After the Last Dance (26 page)

‘Did you?' Rose sounded quite surprised. Then she stared pointedly at Leo's elbows, which were resting on the table.

Leo stopped slouching and sat up straight. ‘Oh, I'm just an unemployed artist doing a bit of decorating on the side. You'd be much better off taking someone who knows what they're talking about.'

‘Don't be so down on yourself.' Jane had finally roused herself from her funk. ‘If you feel that passionately about the way people live, then get involved. Because it's important, isn't it? Everyone should have a home. Somewhere that they feel safe.'

It was odd to hear Jane speak with such conviction too. Also, she hadn't called anyone ‘darling' for at least an hour. Leo wanted to ask Jane where she felt safe, but the conversation had already turned to Charles who was apparently an ethical investment banker, which sounded like an oxymoron to Leo.

Lydia had excelled herself with pudding – a chocolate fondant liberally laced with brandy – and after dinner, when they were lingering over coffee, Rose smiled at Leo; a smile shot through with warmth, maybe even approval. It had been a long, long time since he'd earned a smile like that from Rose.

The evening was a success, however you qualified it. Leo no longer felt as if he were being allowed to stay up late with the grown-ups as a special treat. He even saw Fergus and Charles out with a firm handshake apiece. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you,' Charles said and sounded like he meant it

Leo wondered what Charles's story was. What he was to Jane. He didn't seem the type to indiscriminately shower his ethically invested funds on a woman. Maybe he was feeling a tinge of jealousy about that too as he walked back into the dining room for the debrief.

But George and Jane were crouched down in front of Rose, who was still sitting at the head of the table, her head bowed, hands clawing at nothing and making a horrific, rattling sound as she tried to gasp for air.

All of a sudden, the evening wasn't a success at all.

 

On June seventh they woke up to the news that the Second Front had started. The Allied Forces had landed on the beaches in Normandy.

Rainbow Corner, not surprisingly, was deserted. The hostesses holed up around the big radiogram in the billiard room, and in between news reports they took it in turns to describe how wonderful their lives would be once the war was over. How they'd never have to eat tripe or bathe in five inches of lukewarm water ever again. It was impossible not to feel optimistic.

If only they'd known that there were still fresh horrors to come.

On the Saturday afternoon, a week after D-Day, Rose was walking to the butchers' for their Sunday meat when she heard a rumble above her, like a motorbike engine about to cut out. She looked up to see a tiny plane, its tail on fire.

The rumble became a roar became an eerie whistle and then… silence. Rose watched the flaming plane glide gracefully out of sight behind the buildings, then an almighty bang and she dropped to the ground, grazing her knees, as she covered her head with her hands.

All weekend and for weeks after that, the V1s, the doodlebugs, came.

If they were at home, they were meant to go to the shelter when they heard the siren, but the two nearest shelters were in Queen Square and at Holborn Tube station and, as Sylvia said, ‘Chances are we'd be dead before we got there. Anyway, if a bomb has your name on it, then it will find you.' So, they usually stayed in their beds, though Mr Bryce kept threatening to report them to the ARP warden.

It wasn't the noise of the V1s that frightened Rose. Though sometimes at night their roar was so close that she swore they scraped their roof as they flew overhead. What terrified her most was the quiet, deathly hush before the rocket dropped, already locked onto its target. It was unbearable – but somehow she had to bear it.

Even her mother telephoned the café and begged her to come home. ‘You won't have to join the Land Girls, darling. We just want you to be safe.'

For the first time since she got to London, part of Rose wanted to go back to Durham, but London was her home now. Her girls were her family, the little ones in the house in Kensington, Paul, Hélène and Thérèse, they all needed her – Edward was relying on her to look after them.

So she couldn't go home but she promised her mother that she'd write every day and go straight to a shelter whenever she heard the siren. Yes, even if she was in the middle of the lunchtime rush. Promise.

June became July and July brought storms and Rainbow Corner was full of new recruits and reservists, callow youths still wet behind the ears who trod on her feet and held her all wrong and still the bombs came night after night. London was bloody and blackened and bowed and Rose wondered if she'd ever grow accustomed to the dread that now lodged like heavy stones in the pit of her stomach. The dread made Rose miss Edward, who'd disappeared somewhere official, because he was always calm and steady even when all around was chaos.

