The September Girls (57 page)

‘I’ll see how Hector feels about coming, but I doubt if he’ll want to. Have you noticed,’ Eleanor said, ‘that the Americans haven’t shown the faintest bit of interest in Cara or Fielding? It’s not girls they’re after, but a home-from-home with substitute mothers and children to remind them of the brothers and sisters they left behind.’

‘Well, they’ve found a home in Parliament Terrace. Nancy thinks the world of them.’ Brenna’s face softened. ‘They’re hardly out of nappies, poor lads. Imagine how their mams and dads must feel with their sons halfway across the world! Still, at least they’re safe while they’re in England.’

Eleanor’s head drooped and the veil cast a shadow over her face. ‘Jonathan was only in Scotland, but
he
wasn’t safe, was he, Bren?’

 

The train was a mere half-hour late. It chugged into the station, disgorging clouds of dirty smoke and hordes of troops coming home on leave for Christmas. She hoped Hector and the other civilian passengers hadn’t been ordered off at some isolated station in the middle of nowhere to allow the troops on.

A small crowd had gathered by the ticket barrier waiting for passengers to come through. Every now and then, there would be a little scream of welcome and someone would be seized and showered with kisses. It had been daylight when she entered the station, but now it was almost dark and difficult to see. A man appeared out of the gloom wearing a donkey jacket, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. She was about to dart forward, but when he got nearer she saw he was too tall and much too young. He was followed by a man in a belted raincoat and soft trilby hat, the right build, but too well dressed for Hector. Eleanor stood on tiptoe, straining to see over the heads of the people in front.

‘Hello, there,’ said a gruff voice. ‘I’m sorry I’m so late.’

She gulped. The man in the raincoat had stopped and raised his hat in greeting. ‘I didn’t recognize you. I wasn’t expecting you to look so smart. Oh, I’m sorry,’ she burbled, ‘that was a terribly tactless thing to say.’ She’d had a second sherry in the restaurant, but the effects had long worn off and now she was acting like a silly schoolgirl.

‘It doesn’t matter, Eleanor.’ He gave the shadow of a smile, while still managing to look terribly grim. She felt embarrassed at having opened her heart to this dour individual who couldn’t even smile like a normal person. ‘Morag bought me the raincoat last Christmas and I’m wearing it for the first time. I didn’t want to make a show of you in front of your friends.’

If he expected to meet her friends, perhaps he would be willing to go to Parliament Terrace tomorrow for tea. She hoped so. Nancy and Brenna were dying to meet him. Nancy referred to him as ‘your Scottish penfriend’, as if Eleanor had penfriends all over the place.

After all the things they’d written to each other, she couldn’t think of a single word to say - and it would seem that neither could he. He walked silently beside her as she led the way towards the exit. Outside, the blackout was upon them and all that could be seen were the headlamps on the crawling traffic showing tiny pin-pricks of light.

She said, ‘I think we’d better hold on to each other, Hector. If you get lost, I might never find you again.’

Hector took her arm and tucked it inside his. ‘Don’t worry about it, Eleanor. I’d soon find you.’ And Eleanor knew that everything was going to be all right.

 

Nancy had come to live in the house before the turn of the century and had lost count of the number of meals over which she’d presided. The first she could remember had been when Eleanor was a tiny girl and had held tea parties for her dolls. Sometimes, Mrs Allardyce, poorly though she was, had come down and joined them. There’d been birthday teas, birthday parties - slightly grander affairs with more guests - and special teas if someone was going away or returning. There was that short period when the Caffrey lads had been in St Hilda’s orphanage and the whole family had come to tea on Sunday afternoons. She recalled Sybil’s first birthday tea when Marcus had condescended to join them. Daniel Vaizey and Nurse Hutton had been there and Daniel and Eleanor had, unintentionally, made it plain for all to see that they were in love with each other. Not long afterwards, Marcus had thrown Eleanor out of the house, a good thing as it happened, as having to live on her own had done Eleanor a power of good. Then there was Sybil and Cara’s seventh birthday party when Sybil had made a terrible show of herself - Marcus had spoilt the child rotten.

She wondered what Sybil was doing now. What would Christmas Day be like in India? There’d been a time when the girl had written to her regularly, but she seemed to think Nancy was partly to blame for Cara marrying Marcus, had sworn never to enter the house again and hadn’t written to Nancy since Marcus had died.

