After the Last Dance

by Sarra Manning

  ‘Really? I’m not sure if I give us six weeks,’ Leo said. ‘You know, she kind of reminds me of you a little bit.’

  Pain all but forgotten, Rose turned a furious face on him. ‘She is nothing like me.’ She drew herself up. ‘I expect an apology from her, Leo.’

  That was a conversation Leo wasn’t looking forward to. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ They inched onto the side street where Rose’s offices were. ‘We cool, then?’

  ‘Coolish,’ Rose decided, which was better than Leo had dared to hope for.

  24

  When Jane arrived back at the house that afternoon, Leo was already home from work, showered and sitting on the bed as if he was waiting for her. She’d been for lunch with some of the women from the gym, picking at salads and sipping mineral water in Harvey Nichols’ Fifth Floor Café then trailing around the store aimlessly as none of them had any pressing engagements. Jane had forgotten how exhausting killing time was, so Leo was a welcome distraction.

  ‘Hello, darling. I was going to say “hard day at the office?” but that would be a horrible cliché, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, it would,’ he agreed. Despite the greyness of November in London, the colourless skies, persistent drizzle, the nagging suspicion that they might never see the sun again, Leo didn’t look grey any more. His tan had faded but his eyes were clear and Jane thought that maybe he was a little less jowly. ‘Anyway, I spent most of today arguing with Rose about the merits of ceramic over porcelain tiles. It got quite heated at one stage. I thought she was going to hit me over the head with her first-choice tile.’

  Jane unbuttoned her coat. ‘I bet she said it was the only way to knock some sense into you.’

  Leo grinned. Maybe it was because her day had been so deathly dull but Jane was pleased to see him. ‘Pretty much. How did you know?’

  ‘Educated guess, darling. So, is that why you’re home early? Shall we —’

  ‘Talking of threats of violence, though, what the hell did you say to Rose last night?’

  There wasn’t much spin Jane could put on it. Rose had obviously hit the highlights and now Jane had been cast as the bad cop and Leo was looking good in comparison, so she’d done him yet another favour.

  ‘Did you really threaten her with asphyxiation and Green Pastures?’

  ‘Peaceful Meadows, darling.’ Jane was standing in front of Leo, with her legs crossed at the ankle, hands behind her back, eyes lowered and he was looking her up and down and side to side, one eyebrow quirked. Men were so predictable. ‘I was tired. I haven’t been sleeping well. I might have been the teensiest bit cranky.’

  ‘Yeah, I get that, but the naughty schoolgirl act really isn’t doing anything for me,’ Leo said in a voice as dry as vodka. He stopped giving her the sultry once-over and folded his arms so he did look a little like an unimpressed headmaster. ‘I’d be worried if it was.’

  Jane longed to pout but forced herself to take it in good humour. ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ she said and sat down next to him. Then she remembered things that had happened last night that were nothing to do with her master plan. ‘She was in a lot of pain. When I first went in, she couldn’t even speak. Did she happen to mention that?’

  ‘We had a long chat this morning about, you know, how she’s coping, then she left work early to see her doctor.’ For one moment, Leo’s shoulders braced as if expecting a great weight to descend on them, then he brightened. ‘Rose actually taking my advice and leaving work early? It must be a sign that the End of Days is fast approaching.’

  Jane allowed herself to bask a little in the warm glow because everyone was winning. Rose would be on the good pills so she wouldn’t be in so much pain and Leo had advanced his cause, which meant Jane’s cause had also been advanced. ‘Shall we go out for dinner? Dinner and a movie?’ They did that quite frequently: dinner and a movie like they really were newlyweds desperate for each other’s company.

  ‘You have to apologise to Rose,’ Leo said implacably. ‘Say you’re sorry and not one of those bullshit “I’m sorry if you were offended by something I said” apologies, a proper one.’

  Jane did feel like a naughty schoolgirl when she stood in front of Rose later that same evening. Rose would have made a wonderful headmistress, autocratic and stately.

  ‘I’m really sorry I threatened to suffocate you and have you dragged off to respite care,’ she said, and George, who was sitting next to Rose on the sofa, gasped in shocked delight. Rose ignored him in favour of staring at Jane as if she’d been found in a compromising position behind the tennis courts with one of the lower groundsmen. ‘It’s no excuse, I know, but when I have trouble sleeping, it puts me in a filthy mood.’

  ‘Very well, apology accepted,’ Rose said and she nodded her head at Jane, as if she were dismissed. Jane had the urge to back away slowly, and not break eye contact with that cool blue gaze until Rose gave her permission to do so. Instead she stayed where she was.

  ‘You’re still upset with me, aren’t you?’ That much was obvious. She’d expected it, which was why she pulled out the card and the small bunch of violets, purchased from the flower seller on the corner of Kensington High Street, that she’d been hiding behind her back. ‘I got you these as a peace offering.’

  Rose gave the matter some thought. ‘I’ve never cared much for violets,’ she said. ‘Used to know a woman who I’m sure used to bathe in Yardley’s April Violets. I couldn’t stand her.’

