‘But …Mum, I can’t. It’s ancient. It won’t be fashionable.’
‘It’s timeless,’ she insisted. ‘And it’s a ball, Henrietta.’ She leaned closer to me, the better to hiss in my ear. ‘You don’t wear gold lamé to a ball, for heaven’s sake. You wear taffeta!’
She shook it out and bullied me into standing up as she held it against me, head on one side, eyes narrowed.
‘Perfect,’ she decided. ‘Don’t you think, dear?’ She turned to Penny, whom she admired hugely for her impressive background, even if she did have some unusual fashion ideas. Penny bent to smooth the skirt fabric down thoughtfully.
‘Well, it’s in good condition,’ she observed kindly, ignoring the fact that the white silk was greying slightly and the whalebones were almost protruding at the top of the strapless bodice. ‘And it looks as if it would fit you. Try it on.’
‘Of course it’ll fit her,’ declared my mother roundly, and in no time at all had me out of my jeans and T-shirt and stepping into it in my pants. She zipped it up smartly at the back. ‘Like a second skin – look!’
Gallingly, it did fit well. Horribly well, and I gazed in the mirror appalled. I didn’t see the hourglass figure shown off by the tight corseting to the waist. Didn’t see the ample bosom spilling seductively over the bodice, or my long dark hair falling in swirling pools on my pale shoulders. All I saw was – my mother. Twirling around the Hammer-smith Palais in the fifties, in my father’s arms, red lipstick smile fixed, hair permed, eyes bright, intent on her man. I felt sick. Clawed frantically between my shoulderblades at the zip, but Penny stayed my hand.
‘Dye it,’ she said sensibly. ‘You can’t afford to buy anything like this, Henny – dye it black. And take the petticoats out.’
I saw my mother flinch at the suggestion, suck her teeth in horror, but she kept quiet and I, in turn, stopped scrabbling. Penny had a point. It was a classic design, just too virginal and meringue-like at present. But after a soak overnight in a bath of black Dylon, and with its nets removed and nine inches taken off the hem to make it calf-length, like so …the pair of them dropped to their knees to demonstrate, hoiking it up for me to see in the mirror …it might just work. I sighed.
‘OK.’
Mum sat back on her heels and nearly purred with pleasure. I smiled grudgingly back at her in the mirror. Everyone has their saturation point, and in those days I could be bullied or coerced into most things pretty successfully, particularly by my mother. Partly it was my upbringing, and partly that was just the way I was. Coercible.
And so it was that two weeks later on the allotted Saturday night, Philip, Penny, Hughie and I piled out of a taxi into the parade ground at Wellington Barracks, laughing and joking excitedly. And actually, that was the best bit, as is so often the case. The preamble. The before, rather than the event. The getting dressed in the flat with Penny, music blaring as we put on our make-up; the glass of champagne with the boys when they turned up to collect us; the light-hearted taxi drive over. I wouldn’t say it was all downhill after that, but the next few hours certainly contrived to be something of a disappointment.
I couldn’t help noticing, for instance, as we walked up a flight of concrete steps, that the Officers’ Mess was supremely ugly. It was modern and tasteless with patterned carpets and glaring overhead lights, where I’d hoped for Doric columns, marble floors and high, ornate ceilings to dance under by lamplight. Instead, we drank warm champagne in a bright, overcrowded room where, to be heard above the noise, ruddy-faced boys raised imaginary chins and brayed loudly at hugely confident girls with very white shoulders, their throats encased in vast pearl chokers handed down from doting grandmothers. Penny wafted off with Philip, and Hughie and I stood and looked awkward together.
Later, we ate at tables of ten, but aside from Penny and Philip, I knew no one, and the rest of my table, including Hughie, got drunk very quickly in order to get down to the serious business of throwing food. The fixed smile on my face never wavered, and I told myself it was such fun as a bread roll whizzed past my ear and Hughie tipped a glass of water down his neighbour’s neck. I told myself the same thing when Hughie pulled me roughly from my chair and on to the dance floor in a separate room, to gyrate around to ‘Nutbush City Limits’. A disco, I thought in horror. Then I pulled myself together. Well, of course it was a disco. What did you expect, Henny – a band? A string quartet in the corner?
