The Girl Now Leaving

by Betty Burton

  ‘For God’s sake, Lu, do shut up. What’s the matter with you? You’re always picking a row these days. When are we ever here in the evenings? More often than not, you’re flying round going off somewhere or other, and I’m getting ready to go to a meeting. How many evenings have we sat one each side of the fire?’

  ‘Well, we probably are going to.’ She had a sudden glimpse of something which panicked her. ‘I don’t want to live in this hole for ever.’

  ‘You’ll get married.’

  ‘Married! I should hate being married. Besides, where in this dump would I meet the sort of man I would marry, even if I wanted to – which I don’t!’

  ‘What about all these tango merchants in their Burton’s suits you’re always meeting in Southampton?’

  ‘To dance with, yes, but I should be bored to death in two days with somebody like that.’

  ‘Come on, stop being so quarrelsome. If you are going to snap my head off, then I’ll stop talking.’

  ‘Well, they are about as good at conversation as Lena Grigg. They’re just for dancing.’

  ‘You make them sound like a special breed of dancing chap.’

  ‘Well, they are really. We meet there, we dance, and we go home. For all I know, the band brings them in special men-shaped cases, like they do the drums and double-basses.’ Although they had more quarrels now than before Ken went away, no argument between them ever lasted for very long. Now she saw Ray’s usual kindly self re-emerge. She liked to amuse him and see him respond.

  ‘I reckon that sometimes they unload the vans and find they’ve brought all fox-trotters and left the waltzers back in the store room. That accounts for all the dancers with two left feet. Have you finished with that plate? I want to get washed up.’

  He grinned. ‘You are a fool, Lu.’

  * * *

  Jacob Ezzard should have known that his wife would not leave the matter there. She had that streak in her which made her want to take up causes.

  A day or so later, she had raised the matter again. ‘I have been thinking, Jacob. Do you think Cynthia’s girl would consider modelling? I thought about that beautiful little corselette you will be taking to Paris to show Monsieur Lascelles—’

  He interrupted her. ‘This will not at all be like one of our usual factory showings: this will be something of a fashion show in the Parisian manner.’

  In normal circumstances, when a new style needed to be shown, one of a few ‘suitable figures’ was selected from among the Ezzard’s employees. The item would be shown in the factory demonstration room being worn over undergarments. Very respectable, and nothing that warranted more than a passing comment on whether the figure was suitable. It meant a shilling or two extra, but none of the unmarried girls would have wanted that bit extra if they were asked to model one of the boned and plated battleship styles.

  ‘I am aware of that, Jacob. You said that you would engage a professional model. Why not give Cynthia’s girl the opportunity? I’m sure she would be very suitable; her stature and bearing are very fine. I do think that we should try to foster the talents of our own local girls. Jacob? Are you listening?’

  ‘No, Alma. I went along with your filing clerk idea, but this is altogether different.’

  Had she but known it, ‘Cynthia’s girl’ had been his inspiration for the new corselette. Watching her from his window, there was no doubt that lithe figures such as hers had no business confined in the usual ‘Queenform’ styles, but that was between him and the drawing board. He would never have gone so far as to suggest that she model it. It would not do to show enthusiasm. ‘Alma, she is a factory girl, not a professional model.’

  ‘Was it not for the young working woman that you designed the new lightweight? Such a pretty design, Jacob. You are so talented in that direction. Just imagine how marvellous it would be to be able to say, I have designed this for the young modern, working woman, and here it is actually being worn by a true working woman. My instinct tells me that this would be an excellent selling point.’

  ‘It is not merely a matter of showing it, it is the manner in which it is shown. A girl not used to it would be embarrassed and awkward.’

  ‘Wasn’t I right about producing a white corteil version of some of the “Queenform” styles instead of always making them up in the pink?’

  ‘It would mean going over to Paris, to show Monsieur Lascelles.’

  ‘Heavens, Jacob, do you think the girl would die of fright being in Paris?’

