by Allie Burns
‘I didn’t go to secretarial college, you know.’ Betsy opened the bottom drawer of the gun-metal filing cabinet and slid out a red ledger book. ‘Yet Arthur expects me to be as proficient as a business girl…’ she set the ledger on to the desk ‘…but I didn’t know where to start, Natalie love. And when he gets on at me so, that just makes me worse and so I don’t do anything for fear of doing it wrong.’
‘I can’t pretend to have any training either.’ Natalie leafed through the blank sheets of the book. ‘To tell you the truth, my secretary magicked away my paperwork. But I am quite sure we can do a better job than those men, even without any training.’
‘You’re right on that one,’ Betsy agreed. ‘The expenses are all there.’ She nodded towards the white scraps crammed on to the paper spike on the desk. ‘Mostly anyway. If not, then it’s in here.’ As she opened the desk drawer, crumpled white balls sprung up like a jack-in-the-box. ‘I’ve jotted down takings on bits and bobs of paper too. I’m sorry to give you such a mess…’
‘Don’t fret, Betsy. Really, I like a challenge.’
They worked amicably for several hours, Betsy sliding the paper from the spike, smoothing it flat and deciphering the handwritten scrawl or remembering whether it was a receipt or a note on takings. Natalie had drawn up columns and dates and wrote the expenses down in the right rows and once they were finished and they’d worked through the paper in the drawers too, she totalled it all up at the bottom. Next they labelled up box folders and tidied away all the other scraps and gave the typewriter a good dusting and a new roll of ribbon.
‘Well, well, I had no idea that there was a wooden desk under all of that paper,’ Arthur said when he called in on them after lunch. Natalie winked at Betsy behind his back. ‘She won’t be able to keep this up.’ Arthur gestured towards Betsy who cowered behind her dark fringe at his tone. ‘You’ll have to stay on for the summer, Miss Flacker, to keep this all in order.’
‘I think you are wrong about Betsy’s abilities, but as she said she is busy on the turnstiles. On that basis, I would be delighted to take the office on.’ She sat tall in the office chair. Yvonne’s words had haunted her all morning, but this showed that with a bit of effort she might yet win the girls she’d offended over, even Yvonne. ‘Perhaps I could combine my duties with some teaching poolside.’
‘Steady on, steady on.’ He shook his head, and she sunk back. Don’t rush things. One step and all that. Arthur continued, ‘Best to let the women and the men do what they each do best, I say.’
The thump of the ledger being closed in his large hands made Betsy jump on the spot.
‘It does mean you can stay at the entrance,’ he said to his wife.
‘Thanks, Arth,’ Betsy gasped, clasping her hands together as if she’d just won the pools. ‘I hate being shut away in here.’
‘Good work,’ he said again to Natalie before closing the door with a thud behind him.
‘You made that look easy,’ Betsy said, admiring the neat pile of box files and the empty desk.
‘It was teamwork.’ She wasn’t sure if she should admit just how much she’d enjoyed putting the office into good order, or how she’d liked working with Betsy.
‘Perhaps I could get a couple of the girls together and we could take you, Delphi and the men out to the pier tonight as a thank you?’
‘Do you think they would come, the girls I mean?’
‘Not all of them, love,’ Betsy conceded. Yvonne wouldn’t be won over by a bit of filing; they both knew that. ‘But I’m sure I can persuade Edith to come out on the town. It’s good old-fashioned fun, the pier is. It’s what St Darlstone’s all about. What do you say?’
There was only one thing she could say.
‘Of course, Betsy. I’d love to.’
*
‘Are you ready?’ Delphi asked as she opened the door to Natalie’s hotel room.
‘Almost.’ She invited her in and went back to the dressing table to straighten her beret in the mirror for what was at least the fifth time. Betsy had been true to her word and had organised for them all to go to the pier that evening. Jack was coming too. She blotted her lips together and then pressed another layer of powder into her forehead.
‘I could toast a crumpet on that.’ Delphi smirked.
After she’d finished in the office that afternoon, she’d joined Delphi on the sun deck for a couple of hours of late afternoon sun.
