Dancing at the Victory Cafe

by Leah Fleming

  ‘Dorcas!’ Her mother collapses on the leather armchair, clutching her chest for breath. ‘Please stop this disobedience, for my sake.’

  The anger is in full flood: all the years of petty restrictions, years of tyranny, years of docile obedience evaporate in the steam heat of her fury.

  ‘Mother, do you realise what a laughing stock we are. My father creeps around Lichfield like a Peeping Tom, spying on courting couples. The soldiers know all about him and the Boy Scouts and half the city, so don’t be surprised if he comes home one night black and blue. Do you think the Pastor will condone such a hypocrite as an Elder . . . a man who beats his wife and daughter to get his own way, a man who hides lead marbles in his clean white gloves, to cuff his victims round the ears more efficiently . . . like a dictator, our own little Hitler. We’ve put up with it far too long and I’ve had enough. I am off and never coming back until you both make my friend, Lucky Gordon, welcome in this house, like a son.’

  ‘We don’t believe in mixing what the Lord made separate, Dorcas.’

  The policeman shakes his head, unable to master this new attack. ‘If you leave this house, you can shake the dust off your feet. You will never cross this threshold, while I am alive. That right, Mother?’

  Alice Goodman bows her head and prays silently, while the girl storms up to her room and flings clothes and music scores into a suitcase. She pauses at the front door, ‘Goodbye then, Mam!’

  ‘Dorrie, love, do as your father says . . . please.’

  ‘No, Mam, I can’t, not for you or anyone. He is so wrong.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Somewhere I can get more love and understanding than I ever got in this hellhole. Anyway I’m joining up. It’s about time I stopped hanging around. The war won’t last for ever.’

  The mother reaches out one last time but Joby Goodman pulls her back. ‘Alice, just show her the door. I don’t want to see her face again. She will bring shame on this house.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Father, I’ll never bother you again but you’ll regret those words when I’m famous!’ She bangs the door shut with trembling hands and struggles back to Dam Street in tears, throwing pebbles high up to the attic, until Prin unbolts the front door.

  ‘Who ziz, at this hour?’

  ‘It’s Dorrie on the doorstep. You have a billet for the duration?’

  ‘I ’av?’ Prin rubs her bleary ears.

  ‘You ’av,’ says Dorrie, bursting into a howl of relief.

  After a cup of strong tea and a face wash, she peers anxiously through the cracked mirror in the bathroom at the pale face and smiles. ‘I may not look any different, but Dorcas Prudence Goodman, you’re a real woman now.’

  Connie can smell the afterglow of conspiracy in the restaurant; the lingering aroma of cigars and booze, a whiff of real coffee. ‘Has that woman been at it in the cellar again, with the airman, using the place as a . . .’ she cannot bear to say the word. ‘If those Greville sisters knew what a hussy . . . how she’s ruined their genteel establishment, turned it upside down and now she brings men in after hours. What’s been going on, Dorrie, behind my back?’

  ‘Belle had a bit of a do, a few friends to supper that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, yes . . . you as well? And Wyn . . . behind my back! After all I’ve done for this place. Not good enough now, to be invited then am I? That’s the last straw. I’m not putting up with this sort of treatment!’

  ‘Give it a rest, Mrs Spear. It was only Chad and his friends, you can’t stand them anyway,’ Dorrie says boldly.

  ‘Was ’er upstairs invited?’

  ‘She came down, yes . . . she always does . . . you know Prin.’

  ‘Yes, like a vulture at a carcass, greedy little pig, sneaking in, stealing left overs.’

  ‘You don’t begrudge her a few bits?’ Dorrie pleads.

  ‘Never mind a few bits . . . look at this, steak gristle if I’m not mistaken. That never came off no butcher’s cart . . . black market eh? Tins, too. We all know where these’ll be found . . . not three miles up the Tamworth road.’

  It is the empty tub of ice cream that fuels her righteous indignation into a blazing furore. ‘You mean buggers, you never even left me a teaspoonful. Is this all the thanks I get . . . Well that’s definitely that.’ Connie tears off her pinny and storms out to see her employer, who is changing the till roll in the dining room. ‘I gather there was a party here and no one thought to invite me.’

  ‘It was all very impromptu, Mrs Spear.’

