clustered down one side, deciding, choosing. Then they danced beneath a great glass revolving chandelier while the band played swing and jive, but never jazz. They coasted around the MC who stood in the middle of the dance floor, checking that no one kissed, that they all danced in the same direction, that they did not jitterbug.
Few kissed. All went in the right direction. All of them jitterbugged and her hand didn’t sweat in Jack’s and she could smell his skin as he swung her close, and then away.
They drank warm ginger beer mixed with cider and it brought back the buzz of the hoverflies in amongst the bines, the smell of the hops on her hands, the sun which washed her past back into her bones.
They walked home, dropping Sam and Ted, standing in the alley at the bottom of their yards. They stood looking at the light thrown out across the roses, looking at the shed rotting in the left-hand corner, looking at one another.
He would kiss her, gently, lightly, squeeze her hand and then leave her, walking in through his gate, she through hers. She would hear his steps in time with hers, and it was only with the closing of the door that the sound of him left her, but the knowledge of his presence in the bedroom next to her wall kept him close.
Tuesdays and Thursdays she went to Miss Paul’s above the piano shop and typed to Chopin, chasing the notes, rubbing out the errors, blowing the rubber dust from the keys, cursing inside her head because Jack was watching Jane Russell at the Odeon whilst she was here.
But each week she was faster and her shorthand was better, and she wrote to Frank and Nancy that next spring she would find a job in Fleet Street. Just you wait and see, she wrote, and she knew that her letter was strong and positive, and that they would be glad.
By the middle of October she was moved back to records and played Duke Ellington for Jack and he touched her face when he walked in and heard. He stood still, listening to the piano as it beat its rhythm.
Norah was on spectacles and would stand waiting while customers read the printed card with the letters that diminished in size. Her nails clicked on the metal frames that she held in her hand while she waited, her face long as she fitted them around strange ears.
Rosie played ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’, and smiled across as Norah scowled, but then regretted that she had done it, because the bridge between them had not yet been rebuilt.
October became November, and though there was still grief in the quiet hours of the night, she no longer kept her bedroom door open. There was hope, there was fun, there was Jack.
They danced and they kissed but still lightly, gently, and his hands didn’t slide beneath her blouse nor his tongue probe her mouth and she was glad. She didn’t tell him about Joe though, even when he told her of the girlfriend he had had in Somerset, the one he had kissed in the apple orchard. She said instead that it was only another five months until her exams and that she must work until midnight again.
She said this too when she wrote to Frank and Nancy but she also told them of the rationing, and the wind which grew ever more cold. She told them how Maisie called over the fence every Sunday and passed bread and hot dripping and how she and Grandpa ate it on the bench, wrapped in scarves and coats.
She told them how she, Jack and Ollie had helped Mrs Eaves’s sister move into an old Army barracks north of London along with two hundred other squatters. They had pushed an old barrow with some furniture down the road from the flat she shared with her son and his wife and three children – a flat which had only one bedroom.
She told them how the people were taking over these empty buildings because there was nowhere else for them to live. How the Local Authorities were accepting them and connecting water and electricity, for what else could they do? There were no houses available. She told them that these were the things that she would
Few kissed. All went in the right direction. All of them jitterbugged and her hand didn’t sweat in Jack’s and she could smell his skin as he swung her close, and then away.
They drank warm ginger beer mixed with cider and it brought back the buzz of the hoverflies in amongst the bines, the smell of the hops on her hands, the sun which washed her past back into her bones.
They walked home, dropping Sam and Ted, standing in the alley at the bottom of their yards. They stood looking at the light thrown out across the roses, looking at the shed rotting in the left-hand corner, looking at one another.
He would kiss her, gently, lightly, squeeze her hand and then leave her, walking in through his gate, she through hers. She would hear his steps in time with hers, and it was only with the closing of the door that the sound of him left her, but the knowledge of his presence in the bedroom next to her wall kept him close.
Tuesdays and Thursdays she went to Miss Paul’s above the piano shop and typed to Chopin, chasing the notes, rubbing out the errors, blowing the rubber dust from the keys, cursing inside her head because Jack was watching Jane Russell at the Odeon whilst she was here.
But each week she was faster and her shorthand was better, and she wrote to Frank and Nancy that next spring she would find a job in Fleet Street. Just you wait and see, she wrote, and she knew that her letter was strong and positive, and that they would be glad.
By the middle of October she was moved back to records and played Duke Ellington for Jack and he touched her face when he walked in and heard. He stood still, listening to the piano as it beat its rhythm.
Norah was on spectacles and would stand waiting while customers read the printed card with the letters that diminished in size. Her nails clicked on the metal frames that she held in her hand while she waited, her face long as she fitted them around strange ears.
Rosie played ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’, and smiled across as Norah scowled, but then regretted that she had done it, because the bridge between them had not yet been rebuilt.
October became November, and though there was still grief in the quiet hours of the night, she no longer kept her bedroom door open. There was hope, there was fun, there was Jack.
They danced and they kissed but still lightly, gently, and his hands didn’t slide beneath her blouse nor his tongue probe her mouth and she was glad. She didn’t tell him about Joe though, even when he told her of the girlfriend he had had in Somerset, the one he had kissed in the apple orchard. She said instead that it was only another five months until her exams and that she must work until midnight again.
She said this too when she wrote to Frank and Nancy but she also told them of the rationing, and the wind which grew ever more cold. She told them how Maisie called over the fence every Sunday and passed bread and hot dripping and how she and Grandpa ate it on the bench, wrapped in scarves and coats.
She told them how she, Jack and Ollie had helped Mrs Eaves’s sister move into an old Army barracks north of London along with two hundred other squatters. They had pushed an old barrow with some furniture down the road from the flat she shared with her son and his wife and three children – a flat which had only one bedroom.
She told them how the people were taking over these empty buildings because there was nowhere else for them to live. How the Local Authorities were accepting them and connecting water and electricity, for what else could they do? There were no houses available. She told them that these were the things that she would
Similar Books
