by Ruby Jackson
‘I want to talk to you, Sally,’ Sebastian said and he sounded angry still. ‘Some example you two set tonight. You know the rules. Clean up after the last performance, eat, and go to bed, not leave a good hour between eating and cleaning your teeth.’
‘We were having a very important conversation,’ ven-tured Millie.
‘I’ll bet, and did it feature a good-looking sailor?’
Millie laughed again. ‘Jealousy rearing its ugly head, Seb?’
‘Oh, go to bed,’ he snapped.
The girls, both aware of and grateful for his caring, stayed quiet and he walked with them to their quarters.
‘Good night, mein Führer,’ Millie called after him as he left them at their door.
‘Don’t, Millie, he has been so unbelievably good to me.’
They crept in so as not to wake the two others from the company who had been billeted with them.
‘Teasing is good for him,’ whispered Millie, ‘but honestly, Sally, I will never forget his face when he thought he was going to be forced to wear ballet tights.’
They were stifling their laughter as they fell asleep.
There was no conversation at all next morning; there was either absolute silence or an occasional surly grunt. Only the military personnel, scrubbed and polished and perfectly dressed, moved around smiling happily as they served a breakfast of porridge, some type of heavy rye bread and scalding cups of tea that Millie swore she could dance on without sinking.
But at last they were packed and once more climbing into the huge military vehicles, finding the first available seat and sitting down, closing their eyes and going back to sleep.
Sebastian’s low voice woke Sally. ‘He kissed you. Is he in the habit of kissing people he scarcely knows?’
Sally rubbed her eyes like a child. ‘For heaven’s sake, Sebastian, I hardly got a wink of sleep all night. Two of those hoofers snore like you wouldn’t believe. I was up rolling them over every hour on the hour.’
He hung his head, ‘Sorry, Sally, you’re right; it’s absolutely none of my business. I just thought that as we’re … friends, you might tell me that you’re involved.’
‘Involved? I know him as Jon, Just Jon. Stop looming over me. Sit down on the floor and I’ll tell you …’
‘That he means nothing to you?’
‘To tell you about how we met. In fact, I’ve only ever met him twice,’ she said, and she was now as annoyed as Sebastian. Why should he feel he had the right to ask about her private life? But then Jon’s voice asking her to write to him came into her head and she wondered if Sebastian, who was her friend, her adviser, her saviour, deserved the truth.
‘Do you remember when we met?’
‘How could I not?’
‘The blue cloak.’
‘He gave it to you?’ He hesitated before saying, ‘You looked wonderful in it.’ As always, Sebastian’s innate kindness took control and he tried to praise her.
‘Oh, Sebastian, how could he give me such an expensive gift? First of all, I had never met him at that point, and secondly, my father would have been livid. No, I bought it in a second-hand clothes shop. This damn war has them opening up all over the place. If you’ll stop interrupting I’ll tell you the story.’
When she was finished he looked at her, his expression a mixture of affection, pride, understanding.
‘And where’s this fabulous ring?’
‘In the safe at the cinema.’
‘Good God, Sally, if it’s at all valuable, put it in a bank vault. I don’t actually know what guarantees they give these days with regard to arson, bombing, et cetera but it’s bound to be better than the local picture house.’
‘I’ll discuss it when I have a chance to get home. To be honest, I very rarely think of it.’
‘You told me you had promised to write to him. Rather difficult if you don’t know who he is.’
Sally stood up. ‘Are you calling me a liar or do you think I’m stupid?’
In an instant he was on his knees beside her, one hand capturing a dark strand of shining hair and winding it round his finger. ‘Of course not; merely jealous as hell.’ He sat down again and seemed to make a conscious effort to cheer up. ‘I’m lucky enough to see you every day. Of course you must write, but a letter addressed just to John … John who?’
‘Sebastian, naturally he introduced himself when we met.’
‘And you did ask the name of his ship?’
A beaming smile lit up Sally’s face and she decided to tease him. ‘No, I didn’t ask the name of the ship, but it’s all right because he gave me a little card with the details and he said something like, “This is my military address and letters should reach me.” How super, I’ll tell him about you in your new role in the ballet.’
