Spilt Milk

by Amanda Hodgkinson

  Birdie invited her best friend, Joan, to come along. Then, at the last minute, Roger said a friend of his was coming too. A chap called Peter he had met at the army recruiting centre a few days earlier.

  That rather threw the numbers. Now there was no time to find another girl to accompany this Peter chap. It was just so typical of Roger to ruin everything.

  Birdie set her hair in waves with her curling iron. She put on a green satin dress she’d made herself and matching shoes, and hoped the evening would be a success. She spent a long time over her make-up. Face powder. Red lipstick. A black mascara. Her mother didn’t like her wearing too much make-up, but her complaints were half-hearted. All the girls wore make-up these days. Birdie adored powders and creams and cheek blusher. They made her feel nice and pretty, and with everybody made miserable by all the talk of war, she felt it her duty to make an effort. Uncle George always said a pretty girl cheered everybody’s spirits. He often took her side against her mother, though he made her swear not to say a word.

  Joan came upstairs and sat on the bed. She picked a bit of lint off her black checked trousers. Birdie wished Joan would not wear trousers. Trousers were eccentric. Joan’s long mousy hair was in two plaits wound tightly around her head. She took off her glasses and cleaned them on her sleeve.

  ‘So which one is for me then?’

  ‘You can have all three,’ said Birdie, pouting into her compact mirror, drawing a Cupid’s bow with a red lipstick. ‘Well, you can have both my cousins anyway. Especially Roger. He’s touched in the head, if you want my opinion. I’m waiting to see what Peter looks like.’

  Neither of them had ever had a boyfriend, but they liked to talk like the girls they knew, the ones who were full of chat and cheeky with men.

  ‘Let’s get our hearts broken at least a dozen times tonight,’ said Birdie grandly as they went downstairs arm in arm.

  Joan danced them down the last couple of steps.

  ‘And we don’t come home until we can say we’re ruined by music, men and too many gin and its.’

  Peter, it turned out, was quite nice to look at. He had curly brown hair and a neatly trimmed moustache. His eyes were a dark brown. They had a sparkle to them. Birdie always liked to look at a person’s eyes. She believed you could tell a lot about someone from their eyes. He was slim and tall, and she thought he was the sort who probably played a bit of football and liked cycling out into the country at the weekends.

  The dance hall was near the cinema. The five of them paid for their tickets, put their coats in the cloakrooms and went through double doors into a big hall, which was warm and noisy. The band was loud, and already there were dancers and a lovely thick movement of people. Birdie slipped through the crowds and found a space up at the bar.

  ‘What a dump,’ said Roger.

  ‘I like it here. I come every Saturday if I can. They have the best bands this side of the river. I want to audition to sing for one of them some day. Uncle George says I could be a professional.’

  ‘No end to your talents, is there?’ said Roger, sneering at her.

  ‘What sort of thing do you sing?’ asked Peter.

  Birdie blushed. She hadn’t actually sung with a band yet.

  ‘Well, I’m quite jazz minded,’ she said in what she hoped was a knowledgeable voice, leaning towards him so he could hear her. ‘And I like the crooners. I read the Melody Maker every week. There’s always auditions in the back pages. I’ve been to a few now and I haven’t had any luck yet, but I know it’ll happen soon. I can play piano too.’

  ‘Good for you. I wish you the best of luck. I’m sure they’ll want a good-looking girl like you.’

  The music got too loud to talk without shouting, and they stood side by side, watching an auburn-haired woman in a white satin dress that clung to her hips singing ‘The Lambeth Walk’. Birdie wondered if Peter might ask her to dance. She crossed her fingers behind her back and made a small wish that he would. The music grew louder. More dancers took to the floor. She saw the chap from the electricity shop dancing with a girl. The other week he’d asked Birdie to dance and said she had the nicest eyes he’d ever seen. She’d acted haughty with him, showing she wasn’t impressed, but still, he had drawn her in with the comment and she hoped he’d ask her again tonight.

  ‘I’m off to powder my nose,’ she said, and crossed the dance floor. She walked past the man and gave him a smile, but he didn’t notice her.

