by Fiona Ford
‘You’re on next, love,’ she said, gesturing to the stage.
‘Break a leg, my dear,’ Max said, raising his glass towards her.
Walking through the throngs of people, Flo tried to calm her racing pulse. She had sung so many times before she wasn’t sure why she felt nervous. And then she realised this wasn’t just about impressing the audience, she wanted to impress Max.
Stepping on to the stage, she glanced at the faces gazing up at her and then turned towards the pianist. ‘How about “I Don’t know Why I Love You”,’ she mouthed, and the pianist nodded.
As the first note sounded, Flo felt herself relax. Staring out into the crowd, feeling all eyes on her, she began to sing, losing herself in the music and the song. As a performer she knew not to try too hard to read the crowd but as she glanced across at Max she couldn’t miss the big grin on his face.
Feeling the butterflies in her stomach start to shift, she turned back to the crowd and was delighted to see they all looked to be enjoying themselves. Most were dancing; some were mouthing the words others looked as if they were happy just to be amongst friends and loved ones. All except one couple who were sitting in the corner by the bar, locked in a loving embrace, each lost in the arms of the other.
As the song came to a close and the audience broke into polite applause, Flo smiled and mouthed ‘“Wake Me Up, Cookie”, ’ to the pianist. As he flicked deftly through his sheet music, Flo noticed the couple break apart and for the first time that night her jaw dropped. The couple weren’t the strangers she believed them to be. In fact the pair who had eyes only for each other were none other than her friends and lodgers, Bess and Jean.
Chapter Forty-Nine
It was a testament to her professionalism, Flo thought as the pianist played the opening chords to the next song, that she was able to carry on in the face of such a surprise. What Flo had really wanted to do as Bess and Jean stared up at her in horror was to walk straight down into the crowd, pull them aside and ask them what was going on.
They were sisters, weren’t they? Yet in all Flo’s twenty-seven years she had never seen two sisters kiss each other like that. But if they weren’t sisters, that meant they had been lying to her. Flo wasn’t sure what she was more upset about: the discovery that Bess and Jean weren’t who she thought they were, or the fact that she had been made to feel like such a fool.
But right now she had a job to do, and that job was to sing to the best of her ability and convince Max Monroe that another Liberty’s fundraiser was worthy of his time. And so Flo ignored Bess and Jean, breathed in the smoky air and finished her song, following it with another two just like it, imagining she was giving a performance to a packed Royal Albert Hall.
It was worth it. By the time she had finished the crowd were cheering in delight, and crying out for more. When she left the stage she was elated as people clapped her on the back and congratulated her. She made her way towards Max, overjoyed to see him give her a big thumbs up.
‘You did well,’ he told her, pushing another gimlet into her hands.
‘Thanks.’ Flo slugged the drink back in one. ‘Can I have another please?’
Max laughed and gestured to the barman for another. ‘I didn’t think it was that terrifying.’
‘It wasn’t.’ Flo smiled, this time merely sipping the drink the barman pushed her way. ‘I was just a bit rattled, that’s all.’
She could see Max was about to ask why when she saw Bess and Jean, hovering beside the legendary singer.
‘Could we have a word, Flo?’ Bess asked, her tone flat.
Flo took in her appearance. Bess was dressed like Eddie in a dark grey lounge suit with paisley-patterned tie. Jean, on the other hand, was wearing the utility dress from Liberty’s Flo had helped her run up only the other day. Their faces, however, had drained of all colour and for a moment Flo felt sorry for them.
‘Of course.’ Flo turned to Max. ‘Excuse me for just a moment.’
Following Jean and Bess towards a dark corner of the club, she stared at them, arms folded.
‘We’ve always wanted to tell you, we never wanted to keep secrets from you, but I’m sure you can understand why we didn’t,’ Bess said.
‘We wanted to tell you, but we couldn’t,’ Jean added, her eyes filled with earnestness and sorrow.
‘I take it you two aren’t sisters then?’
Bess shook her head and locked eyes with Flo as if daring her to challenge them. ‘No, we’re lovers, have been for almost four years now.’