  ‘Impromptu, my Aunt Fanny. It was planned for weeks, on the very night I am laid low. Don’t say another word. I hand in my notice, as of now. I’m not going to be insulted by the likes of you.’

  ‘Come on, Connie, don’t get it all out of proportion.’ Belle goes through the motions, keeping her voice tight and low.

  ‘Don’t you get uppity with me, lass. I was here long before you knew what a knife and fork were for. I know your sort: all fancy ideas and no sense. You’ve ruined this place. We used to have real class in here, not the riffraff you encourage, darkies, drunks.’ Out pours all the wrath Connie has nursed for months.

  ‘That’s enough, Mrs Spear, we have customers!’ Belle’s face is flushing, her eyes sharpen and glint, lips taut and puckered.

  ‘Do you call this lot customers? I call them floozies . . . fly by nights, Yank bashers and black marketeers!’

  ‘Leave this minute, Mrs Spear. I won’t have my diners insulted by a cantankerous, mealy mouthed sluggard, who wouldn’t know quality cooking if it walked up and bit her. You’re sacked!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m off. Good riddance to bad rubbish . . . to all of you!’ the manageress shouts. ‘And I’ll make damn sure people know what sort of tricks go on in this dump!’ She flounces through the door with a flourish. Only the clink of morning coffee cups rattle in the restaurant. The silence is deafening.

  ‘That’s the best morning’s work I’ve done in years,’ says Belle as she breezes into the back.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ whispers Dorrie, as she buries her head in the mixing bowl. Wyn drops her tray and snivels into the sink.

  May 1944

  On the day of the military parade, flags are flying at the Vic. Dorrie has been up since dawn, mixing ingredients for the tray bakes, while Belle puts the finishing touches to their display. VICTORY TO OUR GALLANT ALLIES, bedecked with bunting and Union Jacks in the window. Prin has been bribed into polishing the knives and forks while Wyn attempts a patriotic floral table piece, which will not stay upright.

  It is Judgement Day for the Vic, when all their efforts will be marked for originality, style and taste. The café buzzes with excitement. Belle darts from front to back, checking, cross checking. As Connie’s dramatic exit and the arrival of Dorrie upstairs coincided, it was easier to employ the girl full time until her call-up day arrived. Dorrie is praying that her scones will do the baker justice for once and not shrivel into pebbles. She has been far too busy to dwell on the change in her circumstances. For the first time in her life, she feels freedom rising like sap through the stem, a blossoming of options instead of restrictions. She plans at long last to sing with the Five Aces Showband at the very next opportunity.

  Bindy Baverstock pops down from the Cathedral Close with her young daughter, clutching a bunch of spring flowers, to give the café a final once over. ‘You must win. You’ve certainly captured the spirit of the competition. I’ve heard it’s been a pretty poor show so far. Have you heard the rumours? The big push is coming soon. Then we really will have something to celebrate!’

  For once even Wyn manages to look smart, her lace cap hiding the worst of her Amami permanent wave, which frizzles around her head like a thrush’s nest, much to Dorrie’s horror. In the excitement of putting on the solution over curling pins in the blackout, they had cooked the curls into corkscrews.

  ‘Why can’t I have beautiful locks like yours, instead of this mousey fluff?’ Wyn moans.

  ‘You’d soon get f
ed up with being called carrot top and copper knob. It has a will of its own.’ Dorrie points to the wispy tendrils escaping from her cap. ‘I wish mine was like Mrs Morton’s . . . all straight and smooth.’

  The girls peer out onto the Square for the arrival of the judges. The streets bristle with troops and onlookers, waiting for the parades to start and the fairground to open, where polished guns line up alongside the recruitment tents and rifle ranges in the park.

  The Civic dignitaries in scarlet robes and tricorn hats are marshalled outside the Guild Hall to inspect the American guard. They salute the march past in the drizzle. Dorrie is keen to see the jazz bands who have marched from their barracks to the city for the occasion. Belle is too keyed up herself to let them dart onto the pavement for more than a second or two. ‘Can you see anyone we know?’ she asks.

  ‘Only Curtis Jackson, the M.P. and that awful McCoy patrolling the pavements.’ Dorrie has not seen Lucky for a week. He had not shown up at their usual rendezvous under the railway arch and she worries at his absence.

