The Lido Girls

by Allie Burns

  She smiled in agreement and set off for the cafeteria to get him a sweetened cup of tea. She’d learnt by now that she wouldn’t get anywhere by confronting Arthur, but she had other ideas, and somehow she would show Arthur a thing or two about his wife.

  *

  Despite her misgivings, dear Betsy turned up for her second class at the end of the day.

  ‘I thought the frills part of the class was dreamy, but I was so worried that Arthur was going to see me on the beach that I just couldn’t concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing.’

  ‘But, Betsy dear, there can be no wafting without a sea breeze,’ Delphi said, leaving for the beach without her. ‘If you change your mind you’ll know where to find me.’

  Natalie was determined to be more accommodating. But Barnie was too tired, Edith too elderly and shy, and she knew not to expect Yvonne. Still, she was pleased Betsy was giving her another chance. She was the reason she’d started the drills in the first place. She didn’t comment that she wore her work overalls again; it might drive her away.

  ‘I thought we would start with some dance today?’ She’d left the whistle behind too.

  ‘Really?’ Betsy looked as though she’d heard that she’d been let off the noose.

  Natalie led her, skipping about the perimeter of the deck, hands behind their backs, but even that was tricky for Betsy. She couldn’t skip. Her legs looked as if her knee joints had fused her legs straight. It wasn’t long before her head dipped to her chest.

  ‘I’m such a clot.’

  ‘Don’t you worry; it does take more coordination than you might think. Let’s try something else.’

  Natalie put her hands on her hips and Betsy followed, as she pointed a toe in front of her and then another. Betsy copied her. They did it slowly, no bounce in between, just stepping from one leg to the other, toes to the front. Where did I do this? Oh yes, at Olympia.

  A couple of young men wolf-whistled from the far wall.

  ‘How long have they been watching!’ Betsy dropped her hands to her sides.

  ‘Ignore them. You’re doing well. Let’s try the step ball change now.’

  ‘You know what this town is like. This will be straight back to Arthur, me with two left feet, sweating like a donkey in a heatwave, couldn’t copy a thing you did, and he’ll tease me something rotten. You don’t know what he’s like when he gets going.’

  Betsy wiped her nose with her flannel and let out a yelp.

  ‘Betsy dear, please don’t be upset.’ She sat with her arm around her while Betsy cried.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Betsy sniffed. ‘It’s just…’ Natalie held up her hand in surrender. Betsy didn’t need to explain and she didn’t need to apologise. She’d heard what Arthur said about her.

  ‘Tell me, do you think what Delphi does is more appealing than my classes?’

  Betsy’s red face burned bright.

  ‘You can be honest. I won’t mind.’

  Betsy started to sob again. ‘I’m no good at either.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m happy you came along and gave it a go. It makes me happy to teach. I’m just so sorry that it’s made you miserable.’ She laughed, tried to make Betsy see that there was a funny side – that it wasn’t at all tragic that she was failing miserably at teaching; the one thing she was supposed to be good at.

  ‘I know what I look like.’ Betsy gestured to her thighs. ‘I know what people think of me. I know when you tell me to copy you that I look nothing like you and so my legs go to jelly and I can hear my blood whooshing in my ears and I think of Arthur laughing at me.’ Her voice broke. She paused, sighed. ‘Miss Mulberry looks so rapt on the beach, transported… Her eyes are shut and she’s not trying to copy anyone else or move like anyone else. But I just trip over my own feet and look a fool.’

  Mr Thorpe, the Borough Engineer from the council, interrupted them. He looked away from Betsy as soon as he saw she was upset. She’s right; anything she does will get back to her husband.

  It was the day for the water quality tests. She led Mr Thorpe, along with his black leather tool bag, like a doctor’s satchel, down to Sid in the engine room. Before she left she turned to Betsy.

  ‘I’ll speak to Delphi.’ She rubbed her shoulder. ‘See what we can do for you.’

