After the Last Dance (22 page)

‘Talent takes time,' Rose had said, when he tried to explain the thoughts that were crowding his head. ‘A concert pianist doesn't simply sit down at a piano and begin to play. It takes practice and perseverance, day after day, for years. You have to be prepared to put the work in. Are you prepared, Leo?'

When he said he was because it was so hard to tell Rose she was wrong, she'd pulled yet more strings and got him a place on the MA programme at the Slade. As a gesture of faith, she'd given him the Laura Knight painting.

‘This picture was given to me by someone I loved very much,' she'd said, her voice trembling slightly as if she still loved that person though he'd been dead for years now. ‘But I know what it means to you and I want you to have it.'

Leo had been sucked in all over again. Touched by the faith that Rose still had in him. But he'd only lasted three months on the MA programme. Three months of being surrounded by people who were better and brighter than him and he could square it away by saying that he'd done it because he was angry with Rose for pushing him too hard all the bloody time, but maybe the simple truth was that he'd done it to get back at her. He'd sold the painting because he'd known there'd be no coming back from such a callous disregard for Rose's feelings, for the lover who was no longer at her side, and with what was left after he'd paid back his dealer, he'd got lost, got really, really lost.

A week later he'd woken up in hospital, his mother sitting in a chair looking as if she'd taken root. ‘Leo,' she'd said mournfully. ‘How could you? You nearly
died
. And you sold the painting. Rose is furious.'

He'd gone back to Kensington, before he was shipped off to rehab. Linda had stayed downstairs, more scared of Rose than he was. As Leo packed up his stuff, Rose had appeared in his bedroom doorway, as cold and as remote as the painting he'd betrayed her with.

‘I can forgive you your laziness,' she'd said, as he'd zipped up his bag. ‘Laugh some things off as youthful folly because we've all done awful, arrogant things when we were young, but to throw away everything I've given you…'

‘You got the painting back, didn't you? Mum said that one of your art dealers —'

‘I'm not talking about the painting,' Rose had snapped. ‘Yes, well done, Leo, that hurt me more than you could possibly imagine, but I can't forgive you for squandering your talent. Turning your back on it, on all the opportunities you've had. I'm tired of waiting for you to grow up. Gosh, when I was your age, younger than you even, I seized every chance I had!'

‘Yeah, yeah, I know. There was a war on,' he'd said in a bored voice. Rose had hardly ever talked about the war (though teenage Rose running away to London in her mother's fur coat was the stuff of family legend) but in that moment, with his head and bones aching, when even the effort of picking up his bag almost knocked him off his feet, he realised that he and Rose had never talked much about Rose. She'd never talked about the man who'd given her the painting, for example.

All of Rose's obsessive focus had been on him. She'd bolstered him up on her own dreams, not his, so it was no wonder he'd come crashing to the ground.

It was all Rose's fault.

‘Yes, Leo, there was a war on,' she'd said coldly. ‘It made us grow up fast. Taught us what was important, what was precious; something you've yet to learn. If you carry on as you are, then I doubt you ever will.'

‘That's my decision,' he'd said sullenly, too much of a coward to lay the blame at her feet. ‘It's up to me how I live my life, not you.'

‘Just get out, Leo.' Rose had never shouted at him. She didn't need to. Her quiet voice, all emotion ruthlessly reined in, was as violent as a scream. ‘Get out and don't bother coming back until you've made something of yourself and you have the guts to look me in the eye.'

She'd turned away then, as if watching him walk out of her life wasn't worth another second of her time. But he'd stood at the doorway, watched her walk down the corridor, stiff-backed, head held high, and the only thing that had felt real was how much he hated her.

Now, everything had turned full circle. He was back in Rose's house. Still hadn't grown up. Still hadn't made anything of himself, but one thing had changed. He didn't hate Rose any more – he never had. It had just been easier to hate Rose than himself.

‘I care about Rose,' he told Jane, who for some reason was on her knees in front of him, her hands still in his. ‘I wouldn't have come back if I didn't care. It's just – now I'm here… well, I can't make things right, because I can't be who she wants me to be. She'll never forgive me for that.' Leo cringed again. ‘She'll never forgive me for selling the painting either.'

