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.’
‘I’ll call for you at three.’
‘All right.’
Stephen glanced shiftily towards the darkened shop. He could not see Mrs Pears in the shadowed interior. He leaned towards Lily. Her pale face was upturned to look at him, her fair hair luminous in the flickering gas lighting. Stephen put his hand on her waist. She was soft under his tentative touch, unstructured by stiff corsets. She reminded him of the other girl, a girl long ago, who only wore corsets to Mass on a Sunday. On weekdays her skin was hot and soft beneath a thin cotton shirt. He drew Lily towards him and she took a small step forward. She was smiling slightly. He could smell her light sweet perfume. He could feel the warmth of her skin through the cheap fabric of her cocktail dress.
‘Time to come in, Lily,’ said her mother’s voice immediately behind them.
Stephen released her at once.
‘Goodnight, Captain Winters. Thank you for a lovely dinner,’ said Mrs Pears from the darkness inside the shop.
The door behind Lily opened wide, and with a glance like a mischievous schoolgirl, she waved her white-gloved hand and went in.
Stephen sat beside Coventry for the short drive home, enjoying the open air of the cab.
‘Damned pretty girl,’ he said. He took a couple of cigarettes from his case and lit them both, holding the two in his mouth at once. The driver nodded. Stephen passed a cigarette to him. The man took it without taking his eyes from the road, without a word of thanks.
‘Pity about the mother,’ Stephen said half to himself. ‘Fearfully respectable woman.’
The driver nodded, exhaled a wisp of smoke.
‘Not like a showgirl at all, really,’ Stephen said. ‘I could almost take her home for tea.’
The driver glanced questioningly at Stephen.
‘We’ll see,’ Stephen said. ‘See how things go. A man must marry, after all. And it doesn’t matter much who it is.’ He paused. ‘She’s like a girl from before the war. You can imagine her, before the war, living in the country on a farm. I could live on a little farm with a girl like that.’
The cool air, wet with sea salt, blew around them. It was chilly, but both men relished the discomfort, the familiar chill.
‘There are plenty of girls,’ Stephen said harshly. ‘Far too many. One million, don’t they say? One million spare women. Plenty of girls. It hardly matters which one.’
Coventry nodded and drew up before the handsome red-brick house. In the moonlight the white window sills and steps were gleaming bright.
‘You sleeping here tonight?’ Stephen asked as he opened the car door.
The driver nodded.
‘Brew-up later?’
The man nodded again.
Stephen stepped from the car and went through the imposing wrought-iron gate, through the little front garden, quiet in the moonlight, and up the scoured white steps to the front door. He fitted his key in the lock and stepped into the hall as his mother came out of the drawing room.
‘You’re early, dear,’ she said pleasantly.
‘Not especially,’ he said.
‘Nice dinner?’
‘The Queens. Same as usual.’
‘Anyone I know?’
‘No-one you know, Mother.’
She hesitated, her curiosity checked by their family habit of silence and secrecy. Stephen went towards the stairs.
‘Father still awake?’ he asked.
‘The nurse has just left him,’ Muriel said. ‘He might have dozed off, go in quietly.’
Stephen nodded and went up the stairs to his father’s bedroom.
It was dark inside, a little nightlight burning on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. The fire had died down, only the embers glowing dark red. Stephen