Jasmine Nights

by Julia Gregson

  ‘I’ve brought you some cheese straws.’ His mother appeared with a tray. ‘I saved up our cheese ration for them.’

  ‘Misou, sit.’ He patted the sofa beside him. ‘Let’s have a drink.’

  She poured herself a small Dubonnet and soda, her lunchtime tipple, a beer for him.

  ‘Well, how nice this is.’ She crossed her impeccable legs at the ankle. ‘Oh golly! Look at that.’ A small piece of thread that had come loose on one of her cushions. She snapped it off between her small teeth.

  ‘Misou, stop fussing and drink up. I think you and I should get roaring drunk together one night.’

  She laughed politely; it would take her a while to thaw out. Him too – he felt brittle, dreamlike again.

  ‘Have another.’ She passed him the cheese straws. ‘But don’t spoil your appetite. Sorry.’ The plate bumped his hand. ‘Did that hurt?’

  ‘No.’ He took two cheese straws quickly. ‘Nothing hurts now. These are delicious.’

  She filled the small silence that followed by saying: ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you have any pills you should be taking, any special med—’

  ‘Mother,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m all right now. It wasn’t an illness. I’m as fit as a fiddle – in fact, I’d like to go for a spin on Pa’s motorbike after lunch.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d mind – that sounds fun. He doesn’t use it now.’ He felt her flinch, but he would have to start breaking her in gently. ‘It’s in the stable. There should be enough petrol,’ she added bravely.

  ‘For a short spin, anyway.’

  ‘So nothing hurts now?’

  ‘No.’ It was no good, he simply couldn’t talk about it to her – not now, maybe never – this wrecking ball in the middle of his life that had come within a hair’s breadth of taking pretty much everything: his youth, his friends, his career, his face.

  ‘Well, all I can say,’ she shot a darting look in his direction, ‘is that you look marvellous, darling.’

  Which didn’t sit well with him either. His mother had always cared too much about how people looked. The reproach in her voice when she pointed out a nose that was too long or somebody who had a big stomach seemed to indicate that its owner was either careless or stupid. or both. Some of the boys in the ward had been so badly burned they were scarcely recognisable, but they were still human beings underneath it.

  ‘Do I?’ Impossible to keep the note of bitterness out of his voice. ‘Well, all’s well that ends well.’

  And now he had hurt her and felt sorry. She’d moved to the other end of the sofa, he felt her bunched up and ready to fly.

  ‘That music was wonderful,’ he said. ‘Thank you for putting it on. All we heard in hospital was a crackly wireless and a few concerts.’

  ‘Any good?’

  ‘Not bad, one or two of them.’ A singer? He imagined her saying it, and then, with her sharp professional face on, Was she any good?

  ‘I was thinking in hospital,’ he said, ‘that I’d like to play the piano again.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ She looked at him suspiciously, as if he might be mocking her.

  ‘Yes.’

  She took his hand in hers. ‘Do you remember last time?’ She was looking pleased. ‘Such sweet little hands.’ She waggled her own elegant fingers in a flash of diamonds. ‘Like chipolatas. First Chopsticks,’ she mimed his agricultural delivery, ‘then Chopin. You know, you could have been very, very good,’ she said, ‘if you’d stuck at it.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. It was an old argument between them. ‘I did Walter Gieseking a great good turn when I gave up.’

  ‘And what about you nearly amputating these sweet little hands?’ he teased. They’d had a corker of a row one day, when he’d been racing through ‘Für Elise’ as loudly as he could, loving the racket he was making. She’d ticked him off for not playing with more light and shade, and he’d roared: ‘I’M A LOUD-PLAYING BOY AND I LIKE THINGS FAST.’ And she – oh, how quick and ferocious her temper was in those days – had brought the lid down so sharply she’d missed his fingers by a whisper and blackened the edge of the nail on his little finger.

  She covered her face with her hands. ‘Why was I so angry?’

  Because, he wanted to say, it mattered to you; because some things affected you beyond reason.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said gently, seeing her furious face again, under the lamplight, stabbing at her tapestry.

  ‘Listen, you loud-talking boy,’ she said. She stood up and walked towards the kitchen. ‘Lunch is ready. Let’s eat.’

