The September Girls (58 page)

 

There was the expected rowdy, jubilant welcome when the girls danced on to the floor, an earth-shattering explosion of whoops, whistles and cheers, drowning out the sound of the sitar and the little drums being played by two Indian musicians who’d been hired for the night. When they reached the centre, the girls paused, clasped their hands together as if in prayer and bowed demurely, causing another burst of cheers.

They began to dance, slowly at first, swaying their hips and languorously waving their arms, like slender trees blowing in a gentle wind. Sybil imagined the wind getting stronger: she began to dance faster, the bells on her ankles jingling now, and she could hear the bangles slither up and down her arms, making a dull tinkling noise like scales being played on an out-of-tune piano. She was Yasmin, a native girl, a dancer, whirling around like a top, conscious of Fatima keeping up with her every move, with the thrust of her hips and the slap of her feet on the wooden floor. Behind the veil, her lips curled into an alluring smile and her eyes cast an invitation to the men nearby. One in particular stood out from the rest: tall, dark, slim-hipped, slim-waisted, dressed all in white - a naval officer, watching her appreciatively. Now she was dancing for this man alone, no one else, offering herself to him. ‘Take me,’ her body was saying. ‘Take me. I’m not Sybil Allardyce any more. I can do what I like, be whoever I want to be. I am Yasmin, a dancer.’

The music stopped, taking her by surprise, and the dance ended in a final, dramatic whirl. The girls ran to the door, followed by shouts of appreciation that almost lifted the roof and calls for, ‘More. More.’

‘I couldn’t dance another step,’ Anne gasped when they were outside. ‘I’m bathed in perspiration. Gosh, Sybil, you danced so fast I had trouble keeping up.’

Sybil blinked. ‘Did I? I’m sorry.’ The spell had broken and her body felt limp and lifeless. ‘I could have danced all night. I never wanted to stop.’

‘I’m desperate for a drink. Shall I fetch you something long and cold?’ Anne looked herself again, an ex-hockey captain wearing a garish costume and too much make-up.

‘No, thanks. I think I’ll sit on the veranda for a while.’

While she got used to being Sybil Allardyce again.

 

As an antidote to the hot, humid days, Indian nights could be surprisingly chilly. Sybil sat on the veranda in a wicker chair and shivered, but wasn’t prepared to change her clothes for something warmer. She wanted to be Yasmin for as long as she possibly could.

Coloured lanterns, a candle in each, hung from the veranda roof, the flames burning steadily and giving off a musky scent. The sky was a dark luminous blue, with a sprinkling of over-large stars. She was the only person there, the only one prepared to miss the concert in the mess from where shrieks of laughter came. Perhaps it was the striptease they were laughing at, or Ted Lacey’s ventriloquist act - his dummy was a goldfish.

‘You’ll catch a cold,’ a voice said. ‘Shall I fetch you something to put round your shoulders?’ The tall naval officer had followed her outside, his uniform starkly white against the dark blue of the sky.

‘Please.’ He was enormously attractive and she was glad he’d come, as well as a bit scared, half hoping he hadn’t taken her inviting looks too literally, half hoping that he had.

‘I won’t be a minute.’ He went away and she wondered what he would bring. There was nothing in the mess that belonged to her.

He returned with a gauzy stole that he’d found on the back of a chair. ‘Lean forward and I’ll put it around you.’ Sybil leaned forward and could feel his hands warm on her neck and arms. ‘That better?’

‘Much better, thank you.’

The chair creaked as he sat beside her. ‘Are you Yasmin or Fatima?’

Sybil smiled, pleased to continue the pretence a little longer. ‘Yasmin.’

‘You’re a corking dancer, Yasmin.’ There was something very familiar about his accent.

‘I do my best,’ she said demurely. ‘Are you from Liverpool?’

‘Indeed I am. What about you? Where do you come from?’

‘I was born here, in Bombay. My mother was a dancer and my father an officer in the Army. He was killed in the Indian Mutiny.’

He laughed. ‘The Indian Mutiny happened a century ago.’

‘Well, some mutiny.’ She shrugged and waved a careless hand, enjoying herself. It was a long time since she’d flirted with a man. Now that she could see him properly, she had the strongest feeling that they’d met before, but couldn’t think of anyone she’d known in Liverpool who’d joined the Navy. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

‘Rudolph Valentino,’ he replied, joining in the game. ‘When you tell me your real name, I’ll tell you mine.’