  *

  She curled her fingers around the edge of the pool. Her breath shallow and rapid enough for her to know that thirty laps would do for now. She let her legs drop through the water – gravity’s force dissipated but still there beneath the water – until they touched the bottom of the pool.

  It was the end of another day. Sid was down in the engine room doing his checks, making sure the filtration system was all in order. Jack had started planning their next bathing contest, and the first thing he’d done was invite in Toots. She was in the office with him now.

  The girls were wafting with Delphi, even Yvonne had joined in, not on the beach but up on the deck, where Betsy was hidden from Arthur. They’d closed it off so they were out of sight, put a lookout on the turnstiles to warn her if he turned up. Natalie had felt left out but tried to make herself useful; she watched for a while, took down some notes, ideas of how they could work some of the drills into the wafting. She’d discuss it with Delphi later.

  Floating on her back, the water haloing around her bathing cap, she puffed a lung-cleansing bag of air straight up into the bright blue skies above. The water pooled in her ears. She wafted her forearms and waggled her ankles. Comfy on top of the cushion of water, she visualised the layers beneath her, the liquid all around her, there, pushing at her palm but running through her fingers and toes, fresh in her ears, but when she tried to grab it, it was gone.

  She rolled over on to her front and then pulled up out of the water.

  ‘George?’ A freckly face appeared from behind a pillar.

  ‘We’re closed now.’ She followed her hand as she moved it as a rudder in the water.

  ‘Couldn’t you teach me to swim, miss?’ he called, not moving any closer.

  ‘Does your mother know you’re here?’

  He looked behind him towards the turnstiles.

  ‘Well, you know what she thinks about me. Off you go.’

  She put her face down into the water. As she rolled her torso from side to side, her arms windmilled above her. She’d upset Yvonne once; she wasn’t going to do it again, but it was nice that George recognised the teacher in her.

  She swam up and down the length of the pool four times, unthinking. And when she finally plunged her head back fully out of the water and unstrapped her bathing cap from beside her ear, George’s bare feet had been replaced with Jack’s white and black punched-out brogues. She looked behind him. There was no sign of Toots; she must have gone already.

  ‘Are you coming in?’ She tilted her face up to him. ‘The water’s nice.’

  ‘There’s someone here to see you,’ he said.

  ‘Me?’ She climbed out of the water, dripping on to the concrete. He glanced at her legs as he handed her a towel.

  ‘A couple – they didn’t give their name.’

  ‘That’s strange.’ She dried her face first before wrapping the towel around her shoulders. Who could it be? Nobody knew that she was here. She sat on the bench, her breathing still settling after the swim, fastened her watch and then hurriedly patted her calves dry.

  ‘They’re waiting in the office. He said there was no need for them to come in here. They wrinkled their noses as if I’d invited them into the sewers.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Natalie said. ‘I think I know who it is.’

  A slender couple in black overcoats and hats took short, sharp movements towards them. She looked away for somewhere to escape, but there was nowhere and the couple had seen her now.

  ‘Jack, would you mind staying for a moment? I can’t face my brother on my own. I really can’t.’

  Jack pushed his hands on his long thighs to bring himself to standing and raked his fingers through his white-blond hair as
they reached them.

  ‘Natalie,’ her brother William said, taking off his hat. ‘At last! You’ve given us quite the runaround.’

  He was a good-looking man, and like the brothers they’d both lost, he’d inherited the same gentle eyes as their father; but unlike them, or perhaps because of the loss of them, his face was set in a stern expression that had etched impatient lines on his brow and around his mouth before their time. Being the last man standing had turned his hair grey early; he was ten years older than her but he looked to her now as though he could comfortably have been her father.

  His wife Annie always wore the expression of a grieving widow noon and night. Her hair had turned white in her twenties and her skin had faded to sallow to match that of her husband.

  Natalie pulled her towel tight around her chest. ‘How did you find me here?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s just the sort of welcome I’d expect after a three-hour drive. The college sent a letter to you, care of our address. It seems you no longer work there. I had to discover your whereabouts from the Mulberrys’ housekeeper.’

