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They met in the winter of 1914. The war had been plodding on for months now, an endless stream of stagnant warfare and deaths upon deaths upon deaths. Men were being called up in their thousands, leaving their families and jobs behind. Vacancies were filled by women, the old, and the young, but most industries were suffering anyway.
The only industry that appeared to be thriving was the entertainment industry. The theatres were packed to the rafters, most nights. The public needed to escape. They needed light, they needed laughter, they needed connection. They needed the temporary respite from reality that people like Charlie Mack provided.
In the growing absence of men and with the abundance of depictions of the ideal male as bold and muscled and strong, Charlie's male impersonator act was thriving. The vision of a woman mimicking the bold and heroic stance of their brave masculine men amused people, and Charlie was rather good. She was part of no double act. She had had no partner. She hadn't needed one. Charlie could pull in the crowds and bring down the house just fine on her own.
But she got a partner all the same.
Edith Dobbs came into her life a little about four months into the war. The streets back then were cold and dark, winter was closing its icy fist around London, and wouldn't be ready to let it go for some months. People hurried along with there collars up and their shoulders hunched, eager to conserve as much warmth as possible. No one spoke, everyone shivered, and half the populace were going to theaters and concerts and little side shows just to get out of the cold and warm up.
Charlie found herself doing that very thing herself one afternoon. She'd gone out in the middle of rehearsal one blustery day, desperate for a hot lunch, and was on her way home when she'd been overtaken by a gust of wind so frigid, she'd turned in at the next theatre without even looking at the name on the marquee. A young woman sat at the ticket counter, looking tired, cold, and thoroughly unfulfilled.
"That bad, is it?" Charlie asked, as she purchased a ticket to God knew what.
"Easy for you to say," said the woman, taking her money and looking her up and down. "You've still got a job, by the look of you, and in the theatre too. Don't look so surprised, got some Max Factor round the ears, you have. My man leaves me high and dry, not even actually fighting, is he… and he leaves me and breaks up our act, and now I'm forced into this box manning a till with cold round me ankles and this blasted steel chair and all my talents gone to waste. It's a crime, it is."
"No arguments here," said Charlie, slipping her wallet back into her coat. "What was your act?"
The woman looked up, startled, as if surprised Charlie was listening to her. She smoothed her face quickly though, and stretched out languidly in her chair. "Living doll. For a ventriloquist. Ever heard of Le Beau and La Belle?" Charlie had, and it must have shown in her face because the woman nodded. "We were good, we were. Packed 'em in every night. And now look at me."
Charlie made a sympathetic face. It was the story of too many these days. People torn apart by war, their lives pulled to shreds. Didn't matter that the man wasn't dead. This woman's livelihood was gone all the same. And now, she was confined to a fate worse than death for a performer of the arts. Sitting. Indoors. repeating oneself day after day after day, not creating, barely even living.
"So, you're a dancer then?" Charlie asked. She knew what she was about to do now, just as surely as she knew it was a bad idea. A double act meant half the profit. Meant mixing up what was already a good act, the audiences might not react well to a new person… The risks were substantial.
"Yeah. I reckon I am," said the woman, curious now.
Charlie did it. "I could probably use a dancer in my act, if you don't mind working with a woman who wears trousers."
The woman's eyes lit up. She shook her head.
"We'd have to work out something new, of course. My current act wouldn't work with another person, not the way it is, but I'm sure we could adjust it. And including a woman actually playing a woman makes room for new storylines we could try," Charlie offered.
She waited. A smile bloomed across the woman's face, slow and utterly devious, caught beneath sparkling eyes in a look that sent shivers down Charlie's spine and warmth blooming in her chest.
In that instant, two things occurred to Charlie. One, the woman was breathtaking, and two, Charlie was well and truly fucked.
The woman held out her hand, and Charlie took it. "Edith Dobbs," she said with a grin. "And I like a woman in trousers." Charlie had been right. She was fucked. There would be no recovering.
They fell in together in November, and by December, they'd fallen into bed together as well.
They'd set up a comfortable little partnership for themselves, in amongst the bowels of London theatre district. They had a bedsit and regular work, and Charlie got to spend every day with Edith. And Edith was...
