by Caron Allan
He felt an urge to cover his ears, cover his eyes, run back out into the chilly night air, back to the time when his only concerns were his work and imagining Dottie Manderson in that ridiculously flimsy nightgown. He just wanted to go back to all that.
But he couldn’t.
Dottie knew nothing of Hardy’s personal tragedy. On the morning following the robbery, she received a phone call from Mrs Carmichael. It began without preamble and ended equally abruptly.
‘That you, Dot? Look here, I’ve spoken to my friend what I told you about, told him you’re willing. He wants to see you this afternoon at two o’clock. It’s a Mr Cecil Greenwood. Take down this address.’
Dottie hastened to take down the address then found Mrs Carmichael had hung up at the other end, and the line was dead. Golly, Dottie thought, it’s actually happening. She wondered what sort of outfit one wore to meet a film producer.
She stepped out of the taxi, paid the driver and turned to look about her. She was unsure exactly what she had been expecting, but she had definitely pictured something more glamorous than the rather dull, suburban landscape that now confronted her. On one side there was a long row of respectable, identical housing, with pots of daffodils and primroses, the odd starched matron or plump cat walking along, then on the other side was a tall fence that seemed to stretch for miles. The fence was easily eight feet high and topped with coils of barbed wire. This was not the ultra-modern, elegant movie studio of her imaginings.
In the fence, a narrow door was cut, with a peep-hole at eye-level. A sign proclaimed ‘entrance’ but the presence of the peep-hole made Dottie doubt whether anyone was ever actually admitted. She knocked. Her heart was pounding in her chest. What if they wouldn’t let her in? She didn’t want to let Mrs Carmichael down.
Two bloodshot eyes peered out at her. ‘Name?’ said a harsh male voice.
She stammered, ‘Oh, er, Dorothy Manderson.’ She felt flustered. The eyes disappeared.
A moment later a muffled voice said, ‘Would that be Miss Dot Manderson of Carmichael’s?
‘Oh yes!’ Relief flooded through her as he opened the door, stepping aside to admit her.
‘Sign here,’ he instructed and held out a clipboard and rather chewed pencil. A grimy fingernail tapped the page against her name. Dottie signed and gave back his pencil.
‘That way.’ He pointed, then turned and went back inside a kind of sentry box and vanished from her view behind a large newspaper.
She faced the way he had indicated. Spread out before her was a veritable estate of avenues, buildings, carts, horses and scurrying, bustling people who all too clearly knew just where they were going and were already five minutes late getting there.
Dottie regarded the scene. There was nothing to say where she should go. She dithered for a few moments before summoning the courage to speak to the doorman again.
‘Where exactly am I supposed to go?’ she demanded of the newspaper, a little louder and more crossly than she’d intended. He dropped the newspaper, glanced at her, and clearly decided that she was not to be trifled with, though she was unsure why.
He carefully folded his newspaper—the Times—and with a heavy sigh laid it to one side. Then from the doorway of his sentry box he gave a long piercing whistle followed immediately by the cry of, ‘Oi Anthony!’
Almost at once a round-faced boy with freckles and blond hair appeared.
‘Take this lady to Mr Greenwood’s office,’ the doorman told him.
Anthony nodded, and turning to give Dottie his arm in a very adult fashion, said, ‘Allow me, Ma’am.’ He winked at her, which made her laugh.
Thus they set off along the broad avenue ahead, and Dottie had reason to be glad of her escort as he turned left and almost immediately right, turned again, opened a door to lead her through a warehouse that turned out to be a set containing a full-sized baronial hall, where a sword fight was about to take place upon the long banqueting table, then they exited upon an alleyway, turning twice more before running up some metal stairs and in at another door.
‘Nearly there,’ Anthony informed her with a cheeky grin.
‘I’ll never find my way back again,’ Dottie said, panting a little as he hurried her along an upstairs corridor.
‘I’ll wait for you, Ma’am, and excort you back.’ She smiled at his mispronunciation.
‘Oh, thank you, Anthony.’
He halted abruptly outside a door. A small brass plate proclaimed Cecil Greenwood: Producer rather in the manner of those outside a doctor’s or lawyer’s office. Anthony rapped smartly then stepped aside and sank down onto the dusty floor, pulling a crumpled comic from the pocket of his elderly tweed jacket.
