by Allie Burns
‘Look, there’s the Lido, Natty.’
They were being swept along to the back of the queue for the turnstiles.
‘Here we are.’ Delphi leant in to explain they were guests of the new manager.
‘Delphi is it?’ said the plump lady behind the counter. ‘And you must be Natalie, love. We’ve heard all about you two.’ Her cheeks were as earthy red and round as pomegranates. She held out her clammy hand across the metal ticket dispenser.
‘Betsy Whittle, turnstiles supervisor. Next along is Barnie, then Edith and down the end there is Yvonne – helping us out today she is. She’s usually up in the cafeteria with Hatty.’
They all looked up from serving their customers to wave hello. Barnie hid a yawn behind her hand. Yvonne at the end of the line drew Natalie’s attention. With her porcelain features, her glossy red curls accentuated by a thin scarf fastened just above her hairline, she stood out from the other girls. She’s got a longer queue, too.
‘Lucky for us that sea mist is lifting. Enjoy yourselves, won’t you both,’ Betsy said as their tickets sprang out of the slots, and the turnstile clicked around without them having to part with a penny.
‘Let’s find Jack,’ said Delphi.
‘A Life on the Ocean Waves’ piped through the covered walkway and when they emerged back into daylight she saw the high-sided amphitheatre lined with holidaymakers on deckchairs and towels, all facing the large blue rippling rectangle of bathing pool. There was no one in the water. At one end a fountain cascaded in to disrupt the surface and send out a steady stream of gentle waves. Above on the top deck was the brass band. Beyond the other end of the pool, the Lido was so full that even the archways leading to enclosed sun decks were lined with holidaymakers. There were thousands upon thousands of people all in this one place.
‘There he is,’ Delphi said. ‘I don’t want to talk business today – you know classes and all of that. Let’s settle in first.’
It took her a moment to see where Delphi was pointing and then beneath the diving tower she saw him. Dressed in his bathers, he talked to two men dressed in suits. One loomed over them all, a horse of a man whose loose suit jacket hung like tent flaps. The weight of his voice reaching Natalie as if he were talking right into her ear. The other man with Jack, seemingly on the edge of the conversation, wore a grimace and gripped one arm close to his body.
‘I wonder if now is such a good time after all,’ said Natalie.
Her mouth was chalk-dry and for all of her anticipation, she couldn’t move.
‘He’ll be so pleased to see us.’ Delphi was already on her way over. Natalie held back. Noticing her reaction to Jack. How she was suddenly conscious of her own body in his presence: how she controlled her posture, stood taller and emphasised where she fell out and in. How she wished she had put that trouser suit on now, after all.
Jack lifted Delphi off the ground when he saw her and spun her around. Then he introduced her to the two men in suits. Delphi must have then mentioned Natalie was there because Jack looked over and she felt it in her stomach as he waved at her and beckoned her over. Once she had joined them, he shook her by the shoulder, welcomed her to his new home, but he didn’t introduce her to the other two men, or mention that she would be working there. It was all rather awkward, so she looked away and watched as the crowds continued to flood in and cram themselves on to the already packed terraces.
‘The gala’s about to start.’ Delphi led her to the reserved front row of concrete benches beside the pool and directly opposite Mr and Mrs Mulberry, who’d arrived by car.
‘He’s delighted we’re here,’ Delphi whispered beneath the tones of the brass band piping away on the upper sun deck.
‘Did he say that?’ Natalie whispered back. ‘I thought he behaved a little oddly.’
‘He’s having a spot of bother with his new manager. The large chap he was talking to. That’s all.’
Up above them, the conducting colonel lowered his white-gloved hand from above his head to signal a musical full stop to the military band. There was so much going on around them that Natalie didn’t know where to look.
Then the band lowered their instruments and she held her breath in the silence that followed. Gradually, whispers from the crowd flowed into the hush. The sailors up above lay down their drums, clarinets, flutes and gleaming trumpets and stepped out from behind their music stands to lean against the wall and overlook the bathing pool.
‘How exciting.’ Delphi’s blond hair wisped from the wide brim of her white hat. She squeezed Natalie’s arm tighter as they both eyed the crowds opposite.
