by Annie Groves
‘Not too much, mind,’ he warned the men as they re-entered the candlelit ballroom. ‘It isn’t Christmas yet, lads.’
The girl, the stuck-up one, was standing over by the alcove talking to a member of the band. They were laughing together and the man had his hand on her arm. Pretty nifty work on his part, Luke reckoned, and the girl didn’t look as if she objected to his familiarity. So, a bit free with her favours then, as well as wanting a rich husband. Not that he cared. She didn’t appeal to him one little bit.
Seeing Hatton Gardens in flames had left Luke feeling on edge and wishing that he could go across and find out what was going on. It irked him to be stuck here in a ballroom when he could be doing something far more useful, but rules were rules, and if he went off and left his men to their own devices anything could happen. Half of them would have too much to drink and the other half would be taking Dutch leave, and then there’d be hell to pay in the morning when they weren’t fit to report for duty.
No, he had to stay with them and keep an eye on them. The barman was offering him a beer, but Luke shook his head, and asked for lemonade instead.
‘Lemonade, Corp? That’s a girl’s drink,’ Andy grinned.
‘Well, one of us has got to keep a sober head on his shoulders and since I am your corporal it had better be me,’ he told them.
‘You know what,’ one of the other men announced, eyeing the dance floor, ‘I reckon this dancing by candelight could be a pretty good thing. You can get a girl close and do a bit of smooching.’
‘That’s enough of that,’ Luke warned him, but he could see that the men were looking hopefully towards those tables occupied solely by girls.
The band was ready to start playing again. Katie had been introduced to Mrs Hamer and the other members of the band now, all of whom had heard of her father.
‘What was all that about?’ Carole hissed when Katie returned to their table.
‘Eric knows my father and he was asking after him.’
‘Them army lads have come back from fixing the roof,’ Carole told her, ‘and that fair-haired one’s been looking over here ever such a lot. I reckon he’ll be asking me to dance before the night’s out.’
‘He certainly will if you keep on making sheep’s eyes at him,’ Katie agreed.
Carole pulled a face and protested mock innocently, ‘What a thing to say. I can’t think what you mean,’ and then started to giggle, nudging Katie as she said, ‘He’s got ever such a nice smile, though, hasn’t he?’
Katie’s expression softened. She could never behave like Carole, but she still couldn’t help feeling her own mood lightened by the other girl’s bubbly manner. Perhaps her mother had been right to tell her that she was too serious, but if that was how she was, she couldn’t change her nature, could she?
Mr Munro had gone over to Mrs Hamer and was saying something to her, and then he turned round and announced, ‘Let’s hear a cheer for our army lads, and if any single young lady here has anything about her I reckon she’ll be the first on her feet to ask one of them to dance when the band starts playing, because the next dance will be a ladies’ excuse me in their honour.’
There was a cheer from the occupants of the tables, and then a lot of laughter, as the men were herded onto the floor, looking bashful, and three or four daring girls got to their feet and went over to them to claim their partners.
Carole needed no further encouragement or excuse. She was on her feet, dragging Katie up with her.
‘Come on,’ she demanded, ignoring Katie’s objections. ‘I’m not letting some other girl walk off with that lad I’ve got me own eye on.’
It was only innocent fun, and sanctioned by the Grafton’s manager – a nice way for them all to show their appreciation for what the men had done, Katie knew – but still she felt very self-conscious about it all, even though they were far from the first or the fastest of the girls to approach the soldiers.
In fact, since Katie had hung back, by the time she actually reached the dance floor and the soldiers, to her relief all the men seemed to be partnered.
She was just about to turn round and go and sit down again when Mr Munro himself appeared at her side, announcing, ‘Here you are, Corporal. Here’s a partner for you. Now don’t say “no”. I’m well aware that you’re the one who ensured that your men did such a good job, and I’m sure this charming young lady here is as keen to show her appreciation as I am to show mine.’
