After the Pantomime

By Susannah Donim

A spare time hobby slowly turns into a lifetime choice for Nick.

Chapter 3 – A Pantomime Dame

Nick is recruited for a very different kind of female role.

Back at the MyOwnCouture.com office on the Monday after my triumph as Daisy, we were ready to repeat the end-to-end test. All the required data was already in place in Vicky’s account, so we started from the point where we had left off the previous Thursday. This time when I clicked the animation icon, a model with Vicky’s face and figure strutted haughtily down the catwalk in the dress she had chosen. It was a beautiful powder blue with a floral pattern in a darker blue, bright red and white.

Animated Vicky moved like a fashion model – certainly not in a way that I had ever seen the real Vicky walk, though perhaps as she would have liked to. Her face was completely static, with a fixed and slightly spooky rictus on it.

“There is an extension to the software that would enable us to animate the face,” Vicky explained, “but we haven’t installed it yet. We wanted to make sure everything else was working first.”

“Fair enough,” said Mo, “but I think you’ll need to do that before we launch. She doesn’t look natural at all.”

“She looks scary,” added Mike. Vicky giggled.

“All right, all right,” said Ruth, impatiently. “Let’s move on. We need to know if the system will program the machines correctly. Click ‘OK’, Nick.”

I complied and a message came up saying, ‘Sending design to Manufacturing’.

“OK,” yelled Eddy excitedly, “down to the workshop, everyone!”

We all trooped out of the office and into the converted cowshed opposite. One of the machines was humming away.

“It can’t select the right cloth and load it yet,” Eddy explained. “We have to do that by hand.”

He stepped up to a monitor and keyboard. I peered over his shoulder. A message on the screen said, ‘Please load fabric 5-B. Please load dyes 17, 19 and 24’.

“We can only work with a small range of fabrics and colours at the moment,” Ruth explained. “5-B is the powder blue cotton Vicky selected. The dyes are for her floral pattern.”

Eddy and Mike loaded a bolt of 5-B in the machine’s rollers. Eddy went back to the monitor and clicked ‘OK’. The machine leapt into life. Soon it had cut the correct length of material into a shape that looked like it might make a dress when folded and sewn. It seemed a little wide to me, but then I remembered that Vicky had selected a ‘wrap dress’ design. Eventually the machine stopped. Air hissed out of somewhere like a self-satisfied sigh. Mike gathered up the left over scraps of material and dropped them in the recycling bin.

“It’s waiting for me to authorise spraying Vicky’s pattern on it,” Eddy explained. “I thought we should program a ‘wait step’ in here to check the alignment.”

“Good thing too,” said Ruth. “It’s a couple of degrees out, I’d say.”

There was a pause while she and Eddy argued. Mike went off to get some measuring instruments.

“Also, I think the material’s torn around the hem,” said Ruth.

“You’re right,” Eddy sighed. “That probably means the cutting blades need sharpening, or maybe the cloth wasn’t held with enough tension. Maybe both,” he admitted. “But these are just ‘tuning’ problems. I think we’ve proved that the basic process is operational.”

Mike was bending over the platen with a very large protractor.

“Three degrees out,” he confirmed. Eddy slowly turned a wheel under the table. “Little more… little more… that’s it,” Mike said.

“OK, now let’s do the pattern,” Eddy said, donning goggles and what looked like a surgical mask. “Stand back, everyone. We don’t have enough protective gear to go round.”

We all moved back hurriedly. He stepped up to the monitor and clicked the ‘OK’ icon again. A set of print heads descended from above and began spraying. Soon an intricate three-colour floral pattern began to appear on the material. When it finished and the machine had come to rest with another smug sigh, Eddy removed his goggles and mask.

“We might as well go and get a coffee now,” he said. “We need to leave it to dry for at least half an hour.”

“I thought it took several hours for dyes to dry?” said Vicky.

“That’s true if you’re dyeing the cloth all the way through,” said Ruth, “but we’re only spraying a design on using quick-drying paint. We need to do that to achieve the turnround times we’re aiming for. It just means that we have to warn customers that any dress with a pattern will be dry clean only.”

Mo made a note. It would be his job to add that message at the appropriate place.

“But it’s true that we will have to add an extra day to the manufacturing time if a customer requests any non-standard colour for the dress itself,” Ruth continued, “and we’ll have to charge extra to cover the staff costs. We’ll have to dye the cloth and wait overnight for it to dry.”

We trooped back up to the office. The others sat down to discuss the details of the test so far. As I had nothing to offer to that discussion, I volunteered to make the coffee.

When I returned with the tray and six coffees, Ruth said, “Thanks, Nick. Maybe we won’t need to recruit a secretary after all.”

Everyone else laughed. I didn’t think it was that funny. Ruth was smiling, seemingly friendly but with an air of challenge, as if to say ‘You may be the money man, but don’t doubt that I’m in charge’. Perhaps she was trying to compensate for showing me her vulnerability the previous Wednesday.

Smarting slightly, I decided not to join them back in the cowshed after the coffee break.

I went off to visit another of my ventures, the guys working on a hand-held device for detecting and monitoring blood glucose. This was intended as a non-invasive test to enable people with diabetes to check their glucose levels more easily. Reportedly some diabetics weren’t testing themselves regularly because they found the old finger stick testing painful.

It had long been thought that acetone is noticeably elevated in hyperglycaemia, and that there would be a direct correlation between low blood glucose and high levels of acetone in the breath. Recent research seemed to confirm this. Acetone is one of the ketones, and high levels can cause your breath to smell like nail polish, which of course contains acetone. When ketones rise to unsafe levels, you’re at risk of a dangerous condition called diabetic ketoacidosis, which could lead to complications including seizures, loss of consciousness, and even death.

I spent an inspiring afternoon with Gerry and Steve, two very bright young people whose work could rock the world. They reckoned they were close to a workable device. Their concerns were with the consistency of the correlation. In other words, how many patients with hyperglycaemia would the acetone breath test miss, and how many patients who didn’t have the condition would get a false positive reading? The only way to resolve this was by clinical trials. So we discussed approaching a leading hospital. If the trials were successful it would almost certainly lead to big injections of investment from more orthodox sources.

* * *

It was nearly seven o’clock when I got back to the Manor. Ruth was still in the office. I thought about just going straight home, but I was aware I had left in a bit of a huff and I was afraid I might have over-reacted. After all I had volunteered to make the coffee while the others were working. So I decided to go in and have it out with her while there was no one else about. When I reached the MyOwnCouture.com floor, her door was open.

“Oh, hello,” she said when she saw me in the doorway. “Where did you get to?”

“I had to go to a meeting with another venture,” I said. “How did the rest of the test go?”

“Quite well,” she said. “The stitching basically worked. Something like a dress came out at the end, but there were more alignment problems. Eddy and Mike think they know what they have to do to fix it though.”

She didn’t seem to have anything more to say. Apparently she hadn’t been fazed by my absence during the afternoon, and it clearly hadn’t occurred to her that I might have taken offence at her little secretary joke. I was just chewing over what to say next when I noticed something different about her. She had taken her hair out of the familiar schoolmarm bun. It now cascaded down to her shoulders. A couple of hair grips were keeping it out of her face.

