Twelve

The following week, December 1940

SATURDAY NIGHT AT LAST, and Jimmy was combing his dark hair back, trying to convince the longer bit at the front to stay put. It was a losing battle without Brylcreem, but he hadn’t been able to stretch to a new tin this month. He’d been doing his best with water and a bit of sweet-talking but the results were not encouraging. The light bulb flickered above him and Jimmy glanced upwards, willing it not to die yet; he’d already robbed the sitting-room lamps, and the bathroom was next. He didn’t fancy bathing in the dark. The bulb dimmed and Jimmy stood in the half-light, strains of music drifting through the floor from the wireless in the flat downstairs. When it brightened again his spirits lifted with it and Jimmy started whistling along to Glenn Miller’s ‘In the Mood’.

The dinner suit had belonged to his dad, back in the days of W. H. Metcalfe & Sons, and it was a whole lot more formal than anything Jimmy owned. He felt a bit of a chump, to be honest—there was a war on and it was bad enough, he always thought, not to be in uniform, let alone all done up like a playboy. Dolly had said to dress well though— ‘Like a gentleman, Jimmy!’ she’d written in her letter, ‘a real gentle- man’—and there wasn’t much in his wardrobe that met that brief. The suit had come with them when they moved down from Coventry, just before the war started; it was one of the few vestiges of the past Jimmy had been unable to part with. Just as well, as things turned out—Jim- my knew better than to disappoint Dolly when she got an idea in her head, especially lately. There’d been a distance between them the past few weeks, ever since her family was hit; she’d been avoiding his sympathy, putting on a brave face, stiffening if he tried to embrace her. She wouldn’t even talk about their deaths, turning the conversation instead to her employer, speaking about the old woman in a far more glowing way than she’d used to. Jimmy was glad she’d found someone to help her with her grief—of course he was; he just wished it could have been him.

He shook his head—what a conceited bugger he was, feeling sorry for himself when Doll was trying to deal with such enormous loss. It was just so unlike her, closing up like that; it scared Jimmy; it felt as if the sun had gone behind thick clouds and made him glimpse how cold it would be if he no longer had her in his life. That’s why tonight was so important. The letter she’d sent him, her insistence that he dress like a toff—it was the first time since the Coventry Blitz that he’d glimpsed the spirit of his Dolly and he wasn’t about to risk losing it again. Jimmy turned his attention back to the suit. He couldn’t quite believe it fitted so closely: his father in his suit had always seemed to Jimmy a giant. Now it seemed possible he had merely been a man.

Jimmy sat down on the worn patchwork quilt of his narrow bed and took up his socks. There was a hole in one that he’d been putting off darning for weeks, but he twisted the top to the side so he could trap it underneath and decided it would do. He wriggled his toes, eyed his shoes, polished on the floor beside him, and then glanced at his watch. Still an hour before they were due to meet. He’d gone and got himself ready far too early. No surprises there, Jimmy was as jumpy as a cat.

He lit a cigarette and lay back on his bed, one arm folded behind his head. There was something hard beneath him and he reached under his pillow, pulling out Of Mice and Men. It was a library copy, the very same he’d borrowed back in the summer of ’38, but Jimmy had paid the lost-book fee rather than return it. He’d enjoyed the novel well enough, but that wasn’t why he’d kept it. Jimmy was superstitious: he’d had it with him that day at the seaside and even to look at the book’s cover was to bring back the sweetest memories. It was also the perfect repository for his most prized possession. Tucked inside, where no one else would think to look, was the photograph he’d taken of Dolly in that field by the sea. Jimmy retrieved it and smoothed back a dog-eared corner. He drew on his cigarette and exhaled, running his thumb along the outline of her hair, over her shoulder, round the curve of her breast—

‘Jimmy?’ His father was rummaging in the cutlery drawer on the other side of the wall. Jimmy knew he ought to go and help him find whatever it was he thought he needed. He hesitated though. Searching gave the old man something to do, and in Jimmy’s experience a man was always better off when he was busy.

He turned his attention back to the photograph, as he had done a million times since it was taken. He knew every detail by heart, the way she was winding her hair around one finger, the set of her chin, the challenge in her eyes that was so Dolly, always acting bolder than she was (‘Something to remember me by?’ She’d certainly given him that); he could almost smell the salt and feel the sun on his skin, the press of her body arching beneath him when he’d laid her back and kissed her—

‘Jimmy? I can’t find the whatsit, Jim-boy.’

Jimmy sighed and counselled patience to himself. ‘All right, Dad,’ he called. ‘There in a minute.’ He gave the photograph a rueful smile— it wasn’t altogether comfortable staring at his girl’s naked breast while his father was having a spot of bother on the other side of the plaster. Jimmy slid the picture back inside the book’s pages and sat up.

He pulled on his shoes and tied the laces, took his cigarette from his lip and glanced around the walls of his small bedroom; since the war began he hadn’t stopped working and the faded green wallpaper had been covered with prints of his best photographs, his favourites at any rate. There were the ones he’d taken at Dunkirk, a group of men so tired they could barely stand, one with his arm slung over the other’s shoulders, another with a stained bandage tied across his eye, all of them trudging wordlessly as they watched the ground before them and thought only of the next step; a soldier asleep on the beach, missing both boots and hugging his filthy water canister for dear life; a horrifying helter-skelter of boats, and planes firing from above, and men who’d walked so far already only to be shot at in the water as they tried to escape from hell.

