by Jon McGregor
My father wasn't one for talking much, he wanted to tell someone, and if he did it was never really about the past, about his family, or where he grew up, or what happened in the war. I know he was in the Navy and that's about all, I don't know where he went, or what he did when he got there, I don't know what my mother went through at home when the bombing was going on, if she saw anyone killed or injured at all. I only know that they were apart for a long time, and they couldn't even write, and that when they were together again there were things they didn't feel the need to talk about; not even, I suppose, to each other. I think that's how I got so interested in history, he would say, since there was so little of it at home. There weren't even any photos on the wall until after my father had died.
I suppose I didn't really know him all that well in the end, he thought he might say. Well, isn't that the oldest story, someone might murmur in response, he thought, or, who among us ever did?
8 Two telegrams, November 1939 and April 1940
They'd spent the afternoon at the Imperial War Museum. He was still uncertain about finding his way around London on his own, so Julia had gone with him, and had been very patient while he took notes and made sketches, and had gone quiet at one or two of the exhibits, stepping away a few paces and turning her back so that he knew it wasn't a good idea to ask her what was wrong. They'd found a Christmas tobacco tin from 1916, like the one she had at home from her father, but this one was empty and she'd laughed and whispered maybe it's worth something now, and he'd been shocked by the idea of her selling such a thing until she'd nudged him and he'd realised she was joking. It hadn't been until they were on the bus on the way home, the street lamps already spilling splashes of light on to the rain-polished streets, that he'd asked about her own experience of the war, and about her husband; and it was only after they'd run from the bus stop to the house, and wrapped their wet heads in warm towels from the airing cupboard, and sat down in the kitchen with a steaming pot of tea and thick slices of heavy cake, that she'd begun to tell him.
The war hadn't started when I met him, she began, but everyone knew it wouldn't be long in coming. She hadn't got very far with her story before she realised he didn't know what she meant by ballroom dancing, so she insisted that she teach him there and then. She put a record on, and had him push the table back, and talked him through the steps while a waltz crackled out of the small loudspeaker. He felt a tightening knot of embarrassment in his stomach as she took his hand and placed it on her waist, and laid her hand against his, but he knew there'd be no getting out of it until he'd got it right. So he listened, and he concentrated, and he started to relax a little, and the second time the record played he only stepped on her foot twice. Well! she said, clapping her hands as the record finished again, I think we'll make a ballroom maestro out of you yet, young man. We'll have the debs of London queuing up for you! He didn't know what she meant by debs, but he didn't get a chance to ask. Once more, she announced, as the needle jerked back to the start of the record. This is the way the story begins, she said, taking his hand.
A Friday evening in early June, 1939. A hotel ballroom just off The Strand, its high domed ceiling frescoed pale sky-blue with wisps of spindrift clouds, ringing with the fading echo of the orchestra's closing bars. A renewed rumble of chatter and a tinkle of glasses. A brief light-fingered applause for the musicians. The dancers returning to their seats, singly or in pairs, smiling and no-thank-you-ing, reaching for drinks with lowered eyes and private blushes or whispering reports to a neighbour's ear. A rustle of loose sheaf paper at the orchestra's music stands. The unaccompanied glide and twirl of the white-jacketed waiters refreshing tall glasses with a stoop and a bow, proffering hors d'oeuvres on broad silver trays, wordless, indifferent, impeccably polite. Seated guests rising for the next dance, taking the hand of those closest to them, or catching the eye of another nearby, or crossing the room with a smart-heeled step, a discreet straightening of the jacket, a two-fingered smoothing of the hair; determined, after much raw-humoured ribbing, to finally take the bull, as it were, by the horns.
We'd been watching each other all evening, she told him as the first few bars of the music swelled up against the sound of the rain outside and David led them correctly away to the right, towards the tall potted yucca. That's it! she said. You're getting it now, back two three. I'd noticed him almost as soon as he came into the room, she said. The smart cut of his uniform, you know, and an awfully manly jaw, and very clear pale eyes. I caught him looking a few times, she said, smiling. Or he caught me looking, she added; turn two three. I suppose it depends which way you look at it. She laughed.
Major William Pearson stood in front of Julia's table and introduced himself. Neither of them were surprised that he was there, after an evening spent watching each other's movements - checking who the other may or may not be dancing with, hazarding a smile from across the room, murmuring excuse me as they came close to colliding by the doors to the terrace - and neither of them expected her to decline his invitation to dance. But still, she went through the formalities of reluctance, and her friends carefully looked away and pretended not even to have noticed that the gentleman they'd discussed all evening had finally crossed the floor to their table, and was as smoothly good-looking close up as he was from afar. He insisted, politely, and she stood, churning with excitement, and accepted his outstretched hand. Thank you, she said. I'd be glad to.
