by Joanna Rees
‘All of this . . . between us. I was like a bull in a china shop. That first time we met and we danced at your club. And then I bamboozled you at the restaurant. I’m not very good at keeping my feelings to myself. Mother tells me I always wear my heart on my sleeve.’
The way he’d said ‘Mother’ so formally brought to mind someone strict and imposing.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. And it didn’t. What he’d said about not knowing the future – that was all that mattered. ‘Oh, Archie, I’ve felt wretched about what I did.’
The waiter placed their wine down on the table and Archie poured her a glass. They clinked the rims of their glasses together, their eyes locked.
‘To us,’ she said.
‘To us,’ he replied, before hurrying on, ‘But this “us” business. I want to do things, you know, properly,’ he said, and Vita laughed.
‘Things?’
‘You know. Taking you out. That sort of thing. Courting . . .’
Vita bit her lips together, touched by how earnest he seemed. ‘And exactly how many women have you been courting?’ she asked teasingly, before realizing how rude it sounded.
‘Oh. Well . . .’ he was blushing. ‘Not many.’
‘I see. What about her?’
‘Who?’ Archie looked confused.
‘Georgie.’
‘Good gracious, no! Georgie? No, she’s far too much of a handful for me. And you?’ he asked. ‘Any dark skeletons in the cupboard that I should know about?’
She should tell him now, she realized. Now the opportunity was here, but as she looked at his face in the candlelight, she knew she couldn’t. Not now. Not ever. She shook her head.
‘No other admirers?’ he probed. ‘I bet there are. I bet the club is packed full of them.’
‘No! No one. Seriously.’
He sighed and gazed at her. ‘Well, now that’s out of the way, I want to know everything else about you,’ he said.
‘Everything?’
‘Every tiny thing,’ he said.
‘Like what?’
‘Like – I don’t know . . .’ He smiled, his eyes shining, trying to think of something off the top of his head. ‘What are your favourite flowers?’
‘Daffodils, definitely,’ she said, before realizing her mistake. ‘Oh, and roses. Your roses were spectacular.’
‘But you prefer daffodils? I shall make a note next time I’m in Harrods.’
He’d got those flowers from Harrods? They must have cost him a fortune.
‘It’s just, they remind me of being a child . . .’ She thought of the moor behind the Hall and how much she liked riding Dante to where the field gate between the hedgerows afforded a view over the countryside: the valleys dotted with cows, the dark woods and the misty hills beyond. She pictured herself and Dante trotting along the lane, the daffodils crowding each bank.
‘Was the shop near the countryside?’ he guessed and she nodded, but she couldn’t look at him.
Tell him, that voice told her, but she stamped it down. Tell him about Darton.
‘No, but Archie, now we’re talking about it, I do have a secret I should tell you about. You see, I’m not just a dancing girl.’
She took a sip of wine and, buoyed up with courage, told him about Top Drawer. How she’d had a genuine need for some proper underwear, because of the dancing, and how Nancy loved it and now Mrs Clifford-Meade was interested.
‘Underwear?’ he asked, with a surprised laugh. ‘Is that what you call it?’
‘Isn’t that what it is?’
‘Well, I suppose so, yes, but—’
‘It’s no laughing matter. Let me tell you, for most women it’s dreadful. All wrong. It’s uncomfortable and doesn’t do the job properly.’
‘The job?’
‘Yes, of holding us in, or up, or giving us the right shape or support.’
‘You’ve really thought about this.’
‘Of course. It’s something that applies to every woman. Every single woman you know.’
‘I don’t like to think about the women I know and their “underwear”.’
‘Well, you should.’
Archie laughed, but she furrowed her brow.
‘Mrs Clifford-Meade says they’ve been wildly popular and has placed another order. And I have an appointment to present them at W&T. You know, the department store?’
And as she said it, she realized how proud she was of this business that she was starting and how much she wanted Archie to believe in her. She could see, from his expression, that she’d already gone up in his estimation.
‘Vita, that’s wonderful,’ he said.