  ‘Yes, Mis, let’s eat.’ It seemed the safest thing to do.

  When they faced each other over the kitchen table, there didn’t seem quite enough of them to fill the room, but at least she hadn’t asked him yet about Annabel, a relief, for she would be upset – she’d approved of Annabel’s clothes, her thinness, her clever parents – and then she’d be fiercely indignant at anyone foolish enough to reject her son. He’d rehearsed a light-hearted account of the episode, in truth, he was almost relieved now that Annabel had gone: one less person to worry about when he flew again.

  Misou poured him a glass of wine and filled a plate with the roast lamb mixed in with delicious home-grown onions and carrots and herbs. He ate ravenously, aware of her watching him and relaxing in his pleasure.

  Over coffee he said, ‘That was the best grub I’ve had for months, Ma, and by the way, I really would like to play the piano again.’

  And then she shocked him by saying: ‘You want to fly, don’t you? That’s what you really want to do.’ She gave him a searching look; he could not tell whether she was pleading with him or simply asking for information.

  He put his cup down. ‘Don’t you think we should talk about this later?’ he asked gently.

  She got up suddenly and went to the sink.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Later.’

  She ran the tap fiercely; he saw her drying-up cloth move towards her eyes. ‘Not now,’ she said several seconds later.

  ‘I don’t think I could stand it.’

  Chapter 3

  POMEROY STREET,

  CARDIFF, 1942

  Dom’s letter to Saba had arrived in the morning post. Reading it brought a flush of colour to her cheek. She remembered that boy, but not clearly.

  She’d been so wound up before the concert, terrified that she would fail, or be overwhelmed by the patients, and later so tremendously happy when it had gone well.

  But it did mean something – quite a lot, actually – that he had found the evening special too. She felt like dashing downstairs with the letter right away, forcing her family to read it – See, what I do means something. Don’t make me stop – but since no one in the house was properly talking to her, she put it in the drawer beside her bedside table. There was too much going on in her head to answer it.

  Her family were at war. Two weeks previously, a brown envelope had arrived for Saba with On Her Majesty’s Service written on it, and all of them hated her as a result of it. Inside was a letter from ENSA, the Entertainments National Service Association. A man called John Merrett had asked her to attend an audition at the Drury Lane Theatre in London on 17 March at 11.30. She was to take her music and dancing shoes. Her expenses would be paid.

  At that time she was living in the family’s three-bedroomed terraced house in Pomeroy Street, down at the docks, between the canal and the river, a few streets away from Tiger Bay. It was here, in an upstairs room of this cramped and cosy house, that Saba had shot into the world twenty-three years ago. She was three weeks early, red-faced and bellowing. ‘Little old leather-lungs right from the beginning,’ her mother had once said proudly.

  In peacetime she shared the house with her mother, Joyce, her little sister, Lou, and occasionally her father, Remzi, who was a ship’s engineer and often away at sea. And of course there was good old Tansu, her Turkish grandma, who’d been living with them for the past twenty years.

  Apart from Tan, asleep by th
e fire in the front room, she was alone in the house when the letter came. She tore the envelope open, read it in disbelief, and then got so excited she didn’t know what to do with herself. She raced upstairs, crashed into her small bedroom, raised her arms in exultation, gave a silent scream, sat down in front of her kidney-shaped dressing table and saw her shocked white face gazing back at her from three mirrors.

  Yah! Hallelujah! Saved! Mashallah! The wonderful thing had happened! She danced on her own on the bare floorboards, her body full of a savage joy. After months of performing in draughty factories and YMCAs for weary workers and troops, ENSA wanted her! In London! A place she’d never been before. Her first proper professional tour.

  She couldn’t wait to tell her mother, and paced all afternoon in an agony of suspense. Mum, who was working the day shift at Curran’s factory, and who’d been on at her to get a job there too, usually got home about five thirty. When Saba heard the click of the front door, she bounded downstairs two at a time, flung her arms around her and blurted out the news.

  Later, she realised that her timing was unusually off. Tea had to come before surprises. Her mother was highly strung, and, to say the least, unpredictable in her responses. Sometimes standing up for Saba, sometimes caving in, entirely depending on her husband’s moods . . . Or perhaps Saba should have told Tansu first. Tan, who had a theatrical flair for these moments, would have put it better.

