by Angela Huth
‘Keep still,’ said Mrs Lawrence.
‘Army, Navy, Air Force, Home Guard, anything. Ag, give me that bottle and I’ll treat you all to a spray.’
Ag handed Prue a cut-glass bottle of scent. ‘Not for me, thanks,’ she said.
‘Don’t be daft, Ag. You don’t want to smell of sheep.’
Prue pressed the small bulb in its filigree cover of golden thread. A spray of vapour hit Ag’s chest. She laughed, backed away, clutching at herself. Prue swerved round to Stella, sprayed her, too.
‘I said, keep still.’ Mrs Lawrence found herself smiling.
‘And last of all, me. Ears, throat, cleavage, wrists. There.’ With each steamy puff the smell of tuberose thickened the air. ‘No: not quite last here, Mrs Lawrence!’ Prue snapped round on her heels, aimed a squirt of scent at Mrs Lawrence’s apron.
‘No! Not for me – please, Prue.’
Mrs Lawrence, to her own surprise, joined in the others’ laughter. She tugged Prue round again to finish the last of the buttons. A picture came to her mind of dancing in a summer barn, years ago: a harvest supper, perhaps. John coming up behind her, putting his arm round her waist. Streamers looped from the rafters, a small band that made her feet tap long before they reached the dance floor.
‘It’s magic, I’m telling you,’ giggled Prue. ‘It’ll do something for you, Mrs Lawrence.’
There was a shout from downstairs to hurry. With one accord, the girls swerved about the room gathering up scarves, bags, coats. Mrs Lawrence moved about trying to keep out of their way. The sugar smell of powder, combined with the sickliness of Prue’s favourite scent, could not quite disguise a sharp, sour smell of sweat.
‘Excitement!’ shouted Prue, the first to run to the door.
Mr Lawrence and Joe stood side by side in the hall, waiting. They heard the patter of feet on the stairs, saw three pairs of silky legs make a brief moving trellis among the stair bannisters, followed by flashes of coloured skirts. Then they were there, swirling about in the dim milky light of the hall, filling the air with the overwhelming sweetness of cheap scent. Stella’s hand clutched a dark oak bannister as she paused for a moment, laughing, catching her breath. Mr Lawrence, staring at her, met her eyes, more visible than ever before now her hair had been caught back each side in combs. He quickly looked away. The curve of a pearly lid, the curl of thick lashes, seared in his mind. Ag – he vaguely noticed something different about her – was struggling into an old grey coat. Joe was helping her.
‘I’ve brought the Wolseley to the door,’ he said.
‘Joe, you’re wonderful.’ Prue spun over to him, kissed him quickly on the cheek. ‘What would we do without you? Can I sit next to the driver?’
Mr Lawrence undid the bolts on the front door. He meant to wish them all a good evening, but could not manage it. As they crowded past him to the car, Stella saw the sudden paleness of his cheeks.
‘Good night, Mr Lawrence,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the use of the car. Have a peaceful evening without us.’ She put a hand on his arm, brief as a bird touches water, sees nothing there, and soars away again.
‘’Night, Stella,’ he said.
When they had gone, Mr Lawrence shut the door. Mrs Lawrence came downstairs quietly in her slippered feet. Fearful she would recognize his infidelity in the murky place full of horrible scents that the hall had become, he hurried into the kitchen. His wife followed him.
‘Just eggs and bacon, tonight,’ she said.
Mr Lawrence took a bottle of ale and a glass from the dresser. He sat down at the table. Mrs Lawrence leaned up against the range, the dogs at her feet. She undid her apron, took it off, folded it, hung it over the back of a chair. Such a pale, worn thing, the binding coming unsewn round the edges.
‘Did we have anything like that, in our youth?’ she asked.
‘Not exactly, no.’ Mr Lawrence stood up. ‘Can smell that filthy stuff even in here. Don’t say you …?’
Mrs Lawrence smiled. ‘Prue squirted it over all of us: very generous …’
‘God forbid. You’ll have to have a bath.’ He moved over to his wife, lowered his head to sniff at the brown wool of her shoulders. ‘It reeks.’
