The Girl from the Savoy (10 page)

Maghull Military War Hospital, Lancashire

April 1919

She is like spring sitting beside me, my very own daffodil.

I
sit in my favorite chair at the window, my trembling hands folded neatly on my lap. I look out at the rooftops, the soaring chimney stacks of the textile mills, the distant slag heaps of the collieries. Black smoke billows skyward, smothering the sun, blotting out the shadows. I like to watch the clouds with all their changing colors; sometimes dark and moody, sometimes delicate fragile feathers. They are racing each other today, scudding by, blown on invisible winds.

Through the distant chatter of the other patients, I hear the nurse approaching. Soft black rubber soles. Each sticky step peeling away from the floor, like the rip of shells through the air. I still hear it. I press my palms against my legs to control the shaking.

“Tea, Teddy. Thought you might fancy one.”

She sets the cup and saucer down on the small table to my right and places a hand on my shoulder. I don't look at her. I stare at the scene beyond the window. Life always happens beyond the window these days. I don't go outside.

“How are you today?” she asks, sitting in the empty chair beside the bed.

Her voice is a blackbird, all singsong and breezy. She is like spring sitting beside me, my very own daffodil. I can't remember her name and I'm too embarrassed to ask.

She follows my gaze to the window. “I see your butterfly is still there. Can't say I blame it. I wouldn't want to go outside today if I was a butterfly. It'd be blown to Ireland in that wind!”

I almost smile.

“Are you ready for another letter?”

I shrug. Take a sip of tea. Extra sugar. She's very kind, this nurse. I close my eyes as she clears her throat and starts to read.

April 15th, 1917

My dearest Teddy,

The cat had eight kittens! I've never seen anything so helpless and tiny. I wish you could see them. The smallest is a tortoiseshell. She's so beautiful. Her eyes are bluer than yours. Mam doesn't know what to be doing with them all but she's promised she won't drown them in the river. I think Smudge will be a great mother until we find a home for them. Bunty Brown says she'll take two, and the vicar's wife wants a good mouser for the vicarage. I'm keeping the smallest. I've called her Poppy.

Jack Elvidge came home with a shrapnel injury. They thought he might lose his leg but he's made a miraculous recovery and is being well fed by his mam. He won't be going back to the front, what with him being injured. He says he wishes he could go back to carry on fighting alongside you all. I tell him that's silly talk and that he's done his bit and should
be grateful that his life—and his leg—were spared. I gave him one of the kittens to cheer him up. He called it Private.

So, you see, some good news.

I'm now part of the factory football team. We call ourselves Mawdesley United. We play against the other munitionettes in the neighboring factories. Turns out some of us have a bit of a knack for football. I've been told I have quick feet. I reckon that's from all the dancing you taught me.

Write to me soon. The weeks between your letters feel like months. I long to hear from you, Teddy. I worry so much and hope you will be home on leave soon.

I will close now.

With fondest love,

Your Little Thing,

Dolly

X

Seeing no response from me, she carries on. I watch her take another piece of paper from another stained envelope. I close my eyes again, and listen.

October 20th, 1917

My dearest Teddy,

I hope that you are reading this on the train—that you couldn't wait a moment longer to see what words I'd written to you. How happy I was to have you back home. I have never known two weeks pass so quickly. I'm so pleased you found your mam and dad well.

I enjoyed our long walks to the stone bridge. It was so
lovely to feel the warmth of you beside me, to just sit with you. I found the silence between us a little strange at first, but I understand that sometimes words are not needed, and I know your thoughts were with your brothers, back in France. I know you were anxious to get back to them.

It is selfish of me to wish you had refused to go back. You are a brave man, and I have to try to understand that you had to return to France to fight and to give someone else the chance to go home to their mam and the girl who loves them.

I pray that this will all be over and that you'll be home for good soon. Until then, know that I am thinking of you always.

Your Little Thing,

Dolly

X

She folds the letter and slips it back into the envelope. She sits beside me for a while, not reading, not talking. I watch the butterfly open and close its wings, basking in the sunlight at the window, and I cannot stop the tears that prick my eyes at the thought of this girl in the letters who writes all these wonderful words to me.

