The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [12]
‘Now look here.’ Reggie blustered up to him like an unsubtle boxer coming out of the corner of a ring. ‘You can’t do that. You can’t go over our heads and send that girl out on a job like that. She don’t know anything.’
‘We’ll find out whether she does.’ The editor poured some souring milk into a cup, and swallowed two tablets, his face grey with the discomfort within.
*
Virginia sat in the dusty stalls of the theatre where Doris Miller was in the toils of a last-minute, scrappy dress rehearsal. She felt neglected and anxious. She had been allowed into the theatre, although Mr Askey, the editor’s contact, was not there, and no one could say where he had gone or when he would be back. She had been shown into a seat by an elderly man in a fisherman’s sweater and dirty plimsolls, and told to sit still and keep quiet.
Virginia sat still and quiet for a long time in the fusty gloom of the dilapidated theatre. There was nothing else she could do. The time went by, and Mr Askey did not come, and she fretted about the interview and what the editor would say if she did not return with her story soon. He had given her this chance partly to annoy Reggie Porter, but partly, she believed, because he did think quite well of her, and wanted to see what she could do. She must do well, or she would let him down as well as herself. He was a cranky, disgruntled man, but she admired him, because he was an editor, and she liked him, because he had been nicer to her than he need have been.
On the stage, lit by all the harsher lights in the electrician’s repertory, a dozen girls with goose-flesh on their thick thighs went dispiritedly through their paces, were shouted at to stop, and stood about dough-faced, rubbing their arms, until they were jerked into action again by the agitated voice of the producer.
At intervals, Miss Doris Miller came wearily on to the stage in different changes of costume. She was a sharp-featured henna-head, with the powder thick on the pouches under her eyes, an old-fashioned hour-glass figure, and legs that tapered like cones into wondrously slim ankles and tiny feet. Since she was the principal boy, her costumes consisted of various tunics and jerkins over the long, pyramidal stretch of black nylon tights. The tights were the most expensive part of her costume. If a stage-hand brushed past her with a piece of scenery, she would clap her hands to her thighs and shriek out: ‘Mind my tights, you clumsy sod!‘
Each time the principal boy left the stage, Virginia wondered whether she could get up and go through the pass-door at the side of the stage, and beard her in her dressing-room for the promised interview. Each time, just when she had mustered enough nerve to do it, Doris Miller, who only had to change from the waist up, was back on the stage again in a new outfit, and Virginia had lost her chance. The little old man in the fisherman’s jersey went in and out of the pass-door all the time, grumbling to himself. Virginia moved to the end of the row so that she could tackle him as he went by.
‘What can I do?’ Virginia appealed to him. ‘I must see Miss Miller. Does she know I’m here? The interview was all arranged. Do you think I could go backstage and find her?’
‘You can’t do that,’ the old man said. ‘Backstage is like a mad-house, and Miss Miller don’t talk to anyone. My, what a temper! I wish you’d have seen her just now. Created bloody murder when she heard there was a chap from the Courier at the stage-door. And language! Had him thrown out, block and tackle.’
‘Oh, good.’ Virginia’s spirits rose to the challenge. Although she could not understand why Doris Miller was so squeamish about the publicity she surely needed, the eviction of the Courier was a good chance for its rival, the Gazette. She must take the chance.
‘Side by side!’ squeaked the