The Girl from the Savoy (19 page)

“My goodness. You really have fallen, haven't you?” He shrugs. “Imagine if you could see those lips every day, could kiss them, taste them. Send your heart on a rampage, dear boy, and the music will follow.”

I pick up my hat and gloves and bend to kiss him on both cheeks. As he looks up at me I see something of hope in his eyes.

“I'll see you next Wednesday,” I say. “Don't be late.”

Despite my enthusiasm for this little project, I walk slowly down the three flights of stairs, each step reprimanding me. You should have told him, Loretta. You should have told him. But when I see how lost and confused he is, I realize how much Perry needs me. Like so many others, he relies on me. Cockie, Jack Buchanan, the rest of the cast, the girls in the gallery who have saved everything to come and see me—they all rely on me in one way or another.

I can't burden them with my sadness.

I must entertain. That is all. I must stand in the spotlight and play my part because that is what I do, what I am good at, what made me who I am.

I may not know how to die, but I do know how to live and I do know how I can help my brother. Right now, that is all that matters.

I close my eyes, imagining that I am dressed in lavender chiffon; soft silver dance shoes on my feet.

A
n entire season has passed since I arrived at The Savoy. The last golden touches of autumn have made way for the bare branches of winter. A biting wind blows off the Thames with a temper, pushing people along the pavements, billowing out coats and skirts and turning umbrellas inside out. The fogs come thick and often, the days are short, the gas lamps in the street and the lights in the hotel suites burn ever longer. Another year nearly over. Another year in which my child has not known me.

Mildred and I haven't spoken again of our shared past. She keeps her distance and remains as frosty as the glass at the windowpanes. While part of me wants to talk to her, wants to ask a thousand questions, I'm afraid she won't have the answers I long to hear. The matter isn't discussed between us again.

The incidents that blighted my first weeks are thankfully no longer spoken about, although I know that a record of my misdemeanors is written in stark black ink inside Cutler's ledger. I'm learning that life in a hotel moves in peculiar ways. An incident with a stolen hair comb can be hushed up at the request of an influential guest; a crisp note slipped from one hand to another can see
the end to a matter. The inevitable gossip about my own indiscretions has faded as new mistakes are discussed around the breakfast table: an undelivered urgent message, a too-hot iron left against a couture dress, a badly timed fumble with a delivery boy at the back of the storerooms, an overheard derisory remark about a guest. While O'Hara watches me like a hawk, I try to put the past behind me, and as the weeks come and go I begin to understand the governor's romantic sentiments about the hotel. I feel myself drawn to it as if it had a personality of its own. It lives and breathes, shocks and surprises me as much as the guests who occupy the suites.

The anticipation of Christmas fizzes through London's streets. The freezing December air licks at my ears and snaps at my cheeks. I sometimes feel exhilarated, sometimes exhausted; sometimes hopeful, sometimes despairing. When I tell Clover about the disastrous ending to my meeting with Mr. Clements, she takes me to see the window displays in Harrods and Selfridges, Hamleys and Liberty to cheer me up. The winter hats and gloves, coats and shoes are beautiful: thick felts and velvets in all the latest colors, heavy furs in mink and sable. Like scruffy children from the East End peering through a sweetshop window, we stare in admiration. Londoners flock in their thousands especially to see Mr. Selfridge's spectacular displays. I listen to the gasps of rosy-cheeked children as they press their noses to the glass, squealing with excitement at the sight of nutcracker soldiers, pretty dollies, teddy bears, and wooden trains. I see small hands nestling in woolen mittens, held tight by fretful mothers and nannies. My own hands have never felt more idle.

Clover has another new coat for me to admire and envy—another hand-me-down. She treats herself to a new lipstick and a mascara in Woolworth's and insists on buying me a pair of real silk stockings, wishing me a happy Christmas as the shop assistant
wraps them up for me. I don't know how she can afford all these things, but she tells me she's been saving her wages.

“What's the harm in treating yourself now and again?” she says. “There's no bugger else going to buy these for me, is there?”

She's right. There isn't.

