then,’ I say. ‘Where do I start?’
While Gladys and Mildred head out for their afternoon off, Sissy takes me down to the hotel storerooms and back-of-house operations, a bewildering maze of corridors and rooms housing all manner of weird and wonderful things. She shows me the audit room where male clerks hunch over desks, the stationery and fancy goods stores, stores for glassware and china, and even a silversmith’s repair and replating room. In the linen stores we collect bedsheets, pillow slips, and chamber towels and load them onto a trolley. Then we fill a wicker basket with cleaning products and supplies: feather dusters, scourer, polish, chamois cloths, soap tablets, tissue paper, drawer liners, and pomanders. When we have everything we need we push the trolley down another long passageway that leads towards a service lift. A cool draught blows through an open door. I shiver in the thin fabric of my dress and hope I haven’t caught a chill from standing around chatting to strange fox-haired men in the rain.
As we make our ascent to sixth, Sissy consults several pages of foolscap paper clipped together. The house list. ‘We’ll do suite 601 first,’ she says. ‘Occupied by a Miss Howard, travelling from Pennsylvania. Arrived yesterday evening. Daughter of an American shipping magnate. Plenty of expensive shoes to try on.’
I gasp. ‘You do not.’
‘’Course I do. We all do.’ She leans casually on the pile of towels. ‘Perk of the job. We’ll never live their lives, but what’s the harm in a dab of perfume or a quick try-on of a silk shoe?’
I’m shocked. ‘But what if you get caught?’
‘You don’t – or …’ She makes a dramatic slicing gesture across her throat. ‘Gone. Marching orders. On the spot. Never get a reference or work in service again and then it’s a life of prostitution and vice for you, my girl.’
She sees the look of horror on my face and bursts out laughing as the lift jolts to a stop. She slides back the grille, pulls the trolley out behind her, and strides off along the corridor.
Stepping out of the lift, I’m struck by the decor. It is rich and sumptuous, a noticeable contrast to the stark functionality of the rooms below. Elegant ferns and great palms drape like chiffon over willow-pattern pots. Impressive gilt-framed paintings of seascapes and ballerinas pattern the walls. Tiffany lampshades cast a soft creamy light and huge chandeliers dazzle like icicles above our heads.
Sissy calls over her shoulder. ‘Stop gawping. Wait till you see the river suites, and the Grand Ballroom. Makes these corridors look like the staff passage.’
I hurry after her, my feet sinking into the plush pile of the carpet. We pass two gentlemen discussing a painting of a ship being tossed around on a stormy sea. It makes me feel queasy just looking at it. One of the men wears small round spectacles. He is portly and dressed for dinner. The other man is dressed casually in cream slacks and a blue shirt with a mint-green knitted vest. He wears a lemon-coloured cravat at his neck and his black hair is slicked neatly to one side. He leans against the wall, his crossed ankles revealing plaid socks. The man with the spectacles looks up as we pass.
Sissy acknowledges them both. ‘Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, Mr Snyder.’
They bid us both good afternoon in reply as the elder of the two gentlemen stares at me. ‘I don’t believe I’ve seen you before,’ he says. ‘Are you new?’ His tone is authoritative, but not unkind.
I mumble a reply. ‘Yes, sir. I just started today.’
‘Ah. A new recruit! Splendid. Welcome to The Savoy – the largest and finest luxury hotel in the world.’
His colleague laughs. ‘In your opinion, old man. The manager of the Waldorf Astoria may not be inclined to agree!’ His accent is American. Brash and confident. As he speaks, his eyes travel from my shoes to my cap and everywhere in between. I feel uncomfortable under his gaze. ‘But your standards are most definitely going up,’ he continues. ‘Much prettier staff than last year. A carefully planned business strategy of yours, I presume? Anything to drag the punters in!’
My cheeks redden as they both laugh at the joke.
‘Don’t let us hold you up,’ the older gentleman says. ‘Plenty of work to do. Tempus fugit.’
I follow Sissy along the corridor. As we turn a corner, I glance over my shoulder. He is still staring.
‘Who was that?’ I whisper.
‘The governor. Reeves-Smith.’
‘No. Not him. The younger man with him.’
‘That’s Lawrence Snyder. Larry to his friends. Big Hollywood somebody or other. Comes over every season to spot the new talent. Entices them to America with the promise of starring roles in the movies. He’s the one Gladys has her sights on. Can’t blame her. He’s so handsome. And that accent!’
‘I thought he was vile. Did you see the way he looked us up and down?’
‘Looked you up and down, you mean. Serves you right for having those great big eyes and shapely ankles. Anyway, all the gentlemen look at the maids that way. The prettier ones, at least. You’d better get used to it, Miss Dorothy Lane.’
My stomach lurches at her words. I instinctively place a hand to my cheek. Sometimes I can still feel the pain; the sickening thud of his fist.
Reaching a white panelled door, Sissy knocks firmly and calls, ‘Housekeeping.’ Hearing nothing in reply, she turns the key and steps inside. I hang the MAID AT WORK sign on the handle and close the door behind us.
The suite is breathtaking, a dazzling display of crystal chandeliers and polished walnut. An ornate chaise sits by a low window and Hepplewhite chairs are arranged beside a mahogany coffee table. The famous Savoy bed is big enough for half a dozen people to sleep in. Even with its crumpled linen and creased pillow slips, it is quite something. Following Sissy’s lead, I check the blinds, switch the electric lights on and off to make sure they are all working, and turn the bathroom taps to make sure they’re not dripping.
‘It’s funny to be among the things of someone I’ve never met, and probably never will,’ I remark as we strip the bed. ‘I’m used to doing out the rooms of young ladies I’d see every day.’
‘I like the anonymity,’ Sissy says, bundling the dirty sheets into a neat pile. ‘It suits me to come in and set things right while they’re out having lunch and cocktails. Never cared for all that gossip and familiarity in a private household. Part of the fun of working here is imagining whose room you’re in. Look at those black opera gloves over that chair. What do you reckon? A tall redhead with a dirty laugh?’
‘Or maybe a short brunette with thick ankles?’ I add.
We giggle as we conjure up increasingly awful images of who Miss Howard from Pennsylvania might be and as I lift beautiful necklaces from the dressing table, I imagine the pale neck they will decorate with their emeralds and jade. I replace the cap on a lipstick and see perfect crimson lips and the mark they will leave on a champagne glass. I breathe in the scent of sandalwood and rose as I dust beneath perfume bottles and face creams. I admire a small travelling pillow, running my fingers over the outline of a butterfly expertly captured by silk thread. I feel the rich fabric of each elegant dress, the soft satin of each shoe, the smooth gloss of every Ciro pearl, and for a delicious moment I am not Dorothy Lane, daughter of a Lancashire farmer, I am the daughter of an American shipping magnate with exquisite things to make my life perfect.
We work methodically following a careful routine, making neat hospital corners, plumping downy pillows, folding thick towels, replacing the scented lining paper in drawers, and placing freshly baked Marie biscuits into the silver boxes on the nightstands. The work is intense and time passes quickly.
As we finish the last room on our round, I pull at a final pucker on the counterpane. The room, once again, set straight. I step back to admire our work and think of something Teddy once said as he watched me iron the laundry until everything was as smooth as glass. Life can’t always be starched sheets and perfect hemlines, Dolly. Sometimes creases and puckers will sneak in, no matter how much you tug and smooth. He had such wise and lovely words. It makes his silence all the more unbearable.
Sissy is watching me. ‘Penny for your thoughts.’
I let out a long sigh. ‘If only the mess we make of our lives could be tidied as easily. That’d be something, wouldn’t it?’
She studies me for a moment. ‘What’s his name, your mess? Mine’s Charlie. Ran off with my best friend.’
I hesitate. I don’t often talk about him, but something about Sissy makes me want to open up. ‘Teddy. He’s called Teddy.’
‘And what did Teddy do to make a mess of things?’
I look at her and then I look down at my feet. ‘Nothing. Teddy did nothing at all.’
5 (#ulink_357ac9c5-2882-59b6-a40f-bbbad930eed0)
Teddy (#ulink_357ac9c5-2882-59b6-a40f-bbbad930eed0)
Maghull Military War Hospital, Lancashire
March 1919
‘I wonder if I might see your face among the clouds, because sometimes I forget you.’
My bed is the last in a long row of twenty on the ward. It means that I’m the last to be fed and the last to be seen by the doctors on their rounds, but it also means that I am beside the window, and for that I would come last at everything.
With a simple turn of the head I can look out at the sky and the distant hills. I can watch the clouds and the weather rolling in across the Irish Sea. I can turn my back on the rest of the ward and forget that I am here at all.
Today the sky is a wonderful shade of blue. Bluebell blue. A welcome sight after yesterday’s relentless sheets of grey rain. My nurse tells me she hopes to take a walk in the park later.
‘It’s lovely out,’ she says, her voice cheery and bright. ‘Looks like spring has arrived at last.’
I don’t speak. I barely acknowledge her as I stare at the window and watch a butterfly dancing around the frame. Unusual to see them at this time of year. A Peacock. Or maybe it’s a Painted Lady. I forget. I used to know my butterflies so well. Whatever it is, the nurses have let it out several times but it always comes back in.
