A Family At War, page 23
It's a long and rather peculiar looking building in the middle of town. It used to be an aircraft hangar, and you can still see that from the shape of it, but now it's called the Pavilion and stands sideways on with an entrance facing the sea. The front of it looks a bit like the pier. There are two plaster towers on either side of the entrance with the high roof of the hanger curving between them. We walk towards it through the municipal garden, past the rock gardens and a row of empty flowerbeds, following the crowd, and the nearer we get the more excited I become. My legs are freezing because I haven't got any stockings on - I've only got lisle stockings and Mum said not to wear them - and my hands are cold too even thrust right down inside the pockets of my nice green coat, but I don't care. I'm going to my first dance.
Inside it's marvellously warm and packed with people. There's a band up on a platform at one side of the hall, playing away like billy-oh, and tables set all round the edge of the dance floor, and coloured fairy lights hanging from the walls like bright strings of beads, but no light apart from that as far as I can see. The dance floor is full of couples all moving clockwise and laughing and chatting to one another. Most of the men seem to be in uniform, either in the Navy or the R.A.F. and the girls are all wearing pretty dresses. I look at their feet to try and work out what the steps are and Mum sees what I'm doing and says not to worry, I'll pick it up in no time. I hope I shall but it looks a bit tricky. We leave our coats at the cloakroom and wander into the throng to find ourselves a table and at that moment the music stops and the dancers leave the floor, so we're caught up in a swirl of people all moving in different directions. But Mum's found us a table somehow and gives me a shove towards the nearest seat. Now what?
Now a waltz, according to a man with a microphone. When he puts it back in its stand, he handles it so roughly it gives a little wheeze of protest, and the band starts to play again. I turn to Mum to ask her what I'm supposed to do but she's making eyes at a sailor who's standing behind the next table, so I just sit tight and watch. People are pairing up all over the hall. I suppose they all know one another. I'm just watching a blonde girl walking towards the floor with a sailor in tow, when a voice says, 'Can I have this dance?' and I look up to see another sailor looking down at me.
I say, 'Yes'. I get up. I walk onto the floor. And we're off. He has his right hand in the small of my back and his left hand holding my right, and somehow he steers me in the right direction and we follow the beat, one, two, three, back, side, together, forward, side, together, circling slowly. Mum's right. It is easy.
'So tell me,' he says, 'what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?'
I say, 'Dancing.' And he thinks that's funny and laughs out loud. So I say, 'Well I am, aren't I?' which makes him laugh again. And after that we talk and that's easy too. I tell him I live in Felpham and he tells me he's based on the pier, which seems a bit odd, and that they use it for gunnery practice, which I knew anyway because I've heard the guns. Then he talks for ages about what it's like being in the Navy and all I have to do is listen. At the end of the dance he gives me a little bow and escorts me back to the table, feeling really pleased with myself. Mum's not there but after a few seconds she comes back too, leading the sailor she'd been making eyes at.
'Good?' she asks. She has to shout because there's such a lot of noise.
'Spiffing.'
'Told you.'
The band's starting up again. There's a soldier on his way over. I'm going to dance every dance. I'll bet.
I do too, quicksteps and foxtrots and lots of waltzes. The only one I don't get asked for is the tango and I'm quite glad to give it a miss because it looks horribly difficult. Mum dances it with a sailor and I sit it out and watch her. I can see why she likes dancing so much. She's really good at it, holding her head up and arching her back and doing the most complicated steps as if it were the easiest thing in the world. When the music stops she brings the sailor back to our table and introduces him, 'Beryl, this is Ralph, Ralph, this is Beryl. She's a - relation of mine.'
'Now let me guess,' he says. 'Your sister?'
Mum bridles at him. 'My little girl.'
'Never!' he says. 'You don't look old enough. You must have been a child-bride.'
'Well I was young,' Mum says. 'Yes.'
My first partner's on his way over for the next waltz. Oh I do like dancing.
