He’d glared at her ferociously. ‘For Christ’s sake, girl, have the courage to make a great big bloody mistake,’ and she heard her mother gasp: Swearing! Children! ‘Nothing good will ever happen,’ he said, ‘unless you do.’
Now the pianist rippled out the first soft chords to ‘God Bless the Child’. She went deep inside herself, blocking out the pale and exhausted faces of the ENSA officials and the bored-looking stenographer, and she sang. For a brief second she took in the vastness of the space around her, the ceiling painted in white and gold, where the bomb hadn’t got it, the rows and rows of empty seats, the magic and glory of this famous theatre, and then she got lost in the song.
When it was over, she looked out into the auditorium. She saw no movement at all, except for Arleta, who stuck her thumbs up and clapped.
Dom sat and listened too, confused and frightened. When he’d heard her first, or so he’d reasoned with himself many times, he’d been at the lowest ebb of his life, and she’d smelled so good, and seemed so young, and he was vulnerable.
But there she was again, with everything to lose – or so it felt to him – in the middle of the stage, making his heart race because she seemed so brave, so pure suddenly in the way she’d gathered herself up and flung herself metaphorically speaking into the void, where those bored-sounding fuckers in khaki sat with their clipboards and pencils.
And sitting on his own in the dark, he felt a tremendous emptiness. How foolishly schoolboyish of him to have written to her – she was everybody’s and nobody’s – but once again she’d called up a raw part of him, a part that normally he went to great lengths to try and hide. And although he’d always known he didn’t love Annabel, or not enough, he was shaken still by the loss of her, the blow to his pride as much as anything, the sense of everything being so changeable.
‘Anything else for us, Miss Tarcan?’ one of the men asked. She did ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, and hearing the stenographer give a little gasp, a sound she recognised, dared to hope that after all the many anxieties of the day, things were going well.
She sang her last song, ‘Mazi’, on her own and when she finished, faced them close to tears. Tan had taught her that song; she’d sung it with her father in the chicken shed.
One of the nameless men who were watching her stood up. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his head. He looked at her aslant, as if she was a piece of furniture he would shortly measure.
The pianist smiled for the first time that day.
‘Right-ho, a break for lunch now,’ was all he said. ‘We’ll see the Banana Brothers at three and Arleta after them. We’ll meet at four for our final decision.’
‘Flipping heck,’ Arleta joked to Saba. They had paused on the island between two rows of busy traffic; they were on their way to lunch. ‘Now I’m going to sound like something the cat’s sicked up after you, so thank you very much. But actually’ – she held out a protective arm as an army truck passed – ‘I’m more in the novelty-dance line myself. I really just sing to fill in the gaps.’
The truck driver wolf-whistled; Arleta gave him a coy wave. ‘Naughty,’ she called out happily.
They ate lunch at Sid’s, a workman’s café with steamy windows, full of people in khaki. The set menu, a two-and-six special, featured strong tea in thick white china cups, a corned-beef patty made with greyish potatoes, tinned peas, and a custard slice for pudding. While they were eating, the three Banana Brothers arrived. Lean, athletic men whose age Saba guessed to be around forty.
‘Well whoop de whoop,’ said Arleta, who seemed to know everyone. ‘Look who’s here.’ She kissed each one of them on both cheeks and did the introductions.
‘This is Lev, and that’s Alex.’ The two men folded into graceful bows. ‘This little titch,’ she pointed towards a younger man whose hair was dyed an improbable black, ‘is called Boguslaw.’ He closed his eyes dramatically and let his lips nuzzle their hands. ‘You won’t remember that,’ she added. ‘You may call him Bog or Boggers, or Bog Brush.’
She explained to Saba that they’d all worked together before, too, in panto in Bristol. ‘And they all behaved appallingly.’ She narrowed her green eyes at them, like a lioness about to slap her cubs. The acrobats, squirming and smirking, seemed to love it.
