The Show Must Go On

And Lily thought she knew her great-gran…

Are you sure you want to sit outside?” Lily Russell asked her greatgrandmother. “It’s very windy.”

“I’m not so frail I shall blow away darling,” Kitty laughed. “Besides, a little fresh air never did anyone any harm.”

She winked. “Be a poppet though, and fetch me my scarf.”

Kitty watched her great-granddaughter head to her ground floor flat in the sheltered housing complex in Eastbourne, shivering as she hugged her arms about her. These January days were so short, and Kitty hated sitting in, staring at the four walls of her flat.

Five minutes later, Lily was back. “Granny, who’s this? I found the photo lying out on the side.”

Kitty had been having a clearout of her things, but she couldn’t bring herself to throw away the old photos.

“She’s the most glamorous woman I’ve ever seen,” Lily declared. “Like a film star!”

Kitty smiled. The young woman in the black and white photo was naked, save for some strategically placed ostrich feathers.

“You can’t imagine how heavy those ostrich fans were.”

“Granny?” Lily gasped in astonishment. “That’s never you!”

“Oh, I was young too, once – believe it or not, dear.”

“I thought you worked at Yardley’s!” “I did, during the day. But by night I was a Windmill Girl, on the famous glass stage at the Windmill Theatre in Soho.”

Lily’s jaw fell open. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a showgirl?”

“Because you never asked me what

I did during the war. And besides, I still can’t think about that time without remembering him.”

“Grandad?”

A curious smile passed over the old lady’s face. “No. Danny Rosenberg, a navigator embedded with the United States Army Air Forces.”

Lily sat bolt upright and stared at her ninety-five-year-old great-grandmother.

Kitty closed her eyes and heard the cold January wind comb through the chestnut tree. She caught a whiff of her granddaughter’s sweet perfume. The scent

www.myweekly.co.uk was evocative, tumbling her back through the decades – to January, 1944, and the theatre dressing room…

The hot basement dressing rooms were alive with activity. Kitty didn’t think she’d ever get used to it. The girls were all drop-dead beautiful. Smooth, sculpted bodies moved about in a haze of cigarette smoke and gossamer. Over it all hung the scent of greasepaint.

Kitty had been relieved to find there was no bitchiness. The girls were a smashing lot, always on hand to support one another. Despite the lure of naked flesh, the Windmill offered professional fare and the girls reflected that.

“You can always tell when the Yanks are in,” piped up a blonde Windmill Girl called Cherry who was dressed as an underwater goddess.

“Say sugar, wait up. Can I take you somewhere for a drink?”

“No thanks.”

The GI’s face was lit up by a sliver of moonlight.

“Aww come on, just one. I gotta go back to base tomorrow. You’re the most beautiful woman I ever saw.”

She lifted one eyebrow.

“What? It’s not a line, I swear.” He grinned, and his bright blue eyes sparkled in the moonlight. “The name’s Danny Rosenberg.”

Deep voices sounded behind.

A bolt of alarm crossed Danny’s face and he pulled her in his arms.

“Pretend to kiss me,” he whispered. “Eh? What’s your game?” she shrieked. He pressed a forefinger to her mouth. “Sssh. There’s someone I need to avoid, please just let me kiss you.”

“I… I don’t know… I…”

But her words fell away, as suddenly his lips were on hers, soft and gentle.

Kitty had to admit, as kisses went, it was really quite nice and she almost felt regret when he pulled back.

“Phew – they’ve gone. Thanks.”

“What was that about?”

“On the crossing over, it was kinda boring so I got into game of blackjack with a wannabe hustler from Texas. Turns out he was pretty lousy. I cleaned him out and boy, was he mad.” He grinned. “Fortunes were made and lost on that voyage.”

“So was that him?”

“Maybe…” He shrugged.

“Danny!” She laughed in spite of herself. “You’re a caution.”

“So I’m told. Now we’ve got our first kiss out the way, what say we go for that drink and you can tell me about yourself?”

She shook her head. “You’ve a nerve. One cup of tea, and that’s it!”

One cup of tea turned to three. They talked until Danny’s train left and dawn was breaking over Trafalgar Square.

Danny was charming. He made her feel like the centre of his world. But as she got to know him better, she realised something else. He was twenty-one, lonely, and a long way from his home in Brooklyn.

“I miss my mum,” he admitted.

“When will you see her again?”

“When we’ve got the job done.”