‘I thought sunbathing was good for your health,’ Natalie felt the heat of her head. Delphi, in contrast, was the colour of toast. ‘We’re meeting the others at the pier.’ Natalie checked her beret yet again. They’d be late if she didn’t stop fussing about her appearance, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to drag me from the mirror. I don’t know what’s come over me. Aren’t you excited too?’
Delphi shrugged, yet she ought to have been bubbling over with excitement. Mr and Mrs Mulberry had finally left her to embark on a lecture tour they had flirted with for years. They’d been reluctant, and Natalie had allayed their fears with reassurances that she’d provide regular updates and keep their daughter safe.
Natalie took one last look in the mirror and silently wished herself luck, then instantly chided herself for behaving like a young girl. She was thinking of Jack again. She linked Delphi’s arm and locked her bedroom door behind her.
‘I’ve been thinking about those classes we saw this afternoon,’ Natalie said as they waited for the lift to arrive. They had briefly interrupted their sunbathing to watch the Lido classes being taken by the lifeguards.
‘It just looked like an excuse for those boys to flirt with attractive holidaymakers,’ Delphi said, her face tilted to the dial above the lift doors.
‘I think we can do better, don’t you?’ Natalie said.
‘You said Arthur had warned you off the men’s work.’ The lift pinged and the doors peeled back to reveal the lift attendant. ‘I don’t want to make life more awkward for Jack.’
Arthur had indeed said no, she thought as she stepped into the lift, but he’d told her that she should stick to what she did best, and that was teaching.
‘We’ll find a way around Arthur,’ she said. The attendant pressed the ground floor button and the lift doors slid to a close.
*
The pier’s entrance sign, made up of the collective glow of white bulbs, spelled ‘St Darlstone Pier’. Strings of lights hung along both sides, like a frosty spider thread, so that the outline of the pier glistened.
Jack, Sid, Betsy and Edith waited for the two of them by the entrance.
‘You’re all looking very lovely tonight,’ Jack said and Sid agreed. Jack still wore lifeguard whites, loose-fitting trousers that fluttered in the breeze and a white V-necked jumper and shirt that contrasted with his nut-brown skin.
‘I’m afraid young Barnie couldn’t come.’ Betsy interrupted her thoughts and made her realise that she had been staring at Jack. ‘Her Robert wouldn’t want her out on the town, even if she did have any energy left over after a day’s work, following Truby King’s routines with her children and then scrubbing Robert’s collars clean. Poor thing, she’s exhausted most of the time.’ Natalie recalled Barnie’s puffy eyes on the day they’d arrived. ‘If she lived closer to her mother it might be easier on her,’ Betsy went on. ‘She said they wanted to cut family ties by coming here, but I don’t know if I see the wisdom in that.’
She didn’t want to put Betsy in an awkward spot by asking about Yvonne. She knew what the answer would be anyway.
She followed Sid and Jack, slotting in her coin and clanking the turnstile. Her sunburn was almost forgotten and her skin tingled more with excitement now as they trod the wooden boards, along with a mass of suited men smoking pipes, on their arms their wives in hats and long coats with children pushing at their skirts.
Delphi and Jack led them around the bandstand where the tuba in the municipal orchestra pumped out its deep tones.
In front of
the Pavilion theatre, in the centre of the pier, a crowd gathered in a horseshoe around the entrance. Flashbulbs swooshed and illuminated the night air. Natalie squeezed the top of Delphi’s arm.
‘Who is it?’ She was swept along on her tiptoes while Betsy shot off ahead of them.
‘A brunette with a fox-fur collar and a chihuahua under her arm,’ she reported, while Natalie strained this way and that to peer through the hats to catch a glimpse of the star.
‘I think it’s Margaret Lockwood,’ said Edith, addressing Betsy so the rest of them could overhear her. Natalie had seen the poster at the Palm Court advertising the film star’s performance. Delphi bounced on the spot.
‘Mind my toes,’ spat the arch-eyebrowed lady next to her in a plum-coloured off-the-brow hat.
Natalie sighed. ‘I just loved her in Lorna Doone. She made me cry.’
‘Me too,’ Edith said to Betsy. Natalie hadn’t yet seen her find the courage to speak to anyone directly other than Betsy.
