Dancing at the Victory Cafe

by Leah Fleming

  Possession is, after all, nine tenths of the law. Adoption papers saw to that. Finders keepers; losers weepers. Tough, but that’s life.

  8

  REPRISE

  Afternoon Tea

  Stilton and Walnut Flan

  A Selection of tasty Sandwiches

  Golden Scones with Jam and Cream

  Yorkshire Cheese Tarts

  Chocolate Yoghurt Cake

  Earl Grey or Assam Tea

  November 1994

  At three o’clock, Dorrie left the hotel clutching her bags, head bending into the wind whipping across Stowe Pool. She paused by the Dr Samuel Johnson’s willow on the gravel path and looked towards the back of the Cathedral.

  A small dinghy bobbed on the pool, its sails dipping with the force of the wind. On the tow path, family groups paraded their tricycles and dogs. The city was geared to leisure now, not war; parks and playing fields, festivals and funfairs. Even the Cathedral Close was spruced up and floodlit for the tourists. As always, one of the three spires was encircled in scaffolding. At the West door, she stopped to admire the tiers of carved statues rising majestically up the wall. The piazza thronged with the Evensong congregation.

  Vicar’s Close, her final destination, set back from the Cathedral Close through an archway, was a hidden alleyway of medieval cottages, a winding line of higgledy piggledy buildings, huddled together like drunks for support. Already lamps were lit in the mullioned windows, as the residents settled themselves in for the evening, sipping tea or playing bridge around small tables. She tapped the knocker and waited, as a tabby cat curled itself round her ankles, grateful to be let in from the chill. The door opened cautiously, a pinched face smiled briefly.

  ‘Oh it is you then, Dorrie Goodman. Come in, come in . . . I wouldn’t have recognised you from Adam. You’ve put on some weight . . . come in, it’s sharp out there! And you’ve gone all white . . . but then redheads often do.’

  ‘You’ve shrunk to nothing, Belle Morton,’ said the visitor as she entered the cottage with honey beamed ceilings. A log crackled on the fire. The sitting room was cluttered: an oak dresser crammed with plates and antique coffee cups, the sofa draped with a cotton patchwork quilt, a faded oriental carpet square over the parquet floor. The welcome smell of baking wafted through from the kitchen. ‘Do I detect some scones in the air? You always were the Scone Queen. I can never get mine to rise.’

  ‘I’ll give you my recipe if you like,’ replied the hostess eagerly as she carried her trophies, golden, crusted, to the coffee table. ‘It was a surprise to get your note, right out of the blue. How did you know where to find me?’ She poured the tea from a silver pot, with shaking hands.

  ‘Everyone knows Baking Belle. You’re quite a Burgess of the City now; a cottage in the Close, a seat on the Bench; a pew in the Cathedral and Chair of so many committees, I heard.’

  ‘That’s what comes of staying too long in one place, I suppose. You get nailed into the fabric after a while.’ Belle brushed the crumbs from her pleated varuna wool skirt, touching the string of pearls that shimmered in the firelight, and pulling at the blue angora cardigan, her pale eyes blinking rapidly. ‘I must say it was a bit of a shock to hear from you after so long. I doubt if anyone remembers me as Baking Belle.’

  ‘And it’s a long time since anyone called me Dorrie Goodman,’ was the retort.

  ‘You married then?’ Belle nibbled slowly.

  ‘I had my chances but there was only ever one man in my life and we both know what happened to him,’ said the visitor, tearing into her scone with relish.

  ‘That was a long time ago, dear, fifty years ago,’ was the reply.

  ‘So what happened to the Flight Lieutenant, the Aussie?’

  ‘One of those wartime flings, it would never have worked out!’

  ‘What a shame.’ Dorrie sipped her tea and waited. Belle picked on her scone and waited. ‘Very nice set up here, peaceful.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Oh, just a flat off the Finchley Road, very convenient though. I went on the stage, did quite well for a while.’

  ‘Musicals?’ asked the hostess politely.

  ‘No, no . . . I was Cassie Starr, Variety, panto – that sort of thing. Getting into E.N.S.A. in the war gave me the intro . . . I wrote to you all. I don’t suppose you got my mail . . . I never got a reply. We were all so busy. After the war I went on tour . . . you lose touch . . . that’s how it goes. Sol never came back to Lichfield. Poor Wyn – she had her eye on him.

