Читать книгу In Another Time - Caroline Leech, Caroline Leech - Страница 8

Brechin Town Hall, where the dance was being held, was a dour place, with dark marble columns and heavily ornate carvings on the walls and ceiling. To make things worse, the blackout blinds were already in place over the tall windows, meaning that none of the summer evening light would filter into the hall. The dance organizers had done their best to cheer things up by bringing in some spotlights and hanging some brightly colored banners from the gallery above the dance floor, so Maisie wasn’t complaining. They were lucky to be allowed out from camp for any dance at all.

When the WTC girls had arrived, the band was already playing on a raised platform at the far end of the hall, and after a couple of numbers, Maisie had decided that the musicians were rather good. Brechin was a small town in the middle of nowhere, after all, not a metropolis like Glasgow. She was soon having fun, dancing either with Dot or with Mary, a red-haired girl from Aberdeen, and before long, Maisie noticed that her aches and pains had eased significantly.

Maisie couldn’t help but notice that some of the other lumberjills were moaning about the lack of men to dance with. But what had they expected? With the war on, there were only a few locals left to go dancing, and they were only old men and young boys. Some of the boys were near Maisie’s age, strutting around with gangly arrogance, even though it was clear they were not yet old enough to be called up, but Maisie studiously avoided making eye contact with any of them. She was quite happy to dance with her new girl friends. No pressure, no need to explain, they could just have fun.

However, not long before the end of the dance, the atmosphere suddenly changed, and heads began turning to look toward the front doors. Maisie was dancing again with Mary, and the two of them were forced to stand on tiptoe to see what was happening. Who had arrived, and why was it causing such a fuss?

Maisie strained to see over the other girls to the front, where more than a dozen men were standing inside the main door, nicely dressed, in suits and ties, each in turn handing his hat to the elderly cloakroom attendant, who was suddenly standing straighter and smiling wider than before, now that there were some handsome men in the room.

All right, not many of them were handsome, but even so …

A ripple of whispered excitement washed around the room as the first of the men reached the edge of the dance floor. “Americans, Americans, Americans …”

Maisie tugged at Mary’s arm. “Come on—let’s keep going. I like this tune too much not to dance to it.”

All through the rest of that number, however, Mary kept glancing over her shoulder.

“They’re Americans, though, Maisie!” she hissed, and then giggled. “Look, look! That one’s asked Lillian to dance. And that tall blond girl from Hut B has nabbed one too. Oh my goodness, they’re not wasting any time, are they?”

Mary was now so distracted that they were virtually at a standstill again, and Maisie found herself getting quite annoyed, though she wasn’t sure if it was with Mary or the men.

“It’s quite rude, really, turning up so late, don’t you think?” Maisie grumbled. “There’s only a dance or two left.”

Clearly Mary didn’t agree. She grabbed Maisie’s hand and pulled her over to a table at the edge of the dance floor. “Then there’s only a chance or two left to land a dance with one of them!” she declared, and leaned casually against a chair, pushing her chest out and pouting more than a little.

Maisie could feel the blush rising in her own cheeks at this blatant show of … of what, she didn’t know, but she didn’t much like it. She grabbed her handbag from the nearby table where she’d left it and headed for the ladies’ to comb her hair, cool her face, and sulk a little. Her whole evening had been spoiled, thanks to those men.

Once she’d collected herself, Maisie realized she was actually feeling quite anxious. But that was ridiculous—it was only a bunch of men, for goodness’ sake, even if they were Americans.

Back at the table, there was no sign of Mary. Maisie’s neck was aching again, so she bent her head forward, pulling her shoulders down and back, to stretch out the muscles. As she did, she became aware of someone hovering nearby and, without lifting her head, she glanced sideways along the floor until she found a pair of polished black leather shoes sticking out from dark tweed trousers with wide cuffs.

“Go on!” she heard an American man say. “She won’t bite, you know.”

A woman giggled at his comment.

The shoes suddenly moved toward Maisie, a hopping, stumbling approach, as if their wearer had been shoved from behind. Maisie jumped back in alarm, whipping her head up to see who was about to crash into her.

The man attached to the shoes managed to catch his balance by grabbing onto the chair beside Maisie just before he bumped into her. Beyond him was a blond man, grinning widely, with one of the other WTC girls—Maisie didn’t know her name—hanging on his arm.

The shoe man looked mortified, a frown furrowing deep lines across his tanned forehead.

“My apologies,” he said, his voice deeper than Maisie had expected, “I didn’t mean to scare you. But some people seem incapable of minding their own business.”

He glared over his shoulder, but the blond man only laughed and pulled the woman toward the dance floor. When Maisie didn’t immediately reply, the shoe man coughed to clear his throat.

“My friend thinks that I should ask you to dance, since there can’t be many more numbers left before it ends.”

Maisie said nothing. What could she say? Certainly, it would be nice to dance for once with someone who was taller that she was, someone who didn’t expect her to lead the whole time as Dot and Mary did. But she’d prefer him to ask her to dance because he wanted to, not because his friend told him to.

