Avalanche of Daisies (2 page)

At that moment, there was a commotion on the other side of the hall, somebody being pulled off the floor by the looks of it, somebody shouting, arms waving. Dusty appeared at his side as if by magic.

‘Now
that's
a punch-up,' he said, eyes gleaming. He cracked his knuckles, crick-crack, left hand, right hand, like a boxer flexing his muscles. ‘Let's have a shufti.'

The rest of the gang had gathered round him too, all eager. ‘Yeh! Come on! Let's.'

They pushed their way through the crowd, shouldering people aside, avid for action. But it wasn't yobs versus the army after all, just one of the local lads shoving a girl about. Dusty was visibly disappointed.

The lad was a stocky-looking individual about three inches shorter than Steve, dark of hair and eye, with brawny arms and big hands that he was using with unnecessary force to push the girl backwards away from the dance floor. She was fighting him off valiantly, twisting her body out of his reach and shouting at him to leave off, but he was too heavy for her and too insistent.

‘You came here with
me,'
he shouted, pushing at her again. The words rose into the languid sounds of the waltz, staccato as bullets.

‘No I didn't,' she shouted back. ‘I come on my own.'

‘You're
my
gal,' he insisted. ‘My gal … so you dance with me, properly, or you go home. You'll get yourself a reputation.'

‘I don' care!'

‘Well I do!'

The girl kicked out at him viciously, catching him on the shins, so that for a second he staggered back, temporarily off guard. ‘You don' own me, Victor Castlemain,' she said. ‘I hain't your gal an' thass no good you think it. Don't talk squit!'

Kicking him made him worse. He seized her by the shoulders and shoved her against the wall, his handsome face dark with rage. ‘All this hossin' around has got to stop. Do you hear me?'

No, Steve thought, this is too much. I can't let this go on. Even in the heat of her anger, there was something vulnerable about this girl, something about the expression in her eyes, the tilt of her chin, the way she stood her ground. It roused him to an instant and protective tenderness. She was too small to fight a great gawk like that. Too small and too skinny, her wrists fragile against the brute fists of her aggressor. Without thinking any further, he stepped forward to defend her.

‘That'll do,' he said to the gawk. ‘Leave her be.'

The young man barely looked at him. ‘Buzz off,
soldier!' he said. ‘That's nothing to do with you. That's between me an' her.'

‘I don't think so,' Steve said, putting his height and strength between them.

For a prickling second, the two men bristled at one another, challenging, eye to eye, Steve using his height to intimidate, the other standing four square, jutting his chin. Then the young man spoke again. ‘Buzz off!' he warned. ‘I told you. This is private.'

‘In a public dancehall?' Steve mocked. ‘Oh I don't think so. Anyway, she's dancing with me.' He turned to the girl. ‘Aren't you?'

She looked straight up at him, and now she had a devilish expression on her face. Daring? Delight? He couldn't interpret. ‘Thass right,' she said, and held out her hand to him.

The young man scowled at her. ‘You're not. Don't be stupid.'

‘She is,' Steve told him, taking her hand and leading her away from trouble. ‘D'you want to make something of it?'

Now, and a bit late, the young man realised that he was surrounded by hostile khaki. ‘Now look here,' he said.

Dusty moved happily into the attack, fists clenched. ‘No, you look, sunshine,' he said, thrusting his face at his enemy. ‘Seems to me you need to cool down.' Steve and the girl were already dancing their way towards the centre of the floor. ‘Seems to me you need to take a little walk. Bit a' fresh air. Whatcher think fellers?'

‘You can buzz off too!' the young man said, standing his ground. ‘I'm not going anywhere and you can't make me.'

They had his arms pinioned behind his back before the words were out of his mouth.

‘D'you wanna bet?' Dusty mocked as they shoved him forwards.

Out on the dance floor the girl was laughing, her face
transformed, cheeks rounded, eyes gleaming, lips spread wide, small teeth catching the light. ‘I shouldn't laugh,' she said, ‘but you got to admit thass funny. He onny start hollerin' because a' me dancing with someone he knew. Thass what start it. And now I'm with you an' I don't know you from Adam. You got to admit …' Laughter overwhelmed her.

