And All That Jazz Episode 09
Dora hadn’t seen Lizzy since their night at the club.
She’d suggested her sister return with her to Edgbaston, but Lizzy had just shaken her head, staring out of the cab window.
Bea, Lizzy’s flatmate, had hurried her upstairs, leaving Dora feeling useless and slightly envious.
The two of them seemed to have a bond Dora and her sister had lost, and it hurt to think about it.
Afterwards, Freddie had jumped out of the cab, tipping his hat and smiling as if the evening had been a terrific success.
Dora had called on Lizzy the next day, but Bea had blocked the door with a sad look, saying Lizzy didn’t want to see anyone, so Dora had trailed home to a lonely supper of brawn and cold potatoes.
The next day, her mood lifted when Vincent visited.
She told him the whole story over tea.
He listened, shaking his head in sympathy.
“It must have been very upsetting for you both,” he said, sipping his tea. “What has happened to the young man now?”
Dora felt a pang of guilt at the question.
It had never occurred to her to find out.
“I don’t know. Lizzy won’t see me,” Dora explained. “Or, at least, her friend won’t let her see me.
“I think she blames me for what happened.”
“Why would she do that?” Vincent asked.
“She’s often angry with me. Perhaps it’s just that we don’t see the world in the same way.”
“I don’t know how anyone could possibly be angry with you,” Vincent replied.
Heat flushed Dora’s cheeks.
At first she was glad he couldn’t see her, then felt instantly guilty.
“It’s clear, though,” Vincent continued, “that Lizzy cares deeply for Charlie.”
“Well, they’re friends –” Dora tried to say, but Vincent chuckled.
“I don’t think many young women would weep all the way home just for a friend, Dora,” he pointed out.
She’d had an inkling at the club, but how had she not seen how important Charlie was to Lizzy?
“How have things been at school?” Dora enquired, changing the topic. “You were worried about one of your pupils, weren’t you? Robert, I think.”
Vincent’s face lit up.
“You remember the names of my pupils?” He reached out, searching for his plate.
“Of course,” Dora replied.
He told her all about Robert, how Vincent knew he was a good boy with a good brain, just easily distracted.
She felt distracted herself, watching his face change as he spoke about the boy, the expressions shifting from concern to delight.
She felt so comfortable with Vincent now.
He smiled at everything, from hearing the rain on the roof to Elgar and the poetry of Yeats.
Had Walter smiled so often? She found it hard to imagine her late husband’s face now.
Even when she looked at his photograph she couldn’t remember the sound of his voice.
What would her life be like now if that evening at that dance had turned out differently?
Suddenly, it felt like she was lying to Vincent, keeping a secret that might threaten their friendship.
“We’ve met before,” she blurted out.
Vincent had been talking, and now he stopped, faltered, then found his smile again.
“Well, I should hope so,” he joked. “I wouldn’t like to think you would invite any old bachelor in for salmon sandwiches.”
Dora could have laughed and changed the subject, but a part of her wanted him to know.
A part of her wanted him to remember their connection from before, the way he’d looked at her across that hall.
“No, I mean, we met before. During the war,” she explained.
His smile dropped and her stomach dropped with it.
It was as she’d feared. He’d forgotten her.
She was the fool who had carried the memory of him like a beacon for years; he was the handsome soldier who talked to any young woman before returning to the Front.
“There was a Christmas dance in 1916 at St Bartholomew’s church hall,” she continued, “and you were there.
“You gave me a glass of punch and we talked . . .”
Humiliation flushed her cheeks, filling her throat.
Vincent’s head was bowed, his hands knitted together.
“It’s the only sensible way to get through these things,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?” Dora’s heart picked up pace.
They were the words he’d said to her at the dance, ones that had stayed with her all these years.
“I hadn’t intended to go that evening,” he went on. “I thought it would be filled with people telling me what a marvellous thing I was doing for the country.
“I didn’t want their sympathy, the sidelong glances as they wondered if I’d come home again, or how badly injured I’d be.
“I almost stayed at the barracks, but Walter reminded me it was Christmas and who knew when we’d next go to a party, so I went.”
Vincent seemed to look straight at her for a moment.
“I have to say it was every bit as dull as I’d thought,” he said. “Handshakes and talk of the Somme that I could hardly stomach.”
He sat back in his chair.
“And then I saw her,” he continued. “The most beautiful young woman. There, in a church hall in Edgbaston, of all places.”
“You do remember,” Dora murmured.
He gave a sad, soft smile that made her heart beat painfully fast.
“Of course I remember you, Dora,” he confirmed.
She swallowed, not trusting herself to say anything.
“I watched you for a while,” he revealed. “The way laughter made your eyes shine, the soft way you spoke to people.
“I needed an excuse to speak to you, so I poured us two glasses of that terrible punch.
“What did we even talk about? I tried so hard to remember,” he stated.
“But you left so early. I thought you’d forgotten me,” Dora confessed.
“I was called away to speak to some captain or other.”
She nodded.
“A stern man. Resembled Lord Kitchener,” she recalled, and he chuckled.
“He talked my ear off about manoeuvres and gun emplacements, and by the time I got back to you . . .”
“Walter,” Dora stated.
“Yes,” Vincent said, “Walter was no fool. He found you just as I had. After the dance he spoke of nothing but you.”
A thought hit her and she sighed.
“You stepped away,” she realised.
“I had to.” Vincent’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. “He was smitten with you and, after all, you and I shared only a few minutes together.
“You and he started writing and then he told me you were engaged.”
Walter had been such a kind man to Dora.
Quiet and brave, all the more courageous because he seemed so unsuited to being a soldier.
He was from the right family and Mother had been so approving.
It had seemed such a foolish thing to throw that away, dreaming of a man whose name she didn’t even know, whom she might never see again.
Tears sprang from Dora’s eyes for the awful waste of it all.
“I never forgot you,” she told Vincent.
“And I you,” he said in turn.
Vincent held out his hand and Dora took it.
Smooth and warm, it fitted round her own perfectly.
To be continued…