An Awfully Big Adventure (17 page)

The dance floor, wreathed in blue smoke, was crowded with revellers foxtrotting to the magnified beat of the paper-hatted band perspiring beneath a trembling canopy of holly boughs and mistletoe. An army of waiters carrying silver-plated dishes barged back and forth through the swing doors of the kitchens. The restaurant was so packed that there weren’t enough chairs, and somehow Geoffrey squeezed in between Stella and Meredith. He squatted on his haunches, his pug nose on a level with the table. ‘I can’t go on like this,’ he said, shouting to make himself heard. ‘We have to talk.’

‘Absolutely,’ Meredith replied. ‘Couldn’t agree more.’ And fitting his monocle beneath the bone of his eye he studied the menu.

‘He’s thinking of going into business,’ Stella said. ‘His father would like it.’ Meredith didn’t respond. Geoffrey crouched at his knee like a faithful dog. Another chair was fetched from the store-room and Stella was forced to make a space for it. She could have throttled Geoffrey, wriggling in where he wasn’t wanted.

Bunny was there under duress. ‘I gain no pleasure from that sort of entertainment,’ he had protested earlier to Meredith. ‘I don’t dance, and neither do you. We shall be spectres at the feast.’

‘Bear with me,’ Meredith had said. ‘It may well turn out to be diverting.’

At eleven o’clock, fifteen minutes after being shown to their table, Bunny threatened to leave. He detested turkey and there was nothing else he fancied apart from the chocolate gâteau. Meredith told him to stop moaning and ordered him a double portion of cake as a main course. ‘He’s a sick man,’ he informed the waiter. ‘They couldn’t get all the shrapnel out.’ Bunny saw the joke. He was wearing a clean shirt and a tartan tie under a crumpled blazer whose buttons were missing; he began to laugh and quantities of cigarette ash spilled from his clothing and speckled the tablecloth.

Stella chose fish and regretted it. She kept getting bones in her mouth and each time she took one out O’Hara appeared to be looking in her direction. If it would have caught Meredith’s attention she wouldn’t have minded a bone lodging in her gullet, but then there was always the risk he might think she was merely coughing – she could choke for nothing. Presently she stopped eating and hid the fish under a heap of Brussels sprouts. Geoffrey, the food untouched on his plate, sat sideways on his chair, bellowing into Meredith’s ear. She sat back and freed her hair from the collar of her frock. ‘My dear boy,’ she heard Meredith say, ‘you’re far too sensitive.’

O’Hara, watching Stella, was disconcerted by the wave of tenderness evoked by the sight of her bright hair rippling like a flag against the dark wall. He was half-heartedly involved in a discussion on Mary Deare, who at this moment was speeding in a hired car towards Manchester to spend Christmas Day at the Midland Hotel with an unnamed friend appearing in
The Tinder Box
. Mary had abrasions in her armpits, some of them serious, from wearing her flying harness next to her skin. The wardrobe had provided her with a vest of padded cotton, but for some reason she wouldn’t wear it. Grace had seen the blisters.

‘I bleed for her,’ announced Harbour. ‘Just think of it – she suffers agonies every time she flies.’

‘She can’t bear to carry an ounce more than her usual weight,’ said Grace Bird. ‘She dispensed with the vest because it made her feel larger than life. She’s neurotic.’

‘You’re right,’ cried Babs Osborne excitedly. ‘Stanislaus said he knew people in the camps who experienced satisfaction when they started to waste. Stanislaus knew one woman who . . .’

‘I’m sure this stuffing’s off,’ said Grace, and she impaled a lump on her fork and thrust it across the cloth for John Harbour to sniff at.

Stella, who for a miserable quarter of an hour had been contemplating going to the ladies’ room and not coming back, was suddenly struck by the curiously fragmented nature of the group about the table. She had dreaded the moment when the food would be done with and the others would get up to dance, leaving her on her own at the table. Now she saw that all of them were alone, not least those who chatted so animatedly together. Contrary to what Lily might think, a twosome was an inaccurate indication of partnership. Dotty, apparently listening attentively to Desmond Fairchild, her hand on his arm, was looking at O’Hara. Even in the throes of laughing at some remark passed by Grace Bird, Bunny watched Geoffrey. John Harbour, confiding something important to Babs Osborne, kept glancing at Meredith. Babs didn’t notice; she was staring straight ahead, dreaming of Stanislaus. Only Geoffrey, tugging at his hair, sniffing, thumping the tablecloth, could be said to be concentrating on the person beside him. He was demanding something of Meredith, that much was evident. The words ‘unfair advantage’ were used, and then Stella distinctly heard Geoffrey say, ‘You’re ruining my life.’

