‘And remember,’ Ruth cautioned the party from Elegant Modes as they wriggled through the crowd just in time to grab the last vacant table close to the edge of the dance floor, ‘no one’s to go encouraging any RO lads.’
RO lads were the men who were doing very necessary reserved occupation work, but who lacked the glamour of a uniform.
‘That dress looks ever so pretty on you, Rosie,’ Evie Watts, a window dresser at the shop, commented admiringly. ‘I thought so the last time I saw you wearin’ it. Mind you, you ’ave got the figure for it.’
Rosie had just started to thank her for her compliment when Nancy butted in nastily, ‘For meself, I allus think that shop-bought looks smarter than home-made, especially when you’ve had the fabric off of the market and half of Liverpool’s wearing it.’
‘Don’t mind Nancy, Rosie,’ Ruth whispered. ‘She’s just jealous of you on account of her thinking she were the bee’s knees and the prettiest girl in the shop until you come along.’
The band had already started to play and Ruth nudged Evie as a group of young men several yards away edged a bit closer to their table.
‘I’m dancing wi’ the one with the blond hair and blue eyes, in the corporal’s uniform,’ Ruth announced with a predatory gleam in her eyes. ‘He’s got his stripes and I like a lad wi’ a bit of experience about him.’
‘Wot about your Fred?’ Evie demanded
‘Wot about ’im?’ Ruth came back smartly.
When Evie pulled a face behind Ruth’s back and whispered to the others, ‘I fancied that blond lad meself,’ Rosie couldn’t help giggling, her spirits starting to lift.
Ruth might be more outspoken than she was herself but she was such good fun that you couldn’t help but enjoy being in her company. Ruth was always the one for a bit of quick backchat and never behind the door when it came to putting a cheeky lad in his place if she felt like it. Rosie remembered how much it had made her laugh when Ruth had riposted to one particular lad who had swaggered over to them like he was really something, to ask her to dance, ‘Come back in five years when you’re old enough – and tall enough.’
Two girls who Rosie didn’t recognise made their way over and were introduced by Evie as her cousins Susan and Jane. Drinks were ordered, cigarettes lit, and the girls settled down to the ritual of pretending they were oblivious to the way the boys were eyeing them as they smoothed already straight seams and patted immaculately rolled curls, thus showing off slim ankles and shining hair.
‘’Ere, that blond lad’s on his way over. Remember what I said. Hands off, everyone else,’ Ruth warned with a wicked grin.
After a few muttered comments about some girls having the cheek to grab all the best lads before anyone else had a chance to get a good look at them, the girls dutifully clustered together in such a way that the young man was automatically channelled towards Ruth.
‘I reckon it were you he really wanted to dance with, Rosie,’ said Evie as they watched Ruth dancing past them in the arms of the young soldier, who had introduced himself as Bob. ‘There’s no Italian lads here tonight by the looks of it. Shame, ’cos they’re good dancers, and good-lookin’ too.’
Rosie’s smile faded. Evie’s comment had reminded her of the dreadful things that had been happening to the Grenellis. Because of her family’s plans for Bella to marry one of the Podestra boys, Sofia did not allow Bella to go dancing with Rosie, but Bella had always been eager to hear about the fun Rosie had. Dances at the Grafton would be the last thing on Bella’s mind now, Rosie thought, her happiness suddenly shadowed by guilt because she was here and enjoying herself. One of the other young men in army uniform who had been watching them came over and asked her to dance. He was blushing slightly, his brown hair slicked back, and his gaze fixed on a point somewhere past her shoulder. Rosie didn’t have the heart to turn him down. His hand, when he clasped hers, felt hot and slightly sticky, and she could see how self-conscious he felt. His accent wasn’t Liverpudlian, and under her kind questioning he admitted that he had only recently joined up and that he was feeling a bit out of his depth.
‘I didn’t realise that Liverpool was going to be so big,’ he confessed, his honesty and humility making Rosie warm to him.
‘So where are you from, then?’ Rosie asked him.
‘Shropshire,’ he told her. ‘My dad works on a farm down near Ironbridge. I’ve never seen so many houses all together before I came to Liverpool. Nor the sea neither.’
He sounded rather forlorn and Rosie felt quite sorry for him.
‘You must have made friends with some of the other men who joined up at the same time,’ she suggested.
‘Oh, aye, I done that all right,’ he agreed, looking happier. ‘A nicer bunch of blokes you couldn’t hope to meet.’ He gave Rosie a shy grin. ‘After all, it were them as persuaded me to come here tonight. Aye, and it were them an’ all that said I should ask you to dance.’
By the time their dance was over and he had returned Rosie to her table it was surrounded by a jolly crowd of mostly uniformed young men.
Ruth was a flirt, there was no doubt about that, but she was also a big-hearted girl, and Rosie saw how she made sure that even the shyest girl on their table was invited to get up and dance.
‘Here’s Nancy coming over wi’ that cousin of hers wot thinks he’s God’s gift with bells on,’ Evie muttered. ‘Watch out, girls.’
Rosie turned to look at the man coming towards their table. Nancy was at his side and two other young men who were also obviously part of the small group were walking slightly behind him. He was tall, with broad shoulders, his dark hair brilliantined back, and almost film star good looks, apart from the fact that his eyes were too close set, but Rosie knew immediately why Evie had disparaged him. It was all there in those eyes, everything a person needed to know about him, and it made her recoil from him physically. There was not just a coldness but a brutality in his eyes as his darting gaze moved arrogantly over the girls seated at the table. There had been a boy very similar to him at school, Rosie remembered, a bully and a liar who had terrorised the younger children, stealing from them and physically hurting them, until one day the big brother of the small first year he had pushed to the playground, stamping deliberately on his glasses and leaving him crying, had come down to the school and taught him a much-needed lesson.
‘Come on, Lance, you promised you’d dance with me,’ Nancy was wheedling, when they reached the table. She was hanging on to his arm, and looking up at him in a way that was more lover-like than cousinly. It was plain, though, that he did not return her interest because he disentangled himself from her quickly and almost brutally. Rosie could feel him watching her, staring at her, she realised indignantly, as he struck a pose and lit up two cigarettes, withdrawing one from his mouth and then trying to hand it over to her. His action was so deliberately intimate that it made her face burn, not with self-conscious female delight but with anger.
‘No, thank you,’ she told him coolly. ‘I don’t smoke.’
‘But you do dance, right?’
He had put out the cigarettes now, but he hadn’t stopped looking at her and he had moved closer to her as well – so close that she instinctively wanted to put some space between them. But that wasn’t possible with her still seated.
‘What’s happened to them Italian Fascist friends of yours?’ Nancy cut in, taunting Rosie, unhappy the limelight