Then there were the photographs he’d taken in London since the Blitz started. Jimmy eyed a series of portraits on the far wall. He stood and went to have a closer look. The East End family pulling the remains of their possessions on the back of a handcart; the woman in her apron hanging laundry on a kitchen clothes line with the fourth wall of her kitchen missing, the private space suddenly made public; the mother reading bedtime stories to her six children in the Andersen shelter; the stuffed panda with half his leg blown off; the woman sitting on a chair with a blanket around her shoulders and a blaze behind her where her house used to stand; the old man searching for his dog in the rubble.

They haunted him. He sometimes felt he was stealing a piece of their souls, snatching a private moment for himself when he made his shot; but Jimmy didn’t take the transaction lightly, they were joined, he and his subjects. They watched him from his walls and he felt a debt to them, not only in having borne witness to a fixed instant in their human experience, but also to the ongoing responsibility of keeping their stories alive. Jimmy would often hear the grim announcements on the BBC: ‘Three firemen, five policemen, and one hundred and fifty- three civilians are known to have lost their lives’ (such clean, measured words to describe the horror he’d inhabited the night before), and he’d see the same few lines printed in the newspaper, but then that would be it. There was no time for any more these days, no point in leaving flowers or writing epitaphs, because it would all take place again the following night, and the one after that. The war left no space for individual grief and memorial, the sort he’d seen in his father’s funeral home as a boy, but Jimmy liked to think his photographs went some way to keeping a record. That one day, when it was all ended, the images might survive and people of the future would say, ‘That’s how it was.’

By the time Jimmy made it to the kitchen, his father had for-gotten his search for the mysterious whatsit and was sitting at the table, dressed in pyjama bottoms and a singlet. He was feeding his golden canary crumbs of broken biscuits Jimmy had got for him on the cheap. ‘Here, Finchie,’ he was saying, sticking his finger through the bars of the cage, ‘Here you are, Finchie love. There’s a good lad now.’ He turned his head when he heard Jimmy behind him.

‘Hello there! You’re dressed up, boy-o.’

‘Not really, Dad.’

His father was looking him up and down and Jimmy made a silent prayer he wouldn’t realise the provenance of the suit. Not that his father would’ve minded the loan, the old man was generous to a fault, rather the whole thing was likely to bring back confusing memories that would upset him.

In the end his father merely nodded approval. ‘You look very nice, Jimmy,’ he said, bottom lip trembling with paternal feeling. ‘Very nice indeed. You make a fellow proud, you do.’

‘All right, Dad, easy does it,’ said Jimmy gently, ‘I’ll get big-headed if you’re not careful. I’ll be a right horror to live with then.’

His father, still nodding, smiled faintly.

‘Where’s your shirt, Dad? In your bedroom? I’ll just go and fetch it—can’t have you catching cold now, can we?’

His father shuffled after him but stopped in the middle of the corridor. He was still there when Jimmy came back from the bedroom, a quizzical expression on his face as if he were trying to remember why he’d left his seat in the first place. Jimmy took him by the elbow and walked him carefully back to the kitchen. He helped him into his shirt and sat him in his usual seat; Dad got confused if he had to use any of the others.

The kettle was still half full and Jimmy put it back on the stove to boil. It was a relief to have the gas back on; the mains had been hit by an incendiary bomb a few nights back and Jimmy’s father had had an awful time trying to settle of a night without his milky cuppa. Jimmy spooned a careful portion of leaves into the pot but held off putting in more. Stocks were low at Hopwood’s and he couldn’t risk running short.

‘Will you be home for supper, Jimmy?’

‘No, Dad. I’m going to be out till late tonight, remember? I’ve left you some sausages on the stove.’

‘Right-o.’

‘Rabbit sausages, worse luck, but I’ve found you something special for after. You’ll never guess—an orange!’

‘An orange?’ The old man’s face flickered with the light of a passing memory. ‘I got an orange once for Christmas, Jimmy.’

‘Did you, Dad?’

‘Back when I was a nipper on the farm. Such a beautiful big orange. My brother Stevie ate it when I wasn’t looking.’

The kettle started to whistle and Jimmy topped up the pot. His father was crying softly as he always did when Stevie’s name came up, his older brother killed in the trenches twenty-five years or so before, but Jimmy ignored the fact. He’d learned over time that his father’s tears for past grief would dry as quickly as they’d come, that the best thing to do was to push on cheerfully. ‘Well, not this time, Dad,’ he said. ‘Nobody’s going to eat this one but you.’ He poured a good slug of milk into his father’s cup. His dad liked a milky tea and it was one of the few things they didn’t run short of thanks to Mr Evans and the pair of cows he kept in the barn at the side of his shop. Sugar was another story, and Jimmy scraped a small portion of condensed milk into the tea in lieu. He gave it a stir and carried the cup and saucer to the table. ‘Now listen, Dad, the sausages’ll stay warm in the saucepan till you’re ready, so there’s no need for you to turn on the burner, all right?’ His father was scratching his head and staring at the tablecloth. ‘Right, Dad?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Your sausages are cooked so don’t go turning on the stove.’ ‘Right-o.’ His father took a sip of tea.

‘No need to turn on the taps either, Dad.’

‘What’s that, Jim?’

‘I’ll help you get cleaned up when I get in.’

His father looked up at Jimmy, perplexed for a second, and then he said, ‘You look nice, boy-o. Off somewhere tonight, are you?’

Jimmy sighed. ‘Yes, Dad.’

‘Somewhere fancy, is it?’

‘I’m just catching up with someone.’

‘A lady friend?’

Jimmy couldn’t help smiling at his father’s coy term. ‘Yes, Dad. A lady friend.’

‘Someone special?’

‘Very.’

