‘Well, I think that’s sad,’ Audrey said. ‘You’re only young. You can’t be on your own for ever.’
‘I won’t be on my own,’ I said. ‘I like men. I like spending time with men. I like Francis. But I’m never going to marry.’
Audrey looked surprised but I didn’t care
‘I just don’t want to give myself up for a man,’ I said. ‘Not again. I’m in control now, and that’s the way I like it.’
Chapter Forty
‘Amy, Amy, over here, love!’
I spun round and gave the bank of photographers a dazzling smile.
‘And one with Matty?’
Matty slid his arm round my waist and we posed together, blinking in the flashes.
‘Feels good to be back, huh? he whispered in my ear as we walked up the red carpet into the event. What the event was I didn’t know. Since Matty and I had got back together – and since I’d made it to the quarter-final of SSD – we’d been out every night. Life the last couple of weeks had been glittering and showbizzy and fabulous. An endless round of parties, launches, photo shoots, interviews – and rehearsing, of course, though I felt like I’d barely seen Patrick or Cora for days and days.
Matty had stayed over at mine a few times. It was strange seeing him in a place that had been just for me. One day I came home and discovered he’d replaced my flamenco dancer print with another of his blown-up canvases. This one was a photo of the two of us from a Yay! magazine shoot we’d done when we got engaged. It was hideous and I definitely did not want it in my lounge. So, as soon as he’d gone, I took it down – he’d managed to hang it properly – and propped my flamenco dancer back up again. Now I was in the ridiculous situation of having to change the pictures over every time he came round.
I was pleased to be back with him, though – I thought. It was nice being back in demand again, and having offers of work left, right and centre. But I’d got into a sort of quiet rhythm of dance lessons with Cora, and hanging out with Patrick, and Matty suddenly seemed too loud, too brash, too ‘on it’, for my liking.
Patrick was keeping his distance. He seemed to be spending a lot of time with Sarah-Lou, even though she’d been knocked out of Strictly Stars Dancing thanks to a particularly twee tango. He didn’t seem very happy about it, though. In fact, he didn’t seem very happy about anything. He was short with me and snappy and the only time we really got on was when we were dancing.
This week it was our turn to dance a tango. I was nervous about it because it seemed a bit grown-up and sexy for me, but I was keen to give it a try. So far – mostly thanks to Cora’s help – it was going well. Cora had told me to make up a story about our dance, and to play the part – like I’d done in the Charleston – and it definitely helped. Except sometimes I caught a glimpse of my fierce tango face in the mirror while we were dancing and it made me laugh. I just hoped it wouldn’t have the same effect on the judges.
‘We need to split, baby,’ Matty whispered in my ear. I looked round in surprise, lost in my own thoughts. The event – it seemed to be some sort of exhibition – was in full swing and there was lunch being served, but I had a meeting with Babs and Matty had to be somewhere else. We did this a lot – being photographed on the way in to a do and then virtually walking straight through and out the back door. It was good for our profiles, Babs said.
Feeling a bit dizzy from all the rushing about, I kissed Matty goodbye then raced round to Babs’s Soho office, where I sat on the sofa and slurped coffee like my life depended on it.
‘So these are all the job offers I’ve got for you,’ she said, brandishing a bundle of papers.
‘You shouldn’t waste so much paper,’ I said. ‘I can’t do them all.’
She ignored me, as ever.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Here’s what we’ve got.’
I listened as she went through sponsorship ideas, beauty products and food brands that wanted me to endorse them in exchange for staggering amounts of money, a celeb magazine that wanted me to write a weekly column for them …
‘I can’t write,’ I said.
Babs scanned the email.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘They’ll write it for you.’
‘Then what … oh, never mind,’ I said. ‘Put it in the maybe pile.’
Babs put it on the coffee table. So far there was a growing pile of ‘no’s, a smaller pile of ‘maybe’s and nothing in the ‘yes’ pile at all.
‘Sexy calendar?’
‘No.’
‘Toothpaste.’
‘No.’