  ‘It might have some currency in terms of publicity in the trade… but it’s a crazy idea.’

  ‘Haven’t I heard you say that it is the innovative man who gains the lead in the market?’

  ‘Working-class people are easily scandalized. The Wilmott family have been with us for generations; they are highly respectable.’

  ‘This is 1935. There is nothing scandalous in modelling lingerie, especially corsetry: it’s so modest that it’s almost stuffy. I’m certain Monsieur Lascelles’ dresser would drape her as decorously as they do your “Queenform” queens.’

  ‘I meant they might not like the idea of her tripping off to Paris. In the working-class mind, Paris doesn’t equal business or even the Tuileries and the Louvre; to them Paris is low life and the can-can.’

  She would win him over. Alma considered herself an enlightened and modern woman. ‘That is easily overcome. I will ask Cynthia to act as chaperone if you like. No one could ever connect Cynthia with anything scandalous. In fact, I am sure she would think it a wonderful idea to expand Miss Wilmott’s experience.’

  ‘Would you let one of your daughters do it?’

  ‘Of course I would not, but my daughters don’t have to earn their keep. They visit the Continent almost as a matter of course, and I sometimes wonder whether they get anything at all from the experience except a knowledge of the most expensive new fashion. However, a girl such as Miss Wilmott might benefit very much from a visit, even if it was just there and back. You don’t know her, Jacob, but as I keep telling you, she is no ordinary factory hand.’

  ‘You seem very keen on the girl, Alma.’

  ‘She is eighteen, Jacob, well read and intelligent. I was much like her at that age, except that I was a pregnant bride. I like the idea of this girl getting the opportunity of having a little wider experience before she finds herself in the same situation. She’s a splendid young woman, she’s bound to be snapped up before long.’

  ‘As I snapped up you?’

  ‘But as a widow, older and wiser than when I leapt into my first marriage.’

  Somehow, Alma’s undoubted faith in his faithfulness to their marriage protected Jacob Ezzard from any doubt about how he came to be won over by her idea. If a bronze-haired girl in a white, lacy ‘Princess’ corselette crept into their marital bed, she only served to confirm Jacob and Alma Ezzard’s continued assurance that they had a very good relationship still.

  * * *

  It was Nellie who called Lu aside and put to her the idea that had come from the top office via George.

  Lu could scarcely believe it. ‘Paris? I’d get to go to France? Nellie, please tell me it’s not a joke.’

  ‘It’s no joke, Lu, but it’s work. You won’t be going up any Eiffel Towers, you know.’

  ‘But I’ll have to get there, won’t I? Going on a journey anywhere is exciting. I’d have to go on a ship, even a plane! Do you think I’ll have to fly? I’d give anything to go through clouds. Just fancy, going abroad, and I won’t even have to pay my own fare. I’ll be scared to death, I know it, but I’ll love it. France!’

  Nellie smiled, ‘I take it that you’ll do it?’

  ‘Like a shot.’

  ‘I don’t know what your Ray will think.’

  ‘He’ll be proud. And he’ll be green it’s not him getting a chance to go abroad.’

  Nellie’s unspoken doubt was nearer the mark than Lu’s certainty about Ray’s response.

  ‘You forbid me! You forbid me? Who the hell do you think
gives you that right? I’ll do as I please.’

  ‘You’re not twenty-one yet.’

  ‘And you’re not my father!’

  ‘I’m responsible for you.’

  ‘I’m responsible for me. Jesus, Ray! What do you think I’m going to get up to in Paris that I couldn’t get up to here if I wanted to.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything like that.’

  ‘What then – that Mr Ezzard has designs on me?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘He might… why wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he take one of his factory hands to Paris just to get his way with her? Isn’t that what you’re thinking?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘Of course I trust you.’

  ‘Then what is it, Ray? What is it that worries you so bloody much that you’re behaving as if this is Victorian times instead of the twentieth century?’