‘I’ve brought some more of the letters to read,’ the nurse continues. ‘Shall I start?’
I turn my head towards her. She sits in a small chair beside the bed. Smooths her skirt across her knees. Tucks a loose hair behind her ear. I nod. What else can I do? She’s here now. She says the letters will help me remember.
She unfolds the page, and starts to read.
October 5th, 1916
My dearest Teddy,
I looked at the sky this morning. Not just a quick glance because a bird flew overhead, but really looked, like you always told me to. I stood perfectly still and did nothing but look up. It was all peaches and raspberries. Yesterday it was soft velvet grey, like moleskin. I wonder if the sky looks the same in France. I imagine it is different somehow. Darker.
Do you remember when we used to meet at the stone bridge and sit with our legs dangling over the edge, swaying like the bulrushes in the breeze? ‘Listen to the river,’ you would say. ‘What can you hear?’ I laughed at you. All I could hear was the water. But when I really listened I heard other things: the rush of wind through the grass, the hum of dragonfly wings, the splash as a fish took a fly from the surface. When I looked at the water all I could see was our reflections and the shadows of the clouds. But you told me to look beyond the surface and slowly my eyes would adjust and I’d see a fish. And like magic, an entire shoal would be there. They’d been there all along, but I couldn’t see them. I wasn’t looking properly. And then all sorts would appear from the murk: the glint of a coin, a child’s rattle, the flash of pink and gold as a trout flickered beneath the surface.
I remember.
It comforts me to know that we are looking at the same sky. If we look hard enough, what might we see, Teddy? I wonder if I might see your face among the clouds, because sometimes I forget you. I struggle to catch the image of you, like I struggled to see those fish. But I keep looking, keep searching, and suddenly there you are, as clear as if you were standing in front of me. As if you’d been there all the time.
I just need to keep looking and there you’ll be.
Don’t forget me, Teddy. Look for me.
Your Little Thing,
Dolly
X
P.S. I’ve been catching the leaves and making a wish like you showed me. I don’t need to tell you what I wished for.
The words of the letters upset her. Sometimes she dabs a little cotton handkerchief to her cheek to wipe away the tears. Perhaps she wrote letters like this to someone too. Perhaps they stir memories of her own.
‘Would you like me to read another?’ she asks. I look back to the window; stare at the trees with their buds promising new life. I shrug. ‘I know it’s difficult,’ she says, ‘but it’s good for you to hear them.’ She places a comforting hand on my shoulder. ‘They’ll help you remember. In time.’
I turn my head slowly to look at her. My eyes feel dull and tired. She looks distant; far away. Picking up another envelope from her lap, she removes the pages and continues.
November 12th, 1916
My dearest Teddy,
It is eight months since you left, and everything has changed so much. Conscription is so cruel. Everyone who is able to fight has gone now, even the married men. Those who are left – too young, or too old or infirm – drift around the village like dandelion seeds. They feel guilty and useless and wish they were out there fighting with you all. I tell them they should be grateful they’re not and that I’d give anything to make you a year or two younger so you’d still be here with me.
We are all doing our bit. I seem to be knitting, mostly. Socks, gloves, and other comforts. It turns out I’m almost as bad at knitting as I am at sewing, but if I keep trying I might improve. Others are making Christmas puddings to send to you all and everyone’s helping out on the farms. The Land Army, it’s called.
I finished up at the big house and work in the munitions factory since I turned eighteen. It’s hard work, but anything’s better than domestic work and it pays better. We wear trousers! We clock in and out and fill the shells with TNT powder. They call us ‘canary girls’ because the powder stains our skin yellow. The work is dangerous – there was a big explosion at a factory in Faversham down south – but at least I feel like I’m doing something to help, and sometimes, when we sit out on the grass on tea break, we feel quite happy. I know we shouldn’t because there’s a war on, but Ivy Markham says you can’t be maudlin all the time. We all feel terrible when one of the girls gets the King’s Telegram. Oh, that’s so awful, Teddy. We don’t know what to say and I know everyone else feels the same as I do deep down – relieved that it wasn’t news about our own, and that’s an awful thing to think when someone’s just lost somebody dear to them.
I’ll try to write with happier news next time. Mam says I shouldn’t be telling you sad things. She says the job of the women back home is to cheer you all up.
Your Little Thing,
Dolly
X
P.S. the camera arrived safely. I think you are right to send it back, considering the ban from the War Office. It would be silly to get into trouble if your officers found that you still had one, and worse still if it fell into enemy hands. I’ll keep it safe until you come home.
The room is silent apart from the occasional cough from another patient. I look out at the distant chimney pots of the factories, reaching up toward the clouds like grubby fingers. The nurse tells me they made bombs in that factory during the war. They make ladies’ gloves there now. Sometimes it all seems so pointless.
‘Another letter?’ she asks.
I shake my head. What’s the point? She must have read these letters to me a dozen times and still I cannot remember this girl called Dolly who says such nice things. I hold out my hand and take the pages from her. They are watermarked and stained with the filth of war. She told me they were found in the breast pocket of my greatcoat. A great bundle of them, carried against my heart. I fold the pages as neatly as I can, following the worn creases. The tremble in my hands makes hard work of what would once have been such a simple task.
She takes the pages from me and pats my hand. ‘Tea?’
I nod.
‘Two lumps?’
I nod again. I can remember that much, two lumps of sugar in my tea. I can remember the name of my cat, the date of my mother’s birthday, how to make a corn dolly. Trivial things. Everything else is a distant fog, my once apparently happy life slowly erased by years of war until I am left only with the nightmares that haunt me.
The doctors are troubled by my condition. They prod me and poke me and write things down. Words I don’t understand for a condition they don’t understand: delusions, hallucinations, hysterical mutism. I’ve seen their notes. But despite their many treatments – hypnosis, electric shock, basket making, warm baths – they can’t make me better and they won’t send me home. They have labelled me ‘Not Yet Diagnosed, Nervous’. A fancy name for what the men called shell shock. We all knew someone who was sent back from the front, suffering with their nerves. Lacking Moral Fibre, was another label the officers stuck on it. The young lad in the bed beside me says I need to pull myself together, that if I keep screaming at night and talking about the things I’ve seen they’ll send me off to the county asylum. And this girl in the letters, this Dolly, she tells me of so many wonderful things I have seen and done. It seems such a shame that I can’t do them anymore.
The guns are silent, but I am still fighting my war.
It is all I have now. War, the nurse, and the butterfly at the window.
6 (#ulink_b066f8e9-69df-5750-9285-cccc4fb3b755)
Dolly (#ulink_b066f8e9-69df-5750-9285-cccc4fb3b755)
‘You look at things. Imagine things. I bet you see shapes in the clouds.’
The hotel room is dark and unfamiliar when I wake. I lie still, listening to the rise and fall of the girls’ breaths, the pop of a mattress spring as they move, the rustle of bedsheets as they fidget in their sleep. It is all so strange and new. I didn’t think I would ever miss Clover’s snoring, but I do. I hear other noises as the hotel wakes up: the rush of water through distant pipes, the yawn of a straining floorboard overhead, the whistle of a porter, the jangle of milk bottles in the courtyard below the window. I think of the sounds I woke to in Mawdesley: the cockerel, the wind in the eaves, the knock knock knock of the wonky leg at the kitchen table as Mam scrubbed it with sugar and soap until her fingers bled. She scrubbed that table for weeks, as though she might somehow scrub away the words on the telegram that told her my father had fallen in the line of duty. That relentless knocking became the sound of our grief until I couldn’t bear it any longer and propped up the wonky table leg with The Adventure Book for Girls. The knocking stopped. Mam’s tears continued. I had nothing to prop her up with.
Instinctively, I reach beneath my pillow for the photograph but my fingertips find the pages of music. The touch of them reminds me: grey eyes, russet hair, a moment of something unspoken. I think about the music on the pages; unplayed, unloved. It nags at me like an itch I can’t scratch. I feel again for the photograph and take it from its hiding place, pressing it against my chest as I pull back the bedcovers, wrap a blanket around my shoulders, and creep across the cold floor to the window. The gas lamps cast an eerie glow over the courtyard at the back of the kitchens, lending just enough light to the room for me to see his face. My heart collapses at the sight of him. So many questions I can’t answer. So much pain. So much hurt and anger – and yet still so much love; an instinctive yearning to hold him in my arms. I clutch him tight to my chest, just as I did the day the photograph was taken. If only I could feel the warmth of him once more. That would be enough.
Beneath the window, porters and deliverymen are lifting supplies off wagons and carts after their trip to the markets. They work quickly, the men on the carts tossing pallets of fruit and vegetables to the next man, and on down the line. A rotten tomato lands on someone’s head and I smile as the unlucky recipient throws one back in reply. Soon everyone is pelting each other with whatever they can grab: oranges, lemons, walnuts. ‘Silly buggers,’ I whisper.
A mattress spring pops behind me. I look round to see Sissy sitting up in bed watching me. I startle at the sight of her, making us both giggle.
