The Wardrobe Mistress

by Natalie Meg Evans

  Vanessa spent the morning of November 22nd, the anniversary of Leo’s death, briefing the stars’ dressers on the costumes their ladies and gentlemen would wear. Afterwards, she went out and stocked up on shoe laces, suspenders, men’s braces – anything that might be needed in a crisis. Meanwhile, the deferred technical rehearsal played through without hitch.

  For the first time since she’d walked into The Farren, Vanessa wore trousers to work. Her day would involve endless trips up and down stairs, and would end late. Seeing her stride past, Doyle ran after her to give her a postcard. The picture was a decidedly phallic view of the Eiffel Tower. On the reverse was scrawled, ‘Surviving, just. Break a leg. H.’

  ‘It’s from –’

  ‘No names,’ warned Doyle.

  Later as she snatched a moment to bring her accounts up to date, there came a tap at the door. ‘Just a mo!’ Alistair was the only person who knocked and waited. Running her fingers through her hair, she hurried to open the door. A stranger stood in the corridor. A stranger until –

  ‘Nessie, I’ve come to smoke the pipe of peace.’

  ‘Joanne! Good heavens – you’ve – ’

  ‘Gone blonde! We all reach for the bottle in the end.’

  Vanessa stepped back to let Joanne come in. ‘Tea?’ She lit the gas under the kettle, mixing up powdered milk while Joanne opened drawers and stood on tiptoe to peer at shelves and inside the big wardrobe. From her eye’s tail as she measured out tea leaves, Vanessa saw Joanne pushing her finger into a box of lead disks used for weighting flimsy hems.

  Realising she’d been seen, Joanne grinned. ‘You’ve really got under the skin of this job. Why am I surprised? I remember how scared you were at the thought of promotion in the WAAF, but you passed every exam without breaking sweat.’

  ‘It didn’t feel like it at the time. Still like a strong brew?’

  ‘Mm. I’ve brought something for your emergency drawer.’ Joanne presented Vanessa with a paper-wrapped block. ‘I asked our wardrobe lady what her most useful cupboard item was and she said, “Gin.” I said I didn’t think you drank it.’

  Little you know, Vanessa thought, though I like it pink. Unwrapping the gift, she found a caramel-brown chunk. ‘Fudge?’

  ‘Solid beeswax, for when zip-fasteners get stuck. You’ll get desperate calls from actors jammed into their costume, twenty-five seconds before they’re due back on stage in something different. To free the metal teeth, rub wax vigorously back and forth until release occurs.’

  ‘Golly. I hope I never have to free a man from his pants.’

  Joanne gave her smoky laugh. ‘I can see you kneeling in front of Ronald Gainsborough.’

  ‘Not I.’ Vanessa fluffed Joanne’s flaxen waves. ‘So, Jean Harlow, what happened?’

  Apparently, the director of High Jinx had woken up one morning convinced that the chorus line should match head to toe. ‘Mr Stephen took three goes to strip out my natural colour. God knows how long it’ll take to grow out. I may have to be blonde till I retire. I flatly refused to have my eyebrows done.’

  ‘Quite right. Who knows where it’d stop?’ Vanessa touched her own, disordered curls which were crying out again for Mr Stephen’s touch.

  ‘Nessie,’ Joanne began as Vanessa said, ‘Look, I know we – ’

  ‘You go first,’ Vanessa said. ‘You’re the elder. Well, you’re the blonder.’

  ‘All right. I was a cow when you lived with me. And you were right, I was envious. You were set up in your new job, everything falling into place. Whereas I – ’

  ‘Whoa,’ Vanessa stopped her. ‘You have a part in a West End show. A flat, a boyfriend. What do I have that you don’t?’

  Joanne shrugged, embarrassed. ‘Hope. If war hadn’t happened, I’d have been a leading light by now.’

  ‘If war hadn’t happened, I’d have been a commercial artist, designing custard powder packaging, wearing horn-rimmed specs.’

  ‘Is it true, your ASM has been given a role?’

  Vanessa handed Joanne tea in a china cup. ‘As Lady Agatha Carlise. Complete with an Equity card.’

  ‘That’s what I mean.’ Joanne blew on the hot liquid, sending a mini wave over the rim. ‘Being in the WAAF pushed me down the ladder. I’m hoofing in the chorus line while posh girls who floated around Whitehall doing a bit of typing get the plum parts. Who do I have to sleep with to get into a legitimate play?’ Joanne added extra saccharine to her cup from a tin she kept in her handbag. ‘I warned you what a beastly, soul-destroying profession this is, yet you strolled into a job.’ She laughed humourlessly. ‘Listen to me. Lady Jealousy-Green. I oughtn’t to have taken it out on you.’

