By the time Brenda arrived, she could hardly contain herself. She scampered downstairs to open the door. For half a beat the two girls looked at each other, then squealed their delight and hugged.
‘You look wonderful. Really glamorous!’
‘So do you. Like a film star!’
Arm in arm, they set off for their big night out, clattering along the road in their high heels, giggling at the slightest thing.
The ballroom was amazing, with pillars holding up first floor galleries and a wonderful display of flowers round the stage. Scarlett gazed about her, taking it all in.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ she breathed.
Now she was here, she couldn’t think why she had resisted coming all this time. The band was already playing, the crystal ball was revolving and out on the famous sprung floor, couples were dancing. All around was a buzz of excited chatter as the girls sitting round the sides watched the dancers, commented on their prowess and eyed up the young men. The young men, other than the brave ones dancing, seemed to be mostly at the bar, nursing their beers and eyeing up the girls from a safe distance.
‘I can’t wait to get dancing,’ Scarlett said, looking at the quickstepping couples with envy. Her feet went tap-tap in time with the music.
‘Got to get someone’s attention first,’ Brenda said. ‘Anyone’ll do, just to get out on the floor. Then we’ll be seen.’
She was sitting up straight with her bust shown off to its best advantage, trying to look available and casual at the same time, all the while scanning the room for talent.
‘Don’t look now, but there’s two boys coming our way,’ she hissed at Scarlett, and then, in a bright, chatty voice, ‘…and what about her over there, then? I wouldn’t wear blue and green together like that, not never nohow, I mean—oh!’ She broke off with exaggerated surprise as two young men stopped in front of them.
‘Wanna hoof it round, then?’ one of them asked.
Scarlett looked up and smiled politely. Both of them were about twenty-one, with thin faces, badly fitting suits and their hair brushed into fashionable DAs. She wasn’t very impressed but before she could say anything, Brenda had answered for both of them.
‘Don’t mind if we do.’
And off they went, shuffling round the floor to a slow foxtrot. It felt odd to be held by someone other than Jonathan.
‘I’m Ray,’ Scarlett’s partner said.
‘Scarlett.’
Ray snorted with laughter. ‘Get away! That’s a good one, that is.’
Scarlett was used to this reaction. ‘Take it or leave it,’ she told him.
‘I’ll leave it, thanks. I’ll call you Sue.’
‘I shan’t answer to it.’
They made their erratic way round the floor in a state of armed stand-off. Scarlett was disappointed. This was no more exciting than practising with Brenda. Ray obviously rated his own dancing, judging by the way he pulled her around and tutted when either of them stepped on the other’s foot, but Scarlett didn’t think much of his style. After the long walk from home, her feet were already beginning to hurt. She wasn’t sad when the music ended.
‘Hey, you’re quite a girl. Another?’ Ray asked.
Scarlett looked at him in amazement. ‘No, thanks,’ she said and stalked off back to where she and Brenda had been sitting.
‘What was yours like? Mine was quite nice,’ Brenda said.
‘Useless,’ Scarlett told her.
The next one was much better. He was called Pete and he danced with confidence.
‘I haven’t seen you here before, have I?’ he asked.
‘No, it’s my first time.’
‘I thought so. I’d’ve noticed a smasher like you. You enjoying it?’
She was now. Dancing with Pete was a pleasure.
‘Yes, it’s good. But what I’m really waiting for is the rock ’n’roll. It’s miles better than this old-fashioned stuff.’
‘Yeah, too right!’ Pete agreed. ‘This is tame, isn’t it? Can you jive?’
‘You bet!’
She and Brenda had practised for hours.
‘Oh, great. Will you jive with me? The rock ’n’ roll band should start in about half an hour.’
He seemed nice enough, so Scarlett agreed.
While the strict tempo band was playing, the general mood was calm and the dancers polite and well-behaved. But then they took a break and a small group of guitarists, a drummer and a double bass took the stand. The whole atmosphere in the ballroom changed. The young men who had been standing in the bar came flooding onto the floor, the girls who had so far been wallflowers perked up and looked hopeful, everyone fizzed with anticipation.