‘I think it could be a real business,’ she said. ‘I mean, one day. If it were to take off. I feel foolish for dreaming about it, but the potential is enormous. My head is crowded all the time with how I could improve the design.’
Archie nodded, taking it all in. ‘Why do I have the feeling that you will make it happen?’
‘You think I could?’
‘I have a feeling, dear Vita, that you could do anything you want,’ he said.
And she realized that all she wanted right at this moment was what she had. To be sitting holding hands with Archie Fenwick in the candlelight.
74
Betsy Confides
Much later that night, when she finally got back to Mrs Bell’s, Vita’s head was filled with every detail of her date with Archie.
‘He sounds divine,’ Betsy said. ‘And he’s so handsome.’
‘Did he kiss you?’ Jane asked.
‘No, but oh, I wanted him to.’ She smiled dreamily, remembering how they’d talked and talked, and how Archie had called her a cab on the Strand and they’d stood staring at each other in the rain, the future kiss between them so tangible that they’d both laughed.
‘What’s he waiting for?’ Betsy asked.
‘He’s being a gentleman,’ Jane answered. ‘It was only the first date. Well, second, but the first one doesn’t really count.’
Vita fell back on the bed, hugging the pillow. The springs creaked. She rolled over onto her side and looked at Jane’s and Betsy’s eager faces. She should really have gone to Carter’s to join Nancy, but after Gordon’s had closed, Archie had got the cab to bring her home, and now she was glad she was in her bedroom and not at a raucous party with Nancy.
‘So if he kissed you, you’d kiss him back, wouldn’t you?’ Betsy said.
‘Yes. Yes, I would,’ she replied, her voice betraying the longing she felt.
‘With tongues?’ Betsy clarified, and Jane bashed her back with the cushion.
‘I’m only saying, because as soon as tongues are involved, he won’t be able to help himself, and you don’t want to get knocked up, Vita.’
In her typically dramatic way, Betsy had gone from her current state of never having been kissed by a man to being knocked up by one – which Vita was pretty sure meant getting pregnant.
‘Don’t scare her,’ Jane said, before adding, ‘You do know about the birds and the bees?’
Vita sat up and hugged the pillow to her chest, feeling a deep blush starting within her – a kind of wash of shame, when she thought about Nancy in the bath and how they’d kissed. What would the girls think, if they knew? Would they be horrified?
But that night with Nancy didn’t really count, did it? It wasn’t the same as how she felt about Archie. Back then she’d been naive, and high on Nancy’s crazy pills. But Archie? Well, Archie was real.
‘Have you seen – you know, a man’s parts?’ Betsy whispered. ‘You know it gets big and hard? And it has to go all the way inside you?’
Jane hit Betsy again with the cushion and they all laughed.
‘What she means to say,’ Jane clarified more gently, ‘is that sex can be wonderful. That it’s not all about the man’s feelings – physically, I mean. Women should feel just as much pleasure.’
‘Really?’ Vita asked.
‘I don’t think there’s any shame
in giving yourself to the man you love,’ Jane said.
‘Even if it doesn’t work out,’ Betsy said, with a sad sigh.
‘You’ve done it?’ Vita asked.
Betsy nodded.
‘What was it like?’
‘Oh, Vita,’ Betsy said. ‘It was the best thing ever.’
Vita listened wide-eyed as Betsy described her lost love, Alasdair, and how they’d first made love in his parents’ bedroom.
‘Weren’t you scared?’ Vita asked.
‘No. Not at all. I wanted him. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to give myself to him.’
‘What happened?’
‘Alasdair would have married me. He said he was going to, but then he had an accident at the docks and he was never the same.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘It was awful. A real bump to the head that left him simple, and he had to live with his grandparents. I got the chance to come to London and I left, but I always wonder what might have been.’
All of her life Vita had been taught that women had to succumb to a man’s will. That she should marry and be dutiful. She’d always looked at her mother and found it impossible that she’d ever conceived children. She’d seen the anatomical pictures in her father’s science books in the library at home, but she’d never understood that a man and a woman’s intimacy might be something pleasant.
