The Grafton Girls. Annie Groves

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      The girls turned to look at the table in question, where upwards of a couple of dozen GIs were crowded together, either seated or standing.

      ‘Give him a bit of a smile, Ruthie,’ Jess urged her.

      Tongue-tied and blushing, Ruthie could only shake her head.

      ‘Well, he’s coming over anyway,’ Jess laughed.

      ‘And he’s not on his own. He’s bringing another chap with him as well,’ Lucy announced.

      Ruthie could only make a small breathless sound when she realised that Jess was right, and the earnest-looking young GI in front of her, with his clean scrubbed face and tow-coloured hair was actually asking her to dance.

      ‘Of course she’ll dance wi’ you. She’s just a bit shy, that’s all,’ Jess answered for her before turning to smile warmly at his companion.

      ‘If you’d be kind enough to do me the honour, ma’am…?’ he asked Jess hesitantly.

      Jess smiled at him with almost maternal approval. His manners were as meltingly flattering as the look in his eyes.

      ‘I certainly will,’ she told him.

      Diane watched as one by one the other girls were asked up to dance. One of the men looked as though he was about to ask her, but Jess told him pleasantly, ‘She isn’t feeling very well – no offence.’

      This was her chance to slip away unnoticed, Diane decided, if only she could find Myra to tell her that she was leaving. Where on earth was she?

      ‘What do you mean, no?’

      Myra looked up into Nick’s face. When he had suggested they slip outside ‘for a bit of fresh air’ she had nodded her head, letting him take her down a quiet side street, where, in its shadows, he had placed his hands on her arms and pushed her back against the wall. Now those hands were resting on the wall either side of her head, virtually imprisoning her. She smiled inwardly. Nick might think he knew all the moves and had the advantage, but she wasn’t stupid enough to let him have what he wanted out here up against a wall, like some floozie. Oh, no, all he was going to get tonight was a little taste of what he was after. Just enough to keep him eager for more, Myra decided smugly.

      ‘I’d better go back. My friend is going to wonder where I am.’

      ‘Let her wonder,’ Nick told her as he moved closer to her and bent his head towards hers.

      Quick as a flash Myra ducked under his arm and moved away from him.

      ‘What the…?’ he began angrily.

      ‘Like I said, I’d better go back. After all, we only came out for a breath of fresh air, didn’t we?’

      ‘What is this?’ Nick demanded roughly, trying to grab hold of her arm. ‘Don’t you go playing games with me, honey. You were coming on to me like there was no tomorrow.’

      ‘Coming on to you? Is that what you thought?’ His anger had her body tensing warily but Myra wasn’t going to let him see that. ‘No such thing,’ she told him, shaking her head. ‘I was just being friendly, that’s all.’

      ‘Like you were being friendly to that sucker who gave you the stockings,’ Nick challenged her.

      Myra drew in her breath. This wasn’t the way she had expected things to go. She had expected her refusal to encourage Nick to press her for a proper date, not make him angry.

      ‘Like I said, I was just being friendly,’ she insisted. ‘It’s our duty to welcome our allies.’ Conveniently she was choosing to forget just how she had come by her stockings. They didn’t matter now, nor the man who had given them to her, not now that she had met Nick. But he mustn’t be allowed to think she was some sort of pushover. Men like Nick didn’t respect women they thought would give them everything they wanted the first time they asked. That was something she knew instinctively.

      ‘I’m going in,’ she told him.

      She started to walk away from him, knowing he would catch up with her and prepared for him when he did, softening in his hold as he grabbed hold of her and swung her round to face him.

      ‘Just a kiss,’ he said.

      ‘No,’ Myra refused. ‘It’s too soon. I don’t give my kisses out so freely.’ She could see a look in his eyes that was a mix of resentment and grudging respect.

      ‘Tell that to all the guys, do you?’ he demanded.

      ‘Yes I do,’ Myra agreed tartly. She knew that she wanted to see him again. A quick glance at his companions had told her what she had already guessed – that he was very much their leader -and Myra had already decided that the rightful place in the new life she dreamed of for herself was as the wife of just such a man, rather than as the wife of one of those he led. But she knew too much about men to go openly chasing after him, no matter how tempted she was to do so, to make sure that no other girl got her hooks into him.

      Ruthie could hardly believe what was happening and that she was here dancing with an American. An American, what was more, who had lost no time in telling her earnestly that he had been watching her all evening and that he thought she was ‘real cute’.

      ‘I’d like to walk you home,’ he began awkwardly, ‘but, see, we’ve been told not to do that.’

      ‘Oh, no, you couldn’t anyway,’ Ruthie told him, both horrified and excited by the suggestion.

      ‘Well, will you let me see you again then? I mean here, perhaps…or I could come and call on your folks…introduce myself to them…’

      Ruthie stared at him whilst her heart turned over inside her chest.

      ‘What I mean is that, well, I can see you’re not the sort of girl…that is…’

      ‘Hey, buddy,’ another GI called out in a loud voice. ‘Quit whispering sweet nothings in her ear and get your ass over here. Sarge says we’ve got to leave in five. And you can go and tell Walter over there,’ he jerked his head in the direction of Jess and her partner, ‘the same.’

      ‘Oh, poor you,’ Jess was saying sympathetically to the young GI who had asked her to dance. ‘You must miss her so very much.’ He had spent virtually the whole time they had been dancing together telling her about his ‘girl back home’ and how miserable he was about the fact that he hadn’t had the courage to propose to her before ‘shipping out’.

      ‘You can write to her, though,’ Jess tried to comfort him.

      ‘Yeah, I know that, but it ain’t exactly the same. A guy can’t tell a girl he loves her nearly so well when she ain’t there for him to hold. Would you like to see her photo?’ he asked Jess eagerly.

      Nodding, Jess peered dutifully at the photograph of the pretty but very young-looking brunette.

      ‘Her folks kinda hinted to me that they thought we was too young to get serious.’ Walter was telling her, when Jess saw Ruthie hurrying over with her partner.

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