The Forgotten Girls Read online

  Everything in the government office was hush-hush, ask no questions, tell no lies. Best to creep in quietly, look around before you take off your coat, look around before you shake out your umbrella, but don’t look around too much. Focus, focus. Clerical girls especially should be seen and not heard.

  At Life Corporation International, by contrast, it was like they wanted people to know they were there. They even had a dark blue advertising sign out in the street, for heaven’s sake. The journalists clipped up the steps two at a time, with worn-down shoes and wide-open mackintoshes, and sometimes a famous person would pull up in a chauffeured car while you stood there on the pavement trying to figure them out. Fact: famous people were all so much smaller than they seemed in the magazines or in the cinema. Annie always said she could fit Ginger Rogers in her handbag and President Eisenhower in her pocket. If necessary.

  Elaine asked her when that would ever be necessary.

  Annie said, you never know.

  One time, Elaine and Annie came upon two worn copy-editors smoking cigars in the street. After they had whistled appreciatively, and done the obligatory ‘Hello, ladies!’, they said importantly, ‘Do you want to know something really exciting? Churchill’s just dropped by!’

  Churchill wouldn’t fit in anybody’s pocket.

  They told Annie and Elaine to go in, take a look, but sadly, Churchill had already hotfooted it out the back door by the time the girls got up to the news room.

  At Life Corp. everything was out there, offered up to you like a fancy dessert on a fancy plate. This must be what America is like, Elaine imagined longingly: Freedom. Openness. Fish tanks in the hall. A meritocracy. A discussion where all voices were welcomed, no one shunned because they had the wrong accent, the wrong address, or the wrong kind of figure.

  Life Corp. had revolving doors. You could keep going round like a three-year-old for ages and ages and no one would even stop you.

  Elaine and Annie had done it. (Sixteen times, if you want to know. They only stopped because Annie thought she might be sick.)

  * * *

  Every corner of the George was strung with cobwebs like paper chains. It had boarded-up windows and on one of the outside walls was a daubed ‘Fascists Out’ from the Mosley days.

  The reason it was popular was simple. It was the last pub standing. Most of the pubs in Soho had closed: either the drinkers had been conscripted, or they had been blown up. During the Blitz, most of the George’s windows had been blown in, but it was the neighbouring King’s Arms that took the brunt of it. Elaine remembered, the morning after a particularly heavy night’s bombing, seeing Bessie, the landlady of the George, trying to console Bertha, the landlady of the King’s Arms. Both were sitting amid the rubble, drinking tea out of bone china cups on saucers.

  As always on a Friday evening, there were lots of people from Life Corp. and lots of people from the government offices at the George, but there was no sign of this guy Annie and the girls were making such a song and dance about.

  Annie and the girls looked around them disappointedly. They were all polished up, eking out their make-up rations.

  ‘Tarzan stood you up then?’ Elaine whispered. Annie’s face fell, but she refused to believe it.

  ‘He wouldn’t.’

  ‘He’s far too agreeable,’ said Elaine sarcastically.

  But then he was spied, helping Bessie with the barrels. He was lugging them up from the cellar for her; he’d built up a sweat in that white shirt, brown leather flying jacket and the high-waisted trousers that all the civilian fellas wore now.

  Annie and the girls clapped when they saw him and called out. He unloaded the barrels on his back, went down to hump up another, then slumped into the space they’d saved for him on the velvet banquette. He grinned around at everyone delightedly, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief that Elaine, who had an eye for detail, saw was pale pink and monogrammed.

  ‘Either those barrels are getting heavier or I’m getting weaker.’

  To Elaine’s surprise, Annie plumped fat kisses on his cheeks. ‘Weaker? You? Never!’

  Usually Annie was an advocate of the treat-them-mean, keep-them-keen school. Shocking to see her capitulate like this.

  Robert Capa gave out compliments freely – the rare sort, the noticing sort. Oh, he was an agreeable man, that was obvious.

  He observed the heels on Myra’s shoes.

