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‘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.