“I mean …” He looked embarrassed now. “It’s not that I don’t want to ask you to dance, it’s just … oh hell! Pardon me! What I mean is … well, I don’t dance.”

Maisie’s humiliation grew with each word.

“Well, why did you come then?” she asked, sounding snippier than she’d meant to. “It’s a dance. What else did you think you would be doing?”

As she turned away, wishing the ground would swallow her up, fingers closed around the top of her arm, not tightly, but with enough pressure to stop her.

“Look, I’m sorry.” He sounded like he meant it, so she turned to face him again. “We got ourselves off on the … er, wrong foot, so to speak, which is a shame.”

He dropped his grip on her arm and shrugged apologetically. There was an earnest expression in his dark-brown eyes, now that she really looked at him, and the skin around them was like soft leather, tanned and supple, but with tiny wrinkles, as if he squinted into the sun too often. Or as if he were always smiling. Except he wasn’t smiling now, he was grimacing. At her.

“And while I don’t usually ask women to dance,” he began again, “we’ve found ourselves into this rather embarrassing situation now, so perhaps I should make the effort. If you’d like me to, that is.”

Though Maisie heard the words, she was wondering how an American like him could have ended up on a Friday evening in August in Brechin, of all places, and why he …

“Miss?” He was frowning again. “Would you like me to?”

Maisie startled. “Sorry. Pardon me? Yes! Erm, no, erm, sorry?”

His expression shifted into wry amusement at her embarrassment.

“I asked whether you would mind if I were to ask you to dance?”

In her blushing confusion, Maisie took a moment or two to work her way through the question.

“I think so?” she said. Was that the right answer? “Or …”

Then he smiled, and sure enough, the soft skin around his eyes wrinkled up in tiny folds. It was unnervingly infectious and Maisie couldn’t help but smile back.

“You think you would mind?” He was clearly teasing her now. “Or you think I should ask you to dance?”

Maisie gave him an exaggerated sigh. “Is every question you ask this complicated, or is this how all Americans talk?”

“Not every question, no. But sometimes, it can be more fun this way.” He held out his hand toward her.

Maisie hesitated. It might not have been the most romantic invitation, but it seemed like a genuine one after all that. And maybe this might be fun.

“Thank you,” she said, laying her hand onto his. “I’d very much like to dance.”

Her heart sped up as they walked the few steps to the dance floor and waited for a space to allow them to enter the dance. But then she noticed that his fingers were moving strangely against her own, and Maisie’s delight quickly evaporated. She’d forgotten about her blisters, and could only imagine how unpleasant they must feel against his palm. Before she could pull her hand back out of his, however, he lifted it up and studied it, frowning again, as if trying to work out a puzzle. Maisie realized with a sinking feeling that he was trying to work out why a young woman would have the callused hands of an old crone, disgustingly rough, with hard-crusted blisters and sharp-edged cuts and cracks. Embarrassment again flooded through her and she snatched her hand from his grasp, tucking both her hands around her waist to hide them from his scrutiny.

“They’re awful, I know,” she burst out. “But it’s the work, the tools. They rip up our hands, and there’s nothing we can do to protect them. It’s vile, I know.”

“Tools?” he asked.

“Axes and saws, in the woods. I’m with the Women’s Timber Corps.” Despite her embarrassment, Maisie lifted her chin defiantly, already anticipating the same derision she had received from her father. “I’m training to be a lumberjill.”

“A lumberjill, eh? Hmmm.” He seemed to be suppressing a smile, and Maisie felt her hackles rise. Why did men find that so ridiculous?

But instead of sneering, he took one of her hands back, resting it flat on his, and let his thumb rub gently across her palm and up her index finger, hesitating briefly by each blister, just disconcertingly long enough for her to feel the warmth from his touch.

“I mean, they issued us with gloves,” she blurted out, “but they’re all too big, so when you’re using an ax, it feels like your hands are slipping on the—”

“Pig fat,” he said.

What had he said? It sounded like pig fat to Maisie, but that was too bizarre, even for an American.

“Pardon?”

“You need pig fat and Vaseline,” he said again, smiling now.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Rub your hands with a mixture of pig fat and Vaseline morning and night, and this shouldn’t happen anymore.”

“But …” Maisie wasn’t sure what to say. “But how would you know …?”

Slowly he turned over his free hand and held it out flat next to hers. Even in the low light, Maisie could see that he had once had blisters in almost all the same places as she had on her own hands—on all three pads of each finger, the two on the thumb, as well as across the bridge and the heel of the palm. His weren’t fresh and crisp and sore as hers were, but there was a distinct whitening of hard skin in each place, the pale shadows of blisters where calluses lay as a permanent reminder of pain in his past. His scars matched hers.

He turned his hand over so it again lay palm to palm on Maisie’s. A sudden wave of relief caught her by surprise. He understood and he wasn’t repulsed.

“But how did your hands get like that?” she asked.

“You’re not the only one who knows how to swing an ax,” he replied with a wink.

The band had begun a new song. Maisie recognized the tune, but in the confusion of having her hand held by a stranger, she couldn’t place it right then. He seemed to know it, though, because he glanced up at the band and grinned, squeezing her hand between his.

