Dancing in the Dark

by Maureen Lee

  Her husband wrinkled his stubby little nose in embarrassment. “Don’t take any notice of Stella. She’s worn out. Her mother is over from Ireland to look after the children, as we work all the hours God sends, including weekends. You see, Flo,” he went on earnestly, “lots of hotels and restaurants have lost staff to the war and they send us the washing they used to do themselves. Business has soared, and I hate to turn it away, so Stella and I are trying to cope on our own. I’ve hired a lad, Jimmy Cromer, to collect and deliver on a bike with a sidecart.

  He’s a right scally, but very reliable for a fourteen-year-old.”

  He managed to chuckle and look gloomy at the same time. “One of these days, Stella and I will find ourselves buried under a mountain of sheets and pillowcases, and no one will find us again.”

  “Would you like a hand?” Flo blurted. “Permanent, like.”

  “Would I!” He beamed, then bit his lip and glanced uneasily towards the drying room. “Just a minute, Flo.”

  He was gone a long time. Flo couldn’t hear what was said, but sensed from the sound of the muffled voices that he and Stella were arguing. She supposed she might as well get on with a bit of pressing rather than stand around doing nothing, so folded several tablecloths and was wreathed in a cloud of hissing steam when he returned.

  “We’d love to have you, Flo,” he said, rubbing his hands together happily, though she guessed he was putting it on a bit. Mrs Fritz had probably agreed because they were desperate. As if to prove this, he went on, “You’ll have to make allowances for Stella. As I said, she’s worn out. The children daren’t look at her in case she snaps their heads off. As for me, I’m very much in her bad books. She regards me as personally responsible for the war and our present difficulties.”

  As the profit from the laundry had provided the Fritz family with a high standard of living and a big house in William Square, one of the best addresses in Liverpool, Flo thought it unfair of Stella to complain. She said nothing, but offered to go home, change into old clothes and start work that afternoon.

  Mr Fritz accepted her suggestion gratefully. “But are you sure you’re up to it, Flo? Your mother said you were very ill each time I called.” He looked into her eyes and she could tell he knew why she’d been “ill” but, unlike his wife, he didn’t care. “There’ll be three of us doing the work of six.”

  “Does that mean the wages will be more?” She was glad to be coming back, but it seemed only fair that if she was doing the work of two women, she should get an increase in wages. He might not be able to compete with a factory, but if business was soaring he should be able to manage a few extra bob.

  He blinked, as if the thought hadn’t entered his head.

  Just in case it hadn’t, Flo said, “I’ve applied for a job in Rootes Securities where our Sally works. She’s paid time and a half if she works Saturdays.”

  Mr Fritz’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Don’t worry, my dear. I promise your pocket won’t suffer if you work for me. I’ll pay you by the hour from now on, including time and a half on Saturdays.”

  Flo blushed. “I didn’t mean to sound greedy, like.”

  He pecked both her cheeks and chucked her under the chin. “I haven’t seen you smile yet. Come on, Flo, brighten up my day even further and give me one of your lovely smiles.”

  And to Flo’s never-ending astonishment, she managed to smile.

  Stella Fritz had seemed such a sweet, uncomplaining person in the days when Flo hardly knew her, but after they’d worked side by side for a short while, she turned out to be a sour little woman who complained all the time. Perhaps she was worn out and missed being with her children, but there was no need to be quite so nasty to Mr Fritz, who was blamed for every single tiling, from exceptionally dirty sheets that needed boiling twice to food rationing, which had just been introduced.

  “Bloody hell! She was only a farm girl back in Ireland,”

  Martha said indignantly, when Flo brought up the subject at home—Flo’s vow never to speak to her eldest sister had been forgotten. “She’s dead lucky to have hooked someone like Mr Fritz. Have you seen their house in William Square?”

  “I hope she’s not nasty to you,” Mam remarked. “If she is I’ll go round there and give her a piece of me mind.”

  “Oh, she just ignores me, thank goodness.” It was a relief to be beneath the woman’s contempt. It meant she could get on with things without expecting the wrath of Cain to fall on her because the chain in the lavatory had stopped working or the soap powder hadn’t arrived.