‘I wish we could see her. What a chance.’ Natalie jumped up. Jack lifted Delphi up and she squealed and clapped her hands together. She jumped again. There she was. Margaret Lockwood. Bathed in lights, while the rest of them stood in dusk. Striking an unsmiling pose, she turned her head to the left for the cameras, smouldering cigarette holder in one hand, while the dog in the other faced straight ahead at the crowd with a snaggled look of contempt.
‘She looks a picture.’ Natalie jumped one last time. ‘Well what a thing,’ she said. ‘A film star here in St Darlstone.’
‘We might catch her at the dance hall?’ Jack suggested.
‘The dance hall?’ Betsy said. ‘Oh no, I’m not made for dancing.’
Natalie wasn’t sure either. She and Delphi danced together, yes, but since their college days they’d never strayed beyond the privacy of the Mulberrys’ drawing room. They hadn’t been to a dance hall for years. And their physical exertions during the Women’s League rally had ended in Delphi being taken ill.
‘I don’t know,’ said Delphi. Natalie looked for the usual signs. She seemed to be all right, but there was something that was making her reluctant.
They went to the arcade, watched Sid feed pennies into the slot machine, and the silver musket ball whizz around in its spiral frame. She thought of Margaret Lockwood and then wondered what had happened to Jack.
‘What about the one-arm bandit?’ Betsy suggested, after the third penny had been lost. At a stout machine with Duchess emblazoned across the middle, Delphi pulled the cue-ball hand of the bandit as low as it would go. Sid seemingly felt the need to steady her hands with his, as if she couldn’t manage the job alone. The images inside the window clicked to a standstill. A bunch of cherries, bunch of cherries and a lemon.
‘What a shame, so close.’
The machine spat two pennies into the metal tray.
‘May I?’ Natalie asked.
Still jittery from seeing Lockwood, she stepped forwards and took a firm grip of the bandit’s hand. She tugged it low, and then as it sprung back up the three windows blurred. Her eyes fixed to the screen in anticipation. Click, an orange, click, jackpot, click, cherries. She saw Margaret Lockwood’s face on every one of them.
Betsy insisted that they take a look at What the Butler Saw. Edith stayed clear while Natalie, Delphi and Sid took it in turns to lean into the lens, and crank the handle, watching the flickering images of the woman’s vanishing clothes. Natalie paused, the handle at a standstill in her hand; the woman was down to her dark corset and suspenders. Then the screen went black.
‘Time’s up,’ Sid said. ‘You don’t get long for a penny.’
‘There you all are.’ Jack had returned. ‘Well we’re in if we want to go. I’ve bought us all tickets.’
They looked at him blankly.
‘The dance hall,’ he said. ‘I thought you all wanted to meet the film star.’
‘I’m far too old for dancing,’ Edith said to her watch. ‘Anyway…’ she addressed Betsy ‘…my Albert said he’d meet me at half eight to escort me home.’ And with that she was gone.
‘We don’t have to dance, not if we don’t want to,’ Natalie said to Delphi and Betsy. ‘We could just watch. We might get to meet her.’
‘I’ll feel out of place,’ Betsy said, looking down at her rounded body. ‘I really don’t think…’
Jack held out his arm and she stood back to let Betsy take it. Delphi and Sid linked arms too. Natalie lifted her head, and forced a smile. She’d be all right. She wasn’t alone, not really, and it didn’t matter that Jack had offered his arm to Betsy. He was being chivalrous. He would do the same for her, if she needed it.
*
Once inside the dance hall, her instinct was to take Delphi’s arm, just to be on the safe side. The music from the live band seemed to reach out and pull them inside, filling every recess. The sharp intrusion of the trumpet was just the thing to shock Delphi into a sleeping fit.
They had no difficulty in locating Lockwood. Even in the dance hall the flashbulbs continued to pop in a corner near the refreshments counter. Without the dog now, Lockwood was signing autographs for people who lined up along the edge of the dance floor. When it was their turn Jack strode up, and introduced them all. Natalie froze. She had a stupid smile on her face; she knew it. They were up so close that she could see the crumbs of powder on Margaret’s elegant nose and the thick tips of her false eyelashes.
