And All That Jazz Episode 02
The stitches slipped under Dora’s fingers like beads on an abacus.
“Twenty, twenty-five . . . Not again,” she muttered, pulling the knitting off the needle.
She began to unravel her afternoon’s work, filling her lap with wiggling yarn.
She used to be better at this. She used to be better at so many things.
Now it seemed her mind couldn’t focus on any task for long enough to complete it.
The problem was she’d found everything so easy before.
She had been a marvel at juggling a dozen thoughts in her head, without having to commit a single fact to paper.
That all ended the day of the telegram.
In that moment, something in her mind had come untethered.
She’d since been unable to hold a single thought, to follow a recipe, to knit without dropping stitches.
A few words on a slip of paper were all it had taken.
Dora hadn’t merely become a widow in that moment.
No, she’d become someone else. A lesser person.
The mantel clock struck six o’clock. It was time for supper.
Dora wrapped the wool around her needles and pushed it in her sewing basket, then stood up and headed for the door.
Her footsteps echoed in the hallway – an empty, solemn sound.
Mother had helped her choose the house after her wedding, in preparation for the family to come.
Mother had said she would need somewhere when Walter returned.
The worst that could happen was a flesh wound that would become a rather dashing scar, and a gentleman without a small scar really wasn’t worth his salt, according to Mother.
The house was well proportioned and the décor tasteful, but it was ridiculously large for one person.
Dora didn’t even have full-time staff any more; just a cook and a maid who both lived locally.
She couldn’t face the noise of other people, having them walking overhead, scuffling about in the night.
Mother didn’t approve. She said their friends would think her impoverished.
Dora just made excuses, saying how hard it was to find staff since the war.Even Mother couldn’t disagree with that.
Supper was in the larder – cold cuts and boiled new potatoes, prepared by Mrs Knox the cook.
Dora was buttering a slice of bread when the doorbell chimed, making her drop the butter knife.
Her heart was hammering as she exhaled slowly.
What a ridiculous person she’d become. Since the telegram every knock at the door frightened her.
The bell rang again, followed by impatient knocking.
“Very well,” she muttered, heading for the hallway.
She opened the door just as the caller was about to knock again.
It was a young woman in a grey serge skirt and a white blouse open at the neck.
She’d clearly been walking, as evidenced by the jacket over her arm and the glow of her cheeks.
“Lizzy.”
“Dora.” Lizzy shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
“I wasn’t expecting you.” Dora had the urge to close the door.
Lizzy’s face tightened.
“If it’s inconvenient –”
“Of course it isn’t. Do come in,” Dora invited her.
Lizzy stepped inside and her sister closed the door behind her.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Dora offered.
Lizzy smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes.
Dora led the way along the hall to the kitchen, aware of how loud their heels were on the tiles.
The sound of two pairs of feet seemed so much louder than when she was alone.
“Have you just come from the exchange?” Dora enquired.
“Yes,” Lizzy confirmed. “Mrs Haden was terrifying a new girl with her usual speech.
“The way she talks you’d think the security of the nation rests on our shoulders.”
Lizzy warmed the pot, measured the leaves and looked through the kitchen drawers for a strainer.
She was always so easy in her speech and her movements, while Dora always felt so awkward and shy.
“Overconfident,” Mother said, but Dora couldn’t help but envy her sister, who felt so comfortable in her own skin.
Back in the parlour, Dora sat on the chaise while Lizzy sat in the armchair.
She slipped off her shoes, tucking her feet under her as she balanced a cup of tea on the chair arm.
“What have you been doing with yourself?” Lizzy asked.
Dora’s hand fluttered to her head, smoothing stray hairs.
“We’ve been rather busy of late,” she told her sister. “We’ve been raising funds for the refurbishment of St Peter’s and for the soup kitchen.
“And, of course, there’s the church fete to organise and socks to knit,” Dora added.
Lizzy paused, her teacup at her lips.
“Socks?” she prompted.
The heat crept up Dora’s collar to her cheeks.
“We’ll knit a pair of socks for each of the former servicemen who use the soup kitchen,” Dora explained.
Lizzy sipped her tea thoughtfully.
“Do they need warm socks in June?” she asked.
“Perhaps not, but they will need them when the weather cools.”
“It doesn’t sound like very much fun, Dora.” Lizzy leaned back in her chair.
Every time she met with Lizzy, Dora felt older than her thirty years and closer to her mother’s generation.
The flush rose to her cheeks again, this time of irritation.
Lizzy was always judging her, and she had no right.
All Dora did was get through the day as best she could, trying to do the right thing.
“Well, life isn’t all about having fun, Elizabeth.” Dora sounded like her mother and she hated it.
Lizzy seemed to stiffen.
The next words were out of Dora’s mouth before she could stop herself.
“Are you still going to that place?” she enquired.
Lizzy carefully put her cup on the floor.
“If you mean Texas Tommy’s, Dora, just say so,” she replied.
“You know that’s where I mean,” her sister replied.
“Yes, I still go there. I can’t imagine why you dislike it so much,” Lizzie stated. “You enjoyed dancing yourself before the war.
“I remember you sneaking out of the house to go dance with some girl friend or other.”
“I did not sneak out,” Dora corrected her. “Father knew precisely where I was going.”
They’d needed to hide such things from their mother, who only approved of social engagements she’d organised herself.
“And they were tea dances at the church hall, not . . . whatever that place is you frequent,” Dora continued.
“It’s a jazz club. They play jazz,” Lizzy pointed out.
Dora had heard the ladies at the church discussing the venue’s degrading effect on the young people of Birmingham.
Men and women dancing too closely, unchaperoned. The very thought of it was frightening.
“Living with your artist friend is one thing –” Dora began once more.
“Her name is Beatrice, as I’ve told you several times before,” Lizzie interrupted.
“– earning your own money is another, though why you insist on doing
so . . .”
Lizzy feet hit the floor with a thump.
“Because I want to work. I like to work and earn money to spend as I wish,” she barked back.
Lizzy slipped her feet into her shoes and fiddled with the buckles.
How could Dora make her understand?
She took a deep breath, forcing her voice to stay even.
“But the kinds of people at this club . . .” Dora tried again.
Lizzy sighed. Her head was bowed so her fringe masked her eyes.
Then she looked up, her expression cold, her mouth set in a hard line.
“It’s about reputation, right?” she started. “But it isn’t my reputation that worries you. It’s yours and Mother’s.”
Heat bathed Dora’s face.
“That’s not it,” she denied.
Lizzy was up, reaching for her jacket that she’d thrown over the back of her chair.
“Of course it is,” she argued. “Reputation, name, status – they’re what’s important to you because they’re important to our mother.”
She pulled on her jacket, the collar of her blouse creased beneath.
“At least I’m living my own life and not someone else’s,” Lizzy stated.
Then she hurried from the room, slamming the door before Dora could react.
Dora wasn’t sure how long she sat staring at the empty grate, but when she heard the letter-box clack it was growing dark.
Lizzy had always been the hot-headed Cashmore sister and Dora the responsible one. The biddable one.
Was it wrong to be agreeable?
She did want to help those poor men who had sacrificed so much for the country. But why was it so hard to dismiss what her sister had told her?
Living someone else’s life – was that really how Lizzy saw her?
Dora made her way slowly along the hall, lighting each gas mantle in turn, hoping to banish the shadows that clung to her.
When she reached the front door, she saw an envelope on the mat.
Still distracted by the argument with Lizzy, she opened it. removing a single sheet of paper.
It was just a short note, but she had to read it through twice before the meaning sunk in.
“Oh, dear,” she muttered.
To be continued…