Unforgettable (27 page)

‘Blimey, gel, what happened to you?' Dolly said hoarsely.

Gracie shuddered. The horrors of that day hadn't left her yet. She wished she could have blacked out quickly, the way Dolly had. She probably didn't even remember it clearly, but the noise and the screams and the smells would remain with Gracie for ever.

‘Facial injuries, and my leg was crushed,' she said briefly. ‘At one time they thought they were going to have to chop it off, but they decided against it. Good thing too. How would I ever have gone dancing again with only one leg?'

She tried to make a joke of it, but her last
words were lost in an enormous, choking swallow. Dolly couldn't speak, as all that she was hearing sank in. She wasn't much for what she called slushy stuff, but right now she knew that if she had the strength—and if Gracie could get flipping well near enough with that bandage on her leg—she'd hug her and hug her, just to show how thankful she was that they were both alive.

‘Well, we're both still here. We may be battered and bruised, but I reckon Somebody Up There was looking down on us,' she managed eventually.

And saying ‘Thank God'—and meaning it—didn't seem quite so against her principles now, either. In fact, when she came to think of it, she had quite a lot to thank God for, especially having a friend like Gracie Brown.

‘They're keeping me here for a couple more weeks to make sure my leg heals properly,' Gracie went on, ‘and I don't suppose you'll be going home yet either. Not much of a way to end a day's outing, is it? I wish I'd never suggested it now. I should have stayed home and finished those bridesmaid dresses.'

‘Don't be daft,' Dolly answered, alarmed at her dispirited voice. Gracie was always so strong, coping with her mum's illness and then her dad's drowning, but she looked
anything but strong now. ‘You need a day off now and then, and you couldn't have guessed the train was going to go off the rails, could you? You ain't a clairvoyant.'

But Gracie's thoughts were already going off at a tangent.

‘They've been giving me stuff to deaden the pain, and I reckon it deadened my brain as well. But now that I feel a bit more sensible, I'll have to let Mrs Barnes-Gilbert know what's happened, so I'm going to write to her and explain. Thank goodness there's still some weeks before the wedding, but I don't want her to think I'm a lazy worker.'

‘For heaven's sake, Gracie,' Dolly said, but her voice was becoming slurred as the drugs took over again. ‘Everybody knows you're the best there is, so stop worrying about other people and think about yourself. At least when it comes to
your
wedding, you'll be walking up the aisle instead of hopping on one leg!'

Gracie laughed, but there was little mirth in the sound. ‘I've got to find somebody to marry me first.'

Involuntarily, she touched her fingers to the bandage on her cheek, and without being told, Dolly knew she was dreading the time when it came off and she saw just how scarred she really was.

* * *

Two weeks later a small bouquet of flowers arrived at the hospital, addressed to Miss Gracie Brown, together with several letters. The one accompanying the flowers was from Mrs Barnes-Gilbert, who assured Gracie that there was still plenty of time for the bridesmaid dresses to be finished, and that she wasn't to worry about them until she was fully recovered.

‘What she means,' Dolly said cynically, on the Saturday afternoon she came back to visit, bringing good wishes from all at Ma Warburton's and Lawson's Shirt Factory, ‘is that she can always get some more dresses run up if you ain't capable of finishing them.'

‘Well, thank you for that vote of confidence! What are you doing here, anyway? You should be out enjoying yourself, not visiting the sick.'

‘And ain't you the touchy one, now you're getting better!'

‘I'm sorry,' Gracie said. ‘But my leg is itching fit to burst. It's healing better than they thought, though, and I'll be thankful when this blessed bandage comes off next week.'

And even though there would be scars, she was assured that they would fade in time, and
meanwhile they would be hidden underneath her stockings. She refused to look in the mirror except when absolutely necessary, though the nurses had assured her that the angry scar at the side of her cheek would also fade, and that she could easily dress her hair to cover it.

‘So who's the other letter from?' Dolly said.

Gracie felt her face flood with colour.

