Читать книгу The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 12

‘Do you think I’ll be all right going dancing like this, Mrs Brown, only I haven’t got anything else?’ Ruthie asked uncertainly as she stood in the kitchen waiting for her next-door neighbour’s verdict. Her mother was in the parlour listening to the wireless, lost in the world to which she had retreated. Ruthie did not know which she dreaded the most: her mother’s blank silences when she hardly seemed to know her, or her tearful clinging pleas not to leave her.

‘I don’t look right, do I?’ she guessed as she saw the uncertainty in the older woman’s face as she studied her heavy shoes and ankle socks teamed with the only pretty dress she had, a school-girlish pink gingham cotton with white collar and cuffs.

‘Well, you look very nice, love, but p’raps more like you was going to Sunday school than a dance. But there,’ she continued hastily when she saw Ruthie’s face fall, ‘I’m sure it doesn’t matter what you wear. They go in all sorts these days, so I’ve heard – uniforms an’ all. You just go and enjoy yourself.’

Ruthie was the last to reach the Grafton, anxiously hurrying down the queue waiting for the doors to open, when a hand suddenly came out and grabbed hold of her.

‘Oh!’ she exhaled in relief when she realised it belonged to Jess.

‘Where’ve you bin?’ Jess scolded her good-naturedly. ‘We was just beginning to think you wasn’t coming.’

‘Well, whatever she was doing, it wasn’t worrying about what to wear,’ one of the other girls quipped quietly, causing a ripple of laughter to run through those near enough in the queue to hear her. ‘Did you tell her it was fancy dress or summat, Jess?’

‘Don’t take any notice of them,’ Jess comforted Ruthie. ‘They don’t mean any harm. You’re frock’s a pretty colour. Suits you, it does.’

‘I didn’t know what to wear. I haven’t got…’ Tears filled Ruthie’s eyes.

‘There now, don’t go getting yourself all upset. Your frock isn’t that bad, and if you had a different pair of shoes and took off them ankle socks and put a bit of rouge and lipstick on…’

‘And took them slides out of her hair and undid that plait and tried to look like she were eighteen and not fourteen. They’ll never let her in looking like that, Jess,’ Mel warned sharply.

‘Of course they will. If she’s old enough to be working on munitions then I’m bloody sure she’s old enough to go dancing,’ Jess defended Ruthie stoutly, adding, ‘Here, Polly, you always bring a spare pair of shoes wi’ you. Hand ’em over here, and let’s see if they fit Ruthie.’

‘I’m not giving her me best heels,’ a pretty blonde girl with large blue eyes protested sulkily.

‘Well, give me them you’re wearing now and you put the heels on,’ was Jess’s response, and somehow or other, Ruthie found herself persuaded out of her lace-ups and ankle socks and into a pair of scuffed white sandals.

‘Now for your hair. Lucy, you’re a dab hand with a comb. Come and see what you can do,’ Jess commanded.

There was no use her objecting, Ruthie could see that; a crowd of young women had gathered round her giggling as they enthusiastically offered their advice.

‘Anyone got any scissors?’ Lucy called out. ‘Only if I’m to do a decent job, I’m going to have to cut her hair.’

‘I’ve got a pair,’ someone called up. ‘Allus tek ’em wi’ me when I go out just in case some chap tries to get too fresh.’

‘Go on with yer,’ another girl laughed. ‘What yer going to do wi’ ’em – cut it off?’

Ruthie could feel her face getting redder and redder from a combination of trepidation and embarrassment.

‘Don’t worry,’ Jess assured her, giving her hand a small squeeze. ‘My, but I bet you never thought this’d be happening to you when you decided to go working on munitions,’ she laughed. ‘You’d have run a mile if you had, wouldn’t you? How come you’re still going out dressed like a Sunday school kid, anyway, Ruthie?’

It was impossible to resist her questions or to be offended by them, and somehow or other Ruthie discovered that she was telling her what she had thought she would never be able to tell anyone.

‘My dad was killed in the May bombing and…well, my mother…’ She paused, feeling guilty about discussing her mother to someone who was still relatively a stranger, no matter how easy she was to talk to.

‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.’

‘Hold still, will yer?’ Lucy was complaining. ‘How am I expected to give her a decent style if she keeps moving her head around, Jess? See, that fringe I just give her has gone all lopsided.’

‘You’d better get a move on, Lucy; they’re opening the doors,’ someone further down the queue warned.

Ruthie looked so apprehensive that Jess couldn’t help but laugh. She was such an oddity, so obviously not the sort to be working on munitions, that Jess’s tender heart had gone out to her the minute she had seen her.

Jess might be an only child but she had grown up surrounded by the busyness of a large extended family. Her mother was one of ten and her dad one of thirteen. The whole family lived close to one another on the same narrow streets off the Edge Hill Road, but nearer to the city centre than Chestnut Close, where Ruthie lived and which was considered to be a ‘better’ working-class area, because of its proximity to Wavertree. But although there may not have been much money around whilst Jess had been growing up, there had been plenty of love. Her father had been a jolly, good-natured man, always ready for a joke and a laugh. He and his brothers were rag-and-bone men, and he’d been proud of the fact that his patter had housewives favouring him rather than anyone else.