Now Flo felt the colour drain from her own face. What was she supposed to say? ‘Four years?’
‘That’s right,’ Jean said, lifting her chin a little higher in defiance. ‘I love Bess, and Bess feels the same.’
‘Does that shock you, Flo?’ Bess said in a mocking tone.
‘No,’ Flo snapped, refusing to look away from the girls. ‘What shocks me is the fact you were living under my roof all that time, and you weren’t honest with me. What shocks me is the way you lied to me. I can imagine you both now having a good old laugh at me upstairs in your bedroom. You were sharing a bedroom! All this time I thought you were being kind and considerate with each other. I thought you were close, when in fact you were up to, well, I can’t even imagine what you were doing.’
Flo broke off; her voice was now dangerously low and she could tell that her cheeks were red hot with rage. With a start she wondered if this was how Neil had felt when he had discovered she had gone behind his back in the way she had. Did he feel as betrayed as this?
‘I’m sorry,’ Bess said, her voice lower now. ‘We never wanted to lie to you, truly we didn’t. We had no choice.’
‘Can you imagine what people would have said if they’d discovered the fact Bess and I were lovers? People would be disgusted,’ Jean threw in.
‘We’ve seen it first hand,’ Bess continued. ‘It’s why we left Cornwall. Because all we faced was bigotry and hatred.’
‘Our secret was discovered,’ Jean said miserably. ‘My brother found out and said he would kill me if I didn’t stop seeing Bess. He said I was bringing shame on the family, that I was a dyke. He said he’d wash me in bleach to make me clean again.’
Flo’s mouth dropped open in shock. That really was disgusting.
‘Surely he was just upset,’ she tried. ‘People say all sorts of things they don’t mean.’
‘Oh, he meant it all right,’ Jean replied, lifting her hair back to reveal a massive scar at the tip of her forehead. ‘That was where he tried to shave my head. Said that I was behaving like a man so that’s what I should look like. When I got away, he beat me, told me to stand up and fight him like a man, when all the time he was holding me down and I couldn’t fight back.’
‘He broke her nose and her arm in two places,’ Bess continued, linking her arm through Jean’s. ‘We left as soon as Jean was well enough. We knew, after he tried to harm Jean like that, that even if she promised to stop seeing me, he’d have come for her again.’
‘So we took the first train out of Penzance and ended up in London,’ Jean added.
‘Found a grotty little room in Peckham first.’ Bess half smiled at the memory. ‘The landlady told us she only had one room, and that was when we struck on the idea of being sisters.’
‘That way we could share a room without question,’ Jean finished. ‘It all seemed to work out all right. I got a job at Liberty’s, Bess got a job at a café in East London and then we moved across to a flat in Queens Park. The sisters’ line seemed to work out, and we were happy.’
Bess reached out and squeezed Jean’s hand. ‘We still are happy, my love. No matter what happens, we’ve got each other and always will.’
As Flo watched Jean and Bess share a secret smile, she felt a pang of sorrow and love for the couple before her. They belonged together, she could see that, no matter what society thought.
‘So what happened after that?’ Flo said, interrupting the couple. ‘You said you were happy – what ch
anged?’
‘My brother Fred found us.’ Jean sighed. ‘About two years after we left Cornwall he tracked us down and said I had to come home. He said he was sickened to discover I was still in this dirty little relationship, as he called it. He told me that if I didn’t come back with him immediately he’d teach me a lesson.’
‘I came home to find Fred had pinned Jean down on the floor again. This time he was holding a knife.’
Horror flooded through Flo as she took in the full implications of what Bess was saying. ‘You’re telling me your own brother tried to hurt you.’
Jean nodded miserably. ‘He kept saying I needed to be taught a lesson, that I was unnatural, that I was going to hell and he would make me forget about Bess, that it was his duty as a brother.’
‘How was doing gawd knows what to you with a knife going to make you forget about Bess?’ Flo begged. ‘It makes no sense.’
‘It never does with Fred,’ Bess growled. ‘He’s not right in the head. I tell you Flo, I have never been so angry. In that moment, when I saw him, well, I didn’t think about what I was doing, I just pulled him straight off Jean and then smacked him right in the eye. He was so surprised and I was so angry I didn’t stop.’