But of all the meals she’d served in the basement kitchen over the years, none could beat today’s Christmas dinner for such good humour, high spirits and the sheer happiness of all concerned, not to mention the glorious food.

If she could have waved a wand and made a wish, Nancy would have wished the day never to end so that no one in the room would ever be unhappy again, that they would keep on smiling and enjoying themselves until the end of time. She couldn’t have been more pleased that Eleanor had come with Hector, her sombre Scottish friend. It was the first occasion in ages she’d seen Eleanor smile and Hector couldn’t resist grinning at the antics of the young Americans and Fielding’s dry remarks.

A voice, said, ‘Has she gone asleep with her eyes open?’

‘I think she must be in a trance,’ another voice said.

‘Nancy!’ a third voice said sharply.

Nancy blinked and became aware that a dozen faces were staring at her with a mixture of amusement and concern. Sean was fast asleep in his high chair and Kitty was sitting on Eddie’s knee. ‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered and felt her face flush. ‘I was lost in me thoughts.’ The truth was that she was drunk, very drunk, having indulged in the occasional sip of whiskey while making the meal. It was a very big meal and had taken a long time to prepare, even though Cara and Brenna had helped while Fielding had looked after the children. By the time it was ready, the sips had amounted to a quarter of the bottle, she’d felt unsteady on her feet and had been glad to sit down.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Brenna asked.

Nancy nodded somewhat dazedly.

‘What were you thinking about?’ Eddie enquired.

‘Nothing much,’ Nancy replied, recovering her composure; well, more or less.

‘We were just about to drink a toast to our American friends,’ Fergus said, waving a bottle of wine. ‘Shall I fill up your glass?

‘No, ta,’ Nancy said quickly, putting her hand over the glass. ‘You know me, I don’t drink an awful lot. I’ll have lemonade.’

The toast drunk, Eddie and Nelson looked quite overwhelmed, but Dexter, the most self-possessed of the trio, said they’d all been dreading Christmas, the first they’d ever spent away from home, ‘But you English folk have made us feel truly welcome. I hope we can all be together at the same time next year.’ There was a chorus of ‘Hear, hear’ and Dexter continued, ‘And now we’ve finished eating, can we go up to the parlour? I can’t wait to get at that piano.’

There was a rush for the door, but Nancy stayed where she was. She had no intention of washing the dishes, but she needed a couple of strong cups of tea before she dared attempt to climb the stairs.

 

Sybil carefully drew a black kohl line around her eyes, smoothed brown shadow over the lids and brushed her lashes with mascara. She stood back from the mirror in the ladies’ toilet to examine the effect. Her eyes looked enormous above the heavily rouged cheeks and red-painted lips. In fact, she hardly recognized herself. ‘I can’t believe it’s me,’ she said.

‘It isn’t you, and this isn’t me,’ smiled Anne Purcell, a first lieutenant like herself, whose face was similarly painted. ‘You are Yasmin and I am Fatima and we are exotic Indian dancers. It’s Christmas Day and we are about to dance in front of a large audience of men and women - mainly men, already drunk out of their minds - and will be met with a chorus of wolf whistles and catcalls.’ She looked at herself thoughtfully in the mirror. ‘You know, I’d love to stick a sequin on the side of my nose, but I might not get it off.’ ‘How about a beauty spot? It would easily wash off with the make-up.’

‘Good idea!’ Anne applied a beauty spot to the side of her mouth. ‘You know, Sybil,’ she said warmly, ‘you’ve been an enormous sport, taking over from Hettie when she got cold feet. And you’re much better than she was. You really let yourself go, whereas Hettie was terribly stiff. And to think I always thought you rather snooty.’

‘I don’t quite know what got into me,’ Sybil confessed, ‘offering to dance.’ She supposed it was because all the junior officers on the base had been involved in some way with the concert they were giving on Christmas Day and she’d been feeling left out, until a few weeks ago that was, when she’d heard Anne and Hettie Bartholomew having a furious row in the mess. It seemed the women had agreed to dance at the concert if two of the men did a striptease, but Hettie was having second thoughts since she’d seen the costumes, which were very revealing.