‘Got to ’ave the right touch, our Jess,’ he had often told her, giving her a saucy wink. ‘That’s how I managed to steal your mam away from under your Uncle Colin’s nose. Mad for her, he was, but it were me she married.’

‘Give over, do, Samuel Hunt,’ her mother had always chided him. ‘Don’t you go filling her head with all that nonsense. And as for your Colin -all he ever did was ask me out the once.’

There had always been a lot of banter between her parents, both of them able to give as good as they got, but it had been good-natured, and when her father had fallen ill after he had slipped on an icy street and broken his leg, her mother had become as thin and sick-looking as he.

Jess had been taken away to stay with one of her aunties when the doctor had said that her father was going to die.

‘Got poison in that broken leg of his, he has, lass,’ her Uncle Tom had told her. ‘Can’t do nowt about it.’

She had been taken to see him one last time, but he hadn’t looked like the dad she remembered, lying there in bed, his face oddly swollen and his breathing harsh.

She had been ten then, and could well remember walking behind the coffin when they went to bury him, and she could remember the wake afterwards as well, when his brothers, her uncles, had got drunk and started telling tales about when they had been lads together.

Her Uncle Colin had never married, and a year and a day after they had buried her dad, Jess’s mother had told her that she was going to marry him and that they would be going to live in his house. That was the way things were done in their community, and both sides of their extended family had looked approvingly on the marriage because of the security it gave a widow and her child. But, conscious of the child’s feelings both Jess’s mother and her new stepfather to be had been at pains to explain that her dad would never be forgotten and that the love all three of them had for him would never die, but would always keep him alive in their hearts.

Her uncle had provided her with as loving a home as her father had done and, as a child, just as her father and his brothers had brought home the flotsam and jetsam of their trade, sifting through it to rescue and nurture the ‘treasures’ they found, so Jess had learned to rescue her own flotsam and jetsam, normally in the form of some living thing. A singing bird that someone was throwing out because it wouldn’t sing, a stray kitten with a piece of string round its neck tied to a brick, a dog with three legs and cross-eyes -whatever it was, it only had to present itself to Jess as unloved and in need for her to take it to her heart and embrace it. There was nothing Jess liked more than bringing a smile to people’s faces, and happiness to those who didn’t possess it. She had an unerring instinct for those in need of her special touch, and she had recognised Ruthie as one of them the minute she had set eyes on her. Not that Jess analysed things as practically as that. She just knew that something made her feel sorry for Ruthie.

When the other girls took her to task for inviting Ruthie to go out dancing with them, Jess had told them firmly that Ruthie needed bringing out of herself a bit.

‘Have you done yet, Lucy, ’cos if you haven’t we’re going in without you? Otherwise we’ll lose our place in the queue and we won’t get a decent table,’ Elsie Wiggins, one of the older girls, who hadn’t wanted Jess inviting Ruthie along, shouted up.

‘We’re coming now,’ Jess responded, turning to smile at Ruthie. ‘Quick, have a look at yourself.’ She dived into her bag and produced a small mirror. ‘Proper smashing, you look. All you need now is a bit of lipstick. I’ll lend you mine when we get inside, and you’ll be turning all the lads’ heads and no mistake.’

Ruthie wasn’t listening to her. She was staring instead at her reflection in the mirror. She lifted her hand to touch the short fringe curling onto her face, her eyes widening. She looked so different, so grown-up.

‘Come on…Jess.’

Grabbing hold of Ruthie’s hand, Jess put the mirror away and hurried her along the street. Ruthie could feel the prickle of bits of hair sticking to her skin inside her frock. How much had Lucy cut off at the back? She had been snipping away for a very long time. Ruthie had never had her hair cut, always wearing it scraped back off her face in its neat plait. She reached behind her head and froze when her fingers encountered a soft mass of loose hair. Short loose hair.

‘Got a real nice wave to it now,’ Lucy was saying. ‘Though I say it meself, I’ve done it really nice. Mind you, them scissors I was using was that blunt it was like cutting it wi’ a knife and fork.’

‘All right, girls, how many of you are there then?’ one of the men on the door asked jovially

‘Eight,’ Jess answered him. ‘Eight of the best-looking girls in Liverpool. In fact, we’re that good-looking you should be letting us in for free,’ she told him, winking at Ruthie. ‘’Cos once the fellas see us they’ll be paying double just to get a closer look.’

‘Oh aye, well, you can tell that to the boss, if you like.’

‘I don’t know why you bother. It’s the same every week,’ a chubby ginger-haired girl protested.

‘Well, you never know, Andrea, one week he might let us in for nowt. It’s always worth a try. Him wot don’t ask don’t get – that’s what my dad allus used to say,’ Jess responded cheerfully, still holding Ruthie’s hand she led the way up the stairs to the ballroom.