‘You’ll have to bring her home one of these days.’ His father’s eyes held a hint of their old cleverness and mischief and Jimmy ached suddenly for how things used to be, back when he was the child and his dad did the looking after. He was immediately ashamed, he was twenty-two now for Christ’s sake, and far too old to be longing for childish things. His shame was only increased when his father smiled, eager but uncertain, and said, ‘Bring your young lady home one evening, Jimmy? Let your mother and me see she’s good enough for our boy.’

Jimmy leaned to kiss his father on the head. He didn’t bother explaining about his mother any more, that she was gone, that she’d left the pair of them over a decade ago to be with a new fellow with a smart car and a big house. To what end? It made the old man happy to think she’d just popped out to stand in line for rationed groceries, and who was Jimmy to remind him how things really were? Life could be cruel enough these days without the truth making it worse. ‘You take care now, Dad,’ he said. ‘I’m going to lock the door after me but Mrs Hamblin next door has the key and she’ll help you down to the shelter when the raids start.’

‘Never know, Jimmy. Six o’clock already and still no sign of Jerry. He might’ve given himself a night off.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it. There’s a moon out there like a robber’s lantern. Mrs Hamblin will come for you all right, soon as the alert sounds.’

His father was playing with the edge of Finchie’s cage.

‘All right, Dad?’

‘Yes, yes. All right, Jimmy. You have a good time now and stop worrying so much. Your old man’s not going anywhere. Didn’t get me in the last lot, ain’t going to get me in this.’

Jimmy smiled and swallowed the lump that was always in his throat these days, of love balled together with a sadness he couldn’t articulate, a sadness that was about so much more than just his ailing father. ‘That’s the way, Dad. Now you enjoy your tea and have a good listen to the wireless, I’ll be back be-fore you know it.’

 

Dolly was hurrying through a moonlit street in Bayswater. There’d been a bomb two nights ago, an art gallery with an attic full of paints and varnishes and an absentee landlord who’d made no provisions, and the place was still in disarray: bricks and charred pieces of wood, dislodged doors and windows, mountains of broken glass everywhere. Dolly had seen the fire burning from where she liked to sit sometimes on the roof of number 7, a great blaze in the distance, fierce and spectacular flames sending plumes of smoke into the lit-up sky.

She pointed her shaded torch at the ground, skirted around a sandbag, almost lost her heel in a blast hole, and had to hide from an over- zealous warden when he blew his whistle and told her she ought to be a sensible girl and get herself inside—couldn’t she see there was a bomber’s moon on the rise?

In the beginning Dolly had been afraid of the bombs like everybody else, but lately she found she rather liked being out in the Blitz. Jimmy, when she mentioned it to him, had been worried that after what happened to her family she was looking to be hit herself, but it wasn’t that at all. There was just something utterly invigorating about it and Dolly experienced a curious lightness of heart, a feeling very like elation, as she scurried along the night-time streets. She wouldn’t have been anywhere but London; this was life, this Blitz, nothing like it had ever happened before, and likely it never would again. No, Dolly wasn’t one bit frightened any more, not of being hit by the bombers—it was difficult to explain, but somehow she just knew it wasn’t her fate.

To be faced with danger and find oneself fearless was thrilling. Dolly was aglow, and she wasn’t alone either; a special atmosphere had gripped the city and it sometimes felt that everybody in London was in love. Tonight, though, it was something above and beyond the usual excitement that had her hurrying through the rubble. Strictly speaking, she needn’t have been racing at all—she’d left in good time, having administered to Lady Gwendolyn her nightly three drams of sherry, just enough to send the old dear into the arms of blissful slumber and keep her there through even the loudest of raids—but Dolly was so excited by what she’d done that merely to walk was a physical impossibility; she was propelled by the force of her own daring; she could’ve run a hundred miles and still not been out of breath.

She didn’t, though. She had her stockings to think of, didn’t she? They were her last pair without ladders and there really was nothing like a sharp piece of Blitz debris for ruining one’s nylons, Dolly knew that from experience. Damage these, and she’d be forced to draw lines up the back of her leg with an eyebrow pencil, just like common Kitty. No, thank you very much. Taking no chances, when a bus pulled in near Marble Arch, Dolly jumped aboard.

There was a pocket of standing room at the back and she filled it, trying not to inhale the salty breath of a pompous man delivering a treatise on meat rationing and how best to saute liver. Dolly resisted the urge to tell him that the recipe sounded bloody offal (ha!), and as soon as they’d rounded Piccadilly Circus, she leapt off again.

‘Have a good night, darling,’ called an elderly man in ARP uniform, as the bus drove into the distance.

Dolly answered with a wave. A pair of soldiers, home on leave and singing ‘Nellie Dean’ in drunken voices, linked arms with her as they passed, one on either side, and led her in a little spin. Dolly laughed as they each kissed one of her cheeks, and then called goodbye as they continued on their merry way.

Jimmy was waiting for her on the corner of Charing Cross Road and Long Acre; Dolly could see him in the moonlit square, right where he’d said he’d be, and she stopped short. There was no doubt about it, Jimmy Metcalfe was one fine-looking man. Taller than she remembered, a bit leaner, but the same dark hair swept backwards, and those cheekbones that made him seem as if he were always on the verge of saying something amusing or clever. He wasn’t the only handsome man she’d met, certainly not (at times like this it was all but a civic duty to bat one’s eyelashes at a soldier home on leave), but there was just something about him, some dark animal quality perhaps—a strength both physical and of character—that made Dolly’s heart pound against her ribs like nobody’s business.