‘What are you doing?’ she whispers.
‘Looking.’
‘At what?’
I shrug. ‘Nothing much.’
She wraps her blanket around her shoulders and joins me at the window. We stand for a moment, our foreheads pressed against the cold glass as we watch the porters larking about.
‘You’re a dreamer, aren’t you, Dolly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You look at things. Imagine things. I bet you see shapes in the clouds.’
She is right. I do.
We watch as the lamplighter makes his way along the street with his long pole and ladder, extinguishing the lamps as a dove-grey dawn settles across the sky.
‘Did you lose someone?’ she asks.
I falter. What is the definition of loss? I place my fingertip on the glass, drawing patterns into the condensation formed from our breaths. ‘Yes.’
‘Me too. The Somme. He’d only been there a couple of months. My brother, Davey.’ She turns and points to the photograph on her nightstand. ‘That’s him. Handsome bugger.’
I place my hand on hers. ‘I’m sorry.’ It never sounds enough.
‘Left a wife and two babies, a mother, and a sister. We’re all sorry. His missus says she could bear it a little more if he’d written a good-bye. But there was no last letter in his pocket. Not our Davey. He wasn’t one for words or soppy sentiments.’ She draws a heart onto the glass and we watch as it fades away. ‘What about yours? How did he die?’
Our conversation is interrupted as something lands with a clatter against the glass, making us both scream and jump backwards. We peer down to see one of the porters grinning up at us. He has a handful of walnuts and sends another rattling against the window.
Sissy pushes up the sash. A blast of cold air nips at my skin as she sticks her head outside. ‘Oi!’ she shouts. ‘Watch it!’
The porter blows her a kiss and carries on with his work.
‘Cheeky sod,’ she says, closing the window and pulling the blanket closer around her shoulders.
‘Do you know him?’
‘Billy Morris. He’s taken a fancy to me.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘Have you taken a fancy to him?’
Her cheeks redden as a smile crosses her lips. ‘Might have.’
‘What’s all the noise?’
We both turn around to see that Mildred is awake.
‘It’s Dolly,’ Sissy says. ‘She’s flirting with the porters.’
I cuff her on the shoulder. ‘I am not!’
Mildred looks at me with that same knowing look. ‘Well, Dolly should be careful or she’ll get herself a reputation before she gets her first pay packet.’
Sissy and I look at each other and burst out laughing.
Mildred throws her covers back and steps out of bed. ‘Honestly. It’s like being back at school.’ She leaves the room, slamming the door behind her.
‘What’s got into her?’ I ask, clambering back into bed and hugging my knees tight to my chest for warmth.
‘Nothing,’ Sissy says. ‘That’s the problem. Needs a good roll in the hay, that one does. She’s as stiff as a fire iron.’
The maids’ bathroom is like Piccadilly Circus on a Friday evening. A couple of the manicurists from the hairdressing salon are washing their stockings in the sinks. I catch snippets of their conversation, something about a Hollywood movie producer being sweet on one of them. I’d love to hear more, but they leave as the bathroom fills up with a dozen chattering maids.
‘The manicurists think they’re above us,’ Sissy says. ‘They don’t live in, but they’ll happily use our bathroom when it suits. Don’t know why they can’t wash their smalls at home.’
The narrow counter below the mirror is a jumble of caps and hairpins as we all fuss and fidget to make sure we look just right. Skinny arms and sharp elbows in matching blue print dresses jostle for position. I stand on my tiptoes, peering above the heads in front of me. It isn’t the first time I wish I were taller. ‘Not tall enough. Next, please.’ I’ve heard those words so many times, sometimes before I’d even danced one step.
Sissy gives me a shove in the back, pushing me forward. ‘Come on, girls. Give someone else a turn.’
With a ripple of annoyance, the sea of bodies in front of me slowly parts and finally I get in front of the mirror. I look pale and tired from my restless night and pinch my cheeks to draw some colour to them.
‘Here. Have some of this.’ Gladys hands me a pot of rouge. ‘Never know who you might bump into.’ She winks and rubs a little onto her cheeks. ‘Got to look your best.’
‘I thought we weren’t allowed to wear make-up.’
‘We’re not. You just wear enough to look a bit less dead, but not enough for O’Hara to notice.’
I pass up the offer and concentrate on pinning my unruly curls into some sort of order, before fixing my frill cap in place.
Sissy passes me a lipstick. ‘Got it in Woolworth’s last week. It’s called Vermilion.’ She’s already applied a little to accentuate her Cupid’s bow, just like the actresses in the silent pictures. She puckers her lips and pouts at herself in the mirror. ‘Well. What d’you think?’
I turn to look at her. ‘Very Mary Pickford!’
She laughs and wipes it off with a tissue. ‘Here. Try it.’
I can’t resist. I twist the bottom of the golden case. The bevelled edge slides easily over my lips. I press them together and rub them from side to side as I lean closer to the mirror to take a closer look. ‘It’s lovely.’
A girl beside me tells me it suits me. ‘You new?’ she asks.
‘Yes. I’m Dolly.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Dolly. I’m Tallulah.’
She mimics Tallulah Bankhead’s southern drawl perfectly. I laugh. ‘Did you see her in The Dancers? She was so beautiful.’
‘Went every night for a week,’ she replies. ‘Lost a shoe in the rush to get to the gallery the first night. Walked home in my stockings. Earned myself a clip round the ear from my mam.’
Sissy claps her hands together, drawing everyone’s attention. ‘Now, girls,’ she says, in her best Irish accent. ‘Everything must be neat and tidy and just so. The white frill cap and apron worn in a particular way, the shoes polished like glass, the hair curled and pinned perfectly.’ She stops and looks at me. ‘For the love of all that’s holy, Dorothy Lane. Look at your cap. That won’t do at all!’
I giggle as she helps me fasten my cap properly, but our good mood is interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.
‘I hope this jolly attitude will remain with you through your day’s work, girls.’
‘Who’s that?’ I whisper to Gladys.
‘Head porter. Cutler.’
The voice continues beyond the door. ‘Far too many surly expressions in the corridors recently. It’s not good for the hotel’s ambience. Now, hurry downstairs. It is nearly half past. Mrs O’Hara will be along for her inspection soon.’
Gladys explains that Cutler is a moody old sod. ‘Nice as pie one minute but he’d fire you on the spot for anything inappropriate. Keep your nose out and your hands clean and you’ve no need to worry.’
But as we file out of the cramped bathroom, I do worry. There’s so much to remember, so many new faces to know. I’ve already met several floor-housekeepers, dozens of maids, floor-waiters and valets and lift attendants, not to mention the various members of the management team. As we rush down the staff stairs, the swishof our dresses mingles with the rumble of heels against the linoleum. I try to suppress the memories that lurk in every squeak of my shoes against the floor.
In the Maids’ Hall I take a seat at the long table and pour a cup of tea. It is good and strong. Not like the pale sweepings I used to get at Mawdesley Hall. Triangles of toast sit in steel racks with pats of bright yellow butter in ramekins dotted about the table. The kitchen maids have been busy. I see the young girl who was scrubbing the steps yesterday and smile at her. She’s so engrossed in her chores she hardly notices me. I tuck into porridge and bread that’s still warm, fresh from the ovens of the hotel bakery. I let a piece melt slowly on my tongue and remember how me and my little sister, Sarah, used to stand outside the baker’s with a pillowcase, ready to fill it with whatever we could get for the sixpence Mam had given us. Mostly it was those awful flat brown loaves – cowpats we used to call them. If we were lucky, we’d get a roll to scoff on the way home. I’d tell Sarah to brush the crumbs from her lips and her pinafore so Mam wouldn’t notice.
All too soon, we hear brisk footsteps and O’Hara appears, the great bundle of keys jangling at her hip like a restless child. We all stand as she enters the room, chair legs scraping against the stone floor, spoons clattering against bowls and cups. The kitchen maids start to clear the breakfast things as O’Hara calls us to line up in the corridor. I follow the others, copying them as they fall into a long line: shoulders back, feet together, chin up, hands behind the back. I cross my fingers and say a silent prayer as O’Hara walks briskly along the line like a drill sergeant major, handing each girl a neatly typed house list. She stops occasionally to tug at a twisted apron strap or to inspect hands and nails. She stops in front of me. My heart pounds beneath my dress as I look straight ahead, trying not to focus on anything and avoiding O’Hara’s cold stare. She considers me for a second before leaning forward and brushing a fingertip along my upper lip.
‘Lipstick, Dorothy?’
Bugger. I forgot to wipe it off. The girl to my right takes a sharp intake of breath. My heart thumps.
‘We are not at some backstreet picture house now,’ O’Hara snaps. ‘Lipstick has no place on a maid’s lips until she clocks off.’ She passes me a handkerchief. ‘And even then it is quite unnecessary. Get rid of it. Immediately.’
‘Yes, miss.’ I rub the handkerchief frantically at my lips, turning to the girl beside me, who nods to confirm it is gone. As O’Hara continues down the line Sissy leans forward and mouths an apology. I shush the voice in my head that wonders if she might have done it on purpose to land me in trouble.