Ruthie’s eyes widened as she followed Jess inside.

‘It’s Ivy Benson’s lot playing tonight,’ Lucy commented, glancing up at the gallery from which people could look down on the dance floor, and where the band played. ‘Ever so good, they are. They’ve got a good dance floor here too. Properly sprung, it is, not like some. Modelled it on some Russian dancing place.’

‘I think I remember reading that the building was designed after the Kirov Ballet Theatre,’ Ruthie supplied timidly, causing them all to stare at her.

‘Coo, proper schoolbook learning you’ve got, Ruthie, and no mistake,’ Lucy exclaimed admiringly.

‘Hmm.’ Carmen, another of the girls, with smouldering dark eyes and equally dark hair, pouted, unimpressed. ‘I like a proper band with a proper male singer.’

‘That’s only ’cos you want to give him the eye whilst you’re dancing,’ Elsie chirped up.

‘Look at them GIs over there,’ Lucy breathed. ‘You have to hand it to them, they look really well turned out. Ever so tall and handsome, they are…’

‘Aye, and ever so keen to get into a girl’s knickers, from what I’ve heard,’ a girl whose name Ruthie thought was Cathy sniffed.

‘Well, that good-looking one over there can try getting into mine any time he likes,’ Lucy answered her back.

‘Oooh, Lucy…’

‘I only said he could try,’ Lucy pointed out. ‘Come on, let’s go and grab that table over there, right by the dance floor, before anyone else does.’

‘I knew we should have got down here earlier,’ Myra complained as she and Diane joined the end of the queue. ‘Pity you haven’t got something a bit more dressy to wear,’ she added critically, before glancing down smugly at her own red sateen halter-neck top, obviously comparing it to the plain dark blue taffeta dress that Diane had on. Diane didn’t say anything. She was still brooding on the content of Beryl’s letter. She might not have dolled herself up like Myra, with her tight-fitting top and her red lipstick, but tonight she was going to show the world that she could have as good a time as anyone – especially Kit.

‘I knew it,’ Myra grimaced as soon as they were inside the ballroom. ‘There’s not a free table to be seen.’

‘We can share with some other girls, can’t we?’ Diane responded.

Myra gave her a withering look. For all her good looks it was plain to her that Diane knew very little about the art of attracting men. If they went and sat at a table with plain girls they’d be overlooked along with them, and if they went and sat at one with pretty ones, then they’d be vying with them for the best-looking men, which was why…She searched the room with an expert eye, and then dug Diane in the ribs.

‘Come on, over there, three from the band, and be quick about it in case someone beats us to it.’

She was pushing her way through the crowded ballroom before Diane could say anything, leaving her no option than to follow her. But when Diane saw the table she was heading towards, she stopped and made a grab for Myra’s arm.

‘What is it?’ Myra demanded impatiently.

‘We can’t sit there.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s full of men.’

‘Oh – so it is. Fancy me not noticing,’ Myra agreed, making big round eyes and then giving Diane an exasperated look. ‘Of course it’s full of men. Why do you think I’m heading for it? Come on.’

‘No,’ Diane told her firmly.

Myra’s mouth hardened in a thin line. ‘All right then. Wait here.’ Determinedly she made her way to the table, saying something to the eager-looking GI who turned to her, and then calling out to Diane, ‘Come on, these nice boys are going to give us two of their spare chairs, so that we don’t have to sit at a table with men we don’t know.’

Diane was so angry with Myra for the way she had drawn attention to her that she was tempted to turn on her heel and walk out, except she felt that doing so would make her look even more foolish. She would have something to say to her later when they were on their own, though – like she wasn’t going out with her again.

The Grafton was obviously a popular venue, the tables set round the dance floor all filled and men standing several deep at the bar. The tables in the part of the ballroom Myra had made her way to seemed to have been taken over by the Americans, whilst the men seated at the tables on the other side of the room were wearing British uniforms or civvies. As she made her way to join Myra, Diane felt almost like a traitor. In Cambridgeshire she would never have gone to sit with a crowd of Yanks. The young women she could see sitting with the Americans seemed to have no qualms about making them welcome, though. There was a desperation in the eyes of some of the girls, which made Diane look away quickly. What was it they were desperate for? The luxuries that their American boyfriends could give them? Or did their need go deeper than that? The country had been at war now since 1939. Some women had not seen their men for a very long time; some women would never see them again. Was that the cause of the angry, bitter hunger Diane could see in their eyes? Despite the heat of the ballroom Diane gave a small shiver. The war had turned so many girls into women, its urgency breaking down all the old rules that governed relationships between the sexes. Girls who would never normally have let their young men give them more than chaste kisses had become desperate to send them off to war with ‘something to remember them by’. What did preserving one’s virginity for tomorrow mean when there might not be a tomorrow, when all one might have was tonight? And then with their men gone and their senses awakened, was it any wonder that those girls-turned-women yearned for the warmth of a pair of male arms to hold them?