He was such a good person; so honest and straightforward, that being with him made Dolly feel as if she’d won a race of sorts. Seeing him tonight, dressed in a black dinner suit just as she’d told him to, made her want to squeal with glee. It really did look tremendous on him—if she hadn’t known better, Dolly would’ve presumed him a real gentleman. She took her lipstick and compact mirror from her handbag, angled herself to catch some moonlight, and accentuated her cupid’s bow. She made a kissing motion to the mirror and then snapped it shut.

She glanced down at the brown coat she’d finally chosen, wondering vaguely about the fur trim on the collar and cuffs, mink, she supposed, though very possibly fox. It wasn’t exactly the latest design—out of date by at least two decades—but the war made that sort of thing less important. Besides, clothing that cost a lot to buy never really went out of fashion; that’s what Lady Gwendolyn said, and she knew an awful lot about such things. Dolly gave the sleeve a sniff. The mothball smell had been terribly strong when she first liberated the coat from the dressing room, but she’d suspended it from the bathroom window while she was bathing, and then sprayed it with as much atomised perfume as she could bear to part with, and it really was much better now. Hardly noticeable, what with the general smell of burning on the London air these days. She straightened the belt, careful to conceal the moth hole at the waist, and gave herself a little shake. She was so excited, her nerves were tingling; she couldn’t wait for Jimmy to see her. Dolly straightened the diamond brooch she’d pinned to the soft fur collar, tossed her shoulders back, and primped the curls pinned at the nape of her neck. With a deep breath, she thrust forward from the shadows—a princess, an heiress, a girl with the whole world at her feet.

It was cold out, and Jimmy had just lit a cigarette when he saw her. He had to look twice to make sure it was Dolly coming to-wards him—the fancy coat, dark curls that gleamed in the moonlight, the long-legged stride as her heels clipped confidence on the pavement. She was a vi- sion—so beautiful, so fresh and polished, that it made Jimmy’s heart constrict. She’d grown up since last he’d seen her. More than that, he knew suddenly, as he took in her new poise and glamour, as he shifted uncomfortably in his father’s old suit, she’d grown away—away from him. He felt the distance with a jolt.

She arrived, wordless, in a cloud of perfume. Jimmy wanted to be witty, he wanted to be suave, he wanted to tell her she was perfection, the only woman in the world he could ever love. He wanted to say the very thing that would bridge this horrid new distance between them once and for all; to tell her about the progress he was making with his work, his editor’s excited talk on evenings when they’d made their print deadline, about the opportunities that lay ahead for Jimmy when ‘all this war business’ was over, the name he could make for himself with his photographs, the money he stood to earn. But her beauty, and its contrast with the war and its cruelty, the million nights he’d gone to sleep imagining their future, and their past in Coventry and that long-ago picnic by the sea—all combined to blind-side him and the words wouldn’t come. He managed half a smile and then without giving it another thought, grabbed a handful of her hair and kissed her.

 

The kiss, Dolly thought, was like a starter’s gun. She felt at once a welcome settling of her nerves, and a great rush of excitement at what was yet to come. Her plans, since she’d formed them, had been eating away at her all week and now, finally, it was time. Dolly was anxious to impress him, to show him how grown up she was now, a woman of the world, and not the schoolgirl she’d been when he first met her. She allowed herself a moment to relax, to imagine herself into character, before pulling back to gaze up at his face. ‘Hello there,’ she said, in the same breathy tone Scarlett O’Hara might have used.

‘Hello yourself.’

‘Fancy meeting you here.’ She ran her fingers lightly down his suit lapels. ‘And dressed very smartly, I see.’

‘What?’ He shrugged a shoulder, ‘This old thing?’

Dolly smiled, but tried not to laugh (he always made her laugh). ‘Well then,’ she said, glancing at him from beneath her lashes, ‘I expect we should get started. We’ve a lot to do to-night, Mr Metcalfe.’

She hooked her arm over his and tried not to drag him as they walked together quickly down Charing Cross Road to join the snaking queue for the 400 Club. They shuffled forward as guns fired in the east and searchlights swept the sky like so many Jacob’s ladders. A plane flew overhead when they were almost at the door, but Dolly ignored it; even a full-blown air raid wouldn’t have induced her to give up her spot in the line now. They reached the top of the stairs and music drifted up towards them, chatter and laughter and a furious sleepless energy that made Dolly so giddy she had to hold on tightly to Jimmy’s arm to keep from falling.

‘You’re going to love it inside,’ she said. ‘Ted Heath and his band really are divine, and Mr Rossi who runs the place is such a darling.’ ‘You’ve been here before?’

‘Oh, sure, loads of times.’ A teensy exaggeration, she’d been once, but he was older than she was, and had an important job where he travelled and met all sorts of people, and she was still, well—her, and she desperately wanted him to think her more sophisticated than the last time he’d seen her, more desirable. Dolly laughed and squeezed his arm. ‘Oh now, don’t look like that, Jimmy. Kitty would never let up if I didn’t keep her company sometimes; you know you’re the only one I love.’

At the bottom of the stairs they passed through a cloakroom and Dolly stopped to leave her coat. Her heart was beating hard like a hammer; she’d been longing for this moment, practising and planning, and now it was finally here. She thought back to all Lady Gwendolyn’s stories, the things she and Penny had done together, the dances, the adventures, the handsome men who’d chased them round London—she turned her back on Jimmy and let the coat fall free. As he caught it, she made a slow pirouette, just the way she had in all her imaginings, and then she struck a pose, revealing (drum roll, ladies and gentlemen) The Dress.