‘I wrote to my landlord to let him know what had happened, and he sent a note back and his wife sent me a card, which was very sweet of her.'

‘And? It's not a card from an old dear that's put that look on your face!'

Gracie just managed not to snap that no, it was flying glass from a train window that had done that. Instead, she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out the letter that she had read and reread a hundred times already.

‘You'd better see for yourself,' she said, handing her Charlie's letter.

Dolly read it quickly, her eyes widening.

‘It's your bloke,' she exclaimed. ‘Your saxophone player!'

Gracie couldn't be bothered to repeat that he wasn't
her
saxophone player. She was still too bemused and excited and stunned and overwhelmed that Charlie had tracked her down at all. And that he wanted to see her
again. He wanted her to go to his show and go backstage afterwards. She swallowed, feeling the familiar tingling in her veins and the quickening of her heartbeat.

And just as quickly came the downbeat of it all.

‘The trouble is,' she said flatly, ‘it's been more than two weeks since he left the letter with Mr Foster, and now he'll think I'm not interested in going to see his show, and even more, that I'm not interested in seeing
him
, won't he? And besides, there was that picture of him with that singer in the paper, wasn't there?'?

‘Oh, that was just
newspaper
stuff, and you're never going to find out if you sit and twiddle your thumbs. Write and tell him why you haven't done as he asked. Send a letter to Charlie Morrison, care of the Roxy, and explain that you've been otherwise engaged all this time,' she added, trying to coax a smile out of Gracie. ‘He could hardly have expected you to hop to the theatre, could he?'

‘I don't know what to do. Even if the picture didn't mean anything, he'll probably have lost interest in me by now.'

It was so important, such a milestone in her life, that she couldn't simply bear it if Charlie had gone all arty-farty and thumbed his nose at a girl who couldn't even be
bothered to take up his invitation. It was irrational and she knew it, but the feeling wouldn't go away. It was almost better not to know.

She saw Dolly purse her lips.

‘Well, I never thought you'd be so spineless, Gracie Brown.'

‘I'm not spineless, just realistic.' She touched the side of her face. ‘This isn't going to help either. I'm not the girl he remembers. I never thought I was vain, but every time they change the dressing and I catch sight of myself in the mirror I …'

Without warning, angry, self-pitying tears filled her eyes, and it was shameful, because she knew there were people far worse off than she was. She saw them every day, here in this hospital. She heard their anguished cries, and knew the helpless pain of their relatives.

She knew what it meant when the curtains were pulled around a bed amid a flurry of activity, before all the bedding was whisked away and disinfected for the next patient. Oh yes, there were people far worse off than she was.

‘If he thinks anything of you, he won't worry about a little scar,' Dolly went on roughly. ‘And he obviously
does
think something of you. He took the trouble to find you, didn't he? No bloke ever bothered that
much over me! You should think yourself lucky, gel, instead of sitting there looking like you've found a farthing and lost a tanner.'

‘I know all that, so stop fussing! I'll write back to him when I can decide what to say.'

‘Well, make sure you do it soon. He'll wonder what's been keeping you all this time, especially when you were making such cow-eyes at him that first night.'

‘I was not!'

Dolly grinned, cheered by the sparkle returning to Gracie's eyes.

‘Not much! You were practically ready to drop—well, I'd better not say any more, for fear of scandalizing the old ducks in the ward,' she said, chuckling. ‘When are they letting you out of here, anyway?' she added, turning the conversation neatly before Gracie could blast her for making such insinuations.

‘In another week, I hope. I have to practise walking again, since my leg's been weakened by having it bandaged all this time.'

‘Get that letter in the post to Charlie boy, then. You don't want him to go off you and find some other girl to cuddle up with on a dark night, do you?' Dolly advised. ‘Promise me now.'

‘All right, slave-driver, I promise!'

And despite her jitters she knew she felt considerably better at having Dolly chivvying
her to do what she knew she should. The only problem was in finding exactly the right words to say to Charlie.