  He didn’t respond. She felt let down and miserably disappointed that he was being so mean-minded. This was not how she expected her brother to react, her brother who was always on about equality. It was just equality for men he wanted. If he meant real equality then he’d take turns to cook the Sunday dinner and scrub the kitchen floor. Oh no, men couldn’t ever be that equal. She fell sullenly silent. Crushed and furious, she said to herself, I shall go. I don’t care what he thinks. This is a chance of a lifetime and nobody’s going to stop me taking it.

  Even so, in spite of this silent protest, she really wanted him to be pleased. Half the pleasure would be gone if he wasn’t.

  She looked across at him staring at his unfinished meal. The loud ticking of the clock began to widen the gap between them. This was a serious row.

  He looked desolate and perplexed, and Lu sensed that if they did not settle it now, then they would become so distant that their life together could easily become intolerable. She loved him too much to throw away all those years of care and happiness he had given her, yet she could not allow him to continue to think that he had the right to make decisions for her now that she was an adult.

  She put down the knife and fork she had been holding on to but not using, and went to his side of the table and put her arms around his neck. ‘Ray, listen. I know you’ve only got my best interest at heart, and I love you for it, and I don’t know how I would have got on without you. I can’t bear hurting you. Please, Ray… I’m sorry I said those things. I’m sorry I swore. I know you trust me and you wouldn’t ever think I’d do anything to make you ashamed. But modelling is a proper profession, Mr Lascelles is one of the most respected buyers of lingerie in the trade, they have proper dressing rooms with women dressers, and nobody sees the garments, only Mr Lascelles, his manageresses and top assistants. It’s all very proper, I wouldn’t do it otherwise. You know that, Ray, don’t you? Ray, look at me. You know that, don’t you? Please don’t be miserable about it. I shall go. It’s too good a chance to miss.’

  He took her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles, in the way that he sometimes said goodnight when she was preoccupied with her reading. ‘It’s not about any of that, Lu. You’re growing away, you’re leaving your own kind. You have been for months now: this is just one more step.’

  He was right, and her respect for him was too deep for her to leap in at once and deny it in order to placate him. ‘But it’s not the end of the world, Ray. We were born in a slum and nobody’s to blame for that, but I’ve no intention of staying in it.’ She kissed his cheek briefly, hoping that he was not too hurt to mend. ‘The way out of here is up, and that’s the way I intend going.’

  * * *

  When, quite by chance, Lu met David, her dancing partner from Bournemouth, again, she did not tell Ray. David was better than middle class; he was top-drawer – accent, manners, dress, confidence.

  She and Sonia, at one of the tables set back from the dance area, were sitting drinking cool drinks, criticizing the dancers, enjoying themselves, giving marks for deportment and dress, when Lu suddenly felt that she was being watched. When she looked across to the other side of the balcony, she saw him. David, the man she had met in the Bournemouth dance hall, whose manners and style were so casual and modern. In a Hollywood film he would have said even less, just ‘Hi’, then held out a hand and she would have followed him on to the dance floor. She was suddenly struck by the notion of how ineptly she had behaved. She had run away. It had amounted to that. She had seen him speaking with that snobby journalist woman and lumped them together.

  Just as she remembered him. She could imagine that, even from across the open space between them, she could smell his shaving cream and hair oil, that she could see greenish-gold eyes. He had wheat-coloured hair and eyebrows, and a lot of the same rough hair on the backs of his hands and fingers, but on his hands the hairs were almost invisible. His nose was straight and long and blunt as she thought a good-looking man’s should be. And he was good-looking. He was about six foot tall. This time he was not wearing the linen jacket, but a navy blue blazer, a pale blue shirt such as would never be found in Portsmouth, and grey flannel trousers.

  She had often thought of him and day-dreamed of a second meeting, but not as it was happening now. Her heart raced. She panicked. Even though this was a second chance, she still could not bear for him to know that she was a factory hand. Nice as he had seemed to be, he was posh, and probably had as distorted a picture of what working-class girls were like as that journalist. If she told him about herself, saw so much as a flicker of distaste, it would be mortifying.