  Mr Fritz said privately that he’d never felt so pleased about anything in his life as he was to have Flo back. She told him he was exaggerating, but he maintained stoutly that he meant every word. “I love my wife, Flo, but she was beginning to get me down. The atmosphere has improved enormously since you reappeared on the scene. Things don’t seem so bad if you can make a joke of them. Until you came, it all seemed rather tragic”

  Every time Stella went into the drying room, or outside for some fresh air, he would make a peculiar face and sing, “The dragon lady’s gone, oh, the dragon lady’s gone.

  What shall we do now the dragon lady’s gone?”

  When the dragon lady returned, he would cry, “Ah, there you are, my love!” Stella would throw him a murderous look and Flo would do her best to stifle a giggle. She thought Mr Fritz was incredibly patient. A less kindhearted person might have dumped Stella in one of the boilers.

  She scarcely noticed spring turn into summer because she was working so hard, sometimes till eight or nine o’clock at night, arriving home bone weary, with feet swollen to twice their normal size, ready to fall into bed where she went to sleep immediately. Sally was equally tired and Martha’s brewery was short-staffed, which meant she often had to work late. In order to hang on to their remaining staff, the brewery increased the wages, or the pubs might run out of beer, a situation too horrendous even to contemplate. Mam got a part-time job in a greengrocer’s in Park Road. The Clancy family had never been so wealthy, but there was nothing to spend the money on. Rationing meant food was strictly limited, and the girls hadn’t time to wander round the shops looking at clothes. They all started post-office accounts, and began to save for the day when the war would be over, though that day seemed a long way off.

  By now, the war could no longer be described as “phoney”. Adolf Hitler had conquered most of Europe; in June, he took France, and although thousands of British and French soldiers were rescued in the great evacuation of Dunkirk, thousands more lost their lives or were taken prisoner. The British Isles was separated from the massed German troops by only a narrow strip of water. People shivered in their beds, because invasion seemed inevitable, although the government did all it could to make an invasion as hazardous as possible.

  Road signs and the names of stations were removed, barricades were erected, aliens were sent to detention camps all over the country, including nice Mr and Mrs Gabrielli who owned the fish-and-chip shop in Earl Road.

  One Monday, Flo arrived at work to find Mrs Fritz all on her own, ironing a white shirt with unnecessary force.

  Her eyes were red, as if she had been weeping. The two women rarely spoke, but Flo felt bound to ask, “What’s the matter? Is Mr Fritz all right?”

  “No, he isn’t,” Stella said, in a thin voice. “He’s been rounded up like a common criminal and sent to a detention camp on the Isle of Man. Oh, I said he should have taken British nationality years ago but he was proud of being Austrian, the fool. Not only that, we’ve lost two of our biggest customers. It seems hotels would sooner have dirty sheets than have them washed in a laundry with a foreign name.” Her Irish accent, scarcely noticeable before, had returned in full force with the power of her anger.

  “Oh, no!” Flo was sorry about the lost orders, naturally, but devastated at the thought of dear Mr Fritz, who wouldn’t have hurt a fly and loathed Hitler every bit as much as she did, being confined behind bars or barbed wire, like a thief or a m
urderer. “How long are they keeping him?” she asked.

  “For the duration of the bloody war.”

  “Oh, no,” Flo said again.

  “I suppose I’ll just have to close this place down,” Mrs Fritz said bleakly. “I can’t manage on me own. Anyroad, those cancellations could be the start of an avalanche.

  Soon, there mightn’t be any customers left. I suppose we’re lucky the building hasn’t been attacked. The German pork butcher’s in Lodge Lane had all its winders broken.”

  “But you can’t close down!” Flo cried. “You’ve got to keep going for when Mr Fritz comes home. The laundry is his life. And his old customers won’t desert him, not the ones who know him personally. We can cope, just the two of us, if there’s going to be less work.”

  Mrs Fritz attacked the shirt again and didn’t answer.

  Flo took a load of washing into the drying room and was hanging it on the line when Stella Fritz appeared at the door.