‘I think Rose just wants you to be happy. That's all anyone wants for someone they love and she does love you.' Jane squeezed his hands even as Leo tried to pull free of her grip.

‘If you're playing me… if this is still a game, some kind of con…'

‘Don't,' she said and he realised that in all the time that he'd been talking, long enough that his voice was now hoarse, Jane hadn't taken her eyes off him. She'd listened to him in a way that made Leo think that normally she only pretended to listen to him. ‘You and me, we're not important right now. This is about you and Rose. You
have
to find a way back to her.'

‘I know.' Leo leaned forward so that his forehead rested against Jane's and he was a little bit sweaty but she didn't even pull back. ‘Don't think there's a map for that though, is there?'

‘You must be honest with her.' Leo didn't altogether trust Jane and her pretty speeches, but he trusted the advice she was giving him now. ‘Go back to Leytonstone and get the painting.'

‘I can't even look at it,' Leo admitted. ‘I've done so many things I'm ashamed of but that's the worst. That's my most shameful secret. I can't believe I even told you…'

‘Darling, believe me, as secrets go that's not such a terrible one. There are people merrily getting on with their lives who have much, much worse secrets,' Jane said. She leaned in and brushed the hair away from Leo's face. ‘Listen to me: just because you've done a bad thing doesn't make you a bad person.'

‘Maybe I do bad things
because
I'm a bad person…'

Jane shook her head resolutely as if she was unequivocally right and Leo was in a world of wrong. ‘In the short time I've known you, you've only done bad things when you're on drugs.' She looked up to the heavens. ‘How can I put this politely? Drugs turn you into a raging arsehole, darling. It's so simple. Just stop doing drugs and give Rose the painting.'

‘I can't give back what's already hers,' Leo pointed out doggedly.

‘It's a symbol, darling.' Jane rocked back on her heels and took her hands off him. ‘What am I going to do with you?'

 

When Rose finally arrived at Montague Terrace after cadging a lift back to London on a coal train, she was relieved to find that only Maggie was home. Phyllis would gush over her and Rose couldn't stand to be gushed over right now and Sylvia would probably try to make light of it, say something scornful about Yanks and how they were only after one thing, but Maggie simply took in Rose's dishevelled appearance, the tear tracks and soot on her face, and said, ‘You look like you need a drink.'

Rose would have given anything for a cup of tea but Maggie poured her out a tot of vodka. ‘Don't sip it. One long swallow,' she ordered and Rose obeyed, then coughed and spluttered and her eyes smarted all over again but at last she felt as if she was back in her own body.

‘I don't believe he cared for me at all,' she told Maggie. ‘If he had, he wouldn't have…' She couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't put into words what Danny had done to her, but Maggie seemed to understand because she perched on the arm of the chair where Rose was sitting, glancing down at the bracelet of bruises that adorned each of Rose's wrists.

‘Better to find out now, before you lost your heart,' she said.

‘I'd already lost my heart,' Rose said.

Maggie kissed the top of Rose's head, murmured something in her own tongue and said, ‘Little one, I forget how very young you are. You haven't lost your heart, only temporarily misplaced it. Now, go and have a bath,' she added as Rose opened her mouth to insist that she wasn't as young as she used to be.

At the moment she felt old and sad. Oh, she'd never felt this sad before. ‘I can't have a bath,' was what she did say. ‘Not on a Saturday. There's a war on.'

‘I doubt the war will end just because you had a bath,' Maggie said. ‘Would that it could!'

Rose longed to fill up the tub in their shared bathroom and sink underneath the water, but there
was
a war on so she filled the bath as far as the five-inch mark that Mr Bryce had painted on because he was a stickler for rules. Then she eased herself into the water and ruthlessly scrubbed herself clean. Tried to ignore the stinging pain between her legs, the angry marks on her thighs, tried not to think about anything until she heard a knock on the door.

‘Rose? It's me,' Sylvia called. ‘Can I come in?'

With a sigh, Rose heaved herself out of the water, to pad across the thin, torn linoleum and wrap herself in her dressing gown before she opened the door and peered out.

‘Tea.' Sylvia shoved a steaming mug at Rose as she pushed her way into the bathroom. ‘Thought I might as well have a bath if there's one going. Is it even a little bit hot?'