He’d barely finished speaking when she remembered who he was: Tyrone Caffrey, whom she’d last seen when she was about thirteen and he was four years older. His wife and son had been killed in the raids: he’d joined the Merchant Navy and had instantly been made an officer. Mummy had been very cross. ‘It hardly seems fair,’ she’d written. ‘Tyrone has always been a bit of a rogue, not only that, he left school at fourteen, yet Jonathan stayed until he was eighteen and shows no sign of getting promotion. As you can imagine, Brenna is full of herself, telling everyone.’

Tyrone Caffrey! She’d had a bit of a crush on him, if only because he made it obvious he couldn’t stand her. He must never find out who she was.

A waiter appeared and Tyrone asked if she would like a drink. She asked for orange juice and he ordered whiskey and soda for himself. The waiter went away.

‘Don’t you take the veil off your face when you drink?’

‘Of course, I do.’ She removed the veil and his eyes searched her face, but showed no sign of recognition.

‘I can find out who you are quite easily, you know. All I have to do is go inside and ask someone the name of the gorgeous dancer in yellow.’ She hadn’t thought of that. ‘But I won’t,’ he said, much to her relief. ‘I like pretending to be someone else, although, if this were a film, Rudolph Valentino and Yasmin would have a passionate affair in a tent in the middle of the desert. In the end, he’d carry her off on a camel and they’d be happy ever after.’ He slid his arm along the back of her chair and she could feel his breath on her face. ‘Would you like that, Yasmin?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘very much.’

He pressed his lips gently against hers. Sybil felt as if a fire had been lit in her chest and, as his lips pressed harder, the flames became hotter and her insides began to melt with desire. She returned his kiss with passion and groaned when his hand caressed the bare skin of her waist. She been touched in far more intimate places before, many times, but it had never felt like this.

Then, all of a sudden, from nowhere, a memory surfaced: Malta, and what had happened there. She pushed him away, struggled to her feet. ‘I suppose now you’ll tell everyone that Yasmin is an easy lay and it’ll be all round the camp by morning,’ she said.

He fell back in the chair, his face mystified and hurt. ‘That would be a lousy thing to do. I wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘All men are the same, they like to boast about their conquests.’

‘A bit of a rogue’ Mummy had called him. She recalled he’d had to get married when he was only eighteen.

‘Not all men. You’ve obviously been out with the wrong sort.’ The hurt had given way to indignation. ‘You’ll have to learn to trust people, Sybil.’

‘Sybil!’ She felt the blood rush to her head. ‘You bastard, Tyrone Caffrey! You’ve known all the time.’

‘Seems I wasn’t the only one. I recognized you straight away. There’s something about the way you hold your head - arrogant, like.’ He burst out laughing, but all Sybil wanted to do was crawl away and die. ‘You always were an uppity little madam.’

The waiter came with their drinks and Tyrone invited her to sit down again. ‘No!’ she said, drawing further away. ‘You should have said that you knew me.’

‘You didn’t say you knew
me
. And what would we have done if we had? Talked about our families? How your mother is, how is mine? What a surprise that our Fergus is getting married to Fielding? Things like that.’ He looked at her through lowered lids and she felt her heart turn over at the expression in his eyes. ‘We would never have kissed, would we, Sybil? And that’s what I wanted to do when I saw you dance - kiss you.’ He patted the chair and said coaxingly, ‘Sit down and we’ll do it again. I promise not to tell a single soul.’

She shook her head. ‘I’d like to get changed first.’ She was fed up being Yasmin. After all, it was Sybil whom Tyrone had wanted to kiss, not an unknown girl pretending to be someone else.

‘That’s not a bad idea. I’ll wait for you here.’

Sybil walked slowly back to the billet, a whole tide of emotions sweeping over her. What a night! And it still wasn’t over - all sorts of other things could happen before it was.

