‘No, I don’t. But I’d like something better than I’ve seen so far.’
They went off to the Ladies. Hazel was an age fiddling with her hair, and when they got back the band had already started again. There was no sign of the two young men.
Pearl began to feel annoyed. Chris was Hazel’s headache, but she didn’t appreciate being left flat by a man called McCrea who had gone off for a drink with an apologetic grin and not even invited her to go with him. And this after all his pestering for a date.
The place where you get coffee and snacks is off the side of the hall, through an arch, with a white painted fretwork fencing that you can sit beside with your sandwiches or lemonade and watch the dancing; or you can when there aren’t too many people standing in the way. The girls had to go round the floor from the Ladies and past this part to get back to where they had been before, and Pearl had noticed two men eyeing them on the way out. Now they eyed them on the way back. Obviously Hazel hadn’t noticed this because when the men came across and asked them to dance she looked quite startled and rather haughty and said, no thank you, I’m sure.
The one who had asked Pearl certainly wasn’t her type, and her impulse was to say the same; but just then Chris and Ned came in at the door and Ned’s face was even redder than usual and you could see he had been putting away just as much as he could in a short time. So she got up and said, thank you, and started to dance with this other man.
Pearl sometimes thought she would have hated to live in the days when people’s idea of dancing was to clutch each other close together and stride about the floor. For one thing it must have been awful to fit your steps in if you were strangers; for another you more or less had to talk, and she was no talker with people she didn’t know; for a third you were too close to look at each other properly. It was a sort of dancing that seemed terribly suggestive to her.
At least he was young, this man who had asked her, early twenties, but small for a man – at least four inches shorter than she was – with a mop of fine dark hair growing luxuriantly and falling like a cock’s comb, and this seemed to help his height. Under it he was awfully good-looking in a rather fierce way. He had very dark eyes, deep set, a fine but sallow skin, a long straight nose, a wolfish, mischievous smile. One eyebrow was divided by a thin scar. Silk shirt, black bootlace tie, light-weight belted jacket, tight check trousers, suede boots. Everything of the finest quality. And he could dance. Not as good as a professional, but he put such life into it. You could hardly see his feet.
When it was over he just said: ‘Thanks,’ and looked at nothing in particular, and Pearl was going to turn away when he said: ‘Like a drink?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Oh, come on. It’s thirsty work.’
The two young men had stood by the door till the end of the dance; now they were going across to where Hazel was sitting; they hadn’t seen Pearl yet. She said on impulse: ‘All right,’ and went into the refreshment room with him. He ordered two milk shakes and they found a seat and he sucked his drink and eyed her. In the five years since she was fifteen she had got used to looks, so her skin didn’t prickle any more.
‘Pearl,’ he said at last. ‘Smashing name.’
‘Who told you it?’
‘Your friend called you that. Is it for real?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mine’s Godfrey. God for short.’
She smiled politely at the joke and wondered how soon she could leave him. In spite of his fine clothes he wasn’t much class.
‘My surname’s Vosper,’ he said. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Friedel.’
‘Pearl Friedel. Quite a name. And where d’you live?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Now we’re introduced it’s nice to know.’
‘In Selsdon.’
‘That’s a few miles from here, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, a few. Just out of Croydon actually.’
‘I live in a little village on the Thames,’ he said. ‘Called London. North bank nowadays. Moved up in the world, see.’
She said no more but finished her drink. She was not anybody’s easy pick-up and she didn’t want him to have ideas of that sort. As the band began again she could see Ned peering across the floor.
‘Dance this?’ said Godfrey.
‘Thanks, but I have a partner.’
‘That silly gett that kept you waiting? I tell you honest, if it was me in his place I’d never dare. I’d think I was on too good a pitch.’
Expressed more elegantly, this would have been rather along her line of thinking about Ned, so she danced with him again. Even his dancing was a bit common; one couldn’t say how, it just was. Halfway through, Geoff Houseman took the music on his own, and she stopped dancing in the centre of the floor and listened. Godfrey said: ‘What’s up? What’s wrong?’
