Material Girl (46 page)

‘Gavin thinks you’re the reason they’ve sold the theatre out,’ I say, looking down at my feet innocently.

‘What does he know?’ she whispers.

‘I don’t know, but he’s worked here for a few years, and they don’t normally sell out, he says, but now they have, and anyway, that’s just what he said.’ I shrug and smile like it’s unimportant.

Dolly gives me a weary look in the mirror, and then addresses her reflection again. ‘Getting old is terrible, Lulu. Terrible. Don’t do it.’

‘Do I have a choice? Besides, I think you look fine.’

‘Ha! What woman wants to be described as looking fine? That’s the kind of foolish thing a man would say!’

‘Okay, I think you look wonderful, but I didn’t think you’d
believe me if I said that because it is too obvious a compliment tonight, so I just shot for something you might believe. Is that good enough for you?’ I study a vase of orange roses on the side as if I’m interested, delicately playing with their petals, lifting each of them up one by one and letting them fall again. I feel like I’m the one acting.

‘Do you? Do you think I look wonderful?’ she asks, straight-faced, stark with desperation.

‘I honestly do. I’m not so sure about me, but I know that you look wonderful, Dolly.’ I take a step forward and cross my finger over my heart as a promise.

‘Oh isn’t it funny, Lulu, right now, this very second, this moment, faced with the prospect of stepping out onto that stage, I’d trade the whole world to look like you again.’

I fold my arms and shake my head, leaning back against the wall. ‘No you wouldn’t, Dolly, not really.’

‘Oh you don’t know, Lulu, you’ll see. In time, you’ll see.’

‘You’ve had a lifetime of looking beautiful, of looking like you. Most people only get a series of moments. How’s that for lucky?’ I ask.

‘Moments,’ she smiles, with familiarity. ‘That was my line,’ she says.

‘Yes, it was.’

She smiles again, but when she turns back in her chair to face the mirror her smile slips like it’s too big for her face, and falls off her.

‘I can’t, Lulu, I just can’t. I have to go home.’ She pushes herself to her feet, and her hands have begun to shake again, but violently now.

I am desperate, and running out of options.

‘I wish you wouldn’t, Dolly. People have paid, and they are excited at the prospect of seeing you, and … you know that you can do it! That is what is so annoying, what are you so scared for, suddenly?’

She slumps back down in the chair and holds her hands up in front of her and watches them tremble. ‘I just … Lulu, I don’t know how I’ll get through it tonight.’

‘Have you taken anything?’ I ask quickly.

She looks at my reflection in the mirror.

‘Where is your bag?’ I demand.

She keeps looking at me sadly.

‘Would you like some water?’ I say, leading her to the answer by the hand.

‘Oh, Lulu, you know I …’ She shakes her head, but her eyes plead with mine.

‘Look. I’m not saying it’s an answer forever, or for the whole damn run, or even for tomorrow. But get up there! Get through it tonight – you do want to do it, don’t you?’

‘Very much,’ she replies, nodding.

‘Well then. You know that if you want something you just want it, and you shouldn’t be ashamed to admit it or make it happen. So,’ I reach into her bag, retrieve her hipflask, and snatch the glass up from the counter. I pour a long measure in and pass her the glass.

She takes it without question, and gulps it down.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Okay. Give me fifteen minutes on my own, Lulu.’

I leave her staring at her reflection in the mirror, pulling the skin back at the sides of her eyes, giving herself temporary and painless surgery.

I pull the door closed behind me and Gavin and Tristan jump on me.

‘Well?’ says Gavin.

‘Well?’ says Tristan.

‘Well?’ I reply, enjoying the moment. ‘I think she’s going on. I think. But she’ll need you in the wings, Tristan. You can’t let a kid do it, it has to be you. You have to look after her up there, you can’t leave her vulnerable or open to ridicule.’

