Читать книгу Being Henry Applebee - Celia Reynolds - Страница 13

Henry’s jaw drops. The moment he steps inside, he can smell it: something raw; and electric; and alive.

The entrance hall at street level is bigger, grander than he’d imagined; high-ceilinged, ablaze with light, fizzing with expectation. He joins the queue behind a man in a flamboyant silk tie and gazes overhead, cap raked at an angle, hands resting casually in the trouser pockets of his uniform. The new year is six weeks old. He’s back in Britain at last. He is almost, but not quite, home.

Henry roots his feet to the floor, his grey eyes drinking in the wonderment of it all. Lined up ahead is a medley of earnest faces, young men and women like himself, each more dedicated than the next to the business of having a good time. His thoughts flit impatiently to the music, to the chance to finally kick back and relax. He sucks in his cheeks and whistles, long and low. This is it, he thinks. This is something marvellous indeed!

In the shelter of the foyer it’s warm, too. Outside, a blistering wind tears along the promenade, snapping at the skirts of a group of girls who bustle through the open doorway behind him, giggling, a saucy glint in their eyes, their cheeks rouged raw by the chill. He reaches inside his jacket for a cigarette and pulls his hand out empty. Damn it. He gave his last one to Davy Hardcastle. ‘Good luck!’ they’d called out to him. ‘See you back at the billet! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

Henry smiles to himself. The Tower Ballroom. It had been his idea to come here all along, but the others had their own plans. O’Malley (it was always O’Malley; was there any place on earth the guy didn’t know?) had heard of a bar where the girls kicked up their heels, danced a merry jig on the tables, and if you were lucky, let you run the tips of your fingers up and down the finely stitched seams of their stockings, all the way to no-man’s-land where the gossamer silk ended, and a narrow strip of quivering bare flesh lay waiting to lead you all the way to heaven…

Henry pays his entrance fee and makes his way up a vast staircase, two steps at a time, all the way to the top floor. The dull click of his right knee as he climbs. The heavy drag of his boots. He tries not to think about how disorientated he feels, how the heft of his body would fall slack and clumsy from lack of sleep if he let it. As he rounds a bend, the muscles in his calves protest and contract beneath his skin. He keeps his eyes fixed on the turn ahead. Pushes on.

The scent of perfume, of anticipation, clouds the air. He wishes his uniform didn’t hang so loosely on his diminished frame, but there’s not much he can do about that now. Back at the billet he’d stumbled upon a hollow-eyed stranger in the mirror – a human coat-hanger – no body inside to speak of, just his air force blues suspended like a phantom before him. Henry tugs at the hem of his jacket and pulls himself upright. It’s an automatic movement, ingrained by now. But there are no commanding officers here. No roll call awaits. Just soaring melodies, couples whirling like spinning tops on the dance floor, and eight shimmering glitter balls rotating overhead.

He reaches the top floor, passes through a pair of double doors and enters the ballroom at balcony level. A blast of music rains against Henry’s skin, and a sweet, invigorating rush of adrenaline surges like nectar through his limbs. To his left, row upon row of plush, upholstered seats fan out vertiginously one behind the other, each arranged to afford the best possible view of the dance floor. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the low-level lighting, but he can tell at once that he made the right decision to come upstairs – there are far fewer people up here, and the spectacle is magnificent, like a view from Mount Olympus itself.

‘Bet you any money the Café de Paris never had anything on this.’

Henry turns, sees the man in the silk tie standing in the shadows to his right.

‘The place in London,’ he continues. ‘Piccadilly. Got bombed in the Blitz?’

‘I never went there,’ Henry replies. He shrugs, his mouth curling into a smile. ‘I wasn’t old enough to get in at the time.’

‘Wouldn’t have stopped me,’ the man says with a wink. He leans in. ‘You’re a Londoner, aren’t you?’

Henry, unsure where this is leading, smiles again. ‘I am.’

‘Thought so. I hear the London girls can give guys like you and me the runaround. They can be – you know, standoffish. Stuck-up. But let me tell you something, my friend, they go stark raving mad for it here. It’s the electromagnetism. A couple of spins on the dance floor, and the music releases all their inhibitions. Know what I mean?’

His breath smells faintly sour, and, Henry detects, there’s an unnatural glassiness to his eyes. ‘Hey, fella,’ he says, nudging Henry’s arm, ‘I can spot a rookie a mile off. It’s your first time here, am I right?’

Henry concedes a grin. ‘Maybe. Or then again, maybe I’ve just got a rookie kind of face.’

The man sidles closer. ‘Well, Rookie, take it from me… if you’re looking for a pretty girl to dance with, you’re wasting your time up here. I suggest you follow my lead and make your way downstairs.’

