Dancing at the Victory Cafe

by Leah Fleming

  The gang of field workers follow the relentless pace of the cart horse, then break for a few minutes to sit under the cart for shade, swigging cups of elder-flower champagne from brown jugs and munching pasties brought out by one of the farmer’s daughters. Dorrie as usual sits apart from the gang, lost in her own world of fury.

  ‘Hey you. Give us a hand. Get up on that cart and sort out the bales. Come on, Marmalade, shift yer arse!’ yells the farmhand in corduroy britches, tied at the knee with string, spitting green phlegm after each sentence. Dorrie rises sullenly and clambers up onto the bales. The sky spins like a carousel. ‘Straighten ’em up, girl.’

  She fingers the bloody remains of a rabbit sliced by the sickle, needles of straw scratching her skin. She pauses, the urge to jump and end all the shame too strong to resist. Why go on living when I am pregnant? Oh yes, for certain. No more fooling herself with the idea that a change of routine and Land Army tasks had stopped her monthlies, stemmed the flow.

  The itchy breasts can no longer be ignored, the nauseating taste of tea on her tongue, the swelling lump in her abdomen. Any dullard notices such changes. No chore is too hard to try, the mucking out, lifting sacks, pulling ropes, nothing too dirty or heavy for Dorrie Goodman’s tired back. She embraces her work with grim enthusiasm and a manic energy which makes her unpopular, a subject of suspicion and then indifference amongst her fellow troops. It suits her to keep herself apart.

  ‘That’ll do . . . don’t make a meal of it. Come on down . . . what the bleedin’ hell!’ The gang master stops as the young girl flings herself onto the earth with an awesome careless leap. She lies stunned, her legs splayed but unbroken. ‘You stupid cow. What yer do that for . . . could have killed someone, landin’ like that . . . must be sun stroked. Get up.’ It’s all the sympathy she gets.

  Dorrie gasps while her arms are yanked up. She is pushed under the cart in the cool, to get her breath back. Will that crazy act do the trick? She is running out of punishments to rid herself of the burden. Every whispered potion she has tried to swallow, gulping gin when she could find a bottle, until she retched and the bed swam. Fear prowls like a tiger, stalking her day and night. She funked the knitting needle cure, stabbings only remind her of Lucky and his death. As each month passes, her condition harder to conceal to a knowing eye, brings nearer the fate of a shameful discharge. Her sanity holds by the slenderest of threads. This silly impulsive gesture brings only bruises and an aching back. The unwelcome guest is determined to stay.

  Haytime turns into harvest home, to ploughing and harrowing. As the autumn gales lash the fields, so Dorrie invests in baggy dungarees and keeps her secret. Away from prying eyes, surrounded by girls who think her stuck up and stand-offish, the firecracker, the snarling tiger, she conceals seven months of pregnancy. She keeps well away from Lichfield and sad memories.

  The farm is high on the Derbyshire Peaks, near the market town of Ashbourne. It is natural to gravitate to the Derby Café for off-duty hours, far from the Vic. She billets herself in the Public Library to escape into books and the silence of reading rooms, avoiding concerts and dancehalls, especially the sounds of beat music. The muscles in her jaw stiffen, her mouth dries. It feels as if her throat is full of pebbles choking the breath. Dorrie no longer hums or sings to herself. Music holds no comfort for her.

  Then comes the morning when she forks her toe through her one decent Wellington boot, the spike searing her flesh. Her screams bring the farmer running. His wife bundles her in a cart and trundles down to Ashbourne village to the doctor’s rooms, stemming the blood with a tea cloth.

  ‘Come on, young lady, let’s have those dirty clothes off,’ says the doctor.

  ‘I’ll manage as I am. It’s just my foot,’ she replies.

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ says the eagle-eyed nurse who happens to be assisting that morning. She peels off the dungarees and glances at Dorrie’s swollen body. The camouflage of shirting falls away.

  ‘How long have you been in this condition?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ brazens the girl, her cheeks stinging as the foot is washed and examined. The doctor holds her gaze.

  ‘Come on, young woman. That’s no football in there. We both know you’re with child.’

  Such an old fashioned Bible phrase, smiles Dorrie to herself. ‘With child’ indeed. Little do they know how hard I’ve tried to be without one! The doctor peers over half moon spectacles, summons her onto the couch, covers her embarrassment with a cotton sheet and palpates the belly. ‘How long since your last courses?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ answers Dorrie, for once truthfully, silenced as he squeezes and defines the growing shape, taking a cold cone to her lump and listening intently.