Close up, Bog was handsome, with a chiselled jaw and the kind of shine and muscle definition most usually seen on a thoroughbred horse. He sat down next to Saba, tucking his napkin in when the waitress came. He asked for a piece of fruit cake but refused the corned-beef patty, because, he said, they were auditioning after lunch and he didn’t like to do anything on a full tummy. He looked Saba straight in the eye as if he’d said something mightily suggestive.
Arleta was pouring tea for all of them from a stained enamel pot. ‘I hope we all make it, and I hope it’s Malta,’ she added. ‘I had a lovely time there last time.’
‘Do you never know where you’re going until they tell you?’ Saba put down her knife. She was trying not to seem as shy as she felt.
‘Never,’ Arleta said. ‘It’s a complete lucky dip, that’s what I like about it.’
When the boys had gone, Arleta, pouring more tea, gossiped in a thrilling whisper about the acrobats. They were from Poland originally, she said, and were a first-class act. Lev and Bog were real brothers. They had lost almost their entire family during the war, and sometimes they drank and got angry about it, so it was better not to talk too much about families unless they brought it up. Bog, the younger one, was a womaniser and had got two girls, to her certain knowledge, in the pudding club. He had been excused call-up because of his hammer toes, although how you could be an acrobat with hammer toes was a complete mystery to her, but they wouldn’t mention hammer toes either, unless it came up naturally, which it almost never did in conversation. Ha ha ha. Arleta, digging into her custard slice, was in high spirits. She told Saba she’d been very, very low indeed before the audition, but this was just what she needed. ‘It’s the greatest fun on earth, ENSA,’ she said. ‘A real challenge.’
‘Are you nervous?’ Saba said.
‘Not really.’ Arleta winked. She took out her handkerchief and wiped the lipstick from her cup. ‘I more or less know I’m in,’ she said cockily.
‘How?’
Arleta stuck her tongue into her cheek, closed her eyes and squinted at Saba.
‘Let’s just say I have friends in high places,’ was all she would say.
Chapter 5
After all the auditions had ended, Dom hung around outside the stage door for nearly two hours, waiting for her. The doorman, sitting in a glass box, read his Sporting Life from cover to cover. Dom watched prop baskets and racks of clothes come and go, listening with a certain exasperation to snatches of conversation: ‘I worked with Mabel years ago. She’s a marvel, but puffed sleeves, imagine!’ from a loud middle-aged woman with dyed hair, and ‘I’d try the wig department, if I were you’ from a mincing little type in a checked overcoat.
And then, she emerged from behind him, so buoyantly that she could have been walking on air. There were bright spots of red on her cheeks; she was smiling to herself. It was starting to rain, and the street was full of dun- or dark-coated people putting up umbrellas.
She looked straight at him as she stepped on to the pavement.
‘It’s Dominic,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
‘Waiting for me?’ She looked confused and embarrassed, and then the penny dropped.
‘Heavens,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I would have recognised you out of your pyjamas. You’re as good as new.’
The same thing his mother had said, and so untrue.
‘Look, I’m sorry about today,’ she added, colouring. ‘It was all too much. It’s my first time in London.’
‘And my first time for being jilted.’ He made it sound like a joke, but it was true. Almost.
‘Well get you!’ She was mocking him and smiling too, reminding him again of their hospital kiss.
‘
Must you dash? Can’t I buy you a drink? A nice cup of cocoa maybe?’ Oh, the habits of facetiousness did die hard, even when your heart was going like a bloody tom-tom. It’s only a dare, he told himself. Calm down.
While she considered this, he noticed the feverish look in her eyes, as though she was floating above the earth and not aware of her surroundings.
‘Well, all right then,’ she said after a pause. ‘I’m absolutely starving. I was so nervous before.’ He touched her arm to warn her of a passing car that could have knocked her over, and she continued in the same dream-like voice, ‘I can’t believe it. Any of it. I honestly don’t know what to do with myself.’
They had to walk. It was rush hour now, the buses were crammed. He said he would take her to Cavour’s in the Strand. When it started to rain harder, he took off his greatcoat and draped it around her shoulders.
