by Anna Hope
“Capital!” says Humphrey, kissing Di on the cheek. “You made it. And this must be …”
“Henrietta.” She holds out her hand.
He is not much older than them, has an easy handshake and a pleasant, freckled face. He looks nice, at least. Not like some of the ones Di has been with in the past. After a year at the Palais, Hettie has a compass for men. Two minutes in their company and she can tell what they’re like. Whether they are married, sweaty-guilty, sneaking out for an evening alone. That glazed look they get when they’re imagining you without your clothes. Or sometimes, like Humphrey, when they’re actually sweet. “Come on,” he says with a grin, “we’re over here.”
They follow him, picking their way as best they can through the crowded tables. Hettie makes slow progress, since she keeps falling behind, twisting to see the band and their singer, whose skin is so astonishingly dark, and the dancers, many of whom are moving wildly in a way no one at the Palais would dare. Eventually they arrive at a table in the corner, not far from the stage, where a short man in tails scrambles eagerly to his feet.
“Diana, Henrietta,” says Humphrey, “this is Gus.”
Hettie’s companion for the evening is thick-set and doughy, barely taller than she is. His hair is thinning, his scalp shiny in the heat. Her heart sinks behind her smile.
“May I take your coat?” He hovers around her, and she shrugs it off. Her old brown overcoat is bad enough, but beneath it she is wearing her dance dress, the only one she has, and after a double shift at work already tonight it is none too fresh.
On the other side of the table, meanwhile, Di unwraps, revealing the dress she bought with Humphrey’s money just last week. Hettie sinks into her seat. The dress. This dress has a physical effect on her; she covets it so much it hurts. It is almost black, but covered with so many beads, so tiny, so dazzling in their iridescence, that it is impossible to tell just what color it is. She was there when Di bought it, in the ready-made at Selfridges. It cost six pounds of Humphrey’s money, and she had to swallow her envy and smile when afterwards, for fun, they rode up and down in the lifts.
Both men stare until Gus, remembering his manners, takes the seat beside hers, pointing to a plate of sandwiches in the middle of the table. “They’re rather grim,” he says with a smile, “but they have to serve them with the drinks. No license, you see. We’ll just pile them up on the side.” He lifts them away, and she regretfully watches them go. She could murder something to eat. Hasn’t had a thing since a ham and paste sandwich in the break between shifts at six.
“So,” Gus pours from a bottle on the table and hands her a glass, “I s’pose you’re awfully good, then. You pair—Humph told me—dance instructresses at the Palais, aren’t you?”
“Oh …” Hettie takes a sip. The drink is fizzy and sweet. She can’t be sure, but she thinks it might be champagne. “We’re all right, I suppose.”
They’re better than all right, really, she and Di. They’ve been practicing their steps for years, in carpet-rolled-back living rooms, singing out the tunes they’ve memorized, poring over the pictures in Modern Dancing, taking turns being the man. They’re the best two dancers at the Palais by far. And that’s not boasting. It’s just the truth.
“I’m a terrible dancer,” says Gus, sticking his lower lip out like a child.
Hettie smiles at him. He may not look like much, but at least he’s harmless. “I’m sure you’re not.”
“No, really.” He points downward, grimacing. “Left feet. Born with two.”
There’s a raucous cheer from the dance floor and she turns to see the singer goading his band, urging them on. They are American, they must be. No English band she knows looks or plays like this; definitely not the house band at the Palais, not anymore, not since the Original Dixies left, with their cowbells and whistles and hooters, to go back to New York. And the crowd—they’re dancing crazily, as though they don’t care a fig what anyone thinks. If only her mum could see this. Respectable is her favorite word. If she could see these posh people enjoying themselves, she’d throw a fit.
Hettie turns back to Gus. “Its just practice,” she says, taking another sip of the drink, her body itching with the beat.
“No, no,” he insists. “I’m terrible. Never could get the hang.” He gives his glass a couple of brisk twists, then, “Up for a go, though,” he says, “if you’d like a turn round the floor?”
“I’d love one,” say Hettie, throwing a quick glance at Di, whose dark head is bent close to Humphrey’s, deep in a whispered, intimate conversation that she cannot hear.
The crashing chords of the rag are fading now, and the band is moving into a four-four number, something slow. They shoulder their way through the crowd and find a spot on the edge of the packed dance floor. Gus takes her hands in his and then looks up to the ceiling, as if the mysteries of movement might be written out for him there. Then he bounces a bit, counting under his breath, and they are off.
He was right. He is a terrible dancer. He has no sense of the music, is already two beats ahead, snatching at it, not letting it guide him at all.
Listen! Hettie wants to say. Just let it move you. Can’t you hear how killing they are?
But it won’t help, so she tries to fit her feet to his awkward steps.
(They have a rule at the Palais: Never dance better than your partner. You’re hired to make them feel good. If they feel good, then they’ll hire you again. As Di is fond of saying, It’s all just economics in the end.)