  Her mother looked tired and plain in the ugly dungarees and turban she now wore for work. She took the letter from Saba’s hand and read it without a word, her mouth a sullen little slit. She stomped into the front room and took her shoes off, and snapped: ‘Why did you let the fire go out?’ as if this was just an ordinary day.

  The envelope was still in her hand as she looked straight at Saba and said, ‘This is the last bloody straw,’ almost as if she hated her.

  ‘What?’ Saba had shouted.

  ‘And you’re not bloody going.’

  Saba had rushed into the kitchen and then out the back door where they kept the kindling. When she returned, her mother was still sitting poleaxed by the unlit fire. Tansu sat opposite her, mumbling away at herself in Turkish the way she did when she was agitated or afraid.

  ‘Give me that.’ Joyce snatched the paper and the kindling from Saba’s hands. She scrumpled the paper, stabbed it with the poker they kept in a brass ship near the fire.

  ‘You look tired, Mum.’ Saba, who’d put a few lumps of coal on top of the wood, was trying diplomacy. ‘I’ll bring you in some tea, then you can read the letter again.’

  ‘I don’t want to read the bloody letter again,’ her mother had shouted. ‘And you’re not going anywhere until we’ve asked your father.’

  The flames roared as she put a match to the paper. Tansu, nervous and scampering, had gone to get the tea, while Joyce sat breathing heavily, bright spots of temper colour on her cheeks.

  Saba then made things worse by telling her mother that she thought it was a wonderful opportunity for her, and that even Mr Chamberlain had said on the wireless that everyone should now do their bit for the war effort.

  ‘I’ve done enough for the sodding war effort,’ Joyce shouted. ‘Your sister’s gone and God knows when she’ll be back. Your father’s never here. I’m working all hours at Curran’s. It’s time you got a job there too.’

  ‘I’m not talking about you, Mum!’ Saba roared. ‘I’m talking about me. You were the one who told me to dream big bloody dreams.’

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake.’ Her mother snatched off her turban and lashed on her pinafore. ‘That was a joke. And anyway, Mr Chamberlain didn’t mean you singing songs and waving your legs in the air.’

  Saba stared at her mother in disbelief. Had she honestly and truly said that? The same Joyce who’d thundered roaring and laughing down the aisle with her at Snow White at the Gaiety when they’d asked for children on the stage. Who’d taken her to all those ballet lessons, squishing her plump feet into good toes, naughty toes. Who’d stayed up half the night, only three months ago, sewing the red dress for the hospital concert, and cried buckets when she’d heard her sing ‘All Through the Night’ only the week before.

  ‘It wasn’t a joke, Mum,’ she shrieked, her dander well up now. ‘Or if it was, you might have bloody let me in on it.’ She was thinking of the harder stuff – the diets, the singing lessons, breaking two ribs when the trapeze they used for ‘Showtime’ had snapped.

  ‘Yes it was. It was off a film, and we’re not people in films.’

  And then Tansu, usually her one hundred per cent friend and ally, had made that disapproving Turkish tut tut tut sound, the clicking of the tongue followed by a sharp intake of breath, that really got on Saba’s nerves, and which loosely translated to no, no, no, no. Tansu said if she went to London, the bombs would fall on her head. Saba replied that bombs were falling on their bloody heads here. There had already been one in Pomeroy Street. Joyce said she would wash Saba’s mouth out with soap if she swore at her gran again, then Joyce and Tansu stomped into the kitchen.

  ‘Listen!’ Saba followed them. ‘I could go anywhere: to Cairo, or India, or France or somewhere.’ As she said it, she saw herself silhouetted against a bright red sky, singing for the soldiers.

  ‘Well you can forget about that, too.’ Her mother slammed the potatoes into cold water and lit the gas, her hands fiery with chilblains. ‘Your father will go mad. And for once, I don’t blame him.’

  Ah! So they had come to it at last: the real heart of the matter. Her father would go mad. Mum’s emotional weathervane was always turned towards him and the storms that would come.

