Picture of a showgirl

We move through life in a hurry. So much work, so much fun, so many problems, so many duties… We live among people and we see them, talk to them, but often we do not see much behind façades often created for self-protection. I just discovered some layers behind the image of an old lady I visit in a nursing home. I wrote some time ago about my difficulties to become an active volunteer and the red tape around it. It finished well and now I visit a place regularly which the local council found for me. I meet one particular lady, let’s call her Daphne. Maybe my visits do some good to my new friend, but I definitely add something valuable to my life by knowing her.

                     

When I met her first, Daphne was not very keen on having any visitors. In fact she tried to brush me off. She expected to get a patronizing treatment and she wanted to protect herself from it. We both were lucky. It is not my way to great people with “and how are we today, dear?” That was perhaps a redeeming point in my favour. I related to her as I do to any other person. I am not good around small children and people who reached childish mental stage. Thanks God, Daphne is not such a person. I am not sure if she has dementia and if she does what is a level of it. We come from different backgrounds so I am not yet able to gauge if her stories are realistic of a figment of her imagination. Could it be both? I must say that at times I loose myself in her stories. She has a need to offload her thoughts so she talks fast and I at times listen but do not comprehend all of what is being said. It upsets her and it upsets me. Luckily this does not happen too often.

For a while she was telling me that her son visits her very often, calls her and takes her out. Suspicious me thought that it was only wishful thinking. Like in Chekhov's Three Sisters unrealistic dreaming of going to Moscow. It was not! I was very happy to meet her son during one of my visits. Maybe I was even being assessed by the family? To me it was a good sign and I was relieved to realize my thinking was wrong.

So, our mutual trust is being built. During my last visit, unexpectedly,  she showed me a picture from her youth. When you look at Daphne you know that she was a beautiful woman in her youth as she is beautiful now in her fragile eighties. She dresses nicely and puts a lipstick on before my visits. Maybe this is the reason why she asked me always to call her before I visit her. So I do not catch her unprepared? Hmm… Anyway, regular visits were not what she wanted and I call each time before I go to her.

The picture she showed me was of a showgirl! Top hat, cane in her slender hand, great legs, very skimpy costume and a serious facial expression. It was not a flirtatious girl, just a beautiful young lady a bit scared before her forthcoming performance. It was going to be a song and dance. Maybe I should not call her a showgirl as she was a solo performer. She told me that she performed with a band (visible on the picture) and she called the men behind her “boys”. They were protective of her, I believe. Building my story about Daphne I see her as a talented girl who got permission of her mother to sing and dance in a theater. She called it a "serious theater in the city". Obviously she was not a Kings Cross performer. I know too little about Sydney artistic life of the post Second World War era to put the pieces together and fill in the missing gaps. It may come, though, with our future talks, but Daphne is reluctant to disclose too much. I respect that and even if I write about her I respect and protect her privacy. I feel privileged that she shared with me some of her memories. It took few months before she opened her drawer with the picture. It must be an important memory to her. 

I could not find a picture of a serious showgirl. Daphne must have been unique.

                                                              

Daphne’s room is neat and tidy, very few well chosen possessions taken from a big home she had to leave behind. Already on my first visit I noticed a small paining of a cancan dancer performing her high kick. Pantaloons in full view. Vivid colours, lots of bright orange and cobalt blues. Already then I thought that this painting does not fit my expectations. There have been already few surprises while meeting Daphne, some discoveries and still many mysteries, but whoever you were and are Daphne, I feel honoured to know you.