Read by Judith Quin
Tableau vivant, that was what they called it at the Windmill Theatre, back in the good old days, the Blitz-spirit nights of the Forties, back in London. Back home. Bit parky, of course, standing starkers on that draughty stage every night, but it was fun. Us girls stock-still, trying not to laugh, while the front-row, boys, the GIs especially, whooped and clapped and stared up at us, like they were chained dogs and we were steak.
I came over with Bobby in ‘46. We weren't exactly married, but he 'd promised me a job dancing on Broadway, and I was sick of standing still. My tits were never much to speak of, except for the last few weeks when even Madame Shospa’s noticed, but my legs always got me places; dancer’s legs, my Mum always said. She took me to ballet lessons from when I was five to when she died, and I kept it up until they bombed the rehearsal-rooms in ’44.
I always wanted to dance, but Viv at the Windmill never let us stir: “If you move, it’s rude.” That was the rule. But you can’t stay a living statue for ever; I wanted to spread my wings, like a butterfly; like a bird.
The job Bobby found wasn’t Broadway, exactly: it was more off than on, and the punters were fresh enough, but after Soho that didn’t bother me. I was in the chorus, which meant I danced a lot and sang a bit. Cutie-Fruities, Caroline called us. Her show: her girls.
Six nights a week it was just hoofing, a pitter-patter of tap and plenty of leg, but Sundays they had a ballet, choreographed by Caroline and costumed by the Russian wardrobe-mistress, Madame Shospa. Thelma told me Caroline changed the theme every year, to show off Madame Shospa’s sewing skills. Last year it was butterflies; this year, birds. Apparently Madame stayed up three nights straight sewing under Caroline’s direction, stitching hundreds of feathers, thousands of beads. Thelma was the Swan, one of the trickiest, and she showed me the stain from where Madame’s tough seamstress’s fingers finally bled.
Luckily for me, the ballet was one short: the Bird of Paradise had eloped with a croupier and I fit the costume, so I was in. The ballet was the “culture quotient”, so the theatre could keep its licence. The crowd was different on Sundays; Caroline’s friends, choreographers and producers from on-Broadway, would come and watch, spotting what little talent they could.
Most of the girls didn’t know a ballet-slipper from a pump so I fancied myself a shoo-in for a solo, but there was almost no dancing involved, except from the principal ballerina, what Caroline called the “hot-spot girl”. The rest of us just ran gracefully, posed and showed off the costumes. Bit like the Windmill, without tits. The “hot-spot girl” was Gilda: ballet-trained too, with two years long service, so I resigned myself to a being a chorus-girl. Besides, I still had Bobby. My G.I.
I’d never have guessed Bobby was Jewish. He finally confessed after I asked why we couldn’t live together, since as I understood it, we had an understanding, and he said it was “more complex than that”. I’d met Jews before, of course, growing up in Spitalfields, but not like Bobby. The Jews at home kept themselves to themselves, but he was the life and soul, buying drinks, chatting up the girls. He was so handsome, with his blue eyes and curly black hair, and I was made-up when he picked me out and talked to me, just me. I could see the other girls giving us sly little glances, crimped with jealousy. Me and my rich G.I. boyfriend.
I didn’t understand at first. I didn’t mind; we loved each other; couldn’t we just get married anyway? I forgot about their customs, about marrying out and in, or maybe I did,n't but I'd thought American Jews were different. America’s the land of the free, after all: didn’t that apply to Jews too? Why couldn’t they marry whoever they wanted? Bobby sighed and said if he married me, his children wouldn’t be Jewish, not even if I converted, and his mother would die of grief. It’s passed down through the woman, he said. You’re a gentile, a shiksa. It’s just not done.
Then why did you bring me over? I asked, and he looked helpless and shrugged his big shoulders and said, I loved you, Elsie. I thought maybe I could make it work. I shook my head and didn’t say anything. I was thinking about my future, suddenly strange and dark, like when a cloud blots the sun and you realise how cold it’s got. He put a month’s rent on the dresser and left.
In the bathroom, I heaved but I couldn’t throw up. I’d been sick twice already that morning and I’d hadn’t been able to keep much down for a month. I was seven weeks gone with his non-Jewish baby. Bobby hadn’t noticed. Caroline had.
I took that night sick but you don’t get two days off in Caroline’s chorus, not even for pneumonia, so next day I was back onstage in the Bird Ballet. And when I was swooping and arcing, a queasy Bird of Paradise, I felt the faintest flutter in my belly and I realised that it was all right, that I didn’t need Bobby after all; that maybe Bobby had to happen to give me this; my little butterfly in my stomach, my little bird.
I knew I’d start showing soon so I worked double-time, every matinee and extra late shows on the weekend. Madame Shospa had to let out the bust on my costumes twice; the girls said how healthy I looked. Caroline watched me thinly, saying nothing, wondering, I suppose, when I'd confess. I didn’t mind. There'd be other jobs. I’d always be able to dance.
