Jasmine Nights by Julia Gregson Page A

highlighter under the eyebrows and on top of the cheekbones. Loose powder from a pink swansdown puff, and then ‘Phzz’ as she spat into caked mascara and widened her eyes against the mirror, stroking the blackness on to each lash. She parted her lips into a mirthless smile and drew around them in pencil, and then a smear of lipstick, Max Factor’s Tru Colour. ‘Expensive,’ she told Saba in the same faraway voice, ‘but worth it.’ The generous hoop of red she left on a tissue looked like blood.
    She pulled off her headband with a dramatic flourish, her hair falling in a mass of golden waves around her face. She began to hum as her fingers gently probed for tangles; a final haughty glance at herself in the mirror, and she caught the right side of her hair in her hands and fastened it with a gold barrette.
    ‘Your hair is lovely.’ Saba was finding it hard not to stare. Arleta was easily the most glamorous women she’d ever met, and there was nothing furtive about this performance.
    ‘Oh you wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me last year!’ Arleta bared her teeth to check for lipstick on them. ‘I was in a hairdressing salon in Valetta – that’s in Malta – and this woman gave me a perm, and when I woke the next morning, half my hair’s on the pillow beside me having a lovely little sleep. I nearly had a fit.’
    They were laughing when the door burst open. A fat old man in dinner suit, white gloves and large patent pumps jumped into the room.
    ‘Do I recognise that bell-like sound?’ He raised his painted eyebrows.
    ‘Oh my Lord!’ Arleta stood up and gave the old man a huge hug. ‘Little thing! No one told me you’d be here.
    ‘Now this,’ she told Saba, ‘is the famous Willie Wise. He was one of the Ugly Sisters in Brighton, and we’ve also been on the road together in Malta and North Africa, haven’t we, my darling?
    ‘And this gorgeous creature,’ Arleta added, ‘is Saba Tarcan. What are you, love? A soubrette?’
    When Saba said she might be replacing a singer called Elsa Valentine, they both stared at her.
    ‘Whoooooh!’ said Arleta. ‘Well, you must be good. Did I hear a rumour that she had a breakdown in Tunis?’
    Saba felt a wiggle of fear in her stomach. ‘Why?’
    ‘Oh, I can’t actually remember,’ said Arleta. ‘A lot do fall by the wayside. It’s—’
    ‘Now.’ Willie put his hand up to stop the flow. ‘Don’t you dare put her off. I’ve been sent down here to tell you two to get your skates on and get down to the auditorium. You’re on next.’
    As they walked down a dark corridor that tilted towards the stage, a beautifully dressed blond man with a significant walk pushed in front of them.
    ‘Yes, sweetie-puss, I’m back,’ he said to the uniformed figure beside him. ‘I honestly feel like a mole here after all that light, but needs must.’ When his friend mumbled something sympathetic, the blond man pushed back his hair with a languid gesture. ‘Oh she was an absolute horror,’ he said. ‘Complained about everything. Nothing like as talented as she thought she was.’
    Arleta dug Saba in the ribs and mimicked the man’s swishy walk for a few strides. When he opened the door into the auditorium, her heart started thumping. Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this was it! The famous Theatre Royal stage; in a matter of minutes, triumph or humiliation to be decided. When her eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, she saw that the stage, crudely boarded off for auditions, looked disappointingly small, far smaller than she’d imagined, and in a ghostly gloom without the front lights switched on. But never mind, she was here! Whatever comes, she told herself, I will remember this for the rest of my life. I’ll have danced and sung on this stage, and that will mean something.
    Her heart was thumping uncomfortably as she watched the blond man fold his coat fastidiously and put it on the seat behind him. He lit a cigarette and talked intensely to three uniformed men