They strode to the middle of the room, offering each other their hands and waists just as the conductor was tapping his podium. William smiled, and their dance began. Neither of them said very much at first, beyond an exchange of polite enquiries, a compliment on the other's dancing, a remark on the weather, concentrating instead on their crisp and flowing movement around the circular stage of the room. Moving away from her table, where her friends were speaking into their hands and offering gestures of encouragement as she looked over his shoulder towards them; turning across the floor to within earshot of her mother and father, her father looking rather glazed, her mother smoking a cigarette in an ivory holder and dropping her a wink in the middle of one of her actress friends' long anecdotes; past a table of boys she recognised from the school opposite hers, boys she'd once gossiped about and spied upon but who from the vantage point of Major William Pearson's arms now looked far more like boys than the men they were trying so hard to be with their fuzzy moustaches and their freshly signed papers; deftly sidestepping a waiter with a tray of drinks; twirling quickly away from a raucous gaggle of tail-coated medical students; changing direction, and pausing for a brief moment, in front of his table by the corner of the stage, the officers of his party in uniforms as smart as his, raising their glasses and making comments from the sides of their mouths before roaring with laughter and slapping each other's knees - ignore them, he said quietly, smiling a little nonetheless - and she blushed and dropped her eyes for a moment; sweeping past the orchestra which seemed to be playing for the two of them alone, as if nobody else was there, and although she'd partnered dozens of men in that same dome-ceilinged venue, and although the music was more than familiar, the dance still felt brand new for them both.
They found themselves talking a little more, confident in their dancing, asking about each other's lives, his short career in the army, her studies at drama school and her hopes of following her mother on to the stage. He talked about the prospects of war, the slim chance of it still being avoided. They both described their favourite walks, restaurants, pastimes, and they were both surprised by how soon they were sharing these small secrets and intimacies. And as they talked, almost forgetting that they were dancing at all, quite forgetting that others were dancing around them, or that they were not passing unobserved, they found that they were holding each other a little closer, a little firmer, his hand resting lower on her waist, his chest brushing lightly against hers, their hips even pulling tightly together once or twice; and they found that their voices were dropping lower, taking on a secretive inviting tone obliging th
e other to lean in a little closer to hear, tilting their heads to whisper in each other's ear, turning their faces to catch the murmuring lips against their cheeks.
I still don't really understand how it happened, she told David, dancing past the record player. I wonder if anyone really understands how it happens, when it's like that, so immediate. How could we possibly have known what we were doing? What did we think we knew about love, or any of that business? He didn't know how to answer her. He wasn't sure if she was still talking about one dance, one evening, or the first weeks and months of their being together. He didn't really understand her questions, and he was too busy concentrating on matching their steps to the music without colliding with the furniture. But she wasn't really asking him at all, he realised later; she was asking the photograph of Major Pearson on the wall, or the music which skipped and bumped beneath the worn-out stylus, or the rain which spattered against the windows outside.
Later, she told him how reckless she thought they'd been. He presented it as a matter of practicality, she said, almost the same day as war was declared. He said that he'd soon be leaving for France, that an opportunity had arisen for the purchase of a house, this house, which would be unsuitable for a bachelor. He said there was no benefit to our endlessly hanging around. But the truth really, David, is that we were stupidly and drunkenly in love. We didn't quite stop to think, she said. Not that I would have had it any differently of course, she added, but one does wonder.
One does wonder was a phrase she often repeated, always pausing before correcting herself in one way or another. But he was such a handsome man David! Such a handsome and exciting man! And when you're young nothing else very much matters, does it? Only that this handsome chap is offering you a ring and wants you to be his wife. Patience and caution weren't really in my vocabulary in those days, she told him, smiling, and he replied, teasingly, that he didn't think they would ever be.
And as the record started again - we danced for a very long time, she told David; it seemed to go on for ever but then it was over far too soon - Julia and William danced once more around the room, past her friends, past his colleagues, past the waiters and the medical students, and back to her parents, pausing and turning while William cocked an eyebrow at her father, inclining his head towards Julia, and her father nodded, lifting up the palm of his hand as if to say certainly, be my guest, and they turned, stepped, stepped, turned away, their waltz bringing them over to the centre of the room where William dropped quickly to one knee. The conductor raised his baton, the musicians paused and the whole room leant forward to listen. Yes of course, she said. I'd be glad to, she said. And the music resumed, and the whole room applauded, and the pace of their dancing quickened as they whirled back and forth across the floor, rushing to make the arrangements, a best man, a bridesmaid, a church and a vicar, choosing the hymns and booking the hotel room, and before she knew quite what was happening her father had taken her by the arm and danced her down the length of the room, up past a pressing throng of friends and well-wishers, up to where the vicar waited and nodded his head in time to the waltz. Will you? he intoned to Major Pearson, and Major Pearson replied I will. Will you? he asked of Julia, and Julia smiled. Of course, I will. The vicar joined them hand in hand, and they danced back down the hall, confetti showered at their feet, William's colleagues lining up to form an archway with their bayoneted rifles, a waiter leading the shout of hip-hip-hooray as Major and Mrs Pearson danced right out through the doors and into the hotel lobby, sweeping up the thickly carpeted stairs and straight into the first available room, William lifting Julia into his arms and slipping a coin into the bellboy's hand.
