The Chalky Sea

by Clare Flynn

  Pauline never tired telling Gwen about the joys of dancing. ‘You’d love it, Mrs C. There’s nothing like being carried away by the music. You forget everything else. The war. Everything. You should try it.’

  ‘I used to dance with my husband. Waltzes mostly. I wouldn’t like to dance with anyone else.’

  ‘I don’t mean that stuff. I mean real dancing. Jitterbugging. It’s such good fun. There’s nothing like it. So exciting.’

  ‘Jitterbugging?’ Gwen’s voice was scornful. ‘I don’t think so. That doesn’t sound very dignified.’

  ‘Dignified? Who wants to be dignified? It’s all about having fun. Letting your hair down. I tell you it’s the best buzz you can possibly have.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s an American dance. The Canadians do it. My friend Sue got really good when one of them taught her. She goes to the dances at the Winter Garden and sometimes when you’re out on the night shifts she comes round here and shows me the moves. Why don’t I teach you?’

  Gwen jerked her head back. ‘Oh, no. Absolutely not. No thank you.’

  ‘Come on. Don’t be a spoilsport, Mrs C. No one’s going to see you. Give it a try! You don’t have to do it in public… not unless you want to.’

  Gwen rolled her eyes, then on impulse said, ‘Very well. Just a few minutes and I want you to promise that as soon as I want to stop, you won’t argue with me.’

  ‘Deal!’

  They stood side-by-side as Pauline demonstrated the basic steps, counting aloud as she did it. Gwen followed, catching the rhythm quickly. Once they’d got the basic beat down, they added some twists and turns and joined the individual step sequences up, Pauline taking the part of the man and swinging Gwen around the room. Gwen found herself laughing, then bending over for a few moments when she got a stitch. Before long, the two of them were twirling round the drawing room, the furniture pushed back to the walls and the rug rolled up and one of Pauline’s records blaring from the gramophone.

  By the time an exhausted Gwen collapsed backwards onto the settee, perspiration dampening her hair, they had spent over an hour perfecting the steps and putting them together in a routine. The dance culminated in a back-to-back manoeuvre that involved Gwen going over Pauline’s shoulders in a backward roll.

  ‘You’ve got that six beat stomp off perfect now, Mrs C – and the back-to-back. I reckon you could burn up the floor of the Winter Garden if you wanted to.’

  Gwen wiped the sweat from her brow. She’d never done anything like it before and she was exhilarated. Pauline was an adept teacher and an agile dancer and Gwen hadn’t enjoyed herself so much in a long time.

  ‘You’ve picked it up so quickly. Let’s go dancing together! Come on, Mrs C. I can get Mrs Prentice next door to babysit the girls. It’ll be a laugh. We could go next weekend.’

  Gwen leaned against the cushions of the sofa, catching her breath.

  ‘It was fun, Pauline. But that’s enough. My dancing days are over.’

  Pauline let out a groan of derision. ‘Don’t be daft. You’re really good at it.’

  Gwen got up. ‘Thanks. I enjoyed it but I won’t be doing it again. And certainly not in the Winter Garden. Now, I must get to bed.’

  Later, up in her room, she applied cold cream to her face and acknowledged that she hadn’t had so much fun in years. In fact she couldn’t remember when she’d ever let herself get so caught up in the moment. Pauline Simmonds knew how to enjoy herself. But was it right to discard one’s dignity like that? And during a war? One thing was clear. Pauline and her daughters were opening up new experiences to her and she felt the better for it.

  London Town

  London

  Greg waited until the day before their furlough before telling Jim his plans. Slinging an arm round his friend’s shoulder he said, ‘Boy, do I have a treat in store for us, Jimbo. I’ve managed to bag us a pair of rail warrants and you and I are going to have us a good time in London Town.’

  ‘For real?’ Jim felt excited for the first time in months.

  ‘Little hotel in Bayswater then it’s Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London for us. Not forgetting the Beaver Club. And we have some serious drinking to do, my friend.’