  ‘You’d better get yourself booked in soon, silly girl. The head is engaging. I shall have to inform the farmer of your condition, unless you do so first. In the forces is he . . . the father?’

  ‘Lost at sea,’ she lies. There is no point in telling the truth.

  ‘You know you will be discharged . . . regulations.’

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ she croaks.

  ‘Can you take care of a baby, though? What were you thinking of . . . there are Homes for girls like you but you’ve left it very late now. Go home to your parents and arrange for the baby to be taken away at birth to a good home. Throw yourself on the mercy of your parents. They usually stand by their girls,’ he argues with breezy optimism.

  Where do these men get such ideas? That parents like mine would condone a bastard; parents so firmly anchored to Victorian times. It’s the workhouse for wayward daughters like me. She says nothing, dresses meekly, relieved in a strange way that her secret is now public. She collects forms for a change of rationbook, allows them to stitch up her wound and hobbles back to the waiting cart. Somehow, drained of energy and resolve, she brazens out the sniggering and darted, ‘told you so’ glances of the other women. There are no allies to support her. Her own pride and shame saw to that. Underneath lurks a terrible fear. An awesome predicament awaits her in a few weeks’ time; a predicament only she alone can sort out.

  It becomes the longest journey of her life, standing in the bus queue with her kit bag, waiting in the smoky terminal for a connection, her legs swollen, her stomach churning with fear. Even the newspaper barely distracts the ache in her back; with news of V2 rocket attacks and the American advances into the Moselle.

  Thank goodness for the farmer’s wife, a staunch Methodist who, much to her surprise, had taken pity on Dorrie’s plight and allowed her to stay on as unpaid skivvy in the dairy. She had drawn the line, however, at having a bastard delivered in the house. As her time came closer, Dorrie was sent packing.

  Dorrie waits until dusk to catch the bus from Derby to Lichfield City. She sits by the window, staring out into the gloom, watching breath condense on the glass like streaming tears, shutting out views of the darkening countryside, shutting in the cocoon of chattering passengers. She rubs out a clear patch, to peer up at myriads of stars, heralding a frost.

  ‘Are you watching over me, Lucky Gordon . . . wherever you are? Can you see the mess you’ve landed me in? You’d better pull one out of the hat for me tonight.’ She winces as the ache in her backbone gathers into a searing clinch over her stomach. The bumping charabanc jolts the seat and she curls, knees up, to ease the pain. When eventually the bus draws into Lichfield, she alights in pitch darkness, with only the bright Bomber’s moon torching the towpath along the Minster pool, which nestles under the Cathedral wall. The shimmering gold disc reflecting icily on the pool. Its water is tempting but cold and not deep enough. She is too exhausted to walk the half mile to the deeper reservoir at Netherstowe.

  The Vic is shuttered and closed; no telltale signs of Belle Morton working late in the back. She rings the bell, her finger sticks on the buzzer as another pain grabs at her stomach.

  ‘Who’z zat . . . wakin’ ze dead at zis hour?’

  ‘Prin . . . Prin. It’s me, Dor
rie.’

  ‘I know no Dorrie. Dorrie who? She gone away! . . . go away.’

  ‘Let me in . . . it is Dorrie. I’m so cold. I did mean to come back but I have a good reason, please, Prin.’

  The woman relents and opens the door cautiously. ‘You vicked girl . . . disappear . . . poof like smoke. Not a word.’ She stares at the girl. ‘So it is you . . . rolling up like ze bad penny.’

  ‘Let me in. I’m freezin’ out here and wet.’

  ‘Wet? It no raining.’

  ‘Well I’m soaking, I’ll explain everything.’ Dorrie can hardly climb the stairs, her hands on the banisters clammy, her legs strangely disobedient. She feels the warm rush of water down her legs, leaving a trail of drips on the bare boards.

  Prin closes the curtains and puts on the light, muttering, prattling at her arrival. ‘All the soldiers gone . . . thiefs in the night . . . no rations any more. Chad write me a letter . . . poor Abe, he stood on a mine . . . no more Abe. Where you been?’

  ‘Not now, Prin. Please God . . . I’ve got other things on my mind.’

  ‘So I see, big fat cow. How long vous been like zat?’