“Look, Ruth, just so you know, I probably won’t be able to spend so much time here in future,” I continued. “My other commitments are building up.”

She looked startled and a little worried. She took off her glasses. Had she changed her make-up too? It looked a little bolder, more dramatic. Perhaps she was going out this evening? If so, who with? Eddy?

“Oh but…” she began. “I thought you wanted to be part of our team? I mean, we’ve come to rely on you… to look after our finances… and so on.”

“I've only been here, rather than at any of my other projects, because I live right next door. None of the others need accommodation, which is why you have exclusive use of the barn and cowshed, and I can drop in easily. But you don’t really need me, do you? And anyway there’s always been a bit of a conflict of interest, hasn’t there? After all, I’m one of your creditors.” Her face fell. “And you’ll just have to hire a proper secretary, won’t you? Someone who knows her way around a spreadsheet.” I paused. “And can make coffee.”

“Is that what this is about?” she said. “It was just a joke, for heaven’s sake!”

“But it’s symptomatic of your attitude, isn’t it? You boss everyone else around, so why not me too? I’m your partner – I mean, business partner, of course. I’m certainly not your minion!”

“Well, isn’t that just typical of your lot? You old money people have to be in charge of everything, don’t you? You can’t stand anyone else running the show, least of all a northern girl who went to a state school!”

I frowned. That was well out of order! I knew she had a chip on her shoulder from her background, and from how she had been treated by the conventional funding agencies, but it was obviously much worse than I’d thought. I seemed to have inadvertently kicked a hornets’ nest. The stress of building her new business must be getting on top of her. It couldn’t just be because I wasn’t going to be around as much.

“Ruth, I…”

I wanted to say something soothing to calm her down. I thought back to our heart to heart the previous week. How did I become the only person she could confide in? I considered inviting her to dinner again, but that didn’t seem like such a great idea.

Wait a moment – how did this suddenly come to be about her? She’d offended me, not the other way around! But her eyes were red and shiny. She was close to tears. I was the last person she needed at the moment.

“I’d better get out of your way, I think,” I sighed. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

I started down the stairs. I thought I heard soft sniffling from behind me, but at that moment a loud buzzing made me jump. At first I didn’t recognise the sound, but it was the doorbell downstairs. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard it before. Everyone who worked in the converted barn’s offices had their own key card.

“I’ll go,” I called out to Ruth, to give her a moment to compose herself.

It might not be for MyOwnCouture.com anyway, but who on earth would be calling here after seven o’clock at night? I raced down the stairs and swung the main office door open. Of all people, it was Charlie Todd, the man from LADS. He looked seriously agitated.

“Oh, thank God I’ve found you,” he said. “I called at the house and your father sent me over here.”

Dad must have seen my car outside the barn. I ushered Charlie in and led him over to the downstairs kitchen area where there were some armchairs. There might be no need to involve Ruth in the conversation. I offered him a drink but he started talking before we had even sat down.

“Arthur’s been in an accident,” he said. “Did we mention he was a van driver when we met at the Club…?”

“I don’t think so. Is he OK?”

“He’ll live. He was picking up some stuff for the Pantomime when he was in a pile-up on the M25. Definitely not his fault, but it was a horrible crash. The van caught fire – it was a write-off. Arthur got out OK but he has a broken leg.”

“Poor sod!” I sympathised but couldn’t see why Charlie had come to me. “What can I do?”

“Well it’s given us a massive problem. It’s only just over a month to First Night.”

“Oh, of course, and he’s the Dame, isn’t he?”

Charlie couldn’t be about to suggest… could he?

“So we need to find a stand-in – urgently. I thought of you.”

He could!

“Me? But what on earth makes you think I’m qualified?”

“Well, ideally the Dame has to be a male stand-up comedian. Someone able to tell jokes with confidence and good timing, and most importantly with stage presence. He especially needs to be able to engage with the audience, get them on his side. You know what I’m talking about; you’ve seen Pantos.”

“I understand all that, but it doesn’t sound like me.”

“Don’t be so modest! I’ve seen you a few times on Open Mic Night. You’re pretty good – for an amateur, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But the clincher for us was your performance as Daisy Duquesne,” Charlie insisted. “You had your female mannerisms down perfectly. You spoke like a woman and moved like a woman. To play Dame, you just have to do all that, but turned up to eleven. Arthur always says the Dame must be an exaggerated woman, but not a caricature. She must bring out all the recognised feminine behaviours and foibles, but not to make fun of them, to celebrate them. It’s a tricky balance.”

I was glad that Josie’s endless badgering on our practice nights at the pub and the restaurant had paid off and all the effort of making Daisy realistic had borne fruit, but this would be taking it all to another level. Could I do it? Did I want to? Of course, I did!

“I’ll do it…”

“Great!” he started.

“…provided Arthur makes himself available to coach me. Given how little time we have, that might be a full-time job. Presumably he won’t be able to drive for a while with a broken leg?”

“No, but he’s actually much more than just a van driver. It’s his family business – just him, his two sons and his son-in-law. They have about a dozen vans and small trucks. They provide courier services and self-drive vehicles. I imagine he thinks he’ll run the office for a while and hire a temporary driver when he needs one. We’ll have to ask him how much time he can give you.”

“What about the script?” I said. “I’ll have to start learning lines, won’t I?” Memories of school plays were coming back to me.

“I have one here.”

He handed over a spiral-bound A4 document with ‘Dick Whittington – Lavenden Amateur Dramatic Society Pantomime – Xmas 2018’ on the front cover.

“It’s original,” he said proudly, “the best one we’ve done, I think. Arthur wrote the script. I’m directing. You’ll be playing Sarah the Cook. Can you come down to the village hall tomorrow night to meet the rest of the cast and do some read-throughs? And I’m sorry, but you’d better assume that you’ll be busy most evenings and every weekend from now on.”

“So when is the show?”

“We open at the Victoria Little Theatre on Monday, the third of December. We do six evening performances and a matinee on the Saturday afternoon. LADS is the best-known amateur company in the county. People come from miles around to see us. We have a regular mailing list in the thousands. A professional Panto takes over after us and runs until about Twelfth Night. Every year we pride ourselves on being more popular than they are. We usually sell out – at least for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday, though of course a lot of the tickets go to our regular audience – the people who come to our other shows throughout the year – so it’s probably not a fair comparison.”

Quite a lot to live up to then. Had I bitten off more than I could chew?

“I’m surprised the theatre management allows two Pantos one after another.”

“Yes, I suppose it is a little odd, but we have a contract with them for four shows a year for the first week in March, June, September and December. As I say, we’re very popular. I was speaking to the manager of the professional company a little while ago – to make sure we weren’t both doing the same show. He reckons they sell more tickets by following us. A lot of the little ones enjoy our Panto so much they nag their parents into taking them to another one.”

I had another thought. The Dame wears lots of extravagant, not to say, silly dresses…

“What about costumes and so on? Arthur is a bit… bigger than me.”

By which I meant fatter. He wasn’t any taller, but he had significant middle-aged spread which I hadn’t started on yet.

