Connie Willis - All Clear

Whistles, applause.

“I repeat, if the Luftwaffe attacks tonight, and only if the Luftwaffe attacks tonight—”

Cheers, applause, and a long, low “woo-oo-ooh” from the second row, rising to the up-and-down wail of the alert as several others and finally the entire audience joined in.

Mr. Tabbitt cupped his hand to his ear. “Hark, is that an air-raid alert I hear?” he said, and Polly walked out (cheers, whistles, hoots), turned to face the curtain, and bent over.

He was so pleased he decided to make the bit a regular feature of the show, and by the end of the week Polly was doing it up to six times a show and getting bouquets and boxes of candy addressed to “My Favorite Siren.”

Don’t notice me, Polly thought in despair, and asked Mr. Tabbitt to let Hattie do it instead, but he refused. “You’re bringing them in in droves,” he said.

I am so sorry, she thought, looking out at the soldiers’ eager faces. But at least here she wasn’t endangering Alf and Binnie or the girls at Townsend Brothers or Sir Godfrey and the troupe.

Godfrey and the troupe.

The next night at intermission, the stage manager, Mutchins, stuck his head into the dressing room.

“You were told to knock!” Cora said, outraged, and Hattie clutched a towel to her front.

He knocked on the open door. “Visitor to see you, Adelaide,” he said. “Gentleman.”

“What happened to no men allowed backstage?” Cora demanded.

Mutchins shrugged. “Talk to Tabbitt. He said to come ask was you decent and if you was, to send him up,” he said, addressing Polly. “Are you?”

“Yes.” She abandoned her effort to fasten the stiff strap on her gilt shoe and pulled on a wrapper. “Who is it?”

“Never saw him before. Some old gent.” He turned to the other girls. “Tabbitt said to tell the lot of you to clear out—”

“Clear out?” Cora said. “Well, I like that! And where are we supposed to go?”

“He didn’t say. Just that you was to leave and give Adelaide here some privacy.”

Oh, God, Polly thought. Something’s happened, and Mr. Dunworthy’s here to tell me—

But it was Sir Godfrey. “Ah, Viola,” he said, coming into the dressing room. “ ‘Thus she sleeping here is found, on the dank and dirty ground.’ ”

You weren’t supposed to find me, she thought frightenedly.

“Sir Godfrey, what are you doing here?” she said, and from down the corridor heard excited whispers:

“Sir Godfrey Kingsman?”

“Yes!”

“Not the Sir Godfrey! The actor?”

And the last thing she needed was for the cast to gather around him and insist he stay and see the show. She led him quickly into the dressing room, shut the door, and set a chair against it.

“Let me take your hat and coat,” she said, hanging them on the screen. “Sit down. What are you doing here?”

“I came to find you,” he said, “a task that has proved somewhat daunting. Your previous employers at Townsend Brothers were under the impression you’d left London, and no one in the troupe has had any news of you for weeks. And to make it yet more difficult, you are performing under a stage name which is, alas, not Viola nor Lady Mary. Luckily, your photograph is displayed outside.”

I knew I should have made Mr. Tabbitt take my picture with my bloomers showing instead of my face.

“Miss Laburnum said she’d heard you had become an ARP warden,” Sir Godfrey was saying, “so I went to any number of ARP posts and St. John’s units and incidents—”

Incidents?

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” Polly said, looking at him in dismay. Even her disappearing had put him in danger.

“But I had need of you, and it was a chance to play the Great Detective again—a role I had not acted in years. My search led me to the Works Board and a Mrs.

Sentry, who, alas, had been killed by an oil bomb the week before I arrived, and your file there did not indicate the theater to which you were assigned. But as I said, I was able to track you here through your photograph and to confirm that it was you during the performance last night. An impressive theatrical endeavor.”

“I know it’s not Shakespeare.”

“But it’s not Barrie either, which is a point in its favor, and some parts were very amusing. I quite liked your air-raid alerts, and apparently I was not alone. I’d hoped to catch you afterward at the stage door, but there was such a throng I realized I could not possibly compete, and decided to wait and take a more direct approach.”

He smiled at her, and she realized how much she’d missed him, how much she’d longed to tell him about ENSA and the shows.

But she couldn’t. She shouldn’t even be sitting here chatting with him. “Did you have a reason for coming, Sir Godfrey?” she asked briskly. “I’m afraid I haven’t much time, I need to change—”

“Of course. I shall come directly to the point. I am here to ask your assistance with a theatrical endeavor Mrs. Wyvern and I are currently putting together.”

“Mrs. Wyvern?”

“Yes. You may remember her determination to rebuild St. George’s and to aid the children of the East End who’ve lost their parents in the Blitz, or as she refers to them, ‘our poor, sad, helpless war orphans.’ To that end, she has determined on a benefit to aid both her ends. A theatrical production—”

“Oh, dear,” Polly said. “Not Peter Pan, I hope?”

“Worse. A pantomime.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “But aren’t pantomimes usually acted at Christmastime?”

“They are—a point I made several times in attempting to dissuade her, but Mrs. Wyvern is an extremely formidable woman. An amalgam of Lady Macbeth and—”

“Julius Caesar?”

“A German panzer,” he said grimly. “She is impossible to stand against. It’s a pity she’s not in command of the Army. We’d have defeated Hitler already. In any case, I find myself forced to play the Bad Fairy in Sleeping Beauty. Which is why I’ve come. I wish to enlist you in our enterprise. The others of our little band have already agreed to participate. The rector and Mrs. Brightford are to be Sleeping Beauty’s parents, Miss Laburnum the Good Fairy, and Nelson the Good Fairy’s dog. I want you for the lead.”

“Sleeping Beauty?”

“Great God, no! All she does is lie there for three acts, waiting to be rescued. A bolster could play the role. Or a film actress. Mrs. Wyvern is attempting to recruit one as we speak.”

“A bolster?”

He smiled. “No. A film actress. Madeleine Carroll, perhaps, or Vivien Leigh. I want you to be the principal boy.”

“Principal boy?”

He nodded. “Sleeping Beauty’s prince. The male lead in pantomime is always played by a girl, and the prince is quite the best role in the play—except for mine, which is rife with Teutonic shouting and violet smoke. You will get to wave a sword about and wear a plumed hat and substantially more clothes than you do as Air-which is rife with Teutonic shouting and violet smoke. You will get to wave a sword about and wear a plumed hat and substantially more clothes than you do as Air-Raid Adelaide. Come, say you’ll do it.”

“But surely there are lots of other people you could get, like Lila—”

“She’s joined the WAAF.”

“Oh. Well, Mrs. Brightford, then. Or Vivien Leigh. I’m certain she’d rather play the prince than a bolster.”

“I do not want Vivien Leigh. My heart is set on you. You’re the only thing that can make dealing with Mrs. Wyvern for the next month at all bearable. And you were born to play the part. Viola, dressed as a boy. What could be more perfect?”

Nothing, Polly thought. Being with Sir Godfrey again and acting with the troupe would be heaven. But it was too dangerous. Even having him here …