  ‘Not much longer . . . my waters have broken. What happens next?’

  ‘How I know? I never have ze baby . . . go to ze hospital, chop, chop.’

  ‘I can’t, Prin, no one must know I’m here. Please help me. I can do it here.’

  ‘You crazy lady . . . no room here for babies.’

  ‘Just for tonight, please. I’ll move on then . . . God the bloody thing’s coming. I must go upstairs. Let me get rid of this thing. I want rid of it now.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Dorrie. Is it poor Lucky’s?’ Prin takes her arm and guides her up to the attic.

  ‘Yes, of course, but he can’t do much for me now, can he?’ Dorrie fights each contraction, spitting out her anger, tensing her muscles against the pain.

  ‘That’s right! You curse like Eve . . . let it out. I make you warm.’ Prin clatters down the stairs to light her burner. ‘You come right place. We have lots of babies in ze street. My mamma, she go help, I know vat to do,’ she shouts from the kitchen.

  ‘God! I hope you do,’ yells Dorrie. ‘I hope it’s not another of your porky pies.’

  ‘I make it all right for vous . . . no worries.’

  The night is one long pain, a relentless tightening and squeezing in her gut. ‘How long does this take?’ Dorrie cries out.

  ‘How I know? I bring some tea.’

  Dorrie is promptly sick over the linoleum. ‘Sorry, I bought some chips for the journey.’

  ‘Silly girl, you no eat when you pushing babies out.’

  Perhaps Prin does know something after all. The old woman hovers anxiously, sponging Dorrie’s forehead with tepid water. The girl struggles to stay calm. ‘I can’t stand this pain . . . please find something . . . anything.’

  ‘I call a doctor for you. Redheads, you must watch . . . zey bleed like stuck pig, my mamma say,’ Prin fusses.

  ‘No doctor. This is our secret. Give me some brandy . . . pour some down my throat, quick!’

  ‘I drink all ze brandy . . . I no sleep after you go. I ’av some pills. I go find them. Don’t move!’ A clatter down the stairs, the banging of cupboard doors as she rummages downstairs. ‘Swallow these.’ She spills the box of pills onto the bed and Dorrie gulps them down without a qualm. As she squirms, waiting for relief, Prin pads the sheets with towels and newspaper around the prostrate girl. Dorrie whimpers, struggling to her feet to pace around the room.

  ‘Tell me something funny: a story, Prin, anything to take my mind off my body,’ she pleads.

  Renate Oblonsky sits herself down and strokes the girl’s bony fingers. ‘Once upon a time there was a pretty girl in Poland called Maria. She join ze ballet and travel all over the continent: to Rome, Paris and Vienna. Then she come to London and get sick just like you. She birth baby girl and they live in bad house in Billingsgate with nasty man who leave them alone every night. Each night she tell her little girl, you will be great dancer like me. She save pennies to find a teacher for her little princess. Then come day when she take daughter to the king of the ballet and he watch her dance. He thank ze mama and burst into laughter, at sight before him.

  ‘ “Why you bring zis creature to me? She av ze flattest feet and piano legs. She not know left hand from right. She tipple the chorus line like pack of cards. She’ll go far but not in a tutu and point shoes. She too short, too klutz. Put her in the circus ring as a clown or the Music Hall, never in ze ballet!”

  ‘So ze mamma go home and teach her how to sew fine seam, to stitch costumes, to darn ze point shoes. She say . . . don’t listen to silly man. You, ma petite fleur, can be vat you vant. Choose any name, live your dreams and zey come true in your heart. To me you are my dancing daughter, now and forever!’ The woman smiles mischievously.

  ‘You old fraud, Renee White. So you’re not even Polish!’

  ‘Ah but I am, I was made on Polish soil by a Polish prince. Zat is enough for me. My name, I choose from a jeweller’s shop in Whitechapel Road. I like the sound . . . Ob . . . Lonsky . . . This life; my best performance. It no rehearsal, Dorrie . . . so now you know, I tell only vous.’

  By this time, Dorrie has her own show on the road, as she feels her pelvis split open and a ball of fire burning its way slowly, urgently into her groin . . . pushing, tearing deep inside. ‘I need to pu . . . sh, I can’t stop the pushing. What do I do?’ she screams. ‘I don’t want a bloody baby.’

  ‘Open ze legs . . . let me see. I have towels.’ Prin pushes back the sheets, ‘Yes . . . I see furry head. Quick big pushes, feather breaths, Prin is here to catch it.’