“Ah, that brings me to the other reason I came to you. When he was in the accident, he’d been to collect his costumes from the dressmakers. They were all in the back of the van. We’ve lost the lot! When I was chatting to Eddy Devere the other night he mentioned that your new company can make dresses quickly?”

I nodded. I had wondered how Charlie and Eddy knew each other. Of course, they’d met at the Club on the night of Daisy’s debut, but I didn’t know they’d got talking.

“I don’t think money will be a problem, by the way,” Charlie went on. “They were designer dresses; all originals by Arthur and Polly, and he was well insured. He reckons the insurance company will have to cough up at least two grand. You can have the lot if you can help. Otherwise we’ll have to hire all your dresses and we never like to do that if we can avoid it. Our wardrobe department are very proud of their record for making all our costumes.”

Our first order – and for two thousand pounds! If we can do it… I mean if they can do it...

“I’d better bring Ruth, my business partner, in on this,” I said. “She’s upstairs in the office. I’ll get her.” I turned to go, then paused when I had an afterthought. “By the way, no need to mention Daisy Duquesne to her. I’d like to keep the circle of people who know about Daisy as small as possible. And for the moment please don’t tell her it’ll be me wearing these dresses either.”

“People are going to find out soon though, aren’t they? I mean that you’re taking over as Dame?”

“Granted, but I’m the major investor in this company and my relationship with Ruth has become a bit… iffy lately. I don’t need any more complications just at the moment.”

“Well that’s entirely your business, I suppose. She won’t hear about it from me.”

I called Ruth down. When she appeared at the top of the stairs she looked like she was gearing up for another fight, but then she saw we had company. Charlie explained about Arthur’s accident and the need to replace the Dame costumes. The three of us talked for half an hour or so, Ruth becoming more animated by the minute. Charlie promised to come into our office the next day with Arthur’s designs.

“Sorry, but I do have to make something very clear,” he added. “We need the basic dresses within two weeks or not at all, because our wardrobe team will still have lots to do to them, and of course we’ll need the costumes for the final rehearsals. If you can’t do it in that time, we’ll have to hire them in, and that will require at least a fortnight’s notice.” He coughed, apologetically. “And that would be expensive too. if we have to do that, we won’t be able to pay you for any work you’ve already done. Can you accept those terms?”

I looked at Ruth and shrugged. Finance was my part of the ship, but this would have to be her decision. Only she knew whether what Charlie was asking would be possible.

“Well… we can fabricate each dress in literally minutes with our system,” she said, “but it will take days to set the machines up for completely new designs, and the dyeing process may cause further delays if the colours are unusual or outlandish, as I assume they will be. Still, I think we can do it. I like a challenge!”

“OK then,” Charlie said. “I’ll see you tomorrow with the designs.”

“Have you found someone to replace poor Mr Whitmore, by the way?” Ruth asked.

“We do have someone in mind, yes,” Charlie replied, poker-faced.

“Well, we’ll need his measurements very soon – and of course he would need to be fully ‘padded up’ when you measure him, if you know what I mean.”

This woman knew her business inside out.

“Understood,” Charlie said. “I should be able to get it done tomorrow night. He’s coming down for a read-through. I’ll get our wardrobe mistress to come in too, and bring all the Dame’s padding and underwear with her.”

So that will be something else to look forward to.

* * *

“This is fantastic, Nick!” Ruth launched herself at me after I’d seen Charlie to his car. She was hugging the air out of my lungs, our earlier harsh words apparently forgotten. “Can we talk about pricing and so on? And maybe we should think about adding theatrical costumes to our range…”

“But we can still only make the basic dresses,” I pointed out.

Blast! I need to start saying ‘you’, rather than ‘we’. I don’t work for MyOwnCouture.com. I am not Ruth’s employee.

“Most of the Dame’s costumes will be much more elaborate,” I continued. “In fact, Polly Whitmore and her team will still have a lot of work to do after we’ve finished.”

“Well, maybe some of them would like to join up with us,” she mused. She started making her way back up to the office. “At the very least they could help us with additional designs for us to code up in our software – flounces, farthingales, corsets, shifts, petticoats, old-fashioned underwear like bloomers. We could even do period costumes for men…”

She trailed off when she saw I wasn’t following her upstairs.

“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

“It’s nearly half-past eight! I’m famished.”

“OK, let me get my coat. We can talk about it over dinner. Agnelli’s again? I’ll drive.”

* * *

And so I wound up dining with Ruth again. This time she was sober, and presumably would remain so as she had designated herself the driver.

“I think I had a little too much to drink last time,” she said brightly as we sat down. “I vaguely remember seeing some people we knew, but it’s all a bit hazy now…”

“Yes, Will and Emma Holford. I introduced you.”

“No, I’d never met Emma and I’d only seen Will a couple of times. I meant people I knew quite well.” She studied the menu. A waiter had appeared at her elbow. “I think I’ll have a spaghetti carbonara. What about you?”

“Are we just having one course?”

“You can have a starter if you like. I’m dieting.”

“Can’t imagine why,” I said, without thinking. I continued to scan my menu.

“Flatterer,” she said with a smile. “Can we have a bottle of the house red too, please?” she said to the waiter. I must have shown some concern. “It’s all right. I haven’t forgotten I’m driving. I’ll just have one glass.”

“Leaving five for me. Are you trying to get me drunk?”

“Well you got me drunk last time,” she said unfairly.

“I did not!”

“And you were a perfect sodding gentleman, weren’t you?”

Weirdly she didn’t sound entirely happy about that. I blushed and ordered. Her eyes were shining now; no trace of tears. She really was quite beautiful without the bun and glasses.

“A small spaghetti bolognaise to start, please, and a Pollo Ripieno to follow.”

While we were waiting for our food we discussed pricing structures for the costumes.

“We can charge extra to set up for non-standard styles, I suppose,” I said.

“And I doubt that Dame dresses will be amongst our standard styles,” Ruth added. “It’s not just that they’re probably very old-fashioned. Since they’re actually for a man, they won’t conform to women’s dress sizes. They’ll need to be thicker at the waist and wider at the shoulders than for a woman of the same height.”

“They will also have much higher necklines, for decency’s sake. A Dame doesn’t show her cleavage. She doesn’t show her knees either, let alone her thighs. Arthur has very fixed views about what’s acceptable for the Dame.”

“Oh you’ve met him, have you? You never said.”

Oops! I hastened to cover.

“I met him at the Club I sometimes go to with my brother and his wife. We chatted. That’s where I first met Charlie. Eddy was there too. He must have mentioned what we do… I mean, you do at MyOwnCouture.com.”

She didn’t comment on my slip. She was nodding. She seemed satisfied. I rushed on.

“Anyway, that definitely means you can bill them for a new set-up. You can charge more for each of the dresses too, for the same reason. You won’t be able to re-use anything you do for LADS – not until next year’s Panto anyway.”

Further discussion was interrupted when a vaguely familiar couple stepped up to our table.

“Hello, Ruth,” an elegantly-dressed older lady said. “Nice to see you again.”

“Oh, hi, Angela, Bill. How are you?”

