After the Last Dance

by Sarra Manning

  ‘I promise to keep my feet on the ground,’ Rose said and Sylvia grumbled about having to spend all evening trying to find spare beds for GIs in any one of a number of the clubs and hostels they had on file, but just as they were preparing to part company she took Rose’s arm.

  ‘If Mickey starts talking about favours, you tell him that he has to go through me,’ she warned, her pretty, animated face quite serious for once. ‘I adore Mickey, but he always tries his luck. Though that’s the only thing he ever tries. Don’t make any promises, all right?’

  ‘Oh, Sylvia, it will be fine. I can handle the likes of Mickey Flynn,’ Rose said then hurried away because the sooner she got this over and done with, the better.

  She was wearing Maggie’s red velvet dress, which was a little short on her but not indecent, and her new black heels, which she’d bought from Kathy, the tobacconist’s assistant, who’d got them just after clothes rationing started because she’d mistakenly thought her feet were still growing. Rose’s hands were clammy as she pushed open the door of the billiard room, then with a furtive glance to make sure that there were no Red Cross ladies lurking, slipped inside. There really wasn’t anything to be frightened about – it was a simple business transaction, an exchange of money for goods and services – but her heart thrummed frantically as she saw Mickey sitting at what appeared to be his usual table.

  ‘Step into my office, love,’ he called when he caught sight of her. ‘No need to be nervous. Sit down.’

  There weren’t any women in the billiard room. It was all groups of men laughing, ribbing each other, even a little rough-housing around one of the tables, and there was Rose in her red dress feeling conspicuous as if all eyes were on her.

  ‘So, um, I have the money,’ she said to Mickey, who was wearing an emerald-green satin tie tonight. He had the softest, whitest hands, one of which he waved dismissively.

  ‘Plenty of time for that,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to know each other a little bit. How are you finding London, my darling?’

  Rose was absolutely not his darling but it would be rude to point that out, especially when he had her future in his hands – or possibly in the buff-coloured envelope on the table in front of him. ‘London’s wonderful,’ she said.

  ‘I’m thinking it’d be nice if we could help each other out from time to time,’ he told her.

  She swallowed hard. ‘Well, that’s very kind of you. But I’m not sure that I’d ever be any help. Unless… well, I work in a café on Wardour Street; I could probably treat you to a free cup of tea every now and again. Not particularly nice tea, I’m afraid.’

  Mickey laughed, even though Rose wasn’t attempting to be amusing. ‘I’m sure a pretty girl like you could be lots of help without even trying to…’

  He was staring in the vicinity of her neckline and Rose squirmed. ‘I’m awfully sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m meant to be doing my volunteer work so if I could just pay you…’

  She opened her handbag to pull out her purse. Mickey’s hand shot out to grab her wrist. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, will you put that away?’ All bluff and blarney disappeared. Then he looked around like a pantomime villain, decided that his reputation was safe and smiled at Rose like they were still going to be terrific pals. ‘You should have had the money ready. Do it under the table.’

  It was very hard to retrieve her purse and pull out five one-pound notes and five shillings and hand it to Mickey under cover. In one deft movement, he took the money, shoved it in his pocket and slid the envelope to her. He even managed to put a hand on her knee for one lingering moment that made Rose want to wriggle her shoulders again.

  Instead she held herself very still, every muscle tensed, until Mickey removed his hand, then she crammed the envelope into her handbag.

  ‘Steady now, my darling, don’t want to tear all those valuable documents that your good friend Mickey Flynn sorted for you,’ he said. He was leering now, which was nothing compared to staring at her décolletage or curling hot fingers round her knee.

  She couldn’t very well look inside the envelope, not here, so Rose stood up in a jerky motion. ‘Well, I’d love to stay and chat, really I would, but I have to go,’ she said, smoothing down her plush skirt with nervous hands.

  Mickey doffed an imaginary hat. ‘We’ll meet again soon, lovely Rose,’ he promised. ‘And remember, you owe me a favour now.’

  Rose nodded as she backed away. ‘Oh yes, well, you know where to find me.’ Then, not caring how it looked to the casual observer, she ran for the door.

  But before she could get there, some stupid man was blocking her way and the two of them danced an awkward waltz of clumsy steps and ‘I’m sorry’, ‘No, I’m sorry’, ‘No really, I wasn’t looking where I was going’.

  ‘It was my fault, let me get that for you,’ the man said and Rose was so desperate to get out of there, away from Mickey Flynn and any favours she might owe him, that she barely glanced at the man who was holding the door open for her.

  He was in a British officer’s uniform, though she never knew how to distinguish the different ranks, and even in heels she still had to look up as she shot him a brief smile and a muttered thank-you. It was a look that lasted no longer than a second but still long enough to take in the severe lines of his face and the discomfited expression that she was sure was a perfect match for her own. As if he didn’t truly belong there either.

