Dancing at the Victory Cafe

by Leah Fleming

  The party is off to a good start. Lucky smiles shyly at Dorrie. They sit together stiffly, hardly able to bear the intensity of feeling between them.

  ‘Hey, I brought my guitar so we can rehearse some toons. We want you to sing with our band when we give a concert.’

  ‘I can’t. I wish I could but perhaps you and me could enter the New Year Talent Show?’

  ‘I don’t think so, honey. It ain’t easy to get a pass. That don’t stop us singin’ now.’ He strikes up a chord. ‘Give Madame a taste of your hit parade!’

  They all join in. Abe strumming the beat on the table, Chad waving an imaginary baton. They feast on all the goodies and settle down to a game of cards. Abe tries to teach them Poker. Chad sits back warming his toes by the firelight, musing on his home town, Philadelphia, and his mother on her front porch.

  ‘I’m agoin’ to sit right down and write her a letter about your beautiful café and all the lovely ladies who is looking after her son, in such a swell fashion. I’m sure she’ll be sending you a parcel from America, if I know my mammy.’

  Dorrie dances to their music with each of the men in turn and Prin glides across the floor like Isadora Duncan with a silk scarf. All too soon the steeple clock outside strikes nine and Dorrie knows, reluctantly, it is time to leave or questions will be asked elsewhere. One beating was more than enough for her disobedience.

  ‘We’ll walk you home, honey. It’s black out there.’ The men rise.

  ‘Just to the end of the street will do,’ she replies.

  They clear up the dishes, retiring downstairs to the kitchen, but Prin shoos them on their way. Dorrie and Lucky linger behind the others, who stroll ahead tactfully to ignore their whisperings.

  ‘When can I take you out to the movies?’

  ‘Not in Lichfield – father would kill me.’

  ‘For seeing a black man?’

  ‘For going in any Picture House. They are places of sin and temptation.’

  ‘What about Tamworth, then . . . on my night out. We can hop on the bus past the barracks. What the eye don’t see, it don’t worry about, honey!’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Dorrie promises.

  Suddenly a jeep roars up to the pavement and out shoots the bull-faced Sergeant McCoy.

  ‘Dixon! What the Hell is you doin’, boy? This ain’t your pass night.’

  Chad stands to attention, saluting. ‘All above board, sir. Letter in my pocket, sir, from the Hospitality Committee. Visiting the natives, sir.’

  ‘Don’t you be sassy with me, Private.’

  ‘Escortin’ the lady back home, Sergeant,’ Lucky adds.

  ‘Like Hell you is!’ Burgess McCoy shines a torch into Dorrie’s startled face, staring at her with foxy eyes.

  ‘Oh ho! So it’s you again, Ginger Rogers! Can’t keep away from coon meat can you, babe? I got your number.’ Dorrie flees down the street, near to tears. The jeep crawls along the kerb, stalking her brisk pace, making no effort to overtake until Dorrie reaches the Police Cottage gate. ‘Hey, little lady, why you runnin’ away, just when we’ve gotten acquainted. You sure is determined to get a bad name for yerself, datin’ those boys.’ The sergeant leans out of his window at his prey.

  ‘No business of yours, sir, who I entertain.’ She tries not to let him see her trembling.

  ‘Oh but it is, little songbird, Mac McCoy is pretty choosy who he dates . . . I like your spunk and spitfire spirit. I likes a broad who’s not afraid of a fighting match. I guess, we is just two redheads sparring for a showdown, anyday now.’

  ‘If you think for one minute I would be seen with you . . .’

  ‘Oh, girly, if you don’t, well I’m a thinkin’, yer policeman pa might just have to know, you is still croonin’ the Devil’s toons with nigger boys and he ain’t goin’ a be happy with that. No siree!’

  ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘Believe me, babe, I would.’ McCoy revs the engine and roars off into the night.

  ‘Honey, is you okay?’ A voice echoes from the street below. Dorrie scrapes the ice from her bedroom window in the eaves of the cottage, peering out onto the dark street and sees the torch flickering. It is late and the street deserted.

  ‘Who’s there?’ She opens the casement gingerly.

  ‘Honey, over here,’ whispers the welcome voice of Lucky Gordon. ‘Shall I climb up?’

  ‘No. No. Hang on. I’m coming down.’