Edith was light and fire and spunk, and Charlie and she got on like a house on fire. Charlie had been relatively fine before, alone, but Edith made the dark days seem lighter. A spot of brilliance in the gloomy gray of the world for nearly four happy years.
And then she left.
In hindsight, Charlie could see the web of cracks spreading through their partnership, shifting, separating, originating from their very meeting and widening with frequent agitation of their foundations until- until Edith left. To go back to a man. And Charlie was left alone.
He'd always been there, Cosmo. Present in their relationship in conversation just as vividly as if he'd been there in reality. Certainly at the start anyway. When they had first been cobbling together their act, it had been constant, the heartbreaking exclamations of surprise and delight from Edith at being treated like a human being. And then stories about Cosmo and how he'd treated Edith that made Charlie want to wrap Edith up in a warm blanket and devote her life to keeping her safe, and made her equally want to wring Cosmo's neck.
He was a bastard, he was. A vile, violent, controlling arse of a bastard that had used his act as an excuse to deprive Edith of her freedom.
Edith knew this. Lord knew she'd said it often enough. Complained about him to the high heavens, and, of course, Charlie had taken that to mean going back to him when he left his Majesty's service was off the table. Little had she known.
Still, as time went on, Edith still talked about him. When the novelty of an equal working partnership faded, there was the novelty of an equal romantic partnership to incite comparison and complaints about her ex to satisfy her tongue.
Maybe she should have, but Charlie had never begrudged her this, nor had she been annoyed. How could she have been? Edith had never had her needs considered before. She'd never been truly taken care of, not by someone who loved her. Comparison was simply how Edith expressed how delightfully different this all was for her.
That's what Charlie had thought, anyway.
Then one morning, Cosmo had shown up at the Pavilion, all wide grins and arrogant expectations, telling Edith he was back and it was time to get their act going again. He didn't blame her for finding a masculine figure to attach herself to in his absence, he'd said, (with quite a nasty sneer at Charlie, mind you) but now she didn't have to settle for anything less than the real thing. Here he was, back to rescue her.
And Edith had gone.
She'd gone. Just like that.
Nevermind all the abuse and the violence and mistreatment, she'd up and left. Packed up her things from the dressing room in a haze of apparent bliss, with barely a word to Charlie, as though Charlie didn't exist. When she'd gotten home that night, devastated and still in shock, Edith's things were gone and there was a note on Charlie's pillow that read:
Sorry about the act! Good thing you make an excellent solo! See you round,
Edith
No apologies for leaving her lover of four years at the drop of hat. Nothing.
Charlie had gone through life in a bit of a daze after that. She'd been blindsided, and naive. She could see that now. She'd thought she could fix Edith. Or at least, she'd thought she could help her, be there for her enough that she wouldn't need Cosmo anymore.
Now, she saw that for Edith, Charlie wasn't enough. She didn't make Edith feel enough. Steady love, steady companionship wasn't what Edith wanted, apparently. Because while Cosmo came with major downsides, because of them, his good moments when he treated one well were all the more sweet. His sporadic displays of affection coupled with his bursts of anger and violence left one craving his approval, wondering what you'd done wrong, and how you could fix it.
Edith knew this. She'd talked about it with Charlie many a night.
She'd still gone back. Still walked back into his arms, happy as a lark, ready for the same treatment she'd lamented, all over again.
But Edith was strong. Different. She knew what an equal partnership meant now, and Charlie hoped that she be alright. Stick up for herself and the like. She could live with the aching heart and the empty bed if it meant Edith was being treated like she ought.
But a year later, Edith turned up at the theatre Charlie was working in, asking if she'd like a drink. Charlie hadn't known what to say, so she'd accepted, and soon she found herself cutting through Hyde Park with her ex lover on her arm, mentally kicking herself for agreeing to anything at all. Edith didn't want- it wasn't the same for her. But what was she doing here?
"I've left him," said Edith, as though she could hear Charlie's thoughts. "For good. He's a no good piece lying piece of filth and I'm sorry I ever met him."
So he hadn't been treating her well… Still. Charlie remembered Edith saying about a thousand similar things over the course of their relationship, before Edith had left. Her heart sank. "Good for you!" she managed. "You deserve better."
