The Gunner Girl (26 page)

It was a good mile's walk all the way to the Strand. By the time they got there they knew all about Ron, Hal and Art's hometowns and their impressions of England (less than
favourable, but couched very diplomatically by Ron as ‘You can tell that you folks have had a tough time'). The sun sank lower as they walked, so more and more of the pavement was
covered in shadow, and the sunlight showed as little blocks of yellow, that they passed swiftly though and onwards, chatting.

Finally, they reached the Savoy, with its sandbags painted red, white and blue. The doorman looked rather snootily at them as they jostled into the revolving door. Edie found herself in a glassy
slice of pie (as she always thought of these spinning doors) with Art. He was quite a bit taller than her, with enormous hands. Close up, he smelled of an almondy cologne. She felt the beginnings
of a blush coming on, being in such close proximity, but suddenly the doors had thrown them back out, into the lobby with the others.

Edie was the only one who'd been to the Savoy before (with Pop, for a treat one lunch while she was still at Queen's College. Apparently, Winston used to take the Cabinet to dine
there, sometimes, but they hadn't seen them); so she led the way to the grill, with its leather seats, mirrored columns and crimson carpets. Art scanned the room for ‘Moira', but
she was nowhere to be seen. He looked rather crestfallen, and Edie felt sorry for him, so she offered to look in the ladies' powder room for her.

‘What does she look like?'

‘She's got red hair, a bit like yours, but not so shiny,' he said. ‘And blue eyes.'

‘I'm sure we'll find her for you,' said Edie, surprising herself by half hoping they wouldn't. Joan and Bea came with her to the powder room, which had thick cream
carpets, full-length mirrors, and a chaise longue. It was empty. Joan took her lipstick out from her gas mask and slicked another layer of geranium red on, and then she took out a comb and did her
hair. Bea sank down into the armchair.

‘I could live in here,' Bea said, shutting her eyes. ‘This lavvy is bigger than our house, back home.'

Edie called out hopefully for Moira, but she wasn't there. ‘Well, shame on Moira, whoever she is. If I was Art's date I wouldn't have stood him up,' she said.

Joan smirked.

‘No I didn't mean – I just meant that he's a nice young man and he doesn't deserve to be let down,' said Edie. ‘I feel sorry for him, that's
all.'

‘Sorry enough to let him buy you a drink?' said Joan, holding out her lipstick. Edie took it and pouted at her reflection in the glass as she applied the slash of red. She said
nothing for a moment, blotted her lips with tissue and reapplied, exactly as she had always watched her mother apply lipstick at home, exactly as she had never been allowed to until she ran away to
join the ATS. She ran her tongue over her teeth, just to check there was no lipstick there, and smiled at Joan's reflection in the mirror.

‘Yes,' she said at last. ‘What's the harm? Let's have some fun. We've jolly well earned it.'

After cocktails at the Savoy, they decided to leg it to the 400 Club, before blackout. They were all rather giddy. The Americans had kept their glasses topped up, and all
they'd had to eat were the cakes and cucumber sandwiches at the Ritz. As they ran up towards Leicester Square, they were running towards the setting sun, a dash from navy blue to rose, and
she could see the blackout blinds being shut down, one by one, in upstairs windows, as if the city was closing its eyes for the night.

They almost fell down the steep steps to the cellar door. Edie had always wanted to come to the 400 Club. It was mentioned in
Harper's Bazaar.
Mary Churchill came, and the Kennedy
girls, before they all hot-footed it back to America. Edie was a little worried they wouldn't be let in. But the Americans were all officers, and, much as she hated to admit it, her accent
and her surname held a little sway. The ruddy-faced doorman winked and stood aside.

Inside was a warm fug, the air thick with the scent of Evening in Paris and cigar smoke. Shadowy figures carouselled round the tiny dance floor: some in uniform, but many in tux and long evening
dresses, swishing against the polished wooden floor like peacocks tails. The eighteen-piece orchestra played quite low, so you could hear the murmur of voices and the occasional outburst of
laughter above closing chords of ‘A nightingale sang in Berkley Square'. Art Deco-style fanlights splayed a soft glow over the walls, so that the whole place had a swimming, underwater
feel.