Well, perhaps. You see, somewhere in the dark, furry recesses of my mind I’d imagined just that. That this would be a real ball. Something out of a Georgette Heyer novel, something I’d read about and seen in TV period dramas, something that I’d supposed, ridiculously, could be transported through time, to a night in 1989. To a night in my life.
Hughie’s eyes were glinting dangerously in the coloured disco bulbs, and the moment the mood changed and we lurched moodily into ‘Lady in Red’, I knew I was sunk. A clinch and a grope were the only things on his mind. He pulled me to him possessively and his hands roved across my bare back and further down the matriarchal taffeta. I wished I was the sort of girl who could laugh and remove his hand firmly, but instead, I held my breath and hoped the song would end soon. Encouraged, Hughie plunged his face eagerly into my cleavage as if he were bobbing for apples. I gritted my teeth but suddenly – his head shot back and he gave a cry of pain. He clutched his eye.
‘Shit! What was that?’ he yelped, rearing away from me in horror.
I peered down. A sharp piece of whalebone was protruding from the top of my bodice.
‘Oh. Sorry, Hughie. It’s rather an old dress. I think a bit of the corset’s worked free.’
‘Nearly had my bloody eye out! Think I’ll have to go and bathe it.’ He glared at me, incensed.
‘I should,’ I soothed, possibly too quickly. ‘And I’ll wait for you back at the table.’
He shuffled off huffily and I made to go back, but instead, feeling hot and flustered, took a right turn, and wandered out of the French windows onto the balcony for some air.
The balcony stretched the length of the dining room and overlooked the parade ground where one or two fair-ground attractions – dodgems, a bucking bronco – had been hired for the night. Quite a few people had gathered to hang over it and shriek encouragement to their friends below, but I worked my way to the end where there was a dark corner, and where I knew that Hughie would be too pissed to find me.
It was late now, and most people were either snogging furiously – almost as if there were a prize involved, I decided, eyeing a couple beside me going at it with a vengeance – or swaying to the deafening music, champagne bottles held aloft. I found a chair at the far end where I had a bird’s-eye view of the action below. A very glamorous girl in a shocking-pink dress was being urged onto the electronic bucking bronco by a group of hearty friends. I watched in awe as she climbed astride the horse, her skirt hitched up high around her thighs. The machine started: slowly at first, and she swayed rather sexily along with it, then more vigorously, back and forth, up and down, as it tried to buck her off. One arm held high above her head, she rode it rodeo-style, her brown legs flashing, roared on by the crowd. I watched, spellbound. For all that I wouldn’t want to be on that thing, I envied her confidence, her bravado, the way she shrieked with laughter as she finally bailed out, falling into her admiring boyfriend’s arms with a flourish.
The horse shuddered to a standstill, and as it did, someone else clambered eagerly aboard. A man, minus his dinner-jacket, in shirtsleeves and loud braces. As he eased his considerable bulk into the Western saddle, I realized it was Hughie. I leaned forward, resting my chin on my hands on the balustrade. This should be interesting. Clearly the eye had recovered.
His face was very pink against his white shirt and pale blond hair, and it was getting pinker by the minute as the machine threw him about. With none of the style of the previous rider, he hunched his shoulders, tucked his head in, and held onto the pommel for grim death. I laughed quietly to myself as he was tossed ab
out like a sack of potatoes, dimly aware that someone had sat down beside me, but too gripped to turn. Finally he was thrown from the saddle, and landed with a mighty ‘Oomph!’ in an undig nified heap on the ground.
I chuckled quietly.
‘Poor old Hoggie,’ said a voice beside me. ‘Hasn’t exactly got a jockey’s physique, has he?’
I turned to find a very tanned, tawny-haired boy beside me in mess dress. His hair was cut short in the Army style, but a long fringe flopped into piercing blue eyes. I wondered how he got away with that.
‘Hoggie?’
‘That’s what he was known as at school. Bit cruel probably, but these things stick. You can see why it was irresistible though, can’t you?’
I giggled, imagining a porcine Hughie with snout and trotters, snuffling along in school uniform, a curly tail protruding from his ample behind. Suddenly I felt disloyal.
‘He’s lost quite a bit of weight, actually,’ I said defensively.
‘Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realize …Is he, I mean, are you two …?’