Finally, O’Hara is satisfied. ‘Everything seems to be in order. Let’s have a good day’s work and remember …’
The girls all join in a chorus of rehearsed instruction. ‘The smallest things can make the biggest difference. Attention to detail in everything. Our guests are our priority.’
O’Hara nods approvingly. ‘Quite so. Now, off you go – and, Dorothy …’ What now? ‘Yes, miss?’
‘Sissy Roberts will assist you with your rooms again today. Tomorrow, you’re on your own.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Any questions?’
‘No, miss.’
‘I presume we won’t be seeing any crimson lips tomorrow?’
In my head I tell her it’s Vermilion. ‘No, miss. We won’t.’
My inquisitor nods firmly and swishes away with her sticky-out veins and pointy elbows. I lean back against the wall and breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Yes, miss. No, miss. Three bags full, miss.’
Sissy digs me in the ribs. ‘Cheeking the head of housekeeping already? I’d keep those thoughts to yourself if I were you. You’ll land yourself in trouble muttering under your breath like that. The hotel has eyes and ears. The less said the better.’
‘Well, she looks at me funny. Like I’m something she scraped off her shoe.’
‘She will scrape you off her shoe if she hears you bad-mouthing her. Keep your mouth shut and your corners neat.’ She grabs me by the elbow. ‘Sorry about the lipstick. Next time, wipe it off before you come downstairs, you silly sod. She’d have marched you straight to Cutler if it wasn’t your first morning. I’m certain of it.’
‘Let’s call it beginner’s luck, then, and forget all about it.’
Sissy checks the new house list as we make our way to the storerooms. ‘Well, look at this. Beginner’s luck indeed. First room on your list, Miss Dorothy Lane, is occupied by a Mr Lawrence Snyder. Friend of the governor. Manager to the stars.’
‘Snyder? That vile man we saw yesterday?’ I think about the way he looked at me. I think about the way I’ve been looked at like that before.
‘The very same. Gladys will be as sick as a dog when she hears. She’s convinced he’ll have her on the next boat to America.’ She nudges me in the ribs. ‘Well, come on. We won’t get much done standing around daydreaming. The rooms won’t clean themselves.’
I follow her as she strides off towards the linen stores, but my thoughts are elsewhere and my heart has rushed back to my room and wrapped itself around the photograph beneath my pillow.
The service floor is even more confusing than it was yesterday. A steady stream of porters, maids, chefs, and waiters fills the narrow corridors. When anyone in livery or formal dress passes, we step aside to make way for them. Sissy points out the head chef, a formidable Frenchman who forbids anyone, other than kitchen staff, to enter his storerooms. I catch a glimpse of some of the recent deliveries: gallons of cream in great vats, mountains of fresh pineapples, tanks full of live lobsters, vast saddles of venison, haunches of ham, and great slabs of beef. The hotel bakery alone is the size of a small house. My mouth waters at the aroma of freshly baked loaves being lifted from the ovens on huge paddles by red-cheeked young boys and burly men. Sissy swipes two milk rolls from the nearest tray, earning herself a friendly flick at her backside with the end of a paddle.
‘Do you ever see the guests when you’re in their rooms?’ I ask when we’ve loaded our trollies. ‘Gladys was telling me that the ladies sometimes keep maids talking for hours, to pass the time.’
‘They ask for more soap to be sent up, or hand towels, but really it’s just an excuse to have a bit of company. Bored, you see. I suppose there’s only so many times you can admire yourself in the mirror. It’s mainly the hairdressers and manicurists who are personally requested in the guests’ rooms. They spend hours up there, drinking coffee and eating delicate little cakes. Get sent bouquets and earrings and perfume and all sorts by their regulars. And they always get a good tip. Half a crown if they’re lucky.’
‘Really?’
‘Mind you, I’ve heard some guests show their gratitude in ways that might not be appreciated as much as a bouquet of roses, if you know what I mean.’
She winks as we step into the lift and ask the attendant to take us to fourth.
‘I didn’t think things like that would go on here,’ I whisper.
Sissy scoffs at my naïveté. ‘Same old divide. There’s us downstairs, and there’s them upstairs. A maid is as easily taken advantage of at The Savoy as she is anywhere else. You’d be a fool to think otherwise.’
The lift jolts to a stop and we step out as a gentleman emerges from a room to the left. He tips his hat as he passes. Larry Snyder. We stand to one side and wish him a good morning.
‘And to you both.’ He looks at me. ‘The new girl. Am I right?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I touch my fingers self-consciously to my lips, hoping the last traces of Sissy’s Vermilion have been rubbed away.
‘So my suite is your dress rehearsal!’
‘I’m not sure what you mean, sir.’
‘Movie stars. Actresses. Chambermaids. I suppose we all need somewhere to practise. My suite is all yours. Feel free to fluff your lines – or should I say pillows!’
He smiles warmly and I mutter a thank you.
‘Would you like your room attended to now, sir?’ Sissy asks.
‘Indeed. I shall be gone for the day.’ He walks on a few paces, stops, and turns around. ‘There might be a few papers scattered around the place. Leave them where they are, would you. Work in progress on a new script.’
‘Of course, sir.’
At the guest lift we hear him greet a friend. ‘John McArthur! What the devil has you at The Savoy?’
‘The wife, Snyder. The wife has me at The Savoy, and both my bank balance and I are suffering dreadfully as a consequence.’
Sissy and I burst out laughing and enter Snyder’s room.
As I sip my cocoa over supper that evening, my feet throb and my arms ache. I glance at the clock on the wall. The productions across London will be reaching their final act by now, the girls in the gallery hoarse from shouting their appreciation, the restaurants and nightclubs ready to welcome the after-show crowds for supper and dancing. I’m so tired even the thought of dancing makes me feel weary, and when I climb into bed I’m too exhausted to even read one page of Sissy’s magazine.
I shuffle under the blankets, listening to the scratch of Mildred’s pen on the page as she writes in her diary. I can’t think what she can possibly have to write so much about. Her life seems to consist of nothing more than the hotel. No hobbies. No interests. No dreams. By the time she turns out the light, Gladys is fast asleep and Sissy is already snoring. The room is plunged into darkness, but I know the lights from the hotel suites and the restaurant and ballroom still shine all around me. For a while, I listen to the distant sounds of music and laughter that float along the corridors, enticing me to follow, until I grow sleepy and close my eyes and I set my dreams free to drift and dance among those who have already made theirs a reality.
7 (#ulink_8ef04cb3-59ab-5bea-9dde-fc0b8c3404ec)
Loretta (#ulink_8ef04cb3-59ab-5bea-9dde-fc0b8c3404ec)
Sometimes I would happily swap the lonely peaks of stardom for the jolly camaraderie of the chorus.
The Shaftesbury is sold out for opening night of HOLD TIGHT! Dear Cockie is delighted. Yet again he has shown his critics that while those who take risks in this business sometimes fall on hard times, they can also bask in the glory of success when it comes. From the ladies and gentlemen and distinguished guests dressed in their finery in the stalls and dress circle and boxes, all the way back to the raucous throng squashed together high up in the gallery, there isn’t a spare seat in the house, nor any space to stand. If ticket sales are a measure of success, we already have a hit on our hands, but experience has taught me that there’s a long way to go and many pages of script and musical score to be convincingly delivered before the final curtain falls.
As the audience roar their approval for the first act, the heavy velvet curtain drops in a dramatic swoop in front of me and the spotlight goes out, plunging the stage into a dead blackout. I savour the moment; the cocoon of pitch black. In that dark silence, I can pretend that nothing matters, other than the fading applause. I stand as still as stone and breathe. In and out. In and out. I wonder what my last breath will feel like.
A fine dust drifts down from the gantry high above, disturbed by the stagehands as they hoist and lower scenery. I stifle a cough as it settles on my arms and sticks to my clammy skin. My moment of silence interrupted, I walk offstage, feeling my way with the toe of my satin shoe down the five steps that lead from the wings.
Backstage is already a hive of activity. Stagehands, assistants, the pianist, and my leading man all congratulate me as I pass.
‘You’re terrific, Miss May.’
‘A wonderful first act!’
‘Fabulous, darling! Fabulous!’
‘Word perfect. Simply divine!’
I smile graciously, letting the compliments and platitudes wash over me. They are expected now, arranged by my people, regardless of how good or bad my performance. I don’t care for insincerity. Only dear Jimmy Jones, the stage-door manager and my unlikeliest of friends, remains silent. We have known each other through some of the hardest years we will ever know. He understands when words are not needed. He simply smiles, gives me a reassuring pat on the arm, and presses a bundle of carefully audited cards and messages into my hand. Only the kindest words, the most sincere letters of adoration from fans and amusing offers of marriage from respectable gentlemen ever make it past Jimmy’s careful scrutiny.