  ‘What do they call those? Kitten heels?’

  ‘Blister heels,’ Myra retorted shyly.

  ‘Brilliant!’ He roared like he’d never heard anything funnier. Shy Myra, who no one ever joked with, gave him an appreciative smile.

  He enquired about Mrs Dill’s stepchildren, who had been evacuated to Wales.

  She said, ‘I can’t understand them… Their accents are so strong now.’

  ‘Dim rhaid i chi ddweud caws ond mae’n helpu,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that?’ Everyone leaned forward.

  ‘You don’t have to say cheese, but it helps.’ He laughed. ‘It’s the only Welsh I know!’

  He asked about Felicity’s younger sister. ‘Still learning the violin?’

  ‘For my sins, yes.’

  ‘Better than the recorder, no?’

  ‘Every night it sounds like a cat being strangled… I reckon if the Jerrys heard, they’d turn their planes back.’

  Elaine watched her colleagues having fun and it was like she was watching from somewhere far away. She felt that she was learning more about them in those few minutes than she had in all the years they’d been working together. She hadn’t known anything about Felicity’s sister’s violin, or Mrs Dill’s stepchildren’s accents. She didn’t know that trembling Myra had a sense of humour. She thought suddenly that she should ask them more questions, but whenever she tried, everyone seemed to think she was prying.

  Everyone opened up to Robert Capa like blooming oysters.

  A quarter of an hour passed, and Elaine found that, try as she might, she simply couldn’t dislike him. She would have just been cutting off her nose to spite her face. But also he really was exceedingly nice and Elaine was never good at being haughty.

  He had a slight accent: what was it? Austrian, Bulgarian, Italian, American, Canadian, French? He had a winning smile, just as Annie had said, and now Annie was nudging her triumphantly.

  ‘Close your mouth, there’s a double-decker coming.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I told you he was darling, didn’t I?’ she said knowingly.

  Always had to have the last word, that was Annie all over.

  ‘Well done, Leon. Still a full head of hair, I see…’ Robert Capa said to old Leon Harper, their postman.

  ‘I’m hanging onto it gamely – unlike you, Mr Capa!’

  ‘With a face like this?’ Robert Capa grinned broadly, part self-effacingly, part glowing with confidence – ‘who needs hair?!’

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met before,’ Elaine said when it was her turn to take his attention. She held out her gloved hand and as she did so, she felt what a peculiarly old-fashioned and English gesture it was, while he was so fresh and exotic.

  ‘I’d definitely recall if we had.’ His hand was warm and hung onto hers for longer than necessary.

  Elaine laughed. His eyes were dark, long-lashed and compelling, even in the smoke-fug. She had to force herself to look away.

  He said he liked her gloves.

  ‘They’re beautiful quality.’

  Of all the things he could have said! Elaine blushed. Looking expensive was a preoccupation of hers. She didn’t shout it from the rooftops but another of the joys of being clerical – apart from the contribution to the war effort, of course – was dressing for the job. Even through the Blitz – when clothes were supposed to be the last things on your mind – she had kept up appearances: Elaine Parker always looked the part. It was more important to her than it was to the other girls, but then they had all those other things going for them too.

  ‘They suit you.’

  Clive had got them for her. There was no need to tell Robert Capa that carefully stitched inside the gloves was the name of their previous owner: ‘Mildred Cousins’.

  * * *

  Here he came, Marty the faithful greyhound. He arrived by Robert Capa’s side, with a tray of glasses filled to the brim with gin, and they all had to shove up. Older, blonder, paler, smaller… no, he wasn’t smaller, he just seemed smaller. Definitely narrower in the shoulder department, but actually way taller. Six foot two or even three. Deceptively built. Rectangular wire glasses. Fragile-looking. Less energy. More Cheetah than Tarzan. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. No wonder he rarely got a mention.

