not old enough yet to get a job. I could help you get him placed somewhere safe, you know, Eliza. I wouldn’t like to see him hurt. The WVS has played a big part in the evacuation programme …’
‘Very good of them. But no thanks,’ Eliza abruptly interrupted.
‘It’s a shame England involved itself in this war.’
‘It’s a shame I can’t get a thing I need from the shops,’ Eliza countered.
‘We need to have peace.’
‘We’ll have to win the bloody war first to get peace.’ Eliza grimaced.
‘The Nazis are a powerful force to reckon with. Perhaps too powerful for this small nation.’
‘Not sure I agree with you on that,’ Eliza retorted.
Olive sniffed and slammed shut the till drawer as Eliza stalked off to stand with her son and wait for Dawn to return.
‘She might be young but she’s got a dirty mouth on her.’ Lorna Danvers smeared rouge off her cheek then lobbed the dirty cotton wool onto the dressing table. Picking up the cigarette that had been smouldering on a tea-stained saucer, she took a long drag. ‘If she won’t stop flirting with every man she claps eyes on she’ll be getting herself and the Windmill a very bad reputation.’
‘She’s a mite too friendly with Gordon as well, if you ask me.’ Sal Fiske added her two penn’orth to La-di-da Lorna’s criticism. ‘And he’s old enough to be her father.’
‘Nobody did ask you, so button it.’ Dawn had come into the dressing room on the tail end of the bitching, but she knew who they were talking about. She’d only popped in to say hello on her day off; now she wished she’d not bothered. She’d grown tired of listening to her colleagues ripping Rosie Gardiner to bits; it had been going on all week.
‘What’s up with you?’ Lorna demanded, stubbing out her cigarette. ‘Are you bosom pals with Rosie?’
‘Just don’t see that there’s a need to talk behind her back.’ Dawn shrugged. ‘If you think she’s doing what she shouldn’t, tell her to her face.’
‘Ain’t saying a word to her!’ Sal stated bluntly. ‘Not my task, is it, to teach her her manners. That’s her mother’s job.’
‘Me mum’s dead.’ Rosie had just turned up to get ready for the evening show but had stopped outside the door, listening, before bursting in. She gave Dawn an exaggerated smile as thanks for championing her, but Rosie’s bravado didn’t disguise the fact that the gossip had upset her.
After an awkward silence Lorna took up the cudgels again. ‘Well, sorry to hear about your mother, Rosie. But perhaps it explains a lot about the way you behave if you’ve not had her to guide you. The trouble is,’ she warned with a finger wag, ‘if you keep on acting like a trollop you’ll get us all tarred with the same brush, and I for one am not having that.’ Lorna surged out of her chair at the dressing table. ‘We chorus girls might wear skimpy costumes but we go on stage with our modesty covered. You go out flashing your tits … and more.’ Lorna’s posh accent seemed more pronounced the angrier she got. ‘I know it’s your job to stand about starkers, but there’s a right and a wrong way, just as there’s a right and a wrong way for a girl to behave.’
‘I’ll wait for Phyllis to tell me I’m getting it all wrong, thanks all the same,’ Rosie spat sarcastically. ‘But I don’t reckon she ever will, seeing as I’m the one all the fellows come to see.’
‘You conceited little madam!’ Sal spluttered indignantly.
‘Now you listen to me, Rosie Gardiner,’ Lorna said bossily. ‘This is a theatre, not a knocking shop.’ Having said her piece Lorna sashayed regally out of the dressing room, slamming the door behind her.
Dawn rolled her eyes. She’d worked in the theatre for over a year now and colleagues had come and gone; she’d been on stage with cockney girls, northern lasses and performers from overseas. But wherever the women hailed from there’d always been tension and rivalry between the nudes and the chorus. As far as Dawn was concerned she didn’t give a monkey’s if a girl removed her clothes to earn a living. What was the point in being jealous or spiteful when every day corpses of men, women and children were being dug out of their wrecked homes?
Dawn couldn’t deny though that Rosie was overstepping the mark, and if the girl thought the management would overlook serious indiscretions, she had a rude awakening in front of her. The senior stagehand was a widower and though Gordon had an unrequited yen for Lorna he seemed flattered by Rosie’s winks and pouts. And of course Rosie wasn’t really interested in him; she was being a silly little tease, and that was unkind. Apart from that Dawn knew that Rosie would run a mile from a fellow who demanded more than a kiss and cuddle.
‘Lorna’s right, you know.’ Sal tapped a Sobranie from its packet and lit it, then eyed Rosie over tobacco smoke. ‘I saw you outside the stage door last night with half a dozen army fellows. You was flirting with all of them and it looked like things might turn nasty ’cos you were playing ’em off one against the other.’
Rosie’s cheeks flooded with guilty colour at that reminder. In fact a scuffle had broken out between a private and a sergeant when she’d said she’d meet the senior of the two for a drink later in the week. She pursed her lips, sitting in the chair vacated by Lorna. ‘You’re all just jealous because I get more attention from the men than the rest of you put together.’
‘That’s what you reckon, is it?’ Sal had had enough of the younger woman’s boasting. She shot to her feet, sticking her hands on her hips. Her loose silk wrap fell open, displaying her naked belly beneath.
‘Yeah, it is what I think.’ Rosie jumped up too, barging to confront her. ‘I’m young and pretty and I’ve got a gorgeous figure, that’s why I got taken on as a nude. You’re getting fat and couldn’t get a job with no clothes on even if you wanted to. Who’d want to look at your saggy tits?’ she scoffed. ‘And you’re the wrong side of thirty, if you’re a day …’
Sal leapt forward to slap Rosie’s cheek. ‘Wrong side of thirty?’ she yelled, outraged. ‘I’m twenty-six, you cheeky bitch. And I get more flowers sent in than you do.’
‘Flowers? Who wants fuckin’ flowers?’ Rosie had stumbled from the unexpected blow but quickly got her balance. Swinging a fist in retaliation she caught Dawn on the side of the head as she moved to separate her warring colleagues.
‘Sorry … sorry, Dawn … didn’t mean to hit you.’ Rosie wailed, mortified.
‘For God’s sake shut up, both of you,’ Dawn thundered, rubbing her scalp. She’d thought her mother and brother might get on her nerves this afternoon; she’d not counted on her workmates being the problem instead.
‘What’s all the shouting about?’ Marlene Brown had just arrived for the evening shows to find the three women glaring at one another. The atmosphere was icy despite the electric heater being fully on.
‘You watch out!’ Sal pointed a threatening finger at Rosie. ‘Or I’m gonna rat on you to Phyllis, you trouble-making cow.’ Grabbing her clothes off the chair Sal stormed towards the door.
‘Didn’t mean to get you, Dawn, it was an accident.’ Rosie put an arm around Dawn in an attempt to
