The Warehouse at West India Docks

I made sure I was good and early for work on Wednesday evening. Ellen was surprised to see me seated at the dressing table when she walked in with Bouncer at her heels and burst out laughing.

‘I see someone doesn’t want another bollocking from Barky today.’

She was right. He’d not been pleased when I’d turned up so late for rehearsals the day before. Unable to tell him the true reason why, the excuse I’d given had been feeble and I could see he was hurt by the lie as well as angry.

‘It was just one of those things,’ I said.

‘Feels to me like it’s getting to be quite a habit,’ Ellen replied. She hummed to herself as she began to get ready.

‘You know I’m going to perform an aria tonight?’

She stood up and executed a near-perfect pirouette in her excitement and I listened as she described in detail her entrance. How she would wave to the left, give a knowing glance to the right, a cheeky wink in the direction of the boxes. I put her dig about my timekeeping to one side and let myself get caught up in her enthusiasm, pleased that she was finally getting her chance. After all the work she’d put in, no one could say she didn’t deserve it, but it got me thinking. Was there ever a time when I’d felt like that about being Amazonia? When Crillick had first hired me, I’d felt relief more than anything else. Out of work for weeks, I’d been less occupied with the role and more with which of my debts I’d be able to pay off.

Making headliner had been different. There was no getting away from the excitement of everything that went with that: the appearance of my poster in the foyer and the handbills that Crillick had made up. He’d paid a group of urchins a farthing each to give them out to people walking down the Strand. On my first night as top billing I had felt triumphant and the whole of the next week too. How different things felt now; but it wasn’t the theatre game that had changed. It was me. For far too long I’d been kidding myself. At last, it was time to face up to it.