After the Last Dance

by Sarra Manning

  ‘Better to find out now, before you lost your heart,’ she said.

  ‘I’d already lost my heart,’ Rose said.

  Maggie kissed the top of Rose’s head, murmured something in her own tongue and said, ‘Little one, I forget how very young you are. You haven’t lost your heart, only temporarily misplaced it. Now, go and have a bath,’ she added as Rose opened her mouth to insist that she wasn’t as young as she used to be.

  At the moment she felt old and sad. Oh, she’d never felt this sad before. ‘I can’t have a bath,’ was what she did say. ‘Not on a Saturday. There’s a war on.’

  ‘I doubt the war will end just because you had a bath,’ Maggie said. ‘Would that it could!’

  Rose longed to fill up the tub in their shared bathroom and sink underneath the water, but there was a war on so she filled the bath as far as the five-inch mark that Mr Bryce had painted on because he was a stickler for rules. Then she eased herself into the water and ruthlessly scrubbed herself clean. Tried to ignore the stinging pain between her legs, the angry marks on her thighs, tried not to think about anything until she heard a knock on the door.

  ‘Rose? It’s me,’ Sylvia called. ‘Can I come in?’

  With a sigh, Rose heaved herself out of the water, to pad across the thin, torn linoleum and wrap herself in her dressing gown before she opened the door and peered out.

  ‘Tea.’ Sylvia shoved a steaming mug at Rose as she pushed her way into the bathroom. ‘Thought I might as well have a bath if there’s one going. Is it even a little bit hot?’

  ‘Warmish,’ Rose said as Sylvia peeled off her clothes because she wasn’t at all prudish about that sort of thing but Rose still averted her eyes. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Sylvia ordered as she got into the bath. ‘Stay with me. Tell me how you are and don’t fib. I always know when you’re fibbing.’

  Rose arranged herself on the edge of the tub and forced herself to look at Sylvia, who wasn’t making light of it at all; there was nothing but concern on her face. ‘It hurt so terribly,’ she whispered. ‘He wouldn’t stop, no matter how much I begged him to, and the worst of it is that it’s all my own fault. He said I led him on and I did. I agreed to go away with him, after all.’

  Sylvia pulled her legs into her chest and rested her chin on her knees. ‘I can’t agree with that. It seems to me to that all one has to do to lead a fellow on is to smile and say hello.’ She fixed her limpid blue eyes on Rose. ‘Every girl I know has had at least one absolutely beastly time of it with a man. They can be such animals but it’s best not to dwell on it, Rosie. With the right man, it can actually feel quite nice. Better than nice. Quite, quite lovely.’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ Rose said – she didn’t even want to dance with a man ever again, never mind anything else. ‘It was the most awful thing that’s ever happened to me.’

  ‘Oh, sweetie, if this is the most awful thing that’s ever happened to you, then you don’t know how lucky you are,’ Sylvia said and she sounded so flat and hollow, so unlike Sylvia in that moment. But there was something so shuttered about Sylvia’s usually cheery face that Rose knew not to prod. Then Sylvia lay back in the water and lifted one long, pale leg to inspect the red polish on her toes. ‘At least tell me that he used a johnny, that he wasn’t that thoughtless.’

  Rose didn’t think she capable of blushing any more but the sudden heat in her cheeks proved her wrong. ‘I don’t think he did.’ She dropped her voice. ‘His stuff was all over me.’ Her voice dropped even lower. ‘Inside me.’

  ‘Damn him to hell.’ Sylvia shut her eyes and sighed. ‘Probably best not to worry about that until there’s something to worry about.’

  ‘But what if there is something to worry about?’ Rose had been so intent on the act itself, the betrayal, that she hadn’t thought there might be further consequences.

  ‘You wouldn’t be the first girl to get caught and one doesn’t have to stay caught,’ Sylvia said. ‘I know a man who knows a man. Has a practice on Harley Street. It will be fine, darling, I promise. But if I ever see your Danny again, I’m going to wring his bloody neck.’

  Maggie was of much the same opinion. It was only Phyllis who refused to condemn Danny. ‘You mustn’t be so hard on him,’ she told Rose a week later as they were on the way to the butcher to collect their weekly meat ration. ‘It rather sounds to me as if he was swept away on a tide of passion.’

  ‘Honestly, Phyll, it wasn’t passion. It was brute force,’ Rose said, but Phyllis shook her head.

  ‘My Brian was swept away by passion. Men simply can’t help themselves.’

  Danny hadn’t been compelled to force himself on her, he’d chosen to. He’d waited until Rose was asleep to take what she’d already told him he couldn’t have. But when a letter arrived from him the following Monday, Rose didn’t rip it up unread. She thought about it, but curiosity got the better of her.

  Inside was the ring he’d given her and a short letter.

  Dearest Rosie

  Are you still sore with me?

  I know I acted like a dolt but I wanted you so much. The thing is that most girls have a rotten first time. It’s best to get it out of the way as quickly as possible.

  I wish you’d stayed so I could have made love to you over and over again. Showed you how good it could be. I hope you’ll still let me. And I hope you don’t hate me because I really do love my bratty, beautiful girl.