It's really late by the time we head off for the bus home and we have to leave while they're dancing the last waltz so as to be certain of catching it. My feet are aching like anything. It's quite hard to dance on high-heeled shoes because you tip forward onto your toes all the time but it's been such fun I don't care about my feet, nor about how cold it is out in the sea air after the warmth of the dance hall.
'We'll go again next Saturday shall we,' Mum says as we walk up Canning Road.
The houses are all dark and sleeping. I'll bet everyone's in bed except us. 'Yes please,' I say.
It's a wonderful weekend. Me and Mum sleep late on Sunday morning. We don't get up till eleven o'clock and then Mum's in such a good mood, laughing and joking and telling Gran what fun we had. After dinner I put Carole in her pram and take her and the puppy for a walk along the tamarisk path and that's nice too, and not long after that it's time to catch the train and go back home to Dardy. Mum hasn't told me off once the whole weekend. The cane's still on the dresser but it's underneath piles of rubbish and I don't think she's even thought about it. Maybe I've grown out of whatever it was I was doing that upset her. Or maybe it's because it's easier not to be jealous of Pat when I'm being petted and fed by Dardy. Whatever it is, long may it continue. I like this new life very much.
I'm put to shame. I should never have been crowing about how happy I was. Not when there are rockets falling. There's been the most dreadful one in New Cross. I heard about it when I got back to school this morning. It fell on Woolworths on Saturday afternoon when the place was full and there were lots of people out in the streets doing their Christmas shopping. They say there's nothing left of the Woolworths at all and there were over a hundred people killed, men women and children, and hundreds injured. They're still trying to dig them out. It's so dreadful it makes me ache to think about it. I was dancing and joking about and enjoying myself and people in New Cross were digging their dead out of the rubble and gathering up bits of bodies from the trees and the rooftops. War is a total wickedness. We must never, ever let it happen again.
CHAPTER 20
It's school exams again only this time they're rather more important because these are the ones that will decide which subjects I'm going to sit in the General School Certificate in two years’ time. They've told us we've all got to take the required five so as to matriculate - English, Maths, a Science, History or Geography and a second language - and we've got to be careful to start off on courses where we know we're going to succeed because you only get one chance in the School Certificate and if you fail you're finished. Which is funny really because I’m sitting in the school gym struggling with a Chemistry paper that I can’t understand at all. I've made a stab at some of the questions but I've still got half an hour to kill. I think I'll draw all the equipment I can remember and pretend it's an experiment to make oxygen or something. I'll put an arrow coming out of the last test tube and label it 'Oxygen'. At least that'll keep me occupied. It squashes me to realise how little I know. Religious Knowledge tomorrow. That ought to be all right.
It is. And so is Art which is actually quite fun. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the results. Just as well it's Easter and I can go down to Felpham and forget all about it.
It's chaos in the bungalow. The electricity board have been in and now we've got electric lights in all the ceilings and new switches on the walls and everything's so bright it's quite dazzling. Actually I rather miss the gaslight. I thought it was pretty and much gentler than electric light. The gas points are still there with their little pink shades so I suppose we could use them if we wanted to, but at the moment Mum and Gran are raving about the electricity. Mum says it’s about time too but she could have done without having all the floor boards up and Gran says that was a small price to pay to be able to see what we're doing.
The puppy's growing so fast he's changed since last weekend. And he's learned a new trick. Apparently he's started eating pebbles and it's given him a fit. I don't like the sound of that at all but Mum says if he will do silly things he's only got himself to blame. She can be very hard sometimes. She didn't tell me about the poor cat until this morning.
I'd been looking for her because she's usually in the kitchen of a morning, waiting about in case there are any scraps, and the last time I saw her I thought she looked as though she was in kitten.
'Where's the cat?' I ask.
'Oh,' Mum says, 'she's gone missing.'
'Missing?'
'Yes.'
'Have you looked for her?'
'Well of course we've looked for her. We've called and called. Haven't we Pat?'