Tristan is nodding his head enthusiastically. ‘You’re right, Make-up, you’re right, aha, yes, whatever it takes. If she goes on …’

The three of us stand in silence for a while. Gavin leans against a wall. I sense him staring at me, and glance up quickly to catch him, but his eyes dart away. Tristan looks from me to Gavin to me again, and shakes his head slowly, smiling. I inspect my shoes. Tristan jumps on the spot. Gavin shoves his hands into his pockets. I inspect my tights for ladders. Tristan coughs once, nervously. I inspect my nails for chips.

The door opens and Dolly steps into the corridor.

‘Dolly! I thought I might prompt tonight,’ Tristan says loudly and firmly.

‘Fine,’ she replies, and holds her head high. She is wearing an old white lace gown as Gavin takes her hand and leads her upstairs to the wings.

I stand stage-side. You can hear the audience barely feet away, behind the curtain, perilously close and loud like a wall of water, building into a mighty terrible wave about to crash down upon the stage. Dolly’s hands shake a little by her side. I retrieved her glass from the room and now I hold it for her. Everybody buzzes about, and then an expectant silence falls in front of the curtain, and Dolly looks at me nervously.

‘Do you need another slug?’ I ask.

She takes a sip.

Gavin gives me a look like I’m crazy but I brush it off.

I don’t think I can watch.

I spy Tom on the other side of the stage and he looks green like mushy peas. Arabella stands feet away from Dolly and I, giving the impression of a woman completely composed. Dolly eyes her jealously. Arabella has a bonus
confidence, certain as she is that whatever happens tonight she looks wonderful.

Tristan stands beside me, script in hand, wide-eyed and still. ‘Dolly, I’m here for every line. If you need me. On this side.’ He licks the ball of his index finger and runs it down the page.

The lights dip.

A voice on the PA system says, ‘Due to the nature of the play, there will be no interval.’

The curtain is dragged up.

I walk down the stairs backstage, and away.

I hear it first. A swell of approval that might bring the house down. A stamping, thudding roar of applause threatening to burst the roof off the theatre and into the London night.

I leave the room and walk quickly upstairs. I have to stop myself from running, but I want to see it.

I spot Tristan first, holding himself up at the side of the stage, looking on as his cast take their bow. He looks appalling: devastated, exhausted, frazzled, sweat-drenched.

The cast file off into the wings. Dolly is on the opposite side of the stage. She reaches out and grabs Gavin’s hand to support herself. The cheers from the audience get louder. Dolly straightens her back and walks back out on stage, alone.

The volume threatens to shake the foundations. The slow hand-clap like cannons being fired over and over, the screeched whistles, the throaty cheers. Dolly stands in front of them all, smiling easily. She gives the audience her own small round of applause. Tom brings on a vast bunch of wild flowers, and Dolly accepts them graciously, with a kiss to both his cheeks. She nods her head slightly at the audience, and smiles warmly. The claps and cheers continue. Then Dolly shrugs. Did they expect anything less? The delight explodes from the stalls.

Dolly retreats stiffly to my side of the wings, where Tristan stands, beaten, the script in tatters at his feet. She snatches his hand and wrings it hard. Tristan has tears in his bloodshot eyes as he looks up at her, but she says nothing. She spies me in the corner, and says simply, ‘Come on, Lulu,’ and walks past me, back down the stairs towards her room.

‘Every third line,’ she says.

‘Pardon?’

She slumps in her chair. ‘He gave me every third line, Lulu, that strange little man. Didn’t miss it, didn’t rush it. Didn’t crowd me, knew my signs. He was wonderful.’

‘Well, I’ve heard wonderful things,’ I say, soaking a cotton-wool ball in cleanser, before Dolly interrupts. ‘Don’t take it off tonight, Lulu. I want to leave it on for tonight.’

‘For the party? But I can do it again, now, quickly, if you want me to, and a little less heavy around the eyes?’

‘No, no. Call Tristan in here, will you, Lulu. I’m sure he’s lurking somewhere close.’

Confused, I open the door to the rabble in the corridor, and Tristan practically falls through the doorway with his red glassy eyes, a shirt soaked in sweat, and hair so drenched in fear that it has frizzed into a giant fuzzy Shredded Wheat atop his head.

‘What in hell’s the matter with you? Ha! You look like you’ve fought an army!’ Dolly says when she sees him, chuckling. Her hands have stopped shaking.