  The night is starlit, clear, with a cruel frost silvering the rooftops, chilling bones deep into the marrow. Dorrie shines her own torch down the ancient pear tree, clinging to the wall, nailed by the frost onto the red bricks of the cottage wall. Please God the mass of tangled branches will bear her weight! The cruck-beamed cottage stands four square, set back from the street by a hedged front garden. It is a lop-sided, low building, yet the sight of the drop is enough to make her senses reel. A moonlit descent, icy and slippery, is the only choice. Father is still on duty. Mother is still at work in the kitchen under the stair well. Dorrie locks the bedroom door.

  Muffled in a scarf and pixie hood tied under the chin, with Sol’s old cable jumper over her pyjama bottoms, she edges herself out of the window backwards, praying, ‘For what I am about to perform, may the Lord look upon this foolish handmaiden with mercy and a sure grip.’ Slowly she feels out the branches with her plimsoll, as Lucky leaps over the gate to guide her into his arms.

  ‘Lucky! You should be back in camp. Why did you wait? You’ll get into trouble.’ She snuggles for warmth into his greatcoat, sniffing the tang of cigars and good soap.

  ‘Did that Sergeant bother you? I sees him following behind you. He ain’t a guy to trust is McCoy. No one likes him.’ They walk slowly into the darkness of the back alleyway. ‘I sure as Hell didn’t mean you to shin down the wall. You’ll be frozen!’ Lucky wraps his arms around her and gathers her into his chest. They kiss, gently at first, on the lips and she tastes the chewing gum sweetness of his breath. This is my first grown-up kiss, she smiles, seeing the fire in his coal black eyes. The beauty of him burning into her flesh like piercing arrows and the response is easy. They kiss then into a frenzy, drawing close, melding into one shape under the greatcoat, closer, closer into each other. Lucky breaks away suddenly.

  ‘Hey, little lady, you sure know how to get a guy all steamed up!’ They cling like limpets, laughing, each fingering the outline of the other’s face, tracing the contours gently with reverence. ‘Your skin is honey gold silk, so beautiful.’

  ‘And yours is milk chocolate, smooth. I can see the moon shining in your eyes. I wish the world would stop right now and leave us alone here forever.’ Dorrie shivers and snuggles closer.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ Lucky shakes her playfully. ‘It’s like the movies, singin’, dancin’. Before I sees you, I is a happy-go-lucky kinda guy . . . easy come, easy go, kinda shy with the chicks but lucky with cards and beatin’ out jazz. Now I’s lucky in love too. Now I think of nuttin’ only when I can see you. I keep droppin’ ma tools, bangin’ ma fingers, tripping over tyres all day long. Yer voice make me tremble when I hear it singin’ in ma head. We just gotta do some shows together. Perhaps when this damn war is over, the Five Aces will be introducin’ Dorcas Goodman, the Lady from Lichfield.’

  ‘Oh, no, Lucky. I want a real stage name, a tinselly name to sing in, never Dorcas.’

  ‘Dor . . . cas.’ He exaggerates. ‘Cas . . . Cassie. Now that’s a swingin’ sort of name . . . Sassy Cassie. How about that?’

  ‘Don’t you dare, although Cassie’s not bad. I’ll have to think about it.’

  ‘So when will my Cassie in the starlight sing with the band?’

  ‘We’re dreamin’, Lucky, just dreaming. There’s a war going on and you’ll be moving on soon.’

  ‘Dreams cost nuttin’, honey. Why shouldn’t we make plans?’

  ‘Cos it won’t happen. My ma and pa, they’ll see to that and Uncle Sam, he’ll see to that too.’

  ‘We can sing at your church then.
’

  ‘Can you imagine them allowing the be-bop and the Lindy hop? Spirituals perhaps.’

  ‘Ah yes, dem churches like de poor blackman’s sad songs . . . “Ole Man River”,’ Lucky mocks, mimicking the minstrel style.

  ‘It wouldn’t work, would it?’

  ‘No, Miss Bossman, we can wait till this show is over. It still don’t stop us lovin’ does it?’

  ‘We’ll find a way to meet. Come here, you big bear, and let me kiss you again. I like kissing you. I shall make it my New Year’s resolution: to have a kiss from you . . . every day!’

  Saturday Noon

  The Tudor Café in Bore Street was just as packed with visitors and shoppers as it had been fifty years ago.

  No one wants to see an old woman crying in her soup, thought Dorrie as she lunched alone, tucked into a corner out of sight; but the tears trickled, none the less. Why is young love so sure of itself? Nothing else matters. You think the world will stand still to salute you, wars will halt, to wait for love in a rush. Love in a time of war is a grab-it-while-you-can affair. How did we dare to make such schemes before battle, before night ops? We all did though.