* * *

It took a lot of thought that evening, while she chewed a pencil and surveyed the half-dozen discarded pieces of paper surrounding her. She might have sounded resolute before, but her nerves were getting the better of her again. What could she say to him? She didn't really know him. She thought she had had glimpses of him now and again since that first magical night that had ended so terribly … in the park, on a street, on a tram … but she was willing to admit that it was only because she had
wanted
to see him so much that she had turned the image of every dark-haired, good-looking man into Charlie …

In the end, she kept it simple. He had a right to know why she had ignored his invitation to the theatre and the complimentary ticket he had sent her. He had a right not to feel snubbed. So she wrote as simply as she knew how.

Dear Charlie
, she wrote, after agonizing whether or not she should be more formal, and deciding that was plain ridiculous …

Thank you for your letter and the ticket to the Roxy show. I was very happy to hear from you again; and I certainly am the Gracie
Brown you
remember—though perhaps not quite as you remember her
.

She paused for another chew at the pencil. Was that too stupid for words? Was it too pompous, putting herself in the third person?

Furious at herself for her constant indecision, she plunged on, refusing to screw up any more pieces of writing paper, and to say whatever came to mind.

I've been in an accident recently. You may have seen the account in the newspaper about the excursion train that was derailed on the way to Margate a few weeks ago, though I suppose it's old news by now. Well, me and my Friend Dolly were on that train, and landed up in hospital. Dolly's back in London now, and I hope to be going home in about a week. I had a badly crushed leg, and at one time the doctors thought I might have to have it taken off
.

He'd know how to spell the word amputated, but she didn't, and she hated the sound of it anyway, so she left it at that. He might as well know her for what she was, just
a seamstress with no great education, and if she carried on like this, then any minute now she'd be feeling so sorry for herself she wouldn't be sending the bleedin' letter at all, she thought, with a burst of Dolly's bravado.

But now they assure me I'll be as good as new apart from a few scars, and once I've mastered walking properly again, I'll be able to dance again too
.

Was that being too forward? Was it asking him to remember, the way she did, how they had once danced so close together that they could have been wearing the same skin …? Her eyes misted, and she dashed the tears away.

But she had to say the rest. Before he saw her and his eyes widened in shock and then turned away, she had to say it.

I had a facial injury too. Flying glass, they said. But they promised that the scar on the side of my cheek will fade eventually, and as long as I let my hair grow a bit, I'm sure I'll be able to hide it
.

No
,
no
,
no
! Angrily, she scratched out the last sentence. It sounded as if she was pleading for sympathy, and she was too proud
to settle for sympathy when what she yearned for was love.

So as soon as I'm able, I'll turn up at the Roxy one of these fine nights, and look forward to seeing you backstage as you suggest
.

She signed it quickly:
Gracie Brown
, and without even stopping to read it through, she stuffed it in the envelope Sister had given her and addressed it to
Charlie Morrison, c/o the Roxy Theatre
. Then, taking the bull by the horns, she limped along to Sister's office and asked her to post it for her.

‘I don't normally act as unofficial postman, miss,' Sister said pointedly, ‘but I'm glad to see you making use of those legs, so I'll do it for you tomorrow, even though you'll probably be back home before the letter arrives.'

‘That's all right,' Gracie said hastily. ‘Just as long as it gets there.'

The sister smiled more tolerantly. ‘Your young man, is it?'

‘Sort of,' Gracie mumbled, and hobbled back to the ward as fast as she could, wishing with all her heart that it was true.

It felt strange to be back in the flat, as though she had been away for months instead of a few weeks. At first she was completely disorientated. It was as if she was in an alien environment, with a need to wander through the rooms and touch all her things to make them seem familiar again.

The Fosters made a great fuss of her, insisting on sending a dish of stew upstairs for her evening meal, so that she wouldn't have to bother herself, and also a bunch of flowers to brighten up the flat, which touched her deeply.