  The lunchtime rush is long over. The Victory pies sag half eaten, crumbs and spillage hastily mopped up, the Bortsch soup sits lukewarm on the stove. At four o’clock, two men in gaberdine macintoshes and trilby hats come through the door, officials from the Council and their long awaited performance begins. The men want to speak to Belle in private. She takes them into the kitchen for a minute, then shows them politely to the door.

  ‘That was quick!’ says Wyn, looking puzzled.

  One look at the cook’s white face tells a sorry tale. ‘All that bloody work . . . for nothing. I can’t believe it. I wish Digger was here.’ She is close to tears.

  ‘What’s happened?’ they whisper, as she ushers them into the back.

  ‘We’ve been disqualified!’

  They gasp. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Apparently we contravened the regulations. It has come to their notice that we’ve been using ingredients not acquired through the proper channels!’

  ‘What ingredients?’

  ‘The blasted blueberries . . . and the tins of molasses for the bean bake. All the stuff Chad and Lucky gave us, as their hospitality rations. They said it was black marketeering. Of course, I had no receipts either. Someone wrote to the Council, saying we are not playing fair . . . someone wrote a complaint. Who would be mean enough to do that to us, do you think?’

  ‘Connie Spear,’ they chorus in unison.

  ‘That’s right . . . a former employee of the Victory Café took it upon herself to let it be known that she could not be a party to our fraudulent entry . . . et cetera!’

  Suddenly the spring day lies in tatters around them. They stand shell shocked, flattened and disappointed. Dorrie has no heart now to follow the crowds to the park. Belle crumples onto a chair, sups tea and stuffs her face with blueberry pie. ‘I feel so insulted, I do my best to bring some imagination into my menu . . . to brighten up the stodge with a bit of flair! What’s the point! We might as well dish up lentil sausage and gravy browning, prunes and custard. No one cares about real food any more . . . I think I shall swallow a bottle of Ruby Greville’s revenge and get blotto.’

  She is missing Digger Carstairs, who is now somewhere in Lincolnshire, back on a tour of night ops, they were told. More worrying for Dorrie is the absence of Lucky and his gang and she fears their unit has been posted south suddenly. On the mantelpiece in the flat lies the envelope containing her own call up papers. Soon she, too, will leave the city and the precious hours to this departure are now ticking away.

  At first, Dorrie thinks it is the wind rattling the window above her camp bed in Prin’s living room. But the night is calm. Then she recognises the tap of stones against the glass. In a daze, she pulls back the blackout curtains. A figure is lurking in the doorway of the department store across the street. For a moment she freezes in fear as her movements are seen and the figure darts out. It is Lucky. Dorrie creeps down the stairs, sussing the boards carefully, loosens the bolts and pulls him through the door. ‘Lucky . . . what on earth are you doing?’

  He is shaking, his dirty uniform torn. ‘I gone A.W.O.L. honey . . . I had to . . . I can’t stand no more. I bin framed for sumptin’ I ain’t done, so I ain’t hangin’ around.’

  Dorrie guides him upstairs. ‘Come on, let me put the kettle on.’

  ‘What is it with that McCoy? He hate my guts. I swear I ain’t done nuttin’ but he done for me this time,’ the soldier gasps.

  ‘Slow down, cool it as you say,’ murmurs Dorrie as she closes out the night and lights an oil lamp. Only then does she see the plum coloured bruising on his face.

  ‘I just got the hell out . . . you knows I drive trucks all over supplying bases, the trucks is filled with stuff. I don’t know what and I don’t care. Two days ago I was told to get this load down to Worcester. Me and Abe, we’s cruisin’ down the highway, when I sees this jeep full of Snowdrops followin’ . . . flaggin’ us down. No problem, we reckon, so I gets out to see what they want. They say all the stuff is stolen . . . that ma papers ain’t okay. That we is stealing the goddam truck . . . would you believe, Jeez. I tell them they is talkin’ chickenshit . . . so they beat the hell out of us both, right there on the sidewalk, in front of folks and chuck us in the back of the truck. So I waits till I get some breath and jump out the back. Abe was too beat to move. We was not handcuffed together. I reckon they think we is out cold. I hitch my way back in the dark.’

  ‘Oh Lucky, you should have gone south.’

  ‘I was coming back to see you. I knows Prinny will not turn me over . . . but to find you here too . . . come away with me, honey . . . we’ll go to Ireland . . . let’s beat it, honey, away from this war. It ain’t ma business anymore.’