  Even Belle Morton. She had her fling and I was there in the Staffordshire bookshop in Dam Street, to record the event.

  Nothing changes, everything changes; only smells remain to unlock doors into the past.

  She paid her bill and sauntered around the market stalls, to the same bookshop. She sniffed again the damp must of old leather and remembered it all.

  2

  VICTORY PIE

  Menu

  Mock Oyster Soup

  Shropshire Fidget Pie and Vegetables or Country Casserole with Herby Dumplings

  Hedgerow Crumble and Custard or Batter Pudding (by courtesy of our laying hens)

  February 1944

  ‘Heads down and look busy!’ whispers Wyn – the secret of staying employed in the quiet season.

  The pavements are piled high with muddy slush. Everything looks so drab and dismal after all the Christmas fun. Mrs Morton has them all stripping cupboards, stock-taking, distempering, scrubbing the golden grease from the walls. Trust Dorrie to find herself groping down the back of the ovens for long-lost ladles and spoons, trying not to imagine what else might be lurking in the furry crevices to snap her fingers off. It is a relief to be called out front, to keep an eye on the dwindling winter trade, hugging the fireside seats. There are only the same wearisome jobs in the back, potatoes and vegetables to chop and peel, pastry preparation and slabs of bloody meat to hack and stew.

  ‘Give us a chorus of “Bless This House”, our Dorrie.’ Wyn attempts to raise their flagging spirits, but Connie Spear is in a foul mood.

  ‘You get yourself behind that cooker and do a proper job this time, young lady. No larking about, you two. Her ladyship is on the warpath again with another of her schemes. Victory Pie Competitions indeed! Whoever heard such nonsense. As if we haven’t enough jobs to do, without thinking of daft recipes to soft soap them judges from the Council . . . Competitions! Whatever next?’

  ‘But Mrs Morton says it’ll be good for business if we win. Besides, me and Dorrie think it will be fun to decorate the place in the spirit of Victory. Don’t we?’

  Dorrie nods.

  ‘Oh yes . . . and who’ll be doing all the work? Muggins of course . . . fetch me this and let’s make that. Extra work is what it all boils down to, mark my words.’

  ‘Don’t be a spoilsport. It’s boring doing the same old things,’ braves Wyn defiantly.

  ‘I can soon put a stop to that, Wynfred Preece. Just fetch a bucket of spuds and get them chipped up for the lunch rush and you . . . can take that look off your face, madam, too.’

  ‘What look is that, Mrs Spear?’ puffs Belle Morton, staggering up from the cellar steps with a brass box full of coal dross.

  ‘Are the young fry giving you trouble! Chop, chop . . . come on, Dorrie, you can come next door with me, to the bookshop. There’s work to be done. Mrs Spear can manage without you for a minute or two. The Victory Pie is calling. Let’s go and fling ourselves across the ice and find some new recipes to get our teeth into.’

  To this clarion call, Connie Spear purses her lips like a pantomime dame but says nothing. Only the heaving of her ample bosom bears testament to disapproval.

  The bookshop, for once, is not jam-packed with browsing servicemen, the sort whose jacket pockets bulge with these new paperback editions and who use the Vic as a reading room. Dorrie loves the heady brew of thousands of books, towering to the ceiling, in all of the poky rooms; all that knowledge fermenting away. The objects of Belle’s desire are stacked high up on the shelves and they stumble through the dingy passages for step ladders, trying not to overturn the sand buckets and disturb the tranquillity. One look at the height gives the waitress instant vertigo, but her boss is hungry to see the whole of the cookery repertoire. Donning her reading glasses, she mounts the ladder eagerly.

  ‘Must be hundreds of ideas in these old books,’ she whispers, grabbing a book and fumbling in her bag for a notebook and pen. ‘Look! Here . . . just what I need, spinach tart with apple puree, Herbie pie, Shropshire fidget pie, Walnut tart, Hedgerow crumble. We’ll find something in this lot . . . Oops!’ In the excitement of her discoveries, Belle topples into mid air, flailing backwards in surprise, onto a warm mattress. Underneath, a blue R.A.F. uniform cushions her fall. Dorrie leaps to their aid, stifling her amusement at the scene before her. The poor occupant of said outfit lies prostrate, with a bemused expression on his face, at this sudden descent upon his person.