  ‘She’s a grandma ten times over, lives in Tamworth or thereabouts. So you kept in touch with your mother?’

  ‘A bit, but only after Father died. She always kept herself apart from neighbours and disapproved of me being on the stage. I don’t suppose she told a soul about my broadcasts, did she?’ Dorrie stared squarely in Belle’s direction, watching a rose flush suffuse across her cheekbones, her eyes evasive under this powerful scrutiny. The intense gaze then roamed across the oak dresser, as if looking for something to be there. Belle glanced briefly in the same direction.

  ‘You put away all the wedding photos, then? And Victy’s Graduation Day? The playgroup snaps of Charlie and Sam. They must be at university by now!’

  Belle splutters, spilling tea on her skirt. ‘You know about Victy?’ she gasps.

  ‘Of course I bloody well do, woman. Of course I know about your child, my daughter. Why do you think I’ve come back, after all this time? Come to put a stop to this stupid charade you’ve had us all play for years. How could you . . . How could YOU, of all people, do this to me? . . . I always had you down as fair. Half my life, I had to carry the guilt of thinking my neglect and shame killed my newborn baby. For years I punished myself and denied myself the chance of happiness, strangled love affairs at birth, in case my secret was found out.

  ‘Have you any idea what it is like for us unmarried mothers to hide aching breasts, cover our tracks, sniff other women’s offspring with envy. How can you live with what you did to me? You bonded with my child so tightly, wrapped her in your love blanket and made her your own. She was my flesh and Lucky’s. All there was left for me. Go on admit it, Belle Morton, Justice of the Peace. Hah!’ Dorrie wiped the tears from her eyes and took a deep breath.

  ‘Dorrie, I swear to God!’

  ‘Don’t call me that name. I’ve been Cassie for years. Dorrie was buried in my kitbag on Euston Station, the night I arrived in London, clutching your money . . . Did you know then?’

  ‘No. No . . . You’ve got it all wrong. Please believe me. If you had told me the whole story, do you honestly think I would have let you walk out of the Vic? I did what I did from the best of motives, honestly. I meddled and searched, secretly on your behalf, but you just stayed away too long.’

  ‘And just whose fault was that? You knew that one word and I’d have grown bleedin’ wings, flown across oceans, to see my baby. Do you think I enjoyed being Cassie Starr, soubrette, Principal Boy, heaving trunks across draughty stations every Sunday morning? It was a novelty at first, singing for my supper, all spangles under the spotlights, but dreams built on defiance never last. Tin Pan Alley takes few prisoners when you’re fair, fat and forty. I was never in the Vera Lynn league. After the Beatles hit town, it was back to the kitchen for Cinderella. Back where I first began!’

  Belle bowed her head. ‘I’m sorry. All this time you knew and Victy too. Who told her?’

  ‘Who do you think fed her on stories of chocolate drummer boys and fairies, dancing in the Victory Café?’

  ‘I sent the Prin away.’

  ‘Not far enough, Mrs Morton. Your daughter, my child, was told stories by the pixie lady in the park, who used to give her sweets and tell the little girl how she was really her own fairy godmother, the one who had once rescued her; how one day, her real princess mummy on the wireless would collect her and take her back to a palace in London.’

  ‘Oh! No!’ Isobel cried.

  Dorrie ignored her. ‘The Princess never came and sh
e thought her mother didn’t care. She thought if she was a good girl and kept this secret, then the poor pixie woman would not be taken away to the dark dungeons and punished by a wicked policeman. That’s what secrets do, Belle Morton, distort, disfigure and dishonour us all! Our generation is so good at keeping secrets, skilled in the ancient art by generations of well-meaning women. Did you ever sing a hymn in Sunday school, “Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light, Like a little candle burning in the night”? I was taught to snuff out the light. What is hidden is for the best. Now, they don’t give a toss for shameful secrets. You can pay bills with secrets; the currency of our times.

