An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge Page B

boots.’
    ‘That’s rich, coming from you,’ she said witheringly. ‘It’s not me that goes round swearing at one’s betters and pelting downstairs like a loony.’ Thinking about it, she didn’t mind in the least not having a proper part. If she couldn’t be Peter she was quite prepared, once she’d mastered the technicalities, to hide behind a reflection.
    All the same that evening in the dressing-room she shared with Babs Osborne and Dawn Allenby she apologised for being in the way.
    ‘For heaven’s sake,’ cried Babs, ‘you’ve as much right to be here as we have.’
    ‘More, in fact,’ said Dawn, who, as a lowly handmaiden to Cleopatra was conscious that, but for her age and previous experience, she would have been marooned on the top floor with the extras.
    Stella hoped Babs would mention her reticence in the Oyster Bar when Meredith was present. ‘She has little or no sense of her own importance,’ she might say. ‘What an asset in one so young.’ And Meredith would perhaps reply, ‘How right you are. Such modesty and lack of bombast is quite remarkable.’ Then at closing time, he would climb Brownlow Hill to the Commercial Hotel, arm in arm with Bunny, thinking of her, of how special she was, pondering on her remarkable reticence.
    Not that she spent more than half an hour each night in her own dressing-room. She had her backstage duties to attend to, and when she was wasn’t in front of the footlights she was hunched over the book in the prompt corner. Her make-up was applied, under supervision, in No. 3 dressing-room, occupied by Dotty Blundell and Grace Bird. Dotty said it was as well right from the beginning to learn how to use greasepaint properly. Babs was under too much of a strain trying to memorise her lines to be of help, and as for Dawn – well, unless the poor thing was actually wearing her glasses, the results could be decidedly hit and miss. It was an art knowing which stick to choose and where to place emphasis. Footlights could play havoc with the features. One unconsidered move and too little or too much colour could give the complexion of a rustic the appearance of a corpse and transform the face of an angel into the countenance of a harlot.
    As for dressing and undressing, Stella did both in the toilet further along the corridor. She had to squat down to dodge the ancient fly-paper dangling from the light-flex, but it was better than Babs seeing her in her vest and school knickers, or anyone else for that matter; Babs insisted on keeping the dressing-room door open. ‘I must have air,’ she warned. ‘Otherwise I shall faint.’ Though the window on the stairwell was left on the latch there was always a peculiar smell in the room, a mixture of coke fumes from the hot-water pipes, peppermints and that pervasive mist of eau de Cologne sprayed so recklessly by Dawn Allenby.
    Stella was afraid Babs might tell Dotty that she didn’t wear a slip and that Dotty would rush out and buy her one, just as she had bought her a brassière after catching her in the wardrobe with her arms above her head about to be fitted for her Ptolemy costume. ‘You’re quite a big girl,’ Dotty had said. ‘It’s detrimental to go without support while still in growth.’
    Stella wore the brassière day and night in case Lily should see it; she would have been mortified at Stella accepting underwear from strangers.
    The talk in the dressing-room was often about Mary Deare. She hadn’t paid her round in the Oyster Bar the night before. At lunchtime Desmond hadn’t been able to place his usual bets because she’d sent him haring back to the digs to see if an urgent letter had arrived. It hadn’t, and the horse he would have put money on had won by a length, and he was twelve-and-six out of pocket. Grace Bird said it was typical, and that dressing with Dawn was moonlight and roses compared to sharing with Mary. She herself, praise be, had never been in a run with her . . . one night’s