Their conversation was punctuated by the noise of the wind section practising scales. Woolf had to raise his voice to be heard, but Helena did not wish to shout back. She knew how easily panic could infect a cast facing a deadline under already difficult conditions, but she was going to make sure that the Windmill wasn’t the only theatre to stay open throughout the war.
‘It’s difficult for all of us,’ she explained with feigned sufferance. ‘You’ll just have to do the best you can. I’m out of gaspers, darling, would you light me?’ Benjamin touched a match to a Viceroy and passed it to her. ‘These gentlemen are detectives, and hope to have the whole thing quickly sorted out. You know how easily these girls fall in with the wrong types.’
‘Perhaps we should continue this discussion in Miss Parole’s office,’ May suggested. ‘I think we’re in the way here.’ He looked back at Bryant and followed his partner’s gaze to the stage. Bryant’s attention had been drawn away by the arriving dancers, half a dozen long-legged girls who stood whispering and giggling in the shadows of the wings.
Bryant was captivated by what he saw. The theatre held a special fascination for him. When John looked at posturing actresses angling their best sides to the audience, he saw nothing but mannequins and painted flats. Arthur saw something fleeting and indefinable. He saw the promises of youth made flesh, something beautiful and distant, a spontaneous gaiety forever denied to a man who couldn’t open his mouth without thinking.
In Helena’s office May raised the window behind the battered oak desk and looked down into Moor Street, where men in black heavy rescue and white light rescue helmets were clearing sections of charred wood from a blackened shop front.
‘Am I right in thinking that, as the company’s artistic director, the production’s success lies in your hands?’ Bryant asked.
‘Absolutely.’ Helena looked tense and angry. She brushed at the cigarette ash smudged in the cleavage of her tight white blouse. ‘I have a board of directors to answer to if Orphée aux enfers fails. I tried to keep Offenbach’s French title. They felt it would put people off. I said, “It shows solidarity with the people of France, and it’s the cancan, how much more accessible can you get?” Eighty years ago this was considered a trifle, an after-dinner joke. Now the English think it’s high art because three words are French. They’re such peasants. They’ll queue to see a mayoress open a fête but only fall asleep in opera houses. It’s not like this on the continent, you know. The French have more respect for their artists.’
The thin November sunshine threw slats of light across her make-up as she unfurled a plume of cigarette smoke into the coils of her coppery hair. The exhalation softened her harshly painted eyes. Bryant realized that she was probably his new partner’s type, firm-jawed, full-busted, full of life. She had presence, like an expensively upholstered piece of furniture, a reminder of more luxurious times.
Helena knew that it was important to care about the members of her cast. They weren’t actors, Benjamin had once told her, they were her children. But she had no children. What she had was a failed three-year marriage to her agent which had foundered over the argument of raising mixed-race infants in a land where black skin was still seen as a peculiarity. Now, because of the war and the lack of jobs in the theatre, she and her former husband had been forced into each other’s company again.
‘We have to find a way of keeping it out of the press.’ Helena joined May at the window. ‘Although the story would do wonders for the box office.’ She closed the window. Smoke still loitered in her hair, momentarily recalling an image of the Medusa. ‘This show represents a massive commitment of time, energy and money. It’s going to brighten up London and raise the morale of thousands of people every week.’ She turned to the detectives. ‘The board has been planning it for years, setting Orpheus up as a public company, raising finance on an international scale, waiting for cast availability. The war has made us redouble our efforts. None of us can afford a flop. We’re putting our futures on the line. If Orpheus fails to recoup its costs, the insurers will step in, and one of our greatest theatres will fall dark for the remainder of the hostilities, perhaps for ever. So, does anybody have to know what happened? They’re more concerned with their own safety than hearing about some dancer’s misfortune. We open in four days.’ Helena felt safer when others considered her incapable of kindness. ‘As far as we knew, she was working late on Sunday night and went home. Couldn’t she have decided the role wasn’t for her and left the country?’