Edith shook her head ruefully. "I don't know about what I deserve." She stopped under a tree and looked up at Charlie. "I sort of left in a hurry, didn't I?" Charlie just looked at her. She was so close to getting it, and yet so far, and yet- Charlie couldn't find it in herself to be angry. Edith watched her face with sad eyes. Sad for Charlie, or sad for herself? "You were nothing but good to me. Not like Cosmo. You always treated me like you cared."
"I did care. I do," Charlie heard herself say, even as alarm bells tolled heavy in the back of her mind. There was Cosmo's name, again.
Edith brightened, just a little, and relaxed. "I thought you might hate me, seeing as I walked out on you."
"I could never hate you." She couldn't. It wasn't Edith's fault Cosmo had messed with her head. It wasn't her fault she craved his attention and his affection. He'd specifically curated that desire in her by withholding it when she was vulnerable. She wasn't to blame. "That note you left me, when you left," she began. Edith waited. "I do make an excellent solo. But I didn't have you in the act because you were essential to my survival. You were there because I wanted you to be there, because I thought we liked it that way. Liked being near each other. I thought we enjoyed making creative decisions together and crafting the act. And I thought you felt the same."
Edith's gaze softened. "I did! I do. And I miss it. I miss you."
Charlie sighed. She knew what was going to happen before she said it. She let the feeling of impending doom envelop her, and still, she leapt. "I miss you too."
"Will you have me back then?"
And Charlie said yes.
At the end of the day, she still loved Edith. She wanted her to be safe, and happy, and taken care of, and there was no better way to make sure of that than to do it herself. It didn't matter that she was giving more than she got on the emotional side of things, now did it? Charlie didn't mind. She had always been a solo act after all. She could take care of herself.
The main thing was that she was there for Edith. And this time round, she would not be so naive. Edith could leave her again, probably would, in fact, as much fun as she seemed to have with Charlie. The signs were there. Cosmo came up constantly, and as much as Charlie tried to believe Edith when she said Cosmo would never get her back… she couldn't. It was exactly the same sort of thing she'd said the last time round, and this time, Cosmo was more than just a topic of conversation.
Cosmo had turned up outside of jobs, in the audiences, written letters, you name it, and Charlie couldn't help but think that it was only a matter of time. A matter of time before he got to her, good and proper, and she'd leave. Charlie just had to live with that. Edith wasn't hers to keep. She was her own person who could decide for herself what she wanted.
He showed up in their dressing room one day, all arrogance and charm, trying to lure Edith back to his side. Edith asked Charlie to give them a moment, so Charlie waited outside, and worried. Not for herself, oh no. No, because if that man didn't get what he wanted, from all Edith had said, he had a tendency towards violence and angry outbursts. If he did anything to hurt Edith, if he so much as laid a finger on her- he would get what he deserved. Hard. With a screwdriver.
Then Edith yelled and Charlie threw open the door. Cosmo was brandishing his cane like he was going to hit Edith. He faltered when Charlie walked in.
They let him leave, caught, though he still managed to move like he owned the world. Edith sat down and pressed a powder puff to her nose, a dreamy smile playing about her lips.
And Charlie knew then- Edith would go back. Maybe not this minute, maybe not this hour, but soon. She did have feelings for Cosmo, however she felt about Charlie.
And Charlie couldn't keep quiet anymore. She needed to say something. Needed to talk to her about it. Ask her to consider Charlie's feelings, when she did. Tell her that if she left… Charlie couldn't take her back again. She couldn't. Charlie loved Edith. She loved her to pieces. She'd put Edith's feelings above her own time and time again and maybe- maybe she needed something back. Maybe she needed the assurance that her lover wouldn't drop her for her ex as soon as he came calling. Maybe Edith didn't need that steady stream of love and support that a healthy relationship brought, but Charlie did. Charlie wanted to be loved, fully and completely.
She tried to tell her when they next had the opportunity to talk. Tried to talk about them. Edith was washing her hair, post laundry day, so that both she and her clothes would be clean at the same time, while Charlie was putting a final shine on her gentleman's evening shoes and- she steered the conversation to Cosmo.
"Everyone said it was a great act," she ventured.
"Well, it was quite a good act," Edith agreed, pouring water over her head. "There's me, this beautiful doll, like that." She mimed stiff doll arms. "I don't know- it just got a bit… and my nerves had to be stiff most of the time… it was all his idea of course."
