Annie Groves - The Grafton Girls

‘Oh aye, well, you can tell that to the boss, if you like.’

‘I don’t know why you bother. It’s the same every week,’ a chubby ginger-haired girl protested.

‘Well, you never know, Andrea, one week he might let us in for nowt. It’s always worth a try. Him wot don’t ask don’t get – that’s what my dad allus used to say,’ Jess responded cheerfully, still holding Ruthie’s hand she led the way up the stairs to the ballroom.

Ruthie’s eyes widened as she followed Jess inside.

‘It’s Ivy Benson’s lot playing tonight,’ Lucy commented, glancing up at the gallery from which people could look down on the dance floor, and where the band played. ‘Ever so good, they are. They’ve got a good dance floor here too. Properly sprung, it is, not like some. Modelled it on some Russian dancing place.’

‘I think I remember reading that the building was designed after the Kirov Ballet Theatre,’ Ruthie supplied timidly, causing them all to stare at her.

‘Coo, proper schoolbook learning you’ve got, Ruthie, and no mistake,’ Lucy exclaimed admiringly.

‘Hmm.’ Carmen, another of the girls, with smouldering dark eyes and equally dark hair, pouted, unimpressed. ‘I like a proper band with a proper male singer.’

‘That’s only ’cos you want to give him the eye whilst you’re dancing,’ Elsie chirped up.

‘Look at them GIs over there,’ Lucy breathed. ‘You have to hand it to them, they look really well turned out. Ever so tall and handsome, they are…’

‘Aye, and ever so keen to get into a girl’s knickers, from what I’ve heard,’ a girl whose name Ruthie thought was Cathy sniffed.

‘Well, that good-looking one over there can try getting into mine any time he likes,’ Lucy answered her back.

‘Oooh, Lucy…’

‘I only said he could try, ’ Lucy pointed out. ‘Come on, let’s go and grab that table over there, right by the dance floor, before anyone else does.’

‘I knew we should have got down here earlier,’ Myra complained as she and Diane joined the end of the queue. ‘Pity you haven’t got something a bit more dressy to wear,’ she added critically, before glancing down smugly at her own red sateen halter-neck top, obviously comparing it to the plain dark blue taffeta dress that Diane had on. Diane didn’t say anything. She was still brooding on the content of Beryl’s letter. She might not have dolled herself up like Myra, with her tight-fitting top and her red lipstick, but tonight she was going to show the world that she could have as good a time as anyone – especially Kit.

‘I knew it,’ Myra grimaced as soon as they were inside the ballroom. ‘There’s not a free table to be seen.’

‘We can share with some other girls, can’t we?’ Diane responded.

Myra gave her a withering look. For all her good looks it was plain to her that Diane knew very little about the art of attracting men. If they went and sat at a table with plain girls they’d be overlooked along with them, and if they went and sat at one with pretty ones, then they’d be vying with them for the best-looking men, which was why…She searched the room with an expert eye, and then dug Diane in the ribs.

‘Come on, over there, three from the band, and be quick about it in case someone beats us to it.’

She was pushing her way through the crowded ballroom before Diane could say anything, leaving her no option than to follow her. But when Diane saw the table she was heading towards, she stopped and made a grab for Myra’s arm.

‘What is it?’ Myra demanded impatiently.

‘We can’t sit there.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s full of men.’

‘Oh – so it is. Fancy me not noticing,’ Myra agreed, making big round eyes and then giving Diane an exasperated look. ‘Of course it’s full of men. Why do you think I’m heading for it? Come on.’

‘No,’ Diane told her firmly.

Myra’s mouth hardened in a thin line. ‘All right then. Wait here.’ Determinedly she made her way to the table, saying something to the eager-looking GI who turned to her, and then calling out to Diane, ‘Come on, these nice boys are going to give us two of their spare chairs, so that we don’t have to sit at a table with men we don’t know.’

Diane was so angry with Myra for the way she had drawn attention to her that she was tempted to turn on her heel and walk out, except she felt that doing so would make her look even more foolish. She would have something to say to her later when they were on their own, though – like she wasn’t going out with her again.

The Grafton was obviously a popular venue, the tables set round the dance floor all filled and men standing several deep at the bar. The tables in the part of the ballroom Myra had made her way to seemed to have been taken over by the Americans, whilst the men seated at the tables on the other side of the room were wearing British uniforms or civvies. As she made her way to join Myra, Diane felt almost like a traitor. In Cambridgeshire she would never have gone to sit with a crowd of Yanks. The young women she could see sitting with the Americans seemed to have no qualms about making them welcome, though. There was a desperation in the eyes of some of the girls, which made Diane look away quickly. What was it they were desperate for? The luxuries that their American boyfriends could give them? Or did their need go deeper than that? The country had been at war now since 1939. Some women had not seen their men for a very long time; some women would never see them again. Was that the cause of the angry, bitter hunger Diane could see in their eyes? Despite the heat of the ballroom Diane gave a small shiver. The war had turned so many girls into women, its urgency breaking down all the old rules that governed relationships between the sexes. Girls who would never normally have let their young men give them more than chaste kisses had become desperate to send them off to war with ‘something to remember them by’. What did preserving one’s virginity for tomorrow mean when there might not be a tomorrow, when all one might have was tonight? And then with their men gone and their senses awakened, was it any wonder that those girls-turned-women yearned for the warmth of a pair of male arms to hold them?

Diane shivered again, remembering the stolen nights of pleasure she and Kit had shared under the thatches of remote quaint village pubs, where the landlord had been prepared to turn a blind eye and accept their self-conscious claim to be a married couple. Would her body, deprived of what it had known, eventually fill her with a hunger and an anger that would take her into the arms of a stranger to seek oblivion? Pushing her disturbing thoughts aside, she made her way towards Myra.

Myra patted her hair and cast a discreet look over her shoulder. Not that she was looking for anyone in particular, of course. She leaned down and pretended to check the seam of her stockings. She was pleased with the amount of attention she was attracting. The red halter-neck top showed off the smooth skin of her bare arms and shoulders, although it was on the shadowed valley between her breasts that she could see male glances lingering. She hid a triumphant smile. Next to her Diane looked nothing special at all, despite that blonde hair. That frock she was wearing was the dullest thing she had ever seen and you wouldn’t catch her wearing something so boring. Her own skirt followed the curves of her hips and her bottom; she had had it altered, to make it tighter and shorter, determinedly ignoring Jim’s comment that he didn’t like her wearing her clothes like that. ‘Supposed to be saving on fabric, aren’t we?’ she had told him, tossing her head. ‘At least that’s what the government says. Shorter skirts, we have to have.’ Jim had shaken his head but he hadn’t said any more. He was a real softie.