by Allie Burns
Natalie reached for her whistle, but of course it wasn’t there.
‘The contest is off, girls,’ she called, but there was no reaction. ‘Arthur has gone up to make the announcement.’ She caught Betsy’s attention and a couple of the other girls realised what she’d said and looked about for Arthur. Calls for quiet followed.
‘You’ll all be disqualified from the other heats, so, I suppose that means no final, for any of you.’
‘He can’t do that!’ Toots called. They were all quiet.
‘I dare say there was prize money at stake today…’ Natalie said. Many of the girls nodded their heads in response as the realisation began to dawn of what they had thrown away.
‘And a talent scout from a modelling agency will judge the final in August,’ Toots admitted.
‘And glamorous Cornelia Moon will judge the hair in the final too,’ added Yvonne.
‘Well if there’s no contest today you’ll all have missed out then.’
‘Who exactly are you?’ Toots made her feel as good as naked in her business girl outfit.
‘Yes, exactement.’ Yvonne stood by her side. ‘Who do you think you are?’
Natalie looked at their set faces, their curled lips, and wondered the very same thing. She had no right to play Vice Principal here, yet Arthur had just given up on them and she knew from experience that it wouldn’t take much to save the situation. She cleared her throat.
‘I can tell you who I am not. I am not the kind of girl who is afraid of a bit of competition.’
Toots noticed how her former supporters had taken a few steps away from her now and whispered to one another. Yvonne opened her mouth to answer back and thought better of it.
‘Now do you want to go ahead with this contest?’
They were all agreed: they did. Toots and Yvonne, who were at least now united in their collective disgrace, stood apart from the other girls.
‘Then get into a line, double quick,’ Natalie instructed. ‘Yvonne, I think perhaps Toots has a point: as you already work here it might look like a fix if you were to win.’ She pointed at Toots. ‘And if you apologise today then I’ll speak to Arthur, see if he’ll allow you to compete in a future heat. But we can’t risk letting you take part after today’s carry-on. The rest of you follow me.’
Betsy stood to one side. Yvonne and Toots both muttered to one another. Who is this lady? Can she keep us out? Is this because of my veins? Well they are…no, this is because she knows I’ll win.
But their arguments petered out. Whether or not Natalie had the power to do it was immaterial; they’d behaved badly and the other girls had turned against them. The bathing belles all now lined up in the car park, crushed their cigarettes under their heels, powdered their noses, tossed back their hair and smiled at Natalie, awaiting her word.
‘Follow me!’
With Betsy just ahead of her, she led the girls up the stairs.
‘…a change of plan,’ Arthur’s voiced greeted them through the speakers as they emerged on to the pool level. The divers had finished and Arthur was already on the podium and addressing the microphone. ‘It is with a heavy heart that I tell you the first heat of Miss St Darlstone; Miss Lovely Calves and Ankles is…’
Natalie curled her forefinger and thumb and wolf-whistled across the pool to Arthur.
‘The girls are ready!’ she called.
One by one they appeared to cheers from the crowd.
‘They’re here,’ he called. ‘Terrific.’
‘Down to the end of the pool, across the platform and then line up on the pontoon,’ Natalie instructed.
‘You aren’t tempted to enter, Betsy?’ Natalie offered her one of the spare competitors’ numbered armbands.
‘Me! You must be joking.’ Betsy batted her away with her hand. ‘Apart from my figure, and the fact I work here, Arthur would never allow it.’
She was in her overalls rather than a swimsuit, but Natalie thought Betsy had as good a set of calves and ankles as any of the other girls. It was just a shame that Betsy couldn’t see it.
She hurried around to Arthur on the podium and handed him the running list.
‘Number 23 and 17 have decided against competing,’ she said, pointing to Toots and Yvonne on the list.
She stood beside Arthur as the girls sashayed along the side of the pool, one hand on a hip, teeth on show, eyes wide. The crowd whooped their favourite as they each shook hands with the head judge. Toots and Yvonne in contrast had taken a seat on the front benches next to the judges’ podium, their faces set. They were just along from Mr and Mrs Mulberry who shared their copy of the New Statesman in silent disapproval of the spectacle in front of them.