It was her, the stuck-up one. Luke’s heart sank. He didn’t want to dance with anyone but least of all with her. The last time he had danced here it had been with Lillian, just before he had left with the BEF for France. Last Christmas, in fact.
He didn’t want to dance with her, Katie could tell. Well, she didn’t want to dance with him either, and she held herself stiffly away from him to let him know it.
She was dancing with him as though he was a bad smell under her nose, Luke thought angrily.
The band swung into a pacey swing number, designed to get things moving, and allow those who had the skills to show off their best steps.
Katie might not be able to sing but she was a very good dancer, something that had been an additional source of discord between her parents when she had been growing up, as her mother claimed that Katie’s ability to dance had been passed on to her daughter by her, whilst her father had retaliated by saying that he did not want a daughter who thought that prancing around on a stage meant that she had ‘talent’.
Whilst the other couples, taking advantage of Mr Munro’s invitation to the girls to choose their own partners, were eager to take advantage of the mood of the moment – a potent mix of male bravery and heroism, and female bravado, spiced with the kind of music that allowed the more adventurous men to take a firm hold of their partners and draw them closer – Luke and Katie were determinedly keeping one another at a rigid arm’s length, both making it plain that they were more than delighted when the music finally stopped.
Ten minutes later, having politely refused an invitation to dance from a smartly uniformed RAF officer, who in Katie’s opinion had thought rather too much of himself, Katie had the galling experience of sitting at their table and watching as the angry, good-looking corporal danced expertly past with another girl. Katie rarely got the chance to dance and when she did it was even rarer for her to have the kind of partner who danced well. Musicians did not in general have much spare time to learn to dance. And now here was this soldier who had danced with her as woodenly as though he were a puppet on strings, dancing with another girl so well that it was no wonder she looked as though she was in seventh heaven.
‘Phew,’ Carole announced breathlessly, sinking down into her chair as her partner returned her to their table, ‘that was fun. You’ll never guess what,’ she added after she had finished fanning herself energetically with her hand, ‘Andy’s only asked me if I’ll go to the pictures with him the next time he gets a pass out. The boys are based only down the road at Seacombe.’ She gave Katie an arch look. ‘I saw you dancing with that corporal; he’s ever so good-looking, isn’t he?’
‘Is he? I hadn’t noticed,’ Katie lied.
Carole laughed and shook her head in a way that implied that she didn’t believe Katie for one minute.
Whilst the band was playing it was relatively easy to forget what was happening outside, but whenever the music stopped the sound of German planes dropping bombs was a stark reminder of the reality of the situation.
Whilst Katie and Carole were in the ladies, two other girls were discussing the bombing, one of them complaining to the other, ‘I told you we shouldn’t have come out tonight after the bombing last night. If we’d done as I said then we’d be safe in a proper air-raid shelter now.’
Her friend tossed her brown curls and argued firmly, ‘Well, I’d rather be bombed here, whilst I’m enjoying meself, than stuck in some air-raid shelter, and besides, they aren’t always safe. There was that one at the Durning Road Technical School where all those poor fo
lk were killed in November, and I’ve heard of others as well. If a bomb drops on a shelter, then you could end up being buried alive. At least if we bought it here, I’d have had some fun.’
‘Fun. That’s all you think about, Marianne Dunkin. I’m more interested in staying alive,’ her friend retorted tearfully, ‘and if you think I’m letting you persuade me to come dancing again whilst this war’s on then you’ve got another think coming.’
They were still arguing as they left the cloakroom, the door swinging closed after them.
Carole, who had gone unusually quiet and rather pale, shivered and asked Katie anxiously, ‘You don’t think we’ll get bombed again, do you?’
‘Of course not. No one ever gets bombed twice in the same night,’ Katie reassured her with a conviction she was far from feeling.