As I make my way to my dressing room a young girl from the chorus runs past. She stops as she recognizes me. She is a beauty, all wide-eyed and wondering, no doubt envying my leading role and my name in electric lights front of house. Little does she know that it is I who envy her and the other chorus girls with youth and vitality on their side: training from noon till four, twenty-five half-dressed girls crammed into one dressing room, stepping on each other’s corns, sharing make-up and jokes and a cup of pickled onions for a snack before curtain up, and all the while waiting for Friday when ‘the Ghost Walks’ so they can run straight to the shops to spend their hard-earned pay. Sometimes I would happily swap the lonely peaks of stardom for the jolly camaraderie of the chorus.
It wasn’t so very long ago that I was a defiant society girl with an unforgettable face and an unrelenting mother; the girl who found her place on the stage despite the disdain her parents expressed towards such an unseemly profession. That girl had fought and rebelled. That girl had shunned her chaperones to drink and dance to the exotic music of the Negro bands and mix with the chorus girls and actresses she admired. That girl was starry-eyed and carefree. She had passion and belief, just like the young girl in front of me now.
‘You are wonderful, Miss May,’ she gasps, all breathless and starstruck. ‘Just wonderful.’
I step forward and take her face in my hands. ‘And so will you be. Keep practising, keep believing, and you can have whatever you dream of.’ She gazes at me, adoringly. ‘Now run along and get changed before the wardrobe mistress has a fit.’
‘Yes, Miss May. Of course.’
I watch her as she runs off into the shadows and wish I could run with her, disappear into obscurity, and never have to tell anyone the awful truth of it all.
Stepping around tins of paint, precariously balanced props, ladders, and endless rails of costumes, I hurry along the cramped passageways, relieved to reach my dressing room and close the door on the noise and chaos behind me. Jimmy has been busy, arranging the boxes of chocolates and bouquets from gentlemen callers and well-wishers. I take a cursory look at some of the cards as Hettie, my seamstress and dresser, pushes several larger displays to one side so that I can see my reflection in the mirror. I slump down in the chair at the dressing table and look at the flowers surrounding me. A beautiful arrangement of pink peonies catches my eye. The rest are ghastly.
‘Why can’t people send roses, Hettie? Nobody sends roses anymore. They’re forever trying to outdo one another with gaudy-coloured orchids.’ I lift up some vile yellow blooms. ‘I don’t even know what these are.’
‘Shall I remove them?’ she asks.
I take off my dance shoes and slip my aching feet into silk slippers. ‘No. Leave them. Ask Jimmy to arrange a car to send them to the hospitals after the show.’
‘Of course.’
‘Tell him to leave the peonies. I’ll take them home.’ I run my fingers over the blooms, remembering my wedding posy. Pink peonies. Roger stole one for his buttonhole. It was all such a rush that buttonholes hadn’t been considered. He placed a single bloom in my hair and told me I looked more beautiful than the stars. ‘My very own slice of heaven.’
Hettie places a silk housecoat around my shoulders and pours me a glass of water. I’d far rather she pour me something stronger but she fusses about my drinking, especially during a performance, so I say nothing and take a couple of dutiful sips as she fetches my dress for the next act.
‘The audience love you tonight, Miss May.’
‘Hmm? What?’ I’m distracted by my thoughts and the many pots of pastes and creams on the dressing table. Gifts from Harry Selfridge. He really is a darling man, if a little too American at times.
‘The audience,’ Hettie repeats. ‘They love you. The gallery girls especially.’
‘The audience always love me, Hettie. And as for the gallery-ites, I can do no wrong as far as they are concerned. It’s the press I need to worry about.’
‘Well, I’m sure they’ll love you too. You could hear the shrieks of laughter back here.’
She sets to work, fiddling with last-minute adjustments to hems and seams. I stand up and turn around as instructed, the electric bulbs around the mirror illuminating my skin. I look tired and drawn, the delicate skin around my lips pinched from too many cigarettes. My thirty-two years look more like fifty-two.
‘Do I look old, Hettie?’
She is used to my insecurities. She knows me better than my own mother at this stage. ‘Not at all,’ she mumbles through a mouth full of pins. ‘You’re as beautiful now as the first day I saw you.’
I catch her eye. ‘You are very kind, Hettie Bennett. You are also a terrible liar.’
She smiles, finishes her adjustments, and leaves me alone for a blissful five minutes before curtain up. Those few minutes of peace are like a religion to me. Like afternoon tea with Perry, they are mine. Everything else about tonight – what I wear, what I say, what I sing, where I stand, where I will dine after the show and who I will be seen dining with – is all decided for me, all part of the performance. I sit down and stare at my reflection without blinking until my image blurs and I can almost see the young girl I once was.
Ironically, it was Mother who introduced me to the theatre. She shunned the teaching of regular subjects, instructing my governesses to focus on poetry, singing, and the arts. As a young girl, I was often taken on trips to the London theatre, where I was enthralled by the provocative dancing of Isadora Duncan and Maud Allan’s Vision of Salomé and the exotic Dance of the Seven Veils. As I approached my debut year, I embarked on a strict exercise regime to improve my fitness. I enrolled in dance classes, determined to learn how to move as gracefully as those incredible women I had watched on the stage. I worked hard, and while Mother considered my dancing ‘a pleasant little hobby’, my heart was soon set on it becoming far more than that.
Shortly after my debut season, I developed a talent for escaping my chaperones. While other debutantes diligently danced gavottes in the austere rooms of elegant homes across London, I discovered the heady delights of the city’s nightclubs. I met theatre producers and actors, writers, artists, and dancers. I was captivated by them as much as the gossip columnists were captivated by me. My exceptional beauty and extraordinary behaviour became a regular feature of the society pages. As the years passed, my parents increasingly despaired of my unladylike behaviour and my failure to secure a suitable husband. I, however, revelled in the exciting new circles I mingled in.
But it was the arrival of war that gave me my first real taste of freedom. We were told the fighting would be over by Christmas, but it soon became clear it was going to last much longer than that. Losses were heavy. Help was needed. I couldn’t bear to stand idly by as Aubrey and Perry and dear friends of mine fought for their lives at the front. Going against my mother’s express wishes not to, I enrolled as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse at the Royal Herbert Hospital. The work was difficult and exhausting, but I took comfort in knowing that I was helping. Photographed in my uniform, I became something of a poster girl for the VAD. Other society girls soon followed my example.
The sleeping quarters of the shared hospital dorm were cramped and inelegant, but the freedom of dorm life was thrilling to a girl who had been educated at home. On my evenings off I relished the opportunity to dance and drink and forget the awfulness of war for a while. It was during those evenings away from the hospital that I first met Charles Cochran. It was Cockie who saw my charm and my talent and encouraged me to dance in his little revue at the Ambassador’s. It started as a bit of fun, a distraction from the shocking realities of nursing. I took to the stage with audacious poise and a new name, Loretta May. While Lady Virginia Clements put in long shifts at the hospital, Loretta May became a shining star of the stage. Night after night, Virginia was dismantled as easily as a piece of scenery, replaced with the dazzling smile and beautiful costumes of my new persona. That I danced in secret whilst under the glare of the brightest spotlight was nothing short of thrilling.
Small speaking parts soon saw my reputation soar. Sassy, beautiful, beguiling – the hacks lavished praise in their emphatic press notices and it didn’t take them long to discover the truth behind this intriguing new star. The papers couldn’t print their headlines quickly enough.
By day, I attended to the sick and wounded. At night, I entertained those whose lives were falling apart. While the revelation about my true identity saw Mother take to her bed for a week, it only made the gallery girls and society pages love me even more.
And then the first letter arrived, and everything changed.
My dear Miss May,
You must forgive me, but I have fallen hopelessly in love with you and I’m afraid I must tell you that you are now inextricably linked to my survival in this dreadful war.
‘One minute to curtain. One minute to curtain.’
The cry of the stagehand cuts through my thoughts. I check myself again in the mirror, touch up my rouge, and apply more kohl to my eyes. The mask of theatre. Who cares that my head is pounding and my bones ache dreadfully. The show must go interminably on.
I open the dressing room door and call out into the dimly lit corridor: ‘Does anyone have an aspirin?’ but my words evaporate in a cloud of powder and perfume and glitter as the chorus girls scurry past, their heels clicking and clacking along the floor as last-minute adjustments are made to zips and straps, buckles and laces.
Only Hettie hears me. ‘Should I go and find one?’
‘One what?’
‘An aspirin.’
‘Yes. Please.’ I wave her away with a distracted hand. I have no idea why the poor thing puts up with me. I treat her dreadfully at times. I don’t mean to. I just don’t seem to know how to treat her any differently.
I listen at the door until I’m certain the last of the girls have gone. Only then do I reach beneath the dressing table and open the bag I keep hidden there. I pull out the bottle of gin. A quick slug. Purely medicinal. What I wouldn’t give for a shot of sweet morphine, to slip into that delightful abyss of nothingness where nobody can hurt me and nothing dreadful has ever happened and Roger is coming home and I am perfectly well. There was a time when I took morphine for fun, to numb the emotional pain of war. Now the doctors tell me I must take it for the physical pain that will eventually bring about my demise. I take two long gulps of gin, coughing as the liquid burns the back of my throat, before returning the bottle to the bag and rushing from the dressing room, the sharp tang of liquor flooding through me, suppressing my pain and my fear and my doubts.