‘It's just like the movies,' Joan whispered in her ear.

‘Come on, let's get a seat,' said Edie, spotting a banquette near the far wall, but, as she skirted round the dance floor, leading the way, Art grabbed her waist from behind,
and propelled her onto the dance floor. The band had just struck up the ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo'.

‘No really, I can't!' she protested, laughing. She had no idea how to do boogie-woogie, or whatever it was called. But he twirled her round and it felt so good, just to be
there in the moment, that she found herself joining in. Her hands touched with Art's and they caught, moved together, span apart, and all the time it felt as if the music was inside her, and
everything flowed. She caught sight of Joan's hair streaming out behind her as Ron swung her round, and Bea and Hal, jiving, cheek-to-cheek. There was none of the clumsiness there'd
been when she'd tried to learn how to do this with Marjorie, all those months ago.

The bandleader announced that the next dance would be a ‘gentlemen's excuse me' and Art pulled her in closer. Her cheek rested on his shoulder and she thought again how nice he
smelled, and how well he danced.

‘You're a very pretty girl, you know that?' he muttered into her hair.

‘Thank you, that's very kind,' she answered, rather breathlessly, thinking of nothing except how marvellous it was to be spending her precious night off dancing at the 400 Club
with this handsome American officer.

‘Excuse me,' a voice cut in and another man inserted himself between them. Art shrugged and gave way. Her new partner was a small, wiry chap in a dinner jacket. He said his name was
Mungo, and he bobbed her around with more enthusiasm than skill. Every time he trod on her toes, he said, ‘I'm so sorry, but that's the nicest foot I've trod on all
evening.' Edie tried to laugh but, by the third time, the joke was wearing thin, and it was a relief when Art cut back in.

Art's face was close to hers and she could see the stubble on his cheek. His breath smelled of whisky. They moved together, perfectly synchronised, as smoky lights and figures twirled
around them. When the band struck up the next song, a slow number, she leant into him, dizzy and breathless, laughing with the sheer joy of it. He was holding her tight as the band played
‘Goodnight Sweetheart'; she could feel him tense and hard underneath his uniform. His face was nuzzling into her hair, his breath on her neck.

‘Shall we go somewhere else, to talk?' she said, surprising herself with her boldness. As they walked off the dance floor she felt his hand slide down her back, towards her behind,
and she thought with a thrill about the woman at the Ritz, getting into the lift with the officer.

They found a little table for two in a corner. It was covered with a long white damask cloth. The chairs were so small, and the place was so crowded that their knees almost touched. He motioned
to the waiter for two whisky and sodas. She didn't really like whisky, but it didn't seem to matter. All that mattered was the moment. Here she was, all grown up: Edith Lightwater, out
in a nightclub with an American officer, drinking whisky and dancing like there was no tomorrow. Art asked if she came here often.

‘I've never been here before in my life!' she said, which for some reason struck her as hilarious and she laughed out loud.

‘Well, there's a first time for everything,' said Art, taking a gulp from his drink and looking across at her. Beyond him, the dancers still swayed and turned on the dance
floor, the waiters slid past with their round, shiny drinks trays and the band began to play ‘South of the Border'. They talked about where his unit was stationed in England. She
remarked that Aldershot really wasn't too far from London. He said he hoped he'd be able to make some regular trips into the capital. He looked right at her as he said it, and she hoped
that in the dimmed lights he wouldn't see her blush. She could feel the push of his knee against hers, his foot, too.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, moving her leg away.

‘Don't be,' he said, and his boot contacted with her brogue again. There was a kind of gently rhythmic pulsing of his leg against hers. She felt hot and flustered. Moving away
again would seem rude. In any case, there was a crush of people at tables either side, and she couldn't alter her position without jolting someone else. Besides, it wasn't unpleasant,
it was just – and then he put his hand on her thigh. She looked across at him, but he didn't acknowledge her. His eyes were on the dance floor. His other hand traced circles around the
top of his cut glass tumbler. His thumb began to knead her flesh, massaging the rough fabric into the bare space at the top of her legs between stocking top and knickers. She glanced around. People
at the other tables were laughing, smoking, drinking. She wondered if any of the other women had a man's hand on their thigh. Was this just what people did? Is this what Pop did with Meredith
Cowie? Art's fingers were moving upwards now, giving her goose pimples.