  More and more people gathered around their banquette. Girls – pretty girls from Life Corp., all coming to have a look. Elaine was introduced to some of them: Hello Faye and Merry. Elaine didn’t like the way Merry looked at Robert Capa with those eyes. And what on earth was the girl using for blusher? She felt strangely protective of her new friend.

  ‘We’re going dancing,’ Robert Capa said. ‘Won’t you join us?’

  He looked directly at Elaine as he said it. She gazed back at the twin peaks of his tanned, slightly shiny forehead. He wasn’t typically attractive – he certainly wasn’t her type – and yet… The big smile, the twinkle in the eyes, it all added up to something.

  She shouldn’t go. Absolutely not.

  ‘Come on, Elaine, you know you love a party,’ said Annie, nudging her.

  Gazing at her, Robert Capa seemed to be asking even bigger questions with his puppy eyes. ‘It won’t be a party without you,’ he said finally.

  Unfortunately, her brother Clive was outside the pub as they left. Elaine tried to sneak by, but you could never sneak by Clive, especially when he was
calling out, ‘Elaine, over here, ELAINE!’ She and Annie exchanged looks. She’d told Clive a hundred times not to come here, and definitely not to speak to her if he did.

  Now Clive sat kerbside, still in his fish-stained overalls, his club foot stretched out into the road, plaintively asking people to bring him out a pint. Most ignored him, but as he often said, you only needed one sucker to feel sorry for you. (He’d inherited that piece of wisdom from their dad.)

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Elaine tried not to sound as accusing as she felt. Not because Clive didn’t deserve it – he was generally up to no good – but because no one likes a woman who scolds. Everyone had left the pub now and was crowded in the street, debating whether to go on or not. Robert Capa was looking over at her curiously, more than curiously. She couldn’t help knowing he was interested, even though she’d deny it to Felicity and Myra. That’s what you do, if you don’t want to be arrogant.

  People talked about Elaine’s body as though it were a thing separate from her– the way you might admire a cute kitten in the street. ‘Curvaceous,’ they said, or ‘should be in the films’. It was a body that sent out a message, apparently – a veritable postal service – but it was mainly men between the ages of sixteen and sixty who felt obliged to reply. The fuss was silly. It was amusing while at the same time it could be repulsive. Sometimes, though, it had its uses. Robert Capa hadn’t taken his eyes off her and it felt good. Hands on hips, Elaine turned back to her co-workers. ‘Go ahead. I’ll join you in a minute.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Elaine always manages to catch us up,’ Annie called out.

  Elaine couldn’t help but think, one day, I mightn’t be able to.

  * * *

  Clive was only eighteen but he had the cunning of a gangland boss twice his age, and looks many women bizarrely seemed to find appealing. He’ll go far or to jail, their mother used to say. His club foot didn’t stop him doing anything – he was so adept with a stick that he played goal for Tooting football club when they were desperate and had only missed three Charlton Athletic home matches in his life, but it had stopped him getting called up. Now, he was reaping the benefits of the lack of male competition not just for sports, or for women, but for everything.

  While the Blitz was in full swing, Clive’s foot didn’t hold him back from breaking into houses, riffling through jewellery boxes, trampling through allotments, then ‘comforting’ anxious women in the underground. It was Clive who got their family the wireless and a gramophone during the Blitz and even a garden bench for Mrs Perry to sit out on downstairs, which was taken from the Devonshire pub’s gardens and which the police had put up signs about.

  ‘Where’s Justin?’ Curiously, Clive liked Justin, despite Justin never giving him the time of day.

  Why did he have to have such a loud voice?

  ‘Not here,’ whispered Elaine. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘Got any dosh?’

  ‘I’ll give you some later, at home.’

  ‘I need it now, Elaine.’

  If Elaine asked Clive for a saucepan, there would be four on the stove within the hour. Ask him for the moon and he would find you a ladder. He was very generous. Clive kept them going after Dad left. If it weren’t for him there would have been no The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over the Lazy Dog books, there would have been no secretarial college. There would certainly have been no clerical work in a government department – there’d have been no future for her at all. Elaine owed him. She handed over a shilling, but he looked so despondent that she dug in her purse for a second.