Despite everything, Rose found herself missing Danny, too, in a strange way. Or rather, she missed the love that she'd used to feel for him; that ravenous love that couldn't be sated by the little he gave her in return. It had made her feel so alive. But you couldn't spend your life mourning a love that had been unrequited then so ruthlessly abused. Rose's bruises had faded away, though not the memory of what Danny had done to her, but still she needed to know that he was alive. She had sent several letters to the address he'd given her, the pub, but no reply ever came from him, so she began to fear the worst. She tried to be hopeful but sometimes hope felt as scarce as oranges.

She never wanted to see him again, but she didn't wish him dead or even injured. ‘Or maybe a little bit injured,' she said to Sylvia, after yet another day without even one line from Danny hastily scribbled on a postcard. ‘I wouldn't mind if he lost a finger or got wounded by some shrapnel.'

The end of August, summer diminished, Paris was liberated and how they all cheered when they heard that glorious news. London picked herself up too, dusted off her skirts and was daring to dream again. Rose was even starting to look forward to her birthday because they'd all been saving their sugar rations and Mickey had promised her three eggs – enough for Maggie to make her a splendid birthday cake.

Then Edward came back.

There was a note waiting for her on the first Sunday in September when she went over to Kensington. The children solemnly handed her the envelope with as much ceremony as if it had come from Buckingham Palace via a bewigged equerry.

Rose asked Phyllis to come with her to The Ritz, but Phyllis refused. ‘I'm not promising anything, you understand,' she said, ‘but that's the night before your eighteenth birthday and Maggie, Sylvia and I have plans for that evening that don't involve you.'

They always arranged birthday surprises for each other. For Sylvia's, Maggie had wangled her a pass to attend a recording of
American Eagle in Britain
at the BBC and Sylvia had ended up dancing down a corridor with Fred Astaire himself. They'd managed to get a tiny bottle of Chanel N°5 and seats in a box to see Ivor Novello in
The Dancing Years
at the Adelphi for Phyllis's birthday. Maggie's surprise had been much harder because she gave so little away but Rose had procured two bottles of vodka from a Pole working on the houses in Kensington and Sylvia had come by two yards of black silk so Maggie could make herself a dress. Having dinner with Edward would give the girls ample time to put the finishing touches to Rose's birthday surprises, which she hoped would include a new frock and lipstick as her Tru-Color red was all but a distant memory.

The three of them saw her off from outside Rainbow Corner. Phyllis dabbed Rose's wrists with a few precious drops of Chanel N°5, while Sylvia warned Rose not to drink too much.

‘You know what happened last time,' she said, her blue eyes gleaming. ‘He'll think you're a dreadful lush.'

‘But have a lovely time, Rosie,' Phyllis said. ‘And don't do anything I wouldn't do!'

Sylvia turned to Phyllis with a look of confusion. ‘But Phyllis, sweetie, you never do anything,' she drawled and Phyllis squawked in outrage and pretended to throttle Sylvia as Maggie laughed at their antics.

‘You'd better go,' she told Rose, who was laughing too. ‘You'll be late.'

Rose
was
late but Edward was still waiting outside The Ritz for her, as if he'd known she was horribly nervous about having to go inside on her own. He was in his uniform, which always looked so crisp, so beautifully cut that Rose wondered if he'd had his tailors run it up for him, and he tipped his cap in greeting when he saw Rose hurrying towards him. He was taller, less stooped, than she remembered him.

‘Hello,' he said, and she'd also forgotten how welcoming his smile was, so all of a sudden she wasn't nervous about how shiny her black crêpe de Chine had become or that she might make an awful faux pas with the cutlery. ‘You look quite, quite lovely.'

Rose was sure she didn't. She'd run out of powder and the hurried walk down Piccadilly must have made her face all red. She waved his compliment away. ‘Have you been back long?'

‘A week,' he said, tucking his cap under his arm and offering Rose his other arm as the doorman ushered them inside. When the door closed behind them, muffling the sounds of the night, it was as if the world outside had ceased to exist.

They followed a solemn waiter across a vast dining room. It was all Rose could do not to gawp like a halfwit at the garlands of chandeliers that lit the huge room, their glow reflected in the mirrors, the gleam of silver and the sparkle of crystal on the tables they passed. The friezes painted onto the gilt-edged wall panels were like the pictures in art books she used to look at in the school library. Women in pre-war furs and satin and silk shimmered too. It was like suddenly finding herself in a beautiful dream.

She sat down on the plump red velvet chair that had been pulled out for her. ‘This is exactly how I imagined the court of Louis the Sixteenth before the French Revolution.'

Edward smiled. ‘Do you think if we listen very carefully we might hear the roar of angry peasants come to take us to the guillotine?'