Diane shivered again, remembering the stolen nights of pleasure she and Kit had shared under the thatches of remote quaint village pubs, where the landlord had been prepared to turn a blind eye and accept their self-conscious claim to be a married couple. Would her body, deprived of what it had known, eventually fill her with a hunger and an anger that would take her into the arms of a stranger to seek oblivion? Pushing her disturbing thoughts aside, she made her way towards Myra.

Myra patted her hair and cast a discreet look over her shoulder. Not that she was looking for anyone in particular, of course. She leaned down and pretended to check the seam of her stockings. She was pleased with the amount of attention she was attracting. The red halter-neck top showed off the smooth skin of her bare arms and shoulders, although it was on the shadowed valley between her breasts that she could see male glances lingering. She hid a triumphant smile. Next to her Diane looked nothing special at all, despite that blonde hair. That frock she was wearing was the dullest thing she had ever seen and you wouldn’t catch her wearing something so boring. Her own skirt followed the curves of her hips and her bottom; she had had it altered, to make it tighter and shorter, determinedly ignoring Jim’s comment that he didn’t like her wearing her clothes like that. ‘Supposed to be saving on fabric, aren’t we?’ she had told him, tossing her head. ‘At least that’s what the government says. Shorter skirts, we have to have.’ Jim had shaken his head but he hadn’t said any more. He was a real softie.

Myra’s smile disappeared at the thought of her husband. The British Government had done her a favour sending him out to fight in the desert, and Hitler would be doing her even more of one if he never came back. She checked the surrounding tables again. Where was he? Hadn’t he picked up on her message? She’d made it plain enough, telling him where she was going to be and when. It wasn’t as though he wouldn’t be easy to spot either, never mind that the Grafton was packed out tonight. Not with those good looks of his.

The young fair-haired GI who had found her the chairs on which she and Diane were seated was gazing at her like a dumb puppy, all pleading eyes and eagerness to please. Myra put out her cigarette. She might as well dance with him. At least that way she’d get away from disapproving Diane and her haughty looks. Who did she think she was? Sticking her nose up in the air and refusing to let the GIs buy her a drink. Myra shot Diane a baleful look. She was sitting facing the dance floor, nursing a glass of lemonade.

Myra looked at the fair-haired GI. ‘Well?’ she asked provocatively. ‘Who’s going to ask me to dance then?’

It had been a mistake to come here with Myra, Diane admitted as she watched her dancing with a young GI who looked as though he couldn’t believe his good luck. The GIs had been drinking heavily, passing around a bottle of what Diane suspected must be spirits and adding some of its contents to their beer, as a result of which they had started yelling out encouragement to their friend. Already the table was attracting hostile looks from the British servicemen on the dance floor. The initial mood of the evening, which had been one of high but good-natured spirits, had somehow developed a darker, unpleasant undertone. Some of the comments being called out by the GIs as they assessed the girls who were dancing were going well beyond what was acceptable, and Diane was not totally surprised when a short, red-faced man in civvies left the dance floor, dragging his uncomfortable-looking partner with him and marched self-importantly up the table to remonstrate with them.

‘Hey, bud, if you don’t like it then go tell Uncle Sam. Seems to me you should be treating us with a bit more respect, seeing as how we’ve come to win your war for you.’

The slurred voice of one of the GIs caused a surge of angry mutters from those near enough to hear it.

To Diane’s relief Myra was returning to her seat.

Standing up, Diane told her, ‘I think we should find somewhere else to sit.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t like the way things are developing.’

‘Oh, don’t be such a bore. They’re only having a bit of fun.’ Myra said tetchily. Where was he? She had been so sure he would be here. She’d been depending on it. The only reason she’d danced with the clumsy farm boy with two left feet had been to make sure that she was seen. ‘Relax and have another drink,’ she advised Diane. If they moved away from this table right beside the dance floor she’d have no chance of catching his eye. The Grafton was well and truly packed with an influx of fresh American troops from their camp at Burtonwood, and naval men on twenty-four-hour leave from their convoy escort duties.

‘You can do as you please, Myra, but I’m not staying here,’ Diane replied sharply.

Myra looked over her shoulder. She had sent her dance partner to get them fresh drinks and she could see him weaving his way back through the crowd. Like Diane, she had seen the bottle being passed round the table, and she too had guessed it contained spirits. There was no way she intended to leave, but she knew she couldn’t stay without Diane. Somehow she would have to find a way to make her stay. An idea suddenly came to her.

‘Clem’s bringing us some drinks. We can’t just walk off,’ she protested, standing up herself. ‘Stay there, and I’ll get them.’

She intercepted Clem a few yards from the table, taking the tray from him and telling him, ‘Go and get some of whatever it is your pals are putting in their drinks, will you, Clem? My friend wants to try it.’

‘Are you sure? It’s pretty strong. Not a lady’s drink…’

‘She isn’t a lady,’ Myra told him sweetly. ‘Go get it.’

He was back within a few seconds, brandishing a bottle.

‘What is it, anyway?’ she asked him when he removed the top.

‘It’s genuine American bourbon,’ he told her proudly.