‘Autobiography.’
‘I’m twenty-five.’
‘Hair dye.’
‘No.’
‘Doctor Who?’
I sat up straighter.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Companion?’
Babs checked.
‘Alien,’ she said.
‘No.’
Babs fixed me with a stern glare. She was tiny, with short cropped bleach-blonde hair. Soaking wet she probably weighed about seven stone, but she scared the bejeezus out of me.
‘Amy,’ she said. ‘I’ve never had so many offers in on one day. Would you please consider some of them?’
‘I’ll consider them,’ I said, scared she was going to poke me with her highlighter pen. ‘But I want to act, Babs. You said getting back with Matty would give me the pick of acting jobs.’
‘I know,’ Babs said. ‘I just don’t think you should have to audition – not an actress of your calibre. I’m playing hardball.’
I was horrified.
‘Of course I have to audition,’ I said. ‘I want to audition. I love auditioning.’
Babs looked unconvinced.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I want to wear a corset, or solve a murder, or both. And if that means I have to audition then so be it.’
‘Fine,’ said Babs, sounding annoyed that I was being so forceful. ‘I’ll make some calls.’
‘Good,’ I said. I was proud of myself for not backing down for once. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and learn how to tango.’
As soon as I got to rehearsal I found myself relaxing. It was just so easy to be with Patrick, even if he was being a bit grumpy. Cora was busy today, so it was just the two of us in the studio, stomping around to the Amy Winehouse song we were dancing to.
‘You look exhausted,’ Patrick said as we took a break for a drink a bit later.
I grimaced.
‘I really am,’ I said. ‘It’s so full on at the moment, but Babs says it’s all going to help me in my quest to become a “serious actress”.’
I made what I considered to be a “serious actress” face and Patrick chuckled.
‘Cora’s worried about you overdoing it,’ he said.
‘Oh, bless her.’ I opened my water bottle and drank some. ‘She’s such a sweetheart. I’ve hardly seen her this week, actually. I must pop up and say hello later.’
‘I was hoping we’d have some news about Donnie,’ Patrick said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. ‘Actually, let me just check if it’s arrived …’ I went to the loo, and when I came back Patrick was staring at his phone, an odd expression on his face.
‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Has your login arrived? Can you get on to the archive site?’
‘Yes and yes,’ Patrick said.
‘So what’s wrong? Have you found Donnie?’
Silently Patrick handed me the phone. On the screen was the service record of Donald Jackson. And across the top was stamped ‘killed in service’.
‘Oh, no,’ I said, covering my mouth with my hand. ‘Oh, no. He died? Donnie died?’
Patrick nodded.
‘He died,’ he said. ‘Right before the end of the war, I guess. Which seems kind of cruel.’
I started to cry.
‘Oh, Patrick,’ I said. ‘What are we going to tell Cora?’
Chapter Forty-One
We didn’t feel much like dancing after that. Instead, we went back to my flat and
settled down with my laptop to see if we could find out more.
Donnie pulled up the military records website again, entered the login he’d been sent and we stared once more at Donnie’s details.
‘So he didn’t go AWOL, after all?’ I said, confused. ‘That’s strange. Cora said her friend went to find him after their wedding, and no one knew where he was. But according to this he died in action …’
Patrick frowned.
‘Yes, that is kinda odd. I wonder if we can find the date he died and the location? That might help us figure it out.’
He clicked on Donnie’s name, typed in a few more details, and a new page of information came up.
‘What does it say?’ I said. We were sitting on the sofa and I was cross that I couldn’t see the screen properly. I wriggled in behind Patrick and leant on his back so I could see everything that was written down.
‘Curiouser and curioser,’ Patrick said. I gave him a quizzical look and he nudged me. ‘That’s what Alice says when she gets to Wonderland,’ he said. ‘You heathen.’
I giggled.
‘Never read it,’ I said, unashamed. ‘What does it say about Donnie?’
‘It says he died in London,’ Patrick said.
I stared at him.
‘But there wasn’t fighting in London,’ I said.
