The 9

by Madalyn Morgan

  ‘You’re probably right. If he doesn’t dance it wouldn’t be much fun for him.’ Ena was puzzled. ‘Before you go, what did you mean when you said Henry hasn’t always batted for the other side?’

  ‘That he isn’t sweetheart material, if you know what I mean.’ Binkie winked conspiratorially, ‘Ciao.’

  ‘Henry?’ Ena shouted. He stopped walking, looked over his shoulder, and waited for Ena to catch him up. ‘I’ve been all over the place looking for you,’ she said, out of breath. ‘Will you take me to the dance tomorrow night?’ Henry’s mouth fell open. He looked shocked, so before he had time to say no, Ena said, ‘It’s important. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t. But I need an escort. Binkie’s going to be with her chap, so I can’t go with her. She said to let slip that I’m a friend of Lady Arabella Crofton-Dimbleby, which I’m not, and I’ll look like a wallflower standing around on my own. Well? Will you take me?’

  ‘I will if I can.’

  ‘Henry Green, you’re the best. I can’t think why our Bess didn’t marry you when she had the chance. I’m in two minds whether to snap you up myself right this minute.’ Henry laughed the way Ena remembered him laughing when she was a teenager. ‘Right! What time shall we meet? I shall be here all day. Did you know I’ve stepped in for some French hairdresser from Woburn Sands who’s off with the flu? I styled Binkie Brinklow’s hair earlier and she loved it. So I’m doing her pals tomorrow afternoon, for the dance at night.’

  ‘Whoa! Slow down, Ena. I’m not sure whether I’m on the early shift or the late shift. If I’m on late, I’ll have to swap with someone. Apart from that, I had promised a friend I’d go to the cinema if I was on earlies. I shall have to see him and tell him I can’t make it.’

  ‘So you will take me to the dance?’

  ‘Y-e-s.’ Henry said, drawing the word out. ‘I expect I’ll be able to swap shifts with someone if I need to. But now I really must go to work. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Just one more thing, Henry?’

  Henry turned with a sigh and pretended to stumble back to her. ‘What?’

  ‘If you see my friend Freda, don’t say anything about the dance. I forgot to tell her about it you see. And now I’m coming down to do Binkie Brinklow’s friends’ hair, she might think I purposely didn’t tell her because I’d rather spend my time with them, which I wouldn’t of course, far from it--’

  Henry put his hands up. ‘My lips are sealed.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘I really do have to go.’

  ‘Go!’ Ena said, shooing him away. ‘And thank you!’ Henry lifted his arm above his head in a gesture of a wave, before disappearing into one of the huts.

  Ena spotted Freda in the canteen, talking to a couple of ATS girls, and walked over. ‘Good bye,’ she heard Freda say, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Tomorrow? Had the ATS girls told Freda about the dance? Stupid to think her friend wouldn’t find out about it. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been waiting ages,’ Freda chided.

  Ena opened her mouth to say she’d been talking to a friend, when Freda cut in. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, to Ena’s relief. ‘You’ll never guess what these girls,’ she pointed to the group of ATS women, ‘have just told me.’ Ena could guess, but again Freda didn’t give her time to speak. ‘There’s a dance here tomorrow night.’

  ‘I know,’ Ena said, ‘That’s why I was late. I was talking to this woman named Binkie about it,’ Ena said, smiling over Freda’s shoulder at the ATS girls.

  ‘So? Shall we come down and go to it? We haven’t been to a dance for ages. It’s time we had some fun, and the ATS girls said they’d sign us in.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The thing is,’ Freda explained, ‘I promised my uncle I’d visit him this weekend, so I’ll be going to Northampton after the dance, which means you’ll be on your own for the remainder of the journey to Rugby.’

  Ena wouldn’t be on her own, because she wasn’t going to Rugby after the dance, she was staying in the Station Hotel, not that she could tell Freda that. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said, ‘I’ll catch an earlier train. It’s only the last train that attracts the odd drunk. The nine o’clock, ten o’clock even, will be fine.’

  ‘We can travel down together, though, can’t we?’