‘I don’t know what you said to them, Miss Flacker,’ Arthur said, leaning away from the microphone, ‘but I take back what I said earlier. If you can control those two…’ he pointed across at Yvonne and Toots ‘…then maybe you’re one of these exceptional ladies I’ve heard them talk about. Just the sort we need around here. Come and see me later, will you.’
She joined the applause as the bathing belles lined up on the thin pontoon that stretched out across the pool.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’d like that very much.’
It had been ten minutes since she’d left Delphi, though it felt like hours. She needed to check on her.
‘Thank you, ladies.’ Arthur spoke into the microphone again. ‘What a lot of lovely calves and ankles there are in St Darlstone today. And for once, the judges are unanimous,’ Arthur announced, as Natalie made her way back to the office. ‘We have our winner.’
The office door opened just as she reached it and she was relieved to see Delphi step out. She was a little crumpled and dark around the eyes, but she was up. Mrs Mulberry hadn’t noticed she’d had a fit, and she was back by Natalie’s side.
‘Are you feeling better?’ Natalie asked her.
‘Much. Tell me, what did I miss?’
Chapter Seven
The star dive
Performed from a run on a low board. Dive out as well as up. Spread arms and legs to make a star on the descent and then snap together for entry.
Natalie buttoned her cardigan against the wind. She was collecting the crumpled pamphlets that had been thrown away after the gala.
Jack was on the highest diving board, knees bent as he twisted into a back dive. It was a joy to see him tame his rangy frame in free fall, but shouldn’t he be helping?
Sid, on the far side of the upper deck, whistled as he unlatched the PA system’s wire from the wall overlooking the pool. With only one good shoulder he was largely working one-handed. He tutted as a cable fell into a tangle on the shiny concrete floor. Securing the pamphlets under a deckchair she went over.
‘It’s good of you to stay on and help,’ he said.
She caught a hint of whisky on his breath and noticed his hand trembling as it unhooked the wires. He had a kind air about him, but he was damaged too – that much was obvious. She decided not to mention Arthur’s offer of a job before she had spoken further with him and it was official. Since the gala had finished he’d been in the cafeteria with some men from the council.
‘You’re on holiday. You should let your hair down.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever really had a holiday in my working life.’
‘Me neither. Unless you count Passchendaele.’
They both laughed at the absurdity of that. He doubled back. Stooping to pick up the web of wire and wrap it loosely around her forearm and hooked thumb, she followed him companionably as he whistled and tossed the liquorice cable loose to the ground.
‘Your friend hasn’t stayed around then?’ he asked.
‘Delphi? She’s resting up at the hotel.’
The sleeping fit had taken it out of her, and she needed to rest before their dinner with her parents at Arthur’s hotel. Natalie hadn’t even had a chance to tell her about the bathing contest and the bitter rivalry between the bathing belles.
She
should probably rest herself, her headache hadn’t completely lifted, but she couldn’t bring herself to a stop. Sid saw her looking in Jack’s direction. He was chatting to a group of young chaps who’d hung around to see him.
‘You known each other long?’
‘Oh, ten years at least. Off and on. He’s been in America.’
‘He’s not had it easy since he arrived here,’ he said. ‘You know it was me that Arthur wanted for manager.’
She nodded. Jack had looked so relieved when she’d told him that Arthur was going to offer her a job. More the look of the vindicated than pleased she was going to be around, she’d thought anyway. It was hard to tell just what was going on in his head.
‘The other councillors are worried Arthur’s overstretched the town with this place. It’s too big for the number of holidaymakers we get here. Costs an arm and a leg to run.’ He cast a glance at his own redundant arm as he registered what he’d said and shrugged his good shoulder.
He smoothed back his wavy, dark hair. He had the warm brown eyes of a man you could trust and he seemed to have taken the situation with Jack in better grace than most might.