‘There were bombs,’ Patrick pointed out. ‘But not right at the end of the war, surely?’
‘Maybe this isn’t our Donnie,’ I said. ‘Find out when he died – if he died before Cora met him, then we’ll know. She said they didn’t get together until 1944. Have you got that paper?’
Patrick nodded. He bent down and pulled a sheet of paper out of the side pocket of his bag. Cora had written down all the information we needed to know about Donnie – his name, his rank, the dates he was stationed in England – and the date of their wedding that never was.’
I peered at Cora’s neat writing.
‘Yes, they definitely didn’t know each other until 1944,’ I said. ‘When did this Donald Jackson die?’
‘Oh,’ Patrick said. ‘Oh, shit. Let me see those dates.’
I gave him the paper, my heart beginning to pound. How silly to be so invested in the life of someone I’d never met. But it was someone who was important to someone I cared about, I supposed, which made it worthwhile.
‘Shit,’ Patrick said again. I poked him.
‘What?’ I said. ‘What?’
‘Cora and Donnie were meant to get married on 26 March 1945, according to her,’ Patrick said.
‘Right …’
‘But Donnie died on 25 March.’
I felt sick.
‘He died right before the wedding?’ I said.
‘Seems so.’
‘That’s why he didn’t turn up. But why didn’t anyone tell her he’d died?’ I said, bewildered. ‘Why did they just leave her standing at the church, waiting?’
Donnie shrugged.
‘No idea,’ he said. ‘But we can find out.’
We spent the rest of the afternoon researching Donnie’s death. Patrick tracked down more military records that confirmed he definitely had been killed in London on that date – for a while we thought we were wrong – and I found my iPad and set about finding out what could have happened.
‘Listen to this,’ I said to Patrick as I found out something interesting. ‘I thought the Blitz was it when it came to bombs, but there were things called V1 and V2 bombs that the Germans used right at the end of the war. South London was very badly hit, and there were some in central London, too.’
‘See if you can find one that fell on the right date,’ Patrick said.
I put the date and V2 into Google and there it was. A direct hit on Tottenham Court Road that killed ten people.
‘Look,’ I said, turning the screen to show Patrick. ‘A bomb blast in London, on the right day, that killed lots of people.’
‘That could be it,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if we can find out more about it.’
It took us ages but we eventually found out the details thanks to a report of the last months of the war we found on the Imperial War Museum website. The bomb had fallen in the evening, destroying a church and some of the surrounding shops. It had taken days to clear the site – and this was presumably why no one knew Donnie had been involved at first.
‘He’d have been wearing his dog tags,’ Patrick said. ‘He’d have been easy to identify.’
‘But I still don’t understand why no one told Cora,’ I said.
Patrick took my hand.
‘His unit went to Europe, right?’ he said.
I nodded.
‘So think about it. Like I said, they were a liberating division. They were going through France, pushing the Germans back. They’d have seen whole towns devastated by the war. It was a tough gig, Amy. And it was chaotic. I imagine Donnie’s commanding officers only found out what had happened to him weeks afterwards. Then they’d have had to write to his family. And then they would have had to tell Cora – if they knew about her, of course.’
‘She changed her name,’ I said, remembering what Cora had told me about the dark days after Donnie abandoned her. ‘She pretended to be a war widow. I guess it was just easier back then. She even lied to her mum.’
Patrick made a face.
‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘She had it pretty tough, didn’t she?’
‘She wanted to go to Hollywood,’ I told him. ‘She and Donnie had it all planned. She wanted to dance in films like Ginger Rogers.’
‘Oh,’ said Patrick. ‘That’s why she doesn’t like watching those movies?’
I nodded.
‘It’s so sad,’ I said. ‘She called her daughter Virginia, you know? After Ginger Rogers. That was the closest she got.’
A thought struck me.
‘I suppose if she’d known he was dead, she could have gone,’ I said. ‘She could have gone to America like she’d planned. She wouldn’t have felt she had to hide away and teach little kids ballet for the rest of her life.’