  ‘Sorry, I promised a couple of Binkie’s friends I’d come down early and do their hair. That’s why I was late just now. I was chatting with them and lost track of time.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After signing the hotel register, Ena was given her key. ‘Room seven. Top of the stairs, turn right,’ the receptionist said, pointing to a flight of stairs on the left. Ena thanked her, picked up her case and made her way up the narrow staircase. Passing room five on one side of the corridor and room six and the bathroom on the other, she opened the door of room seven.

  The room smelled of stale tobacco, so dropping her overnight case by the side of the bed, Ena locked the door and ran over to the window. Reaching up, she turned the brass catch between the top and bottom windows. Seeing the edges of the bottom window had been painted over, she pulled down the top half.

  Looking out, Ena watched a man walking a dog along a strip of grass that bordered roped-off plots of dry brown earth that men – and some women – were digging over to make allotments. To her right was the Coffee Tavern, the columned entrance to the station, and beyond that the Post Office. A faint smell of trains drifted in through the open window. Ena pushed it up, leaving an inch gap at the top.

  She threw herself onto the bed. It was only a single but it was wider than her bed at home. She sank into it. It was soft and springy, and covered with a dusky pink candlewick bedspread and matching eiderdown. It had been turned down, showing clean white sheets and a plump pillow. Ena propped it up against the headboard, leaned back, and looked round the room. On one side of the window was a narrow chest of drawers and a man’s wardrobe, which Ena thought was plenty big enough for one person’s clothes. On the other side of the window was a dressing table, and hand-basin with a cream towel draped over it.

  She wriggled down and made herself comfortable. She hadn’t stayed in a hotel for years, not since before the war when she’d been a nanny to two children. Every summer, the family she’d worked for had taken her on holiday to the seaside to look after the children, but she’d not had a room of her own. She’d slept in the same room as her two charges.

  A warm feeling washed over her, remembering those days, and she closed her eyes. What innocent times they’d been. She and the children in her care spent their days on the beach building sandcastles, collecting shells, and paddling in the sea. At least once during the week, Ena took her wards to the pleasure park or the fair. And at night, after washing them and putting them to bed, she would read to them before falling into her own bed, exhausted. Now she had a room to herself. And however small, it was all hers, until tomorrow.

  Sensing the rumble of a train, Ena opened her eyes. Her heart almost stopped when she realised she had closed them for a second and fallen asleep. Looking at her watch, Ena swung her legs over the bed and stood up. She needed to get a move on if she didn’t want to keep Binkie and her friends in Hut 23 waiting.

  Flinging open her suitcase, Ena took out her dress and hung it on the outside of the wardrobe. It was hardly creased. Anyway, there was an iron in Hut 23 that she could use if she needed to. Grabbing the skirt and blouse that she’d brought to go home in the next day, she hung them up in the wardrobe. Her clean underclothes she put in the top drawer of the small chest of drawers, and her night clothes she put under the pillow on the bed.

  Leaving her evening shoes, handbag, washbag – with flannel and soap rolled up in a small towel – and her vanity case containing her makeup in the suitcase, Ena took down her dress, folded it, and put it back in the case. Before leaving, she pulled up the crumpled top sheet and straightened the bedspread and eiderdown. Why she wasted time doing that she didn’t know, and sighed.

  Putting on her coat, she picked up the small
case and left. Before closing and locking the door, she glanced back into the room. It looked much the same as when she’d arrived. I’m staying in a hotel, she thought and laughed out loud. Whatever next?

  As she approached Hut 23, Ena could hear Binkie laughing. She knocked on the door and went in to cheers of, ‘She’s here,’ from Dibbs, and ‘Hooray,’ from Binkie. Binkie’s hair, which Ena had dressed the day before, looked almost perfect. Dibbs however, was wearing a silk scarf tied round her head in the style of a turban. When she took the scarf off, Ena could see why she had worn it.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d have time to do more than set my hair before the dance tonight, so I got one of the girls in my digs to put a dab of peroxide on it earlier. Brighten it up, eh?’

  A dab? Dibbs’ hair looked as if she’d had the bottle poured over it. ‘Yes, I’m sure it has,’ Ena said, unable to hide the doubt in her voice. Dibbs sat down at the sink, her hair still damp from rinsing off the peroxide, looked across the room at Ena, and pulled a face.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Ena said. Stowing her case behind the clothes rail, she went over to Dibbs. ‘It’ll be fine if we wash it very carefully and put tons of conditioning cream on it.’ She looked at Binkie. ‘I saw some conditioner here yesterday.’

