Derek Beaven - If the Invader Comes

At the Coal Hole it wasn’t a requirement to be dressed to the nines. Ordinary suits mingled with evening wear; there might be artists, addicts, a boxer or two, even an obstinate Blackshirt. There were types of unescorted girl. The Saturday-night clientele was unpredictable, and a frisson of intermixture ran in the smoke-filled air. The only real entrance qualification was a little spare cash, a commodity Vic clearly lacked. It was Tony Rice who’d brought him and Phyllis along, and it was Tony Rice, the perplexing, charmed and upwardly mobile gang boy, whose hand lay over Phyllis’s career.

Yet it wasn’t Tony of whom my father was afraid – it wasn’t a physical fear at all. His desperation lay deeper. He was permanently wrought up, on edge.

He picked his wife out as she emerged from a side door. Her slim figure made its way towards the light. The stage was a shallow pedestal, no more than a foot high, and he watched her pause in front of it as her long dress threatened to trip her. Clutching the slink out of harm’s way, she stepped up. The gown’s plunge back exposed nearly the whole of her spine.

All week she’d been crippled with nerves. She despised her looks. She believed she was disfigured by a shame no amount of make-up, no glittery evening get-up could conceal. Her vocal cords, if she could force them open, would only humiliate her. All week he’d coaxed her through it, reassuring her that it was the actions of others that had left her so insecure; privately reminding himself that he’d put aside his feelings for Clarice in order to do what was right. Now he willed himself to believe that for once Phyllis could be straight with him.

When eventually she faced her audience he knew he’d been outwitted. She was completely at home, and the long wait seemed calculated. Her eyes glittered wide under plucked and pencilled brows, the cheeks were a rouged mask, the mouth a bait. For her sheer knowingness he was unprepared. She looked sly. When she let her head droop, he held his breath.

Light fell on her close-waved dark hair, the silver threads glinted in her gown, and the few bars of introduction poised on the arpeggio of a suspended chord. Chatter from the tables subsided. She lifted her eyes, childlike; and then the voice launched itself high, virginal, and with a fashionable flutter.

Think of what you’re losingBy constantly refusingTo dance with me

From behind her a saxophone and muted trumpet picked up the phrase, and the bass threw a squib of rhythm. It was a safe number. After the success of the Branksome Revue, everyone was singing it again. The lover needed encouragement; she delivered it. With her one gloved hand on the edge of the piano, she seduced.

Then she played the man’s role. Setting her head at just the coy angle, she scolded the audience with an artful smile.

Not this seasonThere’s a reason.

They held up with her, and she hit the refrain:

I won’t dance! Don’t ask me;I won’t dance! Don’t ask me;I won’t dance, madame, with you.

The brash denial swelled out. The band swung, the bass player’s free fingers vaulted the board to the springy dub-dub of the beat, and couples got up to dance. From the tables all around rose that buzz of relief which comes when the entertainment will do. Parties returned safely to their concerns: cigars were lit, and corks were popped. Aproned staff holding their trays high slid once again between casual encounters and established liaisons.

Where Vic sat a waiter hovered.

‘No more, thanks.’

‘I said I’ll get them, Victor. We’ll need three more of these, mate.’ Tony indicated the cocktail glasses in front of them. ‘No, make it four. Have one ready for Phylly when she comes back. Should really.’

Tony Rice was clean shaven, fleshy. He had the street looks of certain cruel young men and sported black silk lapels and neat white bow with all the sharpness Vic lacked. ‘A winner, isn’t she? You think so, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’ My father glanced at his wrist-watch again: half an hour after midnight. Every passing minute ticked up feelings he couldn’t cope with, costs he couldn’t cover. ‘She’s divine,’ he said. ‘It’s turned out a success. But I think we’d better leave as soon as she comes off. If you don’t mind, Tony. Thanks so much and a bad show to break up the party, but …’ He looked up at the waiter. ‘I’d like the bill, please, actually.’

Tony cancelled him and signed the man to leave with his order.

‘But our boy,’ said Vic. ‘Jack’s on his own. We really must go.’

‘Don’t throw it back in my face, Vic.’ There was an edge to Tony’s voice, a hint of the dockside razor. He held Vic’s gaze with narrowed eyes, then backed off. ‘It’s Phyllis’s night and she deserves a break. Doesn’t she, mate?’

Vic lit a cigarette, and looked over to where Phyllis was beginning her next number. Her body, such a battlefield in their marriage, seemed at ease. There, on the miniature stage, she was the idea of enchantment. There was no denying it – she was a good performer.

So he was being churlish; he was turning everything into melodrama. Tony was right, she deserved her break. Her pretty mouth, the nakedness of her neckline and arms … While she sang, while the music flowed, he could see her as if in a movie, briefly disentangled.

‘That’s more like it, Vic.’

FEMININITY FLICKERED EVERYWHERE in the smoky club. Vic’s gaze wandered. There were more attractive women than he’d ever seen, wearing less. Out of his element, at home neither with his own class nor the posh one, he was wretchedly alert to them. The flash of one braceleted wrist caught him like a blow. Voices, laughing or languid, tempted at his ear; they underscored the chirruping of his wife. Everywhere he looked he mustn’t look, at the eyes he mustn’t meet. The place scandalised and fascinated him.

‘You’re a lucky bloke, Vic. You’ll want to hang on to a skirt like her. I should like to have one, just the same as that. ’ Tony chanted softly as if all Phyllis’s melody wanted was a secret fight. ‘ Where’er I go they’ll shout hallo where did you get that … tart. ’ He grinned. Vic saw his hand under the table squeeze the thigh of the girl; he also saw the wince that crossed her face. He was momentarily excited. ‘She deserves better, Phyllis does,’ Tony said.

Vic tried to smile. ‘Better than what? Better than the Coal Hole? Or better than I can give her? That what you mean?’

‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, Rabbit Warren, keeping a woman like that in the manner you do.’

‘Thanks.’

But Tony compelled him, turning to his female companion. ‘Eh, Frankie? The boffin and the songbird. What do you think of that?’ The voice was level, the grin emotionless.

Frances opened her mouth disbelievingly at Vic. The drinks arrived. She took hers and held it in front of her with her little finger raised. He looked back. Thickly made up, she might be about twenty, the same age as Clarice Pike when they’d met, and fallen in love. …‘Are you, though? A boffin?’ Frankie giggled.

‘So I heard.’ Tony’s grin became a sneer.

‘Evening classes,’ said Vic. She even looked a little like her, like Clarice, he thought.

‘Can’t you just see him, duckie, with his chemistry bottles and tubes?’

‘Marine engineering. I used to go up to Imperial College. On the bus. Three times a week after work. Trying to cram my physics,’ Vic said again, quietly. ‘It’s over now. It was daft anyway.’

‘Oh, physics , Frank. Only joking, Vic.’

Frances looked blank for a second; and then she giggled again nervously. ‘I wouldn’t know what that was.’

‘The science of bodies,’ said Vic.