I flushed. ‘Oh no. Well – yes and no,’ I finished lamely, feeling even more disloyal. I looked down and picked at a taffeta seam. ‘I suppose we were a bit,’ I admitted. ‘I mean, I came with him tonight, and he probably thinks we are, but my heart isn’t really in it.’
‘So where is your heart?’ His blue eyes challenged mine, goading me.
‘Nowhere yet.’ I raised my chin. ‘It hasn’t found anywhere worth lodging.’
He smiled. ‘I know that feeling. It’s like having a wallet full of money and nowhere to spend it, isn’t it? The great thing is though, not to fritter it. Not to blow it on rubbish.’
I gazed at him. It seemed to me he’d cut right to the heart of my craven, cowardly soul.
‘I wasn’t about to,’ I lied brazenly.
‘Excellent,’ he said softly. Our eyes locked for a moment. He held out his hand. ‘Rupert Ferguson.’
I took it. ‘Henrietta Tate.’
He sat back in his seat. ‘So is Hog – sorry Hughie – all that brings you to this God-awful ball tonight?’
I smiled. ‘No, actually I came with a friend. Penny Trevelyon.’
‘Ah, the lovely Penny. Lovely Penny and Pyrrhic Philip.’
I frowned, startled. ‘Why d’you say that?’
‘Because she’s still in love with that chap Tommy Rutlin who dumped her last summer. Old Philip’s got her on his arm, sure, but it’s a bit of a pyrrhic victory for him, isn’t it?’
I bit my lip. It was true. Penny was still mad about Tommy, but Philip was very decorative and there was always a chance Tommy might be watching …wondering why he’d let her go. Eating his heart out. I turned to look at this boy beside me. Wondered at him. At his insights.
‘Well if this ball’s so God-awful,’ I asked, ‘why did you come yourself?’
He sighed. Slipped further down in his chair and thrust his hands deep in his pockets.
‘Oh, I don’t know. A sense of dreary obligation, I suppose. It is my Regiment’s party, after all, and one always assumes these things are going to be better than they are. Where I come from though, a ball’s a ball, with everyone in dresses like yours, dancing time-honoured steps with military precision.’
‘Where’s that?’ I asked stupidly, wondering for a crazy moment if I’d hit upon a time-traveller.
‘Scotland.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s all this hopping around on the spot and wondering what sort of expression you should have on your face that I find taxing.’
I giggled. ‘I know that feeling. And then you wonder if you should join in with the chorus.’
‘Heaven forbid,’ he shuddered. ‘Never join in. And never punch the air to “Hi Ho Silver Lining”. Please tell me you don’t do that.’
‘Do I look as if I do that?’
He smiled. ‘No.’
‘And even if I did, you can be sure I’d pick the moment that everyone else had decided not to, and there I’d be, mid-punch, mid-shriek, feeling like an idiot.’ I laughed.
He watched me with a sideways look. Didn’t say anything for a second. Then: ‘How about some breakfast?’
I glanced over my shoulder into the dining room, where a couple of uniformed guardsmen were stationed behind a long white table, lifting silver domes from dishes to reveal soggy scrambled egg and greasy bacon. A raucous, staggering queue was already forming to hoover up the blotting paper.
‘Won’t it be as bad as supper?’ I asked dubiously.
Supper had been the usual mass-catering disaster. Smoked salmon with all the consistency of tennis balls, followed by lamb that was surely sheep.
‘Oh, much worse,’ he said cheerfully, getting to his feet. ‘No, no, I meant breakfast somewhere else. Where they can cook.’
I glanced up, surprised. ‘You mean …go out?’
‘Why not?’
‘Nowhere will be open, will it? It’s one o’clock in the morning.’
‘I know somewhere we can go.’ He grinned down at me.
‘Ah.’ I nodded back knowingly. ‘Your place.’
He looked surprised. ‘No, I didn’t mean that, actually.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’ I felt stupid. Smutty too. I got to my feet and felt my face burn. Pretended to smooth down my dress to hide it. ‘Sure, we could go out,’ I heard myself saying. ‘Why not? I could do with something to eat.’
I followed him as he pushed through the scrum on the balcony, then walked back across the crowded dining room, making for the stairs. My heart was pounding. As I caught up with him, we passed the door into the throbbing disco and I saw Penny dancing with Philip. I hesitated. Was I just going to go? Without saying goodbye? I knew she’d be going back to Philip’s, but still, we usually spoke. Touched base. And what about Hughie?