  Say you still love me, Rosie. I’d hate to think that if the worst happened, I’d go to my grave unforgiven.

  All my love

  Danny

  PS Please write back, if only to let met me know you’re all right. Address at the top of the page is the local pub, so we don’t have to worry about the army censors knowing our business.

  If it was an apology, then it was a pretty shabby one, Rose thought and she resolved not to write back, to put the whole debacle behind her. Even Sylvia had told her it was time to stop mooning about. ‘You must cheer up, sweetie. If I were some poor, lonely GI miles from home, I’d rather take my chances with Jerry than have to look at your miserable face all night.’

  It did seem, though, as if there were fewer poor and lonely GIs at Rainbow Corner lately. There were still rumours that the invasion was imminent and that all leave was about to be cancelled, but Rose didn’t want to hear them. Not just because it was unpatriotic to listen to idle gossip (though that had never stopped her before) but because it would be Danny leading the charge. In his plane where those searchlights and Stukas could pick him out and finish him off. So Rose supposed that despite what he’d done, in some small way, she still cared enough about Danny that she didn’t want something terrible to happen to him.

  She decided that she would write back to him, so Danny would know she bore him no ill will. And he should consider himself lucky that Rose was prepared to offer him that much.

  Dear Danny

  I don’t hate you and of course I don’t wish you any harm. But I can’t forgive you for what you did so it’s probably for the best if we break things off.

  Please stay safe.

  Rose

  Danny refused to go down without a fight. He replied only a day later.

  Come on, Rosie , give a guy a break . My old ma always said that you should never let the sun go down on a quarrel. Let’s not keep fighting when we don’t know what the future holds.

  I just hope I get to hold you in the future.

  All my love

  Danny

  It had been two weeks now since he’d taken Rose away. If this were just a silly lovers’ tiff, she’d have given in, written back to him, wrapping her love and devotion around each letter, every punctuation mark. But now every time she thought about Danny, Rose would also think about that room, that bed and what he’d done to her on it, so it was best not to think of him at all. It was a blessed relief that her menses arrived the very next day so she didn’t have to agonise over that as well, but she was
still feeling dreadfully blue about the whole business when she bumped into Edward on the stairs at Rainbow Corner.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ he said, and he smiled. ‘How’s the collecting coming along?’

  Rose stared at him blankly. ‘I’m sorry. What are we collecting for?’

  Edward was still an unknown quantity; she’d barely thought of him at all these past few weeks, but there was nothing enigmatic or unambiguous about the way his jaw clenched. When he spoke, his voice had lost all its dark warmth. ‘The refugees that are coming over from Europe. Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but I seem to distinctly remember you visiting the house in Kensington I’m getting ready for them. I also recall you writing a list of all the things they might need and volunteering to round up some toys for the children.’

  It wasn’t as if Rose had forgotten, not entirely. The refugees who might be arriving from Europe at some unspecified point in the future had been pushed to the furthest recesses of her mind and had stayed there, while she wallowed in her own self-pity. Thinking only of how unhappy she was, with no thought to anyone who might be suffering too.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I was meaning to get round to that, but I haven’t had a spare moment.’

  ‘You haven’t had time to ask even one person if they might spare some wool or an old jigsaw puzzle?’ Each word was like a shard of ice. ‘Not collected so much as a doll or board game?’

  ‘Well, no, not yet,’ Rose admitted in a hesitant voice. Nobody had been this cross with her since she left Durham and then it had been more disappointment than this cold anger that made Edward avert his eyes as if Rose was utterly loathsome to behold. ‘I will, though. Right away. I promise. When are they arriving?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Edward started to walk away before he’d even finished his sentence. But he’d only got as far as the first step before he turned. Rose shrank back; she’d only ever seen him look grave and kind and she hated the current harsh, forbidding set of his features.

  ‘You really are a very careless, selfish girl,’ he told her quietly. There was nothing Rose could say in her defence because it was true. She rarely thought of anyone but herself. ‘These people, they’ve endured unspeakable horrors, risked their lives to come to a country where they know no one and you haven’t had a chance to collect so much as an old spinning top.’

  He carried on down the stairs and Rose rushed to the powder room and cried a little, because she didn’t want people, especially Edward, to believe that she was that kind of girl, hardhearted and shallow.

  Something had to change. She was sick of brooding about Danny – brooding wasn’t going to change things, wasn’t going to erase the memory of what he’d done to her. She kept reliving the memories of that night again and again and berating herself for not fighting back hard enough. It had to stop.

  So Rose thought about the refugees instead and badgered everyone she knew for donations. Not only the girls at Rainbow Corner but Stan and Gladys at the café, who found a box of old comics at the back of the wardrobe in their daughter’s room. Rose didn’t suppose the refugees spoke English but they could cut out the pictures and stick them on the walls to make the house in Kensington look a little more jolly and welcoming.

  In the end though, it was rather a motley assortment of ancient, battered toys hardly likely to cheer up any refugees fleeing from Occupied Europe. Rose even mooted the possibility of doing something with Shirley’s limp blue taffeta – ‘maybe if we cut it down to make a pretty dress for a little girl?’ she suggested to Maggie.