“We’re fine. So this is becoming your regular eatery, is it? We saw you here last week. We didn’t stop for a chat as we saw you were… busy.”

By which she meant ‘pissed as a newt’. Nice, tactful lady.

Her husband stuck his hand out to me. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said, “Bill Cross. This is my wife, Angela.”

I stood up to shake his hand. Now I recognised them. They were the couple dining with the Holfords the last time we were at Agnelli’s. They were quite a bit older than Will and Emma, probably the same age as Eddy’s parents. Maybe Cross was a client of Will’s.

“Nick Rawlinson,” I introduced myself.

I was about to say more, but Ruth interrupted.

“Nick is the Finance Manager at the company I’m working for. I’m helping him to iron out the details of a new contract that came our way today.”

“Oh, congratulations,” Cross said. “But I thought you were just interning to learn the fashion business?”

Ruth hesitated. I realised the Crosses must be friends of Eddy’s parents.

“She is,” I said, “but we like our interns to do a stint in every department of the business. If she hopes to progress in the industry, she needs to understand the financial side too.”

Bill nodded, apparently satisfied. I felt Ruth relax a little.

“So where’s Eddy tonight?” asked Angela.

“Back at the flat, studying,” Ruth said. “So he doesn’t mind me working late.”

I was a little surprised at how glibly the barefaced lies were coming out. She had clearly had a lot of practice at concealing the nature of their relationship.

“Well do give him our love,” Angela said. “Have you set a date yet?”

“Not yet. We’ve both been working too hard,” Ruth said. “Next Spring, probably. You know what they say – ‘Ask for May, settle for June’.”

She gave a forced laugh. That expression was a new one on me. It looked like it was new to the Crosses too. They smiled and took their leave. Ruth was shaking.

“Shit!” she said, when she was sure they were out of earshot. “Thanks for helping me cover. They know Eddy’s parents. In fact, Angela and the Very Reverend Mother Devere are besties; they tell each other everything.”

I loved Ruth’s nickname for her prospective mother-in-law, the religious nutcase.

“This will get straight back to her now,” she said.

“What will?”

“That they’ve seen me dining out with a handsome man who’s not my fiancé – twice! It was them I recognised from last week.”

“Handsome, eh?”

“Well that’s probably what she’ll say.” She smiled briefly, then got serious again. “We’ll have to stop coming here – or anywhere actually. I hadn’t realised Bill and Angela lived nearby.”

“We could go somewhere else for our ‘evening business meetings’.”

“And if we happened to bump into them again somewhere else? They’d think we were changing our venue to hide from them! Then they’d really be suspicious.”

“I think you’re worrying too much.”

“You don’t know Eddy’s parents,” she reminded me.

We finished the meal in a more subdued mood. Ruth insisted on paying. I asked the waiter to find a cork for the still half full bottle.

“We can finish this at my place, or your place,” I suggested hopefully.

“You’re an optimist, aren’t you, posh boy?” she said.

But she drove us straight back to their flat. Eddy was out as usual and we had the place to ourselves.

She fetched two glasses and gave them to me to pour the wine. While I was doing that, she vanished into her bedroom. When she returned she was no longer wearing her office attire, but something… less formal; in fact, generally… less. It was pink, thin, diaphanous, and short. Her office attire was by no means frumpy, but this was the first time I had really seen her figure clearly. And it was a delicious sight. She was clearly ready for bed. I couldn’t help but stare. I might have licked my lips.

“So you finally took the hint then?” she said, clearly pleased at my reaction. “I was beginning to think there might be something wrong with you – or me.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well I’d hoped you might have realised what was required when I poured out my soul in the office last week.” She reached for her glass.

“You were drunk.”

“I was capable.”

“You really weren’t; but even if you were, I wouldn’t have taken advantage.”

“Good for you,” she said, unimpressed by my gallantry, “but I’m not drunk now.”

“You’re certainly getting there.”

“Come on. Help me celebrate our first big order.”

She reached for my trousers and started undoing my belt.

“OK, you talked me into it, but Eddy might return at any minute. Hadn’t we better go in your bedroom?”

And we did. And it was wonderful. Ruth was a tigress in bed. First she insisted on being on top, impaling herself on me and rising and falling like a piston engine. After her first orgasm, which came quickly and while I was still unfinished, she only put up token resistance when I flipped her over. Judging by her pants and gasps, she enjoyed a little assertive handling, although I accept that her noises were capable of alternative interpretations. Whatever the explanation, this led to a second climax for her and mutual satisfaction. She took charge again then and worked hard to restore me. Then the cycle repeated itself. It seemed that we spent most of the time rotating and play-fighting for dominance.

Afterwards she snuggled down and pushed her head into the soft part of my shoulder. Her hair tickled my nose. I tried to blow it away without success.

“That was really good! You did well… for a posh boy,” she said, yawning. “No wonder they restored Wrestling to the Olympics.”

“Let’s call it a draw, shall we?” I muttered, lying back, totally exhausted.

But there was no reply. She had gone to sleep, snoring gently. She was lying on my arm, which was starting to lose all feeling. And her hair was still tickling my nose.

* * *

We had left my car at the office so Ruth had to give me a lift back in the morning. By mutual consent we got in earlier than usual so that no one saw us arriving together. I sneaked back to the Manor House for breakfast and a change of clothes, avoiding a ‘Walk of Shame’.

Charlie came in early with all of the Dame’s dress designs. We explained to everyone what had happened to poor Arthur and how we hoped to help in replacing the lost costumes. We laid the drawings out on the kitchen table downstairs and gathered round to consider them. There was a long silence, and much sucking of cheeks and long, drawn-out sighs.

“They’re rather… ornate, aren’t they?” Vicky said, after a while.

“Yes,” said Ruth, “we’re really not ready to do all these frills and flounces and patches. We can only do the basic dresses, and even then I think we’ll probably have to add a couple of new styles to our portfolio. Those big bell-shaped skirts – they’re rather old-fashioned, you know.”

“Well, they’re comedy theatrical costumes,” I said. “No modern woman would be seen dead in any of them, except maybe at a fancy-dress party.”

“Most of them use at least two different colours of material, some three or four,” said Eddy. “We can certainly put two different cloths together in the fabrication process, but we might have to limit it to two to get everything done in the time.”

“And the colours… they’re so garish,” Ruth added. “We may not be able to get them off-the-shelf, which means lots of dyeing.”

“You don’t have to stick to the colours in Arthur’s designs,” said Charlie, “as long as they’re bright and… I don’t know… vulgar. For example, that day dress; if you can’t get blue gingham material then any gingham would probably do.”

“We’d better ring round the suppliers,” said Ruth. “Can you put us in touch with the original dressmakers? They might be able to tell us where they got the fabrics?”

Charlie nodded.

“But if we have to do lots of dyeing, we can be doing that at the same time as you’re programming the styles and setting up the machines, can’t we?” I said.

Ruth nodded.

“They’ll all need petticoats, won’t they?” said Vicky. “Or maybe a hoop? To make the skirts bell out.”

