The Girl from the Savoy by Hazel Gaynor Page B

pretty looping script. I’d like to take a closer look but I’m already late, so I hurry on. Clover gets cross with me when I’m late, and she’s already cross with me for leaving my position in Grosvenor Square.
    S he hadn’t taken well to the news of my position at The Savoy. Her reaction was twenty-two minutes of snotty weeping. I’d watched the clock over her shoulder as I consoled her in the A.B.C. teashop.
    â€œThings won’t be the same, Doll. They’ll lock you up in that fancy hotel and you’ll get all sorts of notions in that pretty head of yours and I’ll never see you again. I know it.”
    â€œI’m only going to The Savoy, not the moon!”
    â€œMight as well be going to the moon. You’ll make new friends and forget all about me. I can feel it in my waters.”
    Clover feels everything in her waters. “Don’t be daft. How could I forget you ?”
    â€œThen promise we’ll still go dancing on our afternoons off.”
    â€œOf course we will.”
    â€œPromise.”
    â€œI promise . I’ll meet you at the Palais every Wednesday. Same as usual. Cross my heart.”
    I didn’t say “and hope to die.” Nobody says that anymore. And I have every intention of keeping my promise. Clover Parker gave me friendship, a shoulder to cry on, and a Max Factor mascara when I had absolutely nothing. I’ve grown to love her like a sister and can’t imagine sharing my makeup, my ciggies, or my worries with anyone else. But things had to change because I’d made another promise. A promise that I would make something of my life. I had to. Otherwise, how could I ever make peace with what I had done?
    â€œWhy does everything always have to change, Dolly? Why can’t things stay as they are?”
    â€œI want more, Clover. Look at me. I’m as dull as a muddy puddle. When I watch those girls on the stage, I want to be there with them. I want silk stockings on my legs and silver Rayne’s dance shoes on my feet. I want Chanel dresses against my skin. I want to cut my hair and rouge my cheeks, not flinch every time I hear footsteps following me down the back stairs. I want to be appreciated, not discarded like a filthy rag. I feel like a stuck gramophone record, going round and round, playing the same notes of the same song over and over. I want to dance to a different tune. Don’t you want that too?”
    She doesn’t. Clover is happy with her lot. A reliable job as a kitchen maid and a quick fumble with Tommy Mullins at the back of the dance hall is enough for her.
    â€œI don’t think about it, Dolly. I just am what I am. All I know for certain is that Archie Rawlins ain’t coming home and he was the only bugger ever likely to marry me. I’ll more than likely end up an old spinster with ten cats to keep me company. But there’s no use complaining. Sometimes life gives you cotton stockings. Sometimes it gives you a Chanel gown. That’s the way of it. You just have to make the most of whatever you’re given.”
    Part of me wishes I could be more like Clover, settle for a life as a housemaid, marry a decent enough man, make do. But I have restless feet and an impatient heart and a dream of a better life that I can’t wake up from.
    I’d been told that The Savoy prefers personal recommendations of employees from its current staff, and a discreet word by a friend of Clover’s cousin led to my engagement. Clover’s opinion is that a maid is still a maid, however fancily you package it up, but I disagree. The Savoy attracts movie stars and musicians, poets and politicians, dancers and writers; the Bright Young People who fill London’s newspaper columns and society pages with their extravagant lifestyles. The people who excite me. The people who fill my scrapbooks and my dreams.
    A t Trafalgar Square, I jump onto the back of the omnibus and take a seat downstairs,