They bought copies of the latest editions of The Stage and scrutinized them for open auditions, turning up early at the stage doors of the West End theatres to become a part of the snaking queue of eager girls, dance shoes in hand, waiting to be let in. Once inside, they joined another serpentine line of hopefuls, before taking to the empty, echoing boards to the accompaniment of a lone, spiritless pianist. The first time, at the Palace, Freda had been so overawed by standing on an actual West End stage that she could barely croak out her name when asked.
Poor old Florence, of course, stood no chance. The Muse Terpsichore had not favoured her, Miss Sherbourne said. It was true, Florence had no ear for either music or timing and her feet may as well have been encased in deep-sea diver’s boots. Freda, at least, usually managed to tap out a few nervous bars before someone unseen in the front row yelled, “Thank you, next!”
“I’m afraid the standards in the metropolis are very different from those in the provinces,” Miss Sherbourne told Freda. “You might be the star of your local provincial school, but here you’re just another girl, I’m afraid. I’m sure I’ll find you something eventually, though. And if the worst comes to the very worst,” she added rather darkly, “then the nightclubs always need girls who can dance.” The Nellie Cokers of this world were ravenous for them, she said.
Although Freda didn’t like to admit it, Florence had changed since they arrived in London. Of course, she had lost interest in the stage almost immediately, but that was no great surprise. Instead she had wanted to go to cafés and cinemas and mooch around the West End department stores. She wanted to “see the sights” and bought an expensive pack of tear-off postcards that was indeed called “The Sights of London.” The pack folded out like a concertina to show photographs of Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the Tower of London and so on, and after each sight had been ticked off, Florence sent a postcard to her parents on which she wrote the same message every time. Dear Mummy and Daddy, I’m having a lovely time in London. Miss you!—a sentiment somewhat undercut by the carelessly cheerful exclamation mark and the absence of a return address. The Ingrams had a telephone in their house, but Florence made no attempt to contact them. Freda supposed she had never had freedom before. Freda, who had had nothing but freedom, considered it to be an overrated concept.
As week followed week, Freda had continued the arduous grind around the open auditions in theatres and left Florence to her Sights. Perhaps that was a mistake, because the once reliably sunny nature had often become eclipsed recently by a new querulousness. If Florence wasn’t out visiting the Sights （surely she had seen them all several times by now）， she was often to be found lounging around with uncharacteristic petulance on their uncomfortable horsehair mattress, picking at a bag of sweets while reading lurid, dust-jacketed thrillers that she bought from a stall in Berwick Street market.
She was seized too, of course, by the idea of Tutankhamun and his curse.
Freda hadn’t heard of Tutankhamun—she had never read a newspaper in her life, they were good for stringing up in the outside privy or for wrapping fish and chips, but that was their limit as far as she was concerned. She didn’t understand why a big modern city like London—surely the most important city in the whole world—should be convulsed by the idea of someone who died in Egypt thousands of years ago.
“He’s haunting the streets, looking for victims,” Florence said, “because we dug him up and disturbed his eternal rest.”
“No we about it,” Freda said crossly. “I didn’t dig him up. I don’t even know where Egypt is.”
In York, you couldn’t lay a gas pipe or a new drain without digging up a Roman skeleton. If they didn’t like their “eternal rest” being disturbed, then surely the streets of the girls’ home town would be full of legions of the dead roaming about. （“They are,” Florence said.） Freda’s next-door neighbour in the Groves had a Roman skeleton in his coal cellar, people paid tuppence to come and gawp at it. Freda would rather spend the money on a bag of pear drops.
And visions! The day before they left for London, they had climbed the spiral staircase that led to the roof of the Minster. Freda wanted to say goodbye to York, she intended never to return. Florence huffed and puffed and claimed dizziness at every turn, while Freda—an adept at the pirouette, lest we forget—skipped up the helical steps full of encouragement for her friend. It was a clear day and when they reached the top they could see the Vale of York laid out before them. “It’s like looking at the whole world,” Florence said.