British ideas amongst foreign visitors to Britain.
The City Council, faced with all the difficulties inherent in ruling a port full of foreigners of every nationality, had supported the idea, and the result was a suite of pleasantly furnished rooms in the middle of the city, where foreign visitors and students could entertain their friends and also make friends with English people. Dances were held; English was taught; a canteen dispensed English food – and confirmed the opinion of its customers, that the British were the world’s worst cooks; a library held an assortment of donated books ranging from classics to the latest Ernest Hemingway and the newest magazines; and the lounge into which I walked that autumn evening seemed to contain a representative from every country in the world – and they were nearly all men.
Shyness swept over me and I hesitated, while the doors behind me made a steady plopping sound as they swung back and forth. Four men in American-cut suits stood near me. They were coffee-skinned, and I could feel their eyes looking me over. Their gaze was not insolent and they seemed to approve of me, for they sighed softly as I passed. Two Negroes sitting near bowed their heads self-consciously over a magazine as my skirt brushed the small table in front of them. They made me feel thoroughly womanly, and I enjoyed the change from being Miss Margaret Delaney, the lady from the Welfare.
A white-haired lady was sitting by one of the two fires that blazed in the room, and she was playing chess with a young Chinese. As I looked round, she cried, ‘Checkmate,’ triumphantly, and her opponent’s eyes vanished into slits as he laughed.
‘Excellent play, most excellent,’ he said.
The lady looked up and saw me and I went to her, and asked where Mrs Forbes could be found.
‘She is probably in her office on the floor above.’ The voice was quiet and cultured.
The Chinese bowed slightly: ‘Permit me to take the lady up,’ he said.
His opponent smiled graciously and said that Dr Wu would be pleased to direct me.
Dr Wu rose and bowed to me: ‘Come this way,’ he said.
He led me out of the lounge and up a flight of stairs to a series of offices.
‘This is your first visit here?’ he inquired, his eyes twinkling behind rimless spectacles and his hands making neat, small gestures to guide me along the passage.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘I trust that we may have the pleasure of seeing you here again,’ he said, as he knocked at the door. He bowed again and left me, as Bessie called, ‘Come in.’
‘My deah,’ said Bessie, ‘I’m delighted to see you. Sit down and have a cigarette.’
Bessie, out of uniform, had more charm than most women. That evening she was wearing a pink cardigan that gave colour to her naturally pale complexion. Her dark hair was brushed up in a Pompadour style. As she lit my cigarette I tried to imagine her drilling on a parade ground, but failed hopelessly. The determination and discipline which had lain under her uniform was still with her, however, as I was soon to find out.
‘Bessie, what are you doing here?’
‘I’m the Entertainment Secretary – it’s my job to see that visitors here enjoy themselves.’
I nodded. That explained the Nigerian chieftains at the theatre.
‘Do you like it?’
‘Rather. I meet anybody who is anybody – and no two days are alike.’
‘What have you in mind for me to do?’
‘I’m starting a dancing class – very good teacher, but not enough partners. If you are free, I wondered if you would volunteer to come along on Thursday evenings and act as a partner. I can assure you that there are less amusing ways of spending an evening.’
‘But women are two a penny in this town, Bessie. Why pick on a rather dull person like me?’
‘Two-a-penny women are not required in this establishment,’ said Bessie. ‘Every woman crossing the threshold of this club has to be vouched for personally by a member of the staff or by some other responsible person. Each member has a pass which she must show to the commissionaire at the door.’
‘No commissionaire was there when I came in.’
‘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