  Jim grinned. He wasn’t so sure about the serious drinking but the prospect of getting out of Aldershot was appealing and he’d wanted to see the sights of London ever since he was a schoolboy, but he’d never expected it to happen.

  The other factor heightening the appeal of the trip was that it meant he wouldn’t have to risk running into Joan again for a while. Grass had not recently attempted to drag him along on his assignations with Ethel. Jim hadn’t told his friend about what had passed between him and Joan but suspected that it had reached Grass via Ethel. He felt relieved at first but found himself thinking about her with a pang of regret. After what had happened with Alice he was in no hurry to go out with anyone seriously – especially not someone in a place he was only passing through and who was already committed to another man. He knew for many of his colleagues such a relationship would be seen as perfect – no strings attached – but Jim didn’t want to be with the kind of woman who thought that was all right.

  The sun was shining when they left Aldershot. The train was packed. It appeared that most of the regiment had been granted leave and were heading to London. Greg had fixed up a shared room in a little hotel in Bayswater. It was clean enough but spartan – little different from the dormitory at the garrison, apart from the two single beds instead of their bunks and a rug on the linoleum floor between the beds. In the corner was a small table and a wooden chair. A picture of the King and Queen hung over the unlit fireplace.

  They dumped their kitbags and went downstairs. Jim headed for the street door, eager to make the most of their brief stay in the capital. Greg hung back, reading the notices pinned to a board at the bottom of the stairs and checking his watch.

  ‘Come on, Grass, we’ve lots to see. Get a move on.’

  ‘Hold your horses. I’m trying to work out where we are on this map.’

  As he spoke there was a sound of clattering shoes on the stairs and Ethel emerged into the hall, Joan a few steps behind her. Ethel was about to hurl herself at Greg but the Canadian moved his head to signal that the old crone who manned the reception desk was watching, so Ethel and Joan walked past the men and out into the street.

  Jim grabbed his friend’s arm. ‘You son of a bitch. You set this up without telling me because you knew I’d never agree.’

  Greg jerked his arm free. ‘Look, bud, you’re here now. Make the most of it.’ He started to move towards the door but Jim grabbed him again and held him back.

  ‘I’m not playing ball. Not any more. I’m sick of being your stooge. If you want to see your girl, make your own plans. If Joan has to be part of them that’s your problem.’ He let go of his friend’s arm and went out to the street, breaking into a run as soon as he hit the pavement, leaving the two women staring after him.

  Jim spent the day wandering the streets, trailing along the Embankment as the dirty river moved along beside him, watching the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, witnessing wherever he went the damage wrought by the Luftwaffe on the capital city.

  Walking alone through the bomb-damaged city, he felt ashamed. Running away like that and leaving Joan and Ethel standing on the pavement. Jim tried to imagine how he might feel were the circumstances reversed. His anger should have been directed at Greg not at the women, and he cringed as he thought how Joan must have felt. After all, she was only helping out her cousin. He remembered how she had chided him over his behaviour in the pub the night they met. Jim felt bad. Very bad.

  By chance as he walked away from Trafalgar Square he discovered the famed Beaver Club, the haunt of the Canadian services and, suddenly hungry, went inside. The place was thronged with his countrymen as well as men from the other allied nations and Jim wolfed down a hearty stew before sinking into an armchair and reading the Canadian newspapers with
a beer at his side. Maybe the day wasn’t turning out so badly after all.

  After stopping off in a few pubs on the way, it was late when he reached their shabby hotel and he felt tired but strangely happy. How his life had changed in so little time. Back on the farm, one day ran into another, marked only by the changing seasons, the rotation of the crops and the birth and death of livestock. The only times he’d ventured beyond the farm had been the odd trip into town or over to Alice’s place. He had never expected to see anything of the rest of the world but he had sailed across an ocean, been inside an English family home, learned to fire a Bren gun and scale up a vertical surface on a rope, and now at last he had seen the city that was the still-beating heart of the Empire. He wondered whether Greg was already asleep and what he had done to amuse the women all day. Greg would not have been pleased to have Joan trailing along with them. He doubted Joan would have been too thrilled about it either. He felt a pang of guilt but pushed it away. Joan was a grown-up. She made her own choices and if she wanted to drag along behind her cousin that was up to her.