  ‘Will this do?’ Binkie said, passing Ena two bottles: one yellow and one pink. Ena whistled. ‘Richard Hudnut? These look expensive.’ She took the top off the yellow bottle and sniffed. ‘Mm, smells lovely. Enriched Crème Shampoo with egg? With egg?’ she repeated. ‘I can’t imagine why they’d put egg in it.’ She read the label on the pink bottle. ‘Crème Rinse, hair conditioner. These will do. Where on earth did you get them?’

  ‘I didn’t. A Yank who was sweet on Bertie had his sister send them over from the States.’

  ‘Won’t she mind if I use them on Dibbs’ hair?’

  ‘No, they’re for everyone.’ Binkie looked down at Dibbs’s hair and grimaced. ‘Use as much as you like, Ena.’ Binkie bent down and spoke into her friend’s ear. ‘I think you left the peroxide on a little too long, Dibbs old girl.’

  ‘Don’t start, Binkie,’ Dibbs mumbled, with her head in the basin.

  Dibbs was sitting with the cream conditioner on her hair when Bertie and Woody arrived. ‘I’ll wash Woody’s hair,’ Bertie said, ‘while you set Dibbs’ hair, Ena.’

  ‘And I’ll wash your hair, Bertie, while Ena sets Woody’s. What fun. It’s like a hairdressing production line.’

  Fun it might be for Binkie, but for Ena it was hard work. Dibbs’s hair was dry first. She had put her under the big dome hairdryer, on a low to medium heat. Ena daren’t use the metal curlers that Dibbs had brought for fear that when she took them out, Dibbs’ hair would stay round them. Instead she made barrel curls round her fingers, which were kept in place with Kirby grips and a hair net. At the front, she’d risked using metal wave grippers that had fairly big teeth, which, to Ena’s relief, released Dibbs’s hair from their grasp immediately without pulling out a single hair.

  Woody and Bertie had simpler styles. Both had waves at the front, Woody’s hair was longer and thicker with a natural curl that was easy to set in deep waves. At the bottom, however, it took real effort and patience for Ena to comb it around her fingers into a roll. Bertie’s hair, although it had some natural curl, was shorter and finer. Sweeping it over to the right, Ena brushed it into soft waves turning the length at the neck into a small neat bun. After securing the bun, Ena placed a small diamante slide above her ear to hold a loose wave in place.

  A quick comb through Binkie’s hair to tidy it up, and the four friends were ready to go to the dance.

  When the last of Binkie’s pals had left, Binkie told Ena to take anything she wanted from the clothes rail, the shoe rack too. Ena had brought her own dress, but thanked Binkie. Ena looked again through the dresses hanging on the portable clothes rail. She would have given anything to wear the green satin. It reminded her of the dress her sister Bess had worn on her twenty-first birthday. She took it from the rail, admired it, and put it back. The thought of spilling something on such an expensive dress petrified her.

  Ena took her own dress from the case, ran the iron over it, and put it on. She stared in the mirror. She looked fine. Her own dress, royal blue flowers on a white background, fitted snugly over her small bust and hips. And the skirt, cut on the cross, was perfect for dancing.

  She put on rouge and lipstick, and dabbed power on her cheeks to calm down the rouge. Giggling, Ena went over to the shelf where the perfumes were and picked up a bottle of L’Aimant by Coty. Dabbing it first on her wrists, she put a spot behind each ear and a little on her chest above the ‘V’ of the sweetheart neckline on her dress.

  Going back to the mirror, Ena turned to the left and the right. She was happy with the way the dress looked on her. She liked the shape and the swing of the skirt, but it was more than that, she felt comfortable in it.

  Ena met Henry as arranged, outside the dance hall at seven o’clock. She had never seen Henry dressed in anything other than corduroy trousers and a cable knit jumper, or slacks and a tweed jacket. Even when he and Bess had been walking out together, he always dressed casually. Tonight, in a dark suit and white shirt, with his hair slicked back with brilliantine, he looked very smart, and very handsome.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ he laughed.

  ‘You. I haven’t seen you dressed up before. You look…’

  ‘Ridiculous?’

