Sissy props herself up on her elbows and flicks through a well-thumbed copy of a Woman’s Weekly magazine. ‘So, where’d you come from, then?’ she asks, turning down the corner of a page with an advert for a new Max Factor mascara.
‘Grosvenor Square.’ My words are muffled as I pull the black dress over my head.
‘No, you great goose. I mean, where are you from? Not where did you get the omnibus from this morning, ’cause that’s not a London accent, or I’m the Queen of Sheba.’
I shimmy the dress down over my stomach and hips. It fits perfectly. The moiré silk fabric feels so much nicer against my skin than the starchy cotton dresses I’m used to. ‘Oh. I see. I’m from Lancashire. A small village called Mawdesley, near Ormskirk. You wouldn’t know it.’
‘So what brought you to London, then? Or should I say, who? Bet it was a soldier you met in the war. Told you he loved you and you followed him here only to find out he was already married with five children?’ She laughs at her joke. Gladys tells her to stop being a nosy cow and to mind her own. Mildred sits like a stone statue on the edge of her bed.
‘It wasn’t a soldier,’ I say, tying my apron in a neat bow at my back. ‘It was work. That’s all.’
Sissy puts down her magazine. ‘None left in Lancashire?’
‘Only the usual. Domestic service. Tea shops. Textile factories. London offered … more.’ My explanation is as limp as my damp clothes hanging beside the fire. How can I explain what really brought me here? ‘I had an aunt who worked in a private home in Grosvenor Square. I started as a maid-of-all-work and worked my way up. Gave my notice a month ago.’
‘Let me guess. It was stuffy and boring and Madam was a miserable old cow?’
I smile. ‘How did you guess?’
‘Always the same. Anyone who ends up here wants more than picture rails to dust and fires to lay and chamber pots to empty. We all fancy ourselves a cut above the ordinary housemaid. And then of course there’s some like our Gladys here who spends far too much time at the picture palaces and doesn’t think being a maid at The Savoy is good enough.’ Sissy winks at me. ‘Has her eye on Hollywood, this one does. Fancies herself as the new Lillian Gish. I keep telling her it’ll never happen. Silly dreams. That’s all.’
Gladys is plucking her eyebrows. ‘It’s not silly dreams, Sissy Roberts. It’s called ambition.’
Sissy chuckles to herself from behind her magazine, but I’m interested.
‘Did you ever audition, Gladys?’ I ask.
‘Dozens of times. Most of them turned out to be with seedy old men full of empty promises, but some Hollywood bigwig arrived last week. We think he’ll be staying for the season, and I’m going to make myself known to him. You see if I don’t.’
I’d love to talk more to Gladys but Sissy’s disregard for her ‘silly dreams’ makes me reluctant to share my own, so I say nothing and sit down on the edge of my bed, pulling a stocking over my toes before working it carefully up my leg. I don’t notice Mildred walking over to the fireplace.
‘What are these?’ she asks.
I look up. She has my photograph in her hands, and one of the pages of music. In my hurry to dress I’d forgotten all about them. I jump up from the bed and rush over to her.
‘Nothing. Just some papers that got damp on my way here.’ I snatch the page from her, gather up the rest from the hearth, and push them under my pillow.
‘That’s piano music,’ Mildred remarks. ‘Do you play?’
‘No. I’m just minding them for someone.’
She seems more interested in the photograph anyway. ‘And who’s this?’
My heart leaps. For a moment, I am back with him. I see his face, my hands trembling as I open up the lens on the little VPK camera. ‘It’s my brother,’ I say, grasping for an explanation and holding out my hand to take the photograph from her.
She looks at the image a moment longer and hands it to me. I place the photograph under my pillow along with the pages of music and sit protectively beside them as I pull on the other stocking. Mildred walks back to her bed. She glances at me over her book, her silent interest in me unsettling.
‘What’s the house list?’ I ask, desperate to change the subject. ‘O’Hara mentioned it.’
‘Ah, the famous house list.’ Sissy rolls onto her back, sticking her legs straight up in the air like fire irons. She doesn’t seem to care that her dress falls around her hips and shows her knickers. ‘That’s the most important thing. It’s the list of guests. We’re given a copy each day and expected to remember who’s staying in which apartment and suite. We need to know the names of their valets and lady’s maids, their secretaries – even their silly little dogs.’
This is bad news. I’m awful at remembering names. ‘Doesn’t it get confusing?’
‘You get used to it. The regulars always ask for the same rooms. Some of the apartments have the same residents for months at a time.’ She stands up and walks over to the window. The rain is still coming down in torrents. ‘The Mauretania docks in Southampton tonight, so we’re expecting a load of Americans to arrive on the boat train tomorrow. We’ll be rushed off our feet.’ She turns around and leans her back against the window, amused by the look of panic on my face. ‘Don’t worry. The Savoy is a tightly run ship. It’s like clockwork, all the parts clicking and whirring together to move us all around to the right place each day. I don’t think about it anymore. I just go from here to there, and there to here. I grab a cuppa and a bite to eat when I can, and fall into bed at night exhausted. Don’t even have the energy to take off my undies sometimes. But it’s all worth it when you see Fred and Adele Astaire dancing on the rooftop.’
‘Did you see them?’ I ask. ‘Really?’ I have a picture of them both in my scrapbook. I would give anything to dance as wonderfully.
‘Yes! Really! I was polishing windows one minute and the next, there they were, dancing a quickstep and a photographer taking pictures of them. You never know what’ll happen at The Savoy. Better get used to it.’
This is what I had imagined when I thought about working here: stars dancing on rooftops, Hollywood bigwigs. This is the magic I heard in the words ‘The Savoy’.
‘So, what are the Americans really like?’ I ask as I pull on my frill cap. ‘Are they as glamorous as everyone says?’
‘Dresses and shoes to make your head spin. More importantly, they tip well. You’ll do fine as long as there’s Americans upstairs. Save those half crowns and you’ll soon have enough for a pound note. Before Christmas, you’ll have a fiver in your purse.’ She nods towards Gladys. ‘Or a fancy powder compact, if that’s your thing.’
I gaze at the compact on the bed beside Gladys. ‘Oh, it is my thing.’
‘Selfridges,’ Gladys brags. ‘Had my eye on it for months. Isn’t it the bee’s knees?’
‘Think you’re the bee’s knees,’ Mildred mutters.
I’d almost forgotten she was in the room. Gladys and Sissy roll their eyes at me.
I stand up and slip my feet into the shoes that have been provided for me, black as night but at least they have a strap and button. I spin around to face my roommates.
‘Well. Will I do?’
Gladys smiles. Mildred’s left eye twitches. Sissy nods. ‘Yes, Dorothy,’ she says, mimicking O’Hara’s Irish accent perfectly. ‘You’ll do very nicely. We’ll make a Savoy maid of you yet.’
I wish I knew her well enough to throw my arms around her. I wish I could kiss her dumpling cheeks and thank her for the vote of confidence. Instead, I tug