  ‘You could have just forwarded the letter, you know.’

  ‘Why don’t you get dressed and then we can find a suitable place to talk things through.’

  She took her time getting changed. She thought of bolting over the turnstile like young George. If only her brother were an easier man to love. They should be a comfort to one another after all they’d lost, not an annoyance. But somehow their grief had driven a wedge between them, not brought them closer. His sense of propriety over her was misplaced.

  Jack had waited for her in the office. He looked relieved when she reappeared. The silence was palpable.

  ‘So it seems you’ve lost your job – your living,’ William began, ‘and mired the educational establishment’s name for good measure. And you didn’t even think to tell me.’

  ‘It was a misunderstanding.’ He hadn’t been angry like this when they were young. They’d been close, despite the age gap, but now…

  ‘A misunderstanding that found its way into the national newspapers. I’m very glad I missed that edition. I suppose you were blindly following Delphi Mulberry again, incapable of thinking for yourself.’ Oh, how her face burnt. She wished more than anything that Jack wasn’t there to witness her being spoken to like a miscreant child.

  ‘I think perfectly well for myself.’

  ‘Yes.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s always been the problem. And while you’re behaving like a good-time girl, what of your career?’ William looked pointedly at her open-toed high heels and her sunburned shoulders.

  ‘She’s working in the office here, for me,’ Jack said.

  ‘A business girl, eh? Well that’s something, but of course you’ve no training. You can’t type and you don’t know shorthand, so where’s the future in that?’

  ‘I’ve been teaching movement classes for the staff here too as a matter of fact.’

  ‘She had a terrible shock when Miss Lott was taken ill.’ Jack spoke up for her. She swelled up with appreciation, moved closer to his side, but William simply looked at him with disapproval. He’d never liked the Mulberrys.

  ‘And it’s no coincidence that she followed you down here, is it? From one crutch to the other.’

  ‘Now that’s not fair.’ Natalie’s voice rose. The heat on her cheeks went up a notch. How can he embarrass me like this in front of Jack?

  ‘Are you quite sure you haven’t taken leave of your senses?’ Annie asked with concern.

  ‘I didn’t tell you about losing my job because there’s no need for you to fuss.’

  ‘The Mulberrys are supporting you financially and you’ve disgraced the educational establishment.’

  ‘And look how quickly I’ve found a job. And I’m looking for my own lodgings.’

  ‘Could you support yourself on your new wages?’

  He had her there and he must have seen it on her face. Her wages weren’t enough for her to afford any of the lodgings she’d circled in the Gazette.

  ‘You’ve made a terrible mess of things. I’ve written to the Mulberrys to tell them I’ll pay your hotel bill.’

  ‘There’s no need, William…’

  ‘And I want to take you back to London. I want us to meet with the Board of Education, see if we can’t explain away your misdemeanour and get you reinstated.’

  ‘No,’ she called. ‘I want to do this my way.’

  ‘Do you want to go?’ Jack asked her.

  ‘Of course not,’ she whispered.

  ‘She is organising a bathing contest, aren’t you? We’re rather depending on her.’

  ‘Is it as important as your pension and your savings? Before long you’ll be squeezing droplets from a tiny wage, borrowing money from me and going home to a damp and dank little bedsitting room.’

  ‘You have to let me do things my way,’ she said, knowing he was right about her prospects without a teaching career, but certain that she didn’t want to go back with him. Just the three of them, so stifling, so serious. No picnics, no peashooters. William rustling his newspaper and the clickety-clack of Annie’s knitting needles while her own skull reverberated with the sound of her stifled screams.

  ‘I won’t do it.’ Would I feel that way about Edmund or Daniel had they survived the war? Their grief and guilt at being the only two alive had done this to them. ‘I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey.’ As she reached the door, she remembered something. ‘You mentioned a letter when you arrived. Who was it from?’