  No, Vanessa agreed silently. Nor on Alistair.

  ‘Oh, and I have no boyfriend. The Gorgeous Specimen and I split up. He was nabbed by the girl who moved in after you, actually. It made me realise . . . well, you can’t buy loyalty, can you?’

  ‘Not since the war, dearie.’

  They drank their tea, and Joanne announced she must drag her backside to the theatre. ‘Afternoon matinee, the two cruellest words in the English language.’ At the door, she paused, saying, ‘You ought to know – while I was being bleached, Mr Stephen’s second-in-command –’

  ‘Stuart?’

  ‘– was shampooing one of your actresses. They were chatting about Lady Windermere. He mentioned Commander Redenhall, that business of the sinking ship and leaving sailors to drown – ’

  ‘What the hell does Stuart know about sea warfare?’

  ‘Your actress asked the same thing, in language mighty rich.’

  ‘Was it Miss Konstantiva?’

  ‘Don’t know but when she’d finished, Stuart was mincemeat.’

  ‘Good.’ Rosa had been dropped into occupied France during the war, Doyle had told Vanessa in confidence. Hers was a distinguished war record, and she admired Alistair.

  ‘Do you want to know who started the slander? It was the lady wife. She’s been scattering poisoned nuggets for months. Not very “Honourable”, is it?’

  Vanessa shook her head – in warning. Alistair was standing in the doorway. Macduff’s nose pushed past his leg, seeking out the newcomer. ‘Jo, shush.’

  Joanne failed to pick up her signals. ‘She’s dumping him for a man who has a title coming his way, and wants to justify herself. Stephen and Stuart are such remorseless gossips, before we knew it, we were convinced Redenhall was a terrible, bad egg. Well, not you. You stuck up for him.’

  ‘Jo, shut up. The man you’re speaking of is right behind you.’

  Joanne eased around, clearly hoping Vanessa was joking. She sagged. ‘Please don’t tell me you heard. I’ll die!’

  ‘Then I won’t tell you.’ Alistair looked impressive in one of his grey suits, his Navy coat over his shoulders. ‘Are you coming or leaving?’

  ‘Just going.’ Joanne produced her heart-stopping smile, while the indefinable ‘it’ that Vanessa had always envied spread through her like steam through pipes. ‘What a darling dog,’ she exclaimed, though she couldn’t hide her recoil as Macduff flopped on his back, proudly displaying his stump. ‘I didn’t know dogs could get about on three legs.’

  ‘Macduff can do everything except take corners fast.’ Alistair asked Vanessa if she’d mind looking after the dog. ‘I’m meeting my financial man. I’ll be about four hours.’ Tipping his hat, he went.

  Shutting Macduff in, Vanessa walked Joanne to the stage door. When she got back, having been delayed a few minutes, the dog had stripped the innards out of a kapok-stuffed cushion. She had to pick the fibres out of his ears and teeth, and because he’d swallowed some, he was sick.

  ‘Another diversion to get me through the day,’ she told him. She wondered how much Alistair had heard of Joanne’s revelations.

  When he returned to collect Macduff, he said only, ‘Was that your WAAF friend, the one who lives on Phoenix Street?’

  ‘Yes. I’m glad she stopped by. It takes courage to apologise.’ Had Joanne actual
ly apologised? Vanessa supposed she had in her way. ‘How was your meeting?’

  ‘Frank and open. If box office takings aren’t strong from day one, we’re done.’

  Vanessa watched the first dress rehearsal from the wings. Ronnie Gainsborough complained that the ladies’ immense sleeves were like barrage balloons crossing the sun. At the end of Act One, Vanessa was called on to repair Miss Abbott’s morning dress, which had snagged on something sharp.

  ‘Our stays are too severe,’ Noreen Ruskin complained as she made her Act Two exit.

  The actresses had rehearsed in long concert skirts and frilled blouses, and were suddenly adjusting to corsets, stiff collars, heavy flounces. Some had trouble controlling their breath or producing their lines powerfully.

  During the interval break, Vanessa visited Rosa in the dressing room she shared with Gwenda Mason. The women were sipping ginger beer, their dresses loosened, their hair flattened under flesh-coloured wig caps.

  ‘It’s always the same with a period play,’ Rosa reassured Vanessa. ‘It’s why it’s the first dress rehearsal. We’ll grow used to our packaging. Have a ginger beer.’