‘Thank you, but I can survive adequately without the publicity, and you are still avoiding telling me his name.’
‘It’s Jonathon Galbraith, but I think of him as Jon. I’ll show you the card when we reach our next base.’
‘But surely it’s in your purse?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘but in case you haven’t noticed, it’s dark, and no, don’t look longingly at the flaps. Everyone in the path of a blast of cold air will want to throw you out onto the road.’
Knowing this to be only too true, Sebastian sat down again on the inhospitable floor and eventually fell asleep, his head against Sally’s knee. She looked down at him with sincere affection. Because of him she was living as she had only ever dreamed about.
Her home was an expensive London flat with a delightful man who seemed to ask nothing of her. She paid a token rent, a few shillings less each week than she had paid in the boarding house. Sebastian was the kind of man her father would term ‘salt of the earth’. I can’t take, take, take forever, Sally decided. He’s been different lately, very careful not to be too close. She laid her hand on his head and he sighed in his sleep. Why could she not feel again the overwhelming need and desire that she had felt the night the boarding house had been blitzed, nothing left but rubble and some exhausted broken Michaelmas daisies? She had clung to Sebastian, ready to do anything. But he had behaved like the perfect gentleman he was.
Although she had thought then that their relationship might develop, she soon found that her feelings for Sebastian had changed, and Sebastian was wise enough to see that.
Why had they changed? Was it Jon?
He was kind, he was handsome but he was still as far as she knew, a married man. More importantly he was not someone with whom her parents would feel at ease. They might just have coped with Sebastian, for to them he was merely another actor – she stroked his dark hair as she looked down at him – but Jon? No, it would not do. She would write, as a friend, to a friend in the navy who must be anxious for news from home. In a month or two, he would be too busy, overwhelmed with letters from his family and friends, and he would forget her.
She would keep the cloak and possibly even the ring, but she would never wear either, locking them away somewhere so that nothing could ever remind her ofhim.
She knew that Sebastian would not forget that she had Jon’s card and when they arrived in Southampton she did not wait for him to ask to see it. He deserved that much.
‘Look, Sebastian, here’s Jon’s card. He’s a lieutenant-commander, whatever that means.’
Sebastian, sitting at a table in the Officers’ Mess, took the little rectangle and looked at it. Lieutenant-Commander Jonathon Galbraith, RN. The name of his ship, George Francis, was in the bottom left corner, but of course that gave no indication of the ship’s whereabouts.
‘How do letters get to him, Sebastian? My friend Daisy’s brother is in the navy and it takes weeks, even months, to get letters to him or from him. They have nothing for weeks and then two or three arrive on the same day.’
‘Probably that will be the same for your Jon. No difference in mail pick-ups for the ranks.’ He looked at the card again, even turning it over to see if anything was writt
en on the other side. ‘Very modest, but possibly that’s naval etiquette.’
‘What do you mean, etiquette?’
‘Are you telling me you really don’t know who he is or his family?’
‘I told you I only met him that one time in the shop and then at the naval base.’
Sebastian looked at her. After a moment he smiled. ‘He could have written, “Family owns half of Kent and a place up in Scotland.” I suppose it could be called a farm. It could be seen as boasting, writing that on your address card.’
‘Are you telling me the truth?’
‘As I know it, darling. Blame it all on Queen Victoria. She bought a castle in Scotland and, lo and behold, any English family with a bit of money bought a wee placie too.’
‘Did yours?’
‘Good Lord, no. Great Grandpapa liked the sun. I hear it never stops raining in Bonnie Scotland. We stayed in Ceylon. Explains why I’m fussy about my tea. You called him “Just Jon”, Sally. Why was that?’
‘The nice lady in the shop was saying his name and he interrupted and said, “Jon, just Jon.”’
‘I like your Just Jon, Sal.’ Sebastian took a deep breath and decided he was on a hiding to nothing if he didn’t face up to reality now. ‘You have Uncle Sebastian’s blessing,’ he said, adopting an Oscar-winning magnanimous smile.