  Jane had played enough people to know when she was the one being played. ‘Well, I’ll just be over here,’ she said to Rose, who looked amused now, rather than affronted. Then she sat down next to Leo, who put his arm round her.

  ‘Well, you gave it your best shot,’ he whispered a little smugly. ‘You think I never bought her flowers back in the day?’

  But Leo’s history with Rose was long and complicated. His apologies would take a lot more than a card and bunch of blooms, whereas Jane was allowed to make a couple of mistakes.

  ‘I suppose that you were very kind and attentive before you threatened to smother me, dear,’ Rose conceded with a cat-like smile. Jane suspected that her doctor had upgraded her pain pills and the new ones were giving her a serious case of the feelgoods. ‘I was never as beautiful as you, not even in my prime, but you look so pretty when you’re being contrite that I’m quite persuaded to forgive you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jane said and she couldn’t resist the satisfaction of digging Leo in the ribs with her elbow. ‘It will never happen again. Not the kindness, I mean the threats of GBH.’

  ‘Even if you did do me in with one of my scatter cushions, one sorrowful look at the jury and I’m sure they’d let you get away with murder,’ Rose said and as Jane let that sink in, tried to find a comeback, Lydia appeared in the doorway to announce that dinner was ready.

  Rose’s new drugs had taken immediate effect. She didn’t quite skip down the stairs every morning, but she still managed to sweep regally out of the house on a cloud of Chanel N° 22.

  Though when the drugs began to wear off, Rose’s pain was sharper, less merciful. She was still a martinet about upholding the letter of the law and taking a dose exactly four hours apart, but in those long minutes spent waiting for the hour to strike, it seemed to Leo as if she was trying to find a new way to breathe.

  She now left the office no later than four and stayed home most nights too, when before she’d been quite the social butterfly for someone on the wrong side of eighty. George would usually come round for dinner and sometimes Elaine from across the square or Gudrun would join them. Occasionally they’d even have a kitchen supper with Lydia and Frank, which Leo liked best of all because he could drink lager instead of wine and talk about football with Frank.

  That wasn’t to say the other dinners were dull. Rose took her tablets at six and by six-thirty she’d be halfway down a gin and tonic and on splendid form. Even after dinner, she’d still be sharp, eyes bright, smile wide as she kept the conversation humming along and Leo began
to wonder if Rose could stay at a three on that entirely subjective and arbitrary pain scale for months if the doctor managed her drugs properly.

  Rose was definitely at a three one evening a week into her new drug regimen when, after dinner, she asked Jane about their wedding. ‘You didn’t take even one picture?’ she asked in disbelief. ‘That’s not the way to do things. Next, you’ll be telling me you got married in jeans and a T-shirt.’

  Jane looked quite affronted at the suggestion. ‘I had a proper wedding dress,’ Jane said indignantly. ‘Vintage Dior. Had to lose an inch off my waist to get into it, but it was worth it.’

  ‘I had the most gorgeous black satin cocktail dress I bought at Dior on a trip to Paris in nineteen forty-eight. Christian Dior actually came into the room while I was being fitted,’ Rose said with a soft, wistful smile that Leo didn’t think he’d ever seen before. ‘Whenever I wore it, I felt like a queen.’

  George sighed a little. ‘Touched by the hand of Dior. You really should write your memoirs.’ He clapped a hand over his mouth as he realised what he’d said, but Rose simply gave him a fond look.

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘In fact, talking of dresses, I haven’t even begun to sort out all my frocks. I was thinking of donating some of the fancier ones to the V&A and I’ve been meaning to ask you what the correct etiquette is, George, dear. Does one contact the museum pre-deceasing or just add a codicil to one’s will?’

  ‘Let’s not talk about it now.’ George’s voice and all his features started to wobble. Jane, who was sitting next to him, patted his arm and murmured something in his ear that Leo couldn’t catch, then she turned to Rose.

  ‘George told us about the Claire McCardell dress you were wearing when you first met,’ Jane said to Rose. ‘Do you still have it?’

  Fifteen minutes later, they’d decamped up to the attics on the third floor. Rose’s attics weren’t dusty crevices accessed through a trap door and a rickety ladder, lit by a single hanging bulb and with rotten floorboards so you had to watch where you put your feet. They were light and airy walk-through rooms with custom-built shelving and closets.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Jane exclaimed. She slowly turned full circle so she could take it all in. ‘This is like being in the best vintage store in the world.’

  ‘I’ve been putting off coming up here,’ Rose said. As she cast her eyes over the nearest set of shelves, which were crammed full of folders and boxes all neatly labelled, her expression turned to dismay. ‘Such a pity I won’t live to see the paperless future I’ve read so much about it. I was rather looking forward to that. How many things I’ve accumulated! Then there’s goodness knows what at Lullington Bay. Leo, I was hoping we could go down during the next week or so. Now would you be a dear and get me a chair, please?’

  Once Rose and George were installed in a pair of matching Eames lounge chairs, she had Leo and Jane hunt for her Claire McCardell dress. They rifled through garment bags and discovered opera jackets, evening coats, cocktails gowns until eventually Leo found what Rose was looking for and placed it reverently in her lap.