‘It’s only round the corner,’ Rupert promised, reading my mind. ‘We’ll be back before this lot get turfed out.’
Somehow, I knew we wouldn’t, but I wanted to believe it. Wanted to go along with it, to trip lightly down the steps and out into the parade ground with this attractive, willowy boy, muscle through the throng around the dodgems and the bucking bronco, pass through the vast wrought-iron gates and slip away unnoticed, into the night.
And it was a beautiful night. The stars looked like diamonds tossed carelessly on black velvet in the sky above us, and the air was warm and enveloping. I felt it wrap around my shoulders like a shawl. As we crossed the Mall outside Buckingham Palace, dodging the traffic and pausing in the middle to dash across to the other side – I suddenly felt I could breathe again.
‘You going to be all right in those shoes?’ Rupert asked, glancing down as I tottered along the pavement beside him. ‘It’s just around the corner, but they look lethal. We could take a taxi.’
‘Fine,’ I lied, wobbling furiously. ‘And anyway, I want to walk.’
I did. Strolling along past Clarence House and up towards St James’s under the rustling plane trees, I felt, for the first time that evening, calm and soothed. I didn’t want to rush off in a taxi. I wanted to dawdle, to savour every moment.
In the event though, I wasn’t fine. It wasn’t just around the corner, and when we arrived at Maria’s Café at the other end of Jermyn Street, I was barefoot, clutching my shoes, and with Rupert’s jacket around my shoulders as the velvety night had turned nippy.
‘Not far!’ I squeaked as he pushed through the steamy café door. ‘Bloody miles!’ I fell panting inside.
‘Sorry. Poetic licence.’ He grinned. ‘Didn’t want to put you off.’
The place was tiny and crowded: full of men slurping bright red tea from mugs and eating great plates of bacon, eggs and chips, intent on copies of the Sun. I glanced around, surprised.
‘Gosh, what’s this? An insomniacs’ retreat?’
‘It’s for taxi drivers, mostly,’ he explained, going quickly down an aisle and easing into the only available table. ‘Sit, quick. And spread out, or Maria will squeeze another brace
of cabbies in here.’
Too late; a couple of elderly men came in behind us.
‘Room for a little one, luv?’ One of them squeezed in on the bench beside me, looking tired. He did a double-take. ‘Blimey, look at you two. All dressed up and nowhere to go? This the best he can offer you, luv? You should be round at the Ritz!’
Rupert grinned and described the execrable food at the party we’d just been to, and how we were in need of Maria’s cooking. I remember sitting there, watching him, and thinking how Hughie would have brushed these old men off with an arrogant remark. Well, let’s face it, Hughie wouldn’t be seen dead somewhere like this in the first place.
‘Might give that place a swerve then, Ron, when they pour out of there later on,’ observed one cabbie to the other. ‘Can’t take their drink, them toffs. Specially the officers.’ He winked indiscriminately at Rupert. ‘Most of it ends up rollin’ around in the back of my cab. Tuck in, luv,’ he nudged me. ‘It’ll get cold.’
Rupert had ordered a fry-up for both of us, but for the first time in my life, I couldn’t eat. As I toyed with my bacon and gazed at him across a steaming mug of tea, listening as he chatted to the cabbies, answering questions about the Guards, letting them tell their own stories about life in the Forces, I couldn’t help feeling, with some certainty, that this was a moment for which I’d waited a very long time. And it didn’t matter that such a moment had been ambushed by two elderly men either; I was content to listen. To observe. To have this particular mess coat around my shoulders, and that particular knee half an inch from mine under the table. I nestled contentedly back into the jacket, savouring its warmth, its smell.
After I’d managed to rearrange my plate a bit and Rupert had cleaned his, we went outside into the night. The door shut behind us and the cool air hit my flushed cheeks. I glanced at my watch. Half past two. The ball would surely be over by now; no point going back. I hesitated, wondering what would happen next. Here I was, in an unfamiliar part of London, miles from home, and everything told me I should be hailing a cab back to Wandsworth. Rupert and I glanced at each other on the pavement, and there was a tremulous moment when, if a move was to be made, it would have been now. But Rupert sensed my indecision and misinterpreted it. His arm shot in the air.
Not That Kind of Girl Page 6