Natalie’s headache threatened to split her skull. It had come back with a stronger surge of pain since she’d seen Jack. The journey down and the town itself were bedlam and perhaps in a different frame of mind she might have enjoyed it. The whole summer in this place. Me! Really? Can I cope with this? It might be a bank holiday but it was only May. Just how busy would it get when they had the warm weather in August?
The titanic man in the suit, who’d been talking to Jack, took off his hat and smoothed back his thick hair before he took to the podium at the top end of the pool. She joined the applause that crackled from one packed end of the Lido to the other while the man tried to raise the microphone.
‘Good afternoon, folks of St Darlstone!’ He’d given in and bent his knees to lower his mouth to the microphone, not that his voice needed much amplification. A yellow butterfly took a sudden detour and passed right under his nose.
‘Well, you know what they say…’ He smiled as he pointed to it. ‘A yellow butterfly means it’s going to be a hot summer.’ He waited while the good omen fluttered up above him and then zigzagged its way over the Lido wall and was gone. ‘Well now. If you’re from out of town; I’m Arthur Whittle.’
A couple of boys sniggered behind them, batting ‘there’s nothing little about Whittle,’ back and forth, pushing one another in the chest as they did.
‘I’m town councillor for tourism, head of the St Darlstone hoteliers’ chamber, owner of the St Darlstone hotel, and…’ he took a sharp intake of breath ‘…the man behind the largest concrete structure in Europe, which you lot are fortunate to be enjoying on this misty May Day. But we’re not going to let the weather bother us, are we?’ He cupped his hand around his ear and the crowd cheered back.
‘The Lido’s new manager, and high-board diver, Jack Mulberry, will be diving today. I’m assured by my fellow councillors that you’ll like that.’ Though he didn’t sound convinced of it himself. Jack waved from the top of the diving tower and took a bow. ‘And our assistant manager, local man and war hero Sid Turnbull, he’ll be introducing the afternoon’s entertainment.’
The other man Jack had been talking to – who must be Sid – now stood just off the podium beside Arthur and nodded as he was introduced. Sid was a good-looking chap with brown eyes, dark wavy hair stacked up high and a dimpled chin, but his face was lined and his left arm hung limply by his side. Natalie realised now he had some sort of handicap.
‘He’s the one Jack was up against for the manager’s job,’ Delphi whispered. ‘Apparently Arthur wanted Sid, and he didn’t like being outvoted.’
Arthur was still talking and the noise from the crowd’s mass of faces, as jumbled and tanned as the shingle the other side of the Lido’s wall, rose in volume.
‘Come on, Whittle,’ a man called from the concrete seats. ‘We’ve got work tomorrow.’
Thankfully, Arthur took the hint and handed over to Sid who, with a stutter, announced the diving display.
The mist had been completely blown away now. With her head tilted back to look up and her palm rested on her beret, the frantic bunting flags looked to her like leaves in a storm. Up above that, beyond the rippling Union flag, loomed the thirty-foot diving board with a clutch of divers waiting for their moment.
Whatever anyone might think about the best way to teach physical education, the importance of outdoor exercise was undisputed and she c
ouldn’t wait to discuss everything they were about to see with Delphi later on.
Jack was easy to pick out even all the way up there. Taller and leaner than the others, always the closest to the edge, he picked out children in the crowd and waved. The other divers coolly leaned against the squared railings and waved for the spectators as Sid’s voice bounced their names and diving achievements around the concrete walls.
Poor Sid wasn’t a natural on the public address, his voice thin and shaky. His hesitation was amplified through the four foxglove-trumpet speakers secured around the upper sun deck. Jack would have been better at making the announcements. She imagined his honeyed charm oozing through the speakers.
She raised her hand in a wave to Jack’s crouched figure, but he didn’t return the gesture. Perhaps he didn’t see. It would be hard to pick them out in the crowd even with Delphi’s distinctive splashes of red.