I wish I could remember.

With all my heart, I wish I could remember her.

“Get a job in a shop. Marry a nice young chap. Leave the dancing to someone else.”

R
emembrance Sunday arrives with scudding gray clouds and a decision to deliver my reply to the musical composer. Teddy always said that when you're not sure about something, you should let the weather decide. Today is wild and willful. There's a reckless urgency to everything that I can't resist.

As I leave the hotel I feel every blast of the eager east wind swirling around my ankles and gusting at my back. Before I go to the Strand Theatre, I step into the dark interior of the small chapel beside The Savoy. I remove my hat and hurry to the altar to light a candle, my cheeks burning from the wind. I settle at a pew and say my prayers. I think of the photograph in my pocket, and pray for him; for his well-being and his happiness. I pray for strength and forgiveness for myself.

My prayers said, I head back outside, the wind pushing me down the sloping path toward the Embankment. I pass a bootblack and a coffee seller and the regular pavement artists. There are several gathered today, including a young woman who kneels on a piece of cloth and chalks her drawings onto the flagstones. I drop a penny into her hat. She thanks me and tells me she's collecting for
the British Legion. A little farther along, a man is drawing a field of poppies. He has already completed an image of a young woman and a view of the Houses of Parliament. His likenesses are very good. Lines of poetry and verse are scrawled among his images. I drop a penny into his hat too and walk on.

Back on the Strand, the roads that usually teem with trams and motorcars are empty, the pavements free of the crowds of shoppers and street sellers, the awnings of the shops pulled in until trading starts again on Monday. The significance of the date lends a sense of somber reflection to the city, and at the corner of Lancaster Place I buy a poppy, pinning it to my coat with a sense of pride and sadness. The guns will be fired at eleven as the wreaths are placed at the Cenotaph at Whitehall. We will all stop and reflect for two minutes, and then we will carry on, as we have always done, as we always will. What else can we do?

I walk on, passing wine merchants and tobacconists. I catch my reflection in a furrier's window. Despite the sweep of Gladys's rouge and Sissy's lipstick (applied as soon as I'd escaped the beady eyes of O'Hara and her notions of flighty girls), I look as drab as a dray horse. The envelope in my pocket tugs at my thoughts as a gust of wind tugs at my hat. I hold it tight against my head and hurry on, pulling my collar around my neck. I'm glad I've resisted the lure of the shingle bob. As it is, I feel every cheap fiber of Clover's old coat as I scurry along Lancaster Place toward the Aldwych. It is a walk of only five minutes with the wind at my back. I wish it were longer.

Too soon, I arrive at the Strand Theatre. I must have walked past it a hundred times but have never really paid it any attention. Now I scrutinize it like O'Hara at her morning inspection. It is an elegant gray building, wrapped around the corner of Wellington Street and the Aldwych. My eyes travel toward the windows on
the upper floors. They remind me of castle turrets. I wonder which window belongs to apartment three. I wonder if he is up there, looking out. If he might be watching me.

Crossing the road, I push open the swing doors and step onto a beautiful mosaic floor. The lobby is empty. I almost turn around and walk straight back out, but the wind rattles the glass in the panes and whistles through the gaps at the door hinges and I'm glad to be inside for a while. The dusky pink marble walls send back an echo of my footsteps. Above me, the ceiling reaches up into an ornate glass dome.

Look up, Dolly. Look at the stars.

For a moment, I stand perfectly still, looking up at the glass. I wrap the fingers of my left hand around the envelope in my pocket. The fingers of my right hand settle around the photograph.

“Can I help you, miss?”

I turn around to see an elderly woman watching me from behind the window of the ticket office. I walk toward her with small hesitant steps and am reminded of the post office in Mawdesley, of hesitant steps walking toward Mrs. Joyce, her wrinkled old hand ready to snatch my words from me and send them off to France. I was never quite ready to let my words go, afraid they would be unheard; unanswered.

I stop in front of the narrow window. The woman smiles. Her face is as plump as a sponge pudding, her eyes dark little currants. Several chins fold like melted candle wax toward what would be her décolletage, if it were visible. But there is a kindness in those currant eyes; a warmth to her smile.