* * *
The toffee-nosed girl seemed to be enjoying herself dancing with the young Canadian airman who was partnering her now, Luke recognised as he watched Katie dance past. The Canadian looked pretty smitten with her. Well, more fool him, since he was only a lowly private.
Luke was itching to leave the Grafton and set to with the work he knew would be going on, to do what could be done to counter the effects of the bombing, but his first duty was to his men. He had sneaked outside a couple of times to look with despair at the destruction that the bombs had caused. The electric tram wires were down along the West Derby Road, outside the Grafton, and broken glass from blown-out windows covered the road. Instead of the Christmas skies being filled with Santa’s sledge piled high with the presents of children’s fairy tales, the skies over Liverpool were filled with the Luftwaffe, bringing death and destruction as Christmas ‘gifts’ to the people of the city.
They had made it. Emily leaned gratefully on the inside of the front door as she stood in the dark hallway of her home, the boy at her side.
There had been plenty of moments when she had feared that they wouldn’t make it, but they had.
Wave after wave of planes had come in over their heads, heading for the docks, where they dropped their deadly cargo. The north side of the city seemed to be ringed with fires lighting up the night sky.
The worst moment was when they had walked past a newly bombed house and Emily had seen the tears sliding down the faces of the children standing outside it, making oily tracks through the soot from what had once been their chimney. They had been inside when the bomb had hit, Emily had heard one of the children telling their rescuers, taking refuge under the table they had put under the stairs, just like the local ARP man had told them, and now their granddad was dead and their mam taken off to hospital.
As she and the boy had turned into Emily’s own road, she had heard a thin reedy elderly female voice calling out, ‘Tiddles, where are you?’
Emily’s father had had electricity installed in the house at the earliest opportunity, and its welcoming light banished the shadows from the hallway.
Gently pushing the boy in front of her, Emily headed for the kitchen where mercifully the Aga was still on and the kitchen warm.
She had expected the boy to be overawed by the house, but instead he seemed to take its comforts for granted.
‘You can sit on here whilst I stoke up the Aga and put the kettle on,’ Emily told him, pulling a chair out from the table but removing the cushion from it before letting him sit on it. ‘But no moving off it, mind,’ she warned him. ‘I’m not having you messing up my house, filthy like you are.’
He was trying to stifle a yawn, his face white with fatigue, and Emily had to harden her heart against the pathetic sight he made.
‘I know you’re tired,’ she told him, ‘but I’m not having you sleeping between my nice clean sheets until you’ve had a bath.’
He still hadn’t spoken, but he was listening to her and watching her.
Quickly Emily banked up the Aga. She was tired and hungry, but she couldn’t eat without feeding the boy as well and he certainly couldn’t eat using her clean china in the filthy state he was in, so she would have to wait until she had made sure he was bathed and clean.
‘Come on,’ she told him. ‘Come with me.’
In the airing cupboard she found some old towels that she kept for the theatre because of all the greasepaint that Con managed to get on them. It never washed out properly, no matter what instructions she gave them at the laundry.
‘Here’s the bathroom,’ she told the boy, opening the door to show him. ‘I’ll run you a bath and then you’ll take off your clothes and get in it and give yourself a good scrub.’
Normally Emily stuck rigidly to the letter of the law, but the boy was so dirty he was going to need two baths, not just one, and she certainly wasn’t going to let him put those filthy clothes back on. He’d have to sleep in one of Con’s old shirts tonight.
It was gone midnight before Emily finally climbed into her own bed. The boy, bathed, fed and wearing an old flannel shirt that trailed on the floor behind him, was tucked up in bed in the spare room with a hot-water bottle to keep him warm. There’d been a black rim round the bath like she’d kept coal in it, and when she’d washed his clothes, his vest had fallen apart in her hands, it was that full of holes. Poor little mite. She’d been surprised to see what a nice-looking lad he was once he was clean, but it was beginning to worry her that he wouldn’t speak. Could it be that he was deaf and dumb? There’d been a girl when she’d been at school whose sister had been like that, and her family had made signs to her when they wanted to tell her something, Emily remembered.
