are the headliners. Lock up your daughters! But don’t worry about them, good fun, but they’re all nancy-boys.’
And what would that mean? Aurora caught Clover’s eye, simpered. Oh!
‘Then there’s the pictures, of course, and In An Artist’s Studio for the play. When it comes to little dogs, I miss the Lone Hand Four Aces,’ Sybil said with some nostalgia. ‘Not to mention Mr. Ace!’
‘Girls, if we’ll be next you’d better put your faces on.’ Mama opened her valise and held out the pouch containing their greasepaint sticks and brushes. ‘Still doing comic songs, Syb? Or is it a double act with Julius Foster?’
‘Foster Konigsburg now, he’s gone up in the world! A German routine. Things have been pretty dull in our line right now, most of the theatres closed up for the summer. Julius did not work last week, and does not work this week unless he can put it over Mr. Cleveland, but next week we’ll work again and I think I can work the biggest part of the summer.’
Mama, giving a gurgling girly laugh: ‘I remember you so well, doing He’s a Cousin of Mine—that was the funniest thing, how many was it that one night, every available man in the company—’
‘Fourteen kisses! The head carpenter, he was a lovely fellow, mmm … Don’t listen, Jay! They didn’t shut us down, but they’re a bit more relaxed in Chicago. Then I did a follow-up, after you left us, He’s My Cousin (If She’s Your Niece)—did you ever see the sheets for that? It did quite well. I’ve got a mechanical-doll number now. Julius pulls my strings, it’s a take on ventriloquy … with plenty of Clown White on my face I don’t look an inch over fifty!’
‘You are too modest, dear Sybil—you look wonderful, and that’s the loveliest dress.’
‘Only thing is, dear, I shouldn’t say, but he’s got me doing a doll, and he’s got one baby-girl act already—the Simple Soubrettes. They do Polly Lollipop and what’s that cheeky one, Let Me Ride Your Pony, Daddy?’
Mama blanched. She put her little hands to her cheeks. ‘Oh God! This is the end!’
But Aurora laughed. ‘It’s all right, Mama, we’ll just have to be better than them! Or do the sappy stuff instead—a bit of tone and a sentimental ending.’
Clover put pink cheeks on, number 5 greasepaint smeared into the palm of her hand, mixed with a tiny dollop of cold cream to enliven her usual all-over pale fawn. ‘He does it in one’—that meant Julius Konigsburg didn’t need the whole stage for his act, so the next turn could be set up behind the curtain while he played down in front by the footlights. They could do it in one too, if they did the sweet songs. For snappy numbers the dancing took more room, but in the hands-clasped soulful airs Mama had grouped them together. A little lip-bow with the brush and the skinny crimson-lake stick, and Clover handed the mascara pad to Aurora, who spat into the small dish and mixed the block into a paste, and damped the brush with it.
‘Stand still!’ she said.
‘I was,’ Clover said patiently. Aurora was always as nervous as a cat before an audition.
This was their ninth audition. Nine was lucky, wasn’t it? It had to go well. The hotel in Prince Albert, three theatres in Regina, four in Calgary, now down into the sticks to the Empress—and there was no more money to go farther afield.
Clover stared into Aurora’s face, trying not to let her eyelids tremble. The brush dabbed, dabbed; her lashes felt cold and heavy.
‘You look lovely with your makeup on. Look how pretty,’ Aurora said. Their two faces glowed in the golden mirror, pretty as paint, as pictures, as porcelain dolls. ‘Where’s Bella?’
Like a White Bird
In the darkness Bella had passed not ten but twenty of those supports. The hall could not be so long—or had she missed the count? Bella’s teeth were chattering, she could not stop them. She laughed. It was truly like being blind. Perhaps her hearing would improve.
Swish, swish. Not, this time, the Music of the Spheres, but a scrub brush, overhead. The old woman cleaning in the lobby. Bella put her hand out and felt for the wall, but there was nothing—oh! it was a stair she’d hit. She crept up until there was a wooden door in front of her, a little light bleeding through the slats.
She had almost thought she would have to scream, which would make a commotion and