Miss Treadway & the Field of Stars - Miranda Emmerson

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thin and delicate. Her nose was too broad for her face and underneath all the panstick it was covered in light brown freckles, which always made Anna think of her as a little girl from a storybook. Lanny’s lips were a soft, deep rose and her teeth snaggly, the inheritance of a childhood without money.

      Lanny pawed at a mole on her cheek, which sprouted a single hair. ‘I look so old these days.’

      Anna smiled at her in the mirror. ‘I think you look lovely. Like a woman from a Rossetti or a Waterhouse.’

      ‘I don’t know what those are.’

      ‘Rossetti? He was one of the Pre-Raphaelites. Waterhouse as well. They were painters in Victorian times who painted these big romantic pictures of women from literature. All flowing locks and big, bold eyes and lips.’

      ‘It sounds pornographic.’

      ‘Well, it is, in a way. It’s very sexual. But I wanted so much to look like those women when I was younger. My father had a book with plates in it. I wanted to be the Lady of Shalott or Pandora or a mermaid. But you really do … Without make-up …’ Anna shook her head. ‘You look more real somehow.’

      ‘Well, I am more real.’

      ‘I suppose.’

      Lanny’s hand sneaked across the dressing table and picked up the mascara. ‘A little something, just for going home,’ she said.

      ‘What’s it like, living at The Savoy?’

      Lanny met Anna’s eyes in the glass and her own eyes wrinkled into a smile. ‘It’s exactly what you’d think, child. Everything is very shiny, the breakfast is excellent and everyone looks terribly, terribly bored.’

      Anna laughed and helped Iolanthe into her dress and coat. A little pile of post lay unopened on the dressing table. Lanny pushed the envelopes into her bulging handbag and then paused in the act of picking up yesterday’s Standard. She glanced down at the headline.

      SNOW ON MOORS HAMPERS SEARCH

      Brady and Hindley remanded

      They’d hardly been off the front pages this past month. First the boy’s body, then the girl’s, now a second boy had been found.

      Anna watched Lanny’s train of thought. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘I’ve been having nightmares.’

      ‘About the kids?’

      ‘After they found the girl. Under the earth. Who’d leave a child like that?’

      Lanny’s face creased a little in pain. ‘I don’t want to think about it.’

      ‘Sorry,’ said Anna. ‘Let’s not.’

      They walked in silence down the many flights of stairs. Outside the theatre Lanny belted her coat against the cold and drew on gloves. Anna paused at the corner and watched her walk away. Lanny looked over her shoulder just once and waved a hand.

      ‘See you Monday,’ she called.

      ‘See you Monday,’ Anna called back.

      And then she was gone.

       Walk On and Walk Off

      Monday, 1 November

      At half past five Anna was ready for Lanny’s arrival. A cup of lemon tea sat on the table waiting. Lanny’s clothes were ironed and hung ready for her in neat rows. The play began at seven and the cast were expected to be in place at the very latest by the half-hour call, which came at six twenty-five. Lanny normally liked to arrive early. She had make-up and hair to do. She wanted to drink her tea and go to the toilet. She wanted time so if anything went wrong with her costume it could be fixed.

      Any moment now Lanny would come running in, throw down the newspaper, empty her pockets of sweets, peel herself out of her dress.

      ‘Fucking cold!’ she’d cry. ‘And the cabs! No one knows how to drive in this country!’

      ‘Did you look the wrong way again?’ Anna would ask.

      ‘I looked the right way. But all the assholes just kept driving in the wrong direction!’

      Or perhaps tonight she’d be contemplative, slip into the dressing room without a word. If she was in a quiet mood Anna had learned to come and go without a sound. Fetching and carrying everything that might be needed as Lanny stripped herself. Sometimes Anna would find her standing naked before the mirror, touching her hand to her breasts or her belly or her thighs, lost in thought. Anna would look, too hard to be a human and not look, but then she would look away. She tried to imagine her way into the body of Iolanthe. The mind, she corrected herself. Iolanthe resided in her mind.

      Half past five became six. Anna went downstairs to see Dick but Lanny hadn’t signed in yet. Leonard popped his head in to ask if she thought Lanny had been getting sick.

      ‘I don’t think so,’ Anna told him. ‘She just seemed her normal self.’

      Anna waited. Lanny’s tea grew cold. At six twenty-five exactly the call came on the backstage tannoy:

      ‘Field of Stars company. This is your half-hour call. Thirty minutes, please.’

      Leonard burst in again. ‘We can’t raise her at The Savoy. She isn’t there. Agatha is dressing to cover Lanny. Minnie is dressing to cover Agatha. Can you go and cast an eye over what she’s doing?’

      Anna helped the young understudy to get into her clothes. Minnie was talking all the time. Running the lines at high speed over and over again. Anna gave her a hug.

      ‘It isn’t Shakespeare,’ she told her. ‘No one knows the words. You can say anything at all and they’ll still think it’s part of the play. Walk on, walk off and try to look like you know what you’re doing. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. I’ll see you later for the quick change.’

      She walked back to Lanny’s dressing room. The cup of tea sat on the table untouched. Was Iolanthe ill?

      Of course, everyone expected Lanny to arrive by the interval. She must have gone off for the day and got stuck in traffic. That’s what made most sense. But the interval came and went and there was no Iolanthe.

      Leonard phoned round the hospitals in case there had been an accident. He phoned The Savoy again and spoke to the desk clerk. Iolanthe hadn’t been in her room since Friday night.

      The show came down at ten to ten. The audience cheered Agatha, though many had left at the interval since catching sight of Iolanthe Green had been their main reason for buying the tickets. Leonard called a meeting on the stage. The cast sat on chairs in a circle. Anna sat with the other dressers and the crew on the floor. Leonard told everyone about his call to The Savoy.

      ‘Iolanthe has to be considered a missing person. I’ve already called the police. If she hasn’t turned up by tomorrow morning they’ll be coming down to interview us here. The show will keep running but management are going to keep an eye on cancellations. If we’re not playing to at least forty per cent attendance they may take us off in another week. Don’t worry about that now, but I need to give you that warning so you’re prepared. No one of Iolanthe’s description has been admitted to any of the big hospitals. I’m going to see that as a good thing. You all did well tonight. Go home. Get some sleep. Company meeting at four tomorrow followed by a line run if it’s understudies again. Okay. Off you go!’

      ***

      On Tuesday the papers were full of Iolanthe’s disappearance. The Mirror asked if Brady and Hindley had inspired a copycat murder in London. The Sun wanted to know if Iolanthe had fallen prey to a gang of Soho people smugglers. The Daily Express asked its readers to join police in hunting for the glamorous starlet. The Daily Telegraph wondered if fragile, unmarried Miss Green had run away from the pressures of fame.

      On

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