  ‘Having fun?’ a woman asked Birdie as she touched up her lipstick in the ladies’ toilets. It was the singer. Birdie could see she’d had a few drinks. Working behind a bar, she recognized drunks easily. The woman must be in her thirties, a long way past her prime, yet she was still beautiful. Her auburn hair was waved and held off her face by a diamanté hair slide, curled in the style of the day. Her clinging satin dress was sleeveless, and her slender shoulders were pale and powdered. Birdie’s mother would have said she was the wrong sort.

  ‘You were wonderful tonight,’ she said to the singer. ‘I thought you were outstanding, really.’

  ‘Did you? Well, thanks, kiddo.’

  ‘I want to be a singer like you one day.’

  ‘Is that right? My name’s Kay. Kay Kelly. Let me guess. You’re a telephonist out with the girls, or a typist maybe?’

  ‘I’m a barmaid. I sing in the pub on Friday nights.’

  ‘Well, you follow your dreams while you can, love. You’ll meet a nice boring man one day and have to settle down and forget all about singing then. It’s what most of us want, isn’t it? A bit of security and a nice home. A couple of kiddies. But meet some wrong ’uns before all that. Bad men are more my kind of style. Got to have a bit of fun, heh? You won’t be innocent for long, dear. Men can’t stop themselves.’

  ‘A girl can always say no,’ Birdie said, backing away.

  ‘Oh, she can,’ agreed Kay. ‘But why should she? That’s the question. Why the bloomin’ hell should she? Us girls have got to have a bit of fun, heh?’

  Birdie watched her sashay out of the room. ‘My name is Kay,’ she said to the mirror. ‘You gotta have a bit of fun.’ Her face stared back at her. Her grey eyes, her mouth with the slightly too full upper lip. She swung open the powder-room door, feeling the heat and the noise of the dance hall wash over her. Kay was right. A girl should enjoy herself. The chap from the electricity shop was dancing with a different woman now. A peroxide blonde who looked like a film star. Greta Garbo. They moved together with a slow, secretive kind of focus, swaying back and forth. Birdie watched them until she couldn’t bear the sight of them.

  ‘Dance with me,’ Peter said when she got back to the bar.

  She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right, but he took her hand and pulled her through the dancers. Birdie curved her arm around his neck, the way she imagined Kay Kelly might dance with a man.

  Peter was a sportsman, he told her, his lips touching her ear. He didn’t fancy going into the navy much, but he’d failed to get in with the collar-and-tie set in the RAF. He played cricket and tennis, and last year he’d hiked in Europe.

  ‘You’re a great little dancer,’ he said, pulling her close.

  In the shifting bodies, Birdie caught sight of Joan dancing with Malcolm and was glad. Often she and Joan ended up dancing together. Up at the bar Roger, standing on his own, radiated bad humour. He really was the most hateful man she knew.

  The next time she looked, Roger was picking a fight. She saw him and then he was gone from view as Peter swung her round. Then there he was again, throwing a punch. She and Peter stopped dancing. The evening was over.

  They found Roger outside in a side street, throwing up into the gutter.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Malcolm. He had his arm around Joan’s waist. ‘For God’s sake, Roger, you bloody fool.’

  Roger looked down at the gutter.

  ‘Fuck it. I’ve ruined my shoes.’

  Peter laughed loudly. ‘What’s going on, Roger?’

  ‘That’s the problem. N
othing is going on.’ Roger grabbed Birdie’s arm. ‘Why didn’t you dance with me? Do you think you are too good for a bloke like me? Is that it? A bloody barmaid acting like Lady Muck. You make me sick.’

  Malcolm pulled him away.

  ‘You’re a rotten drunk, Roger. Leave her alone.’

  ‘She’s a tease. A cheap little flirt.’

  Roger lunged at Birdie, trying to kiss her. She kicked his shin and tore away from him as Malcolm grabbed his brother’s collar. Malcolm turned to Birdie, apologizing. ‘He’s mad about you. Don’t listen to him. He can’t hold his drink. He’s had a thing for you for years. He’s jealous.’

  ‘Birdie,’ said Peter. ‘Are you all right? Can I take you home?’

  ‘Take her home? Yeah, she’ll let you take her home. Like mother, like daughter.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Birdie.