She looked at him sternly. ‘Are you hiding something from me, Sebastian? I do know he’s married – I bet that surprised you – and I now know that he lives in the Dartford area. With an accent like his, and jewellery like the ring, he has to be one of the families who have their tea delivered by Petrie’s Fine Teas.’
‘Your friends?’
‘Yes.’
‘After the war I shall demand that they deliver my tea too.’
Did he ever take anything seriously? She turned her back on him. ‘I’m going to write a letter.’
He smiled and Sally could only smile back. His smile would melt ice.
‘Say hello from me,’ he called, and she walked out, slamming the door behind her.
A table, a piece of paper and a pen. Sally sat in the billet she was sharing with three others. How to begin?
Hello, Jon,
I wonder where you are. I have seen more of England since I joined ENSA that I have ever seen before, although my family did go to the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow. I know that’s in Scotland but it’s Britain as well, isn’t it?
If you do get this and if you do want to reply, it would probably be better to send a letter to me at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, although I think the postal address is Catherine Street. I was living in a theatrical boarding house but it got a direct hit one night. I was lucky because I had taken shelter when the raid started. For the present I’m staying with a friend but …
She could not explain. If she did Jon might think badly of her or would he be male and practical and say, ‘Very sensible.’ Her father, she was sure, would be very male and a very angry father at the same time. ‘How could you, Sally? Get the first train home today or I’ll come up and fetch you.’ She could just imagine it.
She got up and looked at herself in the mirror and knew exactly what Max would think of her tired pale face. What had caused those great dark circles under her eyes?
She had not lied but neither had she told the truth about her living arrangements. She would, one day, have to tell her parents the whole truth, but if she found lodgings quickly, she could give everyone her new address with a clear conscience.
Happier, she finished the quick note.
… I’m looking for somewhere else.
They’re calling me to rehearsal. I’ll tell you all about the programme next time I write.
How should she finish it? Love, Sally. No, far too forward. She hardly knew him.
Hope all is well,
Sally
There, that was perfect.
EIGHT
City followed city, one church hall looked remarkably like another church hall, one hospital ward more or less like any other. As summer followed spring and then the wind began to hint of autumn and winter, it seemed to Sally that overcrowded hospital wards were filling with more and more injured military personnel or civilian casualties of the raids. Injured children were especially difficult to entertain, not because they were a bad audience but because Sally’s heart went out to each and every one. She wanted to somehow ‘make it better’, as her mother had used to do with a warm hug whenever she had hurt herself as a small child – and she saw that she could not.
‘This is obscene,’ she yelled at Sebastian who, with his long legs stretched out on an ottoman, was trying to catch up with the newspapers. He longed for detailed accounts of cricket matches but instead read of ‘Food Facts for the Kitchen Front’ or horrors perpetrated in country after country.
‘Humph’s latest bawdy ideas of humour, Sal?’ He knew perfectly well that she had grown up enough to let the company’s comedian’s desperate vulgarity sail over her head but he hoped – and failed – to make her laugh.
She stood there before him like Lady Macbeth ringing her hands. ‘This bloody war,’ she shouted and he winced, never having heard her use the word before. ‘What kind of creature thinks up these atrocities? There were maimed babies in that ward today, Sebastian – babies, blinded, deafened? What type of human being is relaxing at home tonight, satisfied with what he’s done? And what good did we do? Catching a glimpse of my neckline does nothing for a baby.’
He stood up and pulled her, struggling, against him. ‘Stop it, Sally, I haven’t even begun to try to hold you still.’ He waited until she calmed, rested her head on his chest and began to weep. ‘You must believe in what we’re doing or leave us. Nursing …?’
‘I tried a first-aid course once. I can’t even put on a bandage.’