But Betsy’s experiences opened up another possibility. And with it came the realization that she wasn’t wrong for feeling desire. Desire was normal. Wonderful, according to Betsy, who had described how natural and easy it had been. And Vita allowed a new and thrilling question to blossom in her mind until she could think of nothing else: would she and Archie ever be lovers?
‘Why don’t you show her?’ Jane whispered to Betsy.
‘Show me what?’ Vita asked.
‘We’ve got some magazines. I’ll lend them to you, but you mustn’t let Mrs Bell see them.’
‘I won’t. I promise.’
Betsy’s eyes flashed at Jane, and then she climbed off the bed and lifted up the mattress and pulled out a brown paper bag.
‘They’re from France,’ she said, so you won’t be able to read them, but you can look at the pictures.
‘Thank you,’ Vita said, taking the mysterious package and opening it up, before gasping at the image on the front of a naked woman. ‘Goodness.’
She felt herself flushing all over as she flicked through the pages and saw the images of men and women together. The others were looking at her closely.
She could feel a dull ache between her legs and her throat went dry.
‘It’ll give you the general idea,’ Jane said.
She nodded and laughed over a couple of the pictures with the girls, but the ache was still there when they all turned off the lights. She lay wide awake in the dark, thinking of Archie and how much she wanted him. And when she dreamt, she dreamt of being naked in Archie’s arms.
75
At the Flicks
The girls had agreed to meet for the newsreel the following day. Vita had been to the cinema once or twice, but the Plaza off Leicester Square was by far the most opulent place, with a thick red carpet in the foyer and gold cornicing on the ceiling. Vita noticed the ushers eyeing up the girls as they waited by the giant film poster.
When Nancy and Edith arrived to meet them, Vita went to give Nancy a big hug, but she shrugged her away. Vita wondered whether Nancy was cross that she hadn’t made it to Carter’s, until she realized that Nancy was swaying slightly and smelling strongly of alcohol. She grabbed hold of the rope bannister as they made their way up the shallow red steps.
‘Good party?’ Vita ventured as they took their seats, choosing a row near the front.
‘Actually it was the best party ever,’ Nancy replied, stubbing out her cigarette in the ashtray. She was cross then, Vita surmised from her tone, and from the cold look she gave Vita now. Even though Nancy always said that every party was the ‘best party ever’.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t make it,’ Vita said, wondering whether Nancy had even been to bed. ‘It just got so late – I mean, by the time we’d finished talking at Gordon’s.’
‘Chitter-chatter,’ Nancy said meanly, making puppet-mouths of her hands. Vita felt her disapproval keenly. She hadn’t intended to upset Nancy so much, but clearly she had. ‘He’s worth it? This lover-boy of yours?’
‘Oh, Nancy,’ Vita gushed, almost bursting to tell her friend how she felt, and hoping that all the emotion she was feeling would soften Nancy’s mood. ‘He’s wonderful.’
Nancy’s eyebrows knitted together. ‘I thought you said he wasn’t your type.’
‘Oh, but he is.’
‘He’d better be, if you’re going to miss out on the best nights in town.’
‘I won’t do that again. I promise,’ Vita said, but even as she said it, she knew she didn’t mean it. ‘It probably won’t amount to anything,’ she went on, feeling now as if she should play down the whole thing. But even saying those words made her feel disloyal.
‘So, has he got any eligible friends?’ Jemima asked, as they settled into the row of deep-red velvet seats.
‘I’ll ask him. He’s taking me out for lunch at the Serpentine tomorrow,’ Vita said.
‘Another date,’ Jemima commented, impressed. ‘He must be keen.’
‘I wouldn’t be under any illusions,’ Edith said. ‘Because I told you before. He’s just after one thing.’
‘You don’t know anything about him.’
‘Oh, grow up, Vita. Men like him think girls like us are easy.’
‘Archie doesn’t think that.’
Edith tapped her forehead as if Vita was being an idiot. ‘Why did he come to the Zip then? To find a wife?’