In her room, she took off the yellow costume, folded it neatly on a chair, removed the jewellery, then washed the make-up off - she had to wash twice to get rid of it completely. Her face looked pale and naked without it. She put on a white sleeveless blouse, a pale-blue cotton skirt and slipped her bare feet into Indian sandals with a single strap and a stubby bit that went between the toes. Finally, she combed her hair, tied it back with a white ribbon, and clipped tiny pearl studs on her ears. When she looked in the mirror, the girl who stared back couldn’t possibly have been more different than the one she’d been pretending to be all night. The longer she stared, the more she became convinced that she was just a little bit mad. Normal people wouldn’t take over a mythical identity as wholeheartedly as she had. She remembered how cold it had been on the veranda, picked up a white cardigan and left.

There wasn’t a single soul about when she walked, even more slowly, back to the mess. More stars had appeared in the sky and she could hear music as the concert continued - the three girls impersonating the Andrew Sisters were singing ‘The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B’.

It was strange to think that in another few minutes she would be sitting on the veranda with Tyrone Caffrey, of all people, and he would kiss her and she would kiss him - more than strange, dead peculiar. They’d known each other in Liverpool, but he’d changed a lot since then, become more sophisticated, a man of the world. And she’d changed, too, although she had no idea what she’d become - more mixed up than ever, with no idea where she belonged. A little bit mad! Was Tyrone over the death of his wife? she wondered. Maria had been her name. Sybil had never met her, but Mummy had said she was very pretty. Perhaps he was just using Sybil to help him forget.

Oh, what did it matter? All that mattered was the next few hours. After that, anything could happen. Or nothing at all.

She arrived at the mess, but to her horror the veranda was empty. He must have got fed up waiting, or perhaps he’d decided she wasn’t worth waiting for.

But then the door to the mess opened and he appeared with something in his hand. ‘Misteltoe,’ he called when he saw her, dangling it in front of her eyes. ‘I pinched it in case you refused when I tried to kiss you again.’

As if she would!

May 1943

Cara woke, remembered what day it was, scrambled out of bed and rushed over to the window to look at the weather. She drew back the curtains and uttered a little cry when all she could see was mist, dense and as white as snow, pressing against the glass.

‘Please, God, make it go away,’ she prayed aloud.

The door opened and Fielding came in in her pyjamas. ‘Nice day for a wedding, isn’t it?’ she said in a flat voice. ‘I won’t be able to see in the church and I might marry the wrong man. Or the car might take me to the wrong church and I’ll still marry the wrong man.’

‘Don’t be an idiot. It won’t be misty in the church.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It isn’t misty in the house, is it?’

‘No,’ Fielding acknowledged. ‘I think I’m having second thoughts about marrying your Fergus.’

‘If you do, I’ll kill you. Everyone will kill you. You’ll die a thousand deaths. We’ve been preparing for this day for months. Second thoughts aren’t allowed, Fielding.’

‘All right.’ Fielding nodded obediently. ‘I won’t have them.’

‘Have you had a bath yet?’

‘No.’

‘Then have it immediately. It’s half past seven and we haven’t got much time.’

‘I’m not getting married until two o’clock this afternoon.’

‘Yes, but we have a million things to do before then,’ Cara said sternly. ‘You’re due at the hairdresser’s at ten.’

‘That gives me two and a half hours to have a bath.’ Fielding stuck out her tongue and left the room, just as Nancy came in. ‘Kitty and Sean are in the kitchen having their brekky. I thought I’d better tell you ’case you went into their room and thought they’d been kidnapped during the night.’

‘Did they come down on their own?’

‘They did an’ all, hand in hand, looking terribly important.’

‘Little rascals,’ Cara said fondly, although she must tell Kitty not to do it again. Sean was only seventeen months old, the stairs were steep and there should have been a grown-up with him. ‘I’ll be down in a minute, I’ll just throw on some clothes.’

‘I’d better get back to the children. Have you seen the mist? Let’s hope it clears up soon.’

When Cara went downstairs, her mother had just arrived, her arms full of flowers from the market: red roses, pink carnations, purple pansies, ferns and gypsy grass. She complained about the mist. ‘I could hardly see me hand in front of me face. Let’s hope it clears up soon.’ They both sat at the table to make a start on the bridal bouquet, posies for the bridesmaids - Cara and Kitty - and buttonholes for everyone else. Nancy fetched the bag of silver paper she’d been collecting to wrap around the stems, and Kitty demanded to help. She grabbed a rose and pricked her hand on a thorn.