‘Give me the bottle,’ Myra demanded, pouring a good measure into one of the glasses.

‘Hey, not so much,’ Clem objected. ‘That stuff’s lethal. It fries your brains. It’s not for girls,’ he protested, but it was too late.

Myra handed him back the bottle and walked towards Diane, carrying their drinks.

‘Goodness, it’s hot, isn’t it?’ she commented as she handed Diane one glass whilst taking a drink from the other one.

‘Yes. Yes, it is,’ Diane agreed, lifting her own glass to her lips.

‘Drink up,’ Myra urged, ‘then we can have a dance together, seein’ as how you don’t want to stay here.’ She could see that Diane was looking for somewhere to put her glass. ‘You’ll have to finish it,’ she told her quickly. ‘There’s nowhere safe to leave it, not with this crowd. Someone’s sure to pinch it.’

She didn’t really want to dance with Myra, Diane admitted, but in view of Myra’s attempt to pacify her, she didn’t feel able to refuse. Myra had already finished her drink and was waiting for her so Diane hurriedly swallowed her own.

‘That didn’t taste like shandy,’ she told Myra.

‘Didn’t it?’ Myra gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Maybe Clem misunderstood. Shandy was what I told him to get. Mine was OK. Come on, let’s go and dance.’ She grabbed hold of Diane’s wrist, almost pulling her on to the dance floor.

Heavens, but she felt dizzy, Diane admitted. Her head was spinning. It must be the heat and the noise. She really felt quite odd; not herself at all.

Myra looked uncertainly at Diane. All she had wanted to do was get her to loosen up a bit, and relax, but instead, Diane was swaying unsteadily on the dance floor and there was a unfocused look in her eyes. People were beginning to stare pointedly at her but Diane was oblivious to their disapproval. She had lifted her hand to her forehead as she stopped dancing and simply stood in the middle of the dance floor. Myra began to panic. Why on earth was she behaving like this? She hadn’t poured that much spirit into Diane’s drink, she reassured herself. It wasn’t her fault if Diane couldn’t take her drink, was it? She couldn’t have been expected to know that! As she struggled to wriggle out of any blame, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

‘You dancing, gorgeous?’

She whirled round, her eyes widening in recognition, only too happy to push her guilt about Diane to one side as she smiled up into the eyes of the man from Lyons’ Corner House.

‘I might be,’ she told him coquettishly. ‘It depends how good you are.’

‘Oh, I’m very good, honey. In fact, I’m better than good, I’m the best,’ he told her.

‘Says you,’ Myra returned.

‘Well, there’s only one way you’re going to find out if I’m right, isn’t there?’ he told her boldly, as he stepped towards her, taking her acceptance for granted. Right on cue the music changed to a slow smoochy number. Myra hid her feeling of triumph as he pulled her into his body, one hand caressing her back whilst the other made its way down to the curve of her behind, making it plain how attracted to her he was.

‘So what’s your name then?’ she asked him.

There was something about all Americans, but this one in particular that made her long to be different, and increased her frustrated resentment of her own life and marriage. They came from a different world – a better world – and it was one she herself longed to be part of. She had seen it in films at the cinema: sophisticated elegant women living lives she could so easily see herself living. She had grown to feel so envious of those women; and, through them, of all American women. She hungered for a life in which she hailed New York ‘cabs’ and drank ‘martinis’, a life in which she shopped on Fifth Avenue, and went to shows on Broadway. She had studied the actresses on the screen, bitterly convinced that her own beauty was just as great as theirs if not greater, becoming increasingly discontented and resentful. Until the Americans had joined the war all she had been able to do was dream, but now, with American servicemen coming over to England, she wanted more than just dreams. Now she had a definite ambition she wanted to fulfil, which was to become what the newspapers and magazines were referring to as ‘a GI bride’. Magazines such as Good Housekeeping might caution young British women to recognise the problems they would encounter if they decided to marry their American sweethearts; so far as Myra was concerned the only problem she would be encountering was that of her now unwanted existing husband. What could Jim have to offer her, she asked herself with inward contempt for her husband, compared with this man she was now dancing with? She greedily noted his beautifully laundered uniform, his clean-smelling skin, his knowing eyes and equally knowing way of dancing, not to mention his obviously superior financial status as evidenced by his watch and the gold ring, with its small diamond, he was wearing on his little finger. ‘Nick,’ he answered her question. ‘What’s yours?’ ‘Myra.’ She refused to let him see just how much he impressed her, or what she was thinking. Myra was no fool: she knew that men liked to do the chasing and that they valued what they couldn’t get easily far more than what they could.

‘Well, Myra, what’s a smart broad like you doing in a place like this?’

Where was Myra? Diane stared at the dance floor, trying to focus on the dancers. The music seemed to be roaring inside her head in waves, mingling with the sound of people’s voices. She wanted to go to sit down but she couldn’t seem to find her way off the dance floor. She blundered into a dancing couple, earning herself a disgusted look.

‘Some people,’ the girl muttered.

‘Looks to me like she’s had too much to drink,’ her companion commented.