T
he Christmas theater trip is a tradition of ours. We've saved for the tickets for weeks and queued for hours to secure our place in the gallery at the Shaftesbury.

We sit at the very top of the theater, a collection of shopgirls and clerks, seamstresses and domestics, growing more hysterical by the moment. We've all come to watch our favorite stars; the beautiful women who occupy our thoughts as we stitch and type, scrub and sell. This is where we come to forget the dull monotony of our jobs. For a few magical hours we are not just ordinary girls, we are Tallulah Bankhead, Gertrude Lawrence, Bea Lillie, and Loretta May. From our perch high up in the Gods, we are as far away from the stage as it is possible to be, yet we will never feel closer to the people who fill our dreams.

Everyone is restless as we wait impatiently for the houselights to fall and the curtain to go up. Weeks of anticipation mingle with the swirling cigarette smoke that dances around the chandeliers suspended high above the gathering crowds. The excitement grows with each passing minute, fueled by the prickle of nerves that escapes from the dressing rooms and drifts along the corridors and staircases until the entire theater has a desperate urge to fidget.

Clover fusses at her hair, waved especially for the occasion. She folds her program, fanning cheeks that burn crimson with excitement and heat. We wave to friends along the row and turn to the girls crammed beside us to speculate about the performance and Miss May's costumes and the chorus numbers.

Pressed against the rail at the very front of the gallery, I fan my face with my hat. Beside me, squashed so tight that I can feel every rise and fall of her breath, Clover stands with her feet splayed, her back arched, and her puce face tipped up toward the ornate ceiling. I burst out laughing.

“What's tickled you?” she asks.

“You look like an overripe tomato! If you go any redder you'll pop!”

“I'm glad you find it funny. You won't be laughing when you're telling everyone how I passed out from the heat and that you had to carry me outside and we both missed the whole bloody thing.”

I pass her my hat. “Here. Have a go with this.”

Clover's hat was lost in the stampede on the gallery stairs when the doors opened. “Leave it!” she'd cried over her shoulder, bracing herself against the handrails to make a gap for me after I'd stopped to pick it up. “It's a rotten color anyway. Come
on
!” Clover wasn't going to let a hat stand in the way of a place at the rail. Hers wasn't the only one to fall victim to the gallery crush either. A trail of discarded possessions littered the back stairs as we thundered up. I saw at least four pairs of gloves and three lost shoes.

I watch as the stalls begin to fill up, wishing I could afford the three-guinea ticket to be down there.

“I really need a pee, Clo.”

“Me too. But we'll have to hold it. Far too late to go to the lav now. Jiggle about a bit until the urge passes.”

As the bells ring in the lobby, we link arms and hold tight on to the rail with our free hand, refusing to give in to the shuffling and shoving behind us as others try to wheedle their way to the front. Being so slight, I'm glad of Clover's ample girth. She forms a sort of barricade around us with her bottom so that nobody can dislodge us.

Gradually, the ladies and gentlemen, theater and film stars, dignitaries and socialites arrive to take their seats in the stalls. We all gawp at the elegance. Furs and satin, diamonds and silk, shingled hair, necklaces of big sham pearls and silver beads, velvet capes and brightly colored dresses. The collective trill of excitement from the gallery gathers into a shrill crescendo, filling the theater with a sound not unlike that of the Portobello Market. I see a lady in the dress circle place her hands over her ears, but we continue on. Gallery girls don't care for the delicate heads of fragile ladies.

And then the houselights go down. My heart pounds. There is never a moment when I feel more alive than just before curtain up. An outburst of screaming and applause erupts from the crowd behind me. Someone bumps into me and I lose my balance for a moment, grabbing on to Clover to steady myself as the orchestra strikes up the opening bars. The music sends a tingle through my entire body. The dazzling white spotlight pierces the gloom and the curtains fall to each side of the stage in great swooping arcs. I lean forward, my knuckles white as I grip the rail. The chorus girls glide onto the stage, the rhythmic kick and tap of their heels against the boards sending a thrilling reverberation throughout the auditorium. Such precision. Such beauty in their costumes of cream silk and black feathers. Their perfectly synchronized dancing grows into a marvelous, thundering finale, their heels snapping like a rainstorm against the boards.