‘I'm Steve,' he told her, adding with some pride, ‘Private Steve Wilkins, 7th Armoured Division.'

‘I can see that,' she said, looking at the divisional badge on his shoulder. ‘I'm Barbara.'

Two other dancers nudged past them and the girl reached out to pull at Barbara's red sweater. ‘Lo Spitfire!' she said. ‘What was all the hollerin'?'

‘Onny Vic,' Barbara told her easily. ‘You know the way he go on.'

The girl grimaced and was gone.

‘Spitfire?' Steve asked.

‘Thass my nickname.'

‘Suits you,' he said, admiring her. Small, quick, spitting fire, it was just the right name for her. Full of life and movement, like mercury. Now that they were so close to one another he could see how attractive she was, her features finer than most of the other girls in the hall. She had a funny little nose, like Bob Hope's, but her eyes were large and almond shaped and shadowed by amazingly thick lashes and her mouth was quite the most delicious he'd ever seen, her top lip wide and lusciously curved, her bottom lip so full it was almost as if she was pouting. Then he noticed the red sweater and realised who she was. The jitterbug girl. Good God! I'm dancing with the jitterbug girl. Wonders'll never cease.

‘I could have seen him off myself, you know,' she said.

‘I don't doubt it,' he told her. With that bold face she could see anybody off.

‘I don't need rescuing. Not really. I got three
brothers. If I can cope with them I can cope with anyone.'

Instincts sharpened, he recognised threatened pride and realised that he would have to disguise his noble intentions. ‘Actually,' he said, ‘I did it for my friend. He was looking for a punch-up.'

‘Thass all right then,' she said, and grinned at him, her face devilish. ‘What'll they do to him?'

‘Depends how lippy he is,' he said and was going to suggest a few lurid possibilities when another young man manoeuvred his partner into position alongside them and leant towards them to talk to her.

He wore the navy-blue jersey and serviceable trousers of the merchant seaman, but his calling would have been obvious even if he'd been wearing civvies. Everything about him proclaimed it, from his mop of dark curly hair, his tanned face and sea-blue eyes, to his rolling gait and his jaunty air and the strong smell of salt and cheap cigarettes that blew in upon them as he talked.

‘You all right, kid?' he asked, looking at Barbara.

‘'Lo Norman,' she said. ‘'Course. What d'you imagine?'

He grinned at her. ‘Just checkin'. He didn't hit you or nothin'?'

‘He wouldn't dare,' she said, grinning back.

‘We heard him hollerin' the other side the room,' the girl put in.

‘I kicked him in the shins.'

‘You would,' Norman laughed. ‘You lead him a dog's life, poor ol' bor.' And they danced away.

‘Who was that?' Steve asked. They looked so alike he was sure this one was a relation.

‘My big brother,' she said proudly. ‘He's in the merchant navy. Atlantic convoys mostly. He's home on leave for a few weeks. He thinks he's got to look after me when he's on leave. Daft ol' bor! The girl he's dancing with is our cousin.'

Steve felt compelled to ask his next question. ‘Is Vic a cousin too? I mean, you're not related or anything are you?' It didn't seem likely but the gawk
had
been acting as though he was a boyfriend. All that business about ‘you're my gal'.

She stiffened in his arms and leant back to frown at him. How quickly and entirely her expression could change. She was never the same two minutes at a time. Now, with her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, she looked like a vixen. ‘No,' she said. ‘We ain't.'

‘My mistake!'

‘He live round the corner,' she explained. ‘We were at school together – till he went to the grammar. That was half his trouble, goin' to the grammar. Gave him ideas. Made him big-headed. I went out with him a few times. Last summer. Now he reckon he owns me. Which he don't.'

They danced without speaking for a minute or two, or to be more accurate, they swayed gently from foot to foot. The floor was too crowded for anything more adventurous and in any case the waltz was slowing to a halt. Her expression was changing again, growing dreamy.

‘How about the next one?' he offered when the music stopped. He couldn't just escort her from the floor and say goodbye to her. Not now.

They were announcing the next dance and it was a quickstep. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘Why not? D'you jitterbug?'

