Fallen Skies. Philippa Gregory
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was no further forward.
‘I wonder if you would like to come to dinner tomorrow night?’ he said nervously to Helen. ‘You and Miss Pears. And Mr Pears too, if he would like to come?’
‘I am a widow. There is no Mr Pears.’ Helen paused. Stephen saw again the quick secret movement of Lily’s gloved hand on her mother’s arm. ‘Yes, Captain Winters, thank you. That would be very nice.’
‘Shall I pick you up after the show?’
‘Thank you,’ Helen said again.
The big car slowed and stopped. Lily and her mother got out on to the pavement, and Stephen followed them.
‘I’ll say goodnight then, and look forward to dining with you both tomorrow,’ he said.
Helen held out her hand and Stephen shook it, and then turned to Lily.
He took her gloved hand in his and felt the warmth of her palm through the white cotton. She looked up at him and smiled. She smiled as if she had some secret assurance, some private conviction, that nothing bad could ever happen to her. Stephen, looking down into that bright little face, felt again the potent magic of young confidence. He had not seen a face like that since the early days, the first days of the war. The young subalterns from public schools looked like that – as if life were one easy glorious adventure and nothing would ever disappoint them.
‘Goodnight, Miss Pears,’ he said. ‘I will see you tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight, Captain Winters.’ Her voice was light and steady with an undercurrent of amusement, as if she might giggle at any moment at this game of being grown-up.
He let go her hand with reluctance, and waited by the car until the poky little door of the shop doorway had shut behind them. ‘Goodnight,’ he said again.
Coventry drove him in silence to the Queens Hotel, where he dined with David, and then got royally drunk at half a dozen of the worst pubs in Portsmouth.
The dinner was not a success. Lily was overawed by the gold and crimson grandeur of the Queens Hotel dining room, Stephen was awkward in the company of women and had little to say to Lily under these formal circumstances. They had discussed the eclipse of the moon a few nights earlier; Stephen had speculated about British chances at the Antwerp Olympics; then he had fallen silent. He had nothing to say to Lily. If she had been the tart that he first thought, then he would have taken her to some cheerful bar and got her so drunk that she would go to an alleyway at the back of the pub and let him take her, with deliberate roughness, against a brick wall. But with the two women masquerading as ladies, Stephen did not know how to deal with them. He could not resist his desire for Lily, nervous as a child in the formal dining room, wary of waiters and wide-eyed at the other diners. She was cheaply pretty in her little blue cocktail dress and her frivolous feather of a hat. Her mother was as dignified as a duchess in a beaded black gown and gloves.
The waiter, sensing another hiatus in a stilted evening, removed the pudding plates and replaced them with small coffee cups, cream, sugar, and a large silver coffee pot. Mrs Pears turned her attention from the band and the dancers and poured coffee into the three cups.
‘Jolly good dinner,’ Stephen said, seeking thanks.
Mrs Pears nodded.
‘I expect it makes a change for you, from rationing.’
Mrs Pears shook her head. ‘The only good thing about running a shop is that you never go short.’
‘Oh, really, Ma!’ Lily exclaimed, thinking of the dried ends of ham joints and day-old bread.
Stephen had flushed a deep brick-red. ‘I thought … I thought … that things were dreadfully short,’ he said. ‘Th … th … that was what they t … t … told us.’
Mrs Pears’s smile was sardonic. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They would have told you that. But there would have been enough for everyone if people had shared. As it was, those who could afford it never did without.’
‘You s … s … sold from under the counter?’ Stephen demanded. ‘P … p … profiteered?’
‘I saw that Lily had shoes on her feet and food on the table. I bought her ballet lessons and singing lessons. I made my money from rich and selfish people who would rather pay a little more than do without. If you call that profiteering, Captain, then I’m a wartime profiteer. But you’d best look around at the company you’re in before you point an accusing finger at me.’
Lily’s fair head was bowed over her coffee cup. The feathers in her hat trembled with embarrassment. ‘Hush, Ma,’ she said softly.
Mrs Pears pointed one black-gloved finger at the next-door table. ‘That man is Councillor Hurt, cloth-maker. Ask him how much khaki and serge he ran off in the four years. Ask him about the greatcoats and trousers like paper. The other is Alderman Wilson, scrap metal. Ask him about the railings and saucepans and scrap given free for the war effort but then sold by him for thousands. And that’s Mr Askew, munitions. Ask him about the girls whose skins are still orange and about the shells which never worked.’ She paused. ‘We were all profiteers from the war except those that died. Those who didn’t come back. They were the mugs. Everyone else did very nicely indeed.’
Stephen’s hands were trembling with his anger. He thrust them beneath the tablecloth and gripped hard.
‘Let’s dance!’ Lily said suddenly. ‘I adore this tune.’ She sprang to her feet. Stephen automatically rose with her.
She led him to the dance floor, his arm went around her waist and she slipped her little hand in his. Their feet stepped lightly in time, gracefully. Lily’s head went back and she smiled up at Stephen, whose face was still white with rage. Lily sang the popular song softly to him:
If you could remember me,
Any way you choose to,
What would be your choice?
I know which one I would do …
Above them the winking chandelier sparkled as they turned and circled the floor. Stephen’s colour slowly came back to his cheeks. Lily sang nonsense songs, as a mother would sing to a frightened child:
When you dood the doodsie with me,
And I did the doodsie with you.
The music stopped and Lily spun around and clapped the band. They bowed. The band leader bowed particularly to Lily.
‘Miss Lily Valance!’ he announced.
Lily flushed and glanced at her mother. The older woman nodded her head towards the bandstand. Lily obediently went up to the band leader, her hand still on Stephen’s arm.
‘Miss Lily Valance, the new star of the Palais!’ the band leader announced with pardonable exaggeration.
‘Wait there,’ Lily said to Stephen and hitched up her calf-length dress and clambered up on to the bandstand.
‘“Tipperary!”’ someone shouted from the floor. ‘Sing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary!”’
Lily shook her head with a smile, and then stepped to the front of the stage. ‘I’ll sing “Danny Boy”.’
The band played the overture and Lily stood very still, listening to the music like a serious child. The dining room fell silent as Lily lifted her small pale face and sang.
She had a singing voice of remarkable clarity – more like the limpid purity of a boy soprano than a girl singer from a music hall. She sang artlessly, like a chorister practising alone. She stood with both her hands clasped loosely before her, not swaying nor tapping her feet, her face raised and her eyes looking outwards, beyond the ballroom, beyond the dockyard, beyond the very seas themselves,