  ‘Miss Ruskin is threatening to change her corset for a liberty bodice.’

  ‘She has cousins in the country who send her butter and eggs. She’ll have to loosen her laces or cut down on the scones.’

  Gwenda pitched in, ‘Trouble is, we spent the war slopping about in siren suits and comfy old skirts. Our middles have relaxed.’

  Rosa agreed. ‘It’s hard getting used to Victorian boning.’ Under her cap, her hair gleamed like coconut ice and Vanessa wished she could ask more about her set-to with Stuart. Gwenda’s presence inhibited her, so after finishing her drink, Vanessa toured the dressing rooms, collecting up smalls for washing and costumes for mending.

  A tall, heavy-set man was waiting outside her room. He had a bowler hat in his hand, a hip-flask at his lips. It was the silent man at Johnny Quinnell’s graveside. It was Billy Chalker.

  Chapter 29

  He spoke first. ‘Mrs Kingcourt, I presume.’ Ponderous jowls, sprouts of grey hair over his ears, he had the look of a sombre clown.

  ‘You were at my dad’s funeral.’

  ‘Not I.’

  ‘You were with Eva. Did you know I’d been looking for you?’

  He peered at her. He had loose flesh around his eyes, but his gaze was sharp, and sloe-black. ‘You’re Johnny’s daughter?’

  ‘And you must be Eva’s brother.’ She stuck out her hand, regretting doing so when he took it in a butcher’s grip. ‘But you don’t call yourself, ‘St Clair’?’ she said.

  ‘“Chalker” is a stage-name. I’m the family black sheep. With a priest for a brother, a pseudonym was a matter of urgency, though I teased Father Joseph that we both liked dressing up in frocks. Weren’t you in uniform when I saw you last?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘And Eva gave you a key.’

  Vanessa pulled it from under her top layers.

  Chalker rumbled, ‘“A very little key will open a very heavy door.” Dickens said all the useful things and Wilde, all the amusing things.’

  ‘But do you know what it opens, Mr Chalker? Miss Yorke – our costume-maker – suggested it might be a sewing box.’

  ‘It could. Our brother Joseph brought one back from France, after he spent a few months there at a seminary. A pretty thing. Eva treasured it.’

  ‘Do you have it?’

  ‘No. Perhaps it went with her when she moved in with the nuns.’

  ‘They said everything had been sent back to you.’

  ‘Tricky customers, nuns. My dear, this is all very charming but I’m here for a fitting.’

  ‘Costume fitting?’ Vanessa was unable to stop herself imagining Chalker in a frock, cavorting in striped stockings. Come on, Billy-Boy, show us an ankle!

  ‘You are the wardrobe lady,’ he said patiently. ‘I am the new Parker.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Vanessa detected whisky on Chalker’s breath. ‘You need –’

  ‘The full butler’s rig. The unfortunate chap I’ve replaced is slimmer than I.’

  That was an understatement. Billy Chalker was barrel-chested with wide shoulders. Nothing on the rails would fit him.

  As she fetched her tape measure, she heard Chalker say, ‘New wardrobe, new mirror. That bomb . . . I came here after Eva was hurt and picked my way over splintered wood and glass. Ah, that might explain the disappearance of the sewing box. Damaged, like Eva, past repair.’

  At that moment, Alistair came in. ‘I heard you’d arrived, Chalker. Welcome back to The Farren.’

  ‘Goodness, Redenhall, you’ve grown taller since I saw you last.’ Chalker returned the handshake. ‘And handsomer. Did you ask Terence Rolf to engage me?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Still, I shan’t complain. Playing Parker will be easier than Widow Twankey twice nightly and one can’t turn down anything at my age.’ Chalker raised his arms to allow Vanessa to take his chest measurement. ‘Nobody wanted Dames during the war. Bad for morale. I was too arthritic for ENSA, too ugly for film work.’

  Terence Rolf walked in. ‘Still complaining, Billy? Glad to see you back here in your proper capacity. Let’s introduce you to the cast. Mrs Kingcourt can finish off later.’

  From the doorway, Chalker issued a plea. ‘No scratchy serge, if you please. Brings my thighs out in a rash.’

  ‘Chalker’s more used to wearing cotton drawers,’ Rolf chuckled.

  ‘Au contraire, I’ve handled many trouser-parts in my time.’ A moment later, Chalker flared at Vanessa, ‘Johnny Quinnell was dark-haired, with eyes to match. You’re an imposter, trading on his name. Stealing Eva’s laurels. Stealing her room.’