It was Jack’s turn to dive. A chuckle eddied around the Lido as he stood on the edge of the board, his back to the water, arms flapping in a comic pretence of a loss of balance. A drum roll came from a solitary musician. The beat stopped. Jack fell. Slipped back off the board. She put her hands over her mouth. Was on her feet without even knowing it.
He plummeted, but then he morphed, snapped his body into a swallow shape. She lowered her hands. With ten feet to go to the water his arms moved forwards, he arched his back and pointed his toes. An evanescent fallen angel. The rotter. He hadn’t been falling at all. He slid into the water, hardly displacing a drop. Just the quick rip, followed by the fizz of air bubbles that rose to the surface.
She sat back down with a thud. Vaguely aware of the rousing applause around her. His shimmering head and shoulders emerged from the blue, his blond hair now dark and flat against his head.
Swiftly in his wake came the second diver and another from the twenty-foot board beneath and only then did she remember to check on Delphi. Shock was her enemy. And sure enough she looked straight ahead towards the tiers of spectators, the brim of her hat low. Her eyes danced, flitting back and forth. Her usual peachy glow had faded to soured milk. Natalie leant forward, saw the beads of sweat on her nose. Understood in an instant why Delphi hadn’t wanted to think about their classes today.
‘Let’s get you out of here.’
In the bathing pool, Jack waded through the shallows pinching his nose, his broad shoulders shining, the navy stripes on the top half of his bathing suit now an oily black. He winked at Delphi as he spun around the railings and then tore back up the steps that wound around the outside of the concrete tower.
‘Perhaps beneath a speaker.’ Delphi was barely audible above the chatter as she stood, her legs unsteady. Natalie sensed they were too late for her tactic; fighting sleep by positioning herself somewhere noisy. They both knew what her parents would say if they saw her unwell. She guided her around the edge of the pool, glancing back to see Mr and Mrs Mulberry deep in conversation with Arthur. She steered her towards what looked to be the office door.
No sooner were they inside than Delphi’s legs buckled and Natalie staggered forward holding Delphi’s arms to slow her dead-weight descent to the lino floor. She managed to cradle her head, then looked around for something to cover her, shook out a lifeguard’s white jumper she found on a chair and draped it over her shoulders. She heard footsteps outside and made it to the door just in time.
*
‘Can I help you?’ It was Arthur.
‘Jack’s sister felt a little faint. She just needs some quiet.’ Arthur was so tall that he could see straight over her shoulder.
‘Was that a bee just flew in there?’ he said as she pulled the door to. ‘You’ll have to let it out, or it’s bad luck.’
‘She needs quiet, and I’m sure the bee will be fine.’
His attention now focused on appraising her from her beret to her polka-dot blouse to her mid-shin skirt.
‘And you are?’ he asked, sucking on a boiled sweet. She held out her hand and introduced herself.
‘And do you have a first name, Miss Flacker?’
‘Natalie.’
‘Nice to meet you, Miss Natalie Flacker.’
She tried to lead him away from the door, so he didn’t draw attention, but he stayed put.
‘Where’re you two staying then?’
‘The Palm Court,’ she remembered Delphi telling the woman on the train.
He wrinkled his nose.
‘So the Mulberrys like a touch of old-fashioned swank, do they? I can see that. You’d like my place a lot more. And how long you here in my darling Darlstone?’
‘We’re thinking of staying the summer, if things work out.’
‘In town to find yourselves a couple of fellas then, are you?’
‘Ha! I’m not sure about that. We want to run some physical training classes here. I’m a teacher, you see, and Jack thought we could share our experience at the Lido.’
‘Is that so?’ he said as they emerged back out by the pool. He made no effort to lower his voice. ‘I hate to break it to you, miss, but it’s me that does the hiring and firing around here, not young Jack. When I hire it’s always locals first in line, priority to men with mouths to feed. Any jobs we had for the summer went like that.’ He clicked his hefty thumb and forefinger.
‘But the girls…’
‘They like the beauty contests here. So we give them what they want.’
‘Sssh,’ someone ordered from behind them.
She looked back towards the office; perhaps she should have stayed with Delphi after all.