  ‘Your mother lived with two men, and which one was your father, heh? Some folk have no shame.’

  Malcolm groaned. ‘Roger, that’s enough. Why don’t you shut up?’

  Birdie felt tears pricking her eyes, her heart thumping.

  ‘Ask your mother whose brat you are. You know what they say, three’s company, two’s a bore, isn’t it?’

  Malcolm grabbed Roger by the arm and began dragging him down the street.

  ‘Get off me. She’s nothing. Little slut. A tease, that’s what you are.’ Roger looked back over his shoulder, his voice slurring. ‘You ask your mother who your father is. Go on and ask her.’

  Birdie, Joan and Peter made a dejected group, walking home. They left Joan at her door, and Birdie decided to cut through the park as a short cut to the pub. There was no point in prolonging the horror of the evening. She just wanted to get home.

  Peter took her hand and she felt the warmth of his fingers.

  ‘Roger’s a fool, you know. That stuff about your mother? Absolute rot, I’m sure. He’s a spiteful drunk. I’ve seen his type before. He has a way of knowing how to get to people, that’s all. It’s a nasty low trick. I’d ignore everything Roger said. And anybody else who comes up with muck like that. Tell them to mind their own business.’

  Birdie felt a wave of gratitude towards him. Of course Roger was a liar. A filthy liar. The way he’d gone staggering off, a one-man street brawl, his fists punching the air, had frightened her. She’d be happy if she never saw him again.

  ‘Are you really all right?’ asked Peter.

  ‘I’ll live.’

  ‘You’re beautiful, you know.’

  Peter kissed the curve of her neck. An act of such tenderness, it made her feel again the hurt and the wrongness of Roger’s cruel outburst. She thought of Kay, the auburn-haired singer, the way her silk dress clung to her curves, the slink of her hips as she walked. Birdie was close to tears, but crying wouldn’t do any good. Peter would think she was just a silly child. And she wasn’t. Not tonight.

  ‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ whispered Peter. He took off his big wool trench coat and put it around her shoulders, pulling her to him. He kissed her nose and pressed his forehead against hers. ‘I’ll write to you if you let me?’

  ‘Course you can. If you want to.’

  ‘I think I might be falling in love with you,’ he said, and kissed her.

  When he suggested they sit together by the bandstand, she let him take her hand and lead her there. She barely knew him, but he had told her he loved her. Well, wasn’t that what love was like? Sudden. All those songs that talked of love at first sight. Surely there was some truth in them or they wouldn’t be so popular? And she wanted to be loved. To be soothed after Roger’s ugly words.

  ‘You’re shivering, Birdie,’ he said as they lay together. ‘Let me warm you.’

  The hour was late when she got home. Her clothes were damp and cold from the night air. She crept in through the kitchen and up the wooden back stairs to her bedroom. She realized she didn’t know Peter’s other name. Was he thinking of her? She pulled her blankets closer. She would never see him again. Birdie turned over to sleep, hoping things would be all right. That there would be nothing to regret, nothing to bind them both to this night for ever.

  The summer of 1939 turned out to be the hottest in years. Throughout June, Birdie sang in the bar on Friday evenings, the windows open on to the night, sweat running down her back, her fingers slipping on the piano keys. Normally she loved the babble of gin drinkers in the public bar, their faces leaned towards her, but by the first Friday of July she had other things on her mind. The pub was busier than ever. She was tired all the time at the moment. They had the lot in that night: the dirty fascists, their black shirts always clean as a whistle. Her mother said George should ban them, but George said as long as they didn’t cause trouble he’d serve them. That night Birdie sang for them all, the Reds, the cockneys, the Italians and the French, the gangs of Irish dockers; all the lovely lilting voices around her, gobbledegook and inky-pinky parlez-vous. She sang old songs, numbers from the last war jolly with nostalgia: ‘Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers’, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’, ‘Mademoiselle from Armentières’. Uncle George handed her a glass of ginger wine, but she couldn’t face it. Normally it was her favourite tipple.

  ‘You out of sorts?’ asked George.

  ‘Bit tired, that’s all. I didn’t sleep well last night. There was a cat fight right outside my window that went on all night. I’ll be fine.’