When it was over she began to dance again, feeling good in the way only a clarinet could make her feel good.
‘Is he a boy friend of yours?’
‘Who?’
‘The guy with the trumpet.’
‘No, I’ve never spoken to him.’
‘Is that other one your boy friend – that one sneering at us over there?’
‘I came with him.’
‘He thinks he owns you.’
By the time they finished they had moved round and were on the far side from Ned. Godfrey held her hand. He had awfully hard hands, hard and bony.
‘You got a regular boy friend?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Not to worry. I expect you’ve got so many queuing up. It’s the pie-faced ones like your girl friend over there who’ve got to snatch at any mug that’s mug enough.’
‘I don’t think she’s pie-faced.’
‘Well, what does she paint her eyebrows up there for? Those bare bumps look as if she’s got tumours.’
‘Nobody’s asking you to like her if you don’t want to,’ Pearl said, amused in spite of herself.
‘Nobody’s asking me to like you, but I can’t help it. Once in a lifetime you get struck that way.’
She got her hand back as Ned came across. One thing about Ned, he was tall, a good six feet. That was one of Pearl’s problems, not to look downwards at a man.
‘How about coming back and joining us again,’ he said sullenly, and without so much as looking at Godfrey. ‘I reckon it’s about time, isn’t it?’
‘Excuse me, I don’t think you’ve met, Pearl said. ‘Mr Ned McCrea, Mr Godfrey Vosper.’
They looked at each other, they never said a word.
‘Well?’ Ned said to her.
‘Tell Hazel I’ll be over in a few minutes.’
‘And what about me?’
‘What about you?’ Pearl said, getting angry and breathless for once in her life.
‘I don’t know if you happen to have forgotten but you came with me.’
‘I think you forgot first!’
‘Look, Pearl—’
‘Look, Jack,’ said Godfrey, ‘ wrap it up. The lady says she’ll come back when she feels like it. O.K., she’ll come back when she feels like it and not before. Now fade.’
Ned turned on him, towering over him. ‘I’ll thank you to keep out of this! When I bring a girl to a dance I don’t expect her to go off with some little twerp who hasn’t even been able to find a girl of his own—’
‘Don’t press your luck,’ said Godfrey looking at him. ‘Run away and play with your toys before you get trod on. You’ve heard what she says! Now – beat it!’
Pearl had only seen a fight once in a dance hall and that was in Streatham; there had been a sudden scuffle, a couple of angry blows, and almost while the men were squaring up again three attendants had appeared as if from nowhere and hustled them – almost thrown them out. It had been done with immense swiftness. She did not want that to happen here. Funny how the heart thumps, quite different from just beating fast when you’re dancing. But thank God just then the band started up again and she
began to move slowly in rhythm, and she happened to be opposite Godfrey, so he joined in and Ned was left glowering. After a few seconds when she was afraid he might take Godfrey by the scruff he turned on his heel and stalked off.
So that way the choice was made. She’d never taken up with anybody in this way before. Obviously Ned was in such a flaming temper that nothing but the completest apology would satisfy; and this he was certainly not going to get.
They danced most dances from then on, she and Godfrey. She was taken with his looks, a sort of dark dynamism that made up for his smallness. It was fun to kick over the traces a bit. About eleven Hazel came across and said she had a headache and they were all going. Unfortunately she said it as if she had been bitterly insulted as well as Ned, and this put Pearl out of step.
‘Stay a bit longer,’ said Godfrey to her. ‘We’re just getting in the slot. I’ve got my car outside. I can buzz you home in no time.’
‘Please yourself entirely, I’m sure, Pearl,’ said Hazel. ‘But don’t forget you’re supposed to be in by twelve-thirty.’
That settled it. ‘Thank you. I can find my own way home.’
‘Definitely,’ said Godfrey. ‘I’ll see her safe in, I promise you. Not to worry. She’ll be there.’
