‘Good,’ Mrs Horton said, entering the room. ‘Miss Trick isn’t well and won’t be in until later. That bloke of hers has just phoned the stage door. Sylvie, go and fetch Mrs Goldman.’
‘But…?’
‘Don’t argue, Sylvie, do as I ask. We’re not putting Miss Trick’s costume fitting off; Margaret can stand in for her.’ Margaret opened her mouth to say something, but Mrs Horton carried on speaking, as she often did. ‘We’ll have her in next week, but I’m not holding everyone up for her. Pop along to my washroom, Margaret and give your underarms a good wash.’
‘What?’
‘And put some talc on afterwards. Can’t have you perspiring on the costume. You’ll find everything you need in there. Get along. We’re already half an hour behind.’
As she ran out of the fitting room, she heard Mrs Horton shout, ‘Don’t run! You’ll sweat more.’
In the washroom Margaret lifted each arm in turn and sniffed. She wasn’t perspiring. She didn’t much. She took off her blouse and while the basin filled she looked at her reflection in the mirror. She breathed in and lifted her chin. ‘Good Lord,’ she said aloud. ‘I do look like Goldie.’ She turned to the right as far as she could and still see herself in the mirror. Her nose did tip up in the same way that Goldie’s did. Margaret wanted to scream with excitement, but told herself: ‘No, Margaret, you must be professional, and professionals do not screeeeeeeeeeam!’ Quickly she washed, dried, and patted talcum powder under her arms.
Walking back to the fitting room, she suddenly needed to go to the toilet. Blow! She’d gone past the Ladies’. Perhaps she should go back. Was there time? No there wasn’t. If she went back now she’d keep everyone waiting, so she carried on. It’s only nerves, she thought, or wind. Wind? She felt a fluttering in her tummy, or was it a rumble? ‘Please God it’s not wind.’ She stopped again and breathed in. She didn’t want her tummy to stick out when she had Goldie’s costume on, but then the alternative was worse. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said to herself. ‘Nerves, that’s all it is, nerves!’
At the fitting room door, she was met by Sylvie. ‘I’ll take your clothes,’ she said. After helping Margaret out of her skirt and blouse, Ivy and Violet helped her into Goldie’s costume.
Margaret was overwhelmed. One minute she wanted to laugh, the next she thought she’d cry. Having been told it was more than her life was worth to try on the costumes, here she was standing in for Goldie Trick, wearing her ice blue and silver show gown.
‘Lift your arms up, Margaret, so we can check the side-seams.’
Margaret did as she was told, not daring to move any other part of her body, while Mrs Horton and Violet circled her discussing the seams, the beading, the length of the skirt and the trim.
‘How does the dress feel, Margaret?’ Natalie Goldman asked, having just arrived.
‘What?’
‘The costume. How does it feel? Does it feel comfortable?’ Natalie Goldman said.
‘Oh yes. It’s comfortable. It’s very comfortable,’ Margaret cooed.
Mrs Horton looked at Violet and smiled. ‘You can put your arms down now, Margaret,’ she said, stepping away to view the dress from a distance. ‘Turn round so we can see how the skirt falls.’
‘Oh my God,’ Margaret gasped, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, ‘I look beautiful.’
‘Shush, dear,’ Mrs Horton whispered, before turning to Natalie Goldman.
‘Thank you, ladies, Goldie’s costume is perfect. And thank you, Margaret. You do indeed look beautiful,’ she said, smiling. Then to Mrs Horton she said, ‘Betsy Evans and George Derby-Bloom tomorrow?’
‘Two o’clock and three o’clock, if that’s convenient for you?’
‘That’s fine. I’ll see you then,’ Natalie said, and she left.
‘Betsy Evans,’ Ivy told Margaret during their tea break, ‘is from Wales. All the men in her family are coal miners and Betsy didn’t want to spend her life scrubbing coal dust out of everything, like her mum and aunts.’
‘So she left home with her mother’s blessing, but not her father’s,’ Violet added. ‘Still George looks after her. Lovely girls and the best of friends, but they’re chalk and cheese, Betsy and George are.’
‘Why’s that?’ Margaret asked.
‘Well,’ Violet said, ‘Betsy’s an ordinary working class girl and Georgina, or George, is upper-crust, if you know what I mean?’
‘She’s an ex-debutante,’ Ivy said. ‘They say her mother, who died when George was a baby, was a showgirl when she met George’s father, and after a whirlwind love affair they ran away to Gretna Green and got married. Poor George was brought up by a succession of nannies.’
‘George jokes about when her father married again, when she was sixteen. Apparently her step-mother started to introduce her to the sons of her friends. George said she had no interest in men, or in getting married, and told her step-mother so. It was after that she was packed off to finishing school in Switzerland,’ Violet said. ‘“I loved Geneva, but I hated finishing school,” she would say. “I learned deportment and dance, how to apply make-up bea-u-tifully, and how to act like a proper lay-dee – perish the thought. But it’s here, among my friends at the Prince Albert Theatre, that I learned how to be myself.”’
‘They came from opposite ends of society – George from money and knowing the right people, Betsy from working in a café during the day to pay for acting and dancing classes at night. But,’ Ivy said, ‘for both of them the theatre is their world. The Prince Albert Theatre is their home and the people who work here are their family.’
Margaret was no longer needed in the sewing room and