A young man with a guitar slung in front of him came up to the microphone.
‘Ladies and gentlemen—chicks and guys—’
A roar of delight broke from the crowd. Entranced, Scarlett watched to see what was coming next. She didn’t notice Pete approaching until he was at her side.
‘Ready to rock ’n’ roll?’ he asked.
‘Oh—yeah—you bet!’
Almost at the same moment, the young man at the mike asked the same question. ‘Are you ready to rock ’n’ roll?’
‘Yes!’ howled the crowd, whistling and cheering.
‘Then let’s go!’
Scarlett found herself whirled onto the floor with a torrent of couples as the familiar song began—
One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock, rock!
At first Scarlett tried to sing along, but almost immediately she hadn’t enough breath. She needed all the oxygen she could get for dancing. Back and forth, round and round, spinning and stepping, she danced, a whirling doll in Pete’s expert hands. The ballroom became a blur. There was only the music, the insistent rhythm and the demands of the dance until, with the last dying fall of notes, Pete gave her one final turn under his arm and clasped her to him. Laughing and gasping, Scarlett clapped and cheered with the rest of the dancers.
‘Enjoyed it?’ Pete asked.
‘Oh, yes!’
‘You’re a fabulous dancer.’
‘Thanks, so are you.’
‘Another?’
‘OK.’
The band struck up Shake, Rattle and Roll. Once again, Scarlett was whirled and spun. At one point Pete took both her hands as she faced him and straddled his legs. In a flash, Scarlett understood. She let her feet slide along the floor and went through Pete’s legs with her body just inches from the ground, while Pete stepped neatly over her, swung round and pulled her upright again. It was all done in seconds. Scarlett squealed in delight and Pete yelled ‘Yeah!’ and then they were turning and spinning again.
Scarlett was in a breathless blur of excitement. The band kept up the intoxicating beat, different boys asked her to dance and she was whirled round with various degrees of skill. She forgot all about Brenda, Jonathan and her sore feet. There was only the rock and roll and her own vibrant body. When the music finally stopped, she felt as if she were coming down to earth from a different planet.
‘Why are we stopping?’ she asked her partner. She couldn’t remember what his name was. Maybe he hadn’t told her.
‘End of the set,’ he said.
All around her, people were shouting for more. Scarlett joined in loudly.
But the singer just waved in acknowledgement, thanked them and left the stage.
‘Drink?’ Scarlett’s partner asked.
‘Yes, please!’
Now she thought of it, she was parched. She gulped down the half pint of lemonade he brought her in one go. Then she decided she’d better find Brenda.
Her friend was sitting with a Teddy Boy in full rig—draped jacket, drainpipe trousers and bootlace tie.
‘Having a good time?’ she asked.
Scarlett flopped down on the chair beside her. ‘Am I! I want to go dancing every week for ever!’
‘Told you,’ said Brenda with cheerful satisfaction.
‘…and can you do fish and ric
e and one of those steamboat things for Saturday night?’ Jonathan asked.
‘Ah, yes, Mr Jon, that no problem,’ the Chinese storekeeper said.
Of course it was no problem. The Chinese could get you any sort of supplies or services you might need, and Jonathan had the best trade goods going—British army stores. By some quirk of the system, he was issued with seven days’ worth of meat plus the Friday fish, which left a day’s supply of tinned steak and kidney and corned beef each week, which the Chinese were eager to get their hands on. Catering for a party was easy with such riches.
This week it was another twenty-first. One of the nurses—June, the small fierce one—was arranging it for her friend. In effect, this meant asking Jonathan to do the catering while the rest of the men brought the beer. All June had to do was to ask everyone who wasn’t on duty, put up some decorations and have a whip-round for the present.