Pat agrees that they have. But then she would. She agrees with everything Mum says. I go out in the garden and call, 'Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!' But there's no answering miaow, no movement through the grasses, nothing.
'She's old,' Mum says. 'That's what it is. I expect she's just gone off to die somewhere. Old cats do that.'
I can't bear the idea. It's so callous. She's not old. And even if she is, all the more reason to try and find her and make her comfortable instead of leaving her on her own. I'll go out along the beach and call her. She must be somewhere.
She's not in any of the places I've looked this afternoon. I've been all along the top of the beach by the rolls of barbed wire and the anti-tank blocks and searched in all the footpaths and along all the neighbouring roads and I haven't found sight nor sound of her. And now Mum's taken me into her bedroom on my own because she says there's something she wants to say to me so I'm afraid she's going to tell me she's found her body.
There's a funny looking white pad lying on the bedspread with a length of white tape alongside it.
'Now,' she says, sitting down on the bed. 'I've got something to tell you.' Then she pauses and gives me an odd look.
I wait.
'You're getting to be quite a big girl now,' she says. 'Almost a woman. So I'm going to tell you what will happen to you when you start being a woman. It's called having your period, or coming on queer. Have you heard anything about it from anyone?'
'No,' I say. I know the older girls at school have an odd smell about them sometimes. But I can't tell her that. It wouldn't be nice.
'It won't be long before it happens,' she says, 'and I want you to be ready for it. One day, you'll find you are bleeding down there. Not much. Just a little as though you've cut your finger. When you do you'll need to wear one of these.' She picks up the pad. 'It’s called a sanitary towel. It's to catch the blood and protect your clothes. You put the tape through the loops, like this, and then you tie it round your waist to keep it in place. When it's dirty you change into a clean one and give me the dirty one to burn. All right?'
'Does it go on long?'
'Three or four days, usually. Don't make that face. It's quite normal. Nothing for you to worry about. Just a bit messy that's all.'
I don't like the sound of it at all.
'Now I've got you a little calendar,' she says, picking it up from the washstand. 'When it happens put a little cross by the day and then count up four weeks and you'll know when to expect it the next time.'
'You mean it's going to happen every month?'
'Afraid so,' she says. 'It's a rotten business being a woman. Still at least you know what's going to happen. You've been warned. Which is more than I was. They never told me anything when I was your age. They didn't in those days. When I came on for the first time I thought I'd got some dreadful disease. I sat on the commode looking at the blood and I thought I was going to die. So I always said if I ever had a daughter I wouldn't let that happen to her. I'd give her fair warning. And I have, haven't I? All right?'
I nod because I'm still taking it all in. Why do we have to bleed to prove we're women? What causes it? It sounds a horrible arrangement.
'Right,' she says, standing up. 'Take your towels and hide them away in your bedroom. You don't want Pat and Carole to see them. Then we'll have to get a move on or we'll be late for the dance.'
I've forgotten about the dance. Imagine that. I've forgotten about the dance. I've forgotten my manners too. 'Thanks for telling me,' I say and I am thankful even though it isn't something I particularly wanted to know.
'That's all right,' she says. And she puts her arms round me and kisses me, which I wasn't expecting. 'I couldn't have you frightened.' I'm warmed with affection for her. She can be very kind when she likes.
It's really crowded at the dance tonight but my funny sailor isn't here. People come and go so quickly in wartime. You hardly have time to learn their names and they've been posted somewhere else. But I have lots of partners and dance nearly every dance except the tango, and Mum's really happy, sitting in the middle of a group of young men, all teasing her and flirting with her and making her the centre of attention. She blooms in a dance hall. Like she did when she used to talk to the Italian prisoners of war - and Georgie Twibell.
'That's a good-looking chap over there,' she says, looking at a sailor who's lounging about on the other side of the room. He's a solid looking man with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. 'See if you can get him to come over. Catch his eye.'
I don't think you can get someone to come over and join you just by looking at them, but apparently you can. I give the sailor a long look and he looks back, grins, stubs out his cigarette and strolls across the floor. Well fancy that!
