But she isn’t listening. She’s distracted by Tommy Mullins, who has just arrived and is standing across the other side of the dance floor. Clover makes a big show of taking her lipstick from her purse and applies it as seductively as she can as he starts to make his way over. Tommy is a weasel of a man. I don’t care for him at all.
‘I wish you wouldn’t encourage him, Clover,’ I whisper, placing my hand protectively on hers. ‘Don’t dance with him. Not today. Wait for somebody else. Somebody better.’
She laughs. ‘You and your better. Somebody better. Somewhere better. There might not be anything better. This might be as good as it gets. Beggars can’t be choosers, Miss Dolly Daydream with your head in the clouds. I’m not being left on the shelf like a forgotten bloody Christmas decoration.’ She stands up as Tommy reaches our table. ‘One dance,’ she whispers, ‘then I’m all yours. Promise.’
As I watch them walk to the dance floor, giggling like teenagers, I fold the piece of paper and put it back into my purse. Clover would only tell me to forget about it anyway. And she’d be right. I probably should.
I pick up a limp ham paste sandwich as Clover waves over to me. I wave back and pour the tea. It is as weak as my smile.
When the afternoon session ends, we head back up west, to Woolworth’s, where Clover insists on trying on the make-up. We rouge our cheeks and pat pancake and powder over our noses and squirt Yardley perfume onto our wrists until we feel sick with the smell of them all and go to admire the button counter. After Woolworth’s, we go to the picture palace, buy two singles and a packet of humbugs, and huddle together in our seats as the picture starts. There are the usual public-service announcements followed by the Pathé newsreel.
‘I met a man last week who spoke like that,’ I whisper. ‘Ever so handsome.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing.’
‘Then why did you mention him?’
‘I don’t really know!’
We burst out laughing, earning a sharp shush from a sour-faced woman behind us. We slide down into our seats as the silent movie starts. We are shushed three more times as we comment on the picture and unwrap our humbugs, but this only makes us giggle even more.
When the picture ends and the houselights go up, we make our way outside, where London has become a blaze of lights and colour. The restaurants are buzzing. Strains of jazz and ragtime drift through open doors as lines of motor cabs wait outside the theatres to take the excited audiences home or on to supper parties. Smartly dressed pageboys shout and whistle to hail passing motor cabs outside the hotels. A flower seller walks by, hawking her posies. Clover and I link arms and stroll together, arm in arm, as far as the corner of Wellington Street, where Clover hops onto her omnibus.
‘See you next week, then,’ I say, kissing her on the cheek.
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
I feel guilty for the spring in my step as I walk back towards the Strand. Truth is, I want to run. I want to race along the pavement as fast as an express train, away from the soldiers who beg outside the theatres and remind me of war, away from my memories of Mawdesley and everything I left behind there. I think about the notice from The Stage
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