Henry takes a discreet step backwards. ‘Thanks for the tip,’ he says lightly. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

He waits for the man to leave and looks around for a place to sit. Immediately ahead of him the first half-dozen rows are almost entirely empty, with the notable exception of one young woman seated alone in the front row. At first, all Henry can make out is the hazy outline of her silhouette. Her bird-like frame is perfectly still, her back draped in shadow, her head tilted forwards over the shiny gold barrier towards the dance floor below. He slips his hands into his pockets and waits to see if anyone joins her, but there are only a handful of spectators milling around, and behind him, two or three couples, lost in their own private dominions, quietly ensconced in the upper rows.

Henry glances towards the staircase. He wonders if perhaps he should go downstairs and get something to drink, when some force – some strange, visceral, magnetic pull – draws his attention back to the young woman. Henry trains his eyes on the back of her neck. And yet she herself doesn’t look round once… She must be totally engrossed; he’s never seen such powers of concentration in a dance hall!

Go over to her, he tells himself. Introduce yourself. Find out who she is.

He takes a step and falters as the light from a glitter ball sweeps firstly over him, then over the girl. He can see her more clearly now: the lush India green of her dress, cinched at the waist; narrow shoulders; soft waves of sandy brown hair swept up in a bun and held in place by an array of decorative clips which glint and sparkle in the beam of light circling above them. Henry counts ten seconds exactly until the glitter ball completes its circuit of the room. The association is inevitable, instantaneous. Like a spotlight in a POW camp, he thinks. Thank Christ I never had to see the inside of one of those.

Slowly, he makes his way along the second row until he’s no more than a foot or two away from her. As he nears the back of her seat, Henry flicks his eyes in her direction. A fine layer of down curves upwards from the nape of her neck, as though reaching for the light. And, he realises with delight, she’s not sitting still after all – she’s moving! Both hands tapping out the rhythm of the music against her thighs.

Henry continues to the end of the row and glances behind him. The girl tips her head further over the barrier and a strand of waved hair slips loose from her bun and bounces against her cheek. He watches, transfixed, as with an almost hypnotic display of ease, she raises both arms to her head and clips it casually back into place.

‘Who is this girl?’ he mumbles under his breath.

He can’t understand it. He hasn’t even seen her face, and yet all he can think about is how intoxicating it must feel to be on the receiving end of such an intense gaze. Like looking into a lighthouse. Like dancing a waltz with the sun!

He doubles back along the front row until finally, somewhere between taking off his cap and smoothing down his hair, he comes to a stop beside her.

‘Wait!’ she cries, holding up her palm.

Henry freezes.

‘This is the absolute best bit! See the couple in the centre of the dance floor? They come here all the time. They dance for half an hour like they own the place, then they’re gone. I thought they might be partners in the romantic sense, too, but Daisy downstairs in the cloakroom said someone told her they’re twins. It’s all just rumours, though. Either way, they’re definitely professionals. Look how perfectly they’re holding each other! No one else can touch them!’

Henry turns and sees a handsome, dark-haired woman staring with queenly confidence into the fiery eyes of a swarthy, Mediterranean-looking male. Their bodies are pressed so closely together, you could barely thread a shoelace between them. As a couple, they’re flawless, incandescent. Henry hates them already.

‘Oh yes,’ he says, as the pair smoulder their way provocatively across the dance floor. ‘Not bad. Absolutely nothing intimidating about them at all.’

To his surprise, the girl responds with a hearty laugh.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he continues, cursing himself – inwardly – for his inopportune timing, ‘but is this seat taken?’

She turns her head and extends him an appraising gaze. She’s about his age – nineteen or twenty, twenty-one at most – with a peaches and cream complexion, a lively expression, and the most extraordinary liquid blue eyes he’s ever seen. Henry freezes a second time. Oh God, he thinks, she’s beautiful. What now?

She scans his eyes and casts a brief, sideways glance over his shoulder. In the interminable moment it takes for her to respond, Henry manages to convince himself that all she wants is a little peace and quiet to enjoy the dancing. Why else would she be sitting up here all alone?

Who or what, if anything, she sees or doesn’t see, he can’t be sure, but gradually her mouth softens into an irresistible smile.

‘The seat’s free,’ she replies. ‘Sit down. It’s so quiet up here today we’ve got the entire row to ourselves.’

Henry grins and lowers himself beside her. The second his buttocks hit the chair he’s overcome by a violent urge to face her, to win her over before he’s even learned her name. Instead, he does as she does, only with considerably less grace – pinioning his eyes to the dynamos on the dance floor, his hands clamped like barnacles to his knees.

‘Venus and Adonis,’ she says, after a beat.

Henry stares into the gaping void before him. He didn’t think it was possible he could feel any more affronted by this unbearably slick, depressingly accomplished couple if he tried.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ he replies. He turns mechanically to meet her gaze.