  ‘Good God! I’m so sorry.’ Belle peers from her glasses at the startled young man. They both burst out laughing. ‘I do apologise, I got carried away.’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ says the man, as he rises, brushing himself down. ‘Neat landing, though.’

  ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’ Dorrie chirrups.

  ‘Down under, from Aussieland, Digby – Digger – Carstairs, at your service,’ he replies, staring blindly towards the source of the voice above his head. Dorrie knows enough about air force uniforms to recognise the stripes of a Flight Lieutenant and the discreet ribbons of a D.S.O. and D.F.C. on his battledress.

  ‘You have just been downed in one by the staff of the famous Victory Café, down the street.’ Belle makes the introductions.

  ‘Ah! The Vic! You do a good pot of tea, Missus!’

  Belle quickly acknowledges the compliment. ‘Yes and that’s what you deserve after this assault, tea and cakes on the house, when you’ve finished browsing.’

  ‘I’m easy . . . just passin’ time.’ He picks up her books.

  ‘You from the Airbase?’ says Dorrie.

  ‘Yeah, bin there six months, drivin’ me crazy, trying to teach the poor sods how to keep themselves up there.’ He raises his eyes aloft.

  His accent was familiar in the café. The Operational Training Centre, O.T.C. was always full of Aussie crewmen and trainers. Dorrie notices his tired grey eyes and the twitch of his cheek muscle as he speaks.

  ‘Come on, sir, I think you need that cuppa now.’ Belle pays for the books and the bookseller waves them out with relief.

  As Digger Carstairs sits by the window, staring out onto the street, indifferent to the chatter inside, Dorrie feels a protective urge to shoo all the diners away, to sit down by his side and cheer him up. She is beaten to the task however, by Mrs Morton, who stuffs him with warm scones and rhubarb jam, her Yorkshire cheese tarts and broken-biscuit cake.

  The youthful appearance of the airman on closer inspection reveals a rugged-faced man, compactly built, with sandy hair, square jaw, leathery skin wrinkled by years in sunlight; older than first impressions suggest. It’s a tired face, taut and tight-lipped, flushed with anger. He stares past their eyes, as he patters off his credentials to the assembled staff, a home in Bathurst, New South Wales, navigational training in America and Canada, his dog Monty and his enforced grounding at the O.T.C. wh
ere he trains up new crews. They all recognise the familiar war-weary expression, those listless repetitive movements, the flicking of ash, almost onto the tray, the way he circles the tin tray mindlessly around the table, the nails bitten to the quick, the nicotined fingers.

  He is one of the many aircrews Dorrie observes tramping through the city, shadowy figures, muffled by fog and torchlight, wending their way down frosty lanes towards the firelight warmth of a cosy pub, a tinkle on the piano, a bit of a singsong, writing names in candle grease on the walls of the Goat’s Head, drinking themselves under the tables if Maggie Preece is to be believed.

  Often, at night, Dorrie hears their boozy hollow laughter outside her bedroom window, down in the street below, as crews wobble their way up hill from the city, back to the aerodrome and the next night’s mission. Depression sits upon Digby Carstairs like a damp blanket, dousing his natural spirits. His own mother would hardly recognise the sagging features of his hang-dog looks. Inside Belle Morton, judging from her attentiveness, Dorrie observes a different interest. Digger is another of her challenges and she wastes no time taking the situation in hand.

  ‘So what do you do when you’re off duty?’ she asks boldly.

  He shrugs his shoulders. ‘Bitsa this, bitsa that.’

  ‘Look . . . I need a pair of heavy boots to help me dig over my new allotment, dig my veggy plot, if Digger’ll dig, I’ll pay. You look as if you need a bit of fresh air in those lungs.’

  Digger looks up at her for the first time, sees the brightness of her china blue eyes, the flush of her cheeks and saucy stare. He winks. ‘Yer on, bewt! Anything to oblige a lady!’

  Wyn looks at Dorrie, her mouth gaping widely. ‘Did you see that?’

  Being now a veteran in these matters, Dorrie replies, ‘I think they’ve just clicked!’

  The Victory Pie Competition grips the Vic like spring fever. Belle scours the allotments for vegetables in season for her experiments. The winter dampness lingers too long for good crops to sprout at her command. She enrols her new friend Digger in the search for spare cuttings and seeds. She churns out acres of pastry to find the blend which offers an unusual texture, colour and taste to catch a judge’s eye and tongue. Connie Spear’s patience is now as threadbare as the seating of her skirts.