The Mersey Daughter (Empire Street #3)(21)

Marjorie hesitated. ‘Oh, just water,’ she said.

‘You can’t have just water on a night out at the Palais!’ Laura objected.

‘But I don’t drink alcohol,’ Marjorie protested. ‘I wouldn’t know how to start, I don’t know what I like.’

‘Maybe a lemonade?’ the waiter suggested diplomatically. Kitty reckoned he’d heard this conversation many times before.

‘You’ve had most of your life to drink lemonade,’ Laura interrupted swiftly. ‘Time to break away from the schoolroom, Marjorie. How about a martini? She’ll have a martini,’ she said to the waiter, before Marjorie could contradict her.

The waiter turned to Kitty.

‘I’ll have a shandy,’ she said, feeling very daring. She’d never been one for alcohol either. The memory of her father’s drunken rages followed by his moods of abject despair had put her off. But, she reasoned, one glass of shandy wasn’t going to turn her into her father. It might even give her a bit of much-needed Dutch courage.

‘Right, I’m off to powder my nose.’ Laura stood up. ‘See you in a minute.’

Kitty watched as plenty of servicemen in uniform turned to observe her sophisticated friend as she made her way across the hall. Several then turned back to see which table Laura might have come from. A few seemed to be interested, and finally two broke ranks and wandered across to them. Marjorie immediately fixed her gaze on the table top. Kitty sighed anxiously. It looked as if it would be up to her to make conversation. She’d have to get a grip and not let nerves overcome her.

The taller of the two men was a corporal in the army by his uniform. Kitty smiled in a friendly way without any flirtatiousness as he drew closer. ‘We hate to see you girls sitting on your own,’ he said with a grin. ‘How about a turn on the dance floor?’

Kitty shook her head, remembering how she had parried the banter in the NAAFI canteen. ‘I’m hopeless at dancing, I have to warn you. We’re just enjoying ourselves, watching the world go by.’

‘And what do you do?’ asked the shorter one, whose hair had been slicked back so carefully that it shone brightly, reflecting the lamps dotted around the hall. ‘With your looks, you’ve got to be models. Bet you spend all day getting your pictures taken.’ He looked at them hopefully, wondering if his flattery had worked.

Kitty batted it away. ‘Now we can’t tell you what we do, you know that,’ she said. ‘Careless talk costs lives; loose lips sink ships. Let’s just say it’s a bit more useful than modelling.’

The young man’s face fell, but his companion’s brightened up as Laura returned, her lipstick freshly painted and her hair brushed into shape. ‘Who’s your friend? I don’t suppose you fancy a dance, do you?’

Laura looked him up and down, seeming to assess him as a potential dance partner before cocking her head and saying, ‘Well, why not? It’s what we’ve come here for.’ Not giving him a chance to change his mind, she boldly took his arm and led him towards where a small crowd was gathering ready for the next dance.

His companion promptly lost his nerve and scuttled back to their group of friends who, by the looks of it, proceeded to mock him roundly for being such a coward.

‘Well, Laura doesn’t hang around,’ Kitty observed, as the waiter came with their drinks. She took a sniff of the cocktail. ‘Ugh, she’s welcome to that, though. I’ll stick to the shandy.’ She raised her glass. ‘Cheers, Marjorie. To happier days.’

‘Ummm.’ Marjorie clinked her martini glass against Kitty’s and sipped, first cautiously and then with more enthusiasm. ‘This is nice, though. It’s getting really busy, isn’t it? Laura was right to make us arrive early. I wouldn’t want to be stuck at the back, or so far forward that everyone trips over you.’

Kitty grinned. It sounded as if Marjorie was beginning to relax and find it not so bad after all. Maybe they’d make it through the evening without embarrassing themselves. ‘Did you want to go to brush your hair? I’ll keep the table, I don’t mind.’

‘No, it’s all right.’ Marjorie patted her hair. ‘It’ll do. I wouldn’t want to leave you on your own.’ Her gaze wandered around the room. ‘All sorts in here, aren’t there? What are those uniforms over there?’

Kitty squinted in the direction her friend was pointing. ‘Oh, they’re Canadians.’

Marjorie raised her eyebrows. ‘How do you know that?’ she asked. ‘I’ve never seen them before.’

‘We get a lot around Liverpool,’ Kitty explained. ‘We’ve always had a lot to do with Canada – we used to get Canadian timber all the time down at the docks where I lived. And there are lots of Canadian servicemen around there now. We even had some come to the canteen where I worked. I liked them. They’ve come so far from home to fight alongside our boys – you can’t help but admire them.’

Marjorie seemed to approve of that and looked at the group with renewed interest. ‘I say, they’ve noticed us.’

Of course they have, thought Kitty, you’ve been staring at them unabashed for ages, they’re bound to realise it. But she didn’t say anything, not wanting to bruise her friend’s new-found confidence and enjoyment. ‘Oh, they’re coming over. The one with the light-brown curls looks keen.’