‘What if my fiancé finds out?’ she’d asked nervously.

‘He’ll only find out if you tell him,’ Anne snapped. ‘And even if he does, you’re not exactly being unfaithful.’

‘No, but I shall
feel
unfaithful. I’m not doing it, Anne. My mind is made up.’ To avoid further argument, Hettie left the mess, the look on her face suggesting she’d just upheld a strong moral principle.

‘Bugger!’ Anne said crossly to no one in particular. ‘What am I supposed to do now?’

‘I’ll take her place,’ Sybil offered impulsively.

‘You! But when we put up the list asking for volunteers to help with the concert, you were virtually the only one who didn’t put their name down.’

‘That was months ago and I didn’t feel like it then.’ She was still thinking about Jonathan, still hurt by what had happened at his funeral, fed up getting letters from Mummy going on about the thug, how they wrote to each other every week, what a comfort he was, extolling the virtues of Sean: ‘Your new half-brother - at least you have another half-brother in place of Jonathan, darling. I shall never have another son.’ Just as if Sean, a child she’d never seen, never wanted to see, could possibly replace Jonathan in her heart. It was such a crass remark that Sybil hadn’t written to her mother again for months.

By September, she was beginning to feel better. She quite liked her post as officer-in-charge of Colonel Samson’s office. She got on reasonably well with the four female typists, who called her everything behind her back, but that was par for the course and she didn’t care. She also realized she loved India. She loved the people who, in the main, were kind and generous and incredibly childlike. Sometimes, the heat was barely tolerable, the insects a pest, the snakes terrifying, the food either delicious or horribly bad.

Her favourite time was evening when it was cool and she would wander around the dimly lit bazaars, like an Aladdin’s cave, full of handmade jewellery, pure silk scarves and clothes, loads of tooled leather handbags and beautiful ornaments. She wished she hadn’t made an enemy of virtually everyone she knew in Liverpool and could buy them presents - everything was ridiculously cheap.

‘Before you commit yourself,’ Anne had said, ‘I’d better show you the costumes. They’re in my billet and they
are
rather revealing.’

Anne’s outfit was pink, Sybil’s a dusky yellow. They comprised short-sleeved satin tops, which left the midriff bare, and sheer baggy trousers, the legs gathered in a band of tiny bells at the ankle. Everything was liberally sprinkled with jewels, sequins and miniature mirrors, including the headdress and the veils that half covered the face. There were dozens of gold bangles and rings as big as knuckledusters.

‘What d’you think?’ Anne had asked. ‘There’re no shoes. We dance in our bare feet and we’ll have to get pink and yellow knickers to wear underneath.’

‘Well, if you’re prepared to wear them, so am I.’ Anne was a rosy-cheeked, down-to-earth young woman who’d played hockey for her school. Sybil couldn’t imagine her doing anything even faintly shameful.

‘Shall we try them on, see how they fit? Then I’ll explain the dance. It’s very simple, just a few steps either way and you have to wave your hands about a lot. The whole thing’s supposed to be a joke, like the striptease, but as my grandmother always says,’ Anne’s lips stretched into a straight line, ‘if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, so I’m determined to put on a jolly good show.’

‘I’m with you there,’ Sybil agreed.

‘I bought a book on Indian dancing,’ Anne continued, ‘but all we can do is look at the pictures because the text isn’t in English. All the gestures mean something and we must learn to synchronize them. Oh, and we should practise putting the make-up on. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never used mascara or eye shadow in my life.’

‘Neither have I.’

Anne was a hard taskmaster and they’d rehearsed every day in her billet until they had the movements off pat: the shuffling feet, the swaying hips, bent knees, head jerking from side to side while keeping the shoulders absolutely still.

And now it was Christmas Eve and the mess was full, not just of Army officers, but RAF and Navy personnel, too.

There was a knock on the door and a voice shouted, ‘Are you girls ready to be introduced?’

‘How about you, Yasmin?’ Anne asked nervously, looking scared all of a sudden.

‘I’m ready if you are, Fatima.’ Sybil hooked the veil across her face, covering everything except her eyes. Anne did the same and Sybil gave her a little shove towards the door. Perhaps she should have gone into show business. She’d loved singing in the choir, and now she was really looking forward to dancing in front of an audience. ‘Come on, let’s go.’