She yawned tiredly and reached out to switch off the bedside light, only realising as she did so that Con hadn’t come in. Well, his absence was no loss to her.
FIVE
It was half-past five in the morning and the all clear had finally sounded. Wearily, Jean woke the twins whilst Sam gathered up their things. Around them in the air-raid shelter their neighbours were also stirring and throwing off the dark fear and dread of the night. They had survived, although just how much of their city had also managed to survive after the pasting it had had from the Luftwaffe remained to be seen, Sam told Jean as they walked tiredly home.
The kitchen felt warm and comforting after the chill of the shelter. Jean had just finished washing up from their tea when the air-raid siren had gone off, and the dishes were still on the draining board.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she told Sam as she stifled a weary yawn.
‘You look done in, love. Why don’t you go up and have an hour in bed?’ Sam suggested.
‘I can never sleep in the shelter. It doesn’t seem proper somehow, sleeping when you’re with all them other people, even if there is a war on and they are our neighbours.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Sam agreed. ‘It will be all hands to the pumps for us today, clearing up the mess Hitler’s left us with. I’ll go up and have a bit of a wash and then I’d better get down to the yard. We won’t be able to see how much damage has been done until it’s properly light, of course.’
‘I just hope that Katie’s all right.’
‘She’ll be safe in one of the shelters, love.’
The kettle had boiled. Jean reached for it, warming the pot and then sparingly spooning some fresh tea leaves into it before adding some of the tea leaves she had kept from the previous day, to give it a bit more strength.
The resultant brew wasn’t the cup of tea she longed for but it was better than nothing and, more important, it was all that they could have. Not that Jean intended to complain. What did she have to complain about, after all, when both her son and her daughter were alive and well and living close enough to home for her to be able to see them regularly? Others were not so fortunate. There was more than one family in their road now that had lost someone. One of the other women in Jean’s WVS group had arrived at their weekly meeting earlier in the week with red-rimmed eyes, explaining that her son, who was fighting in the desert, had been reported as missing in action. It made Jean’s heart contract just to think of what
she was going through.
The all clear had sounded. The two hundred or so dancers who had braved the Luftwaffe to dance the night away together, and in doing so had formed a bond in the way that young people do, began to shake hands if they were male, and exchange hugs if they were female, relieved that they were now free to leave and yet at the same time unwilling to part from one another.
A standing ovation had been given to the band for keeping them dancing, and Mr Munro had stood up and thanked both the band and the dancers.
‘He’s got another saxophone player coming to audition tomorrow,’ Eric told Katie as he packed away his instrument. She’d gone over to say goodbye to him and she didn’t want to seem rude by rushing off when he plainly wanted to chat.
Katie smiled and nodded.
Luke scowled as he watched her smiling at the musician. She was pretty pally with him on the strength of one night’s acquaintanceship, but then her sort were like that, as he well knew from Lillian. They excelled at making a chap believe they thought he was the best thing out and then making him look a fool. Well, that was never going to happen to him again.
As they left the Grafton in the chilly darkness of the December morning, coats over their dance dresses, groups of girls huddled together shivering and looking down at the glass-strewn pavement and road in distress.
‘There’s no way any buses are going to be coming down here,’ Carole told Katie unnecessarily. ‘We’ll have to walk.’ She looked dismayed. ‘And me wearing me only pair of dancing shoes. They’ll be cut to ribbons.’
‘We’ll just have to be very careful,’ Katie tried to comfort her.
The fair-haired private who had been dancing with Carole called out to his friends, ‘Come on, lads. Let’s see these girls safely on their way. They’ll never be able to walk over this lot. Allow me to offer you some transport, modom,’ he joked, putting on a fake ‘posh’ accent as he and another private made a seat with their crossed and joined hands, indicating that they would carry Carole over the worst of the broken glass.