“Perhaps we can talk about my magic blister potion later, but while the band is still playing this lovely song, maybe we ought to dance?”

“Thank you. I’d like that”—Maisie let herself smile a little too—“and I’m Maisie, by the way.”

“I’m glad to meet you, Maisie. My name’s John Lindsay.”

It became very clear, very quickly, that John Lindsay was a dreadful dancer.

When he had first guided Maisie into the crowd of slowly spinning couples, she’d enjoyed the reassurance of having his warm hand on her back. And once she had swallowed down the embarrassment of having this tall and rather handsome man holding her so close, Maisie almost relaxed. But then they’d stumbled, bumping into two other couples, and Maisie had had to fight to keep herself from falling. Whether it was because she’d lost her balance when she lifted her eyes to look up into his for a moment, or whether he’d simply tripped over his own feet, she wasn’t sure, but either way, this was not how she had hoped her first dance as an independent woman would go.

As John tried again to swoop Maisie around the dance floor, she couldn’t escape the feeling that she was risking life and limb, his larger frame and extra weight always pulling her off-balance. This was fast becoming a nightmare. How could a young and obviously fit man be so completely incapable of dancing?

She risked another glance up at his face, expecting him to be smiling apologetically, but there was no smile. In fact, it was as if the earlier sunshine had been smothered by the darkest of storm clouds. He was frowning, as if concentrating hard, and his breath came heavily now. Then she noticed that he seemed to be swallowing again and again. Was he unwell or in pain? Or was he drunk? She hadn’t smelled any beer or whisky on him, but even so …

Suddenly, John took Maisie by the elbow and walked her to the side of the dance floor, where he let her go and staggered against the nearest chair, appearing to have difficulty catching his breath. Then, barely glancing up, he held out his hand, palm toward Maisie, as if trying to keep her away.

“I can’t do this. I’m sorry, Maisie. I really can’t.”

“What’s wrong?” Maisie wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed or annoyed. “Can I get you some water maybe?”

John didn’t reply but turned and walked unsteadily toward the front entrance. Hesitating only long enough to proffer his cloakroom ticket and grab his hat from the attendant, John disappeared out of the door.

What the hell had that been about? He might not have been much of a dancer, and he certainly wasn’t much of a gentleman either, but even so.

Maisie glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed her untimely abandonment, but everyone seemed to be paying attention only to their dance partners or to the friends they were gossiping with.

Luckily for Maisie, that had been the final number, and as soon as it ended, everyone clapped and the band began to pack up for the night. All the dancers made their way back to their tables, with much laughing and promises of more dances next time, and gradually they all crowded out the stained-glass front doors and into the mild evening.

Out on the street, however, it was clear that what had happened hadn’t gone unnoticed by the other lumberjills after all, and Maisie found herself subjected to an inquisition from Dot and Mary. All the way back to the waiting truck, they demanded details.

“What did he do to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Then, what did you do to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he step on your foot?”

“No.”

“Did you tread on his foot?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he really as bad a dancer as it looked?”

“I don’t know! Actually, yes. Yes, he really was. Simply terrible,” Maisie said sadly, which caused much merriment for her friends.

“Talk about having two left feet!” chuckled Dot.

“You certainly pulled the short straw,” added Mary. “Such a shame—he was good-looking too.”

Even as they teased her, simply knowing that her friends were as indignant as she was that her partner had walked away like that made Maisie feel a little better.

On the drive home to the lodge, Dot and Mary delightedly shared with the other recruits the story of Maisie, the American, and their disastrous dance. At first, it was quite funny, even to Maisie, but as more and more of the women joined in, offering ever more hilarious comments at John Lindsay’s expense, Maisie found herself becoming defensive. He didn’t deserve this treatment. He’d been nice enough before they’d started dancing, even funny, and he was handsome, and until he had walked out on her, he’d been scrupulously polite and had shown such concern about her hands. It was only when they started dancing that he became … odd. Even so, he didn’t deserve ridicule from people who hadn’t even seen what had happened.

“Stop it!” she burst out. “Stop saying things like that.”

After a moment’s silence, somebody started a teasing “woo-hoo,” and soon everyone was joining in, making jokes about Maisie having found herself an eligible bachelor at last, Maisie being in love, Maisie and John sitting in a tree.

Maisie put her head down and tried to ignore them. She knew they were only having fun, still riding their own wave of excitement from the dance, but still, she could do without a second, no, a third bout of humiliation in one night.

Only Dot, sitting next to Maisie, was not joining in the ribaldry and teasing. She nudged Maisie and laid her head on Maisie’s shoulder, as the other women’s conversation moved on to discuss their own dance partners instead of Maisie’s.

“It’s all right,” Dot said so only Maisie could hear. “If he was thoughtless enough to walk away from a lovely girl like you, then it was his loss, not yours.”

Maisie nodded, but couldn’t force any words in reply past the knot that was tightening in her throat. Why had she let herself start to think that perhaps he might like her? And she might like him back?

But Dot was right. Walking away from her had been his loss.