‘He was furious,’ Jean continued. ‘He flew at Bess and started beating her. He kept saying how we weren’t women, we were animals. Then I started hitting him, and he rounded on me. We ended up fighting, the three of us, and I think that’s when it dawned on him he’d need extra help if he was going to get me to come home.’
‘Your shiner,’ Flo said suddenly, remembering the black eye Jean had come into work with last year. ‘It wasn’t Bess’s wayward boyfriend, it was your brother.’
‘I’m so sorry, Flo,’ Jean murmured.
‘And that story about your mum being too busy on the Isle of Wight?’ Flo asked. ‘And about you being married before? And why you were called Green?’
‘Green is my real name. But the Mrs part was made up. We made up lots of stories,’ Bess explained. ‘To keep people off the scent, or more specifically Fred.’
‘My brother was why we moved in with you,’ Jean put in. ‘We had to leave our flat quickly.’
‘And he’s still looking for us,’ Bess added. ‘It’s why I moved from the café, because I came home in my uniform that day and he worked it out, but he never found out Jean was at Liberty’s.’
‘We couldn’t take the risk though. I moved jobs and we moved house but since I’ve been at the convalescent home I haven’t been able to look out for Jean in the way I normally would. The few days I can come home while I rebuild my strength are precious but it’s not enough. I need to be home. I need to be with Jean.’
With that Jean kissed Bess tenderly on the cheek and Flo could see the love that radiated between them.
‘We never meant to cause any trouble for you Flo,’ Jean put in, her eyes brimming with earnestness. ‘You’ve been so good to us; we don’t want you to think badly of us,’
Flo looked at the girls before her, so broken and bruised. They had dealt with too much hardship; who was she to cause them any more? Her heart went out to them. She knew she was supposed to feel disgusted at their relationship, but Flo couldn’t bring herself to think that way. Instead she remembered the sadness her uncle had faced day after day simply for choosing to love someone of the same sex. She might find it odd, but was it really so wrong? Was it really so awful? Surely love was love, wasn’t it?
‘Girls, you don’t need to apologise to me for being who you are,’ Flo sighed. ‘I wish you hadn’t lied to me, but I understand why you did. I want to help you – you two shouldn’t have to live like this. What can I do?’
The girls looked at each other, their eyes shining with happiness.
‘You’ve already done it,’ Bess whispered. ‘You’ve just given us the greatest gift of all.’
Flo frowned. ‘But I haven’t done anything.’
‘You’ve done more than you know.’ Jean smiled. ‘You’ve given us acceptance and you’ve made us proud.’
‘You’ve said that we’re as good as you, and that means more than you will ever know,’ Bess finished.
Chapter Fifty
‘You sang where?’ Dot echoed in disbelief. ‘The Kitty Witty Club?’
Flo choked back her laughter as she handed Dot a stack of orders to sign. ‘The Kitty Cat Club. In Chelsea.’
Dot shook her head as she signed her name, then passed the papers back. ‘Never heard of it, darlin’. Daft name though, isn’t it? What’s that all about? Do they provide a home for all the waifs and strays of London?’
‘I suppose in a funny way they do.’ Flo smiled, thinking of how Jean and Bess had seemed very at home there. ‘The point is, though, that it went well and Max has agreed to sing at another fundraiser, as long as I do three duets with him.’
Dot raised an eyebrow. ‘Three? Blimey. He thinks a lot of you.’
‘And I think a lot of him,’ Flo replied.
‘I’m only teasing, darlin’,’ Dot replied, stifling a yawn. ‘Ignore me, you’re not the only one that had a late night last night. I’m not myself today. Bit tired.’
‘Any reason?’ Flo asked, sweeping her finger across the cash register to check for dust.
‘Only Edwin, going on about Henry again, right up until the small hours he was.’
‘What do you mean?’ Flo asked, eyes narrowed.
‘He’s got a bee in his bonnet that the man’s innocent.’
‘I must say I agree with him,’ Flo replied.
