Annie Groves - The Mersey Daughter - A heartwarming Saga full of tears and triumph

‘Yes, but I always spent my Saturday evenings studying, or else preparing lessons,’ Marjorie explained, nearly tripping over her own feet as she breathlessly drew level with the other two young women. ‘This is all a bit much. Why did we have to go so far from our billet? It’s taken us ages and we had to change buses.’

‘Because the Hammersmith Palais is the place to be, no question about it,’ Laura insisted with a knowing air. ‘Trust me on this. If you like dancing, there’s nowhere to beat it. And if you don’t like dancing, well, you’re no friend of mine,’ she added grandly, sweeping around the corner and joining the back of the queue. ‘Well done, girls. We’ve made it in good time. You won’t be disappointed, I swear.’

Kitty glanced around her. There was a tangible air of excitement as the revellers huddled out of the wind, all dressed up in their finery. There might be a war on, but that wasn’t stopping this group of young people – and some not so young – from wearing their best and going out with the determination to have a proper night of dancing and enjoyment. She pulled up the collar of her old coat, glad of its meagre protection. There seemed to be a lot of men in uniform, either in groups with the women or in small gatherings of three or four, eyeing the crowd for prospective dance partners, or maybe something more. She squared her shoulders. She was not going to be put off by a few cheeky glances. She’d dealt with worse. She reckoned Laura had too. Marjorie, though – she wasn’t so sure.

Slowly the queue shuffled along and they drew ever closer to the big doors to the famous dance hall. Laura was smiling from ear to ear. ‘I love this place,’ she said. ‘I used to come here before the fighting broke out. Of course, once the air raids started, it made coming to London that tiny bit more inconvenient.’ She sighed. ‘Now relax and remember, just because a chap asks you for a dance, it doesn’t give him sole rights over you all evening; there’s plenty of us to go round. Here we are. Ready? We can leave our coats in the cloakroom. We don’t want to spoil the impression of our lovely frocks with these sensible old things.’

Kitty reflected that Laura’s beautiful coat couldn’t be called a sensible old thing by any stretch of the imagination, but her new friend had a point. As she handed over her serviceable coat and smoothed down her skirt, Kitty was glad she’d borrowed the lovely pink dress after all. She would have felt completely out of place if she hadn’t dressed up.

‘This way.’ Laura was a woman on a mission, turning down Marjorie’s suggestion that they go to brush their hair. ‘We can go and freshen up our lipstick in a moment – no, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, Marjorie, but I intend to. First we stake our claim to a table. Then we can go in turn so we don’t lose our place. Here we are, just the ticket. Marjorie, you sit there.’

Kitty was impressed with Laura’s choice. They had a view of where the dance band would be and they weren’t too far from the dance floor, but they had the perfect angle to view everyone arriving and milling around. And, she had to admit, people would have quite a good view of them too. She knew that Laura, with her air of confidence and stylish hairstyle – and of course beautiful clothes – would attract attention. Maybe she herself wouldn’t look too bad either. The pink dress boosted her spirits and looked good with her dark, wavy hair. Not that she was here to find romance – she was going to be totally loyal to Elliott, and his familiar warm face floated before her vision. She knew he wouldn’t begrudge her a night out, though, not after her hard weeks of initial training. Soon she hoped to be a fully fledged Wren. She’d write to tell him of their adventure when she got back to the billet.

Marjorie, birdlike, perched restlessly on her seat. She too had borrowed a dress from Laura, with a sweetheart neckline, in a stunning shade of eau de nil. She looked around them, eyes flickering with anxiety. ‘Kitty, what are we doing here? I wish we hadn’t come. Everyone’s staring at us.’

‘No they aren’t,’ Kitty reassured her, almost as a way of reassuring herself. ‘Or only as much as everyone’s looking at everyone else. Don’t worry. You must be accustomed to all your pupils staring at you, aren’t you? You’d have to stand there in front of them and demand their attention.’ She found it hard to understand why anyone who’d gone so far as to qualify as a teacher could be so nervous, when she herself had so many reasons for feeling uncomfortable among a crowd of people who seemed to have so much more experience of life than she had.

‘That’s different,’ Marjorie said instantly, tossing her hair. ‘I know what I’m doing in a classroom. People look at you for a reason. Here, I don’t know … what’ll I say if anyone comes over?’

‘I suppose you just say what you like,’ Kitty grinned. ‘Here’s your chance to practise – a waiter’s coming our way.’

Laura looked up as the smart older man swept over to them. ‘What can I get you, ladies?’

‘I’ll have a cocktail,’ Laura said at once. ‘Can you do me a gin and tonic? Or as close as you can manage.’ She flashed her brilliant smile. ‘How about you, Marjorie?’

Marjorie hesitated. ‘Oh, just water,’ she said.

‘You can’t have just water on a night out at the Palais!’ Laura objected.

‘But I don’t drink alcohol,’ Marjorie protested. ‘I wouldn’t know how to start, I don’t know what I like.’

‘Maybe a lemonade?’ the waiter suggested diplomatically. Kitty reckoned he’d heard this conversation many times before.

‘You’ve had most of your life to drink lemonade,’ Laura interrupted swiftly. ‘Time to break away from the schoolroom, Marjorie. How about a martini? She’ll have a martini,’ she said to the waiter, before Marjorie could contradict her.

The waiter turned to Kitty.

‘I’ll have a shandy,’ she said, feeling very daring. She’d never been one for alcohol either. The memory of her father’s drunken rages followed by his moods of abject despair had put her off. But, she reasoned, one glass of shandy wasn’t going to turn her into her father. It might even give her a bit of much-needed Dutch courage.

‘Right, I’m off to powder my nose.’ Laura stood up. ‘See you in a minute.’

Kitty watched as plenty of servicemen in uniform turned to observe her sophisticated friend as she made her way across the hall. Several then turned back to see which table Laura might have come from. A few seemed to be interested, and finally two broke ranks and wandered across to them. Marjorie immediately fixed her gaze on the table top. Kitty sighed anxiously. It looked as if it would be up to her to make conversation. She’d have to get a grip and not let nerves overcome her.

The taller of the two men was a corporal in the army by his uniform. Kitty smiled in a friendly way without any flirtatiousness as he drew closer. ‘We hate to see you girls sitting on your own,’ he said with a grin. ‘How about a turn on the dance floor?’

Kitty shook her head, remembering how she had parried the banter in the NAAFI canteen. ‘I’m hopeless at dancing, I have to warn you. We’re just enjoying ourselves, watching the world go by.’

‘And what do you do?’ asked the shorter one, whose hair had been slicked back so carefully that it shone brightly, reflecting the lamps dotted around the hall. ‘With your looks, you’ve got to be models. Bet you spend all day getting your pictures taken.’ He looked at them hopefully, wondering if his flattery had worked.

Kitty batted it away. ‘Now we can’t tell you what we do, you know that,’ she said. ‘Careless talk costs lives; loose lips sink ships. Let’s just say it’s a bit more useful than modelling.’