  “All right, we’ll keep the laundry going between us,” she said, in a cold voice, “but I’d like it made plain from the start, Flo Clancy, that I don’t like you. I know full well what you’ve been up to, and just because I’ve agreed we should work together, it doesn’t mean that I approve.”

  Flo tried to look indifferent. “I don’t care if you approve or not. I’m only doing it for Mr Fritz.”

  “As long as we know where we stand.”

  “Rightio. There’s just one thing. What about changing the name from Fritz’s Laundry to something else?”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, I dunno.” Flo pondered hard. “What’s your maiden name?”

  “McGonegal.”

  “McGonegal’s Laundry is a bit of a mouthful. What about White? White’s Laundry. It’s got the same number of letters as Fritz, so it’ll be easy to change the sign outside. Of course, it won’t fool the old customers but it’ll certainly fool the new.” It seemed rather traitorous because no one could have been more patriotic than dear Mr Fritz, but if his foreign name was a hindrance to his business, she felt sure he wouldn’t mind it being changed.

  After a few hiccups—another two big customers withdrew—by August, White’s Laundry was back on its feet.

  More large hotels sent enormous bundles of washing, including one who’d used the laundry before and seemed content to use it again now the name had been changed.

  “That ‘was a good idea you had,’ Stella Fritz said grudgingly, the day she heard their old customer had returned.

  “Ta,” Flo said.

  “Though it means we’ll be even more snowed under with work than ever,” she muttered, half to herself.

  “Hmm,” Flo muttered back. The two women still rarely spoke. There wasn’t the time and they had nothing to say to each other. Occasionally Flo asked if Stella had heard from her husband, and was told he’d written and sounded depressed. It was hard to make out whether Stella was upset or angry that Mr Fritz had gone.

  Mam had been discussing with her friends at the Legion of Mary the long hours her youngest daughter worked. One night she said, “There’s these two spinsters in the Legion, twins, Jennifer and Joanna Holbrook.

  They’re in their late seventies, but as spry and fit as women half their age. They want to know if you’d like a hand in the laundry.”

  “We’re desperate. Stella’s tried, but there’s better jobs around for women these days. I doubt if two old ladies in their seventies would be much good, though, Mam.”

  “I told them to pop in sometime and have a word with Mrs Fritz, anyroad.”

  Two days later the Holbrook twins presented themselves to an astonished Stella Fritz. They were nearly six feet tall, stick thin, with narrow, animated faces, and identical to each other in every detail, right down to each item of their clothing. Papa had been in shipping, they explained between them, in their breathless, posh voices, and they’d never done a day’s work in their lives, apart from in a voluntary capacity in the other great war.

  “Of course, we’ve been knitting squares for the Red Cross . . . ” said one—Flo was never able to recognise one twin from the other.

  “ . . . and rolling bandages . . . ”

  “ . . . and collecting silver paper . . . ”

  “ . . . but we’d far sooner go out to work . . . ”

  “ . . . it would be almost as good as joining up.”

  Mrs Fritz looked flummoxed. She glanced at Flo, who rolled her eyes helplessly.

  “We wrote to the Army and offered our services . . . ”

  “ . . . but they turned us down . . . ”

  “ . . . even though we explained we could speak French and German fluently.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” Normally blunt, often rude, Mrs Fritz was stuck for words before the two women towering over her.

  “What about a week’s trial?” Flo suggested.

  One twin clapped her hands and cried, “That would be marvellous!”

  “Absolutely wonderful!” cried the other.

  “The money isn’t important . . . ”

  “ . . . we’d work for peanuts . . . ”

  “ . . . and regard it as our contribution towards the war.”

  Stella Fritz offered them peanuts and agreed that they should start tomorrow.

  The twins turned up next day in uniforms that had once been worn by their maids: identical white ankle-length pinafores and gathered caps that covered their eyebrows. They were undoubtedly fit, but not quite as spry as Mam had claimed. Every now and then, they required a “little sit-down”, and would produce silver cigarette cases from the pockets of their pinnies and light each other’s cigarette with a silver lighter. Then they would take long, deep puffs, as if they had been deprived for months.

