It was gone six o’clock before they were finally ready to leave, June complaining that she wasn’t going to hurry anywhere because she didn’t want her face to go all shiny, despite the powder she’d applied.
‘At last,’ Irene greeted them impatiently when they reached the dance hall ten minutes late. ‘We was just beginning to think you weren’t coming.’
‘It was our Molly’s fault,’ June fibbed unrepentantly, as they all hurried inside in a flurry of brightly coloured cottons and excited giggles.
‘It feels like I haven’t bin dancing in ever such a long time,’ June sighed, as they queued up to buy their tickets, even though the factory girls got together to go dancing every month or so.
‘Here, look over there at them lads in their uniforms,’ Ruby giggled happily, nudging Molly.
‘Give over staring at them, will you, Ruby?’ Irene chastised her. ‘Otherwise they’ll be thinking that we’re sommat as we’re not.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ruby demanded, oblivious to the looks the others were exchanging.
Several groups of young men, clustered round the dance floor, looked eagerly at the girls as they walked past, but Irene led them firmly to a table where they could sit down and then said sternly, ‘Just remember that some of us here have husbands and fiancés, and we don’t want to be embarrassed by the behaviour of those of you who haven’t.’
‘Well, if we’re just going ter sit here all night, what have we come for?’ May objected, eyeing up one of the young men.
‘I didn’t say as we wouldn’t dance, only that I don’t want to see none of you behaving like that lot over there,’ Irene told them, nodding in the direction of another group of young women standing by the entrance, boldly eyeing up the men coming in and exchanging banter with them.
To her discomfort, Molly realised that two of the girls were Johnny’s sisters, and when she told June as discreetly as she could, June looked past her to where they were standing and then warned her quickly, ‘Well, don’t say anything to the others. We don’t want to be shown up. You’d best act as though you haven’t seen them.’
The young soldiers the Hardings girls had seen on the way in had come to stand close to them and were quite plainly watching them.
Molly turned away whilst Irene raised an eyebrow as she lit a Woodbine and then told June drily, ‘They’re just a bunch of kids. My Alan would make mincemeat of them.’
‘And my Frank,’ June agreed, taking one of the cigarettes Irene was offering her.
Molly looked disapprovingly at her sister but kept quiet. She wanted them to have a good time – they all needed to release some tension after such an emotional day.
‘June, Molly, I thought it was you two,’ a male voice announced, and Molly’s frown changed to a wide smile of delight as she recognised Eddie. ‘Auntie Elsie said she thought you were coming down here tonight.’
‘Are you on your own?’ June asked him after they had introduced him to the others.
‘I came down with our Jim, but I’ve met up with a gang of other lads off the ship. If you girls fancy dancing with us, I can vouch for them.’
‘Oh, yeah? As if we’d believe that,’ Irene teased him, but Molly could see that she wasn’t averse to the suggestion.
‘Well, just you remember before you go introducing us to anyone that we’re respectable girls and dancing is all we shall be doing,’ June told him sternly.
‘Auntie Elsie would have me hide if I was to say anything else. She thinks of you and Molly as part of the family,’ Eddie assured her, before he disappeared into the crowd of young people now filling the dance hall.
Within five minutes he was back, along with half a dozen other young men, all slightly bashful but very eager to be introduced to the girls.
‘How about you and me being the first up on the floor, Molly?’ Eddie asked her with a big grin.
Molly laughed back at him. It had been Eddie, years ago, when they had all been children, who had been her partner at the dancing lessons they had had at the church hall in preparation for the annual Christmas party.
‘Just so long as you don’t tread on my toes,’ she agreed.
‘Well, I can’t pull the ribbons out of your hair any more, can I?’ Eddie laughed as he led her onto the floor, adding, ‘But I promise I won’t let anyone put any worms down your back.’
‘Oh, do you remember that too?’ Molly asked him eagerly, and then blushed slightly, as she realised that the music had started but she’d been too engrossed in their reminiscences to notice. As though he sensed her self-consciousness, Eddie gave her hand a small squeeze.
‘I remember what a game little kid you were, Molly – aye, and a pretty little thing as well.’
As he swung her into his arms, there was a look in his eyes that made Molly’s heart skip a beat. And when the band slowed into a new number and the lights dimmed, Molly didn’t object when Eddie slipped his arm round her waist and drew her closer.
He smelled of Pears soap, the skin on his hands rough against her own softer flesh, just as the muscles of his thighs felt so much harder than hers as he pulled her into his body.
However, when the dance ended and they returned to their table, June gave them both a baleful look and demanded sharply, ‘Why aren’t you wearing your engagement ring, Molly?’
Molly’s face burned. She had forgotten all about her ring, which she didn’t like wearing because of the greenish mark it left on her finger. But June’s tone of voice made it sound as though she had deliberately chosen not to wear it.
‘It’s all right, June,’ Eddie said promptly and easily. ‘I’ve already heard from Aunt Elsie that you and Molly are both spoken for now.’
Molly gave him a grateful look for rescuing her from her elder sister’s disapproval and her own forgetfulness.
‘I didn’t mean to forget about my ring,’ she told him quickly when he insisted on her getting up for another dance.
‘You don’t need to tell me that, Molly,’ Eddie reassured her. ‘I know you well enough to know you’re not the kind of girl who’d cheat on a lad. I just wish I’d had the gumption to come courtin’ you before Johnny did.’
Molly’s face burned even hotter. He was just teasing her, that was all, she told herself. She had always got on well with Eddie, with his ready smile and twinkling blue eyes. He was fun and he made her laugh, and that was why she felt so much happier and more comfortable being held in his arms than she had ever felt being held in Johnny’s. Eddie, she knew instinctively, was not the kind to press a girl for something she was not ready to give.
Johnny! She almost missed a step, causing Eddie to look down at her.
‘I was just thinking about Johnny,’ she told him honestly when he asked her if she was all right. ‘It’s horrible knowing there’s going to be a war, but not knowing when it’s going to happen. It feels a bit like waking up in the morning used to feel when it was Mr Roberts’s arithmetic lesson that day, only worse. You sort of forget about it for a while but then when you remember …’ She gave a small shiver.
‘Aye, I know what you mean,’ Eddie agreed soberly. ‘The Government is going to be using the merchant navy to carry supplies and we’ve all been warned that Jerry submarines are going to be after us, trying to stop us.’
‘Oh,