The Windmill Girls

‘Didn’t get much time for chitchat, last time we met, did we?’ Rosie widened her eyes in emphasis. ‘Anyhow, I ain’t in showbiz … I was a shop girl but I need better pay, so thought I’d give this a go.’

‘So, you’ve been a showgirl at other theatres, have you?’ Dawn turned her attention to the brunette, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Dawn Nightingale, by the way.’

‘I’ve worked at a few other places in my time. My name’s Marlene … Marlene Brown.’ Marlene shook Dawn’s hand. ‘So you two already know one another then?’

Rosie nodded. ‘Lucky, weren’t we, that night?’ she said to Dawn.

Dawn hoped Rosie wouldn’t mention the incident. She reckoned the fewer people who knew about that the better. ‘We sheltered together from a raid in a shop doorway,’ she briefly explained to Marlene.

It had been several days since Dawn came face to face with Grimes in the underground shelter. She’d convinced herself that he’d want to forget they’d bumped into one another as much as she did. Gertie hadn’t done a shift since and in her absence Dawn had been brooding on whether Rufus had told Gertie what had gone on. Of course, there was a good chance that Grimes kept his looting sprees from his missus. But meeting Rosie unexpectedly like this had brought back a feeling of foreboding. From Rosie’s attitude Dawn guessed the younger woman hadn’t been able to fully dismiss the episode from her mind either.

‘Right then, I’ll show you where things are kept,’ Dawn said briskly, hoping to buck herself up.

‘Are you one of the nudes?’ Rosie asked, as Dawn opened a cupboard to reveal racks of colourful costumes.

‘No fear! I didn’t fancy going on stage starkers; anyhow my mum would have a fit … or a few gins.’ Dawn muttered the last bit to herself. ‘I’m a chorus dancer and can sing a bit.’

‘I wanted to be a showgirl,’ Rosie sighed dejectedly. ‘But I made a mess of me audition …’

‘Probably ’cos you can’t dance,’ Marlene piped up. ‘Thought I had two left feet but, bleedin’ hell, you was all over the place, Rosie.’

‘Thanks! Anyhow, the manager and his secretary said I’d got a great figure and shouldn’t cover it up.’ Rosie flounced about, turning her back on Marlene.

‘Been here long?’ Marlene asked, poking through some gilt headdresses in another cupboard.

‘About a year,’ Dawn replied. ‘I used to work in a hotel as a cabaret singer and dancer but I got put off when the war started and the hotel closed.’

‘Bloody war!’ Rosie announced with feeling. ‘I’ve had enough of it. Can’t even get meself a new pair of stockings.’

‘I know where you can …’ Marlene said slyly.

‘Where?’

‘Loot Alley.’ Marlene smiled. ‘Can get anything you like down there.’

‘If you can pay for it,’ Dawn chipped in dryly.

‘Don’t always need cash to pay for it,’ Marlene said. She drew out a pack of cigarettes and handed it round. ‘A girl can get what she wants if she’s prepared to do a bit of sucking up …’ She giggled and struck a match.

Dawn shook her head at the offer of a cigarette but Rosie took one. ‘Don’t let Phyllis hear you talk like that.’ It was a light warning from Dawn. ‘The management likes to think us Windmill girls draw the punters in with our nice personalities, and big smiles …’

Marlene hooted a laugh. ‘It ain’t my big smile those randy sods will come to see.’ She thrust forward her full bosom. ‘Let’s face it, if I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t have got the job, would I?’ She took a drag on her cigarette. ‘It’s right, is it, we’ve got to stand there as still as a statue ’cos if you move it’s rude?’

‘If you move we’ll get closed down!’ Dawn stressed.

The Windmill Theatre’s management were sticking to the rules laid down regarding the tableaux vivants. The Lord Chamberlain had threatened to use obscenity laws against any theatre that allowed a nude ‘statue’ to so much as fidget on stage.

‘Why’s that then?’ Rosie asked. ‘We’re still gonna be in the altogether whether we stand still or prance about.’

‘You don’t see statues in museums moving about, do you? You’re supposed to be works of art, not flesh and blood,’ Dawn explained.

‘Good Gawd.’ Marlene took another pull on her cigarette, then held it at arm’s length so she didn’t catch the flimsy gauze alight while she riffled through garments.