The party food set in motion, Jonathan went about finishing lunches for the day. His kitchen here was pretty primitive. He cooked on wood-burning stoves which were a devil to control, temperature-wise, and his pastry had to be rolled out on dampened flour sacks to keep it even slightly cool. It was a far cry from the cold marble surfaces of the patisserie in the Ortolan. But he liked it here. The strangeness had worn off. The heat, the humidity, the lush vegetation, the Chinese and Malay people were all familiar to him now. He felt at home.
‘Hey, Jonno—!’ Another of the nurses stuck her head round the kitchen doorway.
‘Hello, Irene. What’s up?’
‘Can you be an absolute angel and do me an omelette for a special patient?’
‘For you, Irene, anything.’
‘You’re a darling.’
‘I know.’
‘Coming for a drink in the NAAFI this evening?’
‘Yeah, when I finish the birthday cake.’
‘Ooh, cake. Wonderful. I adore your cakes. I would marry you for your cakes.’
‘You’ll have to join the queue.’
Irene gave a tragic sigh. ‘Story of my life. I’ll send an orderly for the omelette in about ten mins, OK?’
‘Right you are.’
Whistling, Jonathan checked the huge pot of spuds that his Malay kitchen porter had peeled, made sure the bacon and onion pudding was steaming properly and stirred a great vat of gravy. The patients could rely on getting good solid English cooking to help them get better. All was well with the world. If it weren’t for the letters from Scarlett that still arrived every week, he might have begun to wonder whether Southend still existed. It was so far away, and he had done so many new things since he’d left, that England seemed like a different world, vague and insubstantial. Only a continual gnawing sense of loss kept him linked with it, the feeling that, without Scarlett, something of himself was missing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘IT’S all right, don’t worry. I’ve found another job,’ Victor said, as Scarlett came in from another boring day’s work on an assembly line.
Scarlett dropped her bag on a chair. It was hot outside and the flat was unbearably stuffy. She went over to the kettle. As usual, her father had not bothered to fill it up after he had used it. She banged it down on the gas ring. She was far too cross to be pleased with him for finding work.
‘Well, thank goodness for that. I can’t think why it was so hard. It’s high season, after all. Everyone’s crying out for bar staff.’
It would be so much nicer to be working somewhere down on the sea front in this sunny weather. Waitressing or selling ice creams was far more pleasant work than assembling parts for electrical goods, but it was only for the summer and it didn’t pay so well. One of them had to have a regular income.
‘They all want pretty girls behind the bar, don’t they?’ her father said. ‘Here, give me that kettle. I’ll go down and fill it.’
Scarlett flopped down at the table, seething. She stared out of the window at the ugly street. Pretty girls, indeed.
‘What they want is people who are sober,’ she said out loud, hardly caring whether he heard her or not.
They also wanted people who could get to work on time, add up correctly and not drop things. You only had to take one look at her father to know that he wasn’t going to be the world’s best employee. In the old days at the Red Lion, Victor would not have dreamed of taking on someone in the state he was in now. She heaved a sigh. At least he had got something, but how long was it going to last? They had been here so often now, and the gaps between jobs were getting longer each time.
‘Where is it, anyway?’ she asked, as Victor came in with the kettle.
‘The Oaks.’
‘Oh, yes, I know.’
She and Jonathan had been there on that last wonderful leave before he’d gone off to Malaya. It was quite a large place, a bit on the rough side, with a big room at the back where they had new bands and skiffle groups performing. She was so involved with remembering that evening that she didn’t ask just what sort of job her father had got there. At least he was working again, that was the main thing. She would now have enough money left over at the end of the week to go dancing. She told Brenda the good news the next day.
‘Oh, well, that’s good, I suppose. Only my Phil said his mate Alan’d like to make up a foursome, so you won’t have to pay anyway,’ Brenda said.
‘You know I don’t like foursomes,’ Scarlett told her.
She had been on two or three before that Brenda had set up, and had always ended up having to fend off some awful boy with sweaty hands.