She was amazed at his ambition; he had given her to understand he wanted to give up the theatre. She nudged him in the ribs and hissed, ‘Don’t be such a twerp. You can’t bully him into giving you better parts.’

‘Mind your own business,’ he shouted, turning on her quite violently. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Just then O’Hara rose from his chair and invited Stella to dance. ‘I’m no good at it,’ she lied and, pleased, struggled her way from the table and walked stiffly into his arms.

O’Hara wasn’t a tall man. She didn’t know the colour of his eyes because she had never looked into them. He was stocky and broad-shouldered and he had thick black eyebrows. Until now she hadn’t taken much notice of him, so she couldn’t say for certain whether he was handsome or not. There was a smear of yellow greasepaint on the collar of his shirt. His hand, clasping her own as he steered her about the floor, was somewhat cold.

At last Meredith was looking at her. I’m setting my cap at someone else, she thought, circling the room with her chin in the air.

By the time they returned to the table for the Christmas pudding John Harbour had moved and there was nowhere for her to sit except beside O’Hara. A woman came up with a red balloon and asked him to autograph it, and he took out a fountain pen and commenced a squeaky signature. The balloon burst as he scrawled the last letter. The woman said it didn’t matter. They both hunted through the debris on the floor to find that shrivelled scrap bearing his name. O’Hara didn’t ask Stella to dance again. He was too busy trying to restrain Babs Osborne from telephoning Stanislaus.

Half an hour later Meredith announced he’d had enough. Bunny and he were off to Midnight Mass. Stella hoped he might ask her to go with them but he didn’t even say good-bye, not properly, let alone wish her a Merry Christmas. One minute he was at the table and the next he was threading his way between the dancers, leaving Geoffrey asleep with his cheek resting on a bread roll, bits of tinsel glittering in his hair.

‘Shall I give you a lift home on my motorbike?’ O’Hara asked, and Stella accepted at once, almost running out of the restaurant, scarcely bothering to wave a farewell to the others who were now giddily swaying across the dance floor. Desmond Fairchild, paddling through the spotlights, his trousers rolled up to his hairy knees, shouted something at her. She pretended not to notice. All that mattered was that she should catch up with Meredith.

O’Hara took a long time to kick-start the motorbike from the kerb. ‘Which way?’ he asked, when at last the engine spluttered into life, and she directed him the wrong way round so that they might overtake and confront the trio lurching towards Midnight Mass.

She shouted contradictory commands. ‘Faster, faster,’ she ordered, as they puttered up Brownlow Hill, empty of Meredith. ‘Not so fast,’ she cried as they thundered along Rodney Street. She didn’t care what O’Hara thought. She didn’t care about anything; she just wanted Meredith to see her on the back of the Prince’s white charger. Perhaps then, when he realised he was in danger of losing her, he and O’Hara would exchange a hostile, challenging glance. If looks could kill, she thought, clinging to O’Hara’s leather-clad waist, the river wind whipping her hair into her eyes.

She had almost given up hope when she saw Meredith arm in arm with Grace and Bunny stepping off the kerb outside the Women’s Hospital. ‘Slower, slower,’ she screamed over O’Hara’s shoulder, fearful they might pass unnoticed.

Bunny and Grace saw her, she was sure. Startled, Bunny stepped backwards, dragging Meredith with him. Grace swung her handbag in recognition, and a ball of wool jerked out and fell to the gutter. Stella kept her arm in the air, waving, waving long after O’Hara had swerved the motorcycle round the corner.

She wouldn’t let him take her to the Aber House Hotel. Instead she made him stop in the next street; she didn’t want Uncle Vernon storming up the basement steps and putting his oar in. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ offered O’Hara. ‘I only live two doors up.’

‘If you like,’ Stella agreed. ‘It’s interesting to see how other people live.’

When she saw she was disconcerted. The room was tidy enough, after a fashion, but there was nothing of value on the mantelpiece and not one stick of furniture that wouldn’t have been better employed on a bonfire. She was surprised he lived so poorly, him being a successful man. ‘It isn’t very salubrious, is it?’ she said, eyeing the scuffed skirting-board, the mushroom growths on the wall.