  He opened the door and the dim glow from the nightlight on the landing showed the dark silhouette of Greg in the bed so he didn’t switch on the light. It was after midnight and Greg appeared to be fast asleep. Jim yawned, stripped off quickly, tiptoed over the cold lino, feeling his way along the side of his bed as his eyes slowly adjusted to the pitch dark of the blackout, then jumped under the sheets. There was only a thin blanket and an eiderdown that kept sliding off onto the floor. It was going to be hard getting to sleep. He turned over and looked in the direction of the other bed and whispered, ‘You awake, Grass?’

  ‘You’ll have to go down the landing if you want to find out.’ The voice was Joan’s.

  Jim shot upright. ‘What the hell!’

  ‘Come on. What do you expect? Give them a break. They’re in love. And don’t shoot me. I’m only the messenger. If it were up to me I’d be back home in my own bed. It’d be a bloody sight warmer.’

  ‘It is freezing, isn’t it?’ His tone softened.

  ‘I’ve been cold all day.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I walked. I didn’t want to play gooseberry. I had hoped you might have kept me company while they were canoodling with each other. But you couldn’t get away fast enough. Thanks a lot. So I went to the pictures. Saw The Sea Hawk again.’ Her voice softened. ‘I didn’t enjoy it so much the second time.’

  ‘Why’s that? I’d have happily watched it again.’

  ‘That’s why.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I kept thinking how much nicer it would have been if you’d been there too.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jim didn’t know what to say to that. He was uncertain whether to be pleased or annoyed. Was she toying with him again? He was still sitting upright against the pillow and was shivering, so slid down under the covers again.

  ‘Are you as cold as I am?’ Her voice disembodied in the dark.

  ‘It’s like the Arctic Circle in here.’

  ‘Can I come in with you? To keep warm. Body heat. I won’t touch you, I promise.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘Right. We can both freeze to death then. Goodnight.’

  He could hear her rolling on her side, turning her back to him. He looked across the pitch black room, his eyes barely making out the shape of her. He was wearing his shorts and a singlet. He didn’t have any pyjamas with him. If he worked his way back along the side of the bed he could find the chair where he’d dumped his shirt and put that on to keep the cold at bay.

  As he was mulling this over, Joan flung back her bedclothes and said, ‘Bugger this! If an air raid doesn’t get us the cold will. Budge up, soldier.’ Dragging the blanket and eiderdown off her own bed she slipped in beside him and curled her body against his back. ‘Goodnight again,’ she said.

  Jim lay there for a moment, welcoming the warmth from the extra bedding and the heat of Joan’s body as it curved into his back. He could feel the softness of her breasts through her nightgown, pressed up against him. The bed was narrow and she moved her arm over his waist to anchor herself against him. Instinctively he placed his hand over hers. Her breath was warm on his neck and the change in her breathing signalled that she was already asleep. Drinking in the faint traces of her familiar perfume, Jim relaxed and fell into a deep and welcome sleep too.

  He couldn’t say how it started or who had initiated it, but early next morning, in what seemed a seamless transition, they were making love. Her body was entwined with his when he came into consciousness and they began to move together in a silent choreographed ballet. Joan eased herself under him, pulling him on top of her and moving her mouth up to join his in a slow and sensuous kiss.

  As he raised himself above her she whispered, ‘Have you done this before?’

  He shook his head.

  She cried out as he entered her, then with a long sigh her arms encircled his back and she held on to him tightly as he moved inside her.

  When they were done, they lay wrapped in each other’s arms. She touched his face, laying her palm against his cheek and then ran her fingers slowly downwards, to trace the shape of his mouth.

  Jim stroked her hair and said, ‘Thank you. It was…’

  Joan placed her fingers on his lips to stop him speaking. ‘I’m glad we did it and I enjoyed it but I don’t want to hear one of your post mortems, Jim.’

