Authors: Peter Bradshaw
Glumly, Colin pressed a damp forefinger to his greasy plate and transferred fragments of pork pie to his tongue. Mr Ware lit them both cigarettes and passed one to him. They smoked, and Colin
started worrying again about the wine business and how on earth he was going to make a go of that. Would the end of rationing make a difference? Mr Ware was talking to two young women, betting them
that he could arrange five matches so as to make two triangles. Having won that bet, and sportingly declined to take any money, he bet them he could rearrange the order of three coins while
touching them only five times. The wager he now playfully suggested was a kiss. The two women giggled while Colin looked dispirited. Mr Ware stabbed adroitly at the coins with his thumb a number of
times; he appeared to win his bet on a technicality, but again did not insist on his winnings.
Instead, he leant over to the first girl and told her, ‘You know, I have this remarkable gift. I can tell what someone’s star sign is, just by gazing deeply into their
eyes.’
‘Go on!’
‘I can. It’s the truth.’
They both giggled, and the first allowed Mr Ware to lean forwards and look directly at her. ‘You mustn’t blink, or this isn’t going to work.’
With calm candour, Mr Ware placed his face close to hers, and despite his instruction she blinked and flinched and tittered while he kept his gaze commandingly steady.
‘I think ... you’re an Aries.’
‘Oh my Gawd! You’re right!
‘Is he, Jane?’
‘He is. Eileen, he is. He’s dead on.’
Without them noticing, Mr Ware silently placed Jane’s identity card, with her date of birth, back into her bag.
‘I can see the Zodiacal constellations in your irises, Jane, you see. But there’s something else. I can tell straight away that you’re a passionate, loving person but that you
haven’t been treated as you deserve by a certain man. Is that right? Oh, dear. I can’t read your star sign if we’re going to get the waterworks, you know.’
Jane looked down and a single tear fell like a raindrop, splat, onto a beermat. Soon she was quietly sniffling, while he stroked her hand.
‘You attract men who are not worthy of you,’ Mr Ware continued while she nodded miserably. ‘And you have family worries which you are too proud to share with your friends.
‘That means my mum,’ she said to Eileen.
She was clearly awed by this insight, and Mr Ware changed the subject, sensing that it was becoming too tragic. He now said, ‘But there’s an older man who’s a bit besotted with
you.’
Her friend yelped with laughter. ‘Mr Ainsworth!’
They both shrieked. Mr Ware took out a cigarette packet and offered it to Jane and Eileen and they both accepted. This too appeared to be an indulgence they were permitting themselves on this
special night. Eileen was evidently an accomplished smoker; Jane was however soon coughing alarmingly and Mr Ware thumped her on the back as she bent over.
‘Ha! Now you’re getting it. We’ll have you smoking like a chimney in no time. With a bit of practice, you’ll be doing this. Look.’ Mr Ware took her cigarette and
blew three perfect smoke rings. ‘Ooo!’ he spelled them out, insidiously.
‘What lovely hands
you
have,’ he then said, turning to Eileen. ‘I can tell a lot about you from your hands.’
‘Like what, indeed?’
‘Lovely smooth hands. But do you see the way your lifeline is broken here and here?’
‘Yes?’
‘It means family difficulties. That means you’re worried about someone close to you.’
‘Well,’ she said tartly, ‘I can tell a lot about
you
from
your
hands.’
‘Ho yes? Like what?’
‘You’re divorced. Or you’re separated. Terribly unhappy, anyway.’
Mr Ware looked at her sharply, suspiciously.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve taken your wedding ring off. Recently. Look.’
Mr Ware’s puffy ringer bore a red-looking ridge where the ring had been.
Icily, suddenly, Mr Ware got up, scraping his chair back. It was enough to make a few people look over, despite the din and the gloom and the music. He plunged his hand into his pocket and
jingled the change.
‘Checking that you’ve still got it?’ asked Eileen, shrewdly. This was evidently more than Mr Ware could take.
‘Well, it’s been very nice talking to you,’ he choked, his playful teasing now utterly abandoned.
‘Off home to your wife, perhaps?’ said Eileen, cruelly pursuing her advantage. ‘Do give her our best.’
Without another word, Mr Ware turned on his heel and walked out. Colin gulped down the rest of his drink and followed.