‘What?’

‘You’re not seriously telling me they’re called Venus and Adonis? If they are professionals – and with names like that, I pray to God for their sakes that they are – then Venus and Adonis have to be stage names. I mean, it’s a bit over the top, isn’t it? You do realise their real names are probably Shirley and Ken?’

The girl stares at him for a stunned five seconds, then bursts into a helpless fit of giggles. Her laughter is so infectious that soon Henry is laughing, too. In fact, the suppressed nervous tension that’s been building inside him from the moment he sat down quickly runs riot, and before long they’re both laughing so hard, they’re practically doubled over.

She leans towards him and, still giggling, holds up a thin, pink hand. ‘No! I’m not talking about the dancers. I’m talking about that… right there… the inscription engraved in the stonework above the stage. Can’t you see it?’

Instantly sobering, Henry follows her gaze. ‘Sorry?’

She leans a fraction closer. ‘Straight ahead of you… I asked Jimmy the doorman where it comes from and he told me it’s from Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. I’d never heard of it, much less read it, but it made me laugh how it’s wound up here, in a dance hall. Must be a reference to the music, don’t you think?’

Henry sees it now; frankly, it’s impossible to miss when she’s pointing at it so prettily, the graze of her voice just inches from his face. He clears his throat and reads the quote out loud:

‘“BID ME DISCOURSE, I WILL ENCHANT THINE EAR…” Yes,’ he says, trying his utmost to compose himself, ‘I’d say it is. It might refer to the music, or maybe to a fellow music lover, like you?’

He peels his hand from his knee and holds it out towards her. ‘I’m sorry – you had me distracted there for a moment – I should have introduced myself. I’m Henry Applebee. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

‘You don’t need to apologise.’ She gives him a dizzying smile. ‘Honestly, I haven’t laughed so much in ages.’

Henry casts an anxious glance at Shirley and Ken, who (to his immense annoyance) are still lording it over the dance floor. If that’s what he’s up against, then what he’s about to say next could quite possibly result in the most mortifying ten or fifteen minutes of his life…

‘Would you like to dance?’ he ventures, regardless. ‘I must warn you, though, I’m not much of a dancer. It’s the music I enjoy most of all.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t let them put you off,’ she replies. Her expression, her voice, are utterly forgiving, wholly kind. ‘Music lovers make the best dancers of all. My nan told me that. She had polio when she was a lass and she’s been weak in her legs all her life, but no one loves a tune more than she does. It’s worth dropping by for tea just to see her doing the rumba around her kitchen.’

Henry laughs, then remembers she hasn’t yet accepted his invitation.

She holds his gaze, her blue eyes appraising him once again. ‘I haven’t seen you here before. Are you stationed at Kirkham?’

His hand, still reaching towards her, starts to shake. ‘I am, yes. Actually, I just arrived today. From the Far East.’

‘You arrived today and you’re already at the Tower Ballroom? You really are a music fan, Henry!’

Henry grins. ‘Certified. Have been my whole life.’

‘Me too. Hook, line and sinker!’

She smoothes down the skirt of her dress. ‘How long are you here for?’

‘Forty-eight hours,’ he replies. ‘Then it’s demob for me.’

‘Oh.’ Her voice gives nothing away. ‘In that case, we’d better get moving.’

Henry glances back over the barrier. ‘There’s just one thing… If you expect me to share a dance floor with Venus and Adonis down there, could you at least tell me your name?’

‘Of course! But we have to be quick if we want to get downstairs before this song finishes. Come on, I’ll tell you my name on the way.’

She rises from her seat, and as she edges past him, the hem of her dress brushes against his knees. All at once, the possibility of holding her in his arms on the dance floor scatters Henry’s thoughts like bowling pins. His heart batters furiously against his ribs.

It is then, without warning, that it begins…

She takes his hand and everything around him starts to disintegrate. Henry feels his feet slide from under him as a sharp, violent jolt yanks him against his will by an invisible chain, back, far back along a dark, dank tunnel. The swell of music fades, and as the light from the glitter balls begins to dim, Henry finds himself struggling to retain the receding image of her face. He strains, forcing himself to stay present, but while sound and vision distort, the warmth of her hand and the touch of her skin remain both elusive, and at once, agonisingly real.

Henry’s body jerks and tenses. He’s in Kentish Town, in his bedroom, the only sounds the contented sighs and snuffles of Banjo’s nocturnal breath.

Willing himself back along the thin, dark tunnel, Henry silently repeats the words over and over:

Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up.

He keeps his eyes firmly closed. There is a moment’s grace, a final glimpse beyond the velvet darkness, and then, from far away, her voice:

‘Don’t worry, I’m not much of a dancer either, but I could happily watch everyone else dancing all day long. It’s nice to meet you, Henry. I’m Francine, by the way.’