‘Miss May! Your aspirin!’
I ignore Hettie and carry on along the passageway, climbing the steps into the wings. I hear the chatter and rustle of the audience as they settle back into their seats. As the houselights go down I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and allow everything to dissolve into a muzzy warmth as I step onto the stage.
The curtain goes up. The spotlight illuminates me. There is an audible gasp from the ladies in the stalls as they admire the beauty of my red velvet cape. I know the reporters for The Lady and The Sketch and the other society pages will be scribbling down every detail. The gallery girls burst into rapturous applause, screaming my name and standing on their chairs. ‘Miss May! Miss May! You’re marvellous!’ I open my eyes, the audience a blur of black against the dazzle of the footlights. My leading man, Jack Buchanan, gives me the cue.
I step forward and deliver the line. ‘Honestly, darling, must we invite the Huxleys for dinner. I think I would rather curl up in a ball and die.’
The audience roar with laughter, unaware of the cruel truth contained in my words.
8 (#ulink_efca33d9-8a0d-584f-9df7-60f746b656b7)
Loretta (#ulink_efca33d9-8a0d-584f-9df7-60f746b656b7)
‘It isn’t my place to tell you when you’re dreadful, especially not on opening night.’
A heavy fog smothers London by the time the show is over. Outside the door to Murray’s, the soot-tainted air catches in my chest, making me cough. It is sharp and painful. Far worse than anything I have experienced before.
Perry looks worried. ‘You really should go to the doctor about that cough, Etta. It’s definitely getting worse.’
When I’ve recovered and caught my breath I take a long drag of my cigarette and tell him to stop fussing. ‘Was I all right tonight, darling? Really?’
He shivers, pulls his scarf around his neck, and claps his hands together for warmth. ‘You were fabulous, sister dear. Everybody said you were splendid.’
I wrap my arms across my chest and sink the fingertips of my gloves into the deep pile of my squirrel-fur coat. ‘Of course they did. They always do. Anyway, you wouldn’t tell me even if I was beastly. Would you?’
He says nothing. I pinch his arm.
‘Ow! That hurt.’
‘Good.’
‘Etta, I’m your favourite brother, and one of only a handful of people you deem worthy of calling your friend. It isn’t my place to tell you when you’re dreadful, especially not on opening night. There are plenty of people being paid perfectly good money to do that.’
I pinch him again. ‘You’re a dreadful tease, Peregrine Clements. First-night notices are ghastly things. I’m nervous. What if the critics hate it? I really can’t bear to think about it.’
He crushes his cigarette beneath his shoe. ‘Come on. Let’s get disgracefully drunk. By the time the notices are in, you’ll be too blotto to care.’
But despite the cold and the lure of champagne cocktails, I’m reluctant to go inside. ‘Walk with me around the square?’
‘What? It’s freezing. You need a gin fizz, dear girl, not an evening constitutional.’
‘Please, Perry. Just once around. It was so dreadfully stuffy in the theatre tonight, and the club can be so suffocating at times.’
He sighs and offers his arm. ‘Very well. I’ve lost most of the sensation in one leg. I might as well have a matching pair.’
Looping my arm through his, I rest my head wearily on his shoulder as we stroll. I enjoy the sensation of his cashmere scarf against my cheek; the sensation of someone beside me. For a woman constantly surrounded by people, I so often feel desperately alone.
We walk in comfortable silence. For a few rare moments we are nothing more remarkable than a brother and sister enjoying an evening stroll. Much as he frustrates me, I love Perry dearly, although I can never bring myself to tell him so. Even when he came back from the front I couldn’t say what I’d planned, couldn’t say the words I’d rehearsed in my head and written in dozens of unsent letters. Old habits die hard. Our privileged upbringing might have left us with proper manners and a love of Shakespeare, but it also left the scars of unspoken fondnesses and absent affection. We are as crippled by our emotions as Perry is by the shrapnel wound to his knee.
‘How did the meeting go with Charlot today? Did he like your piece?’ I hardly dare ask. Perry’s meetings with theatrical producers have been less than successful recently.
He yawns. A habit of his when he isn’t telling the truth. ‘Not bad. He didn’t hate it. Didn’t love it either.’
I stop walking. ‘You didn’t go, did you?’
‘Damn it, Etta. Are you having me trailed? How do you know everything about me?’
‘Because you are about as cryptic as a brick, darling. Anyway, it doesn’t matter how I know. But I would like to know why you didn’t go.’
We continue walking as he explains. ‘The sheet music was ruined by the rain when I bumped into that girl yesterday. And it was a lot of miserable old rot anyway. Charlot wants uplifting pieces. The phrase he used last time I saw him was “whimsical”. He told me people want to be amused, that Londoners have an appetite for frivolity. I haven’t a whimsical bone in my body, Etta. Why put myself through the embarrassment of rejection again?’
For months it has been the same. Unfinished melodies. Missed appointments. All the promise and talent he had shown before the war left behind in the mud and the trenches.
‘You need to get out more, Perry. You need to meet interesting people and find inspiration. It can’t help to spend so much time in that apartment of yours. It’s the least whimsical place I’ve ever had the misfortune to drink a cup of tea in.’
‘I’m here now, aren’t I? Escorting you on an impromptu evening promenade, about to mingle with the set.’
‘I do appreciate that you’re trying, Perry. Really, I do. All the same, I think you spend too much time alone.’
‘I’m not alone. Mrs Ambrose comes and goes.’
‘Mrs Ambrose is a middle-aged charwoman. You need vibrancy and excitement in your life, not floor wax and sagging bosoms and woollen stockings.’
He laughs. ‘I can’t argue with that.’
‘I’ve been giving it some thought, as it happens. I know what you need.’
‘And what might that be?’
‘A muse.’
‘A muse?’
‘Yes. A muse.’
‘And why would I want a muse?’
‘To spark your creativity. You need to find someone whose every word, every movement, leaves you so enraptured that you can do nothing but settle at the piano and write words of whimsy about them. Look at Noël Coward. I doubt he would have written anything notable if it weren’t for Gertie Lawrence. And Lucile Duff Gordon. How do you think she produced such incredible costumes for Lily Elsie – and for me? They adore those women so much they simply cannot wait to dress them or write songs or books about them.’ I feel rather pleased with myself as we walk on. ‘Yes. That’s absolutely what you need. A muse.’
Perry clearly isn’t convinced. ‘And where might one find a muse these days? Does Selfridge sell them? I hear he has all manner of whimsical things in his shop.’
‘Don’t be facetious. You need to look around. Take more notice of people.’ I cough and pull my collar up to my chin as we turn the final corner and walk back towards the entrance to the club. ‘Either that or put an advert in The Stage.’ I laugh at my joke as the doorman holds the door for us and we step inside.
The tantalizing beat from the jazz band drifts up the narrow stairs. The cloakroom attendant takes my coat. I turn to check my reflection in the mirrored wall tiles, twisting my hip and turning my neck to admire the draped silk that falls seductively at the small of my back. I’m glad Hettie chose the pewter dress, the fabric shimmers fabulously beneath the lights. I shake my head lightly, setting my paste earrings dancing. I shiver as a breeze runs along my skin. Murray’s is one of my favourite clubs in London. I feel safe here. I can let loose for a while and forget about things among the music and dancing and cocktails.
Turning on the charm, I glide down the stairs. My evening’s performance isn’t over yet.
Perry orders us both a gin and it from the bar. We sit at the high stools and sip the sweet cocktail, perfectly positioned for people to see us. I watch the band with their glorious café au lait skin. The pulse from the double bass and the shrill cry of the trumpet seep through my skin so that I can feel the music pulse within me. The bandleader acknowledges me, as he always does, and leads the band in my favourite waltz of the moment, ‘What’ll I Do’. I smile sweetly and applaud when the song ends.
When we are quite sure we’ve been noticed, Perry leads me to our table. The others are already there, the usual set of writers, poets, artists, and anyone who is vaguely interesting in London. Noël Coward, Elizabeth Ponsonby, Nancy Mitford, Cecil Beaton, and, of course, darling Bea, who – I am delighted to see – makes a special fuss of Perry. I kiss them all and settle into the seat between Noël and Cecil.
‘You were brilliant, darling!’
‘Simply divine. Your best yet, without a doubt.’
I wave their words aside. ‘You are all wicked and mean to tease me. You’ve been sitting here drinking cocktails all night. You didn’t even see so much as the HOUSE FULL boards outside.’
‘But she was splendid, of course,’ Perry adds as he pours us both a glass of champagne. ‘Regardless of what the notices might say in tomorrow’s papers.’