‘She’s had a good life, Amy,’ Patrick said. ‘She’s got a family, she’s been successful, she’s got good friends …’
‘But she never found anyone else,’ I said. ‘And she stopped performing. She lost Donnie and she lost dancing. That’s awful.’A tear slid down my cheek. ‘It’s just so sad,’ I said again. ‘And the worst thing is, I don’t know if knowing he died is going to make it better for Cora. How can we tell her, Patrick?’
I was crying properly now. Patrick put his arm round me and I sobbed into his neck.
‘Oh, this is nice,’ Matty said. I’d not heard him come in but he was suddenly standing in the lounge, looking cross. ‘Am I interrupting?’
I wiped my tears away with the heel of my hand.
‘Oh, Matty,’ I said. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, we just had some bad news.’
Matty looked concerned. He held out his arms to me and I left Patrick’s side and went to him.
‘What happened, baby,’ he said in a cutesie voice. ‘Did your dancing go wrong? Did you step on someone’s toes?’
Patrick shut the laptop with a snap, and stood up.
‘I’d better go,’ he said.
‘Bye then,’ said Matty. I elbowed him in the ribs.
‘We’ve just found out someone died,’ I said. ‘A bit of empathy would go a long way, you know.’
‘Shit,’ said Matty looking genuinely ashamed of himself. ‘Sorry. Who died?’
‘Donnie,’ I said. ‘He was meant to marry Cora but he died the day before the wedding.’
Matty looked blank. ‘Cora …?’
I sighed.
‘Cora who lives upstairs,’ I said for the four hundredth time. ‘She was engaged to a GI and he died.’
I felt my tears starting again. Patrick pulled a pack of tissues from his pocket and handed them to me and I gave him a grateful smile.
Matty stared at me.
‘A GI?’ he said. ‘When exactly did this tragic death take
place?’
‘1945,’ I wailed. I buried my head in Matty’s chest and he squeezed me tight and stroked my hair, his chin resting on my head.
‘Amy,’ he said after a minute. ‘What have you done with my picture?’
Chapter Forty-Two
Matty and I had a furious row. We were right back to how we’d been before the whole Kayleigh punching incident. I may have broken a glass. And perhaps I told him exactly what I thought of his stupid blown-up photo of me. And there is a teeny, tiny chance that I opened the patio doors and threw that canvas outside into the rain.
‘I can’t believe you’d be so heartless,’ I yelled at him. ‘How can you not care about Cora?’
‘About some old woman I’ve never met?’ he shouted back. ‘You’re the heartless one, getting rid of that picture. I made that for you, Amy. To show you how much I love you.’
‘Oh, really? The only person you love is yourself.’
There was a pause and Matty and I stood in the middle of the room – Patrick had scarpered ages ago – facing each other and breathing heavily. Then Matty grinned.
‘You’re right there, baby,’ he said. In one swift move he pulled his T-shirt over his head. ‘Who wouldn’t love this body?’
He posed like a body builder, flexing his muscles, and despite myself I laughed.
Matty winked.
‘You like what you see, eh?’ he said. ‘You want some of this?’
I puckered my lips.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘It’s not bad.’
‘Not bad?’ Matty said. ‘Not bloody bad? It’s magnificent.’
I shrugged.
‘Yeah, it’s good,’ I said.
‘So do you want it?’
‘Oh, go on then …’
‘Well, you’re going to have to catch me first.’
Matty spun round and ran into the bedroom. And, after a second’s hesitation, I followed.
This was our thing, you see. It’s what we did. Massive, screaming, hurtful rows and then amazing, hot make-up sex. And yes it was exhausting, and sometimes disconcerting, but it was also exciting and kept me on my toes. I just hoped Cora hadn’t heard the rowing – or the sex. Somehow I wanted her to think I had a bit more class.
The next morning I got up early and went to rehearsal without waking Matty. I wanted to apologise to Patrick for my charming boyfriend’s antics the day before, and of course decide what we were going to do about telling Cora.
A Step In Time Page 19