Hazel Gaynor – The Girl From The Savoy (страница 8)

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 a maid. 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?’