You could tell by the way she put her heels down as she walked away that Hazel was annoyed. Pearl hoped it wouldn’t start a feud that would last till their skiing holiday.
‘Not to worry, Oyster,’ said this odd dark small dynamic good-looking wicked-looking man. ‘Little God’ll look after you.’
They stayed through until the Queen, which was at midnight, and then with everybody streaming for the exit Pearl grabbed her coat and Godfrey was waiting for her and they went out to the car park.
This was the awkward part, this being taken home, because different men expected different things, and sometimes men who pick girls up expect a lot; Ned of course would have wanted to paw her about in the back of Chris’s car on the way home, and they would almost certainly have stopped for ten minutes somewhere on the way, but ten minutes would have been all. Actually Pearl was not wild about that sort of thing, although sometimes it was better than others. But usually it simply meant that one’s frock got crumpled and soiled and one often had a bit of a struggle not to let things go too far. It was different, Pearl felt, for those girls who right from the start wanted all they could get; she wasn’t blaming them; only everyone wasn’t made to a pattern and it was hard sometimes to get that point over. On the whole she found it better not to let men make too much progress, because the further they got before you stopped them the more offended they were. Anyway her view was that if she ever needed to start taking the Pill it wasn’t going to be because of a fumbling struggle in the back of a car.
Ned would have known this, and so would Chris. Little Godfrey was the unknown.
Well, you never could tell what the next surprise was going to be, because they picked their way among the cars until Godfrey stopped at a great green monster all shiny and polished and chromium, and he unlocked the doors and said: ‘Hop in the hansom cab. Right. In we get. Tuck in your frills,’ and then he went round to his door. Unbelieving she sank back into a seat like a luxury armchair, and shaded discreet light showed up a glamorous interior with arm-rests and head-rests and a most peculiar central dashboard like the console of an organ; the whole thing could have been the cockpit of a luxury aeroplane.
So he put in his key and the engine whispered and they were suddenly in effortless motion, weaving among the others like a light craft in spite of their size, pushing and edging a way to the front of the queue; then they were out in the road and with sudden tremendous acceleration surged past a line of newly started crawling cars with their exhausts smoking, came to traffic lights and over-shot them as the cross traffic was just finishing. Horns blew, but they were left far behind, and there was just the rushing of air and a faint whispering murmur of power. Pearl felt a sense of pleasure, of exhilaration.
She said: ‘Super car.’
‘Yes. Cost over five and a half thousand. Not a bad bus. It’ll do 140. Six and a quarter litre engine. Pass anything on the road.’
‘Like now.’
‘Like now. You got to have some kick out of motoring, else you might just as well own an old Morris 1000.’
‘That’s what Chris drives!’
‘Who’s Chris?’
‘The other boy. Hazel’s fiancé.’
He laughed. ‘See it. And the face that came with you, the one as thinks he owns you?’
‘Nobody owns me.’
‘That’s right. What does he do?’
‘He’s a radio mechanic.’
‘And drives a little van during the day, eh? Knock, knock, excuse me, Mrs Smith, I’ve come to look at your telly.’
‘It’s honest work.’
‘What isn’t these days?’
She studied his face in the light of a passing car.
‘You must be very rich to have a car like this.’
‘Rich? No, I make do, see. But I’m going to be in the real money soon.’
‘What do you do?’
‘What would you say I did?’
She stared again, this time at his expensive clothes; then she glanced out. ‘Are we on the right road?’
‘No, but it’s easier this way. Should join the Brighton road in a minute, no bull. Cigarette?’
‘Thanks.’
He took one out of the cubby hole and lit it with the cigar lighter in the car. She said: ‘Aren’t you having one?’
‘Don’t smoke. You haven’t guessed yet.’
‘You run a garage.’
‘Ha, ha, clever. No. Try again.’
She said: ‘These are like ladies’ cigarettes. Small and—’
‘That’s right. I keep ’em for ladies.’