After a few bars, Gus’s grip loosens and he looks up, delighted. “Damned if I’m not getting the hang of this!” They go into the turn, Hettie exaggerates her movements to flatter his, and as the number comes to a close, he takes a victory lap around the floor. “Humph was right!” He beams, coming to a breathless stop. “You girls are really something. Damned thirsty work, though.” He takes his hanky from his pocket and mops his face. “Hang on a tick, I’ll fetch us something cold from the bar.”
He disappears into the crush, and Hettie finds a spot close to the damp wall, happy for a moment to be alone, just to take it all in. A young couple squeeze past her, giggling, holding each other up. The girl is young and elegant, her body wrapped in blue silk, her long neck trailing pearls, but her lovely face is blurry, and she keeps slipping off her partner’s arm. It is a moment before Hettie realizes she is drunk. She stares after them, half expecting someone to come and tell them off. But no one seems to bat an eyelid. She’s not at the Palais now.
Just then someone knocks into her, hard, from behind, and she almost falls, catching herself just in time.
“Sorry. My God. Sorry.”
Hettie turns to see a tall man beside her. He seems distracted, an apologetic smile on his lips. “So sorry,” he says again. One hand tugs at his hair, the other grips an amber-colored drink. “Are you all right? Thought you were a goner, then.”
“Yes … fine.” She gives a small, embarrassed laugh, though whether for him or herself, she cannot tell.
The man’s eyes land on her properly, taking her in, and Hettie feels herself flush. He is a very good-looking man.
“My God,” he says. His smile fades, and a different, shrinking expression takes its place.
Heat stings her cheeks. What? What is it? What can you see? But she says nothing, and the man carries on staring, as though she were something awful from which he cannot look away.
“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head as though to clear it. An echo of the smile is back. “Thought you were—” He holds up his glass. “Drink? Must let me get you a drink. Say sorry and all that.”
She shakes her head. “Thank you. I’m … Someone’s already buying me one.”
She steps away, wanting to put distance between them, to find a mirror, to check that everything is all right with her face, but the man puts his hand on her arm. “Where are you from?”
“Pardon?” she says. His grip is tight.
“I only meant, are you English, then?”
“Yes.”
He nods, releases her. Is it disappointment she can see on his face?
“Excuse me . …” She ducks away, escaping him, threading through the crowd, which is even denser now, looking for the lavatories, finding them through an archway, small and damp-smelling, a dark spray of mold clinging to the walls.
She examines herself in the mirror, breathing hard. There is nothing particularly terrible to see, other than a red blotch of embarrassment on her neck and that two of her bobby pins have come loose and her hair is threatening to unravel. She pushes the offending pins back into the bristling porcupine it takes to hold it up. Her long, stupid hair that her mother won’t let her cut.
If you come home looking like that friend of yours, you’ll catch it. Filthy little flapper.
Her mother doesn’t know a thing. Di has the best haircut of any of the girls at the Palais. They are always trying to get her to let on where she has it done.
Hettie steadies herself against the cold rim of the sink. It’s late. She’s been on her feet for hours. The night, which had been filled with promise, is curdling somehow, and the same old doubts are rushing in. She is from Hammersmith. She is too tall. Her dress is old and she cannot afford another since she gives half her wages to her mother and her useless brother every week. She’s scrubbed cleaning petrol and scent on the armpits more times than she can count, but it still stinks and she’ll probably never have a dress like Di’s as long as she lives. She’s got to be nice to Gus. And to top it all off, her breasts stick out, no matter how much she tries to strap them down.
It is that man’s fault, she thinks, finding her eyes in the mirror. The way he looked at her, and his questions. Where are you from? As though he could tell she didn’t belong here, in this club with these people who act so freely in their drunkenness and dancing, as if whatever they do, their life will hold them up.
Come on.
She splashes water on her cheeks, checks that her petticoat isn’t slipping, and stabs a last stubborn pin in her hair. The red blotches on her neck have calmed a little now.
Back out in the fray, she scans the crowd, relieved to see that the tall man has disappeared. There is no sign of Gus either, and when she finally spots him, his shiny bald head is still bobbing in the queue at the bar. Over at the table, Di and Humphrey haven’t moved. Except, perhaps, a little closer together. Hettie can see Di laughing at something Humphrey has said. They don’t look as though they’d welcome an interruption. For a moment, standing there alone, her fragile resolve threatens to falter. But something is happening over on the dance floor. People have stopped moving, and the band is slowing, the instruments dropping out one by one, until only the drummer remains, keeping the beat with a lone, shivering snare. Then he, too, comes to a stop, putting his hand over the bronze discs to still them, and a hush descends on the club. Over at the table, Di and Humphrey look up.
Hettie, breath caught, steps away from the wall.
For an electric moment it feels as though anything may happen, until the trumpeter steps forward and lifts his instrument to play. It flashes in the low light. A flare of purest sound fills the room. Hettie closes her eyes, letting it in, letting it hollow her out, and then, when the man begins to play in earnest, the notes drip molten gold into the space he has made. And standing here, full of this music, it hits her with the force of revelation that it doesn’t matter—none of it, not really: she is young, she can dance, and it was worth her ten shillings just to see this place, to hear these musicians, to tell the girls at the Palais on Monday that it’s true—that there is a club in the West End, buried underground, with the best jazz band since the Dixies left for New York.
