The Melody Girls (22 page)

Lorna, not wanting to catch her eye now, looked quickly away, returning with relief to the pleasure of listening to her band. And as they moved through their programme of old songs and new, there was plenty to take pleasure in, as even Luke admitted when the girls had finished playing and were mingling with the crowd.

‘I'll have to hand it to you, ladies,' he told Flo and Lorna, while Suzie, startlingly dressed in red with a large feathered hat, beamed, ‘you've done a good job with these girls you've found. I never thought you'd manage it.'

‘Will you listen to him?' Suzie cried. ‘He's just so green with envy, he can hardly speak! All these lovely lassies playing for you and no' for him!'

‘His bad luck, eh?' asked George, who'd joined them.

‘I think he's been very fair,' Flo said coolly. ‘Thanks, Luke, we appreciate all you've said. But you've got something we haven't, and that's a wonderful vocalist.'

‘Ah, you're too kind.' Suzie gave her a hug. ‘Just wish I could sing for you girls, too.'

‘No question of that,' Luke said firmly. ‘Come on, Suzie, mustn't monopolize the bride. We'll circulate, eh?'

As he swept Suzie away into the crowd, Lorna caught Flo's arm. ‘Do you think she heard?' she whispered.

‘Who?'

‘Claire. She was just turning away when you mentioned Luke having a lovely vocalist. I saw her colour rise. I think she heard.'

‘So what?' Flo asked. ‘I don't see that it matters.'

‘She's very touchy on that subject,' George murmured.

‘Well, we haven't got time to worry about her now.' Flo took his arm. ‘I think they're wanting to make a toast to us, George, and then we've to get to the station.'

‘London, here we come!' George cried. ‘And all the big bands we're planning to see. Just to find out if they're any better than ours.'

‘I'm sure they're not!' Tilly told him. ‘Now, where's this toast you're having, then?'

When the toasts had been made and George had responded to a chorus of cheers and jokes, a wedding car appeared at the hotel door and the bride and groom were driven away, amid more cheers and throwing of confetti.

‘Ah, it's all over,' Tilly said sadly. ‘Always an anticlimax, eh, when the bride and groom have left?'

‘Yes, I feel a bit low,' Lorna admitted.

‘Come back with me, then. See Sam.'

‘I was planning to. I've got plenty of time before our booking.'

‘I'll just get my coat, then.'

As Tilly hurried away, Josh quietly took her place. ‘Lorna,' he said softly, ‘any chance of our meeting some time?'

‘Meeting?'

‘Maybe for dinner one evening?'

‘You know what the evenings are like, Josh. We're both booked to play, aren't we?' She gave a teasing smile. ‘Unless we're doing better than you and you've got spaces?'

He laughed. ‘No, we're fully booked, all right. But daytime, we're free. Couldn't we meet for lunch sometime?'

Rod Warren had asked her that once, but she swiftly put the memory from her.

‘I suppose we could,' she said slowly, half turning to see if her mother was on her way back. ‘Why don't you give me a ring?'

‘No, let's fix it now. How about next week – say, Wednesday? I could pick you up from your studio, if you like, if you're doing a morning rehearsal?'

‘Wednesday would be fine. Shall we say twelve o'clock?'

‘I'll be there,' he said quickly, as Tilly, in her coat, arrived back, smiling to see Josh.

‘So, he turned up again?' she murmured to Lorna on the way to the tram. ‘Seems keen, eh?'

‘I don't know about that.'

Again, her mother studied her, but said nothing of her thoughts.

Sometimes, she was perhaps deciding, it was better not to put thoughts into words.

Thirty-Nine

Clang! It was only when Josh appeared at the door of the studio the following Wednesday, ready to meet her, that Lorna realized what she'd done. Allowed him to collect her in front of her whole band, that was all! How could she have been so stupid? She, who needed to be so private, as good as announcing to all her girls that she was going out with Josh Niven from Jackie Craik's band, a fellow they all knew and no doubt had their eye on, he being such a heart-throb.

