Thursday’s Child. Helen Forrester

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      ‘Oh,’ said Bessie, and seized the telephone. Her conversation was brief and frigid. The commissionaire never again left his post without being relieved by his colleague. After Bessie had dealt with him, I think he would have stuck there like the guard at the gate of Pompeii, even to being engulfed by boiling lava.

      Bessie turned back to me.

      ‘You always struck me as someone whose head was well screwed on, and I badly need helpers like that. I noticed at the theatre that you are still single. Any ideas of matrimony?’

      ‘No,’ I said, my throat tight.

      Bessie looked at my plainly combed, long hair, my tailored suit and my far too sensible, flat-heeled shoes: ‘No, I suppose not,’ she said in a specially kind tone of voice.

      I felt angry. I am not beautiful and my work demanded that I should dress very plainly, but Barney, James and Jackie had loved me, so I could not be entirely lacking in charm. Still, the dancing class promised to be a new experience, so I asked her to explain exactly what was entailed by acting as a partner.

      Bessie explained about times and lessons, and I agreed to come the following evening. Then a little silence came between us.

      Hesitatingly, I asked if she had ever heard what happened to Lieutenant Forbes.

      She gave a fluttering sigh: ‘No,’ she said. ‘He was presumed killed.’

      ‘I’m sorry, Bessie.’

      She sighed again and fiddled with the fountain pen on her desk: ‘It’s quite all right, deah,’ she said, ‘I was lucky to have him for as long as I did.’

      I saw that it was time to go and I rose. She got up and walked with me downstairs and as far as the swing doors, which the commissionaire opened. She told him that I would be coming on the following day and that I was to be brought straight up to her. Then she shook my hand.

      ‘You will enjoy it here – meet some new people – have some fun,’ she said.

      I murmured that the nicest thing was seeing her again – and I meant it.

      When I got home, Father was sitting by the fire reading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. He rose and kissed me. Our house always smells of polish and flowers, and the outside door is invariably open and welcoming; his warm greeting and the habit he has of pushing forward the most comfortable chair for you, make the shyest visitor feel that his arrival is a pleasure. He has long since lived down the fact that he is ‘in the Income Tax’, and everybody knows him as Mr Delaney who has such a lovely show of daffodils.

      ‘Where’s Mother?’ I asked, taking off my dark jacket and eyeing it disgustedly.

      ‘She’s in the kitchen, making chili con carne for your supper.’

      ‘How good she is,’ I said. I love hot dishes, but as no one else in the family liked them, I did not eat them often, so I kissed Father on his bald patch and wandered hopefully kitchenwards.

      The house may be Victorian, but the kitchen is not. Father had the old kitchen ripped out, just before the war began, and Mother worked in an atmosphere reminiscent of the advertisements in American magazines.

      Mother was really cooking chili con carne.

      ‘The butcher gave me some extra meat,’ she explained, ‘and I’ve had the beans for years.’

      I sniffed appreciatively and sat on the primrose-coloured table, while I told her about the McShane Club. I also told her ruefully about Bessie’s tone of voice when marriage was mentioned.

      Mother looked at me shrewdly from the corners of her eyes. She said: ‘The war lasted too long. Now it is finished, it is time to wear pretty clothes again. You should buy a “new look” dress.’

      ‘Good heavens, Mother, they are too ultra-fashionable. I’ve never seen anyone in Wetherport wearing one yet.’

      ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Mother, ‘they are in the shops – I’ve seen them – and you have just the figure for one. You’ve plenty of money – you saved all through the war for –’ she stopped.

      ‘For my marriage,’ I finished off.

      ‘Yes, dear,’ said Mother sadly.

      It was true. I had three hundred pounds in the bank. I sighed; but when on the following day I had finished a round of visits to foster-parents, I slipped into a dress shop and spent an hour buying a dress and coat, followed by another hour in hat and shoe shops. I wondered if I would ever have the courage to wear my purchases, but it did not take much bullying from Mother to make me put them all on, and, when I arrived at the club, Bessie was full of admiration for my appearance. She ushered me into the room in which the dancing class was being held, with the advice that many of the pupils were Muslims, who had not mixed much with women before, and that I should be careful.

      Fifteen male pairs of eyes took in every detail of me. Seven female pairs of eyes smiled with relief.

      ‘Welcome to the battleground,’ said one young lady.

      ‘How do you do,’ said the teacher. ‘Will you kindly partner Mr Popolopogas. We shall just go over the basic steps of the waltz again.’

      We went over them – Mr Popolopogas went over my feet as well. He was a willow of a man, topped with outsize horn-rimmed spectacles, and upon inquiry he informed me in slow, correct English that he was a Greek and was studying medicine.

      I graduated from Mr Popolopogas to Mr Ramid Ali, Egyptian cotton merchant’s son, sent to Lancashire to see our methods of spinning. Then I did a quickstep with an officer in the French Air Force, who was about a foot shorter than me. Finally, the dancing teacher picked out one or two advanced pupils to teach them another step of the tango. I was asked to partner a Negro. Although many Negroes lived in the district in which I worked and I knew some of them quite well, I had never been touched by a Negro, and I was nervous – not nervous because he was as black as I was white, but because I knew the shy reserve of black people and I wanted him to feel that I liked dancing with him.

      We did the exercise while he held me very stiffly and at a distance, but to dance a good tango the partners must be close and the woman must be held snugly against the man. I, therefore, stopped dancing and explained the proper stance. He immediately held me correctly and it was obvious that he knew the proper hold, but had been too afraid of me to use it. I could feel him trembling slightly against me as we moved off again to the throbbing notes of ‘Jealousy’. We were to dance the whole record through, and after a minute I realised that the man guiding me was far more expert than I was.

      I concentrated on the steps and followed carefully. He did not dance with the polite diffidence of an Englishman, but with the full ardour that the South American rhythm demanded. My heart beat faster and I began to enjoy myself. Soon there was nothing in the world except the piercing wail of violins backed by the steady beat of drums, and a compelling body which gently but insistently persuaded me into figures I had never danced before. I did not even notice the slight gap between two records. A wild, sensuous happiness enveloped me. The dark cheek above me rested very close to mine. A separate me appreciated the beauty of the line from chin to ear, finely chiselled out of ebony. Sweat was pouring from him but he smelled clean and sweet, and he danced as nature intended us to dance, to the complete relaxation of mind and body.

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