‘Oh, they wouldn't take me, not once I'd explained that I was just a simple worker,' Rose said and maybe she was being a little cheeky but it was worth it to make Edward laugh. Otherwise he looked so serious. ‘Can you tell me where you've been and what you've been doing or is it absolutely top secret?'

‘If I told you, then the angry peasants would be replaced by military policeman who'd take us away and lock us up.' He signalled to a waiter who was keen to present them with menus. ‘Now, you're to tell me, if you could have absolutely anything, what would you like to eat?'

Rose took a moment to think about roast chicken and Cook's special stuffing with prunes and apricots. She thought about trifle. She thought about a proper breakfast: fried eggs, plump sausages, crisp bacon and field mushrooms. She thought about all of those things and then she thought about the one dish she wanted more than anything. ‘Welsh rarebit,' she decided. ‘Made with lots and lots of cheese and swimming in Worcester sauce.'

‘Then that's what you shall have,' Edward said. He called the waiter over. ‘We'll both have Welsh rarebit liberally doused in Worcester sauce. Two Bellinis for an aperitif, then a bottle of Merlot. The nineteen thirty-seven if you have any left.'

The waiter seemed to think that cheese on toast was a perfectly acceptable thing to order at The Ritz and it was then that Rose thought that it might be her favourite place in the world, or maybe it was when their Bellinis arrived and she made the happy discovery that champagne was quite delicious when it was mixed with peach juice, even if it was a scandalous waste of a good peach.

She and Edward talked about the refugees, though they weren't the refugees any more. They were Hélène, Thérèse and Paul, who loved playing their own raucous version of croquet and would run up to hug Rose when she popped round every Thursday and Sunday afternoon, even as their hands crept into her pockets in the hunt for chocolate. They were Madeleine and Gisèle, who spent most of their time digging and weeding and hoeing in the garden even when it was pouring with rain simply because they loved being outside after so long cooped up below ground. And they were Yves and Jacques, who always insisted on walking Rose to the bus stop and had come round to Montague Terrace once to try to do something about the plumbing because the pipes made a death rattle every time one of the girls turned on a tap.

Rose asked Edward about his plans for the house next door, which was almost habitable again, even if there was no one to live in it. Though surely, now that the Allies were gaining ground in Europe, it would be easier for people who wanted to leave.

‘We'll see,' Edward said, as the waiter placed a small silver bowl in front of Rose. For pudding she'd asked for strawberries and ice cream and because she hadn't cared much for the Merlot, Edward had insisted she have another Bellini. ‘Let's talk of brighter things.' He glanced at his watch. ‘There's still half an hour to go, but Happy Birthday.'

‘How did you know?' Rose asked.

‘A little bird told me,' Edward said. Rose supposed that the little bird was Sylvia, or Mickey Flynn, who probably made a note of that sort of thing. ‘I hope you don't mind, I got you a little something to say thank you for —'

‘You don't have to thank me,' Rose said forcefully enough that Edward raised his eyebrows. ‘I was happy to do it.'

‘Look, you might as well know I've lost the receipt and I'm sure I can't take it back, so you're leaving me in quite a bind.' He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small grey leather box. It glided over the smooth white linen of the tablecloth towards Rose and it would be churlish not to take it and…

‘Oh! I couldn't possibly accept this,' Rose gasped as she stared down at the two diamond clips nestled in yellow velvet. ‘I really couldn't.'

‘Did I mention that I've mislaid the receipt?' He was so sweet, which made it all the harder.

‘You don't understand.' Rose had been dreading this. Sylvia had told her to keep her mouth shut but Phyllis said that it was a pretty lowdown trick to play on a fellow if you let him take you out to dinner when your heart wasn't really in it. ‘It's just… well, I'd hate for you to get the wrong idea. There's another man. There
was
another man. It didn't end well.'

Edward, though he was still sitting there, drinking his Merlot, smoking a cigarette, had suddenly withdrawn from her without so much as leaning back in his chair. ‘Oh. I'm sorry. My condolences.'

‘No, you don't understand. He's not dead.' It was hard to stumble across the right words, even though Rose had been thinking of little else but how to phrase this speech ever since she'd received Edward's note. ‘He's a bomber pilot. He was meant to go back to the States to sell war bonds but he wanted to stay and fight,' she added a little defensively.

Edward had only just crushed out his cigarette but he lit another one. ‘How commendable of him,' he said in that same toneless voice. Rose didn't think that she'd led him on, though as Sylvia had said, men always accused one of leading them on and agreeing to have dinner with Edward might have given him the idea that Rose was keen. Even though they hardly knew each other and he was much older than her. It was hard to say how much older, but he was at least thirty. At the
very
least.