I ignore his teasing and take a long satisfying sip. The bubbles pop and fizz deliciously on my tongue. Do I care what the critics say? It’s been so long since I’ve taken any real notice of the reviews. I haven’t needed to. It has simply become habit to read flattery and praise. My housekeeper-cum-secretary, Elsie, cuts out the notices from all the papers and sticks them into a scrapbook with an almost obsessive diligence. The slightest mention of me falls victim to her scissors – photographs, passing references to supper at The Savoy, charitable events, after-the-show reports, costume reviews – nothing escapes her scissors. I tell her I really don’t give two figs what they say, but she persists. She says it is important to keep a record; that people will be interested in my career in years to come. She’s too polite to say ‘when you’re dead’, but I know that’s what she means, and it occurs to me that perhaps she is right. The more I think about tonight’s performance, the more I realize that the notices do matter. There’s an astonishing honesty required of oneself when faced with one’s own mortality. The notices and observations in Elsie’s silly little scrapbook will soon become the record of what I am – who I was. It is how I will be remembered. It matters immensely.
I tip my neck back to savour the last drop of champagne and hold my glass towards Perry for a refill, hoping that nobody notices the tremble in my hand.
The night passes in a heady oblivion of dancing, laughter, and playful flirtation with handsome men who invite me to dance. I allow myself to be guided around the dance floor to quicksteps and tangos, spinning and twirling among elegant young couples who twist and turn as deftly around each other as the champagne bubbles that dance in my glass.
As the night moves on, the band picks up the pace, holding us all spellbound on the dance floor, our feet incapable of rest. I say all the right things to all the right prompts, but despite the gaiety of it all and the adoring gazes I attract whenever I so much as stand up, part of me grows weary too soon and my smile becomes forced as I stifle a succession of yawns. As I watch the midnight cabaret show the room becomes too hot and the music too loud. I long to slip quietly away and walk along the Embankment to look for shooting stars. I was just six years old when my father told me that they are dying stars. ‘What you are looking at is the end of something that has existed for millions of years,’ he said. It was the saddest thing I’d ever heard, and in a champagne-fuelled fog of adulthood, the thought of it makes me want to cry.
‘Miss May. Would you care to dance?’
I turn to see who is addressing me. ‘Mr Berlin. What a joy! It would be my pleasure.’
What I really wish is that he would hold me in his arms while I rest my head on his shoulder and weep, but that is what an ordinary girl would do, and I am not an ordinary girl. I am Loretta May. So I stand tall and look beautiful and allow myself to be led to the dance floor, where the music thumps and the bodies of a hundred beautiful people twirl and sway in a wonderful rhythm of jazz-fuelled recklessness. The gin flows, beaded fabrics ripple against slim silhouettes, ostrich-feather fans sway in time to the music, the soles of satin shoes spin and hop, and legs in silk stockings kick and flick flirtatiously as the band plays on and on.
I play my part perfectly well.
Shooting stars, and the wishes and tears of an ordinary girl, will have to wait.
9 (#ulink_e57971b4-b159-5886-8bec-d4d06cd4ee5b)
Dolly (#ulink_e57971b4-b159-5886-8bec-d4d06cd4ee5b)
‘Sometimes life gives you cotton stockings. Sometimes it gives you a Chanel gown.’
After an exhausting week getting lost in the hotel, finding my way around my chores, and trying to keep in O’Hara’s good books and out of trouble, my first afternoon off can’t come soon enough. Mildred slopes off somewhere before anyone notices. Sissy and Gladys are disappointed I won’t join them at the Strand Palace, but I explain that I’ve promised to meet Clover for the weekly thé dansant at the Palais de Danse in Hammersmith and only a fool would break a promise made to Clover Parker.
Clover and I have been to the Palais every Wednesday since my first week in service at the house in Grosvenor Square. I was looking for a distraction. Clover was looking for a husband. Along with hundreds of others who swarm to the dance halls once a week to shake off the memories of war and the strict routines of work, Clover and I pay our two and six and forget about the troubles that weigh heavy on our shoulders as we foxtrot and waltz our way around the vast dance floor.
After years of rolling back the carpet in our shared bedroom and practising the latest dance steps over and over, we are both reasonably good on our feet. More than anything, I love to dance, to lose myself in the music until it wraps itself around me as tightly as the arms of my dance partner. More often than not, this is Clover. Such is the way of things now. There aren’t enough men to go around and we can’t always afford the extra sixpence to hire one of the male dance instructors, so us single girls make do, taking it in turns to be the man. Clover is a decent substitute, but even when I close my eyes and really imagine, it isn’t the same as having a man’s arms to guide me. It isn’t the same as having Teddy’s arms around me. He was a wonderful dancer. It was Teddy who first taught me to dance. It was Teddy who encouraged me to chase my dreams. It was always Teddy.
Changing out of my uniform as quickly as I can, I clock out at the back of the hotel and step outside for the first time in a week. It is still raining but I don’t mind. The cool breeze and damp air feel lovely against my cheeks as I turn up the collar on my shabby old coat and walk through the Embankment Gardens towards the river. I think about my collision with Mr Clements a week ago and the pages of music still hidden beneath my pillow. Although I’ve tried to push him from my mind, I can’t stop thinking about those grey eyes and that rich russet hair, and I can’t help wondering about the music I rescued from the litter bin. I feel a strange sense of duty to hear the notes played.
After the hushed order and sophistication of the hotel, London seems particularly grubby and alive. I notice things I’ve never really noticed before: the soot-blackened buildings, the pigeon droppings on the pavements and railings, the noise from the tugs and wherries on the Thames that toot to one another like gossiping girls, the smell of roast beef from the kitchens at Simpson’s. I dodge around smartly dressed ladies in rain-flattened furs who try to avoid the puddles that will leave watermarks on their expensive satin shoes. To them, this is just another dull October afternoon, but to me it is an exciting medley of noise and chaos; a place without restrictions and rules. To me, the pavements dance beneath the raindrops. To me, the roads sing to the tune of motorcars and puddles. To me, everyone quicksteps and waltzes around each other.
In the Embankment Gardens, I feel the vibrations of the underground trains through the pathway beneath my feet and smile as I watch two pigeons squabble over a piece of bread. Beyond the Gardens, I follow the bend of the river along the Embankment where the overnight work of the screevers – the pavement artists – has been spoiled by the rain. Only one drawing of a young girl is just visible. Beside it is written the word ‘hope’ in a pretty looping script. I’d like to take a closer look but I’m already late, so I hurry on. Clover gets cross with me when I’m late, and she’s already cross with me for leaving my position in Grosvenor Square.
She hadn’t taken well to the news of my position at The Savoy. Her reaction was twenty-two minutes of snotty weeping. I’d watched the clock over her shoulder as I consoled her in the A.B.C. teashop.
‘Things won’t be the same, Doll. They’ll lock you up in that fancy hotel and you’ll get all sorts of notions in that pretty head of yours and I’ll never see you again. I know it.’
‘I’m only going to The Savoy, not the moon!’
‘Might as well be going to the moon. You’ll make new friends and forget all about me. I can feel it in my waters.’
Clover feels everything in her waters. ‘Don’t be daft. How could I forget you?’
‘Then promise we’ll still go dancing on our afternoons off.’
‘Of course we will.’
‘Promise.’
‘I promise. I’ll meet you at the Palais every Wednesday. Same as usual. Cross my heart.’
I didn’t say ‘and hope to die’. Nobody says that anymore. And I have every intention of keeping my promise. Clover Parker gave me friendship, a shoulder to cry on, and a Max Factor mascara when I had absolutely nothing. I’ve grown to love her like a sister and can’t imagine sharing my make-up, my ciggies, or my worries with anyone else. But things had to change because I’d made another promise. A promise that I would make something of my life. I had to. Otherwise, how could I ever make peace with what I had done?
‘Why does everything always have to change, Dolly? Why can’t things stay as they are?’
‘I want more, Clover. Look at me. I’m as dull as a muddy puddle. When I watch those girls on the stage, I want to be there with them. I want silk stockings on my legs and silver Rayne’s dance shoes on my feet. I want Chanel dresses against my skin. I want to cut my hair and rouge my cheeks, not flinch every time I hear footsteps following me down the back stairs. I want to be appreciated, not discarded like a filthy rag. I feel like a stuck gramophone record, going round and round, playing the same notes of the same song over and over. I want to dance to a different tune. Don’t you want that too?’
She doesn’t. Clover is happy with her lot. A reliable job as a kitchen maid and a quick fumble with Tommy Mullins at the back of the dance hall is enough for her.
‘I don’t think about it, Dolly. I just am what I am. All I know for certain is that Archie Rawlins ain’t coming home and he was the only bugger ever likely to marry me. I’ll more than likely end up an old spinster with ten cats to keep me company. But there’s no use complaining. Sometimes life gives you cotton stockings. Sometimes it gives you a Chanel gown. That’s the way of it. You just have to make the most of whatever you’re given.’
Part of me wishes I could be more like Clover, settle for a life as a housemaid, marry a decent enough man, make do. But I have restless feet and an impatient heart and a dream of a better life that I can’t wake up from.
I’d been told that The Savoy prefers personal recommendations of employees from its current staff, and a discreet word by a friend of Clover’s cousin led to my engagement. Clover’s opinion is that a maid is still a maid, however fancily you package it up, but I disagree. The Savoy attracts movie stars and musicians, poets and politicians, dancers and writers; the Bright Young People who fill London’s newspaper columns and society pages with their extravagant lifestyles. The people who excite me. The people who fill my scrapbooks and my dreams.