  ‘No! Handsome.’

  Red faced, Henry hooked his index and middle fingers behind the collar of his shirt and ran them around the inside. He loosened the knot of his tie. ‘Not much call for clothes like this at the Park.’

  ‘There should be.’ Ena put her small case and handbag on the ground, and stretching up, straightened his tie. ‘That better? Not too tight?’ He shook his head and Ena looked to the sky. ‘Come on, we don’t want to miss the first dance,’ she said, picking up her case and bag.

  ‘I don’t mind escorting you, Ena, but I’m no dancer.’

  ‘So I’ve heard. Binkie thinks you’d be a catch if you weren’t such a boffin. She calls you Highbrow Henry.’ Henry clicked his tongue and threw back his head. ‘She said she has never seen you dance, because you’ve never been to a dance. But we’ll show her.’ Ena linked her arm though Henry’s and strode along to keep in step with him.

  The band was warming up when they arrived. Ena checked her coat and small suitcase into the cloakroom. After scanning the room for Freda and not seeing her, Ena joined Henry who was queuing at the bar. ‘What does young Ena drink these days?’

  Ena grimaced. ‘I’m warning you, if you treat me like a child, I shall behave like one and spill my drink down your suit,’ she laughed.

  ‘God no, don’t do that. I hired it. It’ll be going to a wedding next week and a funeral the week after.’

  Ena laughed until she saw the serious look on his face. ‘You are joking? Tell me you’re joking,’ she said, standing on tiptoe, looking into Henry’s eyes for signs of a smile.

  ‘I’m joking!’

  Ena laughed again, loudly. ‘You liar!’ she said, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘Gin and tonic, please.’

  ‘It was dandelion and burdock the last time I took you out.’

  Looking at Henry, quizzically, Ena leaned away from him. ‘Now I know you’re lying. If you had ever taken me out, I think I’d remember.’

  ‘Elephant Boy, The Ritz Cinema, Lowarth, 1937. You were thirteen, or fourteen. Bess and I had to sit though it twice. You insisted on sitting in the middle of us. We couldn’t even hold hands.’

  ‘You’re doing it again.’

  Henry frowned, scrunched his shoulders, and held out his hands, palms up.

  ‘I give up!’ Ena said, ‘I can’t tell whether you’re lying or telling the truth.’

  ‘Claire had chicken pox, or some other child’s ailment, and had to stay at home.’

  ‘Oh my God. You’re right. I remember now. It was a Rudyard Kipling
story about an Indian boy.’

  ‘Toomai.’

  ‘He wanted to be a big game hunter when he grew up.’

  ‘His father was an elephant driver--’

  ‘And he had a pet elephant.’ Ena hooted with laughter. ‘Now I feel embarrassed.’

  ‘And so you should, calling me a liar.’

  The band began to play “I’m Playing With Fire”. ‘Come on,’ Ena said, putting down her drink and dragging Henry to his feet. ‘You’ve got to dance at least once.’ Ena scanned the dance floor.

  ‘Why? Who are you looking for?’

  ‘Binkie. Or one of her friends.’ Ena laughed. ‘Binkie bet me ten shillings that I couldn’t get you to dance tonight.’ Ena watched the smile disappear from Henry’s face. ‘But that isn’t why I’m dancing with you.’ When the band finished playing, they walked back to their table.

  ‘Honor Brinklow can be a bully, and her so-called friends are as bad. Be careful, Ena.’

  ‘I will,’ Ena said, hating herself for telling Henry about the bet. She’d done it again – said too much, let her mouth run away from her to make a stupid joke. She could have kicked herself. They were having fun and she’d spoiled it.

  ‘Another drink?’ Henry asked, and not giving her time to reply, set off for the bar.

  ‘I’ll get the next round,’ Ena said, when Henry returned, ‘I don’t expect you to buy my drinks all night.’ Henry was looking across the room. ‘After all,’ she said, following his gaze, ‘it was me who invited you to the dance.’ Henry didn’t appear to have heard her. Damn, she had put her foot in it again.

  ‘Come on, Ena,’ Now it was Henry’s turn to pull her to her feet. ‘Honor Brinklow is over by the door watching us. I’ll win you that ten shillings.’

  ‘You don’t have to, Henry.’