 

It was red, sleek, candescent, the sort of thing designed to show off every curve on a woman’s body, and Jimmy almost dropped the coat when he saw it. His gaze ran all the way down her figure and then all the way back up again; the coat left his hand, a ticket replaced it, and he couldn’t have told you how.

‘You—’ he started; ‘Doll, you look—that dress is incredible.’

‘What?’ She lifted a shoulder, just as he’d done outside. ‘This old thing?’ And then she grinned at him and was Dolly again, and when she said, ‘Come on. Let’s get in there,’ he couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be.

 

Dolly scanned the area beyond the red cord, the small packed dance floor, the table Kitty had called the ‘Royal Table’, right up close to the band; she’d thought she might see Vivien here to-night, Henry Jenkins was friendly with Lord Dumphee, the pair of them frequently photographed together in The Lady, but first inspections revealed no one she knew. Never mind, the night was still young—the Jenkinses might show up later. She steered Jimmy towards the back of the room, through the close round tables, past the people dining and drinking and dancing, until their progress brought them finally to Mr Rossi and the start of the cordoned-off area.

‘Good evening,’ he said when he saw them, pressing his hands together and making a little bow. ‘You’re here for the Dumphee engagement, of course?’

‘What a wonderful club,’ purred Dolly, not exactly answering the question. ‘It’s been such a long time, too long—Lord Sand-brook and I were just saying we ought to make it into London more often.’ She glanced at Jimmy, smiling encouragement. ‘Weren’t we, darling?’

The hint of a frown pulled at Rossi’s brow as he tried desperately to place them, but it didn’t last long. Years at the helm of his nightclub had left him adept at keeping Society’s ship on course and her passengers well flattered. ‘Dear Lady Sandbrook,’ he said, taking Dolly’s hand and brushing a light kiss on its top, ‘the place has been dark for the want of you, but you’re here now and light returns.’ He shifted his attention to Jimmy—‘And you, Lord Sandbrook. I trust you’ve been well?’

Jimmy said nothing and Dolly held her breath; she knew how he felt about her ‘games’ as he called them, and she’d felt his hand stiffen against her back the second she started talking. If she were honest, the uncertainty of how he’d react only added to the adventure—until he responded, everything else was magnified—Dolly could hear the beating of her own heart as she waited for his answer, a happy squeal in the crowd, the shattering of a glass breaking somewhere, the band beginning another song …

 

The little Italian fellow who’d called him by another man’s name was watching keenly for an answer, and Jimmy had a sudden vision of his father at home in his striped pyjamas, the walls of their flat with the sad-looking green paper, Finchie in his cage with the broken biscuits. He could feel Dolly’s stare, urging him to play his part; he knew she was watching, he knew what she wanted him to say, but it seemed to Jimmy there was something somehow crushing in answering to a name like that one. Something deeply disloyal to his poor old dad whose mind was so mixed up, who waited for a wife who wouldn’t come and cried for a brother dead these past twenty years, and who’d said of the crummy flat when they arrived in London, ‘This is real nice, Jimmy. You’ve done a good job, boy—you make your mum and dad as proud as punch.’

He glanced sideways at Dolly’s face and saw what he’d known he would—hope, writ large on every feature. These games of hers, they drove him mad, not least because more and more, lately, they seemed to highlight the distance be-tween what she wanted from life and what he could afford to give her. They were harmless enough though, weren’t they? No one was going to be hurt tonight because Jimmy Metcalfe and Dorothy Smitham stood on the other side of a red cord. And she wanted it so badly, she’d gone to so much trouble with the dress and all, getting him to wear a suit—her eyes, for all the mascara she was wearing, were as wide and expectant as a child’s, and he loved her so well, he couldn’t stand to be the one to spoil things for her, not for the sake of his own foolish pride. Not for some vague notion that his lack of standing was something to hold firm to, and certainly not when it was the first time since her family died Dolly that had seemed like her old self.

‘Mr Rossi,’ he said with a broad smile, holding his hand out to shake the other man’s firmly. ‘Terribly good to see you, old man.’ It was the poshest voice he could find at short notice; he hoped to God it would do.

 

Being on the other side was every bit as wonderful as Dolly dreamed it would be. Every bit as glorious as she’d gleaned from Lady Gwendolyn’s stories. It wasn’t that anything was obviously different—the red carpets and silk-covered walls were just the same, couples danced cheek to cheek on both sides of the rope, waiters carried meals and drinks and glasses back and forth—indeed, a less intelligent observer might not even have perceived that there were two sides at all; but Dolly knew. And she rejoiced to be on this one.

Of course, having achieved the Holy Grail, she was at some-thing of a loss as to what to do next. For want of a better idea, Dolly helped herself to a glass of champagne, took Jimmy by the hand and slid into a plush banquette against the wall. Really, if she were honest, to watch was enough: the ever-shifting carousel of colourful dresses and smiling faces, kept her enthralled. A waiter came by and asked what they’d like to eat and Dolly said eggs and bacon and they arrived, her champagne flute never seemed to empty, the music didn’t stop.

‘It’s like a dream, isn’t it?’ she said glowingly. ‘Aren’t they all wonderful?’ To which Jimmy paused in striking his match to offer a noncommittal, ‘Sure.’

He dropped the flaming match into a silver ashtray and drew on his cigarette, ‘What about you though, Doll? How’s old Lady Gwnedolyn? Still commanding all nine circles of hell?’

‘Jimmy—you shouldn’t say that sort of thing. I know I probably complained a bit at first, but she’s really quite a darling once you get to know her. Calling on me a lot lately—we’ve become very close in our way.’ Dolly leaned close so that Jimmy could light her cigarette. ‘Her nephew’s worried she’s going to leave me the house in her will.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Dr Rufus.’