Brenda looked annoyed. ‘I don’t know what you’re saving yourself for. Your precious Jonathan’s not going to know, is he?’
It was true. What was more, Jonathan’s letters were full of girls’ names. He wasn’t going out with any of them, and he always said how much he missed her, but sometimes she felt he was slipping away from her.
‘No, but—’
‘I think you’re daft. Look at all those gorgeous men you’ve turned down. That Pete, for a start. He’s got to be the best dancer on the floor of a Saturday night, but you won’t go out with him. I would, if he asked me.’
‘Well, you’re not me, are you?’ Scarlett snapped.
Brenda responded by sulking for the rest of the day.
It wasn’t till the weekend that Scarlett realised her father wasn’t working as a barman. During the week she was always up and out before he was even awake, so she had no idea what he was doing during the day. But on Saturday she didn’t get up till later, and was surprised to see him stirring as she was about to leave for Mrs Sefton’s shop.
‘You’re early,’ she said to him.
‘Yeah, well—got to be in by ten.’
She didn’t have time to find out more, but as she walked down the road to the shop she wondered if her father had landed a cellar man’s job again. He would have to be earlier for that, so that he could see to the pipes and the casks before opening time.
‘You’re looking cheerful, dearie,’ Mrs Sefton said as she went in. ‘Had a good time last night, did you?’
‘Wonderful! I never stopped dancing all evening.’
Mrs Sefton shook her head. ‘And here you are, all ready for a day’s work, and you’ll be out dancing tonight as well, I’ll be bound.’
‘You bet.’
‘My, my, what it is to be young and full of energy. I was able to do that once. Not any more. Now then, dearie, there’s a lot of tins to be fetched in.’
Scarlett carried cases of baked beans and fruit cocktail through from the shed in the back yard where Mrs Sefton kept her stock. Yet again she thought about getting a better paid Saturday job. Mrs Sefton hadn’t put up her wages since she was fourteen. But she did let Scarlett buy some foodstuffs at cost price and often gave her ends of ham or day-old bread.
‘Your dad’s got another job, then?’ she asked as Scarlett stacked the shelves.
‘Yes, at The Oaks. I’m wondering if he’s got the cellar man’s job. It’ll be good if he has. He’ll earn mor
e.’
And it would be good for him, she thought, though she didn’t say it. He’d have more pride in himself.
‘Well, you tell him to come in and pay off his slate, dear. I don’t mind him running up a bit, seeing as he’s your dad, but I don’t like it getting too big.’
‘Right,’ Scarlett said, gritting her teeth. He’d told her he hadn’t got anything on tick. Why did he have to lie to her, and especially when he knew she would find out? It made her so mad.
On Sunday she finally got to speak to him.
‘So what sort of job is this at The Oaks?’ she asked. ‘Cellar man?’
Victor busied himself with rolling a cigarette. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Well, what then?’
‘General sort of stuff. You know.’
‘Just bar work, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Only I wondered why you were going in by ten of a morning.’
‘Plenty to be done at a big place like that. You should know. It’s the size of the blooming Trafalgar.’
She couldn’t get anything else out of him. In the end she gave up. She had the weekly wash to do by hand in the bathroom downstairs before she could go out and enjoy her one day off.
Then, three weeks later, she got to find out for herself. It was Friday and Victor had been unwell for a couple of days.
‘What about your wages?’ Scarlett asked.
‘Oh, they’ll give them to me when I go in.’
‘Blow that for a lark, Dad. What about the rent? I’ll fetch it before I go out this evening.’
Victor was very reluctant for her to go, coming out with all sorts of excuses. But Scarlett brushed them aside. They needed that money and, if she didn’t fetch it, Victor would start running up a tab at Mrs Sefton’s again. She got on her bike and cycled off along the back streets towards The Oaks. It was a lovely late summer evening and it was nice just to be out of the flat and wheeling easily along. Young men coming home from work whistled after her as she passed by.
Bye Bye Love Page 15
