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climb.’
    The extra was approaching, blinking in nervous supplication. ‘May I have your autograph, Mr Dastagir?’ she asked, her face nearly as purple as her pants.
    ‘Sabu,’ he corrected her, taking the pen and autograph book and signing with very good grace. And once he’d signed one autograph, a queue formed, and he was obliged to sign forty more.
    ‘Do you know,’ said Baba, when he’d finished, ‘that until I met you, I assumed all child stars to be spoilt brats. You could give some of those Hollywood kids a run for their money. You’re ten times more talented than most of them.’
    Sabu frowned. ‘I’ll meet some of them soon. I’m off to Hollywood once this epic is in the can. I have hired an agent there.’
    Baba looked at him, agape. ‘A Hollywood agent? You lucky dog!’
    Sabu shrugged. ‘I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I’m not too keen on the idea. Hollywood is my idea of hell. But Boss Man Korda advised me that America is the best place to be now that war is on the way.’
    War really was on the way. Only the other day newspaper headlines had bellowed FRANCE MOBILIZES! and since July, air raid shelters were being built all over London. Sandbags and gas masks were being distributed, too. Baba dreaded the idea of donning a gas mask because they looked like pigs’ snouts.
    ‘That’s my dream, you know,’ Baba confessed. ‘To escape from here and go to Hollywood.’
    ‘No! Don’t tell me you are hankering after stardom, Baba?’
    ‘I’m hankering after excitement, really. I’m dreading this war. It’s going to make life so bloody dreary. Everybody keeps droning on about the New Austerity.’
    The ‘New Austerity’ was reflected in the fashions being showcased in
Vogue
. Fashion was no longer frivolous – it was borderline frumpy. Hair was pinned up and hidden away under scarves and duster hats, skirts were skimpily cut to save on fabric, and shoes were clumpy cork-wedged affairs. To Baba, it felt very strange to come to work in Denham Studios, where there was a profusion of riotous colours and opulent fabrics and exotic artefacts. While Churchill roared in Whitehall and Hitler barked in Germany and Mussolini yapped in Italy, the boys and girls at Denham were busy making fairy tales.
    Baba took a look at her watch. Miss Duprez would be waiting for her tea. ‘Time for me to scoot,’ she said, giving Sabu’s hand a squeeze. ‘I’ll be happy to run lines with you later, if you like.’
    ‘There’s not a lot of point,’ said Sabu ruefully. ‘The script’s changed again.’
    Baba set off back across the lot, taking care to steer clear of one of the sparks, who was watching her wolfishly with his pop eyes. She’d foolishly tried out her ‘Lisa’ persona on him one day, and that had been a big mistake because Popeye now ogled her lecherously everywhere she went.
    As she passed by the ‘harbour’ where muscle-bound stuntmen in loincloths were furling sails and sliding down ropes, she found herself wondering why she had never bothered to try out her ‘Lisa’ persona on Sabu. He was too young for her, she knew, but it never did any harm to put in a little practice. And then she realized why. It was because she liked him too much to toy with his affections. She liked him too much to make a lapdog of him.
    One Sunday morning as Baba sat on her little stool assiduously marking a list of props, Mr Korda himself appeared on the set, a huge Corona cigar between his teeth, and announced that there was to be an important radio broadcast. It was a surreal scene. June Duprez in her floaty pink pyjamas and Conrad Veidt in his red turban and Miles Malleson as the Sultan with his fake white whiskers, all congregated in the throne room of the princess’s palace with strained, ashen faces. And Baba clutched Sabu’s hand as Neville Chamberlain’s voice came over the speakers and told them that Britain was at war with Germany.
    When Baba returned home that evening she ran up to her