Fallen Skies. Philippa Gregory

      ‘My God, you scared me to death. I thought you were a ghost. What the hell are you supposed to be?’

      ‘Choir boy.’

      ‘Charlie Smith must have gone off his head,’ the SM said bluntly. ‘Has Mr Brett seen you?’

      ‘Not yet.’

      The man buried his face in his hands as if he could not stand the prospect.

      ‘You’re dead,’ he said. ‘We’re all dead. But you especially are dead and buried.’

      ‘I feel it,’ Lily said, quite without sarcasm. ‘I wish I was.’

      The girls clattered to a standstill.

      ‘Applause applause,’ came the weary voice from the dark auditorium. ‘No announcement at all now. Lily comes straight on.’

      The girls, clearing the stage, pushed past Lily as she stepped forward. She just heard Madge say, ‘Wait a minute, what’re you wearing?’ and then she was under the dazzling hot lights and she could see nothing but Charlie’s face and his raised hand, and a quick bright nod to her and the regular sweet notes of the start of ‘Jesu, Joy …’

      Lily, her mouth dry and her throat so tight that she knew she would be mute for the rest of her life, stood still with her hands clasped before her and longed for a pee.

      She opened her mouth on cue, knowing no sound would come, and then she heard, as if it were someone else singing, the sweet steady notes in their ordered simplicity. ‘Jes-u, joy (wait) of man’s desir-ing (wait wait wait) holy wis-dom, lo-ve most bright …’

      ‘Golly,’ Lily thought. ‘It’s all right.’ It was as if her own stage-fright had moved her to a place where she could feel neither nerves nor her own body. She sang clearly and simply and her ears could hear the rightness of the sounds, and even enjoy them, as if they were being sung by another girl. As if it were not Lily Pears, sick with fear, under a burning hot spotlight, with all the Palais Dancers crowded in the wings behind her, waiting to laugh.

      She sang as she had been taught, simply and clearly, and held the last note. The final chords died away like ringing bells.

      ‘You win a guinea, Charlie. Very nice indeed. Applause, applause, weep, weep. Next,’ William said from the darkness.

      Charlie threw a grin at Lily and the drum rolled.

      ‘Come off,’ the SM hissed behind her. ‘Come on! Clear the stage. You’ve had your moment of glory, duckie. It’s someone else now.’

      Mesmerio the hypnotist, splendid in a black tie and tails, pushed past Lily and stepped on to the stage. Lily, still dazzled by the lights, stepped into the wings and went slowly down the stairs to the dressing room. The girls, silenced by a glower from the SM, went with her like a patrol with a prisoner in their midst.

      ‘Well!’ Madge said, outraged, as soon as the dressing room door was shut. ‘I never saw such a performance in my life!’

      ‘Pie!’

      ‘I thought she was sweet! You were sweet, Lily!’

      ‘She looked more like a boy than a girl!’

      ‘Charlie must be off his head!’

      ‘Too scared to hang around the dockyard more like!’

      ‘What d’you mean?’

      ‘I always thought Charlie Smith liked boys – now look what he’s done to Lily!’

      Lily undid her ruff and pulled her surplice off over her head, hardly hearing them.

      Helena undid the hooks of the gown for her. ‘They’re all crooked. You should have got someone to help you.’

      ‘I will tomorrow,’ Lily said vaguely.

      ‘Where did you learn to sing like that – proper singing?’

      ‘With my teacher.’ Lily felt a deep sleepy weariness, as if all the excitement and nervousness had drained out of her body, leaving her empty and exhausted. ‘I’ve had singing lessons since I was little.’

      ‘You ought to be a proper singer, opera or something.’

      Lily smiled, shook her head. ‘I’m not good enough,’ she said.

      She hung her gown with the surplice and the ruff on the hanger and then wrapped the sheet around them. Helena thrust her next costume towards her. It was a scarlet froth of tulle with a black tightly-laced boned bodice for the finale – a can-can. Lily stepped into it and Helena spun her around and did up the hooks at the back.

      ‘You all right? You’re very quiet.’

      Lily’s little face was pale against the harsh cherry-red of the gown. ‘I’m fine.’

      The boy knocked on the door. ‘Finale. Five minutes.’

      There was a rush towards the mirror. Madge screamed for someone to do her up quick! and then the six of them burst out of the dressing room and clattered up the narrow stone steps to the wings.

      Sylvia de Charmante was singing her final song. It was ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’. Lily – last of the line in the wings – leaned back against the cold wall and gritted her teeth. She hated the song. She hated all the war songs. She hated their sentimental lushness, she hated the stupidity of men whistling them as they marched to the Front. She had taken her father’s death as an act of folly, not heroism. Alone of all the kids in the street, Lily hated the war, and disliked and blamed Kitchener when everyone else worshipped him. Lily never knitted socks and balaclavas, she never joined a gang to collect scrap paper. A solitary rebel, she pretended that the war, which overshadowed her childhood and drained it of joy, did not exist.

      ‘Applause, applause, weep, weep. Very nice, Miss de Charmante,’ William said from the front row. ‘Now, Sylvia, step forward. Gauze down. Lights down. Can-can backdrop down. Sylvia, you’re still bowing, taking flowers. Then you walk slowly slowly slowly across the stage and you’re gone. And we should be ready … now.’

      Absolutely nothing happened.

      ‘Mike!’ William said very quietly through his teeth.

      The SM waved frantically to the stage hands. ‘Clear the stage, we’re going up!’ he hissed. ‘Go!’

      The drummer gave a long exciting roll on the drums and Charlie at the piano with the trumpeter and the two violins burst into a spirited thumping rendition of the ‘Thunder and Lightning Polka’ – the traditional can-can music.

      Lily, with Helena’s hand firmly clutching her boned waist, and her hand behind Helena’s back gripping Madge’s wrist, started marking the steps as the first girl on the stage – Susie – danced out sideways. Lily’s head went up; she loved the can-can. She grinned at the morose SM as she danced out under the hot lights, matching her kick to the others, then keeping the rhythm of the music with the low half-kicks as the line folded in on itself and Lily and Susie were face to face and then pairing off, dancing around, in pairs through the middle and into the line of the can-can again.

      It was a short number. Can-can was spectacular, but exhausting. Charlie played it at the edge of safety – as fast as he dared. The girls’ screams as they kicked, or cartwheeled, or jumped into the splits, were screams of protest, not excitement. But Lily loved it. The relief at her song being over, her simple delight at being on stage and the absolute fun of the music and the dancing, and Charlie’s darkened face in the orchestra pit, kept her feet pounding on the stage. The final dance step and dive into the splits came too soon for her. Lily stayed in the splits, her head up, her face radiant.

      ‘Applause, applause, rapturous applause,’ William said miserably. ‘Walk down.’

      The chorus girls stepped smartly up, walked forward in time to Charlie’s brisk march, took a bow and then fell back either side of the stage. In order of increasing importance the stars entered from the rear of