Jimmy gave an ambiguous grunt. He didn’t like it when she mentioned Dr Rufus; it didn’t matter how many times Dolly re-assured him that the doctor was her friend’s father and far too ancient, really, to be interested in her in that way, Jimmy just frowned and changed the subject. Now, he took her hand across the table. ‘And Kitty? How’s she.’ ‘Oh, well, Kitty—’ Dolly hesitated, remembering the unfounded talk of Vivien and love affairs the other night. ‘She’s fighting fit—of course her type always is.’

‘Her type?’ Jimmy repeated quizzically.

‘I just mean she’d do well to pay more attention to her work and less to what’s happening in the street and at the nightclubs. I expect some people simply can’t help themselves.’ She glanced at Jimmy. ‘You wouldn’t like her, I think.’

‘No?’

Dolly shook her head and drew on her cigarette. ‘She’s a gossip, and I have to say inclined to wantonness.’

‘Wantonness?’ He was amused now, a smile playing around his lips. ‘Dear, dear me.’

She was serious—Kitty made quite a habit of sneaking her male friends in after dark, she thought Dolly didn’t know, but really, the noise sometimes, one would’ve had to be deaf not to realise. ‘Oh yes, quite,’ said Dolly. There was a single candle flickering in its glass on the table and she swivelled it idly this way and that. She hadn’t told Jimmy about Vivien yet. She didn’t know why exactly; it wasn’t that she thought he wouldn’t approve of Vivien, certainly not, rather that she’d felt an instinct to keep the blossoming friendship a secret, something all her own. Tonight though, seeing him in person, fizzing a bit with the sweet champagne she was sipping, Dolly had the urge to tell him everything. ‘You know,’ she said, nervous suddenly, ‘I don’t know that I’ve mentioned in my letters, but I’ve made a new friend.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, Vivien.’ Just saying her name made Dolly thrill a little with happiness. ‘Married to Henry Jenkins, you know, the author. They live across the street at number 25 and we’ve be-come rather firm friends.’ ‘Is that right?’ He laughed. ‘You know, it’s the oddest coincidence, but I just recently read one of his books.’

Dolly might have asked which one, but she didn’t because she wasn’t really listening; her mind was swirling with all the things she’d been wanting to say about Vivien and had been holding in. ‘She’s really something else, Jimmy. Beautiful, of course, but not in an ordinary showy sort of way; and very kind, always helping at the WVS—I told you about the canteen we’re running for service folk, didn’t I? I thought so. She understands, too, about what happened—my family, in Coventry—she’s an orphan herself, you see, raised by her uncle after her parents died, a great old school near Oxford, built on the family estate. Did I mention she’s an heiress, she actually owns the house on Campden Grove, not her husband, it’s hers—’. Dolly drew breath, but only because she wasn’t sure of the details. ‘Not that she goes on about it; she’s not like that at all.’

‘She sounds tremendous.’

‘She is.’

‘I’d like to meet her.’

‘Well,’ Dolly stammered, ‘of course—one of these days.’ She drew hard on her cigarette, wondering why the suggestion made her feel a sort of dread. Vivien and Jimmy meeting was not among the many future scenarios she’d envisaged; for one thing Vivien was extremely private, for another, well, Jimmy was Jimmy. Very sweet, of course, kind and clever—but not exactly the sort of person Vivien would approve of, not as a boyfriend for Dolly. It wasn’t that Vivien was unkind; she was just of a different class—from both of them, really, but Dolly, having been taken under Lady Gwendolyn’s wing, had learned enough to be accepted by someone like Vivien. Dolly hated lying to Jimmy, she loved him; but she certainly wasn’t about to hurt his feelings by putting it to him straight. She reached out and rested her hand on his arm, picking a piece of lint from the fraying cuff of his suit jacket. ‘Everyone’s just so busy with the war at the moment, aren’t they? There’s simply no time for being social.’

‘I could always—’

‘Jimmy, listen—they’re playing our song! Shall we dance? Come on, do let’s dance.’

Her hair smelt of perfume, that intoxicating scent he’d noticed when she first arrived, almost shocking in its strength and thrill, and Jimmy could have stayed that way forever, his hand in the small of her back, her cheek pressed against his, their bodies moving slowly together. He was tempted to forget the way she’d come over all evasive when he mentioned meeting her friend; the flash he’d had that the distance between them lately wasn’t all about what happened to her family, that this Vivien, the rich lady across the road, might have something to do with it. In all probability there was nothing to it—Dolly liked to have secrets, she always had. And what did it matter anyway, right here and now, so long as the music kept playing?

It didn’t, of course; nothing lasts forever and the faithless song ended. Jimmy and Dolly pulled apart to clap, and that’s when he noticed the man with a thin moustache watching them from the edge of the dance floor. This in itself would have been no cause for alarm, but the man was also in conversation with Rossi, who was scratching his head with one hand, making extravagant hand gestures with the other, and consulting some sort of list.

A guest list, Jimmy realised with a jolt. What else would it be?

It was time to make a discreet exit, stage right. Jimmy took Dolly’s hand and made to lead her away, casual as you please. There was every chance, he figured, if they went quickly and quietly, they’d be able to duck beneath the red cord, meld into the crowd and make a silent escape, no harm done.

Dolly, unfortunately, had other ideas; having made it to the dance floor, she was now rather reluctant to leave it. ‘Jimmy, no,’ she was saying, ‘no, listen, it’s “Moonlight Serenade”.’