  The wafting smoke of Woodbines made her eyes smart. The smell of slopped beer and the scent of sawdust, as familiar over the years as the smell of her own skin, brought on nausea. Sweat prickled her forehead. Men raised their glasses to her, and women winked and told her to remember them when she was famous. She looked at the clock.

  ‘You go off now,’ said her mother. ‘And come straight home after.’

  ‘Thanks, Ma. Wish me luck.’

  ‘There goes our girl!’ said George over the noise of the bar. ‘Going to be the next Gracie Fields, she is!’

  In a dingy basement rehearsal room a group of musicians played, surrounded by stacked chairs and tables. Birdie sang with them. This was her chance. A chance to be a singer and not just a barmaid.

  The music was wonderful, springing into life, filling the room. Piano, drums, a double bass, trumpet and guitar. Birdie sang ‘These Foolish Things’ and then ‘Blue Lullaby’. Afterwards the band played together. They were taken up by the music, their faces sweating, grimacing as though it was an ugly thing they were doing.

  She sat and waited. Had they forgotten she was there? The trumpet player came over just as she was nodding off to sleep. He wiped his sweaty face with a towel. Yes, they’d hire her, once they replaced the bass player, who had enlisted in the navy. Did she want to go to a club with them now? Hear some black musicians? No? Well, she should learn a few new songs for next time.

  She walked back slowly, letting herself in through the backyard door. The pub was quiet, the lights all off. She slipped into the bar and sat in the dark over the piano, playing chords and humming tunes. She was going to be a singer. Uncle George had wanted her to get a job in a typing pool. He reckoned that was good work for a young woman until she married. But Birdie wanted more. She wanted to be like the auburn-haired Kay Kelly. There was a pleasant calm in the shut-up pub. A dusty silence where slow cigarette smoke still wafted. A peacefulness. As if everything that needed to be said had been said, and all the punters had finally been able to go home to sleep, glad to have got another day over with. A whole new day waiting patiently for them while they slept.

  The following week Birdie knew she was in trouble. She hadn’t had an ounce of shut-eye for days, thinking of what hot water she had landed herself in. She was so tired, she thought she might fall asleep standing upright at the bar. She’d dropped two pint glasses that evening, and Ma had already told her to look sharp.

  She leaned against the cash register, feeling its cool metal on her hot skin. Her mother swung past, swathed in widow’s black, towards a customer who
was leaning over the bar, waving money at her. A row of hawk-faced men stared across the bar at them. Birdie tried to smile.

  ‘Ma?’

  ‘Please, Birdie, I’m busy. Can you tell George he needs to change a beer barrel?’

  Uncle George was at the piano, leading a sing-song. He grinned, his flattened boxer’s nose shiny with sweat.

  ‘There’s my darling girl! Come on and sing us a song, Birdie!’

  She shook her head and hoicked a thumb towards the bar, mimed lifting a barrel and went outside. In the backyard the air was heavy with coke fumes and soot, the smell of coffee from the flophouse across the street. She stepped past an old tin bath and a tangled heap of broken chairs. Beer barrels were piled in a corner, and she sat down on one.

  She didn’t want to marry Peter, and she was sure he wouldn’t want to marry her. In any case, she’d have to ask Roger where he was, and she was never going to speak to him again. She didn’t even know Peter’s surname. Even if she did want to find him, she doubted she’d be able to.

  ‘You all right, Birdie?’

  She turned to see her mother wedging a beer barrel onto a sack barrow.

  Birdie stood up and made her way across the yard. The ground seemed to shift a little. She put a hand out and her mother caught hold of her.

  ‘Ma, I really need to talk to you.’

  Birdie looked into her mother’s grey eyes and thought she saw fear in them. She leaned heavily against her mother, something she had not done since she was a small child. She had been a needy child, she remembered, always shadowing her mother around the pub until she drove her mad. They’d played Grandmother’s Footsteps at school. A child would turn her back and the others creep up on her as quickly as possible. Birdie had always won that game. She played it at home in earnest too, sidling up close to her mother, who complained she was like a little dog getting under her feet.

  Birdie felt hot, terribly hot. Her ears were blocked, her knees weak. Her mother’s face loomed and went.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ma,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. I think I’m expecting—’