Free Dancing in the Dark by Maureen Lee Page B

sailors. If it hadn’t been for Tommy she’d have gone like a shot. “You gave Jock your address, Sal. He might write,” she said hopefully.
    “And where are you off to?” Martha demanded that night when Flo came downstairs ready to go out.
    “I’m going to see Josie.” Unknown to Josie Driver, she and Flo had become the greatest of friends since Tommy had appeared on the scene. She met Josie twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. Josie would have been surprised to learn she was thinking of becoming a nun and needed someone in whom she could confide her deepest, most intimate thoughts while coming to such a major decision.
    Martha’s eyes looked suspicious behind her thick glasses. “Why do you need a red bow in your hair just to see Josie?”
    “I bought the ribbon in New Brighton,” Flo replied haughtily.
    “It looks very nice,” Albert Colquitt said, from the table where he was having his tea.
    “I think so, too,” Mam concurred.
    Martha gave up. “Don’t be too late.”
    “Have a nice time,” Flo called, as she slammed the door.
    Albert had just bought a wireless and everyone was staying in to listen to a play, Mam armed with two bottles of Guinness to “build her up”, although she’d been feeling better since the weather had improved. Flo shuddered to think of her sisters sitting in the parlour on Albert’s bed-settee.
    What a way for two young women to spend a bank-holiday evening!
    “I like your bow,” said Tommy.
    “I like your tie,” Flo sang.
    “I like your face, your eyes, your lips. I like every single little thing about you!” He picked her up and spun her around until they both felt dizzy and fell, laughing, on to the grass, whereupon he began to kiss her passionately.
    “It’s still broad daylight,” Flo murmured.
    “So it is.” He kissed her again and caressed her breasts.
    “We might get arrested and it’d be in the Echo.”
    “Would that matter?”
    “Not to me it wouldn’t,” Flo giggled, “but me mam wouldn’t be pleased and our Martha’d have a fit. Nancy wouldn’t like it either.”
    “Nancy would just have to lump it.” Nevertheless, he sat up and smoothed his unruly curls.
    Flo had never told him she’d seen Nancy. One day when she knew he was at work she’d set out for Clement Street, off Smithdown Road. It was a respectable street of small two-up, two-down houses. The windows shone, the steps had been scrubbed that morning. Flo paused across the road opposite number eighteen.
    So this was where he lived. Nancy must take pride in her house. The curtains were maroon cretonne, upstairs and down, and there were paper flowers in the parlour window. The front door and the window-sills were dark green, freshly painted. Flo’s heart missed a beat—had he painted them? She’d never ask because she didn’t want him to know she’d spied on his house.
    She walked up and down the street several times, keeping a close eye on number eighteen in case Nancy came out to clean the windows or brush the step. After about half an hour, when she was about to give up, a woman carrying a shopping basket came towards her from the direction of Smithdown road. Flo knew it was Nancy because she looked exactly like the gypsy Tommy had said she was. She was outstanding in her way, the sort of woman that would be described as handsome. Her skin was the colour of cinnamon, her eyes as black as night, and she had a big beaked nose and glossy black hair drawn back in a cushiony bun at the nape of her thin neck.
    “Mercy me!” Flo muttered. She wasn’t sure why, but something about the woman disturbed her. And what peculiar clothes she wore to go shopping! A flowing black skirt, red satin blouse and a brightly embroidered garment that wasn’t quite a jacket and wasn’t quite a shawl.
    The two women passed. Flo had no idea if Nancy glanced in her direction because she kept her own eyes fixed firmly on the ground. After a few seconds, she turned and saw the colourful figure cross