Read Online After the Last Dance by Manning Sarra - Free Book Online Page A

possibly beg just a smidge of your lippy?’
    Rose looked up to see a girl standing behind her. She had china-blue eyes in a pretty doll-like face and hair like Jean Harlow, which Rose was sure was bleached. Women who bleached their hair were also common, but this girl certainly didn’t sound like the brassy girls who came into the café or regularly blocked Rose’s view of the mirror in the dancehalls of London.
    When Rose tentatively smiled at her, she smiled back. ‘Be my guest,’ Rose said and she handed over her precious tube of Max Factor Tru-Color in pillar-box red. As soon as she gave it to the other girl, Rose wanted to snatch it back. Instead she watched anxiously as it was sparingly applied to a mouth that would be described in a novel as bee-stung.
    â€˜You’re an angel.’ The girl pressed her lips together to spread the colour. ‘So, what did you do to get a tube of Max Factor?’
    â€˜What did I do? Oh! Well, nothing really. My friend Patience, her sister Prudence works in a munitions factory. All the girls were given a tube as a thank-you for doing their bit but Prudence has religious objections to wearing make-up and their parents said Patience was too young, so they gave it to me.’
    â€˜What rot. I can’t imagine God caring whether a girl wears a little powder and paint. Surely He has more important things to worry about.’
    Rose nodded. ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you?’
    They smiled at each other again. ‘It’s awfully hard having a conversation with someone’s reflection,’ the other girl said, ‘and we’re creating a terrible bottleneck.’
    â€˜How annoying!’ Rose shoved comb, compact and lipstick back in her handbag and turned away from the mirror to follow the girl out into the little antechamber that led back into the club. ‘I’m Rose, by the way.’
    â€˜Sylvia!’ It was a shriek, as a burly man in sailor’s uniform had come up behind Sylvia and lifted her off her feet. ‘Lovely to meet you. Thanks for the lippy!’ Her words were swallowed up as she was carried off.
    Cuthbert was waiting patiently for Rose by the bar with the promised ginger beer and as soon as she’d gulped it down, she was back in his arms.
    They only had time for one fast jive before Sylvia tapped Cuthbert on the shoulder. ‘Mind if I cut in?’ she shouted, her arms already around Rose’s waist. ‘We need another girl to make up the numbers.’
    â€˜Make sure you bring my Rosie back in one piece,’ Cuthbert said but he was already eyeing the girls lining the edge of the dancefloor, shifting their weight from foot to foot as they looked for a spare man. Rose didn’t think that Cuthbert would wait for her again.
    â€˜Not sure if you needed rescuing but I’ve got a GI, six foot four inches, who’s getting a crick in his neck from having to dance with so many short girls. Also some of the girls here are funny about dancing with a negro.’
    Kathy had been funny about dancing with negroes. She’d said none of them washed properly, which wasn’t true, because every one that Rose had danced with had been immaculately turned out, but Kathy had disappeared with a gum-chewing lance corporal within five minutes of them arriving, which had left Rose free to dance with whomever she chose.
    Now she was introduced to a grinning, debonair GI called Ray, who kissed her hand, told her she looked like Hedy Lamarr, asked if she could jive then pulled her onto the dancefloor where he lifted Rose up as if she was as light as thistledown and swung her over his head. She just had time and the presence of mind to tuck her legs in so she didn’t kick his ears.
    By the time the band decided to take a break, the bodice of the pale blue taffeta was soaked through, the ends of Rose’s hair sopping wet. It was so hot and humid in the tiny club that condensation dripped