‘I say, it's terribly muggy in here, let's get out and get some air,' she said suddenly, standing up. As she did so, she caught Bea's eye, who was just leaving the
dance floor with Hal. Bea shot her a worried look, and Edie tried to smile. But what she felt wasn't happiness; it was an odd mixture of elation and confusion. Art took her hand and led her
away.

They didn't go out through the front door but, instead, out of a side entrance that opened out onto a paved area with an outhouse and some little slippery steps that let up to an alleyway.
The door closed behind them and they were alone. It was dark now, but the moon was rising, a yellow gibbous, harvest moon, bloated and sickly beyond the jagged horizon and the jostle of barrage
balloons. He got out a packet of Lucky Strikes and she held out a hand for one.

‘May I?'

‘Sure. I didn't realise you English dames were so keen on smoking.'

‘Everyone smokes in the ATS,' she said casually, letting him light her cigarette. They both inhaled and looked at each other across the waft of smoke.

She noticed how his big hands trembled slightly as he brought the cigarette to his lips, inhaling so powerfully that the tip of his cigarette glowed like a furnace in the blue shadows. He
dropped the butt and ground it out with his heel while she was only a third of the way down hers. He looked at her. There was something different in his eyes, harder, insistent.

‘You soldier girls have a reputation,' he said, and there was a sneer in his voice.

‘Totally unfounded,' she replied. ‘Well, not totally. Some of the new conscripts, especially those really working-class ones—' she began, and then thought of Bea,
and felt disloyal, somehow, and faltered. She flicked the ash from her cigarette. She laughed, a high, trilling, laugh. At that moment, the sirens started their long slow wail.

‘We should really get back inside,' she said.

He took the still lit cigarette from her hand and threw it away. It disappeared like a firefly into the night. Then suddenly, both his hands were on hers and his lips were on hers and he was
pushing her back and down, onto the slippery steps. His mouth was wet and pushed down hard, bruising her lips as he thrust his tongue right inside. She tried to shove him off, cry out, but his
mouth was over hers and he had both her hands in a tight grasp. As she struggled, her feet slipped on the grimy paving slabs and she fell backwards onto the steps, banging the back of her head.

‘What are you doing?' she said, struggling, trying to kick, but the blow to her head made everything slur and the words slid sideways and away, her feet contacting with nothing but
air.

‘I'm doing what you want. What else did you bring me out here for?' he said, dragging her back up so that she was on her feet. She tried to shake him free, but now he twisted
her arm up behind her back and shoved her towards the shed in the corner. Inside, she had the impression of crates and boxes, but she couldn't see. He pushed her back and she fell again; hard
things jabbed and scraped.

‘Oh, come on, don't be a spoilsport,' he said, his breath in her face, harsh and wet, as the sirens continued their mournful wail. Then his mouth was on hers again, that
horrible tongue, like a wet snake, curling around inside.

As the sirens fell silent, there was a hush, with no sound except the brush of cloth against cloth as she struggled ineffectually against him in the darkness. She felt like she was going to
suffocate. He was right on top of her, pushing her back, pinning her arms with one of his and shoving up her skirt with the other. And she could feel his long, clammy fingers at the apex of her
thighs, forcing them apart. She tried to call out, but she was drowning under the pressure of him on top of her. He fumbled with his fly. She tried to use the opportunity to get free, but he was
upon her again, wrestling her down, covering her mouth with his wet lips to muffle her cries.

Away in the distance, she could hear the soft thud, thud, as the bombs dropped, like a hammer on velvet. And then it was there, that hard horrible thing, pushing inside her. A pain ripped
through. She felt him shove, again and again and grunt, holding her still, and all she could do was repeat, inside her head, the Lord's prayer, thinking that this couldn't be happening,
that God couldn't let something like this happen. But then there was a terrific ripping, tearing sound and everything came crashing down, and they landed on the floor as one, with wood and
glass and metal strewn over them and he was a dead weight on top of her.