‘Warmish,' Rose said as Sylvia peeled off her clothes because she wasn't at all prudish about that sort of thing but Rose still averted her eyes. ‘I'll leave you to it, then.'

‘You'll do no such thing,' Sylvia ordered as she got into the bath. ‘Stay with me. Tell me how you are and don't fib. I always know when you're fibbing.'

Rose arranged herself on the edge of the tub and forced herself to look at Sylvia, who wasn't making light of it at all; there was nothing but concern on her face. ‘It hurt so terribly,' she whispered. ‘He wouldn't stop, no matter how much I begged him to, and the worst of it is that it's all my own fault. He said I led him on and I did. I agreed to go away with him, after all.'

Sylvia pulled her legs into her chest and rested her chin on her knees. ‘I can't agree with that. It seems to me to that all one has to do to lead a fellow on is to smile and say hello.' She fixed her limpid blue eyes on Rose. ‘Every girl I know has had at least one absolutely beastly time of it with a man. They can be such animals but it's best not to dwell on it, Rosie. With the right man, it can actually feel quite nice. Better than nice. Quite, quite lovely.'

‘I don't see how,' Rose said – she didn't even want to dance with a man ever again, never mind anything else. ‘It was the most awful thing that's ever happened to me.'

‘Oh, sweetie, if this is the most awful thing that's ever happened to you, then you don't know how lucky you are,' Sylvia said and she sounded so flat and hollow, so unlike Sylvia in that moment. But there was something so shuttered about Sylvia's usually cheery face that Rose knew not to prod. Then Sylvia lay back in the water and lifted one long, pale leg to inspect the red polish on her toes. ‘At least tell me that he used a johnny, that he wasn't
that
thoughtless.'

Rose didn't think she capable of blushing any more but the sudden heat in her cheeks proved her wrong. ‘I don't think he did.' She dropped her voice. ‘His stuff was all over me.' Her voice dropped even lower. ‘Inside me.'

‘Damn him to hell.' Sylvia shut her eyes and sighed. ‘Probably best not to worry about that until there's something to worry about.'

‘But what if there is something to worry about?' Rose had been so intent on the act itself, the betrayal, that she hadn't thought there might be further consequences.

‘You wouldn't be the first girl to get caught and one doesn't have to stay caught,' Sylvia said. ‘I know a man who knows a man. Has a practice on Harley Street. It will be fine, darling, I promise. But if I ever see your Danny again, I'm going to wring his bloody neck.'

Maggie was of much the same opinion. It was only Phyllis who refused to condemn Danny. ‘You mustn't be so hard on him,' she told Rose a week later as they were on the way to the butcher to collect their weekly meat ration. ‘It rather sounds to me as if he was swept away on a tide of passion.'

‘Honestly, Phyll, it wasn't passion. It was brute force,' Rose said, but Phyllis shook her head.

‘My Brian was swept away by passion. Men simply can't help themselves.'

Danny hadn't been compelled to force himself on her, he'd chosen to. He'd waited until Rose was asleep to take what she'd already told him he couldn't have. But when a letter arrived from him the following Monday, Rose didn't rip it up unread. She thought about it, but curiosity got the better of her.

Inside was the ring he'd given her and a short letter.

If it was an apology, then it was a pretty shabby one, Rose thought and she resolved not to write back, to put the whole debacle behind her. Even Sylvia had told her it was time to stop mooning about. ‘You must cheer up, sweetie. If I were some poor, lonely GI miles from home, I'd rather take my chances with Jerry than have to look at your miserable face all night.'

It did seem, though, as if there were fewer poor and lonely GIs at Rainbow Corner lately. There were still rumours that the invasion was imminent and that all leave was about to be cancelled, but Rose didn't want to hear them. Not just because it was unpatriotic to listen to idle gossip (though that had never stopped her before) but because it would be Danny leading the charge. In his plane where those searchlights and Stukas could pick him out and finish him off. So Rose supposed that despite what he'd done, in some small way, she still cared enough about Danny that she didn't want something terrible to happen to him.

She decided that she would write back to him, so Danny would know she bore him no ill will. And he should consider himself lucky that Rose was prepared to offer him that much.

Danny refused to go down without a fight. He replied only a day later.