“Can I help you?” she asks again.

“Where can I leave a letter for apartment three? Care of a Mrs. Ambrose.”

“You can leave it with me, duck.”

“Thank you. I'm . . . well, thank you.”

I push the envelope beneath the window. The woman's fingers touch mine as I hesitate to let go, but she pulls it from my grasp.

“Come along now. Don
't be making a fuss. It'll be much easier if you just let go.”
The awful tugging of my fingertips. The hollow ache in my arms; the weight of his absence. A woman in a yellow coat, the color of daffodils.

She places my envelope in a pigeonhole on the wall behind her. “Did you want to buy any tickets, miss?”

“I'm sorry?”

“Tickets? For the show. A Noël Coward farce. Did you want any?”

I'm too distracted to think properly. “No. Thank you. Not today. I just wanted to hand in the letter.”

The woman nods, folds her arms across her chest, and closes her eyes.

I watch her for a moment. “Excuse me.”

She opens one eye. “Yes?”

“Do you know the occupant of flat three?”

Her currant eyes sparkle. “And what if I do?”

“I just wondered what he's like. Whether he's decent enough. You know. Pleasant.”

The woman chuckles, sending her chins wobbling like a jelly pudding. She leans forward. “I'll tell you this much, love. If I had a daughter looking for a nice husband, I'd send her right on up to flat three and I'd lock the door behind them until he offered her a ring. Couldn't meet a nicer gentleman, in my opinion. Could do with being a bit tidier about the place, mind, but what man couldn't?”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “You will make sure he . . .”

“Gets the letter. I will.”

Taking one last look at the envelope, I silently wish it good
luck, push open the swing door, and step out into the street. Like a needle settling in a groove on a gramophone record, all I can do now is wait for a reply; wait for the music to play.

D
espite the cold, I walk through Covent Garden, past the bookshops on Charing Cross Road and on toward Trafalgar Square, where Nelson's column reaches proudly toward the salt-and-pepper sky and the lions languish on their plinths. I walk along Haymarket and through Piccadilly Circus, where a long line of girls snakes around the Pavilion Theatre, all the way from the stage door around the front of the building and along Coventry Street.

An audition call.

Their excited chatter and shrieks of laughter are infectious. I detect the scent of shoe polish, hair pomade, and perfume in the air as I pass. They are all immaculately turned out, aware that being hired will depend as much on how they look as how they perform: fashionably bobbed hair, the best stockings and shoes they can afford, smart cloches, vermillion lips, dark kohl around the eyes. Every inch the jazzing flapper they talk about in the newspapers. I'm horribly conscious of my plain clothes and oversized coat and yet a familiar shiver of excitement runs along my spine as I remember the thrill of anticipation as the doors open and the names are taken and the lines called forward, “Next, please,” a dozen girls at a time. So often, I've been that hopeful girl waiting in line, teeth chattering, toes numb in too-tight borrowed Mary Janes.

I pull my coat closer around me as the wind gusts, blowing the girls' skirts dangerously high up their glossy legs. They won't feel the cold. They'll be warmed by excitement and adrenaline, not to mention a tot or two of gin, and yet, in a few hours' time, most of these pretty young things will have had their hearts broken and their makeup ruined by their tears. Kicks too low. Toes not
pointed. Loose arms. Too much flesh around the waist. Not pretty enough. Not tall enough. Too pretty. Too tall. Too talkative. Too serious. There are any number of reasons why a girl won't cut it. From this long line, only two dozen will make it into the chorus, and only half of them will ever make it to the front line. One or two will become lead chorus with the stage to themselves for a few precious moments, and perhaps only one of these hopeful faces will ever land the starring role they've dreamed of.

My last audition was for a part in the second chorus in
The Water Babies
at the Palace. Baxter was his name. Cecil Baxter. One of the biggest musical-theater producers in town. I'll never forget his words to me when I muddled my steps and asked him for a second chance. “There's no such thing as second chances. Not anymore. There was a time when we couldn't fill the chorus—had to stretch the line and dress the girls in yards of material to fill the gaps. But since the war everyone wants to dance, and those who don't want to dance want to be actresses and film stars. I'd give up now, miss, if I were you. Go back to polishing the silverware, or whatever it is you do for a living. Get a job in a shop. Marry a nice young chap. Leave the dancing to someone else.”