  Jim laughed, then feeling uncertain, frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That it was nice but it won’t happen again.’

  Her words pierced him like ice and the room felt cold again. He turned to face her, propped up on his elbows. ‘But surely this changes things, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Armstrong.’

  She had assumed that brittle tone that made him nervous, unsettled. It was as though there were two different Joans. She was playing games again. The ground was shifting under him and he felt disorientated and confused.

  ‘You’ve known from the beginning that I’m engaged to someone else. What happened was nice and I don’t regret it but it isn’t going to happen again. We were thrown together by circumstances and what took place between us was just one of those things.’

  ‘One of those things? I’ve never made love to a woman before. Not even my fiancée. I don’t go jumping into bed with women.’

  ‘You have a fiancée? You kept that quiet, soldier. But that makes things easier. The sin is equal on both sides. We’ve both cheated on our intendeds. Put it down to the war. People do crazy things in a war. And it was bloody cold. We were practically forced to have sex. I mean, it was natural under the circumstances.’

  ‘Are you so cold-hearted? Are you telling me that it meant absolutely nothing to you? That you didn’t feel that it mattered, that it was different?’

  She turned towards him and rolled her eyes. ‘It was only sex!’

  Jim stared at her in horror. Just when he thought he had unveiled the real Joan she had turned the tables on him again.

  ‘You and I will each go back to our fiancés and forget it ever happened,’ she said, swinging her legs out of the bed.

  He reached out and took her arm. ‘I don’t have a fiancée any more. She left me for my brother.’ He let his hand drop back onto the bed.

  She walked across to the window and opened the blackout curtain to let some daylight into the room, then turned to look at him. For a moment he thought he saw the expression he had seen in her eyes when they were making love. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. But it makes no difference. I told you from the start that I’m going to marry Pete.’

  ‘Pete? So he has a name?’ Jim hated himself as he heard the sardonic tone of his voice.

  ‘Of course he has a name – but I didn’t choose to tell you what it was.’

  Jim put his head in his hands. How had it come to this? As he was beginning to get over the loss of Alice, h
e was getting slapped in the face again. Were all women such treacherous creatures? Or did he pick the wrong ones?

  Eventually he raised his head and said, ‘I’m sorry I read the situation wrong. I thought you felt something. I certainly feel something for you.’ He realised he was using the present tense.

  Joan sat down beside him. She took his hand in hers and lifted it up and kissed the inside of his wrist. ‘I’m sorry, Jim. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought you’d be like all the other guys. Kiss ’em and leave ’em. But I meant what I said. We can’t let it happen again.’

  Her words were like tiny stabs. All the other guys? What was she trying to tell him? Was he one of many?

  ‘I’m going to marry Pete so that’s that. I’ve known him since we were nippers and our families always expected us to marry eventually and I’ve never been good at letting people down.’ She paused then added, ‘Except you. I seem to have been spectacularly good at letting you down.’ She looked up at him and he thought for a moment she was about to cry.

  Jim wrapped her hands in his. ‘But do you love him?’

  ‘Yes, I love him.’ She sighed then said, ‘Just not the way I… I mean it’s more of a friendship. I don’t feel passion or excitement with him.’

  Jim’s face was a mask of bewilderment. ‘Then don’t marry him.’

  ‘Passion fades. It’s the other kind of love that lasts. I know that because of my mum and dad. They were madly in love, crazy for each other, but it didn’t last. Dad upped sticks and left when I was six. He broke her heart. Killed her spark and her spirit. She married my stepfather when I was eleven. I don’t think passion or desire are words that my stepdad would recognise. But he’s made Mum happy. He’s looked after her. Treats her like a queen. Worships the ground she walks on. Pete is like that with me. I think I’m a better person with him. More restrained. More grown-up. I know he’ll be there for me through thick and thin and that matters. No, Jim, I can’t let him down. I won’t let him down. And I won’t break my promise.’