Allie Burns - The Lido Girls

She paused at the top of the underground station’s steps. It’s not too late to make a run for it. She wasn’t sure what she feared the most: Miss Lott finding out she’d come here today or her friend Delphi’s disappointment if she let her down. She curled her hand into her satchel, felt around for the satin shorts and rubbed them between her thumb and forefinger.

Delphi waited for her by the station entrance. She faced the imposing red-bricked Olympia across the road. Keen to make a good impression today, her friend wore an asymmetrical red felt hat and the feathery tendrils of her hatpin danced in the breeze. Natalie watched as she blotted the bridge of her nose with a puff, then lowered her hand to steady herself on the wall.

Natalie shook her head. Perhaps she should have done more to discourage Delphi from pursuing her idea of becoming a teacher for this increasingly popular movement. Delphi’s health made training for a career in physical education difficult, but many years ago they’d made a pact to support one another in their professional life, and she’d be true to her word. Today she would see just what this group was really like, and whether they were a suitable target for her friend’s ambitions.

The compact clicked shut. Delphi turned her head; her poppy-red lips spread to a smile.

‘There you are, Natty.’ She untangled herself from a group of younger girls in her path. ‘You look as though you’ve just arrived at your own funeral.’

‘Well, there is a risk that you bringing me here has murdered my career.’ As she saw Delphi bite her bottom lip, she winked to let her know that she’d been teasing. They linked arms, and joined the stream of women to cross the road.

‘This is going to be an education for you. The old establishment is being shaken up, Natty. Imagine if you led that change.’

‘I don’t think the Board of Education would listen to my ideas.’ Natalie sighed as they reached a standstill at the back of the queue. ‘They’ll argue that their way of doing things has worked very nicely for decades, and it will continue to do so for many more. And they’re probably right.’

‘Well, today you’ll see a different way of doing things.’ Delphi steadied her hat as she tilted her head around the older ladies in front of them, searching for acquaintances further up the queue.

They would see and experience enough today to feed the volley of correspondence between the two of them for at least a month.

‘And,’ Delphi continued, ‘I think you’ll be impressed. You’ve always been bothered by the way the Phys Ed colleges exclude girls like the ones here today. The League is for everyone.’

It was true; they were in the main privileged girls who trained at her physical education college, and with only five establishments in the whole country places were in demand.

‘Do you know what else, Natty?’ Delphi poked her in the ribs. ‘You’re going to see how much fun exercise can be.’

‘But we get enjoyment from playing lacrosse or cricket, or diving, and you know that.’ Natalie thought of the students’ ruddy faces out on the playing field on a frosty February morning. How could Delphi say that they didn’t have fun? She wrote to her often enough to report on the exhilaration she’d felt in the heat of competition, how the bond between the team became as present in the air as the steam from their mouths.

‘You did promise to give this a go today.’ Delphi looked at her closely.

‘Of course, if you’re serious about training with these people then I want to see what they’re all about.’ But Natalie’s approval was the least of Delphi’s worries. Her ill health put her under her mother’s control, and Natalie couldn’t imagine Delphi’s mother would ever agree to her latest idea. ‘I just hope it isn’t frivolous.’ She’d been taught that exercise developed good character in testing circumstances in the words of Madame Forsberg, her college’s founder. ‘I am worried about the lack of science in their work.’

‘Yes, I was a little as well, but times are changing, Natty. You said it yourself, the Board is too wedded to its way of doing things.’

‘I didn’t exactly say that.’ Natalie back-tracked on whatever she might have said in her letters after a bad day at Linshatch. The Board thought the Women’s League a bunch of cranks, and called their work unscientific and dangerous. It would take an event as major as another war to persuade them to consider another approach. ‘Let’s just see whether I think this is right for you.’

‘Just don’t be too sensible.’ She waved, spotting a friend from her training class, and left Natalie alone in the queue.

‘There’s nothing wrong with being sensible,’ Natalie called after her. The woman in front, a good deal older than Natalie, but with curls as luscious as Ginger Rogers’, turned to look her up and down.

Natalie was glad she had a moment alone to let the sting of Delphi’s remark fade. Yes, she had been prudent when she’d invested her father’s inheritance in her teacher training. It had meant she could support herself, but being responsible wasn’t always easy, or much fun.

‘Quick! The hall is nearly full,’ Delphi said as she returned. ‘They’re expecting two and a half thousand. That’s double last year’s rally.’

Delphi hooked her by the arm and swept her past the snaking queue. ‘My friend Francine is saving us a place near the front.’

Adorned with black kohl, stem-thin eyebrows, Francine took Natalie by surprise with a forceful hug more appropriate for a long-lost friend. Just as they passed through the arched doorway, a man edged by with a sign: house full ; then his arm formed a barrier just behind Natalie. The whines and tuts of disappointed women faded behind them. Francine’s affections, Natalie realised, were short-lived. She’d already run on ahead, leaving the two of them to descend into the bowels of Olympia together.

The open hall teemed with women changing into their Women’s League of Health and Beauty uniform. Too late, she realised if she’d put the shorts on under her clothes she wouldn’t have needed to reveal her underwear.

‘Did you remember to shave your armpits?’ Delphi asked.

Natalie nodded.

‘Did you apply deodorant?’

‘Could you be a little more discreet?’ she hissed. But there was such a din that only those changing right next to them would hear anyway. She could hardly make out her own voice. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, regretting the tone she’d taken and seeing the funny side to it now. ‘My armpits are in perfect order.’ The laughter at Delphi’s fastidiousness loosened her muscles. The tension she felt from stripping off in a busy room lifted.

An older woman, with flesh spilling over the top of her worn girdle, shunted away from them. Did she come home from a hard day’s work to soak flower petals with baking soda and soap flakes, too? Had her family dined on bread so she could spend her housekeeping on two and six for her annual League membership?

‘Do you think the deodorant matters?’ Natalie asked, looking about to check no one was looking at her legs in the shorts. ‘The League’s instructions for appearance could put undue pressure on the members, don’t you think?’

‘Not at all,’ the older woman butted in, ‘how often do you think I get to think about myself and how I look? Not very, I can tell you!’

None of her college students gave a hoot about how their hair was fixed, or whether their gymslip showed their legs in the right manner – well except Margaret Wilkins perhaps. The rest were focused on the victory, on building character.

She looked about her while she waited for Delphi. Compared to these ladies her reputation at the college for being concerned with her appearance was nothing. Her waved jaw-length hair, gripped back from her face at the crown, looked really as dour as a schoolmarm’s bun.