  Shocked, Vanessa looked to Alistair. Billy Chalker burst out laughing.

  ‘Jesting, dear girl. But don’t go round saying you’re Johnny’s. He treated my sister abysmally. Good as killed Eva and her child. You wouldn’t want to be his daughter.’

  ‘Wait!’ Vanessa made to follow Chalker into the corridor but Alistair pulled her back.

  ‘Didn’t you smell the booze on his breath? I hope Rolf knows wht he’s doing, hiring him. If he rolls off the bloody stage –’ He urged her to concentrate on the play. ‘When it’s bringing in revenue, we’ll talk all about this. Please Vanessa, I’m ignoring my divorce, Fern’s slander and financial pressure. If I can, so can you. Organise Chalker’s costume. Tomorrow’s the final dress rehearsal.’

  ‘Really?’ she said tartly. ‘I’d forgotten.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten that yesterday was the anniversary of your husband’s death. I admire you.’ He kissed her quickly on the forehead and left.

  The second dress rehearsal was a concerto of fluffed lines, electrical fluctuations, blown bulbs and snapped violin strings. Tanith was so overwhelmed, she seized up.

  Terence Rolf, acting director now that Aubrey Hinshaw was gone, shouted, ‘Young woman, you’ve the shortest part in the theatrical cannon. All you say is “Yes, mamma”.’ Tanith shed helpless tears. ‘My giddy aunt,’ Rolf snorted. ‘Chalker, got your hip flask? Give our young amateur a shot, see if it turns her professional.’

  Tanith choked on the whisky and Chalker slapped her back, saying in rhythm, ‘Yes, mamma! Yes, mamma!’

  Though it was his first appearance as Parker, Chalker was word perfect. A drinker he might be, but he was no hopeless drunk. Stage-Stock had provided him with a butler’s costume that needed only an inch letting down on the cuffs and trouser-bottoms. Even so, Clemency Abbott objected, complaining loudly, ‘He puts me out of scale. Lady Windermere would never tolerate a butler she has to lean backwards to instruct.’

  Noreen Ruskin, on her way to her dressing room, soothed, ‘Darling, he makes you look cute as a doll.’ She then added in a stage whisper, ‘Wooden.’

  Clemency burst into tears.

  Vanessa sat in the wings, needle case ready, because in all this rising tension, accidents happened. Swishing
hems and boned sleeves caught on the furniture. Rosa got carpet burn under her chin, snapping open her fan too fast. Clemency’s morning gown tore yet again, on something projecting from the table where she arranged her roses. The carpenter blamed it on a rogue splinter.

  Act Two began with missed cues. Patrick Carnford whispered to Vanessa, ‘If Ronnie pulls any harder on his hair, he’ll open up a second bald front.’

  ‘The worse the dress rehearsal, the better the opening night. Isn’t that what they say?’

  Carnford laughed at her. ‘“They” say anything to stave off despair. We still haven’t had our dinner out, Mrs K. How about being my date on opening night?’

  ‘Um – I’m not sure I’m even . . .’

  ‘Coming to the after-show party? Of course you are. I shall order us a taxi.’

  ‘Do I feel like Eva’s daughter?’ Vanessa asked herself. It was evening, November 27th, the day before opening night. She was steaming up the windows of the wardrobe room. She’d washed the actors’ shirts and because the weather had turned damp, she was having to iron them dry.

  ‘Am I Eva’s child?’ she asked her misty reflection in the mirror. ‘I am,’ she intoned. Then made a face. ‘Billy’s right, if Eva was Mum and Johnny was Dad, why aren’t I dark? And how come I’m so small?’

  She put on a child’s voice. ‘I was made from the last bit of pastry when there wasn’t enough for a whole pie.’

  She continued the self-interrogation as she plied her iron over damp linen, her busy reflection keeping her company. ‘I’d never felt such love in my whole life as I felt in my few moments with Eva. Explain that, if I wasn’t hers.’

  She tried to see this familiar room through a five-year-old’s eyes. She and Johnny had sat through Sleeping Beauty, Johnny cat-calling Billy Chalker who’d been playing the Dame. Up the steep stairs, knocking at the door. Eva had risen in shock. Young as she was, Vanessa had sensed Eva’s distress. Yet Eva had greeted Vanessa as a fellow-soul. She’d stolen a curl and put it away. An image opened in Vanessa’s mind, a tantalising glimpse. ‘She put it away in a chocolate cake.’