‘Thank you for telling me. Should I need it, I’ll be sure to seek aid elsewhere, but, Sally, my dear, dear girl, your smile helps, because even babies know you mean it. And no, you’re not Vera Lynn but those babies loved your lullabies. A soothing hand, a quiet lullaby; they’re reassuring, really they are, and it’s the same for the men. Hold a chap’s hand, smooth his hair out of his eyes, smile directly at him, no matter how disfigured he is. That’s really hard. Even we supposedly big, strong chaps find that hard. Sometimes just being there is enough. You wait and see, when you’re famous all over the world the exhausted postman will be struggling up your stairs with fan mail and lots of them will say things like, “You’ve no idea how special having my hand held by a beautiful girl made me feel.” They’ll be telling their children they knew you before you were famous. Even the dashing Lieutenant-Commander Jon will be claiming friendship – or more. How’s the mail between London and “somewhere at sea”?’
‘No idea.’
‘Poor girl. Keep writing to him, Sally. I’m absolutely sure he’s writing to you.’
Heartened, she smiled at him. ‘I don’t deserve you as a friend, Sebastian.’
Did he look at her rather sadly? ‘Silly Sally,’ he said, ‘we’ll be friends for ever.’
Her heart swelled with love, affection, appreciation – she didn’t know quite what, perhaps all three – but she remained close to him. He kissed the top of her head and held her away from him. ‘It is an absolutely despicable fact, Sally Brewer, but if one has money in this city, even with a war on, one can get anything. Come along, find something pretty to wear and we’ll dance the night away at the Savoy or the Waldorf.’ He assumed an affected voice. ‘Choose, Flavia, choose.’ It was a line from a skit he’d seen once and had used several times, each time successfully.
Sally was unused to dancing the night away at exorbitantly expensive hotels and she had never heard of the Waldorf, but the Savoy had featured in films she had watched over and over again.
‘Which is your grandmother’s favourite?’
‘No idea, but she had her coming-out dance at the Savoy, and so the Savoy it will be. Actually I’m glad you chose it; they have a superb dance or
chestra. Go, Cinderella.’
Sally ran. To wear, to wear? What was good enough for the Savoy? And then she pulled open her hardly unpacked suitcase, which served as a wardrobe, and removed her favourite lilac dress that should, by rights, have been hanging in the costume wardrobe at the theatre.
‘Oh, please, don’t let me spill anything on it or have some great clod-pole of a man stand on the hem,’ she begged, but there was no answer. She was content with hoping that the question had been heard.
‘Bring your gas mask, Sally, in case the wardens stop us.’
‘Stop us?’
‘You can’t walk to the Savoy. My car is in a garage a few streets away. With any luck it will start. God knows when I last used it. I’ll ring our “jack-of-all-trades” while you finish primping.’
‘I’d forgotten you had a car; actually I was never sure it was yours.’
‘It wasn’t. It was Grandmamma’s, saving young ladies from cads and bounders for the use of.’
‘Something terribly wrong with that sentence.’
‘I know but I’d much rather you didn’t try to correct it. Fearfully boring, lessons in grammar as one drives to the Savoy.’
‘If the car starts.’
Nothing happened when Sebastian tried. He tried again and then help came from the garage attendant. ‘I’ll give her a good old crank, Mr Brady, and you coax her gently and don’t run over me.’
The ‘good old crank’ was administered, the engine hiccuped into life and the attendant jumped to the side.
‘Thanks, Dmitri, you are a prince among men,’ called Sebastian. ‘And he could be,’ he said in an aside to Sally. ‘Came over in the Russian Revolution, highly educated, speaks about seven languages and is a wizard with numbers. Checks all my accounts for me; finds mistakes all the time.’
‘Someone’s stealing from you? How awful.’
Sebastian laughed. ‘No, if anything I’m stealing from me. He says I’m always in too much of a hurry and I don’t take enough care. I’ve tried to get him a better job but he says he’s perfectly content. Actually, I think he’s writing a book, The Orloff Family History or The Truth about the Russian Revolution; neither would surprise me. I gave him a type-writing machine last Christmas. He wept buckets. Russians are so emotional. Good, here we are. No, don’t get out. We’ll go straight to the door and the staff will park her.’