‘I’ll be right here, Ma’am. If it was up to me, I’d give you the part. But don’t let him take advantage.’
Dottie fervently hoped that would not be part of the role. The door opened. A platinum blonde in a tight jumper and skirt inspected Dottie critically, then told her, ‘Step this way, Miss.’
Inside was a desk. In front of the desk were half a dozen hard wooden chairs. ‘Wait here. I’ll just let him know.’
With a clacking of heels, the blonde disappeared through a door, and Dottie made out the muffled sound of voices. The clacking heels returned.
‘Mr Greenwood will be with you shortly.’ And the blonde, having lost interest in Dottie, took a seat behind the desk. Presently there was the sound of hesitant typing of the two-fingered variety, and whispered cursing as she halted almost at once to make a correction to her work. Dottie sighed and sat back, eyes closed. She waited. She was wishing fervently she had not agreed to come.
The door was flung open with a crash about fifteen minutes later. A large gentleman bounded through the aperture, his form filling the space.
‘Miss Manderson, my dear! Do forgive the delay. Most unfortunate. Most unforgiveable. Come this way, come, do, and let’s have a chat. This way to my boudoir, dear lady.’
Dottie exchanged a look with the blonde who, suddenly human, rolled her eyes and smiled at Dottie. Dottie’s nerves evaporated.
She followed the gentleman through to his ‘boudoir’, which she quickly discovered was a rather ordinary-looking office. So ordinary, it might have belonged to any businessman in any institution or corporation in the city of London.
‘Sit, my dear, sit yourself down and let’s have a look at you. Oh Margaret, do come and take the lady’s coat and hat, my dear!’ The blonde appeared and took away Dottie’s outdoor things, then retreated with them to the outer office, shutting the door behind her.
Mr Greenwood sat, and through the blue haze of his cigar smoke, regarded her with shrewd, steady eyes rather as a farmer might size up a possible purchase at a cattle market. It was a look she had seen many times before, though not usually focussed on herself. It was the same assessing look worn by the women who came to Carmichael’s warehouse to view the gowns and costumes Dottie modelled.
‘Hmm,’ he said after a moment. ‘Slim. Pleasing figure. Tall. Pretty hair, good skin. Shame the eyes aren’t blue but I suppose one can’t have everything. Yes, my dear Miss Manderson, you’ll do. You realise of course you’ll have no lines?’ Dottie hastened to reassure him that she was aware of that.
‘Hmm. Well, there you are then. Be here at six o’clock tomorrow.’ He was looking at a ledger on his desk, taking up a pen to make a mark on the page. Dottie divined she was dismissed.
She rose to her feet, dropping the hand she’d held out to shake his absent one. She didn’t know whether to just leave, but her mother’s early instructions could never be set aside.
‘Well, thank you very much for your time,’ she said, ‘and I look forward to working with you.’
‘Good God, girl,’ he said in an abrupt change of manner, ‘You shan’t be working with me. But—er—very nice meeting you too, Miss, er... Margaret, show Miss—er...’
Margaret the blonde hurried in to chivvy Dottie out of the great man’s presence. He’d already turned back
to his ledger.
In the outer room, Dottie said, as she put on her coat and hat, ‘He said be here at six o’clock tomorrow. Would that be in the evening?’
Margaret stared at her then laughed. ‘Gawd, love, you are a bit green, aren’t you? No, six in the morning that would be. And not a minute late, mind, they’re dead strict.’
‘Do I need to bring my lunch? Or will I be finished by then?’
‘Gawd knows, but there’s a cart with food for everyone, you don’t need to bring it with you.’
It was evening. The Daughters of Esther had said their opening prayer and listened to a few mundane announcements. Then their leader rose to her feet to address the circle of women all clad in their identical black cloaks with the hoods pulled up to cover their heads and thrown their faces into deep shadow.
‘Sisters, it gives me great pleasure to welcome into our midst our newest member. I hope you will all greet her at the end of our meeting.’ Holding out a hand, she invited the recruit to stand and say a few words.