Jimmy started to explain, glancing back towards the man with the thin moustache, only to find that he was almost upon them, cigar clenched between his teeth, hand outstretched. ‘Lord Sandbrook,’ the man was saying to Jimmy, with the wide confident smile of a man with pots of money hidden under his bed, ‘so glad you could make it, old man.’

‘Lord Dumphee.’ Jimmy took a stab, ‘Congratulations to you and … your fiancee. Great party.’

‘Yes, well, I’d have rather kept it small, but you know Eva.’

‘I do indeed.’ He laughed nervously.

Lord Dumphee puffed his cigar so it smoked like a train engine; his eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and Jimmy realised his host was also flying blind, doing his best to call to mind the provenance of his mysterious guests. ‘You’re friends of my fiancee,’ he said.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

Lord Dumphee was nodding, ‘Of course, of course.’ And then, there came more puffing, more smoke, and just as Jimmy thought they might be safe—. ‘Only, it must be my memory—quite appalling it is, old chap, I blame the war and these blasted nights without sleep—but I can’t think Eva mentioned a Sand-brook. Old friends, are you?’

‘Oh, yes. Ava and I go way back.’

‘Eva.’

‘Precisely.’ Jimmy tugged Dolly forward. ‘Have you met my wife, Lord Dumphee, have you met—’

‘Viola,’ Dolly said, smiling like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. ‘Viola Sandbrook.’

She lifted a hand and Lord Dumphee took out his cigar to kiss it. He pulled back but didn’t let go, holding Dolly’s hand aloft and letting his eyes roam greedily over her dress and every curve beneath it.

‘Darling!’ The trill call came from across the floor. ‘Darling Jonathan.’

Lord Dumphee dropped Dolly’s hand at once. ‘Ah,’ he said, like a schoolboy caught by Nanny looking at nudie pictures, ‘Here comes Eva now.’

‘Is that the time?’ Jimmy said. He clasped Dolly’s hand and squeezed it to signal his intent. She squeezed right back. ‘Excuse me, Lord Dumphee,’ he said, ‘Many congratulations, but Viola and I have a train to catch.’

 

And with that, they were flying. Dolly could hardly keep from laughing as they dashed and weaved through the crowded nightclub, paused at the cloakroom for Jimmy to thrust forward the ticket and seize Lady Gwendolyn’s coat, before hurrying up the stairs, two at a time, and into the dark cool of night-time London.

There’d been someone behind them in the 400 as they ran, Dolly had glanced back to see a red-faced man puffing like an overfed hound, and Jimmy didn’t stop until they’d crossed Litchfield Street, blended with the theatre crowd coming out of St Martin’s, and ducked into tiny Tower Lane. Only then did they collapse against the bricks, both of them breathless and laughing.

‘His face—’ Dolly managed to say, ‘Oh, Jimmy, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it as long as I live. When you said about the train, he was so . .

. so flummoxed.’

Jimmy laughed too, a warm sound in the dark. It was pitch black where they were standing; even the full moon hadn’t managed to spill over the eaves to flood the narrow laneway with its silvery light. Dolly was giddy, infused with life and happiness and the peculiar energy that came from having slipped inside another skin. There was nothing that made her spin quite like it, the invisible moment of transition when she stopped being Dolly Smitham, and became instead Someone Else. The details of that Someone Else weren’t particularly important; it was the frisson of performance she adored, the sublime pleasure of masquerade. It was like stepping into another person’s life. Stealing it for a time.

Dolly looked up at the starlit sky. There were so many more stars in the blackout; it was one of the most beautiful things about the war. There were great rumpling eruptions in the distance, anti-aircraft guns giving it back as best they could; but up there, the stars just kept on twinkling for all they were worth. They were like Jimmy, she realised, faithful, steadfast, some-thing you could count on in your life. ‘You really would do any-thing for me, wouldn’t you?’ she said with a contented sigh.

‘You know I would.’

He wasn’t laughing any more and, swift as the wind, the mood in the lane changed. You know I would. She did know it too, and in that instant the fact both thrilled and frightened her. Rather her reaction did. To hear him say it, Dolly felt a string pluck deep down low within her belly. She trembled. Without thinking, she reached for his hand in the dark.

It was warm, smooth, large, and Dolly lifted it to brush a kiss along his knuckles. She could hear him breathing and she matched her own breaths to his.

She felt brave and grown up and powerful. She felt beautiful and alive. Heart racing, she took his hand and placed it on her breast.

A soft sound in his throat, a sigh. ‘Doll—’

She silenced him with a delicate kiss. She couldn’t have him talking, not now; she might not find the nerve again. Calling to mind everything she’d ever heard Kitty and Louisa laughing about in the kitchen at number 7, Dolly reached her hand down to rest it on his belt. She let it slide further.

Jimmy groaned, leaned to kiss her, his hand firm now on her breast, but she shifted her lips to whisper in his ear, ‘You said you’d do anything I asked?’

He nodded against her neck and answered, ‘Yes.’

‘How about you walk a girl home and put her safely to bed?’

 

Jimmy sat up long after Dolly had fallen asleep. The night had been exhilarating and he didn’t want it to be over yet. He didn’t want anything to break the spell. A heavy bomb crashed some-where nearby and the framed pictures rattled on the wall. Dolly stirred in her sleep, and Jimmy laid a hand gently on her head.

They’d hardly spoken on the walk back to Campden Grove, each of them too aware of the weighted meaning in her words, of the fact that a line had been crossed and they were now on a course that couldn’t be reversed. He’d never been to the place she lived and worked, Dolly was funny about it—he old woman had rather definite ideas on the matter, she’d said, and Jimmy had always respected the fact.