  ‘I’ll pay you back,’ he said.

  He never did.

  * * *

  Annie was right. Elaine never could resist a party, even on a work night, especially on a work night. And somehow, in a way that seemed too easy, too filmic, she was through the doors, and in a basement room, and there was Robert Capa. He was waiting for her. He was surrounded by women, all preening and smiling at him, but he had eyes only for her. She found herself next to him and they started dancing. The only thing that wasn’t like being in a film was that Robert Capa turned out to be a truly terrible dancer! Who would have thought it? He was verging on the diabolical. Somehow, Elaine found herself teaching him moves. It was a mystery how he got them so wrong. It was like he found it hard to connect the music with his body, like he had no idea that that was the point.

  ‘All right, put your arm round me here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘No.’

  At first, she thought he couldn’t possibly be that clumsy and that he was just pretending – and then she realised that, yes, actually, he was that clumsy.

  It wasn’t that Elaine was a different person when she was dancing, it was just that she felt as if she had been sleeping and then suddenly she was awake. All her senses were suddenly alive, alert and aware. Elaine lost herself to the music, the moves. If she had only known adult life could be like this, she was sure she could have had a better childhood. She would certainly have had something to look forward to and having something to look forward to would have made all the difference in the world. When she danced, she felt energised, plugged in, switched on, alight.

  In a world that was dreary with sudden deaths, rationings, bad news on the wireless, dancing was the perfect antidote.

  ‘Are you American?’ It wasn’t the first question she wanted to ask Robert Capa, but it was a start.

  ‘Not quite.’ He smiled back. Elaine didn’t know what that meant. ‘Would you prefer it if I was?’

  She shrugged. It has nothing to do with me what he is, she told herself.

  He was watching her all the time and it was as if they knew each other well; she had to remind herself that they’d only just met. She stared back, drinking him in. His eyebrows were too dark, the classic beetle baddy’s brows from a children’s story. His nose was too strong – was it Roman? Inherited from an emperor, quite possibly. His skin was brown, yellow, olive, white, green.

  He had too many teeth for his mouth but then, look who was talking! On first impression, Elaine’s teeth were excellent – indeed Annie and Myra claimed to be jealous of their straightness –but secretly, shamefully, they were like those uninhabitable houses in Whitechapel they kept talking about on the wireless: they might look all right but they could crumble at any moment. Elaine tried to remember to cover her mouth when she smiled, but she often forgot. They would be the first thing she would fix if she ever came into any money. They were a big clue to her background; she had been quick enough to work that out.

  She and Robert Capa danced some more. He apologised for not being nimble enough, but it was fine, she could fill in his spaces with more movements. Twirling, whirling, obliterating this silly, silly, never-ending war.

  And the thing was, she was having a better time dancing with him and his two left feet than with all the good dancers she had ever danced with put together.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until gone midnight that she realised that the others had disappeared; even Annie had faded away some time earlier. It was too late for the underground, so Robert Capa offered to walk her home. It was with a start that she realised she was still wearing her work clothes. Usually dancing this wildly was reserved for Friday and Saturday nights, not Thursdays.

  ‘Where is Marty?’ she asked, although she didn’t much care. ‘I was told you two were inseparable.’

  ‘Marty knows when he’s needed and when he isn’t.’

  ‘And he’s not needed now?’

  He smiled, raising his beetle baddy brows at her.

  * * *

  Robert Capa negotiated the blackout darkness well. Elaine even let him take her hand, although it was something she usually disliked. Down and along, up and down; she only stubbed her toe twice on the kerbs and he only brushed against her a few times, apologising each time. She told him he was like a cat. He said if he had nine lives, he’d already used ten of them. He asked her if she liked cats, so she told him about Bettie Page, her tabby with unfeasibly long whiskers. He said he’d love to meet her one day.

  Elaine paused, wondering whether inviting a man to see her cat was a line that was sensible to cross.