‘Did those men catch up with you that night?’ Rosie hissed the question at Dawn the moment the other woman wandered off to sort through some cosmetics discarded on the dressing table. Marlene opened a Yardley lipstick and striped her wrist with it to examine its colour.

‘No. I’ve not told a soul about it, have you?’ Dawn returned in a low voice.

Rosie shook her head, looking sheepish. ‘I was after taking something for me dad from the shop they robbed, after all. Don’t know what come over me … I feel ashamed about that now.’

‘You were probably in shock,’ Dawn said kindly. ‘Those bombs came down pretty close.’

‘I reckon I was in shock, too. I’ve never got caught out like that in a raid. We’ve got a cellar at home, you see, so me and Dad go down there.’ She glanced at Dawn. ‘Hope I never run into any of those men again. Thing is … I thought one of them seemed familiar to me.’

‘Oh?’ Dawn demanded. ‘Which one?’ She was wondering if Rosie also thought she recognised Gertie’s husband, or perhaps her brother, if Midge had been involved. And the more Dawn thought about it, the more she reckoned she’d been right first time about Midge.

‘The tall one who went off pushing the cart. I never got a look at his face though so wouldn’t recognise him again. It was just something about him …’ Rosie shrugged.

Dawn bit her lip, wondering whether to own up that she’d already had the misfortune to run into one of them, and she’d recognised him straight away. And what’s more he was a colleague’s husband!

‘You’ve seen one of ’em!’ Rosie had guessed what was making Dawn look so preoccupied. ‘Who was it … the short-arse? You stamped on his foot, didn’t you?’ Rosie pulled a comical face. ‘The big bloke who had hold of me … what was his name now? The little bloke got a punch for saying it, remember?’

‘Roof … he’s the one I bumped into. I was chatting to his wife in a shelter.’ Dawn felt she might as well admit to the awful meeting. ‘Of course, I didn’t know she was married to him until he turned up. Just my luck, eh?’

Rosie’s eyes had grown round in disbelief. ‘What did Roof say?’ she squealed.

‘He recognised me, just as I did him. But that was it. Neither of us said anything. That’s the way I want it to stay.’ Dawn settled on leaving it at that. She wasn’t going to stir the pot by adding that Roof’s wife worked at the Windmill too. If Gertie were kept in blissful ignorance over it all by her husband, then Dawn was happy to play along.

‘Seen him since, have you?’ Rosie gasped.

Dawn shook her head in a reassuring way. ‘He won’t want to see me any more than I want to see him. I expect he’s keeping his head down.’ She barely knew Rosie so couldn’t recount the full story and trust her to keep her mouth shut. Gertie could be abrasive, as Dawn had already found out, and if challenged over her husband’s thieving, all hell might break loose. As far as Dawn was concerned the less said the better! Her life was complicated enough as it was.

‘’Ere! What you playing at?’ Sal Fiske had entered the dressing room to find Marlene testing her lipsticks. She snatched one from Marlene’s hand. ‘Give it back. That’s mine.’

‘Sorry … only taking a look. Got me own stuff anyhow.’ Marlene threw another tube back on the dressing table and stalked off.

‘Look at these beauties!’ Lorna came in carrying a posy of early spring flowers. ‘Phyllis just handed them over. A fellow called Peter sent them for me,’ she said, reading a small card resting in the foliage. ‘He thinks I’m beautiful and he’d like to take me out.’

‘Ah … sweet …’ Marlene mocked, having listened to Lorna’s cut-glass accent with some amusement. ‘He’ll be out the back waiting for you later then,’ she added knowledgably. ‘So be prepared to show him how grateful you are for his daffs.’

A lively banter continued between Marlene and the chorus girls wearing dressing gowns who’d trooped in from the café. Dawn took the opportunity to draw Rosie to one side as the younger woman appeared rather downcast about Roof’s reappearance.

‘Buck up!’ Dawn said, smiling. ‘We can’t let you out on stage at the Windmill with a face like a wet weekend. You’ll scare away the customers.’

That raised a smile from Rosie and Dawn linked arms with her. ‘Come on … I’ll give you a guided tour of our lovely Windmill Theatre before we open up.’

‘Me mum brought me here to see a variety show when I was a kid; I remember it as being a lot bigger.’ Rosie grimaced. ‘Reckon she must be spinning in her grave to think of me prancing about starkers on stage.’

‘No prancing!’ Dawn wagged a finger in mock reproof.