The new lady was confident enough to accept the task without embarrassment or awkwardness. She spoke in a clear voice, a voice known to many, and therefore immediately recognisable. She said simply, ‘I am so happy to accept the invitation to join the Daughters of Esther. I hope I shall be a useful member, and I look forward to working with you all in the Daughters’ programmes to support the needy of our city.’
There was a polite ripple of applause, and she resumed her seat. Then the leader closed the official part of the meeting with the customary prayer: ‘Good Queen Esther, bride of the King, help us to walk with modesty and self-sacrifice in this world of men, ever ready to perform any office, without reproach, criticism or demand. Help us to remember to serve our Kings selflessly, as you served yours, and by so doing, to preserve our nation in the day of reckoning. Amen.’
Mrs Manderson said ‘Amen’ with all the others. She felt a bit impatient with all the secrecy and the cloaks, and so on. It was all rather childish in her view, and dangerous. It was this very pretence at secrecy that had made previous members of the Daughters of Esther feel they were above the law, and that was, in Lavinia Manderson’s mind, both a dangerous and an immoral position.
And it wasn’t as if any of them were truly anonymous. There were a dozen ways to identify someone, even if you hadn’t heard their voice in your own drawing room, or just seen them putting up their hoods over their heads before coming into the hall. Membership was by personal invitation. Names were sometimes accidentally used. So the whole notion of anonymity was a farce. Yes, it was definitely childish.
She wasn't sure about the prayer, either. She loved her husband, that much had never been in doubt, but her love for him was rather like old Queen Victoria’s ankles—everyone knew they were there but no one ever saw them in public. Certainly she couldn't see Herbert as a kind of kingly Lord Protector, or look up to him with the deep reverence the daughters of Esther seemed to think necessary. She began to feel she might not last very long with the Daughters of Esther, in spite of her enthusiastic acceptance speech.
The next morning, Anthony met Dottie at the gate at a quarter to six as arranged. Dottie felt as though she hadn’t slept. The scene with her mother the night before had left her drained and emotional. She was dreading a repeat of the same recriminations when she got home, which would hopefully be by mid-morning, she told herself.
Anthony delivered her to the door of a large echoey warehouse. Outside, the streets of the ‘studio’ were deserted, but as she stepped through the doorway, she found the place was noisy and bustling with people. There were screens and chairs, piles of stuff on tables everywhere. There were cameras on wheels, cameras held in the hand, dazzling lights making the place hot, and everywhere, worried people with clipboards hurried back and forth. She hovered inside the door, unsure what to do or where to go.
‘Quiet please!’ a voice yelled, and all sound abruptly ceased. Dottie could hear the sound of her own breathing.
A man stepped forward and began to read names from a list, adding instructions as he did so. People nodded and ran hither and thither according to his bidding.
When he had finished, and still not called her name, or perhaps she had missed it, she thought anxiously, Dottie went over to him and introduced herself, then quickly explained why she was there.
His face, haggard from the early start, was impassive. As he turned away from her, he said, ‘We’ll get to you later, sweetheart. Or perhaps tomorrow. Go to Wardrobe.’ Dottie was left staring at his back.
Desperately wishing even more fervently she had said a firm ‘No!’ to Mrs Carmichael’s request, Dottie asked first one person then another, and finally a third who gave her some rather sketchy directions, and at almost seven o’clock she found herself in yet another warehouse and what was undeniably ‘Wardrobe’. The vast room was crammed with rack upon rack and rail upon rail of dresses, suits, gowns, hats, bags, shoes, gloves, fans, jewellery and even swords and other items of weaponry and armour. In fact every single item a human being could conceivably put on or hold in front of the camera was stored here waiting for its own special moment.
A busy little woman draped in tape measures bustled over, shouting over her shoulder, ‘No, Esme, I quite clearly said the silver tulle!’ With scarcely a breath she turned to Dottie, giving her the once over, and demanding, ‘Well, where is it?’
Dottie stammered. The little woman glared at her, tapping an impatient foot on the wooden boards. ‘The French navy for the third act? You are the girl from Martinsons’?’
‘Ah, no, sorry,’ Dottie said, and seeing the woman’s quick frown, hurriedly introduced herself, adding apologetically, ‘I was told to come here, I’m afraid I’m not quite sure why.’