*
In Broadwick Street, a mixed group of servicemen and civilians were attempting a human pyramid. Three strong-looking men along the base and two more on their quivering
shoulders. Then, to form the apex, a woman in WAAF uniform was hitching up her skirts and trying to leap onto the middle pair, who were each holding one of her hands. She herself had been standing
on a car roof, which had begun to dent. With a final leap, she was up, to a huge cheer. But then, wobble, wobble, wobble, and the whole formation collapsed and the WAAF fell, and looked as if she
had hurt herself really quite badly. Somehow even this couldn’t cheer Mr Ware up.
Margaret sat up in bed, drinking cocoa. Bliss. She was reading the latest
Picturegoer
. Everything was calm now. It turned out that Elizabeth had not in fact returned to
the Palace quite yet. When they discovered this, some of the staff had got in a fearful bate with Hugh. Some of them were even saying that he should report to Their Majesties himself. Poor Hugh had
gone quite pale and said nothing. But then she, Margaret, had had a brainwave. She told everyone not to worry, it was just that she herself wanted to come home early but Elizabeth wanted to stop
out half an hour longer, and that Peter was naturally with her, and it was all perfectly in order.
What a cheeky fib. Margaret had actually caught Hugh’s eye while she was saying it, letting him know that she had jolly well saved his bacon! Hugh even nodded once, and sort of turned that
into a tiny submissive bow, and then said loudly that he would go back out and ‘rejoin Peter’ and that he was sure they would all be back soon.
Well, of course they would! What a lot of silly fuss.
Margaret considered. If there really
was
a row about tonight, she would just come up with a couple more fibs. Muddy the waters. She could say that Henry Porchester was with them. Porchy.
Porchy would back them up. Porchy was a good egg.
Here was an advertisement for Pond’s cold cream. ‘It’s still no easy matter to get hold of well-known and trusted creams, such as Pond’s – only a proportion of the
pre-war supply is allowed to be made,’ it said. ‘It should be used as sparingly as possible.’
Margaret looked complacently at the colossal pot of Pond’s on her dressing table. She snuggled further down under the covers, scissoring her legs deliciously against the linen, and
continued to read.
Mickey Rooney, it seemed, was getting paid a bonus of £40,000 by MGM – ’It is typical of the generosity MGM executives have always shown towards Mickey, who is regarded as
“their own boy”, since he was practically raised on the MGM lot.’
Goodness, forty thousand pounds, what a lot of money.
‘Was Lilibet having a good time?’ Margaret wondered.
She imagined that she
was
having a good time. Or even if she wasn’t, she would begin to enjoy herself by and by. Heavens, how stuffy Lilibet could be sometimes, and how often she
forced one into situations where one had to be stuffy as well. Well, now the boot was on the other foot. Now she had put Lilibet into a jolly situation and now Lilibet had to be jolly for once in
her life. It was a requirement, like gas masks. Gosh, gas masks. They hadn’t needed them after all, had they? Where
was
her gas mask, come to think of it?
Outside, in the far distance, she could hear more singing: ‘I Belong to Glasgow’.
Margaret read that the Army Pictorial Service had invited soldiers stationed in the Middle East to write in with suggestions telling the film industry what’s what. The winning letter
– the chap had got £15 – was from Private JB Steckley of the US Air Corps, who wrote: ‘1. War. (a) Lay off it (b) If you must show us war, show us our Allies. When we see
what they are going through, we’ll be twice as glad that it isn’t happening at home.’
No. Well, it isn’t happening at home. Not any more. The war is over.
It’s all over.
Margaret finished her cocoa and replaced the empty mug by her bed. She scraped with her thumbnail at a tiny, dried tide-mark at the lip.
What was Lilibet doing now? Well, soon she would be back to tell Margaret herself. Margaret expected a sharp knock on her door at any moment, a very cross demand for an explanation. Well, it wasn’t her fault.
Margaret turned off the light and lay staring at the ceiling on which some light pooled from the window. What would she do tomorrow? Margaret couldn’t imagine. She shut her eyes, and still
couldn’t. She would return to the schoolroom, but Lilibet wouldn’t have to. Margaret saw Lilibet floating through their schoolroom like a balloon, and realised that she was drifting off
and beginning to dream. She awoke, exhaling heavily through her nose, turned off the bedside light and fell asleep before she could remove the
Picturegoer
from her pillow.