  ‘This one’s like an old friend. I bought it in New York in nineteen forty-six,’ Rose said of the navy blue dress with red polka dots and shawl collar that they’d already heard about from George. ‘You can’t begin to imagine what New York was like after all those years of rationing. You could walk into any store and buy whatever you liked. You just pointed at it, paid for it and walked out with it – I’d forgotten what that was like.’

  Jane stopped with a garment bag half unzipped so she could look at Rose as if she were crazy. ‘Did they ration clothes during the war? Why would they do that?’

  ‘Good God.’ Now it was Rose’s turn to look appalled. ‘Don’t they teach you young people anything in schools today? Of course clothes were rationed.’

  ‘I knew food was rationed,’ Jane said, though she sounded uncertain. ‘But I don’t think we learnt about clothes rationing at school. It was decades ago.’

  ‘Thank you for making me feel positively ancient,’ Rose snapped.

  ‘I think the pills are wearing off,’ Leo mouthed at Jane, who was biting hard on her bottom lip, so Leo had a split-second recall of doing just that in Vegas when he had her pressed up against the wall of their hotel room. They all lapsed into silence, which lasted a whole two minutes, long enough for Leo to mentally scroll through an album of images – all of them with Jane half-naked underneath him, even as she crouched to take down boxes of shoes from a bottom shelf, still smelling of blackcurrants.

  Then she suddenly stood up. ‘It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it but… you could buy knickers during the war, couldn’t you?’ Jane was usually very adept at picking up social cues, at knowing when to leave something well alone, but not tonight, apparently. ‘Please tell me that they didn’t ration knickers?’

  ‘And bras and stockings!’ Rose smiled at the scandalised look on Jane’s face. ‘That’s when you could actually find them in the shops. The food rationing wasn’t so terrible – after I moved to London I even put on weight – but I did mind not being able to buy a nice frock whenever I wanted one.’

  ‘How did you put on weight if there was food rationing?’

  ‘Because every night I’d stuff my face with doughnuts at the American Red Cross Club at Piccadilly Circus. To this day, if you left me alone with a plate of doughnuts, I could have them wrapped in a napkin and in my handbag within three seconds.’

  It dragged up a half-buried memory. ‘Mum mentioned that place. Something about you running away in Great-Grandma’s fur coat. You nicked two of Grandma’s best dresses too.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say nicked. Borrowed without asking,’ Rose said and she should have been fading steadily now, but she suddenly seemed ready for adventure; if Leo had decided that they should head out into the cold November night to find somewhere to dance the chill away, Rose looked as if she would be the first to lead the charge.

  ‘You never talk about the war,’ George said. ‘We talk about everything else.’

  ‘Don’t I? How odd. I think about it all the time lately.’ Rose stretched out one leg and gingerly rotated her ankle, then the other. ‘Anyway, no one wants to hear some old coot wittering on about her glory days.’

  ‘Well, I do, darling, especially if it involves you having romantic intrigues with strapping GIs,’ Jane said. ‘It sounds like something out of a film.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’d find it very boring,’ Rose demurred.

  ‘Well, considering that Jane didn’t even know clothes were rationed, I’m sure she’d find it educational,’ Leo said, easily stepping out of range of Jane’s arm, which was poised to strike. ‘What? Even I knew about clothes rationing and I used to sleep through history lessons.’

  ‘Unless it’s too painful to talk about,’ George said and Rose placed her hand over his as if there was nothing so painful they couldn’t talk about it. ‘If it hurts too much to remember.’

  ‘Maybe once it did, but now it’s rather lovely to remember Rainbow Corner.’ Her voice was full of longing. ‘It was the most marvellous place. When it opened, they threw away the key because they said their doors would always be open for any American servicemen who needed a place to go. Not just GIs – Rainbow Corner never turned me away either.’

  25

  May 1944

  The refugees arrived on a sunny day at the end of May.

  Rose hadn’t seen Edward at Rainbow Corner since he’d reprimanded her on the stairs but she’d sent word via Mickey Flynn and two men turned up at Montague Terrace to collect the teetering piles of donations stacked up in the hall.

  Edward had sent a note back with Mickey.

  Dear Rose

  You really have gone above and beyond anything I expected. Did you break into a NAAFI warehouse, by any chance?

  Please accept my apologies for being so unnecessarily harsh when I saw you last. I had wanted to apologise in person but have been ca
lled away from London these last few weeks.

  I do hope that you might be able to come to the Kensington house on Thursday at 3? I’m sure you’ll be a lot more welcoming to some weary travellers, especially the little ones, than I could be.

  Please do try to come.

  Fondest regards

  Edward

  That Thursday, with a teddy bear knitted from wool repurposed from her old school jumper and her pockets stuffed with chocolate, Rose arrived at the house in Kensington.

  Since she’d been there last, the front door had been repainted a cheery cherry red. Rose rang the bell then waited long moments before the door opened and Edward appeared. He’d discarded his uniform jacket and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone, sleeves rolled up.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ He frowned. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so abrupt.’

  Rose clutched the paper bag she was holding tighter to her chest. ‘Are they not here, then?’