The next morning, out in the garden, I was pathetically grateful for the enthusiastic greetings of the dancers who were having coffee and nicotine for breakfast. Glenda, as she did with men or women, twined herself around me, laying her head on my shoulder.
‘You are a lovely person, Eleanor. What you do is nice. We like you.’
I’d never felt the attraction of same sex relationships until that moment but equally, with the slight weight of her perfect body moulded to mine, I felt a twist of envy. How much easier life must be for the flawless. She kissed my cheek and, having rested on me for a moment, flittered off, happy. I wondered if flowers felt envious of butterflies.
Lee, never a bloom of any interest to Glenda, slithered into her place, an arm draped over my shoulders. Susan, wearing jeans that would have stopped an arterial haemorrhage, watched from the pergola where she leaned like Lili Marlene. She waved across at me.
‘Hi Eleanor, missed you last night.’
‘Yes we were sorry not to see you. You didn’t come to the pub – is everything all right?’ Lee said this with sibilant concern. As if I couldn’t end the day without a drink. As if.
‘Yes. Fine thanks.’
‘So what did you get up to? Early bed with your script, I suppose. It must be so difficult for you, not having been on stage for so long.’
Should I boast? Reverse the polarity.
‘Actually I was with –’
KT slammed through the fire doors.
‘MORNING LUVVIES!’ – his usual greeting since a gala at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he’d used it to great effect on a roomful of Irish Guards who froze in fear as he pirouetted through their ranks. I heard some time later that, after he’d failed to teach them a box step and kick line, his cry of ‘All together or not at all!’ had been adopted on the parade ground.
‘So… That a bruise on your neck is it, Susan? What did you get up to last night?’ He plonked himself down between Lee and me. Susan simpered, her cat’s-arse mouth puckering to suppress a smile that was meant to intrigue. KT obligingly took the bait. ‘Oh? And what does that mean, Miss Thing? Love bite or close encounter with a door?’
‘Extra rehearsals. With our director…at his flat.’ She fingered the blue mark below her ear. ‘I need a lot of direction. I’m not as experienced as you, Eleanor.’
It was half-past-one when I left Dan’s. Where had she been? Hiding in the post box opposite? I saw KT had exactly the same thought.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I thought there was a production meeting last night that went on as long as The Lord of the Rings.’
She laughed: ‘Yeah, right, whatever. I’m so tired I can’t tell you. He’s way more than demanding.’
My stomach was knotted but I laughed companionably, girls together. She was flattered. For all her resentment, she still wanted my approval. That, I realised, had been the problem: I hadn’t paid court, hadn’t accorded her a position above the others. It was so obvious I’d missed it. No wonder she couldn’t stand me. Had he really used me as her warm-up act?
‘Oh, Susan.’ KT stood close to her, inspecting the evidence. ‘What’s that perfume? I love it.’
She was where she ached to be, at the centre of attention. Her defences dropped. ‘This?’ She proffered her wrist. ‘It’s Poison.’
‘Why am I not surprised…? It’s gorgeous, really suits you. And those jeans. I love them. You’ll not get deep vein thrombosis in those, my gell.’
She was like a buffalo lumbering after a cheetah. KT was gone before she realised she’d been hit. He continued his stream of apparent trivia.
‘I like Chanel No. 19 too.’
Susan, of course preferred No. 5. It was ‘classic’ for evening wear.
‘Oh and, what’s that one in the square, knobbly bottle? Diorissimo.’
Susan was the fount of all knowledge. ‘Miss Dior. I know them all, I used to work in Debenhams as a demonstrator. Between jobs.’ Adding quickly: ‘Of course that was a long time ago.’
‘Oh, yes.’ KT looked at me. ‘I love that one.’
Susan was dismissive. ‘No, no. Too sweet. I’d never wear it. I prefer something more sophisticated.’
‘I’ll have to remember that.’ KT twinkled in my direction.
So whose was the perfume in Dan’s bathroom?
‘Come on, you turns,’ called Ruby. ‘Warm-up time. Shift yourselves.’