As they worked together they continued to talk about Sid’s life in St Darlstone. He told her how he’d served with Arthur in the war, his shoulder smashed on the battlefield, and how he’d been invalided out. She told him about the two brothers she lost to the war.
‘Arthur’s looked out for me,’ he said. ‘I tried busking but I’m not much of a fiddler since the war,’ he joked.
Although he didn’t admit it the shadow of that time still hung over him.
‘Do you have a family?’ she asked.
‘Men of my age, so many didn’t come back. There was no shortage of girls.’ He paused. ‘I could have done – is what I’m trying to say. But somehow I never got back to being the old me and so I ended up on my own. It’s for the best.’
It was a lengthy speech that she hadn’t expected from him, but as she stood and smiled and contemplated what he’d lived through she thought she understood him.
‘And what about you?’
‘Me!’ She put her palm on her chest, checking Jack was out of earshot even though she already knew that he was. ‘Teaching isn’t compatible with husbands. I suppose you could say the war left me with the opposite challenges to you.’
‘It’s not been easy for any of our generation, but the men paid the biggest price.’ It made her smart to hear it said. She’d lost two brothers and a husband she never knew, but still she knew what he said was true – Edmund and Daniel had lost their lives. She knew too how hard it would be for a proud man like Sid to have to rely on a woman to complete a simple task like winding up cables.
‘I could have managed just fine, you know.’ Sid proved her point. At the corner he handed her the last of the wire. ‘I don’t like allowances being made, but thanks anyway.’
*
St Darlstone was much quieter now that the day-trippers and weekenders had been replaced with tattered newspapers and crumpled fish and chip wrappers.
The sunlight rained down on the sea in crystals that split and glittered on the smooth surface. She’d left Delphi sleeping in her bedroom at the luxurious Palm Court, put on her bathers and fastened her mackintosh over the top.
Last night over dinner at his hotel, Arthur had explained the rules of bathing on the beach. How he hoped to drive more people to the Lido by charging 6d to hire a bathing tent on the beach for just half an hour. She passed a sign that read No Mackintosh Bathers, but she was undeterred. Arthur had let slip that they rarely actually handed out a fine. The threat of a penalty for changing beneath a towel or mackintosh was enough, and as it was still early she decided to take her chances and leave her coat on the pebbles while she swam.
With her shoes off she hobbled over stones that ground and stung the soft soles of her feet. In the shadow of the pier, she hesitated at the water’s edge as the cold, clay-coloured water pooled around her feet and receded in the same rhythm over and over again.
Arthur had asked her to organise the Lido office. It was only the first step on the ladder, but she had to be careful she didn’t leave Delphi behind. Her sleeping fit had meant she had already missed out on the triumph of the contest yesterday. Natalie had to make sure she included her wherever she could.
The beach was deserted and swimming alone might be a reckless thing to do, but the pull was too strong. Confronting the cold of the water without yielding to it, she walked in without hesitation. Lifting her feet from the torturous pebbles as soon as she could, she floated at first, content to just tread water and adjust to the current tugging her about, the waves passing under her chin, the way the salt thickened the water, its taste on her lips.
From here she had a frog’s-eye view of the town. Behind the wooden limbs of the pier she could make out the open concrete box of the Lido, then in front of her the white-fronted, turreted Palm Court, in which they were staying. Next to that, and directly opposite the pier, was Arthur’s hotel, The St Darlstone, where they’d had dinner last night.
It was as loud as its owner. A six-window-wide hotel, much smaller than the Palm Court, although it was hard to miss with its flagpole rising up from the pitched roof where two flags were ripped about by the wind. The first flag had the name of the hotel printed across it, the other read: ‘Ten minutes to Europe’s largest bathing pool.’ From this centre point the buildings stretched on in either direction until the sky met the sea.
