Fallen Skies. Philippa Gregory

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СКАЧАТЬ 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, as if she were trying to see something on the horizon, or beyond it. It was not a popular song from the war, nor one that recalled the dead – the mugs who had gained nothing. Lily never sang war songs. But no-one looking at her and listening to her pure poignant voice did not think of those others who had left England six years ago, with faces as hopeful and as untroubled as hers, who would never come home again.

      When the last note held, rang and fell silent the room was very quiet, as if people were sick of dancing and pretending that everything was well now, in this new world that was being made without the young men, in this new world of survivors pretending that the lost young men had never been. Then one of the plump profiteers clapped his hands and raised a full glass of French champagne and cried: ‘Hurrah for pretty Lily!’ and ‘Sing us something jolly, girl!’ then everyone applauded and called for another song and shouted for the waiter and another bottle.

      Lily shook her head with a little smile and stepped down from the stage. Stephen led her back to their table. A bottle of champagne in a silver bucket of ice stood waiting.

      ‘They sent it,’ Mrs Pears said, nodding towards the next-door table. ‘There’s no need to thank them, Lily, you just bow and smile.’

      Lily looked over obediently, bowed her head as her mother had told her and smiled demurely.

      ‘By jove, you’re a star!’ Stephen exclaimed.

      Lily beamed at him. ‘I hope so!’ Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling. ‘I really hope so!’

      The waiter brought the round flat glasses for champagne and filled one for each of them. Lily raised her glass to the neighbouring table and dimpled over the top of it.

      ‘That’ll do,’ her mother said.

      Stephen grinned at Mrs Pears. ‘I see you keep Lily in order!’

      She nodded. ‘I was a singer on the halls before I met Mr Pears. I learned a thing or two then.’

      ‘Ma goes with me everywhere,’ Lily said serenely.

      ‘Nearly time to go home,’ Mrs Pears said. ‘Lily’s got a matinée tomorrow. She needs her sleep.’

      ‘Of course!’ Stephen nodded to the waiter for the bill. The two women stood up and drifted across the dance floor to fetch their wraps from the cloakroom while Stephen paid.

      He waited for them outside, on the shallow white steps under the big glass awning. Coventry drew up in the big grey Argyll motor car, got out, walked around to open the back door and stood, holding it wide. Stephen and Coventry looked at each other, a long level look without speaking while Stephen lit a cigarette and drew in the first deep draw of fresh smoke. Then the doorman opened the double doors and the women came out, muffled against the cool of the May evening. The men broke from their silent communion and stepped forward. Stephen licked his fingers and carefully pinched out the lighted ember of his cigarette, and raised his hand to tuck it behind his ear. Coventry shot a quick warning glance at him, saying nothing. Stephen exclaimed at himself, flushed, and dropped the cigarette into one of the stone pots that flanked the steps.

      He helped Lily and her mother into the luxurious grey-upholstered seats of the car and got in after them. Coventry drove slowly to the Highland Road corner shop and parked at the kerb. Mrs Pears went into the dark interior of the shop with a word of thanks and goodnight as Lily paused on the doorstep, the glazed shop door ajar behind her. Stephen thought Lily was herself a little commodity, a fresh piece of provender, something he might buy from under the counter, a black-market luxury, a pre-war treat. Something he could buy and gobble up, every delicious little scrap.

      ‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ Lily said, like a polite child.

      ‘Come out tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Coventry can drive us along the seafront.’

      ‘Can’t. I’ve got a matinée.’

      ‘The next day then, Sunday?’

      ‘If Ma says I can.’

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