“That’s not a problem,” said Charlie. “We have loads of that sort of stuff from previous years – petticoats; crinolines; silly-coloured striped tights; wigs; hats; and so on. If you can just make the basic dresses to fit… er, the actor, we have a team of ladies standing by to sew on all the decorations and add the required padding.”

“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” said Ruth.

“You’ll need to give them some of the material you use so that their additions can match the basic dresses. Arthur’s wife, Polly, is our wardrobe mistress,” Charlie said. “She loves dressing him up every year. Sometimes I think he only does it for her. She’s so disappointed he can’t appear this Christmas.”

He chuckled. Ruth gave him a strange look. She must have been thinking that Polly was weird.

“OK,” she said, “let’s see what new styles we’re going to need.”

“We’d better get Arthur over here as soon as he’s feeling more mobile,” said Charlie. “He’ll have to describe all the details of when each costume will be worn and what the Dame has to be able to do in it, but I think I can give you the gist. There are six costumes in all: Sarah’s day dress, which she appears in for the first couple of scenes. Then there’s her cook’s costume for the slapstick kitchen scene. We may need two of those because it will get covered in flour and cream. It’s mostly Crazy Foam, but the dress may still need to be laundered before it can be worn again. She wears her third outfit in the bedroom scene, so that’s a nightie. Her boudoir gets overrun by rats, so she’ll be squealing and jumping up on the furniture.

“Then in Act Two, her fourth costume is a girly sailor suit, as the action takes place on board ship. Then she has another day dress when she’s shopping at the market in Morocco. Oh, that one will need Velcro all the way down the back as it gets ripped off in the action, leaving her in her underwear. Should be very funny. The last outfit is a ball gown for the finale. That will be really fancy.”

Ruth and Vicky had been scribbling as Charlie spoke. They compared notes briefly.

“OK, we can base the ball gown on our mermaid dress and the nightie on our maxi dress – or maybe on a baby doll?” Ruth suggested. “I know that’s not what Arthur designed, but it might be funnier – if your replacement actor could get away with it.”

Charlie grinned at me. “Actually I think he’d look great in a baby doll nightie,” he said. “He’s slimmer than Arthur.”

I couldn’t see Arthur going for that. It wouldn’t fit with his view of the Dame always being chastely covered up. Also, I realised, I’d have to shave my legs!

“OK, will you check that idea with him?” Ruth said. “For all the other dresses I think we need to come up with a new style design: mutton-chop long sleeves, mid-calf length, full skirt suitable for a petticoat, I think. Come to think of it, that sounds a bit like a modern Lolita dress, but longer, of course.”

Ruth had done courses in both historical and theatrical dress, I remembered. She was in her element here. LADS should call on her services for all their productions.

“What about neckline?” she added.

“It’ll have to be high for all her dresses,” Charlie said. “It would be great to have a low-cut dress with her big false boobies bulging out…” He winked at me, which I hoped no one else saw. “…but this is a Panto. It’s for kids.”

That was a relief. I wanted to be a Pantomime Dame, not a sex doll.

Knowing that the team would be busy all day with dress design, software, adjusting machinery, and ordering material, I saw Charlie out. It was a little before eleven o’clock.

“Are you free now, by any chance?” he asked.

“Actually, yes,” I said. “I have no meetings today. I should probably check back in with Ruth later on. We need to discuss how much we’ll be charging you. But I could just phone her. What did you have in mind?”

“Well, Arthur called me to say they’re discharging him from hospital this morning. We could go round there; give him our best wishes; and maybe make a start on your training, if he feels up to it.”

* * *

“I was very lucky, according to the paramedics,” Arthur told us in his inimitable lugubrious manner, trying unsuccessfully to scratch his leg in its plaster cast.

We were in the sitting room of his house, which was in the most fashionable part of town and very smart for a van driver. But then Arthur was much more than that. He was a self-made man and owner of a successful transport business. Apparently he just liked driving the vans himself.

“I was in the middle lane when there was a pile-up in the outside lane up ahead,” he told us. “A car that was overtaking me tried to stop when it saw the blockage but it skidded sideways into me. The van finished up on its side. I managed to get my seatbelt off and pushed the driver’s side door open. Then I climbed out and slid down to the ground. Cars were screeching to a halt and crashing into each other all around. I’m not really sure what happened after that. I think something hit me a glancing blow; another car, I think. I just remember a lot of pain in my leg and a blast of heat behind me, which was presumably the van catching fire. I must have crawled far enough away to avoid getting burned. I think I passed out. The next thing I remember was being in the ambulance.”

“Wow! Sounds like you were really lucky,” Charlie sympathised. “I’m surprised they let you out of hospital so soon.”

At that point Polly came in with some tea and biscuits on a large tray.

“The hospital was brilliant,” she said. “They set his leg quite quickly. Fortunately it was a clean break and he didn’t need an operation. He was only there for about forty-eight hours. There were a lot of people from the pile-up who were in much worse shape, so they needed the beds. Anyway they’d probably had enough of him by then. He’s not an easy patient, as I’ve had plenty of opportunity to learn over the years.”

All of us except Arthur smiled. Polly was a motherly sort of lady, plump but still pretty. She looked quite a bit younger than her husband but they were probably both in their early fifties. She put the tray down on a small table next to the wheelchair and started pouring and handing out cups of tea.

“So how long do they think you’ll be laid up?” Charlie asked.

“It’s only a minor fracture of the fibula, they said, but it will probably be six to eight weeks before I can put any weight on it. It doesn’t really hurt much, but that may be the painkillers I’m on. I’ll need to learn to use the crutches to be independently mobile, but the doc said not to rush things, to stick to the wheelchair for the moment.”

“So that means I’ll be wheeling him everywhere,” Polly sighed, handing round Jaffa cakes and chocolate digestives. “Good thing I can drive all his vans. One of them is a people carrier with a little lift at the back for a wheelchair. We’re often called out to take disabled folk around.”

“It’s very kind of you to come and see me,” said Arthur, with no sign of either gratitude or pleasure, “but you obviously want something. What can I do for you?”

“It’s about the Panto,” Charlie said. “I’ve asked Nick to play Sarah as you’re unavailable.”

“Like Hell!” Arthur protested. “I’ll be OK by then!”

“Don’t be so damn silly, you old fool!” Polly shouted. “It’s less than five weeks off! You can’t play Dame in a wheelchair or on crutches. It’s an active part! You have to run about, throw stuff, climb on things.”

Arthur looked like he was going to protest again, but Polly thundered on.

“And even if you made a miraculous recovery, what about rehearsals? You can’t rehearse with a broken leg!”

Arthur looked like he was going to say more. He drew a deep breath, paused, and let it out again.

“I’m really sorry, Arthur,” Charlie said. “Polly’s right – and the committee wouldn’t wear it anyway. There’s Health and Safety to consider. As she said, it’s a role with lots of action. We have to have insurance and we wouldn’t be covered if we let you do it so soon after a serious injury.”

Arthur, never the most cheerful-looking soul, looked especially downcast now.

“There’s always next year,” Charlie added.

“This was going to be my last year,” he said ruefully. “I was thinking five times in a row is enough. I only agreed to do it this time because I knew LADS didn’t have anyone else.”