Halfway up Regent Street she sat down on a bench like a vagabond and took her right shoe off. Her new shoes had given her a blister. Her hair was wet and plastered around her face, which was triangle-shaped and high-cheekboned, and she suddenly looked so vulnerable, cocooned in his greatcoat and with London rushing around her, and her little foot now curved for his inspection, that he wanted to take it in his hand and kiss it better. He touched her instep lightly; she did not move away.
‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘Amputation? Ambulance? What do you think?’
She swung her handbag at his head.
‘Idiot! Twit!’ A tomboy moment which delighted him. He’d never liked ladylike girls with their pearls, and handbags on their laps, and talk of horses and Mummy and parties, but where did her high spirits come from? She was so very excited, and seemed to give off a kind of electricity.
‘Honestly, what a day!’ she said to him. ‘What a day,’ she repeated. ‘Such wonderful things!’
The waiter took their orders: half a bitter for him, a glass of lemonade for her, and whatever sandwiches the kitchen could rustle up. He asked for a seat as far away from the bar as possible so they could talk.
‘Are you sure it shouldn’t be champagne?’ he said, making sure he sounded offhand.
‘Well maybe,’ she said quietly. ‘I got the job. I’m going to be measured for my uniform tomorrow.’
She seemed to get an attack of nerves when she said that. She said she was going to be busy the whole of the next day, and that she was not actually normally in the habit of going out with strange men.
‘I’m not a strange man. Don’t forget,’ he teased her to hide his dismay, ‘we’ve kissed. Don’t you remember? In hospital.’
She looked sweet when she went red like that, but he saw her legs move away from him under the table and worried he might have pushed it too far.
‘So whereabouts in Wales do you live?’
The blush had receded and the pale honey of her cheeks returned. ‘In Cardiff,’ she told him. ‘Pomeroy Street. Near the notorious Tiger Bay.’ She was teasing him now.
‘And your parents? Are they singers?’
‘No.’ She looked unhappy again. He thought that she had the most beautiful eyebrows he’d ever seen – dark wings over dark eyes.
‘I’m not surprised you got the job,’ he said, hoping to cheer her up. ‘You were really quite good . . . that’s what I came to tell you.’
‘Quite good.’ She shot him a look. ‘You silver-tongued lizard. Anyway, you don’t know that: you didn’t even hear me.’
‘I did. I bribed the doorman. I wanted to see you.’ He had nothing to lose now.
She narrowed her eyes and looked at him, mock-suspicious. ‘Why?’
‘Because . . .’ he took a sip of his drink, ‘because . . .’ He closed his eyes, thinking hold it in, hold it in. This was the last thing on earth that he wanted – to feel out of control again. ‘Because you’re OK.’
‘Oh, very GI Joe,’ she said.
‘Tell me more about the job,’ he asked. He wanted to hold her hand, for her to stay for a week or two so they could get to know each other better. ‘Do you know where you’re going, or when?’
‘No.’ She still had that coming-out-of-a-dream look, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. ‘And even if I did, we’re not allowed to say. All I know is I’ve got to have all the injections: you know, cholera, and yellow fever and typhoid.’
She looked terrified when she said that. She was faking her air of calm. He recognised the signs all too well. His heart sank. So most likely the Middle East, where things were hotting up, or India, or Burma, which was bloody miles away.
‘Shame, I was hoping it would be down the end of the pier at Southend so we could do this again.’
‘Do what again?’ All her dimples came out when she smiled at him like that.
‘Well, talk, have a laugh.’
‘Well . . .’ She gave him a quizzical look and took a sip of her lemonade ‘. . . It’s not, so we can’t—’
He cut her off quickly. ‘First time abroad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Parents know yet?’
‘No.’ She squeezed her eyes shut.
An uncle-ish part of him rose up when she said this. He wanted to scold her, to warn her of clear and present dangers ahead. Of men in remote places who would want to seduce her, of bad beds and frightening transport and bombs, and stinging insects.
‘Will they mind?’ He hoped they would.