If she'd planned it, she couldn't have given them more cause for giggles and gossip, and as she saw their eyes avidly sliding over him as he came directly to her, her heart sank to her best court shoes she'd put on for the occasion.

‘Hi, Josh!' Bridie cried. ‘Looking for somebody?'

‘Found her,' he answered easily, putting his hand on Lorna's arm. ‘We're just going for a little lunch.'

Did he have to say that? Lorna groaned to herself. Did he have to spell it out? They might just have thought for a moment that he'd come on business, mightn't they? No, they wouldn't have thought that. From the minute he'd stepped in the door, searched for her and found her, it had been clear enough to anyone that he'd come for one reason only and that was to see her. There was nothing for her to do, except to look happy, which in fact she might have been, if only she'd had the sense to meet him somewhere else. Or, if things had been different, anyway.

‘Come on, come on,' she called, swinging her keys. ‘I want to lock up, so let's get going.'

‘Going anywhere nice for lunch?' young Trish, who'd once lost her heart to a soldier, asked eagerly, but Claire, who'd been standing by with her usual sour expression, only laughed.

‘As though there's ever anywhere nice to go these days! It'll be spam and salad again, I bet.'

‘No, I think spaghetti,' Josh replied, turning to look at her. ‘I'm taking Lorna to a little Italian place I know.'

Claire shrugged and made for the door. ‘Best of luck, then,' she called and left, leaving Trish and others around to smile.

‘In one of her moods,' Bridie whispered.

‘Ah, she has moods?' Josh asked lightly.

‘All the time,' Trish told him. ‘Nobody crosses Claire.'

‘Never mind her now,' Lorna murmured, shooing her girls before her out of the door. ‘Josh, are you coming? I have to lock up. Girls, see you tonight – eight o'clock sharp, eh?'

‘Don't make a mistake and join our band at the Adelphi,' Josh called with a grin.

‘Don't tempt us!' Bridie fired back. Then laughed at Lorna's expression. ‘Only joking, boss!'

‘Honestly, they're like a class of school kids,' Lorna muttered, as she and Josh walked away together. ‘They're the same as the men – a lot of Luke's fellows always reminded me of boys at school. Except you, of course.'

‘Hope so!' He took her arm and pressed it to his side. ‘Listen, are you feeling cross about something, Lorna? Has something happened?'

‘No, no.' She sighed ‘I suppose it's just that I know I'll be in for a lot of teasing, now that the girls have seen you coming to collect me.'

‘Teasing? Why?'

‘Oh, you know what girls are like. Always looking for romance, and if they can't find it, they make it up.'

‘You think they're making up romance between you and me?' His dark eyes glittered a little. ‘I'd like to think they needn't do that.'

‘I'm sure you're right.'

‘No, you misunderstand.' He drew her to a halt beside a small dark blue car. ‘I mean, they needn't make up something that already exists.'

‘Come on, Josh.' Lorna laughed uneasily. ‘There's no romance between us. We're going out together for the first time, remember.'

‘As though people need to go out at all, to have certain feelings.' He studied her for a moment, then took out a car key and opened the doors of the little blue car. ‘Like to jump in? This is my new baby, a Morris Eight. Well, it's more an old baby, really, but goes pretty well.'

‘I didn't know you had a car!' Lorna exclaimed, climbing readily into the passenger seat. ‘I've been thinking of having driving lessons myself. I could do with some transport.'

‘New cars are hard to get, but I could help you to look for something second hand, if you like. Give you driving lessons, too.'

‘If we ever find the time together.'

As he drove smoothly away, he gave her a quick sidelong glance. ‘I intend to find the time for that, Lorna.'

The little Italian place he knew was in a West End side street, owned by his cousin, Silvio, who greeted him with a beaming smile and a volley of Italian, before changing to English and shaking Lorna's hand.

‘Welcome, signorina, welcome to my restaurant. It's good you bring Joshua here, for he is always so busy, playing and playing, he never has the time to come and eat!'

‘So does the Signorina Fernie spend her time playing,' Josh told him. ‘She plays the saxophone, like me, and has her own band.'