He couldn't have said anything to make me more determined to succeed.

“Dorothy Lane?” I stop at the sound of my name and turn around as a girl steps out of the line and stares at me. “It
is
you, isn't it?”

“Yes. I'm Dorothy Lane.” The girl looks familiar, but I can't place her.

“I knew it. I'd recognize that face anywhere.” She throws her arms around me. “You don't remember me, do you?”

I shake my head. “I'm sorry. No.”

She laughs. “Edie. Edie Bishop. We was in the hospital to
gether. Remember?” Edie Bishop. The name smothers me. “You was in the bed next to me,” she continues. “I had twins. Two of the little buggers. No wonder I was the size of a house!”

I can barely speak. Distant memories creep forward. Names and places I had pushed from my mind raise their voices and shout to be heard.

She laughs at my dumbstruck silence. “You don't remember me at all, do you?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. The Mothers' Hospital.” I grasp the photograph in my pocket and try to control the tremble in my legs. “How are you keeping?”

“Oh, you know. Making do. Still turning up to the auditions. I'm working for a dressmaker in Hackney. It was her told me about this audition. We've never been so busy with costumes for the shows. How about you?”

“I'm a maid. At The Savoy.”

“Sounds fancy.”

“It's a job.”

She leans forward and whispers in my ear. “Did you ever hear anything?”

I shake my head. “No. Nothing.”

“Me neither. For the best. Put it behind you and carry on. Isn't that what they told us?”

She grabs my hand and squeezes it tight. I want to hold on to her. After so many years of agonizing silence, I want to talk. I want to ask questions and remember, but my thoughts are interrupted by the somber chimes of Big Ben.

The eleventh hour. The first boom of cannon fire ricochets off the buildings around us.

We all bow our heads. Ten more times the guns are fired, each one a blow to the heart, a memory. For two minutes, London falls
silent. The pages and porters stop rushing and calling for cars. The omnibuses, motorcars, and trams pull up to a halt. Gentlemen remove their hats. Ex-servicemen stand to attention. Mothers and wives blink back their tears. England stands still and remembers. Even the wind drops to a respectful hush. Two minutes for all that was lost. It hardly seems long enough. As I stand with my head bowed, I try to shush the memories stirred by Edie Bishop and try to focus on Teddy, but his sweet face is a blur. Like a reflection in rippled water, I cannot quite grasp the image of him.

I
envied him and the boys from the village when they left for France; envied the adventures awaiting them. I read his early letters with naïve eager eyes, devouring the sights he described as he passed through pretty French villages. I could almost smell the bread from the
boulangeries
he wrote of. Even the French words were exciting. I liked to roll them around my tongue like a humbug, teaching them to my sisters:
boulangerie, château,
église, campagne.
We giggled at our awful pronunciations. But Teddy's letters changed. His descriptions of poppy fields became descriptions of mud and death. His words became those of a frightened boy, not of the brave soldier who had kissed me good-bye and taken my breath away and promised he'd be back for Christmas.

Nobody came back for Christmas.

As the boys marched on, so did the years, until I began to lose all hope of ever seeing him again. The comfortable life I'd once imagined for us with a family of our own was trampled into the French countryside as life became a muddle of strange new normalities: death, grieving, extraordinary exchanges of love in letters written to and from the front. My job at the munitions factory was a welcome distraction. My sisters found work in the textile factories, sewing secret messages of hope into the pockets of greatcoats.
What was once so strange became familiar. A new normal. And then the war ended, the boys returned, and we were unsettled all over again.

Relationships didn't slot back into place as we'd imagined they would. Some homecomings were as natural as the sunrise, but many more were as awkward and faltering as the soldiers on their crutches. It was painful to watch. I couldn't understand why the girls were so hesitant to touch the men they had longed to see, disturbed by the masks their loved ones wore to conceal the disfigurement of their once flawless faces. I knew I would love Teddy as soon as I saw him, whatever wounds and scars he carried. I would love him just the same.