It had been two weeks now since he'd taken Rose away. If this were just a silly lovers' tiff, she'd have given in, written back to him, wrapping her love and devotion around each letter, every punctuation mark. But now every time she thought about Danny, Rose would also think about that room, that bed and what he'd done to her on it, so it was best not to think of him at all. It was a blessed relief that her menses arrived the very next day so she didn't have to agonise over that as well, but she was still feeling dreadfully blue about the whole business when she bumped into Edward on the stairs at Rainbow Corner.

‘Hello, stranger,' he said, and he smiled. ‘How's the collecting coming along?'

Rose stared at him blankly. ‘I'm sorry. What are we collecting for?'

Edward was still an unknown quantity; she'd barely thought of him at all these past few weeks, but there was nothing enigmatic or unambiguous about the way his jaw clenched. When he spoke, his voice had lost all its dark warmth. ‘The refugees that are coming over from Europe. Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I seem to distinctly remember you visiting the house in Kensington I'm getting ready for them. I also recall you writing a list of all the things they might need and volunteering to round up some toys for the children.'

It wasn't as if Rose had forgotten, not entirely. The refugees who might be arriving from Europe at some unspecified point in the future had been pushed to the furthest recesses of her mind and had stayed there, while she wallowed in her own self-pity. Thinking only of how unhappy she was, with no thought to anyone who might be suffering too.

‘Oh,' she said. ‘I was meaning to get round to that, but I haven't had a spare moment.'

‘You haven't had time to ask even one person if they might spare some wool or an old jigsaw puzzle?' Each word was like a shard of ice. ‘Not collected so much as a doll or board game?'

‘Well, no, not yet,' Rose admitted in a hesitant voice. Nobody had been this cross with her since she left Durham and then it had been more disappointment than this cold anger that made Edward avert his eyes as if Rose was utterly loathsome to behold. ‘I will, though. Right away. I promise. When are they arriving?'

‘It doesn't matter.' Edward started to walk away before he'd even finished his sentence. But he'd only got as far as the first step before he turned. Rose shrank back; she'd only ever seen him look grave and kind and she hated the current harsh, forbidding set of his features.

‘You really are a very careless, selfish girl,' he told her quietly. There was nothing Rose could say in her defence because it was true. She rarely thought of anyone but herself. ‘These people, they've endured unspeakable horrors, risked their lives to come to a country where they know no one and
you
haven't had a chance to collect so much as an old spinning top.'

He carried on down the stairs and Rose rushed to the powder room and cried a little, because she didn't want people, especially Edward, to believe that she was that kind of girl, hardhearted and shallow.

Something had to change. She was sick of brooding about Danny – brooding wasn't going to change things, wasn't going to erase the memory of what he'd done to her. She kept reliving the memories of that night again and again and berating herself for not fighting back hard enough. It had to stop.

So Rose thought about the refugees instead and badgered everyone she knew for donations. Not only the girls at Rainbow Corner but Stan and Gladys at the café, who found a box of old comics at the back of the wardrobe in their daughter's room. Rose didn't suppose the refugees spoke English but they could cut out the pictures and stick them on the walls to make the house in Kensington look a little more jolly and welcoming.

In the end though, it was rather a motley assortment of ancient, battered toys hardly likely to cheer up any refugees fleeing from Occupied Europe. Rose even mooted the possibility of doing something with Shirley's limp blue taffeta – ‘maybe if we cut it down to make a pretty dress for a little girl?' she suggested to Maggie.

Maggie stared at it, shuddered, then drawled, ‘You don't think the refugees have already suffered enough?'

So the blue taffeta hung like a lonely shroud on the back of the bedroom door and it was Phyllis who came up trumps when she invited Rose home for the weekend. ‘There's simply heaps of things in the attics for your refugees. Pa will never let anyone throw anything out.'

They travelled down to Norfolk late on Saturday afternoon in the cab of an army lorry. Part of Phyllis's family house had been requisitioned by the Army at the start of the war. ‘Only the east wing, so we hardly notice they're there,' Phyllis explained, as they drove along winding country roads at breakneck speed lit only by the light of a full moon. A bomber's moon. ‘To tell you the truth, the evacuees were far more trouble. They let off an indoor firework in the Long Gallery and blew a hole right through a Turner. After that, Mummy said that she'd only have girl evacuees and they had to come from good homes.'