She knew what getting the job done meant, and it felt as if the entire country was poised on the brink, waiting for the invasion of Fortress Europe.

“Why did you join up?” she asked one evening, as they were wrapped in each other’s arms in a booth at Lyon’s Corner House.

He took her hand in his, and gently kissed her fingers.

“Your war is our war,” he whispered. “Kitty Russell, I’m falling in love with you.”

Their snatched time together took on a dreamlike quality. Whenever he got furlough, he came to watch her perform. Stolen kisses on steamy train stations, nights jitterbugging at dancehalls, picnics under the shadow of the barrage balloons over Hyde Park. Danny made her feel more alive than in all her eighteen years.

The frosts of January thawed into a ravishing spring and she knew they were living on borrowed time.

“I ship out soon,” he admitted one evening. He cleared his throat nervously. “Will you marry me?”

The question hung between them. “You barely know me.”

“I know you’re funny and kind, and you have a terrific set of pins.”

She was still laughing as he slid an emerald brooch over the tabletop.

“This belonged to my grandmother. I want you to have it.”

“Danny, I can’t.”

He placed it in her hand and closed his palm softly over hers.

“Call it an insurance policy. If you don’t want to marry me when I return, then you can give it back.”

On a cloudless day in May 1944, the Yanks shipped out to Normandy. Without their laughter and wisecracks, the theatre felt strangely empty.

Five weeks after D-Day, as it came to be known, Kitty was on stage performing. She was a few minutes through her act when the pedestal began to shake ominously underneath her feet. Overhead, the rattle of a klaxon started, but it did little to drown out the drone of the Doodlebug as it sliced its way over the Soho skies.

A silence as the engine cut out. The colossal bang nearly deafened her and the stage shook. A cascade of dust and debris streamed from the stage lantern.

Everyone craned their neck skywards to where a great chunk of masonry had dislodged from the ceiling. The V1 hadn’t hit them, but it had been a near miss.

In a fit of pure spontaneity, Kitty gracefully, thumbed her nose up towards the roof of the theatre in a gesture that said, Takethat,Hitler.

The sound of clapping rose up over the spotlights and engulfed her. The audience were on their feet, wild with applause at her gesture of defiance.

When she came off stage euphoric, she dashed into the changing room. Wait until she told Danny about this.

Cherry was waiting. She patted the chair next to her.

“Kitty, darling, I’ve just had some news. You better sit down.”

He never survived,” Kitty recalled, the memory just as vivid seventy-six years on. “His plane was shot down after attacking a fuel dump in Northern France. All those fine young men…” Her voice trailed off.

“Six months after the war ended, I met your grandfather and married him. I loved him very much, but I never forgot Danny.”

Kitty looked at her great-granddaughter. Tears were sliding down her lovely young face.

“I had no idea…”

“Take this, my dear, as a gift,” said Kitty, unpinning an emerald brooch from her scarf and handing it to her great-granddaughter. “You are the same age I was when Danny gave it to me.”

“I-I can’t accept this,” Lily stuttered. “You can and you will,” Kitty insisted. “Thank you,” Lily said. “I’ll treasure it. And tell me, what happened to Cherry? Did she survive the war?”

“I have no idea. Sadly, we lost touch. Seems strange to say, but I miss her more now than ever. We shared the most intense time of our lives.”

“What was her surname?” Lily asked, pulling her mobile out of her pocket.

“Cherry Beauvoir. I expect she’s dead now. She was older than me.”

Lily buried herself in her phone and Kitty sighed. It seemed her wartime stories couldn’t compete with Instagram.

Twenty minutes later, Lily’s bright smile lit up the grey January sky.

“Far from it. There’s a Facebook page here dedicated to the Windmill Club. The admin is an ex-performer. Seems Cherry is ninety-seven and lives a twenty minute drive from here with her daughter.” The phone pinged and Lily glanced down, her smile stretching even further.

“And she has requested the pleasure of our company for tea next Sunday.”

“No,” gasped Kitty.

“Yes – according to her daughter she can’t wait to go on a trip down memory lane with the prettiest Windmill Girl she ever worked with.”

Kitty felt herself well up with emotion. “How will I get there?”

“Oh Granny, I’ll drive you of course. I wouldn’t miss this reunion for the world.”

Tears of happiness filled Kitty’s eyes. It seemed that not everything from the past was lost to her after all.

SecretsOf TheLavender Girls by Kate Thompson, Hodder & Stoughton, PBO, £6.99, is out now. www.myweekly.co.uk