‘You must come to the Lido,’ Jack said, ‘while you’re in town.’
A gentleman with a cocked fedora, white scarf over his tuxedo and a thin, broken moustache, stepped in front of him.
‘Miss Lockwood will be leaving now.’
Say something. Say something.
‘Lovely to meet you, Miss Lockwood,’ Natalie muttered just in time, so quietly she feared her words had been swallowed up by the music.
The film star turned, paused, met Natalie’s eye, a huge smile springing on to her face. ‘And you, my dear, and you.’
And then she was gone. Betsy grabbed Natalie’s arm.
‘You spoke to Margaret Lockwood!’
I know, I know, she thought, hoping she hadn’t thought her sunburn ridiculous. It would take a while for the encounter to really sink in. With Lockwood gone, the band began the build up to a new tune and everyone seemed to recognise it, partner up and flood the dance floor.
‘This is one of the records you brought back from America, Jack.’ Delphi nodded her head to the flutter-beat of the drums.
Natalie had danced to it with Delphi, with the carpet rolled up and propped against the Mulberrys’ drawing room wall. Unlike the drawing room, the dance hall was packed. Women dancing together was a familiar sight; it shouldn’t put them off. They had two men with them, but the group of them all stayed near the edge, still but for Delphi’s hair dancing in an off-beat quiver.
‘Benny Goodman’s Big Band plays this one,’ Jack called above the slip-and-slide swagger of the trombone. ‘Anyone for a dance?’
He was sweet about it, offering his hand to Betsy.
‘That’s thoughtful, Mr Mulberry, but just look at me. I’m not made for dancing.’ Her eyes tracked the other couples as they cantered by. ‘I’ll get all out of puff and I’ll hear my blood in my ears.’ She looked at Natalie and Delphi for help.
‘I daren’t risk it,’ Delphi said. ‘I’ll stay with Sid and Betsy.’ Jack checked she was all right and then turned to Natalie. The cornets as coarse as a smoker’s hack flared da-a-da-da, da-a-da-da.
‘It looks like it’s you and me then, Natty.’
Her voice caught in her throat for a moment. She’d been beginning to feel invisible.
‘All right then…’ she tried to catch her breath ‘…but just the one.’ She stepped on to the floor and he took her hand, the other hot around her shoulder. Can he feel that I’m shaking? Before she could consider holding on to her reserve and swaying sweetly in the centre, he’d taken off down the floor and she had no choice but to keep up.
As they galloped past them she saw Delphi twitch her skirt above her knees to the toe-tap of the drum, Sid swaying beside her. Betsy, her red face intensified, had found a seat and was fanning herself with her ticket.
Jack stopped and put his hands on her hips. Their eyes met. She just couldn’t contain her smile. Thankfully he mirrored her expression, and that allowed her to surrender herself to the music, to Jack’s touch, to the dance floor. I’m no relic now. There’s no 1-2-3-4, back straight, arms stiff. We’re following the beat wherever it takes us.
She realised that this was what she had anticipated back in the hotel room. This loss of control was the reason she hadn’t been able to stop adjusting her beret, but she could see now that there had been nothing to fear. The music shoved the thoughts clear out of her mind and moved her to kick up the powdered chalk, flapping her loose arms along to the trombones’ long-limbed slouch.
‘What a dancer, Natty.’ Jack beamed. ‘Look at you go.’
‘You too,’ she said as she slotted under his arms, smelling his citrus cologne, brushing against his body so close that she felt the heat of it, the shape of it. Even in his lifeguard whites he looked completely at home on the dance floor. She’d had no idea.
‘We make a good partnership,’ she blurted out, ‘on the dance floor, I mean.’
She turned away, unable to meet his gaze again. The band changed to something slower, the rise and fall of a piano tiptoeing through the notes. She broke away. She’d said just one dance, and she’d got carried away as it was. Wait to be asked, see if he wants another one. The others were smiling at them as they returned to the sidelines. She walked slowly, trailing her hand behind her, ready for him to catch it and pull her back, and when she braved it to turn and look over her shoulder, he wasn’t there.