  He touched his forehead in a one-finger salute. Sonia, noticing her inattendon, followed Lu’s line of sight.

  ‘Hey, is he trying to pick us up?’

  Trying to keep to their usual flippant style of talking about men, she said, ‘Actually, he’s trying to pick me up.’ She raised her hand and he began threading his way between the tables towards them.

  ‘He’s coming over. He’s a fast worker.’

  ‘Sonia, listen to me… listen! I’m serious. I know him. Don’t you dare call me Lu. Louise. I mean it, I’m not joking. Don’t you dare say anything about me at all. I don’t want him to know anything about me, not even my surname. Do you understand? I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘All right, keep your hair on. How come you met an absolute bear like that and didn’t say anything?’ Sonia’s greatest of compliments to masculine desirability was to call him a bear. She sipped her drink nonchalantly and watched the handsome chap as he smiled down at them, at Lu.

  ‘Hello, Louise.’ His hand was strong and firm and dry and warm and Lu liked the feel of it very much.

  ‘David.’

  ‘You remembered my name.’

  ‘Well, you remembered mine too.’

  ‘What a fantastic coincidence. I never believed it would happen, but I’ve carried this about with me just in case.’ He placed on the table the little lighter she had lost in Bournemouth. ‘It was on the table after you had left. I ought to have handed it in, but I lived in hope that I might come across you somewhere during the weekend.’

  Sonia picked up the lighter and inspected it. Lu was certain that she must be consumed with curiosity, but was equally certain that Sonia would never reveal her true interest, common curiosity being considered unacceptable. ‘I didn’t know you had this, Louise. It’s so pretty.’ She slid a smile between Lu and David. Lu thought, She thinks he gave it to me. ‘And it’s got your initial.’

  ‘Sonia, this is David. David, this is my friend Sonia.’

  Sonia held out her white, well-groomed hand. ‘You don’t have to stand there, come and sit down. Louise is such a dark horse keeping you to herself.’

  ‘You remember, that weekend I went to Bournemouth…?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I met David at a dance.’

  He smiled warmly. ‘We were pretty good together, weren’t we?’

  Lu smiled back, suddenly very light-hearted and happy. ‘Sonia should get any credit; she’s the one who taugh
t me.’ A tenor sax ran up the six notes that led to the dramatic note that led into the most popular tango music of the day. ‘I say, right on cue. Shall we?’ He held out a hand and nodded a little acknowledgement at Sonia.

  In Bournemouth, Lu had been uninhibited and relaxed. There they had been complete strangers, neither of them expecting anything of the other. She kept her fingers crossed that this time, in a hall where she knew people, it would be the same. She need not have worried; as soon as they slid their shoes on to the silky floor, they were carried forward by the passionate rhythm. It was not the kind of dance for conversation, but from time to time they caught one another’s glance and smiled with pleasure. When they returned to their table, Lu saw Sonia showing off her foxtrot with Marco, the male teacher from the dance school where she spent many of her evenings.

  David brought fresh iced drinks to the table and said, ‘Cheers.’ The short silence seemed longer, then he said, ‘Go on, say something.’

  ‘I can’t really say, “Do you come here often?” I know you don’t. Do you have a regular dancing partner?’

  ‘No, do you?’

  ‘Sonia and I come together. She usually leaves with Marco.’

  ‘Her boyfriend?’

  ‘Her dancing partner… he’s married.’

  ‘Ah.’ That ‘Ah’ expressed the same polite doubt that anyone seeing Sonia and Marco dancing together might have expressed.

  ‘What about your equivalent to Marco?’

  She gave him a crooked smile. ‘I try not to have one. Serious dancers are deadly dull once they are off the floor. I like different partners for all the different dances.’

  ‘Was deadly dullness why you flew away last time?’

  ‘Of course not, I was really enjoying myself. What I said was true: I had promised to meet my brother.’

  ‘What a good thing we have brothers or we might never have met. This time it is one of my brothers who has brought me here.’