‘I was happy here once,’ he told her.

There was nowhere to sit but on the narrow bed beside the fireplace.

‘I can smell something,’ Stella said. ‘I’ve a very good nose for smells.’

He apologised for the damp and she shook her head. ‘I know about that sort of smell. It’s sweet. This is different.’ She sat there wrinkling her nose, trying to identify what it was. ‘Turpentine,’ she cried at last. ‘Turpentine and linseed oil.’

He was impressed and proceeded to tell her about Keeley, recalling some inflammable occasion on which Keeley had set fire to something or someone. Her jaw ached with smiling her appreciation. What fun they’d had, he concluded.

‘Where is he now?’ she asked, thinking he was possibly behind bars.

‘I lost touch with him when he joined the Air Force. I’m not entirely convinced he survived. I’ve a painting of his at home, of this room with me standing by the door. I’m very fond of it.’

‘Mr Potter knows about paintings. He took me round the Walker Art Gallery. He likes the religious ones best.’

‘He would,’ said O’Hara.

She could tell there was something bothering him. He wasn’t quite comfortable with her. He was looking at her intently, as if he expected she might do something surprising, like flying up the chimney.

Suddenly he kissed her. She opened her lips obediently and remained perfectly still. When he let her go she wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

He said, ‘Perhaps I ought to take you home.’ He sounded grumpy.

‘I don’t mind staying if it’s all the same to you,’ she said. It had to happen sometime and now was as good a time as any. She wanted to get it over with.

It was unusual, that was for sure. She felt a certain sad excitement, a little discomfort and much embarrassment, the latter concerned with the removal of clothing.
I am dying, Egypt, dying
, her mind gabbled when Dotty Blundell’s brassière fell to the dusty floor. She hadn’t been prepared for the way poetry came into this fitting together of parts,
Shall I believe that unsubstantial Death is amorous, and that the lean abhorrèd monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour
, she recited in her head, as O’Hara climbed on top and humped her beneath the rude unshaded bulb. Not that O’Hara was either lean or a monster. ‘Stella Maris,’ he muttered against her hair, and jumped away like a fish leaping on a bank.

When it appeared to be over – he’d stopped breathing so heavily and lay with his eyes closed – she asked him who Stella Maris was.

‘Did I say that?’ he said, and sat up and combed his hair. ‘I knew someone of that name a long time ago. It means Star of the Sea.’

‘Stella Maris,’ she repeated. ‘It’s nice.’

‘It wasn’t her real name,’ he said. ‘Just something she made up.’

She was staring somewhat scornfully at his plump shoulders. He put on his shirt and suggested she should wash herself at the sink. She refused; she’d had a bath the night before.

‘You mustn’t worry,’ he said. ‘I was very careful. I’m not an irresponsible man.’

She supposed he was thinking about babies. She wasn’t bothered. If what she had done was a sin then it was only right she should be punished. ‘No use crying over spilt milk,’ she said. If she had weakened for a moment, to the extent of uttering one soft word of forgiveness, of friendship, she might have burst into tears. Already in the expression of her eyes, the beginnings of her small, triumphant smile, there was more than a touch of the martyr.

‘Did you enjoy it?’ he asked, not looking at her.

‘Not really,’ she admitted. ‘I expect there’s a knack to it. It’s very intimate, isn’t it?’

He insisted on walking her home but she ran off at the corner. He wasn’t pleased with himself. Whatever momentary spasm of pleasure he had experienced was now forgotten. He was also more than a little scandalised at the girl’s matter-of-fact acceptance of what had happened. She hadn’t wept or clung to him, demanded to know what he felt about her, uttered those naive and sweetly foolish declarations of undying love expected of a young girl whose virginity had just been taken. He was fairly certain she had no idea of how gentle he had been, how thoughtful. One way and another he felt let down.

Stella didn’t go home, not right away. Instead she walked as fast as she could towards the river, past the mean little houses below the cathedral. She almost choked on the stench of damp grain blowing up the hill.

There was a man in the telephone box outside the Mission Hall. She crouched in the shadows of the porch and watched the blurred lights of a Christmas tree winking in the first-floor room of a house opposite. A little girl carrying either a doll or a child walked back and forth behind the windows.