bumping against the back of his neck. He turned, once, at the bottom of the road, and lifted his arm in the brightening morning, before he disappeared from view.
A train passes on the tracks outside, making the windows rattle in their frames.
Ada reaches out and brings the box into her lap. She tries to pick at the knot, but it is stubborn, tied so tightly that she’ll need something to open it with. She hesitates, briefly—but it is only brief, the hesitation, before she goes downstairs to fetch a knife.
----
“Afternoon, lovely.” Graham the doorman salutes Hettie with his good arm. “How’s my favorite dancer, then? You on a double today?”
“’Fraid so.” She leans into the little hutch where he sits by the door, oil heater on. It smells cozy—of warm wool and pipe. Graham is a fixture of the Palais. A brawny Cockney with an accent to match, he used to work on the railways before the war, and his stories are legion. It is said you can lose hours in his cubbyhole, emerge blinking in the light, and be ten years older, your youth stripped away:
One of the last to be called up.
Didn’t want an old bugger like me.
Proud to lose it in the end.
Two days till the Armistice!
Saw it there, twitching on the ground. Hand still moving.
Knew it was mine from the tattoo on the wrist!
“Commiserations,” says Graham.
“Need the money.” Hettie shrugs.
“Don’t we all. Hang on a sec.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tin, opens it and takes a tablet out. “Here you go.” He passes it over the hatch toward her, a Nelson’s meat lozenge, brown-red. “Keep your strength up.” He winks. “Kept us going for hours, they did. Route marches. All the way ’cross France.”
This is what he always says.
“Thanks,” says Hettie, tucking it into her cardigan pocket. “I’ll keep it for later.”
This is what she always does. This is their little routine.
Does he suspect that she keeps the stinky little tablets only long enough to put them in the dressing room bin?
But it is their ritual, and she supposes it makes both of them feel good.
“I don’t know how you girls do it,” he says, shaking his head. “Dancing for hours. I really don’t.”
Hettie shrugs, as if to say,
What’s to do?,
then pulls her cardy round her, heading down the long, unheated corridor to the strip-lit dressing room at the end. The scattered girls turn to greet her, and they exchange hellos as she hangs her corduroy bag on the rail. Those girls who are changed already are sitting, chattering, puffing on illicit cigarettes despite the NO SMOKING signs nailed to the walls.
The chilly Palais dressing room is one of the dubious perks of the job. It’s not what you’d expect, though, from the ones out front, which are all decked out with Chinese wallpaper covered in pagodas and birds. The walls back here are just covered in paint, and a dismal green color at that. Some of the girls have scratched their initials into the plasterwork, which is already starting to peel. Some wit has even written a poem at knee height:
Beware old Grayson
If he thinks that you’re late, son
He’ll take behind and
He’ll give you what for.
When Hettie first started, she had to have it explained it to her: Grayson, the thin-lipped floor manager whose hard line on tardiness is legendary, is rumored to live out with another man somewhere in Acton Town. The boys swear he’s forever giving them lingering looks.
She takes off her cardy, blouse, and skirt, hangs them on the rail, and pulls on her dance dress, shivering in anticipation of the cold to come. Without the press of bodies that fill the Palais later in the week, the vast dance floor will be freezing. The management doesn’t allow you to take your woollies inside, so the girls try all the tricks they can, sewing extra layers under their dresses, or wearing two pairs of stockings, but nothing much will work on a frigid Monday afternoon; your only hope is to be hired and keep
A train passes on the tracks outside, making the windows rattle in their frames.
Ada reaches out and brings the box into her lap. She tries to pick at the knot, but it is stubborn, tied so tightly that she’ll need something to open it with. She hesitates, briefly—but it is only brief, the hesitation, before she goes downstairs to fetch a knife.
----
“Afternoon, lovely.” Graham the doorman salutes Hettie with his good arm. “How’s my favorite dancer, then? You on a double today?”
“’Fraid so.” She leans into the little hutch where he sits by the door, oil heater on. It smells cozy—of warm wool and pipe. Graham is a fixture of the Palais. A brawny Cockney with an accent to match, he used to work on the railways before the war, and his stories are legion. It is said you can lose hours in his cubbyhole, emerge blinking in the light, and be ten years older, your youth stripped away:
One of the last to be called up.
Didn’t want an old bugger like me.
Proud to lose it in the end.
Two days till the Armistice!
Saw it there, twitching on the ground. Hand still moving.
Knew it was mine from the tattoo on the wrist!
“Commiserations,” says Graham.
“Need the money.” Hettie shrugs.
“Don’t we all. Hang on a sec.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tin, opens it and takes a tablet out. “Here you go.” He passes it over the hatch toward her, a Nelson’s meat lozenge, brown-red. “Keep your strength up.” He winks. “Kept us going for hours, they did. Route marches. All the way ’cross France.”
This is what he always says.
“Thanks,” says Hettie, tucking it into her cardigan pocket. “I’ll keep it for later.”
This is what she always does. This is their little routine.
Does he suspect that she keeps the stinky little tablets only long enough to put them in the dressing room bin?
But it is their ritual, and she supposes it makes both of them feel good.
“I don’t know how you girls do it,” he says, shaking his head. “Dancing for hours. I really don’t.”
Hettie shrugs, as if to say,
What’s to do?,
then pulls her cardy round her, heading down the long, unheated corridor to the strip-lit dressing room at the end. The scattered girls turn to greet her, and they exchange hellos as she hangs her corduroy bag on the rail. Those girls who are changed already are sitting, chattering, puffing on illicit cigarettes despite the NO SMOKING signs nailed to the walls.
The chilly Palais dressing room is one of the dubious perks of the job. It’s not what you’d expect, though, from the ones out front, which are all decked out with Chinese wallpaper covered in pagodas and birds. The walls back here are just covered in paint, and a dismal green color at that. Some of the girls have scratched their initials into the plasterwork, which is already starting to peel. Some wit has even written a poem at knee height:
Beware old Grayson
If he thinks that you’re late, son
He’ll take behind and
He’ll give you what for.
When Hettie first started, she had to have it explained it to her: Grayson, the thin-lipped floor manager whose hard line on tardiness is legendary, is rumored to live out with another man somewhere in Acton Town. The boys swear he’s forever giving them lingering looks.
She takes off her cardy, blouse, and skirt, hangs them on the rail, and pulls on her dance dress, shivering in anticipation of the cold to come. Without the press of bodies that fill the Palais later in the week, the vast dance floor will be freezing. The management doesn’t allow you to take your woollies inside, so the girls try all the tricks they can, sewing extra layers under their dresses, or wearing two pairs of stockings, but nothing much will work on a frigid Monday afternoon; your only hope is to be hired and keep
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