Vita was still fuming at how mean Edith had been as the Pathé newsreel started, but she was soon distracted from Edith’s nasty comment by the black-and-white footage of the miners who stared back into the camera. There was talk of a strike. Vita looked at the miners’ grubby faces, dismayed that their world seemed so far away. She wondered, fleetingly, how things were in the mills back home. Would her father’s workers start protesting about their working conditions, too?
Then the newsreel had moved on to the latest update on the Prince of Wales and his fast friends. A montage of snapshots from recent publications filled the screen. And there, on a society page inside what looked like Vanity Fair, was the Prince laughing and applauding Delysia at the Café de Paris and, next to him, the unmistakable profile of a girl turning away.
Nancy let out a loud gasp. ‘Oh, goodness, Vita. Look! That’s you. It’s you!’
She nudged Vita so forcefully that Vita spilt the box of chocolates Jane had passed along to her.
She blushed furiously. ‘Oh my,’ she said.
‘Vita, you’re famous,’ Jane said, clapping her hands. ‘Quick, let’s go and buy Vanity Fair right now.’
‘We can get it afterwards,’ Vita said, feeling flushed and unsettled, glad that the newsreel had moved on.
‘What’s the matter?’ Nancy asked. ‘You don’t look very excited. Aren’t you pleased?’
‘I don’t like being in the press,’ she said.
‘Well, you’ll have to get used to it. You can’t be a shrinking violet, if you want your business to take off.’
76
The Serpentine
The next morning, Vita was surprised to see a protest in favour of the miners as she parked Jane’s bicycle near Speakers’ Corner and made her way into Hyde Park, where a man on a soap box was addressing the large crowd.
‘Keep the red flags flying high,’ he shouted, eliciting a cheer. Vita hurried on, but the path was blocked by a group of miners with sunken cheeks and fiery eyes. Their dark suits and grubby collars were so familiar that she felt as if they’d marched here straight here out of the newsreel pictures. They passed her and she felt unsettled by their scrutiny. She wondered what they’d do to her, if they really knew whose daughter she was.
&n
bsp; At the tea rooms by the lake she took a table, looking out at the shadows of the clouds on the water. The miners had reminded her so much of home and now, as she thought of Clement’s face – the blood trickling from his mouth, his leg bent at an odd angle – bile rose in her throat.
What had happened to Dante? she wondered. Clement would have taken him to the knacker’s yard. He’d told her that’s what he was going to do. And her father would have insisted upon it, when they’d found Clement’s body. In her mind’s eye, she saw Dante’s black eyes beseeching her – a bullet hole between them. A bottomless hole, which was all her fault.
The presence of the workers she’d had to pass to get here seemed like a personal rebuke now. As if her past was crowding in on her. A reminder of all the lies she’d told Archie. What would happen to him and to his reputation, she wondered, if she was caught and brought to justice?
And then there was the small matter of her picture in Vanity Fair. She’d gone way up in Nancy’s estimation – the picture being quite a coup with Wisey and the girls – but the whole thing had made Vita terribly nervous. She’d bought a copy straight after leaving the cinema and had studied the photograph for ages. It had been obvious to Nancy that it was Vita, but nobody else would be able to tell it was her, would they? No, of course not, she assured herself. It would be impossible to identify her. She’d changed completely: her hair, her clothes . . . everything was different.
‘You look very serious.’
It was Archie. He looked extremely dapper in his light trousers and he was carrying a straw boater.
‘Didn’t you think I’d come?’
‘No . . . yes, I mean, of course I did.’
‘I’m a few minutes late because I have a present for you,’ he said, lifting a small package wrapped in brown paper from his inside pocket. It was tied with string, and under the string lay two fresh daffodils.
She opened the package. Inside was a leather-bound book of poetry. He’d written on the first page. ‘For dearest Vita, from Archie Fenwick,’ she read out. She rubbed her finger over the black ink, thinking this was the first time she’d seen his writing. ‘Thank you,’ she said.