  ‘If you’re innocent, give yourself up.’

  ‘Never . . . they’ll shoot me.’

  ‘For a few tyres?’

  ‘Stealing from Uncle Sam is a shootin’ offence. This Colonel is a mean guy . . . he’s shot men for less.’

  ‘But you did nothing but your job.’

  ‘I can’t prove it. We is dead meat. Come with me now . . . please, honey.’ Lucky paces the floor, pleading.

  ‘Hang on . . . you can stay here in hiding . . . I’ll talk Prin round. Chad will help us . . . I’ll talk to him. No one need know you’re here.’

  ‘No, Dorrie, don’t tell a soul . . . I’ll keep runnin’. The sooner I go the safer for you.’

  ‘No . . . stay here, rest. If you are innocent, someone has to plead your case and clear your name. Don’t give up yet for our sakes.’

  ‘Honey, you don’t understand Jim Crow. It one law for whiteys, another for the black man. Believe me there’s no justice waitin’ for me in that camp.’

  ‘There has to be, Lucky. This is England. Surely someone can help us?’ In the darkness, they cling together like frightened children, waiting for the dawn.

  The following night, Dorrie pedals furiously out of the city at dusk, risking life and limb on the narrow winding lanes; over the humpy canal bridges; through hamlets of red bricked cottages, onwards to the scrublands of the open Heath. As she approaches the Barracks, a gaggle of giggling girls with ankle-strapped high heels and jaunty swagger coats tumble out of a lorry, waddling and wobbling along the rough track towards the perimeter fence of the camp, under cover of copse and shrubs. Grateful for the anonymity of their company, she wheels the bike onto the verge, while they stand around smoking, adjusting their stocking seams and elaborate pompadour hairstyles, powdering noses and ducking out of searchlights. They stare at her coldly.

  ‘What you playing at . . . sod off. This is our patch,’ spits a hoyden, plastered in panstick, as she stubs out her fag on a thick platformed sole.

  ‘I’m only trying to contact a friend.’ Dorrie smiles innocently.

  ‘Oh yeah? We’ve all got friends here . . . very friendly aren’t we, Peg?’ answers an older woman, with a thick Black Country accent. She observes Dorrie’s plain skirt and tweed jacket;
her homespun manner. ‘Are you Welfare? Come to spy on us . . . get us sent to Homes for Wayward girls, all locked up, Miss Bobby Socks. Cos if you are . . .’ Threats are in the air.

  ‘No . . . do I look like Welfare? I have to get a message to a friend, that’s all. Where are you from?’

  ‘Never you mind . . . far enough to need a bleedin’ taxi . . . too far for Shanks’s pony. We can scarper sharp enough if them do-gooders try and spoil the party. They sneak up in vans and cop you doin’ yer business. We’re only giving lonely boys a service . . . perform tricks through the wire fence if we have to.’

  Dorrie tries not to look shocked. ‘It must be very risky.’

  ‘We can take care of ourselves. Can’t we, girls.’ She produces a small packet from her purse. ‘See!’

  ‘What’s in there?’ Dorrie asks.

  ‘Hark to Miss Innocent. Haven’t you seen a french letter before?’ The woman blows one up like a balloon and fixes it to the fence. ‘X marks the spot.’ They cackle like geese, pulling a concealed flap cut in the wire . . . a well-trodden entrance to the rows of Quonset huts.

  Dorrie hangs back, suddenly afraid.

  ‘Are you coming or not? Miss Goody Two Shoes?’

  She crawls under the wire with shaking limbs. It’s now or never. The girls shine a torch along the path. In the distance, the muffled sound of Glen Miller on a wireless: the jaunty rhythm of Little Brown Jug warms the air. The women seem to know the layout of huts, opening a barracks door noisily. The men lounging on bunks casually inspect the night’s contingent of girls for sale.

  ‘Where’s yer jungle juice, fellas,’ yells a blonde in skimpy red skirt and real nylon stockings, with seams running up her leg, like the rocky road to Dublin. ‘Come on, we ain’t got all night.’

  Dorrie searches desperately to see if she can recognise a familiar black face, but they are newly arrived recruits. She braves their obvious interest. ‘Sorry to spoil the party, folks, but I’m looking for Private Chad Dixon from Philadelphia, friend of Lucky Gordon, drummer in the Five Aces Showband.’