Miss Treadway & the Field of Stars

‘I’d like not to be so fucking cold all the time. This country just makes me want to eat. All I could hear through my final speech was hack hack sniff sniff cough cough.’

‘British audiences sniff when it’s cold.’ Anna’s eyes searched the dressing room for whatever Lanny had worn into work that day. She found it under the make-up table, a green silk dress lying in a creased heap. Anna shook out the expensive rag and handed it over.

‘You know you have an appointment at five?’

‘Do I? Who with?’

‘Some journalist. He’s been downstairs for hours.’

Lanny pulled on a pair of heels and sat at the dressing table to drink her tea. ‘Would you hang around for a bit?’

‘For the interview?’

‘Yeah; sometimes journalists can be a bit … sleazy. I haven’t got the energy for all that crap.’

‘Of course. Also someone called Cassidy called.’

Lanny nodded. ‘Did he leave a message?’

‘Just that he called.’

‘Okay,’ Lanny said. ‘Okay.’

***

Anna showed James Wingate up the many flights of stairs. He was in his fifties, Anna thought, with a gaunt, handsome face. He wore a slim-fitting navy suit with a turquoise silk tie and smelled of cigarettes.

Wingate started talking before he was even in the room. ‘Miss Green, thank you so much for seeing me between performances.’ Lanny – who had arranged herself modestly on the chaise longue, legs covered by a lap blanket – sat very still and looked at Mr Wingate.

‘My dresser didn’t tell me who it was.’

‘That’s because she has no idea who I am.’

Lanny stood, letting the blanket fall from her lap. She tugged at her green silk dress, pulling the fabric free from its belt so that it hid the curve of her breasts. Nobody spoke.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I was meant to know,’ Anna said at last. ‘Shall I get you both something to drink?’

‘Mr Wingate interviewed me for Harper’s Bazaar – this past summer – just as I was finishing filming on Macbeth.’

Wingate sat down on the chair provided for him and drew out his notebook and a small stack of papers. ‘A coffee would be delightful,’ he said without looking up.

Anna went to the kitchenette by the green room and rifled through the cupboards for coffee. Did snotty journalists drink Nescafé? Leonard – the company manager – found her staring at the jar.

‘Lanny ripping the audience to pieces?’

‘No more than usual. Someone called James Wingate wants a cup of coffee.’

‘Wingate? Ugh. Okay. Take a cup, go across the road to the 101 and get them to put real coffee in it. Might be worth a nice write-up in The Times.’

‘Seriously?’

Leonard held up his hands. ‘This is the idiocy we live with. Make the best of it.’

The windows of the 101 were steamed white against the cold and the afternoon custom seemed mostly to consist of taxi drivers, off shift, who sat at separate tables silently contemplating the melamine.

A radio muttered on a shelf above the head of the proprietor. ‘Teams of police are this evening continuing to search a vast area of moorland on the Cheshire–Yorkshire border.’ Anna tuned it out and leaned across the counter.

She slopped some of the coffee down her skirt as she climbed the stairs back to the dressing room and Wingate barely acknowledged her as she handed him the cup. He was leaning in towards Iolanthe, brows furrowed, head tilted to one side. ‘I assume you wanted to be in films as a girl? Don’t all young girls want something of the kind?’

‘I … Well, I don’t know. Let me think. I knew from an early age that I’d have to earn my own money. Supporting myself. No one was going to do that for me.’

‘Because you didn’t come from money.’

‘Well, no. But also by the time I was eighteen my father and my mother were both dead.’

‘And brothers and sisters? I don’t think we covered brothers and sisters at our last meeting.’

‘It was a very small family.’

‘Just you, then.’

‘Well, no. Not exactly. But I was the one who had to earn.’

‘You supported your parents?’

‘No. I didn’t mean … I guess … Everybody worked.’

‘Sorry, I’m just a little unclear here. You are or you aren’t an only child.’

‘I had a brother.’

‘Okay. Good.’

‘I’d rather not …’

‘You don’t like talking about him?’

‘Yes. Well … no. I don’t. Can we talk about the films?’

‘Is he proud of you? Is he jealous of your success? I mean, what does he do?’

‘He doesn’t do anything.’

‘At all?’

‘He’s dead.’

Wingate sat back in his chair and slowly crossed his legs. ‘I’m so sorry, Iolanthe. I didn’t know.’ Anna glanced up to check that Lanny was okay but the woman was staring at the floor, looking a bit perplexed, as if she was trying to remember something.