‘Oh, not you ’n’ all.’ Dot rolled her eyes. ‘I’m all for innocent until proven guilty and Henry was good to you and Celia of course. But he’s hardly laid all his cards on the table. I mean, he went to prison, for crying out loud. For theft, and he refuses now to tell us what’s going on with the money. If he’s innocent of this crime he must see how this will look to everyone else.’
‘And I must say that for once I agree with Dot,’ Evie cried, scuttling across the parquet floor towards the cash register.
‘Oh Christ, I will change my mind if she starts agreeing with me,’ Dot muttered under her breath.
‘Well, I’m sorry you both think that,’ Flo said. ‘Because I completely disagree and as a result have asked Henry to come into the office later this morning. Mr Button and I are going to see if we can shed any light on who else might have taken the money.’
Evie let out a long sigh and folded her arms against her rayon polka-dot blouse. ‘What a waste of time. Henry Masters was caught red-handed, he is not of good moral character, he should not be working at this store. What else do you need to know?’
‘I need more evidence,’ Flo said with an air of finality. ‘And so do the board.’
Now it was Evie’s turn to look surprised. ‘Really? I thought they were ready to sack him? When I spoke to Mr Button last week he suggested that the board were far from impressed by Henry’s behaviour.’
‘You thought wrong,’ Flo replied curtly.
Ignoring Evie’s irritated glare, she checked her wristwatch and saw there were just two minutes to go until opening time. Jean was due in to work this morning. She knew they had both endured a late night the previous evening but Flo was here bright and early and Jean ought to be as well.
Right on cue, the sound of heels tip-tapping across the floor made Flo look up. At the sight of Jean, immaculately dressed in her Liberty floral print skirt and blouse, she smiled warmly, wanting to let the younger girl know she needn’t worry about the night before.
‘Morning, Jean darlin’,’ said Dot. ‘You look as tired as the rest of us. Don’t tell me you were out ’til all hours singing at the Kitty Nitty Club as well.’
‘Kitty Cat Club,’ Flo said crossly. Turning to Jean she couldn’t miss the look of alarm spreading across her face. ‘No, it was just me,’ Flo added quickly, sensing that Jean didn’t want that particular bit of information broadcast across the shop floor.
‘The Kitty Cat Club?’ Evie exc
laimed in disgust. ‘My goodness me. Mrs Canning, please tell me you weren’t at that den of iniquity. You know that it’s a place for’ – at this point Evie lowered her voice as she looked furtively around her – ‘dykes and nancy boys, don’t you?’
Flo rolled her eyes at the stupidity of Evie’s words. ‘Yes, Evie, I am well aware of the kind of club it is.’
‘And you went there knowing it was full of poofs! Whatever is the matter with you? You’ll be bringing your own good name and the reputation of Liberty’s into disrepute,’ Evie snapped. ‘There’s no place for people like that in society, it’s sick.’
Drawing herself up to her full height so she towered over Evie, Flo found herself glowering at her. ‘No, Mrs Allingham, the people that are sick are people like you, who find something so very wrong in people living their lives. I don’t wish to hear any more of that sort of talk in my department. Is that understood?’
‘Mrs Canning, I was merely pointing out that this kind of moral depravity is precisely what is wrong with the world today. You going to places like that will do nothing for Liberty’s reputation or your own. I am only trying to help,’ Evie pointed out.
‘So am I, and that is all I have to say on the matter. I don’t want to hear another word about it,’ Flo said firmly.
About to walk away, Flo saw Evie round on Jean, clearly still keen to speak her mind. ‘And what do you think? Don’t you think these men and women, these horrible people up to no good with their disgusting behaviour should be stopped, eh, Jean?’
Flo saw Jean’s cheeks flush with colour.
‘I … I don’t know, Mrs Allingham,’ the younger girl said.
‘Don’t you?’ Evie chuckled, looming over her. ‘I would have thought you would have had an opinion on these disgusting dykes.’
‘She just said she doesn’t,’ Dot fired. ‘Now stop using such filthy language and leave the poor girl alone. Go and spread your hate somewhere else, will you?’