Diane didn’t hear them. Her head was beginning to pound. She felt hot and sweaty and decidedly unwell. Where was Myra? She could see couples dancing cheek to cheek all around her. Just like she had once done with Kit. Kit…It was his fault she was here on her own without him. Her alcohol-muddled emotions filled her eyes with tears.

‘Kit…’ She had no awareness of saying his name out aloud as she twisted and turned on the dance floor, looking for a familiar face. Myra was forgotten; it was Kit she wanted. Through the blur of her tears she could see the back of the familiar RAF uniform in front of her. Unsteadily she made her way towards it, reaching out to put her hand on the arm of the airforce-blue jacket, as she pleaded, ‘Kit…’

‘Hey, what the…?’ The man looking at her was a stranger. An angry-looking stranger. Diane backed away from him, cannoning into another couple.

‘Well, really. How disgraceful.’ The woman’s coldly disapproving voice made him turn to look at her. She was dancing with a man who looked vaguely familiar. He was wearing an American uniform. His gaze flicked disparagingly over her.

‘I think you should go and sit down,’ he told her curtly.

‘I can’t find Kit,’ Diane told him, hiccuping loudly.

‘Ignore her, Lee. She’s drunk. Her sort brings disgrace on all of us. She ought to be made to leave.’

‘Can’t leave,’ Diane answered her, her voice slurred. ‘Not without my friend…I know you and I don’t like you,’ she told the man, suddenly recognising him. ‘You’re that American major that I don’t like…’ She hiccuped and staggered away into the middle of the crowded floor. Her eyeballs hurt and so did her head and her stomach. She needed to go somewhere cool and quiet and lie down. Unsteadily she started to make her way to the edge of the dance floor.

‘Just look at that woman,’ Emily commented contemptuously. ‘She can hardly stand up straight.’

‘Poor thing,’ Jess commiserated. ‘She doesn’t look at all well.’

‘She’s drunk,’ Emily said sharply.

‘Oh, no, look, if she’s not careful she’s going to fall over.’ Jess pushed back her chair and hurried to where Diane was on the point of collapsing. ‘Come and give us a hand,’ she called out to the others. ‘We need to get her into the ladies’.’

Immediately Ruthie rushed to join her.

‘You get under that arm, Ruthie, and I’ll take this one…’

‘Why don’t you leave her? Why should we help her?’ Emily demanded.

‘Well, it doesn’t look as though anyone else is going to, poor soul. Come on, Em, and you too, Lucy. She’s in a bad way.’

‘Well, it’s her own fault.’

Somehow between them they managed to get her into the ladies’ – and only just in time.

‘Gawd, if she don’t stop heaving soon, I’m going to be doing the same meself,’ Lucy complained.

‘Go and tell them at the bar that we need some water, Lucy,’ Jess commanded.

‘It’s all right, you’ve just had a bit too much to drink, that’s all,’ she tried to comfort Diane, who was now moaning weakly.

‘A bit too much!’ Emily muttered firmly. ‘More like a bloody hell of a lot too much.’

Diane shivered. Her stomach and her throat ached from being sick, but her head was starting to clear. She heard what Emily said and she shook her head. ‘All I had was a shandy,’ she told her.

‘A shandy? Give over, a shandy never got anyone in the state you’re in, staggering all over the dance floor and then trying it on with that RAF chap. No wonder that GI was giving you a right dirty look.’

Diane stared at her. She had no memory of any of that. ‘I can’t…are you sure it was me?’ she protested.

Emily laughed. ‘Hark at her. Of course it was bloody you. Why the hell do you think Miss Save the World here,’ she nodded in Jess’s direction, ‘forced us to bring you in here?’

‘You and your friend was sitting with a table of GIs and they was passing a bottle around,’ Jess offered, seeing how distressed Diane was becoming. ‘Maybe they slipped summat into your shandy.’

‘I…I don’t know. My friend brought me the drink…’

‘Here, I’ve got her some water,’ Lucy announced breathlessly, bursting into the cloakroom. ‘There’s a real to-do going on out there, wi’ some folk saying as how she ought to be told to leave, and others saying it were them GIs fault for giving her the drink in the first place.’

Diane looked apprehensively towards the door. How could she show her face out there? She was so ashamed.

‘How are you feeling now?’ Jess asked her as she handed her the glass of water.

‘A lot better.’

‘We came here to have a good time, not stand around in the cloakroom playing at nurses,’ Elsie complained.

‘If you’re feeling a bit better, then why don’t you come and sit wi’ us for a while? Your friend must be wondering where you are.’

The last thing Diane wanted was to go back into the dance hall, but she didn’t have the energy to protest.

Five minutes later she was being urged into a chair, with Jess standing protectively at one side of her and Ruthie uncertainly at the other.

‘Mind you drink plenty of water to flush your insides out. That’s what my dad always used to do when he’d had a skinful,’ Jess told her firmly. ‘And no dancing neither.’