  Rose was all set to brush past him, red velvet against khaki wool, when he shifted so he was blocking her escape route and held out his hand. ‘I’m Edward Abernathy,’ he said. He had a lovely voice. It reminded Rose of stealing into the pantry when Cook wasn’t looking to open the tin of Lyle’s black treacle that was used for ginger cakes and parkin. Rose would dip in her index finger, then suck on it and marvel at how the thick syrup could be both dark and sweet at the same time. That was what he sounded like. He also sounded very important, so Rose shook his hand, felt the strength in his long, lean fingers, but he was staring at her even worse than Mickey had.

  Not at her chest but at her face, deep into her eyes, as if he knew all her secrets, and she so desperately wanted to get away from him, from Mickey, from this whole sorry business, and back onto the dancefloor where she felt safe.

  ‘It’s awfully nice to meet you,’ Rose said hurriedly. ‘I’m sorry but I’m meant to be… I should be somewhere else.’

  He stepped aside then, and Rose shot through the door, sped along the corridor, remembering the feel of Mickey Flynn’s hand on her, then that man’s eyes boring into her soul, and only then did she shudder.

  It felt as if she’d let the darkness touch her, which was something that Rose never did. It was why she preferred to dance with the soldiers than have to talk to them. Maybe laugh at their jokes as they sat for ten minutes between dances, but nothing more than that. Sylvia had been very clear. ‘Most of them aren’t coming back,’ she told Rose frequently. ‘They’ll die or else they already have sweethearts at home. Don’t be like Phyllis. She never forgets a single GI then gets into a terrible state when she hears they’ve been killed. Honestly, Rosie, there’s been times when she’s cried every night for two weeks.’

  It was far better to hold something of oneself back, not let the bad side of the war wear you down. So that night Rose locked away her bag, along with the echo of a stranger’s eyes and Mickey Flynn’s touch, then danced without pause until half past ten.

  8

  ‘Will you come home with me?’ Leo asked, when Jane came out of the bathroom to find him sitting on the bed finishing what sounded like a very tense phone call. ‘Not home home, but to London.’

  Jane was immediately suspicious. ‘What’s in London?’

  Leo stood up and ran his fingers through his sleep-rumpled hair. ‘My… aunt… well, my great-aunt. She’s ill.’

  Jane folded her arms. A sick great-aunt sounded like the flimsiest of excuses. Very possibly a scam. ‘And where exactly is home home?’

  ‘Well, home home i
s actually Durham but I haven’t been back there in ages. Must be fifteen years or something.’

  ‘But this great-aunt of yours is in London, is she?’

  ‘You don’t need to say it like that, like it should have speech marks round it. She is my great-aunt and I haven’t seen her in ages either so if I get a phone call saying she’s not well, then it’s serious.’ There was an edge to his voice that made her turn around, because the edge hadn’t been there last night. She didn’t remember him being this jittery either. He was prowling about the room and it could have been because he’d just had bad news, but she was sure there was more to it than that. ‘We should be able to catch an early evening flight. You get your stuff together while I have a shower, then let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Why on earth would I want to go to London to meet your ailing great-aunt?’ she asked.

  He stopped prowling and scowled. Then he must have realised that the scowl wasn’t conducive to putting Jane in a conciliatory mood. ‘Are you reconciling with Mr Ex?’

  Jane shrugged. ‘I haven’t decided one way or another.’

  Leo furrowed his brows and tried to look plaintive. It didn’t suit him. ‘We still need to get unwed and I really need to get to London, so what’s the harm in coming with me?’

  He did have a point. Jane needed to get out of Vegas immediately. And if she needed to regroup, plan, move on with her life, then London was the best place to do it. Then again, she didn’t want to rush headfirst into another questionable course of action when she was still feeling so fragile after the excesses of the night before.

  ‘Come on, time’s a-wasting,’ Leo barked and he actually dared to click his fingers at her like she was an underperforming flunky. ‘I don’t see a whole lot of packing going on.’

  Jane had a bad feeling about this, but then she had bad feelings about a lot of things, which she trained herself to ignore. But it wasn’t until they were at the airport trying to get seats on the next available flight to London that Jane opened her bag and discovered that there was only one bundle of hundred-dollar bills in there, when there should have been seven. The thieving bastard!

  ‘Don’t freak out, I’ve got the rest,’ Leo said quickly as if it weren’t a big deal, when actually it was. ‘Just to be on the safe side. You know what Housekeeping is like at these big hotels.’

  He gave her back three of the bundles and it was all the warning Jane needed to stay glued to his side until they could be legally and permanently separated.

  Leo didn’t even thank her when they got upgraded to first class because Jane held her Chanel 2.55 bag in a conspicuous position and flirted like mad with the camp check-in attendant. Then he kept wandering off, shoulders hunched, as they waited for their flight to be called, but it wasn’t until she was seated next to him that she realised Leo was under the influence of something she was pretty sure he hadn’t got with a doctor’s prescription.

  His jaw was clenched, a muscle in his cheek pounding away like a Mexican jumping bean, arms and legs twitching. Not respecting her personal space boundaries at all.

  It was going to be a very long flight. Leo spurned the glass of champagne offered and asked for beer instead, then pulled a tiny bottle out of his jacket pocket. ‘Want a Xanax?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t do pills,’ Jane said thinly.