They turned out onto a bigger road, swung left, snorted past four cars following two all-night lorries, began to climb a snakey hill.
‘You work for the films.’
‘Wish I did. Mine isn’t easy mun. No, I box.’
‘Box?’
‘Box. That’s why it’s dead lucky for your flabby friend he didn’t start anything.’
Of course as soon as he said it, it seemed the only thing he could have been, but she would never have guessed because of his size.
‘Like to drive?’ he suggested.
‘Oh, heavens, no thanks!’
‘It’s easy on these big jobs. No gears. As much guts as a jet. Watch me put my foot down.’
They surged to the top of the hill, lights staring into the sky, swooped down the other side as if they were flying. There was just the rush of the dark countryside and the snort of the wind.
She said: ‘What are you – middle-weight or what?’
‘You joking?’
‘No. I just don’t know about things like that.’
‘Feather-weight, me. That’s nine stone and under. That’s why they call me Little God. You’ve never seen nothing faster than me. I’m going to the top. You watch me.’
‘You’ll be going to hospital if you drive like this.’
‘Don’t you like it? It turns me on. What’s life about if it’s not taking risks?’
All the same he slowed down, and it was just as well, as they came to a roundabout and swivelled round it with a lurch of the great car. (She was relieved to recognize the road: they were heading in the right direction now.) It all fitted in: his wealth in one so young, the hardness of his hands and arms, the darting way he danced. It was lucky Ned hadn’t hit him. She warmed to Godfrey.
‘What do you do?’ he asked.
‘Oh, not very up-in-the-world. I’m a perfumery adviser at a big London shop.’ She usually said this: it sounded better than ‘selling scent’.
‘You live at home, eh?’
‘Yes. I travel up every day.’
‘Where d’you live?’
‘12, Sevenoaks Avenue. You turn off to the right in a minute.’
&nbs
p; ‘Like to see me box sometime?’
‘What? Oh, well, I never have—’
‘Come on Wednesday. Next Wednesday, I’m meeting a fat little Mick from Liverpool called Ed Hertz.’
‘I can’t Wednesday. I’m going on holiday on Friday night.’
‘That don’t make sense. What’s wrong with Wednesday?’
‘Well, you know what it’s like: I’ve things to do, pack, get clothes ready – You turn here!’
When he’d turned and she had given him the next direction she thought: there’s really no reason why I shouldn’t. He’s not my type, he’s common, he talks badly, he’s too sure of himself. Champ’s girl friend. Well, really. It doesn’t suit me. The very opposite. People say I’m too quiet, too reserved, too choosey for twenty. Perhaps I am.
‘Where now?’
‘Straight on, and it’s the first on the left. Number 12 is this end on the left-hand side.’
He did as he was told and they stopped outside the house among the other parked cars, and he switched off the engine and put on a low interior light that just showed things dimly, and they looked out at the small but respectable semi-detached.
‘Well, thanks for the dance,’ he said. ‘How about Wednesday, Oyster? I’ll come for you. Bring you back. All luxe. No effort. I’m on early so we needn’t stay to the end if you find it a drag.’
‘Where is it?’ she said. ‘The boxing, I mean.’
‘Walworth. No distance. No problem. I’ll pick you up here 7.30 in the old bus. Eh?’
‘I really mustn’t, Godfrey.’
‘Call me God.’
‘I really mustn’t come. I have so much to do—’
‘Which you can do Thursday just the same …’
There were no lights in the house. She would get a row from Dad if he heard of all this.
‘That’s fixed then,’ said Godfrey, and leaned across and kissed her on a corner of the mouth. ‘Little Oyster. Thanks again.’
‘Thank you for bringing me home,’ she said, surprised and more than a trifle impressed that this apparently was all he expected.
‘Think nothing of it. See you Wednesday. Be my guest. Seven-thirty here?’
‘All right,’ she said.
Then she stood on the pavement and listened to the low pitched well-bred bobble of the exhaust as the car accelerated away.