Diane shuddered and closed her eyes. She never wanted to see a dance floor again, never mind take to one, not after what she had been told she had been doing. Vague flashes of memory were starting to seep back: an RAF uniform, an angry male face, an angry American male voice. The major…

Jess reached across and gave Ruthie’s hand a shake. ‘There’s a GI on that table over there bin watching you for the last five minutes, Ruthie. Bet you he comes over and asks you to dance.’

‘No,’ Ruthie protested in a panic. ‘No, he mustn’t. I can’t dance.’

‘Don’t be daft, of course you can. He looks a nice lad, an’ all.’

The girls turned to look at the table in question, where upwards of a couple of dozen GIs were crowded together, either seated or standing.

‘Give him a bit of a smile, Ruthie,’ Jess urged her.

Tongue-tied and blushing, Ruthie could only shake her head.

‘Well, he’s coming over anyway,’ Jess laughed.

‘And he’s not on his own. He’s bringing another chap with him as well,’ Lucy announced.

Ruthie could only make a small breathless sound when she realised that Jess was right, and the earnest-looking young GI in front of her, with his clean scrubbed face and tow-coloured hair was actually asking her to dance.

‘Of course she’ll dance wi’ you. She’s just a bit shy, that’s all,’ Jess answered for her before turning to smile warmly at his companion.

‘If you’d be kind enough to do me the honour, ma’am…?’ he asked Jess hesitantly.

Jess smiled at him with almost maternal approval. His manners were as meltingly flattering as the look in his eyes.

‘I certainly will,’ she told him.

Diane watched as one by one the other girls were asked up to dance. One of the men looked as though he was about to ask her, but Jess told him pleasantly, ‘She isn’t feeling very well – no offence.’

This was her chance to slip away unnoticed, Diane decided, if only she could find Myra to tell her that she was leaving. Where on earth was she?

‘What do you mean, no?’

Myra looked up into Nick’s face. When he had suggested they slip outside ‘for a bit of fresh air’ she had nodded her head, letting him take her down a quiet side street, where, in its shadows, he had placed his hands on her arms and pushed her back against the wall. Now those hands were resting on the wall either side of her head, virtually imprisoning her. She smiled inwardly. Nick might think he knew all the moves and had the advantage, but she wasn’t stupid enough to let him have what he wanted out here up against a wall, like some floozie. Oh, no, all he was going to get tonight was a little taste of what he was after. Just enough to keep him eager for more, Myra decided smugly.

‘I’d better go back. My friend is going to wonder where I am.’

‘Let her wonder,’ Nick told her as he moved closer to her and bent his head towards hers.

Quick as a flash Myra ducked under his arm and moved away from him.

‘What the…?’ he began angrily.

‘Like I said, I’d better go back. After all, we only came out for a breath of fresh air, didn’t we?’

‘What is this?’ Nick demanded roughly, trying to grab hold of her arm. ‘Don’t you go playing games with me, honey. You were coming on to me like there was no tomorrow.’

‘Coming on to you? Is that what you thought?’ His anger had her body tensing warily but Myra wasn’t going to let him see that. ‘No such thing,’ she told him, shaking her head. ‘I was just being friendly, that’s all.’

‘Like you were being friendly to that sucker who gave you the stockings,’ Nick challenged her.

Myra drew in her breath. This wasn’t the way she had expected things to go. She had expected her refusal to encourage Nick to press her for a proper date, not make him angry.

‘Like I said, I was just being friendly,’ she insisted. ‘It’s our duty to welcome our allies.’ Conveniently she was choosing to forget just how she had come by her stockings. They didn’t matter now, nor the man who had given them to her, not now that she had met Nick. But he mustn’t be allowed to think she was some sort of pushover. Men like Nick didn’t respect women they thought would give them everything they wanted the first time they asked. That was something she knew instinctively.

‘I’m going in,’ she told him.

She started to walk away from him, knowing he would catch up with her and prepared for him when he did, softening in his hold as he grabbed hold of her and swung her round to face him.

‘Just a kiss,’ he said.

‘No,’ Myra refused. ‘It’s too soon. I don’t give my kisses out so freely.’ She could see a look in his eyes that was a mix of resentment and grudging respect.

‘Tell that to all the guys, do you?’ he demanded.

‘Yes I do,’ Myra agreed tartly. She knew that she wanted to see him again. A quick glance at his companions had told her what she had already guessed – that he was very much their leader -and Myra had already decided that the rightful place in the new life she dreamed of for herself was as the wife of just such a man, rather than as the wife of one of those he led. But she knew too much about men to go openly chasing after him, no matter how tempted she was to do so, to make sure that no other girl got her hooks into him.

Ruthie could hardly believe what was happening and that she was here dancing with an American. An American, what was more, who had lost no time in telling her earnestly that he had been watching her all evening and that he thought she was ‘real cute’.

‘I’d like to walk you home,’ he began awkwardly, ‘but, see, we’ve been told not to do that.’

‘Oh, no, you couldn’t anyway,’ Ruthie told him, both horrified and excited by the suggestion.