  Annie reached for her bag and pulled out an envelope.

  ‘Not now.’ William pushed Annie’s arm down like a lever. ‘Let her see it later.’

  ‘See what?’ She stepped forward and snatched the letter, barely noticing the Scottish postmark. She read the short handwritten note.

  ‘We’re very sorry.’ Annie tilted her head to Natalie’s dipped face. ‘I know you were very fond of her.’

  Natalie didn’t remember walking out of the office. She couldn’t say if she asked Jack to come with her. He was just there. His brow furrowed with concern. He enveloped his arms around her and silently steered her to the beach, where she pulled on his oversized jumper to guard against her sudden chill, and they sat side by side, throwing stones into the sea.

  ‘Miss Lott was like a mother to me… I wouldn’t have become a teacher without her… She had time for every girl in the college, treated them as individuals, wanted everyone to succeed.’

  ‘She sounds just like you. Kind-hearted.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  She rested her head on his shoulder and cried while he stroked her hair and soothed her.

  *

  ‘How are you?’ Delphi asked from her deckchair.

  ‘Oh you know, sad about Miss Lott. Smarting over William.’

  ‘Sit down.’ Delphi indicated an empty chair. ‘Or do I have to force you?’

  ‘Some of us are better at sitting about than others,’ Natalie mocked.

  She reclined into the lazy ‘u’ of the deckchair to let the sun dry out her bathers. The combination of the salty and chlorinated water had pulled the wool out of shape.

  ‘Have you noticed…’ she applied suntan jelly to her already dry legs ‘…that since we’ve been here and we’ve had no call to write to one another, we don’t seem to be communicating as much.’

  Heavy splashes came from behind them as the divers landed.

  ‘So what is it that we’re not communicating over?’ Delphi’s response was much tarter than Natalie had been expecting.

  ‘We’ve not spoken about the classes. Frills and Drills. When I was watching you yesterday I thought of a way to combine the two. So for example…’

  ‘Natty, no,’ Delphi interrupted. ‘The girls like the freedom of the frills. They can’t make mistakes because there isn’t anything to get wrong. If we add drills we risk driving them away. They’re not like the girls you’re used to teaching.’ She flung herself back into the canvas.r />
  ‘I know that, but…’

  ‘I said no, Natty.’

  They sat in silence while Natalie took stock. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d been worried that she was laying down roots while Delphi was being left behind. Now there had been an about-turn, and they were wafting within the safety of the Lido walls, Delphi seemed happy to leave her out.

  ‘So there’s nothing for me to add then?’

  ‘Of course there is; you have lots to offer the girls.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Encouragement, motivation. Your presence makes them feel as though they are a part of something official and improving.’

  ‘You’re just trying to flatter me so I play along. I don’t believe you’re listening to my expertise.’ Natalie wondered too whether Delphi wasn’t rather enjoying her ascendency.

  Delphi regarded her over the top of her sunglasses. ‘You know me better than that.’

  ‘If you’re going to be in charge of those girls prancing about, then what am I supposed to do?’

  Delphi shook her head.

  ‘Nothing is stopping you from being involved, Natty.’ But what Delphi said didn’t match her brittle tone or her brusque manner. It appeared that she was happy to exclude her. She’d barely asked about Miss Lott. It had been Jack who had consoled her. It hurt to think that the plans they’d made about teaching together had been abandoned so easily, and that despite her own loyalty, Delphi seemed content to drop her friend when it suited her.

  Chapter Ten

  The cannonball

  A splendid preparation for the one-and-a-half somersault dive. The diver jumps into the water feet first with her knees clasped to her chest.

  Natalie and Jack were in the back row for the matinee showing of Cleopatra. He had asked her out on their afternoon off.

  The sixpenny ticket included an orange and a bag of nuts. She peeled the orange carefully, resting the skin on the brown paper bag, and sunk her teeth up to her gums in the sweet, juicy flesh.