  He grinned. ‘Like you don’t do credit cards? You’re going to have to write me a list of all the things you don’t do. God, I can’t believe we’re married.’ It didn’t sound malicious, but heartfelt. ‘Are you sure that we didn’t get so drunk that we thought we’d got married?’

  ‘Sadly, the marriage certificate in my handbag says otherwise.’

  ‘You were much more fun when you were drunk.’ He nudged her arm, and Jane had never wanted to hit anyone as much as she wanted to slap Leo. She had a vague memory of wanting to slap him the night before too. ‘Go on, have some champagne.’

  She refused, but Leo had two more beers and another pill then fell asleep, head on her shoulder, and she had to give him a good hard shove so he landed back in his own seat.

  They were already married (to be annulled as quickly as was humanly possible) so Jane didn’t have to be appeasing or alluring or the least bit charming. That, at least, was a relief.

  Leo didn’t even stir on landing until Jane shook him. Once his eyes were open and he was upright, he was still useless. Jane had to take hold of his sleeve and tug and pull him along the endless corridors and walkways to baggage reclaim where he moaned about having to ‘carry your suitcase again . Can’t you use a trolley like everyone else?’

  He was infuriating, but Jane was grateful for the distraction as it took her mind off the utter dread that seized hold of her every time she stood in line at passport control. It never had anything to do with the thousands of dollars in cash and jewels in her hand luggage.

  Jane didn’t relax until they were in the back of a black cab on their way to central London. She’d check into a hotel while Leo went to see the doddery ‘great-aunt’. At this rate, their winnings would dwindle to nothing. Thirty-six thousand dollars seemed like a lot, but split between two, a couple of transatlantic flights, hotel rooms, cabs – it would soon go, even if Leo didn’t try to steal her share again.

  As they sped nearer to the Hanger Lane roundabout, passing row upon row of suburban houses with grimy frontages like white towels that had gone grey in the wash, Jane was reminded of the first time she’d taken a taxi ride through London.

  It had been getting dark then too. She’d sat perched on the tip-up seat, ready to scrabble for the door handle and leap out at the first sign of trouble. She wasn’t sure what she’d got herself into but she still hoped that where she was going couldn’t be any worse than where she’d come from.

  Could it?

  Charles’s house was in Notting Hill. Though Jane couldn’t remember if he told her his name or where he lived that first night.

  He’d paid the driver and still hadn’t laid a finger on her, but guided her with a series of hand gestures across the street, up the path and through his front door.

  Then they’d stood in the hall, everything light and clean, and he’d said, ‘You can stay here tonight.’

  For the first time in days, weeks, maybe even months, she found her voice. ‘Are you going to fuck me?’

  No one had ever looked at her like that before either. Like she was a real person and not just a thing, a useless thing. ‘Do you want me to fuck you?’ he asked as she stared at his shoes, because she still couldn’t look at his face.

  Maybe he was different from all the others because none of them had ever given her a choice before. ‘No,’ she said. It sounded good so she said it again. Louder. ‘No. No, I don’t.’

  ‘Then we understand each other,’ he said and she followed him along gleaming black and white tiles to a kitchen and stood in the middle of the room, too scared to touch anything in case she made it dirty and watched as he boiled the kettle, sliced bread, put it in a toaster.

  It was as if he knew she couldn’t make any more choices. A mug of tea, two pieces of toast on a plate so delicate she knew she’d break it just by pressing the tip of one grubby finger to it. She drank the tea and ate the toast with one hand, other hand still clutching the wad of notes, still on guard, still not trusting that worse horrors weren’t on their way.

  It was almost a relief when he walked around her to open a drawer and pulled out a big, wicked-looking knife that shone in the soft glow of the overhead lights. With food in her belly and warm from the tea, she didn’t even care any more.

  At least she’d had this one glimpse of something else. Wasn’t going to be just another name sunk to the bottom of the ‘at risk’ register and forgotten about until she was found naked with stab wounds, spunk splattered all over her, on a patch of waste ground.

  The hand that was holding the wad of notes twitched in expectation of that moment when he’d point the knife at her. Take aim. Thrust deep.

  ‘I�
��ll show you to a spare room. There’s a bathroom next door if you want to freshen up,’ he said. He offered her the knife. ‘Sleep with this under your pillow; it will help you to feel safe.’

  Not then, but later, much later, she wondered what had happened to Charles that he’d once slept with a knife under his pillow too.

  So many incredible things had happened to Jane since then, but she always thought that the most incredible thing of all was meeting the one decent man in all of England on that train speeding her towards her future.

  ‘Jane? Jane? We’re here. Wake up!’ Leo touched her arm.

  She tensed so violently that Leo realised she hadn’t been asleep, just lost in another world with eyes closed, head lolling back. Jane sat up and patted down her hair as she peered out of the taxi window. They were slowly driving around a garden square full of big Victorian houses, white as wedding cakes. ‘Where exactly is “here”?’ she asked.