At Trafalgar Square, I jump onto the back of the omnibus and take a seat downstairs, paying my tuppence to the conductor as I pick up a copy of TheStage left behind on the seat opposite me. I flick through the pages of adverts for dancing shoes and stage props, fat-reducing soap and seamstresses, and turn to the theatre notices, hoping to find something for my scrapbook.
In his latest production, HOLD TIGHT!, Cochranhas taken something of a gamble with his leading lady, Loretta May. It is a gamble that has more than paid off. Miss May – one of the hardest-working actresses on the London stage – dazzled, captivating the audience with her acting and singing talents, and her comic timing. Miss May brings the stage to life in a way that many others simply cannot. The costumes were equally remarkable, Mr Cochran exceeding his previous best in this department. The gasps of admiration from the ladies in the audience could be heard all over town.
In her first full-length musical comedy, Miss May was triumphant in HOLD TIGHT! at the Shaftesbury. Her departure from revue was launched amid scenes of tumultuous applause. Kitty Walsh, the chorus girl selected at the very last minute to play the role of Miss May’s daughter, was captivating. She is most definitely a young actress to watch. The audience yelled themselves hoarse and refused to let the curtain go down.
I close my eyes, imagining what it would be like to be that young chorus girl, to sing and dance on the West End stage. The notices go on: Gertrude Lawrence ‘splendid’ in Charlot’s revue London Calling! Noël Coward’s musical score ‘triumphant’. Bea Lillie ‘radiant’ in Lelong. The descriptions of the costumes take up as many column inches as the commentary on the performances.
Miss Bankhead’s costumes in The Dancers were admired repeatedly. Her first outfit was à la Egyptienne – composed entirely of silver sequins. Another outfit was lilac chiffon and green satin, adorned with lilac trails. Her final costume – a slim ‘magpie’ dress, a back of black charmeuse and a front of white, ending in white lace encrusted with black and crystal beads – was undoubtedly the finest we have seen on the London stage since Lucile Duff Gordon’s creations for Miss Elsie in The Merry Widow.
Turning the pages, I read the calls for auditions. Chorus girls are wanted all over town, the bad fogs wreaking havoc with the health of many dancers and leading ladies so that understudies are needed for the understudies. I imagine the long lines outside the theatres, another batch of disappointed girls and crushed dreams travelling home on the omnibuses and trams later that day. I’ve been that girl so many times, watching with envy as the final name is announced for the callbacks. ‘The rest of you may leave. Thank you for your time.’ The words we all dread.
As I read down the column of audition calls, something catches my eye. The print is small and I lift the page closer to read it.
WANTED: MUSE
Struggling musical composer seeks muse to inspire.
Applicants must possess a sense of humour and the patience of a saint.
One hour a week – arranged to suit. Payment in cherry cake and tea.
Replies, outlining suitability, for the attention of:
Mrs Ambrose, c/o Apartment Three, Strand Theatre, Aldwych
I read the notice several times and tear the page from the paper. I’m not really sure why, other than that the words set my heart racing.
‘You need to stop asking why, Dolly. The question to ask is, why not?’
I hear Teddy’s voice so clearly, his gentle words, his belief in me. I see his face, the empty stare, the uncontrollable tremble in his arms, the damp stain at his groin. No dignity for men like him. No future for would-be wives like me.
I read the notice once more, fold it into neat quarters, and place it in my purse as Auntie Gert’s words whisper to me. Wonderful adventures await for those who dare to find them.
Why not?
Clover is already standing outside the Palais when I arrive. She runs to greet me as I step off the bus, nearly knocking me over as she throws her arms around me as if we’d been apart for months, not days.
I hug her tight. ‘I’ve missed you, Clover Parker.’
‘Liar. Bet you’ve hardly thought about me.’ She loops her arm through mine as we walk up the Palais steps. ‘Go on, then. Tell me. What’s it like, this posh hotel of yours? I know you’re bursting to tell me.’
I can’t help smiling. ‘I wish you could see it, Clo. Your eyes would pop out at the ladies’ dresses and shoes, and the gentlemen are so handsome and the hotel band plays the hottest sounds. I can still hear it sometimes when I go to bed. Ragtime and the latest jazz numbers.’
Clover lights a cigarette for us both. ‘Told you. Head full of nonsense already! So, what are your roommates like? Please tell me they’re awful and you wish you’d never left Grosvenor Square.’
‘They’re nice, actually. One of them, Sissy, reminds me of you. Gladys is quiet, but nice enough. Very pretty. She wants to be a Hollywood movie star and I wouldn’t be surprised if she makes it. The other one, Mildred, is a bit miserable. Never has a word to say, and she looks at me funny. We didn’t work with anyone called Mildred, did we?’
Clover thinks for a moment. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells. Why?’
‘I’ve a funny feeling I’ve met her before, but I don’t know where. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about her. Let’s get inside and dance!’
The Original Dixieland Jazz Band is playing a waltz when we enter the dance hall, a sea of bodies already moving, as one, around the dance floor. I love it here. The Oriental decoration, the music, the dancing, the sense of freedom and letting go. We sit at a table and order tea and a plate of sandwiches. Clover is wearing a lovely new dress, which I admire. Lavender rayon with a lace trim.
‘Made it myself,’ she says, twirling around and sending the hem kicking out as she spins. ‘Three yards of fabric from Petticoat Lane for two pounds. Hardly need any fabric to make a respectable dress these days. If Madame Chanel raises her hemlines a bit higher, I’ll be able to make a whole dress for sixpence.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I say, conscious of my faded old dress, which looks like a sack of potatoes beside Clover’s. I keep my coat on and complain of being cold. It isn’t a complete fib. I’ve had an irritating cough since arriving at The Savoy and it seems to be getting worse. Sissy says it serves me right for wandering around in the rain without an umbrella.
‘So, how are things at Grosvenor Square?’ I ask. ‘Is Madam as bad-tempered as ever?’
‘Everything’s exactly the same. A new girl started as a kitchen maid to replace you. It’s strange to wake up and see her in your bed. She doesn’t say much. Her fella was killed in the war. When her work’s done, she knits endless pairs of socks. Seems to think they’re still needed at the front. Completely batty.’
I’m dying to show Clover the notice from TheStage andtake the folded square of paper from my purse.
‘Before you say anything, I know it’s a bit strange, but I couldn’t resist.’
But she isn’t listening. She’s distracted by Tommy Mullins, who has just arrived and is standing across the other side of the dance floor. Clover makes a big show of taking her lipstick from her purse and applies it as seductively as she can as he starts to make his way over. Tommy is a weasel of a man. I don’t care for him at all.
‘I wish you wouldn’t encourage him, Clover,’ I whisper, placing my hand protectively on hers. ‘Don’t dance with him. Not today. Wait for somebody else. Somebody better.’
She laughs. ‘You and your better. Somebody better. Somewhere better. There might not be anything better. This might be as good as it gets. Beggars can’t be choosers, Miss Dolly Daydream with your head in the clouds. I’m not being left on the shelf like a forgotten bloody Christmas decoration.’ She stands up as Tommy reaches our table. ‘One dance,’ she whispers, ‘then I’m all yours. Promise.’
As I watch them walk to the dance floor, giggling like teenagers, I fold the piece of paper and put it back into my purse. Clover would only tell me to forget about it anyway. And she’d be right. I probably should.
I pick up a limp ham paste sandwich as Clover waves over to me. I wave back and pour the tea. It is as weak as my smile.
When the afternoon session ends, we head back up west, to Woolworth’s, where Clover insists on trying on the make-up. We rouge our cheeks and pat pancake and powder over our noses and squirt Yardley perfume onto our wrists until we feel sick with the smell of them all and go to admire the button counter. After Woolworth’s, we go to the picture palace, buy two singles and a packet of humbugs, and huddle together in our seats as the picture starts. There are the usual public-service announcements followed by the Pathé newsreel.
‘I met a man last week who spoke like that,’ I whisper. ‘Ever so handsome.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing.’
‘Then why did you mention him?’
‘I don’t really know!’
We burst out laughing, earning a sharp shush from a sour-faced woman behind us. We slide down into our seats as the silent movie starts. We are shushed three more times as we comment on the picture and unwrap our humbugs, but this only makes us giggle even more.
When the picture ends and the houselights go up, we make our way outside, where London has become a blaze of lights and colour. The restaurants are buzzing. Strains of jazz and ragtime drift through open doors as lines of motor cabs wait outside the theatres to take the excited audiences home or on to supper parties. Smartly dressed pageboys shout and whistle to hail passing motor cabs outside the hotels. A flower seller walks by, hawking her posies. Clover and I link arms and stroll together, arm in arm, as far as the corner of Wellington Street, where Clover hops onto her omnibus.
‘See you next week, then,’ I say, kissing her on the cheek.
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
I feel guilty for the spring in my step as I walk back towards the Strand. Truth is, I want to run. I want to race along the pavement as fast as an express train, away from the soldiers who beg outside the theatres and remind me of war, away from my memories of Mawdesley and everything I left behind there. I think about the notice from The Stage
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