The three of us let out a collective sigh of relief. He was going to be sensible after all.

“But that doesn’t mean I want to see it ruined,” he said, his eyes flashing. “What makes you think he can do it?”

“Come on, mate, you saw him doing his stand-up as Daisy Duquesne, just as I did. He’ll be good.”

“That was being a female impersonator, not a Pantomime Dame. It’s completely different! Yes, you will be wearing frocks with padding to give you a female figure, but you won’t be pretending to be a woman for real…”

He was drawing breath to say much more, but I thought it was time I contributed to the debate.

“I only agreed to step in as Dame if you were available to coach me,” I said. “Charlie thinks I can do the feminine mannerisms and movements OK, and I’m not scared of telling bad jokes in front of an audience, but I’m well aware that isn’t enough. You said as much after my stand-up as Daisy. I was hoping to meet up with you to learn more.”

“Aye… well…” Arthur began.

I was aware that Charlie was starting to relax, and Polly was smiling quietly to herself. She was sitting at Arthur’s side and gave me a little ‘thumbs up’ sign which he couldn’t have seen.

“Well, if you’re going to do it my way – or even if you aren’t – you need to understand about Pantomime. The background and why that’s important…”

“Oh, you’re not going to give him your lecture, are you?” grumbled Polly.

“I certainly am. Most people know nothing about the Pantomime tradition.” He looked at me enquiringly. I shuffled my feet a little and shrugged. “Even if he doesn’t take my advice, he needs to understand what he’s signing up to be part of.”

“Well, Charlie and I have heard it all a dozen times before, and I’m sure it won’t be any less boring the thirteenth time,” she said. “Come on, Charlie, you can help me with sorting out the accessories. I’ve been laying everything out upstairs in my sewing room.”

They left. Arthur waved me to a seat. I tried to look interested.

“Let’s start with the obvious,” he began. “Not a lot of people know this, but Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theatre. It partly comes from the 16th Century Italian Commedia Dell’arte tradition; and partly from other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th Century masques and music hall. The modern Pantomime is an English invention for the Christmas and New Year season, a jolly musical comedy designed for family entertainment. It has nothing to do with miming. It includes songs, gags, slapstick and dancing.”

“There are usually two cross-dressing parts: the Dame, played by a man, and the Principal Boy, played by a girl, who is often the hero. The show combines topical humour with a story based on a well-known fairy story or folk tale. It always involves audience participation. They’re expected to sing along and shout out when asked to by the performers, especially the Dame and the lead comic, who often form a double act, bouncing corny jokes off each other. In Dick Whittington they are Idle Jack and Sarah the Cook. Also there’s often a scene when children from the audience are invited up on stage to play games and win prizes.

“For me the Dame is the most important character in Pantomime. All the legends of British comedy have played her – Terry Scott, Stanley Baxter, Les Dawson, John Inman, Roy Hudd, Ronnie Corbett – even Paul Merton. The Dame is a continuation of the travesti – portrayal of female characters by male actors in drag.

“The Dame must be very clearly a man in a dress but shouldn’t be grotesque, in my opinion, though there are plenty who would disagree. The actor must emanate femininity and a strong maternal instinct, while continually delivering broad innuendo without coming across as dirty. Good Dames can pitch their lines to push the boundary of good taste but without ever being crude. The role requires the timing and delivery of a good stand-up comedian. Doing all this well is one of the most challenging roles in all theatre.

“It looks simple if it’s done well, but it’s actually really complex. If you overdo it, the Dame can become vulgar and even frightening to the little ones. She must always be warm and comforting. But she must also be played ‘big’; if she is too soft, the performance will fall flat. Like all theatre, it only works if the audience can ‘suspend their disbelief’ and fully invest in the story and the characters. The Dame is continually ‘breaking the fourth wall’, and forms a link between the audience and the action on stage. Sometimes she is involved in the comedy, and sometimes she is commenting on it.

“Dames are usually older, matronly women; maybe the protagonist’s mother, a cook, or a nursemaid. They’re usually warm and sympathetic characters, but they may be comedy baddies like the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella. Dames always wear heavy make-up and big hair; they have exaggerated physical features; and often ridiculous appendages to their costumes, like the cook might wear a huge silly hat, or a pair of saucepans over her false boobs. That’s what I mean by ‘vulgar’. Personally I think that kind of thing is stupid, and often a bit sordid, but I know some people like it.

“These days there are two main styles for Dames: either camp like Danny La Rue and Paul O’Grady, glamorous and extravagant; or the ‘man in a frock’ style, where the Dame makes no pretence at femininity. Some Dames are essentially just clowns; you know – white face make-up, silly noses, and so on. I don’t think that works at all. It throws the whole show off balance if one character is clowning when everyone else is acting. John Inman was one of my favourites; he was neither a drag act like La Rue nor a vulgar clown. He was camp, and feminine, but he always pitched it just right.

“But I come back to the key point: the audience must know that the Dame is a man. One of the most famous Dames, Arthur Askey, insisted on that. He wore only basic stage make-up, and a very fake wig. He kept his own trademark thick-rimmed glasses. He made no attempt to change his voice, mannerisms or persona.

“So it’s up to the individual actor to decide where he will pitch his performance between these extremes. Many comedians try to appear like glamorous women, but with no attempt to be feminine. That’s not my style; but then some of us have no real choice and have to go the Arthur Askey route.”

He paused for breath. I knew most of what he’d told me, but it hadn’t occurred to me I would have to make a decision regarding what kind of Dame I wanted to be. I was chewing that over when he continued.

“Of course, you could definitely be the glamorous type of Dame,” he said, looking at me thoughtfully.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, Daisy Duquesne wasn’t any sort of Pantomime Dame, was she? She was a convincing woman - completely convincing from a distance. OK, maybe you wouldn’t have been able to fool anyone close up in a brightly lit room…”

I thought about being Daisy at the pub and in the restaurant the night before her debut. There might have been some tell-tale signs but no one had even given me a funny look. People see what they expect to see, I guess.

“… but I don’t think it even occurred to anyone in the audience that she might have been a man. I certainly didn’t hear anything like that, and I was there for a good hour after your turn. Lots of people were complimentary about her, and said how great it was that the Club had finally persuaded a woman to perform.”

That was good to hear, I suppose.

“But of course Sarah the Cook will have to be completely different, wherever you decide to place her on ‘the Dame spectrum’.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because, as I said, everyone has to know that the Dame is a man,” he said, with clear signs of irritation. “It’s an essential part of the tradition. The Dame can’t be played by a woman. That’s not Panto!”

I knew Arthur felt strongly about this; he was a ‘Panto purist’, and I was beginning to understand his thinking. Anyway he was quite right about my performance, if for the wrong reason. If I wanted to maintain my secret identity as Daisy, it would be important that everyone saw Sarah the Cook being played by local boy, Nick Rawlinson. She shouldn’t remind anyone of occasional stand-up comedienne, Daisy Duquesne. Ruth was bound to find out about Nick playing the Dame in the local Panto. I didn’t want her to find out about Daisy too.

Why was I thinking about Ruth?