  Dorrie strains, her eyes bulging with effort. The fireball moves in response. With one long scream, something slithers out, lying between the thighs, a girl child, bloody, bruise coloured and complete. Another gush and a lump of raw meat slides on the sheet. Not a sound. Dorrie takes one darting glance and knows no more.

  When she wakens, the room is empty. Only the clock of St Mary’s in the Market Square disturbs her stupor. It must be late but she is far too befuddled to count the chimes; out cold for hours in a dreamless sleep. Then she feels her flat stomach, remembers and turns for the child, but it is gone from her bed. Her head buzzes oddly. ‘Prin . . . Prin where is it . . . the baby? Let me see her, bring her.’ She calls out from her bed, neatly remade, with clean sheets and a wad of material between her legs. Prin stands by the door, her hands held in prayer, eyes down. ‘Show me the baby, now.’ The urgency of her plea forces a response.

  ‘She no breathe. I not know vat to do. I take her away,’ she simpers not looking Dorrie in the face.

  ‘Where’ve you put her . . . you can’t just take her away without me seeing her!’

  ‘It best you no see baby, best . . . you have no place to take baby, Dorrie. She’s at peace. No worry, I take care of it all for you.’

  The girl tries to lift herself but the room swims around her and she flops back onto the pillow. ‘I saw her. She was born alive, I’m sure. She must be buried, please for God’s sake. I never wished her dead.’

  ‘You better off wizout baby, nobody knows. Now you go away and start fresh over. Forget zis night.’

  ‘I want my baby . . . I want her now. You haven’t killed her, have you?’ Dorrie screams, tears coursing down her cheeks. ‘Don’t do this to me . . . to your friend. Show her to me now.’

  ‘You rest. I see vat I can do.’ Prin slips out of the room, down the stairs out into the dark night. Dorrie rests fitfully, fighting sleep, waiting for her return.

  She creeps through the foggy street, a faceless bundle in her arms, combing the back alleyways, the hedged and ancient windings of the city, for an entrance up to the Reservoir at Netherstowe. But the streets are not connecting into the familiar pattern. The moon hides in shame, giving no light to guide her on this terrible task. Her legs are heavy as lead, disobedient limbs slowing her progress. The windows of the sleeping
city shuttered, blackened, closing ranks against her foul intent. Only three dark spires loom over her, watching, waiting. At last she finds the gap in the hedge; the gap well known to lovers, to the tow path, to hidden grassy ditches for secret trysts. There is no one in sight.

  She stands by the edge of the water as it laps gently onto the cobblestones. No prayers can she mouth, only the pounding of her heart like a drumbeat before the guillotine. The bundle is launched, unprotected, defenceless into the water. She hears the plop, sees ripples circling. For a brief second there is a floating, then like a stricken vessel it tips, lurches and sinks out of sight. Suddenly her only concern is to reach out, to retrieve the parcel. She wades into the cold pool to save the drowning package but it has disappeared and she sinks with it beneath the surface, fighting for breath, panic pressing on her chest.

  Dorrie wakes, tearing the sheets, wet with tears dripping down her face and milk leaking from her swollen breasts. Always the same haunting dream. ‘I killed my baby, as sure as if I tied the cord around her neck. Why did I hate the idea of Lucky’s child growing inside me? Why have I been so careless?’ One glimpse of the plump tiny creature with fingers curled like fronds, the helplessness of her startled look, changes everything. The image flashes into her brain. The baby was not deformed but complete, pausing in shock between birth and life. How can she have not been breathing? Unless she suffered neglect, violated in the womb. I did not want her, so she was not born, the girl cries out. I do not deserve to be a mother so she is taken away from me.

  For ten days she stays imprisoned in the attic, at the mercy of Prin’s erratic nursing, force fed leftovers, sneaked from the café below. In the dining room her friends go about their business, unaware of her presence, unaware of her misery and shame. That must be part of her punishment. At night, when they have gone home, she roams the premises in a dirty kimono, black with garish dragons embroidered in silk, stinking of cigarettes and stale blood. She searches in every cupboard, suitcase, shoebox, investigates any bundle, bag, even outside in the garden, just in case, checking the soil for a newly dug grave. She peers down crannies with fixed intent, like a madwoman let loose in the night. She begs the Prin to show her the grave.