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By Root 2759 0

many of them wearing helmets, wilted in silhouette against the flickering screen. ‘I suppose it would be as well to put one’s tin hat on,’ mused the Major, returning his attention to the screen. But he put the matter out of his mind. He was too susceptible to the cold, rather sad beauty of Hedy Lamarr. He had never been able to resist that sort of woman: she reminded him of someone he had known, oh, years ago … That melancholy smile. ‘What’s she like now?’ he wondered. ‘Getting on, of course. Water under the bridge,’ he thought sadly. Yes, Hedy Lamarr was very much the Major’s cup of tea.

Now it was the dressing-room before the first night.

‘Nervous?’

‘Oh, Jenny, I … I can’t even put on my lipstick.’

‘Relax, honey. They won’t be lookin’ at your mouth.’ A breathless, manic Judy Garland burst in. The girls chattered excitedly. They were quelled by a man who said: ‘Listen, kids—I’ve got something important to say to you … in a few minutes you’re going on in your first number. D’you know what that means? It means you’re a Ziegfeld Girl. It means you’re going to have all the opportunities of a lifetime crowded into a couple of hours. And all the temptations …’

‘Oh dear,’ said Matthew, drowsing with his chin on his chest. ‘Soon I shall go and look for Vera.’

‘The “Dream” number. Places for the “Dream” number.’

‘All right, girls. And good luck.’

The music swelled and, as it did so, a bomb falling not far away caused the building to shake and one or two small pieces of plaster fell from the ceiling. In the warm darkness the audience stirred uneasily and one or two silhouettes, crouching under the beam from the projector, made their way to the exit.

But this was the ‘Dream’ number. A plump, sleek tenor wearing a voluminous pair of Oxford bags began to sing:

You stepped out of a dream,

You are too wonderful to be what you seem.

Could there be eyes like yours?

Could there be lips like yours?

Could there be smiles like yours?

Honestly and truly,

You stepped out of a cloud

I want to take you away, away from the crowd …

Matthew fell asleep, woke, fell asleep, woke again. His limbs had grown stiff from sitting so long in the same position. He longed to stretch out and sleep … in clean sheets, in safety. The palms of his hands, raw and weeping from the glass splinters that clung to the hose, had begun to throb unbearably; on the screen one glittering scene followed another: he could no longer make sense of them. The screen filled with balloons from the midst of which Judy Garland emerged dressed in white. Then there were girls dancing on moving white beds, girls in white fur, girls with sheepdogs. Meanwhile, the plot was begining to thicken beyond Matthew’s powers of comprehension with Lana Turner forsaking a truck-driver for an older man with an English accent, identified as a ‘stage-door johnny’, who offered her a meal in a French restaurant, jewels, minks. This man bore a very slight resemblance to the Major. Judy Garland danced frantically and sang:

They call her Minnie from Trinidad,

And all the natives would be so sad,

Ay! Ay! Ay! …

If Minnie ever left Trinidad!

She was wearing a turban, three rings of big white beads and a striped dress, through the open front of which there was an occasional glimpse of her childishly muscled legs. Matthew found something distressing about her manic innocence. He fell asleep and woke again.

Now there was the shadow of the fat tenor thrown on to the sail of a yacht. As he spun the wheel he sang:

Come, come where the moon shines with magic enchantment, High up in the blue sky above you.

Come where a scented breeze caresses you with a lovely melody. While my heart is whispering ‘I love you.’

Then Hedy Lamarr, reflected in a mirror misted over with steam, was getting into her bath, but Matthew could no longer make sense of it all and the others were asleep: even the Major missed this important development. Again and again the girls drifted up and down brilliant staircases wearing elaborate constructions of stars on twigs, of stuffed parrots, of spangles, trailing miles of white