  Maggie stared at it, shuddered, then drawled, ‘You don’t think the refugees have already suffered enough?’

  So the blue taffeta hung like a lonely shroud on the back of the bedroom door and it was Phyllis who came up trumps when she invited Rose home for the weekend. ‘There’s simply heaps of things in the attics for your refugees. Pa will never let anyone throw anything out.’

  They travelled down to Norfolk late on Saturday afternoon in the cab of an army lorry. Part of Phyllis’s family house had been requisitioned by the Army at the start of the war. ‘Only the east wing, so we hardly notice they’re there,’ Phyllis explained, as they drove along winding country roads at breakneck speed lit only by the light of a full moon. A bomber’s moon. ‘To tell you the truth, the evacuees were far more trouble. They let off an indoor firework in the Long Gallery and blew a hole right through a Turner. After that, Mummy said that she’d only have girl evacuees and they had to come from good homes.’

  ‘Are your people very top drawer, Phyllis?’ Rose knew that Phyllis was an Hon, she’d even been presented at court before the war, but all this talk of wings and Long Galleries was rather daunting.

  ‘Hardly! We’re not aristocracy, only landed gentry.’

  It wasn’t even a little bit reassuring.

  Neither was Phyllis’s mother, Lady Carfax, who looked at Rose with icy regard as if she suspected Rose had dirty fingernails and all manner of slovenly habits. Despite her chilly demeanour, Lady Carfax gave Phyllis and Rose carte blanche to take whatever they wanted for the refugees.

  On Sunday, fortified by a breakfast of egg and soldiers – a real egg laid by a chicken that very morning – Phyllis and Rose spent the morning battling cobwebs and opening packing crates in the attics. Their haul included several spiteful-looking Victorian dolls, two teddy bears who had seen better days, a doll’s house complete with furniture, building blocks, a train-set, though half the track was missing, a stack of board games and a croquet set.

  After a lunch of ham and leek pie, mostly leeks, they set off through the grounds to the stables, their destination the old barn where broken farm equipment, ancient lawnmowers and rusting pieces of metal that looked like medieval torture devices had been put out to grass. ‘I don’t think there’s going to be anything here that the refugees might want,’ Rose said glumly, as she peered inside a rotting cardboard box that contained some mildewed seed catalogues.

  ‘There must be. Pa got a bit carried away when war was declared and ordered all sorts of things.’ Phyllis scrambled over a barbaric contraption that looked like an old plough. ‘He had this notion he’d train up all the spare men in the village into a lethal killing force in the event of a Nazi invasion, but they spend most of their time doing drill practice on the village green.’

  Rose gingerly followed Phyllis into the furthest reaches of the barn, cursing when she caught her tweed skirt on a nail.

  ‘Rose! Over here! You’ll never guess what I’ve found!’

  Still rolled up and wrapped in brown paper were ten canvas camp beds. Ten! There were also three Army & Navy crates absolutely chock-a-block with enamel mess tins and cups and cutlery, first aid kits and, improbably, several mosquito nets.

  With the help of a young lad from the village who came up to do what he could in the gardens, they hauled their spoils into the yard to be packed in the same lorry that had brought them to Norfolk and would hopefully have enough room to take them back to London.

  It was still light enough for a walk so Phyllis could show Rose the copse where she and her two elder brothers had built camps and picnicked when they were younger. The oldest, Anthony, had been stationed in Egypt, which they were all thankful for. ‘He’d like to see more action but I think Mummy’s quite pleased that he isn’t,’ Phyllis said as they sat on a fallen log. ‘Teddy’s in the Navy. I can’t remember the last time we were all together. Isn’t it odd that you take the everyday stuff for granted but that’s what you miss most once it’s gone?’

  Rose had run away from her everyday stuff and she didn’t miss it one bit. London was still enthralling and if she hadn’t come to London, then she’d never have made it through the hallowed portals of Rainbow Corner. Never learned to jive. Never fallen in love. Fallen out of love. She’d never have become Rose Beaumont. ‘I don’t care for the bombs or rationing or always worrying that something dreadful might happen to the people I care about, but the other bits of the war are quite exciting. Don’t you
think?’

  Phyllis gazed out at the long grass studded with pretty pale yellow oxlips. ‘Well, without the war, I’d never have met you or Sylvia and Maggie.’ She shook her head. ‘I never got to be friends with the glamorous girls at school so that’s rather thrilling.’

  ‘Don’t talk rot! You’re just as glamorous as Sylvia or Maggie,’ Rose said stoutly, but Phyllis wasn’t and that was why Rose loved her. She was kind and steady and had a soppy, romantic heart, which used to be a perfect match for Rose’s. But it was here that Phyllis really belonged – among the wildflowers and the hedgerows, the sweet fresh air. ‘Don’t let’s get maudlin. Didn’t your Mrs Barnes say something about gingerbread? Come on, I’ll race you back to the house!’

  23

  Three o’clock in the morning. Jane was wide awake and gritty-eyed. Leo might constantly complain that he couldn’t sleep since he’d cut back on his drinking, but he was flat-out and gently snoring on the other side of the bed, one hand curled round their pillow chaperone.