  ‘Why did you rob me of the chance to choose? Ignorance is not bliss; it is just not knowing your options. Now I can only be an onlooker, grateful for what Victy will share with me of her past. Thank God the truth usually comes out. You silenced the Prin with threats but you did not silence the child’s curiosity or her anger!’

  ‘Is she very angry with me?’

  ‘Ask her yourself! Victy was curious, poor girl, so she asked around. Wyn and Maggie told her bits, enough to trace herself back to the Cottage Homes and the stories of her arrival tallied. She heard about the postcard from Dorrie Daydream and she searched the E.N.S.A. records and photographs. Finally she approached the Sally Army Missing Persons Bureau. From girl to woman, it was done slowly over years, always fearful of your negative response or mine.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘No, you don’t see. Can you imagine WHAT it feels like to hear a voice on the end of a phone saying a forty-year-old woman wishes to contact you, a woman who thinks you may be her mother? I did bear a child but she died, I said. That’s what you were told, but it may not be the case, they said. All these years of secrecy and one word from you could have sorted the matter.’

  ‘She never asked me.’ Belle folded her arms across her chest.

  ‘Come on, woman. She was loyal and believed Santa Claus chose her for you; delivered her in his Christmas sack. Stop deceiving yourself. There was never a right time to disclose her need for identity to you. It must have been hell being half and half, after the war. No private school ever protected her from playground prejudice. It is hard for any kid to be different . . . she’s a credit to herself, not us.’

  ‘So you met then?’ whispers the old woman, shrinking into the sofa.

  ‘Not at first. We wrote and talked on the phone, got used to the sound of each other, exchanged photographs and then agreed to meet.’

  ‘In Lichfield?’

  ‘Oh no! I took her to see her father. In the Military Cemetery outside Cambridge, the special one for American Servicemen. We put red roses on Lucky’s grave and I told her our story. We both cried. Victy said we were just like Romeo and Juliet. She brought photos of Sam and Charlie. How strange that of all the names in the world she chose her own father’s for her son.’

  ‘What did you think of her, that first time?’

  ‘It was not the first time I had seen her. I once stopped in the Casa Blanca. I bet that scared you.’

  ‘Yes, she told me about the red-haired woman who asked about the Victory Café, I thought you might have seen her.’

  ‘Only a glimpse of a beautiful young Spanish woman. Lucky’s mother was from Puerto Rico but I had no reason to connect them. Now she has some history for herself.’

  Belle rose from her seat, pacing the floor. ‘You’ve met them all and visited them?’

  Dorrie smiled. ‘Why should she not have her own secrets? Secrets in the family! Isn’t that what screws up most of us, one way or the other?’

  ‘Does she know you are here?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘So you cooked up this visit between the two of you, to pay me back?’

  ‘What! High Noon in the Close, rolling pins at dawn!’ Dorrie burst into laughter.

  Belle sank onto the arm of her chair, covering her face with wrinkled hands. ‘I nearly ended it all last night, I was afraid to face you.’

  ‘But you didn’t go through with it. You were just curious enough to hang on, to see if you had got away with it all. Hid the photos though, just in case I might recognise Lucky’s smile in Victy’s grin. I bet you would have taken your secret to the grave.’

  Belle looked up, ‘Why not? That’s what many women do!’

  Dorrie leaned forward quickly. ‘A real mother wants what’s best for her child, no matter what the cost is to herself. How could you hide away a child’s birthright in your selfish silence?’

  ‘What I did, I did for love!’ replied Belle with a sigh.

  ‘Rubbish! What you did, you did for yourself. Once Digger went, she was all you had, so you clung on tight. The café was never enough. You sacrificed your own chance of a child by stealing mine. You wanted Victy all to yourself. It wasn’t fair, Belle, especially to her. We both let her down.’

  ‘What will I say to her . . . will she forgive me?’

  ‘Can you forgive yourself for what you’ve done?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll not be staying around long enough to trouble you all.’ Belle sniffed into a lace-edged handkerchief.

  ‘There you go again, feeling sorry for yourself. I should be the Opera Queen in this scene, not you, lady! You look as tough as old leather to me. You are going to have to face her yourself and tell her your version. No deathbed confessions, madam. There’s been enough colluding going on to last several lifetimes.