'Like a dance?' he says and he holds out his arms so that I can walk into them. We dance very close together. I'm not sure I like being as near to someone as this. It's too squashy. I can smell his sweat and the beer and cigarettes on his breath. But it's only for a dance and then I can move on to someone else.
No. Apparently I can't. He doesn't walk me back to my table when the music stops but stays on the floor and waits for it to start again. 'You're a pretty little thing,' he says. 'I haven't seen you here before.'
'We come most weeks,' I say. I'm wondering whether I can walk off and leave him but he's holding me round the waist and the music's starting again. It's a foxtrot but he doesn't dance it properly. He just shuffles from foot to foot, holding me right up against his chest. This time, when the music stops, I head off for my table on the last note.
'Well you hit it off with him,' Mum says. 'Is he nice?'
Luckily I don't have to answer her because my next partner has appeared and is leading me off onto the floor and by the time I get back again she's forgotten all about it and is happily agreeing with a soldier that, yes, she was married young.
'We're going to walk home tonight,' she says. 'Harry's coming with us.'
'Who's Harry?'
'Harry Taylor,' she says, looking at a sailor with a big round face and blonde hair. 'He lives round the corner.'
My feet are aching already so I'm not too keen on walking all the way home but I don't argue. Maybe I should have done for we're out on the pavement now and there's a crowd of men all round Mum, horsing about and laughing and chatting, and my unwanted partner is one of them. I'm not sure I want to walk through the footpath in the dark with him. There's something about him I don't like. He doesn't exactly frighten me but there's something. But we're all walking off and he's coming too and there's nothing I can do to stop him.
I try to walk next to Mum but she's arm in arm with Harry and another man called Jesse, and I can't. They're striding along, singing and laughing, and the sailor's got his arm round my waist and is pulling me back so that I can't keep up with them. No. I don't like this a bit.
'Let's catch up,' I say.
But he stops walking altogether and pulls me tight against his chest the way he did when we were dancing. 'Why don't you stop talking?' he says.
I try to get away. 'I like talking.'
'You talk too much,' he says. And before I can stop him he's pushed his face right into mine and he's kissing me hard, right on the mouth. I can taste cigarettes and beer and smell his sweat. I turn my head and try to pull away. 'Don't,' I say. 'I don't like it.'
But he's insistent, holding my head between his hands and kissing me again. 'Don't give me that. You know you're up for it.'
I struggle on. 'No. I'm not. I don't want you to. Leave off.'
'Why d'you give me the eye then?'
'I didn't.'
'Oh come on!' he mocks. 'You led me on. You gave me the eye. You can't say you didn't.'
'I didn't.'
He lets go of me and looks at me closely. The expression on his face is horrid as if he hates me. 'You're nothing but a dirty little cock-teaser,' he says. 'That's what you are.' And he settles his cap on the back of his head and strides off.
The others are a long way ahead. It takes a bit of trotting to catch up with them. I can't run because it hurts my feet.
'Oh there you are,' Mum says when I push in beside her. 'What've you done with your feller?'
'He only came part of the way,' I lie. 'He's gone back.'
'I thought you'd made a conquest there,' she says. 'Didn't you Harry?'
'No,' I tell her. 'I didn't.' I feel ashamed of what's just happened and I certainly don't want her to know about it.
I go on feeling ashamed for a long time. It takes me ages to get to sleep. I did give him the eye. It's true. But not for him to grab me in the footpath and kiss me when I didn't want him to. Only to come and dance with me. That's all. I didn't mean anything else. But he's made me feel guilty, as if it was all my fault. 'You led me on,' he'd said. But I didn't, did I?
The question sneaks in and out of my mind all next day, making me feel ashamed and dirty. I can't shake myself free of it. It's still there, needling away when I go to bed, early this time, because I'm tired. I think and think, and I can't settle no matter how hard I try. And there's something squeaking somewhere.