Gavin pokes his head around the door too. ‘There is a queue of people out here, Dolly – Jerry Hall, Prunella Scales … Tony Bennett …’

‘How kind, how kind,’ she says, ‘but Gavin, send them to the party, tell them I’ll be along in a little while and that they should drink, and I’ll see them there. But be sure and tell them that I love them, and thank them, Gavin, very much.’

Gavin shuts the door.

‘He’s a lovely man’ she says. I smile and nod my head.

‘He has character.’ She winks at me, and then turns to face Tristan, who smacks his lips together and smiles.

‘I’m not coming to the party, Tristan,’ Dolly says. ‘And I’m not coming back tomorrow. I’m going to leave for New York in the morning. I’ve done what I could but I’ve had a call from the States and I have to go to my daughter.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’ Tristan asks urgently.

‘It’s personal,’ she says, ‘and besides, the smell of the greasepaint … the roar of the crowd – there will be another time for me.’

Tristan slumps to the floor, devastated.

Dolly ignores the dramatic gesture and carries on. ‘Audrey can fill in for me for the short term. She’ll be terrible, of course, but you’ll get another star, perhaps, soon enough. I do wish that I could stay, but I simply can’t. I have to go and see my daughter. I’ve had an urgent call …’ She is no less convincing this time than the last.

Tristan looks up like a child sat on an assembly-hall floor. ‘One week,’ he says to her. ‘Just give me one week, we’ll be one of those amazing sought-after hot tickets, and we’ll pack them out for a week, and then we’ll say it was our choice to fold.’

Dolly shakes her head and smiles.

‘I am very sorry. It’s impossible. I can’t. And besides, we all know it’s a ridiculous play. A vanity play – it was for him and it is for me. Enough is enough.’

There is a heavy knock on the door.

‘Come in,’ Dolly barks.

‘Your car is here, shall I tell him to drive around for a bit?’ Gavin asks.

‘No, I’ll only be a few minutes, tell him to wait.’

Gavin nods and closes the door, and Dolly looks expectantly
at Tristan, who takes the hint and pushes himself to his feet. There is a ring of dust on the seat of his trousers.

‘Is it worth me saying you have a contract?’ he asks quietly.

‘That was never signed,’ she replies with a soft smile.

‘Right. Right. Well, thank you for tonight at least,’ Tristan says sadly, his hands in his pockets, his chin down. He glances up at her and there is still a twinkle in his eye.

‘No. Thank you,’ she answers him, and Tristan turns and walks out.

Dolly looks at me. ‘Lulu, will you ask Gavin, after I’ve left, to pack up my things and have them sent on via the Dorchester? They are very good, they’ll sort it out for me. Do you want some of these flowers?’ she asks me, gesturing lazily around the room. ‘Take the pink ones, Lulu.’

‘Okay, I will.’

She grabs her bag up off the floor.

‘Bring me the black roses, just that bunch, Lulu, will you? And walk me up?’

I grab the bunch that her daughter sent her, and wrap a plastic bag around the bottom.

‘Perfect,’ she says, walking ahead of me.

‘Have you got everything?’ I ask as she leaves.

‘I think so,’ she replies, walking out without looking back.

Everybody has gone to the party, and the backstage area is finally quiet. The back door is deserted. Gavin helps Dolly into her car, guiding her head into the back seat gently as if she were a genteel criminal being ushered into a squad car.

‘Where do you want the flowers?’ I ask, standing at the car door.

‘I’ll just take them here on my lap, Lulu, no fuss,’ she says.

I hand them in to her and she puts them down on the seat, and grabs my hand.

‘Lulu,’ she says quietly, and squeezes my hand in between both of hers.

I crouch down at the door.

‘I think that we pooled our strength, didn’t we?’

‘We did!’ I reply, hardly able to look her in the eye, trying to fight the tears off.

‘Toughen up, Lulu,’ she says, her voice breaking. Dolly pulls the back of my hand up to her mouth and gives it an old, squashed kiss. Her lipstick stains my skin and I feel the tears tumble out of my eyes.