‘Oh Gawd, they’ll be wanting me to measure you up, I s’pose. What’s your part?’
‘I’m not quite...’
‘Well, what scene is it?’
‘I’m afraid...’
Exasperated, the little woman clicked her tongue and already turning away, indicated that Dottie should follow her into the dim recesses of the back-room, demanding, ‘Well, for the dear Lord’s sake, at least tell me what I’m supposed to give you to wear?’
Here again Dottie was unable to offer any insight. A young woman stood at a table, ironing in a drooping, listless manner what appeared to be an acre of spider-web fine, silvery-grey fabric. The tulle, Dottie surmised, and therefore this must be Esme.
‘They only has it on two minutes, I don’t know how they gets it so crunched up and filthy. And that lot over there has just come from Martinsons’, only on the other side of town, but it looks like it’s come by yak from outer Mongolia. But that’s Martinsons’ for you. Do you know them?’
Dottie said she did, which surprised the little woman, and when Dottie went on to remark upon the ill effects of the firm’s transportation of forty yards of chartreuse rough silk suiting for Mrs Carmichael, a friendly light began to shine in the other woman’s eyes.
‘Come this way, dear, I’ll check my list, see what it says. There could be something in there, you never know.’
Dottie trotted obediently at her heels, exchanging a sympathetic smile with Esme who then practically disappeared behind a cloud of steam. I hope that’s not the tulle she’s steaming like that, Dottie thought. They went past miles of fabric rolls and stacks of shoes and boots, and past the rather scary-looking dressmaker’s models, all standing about with vacant stares peering into the unknown.
At the furthest corner of the back-room was a little crowded desk with a dim lamp burning low over the table-top. The woman sat down on a creaking wooden chair and indicated Dottie should do the same.
‘Judith Parsons, by the way, Miss. I’m the wardrobe mistress, and that useless drip out there is my niece Esme Barker, and a terrible trial on my nerves, let me tell you, but I promised her mother... Now this here’s my list. I’m not saying you’re on it, but you just might be. If you’re not, we’re no further forwar
d.’
She scanned page after page. At length, she peered at Dottie. ‘Carmichael’s, did you say?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Hmm. Says here, four girls from Carmichael’s, various mannequins, for set-dressing in back-room scene. No nudity.’
‘Thank goodness for that!’ Dottie said.
‘Should be four of you though,’ Miss Parsons pointed out.
‘Mrs Carmichael said she would speak to the other girls. I’m afraid I don’t know what the outcome of that was. Perhaps the other girls might be still at the other...?’
‘We’ll see soon enough, I imagine. So, you’ll be in the scene where the star, that’s Marguerite Hutchings, playing the part of Ginger Richardson, the would-be actress, what comes into the dressing room to get ready for her big stage debut which is so affecting, her millionaire sweetheart proposes to her there and then, and whisks her off to his palace and she never acts again. We should all be so lucky.’
On hearing this synopsis, Dottie couldn’t help wrinkling her nose. Miss Parsons nodded.
‘Exactly. Between you and me and the gate-post, I wouldn’t give it six months, but this is the Silver Screen, and all our scenes are rose-coloured.’
They got to business. Dottie’s measurements were taken and a list drawn up of likely costumes. Less than an hour later, Judith Parsons set down her tape measure, notebook and pencil.
‘Well that’s it. It’s almost eight o’clock, I’d say that’s your day’s work finished.’
‘Oh, but won’t they need me later?’
‘Trust me, dear, they won’t get to your scene for at least a day or two. They’ve got to do the wedding scene, don’t ask me why they’re doing the final scene first, they just are. They always do it in a funny order. And then the next few days is taken up with the suicide bid and her stay in the convalescent home where she meets her future intended as he sits with his dying mother. Like all the actors, I’ll be here all the weekend, I expect, it usually ends up like that. So many things crop up at the last minute, it takes me half the weekend to get straight after the week, then I need to get a start on the coming week before that all goes to pot too. There’s no possible way they’ll need you before Tuesday or Wednesday. If you give me your number, I’ll get young Esme to ring up if anything changes, sometimes there’s something crops up and they have to rejig the shooting.’