Jack passed them on his way back to the tower. He smiled, but not a sunny beam – more a pathetic pinched mouth of regret and apology. He looked as disappointed as her that his ideas for them wouldn’t work out. And poor Delphi – was she never going to have a shot at her career?
‘Arthur love, we’ve got a bit of a situation downstairs with the girls.’ It was his wife Betsy. The red had now formed new patches on her forehead and chin. Arthur tutted, and to avoid Mrs Mulberry who was waving at her across the pool – no doubt she’d noticed Delphi’s absence – she followed him down the steps to the underground car park.
*
In the centre, between the rows of cars, a group of women huddled around in a raucous circle of high-pitched jeers. The low ceiling acted as a container for the smoke from the girls’ cigarettes, along with their scent and hoots. This is worse than the train!
Natalie held back to watch on from her elevated position on the steps, while Arthur waded straight in, parting the girls to reveal two at the centre, faces close together, shouting at one another.
‘Break it up!’ The girls paused, their noses nearly touching. They eyed each other before retreating. ‘Come on then, girls, what’s this all about?’
‘Ah Monsieur Whitt-el, thank goodness.’ It took Natalie a moment to place the red-headed woman with this new mad look in her eyes. She’d seen her at the turnstiles. It was…
‘Yvonne, are you causing trouble again?’
‘Moi! Me!’ She opened her hands, her mouth and eyes wide. ‘What about this mademoiselle?’
Yvonne flung a palm towards her tall and slender combatant who in a seamless, defiant gesture both wrinkled her elegant nose and flung her blond but fuzzy hair from her shoulders.
‘Now Toots,’ Arthur addressed Yvonne’s adversary. ‘I am surprised to see a girl like you carrying on like an alley cat.’
‘Arthur, darling,’ Toots replied. ‘I am simply trying to defend your high standards from being disregarded by this awful woman.’
Yvonne hissed at this and lunged towards Toots.
‘Come on, love, best leave it.’ Betsy pulled at Yvonne’s arm. ‘She’s not worth it that one. Hoity-toity so-and-so.’
‘Now you’re to stay out of it.’ Arthur stopped his wife Betsy in her tracks. ‘It’s bad enough that our own staff can’t behave themselves; you really ought to know better.’
‘All right, love.’ Betsy dipped her head. ‘Sorry.’
Yvonne had taken advantage of the moment’s pause in the argument to smooth down her hair.
‘That’s right,’ Toots’s voice was silky. ‘You really ought to get back to work, like good girls.’
‘Now.’ Arthur clapped his hands together, before Yvonne could respond. ‘Can someone please tell me what’s going on?’
The other girls, dressed in an assortment of bathing suits and raised sandals, their hair and make-up like something from a magazine, all began to answer him at once.
‘She is only entering the competition to promote her hairstyles,’ Toots said, her voice rising above the din. She pointed a red fingernail at Yvonne. ‘She is no bathing belle; she has varicose veins, she already has a job here and she can not possibly enter Miss Lovely Calves and Ankles. It will look like a fix.’
Yvonne flicked at Toots’s frizzy hair.
‘Perhaps you should have come to me for some help. No one will want you for a model with the mane of a horse on your head.’
‘It was the drizzle that did it,’ Toots cried. ‘Your legs should be behind a counter…’ Toots pointed at Yvonne’s shins ‘…not in a beauty contest. She’ll upset the holidaymakers, Arthur.’
‘A moment ago you said I might win,’ Yvonne countered.
It was a wonder they couldn’t be heard up at the pool. Arthur stood in the middle of it all, clapping his hands over his ears and booming at them to stop.
‘Please, ladies. Please.’
Arthur then raised his hands to the concrete ceiling, shook his head and pushed his way back out of the circle to join Natalie on the steps.
‘Hopeless. They’ve gone wild. I’ll have to call the bathing belles contest off. And this is only the first one. We have a heat a month until the final crowning of Miss St Darlstone in August. But I can’t risk that lot brawling on the catwalk.’
He disappeared off up the steps.
‘To hell with you all,’ he called behind, but only Natalie seemed to have heard. Yvonne was marching up and down the strip of concrete now, hands on her hips, taunting Toots and her friends with her glossy hair.