“Of course, one could argue that the Dame is just another device for men to attack women,” I suggested.

“What? How so?” he asked angrily.

Fair enough. I was being deliberately provocative, to see just how far he had thought all this through. I plunged on.

“Well, it’s a man making fun of female weaknesses, vanities and foibles, isn’t it? Or at least male-perceived notions of them. It’s actually quite cruel, or at the very least offensive, but the comedian gets away with it by pretending to be one of the weaker sex himself. His silly dresses and wigs soften the blow, as it were.”

“I can see how you might think that,” Arthur admitted, “but it’s all in the delivery. A bad Dame might come across as simply malicious, but the jokes are supposed to come from love and respect. Don’t forget: the Pantomime tradition long pre-dates modern feminism. It’s a man saying, ‘We know that throughout the ages our womenfolk have always had the worst of it in life. We understand that; we admire your strength and determination; and we love you for it. The Dame is homage, not contempt.”

He was passionate and convincing, the most eloquent van driver I had ever met. I only hoped I could live up to this. He was waiting for my reaction.

“OK, I get it,” I said. “I want to do it like that. My Dame won’t be a caricature. No silly contraptions on my bosom, no silly hats, no rude props. I’d like to pitch it somewhere in the middle though – not Danny La Rue, but not Les Dawson either.”

“Right, then. I suggest that you and I spend the day going through the script so you’ll be ready for the read-through tonight. But first, you’d better go and get Polly so she can start putting your look together.”

* * *

After a nice sandwich lunch I sat in front of the dressing table in the Whitmores’ back room. She explained that this was actually the master bedroom – I had noticed this because it had an en suite – but she had taken it over for the LADS costume store. She and Arthur slept in the biggest guest bedroom.

She certainly needed the space in here, because the room was stacked from ceiling to floor with large, flat boxes marked with the names of shows LADS had done. Presumably they contained costumes. Reading the sides of the boxes in the mirror I was able to make out Annie, The Happiest Days of Your Life, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Camelot. There were also a lot of costumes and accessories loose on the bed and draped on top of more boxes.

There was a desk with two sewing machines against the far wall. A peg board above it was covered in fabric swatches and coloured pencil sketches of the characters from Dick Whittington: Puss; Idle Jack; Alderman Fitzwarren; Alice, his daughter; King Rat, the villain; and Dick himself, the Principal Boy. The sketches for Sarah the Cook were at MyOwnCouture.com, of course.

I saw a mob cap and a very frilly bib apron. Presumably these were for the Panto and I would be wearing them.

Polly stretched a wig cap over my head and tucked my loose hair in. Then she tried various wigs on me.

“Your first costume will be a yellow, mid-calf-length day dress with multi-coloured polka dots, and with a matching bow for your hair.”

She reached for one of the swatches on the peg board. It was very bright. This would not be a costume for a shy person. It would also not be a standard colour.

“I think ginger blonde curls would work best with these colours,” she said, pulling just such a wig on me. “You’ll need another one for the ball scene at the end. That’ll be in a more elaborate ‘up do’.”

She fiddled around with the wig, combing, brushing and spraying. It seemed to be a good, tight fit and didn’t slide around when I shook my head. Presumably there was some adhesive effect between the lining and my cap. Polly held the yellow spotted swatch up against my hair, next to my face. She tutted.

“Do you mind if we try out some make-up designs?” she asked. “I’m in charge of make-up as well,” she explained, “and it’s really the only way I can be sure that the colours of the dress and wig will work together.”

“In for a penny,” I grinned. Then a thought occurred. “By the way, do you know about Daisy Duquesne?”

“Arthur mentioned that he saw you doing your stand-up drag act,” she confirmed. “Wasn’t that what convinced Charlie that you could play the Dame?”

“Yes, but it didn’t actually end up as a drag act. I was too convincing. No one realised I was a man. So in the end we didn’t let on.”

She looked at me quizzically. She put her hand under my chin and lifted my head, turning my face from side to side.

“Yes, I can see that,” she said. “You have good bone structure, quite a round face, and no pronouncedly masculine features, not even much of an Adam’s Apple. With the right hair and make-up you could easily pass as a woman.”

“Right,” I admitted, glumly, “but I don’t want Sarah to pass as a woman, and I definitely don’t want her to look anything like Daisy. People will have to know that Nick Rawlinson is playing Sarah the Cook, but no one should know I’m also Daisy.”

“I get it.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t suppose you have any pictures of Daisy?”

“My sister-in-law does. She helped me with my disguise. Well, she did it all actually. I’ll text her.”

Five minutes later Polly was studying Josie’s pictures on my phone.

“Wow, you were quite pretty, weren’t you?”

She laughed at my embarrassment. Then she studied one of the pictures more closely.

“Was Daisy pregnant?” she said, incredulously.

I nodded. “Josie’s idea. The baby bump concealed any… masculine swelling down there. It also meant I could work in some pregnancy jokes. They went down very well, actually.”

Polly laughed. “I can imagine,” she said. “OK, to make Sarah completely different I think she will have to be what Arthur calls a ‘Glamour Dame’. You’ll need over-the-top make-up, some false eyelashes…”

“Oh, I hate those things!”

Polly looked at me. She didn’t say anything but she was obviously wondering when I’d had the experience of wearing false eyelashes. She could see I hadn’t worn them as Daisy.

“They’ll be essential, I’m afraid,” she said firmly. “I might give you a slight comic up-turned nose too. Not the full Cyrano de Bergerac, but something to draw the attention away from your other features. Don’t worry; when I’ve finished with you, no one will connect middle-aged, mumsy Sarah the Cook with pretty young Daisy Duquesne.”

She gave me a red smock to protect my T-shirt and worked on my face for about half an hour. She worked quickly and was clearly a true make-up artist. I wondered if she had ever been a professional. She was chatty and good company, with a fund of stories about LADS productions over the years, and Arthur’s experience as Dame.

“Actually, I love that Arthur lets his feminine side out every year,” she said. She lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Quite honestly, I wouldn’t mind if he did it more often, or even all the time.” She giggled. “When he’s in drag he’s kinder, softer, more thoughtful. He seems happier too. You’ve probably already noticed what a bloody misery he can be.”

“Well he has got a broken leg,” I pointed out. “That’s probably getting him down a bit.”

“Also seeing him in lingerie at bedtime really gets my motor running,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. I wondered if she was just talking about what Arthur wore at Panto season. “You should try it with your young lady,” she added, with a wink.

Well that wasn’t going to happen, even if I had a young lady, which I didn’t. Ruth didn’t count, obviously. That was a one-night stand, apparently.

As threatened, Polly glued false eyelashes to my eyelids. Then she smeared my eyes with mascara; disguised my eyebrows with thick black lines of eyebrow pencil; and applied a light blue eyeshadow to my eyelids. She covered my face with a thick foundation, then tried different blends of lipstick and rouge for my cheeks, rubbing it all off with tissues and cold cream and trying other combinations before eventually declaring herself satisfied.