After the mandatory half hour of vocal and physical exercise, done with differing levels of enthusiasm and ability, we were steaming like a barnful of cows when Flossie came in, closely followed by Izzy and Viola. As usual she looked as if she was walking against drizzle, her eyes screwed up behind her glasses, her angular shoulders hunched with anxiety.
‘Hi everyone,’ said Flossie, his face longer than a wet leg-warmer. ‘Izzy would like a word.’
I moved to the back of the room. There was, like a breeze through corn, a stirring, a whisper from the company that sounded like ‘shit’. Susan stepped forward into Izzy’s eyeline. Lee, as always, was already at the front. He was looking round, arms crossed, trying to catch people’s eyes. Catching mine, he looked to heaven in a characteristically extravagant gesture of boredom. Almost at the same time he smiled his icing-white smile and turned back to face Izzy with an expression of rapt excitement.
‘Good morning, everybody,’ started Izzy, pacing up and down, gesturing with the cigar. ‘As you know, Dan’s away for a couple of days on a prior commitment…’ He made it sound as if it was with the fraud squad. ‘…So with Karl here to help out, I’m going to take over as director.’
Several pairs of buttocks clenched.
‘I have a camera crew coming in for hotel television and they’re going to record rehearsals and interview a few people – when are they coming, honey?’
‘Oh, around now,’ said Viola with a frown of concentration, as if this were a hugely contentious question.
‘Okay,’ continued Izzy, with no impression of having heard her reply. ‘I told ’em we got the best musical London has ever seen, so I’m going to ask you to do some stuff from the show.’ Blind to our ambivalence, he rushed on. ‘Are you excited? Yeah! Get excited, it’s good for the blood. I want Lee’s number and Susan’s number and anyone else…’
I stayed resolutely silent, although he was staring at me.
‘Eleanor? How about you?’
‘Um… I’d rather not.’
His eyes were unfriendly but he maintained the cheerleader tone. ‘We’re selling the show here, Eleanor. And you’re part of the show. Big part. The star.’
More like a black hole from the glare he was giving me.
‘I suppose I could do my last number.’
I earned a beaming embrace from Izzy. ‘Thanks, pal. Then this afternoon we’ll do the whole show for a coupla friends of mine – the great singer Julio Maderas and his wife.’
One of the bolder dancers put his hand up, exactly as he had in infant school when asking for the toilet.
‘Sorry, Izzy, but who’s Julio Maderas?’
‘Who is Julio Maderas? Who is…?’ Izzy was doing lost-for-words acting. ‘My God, you never heard of Julio Maderas?’
We shook our heads.
‘He is the greatest, I mean the greatest salsa singer in the world and, I cannot express how much this should mean to you all, he and his wife are sponsoring the first night party, to which – I hope you’re all listening to this – to which the Costa Rican government have been invited, along with many members of your own Royal Family. I been told the Elizabeth Two dances salsa.’
The usual suspects were terribly excited at the prospect of the monarch and a day of performing in front of an audience. They’d araldited their performances into place at the read-through, so losing rehearsal time was irrelevant. But for some of us development would not only be arrested but reversed by being forced to display the unripe fruits of our labours.
•
In front of the cameras, Izzy played the bongos, joined the dance routines, even interrupted my number to demonstrate how the great Maria Montana would do it.
‘You gotta sing with your pelvis, Eleanor. You know what they say? A woman’s pelvis is a goldmine.’ He swivelled his hips with the smooth seduction of a cement mixer. After that I hid in the garden with KT until he was called for Lee’s new show-stopper.
Ildefonso and Viola had written it in a hurry to Lee’s instructions while Izzy looked on with fond indulgence. The monster was now truly out of the box. Lee had an anthem which he was determined would rank above ‘I Will Survive’ and ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. Though somehow I couldn’t imagine Liverpool’s Kop singing ‘A Noisy Queen is a Happy Queen’.
I leaned against the door jamb watching, envious of the orgasmic pleasure Lee got from performing. He revelled in having every eye on his expert gyrations. He reminded me of a stripper, confident in and empowered by his audience’s arousal. And yet, for all that he was born to sing and dance, and would do so in the light of an open car door, he wasn’t and never would be a star. I wondered if he existed when he was alone.
I resolved to be more generous. It didn’t last.