  “I needed that, Jen.”

  “Same here, Jo.”

  When their first week was up, there was no suggestion of them leaving, and once again the atmosphere in the laundry improved. Observing the Holbrook twins at close quarters was like having the front seat in a theatre, because they were as good as a top-class variety act. Even Stella Fritz seemed happier, particularly as they didn’t have to work so hard and could leave at a civilised hour.

  It was nice to have a proper break at dinner-time instead of trying to eat a butty and iron a shirt at the same time.

  Flo didn’t bother going home for dinner, and continued to take butties, which she sometimes ate as she wandered along Smithdown Road peering in shop windows. Once or twice, she ventured into the Mystery, but that part of her life no longer seemed real. It was impossible to believe that eighteen months ago she hadn’t even met Tommy O’Mara. She felt like a very old woman trying to recall events that had happened more than half a century before.

  Flo had once had a lover, then she’d had a baby, but now both were gone, she was back at work in the laundry, and it was as if nothing had ever happened. Nothing at all.

  Perhaps Hitler felt too daunted by the English Channel, because the threat of invasion faded, to be replaced by a more immediate terror: air raids. Liverpudlians dreaded the ominous wail of the siren warning them that enemy planes were on their way, while the sweetest sound on earth was the single-pitched tone of the all-clear to announce that the raid was over.

  Over tea, Mrs Clancy would reel off the places that had been hit: the Customs House, the Dunlop rubber works, Tunnel Road picture house and Central Station. Edge Hill goods station, where Dad had worked, was seriously damaged. Then Albert Colquitt would come home and reel oft a different list.

  Sally came home from work one morning to report that Rootes Securities had been narrowly missed, and did Flo know that Josie Driver, who used to work in the laundry, had been killed last week when Ullet Road was bombed? “I thought she’d gone in a convent.”

  Flo was wandering along Smithdown Road in her dinner hour, thinking about last night’s raid, when she saw the frock and the war was promptly forgotten.

  “Oh, it’s dead smart!” She stood in front of the window of El
aine’s, Ladies’ and Children’s Fashions, eyeing the frock longingly. It was mauve, with long sleeves, a black velvet collar and velvet buttons down the front. “It’s dead smart, and only two pounds, nine and eleven. I could wear it for church, or to go dancing in. It’s ages since I’ve been to a dance. And I’ve enough money saved.” She caught sight of her reflection in the window. She looked a fright. It was about time she smartened herself up, did something with her hair, started to wear powder and lipstick again. She couldn’t mope for ever. “If I bought that frock, perhaps Sally would come dancing with me. I bet Jock wouldn’t mind.” It was no use asking Martha because she was convinced that no one would ask a girl with glasses to dance, even though Flo assured her there were plenty of men in glasses who didn’t hesitate to ask girls up.

  “I’ll buy it—least, I’ll try it on. If it fits, I’ll ask them to put it on one side and come back tomorrer with the money.” Excited, she was about to enter the shop when she saw Nancy O’Mara coming towards her pushing a big black pram.

  Nancy was dressed less flamboyantly than the last time Flo had seen her, outside the gates of Cammell Laird, in a plain brown coat that looked rather old. Her hair was in the same plump bun on the back of her thin yellow neck.

  Long earrings with amber-coloured stones dangled from her ears, dragging the lobes so that they looked elongated and deformed. She stopped at the butcher’s shop next door, nudged the brake of the pram with her foot, and went inside.

  Curious, Flo temporarily put aside her longing for the mauve frock, and walked along to the butcher’s. Nancy had joined the small queue inside and her back was to the window. The hood of the pram was half up. Inside, a pretty baby, about seven or eight months old, with fair hair and a dead perfect little face, half sat, half lay against a frilly white pillow, playing sleepily with a rattle. She supposed it was a boy, because he wore blue: blue bonnet and matinee coat, both hand-knitted. Nancy must be minding him for someone. Flo thought of all the baby clothes she’d knitted which had been left behind when her son had been taken away. She’d asked Sally to hide them, because she hadn’t wanted ever to see them again.