*
I’m sitting in the ladies’ restroom in my Bird of Paradise costume, trying to stifle the blood and thinking about Madame Shospa’s fingers and Thelma’s swan. I try to fix my makeup, wipe the tears, but my eyes in the mirror can't look back, flat like a photograph. Black-and-white.
Yesterday we did two shows but I forgot to eat and I fainted. And this morning there was blood on the sheets where it hadn’t been for months, and an ache deep-down inside me that hurt just like when Bobby left, only worse. And I knew.
I miss you, little bird, even though I never knew you, and I never told anybody about you; not even Bobby. Nobody but me ever knew you existed: we were each other’s secret, and now you’ll be secret forever because I don’t think I could tell it so anyone could understand, not really. And when the girls ask why I’m crying I’ll have to make something up, some boyfriend trouble, some landlord trouble, some time-of-the-month nonsense, and they’ll nod and be sympathetic because they'll think they get it, and they’ve been there, and life’s tough; but they’ll never, ever know.
I miss what you could have been, little bird. I had so many plans for you: what you’d wear and where I’d take you. The colour of your room. The toys I was gonna get on discount from Thelma's brother who works at Macy’s. You'd have had my blonde hair and Bobby’s blue eyes. I'd've taken you to the park every Sunday, your hand in my hand, so amazingly small and warm. We were going to have picnics.
I took too much for granted, like with Bobby, I suppose. I never really understood. I thought he’d always love me, and even when I knew that wasn’t true it was all right, it was really fine, because I had you and we’d love each other instead. I thought you’d always be there, you see, but I looked away for a minute and you were gone.
Maybe you didn’t want all this. Maybe it scared you off, this nickel-and-dime life, coffee and neon and walk-up apartments and cocktails, busboys and hoofers and the non-stop, neverending rush, rush, rush. Hustling just to stay alive. Who asked to be born into that? Not me. Not you. I don’t blame you for getting stage-fright, butterfly. I don’t blame you at all.
Caroline’s cane bangs the stage. She’s getting impatient and if I’m not onstage for the opening tableau in thirty seconds she’ll have my tits for earmuffs. I wipe away my streaked mascara: good as new. Nobody’d know. My cheeks are flushed but that’s normal. And my eyes are red, but she never looks in our eyes.
Onstage I assume my pose, wings raised, throat arched. I'm calm but I’m trembling. I’m thinking three more hours and I’m gone. I’m going to get stinking drunk all on my own, because I want to and I can. And tomorrow I’ll hand in my notice and get another job, anything, maybe secretary to a nice middle-aged businessman downtown somewhere, because Caroline’s never going to make me the hot-spot girl and anyway it doesn’t matter any more.
The Paradise pose is hard to maintain. My arms ache and my head hurts. I thought I was solid but I must have wilted because Caroline leans in to adjust my position in her hands-on, no-nonsense way. Her hard palm is flat against the empty place where you were, little bird, and the pain makes me nearly faint as she straightens my back and tilts my hips, but I don’t. I stay smiling.
She stands up. She doesn’t take her hands away. We stand face-to-face like we're about to dance, and Caroline looks me in the eyes. It’s like staring at a photograph. I think about the snapshot of Bobby that’s pinned above my bed but I still don’t cry. She purses her lips.
“You feeling better, Elsie?”
I nod slightly, warily. Is she going to fire me before I quit? I think about being broke. Being broken. I think about freedom.
“Good,” she says. “Gilda’s sick. Wanna take the hot-spot tonight?”
I want to laugh even more than I wanted to cry, but instead I smile like a mirror smiles back at you. Nothing matters and so I'm calm; clean and empty, under control. The other girls murmur in surprise and resentment as I hurry offstage to change into Gilda’s Peacock costume, but I’m not thinking about them.
I’m thinking about dancing, about wings. About the vacant place where Caroline touched me, hollow and light now as sparrow’s bones. How butterflies float and swallows fly, how nothing must weigh them down. I’m as insubstantial as a feather. I am a bird.
Birds and Butterflies by C. T. Kingston was read by Judith Quin at the Liars' League Flesh & Fowl event at The Phoenix, Cavendish Sq., London on Tuesday 8 June 2010
C. T. Kingston is an actress who loves to write. Her work has appeared on various flash fiction websites, and she has nearly finished writing her first play. Her stories Something Exotic and The Icicle have previously been read at Liars' League. Comments and job offers to catkingston@googlemail.com.
Judith Quin trained at The Academy Drama School. She most recently appeared as “an archly villainous Mrs Cheveley” (The Stage) in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband at the Greenwich Playhouse, and a work-shopped new musical directed by Natascha Metherell at The New Wimbledon Studio. This is her first appearance at Liars’ League and she thanks the author for a beautiful story.
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