  ‘She is fifty in two weeks. Life is too short for us both now to make scenes for her. Get used to the idea of sharing her around a bit. She’s been handling her two mums for years and it’s strained her loyalties enough. It is time to help her along. Don’t go all mopey on her.

  ‘Me and you are two old mares hitched to the same wagon now; creaky in the shanks but enough meat on the bones to pull together for a while longer. If I can come here seeking a cold revenge, wanting to see you squirm and still feel we can pull together, surely you can sort out your own mess – or you are not the Belle Morton I remember from the old days. The one who saw off that old battle tank – what was her name?’

  ‘Connie Spear.’

  ‘See, you do remember!’

  They smiled at each other tentatively and then fell silent. A log splattered on the hearth. Belle poked the fire and set up the brass guard across the flame. She looked up. ‘Do you fancy a sherry in the Angel Croft Hotel? You’re right, I have to . . . we have to make this birthday special for her.’

  ‘It will be, if we both turn up together! A bleeding miracle!’

  They rose slowly, sorting out coats, gloves, scarves and boots. Outside, they linked arms, for the autumn leaves on wet cobblestones were treacherous to old bones, and night was falling fast.

  RECIPES

  Woolton Pie

  SERVES 4

  750g (1 ½ lb) vegetables in season (carrot, swede, turnip, leek, cauliflower)

  salt

  1 tablespoon vegetable extract

  25g (1oz) oatmeal

  1 tablespoon chopped parsley, or herb of choice

  Potato pastry crust

  50g (2oz) cooked potato, mashed

  25g (1oz) available fat

  50g (2oz) cheese, grated

  50g (2oz) oatmeal

  100g (4oz) national flour

  Oven: 325°F (170°C) Gas Mark 3.

  1. Peel and prepare the vegetables as appropriate, then dice. Cook in salted water to cover, about 600ml (1 pint), until nearly tender.

  2. Strain, and reserve 450ml (¾ pint) of the stock water.

  3. Arrange the vegetable dice in a large pie dish.

  4. Add the vegetable extract and oatmeal to the retained liquid stock, and cook gently, stirring, until thick.

  5. Pour the sauce over the vegetables, then stir in the chopped herb.

  6. For the potato pastry crust, cream together the mashed potato and fat. Add the cheese, oatmeal and flour, and mix to a stiff dough. Rest for a few minutes in a cool place.

  7. Roll out to the required
size, and place over the pie dish. Bake in the moderate oven for 30 minutes.

  Bunny to the Rescue! (Jugged Hare)

  SERVES 4–6

  1 hare, prepared and jointed

  75g (3oz) butter, margarine or available fat

  600ml (1 pint) stock

  1 onion, peeled and stuck with a few cloves

  a bunch of local herbs (bay, thyme, etc.)

  salt, pepper and cayenne pepper

  25g (1oz) national flour

  150ml (¼ pint) country wine or stout

  Oven: 325°F (170°C) Gas Mark 3.

  1. Heat 50g (2oz) of the fat and fry the hare joints on all sides.

  2. Meanwhile heat the stock in a fireproof and ovenproof dish. Drain the joints and put into the stock with the onion, herbs and seasonings.

  3. Cover and cook in the slow oven until tender, about 3–4 hours.

  4. Half an hour before serving, mix the remaining fat and the flour together, and add to the dish to thicken it.

  5. Add the wine or stout, and stew gently for a further 10–15 minutes.

  Serve with game chips and redcurrant or rowanberry jelly.

  Brownies

  8 PORTIONS

  75g (3oz) self-raising flour

  225g (8oz) Demerara sugar

  40g (1½oz) cocoa powder

  100g (4oz) margarine or butter, melted

  2 eggs

  2 tablespoons milk

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  50g (2oz) broken walnuts

  Oven: 350°F (180°C) Gas Mark 4.

  1. Grease and line a baking tin, 28 × 18cm (11 × 7 in).

  2. Put the flour and sugar into a bowl.

  3. Stir the cocoa into the melted butter, and pour on to the dry ingredients. Do not stir yet.

  4. Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl, then add the milk and vanilla. Stir this into the butter, flour and sugar, until you have a smooth dark brown batter. Stir in the nuts.