And then the woman we have all been waiting for.

Loretta May.

The darling of the West End. The darling of London society. The rebellious society debutante dressed by Poiret and Lelong, photographed by Beaton, painted by artists, and written about by poets in their salons. It is Loretta May we have been waiting for. She is the reason we have saved every penny from our weekly wage
to buy a ticket to tonight's performance, to stand for hours just to see her in the flesh. She is the reason middle-aged women had taken in the milk off their doorsteps that morning and left their bewildered husbands without their breakfasts as they'd hurried off to Wellington Street to join the queue for the gallery door.

She appears from the wings amid a great stamping of feet and a frenzied cheering from the gallery. Tears prick my eyes as I tighten my grip on Clover's arm. Miss May's costume is beautiful: lavender chiffon with powder-puff posies at the waist and handkerchief draperies falling from either side of the skirt. Shimmering silver shoes with heels the color of cyclamen. Even several gentlemen in the stalls cannot resist the urge to stand up and shout their admiration.

Her very first line has the entire theater in peals of laughter. The Loretta May magic is in full force.

T
he show passes in a blur of dance, song, laughter, and wild applause. The final curtain prompts a great outpouring of affection from the gallery girls. “You're marvelous! You're marvelous!” we cry, our words echoing around the theater as we call for Miss May's return to the stage. But she is gone, and it is over.

As the houselights go up, Clover tugs at my sleeve. “Come on. We might see her leave.”

“You go,” I say. “I'll follow in a moment.”

As the others rush back down the steep stairs, hoping to get an autograph or perhaps an invitation to the dressing room, or at least a glimpse of Miss May as she leaves for the after party, I stand and stare at the stage. I close my eyes, imagining that I am dressed in lavender chiffon; soft silver dance shoes on my feet. I deliver my lines with deliberate sass and perfect timing. The audience roar for more and call my name every time I emerge from the wings.

“Not got a home to go to?”

I open my eyes. An usher is sweeping the floor around me. “Yes, of course. Sorry.”

“Fancy yourself down there, do you?”

“Pardon?”

“On the stage? All the gallery girls think they'll be on that stage one day.”

“And what's the harm in that?”

The woman has a sour face and sucks in her bottom lip with a great slurp. “No harm. Ain't never gonna happen, though, is it? I dunno. You young girls with your heads all full of nonsense!”

She chuckles to herself and carries on with her sweeping as I pick up my handbag and make for the exit where Clover is waiting for me.

Outside, London is lit up like a circus. I stop to look at the front of the theater.
LORETTA MAY
blazes out in electric lights. I link my arm through Clover's.

“I think ‘Dolly Lane' would look well in lights. Don't you?”

“I thought it was going to be Ninette Faye,” she says, reminding me of the stage name we'd concocted years ago. I giggle and pull her closer to me.

We stroll together along Shaftesbury Avenue and across Cambridge Circus, my head a jumble of thoughts.

Clover notices that I'm quiet; distracted. “What's going on in that head of yours now?” she asks.

I rest my head on her shoulder. “Things.”

She guesses what it is I'm thinking about. “Why don't you visit the hospital? See if you can find him.”

“I tried that before. All I found was a dead end.”

“But that was a few years ago. They might be more helpful now. There's lots of girls have found their babies, or at least had
word that they're safe and well cared for. It might put your mind at rest if nothing else.”

“I'm afraid, Clover. What if I
do
find him? What if I find him and can't bear to lose him again? What then? I'd be right back where I started.”

She pulls her arms around my shoulder. “But you won't know until you find him, will you. And you can't spend the rest of your life wondering.”

As we walk, we pass a brass band of ex-servicemen playing Christmas carols. Their sound is beautiful and haunting, the music drifting above the crowds of shoppers and theatergoers and revelers. As we stand for a moment to listen, I wonder what their stories are. Where they fought. Who they lost. How different their lives are now.

I wonder if Teddy hears music.

I wonder if he remembers how we used to love dancing.

I wonder if he thinks of me at all.