‘No! Her own band! This I must hear. But now you must come and eat and I will help you choose.'

Small, plump Silvio bustled them along to a window table for two, setting menus in front of them but telling them firmly what was best and then snapping his fingers to a waiter for a bottle of wine.

‘On the house,' he whispered. ‘In celebration of seeing you again, Joshua, with this lovely lady. Now, I will see to your antipasto.'

‘You'd never think he was born and brought up here, would you?' Josh whispered with a grin. ‘He likes to put on the Italian accent for the benefit of his customers, but when he feels like it, he sounds like a Scotsman, just like me.'

‘Josh, I'd never take you for a Scotsman,' Lorna said, smiling. ‘Somehow, I wasn't surprised to find you had an Italian mother.'

‘Sister of Silvio's mother, yes, but my father was a Scot. He was an organist – played for a time at the cathedral where my mother was in the choir. It was love at first sight for them, even though their families didn't approve. They married, though, and had me, but my father died when I was only a boy.'

‘Ah, I'm sorry, Josh. I know what it's like, to lose a father, but at least I knew him until I was grown up.' She drank a little of the wine the waiter had brought. ‘Are you and your mother very close, then?'

‘Pretty close. One day I'd like you to meet her, but at present she's in Italy, looking after my grandmother. The whole family was here at one time – no surprise if I tell you they were in the ice cream trade – but my gran went home eventually.' Josh twirled his glass. ‘I suppose, that side of my family will always think of Italy as home.'

To Lorna, listening intently, all this sounded very romantic, but after what she'd been saying about a different kind of romance, she didn't dare to make the comment. Still, there was no doubt, as their lunch progressed, Josh seemed to be taking on a romantic haze of his own, even when he was only teaching her how to eat spaghetti and they were both laughing at her efforts. The question of how things were going to develop between them was very much in her mind.

Forty

‘A little lunch you call this?' she asked, when the waiter had whisked away the plates for the main course that had followed the spaghetti. ‘I don't feel I can ever eat again. How does Silvio do it? I mean, with the rationing and shortages and everything?'

‘Ah, you never ask,' Josh answered, putting his finger to his lips. ‘Ways and means, he might say if you did, but he'd never explain. Like coffee? It's very strong.'

‘Perhaps I need it, though.'

‘Right, we'll have coffee, then I'll settle up.' He gave her another of his long intense looks. ‘It's very nice here, watching Silvio at work, being waited on, but all I want, really, is to be with you.'

‘You're with me now.'

‘You know I mean just the two of us, on our own.'

‘That can be difficult.'

‘You're forgetting my car.'

It was true, she had forgotten it, but now understood what he meant. A car could be a little world quite separate from the real one; a refuge, a safe house. A place to be so close with someone, you need think of no one else.

‘I don't think we have time to go driving today,' she told Josh, as the waiter placed their espresso coffee before them. ‘With George and Flo away, I'm working on arrangements. Not my forte, really, but I'm improving.'

‘Arrangements? You have to do arrangements? The first time I persuade you to be with me?' Josh drained his coffee at a gulp and set the cup down. ‘Why do you do this, Lorna? Why do you push me away? Hold me at arm's length?'

She sat back, fingering her own cup, not willing to meet his eyes. ‘I'm sorry, Josh. I know it seems like that.'

For some moments, he sat staring into her face, as though he would read it like a book. Then he leaped up and signed to their waiter.

‘This is hopeless,' he whispered. ‘We can't talk here. Let's go.'

‘Was good?' cried Silvio, running over. ‘Signorina, you enjoy it?'

‘Oh, yes, thank you, it was wonderful. A wonderful experience, my first Italian meal.' She managed a radiant smile. ‘Now I know what spaghetti should really be like.'

‘So, Joshua must bring you again! And soon, eh?' Silvio, delighted, was all for waiving the bill, but Josh paid anyway and, after managing to make their farewells, he and Lorna left the restaurant.

‘So friendly, your cousin,' Lorna murmured. ‘So – what's the word – outgoing.'