  ‘I’m twenty-three years old.’ Saba and her mother faced each other, breathing heavily. ‘He can’t tell me what to do any more.’

  ‘Yes he can,’ her mother yelled. ‘He’s your flaming father.’

  She’d looked at her mother with contempt. ‘Do you ever have a single thought of your own, Mum?’ That was cruel: she knew the consequences of her mother sticking up for herself.

  Her mother’s head shot up as if she’d been struck.

  ‘You haven’t got a clue, have you?’ she said at last. ‘You’re a stupid, selfish girl.’

  ‘Clue about what, Mum?’ Some devil kept Saba going.

  ‘What it’s like for your father on the ships. It’s carnage in the shipping lanes – half the time they go around with their knees bent, expecting another bomb to drop on their heads.’

  That brought them both to the edge of tears.

  ‘I want to do something that makes sense to me – I don’t want to just work in the factory. I can do something more.’

  ‘Uggh,’ was all her mother said.

  That hurt too, and made it worse – her mother, her great supporter, talking as if she couldn’t stand her at a moment that should have been so fine. She ran down the dark corridor where photos of her father’s severe-looking Turkish ancestors gazed down on one side, and her mother’s glum lot from the Welsh valleys on the other. Slamming the door behind her, she ran into the back yard. She sat down in the outside privy, sobbing.

  She was nearly twenty-four years old and completely stuck. The year the war had started was the year in which she had had a whole wonderful life worked out – her first tour with The Simba Sisters around the south coast; singing lessons with a professional in Swansea; freedom, the chance to have the life she’d trained for and dreamed of for so long. Nothing to look forward to now except a factory job, or, if she was lucky, the odd amateur concert or radio recording.

  ‘Saba.’ A timid knock on the door. Tansu walked in wearing her floral pinny and her gumboots, even though it wasn’t raining. She had her watering can in her hand. ‘Saba,’ she gave a jagged sigh, ‘don’t go ma house.’ Don’t go ma house was Tansu-speak for ‘I love you, don’t leave me.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Tansu,’ she said. ‘You’ve come to the concerts. You’ve seen me. You’ve said I was born to do this. I thought we were all in this together.’
r />   Tansu pulled a dead leaf off the jasmine bush she’d planted in the back yard that had resolutely refused to thrive. ‘Too many people leave this house,’ she said. ‘Your sister has gone to the valley.’

  ‘She hasn’t gone,’ Saba protested. Lou, at eight the baby of the family, had been sent away to avoid the bombs to a nice family in the Rhondda Valley. She came home with her little suitcase on the bus most weekends.

  ‘Your father at sea.’

  ‘He wants to be there. It’s his life.’

  ‘You no ma pinish.’ Another way of saying don’t go.

  ‘Tansu, I’ve dreamed about this for the whole of my life. I’ll make money for us. I’ll buy you a big house near Üsküdar.’ The place Tan always mentioned when she talked about Turkey.

  ‘No.’ Tansu refused to meet her eye. She stood there, legs braced, eyes down, as old and unmovable as rock.

  Saba looked over her head, at the darkening sky, the seagulls flying towards the docks. ‘Please help me, Tan,’ she said. They’d sung together once. Tan had taught her baby songs.

  ‘I say nothing,’ said Tansu. ‘Talk to your father.’

  Her father, Remzi, was an engineer on the Fyffes’ ships that had once carried bananas and coal and rice all around the world. Dark-haired and with a permanent five o’clock shadow, he was handsome and energetic. As a child, he seemed to her a God-like figure who ruled the waves. The names of the ships he sailed on – Copacabana, Takoradi, Matadi – intoxicated her like poetry or a drug. On his visits home, she’d ride high and proud on his shoulders down Pomeroy Street and into the Bay, listening to other local men stop and say hello to him or ask him respectfully whether he could put in a good word for them and get them work.

  And the big joke, not so funny now, was that it was her father who had first discovered she could sing. They’d been at the Christmas party in St William’s church hall, and little old leather-lungs had stood on a chair and sung ‘D’Ye Ken John Peel’ and brought the house down. His face had bloomed with love and pride, and he’d encouraged her to sing at family parties: Turkish songs, Arabic songs, the French songs he’d learned from sailors.