Mrs Lawrence half raised her arms, as if to encircle her husband’s neck, then thought better of it. It wasn’t Sunday, after all. Instead, she undid the top button of her cardigan. Mr Lawrence watched her, puzzled. Their eyes remained locked for several moments, the disparity of their thoughts almost tangible.
‘Reach me down a frying pan, will you,’ said Mrs Lawrence at last.
‘You’re a good woman,’ her husband said. ‘You’re a good woman, you are.’
* * *
A plane squawked overhead, shredding the sound of the RAF band. They did not miss a beat, but a few of the dancing couples gripped each other more tightly. Stella, at a small table with the other girls and Joe, clasped her glass of ginger beer.
‘It feels more as if there’s a war on, here, somehow,’ she said.
She looked round the large, rather cold hall. The organizers had tried to disguise its dreary walls with paper chains and clumps of tinsel. Flakes of cottonwool snow had been stuck to the blackout stuff over the windows. At the far end of the hall, next to the bar, someone had struggled to make the buffet look tempting. Coming in, Stella had noticed piles of bridge rolls filled with fish paste, and plates of sliced Spam lay with an exhausted air on lettuce leaves. There were several bottles of salad cream and what must have been a pre-war jar of French mustard. A second table was reserved for a small townscape of castellated jellies. Bright primary colours, some flecked with tinned fruits; they rose out of dazzling white imitation cream skilfully piped to look like shells.
Prue had no interest in the surroundings: her eye was busy on the crowd of uniformed pilots at the bar with their soft, young faces, red necks and noisy laughs. The cheering thing was there were at least three men to every one girl in the room. Prue tossed her curls, tapped a foot under the table – quite Glenn Miller, really, she thought – impatient. She would have to make a break soon, waste no more time. Finish this first gin and lime, kindly bought by Joe, then she’d be off. But there was no time to finish the drink – for there he was, the tea-room flight lieutenant, even more handsome without his cap. Prue jumped to her feet.
‘Sorry, folks,’ she said, ‘but I have to go. Don’t want to miss my chance. See you.’
The others watched her spraunce off towards the crowd at the bar, hips waggling, hair bouncing, hands on hips. Many heads, they noticed, joined in observing her progress.
‘Same performance as in the milking shed the first morning,’ said Joe. Stella and Ag laughed, then they fell into the awkwardness engendered by a trio. Ag, conscious that Stella was looking extraordinarily attractive in a very different way from Prue, folded her hands. tried to assume a settled sort of look.
‘If you two want to dance,’ she said, ‘I’m quite happy sitting here just looking.’
‘I don’t want to dance,’ said Stella, without conviction.
At that moment, a short, heavily built wing commander approached their table, gave a little bow in Stella’s direction.
‘Might I have the honour,’ he said, with a teasing smile, ‘of the next one?’
Stella hesitated.
‘Go on,’ said Joe. ‘You can’t rely on me.’
‘Very well, thanks. I’d love to.’
‘My name’s Stephen,’ said the wing commander.
‘My name’s Stella.’
‘You look to me like a girl who can dance.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’
He put out his hand, led Stella towards the floor. They were quickly lost in the crowd.
Ag felt all the humiliation of failure. There was no one, she noticed, on the way to ask her to dance. The agony of teenage parties, when the same sort of thing had happened so often, returned. She felt a fool in Prue’s silly chiffon scarf and the ridiculous curls: she wished she hadn’t come, she wished Joe didn’t look so bore
d.
‘Your curls seem to be falling out,’ he said.
‘The damp.’ Ag managed a smile.
‘Much better your usual way.’
‘Prue enjoyed doing it.’
‘I bet she did.’
A small, irrational pain skewered Ag’s heart. She watched Joe looking into the distance – remembering Prue, she supposed.
‘Who are the other girls here, do you think?’ she asked.
Joe stirred himself. ‘Some from the Services. Probably quite a few other land girls.’ Then he smiled at her kindly. ‘Can’t say any of them look as if they’ve made the same effort as all of you.’
‘It’s a pity Janet can’t be here,’ said Ag.
‘She wouldn’t like this sort of thing. She doesn’t like dancing.’
‘Then you have that in common.’
‘I suppose we do have that, yes. Shall I get you another drink?’
‘It’s my turn. I’ll come with you.’