Katharine and Elizabeth were in the ladies’ cloakroom at the Ritz. The object of the exercise, as Katharine briskly put it, was to get her friend cleaned up, and ready to
confront the world. While Elizabeth washed her face, Katharine had her jacket in her hand, attacking it smartly with a stiff clothes brush which the attendant had lent her, and who continued to sit
by the door with a saucer of silver coins pointedly displayed: she had seen him in the act of weeding out some coppers and putting them in his pocket. Elizabeth had her glasses on the cabinet
surface by the basin while she splashed her face with water, head bowed slightly, not looking at herself in the mirror.
‘Don’t you ever take those off?’ asked Katharine.
‘Blind as a bat without them.’ Elizabeth tried to shrug while bent over; the effect was of a brief, convulsive hunch. She towelled herself, restored the glasses in such a way that
her hands covered much of her face, pulled on the proffered jacket.
‘You must let me put some makeup on you, you know,’ said Katharine; she firmly removed the glasses again, and applied eyeliner while Elizabeth submitted.
‘You know,’ said Katharine, ‘now you’ll think me awfully tight, but you remind me dreadfully of someone.’
‘I know exactly what you’re going to say,’ said Elizabeth smoothly, as she put the glasses back on, and ducking past, left the ladies’ room, leading the way.
‘Everybody says it. You’ll doubtless see a lot of people looking at me twice. It’s Margaret Lockwood. I look very much like Margaret Lockwood.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes. Margaret Lockwood. It’s a queer thing, I know, but there it is.’
Soon they were back in the chaotic crush of merry-makers and inebriates in the hotel, and Elizabeth glanced at Katharine, just as she was glancing sidelong at her. But she seemed satisfied with
this explanation.
‘You stay here, and I’ll get us a drink.’
Elizabeth positioned herself uneasily next to a large potted plant, and by appearing to check her wristwatch, turning away periodically from the throng and putting it up to her ear, she went
unnoticed. It was only once Katharine had gone that she realised that she had no idea what drink she was going to get. Predictably, Katharine reappeared with gins.
‘You know, Lil,’ she said, ‘I think you’re much prettier than Margaret ...’
‘Oh no,’ interrupted Elizabeth modestly, and added without thinking, ‘she’s much prettier and she always has Papa in fits of laughter.’
‘What?’
‘Oh. Oh, sorry, I was thinking how much my father likes Margaret Lockwood films.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘Anyway, I’ve got the doings, here’s how.’
‘Thanks, jolly good!’
Two Americans came over and offered to buy them drinks, and were smoothly rebuffed by Katharine. Elizabeth sipped at her gin, and confided, ‘I’m actually supposed to be out with my
sister, at the moment, but I’m afraid I got separated from her, and the two chaps we were with.’
‘Oh. Her boyfriend and your fiancé?’
‘No, just some nice Guards officers who’d offered to accompany us for the evening.’
‘Well! Lil, you dark horse!’
‘Oh no, it was nothing like that, really it wasn’t.’
‘Huh! A likely tale!’ Katharine slightly slapped Elizabeth’s elbow with the back of her hand to show that she was joshing. ‘Well, out of the frying pan ...’ she
added mysteriously. ‘What’s your fiancé’s name, actually?’
‘It’s ... it’s Pip.’
‘Pip?’
‘Yes, Pip.’
‘As in Dickens?’
‘Mm. And what’s your husband called?’
‘He’s called William.’
‘And what does he do for a living?’
‘Oh, he’s frightfully high up in the Home Office. I just never see him, but now there’s not a war on I expect everything will be returned to normal.’
‘I expect so.’
‘Well ... Pip. You and Pip. Lil and Pip. On the road to matrimony. Like a Bob Hope picture, isn’t it? Where’s Pip now anyway?’
‘He’s onboard ship.’
‘Girl in every port?’
‘Oh no!’ Elizabeth shook her head and drank some more.
‘I say, Lil,’ Katharine suddenly became serious. ‘You know what we were saying before? About the wedding night?’
Elizabeth nodded.
‘Well, will the groom be approaching this in a similar ... a similar state of ...’
Elizabeth realised that this, along with their honeymoon destination, was something about which she had no idea. Katharine placed a delicate hand on her wrist.
‘Oh, my dear. I’ve no wish to embarrass you. The point is that the situation is completely different for a man. It is the man’s duty to gain experience. Probably with a
professional. Do you know what I mean?’