He didn't. Couldn't. The mere idea made his heart jump. But the need to go on talking to her was stronger than his alarm. ‘I'll have a go,' he said.

It was a disaster. The music was too quick, he didn't know which way to turn or what to do with his feet or his arms, he trod on her feet and bumped into everybody within range. Within seconds she was laughing at him, her face spread and lifted the way it had been when she first joined him on the floor.

‘Sorry!' he apologised. ‘I'm not much of a dancer.'

‘You can say that again,' she agreed cheerfully. ‘You're like an elephant.'

This time he wished she wasn't quite so outspoken. ‘Thanks!'

She laughed at him again. ‘Never mind. I'll teach you. I'm good with elephants. There's nothin' to it once you get the hang of it. Watch my feet and do what I do.'

He allowed himself to be led, following the beat. She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him in the direction she wanted him to go, twisting his body first this way and then that. Then she seized his hand and made him turn her, ducking underneath his outstretched arm as if he were leading her and grinning up at him as she turned. There was no possibility of talking. It was all he could do to follow the moves. But the excitement of dancing this amazing dance with this amazing girl more than made up for it. By the end of it all he wasn't simply out of breath, he was bewitched.

‘There!' she said, as he walked her back to her friends. ‘What d'you think? Four more dances an' you won't know yourself.'

‘Can I have four more dances then?'

She gave him her daring expression. ‘If you like.'

‘I thought you'd say,
“Never again.”
I mean after the way I trod on you.'

‘You're a challenge,' she laughed at him. ‘I'm a great one for a challenge, me.'

They were almost at her table, where four or five girls were waiting for her, all questioning eyes. He'd have to be quick. ‘Next waltz then,' he asked.

The next waltz it was, and the next, and three more valiant attempts at the jitterbug, each one marginally better than the last. Then, and a great deal too soon for his liking, it was the last waltz and the lights were dimmed so far that he couldn't see anything except the gleam of her eyes, the tender sweep of those long thick eyelashes and the outline of that expressive face. She was dancing dreamily again, her lips slightly parted. It
would be the easiest thing to lean towards her and kiss them. Oh the easiest, most wonderful thing.

‘I'll walk you home,' he offered, and was annoyed that his voice was suddenly so husky that he had to cough to clear it. ‘I mean, that feller might be hanging around.'

‘He'll be with his mates,' she said easily. ‘Thass where he'll be.' She didn't sound, or look, the least bit troubled.

‘I'll walk you home,' he insisted. ‘See you to your door.'

‘Thass only round the corner,' she said. ‘I usually go with my friends.'

‘I'll walk you all home then,' he said. Better to be one of a crowd than to end their evening now. ‘Safety in numbers.'

She laughed at that. ‘Wait till you seen 'em till you start sayin' things like that,' she warned.

They were a noisy lot and there seemed to be dozens of them, all milling about and joshing one another as they waited for her to get her coat. ‘Hassen you up!' they called after her in their Norfolk burr. ‘We hain't got orl day!'

After half an evening spent in her company, the coat was just what he expected her to wear. It was a scarlet wraparound jacket, with a hood to cover her wild hair and a tie-belt to pull about her waist, bright, bold and very suitable.

‘Red Riding Hood,' he teased, as they inched towards the exit.

She grinned at him. ‘Onny
I
eat the wolf!'

I'll bet you do, he thought. But there wasn't time to say anything because she'd gone on ahead of him.

He followed her through the double barrier of the blackout and into a sudden slap of cold air and total darkness. As always on a black night, it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. He could just about see that his truck was waiting in front of the hotel where it
had dropped him off but the buildings round the square were simply black silhouettes against the Prussian blue of the sky. After the noise and warmth of the dancehall the square was cold and all sound either distant or diffused. Chirruping voices retreated, calling good night, army boots scuffled the pavement, high heels squeaked and clicked, and somewhere to the right of them, unseen bicycles rattled over the cobbles and someone was cranking a car.

‘Right then,' he said. ‘Which way?'

‘Follow the others,' Barbara said. Her friends were already heading north out of the square. She thrust her hands deep into her pockets, and shivered as she strode off. For a second he wondered whether he could hold her hand or put an arm round her shoulders, then he decided he'd better ask first.