Ted looked round the packed dance floor of the Hammersmith Palais, the heat generated by the dancers bringing him out in a sweat that beaded his forehead. He shouldn’t be here really. His ma had played holy heck when he’d told her that he was going out, because she’d wanted him to sit in with the kids whilst she went to the pictures with her sister, Ted’s aunt Dottie. He’d stuck to his guns, though. He’d had to after what Agnes had told him. The poor kid had been in a real state over coming here tonight. Left to herself, Ted reckoned that she’d funk it, but from what she’d said about her, that Tilly was another matter and hellbent on defying her ma. In Ted’s experienced view there could be only one outcome to the whole sorry mess and that was an all-out row and a lot of tears. One thing he was decided on, though, was that his Agnes wasn’t going to get the blame, and if that landlady of hers tried to blame her – or worse still, turf her out – then Ted was going to have to set her straight.
His Agnes. Quite how it had happened that keeping an eye out for Agnes because she was so obviously wet behind the ears and incapable of looking after herself had turned into him starting to look forward to their teatime chats together, and then outright missing her when he couldn’t see her, Ted didn’t quite know. But it had happened, and although nothing had been said between them, Ted had decided that when the time was right, when she’d found her feet properly, and if she was willing then, Agnes was going to be his girl.
A little awkwardly he looked over his shoulder. Ted felt a bit iffy about Hammersmith. Not the Palais itself – that had a good enough reputation, and the management were certainly keen on checking who they let in. They’d given him the once-over with a bit of a sharp eye. No, it was the reputation that Hammersmith itself had that had made him feel wary. The East End of the west end of the city, some called it. Ted didn’t know about that but he did know that to those who knew the city, who really knew it and had grown up knowing it at street level, Hammersmith was a hotbed of radical talkers, always wanting to stir up trouble. They’d had the IRA trying to bomb the bridge earlier in the year, and the only reason they hadn’t got away with it was because someone had seen the bomb and chucked it into the river. Then there was the river itself, or rather the pathway along it. Got a real reputation, that had, for all sorts of goings-on and was a favourite haunt for the cheapest types of prostitutes. The Palais itself, though, was removed from all of that. People came from all over the city to dance there. It had one of the best in-house orchestras in the country – the famous Joe Loss Orchestra.
Ted had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that he didn’t stick out like a sore thumb when he got here. He’d been down to the public baths after work and had a really good soak, and then he’d gone home and dressed in his Sunday shirt and the tie that matched his one and only suit – his suit, like his tie, brown with a bit of a stripe in it. He’d Brylcreemed down his mousy hair and polished his shoes until he could see his face in them.
It took him an hour to crisscross the whole of the interior of the Palais, and then, and only then, when he had decided to his own satisfaction that Agnes wasn’t there, did he make his way to the exit.
If she wasn’t here then that meant that either Tilly had lost her nerve and changed her mind or something had gone wrong, by which Ted meant that Tilly’s ma had rumbled Tilly’s plot to deceive her.
Standing on the pavement outside the Palais, Ted reflected on what to do. There was no point in him going home. His ma had missed her weekly trip to the pictures now, and besides, if Tilly and Agnes were in trouble then he wanted to know about it, for Agnes’s sake. Removing his flat cap from the pocket of the overcoat he had retrieved from the cloakroom, turning up his collar and pulling on his cap, Ted then shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders against the dank fog-laden November air, as he set out for the underground.
Chapter Thirteen
Olive was alone in the kitchen when she heard the knock on the front door, Sally having gone out to meet her friends, and Tilly and Agnes still upstairs and very quiet.
Blowing her nose on the handkerchief she retrieved from her sleeve, Olive guessed that her visitor would be Nancy, who sometimes came round on Saturday evening for a chat whilst her husband went down to the pub on the next street. The last thing she wanted was to have Nancy, who was such a gossip, guessing that something was wrong and asking her a lot of questions.
Only it wasn’t Nancy she could see standing outside her front door, when she switched off the hall light to keep the blackout, and then opened the door. It was a man.
Unable to make out his face in the darkness, Olive was wary about opening the door any wider, but whilst she hesitated a slightly nervous and young male voice told her, ‘I’ve come to see if Agnes is all right. She was supposed to be going to the Hammersmith Palais. Agnes and me work together,’ he ploughed on desperately into the silence.
Immediately Olive guessed, ‘You must be Ted then?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Ted was relieved to get a response.
‘And Agnes told you, did she, that you would find her at the Palais tonight?’ Olive’s voice hardened.
‘Oh, no, nothing like that,’ Ted denied. ‘Agnes isn’t the sort to go saying anything like that.’
Softened by this response, Olive opened the door properly. ‘You’d better come in.’
Taking off his cap, Ted stepped into the hall, glad of its warmth. Olive closed the front door and then switched on the light.
‘Agnes is all right, isn’t she? Only, she was a bit upset when she was telling me about what . . .’
‘About what my daughter was planning to do,’ Olive finished for him as she led the way to the kitchen.
‘Well, I didn’t want to say nothing about that,’ Ted told her, ‘’cos it’s none of my business, but I wouldn’t want to think of Agnes getting into trouble, and there not being anyone to stick up for her.’
‘Agnes is upstairs with my daughter,’ Olive told him, going automatically to fill the kettle and then light the gas beneath it, waving Ted into a chair as she did so.
He looked a decent enough sort, and Sergeant Dawson had spoken well of him. Olive liked the fact that he was concerned about Agnes.
‘I found out what Tilly was planning and I refused to let them go. I’m sorry if you are disappointed at not being able to see Agnes there,’ Olive told Ted as she made the tea.
‘No. I mean, I only went there ’cos I was a bit worried about her. I told her it was a daft idea and that they were bound to get found out,’ Ted announced with male scorn for an ill-thought-out female plan. ‘Told her too she should say summat to you about it and get it knocked on the head, but she said she couldn’t on account of her and your Tilly being friends. Ta,’ he added gratefully when Olive poured him a mug of tea and handed it to him.
Wrapping his cold hands round the mug, he told Olive, ‘Once I’d seen that they weren’t at the Palais I remembered how Agnes had said that she was feared that you might send her packing, her being only a lodger here, so I thought I’d come round just to make sure that you knew what was what.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that Agnes isn’t the sort of girl to break the rules, Ted,’ Olive assured him, touched by his obviously genuine concern for her lodger. ‘I’ve made my feelings about what she’s done very plain to Tilly and there’s no doubt in my mind about where the blame lies.’
‘Well, I dare say it’s natural that she wants to go, it being the best place in London for dancing and everyone going there. I was a bit iffy about it meself until I got inside, Hammersmith being what it is, but the management there know what’s what and there wasn’t any trouble going on inside, that I could see.’
‘That’s very reassuring to know, Ted,’ Olive thanked him gravely, hiding a small smile. Sergeant Dawson had said that Ted helped to look after his younger siblings and she could see that sense of responsibility in him when he talked about the Palais.
Ted