‘I can’t let you buy me a drink …’
‘You can in a war. Besides, how can I spend my vast wages? My fourteen shillings a week?’ Ag jumped up, suddenly carefree. She would enjoy the sensation of walking across the hall with Joe behind her.
When they reached the dance floor, he said:
‘Shall I surprise you?’
Without waiting for an answer, he took her loosely in his arms. Neither was a skilled dancer: they shuffled awkwardly, others twirling past them. ‘Are you as much in love as Stella, with someone far away?’ asked Joe.
Ag felt herself blush. She spoke the truth. ‘I dream about someone who scarcely knows of my existence,’ she said. ‘He was a graduate student, medicine. We did once have tea, with some other friends. For some reason, I found myself telling him my name was really Agapanthus and he didn’t laugh. But I don’t suppose he’d remember.’
‘Agapanthus? Well, it’s hard not to laugh.’ Joe suppressed a smile. ‘You are an odd lot, you three. Not at all as I imagined land girls.’
By now they had reached the bar and gave up all pretence at dancing. Ag bought Joe a pint of beer and an orange squash for herself. They made their way back to the table.
‘I like your deportment,’ teased Joe. ‘You walk so straight, ramrod back like a gym mistress.’ He pulled out her chair.
‘I went to a very strict convent,’ said Ag. ‘We had to train with books on our head.’
Joe smiled. A jitterbug number had started. ‘Lucky we missed this one,’ he said.
Their eyes were drawn to the dancing. It was an exuberant crowd on the floor, some skilled at the steps, others merely jumping about, not caring. Then it became apparent there was unanimous recognition of a couple of stars among them, and they were being given space. Lesser dancers had drawn back, still moving, but their concentration was on the stars: Stella and her partner.
The wing commander’s short, bulky figure, lightened by the music, was transformed. His jitterbugging had all the vitality of a younger man’s actions, but also a precision that was astonishing to watch. He flung Stella hither and thither and she followed, sure as Ginger Rogers, adding her own inventive little flurries – a flick of the head or skirt, a sharp circling movement of her hands. The band, aware they were playing for experts at last, stepped up the tempo: the rest of the dancers fell away, leaving Stella and her unlikely Astaire on their own till the end of the number. Stella kicked off her shoes. The combs fell out of her hair. Her cheeks were scarlet as she spun faster and faster.
When the music stopped, the wing commander lifted her easily above his head, like a ballet dancer. There was cheering all round the hall, applause. Stella dizzily returned to earth. She hurried back to the table, followed by her smiling partner. Her hands rushed through her now wild hair. She was panting.
‘You can dance,’ said Joe. He stood up in acknowledgement. His clear admiration spurred Ag to rise, too, and turn to the wing commander.
‘You must have been jitterbugging all your life,’ she said. ‘I like to dance,’ he conceded. ‘Your turn. Shall we?’
‘I can’t do anything like that,’ said Ag.
‘It’s a nice slow number. Come on.’
‘I’m in the mood for love’ was rising and falling through the hall. Ag followed the wing commander to the floor. He clasped her with such expertise, his lead making the slow steps so easy to follow, that she began not to mind the fact she was a good head taller than him. She looked down, studied the intricate waves of his Brylcreemed black hair, then averted her eyes. All round them, other couples, on just an hour or so’s acquaintance, clung to each other as if to make the most of the last moments of life on earth: eyes shut, whispering things inspired by the rarity of such occasions. One of these couples was Prue and her tea-shop flight lieutenant. His chin nuzzled into the bow in her hair, her arms were clasped round his back. Again, Ag felt a pang of a sensation she despised. How did Prue manage it, every time?
At the table, Stella finished her ginger beer in one gulp. Her face shone, excited.
‘You were amazing,’ said Joe.
Stella shrugged. ‘I’ve always loved dancing, singing.’
‘Is that what you’re going to do, eventually, be a dancer?’
‘Heavens, no. I’m nothing like good enough for that. I’d like to teach the piano – though I’m so out of practice I may never get it back. Where’s the nearest piano to Hallows Farm?’
‘There’s always The Bells,’ said Joe. ‘There’s an old one there, very out of tune.’
‘Anything’d do me.’ Stella leaned back in her chair, eyes shut. ‘That was fun,’ she said. ‘You don’t find many men as good as that. I’d have done anything tonight. Celebration.’ She opened her eyes, smiling.