She couldn’t stay still any longer. To keep warm she needed to start out with a gentle breaststroke, but the waves danced to a different beat and filled her nose. She switched to crawl and fell into an easy tempo as she cut through the water. It cleared her mind of thoughts of the college, of what had been happening there in her absence. Whether they missed her. How Margaret was faring. If Miss Lott had grown any stronger. All gone from her mind.
She didn’t know how long she’d been swimming when she lifted her head up to catch her breath, but she was no longer alone.
Another woman had dropped her mackintosh on to the beach close to her own, revealing a bathing costume that exposed a large circle of flesh on her back. Natalie was already in the shallows, about waist height in the water.
‘Morning!’ she called out to the woman who was now at the water’s edge. Her shins bulged with angry veins. Ah. It was Yvonne. She kicked the water out of her way as she strode straight in, not flinching at all against the cold, seemingly unperturbed by the pebbles underfoot.
‘How are you today?’ Natalie called out, assuming that Yvonne hadn’t recognised her; but she instantly regretted her attempt at conversation when she saw the look of contempt on Yvonne’s face, and realised that she had known it was her all along.
Unfortunately, her salutation had now brought Yvonne to a standstill level with her and it felt as if the shadow of a wild, electrical storm had descended on her. They were partly submerged, their fingertips just reaching the water.
‘You really have no idea, do you?’ she searched Natalie’s face with incredulity. ‘When you disqualified me yesterday it meant no August bank holiday final for me. You took away my chance to meet Cornelia Moon. She is the hairdresser to the film stars. She lives the life of my dreams. If I worked for her I could afford new shoes for my son. Buy good food to make him grow as tall as the other boys.’
‘Oh.’ Natalie felt the cold of the morning again now that she was no longer moving about in the water and goose pimples prickled their way along her arms and legs.
‘Oh,’ Yvonne mimicked her English accent and tossed her head about for dramatic effect. ‘Oh,’ she continued to mock her and then her eyes narrowed. ‘And now that Arthur has agreed with your decision that the Lido girls can’t compete in the bathing contests, well you have taken away all of our hopes of earning a little more.’
Natalie’s mouth formed another ‘oh,’ but it wilted on the vine. It sounded terrible when Yvonne put it like that. At the contest she had thought on h
er feet, sought out the fastest method to defuse the conflict and most importantly to keep the contest running. Her decision to exclude the Lido staff had been a practical one. She hadn’t, she saw now, really considered the consequences for the girls themselves. The bathing contests offered all of the competing girls the chance, however slim, to be plucked out of their ordinary lives and thrust into a life that hitherto had been the silver of their daydreams. Of course they would be disappointed to spend the rest of the summer on the sidelines.
‘Perhaps I could make it up to you somehow,’ Natalie offered, biting her lip and wishing she had just thought it through at the time rather than being so desperate to prove her worth to Arthur.
‘No, non, no.’ Yvonne held up a dripping hand. ‘You have done damage enough. Stay away from me, please, and the rest of the girls. We don’t need what you call help.’ She flung herself forward with such a force that the salt water splashed all over Natalie’s torso and face, and stung her eyes.
Chapter Eight
The swan dive
Whilst in the air the diver stretches her arms at shoulder height – her legs straight and together – and enters the water with her arms above her head.
‘I had put my Betsy in charge of the filing system…’ Arthur sat on the desk in the Lido’s shady office ‘…but she’s slovenly, aren’t you?’ He sniped a fleeting glance in his wife’s direction.
‘I’m sorry.’ Betsy’s face deepened a shade. ‘I’m always so busy out on the turnstiles; I don’t get the time to come in here,’ she said. ‘Don’t know where to start.’
‘I’m sure it’s not as bad as you say,’ Natalie said, offering Betsy a smile of encouragement to disperse the shadow that Arthur cast over her.
Arthur murmured in disagreement with Natalie as he closed the door behind him to leave the two women alone.
‘Well then.’ Natalie thought of Yvonne’s warning to her that morning and decided she ought to tread carefully. She didn’t want to make any more enemies here. ‘Shall we start with the expenses ledger?’