I examined my new self in the mirror. The bright ginger wig and outlandish make-up shouted ‘Pantomime Dame’ loudly, and I looked nothing like Daisy Duquesne. In fact, I looked a bit like my mother. Come to think of it, Daisy had looked a little like her too, or at least like pictures of her from when she was young.

Polly fastened a tight necklace of big red balls round my neck and gave me a pair of white gloves to wear. Then she cut a strip of material to make a ribbon which she tied in a bow in my wig. She draped the rest of the swatch around my shoulders to approximate what the dress, wig and make-up combination would look like.

“OK, pull some faces, and let’s see the effect.”

“What faces?” I asked, puzzled.

“Dame faces,” she said. “Arthur says that the Dame is the audience’s representative on stage. They should be seeing the story through her eyes. So she’s always responding to what’s going on around her with some big, over-the-top emotion – surprise, outrage, shock, horror. Her reactions are supposed to draw the audience in, get them excited. So can you strike some poses? You may need to stand up.”

“Oh, OK. How’s this?”

I clapped my gloved hand to my cheek, opened my eyes wide, and made a big round ‘O’ with my lipsticked mouth. This was fun! I was going to enjoy being Sarah the Cook. I couldn’t wait to get my proper costumes.

“Yes, I think that works well,” Polly said. “Let’s go and show Arthur and Charlie.”

As we left the room I caught my reflection in the wardrobe mirror. From the neck up I looked like a cross between a MILF, my mother, and a lady of a certain age who hadn’t learnt that ‘a little cosmetic assistance’ could easily become too bloody much.

After Arthur and Charlie had declared themselves satisfied, Polly and I returned to the back bedroom to try out what I now knew to call my shapewear. This was urgent as MyOwnCouture.com needed Sarah’s vital statistics to make my dresses.

Polly was rummaging in a cupboard and found the box she was looking for.

“This is a 42D theatrical padded bra,” she said, waving a pink and blue floral object at me. “The padding is springy, so you can manipulate it through your dress and it will bounce around in an amusing fashion. That always makes the men squirm and the women laugh their heads off, for some reason. The joke is a little ribald but it goes over the kids’ heads, so it’s OK.”

“Isn’t it a little pointless making it so colourful, when it’s worn underneath?”

“Well some Dames like to strip to their bra and knickers in the bedroom scene before they put on their nightie. Arthur did it once, but never again after I made him shave his chest.” She chuckled.

“Anyway this bra is just full enough that no one can tell you haven’t got any real cleavage, as long as you only expose it briefly – which is half the point of the joke. I don’t know what Charlie has in mind for the scene, but he warned me to use a bra like this, just in case. Arthur’s a little taller than you and much thicker in the waist, but I reckon you’re about the same around the chest and shoulders, so this should fit. Here, strip off and let’s slip it on.”

I hesitated for just long enough for Polly to sneer at my modesty.

“Come on, Nick, I’m going to be familiar with every nook and cranny of your body eventually. You realise I’ll be your dresser and personal make-up artist during the show?”

“Really?” I said, stripping down to my underpants.

“Yes, most of the dressing rooms at the Victoria Theatre are communal, but you’ll get one to yourself, because the Dame is the only character with multiple costume changes. Some of them will need to be very quick, so you’ll need someone to help you change. You and I will set up camp in the star’s dressing room. And you’ll spend most of your time in there in your underwear; that is, bra, girdle and knickers. Talking of which…”

She thrust the bra’s shoulder straps over my arms and stepped behind me to fasten it. It fitted well, as she had predicted, but it was huge. I couldn’t see over it at all. How was I going to run around when I couldn’t see my feet? It also got in the way of any upper body movement, including swinging my arms.

It was most comfortable to fold them underneath my new bust in what I immediately realised was a typically feminine stance, especially for middle-aged ladies with large breasts. Which explained that, I suppose. I’d always wondered.

“I would have expected them to be much heavier,” I said. “Josie used upholstery foam for Daisy’s boobs, which were smaller, but I’m sure these are lighter than they were.”

“They’re deliberately made of lightweight, elastic material, so they can bounce around without slowing you down. I’m sure you realise that real breasts are much, much heavier than those. Or maybe you don’t?” she asked slyly. “Have you had the opportunity to test the real thing much?”

“A gentleman never tells,” I said, primly.

She laughed, and returned to her rummaging in the cupboard.

“Theatrical costumiers don’t seem to make the equivalent padding for your hips and bum,” she called over her shoulder. “They seem to assume that it will all be sewn into the dresses, but that’s a lot of work, so our Dame has always worn a standard, off-the-shelf girdle, which we pad out to the shape we want. I think I’ve got an old one of Arthur’s from when he was younger and slimmer. Sadly, we’ve been able to economise on the padding in recent years…” She smiled ruefully. “Ah, here it is!”

She thrust what looked like an old-fashioned Playtex girdle (like my grandmother used to wear?) into my hand. It was a little grey and worn, and the elastic round the waist and leg openings was stretched out. Polly saw me regarding it dubiously.

“Don’t worry, it’s perfectly clean. I’m meticulous about that when I put my costumes away. Just for today I’ll let you put it on over your own underpants, but in future you’ll be wearing big old-fashioned bloomers under it. They’ll all be new and you’ll have a clean pair each time.”

“Is that because of having to strip down to my lingerie again?”

“That’s it,” she confirmed. “Even if that doesn’t happen in the bedroom when you’re surrounded by rat kids, it will happen in the scene when the Alderman accidentally tears your dress off.”

She helped me wriggle into my girdle. It had a lot of padding with only a small amount of space for me inside and it was quite a struggle pulling it up as far as my waist. When we’d finally managed it, I had a bulbous lower half that perfectly matched my voluptuous upper half.

“I’ll have to order you a new girdle, I think – bet no one’s said that to you before!” she giggled. “I don’t think that one will last. It looks like the elastic’s perished. It was subjected to a lot of stress in Mother Goose five years ago, and it’s been in storage ever since.”

She went over to her workbench and took a measuring tape out of one of the drawers.

“OK, I’ll take all your measurements for you to give to your team.”

When she’d finished, I took a photo of her notes on my phone to give to Ruth. Polly opened the wardrobe and pulled out a brightly-coloured dress on a hanger.

“Why don’t you put on one of Arthur’s old Dame costumes? With your padding, you’re nearly the same shape as he was, so you’ll be able to see the full effect – wig, padding and frock.”

Without giving me the chance to think about it, much less object, I found that she was zipping me into a dress Arthur wore as Dame Trott, the hero’s mother in Jack and the Beanstalk.

“It’s a bit loose in places, where Arthur is broader than you are,” she said. “Otherwise it’s not a bad fit. Let’s go and show the others.”

So we trooped back downstairs. I was required to mince around the living room in my best Dame manner. Charlie was delighted and even Arthur managed a slightly frosty smile, though he sucked his teeth at some of my over-feminine and un-Dame-like moves.

“He still looks more like a real woman than a Dame,” he grumbled.

Eventually Polly called a halt.

“I need to go. I’m meeting up with my team to talk about what we have to do to the basic dresses your people will be making, and who’s going to do what. I’ll see you later at the rehearsal room.”

“Wait!” I cried. “You can’t leave me like this!”

She laughed.