‘Well, will you let me see you again then? I mean here, perhaps…or I could come and call on your folks…introduce myself to them…’

Ruthie stared at him whilst her heart turned over inside her chest.

‘What I mean is that, well, I can see you’re not the sort of girl…that is…’

‘Hey, buddy,’ another GI called out in a loud voice. ‘Quit whispering sweet nothings in her ear and get your ass over here. Sarge says we’ve got to leave in five. And you can go and tell Walter over there,’ he jerked his head in the direction of Jess and her partner, ‘the same.’

‘Oh, poor you,’ Jess was saying sympathetically to the young GI who had asked her to dance. ‘You must miss her so very much.’ He had spent virtually the whole time they had been dancing together telling her about his ‘girl back home’ and how miserable he was about the fact that he hadn’t had the courage to propose to her before ‘shipping out’.

‘You can write to her, though,’ Jess tried to comfort him.

‘Yeah, I know that, but it ain’t exactly the same. A guy can’t tell a girl he loves her nearly so well when she ain’t there for him to hold. Would you like to see her photo?’ he asked Jess eagerly.

Nodding, Jess peered dutifully at the photograph of the pretty but very young-looking brunette.

‘Her folks kinda hinted to me that they thought we was too young to get serious.’ Walter was telling her, when Jess saw Ruthie hurrying over with her partner.

‘Jerry said to tell you it’s time to go,’ Ruthie’s partner told Walter.

‘Poor boy,’ Jess commented to Ruthie as they watched the two men go to join their comrades. ‘He misses his girl at home.’

Diane glanced at her watch. Her head was throbbing dreadfully.

‘Isn’t that your friend over there?’ Jess suddenly asked her, nudging her and pointing to the other side of the dance floor. ‘Wi’ that GI who looks like he thinks he’s God’s gift.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Diane confirmed.

Myra was laughing at something her companion had said and looked in no hurry to leave, Diane noted. Nor did she seem at all concerned about her whereabouts. Somehow Diane wasn’t surprised. Her instincts had told her right from the word go that Myra was only striking up a friendship with her for her own benefit.

‘I’d better go over and join her,’ she told Jess, adding warmly, ‘I really am grateful to you all for helping me the way you did. Heaven knows what would have happened to me if you hadn’t. Something tells me that I certainly wouldn’t have made it back up Edge Hill Lane in one piece.’

‘Up Edge Hill Lane? Is that where your billet is?’ Jess asked. ‘Only Ruthie lives up there, don’t you? That’s good, then. You can walk back together.’

‘I don’t know how far up you live, but we’re on Chestnut Close,’ Diane told Ruthie.

‘Yes, that’s where I live as well.’

‘There you are then. Funny how things work out, isn’t it?’ Jess beamed, looking as pleased as though she personally had arranged for them to live so conveniently close to one another.

‘There you are. Now you’ll have someone to walk home with,’ she told Ruthie happily before telling Diane breezily, ‘Ruthie here’s not so used to looking out of herself as me and the others. Looked like she was scared to death, she did, when she got on the bus for the munitions factory for the first time.’

Diane gave Ruthie a sympathetic smile. Her head still hurt but she was beginning to feel much better than she had done.

‘We don’t stay on until the end,’ Jess continued informatively, ‘on account of the way some of the lads hang around looking for a girl. It gives them the wrong idea, if you know what I mean.’

Diane knew exactly what she meant.

‘I’d better go over and tell my friend that I’m ready to leave then,’ she told Jess.

‘Oh, I thought you must have left,’ Myra greeted her unenthusiastically, immediately turning her back on Diane to move closer to the GI standing next to her. Myra said something to him and when he turned round to look at her, Diane recognised immediately what sort he was. He might be tall and good-looking but he was also a thoroughly unpleasant type, she decided as he subjected her to open appraisal, whilst draping one arm casually around Myra. It wasn’t just Myra who was hanging on his every word, Diane noticed. He also seemed to be the ringleader of a group of noisy GIs.

‘We must go, Myra,’ Diane told her crisply. ‘I’ve arranged to walk home with another girl, and I don’t want to keep her waiting.’

‘Well, don’t then,’ Myra told her sharply. ‘You go ahead and leave. Nick here will walk me home, won’t you, Nick?’

‘I sure wish I could, doll, but the MPs will have me by the balls if I did. Uncle Sam doesn’t want us getting ourselves into trouble with you Brits.’

‘You get into trouble?’ Myra pouted.

‘Yeah, that’s right, isn’t it, guys?’ he demanded.

Diane winced as she heard the loud chorus of assent.

‘Sarge says to tell you the transport is about to leave.’

There was something about the coldly venomous look that the man with Myra gave to the young GI who had approached them that shocked Diane back to full sobriety. Poor boy, what on earth had he done to provoke a look of such openly vicious dislike? She watched in silence as Myra’s companion turned on his heel without saying a word and strode off in the direction of the other GIs, leaving the now red-faced younger man to trail behind him.

What on earth, Diane wondered, could Myra possibly see in a man like that?