‘It’s going to break their hearts,’ she said. She grimaced into her lemonade. ‘I thought I’d be able to go back and see them before we left – I promised my mum I would – and now it sounds like I won’t, there’s no time. That’s horrible.’ She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘So let’s talk about something else.’
The bar was starting to fill up. The barman was reciting his cocktails – Singapore Sling, White Lady, Naval Grog – to a group of army officers. Dom was staring at her across the table, his brain trying to accommodate, to understand. It was all such unfamiliar territory.
‘I know what that feels like,’ he said at last. ‘I’m flying again; my mother doesn’t know yet. I’m going home next week to tell her.’
‘Why?’ It was her turn to look shocked. ‘Don’t they let you stop once you’ve been shot down?’
‘I don’t want to stop.’
‘Why not? Aren’t you frightened now?’
‘No.’ That could never be admitted, not even to himself. ‘I can’t stop now. It feels like the thing I was born to do – if that doesn’t sound fantastically corny.’
She was staring at him properly now.
‘No, not corny,’ she said. ‘Hard.’
Her hands were resting on the table between them. A schoolgirl’s hands, no rings, no nail varnish.
‘Are you fit enough to go?’
‘Yep.’ He didn’t like talking about it, not with a girl, particularly. It made him feel breathless, hunted. ‘I’m fine now.’
‘How do they know?’
‘Had the X-ray, been spun in a chair. Fit for active service.’
She looked at him steadily. ‘I liked that poem you sent me,’ she said.
‘Oh God, did I?’ His turn to be embarrassed – he’d written it out, and when Misou came into the room, must have stuffed it into the envelope by mistake.
‘Whatever comes, one hour was sunlit,’ she said dreamily. ‘Such a good thing to say. Sometimes one hour is enough.’
‘Pound actually rewrote the poem later – he said two weeks was better.’
Her dimples appeared. ‘Dom – I’m going!’ Playfully, as if they were children and the game was tag.
‘I know, so am I. So let me walk you home,’ he said. ‘I could help you pack, or sew on your uniform pips or something. I’m good at sewing.’
‘No.’ She put her hands over her face.
‘A cup of coffee, then.’ He had half a bottle of whisky in his greatcoat, just in case.
‘I can’t.’ She touched his hand. ‘I’m definitely going to take that job. I decided as soon as they asked me. I can’t let anyt
hing stop me now.’
‘I know.’ He did too, understand. Unfortunately.
She laid the key to the B and B on the table. She’d produced it proudly for his inspection earlier, thought it was very trusting of her landlady considering this was London. He felt a pang looking at it. How easy it would have been to creep up the stairs together, and how blameless it would feel – all the old rules of courtship had been bent out of shape since the war began.
‘Saba.’
‘Yes.’
‘When you’re cleared for security, let me know where you are.’
She was about to answer when the waiter interrupted. He’d returned to smile at them, to squint at the wings on Dom’s uniform and ask what squadron he was with. The management would be honoured to offer him and his good lady a cocktail on the house. They were brave men and they deserved it. Dom, going through the usual nonchalant disclaimers, felt shamingly pleased to be in the spotlight in front of her and also glad not to have to say more about the medical, which had for reasons not explicable made him feel angry and defensive, like a small boy required to drop his trousers.
They ordered Singapore Slings. She wrinkled her nose as she drank it, like a kitten dipping a paw into water. She wasn’t half the sophisticate she pretended to be.
When her glass was half emptied, her lit-up look returned like a flash of lightning. He wondered if she was thinking about her job again, and feeling at a sudden loss, he stood up, and on the pretext of hurrying the waiter along with their food, walked as casually as he could over to the bar.
He was standing there when a slight figure came out of the shadows, and stood in a puddle of light in front of him. It was Jilly, Jacko’s fiancée. Later, it made perfect sense to him that she would come here to either torture or comfort herself, but on this night they gaped at each other like actors from different plays. She was wearing a blue dress, with the small RAF wings brooch Jacko had bought her pinned to the lapel. She was thinner.
Jasmine Nights Page 6