“Are you lurking?”
She snaps open her eyes. The man from before is a few feet away, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re lurking,” he says.
“I’m not lurking.” Her heart thuds dangerously against her chest.
“You are. I’ve been watching you for two whole minutes. Two minutes constitutes a lurk.”
She can feel that awful flush creeping back up her neck. “I’m not, actually—I’m watching the band.” She crosses her arms, looking away from him, trying to focus on the trumpeter’s fingers, trying to remember how good she just felt.
From the corner of her eye she sees the man push himself away from the wall. “You’re not one of those anarchists, are you?” he says.
She turns to him, incredulous.
His gray eyes are steady. This time he doesn’t smile. “I’ve read about your sort. You go into public places like this.” His hand sweeps over the club. “Hundreds of innocents. Bomb in your coat. Leave it in the lavatories. Lurk a bit, then … boom.” He mimes something exploding. As his hands move up and away from each other, ash falls, scattering in the air. A few flakes land on her dress.
For a moment, she is too surprised to speak. Then, “My coat’s over there,” she says, gesturing to the table in the corner. “And there’s no bomb inside. Anyway, if I were going to blow something up, I wouldn’t lurk. I’d leave.”
“Ah.” He nods. “Well, perhaps I got you wrong.”
“Yes,” she says. “You did.”
They hold each other’s gaze. She tries to keep steady, wanting to read him, but her compass is haywire and she cannot fathom him at all.
Then his face cracks open with a smile. “Sorry.” He shakes his head. “Terrible sense of humor.”
Her heart skips. It is disconcerting, the smile; so sudden, as though there were another person entirely hidden underneath. He looks respectable enough, dressed in white shirt and tails, but there is something odd about the way he wears them. She can’t say just what it is. Indifference? His hair is unslicked. There are purple shadows beneath his eyes.
He reaches into his pocket, takes out a flask, and lifts it to her mouth. “Here, have a bit of this while you wait.”
“No, thank you.”
She half turns from him, cringing as she hears her voice in her head: No, thank you. She sounds so Hammersmith. So up-past-her-bedtime. So prim.
“Go on. It’s good stuff. Single malt.”
His eyes are laughing now. Is he laughing at her? He is the sort of man who could talk to anyone. So what is he doing hanging around here? It feels like a trick.
She should go and find Gus; he must have been served by now.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, she reaches for the man’s flask, takes it, lifts it to her mouth.
Because she’s only here for tonight, and her companion is useless and elsewhere, and her friend is otherwise engaged.
And so what has she got to lose?
She is unprepared for the sharp hit of the drink, though, and she chokes and coughs.
“Not much of a whisky girl, then?”
She takes another, deeper pull in reply. This time she swallows it down. “Thanks,” she says, pleased with herself, handing it back.
He looks out over the dance floor. “Are you here to dance, then?” he says. “Or have you just come to lurk?”
“I’ve come here to dance,” she says, as the whisky flares in her blood.
“Glad to hear it.” He crushes his cigarette in an ashtray nearby and turns to her. “How would you feel about dancing with me?”
“If you like.”
Fewer people are dancing now, and they can walk straight out to the middle of the floor. Once there, the man holds up his hands. It is an odd gesture, not quite the gesture of a man beginning a dance, more that of a man who is unarmed. Hettie puts one hand in his, the other on his evening coat, which is fitted tight against his back. The crease of his collar touches her ear. His hand is cool. He smells of lemons and cigarettes. She
feels a bit dizzy. Perhaps it’s the drink.
The soulful, gorgeous trumpet has faded now, and the band is picking up again, the music moving into a rag, a one-step.
One-two, one-two.
The floor is filling, people pressing all around them, cheering, clapping, stamping the music back into life.
One-two, one-two.
He steps toward her.
Hettie steps back.
And it’s there; it’s in that first tiny movement—the flash of recognition. Yes! The rare feeling she gets when someone knows how to move. Then the music crashes in, and they are dancing together across the floor.
“Good band tonight,” he says, over the music. “American. I like the Americans.”
“Me too.”
“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow. “Who’ve you seen, then?”
“The Original Dixies.”
“The Dixies? Damn.” He looks impressed. “They were the best.” He puts his leg between hers as he goes for the spin. “Where’d you see them?”
“The Palais. Hammersmith.” She comes back to face him.
“Really? I went there once—saw them there, too!” He looks eager suddenly, like a boy.
Hettie considers this, wonders if they danced near each other. They definitely didn’t dance together. She’d have remembered.
“What was your favorite number, then?”
She laughs; that’s easy. “ ‘Tiger Rag.’ ”
“ ‘Tiger Rag’!” He grins. “Crikey. That one’s dangerous. So damn fast.”
The fastest of all. Even she used to get out of breath.
“What was he called?” His face creases. “That trumpeter—Nick something or other.”
“LaRocca.”
Nick LaRocca—the world-famous trumpeter from New York. He used to make the girls go barmy. He’d smiled at her once, in the drafty backstage Palais corridor: Hey, kid! he said, and winked as he was doing up his bow tie. She’s had his picture above her bed ever since.