"Would be, he's a man," Charlie agreed. It was nice, all of this. With Edith washing her hair and Charlie doing her shoes. It was all so domestic. Charlie let herself bask in it, for just a bit. She did have to talk to Edith about all of… but this might be the last moment of just them being them that she got. Still… "You were good, together," she prodded.
"Yeah, but I am a dancer!" Edith protested. "We're good together! Aren't we?"
No, but we're not, Charlie wanted to say. I love you to bits and you love me but not enough and not in the same way. We're not.
She got up, and began helping Edith dry her hair, towel in hand. "Edith…" she said. There must have been something in her voice that warned of something because Edith looked up, lips parted and eyes wide, like she knew something painful was coming, and- Charlie turned Edith around so Edith couldn't see her face. "You'll have to stop him hanging around when I'm trying to work. It puts me off, all those teeth." She couldn't do it. Couldn't hurt Edith.
"Puts you off?" Edith relaxed. "How d'you think I feel? I'm telling you, if he comes round here tonight, I'm going to call the police, I will." And she was back on Cosmo again, talking about how much he wanted her back and why. And Charlie let her. As much as the topic pushed Charlie's heart further and further down in her chest, she was going to miss this one day. Miss Edith. Miss the life and warmth she brought into Charlie's cold little life. Miss the laughter and the softness. Miss Edith curled up beside her in bed. Miss her yammering on at all hours. Maybe Charlie needed to let this play out. Edith was going to leave, and maybe all Charlie could do would be to let her go out on her own terms, and spend as much time with Edith as she could while she still had the chance.
So when a woman came, and apparently tried to convince Edith to go back to Cosmo, sending Edith into a tirade that focused heavily on just how much Cosmo wanted her back, Charlie said nothing of consequence, and provided a listening ear.
For the next few days, it was Cosmo this and Cosmo that, and then- then that weekend, Charlie and Edith were out by the Palladium looking at a few shops, and Charlie stopped to look at something a street vendor was selling, and then all of a sudden, Edith was no longer at her side.
Charlie looked up, and round, and saw a blue jacket and hat disappearing into the staff entrance of the London Palladium. Charlie followed, of course. "The Great Cosmo," read the board outside. "Le Beau and La Princesse with the Honorable Barbara Palmer." And they were on in less than half an hour.
Charlie hesitated. It was no wonder Edith had gone in. She loved that act, Charlie knew. And she was good at it. Seeing someone else take it over for her, especially someone as full of herself as that Miss Palmer… Oh, she would be furious right about now. She wouldn't stand for that, whatever happened.
Well, one didn't go to this type of act without purchasing tickets. It wasn't decent. No one knew that better than a performer. Charlie purchased two tickets for she and Edith and took her place in the queue. Wind blew through the late afternoon streets, chilling the theatre goers and settling deep in Charlie's bones.
Here she was again, cold and alone. This was it, her heart seemed to cry. You are done now. She will not come out of that theatre on anyone's arms but Cosmo's. You are not hers. You never were. You were what she clung to in the interim. A convenient place for her to fall. A nice place. Something she could berate Cosmo with in the future. "Charlie never treated me like this, Charlie let me eat however much I wanted." The idea struck Charlie as absurdly funny all of a sudden, and she laughed, a bit warmer now. At least she was that. At least she could provide Edith with a reference for how it was like to be treated decently. Maybe she would stick up for herself a bit more now. Charlie hoped she would.
The queue started moving and Charlie followed the line into the theatre. In the end, she couldn't do it. Couldn't sit with all those people having a good time, so she slid in at the back and watched from the wings.
It wasn't a surprise when Edith turned up in costume on stage. And, it wasn't a surprise when she performed to perfection, much better than she'd ever done with Charlie. It was clear she'd worked tremendously hard at this act, and perfected it too. She was breathtaking. And she wasn't Charlie's anymore.
They were like two ships passing in the night, or sharing parts of a journey together. Periods of connection, of shared feeling, but ultimately different destinations. She and Edith weren't meant for each other, as much as Charlie wished it were so.
So Charlie was left to mourn with the knowledge that there was nothing more that she could do. She just had to hope that Edith would be alright.