‘Might I guess? Something to do with the sailor?’
Stella nodded. ‘I heard at last. Two weekends from now he’s got several days’ shore leave. He wants me to join him for forty-eight hours. Do you think your Ma …? Mr Lawrence?’
Joe rubbed a huge hand across his face, straightening out a frown. ‘Dare say that could be arranged. It seems very unfair, land girls only entitled to a week’s holiday a year. Ma appreciates that.’
‘I’d make up for it.’
‘I’ll put in a word for you.’
They sat listening to the music, watching the dancing. Prue and her partner had by now ceased to move at all. Ag and the wing commander were nipping expertly through the more statuesque dancers, Ag with a tight little smile.
‘Do you know what Prue wants in the end?’ asked Stella. ‘She wants a rich Yorkshireman, gold taps, cocktails on silver trays. She told me her dream, standing on the dung hill.’
Joe smiled. ‘What Prue wants, Prue’ll get. She’s a determined little thing if ever there was one.’
Their eyes met. They laughed.
‘Jesus, I was rash,’ said Joe, ‘but it didn’t seem worth resisting, offered like that on a plate. Couldn’t have lasted long – too dangerous, under my own roof. I like her spirit, though. And I don’t know any girl better at ploughing a straight furrow.’
Stella smiled, honoured to have been taken into Joe’s confidence.
She watched his eyes, suddenly dulled, trail round the hall.
‘Times like this,’ he said, ‘it hits you. Being one of the very few not in uniform. You feel such a rotten shirker.’
‘Well you certainly shouldn’t,’ said Stella. ‘Everyone knows if a man doesn’t join up it’s for good reason.’
‘Not much comfort in that sort of logic, I’m afraid. The day I failed my medical was the worst day of my life. Never forget it: this icy room with that poster on the wall – you know the one, Your Country Needs You. This cocky little doctor. Afraid your country doesn’t need you, my lad, he said. You can’t expect to fight the enemy if you’re fighting for your own breath. Stands to reason. I told him – I told him I was much better than I had been as a child – growing out of the asthma fast. But nothing would change his stubborn little mind. Same thing ha
ppened to my friend Robert – his lungs are seriously rotten. They laughed at him wasting their time, turning up for a medical. But Robert’s a pacifist at heart. He didn’t give a damn that he was ordered to stay at home. My ambition was to join the HAC.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Stella. She paused, knowing the inadequacy of any sympathy. ‘But think about what you are doing. Someone’s got to organize the massive job of feeding the country. Hallows Farm is making the sort of contribution you shouldn’t undervalue.’
Joe shrugged, looked Stella in the eye.
‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘You’re wise and you’re right. But I can’t help the guilt, the shame. I’d rather be fighting.’
Ag and her partner returned to the table. The four of them sat talking over more drinks. The wing commander was a married man, his wife at home in Edinburgh. In civilian life, they had won prizes for dancing. He missed regular dancing, he said.
As midnight drew near, the evening sloped into a minor key. The music slowed. Couples disappeared. Prue and her flight lieutenant were nowhere to be seen.
They reappeared just in time for the national anthem. Intent on reaching the table, Prue’s progress across the hall was uncertain. She leaned heavily on the flight lieutenant, his scant baby hair a pinkish gold under the harsh lights. Her ankles gave way several times, but he supported her nobly, rewarded with a constant, lipstick-smudged smile.
‘Rather overdone the gin and limes, I have,’ she said. ‘This is Barry.’
Barry had just time to shake hands all round before his body was flicked to attention by command of a thunderous chord from the band. God Save Our Gracious King boomed out. All the uniformed men, moments ago so slack and soft on the dance floor, now adopted unblinking rigidity. Prue, through the gin-induced silvering of her mind, somehow appreciated that to cling to Barry at this solemn moment might be unwise. Instead, she leaned against Joe with the lack of inhibition of an old friend who dares to impose. She then found herself firmly guided to the door between Ag and Stella.
They supported her in the doorway of the hall while Joe went to the Camp car park to fetch the Wolseley. Cold night air ripped through their bones. Barry, still in his upright national anthem position, boldly stayed close enough to the trio of girls to plant a kiss on top of the sagging head of the one in the middle.