When they arrived at number 7, she’d led him past the sand-bags and through the front door, closing it softly behind her. It was dark inside the house, even blacker than out due to the curtains, and Jimmy had almost stumbled before Dolly switched on a small table lamp at the bottom of the staircase. The bulb threw a fluttery circle of light across the carpet and up the wall, and Jimmy glimpsed for the first time how grand this house of Dolly’s really was. They didn’t linger, and he was glad—the grandeur was unsettling. It was evidence of everything he wanted to give her but couldn’t, and to see her so comfortable in it made him anxious.

She’d unbuckled the straps of her high-heeled shoes, hooked them over one finger, and taken him by the hand. With a finger to her lips, and a tilt of her head, she’d started up the stairs.

 

‘I’ll take care of you, Doll,’ Jimmy had whispered when they made it to her bedroom. They’d run out of things to say to one another and were standing together by the bed, each waiting for the other to do something. She’d laughed when he said it, but there’d been a nervous edge to her voice and he’d loved her all the more for the hint of youthful uncertainty that the laugh betrayed. He’d felt a bit on the back foot ever since she’d propositioned him in the alley, but now, hearing her laugh like that, sensing her apprehension, Jimmy was back in charge and the world was suddenly set to rights.

There was a part of him that wanted to tear the dress from her body, but instead he reached out to slip his finger beneath one of her fine straps. Her skin was warm, despite the cold night, and he felt her tremble at his touch. The slight sudden movement made his breath catch in his throat. ‘I’ll take care of you,’ he said again, ‘I always will.’ She didn’t laugh this time, and he leaned to kiss her. God it was sweet. He unbuttoned the red dress, slid the straps from her shoulders and let it fall lightly to the ground. She stood, staring at him, her breasts rising and falling with each short breath, and then she smiled, one of those half-smiles of Dolly’s that teased him and made him ache, and before he knew what was happening she’d pulled his shirt loose from his trousers …

Another bomb exploded, and plaster dust sifted down from the mouldings high above the door. Jimmy lit a cigarette as the anti-aircraft guns fired their replies. Still Dolly slept, her eye-lashes black against her dewy cheeks. He stroked her arm lightly. What a fool he’d been—what an absolute fool—refusing to marry her when she’d all but pleaded with him. Here he’d been fretting about the distance he sensed between them without stopping for a minute to consider his part in creating it. The old ideas he’d been clinging to about marriage and money. Seeing her tonight, though, glimpsing as he hadn’t before, just how easily he could have lost Dolly to this new world of hers, had made everything clear. He was just lucky she’d waited for him; that she still felt the same way. Jimmy smiled, smoothing her dark, glossy hair; that he was lying here beside her was proof of that.

They’d have to live in his flat at first—not what he’d dreamed of for Dolly, but his dad was settled and there wasn’t much point in moving while the war was still going on. When it was all over they could look at leasing something in a better area, maybe even talk to the bank about borrowing for their own place. Jimmy had some money set aside, he’d been saving for years, every spare penny in a jar, and his editor was very encouraging about his photographs.

He drew on his cigarette.

For now though they’d have a war wedding, and there was nothing shameful in that. It was romantic, he thought—love in a time of strife. Dolly would look gorgeous no matter what, she could have her friends as bridesmaids—Kitty, and the new one, Vivien, whose mention gave him an uneasy feeling—and Lady Gwendolyn Caldicott, perhaps, in place of her mother and father; and Jimmy already had the perfect ring to give her. It had been his own mother’s and was stored now in a black velvet box at the back of his bedroom drawer. She’d left it when she went, with a note explaining why, on the pillow where his father slept. Jimmy had been looking after it ever since; at first so he could give it back when she returned; later, to remember her by; but increasingly, as he grew older, so he could some day make a new start with the woman he loved. A woman who wouldn’t leave him.

Jimmy had adored his mother when he was a boy. She’d been his enchantment, his first love, the great silvery moon whose wax and wane held his own small human spirit in its thrall. She used to tell him a story, he remembered now, when-ever he couldn’t sleep. It was about the Nightingale Star, a boat, she said, a magical boat—a great old galleon with wide sails and a strong, trusty mast, that sailed through the seas of sleep, night after night, in pursuit of adventure. She used to sit right by him on the side of the bed, stroking his hair and weaving tales of the mighty ship, and her voice as it spoke of the wondrous journeys would soothe him like nothing else could. Not until he was floating on the edge of sleep, the ship pulling him towards the great star in the east, would she lean down to whisper softly in his ear, ‘Off you go now, my darling. I’ll see you tonight on the Nightingale Star. Wait for me, won’t you? We’ll have ourselves a great adventure.’

He’d believed it for such a long time. After she left with the other fellow, that rich man with his silver tongue and his big expensive motorcar, he’d told himself the story each night, certain he would see her in his sleep, take hold of her and make her come back home.

He’d thought there’d never be another woman he could love that much. And then he’d met Dolly Jimmy finished his cigarette and checked his watch; it was almost five. He’d better leave now if he was going to be home in time to put an egg on for his dad’s breakfast.

He stood up as quietly as he could, pulled on his trousers and did up his belt. He lingered for a moment, watching Dolly, and then he leaned to plant the lightest of kisses on her cheek. ‘I’ll see you on the Nightingale Star,’ he whispered. She stirred, but didn’t wake, and Jimmy smiled.

He slipped down the stairs and out into the freezing grey of wintry pre-dawn London. There was snow on the air, he could smell it, and he blew out great puffs of mist as he walked, but Jimmy wasn’t cold. Not this morning. Dolly Smitham loved him, they were going to be married, and nothing would ever be wrong again.

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