And when they emerged, sometime later, the music was still playing. So they waltzed back down the stairs into the ballroom, and it seemed as though no one had noticed their return, the whole room dancing together now, and when Julia looked around she saw faces fixed with concentration, eyes focused on distant points beyond the room, people moving with a stiff-limbed determination, lips pulled up into forced blank smiles.
David had long sat down by then, too embarrassed to dance any more, muttering that he thought he had the hang of it and he was out of breath. But Julia had barely seemed to notice him moving away, still stepping around the room with her hands held out in front of her. She was talking quickly, stumbling, not looking at David or following the music, saying and then, and then, no, that's not right, we, and then, as if everything had happened all at once, in that one room, on that one night, and not in the space of a few hurried months.
We only had a few days, she said, before he went away. It was difficult not to think about it, she said, raising her voice against the rain, turning to a slow halt, her hands falling to her sides, her face lined with shadows. The details of her story were becoming confused, and she seemed breathless, unsteady, nodding slightly in time with the music or in agreement with her own muddled recollections. He wanted the music to stop, or Julia to say something like, well really I think that's enough for now, let me just sit down, but she didn't. She leant back against the writing bureau, her eyes half-closed and her hands seeming to conduct the music, and she carried on talking.
He used to send me short little notes, she said. Writing wasn't his strong point but I loved to get them all the same. He couldn't tell me where they were, or what they were doing, but he'd mention little details about life with the men, and I'd feel almost as though I was there with him for a minute or two. I found out later that they hadn't got all that far at all, she said softly; they were heading back to Dunkirk when they got caught out. Shelling, she said. She stopped for a moment, tipping her head towards the record player, listening to the music and smiling slightly.
In the ballroom, the dance floor less crowded than it had been a few moments before, one of the tail-coated medical students and his partner danced alongside William and Julia, matching their movements step for step, the student looking at Julia with interest. She glanced across at him nervously, and he said excuse me, I'm sorry, may I? reaching his hand out to her stomach, slipping a stethoscope from his inside pocket and looping its end inside her dress. I thought as much, he said, nodding to his partner; three months on, and they smiled and turned and twirled away. Julia looked down at herself, startled, and up at William, his thoughts seemingly somewhere else entirely. She took a few moments to compose herself, her heels clicking time across the ballroom floor, and then she leant forward to whisper in his ear: My darling William stop Pregnant stop Surprised but happy be careful I love you stop. Quietly, almost inaudibly, he replied, with a hoarse whisper in her ear: Surprised but happy also stop Suggest Laurence if a boy stop Be careful yourself all well here stop.
And almost while he was still speaking the blue sky of the ballroom ceiling was covered over with smoke and oily clouds, and a kettle-drum roll from the orchestra sent the soldiers in the corner, the officers of William's party, clambering under a table which offered no protection when the mortar shells came raining down through the stained-glass skylight, tumbling and exploding directly amongst them, scattering shrapnel and mess tins and glassware and limbs.
There was a moment's startled pause in the room, a dramatic swish of cymbals, and then the waltz continued, the waiters moving in with stretchers to take the bodies away, the medical students standing around to see if there was anything much they could do, a pair of maids hanging back with sponges and buckets and mops.
And the music was slower then, quieter, and many of the guests were returning to their seats, some of them even fetching their coats and heading for home, and Julia and William were soon the only ones left dancing, with small tired steps, back two three and turn two three, and William was silent and pale-faced in her arms, not meeting her eye, barely keeping a hold of her hand or her waist, his shoes dragging rather than smartly clicking across the polished floor. William? she said, and waited in vain for a reply. The music came to an end, and there was a strange crackling hiss as the musicians put down their instruments and the conduct
or turned to face the two dancers with a bow. There was no applause, and William broke away from her, not hearing her thank you or acknowledging her smile, lowering his head as he shuffled towards the table by the corner of the stage where his men had once sat. Julia crossed the dance floor for the last time and rejoined her friends at their table. They silently poured her a drink, avoiding her querying gaze.
Oh, she said, as she sat down, as if something she'd not thought of before had only just crossed her mind. Oh. She wondered what the crackling hissing sound could be. A young waiter glided past with a silver tray, turning and holding it out to her, indicating with a nod that the slim white envelope was for her. Oh, she said, again.
She showed David the two telegrams later in the evening, while he sat at the kitchen table drinking hot chocolate, the rain still pounding against the window and traffic sliding wetly through the street. She had them in a brown envelope, at the back of the useful drawer where she kept string and sellotape and candles and cotton wool. The paper was blackened and cracked along the folds, and one of the corners was stained with damp. He read both of them, the one beginning Surprised but happy also, and the one beginning Regret to inform, and he slid them delicately back into the envelope.
