There
really had been a windmill here back in the days of Charles Stuart, the king of
England who sired no legitimate heirs but a dozen (and those only the
acknowledged) by his mistresses. That the Windmill Theatre continued to
scandalise is perhaps a testament born by that thin thread of the years. You’ll
know the theatre of course, if you know it at all, because of the tableaux
vivants. With the Lord Chamberlain apt to close any show that to his opinion
threatened public decency it was allowed for nude stage shows to be presented
as long as the participants did not move. Because of statues no doubt, and
therefore art. Old man Bittersweet told me once about the fan dance. There a
dancer would be so undressed but teasingly behind her own and the fans of two
others – only to still when at length they were taken away.
During the big war the theatre
claimed it never closed, and apart from those brief days when all were forced
to then that was true, and even during the blitz. There were Windmill girls
after that war too, and comedians, some quite famous once. But if the Windmill
endured the years of the big war it did not fare so well in those few days that
made up the little war.
In the common room (when as a much
younger man, having no particular vocation but a moderate degree, and so for a
year or two thought to teach) the Latin master Hamilton was a regular here. He
would take the train into London the moment he had served out prep and return a
day later without any attempt at covering the reason for his absence,
positively gushing over what he had seen. He was a fan in particular of one of
the dancers, June Wilkinson, although by my time of suffering his tales she had
already left for America where we were all rather aware of her being famously
the most photographed of nudes. Hamilton followed her through every periodical
and picture paper in which she appeared and even took to collecting those more
colourful periodicals from across the pond. He spoke as if he knew her, had
followed her since she had been young. I might say she photographed remarkably well,
and certainly filled a frame since she was what my father would have called ‘statuesque’
and my mother ‘loose’. My mother thought that of almost any woman whose
photographs went beyond family snaps and had once warned me that if I were not
careful then in London positive armies of such women lay in wait for an
unsuspecting young man. Age and experience were to alas prove otherwise.
“Do you still have the revolver?” Mme Roux
wants to know now. I agree that I do and make to offer her the beastly thing.
But she will have none of it and instead tells me to ensure I keep it handy.
She’s standing on a box in what had once been a changing room, and before that
a projectionist booth. The bricks that changed the one room to the other have loosened
over time and she’s peering out to where on stage the Chelsea Hunt have
appeared. Standing still as they listen for some scrape or scratch that will
betray our presence I am reminded again of the vivants that once were staged
there. I smother a chortle as I wonder if they will take their clothes off,
though given the state of them in their torn hunting pink and the cut-off
respirators I doubt that they’ll put on quite such a show.
I step closer to whisper, “Where is
Cecil?”
She points, and she giggles.
